South West View of Sydney in New South Wales

John Eyre 1771-1812 was sentenced to seven years transportation for housebreaking and arrived in Sydney in 1801 aboard the Canada. He was granted a conditional pardon in June 1804 and advertised in the Sydney Gazette in the same year that he wished to buy a box of watercolours. In 1807 Governor Bligh employed him to transfer three charts of Port Dalrymple into one single chart. To make ends meet he was also employed to paint numbers on all the buildings east of the Tank Stream at sixpence a time. Eyre left the colony in early 1813 leaving behind a considerable number of works in the colony, many of which are now in the Mitchell and National Library&#8217s collections. This view, taken from the same vantage point as Lesueur’s panorama (item 10), is looking towards the western side of present day Circular Quay. Published by R.H. Laurie in his &#8220Catalogue of perspective views coloured for the shew glass or diagonal mirro’r.&quot Ref: Sydney Views 1788-1888 Knoblauch Collection Item 41 Page 68