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This paper presents a detailed analysis of the perplexing painting Boy with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo.Unfortunately, there is little information on the provenance of the portrait, including the identity of the artist, sitter and patron. It will be argued that it is the work of Augustus Earle and that it is a portrait of Daniel Cooper II and was commissioned by his uncle, also named Daniel Cooper. The aim of this article is to start to unravel the ambiguities of the image, and I suggest that the painting is a strong statement on the rights of freed convicts in Australian colonial society.Boy with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo (Fig. 1) is a baffling painting. Odd and idiosyncratic, for many years it has been surrounded by conjecture and debate. This paper will attempt to explain some of the enigmatic qualities of Boy with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo and demonstrate that even in a portrait as seemingly innocent as a boy feeding a bird we can detect references to the political disputes of the era. It will be argued that the painting is the work of the travel artist Augustus Earle, who arrived in Sydney in May 1825 and left over three years later in October 1828. During his sojourn, Earle gained a keen understanding of local politics; his paintings, drawings and engravings reveal that he was involved in a range of issues surrounding social and class divisions. 1 He was aware of the political manoeuvres in the fledgling colony and I will contend that this work was immersed in the power struggles taking place in Sydney.

The natives are extremely fond of painting, and often sit hours by me when at work.' Thomas Watling, Letters from an Exile at Botany Bay (1793)In 1793, the artist Thomas Watling wrote to his aunt in Scotland and described his unhappy experience of living in the colony of New South Wales. 1 As a disgruntled convict, Watling was far from impressed with his new surroundings; little escaped his diatribe, from the dull landscape to the unfair policies of the Governor. While Watling's words are cheerless and dismissive of the fledgling community at Sydney Cove, they still offer us tantalising insights into colonial life, particularly regarding the colonisers' interactions with the local inhabitants.When Watling writes about the 'hours' that the 'natives' would sit with him and watch him work, he conjures up an intriguing scene of people from vastly different worlds sitting calmly together and observing each other. Watling noted that it is 'no small compliment' to the art of painting that it is found in different countries, observing that 'several rocks round us have outr e figures engraven in them'. 2 But such glimpses fuel further questions: Who were these Aborigines? Why were they so fascinated by Watling's work? Could these moments of contact have changed the relationship between people who were of such different cultural backgrounds?This article analyses the portraits of Aborigines produced by artists working in Australia during the first two decades of the European settlement of New South Wales, concentrating on the period from 1788 through to the start of the nineteenth century. The images are examined in relation to European colonisation and Enlightenment thinking, as well as via an attempt to gauge the perspective of the sitters. The study is limited to portraits (as opposed representations of a 'type', or unnamed, anonymous, generic figures), because portraits inherently involve negotiation between the artist and sitter, and the nature of this exchange is the focus of this study. The portrait is analysed as a relic of encounter, an object that has survived historical vagaries and is the product of a particular meeting at a particular time. A portrait arguably captures a more

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