Conrad Martens (1801-1878)
The Pass on Mount Victoria on the Bathurst Road
signed and dated 'C Martens / 1836' (lower right), titled on the reverse
watercolour heightened with white and scratching out on paper
unframed
12⁷⁄₈ x 18³⁄₄in. (32.8 x 47.6cm.)
There is a drawing of the same subject in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney ('Victoria Pass. May 24/38' in Conrad Martens sketches [of New South Wales, 1835-1842, 42, DL PX 24). There are further sketches taken on the Bathurst Road in the National Library of Australia ('On the Bathurst Road' PIC Solander Box A4 #R4465) and British Museum (Mount Victoria on the Bathurst Road (1868, 1114. 367).

Martens, only recently arrived in Sydney, travelled, explored and sketched at the border of colonial expansion in New South Wales in the mid-1830s, just as the roads were being constructed to ease the journey over the barrier of the Blue Mountains. The pass is 'one of the oldest and most significant engineered works in Australia still in use today. ... Victoria Pass, located on the western side of the Blue Mountains, NSW, on the Great Western Highway leading towards Lithgow and Bathurst, was constructed in 1830-1838 using convict labour to surmount a difficult descent off the ridge of the mountains. Halfway down the descent of the pass is an elevated embankment between parallel stone walls. It is this ‘Causeway’, sometimes erroneously referred to as Mitchell’s Bridge and the retaining walls leading up to it, that are perhaps one of Australia’s finest examples of early colonial road engineering. ... The Pass was a practical boon to travellers, since it obviated the extremely steep and dangerous section of the Bathurst Road down Mt. York to Hartley Vale. ... 'The convict built roadway and more specifically the Causeway (Mitchell’s Bridge) is still in use today as part of the major highway feeding the western areas of NSW from Sydney.' (G. Rigden, 'The Victoria Pass Roadway Mount Victoria NSW', 2001, sourced online portal.engineersaustralia.org.au).

Martens had left the Beagle at Valparaíso in October 1834 and sailed across the South Pacific via Tahiti and New Zealand to Australia, arriving in Sydney on March 1835: 'Sydney Harbour entranced Martens from the moment he made his first sketches as the ship entered the Heads. He remained in Sydney for nearly forty-three years - the rest of his life. Almost immediately he travelled to the Illawarra region and the Blue Mountains, wandering, according to the Australian of 31 July 1835, 'in search of the picturesque' and making sketches from which he later executed paintings on commission. He rode a pony and frequently camped in isolated scenic areas, sleeping on at least one occasion in a cave. The sketches he submitted to the newspapers on his return were greeted with acclaim and he was able to secure both commissions and students within three months.' (S. Jones in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists Painters,Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, Melbourne, 1992, p.514)

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