John Glover sketchbooks and portfolio of sketches, ca. 1794-1835

fonds

ca.1794-1835

Graphic Materials, Textual Records, Drawings

825816

Landscape painter, was born on 18 February 1767 at Houghton-on-the-Hill near Leicester, England. In 1794 Glover moved to Lichfield, Staffordshire, where he made a living as a painting and drawing master. After his move to London in 1805, Glover also exhibited with the Society of Painters in Watercolour, to which he was elected a member shortly before the society's first exhibition that April. Besides numerous trips to the Lake District of England, Glover travelled to France and Germany in 1814, and again to the Continent in 1817 when, in the company of Henry Curzon Allport, he visited Italy. Upon his return Glover submitted for membership of the Royal Academy but was scathingly rejected. After auctioning his paintings and selling his house, John Glover, his wife Sarah and their eldest son John, left England on 4 September 1830 aboard the Thomas Lawrie, bound for Hobart Town. Glover's application for a land grant was successful and on 12 March 1832 he and his family travelled overland north from Hobart to Deddington, near Ben Lomond, to the farm he named Patterdale in memory of the Lake District. In 1835 Glover exhibited sixty-eight paintings at 106 New Bond Street, London. Thirty-eight were, as the catalogue states, 'descriptive of the scenery and customs of the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land'; the others were of English and Italian subjects painted from the more than 140 sketchbooks he had brought with him. He died, aged eighty-two, on 9 December 1849 and was buried in the grounds of the Nonconformist chapel at Deddington.

Reference:
Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/2802/ (accessed March 26, 2008)

SERIES 01
John Glover Sketchbooks, ca. 1794-1835 / John Glover

SERIES 02
John Glover portfolios of sketches, ca. 1790-1830s / compiled by the State Library of New South Wales

John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque / David Hansen. Hobart, Tasmania : Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery/Art Exhibitions Australia, 2004, pp. 248-267.

This collection of John Glover sketches and sketchbooks contain drawings of predominately English and Australian (Tasmanian) landscapes. Some sketches are not attributed to John Glover and are instead attributed to his son John Richardson Glover and possibly `J. Livesay’ a pupil of Glover’s.

Several of the sketchbooks contain a number inside the front of each, possibly written when Glover was sorting his belongings prior to departure. After Glover’s death somebody else has written below the number in each book the initials of its intended recipient: Hy.G for Henry, W.G for William and I.G. for John Richardson Glover. Not all the numbered sketchbooks are by Glover (e.g. Sketchbook No. 96) and some of the unnumbered sketchbooks attributed to him in various collections are not by him at all. While the numbered sketchbooks are possibly Glover’s they do not necessarily represent the full extent of his work.

Reference:
John Glover Report for the Mitchell Library, 2004 / Max Staples (MLMSS 7835)