sketcher, was one of the eight daughters of Richard Cleburne, a Tasmanian merchant, and his wife Sarah. According to Henry Allport, she was a pupil of T.E. Chapman . An oval pencil on scraperboard drawing initialled 'M.S.C.’, From Kangaroo Bay, Tasmania (c.1853, Van Diemen’s Land Folk Museum), is attributed to her. Watercolours of the 1860s and 1870s (Crowther Library) reveal that at its best her work is finely detailed with a good sense of perspective but its quality is uneven. Some of these are only initialled; all are undated. They include The Road to Mount Direction on the Derwent, Tasmania (watercolour), The River Derwent at Old Beach (c.1860, watercolour, Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts) and other views of the river.
Cleburne died, unmarried, on 19 April 1885, aged fifty-five. Dr Crowther purchased her watercolour, The First Chimney in Van Diemen’s Land at Lt Bowen’s Camp Risdon 1803 (c.1870), at a sale in her home, Cleburne House, Mount Direction, on 17 February 1944.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
