Historical information

One of these items is an 1894 letter written by the artist Tudor St George Tucker regarding one of his artworks in the Warrnambool Art Gallery collection. The other eight letters were written between 1889 and 1897 and document the controversy of the time when the authenticity of the art work by Louis Buvelot, The Waterhole at Coleraine, in the Warrnambool Art Gallery collection, was questioned. The Warrnambool photographer Daniel Clarke was querying the authenticity of the art work in the Art Gallery but evidence in the form of letters from George Folingsby of the National Gallery in Melbourne and from Louis Buvelot’s widow, Caroline-Julie, confirmed that there was confusion over the number of art works that Buvelot had executed with a similar theme. It was eventually proven that the Buvelot art work was genuine. The public spat was largely played out in the Warrnambool Standard but these original letters fill in the gaps of our knowledge on the subject. The letters came into the possession of George Lance who was involved with the Warrnambool Mechanics Institute /Art Gallery in the 1880s and 1890s and was the secretary of these institutions from 1892 to 1901. The letters were then handed on George Lance’s grandson, Bruce Morris, a well-known Warrnambool historian who was the editor of the Warrnambool Standard from 1946 to 1968.

Significance

These letters are of great significance as eight of them are the original letters written in connection with the 19th century controversy in Warrnambool over the authenticity of a Louis Buvelot art work owned by the Warrnambool Art gallery.

Physical description

.1 A sheet of paper folded in two containing three pages of writing handwritten in black ink and pasted on paper.
.2 A sheet of paper folded in two containing one page of writing handwritten in black ink and pasted on a sheet of paper.
.3 A sheet of paper with handwriting in black ink pasted on a piece of paper.
.4 One sheet of paper folded in two to make four pages of writing, handwritten in black ink.
.5 .6 .7 A sheet of paper with handwritten material in black ink pasted onto another sheet of paper
.8 A sheet of paper folded in two with three pages of handwritten material pasted onto another sheet of paper.
.9 A sheet of paper folded in two with one page of handwritten material pasted onto another sheet of paper.