Auckland artist John Hoyte made the journey across the Southern Alps via the West Coast Road in the summer of 1874–5. Throughout the intervening 145 years the towering Devils Punchbowl Falls, located near Arthur’s Pass just to the south of Otira Gorge, has remained a popular stop for tourists. Hoyte painted Devils Punchbowl Falls in his studio based on his plein-air sketches and while he conveys the imposing power of the tumbling water accurately, the foreground has been contrived and reinvented to appear much more sedate and picturesque than the actual foot of the falls.
(Van der Velden: Otira, February 2011)

Purchased, 1967
Watercolour
69/54
1875
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Collection tags

birds (animals), bush, landscapes (representations), natural landscapes, rock, romanticism, Sublime, the, waterfalls

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Van der Velden: Otira

$49.99