Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn, 1799-1878 :View of Hokatiki entrance and the River Hokatiki ... [ca 1870]

View of the Hokitika Bar from the north bank looking south, with shipwrecks, a paddle steamer, jetty and sheds in the foreground, Mount Cook in the distance

On the verso, a note in ink by the artist, two small drawings in pencil of possibly the same large two-storied house seen from different angles, pencil notes in another hand 'By W. F. Evelyn Liardet' and '?1870 c'

A visitor to the Library on 10 September 2013 suggested that the paddle-steamer in the view was the 'Lioness' captained by George Whitford, a relation by marriage to the artist. The ship's name is not visible on the watercolour. The paddle-steamer Lioness, a similar-looking vessel, with its name visible on its starboard side, appears in a lithograph by Liardet 'View of the North Shore, Port of Melbourne, 1862' (Ref D-002-015) on the right, in the foreground.

Mount Cook / Aoraki had a height of 12,349 feet, not 14,000 feet at the time this view was painted.

Other Titles - Hokitika

Inscriptions: Verso - View of Hokatiki Entrance to the River Hokatiki. Distant view of Mt Cook 40 m from coast, 30 m from Hokatiki, 14000 F, seen 100 m on clear day. S. spit dirty gray colour headland of the shore timbered opposite side of the low land densely timbered. Mt Cook gully steep and hazy. The ocean rolls in with fearful surges and has carried away great parts of the township always in danger. The black birch timber grows [text ends here. In ink, in the hand of the artist]

Quantity: 1 watercolour(s).

Physical Description: Watercolour 175 x 250 mm