J.S. Prout [signed on stone.]
[Hobart, Tasmania: J.S. Prout, 1844.]
Rare sepia-tinted lithograph heightened in white, sheet 260 x 390mm. 10¼ x 15¼". Trimmed to image; repaired tears to outer edges laid on conservation tissue.
Plate to the rare folio 'Tasmania Illustrated' by John Skinner Prout (1805 - 1876). Published in two parts, the first with titlepage and twelve views on eleven plates, with six plates forming the second part. The nephew of the artist Samuel Prout, Prout was born in Plymouth in 1806. He travelled to Australia in the late 1830s and arrived in New South Wales in 1840. In 1844 Prout and his family moved to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. On 14 June he announced a course of lectures 'on the cultivation of the fine arts, with practical illustrations'. They were well received and later in the year he published the first volume of Tasmania Illustrated, 'five grouped vignettes of Tasmanian scenes'. By the time the second volume appeared in 1846 Prout had toured the North of the island, where he was 'engaged by several gentlemen for the purpose of sketching their country seats, farms, and the country surrounding them'. He returned to England in 1848 and began exhibiting many of his Australian works in London.
See Craig, Clifford The Engravers of Van Diemen's Land pp.61-63. Australian Dictionary of Biography: Hodgman, V. W., 'Prout, John Skinner (1805–1876)'. Plate 3. See State Library of Tasmania PRINT.ROO
[Ref: 22641]  £220.00