View upon the Napean River, at the Cow Pastures. New South Wales. sic

Joseph Lycett’s views of country New South Wales were made with the support of Governor Macquarie and his ambitions for populating the colony.

The views illustrate the abundance of ‘good’ land available to prospective immigrants and the great opportunities to be had in Australia. In June 1788, four cows and two bulls brought on the First Fleet, and pastured in the area near the &quotfarm&quot (Botanic Gardens), escaped and were lost. This was a calamitous event for the infant colony’s hopes to be self sufficient. Fortuitously in 1795 the cattle were located near Camden and were found to have multiplied to a herd of over 100 and consequently the area became known as the ‘Cow Pastures’. Lycett includes a group of figures, ‘..a party of Bush-rangers, a sort of Banditi, who live in the woods…’.