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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Denis Joachim Collection
• Sale Date:
  19 Jun 2016 ~ 2pm - Session 1: Lots 1 - 321
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 10am - Session 2: Lots 322 - 480
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 2pm - Session 3: Lot 481 - 688
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 6pm - Session 4: Lots 689 - 818
• Lot #:
  690
• Lot Description:
  Henry C Gritten
  (circa 1818-1873)
  A View of Melbourne, in Front of the Botanical Gardens
  oil on canvas
  26 x 39.5 cm
• Provenance:
  Sotheby’s, Melbourne, Fine Australian Paintings, Books, Sculpture and Photographs, 24 July 1988, lot 264
• Notes:
  The picturesque view of the city of Melbourne from the Botanical Gardens across the Yarra River had great appeal in the mid-nineteenth century. As a colour lithograph, it was plate one in Charles Troedle’s Melbourne Album of 1863, the gardens being described as ‘perhaps the chief glory of Melbourne’.1 It attracted many artists, its popularity being so great that Henry Gritten painted it a number of times. Fine examples dating from 1865 to 1867 can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and the La Trobe Collection of the State Library of Victoria. In each, the artist delighted in the panoramic sweep, the exotic trees and plants of the Gardens providing a foreground setting to the expansive Melbourne burgeoning across the horizon. It was marvelous Melbourne rich on the proceeds of the Victorian gold fields, grand buildings bearing witness to the new-found wealth. While the gothic spires of Scots Church and St Enoch’s, of the early stages of St Patrick’s Cathedral and the grand Renaissance revival of the Treasury building add a certain grandeur to these paintings, our painting introduces a more homely, if not bucolic touch. Cows water or graze across the foreground, the very English styled house to the right being surrounded by an equally English garden. Yet the gum provides the dominant pictorial feature, sturdy and lasting. Looking back, it offers an oasis of peace close by the city that never stopped growing. David Thomas 1. Clive Turnbull (ed.), The Melbourne Album, Comprising a series of Elegant, Tinted, Lithographic Views of Melbourne and surrounding Districts, Lithographed, Printed and Published by Charles Troedle’s in 1863, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1963, p.28
• Estimate:
  A$20,000 - 30,000
• 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.