Title
(Richard Buttong, Coolangatta)
late 1890s
Artist
-
Details
- Date
- late 1890s
- Media category
- Watercolour
- Materials used
- pencil, watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 36.8 x 29.6 cm sight; 54.0 x 47.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r., pencil 'Julian Ashton/ [1898? / 1895? illeg.]’.
- Credit
- Gift of Joanna Jenkins 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 174.2020
- Artist information
-
Julian Ashton
Works in the collection
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About
This watercolour portrait is of Richard Buttong, an Aboriginal man from the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales. It was commissioned by the Berry family from the esteemed Sydney painter Julian Ashton.
Richard Buttong lived near, and possibly worked at, the Coolangatta estate in the Shoalhaven, established by Alexander Berry in 1822 as the first land grant in the region. Mr Buttong was first recorded in the blanket returns for Coolangatta estate in 1834 and subsequent years thereafter. The commission by an artist of the renown of Ashton would suggest both the establishment status of the Berry family but also the regard they held for Mr Buttong, and his place in the community.
