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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  21 Jul 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  56
• Lot Description:
  The Albury Broad Shield
  Albury, New South Wales (early nineteenth century)
  carved hardwood and natural earth pigments
  93 cm high
• Provenance:
  John Mitchell, Albury, New South Wales (collected 1870s); Victoria Jubillee Mitchell, New South Wales; Margaret Adams, New South Wales; By descent; Joanne Davrain, Queensland; An Important Private Collection (acquired from the above)
• Notes:
  Collected in the 1870s by John Mitchell of Albury, New South Wales, this fine broad shield of typical ovoid leaf form is in excellent condition and has retained its branch handle. The design engraved into the front surface features a series of patterns of parallel and undulating lines and a herringbone design, struck along a vertical and horizontal axis. Unlike the incised patterns on most south eastern broad shields, the overall design is not symmetrical and in this respect the shield is comparable to an early broad shield illustrated in Black, R., Old and New Aboriginal Art, Sydney: Angus And Robertson, 1964, p.85, fig.73 (right), which features distinctly different patterns either side of a vertical axis. For other related broad shields, see Cooper, C. et al., Aboriginal Australia, Sydney: Australian Gallery Directors Council, 1981, pp.87-88, plate S43 (and colour plate 10) for a Victorian broad shield in the R. E. Johns Collection at the Burke Museum in Beechworth, Victoria; plate S44, another in the collection of the Museum of Victoria; plate S45 in the Christensen Collection at the National Gallery of Victoria) and plate S47 (and colour plate 11) also in the collection of the Museum of Victoria. The last of these shields features a recessed vertical dividing line similar to the vertical and horizontal dividers in this shield. In the 1870s, John Mitchell owned the butcher shop in Bethanga on the Murray River in north east Victoria, and he also owned land very close to Tangambalanga that was an early reserve or protectorate for the local Aboriginal people. Mitchell was a well-known figure in the Albury community and became a wealthy land owner. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$70,000 - 90,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Tribal

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.