Sydney Harbour from South Head

The artwork

On the far shore, just left of centre, that thin line of pale houses is Sydney in 1802, a colony just fourteen years old, with three ships at anchor before it. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• Sydney in 1802 seen from the harbour entrance, with three ships at anchor.
• Above a sofa or along a corridor it opens the wall towards the sea.
• A gift for anyone with family in Australia or who has seen Sydney.

The drawing is by William Westall, who at nineteen had sailed as painter on Matthew Flinders' Investigator, sent to survey the coasts of Australia. In 1802 she stayed at Port Jackson from May to July, then sailed round the continent. On his way home Flinders was held by the French on Mauritius for six and a half years. The book came out on 18 July 1814, and he died the next day, aged forty. In the introduction he wrote that, had he allowed himself an innovation, he would have called the continent AUSTRALIA, “more agreeable to the ear”; by 1824 the British Admiralty had begun to use it officially.

Below the image are the title, “View of Port Jackson, taken from the South Head” (Sydney Harbour from the headland south of its entrance), and the signatures “Painted by W. Westall A.R.A. F.L.S.” and “Engraved by John Pye”. Pye engraved it on copper for A Voyage to Terra Australis, published in London by G. and W. Nicol in 1814: it is one of the book's nine views by Westall, in the first volume. In the foreground two Aboriginal figures sit beside a small fire. The copy shown here, still bound in its volume, is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Above a sofa or at the end of a bright hallway, it is a gift for anyone with family in Australia or who has seen Sydney and wants to go back. And on the far shore, that line of pale houses is still the whole city.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass