Old Sydney Town

View of the heads at the entrance to
Port Jackson New South Wales
1824 (Joseph Lycett)

North view of Sydney, New South Wales
1825 (Joseph Lycett)

Harbour view with road in foreground

Harbour view with road in foreground

Eliza Point, near Sydney New South Wales

View of Captain Piper's naval villa
at Eliza Point 1825 (Joseph Lycett)

Sydney 1830 [view of the Domain and Mrs. Macquarie's Point]

Sydney 1830 [Government House Stables from the Domain]

View of Woolloomooloo with residence

The residence of Edward Riley, Esq.,
Wooloomooloo near Sydney, N.S.W.
1825 (Joseph Lycett)

Sydney 1830 [view of Woolloomooloo Bay and Garden Island]

East View of Wooloomooloo near Sydney

Distant view of Sydney from the lighthouse
at South Head, New South Wales
1825 (Joseph Lycett)

Convict Barrack Sydney N.S. Wales [ca. 1820]

East View of Ultimo in Sydney

Botany Bay, New South Wales 1825 (Joseph Lycett)

Mr Marsden's Mill N.S.Wales, near Parramatta

Parramatta, New South Wales 1825 (Joseph Lycett)

The residence of John McArthur Esqre.
near Parramatta, New South Wales
1825 (Joseph Lycett)

View of George's River near Liverpool New South Wales

Liverpool, New South Wales 1825 (Joseph Lycett)

View Larger Map

• *'Eliza Point' is now known as Point Piper and has the most expensive real estate in the country.
• *Parramatta is approx. 20km north west of the city centre
• *Liverpool is approx. 20km south west of the city centre
• *The Domain is still a large grassed area, flanked by the NSW Art Gallery and host to summer music festivals (just above the 'y' in Sydney on this map)
• *I live about 30km south of the city centre
• *Woolloomooloo (yes, really) is pronounced Wool-ah-m'-loo. Say it a bit faster. Perfect! (It's approx. below and slightly to the right of the 'y' in Sydney on this map)

The above images (most were spot-cleaned) were sourced from:

'Collection of views predominantly of Sydney, Liverpool, and the Sunda Straits, and portraits, ca 1807, 1829-1847, 1887' at the New South Wales State Library --- this album is basically a motley collection of prints, drawings and portraits put together in the 1940s by AW Fuller. There is mention in the background notes of the panorama at Leicester Square - I never did find the Sydney panorama for the entry from the other day - which is how I came to discover this album.

The balance of the images - by Joseph Lycett - are from a collection of ninety five aquatint engravings at the National Library of Australia. Transported to Australia as a convict, Joseph Lycett produced a series of engraved views of New South Wales and Tasmania, from 1824, that were published monthly in London. Eventually they were all published together under the title, 'Views of Australia'.

Afterthought: 'First Australians' is one of the best documentary series I've ever seen and can be viewed on the web. It screened on SBS last month. Highly recommended.

"First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world's greatest empire.

Over seven episodes, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history.

The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation."

The Parrots

Plyctolophus leadbeateri
Leadbeater's cockatoo

Plyctolophus sulphureus
Lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo

Plyctolophus galeritus
Greater sulphur-crested cockatoo

Plyctolophus rosaceus
Salmon-crested cockatoo

Calyptorhynchus baudinii
Baudin's cockatoo

Lorius domicella
Black-capped lory

Macrocercus aracanga
Red and yellow maccaw

Macrocercus ararauna
Blue and yellow maccaw

Psittacara patagonica
Patagonian parrakeet-maccaw

Macrocercus hyacinthinus
Hyacinthine maccaw

Palæornis melanura
Black-tailed parrakeet

Palæornis torquatus
Roseringed parrakeet. Yellow variety

Platycercus palliceps
Paleheaded parrakeet

Platycercus pileatus
Red-capped parrakeet

Psittacula kuhlii
Kuhl's parrakeet

The second youngest of twenty one children, Edward Lear (1812-1888) was raised by his sister and received little in the way of formal education. He was afflicted with both asthma and epilepsy and the latter condition was a source of shame throughout his life. It's tempting to speculate that his health problems were a trigger for the young Lear to avidly pursue so personal an activity as sketching and painting.

