- The scrapbook album of Robin Lloyd Hood (1828 – 1916) lithographer & framer of Elizabeth St Hobart. With provenance: Louisa Anne Meredith. Signed to flyleaf Thirty six double sided leaves capturing the zeitgeist of the early nineteenth century and Colonial Hobart – ruined old master prints, views of the Battles of the Nile & Trafalgar, a portrait of Wellington,
watercolour views of Italy and Switzerland, Mandarins & their Concubines in gouache & luxurious Victorian canines in copper plate, tinted up fighting French Generals leaping out of corners, ancient English trees and the funeral barge of Napoleon. Interestingly, no photography. Scrapbooks, albums, decoupage pictures, declomania balls and trompe l’oeil paintings were all the rage – not just in Hobart, but the whole of the Victorian Empire. Men tended not to do these things, and the assembled range of chopped up fun more mannish than most. Robin Lloyd Hood was born in Duke St, St James, Picadilly, London in 1828 & arrived at the age of 5 on board the Warrior in 1833, with his father Robin Vaughan Hood, mother, and his 14 year old step brother. His father was a Freeman of the City of London & gave his profession as carpenter, which he soon changed to carver, gilder and frame maker. The family’s first known address is at 1 Murray St (‘near St David’s Church’), thence to a ‘weatherboarded house’ in New Town Road, which was destroyed by fire in 1840. The family built a shop and residence at 34 Liverpool St, Hobart in 1841, which was named Somerset House, after the home in London of the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1846, the Hood family built a gallery adjacent to their Liverpool St premises. From thereafter, Somerset House Gallery became the centre of the fine arts in Hobart, exhibiting artist John Glover and convict artists Thomas Bock, William Beulow Gould, William Duke and TG Wainewright. The 23 year old Robin Lloyd Hood took over his fathers business in 1851, in business until his death in 1916.
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