SELF PORTRAIT, 1835
BENJAMIN DUTERRAU
oil on canvas
95.5 x 82.5 cm
signed with intials and dated lower right: B D. 1835
Private collection, Hobart (acquired directly from the artist in payment of an account - the first owners were said to be early Hobart bakers)
Thence by descent
Ted Braithwaite, Esq
Christie’s, Sydney, 1 October 1974, lot 10
Private collection, Adelaide
Thence by descent
Private collection, Adelaide
Buscombe, E., Artists in Early Australia and Their Portraits, Eureka Research, Sydney, 1979, no. 28/1a P., pp. 320.1 (illus.), 321
210836.jpg
‘This celebrated picture, called the School of Athens, which is at Oxford University, where I have spent much time in studying it and examining every minute part, was painted by Julio Romano from the original picture in the Vatican at Rome, which was painted by Rafaelle.
The more I bring this grand work to my mind, the more it appears to be a subject that should be spoken of in this room, where we consider that the School of Hobart Town [The Mechanics’ Institution] was instituted to disseminate useful knowledge, and in that point of view closely resembles the School of Athens.’
Benjamin Duterrau, Hobart Town, 1849.1
Born into an old Huguenot family as the son of a watchmaker, London-born widower Benjamin Duterrau was one of the steerage passengers on board the ship Lang that arrived safely in the harbour of Hobart Town in the evening of 16 August 1832, having sailed direct from the heart of the British Empire to its furthest outpost.2
The so-called Black War – the conflict between European settlers and the Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) people – had all but ceased by the time of Duterrau’s arrival, the historic conciliation that took place on 31 December 1831 signalling the end of physical hostilities between the colonisers and the island’s indigenous inhabitants.3
Accompanying Duterrau on the long sea voyage were his daughter Miss Sarah Jane and sister-in-law Miss Mary Perigal. Packed in the ship’s hull was a collection of work by this ‘artist of very considerable eminence’ who swiftly established a studio in Hobart Town, setting himself up in business as a portrait painter.4 On 18 October 1832 His Excellency, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur (1784-1854) and family paid Duterrau the honour of inspecting his collection of paintings in Campbell-street, ‘an occurrence which we have pleasure to commemorate as the commencement of an era, in which the fine arts will we trust be patronised in Van Diemen’s Land’.5
Duterrau soon became a particularly active member and generous patron of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution (established in 1827), fully supporting its high ideals and purpose, even becoming a member of its Committee of Management and, in time, one of its very few life members.6 A catalogue of the Library of the Van Diemen’s Land Mechanics’ Institution, printed in Hobart Town in 1839, indicates that Duterrau had donated five items to the Institution which included a: ‘Portrait of himself (painted by himself)’.7
Provenance details for the 1835 Duterrau self-portrait published by Christie’s in 1974 relay that the canvas was ‘acquired directly from the artist in payment of an account’, the then owner being of the family said to be the first Hobart bakers.8 Might this 1835 canvas be the self-portrait donated by its maker toward the ‘nucleus of a museum in existence’ within the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution?9 It would have exited the collection of the Mechanics’ Institution when the sale of its entire property, comprising ‘many valuable philosophical donations’, went under the auctioneer’s hammer in early January 1872, the Institution being from its inception ‘designed to promote useful and scientific knowledge’. It ceased to function late in 1871 due to ‘inanition’.10 No catalogue of the auction seems to have survived but certainly on offer, apart from the Institution’s valuable Library, was music (printed and manuscript), a magic lantern and slides, geological specimens, a thirty-nine draw cabinet with specimens of shells and dried plants, and: ‘Framed paintings and engravings’.11
On 16 July 1833 Duterrau delivered a lecture ‘on painting, sculpture, and engraving to a very full meeting of the members of the Mechanics’ Institution’.12 It was the first of many lectures that the resident artist presented in the colony. Bernard Smith followed William Moore in pronouncing Duterrau’s July 1833 lecture the first on painting given in Australia.13 Before the year’s end the portraitist had completed a series of ‘remarkably striking portraits’ of some of the Tasmanian Aborigines which earned him approbation, the memorial worth of the important colonial paintings being immediately recognised. The Hobart Town Courier eulogised: ‘Great praise is due to Mr. Duterrau for his thus fixing on canvas which may commemorate and hand down to posterity for hundreds of years to come so close a resemblance in their original appearance and costume a race now all but extinct.’14
210836 (3).jpg
Three self-portraits by Duterrau are known today.15 The earliest features Duterrau aged no more than fifty-two for it was exhibited in the summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London in 1819.16 Long-time resident of Hobart, accountant Mr Lorenzo Lodge (1823-1911) – son of a London architect – presented the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) with a different self-portrait by Duterrau in 1900. He and Duterrau never met as Lodge did not arrive in Tasmania until 1854, three or so years after Duterrau’s death in his Bathurst Street house on 11 July 1851, aged eighty-four. The two men shared a strong belief in temperance, Duterrau lecturing at least twice on the topic of total abstinence in Hobart Town, once in 1847 in the Infant School in Murray Street.17
The full date on the TMAG self-portrait, at the bottom right of the folio is: ‘13 Sep 1837’. This was the day on which Duterrau delivered a lecture to the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution. It was ‘most respectably attended, both in point of fashion and numbers’. Present in the audience listening to Duterrau expiate ‘on the importance of good taste being encouraged, in the fine arts’, was the cream of the Island’s European gentry, including the Lt-Governor Sir John Franklin (1786 – 1847) and wife Lady Jane (1791 – 1875), Franklin’s Private Secretary Captain Alexander Maconochie (1787 – 1860) and wife Mary, and the young aide-de-camp Henry George Elliot (1817 – 1907). 1837 was the year in which Duterrau advertised having completed a series of paintings representing ‘the occupations and amusements of the Aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land’. In the series was ‘a work of such magnitude as the national picture’.19 Duterrau illustrated the lecture pointing to the recent history of painting and engraving in England.20 He knew his subject well having worked as an engraver in England where he was also known to the Franklins.21
The self-portrait that bears the specific date of an 1837 lecture – evidently so important to Duterrau – measures ‘91.5 x 72 cm’. It has been laid onto Masonite panel; the oil on canvas does not extend beyond the recto surface of the composition board.22 As such the canvas that initially would have curled around a stretcher has been cut. Is it possible that the TMAG self-portrait was larger when first painted?
145.jpg
The 1835 self-portrait measures 95.5 x 82.5 cm. By comparison, the TMAG version of the painting is about four centimetres shorter in height and about ten centimetres less in width. When included, it was customary for Duterrau to place the year of his production to the right of his initials, such a year being absent in the TMAG version which, upon a sight inspection of the painting, has the bottom half of the initials missing in the lower right corner. Visible, on the table, at the right edge of both paintings, is the entire spectacle case of the subject.
Whilst being on an old re-lined canvas the original canvas of the 1835 self-portrait reaches mostly to the front edge of an old timber stretcher, in some places wrapping a little around it. Considering the age appearance of Duterrau in the 1835 self-portrait we can conclude that it was definitely painted in Tasmania. Given the specific date on the folio of the TMAG’s Duterrau self-portrait it was certainly finalised by the artist in Tasmania noting the important ‘13 Sep 1837’ evening lecture date after the event.
