Buvelot Victorian scene {1904} NGV [WT]

Buvelot, Louis (1814-88; Swiss/Australian)
Victorian scene (c.1868)
Watercolour, 17.5 x 25.8 cm (image)
Bequest of Alfred Felton, 1904
National Gallery of Victoria (151-2)

Daryl Lindsay observed in 1963 that the two Buvelot watercolours are among the few significant works selected from Felton’s personal collection in 1904.

However, the conventions of Buvelot’s earlier European experience and practice are still clear in this conventionally picturesque view, possibly produced soon after the artist arrived in Australia (1865).

Compare his subsequent development towards greater naturalism, for example in Buvelot Yarra Flats 1871 {1904} NGV [WT], the second Buvelot watercolour from Felton’s collection.

Refs.

AR 1904, p.26; NGV 1905, p.48 (II.Stawell Gallery, no.38) 

Lindsay’s comment, in his 1963 study of the Felton Bequest, is quoted by Poynter Mr Felton’s Bequests (2003/2008), pp.246-47