Marvellous page from a scrap book with a captivating scene depicting "Natives pursuing Kangaroos in the neighbourhood of Sydney…".

Marvellous page from a scrap book with a captivating scene depicting "Natives pursuing Kangaroos in the neighbourhood of Sydney…".

We have still not been able to identify the name of the album from which the sheet was taken, but it is interesting to speculate as to the original source image. One plausible contender is the scene of "Natives of Botany Bay" from Phillip's Voyage (1789), but perhaps the most likely is the "Hunting the Kangaroo" plate published in Foreign Field Sports (1813). The warrior at far left certainly bears some resemblance to the latter, although it has to be said that the second warrior and the background are both very different, as are the kangaroos, one with a pair of joeys peeking from her pouch. The shape of the kangaroos is based on the illustration by George Stubbs, painted from a skin provided by Sir Joseph Banks and was used in the published account of Cook's first voyage to the Pacific.

On the verso is a bloodthirsty scene from the same series, "A Lion attacking a herd of Zebras".

This is a rare image. The State Library of New South Wales lists an uncoloured sheet, while the Nan Kivell collection has a coloured version (NK 1350); the latter was exhibited in the World Upside Down in 2000, where the tentative date of circa 1820 was suggested. Our example has very similar but not identical colouring to the Nan Kivell copy.