Nicholas Chevalier (9 May 1828 – 15 March 1902) was a Russian-born artist who worked in Australia and New Zealand.[1]
Early life
Chevalier was born in St Petersburg, Russia. Nicholas’ mother was Russian.
Career
He accompanied explorer/meteorologist Georg von Neumayer on trips to remote areas of Victoria, and the material gathered on such journeys resulted in some of his most recognised pieces of this period, including his painting of Mount Arapiles in Western Victoria.
Chevalier designed a dress for the governor’s wife, the botanist Lady Barkly. The outfit incorporated the Southern Cross, and Chevalier also designed a lyrebird-inspired fan as an accessory to the outfit. It appears that she never wore the dress as she chose to appear as a “Marquise of the Court of Louis XV” for the Mayor’s Fancy Dress Ball in 1863. Chevalier and Lady Barkly later collaborated on a present for the newly married Princess of Wales in the same year. The present was from the women of Victoria and like the dress, the chosen silver and gold flower stand design featured icons of Australian life.[2]
Legacy
Chevalier married Caroline Wilkie in 1855.
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa,[1] the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (New Zealand), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Library of Australia (Canberra) are among the public collections holding works by Chevalier.
Mount Chevalier in Canterbury, New Zealand, is named in his honor.[3]
In 2011 Chevalier was the subject of a major survey exhibition and publication, Australian Odyssey, mounted by the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale, Victoria, which subsequently showed at the Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria.
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Wentworth River Diggings -
Refuge Cove, Wilson Promontory -
Mount Arapiles -
Parker’s River Waterfall -
Mount Sturgeon
References
- ^ a b Lehnebach, Carlos A.; Regnault, Claire; Rice, Rebecca; Awa, Isaac Te; Yates, Rachel A. (1 November 2023). Flora: Celebrating our Botanical World. Te Papa Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-1-9911509-1-2.
- ^ “Portraits of the Famous and Infamous Exhibition brochure page 46” (PDF).
- ^ Mount Chevalier, New Zealand Gazetteer, Retrieved 4 February 2025.
- Melvin Day, Nicholas Chevalier – Artist – His Life and Work with Special Reference to His Career in New Zealand and Australia. Wellington, New Zealand: Millwood Press, 1981. ISBN 0-908582-37-4
- Marjorie J. Tipping, ‘Chevalier, Nicholas (1828 – 1902)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3, MUP, 1969, pp 387–388.
- Forbes, David W., Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 92 & 162-163.
- Serle, Percival (1949). “Chevalier, Nicholas”. Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
- Neil Roberts, Nicholas Chevalier: an artist’s journey through Canterbury in 1866. Christchurch, New Zealand: Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1992.
- Simon Gregg, Nicholas Chevalier: Australian Odyssey. Sale, Australia: Gippsland Art Gallery, 2011.
- Andrew Sayers, Australian Art. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 2001.
