Gritten View on Jackson’s Creek 1866 {1866} NGV [PA]

Gritten, Henry (1818-73; English/Australian)
View on Jackson’s Creek near Sunbury 1866
Oil on canvas, 62.4 x 92.7 cm
Gift of Sir Archibald Michie 1866
National Gallery of Victoria (p.300.13-1)

Both this work and von Guérard Valley of the Mitta Mitta 1866 {1866} NGV [PA] were donated by Michie in the year they were painted.

This work was one of several shown by Gritten in the Intercolonial Exhibition in Melbourne in 1866, when he was criticized by an un-named Argus writer for excessively “pre-raphaelitish” attention to the minutiae of foliage (by contrast with Buvelot) – an interesting demonstration of contemporaries’ detailed engagement with the changing stylistic climate in Australian landscape painting.

Refs.

NGV 1879, p.25; NGV 1894, p.80 (IV.McArthur Gallery, no.28); not listed in NGV 1905 

Galbally First Collections (1992), pp.48/56, cat.no.13, quotes the review from the Argus, 25 Oct.1866