Parramatta antique print, engraved after A.H. Fullwood c1886.

by Fullwood, A.H.

Antique print of Parramatta in Australian colonial days.

Original wood engraving after a drawing by the eminent English artist Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930) for Picturesque Atlas of Australasia which was published between 1886 and 1888 to celebrate the centenary of European settlement and development in Australia. Many of these engravings were the finest published anywhere in the world in the late 19th century.

Fullwood attended Birmingham Institute on a scholarship and in 1833 after completing his studies migrated to Sydney where he worked for John Sands publishers before being employed as an illustrator for The Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company. Between 1883 and 1886 he travelled extensively throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. In the 1880s he was one of a number of prominent colonial landscape artists whose work has always been appreciated, and he contributed drawings to The Graphic and Black and White newspapers in England, as well as to the Australian Town and Country Journal, Bulletin, Illustrated Sydney News and Sydney Mail. Fullwood was an active member of the Art Society of New South Wales from 1884, and was active in setting up the breakaway Society of Artists.

He returned to England and worked as a colourist until he joined the army. He was demobilized on 31 December 1919 and returned to Sydney, where he and John Shirlow founded the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society, and Fullwood became a member of the Australian Water-Colour Institute.

These interesting engravings have always been collectable, with many hand-coloured since publication. Full page size was usually 45 x 34cm (17.5 x 13.5 inches). Some of the larger engravings were inserted without printing on reverse, but most of the engravings were printed within a page of text.