Nearly all of the front of the dog-eared, blue-grey folio as held by the sitter – enclosing within loose works on paper – is visible in the 1835 version, the folio being a key element on each of the three self-portraits. In the painting exhibited in 1819 a thick folio is clearly claimed, tucked under the subject’s arm, announcing no title that would point to anything specific regarding its contents, or owner. The TMAG self-portrait folio bears the title: ‘Rafaelle’s / Cartoons’, and, in smaller letters underneath – as a subtitle and perhaps as a final addition like its date – the fainter ‘and School of Athens’. With more balanced spacing and even lettering, prominence is given to the full title on the folio of the 1835 self-portrait: ‘Raffaelle’s Cartoons / and / School of Athens.’ (note Duterrau’s different spellings of ‘Rafaelle’ and ‘Raffaelle’, respectively).
1835 was a tremendously significant year in the colonial career of Duterrau. He delivered four lectures on ‘Sculpture and Painting’ in the 1835 Course of Lectures season of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution.23 In its promotion of Duterrau’s first lecture of 1835 The Hobart Town Courier offered:
On Tuesday the 2nd of June Mr. Duterrau will deliver his first lecture on the Fine Arts, and the advantage of the arts and sciences in general as they tend to our happiness, plan of conduct, and our search of truth. –The school of Athens, explained as it bears a similitude with all institutions established to spread useful knowledge. –The properties of a good picture explained as relates to composition, colouring, &c. particularly drawing as it is connected with perspective and anatomy.24
Three days after the lecture was delivered the same newspaper reported at length how the speaker had enlarged upon ‘the advantages we might derive in this remote corner of the world from cultivating good taste … – the principle of honour and beauty of truth. As a powerful and instructive example he [Duterrau] analysed that splendid picture of Raphael, ‘The School of Athens.’ In pointing out the characteristics of a good picture the lecturer ‘showed the necessity of attending to graceful attitudes in the figures – to grouping and propriety of arrangement or composition’.25
Duterrau’s colonial production – to represent and group people properly – went hand-in-glove with contemporary British principles of taste that were shaped by British views concerning history painting and British theories of moral sentiment, particularly stemming from Scottish Enlightenment thought.26 In his representations of Tasmanian Aborigines he adhered to expressions that were in keeping with the principles of expression as embodied in Raphael’s Cartoons – (full scale designs for tapestries to cover the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace, Rome, depicting the Acts of the apostles St Peter and St Paul) – specifically to promulgate moral, philosophical and aesthetic ideas within a colonial context.27
His second lecture for the season was delivered on 21 July 1835. Six days earlier ‘AN OUTLINE of a proposed National Picture, in commemoration of the Aborigines of this Island …’ was published; the etching is said to be the first produced in Australia. It included the inscription: ‘Design’d etch’d & publish’d by Bn. Duterrau July 15th 1835 Hobart Town’.28 Representing a group of people, the Outline was to form the basis of the first major history painting in Australia: The Conciliation, the work dated 1840 in the TMAG being, according to a verso label: ‘A sketch for a national picture / to be 14 feet long by 10 feet high’.29 The first known report about the proposed ‘national picture’ appeared in The Hobart Town Courier in April 1835.30 Six ‘outlines of Aboriginal subjects’, designed and etched by Duterrau, were subsequently published by the artist on 24 August 1835.31
210836 P. 42.jpg
Might Duterrau have produced a folio set of engravings in England after the Raphael Cartoons and/or engraved a print of Raphael’s The School of Athens with its pivotal theme of philosophy?32 He certainly used an image of Raphael’s famous High Renaissance fresco in the Apostolic Palace in Rome to illustrate his 29 June 1849 lecture entitled: ‘The School of Athens, as it assimilates with the Mechanics’ Institution’, the published talk clearly indicating that the speaker intimately knew the oil on canvas copy (after Raphael’s fresco) The School of Athens bequeathed to Oxford University by politician Mr Francis Page (1726-1803). Received by the University in 1804 the Oxford copy was put on display in the Bodleian Library where Duterrau carefully studied it.33
Duterrau also knew the slim publication The history of the celebrated painting, in the Picture Gallery, Oxford; called “The School of Athens:” supposed to be painted by Julio Romano – first published in 1805 – as he incorporated parts of it in his 29 June 1849 lecture. The text of this anonymous pamphlet was appended to editions of the ‘Oxford Guide’ in the 1820s of which there were numerous editions.34 Such was the importance that Duterrau placed upon the Raphael fresco and the Oxford copy of it that he believed if a print of ‘The School of Athens’ could be seen in a conspicuous part of the Mechanics’ Institution in Hobart Town, a ‘beneficial result would accrue’ in the minds of its colonial viewers, the copy being equally efficacious as the original to teach desirable high ideals for the benefit of the colony. Fine art to Duterrau held nothing short of the miracle power to civilise.35
Benjamin Duterrau’s 1835 self-portrait is arguably the most significant self-portrait in Australia’s early colonial art, the gentleman artist presenting an unambiguous declaration of the important visual sources that guided him in the formation of the self, his art making and his hopes for the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution. He wanted the humble ‘School’ of learning to be ‘actively instrumental in conveying every noble, useful and enviable attainment that raises the mental character to its highest order of human perfection.’ This was the emigrant artist’s high-minded dream for the entire population of the colony, convict, indigenous people and free settler alike.
PAUL PAFFEN
2. The ship Lang (not Laing) ‘arrived last night’ (16 August 1832) in the Hobart Town harbour: ‘Trade and shipping’, HTC, 17 August 1832, p. 3, c. 1; ‘Postscript’, The Tasmanian, Hobart Town, 17 August 1832, p. 264, c.1. The ‘remarkably fine, fast sailing, coppered ship’ Lang, burden 360 tons, commanded by Capt. James Muddle, sailed from London on either 7 or 17 April 1832 (documents list the variant dates, but 7 April is the more likely) direct to Hobart Town: ‘For Van Diemen’s Land’, The Times, London, 6 January 1832, p. 1, c. 1 & 20 January 1832, p. 1, c. 1; ‘Reports of Ships arrivals with lists of passengers’, p. 279, Tasmanian Archives, MB2/39/1/1, image 138: With thanks to Janine Tan, State Library and Archive Service, Libraries Tasmania, e-mail to Paul Paffen, 30 September 2021 [enquiry RT56010]; ‘Ship news’, The Colonist and Van Diemen’s Land Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser, Hobart Town, 17 August 1832, p. [2], c. 1; [Untitled], The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Sydney, 24 May 1832, p. [3], c. 6. There is no mention in early shipping records of the Lang having called in at either Fremantle (Swan River) or Albany en route to Hobart Town in 1832: Email from David Whiteford, Archivist, State Records Office of Western Australia, to Paul Paffen, 28 September 2001. .
Passengers that arrived by the Lang direct from London included: ‘Mr. B. Duterow’ [sic], ‘Miss Duterow’ [sic] and ‘Miss Perringal’ [sic]: ‘Trade and shipping’, HTC, 24 August 1832, p. [2], c. 5. The Duterrau and Perigal families were connected in business through the clock and watchmaking firm of Francis and John Perigal and John Duterrau, of New Bond Street, London: Nicolette Reichhold, The Perigal and Duterrau watch and clock makers: Perigal and Duterrau watch and clock makers to the King, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. .
