© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
The Payne family, 1888-1889
A Flegeltaub
Portrait, albumen photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John McPhee 2018
Joshua Payne
Biography
Joshua Payne (1810–1889), engraver and die-sinker, arrived in Adelaide around 1849 and was soon after employed by the Adelaide Assay Office.
1 portrait in the collection
The Singer, 2012
by Richard Payne
Image
Portrait of Joshua Payne Esq., 1840
Daniel Byrne
Portrait, watercolour and gouache on ivory in leather bound case
Purchased 2009
Dame Nellie Melba GBE
Biography
Dame Nellie Melba GBE (1861–1931), world-renowned soprano, was born Helen Porter Mitchell in Melbourne.
8 portraits in the collection
Dame Nellie Melba, c. 1890
Walery
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Portrait sketch of Nellie Melba, 1902
Hugh Ramsay
Portrait, oil on canvas
Gift of the Mitchell Family and the Fullerton Family 2000
Dame Nellie Melba,
an unknown artist
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Dame Nellie Melba, n.d.
Aime Dupont
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Dame Nellie Melba, c. 1901
Rupert Bunny
Portrait, pencil on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Madame Melba, 1922
Harold Cazneaux
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Purchased 2015
Fame or celebrity?
About Face article
A question lately cropped up in connection with Madame Melba as to whether fame and celebrity are not essentially the same thing. My feeling is that they are different.
Nellie Melba, 1898
Ernest Walter Histed
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Doodles of the Diva
Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010
Three tiny sketches of Dame Nellie Melba in the NPG collection were created by the artist who was to go on to paint the most imposing representation of the singer: Rupert Bunny.
Pretty in peach
Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008
It's remarkable that the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond has produced two of Australia's most successful opera singers. Three decades apart, but within a short distance of each other, both Helen Porter Mitchell and Florence Wilson were born.
Suave
Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010
Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.