Tag: hand coloured cartes

Young man at Nevin & Smith's studio, Hobart 1868

NEVIN & SMITH, 1868: the client with white fingernails

October 21, 2021

Robert Smith was known to Mrs Esther Mather. She was not happy about the colouring he had applied to a portrait of her brother when he visited the studio she called “Smith’s” in Hobart. She said so in a letter to her step-son, dated 1865. Nothing was known about this partner of Thomas J. Nevin called Robert Smith until recently when portraits and stereoscopes bearing the business name NEVIN & SMITH came to light. Robert Smith may have been an independent photographer prior to forming a partnership with Thomas J. Nevin at Alfred Bock’s former studio. The partnership lasted less than a year and was promptly dissolved in February 1868 following the Royal visit to Hobart, Tasmania of Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, in late 1867 on his first command, H.M.S. Galatea. Thomas J. Nevin continued the photographic business in his own name at Alfred Bock’s former studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town, while Robert Smith departed for Goulburn NSW where he set up a photographic studio before taking to farming and politics. … More NEVIN & SMITH, 1868: the client with white fingernails

Thomas Nevin’s Christmas feat 1874

December 24, 2016

A PHOTOGRAPHIC FEAT. – Mr T. J. Nevin, of Elizabeth-street, has performed a feat in photography which may be justly regarded as a literary curiosity. He has succeeded in legibly producing the front page of The Mercury of Wednesday, the 23 inst., on a card three inches by two inches. Many of the advertisements could be read without the aid of a glass, and the seven columns admit of a margin all round the card. … More Thomas Nevin’s Christmas feat 1874

Woman with pink ribbons by T. Nevin NGV

Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s

May 20, 2016

This carte-de-visite of an unidentified older woman, one of many older women who favoured Thomas Nevin’s services for this type of full-length studio portrait, is unusual in that the pink tint applied to her bonnet ribbons is the same shade of pink applied to the ribbons worn by Pangernowidedic in a reprint, ca. 1875 of four Tasmanian Aborigines who were photographed originally in 1864 as a series taken at Government House. … More Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s

Prisoner Richard COPPING and Hobart Gaol executions

March 15, 2015

Police photographer Thomas J. Nevin took this vignette of Richard Copping for prison records at the Hobart Gaol when Copping was remanded at the Supreme Court on 23rd July 1878. Copping was executed at the Hobart Gaol on 21st October 1878 for the murder of Susannah Stacey. Copping’s medical defence, Dr Benjafield, who sought clemency for the 19 yr old youth and was mindful of public discontent with the continuance of capital punishment, asserted Copping had softening of the brain. Dr Turnley disagreed, declared the youth sane, and the execution went ahead. Turnley’s post-mortem found no disease located in Copping’s brain. … More Prisoner Richard COPPING and Hobart Gaol executions

Photographers A. Bock, S. Clifford and T. Nevin at Port Arthur

December 21, 2013

In late March, 1866, photographer Alfred Bock was at the Port Arthur prison site on the Tasman Peninsula, 60 kms south of Hobart at the request of its Commandant, James Boyd. Alfred Bock’s studio – The City Photographic Establishment – at 140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, was manned by his junior partner Thomas Nevin and his apprentice, younger brother William Bock, in his absence. Bock’s mission at Port Arthur was to provide a series of landscapes and portraits of officials. However, it was photographer Samuel Clifford, Nevin’s friend and mentor, of Liverpool Street, Hobart, who was the source and supplier of photographic materials to the Port Arthur prison administration, in this instance for Alfred Bock in March 1866, and again in August 1873, when Clifford himself visited the prison site. … More Photographers A. Bock, S. Clifford and T. Nevin at Port Arthur

Two couples, two dogs by A. Bock and T. Nevin

June 24, 2013

The “T. Nevin Late A. Bock” portrait of a middle-aged couple with a dog was hand-tinted by the family who purchased it or by subsequent owners. Such inept colouring was not the work of Nevin himself. His own family portraits show delicate and precise tinting. Other heavily tinted portraits bearing the same studio stamp used by Nevin for commercial portraiture into the early 1870s show the owners’ preference for red and violet colours. This portrait of a couple with dog is unusual in that green and brown colours were used. In all these extant cartes-de-visite portraits bearing Nevin’s stamp which were coloured subsequent to purchase, it is the carpet which has received the most savage treatment. The strange blobs defy conventional perspective, although the intention may have been the opposite. This carte – as with many of the others bearing amateurish daubs – probably originated from the same family in northern Tasmania. … More Two couples, two dogs by A. Bock and T. Nevin

