Title

Some Notes on the Print Trade in Australia in the Nineteenth Century.

Author

Butler, Roger.

Source

Lebovic, Josef. Masterpieces of Australian Printmaking. Sydney: Josef Lebovic Gallery, 1987.

Details

1987, pages 4-5.

Publication date

1987

Type

Exhibition catalogue essay

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Some Notes On The Print Trade In Australia In The 19th Century.
By Roger Butler

The history of the print trade in Australia is yet to be written. But perhaps, with the issuing of this catalogue, the first from Josef Lebovic’s new gallery, it is a good time to begin. These few notes regarding the selling of prints in Australia during the nineteenth century reflect the changing role that printmaking played in Australian society.

Possibly the first printseller of note in the infant colony was the itinerant artist Augustus Earle. On 27 December 1826 he placed the following advertisement in the Sydney Gazette:

MR EARLE has the Honour to acquaint the Public, especially the Lovers of the Fine Arts, and the Gentlemen of the Navy and Army, that he has now at his Disposal, a small, yet interesting and valuable collection of Books, Engravings and Prints (Proofs), by the most eminent Masters, as various as beautiful. For the Information of those who may be disposed to purchase any of these Productions, which are Uniques in this Colony, he has adopted this Circular which describes the Works on Sale, and the Prices he is instructed to take for them, which he conceives will be deemed reasonable, considering the Rarity of the Selections.’1

The works that Earle offered for sale reflected the educated taste that made up the elite of Sydney society. These included:

A Collection of Engravings from paintings and Drawing by the most celebrated Masters …engraved in the best manner by the most eminent Artists in 2 vols. Archaeologia, or miscellaneous Tracts, relating to Antiquity.
Seventeen Sheets of Tapestry, as published by, and under the Direction of the Council of the Society of Antiquaries, London … £1 per sheet. A series of Views illustrative of the Island of St. Helena, by James Wathen, Esq. A Collection of fifty Prints from antique Gems, engraved by Mr John
Spilsbury. Swiss Costumes. Views on the Banks of the Thames, by Westall. With other specimens of the Arts.2

But not all early dealers were as knowledgeable as Earle or had such a potentially discriminating clientele. In his diary entry for 2 May 1831 G.T.W.B. Boyes describes an auction of ‘Books, Prints, Drawings, Etchings, Portraits, etc.’ at the salesroom of J. Brennard, Liverpool Street, Hobart:

The sale room was a miserable place. The Auctioneer — standing very high and a few unwashed artificers crowding around him. He was selling some wretched coloured prints.
‘‘The next lot of gentlemen is some helligant butterflies - these are in much request at home for great people and gentlemen to fill their portfolios with. These will fetch any price in England — what shall we say apiece for these beautiful copper plates (they were lithographic impressions). They are all in hexcellent state and proof plates. Only three pence a piece, bless me, why it is not the value of the plain border — thank you sir three and a half — I shan’t dwell if no advance, going at three and a half, threepence halfpence a piece — going going” Tap.3

The lack of knowledge of prospective buyers, especially those of the working class, was also acknowledged by printmaker John Skinner Prout, who condescendingly wrote:

This class of persons would have to depend on the supply afforded by the colonial market, the importation of which consisted principally of vulgarly-coloured scriptural prints, sporting subjects, unwieldly oxen, etc. etc.

When Prout enquired why better quality prints were not imported from England he was told ‘that the tastes of the people must be considered’. But he continued:

I could not come to the same conclusion; on the contrary, I was of opinion that the introduction of a better class of prints would after a while, not only answer the ends of trade as well as those they had been circulating, but that they would be the means of improving the taste of the people, and thus be doing a great benefit to the community at large.4

However, the sort of print that Skinner Prout described as flooding the market in 1840 was still prevalent in the l860s. The Melbourne dealers Levy Brothers, 24 Bourke Street, offered in 1863:

ENGRAVINGS, coloured, in maple frames — race horses, champion rowers and pugilists, piscatorial subjects, and a large variety of engravings, various subjects, open for inspection . . . Levy Brothers, 24 Bourke street.5

It was not just the type of print that was being imported into the colony that worried local printmakers and art educators, but the quality of the impressions. This became especially evident after the discovery of gold in Victoria when the population increased by 290,000 in eight years bringing an unprecedented demand for pictorial images. Often these prints were purchased just on the strength of the artists’ names, and of a recognition of once familiar subjects, are but the impressions of plates long since worn out . . . defaced plates are bought up by the exporters of Houndsdith, and fudged up to produce cheap prints for the colonies.6

To some extent this lack of comparative examples was rectified by the inclusion of many prints in popular trade exhibitions. The first of these, the Australian Intercolonial Exhibition, was held in Melbourne in 1866 and there followed similar exhibitions in Sydney and other regional cities.

