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Lot 31: TOM ROBERTS, A MODERN ANDROMEDA, 1892

Est: $400,000 AUD - $600,000 AUDPassed
Deutscher and HackettMelbourne, AustraliaNovember 10, 2021

Item Overview

Description


TOM ROBERTS
(1856 - 1931)
A MODERN ANDROMEDA, 1892
oil on wood panel
45.0 x 10.8 cm
signed and dated lower left: Tom Roberts . / 1892
Henry W Callan, Sydney, framers label attached verso 

PROVENANCE
Henri Kowalski (1841 – 1916), Sydney and Plouër-sur-Rance, France
Thence by descent
Louise Kowalski (née Éloy, AKA Louise Ferraris, 1844 – 1922, m.1869), Château du Chêne-Vert, Plouër-sur-Rance, France
Thence by descent
Madame Lemonnier, niece of the above, Château du Chêne-Vert, Plouër-sur-Rance, France
Mr Roland Brouard, France, 1924, along with purchase of the Château du Chêne-Vert, Plouër-sur-Rance, France
Thence by descent
Louise Brouard (née Louët), France, wife of the above, in 1934
Thence by descent
Marie-Thérèse Rouxel (née Brouard), Nantes, daughter of the above, in 1969
Jack-Philippe Ruellan S.A.R.L., Vannes, France, 27 February 2021, lot 99 (as ‘Jeune Fille à l’ombrelle, assise sur un rocher’)
Private collection, Sydney 

EXHIBITED
Spring Exhibition
, Art Society of New South Wales, Sydney, 1892, cat. 50

LITERATURE
Eagle, M.,  The Oil Paintings of Tom Roberts in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, p. 61 n. 6

ESSAY
Recently rediscovered and repatriated from a private collection in France, Tom Roberts’ A Modern Andromeda, 1892 is, although modest in scale, a painting of considerable art historical significance. Not only is it a fine example of the artist’s simultaneously crisp and fluent Naturalist style, completed at a high point in his career1, but it also carries a rich freight of associations and information – revealing much about the life (and loves?) of the artist; painting in Melbourne and Sydney at the time; and the close links between various branches of the arts in the late 19th century.
 
In ‘Marvellous Melbourne’, financial capital of the Australian colonies, a collapse in property prices in 1889 and associated building society failures the following year created wider economic anxieties. The market for contemporary art had never been particularly secure, and Victoria’s painters had long contested the National Gallery of Victoria’s acquisition policies, which did not favour local artists. These factors, together with a desire to explore landscapes and pastoral industry ‘national subjects’ further afield, took Tom Roberts away from the city. In 1890 – 91, he was only sporadically to be found at his Melbourne studio, having gone ‘on the wallaby’ to Tasmania, East Gippsland and the Central Highlands, as well as back to Corowa on the Murray, where he had begun painting Shearing the Rams in 1889. Eventually – possibly in immediate pursuit of the prospect of a £75 acquisition from a competition for ‘water-colour drawings illustrating what is most picturesque in the scenery of New South Wales, especially in the remoter districts of the colony,’2 – Roberts and his friend and Heidelberg School colleague, Arthur Streeton (together with Streeton’s mother), took ship for Sydney in the Massilia in early September.
 
Roberts went straight to Curlew Camp, a cheap-rent single men’s tent village on the North Shore at Little Sirius Cove, Mosman Bay. Apart from a brief visit to the Hunter River in pursuit of a watercolour subject (one of his entries in the National Gallery’s watercolour exhibition in 1891 was Coaling at Newcastle), he would remain there throughout the spring and summer, until he returned to Melbourne for a month in February 1892.3
 
The camp was an initiative of Reuben Brasch, Sydney clothing manufacturer and retailer and an acquaintance of the artist.4 Just as Roberts’ good friend and fellow Box Hill plein-airiste, Louis Abrahams, had provided the cedar cigar box lids used for many of Roberts’, Streeton’s and Conder’s ‘9 by 5 Impressions’, it appears that so did Reuben Brasch supply the long, narrow ‘drapers’ panel’ supports that became a feature of the Australian Naturalists’ (and particularly Streeton’s) images of Sydney Harbour. A Modern Andromeda would appear to be the first work to employ this striking format, pre-dating both Streeton’s horizontal Harbours of 1893 and his vertical Sirius Cove ‘keyholes’ of 1895.
 
Reuben Brasch’s sister Golda had married Louis Abrahams in March 1888, and Roberts was a witness at the wedding, held in the Brasch family home in Sydney. It was probably on that occasion that Roberts first met Reuben and Golda’s little sister, the teenage Selena Venus. When he returned to Sydney and settled at Curlew camp, Roberts renewed his connection with the young woman, almost immediately enlisting her to pose in the coastal landscape. The rocks on which the figure in the present work is sitting look very much like the tumble of sandstone boulders on the eastern side of Sirius Cove, while the wattle blossom at the top of the composition clearly implies a springtime sitting.
 
