painter, was undoubtedly one of the twelve children of Thomas and Charlotte Lempriere. All would have been taught to paint by their father, who thought Clara showed especial talent, writing in his diary in January 1836 that 'she has much taste and will improve fast’. After Thomas Lempriere died in 1852 the entire family moved to Victoria where this Miss Lempriere painted four oils lent by her sister-in-law Maria Lempriere to the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition. Two were common sketchbook subjects (Lake Como and Dog’s Head) and two were colonial: Sydney Heads: Moonlight and Mitchell River, Gipps Land.
A Miss Lempriere subsequently studied at the National Gallery of Victoria’s painting school under von Guérard. For the 1873 London International Exhibition, together with his other pupils, she prepared copies of British paintings in the gallery’s collection. Her contributions were Ostend Pier after G.C. Chambers, Harvest Waggon after John Linnell, and Ullswater after Benjamin W. Leader (then on loan to the gallery). When the Leader and the copy – 'a landscape, with the moonbeams falling softly on the broad expanse of water fringed with shrubs and sedge’ – were shown together at the 1872 Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition, the Melbourne Age's critic commented that 'the copy, though possessing merits, wants the freedom of the original’.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
