PrintNGV buys colonial masterpiece
NGV International
Photo: NGV Photographic Service
The National Gallery of Victoria today announced it has purchased Robert Dowling’s 1856 masterpiece, Masters George, William, and Miss Harriet Ware with the Aborigine Jamie Ware, prior to auction.
The painting of an early Western District squatter’s children with their Aboriginal servant is an important example of both colonial portraiture and the relationship developed between Aboriginal people and settlers.
NGV Director Dr Gerard Vaughan said the Gallery had moved quickly to secure this rare work, which is of particular historical significance for Victoria:
“This extremely important painting is a significant addition to the NGV’s Colonial collection. Robert Dowling is widely recognised as one of the foremost portraitists of the period, and this is an outstanding example of his work”, he said.
British born Robert Dowling migrated to Tasmania in 1834 at the age of seven, and became a renowned portrait painter in the 1850s. The NGV already owns one of Dowling’s most important representations of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, painted in 1856.
He returned to London where he achieved major success, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists during the 1860s and 1870s, before returning to Australia in 1884.
His major work of this later period, A Sheikh and His Son Entering Cairo, on Their Return from a Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1874, was acquired by the NGV as early as 1878 by public subscription, an indication of the Victorian community’s pride in the achievement of this Colonial artist following his return to England. This picture is currently on view at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia in Federation Square, as is Dowling’s much earlier painting of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
The NGV also owns Dowling’s portrait of Miss Annie Ware painted in 1882, and has a group of works of Ware family provenance, including two major paintings by Eugène von Guérard, one being the great homestead picture Yalla-y-Poora 1864.
Dowling’s work reflects strong classical references and he is associated with other major colonial painters including Thomas Bock and Eugène von Guérard.
The newly acquired work is one of six commissioned by squatter Joseph Ware of Minjah Station in 1855-56, all significant for their fine execution and their depiction of Aboriginal people in European settler scenes.
The painting has remained in the possession of descendants of the pioneering Western District Victorian pastoralist family since it was commissioned in 1856. A strong wish for the painting to remain in Victoria was expressed by the vendor, and hence the owner’s willingness to agree to a private treaty sale in advance of the auction.
Dowling’s group portrait is an important example of both Colonial portraiture and the relationship developed between Aboriginal people and settlers. To give the Indigenous servant Jamie his name and to include him in their children’s portrait was a mark of high regard in which the Wares held Aboriginal people.
The painting was purchased by the NGV from auction house Deutscher and Hackett prior to their inaugural sale.
For further information contact:
Sue Coffey
Head of Media & Public Affairs
(03) 8620 2346, 0417 558 511
sue.coffey@ngv.vic.gov.au
Kitty Walker
Media & Public Affairs Coordinator
(03) 8620 2411, 0417 575 088
kitty.walker@ngv.vic.gov.au
