Turner to Monet The Australian Sketcher of November 1873 shows
von Guérard’s grand Kosciusko painting displayed at the Vienna
Exhibition with other contributions from the Australian
colonies. It and another of the artist’s paintings, Cape
Woolamai 1872, are surrounded by photographs and maps, produce,
flora and fauna, as well as a case of mineral samples and other
specimens of interest.1There is some irony here. Von Guérard
detailed the lichen on rocks in North-east view from the
northern top of Mount Kosciusko – most noticeably on the
platform on which the cloaked figure stands – but other parts
are less convincing. When von Guérard arrived in Australia in
1852 he was already an established artist, having trained in
Rome and Düsseldorf. He had probably seen works by Friedrich;
Carus’s published writings also circulated widely during the
1830s and 1840s, the periods of von Guérard’s study at the
Staatliche Kunstakademie. In his new southern homeland the
artist familiarised himself with native flora by sketchi