Art at Second Hand: Prints after European Pictures in Victoria before 1870

NOTES

• H.G. Turner, ‘Some representatives of Literature and Art in Melbourne in the Fifties’, paper read at the Beefsteak Club, 10 Aug. 1918. MS 8062, Henry Gyles Turner Papers, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.
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• W. Moore, The Story of Australian Art, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1934, Vol. I, p. 51.
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• M. Holyoake, ‘Melbourne Art Scene from 1839 to 1859’, Art and Australia, XV, 3, 1978, pp. 289–296; C. Downer and J. Phipps, Victorian Vision: 1834 Onwards, National Gallery of Victoria, 1985.
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• Not surprisingly, Australian art historians have focused upon the production of colonial artists and the depiction of Australian subjects. For an interesting discussion of ‘the triumph of the nationalist mode’ of thought, see R. Dixon, The Course of Empire, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 4–5.
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• B.D. Rix, Pictures for the Parlour, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1983, pp. 11. See also N. Pevsner, Originality’, The Architectural Review, CXV, June 1954, pp. 367–69.
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• Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser, 22 July, 1839, quoted in Holyoake, op. cit. p. 289. The ‘Martin’ referred to in this notice is presumably John Martin (1789–1854), whose prints after his paintings enjoyed enormous popularity from 1826 onwards: see Rix, op. cit. p. 45. Prints were also present, of course, in the older colonies of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land. See J. Zhotsky, ‘The State of the Arts in N.S.W. and Van Diemen's Land’, Art Union, July, 1839, pp. 99–100, p. 99.
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• J.S. Prout, ‘The Fine Arts in Australia’, Art Union, Nov. 1848, p. 332, and P. De Serville, Port Phillip Gentlemen, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 73, 164.
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• H. McCrae, ed. Georgiana's Journal, William Brooks, Sydney, 1983, pp. 61, 110. The ‘Brierly’ mentioned is Sir Oswald Brierly (1817–1894), the marine painter. As he briefly visited Australia in 1841 it is possible that these prints were purchased in Melbourne. However, Georgiana's 1841 ‘Inventory of Packages’ for their outward journey included one of ‘pictures’ and one of ‘Cabinet-drawers, pictures’ (ibid., p. 31).
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• Many of the ‘gentlemen colonists’ of Port Phillip brought family portraits with them. Lady Stawell wrote in 1844: ‘We have my poor uncle's picture up in our parlour and some other little knick-knackeries which give us a very civilized appearance’ (My Recollections, privately public., London, 1911, p. 62); for McCrae family portraits see Arthur's Seat, The McCrae Homestead, National Trust, Melbourne, n.d., pp. 10–18.
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• See Alfred T. Thompson's letter to Sir Redmond Barry (26 Feb., 1867), for the difficulties involved in safely conveying oil paintings from Europe to Australia. (Minutes of Fine Arts Commission, 1863–67, Public Records Office, Laverton, VPRS 4731).
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• EG. Stephens, quoted in J. Maas, Gambart, Prince of the Victorian Art World, Barrie and Jenkins, London, 1975, p. 122.
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• See D. Alexander and R. Godfrey, Painters and Engraving, the Reproductive Print from Hogarth to Wilkie, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 40–41.
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• Quoted in A. Wilton, ‘Art and Genius: Printmaking in Early Nineteenth-Century England’, The Print in England, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 6–11, p. 6.
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• Alexander & Godfrey, op. cit., p. 9.
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• Quoted in S. Bruntjen, John Boydell (1719–1804) A Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian England, Garland, New York/London, 1985, p. 31. Although prints were purchased by a relatively wide spectrum of the community, it was not until the later Victorian period that cheap impressions could be afforded by the lowest social strata. See L. Errington, Tribute to Wilkie, National Galleries of Scotland, 1985, p. 99. J. Skinner Prout observed that there were cheaper prints in ‘the houses of the lower class’ in Sydney in 1847, but also noted that some of these ‘popular prints’ could cost as much as fifteen guineas a pair. (op. cit., p. 332).
