Find something on display: Dr James Beaney

This portrait of Dr Beaney is based on a photograph which was reproduced as an engraving. It is probable that the photograph was projected onto the canvas using a similar projector to that used for lantern slides: there is furniture visible below the paint on the left and right of the painting that matches the photograph and print, and would have been sketched in from the photograph then overpainted. The face is painted in more detail than the costume and background, and differs from the photograph. This suggests that the face was painted from life. Bionda may have had assistants to paint the costume and background as the handling of these is different to the finer painting of the face.

Little is known about Bionda but he also painted other portraits in Melbourne, including that of J. S. Butters (1832-1912), a gold broker and politician, who was mayor of Melbourne in 1867. Butters commissioned the portrait of his friend Dr Beaney, who was godfather to his daughter Irene, born in 1884 and whose middle name was Beaney. The portrait was presented to Dr Beaney on behalf of Irene Butters at the Athenaeum Hall in Melbourne on Monday 11 February 1886. At that time Bionda’s portrait of Butters was hanging in the Town Hall.

Key with which the Beaney Institute was formally opened on 11 September 1899, with city arms, presented to George Collard, Mayor of Canterbury, by Henry Bell Wilson, builder of the Beaney Institute.

Trowel presented to the Mayor of Canterbury, George Collard, on his laying the foundation stone of the Beaney Institute in 1897.