Giclee, S.E. Extremity of South Australia to Illustrate Governor G. Grey’s Expedition, 1844 Schank, Coorong, George French Angas, GovernorGeorge Grey, Expedition, Mount Gambier

Archival Quality Limited Edition of original engraving by John Arrowsmith (1790-1873) for the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society by John Murray, Albermarle St, London, 1845.

Conservation Limited Edition Giclee /300

Size of chart  = 33cm x 50cm (13 x 19.7 inches) 

Illustrations engraved after sketches by George French Angas (1822-1886) accompanied Grey as the official artist. This trip was integral to gathering pictorial illustrations that was to populate his ambitious publication SOUTH AUSTRALIA ILLUSTRATED that was subsequently published in 1846-7 in London.

The surprising discovery of substantial dwellings by the lakes, turned out to be inhabited by two nephews of a Tasmanian Governor who had heard of this, hitherto officially undiscovered coast. American sealers & whalers who visited the the South Australian waters to plunder the oceans, no doubt visited some public houses (inns) in Hobart, an shared knowledge of the black soil and healthy grassed landsapes. It seems these young men and their families had purchased cattle in the Port Phillip Bay area and drove them westward to those fields of good lush green feed and permanent water in the lakes. On discovering their comfortable prior habitation of the district, Governor George Grey was pleased to inform them this was now the Colony of South Australia with a governing body that will hence forth be collecting taxes to supply services to the region...eventually.

The illustrations of two Volcanic Craters were preliminary sketches by George French Angas that are later lithographed back in London for his publication SOUTH AUSTRALIA ILLUSTRATED published in 1846-47: "The Devil Punch Bowl near Mt Schank" and "Mount Gambier, and one its volcanos Lakes (after sunset)"

Thomas Burr was the Deputy Surveyor General on the expedition who measured the elevations of two volcanic mountains illustrated on the map of the expedition. Grey writes in the Expedition Account on June 1844, ”…and the enclosed sketch by Mr. F. Angas, a young artist who accompanied me, represents very faithfully one of the most remarkable of another species of craters, which are very numerous in this country and which are filed with fresh water, and are almost unfathomable”