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• H. Beck, Victorian Engravings, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973, pp. 16–23. By 1847, the vast scale of the print publishing business caused the principal fine art publishers to found the Printsellers’ Association to control the volume of proof engravings. See Maas, op. cit., p. 39.
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• See Rix, op. cit., pp. 44–47; A. Dyson, ‘Images Interpreted: Landseer and the Engraving Trade’, Print Quarterly, I, 1984, pp. 29–43; A.S. Marks, ‘Wilkie and the Reproductive Print’, Sir David Wilkie of Scotland, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1987, pp. 73–96.
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• The distinguished mezzotint engraver Samuel Cousins was elected Academician in 1855. See C. Fox, ‘The Engraver's Battle for Professional Recognition in Early Nineteenth-century London’, The London Journal, II, No. 1, May 1976.
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• W. Hazlitt, ‘Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England’, Complete Works, ed. P. Howe, London, 1930–4, v. 10, p. 8.
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• P. Just, An Appeal to the Government and Colonists of Victoria in favor of the Employment of the Arts of Painting and Sculpture, in decorating the new Houses of Parliament and Merchants’ Exchange, Melbourne, 1856, p. 17. Patrick Just was a merchant in Melbourne from 1851–1857, who also wrote several articles for The Age. Note that the presence of fine engravings ‘from Wilkie, Landseer and Turner’ was regarded by J. Skinner Prout as ‘proof of the diffusion of taste for the Fine Arts’ in the colonies, (op. cit., p. 332).
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• This enthusiasm for prints lasted for most of the nineteenth century. For the colonial print market during the 1880s and 1890s see G. Vaughan, ‘Art Collectors in Colonial Victoria 1854–1892: an analysis of taste and patronage’, B.A. (Hons) thesis, Melbourne University, 1976, pp. 9–11. The author wishes to thank Dr. Vaughan for allowing her to read and refer to his pioneering study, which includes a chapter on the taste for prints in colonial Victoria.
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• Official Catalogue of the Melbourne Exhibition, 1854, in connexion with the Paris Exhibition, Melbourne, 1854, Nos. 287, 311, 321; the example of wood-engraving, Christ in the Tomb, is actually in the ‘Printing, Engraving, Books Section’, no. 239.
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• The major loan exhibition Works of Art, Ornamental and Decorative Art, Melbourne Public Library, 1869, [henceforth 1869 Melbourne Exhibition] included over 160 engravings and etchings.
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• Cornfield Near Brighton, after J. Constable, shown at Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute Exhibition of Science and Art, 1863, [henceforth 1863 Ballarat Exhibition] No. 362.; C. Mottram, after J. Martin, The Great day of His Wrath, The Last Judgement, The Plains of Heaven, 1851, shown at Fine Arts Exhibition, Ballarat, 1869, [henceforth 1869 Ballarat Exhibition] Nos. 648–650; RP. Gibbon, after Sir E. Landseer, The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner, 1838; published as a pair to The Shepherd's Grave. Both prints shown at 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, Nos. 70, 70A; A. Blanchard, after W.P. Frith, Derby Day, 1858, shown at 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, No. 84; A. Blanchard, after W. Holman Hunt, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, 1863, shown at Fine Arts Exhibition, Geelong, 1869, [henceforth 1869 Geelong Exhibition] No. 261.
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• For example, the importers and furniture makers, W.H. Rocke and Co., Collins St. offered ‘the choicest engravings, the most elaborate and artistic chromo-lithographs…’ at their show-room, while J.L. Grundy, Importer, exhibited prints at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition (Nos. 311, 321); Messrs. R.E.C. Waters and Augustus Tulk were agents for the Arundel Society. (Information on Tulk kindly provided by Ms Christine Downer).
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• Advertised by James Blundall & Co., Argus, June 17,1856, p. 3. For the Art Journal's role in patronizing British line engraving, see T. Fawcett, ‘Graphic versus Photographic in the Nineteenth century Reproduction’, Art History, 9, 2, 1986, pp. 189, 203.
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• 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, No. 98 and Art Journal, 1859, p. 368.