Chromolithographs became the fashion in the 1860s. A few such as those in N. Chevalier’s Album of Chromolithographs were produced locally, but most were imported. Ads like the following were common:

ENGRAVINGS and CHROMOLITHOGRAPHS — Just received, a large assortment. Norton’s frame manufactory, 80 Collins-street east.7

Another frame maker (and painter) who was also a print importer and seller was Isaac Whitehead. In 1869 he exhibited engravings and chromolithographs at an exhibition organised by the Melbourne Public Library and Art Gallery. But he was well aware of changing trends and by 1870 he was advertising as an importer of Engravings, Photogravures and Etchings.8

The selling of prints and photographs was seen as part and parcel of the same trade as many advertisements made clear. They were also liable to the same marketing forces. The economic recession which began in the late 1 880s caused some printsellers who had speculated on increasing demand to go bankrupt, their stock often being sold at auctions such as this one conducted by Gemmell Tuckett and Co.:

Superb Collection of Artists’ Proof
Engravings, Etchings and Photogravures.
Photographs (coloured and plain),
Crystoleum Paintings, Art Chromos. A
Magnificent Collection. The Pick of the
English and Continental Markets. For
Positive and Unreserved Sale. A Great
Opportunity for all Lovers of Art,
Housekeepers, Printsellers, and Others.9

The late l880s also saw print sellers beginning to exhibit works by ‘painter-etchers’. One of the first to sell these artists’ etchings was Buxton’s Artistic Stationery Co., the gallery which hosted the 9 x 5 Impressions Exhibition of 1889.

Two years previously the company had advertised Artists’ Proof Engravings, Etchings and Photogravures and in 1890 Mr Buxton announced that he would be pleased to show visitors his portfolio of ‘the now popular and artistic Copperplate Etching’. I0

In 1892 the Melbourne printers and print-sellers Fergusson and Mitchell Limited tried to clear up the confusion regarding the different kinds of prints being offered for sale. Their publications Artists’ Proofs; what they are and how to distinguish them; Mezzotinto: Its Birth, Glory, Decadence and Renascence and What Etchings are and how to make them, not only explained different printmaking techniques but gave advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of collecting, These were publications for serious collectors and the company reminded their customers that they

do not keep, and decline to receive orders for, or in any way deal in the popular Racing, Trotting, Smirking Miss, Goody- Goody Children, and Comic Cat and Dog Subjects — they confine themselves to High Art productions only.” 11

These included works by members of The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, Fergusson and Mitchell Limited being the appointed agents to the Society’s publisher, Mr Robert Dunthorne.

By 1900 the Fine Art Department of Robertson & Moffat had become agents for Robert Dunthorne as well as The Autotype Company, Arthur Tooth & Sons, and Frederick Hollyer.

We are told that their folios

contain a magnificent selection of High class Original Etchings in the Rarest States. Examples by Albert Dur,er, Rembrandt, Sir F. Seymour Haden, J.M. Whistler, D.Y. Cameron, Frank Short, Professor Legros, Meissonier, C.J. Watson, W. Strang and other noteable engravers of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. 12

It will be noticed that no Australian prints are listed in these print dealers’ advertisements. These were not usually stocked by print dealers but were sold directly by the artist, publisher or sold from art society exhibitions. Rarely could these distributors boast of a stock.
Early in the twentieth century art dealers began to represent the work of Australian artists as well as those from England, Europe and the United States and so began the Australian print trade as we know it today.

© Roger Butler
Curator of Australian Prints
Australian National Gallery

 

Footnotes

I. Sydney Gazette (5ydney), 27 December 1826.
2. Sydney Gazette (5ydney), 27 December 1826.
3. Peter Chapman (ed), The Diaries and Letters of G, T. W.B. Boyes, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986, p.197. (John McPhee kindly drew my attention so this reference.)
4 .Art Union (London), 1848, p.332. (Tim Bonyhady kindly drew my attention to this reference.)
5. Argus (Melbourne), 25 July 1863, p.8, col.3.
6. News Letter of Australasia (Melbourne), no.6, December 1856.
7. Argus (Melbourne), 26 September 1863, p.3, col.7.
8. Works of Art, Ornament and Decorative Items Exhibited by Trustees of Melbourne Public Library and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 1869, cat, no. 18. 8 chromolithographs; Exhibition of British Art, Melbourne 1890.
9. Argus (Melbourne), 17 December 1889, p.3, col.3.
10. Australian Artists Association Summer Exhibition, Melbourne 1887; Exhibition of British Art, Melbourne 1890, p.69.
11. What Etchings Are and How to Make Them, Melbourne: Fergusson & Mitchell Ltd, c 1842 p.24.
12. See advertisement in Joshua Lake, Childhood in Bud and Blossom, Melbourne: Atlas Press, 1900. An impression of whistler’s Greenwich Park 1859 now in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra had the Robertson & Moffat label attached to the original frame.

 

Last Updated

25 Oct 2023