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This front facing 3/4 length portrait shows Anna Maria Macarthur, aged 50, posed in a domestic setting, seated in a high-backed upholstered arm chair draped with a checked shawl. Mrs Macarthur is known to have been of delicate health which is certainly portrayed in this sensitive portrait.

Anna Maria wears a full-skirted, light-coloured [silk] day dress with long sleeves, fitted through the upper arm to the elbow, marked with small puffs, or ‘bouffants’, full over the forearms and gathered into narrow cuffs at the wrist. The bodice of the dress is shrouded by a sheer, white-work embroidered ‘pelerine’, or capelet, topped by a small white collar with ruffled edging fastened at the neck with a small rectangular brooch, over which is laid a large blue and white [printed] scarf pinned with a large [enamelled or micro-mosaic] brooch. She wears a wedding ring on her left hand which rests in her lap over a piece of [fabric/sewing], her smoothly centre-parted brown hair dressed in rows of sausage curls over her ears, and covered with a ruffled and beribboned indoor cap of fine white fabric trimmed with artificial flowers and [stalks of wheat].

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This image shows Mrs Macarthur at the height of her social position, just before financial troubles overwhelmed her husband. It was painted in the same year as the artist’s somewhat grander portrait of her mother, Anna Josepha King (ML 1192), then in residence with her daughter and son-in-law. William Nicholas (1807-1854) seems to have been the favoured portrait artist of prominent colonial families in Sydney like the Macarthurs, the Wentworths and the Kings.

Anna Maria Macarthur, nee King (1793-1852) was the eldest daughter of Governor Philip Gidley King. She married pastoralist, politician and businessman Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur (1788-1861) in 1812. The couple settled at The Vineyard, near Parramatta, NSW, which became one of the leading houses of the colony, and raised a family of eleven children (5 sons and 6 daughters); James Campbell Macarthur (1813-1862), Elizabeth Macarthur (1815-1889), Anna Macarthur (1816-1852), Catherine Macarthur (1818-1894), Charles Macarthur (1820-1871), Mary King Macarthur (1822-1898), George Fairfowl Macarthur (1825-1890), John Alexander Macarthur (1827-1904), Emmeline Maria Macarthur (1828-1911), Arthur Hannibal Macarthur (1830-1871) and Emma Jane Macarthur (1832-1866). After her husband’s financial collapse during the late 1840s depression, the Macarthurs moved to Ipswich, Qld, where Anna died in 1852.

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This left facing, 3/4 length standing portrait depicts an unknown young man, aged in his late 20s or early 30s, posed on the deck of ship docked in Sydney Harbour.

He wears a long-skirted, double-breasted frock coat in dark grey cloth with a black velvet collar, wide notched lapels and narrow-fitting sleeves, slightly gathered at the shoulder and ending in split cuffs at the wrist, worn over dark cream trousers, a cream waistcoat with roll collar, and a snowy white linen shirt with a high collar and a sky blue ribbed-silk bow necktie above gold stud buttons, with two long, fine gold chains crossed over his chest (perhaps suspending spectacles).The subject’s long dark brown curly hair is parted on the left, his reddish brown whiskers carefully trimmed into a narrow beard with no moustache. His left arm rests on a wood and brass [table] displaying his gold ‘pinkie’ ring while his right hand, positioned somewhat awkwardly below the hip, holds back the lower front edge of his coat to reveal a light grey [silk] lining.

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Edmund Edgar, or Eagar (1804 – 1854), also known by the aliases Edgar Edmund Bults and Edgar Bult, worked as a house painter, engraver, and lithographer in London, and also as a miniature painter, before being convicted of robbery in 1825 for which he was sentenced to transportation for life. Edgar reached Sydney on 13 September 1826, aboard the convict ship Marquis of Huntly. By special request, he was assigned to the visiting artist Augustus Earle who had recently acquired a lithographic press and sought Edgar’s assistance in the production of his Views in Australia and other lithographs. Edgar also taught painting in Sydney, at Mr Gilchrist’s school in the late 1820s.

Receiving his ticket of leave in 1838, Edgar was conditionally pardoned in 1844. From then on he seems to have concentrated on portraiture. In 1847 he was listed in Low’s Directory as an artist at Argyle Street, west of Trinity Church, in Sydney’s Rocks area. Other details about Edgar’s life remain uncertain – he may later have moved to Parramatta though another unconfirmed reference suggests he became a fruit and vegetable vendor in Sydney. He died a pauper at the Sydney Benevolent Asylum in June 1854.

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This left facing, full length standing profile portrait shows Edward Gostwyck Cory, aged 40, in street attire. It was painted in England, during Cory’s five years residency there between 1837 and 1842.

He wears a knee-length black cloth frock coat with a dark [blue] velvet collar, over a black waistcoat and a white shirt with a high, standing collar wrapped with a black neckcloth, above narrow-fitting, light-coloured [striped] trousers strapped under his boots. In his right hand he holds a large black top hat and cane, with a pair of light-coloured gloves in his left hand. His receding reddish-brown hair is cut short and brushed forward, and he wears mutton chop side whiskers.

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Known as the ‘King of Paterson’, Edward Gostwyck Cory (1797-1873), arrived at Sydney on the Allies in 1823, with his wife Francis, née Johnson. Settling on the Gostwyck estate, on the Paterson River near Maitland, NSW, following the sale of his New England properties Cory returned to England for a 5 year period during which time it is probable that this portrait – one of Dighton’s many profiles studies – was made.

ARTIST:
Richard Dighton (1795-1880 ) was an English artist of the Regency period. Best known for his many satirical profile portraits of contemporary London celebrities and characters, from 1828 he settled at Cheltenham, near Bristol, where he concentrated initially on watercolour portraits, and on lithographic portraits after 1835.

