Arthur Streeton

Mrs Donald Mackinnon, Victoria
Mrs E. O. Sands, Perth
By descent to her daughter Felicity (Mrs C. S. T. Widdrington)
Australian historical and contemporary drawings and paintings, Christie's, Melbourne, 24 September 1969, lot 47
Barry Stern, Sydney
Thirty Victoria Street, Sydney
Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne
Purchased from the above in 1991

(possibly)Victorian Artists' Society, Melbourne, April 1893, cat. 10 (as Sketch from Circular Quay) (3g.) ¹

Arthur Streeton, The Arthur Streeton catalogue, Melbourne: Arthur Streeton, 1935, cat. 137, p. 116

There are no visible defects, the work is not lined and is on its original stretcher. There is retouching on the frame rebate along the top edge and right-hand edge down to the water. There is no frame rebate and the work is sitting flush in the frame, the retouching is consistent with rubbing where the mount usually sits. There is a minor area of retouching to the central sky area and lower right-hand edge, both are approximately 2cm in diameter; confirmed by UV inspection. There is no retouching to the buildings or around signature and date. There is no crazing. The work is in overall good stable condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

Shortly after arriving in Sydney in 1892, Arthur Streeton began the series of harbour views that constitute one of his most original and most popular sequences. These works, many of them long, horizontal compositions painted on cedar drapers' panels, are characteristically directly observed and rapidly painted, capturing passing effects of drifting steam and smoke from ferries, streaky rain squalls or splashing waves. Most often, however, the pictures' focus is on that spatially and temporally broader phenomenon with which the artist would title his 1896 exhibition: 'Sydney Sunshine'.

The present work is typical: a dazzlingly bright late morning view from the water looking south towards the quay and its jetties, with several steamboats smudging the air and the diamond-white shard of a yacht sail gleaming on the right. The effect is touristic: Italian, perhaps, or even more specifically Venetian. Indeed, the rectilinear pink-and-fawn façades of Mort's wool warehouse, the Customs House and James Barnet's new Lands Department building have the look of Venetian palazzi arrayed along the Canale Grande, with the Lands Department's dome standing in for that of San Marco and its tower for the cathedral's campanile.

Streeton himself, though yet to visit Europe, was fully conscious of the resemblance. He wrote to his friend Theodore Fink in December 1892: 'I painted a nice little sketch at the circular quay this morning – really certain bits of Sydney in certain effects must look like Venice I think',² and the following day advised Fred McCubbin 'yesterday I commenced a nice little bit at Circular Quay bright coloured stone & freezing blue water – must be like Venice.'  When Streeton's Sydney pictures were first shown in Melbourne, the Argus's reviewer caught the Mediterranean reference, though sourcing it further south; he commented that 'Mr Streeton's impressional memoranda of strong sunlight and vivid colour in Port Jackson serve to accentuate the interesting points of resemblance between the sea and sky there and in the Bay of Naples.'³

Thanks to the perpetual enchantment of the harbour, particularly for a Victorian, enhanced by the casual, summer lifestyle of Curlew Camp, the canvas bachelor commuter village which was Streeton's city base for the next three years, this exotic, holiday atmosphere, this sensual optimism, is sustained across all the artist's Sydney views. The present work is typical,⁴ and may in fact be one of the first, possibly even the sketch mentioned in the letters to Fink and McCubbin. The champagne bottle bobbing in the water in the foreground fits the late December – early January date quite well, as symbol or product of Christmas-New Year celebrations.

We are most grateful to Oliver Streeton for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

1.  Mary Eagle includes the Sketch from Circular Quay which was shown at the Victorian Artists' Society in April 1893 and sold to Mrs D. Mackinnon in the provenance of the National Gallery of Australia's Circular Quay, 1892 (The oil paintings of Arthur Streeton in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1994, p. 71), and the Mackinnon ownership also prompts her to include the 'Circular Quay 1894' which is no. 137 in The Arthur Streeton catalogue, in the Canberra picture's literature.
It is here suggested that both of these references in fact belong more properly to the present work. It is certainly true that this painting is more of Circular Quay than from it, and it is widely acknowledged that in The Arthur Streeton catalogue the artist-author did not always remember dates and titles with complete accuracy. However, the Catalogue's reference to the 'late Mr Donald MacKinnon [sic]' (Mackinnon died in 1932, just a few years before the book was published) and its inclusion of the dimensions 15 x 9 inches (which match those of the present work, though not the NGA painting) seem to betoken a recent encounter and/or reliable information.
The possibility of coincidence between the present work and the VAS picture appears not to have been previously entertained largely because the painting has been published and sold at least three times with the date of 1895. However, microscopic and infra-red examination of the work's primary inscriptions and comparison with those of the National Gallery of Victoria's Circular Quay, 1893, show a close similarity, indicating that the ultimate digit – just three brushstrokes in Streeton's somewhat mannered, ambiguous number script – may in fact be a '3', and that the work may therefore possibly be the VAS picture.
2.  Arthur Streeton, letters to Theodore Fink and Fred McCubbin, both quoted in Mary Eagle, op. cit., p. 72 and n. 3
3.  'Victorian Artists' Society', Argus, 20 April 1893, p. 7
4.  While the panel panoramas are perhaps the most familiar of the series, the vertical format is not unknown, as in Across Sydney Harbour from Sirius Cove (1893 or 1895, National Gallery of Australia) or Sydney Heads (circa 1893, private collection). Moreover, the proportional division of sky, land and sea in the present work closely resembles that in Musgrave Street wharf (1893, private collection), a similarly sized canvas from the same year