Eugene von Guérard

Eugene von Guérard
born Austria 1811; arrived Australia 1852; died United Kingdom 1901

Aborigines met on the road to the diggings 1854
oil on canvas
Geelong Gallery
Gift of W Max Bell and Norman Belcher, 1923

During his remarkable and intrepid journeys through our region’s landscape, von Guérard frequently made sketches which were the basis for paintings he completed in his studio.

In his diary, the artist described this scene in the Moorabool Valley, with the You Yangs visible in the background. On the first day of their trek from Geelong to Ballarat, 11 January 1853, he and his party encountered ‘a group of three or four mia-mias, the abode of some eight or ten Aborigines’.

This painting depicts a transaction between a group of Wadawurrung people and two European miners, one of which kneels to examine the possum-skin cloak. These cloaks had both a ceremonial and practical purpose for the Indigenous people of south-eastern Australia.