ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Newland’s Pacific daguerreotypes. Produced in the narrow window of time from late 1847 to early 1848, these were the last additions to complete the Gallery before its first viewing in Sydney. The magic lantern and accessories would wait in the downtown warehouse of shipping agents J. T. Armitage & Co. on King Street, Sydney, for close to five months before Newland had caught up with them, having traversed the Pacific aboard the trading vessel Sarah Ann. Settlers in Sydney and Hobart may have seen the The Illustrated London News or Pictorial Times sketches of Pomare before they examined Newland’s daguerreotype, but they were less likely to share these papers’ disaffection with the Tahitian Affair. The ‘success’ of the Queen’s image is implied to be in its conjuring of emotion for the religiously and politically assaulted state rather than its capture of a physiognomic likeness. Indeed, her appearance remained unphotographed until Newland’s 1847 daguerreotype.