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• See list of ‘Works on the Fine Arts’ in Catalogue of Casts, busts, reliefs and illustrations to the School of Design and Ceramic Art in the Museum of Art, Melbourne Public Library, 1865.
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• E. Aslin, ‘The Rise and Progress of the Art Union of London’, Apollo, LXXXV, 59 (n.s.), 1967, pp. 12–16, p. 12.
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• G. Godden, ‘The Victorian Art-Union Movement’, Apollo, LXXV, 439, 1961, pp. 68–70, p. 68.
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• M. Holyoake, ‘Art Unions—Catalysts of Australian Art’, Art and Australia, XII, 4, 1975, p. 381. These were not the only foreign art unions active in Victoria—works from the Ceramic & Crystal Palace Art Union were shown at the 1869 Geelong Exhibition (Nos. 317–323), and also entered the collection of the Beechworth Library and Burke Memorial Museum during the 1870s. A number of smaller local art unions also had European reproductive prints as prizes—see RS. Nayler's ‘Art Union of 520 prizes’, Melbourne, 1867 (La Trobe Collection, Victorian Pamphlet v. 87).
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• Aslin, op. cit., p. 13. The Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland began to commission engravings ‘for members of the association’ in 1837. See Art Union, v.1, 1839, p.3.
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• Catalogue of the Victorian Exh. of Art, Dec. 1856, no. 230. Fawkner and his wife won several other Art Union prizes including a porcelain bust of Clytie, see Report of the Council of the Art-Union of London, 1855, 1856. Five of the eleven engravings presented by Fawkner to the Melbourne Public Library in 1869 were from various British Art Unions, see The Argus, 8 February, 1869, p. 6.
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• Port Phillip District subscribers for the London Art Union in 1849 included Messrs. W. A'Beckett, T. Black, G.W. Cole, H.F. Gurner, W. Lonsdale, G. Robinson, R. Ocock, G. Howitt and the Melbourne Mechanics’ Institute. See Report of the Council of the Art-Union of London. 1849.
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• Aslin, op. cit., p. 13. London Art-Union Report for 1857 lists as local agents: W.V. Giblin for Geelong (44 subscr.); J.G. Foxton and E. Arnold for Melbourne (60 subscr.); E. Moore for Portland (79 subscr.)
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• A. King, ‘George Godwin and the Art Union of London 1837–1922’, Victorian Studies, VIII, Dec 1964, pp. 103, 121, 128. Examples of subscription prints: W. Holl's engraving after W.P. Frith, An English Merry-making in the Olden Time, (London Art Union 1861), presented by J.P. Fawkner to the Melbourne Public Library, 1869. See footnote 33.
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• Aslin, op. cit., pp. 14–15. The Scottish Art Union also published volumes of prints.
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• ibid. For the London Art Union's promotion of the German outline manner, see W. Vaughan, German Romanticism and English Art, Yale University Press, New York/London, 1979, pp. 142–44.
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• G. Vaughan, op. cit., pp. 2–4.
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• F. Bromley, after Daniel Maclise, Caxton's Printing Office, mixed mezzotint, sent by C. Boyd to the 1863 Ballarat Exhibition, No. 316. See R. Engen, Victorian Engravings, Academy Editions, London, 1975, p. 39 and Daniel Maclise, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972, p. 93.
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• H.T. Ryall, after Sir J. Noel Paton, The Pursuit of Pleasure, engraving and stipple engraving, 1864. Proof presented to Trustees by Thomas Russell Esq. See Catalogue of the Museum of Art, 1865, p. 135; and Beck, op. cit., p. 62.
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• Over forty prints after Old Masters were sent to the 1869 Melbourne Exhibition. For the relationship between reproductions of art and the nineteenth-century interest in art history see F. Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art, Cornell University Press, New York, 1976, pp. 166–169.
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• Engravings after Raphael's Transfiguration and Virgin and Child, Domenichino's Lot and his Daughters, Da Vinci's Last Supper, Rubens’ Agony in the Garden, and Salvator Rosa's Apollo and Sybil etc, were exhibited at the 1869 Melbourne Exhibition.