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This left facing, ½ length portrait shows Mrs Walker (aged 37) in mourning for her elder brother, John Marquet Blaxland (1801-1840) who died suddenly on 29 May 1840. The landscape view stretching behind her could be a reference to her home in Tasmania and/or her place among colonial Australia’s first generations of landed gentry.

Mrs Walker’s recent bereavement is signified by her choice of black garments, further accessorised with appropriate memorial jewellery in the form of jet pendant earrings and an enamelled mourning brooch containing plaited hair of the departed which she has pinned to her corsage. The sheen of the gown suggests it is made of black [silk] satin, rather than the lustreless black materials favoured for mourning after the death of Prince Albert in 1861. It follows the fashionable silhouette for the 1840s, with its shallow, demure wide neckline just revealing the edge of a sheer white chemise, above a fitted bodice trimmed with a series of flat tucks fanning up over the corsage in a V-shape from the pointed waist. The sleeves appear to be tight-fitting at the shoulder with rows of flat tucks over the upper arm, confirming a post-1836 date, and becoming more voluminous below the elbow. Her judiciously draped Turkey red [paisley] shawl is thought to have been a family heirloom and serves a double purpose by concealing Mr Walker’s advancing pregnancy – her fourteenth, and last child, Alice, was born soon after her return to Tasmania, in early 1841. She wears her centre-parted dark hair with a knot at the back, her long side ringlets held in place with black [jet] hair clips, or barrettes.

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Thomas Walker arrived at Port Jackson on 13 January 1818, and subsequently built a house at Concord, on the Parramatta River, which he called Rhodes. On 4 January 1823 he married Anna Elizabeth (1804-1889), second daughter of John Blaxland at St John’s Church, Parramatta. The couple had four sons and nine daughters. In 1832, the Walkers left Sydney to make their home at South Esk, near Longford, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) at the property they also named Rhodes.

In late 1839/ early 1840, Anna Walker travelled with her husband and four of her thirteen children up to Sydney from her home in Tasmania; the unexpected demise several months later of Anna’s elder brother, John, extended the Walkers’ visit til November/December. As neither of Felton’s portraits of the Blaxland siblings is precisely dated by the artist (and only one is signed physically), it is possible only to ascribe approximate dates, ie. after the sudden death of John Marquett Blaxland on 29 May 1840, in his 39th year, at Newington, Sydney, and before Anna’s return to Tasmania. The sombre mood of the portrait would seem to bear out this conjecture.

Naval surgeon and artist Maurice Felton (1803-1842) arrived with his family at Sydney in late 1839. He staged his first colonial exhibition in January 1840, perhaps leading Thomas Walker (1791-1861), commissary and settler, to commission this portrait of his wife Anna (nee Blaxland); Felton’s other known portraits of the Blaxland clan include Walker’s father and mother-in-law, John Snr and Harriott de Marquett Blaxland, and John Marquett Blaxland (1801-1840), their eldest son (ML 423). It is also possible that this work may have been commissioned by Mrs Walker’s parents.

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The relationship between the subjects of this unusual colonial double portrait is quite complicated. Sydney draper Thomas Chapman, aged about 44, is shown with his arm around the shoulder of his nephew-by-marriage, Robert Cooper Tertius, aged 10. In 1851, following the death of his first wife Charlotte, nee Cooper, Thomas Chapman married her widowed sister-in-law, Robert’s mother Catherine Rutter Cooper, thus becoming his nephew’s step-father.

Thomas Chapman is posed in a seated position on the left, facing out of the picture, and looking directly at the viewer. In keeping with his occupation as a successful draper, he wears a moderately-styled but well-tailored ensemble consisting of a 2-piece black cloth suit comprising a double-breasted frockcoat with notched lapels, slightly peaked at the shoulders and closely fitted to the arm above slit cuffs, and narrow-fitting matching trousers, over a single-breasted white [silk] waistcoat with a roll collar and a snowy white linen shirt with [pearl] stud buttons and a black neck cloth wrapped around the high, pointed collar. A set of ornamental gold fobs, including several seals and a watch winder, dangles below his waistcoat. Loosely laid over Chapman’s right thigh is a length of patterned and striped textile indicative of his occupation and providing the portrait with its characteristic flash of ‘Felton red’.

Perhaps the most notable change to take place in male appearance during the 1840s was a shift away from the curled hair and side whiskers fashionable in the 1830s to more sleek styles of grooming. Mr Chapman is clean shaven but still wears his hair in natural waves. By this date, the frock coat – varying in length from mid-thigh to just above the knee, skirted all around and cut to fit neatly at waist – had superseded the tailcoat. A double-breasted frockcoat was more usual than the single-breasted style, and remained the correct daytime dress for a draper into the second quarter of the nineteenth century, eventually giving way to the morning coat.

Robert Cooper III stands to his uncle’s left, his head posed in right profile, showing off to best advantage his splendid cap with its peaked patent leather visor, chin strap, black [satin] ribbon bow and streamer trim. He also wears a knee-length, dark [olive brown] wool, single-breasted, shawl-collared frockcoat with a wide black belt at the waist, fastened with a triple-pronged metal buckle, above cream moleskin trousers and a white linen shirt with a broad, flat collar and finely-pleated edge, tied at the neck with a black silk scarf.

What we know about this image

This portrait records the fond relationship between Thomas Chapman (ca.1796-1874) and his nephew-by-marriage Robert James Cooper (1830-1910), aka Robert Cooper III (ie. Tertius). It was painted three years before Robert (then aged 13) went to England to finish his education, travelling in the custody his Uncle Thomas.

Maurice Felton’s portraits are characterised by detailed, fine rendering of the face and facial features, capturing the texture of the skin and bringing out the character of the sitter without flattery. His depiction of fabrics emphasises the sheen of the materials, and his portrayal of jewellery is also accomplished

Thomas Chapman was a draper (a retailer of textile fabrics) working in Sydney in the 1840s. He had married Charlotte, nee Cooper (1810-1850), in 1834 but the couple are not known to have had children. In 1851, following the death of Robert Cooper II in Sydney in 1848, Robert’s mother Catherine Cooper (1811- 1860) married her brother-in-law and very close family friend Thomas Chapman (of Brisbane Cottage, Kiama) who subsequently became his nephew’s step-father. The couple lived at Hartwell House, Kiama, built by Thomas Chapman in 1858. Catherine Chapman died of measles at Kiama on 16 July 1860.

