Summers (Charles) Captain Charles Sturt {1872} SLV [SC]

Summers, Charles (1825-78; English)
Captain Charles Sturt
Marble, size unknown
Presented by subscribers, 1872; transferred from NGV to SLV, 1943
State Library of Victoria (LTS 13)

Sturt (1795-1869) arrived in Sydney in 1827, and led the expedition to find Australia’s hypothetical inland sea in 1829-30, charting the Murrumbidgee and Murray river systems.

This posthumous bust was commissioned in 1870. Other busts of Sturt, also by or probably by Summers, were acquired later by the Art Gallery of South Australia (1899), and the State Library of New South Wales (1914).

See also Summers (Charles) Sir George Macleay {1872} SLV [SC], a bust also produced and donated at the same time, showing Sturt’s “companion explorer” on the expedition, who later became a noted New South Wales pastoralist.

Refs.

AR 1872, p.22; SB, p.64 (Busts); NGV 1880, p.3; NGV 1894, p.129 (VI.Rotunda, no.8); NGV 1905, p.157 (VI.Sculpture – Verdon Gallery, no.21)

See SLV online catalogue (not illustrated); author’s photo, 2015; for the other busts mentioned, refer AGSA and AGNSW online catalogues. For Sturt, see e.g. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sturt-charles-2712 (biography by H.J.Gibney, 1st published in ADB vol.2, 1967)