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Third hut at Challicum, 1845

This is a watercolour by Duncan Cooper that depicts the third hut built at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria. It shows a weatherboard hut or cottage with an established garden surrounded by a palisade (paling fence). A wooden bridge, which spans a creek, joins a pathway that leads to the front ...

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Pacific Islander labourers in the Mackay District, late 1800s

This posed black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islanders by their grass hut homes, probably on a Mackay sugar plantation in Queensland. Some are seated on logs or rough timber benches and one woman can also be seen. They are dressed in Western-style clothes. More huts can be seen on the cleared rise in the ...

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Sketch of Moreton Bay penal settlement, 1835 - item 2

This detailed pencil sketch, attributed to Henry Boucher Bowerman, depicts Moreton Bay (Brisbane) penal settlement from present-day South Brisbane. The panoramic landscape view takes in the river in the foreground and existing government buildings necessary to a convict settlement, spread across the land behind. The buildings, ...

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Portrait of political activist Emma Miller, c1910s

This posed black-and-white portrait photograph of Emma Miller, probably taken in Queensland in the 1910s, shows a thin and elderly woman, fashionably dressed for the time, sitting on a chair in a studio. She is staring straight at the camera with a resolute look on her face. Her dark clothing includes a richly embroidered ...

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Possum trappers

This is a photograph of two New Zealand possum trappers. It was taken in 1929 in Taranaki, North Island, and shows the trappers with the dried skins of the Australian brush-tailed possum ('Trichosurus vulpecula').

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The 'Dig' tree in 1878

This is a watercolour by Arthur Esam (1850-1938), created in 1878 and measuring a modest 32.5 cm x 26.7 cm. It shows a coolibah tree with two sections of bark missing - the famous 'Dig' tree of the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1861. A man (perhaps Esam himself) is standing holding the reins of a horse, and appears to be ...

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US soldier and air-raid shelter, Brisbane, 1942

This colour photograph taken in May 1942 shows a US army officer posing at the entrance of an underground air-raid shelter in Brisbane. The photo was taken in the grounds of Somerville House, an exclusive girls' boarding school requisitioned by the US forces in the Second World War as one of their headquarters in Brisbane. ...

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'Southern Cross' above Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931

This is a 1931 gelatin silver-toned composite photograph measuring 32 cm x 25.5 cm, produced by Hall and Co. It shows Charles Kingsford Smith's monoplane, the 'Southern Cross', flying over the partially constructed Sydney Harbour Bridge, escorted by a biplane. The view is from the north-west, probably McMahons Point, and ...

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Penny-farthing bicycle, c1888

This is a penny-farthing, or high-wheel bicycle, built in Melbourne by H Bassett and Co in the late 1880s. Called 'The Victory', it has a 142-cm diameter front wheel and a smaller rear wheel, both with solid rubber tyres. The pedals are fixed directly to the axle of the front wheel. The leather seat sits on a 'cradle spring' ...

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Phar Lap

This is a photograph showing the mounted hide of Phar Lap, a champion racehorse in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was a large chestnut-coloured gelding who stood 17.1 hands (about 174 cm) tall.

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Metters 'Moffat' electric stove, late 1930s

This is a cast-iron stove called the 'Moffat', produced in Melbourne by Australian manufacturer Metters KFB in the late 1930s. The stove is set on four iron legs and consists of an oven, cooktop and griller. It is finished with green enamel and three cream enamel panels inset on the knob interface, griller door and oven ...

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Wolter and Echberg washing machine, late 1800s

This is a late-19th-century compressed-air washing machine, made by Victorian manufacturers Wolter and Echberg. The machine is made of galvanised steel and has a distinctive rocket-like appearance, with a central drum, in which the clothes are washed, consisting of two cone shapes on either end of a cylinder. On the drum ...

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Washing clothes in an iron tub, c1890s

This is a black-and-white photograph made from a glass negative. It shows a woman washing clothes by hand in a galvanised iron tub outdoors, beside a high fence made from sheets of galvanised iron. A cane laundry basket and washed clothes hanging on a clothes line can be seen.

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. VII', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.4 cm, showing a mounted man herding a small group of cows past scattered native bush and trees, beneath the backdrop of the Mount Cole ranges. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the fifteenth watercolour in his field sketchbook and inscribed the title 'Panorama ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. IX', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.3 cm showing the vast yellow-and-green Challicum plains. In the distance a flock of sheep, watched by a shepherd and dog, is moving into temporary wooden yards. Among gum trees, to the right of the yard, is the homestead. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the ...

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Great pampa finch

This is a colour photograph of a preserved great pampa finch ('Embernagra platensis'). The tail of this specimen is missing. Identification labels and cataloguing numbers are attached to the specimen.

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'Quail shooting, Jones' Hill, Challicum', c1850

This is a watercolour by Duncan Cooper that shows quail shooting at Jones' Hill at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria. It depicts two men with shotguns and two hunting dogs, which may be pointers, crossing a low plateau. The man in front has taken aim and appears to have just discharged his rifle. ...

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'The new rush', 1865

This is a coloured print, measuring 19.4 cm x 25.2 cm, by the famous colonial artist Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), published in 'The Australian Sketchbook' in 1865. It shows a gold rush scene, probably in Victoria, with a stream of prospectors travelling along a dirt road. Several are walking beside their horses and heavily ...

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Portrait of Robert Long, South Sea Island Mission, Nambour, 1906

This posed black-and-white photograph is a head-and-shoulders portrait of Robert Long, a leader of the South Sea Island Mission at Nambour in Queensland. Long is shown resting his arms on an unseen surface at chest height and holding what appears to be a Bible. The photograph is in an oval frame and is one of a series of ...

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Shackleton expedition at Lyttelton Harbour, 1914

This is a black-and-white photograph showing the sailing ship 'Endurance' being loaded with ponies and sled dogs at Lyttelton (east coast of the South Island of New Zealand) for Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica. A crowd of people is aboard the ship, watching proceedings, and there are groups of people in the ...