Australian Prints

Richard Browne’s Newcastle, in New South Wales with a distant view of Point Stephen 1812 and another of his engravings, View of the Hunters River, near Newcastle, from the same date, are the earliest prints in the collection. There are almost fifty prints from the colonial era in the works on paper holdings and many of these, like Browne’s engravings, relate to the early history of the Hunter region. Prints by Walter Preston and Joseph Lycett are strongly represented along with works by J. H. Clark and John Skinner Prout. The collection also contains many of the other images by S. T. Gill and Eugène von Guérard that circulated throughout Australia and Britain, representing picturesque views of colonial landscapes and life on the gold fields. Such prints are important historical documents but because of the great rarity of material for this period the collecting focus has been on items relevant to the region.