EUGENE VON GUERARD

Commissioned from the artist by John Ware of 'Yalla-Y-Poora', Beaufort, Victoria; thence by descent to his daughter Annie Roger Robinson, 'Yalla-Y-Poora'; thence by descent to her son John Ware Robinson of 'Nar Darak', Molesworth, Victoria. His gift to the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Melbourne in 1964.

Antique Dealers' Fair 1965
Wangarratta Arts Festival 1966
Jubilee Celebrations of the Independent Church, Collins Street, Melbourne (no date); Panorama of Australian Painting, Xavier Preparatory School, Melbourne, 1968, no. 22 as Tasmanian Lakes
Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by Eugene von Guérard, Clune Galleries, Sydney, October 1972, cat. 23 (label on the reverse)
Australian Art in the 1870s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 25 June 1976 and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 28 October- 21 November 1976, cat. 31 as Great Lake in Tasmania (label on the reverse)
Tasmanian Vision: The Art of Nineteenth Century Tasmania, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1 January - 21 February 1988 and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, 16 March - 1 May 1988, cat. 211 as The Great Lake, Tasmania (label on the reverse)
On loan to the Geelong Art Gallery, February 2000 - June 2007

C. F. Nicholls (ed.), Victorian Men of the Time, McCarron Bird, Melbourne, 1877, p. 75
Alexander Henderson, Early Pioneer Families of Victoria and Riverina, McCarron Bird, Melbourne, 1936, pp. 535-545
Daniel Thomas, Australian Art in the 1870s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1976, cat. 31
Candice Bruce, Edward Comstock and Frank McDonald, Eugene von Guerard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alistair Taylor, Maryborough, NZ, 1982, cat. 153, p. 265, pl. 43, illus.
Hendrik and Juliana Kolenberg, Tasmanian Vision: The Art of Nineteenth Century Tasmania, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1988, cat. 24, p. 90, illus.

Von Guérard's Great Lake, Tasmania is one of the defining images of wilderness in 19^th century Australian art. It is one of the artist's largest paintings, completed in 1875 after his second visit to Tasmania and painted at the pinnacle of a long and successful career. It is the only Australian view of the three panoramic canvases painted by von Guérard in the mid to late 1870s, the other two being the New Zealand views, Lake Wakatipu, Mt Earnslaw, N.Z. 1877 (Auckland City Art Gallery) and Milford Sound, with Pembroke Peak and Bowen Falls 1877 (Art Gallery of New South Wales).

In 1870 von Guérard was at the height of his career, though financial security still eluded him, necessitating his acceptance of the post of Instructor of Painting and Master of the School of Art at the newly named National Gallery of Victoria, a position he held concurrently with that of Curator.

However, these responsibilities restricted both his travelling and his output for the duration of that decade, and he is thought to have undertaken only two trips - to Tasmania in 1875 and New Zealand in 1876 - both during the summer when the climate was more benign and the school and gallery were in recess. This was in sharp contrast to the annual, sometimes even bi-annual, trips he had taken in the two preceding decades. Age may also have been a contributing factor, for although he was still a remarkably fit sixty-four, he no longer attempted the long and physically challenging trips of earlier years.

After his first trip to Tasmania in 1855, von Guérard had produced two canvases, the most important being a picturesque view of the small settlement of Hobart from Kangaroo Point (now Bellerive) with a snow-capped Mount Wellington behind. The whereabouts of a second canvas, Tasman's Island 1857, is unknown and, although three other Tasmanian views were included in the artist's 1867-68 book of lithographs, it seems no other Tasmanian paintings were completed from this first trip. 

At this time, von Guérard was still establishing his reputation and determining his market. He was more adventurous than his artistic contemporaries Thomas Clark and Nicholas Chevalier and by venturing out from the settled areas, he helped to establish a taste for views of the wilderness and to familiarise the average colonist with areas that were otherwise inaccessible. His skill in the outdoors - he traversed some of the most rugged parts of south-eastern Australia on foot and horseback - were formidable.

The Great Lake lies to the east of Cradle Mountain in the Central Highlands of Tasmania and is the highest lake in Australia. In von Guérard's day and until the drowning of Lake Pedder in 1972, it was also the largest freshwater lake in Australia. It is still one of the most important natural wetlands in Australia and is home to at least eleven rare or threatened species of aquatic flora. Today the area is renowned for its excellent fishing and boating and draws visitors from around the world.

In 1875 von Guérard approached the lake from the south travelling via Bothwell, where he drew the Clyde Falls on 27 January, and the homestead `Dungrove' on 27 and 28 January, arriving at the Great Lake on 31 January. He drew the lake looking north from Old Man's Head (near present-day Miena) with the Central Plateau on the left. He stayed one day and night, moving on to draw nearby Arthur's Lake on 1 February.

With this canvas von Guérard has painted a truly Sublime work, filled with all the signifiers of that style: a wide panoramic view lit by the sun, grand mountain peaks and a dramatic, cloud-filled sky. Von Guérard was a master of composition. Here he has divided the canvas into three distinct layers: the detailed foreground of massive boulders and dense vegetation; a middle ground of marshy low-lying land; and the distant, heavily-forested peaks which drift away to a lighter expanse of open country.

Two figures, one in a red shirt, in the centre of the canvas huddle around a small campfire. The prominent dead tree that leads the eye towards the central horizon was perhaps intended to symbolise the irrecoverable past, for von Guérard was deeply conscious of the impact that European expansion was having upon his adopted homeland.

Great Lake, Tasmania appears to have been commissioned by the pastoralist John Ware, with whose family the artist had close ties. According to Alexander Henderson's Early Pioneer Families of Victoria and Riverina, (1936), the three Ware brothers, Jeremiah George (1818-1859), Joseph (1820-1895) and John (1827-1891) between them held vast tracts of land in the Western District of Victoria, von Guérard painting views of both `Koort-Koort-nong' 1860, (National Gallery of Australia), painted in memory of Jeremiah George, who had died the previous year in a riding accident, and `Yalla-y-Poora' 1864, (The Joseph Brown Collection, National Gallery of Victoria). A version of Spring in the Valley of the Mitta Mitta 1866 was also commissioned by the family, the other being given to the National Gallery of Victoria by Sir Alexander Michie. Finally, on the same trip to Tasmania in 1875, the artist also painted a view of  `Dungrove', the old Ware property in Bothwell, Tasmania, though it is unclear whether Joseph Ware Senior or any Ware descendants still lived at the property then. Family fable has it that John Ware accompanied the artist on the trip to the Great Lake and these are perhaps the two tiny figures depicted in the painting. Great Lake Tasmania hung in the homestead at `Yalla-Y-Poora' for almost one hundred years, before being gifted by the Ware family to the National Trust of Victoria. Proceeds of its sale will be used to found a new endowment fund for the Trust properties in Victoria and specifically `Como House' at South Yarra.

We are most grateful to Dr Candice Bruce for providing this catalogue essay. We also thank John Jones for assistance in researching the early provenance of the painting.