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"Mr. White, Harris and Laing with a party of Soldiers visiting Botany Bay Colebee at that place, when wounded"

Artist: Port Jackson Painter
Created: [ca.1790 or 1797?]
Dimensions: 26.6 x 42.8 cm
Reference: Watling Drawing - no. 25

 

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  • Port Jackson Painter]
  • The drawing is inscribed in blue pencil at top right with the number "34", which refers to the pre-1984 numbering system for the Watling Collection.
  • The drawing is annotated in black ink at bottom "Mr. White, Harris, & Laing with a party of Soldiers visiting Botany Bay Colebee - at that Place, when wounded", followed in brown ink in what appears to be a different hand by "near Bolony Bay".
  • The figure of an Aboriginal man to the right of the composition is labelled in pencil "Colebee", and the tree to the left "arid Gum Tree".
  • The drawing is unsigned and undated.
  • Bernard Smith (Wheeler and Smith, 1988, pp. 227-8) suggests that the incident depicted may relate to an event of December 1790, when John White took part in a punitive expedition to visit the Aboriginal people of Botany Bay following the killing of a convict. White was the Surgeon-general to the colony, while John Harris and Edward Laing were, respectively, Surgeon and Surgeon's mate of the New South Wales Corps; perhaps they were intending to help the wounded Colebee, referred to in the annotation.
  • The author of this catalogue record is Suzanne Stenning.
  • By permission of the trustees of the Natural History Museum (London).
  • Two sets of transparencies held in the Natural History Museum (London) Zoology Library and Picture Library: Picture Library order number 12025
  • James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
  • Data sheet available.
  • Wheeler, A. and Smith, B, (eds.) The Art of the First Fleet and other early Australian Drawings. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. (Plate 237, p. 227.)