A large, detailed oil landscape of Yass township, painted in 1858, by John Edward Grube is now restored to its rightful position above the sideboard in the dining room of the Catholic presbytery due to the handy work of a team from the Yass Valley Men’s Shed. This large painting 152cm x 61cm in its embellished cedar timber frame had mysteriously come adrift settling lopsided on the rear shelf of the sideboard, missing the glassware on the cabinet below; the last of many near misses for this valuable record of early Yass.
The artist, J E Grube, was himself quite a character. Described as “5 feet seven inches tall and of smart appearance, habitually dressed in a light tweed suit, Inverness cape and deerstalker hat”, Grube was born in Germany in around 1834. He emigrated to Australia and sometime in 1858 painted this panorama of the township viewed from Mt Pleasant, the hill above St Clements.
A notice in the Yass Courier of 3 July of that year declared the painting would be raffled by the sale of 30 tickets at £1 pound each. It would seem there had been a similar advertisement in January of 1858 for the raffling of a panorama painted from the opposite hill, Laidlaw’s hill.
By August, Grube is advertising himself as a house, coach and ornamental painter and signwriter, but things did not go well. He is caught up in disputes over workmanship and a court case in 1859. He leaves Yass with Anne Allcroft whom he had married in 1858, but Grube continued to fall foul of the Law. He was arrested for theft of a gelding at Adelong. He then put his considerable artist skills to use forging a £100 promissory note and was imprisoned for two years. In 1864 he was again accused of fraud at Geelong. Most of his occupations thereafter are more respectable including advertising in the Melbourne Directory as a building contractor in 1867 and in Sydney as an ornamental signwriter in 1871 shortly before his death in 1872.
His artistic talent is well demonstrated in the Yass panorama which, after being donated to the Parish, hung on the wall of St Augustine’s Hall for more than 100 years. Taken for granted, it endured basketball games and many a social gathering until rescued by Muriel Scott. Despite flaking paint and torn canvas, Mrs Scott, wife of the manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Yass, recognised its value and eventually, the expensive restoration costing $1000 in 1969, was undertaken by the National Library. The painting was loaned to the Library on condition it be restored and would be made available to Yass for special occasions.
The painting visited Yass for the local government centenary in 1973 and for the national bicentenary in 1988. Finally, in 1993, Harvey Butt was able to report the painting returned to the Yass parish for safekeeping.
The painting, done from the hill above St Clement’s looking west across Cooma street, records a prosperous important colonial township of 1858. St Clement’s stands in the foreground before its spire was added. The Bow Bridge is depicted on the right with Cobblestone Cottage and the Rose Inn. The original substantial Court House building with the old Gaol behind is clearly detailed. The Globe Inn stands on the corner of Rossi and Comur street; the Royal Hotel on the corner of Meehan street, then St Augustine’s, with the original two-storeyed hospital building above on the hill.
Intriguingly, the earlier painting of the town from the opposite hill looking east seems to have vanished. Now that would be something to find.
By Judith Davidson
