Georgiana Huntly McCrae

Self-portrait by Georgiana Huntly McCrae, 1824

Georgiana Huntly McCrae (born March 15, 1804 in London , † May 24, 1890 in Hawthorn near Melbourne ) was a Scottish - Australian painter and diary writer .

Earlier life

Georgiana was born as the illegitimate daughter of George, Marquis of Huntly and later 5th Duke of Gordon, and Jane Graham of Rockmoor. Her father played little part in her life and spent her earliest childhood in Scotland with her grandparents. In 1809 Georgiana lived with her mother in the London Borough of Camden , where she attended a convent school. After about two years she had to change schools because the school fees were no longer paid, a short time later her talent was recognized at Claybrook House in Fulham . Georgiana was then homeschooled.

Training, teaching and academy

Georgiana's first art teacher was Louis Mauleon, under whom she learned to draw with black and red chalk. After the death of her aunt, Margarethe Graham († 1813), she inherited their house and £ 400. The following winter she received music lessons from the novelist Frances Holcroft and in 1814 from the painter John Varley (1778-1842). Under the care of Abbé Huteau were John Glover (1767-1849) and John Thomas Serres (1759-1825) other teachers. She later enrolled at the Royal Academy of Arts and was compared to the Swiss Angelika Kauffmann (1741-1807) and Mary Anne Knight († 1816), mother of the British Lord Chancellor Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro . In 1820 she won the silver medal of the London Royal Society of Arts for the painting showing her grandfather the 4th Duke of Gordon and in 1821 Portrait of a French Lady .

Marriage and children

On September 25, 1830, Georgiana Huntly McCrae married her cousin (first degree) Andrew Murison McCrae (1800-1874) at Gordon Castle near Edinburgh . The marriage had seven children, including George Gordon McCrae (1833-1927). They lived alternately in Edinburgh, Westminster and London. In all that time she did not give up painting and often took her family for study purposes.

Next life

In November 1838 her husband embarked on the Royal Saxon for Australia and Georgiana had to stay in London because of childbirth complications. In 1840 she arrived in Sydney with her children and they moved to Melbourne where he could practice as a lawyer. Here she met the writer William Howitt , the painter Nicholas Chevalier , the writer and painter Louisa Anne Meredith , and the painter Julie Visseux . While doing a painting study in the area where she painted the indigenous people and landscape, Georgiana sustained a hip injury. The couple separated in 1867, Andrew McCrae went to Kilmore as magistrate and Georgiana traveled to Great Britain, where she stayed until 1874.

In 1934, her grandson Hugh McCrae published her diary with pictures and sketches of the Australian flora and fauna.

literature

• Brenda Niall: A Biography of Georgiana McCrae, painter, diarist, pioneer

Web links

• Self-portrait by Georgiana Huntly McCrae (1824)
• Norman Cowper: Georgiana Huntly McCrae . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).