The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.
Audio description
This portrait of Deborah Vernon Hackett was made around 1908 by Florence Ada Fuller. It is painted with oil on canvas and measures 82 centimetres tall by 64 centimetres wide. The ornate gold frame is 13 centimetres wide. At the lower edge in the centre of the frame in black handwritten print is the inscription Mrs J.W. Hackett aet. 16. and beneath this F.A. Fuller.
The young woman is painted realistically with light brushstrokes and soft edges. She is positioned centrally, taking up the bottom two thirds of the canvas in front of a plain dark background. Deborah looks directly towards us. She is visible to her thigh which is seated in a cane chair.
The background is dark olive green. Vertical lines near the top of the painting suggest the folds of a curtain. This graduates to deep shadows that are almost black on the lower left.
Deborah wears a large black hat with a low flat crown. A few dashes of paint indicate a bow of gauzy ribbon peeping above the wide brim that sweeps upwards on either side of her head. Her medium-brown hair is drawn off her forehead and curves up and out, giving volume and framing her face. The rest of the hair hangs loose behind her, with a small section falling in gentle waves over her left shoulder.
Light touches Deborah’s face from the right of the painting, leaving the left side in partial shadow. Her oval face has a smooth fair complexion and cheeks tinged with delicate pink. Her brown eyebrows are fine and straight. Deborah’s sea-blue eyes look directly at us, their outer edges follow a slightly downwards lilt. Her nose is straight, leading to small shapely lips. The corners of her mouth are slightly upturned, the rose-pink lips are closed. Deborah has a faint groove just beneath her lower lip and a little round chin.
A band of cream open lacework encircles Deborah’s neck and extends over her chest. It is secured beneath her chin with a slender gold pin. A long strand of pale pink irregularly shaped stones also hangs about her neck. Her dress is light blue-green, and the fabric looks almost sheer, with a subtle silk-like sheen. Cream-coloured lace runs horizontally across the upper bodice, further ornamented in the middle of her chest by an oblong-shaped reddish gold pin. The sleeves are embellished with lace above the elbows and on the lower edges of the cuffs.
The cuffs of her wide sleeves hang elegantly from her wrists, creating strong almost-vertical lines in parallel with the arm of the straw-coloured cane chair. Deborah’s left hand, displaying the glint of a gold band on her ring finger, is lightly placed over her right on the top of the chair’s arm. Beneath her hands the rounded scroll-shaped edge of the chair is emphasized by its plaited edge.
The back of the cane chair curves down from the arm around her body following the sloping line of Deborah’s left hip at the lower right of the painting. On the bottom left the artist’s signature F. A. Fuller can be seen faintly in brownish pink over the dark background.
Audio description written by Lucinda Shawcross and voiced by Amy Middleby
The Gallery’s Acknowledgement of Country, and information on culturally sensitive and restricted content and the use of historic language in the collection can be found here.
oil on canvas (frame: 108.0 cm x 90.0 cm, support: 82.0 cm x 64.0 cm)
South African-born Florence Fuller was a child when her family emigrated
to Victoria. At 16 she enrolled at the National Gallery School in
Melbourne, and she later studied with her uncle, the distinguished
portraitist Robert Dowling. In 1891 she was described as ‘a young
artist, who by her clever and conscientious work, has placed herself
among the best Australian portrait painters’. In Europe from 1893, she
studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and exhibited at the Salon, and
at the Royal Academy and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London.
After returning to Australia in 1904 she settled in Perth and
established a studio in the building that housed the offices of the
newspaper, the West Australian. Consequently, she came to the
attention of Sir John Winthrop Hackett – the newspaper’s owner – who
commissioned Fuller to paint at least two portraits of his wife Deborah
Vernon Hackett (1887–1965). Later the Lady Mayoress of Adelaide, a
mining company director and a charity fundraiser, Deborah was 18 when
she married Hackett in August 1905. The tea gown in this portrait of her
by Fuller matches descriptions of the one Lady Hackett changed into
before setting off on her honeymoon.
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2005
The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.
