NASMYTH, ALVA & MR JOHNSTON with Richard Aitken

Mr Johnston’s much-loved painting Alva House (circa 1830), attributed to Patrick Nasmyth, depicts the Scottish seat of James Johnstone, nestling into the Ochil Hills near Stirling.

Purchased for its coincidental patrimony, this work abounds with other Australian links of which Johnston could not have been aware. Explore a rich heritage of Scottish landscape painting and gardening and the role of the emigrant landscape gardener in shaping the Australian countryside.

RICHARD AITKEN is a Melbourne-based architect, curator and historian. He has prepared conservation plans for many of Australia’s most significant historic gardens. His publications include The Garden of Ideas: four centuries of Australian style (2010), Botanical Riches (2006), Seeds of Change (2006), Gardenesque (2004), and The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (2002).

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the AGHS

detail, Patrick Nasmyth (attrib.), Alva House, Stirlingshire, circa 1830s–40s (A0975-1989)