In The Courier last week we looked at how the Art Gallery of Ballarat compared two pictures of a husband and wife who migrated to Ballarat in the early days of the colony, Elizabeth and John Henderson.
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We discovered that the frame given to the portrait of John Henderson, although representative of the period of the 1840s, wasn’t the correct style in any way.
This week we look at the question of whether the portraits are indeed a matched pair, done by the same artist at the same time, or if they are two pictures painted at different times, but brought together after the pair married.
Gallery director Gordon Morrison says there are several clues that suggest the portraits are a matched pair, but also several incongruities that might suggest they are not.
“This is a curatorial question. Are they a commissioned pair of portraits; a husband and wife? If that was the case, then we would naturally want to have them together,” he says.
There are slight differences between the pictures. The curtain behind the image of Elizabeth is different to the background behind John. Gordon Morrison says this is a reason to think the portraits are unmatched.
“I'm skeptical about the fact that, if it is meant to be a double portrait, this motif of the curtain, I would have thought that you would see that replicated in some way with the gent. And I'm also not convinced their poses are quite right.”
But there’s a case for the pictures being matched too, say Mr Morrison.
“At the same time, arguing in favor of them being double portraits – the canvasses are exactly the same size. So the jury's still out.
“These are really interesting conservation issues, and really interesting curatorial issues in terms of how we attribute the works. And that has a bearing on how and where we deploy these works into the future. Do they go into the European gallery or the Oddie gallery? Do they go into the early colonial gallery? Because we do represent different periods in different rooms.”
One thing that has been put to rest is the idea that the portrait of John was painted by Robert Dowling. A comparison of ages and dates means that Henderson and Dowling could never have crossed paths; he was never available to sit for him.