sketcher, was the third daughter of George and Elizabeth Thorne of Claremont, Rose Bay, a house erected about 1851 on what had previously been part of the Wentworths’ Vaucluse estate on the south-eastern shores of Sydney Harbour. Reputedly a pupil of Conrad Martens , Rosalie’s only known art works, a group of pencil sketches taken in the environs of Vaucluse House in 1869 (Historic Houses Trust, NSW), are far closer to a group of views by Martens’s daughter Rebecca . They are not simple copies, however, but instead indicate that the two women went sketching together.
On 26 November 1869 Miss Thorne, aged nineteen, and Miss Martens, aged thirty-one (clearly her mentor), drew Vaucluse House from virtually the same spot. Four days later, they produced exceedingly similar views of Vaucluse Bay. On 2 December, both drew the same clump of trees. The last of the group, a distant view of Vaucluse House and stables dated 9 December, suggests that Rebecca was staying either with the Thornes at Claremont or at Vaucluse House with Thomasine Wentworth while Thomasine’s parents were overseas. The latter seems the more likely since Rebecca alone drew the hall of Vaucluse House on 7 December.
Thorne’s sketches were not intended as original contributions to the fine arts and are quite unpretentious. Such sketching activities were tokens of young middle-class women’s status and friendships and were often abandoned with marriage and children. Rosalie Thorne married a Mr Watkins not long afterwards and no drawings are known from then on.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
