• Title
  [Mounted police with miners and Aborigines, Tooloom, New South Wales], 1860 / by Conrad Wagner
• Creator
  Conrad Wagner, ca. 1818-1910
• Call number
  SSV/149
  
• Level of description
  item
• Date
  
  1860
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Watercolours
• Reference code
  9588582
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  1 watercolour - on paper - 22 x 28 cm.
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Conrad Wagner was a German born painter and photographer, arriving in Australia in 1856 and settling in Grafton on the Clarence River, New South Wales. For ten years from the early 1860s, Wagner worked at a studio in Grafton, advertising carte-de-visites and portraits. Wagner moved to Glen Innes around 1872 where he continued to maintain an interest in painting and occasionally worked as a photographer. Wagner died on 1 August 1910, said to be aged ninety-two and was interred in the Church of England Cemetery at Waverley, Sydney.
  
  The gold rush at Tooloom (now called Urbenville) began in 1859. Within a few years, up to 10,000 people were mining the area, however deposits had been greatly diminished by the 1870s. The Moreton Bay Courier, (Brisbane, Thursday 8 December, 1859, p. 2.) described the diggings at Tooloom as ‘a rough and ready city of bark huts, canvas tents and calico-roofed shanties.' The writer also describes the Aboriginal people living in Tooloom, confirming that this region was a site where Aboriginal people and gold miners were living together.
  
  Reference
  Library correspondence file
• Collection history
  Private collection, London. Private collection, Melbourne.
• Scope and Content
  Depicts three uniformed men on horseback, one in conversation with two men, probably gold miners, one of whom is handing a piece of paper to the officer on horseback. In the mid-distance are three Aboriginal men (probably Githabul) engaged in a separate activity, wearing European trousers, one holding an upright spear. A timber hut and tents are depicted in the background.
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright:
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Variant title
  
  Titled at auction in 2017 'Mounted Police with Settlers and Aborigines, Tooloom, N.S.W., 1860'. Title amended in February 2022 to reflect that some of the figures in the work are probably miners.
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Inscribed verso of watercolour 'From Glen / to dearest Gracey. / Sydney 6th May 1861' and 'Pensez à votre / très attache / C. Wagner / Tooloom October 30th 1860'. This latter inscription is crossed out.
• Subject
  Aboriginal Australians--New South Wales--Pictorial works.
  Dwellings--New South Wales--Pictorial works.
  Gold mines and mining--New South Wales--Pictorial works.
  Police--New South Wales--Pictorial works.
  
• Place
  Tooloom (N.S.W.)
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE8979180

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