79. James Peele 1846-1905
Kingston, Lake Wakatipu
Watercolour
33.5 x 53 cm
Signed & dated 1882
est. $2,000 - 3,000
Fetched $1,500
Relative Size: Kingston, Lake Wakatipu
Relative size

Kingston, 48km south of Queenstown, at the southern tip of Lake Wakatipu, was named after a country town in Ireland.

The town was once a major transit link for the region's gold fields, but completion of the lakeside road to Queenstown in 1936 turned the tiny town into a quiet backwater. Between 1860 and 1890 a succession of lake steamers connected Queenstown and the Wakatipu goldfields to the Kingston railhead. One of these New Zealand Railway's owned steamers can be seen docked at the wharf on the left.

James Peele's Kingston, Lake Wakatipu, 1882 is an important historical record of this area as it precedes the now famous Kingston Flyer railway which commenced services between Kingston, Gore & Invercargill about a decade later.

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