Lot 8

Gift from the Artist
The Collection of Louis Abrahams
Thence by descent

In 1885, following Tom Roberts's arrival back in Australia after his travels, he was filled with the theories and practices he had encountered abroad, enthusing other young artists with ideas of Impressionism. In the summer of 1886–87 he set up a painting camp at Box Hill with Frederick McCubbin and Louis Abrahams, which is remembered today in Tom Roberts's painting 'The Artists' Camp' c.1886, in the Collection of The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Louis Abrahams was a friend of Tom Roberts's and a fellow student at the National Gallery of Victoria School, being an artist himself. Abrahams was a cigar manufacturer of Carlton, Victoria and supplied the cigar box lids on which Streeton, Roberts, Conder and other exhibitors painted for the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in 1889 at the Buxton's Rooms in Melbourne.