Terms and Conditions
The artist, title and date of the work must be listed anywhere the image is reproduced:
Tom Roberts
Coming South 1886
oil on canvas
63.5 × 52.2 cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Colonel Aubrey H. L. Gibson (Rtd) in memory of John and Anne Gibson, settlers (1887), 1967
Photo: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
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Coming South
1886
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
63.5 × 52.2 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Colonel Aubrey H. L. Gibson (Rtd) in memory of John and Anne Gibson, settlers (1887), 1967
Gallery location
Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Coming South was painted after Roberts’s return from four years’ study in Europe, including a number of years at the Royal Academy, London. The work’s light, bright palette owes more to his time in Spain, however, than to his studies made in England. Deck scenes such as this, with their complex arrangements of masts, rigging and funnels provided wonderful compositional opportunities for artists, as well as the chance for psychological observation, as seen here in the body language and facial expressions of the passengers. Coming South is also a celebration of the migrant experience, and as such is Roberts’s first exploration of one of the great themes of Australian life.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.r.: Tom Roberts - 1886 -
inscribed in black paint l.l.: s.s. LUSITANIA
Accession Number
1738-5
Department
Australian Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Subjects (general)
Human Figures Marines and Seascapes Travel
Subjects (specific)
colonials (people) decks (watercraft components) immigrants immigration journeys nautical rigging passenger vessels spars (watercraft components)
Movements
Australian Impressionism Heidelberg School
Frame
Original, by J. & T. Thallon, Melbourne, surface not original
Frame
The frame is representative of a popular cassetta style used extensively by Thallon in the years following the middle 1880s.2 There is some ambiguity about the originality of this frame for the painting; it carries two Thallon labels of the same address but in different styles, suggesting the frame was in the workshop more than once. Another label associates the frame with a former owner but it seems likely this is the first framing of the painting. The frame forms an interesting companion to the near identical frame on Roberts’ Slumbering sea, Mentone, (A12-1980) one year later, and it is not unreasonable to think it was a choice of the artist following his return in 1885 from Europe, where frames in this form had gained popularity.
Notes
1 Hilary Maddocks, ‘Picture Framemakers in Melbourne c. 1860–1930’ in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999.
2 A frame similar to the one on Coming South is found on Roberts’ portrait Annie Evans, c. 1885, in the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.
Frame Details
Framemaker
J. & T. Thallon
Melbourne
Date
1882–881
Materials
The frame uses composition decorative elements on a wooden chassis. The torus ornament is conventional imbricated laurel leaves and berries, cross-banded at the centres and corners. Originally, all the surfaces were oil gilded except for the taenia and the slip, which appear to have been water gilded, the taenia burnished.
Frame Condition
The original gilding had been covered with gold coloured paint and toned with a grey paint layer in a previous restoration. The frame was restored in a more sympathetic manner in 1997.
Dimensions
95.5 x 82.2 x 10.6 cm; sight 62.7 x 49.4 cm