Studio portrait of two young Wiradjuri men with three Europeans. Dubbo or Orange, Central West New South Wales, c.1885. GEO. PLUMMER & CO.

Albumen print photograph, cabinet card format, 166 x 110 mm (mount); verso of mount with the imprint of 'Geo. Plummer & Co., Photographers. Macquarie St., Dubbo, and Anson Street, Orange.'; both the print and the mount are in fine condition. Davies & Stanbury (The Mechanical Eye in Australia) list George Plummer & Co. as active at Dubbo in the years 1884-85 only, and at Orange in 1884-90, which helps to date this photograph to either 1884 or 1885 - well before the establishment of the Talbragar reserve for Aborigines just outside Dubbo. Although the precise relationship between the two (presumably) Wiradjuri men, both smartly dressed in suits, and the three Europeans is not clear, the way the young men are groomed and posed suggests they were in some way being presented as protégés. One possibility is that the three Europeans in this photograph are lay members of a local church in the Dubbo or Orange districts; another is that they are representatives of the newly established New South Wales Board for the Protection of Aborigines, which had been formed on 2 June 1883. We have not been able to trace any copies of this image in institutional collections. Another example - from a private collection - is reproduced in Michael Graham-Stewart's Bitter fruit : Australian photographs to 1963 (Melbourne, 2017).