Holtermann collection

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The Holtermann Collection
Mayne Street Gulgong NSW 1873.jpg
Mayne Street Gulgong, 1872, by American & Australasian Photographic Company.
Housed at State Library of New South Wales
Size (no. of items)3500+ photogrpahic negatives and albumen prints
Funded by Government of New South Wales
Website https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/

The Holtermann Collection is the name given to a collection of over 3,500 glass-plate negatives and albumen prints, many of which depict life in New South Wales goldfield towns. [1] It also includes numerous photographs of Australian rural towns and the cities of Sydney and Melbourne taken between 1871 and 1876. The collection is held by the State Library of New South Wales. [2] [3]

Contents

Gold Rush, Regional Towns and Cities

Many of the 3500 wet-plate glass negatives and albumen prints in the Holtermann collection capture life in the goldfield towns of Hill End and Gulgong, Home Rule and Canadian Lead between 1872 and 1873. Photographs covering the goldfields, regional towns and cities in New South Wales and Victoria between 1871 and 1873 are attributed to the American and Australasian Photographic Company employees Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss. It also seems Bayliss is responsible for much of the later work from 1873 to 1876; sometimes with the assistance of Holtermann. [4] [5] Merlin had done commissioned work for Holtermann while at Hill End in 1872 but sometime around January 1873, Merlin was commissioned by Bernhardt Otto Holtermann to start taking photographs for his new 'Holtermann Exposition' project to promote Australia to the world. The Holtermann collection seems to have been formed around this time and Merlin may have contributed some of his earlier photographs to this project. [6] [5] [4]

The Colossal Glass Plate Negatives

Berrys Bay and Goat Island, Sydney, 1875, Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann from negative, 136 x 95 cm (4.4 x 3.1 feet Berrys Bay and Goat Island, Sydney XR 45a.jpg
Berrys Bay and Goat Island, Sydney, 1875, Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann from negative, 136 x 95 cm (4.4 x 3.1 feet

The largest glass plate negatives produced in the nineteenth century appear to have been made in Sydney, Australia, in 1875, and three are held in the Holtermann Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Intended for display at International Exhibitions they were made by the professional photographer Charles Bayliss with the help of Bernhardt Holtermann who also funded the project. [7] Only four of the colossal glass negatives produced by Bayliss and Holtermann have been identified and all of them were taken from Holtermann’s purpose-built camera in the tower of his mansion in North Sydney. [8] Two were 160 x 96.5 cm (5.1 ft x 3.08 ft) and formed a panorama of Sydney Harbour from Garden Island to Millers Point. The other two were 136 x 95 cm (4.4 x 3.1 feet) and were of the Harbour Lavender Bay and Fort Maccquarie and Berry’s Bay and Goat Island. [9] All four colossal negatives were acknowledged at the time as being the largest negatives made and appear to have remained so until 1900 when George R. Lawrence built his (4.5 x 8 ft) camera to photograph the Alton Limited locomotive. [10] In 1876 one of the negatives was viewed by the Photographers Art Society of the Pacific Coast (PASPC) who acknowledged it as being the largest negative ever produced. The society declared,

that as photographers we are indebted to the liberality of B. O. Holterman, for demonstrating the possibility and perfecting the production of the largest negative; and we tender him the thanks of this society for kindly placing this negative on view for our benefit. [11]

The Holtermann Panorama

Panorama of Sydney from Lavender Bay, 1875, by Bernard Otto Holtermann and Charles Bayliss Panorama of Sydney from Lavender Bay (1875).jpg
Panorama of Sydney from Lavender Bay, 1875, by Bernard Otto Holtermann and Charles Bayliss

In 1875 Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann produced a large panorama of Sydney harbour made from a series of twenty-three wet-plate negatives measuring 56 by 46 centimetres many of which were duplicated four or more times to obtain the best image. The finished panorama was nearly ten metres long. [12] [13]

It was photographed from the central tower of Holtermann's house in North Sydney. Sitting some 27 metres above a ridge that was already well-elevated the tower gave a special vantage from which to photograph Sydney and the harbour of Port Jackson. [14]

Some of the photographs, including the panorama, were displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where they won a bronze medal. [15] The panorama was also displayed at the 1878 Exposition Universelle Internationale in Paris. [15]

Rediscovery

Interior, Weir & Embleton's cordial factory, Hill End, 1872, by American & Australasian Photographic Company (details)

