The Jetty at Mornington, Port Phillip Bay, Australia.

Mornington Peninsula: late 19th century.

Watercolour, 280 x 489 mm, professionally mounted, signed lower left R. Clark.

Schnapper Point: the jetty at Mornington

This idyllic late-nineteenth-century Australian painting shows the jetty at Mornington, 40 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, and resonates with rich Australian historical content; it captures a fleeting moment in a place now forever changed. Only through the existence of paintings like this that encompass such details of local character is it truly possible to glean even a small understanding of the everyday life of early settlers at the end of the nineteenth century.

This idyllic late-nineteenth-century Australian painting shows the jetty at Mornington, 40 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, and resonates with rich Australian historical content; it captures a fleeting moment in a place now forever changed. Only through the existence of paintings like this that encompass such details of local character is it truly possible to glean even a small understanding of the everyday life of early settlers at the end of the nineteenth century.

In current research for a forthcoming book on colonial Frankston, Dr Jane Eckett from the University of Melbourne, has confirmed the artist to be John Clifton Rowland Clark (1860-1908),  who often signed his work "R. Clark". Clark was born in England, the third child of Joseph Henry Clark and Rachel Rowland, of Altwood House, Maidenhead, Berkshire. In 1883 he married Agnes Flora Wann in New Zealand, with whom he had two daughters. The family moved to Victoria, living at Sorrento then Grey Street, St Kilda.

Clark is represented today by only a handful of works held by the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery and the State Library of Victoria.  "The Mornington Peninsula has been a well-known haven for artists from the 1850s and many of Australia's best known artists have produced memorable works based on the distinctive coastal environment of the region. Highlights of the Gallery's regional collection include three early watercolours of Sorrento township by Roland Clark" (Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery).

The first European settlement on the peninsula, established in 1803 by Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins, was a short-lived penal colony dating 30 years before the establishment of Melbourne. It survived for a few years but was soon abandoned due to a lack of fresh water. A second attempt to establish a convict settlement in Port Phillip Bay was made in 1826, but was again a failure, abandoned by order of Governor Darling in 1827. From the 1840s the Mornington Peninsula was developed as an important area for agriculture, timber gathering and fishing area, and had lucrative grazing for cattle and horse breeding. The jetty as shown portrays a bevy of activity with vessels being loaded and unloaded, perhaps with supplies on the well-worn route to and from Melbourne. In the background can be seen a well-constructed observatory situated at a point overlooking Bass Strait and Port Phillip Bay.

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The home of the Boonwurrung or Bunurong people, Mornington Peninsula was the site of the first European settlement in Victoria, established in what is now Sorrento. In this painting Clark depicts Schnapper Point, where Flinders landed in 1802 and charted much of Port Phillip Bay from the headland above today's picturesque Mornington harbour. This area still shows evidence of some of the earliest European settlement in Victoria. The importance of the fishing community to the area can be gauged from the naming of Schnapper Point, a placename that persists in use today although the town's name was officially changed to Mornington in 1864.

Condition Report: Apart from a few age marks, in excellent condition; laid down on board.

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Condition Report