Giclee, South Australia, Landscape, Mount Lofty, Eugene von Guerard.

Title: "Top of Mount Lofty, near Adelaide" (Painted in 1858)

Technique: Archival Quality Limited Edition Giclee of an original tri-color lithograph after a painting by Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901). The original was lithographed and printed by Hamel & Ferguson (Julius Hamel & John Ferguson), a Melbourne based printer operating between 1865-1889. They became best known for printing von Guerard's "Australian Landscapes" in 1866-67 & S.T. Gill's "Australian Sketchbook" in 1865.

Description: This landscape view looks north to the Barossa Ranges seen on the horizon. The artist painted this scene in 1858. Massive rocks and dead, ghostly trunks, populate the near foreground. Looking past the boulders & the result of the hunting expedition, is a scene of eucalyptus-covered hills and dark valleys stretching as far as the eye can see. In amongst this sense of space is an intimate scene in the left foreground, of three men & two dogs tending to a kangaroo laying before them. Indeed, the artist, Eugene von Guerard, is recording the dramatic end of a successful kangaroo hunt. The sky is to the right is full of heavy cloud. To the far left we see clear blue sky. In his own words he described the scene's location, “Within an hour’s (carriage of horse) ride of the city of Adelaide, Mount Lofty offer to the tourists an easily accessible elevation of about 2,400 feet, from which he commands a prospect of considerable extent & rare beauty”

Size of image = 46.5cm x 29.5cm (18 1/2 x 11 2/3 inch)

Archival Edition Limited to 300 each image. Issued with numbered certificate.

Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) was born in Vienna, Austria. He had studied painting at the Dusseldorf Academy where he was introduced to the epic imagery of the German Romantic Landscape tradition. After arriving in in the Australian Colony of Victoria in 1851, it had recently separated from New South Wales & gold fever was sweeping the landscape. Like many, he had little success in gold, but much more with his artistic skill-set. He spent the next 30 years traveling and recording this new country. When Hamel & Ferguson published "Eugene von Guerard's Australian Landscapes" in 1866-67, it not only established their reputation as lithographic printers. For his accomplishments von Guerard was considered the major landscape artist of the nineteenth century in Australia. The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) offered him the honor of First Master of the School of Painting, a great honor indeed.