Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: ‘Landing horses from Australia’ (Detail), c. 1834 @ Madras (?), Artist unknown

Walers. Predominantly a mixture of Arab and thoroughbred, were used in the colony and exported for use as remounts by the British Army. The first shipment of 32 left the colony for India in June 1834. These horses were in demand until the 1930s. Artworks such as Landing horse from Australia highlight some of the difficulties associated with this trade. ‘Waler’ became the term commonly used for an Australian horse abroad.

These artworks reveal the spirit of colonial life and the significant role of the horse.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: Party landed from HMS Rattlesnake, 1849, Thomas Huxley

Amateur on-the-spot works, such as Party landed from HMS Rattlesnake by Thomas Huxley, typically depict the horse as part of a significant milestone or novel event. Professional artists were most likely to feature the horse with a standard narrative sequence that may include the departure, early stages of the journey, expedition threatened by adverse conditions, and the return.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: The start of the Burke & Wills exploring expedition from Royal Park, Melbourne, August 20, 1860, 1861. William Strutt

Horsemanship was the key to successful land exploration for much of the nineteenth century. Horses were employed in this field from as early as 1802, when George Caley explored the region west of Sydney, although exploration parties were not usually fully mounted until the late 1840s. Horses participating in expeditions ranged from Timor ponies to the colonial saddle horse the Waler, named after its place of origin, New South Wales. By the 1870s camels were replacing horses to explore the arid inland.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: Bushrangers and police. Sep 17, 1875 (detail), 1875 George Hamilton

It was predominantly stockmen, with their superior horsemanship and bush knowledge, who became bushrangers.

Their horsemanship was central to the bushranging myth with bushrangers often depicted in flight at great speed on their impressive (and often stolen) mounts.

Instances of bushrangers escalated from the mid-nineteenth century. This was due to the discovery of gold in the 1850s and later in the 1960s and 70s, to poor squatters’ sons being drawn to the more exciting and profitable life of the bushranging. Passenger coaches such as Cobb & Co were frequently robbed.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: ‘Outward Bound’ c. 1862 1863; Samuel Thomas Gill

Settlement of outlying regions accelerated during the 1830s and the stockman was increasingly in demand. It is from this period that illustration of stock work begins to appear, mostly produced by amateur artists directly involved in station activities. The drawings in John Stirling’s ‘Sketches in the Station Wyong NSW 1884’ are typical examples. Professional artists including Samuel Thomas Gill and William Strutt depicted this facet of colonial life from the 1860s.

The stockman is often shown rounding up cattle, galloping down a hillside or over rough country, riding out to or returning from stock work, or undertaking duties in cattle yards. In such works as William Strutt’s Black Thursday 1850: The track of death; the mounted stockman is depicted battling the harsh conditions of the Australian bush. Artworks of the late nineteenth century begin to show the stockman in an heroic manner, as in Percy Spence’s View of a man on horseback.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: View of man on horseback (detail), 1892, Percy Frederick Seaton Spence

Settlement of outlying regions accelerated during the 1830s and the stockman was increasingly in demand. It is from this period that illustration of stock work begins to appear, mostly produced by amateur artists directly involved in station activities. The drawings in John Stirling’s ‘Sketches in the Station Wyong NSW 1884’ are typical examples. Professional artists including Samuel Thomas Gill and William Strutt depicted this facet of colonial life from the 1860s.

The stockman is often shown rounding up cattle, galloping down a hillside or over rough country, riding out to or returning from stock work, or undertaking duties in cattle yards. In such works as William Strutt’s Black Thursday 1850: The track of death; the mounted stockman is depicted battling the harsh conditions of the Australian bush. Artworks of the late nineteenth century begin to show the stockman in an heroic manner, as in Percy Spence’s View of a man on horseback.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: ‘Mortimer William Lewis out driving’ c. 1838 – 40, Edward Winstanley

The horse in colonial Australia was employed as a draught animal for agriculture and industry, and as a saddle, pack and carriage animal for leisure, transportation, exploration and livestock management. Artworks by both professional and amateur artists extensively document the horse in these roles. The mounted bushranger and stockmen were particularly popular, along with scenes of the working carriage horse.

Artists depicted the variety of horse-drawn passenger vehicles for Cobb & Co coaches traversing the countryside, to private gigs going about the town. Many of these images reference the composition of British artists whose works were widely available as prints and engravings. For example, F G Lewis and Edward Winstanley’s New Post Office, George Street, Sydney is derived from James Pollard’s coaching prints.

The driving of horse-drawn vehicles was considered a sport when undertaken by a gentleman and was regularly included in the repertoire of colonial artists. Works focusing on other aspects of colonial life, particularly stock work and bushranging, also reference conventions of sporting art in the depiction of the horse in motion.

Featured Image: Stephen Butts on a white horse, Macquarie Street, Sydney c.1850 Joseph Fowles

Portrait commissions of champion racehorses, prized steeplechasers, hunters and blood horses were obtained from the petit bourgeois, the wealthy, and high ranking government officials. These works of portraiture – along with lithographic prints that could be mass-produced and sold to the general public – provided a reliable source of income for a number of artists.

The horse was also depicted in the portraits of colonial residents to enhance the owner’s status as with Commissioner Henry Bingham and publican Stephen Butts (see above). Butts’ portrayal references those of political leaders and royalty who are similarly shown on horseback in oils from the sixteenth century onwards. This painting also demonstrates Butts’ great pride in his possessions.

The white horse appears regularly in colonial equestrian works, and this is likely for two main reasons: the availability of the Arab horses and their symbolic qualities of purity, valour and bravery.

 

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; Equinity in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: ‘Beagle’, an Australian bred horse by Skeleton (imp), the property of Capt. P P King, RN, 1839

During the early nineteenth century, Arab horses and thoroughbreds were brought to the colony in significant numbers for breeding and sports such as racing, steeplechasing and hunting. There was a sharp increase in thoroughbred arrivals from the 1830s when these pursuits were well established.

Portrait commissions of champion racehorses, prized steeplechasers, hunters and blood horses were obtained from the petit bourgeois, the wealthy, and high ranking government officials. These works of portraiture – along with lithographic prints that could be mass-produced and sold to the general public – provided a reliable source of income for a number of artists.

Acknowledgements: © State Library of New South Wales; ‘Equinity’ in the Picture Gallery; Free Exhibition from 8 October 2007 to 13 January 2008.

Featured Image: Nazeer Farrib: A high caste Arab, the property of Jas. Raymond esq. of Varroville, 1846, Edward Winstanley.

During the early nineteenth century, Arab horses and thoroughbreds were brought to the colony in significant numbers for breeding and sports such as racing, steeplechasing and hunting. There was a sharp increase in thoroughbred arrivals from the 1830s when these pursuits were well established.

This increase in blood or pedigree horse ownership generated a significant market for professionally painted equine portraits by English specialists such as Edward Winstanley, Joseph Fowles and Frederick Woodhouse Senior. All arrived in the colony between 1833 and 1858. One British artist Ben Marshall claimed he went to Newmarket because “A man will pay me fifty guineas for painting his horse, who thinks ten guineas too much for painting his wife”.