THE ART OF CRIME

THE DANIEL SOLANDER LIBRARY HOLDS A COLLECTION OF WATERCOLOURS WHOSE BEAUTY BELIES A TRAGIC TALE OF CRIME AND REDEMPTION. MIGUEL GARCIA REPORTS.

Among the Daniel Solander Library’s many collections are two large folio volumes containing 89 watercolours of Australian and introduced plant species. The artworks provide an important connection with our early colonial period, but when gifted to the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney at the beginning of the 20th century, their origins were mysterious.

The volumes were donated by Mary Phipson Beale, an expatriate Australian married to British politician Sir William Beale and living in London. She obtained them, through a friend, from a deceased estate auction in 1912.

Phipson Beale presented them to the Garden in the same year, much to the delight of then director Joseph Henry Maiden, who was immediately intrigued by their provenance. Some of the works in pencil, he observed, referenced dates between 1816 and 1820, while others noted places where the plants were sourced, including Hobart, Newcastle, and Sydney and its environs.

Maiden believed them to be images by the first government botanist and superintendent of the Garden, Allan Cunningham, based on the handwriting and the collecting dates on many of the paintings, which correlated with Cunningham’s expeditions with Lieutenant John Oxley from 1817–1824. Most of the works were of different sizes and were soiled, folded or foxed. Maiden had them conserved, mounted and bound into two leather volumes, with Wild flowers of Australia: original drawings engraved on the covers in large gold letters and “Allan Cunningham” inscribed on the spines.

Over the next 200 years, however, doubts as to the works’ provenance grew among succeeding botanists and librarians. It was noted that some of the depicted plants were introduced species, rather than natives. Others pointed out that the handwriting did not quite match the samples they had from Cunningham. Other possible artists were considered, such as Conrad Martens or John Lewin. Eventually, in 2004, the Library staff asked John McPhee, a noted art historian and curator, to examine the volumes.

A conclusion was finally reached: the watercolours in the two volumes are the work of the celebrated, though tragic convict artist and forger, Joseph Lycett.

So, who exactly was Lycett and how did he come to make these arresting watercolours?

Born in Staffordshire in 1774, little is known of his early life, except that he trained as a miniature and portrait painter, and also learned engraving. Finding it difficult to make ends meet in early 19th century England, he turned his artistic talents to producing forged bank notes. He was convicted of forgery at Salop Assizes, Shrewsbury, on 10 August 1811 and sentenced to 14 years’ transportation.

He arrived in Port Jackson on 7 February 1814 onboard the convict ship General Hewitt, having survived a hellish journey that was beset by disease and great loss of life among the prisoners through malnutrition.

Lycett’s wife Mary was tried with him and found not guilty, but she followed her husband to Australia as a free passenger on the Northampton in 1815, arriving with their 11-year-old daughter Mary Ann.

Ironically, Lycett was appointed a clerk in the police office soon after arrival. Unfortunately, the constant presence of constabulary did little to dissuade him from felonious activity. When, in May 1815, Sydney was inundated by hundreds of skilfully forged five-shilling notes, they were soon traced to Lycett, who was arrested in possession of a small copper-plate press.

Judged guilty, Lycett was dispatched to the Newcastle penal settlement on 8 July 1815, where he commenced almost a year of hard labour. His fortunes improved, however, when the Commandant, Captain John Wallis, discovered his talents and put him to work copying plans for building projects in Newcastle. Lycett even drew up the plans for a church that Wallis projected, and painted the altar piece after the building was completed in 1818.

Wallis encouraged Lycett to paint landscapes of Newcastle and sketch scenes of local Aboriginal people. Eventually the convict artist received a conditional pardon on Wallis' recommendation and returned to Sydney in late 1818. Over the next two years, he executed private commissions and worked for Governor Macquarie, who sent to Lord Bathurst three of his drawings. In what is perceived as a reward for his work, Macquarie granted Lycett an absolute pardon in November 1821.

Buoyed with confidence from his success in Sydney and freed from his sentence, Lycett returned to England the following year with his daughters Mary Ann and Hannah. What became of his wife in the interim is unknown.

He arrived home with grand plans, including publishing a book of Australian views, dedicated to Lord Bathurst. The

‘Convicted of forgery

he was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation’ works were steadily released from 1824 and eventually bound together and sold as Views in Australia (London, 1825). Lycett then announced his intention to publish a natural history series along similar lines, but nothing came of the project.

By 1828, facing hard times, he once again turned to crime, forging notes on the Stourbridge Bank in Bath. On being arrested he cut his own throat, and when recovering in hospital he reportedly tore open the wound and killed himself.

Despite his tragic life, Lycett left us a rich legacy and a large body of work, primarily landscapes of the nascent colony of New South Wales. While examples of his botanical watercolours can be found at other institutions, the Daniel Solander Library holds by far the largest collection. It is possible that these were drawn for Macquarie, but some appear to have been working drawings from which he made copies. Regardless, the two volumes of his watercolours are beautiful and contain some of the first renditions of specific Australian species. Notable native taxa depicted include genus Hibiscus, Grevillea and Hakea, and species such as Actinotus helianthi (Flannel Flower) and Lambertia formosa, commonly known as Mountain Devil.