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Natural environment / Taiao

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Milford Sound, looking north-west from Freshwater Basin

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Accession Number7,444CreatorBuchanan, John, 1819-1898Also known asSketch in Milford Sound. Milford Sound, August 1863. Milford SoundDate1863

Description

Media & Sizewatercolour on paper: 222 x 509mmDescriptionThough Scottish-born John Buchanan (1819-98) had worked as a textile pattern designer and botanised in his leisure hours before emigrating to Dunedin in 1852, he had no formal training in painting. In Otago he found gold in the Tuapeka and Clutha rivers and the employment as a botanist and draughtsman on Alexander Garvie's reconnaissance surverys and with James Hector's 1863 geological survey.

'Milford Sound' was first displayed, along with a selection of rocks, to illustrate the work of the Geological Suvey of Otago at the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition in Dunedin. It established, in panorama, the sound's classic configuration, with Mitre Peak at centre and Bowen Falls to the right, which became the model for generations of subsequent artists.

With its muted tones and heavy reliance on line, it is less a painting than a coloured drawing, and would probably have been regarded by the artist as a technical exercise rather than a work of art. However, by 1940 when the work was selected for the touring National Centennial Exhibition, the treatment of form stark simplicity and limited colour range had begun to seem strikingly modern, and this modest watercolour is now established as one of the icons of New Zealand art.ProvenancePresented to the Otago Museum by Peter Buchanan Esq. John Buchanan’s death. Transferred to the Hocken LibraryCitationJohn Buchanan, (1819-1898), Milford Sound, looking north-west from Freshwater Basin, 1863, watercolour on paper: 222mm x 509mm, 7,444, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago

Depicts Or Relates To

SubjectsMilford Sound (Fiordland, N.Z.)Mitre Peak (Fiordland, N.Z.)

CollectionNatural environment / Taiao

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Milford Sound, looking north-west from Freshwater Basin

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Milford Sound, looking north-west from Freshwater Basin

Hocken Collections | Te Uare Taoka o Hākena