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William Nicholas (1807-1854)
[Portrait of Mary Murray, nee Gibbes 1843] 1843
watercolour; 39.4 x 27.8 cm
Pictorial Collection
nla.pic-an23259439

Mary (Minnie) Gibbes, the daughter of Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes, New South Wales Collector of Customs, married Terence Aubrey Murray in 1843. Murray had arrived in the Canberra district in 1837 to pursue pastoral interests on the limestone plains and in the high country and beyond. When they married, Minnie left the comfort and entertainments of her life in Sydney to live with him at Yarralumla. This watercolour, one of four, was given to the Library by Mr Grant Aubrey Garrioch, Sir Terence Aubrey Murray’s and Minnie’s great-grandson. The formally unattributed portrait was identified for the Library by Judith Newland who, in the process of cataloguing the painting, discovered Nicholas' signature and the date' hidden' in the patterns of the carpet on which Minnie stands.

 

June 2002 Volume XII Number 9

SPIKE MILLIGAN, A LIFE OF BEING FUNNY

Spike Milligan made people laugh. Barry York celebrates his achievements

POLITICAL EPHEMERA AND THE HIP-POCKET

Sally Young takes a look at the Library’s Political Ephemera Collection

KEEPING HOUSE IN THE 1840s

Tucked away in the Manuscript Collection is a small account book. It reveals a very ordinary life, as Joanna Richardson finds out

AUSTRALIAN ALBUMS, 'ALL NEW--ALL COLONIAL'

Music publishing played an important role in shaping an Australian colonial and social identity and was part of an educational vision, as Andrew Greenwood discovers

A WEEKEND OF IDEAS AT MANNING CLARK HOUSE

Roslyn Russell reports on a three-day feast of thinking and bright ideas

FRIENDS

A regular news page about the activities of the Friends of the National Library of Australia

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