Posing with a stereoscopic viewer

June 9, 2012

Clients of early photographers were not the only ones to pose with the photographer’s own stereoscope(s). Two extant cartes-de-visite self-portraits by Thomas J. Nevin from The Nevin Family Collections captured his treasured stereoscopes, one with him holding a small viewer, possibly a Brewster, ca. 1868, and another with him standing next his large table-top stereoscopic viewer, possibly a Beckers (ca 1875). … More Posing with a stereoscopic viewer

A highly coloured portrait

June 1, 2012

DECOR: the shiny low chair, the table with griffin-shaped legs, tinted flowers and hair ribbons, the draped curtain, the diamond-patterned carpet, and the backdrop of a patterned patio looking out from an Italianate terrace to a vista of a cart path meandering stream, characterise this phase or aspect of Nevin’s commercial practice. … More A highly coloured portrait

Preview: The Liam Peters Collection

December 29, 2010

Seven (7) previously unpublished photographs by Thomas J. Nevin or pertaining to Thomas J. Nevin’s photography from the late 1860s to the mid 1870s were scanned and submitted to this weblog by private collector Liam Peters in December 2010. The brief descriptions below of each item will be expanded eventually for each photograph (use search box in sidebar). … More Preview: The Liam Peters Collection

Christmas 1874: Thomas Nevin’s photographic feat

December 25, 2009

Seasons Greetings 2009 to all our readers, researchers, contributors and extended family.

Visitors to Thomas J. Nevin’s weblogs on 2nd January 2010 at midday:
On Christmas Day, 25th December 1874, The Mercury newspaper (Tasmania) published a notice which served the dual purpose of praising Nevin’s photographic talents and suggesting by way of praise that the “literary curiosity” would make a great gift as a Christmas card: … More Christmas 1874: Thomas Nevin’s photographic feat

Portraits of children gifted to Prince Alfred, Hobart, 1868

November 21, 2009

“on Saturday 18th January (the day fixed for his departure) on board the Galatea, to his Excellency the Governor, Mrs Gore Browne and Miss Gore Browne, Her Majesty’s Ministers, the Chairman of the Reception Committee, the Hon JM Wilson MLC, and Mr Tarleton and advantage was taken of this farewell interview to place in the Prince’s hands the album of photographs of Tasmanian scenery which had been prepared under the direction of the Reception Committee for presentation to him from the colonists as a memorial of his visit. The album contained eighty three photographs illustrative of the scenery of Tasmania forty eight portraits of children born in the colony and nine plates immediately connected with the Prince’s visit. The title page was drawn by Mr Alfred Randall and illustrated by Mr WC Piguenit. His Royal Highness was pleased to request that the Reception Committee would furnish him with duplicate copies of all the pictures for the illustration of a work which his Royal Highness is preparing in connection with his visit to the Australasian Colonies…” . So where is this album of photographs of Tasmanian children taken in 1868? … More Portraits of children gifted to Prince Alfred, Hobart, 1868

Thomas Nevin’s Christmas cards 1874

September 3, 2009

A PHOTOGRAPHIC FEAT. – Mr T. J. Nevin, of Elizabeth-street, has performed a feat in photography which may be justly regarded as a literary curiosity. He has succeeded in legibly producing the front page of The Mercury of Wednesday, the 23 inst., on a card three inches by two inches. Many of the advertisements could be read without the aid of a glass, and the seven columns admit of a margin all round the card. … More Thomas Nevin’s Christmas cards 1874

Portraits by T.J. Nevin in The Lucy Batchelor Collection

August 19, 2009

This selection from the Lucy Batchelor Album of 1870s carte-de-visite portraits by Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923), submitted courtesy of Robyn and Peter Bishop, was scanned from the original page. Each carte is mounted behind the cut-out frame of the album leaves. The album is ca. 150 years old. … More Portraits by T.J. Nevin in The Lucy Batchelor Collection

