Lot 4: TOMMY MCRAE CIRCA 1830-1901

UNTITLED (FIGHTING FIGURES) C.1890

MEASUREMENTS

17 by 29.5 cm

Pen and ink on paper laid down on card

PROVENANCE
Acquired by Alan Knox Buckley, Headmaster of Rutherglen School in the last quarter of the 19th century, thence by descent Private collection, Perth Cf. 'Fight Between Two Tribes', in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, illustrated in Sayers, A., Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994, p.34, plate M4; and 'Lachlan War Dance', in the collection of the La Trobe Library, State Library of Victoria, (ibid.) p.32, plate M14 An animated drawing of pairs of men in hand-to-hand combat. McRae has depicted the detail of the body painting worn by the men on their torsos, legs and arms, and even hinted at the decoration engraved onto some of the parrying shields