Richard Browne’s Portraits of Aboriginal Australians: Analysing the Evidence

AbstractRichard Browne (c. 1776–1824) was the most prolific artist working in Sydney in the 1810s and early 1820s to depict Aboriginal people, known for producing sets of Awabakal, Worimi and other individuals in a range of poses. This article reappraises his idiosyncratic and often criticised portraits through an intensive re-analysis of his oeuvre. For this, all examples held in Australian institutions and known private collections were examined, and information collated from auction and provenance records. This analysis has resulted in a revised tally of around one hundred individual watercolours, significantly more than previously realised. Inscriptions, papers and watermarks were compiled and compared, providing evidence of Browne’s working methods. Recently emerged examples of his art strengthen knowledge of his market, including French explorers and Wesleyan missionaries. For the first time, a list of the individuals he named and painted has been compiled, to aid future research by Aboriginal communities. Notes1 James Dixon, Narrative of a Voyage to New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land (Edinburgh: John Anderson, 1822), vi; Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1960/1989), 221; Richard Neville, Richard Browne: A Focus Exhibition (Newcastle: Newcastle Art Gallery (NAG), 2012), [3]; Shane Frost and Kerrie Brauer, Awabakal descendants, interview with Neville in Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie Era (Newcastle: State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW)/NAG, 2013), 24.2 Niel Gunson, biography in Joan Kerr, ed., The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Working Paper I A–H (Sydney: Power Institute, 1984), 104–6, updated in Kerr, ed., The Dictionary of Australian Artists (Sydney: Oxford University Press, 1992), 102–3; Tim Bonyhady commentary, The Skottowe Manuscript, facsimile (Sydney: David Ell Press/Hordern House, 1988); Neville’s collaborative work with NAG and Awabakal and Worimi communities (ibid.). Individual watercolours have been discussed by curators, dealers and auction houses.3 Silentworld Foundation Collection, Sydney, SF001614–615.4 Mellors & Kirk, Nottingham, 24 June 2020, lot 298, catalogue entry. The watercolour was removed from the album prior to acquisition by UMAC. 2022.0026.001-002.5 Neville suggested more than fifty portraits and about ten subjects: see Richard Browne: A Focus Exhibition. My tally includes all Sydney works, including the letterheads (NLA 2012.4828.1–7). Fifteen of the watercolours are currently unlocated, presumed in private Australian collections.6 As, for example, in Kenneth Dutton, ‘The Skottowe Manuscript and the Cook Connection’, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW 153, no. 2 (2020): 158.7 The name Awabakal was subsequently given to the traditional owners of this Country: this is now used by community members.8 Marriage was encouraged but no record of a ceremony is known, possibly due to Browne’s Catholicism.9 SLNSW V1B/Newc/1810-19/1.10 A simple watercolour depicting Newcastle is also signed as by Browne: the style and 1807 date make this unlikely (NAG 1987.022).11 Similar enterprises were undertaken in the 1790s by surgeon John White with convict Thomas Watling, and Captain William Paterson with convict John Doody on Norfolk Island.12 It is fortunate that Skottowe allowed Browne to sign his art, and that West acknowledged those involved in his published series.13 Coola-benn, 1820, sold Sotheby’s (Sydney), 29 October 1987, lot 131; now NAG 2010.12. This confirmation was published by Gunson, 102.14 David Attenborough, Skottowe foreword.15 See Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: The Bloody Struggle on Australia’s Early Frontier (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2020).16 Lycett, [Corroboree at Newcastle], 1818, SLNSW DG228.17 See Elizabeth Ellis, Rare and Curious: The Secret History of Governor Macquarie’s Collectors’ Chest (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2011), 117 (Macquarie’s praise), 131 ff. (art projects). Wallis arrived in Sydney in February 1814; Skottowe departed in April 1815. Skottowe may have shown his volume to Wallis, inspiring him.18 Wallis also depicted