• Title
  View of the Entrance to Jacksons Bay, the North and South heads from above Vaucluse the property of Mr W. Wenthworth [i.e. Wentworth]. M.L.C. / J. Janssen 1848
• Creator
  Jacob Janssen, 1779-1856
• Call number
  V/101
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  1848
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  441641
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  Drawings - watercolour - 26.2 x 45.8 cm. - Repaired corner at upper left
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Explorer, author, barrister, landowner and statesman William Charles Wentworth (1790-1872) lived at Vaucluse estate between 1827-62. Vaucluse House was orginally built by Sir Henry Hayes in 1803. It was enlarged by W.C. Wentworth between 1827-30 with two and three storey stone additions.
  References:
  Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol.2, 1788-1850. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1967.
  Australian Heritage Commission : Register of the National Estate database, Jun 2004
  Landscape, still-life and portrait painter, Jacob Janssen (1779-1856), was born in Prussia. In 1840 he arrived in Sydney, where he spent the remaining 16 years of his life. -- For further information see The Dictionary of Australian artists : painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 / edited by Joan Kerr. Melbourne : Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Scope and Content
  The viewpoint is from above Wentworth's estate at Vaucluse, showing Vaucluse House in the left foreground. The building with the enclosed courtyard to its right is the convict barracks where estate workers were confined at night. To the right of the tree is the settlement at Watsons Bay followed by South Head and North Head.
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Creator died before 1955
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• General note
  
  This view was a popular one with 19th century Sydney artists, because of the panoramic sweep it offered of the northern end of the Harbour. Joseph Lycett, G.E. Peacock and Eugene von Guerard, for example, all painted this view.
  Janssen also painted other versions of it; the Library holds a much larger oil of a similar composition at ML 46 (and also its companion at ML 45, which when combined form a panorama of Sydney Harbour). Another version again is held in the British Government Art Collection, which combines the two views in a single canvas.
  For Janssen to repeat the same image at least three times suggests that it was a popular one with his clients. This watercolour and the Library's two oils are dated 1848, the version in the British Government Art Collection, although undated, was probably painted around the same time.
  Janssen's Prussian training and aesthetic generated a very different vision to his English trained contemporaries such as Martens, Peacock, or his good friend and fellow artist Frederick Garling. Janssen's perhaps modest talent certainly shaped the somewhat unusual perspective of the drawing, but his eye for detail - often generalised in English artists - means that he includes a considerable amount of information in his works. In particular Janssen was interested in people, and the foreground of his works are always populated by interesting vignettes of often-ordinary folk going about their business. -- Curator's notes, May 2004
  Digital order no:Album ID : 874392
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  "J. Janssen 1848" in ink at lower centre edge of image.
  "View of the Entrance to Jacksons Bay, the North and South heads / from above Vaucluse the property of Mr W. Wenthworth. M.L.C." in ink at lower edge on reverse.
• Name
  Wentworth, W. C. (William Charles), 1790-1872
  
• Topic
  colonial art
  harbours
  landscapes (artwork)
  panoramic views
  
• Place
  Port Jackson (N.S.W.)
  Sydney Harbour (N.S.W.)
  Vaucluse House (Vaucluse, N.S.W.)
  Vaucluse (N.S.W.)
  Watsons Bay (N.S.W.)
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE3219244

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