• Title
  [Whaling scene, Boyd's Tower in the foreground] / [attributed to Oswald Brierly]
• Creator
  Oswald W. B. (Oswald Walters B.) Brierly, 1817-1894
• Call number
  ML 1522
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  probably between 1848-1894
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  9642734
• Physical Description
  1 drawing - watercolour and gouache over pencil - 37.8 x 47.8 cm
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Oswald Brierly, was born in Chester in 1817. He studied art and naval architecture in London before travelling to Australia in 1842 aboard the yacht Wanderer with Benjamin Boyd. For some years Brierly managed Boyd's whaling and pastoral business, based in Twofold Bay. He died in London in 1894.
  
  The Tower was built by Ben Boyd in 1847 to be a lighthouse for the port of Boydtown that Ben Boyd was developing. The Tower was built from sandstone imported from Sydney. Financial problems meant the Tower was never finished and it was never used as a Lighthouse and the Tower was therefore used as a lookout station for Boyd's whalers.
  
  Source:
  Library correspondence file.
• Collection history
  Previously owned by Captain W.A.H. Brady and on his death in the 1960s it passed to his widow and then to her daughter, Beryl Millbank. It is believed that the painting was originally owned by Benjamin Boyd, (Brierly’s friend and employer in NSW) from whose niece the Brady family is descended.
• Scope and Content
  This watercolour depicts Twofold Bay, N.S.W. looking westward from the southern headland with Boyd’s Tower prominent in the immediate foreground and Mount Imlay towering over the surrounding countryside in the background. To the right of the tower is a group of three Aboriginal people and another group can be seen clustered around a fire among the trees to the left. In the bay itself two whales are being chased by whalers in small boats.
• Access Conditions
  
  Access via appointment
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright:
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Description source
  
  Titled by cataloguer based on details provided by vendor.
• General note
  
  Exhibited in 1982 in “Sir Oswald Walters Brierly: Sailing Ships and Ports of the Seven Seas” at the Hunter Museum of Art, Tennessee. The State Library of NSW lent five Brierly watercolours to this exhibition. Also used as an illustration in "Ben Boyd of Boydtown" by Marion Diamond, 1995.
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Unsigned. Crossed out handwritten inscription on backing "Property of Mrs. W.A.H. Brady, Datchet Bucks, England".
• Attributions / conjectures
  
  During Brierly's five years in Twofold Bay Brierly is known to have sketched and painted and together with his daily journal entries, provide a vivid account of the whaling industry and his life in an isolated colonial settlement. He also developed a deep interest in the local indigenous people.
• Date note
  
  Undated. Dated from the time Boyd’s Tower was built to Brierly’s death.
• Subject
  Whaling--New South Wales.
  Whaleboats.
  Aboriginal Australians--New South Wales--Twofold Bay.
  Art, Colonial--New South Wales.
  
• Place
  Boyd's Tower (Red Point, N.S.W.).
  Twofold Bay (N.S.W.)
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE20519166

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