Provenance: Private collection, Tasmania; John and Edward Barkes

“On his arrival Richardson promptly enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools, not as progressive a school as the Royal College, but one with considerably more prestige. He continued to study painting and drawing but was at last able to undertake a serious study of sculpture. In 1883 he won the second prize for painting and the following year he won both first prize for his model of a sculptural group and the Armitage medal for painting. Following his student successes he managed to find employment teaching sculpture at the British Museum, and between times he worked on his own sculpture. He exhibited both painting and sculpture at the Royal Academy: in 1886 The Passing of Arthur and The Wheelwright, and in 1888 a bronze group, Mother and Child. In 1889, because of the illness of his mother, he returned to Melbourne where he was able to exert a considerable influence on the local sculptors.” The Development of Australian Sculpture 1788-1975 by Graeme Sturgeon, published by Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1978, page 59

We are grateful to Dr. Juliette Peers for her help in cataloguing this work