• Small font

• Artist
  George French Angas, J. W. Giles, lithographer
• Title
  The Devils Punch Bowl, near Mt. Schank
• Date of Production
  c. 1845
• Medium
  handcoloured lithograph
• Dimensions
• Credit Details
  Purchased, 1975

Colonial Landscape in Print

Colonial Landscape in Print shows how the Australian landscape was represented in England in different print processes and formats between 1802 and 1880.

After the British settlement of Australia there was a considerable interest in England to see the physical environment of the new colony and the progress of settlement. At this time, the only way to distribute images of the new and foreign place that was Australia was to transfer a drawing or painting into print.

Although prints were produced initially in London to attract potential settlers, but prints were very soon being produced in the colony as well. A printing press had arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 but the colony also boasted printmakers, most of whom were convicted forgers. These people had the knowledge and skills to reproduce images and soon prints were available for the local market.

The exhibition takes the visitor from these initial impressions of the new colony to the prints of artists such as Eugene von Guerard and George French Angas who were involved in producing their own volumes of prints which showed different aspects of the natural environment as well as the continent was changing under the impact of European settlement.