The Month's New Reading
p. 91 · Read in the full issue
With Judy Tudor
These two drawings, which are believed to be Australia's earliest known fashion pictures, were done by one of two Spanish artists who visited Sydney in 1793 with an expedition to the Pacific headed by Captain Alejandro Malaspina.
The drawings depict (left) a female and male convict, and (right) an English officer and a women, who may have been the officer's wife. The drawings are unsigned, but are presumed to be the work of Juan Ravenet, as the other artist in Malaspina's expedition, Fernando Brambila, seems to have specialised in landscapes. Because little has been published in English about Malaspina's expedition, the work of Ravenet and Brambila is almost unknown in Australia, and it is not mentioned in the book on early Australian art reviewed on this page.
Our illustrations are reproduced from the originals in Sydney's Mitchell Library and are published with the permission of the library's trustees.