Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour

Fort Denison was one of the last Martello towers to be built in the world and is situated on a small island in the middle of Sydney Harbour. The island had been identified from an early stage as an important location in the defence of Sydney but it was not until 1855 that construction of the fort was begun. The impetus for building the fort came from fears of a possible attack by Russian warships during the Crimean War and it was completed in 1857. Fort Denison was constructed using 8,000 tonnes of sandstone quarried near Kurraba Point, Neutral Bay. The tower had three 8-inch muzzle loading cannon which due to the narrowness of access ways had to be positioned before the stonework was completed and are still in place. By the time it was completed, Fort Denison had become redundant and it was abandoned for military purposes in the 1870s. In 1942 the Martello tower was damaged by gun fire from the USS Chicago when that ship opened fire on the invading Japanese submarines. The damage is still visible today. After its decommission the guns at Fort Denison were used to sound the 1pm mark for ships to set chronometers and the island itself became a station for recording the tides. These functions are still carried out there. Girolamo Nerli was an Italian artist who arrived in Melbourne in 1885 and moved to Sydney in late 1886. He became an important figure amongst Melbourne artists, bringing European Impressionsim and encouraging plein air painting. In Sydney he became associated with Julian Ashton and his circle and the spontaneity of his paintings and their crispness of planes and use of block like colour (Italian Impressionism) influenced the development of artists including Charles Conder. This painting is significant for Nerli as his paintings of Sydney Harbour are rare. It is a good example of early plein air painting in Australia and shows the lively, almost expressionistic handling of paint characteristic of the artist.