First Fleet artwork collection

This drawing represents an encounter between Australian Aborigines and British colonists in a harbour landscape, following the wounding of Governor Arthur Phillip by Willemaring in September 1790. The scene includes four canoes, each paddled by an Aboriginal man or woman, arranged in a row across the mid-foreground. The man in the front canoe, named as Ban nel lang (also known as Bennelong), is depicted raising his paddle in his right hand and turning his head to his right towards an approaching rowing boat which contains eight oarsmen in blue and grey clothing and two other men wearing wide-brimmed black hats. The composition is dominated by horizontals, including the brown rocky shore in the foreground, the row of canoes, the representation of the water with a gradated blue wash overlaid with grey lines, and in the distance low-lying wooded headlands coloured grey-green, and blue-grey hills. The sky is largely unpainted except for a pink stain on the horizon and areas of blue wash towards the top of the picture. The drawing is framed by a triple-banded border with a central band coloured with a dark grey wash, and annotated in brown ink below the frame.