Maritime, Port Adelaide c.1882, Louis Henn & Co, Currie Street, Adelaide, SA, Tallships, Settlers, commerce, giclee

Archival Limited Edition giclee on 100% cotton paper after the original double-tint lithograph published by Henn & Co. for his series titled “Twenty-one miscellaneous Views of Adelaide", 76 Currie Street, Adelaide c.1882 -1884.

Issued with a limited edition numbered /300 certificate.

Size of image = 32.5cm x 24.5 cm (13 x 9 3/4 inch)

Port Adelaide, South Australia

The scene shows at least 25 masts of sloops, cutters, schooners, clippers, yachts, carrying migrant and trade goods, six miles from the town center of Adelaide. A cluster of empty tenders (rowboats) await use in the foreground. The Port of this planned colony was an integral part of Surveyor General, Colonel William Light’s plan to lay out a functional, healthy settlement for this prototype British freely settled experiment of South Australia. Light had taken up Captain John Finlay Duff's offer to use his ship, the Africaine, to search for the best location of the city, and an accessible port was essential. (Duff, on his return to London, christened his daughter Charlotte Light Duff, such was his regard for the embattled Colonel William Light)

Louis Henn & Company

Louis Henn first set up in Hobart, Tasmania in 1877. He then moved his lithographic printing house to Adelaide South Australia in 1882. Until 1885 he was located at 76 Currie Street. illustrating features of this 50-year-old colony in the city and hinterland. From 1886 the business relocated to Gouger St. As the series was undesignated as to artist and/or lithographer I had assumed he had taken on both duties. Then a client informed me that her husband’s ancestor, Frederick Sear, had been the lithographer. He had bought into the business but left after “the Burn’s note” and “Krug Label” incidents. I have since pulled that intriguing string and it has a most surprising ending in Auckland Art Gallery.