Description

Cleobulina Reveley arrived with her husband Henry Willey Reveley, Governor Stirling and the first settlers in Western Australia in 1829. Her husband, who drew a salary of £200 a year, was a civil engineer and was responsible for the design and construction of all government buildings and projects in the new colony.

The artist depicts the building as the centerpiece of this image. As opposed to the rest of the work it has been drawn in very fine detail with precision draughtsman’s tools, and this may well be the work of her husband.

Cleobulina was the sister of the famous artist Copley Fielding and she shows considerable familial skill as her image here is the work of a very accomplished amateur. It depicts a delightful scene the modest regency villa in the background with a European couple and their two children mirrored by a similar Native Australian familly fishing with spears in the foreground.

A picture, attributed to Henry Willey Reveley, exhibited in Perth in the “Colonial Eye” (The Art Gallery of Western Australia (no 110)) bears striking stylistic similarities to the image here described. Painted on the verso of a letter sent to one of Cleobulina’s Fielding relations, its attribution to Henry is based on his having docketed the envelope (probably for free postage).