where the 1860s sketches led

 

I've been checking out 1860s men's fashions and imagining these gentlemen are on their way to the orchestra at the exhibition building where a fellow patron will sketch their profile in a moment of idleness/boredom/romantic yearning.

1860 sketches

I was looking through programmes for work yesterday and came across this page of sketches on the back of a Melbourne Philharmonic Society programme from 1860. The drawings are very fine, mostly in faint pencil on delicate, thin paper. I wonder who drew them and if they are sketches of other members of the audience. Finding a page like this is why I like working in museums.