Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

AUSTRALIA
Drawing made by Aboriginal people:
God of the Blue Mountains
Dessin fait par des Aborigènes: Dieu des
montagnes bleues
1802
pencil
Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Le Havre inv. 16046
Opinion is divided as to whether this and the
adjacent drawing of a kangaroo are made
by Indigenous people, to whom the Baudin
expedition artists gave a pencil, or are
actually copies of rock drawings observed
by the French artists. If the former, these
are the earliest recorded Aboriginal works
on paper. In his account of the expedition,
François Péron recalled how the Aboriginal
people believed the Blue Mountains to be
‘the residence of a kind of evil spirit, whom
they represent by a variety of grotesque
figures’.
© COPYRIGHT
This document remains the property of the National Gallery of Victoria and must be returned upon request. Reproduction in part or in whole is prohibited without written authorisation.
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