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Lot Essay
Te Toru (c.1775-1834?) was a Bay of Islands chief from Waikare who travelled to Paramatta, New South Wales with the Rev. Samuel Marsden to learn English. Read had painted the same subject in 1820, his drawing engraved for the frontispiece of Major Richard Alexander Cruise's Journal of a Residence in New Zealand published in 1823 ('Tetoro: Chief of New Zealand Drawn by R. Read from Life. 1820'). The subject, the New Zealand chief Te Toru from the Bay of Islands, may have returned to Sydney (where he would have been drawn by Read in 1820) in 1824 and been 'Taken from the Life 1824' again by Read (as the inscription indicates), or this may be a reworking of the original portrait painted 'from the Life' in 1820. There are some differences in the two portraits of Te Toru: he holds a different staff (taiaha) in the earlier engraved portrait, and has a slightly different stance.
The present drawing was sold in these rooms in 2001, along with a companion of an indigenous Australian ('Bugger Bugger'), also dated 1824, this latter drawing inscribed 'Sketched by Read the Elder 1824 - taken from Life true measurement 5-1 Bugger Bugger (a Native of New Holond) and a true Representation of our Sydney Blacks. There is just the same disparity in point of bulk and hight in these [two] drawings both being copied by partil measurement'. The Australian drawing is now in the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (P3/278).
Cruise took his convict transport Dromedary to Van Diemen's Land in 1819, disembarking 269 male convicts at Hobart on 28 January 1820 before sailing to Port Jackson to collect the Rev. Samuel Marsden and nine New Zealanders. Cruise's Dromedary was then bound to New Zealand to take on a cargo of kauri spars to 'diminish the expense attendant on the transportation of convicts.' Sailing from Port Jackson on 15 February ' ... we were accompanied by the Rev. S. Mardsen, principal chaplain to the colony of New South Wales, who had established some missionaries in New Zealand, and who, having frequently visited that Island, was considered popular among its inhabitants. He brought on board nine New Zealanders, who were all either chiefs, or the sons of people of that rank. They had been living with him at Paramatta; some of them had been brought to New South Wales, in charge of their relatives, it being the wish of their parents to have them educated at an establishment instituted for that purpose by Mr. Marsden; others had come to obtain muskets, or merely to gratify their rambling disposition. ... the most striking in appearance was Jetoro, a man, one would imagine, in his forty-fifth year; he was six feet two inches high, and was perfectly handsome as to features and figure: though very much tattooed, the benignity and even beauty of his countenance was not destroyed by this frightful operation.' (R.A. Cruise, A Journal of a ten months' residence in New Zealand, London, 1823, pp.17-18).
Read was sentenced to fourteen years for knowingly possessing forged notes in 1812 and transported to Australia on the Earl Spencer, arriving in Sydney in 1813. He was soon granted a ticket of leave and was advertising as an artist from 1814. Known primarily as a portrait painter in the colony, he produced the earliest European portraits in New South Wales, sitters including Governor Macquarie and his wife. He was granted a conditional pardon in 1819. In 1821 he announced in the Sydney Gazette that he had moved to 6 Hunter Street where he offered 'some very superior Views of various Parts of New Holland, together with Drawings of Birds, Flowers, Native Figures.' He was granted absolute pardon in 1826 and is not recorded in the colony from 1828.
The present drawing was sold in these rooms in 2001, along with a companion of an indigenous Australian ('Bugger Bugger'), also dated 1824, this latter drawing inscribed 'Sketched by Read the Elder 1824 - taken from Life true measurement 5-1 Bugger Bugger (a Native of New Holond) and a true Representation of our Sydney Blacks. There is just the same disparity in point of bulk and hight in these [two] drawings both being copied by partil measurement'. The Australian drawing is now in the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (P3/278).
Cruise took his convict transport Dromedary to Van Diemen's Land in 1819, disembarking 269 male convicts at Hobart on 28 January 1820 before sailing to Port Jackson to collect the Rev. Samuel Marsden and nine New Zealanders. Cruise's Dromedary was then bound to New Zealand to take on a cargo of kauri spars to 'diminish the expense attendant on the transportation of convicts.' Sailing from Port Jackson on 15 February ' ... we were accompanied by the Rev. S. Mardsen, principal chaplain to the colony of New South Wales, who had established some missionaries in New Zealand, and who, having frequently visited that Island, was considered popular among its inhabitants. He brought on board nine New Zealanders, who were all either chiefs, or the sons of people of that rank. They had been living with him at Paramatta; some of them had been brought to New South Wales, in charge of their relatives, it being the wish of their parents to have them educated at an establishment instituted for that purpose by Mr. Marsden; others had come to obtain muskets, or merely to gratify their rambling disposition. ... the most striking in appearance was Jetoro, a man, one would imagine, in his forty-fifth year; he was six feet two inches high, and was perfectly handsome as to features and figure: though very much tattooed, the benignity and even beauty of his countenance was not destroyed by this frightful operation.' (R.A. Cruise, A Journal of a ten months' residence in New Zealand, London, 1823, pp.17-18).
Read was sentenced to fourteen years for knowingly possessing forged notes in 1812 and transported to Australia on the Earl Spencer, arriving in Sydney in 1813. He was soon granted a ticket of leave and was advertising as an artist from 1814. Known primarily as a portrait painter in the colony, he produced the earliest European portraits in New South Wales, sitters including Governor Macquarie and his wife. He was granted a conditional pardon in 1819. In 1821 he announced in the Sydney Gazette that he had moved to 6 Hunter Street where he offered 'some very superior Views of various Parts of New Holland, together with Drawings of Birds, Flowers, Native Figures.' He was granted absolute pardon in 1826 and is not recorded in the colony from 1828.