Augusta Painting (1830)
Painted on linen, this watercolour by Thomas Turner is one of the earliest paintings in the special artwork collection and is the first representation by an early European settler of Augusta, in the south west of Western Australia.
Thomas Turner was born in England in 1813 and settled with his parents in 1830 at Augusta, Western Australia where he began to draw and paint the local scenery. He gained some training in survey work and in 1836 he explored, surveyed and mapped the district of Augusta and the Vasse. Thomas married Elizabeth Heppingstone in 1846 and continued to live in the district until they, with their children, relocated to Victoria in 1852.
Also held by the library are pencil sketches and watercolours of his homes in England, Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. The WA content includes houses at Fremantle, Augusta, Cape Leeuwin, Vasse, Dunsborough, Toby's Inlet and St Mary's Church, Dunsborough.
Other Turner artworks, including a surviving Turner map titled Map of County Sussex WA 1851, are held in the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
The Treasure
A painting of Augusta by Thomas Turner
Further Reading
Bell, Leita, Turner's Augusta, Augusta, WA, 1995.
Chapman, Barbara, The Colonial Eye: A Topographical and artistic record of the life and landscape of Western Australia, 1798-1914, Perth, WA: The Art Gallery of Western Australia, 1979.
Links
- Heritage Council of Western Australia - (Heritage Trails Augusta-Busselton)