John Skinner Prout - Australian lithographs 1842-1847

John Skinner Prout: @Broulee & Illawarra 1841-44 | Australian lithographs 1842-47 | Broulee 2021

John Skinner Prout (1805-1876) was resident in Australia (New South Wales and Tasmania) between 14 December 1840 - April 1848 (Hodgman 1967). During that period he published three series of lithographic prints. These are listed below, along with known miscellaneous printings. Prior to coming to Australia, Prout had published a number of series of picturesque landscape and town lithographic views of English localities such as Monmouthshire and Chester. He was especially skilled in the use of watercolour. Whilst in Australia Prout continued this work, supporting a large family through the sale of artworks and prints, alongside teaching and lecturing. After his return to England some of his Australian work was reproduced as engravings in a settler account (Bowditch 1851) and a general pictorial history of the colony (Booth 1873-76).

Just missed out.....

I had been interested in John Skinner Prout since the 1980s, when I was studying the colonial period art of the Illawarra district of New South Wales, where I grew up. During July 1841 and 1843-44 Prout had visited both Wollongong and Broulee, both located on the coast south of Sydney, and many of his views of the two sites appeared in E.C. Booth's Australia Illustrated during the 1870s. I had compiled a list of these works back in 2000. At the time I noted the existence of a rare lithograph of Wollongong Harbour produced by Prout whilst in Hobart sometime around 1847, just prior to his leaving Australia. More recently, in August 2021 I came across a 2018 auction sale of one of these prints. This spurred me on to return to the work of Skinner Prout and obtain a better knowledge of his Australian lithographs, in order to put the Wollongong Harbour work in context. Whilst carrying out that research - the result of which is presented below - I searched for sale items on sites such as eBay and Invaluable. In one instance, on eBay I came across a damaged lithographic print of Sydney that I was unfamiliar with. I subsequently discovered it was printed in Hobart by T. Bluett in 1844, and missed out by a couple of hours on securing it. Such is life....

Sydney Illustrated 1842-44

Issued in four parts with 14 lithographed plates between 1842-1844, with 42 pages, 15 leaves of tinted views and untinted lithographs (3 folded), plus illustrations and a map of Sydney Harbour, published in Sydney. Titled: Sydney Illustrated by J.S. Prout, with letter press description by J. Rae. Reissued in a limited edition of 750 copies by Tyrrel, Sydney, 1948, 102p. Therein, all the images were trimmed. The first three parts were published by Kemp and Fairfax, Sydney. Prout had arrived in Australia with some printing equipment and early in 1841 set up the J.S. Prout and Co., Australian Lithographic Establishment, O'Connell Street, Sydney. At some point he was assisted in Sydney, and later in Hobart, by emigrant printer Thomas Bluett, previously of Day and Haghe, London (Barton 2006). For example, the two large plates and frontispiece of part four were printed by Bluett in Hobart, from November 1843 through 1844. The quality of Sydney Illustrated was criticised by the press in Sydney at the time of its initial release, due in part to the problems Prout encountered in securing appropriate paper upon which to print the lithographs.

The lithographs of parts I, II and III were printed in Sydney during 1842 in two colours - black to present the image and text, along with a cream background tint. The size of the image was 18.2 x 26.4 cm on sheets 27.2 x 37.6 cm. Many of these were subsequently trimmed and subject to contemporary or later colouring with watercolour. The two lithographs of Part IV were printed in Hobart during 1844 on larger sheets.

A folding map of Sydney Harbour by Prout was included, with a key to the location of the various views, number #1 to #15.

* Wrapper cover image - group of three Aborigines by a fire, engraving. Used for Parts I & II.

* Wrapper cover image - group of eight Aborigines, engraving. Used for Part III. Text: Part III. / Price 10/6. / Sydney / Illustrated / By / J.S. Prout. / Member of the New Society of Water Colours, London / With / Descriptive Letter Press / By / John Rae A.M. / Sydney / MDCCCXLIII.

* Frontispiece, vignette. The Tombs, Garden Island, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #15. Text: Sydney Illustrated / By J.S. Prout. / With Letterpress Description By / John Rae M.A.

* Sydney Cove, looking north, tinted lithograph, 1842. Trimmed view illustrated below. Map - #1.

* Woolloomooloo Bay, Sydney, tinted lithograph, 1842. Untrimmed, original two colour plate, plus coloured version also illustrated. Map - #2.

Woolloomooloo Bay, pencil sketch study, Art Gallery of New South Wales.

* Millers Point, looking north-west, from the Flagstaff Hill, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #3.

* Port Jackson, from Dawe's Battery, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #4.

Port Jackson from Dawes Battery, oil on canvas.

* Sydney Cove looking south [Campbell's Wharf], Sydney Cove, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #5.

* Lower Falls, Willoughby, North Shore, Sydney, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #6.

* Sydney, from Mrs Darling's Point, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #7.

* New Government House, Sydney, lithograph, 1842. Map - #8.

* The Heads of Port Jackson, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #9.

The  Heads of Port Jackson, pencil sketch, Art Gallery of New South Wales.

* Port Jackson from Vaucluse, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #10.

* Cockatoo Island, Parramatta River, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #11.

* View in George Street, Sydney, tinted lithograph, 1842. Map - #12.

* The City of Sydney, N.S.W., Sydney from North Shore, tinted lithograph, 1844, 23.5 x 44.2 cm, printed by T. Bluett, Hobart. Part IV of Sydney Illustrated. Map - #13.

* The City of Sydney, N.S.W., from the government paddock, Paramatta Street, tinted lithograph, 1844, 23.5 x 44.2 cm, printed by T. Bluett, Hobart. Part IV of Sydney Illustrated. Map - #14.