HORACE PAYNE ELLIS
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(1808 – 1890) WOOLLOOMOOLOO BAY, c.1838 oil on cedar panel 30.0 x 40.5 cm housed in its original ornate, gilt timber frame bearing a plaque “Wooloomooloo Bay [sic.] / 1838 / by H.P. Ellis / HEICS” ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 80,000
PROVENANCE Possibly the Rev. Thomas Hassall (1794-1866) of ‘Denbigh’, Cobbitty, NSW Possibly Charles McIntosh (1805-1875) who leased and then purchased ‘Denbigh’, Cobbitty, NSW Possibly Charles McIntosh Jnr (1845-1938), ‘Denbigh’, Cobbitty, NSW Estate of Mrs Lorna Mary Inglis (née McIntosh, widow of Mr Richard Reginald Inglis), formerly of properties ‘Applewood’, Cobbitty, NSW and ‘Denbigh’, Cobbitty, NSW (the latter built by Charles Hook in 1822, purchased by the Reverend Thomas Hassall in 1827 and purchased by Charles McIntosh in 1867) Raffan Kelaher & Thomas, Sydney, 12 April 2021, lot 11 Company collection, Sydney
The recent discovery of Woolloomooloo Bay, 1838 has brought to light an almost entirely forgotten but highly significant Australian colonial artist - Horace Payne Ellis. Very few works by Ellis appear to have survived. Two watercolours of Sydney are in the State Library of New South Wales. A lithograph of Sydney was published in the New South Wales Magazine in 1843.1 Two other lithographs, Port Jackson from Vaucluse and Fort Macquarie from the Harbour, were published separately, probably as a pair, in the same year. 2 The Sydney newspaper, The Australasian Chronical, under the heading ‘News and rumours of the day’, praised both lithographs, the writer adding: ‘We hope the artist will meet sufficient encouragement to enable him to continue his Views, and thus cultivate a taste for the fine arts amidst our colonial youth.’ 3 Unfortunately, no other ‘views’ by Ellis appear to have been printed. The scarcity, both of art works by Ellis and information about him, may well be due to the fact that, by mid-life, mental difficulties had brought about long-term incarceration and truncated his career. He died at the Parramatta Hospital for the Insane in 1890. Horace Payne Ellis, the eldest child of Horace Ellis (1782 – 1830) and Mrs Philly Ellis, née Payne, was born 4 and christened in Horsham, Sussex, in 1808. 5 Ellis was born into a family of successful solicitors. His father Horace ran a legal practice in Horsham, Sussex and his grandfather William Ellis (1745 – 1809) had been an attorney of His Majesty’s Court of King’s Bench at Westminster.6
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