George French Angas (1822-1886) was the eldest son of George Fife Angas, Chair of the South Australia Company which established the colony. Gifted as a watercolour artist and naturalist, George French spent more than 18 months in Australia and New Zealand from 1844-1845, sketching and collecting specimens. His accurate record of Aboriginal portraiture and material culture, together with South Australian landscapes and natural history (all on the verge of rapid change) is unequalled.
Back in London, Angas lithographed most of the volume’s ethnographic plates himself, but engaged London’s best lithographers to complete the work. Several of the Aboriginal portraits were lithographed by Angas’s former tutor, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, and his wife, Louisa. William Wing was responsible for three plates featuring insects. At just twenty-three years old, Angas was preparing for a major exhibition of more than 300 of his Australian and New Zealand watercolours. With the original watercolours hanging in the Egyptian Hall exhibition, it appears that Angas made copies for the lithographers to use. The chromo-lithographic process enabled most of the original colours to be reproduced, but it was still necessary to hand-colour particular elements, such as European clothing. As a consequence, slight variations can be detected in surviving copies of Angas’s folio volumes. The exhibition opened at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly during April 1846 to enthusiastic reviews; visitors included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Angas’s aim was not to sell his works, but to gain subscribers to his folio volumes of lithographs.
This volume is one of three based on the finely drawn watercolours of George French Angas. The images and text in this, and the other folio volumes not held by the Society, described his journeys to South Australia, New South Wales, New Zealand and South Africa during the 1840s, a time of tumultuous change brought about by British colonisation. South Australia Illustrated featured 60 chromo-lithographs of the highest quality, together with detailed descriptions. The images were lithographed from Angas’s finely drawn watercolours, depicting South Australia’s scenery, its natural history, and portraits and artefacts of the Aboriginal people whom Angas encountered.
For other RGSSA treasures by George French Angus see Scenery of Rio de Janeiro and The Kaffirs Illustrated.
