Faded , but enhanced , l885 photographs by French aristocrat Prince Roland Napoleon Bonaparte of three surviving members of nine North Queensland Aborigines who toured overseas .
It is one of the many interesing offerings in the latest acquisitions list of Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne ,priced at $6,500.
It shows Billy, Jenny and her son Tony, described as the last survivors of R. A. Cunningham's company of Aborigines from North Queensland who toured overseas.
Acting as an agent for P. T. Barnum, Cunningham, a Canadian , had originally visited Australia in 1882 and ‘enticed’ nine Australian Aborigines from North Queensland to travel with him to North America as part of a special troupe which Barnum had formed.
They were exhibited as ethnological curiosities and were coerced into performing acts such as boomerang-throwing on stage, producing an exotic spectacle for the amusement of an ignorant public and the benefit of the promoter’s pocket.
At the beginning of 1884, having assumed control of the group – now reduced to seven with the death of two of its members – Cunningham took them to Europe. They were photographed by Negretti & Zambra at the Crystal Palace, London, in April of that year. Several examples of images from this photographic session are known, which feature all seven members of the troupe in various combinations of personnel and pose.
By the time the group was photographed by Julius Schaar in Düsseldorf just a year later, it had been reduced to four surviving members: only Jenny, Toby (her son), Toby (her husband) and Billy remained alive, as three of their companions – Bob, Sussy and Jimmy – had died during 1885. Toby senior would die of tuberculosis a short time afterwards, early in November that year, in Paris.
Ultimately, Jenny, young Toby and Billy – all pictured in this pair of photographs taken by Prince Roland Bonaparte – would be the only three members of the group to return to Australia alive.
Roland Napoléon Bonaparte, 6th Prince of Canino and Musignano (1858-1924) had a keen interest in ethnology and photography. In 1884 – only a year before these photographs were taken – he had taken part in an expedition that had photographed and anatomically measured the Sámi inhabitants of Northern Norway. During later life he served as president of the Geographical Society for fifteen years.