Kerang (Little) Dol and Kerang Wogi, compared with Browne’s Cobbawn (Big) Dol and Cobbawn Wogi. Album of watercolours by Wallis and Lycett bound with Wallis’ An Historical Account of the Colony of New South Wales (London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1821), SLNSW SAFE/PXE 1072.19 David Hansen, [Browne entry], in Alisa Bunbury, ed., This Wondrous Land: Colonial Art on Paper (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2011), 86; Dutton, ‘The Skottowe Manuscript’, 158–9; Dunn, 61.20 Population muster, 1817, NSW State Records HO 10/8.21 Mary born c. 1815, Eliza c. 1816, Esther c. 1819, Ann c. 1821, Sarah c. 1824, William 1824.22 Ten men are known; contemporary copies depict Niga and Nigral – these may be the same man, hence the unconfirmed total.23 Advertisement, Sydney Gazette, 17 February 1821, 4. A rare Aboriginal portrait by the Reads is Bugger Bugger, 1824, SLNSW P3/278.24 SLNSW SAFE/PXA 615 fol. 5.25 ‘Sitter’ is used cautiously; the degree of willing involvement or formal posing by those depicted is unknown.26 Wambela: Garangula Collection, NSW; Bruair: sold Bonhams (Sydney), 14 November 2010, lot 421.27 Gunson, 103.28 Series depicting costumes, cultures and lower classes were a popular European genre.29 One unusual portrait of Coola-benn is lacking the address (SLNSW). Inscriptions below Wambela, bust vary: only one has a lengthy inscription, as ‘Din, or Wife of Cobbawn Wogi, Native Chief & &’ (UMAC).30 Ellis, 69; Bonyhady, 24, 28; SLNSW, https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/92eV2xdY (accessed 21 August 2023).31 Few documents in Skottowe’s hand survive for comparison: see letters to Colonial Secretary Campbell, 9 August 1811, 25 October 1813. NSW State Archives INX-99-119657, INX-99-119674.32 Wallis, recollections of Burigon Jack, in Volume 1: Manuscripts and artworks from an album assembled by Major James Wallis, SLNSW PXD 1008/vol. 1.33 See particularly Shane Frost, ‘Burigon: Chief of the Newcastle Tribe’, in John McPhee (ed.), Joseph Lycett, Convict Artist (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 2006), 93–5; and ‘The death of Burigon, Chief of the Newcastle Tribe, 1820’, https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2016/02/09/burigon/ (accessed 21 August 2023).34 L.E. Threlkeld, An Australian Grammar (Sydney: Herald Office, 1834), 88. See ‘Reminiscences of Biraban or M’Gill and Patty by the Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld’, https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2020/02/14/biraban-mgill/; and ‘Biraban and Threlkeld: Finding the third space’ (film), https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2022/02/21/biraban-threlkeld/. ‘Magill’ is used in this article to correspond with the portraits (accessed 21 August 2023).35 Annotations on Bruair, sold Bonhams 2010, lot 424.36 Versions: sold Bonhams 2010, lot 420; NLA NK149/B.37 Samuel Leigh, letters to the Wesleyan Missionary Society, NGA 2013.4828.1–7 (5: 17 November 1821); Obed West, ‘Old and new Sydney’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 1882, 3. My thanks to David Hansen for this reference.38 British Museum 1893,0803.50.39 The frontispiece of James Dixon’s travel account showed ‘Cobawn Wogy’, bust. Dixon wrote, ‘Many of these characters are to be seen at Sidney. This engraving was copied from a portrait of one of them painted by an artist there’. Dixon, vi.40 A man Tower is listed by Threlkeld (compared with Browne’s Towa): his traditional name is recorded as Mu-ta. ‘1828 Return of the Black Natives’, in Australian Reminiscences and Papers of L.E. Threlkeld, ed. Niel Gunson (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1974), 361.41 As noted by Shane Frost, email correspondence with author, 16 January 2023. Aboriginal people continued to travel widely during these years.42 Quaritch sales document, 1981, SLNSW PXA 371.43 A group of eleven hand-coloured prints from the Absalom West series, with Atkin’s stamp, is in the MHNSW collection.44 ‘1841 England, Scotland and Wales Census’, National Archives, Kew, UK, PRO HO 107.45 Killigrant and Ginatoo are the most numeric but, given the ratio of depictions of women to men (4:11 or 12), are likely to have been selected more frequently.46 British Library Add MS 11031 ff. 68–70.47 Seven portraits