Robert Cooper III was born on 26 Sept 1830 at the Cooper family home Juniper Hall in Paddington, Sydney, the first son of Robert Cooper Jnr and his wife Catherine Newell Cooper, nee Rutter. Robert Cooper III received some schooling at Sydney Grammar School. Training as an engineer at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Robert Cooper III became a licensed surveyor. Only 18 years old when his father died, on returning home he went to work for Peter Nicol Russell at the Sydney Foundry and Engineering Works (1842-1855). He later took up land at Burrill Lake which he called Mia Mia.

On 2 Sept 1871, Robert Tertius married Mary Anne Ilett at Milton, the daughter of Ulladulla farmers Thomas and Sarah Ilett. He inherited 100acres and a house at Rocky Point (now Sans Souci) from Thomas Chapman in 1874, and was an Alderman on the Ulladulla Council for many years, holding the position of Mayor in 1896. He on died 20 September 1910.

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This right facing, seated portrait shows Mary Louisa Jones, aged 34, posed in a domestic setting – perhaps suggestive of ‘Bona Vista’, the Jones’ family villa at Darlinghurst, NSW – with a large swathe of green cloth to the right (her husband, known as ‘China’ Jones, was a successful merchant) and her left arm resting on the ledge of a stone (or rendered) balcony with a view behind past a rocky outcrop to boats on Sydney Harbour.

Mrs Jones wears a dinner/evening dress of plain, light-coloured [possibly shot] silk, the neckline cut low off the shoulder and slightly ‘en coeur’ (heart-shaped), above long full bishop’s sleeves set into a short tight sleeve head, and partitioned into sections with narrow bands placed above and below the elbow and confined by slim fitting cuffs at the wrist, below a wide collar, or ‘bertha’, of [blonde, ie. silk] open-worked lace, fastened at centre front with a small square brooch, and spreading over a close-fitting [boned] bodice, covered in drapery folds fanning up over the corsage, above a plain dome-shaped skirt pleated into the pointed waistline. Her dark hair is centre-parted and dressed very low, with a ‘kiss’ curl at the right temple, fastened with clips (or barrettes) above two or three rows of soft curls arranged over the ears.

The overall fashionable effect, all through the 1840s, was of pale gentility and demure simplicity. The lines of the silhouette had begun to droop after 1837, turning away from the earlier wide-shouldered, balloon-sleeved styles to become much quieter in tone, forming long pointed angles in keeping with the ‘Gothic’ taste. The lingering presence of voluminous bouffant sleeves in this image, with evidence of the devices employed to rein in their fullness, further supports an early 1840s date.

What we know about this image

The album in which this image is housed is believed to have been compiled by Richard Jones Jun. (1823-1907) prior to his departure for England in the early 1840s. It includes many contributions from members of the Jones’ family social circle including the Ferriters, who had married into the Jones family, the Cowpers and Stuart Donaldson (business partner of Richard Jones Snr).

Mary Louisa, nee Peterson (ca.1804 – 1887) married Richard Jones (1786-1852) in England in 1822. The couple arrived at Sydney in 1823, where Jones became a successful merchant and pastoralist. The couple had eight children including Richard Jun. (b. 1822), Mary Australia (b.1825), Louisa (b.1827), Elizabeth (b.1828), Frances (b. 1842) and Thomas (n.d).

The Jones lived on the corner of Pitt and Hunter Street in Sydney, before moving to ‘Bona Vista’ (now demolished) on the corner of Kellett St and Bayswater Rd, Darlinghurst, where they resided until the mid-1840s. When Jones was declared insolvent in November 1843, the family moved to Moreton Bay, Qld. Elected to the Legislative Council in 1850, Richard Jones died at New Farm, Moreton Bay, in 1852

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This front facing, ¾ length portrait shows Mrs Hannah Tompson (aged 36) seated in a drawing room setting. She is posed with her right arm resting on a large turquoise blue [velvet] cushion, placed over the out swept arm of a sofa with matching upholstery, a dark red curtain draped across the brownish-green painted wall behind. She holds a small blue book in her right hand and the black ribbon round her neck may suspend a pair of ‘pince-nez’ style reading glasses.

Mrs Tompson wears an evening [dinner] gown made of a plain, cream-coloured [silk] satin or taffeta, cut very low off the shoulders to reveal her décolletage. The turn back collar of the neckline, trimmed with a narrow [black] lace edging, extends the fashionably wide silhouette out over large ‘bouffant’ (puffed) ‘gigot’ (leg of mutton) sleeves, set low on the shoulder, trimmed above and below the elbow with a pair of lace-edged ‘mancherons’, or flat oversleeves. Following the dramatic deflating of the sleeve head in mid-1836, the fullness of the sleeves has slipped down below the shoulder to the middle of the upper arm, fitting tightly along the forearm and tapering to the wrist. The form-fitting bodice is set above a full skirt eased into the deeply-pointed waistline with a series of pleats over the hips.

Her dark glossy hair is parted slightly to the left of centre, horizontally-arranged into large ‘sausage’ curls on each side at the front, with ringlets hanging over her ears below, and braided into a bun set high on the crown at the back of her head which is uncovered. A sheer white ‘fichu’, or kerchief is draped over her shoulders and she wears a range of jewellery comprising a pair of pendant gold earrings, a small rectangular brooch pinned to the corsage of her bodice and a gold bracelet set with a blue stone, probably one of a matching pair, worn over the base of her sleeve at the wrist.

