Anthony Alder’s skill is depicting natural history subjects – QAGOMA Blog

Once a prominent colonial Queensland artist, Anthony Alder (27 December 1838–1915) and his works had all but vanished from public memory until, in 2011, his descendants’ estate was offered to the State Library of Queensland. Here, we reintroduce you to one of his works Heron’s home 1895 (illustrated).

‘Heron’s home’ | Before Conservation

Anthony Alder, Australia 1838–1915 / Heron’s home 1895 (Before conservation) / Oil on canvas / 102 x 82cm / Purchased 2011 with funds from the Estate of Jessica Ellis through the QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Art history is a process of continually rediscovering the past and reinterpreting it for contemporary audiences. Alder is a significant Queensland colonial artist, apart from being the most prominent taxidermist in colonial Queensland, and widely admired for his dioramas when he entered employment with the Queensland Museum, he was also a painter of substance. Unfortunately, over the years, the appeal of his dioramas was forgotten and, apart from a major painting, Eagle and Fox (Not Game) 1895 (illustrated), which was occasionally on view at the Museum, knowledge of his work also slipped into oblivion. 

Anthony Alder ‘Eagle and Fox (Not Game)’ 1895

Anthony Alder, Australia 1838–1915 / Eagle and Fox (Not Game) 1895 / Oil on canvas / Collection: Queensland Museum

Staff of the Queensland Museum 1912

Staff of the Queensland Museum 1912. Anthony Alder, taxidermist (standing third from right) / Courtesy: Queensland Museum

Alder was born at Stroud, Gloucestershire and trained in the family’s taxidermy and casting business, Alder and Company, in Islington, London. He spent time working in Queensland from 1862 but returned to England on the death of his father in 1864, after the death of his mother in 1874, he returned and settled permanently in Queensland. Although he did not exhibit with the Queensland Art Society (est. 1887), Alder established a significant exhibition profile, he produced grisaille watercolour sketches that were published from 1894 in the Queenslander, the state’s most important weekly newspaper (illustrated).

He sought to emulate the work of ornithologist Silvester Diggles (1817–80) (Leadbeater’s cockatoo (Cacatua leadbeateri) c.1875 illustrated) who was Queensland’s most famous bird painter, and published Ornithology of Australia and Synopsis of the Birds of Australia. Diggles and his family arrived in Brisbane in 1854 and he soon became a key figure in the early cultural life of the city. He taught art and music, became our first photographer, helped found musical societies and the Queensland Philosophical Society (which subsequently developed into the Queensland Museum). Beginning in October 1863, Diggles single-handedly drew, coloured and described over 600 birds in eight years. He eventually published prints of 225 birds with descriptions of their habitat and life cycle in 21 sections from 1865 to 1870. When bound together, these became his major publication Ornithology of Australia.

Silvester Diggles ‘Leadbeater’s cockatoo’ c.1875

Silvester Diggles, England/Australia 1817–80 / Leadbeater’s cockatoo (Cacatua leadbeateri) c.1875 / Lithograph, hand-coloured on paper / 36.5 x 26.5cm / Purchased 2005 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Painted for the ‘Queenslander’ by Anthony Alder

Painted for the Queenslander by Anthony Alder / Illustrated in the Christmas supplement of the Queenslander, December 8, 1906, p. 61 / Courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

Alder also produced oil paintings and submitted several of these in what were essentially the first of the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association (QNA) annual exhibitions. He received an award for Eagle and Fox (Not Game) in the QNA of 1895, from where it was purchased by the state government for the Queensland Art Gallery but is now in the Queensland Museum’s Collection, and was also awarded the prize at the same exhibition for Lincoln sheep, homeward Laddie (illustrated), also 1895, which depicts the renowned stud flock at ‘Glengallan’, just outside Warwick.

Anthony Alder ‘Lincoln sheep, Homeward Laddie’ 1895

Anthony Alder, Australia 1838–1915 / Lincoln sheep, Homeward Laddie 1895 / Oil on canvas / Collection: State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

A reassessment of Alder’s work was inspired when the work Lincoln sheep, homeward Laddie emerged from the collection of Alder’s descendants and was offered to the State Library of Queensland in 2011. The State Library has a special interest in ‘Glengallan’, as it holds the archive of the property which was donated by the widow of William Ball Slade’s eldest son, Oswald, in 1958.

At Slade’s time, the property was one of the showplaces of the Darling Downs; the homestead itself, a sandstone mansion built in 1867, was rescued from dereliction and restored as the Glengallan Homestead and Heritage Centre.

Slade called on Alder’s skills as a taxidermist, and this may have been the occasion for Alder to produce the work which, in a sense, is a record of the passing of the colonial squattocracy, as the property began to be broken up in 1895. Large-scale landscapes such as this are extremely rare in colonial Queensland.

Glengallan homestead

Photographer unknown / Glengallan homestead, From ‘Views of Queensland’ Photograph Album, c.1875 / Courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane
Photographer unknown / Front entrance of Glengallan homestead c.1894 / Courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

In mid 2011, the State Library’s Curator of Heritage Collections, advised the Gallery that Heron’s home was also available to a public collection. It was one of the two works Alder included in the 1897 Queensland International Exhibition (cat.95), and shared the exhibition with Josephine Muntz-Adam’s Care c.1893 (illustrated), the first Australian work purchased by the Queensland National Art Gallery.

Josephine Müntz-Adams ‘Care’ 1893

Josephine Müntz-Adams, Australia 1861–1949 / Care c.1893 / Oil on canvas on composition board / 83 x 69.3cm / Purchased 1898 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Now restored, Heron’s home provides a marked counterpoint in detail and decorative appeal, and represents his skills in depicting natural history subjects — the area in which Alder forged his reputation.

The subject of this important painting is a pair of Nankeen night herons (Nycticorax caledonicus), which are named after the buff-coloured Nankeen cloth formerly produced in the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking). These herons are native to large parts of Australia and frequent well-vegetated wetlands, river margins and mangroves around Brisbane. Here, they are depicted in a beautifully rendered naturalistic riverine setting within a larger Queensland landscape.

Heron’s home | After conservation

Jocelyn Evans, Conservator at QAGOMA restoring Herons Home 1895
Anthony Alder, Australia 1838-1915 / Heron’s home 1895 (after conservation) / Oil on canvas / 102 x 82cm / Purchased 2011 with funds from the Estate of Jessica Ellis through the QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Delve deeper into the Collection

Anthony Alder, Australia 1838–1915 / (Red-tailed Black Cockatoos) c.1895 / Oil on canvas / 90.7 x 70cm90,7 x 70 cm / Purchased 2014. QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Anthony Alder’s Heron’s home 1895; (Red-tailed Black Cockatoos) c.1895; and Josephine Müntz-Adams’s Care c.1893 are on display within the Queensland Art Gallery’s Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13).

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