Rare Book Find Sheds Light on Old Australian Mystery
Grant Gardner, an auctioneer for
Gardner Galleries, found a real prize
when evaluating an estate of a
deceased couple. He found a 200 year old book
was found in a closet, piled on a
shelf with other books. The book of prints shows life in New South
Wales in the early 1800s. The author, British Captain
Wallace, took prisoners' art
and passed the artwork off as his
own. For years, historians disputed that the captain had the skills to create such lovely paintings. Well, it turns out that he didn't. This book was his own personal copy -- he noted that convicts did the original artwork from which the prints were made. The captain was the warden of a prison colony, so he had access to free labor. The original paintings are contained in the book and are quite valuable from a historical perspective. The New South Wales
Library has already bid $2 million for the book. CBC's Ron Charles reports:
