The Melbourne Club, Collins Street East, late 1870s.

Albumen print photograph, 135 x 190 mm, on the photographer’s original card mount with printed caption below the image and descriptive text verso; titled ‘The Melbourne Club House’, this is no. 35. from Caire’s portfolio series ‘The Public Buildings of Melbourne and Suburbs’; the print and the mount are both in fine condition.

The Melbourne Club was founded in 1838, but did not move into the purpose-built, Leonard Terry-designed Renaissance Revival building at the eastern end of Collins Street until 1859. Caire’s photograph dates to the second half of the 1870s, and shows the facade before the dining room wing with a bay window was added at the western end in 1885.