The Summer Art Collection

9
AUGUSTUS BAKER PEIRCE (1840–1919)
Robert Chirnside and the Melbourne Hunt Club, 1882
oil on canvas
signed and dated lower right: Gus B. Pierce 1882
63 x 88cm
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Melbourne
Sotheby's, Fine Australian & International
Paintings, Sydney, 26 August, 2003, Lot 484
By descent in the family of Robert
Chirnside. Reference: Joan Kerr
$15,000–25,000
The colonial pastoralists Thomas Chirnside (1815-1887)
and his brother Andrew Spencer Chirnside (1818-1890)
sailed from Liverpool in the Bardaster and arrived at Adelaide
in January 1839. The brothers saw the prospects of
speculating in the colonies and after some early ventures
they overlanded sheep and cattle to the Port Phillip
District. By April 1842 they had established a station at
Mount William in the Grampians. Later that year Thomas
acquired a station on the Wannon and was the first in
that district to employ Aboriginals as station hands.
In 1843 the brothers bought Mokanger station and during the
next few years acquired a chain of runs in the Western District
including Victoria Lagoon in the Grampians, Kenilworth South,
Wardy Yallock, Curnong and Carranballac. The Chirnsides
considered Port Phillip the Eden of all the colonies and
just before the gold rushes they began acquiring land at
Wyndham (Werribee). There Thomas settled, later building
the bluestone mansion now known as Werribee Park and
gaining a freehold of 80,000 acres while Andrew made
his base on 50,000 acres at Carranballac, near Skipton.
The Chirnsides were great sportsmen who regularly
rode to hounds with the Melbourne Hunt Club. Thomas
Chirnside imported foxes, hares, pheasants and
partridges, and his red deer from England formed the
nucleus of the herd of the Anakies and You Yangs.
Robert Chirnside (1853-1900) the eldest son of Andrew
Chirnside inherited his father’s vitality and love of the
outdoors. He was an agricultural innovator and upon taking
over the property at Caranballac he set about modernising
and improving all aspects of the running of it. Robert
succeeded in forming one of the best Merino flocks in the
Western District and was one of the first pastoralists to
look after the well-being of his men. The shearing sheds
were considered the most complete in the colonies with
the installation of steam powered Wolsely machines to
assist in the shearing, pressing, dumping, and loading of
the wool. Lord Hopetoun is said to have pronounced that
‘Carranballac carried off the palm of the Western District.’
Robert’s reputation as an amateur rider, and subsequently
as an owner of racehorses, was well known. He won the
Caulfield Grand National with ‘Dondi’ and was the first to take
an Australian horse (Sailor) to England. He was an original
member of the V.A.T.C., and in the early days of hunting he
and his brother kept the hounds in the Geelong district,
which afterwards formed the nucleus of the Ballarat pack.
The present image by Augustus Baker Peirce (1840-
1919) presents us with an image of Robert Chirnside as
a young man at the height of his powers. It was probably
commissioned and completed when Peirce settled in
the Geelong district in 1879 after nearly thirty years of
peripatetic adventuring in Australia. Having tired of his travels
he was, at various times during this period, a tobacconist,
hotelier, scene-painter, and horse portrait painter.
Chirnside is shown here sitting confidently astride a
large, glossy bay stallion surrounded by coursing hounds.
The horse is shown prancing slightly and the tails of the
hounds are up, the chase is imminent. Painted in 1882,
the work gives no indication of the illness that was to
cut short Robert Chirnside’s life at the age of 46. Neither
Peirce nor Robert would have imagined it at the time but
perhaps the gathering dark clouds to the upper right
of the picture were a portent of what was to come.
12