This latter assumption is reinforced by correspondence from Streeton, who visited the camp probably late September, before heading up to Glenbrook to paint Fire’s On, 1891 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). In letters written from Melbourne the following January, Streeton inquires 'How also dear Mossmans + your pretty sitter with abundant hair fanned by the afternoon breeze at the point,’5 and also specifically references a small painting of ‘Miss_____ on the rocks,’ advising Roberts not to let the work sell cheaply: ‘it is so charming – keep it as a memento of the place.’6 Is Streeton’s discretion with regard to the sitter’s identity a bit of a tease, a suggestion that Roberts may have harboured some amorous intent in relation to the young Miss Brasch? There is something admiring, even worshipful in the low da sotto in sù viewpoint, with the blue dress seen against the blue Sydney sky making the figure of the girl somehow ethereal, heavenly. The limpid cerulean of the subtropical sky seems to have been just what Roberts craved after a grey winter down south; we see that colour again in the extravagant bows of another of his entries in the 1892 Art Society exhibition, The Paris Hat, 1892 (New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale). In the present picture there is even a tiny shard of summer, a triangle of blue sky, visible through the rocks.
 
In any event, Roberts was certainly very taken with Lena as a model; she appears in no fewer than half a dozen pictures over the ensuing decade.7 The interest is perfectly understandable. Lena Brasch was an attractive, vivacious, talented young woman, who would later make something of a name for herself on the London stage. Not surprisingly, given her family’s piano-importing business background, she was also ‘a pianiste of no mean ability,’8 and Roberts is known to have been particularly fond of music.9
 
This musical connection also explains the present work’s ‘disappearance’ for more than a century. Before its recent return to Australia, the painting passed by descent and estate purchase from the family of pianist, composer and teacher Henri Kowalski. Of Polish heritage but Breton-born and Paris-trained, Kowalski performed in Brussels, London, the United States and Canada before coming to Australia both as a judge for the Fine Arts section of the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, and to give concert performances. During this visit he enthusiastically embraced the local culture; he collaborated with Victorian novelist and poet Marcus Clarke on a comic opera, Queen Venus, and even composed a waltz entitled The Belles of Melbourne. Returning to Australia in 1885, Kowalski lived and worked in Sydney for twelve years, during which time he ‘conducted choirs, orchestras and operas, set up music societies, and had an extensive private teaching practice and a major public profile as a performer. He also set up a public examination board and worked as a music critic.’10
 
Kowalski was definitely known to Tom Roberts; a portrait was included in the artist’s extensive and wide-ranging 1900 exhibition and sale.11 Given Sydney’s relatively small musical community, he is also likely to have been familiar with the piano-retailing Brasch family, including young Lena: she may have been one of the 45 pupils who signed an illuminated address presented to him by the Mayor of Sydney in October 1892, while a couple of years later an advertisement for her first published composition, The Olga Waltz, includes a personal testimonial from the maestro.12 What is beyond doubt is that Kowalski was familiar with the present painting; he and his violinist compatriot Horace Poussard performed a duet at a conversazione held in association with the 1892 Art Society exhibition at which the work was first shown.13
 
But what is the meaning of the curious title? In ancient Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia. Andromeda’s mother, Cassiopeia, boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids, sea-sprite companions of the ocean god Poseidon, and in revenge for this hubristic affront, Poseidon sent a tidal wave and the sea-monster Cetus to ravage the Aethiopian coast. Having been told by an oracle that in order to placate the god he must sacrifice his daughter, King Cepheus had Andromeda chained to a rock at the edge of the sea to await her doom. Happily, the hero Perseus, flying home after having slain the Gorgon, saw the girl, killed the monster and (naturally) claimed Andromeda in marriage.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the image of the naked, constrained and vulnerable Andromeda appealed to patriarchal sensibilities, with Andromeda in chains becoming a familiar trope through the writings of the Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides and the Roman poet Ovid, and accordingly, a persistent focus of the male gaze in European art: from Pompeiian wall painting to the Renaissance Piero di Cosimo, from Titian and Vasari to Rubens and Rembrandt.14 The popularity of the subject persisted through the 19th century and into Roberts’ time, as can be seen in works by ( inter alia) Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Doré and Gustave Moreau.15 In the British tradition with which Roberts was most familiar, the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones developed (though never completed) a full cycle of Perseus pictures for the Music Room of young Conservative politician Arthur Balfour’s house in Carlton Gardens, London;  a preparatory painting for this series depicting the Andromeda episode is now held by the Art Gallery of South Australia.16 
 
In relation to the present picture, however, there is a more concrete and plausible link to a specific work by Sir Frederic (later Lord) Leighton. A member of the Royal Academy since 1868, its President since 1878, created a baronet in 1886, an officer of the Légion d’honneur and a member of the Institut de France, in 1891 Leighton’s reputation was at its height, even as far from London as the Australian colonies. That year Queenslander William Knox D'Arcy, the Mount Morgan Gold King, purchased his The Garden of the Hesperides, and the Sydney gallery a photograph of The Bath of Psyche, while in an article on the New South Wales collection written for the Melbourne Argus, Roberts specifically mentioned both Leighton’s classical-domestic fantasy Wedded (purchased 1882), and watercolours for the Arts of industry… frescoes at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert).17 In 1891, Leighton painted his version of the Andromeda myth, with the sea-monster depicted more as a dragon than as a whale or crocodile. Perseus and Andromeda was shown in the RA’s summer exhibition, and was reproduced in the London Art Journal for June.
 
The present work may be considered an oblique, comic homage to the master’s work. Most obviously, the dragon bat-wings that overshadow the princess in Leighton’s picture have a marked formal resemblance to the spread-ribbed parasol above Roberts’ sitter. There might also be a further visual pun in the golden wattle in painting’s top left corner: an antipodean answer to the glowing aureole that surrounds Leighton’s flying Perseus-on-Pegasus. Whether or not such a direct reference to Leighton is intended, characterising a girl in a frock on a rock as Andromeda is sufficient to indicate both Roberts’ literacy in classical iconography and his droll humour, the fruitful tension between his strong RA-instilled feeling for history and tradition and his keen awareness of and participation in bourgeois-industrial colonial modernity.
 

