Watercolour
Maker & role
Miss Constance Cumming (b.1836), Artist
Production date
1875
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Object detail
Title
Vaucluse Bay
Production place
Collection
Measurements
0 - Whole, H: 37.5 x W: 55cm (H: 375 x W: 550mm)
Signature & marks
Inscribed and dated 'July' to lower right hand corner, in pencil.
Credit line
Purchase, 1919
Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Vaucluse Bay, July 1875
Description
Constance Frederica Gordon-Cumming was a Scottish-born travel writer, a daughter of Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming of Altyre and Gordonstown, second baronet and his first wife Eliza Maria, nee Campbell. In 1867 she was invited to spend a year with a married sister in India and this proved the start of twelve years of travel during which time she produced numerous watercolours. She was well off and well connected, and her globe trotting has been described as having the "air of a series of rather far-flung social calls". [ref: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004]. She arrived in Sydney in late May 1875 and remained in New South Wales until early September. In her book Memories [Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1904] she makes a brief reference to this visit and her recollections of the fragrance and beauty of the harbour headlands and "many lovely scenes in the numberless creeks of the great harbour" [p.218].
The painting was acquired by the Vaucluse Park Trust in April 1920 from Mrs Sterling Craig of Armidale, acting on behalf of the artist. Mrs Craig had recently returned to Australia from Scotland bringing with her "a number of water colour views of Sydney Harbour and the Heads" which Miss Gordon-Cumming hoped to sell in aid of a fund for distressed clergyman. The Vaucluse Park Trust purchased this picture and a watercolour of Darling Point and Double Bay, on the recommendation of the Director of the Art Gallery of NSW. The second watercolour, dated August 1875, was transferred to the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, in July 1963.
The painting was acquired by the Vaucluse Park Trust in April 1920 from Mrs Sterling Craig of Armidale, acting on behalf of the artist. Mrs Craig had recently returned to Australia from Scotland bringing with her "a number of water colour views of Sydney Harbour and the Heads" which Miss Gordon-Cumming hoped to sell in aid of a fund for distressed clergyman. The Vaucluse Park Trust purchased this picture and a watercolour of Darling Point and Double Bay, on the recommendation of the Director of the Art Gallery of NSW. The second watercolour, dated August 1875, was transferred to the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, in July 1963.
Accession number
V88/77
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