Reference: see Deutscher & Hackett Auction 27 August 2014, lot 70: Estimated Price: AUD20,000 - AUD30,000
Description: ROBERT HODDLE 1794 - 1881, British/Australian, BETWEEN JERVIS AND BATEMANS BAY NEAR NARRAWALLEE, NEW SOUTH WALES, 1830, watercolour on paper
SIGNED:
inscribed with title, artist's name and date below image: Between Jervis and Batesmans [sic] Bay near Narrawallee, New South Wales by Robert Hoddle. R.M.S.&D. 1830, 32.0 x 48.0 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Victoria
Thence by descent
Private collection, Victoria
RELATED WORK:
The Pigeon House Near Jervis Bay, New South Wales, 1829, watercolour, 28.0 x 42.0 cm, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 11 October 2004, lot 260
While Robert Hoddle is best known as the planner of the wide city
streets and linking boulevards of Melbourne, his skill with the pencil
provided some memorable images of colonial times, early views of town
and countryside. One fascinating watercolour, Near Collingwood, Port
Phillip District of 1847 depicts a horse grazing in open fields! Trained
as a surveyor, skill as a draughtsman was a prerequisite that could be
applied as much to town planning as the landscape, as seen in our
watercolour, Between Jervis and Batemans Bay Near Narrawallee, New
South Wales, 1830. Invariably peopled with settlers, surveyor- explorers,
and Aborigines, Hoddle himself often appeared in his picture, seated,
as in this work, on rocks, pencil and sketchbook in hand recording
the virgin scene for posterity. Today, Narrawallee, a corruption of the
Aboriginal words 'Nurrawerree' or 'Narra Warra', is a village on the south
coast of New South Wales.
Hoddle, who arrived in Sydney in 1823, was for a time assistant to
Surveyor-General John Oxley. He busied himself undertaking surveys in
the Blue Mountains, spending some twelve years in New South Wales,
including the districts of Berrima, Moss Vale, Jervis Bay and Illawarra
during the late twenties and early thirties. A related view is inscribed
'The Mountains named The Pigeon House near Jervis Bay, Castle Hill;
and the Clyde River, New South Wales' and dates from 1829, capturing,
as does our work, such geological eccentricities as the central mount
which dominates the view. Hoddle moved to Port Phillip in 1837, being
appointed senior surveyor and again undertaking surveys of Geelong and
other areas of country Victoria. His watercolours continued to record
the early scenes such as Near Mr. Ryrie's Station, Yarra Yarra River, and
Main's Bridge, Moonee Moonee Ponds near Melbourne of 1847. Hoddle's
watercolours aroused much attention, being so popular that other artists
such as Thomas Clark (Tom Roberts's master) and Henry Gritten were
engaged to make oil paintings based on them years later.
DAVID THOMAS
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