Deutscher and Hackett

‘The real value of the high land on both shores of the harbour as elevated portions where healthy free air can be enjoyed, is now beginning to be appreciated by the over-crowded population of Sydney... Many residents… who can afford it are naturally desirous of possessing a building allotment in a healthy, airy, and elevated position. By the purchase of one of these allotments all such reasonable wishes may be gratified… with easy access to and from the busy metropolis.’¹
 
So read an advertisement for the subdivision of the ‘extensive property Silex’, now the suburb of Mosman, into five-to-ten-acre allotments in 1853. Owned by James King since 1839 (according to British law, but not Borogegal and Cammeraigal understandings of Country), Silex was named for the silica-rich sands King identified as suitable for glass-making – one of his many enterprises, the most notable of which were his pottery, and prize-winning wines from his vineyards at Irrawang in the Hunter Valley.²
 
King was less successful in his real-estate dealings, with his North Shore land being advertised repeatedly during the 1850s. This is despite the glowing ad-speak, and visual enticement. The advertisement continues:
 
‘Mr. Martens, the artist, has just finished a picture of Sydney purposely taken from the ground, which for the partial information of those who have not had an opportunity of estimating the intense beauty of the landscape by actual observation will shortly be exhibited… at the rooms of the Auctioneers.’³ In 1855, the site was re-advertised as having ‘the MOST SPLENDID VIEWS of Sydney, its suburbs, and its harbour – frequently taken by professional and amateur artists, whilst its ALTITUDE RENDERS THE POSITION peculiarly healthy.’⁴
 
Given King’s breadth of activities and ambition, it is unsurprising that he knew and engaged Conrad Martens, the most significant landscape artist in Sydney in the mid nineteenth century. Martens sketched at Irrawang in 1852 and 1853, and drew and produced watercolours and a late oil painting of the views from ‘Silica’ (an alternative name to Silex) from the 1850s to the 1870s for a number of patrons.⁵ In addition to views looking west up the harbour towards Sydney, Martens also repeatedly painted the dramatic scenery looking east across, or from, Middle Head to the entrance to Port Jackson. At least five watercolours, including the present Middle Harbour, are known from this elevated vantage point, where a jutting outcrop of sandstone contains the view on the left, and with the windswept trees, leads the viewers’ eyes towards the distinctive vertical cliff of North Head. Unlike the scenes looking towards the security of Sydney, this vista has few signs of colonial habitation – revelling rather in the perceived loneliness of the Australian bush, a rocky and remote location well into the later nineteenth century. A similar scene, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was commissioned for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867.⁶
 
1. ‘North Shore land’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 31 May 1853, p. 7. See: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12946287 and http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61329268 (accessed February 2025)
2. ‘James King (1800 – 1857)’, see biography at: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/king-james-2307/text2987 (accessed February 2025)
3. ‘North Shore land’, op. cit.
4. See: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60177590 (accessed February 2025)
5. Irrawang sketches, see Martens, C., Scenes in Sydney and New South Wales, 1836 – 63, State Library of New South Wales, PXC 296, pl. 18, listed in Martens’ ‘Account of Pictures’, cited in Michael Organ, M., ‘Name index to patrons, 1835 – 1878’, compiled 1989. Scenes from this location were produced for patrons including Philip Gidley King; Mr and Mrs James King; Charles Hobsen Ebden; Captain Impey; James Levick; and Rev. H. Walsh.
6. See: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/4385 (accessed February 2025)
 
ALISA BUNBURY