It was reported in 1929: ‘Most of Dutterau’s best works were sent, by request of Mrs. Bogle, to England after her father’s death’: ‘An historical painting. Work of Benjamin Duterrau loaned to the Gallery’, The Mercury, Hobart, 18 July 1928, p. 10, c. 7 [includes photograph of Duterrau’s 1840 history painting The Conciliation]. The Scottish Presbyterian Minister Rev. Mr. John Lillie (1806-1866) solemnised the marriage of merchant John Bogle (d. ‘Woodside,’ Torquay, England, 20 March 1879) to Jane Sarah (d. 1885), only daughter of Benjamin Duterrau, of Campbell-street, Hobart Town, on 8 February 1838: ‘Married’, HTC, 9 February 1838, p. 2, c. 3. Mrs John Bogle gave birth to a daughter at Cottage Green on 31 March 1839: ‘Births’, Colonial Times, Hobart Town, 2 April 1839, p. 111, c. 2. The wife of Mr. Bogle – ‘of the firm of Messrs. Kerr, Alexander, & Co. of this town [Hobart]’ – gave birth to a daughter on 10 June 1840, at Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow: ‘Births’, Colonial Times, 27 October 1840, p. [7], c. 3. A son was born to Mrs John Bogle at Torquay, Devon, on 17 May 1850: ‘Births’, HTC, 14 September 1850, p. [2], c. 2; and a daughter, at ‘Woodside’, Torquay, on 17 January 1852: ‘Births’, Tasmanian Colonist, 28 June 1852, p. 2, c. 1. When John Bogle died in 1879 he was said to be ‘formerly of Cottage Green, Hobart Town, head of the late firms of Kerr, Bogle and Co., Hobart Town and Launceston, and of Bogle, Kerr and Co., Glasgow’: ‘Death’, The Mercury, 28 May 1879, p. 1, c. 1. .
A relative T.W. Duterrau, from the firm of Perigal and Duterrau, advertised that he was to commence business in clock and watchmaking on 9 March 1835, in Elizabeth Street, near Brisbane Street, Hobart Town. Presumably he came from the colony of Western Australia where he operated as a merchant: ‘To the Public’, Colonial Times, 3 March 1835, p. 1, c. 1. The advertisement notices T.W. Duterrau’s address being in Campbell Street, the same street in which Benjamin Duterrau resided, the relatives in all likelihood all living under the same roof. Thomas Duterrau gave notice in October 1834 that he was leaving the colony of Western Australia: ‘About to leave the colony’, The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, Perth, 18 October 1834, p. 1, c.2. He sold English clocks in his store in Perth: ‘For sale’, The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 31 August 1833, p. 140, c. 2. He arrived at Western Australia from London on board the Egyptian on 28 December 1831 and applied in June 1832 for a civil service post unable to make a living as a watch repairer: Joan Kerr, ‘Benjamin Duterrau’, in Joan Kerr (ed.), The dictionary of Australian artists: Painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 (DAA), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 231, c. 2. ‘W. Duterrau’ was one of the passengers on board the Derwent that sailed out of Hobart for London on 4 May 1836: [Untitled], HTC, 6 May 1836, p. [2], c. 3. It would appear that Henry Allport mistook this Duterrau who ‘landed at the Swan River Settlement … in 1832’ for Benjamin Duterrau: Henry Allport, ‘Art in Tasmania. Duterreau’s [sic] portraiture … (Third Article.)’, The Mercury, 22 August 1831, p. 9, c. 7. .
A letter book containing a copy of a letter written by George Carr Clark (1789-1863) of ‘Ellinthorp Hall’, near Ross, Tasmania, to his daughters (Caroline Amelia and Anna Maria Georgina Hutton), 28 July 1851, Letter Book of George Carr Clark, no. 3 (2 January 1849 – 15 October 1852), private collection, explains how Mr and Mrs Clark ‘were on the eve of engaging [Benjamin Duterrau and his daughter] to come out’ to Van Diemen’s Land to fill the drawing master and music teacher posts respectively at ‘Ellinthorp Hall’. But Clark’s brother, Charles Richard Clark, moved in London to engage portrait painter and musician Henry Mundy (c. 1798 – 1848) for the position. Appointing Mundy meant paying only one salary to a person who could teach music, drawing and French. ‘Mr Munday’ [sic] arrived in VDL as a steerage passenger on board the Vibilia on 22 August 1831: G.T. Stilwell, ‘Mr and Mrs George Carr Clark of “Ellinthorp Hall”’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association: Papers and Proceedings, vol. 11, no. 3, April 1963, p. 83; Paul Paffen, ‘A Grand Illusion: Benjamin Duterrau and The Conciliation’, Melbourne Art Journal, no. 5, The School of Fine Arts, Classical Studies and Archaeology, The University of Melbourne, 2001, p. 67, fn 20 (pp. 53-70). The entry on Duterrau in the DAA speculates that ‘Benjamin was probably delayed in London’ and that: ‘Having lost his teaching position Duterrau opened a studio in Hobart Town’: Joan Kerr, ‘Benjamin Duterrau’, in Kerr (ed.), DAA, 1992, p. 231, c. 2. Duterrau could not have ‘lost’ his teaching position at ‘Ellinthorpe Hall’ because the post was never firmly his in the first instance and his business operated from his Campbell Street address was not some alternative. Mundy arrived in VDL a year before Duterrau and his daughter: Stillwell, 1963, p. 83; Paffen, 2001, p. 67, fn. 20. As such, why exactly Duterrau still elected to emigrate to VDL remains unexplained. .
3. On this day George Augustus Robinson (1791 – 1866) ‘succeeded … in effecting a friendly communication’ with people of the Big River and Oyster Bay tribes: Robinson’s official Report, cited in N.J.B Plomley (ed.), Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson 1829 – 1834, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 1966, p. 570. It was after a visit to Duterrau’s studio in 1841, in the company of Quaker missionary George Washington Walker (1800 – 1859), and upon seeing Duterrau’s pictures of the Tasmanian Aborigines, and ‘hearing from the aged artist’s lips the fervid description of the dark man’s sorrows’, that historian James Bonwick (1817 – 1906) decided ‘there and then’ to collect material for the history of the “Black War of Van Diemen’s Land”’: ‘The writing of colonial history’, The Daily Telegraph, Launceston, 7 August 1895, p. [2], c. 1. Also: ‘I had the story of the black man’s wrongs and sufferings fresh from the lips of [Duterrau] an ardent sympathiser’: James Bonwick, The last of the Tasmanian; or The Black War of Van Diemen’s Land, Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, Crown Building, Fleet Street, London, 1870, p. [210]. Bonwick used portraits and casts of the Tasmanian Aborigines by Duterrau to illustrate his two lectures on the principles of phrenology, delivered at the Music Hall, Collins Street, Hobart Town, on 27 November 1846 & 4 December 1846 respectively: ‘Phrenology’, Colonial Times and Tasmanian, 24 November 1846, p. [2], c. 5; ‘Phrenology’, HTC, 25 November 1846, p. 1, c. 4. .
