• Title
  Mariah Charles, ca. 1895 / by Tom Roberts
• Creator
  Tom Roberts, 1856-1931
• Call number
  DG 319
  Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 2, South Wall, no. 199
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  ca. 1895
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Paintings
• Reference code
  441648
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  1 painting - 38.2 x 34.5 cm - oil
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  "Tom Roberts visited Yulgilbar in 1894 when he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Edward Oglivie (ML 687).
  While on his commission, Roberts' interest in painting a portrait of an Aboriginal person is recorded in a letter to his lifelong friend Samuel Pring. Roberts' sketchbook from this time includes an exquisite preliminary pencil drawing of Mariah PXA 2481/Vol. 6, f.99). Born 1854". Soon after completion, Mariah's portrait, Mariah Charles, ca. 1895 (DG 319) was exhibited in Sydney for the first Society of Artists Exhibition in 1895"... The painting was clearly identified as Maria, Yulgilbar, but subsequently became, Portrait of an Aboriginal woman: Maria of Yulgilbar? in the 1895 definitive listing of Tom Roberts' works... Contemporary conversations with family further revealed that she was more well known as `Mariah' and had married a man with the surname of Charles".
  
  Reference:
  Reading the Rooms : behind the paintings of the State Library / edited by Richard Neville and Rachel Franks.
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Creator died before 1955
  Please acknowledge:: Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales
• Description source
  
  Title devised from further research provided by the Library for the publication `Reading the Rooms' in 2023.
• General note
  
  Previously titled: Portrait of an Aboriginal women [Maria Yulgilbar, ca. 1895 / oil painting by] Tom Roberts
  Mariah Charles is from the Bunjalung [i.e. Bandjalang] people from the upper Clarence River region.
  A preliminary pencil sketch is in his Sketchbook (PXA 2481/Vol. 6, f.99)
  
  Exhibited as Maria Yulgilbar in Society of Artists Exhibition 1895. See: Tom Roberts / H. Topliss. Melb : Oxford University Press, 1985, p.134
  
  Reference: Faces of Australia: image, reality and the portrait / Richard Neville. Sydney : State Library of NSW Press, 1992
  Digital order no: a128871
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Tom Roberts -- signed lower left
  
  Portrait of an Aboriginal Woman -- inscribed on reverse
• Date note
  
  Dated from Tom Robert's visit to Yulgilbar when he was commissioned to paint pastoralist Edward Ogilvie. Tom Roberts talked about painting an Aboriginal portrait in a letter to S. W. Pring (MLMSS 1367/2 p.23)
• Subject
  Charles, Mariah, 1843-1929--Portraits.
  Women, Aboriginal Australian.
  Portraits, Australian--19th century.
  Bandjalang (Australian people)
  
• Exhibited in
  
  Faces of Australia: image, reality and the portrait.
  The legacy of Charles Darwin in Australia
  Dixson 60
  Six Notable Women of Yulgilbar
  Paintings from the Collection
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE3217070

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