Priced at $750 , it is one of 50 portrait photographs, taken in Australia between l850 to 1940 , on offer by that stirling organisation, Douglas Stewart Fine Books , Melbourne.
Background information supplied by the bookshop says roller skating was a popular recreation in Australia in the Federation era and in 1909 it came to Boulder in earnest, with the opening of the Glide Away rink.
Another offering is the above group of women wearing ice skates, with a painted alpine backdrop, snapped by a street photographer employed by the Leicagraph Company, Sydney, circa 1940 ; already reserved .
The women would have been enjoying an outing at one of the city's skating rinks , either the Glaciarium in Railway Square, which opened in 1907 and closed in l955, or the Ice Palais, located in the Hall of Industries at the Sydney Showgrounds , which operated between 1938 and l951.
There is an 1886 Sydney almost "mug shot " carte de visite of George Elliott Alvaro, an American of African and Portuguese heritage, by trade a cook, described as a convicted fraudster, bigamist and violent offender .
Yet another ripper offering consists of four tinted studio prints of the above famous funambulist - tightrope walker- Henry L'Estrange ,1842-1894. Born in Melbourne , he became known as The Australian Blondin , after French tightrope walker and acrobat , Charles Blondin ,who crossed the Niagara Falls many times on a thin rope .
Moving to Sydney in l876, L'Estrange erected a large canvas enclosure in the Domain and did regular performances .
His opening night on January 26 , 1877 attracted a reported crowd of 2000-3000 . Newspaper reports commented that his performance was so like that of the original Blondin that people could be forgiven for thinking they had seen the world-renowned tightrope walker.
With his rope suspended 40 feet (12 metres) above the ground, L’Estrange walked backwards and forwards, walked in armour, walked covered in a sack, used and sat on a chair, cooked and rode a bicycle, all on the rope. His show also included a fireworks display for the public’s entertainment.
L’Estrange performed in the Domain from January through to April 1877, but not without incident. On February 7, 1877, as L’Estrange neared the end of his wire act, sparks from the fireworks going off around him fell into the nearby store of gunpowder and fireworks, igniting them. The store’s shed was demolished, a surrounding fence knocked down, part of L’Estrange’s performance tent caught fire, and two young boys were injured.
He also performed the "sensational feat " of crossing Middle Harbour on a tightrope . L'Estrange performed in Queensland and went overseas to Singapore , England and America .
