The more than 100-year-old portraits of David Anderson Jolly and his wife, Mary Emily, were given to Mr Jolly by his relative, Mary, when he first visited Dunedin more than 30 years ago.
Mary Jolly, the daughter of David and his first wife Annie, was a leading member of the Dunedin Repertory Society and lived in Dunedin until her death in 2004.
Mr Jolly's father, Harold, attended Otago Boys High School before moving north and never returned to Dunedin.
Mr Jolly has never lived in Dunedin but is here for the next few weeks directing the Fortune Theatre's play Lucky Numbers, and decided to bring the portraits with him from Wellington.
He has offered to donate them to the Otago Settlers Museum.
"This is where the pictures should be," he said.
David Jolly was the mayor of the borough of Cromwell on four occasions.
He was born at Arbroath, Scotland, in 1842, and led a seafaring life before arriving at Port Chalmers aboard Aboukir.
In 1862, he went to Gabriels Gully for the gold rush before founding his business, D. A. Jolly and Sons, a general store, in 1869.
He married in 1869, but his first wife died in April 1875, leaving two sons and one daughter.
In 1877, he remarried and had three sons and three daughters.
The Jolly family moved to Dunedin, where they ran the Provincial Hotel.
Otago Settlers Museum director Linda Wigley said the museum would be interested in looking at the portraits.
The museum has a special gallery, the Smith Gallery, where portraits of early settlers are displayed.
- sarah.harvey@odt.co.nz