Thomas Nevin's big tabletop stereograph viewer

T. J. Nevin’s big tabletop stereograph viewer

August 3, 2009

Although this image is faint – it is a scan of a print pasted into the scrapbook of his son George Ernest Nevin (1880-1957) which is held by Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin’s descendants in the Shelverton family – it shows clearly enough that George’s father, photographer Thomas J. Nevin, was rather fond of his big box table top stereograph viewer. It provided clientele with a ready amusement, a novel experience of 3D. The Victorian fascination with this “advanced” photography is quite understandable. Viewing a static stereograph, three images can be seen, not just one: the central image appears in deep perspective, with the image split into halves on either side. A double lens stereograph viewer of this size could hold a large number of stereograph cards; turning the wooden handle changed the card being viewed, providing a motion picture effect. In Nevin’s self-portrait – not a selfie in the strict sense, of course, taken probably by his younger brother Jack Nevin – a frame holder on top is propped up. In the two portraits below, the holder is flat. An earlier portrait of Thomas Nevin, taken ca. 1868, shows him wearing white gloves, posing with a smaller portable stereoscopic viewer, similar in size to a stereoscope camera. … More T. J. Nevin’s big tabletop stereograph viewer

Key dates in Thomas Nevin’s life

April 1, 2009

From the early 1860s Thomas Nevin operated a photographic studio at New Town with the business name of “Thomas Nevins”, i.e. the “s” signifying the possessive, as in “the studio of Thomas Nevin”. By 1865 he was assistant to photographer Alfred Bock whose residence and studio he leased from A. Biggs at 138-140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town on Alfred Bock’s departure for Victoria in 1867 (Hobart Town Gazettes 1870s). Nevin maintained the business name of the studio, The City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. With partner Robert Smith, they formed the firm Nevin & Smith, producing stereographic views and hand-tinted studio portraits (TMAG and Private Collections). The firm Nevin & Smith was commissioned to take an album of portraits of Tasmanian children in 1868 to be presented to the Duke of Edinburgh (State Library of Victoria Collection). However, the partnership was short-lived. Robert Smith moved to Goulburn, NSW and the firm known as Nevin & Smith was dissolved on 22nd February 1868, undersigned by Thomas Nevin’s solicitor, later Attorney-General, W.R. Giblin. Thomas Nevin continued with the business name, the City Photographic Establishment at the same address, and exhibited photographs of Melville St under snow (1868) and A Party at the Rocking Stone Mt Wellington (1870) at the Wellington Park Exhibitions (TMAG Collection). He also exhibited stereoscopic views, prize cards and cartes-de-visite at the Tasmanian Poultry Society’s annual exhibition at the Town Hall in August 1869 and the Town Hall Bazaar on 1st April, 1870 (Mercury Friday 1 Apr 1870 Page 2 ). For his work as the firm of Nevin & Smith, he was granted a colonial Royal Warrant, and for his work with the Lands and Survey Department of the colonial government, he was granted another colonial Royal warrant by authority. By 1870 Nevin was providing photographs of mining and reservoir works at the Huon and Cascades on government commission, as well as providing group portraits and landscapes for tourists to the Lady Franklin Museum and and John Franklin’s Tree at Kangaroo Valley, Hobart. … More Key dates in Thomas Nevin’s life

Thomas Nevin self portraits 1850s-1880

March 12, 2009

There are not many extant “self portraits” of Tasmanian colonial photographers of the 1850s-1880. The watercolour attributed to Alfred Bock of a young gentleman is held at the State Library of Tasmania; the stereograph of a supine Thomas Nevin and friend is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; and the rest are held in descendants’ private collections. These portraits all exhibit interesting variations in male facial hair fashions. … More Thomas Nevin self portraits 1850s-1880

Red and violet: the impact of Brewster stereoscopy

February 21, 2009

A modern viewer would assume that these portraits all have their provenance in a family album, and that a small childish hand had been at work with a paintbox. Perhaps that was the case, but there may yet be another explanation for why the portraits below, all bearing Thomas Nevin’s studio stamp, should exhibit such crude hand colouring when the hand-tinting of his other portraits – of family members, of himself, and even of a few mugshots of convicts – is remarkably fine and delicate. The four examples here were all sold commercially, and were painted over after their purchase by their owners who had enough knowledge of stereoscopy to experiment, and may have possessed a stereo viewer. Single cdv’s were also viewed using a stereoscope, and the addition of colour and lines enhanced the depth of field. They were not painted by Thomas J. Nevin during printing, and they are not stereographs. None of Nevin’s stereographs were coloured in this manner. … More Red and violet: the impact of Brewster stereoscopy

