Double self-portrait

Philip J. Marchant
Australia
18 December 1846 – 7 August 1910

Double self-portrait
c.1866
albumen-silver photograph (carte de visite)
Place made
Adelaide
Medium
albumen-silver photograph (carte de visite)
Dimensions
9.3 x 5.5 cm (image)
10.4 x 6.4 cm (card)
Credit line
R.J. Noye Collection. Gift of Douglas and Barbara Mullins 2004
Accession number
20041RJN2223
Media category
Photograph
Collection area
Australian Photographs

  • WALL LABEL: Public Image, Private Lives: Family, Friends and Self in Photography, 2016

     

    In the mid-1860s several Adelaide photographers created novelty portraits in which, by using multiple exposures, the sitter appeared twice or sometimes three times in a single photograph. Such images helped to promote the photographer’s business, as newspapers eagerly reported on these innovative and often theatrical images. 

     

    Philip Marchant’s Double self-portrait, which dates from the first year of his photographic business, sees him playing the role of both photographer and customer. Set against a painted studio backdrop, the image that he has created is seamless: on the right he posing for the camera, and on the left he is timing the exposure with his stopwatch.

     

    Julie Robinson, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs

     

  • The photograph in Australia

    Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, 4 July 2015 – 11 October 2015

  • Metamorphoses

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 13 November 2013 – 27 January 2014

  • The photograph in Australia

    Art Gallery of New South Wales, 21 March 2015 – 8 June 2015

  • Public Image, Private Lives: Family, Friends and Self in Photography

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 5 February 2016 – 18 September 2016

  • A Century in Focus: South Australian photography 1840s-1940s

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 9 November 2007 – 28 January 2008
  • [Book] AGSA 500.
  • [Catalogue] Zagala, Maria, Jane Messenger, Ken Orchard, Philip Jones, Carolyn Lovitt, and Elspeth Pitt. 2007. A Century in Focus - South Australian Photography 1840s - 1940s. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia.
  • [Book] Annear, Judy. The photograph and Australia.