Portrait of Sir Samuel Gillott (Mayor 1900-02, Lord Mayor 1902-03) 1904

PASZTHORY, Baron Arpad

Registration number

1515371

Artist/maker

PASZTHORY, Baron Arpad

Title

Portrait of Sir Samuel Gillott (Mayor 1900-02, Lord Mayor 1902-03)

Production date

1904

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions (H x W x D)

130 x 105 cm

Inscriptions

signed lower left

Credit line

Purchased, 2011
City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection

Keywords

Lord Mayor Samuel Gillott, Baron Arpad de Paszthory, Mayor 1900-02, Lord Mayor 1902-03

Summary

Sir Samuel Gillott was Melbourne’s first lord mayor, serving from 1902 to 1903. The period he spent in office was not without controversy, and his political career came to a blunt conclusion in 1906 when he was found in compromising circumstances. In 1904 the Truth newspaper alleged that he had been secretly funding the Madam Brussells brothel, an establishment frequented by some of Melbourne’s most influential people. Council’s original portrait of Lord Mayor Samuel Gillott was destroyed in the Town Hall fire of 1925. This portrait, a smaller version which was executed at the same time as the one that was destroyed, was gifted to Gillott by Council. It stayed in the Gillott family for many years and then turned up in a Sydney second-hand furniture shop. The work was purchased for Council’s Art and Heritage Collection and then underwent extensive conservation. The frame had to be re-made and gilded.