Implements of New South Wales Aborigines. Antique print c1789

by Debrett, John

Australian Aboriginal Hunting Implements of New South Wales: A War Spear, Stick, Spear or Gig, Hatchet, blunt Sword other Sticks and a Basket... with 2 descriptive text pages.

Rare original copperplate engraving for the Surgeon-General of the First Fleet and Settlement in Australia, John White's Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales published in London by J. Debrett in 1789-1790. As well as being Surgeon-General of the British settlement at Port Jackson, White was an avid amateur naturalist who sent a collection of natural history specimens to England in mid-1789. Sarah Stone drew forty-nine of the sixty-five specimens that were then engraved by five London nature artists, Frederick Nodder, Charles Catton Jr., Edward Kennion, Mortimer, and Stone herself.

The Journal was published in black and white, so this finely hand-coloured engraving was tinted at a later date. 
Size of page: 28 x 22cm (11 x 8.5 inches)