View of Brisbane (in 1851) 1862

In 1833 Conrad Martens left England and when his ship called at Rio de Janeiro he heard that the British scientific vessel, HMS Beagle, required an artist. Martens secured the post and eventually arrived in Sydney in 1835.

Martens achieved immediate and enduring recognition as the most proficient landscape artist in the Australian colonies but a severe economic depression inspired him to go north to Brisbane in late 1851 in search of work. Martens travelled from Brisbane across the Great Dividing Range to the Darling Downs, then south again through New England to Sydney.

In 1862 Martens sent this painting to Charles Darwin, his former shipmate on HMS Beagle, to mark the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859.