Dr Hansen is most grateful to Dr Leigh Astbury and to Dr Keren Hammerschlag, Lecturer in Art History and Art Theory, Australian National University
, for their assistance in preparing this catalogue essay
 

DR DAVID HANSEN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CENTRE FOR ART HISTORY & ART THEORY,
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Recently rediscovered and repatriated from a private collection in France, Tom Roberts’ A Modern Andromeda, 1892 is, although modest in scale, a painting of considerable art historical significance. Not only is it a fine example of the artist’s simultaneously crisp and fluent Naturalist style, completed at a high point in his career1, but it also carries a rich freight of associations and information – revealing much about the life (and loves?) of the artist; painting in Melbourne and Sydney at the time; and the close links between various branches of the arts in the late 19th century.
 
In ‘Marvellous Melbourne’, financial capital of the Australian colonies, a collapse in property prices in 1889 and associated building society failures the following year created wider economic anxieties. The market for contemporary art had never been particularly secure, and Victoria’s painters had long contested the National Gallery of Victoria’s acquisition policies, which did not favour local artists. These factors, together with a desire to explore landscapes and pastoral industry ‘national subjects’ further afield, took Tom Roberts away from the city. In 1890 – 91, he was only sporadically to be found at his Melbourne studio, having gone ‘on the wallaby’ to Tasmania, East Gippsland and the Central Highlands, as well as back to Corowa on the Murray, where he had begun painting Shearing the Rams in 1889. Eventually – possibly in immediate pursuit of the prospect of a £75 acquisition from a competition for ‘water-colour drawings illustrating what is most picturesque in the scenery of New South Wales, especially in the remoter districts of the colony,’2 – Roberts and his friend and Heidelberg School colleague, Arthur Streeton (together with Streeton’s mother), took ship for Sydney in the Massilia in early September.
 
Roberts went straight to Curlew Camp, a cheap-rent single men’s tent village on the North Shore at Little Sirius Cove, Mosman Bay. Apart from a brief visit to the Hunter River in pursuit of a watercolour subject (one of his entries in the National Gallery’s watercolour exhibition in 1891 was Coaling at Newcastle), he would remain there throughout the spring and summer, until he returned to Melbourne for a month in February 1892.3
 
The camp was an initiative of Reuben Brasch, Sydney clothing manufacturer and retailer and an acquaintance of the artist.4 Just as Roberts’ good friend and fellow Box Hill plein-airiste, Louis Abrahams, had provided the cedar cigar box lids used for many of Roberts’, Streeton’s and Conder’s ‘9 by 5 Impressions’, it appears that so did Reuben Brasch supply the long, narrow ‘drapers’ panel’ supports that became a feature of the Australian Naturalists’ (and particularly Streeton’s) images of Sydney Harbour. A Modern Andromeda would appear to be the first work to employ this striking format, pre-dating both Streeton’s horizontal Harbours of 1893 and his vertical Sirius Cove ‘keyholes’ of 1895.
 
Reuben Brasch’s sister Golda had married Louis Abrahams in March 1888, and Roberts was a witness at the wedding, held in the Brasch family home in Sydney. It was probably on that occasion that Roberts first met Reuben and Golda’s little sister, the teenage Selena Venus. When he returned to Sydney and settled at Curlew camp, Roberts renewed his connection with the young woman, almost immediately enlisting her to pose in the coastal landscape. The rocks on which the figure in the present work is sitting look very much like the tumble of sandstone boulders on the eastern side of Sirius Cove, while the wattle blossom at the top of the composition clearly implies a springtime sitting.
 
This latter assumption is reinforced by correspondence from Streeton, who visited the camp probably late September, before heading up to Glenbrook to paint Fire’s On, 1891 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). In letters written from Melbourne the following January, Streeton recollects 'How also dear Mossmans + your pretty sitter with abundant hair fanned by the afternoon breeze at the point,’5 and also specifically references a small painting of ‘Miss_____ on the rocks,’ advising Roberts not to let the work sell cheaply: ‘it is so charming – keep it as a memento of the place.’6 Is Streeton’s discretion with regard to the sitter’s identity a bit of a tease, a suggestion that Roberts may have harboured some amorous intent in relation to the young Miss Brasch? There is something admiring, even worshipful in the low da sotto in sù viewpoint, with the blue dress seen against the blue Sydney sky making the figure of the girl somehow ethereal, heavenly. The limpid cerulean of the subtropical sky seems to have been just what Roberts craved after a grey winter down south; we see that colour again in the extravagant bows of another of his entries in the 1892 Art Society exhibition, The Paris Hat, 1892 (New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale). In the present picture there is even a tiny shard of summer, a triangle of blue sky, visible through the rocks.
 
