Nicholas Chevalier, a Russian-Swiss-Australian artist

Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902) was born in St Petersburg, to a Swiss father who had gone to Russia to manage the estates of the Prince de Wittgenstein, a nobleman close to the Czar. The mother was Russian. As the family lived on the Prince's estate, young Nicholas became familiar with the paintings in the de Wittgenstein collection, presumably a powerful factor that first aroused his interest in art.

Nicholas spoke Rus­sian with his mother, French and German with his father, and learned fluent English, Italian and Portuguese for pleasure and travel. Languages became important as soon as Nicholas left Russia while still a teenager (in 1845); he studied art and architecture in Switzerland and Germany.

Six years later young Chevalier moved to Britain as a professional illustrator. How did he obtain patronage by the British royal family? I can’t find the answer but I do know that some of his paintings were hung at the Academy as early as 1852.

 

Chevalier, Survey Paddock, 1861, National Gallery Australia

Nor am I clear why Chevalier sailed to Australia in 1854, to join his father and brother. Three possibilities have been mentioned. Bronwyn Watson noted that he quickly found work as an illustrator at Melbourne’s magazine, Punch, and the Ill­ustrated Australian News. Perhaps he had organised the job, before he sailed from Europe. Christopher Allen said he had no choice – he had to travel to help dad with a timber business in rural Victoria. Or perhaps the family was simply rushing to the Victorian goldfields, like many other men before them.

Things were going very well for the young Russian who could not stand still. In the early 1860s he went on a scientific tour of rural Vict­oria where he concentrated on landscapes. In 1864, when the National Gallery of Victoria was founded, an exhibition of pictures by Victorian artists was held, the state govern­ment committing itself to buying the best picture. A Chevalier oil landscape was selected, the first picture painted in Australia to be included in the newly-prestigious NGV.

Then in 1865 Chevalier visited New Zealand for the first of three trips, travelling and painting, later displaying his oeuvre in Melbourne.
                                         

Chevalier, Self portrait, 1857, Art Gallery New South Wales

Nicholas and his wife Caroline Wilkie had no children so their lovely home in Royal Terrace Fitzroy became a European-style cultural salon. Writers, artists and musicians, many of them members of the Society of Fine Arts and the Royal Society, gathered for intellectual exchange, good company and wine. Even better, the Wilkie cousins in Melbourne ran Wilkie's Music Pianoforte Saloon in Collins St. The window of Wilkie's shop was a venue for many prominent Melbourne artists to show their work, including Chevalier. 15 exciting years in Melbourne!

The Sydney Morning Herald noted that in the days before the photo­grapher had established himself as a recorder of history, an artist was an essential member of the staff of a Royal traveller. When Prince Alfred Duke of Edinburgh came to Australia in 1868, he invited Chevalier to join his staff as an artist. In 1869 they went aboard the HMS Galat­ea, en route to India, Japan, China and finally back to Britain, permanently. The pictures painted during this last voyage were hung on display in London. 

In January 1874 Chevalier was commissioned by Queen Victoria to trav­el to St Petersburg and paint the royal wedding between his old patron Prince Alfred and Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. Chevalier was then permanently based in London and was a regular exhibitor at the Academy throughout the 1870s and 80s. Not only a skilled artist and linguist, Chevalier was a talented musician in the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society.

Chevalier, Grassdale Near Casterton, 1863, ANZ Collection

A large history painting called Buddha’s Renunciation 1884 was commissioned by a wealthy Australian landowner, Sir William Clarke, who then had it shipped back to Australia. Buddha is too romantic and sentimental to fit in with his earlier work, draped in exotic fabrics and lush Indian sandalwood. But perhaps Orientalism was becoming more popular then, particularly Orientalist history painting. Buddha has been in the Art Gallery of Ballarat since 1923

Even in old age he was an art agent in London, seeking out works for the Art Gallery of NSW to buy. Nicholas Chevalier died in London in 1902, after a very full life.

Interested readers might like to examine a major survey exhibition and publication, Australian Odyssey, which presented Australian art. This exhibition was held at the Gippsland and then the Geelong Art Galleries in 2011-2012.

Art critics asked, then and now, who was the best en plein-air artist in Australia, Swiss-born Louis Buvelot (1814-1888), Viennese-born Eugene von Guérard (1811–1901) or Russian-born Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902)? During the 1860s Chevalier probably had a better name than von Guér­ard. Then Louis Buvelot became more popular in Melbourne than Chev­alier or Eugene von Guerard. Now I prefer von Buvelot’s landscapes.

My major reference has been An Artist’s Journey Through Canterbury (NZ) in 1866.

Chevalier, Buddha's Renunciation, 1882,

152 x 215 cm

Ballarat Art Gallery