This exquisite volume deals with the artistic career of one of New Zealand's least known, but outstanding, early artists, Nicholas Chevalier.

Chevalier's biography is detailed and covers the time from his birth in Russia to the last years of his life when he was accepted as one of Queen Victoria's favourite artists. Of special interest to New Zealand and Australian readers, is the time he spent in Australasia.

The volume contains illustrations in colour and in black and white, an index and a fully annotated catalogue of the reproductions of the paintings.

He painstakingly recorded early New Zealand and Australian colonial life and left a treasure trove of sketches, watercolours and oils which show a way of life, and a landscape, reflecting peace and tranquility. But Chevalier's perspicacity quickly led him to perceive the problems of the European and Maori conflict over land which was soon to shatter this peace, and which he recorded in his diary. His remarkable career included time as a political cartoonist in Australia and as an illustrator of books.

- from the back cover.

Published by Millwood Press Ltd. 1981
Comes in a presentation box.
Good secondhand condition.