View from Studley Park 1864

Biography:

Johannes Theodor Charles Troedel (1836-1906)

Lithographic printer, born in Germany who came to the notice of A. W. Schuhkrafft, a Melbourne printer who was visiting Europe seeking craftsmen; he engaged Troedel and Robert Wendel, a brilliant lithographic artist and draftsman. They arrived in Melbourne in the Great Britain on 5 February 1860 and served Schuhkrafft for a three-year term. 

In 1863 Troedel rented a very small shop in Collins Street and set up on his own account. On a press brought from Europe (and still preserved) he produced The Melbourne Album, employing various artists, notably the otherwise-unknown F. Cogné. Wendel did much admirable work for Troedel.

He was a prominent figure in musical and artistic circles and associated with many distinguished people, including Nicholas Chevalier who worked on his lithographic stones, and young Arthur Streeton who was apprenticed to Troedel when he was ‘discovered’ by Tom Roberts and Fred McCubbin; Streeton had his indentures cancelled, and looked back on Troedel with affection. Other painters associated with his firm were Blamire Young, Charles Wheeler, Lionel Lindsay and Percy Leason. Randolph Bedford, for whom Troedel printed, remembered him as ‘a charming old man’.

By 1877 he was trading in Sydney as C. Troedel & Co.; in 1891 he formed a partnership in Sydney with Edward Cooper, who had joined him at 13, but Cooper soon returned to the Melbourne business.