Barraud, Charles Decimus, 1822-1897 :[Two men overlooking Te Aute Lake Hawkes Bay] 1865.

Shows two horsemen with their horses and a dog, one man standing and using a telescope. Both men are looking down from the raised foreground towards part of a horseshoe-shaped lake, and beyond, through a dip in small hills, to another lake in the distance. There is a range of higher hills at the left, stretching away into the far distance. There are sparse cabbage trees growing on the low-lying peninsula in the nearer lake.

A view from the same spot as Barraud's engraving 'Te Aute Lake, Hawke Bay', in his 'New Zealand graphic and descriptive' (London, 1877) on page 23. The accompanying commentary reads 'The lake shown in our sketch, was in 1818, the scene of a terrible disaster to the Hawke Bay natives, inflicted by a war party of the Ngapuhi, led by the great chief Tamati Waka Nene. On the approach of the invaders nearly the whole of the older people with the women and children fled to an island in the Te Aute Lake ... An excellent view of the Te Aute Lakes is obtained from the present line of railway between Napier and Waipukurau ...'

While visiting Te Aute in 1865, Barraud visited Rev Samuel Williams and may have stayed with him. He may be one of the men in this view.

The work was titled Landscape with two horsemen when it was copied by the Library in the 1970s, while still in private ownership. There was and is no title on the work itself. The identification of the men as surveyors appears to be a later suggestion.

Te Aute Lake was drained by Europeans, possibly in the 1880s.

Other Titles - Landscape with two horsemen 1866. Surveyors [former titles]

Inscriptions: Verso - centre left - Molesworth Page 81, I35; Backing board recto - centre - Item seven referred to in Deed dated 17/10/75 executed by P E Smith

Quantity: 1 watercolour(s).

Physical Description: Watercolour, 482 x 660 mm (sight)

Provenance: Previously owned by Russell Smith, a descendant of William Mein Smith.