Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) Sicilian Landscape with Monastery in an Olive Grove, 1846 signed and dated lower left: 'Eugen v. Guérard / 1846' oil on canvas 42.0 x 57.0cm (16 9/16 x 22 7/16in).
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD 1811-1901 From Our Apartment in Collins Street, Melbourne 1854 oil on card on board signed ‘E. v. Guérard' lower left; inscribed ‘Von unserem Wohnung im Collins. St. bei Arkitecht Webb. 1854.' lower right 15.7 x 25.2 cm PROVENANCE Eugene von Guérard, Melbourne Private Collection, United States of America Paintings, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 13 November 1990, lot 62A Graham Joel, Melbourne, acquired from the above Private Collection, Melbourne, by descent from the above EXHIBITED A Distinguished Private Collection of Australian Art, Smith & Singer (trading as Sotheby's Australia), Melbourne, 25 February – 8 March 2013, no. 89, illustrated LITERATURE Geoffrey Smith and David Hansen, A Distinguished Private Collection of Australian Art, Smith & Singer (trading as Sotheby's Australia), Melbourne, 2013, pp. 16 (illustrated), 102
EUGENE VON GUERARD 1811-1901 Mr Andrew Wittle's Residence at Apollo Bay with Cape Patton in Distance 1859 oil on board signed and dated 'Eug. v. Guérard 1859' lower centre left; inscribed 'with Cape Patton in distance' verso 23 x 30.5 cm PROVENANCE Eugene von Guérard, Melbourne Mr A. White, Victoria, by 1869 Private Collection, New Zealand Denis Savill, Sydney, acquired from the above Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Block Gallery and Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne Fine Australian Paintings, Sotheby's Australia, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 55, illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Works of Art, Ornamental and Decorative Art, Melbourne Public Library & Museum, Melbourne, March - June 1869, no. 549, 'View of Apollo Bay' Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Australian Paintings, The Block Gallery and Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 1978, no. 7, '(Linesman's Hut) with Cape Patton in Distance', illustrated On long-term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong, 2000 - 2002 Eugene von Guérard: Artist-Traveller, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 24 March - 27 May 2018 (label verso) LITERATURE Art and Australia, The Fine Arts Press, Sydney, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring, September 1978, p. 22 (illustrated), 'Cape Patton, Victoria' Candice Bruce, Edward Comstock and Frank McDonald, Eugene von Guerard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, New Zealand, 1982, cat. no. 45 and cat. no. 123, 'View of Apollo Bay', plate 21, pp. 112, 113 (illustrated), 205 (illustrated), 206, 249
Eugen von Guérard (1811 - 1901 ibid.): View of a fort, c. 1840, Watercolor Technique: Watercolor on Paper Inscription: Lower middle inscribed on the support: "Eugen v Guérard (1811-". Date: c. 1840 Description: The artwork portrays a tranquil, bucolic landscape into which a river landscape with lush vegetation nestles. In the foreground, figures on horseback wade through the water, suggesting a harmonious connection between man and nature. A medieval castle is enthroned on a high rocky plateau, surrounded by gentle hills that merge into the distant mountain horizon, creating an illusion of depth. The composition is characterised by finely crafted details and subtle colour transitions. Keywords: Landscape painting; river; vegetation; horses; figures; castle; rocky plateau; hills; mountains; depth; detail; illusion of depth; nature; colour transitions; Middle Ages; harmony; composition; academic; artwork, 19th century, Romanticism, Landscape, Germany,
JOHANN JOSEPH EUGEN VON GUERARD (1811 - 1901), Source of the Wannon, colour lithograph, signed in the plate lower left, image size 34 x 50cm; framed 50 x 67cm.
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 - 1901) VIEW OF CAPRI NEAR NAPLES, 1883 oil on canvas 48.0 x 72.0 cm signed lower right: E. v. Guérard inscribed on stretcher bar verso: View of Capri taken from the Punta di Tragara PROVENANCE Fletcher’s Art Gallery, Melbourne Thomas Shaw, Wooriwyrite, Victoria, acquired from the above in 1884 Thence by descent Private collection Sotheby's, Melbourne, 17 April 1989, lot 382 Henry and Dinah Krongold, Melbourne The Estate of Paul Krongold, Melbourne EXHIBITED Victoria Jubilee Exhibition, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, November 1884 – January 1885, cat. 185, lent by Thomas Shaw Eugen von Guérard, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 7 June – 13 July 1980 and touring; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, August 1980; Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, September - October 1980; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, November 1980 and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, December 1980 - January 1981 LITERATURE Letter von Guerard to James Smith, 28 May 1883, James Smith Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Letter von Guerard to James Smith, 24 May 1884, James Smith Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Bruce, C., Eugen von Guérard, Australian National Gallery & Director's Council, Canberra, 1980, p. 118 (illus.) Bruce, C., Comstock, E., and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor, Sydney, 1982, pl. 47, p. 162 RELATED WORK Capri 12 März 82, pen and ink over pencil, Sketchbook XXXX, 1882, 1891, in the collection of State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, DGB16 v. 17: 10 Sketchbook VI, 1835 & 1836, Capri, in the collection of State Library of New South Wales, Sydney DGB14, vol. 8. Capri, pencil, 1 May 1838 Capri, pencil, 2 May 1838 Abendlandschaft von der Insel Capri, 1846, oil on canvas, 75.0 x 103.5 cm, private collection View from the ruins of the Villa di Tiberio looking across to Punto di Campanella and Monte Solaro / View from the western part of the island of Capri from the temple of Tiberius, 1885, oil on canvas Capri: A view of Marina Piccola with Point Faraglione in the distance, 1884/1885, oil on canvas ESSAY Eugene von Guérard, one of Australia's greatest landscape painters, was captivated by the light and rugged beauty of the fabled island of Capri. He longed to share the magic of the place he had known so well in his youth with his wife Louise and their daughter Victoria and, on 26 February 1882, the von Guérard family sailed into the Bay of Naples in the ‘most magnificent sunshine’ and on a sea ‘as flat as spilt oil.’1 They stayed at the ‘new Hotel du Vesuve’ (the now legendary Grand Hotel Vesuvio) which, ‘although dearer is in a very beautiful position at Castel del Ovo.’2 It was not far from the Strada Piliero where von Guérard and his artist-father Bernard had lived in the mid-1830s. Von Guérard, Louise and Victoria spent almost a month in Naples visiting the ‘sights of the city and surroundings most worth seeing’ – including the mesmerisingly beautiful island of Capri, a place steeped in history and richly interwoven with literary and artistic