Reference: see Douglas Stewart Fine Books, New Acquisitions email, February, 2022:
Lettersheet with an engraving of Simon Wonga and Maria by Grosse, from a drawing by Nicholas Chevalier after a daguerreotype by Hubert Haselden. Sent from Bendigo, April, 1860.
sheet (268 x 212 mm), [4] pp bifolium, thin paper; wood-engraved illustration at the head of the first page (image size approximately 95 x 150 mm) with the monogram of the artist Nicholas Chevalier in the image bottom left, and the name of the engraver F. Grosse at bottom right; a printed caption beneath the image reads: ‘Portraits of an Aboriginal Woman, an average type of the native women of Victoria, and Simon, the son of Jagga Jagga, the celebrated Port Phillip Chief and friend of Batman. From Photographs by Haselden’; the imprint of the Melbourne publisher, George Slater, appears at the foot of the caption; the remainder of the first page and the two inner two pages are occupied by a manuscript letter, dated at Bendigo, 15 April 1860, from James F. Dewar to his wife (presumably in England or Scotland, as the letter’s content suggests); the last page is blank; the lettersheet – as explained by Dewar in his message – was enclosed inside another letter sent to his brother, and so lacks an address; original folds, complete and in fine condition.
The engraving on this rare lettersheet was published (but without the caption) by George Slater as the cover illustration for The Newsletter of Australasia, number IX, March 1857; however, the present version is on a separately issued lettersheet – also published by Slater – of which we have not been able to trace another example. As the present example has a handwritten communication dated 15 April 1860, we tentatively suggest that The Newsletter of Australasia printing was the primary one, and that this otherwise plain lettersheet was a secondary printing of the engraving – with a possible issue date of up to two or three years later than March 1857.
A third usage of the engraving, with the imprint of P. Brown, publisher, 120 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne (printed by Walker, May & Co.) is held in the National Library of Australia (Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK9844/18.). This appears to be a separately issued engraving (sheet size 9.7 x 14 cm) – not a lettersheet. The NLA example is illustrated in Calling the shots : Aboriginal photographies (Jane Lydon, editor. Canberra : Aboriginal Studies Press, 2014, p 110). When we consider that P. Brown’s business premises in Elizabeth Street were located directly opposite Haselden’s photographic studio in 1857-58 (see below), it seems reasonable to speculate that this fact might argue the case for Brown’s imprint being even earlier than both of Slater’s.
A heavily re-worked version of the same engraving, with the generic caption ‘Natives‘, was pirated for use as one of the vignette illustrations in the chromolithographic souvenir produced in honour of the explorers Burke and Wills, The Melbourne Rose, Part II, which was printed in Hamburg by C. Adler’s Printing Establishment for the London publishers Joseph, Myers & Co., in 1862.
Jane Lydon comments on the image from the Nan Kivell Collection:
‘Like Kilburn a decade earlier, Hubert Haselden used a series of [daguerreotype] portraits of Kulin people to advertise his ‘Daguerrean & Photographic Artists’ Melbourne establishment. As is often the case where daguerreotypes have disappeared, the only surviving portrait from this series comprises an engraving, based on a drawing by Nicholas Chevalier, based on Haselden’s daguerreotype, of Wurundjeri man Simon Wonga, son of Wurundjeri ngurungaeta (leader) Billibellary and his wife Maria.
In 1862 the Illustrated Melbourne Post explained that Wonga had “considerable claims on our notice”, being “the son of of Jagga Jagga, the celebrated Port Phillip chief, and friend of Batman. The interesting couple will be readily recognised, not only by Melbournites, but by many through the surrounding districts, where Simon and his lubra pay their periodical visits.”
The Indigenous subjects were considered local celebrities, well known to the residents of the settlement and beyond. Wonga, in particular, played a key role in the fortunes of his people during these decades and was of considerable interest to European viewers. There is evidence that Wonga was equally interested in the results of photography: in 1857 he exchanged the nest and egg of a superb lyrebird, known by the Wurundjeri as the Bullan-Bullan, for two photographs – possibly even Haselden’s daguerreotypes….’ (ibid., pp 110-111).
