First Fleet artwork collection

Drawing of a harbour landscape, with Aborigines paddling canoes. The land in the foreground slopes up from a beach at the lower left corner towards centre right, and is represented by a green wash overlaid with brush marks which follow the contours of the land. One figure is pulling a bark canoe from the beach towards the right, where two others, one sitting and one standing, warm themselves by a camp fire next to a small tree. Behind them, several Aborigines in three canoes are depicted paddling towards the beach at lower left, across a stretch of water represented by a pale blue wash overlaid all over with short grey horizontal lines. The figure in the canoe nearest to the shore appears disproportionally large, and the canoe is depicted as if tilted to show that the figure is sitting back on his heels. The next canoe to the right holds a woman and child, and contains a fire, while the most distant canoe towards the right holds one figure. The water is enclosed on the far shore by hills and islands, and the sky is represented by a gradated wash of pale blue through pink to yellow. The drawing is framed by an ink border.