associations.3 On 12 March 1882, as they explored the island, von Guérard sketched the view from close to the vantage point of the present work (Fig. 1). View of Capri near Naples, 1883 was painted the following year in his studio in Düsseldorf. Von Guérard had first visited the island with his father in the summer of 1835. The ever-growing stream of northern painters and writers drawn to the island in the early nineteenth century included von Guérard's associate, the influential Arnhem-born School of Posillipo painter, Anton Sminck Pitloo. The young artist would also have been well aware of August Kopisch's famed discovery of the Blue Grotto in 1826, and of the visits made by German and Scandinavian artists such as Ernst Fries, Leo von Klenze, Johann Christian Dahl, Franz Catel and Carl Morgenstern – all of whom were captivated by the light, intense colour and natural beauty of Capri. In May 1838, just before he left Naples for Düsseldorf to study at its famous Academy, von Guérard made a farewell visit to Capri. The luminous Abendlandschaft von der Insel Capri (Evening Landscape on the island of Capri) of 1846 (Fig 2.) – a work that attracted strong interest when it was presented by Deutscher and Hackett on 15 July 2020 – was based on two finely detailed, light and spacious drawings that date from the 1838 visit. View of Capri near Naples portrays the same stretch of coastline as that in the 1846 painting – the view looking towards Monte Solaro and Anacapri from Capri. For the present composition, however, von Guérard positioned himself closer to the coast and further around and along the Marina Piccola. From this vantage point, on the Punta di Tragara, he could look directly across the water to the dramatic cliff formations that are the subject of the painting. Here the abstract forms of the island's complex topography and the irregular surfaces of the spectacularly eroded dolomite and limestone cliffs are emphasised by the contrasts between light and the shadow cast by the low rays of the setting sun. Von Guérard's lifetime fascination with – and knowledge of – geology is evident in his depiction of the worn limestone with its surface layers of volcanic ash and tufa, the exposed outcrops of rock along the ridgelines and the caverns eroded by rain and the action of the sea. This stretch of the Capri coastline was already one of the most famous views on the island: here we share the experience of being there with a small party of tourists relaxing on the belvedere in the foreground on the right. Further along, the fourteenth century Carthusian Monastery, Certosa, sits at the top of a steep coastal cliff, and beyond it, famous landmarks of the township of Capri can be identified, notably the domed seventeenth-century church of San Stefano. Von Guérard knew the architecture and layout of the township of Capri well, having recorded it with minute precision in 1838: we are invited to take a virtual stroll into the town, or to share the awe of the tiny figures on the grassy ledge below the monastery as they take in the magnitude of the soaring rock walls bathed in the pink, almost crepuscular, light of a sunset slipping into evening. These minute and lively observations are integrated into a work of uplifting breadth, one based on strong compositional geometry and unified by light. View of Capri near Naples was one of nine works that, in 1884, von Guérard sent to Melbourne to be sold by the successful Collins Street art dealer Alexander Fletcher. It quickly found a buyer in Thomas Shaw, whose Western District pastoral property, 'Wooriwyrite' near Camperdown, von Guérard had first visited and sketched in 1857. View of Capri near Naples was shown at the 1884 Victorian Jubilee Exhibition, on loan from Shaw. Von Guérard remained captivated by the subject of Capri: he painted Capri: A view of Marina Piccola with Point Faraglione in the distance in late in 1884 or early 1885, and the beautiful, light-infused View from the ruins of the Villa di Tiberio looking across to Punto di Campanella and Monte Solaro in 1885. 1. Von Guérard to Julius von Haast 14 April 1884. Haast Family Papers, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, in Darragh, T., & Pullin, R., Lieber Freund! Letters from Eugen von Guérard to Julius von Haast, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, 2018, p. 56. 2. ibid. 3. ibid. DR RUTH PULLIN
EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901) Ferntree Gully, Dandenong Ranges, Victoria lithograph signed in plate: Eug. v. Guerard with printed text on margin 33 x 51cm
GUÉRARD, EUGEN VON 1811 Vienna - 1901 London Title: Sicilian Landscape with Monastery in an Olive Grove. Technique: Oil on canvas. Measurement: 43 x 57cm. Notation: Signed lower left: Eugen v. Guérard / 1846. Frame: Framed. Provenance: Private ownership, Germany. One of the students of the Düsseldorf Academy who went out into the world and spread the Düsseldorf style was Eugen Guérard, who was born in Vienna. At the age of 41, he went to Australia for almost thirty years, founded a drawing school and later, as curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, shaped the teaching and style of the art school there. At a young age, he travelled for three years through southern Italy and Sicily with his father, the painter Bernard von Guérard. The sketches he made there form the basis and inspiration for the landscape shown here from 1846. Explanations to the Catalogue
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 - 1901) MOUNT ARAPILES TOWARDS THE GRAMPIANS, 1870 oil on academy board 18.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initials and dated lower right edge: E. V. G. / 29.1.70. bears inscription on frame verso: Left Hand side of Arapiles / … / A VIEW FROM MOUNT ARAPILES / WIMMERA DISTRICT / VICTORIA AUSTRALIA / ? 1868 PROVENANCE Hon. J. A. Macpherson, Victoria Thence be descent to the present owner, United Kingdom RELATED WORK [View from Arapiles and plant studies], 1868, pencil on paper, folio 36, Sketchbook XXXVI, in the collection of State Library of New South Wales, Sydney The Mitre Rock and Lake from Mount Arapiles, 1874, oil on canvas, 61.2 x 106.8 cm, private collection, illus. in Bruce, C., Comstock, E., & McDonald, F., Eugene von Guerard 1811 – 1901: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor Publishers, New Zealand, 1982, pl. 41, p. 150 ESSAY Eugene von Guérard’s Mount Arapiles towards the Grampians has not been on public view for the past 152 years. It was painted in January 1870 for The Hon. John Alexander MacPherson (see Lot 17), during his brief term as the seventh Premier of Victoria.1 The connection between the artist and his patron firmed during the 1870s when von Guérard was, in effect, the first director of the National Gallery of Victoria and MacPherson a founding trustee of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery of Victoria. In 1876, MacPherson commissioned a second work from von Guérard, this time a reprise of an important 1864 composition depicting Gippsland’s Snowy Bluff, a subject sketched by the artist when, in 1860 he accompanied Alfred Howitt on a