Elizabeth Rachel Nevin ca. 1900

Thomas Nevin’s portraits of his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914)

January 29, 2009

This is an old black and white enlargement of a detail of a portrait of Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day (1847-1914) in her later years, taken ca. 1900 by her husband. Just her face was magnified to an unusually large size, measuring approx. 8×10 inches. It has the impact of a modern cinematic close-up. The magnified final image was pasted to grey cardboard. The remarkable aspect of the image is the evidence of hand-painted strokes around the hair line and eyes. The original photograph may have been hand-coloured, though not as heavily as the fashion of painting over photographic portraits which became popular in the 1890s. Many of her husband’s early extant portraits of his wife, of himself, his private clients, and even a handful of extant mugshots of Tasmanian convicts taken during his commission to provide the colonial government with prisoner identification portraits in the 1870s, show evidence of hand-tinting. Some were expertly and finely done done by Nevin and his studio assistants, others were ineptly daubed with blobs by clients or collectors after purchase. Elizabeth Rachel Day may have assisted her husband in his studio as his colourist from the beginning of her marriage, and may have even touched up this photographic portrait of herself taken thirty years later. … More Thomas Nevin’s portraits of his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914)

Prisoner Walter JOHNSTONE aka Henry BRAMALL or TAYLOR

January 19, 2009

Henry Taylor was tried at the Supreme Court Hobart on 4th July 1871, along with John Appleby, one of the first photographs of prisoners taken by T.J. Nevin at the Supreme Court Hobart. The photograph of Taylor aka Bramall or Johnston was hand coloured by Nevin’s studio and placed in his shop window to assist the public in recognition and recapture of the prisoner when he absconded on February 6, 1874 from a gang at the Cascade factory. … More Prisoner Walter JOHNSTONE aka Henry BRAMALL or TAYLOR

Prisoner Job SMITH alias William CAMPBELL alias BRODIE

Prisoner Job SMITH aka Wm Campbell 1875

January 19, 2009

From the cell to the gallows, Smith betrayed no physical emotion, his step being steady, and his demeanour apparently composed. On arriving at the drop ,the Under-Sheriff asked the unfortunate man if he had anything to say. Smith replied, ” I am not guilty ; I am an innocent man.”The Under-Sheriff then read the following written statement : -” I was born at Bristol on the 23rd of November, 1819, and was a Protestant all my life. Became a Roman Catholic upon receiving sentence of death. I have left with my [spiritual] director a statement, which, in his discretion, I request him to publish wholly or in part.” … More Prisoner Job SMITH aka Wm Campbell 1875

National Library of Australia’s convict portraits

January 29, 2008

Many of these convict cartes held at the NLA are duplicates of the same images held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and the Archives Office of Tasmania. This simple fact underscores the extensive copying which has taken place since the mid 20th century, principally from the QVMAG collection: 1958, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1987 and most recently for a digital database. Although the Nevin brothers photographed more than 3000 prisoners, the bulk has been lost, destroyed or sold at private auction. The remaining 300 or so were selected or salvaged by Beattie ca. 1916 to sell to tourists; he selected only those prisoners whose sentences were severe enough to warrant a criminal sitting in the Supreme Court: the offender’s apparent notoreity was the selling point. In this respect, the are not a random selection, nor a series. But they were not salvaged because they were an archive held at Port Arthur; they were never held at Port Arthur, nor taken there. Nevin photographed the prisoner once as a single capture in Hobart, produced prints from his original glass negatives at his city studio and later at studios in the Gaol and MPO, and made at least four duplicates from his glass negative for circulation to other prisons and police in regional Tasmania, in addition to the copies needed to paste onto warrants, prisoner records sheets, and the central register held at the Hobart Town Hall. … More National Library of Australia’s convict portraits

Thomas Nevin’s hand-coloured mugshots

December 10, 2007

By the MAYOR: … It was not true that between the hours of 10 and 11 o’clock on Thursday night, Constables Oakes and Priest took witness home in a state of intoxication. Witness had a photographic apparatus and chemicals in his possession. He had not made any ornaments of different colours for any one lately. He was not at any time on Thursday night under the influence of liquor. He did not think it was right to leave the Town Hall for so many hours as he had. He considered, however, that when he heard the constables’ whistle he was justified in going to render them assistance… … More Thomas Nevin’s hand-coloured mugshots