on five sheets, MOS 2005/21. Browne’s inscriptions are also replicated, copying a range of his fonts. Pink wrote a clear dated list of his copies but made several unusual spelling variations of names.48 Conversation with Derek McDonnell, formerly at Quaritch, 6 August 2019.49 Baron Ribeyre & Associés, Paris, 22 November 2017, lots 8–32.50 See ‘Provenance’, in Deutscher and Hackett/Hordern House, The Baudin Expedition to Australia, 28 November 2018, catalogue, 60–1.51 Watercolour: Silentworld Foundation, SF001740; proof print: SLNSW SV/308.52 Two illustrated in Deutscher and Hackett/Hordern House, lots 10–11, now private collection; UMAC 2017.0386.53 Private collection, on loan to Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.54 David Hansen, ‘“Another Man’s Understanding”: Settler Images of Aboriginal People’, in Colony/Frontier Wars, eds Cathy Leahy and Judith Ryan (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2018), 111, n. 3.55 Skottowe recorded the Newcastle tribe’s name for this club is Cadgawang. The man’s head is based upon a Petit portrait of a man he named as Mororé/Cou-rou-bari-gal (Musée d’histoire naturelle (MHN), Le Havre, France, 20038.2). The head of the standing man at right may be based upon Petit’s drawing of ‘Collins’. MHN, 22033.1.56 Jacques Messidor Boisseau (engraver), Sébastien Leroy (draughtsman), Nouvelle-Hollande; Port-Jackson. Famille de sauvages en voyage, plate 102 in Freycinet’s Voyage autour du monde (Paris: Chez Pillet-Aîné, 1824–39), atlas historique.57 John Hunter, An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (London: John Stockdale, 1793).58 Petit’s Sydney drawings show that he knew illustrations in David Collins’ An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (London: Cadell and Davies, 1798).59 Petit depicted a mother and her large toddler perched on one shoulder, but not astride as here. MHN 20036.1. The feather headdress worn by the father might be influenced by Burigon’s.60 See Grace Karskens, ‘Red Coat, Blue Jacket, Black Skin: Aboriginal Men and Clothing in Early New South Wales’, Aboriginal History 35 (2011): 1–36, for discussion of men’s agency in their clothing choices.61 There could conceivably be Browne watercolours in Russian collections, given the two Sydney visits of Fabian Bellinghausen’s first Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1820.62 See Glen O’Brien, ‘Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855’, in Methodism in Australia: A History, eds Glen O’Brien and Hilary M. Carey (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 15–27.63 Leigh, 1 November 1821. NGA 2013.4828.1.64 Leigh, 17 November 1821. NGA 2013.4828.5.65 Annotations on Bruair, sold Bonhams 2010, lot 424 (as per note 35).66 Population muster, 1821, NSW State Records HO 10/36.67 SLNSW SAFE/PXA 615.68 Conversation with Glen O’Brien, 27 March 2023.69 NGA 2017.392. Previously identified as Killigrant, I believe this is Bruair, with her rounded rather than elongated features.70 Report of the Benevolent or Strangers’ Friend Society (London: William Tyler, 1851), ‘Donations and Subscriptions’, 6.71 Leigh, 1 November 1821, NGA 2013.4828.1.72 Rex and Thea Rienits, Early Artists of Australia (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1963), 197; Geoffrey Dutton, White on Black: The Australian Aborigine Portrayed in Art (Adelaide: Macmillan, 1974), 27.73 Leigh, 15 November 1821. NGA 2013.4828.4.74 See M. John Thearle ‘The Rise and Fall of Phrenology in Australia’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 27, no. 3 (1993): 518–25; Sasha Grishin, ‘Realism, Caricature and Phrenology: Early Colonial Depictions of the Indigenous Peoples of Australia’, in The World Upside Down: Australia 1788–1830 (Canberra: NLA, 2000), 17.75 Conversation between Shane Frost and author, 2 March 2023.76 In addition to the copies by Edmund Pink (MOS 2005/21), there is also a copy of Ginatoo ‘from an original picture in the Possession of Thomas Harding Esqr. 1824’ (NLA NK 2770).77 NLA NK 215.78 Gunson, 102.79 Andrew Sayers, Drawing in Australia (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1989), 20.80 Cicatrices were common for Newcastle people; some painted markings may indicate these.81 Frost and Brauer, in Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie Era, 24–5.