NB: During the early 19th century, dinner was served at 5 or 6 o’clock, and considered an afternoon rather than an evening function. A dinner dress was a semi-evening costume often worn with an evening headdress. Evening gowns are typically cut low to show off the décolletage and dinner gowns were typically made with long-sleeves, while ball gowns were short-sleeved.

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Miss Hannah Morris (1803-1874) was born in Sydney. She married public servant and poet Charles Tompson Jnr (1807-1883), at St Matthew’s, Windsor, on 12 April 1830. Charles Tompson Jnr was born in Sydney, the eldest child of emancipist farmer Charles Tompson (1784?-1871) and his wife, Elizabeth (née Boggis), and is claimed to have been the first published Australian-born poet. By 1831, the couple were living in Kent Street, Sydney, where Tompson had become a clerk in the colonial secretary’s office. He remained until 1836 and, from this time, seems to have eschewed writing poetry, concentrating instead on his career as a public servant.

William Nicholas (1807-1854), watercolourist, etcher and lithographer, was best known as a portraitist. He was in demand soon after his arrival at Sydney in the ‘Roslyn Castle’ on 25 February 1836. Surviving portraits prove he quickly attracted the colony’s social and professional élite. By November 1840 Nicholas was reported as ‘conducting Mr Barlow’s business’ and January 1842, he set up on a grander scale, advertising as a ‘miniature painter on ivory and in watercolours, lithographer and draughtsman’. He provided an attiring room for ladies to change into their best clothes at his studio-residence, 6 Elizabeth Street South, and charged from 1 to 3 guineas for his portrait miniatures. Taking an active part in Sydney’s early art exhibitions, Nicholas died in Sydney, aged 48, on 23 June 1854.

Advertisements appearing in the Commercial Journal and Advertiser (Sat 18 Aug 1838, p. 2, Fine Arts in New South Wales) state:

‘We have great pleasure in announcing the intention of Mr W. Nicholas to settle amongst us, whose talents as an artist cannot he too highly esteemed by the public. Specimens both of Miniature and Portrait Painting are to be seen at Mr Barlow’s Repository, Colonnade, 3 Bridge-street, where orders are received…’

And again in The Colonist (Wed 3 Jul 1839, p.2: Domestic Intelligence):

‘Mr Nicholas the artist, whose talents in the limning art afford the best guarantee that…a work will not suffer from any imperfection in the execution…Mr Barlow’s of Bridge Street, at whose establishment Mr N. is at present very busily employed in executing portraits in which department of painting he has been very successful…’

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This left facing, full-length seated portrait depicts an unidentified surveyor, his profession implied by the theodolite, or surveyor’s level, positioned on the left. The subject is possibly Captain Charles Sturt, aged in his early 40s at the time the image was created. He is posed seated on a [cedar] side chair next to a small, round-topped table with a quatreform base and cylindrical ‘gun-barrel’ column in the style of the late 1830s-early 1840s, on which are laid a map, a pencil and a compass. The map on the wall shows the recently established colonies at Swan River, WA (after 1830) and Adelaide, SA (as proclaimed in 1834), and the eastern Australian colonies as yet unseparated.

The sitter wears the type of dark clothes which would come to dominate men’s business dress after the mid-19th century. His elegantly-tailored three-piece, black wool suit is comprised of a single-breasted, full-skirted frock coat with notched lapels and sloping shoulder line – mirroring the silhouette of female fashions of the day – worn with a matching waistcoat and slim-fitting trousers strapped under the sole of square-toed shoes or boots. His watch and fob are just visible at the waist and he wears a snowy white linen shirt with a frilled front and a black neckcloth. His red hair is brushed fashionably forward in the romantic style and he is clean shaven with long side whiskers.

From the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries ‘dandyism’ – defined as the outward manifestation of inner perfection – was characterised by fastidious attention to cleanliness of body and attire. This new development in fashion set the standard in masculine dress, ushering in an era of perfect plainness, understated elegance and refinement which brought a new ethic of restraint into men’s dress.

What we know about this image

Captain Charles Napier Sturt (1795 – 1869) arrived in Sydney with a detachment from the 39th regiment, aboard the Mariner on 23 May 1827, escorting convicts to NSW. Keen to explore the Australian interior, especially its rivers, Sturt led several expeditions into the interior of the continent, starting from both Sydney and Adelaide. Returning to Britain in 1832-35, he applied for a grant of land intending to settle in Australia. On 20 September 1834, he married Charlotte Christiana Greene. The couple returned to Australia in mid-1835 to begin farming the land granted to Sturt near present-day Canberra. In early 1839, after returning to NSW to settle his affairs, Sturt and his family took up residence in South Australia.

The artist B [enjamin] Clayton (1805 – 54) was a watercolourist, and possible cartoonist, thought to have been a medical practitioner. The only son of the artist Samuel Clayton and his first wife, Jane Maguire, he studied medicine in Dublin from 1826 until his return to Australia in April 1830, where he married Frances Matilda (Fanny) Broughton, in 1834. They settled at Baltinglass, near Gunning, where several children were born.

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This front facing, 3/4 length seated portrait shows colonial poet, watercolourist and sketcher Mary Ellen Betts, nee Marsden (aged 31) posed within a domestic room setting in the act of painting flowers. She holds a fine watercolour brush in her right hand, and the specimen she is copying [a blooming rose] in her left. Laid out before her, on a small rectangular table covered in a red [plush] cloth, are a [timber/enamelled metal] paint box, complete with watercolours, mixing tray and white ceramic palette, a glass water jar holding down a cream fabric brush wiper, and sketch book. She seated on a carver, or elbow, chair with a caned base [possibly of local or Anglo-Indian manufacture]. The room is fitted with a geometric-patterned floorcloth, and the walls painted a reddish-brown [umber] with a [cedar] window architrave (just visible on the LHS of the image) hung with a dark red curtain drapery.

