Australischer Wald. Character des Illawara Gebietes. [Australian forest in the Illawarra District]

A pupil of Thomas Ender and protégé of Archduke Ferdinand-Joseph Maximilian, Selleny was appointed artist to the scientific voyage of the Austrian frigate Novara which circumnavigated the world between 1857 and 1859. The Novara was at Sydney from 5 November to 7 December 1858, and Selleny made various excursions, including a three-day tour of the Illawarra district 50 miles south of Sydney, well-known for its picturesque landscape and sub-tropical rainforest, which had already attracted such artists as Augustus Earle and Conrad Martens. Some 22 of the 41 Australian sketches listed by Popelka (1964) are Illawarra subjects, including portraits of the aborigines, and landscapes taken of the escarpment near Mount Keira and at Balgownie Farm in the northern part of the district. There is another large oil of the forest in the Illawarra district in the Vienna Museum (for which see the exhibition catalogue Der Freie Weite Horizont. Die Weltumseglung der Novara und Maximiliams Mexicanischer Traum, Landmuseum Schloss Tirol, July-Nov. 2004, Bozen, 2004, p.334, no. 5/21).

On his return to Trieste in August 1859, Selleny's portfolios held over 2,000 sketches. A selection of these were used to illustrate the 18 volume official account of the voyage (K. Scherzer, Reise der Österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859, unter den Befehlen des Commodore B. von Wllersdorf - Urbair, Vienna, 1861-75) and its companion edition in English, and Selleny worked up pictures from these sketches in the 1860s. For a catalogue of his expedition work, see L. Popelka, Ein Österreichischer Maler Segelt um die Welt: Joseph Selleny und seine Aquarelle von der Weltreise der Novara, 1857-1859.