Robert Littlejohn b. c.1756

  • Artist (Draughtsman),
  • Artist (Painter)
Painter, drawing teacher, naturalist and settler, was born and educated in Scotland. He came to Van Diemen's Land in 1803. His greatest passion was for botanical research, devoting much time to collecting and classifying rare indigenous plants.
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painter, drawing teacher, naturalist and settler, was born and educated in Scotland. He came to Van Diemen’s Land in 1803, on board the Ocean , as a member of Lieutenant-Governor David Collins’s party to establish the first European settlement on the island. The ship’s first assistant surgeon, Matthew Bowden, described him as a 'limner’, a term still in use in Britain for professional portrait painters. In Van Diemen’s Land Littlejohn taught drawing to the children of his neighbours at Glenorchy where he lived on a property called Montrose. His greatest passion, however, was for botanical research, and he devoted considerable time to collecting and classifying rare indigenous plants (which he presumably drew). Littlejohn died on 26 November 1818, aged sixty-two. No surviving works are known.

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Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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