In any event, Roberts was certainly very taken with Lena as a model; she appears in no fewer than half a dozen pictures over the ensuing decade.7 The interest is perfectly understandable. Lena Brasch was an attractive, vivacious, talented young woman, who would later make something of a name for herself on the London stage. Not surprisingly, given her family’s piano-importing business background, she was also ‘a pianiste of no mean ability,’8 and Roberts is known to have been particularly fond of music.9
 
This musical connection also explains the present work’s ‘disappearance’ for more than a century. Before its recent return to Australia, the painting passed by descent and estate purchase from the family of pianist, composer and teacher Henri Kowalski. Of Polish heritage but Breton-born and Paris-trained, Kowalski performed in Brussels, London, the United States and Canada before coming to Australia both as a judge for the Fine Arts section of the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, and to give concert performances. During this visit he enthusiastically embraced the local culture; he collaborated with Victorian novelist and poet Marcus Clarke on a comic opera, Queen Venus, and even composed a waltz entitled The Belles of Melbourne. Returning to Australia in 1885, Kowalski lived and worked in Sydney for twelve years, during which time he ‘conducted choirs, orchestras and operas, set up music societies, and had an extensive private teaching practice and a major public profile as a performer. He also set up a public examination board and worked as a music critic.’10
 
Kowalski was definitely known to Tom Roberts; a portrait was included in the artist’s extensive and wide-ranging 1900 exhibition and sale.11 Given Sydney’s relatively small musical community, he is also likely to have been familiar with the piano-retailing Brasch family, including young Lena: she may have been one of the 45 pupils who signed an illuminated address presented to him by the Mayor of Sydney in October 1892, while a couple of years later an advertisement for her first published composition, The Olga Waltz, includes a personal testimonial from the maestro.12 What is beyond doubt is that Kowalski was familiar with the present painting; he and his violinist compatriot Horace Poussard performed a duet at a conversazione held in association with the 1892 Art Society exhibition at which the work was first shown.13
 
But what is the meaning of the curious title? In ancient Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia. Andromeda’s mother, Cassiopeia, boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids, sea-sprite companions of the ocean god Poseidon, and in revenge for this hubristic affront, Poseidon sent a tidal wave and the sea-monster Cetus to ravage the Aethiopian coast. Having been told by an oracle that in order to placate the god he must sacrifice his daughter, King Cepheus had Andromeda chained to a rock at the edge of the sea to await her doom. Happily, the hero Perseus, flying home after having slain the Gorgon, saw the girl, killed the monster and (naturally) claimed Andromeda in marriage.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the image of the naked, constrained and vulnerable Andromeda appealed to patriarchal sensibilities, with Andromeda in chains becoming a familiar trope through the writings of the Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides and the Roman poet Ovid, and accordingly, a persistent focus of the male gaze in European art: from Pompeiian wall painting to the Renaissance Piero di Cosimo, from Titian and Vasari, to Rubens and Rembrandt.14 The popularity of the subject persisted through the 19th century and into Roberts’ time, as can be seen in works by ( inter alia) Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Doré and Gustave Moreau.15 In the British tradition with which Roberts was most familiar, the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones developed (though never completed) a full cycle of Perseus pictures for the Music Room of young Conservative politician Arthur Balfour’s house in Carlton Gardens, London;  a preparatory painting for this series depicting the Andromeda episode is now held by the Art Gallery of South Australia.16 
 
In relation to the present picture, however, there is a more concrete and plausible link to a specific work by Sir Frederic (later Lord) Leighton. A member of the Royal Academy since 1868, its President since 1878, created a baronet in 1886, an officer of the Légion d’honneur and a member of the Institut de France, in 1891 Leighton’s reputation was at its height, even as far from London as the Australian colonies. That year the Victorian National Gallery purchased his The Garden of the Hesperides, and its Sydney counterpart a photograph of The Bath of Psyche, while in an article on the New South Wales collection written for the Melbourne Argus, Roberts specifically mentioned both Leighton’s classical-domestic fantasy Wedded (purchased 1882), and watercolours for the Arts of industry… frescoes at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert).17 In 1891, Leighton painted his version of the Andromeda myth, with the sea-monster depicted more as a dragon than as a whale or crocodile. Perseus and Andromeda was shown in the RA’s summer exhibition, and was reproduced in the London Art Journal for June.
 
The present work may be considered an oblique, comic homage to the master’s work. Most obviously, the dragon bat-wings that overshadow the princess in Leighton’s picture have a marked formal resemblance to the spread-ribbed parasol above Roberts’ sitter. There might also be a further visual pun in the golden wattle in painting’s top left corner: an antipodean answer to the glowing aureole that surrounds Leighton’s flying Perseus-on-Pegasus. Whether or not such a direct reference to Leighton is intended, characterising a girl in a frock on a rock as Andromeda is sufficient to indicate both Roberts’ literacy in classical iconography and his droll humour, the fruitful tension between his strong, RA-instilled feeling for history and tradition and his keen awareness of and participation in bourgeois-industrial colonial modernity.
 

Dr Hansen is most grateful to Dr Leigh Astbury and to Dr Keren Hammerschlag, Lecturer in Art History and Art Theory, Australian National University
, for their assistance in preparing this catalogue essay
 

DR DAVID HANSEN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CENTRE FOR ART HISTORY & ART THEORY,
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

