John Vine Hall

sketcher and master mariner, was the fourth son of John Vine Hall of Maidstone, Kent. He married Rebecca Stokes, née Shirley, in England. As captain of various merchant vessels in Australian waters from the 1840s to the 1860s, Hall painted local landscapes and seascapes, signing his work I.V.H. or I.V. Hall as well as J.V. Hall. He used pencil, ink, crayon, wash and watercolour while travelling with Sir Dillon Bell and a brother or cousin, N. Vine Hall, to Australia, New Zealand, South America, India and the United Kingdom between 1842 and 1873. On the flyleaf of one folio of sketches (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney) is written 'M. Ingres to his pupils on art...', presumably as a joke. Another collection of Sydney and Auckland views (1861-65) is in the National Library of Australia; the La Trobe Library holds his 1861 pencil and wash drawing, Sydney Harbour from Edgehill Road.

Hall passed through and sketched King George Sound and Albany in Western Australia at some time between 1842 and 1849 and again in 1869. On 8 July 1854 the Illustrated Sydney News published an engraving of the stern of the Croesus being repaired after a sketch supplied by her commander, and on 19 August the paper included another 'able drawing from the experienced pencil of Captain Hall presenting an animated and interesting view of the works at the waterview Dry Dock'.

Staff Writer.