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Click on image to enlarge
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| Title: |
At Billiards (sic) house, about Xmas 1879, Parramatta / R. Ponsonby Staples
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| Creator: |
Staples, Robert Ponsonby, Sir, 1853-1943.
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| Date: |
1879
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| Format: |
[Picture] 1 painting: oil on wood panel ; 24 x 32 cm.
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| Inscription: |
Inscribed in pencil, lower left: 'at Billiards house about Xmas 1879, Parramatta. R. Ponsonby Staples'.
Another painting by Staples on the back of this picture is inscribed: 'Parramatta - close to Billyards Bungalow Xmas 1879".
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| Place: |
Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta, NSW
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| Subject: |
Billyard family.
cane chairs
hammocks
verandahs
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| Description: |
The artist Robert Ponsonby Staples, was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1853, third son of Sir Nathanial Staples, 11th Baronet. He received most of his education in Europe, chiefly in Belgium including art training at the Academy of Fine Arts, Louvain, followed by training in Dresden, Paris and London. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy London in 1875.
Staples visited Australia in 1879-1880 and was evidently a guest of the Billyard family at Elizabeth Farm while they were lessees of the property from the Macarthur family from 1875 to 1881. William Whaley Billyard (1815-1903), sometime Crown Solicitor of NSW, and his wife Elizabeth (1824-1905) had a large family, including several daughters. The woman in the cane chair in this picture may be Elizabeth Billyard and the young woman in the hammock could be either of her younger daughters, Beatrice born in 1857 or Blanche born in 1863. The hammock is slung on the southern end of the eastern verandah of Elizabeth Farm house.
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| Provenance: |
Phillips Auctioneers (London) 'Oil paintings, drawings and watercolours from the studio of Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples, Bt. (1853-1943) 11 June 1991, lot 135.
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| Published in: |
Cover of Insites Spring 1999, issue no.20; James Broadbent "Art for history's sake" in Insites issue 28 Spring 2001, pp.2-3.
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| Source: |
Elizabeth Farm ; EF92/30 ; acquired with assistance from the Friends of Elizabeth Farm
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Record no:
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30997
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