- Museum number
- Object: Togerlongerter
A watercolour drawing of Tukalunginta (Togerlongerter), a bearded Tasmanian Aboriginal man with dressed hair looking to his left; from a collection of nineteen drawings of Tasmanian Aboriginal people by Thomas Bock held in the British Museum.
- Production date
- 1832 (before 1- 17 Jan 1832 (earliest certain date))
Height: 19.20 centimetres
Width: 16.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
J B Davis Cat #20 M145 RAI: 'A fine drawing of a Tasmanian [male symbol]. Tongerlongerter'.
Plomley (1965:14) notes: '15. TOGERLONGERTER (Plate 10). The man's name is written on the portrait in G.A. Robinson's hand.'
Plomley (1991:34) provides this short biographical note: 'TOGERLONGERTER - the Oyster Bay chief captured by G.A. Robinson on 31 December, 1831, with others of the Big River/Oyster Bay people. Sent to Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement 17 February, 1832'.
Tim Bonyhady in Bonyhady and Lehman (2018:77) notes: 'On 7 January 1832, Bock was after more Aboriginal subjects and, like Glover, interested in status. Bock seized the opportunity to portray Tongerlongter. A drawing seemingly done that day - now in the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery - does not identify its subject. But the related watercolour, done later for Robinson, and now in the British Museum, is inscribed twice with Tongerlongter's name'.
For an account of this man's life including injury to his arm, see Reynolds & Clements 2021; note that p.17 erroneously describes this watercolour as an oil painting.
In 1963 NJB Plomley published a paper which attempted to untangle the complex provenance of the different collections of Thomas Bock’s (1790-1855) portraits of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, including those held by the British Museum. The British Museum’s seventeen Bock portraits was acquired from Dr J Barnard Davis’ collection in 1883. Plomley (1963:15) argued that Davis acquired this set of portraits before 1867 from Thomas Bock’s son, Alfred Bock (1835-1920), and that they are copies of Thomas Bock’s work, executed by Alfred. However, based on a close study of the surviving documentation and its relationship to the inscriptions on many of the British Museum’s Bock portraits, it is clear that the British Museum’s collection of Bock portraits derive from a larger assemblage of prints, paintings and ethnographic objects collected by Robinson before his return to England in 1852, and which Barnard Davis purchased from GA Robinson’s widow in 1867. Davis’ descriptions of this material clearly identify the works as having been executed by Thomas Bock.
The production date is based on Plomley (1991:35). Davis's catalogue for this drawing and number 21 (Oc 2006, Drg 73) notes: these two drawings were most likely executed by Bock, but I don't know.
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
2017-2018 06 Dec– 11 Mar, Birmingham, Ikon Gallery, Thomas Bock
2018 11 May - 28 July, Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, The National Picture
2018 17 Aug- 09 Nov, Hobart, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Thomas Bock
- Window mounted, in good condition.
- Acquisition notes
- This was probably part of the collection of artworks and ethnographic objects which Joseph Barnard Davis (q.v.) acquired from Robinson's widow in the 1860s, and which AW Franks (q.v.) later purchased for the British Museum at the auction sale of Davis's estate in 1883.
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Additional IDs
Miscellaneous number: 20 (Davis Catalogue MS 145 RAI 1867)
Miscellaneous number: Oc2006-Drg72-Boc