* Unknown “Portfolio of 123 Wildflower drawings” {1872} Loc? [WT]

Unknown artist
“Portfolio of 123 Wildflower drawings”
Watercolours (?), details unknown
Acquired 1872
Unidentified; present location unknown

All that can be said with certainty about these works is that they appear in the NGV’s unpublished list of early acquisitions (under 1872) immediately after the 4 watercolours of Tasmanian wildflowers by “Miss Blythe,” here attributed to Sarah Blyth: see Blyth (attrib.) Australian Flowers {1872} Loc? [WT].

Whether the works in this portfolio were also watercolours is unclear.

Also worth noting here are two groups of hand-coloured photographs of “wildflowers of Gippsland” by the Tasmanian artist Alfred Bock (1835-1920), dateable to c.1873, and held in the SLV; one group is clearly documented as donated in 2008, but the others may have entered the collection earlier: see reproduction below.

[comparative photo: Alfred Bock: Epacris impressa (etc.). SLV H92.366/23]

Refs.

NGV’s unpublished list of pre-1905 acquisitions, nos.611-733 (NGV acc.nos.p.166.5-1 to 127-1) 

For the Bock photographs, see SLV catalogue: (i) a group of about 50 photographs, dated to c.1873 (H92.366/…; acquisition date apparently unclear: see photo at right); and (ii) an album of 26 photographs, dated c.1870-90 (H2008.97; donated to the SLV in 2008)