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Destiny

Destiny
 1916

Medium
oil on canvas
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated from the Estate of Ouida Marston, 2011
Gallery location
Gallery 8
Level 2, NGV Australia
 

About this work

Destiny depicts a female figure as the personification of fate, blowing gently into a large bowl of water in which hundreds of tiny, naked figures float in delicate bubbles. Painted in 1916, soon after Christian and Napier Waller’s wedding and the same year that Napier left for active service in France, this imagery serves as an allegory for the unpredictable nature of fortune. Destiny would have had particular resonance in the early years of the First World War, a time when Australians were confronted with the scale of destruction and loss of life caused by the conflict.

Artwork Details

Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
51.0 × 61.1 cm
Place/s of Execution
Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in brown paint l.r.: Christian Yandell 1916
inscribed in charcoal on reverse c.: Destiny / £ 32 10 5 / Christian Yandell
Accession Number
2011.438
Department
Australian Painting
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated from the Estate of Ouida Marston, 2011
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Gallery location
Gallery 8
Level 2, NGV Australia
Subjects (general)
Allegory and Symbols Human Figures
Subjects (specific)
bowls (vessels) fate fortune men (male humans) personification philosophical concepts water (inorganic material) women (female humans)

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