“If I was to select just one lot we have sold this year,” says John Albrecht, managing director at Leonard Joel. “it would be the haunting, period photo of Australia’s infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly, taken in 1874 after a boxing match.”
As the story goes, Ned Kelly was imprisoned in 1871 after being caught riding a stolen horse that had been given to him as a ‘gift’ by Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright. On his release three years later Kelly was determined to settle the score and so challenged and beat Wright in a 20-round bare-knuckle fight at Beechworth Gaol.