First Fleet artwork collection

Harbour scene, with an aboriginal man fishing from the shore while a woman fishes from a canoe. The man stands to the left of the composition behind pale yellow and grey rocks in the foreground. He is depicted in right profile wading through the water and raising a four-pronged fishing spear and a throwing stick in his right hand. His feet and ankles, coloured paler than the rest of his body, are visible beneath the surface of the water, which is indicated by grey ripples. Behind him in the mid-distance to the left a woman paddles a canoe in front of a grey-green wooded headland. To the right, the open sea is represented by a gradated wash of pale bue through yellow to blue again, overlaid with short grey horizontal lines in the foreground and a grey line on the horizon. Two fishes are visible through the water. The sky is represented by a gradated wash of blue through yellow to pink on the horizon. The drawing is framed by a single-banded border outlined in ink, and annotated below the border in brown ink.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is inscribed in blue pencil at top right with the number "38", which refers to the pre-1984 numbering system for the Watling Collection.
• The drawing is annotated in brown ink at bottom, possibly in John White's hand, "A New south Wales native stricking [sic] fish while his wife is employed fishing with hooks & lines in her Canoe - ".
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• 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 12029
• 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 37, p. 47.)