• Title
  Portrait of Sara Flower, 1851, by Charles Rodius
• Creator
  Charles Rodius, 1802-1860
• Call number
  P2/602
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  1851
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  9677520
• Physical Description
  1 drawing - charcoal - 33 x 26 cm
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Charles Rodius produced portraits of important local society figures from 1830s to the 1850s. Rodius’s core clientele comprised members of the legal profession, the public service and the pastoral elite as well as ‘emancipists’, freed convicts established in trades and professions. In addition to commissioned portraits, Rodius also drew many of the First Nations people he encountered, as well as recognisable public figures such as the celebrity clergymen John Dunmore Lang which may have brought him into contact with the recently arrived Flower.
  
  On Sat 26 July 1851, Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, reported that: ‘We have been favored with a view of a portrait of Miss Sara Flower, from the pencil of Mr Charles Rodius, who has lately returned from an artistic exploration of Port Phillip. The likeness of the celebrated cantatrice is admirable, her joyous expression is felicitously hit off, and the drawing of the figure accurately preserved. A careful lithograph of the portrait would meet a ready sale amongst the numerous admirers of this talented songstress.’
  
  Sara Elizabeth Flower (1820-1865) began her musical career in London in the 1840s where she trained under Domenico Crivelli (1794–1857) at the Royal Academy of Music in 1841. On 14 November 1849, Flower emigrated to Australia on the migrant ship ‘Clifton'. Her first Australian performance was in Melbourne at the Mechanics' Institute on 28 February 1850. She then proceeded to Sydney aboard the ‘Asia’ arriving on 15 April 1850, and making her first local appearance at the Victoria Theatre on 3 May 1850.
  
  References:
  Compiled from the Library’s acquisition file
  "Local Intelligence". Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, July 26, 1851, page 2
• Collection history
  Previously held in a private collection, Savannah, GA
• Scope and Content
  A portrait of British born mezzo-soprano Sara Elizabeth Flower (1820-1865)
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright:
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Description source
  
  Subject identified as British Australian mezzo-soprano Sara Flower (1820-1865) by Australian art historian and curator David Hansen
• Variant title
  
  Formerly titled: 'Jenny Lind by Charles Rodius' on original mount
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Signed and dated by artist in lower left corner
  Pencil inscription 'Australian crayon drawing of Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale by Charles Rodius who drew crayon portraits of Australian notables 1834-1854, E.Benezet Dictionnaire des peintres sculpteurs, graveurs dessinoteurs, 1924' on verso
• Conservation note
  
  Removed from frame for conservation reasons in 2023
• Subject
  Flower, Sara, 1820-1865--Portraits.
  Women singers, Australian--19th century.
  Contraltos--Australia.
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE21155695

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