Collecting French art in the late 1800s at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Abstract

Abstract From the nineteenth century, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales has been a marker of cultural ambition in Australia. This paper critically considers five large French paintings purchased at the end of the nineteenth century at significant expense by the gallery. Feted by contemporaries as examples of the French academic style, they formed part of plans to develop a representative collection to further understanding of art in the colony and, over time, they have taken on a rich role in the collective cultural memory. Through close examination of these paintings, their historical reception, criticism, reproduction and traces in the gallery’s archives this article reveals a history of taste, class and the formation of the cultural value of art. Using an object-based approach, it positions these works as evidence of changing cultural ideas within the context of a state collection to offer new insight into their status, the gallery itself, and the multiple roles of public art collections.