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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2022 ~ 6pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  38
• Lot Description:
  Henry Hainsselin
  (British, 1815-1886)
  Waiting for the Boat, (Departing for Australia), c.1855
  oil on canvas
  36.5 x 26.0cm (14 3/8 x 10 1/4in).
  signed lower left: 'Hainsselin'
• Provenance:
  Christie's, London, 23 May 2002, lot 300; Private collection, Melbourne
• Notes:
  The emigration of millions of British people across the globe during the Victorian Era gave precedence to a new genre of painting that centered around the emotional impact of departure from home or arrival to a new land, 'Emigration became at the mid-century perhaps the most vivid theme that painters of modern life could tackle. As the seamstress had been an icon of topical, socially concerned art in the 1840s, so the emigrant moved to the centre of the realists stage in the 1850s, whether an artist was a bourgeois realist, engaged in a producing a reassuring and anecdotal image of contemporary life, or a social realist, concerned to bear witness to Victorian Britain's problems and controversies. Artists, audiences and critics were equally likely to be drawn to the subject as one of moment'1 as seen in this captivating example by Henry Hainsselin whose works are extremely rare. Henry Hainsselin was a painter, lithographer, engraver, and photographer, who studied under Jan Willem Pieneman, Director of the Amsterdam's Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Following his return from his studies to England, Hainssellin exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1843 to 1853, his entries displaying his technical competence with genre and figurative subjects. Hainsselin's first encounter with Australia came in 1846, seven years before he set sail for Melbourne. He was invited by former school friend, George Henry Haydon (1822-1891) to lithograph six sketches of Indigenous Australians in their native surrounds. Haydon, having just returned from five years exploring the fledgling nation, published a personal travel narrative that doubled as an emigrant guide - 'Five Years in Australia Felix'. Hainsselin left Plymouth, England, in April reaching Melbourne on the 11th September 1853, and like many emigrants before him, headed straight for the gold fields which had only been discovered two years earlier (examples of his goldfield watercolours are held in the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne). Ultimately, Hainsselin shifted between artist and miner, moving around the state over the next few years before returning to Melbourne as a full-time artist and teacher, eventually settling in St Kilda. This charming and exceptionally rare work is a particularly strong example of a departure picture. Perhaps reminiscing of his own experiences, Hainsselin portrays a young Royal British Navy Midshipman with a clear sense of nostalgia, optimism and hope. His sabre rests upon his bicorne hat box whilst he readies himself for a lifetime of adventures ahead in Australia. Alex Clark 1. Pamela Gerrish Nunn, 'Look homeward Angel: Marshall Claxton's emigrant', Art Journal 32, 2014, n.p.
• Estimate:
  A$80,000 - 120,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

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