sketcher, only daughter of Phillip Parker King and Harriet, née Lethbridge, was born on her parents’ property, Dunheved, near Penrith, New South Wales. Libby, as she was known in the family, was given an album (p.c.) by her brother Charles in 1848, which she filled with sketches some possibly collected or drawn earlier. Those initialled 'R.L.K.’ are by her brother Robert ; others, typical picturesque pencil and wash views, are presumably her own work though unsigned. Attributed are a group of four views including one of Tahlee, the house at Port Stephens where the family lived when her father was commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company (c.1839 49) and the wooden observatory erected by her father in the Tahlee garden. As P.P. King took Libby on a short trip to Britain in 1847 these views would have been made before then or soon after they returned the following year.
Elizabeth King’s own portrait was drawn by the fashionable Sydney artist William Nicholas before a second English voyage led to her becoming, in 1856, the second wife of Herman Ludolphus Prior, a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn. From then on England was her home. She died at her husband’s estate near Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 3 October 1872. There were no children of the marriage.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
