Eugen Johann Joseph Von Guerard

EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811 – 1901) (i) POLICE PADDOCK, MELBOURNE, 1855 oil on canvas on board 17.0 x 23.5 cm (ii) POLICE PADDOCK, MELBOURNE, 1855 oil on canvas on wood panel 17.0 x 23.5 cm (i) signed indistinctly lower left: ... Guerard inscribed verso: Part of the Police paddock in the year 1854–5 / where presently the Melbourne Cricket Ground exists bears inscription on old round sticker verso: L / 108 bears inscription verso: Looking east towards the Dandenongs (ii) inscribed lower right: Melbourne bears inscription verso: Police Paddock / Melb S.W. / between / 1862 & 1880 Sir Bruce Ingram, United Kingdom The Estate of The Lady Casey, Melbourne Bruce, C., Comstock, E. and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard, 1811–1901: a German Romantic in the Antipodes , Alister Taylor, Martinborough, 1982, p. 254, cat. 104 and 105, as ‘[View from the artist’’’’s house, looking East, c1865]’’’’, and ‘[View from the artist’’’’s house, looking South-west, c1865]’’’’ Oct. 1855. Paddock. Melbourne , pen and ink sketch, illus. in Eugene von Guerard, Vol. 1: Sketchbook XXII , No. 4, Australia, April 1854 – Dec. 1857, 1858, p. 65, in the collection of The Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Paddock, Melbourne , pen and ink sketch, illus. in Eugene von Guerard, Vol. 1: Sketchbook XXII, No. 4 , Australia, April 1854 – Dec. 1857, 1858, p. 64, in the collection of The Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney While Eugene von Guérard’’’’s search for gold on the Ballarat fields met with little success, his sketchbooks bulged with treasures waiting to be turned into paintings. Moving to Melbourne in April 1854, in that year alone he completed such memorable paintings as Warrenheip Hills near Ballarat , 1854 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), Barter, 1854 (Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria), and ‘ I have got it’’’’ , 1854 (State Library of Victoria, Melbourne). In July he married Louise Arnz. He and his bride moved to rooms in Collins Street before finally settling into their house in East Melbourne eight years later. In 1855 he returned to his European practice of sketching tours, travelling throughout Victoria and interstate. These sketchbooks bear witness to his insatiable curiosity and encyclopedic interests. He was also busy in and about Melbourne, sketching the stringybarks in Toorak, scenes at St Kilda, and Collingwood. Two preliminary drawings for our paintings are in this same sketchbook for the period of April 1854 to November 1857. One is dated October 1855. The Government’’’’ s Police Paddock was close by, within walking distance of von Guérard’’’’s home. Located in what is now part of East Melbourne and Richmond, it had been used for the agistment of the colonial troopers’’’’ horses, the police depot of the City Mounted Patrol being within the Paddock at the corner of Punt Road and Wellington Parade South. In 1853 the Melbourne Cricket Ground also relocated to part of the area. It still stands there today. Another part of the government parkland extending to the Yarra River was set aside as a public recreation area, soon becoming a busy promenade for early Melbournians. Von Guérard’’’’s two oil paintings give atmospheric views of the Police Paddock and its stately gums. In one, their shadows cast across the foreground link the viewers with the scene and invite them to join the company of the two figures walking into the distance. In the other painting, kangaroos have been introduced to give a distinctly antipodean touch to these fields of arcadian beauty, bathed in the enveloping peace of twilight as birds wing their way homeward. Von Guérard followed his sketches exactly, except for the addition of the figures and kangaroos, for which he could draw on other sources. Elsewhere in the same sketchbook several pages are devoted to studies of kangaroos, one being inscribed with the date ‘15 Nov.1854’’’’. He recorded the gums in their sinuous beauty, and the local landscape with all the topographical accuracy for which he is rightly admired. DAVID THOMAS

