1922 Carved Blackwood Portrait of Indigenous Australian Woman

A carved blackwood portrait of an Indigenous Australian woman,…
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A carved blackwood portrait of an Indigenous Australian woman, twice signed and dated 1922, long bust-length, carved in very high relief, modelled undraped and with a pensive expression, stained dark brown, incised signature and date 'R. Prenzel south Yarra 1922' lower right and with a further large incised signature in a cursive script to the reverse 'Robt Prenzel October 1922', 54 cm high, 34.5 cm wide, 10 cm deep. Provenance: acquired directly from Robert Prenzel in the 1920s by Gordon Gidney, Melbourne, thence by descent to the late John Gidney Pennell

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  • Blackwood - One of the best known and most widely used Australian timbers, blackwood (acacia melanoxylon), is a member of the Acacia (wattle) family and grows in eastern Australia from about Adelaide in South Australia, as far north as Cairns in Queensland.

    The largest, straightest and tallest trees come from the wet forest and swamps of north-west Tasmania where it is grown commercially.

    Blackwood timber colours range across a wide spectrum, from a very pale honey colour through to a dark chocolate with streaks of red tinge.

    The hardwood timber has been commonly used in the production of furniture, flooring, and musical instruments in Australia from the late 19th century. However, the straight grain timber is not the most prized or valuable, that honour falls to blackwood with a wavy, fiddleback pattern, which is used both in the solid and as a veneer. Fiddleback was only used on the finest examples of furniture.
  • Incised - A record of a name, date or inscription, or a decoration scratched into a surface, usually of a glass or ceramic item with a blunt instrument to make a coarse indentation. Compare with engraving where the surface is cut with a sharp instrument such as a metal needle or rotating tool to achieve a fine indentation.

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