“Sketches taken during my Voyages & Travels. E.A. Porcher.”, circa 1860?

This drawing, a frontispiece study for an unpublished publication or collection, combines visual elements from select locations of Porcher’s travel, repeating motifs from his own work. Depicted are scenes from Australia (Aboriginal Australians or Torres Strait Islanders, upper left corner), Burma (stupa, center), India (elephant and howdah, lower right corner), Hong Kong (Chinese junk, center), the Middle East (scene from Tunisia or Libya, lower left). The albatross, while possibly a reference to Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, could also be a quotation of Porcher’s watercolor “The Wandering Albatross of the Indian Ocean, July 1842,” (National Library of Australia). An erased signature “H.S. Melville” at bottom right matches existing signatures by Harden S. Melville.