government-sponsored expedition.2 MacPherson’s version of View of the Snowy Bluff in the Valley of the Wonnangatta, Gippsland, 1876, which received a glowing review in the Argus, is now in the Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.3 For MacPherson, one of the appeals of the view of the Grampians from Mount Arapiles may have been that, as noted by von Guérard, it looked towards Dundas, his electorate between 1866 and 1878.4 Von Guérard spent four days sketching at Mount Arapiles in October 1868. He had long been aware of the imposing sandstone-quartzite formation that rises from the flat Wimmera Plains north-west of the Grampians (Gariwerd). Known as Dyuritte to its Traditional Owners, the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagulk peoples, it was named Mount Arapiles by the explorer Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836.5 And it was through Mitchell’s two-volume publication, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia (1839) that von Guérard discovered it.6 In the 1850s von Guérard made copies of the illustrations in Mitchell’s book, including those of the impressive and geologically significant Mount Arapiles. Then, in 1862, his fellow artist and good friend, Nicholas Chevalier, travelled to Mount Arapiles with their mutual friend, the eminent German geophysicist, Georg von Neumayer. Von Guérard had accompanied them on the first leg of the expedition, to Cape Otway. On his solo expedition to Mount Arapiles in 1868, von Guérard stayed at properties owned by the Wilson brothers –John Wilson at Woodlands, Samuel Wilson at Longerenong and Charles Wilson at Walmer – where he saw Chevalier’s paintings on the walls. At Alexander Wilson’s property, Vectis, he was reunited with one of Chevalier’s most important works, Mount Arapiles and the Mitre Rock 1863.7 St Mary’s Lake Station, a property managed for Wilson by Mr McDonald and close to Mount Arapiles, was von Guérard’s base for four days sketching on and around the mountain. On the first day, Wednesday 14 October, von Guérard sketched the view that became the subject of Mount Arapiles towards the Grampians. Along with the sketchbook drawing and a related large drawing, his experience of the day is captured in diary entries at the back of this sketchbook. After a two hour walk from the homestead, he climbed – almost certainly up Central Gully – and then ‘hand climbed’ up ‘broken and fissured rocks’ to find this viewpoint. There, despite rain which forced him to sketch from the shelter of ‘a gorge of the main rock,’ he was delighted by ‘mountainside eagles, butterflies [and] flowers.’ To the right of the main drawing he made studies, with descriptive notes, of the Weiss bluhend Erika (white-blooming erica), a star-shaped flower (the fairy waxflower?) and a bush of ‘violet to mid grey’ bell-shaped flowers ( Prostanthera rotundifolia?). Later that day, he changed position to a vantage point near the top of Central Gully and embarked on the second, larger drawing – the same outward view but framed by different cliffs. He faithfully reproduced, at top left, a distinctive sheer wall capped by twin dark horizontal breaks that climbers immediately recognise as the west-facing ‘Wind Wall’ on ‘Starless Buttress’.8 He worked ‘till 6 o’clock’ and was guided back to the station, in darkness, by shots fired by his ‘worried’ host. Von Guérard discovered the spectacular view depicted in Mount Arapiles towards the Grampians at the top of the cliffs above and to the northeast of Central Gully. From the north side of the gully, and after a scramble southeast towards the cliff edge, he settled on a vantage point from which the view to the southeast, over expansive plains that stretch towards the Grampians and Black Range. From there his view was dramatically framed by the distinctive free-standing pinnacle, Bluff Major, on the left and the cliffs on the south side of Central Gully on the right.9 The artist, with his deep and sustained interest in geological subjects, was captivated by the square stepped, blocky forms and overhangs that characterized the monumental Bluff Major. Bluff Major is typical of numerous isolated free standing and undercut pinnacles found on the east facing cliffs, their forms sculpted by wave action during the marine incursion of the late Miocene.10 On the right, the afternoon sun illuminates and casts shadows over a wall of metamorphosed ‘quartzeous sandstone’ – identified by both Mitchell and von Neumayer – highlighting the cracks and fissures in its gnarled surface. Far below, the twenty-metre high Taylor’s Rock, known to climbers as Declaration Crag, rises from the sunlit Wimmera plains like an ancient ruin. Despite its tiny presence in the landscape it is depicted with startling accuracy.11 The site has been protected since 2019, following the rediscovery of its cultural significance. Through the two figures (and their dog) in the foreground the viewer is invited to share, vicariously, the exhilaration of being perched high on this rocky outcrop, close to skies of swiftly moving clouds and soaring birds, with the plains of Mitchell’s Australia Felix stretching out far below. The attention of the standing figure has been captured by the activities of his seated companion, perhaps the artist with his sketch pad. Mount Arapiles towards the Grampians is one of two Arapiles subjects painted by the artist. The second The Mitre Rock and Lake from Mount Arapiles, like plate 31 in Mitchell’s pioneering publication, portrays the view to the northeast. It was commissioned by Melbourne banker and politician Sir George Verdon in 1874. The return of von Guérard’s Mount Arapiles towards the Grampians to the public arena brings with it new insights into the life of his politically significant patron, and his own remarkable career as the most adventurous and, arguably, the greatest landscape painter to work in Australia in the nineteenth century. 1. The family later adopted ‘Macpherson,’ with a lower case ‘p’, as the preferred form of their family name. 2. Eugene von Guérard View of the Snowy Bluff on the Wonnangatta River 1864, oil on canvas, 95.2 x 152.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria 3. Argus, 24 July 1876, p.5 4. Von Guérard, Sketchbook XXXVI, 1867-68-69-70, Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, DGB16, v. 14a, pp. [84] 5. So named because 23 July, the day Mitchell climbed the mount, was the anniversary of the Battle of Salamanca. 6. Mitchell, T.L., Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, T. & W. Boone, London, 1839, Vol II, pl. 31 and 33, p. 191 7. Nicholas Chevalier, Mount Arapiles and the Mitre Rock, 1863, National Gallery of Australia. On his visit, von Guérard looked out for Chevalier’s vantage point for both this work and View from Mount Arapiles, 1863, National Gallery of Victoria. 8. Eugene von Guérard, East south east view from the Arapiles, 14 u.16-17 Oct. 68, 1868, pencil and crayon, 35.4 x 58.3 cm. Folio 7 in album, Wimmera, Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Item 09. PXX 18. Ross Cayley, Senior Geologist, Geological Survey of Victoria, email correspondence, 2 August 2022. 9. Ross Cayley, email correspondence, 1 August, 2022. On the basis of extensive field work, Keith Lockwood, author of Arapiles: A Million Mountains, Skink Press, Natimuk, 2008, with Geoff and Maureen Little of Natimuk, independently identified the view as that looking down Central Gully to the southeast towards the Grampians and Black Range, with Taylor’s Rock in the middle distance, email correspondence, 30 July 2022. 10. Cayley, R.A and Taylor, D.H., Grampians. Special Map Area Geological Report, Geological Survey Report 107, Natural Resources and Environment, Crown (State of Victoria), 1997 , p. 19 11. Keith Lockwood, email correspondence, 27 July 2022 The author is grateful to Keith Lockwood, Geoff and Maureen Little, and Ross Cayley, for their generous assistance in identifying von Guérard’s vantage point for this painting. DR RUTH PULLIN