4. ‘Among our late arrivals, we are pleased to observe the name of M. Duterow [sic], an artist of very considerable eminence’: [Untitled], HTC, 7 September 1832, p. 2, c. 5. Opening a studio in Campbell-street after his arrival in the Hobart Town from which to sell work brought with him from London and in which to operate as a portrait painter became Duterrau’s professional colonial concern. A notice of his business, dated 7 November 1832, published 9 November 1832 reveals: ‘M. Duterrau, begs respectfully to announce to the gentry and inhabitants of Hobart town, that having arranged the paintings which he recently brought with him from London, he will be happy to exhibit them to such ladies or gentlemen as may wish to view or to purchase any of them, as well as to follow his profession of portrait painting. Campbell street, opposite Mr. Bisdee’s, Nov. 7, 1832.’: [Notice], HTC, 9 November 1832, p. [2], c. 5. The advertisement did not appear ‘belatedly’ in December, as in Kerr, 1992, p. 231, c. 2. The notice continued to be published into 1833. .
5. [Untitled], HTC, 19 October 1832, p. [3], c. 1. Lt-Governor Arthur and family again, but with Colonel and Mrs Logan, visited Duterrau at his Campbell-street residence in December 1833 to view artworks: [Untitled], The Trumpeter General, Hobart Town, 24 December 1833, p. 2, c. 1. A 1928 newspaper reports that Duterrau’s daughter Sarah Jane became Governess to the children of Lt-Governor Arthur: ‘They [Duterrau, his daughter and Miss Perigal] resided in the old white house at the corner of Patrick and Campbell Street, and there Mr. Duterrau practiced portrait painting. He won reputation and the Governor (Colonel Arthur) took a keen interest in his work. Miss Duterrau became a governess in the vice-regal family, …’: The Mercury, 18 July 1928, p. 10, c. 7. No known contemporary primary source verifies this claim. .
For contemporary reports on work seen on display in Duterrau’s Campbell-street address, including The babes in the wood and Little Red Riding Hood: [Untitled], Colonial Times, 5 November 1833, p. [3], c. 1; [Untitled], The Trumpeter General, 31 December 1833, p. [2], c. 2; also, footnote 14 below. Later, ‘two paintings on a gigantic scale, of two Aboriginal Chiefs’, the figures being ‘about six feet high’ were also seen: ‘Fine Arts’, Colonial Times, 19 February 1839, p. 63, c. 1. .
6. ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 6 April 1838, p. 1, c. 6. Duterrau is listed as one of only five Life Members – the other four being Sir John Eardley-Wilmot (1783-1847), Sir John Franklin, John Burnett, senior and George Burn – in Report of the Van Diemen’s Land Mechanics’ Institution for the year 1846, W. Pratt, Printer, 67 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town, [1846], p. 13. On the Van Diemen’s Land Mechanics’ Institution: Stefan Petrow, ‘The life and death of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institute 1827-1871’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association: Papers and Proceedings, vol. 40, no. 1, March 1993, pp. 7-18. .
The first known portrait that Duterrau painted in Tasmania – commissioned by subscription – was of the Secretary of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution, namely Mr Thomas J. Lempriere (1796 – 1852), clerk of the Commissariat Department. Lempriere had taken on the role of Secretary to the Society by April 1832: [Untitled], HTC, 21 April 1832, p. [2], c. 5. ‘We beg to recommend to the Friends and Patrons of the Mechanics’ Institution, who have not yet seen the subscription portrait of their active and intelligent Secretary, to visit Mr. Duterrow’s [sic] interesting collection, in which, independent of its principal attraction, they cannot fail to discover many specimens resembling those of the purest and the most perfect work of art. It will be gratifying to Doctor Birbeck [sic, George Birkbeck, 1776 – 1841, founder of the London Mechanics’ Institute in 1823] and the members of the Parent Institution at home, to know that in the delicate and difficult task which our Committee had to perform in selecting an artist, they have found one who has done ample justice to the character of Mr. Lempriere’s expressive countenance. There is a softness and solemnity of coloring in the face – a pensiveness of expression about the forehead – and a slight sarcastic curl upon the lip, which reminds us forcibly of some of the earlier portraits of Byron. Indeed, we understand that Mr. Duterow’s [sic] high aim and laudable subject was to surpass in this piece whatever he had before executed, and to represent not exclusively all that is requisite in external figure and feature, but the emotions and characteristics of the Secretary’s mind. He has executed his intentions. We shall only add, that we should have preferred the open collar in which the bard to whom we have before alluded was accustomed to delight to the drapery which at present surrounds the neck of the Secretary.’: [Untitled], Colonial Times, 4 June 1833, p. [2], c. 4. The Duterrau portrait of Lempriere was on display in Duterrau’s studio early in June 1833. .
In the following month Duterrau presented the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution with ‘a beautiful portrait, painted by himself, of the celebrated Dr. Priestly’ which was hung in the lecture room to be a ‘lively stimulus’ to juvenile members. Undoubtedly it was painted in London. [Untitled], HTC, 19 July 1833, p. [2], c. 5: ‘The philosopher [Joseph Priestly, 1733-1804] is represented in the act of composition in his study, and the artist has succeeded in a very remarkable manner in pourtraying [sic.], if we may so speak, the mind of the subject of his pencil. At the very first glance the intellectual and deep-thinking powers of the individual arrest the attention and admiration of the spectator. It is suspended in the lecture room, holding forth a lively stimulus to the juvenile members to emulate the indefatigable researches into the secrets of nature of the renowned original.’ .
7. A catalogue of the Library of the Van Diemen’s Land Mechanics’ Institution, printed for the Institution by J. C. MacDougall, Collins Street, Hobart Town, 1839, p. 23, in the section of the catalogue headed: ‘Donations of money, maps, specimens, models, pictures, apparatus, &c.’ The four other items donated by Duterrau, as listed in the catalogue: 1. ‘An Oil Painting Portrait of Dr. Priestley (three quarter length)’; 2. ‘Full-length Figure of a Native throwing the spear’; 3. ‘A cast head of a Native Chief (Timmy)’; 4. ‘A cast group of Natives’; later: ‘Mr Deauterrau [sic] has also presented to the Institution 2 Paintings’: Report of the Van Diemen’s Land Mechanics’ Institution for the year 1842, Printed by Waterhouse & Pratt, Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town, 1842, p. 9. With thanks to Wendy Holz, ML, SLNSW, for recently supplying relevant pages of the 1839 Catalogue, otherwise inaccessible to the author during lockdown, first cited in Paul Paffen, ‘The art of memory: The portrait in Van Diemen’s Land’, unpublished PhD thesis in four volumes, vol. 3 (catalogue, volume 1: Portraitists: A-E), School of Fine Arts, Classical Studies and Archaeology, University of Melbourne, 1998, p. 223. .
8. [Catalogue] Christie’s, Sydney, 1 October 1974, lot no. 7, p. 11: ‘The property of Ted Braithwaite, Esq’. On baking in early Hobart Town: Lindy Scripps: The Industrial Heritage of Hobart: Historical Study, volume one, Hobart City Council, May 1997, pp. 22-26, with thanks to Janine Tan for bring this reference to the author’s attention. .
9. In January 1857, according to The Hobarton Mercury, there was a ‘nucleus of a museum in existence’ within the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution, but it ‘had scarcely an object of art worthy of the name in any of its rooms, much less such a collection as would be educationally useful.’: [Untitled], The Hobarton Mercury, 7 January 1857, p. [2], c. 3. On the Mechanics’ Institute collection, it was noted in 1865: ‘The property of the institute bears the mark of antiquity, that is to a Victorian. The geological, botanical, and other cabinets have taken many years to form. Here also are some curious paintings of aboriginals, a good portrait of Dr Priestly, and one of “Black Robinson,” of whom some curious anecdotes are told.’: Observer, ‘A glance at Tasmania. [From the Mount Alexander Mail (Victorian paper), April 21.]’, The Launceston Examiner, 2 May 1865, p. [2], c.5. .
