Curio

State Library of New South Wales
B.O. Holtermann with the Holtermann nugget, Hill End

B.O. Holtermann with the Holtermann nugget, Hill End

1870-1875
Glass photonegative

Most photographs of Holtermann posing with the gold specimen named after him are montages of two or more photographs. However, this image is genuine. Close examination of the negative shows that it is a copy of the original, with extensive retouching on+D12 the emulsion side. Holtermann may not have liked the awkward perspective of his feet and commissioned Charles Bayliss to make the later montages.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 25 1872

On Friday night last, the largest and richest specimen this colony has produced, I suppose, was taken from the claim of Beyers and Holtermann... I went, together with nearly the whole town, to look at it. The claim was like a fair, and a regular stream of people threaded the steep packing tracks lending down to it. [Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 25 1872]