portraitist, signed a competent chalk portrait (private.collection) of Charles Windeyer dated December 1847. Windeyer, the senior police magistrate in Sydney and temporary mayor of the city in 1842, retired from the Bench in 1848, so perhaps the portrait was intended to mark this occasion. The artist may have been one of the four sons of the painter Henry Bryan Ziegler. Only one was a professional painter, but all were said to have been interested in the arts. Ziegler senior had been a miniature painter to the British royal family in the 1820s and 1830s (including William IV and Queen Adelaide), but he fell from favour with the introduction of photography in the 1840s and turned into something of a recluse. He may have visited Canton (Kuang-chou, China) between 1844-48.

The hypothesis that G. Ziegler was an itinerant relative is made not only because of the surname (which is quite common among painters in Germanic Europe) but also because H.B. Ziegler exhibited portraits of the children of Sir Edward Parry, including those from his first marriage to Isabella, at the Royal Academy in 1838. This is at least a remote Australian connection, despite having been painted long after the Parry family had returned to England. There is, however, no firm evidence that any artist named Ziegler came to New South Wales.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011