Economic reality also played a significant role in the self-taught artist's development. Lear's father was sentenced to a term in the debtor's prison after some disastrous stock speculation and Edward was virtually forced to obtain an income from his sketching by the time he had reached his mid-teens. He coloured drawings for prints, screens and fans for shops and printsellers, drew morbid pictures of diseased people for doctors, taught nature sketching to occasional pupils and sold his own drawings to any paying customer.

Lear's big break came at the age of eighteen when he was taken on as a draughtsman by William Harvey at the Zoological Society in London. The job gave him access to captive living birds and, amazingly, given his age and the logistics involved, he immediately began planning and sketching for a book devoted to parrots (family Psittacidae).

Over a two year period, Lear became proficient in the new illustration printing technique of lithography, thus saving money normally required for employing copperplate engravers. He produced hundreds of sketches of birds from which a final selection of forty two images were chosen for a monograph serving a subscriber base of one hundred and seventy five customers. The book would be the first folio publication in England to be illustrated by lithographs and also the first ornithological work devoted to a single family of birds. Lear also prepared a colour palette key for artists to hand-colour the black and white lithographic plates.

The balance of critical opinion regards Lear's book on parrots to be the finest ever published on that bird family and among the greatest ornithological works ever produced. It's not just because such an audacious project was successfully completed by so young a character, or that the subject matter was drawn so sensitively and with great scientific accuracy and naturalistic detail, but because the exceptional quality of Lear's plates - drawn, wherever possible, from living specimens - would significantly influence the work of two contemporary artists, John James Audubon and John Gould, perhaps the greatest ornithological illustrators of all time. Both Audubon and Gould would employ Lear during the 1830s to assist in their projects and it was only failing eyesight that foreshortened Lear's bird illustrating career.

Lear would of course go on to great fame with his 'nonsense' writing (The Owl and the Pussycat etc.), to which he contributed illustrations; and there were a number of other natural history books he worked on, but his ability to render the fine detail, as he had accomplished with the parrots, had all but left him by the middle of the 1840s. There are fewer than one hundred copies of the parrot book in existence which makes it a very valuable and coveted work.

"Lear’s work as a natural history draftsman lasted little more than the decade of the 1830s, until his eyesight became too weak for the detail of feathers and scales. The Psittacidae is his finest achievement. Lear conveyed with telling sympathy the carriage of a bird, the grasp of the claws, the tilt of the head, its grave, curious, or quizzical expression (noteworthy beaks later reappear as remarkable noses on the limerick people, who are as distinctive as his parrots for their idiosyncratic posture and curious poses). Lear was exceptionally sensitive to the structure and function of features such as the parrot’s beak and the turtle’s jaws (the latter is evident in his lithographs of turtles and tortoises in Thomas Bell’s 'A Monograph of the Testudinata')." [source]

• 'Illustrations of the family of Psittacidae, or parrots: the greater part of them species hitherto unfigured, containing forty-two lithographic plates, drawn from life, and on stone' by Edward Lear, 1832, is available from the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin. {click 'Display gallery view' in the sidebar}
• The Remarkable Nature of Edward Lear at The Academy of Natural Sciences (in addition to the parrot illustrations, they have illustrations from 'Gleanings..', a commissioned work on animals and birds from a private estate/zoo).
• Wikipedia / Arader Galleries / biography review / amazon
• Edward Lear homepage - at nonsenselit.
• Thanks to Ian O'Phelan for the link/reminder.
• UPDATE: Never Mind the Pussycat - The Ornithological Art of Edward Lear exhibition site (2008) at Cornell University.
  
