Name/TitleDepicts the cutter BRAMBLE with the RATTLESNAKE at rest in the distance
About this objectIn 1848 Brierly joined the RATTLESNAKE commanded by Captain Owen Stanley to survey the Great Barrier Reef, a task of vital importance given the incidence of shipwrecks off the coast of northern Queensland. Furthermore, the expedition was manned and equipped to study the extensive natural history of the region. Brierly accompanied promising surgeon and naturalist T.H. Huxley who assisted the scientific studies of John MacGillivray, who later published an account of the RATTLESNAKE survey (London, 1852).The original paper backing of this beautiful watercolour bears a manuscript note “F Brady/Rattlesnake” that has been carefully preserved with this framed painting.
Lieutenant Brady served aboard the RATTLESNAKE as purser and is mentioned in MacGillivray’s account: “The first cutter was sent to Brierly Island to-day…Mr. Brady took charge of the bartering, and drawing a number of lines in upon the sandy beach, and explaining when each was covered in yams he would give an axe in return… [a native] had been trembling with anxiety for some time, holding Mr. Brady by the arm and watching the promised axe with eager eye” (‘Narrative of the Voyage of HMS RATTLESNAKE’ page 228). Furthermore, Lieutenant Brady is listed amongst the officers in a letter penned by Captain Owen Stanley to his sister Louisa, noting that, “the purser, Mr. Brady, is also very young, but quite up to his work”. Sometime later, when the RATTLESNAKE had sailed into the archipelagos east of New Guinea, Stanley wrote in his journal that Brady accompanied a landing on Chaumont Island alongside Huxley, MacGillivray and a sergeant of the marines, noting their anxiety that the natives of the island wore armbands made from human jawbones.
Painted by one of the leading marine artists of the mid nineteenth-century and with an important personal association to a fellow officer of the voyage, this is a rare and beautiful image from an important Australian maritime scientific expedition.
MakerOswald Brierly - Artist
Maker RoleArtist
Date Madec1848
Period19th century
Medium and MaterialsWatercolour. Paint, pigment and paper
Place MadeUnited Kingdom
Place MadeQueensland, Australia
Measurements164mm x 250mm
Object TypeMaritime Paintings
Object numberSF000718
Copyright Licence
Attribution - Non-commercial - No Derivatives (cc)
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The mug is decorated with an underglaze and a blue transfer print. On the body, it is titled ‘Emigrants to Australia’. This type of body and glaze was discontinued by 1840. Comparison of the handle shape and the profile of the foot, point to the attribution of manufacture by the Davenport Factory.
Delta was a ship-rigged vessel with two decks and three masts. It was built in Dordrecht, Netherlands in 1839 at the shipyard of Jan Schouten and registered in the same port. Its hull was constructed of oak and sheathed in ‘yellow metal’. Delta was owned by H. van der Sande at the time of its loss and was engaged as a cargo trader.
The Delta carried 29 crew and passengers, while sailing from Melbourne to Batavia in ballast when wrecked at Kenn Reefs on 30 May 1854 whilst under the command of Captain J.G. Kunst. This vessel loss supports the pattern of shipwrecks located on a well-travelled shipping route that was poorly charted until the mid-nineteenth century. The crew of the Delta could see four other shipwrecks at Kenn Reefs at the time of their vessel’s loss.
Important image of a ship associated with Matthew Flinders, that would shortly become one of the most famous early shipwrecks in eastern Australian waters. This is a fine ship’s portrait, by one of the great exponents of the art