Augustus Earle

Augustus Earle (1 June 1793 – 10 December 1838) was an English painter. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently – able to combine his lust for travel with an ability to earn a living through art. The body of work he produced during his travels comprises a significant documentary record of the effects of European contact and colonisation during the early nineteenth century.

Early life

Augustus Earle was born in London on 1 June 1793. He was the youngest child of an American-born father, James Earle (1761–1796), an artist, and Georgiana Caroline Smyth, daughter of John Carteret Pilkington and former partner (with two children) of Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth, an American loyalist who spent some years in England. Earle's father James was a member of the prominent American Earle family. The elder of his two sisters was Phoebe Earle (1790–1863), also a professional painter and wife of the artist Denis Dighton, while his older half-sister was Elizabeth Anne Smyth (1787–1838) and his older half-brother was the scientist Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788–1865). There is no record of him marrying or having children.

Earle received his artistic training in the Royal Academy and was already exhibiting there at the age of 13. Earle exhibited classical, genre and historical paintings in six Royal Academy exhibitions between 1806 and 1814.

Mediterranean tour

In 1815, at the age of twenty-two, Earle's half-brother, William Henry Smyth had sought and was given permission by Lord Exmouth to allow Earle passage through the Mediterranean aboard Scylla that Smyth commanded and which was part of Admiral Exmouth's Royal Navy fleet. Earle thus visited Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar and North Africa, before returning to England in 1817. A portfolio of drawings from this voyage is held by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.