10. Acting under instructions from the Committee of the Mechanics’ Institute, at 11.00 am, on 9 January 1872, auctioneers Messrs. Roberts and Co., started selling on the premises of the Institute – situated in Melville Street, Hobart Town, Tasmania – about 2,500 volumes comprising the Institute’s Library. Also under the hammer went all of the Institution’s other property as it has recently closed, its demise ascribed then by a press reporter to ‘inanition’: [Untitled], The Mercury, 2 January 1872, p. [2], c. 2. For an explanation of the ‘nature of the Institution’: ‘Mechanics’ Institution. Committee room, Court House, No. 16, 1827’, HTC, 17 November 1827, p. [2], c. 2. On the Institution’s formation in January 1827: [Untitled], The Hobart Town Gazette, 13 January 1827, p. [2], c. 3; ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 23 March 1827, p. [3], c. 2. .
11. Advertisements of the sale did say: ‘Catalogues will be issued’: [Advertisement], The Mercury, 1 January 1872, p. [4], c. 6; ‘Sale at the Mechanics’ Institute’, The Mercury, 9 January 1872, p. [2], c. 4; [Notice], The Mercury, 9 January 1872, p. [4], c. 7. The entire sale of the Institute’s property, comprising ‘many valuable philosophical donations’, realised around £190, a sum that was insufficient to pay for accrued debts: The Mercury, 2 January 1872, p. [2], c. 2; ‘The last of the Mechanics’ Institute’, The Mercury, 10 January 1872, p. [2], c. 4. .
12. ‘This evening Mr. Duterrau Lectures upon Perspective and the fine Arts. It is a beautiful subject, and we have no doubt the members will be highly gratified.’: [Untitled], HTC, 16 July 1833, p. [2], c. 5. [Untitled], HTC, 19 July 1833, p. [2], c. 5: ‘On Tuesday evening Mr. Duterrau the eminent portrait and landscape painter, who has lately arrived in this colony, delivered his lecture on painting, sculpture and engraving, to a very full meeting of the members of the Mechanics’ Institution. It was heard with mingled profit and delight by a most attentive audience. The lecturer in commencing his subject enlarged with considerable pathos and effect on the advantages of institutions similar to the present that encouraged the dissemination of science and the arts. “It has been remarked, said Mr. Duterrau, that art and science have but little chance of being promoted in Van Diemen’s land, owing to the infancy of the colony – an infancy that some may wish would last for ever, rather than have the trouble of any higher degree of thinking than that which is necessary for the producing of swaddling clothes; such dull guardians of infancy, would see the infant grow to manhood and still talk of infancy – and well they may, for under their auspices the manhood of the colony would only resemble an over grown babe, arrived at the great bulk of man with the little intellect of a new born child. How different are the true friends of infancy, who watch the growing strength and are ready to help with ardent zeal in every laudable pursuit that may lead to dignified character. Those who countenance art and science are setting an example to the rising generation, who no doubt, will be grateful for putting in their way as they arrive at maturity, the means to become a truly civilized people.’ This was said to be Duterrau’s ‘first lecture of a course on the fine arts, comprising especially the departments of sculpture, painting, and engraving’: [Untitled], HTC, 12 July 1833, p. [3], c. 1. .
Newspapers relay that the date of Duterrau’s second lecture ‘on painting and the fine arts’ was delivered at the Institute on 15 October 1833: ‘Domestic intelligence’, The Tasmanian and Southerly Literary & Political Journal, Hobart Town, 4 October 1833, pp. 319, c. 1-2; ‘On Tuesday Mr. Duterrau delivers his second lecture on painting and sculpture in which he will elucidate the leading principles of perspective’: [Untitled], HTC, 11 October 1833, p. [2], c. 5. .
13. ‘He [Duterrau] gave the first lecture on painting in Australia in 1833 at the Hobart Mechanics’ Institute’: Bernard Smith, Place, taste and tradition: A study of Australian Art since 1788, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Oxford, Auckland, New York, 2nd edn, rev. 1979 (reprinted 1988), (Ure Smith Pty Ltd, 1945), p. 103. Earlier, William Moore published: ‘The first artist to give a lecture in Australia, Duterrau discoursed on painting at the Mechanics’ Institute on 15 September [sic] 1833’; William Moore, The story of Australian art: From the earliest known art of the continent to the art of to-day, in two volumes, vol. 1, Angus & Robertson Limited, Sydney, 1934, p. 38. In the 1930s Duterrau was remembered as a ‘highly talented artist, and much respected’: E. T. Emmett, ‘The Antique Exhibition and some history’, The Voice, Hobart, 8 August 1931, p. 3, c. 3. .
14. [Untitled], HTC, 20 December 1833, p. [2], c. 4: ‘We had the pleasure the other day in visiting Mr. Duterrau’s collection of paintings in Campbell-street, to be agreeably surprised by remarkably striking portraits of some of our old sable acquaintances the aborigines of this island. They are painted of the natural size in three-fourth lengths, having come to Mr. Duterrau and stood till he took their likenesses with the greatest satisfaction. They are all drawn exactly in the native garb. Wooready the native of Brune island, who has attended Mr. Robinson in all his expeditions, has his hair smeared in the usual way with grease and ochre, three rows of small shining univalue shells strung round his neck, and the jawbone of his deceased friend suspended on his breast. This relic of affection is carefully wrapped round with the small string which these interesting people make from fibres of the large flag or juncus which grows in all parts of the island. They obtain it by passing the green flags over fire until they have stripped off the more friable part of the green bark and then the fibres which are strong are easily twisted into threads. A kangaroo skin with the fur inside is passed round him and fastened over the shoulder in the usual manner in the bush, before they obtained blankets from the whites, and his brawny athletic arm is stretched out to wield the spear. His wife Truganina, the very picture of good humour, stands beside him, with her head shaved according to custom by her husband, with a sharp-edged flint. Besides these, Mr. Duterrau has in like manner painted a powerful likeness of the chief, Manalagana and his wife, two most excellent well-disposed people, who, with the others, have been of immense service to Mr. Robinson, and through him to the colony in his several arduous and often dangerous expeditions to conciliate their countrymen, and are now we learn stationed about Campbell town doing their best endeavour to assist in ridding the country of the dreadful scourge of the flocks, the ravenous wild dogs. Great praise is due to Mr. Duterrau for his thus fixing on canvass which may commemorate and hand down to posterity for hundreds of years to come so close a resemblance in their original appearance and costume of a race now all but extinct. His Excellency with his family, we learn, was pleased the other day to view these interesting portraits, which he recognised and acknowledged to be most perfect likenesses. We hope the public spirit of the colony will not allow these efforts of Mr. Duterrau’s pencil to like in oblivion nor to pass unrecompensed. We are happy however to see that a taste for the fine arts is beginning to spring up, and that Mr. Duterrau is now engaged in painting portraits of several ladies and gentlemen.’ .
