Place:

Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Date:

c. 1869-1870

Historical Information:

Engraving made from a photograph by James Charles Armytage, of Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.

Looking from the New Farm end of Bowen Terrace, across Kangaroo Point, Brisbane River and the Botanic Gardens, to the newly completed Parliament House building which opened in 1868 – suggesting the photograph was taken in Brisbane in 1869-70 and provided to Armytage by Richard Daintree, Agent-General for Queensland in London from 1872.

Provenance:

“Australia” vol. I, 1873; Edwin Carton Booth F.R.C.I. with drawings by (John) Skinner Prout, N. (Nicholas) Chevalier, &c. &c.

About the Artist:

“James Charles Armytage” was an engraver and printmaker.  He regularly engraved drawings by John Ruskin for publication in Ruskin’s books, who regularly praised and thanked Armytage for his “consummate skill and patience” in carrying out the work for him, and described his works as “lovely” and “magnificent”.

It is interesting to note that no other record of “James Charles Armytage” exists. Armytage appears only as “J. C. Armytage” in works and the name may have been mistaken for John Carr Armytage, a landscape engraver (1802-1897).

From the collection of:

The British Library