Mundy, Louisa Catherine Georgina :The Five Islands, Illawarra. From the Mt Keera Road [February 6th 1849]

Extensive view from a clearing, with grass trees lining a fenced road, framed by tall trees on both sides, including tree-ferns or cabbage trees. A small and rather derelict-looking cottage is in the right foreground. It has a well, a garden and a small two-wheeled cart inside the garden. There are several tree stumps and large logs in the foreground. In the distance is a flat area with scattered bush and the Pacific Ocean with five small islands.

Louisa Mundy's husband, G.C.Mundy describes the incident depicted here in vol 3 of "Our antipodes" p.73-75 in a section entitled Mount Keera - Coal. He expedition was undertaken with his wife, the artist, so the view is first-hand. He describes this scene as including "a modest hut, covered with vines and pumpkins ... [with] a thriving potato patch and clump of standard peach-trees in full blossom ... the wild and fertile plain beyond ... by the Pacific - the surf-beaten group of the Five Islands breaking the dull uniformity of the coast line. Amongst the timber growing on the hill-sides were box-trees of immense size, fine specimens of the cabbage-palm ... of the fern-tree, the grass tree and of a sort of date. The hybiscus, attaining a height of twenty or thirty feet, was in full flower; bignonias clomb [sic] from branch to branch..."

There are some differences between this drawing and the published lithograph, most noticeably in the lithograph the addition of the group referred to in the text, with Mundy dressed as a gentleman, complete with top hat, on his tall, elegant horse, gesturing towards the view, and to his right, "a rustic couple on horseback", two to one much smaller steed. The cottage is much less dilapidated in the lithograph, a primitive-looking cart has been removed, a well has improved in appearance and the land in the distance and the surrounding trees have been neatened. The drawing may be the work of Thomas Evans Chapman, who prepared drawings related to Mundy's travels for a lithographic suite, although the suite was never published

Other Titles - Chapman, Thomas Evans, 1789?-1864. Attributed works :The Five Islands, Illawarra...

Extended Title - Original for lithograph in Our Antipodes by Godfrey Charles Mundy, London, 1852, vol 3 opp p 75, with title View on the Mountain Road.

Inscriptions: Recto - bottom right - L.M.; Verso - Title in sepia ink; Recto - top left - No 14

Quantity: 1 drawing(s).

Physical Description: Pencil 192 x 237 mm