Illustrating the Antipodes. George French Angas in Australia and New Zealand 1844-1845

A$50 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Canberra : National Library of Australia, 2021. Quarto, boards in dustjacket, pp. 380. illustrated. A very good copy. George French Angas (1822-1886) spent 18 months sketching and observing in Australia and New Zealand between 1844 and 1845. It was a period of decisive and irreversible cultural change. The young Angas excelled at capturing the minute detail of plants and people, objects and landscapes, and rapidly assembled a portfolio of 250 fine watercolours. In this fully illustrated volume, Philip Jones has used Angas s sketches, watercolours, lithographs and journal accounts to retrace his Antipodean journeys in vivid detail. Set in the context of his time, Angas emerges both as a brilliant artist and as a flawed Romantic idealist, rebelling against his father s mercantilism while entirely reliant upon the colonial project enabling him to depict early ways of life.

• Binding: Hardcover

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