[Western Australia]

Craig & Solin's Australasian Views - WA Series. Photographed and Published by North Fremantle Studio. A collection of 66 stereophotographs on the photographers' captioned mounts [some printed 'Freemantle']. Localities include Perth, Fremantle, and Bunbury, and the mining districts of Kalgoorlie, Boulder, Coolgardie and Kanowna

All images are captioned in the negative, and all are uniquely numbered in ink on the verso, beneath the initials CAB (a broken run from 1 to 91) by an early owner. Fifteen (mainly the mining ones) are dated 1898 in the caption, and there are several of Lord Brassey's visit to Perth (March-April 1898); the balance appear to be of a similar vintage. About 30 of them have basic handcolouring that definitely looks better through the viewer. Neither Craig, nor Solin, nor the North Fremantle Studio is recorded in Davies and Stanbury (1985), but Barrie (2002) lists Craig & Solin at 'Fremantle and Kalgoorlie 1898'. Trove lists about 40 photographs by them, all held by the State Library of WA. The substantial 1993 publication by Martyn and Audrey Webb, 'Golden Destiny. The Centenary History of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia', of some 1100 quarto pages 'profusely illustrated by contemporary photographs, maps and diagrams', does not contain any images by Craig and Solin, suggesting that the material in the SLWA came into the collection after the book was published. (Offered together with seven other stereophotographs, all initialled CAB and uniquely numbered within the same run: five are in the 'Rose's Australasian Views Victorian Series' and are rubber-stamped 'Craig & Solin, Manufacturers' Agents and Importers of Cycles, Family Bibles, Books & Fancy Goods, Fremantle').

Item #98009

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