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Art history is replete with works whose prior existence is affirmed only by text, most commonly through titles and descriptions in catalogues, but also by passing mentions in other sources. A significant Australian colonial illustration of this phenomenon of textually surviving lost art concerns ‘Several Paintings on Panel’, described in detail by a colonial witness, which depict scenes intended to convey government messages to Indigenous Tasmanians during the Vandemonian War. These descriptions do not match the better known and frequently reproduced Tasmanian Picture Boards, typified in Figure 1, which survive in several archives around the world and have been the subject of considerable study and commentary. Their iconographical recovery is, we argue, an important correction to the imagery of frontier relations in 1820s and 1830s Van Diemen’s Land specifically and colonial Australia more generally.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	history, Australia, Tasmania
Research Division:	History and Archaeology
Research Group:	Historical Studies
Research Field:	Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History)
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology
Author:	Brodie, ND (Dr Nicholas Brodie)
Author:	Harman, K (Dr Kristyn Harman)
ID Code:	123432
Year Published:	2017
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Humanities
Deposited On:	2018-01-08
Last Modified:	2018-03-07
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