Lot 28 EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811-1901) Ferntree Gulley 1857 oil on canvas on panel 19.0 x 24.0 cm signed lower left: E.v. Guérard Provenance: Private collection, Queensland Lawson-Menzies, Sydney, 19 May 2011, lot 41 (as Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges ) Private collection, Melbourne Exhibited: The Victorian Society of Fine Arts, Melbourne, 1857, cat.148 The larger version of this painting, now in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, was shown in the same exhibition, as ' Ferntree Gulley on the Dandenong Ranges , cat.144, and priced at £210. Masterpiece Fine Art, Hobart (label attached verso) Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne (label attached verso) Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso) Reference: The Age , Melbourne, 22 May 1857, p.5 Bruce, C., Comstock, E., & McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes , Alister Taylor Publishers, Martinborough, New Zealand, 1982, p.200 cat.36 Bonyhady, T., Australian Colonial Paintings in the Australian National Gallery , Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1986, p.170 Ritchie, R., Seeing the Rainforests in 19th Century Australia , Rainforest Publishing, Sydney, 1989, p.67 (illus.) Related Works: Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges , 1857, oil on canvas, 92.0 x 130.0 cm, collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Ferntree o r Dobson's Gulley, Dandenong Ranges, , 1858, pen and ink and wash on paper, 37.7 x 54.9 cm, collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Dobson's Gulley, Dandenong Ranges , 8-27 May 1859, pen and ink and wash on paper, 35.9 x 59.7 cm, Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Ferntree Gulley, Dandenong Ranges , colour lithograph, 32.8 x 51.5 cm, pl.XIII in Eugene von Guérard's Australian Landscapes: a Series of 24 Tinted Lithographs illustrative of the most striking and picturesque features of the Landscape Scenery of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, Drawn from Nature Lithographed by the Artist with Letter Press Descriptions of each View , Hamel & Ferguson, Melbourne [1866-67] Estimate: $ 65000 - 85000 Auction Title: Sydney - 6 December 2012 - (Visitation - 0060) AUCTION Important Australian & International Fine Paintings & Sculpture 6 December 2012 6.30pm Menzies Gallery, 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington, NSW 2033 VIEWING MELBOURNE 22 – 25 NOVEMBER, 11am-6pm Menzies Gallery, 1 Darling Street, SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141 VIEWING SYDNEY 29 NOVEMBER – 5 DECEMBER, 11am-6pm Menzies Gallery, 12 Todman Avenue, KENSINGTON NSW 2033 Everything I saw incited me to pursue a strict truthfulness; not one line of a mountain range not one variation in the outline of a tree… could ever seem to me accidental or undeserving of precise representation.1 The sublime is a concept of great antiquity… but its reformation in the eighteenth century was to affect European and colonial art for a long time after. Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901) was the archetypal exponent of this tradition within the chronology of Australian art history, and his influence on Australian landscape art during his lifetime was unsurpassed. Von Guérard lived and worked in Australia for thirty years in the late nineteenth century. In 1870 he was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next eleven years. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) and Tom Roberts (1856-1931). Von Guérard's personal artistic style was formed by the heritage of Claude Lorraine (1600-82), Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Salvator Rosa (1615-73), and by the German Romantic landscape tradition which attempted to link man and God through nature. The central tenet of this German romantic tradition ‘recommended that artists study vegetation, climate, rock formation and the like in order to know Nature as a reality both concrete and spiritual and to experience it not as something inert, but as a living organism.’’ 2 Von Guérard’’s landscapes embody this ideal. They are not simply topographical and botanical studies; they are celebrations of the grandeur and beauty found in nature. Within von Guérard’’s impressive oeuvre of Australian paintings there are two works that have become secured within the annals of Australian art history: Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges , 1857 and North-east View From the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863, both now in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia. The former was exhibited in the inaugural exhibition of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts in 1857 to critical acclaim bordering on hysteria. The art critic of the Melbourne Argus heralded Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges as deserving ‘a place in one of the royal or national galleries of Europe’’ and launched a campaign to buy it for Queen Victoria. The Melbourne Herald instead hoped it ‘will be kept amongst us [and] become the centre of our own “National Gallery”’’.3 The painting on offer has much in common with the aforementioned work. It was included in the same exhibition under the title Ferntree Gulley [sic] and is thematically and compositionally very similar. Both works depict the same view identifiable by the arching eucalypt in the upper left of the composition and the groupings of tree ferns in the middle and right areas of the foreground. In both works the eye is drawn into the landscape via the earthy tones of the clearing depicted in the foreground. The most distinguishing difference between the two is the presence of the lyrebird in the foreground of the related work. Also of note is the difference in technique. The work on offer is more expressive in tone and technique. The colours and brushwork are more stylised, while the related work records the details of the scene with a sense of photographic realism. Of von Guérard’’s work, a writer for the Illustrated Melbourne Post of November 1863 remarked that von Guérard’’ s paintings unite a ‘poet’’s feeling with an artist’’s power’’, and praised his ‘fidelity to truth, retentive memory, and reverence for his art, which enable him to transfer to his canvas, with such singular felicity and unerring precision, the objects he observes.’’ 4 Footnotes: 1. Eugene von Guérard cited in Hutchings, P., ‘Eugene von Guérard: Nature Revealed’’, Art Monthly Australia , Issue 246, Summer, 2011, p.76 2. Daniel Thomas cited in Bruce, C., Eugene von Guérard , Australian Gallery Directors Council, Canberra, 1980, p.11 3. Cited in Daniel Thomas’’ catalogue entry for the National Gallery of Australia, http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=36997 4. Bruce, C., Eugene von Guérard , Australian Gallery Directors Council, Canberra, 1980, p.3 Alison Burns BA (Hons); MA If you cannot attend the auction, you may either: Register to absentee bid on this lot Register to telephone bid on this lot Terms and Conditions Contact us regarding this lot Email a friend

