Fine Art Auction Part I Saturday, 14 November 2026 / 11:00 am start
W Watkins - ‘Early Settlement, Akaroa Harbour’, Oil on Tin
Current Bid $15 (2 bids, reserve met)
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Lot Details
W Watkins (1835 - 1904) Early Settlement, Akaroa Harbour Oil on Tin Signed lower left, undated 245 x 340mm Provenance: Private collection, Christchurch Condition: Some cracking to oils. Born in London, Watkins emigrated aged 15 with his family on the Cressy and settled in Akaroa. Largely self-taught, he received private lessons from Edward Norman, the surveyor, and studied at the Victorian Academy of Fine Art from 1876 to 1878. He remained “Will the painter” to his friends in Akaroa for the rest of his life, and was awarded a silver medal at the Christchurch International Exhibition in 1882. Admired for his thoughtfully observed landscapes, by the 1890s his work was seen as overly picturesque. However, as Peter Vangioni has noted, Watkins’s images provide a wonderful and unique record of Banks Peninsula in the second half of the 19th century. The competent, albeit naive, style of Early Settlement, Akaroa Harbour is characteristic of Watkins’s early work. Looking down the slopes above the settlement towards the harbour, with Carew’s Peak in the distance (a popular Instagram view today), we see a gentle, domesticated world with cattle, clothesline and cottages. Interestingly, the dead tree stumps are indicative of the violent, rapid destruction of the lush native bush as high-value timbers were exported and the land cleared for pastoral farming – a process now being reversed with native reforestation projects on both private and public land across the peninsula. Painted in oil on tin, the surface shows some cracking. A similar view is held by the National Library of Australia.
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