Draper David Murray leaves extraordinary collection of European masters prints to South Australian gallery, 1907
David Murray, who grew a large drapery wholesale business in 19th Century South Australia, left an extraordinary collection of European old masters' prints, including Mars, Venus and Cupid (1508) by Marcantonio Raimondi and Ecce Home (Christ presented to the people) by Albrecht Dürer (published 1511), to then-National Gallery of South Australia.
Images courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia and State Library of South Australia
David Murray’s 1908 bequest of 2,000 European old master prints to the National Gallery of South Australia totally transformed its print collection. Before that, the gallery’s fledgling collection had only 76, mainly British, prints.
Highlights of Murray’s bequest included German Renaissance prints by Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien, Dutch and Flemish prints by Hendrick Goltzius, Rubens and Rembrandt, Italian prints by Mantegna, Marcantonio Raimondi and Castiglione, as well as an old master drawing of St Jerome by Giambattista Tiepolo. Murray also left £3,000 for a print room at the gallery.
Born in Anstruther, Fife, Scotland, in 1829, Murray and brother William had some experience in the retail and wholesale drapery trade, including with retailers in the young South Australia. They arrived in Adelaide in 1853 and opened a drapery store in King William Street that became wholesaler D. & W. Murray Ltd, later Goode Durant & Murray, second in importance only to G.& R. Wills.
Murray was elected to the South Australian house of assembly for East Adelaide in 1870-71 and 1877-78. His election to the seat of Yatala in 1881 was cut short after being found guilty of bribery and corruption under the Electoral Act 1879. The next year, he was elected South Australian legislative council until 1891. Murray was chief secretary in the John Downer ministry, succeeding John Brodie Spence, in 1886.
Murray was a foundation member of the South Australian Geographical Society and chief (1887-88) of the Caledonian Society of South Australia.As an elder of the Flinders Street Presbyterian Church from 1858, Murray sought to promote friendship between the denominations and often held informal gatherings of clergy in his home, St Andrews, North Adelaide. He was a founder and funder of the Adelaide Young Men's Christian Association, its president in 1881-83. In 1875 he was chairman of the League for the Education Act.
But Murray, entrenched in the Adelaide social establishment, gained most community profile as an art connoisseur. This may have stemmed from hearing Adelaide's second mayor, Thomas Wilson, in 1857, addressing the South Australian Society of Arts’s first exhibition on the value of having, coincidentally, a collection of original prints displayed in a public gallery.
Murray’s art collecting was given scope by 12 journeys to England and Europe during his time in South Australia. His public involvement in arts started as his role in parliament waned. He was elected to the board of the South Australian Public Library. Museum and Art Gallery in 1889 and its chairman in 1890-94. He was on the fine arts committee controlling the art gallery and school of design; also recommending works for the colony's collection.
From an 1890 trip to Melbourne and its Anglo-Australian exhibition of pictures, Murray recommended Destiny by Thomas Cooper Gotch Zenobia's Last Look on Palmyra by Herbert G. Schmalz be purchased. This was enthusiastically backed by Adelaide newspapers and the board who lobbied the government minister for funding.
In 1887, Murray offered to help the board by selecting pictures for the gallery during a trip to Britain with its president Samuel Way. At a board meeting beforehand, Murray said that the art gallery had many "good second class pictures" but not one “by an artist of the very first rank”. This led to questioning in a newspaper letter of Way and Murray’s own taste of art and Murray’s single recommendation for a gallery purchase being rejected. Murray, who sought the return of 16 of his paintings on loan to the gallery, left in 1900 to live in England where he died in 1907.
Murray’s bequest from afar would have been influence by Way who’d urged his friend to bequeath the prints to the art gallery from the time he first brought them to South Australia after he “secured this collection when he was residing in Italy on the advice of the director of the Pitti Gallery in Florence”. Way also worked to get framed prints – not part of the bequest – added to those coming to Adelaide. Among those who helped with this were Murray’s niece, Louisa who’d studied at the Adelaide School of Design.