1. 1891-2 was something of an annus mirabilis for Tom Roberts. He completed the large, ambitious A Break Away! 1891 (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), while the Art Society of New South Wales show in which the present work was first shown included the formal triptych of ‘Church, State and the Law’ portraits (Cardinal Moran, Sir Henry Parkes and Sir William Windeyer); the sensitive Eileen, 1892 and the powerful Aboriginal Head - Charlie Turner, 1892 (both Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). 1892 was also the year he travelled north to Queensland and the Torres Strait, a journey that generated some memorable images, particularly of First Nations Australians.
2. The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1891, p. 7
3. Curlew Camp would remain the artist’s main residence until his marriage to Lillie Williamson in April 1896.
4. Marcus Brasch and his brother Wolfe were Prussian Jews who had migrated to London in 1848, then to Melbourne in 1866; Wolfe and his extensive family later moved to Sydney. The family music store (employing the persuasive slogan ‘A home is not a home without a piano’) eventually expanded to become (with the Germanic ‘c’ dropped during the Great War) the national music and electronics chain Brashs.
5. Letter, Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, 17 January 1892, Roberts Papers, ML A2428, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
6. Letter, Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, 16 January 1892, Roberts Papers, ML A2478, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Mary Eagle, formerly Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, first proposed that the work to which Streeton is referring in this letter is A Modern Andromeda (then untraced). See Mary Eagle, The oil paintings of Tom Roberts in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, p. 61 n. 6
7. (profile portrait sketch of Lena Brasch) c. 1892, private collection; sold Christie’s Australia November 1992); (unfinished portrait study) 1893, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; An eastern princess 1893, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Plink a plong 1893, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; and possibly the later A study of Jephthah’s daughter 1899, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. The profile sketch also has a press cutting pasted on the reverse (‘Australians in England’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1905, p. 5) which mentions another, still later portrait of Lena, from 1904. By this time Lena was evidently sufficiently intimate with the Heidelberg School artists to have known and used their nicknames. A 1901 portrait photograph by Walter Barnett that she gave to Streeton (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) is inscribed ’To Smike.’
8. ‘The theatre: musical and dramatic notes’, The Star (Christchurch), 26 September 1904, p.4
9. The painter’s devotion to the Euterpean muse is amply attested not only in letters, records of attendance at concerts, and the various musical activities of the clubs and societies with which he was associated, but also in his personal relationships: with Prof. G.W.L. Marshall-Hall, Melbourne’s musical colossus of the 1890s and early 1900s, with life-long friend S.W. Pring, an amateur flautist, and with Duncan Anderson of ‘Newstead’ station, a keen cornetist. Roberts’ oeuvre includes numerous musical subjects: portraits of musicians Nellie Billings (1900), Alice Bryant (1899), Daddy Hallawell (late 1890s), Alfred Hill (1897), Johann Kruse (1895), Marshall-Hall, of course, and Nellie Melba (c.1902), as well as subject pictures such as The violin lesson, c. 1889 (National Gallery of Victoria); Andante, 1889 (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide); The troubadour of Scott’s, c.1889 (Westpac Corporate Art Collection, Sydney); and Adagio, c.1893 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). See Kertesz, E., ‘Music and the Australian Impressionists’, in Gray, A. and Hesson, A. (eds), She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism, Thames & Hudson, in association with the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne p. 229). Kertesz believes the violinist in this last to be ‘probably Lena Brasch’; it is here suggested that the subject is more likely to be Bessie Doyle, one of whose signature performance pieces was the Adagio from Spohr’s 9th concerto in D minor. Miss Doyle performed extensively in Sydney and country New South Wales between June and November 1892, and she and Henri Kowalski headlined a concert in Sydney on 5 November ( The Daily Telegraph, 2 November 1892, p. 2).
10. Murphy, K., ‘Henri Kowalski (1841-1916): a French musician in colonial Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 48 no. 3, August 2017, pp. 358 – 9
11.‘Sale of Mr Roberts’s paintings’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 1900, p. 5
12. ‘The Olga Waltz by Lena V. Brasch’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 1894, p. 2. Kowalski’s encomium reads: ‘I like the Strauss character of the Olga Waltz, and the first musical steps of Miss Lena V. Brasch deserve good commendation from both dilettanti and choreograph [ sic]’ The waltz, written for piano, was named in honour of the actress Olga Nethersole.
13. ‘Art Society’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 September 1892, p. 581
14. Unknown artist, Perseus freeing Andromeda, c. 50-75 BCE, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples; Piero di Cosimo, Andromeda freed by Perseus, c. 1510-15, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; Tiziano Vecelli, Perseus and Andromeda, 1553-59, Wallace Collection, London; Giorgio Vasari, Perseus and Andromeda, 1570-72, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; Peter Paul Rubens, Perseus and Andromeda, c. 1622, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; Rembrandt van Rijn, Andromeda chained to the rocks, c.1630, Mauritshuis, The Hague
15. Eugène Delacroix, Perseus and Andromeda, c. 1853, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; Gustave Doré, Andromeda, 1869, private collection; Gustave Moreau, Perseus and Andromeda, 1870, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.
16. Edward Burne-Jones, Perseus and Andromeda (‘The rock of doom’ and ‘The doom fulfilled’) 1876, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
17. ‘Art’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 December 1891, p. 4; Tom Roberts, ‘The National Art Gallery of New South Wales’, The Argus, 31 October 1891, p. 4.

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accepted by the auctioneer, or in the case of a post-auction sale, the
agreed sale price (including any GST).
e. The 'buyer's premium' refers to the 22.727% charge (plus GST)
payable by the buyer calculated as a percentage of the hammer price.
f. 'GST' refers to the goods and services tax imposed by the A New Tax
System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 as amended.
g. The 'lot' refers to the item(s) described against any lot number in
the catalogue.
h. The 'reserve' refers to the minimum price (including any GST)
the consignor will accept for a lot.
i. Invaluable service fee refers to the 5% charge by Invaluable and payable by the buyer calculated as a percentage of the hammer price.

PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS AND DISCLAIMER

2. Agency: Deutscher and Hackett acts as agent for the vendor and the contract of sale for the lot will be between the buyer and the vendor.
3. Property is sold 'as is': To the extent permitted by law:
a. no guarantees, warranties or representations are made (express or
implied) by Deutscher and Hackett or the vendor in relation to the
nature and condition of any lot; and
b. Deutscher and Hackett disclaims liability for any misrepresentations,
errors or omissions, whether verbal or in writing, in the catalogue or any
supplemental material.

All factual information provided by the vendor is merely passed on by Deutscher and Hackett from the vendor or other source. Deutscher and Hackett has made no attempt to verify this information. All additional statements of opinion represent the specialist opinions of Deutscher and Hackett employees and should not be relied upon as statements of fact.
4. Responsibility to inspect: Responsibility remains with the buyer to satisfy its, his or her self by inspection and evaluation prior to purchase as to the nature and condition of any property.

CONDITIONS AT AUCTION

5. Registration: Bidders must register to bid and if personally attending the auction must obtain a bidder's paddle prior to the commencement of the auction. Registration requires that bidders provide proof of identity and Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion.
6. Auctioneer's discretion: Deutscher and Hackett reserves the right to absolute discretion over the conduct of the auction including the regulation of bidding and its increments. This discretion extends to the challenge or rejection of any bid, the right to withdraw any lot and the right to determine the successful bidder or reoffer a lot in the event of a dispute. The prospective buyers and sellers guide details an indicative process for the conduct of auctions. All parties are strongly urged to read the prospective buyers and sellers guide included in this catalogue.
7. Bidding: Deutscher and Hackett may sell each lot to the highest bidder at auction provided the reserve price has been met or where the net amount accounted to the vendor is at least equivalent to the net amount that would have been achieved for a sale at the reserve price. The fall of the auctioneer's hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the vendor and the buyer. Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Deutscher and Hackett, the individual physically present at the auction who signals the bid accepts personal liability to pay the purchase price, including the buyer's premium and all additional fees, taxes and charges.

GOODS AND SERVICES TAX

8. Amounts inclusive of GST: Unless otherwise specified, all amounts specified in this section as payable by the buyer, or otherwise used to calculate payment to Deutscher and Hackett, are inclusive of any GST component. Deutscher and Hackett will provide buyers with a tax invoice that meets the requirements of the Australian Taxation Office.
9. Application of GST to buyers: Auctions are conducted on a GST inclusive basis (where GST applies). Buyers are required to pay a 10% GST which sum is:
a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor (a list of lots consigned by GST Registered Entities is set out in our catalogue); and
b. included in buyer's premiums and any additional fees charged by
Deutscher and Hackett.
If a buyer is classified as a "non-resident" for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met.

