Sunset in New South Wales1865

Austrian-born artist Eugene von Guérard arrived in Australia in 1853 to seek his fortune on the Victorian goldfields. Instead, he became one of Australia’s most important artistic figures. Von Guérard travelled widely throughout Victoria and New South Wales painting homesteads on commission and producing sublime, beautifully detailed landscape views such as this one.

While seemingly realistic, this is a composite work, based on drawings from two different locations. On the left, the tall cabbage tree palms are from American Creek, Wollongong; and the granite rocks, on the right, are from Hartley in the Blue Mountains. The title was assigned when the work was shown in the 1870 Intercolonial Exhibition in Sydney.