Description
Rare early c.19th aquatint by John Lewin of New South Wales aborigines smoking out possums.
John Heaviside Clark is named as the artist at lower left, although it is known that the original sketches were made by John Lewin as Clark was just a commercial artist working in London whose only contact with Australia was through earlier prints he had engraved. His contribution to this work consisted in turning the original sketches into finished drawings. “..they are justly celebrated and are without question the most attractive and sympathetic of the early depictions of the native inhabitants.” Wantrup