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• Francis Haskell has described this as the generation ‘whose taste had been formed at the Orleans… and similar sales’: see Haskell, op. dt., pp. 39–51, 87 (quoted), 157.
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• ibid., pp. 85–116.
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• Catalogue of Oil Paintings, watercolour drawings, engravings, lithographs, photographs etc. in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1879, p. ii; Von Guérard, the Master of the Gallery's School of Painting, claimed that the Arundel Society prints and the photo-lithographs of Dürer's wood engravings formed ‘the most excellent instruction in the history of painting’. See Report of the Committee of Trustees for the National Gallery, Melbourne, 1871, p. 6.
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• For the importance of the Arundel Society's reproductions, see: R. Cooper, ‘The Popularization of Renaissance Art in Victorian England’, Art History, 1, 3, 1978, pp. 263–265.
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• The Art Museum possessed nine oil-colour prints (oleographs) after van Eyck, Dürer, ‘Meister Wilhelm’, and Melem. See Catalogue of the Museum of Art, 1865, pp. 61–63. By 1870, the Gallery also possessed ‘74 photo-lithographs’ after Dürer. See Report of the Trustees of the Public Library, Museums, and National Gallery of Victoria, 1870–1, p. 35; The Albert Durer Album, photo-lithographed under the direction of the Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library by John Noone Esq., (Government Photo- lithographer), in 1869, can be compared to, and was probably inspired by Henry Cole's publication of ‘stereotypes’ after Dürer's Small Passion woodcuts in 1844. See Sir H. Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work, George Bell, London, Vol. II, 1884, p. 166.
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• H.T. Dwight sent an engraving after Quentin Matsys to the 1869 Ballarat Exhibition, No. 907; Bishop Goold lent a lithograph after Memling's Adoration of the Magi to the 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, No. 1B.
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• Catalogue of 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, final ed., (Nos. 78, 110L-110P). Montefiore's photographs of ‘celebrated drawings’ came from Paris, presumably from his brother. See Argus, Feb. 22, 1869, p. 6 and N. Draffin, ‘An enthusiastic Amateur of the Arts: E.L. Montefiore in Melbourne 1853–71’, Art Bulletin of Victoria, No. 28, 1987, pp. 101–103. Other examples of French eighteenth-century art in the 1869 Melbourne Exhibition included a painted copy after Greuze's La Cruche Cassée (no. 533A), and the Art Gallery's autotypes of drawings by Boucher and Watteau (nos. 305M, 3050).
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• Alexander and Godfrey, op. dt., pp. 1, 6–7; E. Jussim, Visual Communication and the Graphic Arts, R.B. Bowker Co., New York, 1974, p. 247. The distinction between intaglio and mechanical prints was recognised in colonial Victoria. When discussing N. Chevalier's print collection, the Argus critic observed ‘Chromolithography seems out of place among a notice of engravings’ (16 October, 1868, p. 6); while the 1869 Melbourne Exhibition was divided into categories of ‘Engravings & Etchings’ and ‘Plain & Chromo-lithographs’.
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• Messrs. T. Alexander, G.E. Cowley, F. Dobson, J. Ferres, E.L. Montefiore, and W.J. Runting all sent examples of eighteenth-century engraving to the 1869 Melbourne exhibition. For the Victorian admiration of eighteenth-century engravers see Art Union, v. 1, May 1839, pp. 57–58.
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• 1869 Melbourne Exhibition, Nos. 6, 31, 37, 79, 92; 1863 Ballarat Exhibition, no. 400.
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• G. Vaughan, op. cit., p. 7.
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• Catalogue of a large collection of very old and rare proof engravings, etchings, etc., formed by the late Dr. WG. Howitt, Lamb Smith & Co, sold on 29 October, 1896, pp. 1–8. (Private Collection, Victoria.) Dr. William Howitt (1833–1889), was the son of one of the original Port Phillip colonists, Dr. Godfrey Howitt. it is not known when Dr. W. Howitt formed his collections, but it is possibly significant that the contemporary engravings, like T. Landseer's The Monarch of the Glen after E. Landseer, or C. Turner's A Shipwreck after J.M.W. Turner, date from the 1840s and 1850s. The collection also included engravings by Strange, Woollett, Bartolozzi, Moyreau and Hogarth; mezzotints from Boydell's Haughton Gallery; etchings by De Boisseau; even Dürer's Die Heilige Familie bei ihrer Hauslichen.
