Provenance:
1886 Purchased at the Australian Artists’ Association inaugural exhibition.
Buxton Art Gallery, Swanston Street, Melbourne. Purchaser unknown.

1915 Fine Art Gallery, Sydney

Mr. E O Morath – private collection

1964 C F Morath – private collection

1994 Purchased by current owner – private collection

Exhibitions:
September 1886 Australian Artists’ Association inaugural exhibition
Buxton Art Gallery, Swanston Street, Melbourne
Catalogue No 43 (line drawing illustration)

October 1996 – Tom Roberts Retrospective
July 1997 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Catalogue page 27 (full colour illustration)

Toured nationally: Tasmanian Museum, National Gallery of Victoria,
Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Provenance: Tom Roberts
Miss H.W. Boyes (sister of Jean Boyes, Roberts’ second wife)
1945 Park Galleries, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne
April 1987 Christies Lot 344
Private collection, Sydney

Reference: Helen Topliss (author)

Tom Roberts (1856-1931): A Catalogue Raisonne, catalogue # 282,
Volume 1, Page 152

Illustrated: Helen Topliss

Tom Roberts (1856 – 1931): A Catalogue Raisonne, Volume 2, plate 282.

Provenance:
The artist
John Young, Sydney; gift from the above circa 1920s
Macquarie Galleries, Sydney
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above in 1962
Sotheby’s Australia, Important Australian Art, Melbourne, November 23, 2009, Lot 48
Private collection, Sydney

Literature:
Helen Topliss, Tom Roberts 1856 – 1931: a catalogue raisonné (2 vols), Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985, vol. 1, p. 88, vol. II, plate 10 (illus.) (as Untitled. Thames Landscape).

Provenance;
Purchased from Mrs W.G. Buckle 1958 (1000 gns)
Private collection, Sydney

Exhibited;
Fine Art Society, Melbourne March 1928 (cat. 2, 85 gns)
Macquarie Galleries June 1928 (cat. 1, 85 gns)
AGNSW 1947-48 (cat. 40) (as “Goulburn Valley”)
North Shore Festival of Arts Historic Exhibition of Colonial & Sirius Cove Painters, Artlovers’ Gallery 1963 (cat. 6)
Private collection

Illustrated;
Legend Press Christmas card, Legend Press educational material
H. Topliss “Tom Roberts 1856-1931” Oxford University Press 1985 (plate 236) (as “The Valley of Goulburn”)

Reference;
H. Topliss “Tom Roberts 1856-1931” Oxford University Press 1985 (plate 236) (as “The Valley of Goulburn”)

Mrs Winifred Onslow Dunban, Sydney (prior to 1915); by descent, Gwendolen Onslow Dunban (on her 20th birthday) 1929;

Deutscher Fine Art Exhibition, Melbourne, Nov/Dec 1988 Cat. No. 24, 1989;

Private collection, Sydney since 1988

Exhibition and Sale of Paintings by Tom Roberts, Previous to his leaving Australia, Society of Artists of New South Wales, Vickery’s Chambers, 76 Pitt Street, Sydney 14 November 1900, cat 28, At Watsons Bay, 1 ½ gns.

The location of this painting is Watsons Bay, specifically Camp Cove. It fits stylistically into a group of Harbour panels (of Circular Quay, Rose Bay, Kirribilli and Sirius Cove) executed by Tom Roberts in the late 1890’s.

A forty year old Tom Roberts married Lillie Williamson in Melbourne in early 1896; in January 1898 their son Caleb was born. After the marriage Roberts left the makeshift Curlew Camp at Sirius Cove, which he had shared with Arthur Streeton and others since coming up from Melbourne in 1891 and took up residence in Paul Street, Balmain. He continued however, to work and teach from a city studio in Pitt Street.

Roberts executed two historical bush-ranging subjects in the mid 1890’s, Bailed Up and In a corner on the Macintyre c1894-95. After 1895 he worked on the large droving theme, A mountain muster (c1897-98) but his small portrait studies and rare (compared with Streeton) Sydney Harbour views on un-primed cedar panel, such as, At Watsons Bay c1898, are arguably the most appealing works he created at the time.

The painting has a charming provenance – it was given to the previous owner by her mother, Winfred Onslow Dunban, on her 20th birthday in 1929.