Fishing on the Yarra, 1871

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