Mrs Betts wears a day dress of soft [gauzy] green material which appears to have been remodelled [perhaps several times] from an earlier style. The bodice is shirred and piped in vertical channels, with a ‘broderie anglais’ (white-work) embroidered ‘pelerine’ collar, or capelet, fastened at the neck with an oval, seed pearl set brooch, and spreading out over the shoulders above the tight-fitting sleeve head which suggests a post-1836 date. Following the dramatic deflating of the ‘imbecile’ sleeve in mid-1836, the fullness of the sleeve slipped from the upper arm down to the mid-section. In this instance, it has been re-arranged into two flounced ‘bouffants’ (or puffs) anchored above and below the elbow, and loosely ruched to the wrists. The colour of the gown, and its ‘pagoda-like’ sleeve puffs, is reminiscent of the taste for Chinoiserie which enjoyed a short revival during the romantic era. The long gold, rope-like chain hanging down from her neck suspends a small watch, tucked into a small pocket on the LHS of the round waistline her gown which is set at the natural waist and marked with a black ribbon belt.

Her dark hair is arranged in side ringlets and softly braided around a knot set low on the crown at the back of her head which, unusually for a married woman at the time, is uncovered. The red ribbon, looped and tied loosely in a bow at her neck, could imply that she has momentarily let her [straw] bonnet hang behind her back having just come in from the garden in her haste to record a freshly picked specimen.

What we know about this image

Mary Ellen Betts (1806-1885) was the 3rd daughter and sixth child of Rev. Samuel Marsden and Elizabeth, née Fristan, of Parramatta, NSW. She married John Betts in 1830. Betts became a pastoral pioneer, having come out to the colony as a tutor to a gentleman’s family who were settled at North Parramatta. The couple had 7 sons and 3 daughters and settled on land in the Bathurst district called Molong Station, 16,000 acres granted to his wife as a marriage gift, situated just west of Orange.

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This front facing, ½ length, seated portrait depicts Mrs Tompson (aged 42) as a respectable woman of substance, posed on a double-ended [cedar] sofa (probably of colonial manufacture) with central scrolling carved back and out swept arms, black [sateen/horsehair] upholstery and a pinch-pleated, buttoned bolster. Her elegant day dress appears to be made of fine [silk] taffeta; originally blue in colour the [indigo] paint pigment has faded over time to a light olive green. Following the fashionably wide-shouldered look of the period, this silhouette is further emphasised by elongated, lobed (or van-dyked) ‘mancherons’ (epaulettes) spreading out over ‘gigot’ (leg of mutton) sleeves, full to the elbow and tight-fitting along the forearm, tapering to the wrist and marked with long peaked, black [velvet] cuffs. The form-fitting bodice has a series of pleats, rising in a V-shape across the corsage, either side of a centre front seam (possibly piped or boned), above a full skirt gathered into a pointed waistline.

Mrs Tompson’s dark brown hair is horizontally arranged in large ‘sausage’ curls and possibly oiled. She wears an elaborate indoor cap comprised of layered, pleated frills of lace, or finely worked white-work (‘broderie anglais’) embroidery entwined with bands and bows of pale blue [satin] ribbon falling in long streamers over her shoulders. This cap appears to match her pleated sheer ‘fichu’, or kerchief, which has been folded to form a wide, flat collar emphasising the width of the shoulder-line of the gown, and fastened at the neck with a small rectangular gold pin [possibly containing a sample of brown hair] maybe a sentimental token or mourning brooch.

With its exuberantly romantic attention to upper half of the sitter’s ensemble, overloaded with details of ribbons and lace, the pointed waistline of Mrs Tompson’s gown is indicative of a taste for the gothic after 1832, while its massive balloon-sized ‘imbecile’ sleeves clearly pre-date the dramatic mid-1836 change in mode which saw the collapse of the sleeve head and subsequent shrinking of the upper half of the silhouette.

What we know about this image

Jane Tompson, nee Amytage (1794-1871) was the second wife of emancipist farmer Charles Tompson (1784-1871), whom she married on 25 August 1822. The couple lived at ‘Clydesdale’, Windsor, until the property was sold in 1851. This portrait (as dated) would have been painted between the birth of two daughters in May 1835 and 1838.

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This right facing, ¾ length, portrait shows a young woman posed in a domestic setting seated on a tablet-backed [cedar] side chair with scroll supports (probably of colonial manufacture), holding a handkerchief in her right hand on her lap, her left arm resting next to an open book laid face down on a square-cornered table with a blue [felt] cover decoratively bordered with braid.

Mrs Cooper’s elegant day dress appears to be made of fine [silk] taffeta in a light olive green colour. It has a high, closed neckline, in-filled with a white muslin habit shirt, or ‘chemisette’, with a [white-work embroidered] double-ruff at the neck, above a flat, turn-back, notched/triangular contrasting collar in black, edged with a narrow pleated olive-green band, with black and olive bows at the centre of the corsage and on the shoulders, over the smooth-fitting bodice above a full skirt, set into the round waistband seam with pleats, at the slightly-raised waistline. Following the fashionably wide-shouldered silhouette of the period, panels of gauging (tucks) at the sleeve head, edged with black piping, form large ‘bouffant’ (puffed) ‘gigot’ (leg of mutton) or balloon sleeves above the elbow, fitted tightly along the forearms above contrast turn back cuffs in black with olive-green pleated trim.

Her red hair is elaborately arranged with large ‘bows’, or ‘sausage’ curls set in horizontal rows, either side of a centre-parting and drawn back into a high bun at the crown fixed with [tortoiseshell] comb. She also wears a small square brooch, pinned to the centre of her corsage, pendant [filigree-work] earrings and a long watch chain, looped up at the waist and suspending a watch with several fobs including a seal.

What we know about this image

1. Sarah May (1802-1863) married in Robert Cooper Snr (the distiller) of Juniper Hall, South Head Rd, in 1822 and was his third wife.