15. There may be a fourth Duterrau self-portrait, but unlikely. Christie’s published auction record lists the price realised for the 1835 Duterrau self-portrait from the 1 October 1974 sale – at $6,000. Correspondence of March and April 1975 between Christie’s Australian Representative John Henshaw and the Adelaide collector indicate the subsequent negotiation and sale of a ‘Duttereau [sic] Self Portrait’ for $1,500: E-mail from Chris Deutscher, Deutscher and Hackett, to Paul Paffen, 24 September 2021. As the picture discussed in the exchange of letters was valued at one quarter of the 1 October 1974 sale price of the 1835 Duterrau self-portrait, one could conclude that the correspondence refers to an additional Duterrau self-portrait of lesser significance. But, the Adelaide collector is not known to have had owned two self-portraits by Duterrau. .
16. [Catalogue], The exhibition of the Royal Academy, M.DCCCXIX. The fifty first, Printed by B. McMillan, Bow-street, Covent-Garden, London, Printer to the Royal Academy, 1819: B. Duterrau, ‘Portrait of an artist’, cat. no. 254, p. 15: Duterrau’s address: 64 Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, London. When catalogued for auction in 2013, details published for the painting: [Catalogue] Christie’s, Australian Art, London, 26 September 2013, lot no. 7: ‘Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait)’, oil on canvas, signed with initials and indistinctly dated 'B.D. 181.' lower right, 76.7 x 64.2 cm, verso: with exhibition number pasted lower left, with painted and chalked inscriptions: 'Royal Academy / 1819' on the stretcher: provenance: By direct descent through six generations of the artist's family. .
17. Upon the death of Lorenzo Lodge in 1911 The Tasmanian News noted his ‘very active interest in temperance and social reform work’: ‘Death of Mr L. Lodge. A respected citizen’, The Tasmanian News, 1 March 1911, p. [2], c. 4: Devoutly Christian, Lodge left London for Australia in 1849 for health reasons, arriving in Melbourne in February 1850. He ‘spent a few years’ in New South Wales and Southern Queensland prior to relocating to Tasmania, entering the employ of Messrs Allport and Roberts, solicitors, in 1854, being still connected to the firm just before his death. He had been a member of the Tasmanian Temperance Alliance ‘for upwards of half a century’, having served as its President. Lodge married Ellen Glen McIntyre in Hobart Town on 15 June 1855: Marriages in the District of Hobart, Tasmanian Archives, RGD37/1/14, image 304. He was survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters. Duterrau delivered a ‘Lecture on Total Abstinence’ on 7 April 1846: ‘Temperance lecture’, Colonial Times and Tasmanian, 10 April 1846, p. [3], c. 3. His lecture, delivered in the Infant School, Murry-street, on ‘Total Abstinence’, took place on 15 June 1847: ‘Teetotal lecture’, Colonial Times and Tasmanian, 11 June 1847, p. 1, c. 1 & 15 June 1847, p. 1, c. 5. .
The Infant School was considered ‘one of the most popular Institutions in Hobart’: ‘Notes by the way’, The Critic, Hobart, 4 April 1924, p. [2], c. 3. On the Infant School which was operated by sculptor Benjamin Law (1807-1882) and his first wife Hannah (d. 1850, aged 42) until at least August 1840: Paul Paffen and Margaret Glover, ‘The Hannah and Benjamin Law Letters’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association: Papers and Proceedings, vol. 45, no. 3, September 1998, pp. 164-185. .
‘A few years before his death’ Duterrau ‘removed to a house in Bathurst Street, next to the old King’s Hall, and died there’: The Mercury, 18 July 1928, p. 10, c. 7; Cause of death: ‘Decay of nature’ [old age], ‘Deaths in the District of Hobart’, Tasmanian Archives, RDG35/1/3, entry 805, image 81; ‘Died’, The Cornwall Chronicle, Launceston, 19 July 1851, p. 452, c. 4. Duterrau’s Bathurst Street house was a ‘large stone house … with a large garden’: ‘To Let’: HTC, 10 September 1851, p. [4], c. 1. .
18. Mary Perigal died, aged 79, on 15 May 1871: ‘Deaths’, The Mercury, 17 May 1871, p. 1, c. 1; ‘Deaths in the District of Hobart’, Tasmanian Archives, RGD35/1/8 no. 377, image 43. She included in her Will the children of her ‘niece’ Mrs John Bogle: Will of Mary Perigal, Tasmanian Archives, AD960-1-9, Will no. 1479, image 1. .
19. The subjects of seven paintings were published: [Advertisement], HTC, 23 June 1837, p. 1, c. 5: ‘A series of pictures, painted by Mr. Duttereau [sic] …’ On the seventh: ‘A work of such magnitude as the national picture, requires invention, composition, expression, and strong general effect, all of which is completely arranged, the black people having stood for every attitude in the picture, together with Mr. Robinson, consequently may be computed as more than half the work already done. A little encouragement would put the parts together, and form a moral lesson for the present and succeeding generations.’ Also: ‘The Colonial Museum’, Bent’s News, and Tasmanian Three-Penny Register, Hobart Town, 1 July 1837, p. [4], c. 3: which reports the Government’s purchase of four portraits of Tasmanian Aborigines, and Duterrau being in possession of four others, and, in addition, two pictures of ‘Port Phillip Natives, who visited Hobart Town … with Mr. Falkner’ (John Pascoe Fawkner, 1792-1869). The article laments Duterrau not offering all of the pictures to the Government. It also mentions that Duterrau ‘has also commenced a gigantic undertaking – a picture on a very large scale, which at least will be worth 200 guineas’. Duterrau, the ‘celebrated Portrait Painter of Bond-street London’, had proposed to Sir John Franklin that a purchase should be made at the public expense of four of his paintings of Tasmanian Aborigines: ‘Tasmanian Museum’, Bent’s News, and Tasmanian Three-Penny Register, 20 May 1837, p. [3], c. 4. After a petition was successfully formed (which has survived) it was reported: ‘We are pleased to hear that His Excellency, having had under consideration an application signed by a considerable number of the inhabitants of Hobart town, has sanctioned the purchase of four likenesses of the Aborigines, painted by Mr. Duterreau [sic], for the purpose of their being preserved as a future memorial of the original inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land; which, for the present, are to be suspended on the walls of the Chamber of the Legislative Council.’: HTC, 23 June 1837, p. [2], c. 5; Application to Sir John Franklin from 113 inhabitants of Hobart Town, 8 May 1837, Tasmanian Archives, C505/42/896, p. 219; the portraits were made three years earlier: Note from B. Duterrau to Sir John Franklin, 29 May 1837, Tasmanian Archives, C505/42/896, p. 218; The sanctioned purchase of the four portraits was at a cost of eighty guineas, the price asked by Duterrau: Memorandum, signed by Adam Turnball, 6 June 1837, Tasmanian Archives, C505/42/896, p. 214; cited in Paffen, 1998 (vol. 3), p. 244. .
20. ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 15 September 1837, p. [3], c. 1. The 13 September 1837 date on the folio specifically points to Duterrau’s second lecture in a series ‘on Painting and Sculpture’. It was set to be presented earlier but inclement weather forced its postponements on two occasions: on the evenings of 30 August 1837 and then 6 September 1837: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, Colonial Times, 29 August 1837, p. [3], c. 3; ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 1 September 1837, p. 281, c. 2. .
