EUGENE VON GUERARD

The Honourable William Stanbridge, MLC, 'Wombat Park', Victoria;
thence by descent
Private collection, Victoria

R.V. Billis and A.S. Kenyon, Pastoral Pioneers of Port Philip, Stockland Press, Melbourne, 1974; Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 1857 - 59

Good original condition. The painting has recently been reframed in a contemporary frame. The canvas is not lined, the Windsor and Newton canvas stamp is clearly apparent on the reverse. It also has the original stretcher. There is a very fine cracking across the surface of the work. On the left and right hand sides, the stretcher bars are visible.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In 1864 von Guérard set out on an eight week sketching trip through the countryside north-west of Melbourne. From about 23 March to 25 May, he roamed the district on horseback, travelling continually from Mount Macedon, to Daylesford, Creswick and Ballarat and then further west to John Ware's 'Yalla-y-Poora' and on to Ararat, Buangor and the Mount Cole Ranges.

Two weeks into his trip, von Guérard arrived at William Stanbridge's run on 21 April. He had an introduction to the son of a local landowner, the Daylesford Church of England minister, Laurence Rostron Jnr, 'care of Mr W E Stanbridge' duly noted at the beginning of his trip in his pocket sketchbook and, after sketching Stanbridge's house and garden, he set off to take in the local landscape. On 2 May he climbed Mount Franklin, an extinct volcano a few kilometres north of Daylesford and still today a popular tourist spot, where he sketched this view looking west to the Pyrenees. The view takes in the hills of Mount Moorookyle, Powlett Hill, Green Hill and Smeaton Hill, the largest peak and that which the artist named Hepburn Hill for Captain John Hepburn, the owner of the run of Smeaton Hill. Hepburn was one of the first settlers into the area, taking up the run in 1838 and building his substantial Georgian-style homestead there in 1849 - 50, though the artist does not appeared to have visited the run. The foreground is an area known once as the `Elevated Plains' and described in an 1885 Daylesford tourist pamphlet as: 'peculiar looking tablelands [which are] abruptly terminated by the deep gorge of Spring Creek'.  Today they encompass Yandoit, Clydesdale and the Jim Crow Creek.

Von Guérard and his unknown companion can be seen in the foreground dismounted from their horses and admiring the view through dense foliage. They give a human scale to the canvas without being too obtrusive but it is the distant hills, bathed in a warm golden light, that draw our attention. They appear not as a solid mass but almost like a gigantic wave rolling across the plains into infinity. One can almost sense the artist's delight in the vast openness - and emptiness - of the country, with at least half of the canvas being comprised of an open, sweeping sky.

As well as filling his sketchbook with preparatory drawings of both near and distant views, von Guerard completed many larger and elaborate pencil drawings of the area which now form a collection of views in the Mitchell Library. He painted several canvases as a result of the trip, including three for William Stanbridge: North View from Daylesford (1864, private collection), Breakneck Gorge, Hepburn Springs (on loan to Geelong Art Gallery) and the present work, A View from Daylesford towards the Pyrenees. All three paintings once hung in the dining room of the homestead at Wombat along with an 1863 painting entitled Steavenson Falls (1863, National Gallery of Australia)

The Honourable William E. Stanbridge (1816-1894) M.L.C. was born in Coventry, Warwickshire and arrived in the colony in 1841. He took over the run of 'Wombat' (originally called both 'Wombert's Run' and 'Holcombe') from Robert Clowes in 1852, which he held in addition to several other runs including 'Tyrell Downs' in the Mallee District. He was a member of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria (1857-59) and the Royal Society of Victoria (1860) to which he presented a paper, `On the Astronomy and Mythology of Victorian Aborigines' which stands as one of the first documents written on Victorian Indigenous beliefs and practices. It was based, he wrote, on his many discussions with the Booraung Tribe of the Mallee district  "who pride themselves upon knowing more of Astronomy than any other tribe".  'Wombat' (`Park' appears to be a later addition to the name of the run) was known by the 1880s for its garden which Stanbridge frequently opened for the enjoyment of the public and which contained a number of  "rare and magnificent trees".

We are most grateful to Dr Candice Bruce for providing this catalogue essay.  We would also like to thank John Jones for information on both the topography depicted in the painting and Smeaton Hill Station