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Thanks for the feedback which I took as an opportunity to interogate the Legacies of British Slave-ownership database <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/> I looked up all the names mentioned so far but regrettably none bore any fruit, for me. So, I guess this will continue to be an interguing and engimatic piece. Cheers Michael Michael Ohajuru <Http://about.me/michaelohajuru> 079 40 50 79 00 On 19 June 2013 11:24, Jon Stratton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi Jan, > with reference to your question about how a painting from the > Caribbean might have ended up in Australia, this extract from Wikipedia's > entry on St Lucia, a suburb of Brisbane, might be of interest. I believe > that a number of sugar planters moved to Queensland. > Jon > > 'Sugar plantations were established in the area in the 1860s. The suburb > derives its name from William Alexander Wilson, who purchased and > subdivided one of the plantations for housing in the 1880s. Wilson, born in > St Lucia in the West Indies, named the housing estate St Lucia because the > cane plantations in the area reminded him of those in his country of birth.' > > ________________________________________ > From: The Black and Asian Studies Association [[log in to unmask]] on > behalf of Jan Marsh [[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Wednesday, 19 June 2013 6:09 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Any Ideas? > > it looks to me more a portrait of the parrot than the lad - that is, it's > not firstly a portrait of him, although the artist will have painted from a > model who had been 'cast' in this role and dressed appropriately. > however, the model probably didn't pose with the bird, as it is not really > perching on his hand, and the parrot could well have been painted from a > stuffed specimen or an ornithological illustration. > Pictures of attractive young attendants exotically costumed are quite > common and the genre persisted well into 20th century. > if the parrot species can be identified, this would help in guessing > where the painting was produced. Another clue is possibly in the > provenance not from Francis Peek but Lady Peek [his wife?] and more > specifically her father Robert Kirkwood who was Jamaican-born chair of > Jamaica Sugar Manufacturers and significant figure there . if the parrot > is Caribbean and the landscape background also, then the picture could have > been done in / or for Jamaican market. how did it fetch up in Australia? >