Duterrau’s first lecture on painting and sculpture in the 1837 Course of Lectures season of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institution was delivered in the Court of Requests’ Room (as was the second) on 20 July 1837: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 14 July 1837, p. [3], c. 6. It ‘afforded the highest gratification to all present, and, we anticipate equal ability, will be accompanied on the coming evening [second lecture], with equal gratification’: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 5 September 1837, p. [2], c. 1. His third and final lecture in the series was delivered in the Macquarie Hotel on 8 November 1837: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, Colonial Times, 7 November 1837, p. 361, c. 4. .
Noting Duterrau’s 1830s lectures delivered after his 1837 series: ‘on painting and sculpture’, on 1 May 1838: ‘Domestic intelligence’, Colonial Times, 1 May 1838, p. 143, c. 3; On ‘Painting, particularly on Expression’: on 11 September 1838: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 7 September 1838, p. [3], c. 1. In 1839: ‘Lecture on Painting, prefaced by some remarks on the use of lectures, and their influence on the rising generation’, on 11 June 1839: ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, The Tasmanian, 7 June 1839, p. [7], c. 3; another scheduled for delivery on 1 October 1839, on ‘Painting, with a description of the basis upon which a great portion of the art is founded, –with, likewise, some remarks on the conjunction of the heavenly bodies’, but postponed due to inclement weather, and again postponed on 4 October 1839, was again rescheduled to 8 October 1839: ‘Domestic intelligence’, Colonial Times, 1 October 1839, p. 319, c. 3; ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, The Tasmanian Weekly Dispatch, 4 October 1839, p. [7], c. 1; ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC and Van Diemen’s Land Gazette, 4 October 1839, p. [2], c. 4. .
21. When Captain Franklin was expected in the colony as successor to Lt-Governor Arthur it was reported: ‘We have not learned that any individual is acquainted with Sir John, with the exception of Mr. Duterrau, the artist, who was intimate in his family, and in whose gallery, in Campbell-street, we have seen the portraits of his three little nephews of the Peacock family.’: [Untitled], HTC, 26 August 1836, p. [3], c. 1. The portrait of the Peacock children was still in the possession of Duterrau at the time of his death: A catalogue of the entire collection of pictures, casts, and artists’ materials the property of the late Benjamin Duterreau [sic], Esquire, The whole of which will be submitted to Unreserved Competition, by Mr. Elliston, on Wednesday next, 27th August, 1851, at Mr. Robin Hood’s picture gallery, Liverpool Street, the sale commences at 1 o’clock precisely, H. & C. Best, Printers, “Courier” Office, Collins Street, Van Diemen’s Land, 1851: lot no. 50 is: ‘Portraits of Sir John Franklin’s Nephews’. With thanks to Janet Middleton, Librarian, TMAG, for obtaining a copy of this (annotated) catalogue, from the Museum of Mankind Library, British Museum, for the author who could not access his copy procured in 1995. For an advertisement of the sale: ‘Original pictures’, The Courier, Hobart Town, 20 August 1851, p. 1, c. 4. No self-portrait is listed in the 1851 Catalogue. .
22. Information kindly supplied by the TMAG, in emails to Paul Paffen, 24 September 2021 & 19 October 2021. .
23. Advertisements disclose the subject of the lectures: ‘Two lectures by Mr. Duterrau on Sculpture and Painting, in which the peculiarities of the first masters will be pointed out – the advantages which a young colony like this, is likely to derive, if the arts were duly encouraged and cultivated in it – the different styles of sculpture, painting and engraving – the orders of architecture, and other corresponding subjects.’; ‘Mechanics Institution’, The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 10 April 1835, p. 115, c. 1. .
24. ‘Mechanics’ Institution’, HTC, 8 May 1835, p. [3], c. 2. .
25. ‘On Tuesday evening, Mr. Duterrau delivered his first lecture at the Mechanic’s Institution on painting and the fine arts generally. He enlarged with much effect on the advantages we might derive in this remote corner of the world from cultivating good taste, more especially great ground works of it – the principle of honour and the beauty of truth. As a powerful and instructive example he analized that splendid picture of Raphael, ‘The School of Athens.’ While he pointed out the characters of the different schools of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, pourtrayed [sic] in it, the attentive audience could not help drawing a comparison far from favourable to the present age between the principles that guided ancient and modern education. … Mr. Duterrau in a most interesting and agreeable manner, in chaste and persuasive language, pointed out the characteristics of a good picture – he showed the necessity of attending to graceful attitudes in the figures – to grouping and propriety of arrangement or composition as it is called and harmony of colours, and numerous other points which this brief notice obliges us to pass by. Among the members present, though the evening was inclement, were most of the professors and lovers of the art, both male and female, on this side of the island.’: [Untitled], HTC, 5 June 1835, p, [2], c. 5. .
Duterrau’s second lecture on fine arts for the year was delivered on 21 July 1835: ‘Mr. Duterrau’s lecture on the fine arts, on Tuesday, was really a treat in such a place as Hobart town, and he succeeded in convincing the numerous hearers how much the tone of society, as Dr. Lang calls it, would be raised amongst us if due encouragement were given to them in these new and remote colonies.’: [Untitled], HTC, 24 July 1835, p. [2], c.3. A third lecture for the year was delivered on 15 September 1835: ‘Mr. Duterrau’s lecture on painting, on Tuesday evening, afforded great pleasure to the very respectable and attentive audience, which if not so numerous as the room might have accommodated or the occasion demanded, is only an additional proof of the dunciad darkness that already envelopes out benighted colony, …’: [Untitled], HTC, 18 September 1835, p. [2], c. 4; ‘On Tuesday, Mr. Duterrau delivered a very interesting lecture on the Fine Arts, illustrated by the exhibition and delineation of several paintings and engravings – that gentleman is deservedly a great favourite with the Society, and is always received with warm applause.’: ‘Mechanics’ Institute’, The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 18 September 1835, p. 299, c. 4. It was to be earlier but was postponed due to bad weather: [Untitled], HTC, 11 September 1835, p. [2], c. 3. A fourth was delivered on 6 October 1835: ‘Mr. Duterrau’s lecture on painting on Tuesday evening was a most masterly discourse and was heard with equal profit and delight by a highly respectable audience, a large portion of which was composed of ladies. It is to be regretted that some of these excellent essays could not be printed or reported more at large so as to spread their benefits more widely over this young colony.’: [Untitled], HTC, 9 October 1835, p. [2], c. 3. At this time Duterrau had presented the Institution ‘with an admirably executed alto-relievo head of the young native chief Timmy, which serves with the splendid portrait of Dr Priestley to ornament the lecture room.’: [Untitled], HTC, 2 October 1835, p. [2], c. 2. This report suggests Duterrau had not yet given the Institution a self-portrait. .
26. On the theoretical doctrine known as the Association of Ideas that permeated philosophical and aesthetic criticism, explored to highlight the fundamental relationship between portraiture in Van Diemen’s Land and memory: ‘Introducing the portrait/memory – The Empire of Mind’ (Ch.1) in Paffen, vol. 1, 1998, pp. 1-37. On the theories of social and economic progress underlying visual culture in the sister colony: Robert Dixon, The course of Empire: Neo-classical culture in New South Wales, Oxford University Press, 1988. .
