John Skinner Prout and John Rae: Sydney Illustrated

Editio princeps. In exceptionally rare original colour.

The author's copy, with his signature [John Rae].

With the original watercolour drawing for the title page, signed by the artist [John Skinner Prout].

Sydney Illustrated by J.S. Prout.
With letter press description by J. Rae. M.A.
Sydney and Hobart, [1842-1844] (see note below)

Prout’s earliest Australian book: one of the rarest and best Australian view books.

Condition

First edition, Quarto (355 x 245mm.), lithographed pictorial title page with a vignette of “The Tombs, Garden Island” and 14 plates, all but 3 coloured by hand, 2 double-page, and a double-page map, all backed on linen, 42 pages of text, modern green half morocco.

A rare coloured copy.

With the ownership entries of John Rae (the author of the text), Gladys Hill, and Cecil A. Holland.

“the metropolis of a new world” : Prout’s marvellous views of Sydney

Ferguson notes that "the plates are sometimes found coloured'', citing a presentation copy from Rae. This copy bears his signature on the upper free endleaf, and in addition on the opposite paste-down contains a watercolour by Prout, signed, which has been mounted into the binding. The watercolour is reproduced as the pictorial title to this work. The main difference in the two is that a figure in the foreground of the watercolour is omitted in the printed version.

"John Skinner Prout was the nephew of the more famous Samuel Prout. He was born in England in 1806 and went to Australia in 1840. He returned to England in 1848, where he died in 1876. He was the first artist of any merit to go to Australia, and by his teaching, and by his endeavours to foster an interest in art, he had considerable influence on early Australian painting".

(Abbey)

Abbey devotes some space to a discussion of the date of the work, which was issued in parts, as "the title-page is very difficult to read'' - quite true. He eventually plumps for 1844 (as does Ferguson), though it is clear that the date given on the title-page in this copy ends either with a 3 or 5.

John Skinner Prout was the first important colonial artist to produce a series of fine plate books since the departure from the colony of Augustus Earle. In June 1842 Prout advertised for subscribers to a series of lithographed views of Sydney to be published in parts and to be accompanied by letterpress descriptions by John Rae, the first full-time town clerk of Sydney.

Although virtually the entire work (including the tinted lithographed title-page) was printed in Sydney by “J.S. Prout, Australian Lithographic Establishment”, the last two plates and the map were printed in Hobart by Tasmanian engraver and printer Thomas Bluett. Bluett also printed a plain lithographed title-page with his imprint that is found in the collective issue of the complete work. Prout had visited Tasmania in January 1844 and determined to settle there. While in Hobart he had decided to conclude his obligations to his Sydney subscribers as quickly as possible. Completing the Sydney series on the spot, he made use of Bluett’s recently arrived press to print the final plates and double-page map in Hobart.

“Artistically and historically John Skinner Prout played a most important part in the development of Australian art and of the Australian plate book. Where earlier colonial topographical art had been constrained by the paramount demands of topographical accuracy in the representation of scenery, Prout was more concerned with painting and lithography as a form of art free of the restrictions of topographical convention. Furthermore, his enthusiastic advocacy of the arts helped to educate taste and to spread the popular acceptance of art in the colonies.”

(Wantrup)

Prout’s beautiful and seminal work is perhaps the freest and most artistically successful of all depictions of the city of Sydney.

Provenance

Sotheby's Auction l03625: Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps, London 2003, lot 202.

Literature

Ferguson 3891; Abbey, Travel 576; Wantrup, 227a (requiring revision).

John Rae (1813-1900), public servant, author and painter, was born on 9 January 1813 at Aberdeen, Scotland, son of George Rae, banker, and his wife Jane, née Edmond. Educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, University of Aberdeen (M.A., 1832), he was articled to a firm of solicitors then continued his law studies and literary interests in Edinburgh. Deciding to migrate to Australia in 1839 he became secretary and accountant to the North British Australasian Loan and Investment Co., and arrived in Sydney in the Kinnear on 8 December. Because of unwise land investments the company had almost expired by December 1843.

Sydney's first municipal council meeting was held on 16 November 1842 with a part-time town clerk, C. H. Chambers. Rae, who had declined a similar position in Melbourne, became the first full-time town clerk on 27 July 1843 at a salary of £400, reduced to £300 in December. He was required to be secretary, administrator and chief adviser to the council; he was also legal officer, pioneering the interpretation of the Sydney Corporation Act, and the framing of by-laws and regulations. With substandard office accommodation and inadequate staff, Rae faced a major programme designed to overcome long and serious civic neglect, with the council short of funds, subject to press and public criticism and plagued by 'the fetish for investigation by select committees'. In 1850 the Legislative Council amended the Sydney Corporation Act and provided funds for a specified works programme. In 1843-50 Rae made valuable reports, and at an 1854 inquiry he was regarded as the only constructive witness on public health administration. That year he published a comprehensive index of the Act and amendments.

John Skinner Prout was born on 19 December 1805 in Plymouth, Devon, England. He is the eldest child of John Prout and Maria Skinner. His father was the elder brother of watercolourist Samuel Prout.

Skinner Prout married Maria Heathilla, who was a musician and painter, on 19 June 1828. They had eleven children; six daughters (Matilda born in 1828, Anna Maria born in 1831, Rosa Heathilla born in 1833 and Agnes born in 1838,Mary Frederika and Amy) and five sons (Frederick born in 1834, Victor Albert born in 1835, Edwin born in 1837, Edgar born in 1839 and Mark).

On 3 December 1838, in London, Prout was elected a member of the New Society of Painters in water colours.

Hoping to improve his fortunes Prout emigrated to Australia with wife and eight children, arriving in Sydney 14 December 1840.Amongst the possessions that he brought with him to the colony of New South Wales was a lithographic press, which enabled him to set up the 'J. S. Prout and Co. Australian Lithographic Establishment.'

In the first four years of his residence in Sydney, between 1840 and 1844, Prout undertook a number of sketching tours in the districts around Sydney. Prout followed the route of many artists of the period, journeying west across the Blue Mountains towards Bathurst, south to Broulee and the Illawarra district, and north to Newcastle and Port Stephens. Returning from these travels, Prout would work up his sketches into finished works in lithographs, watercolour and oil paint for sale.

Whilst Prout was a resident in Sydney held exhibitions and presented lectures on the technique of drawing and painting in watercolour. His works original watercolours sold well and he produced a series of lithographic views of the colony, a number of which were in the 1842 publication Sydney illustrated.

Due to the lacklustre market for his works, competition by more established artists such as Conrad Martens, and the depressed economic circumstances of Sydney during the 1840s, Prout and his family moved once more. After a visit to the colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in January he arrived with his family in April 1844.[1] Here Prout was more successful, drawing the patronage of the Governor Sir John Franklin and his wife and held his first exhibition there in 1845.