page_title: William Westall
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: William Westall / Voyages / Australia
caption_attribution_description: Sydney: Government House, an 1802 watercolour painting by William Westall, depicting what was then Sydney's Government House. The building has since been relocated and is now Old Government House, Parramatta.
context_page_description: William Westall ARA was an English landscape artist best known as one of the first artists to work in Australia.
context_section_description: Investigator came in sight of Australia on 6 December, and the following morning Westall made his first sketch of Australia, a coastal profile from about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) off Cape Leeuwin. He made two further coastal profiles the following day, one of Chatham Island (Western Australia), the other of the Eclipse Islands. Late that night the Investigator anchored alongside Seal Island in King George the Third's Sound (now King George Sound); they would remain in King George Sound for almost four weeks.
  The next morning, the 9th, Westall sketched Seal Island from the anchorage. Later that day he went with Flinders and others, firstly to examine Seal Island and search for a bottle and parchment that George Vancouver had left there ten years previously. They then went across to Possession Point and the opposite shore, and examined Princess Royal Harbour.
  Not much is known of Westall's subsequent movements, but on 14 December he was on shore with Brown, Good, Westall, Allen, and possibly Bauer and a man named White, when they made the first contact with an Australian Aborigine, who initially advanced on them, shouting and brandishing a spear, but then retreated before them, setting fire to the grass behind him. On 23 December Westall was one of a large party who set off on a grueling two-day overland expedition to Torbay Inlet and back.
  By 30 December Investigator's men had established amicable relations with the Aborigines. That day Westall sketched an Aboriginal man named Warena, and showed it to him. Warena was pleased, and bared his body to the waist so that Westall could complete the drawing. A sketch of an Aboriginal man survives, and Rienitz and Rienitz assume that this is Warena, but Vallance et al. (2001) note that the sketch does not match Brown's description of Warena as a "middle aged stout man".
  On 1 January 1802, Westall landed with Bauer, apparently in company with Brown, and apparently at Limeburner Point. Westall and Bauer subsequently went exploring together, and discovered the Western Australian Pitcher Plant (Cephalotus follicularis).
  From this time on, the surviving drawings by Westall decrease markedly in both number and quality. Findlay assumed that nearly all of Westall's drawings have survived, and sees the Westall's low output as indicative of his growing disillusionment with the Australian landscape, which he perceived as lacking in the picturesque qualities he sought. Rienitz and Rienitz, on the other hand, perceive Westall as diligent enough, and assume that many of his drawing have been lost.
  Only five sketches and a watercolour are extant from Westall's time in King George's Sound, and he seems to have made only one sketch during the five days spent in Lucky Bay. At Cape Catastrophe, where eight men were drowned, Westall sketched Thistle Island, and painted a snake.
  The arrival of Investigator at the settlement at Port Jackson (now Sydney) on 8 May 1802 seems to have revitalised Westall. During there ten-week hiatus there, he produced a great deal of work, including no fewer than thirteen detailed drawings of the Hawkesbury River, with which he was much taken. He also sketched some local Aborigines, and was commissioned by the Governor, Phillip Gidley King, to paint Government House. The resulting watercolour is one of a very few paintings that Westall completed during the voyage.
  Heading north up the east coast, Westall continued drawing coastal profiles, but put less effort in than ever. Anchoring in Port Bowen on 21 August, the scientists went ashore to explore, and Flinders offered to name the highest mountain over whoever reached the peak first. Westall won; hence the name of Mount Westall. Continuing north, Investigator found a passage through the Great Barrier Reef, passed through Torres Strait, and anchored off Murray Island, where about fifty Torres Strait Islanders came out in canoes to trade. From this time onward, Westall largely eschewed landscapes in favour of portraying events and people. Amongst his work in this period is the watercolour Murray Isles, which depicts the islan
caption: Sydney: Government House, 1802
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