Terms and conditions of use
Hilaire Syme
(c. 1910)
Medium
gelatin silver photograph, watercolour
Measurements
(185.5 × 74.4 cm) (image)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Dr Veronica Condon, Geoffrey Haggard and Jennifer Smyth, descendants of Sir Geoffrey Syme K.B.E., Managing Editor of the Age newspaper (1908–42), 2004
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
An almost opaque layer of paint has been applied to this portrait. The paint obscures some of the details while enhancing others, such as the child’s shiny shoes and the satin sash of her dress. Alice Mills’s portrait of the subject’s younger sister, Joan, has a more conventional treatment in the application of translucent pigments. It remains unclear whether Mills did the hand-colouring. However, having trained in the studio of leading Melbourne photographer Johnstone O’Shaughnessy, she would almost certainly have known about the technique of applying oil-based pigments to photographs to create the illusion of naturalistic colour.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in brown paint (in image) l.r.: Broothorn
Accession Number
2004.639
Department
Australian Photography
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest
Frame
Original, by D. Bernard & Co., Melbourne
Frame
This simple wooden frame is representative of frames used to present photographs in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century.2 Variations on this simple profile can be found, while the timber of choice was oak and the surface treatment minimal. Frames like this are also to be found on watercolours and prints. In this example the frame is elongated vertically to accommodate a disarmingly large, life-size photograph of a young girl, a gelatin silver print, hand-coloured with watercolour. The photograph is mounted on a stretcher, sitting the frame from the wall. The frame is not sufficiently robust to carry the glass and the rigidity of the system is provided by the stretcher of the photograph, rather than the frame.
Notes
1 D. Bernard and Co began business at 343 Bourke Street in 1895, moving to 323–5 in 1901. They were at 323 Bourke Street through to 1920 (Hilary Maddocks, ‘Picture Framemakers in Melbourne c. 1860–1930’ in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999, pp. 13–24).
2 An identical frame is to be found on another photograph attributed to Mills: Hilaire Syme dressed for the Kismit Ball (2005.56).
Frame Details
Framemaker
D. Bernard & Co
323–5 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Date
c.1901–10
Materials
The frame is assembled from a single moulding of oak timber, mitred and nailed at the corners. The surface appears to have been given a dark stain.
Frame Condition
Good original condition throughout. The work is glazed.
Dimensions
203.5 x 93.0 x 3.8 cm; sight 185.5 x 74.4 cm