London – Greenwich (Borough of) – National Maritime Museum (Kangaroo Painting from 1772)

This artwork was originally known as ‘The Kongouro from New Holland’, and it’s notable as the first painting of a kangaroo (or at least in terms of western artwork). It was painted by George Stubbs, alongside a similar one of a dingo (more of which in a later post, as if this blog’s excitement couldn’t already be topped), in 1772 and they were the only two artworks he completed that weren’t based on actually seeing the full animal. Instead, he had just skin and skull bits of a dead kangaroo which had been collected whilst the good ship Endeavour was being repaired after a little incident when it ran aground and nearly sank on the Great Barrier Reef. Goodness knows what the public would have made of this kangaroo thing, they wouldn’t have seen anything like it before. Indeed, it just looks like a big rodent.

The artwork was first presented at the Society of Artists in London in 1773 and it, alongside the dingo painting were sold to an Australian buyer in 2012 for 9.3 million Australian dollars. An export ban was promptly put in place by the Government and Sir David Attenborough led a campaign to keep them in the UK. Although the National Gallery of Australia really wanted the artworks, a large donation from the Eyal Ofer Family Foundation (alongside donations from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Monument Trust, the Art Fund and the general public) meant that they were able to remain in the country. The National Gallery of Australia’s loss was the gain of the National Maritime Museum, which is where both artworks now reside. The artworks had been in private hands since they were painted and were on display at Parham House for some time before their auction sale, with both paintings always being displayed together. It’s quite an achievement that these works are now on public display at a location with no admission charge, successfully saved for the nation.

Incidentally, I like the old spelling of the word, namely ‘kongouro’, although it actually started off as ‘gangurru’.