miniaturist, portrait painter and professional photographer, worked at Melbourne in the 1850s and 1860s. In 1853 Mrs Davidson showed four portraits at the Victorian Fine Arts Society’s Exhibition and was possibly a member of the organising committee. She was listed in the catalogue as a professional miniature painter at Neave’s Building, Great Collins Street, 'below the Argus office’. On 12 April 1853, the Argus reported that Mrs Davidson had sent a special order of miniatures on ivory to England via the steamer Chusan. She contributed miniatures to Melbourne exhibitions in 1854 and 1858, at the latter showing portraits of two unidentified women, a man and a child together with a portrait of the visiting English singer Catherine Hayes.
Mrs Davidson appears to have continued as a miniature and portrait painter after moving to Tasmania (c.1860) although later concentrating on photography. She was listed in trade directories as a photographer of Murray Street, Hobart Town from 1862 to 1866. At the 1862-63 Hobart Town Art Treasures Exhibition she showed a watercolour Lady and Children and a photograph, Portrait of a Lady. By 1868 she was back at Melbourne, being listed in the Melbourne Directory for that year as a 'Professor of Painting’ at 75 Collins Street East, then as a 'Photographer’ and 'photographic artist’ at the same address in 1869 and 1870.
No surviving photographs have been located, but an extant two-colour lithograph of Augusta Sophia Young, wife of the Governor of Tasmania, is stated to be after a miniature by Mrs Davidson (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery). Lithographed by H.J. D’Emden and printed by R.L. Hood, it is dated 1 January 1861. Six days later, in an article on a bazaar in aid of St John the Baptist’s parsonage, the Hobart Town Advertiser reported that 'Some capitally executed lithographed portraits of Lady Young were on view at her Ladyship’s stall and excited special attention’.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
