LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW TAB OR WINDOW
This is a restoration of the unattributed painting on the cover of a 1923 pamphlet promoting the attractions of Christchurch's marine suburb of New Brighton. In this northerly aspect of the beach, the 1894 Pier can be seen in the middle distance.
Including local information and a history of the area, the extensively illustrated 64 page booklet was published by the New Brighton Publicity Committee in association with the Canterbury Progress League. A 6.3 Megabyte copy, in PDF format, can be downloaded from the Christchurch City Libraries web site.
Mr CH would be utterly content to spend his days tarting up old pics :)
Including local information and a history of the area, the extensively illustrated 64 page booklet was published by the New Brighton Publicity Committee in association with the Canterbury Progress League. A 6.3 Megabyte copy, in PDF format, can be downloaded from the Christchurch City Libraries web site.
Mr CH would be utterly content to spend his days tarting up old pics :)
Addendum
There would appear to be a convenient degree of artistic license in the painting; as Sarndra observed the high-heel shoes of the principal character don't even sink in to the sand. Steven's comment that the image may have been reversed (probably for the sake of compositional balance on the pamphlet cover) appears quite correct; the rounded hills in the distance look very much like the Port Hills and fit well with a southerly aspect if the image is reversed. Below is a reversed copy of the painting (the old bathing sheds are now shown in their correct position) and also a similar southerly view in a postcard of the same era.
8 comments:
Absolutely! The picture is superb. Similarly, last year I restored two images from Christchurch Library PDFs showing the 1906 International Exhibition, including a plan of the buildings, and this aerial view (compare with the unrestored version). It would be better if the Library had higher resolution images available, but the PDFs are an excellent start.
Thanks Greg, long admired your 1906 International Exhibition restorations. Extracted from the PDF, the New Brighton pic ended up at 2821 x 2664 pixels. Enough of these and we could probably squeeze a publication grant!
Looking at the image and particularly the rounded hills in the distance it occurs to me that the artist may have used an image taken from a glass negative which was used in reverse as the hills look very much like the Port Hills and so would fit perfectly with a southerly aspect if the image was reversed.
Regards,
Steven
Gorgeous :-) I love how her shoes don't even sink in to the sand LOL!
Cheers!
Addendum
There would appear to be a convenient degree of artistic license in the painting; as Sarndra observed the high-heel shoes of the principal character don't even sink in to the sand. Steven's comment that the image may have been reversed (probably for the sake of compositional balance on the pamphlet cover) appears quite correct; the rounded hills in the distance look very much like the Port Hills and fit well with a southerly aspect if the image is reversed. Below is a reversed copy of the painting (the old bathing sheds are now shown in their correct position) and also a similar southerly view in a postcard of the same era.
Yes, the sweep of the beach makes much more "sense" in terms of the actual landscape in the reversed image.
Looks like the Russians actually did "invade" via the New Brighton pier (reversed script sort of looks Russian). In the 1880s or 1890s there were fears, I remember reading somewhere, that the Russians would invade by tying up at the pier and presumably promenading up the pier to establish a beachhead on Seaview Road or up at the bridge-roundabout!
I note that this restored version of the images is being sold on Trademe for $4 by the trademe member karijini
That is blatant dishonesty!
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