Historical information

Photo - Bertha Leviny (seated centre) with five of her daughters L-R: Gertrude, Hilda, Mary (standing), Dorothy and Kate. Her grandson James Leviny is at Bertha's knee. The pet dog is an Australian terrier.
Bertha was the wife of noted colonial silversmith and jeweller, Ernest Leviny. Together, they raised a family of ten children in their home Buda, Castlemaine. The five unmarried daughters pursued their interests in various creative pastimes linked with the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Significance

One of the few photographs of Bertha Leviny and her daughters taken together after the death of Bertha's husband, Ernest, a prominent Australian silversmith.
The Leviny daughters were artistic in their own right, following the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Three of the daughters entered works in the 1907 Exhibition of Women's Work held at the Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne.

Physical description

Silver gelatin, toned print. Black and white photograph of a group of six women, a child and a dog. The women are seated on and around a garden bench with the tennis pavilion in the background. All are smiling at the dog which is standing on its back legs in the foreground. The little boy's face is blurred from movement during the exposure.

Inscriptions & markings

Handwritten in ink (verso): "At Buda 1906"