Melbourne from the Botanical Reserve

This view of Melbourne is seen from near the top of the Anderson Street hill in South Yarra. In the distance, Mount Macedon forms a backdrop to the nascent city.

The term 'reserve' refers to the land set aside for the extension of the Royal Botanical Gardens. When this view was made, the boundary of the gardens lined up with Clowes Street, which runs off Anderson Street near the crest of the hill. The extension effectively doubled the size of the gardens, moving the boundary to the present-day Birdwood Avenue, close to Domain Road.

Clark's viewpoint was favoured by later artists such as Henry Gritten, whose 1867 painting 'Melbourne from the Botanical Gardens' is also in the Library's collection. While Clark's work shows the area in its 'natural' pastoral state, later paintings depict the ordering of nature through the plantings and designs imposed by Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–1896) and his predecessors. Von Mueller was the Government Botanist from 1853 and Director of the Botanical Gardens from 1857.