Studio portrait of “Johnny”, age 2 years and 8 months. Parramatta, New South Wales, mid 1860s.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 101 x 63 mm (mount); recto of mount inscribed in a fully contemporary hand: ‘Johnny / 2 years & 8 months’; verso with the back mark in blue of ‘W. H. Burgin, Photographer, Church-st., Parramatta’, surmounted by an Advance Australia coat of arms; the print is in excellent condition (some light marks at top and bottom edges), and the mount is clean and stable.

Note: the photographer must be Henry William Burgin II (1830-1914), who had a studio in Church Street Parramatta in the 1860s; he is not to be confused with his son Henry William Burgin III (1852-1887). A substantial number of the Burgins’ carte de visite portraits are held in the SLNSW in the collection Henry William Burgin studio portraits of Parramatta residents, ca. 1860-1872.

Curiously, the back mark on this carte de visite of Master Johnny has the initials reversed (i.e. William Henry, not Henry William): a printing error? Was the photographer commonly known by his middle name? Another Burgin back mark design, printed in red, has the initials the other way round.