• UPDATE 2: Taschen recently published a facsimile edition of 'The Parrots' with removable/frameable prints :: See: David Attenborough's media article on same.
• UPDATE 3: The size of each of the images in this post was increased by about 50% in Sept 2011.
• UPDATE 4: See Lear's Parrots - The Prequel featuring preliminary sketches and lithographs by Lear in preparing for his great book.
  
• UPDATE 5: Tangential, but nevertheless worth seeing: David Attenborough recieves his copy of Sharpe's 'Birds of Paradise' from the Folio Society.

Military Caricatures

'Journal de l'Empire ou des Débats - Suivant les Evènements'

Hand-colored engraved caricature; figure of man with ass's ears dressed half in uniform and livery of the Empire and half in Restoration uniform and Scottish kilt.
Artist and publisher unknown; published in Paris in ~1815.

'Noddle Island, or How we are decieved' (sic)

Hand-coloured engraving caricature; woman with enormous headdress containing forts, soldiers, ships, flags, etc.
S.T (artist), Mary Darley (London publisher); 1776.
(Noddle Island - East Boston - was the site of the 2nd battle of the American Revolution and the first in which American artillery was used. [source])

'Contrasts Pl. 1st - Ancient and Modern Lancers'

Hand coloured etched caricature (by and after Heath);
William Heath (artist), Thomas McLean (publisher); ~1830 to 1834.

'A Russe'

Hand coloured etched caricature; giant head of Turk at left, biting off coat-tails of Russian officer fleeing at right.
William Heath (artist), Thomas McLean (publisher); 1828.
[Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829*]

'An Allegory'

Hand colored etched caricature; uniformed figure of Russian tsar astride eagle which is depositing cage over turkey at left.
William Heath(artist), Thomas McLean (publisher); 1828.
[Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829*]

'Chacun son Tour, ou la Fin du Roman'

Hand-colored engraved caricature; allegorical figure and soldiers, outdoors, with large candle-snuffers, eagle flying above; evidently pro-Bonapartist.
Notes: Honneur et Patrie. Constitutionelle. Maison Militaire du Roi. Guardes du Corps, Mousquetaires, Cent Suisses. Ordonnance Royale sur les Processions donnée la 20 cme année du notre règne. Censure pour la liberté de la presse. Ordre de St. Michel. Ordre Militaire de St. Louis. Décoration du Lys.
Artist unknown; dated ~1815.

'Coalition de 1806 - La Grande Armée* Agrandit Bien des Nez'

Hand-colored engraved caricature; French soldier at right pulling elongated nosed of figures of England, Sweden, Russia and Prussia at left.
Notes: George III. Voleur et assaissin sur mer, pousse contre la France les Rois coalisés, il s'éfforce mais vainement de relever ce pauvre Frie. Guillaume 3. Roi de Prusse dont la situation seroit digne de pitié si elle n'étoit aussi bein méritée. Les griffes ou serres de vautour données à Georges indiquent sa rapacité et la queue de dindon annonce sa betise.
Artist unknown, JJ Rousseau (publisher); undated but ~1806 to 1810.

'Congress of Vienna'*

Hand-coloured unsigned engraving caricature; rulers toasting each other before map of Europe, figures of numerous kings, officers, Jewish money-lenders etc. at right, victorious and overpowered heraldic eagles and beasts, arms etc. above and below.
H Delius (artist), Hermes Wilhelm (publisher); ~1815.

'Zemévid Europy vpátém desetili Devatenáctého Véku Landkarte
von Europa im fünften Decenium des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts'

Partially coloured lithographic humorous map of middle and southern Europe, with many small caricature military figures.
Artist unkown, Fr. Síra (publisher); ~1850.

'Dal Braccio Vostro Almi Sovrani Attende Italia Assassinata'

Hand-coloured engraving caricature; Bonaparte and cohorts laden with loot etc. walking into jaws of hell at right, Italy pleading before throne of Britain and allies at left.
Artist and publisher unknown. Published in Milan in 1799.

