ARTIST UNKNOWN
(after Oswald Rose Campbell 1820-1887)

The Australian gold rushes of the 1850s not only produced the precise, eye-witness images of artists such as Eugene von Guérard and S.T. Gill, but also generated a popular iconography of alluvial mining which lasted to the end of the 19^th century. The present work features one such standard motif – three diggers crouched over a washing pan looking for ‘colour’ – a compositional pattern which features commonly in such publications as The Illustrated Australian News and The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia. (1)
While the treatment of the landscape is in some ways reminiscent of such artists as Edward Stocqueler (1829 -1895) or Edward Roper (circa 1832 – 1909), the painter of the present work is unknown, though it can be dated from its canvas to the 1880s or 1890s. (2) Somewhat naïve in its figure drawing and perspective, the painting is nevertheless an accomplished and highly-finished work, rich in incidental detail; its mood of hopeful expectation successfully captures the essence of life on the Victorian diggings.
Dr David Hansen
(1) See for example ‘Young Prospectors’, in The Illustrated Australian News (Supplement), Melbourne, August 1885; ‘Prospecting’, in Andrew Garran (ed.), The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, Picturesque Atlas Publishing Co., Sydney, 1888
(2) The National Library of Australia holds two watercolours also bearing the initials ‘D.C.’, one depicting ‘Warranooke’ station. ‘Warranooke’ is near Glenorchy, in the Wimmera district of Victoria, north of Ararat, which had its own gold rush in 1857 -1858. The canvas is ‘Kangaroo’ brand, produced by London colourmen Lionel Nathan & Co. between 1884 and 1900.