Australia.- New South Wales convict artist.- Browne (Richard, Dublin 1771-1824 Sydney) Memora, watercolour and bodycolour with traces of pencil under-drawing, inscribed 'Memora' underneath in black ink, on cream 'S & C Wise' wove paper with watermarked date '1814', sheet 300 x 240 mm (11 3/4 x 9 1/2 in), repaired tear in the lower right corner, some minor surface dirt and light browning to extremities, expertly lifted from blue-paper album leaf, still present, itself part of a Victorian folio scrap album included in the present lot containing over 200 scraps and cuttings, including one very trimmed watercolour study of a bird, possibly by Browne or someone in his circle, many leaves missing, largely disbound, covers present but with losses, very worn, [circa 1817-1820]

Provenance:
Mrs W. H. Butler, Tulse Hill [compiler of scrap album]

⁂ An excellent example of both the European colonial perspective of Aboriginal people during the early settlement of New South Wales, as well as of Browne's highly distinctive drawing style.

Richard Browne was born in 1776 in Ireland, and little is known of his artistic training or background. However, it is recorded that in February 1810 Browne was tried for an unspecified crime and sentenced to seven years transportation. He arrived in New South Wales in July 1811, and was then sent to Newcastle, specifically a penal settlement for convicts who had committed further crimes in the colony.

Browne appears to have been quickly identified for his idiosyncratic artistic abilities, with LieutenantThomas Skottowe, commandant of the 73rd Regiment at Newcastle, employing him to illustrate his manuscript 'Select Specimens from Nature' (now in the Mitchell Library, see IE no. IE1015287). He was recorded to have undertaken several other artistic commissions during his sentence but was to become best known for his portraits of Aboriginal people, which he later sold as souvenirs in Sydney on his release in 1817.

Two other examples by Browne of the figure 'Memora' are known, with the National Library of Australia holding one (see ID no. 1260587), and the other having appeared on the Australian art market in 2010 (see Bonham's Sydney, 'The Spring Auction Series', 14th Nov 2010, lot 425). The drawing offered in the present lot would appear to be closest to the watercolour sold in 2010, with the National Library of Australia version seeming slightly cruder in execution. The main noteworthy difference between the present portrait and the other two, is the expressive demeanour and the artist's depiction of his character; rather than a grinning smile, the present portrait shows Memora stoic and unsmiling, giving the work a nobility more akin to a colonial record than a caricature.