2. Charlotte (aged 32) wife of Henry Cooper, architect, Darling Harbour.

3. Mrs Mary Cooper owned and let a house in Cumberland St.

By 1833 there may have been others: Mrs Thomas Cooper, mother of Sir Daniel, arrived by George Canning on Dec. 23 1828; in 1830 Miss Catherine Newell Rutter (1811-1860) married Robert Cooper Jnr, by 1833 she was aged 22 and between pregnancies: Robert III (1830), Charlotte (1832), William O (1835). She later married Thomas Chapman, widower of her sister-in-law Charlotte Cooper.

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This right facing, ½ length miniature portrait shows Mrs Jane Atkinson (aged 25) wearing a bright cobalt blue [silk] dinner or evening gown typically low-necked and long-sleeved at this time, while ball gowns were short sleeved. In the pelisse-style, wrapping across the front (from right to left) like a coat, the low, wide v-shaped neckline is left partly open to reveal her youthful décolletage, modestly in-filled over the bosom with a shirred muslin ‘tucker’ or chemisette. Its fashionably wide silhouette is extended over the shoulder line by broad notched, or ‘van-dyke’, lapels spreading out over the top of large ‘bouffant’ (puffed) ‘gigot’ (leg of mutton) sleeves. The sitter carries a watch, suspended from a long double-stranded gold chain looped up on either side and tucked into a small pocket on the LHS of the narrow round waistline of her gown, marked by a self-fabric belt fastened with a deep oval-shaped gilt buckle. She also wears long gold pendant earrings.

Her glossy black hair is centre-parted and arranged in tight ringlets on the sides, and drawn smoothly back into a high bun at the crown fixed with a [Chinese lacquer ware / tortoiseshell] comb.

In mid-Nov 1832, Mrs Atkinson left Sydney with her family to live in Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). It is highly likely, therefore, that this portrait was painted in the days just prior to her departure, perhaps as a memento for her mother Mary Reibey – the artist’s dating of this image would seem to bears this out.

What we know about this image

Jane Penelope Atkinson, nee Reibey (1807-1854), was born in Sydney, the 3rd daughter of Thomas Reibey (1755 – 1811) and emancipist merchant Mary Reibey, nee Haydock (1777-1855). On 11 Sep 1824, aged 17, Jane (known as Penelope) married merchant and auctioneer John Atkinson (1795 – 1893). The couple settled in Wilberforce, NSW, on one of Mary Reibey’s properties, before re-locating to Launceston, Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania) in mid-November 1834. The couple produced 6 children in NSW before 1832, and 12 children in total. Jane Atkinson died (aged 47) at Launceston, Tasmania, on 9 October 1854.

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This plate shows a woman and a girl (perhaps a mother and daughter) seated in a domestic [garden] setting. Le Follet Courrier des Salons Journal des Modes (1829-1882) was one of the longest running 19th century fashion magazines. Initially specializing in scenes of ladies at the opera and soirees, all the best fashion plate artists worked for Le Follet in the 1840s and 50s and the high quality of Le Follet plates is a testament of their skill. Later issued in English and American editions, from August 1830 Follet plates were subtitled ‘Modes’ below the image with the title ‘Lady’s magazine’ varying several times between 1832 and 1838.

The woman in this image wears a sky blue dress of ‘mousseline’ (a fine light woollen cloth of a muslin-like texture) with large balloon-sleeves, tight-fitting from elbow to wrist trimmed with pointed gauntlet-style, ‘white work’ embroidered cuffs extending over the hands, and a wide low cut neckline, in-filled with a fine muslin ‘chemisette’ or habit -shirt with a pleated, ruffle collar standing above a black [satin] ribbon tied in a bow. The dress has a plain, smooth fitting bodice above a round waistline, worn with a tan-coloured ornamental apron of embroidered ‘Gros de Naples’ (type of Italian silk with a ribbed surface) with patch pockets and edged with cord which has been wrapped around the waist, the knotted and tasselled ends dangling decoratively in her lap, over a full skirt reaching to just above the ankles revealing cloth walking boots with narrow, square black leather toe caps. She has a floral printed shawl draped over her right shoulder and her hair is arranged in an elaborate coiffure with bunches of side curls and a high bun with a corsage of wheat. The child is seated on an X-frame stool and wears an ensemble of matching dress, cape and pantalettes made of yellow ‘Jacconnas’ (sic) (Jacconnet: a thin cotton fabric like muslin) with balloon-sleeves, tight-fitting from elbow to wrist, the ruffled collar of a chemisette or habit shirt is visible at the cape neckline tied with a dark pink ribbon. She wears blue cloth walking boots with narrow, square black leather toe caps and her dark hair is plaited and coiled into a bun with bunches of side ringlets.

One of the manufacturers named on this plate is listed at a fashionable address on the Boulevard Italien; running east west between the 2nd and 9th Arrondissements of Paris, its famous cafés and restaurants offered popular meeting places for the elegant elite throughout the 19th century.

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The sheer prettiness of the clothes of the 1830s make the highly ornamental fashion plates of this romantic era a delight to behold. A fashion plate is an illustration (a plate) showing fashionable styles of clothing. Fashion plates, as they were known during the height of their popularity, were first circulated at the end of the 18th century in England. These images do not depict actual or specific people but rather offer generalized portraits, intended to indicate the style of clothes that a tailor, dressmaker, or retailer could make or sell and/or to demonstrate how different materials might be made up into clothes. Through the centuries, the fashion plate has continued to provide a link between the wearer and the maker of clothes. Though fashion plates can trace their origins back to the 16th century, this method of disseminating fashionable styles remained popular through the 19th and early 20th centuries only to be largely superseded by fashion photography.

