The Australian Art Union ... Collection of Oil & Water Color Paintings (Valued at £409 10s), By the well-known Artist, Mr J. Swinton Diston. List of Prizes ... To be drawn publicly in Brisbane, September 30, 1897 ...
Brisbane, Queensland Printing and Publishing Co. (Hodgson and Paton), 1897.
A leaflet (284 × 147 mm, printed in blue on the recto only) creased (mainly where folded down to a small size); a very good copy.
The artist James Swinton Diston (1857-1940) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia in 1886. 'Mr Diston is an artist of long-established reputation, a Member of the Council of the Art Society of New South Wales, his pictures having always commanded a ready sale at the annual Exhibitions of that Society' (see below). The list of prizes is essentially a titular catalogue of 45 of his works. Tickets were one shilling each: £409 10s represents a lot of shilling pieces, and we wondered whether the numbers would stack up. The results were to be published in the 'Courier' on 1 October 1897. They were not there, but what we did find instead was a large advertisement for an auction sale at 3pm that same afternoon for an unreserved sale of 37 oil and watercolour paintings by the man himself.
Item #115704
Price (AUD):
$250.00