Works included in this catalogue
Chevalier Houses of Parliament, Melbourne 1856 {by 1894?} SLV [PR]
Chevalier Dr Maund 1863 {1863} NGV [PA]
Chevalier The Buffalo Ranges, Victoria 1864 {1864} NGV [PA]
* Chevalier Sketch for “The Indian Shepherd” {1891} Loc? [PA]
* Montefiore after Chevalier Crossing a Creek, N.Z. {by 1894} Loc? [PR]
* Montefiore after Chevalier Pigeon Point, Banks’ Peninsula, N.Z. {by 1894} Loc? [PR]

Chevalier, born in St Petersburg to Swiss parents, spent his formative years in various European centres, and then migrated to Melbourne late in 1854, remaining in Australia until 1868. An urbane sophisticate, he gravitated to the centre of Melbourne’s social and artistic circles, receiving critical acclaim for his landscape prints and paintings – although to a modern eye they seem somewhat pedestrian.

His Buffalo Ranges won the competition to select the first Australian painting acquired for the new Melbourne collection.

In 1867, he played an important role in helping to organize events for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh (Queen Victoria’s second son Alfred) to Melbourne in 1867; he arranged decorations and met the Duke. After the latter’s return visit in 1869, he was invited to join him on the royal yacht Galatea, and returned to England. See now * Summers (Charles) Duke of Edinburgh {1873} Loc? [SC] and Victoria [Queen] Prince Alfred 1848 {1893} NGV [ET].

For the remaining three decades of his life, Chevalier pursued a successful artistic career in England and Continental Europe.

Refs.

For Chevalier’s Australian years, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chevalier-nicholas-3200 (by Marjorie Tipping, first published in ADB vol.3, 1969). See also Pearce Swiss Artists in Australia (1991), pp.53ff. and cat.38-49 (text by S.Wildhaber-Creux); Kerr Dictionary (1992), pp.147-49 (entry by Melvin Day); AKL 18 (1998), pp.471-72 (a detailed and well-referenced entry by Daniel Thomas); McDonald, Art of Australia I (2008), pp.150-1; Grishin, Australian Art (2013), pp.105-106; and Alisa Bunbury (ed.), This Wondrous Land (2011), p.156