The Lady’s Magazine began publishing in 1770 and was one of the first distributors of fashion plates in magazines, spreading the trend across Europe. In France, La Galleries des Modes was a pioneer in fashion plate publication with magazines distributed irregularly during 1778 and 1787. After 1800 the increase in the number of lending, subscription and public libraries fostered a new reading public and many types of magazines flourished. Some magazines included illustrated fashion articles which were often their most attractive feature; fashion engravings, and later lithographs, were often coloured by hand. In 1809, the London print firm of Ackermann began to publish ‘The Repository of Arts, Letters, Commerce and Manufactures Fashion and Politics’. This magazine had a broad content scope with illustrations of good quality; a special feature of the Repository was the inclusion of small samples of new textiles which were pasted alongside the text which named and described them.

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This right facing, full-length profile portrait is painted in watercolour on paper and shows a standing male figure posed on shore, with a pair of mercantile maritime vessels (flying red ensigns) out to sea behind him. He wears a three-piece, single-breasted dark suit (perhaps a type of marine uniform) trimmed at the cuff with gold buttons, also fastening the short jacket and waistcoat, worn over a white linen shirt and a black neckcloth, matching trousers and black leather boots or shoes with pointed toes and a slight heel. The man also wears a narrow brimmed ‘stove-pipe’ style top hat and holds a telescope or spy glass in his left hand.

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Nothing is known of the subject of this naïvely-drawn profile portrait, beyond an identity (suggested by descendants) of Mr George Prince (1795-1853), eldest son of the late George Prince of Canterbury, Kent, England. It is one of a pair.

Black painted ‘profile’ portraits or ‘silhouettes’ were known by various names during the 18th and early 19th centuries; ‘shades’ or ‘shadow portraits’ were the most common terms during the 18th century, with the term ‘profile’ becoming more common by the early 19th century and ‘silhouette’ only in common use in the 1830s. By the late 1820s interest in full length profile portraits, the work of artists known as ‘profilists’, rivalled earlier bust-length versions. This profile form of portrait, sometimes embellished with watercolour details, persisted through the 1840s when the silhouette’s position, as a cheaply available form of rapid portraiture, was threatened by the invention and introduction of photography.

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This left facing, full length profile portrait is painted in watercolour on paper and shows a female figure in a standing pose. She holds a small book in her right hand, and wears a black gown with a gathered bodice and a round waistline, sitting slightly higher than the natural waist, with a large white-work embroidered collar, or pelerine, emphasising the wide shoulder-line which extends over the large balloon-shaped sleeves of the early 1830s, full to the elbow and tight-fitting along the forearm, above a tubular skirt reaching just to the instep to reveal black, pointed-toe slippers. The lack of fullness in the skirt suggests an early 1830s date, before the silhouette widened at the hem to balance out the shoulder line. The woman also wears a frilled and beribboned indoor cap, over her brown hair which is arranged in a face-framing row of narrow, tightly-curled, sausage-shaped ringlets.

What we know about this image

Nothing is known of the subject of this naïvely-drawn profile portrait, beyond the identity (suggested by descendants) of Elizabeth Sophie (1793-1885), wife of Mr George Prince (1795-1853), eldest son of the late Mr George Prince of Canterbury, Kent, England. It is one of a pair.

Black painted ‘profile’ portraits or ‘silhouettes’ were known by various names during the 18th and early 19th centuries; ‘shades’ or ‘shadow portraits’ were the most common terms during the 18th century, with the term ‘profile’ becoming more common by the early 19th century and ‘silhouette’ only in common use in the 1830s. By the late 1820s interest in full length profile portraits, the work of artists known as profilists, rivalled earlier bust-length versions. This profile form of portrait, sometimes embellished with watercolour details, persisted through the 1840s when the silhouette’s position, as a cheaply available form of rapid portraiture, was threatened by the invention and introduction of photography.

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This right facing, 1/2 length miniature portrait of Elizabeth Rouse (1772-1849) is thought to have been painted between 1825 and 1830. Mrs Rouse appears to be aged in her 60s and she wears an ensemble of everyday garments comprising a dark-coloured [cotton] dress with a gathered bodice, the shoulders and neckline largely obscured by her light-coloured [wool] shawl, with a white-work embroidered [muslin] collar pinned at the neck with a square brooch. Her brown hair is covered with an indoor cap of sheer muslin or [embroidered] net trimmed with bands of white [satin] ribbon, elaborately arranged in a series of frills and bows over each ear.

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Elizabeth Adams (1772-1849) married Richard Rouse in 1796. The couple migrated to Sydney in 1801, where Rouse became Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts at Parramatta.

This miniature portrait has been set into a brooch which bears an inscription on the reverse dating from the year of the sitter’s death in 1849. A similar portrait (possibly a copy), painted by William Griffith (ca. 1808-1870) in 1847, is held by Sydney Living Museums in the Hamilton Rouse Hill Collection.

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This left facing ½ length miniature portrait shows the young Mrs Selina Tomlins (ca.1807-1835) at about 21 years of age. She wears a sky blue silk day dress with short, puffed sleeves (possibly with further puffs of silk or net continuing to the wrist) set low on the shoulder, either side of a wide lace-trimmed neckline, filled-in with a sheer white muslin chemisette-tucker with a ruffled lace collar, forming a V-neckline at the front and rising high behind the neck, in a modified revival of a 16th century Elizabethan-style standing ruff.

Her face is framed by dark, glossy ringlets and she wears a ‘cornette’ (a bonnet-style day cap) of spotted muslin, its softly gathered crown trimmed with a blue ribbon and double-frilled brim, creating a highly sentimentalised appearance. A small gold brooch is pinned to the front of her smooth fitting bodice, belted with a striped ribbon at the moderately high waist and fastened with a rectangular gold buckle, drawn to one side.

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Richard Read’s simply conceived miniature portrait of Selina Tomlins, wife of Audit Office clerk, George Tomlins (ca.1803-1854) is focused on dress and personal presentation, and represents the growing class of free immigrants (she had arrived in Sydney in 1824) who were beginning to pour into the colony. Their world was urban rather than landed and their interests coincided more with emancipated convicts and the Australian-born lower and middle classes. Painted in 1828, by this date the classical taste in dress had given over to a more romantic spirit, encouraging a shift away from the vertical, columnar line to a more triangular silhouette achieved through a widening of the shoulder line and at the hem. Like all transitional phases, this period gave rise to some curious experimentations and novelties inspired by a range of revivalist styles.