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD 1811-1901 The American Creek near Wollongong, N.S.W. (circa 1860) oil on board signed 'E. v. Guérard' lower left 18.1 x 23 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Melbourne PROVENANCE Eugene von Guérard, Melbourne Private Collection Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired in circa 1965 EXHIBITED Eugene von Guérard: An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints, Clune Galleries, Sydney, October 1972, no. 27, 'The American Creek near Wollongong' LITERATURE Candice Bruce, Edward Comstock and Frank McDonald, Eugene von Guerard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, New Zealand, 1982, cat. no. 54, p. 212
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 - 1901) WEST BROOK, JUNE 29, 1831, c.1860 oil on academy board 28.0 x 35.0 cm signed with initials lower right: E. v. G. inscribed with title lower centre: West brook. June 29. 1831. PROVENANCE Private collection Mr and Mrs Frank Lewis, Melbourne, acquired c.1965 Clune Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in October 1972 Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 May 1975, lot 859 Private collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 50 (dated c.1870) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Eugen Von Guerard. An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints, Clune Galleries, Sydney, October 1972, cat. 1 (as ‘Westbrook’) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 on long term loan to Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania (label attached verso) LITERATURE Bruce, C., Comstock, E., and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor, Sydney, 1982, cat. 59, p. 213 (as ‘Westbrook’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 236 ESSAY This beautifully realised work is one of the most intriguing and enigmatic of Eugene von Guérard’s entire career. Both the inscription, ‘West brook. June 29. 1831,’ and the architectural style of the house suggest an English subject. However, in 1831 von Guerard was far from England: the nineteen-year-old had just embarked on his artistic training in Rome under the Italian landscape painter, Giambattista Bassi. Although he passed through London en route to Australia in August 1852 and spent the last decade of his life there, this work cannot be linked with either period. Von Guérard’s use of the English form of ‘June’ indicates that West Brook was painted after he arrived in the English-speaking colony of Victoria, probably to fulfil a patron’s desire for an image of ‘home.’ Many in the colony would have shared the feelings of von Guérard’s close friend, the art critic James Smith, who wrote movingly and in explicit detail of his memories of his childhood home in the village of Loose in Kent.1 Von Guérard and Smith certainly shared their memories of Europe – the artist painted an Italian subject for Smith in 1859 – and while it is tempting to imagine that this work depicts Smith’s childhood home, and ‘Westbrook,’ a house that still stands in Loose, this is not supported by the visual evidence.2 West Brook, June, 29, 1831, c.1860 with its reference to a specific date, seemingly alludes to a time and place of deep personal significance for its unknown patron, and to a particular memory encapsulated in the cameo of the children playing with their dog, watched over by a couple returning from their toil in the fields visible beyond the house. Perhaps working from a verbal description or sketches provided to him, von Guérard depicted the portico, paned windows, attic and chimney pots of the stone house in meticulous detail; the firs and larches that surround the house were informed by studies in his German sketchbooks. Less typical of England are the barren peaks that rise in the distance: modelled in a palette of dusty pinks with violet shadows they are more akin to the mountains found in the artist’s Australian works, for example, A View from Mt Franklin towards Mount Kooroocheang and the Pyrenees, c. 1864. Von Guérard conveyed a sense of the evidently happy memories that were the genesis of this painting in the warmth of his palette and the similarly warm late afternoon light that washes over this bucolic scene. Every blade of grass, every wildflower and every leaf on every tree is individuated in rich strokes of pigment and, as is typical of his best works, becomes part of a unified and harmonious composition. 1. James Smith, Private Diary, 10 March 1863. Smith Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, MS 212; James Smith , ‘An English Village Fifty Years Ago’, Argus, 19 April 1879 2. Eugene von Guérard Temple of Apollo and Lake Avernus, 1859, oil on millboard, 27.8 x 35.6 cm, collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat DR RUTH PULLIN
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 - 1901) ON THE AMERICKAN CREEK NEAR WOLLONGONG, c.1859 – 61 oil on academy board 18.0 x 23.0 cm signed lower right: Guérard inscribed with title verso: On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong [sic.]/ N. S. W. bears framers’ label verso: Reeves & Sons, London bears inscription on frame verso: Bought by Lady Clarke / 1970 from / Hans Heysen Collection / Malvern Town Hall … PROVENANCE Private collection The Hans Heysen Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 18 – 19 June 1970, lot 102 (as ‘On the Amerikan Creek, near Wollongong’) Lady Clarke, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2000, lot 55 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Figures & Landscapes: Curated works from The Cbus Collection of Australian Art and the Latrobe Regional Gallery Permanent Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Bruce, C., Comstock, E., and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor, Sydney, 1982, cat. 54, p. 212 (as ‘[American Creek near Wollongong, c.1860]’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 24 (illus.) 