Sydney Cove from Dawes Point

Description

Frederick Garling Jr. (1806 – 1873) worked as a customs official and was a prolific amateur watercolourist. Stationed at Port Jackson, he painted and documented vessels arriving in the harbour. Although, Garling Jr was not a classically-trained artist, his work remains an important insight into colonial life around Sydney.

He was the son of Frederick Garling (1775 – 1848), the first of two Crown solicitors appointed to the colony of New South Wales, on the recommendation of Jeffery Bent. With this new appointment, the Garling family departed from London on the Francis and Eliza in 1814. However, the ship was captured and plundered by an American privateer off the island of Madeira, delaying their arrival in Sydney and making Garling Sr. the second free-born solicitor to arrive in the colony.1 Soon after the Garling family’s arrival, Governor Macquarie appointed Garling Sr. as deputy judge advocate after the death of Ellis Bent, brother to Jeffery Bent, in November 1815.

Identification

Artist

Frederick Garling

Medium

Watercolour on paper (reprinted)

Date

1839

Collection

Colonial Art