Terms and conditions of use
Sea idyll
(c. 1891)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
100.5 × 161.5 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Alfred Felton, 1892
Gallery location
Gallery 7
Level 2, NGV Australia
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Inscription
inscribed in blue paint l.r.: Rupert C. W. Bunny
Accession Number
p.399.1-1
Department
Australian Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Subjects (general)
Fantasy Human Figures Marines and Seascapes
Subjects (specific)
beaches legendary beings leisure mermaids seas tritons waves (natural events)
Frame
Original, by Isaac Whitehead, Melbourne
Frame
This highly refined, essentially classical revival, frame uses an unusually deep scotia and linear relief (reeding) along the leading edge. The frame is almost certainly a copy of the frame on J. W. Waterhouse’s Ulysses and the sirens, 1891 (p.396.3-1), which entered the collection in 1891, the year before the Bunny. The Whitehead frame has reduced the depth of the scotia and uses a shallower angle to the reeded leading edge. It is a somewhat simplified version of the Waterhouse frame.2 The frame was removed from Sea idyll and sold in a job lot in 1941. It was recovered from the monastery of The Benedictine Community of New Norcia Inc in Western Australia in 1998 and refitted to the painting.
Notes
1 At this date Isaac Whitehead’s son ran the business. (See Anna Maria Espinoza, ‘A Framemaker of Colonial Melbourne: Isaac Whitehead c. 1819–1881’, in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999. pp. 33–48.)
2 The maker of the Waterhouse frame has not been identified.
Frame Details
Framemaker
Isaac Whitehead (Jnr.)
Melbourne
Date
1889–931
Materials
The frame uses water gilded gold leaf on a softwood chassis. The major profile has been cut from a solid section laminated from two pieces of wood. A simple timber moulding has been added at the working edge. A shallow scotia section, cut from a single piece of wood, provides the first step toward the slip.
Frame Condition
The frame is in good original condition with most of the original surface intact. The deteriorated matte glue size has attracted dirt. The slip has been reconstructed from photographic evidence.
Dimensions
144.5 x 205.2 x 15.0 cm; sight 105.8 x 166.7 cm