Curio

State Library of New South Wales
A view of the west side of Sydney Cove

A view of the west side of Sydney Cove

c1804

Watercolour on paper
Donated by Sir William Dixson, 1930
DG V1/86

Like many images from this period, this painting is very much about the nuts and bolts of colonial buildings. It is more concerned with carefully recording the progress of the settlement than with trying to present an artistic view of the town. That buildings like churches had been built in Sydney was an important indicator of the presence of Christian influences in the penal settlement.

Also like many images of Sydney Cove from this time, the foreground includes a trace or isolated reference to the local Indigenous people – in this case a canoe (bottom right). Although their presence is literally marginalised, such references are graphic reminders that Aboriginal people continued to occupy, and live in, the Sydney district long after its colonisation by the British.

The painting once belonged to the family of the first Viscount Sydney, after whom the settlement of Sydney was named. Painted shortly after the viscount's death, it was possibly given to his only son John, and remained in the family's possession until it was purchased by Sir William Dixson.

At the left of the picture is the newly completed St Philip’s church, with its clock tower piercing the horizon. St Philip’s was the second church in Australia, the first having been burnt down in 1798. It was located in what is now Lang Park, bound by York, Grosvenor and Lang streets. The tower collapsed in a storm of 1806.


The title on this drawing appears to have been traced in pencil, much later, over an original pen inscription.