Owners Elias and Colleen Jreissati with the painting after it was hung in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Picture: Richard Jupe.
Shaun McManus, Historic 1850s Eugene von Guerard painting of Hobart goes on display at TMAG, The Mercury, 31 October 2017
One of Australia’s most significant historical paintings, depicting Hobart in the 1850s, has gone on display at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
View of Hobart Town with Mount Wellington in the background (1856) by Austrian artist Eugene von Guerard is one of only a small number of paintings of Tasmania known to exist by the renowned artist.
Melbourne businessman and art collector Elias Jreissati, who bought the painting in 2016, has loaned it to TMAG for at least 12 months.
He is a regular visitor to Tasmania with his wife, Colleen, and jumped at the opportunity to display the painting to the public.
“We got so excited about being able to buy it because it is just fantastic, but also we hoped that one day we [would] be able to bring it back home, and we were able to do that with the help of the TMAG people,” Mr Jreissati said.
“Seeing it on display in the museum with other paintings of its era was just goosebumps territory.”
TMAG principal curator of art Jane Stewart encouraged people to come along and view the painting.
And, by snapping the work on your phone and enlarging it, you can take in the incredible minute detail of the work.
View of Hobart Town is on display until November 2018.
