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Lot Essay
Henry Turbit (or Turbett) arrived in Sydney as a convict in 1816 on board the Mariner. He was origianlly from Middlesex and had been sentenced to transportation for a seven year sentence. No other works by him are known to exist.
Cora Gooseberry was the wife of Bungaree and was commonly known as Queen Gooseberry. A 1844 lithograph of her based on a drawing by another convict, Charles Rodius, is titled 'Gooseberry One Eyed Poll'. She is also seen sitting behind Bungaree in a lithograph published in 1830 based on a work by Augustus Earle. Gooseberry was a Sydney identity who, with her family, often camped outside the Cricketer's Arms, a hotel on the corner of Pitt and Market Streets. According to the artist George French Angus she could spin a yarn as convincingly as Bungaree. The drawing of the Aboriginal holding a boomerang, while in poor condition, is interesting in that it shows, albeit crudely, a relationship between indigenous and non indigenous people and it is interesting to speculate where the convict artists' sympathies might lie.
The small drawing of the European woman, if it too is by Henry Turbit, may be a portrait of the woman the convict left behind? Infuriatingly, the name of the town inscribed on the back of the work is indecipherable. Could the artist mean Somerton in Somerset, England?
Cora Gooseberry was the wife of Bungaree and was commonly known as Queen Gooseberry. A 1844 lithograph of her based on a drawing by another convict, Charles Rodius, is titled 'Gooseberry One Eyed Poll'. She is also seen sitting behind Bungaree in a lithograph published in 1830 based on a work by Augustus Earle. Gooseberry was a Sydney identity who, with her family, often camped outside the Cricketer's Arms, a hotel on the corner of Pitt and Market Streets. According to the artist George French Angus she could spin a yarn as convincingly as Bungaree. The drawing of the Aboriginal holding a boomerang, while in poor condition, is interesting in that it shows, albeit crudely, a relationship between indigenous and non indigenous people and it is interesting to speculate where the convict artists' sympathies might lie.
The small drawing of the European woman, if it too is by Henry Turbit, may be a portrait of the woman the convict left behind? Infuriatingly, the name of the town inscribed on the back of the work is indecipherable. Could the artist mean Somerton in Somerset, England?