Colonel James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry, ca. 1840 / attributed to Joseph Fowles
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Record title
Colonel James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry, ca. 1840 / attributed to Joseph Fowles
Call numbers
ML 1321 , Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 2, North Wall, no. 130
Record identifier
YK5QJoan
Record permalink
https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/YK5QJoan
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Colonel James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry, ca. 1840 / attributed to Joseph Fowles
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Colonel James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry, ca. 1840 / attributed to Joseph Fowles
Full title
Date
ca. 1840
Call Numbers
ML 1321 , Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 2, North Wall, no. 130
Record Identifier
— Physical Description
Contents
1 painting - 60.9 x 43.8 cm. (image) in gilded wood frame 79 x 62.5 cm. - oil on canvas
— Other Descriptions
Level of description
Fonds
Access and use
Copying Conditions
Copyright status : Out of copyright - Creator died before 1955
Please acknowledge: : Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Terms of use
Ask a Librarian online or in the reading room.
Subjects
More information
— SCOPE AND CONTENTS
Contents
1 oil painting on canvas in a gilded wood frame. A full length portrait of Major James Winniett Nunn, of the 80th Regiment of Foot, Commandant of the New South Wales Police, with a landscape of New South Wales in the background.
Nunn was probably part of the 5th Irish Lancers whose uniform is distinguished by the great flowing green head-pie...
— ALTERNATIVE TITLES
Full title
Colonel James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry, ca. 1840 / attributed to Joseph Fowles
— AUTHORS, ARTISTS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Author / Artists
— NOTES
General note
Digital order no:Album ID : 1269583
Signature / Inscriptions
No signature.
Attributions / Conjectures
Possibly painted by Joseph Fowles. While the painting is not dated or signed, it does depict Nunn in NSW. It is possible that it was painted in England, though the attribution to Joseph Fowles is credible.
Attribution to Joseph Fowles made by Elizabeth Ellis. 2014 Hordern House catalogue for European Discovery, 1538-1843, p.75, Number 33.
Date note
Undated.
Date range based on Nunn's arrival in colony in 1837 and his appointment as Colonel in 1846.
Description source
Label on verso of painting.
— CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION
Source
Purchased from Hordern House, October 2014, Lot 33
Exhibited in
Paintings from the Collection
Administrative / Biographical history
Nunn arrived in New South Wales with the 80th Regiment of Foot which was garrisoned from 1837 to 1844. In the same year he became the commander of the NSW Mounted Police, and in December 1837, it was reported that Aboriginal warriors had attacked and killed stockmen on properties beyond the limits of settlement in the Namoi River district. Nunn was dispatched with two sergeants and twenty troopers and on 26 January 1838, near the Gwydir River, his party was attacked and a corporal wounded. In retaliation the troopers opened fire and a number of Aboriginal people were killed. The Mounted Police then pursued the Aborigines and engaged them again, killing more. The event is now known as the Waterloo Creek Massacre.
He was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army in 1846.
The 80th Regiment was sent to India in 1844 and Nunn died at Meerut, 2 February 1847, aged 57. His death and obituary was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, 7 September 1847.
Reference:
Sydney Morning Herald
1847 'COUNTRY SALE.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 7 September, p. 2, viewed 27 October, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12900294...
Identifiers
— PRIMARY IDENTIFIERS
Call Numbers
ML 1321 , Status: On display – Paintings from the Collection, Room 2, North Wall, no. 130
Record Identifier
YK5QJoan
Permalink
https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/YK5QJoan
— OTHER IDENTIFIERS
Reference code
1248659
