Whanganui exhibition hunting for look-alikes in Victorian-era portraits

Collection assistant Kathy Greensides and archivist Sandi Black with the Harding print titled ‘Mrs Morgan and child’. Photo / Karen Hughes

Whanganui residents could rediscover lost ancestors with the help of facial recognition software in a new portrait exhibition.

National Library curator Dr Fiona Oliver said the staff at the Whanganui Regional Museum had already recognised “a few faces” in the Victorian-era portraits by William Harding.

“What we’re really hoping for is that people in this community might notice in these portraits some of their own relatives.”

Visitors are able to take a selfie photograph using a camera with facial recognition software, which then matches their features with the ‘best likeness’ in the collection of over 6,500 portraits.

“I’ve seen people bring in an old photo of their relative on their phone and hold it up to the camera and it still works,” Oliver said.

“You can test to see if your great-great-grandmother is in the collection.”

The exhibition, Between Skin & Shirt: The photographic portraits of William Harding, is on show until February next year and displays artistic portraits taken by Harding in the Whanganui region between 1856 and 1888.

Harding operated from a studio out of Ridgway Street for 33 years.

Most of the portraits Harding took were for commission and used to make visiting cards, which were popular at the time.

“For many of the people in these portraits, it would have been the only time in their life they would have had their photo taken.

“Not only was he technically amazing, he was also artistic, and the photos he took are full of expression and give you a complete sense of the person.

“It’s very surprising because in some, the subjects are looking distracted or their clothes are wonky, they’re sad and unsmiling - but that would have been their only picture because it was all they could afford.”

Oliver said there were many portraits of babies or young children but their mothers would be hidden from the shot or behind sheets, as was the tradition of the time.

Despite the fact it was common practice, Harding also never retouched the portraits after they had been taken.

It was “pretty miraculous” the glass plate negatives had survived because the collection was almost destroyed when Harding moved to Sydney.

“His sight was failing and he had sold the business, but luckily the Whanganui museum and his distant relative rescued the photos from being dumped,” Oliver said.

“But because the collection was rescued and not documented, we don’t know a lot of people’s names in the pictures.”

The iwi and hapū connections of Māori in the portraits had also been lost.

Oliver hoped these missing links could be rediscovered over the course of the exhibition.

“We’re really grateful to the museum for the opportunity to perhaps find out the identity of some of these people.”

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.