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Print
867109
  • Title
    Manoly Lascaris family photograph albums, ca. 1905-1948, including a letter from George Lascaris to his son Manoly, 15 October 1930
  • Creator
  • Call number
    PXE 1013
  • Level of description
    fonds
  • Date

    ca. 1905-1948
  • Type of material
  • Reference code
    867109
  • Physical Description
    1 portfolio (7 photographic prints, 1 letter, 1 certificate - 34.5 x 24 cm: ; 34.5 x 24
    1 album (104 photographic prints) - 25 x 33.5 cm
    1 album (234 photographic prints) - 26 x 35.5 cm
    1 album (31 photographic prints) - 26 x 35.5 cm
    3 photographic prints
  • ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY

    Manoly Lascaris (Emmanuel George Lascaris) was born in Cairo 1912 to George Lascaris, a cotton-trader from Smyrna, and Florence Mayhew, an American. When he was young, his parents separated and his mother returned to America. His father also left, and aunts were brought to Alexandria to look after Manoly and his siblings. In 1922 his aunts planned to move with the children back to Smyrna, but the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia prevented it and they moved instead to Athens. George Lascaris returned to the family in 1930, sending Manoly to work at his uncle Mario’s bank in Alexandria. When he was twenty-two, Manoly began work with the Alexandria Water Company. He was still working for the company in 1941, the year he met the Australian novelist Patrick White, with whom he later shared a flat in Alexandria until the political climate prompted them to leave in 1948 for Australia, where they settled at the edge of Parramatta. In the 1960’s they moved into a house on Centennial Park in Sydney where Lascaris lived almost until his death in 2003.

    References:
    Patrick White : a life / David Marr. Milsons Point, N.S.W. : Vintage, 1992, c1991.
    Marr, David, ‘Gentle foil to Patrick White’s fury,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, November 22, 2003. http://www.smh.com.au (accessed July, 2009)
  • Collection history
    This collection of photographs belonged to Manoly Lascaris and was sent to his sister in Athens when he was taken into hospital some months before he died. The collection returned to Australia in January 2004 to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales when the Trust was involved in negotiations to acquire the home of Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris to create a museum or writers’ centre. The negotiations did not eventuate and the collection was transferred from the Trust to the Mitchell Library in 2008.
  • Scope and Content
    Collection of personal family photographs comprising 1 folder containing studio photographic portraits, a letter from George Lascaris to this son Manoly in 1930 and a 1948 Qantas Empire Airways certificate; 3 photographic albums (369 photographs); 1 photograph of the Lascaris family and 2 photographs of Patrick White.


    ITEM 01
    Leather folder with “Luxardo Roma” embossed and painted on the front and holding 7 photographs, 1 letter and 1 certificate.
    The folder contains matching full-length studio portraits (marked “Alban, Alexandrie”) of two of the Lascaris children; another portrait and two outdoor photographs of one of the girls; a photograph, ca. 1930, of a man (probably Aristomenis Lascaris), and a full-length bridal portrait (late 1930’s, probably of Manoly’s sister) marked “Luxardo Roma”. Also in the folder are a letter written to Manoly from Athens by his father in 1930, when Manoly was to commence work in his uncle’s bank, and a certificate from 1948 presented by Qantas Empire Airways for crossing the equator by air.

    ITEM 02
    Photograph album side-sewn with a patterned cloth-bound cover and 10 pages.
    The album contains 104 photographs, which come from family holidays mainly in Greece in the years from 1926 to 1934. Places named in the album include Agios Andreas, Athens, Chaeronea, Chicago, Delphi, Évian and Mt. Ossa. Many of the photographs are of the countryside and villagers, and of archaeological sites. Some of the photos are of the travellers and their friends, but they are not named. Manoly Lascaris appears in the photographs. All annotations are on the backs of photographs rather than on the album leaves, and they are mostly in Greek.

    ITEM 03
    Photograph album has 24 pages and is side-sewn into a plain cloth-bound cover with a red leather strap.
    The album contains 234 photographs, including 3 loose, from holidays mainly in Greece and Egypt from 1931-1939. Places mentioned are Agrinion, Alexandria, Cairo, Daphni, Mareopolis, Mariout, Pelion, Porto Rafti, Port Said, Salonica, Sounion and Toronto. People named in the album are Alexandra, Annie, Aristomenis, Bianca Bianchi, Andrée de Blonay, Lucie du Bois, Buckaneim, Ellie and Myrto Casulli, Manoly’s sister Catina, Constantiu, John Drake, Garangotis, Elena Giustiniani (possibly a cousin), Ahmed Abdul Kerim, Loula, Mario (possibly Manoly’s uncle Mario), Mary Oratis, Petrovich, George and Maria Pierrakos, Kenneth Richards, Floris Salmona, Ginetto and Mme. Saporta, Habib Sursock, Athina Vangelina, Mr. Veal, Walters, Marie Xydaki and Manoly’s father. Manoly Lascaris appears in the photographs. Annotations are written on the album leaves.

    ITEM 04
    Photograph album has 24 pages and is side-sewn into a plain cloth-bound cover with a red leather strap.
    The album contains 31 photographs taken on holiday in Cairo in April, 1939. 22 of the photographs are of buildings and tourist sites including several mosques, the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the Nile. The other nine photos show members of the party, namely Dimitri Carapanos, Andrea Gavallas, Ellie Papadimitriou and J. Pesmatzoglou. Manoly Lascaris appears in the photographs. Only the first five leaves of the album are used. Annotations are on the album leaves.

    ITEM 05
    Copy photograph of Anna, Manoly, Mario, Aristomenis, Katina and Elly Lascaris.
    Two photographs of Patrick White
  • System of arrangement
    Collection arranged and described by Eleanor Christofides, for the internship component of the Master of Museum Studies course, University of Sydney, June-July 2009
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