In their essay A Letter Home to Scotland from Warrenheip in April 1857: Insights into Life in a Railway Survey Camp (Victorian Historical Journal, Volume 86, Number 2, December 2015, pp 363-380), Ian Clark and Beth Kicinski provide a discussion of a letter written on an issue of the News Letter of Australasia, number IX, March 1857, which was “discovered” in Scotland in 2012 and is now in Clark’s private collection:
‘On the front page of Issue 9, March 1857, was an illustration of two “Aborigines of Victoria”, with the following text: Our illustration this month consists of portraits of two well known Aborigines who have frequently visited Melbourne. The gradual declension of these people must give a singular interest to every faithful record of them. The present engraving was drawn by M. [sic] Chevalier, from daguerreotypes by H. Haselden. This should be N Chevalier [note: the authors are incorrect in their interpretation here, as the M. actually stands for Monsieur!], a reference to Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902), a Russian-born artist son of Swiss-born Louis Chevalier and his Russian wife, who joined his father and brother Louis in Victoria in early 1855. His artistic talents were used by newly established Melbourne newspapers, such as the Melbourne Punch and the News Letter of Australasia, so he decided to stay in Victoria. Hubert Haselden operated in Melbourne from 1857 to 1858 at the following locations: 107 Elizabeth Street (1857–58); 57 Collins Street East (1857); 234 Bourke Street North (1858). Prussian-born Frederick Grosse engraved illustrations for the newspaper from August 1855. The wood engraving by Grosse is entitled ‘Portraits of an Aboriginal woman, an average type of the native woman of Victoria, and Simon, the son of Jagga Jagga, the celebrated Port Phillip chief and friend of Batman’. Jagga Jagga is a reference to Billibellary, the eminent Wurundjeri-willam ngurungaeta (clan head) (c.1799–1846), one of the signatories [to] John Batman’s 1835 ‘treaty’ with the Melbourne Aborigines. Simon Wonga (b. c.1824) was his eldest son and rightful heir and was recognised as ngurungaeta until his death in 1874; he married a Wathawurrung woman. Presumably the woman pictured beside Simon Wonga in this portrait is his wife, Maria.’ (Maria was photographed at Coranderrk by Charles Walter in 1866).
Full transcription of James Dewar’s letter to his wife:
‘Bendigo, 15 April 1860.
My Dear Wife,
I am Writing John by this Post & enclose you these few lines – I was surprised at not hearing from your self as I wanted much to hear about the children – and wether you were inclined to come out here as I had made arrangements as far as I could do to receive you all – Let them all know now that I am to leave this [country] if spared about a year hence for home & will be glad to hear from you & the children in the meantime. I do think still it would have been far better had you & the children come out as their Prospects would have been better here – however I can say I have done all I could for your sakes & theirs but be assured there are difficulties to be met with here as well as at home – and that all [who] come here do not make fortunes. Now my dear as I am looking ancious forward to meeting you & the children let nothing like [shyness?] be between us but write to me immediately on receipt of this. You can form no idea of the feelings one experience[s] on receiving a letter from home especially from a Wife so far distant – My Dear do make the children add a few lines as I should be so pleased of it. I must bid you adew at Present. I remain your ever affectionate Husband, James F. Dewar.
Publishing details: Melbourne : Geo. Slater, publisher, [between 1857 and 1860]. Lettersheet (268 x 212 mm), [4] pp bifolium, thin paper; wood-engraved illustration at the head of the first page (image size approximately 95 x 150 mm) with the monogram of the artist Nicholas Chevalier in the image bottom left, and the name of the engraver F. Grosse at bottom right; a printed caption beneath the image reads: ‘Portraits of an Aboriginal Woman, an average type of the native women of Victoria, and Simon, the son of Jagga Jagga, the celebrated Port Phillip Chief and friend of Batman.
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