Terre de Diemen. Ouriaga (Young Tasmanian man from Bruny Island)

Portrait of the young man Ouriaga, probably first sketched by Petit during Baudin’s visit to Partridge Island, off the south-east Tasmanian coast, on 14th January 1802. The plate is from the first edition of the Baudin voyage account.

Petit’s portraits represent the most compassionate yet honest portrayal of indigenous persons to be seen in any of the early voyage accounts. Regarding the Tasmanian portraits in particular Andrew Sayers has noted that they were ‘sensitive portraits of individuals’ which shows ‘ a determination to record the details of coiffure and cicatrisation,’ producing a ‘truth unusual in the depiction of Australia’s indigenous people in the early nineteenth century’ (Sayers, Australian Art, p. 28).

Certainly, this portrait of Ouriaga is a valuable ethnographic record, showing the young man’s hair ornamented with red ochre, a kangaroo skin covering wrapped over the shoulder and a repeated pattern of cicatrices on his arms. Baudin commented on the tremendous resilience of the Bruny Island Aborigines to cold and physical hardship, with little more than a single kangaroo pelt against the elements.