Title

Historic Australian Paintings.

Author

Author not identified

Source

Mercury (Hobart)

Details

27 August 1902, p.5, col.1.

Publication date

27 August 1902, p.5, col.1.

Type

Publication Review

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

 Lithographed portraits of Australian digniteries by Charles Nuttall.

Full text

HISTORIC AUSTRALIAN PAINTINGS. - It is generally known that Mr. Charles Nuttall is now engaged in painting for the Commonwealth Publishing Company a picture representing the opening of the First Federal Parliament by the Prince of Wales. Mr. Nuttall has obtained sittings from a number of representative men and women who were present at. the historic ceremony, and from sketches made by him, to which a few others were added, Messrs. McCarron, Bird and Co., the well-known publishers of Melbourne, have prepared a series of lithographic portraits of “Representative Australians,” which they have issued in album form, each leaf having a separate portrait. There are altogether 40 portraits, in which all the States of the Commonwealth are adequately represented. The series begins with the Marquis of Linlithgow (Lord Hopetoun), and ends with Professor Kernot, of the Melbourne University. The publishers say they “trust that these portraits of Australian notabilities will be appreciated, in that they substitute for the too familiar fidelity of the photograph that life-likeness of another kind, which results from the happy seizure of characteristic features and expression by the artist's eye and mind.” If Tasmanians may judge of most of the rest by a face with which they are familiar, it can be said that the portrait of Sir Edward Braddon is certainly “life-like.” That of Sir Elliott Lewis is not so striking. Among tho other very successful portraits are those of the Marchioness of Linlithgow, Sir Edmund Barton, Mr. G. H. Reid, Sir John See, the Hon. R. E. O'Connor, Archbishop Carr, Colonel Tom Price, and Professor Kernot. The album is elegantly got up bound in cardboard, with handsome, floral cover.

[The Mercury (Hobart), 27 August 1902, p.5, col.1.]