Victorian visions

The collection has been assembled by John Schaeffer, Australia’s most passionate and highly respected collector of 19th-century European art.

Many of the works of art are superb examples from these significant artists. Among them are Mariamne by J W Waterhouse, which featured prominently in the recent Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy, London; Holman Hunt’s Il dolce far niente, recently in the Holman Hunt exhibition in Manchester and Toronto; Richard Redgrave’s The sempstress, one of the most important and most discussed early Victorian social realist images; and Leighton’s Athlete struggling with a python, long recognised as the seminal work in British new sculpture.