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Lot Essay
The grazing run of Tubbutt was first taken up in October 1838 by Thomas Moore of Burnima in the Bombala district of Victoria, and Moore built the cottage shown in this picture, the first stone building to be erected in the district. In 1839 William Whittakers purchased 'a Snowy River run' shortly after emigrating from Chester in England. He married Thomas Moore's niece in 1841 and they went to live in the cottage on the Tubbutt run. On 11 November 1843 their second child, Hannah Louise, was born. She married John George Winchester Wilmot and the picture was passed on to her grandson, Mr Chester Wilmot, the famous war correspondent and author, and to the present owner, his son.
Buvelot left his native Switzerland for Australia in 1866. He had worked as a photographer and painter in Brazil in the 1840s and 1850s, painted with the French artist Moreau in Rio de Janeiro and environs, and painted in Swizerland in the 1850s and 60s, producing Alpine landcapes which reflected the work of Calame and the influence of the Barbizon School. He painted large canvases of the Australian landscape in and around Heidelberg in the 1860s and travelled further afield, finding scenery which recalled his familiar Brazilian and Swiss scenery (at Fernshaw and the Wannon Falls). The tours brought new opportunities: 'Von Guerard, Clark, Chevalier, and Buvelot all made sketching tours of the Western District from which they returned to their Melbourne studios with homestead portrait commissions.' (T. Bonyhady, Images in Opposition, Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890, Melbourne, 1985, pp.53.)
The present homestead portrait is typical of the new genre, smaller scale works which portray a newly domesticated Australian landscape, and which are a counterpoint to the artists' other grander designs, and a distinct shift for Buvelot away from the big landscapes he had tackled in Brazil and Switzerland, and which he continued to produce in parallel to these smaller works. It would in fact be these more intimate views which resonated and which would bring him acclaim: 'After the Selection Acts broke up the squatters' large holdings, the country's trade stability rested more directly on the produce of the smaller landholders, Buvelot's output kept pace with this productivity and development, a situation in which Australia's economic progress was beginning to be thought of as a national symbol. His work of the 1870s -- small, tightly composed pastoral landscapes bathed in harmonies of light, with sheep or cattle grazing in lush paddocks -- earned him the title 'Father of Australian painting' ... . At the same time, however, Buvelot was foregrounding another aspect of Australian life -- a new awareness of the pleasure of spending time in the local bushland environment. ... Buvelot ... lent such popular imagery a dignity that eventually came to signify Australia's nationalistic dreams.' (M. Mackay in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists, Melbourne, 1992, p.123).
Buvelot left his native Switzerland for Australia in 1866. He had worked as a photographer and painter in Brazil in the 1840s and 1850s, painted with the French artist Moreau in Rio de Janeiro and environs, and painted in Swizerland in the 1850s and 60s, producing Alpine landcapes which reflected the work of Calame and the influence of the Barbizon School. He painted large canvases of the Australian landscape in and around Heidelberg in the 1860s and travelled further afield, finding scenery which recalled his familiar Brazilian and Swiss scenery (at Fernshaw and the Wannon Falls). The tours brought new opportunities: 'Von Guerard, Clark, Chevalier, and Buvelot all made sketching tours of the Western District from which they returned to their Melbourne studios with homestead portrait commissions.' (T. Bonyhady, Images in Opposition, Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890, Melbourne, 1985, pp.53.)
The present homestead portrait is typical of the new genre, smaller scale works which portray a newly domesticated Australian landscape, and which are a counterpoint to the artists' other grander designs, and a distinct shift for Buvelot away from the big landscapes he had tackled in Brazil and Switzerland, and which he continued to produce in parallel to these smaller works. It would in fact be these more intimate views which resonated and which would bring him acclaim: 'After the Selection Acts broke up the squatters' large holdings, the country's trade stability rested more directly on the produce of the smaller landholders, Buvelot's output kept pace with this productivity and development, a situation in which Australia's economic progress was beginning to be thought of as a national symbol. His work of the 1870s -- small, tightly composed pastoral landscapes bathed in harmonies of light, with sheep or cattle grazing in lush paddocks -- earned him the title 'Father of Australian painting' ... . At the same time, however, Buvelot was foregrounding another aspect of Australian life -- a new awareness of the pleasure of spending time in the local bushland environment. ... Buvelot ... lent such popular imagery a dignity that eventually came to signify Australia's nationalistic dreams.' (M. Mackay in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists, Melbourne, 1992, p.123).