In 1951 the negatives were discovered in a garden shed in Chatswood, New South Wales. Credit for the discovery of the photographs goes to Keast Burke and Vyvyan Curnow who worked for the Australasian Photo-Review. While writing a story on the gold nugget discovered by Bernhard Holtermann they found photographs donated by Holtermann at the Mitchell Library. This led Curnow to visit one of Holtermann's descendants who was living in Chatswood, Sydney. Here he discovered some 3,500 glass plate negatives which had been locked for many years in a garden shed. [16] The collection was in remarkably good condition as the plates had remained undisturbed in a safe place out of the light for over seventy-five years. In time, the find proved to be one of the most important to document life on the goldfields of Australia. [17]

International significance

The international significance of the collection is due to its size and quality combined with the level of detail captured in the glass plate negatives. It is a rare survivor of a large-scale nineteenth-century Australian photographic archive. [4] The collection includes three of the largest surviving wet-plate negatives in the world. [4] In May 2013, the Holtermann Collection of glass plate negatives at the State Library of New South Wales was included on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register – Asia and the Pacific. [4] Three giant views of Sydney Harbour, the largest measuring over 1.6 metres wide, were added to the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register in November 2017. [18]

Collection

Digitisation

In 2008, the collection was digitised at high resolution and images like this one of On Gay & Co., general storekeepers (grocery & drapery), Hill End were made available through the Library's image viewer. [2] In 2015, Gulgong Holtermann Museum which uses many of these hi-resolution images was launched in Gulgong,New South Wales. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collodion process</span> Early photographic technique

The collodion process is an early photographic process. The collodion process, mostly synonymous with the "collodion wet plate process", requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field. Collodion is normally used in its wet form, but it can also be used in its dry form, at the cost of greatly increased exposure time. The increased exposure time made the dry form unsuitable for the usual portraiture work of most professional photographers of the 19th century. The use of the dry form was mostly confined to landscape photography and other special applications where minutes-long exposure times were tolerable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photographic plate</span> Target medium in photography

Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinner than common window glass. They were heavily used in the late 19th century and declined through the 20th. They were still used in some communities until the late 20th century.

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulgong</span> Town in New South Wales, Australia

Gulgong is a 19th-century gold rush town in the Central Tablelands and the wider Central West regions of the Australian state of New South Wales. The town is situated within the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area. It is located about 300 km (190 mi) north west of Sydney, and about 30 km north of Mudgee along the Castlereagh Highway. At the 2021 census, Gulgong had a population of 2,680.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Library of New South Wales</span> Central library for the state of New South Wales, Australia

The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Established in 1869 its collections date back to the Australian Subscription Library established in the colony of New South Wales in 1826. The library is located on the corner of Macquarie Street and Shakespeare Place, in the Sydney central business district adjacent to the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens, in the City of Sydney. The library is a member of the National and State Libraries Australia (NSLA) consortium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Daintree</span> Australian geologist and photographer

Richard Daintree CMG was a pioneering Australian geologist and photographer. In particular, Daintree was the first Government geologist for North Queensland discovering gold fields and coal seams for future exploitation. Daintree was a pioneer in the use of photography during field trips and his photographs formed the basis of Queensland's contribution to the Exhibition of Arts and Industry in 1871. Following the success of the display, he was appointed as Queensland's Agent-General in London in 1872 but was forced to resign in 1876 due to ill-health and malpractice by some of his staff although not Daintree himself. A number of features in North Queensland have been named after Daintree including the town of Daintree, Queensland, the Daintree National Park, the Daintree River, the Daintree Rainforest which has been nominated for the World Heritage List and the Daintree Reef.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Dupain</span> Australian photographer (1911–1992)

Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC OBE was an Australian modernist photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hill End, New South Wales</span> Town in New South Wales, Australia

Hill End is a former gold mining town in New South Wales, Australia. The town is located in the Bathurst Regional Council local Government area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernhardt Holtermann</span> Australian politician

Bernhardt Otto Holtermann was a successful gold miner, businessman, politician and photographer in Australia. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is his association with the Holtermann Nugget, the largest gold specimen ever found, 59 inches (1.5 m) long, weighing 630 pounds (290 kg) and with an estimated gold content of 3,000 troy ounces (93 kg), found at Hill End, near Bathurst, New South Wales. This gave him the wealth to build a mansion in North Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bayliss</span> Australian photographer

Charles Bayliss, was an Australian photographer, who is best known for photographs that he took during the 1870s, which form a large part of the Holtermann Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Beaufoy Merlin</span>

