• Title
  New South Wales gold prospecting, ca. 1850-ca. 1860, attributed to an officer of the 11th Regiment of Foot
• Call number
  SV/340
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  ca. 1850-ca. 1860
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  9623519
• Physical Description
  1 drawing - watercolour and pencil - 26.5 x 36.5 cm.
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  The 1st/11th Regiment (North Devonshire) was garrisoned in the colony from 1845 to 1857. The first division of the regiment containing headquarters and three companies, had sailed from Chatham aboard the Castle Eden in July 1845. The remainder of the regiment followed in the Ramilies in August 1845. After service in Sydney they were transferred to Hobart Town, but returned in 1846 to restore discipline to the riotous and unruly 99th Regiment. The 11th was a popular regiment returning again to garrison Sydney in response to a public petition in 1848. The 11th occupied Victoria Barracks until they sailed for England in 1857.
  
  Reference:
  Library correspondence file.
• Collection history
  Christie's Travel, Science and Natural History Sale Wednesday 8th October, 2014, Lot 122.
• Scope and Content
  A watercolour and pencil drawing depicting a gold mining scene in New South Wales. A digger in the foreground is panning for gold in a creek while beside him another man is operating a cradle. Tents and more prospectors can be seen on a hill in the background. The watercolour shows the two methods of alluvial gold mining, panning and cradling, that were used by prospectors during the early gold rushes in New South Wales.
  
  Possibly depicting Ophir, the scene of Australia’s first gold discovery in 1851. The gold diggings were located at the confluence of Summer Hill Creek and Lewis Ponds Creek.
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Creator died before 1955
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Description source
  
  Cataloguing based on inscriptions.
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Inscription in pencil lower left: 'NSW gold prospecting'.
  On verso: 'Gold prospecting New South Wales c 1860 by an officer of the 11th Foot'. [written in contemporary hand].
• Attributions / conjectures
  
  Artist is unknown but attributed to an officer of the 11th Foot as stated in the inscription.
  It is also believed this is an early view of Ophir, N.S.W., ca. 1851-ca. 1852, possibly Summer Hill Creek and attributed to the work of George French Angas on stylistic grounds and also that Angas travelled to Ophir in 1851.
  
  Reference:
  Library correspondence file.
• Creator/Author/Artist
  Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 11th
  Angas, George French, 1822-1886
  
• Subject
  Gold miners--New South Wales
  Art, Colonial--New South Wales.
  Prospecting.
  
• Place
  Ophir (N.S.W.)
  Summer Hill Creek (Orange District, N.S.W.)
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE13167952

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