Lot 17 EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811-1901) Aborigines outside Melbourne 1855 watercolour on paper 20.0 x 30.5 cm signed lower right: Eugene von Guérard dated and inscribed lower left: Melbourne 1855 Provenance: The Cowlishaw Collection, Sydney Sotheby's, Sydney, 16 - 17 October 1984, lot 263 Private collection, Sydney Estate of the above, Sydney Estimate: $ 40000 - 50000 Auction Title: Sydney - 13 September 2012 - (Mountain - 0059) AUCTION AUCTION Important Australian & International Fine Paintings & Sculpture Menzies Gallery 13 September 2012, 6.30pm 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington, NSW 2033 VIEWING MELBOURNE Thursday 30 August – Sunday 2 September, 11am - 6pm Menzies Gallery 1 Darling Street SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141 VIEWING SYDNEY Thursday 6 – Wednesday 12 September, 11am - 6pm Menzies Gallery 12 Todman Avenue KENSINGTON NSW 2033 If you cannot attend the auction, you may either: Register to absentee bid on this lot Register to telephone bid on this lot Terms and Conditions Contact us regarding this lot Email a friend

Lot 30 EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811-1901) Ravine near Glenlyon, Upper Loddon 1870 oil on board 29.0 x 25.0 cm signed with initials and dated lower left: E. v. G/ 70 Provenance: Henry Walker, Melbourne, 1872 Private collection, Sydney Exhibited: Victorian Academy of Arts, Melbourne, 1872, no.67 Reference: The Age , Melbourne, 15 March 1872, p.3 The Argus , Melbourne, 22 March 1872, p.7 Australian News , 21 May, 1872, p.118 (illus.) Bruce, C., Comstock, E. and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard 1811 - 1901, A German Romantic in the Antipodes , Alister Taylor Publishers, Martinborough, 1982, p.180, cat.137 Estimate: $ 130000 - 180000 Auction Title: Melbourne - 14 September 2011 - (Chanting - 0055) AUCTION Important Australian and International Fine Paintings and Sculpture Melbourne, 6.30pm, 14th September, 2011 The ANZ Pavilion, The Arts Centre Level 8, 100 St Kilda Road, Melbourne VIC 3004 SYDNEY VIEWING:- 1 – 4 SEPTEMBER Menzies Gallery 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington, NSW 2033 02 8344 5404 Thursday 1 Sept. 11am – 6pm Friday 2 Sept. 11am – 6pm Saturday 3 Sept. 11am – 6pm Sunday 4 Sept. 1pm – 6pm MELBOURNE VIEWING:- 8 – 13 SEPTEMBER Menzies Gallery 1 Darling Street, South Yarra, VIC 3141 03 9832 8700 Thursday 8 Sept. 11am – 6pm Friday 9 Sept. 11am – 6pm Saturday 10 Sept. 11am – 6pm Sunday 11 Sept. 1pm – 6pm Monday 12 Sept. 11am – 6pm Tuesday 13 Sept. 11am – 6pm If you cannot attend the auction, you may either: Register to absentee bid on this lot Register to telephone bid on this lot Terms and Conditions Contact us regarding this lot Email a friend

Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) Australian landscapes: A series of 24 tinted lithographs illustrative of the landscape scenery of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, drawn from nature and lithographed by the artist with letter press descriptions of each view, printed and published by Hamel & Ferguson, Melbourne, Victoria, 1866-67 32 x 50cm (each)