Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains from Windsor
Watercolour by a significant figure in colonial history. Until the appearance of this drawing and two others offered in the same sale in the 1980s, no original drawings by Wallis were known to exist.
This watercolour relates (loosely) to Plate One in “An Historical Account of the Colony of New South Wales”, Wallis’s own publication, issued in London in 1821.
The inscription on the watercolour “with camera lucida” makes this a particularly interesting work. The camera lucida was a small device used by artists to place an outline of their work on to paper and was frequently used by travelling artists in the early nineteenth century.
This is the earliest recorded Australian painting to have employed this technique. The emergence of this watercolour establishes Wallis as an important contributor to colonial art.