Young actors Lily and Rose Dampier in stage costume. Sydney, c.1879.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm (mount); verso with the back mark of Emil Riisfeldt’s “Palace Photographic” studio, Hordern Chambers, 490 George Street, Sydney, and a later pencilled date of 1879 (this was the year Riisfeldt is listed at this address by Davies & Stanbury); the print and the mount are both in fine condition.

Provenance: from a group of theatre-related photographs belonging to the Sydney actor, stage manager and playwright Alfred Dampier (1843-1908), father of Lily and Rose.

We have not been able to trace any other example of this portrait in Australian institutional collections.