Augustus Earle in the Illawarra 1827
Now Bumberry Curren's pleasant vales and Appin's plains are past And Illawarra Mountain steep we've got safe o'er at last.... (Augustus Earle 1827) Augustus Earle was a wandering English journeyman artist - a watercolourist, lithographer and portrait painter who specialised in landscapes and figurative studies of native peoples, along with formal portraits in oil and watercolour. He was resident in New South Wales, Australia, at various times between 1825-8. He visited the Illawarra, located on the coast approximately 50 miles south of Sydney, during April - May 1827. At the time Earle was seeking picturesque landscapes and peoples for his art. As a result, he p roduced a series of watercolour sketches and developed some of these into a later oil painting dated 1838. The quote at the head of this article is a p iece of doggerel verse written whilst recuperating at Appin after falling off his horse and breaking his leg whilst returning to Sydney...