Edward Charles Close - sketchbook of New South Wales views, c. 1817

Edward Charles Close - New South Wales Sketchbook: Sea Voyage, Sydney, Illawarra, Newcastle, Morpeth, c. 1817-1840

Sketchbook of 30 folios (three cut out) containing 26 watercolours, two monochrome wash drawings and six pencil sketches or rough notations, together with a separate ink drawing by another hand and two handwritten sheets of Whatman wove paper (watermarked with the date 1816), bound in morocco.

Except where specifically described, all works are watercolours, and are on single sheets.

Inside front cover 
Rough sketch map of the side of Sydney Harbour. 
Pencil
Inscribed: Bondi Bay (lower right) and with the letter C on the west side of Double Bay. 
Bears supplier’s label: R. ACKERMANNS/ REPOSITORY / Strand, London (top left). 

Panoramic view of Rio de Janeiro from the sea, Sugarloaf and Corcovado mountains Point Sao Joao, a boat with officers in the foreground. 
Double page 

Panoramic view of Madeira from the sea, with a fishing vessel in the foreground and a sailing ship in the distance.
Inscribed `Madeira taken on board the Mattilda [sic] (upper right). 
Double page

Two coastal profiles of the Curtis Group (Curtis Island, Cone Islet and Sugarloaf Rock), Bass Strait. Inscribed Basse’s Straits (upper centre);
Appearance of Sir Roger Curtis’ Isle & peaks as passed at 10 am by Mitilda [sic] (upper centre); Sir Roger Curtis’ Group bearing N.N.E (lower centre)

Two coastal profiles: Porto Santo Island, Atlantic Ocean, and the Kent Group (Deal, Erith and Dover Islands), Bass Strait. 
Inscribed `Porto Santo bearing S – W. to S.E. (upper left); Kent’s Group & Judgement rock Basse’s Straits. E.N.E (centre left)

Two coastal profiles of lIe St Paul, Atlantic Ocean. 
Inscribed: `St Pauls (upper left); NE by E. (upper left); B by N. (upper right); St Pauls (centre left); Bearing N.W. (centre)

Paddle steamer, river’s edge and buildings. 
Pencil
Preliminary sketch for detail of finished watercolour Morpeth, from above the new Steam Co.’s wharf’ (in related sketchbook, National Library of Australia) 

Catalan Bay, Gibraltar, with houses and fishermen in the foreground. Inscribed `Cataline [sic] Bay / Gibraltar’ (upper right)

The Katra Mosque, Murshidabad. Bengal (after an engraving in William Hodges’s Select views in India, 1788, vol. 2 plate 17). 
Inscribed: `View of the Cuttera. built by / Jaffier Cawn at Muxadabad. / East Indies’ (upper right)

Panorama of Hyde Park Barracks and Sydney Hospital, from the Domain. Pencil.
Sketch for finished watercolour in related sketchbook, National Library of Australia. 
Double page 

`Sydney in all its glory’
Inscribed with title (upper right). 
Double page 

Storm above Red Point and the Five Islands, Illawarra, with Aborigines in the foreground. 
Inscribed: `Five Islands’ (upper right)

Lake landscape with settler’s hut and Aborigines. 
Inscribed: `Tom Thumb’s Lagoon’ (upper right)

Lake and mountain landscape with Aborigines in a canoe in the foreground. Inscribed: `Tom Thumbs Lagoon’ (upper right)

Coastal landscape with settler’s hut, Illawarra
Inscribed: `Five Islands’ (upper right)

Settler’s huts and fenced enclosure, with a family of Aborigines, Illawarra. 
Ink and brown wash
Inscribed: `lllawarra’ (upper right). 

View of Newcastle. 
Ink and brown wash

Studies of a hat and two figures - preliminary sketches for ‘The costume of the Australasians’
Pencil

The costume of the Australasians. 
Inscribed with title (lower left)
This drawing is a primary source for the history of clothing in Australia. Distinctive in its social inclusiveness and its tone of amiable satire, it includes rare images of convicts, and records the prisoners’ apparent easy co-existence with free settlers and with their military gaolers. 
Shows a total of ten figures including the Governor’s aide-de-camp Lt John  Watts; an officer; soldier; a bandsman of the 73rd Regiment (McLeod’s Highlanders); wealthy colonial figures; convicts on government service.

Sketch: huts, cart, tree, figure. 
Pencil

Sydney Church and Regimental Mill from the Main Guard. 
Inscribed with title (lower left)

Morpeth, from above the new Steam Co.’s wharf. 
Pencil




Sketch for finished watercolour in National Library sketchbook. 

Panoramic view of Barrack Square, Sydney. 
Pencil, ink and coloured wash
Inscribed: `old Barrack Square’ (upper right). 
Unfinished - closely related to (though not a direct study for) finished watercolour in National Library sketchbook. 

Two portrait studies: John Jacques. Keeper of the Sydney Gaol; and Michael Massey Robinson, Chief Clerk to the Colonial Secretary. 
Inscribed: `Jaques’ (upper left, vertical); `Mich Robinson’ (upper right); `The Poet Laureat [sic]’ (upper right)

Courtroom scene, Sydney: the ‘Philo Free’ civil libel trial, 1 December 1817. Inscribed: `G. Allen’ (upper right, vertical); `G. Crosley’ (upper right, vertical)

The ‘Philo Free’ trial took place in Sydney in 1817 and was the first libel case heard in the colony. In this matter, Rev. Samuel Marsden accused Colonial Secretary John Campbell (no relation to Sophia) of libeling him through a letter published in the Sydney Gazette which suggested that, under the aegis of the Missionary Society, the ‘Christian Mahomet’ had operated as a gun-runner and moonshiner in the Pacific islands; includes caricatures of several notable figures including Marsden at the right, the defendant Campbell on the left and possibly Judge-Advocate John Wylde behind him, as well as the lawyers Frederick Garling, William Moore, George Allen and George Crossley

Forest landscape with kangaroo and waratah

Forest landscape with man chopping wood

Stream running through ravine

Landscape with crops, fence, stream and distant mountains

Landscape with cleared paddocks and homestead under mountains

Artist unknown (probably Francis Allman, 1780-1860), `My house as Police
Magistrate, Goulburn, 1834’
Inscribed with title (upper right); inscribed: `View from the / Church
Yard’ (lower centre) 
Separate sheet

Notes by child of Edward Close (probably Marrianne Collinson Campbell) containing a list of witnesses and a transcription of the beginning of William Bligh’s opening speech, from the court-martial of Major George Johnston, 7th May 1811
Separate sheets

Edward Charles Close - sketchbook of New South Wales views, c. 1817

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