'Effusions of a Pot of Porter, or Ministerial Conjurations for Supporting the War'

Hand coloured aquatint caricature; tankard of ale foaming over on top of barrel, mounted figure above, seen from rear, summoning evil winds and storms.
James Gillray (artist), H Humphrey (publisher); 1799.

'General Jackson Slaying the Many Headed Monster'

Lithographic cartoon; Andrew Jackson, van Buren and assisting personage in uniform battling with serpent with numerous caricature heads.
Artist unknown, Henry R Robinson (publisher); 1833.

'Quadrille - Evening Fashions - Dedicated to the Heads of the Nation - La Poule'

Hand-coloured engraved caricature; ladies and gentlemen (1 in hussar uniform) dancing, all with exaggerated hair styles.
William Heath (artist), Thomas McLean (publisher); 1827.

'Military Dandyism, or A Specimen of Hungarian Taste..'

Hand coloured engraved caricature; full-length figure in very exaggerated lancer uniform and headgear with profuse embroidery, enormous epaulettes and plume, etc.
Artist and publisher uknown; published in ~1815 to 1820.

'Promenade au Palais Royal'

Coloured line and stipple-engraved caricature; 3 very corpulent personages, one in uniform, walking together.
'G' (artist), publisher unknown; ~1814.

'The Republican Soldier'

Hand-coloured etched caricature; stout soldier in [French] Revolutionary military uniform, laden with numerous weapons.
Notes: "Inflammetory [sic] harrangues to stir up the people to acts of sedition. Mutiny. Treason. Rebellion" ; "Hedd [sic] quarters. Craven anchor [crossed out]. Crown & anchor. Parole reform. Countersign--anarchy" ; ""Remonstrance from my constituents for non-attendance" ; "Fire is the best weapon you can use" ; "Sinew of rebellion"
Artist and publisher unknown; published in 1798.

'What are you staring at, eh? Did you never see a Grenadier before?'

Etched caricature; figure of Grenadier Guards drummer with enormous busby.
Artist and publisher unknown; published in 1830.

' "Who said rats!" 12th Lancer'

Original watercolor caricature on olive paper signed by T. George; uniform figure in profile striding toward right.
T George (artist); produced in 1894.



Prints, Drawings & Watercolors from the Anne SK Brown Military Collection [Brown University Library Center for Digital Initiatives].
(The images above - some background cleaned - are a sampling from the >700 results from searching on 'caricature')

This is a seriously enormous and exemplary collection and you can spend hours browsing. The images can be seen with a non-flash zoom viewer or modestly large versions can be downloaded.

"This ambitious multi-year endeavor will digitize the 15,000 individual prints, drawings, and watercolors from The Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection. The artwork vividly documents all aspects of military and naval history, with emphasis on the history and illustration of world military and naval uniforms from the 17th century to the present. In addition to the material on military and naval dress, this digital collection includes portraiture, caricatures, wartime posters, original photographs, and graphics on military and naval history in general, campaigns and battles, the arts and tactics of warfare, drills and regulations. There is a vast amount of material pertaining to military decorations and insignia, heraldic ornaments, armor, weaponry, equitation, flags, knightly orders, court and ceremonial dress, architecture, and the general history of costume. [...]

The prints, drawings, and watercolors are a significant part of The Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, the foremost American collection devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering, and one of the world’s largest collections devoted to the study of military and naval uniforms. It was formed over a period of forty years by the late Mrs. John Nicholas Brown (1906-1985) of Providence and is still growing. Anne Seddon Kinsolving Brown began collecting in 1930 with the purchase of miniature lead soldiers manufactured in Europe and Great Britain. By 1950 her interest had shifted to other areas of militaria, chiefly the iconography of uniforms. Armies have traditionally been the focus of much satire and depictions of soldiers, particularly their uniforms, provide valuable information to the student of military dress. Mrs. Brown was no exception. She acquired large numbers of caricatures from all periods and countries including many original drawings and watercolors."