Artist Henry Mundy arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1831 and took up a position as teacher of drawing, French and music at Ellinthorp Hall, a school near Ross established ‘with a view to the improvement of Young Ladies’. In January 1834, he married one of his students, Lavinia Lord (1816–1875), the eldest of the five daughters of Thomas and Susan Lord. He left Ellinthorp in 1838 and established himself in Launceston as an artist, his students having supplied a useful connection to the colonists most likely to commission portraits. In late 1840 he relocated to a farm near Little Swanport at his father-in-law’s instigation. But Mundy’s attempt to make a living as a farmer failed, and by 1842 he’d moved to Hobart, where he sought work as an artist with ‘leisure for a few pupils who are desirous of instruction in painting, drawing or music.’ Mundy received favourable notice for his work and during the early 1840s completed a number of portrait commissions, but despite his ‘excellent taste and professional ability’, his practice gradually declined and exacerbated his alcoholism and depression. He took an overdose of laudanum in a Hobart pub in March 1848, leaving Lavinia and five children to ‘lament his untimely demise’.
Updated 2019
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