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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Ruth & John Clemente Collection
• Sale Date:
  11 Nov 2012 ~ 2.30pm
• Lot #:
  5
• Lot Description:
  An important collection of works by Elizabeth Errington (1808-1869)
• References:
  Joan Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, pp. 245-246; Terence Lane and Jessie Serle, Australians at Home: a Documentary Historu of Australian Domestic Interiors from 1788 to 1914, pp. 68-69.
• Notes:
  Arriving at Hobart in 1843 on the convict ship Duchess of Northumberland, Eliza (Elizabeth) Errington was accompanied by her husband, Captain Arnold Charles Errington and their infant son John. That year, Errington occupied the post of Army Commandant with the 51st Regiment at Port Arthur which must have ranked as one of the most notorious of all penal settlements in the British Empire. However, none of of Eliza Errington's sketches of the interior and exterior of the military sub-lieutenant's cottage, where she and her family was quartered until 1845, hint at its environs. The refined daughter of affluent Scottish parents, educated in Paris where she was apparently taught piano by Franz Liszt, she politely chose to ignore the brutal reality that was all around her. Typically of an upper-middle-class lady abroad before the age of photography, Eliza Errington drew the sitting room of her four-roomed weatherboard cottage to send home to her family in Plymouth. The engagingly na•ve interior view of Our Home at Port Arthur - John on the Floor is painstakingly detailed. It depicts an arrangement of furniture and the piano against the walls with the fireplace as the focus of the room that was characteristic of the period. It is therefore invaluable as a document of interior decoration and domestic usage for the social historian and the decorative arts researcher. This sheet, together with the earlier view of The first house of the clergy, Hobarton of 1843 and the slightly later John on the Verandah of 1844, show that the artist had an innate colour sense and some ability in the application of the notoriously difficult medium of watercolour. The appealing liveliness and personal touch of these and other early pencil views of the cottage exterior and surroundings such as Our Cottage at Port Arthur and Signal Staff - John in the Garden of 1844 more than compensate for the lack of expert draftsmanship. It has been suggested that the advent of the professional landscape watercolourist, John Skinner Prout, whose influence swayed the cultured classes of Van Diemen's Land between 1844 and 1848, was also responsible for the improvement of Eliza Errington's drawing technique. Prout's notable impact on her style is evident in the View from the Back Window, Fort Street, dating from 1846 when she was staying in Sydney en route for India at the end of her colonial Australian stay. Caroline Clemente i)Army Commandant’s house, Port Arthur, John on the verandah; inscribed and dated 1844; watercolour; 23 x 32cm ii)Major and Mrs. Errington’s room in Van Diemen’s Land with artist’s son John on the floor; watercolour; 26 x 37cm iii) The first house inhabited by the clergy at Hobart town; inscribed in pencil to verso ‘My dear Liz’ and also inscribed ‘By my dear Wife’ ; 24 x 29cm iv) Officer’s house at Eagle Hawks Neck, Tasman’s Peninsula, Tasmania, 1843; pencil inscribed and dated 1843; 17.5 x 25cm v) Our cottage at Port Arthur ; pencil on paper; inscribed on reverse and dated 1844; 25 x 35cm vi) Church at Port Arthur, March 1845; pencil on paper; signed with monogram and inscribed; paper Size 24.5 x 35cm vii) Part of Hobart town, our house was near the church, 1846; pencil on paper ; titled and dated in pen ; 23 x 34cm viii) House at Port Arthur; pencil on paper; inscribed and dated 1844 ix) Upper part of Hobart town where we resided; titled and dated in pencil; pencil and wash ; 23 x 34cm x) View from the back window of the back window, Fort Street ; pencil on paper ; 14 x 25cm xi) Shipping in the Bay, Port Arthur; pencil on paper ; inscribed on reverse 1847; 14 x 23cm
• Estimate:
  A$10,000 - 20,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Books & Manuscripts

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.