Provenance:
Denis Savill Collection, Sydney
Purchased from Australian & International Paintings, Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne 26/11/2003, Lot No. 32

The popularity of Eugene von Guerard's art today is so great that it has overshadowed that of all his contemporaries. Even Louis Buvelot, Victoria's most popular artist in the 1870s and eighties, has been eclipsed.

Another important and overlooked artist of the time is Isaac Whitehead, whose rare paintings, like the splendid one on offer, seldom come on to today's market. Whitehead involved himself in many activities and, ironically, is better known nowadays as the maker of first-class frames for Von Guerard and Buvelot than as a limner in his own right. In his day, Whitehead was Melbourne's leading frame maker. Significantly, Von Guerard and Whitehead have more in common in their painting than may, at first, be realised. They are supremely romantic painters given to transforming the topographical view to the picturesque; seeking the grand and the sublime in nature, rendering her glories on canvasses with an attention to detail that borders on the worshipful.

The panorama is their forte, and man is miniscule in the scheme of things. In Whitehead's Milford Sound, New Zealand 1878, the only sign of human existence is the ship to the left, far background, sails furled giving way to steam, as shown by the tell-tale issue of smoke; another very romantic notion taken to its greatest height by J M W Turner. Von Guerard painted the same scene, Milford Sound with Pembroke Peak and Bowen Falls, in 1877, one year before Whitehead. Celebrated as a great work when exhibited in Melbourne, Sydney and Paris, it is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, resplendent in its original Whitehead frame!

Irish-born Isaac Whitehead arrived in Melbourne in the late 1850s, working as a picture framer, decorator, print seller and colourman, as well as a painter. He was a regular contributor to the major colonial exhibitions, and the academies of art in New South Wales and Victoria. In the 1875 Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition Preparatory to the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, he was awarded a medal for his five paintings. A silver medal followed at the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition. Active as a member of the Victorian Academy of Arts, he contributed to the annual exhibitions, the third exhibition of 1873 being held at his business premises. Five years later he was elected to the Academy's council. Like his contemporaries, and especially Von Guerard and Nicholas Chevalier, Whitehead found inspiration in the grandeur of nature, painting the Buffalo and Dandenong Ranges, the Grampians, Mt Macedon and the ever-popular fern tree gullies. He was enthralled by spectacular scenery, the might and majesty of nature, as seen in such paintings as In the Sassafras Valley, Victoria c1870, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the even larger canvas in the National Gallery of Victoria, A Spring Morning Near Fernshaw 1880. It is not known when Whitehead visited New Zealand, although the dates on his New Zealand paintings indicate that it would have been in the late 1870s. It is very tempting to think that he may have visited Milford Sound with Von Guerard and other Melbourne visitors in January 1876, for the report in the Otago Daily Times offers a seasonal description of the scene compatible with both Von Guerard's and Whitehead's paintings.'

A painting titled Milford Sound, N.Z. was included in the 1877 exhibition of the New South Wales Academy of Art, and the following year Milford Sound During a Squall was shown in the Victorian Academy of Arts' annual exhibition. One can only speculate if the Milford Sound shown in the 1877 exhibition in Sydney is the same as the painting on offer and that the artist rriay have added the date '1878' later. Alternatively, because it is such a popular subject, Whitehead may have painted a second version. The price of Ł33.0.0 suggests a painting of similar or the same size, the Milford Sound during a Squall commanding the high figure of Ł63.0.0. For the work on offer, Whitehead chose a different mood, of the tranquility that encompasses all nature at the end of the day. The waters of the sound are crystal calm, reflecting the mountains, vegetation and glorious sky, which evokes a majestic scene worthy of Olympus or Valhalla. The painting revels in the untouched splendour of nature, full of grandeur and nobility, with the attendant realism bathed in an enchanting light.

1. Otago Daily Times, 28 January 1876, quoted in Bruce C, Comstock, E, & McDonald, F., Eugene von Guerard: A German in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor Publishers, Martinborough, , 1982. p.269. David Thomas