Lot 120. MILLICENT (MILLY) HAMBIDGE (1872-1938)

Self Portrait 1908

Watercolour
26x20cm
Signed Middle Left Side, Dated 1908
Prov: Private Collection Adelaide

Frame size: 40x32cm

Condition: Work is in excellent condition, no foxing or discolouration, work is behind glass. Framing in good clean original condition.

$1,500-2,000

Illustrated From Shadow into Light by Shirley Cameron Wilson page 19 plate 21 and The Hambidge Sisters by Nancy Gemmell colour illustration page 12 (XII)

Self-portraits by Milly Hambidge are rarely encountered, making the present work an important record of one of South Australia’s most accomplished early women artists. Reproduced in both Shirley Cameron Wilson’s From Shadow into Light: South Australian Women Artists Since Colonisation and Nancy Gemmell’s The Hambidge Sisters, the portrait occupies a significant place within the published history of the artist and her family.

Together with her sisters Helen and Alice, Milly Hambidge played a significant role in South Australia’s artistic life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Working across portraiture, landscape and miniature painting, the Hambidge sisters exhibited extensively and earned a reputation for their refined technical ability, leaving an enduring contribution to the artistic heritage of the State.