Provenance: Estate of Sir James Fletcher

Lot 175 Art Auction, Christies, London, May 1989

Chevalier's reputation preceded him from Australia before his arrival in Dunedin on 22nd November 1865. The considerable public interest in his work persuaded both Otago and Canterbury councils to provide grants of £200 towards his making sketches of the provinces to be shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. With this support, Chevalier painted between two and three hundred watercolours during his eight month tour of the South Island. The tour of Otago province started in Dunedin. From there, Chevalier travelled south along the east coast, inland to Queenstown, Manapouri and Te Anau, and returned by sea from the south coast to Dunedin on 23rd March 1866 (M. H. Day, Nicholas Chevalier: Artist, 1981, pp. 12-15) Chevalier's wife joined him for the second stage of the journey, which took about five weeks in April and May, from Christchurch to the West Coast. Caroline Chevalier's diary describes their occasionally hazardous progress across the Southern Alps, via the Hurunui and Teremakau Rivers; and the less arduous return, by way of the Otira Gorge and the Waimakariri River. A. W. 'Artist and wife in the Mountains', Turnbull Library Record, Wellington, no. 3, Jan. 1941, pages 14-17

Leslie Hills Station, Canterbury is identified as one of the high country Canterbury pastoral properties sketched by Chevalier on the return route to Christchurch. Painted in 1866, towards the close of the 'pastoral age' (c. 1857-1868), the watercolour indicates the prosperity of run holders in this decade, as 'the cob or slab huts of the 1850's gave way to the comfortable homesteads of the 1860's. W. J. Gardner, 'A Colonial Economy', The Oxford History of New Zealand, W. H. Oliver, ed., Oxford, 1981, p. 64; W. J. Gardner, ed. A History of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1971, v. 11, pages 178-188). In June Chevalier completed his South Island tour with a visit to the five major lakes in the Mount Cook region. The Chevaliers departed from Dunedin on 10th August 1866 for Melbourne.