Unique piece of social history found

A lost series of candid photographs, featuring the little-documented and much speculated turn-of-the-century femme fatal Lady Emily Powney, has been found in a private collection of historical papers and cigarette cases. Lady Powney, who was thought to be perhaps the most feared and influential scarlet woman of late Victorian Melbourne, reputedly lived a life of opulence, hedonism and free love, long before such things became the social norm. The discovery is a coup for feminist historians, who will display the full series of Lady Powney’s photographs to a paying audience of mature adults in an undisclosed private gallery.

Powney, who was born in Cornwall sometime in the mid 1870s, travelled to Australia aboard the Spanish merchant vessel El Muchachos and settled into a life of teen debauchery and laneway abortions. By 1890 however, she had mysteriously become one of Victoria’s most sought-after ladies of the night, often charging discerning gentlemen (and some well endowed women) outrageous sums for the pleasure of her companionship. Emily Powney soon wooed a courtly widower, Sir Alfred Tuxomley, whom she promptly married in a private and suspicious ceremony behind what is now the Carlton commission flats. Tuxomley, 84, who earned his fortune stealing the children of Chinese gold prospectors and selling them back at inflated prices, died soon after the wedding (it was reportedly less than 72 hours after the nuptials) , leaving Powney the title ‘Lady’, and his sprawling estate in Toorak. From there, Powney is thought to have started Australia’s first Casino, wild-west themed Burlesque, and Cuban cigar importation business.

Little is known of what happened to her after the age of 30; some believe she buried herself alive under the stables on her property; others speculate that she was entertaining gentlemen visitors well into the 1950s. Whatever it was, the newly discovered photographs of Lady Powney assure that her enduring notoriety as a pioneer Modern Woman, and her disturbingly plunging neckline, will neigh be forgotten.

The exhibitions opens soon (rated X).

posted by S. Elliott @ 6:59 pm