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• Catalogue of the Most Beautiful and Costly Art Furniture, Marble Statuary, Real Bronzes, Art Treasures, Oil Paintings, water-colour drawings, Fine Old Engravings etc. collected by Sir George Verdon, K.C.M.C., C.B., Gemmell, Tuckett and Co., sold on 1 June, 1891 at 86 Queen St. pp. 27–30. Verdon's art collection contained six oil paintings, twenty-four watercolours, and sixty prints, as well as three early volumes of engravings. Again, it is impossible to ascertain when the prints were actually purchased, but certainly Verdon's interest in art dates from the early 1860s. See A.G.L. Shaw, ‘Sir George Frederick Verdon’, Victorian Historical Magazine, 43, 4, 1972, pp. 959–977.
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• Sydney Daily Telegraph, 8 January, 1886, quoted in G. Vaughan, op. cit., p. 11. For an example of another colonial print collector—but of original not reproductive prints, see S.C. Wilson and K.T. Borrow, The Bridge over the Ocean, Adelaide, 1973.
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• For the role of the reproductive print in nineteenth-century art education see: T. Fawcett, The Rise of English Provincial Art, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1974, pp. 30–35. Frederick McCubbin recalled copying prints as an art student in Melbourne in the 1870s. His early ambition was ‘that some day I might paint pictures like I saw engravings of Titan(sic) and Turner and Rembrandt’. See ‘Notes by Frederick McCubbin’, ed. A. Galbally, La Trobe Library Journal, Vol. VI, No. 24, 1979, pp. 69, 72.
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• The exhibition catalogues of the 1860s would often specify whether an artist's painted copy was ‘from an original etching’ or more commonly, ‘after the picture’, (e.g. Catalogue of Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, 1866, Nos. 132, 260). For examples of colonial artists owning collections of reproductive prints, see Catalogue of the Fine Collection of the late G.F. Folingsby, 18 March, 1891, pp. 9–12; and ‘The Sale of M. Chevalier's Pictures’, Argus, 16 October, 1868, p. 6.
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• G. Vaughan, op. cit., p. 11; An exception was the collection of relatively modern history paintings in the possession of the Melbourne collector, R. Twentyman. (See Exhibition of Paintings and Sketches by the late BR. Haydon, Historical Painter, Powis’ Fine Art Gallery, 5 Queen St., Melbourne, n.d.)
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• P. Oppe, ‘Art’, Early Victorian England: 1830–1865, ed. G. Young, Oxford University Press, London, 1934, p. 140; W. Ivins, A note on engraved reproductions of works of art’, Studies in the Art and Literature for Bella da Costa Green, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1954, pp. 193–196. It is interesting to note that some of the earliest photographs of Old Masters were criticised because they allowed brush work and texture to ‘show more conspicuously… whilst inequalities of surface… will attract more attention than the subject itself’. (See Fawcett, ‘Graphic versus Photographic’, pp. 201–202).
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• [J. Smith], ‘The first exhibition of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts’, The Argus, 4 December, 1857, p. 5. For an alternative modern theory, i.e. that ‘the growth of photography…[stimulated] an interest in accurately delineated detail’ see P. Quartermaine, ‘Speaking to the Eye: Painting, Photography and the Popular Illustrated Press in Australia, 1850–1900’, Australian Art and Anhitecture, ed. A. Bradley and T. Smith, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1980, pp. 54–70, pp. 55–56.
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• J. Ruskin, Ariadne Fiorentina, in The Works of John Ruskin, (Library Edition), ed. Cook and Wedderburn, George Allen, London, 1903–12, vol. 22, p. 464.
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• Draft Report of The Commission of The Fine Arts, Melbourne, 1864–5, (with corrections by Sir Redmond Barry), p. 9. Victorian Public Records Office, Laverton, (VPRS 4731).
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• Rix, op. cit., pp. 64–65.
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