The Artists

Elizabeth Parsons

ELIZABETH PARSONS
FERN TREE GULLY, 1896

ELIZABETH PARSONS
Born England 1831, arrived Australia 1870, died 1897

FERN TREE GULLY, 1896
watercolour on paper 25 x 48 cm
Private Collection

This watercolour landscape depicts the wide main road through Fern Tree Gully, which we now know as Burwood Highway. In the background are the Dandenong Ranges, and in the foreground a lone house with some shedding behind.

Fern Tree Gully was a popular area for artists, and holds the distinction of being named after an artwork called 'Fern Tree Gully' by an artist named Herald. His artwork of this region was bought for the Royal collection, and so popularised his name for the area, even though the original name was Lightwood Gully. Eugene von Guerard painted his major work 'Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges', 1857, not far from the site of this work.

It was one of the last works that Elizabeth Parsons produced, for she died on 28 May 1897, at the age of sixty-five.

Left: Arthur Streeton - Above Us The Great Grave Sky, 1890
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.