Summary
Head and shoulders portrait of Gordon Augustus Thomson (1799–1886).
Gordon Augustus Thomson was one of the first Europeans to arrive in Melbourne. Descended from a wealthy Irish family he first visited Melbourne in 1836 as part of a round-the-world tour. He later donated a map of Port Phillip, a watercolour sketch of Aboriginal people and a portrait of William Buckley, an escaped convict who spent 30 years with the Victorian Aboriginal people, to the Ulster Museum. In 1874 he returned to Melbourne and published an account of his Australian experience in the ‘Australasian’. Thomson presented this portrait to the City of Melbourne in 1884.
Thomas Flintoff (1809-91) arrived in Ballarat in the early 1850s. After establishing a successful photographic gallery in Sturt Street, Ballarat he set up a studio in Melbourne in 1872. He exhibited at the Victorian Academy of Arts in 1872-73 and is known for his portraits of leading citizens, politicians and farmers.