236 RELATED WORK Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, New South Wales, 1860, oil on canvas, 51.2 x 85.5 cm, in the collection of Wollongong Art Gallery, New South Wales Figtree on American Creek near Wollongong, 1861, oil on canvas, 83.7 x 66.1 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney ESSAY Eugene von Guérard’s On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong, c.1859 – 61 is one of a group of important works inspired by the artist’s December 1859 sketching expedition to the Illawarra region of New South Wales.1 In the lush subtropical rainforest that thrived with the protection of the Illawarra escarpment in this humid coastal region 80 kilometres south of Sydney, the artist immersed himself in Alexander von Humboldt’s ‘grand theatre of tropical nature.’2 In Humboldt’s hugely influential publications the ground-breaking natural scientist had urged artists to travel to the new worlds to capture ‘the true image of the varied forms of nature … in the humid mountain valleys of the tropical world.’3 ‘Nowhere does she [nature] more deeply impress us with a sense of her greatness,’ he wrote, ‘nowhere does she speak to us more forcibly than in the tropical world.’4 In travelling into the Illawarra von Guérard followed in the footsteps of a succession of European botanists, notably Alan Cunningham, and artists, including Augustus Earle, Conrad Martens, George French Angas and, in 1859, Joseph Selleny, the Austrian artist who travelled on the Novara expedition artist with an eminent geologist, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, with whom von Guérard shared a professional association. Von Guérard’s close associate, Ferdinand von Mueller, had undertaken Humboldt-focused research there only a few years before the artist set out on his expedition.5 Of the six days von Guérard spent in the Wollongong region, Wednesday 7 December, 1859, the day the sketches associated with the present work were created, was the day of most intense activity. As the artist hacked his way through dense tropical vegetation on the American Creek – named for the Canadian cedar getters who made camp there in the 1840s – he produced ten drawings, eight in his sketchbook and two on larger sheets. And on that one highly productive day, he sketched the subjects for three of his Illawarra canvases: A Figtree on the American Creek, near Wollongong, NSW, 1861 (Art Gallery of New South Wales); Sunset, New South Wales, 1865 and On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong (both in the State Library of New South Wales). Like Sunset, New South Wales, von Guérard’s On the Americkan Creek is a composite of two drawings. By combining aspects of the view taken from two slightly different vantage points, he was able to place the waterfall in the centre of the composition and depict the towering palms – for Humboldt ‘the loftiest and most stately of all vegetable forms’ – behind it, their forms dramatically silhouetted against a fiery sunset.6 He framed his view of this dark and secluded pocket of the rainforest with a vine-covered fig-tree (one of Humboldt’s privileged subjects), and emphasized its inaccessibility with a foreground of water, rocks and a fern-covered log. The viewer’s attention is led upwards, from the light reflected on the water, to the sun directly above it, and to Humboldt’s revered ‘tall and slender’ palms with their crowns of ‘shining, fan-like, or pinnated leaves.’7 The composition is further unified by the fierce red of the tropical sunset which spreads through the work, suffusing the clouds and higher vegetation with colour, and reaching down to the depths of the forest floor. In keeping with Humboldt’s requirements of the artist, von Guérard portrayed individual species – the cabbage tree palms (Livistona Australis), the Moreton Bay Fig Ficus macrophylla, its trunk wrapped in vines and the epiphytic bird’s nest ferns (Asplenium nidus) – with botanical accuracy, in their natural groupings and in their environmental context. He also responded as an artist, the unruly vigour of tropical growth expressed in the energy of his brushwork. His experience of the ‘greatness’ of the tropical world on that particular day is captured in the tiny – just visible – figure seated on a rock to the left of the waterfall. On the Americkan Creek, like Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, New South Wales (Wollongong Art Gallery), is a record of a now largely lost passage of rainforest portrayed by one of the greatest, most environmentally aware and technically sophisticated painters of the Australian landscape. Owned by the artist Hans Heysen for many years, before passing to Lady Clarke, it has a distinguished provenance. 1. See Ruth Pullin, Eugene von Guérard: The Artist as Traveller, Ballarat Art Gallery, Ballarat, 2018, pp. 155 – 162 2. Humboldt, Alexander von, Views of Nature, or Contemplations on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation, trans. Mrs Sabine, Longmans & J. Murray, London, 1849, p. 229. (first published in German,1808) 3. Humboldt, Alexander von, Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, v.2, trans. E. C. Otté. Henry G. Bohn, London, 1849, p.452 4. Humboldt, Views of Nature…, 1849, op.cit., p. 154 5. Letter, F. Mueller to J. Foster, 10 March 1854 cited in Pullin, R. Eugene von Guérard: Nature Revealed, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, p.157 6. Humboldt, Views of Nature…,1849, op.cit., p.223 7. Ibid. DR RUTH PULLIN
Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) Capo S. Vito from Alcamo, Sicily, 1844 signed, inscribed and dated lower left: 'Eug v Guerard / Dülf 1844' oil on panel 21.0 x 33.0cm (8 1/4 x 13in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) Wannon Parsonage, c.1868 signed and inscribed lower left: 'Wannon Parsonage / After a drawing by Miss Georg. J. Mitchell / E. v. Guerard' inscribed verso: 'A Painting by Eugene von Guerard / sent to the Rev'd Dr Russell / by Georgiana J. Mitchell in / grateful remembrance of her / visit to the Wannon' oil on board 28.0 x 38.0cm (11 x 14 15/16in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 – 1901) CORTILE ANTICO NELL CONVENTO DI S. S. TRINITA DELLA CAVA, VICINO NAPOLI, 1835 watercolour on paper 18.5 x 25.0 cm signed and dated lower right: “J: v: Guérard 1835” inscribed in pencil below image: “J. v. Guérard 1835” / “Cortile antico nell convento di S.S. Trinità della Cava vicino Napoli” inscribed with title verso PROVENANCE Private collection, Germany RELATED WORK Three Preliminary Sketches, Sketchbook VI, Italy (Amalfi, La Cava, Capri, Cuma), June 1835 – July 1936, in the collection of the Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (File numbers: FL8653171, FL8653172 and FL8653174) We are grateful to Dr Ruth Pullin for her assistance with this catalogue entry. Illustrated here is the Interior of La Trinità della Cava (commonly known as Badia di Cava) – a Benedictine abbey located near Cava de’ Tirreni in the province of Salerno, Southern Italy. Located in a gorge of the Finestre Hills, this 11th century Benedictine convent has a rich history which Von Guerard enjoyed exploring in the library of ancient parchments during his stay there in July 1835 with his father. Indeed, church or monastery cloisters were a favourite subject for von Guerard at this time, and both he and his father produced several sketches and paintings (particularly in the watercolour medium) during their stay.
