Painting
Maker & role
Conrad Martens (b.1801, d.1878), Artist
Production date
1850
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Object detail
Title
Untitled (Spencer Lodge, Miller’s Point, Sydney)
Production place
Measurements
Painting, H: 34 x W: 44cm (H: 340 x W: 440mm)
Subject Place
Credit line
Gift, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2004
Caroline Simpson Collection, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caroline Simpson Collection, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Untitled (Spencer Lodge, Miller's Point, Sydney), Conrad Martens, 1850, oil on canvas on board
Description
Oil painting by Conrad Martens of Spencer Lodge, Miller’s Point, Sydney, 1865. Painted when Martens was 64, it depicts Spencer House from Balmain. The large single storied-house, with a verandah across the front façade, is bounded by a walled garden. This image captures the activity and prosperity of the times: the stores and warehouses on the water’s edge; the shipping vessels indicative of trade in wool and wheat as well as the vast numbers of immigrants arriving in the colony; the progress from sailing ships to steam powered transport.
Spencer Lodge, Millers Point, was a twelve-room brick and shingle colonial townhouse with a verandah looking westwards across Darling Harbour towards Balmain and another verandah looking across the Harbour to the north shore. It was built in 1835 for a Mr Edwards who lived in London and its first tenant was the wealthy merchant John Lamb. Lamb had a wharf and warehouse on the water's edge not far from his house. Shirley Fitzgerald and Christopher Keating in 'Millers Point: the urban village' (1991) say that Spencer Lodge, along with a house named Moorcliff, was "a tangible statement of the prominence of mercantile gentry in early Millers Point" (p.28).
This acquisition is part of the Caroline Simpson Collection, originally housed at Clyde Bank, an 1820s Georgian mansion in The Rocks. Clyde Bank was acquired by Caroline Simpson in 1992 and, following its conservation, opened to the public in 1996 as a showcase for her private collection of Australian colonial furniture, pictures, objets d’art and images of colonial places from around the world.
Spencer Lodge, Millers Point, was a twelve-room brick and shingle colonial townhouse with a verandah looking westwards across Darling Harbour towards Balmain and another verandah looking across the Harbour to the north shore. It was built in 1835 for a Mr Edwards who lived in London and its first tenant was the wealthy merchant John Lamb. Lamb had a wharf and warehouse on the water's edge not far from his house. Shirley Fitzgerald and Christopher Keating in 'Millers Point: the urban village' (1991) say that Spencer Lodge, along with a house named Moorcliff, was "a tangible statement of the prominence of mercantile gentry in early Millers Point" (p.28).
This acquisition is part of the Caroline Simpson Collection, originally housed at Clyde Bank, an 1820s Georgian mansion in The Rocks. Clyde Bank was acquired by Caroline Simpson in 1992 and, following its conservation, opened to the public in 1996 as a showcase for her private collection of Australian colonial furniture, pictures, objets d’art and images of colonial places from around the world.
Accession number
L2005/2
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