Kelly & Cussen's Pearl Shelling Station on Prince of Wales Island, Torres Straits 1897

These two works — Kelly & Cussen's and O'Hagan & McAlister's — depict pearl-shelling stations located on islands in the Torres Strait near Thursday Island. When Jenner immigrated to Australia in 1883, his first Australian port of call was Thursday Island, where the RMS Roma briefly docked on 17 September. As the main port in the Torres Strait for the pearling industry, it would have been a remarkable sight for the new emigrants: pearl luggers, pearl shell traders and divers at work from many nations, including the Torres Strait, Malaya, the Philippines and Polynesia.

Prince of Wales Island and Friday Island are visible from Thursday Island, so Jenner may have made observations and sketches while stretching his sea legs after the long journey. Likely, the RMS Roma sailed close to the stations seen in these paintings while enroute to Thursday Island. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pearl shelling was an essential industry in Queensland, supplying European markets with the highly sought-after commodity.

QAGOMA conservationists cleaned and restored this painting in 2022–23, as seen in the before–after slider below.