John Batman, Charles Nuttall, Illustration, Photography, Melbourne
Summary
A black and white photographic reproduction of Charles Nuttall's 1912 sketch of John Batman.
Nuttall's sketch is allegedly based on a portrait of Batman which in 1912 had been in the possession of his descendants, the Batman Weire family. Given that no portrait of Batman was made during his lifetime this image is widely used as an accurate depiction of Batman. However, the authenticity of the sketch has recently been questioned. Historians Bain Attwood and Helen Doyle have argued that the sketch is more likely to be based off Frederick William Woodhouse's imagined depiction of Batman in his 1861 painting 'The First Settlers Discover Buckley.' The original sketch is held in the State Library of Victoria Collection where it is noted that the sketch has "the character of a generic illustration, rather than an accurate portrait of a specific individual."
