Women were routinely written out of Australia’s colonial imagery by painters such as Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Afghan Trader stands apart for bringing them forward – not as symbols or background figures, but as active participants in daily life on the West Australian goldfields.
Josephine painted the scene while visiting her brother, Edwin Parnell Muntz, who was a civil engineer working in Coolgardie, Western Australia. She based the scene on her sister-in-law, Christine Fyffe Muntz, and two nieces bartering with a travelling hawker.
Unlike the genteel interiors where her female sitters often read or sewed, here they face the grit and realities of life on the edge of the desert. In this portrayal of a woman raising children in outback Australia, Josephine found ‘an original, yet inherently Australian, slice of life’.1
Afghan Trader: The watercolour study
Before completing the well-known oil painting, Josephine Muntz Adams developed Afghan Trader in watercolour.
Unlike the finished oil, this study has a ghost-like softness, with figures and forms only loosely suggested – more an impression recalled than a scene observed.