27. On the importance of the Raphael Cartoons and their serving to elevate artistic taste in England, largely through prints, and the expression of the passions in the Cartoons: Arline Meyer, Apostles in England: Sir James Thornhill & the Legacy of Raphael’s Tapestry Cartoons, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University in the City of New York, 1996. On Duterrau’s colonial preoccupation with the expression of passions based upon lessons taught by Raphael imagery: Paffen, 2001. .
28. A press advertisement puts the publication date (29 July 1835) of the Outline fourteen days after the date on the printed work on paper (15 July 1835): ‘This Day is Published, / AN OUTLINE of a proposed National Picture, in commemoration of the Aborigines of this Island, and of the benefits received through their conciliation to the colony of Van Diemen’s Land, by the exertions of Mr. G. A. Robinson. / To be had at the residence of the undersigned 24, Campbell-street, or at the Courier Office, Collins-street, with a letter-press description, price 2s. 6d. / B. Duterrau. / Campbell-street, July 29.’: HTC, 31 July 1835, p. 1, c. 5, & 18 September 1835, p. [3], c. 1. .
29. Word limit prevents discussion of Duterrau’s painting(s) of The Conciliation in this essay; a complete list of Duterrau’s 1840s lecture dates is also absent here for reasons of space. .
30. ‘The circumstances of a few of the remaining Aborigines, now residing with Mr. Robinson, has suggested the idea among a number of gentlemen favourable to the undertaking, of grouping their portraits into a national picture, with Mr. Robinson in the midst mediating with them. Something of the kind is certainly not only most desirable in itself, but a debt which the colony owes both to these poor people all but extinct, and to the white posterity of Van Diemen’s Land. Its exhibition in some public situation where it could be frequently seen as in one of our courts of justice, would serve to shew the advantages of mild and gentle treatment, and its final superiority over force and bloodshed. It would help to strengthen and extend feelings of universal philanthropy, instead of national contentions which too frequently break out in cruelty and diabolical massacre, under the cloak of war and martial tactics – it would in a measure cause a respect for the life of man whether black or white. We should be happy to see a subscription set on foot for so noble a purpose.’: [Untitled], HTC, 10 April 1835, p. [2], c. 3; in Paffen, 2001, p. 54. .
31. Priced at 1s 6d: For an advertisement: ‘This day is published’, HTC, 18 September 1835, p. 3, c. 1; also: ‘Benjamin Duterrau, Etcher’, in Clifford Craig, The engravers of Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1961 pp. 52-57: two further Duterrau etchings related to the indigenous inhabitants of Tasmania were published on 23 March 1836: Craig, 1961, p. 57. .
For Duterrau etchings: ‘Aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land, 1835’, Dixon Library (DL), SLNSW, DL PX 4; also: Benjamin Duterrau, The Aborigines of Tasmania: A series of original etchings and sketches of the natives brought in by the conciliatory mission under G. A. Robinson, Hobart Town 1834-5, ML, SLNSW, PXA 2004; Duterrau [Tasmanian sketches, including portraits of Aborigines, ca. 1835], ML, SLNSW, PXA 613; An advertisement, dated 2 August 1836, noticed Duterrau’s completed models of thirteen bas-relief heads ‘the size of life’: ‘Bas-relief heads’, Colonial Times, 2 August 1836, p. 258, c. 3; also ‘Mr. Duterrau has completed the models of 13 bas-relief heads, the size of life, namely, Mr. G. A. Robinson and, 12 Aborigines, wherein various expressions of some particular passions, &c., are delineated which Mr. Duterrau, has carefully observed in those interesting people’: [Advertisement], HTC, 5 August 1836, p. [3], c. 4. The Mitchell Library has a plaster cast ‘… outline of a Bas-relief of national picture …’ initialled and dated, upper right: ‘BD[-?] 1835’: ML, SLNSW, R 43. .
32. Connoisseurs chased quality prints of the Raphael Cartoons and other prints of work after Raphael. The framed print ‘The School of Athens’ by Giovani Volpato (1735 – 1803), ‘beautifully coloured’ (after the Raphael original), fetched 9l. 19s. 6d, at the Phillips, London, auction sale of Lord Weymouth’s prints, books, etc. It was believed that Weymouth paid 50 guineas for it: ‘Sale of Lord Weymouth’s prints, books, &c’, The Times, London, 18 June 1827, p. 3, c. 2. .
33. Duterrau also publicly ‘entered into a critical analysis of Raffaelle’s pictures’ in 1848. Delivered in the Hall of the Hobart Town Mechanics’ Institute, on 7 July 1848, Duterrau’s lecture ‘On Painting’ – having mentioned the ‘peculiar province of history painting’ – observed that a ‘good work either in painting or poetry should be conducted with a view to moral effect as well as to rational amusement… Raffaelle in his pictures exhibited Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, raising the imagination to the regions of philosophy.’ For a full report on the lecture: ‘Mechanics’ Institute. Lecture on Painting’, HTC, 12 July 1848, p. [2], c. 3-4. .
Traditionally believed to be by Giulio Romano (1499 – 1546) the oil on canvas copy (170.4 x 234 cm) of the Raphael fresco (in the Stanza della Segnatura, in the Vatican, Rome) bequeathed to Oxford University by Francis Page, is now thought to be a fine early seventeenth-century copy (Ashmolean Museum, acc. no. WA1845.45). On the Oxford copy: Christopher Lloyd, A catalogue of the early Italian paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977, pp. 156-157. The painting (illustrated in Paffen, 2001, p. 63) was given to the University to hang in the Bodleian Library, which was, until the University Galleries (now known as the Ashmolean) opened in 1845, the principal area of display for oil paintings. Provenance: Rev. C. C. Brookes, A History of Steeple Aston and Middle Aston, Oxfordshire, King’s Stone Press, Long Compton, 1929, p. 244, n. 17: ‘Also my painting of ‘The School of Athens’, a legacy from my worthy friend, Thomas James Selby, Esq., I request this University of Oxford to accept as a small mark of the most profound respect and gratitude for repeated honours conferred on me by that very great, respectable and learned body’: E-mails from Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England, 11 & 13 September 2021 & 21 October 2021, to Paul Paffen. On Thomas James Selby (1717 – 1772) of Wavendon in Buckingham: ‘I give Francis Page, Esq. of Middle Aston, in Oxfordshire, my picture of the School of Athens, which [I] think will suit his large room’: The last Will and Testament of Thomas James Selby, Esq. with a short abstract of the testimony of the witnesses, perpetuated in Trinity Term, 1786, for the defendant, Samuel Selby, Printed by J. Barfield, no. 91, Wardour-street, Soho, London, 1797, p. 5. .
34. The history of the celebrated painting, in the Picture Gallery, Oxford; called “The School of Athens:” supposed to be painted by Julio Romano, Printed and sold by Slatter and Munday. To be had also of W. Cowderoy at the Gallery, Oxford, 1805. The third edition of the pamphlet was published in 1807. The Oxford University and City Guide to which is added a description of Blenheim and Nuneham …, to which the essay was appended throughout the 1820s was also published by Munday and Slatter. The authorship of the pamphlet remains unknown to this day; W. Cowderoy mentioned on the title page – apparently being the Janitor of the Bodleian Library – is an unlikely candidate: with thanks to Colin Harrison. .
35. Duterrau, 1849, p. 25, c. 2.
145.jpg