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This front facing ½ length miniature portrait shows the young Mrs Atkinson (1807-1854) at about 21 years of age. She wears a rather informal style of dress which is an unusual choice for a portrait.

Her dark blue day dress (perhaps a type of riding habit) has a plain high-necked bodice fitted with a wide, contrasting turn-back collar of cream fabric bordered with a narrow red stripe and tied in a soft bow at the neck like a scarf above long, full sleeves making it a practical and comfortable garment for more active pursuits. Her dark curly hair falls in ringlets around her face, either side of a centre part and below a ring of plaited hair supporting a [tortoiseshell] comb in the shape of a crown. She also carries a gold watch and fob, linked by a heavy gold chain, across the front of her gown at the natural waistline.

What we know about this image

Jane Penelope Atkinson, nee Reibey (1807 – 1854), was born in Sydney, the 3rd daughter of Thomas Reibey (1755 – 1811) and emancipist merchant Mary Reibey, nee Haydock, (1777-1855). On 11 Sep 1824, aged 17, Jane (known as Penelope) married merchant and auctioneer John Atkinson (1795 – 1893), in Sydney. Between 1826 and 1832, the couple settled on one of Mary Reibey’s properties in Wilberforce, NSW, and had 6 children and before their departure for Launceston, Van Diemens Land in mid-November 1834. Jane Atkinson died (aged 47) at Launceston, Tasmania, on 9 October 1854.

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This life-size, left-facing, full-length, standing ¾ profile portrait depicts the 53-year-old Captain John Piper in a commanding pose. Its landscape setting is immediately identifiable as the eastern foreshore of Sydney Harbour, with a distant view to Henrietta Villa, Piper’s recently-completed prestigious waterfront home at Point Piper, forming an appropriate backdrop.

Piper is shown in a civil uniform of his own design, thought to have had custom-made for him in London by a leading tailor. As befits the owner’s position and bearing, this outfit is cut along naval lines and made-up in a dark blue woollen cloth, the double-breasted jacket with standing collar and gold epaulettes at the shoulder, fastening with two rows of large brass buttons, worn over a fine white linen shirt with a peaked collar, slim-fitting trousers and fine leather shoes, or boots, with an ornamental gilt dress sword slung from the left hip, and holds a black top hat in his left hand. A gold watch and chain, set with pendant fobs, is also visible hanging down below the cropped front edge of his jacket at the waist.

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Following a long and successful career as a colonial administrator, Captain John Piper (1773-1851) was appointed chief customs officer for Sydney in 1814; in lieu of a salary he received 5% of all monies collected. At the peak of his service he was receiving thousands of pounds a year. As one of the wealthiest individuals in Sydney, Piper could now afford to indulge in the level of living he had always wished for and a home worthy of his newly-acquired eminence. In 1818 Governor Macquarie granted Piper 190 acres [77 hectares] of land to be known as Point Piper. Henrietta Villa, built between 1816 and 1822, was completed at a cost of at a cost of £10,000 and considered to be the most elegant house in Sydney at the time.

Piper’s star was only in the ascendancy for a few short years. He proved lax in his duties as naval officer, and was suspended from his position by Governor Darling, who demanded the customs deficiency be made good, and Piper was forced to auction off his property and belongings in May 1826.

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This right facing ¾ length miniature portrait of Mrs Laycock is the earliest surviving, authenticated colonial portrait by Richard Read Junior.

Hannah Laycock (aged about 68) has been posed seated on a cedar carver chair. She wears a high-waisted, fawn-coloured day dress with an ‘epaulette’ shoulder detail extending out above long loose sleeves with three self-fabric bands at the wrist to bring in their fullness. The style of the bodice of her dress is obscured by a sheer [spotted] lace ‘fichu’ or kerchief with a scalloped edge, draped over her shoulders and reaching to a point below her waist, covering a separate linen collar. She has a sky blue, fringed shawl wrapped across her back and around her arms and wears a ‘corvette’ (bonnet-type day cap) of sheer white fabric, tying under the chin and gathered over the crown, trimmed with band of pale blue ribbon and a rosette, the soft double-frilled brim framing her dark brown hair which is arranged in short curls around her face. Mrs Laycock wears small pendant earrings, several rings, and long gold chain from which two ornaments are suspended.

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Hannah Laycock, née Pearson (1758-1831) was married to Thomas Laycock (1756?-1809), Quartermaster of the NSW Corps. She arrived in the Gorgon in September 1791, and left again for England in about 1805. She returned to the colony in 1810 after her husband died. The Laycocks had three sons and three daughters, including Thomas Laycock. An early land grant recipient in the Canterbury area, Hannah Laycock settled on her 500-acre grant named ‘King’s Grove’ (after Governor Philip Gidley King), now Kingsgrove, NSW, but is also listed as residing in Pitt Street, Sydney, at the time this portrait was made.

The miniature portrait of Mrs Laycock by Richard Read Jnr (1796-1862) reveals the artists characteristically prosaic approach to portraiture. The majority of his portraits are either half or three-quarter length. Using a sparse, elegant design with cool, matt colours, the sitters are set against a plain background and appear detached, almost solemn. The greatest attention is given to the face which is built up from strokes of watercolour or pencil and, on occasion, he also used white body colour to model costumes and details. Richard Read Jnr rarely signed the face of his portraits but often inscribed them in some detail on the back. Read Jnr operated from 89 Pitt Street between 1826 and 1835, and then from 45 Pitt Street. According to his ad in the Sydney Monitor, in November 1826, R. Read junior’s miniature portraits – ‘painted on Ivory in a superior style’ – could be acquired for prices ‘from One Guinea to Five’. Most of Read’s surviving portraits date from this time onwards.

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