PROFILES OF THE ABORIGINES OF NEW SOUTH WALES, 1840
attributed to WILLIAM HENRY FERNYHOUGH
eight pen and ink drawings on Ruse & Turner’s wove paper
each inscribed with title
1. NATIVES OF NEW SOUTH WALES DRINKING "BULL"
37.0 x 22.3 cm (folded sheet with watermark RUSE & TURNER’S 1840)
2. BUNGAREE, LATE CHIEF OF THE BROKEN BAY TRIBE. NSWALES
22.3 x 18.5 cm
3. GOOSEBERRY / WIDOW OF KING BUNGAREE
22.3 x 18.5 cm
4. BILL WORRALL
22.3 x 18.5 cm
5. PUNCH / WIFE OF CULLABAA BROKEN BAY TRIBE. 22.3 x 18.5 cm
6. CULLABAA / LAKE GEORGE
22.3 x 37.0 cm (folded sheet with watermark RUSE & TURNER’S 1840)
7. TOBY / BROKEN BAY TRIBE. 22.3 x 18.5 cm
8. PIPER WHO ACCOMPANIED SIR T MITCHEL BATHURST TRIBE. 22.3 x 18.5 cm
Private collection, UK
Private collection, Sydney
This group of eight pen and ink drawings closely relate to William Fernyhough’s A series of Twelve Profile Portraits of the Aborigines of New South Wales, lithographs published by J. G. Austin, Sydney in 1836. The images are curiously the same eight as the album of ink drawings held in the Mitchell Library collection, State Library of New South Wales, with some minor variations in detail and titles. The Mitchell Library album, with the drawings pasted in, has been attributed to Fernyhough, being ‘similar to (and may have been the basis for, or were copied from) the series of twelve lithographs.’1 The Mitchell Library dating of c.1836 coincides with the year of publication, also the year Fernyhough arrived in Sydney. The eight drawings on offer relate stylistically to the Mitchell Library album, with several paper sheets watermarked RUSE & TURNER’S / 1840. As there are variations in detail and titles, this group of eight does not appear to be a copy after eight of the twelve lithographs, but possibly additional drawings by William Fernyhough sent to England after the lithographs were published. We do know that in 1842, with the onset of the economic depression, Fernyhough in his early 30s was declared bankrupt and was seeking re-employment as a governmental architectural draftsman.
Soon after arriving in Sydney mid-1836, Fernyhough who had worked as a professional armorial painter in Staffordshire, began work with J. G. Austin’s lithographic printing firm founded in 1835. Fernyhough’s first production for Austin, A series of Twelve Profile Portraits of the Aborigines of New South Wales, was released in September 1836 as a set in covers for 10s 6d. This was followed soon afterwards by the series Ombres Fantastiques and Military and Editorial Sketches, black full-length profile portraits of well-known military officers and civilians such as Rev. J.D. Lang and [Major] Thomas Mitchell. The set became known as the Sydney Characters. 2
The Sydney Characters provided gently humorous but ephemeral reportage of Sydney personalities, but the Profile Portraits of the Aborigines was aimed at a different audience – ‘a pretty present to friends in England as characteristic of this country’. Nowhere were these profiles seen as caricatures but rather as striking likenesses. The series was successful, remaining in print until the 1840s.3
1. State Library of New South Wales, see: http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=442812
2. Neville, R., William Henry Fernyhough (1809-1849) in Kerr, J. (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 258
3. Ibid.
CHRIS DEUTSCHER