Name/TitleVue de la Ville du Port de Sidney en Nouvelle Holland
About this objectLike Taylor’s panorama, this view has been drawn from a point on Observatory Hill and provides a rather idyllic view of Macquarie’s Sydney for European audiences. In this detail, the laundry hangs out to dry as chooks feed in the yard, a kangaroo or wallaby wanders in the garden where exotic flowers grow, a man tends the vegetable garden behind the neat cottage where a lady talks to officers while further to the left convicts quarry sandstone for use in the construction of the colony’s new buildings.
Whilst the artist has used the same overall composition of the Taylor view, there are many changes that make this a truly original work of art. Many of the buildings and landmarks of the Macquarie era are identifiable, however, a number have been omitted or rearranged. However, it is believed that the panorama was painted by a sailor, probably from a passing French ship. The reason for this belief is that the panorama is painted on a canvas roll, as would be carried in a sailor’s backpack. A land-based artist would have likely used an easel and a flat paper.
The artist ‘B.C.P.’, must remain known only by their initials, as efforts to identify them have not yet been successful. Original, detailed views of Sydney of this era are extraordinarily rare.
MakerUnknown
Maker RoleArtist
Date Made1829
Period19th century
Medium and MaterialsPaper (linen), pigment.
Place MadeSydney, Australia
Inscription and MarksTitled: ‘Vue de la Ville du Port de Sidney en Nouvelle Holland par B.C.P'
Measurements267mm x 1205mm
Object TypeLandscape Paintings
Object numberSF000714
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