Just Tea and Sugar for Breakfast

Description

Limited Edition of 150 Reproductions at each of the 5 sizes Only

Through drenching rain the Hon. Harold Finch Hatton crossed rising, flooded creeks to arrive at the isolated Mount Britton gold diggings in early April 1881. He found that the newly opened store’s only supplies were tea, sugar and tobacco, and these were housed in a bark and sapling shelter, all other dwellings on the diggings being tents.

It was some time before the numerous flooded creeks between Mackay and Mount Britton, subsided enough to allow pack-horses loaded with supplies, to make it to the hungry Mount Britton prospectors, and even longer before drays and bullock wagons could get over the boggy ground as there was no road to Mount Britton at the time.

In this painting a group of prospectors are fortifying themselves for the day ahead with strong tea and sugar, and while the clouds have lifted to show The Bluff shining in the watery morning light, they still hang low, and swirl about the Diamond Cliffs menacingly.

This is one of twelve paintings from THE MOUNT BRITTON COLLECTION depicting people, places or events around the pioneering gold-mining town of Mount Britton, near Nebo, which is 100km west of Mackay in Queensland.