Pre-Felton works donated by Dr Gilbee or funded through his bequest
* Unknown (British?) A highland still {1885} Loc? [PA]
Fox Landing of Captain Cook 1902 {1902} NGV [PA]
Gilbee, who practiced medicine in Scotland before emigrating in the early 1850s, became a prominent Melbourne surgeon, and an Australian pioneer of the new principles of antiseptic surgery.
In his will, he left £1000 to the NGV to commission work on Australian historical themes, eventuating in 1902 in Phillips Fox’s Landing of Captain Cook, listed above. Other NGV works acquired through this bequest after 1905 (and hence not catalogued here) included Longstaff’s Arrival of Burke and Wills at Cooper’s Creek (1907), and a WWI oil sketch by Frank Crozier (acquired in 1921).
Refs.
For Dr Gilbee, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gillbee-william-3616 (entry by David O’Sullivan; first published in ADB vol.4, 1972)
For Longstaff’s Arrival of Burke and Wills and Crozier’s In the snow, France (1917), see https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5576/ and https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5450/