Nicholas Chevalier, colonial artist: autograph letter signed, 1877

Manuscript in ink on single octavo sheet, 180 x 110 mm, dated 5 April 1877, addressed to Thomas Hedderwick, Liberal M.P., discussing a commissioned painting which Chevalier has completed for his neighbours at 9 Porchester Terrace, London (Chevalier’s residence at this time was at 5 Porchester Terrace), signed at the foot ‘Yours, much obliged, N. Chevalier’, original fold line, some very pale foxing towards the upper edge but essentially in fine condition.

‘My dear Mr. Hedderwick,

I have to thank you very sincerely for the excellent quotation you were good enough to improvise for my picture. I have sent it for the R.A. Catalogue and hope the Authorities will appreciate it as much as do the inmates of 9 Porchester Terrace.‘

Nicholas Chevalier is considered one of the most important artists active in Australasia during the gold rush period. The son of a Swiss father and Russian mother, he arrived in Victoria from London in early 1855. Working initially as a commercial artist for the Melbourne Punch and later the Illustrated Australian News, he went on to produce an important corpus of landscape paintings of regional Victoria and New Zealand, before returning to England in 1869 as the official artist on board the Duke of Edinburgh’s yacht, the Galatea. His painting Buffalo Ranges (1864) was the first Australian work to enter the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.