Rare lithograph of the Western District from United Kingdom 1860 – AA1832

 
Australia : Farm and sheep washing

Anon (for Working Men’s Educational Union)

London
The Working Men’s Educational Union, King William Street, n.d. [circa 1860]. Coloured lithograph wall hanging printed on calico, 880 x 1200 mm, the lower left hand corner stamped Working Mens Educational Union. King William St, Trafalgar Square, London, and numbered 124 below; verso with contemporary manuscript caption at upper edge: Australia – Farm and sheep washing; original brass eyelets at each corner with original sewn in linen loops for hanging; original fold lines (three horizontal and three vertical);
the banner is in a remarkably good state of preservation, the colours still strong and vibrant.

A philanthropic organisation founded in London in 1853, the Working Men’s Educational Union provided free education for the working classes through public lectures at different venues across the city.

The wall hanging with colonial rural scene which we offer here would have been used as part of a display illustrating a lecture on the Antipodes. The rugged mountain rising abruptly from the plain in the background is reminiscent of the volcanic landscape of the Western District of Victoria,

a major sheep farming region from the 1840s onwards. The graphic is almost certainly after a published lithograph, possibly one which appeared in a journal such as the Illustrated London News. Although the original artist is unidentified, it seems reasonable to speculate that this homestead was nestled somewhere at the foot of the Grampians in western Victoria.

The National Library of Australia holds twelve similar lithographic wall hangings commissioned by the Working Men’s Educational Union (Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK801) which illustrate gold mining subjects.

However, this particular scene of sheep washing appears to be unrecorded.

The Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand holds four lithograph wall hangings bearing the Working Men’s Educational Union stamp. These depict scenes titled Panning for gold; Missionary distributing Bibles to Taranaki Maoris; Interior of Otaki Church (after Charles Decimus Barraud), and War dance before the pah of Ohinemutu, near Rotorua Lake (after George French Angas; in turn, after Joseph Jenner Merrett).

88 cm x 120 cm