How far did Emily Harris’s books of botanical lithographs travel? How many copies did she sign and hand-colour? These and other questions have come to the fore as we search overseas catalogues and collate the results, finding a surprising number of hand-coloured sets outside New Zealand. New Zealand Flowers, New Zealand Berries, and New Zealand Read More…
Tag: emily cumming harris
Edwin Harris, Painter &c
Sometimes the answers are right there. It just takes a while to see them. We’ve read the William Bryan passenger list, 7 names in the cabin, 141 men, women and children in steerage. The Harrises are there: Harris, Edwin Painter 32; Mrs 30; Boy under 7; Girl under 7; Girl 10 months. In fact Edwin Read More…
The Family Songbook Goes Live
‘A night or two ago I dreamed that I said it is a long time since I called at my Father’s and your parents and that I was determined I would go the next day. I awoke to disappointment wishing I might never dream again.’ (Sarah Harris #15) ‘Will you in the next send me Read More…
Houhere (lacebark) in Flower at Milford Sound
The Union Steamship company offered special excursion tickets to Melbourne at reduced prices during the International Exhibition of 1880-81. We don’t know which boat Emily Harris took to Melbourne but it is safe to say that she would have been travelling saloon class and paying the 16 pounds that gave her the option of a Read More…
Mrs Levien Signs a Melbourne Visitors’ Book
It is Friday 30 November 2018, the opening day of the annual Big Design Market at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The ground floor of the Great Hall is packed with vendors, buyers, stalls and displays. A roar of music and a susurrus of voices floats up to the mezzanine where volunteer guide Phil Read More…
Waiting for the Circus: Emily Harris in Hobart
It is late November 2018. We are in downtown Hobart looking for 140 Elizabeth St, where artist and photographer Alfred Bock had his studio in the 1860s. Just three pieces of physical evidence link Emily Harris with Hobart. One of them is a studio portrait taken by Bock sometime between Emily’s arrival in 1861 and Read More…
Emily’s New Zealand Ferns in Hobart
It is late November 2018. We are in the Rare Room of the Morris Miller Library at the University of Tasmania, looking at Emily Harris’s New Zealand Flowers, New Zealand Berries and New Zealand Ferns. The University’s copies of Emily’s three books, published in Nelson by HD Jackson in 1890, are part of Special and Read More…
White Mānuka and Pōhutukawa
The bouquet of white mānuka and pōhutukawa blends into a landscape, ocean in the distance, a blue sky with wisps of cloud and gulls flying. A context is being suggested but not a straight-forward one. We are looking at a bouquet and yet these fronds and stems of flowers stand in for the trees in Read More…
Meeting the Descendants
Two years ago today great great grand-daughters of Edwin and Sarah Harris came to Special Collections at the University of Auckland to meet researchers working on Emilys story. They brought with them a shopping bag full of family papers, a photo album and two war medals. Annabel Galpin, Roseanne Cranstone and their cousin Heather Jones Read More…