• Title
  A direct north general view of Sydney Cove ... 1794 ... / oil painting
• Call number
  DG 60
  Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 1, West Wall, no. 29
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  ca. 1794
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Paintings
• Reference code
  433037
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  1 painting - oil on canvas, gilt framed, then reframed over original frame - 91 x 121 cm. inside original frame; 109 x 147 cm. framed (ie reframed)
  
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Artist died before 1955
  Please acknowledge:: Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales
• General note
  
  The identity of the artist of this oil painting has long been the subject of conjecture. While the inscription on the reverse clearly links it to convict artist Thomas Watling, he is not known to have painted in oils. On professionally prepared canvas, and using commercial pigments unlikely to be available in the colony, it is possible that it was painted in England, and was based on a drawing made by Watling in Sydney.
  
  Notes on provenance and restoration work carried out on the painting held at Pxn 464
  
  For information on attribution and dating:
  Pxn 264
  First views of Australia 1788-1825: a history of early Sydney / Tim McCormick et al. Chippendale, NSW: Longueville Publications, 1987 (Plate 32 & p.274)
  "Was Watling the artist?" by Elizabeth Ellis in The Articulate Surface: dialogues on paintings between conservators, curators and art historians / ed. Sue-Anne Wallace with Jacqueline Macnaughtan & Jodi Parvey. Canberra : Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University and National Gallery of Australia, c. 1996, pp. 189-212
  "The oil painting 'Sydney in 1794'" by Bernard Smith in Australian Journal of Art, Vol. XIV, No. 1, 1998, pp. 52-59
  Published in: 1001 paintings you must see before you die / general editor Stephen Farthing. Sydney : ABC Books for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2006.
  
  Exhibited:
  Jubilee exhibition of Australian Art, 1951
  Art Gallery of N.S.W., Oct 1963
  Banks exhibition 1979
  Dixson Gallery 1, 14/3/1990-8/8/1990
  August 1985-March 1986
  Mitchell Galleries, Dec. 1987-Nov. 1988
  Japan, Dec. 1988-July 1989
  Museum of Sydney, March 1995-Dec. 1996
  Digital order no:Album ID : 824175
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  "A direct north general view of Sydney Cove, the chief British settlement in New South Wales as it appeared in 1794, being the 7th year from its establishment. Painted immediately from nature by T. Watling" -- inscription on reverse of original canvas, in brown paint
• Conservation note
  
  Creased down centre, possibly from being folded
• Subject
  Adult Males
  
• Topic
  bays
  controlled fires
  picture frames
  settlements
  trees
  unsealed roads
  
• Place
  Government House (Bridge St., Sydney, N.S.W.)
  Sydney Cove (N.S.W.)
  
• Exhibited in
  
  People and Places - State Library of New South Wales (1 January - 31 December, 1979)
  A Rage for Curiosity - State Library of New South Wales (September 1997 - January 1998)
  Australian Colonial Art - State Library of New South Wales (July - November 2000)
  National treasures from Australia's great libraries - Council of Australian State Libraries (December 2005 - December 2006)
  Antipodean vision : Australian painting, colonial, impressionist, contemporary - Selected by the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board for showing at the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery in Ottawa, with two pre-view showings in Australia (circa 1962)
  Paintings from the Collection - State Library of New South Wales (2018)

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