POST-SALE CONDITIONS

10. Post auction private sale: Should the lot fail to sell at auction, Deutscher and Hackett is authorised to sell the lot privately for a period of seven days in which event this agreement shall apply to the relevant buyer to the full extent of its provisions.
11. Payment: The buyer will not acquire title until payment has cleared in full. Interest at a rate of 17.5% p.a. will be charged over outstanding accounts where no extension of terms has been granted. Interest will be payable from the payment due date. With respect to each lot purchased, the buyer agrees to make the following payments within seven days from the date of sale:
a. The hammer price.
b. In exchange for services rendered by Deutscher and Hackett, a buyer's premium calculated at 22% (plus GST) of the hammer price.
c. Post sale packing, handling, shipping and storage where applicable.
d. If payment is made via Visa, Mastercard or American Express, any
merchant fees payable by Deutscher and Hackett on the transaction as
indicated in the prospective buyers and sellers guide.
Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer using the form and/or trust account details provided at the back of this catalogue. In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Once funds have cleared, the proceeds of the sale less the buyer's Premium, GST and any commission or costs charged as agreed will be remitted to the vendor within thirty-five days of the date of sale provided payment has been received in full. Funds will be held in an interest bearing account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to any interest earned during this period. Application for a cultural heritage export licence or any other licence in no way affects the buyer's obligation to make payment or collection within the periods specified in sections 10 and 13a.
12. Risk and Title: Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on the earlier of:
a. the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made; and
b. collection by the buyer.
The buyer assumes risk for the property in all respects from this date and neither Deutscher and Hackett nor the vendor will be liable for loss or damage occurring after the payment due date. The buyer is encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from this date. Title in the lot does not pass to the buyer, even if the lot is released to the buyer, until the buyer has paid all sums owing to Deutscher and Hackett. If a buyer makes a claim against Deutscher and Hackett for damage or loss after sale, the buyer's premium and the final bid price shall be payable notwithstanding.
13. Freight:
a. The buyer may only remove a lot from the Deutscher and Hackett
premises once payment has been cleared in full and must be removed
no later than seven days after the date of sale. Should items not be
removed by this time, storage and insurance costs may be charged to
the buyer. If a lot has not been collected within 30 days after the date of
sale and alternative arrangements have not been with Deutscher and
Hackett, the lot may be re-sold by Deutscher and Hackett without
reserve at the next auction and Deutscher and Hackett may set off any
amounts owed for storage and insurance costs and its standard
commission before remitting the proceeds to the buyer.
Buyers are required to make their own arrangements for packing,
handling, shipping and transit insurance for their property. Deutscher
and Hackett does not accept responsibility or liability for the acts or
omissions of any third party, such as a shipping agent, whether or not
such a party has been recommended or suggested by Deutscher and
Hackett.
14. Limited Warranty of Authorship: If a buyer is able to establish that a lot is a forgery in accordance with these conditions for sale within five years of the date of sale, the buyer shall be entitled to rescind the sale and obtain a refund of the hammer price from the vendor. The buyer must return the lot in the state in which it was sold within fourteen days of notifying Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations.
For a lot to be established as a forgery, the following conditions must be satisfied:
a. the buyer must supply two independent expert testimonies attesting to
the forgery. Deutscher and Hackett is entitled to request further expert
evidence where it deems the evidence provided to be unsatisfactory;
b. there must be no conflict of opinion among accepted experts in the
field; and
c. the forgery must be able to be proven through means that at the time of
publication of the catalogue were commonly employed and that will not
damage or otherwise put the lot in jeopardy.
The limited warranty and the right to rescind the sale is not assignable and the buyer must have retained title to the lot without disposing of any interest in it up until the buyer notifies Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations. The buyer acknowledges that it has no rights directly against Deutscher and Hackett if a lot is established to be a forgery.
15. Termination, Breach and Legalities:
a. Deutscher and Hackett breach: To the extent permitted by law, the sole
and maximum remedy to a buyer for breach of warranty is a refund of
original purchase price, including buyer's premium. In such an event
the sale contract shall be rescinded and all costs associated with
returning the property (in the state in which it was sold) to the premises
of Deutscher and Hackett are to be borne by the buyer. Deutscher and
Hackett is not liable for any indirect or consequential loss or damage for
any matter arising directly or indirectly as a result of the sale.
b. Buyer breach: Deutscher and Hackett may, in addition to other remedies
available by law, exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies
for breach:
i. Cancel the sale and retain any payment or property in Deutscher
and Hackett custody as collateral or liquidated damages.
ii. Charge the buyer interest at the rate of 2% above the rate fixed
under section 2 of the Penalty Interest Rates Act 1984 (Vic).
iii. Resell the property without reserve at the next auction or privately
on five days notice. Any disparity between sale and resale prices,
including associated costs such as, but not limited to, legal, storage
and sale expenses, will be to the account of the defaulting buyer.
iv. Apply any part payment received from the buyer in respect of any
lots at its discretion.
v. Retain any of the buyer's property held by Deutscher and Hackett
until the buyer has satisfied its obligations to Deutscher and
Hackett.
vi. Take any other action Deutscher and Hackett deems necessary or
appropriate.
vii. Refuse to permit the buyer to participate in future auctions.
viii. Provide the vendor with the buyer's details to permit the vendor to
take action against the buyer to recover the money.
16. No Refund Policy: Unless otherwise permitted by law or reasons outlined in sections 14 and 15 Deutscher and Hackett do not allow refund of purchase.
176. Governing law and jurisdiction: These terms and conditions and any matters concerned with the foregoing fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the country and state in which the auction is held.
187. Severability: In the event that any provisions of this agreement should be found unenforceable in a court of law, that part shall be discounted and the remaining conditions shall continue in full force and effect to the extent permitted by law.

prospective buyers and sellers guide

1. PRIOR TO AUCTION

CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS
Catalogues can be obtained at Deutscher and Hackett offices or by online subscription (see the Catalogue Subscription Form at the back of this catalogue or online for more information go to www.deutscherandhackett.com).

PRE-SALE ESTIMATES
The price range estimated against each lot reflects the opinion of our art specialists as to the hammer price expected for the lot at auction and is informed by realised prices for comparable works as well as the particularities of each lot including condition, quality, provenance and rarity. While presale estimates are intended as a guide for
prospective buyers, lots can be sold outside of these ranges. Pre-sale estimates include GST (if any) on a lot but do not include the buyer's premium or other charges where applicable.

RESERVES
The reserve is the minimum price including GST (if any) that the vendor will accept for a lot and below which the lot will not normally be sold.

PRE-AUCTION VIEWINGS
In both Sydney and Melbourne pre-auction viewings are scheduled for several days in advance of each auction. Deutscher and Hackett specialists are available to give obligation free advice at viewings or by appointment and prospective buyers are strongly encouraged to thoroughly examine and request condition reports for potential purchases. Pre-auction viewings are open to the public and are free to attend.

SYMBOL KEY
? Unless ownership is clearly stated in the provenance, this symbol is used where a lot is offered which Deutscher and Hackett or an affiliate owns in whole or in part.
In these instances, Deutscher and Hackett has a direct financial interest in the property or means that Deutscher and Hackett has guaranteed a minimum price.
? Used to indicate lots for sale without a reserve.

EXPLANATION OF CATALOGUING PRACTICE AND TERMS
All information published in Deutscher and Hackett catalogues represent statements of opinion and should not be relied upon as fact. All dimensions are listed in centimetres, height before width and are approximate. All prices are in Australian dollars.

ARTIST'S NAMES
All reference to artists make use of common and not full names in accordance with the standards outlined in the National Gallery of Australia reference publication Australian Art: Artist's working names authority list. For instance, John Brack rather than Cecil John Brack; Roy de Maistre rather than Leroy Leveson Laurent De Maistre; Rosalie Gascoigne rather than Rosalie Norah Gascoigne.
Terms used in this catalogue have the meanings ascribed to them below:
a. NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work
by the artist.
b. Attributed to NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, probably a work by the artist, in whole or in part.
c. Circle of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work showing the influence and style of the artist and of the artist's period.
d. Studio/Workshop of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work possibly executed under the supervision of the artist.
e. School of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work by a follower or student of the artist.
f. Manner of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work created in the style, but not necessarily in the period, of the artist.
g. After NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a copy of a work by the artist.
h. "signed" / "dated" in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has been signed/dated by the artist.
i. "bears signature" / "bears date" in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has possibly been signed/dated by someone other than the artist.

