Works included in this catalogue
Todt Gold Diggers 1854 {1884} NGV [SC]
* Todt Richard Heales {by 1865} Loc? [SC]
After studying sculpture in Berlin, Todt migrated to Australia in 1849, transferred to the Victorian goldfields in 1851, and then worked as a sculptor in Melbourne for several years. In the Journal of Australasia (1856), he and von Guérard were mentioned as the leading artists in Melbourne.
During the 1860s, however, he was apparently sidelined by the success of Charles Summers. Details of his career, previously hazy, were clarified by Terence Lane in 2006. As Lane notes, both of the works listed above were shown in the loan exhibition at the Public Library in 1869.
Refs.
For the artist, see in particular Lane “A life revealed: Emil Todt” (2006); and Lane 19th-century Australian art (2003), pp.40-41 (including the 1856 reference). Not mentioned in Bénézit (AKL has not reached this artist)
See Catalogue of the Works of Art, Ornamental and Decorative Art Exhibited by the Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library, 1869, p.48 (mis-spelling the sculptor’s name as Edward Todd); cited by Lane (2006)