Milford Sound, New Zealand

Milford Sound' is ranked highly among Eugene von Guérard’s sublime Romantic interpretations of the landscape. The spectacular fiord in New Zealand’s South Island held a strong appeal for the artist. Encompassing the view to the north-west, seen from the head of Milford Sound, the painting also depicts the vessel on which von Guérard had travelled to the fiord, at anchor below Cascade Peak.

Produced in his Melbourne studio, 'Milford Sound' was worked up from numerous earlier drawings made on the spot. The painting is broadly faithful to these sketches, in accordance with an approach grounded in the principles of German Romanticism.

The richly decorated 19th-century frame was made by Isaac Whitehead, the most prominent frame-maker in Melbourne throughout the 1860s and 1870s.