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD 1811-1901 Mount Shadwell from Mount Noorat (circa 1857) oil on board signed 'E. v. Guérard' lower left 18.1 x 23.9 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Melbourne PROVENANCE Eugene von Guérard, Melbourne Private Collection Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired in circa 1965 EXHIBITED Eugen von Guérard: An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints, Clune Galleries, Sydney, October 1972, no. 26 LITERATURE Candice Bruce, Edward Comstock and Frank McDonald, Eugene von Guerard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, New Zealand, 1982, cat. no. 56, p. 212
Eugene Von Guerard (1811 - 1901) Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, NSW colour engraving 33.5 x 53 cm (frame: 55 x 72 x 2 cm) signed in plate lower left
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811-1901) Landscape (Sele River near Paestum) 1840 oil on canvas 14.5 x 18.5 cm signed and dated lower left: Guérard. 1840. bears inscription on label attached verso: C. V. Guérardt [sic]/ Düsseldorf/ 1840/ African Landschaft./ im Besitz: Karl Kunze/ seit 1918 [translation: African Landscape, in the possession of Karl Kunze since 1918] bears inscription on label attached verso: Name des Künstler: E. v. Guérard/ Wohnort: Düsseldorf
EUGENEVON GUÉRARD 1811-1901 Marcianello near Mt. Gorniano on the Mountain Road from Naples to Rome (1883) oil on academy board signed 'Eugen von Guerard' lower left and inscribed 'Marcianello near Mt Gorniano / on the mountain road from Naples to Rome' verso 22.2 x 30.3 cm PROVENANCE Private Collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private Collection Fine Australian & International Art, Deutscher-Menzies, Sydney, 13 June 2007, lot 94, illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Spring Exhibition 1980, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 1-10 September 1980, no. 29, 'Man Crossing a Bridge with Two Donkeys', illustrated Australian Art: Colonial to Contemporary 1780s-1990s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9-31 August 1996, no. 18, illustrated LITERATURE Candice Bruce, Edward Comstock and Frank McDonald, Eugene von Guerard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, New Zealand, 1982, cat. no. 189, p. 282
Signed lower left: Eug: v Guérard Following a stay in Italy from 1826 to 1836 in which he visited Rome, Sicily and Naples and carried out his first paintings, Eugen von Guérard studied from 1838 to 1845 under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1852, he travelled to Australia and settled in Melbourne, where he initiated the founding of the "School for Instruction in Drawing and Design" in 1856. In 1870 he became curator of the National Gallery of Victoria and its associated art school, where he introduced the teaching methods of the Düsseldorf Academy. He returned to Düsseldorf in 1881. During his time as a student in Düsseldorf, Eugen von Guérard painted landscapes from the surrounding area as well as Italian motifs after sketches he had made in the previous years. The present landscape is one of the latter. However, he is most famous today for his extremely realistic depictions of the still almost untouched landscapes and settler villages of Victoria, Australia, which today represent important documents of the early colonial period. It is because of these works that Eugen von Guérard is considered the first ever "Australian" painter. An identical composition differing in only a few minor details was sold at Lempertz in May 2019 as lot 1526. It was monogrammed “E.v.G.” and, measuring just 21 x 31.5 cm, was considerably smaller than this painting. The present work is thought to be the initial prototype, which the artist later reiterated in a smaller version.
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 – 1901) DIE BERGE VON ST TENADIO IM NEAPOLITANISCHEN, 1847 (THE MOUNTAINS OF ST TENADIO IN THE NAPLES REGION) oil on canvas 108.5 x 146.5 cm signed and dated lower left: Eugen v. Guérard / D. 1847 PROVENANCE Dr T. Leurs, Roermond, Netherlands, acquired in 1847 Thence by descent Private collection, Germany Sotheby's, Sydney, 22 April 2008, lot 58 (as ‘Italian Landscape’) Private collection, New South Wales EXHIBITED Annual Exhibition, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf), 1847 (as ‘ Die Berge von St Tenadio im Neapolitanischen’) ESSAY Von Guérard exhibited this major work, his largest known pre-Australian canvas, in 1847 at the Art Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia as Die Berge von St Tenadio im Neapolitanischen [The Mountains of St. Tenadio in the Neapolitan Region].1 The painting depicts the spectacular snow-capped Southern Apennine mountains in the Frosinone province, Lazio, near Sora, their peaks reflected in the famously crystal clear waters of Lake Posta Fibreno. Perched on a rocky hilltop above the lake is the town of Posta Fibreno as it then looked, with the zig-zag road visible on the bare hillside, and towers, which have since disappeared, still standing. It is one of many medieval castled villages found on the hilltops and clinging to the steep walls of this beautiful and history-laden valley, the Val di Comino. Pliny the Elder described the natural wonders of the lake in the 1st century A.D. and, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Grand Tourists and artists who beat a trail to the picturesque towns of Sora, Isola di Liri and Posta Fibreno – conveniently located halfway between Rome and Naples – included the Naples-based German landscape painter so admired by Goethe, Jacob Philip Hackert, and von Guérard’s Neapolitan colleague, Anton Sminck Pitloo. Von Guérard spent three days exploring the region in May 1838 – his first stop on the journey north from Naples to Düsseldorf. On 26 May he sketched the Schneeberge, the snowy mountains, of “St. Tenadio” – it seems that he interpreted San Donato, which is pronounced San Dnat or Sande Denate in the local dialect, as “St Tenadio.” He observed the “beautiful reflections” in Lake Posta Fibreno, the cold clear waters of which are fed by snow melt and springs that rise from an underground limestone karst system. He recorded the flat-bottomed oak fishing boats, the nàue, that are traditional to the region, and on multiple pages of his sketchbook he made detailed, annotated studies of the locals in their distinctive regional dress.2 All of these accurately observed individual elements were drawn together on the canvas that von Guérard painted in his Düsseldorf studio nine years later. In this work von Guérard’s superb compositional skills – skills he had been honing throughout 1847 at winter evening gatherings during which he and fellow Düsseldorf artists sketched and critiqued their compositions – are brilliantly realized. Most likely working from a large drawing (now lost) of the type he made on this journey, he has subtly realigned and emphasized the distinctive features of this landscape, bringing them into closer proximity with each other. The composition is structured around a central axis, a serpentine line that leads from the curving path in the foreground, along the contours of the lake’s edge and up to the centrally-located clifftop village. From there, it shifts into a sequence of sweeping arcs, defined by the sharp ridgeline, which culminates in the snow-capped peak. Like a piece of music, this composition is energized by a series of unifying variations, a rhythmic interplay of recurring, counterpointed and inverted landscape forms and contours. Light plays a dynamic role, the low rays of late afternoon sun articulating the mountain architecture, warming the grassy slopes and filtering through the trees. Warm tones, russets and ochres, the deep greens of oak trees, and the dusty pinks and violets of the mountains, speak of a late spring day coming to a close. As in his best Australian paintings, von Guérard has