Portrait plaques of John Ashburton Thompson and Gerald Marr Thompson, 1893 / by Emile Leysalle

PM 157
PM 158
Status: On display. Objects Gallery. Case 3, Shelf 43. Applies to all parts.

fonds

1893

888142

2 plaques (portrait medallions) - diameter approx. 16 cm (plaques); diameter 23 cm (frames); depth 7 cm - plaster

Pierre Emile Leysalle (b. 1847 in Paris), a sculptor and medallist, was a pupil of Mathurin Moreau and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. He exhibited at the Salon de Paris from 1873 to 1905, and was a lecturer in sculpture between 1879 and 1889 at the Ecole des Arts Industriels in Geneva. He arrived in Sydney in September 1892, having lost his fortune through the failure of a Paris bank, and exhibited works at the Art Gallery [of N.S.W.] in October of that year.

The portraits are of John Ashburton Thompson and Gerald Marr Thompson. John Ashburton Thompson (1846-1915), a medical officer and epidemiologist, was born in London and migrated to Australia in 1883. He was appointed Chief Medical Officer and President of the Board of Health in N.S.W. in 1896. His study of leprosy in Australia (1897) won him a world-wide reputation, and his observations of the bubonic plague in 1900 were important in combating the disease.

Gerald Marr Thompson (1856-1938), a journalist, was born in London and emigrated to Adelaide in 1881. He joined the "Daily Telegraph" in Sydney in 1883 as an art, music and drama critic, becoming a critic for "The Sydney Morning Herald" in 1891. John Ashburton Thompson and Gerald Marr Thompson were brothers.

References:
Bénézit, E. (Emmanuel), 1854-1920. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs & graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays. English (Dictionary of artists / Benezit). Paris : Gründ, 2006.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 1892, p. 6
N.S.W., Australia, Unassisted Passenger Lists, 1826-1922, Ancestry.com. http://www.ancestry.com/ (accessed on 17 March 2010)
Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/ (accessed 18 March, 2010)

The plaques probably passed to Charles Thompson, brother of John and Gerald, and thence to his son, Geoffrey, a doctor in Perth, W.A., during the 1920s. The widow of Geoffrey Thompson passed them to Patricia Morison during the 1970s.

Bas-relief portrait plaques in plaster of John Ashburton Thompson and Gerald Marr Thompson. Portraits are head and shoulder profiles, and plaques are individually framed in a circular black wooden frame.

PM 157
Inscribed "Dr Ashburton Thompson" [i.e. John Ashburton Thompson] on right side of plaque. Inscribed on shoulder-ridge of portrait "Emile Leysalle, Sydney 93".

PM 158
Inscribed "A mon ami G. Marr Thompson" [i.e. Gerald Marr Thompson] on bottom of plaque. Inscribed on shoulder-ridge of portrait "Emile Leysalle, Sydney 1893"

Out of copyright: Artist died before 1955

Dated from inscription on plaques

PM 158 has hairline cracks in plaster