De Gruchy & Leigh Panoramic View of Melbourne 1863 {by 1865} SLV [PR]

De Gruchy, Henry (1828-82; Australian), & Leigh, Stephen (details unknown)
Panoramic View of Melbourne, Victoria 1863
Lithograph in eight segments, total size 28 x 188 cm (image), 31 x 192 cm (sheet)
Presented by De Gruchy (?), by 1865
State Library of Victoria (H16730)

The 1894 and 1905 NGV catalogues give the date of this print as 1866, but the SLV catalogue indicates 1863. The title panel notes that the component prints were made “from photographs taken on the summit of the Parliament Houses [sic]”, and gives De Gruchy & Leigh’s address as 47 Elizabeth Street, South Melbourne.

The SLV catalogue provides good detailed reproductions of individual sheets, enabling closer examination. Prominent buildings shown include:

at far left, the Treasury Building (designed by J.J.Clark, 1858-62)
in the centre, the Old White Hart Hotel, built on the south-east corner of Bourke and Spring Streets in 1846, and later incorporated into the adjacent Windsor Hotel
further to the right, the Prince of Wales Buildings/Richardson’s Imperial Hotel, on the north-east corner of Bourke and Spring Streets
and, further north along Spring Street, towards the far right, the first Princess Theatre, originally called Astley’s Amphitheatre (replaced by the present Princess Theatre in the 1880s)

Compare De Gruchy & Leigh after Strafford Melbourne, 1856 {by 1894} SLV [PR].

Refs.

NGV 1865, p.41 (Engravings, no.12: “Melbourne in 1863” [artist/s not named]); AR 1870-71, p.35 (under Lithographs: as “Isometrical View of Melbourne” by and presented by De Gruchy); NGV 1894, p.116 (V.Buvelot Gallery, 3^rdbay, no.51); NGV 1905, p.135 (V.Buvelot Gallery, 3^rdbay, no.61)

See SLV online catalogue for reproductions and further information, noting some of the buildings represented. The SLV catalogue entry also notes “another copy, b&w, in safe either MSS or PICS” (possibly the version catalogued in NGV 1894 and 1905?)