View of buildings and pearling luggers in the harbour at Thursday Island, 1891.

Albumen print photograph, 95 x 150 mm; laid down on a section of card cut from a nineteenth-century French traveller’s album, with a caption in French below in blue pencil: ‘Vue de l’Ile Thursday Island, ou Ile Jeudi, située au nord de l’Australie près du Détroit de Torres et faisant partie de la province de Queensland. 29 Juin 1891‘; in good condition; verso with a mounted Japanese cabinet card showing three geishas, captioned in the same hand ‘Types Japonnais‘.

This view of Thursday Island was acquired in situ by a French traveller on 29 June 1891. Although the photographer is not identified, the image is likely to have been taken by one of Alfred Atkinson, Gilbert Smith, O. Watson, or Richard Nicholas (St. Austell Studio). The Japanese cabinet card on the back of the album mount tantalisingly suggests a link with the large Japanese pearling community on Thursday Island, which in the 1890s had a local monopoly over shipbuilding and repairs, and of course supplied most of the divers for the pearling luggers. It is possible that (a) the photographer or stationer from whom the island view was acquired by the French traveller also kept a stock of Japanese photographs, or (b) the Japanese photograph was acquired directly from a Japanese pearling industry worker.