Elizabeth Rachel Day, photo by Nevin & Smith, Hobart 1868

Nevin & Smith tinted vignette of Elizabeth Rachel Day 1868

November 7, 2007

Less than a dozen portraits and stereographs have survived in public and private collections of the work conducted by Robert Smith (n.d.) and Thomas J. Nevin while operating the firm with the name business name “NEVIN & SMITH” at the former studio of Alfred Bock, 140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart (Tasmania) from ca. 1867 to February 1868 when the partnership was dissolved. This rare hand-tinted portrait was taken by Thomas J. Nevin of his fiancée Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914) while in partnership with Robert Smith ca. 1868. … More Nevin & Smith tinted vignette of Elizabeth Rachel Day 1868

W. R. Giblin, Judge, Attorney-General and Premier

September 14, 2007

W. R. Giblin was Tasmanian Administrator for a month during 1886. He was also Attorney-General in August 1873, and Premier in 1878, and 1879 to 1884. Thomas Nevin’s commission to photograph prisoners at the Port Arthur and Hobart Gaols was underwritten by W. R. Giblin in August 1873 on gaining the portfolio of Attorney-General in the government changeover. … More W. R. Giblin, Judge, Attorney-General and Premier

Prisoner James Sutherland Tasmania

The execution of prisoners Sutherland and Ogden, Hobart Gaol 1883

August 3, 2007

“SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL SITTINGS.-The sittings of the Supreme Court in Oyer and Terminer began yesterday. Sir Francis Smith presided in the First Court, where the greater part of the day was occupied with the trial of James Ogden and James Sutherland for the murder of Wm. Wilson, at Epping Forest. The prisoners pleaded not guilty. Mr. A. I. Clark appeared for the defence. The evidence taken was that given at the inquest, and supplemented by some further evidence tracing the connection of the prisoners prior to the murder, so as to show that they acted in concert. This additional evidence was obtained by Sub-inspector Palmer, who deserves much credit for his handling of the case throughout. Mr. Clark set up the defence of insanity, working out an elaborate and ingenious construction from the evidence. He urged that the presence of an unaccountable and extraordinary desire for murder, such as seemed to have possessed the prisoners, was in itself proof of insanity. The Judge charged the jury that the law recognised only absolute proof of such state of derangement, that the prisoner did not know that he was doing wrong. After about half-an-hour’s deliberation the jury found both prisoners guilty, and His Honor passed sentence of death. There was a large crowd in court throughout the day, and much interest was displayed in the trial. The prisoners themselves remained quietly passive from first to last, and did not give way to any emotion when sentence was passed upon them. On being taken down they began joking and laughing with the other prisoners…” … More The execution of prisoners Sutherland and Ogden, Hobart Gaol 1883

Hand-colured cdv of two men by T. J. Nevin 1860s

Clifford & Nevin’s cartes:tints versus daubs

June 10, 2007

Neither man pictured is photographer Thomas Nevin or his brother Constable John (aka Jack) Nevin, nor their father John Nevin snr. None of these cdv’s was ever held in the family collections of Thomas Nevin’s descendants, and none was coloured in this way by Nevin or any of his family. The cdv of the two men was recently exhibited at the QVMAG and published in the catalogue The Painted Portrait Photograph in Tasmania (John McPhee 2007). … More Clifford & Nevin’s cartes:tints versus daubs

Clifford & Nevin portraits with hand-colouring

June 6, 2007

Professional photographers Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) and Samuel Clifford (1827-1890) were close friends and colleagues over a period dating from ca. 1865 to Clifford’s death in 1890. Both maintained photographic studios in Hobart, producing commercial stereographs in significant numbers, as well as providing the local population with studio portraits. The colouring in this carte and others with a similar provenance (northern Tasmania and Victoria) is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be the work of the studio colourist, which was not the case (McPhee QVMAG, 2007). The colouring was applied after the purchase of the print by a family member, probably by a child playing with a small hand-held stereoscopic viewer. … More Clifford & Nevin portraits with hand-colouring