Mary Morton Allport | New Norfolk V.D Land
New Norfolk V.D Land
c1845
120 mm x 202 mm
Lithograph printed with black ink on paper
New Norfolk V. D Land c1845
Printed from Stone with Black ink
Sheet Size: 191 x 261mm
Image Size: 120 x 202mm
Printed Title in lower margin ‘New Norfolk V.D Land’
Printed signature lower right margin under the image
Inscribed with Ink “ Mrs Chapman” top right margin.
Good stable condition, slight paper discolouration, and mount burn all around the margin surrounding the image.
This piece seems to be the only surviving intact, titled and signed lithograph of New Norfolk by Allport. It also has a provenance that states where and when it was printed.
The Allport’s arrived in Tasmania in 1831 and moved to the Broadmarsh District (New Norfolk). This lithograph is a view of the river Derwent with the township of New Norfolk in the back ground. It is a document of the locality that was the first port of call in Australia for the Allport family. The juxtaposition of Kangaroos in the foreground and the township in the background gives the colony a sense of romantic tranquillity and intrigue.
There are drawings in the Allport Collection that date to 1831-2 that relate to this composition.
The Allport Museum also has a copy of this lithograph that has been cut back to the image and stuck into a scrap book. Although the subject of the New Norfolk lithograph has been attributed to c1834 by the Allport Museum and Art Gallery, it is now evident that it was printed in the mid 1840s around the same time as her involvement with Bluett (Lithographer) and the other known lithographs by Allport.
Our Lithograph is the full sheet, with a title printed in the lower margin, and a printed signature directly under the image.
It is inscribed in ink on the top right margin “Mrs Chapman”
The work was framed c1870 and an inscription on the back of the frame states:
“Drawn and Engraved on Stone by Aunt Mary Morton Allport, Aldridge Lodge, Hobart, Tasmania, About 1845. Edith Morton Symons”
Edith Morton Symons (b.1846-d.1924) was the niece of Mary Morton Allport. We have found that Mary had two sisters, one Mary Ann Chapman who died the same year she was born in1805 and another Louisa Harriett Chapman. There are most likely more siblings, which haven’t been identified yet.
Louisa Harriett Chapman (Edith’s Mother and Mary’s sister) married Charles Mucklow in Birmingham, 1st Aug 1833, Mr Mucklow died 5 years late in June 1838. Louisa remarried Feb 27th 1841 to Charles James Hartley. It is on this marriage certificate that states Louisa’s father as Charles Chapman, proving that she was Mary Morton Allport’s sister.
Louisa Harriett Hartley and Charles James Hartley had a daughter Edith Morton Hartley (b.1846-d.1924). Edith married Alfred Symons 25th July 1871, making her Edith Morton Symons the niece of Mary Morton Allport.
We speculate that the lithograph was framed early in the 1870s, maybe as a wedding gift to Edith and Alfred, which would account for the use of the word ‘about 1845’ on the verso inscription on the frame as it was more then likely framed once Edith was married and had to think back on the date the print was completed or received from family in Tasmania.
The signature on the verso of the frame of Edith Morton Symons matched that of Edith Morton on her marriage certificate.
There is also a framers label on the verso ‘J.K Edwards & Son. Carvers, Gilders, Picture Framers and Looking-Glass Manufactures, 52 South Street, Exeter. Established 1844’.
It is possible that Allport began investigating the medium of lithography after seeing the works of John Skinner Prout who was producing his Tasmanian Views folio during the early 1840s. Her association with the printmaker Thomas Bluett who’s name appears on Allport’s lithograph of the ‘Opossum Mouse’ would have also contributed to her experience in the medium. Her lithograph of the ‘Comet of March’, 1843 seen from Aldridge Lodge V.D Land’ was published in the annual Journal of The Tasmanian Society of Natural History in 1846.
