Views of Sydney.

[1879-1880]. Photograph album. Small oblong quarto, 210 x 275 mm, original half green morocco over black pebbled cloth boards (lightly rubbed) with double gilt rule, upper board lettered in gilt ‘Views of Sydney’, spine with raised bands in gilt; all edges gilt, silk pastedowns and linen endpapers; containing 29 albumen print photographs in identical 150 x 210 mm format, laid down recto only on leaves of thin card, all with manuscript captions in ink beneath the image; many have the photographer’s sequence number scratched in the negative, and one has the photographer’s initials ‘A. B.’, allowing us to attribute the photographs in the album with a fair degree of confidence to Alexander Brodie; a view of the Garden Palace, which was built for the Sydney Exhibition in 1879 and was destroyed by fire in September 1882, helps in dating the album to around 1879-80; two of the albumen prints have some foxing and one (the Garden Palace view) is faded, otherwise they are all very strong prints with excellent tonal range, in fine condition.

This album of views of Sydney – all of which are likely to have been taken by local photographer Alexander Brodie – was possibly produced and bound by Sydney publisher and bookseller Jacob Richard Clarke, with whom Brodie is known to have collaborated on at least one photographic series earlier in the 1870s. Although Clarke is best remembered as a sheet music publisher and for his strong association over several decades with Sydney’s musical culture, he also had some success with commercial photography. He published a series of photographic views of Sydney which were displayed at the opening of the General Post Office in 1874, and in the same year he also issued a series of Sydney views in carte de visite format. The Powerhouse Museum holds a copy of one of these, titled Photograph of Sydney Harbour from Mosman Point. This carte de visite bears the following printed caption verso: ‘PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF SYDNEY. /​ The Streets, Public Buildings, Viewes in the Harbour, Botanic /​ Gardens, Suburbs &​c. /​ Published by /​ J R CLARKE, /​ BOOK, PRINT, AND MUSIC SELLER. /​ Depot for Photographs. Brodie, Photo. /​ 23, Hunter-street, Sydney‘.

If Clarke was indeed responsible for producing and selling the Views of Sydney album we offer here, it would have been one of his last forays into the world of commercial photography. By 1880 Clarke had been declared bankrupt, having overspent on stock for his business during the International Exhibition of 1879-80. He died a pauper in Woolloomooloo in 1893.

A significant number of the views in this album do not appear on Trove; and, although the subject matter is familiar to us from the photographs of Bayliss, Paine, Degotardi, or later on, Kerry, these views are seen through different eyes. Brodie had a refined compositional sense, and his prowess as a technician is attested by the exceptional tonal quality of his prints.

The captions to the photographs are as follows:

Woolloomooloo from Domain, near the Baths / Berrys Bay / Hornby Light – Inner South Head / Circular Quay / Museum / General Post Office / The Zig-Zag [Railway] / South Head / Woolloomooloo from Domain / Domain / Botanic Gardens / Botanic Gardens / Botanic Gardens / Drive in Domain / St. Andrew’s Cathedral / University / Double Bay / Darling Point / Garden Island / William St. / Botanic Gardens – inner entrance / Pott’s Point from Domain / Darling Point, Pott’s Point &c. / Domain & Government House / Entrance to Botanic Gardens / Town Hall, George St. / St. Andrew’s College / Government House & Farm Cove / Exhibition Building.