This display features themes explored in Australian art throughout the nineteenth century, and shows the variety of ways that new sites and settlements were pictured.

It includes works by William Westall, the first artist to depict Queensland; John Gould, who depicted plants, animals and birds found by European explorers and settlers; and Sylvester Diggles, a noted ornithologist and an important figure in the early cultural development of Brisbane. Other works are by Conrad Martens, JA Clarke, Oscar Friström, Isaac Walter Jenner, and LWK Wirth, who founded the Queensland Art Society in 1887, and Richard Godfrey Rivers, who advocated for the establishment of the Queensland Art Gallery in 1895.