404695
- Title[Corroboree at Newcastle, ca. 1818 / oil painting by Joseph Lycett]
- Creator
- Call numberDG 228
Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 2, South Wall, no. 189 - Level of descriptionfonds
- Date
ca. 1818 - Type of material
- Reference code404695
- Issue CopyDigitised
- Physical Description1 painting - oil - 70.5 x 122.4 cm panel.
- Copying ConditionsOut of copyright: Artist died before 1955.
Please acknowledge:: Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales - General note
This painting is attributed to Joseph Lycett, although it has often said to have been by Major James Wallis, on the grounds of its comparative closeness to a plate in Wallis's "Australian Views" "Corrobborree of dance of the Natives of New South Wales New Holland".
Stylistically it accords with Lycett's watercolour album in the National Library "Drawings of the natives & scenery of Van Diemens Land, 1830" : see plates such as "Aborigines resting by camp fire, near the mouth of the Hunter River, Newcastle, N.S.W". It also resembles plates in his publication "Views in Australia", London, 1824
The frame on this work appears to have been put on it by Sir William Dixson after he purchased it from A.H. Spencer in September 1937: see Spencer to Dixson 26 August 1937 DL Mss Add 889. The frame, however, probably dates from the mid-nineteenth century.
Spencer possibly purchased this painting from the Museum Book Store 19 August 1937 for 22 pounds, where it was described as "Painting of a Corrobborree on a panel" : see State Library of Victoria A.H. Spencer papers MSS 12361 Box 3167/3 invoices 1929-1937 (Mitchell Library microfilm copy at MAV/FM4/10778-10779)
It has often been said that the wooden support panel is cedar, but it has not proved possible to confirm this, and doubts must attach to this attribution
Digital order no:Album ID : 823499
Painting is on a single wooden panel, on obverse of which is a damaged painting of a composition of what appears to have once been a reclining figure (now erased), curtains, flowers and a distant landscape. Panel is possibly oak. Panel is primed by a coarse white lead, probably not artist quality. Paints are commercially prepared oil paints. There are three sets of double holes along top edge with remains of a brass hinge and wooden screws at upper right. Holes and abrasions on bottom edge suggest two catches mounted along this edge. Panel is 1.4 cm thick. - Subject
- Topic
- Place
- Exhibited in
New Worlds from Old: 19th century Australian & American landscapes - National Gallery of Australia (7 March, 1998 - 18 April, 1999)
Australian Colonial Art - State Library of New South Wales (July, 2000 - November, 2000)
Nocturne - Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (April, 2002 - September, 2002)
The City Unfolds - Newcastle Region Art Gallery
Pride of place - State Library of New South Wales (September, 2004 - November, 2004)
Joseph Lycett : convict artist - Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (April, 2006 - March, 2007)
Landfall : the Captain James Cook bicentenary exhibition of Australian art - National Gallery of Victoria (April, 1970 - June, 1970)
Wunderkammer - Newcastle Region Art Gallery
Curious Colony: a twenty first century Wunderkammer - S.H. Ervin Gallery (January, 2011 - February, 2011)
Art Gallery of South Australia - Art Gallery of South Australia (February, 2012 - November, 2012)
Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie Era - Newcastle Region Art Gallery (February, 2013 - May, 2013)
Planting Dreams: Shaping Australian Gardens - State Library of New South Wales (September, 2016 - January, 2017)
Paintings from the Collection - State Library of New South Wales (October, 2018 - )
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