Design and Art Australia Online

painter, picture restorer and teacher, was an Italian immigrant living in Sydney in 1854 when an oil painting, Government House, Sydney , was catalogued in the Australian Museum Exhibition as being by 'Monsieur Asselin’. In 1857 Dr Woolley lent C. Asselin’s View of the Campagna to the Fine Arts Exhibition at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts. In 1858 Asselin—referring to himself as 'Dr Asselin’ and giving his address as 172 Palmer Street, Woolloomooloo—advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald that he would 'restore to pristine beauty ancient paintings, according to the method which he learned at the Academies of Painting at Rome and Naples’.

A critic in 1860 commented that Signor Asselin’s own paintings were 'some of the most admirable minature [sic] specimens of oil paintings illustrative of the harbour of Port Jackson’, suggesting that he worked on a very small scale. No signed examples have been located and unsigned works of this type are usually attributed to George Edwards Peacock . The most admired of Asselin’s views was one of Manly Beach (about 15.2 × 10.1 cm), described as 'rich almost to a fault in its colouring’ and enclosed in a 'neat gilded frame’. Other views included Shark Island from Point Piper (judged as rather too blue both in sea and sky) and six miniatures intended to be set as brooches illustrating 'the Heads where the Dunbar was wrecked’, the Harbour from Milson’s Point, Government House, two more harbour scenes and 'a delicious little illustration of the bush of Australia’. These were especially recommended for ladies 'who would like to have some reminiscence of the land they live in, beyond the mere gold out of which their trinkets are fashioned’.

In 1860 'Carlo’ Asselin was advertising as a teacher of French, Italian and drawing. Sands Sydney Directory for the following year lists Charles Asselin as an artist of 47 Judge Street and 'John Charles’ Asselin, artist, was declared insolvent that June. A letter attributed to 'T.’ C. Asselin, 'an artist of some standing in this city’ then living at 109 Duke Street, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1861, complaining that his oil paintings of bush scenery had not been displayed at the School of Arts Exhibition because they had no frames. The refusal to exhibit the works, protested the author, was particularly insulting as he was a corresponding member of the Naples Society of Fine Arts and had exhibited paintings in that city, in Rome and in Paris without frames. Asselin is last recorded in September 1864, when a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald noted that Mr Asselin, 'artist, Redfern’, was responsible for colouring the lithographed Chronological and Genealogical Charts of English and French History printed by J. Degotardi .

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011