Three Aboriginal men, Melbourne, Victoria

The subject matter of the daguerreotype is a portrait of three Aboriginal men – a mature man, a younger man and a young boy. The group posed for Kilburn in 1847 in Melbourne, Port Phillip. This image is the one of the “earliest known photographic portraits of Aboriginal Australians”.All three wear cloaks, most likely kangaroo fur cloaks, wrapped variously around their chest or shoulders. Both the mature man and the young man show evidence of scarification or keloids on their chests. The mature man holds a staff or perhaps a digging stick and also a shield (although this is difficult to distinguish) and he wears a headband of either fur and/or fibre. The young man stands behind him, smiling, amused, he wears a headband of striped or chequered European fabric. His hand is placed protectively on the shoulder of the young boy standing beside him. The young boy stands slightly leaning with his head tilted in the direction of the young man.Daguerreotypes are aptly called a “mirror with a memory” and this image of the three people is intimate, evocative and compelling. The sensation is that of three people looking back at you. The image (direct positive on highly polished silver-plated copper plate – like a mirror) is framed with a scalloped black and white paper border and sandwiched behind glass. This substructure is then recessed and framed with a glided ornate pressed metal frame. The whole composite is then sealed with paper on all four edges and the entire reverse side.Douglas Kilburn was a pioneer in disseminating new photographic techniques in Australasia. In 1847 Kilburn established the first commercial photographic studio in Melbourne, so expanding the business started by his brother William Kilburn, a leading daguerreotypist in London. Included in Kilburn’s repertoire besides portraits of well-to-do settlers, were portraits he created for a growing audience of European ethnographers who were eager to acquire ‘truthful’ images of Aboriginal people, both for popular as well as scientific pursuit. Kilburn encouraged Aboriginal people in the Melbourne area to sit for him. Between 1847 and 1849, it is known that Kilburn took eight different images of Aboriginal people. This photograph comes from the estate of Richard Berry who over more than 40 years amassed what could be one of the greatest private social history collections ever in Australia.