Douglas Stewart Fine Books Pty Ltd

Chromolithograph, 620 x 870 mm, laid down on acid free backing paper, a few very minor edge tears expertly repaired, loose manuscript label removed from verso: '23. Neuseeländer'. [Germany?] : s.n., [1880s]. A fine copy. This striking composition, well-preserved and retaining the subtle contrasts of its original palette of browns and greens, is highly reminiscent of the work of the German artist Gustav Mutzel, in particular his chromolithograph 'Eine Australierfamilie von Neu-Sudwales', [Berlin?] : s.n., [188-?], held in the collection of the National Library of Australia [nla.pic-an11009482]. The NLA chromolithograph by Mutzel has been heavily influenced by the tableau images of Aborigines of the Clarence River region of northern New South Wales, taken by the German-born photographer J.W. Lindt in Grafton in the early 1870s, as has indeed the chromolithograph we offer here. (See, in particular, Lindt's photograph taken in 1874, 'Portrait of an Aboriginal man and woman with hunting weapons posing with dead kangaroo', held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria [SLV H1486]). This present composition has, however, replaced the eerie sterility of Lindt's studio backdrop and props with the movement in the background scene of men carrying a canoe to the water's edge and the man on the right carrying the dead kangaroo. The man on the left is making fire and the woman at the centre is using a grinding stone. A woven bag hangs from the bound boughs behind them. In the foreground the artist has depicted an array of implements including a coolamon, shield, boomerang, woomera and barbed fishing spear. The label verso would seem to suggest that this chromolithograph was from a series of ethnological scenes printed in Germany - despite the clearly erroneous identification of the subjects as 'Neuseeländer'.

BURN, Henry (c. 1807 – 1884). # 799. Watercolour on paper, 250 x 395 mm, signed and dated lower left. Framed. Henry Burn was born in Birmingham, England in about 1807, and in the early part of his career exhibited at the Birmingham Society of Artists and at the Royal Academy. Burn sailed for Australia in late 1852, arriving in Melbourne on 30th January 1853. From the mid 1850s to the 1870s Burn painted across Melbourne, documenting the growth of the city and its rural surrounds which now form the inner suburbs. He often painted plein-air along the Yarra River, particularly the areas which today form the suburbs of South Yarra, Collingwood and Richmond. This scene of tranquility shows two small rowboats of fisherman in the act of landing a catch, while two other men bearing rods approach along the left bank. The river curls around a bend with a calm determination, with the occasional bended eucalyptus lining the shore, as Burns paints the Yarra River, life force of Melbourne, as providing nourishment to both man and nature. A fine and representative work by Henry Burn, of Melbourne’s river as a romantic idyll

EDWARDS, Mary (c 1894 - c 1988) # 1267 Handpainted silk. Measures 201 x 190 cm, with long silk tassels extending on all sides. Signed and dated 1926. An unique and vivid artwork from the art deco period in Sydney. Exhibited : 'Bush curiozities : flora and fauna in art and design'. An exhibition to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Shepparton Art Gallery's Collection. October, 1986. Catalogue number 138.