Australian Aborigines : a tableau MUTZEL, Gustav (

Chromolithograph, 620 x 870 mm, laid down on acid free backing paper, a few very minor edge tears expertly repaired, loose manuscript label removed from verso: '23. Neuseeländer'. [Germany?] : s.n., [1880s]. A fine copy. This striking composition, well-preserved and retaining the subtle contrasts of its original palette of browns and greens, is highly reminiscent of the work of the German artist Gustav Mutzel, in particular his chromolithograph 'Eine Australierfamilie von Neu-Sudwales', [Berlin?] : s.n., [188-?], held in the collection of the National Library of Australia [nla.pic-an11009482]. The NLA chromolithograph by Mutzel has been heavily influenced by the tableau images of Aborigines of the Clarence River region of northern New South Wales, taken by the German-born photographer J.W. Lindt in Grafton in the early 1870s, as has indeed the chromolithograph we offer here. (See, in particular, Lindt's photograph taken in 1874, 'Portrait of an Aboriginal man and woman with hunting weapons posing with dead kangaroo', held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria [SLV H1486]). This present composition has, however, replaced the eerie sterility of Lindt's studio backdrop and props with the movement in the background scene of men carrying a canoe to the water's edge and the man on the right carrying the dead kangaroo. The man on the left is making fire and the woman at the centre is using a grinding stone. A woven bag hangs from the bound boughs behind them. In the foreground the artist has depicted an array of implements including a coolamon, shield, boomerang, woomera and barbed fishing spear. The label verso would seem to suggest that this chromolithograph was from a series of ethnological scenes printed in Germany - despite the clearly erroneous identification of the subjects as 'Neuseeländer'.