Album of watercolours of Australian wildflowers, 1865-1870 / attributed to Elizabeth Ann Thorne

PXE 1766

fonds

1865-1879

Graphic Materials, Drawings

9612057

19 drawings (1 album) - 33 x 27 cm - watercolour

The artist of these watercolours is thought to be Elizabeth Ann Bisdee (1821-1910) who married George Thorne in Hobart in 1842, and later settled in Rose Bay, Sydney. Her daughter Rosalie Ann Thorne (1850-1927), also an amateur artist, married Francis Watkins, a naturalist, and resided at Penrose, Parramatta. Botanical illustration was an interest in the family, and Rosalie’s daughter Dorothy Watkins (1892-1913) was also a botanical illustrator. The original watercolours were compiled into a later scrap album and kept by Mrs Rosalie Ann Watkins (nee Thorne) in the Watkins family library, Parramatta and formed part of her estate.

Source:
Library correspondence file.

Sold by Sydney Rare Books auction, December 2017

An album of 19 watercolours of Australian wildflowers, 1865-1870. The album has original cloth boards, the upper board with blind embossed Art Nouveau decoration and lettering in blue and guilt "Scrap Album". The lower left has an imprint of "2240". The watercolours are on sheets from a mid 19th century scrapbook and laid down on the first 18 leaves in the album. The 1st watercolour also has an illustration on the verso. The remaining leaves in the album are blank.

Depicting native Australian plants and flowers, particularly from the New South Wales region, including three titled drawings: Christmas bush, Tetrathea ericifolia, and Bellardiera. Other plants include native Christmas bells, Common fringe lily (Thysanotus tuberosus), Pittosporum revolutum, Correas, Bossiaea heterophylla, as well as plants found in colonial gardens such as a rose.

Out of copyright: Creator died before 1955
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Watercolours are unsigned but 3 watercolours are dated: December 27, 1865; December 1, 1866 and April 28, 1870.

Inside front cover has a typed label: “A Botanical album from the 19th century / Eighteen fine botanical watercolours of Australian flora dated between 1865 and 1870, from the library of the Watkins family (Parramatta, Sydney). Most probably the work of Mrs Watkins. Mr Francis Watkins was a naturalist. One of his daughters, Dorothy, also a botanical artist, illustrated Sulman's Wildflowers of NSW, 1913”.

Attributed to Elizabeth Ann Thorne, nee Bisdee, (1821-1910).