Actor Barry Sullivan (1821–1891) joined a touring theatre company in his early teens and by the age of sixteen was appearing in plays alongside Charles Kean, the great Shakespearean actor of his day. Sullivan had graduated to lead roles by the mid-1840s and came to Victoria in 1862 after eighteen months in the United States. He played Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, Othello and Iago at Melbourne's Theatre Royal, and later took over as the establishment's manager. Sullivan maintained his popularity – even while Kean himself was performing in Melbourne – and was warmly farewelled on his departure from Victoria in 1866.
English photographer William Davies arrived in Melbourne in the 1850s and by 1862 he was trading as 'Davies & Co.' from premises opposite the Theatre Royal. Like many other Melbourne studios, Davies made the most of his location in the entertainment district, producing cartes de visite of Sullivan and other performers for sale to their adoring audiences.
Purchased 2018
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
This sample of 56 photographs takes in some of the smallest photographs we own and some of the largest, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, as well as multiple photographic processes from daguerreotypes to digital media.
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