Very few of her lithographs have survived. The Allport Museum and Gallery in Hobart hold several and the National Gallery of Australia hold one. Of this particular lithograph, there is one other known copy, which has been cut down to the image and is in the Allport Museum Collection. Allport is widely regarded as the first professional female artist, and the first female printmaker to create reproduction etchings and lithographs in the colony of Australia. She was an important part of Australian culture in the 19th century.
Provenance:
Mary Morton Allport, Aldridge Lodge, Elboden Street, Hobart — the house stayed in by the Allport family until it was demolished in 1968 and replaced by Jane Franklin Hall.
Edith Morton Symons – Possible Wedding Gift to Edith in 1871.
Purchased By Vincent Day from Lawrences Of Bletchingley United Kingdom 2017
Day Fine Art. Blackheath NSW 2017
SOLD
Compiled with the help of Col Fullagar of Integrity Resolutions
Painter, miniaturist, etcher, engraver, lithographer and diarist, was born in Birmingham, England, on 17 May 1806, daughter of William Chapman, landlord of the Castle Hotel, and Ann Floyd, née Evett. She went to the school conducted by Hannah, Mrs William Allport, at Cedar Court, Aldridge, Staffordshire. The school had a strong artistic bias and the influence of John Glover , once drawing master there, continued in the teaching of Mrs Allport’s elder children, Henry Curzon and Mary Anne. The latter, and perhaps the former also, taught Mary Morton Chapman, who appears to have stayed on at Cedar Court as a pupil teacher after completing her schooling. She married Joseph, the Allports’ youngest son, on 20 December 1826. They lived for several years at West Bromwich, where Joseph practised as a solicitor.
The Allports sailed in the Platina for Van Diemen’s Land in July 1831, accompanied by four partners, who were connected either by marriage or long-standing friendship. They reached Hobart Town on 11 December. At Black Brush in the Brighton district, the Allports and their partners lived in what were no more than large dog kennels. Not only did Mary survive, she continued to paint in these primitive conditions. As well as making informal sketches of her surroundings, she inserted an advertisement in the Hobart Town Courier on 13 July 1832 announcing that she was prepared to paint miniatures on commission. She seems to have been the first woman in the Australian colonies to embark on such an enterprise.
Joseph was not successful as a farmer. After the partnership was dissolved on 1 September 1832, he resumed practising law, accepting a partnership with G.W. Cartwright. On 4 October the Allports moved to Hobart Town. There, in Mrs Laughton’s furnished rooms in Macquarie Street, Mary first recorded that she was painting Australian wildflowers. Later they moved to a cottage (Fairy Knowe) in upper Liverpool Street, which they purchased in March 1834. Here Mary continued to paint landscapes, flowers, natural history studies and portrait miniatures, although her commissions for the last can never have brought her more than pin money. She also began to make prints during this period. Rathmore. My First Etching M.M.A. survives, as well as a hand-coloured engraving on copper of local flowers used as a frontispiece to Elliston’s Hobart Town Almanack for 1838 .
The Allports moved to Aldridge Lodge in Elboden Street in August 1839 and at about this time Mary attempted lithography. An early example appeared in the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science in 1841. This was the first issue of the journal of the Tasmanian Society, to which she had been admitted as a member in October of the same year – first as a corresponding but later as a resident member. Other Tasmanian lithographs include the lively Opossum Mouse from Grass Tree Hill Tasmania Drawn from Nature and on Stone by M.M. Allport and Comet of March 1843 Seen from Aldridge Lodge, V.D. Land . The latter was published in the second volume of the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science , then reproduced in the Illustrated London News of 3 February 1844. No oil paintings survive, but it is known that she also worked in this medium, while her etchings, engravings and lithographs were the first to have been made by a woman in the Australian colonies.
Mary Morton Allport died at Aldridge Lodge on 10 June 1895 after a short illness, survived by two of her eight (?) children. She was buried in the family vault at Queenborough Cemetery.
