Thomas PRATTENT

English

Robert CLEVELEY

English 1747–1809

From the earliest years of settlement onward, the demand for images of Australia and for information about life in the colonies saw the publication of numerous prints and illustrated books. Because there was limited potential for this type of publishing in Australia, most of this early printed material was produced in England. Working within the well-established tradition of commercial publishing, artists, engravers and printers collaborated to create images that were generally, but not always, based on first-hand experience of Australia.

Published in England only one year after the arrival of the First Fleet (and therefore, the earliest view of Australia in the collection), View in Port Jackson, 1789, responded to the intense curiosity that existed about the customs and activities of Australia’s Indigenous inhabitants. While little is known about the artist and engraver responsible
for this image, it is unlikely that either visited Australia and, instead, that Cleveley’s drawing, which formed the basis for the engraving, was modelled on an image made in the colony by an unknown artist.1

1 R. & T. Rienits, Early Artists of Australia, Sydney, 1963, p. 46.

Kirsty M. Grant