A Panoramic view of Sydney

James Taylor, of the 48th Regiment, made the original drawings for his aquatints in around 1820, claiming he hoped the prints would be “of service to the Colony” (Taylor to Alexander Berry, 28 Feb 1820). From the vantage point of Observatory Hill, the plates offered “the magnificent Harbour of Port Jackson its rocky and picturesque shores its numerous Islands and inlets the Town of Sydney the beautiful and Romantic Scenery of the Vicinity…”.

Drawn from a point on Observatory Hill, the panorama provided a rather idyllic view of Macquarie’s Sydney for its London audience. 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.