-
Featured Artists
- Lola Greeno
- Lindy Lee
- Rosemary Wynnis Madigan
- Margaret Preston
custom_research_links -
- Login
- Create Account
Help
custom_participate_links- %nbsp;
topographical painter and naval draughtsman, was a midshipman aboard l’Uranie when it left Toulon, France, on 17 September 1817 under the command of Louis de Freycinet . Pellion assisted the expedition’s official artists J. Arago and A. Taunay during the three-year voyage around the world. On 12 September 1818, l’Uranie reached Shark Bay, WA, where a camp was established. Pellion’s Baie des Chiens Marins, Camp de L’Uranie is in the NLA. The expedition struck camp and sailed for Timor a fortnight later.
L’Uranie sailed into Port Jackson on 18 November 1819. The French, no longer considered a threat to Britain or its colonies after Napoleon’s defeat, were made welcome by Governor Macquarie, who liberally entertained them at both Sydney and Parramatta and permitted both artists and scientists to wander freely. William Lawson guided the surgeon-zoologist Quoy and the botanist Gaudichaud-Beaupré on an expedition over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst along Cox’s road. De Freycinet had intended Arago to accompany them, but his place was taken by Pellion 'whose zeal, activity and courage never failed him in dangerous enterprises, and whose talents as a draughtsman rendered him equally proper for this mission’. The trip was not without incident. An accident befell Pellion on the outward journey: 'M. Pellion … on firing at a bird, was thrown from his horse, which ran away through the wood … [but] M. Pellion … showed that his zeal was proof against danger; and on his return we had proof that his talents were even superior to his zeal.’ The horse had run off with some of the drawing equipment, including 'an artificial horizon, drawing paper, pencils, colours etc.’ L’Uranie left Sydney on 25 December 1819 and sailed round the Horn. Wrecked off the Falkland Islands in February 1820, the French were marooned for two months before being rescued by the American ship Mercury .
Pellion made many sketches in NSW, including views of Cox’s Pass and Cox’s River and portraits of the Aborigines of the region. Some were used as the basis of illustrations for de Freycinet’s Atlas Historique . Others, including a view of Port Jackson, were reproduced in Rose de Freycinet’s published Journal . In London, on 26 September 2002, the original artwork produced on the Freycinet voyage (plus maps and 10 autograph ms charts of WA, NSW and Tasmania from Baudin’s voyage) was offered at Christie’s, London (preview Christopher Day, Sydney, 28-30 August 2002). Pellion’s Le Port Jackson – vue de l’observatoire de l’Uranie – d’aprés nature 1819 (with a long stone fence as foreground) was estimated at A$140,000-200,000.