The Basin Bank, Victoria. Nicholas Chevalier view engraved c1874

by Booth, Edwin Carton

Antique print of The Basin at the Foothills of the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria c1874. Fine original steel engraving by W. Richardson (signed N. Chevalier 1870), after a sketch of the view by Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902) for Edwin Carton Booth's Australia, Illustrated, with Drawings by Skinner Prout, Chevalier, Armytage and others, published in England circa 1874 by Virtue & Co. Limited.

Original steel engraving by W. Richardson (signed N. Chevalier 1870), from a sketch by Russian-born artist Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902), for Edwin Carton Booth's Australia, Illustrated with Drawings by Skinner Prout, Chevalier, Armytage and others, published circa 1874. London, Virtue & Co. Wonderful records of how Australia was in colonial days.

Having left Russia with his father who returned to Switzerland in 1845, Nicholas Chevalier studied painting and architecture inarrived in Australia in Lausanne, Switzerland and Munich, Germany. He became an illustrator in lithography and watercolour after moving to London in 1851. Two of his paintings were hung in the Royal Academy in 1852.  He then studied painting in Rome, before sailing from London to Australia, arriving in 1855 to join his father, and his brother who was manager of the vineyards at Bontharambo on the Ovens River in Victoria. He worked as a cartoonist on the newly established Melbourne Punch periodical and became an illustrator for the Illustrated Australian News. In 1864 his painting The Buffalo Ranges was purchased by the government for the National Gallery of Victoria. It was the first picture painted in Australia to be included in the Melbourne collection.

This finely engraved antique print is uncoloured, with wide margins, as published.  It is a beautiful scene which has a tiny amount of foxing, but is otherwise in good condition. Page size is 215 x 270mm (8 x 10 3/4 inches). Engraving measures approximately 124 x 172mm (4 7/8 x 6 3/4 inches).