Henry Beaufoy Merlin (1830–1873) was an Australian photographer, showman, illusionist and illustrator. In the 1850s he worked as a theatrical showman and performer in Sydney, Newcastle and Maitland. In 1863 he was the first person to introduce Pepper's ghost to Australia. After this, he took up photography and between 1869 and 1872 turned the American Australasian Photographic Company into one of the most respected studios in Australia. Between 1872 and 1873 he worked extensively documenting the goldfields and mining towns of New South Wales. In 1873, as an employee of Bernhardt Holtermann, he photographed Sydney and many rural New South Wales towns. He died on 27 September 1873.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Keast Burke</span> Australian photographer and journalist

Eric Keast Burke was a New Zealand-born Australian photographer and journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home Rule, New South Wales</span> Town in New South Wales, Australia

Home Rule is locality in the Central West region of New South Wales. Little remains of the 19th-century gold rush era village of the same name, which lies within the locality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulgong Holtermann Museum</span> Building in Gulgong, NSW

Gulgong Holtermann Museum is a community project and a museum space located in gold rush town of Gulgong, New South Wales. Two of the town's earliest buildings, also featured on Australian ten-dollar note renovated and extended, house an interactive educational and tourist facility based on the UNESCO listed Holtermann Collection - photographs taken for Bernhardt Holtermann during the "roaring days" in the 1870s.

<i>Australasian Photo-Review</i> Australian photography magazine published 1894–1956

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Greatest Wonder of the World and American Tobacco Warehouse and Fancy Goods Emporium</span> Historic site in New South Wales, Australia

The Greatest Wonder of the World and American Tobacco Warehouse and Fancy Goods Emporium are heritage-listed adjacent shops at 123-125 Mayne Street, Gulgong, Mid-Western Regional Council, New South Wales, Australia. They were built from 1870 to 1878. They have been refurbished to house the Gulgong Holtermann Museum, with new galleries constructed at the back to house the UNESCO listed HOLTERMANN COLLECTION. The original buildings were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 21 October 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department of Mineral Resources Historic Photographs Collection</span> Historic site in New South Wales, Australia

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References

  1. ↑ Downer, Christine (19 January 2015). "Photography in Australia: A select bibliography". History of Photography. 23 (2): 192–197. doi:10.1080/03087298.1999.10443822.
  2. 1 2 The Holtermann Collection, State Library of New South Wales.. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  3. ↑ Neville, Richard (June 1999). "News". LASIE: Library Automated Systems Information Exchange. 30 (2): 56. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Holtermann Collection". Australian Memory of the World. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  5. 1 2 Johnstone, Richard (24 April 2013). "How Merlin and Bayliss worked their magic". Inside story. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  6. ↑ Intercolonial News’, The Queenslander, (18 January 1873), 9.
  7. ↑ "Mr. Holtermann's photographs". Evening News. Sydney, NSW. 9 November 1875. p. 2. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  8. ↑ "Bernard Otto Holterman". Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier. NSW. 11 December 1875. p. 3. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  9. ↑ This mansion is now part of the Sydney Church of England Grammar School (commonly known as Shore or Shore School). Glass plate negatives of Sydney Harbour from the Holtermann residence, St. Leonards, 1870-1875, State Library of New South Wales, XR 45a, XR 45b,XR 46
  10. ↑ "Holterman's Negative". Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser. Grafton, NSW. 12 September 1876. p. 3. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  11. ↑ "Holterman's Negative". Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser. Grafton, NSW. 12 September 1876. p. 3. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  12. ↑ The Holtermann Collection web page, State Library of New South Wales, accessed November 2020.
  13. ↑ Panorama from Holtermann house, American & Australasian Photographic Company, collodion glass plate negatives, State Library of New South Wales, series numbers: ON 4 Box 78 No 7, ON 4 Box 77 No 25 (B), ON 4 Box 77 No 25 (A), ON 4 Box 61 No E, ON 4 Box 61 No D, ON 4 Box 61 No I, ON 4 Box 61 No A, ON 4 Box 61 No G, ON 4 Box 61 No C, ON 4 Box 61 No J, ON 4 Box 61 No F, ON 4 Box 61 No H.
  14. ↑ The Towers, At Home In North Sydney, North Sydney Council website, accessed November 2020.
  15. 1 2 "Holtermann panorama" (PDF). National Gallery of Australia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2010.
  16. ↑ Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 28 February 1953, page 2
  17. ↑ name="goldandsilver">Gold and Silver: Photographs of Australian Goldfield from the Holtermann Collection by Keast Burke, Penguin Books Australia, 1973, pp 1–4.
  18. ↑ "Memory of the World". SL Magazine. Vol. 11, no. 1. Autumn 2018. p. 6.
  19. ↑ "Gulgong's Holtermann Museum launch reveals first drawings". 26 January 2015.

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