Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4070 Private (Pte) Italo Cesari, 23rd Battalion. A grocer from Sorrento, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Cesari embarked with the 10th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. Following his arrival in England he developed eczema and returned to Australia on 4 May 1917 and was medically discharged. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers' notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative.