''Bush Idyll'' is a

1893 Events January–March * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America. * Mark Twain started writing Puddn'head Wilson. * January 6 – Th ...

painting by Australian artist

Frederick McCubbin Frederick McCubbin (25 February 1855 – 20 December 1917) was an Australian artist, art teacher and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism. Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, McCubb ...

, and widely regarded as one of the finest masterpieces in Australian art history. The painting depicts a girl and boy - who is playing a tin whistle - lying on the ground near a lake. The painting is part of a private collection and, between 2017 and 2020, was on loan to the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in t ...

Composition

McCubbin painted the work at

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and nort ...

, now a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

. The painting shows

Blackburn Lake Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

in the distance. The model for the girl was Mary Jane Lobb, born in

Castlemaine Castlemaine may mean: * Castlemaine, Victoria, a town in Victoria, Australia ** Castlemaine Football Club, an Australian rules football club ** Castlemaine railway station * Castlemaine, County Kerry, a town in Ireland * Castlemaine Brewery, Western ...

in 1881 and died in 1959. The model for the boy is unknown. The work is said to show the influence of French artist

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his va ...

Provenance

McCubbin gifted the painting to a friend, painter and art patron Louis Abrahams. In 1919, years after Abrahams' death, much of his art collection, including ''Bush Idyll'', was put up for auction in Melbourne. ''Bush Idyll'' was purchased by howbusiness promoter

Hugh D. McIntosh Hugh Donald "Huge Deal" McIntosh (10 September 1876 – 2 February 1942) was an Australian theatrical entrepreneur, sporting promoter and newspaper proprietor Early life McIntosh was born on 16 September 1876, to Hugh Fraser McIntosh, a Scottis ...

, who took the painting to England. The location of the work was then unknown for 50 years until in 1979 an English pig farmer asked a gallery owner in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

to appraise a work he was gifted many years before by a wealthy friend. In 1984, the work was acquired for £150,000 by bookmaker David Waterhouse who brought it back to Australia. Waterhouse sold the work by auction in 1998 for the then-record price of AUD2.31 million. In 2013, the work failed to sell at auction though was sold after auction to a private collector. Between 2017 and 2020 the work was on long-term loan to the

, Canberra. In late 2021 and early 2022 the painting was a part of the "Frederick McCubbin - Whisperings in wattle boughs" exhibition at the

Geelong Gallery The Geelong Art Gallery, currently known as Geelong Gallery, is a major regional gallery in the city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia. The gallery has over 6,000 works of art in its collection. The Gallery forms Geelong's Cultural Precinct with ...

Geelong Geelong ( ) ( Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the south eastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon ...

References

{{Heidelberg School 1893 paintings Paintings by Frederick McCubbin Collections of the National Gallery of Australia