Steamers on Sydney Harbour

There are few examples of Gruner's work remaining from this era so there is an inherent importance to this painting due to the scarcity of such works. As Norman Lindsay wrote of the paintings executed around 1913: "I think that very little of the work he did at that period remains, since, intensely critical, he destroyed a great deal of it... and it is exasperating to think of the many charming works destroyed because they did not pass the exacting standard of his approval... All the aesthetic fastidiousness had something to do with the delicacy of colour values and the perfect stylism of brushstrokes. I know of no other painter who can give so much pleasure in studying the pure virtuosity with which he could lay on an impasto." (N Lindsay, Elioth Gruner, Sydney, 1947, pp.4-5) The delicacy and jewel-like quality of Steamers on Sydney Harbour with its short, sharp definite brushstrokes and ability to catch the moment, exemplifies the style that elevated Elioth Gruner to the status of one of Australia's most influential and important landscape painters.