John Glover British, 1767-1849

Glover first visited the Lake District in the north of England in 1793 – by which time the area was already an enormously popular destination for tourists in search of the 'picturesque'. His surviving sketchbooks show that he made at least nine tours between 1793 and 1824; and, from about 1818 to 1821, he owned a house there – 'Blawick Farm' on Ullswater.¹ When he came to Australia in 1831 he named his property in northern Tasmania 'Patterdale', in memory of the village at the south end of Ullswater that he had known so well.

This large 'exhibition watercolour' is comparable with a number of others by Glover depicting picturesque views in Britain. It is a little smaller than Falls on the Conway, c. 1809, now in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, but closely comparable in subject matter and spirit.² As David Hansen points out, Glover's London reputation was made with his exhibition watercolours in the early 1800s.

We are most grateful to Dr David Hansen for assistance in cataloguing this work.

1. Hansen, D., John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 2003, p. 172.

2. Op. cit., cat. 30, 75.7 by 113 cm; illus. p. 159.