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The Queen's bouquet

The Queen's bouquet
 (1891)

Medium
oil on canvas
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Accessioned, 1995
Gallery location
Gallery 6
Level 2, NGV Australia
 

About this work

Born in the south-eastern French village of Forcalquier, Berthe Mouchette studied painting in Paris before training as an art teacher. While teaching, her own career flourished and Mouchette became a regular exhibitor at the prestigious Paris Salon. In 1881 Mouchette immigrated to Australia with her husband and her sister Marie, purchasing a property on Gibbs Street in East Melbourne. From a studio established in the garden, Mouchette offered life-drawing and painting classes for female students. In 1886 Mouchette and Marie purchased Oberwyl, a leading girl’s academy in St Kilda, and in 1890 Mouchette established the Melbourne branch of the Alliance Français.

Artwork Details

Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
122.1 × 152.9 cm
Place/s of Execution
Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in brown paint c.r.: B. Mouchette
inscribed on plaque attached to frame: Oh ! cette main sanglante empreinte sur le mur / pour m'apporter les fleurs qu'on me refuse / C'est aux pointes de fer qu'il s'est blesse sans doute. / Un morceau de dentelle y pendait ! / Ruy Blas Acte 2nd / VICTOR HUGO / Painted by / BERTHE MOUCHETTE / 1891
Accession Number
1995.17
Department
Australian Painting
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Accessioned, 1995
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Gallery location
Gallery 6
Level 2, NGV Australia
Subjects (general)
Allegory and Symbols Botanical Monuments and Memorials
Subjects (specific)
blood (animal material) crests (motifs) floral bouquet flowers (plant components) handprints headstones (tombstones) memorial gardens queens (people)
Frame
Original, by Isaac Whitehead Jr., Melbourne

Frame

Though the label simply indicates Isaac Whitehead, the frame comes from the time when the business was run by Isaac Whitehead junior. Stylistically, the frame is not the type associated with Isaac Whitehead senior. It belongs to a nineteenth-century revival of classical forms, which we also see in the frames for Rupert Bunny’s Sea idyll (p.399.1-1) and J. B. Pyne’s Pandy Mills, Wales, 1847 (143-2).

Note

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.

Frame Details

Framemaker
Isaac Whitehead (Jnr.)
Melbourne
Date
1889-18931
Materials

The frame is built using composition ornaments on a wooden base. The chassis is joined with mitres braced on the reverse. The underlying timber profile uses battens attached to both the back edge and sight edge to form the working edge and the rebate margin respectively. This pragmatic approach to building the complex form of frame profiles appears in various ways in the making of frames but it is well demonstrated in the construction of this large-scale section. The surface is gilded throughout with gold leaf. The working edge is painted. The slip is water gilded on red bole. The inner taenia is burnished on grey bole and the banding of centres and corners is burnished on red bole. The inner scotia pattern repeat is 32.0 cm, or five leaf motifs.

Frame Condition

Good original condition throughout, with minor repairs to losses in the composition, notably the banding.

Dimensions
170.5 x 201.8 x 16.0 cm; sight 120.8 x 151.0 cm

Discover more

Essay
Framers in Focus: Isaac Whitehead

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