PROVENANCE
Where appropriate, Deutscher and Hackett will include the known provenance, or history of ownership of lots. Non disclosure may indicate that prior owners are unknown or that the seller wishes to maintain confidentiality.

2. THE AUCTION

Auctions are open to the public and are free to attend. Deutscher and Hackett may exclude any person at any time in its discretion.

REGISTRATION
Bidders must register to bid prior to the commencement of an auction. Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion.

CONDUCT OF AUCTION
Lots are offered for sale on a consecutive basis. Deutscher and Hackett will determine the conduct of the auction in its absolute discretion, including the regulation of bidding. Consecutive or responsive bids may be placed by the auctioneer on behalf of the vendor up to the reserve.

ABSENTEE OR COMMISSION BIDS AND TELEPHONE BIDS
As a courtesy service, Deutscher and Hackett will make reasonable efforts to place bids for prospective buyers in absentia provided written or verbal instructions (as indicated on absentee bid forms included at the back of this catalogue or online) are received 24 hours prior to auction. Where successful, lots will be purchased at the lowest possible bid and in the event of identical absentee bids, the bid received earliest will take precedence. Deutscher and Hackett accepts no responsibility for errors and omissions in relation to this courtesy service and reserves the right to record telephone bids.

RESERVE
Unless indicated otherwise, all lots are subject to a confidential reserve price determined by the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett or the auctioneer may place any number of bids on behalf of the vendor below the reserve price and is not obliged to identify that the bids are being placed on behalf of the vendor.

BIDDING INCREMENTS
Bidding usually opens below the listed pre-sale estimate and proceeds in the following increments (the auctioneer may vary the bidding increments at his or her discretion):

$500 - 1,000 by $50
$1,000 - 2,000 by $100
$2,000 - 3,000 by $200
$3,000 - 5,000 by $200 / $500 / $800
$5,000 - 10,000 by $500
$10,000 - 20,000 by $1,000
$20,000 - 30,000 by $2,000
$30,000 - 50,000 by $2,000 / $5,000 / $8,000
$50,000 - 100,000 by $5,000
$100,000 - 200,000 by $10,000
$200,000 - 300,000 by $20,000
$300,000 - 500,000 by $20,000 / $50,000 / $80,000
$500,000 - 1,000,000 by $50,000
$1,000,000+ by $100,000

SUCCESSFUL BIDS
The fall of the auctioneer's hammer indicates the final bid and the buyer assumes full responsibility for the lot from this time.

UNSOLD LOTS
Where a lot is unsold, the auctioneer will announce that the lot is "bought in", "passed", "withdrawn" or "returned to owner".

3. AFTER THE AUCTION

PAYMENTS
Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer. If payment is made by credit card the price will increase by any merchant fees payable by Deutscher and Hackett (1.15% (including GST) for Visa and Mastercard and 3.10% (including GST) for American Express). In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Cleared funds will be held in an interest bearing trust account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to retain any interest earned during this period. Payment by the vendor of any charge to Deutscher and Hackett is to be made within fourteen days of invoice.

PURCHASE PRICE AND BUYER'S PREMIUM
The purchase price will be the sum of the final bid price (including any GST) plus a buyer's premium set at 22% (plus GST) of the final bid price. An Invaluable service fee of 5% of the final bid price will also be charged. Buyers may be liable for other charges reasonably incurred once ownership has passed.
GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Auctions are conducted on a GST inclusive basis (where GST applies). GST is payable on some lots. A list of those lots is set out in the catalogue. Buyers are required to pay a 10% G.S.T which sum is:
a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor; and
b. included in buyer's premiums and any additional fees charged by Deutscher and Hackett.
If a buyer is classified as a "non-resident" for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met.

COLLECTION
Lots paid for in full may be collected from Deutscher and Hackett premises the day after the auction occurs but lots paid for by cheque may not be collected until all funds have cleared. Proof of identification is required upon collection and lots not collected within seven days of the sale may incur costs associated with external storage and freight.

LOSS OR DAMAGE
Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on either the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made, or on collection by the buyer, whichever is earlier. The buyer is therefore encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from the payment due date.

TRANSPORT AND SHIPPING
Deutscher and Hackett directly offers services including storage, hanging and display, appraisals and valuations, collection management and research and in all instances will endeavour to coordinate or advise upon shipping and handling, insurance, transport, framing and conservation at the request and expense of the client. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept liability for the acts or omissions of contracted third parties.

EXPORT
Prospective bidders are advised to enquire about export licences -- including endangered species licences and cultural heritage permits, where relevant -- prior to bidding at auction. Telephone the Maritime and Movable Heritage Unit on 02 6274 1810 for further information. The delay or denial of such a licence will not be grounds for a rescission of sale.

COPYRIGHT
The copyright in the images and illustrations contained in this catalogue may be owned by third parties and used under licence by Deutscher and Hackett. As between Deutscher and Hackett and the buyer, Deutscher and Hackett retains all rights in the images and illustrations. Deutscher and Hackett retains copyright in the text contained in this catalogue. The buyer must not reproduce or otherwise use the images, illustrations or text without prior written consent.

Shipping Terms

Deutscher and Hackett's Registrar is happy to assist with advice about preferred carriers, if required. Email: [email protected]