Peter Walker Fine Art specialises in the sale of early Australian paintings and items of historical interest as well as contemporary art. Clients include major regional and state galleries, libraries and private collectors from around Australia and overseas. 

Gallery: 101 Walkerville Terrace, Walkerville, South Australia 5081. 

Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples
​(English 1853 – 1943)

​Off Adelaide, 1880
12.5 x 30 cm
Titled, signed and dated
Oil on wood panel

Painted from the S. S. Orient in February 1880 this artwork depicts the very hot and calm summer’s day in the true plein-air impressionist method. Staples had developed this modern technique during his artistic studies in Europe, but although the theories of impressionism had reached Australia by word of mouth and in book illustrations at this time it was not until much later in the decade, when Tom Roberts returns from Europe in 1885, that Australia was to see paintings executed in this manner again. This arguably is the first true plein-air painting to be painted in Australia.