First Fleet artwork collection

Harbour landscape, with an Aboriginal family preparing to catch and cook fish. On the left a woman and two children are depicted crouching beneath an overhanging rock which is topped with foliage and a tree. The woman and one child are tending a fire, while a second child gestures towards a man who is depicted in right profile walking towards the water's edge in the centre foreground. The man is equipped with a fishing spear and throwing stick in his right hand and a flaming torch in his left, and is approaching a canoe in the water to the right of the composition. The water is represented by a gradated wash of blue through yellow to pink, overlaid with short grey horizontal brush marks in the foreground. There is a headland to the right in the mid-distance and two islands on the horizon. The sky consists of blue wash around unpainted areas, with patches of pink, yellow and grey wash. The drawing is framed by a triple-banded ink border, with annotations in brown ink in the central band at bottom.