Two studio photographs of Aborigines, Brisbane, late 1860s

Albumen print photographs, carte de visite format, each 101 x 64 mm, versos with imprint of Marquis, Photographer, George Street, Brisbane; both of the albumen prints are in very good condition, the mounts with some pale foxing.

Marquis opened his studio at 82 George Street in 1866. These elaborately composed portraits – a tableau of an Aboriginal group gathered around a billy hanging over a simulated campfire, and a portrait of an Aboriginal man posing with a shield and missile club, date to between 1866 and around 1870. They are highly significant images in that they predate the well known series of larger format tableaux taken by J.W. Lindt in his Grafton studio around 1873. Worthy of note is the elaborate painted backdrop behind the group of men, women and their dog, which shows the serpentine Brisbane River .