Anna Sarah Rachel Collard | On The River 1882
On The River
watercolour on paper
50 x 70 cm
Signed lower right, dated 1882
In good overall condition not laid down
$5000
Mrs Collard of Carcoar or Anna Sarah Rachel Wauch,
Sketcher, was born on 3 December 1828, eldest of the four children of Captain Andrew Wauch of the 48th Regiment of Foot and Mary Makin, née Gillot, Scottish settlers who came to New South Wales aboard the North Briton , arriving on 15 March 1836. The family settled at Wauchope near Port Macquarie, now the name of the entire area. In the 1840s Anna was acquainted with Annabella Innes ( Annabella Boswell ) who wrote that Anna’s sketches were 'clever and spirited’ but considered that 'the likenesses are not good’. 'A.S.R. Wauch’ signed a crude pencil view of the house and garden in 1854 (Hastings District Historical Society). On 6 February 1855, Anna married Spencer Collard, a settler from the New England area, in St Peter’s Church of England, Armidale. Presumably after her husband died in 1878, she moved to Carcoar.
A collection of lively watercolour scenes located by their present owner as 'near Port Macquarie’ (p.c.; five photographic reproductions ML) was attributed in 1971 to 'Mrs Collett [sic], the daughter of Major Waugh [sic] after whom Wauchope was named’. Subjects include a dismounted trooper fighting a tribal Aborigine, three mounted bushmen mustering horses and two troopers and their Aboriginal guide travelling through the mountains. A watercolour by the same artist showing three horses, a dismounted rider and his Aboriginal guide at the edge of a river was offered at Sotheby’s (Australia) in 1984 from the Cowlishaw Collection. All are lively and competent pictures, a great advance on the crude homestead view, though also said to date from the 1850s. Her art evidently improved after her marriage, as evidenced by the fact that Mrs Collard of Carcoar won second prize in an art competition held in 1881 co-sponsored by the stationers Gibbs, Shallard & Co. and the Illustrated Sydney News . Mistakenly reported as 'Miss’ Collard, her 'spirited’ picture of 'a duel between two horses engaged in deathly combat’ was reputedly later exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Extract from Design, Art and Australia Online
