New Zealand interest: View of Bluff, a Budd sisters sketchbook leaf, dated 1882

$395.00 AUD

A Budd sketchbook watercolour, showing a settlement and ships at anchor, titled ‘The Bluff from Finns Castle NZ’, depicting a distant view of Bluff with ships in the harbour, a main port for access to the South Island and Queenstown in the 19th century.

By Elizabeth or Emma Budd, 1882

This watercolour is from a folio of amateur works done in Australia & New Zealand, with an inscription providing their origins: ‘The following sketches + watercolours were made by the Misses Elizabeth Mary Budd and Emma Eliza Budd, being the daughters of Mr R. H. Budd, founder of the first Diocesan Boys School under Bishop Perry in the 29th Sep- tember 1848”.
Elizabeth was born in Tasmania in 1845, while Emma was born in Victoria in 1848.
In 1882-4, the sisters were in New Zealand.
There is a ‘Bluff’ just out of Invercargill, which acted as the main port for this southern city- which was also the access point for Queenstown, where several other sketches were made in the sketchbook, allowing us to re-trace their journey.
‘Finn’s Castle’ appears to be the name given to a scenic spot on the high ground above Bluff; there are some dramatic vertical rock outcrops, although the name doesn’t seem to have survived into the present day.
The present day view has a large smelter built across the distant shoreline, and the mountains are a little higher than in reality.

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