ARTIST: Harden Sidney Melville (British, Australian, 1824 - 1894)
NAME: Man Plowing Field
MEDIUM: oil on canvas
CONDITION: Relined. One L-shaped 5" long tear in upper right corner repaired with corresponding inpainting. Few minor paint losses. Very minor craquelure. Minor damages to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 21 1/2 x 37 inches / 55 x 93 cm
FRAME SIZE: 28 x 43 inches / 71 x 109 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 120805
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BIOGRAPHY:
A painter and draughtsman of English origin, Harden Melville conducted the first official hydrographic survey of the north-east coast of Australia in 1842-46. He regretted this time given up from the regular practice of painting profession.He was born in London on 8 May 1824, one of the eight children - three boys and five girls - of the London engraver, lithographer and watercolour painter Henry Melville (1826-41) and his wife, Martha Harden. Harden's career as a painter began with lessons from his father and at school but, as he explained in his (third person) autobiographical The Adventures of a Griffin on a Voyage of Discovery Written by Himself (London 1867), he speedily began to regard with conceited contempt the drawing master's copy. He acquired with some readiness the power of drawing from nature, which included a sketching tour.He also earned a medal from the Society of Arts, from the Royal Academy Exhibition. Indeed H.S. Melville had three paintings hung in the Royal Academy's summer show between 1837 and 1841. They were sent in from the same London address as his brother Henry Alfred Melville, then also practicing as a painter.Nevertheless, a considerable body of his Australian work is known. Original shipboard sketches of Pacific subjects are included in John Sweatman 's journal (ML) Bush Scene, Swan River, which is in the National Library. The Adventures of a Griffin contains a frontispiece and twenty-nine other illustrations drawn on the wood by Melville from his original voyage sketches, then cut by H.N. Woods. They include Fern Tree Valley near Hobarton, Wombeyan Cave and other picturesque views. How the Natives Danced the Corrobary was seen and sketched at Port Stephens, while two of the Aboriginal figures in Bush Scene - Port Stephens were, he said, 'taken at Sydney; the rest were taken on the spot'.The National Library of Australia owns two coloured drawings of Elizabeth at exactly this age, which it claims are by Emily Macarthur, following an unconvincing attribution by Susanna de Vries. But such competent portrait sketches were well outside Emily's artistic range and are clearly by a professional artist. They were presumably sold to the library by the distant relative to whom they had been bequeathed by Elizabeth Rothe, the last family member to own them.By 1847 Harden S. Melville was back in London, living at 67 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. On 22 October 1851, Melville married Fanny Beale in the parish of Speen, County of Berkshire. In 1881 there were at least five living children of the marriage: Frances E., another Harden S., Henry B. (an artist), Jessie M. and Lydia. Harden S. Melville died in North London in the second quarter of 1894.