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Listed under:  Arts  >  Visual arts  >  Painting  >  Watercolour painting
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Indigenous Australians hunting black swans, c1817

This is a 17.5 cm x 27.7 cm watercolour of Indigenous Australian people hunting black swans among reeds near the water's edge of a large river. One man is holding a bird that is trying to escape and three people are spearing birds. At least four other people are almost fully obscured by the reeds. The river is surrounded ...

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'Young Mäori in European clothes', 1865

This is a watercolour painting created by British soldier Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) in 1865. It shows a Mäori man dressed in European clothing, standing in front of a whare (house). A young child stands in a corner under eaves and a cat lies nearer the door. The painting measures 18.2 cm x 27.8 cm.

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'Feast at the Bay of Islands', 1849

This is a watercolour painting created by Captain Richard Aldworth Oliver (1811-89) in 1849. It depicts a large häkari (feast) held in the northern part of the North Island to celebrate reconciliation after fighting. In the middle of the painting there is a large wooden structure called a potehe (stage). The painting measures ...

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The rescue of John Guard

This is a watercolour painting (22.1 cm x 45.2 cm) of the 'Harriet Affair', made by C Watson in 1885. It is entitled 'The rescue of John Guard, then a child of three years of age by Captain Lambert of "HMS Alligator"'. The painting shows the kidnapped infant John Guard, who had been a passenger on the shipwrecked vessel ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. VIII', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.8 cm x 24 cm showing the vast, yellowing Challicum plains with grassfires burning smokily in the distance. A flock of sheep is being watched by a shepherd and dog. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the sixteenth watercolour in his field sketchbook and inscribed the title ...

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Indigenous Australians defending their land, c1817

This is a 17.7 cm x 27.9 cm watercolour showing about 40 Indigenous Australian people attacking a rowboat carrying five colonists. Most of the warriors are on a steep, rocky headland and those close to the water have spears raised. Two appear to be picking up stones while those further up the cliff watch on. About ten Indigenous ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. VII', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.4 cm, showing a mounted man herding a small group of cows past scattered native bush and trees, beneath the backdrop of the Mount Cole ranges. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the fifteenth watercolour in his field sketchbook and inscribed the title 'Panorama ...

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Indigenous Australians fishing by torchlight, c1817

This is a watercolour, measuring 17.7 cm x 27.9 cm, created by Joseph Lycett in about 1817. It depicts Indigenous Australians spear fishing from three bark canoes at night. In each canoe are a man with a spear and a person holding a firebrand. On the river bank, 15 adults and a child are gathered around two fires, roasting ...

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'Where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed', 1882

This is a watercolour by Alfred Sharpe that shows the house where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, as seen from Motumaire Island in the Bay of Islands (far north of the North Island of New Zealand) in 1882. Steep exposed rocks, with a number of trees growing on them, dominate the foreground. The Treaty House is ...

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'Sale of a mokomokai', 1864

This is a watercolour painting created by British soldier Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) in 1864. It shows a Mäori chief in European dress with a moko (skin marking) on his face, holding what appears to be a mere (short flat club). To his left, on the ground, is a mokomokai (severed, dried, marked human head). The chief ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. I', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.8 cm x 24.4 cm showing gently undulating grassland and narrow bands of trees. A group of cows is being herded by a mounted man to a lower area behind a hill, possibly towards a small group of huts that can be glimpsed in the middle ground. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. IX', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.3 cm showing the vast yellow-and-green Challicum plains. In the distance a flock of sheep, watched by a shepherd and dog, is moving into temporary wooden yards. Among gum trees, to the right of the yard, is the homestead. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the ...

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'Gold digging in Australia 1852: bad results'

This is the first of a pair of oval watercolours, measuring 20.2 cm x 26.4 cm, painted by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), a famous colonial artist. It shows two gold miners sitting dejectedly beside their mine, probably on the Victorian gold fields. Behind the men is a windlass, as well as their wheelbarrow, pick and spade. ...

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Two Indigenous Australians hunting emus, c1817

This is a 17.7 cm x 27.8 cm watercolour of two Indigenous Australian men hunting emus, with one man about to throw a spear using a woomera, or spear thrower. The birds are grazing on a grassy plain in the middle distance to the right of the picture, and the men are screened from them by large rocks and scrub. In the distance ...

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Indigenous Australian man warding off spears, c1817

This is a 17.7 cm x 27.7 cm watercolour showing an Indigenous Australian man holding a shield in front of himself, with fallen spears at his feet, as he faces a group of 14 men. Some are holding spears, apparently watching and waiting, while one is about to throw his spear at the man with the shield. Another group of 11 ...

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'Quail shooting, Jones' Hill, Challicum', c1850

This is a watercolour by Duncan Cooper that shows quail shooting at Jones' Hill at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria. It depicts two men with shotguns and two hunting dogs, which may be pointers, crossing a low plateau. The man in front has taken aim and appears to have just discharged his rifle. ...

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Indigenous Australians spearing eels, c1817

This is a 17.6 cm x 27.7 cm watercolour of two men spearing fish in a river. One has caught an eel on his four-pronged spear. The landscape is heavily vegetated with mountains in the distance and there are rocky outcrops on either side of the river. Large trees frame the image.

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Indigenous Australian family sheltering in a cave, c1817

This is a watercolour, measuring 17.7 cm x 27.7 cm, created by Joseph Lycett in about 1817. It depicts an Indigenous Australian family sheltering from a storm in the entrance of a cave in New South Wales. A man holds a fish and a firebrand and a woman sits on a rock nursing a baby. A third adult squats before a fire, apparently ...

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'Diggers licensing, Forest Creek, 1852'

This is a black-and-white print that shows diggers (miners) at Forest Creek on the Mount Alexander diggings in Victoria lining up before the Gold Commissioner's tent to pay a licence fee. A policeman stands guard next to the tent while, in the foreground on the left, two policemen can be seen speaking to a digger. The print, ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. V', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 16.6 cm x 25.7 cm showing a mounted man, possibly the squatter Harry Thomson. Two dogs run behind him as he rides along a meandering trail left by wagon wheels. Forests stretch away behind and native gums dot the Challicum Hills which rise out of the forest treetops. The artist, Duncan Cooper, ...