Corrobory Dance – 1860

Corrobory Dance

The Working Men’s Educational Union, King William Street.

Coloured lithograph wall hanging printed on calico, the lower right hand corner stamped ‘Working Mens Educational Union, King William St, Trafalgar Square, London, and numbered 129 below; verso with contemporary manuscript caption at upper edge: Australia – Corrobory dance; original brass eyelets at each corner with original sewn in linen loops for hanging; original fold lines (three horizontal and three vertical); the banner is in a remarkably good state of preservation, the colours still strong and vibrant.

A philanthropic organisation founded in London in 1853, the Working Men’s Educational Union provided free education for the working classes through public lectures at different venues across the city. The spectacular design on the wall hanging depicting a nighttime Aboriginal corroboree, would have been used as part of a display illustrating a lecture on the Antipodes.

The graphic is almost certainly after a published lithograph, possibly one which appeared in a journal such as the Illustrated London News. Although the original artist is unidentified, the archaic spelling of the word ‘Corrobory’, employed by artists such as John Glover (Natives at a corrobory, 1835); Alfred T. Agate (Corroborry, New South Wales) and S.T. Gill (A corrobory or native dance, early 1850s) suggests the lithograph could have been based on a considerably earlier work. The form and painted design of the shields depicted in the lower left foreground are typical of a Southeastern Australian broad shield, a fact which would eliminate Western Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and northern New South Wales as potential locations for the original drawing.

The National Library of Australia holds twelve similar lithographic wall hangings commissioned by the Working Men’s Educational Union (Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK801) which illustrate gold mining subjects. However, this particular corroboree scene appears to be unrecorded.

The Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand holds four lithograph wall hangings bearing the Working Men’s Educational Union stamp. These depict scenes titled Panning for gold; Missionary distributing Bibles to Taranaki Maoris; Interior of Otaki Church (after Charles Decimus Barraud), and War dance before the pah of Ohinemutu, near Rotorua Lake (after George French Angas; in turn, after Joseph Jenner Merrett).

London 1860

88 cm x 120 cm