O’Brien View from the Junction of Barkley {sic} and Princes Streets 1862 {1886} SLV [WT]

O’Brien, George (1821-88; Irish/New Zealander)
View from the Junction of Barkley {sic} and Princes Streets St Kilda 1862
Water-colour with ink, pencil and chinese white on toned paper, 29.5 x 44.5 cm (sheet)
Purchased, 1886
State Library of Victoria (H290)

This sketch, signed and dated, shows Albert Park, beyond the gates, and Port Phillip Bay in the distance.

The prominent building in the right foreground is possibly “Merton,” the mansion of noted publisher George Robertson (1825-98), who arrived in Melbourne from Ireland in 1852, and subsequently published Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms, and various other significant books by Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and others. His firm later became Robertson and Mullen, and then Angus & Robertson. A marble bust of Robertson, by Percival Ball (1890) is also held in the State Library of Victoria (acquired in 1906). “Merton” survives, apparently, as no.24 Princes Street, St Kilda, now divided into apartments.

Refs.

AR 1886, p.26; NGV 1894, p.111 (V.Buvelot Gallery, 3^rd bay, no.7); NGV 1905, p.135 (V.Buvelot Gallery, 3^rd bay, no.65) [£12/12] 

The SLV catalogue entry provides further details, including information on the house

For Robertson (1825-98), see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/robertson-george-4489 (by J.P.Holroyd; ADB, vol.6, 1976), and for his bust by Percival Ball, not catalogued here, see SLV online catalogue (LTS 35)