The Summit Mount Lofty, South Australia.

Artist:

Albert Charles Cooke (1836 – 1902)
Cooke was a painter, engraver, draughtsman and illustrator. Throughout his career he worked for many of the illustrated newspapers, such as the Illustrated Sydney News, Illustrated Australian News, The Australasian Sketcher and The Leader. He was also well known for  a series of birds eye views of a number of Australian cities and towns. This engraving is from the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia which was the most ambitious publishing venture in Australian history up to the 1900’s. It was conceived and financed by American publishers under the name of the Picturesque Atlas Publishing Co Limited, Sydney and Melbourne. It’s ambitious aims of using the best artists, the best paper, the finest printing engraving techniques and for it to be the most comprehensive survey of Australia’s colonial history ensured that it inevitably was doomed to be a financial failure. The legacy that it left on the other hand was some of the finest engravings and maps printed in Australia in the C19th.