Painting
Portrait

Maker & role
Leigh Hooker, Artist
 Production date
2000
 See full details

Object detail

Title
Matriarch
Production place
Australia
Collection
Corporate Collection
Measurements
0 - Whole, H: 70 x W: 60cm (H: 700 x W: 600mm)
Subject person
Belle Thorburn (b.1852, d.1930)
Signature & marks
'Leigh' signature upper RHS below rose.
Credit line
Gift, Leigh Hooker, 2001
Corporate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Matriarch, by Leigh Hooker, 2000
Description
Leigh Hooker was highly commended for her painting Matriarch in the 2000 Meroogal Women’s Art Prize. The regional prize was established by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (now MHNSW) in 1998 to maintain a continuing link between today’s women of the south coast and southern highlands of NSW and its heritage property, Meroogal. The theme for this year was An artistic response to life at Meroogal.

The portrait depicts Annabella (Belle) Thorburn of Meroogal and was painted after a 1925 photograph that shows Belle feeding chickens in the backyard of Meroogal. Belle, the second daughter of Jessie and Robert Thorburn, moved to Meroogal in 1885, aged 34. She lived there with her unmarried sisters until her death in 1930 and was responsible for cooking, looking after the poultry and cleaning. Known throughout Nowra as ‘Miss Belle’, she was a skilled needlewoman and dressmaker.
Accession number
HHT2001/2

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