woven myriad details into a composition distinguished by its uplifting breadth and powerful geometry. Following the winding path into the landscape we, like travellers, discover a valley alive with activity, its cultural traditions and natural diversity revealed in the minute and lively details observed by the artist: a woman, wearing the elaborate traditional dress for which the region known – a full-sleeved white blouse with a red bodice, full blue skirt with trim, embroidered apron and the starched, flat-topped linen head dress designed for carrying vessels – fills her terracotta urn at the fountain; two young men in the white shirts, knee-length breeches and the tall cone-shaped hats of the region relax at the end of the day. Unexpected vignettes materialize with close inspection: two men and their donkey make their way along the shadowed path on the left of the canvas and a woman pauses at the shrine on the steep diagonal path up to the village. Details such as the exposed roots of an oak tree, individuated blades of grass, wildflowers, rambling dog-rose and banks of sedge at the lake’s edge reflect the emphasis placed upon the close study of nature by the Düsseldorf school of landscape painters, and the artist’s acute memory of the site. In its scale, compositional sophistication, handling of light and colour and in its successful integration of extraordinary levels of closely observed detail, this work reveals an artist – von Guérard had then completed his training at the progressive Düsseldorf Academy and he was working alongside some of the most respected landscape painters of the Düsseldorf School – reaching his full maturity. In every stroke of the brush, this painting expresses the connection that von Guérard felt with this very special part of the world. I would like to thank Paolo Accettola, Sora historian, and author of Artisti e Viaggiatori del XVII -XIX Secolo a Casamari e Presso San Domenico di Sora, Centro di Studie Sorani “Vincenzo Patriarca” and Monastero di San Domenico Abate, Sora, Italy, 2019, for his generous and informed advice on the physical landscape portrayed by von Guérard, and Dr Ilenia Carnevale, Director, Museo Archeologico di Atina e delle Valle di Comino “G. Visocchi”, Italy, for her much-appreciated assistance. 1. Kunstverein Bericht, Vol. 18 , Düsseldorf, 1847; Rhein- und Mosel-Zeitung, No. 194, 24 August 1847, p. 3. The region was part of the Kingdom of Naples until 1860. 2. In 2008, Candice Bruce linked this work with the Sora region on the basis of the traditional costumes worn. Bruce, C. ‘Eugene von Guérard, Italian Landscape 1847,’ Sotheby’s, Sydney, 22 April, 2008, p. 114. DR RUTH PULLIN
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 – 1901) ABENDLANDSCHAFT VON DER INSEL CAPRI, 1846 (EVENING LANDSCAPE FROM THE ISLAND OF CAPRI) oil on canvas 75.0 x 103.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Eug. V. Guerard / Df 1846 PROVENANCE Emil Vorster, Broich, Germany, 1846 Private collection, Dusseldorf, Germany Christie’s, Melbourne, 22 August 2000, lot 100 (as ‘Capri’) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Annual Exhibition of the Art Association of Rhineland-Westphalen, Düsseldorf, 1846 (as ‘Abendlandschaft von der Insel Capri’) RELATED WORK Capri, pencil on paper, 30.5 x 46.8 cm, inscribed with date and title lower left: Capri d. 2ten Mai 38, Private collection, United Kingdom ESSAY The enchanted island of Capri in Italy’s Bay of Naples is as renowned for its beauty as its history. Rugged rocks and the fabled Blue Grotto compete with tales of the pleasure villas of the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius. It became a magnet for artists, writers, grand tourists and, more recently, the rich and famous. All its magic is captured in Eugene von Guérard’s Abendlandschaft Von Der Insel Capri, 1846, through the singularity of his vision – striking realism, geological fascination, mood and narrative intertwined. Imbued with nineteenth-century German Romanticism, its brilliant technique is in service to the sublime in nature. The painting’s story begins when the Vienna-born Eugene travelled to Italy with his father, Bernard. Settling in Naples in 1832, Bernard secured portrait commissions at the Bourbon court of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, and in the summer months father and son explored the spectacular region on expeditions recorded in Bernard’s one, and Eugene’s three, surviving Neapolitan sketchbooks. Von Guérard made his first visit to the island in the summer of 1835 when its popularity as a destination for landscape painters was at its peak. Among the nineteenth-century German artists to visit, many inspired by Goethe’s close friend, the Neapolitan court painter, Jakob Phillip Hackert, were August Kopisch, who famously rediscovered the Blue Grotto in 1826, Ernst Fries, Leo von Klenze, Johann Christian Dahl, Franz Catel, Carl Morgenstern – and von Guérard. The drawing for the present work was inspired by his second, and ‘farewell’, visit to the island, in early May 1838;1 by the 21st of that month he was on his way to Düsseldorf, the home of one of the most dynamic art academies in Europe. Von Guérard’s precise and exquisitely detailed pencil drawing – and his remarkable memory for light and colour – armed him with all the information required to realize his vision on canvas eight years later. Following the dusty road down into the saddle in the middle of the island the township of Capri comes into sight – the dome of the seventeenth-century church of San Stefano clearly identifiable. Mount Solaro and the spectacular limestone cliffs, behind which the settlement of Anacapri sits, soar above the town. The complex topography of the island, the irregular contour of Mount Solaro, and the subtle planar shifts in the sheer walls of limestone, recorded with such assurance in pencil on paper by the younger artist, are, in the painting, suffused in Mediterranean light and colour. The palette, an orchestration of the terracotta pinks of the earth and architecture, the grey-greens of olive groves and the saturated blues of sea and sky, was so deeply impressed on his memory that it readily came to life in his Düsseldorf atelier. In this dynamic composition, myrtle trees bend and arch to frame the vista of the township; they seem to welcome the villagers making their way homewards in the warmth of the late afternoon sun. Far below, the languid movement of a single sailboat is traced in the intensely blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. And, as in the best of von Guérard paintings, closely observed details sit in perfect equipoise with an expansive breadth of vision. The real hero of this work is light and its transformative power: villas and casas glow as sun’s low rays strike their faces, and solid limestone cliffs, dissolved in Mediterranean light and atmosphere, take on an ethereal and dreamlike quality. The entire canvas is luminous. In 1882, en route from Melbourne to Düsseldorf, von Guérard made one last visit to Capri, this time to share its beauty with his wife Louise and their daughter Victoria. 1. Eugene von Guérard, Capri, pencil, 30.5 x 46.8 cm, inscribed lower right: Capri d. 2ten Mai 38, Private collection, Coates, United Kingdom. RUTH PULLIN AND DAVID THOMAS
EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901), Lake Illawarra New South Wales, colour lithograph, signed in plate lower left, title and blind embossed seal lower centre margin, 34 x 55cm
After Johann Joseph Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901) Austrian The Valley of the Ovens River; and Lake Illawara, New South Wales, chromolithographs, from Eugene von Guerard's Australian Landscapes, 35.5 cm x 53.3 cm. (2) Provenance: Christie's 2015.
EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901), Italienische Landschaft (Italian Landscape) 1849 oil on canvas 20.0 x 29.5 cm signed with monogram lower centre: E.v.G.
