Thomas Watling, George Raper and the Port Jackson Painter Are Back Online

The UK's Natural History Museum holds some of the most important natural history drawings and landscapes of the early colony, notably the works of the First Fleet midshipman, George Raper; the convict painter, Thomas Watling; and the works of a group of unknown artists from the early colony, described collectively as 'the Port Jackson Painter'.

High resolution images of these art works used to be available on the museum's website - absolutely vital for researchers wanting to study the development of the early colony. But for the past five or six years, for reasons which museum staff were never able to explain, they were only available (at an extortionate price) through commercial service providers.

In researching images of the early colony this afternoon, I was delighted to discover that they have been returned. They are most readily access through the museum's First Fleet Artwork Collection page, or go to the search page for their Library and Archives.