Name/TitlePoint Piper from Shark Island, New South Wales
About this objectGeorge Edwards Peacock was admitted as a solicitor in London in February 1830. His legal career did not fare well and driven by desperation, he forged a power of attorney for transfer of stock valued at £7,814, the property of his brother. Peacock was sentenced to death for forgery at London’s Old Bailey but his sentence was commuted to transportation for life and Peacock found himself in the prison hulk JUSTITIA, moored in the Thames. Transported aboard PRINCE GEORGE, he reached Sydney on 8 May 1837.
Marked as a ‘gentleman’ convict he was first dispatched to Port Macquarie where he acted as a clerk to the prison barracks. Three months after his arrival, Peacock’s wife and son joined him at Port Macquarie and in 1839 he was sent to Sydney where after training under the government astronomer James Dunlop, he became a meteorological observer at the government weather station at South Head, living alone in a cottage nearby as his then marriage had broken up.
In the 1840s he began painting professionally. His oils, generally small and atmospheric, concentrated on Sydney Harbour and the exclusive private villas along its foreshores. This view of Point Piper features the luxurious Henrietta Villa, property of Captain Piper. It was completed in 1822 and became the scene of much sumptuous entertainment.
Peacock’s work resembles that of his contemporary Conrad Martens who was giving lessons in Sydney at the time Peacock began to paint. Peacock, like Martens, had a keen interest in meteorology and, also like Martens, made many views of, or from, his patron’s residences. Many colonists employed both artists.
MakerGeorge Edwards Peacock - Artist
Maker RoleArtist
Date Madec1840
Period19th century
Medium and MaterialsOil paint
Place MadeSydney, Australia
Measurements200mm x 207.5mm
Object TypeLandscape Paintings
Object numberSF001444
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