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DOUGLAS STEWART FINE BOOKS
PARSONS Elizabeth (1831-1897)
Untitled [Pastoral view across St. Kilda and Albert Park] 1885
Watercolour on paper, 240 x 345 mm (image), signed and dated in image l.l. ‘E. Parsons 1885’; small vertical section of discolouration along right section of the image, otherwise very good condition; housed in a hand gilded period style frame by Jarman’s Framing after a design by recognised colonial framer Isaac Whitehead.
Elizabeth Parsons (1831-1897) – also known as Mrs. George Parsons – was a significant but under-recognised female colonial artist working in Melbourne and Victoria in the 1870s and 1880s. She was a founding member of the Australian Artists’ Association. Examples of Parsons’ work are held in the NGA, NGV and SLV.
This attractive plein air watercolour shows a group of girls in a pastoral setting in St Kilda or Prahran, where Parsons resided at the time. To the left is the distinctive silhouette of the Wesleyan Church on Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda (opened in 1858, the four pinnacles visible were removed in the 1960s), to the right are some small sail boats on Albert Park Lake, with Port Phillip visible in the distance.
$5,500