Eugène von Guèrard: By Melbourne 1855. Purchased 1903 (SLV H3811)

 

Introduction

Melbourne’s pre-Felton collection included a modest group of European and Australian drawings, most of them displayed in the Stawell and Buvelot Galleries. There is some inevitable overlap with watercolours.

The oldest drawings in the collection were a group donated by E.L. Montefiore in 1869 (none of them, unfortunately, apparently still in the collection): see e.g. * Varotari (‘Padovanino’) Study of a Stooping Boy {1869} Loc? [DR]. However, the NGV’s pre-Felton visitors had to be content in the main with facsimiles of Old Master drawings (see now Reproductions, casts and copies), and it would be some years before good genuine examples began to enter the collection with any consistency (for a useful overview, see Sonia Dean, Master Drawings from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV, 1986, pp.7-9). Some other works listed in early NGV records as drawings were also autotype or chromo-lithographic facsimiles (again, refer discussion of Reproductions cited above).

Several significant sketches now known to be by William Hodges, from James Cook’s second voyage of 1772-75 (but thought at the time to be the work of John Webber), were donated by Melbourne Lord Mayor C.J.Ham in 1882. The collection also included various sketches of early Melbourne and Victoria, among them examples by George O’Brien donated by John Pascoe Fawkner in 1868, and Guérard 95 sketches of Melbourne, Ballarat etc. 1852-55 {1903} SLV [DR], a remarkable group including a number of drawings recently identified as from the artist’s earliest Australian sketchbooks.

The collection was also augmented after 1880 by several groups of contemporary sketches and illustrations, mostly British, notably:

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Individual entries

Abbey Phillida Flouts Me 1886 {1895} NGV [DR]

* Barnard Drawing – subject unknown] {1903} Loc? [DR]
* Bartolozzi [attrib.] Study of Figures {1869} Loc? [DR]
Becker Commissioner Murray’s Tent 1854 {1894} SLV [DR]
Black Launceston {by 1865?} SLV [DR]
Burne-Jones Ladies and Death {1898} NGV [DR]

* Castello [attrib.] Study of Male Figure {1869} Loc? [DR]

* Dicksee Unidentified drawing {c.1896?} Loc? [DR]
Du Maurier A Connoisseur 1891{1892} NGV [DR]
Du Maurier Speeches to be lived down 1889 {1892} NGV [DR]
* Duckett Design for the Seal of the Melbourne Public Library {1868} Loc? [DR]
Dyce Prince of Wales {1877} NGV [DR]

Flintoff John Basson Humffray 1859 {1891} SLV [DR]
Fripp Incidents in the Zulu War, 1878 {1881} NGV [DR]
Furniss An Expert {1902} NGV [DR]

* Gibbs Four landscape drawings {1886} Loc? [DR]
Gilbert (G.) [attrib.] Ballarat from Golden Point 1856 {1883} SLV [DR]
Gilbert (G.) [attrib.] Grant Street, Ballaarat 1856 {1889} SLV [DR]
* Goodall (C.) Two sketches {1872} Loc? [DR]
Green Holiday Time Afloat {1881} NGV [DR]
Green Sunday Afternoon in a Picture Gallery {1881} NGV [DR]
Gregory (C.) Flight into Alexinatz {1881} NGV [DR]
Guérard 95 drawings of Melbourne, Ballarat etc.1852-56 {1902} SLV [DR]

Hodges Mallicolo 1774 {1882} SLV [DR]
Hodges Party of Maoris in a Canoe 1773 {1882} SLV [DR]
Hodges South Entrance of Dusky Bay 1773 {1882} SLV [DR]
* Hodges or Webber (?) Native of Otaheite {1882} Loc? [DR]
Hodgson The Oban Boat {1891} NGV [DR]
Holl The Deserter {1881} NGV [DR]
Houghton Mother, child and father {1897} NGV [DR]

* Kauffmann (A.) Cupid and the Three Graces {1869} Loc? [DR]
Keene Interior of a Shop {1898} NGV [DR]
Keene Management 1868 {1892} NGV [DR]

* Laer, van (Bamboccio) Study of a Male Figure {1869} Loc? [DR]
Laugée Edward Bulwer 1872 {1881} NGV [DR]
Leighton Study for Elijah {1897} NGV [DR]
Lindsay (N.) My Ancestors 1903 {1904} NGV [DR]

Mahoney Pickwick finds Sam Weller {1896} NGV [DR]
May (P.) The Dane 1890 {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) The Diamond Doctor 1888 {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) Dishing his Enemies 1888 {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) Jumps and Jim Jams 1888 {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) Last Public House 1892 {1894} NGV [DR]
May (P.) Loch and Key 1888 {1903} NGV [DR]
May (P.) Lord Carrington and New South Wales {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) The Mother of Civilization 1888 {1903} SLV [DR]
May (P.) The Parkes Appropriation 1888 {1903} SLV [DR]
Menzel Man’s Head 1886 {1895} NGV [DR]

North The Swallows {1897} NGV [DR]
North A Vesper Hymn {1897} NGV [DR]

O’Brien Grand-view Park, Pascoe Vale {1868} SLV [DR]
O’Brien Melbourne in 1839 {1868} SLV [DR]
* O’Brien (?) Melbourne from the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets {1868} Loc? [DR]
O’Brien Melbourne seen from the Hospital {1868} SLV [DR]
* O’Brien View at Mr Campbell’s {1868} Loc? [DR]
O’Brien View on the Banks of the Yarra {1868} SLV [DR]

Pennell A Devil of Notre Dame 1893 {1895} NGV [DR]
Pinwell My dear Honeyword 1865 {1896} NGV [DR] 

Russell Melbourne from the Falls 1837 {by 1870} SLV [DR]

Scurry Cole’s Wharf 1853 {1884} SLV [DR]
Scurry Sandridge Pier 1853 {1884} SLV [DR]
* Scurry (?) View from Flagstaff Hill 1853 {1884} Loc? [DR]
Scurry View on the Yarra 1853 {1884} SLV [DR]
Solomon The Leaves of Memory 1890 {1892} NGV [DR]
Stafford 24 drawings {1872} NGV [DR]
Staniland Colliery Explosion {1881} NGV [DR]
Strafford Police Station, Richmond Paddock {1888} SLV [DR]
Strafford St Paul’s Church {1888} SLV [DR]
Strutt First Victorian Parliament, 1856 {1868} SLV [DR]

* Varotari (‘Padovanino’) Study of a Stooping Boy {1869} Loc? [DR]
Vierge Battle of St Quentin 1876 {1894} NGV [DR]

Ward (L.) Elizabeth Thompson {1881} NGV [DR]
Ward (L.) Frederick Leighton {1881} NGV [DR]
Ward (L.) John Everett Millais {1881} NGV [DR]
* Westall Untitled sketch {1873} Loc? [DR]
Wrigglesworth & Binns [after?] Captain Spotswood {1887} SLV [DR]

Unknown artist Balbirnie’s Bridge 1850 {1891} SLV [DR]
* Unknown artist “Drawing in the style of Salvator Rosa” {1873} Loc? [DR]
Unknown artist Melbourne from the South {1889} SLV [DR]
* Unknown artist Portrait of Napoleon I {1875} Loc? [DR]