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 –1901) MOUNT KENT, ON THE WONNANGATTA, GIPPS LAND, 1873 oil on academy board SIGNED: signed and dated lower right: E. v. Guerard / 1873 bears inscription verso: Mrs D.A. Paterson / 114 Riversdale Rd / Glenferrie DIMENSIONS: 31.0 x 47.0 cm PROVENANCE: Private collection Arthur Tuckett & Son, Melbourne, 8 May 1914, lot 98 (as ‘Mount Kent’) Arthur Tuckett & Son, Melbourne, 3 December 1914, lot 61 (as ‘Mount Kent, Gippsland’) Mrs D. A. Paterson, Melbourne, by 1932 Private collection, New Zealand Private collection, acquired in 1978 Christie's, Sydney, 17 August 1999, lot 72 (as 'View of Mount Kent, Gippsland') Private collection, New South Wales Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above EXHIBITED: The Fourth Exhibition of the Victorian Academy of Arts, Melbourne, July 1874, cat. 74 (as 'Mount Kurt [sic], on the Wannangatta [sic], Gipps Land'), £20.0.0. Loan Exhibition of Antiques in aid of The Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria, Rocke's Building, Melbourne, 19 May – 4 June 1932, cat. 1401 (as 'View of Mt. Kent, Gippsland’) (lent by Mrs D.A. Patterson) LITERATURE: ‘Victorian Academy of Art. Fourth Exhibition’, The Argus, Melbourne, 30 July 1874, p. 6 Bruce, C., Comstock, E., & McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, New Zealand, 1982, cat. 106 and cat. 151, pp. 240, 264 Pullin, R., The Artist as Traveller: The Sketchbooks of Eugene von Guerard, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria, 2018, pp. 218, 220 – 221 RELATED WORK: Snowy Bluff 19 Dec 1860 and Mount Kent and Part of the Snowy Bluff, Sketchbook XXXII, 1860, folios 31 and 32, Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, DGB16, vol. 11 ESSAY: In July 1874, Eugene von Guérard presented his oil painting Mount Kent, on the Wonnangatta, Gipps Land, 1873 to the people of Melbourne through the fourth exhibition of the Victorian Academy of Arts. It hung proudly with three more of his paintings in the Academy’s newly opened building on Eastern Hill. The extensive catalogue of 277 works listed their titles as ‘Pulpit Rock, Cape Schank’; ‘Mount Kurt, on the Wannangatta [sic], Gipps Land’ (our painting); ‘St. Agnes Head, north end of Phillip Island’; and ‘Gobett’s [sic] Leap and the Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, N. S.W.’. The leading colonial artists of the day were well represented – Louis Buvelot, H.J. Johnstone, Isaac Whitehead, J.H. Carse from Sydney, and John Gully from New Zealand. And landscapes predominated, The Argus review noting: ‘… a man comes to look upon the mountain and woodland scenery of Victoria with a more appreciative regard, after having been accustomed to see the most poetical aspects of both reflected from the canvas of a Guerard and a Buvelot’.1 The taste of the time was mirrored on the catalogue cover’s well-known quotation from Shakespeare: ‘Whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature’.2 Led to Australia in 1852 by the lure of Ballarat gold, the Victorian wilderness soon captured von Guérard’s eye and pencil. Settling in Melbourne two years later, he travelled afield to South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania in search of the sublime and other subjects suitable. His standing as an artist rose rapidly. By 1870 he had been appointed the first Master of the School of Painting and Curator of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Gallery already having acquired two of his major paintings. Working in the German Romantic tradition, von Guérard awed his admiring audiences with his own awe of nature. Scientific exactness and truth to nature distinguished canvas after magnificent canvas. The same was reflected in their detailed titles. While the might and majesty of nature runs throughout von Guérard’s art, his Australian works show a fascination renewed by the wonders of the antipodes. Its exotic scenery and animals were still curiosities in the eyes of the European settler and visitor alike. Freshness of vision is readily apparent in Mount Kent, on the Wonnangatta, Gipps Land, 1873. The emu peoples the land, while birds of prey startle white cockatoos in the sky. The untamed grandeur of the scene is given a dramatic touch by profiling the mountain peaks against the sky. Yet, all is enveloped in a civilising calm of enchanting beauty, so admired by his contemporaries: ‘… M. von Guerard, excels in his delineation of mountain scenery, and sunset effects or ranges clothed with primeval forests’.3 Mount Kent, on the Wonnangatta, Gipps Land had its genesis in late 1860 in drawings made during the time von Guérard was with Alfred Howitt’s government survey expedition into the mountains of Gippsland. Howitt, referring to von Guérard as ‘the celebrated Australian painter’, observed that the artist ‘is delighted with the mountain scenery – he had no idea that Australia had such country’.4 Von Guérard made two drawings related to our painting. The first, a panorama covering both pages of his sketchbook, is inscribed ‘Snowy Bluff 19 Dec 1860’. The other, ‘Mount Kent and Part of the Snowy Bluff’, is the drawing on which our painting was composed.5 The two von Guérard paintings which evoked special praise when shown in the 1874 Victorian Academy of Arts exhibition were Govett’s Leap and Grose River Valley Blue Mountains, New South Wales, 1873 (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) and Mount Kent, on the Wonnangatta, Gipps Land, 1873. In an enthusiastic review, The Argus reported: ‘The scene [of the former] is of impressive magnitude and grandeur, and brings out the artist’s strength, which lies in the effective representation of mountain masses …’6 Our painting shows that for von Guérard grandeur also can be encompassed in works much smaller in scale. Describing the painting as ‘a charming little landscape on the Wannangatta [sic], Gipps Land’, the reviewer delighted in: An undulating and grassy foreground, lightly timbered and embossed with massive boulders, in [sic] enlivened by a “trotting brook,” which comes sparkling down from the magnificent mountain ranges on the background. These culminate in a majestic eminence, known as Mount Kurt [sic], the peaks of which are flushed with the glow of sunset. The canvas is small, but there is a great deal compressed within its narrow limits’.7 Giving valuable insight into how von Guérard’s contemporaries thought and felt about his art, there is a perceptive suggestion that this painted image encompasses sound, especially delight in the bubbling waters. 1. ‘Victorian Academy of Arts. Fourth Exhibition’, The Argus, 30 July 1874, p. 6 2. Catalogue cover of The Fourth Exhibition of the Victorian Academy of Arts, Melbourne, 1874 3. ‘The Fine Arts in Victoria’, Australasian Sketcher, Melbourne, 5 September 1874, p. 91 4. Folios 31 and 32, Sketchbook XXXII, 1860, Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, DGB16, vol. 11. I am grateful to Ruth Pullin for identifying these drawings. 5. Alfred Howitt, letter to his mother, Howitt papers, 1045/3a, no. 10, quoted in Pullin, op. cit., p. 214 6. ‘Victorian Academy of Arts. Fourth Exhibition’, The Argus, op. cit., 30 July 1874, p. 6 7. ibid. DAVID THOMAS
EUGENE VON GUÉRARD 1811-1901 Lake Wakatipu, with Mount Earnslaw, New Zealand (1877) oil on board signed and inscribed 'Wakatipu / Guerard' lower right 34.7 x 62.1 cm PROVENANCE Private Collection, Melbourne Private Collection, Victoria, by descent from the above Private Collection, Perth, by descent from the above Private Collection, Perth, by descent from the above
