Sutton Forest is a hamlet set within the bucolic Southern Highlands of New South Wales near Moss Vale. There are many notable residences in the area such as ‘Hillview’, the former summer retreat for the Governors of NSW and since 2024, owned by King Charles’ Australian charitable foundation. Across the highway sits ‘Bunya Hill’, recently owned by Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, a mansion formerly known as ‘Mt. Valdemar’ when Roy de Maistre’s family lived there from 1899 to 1913.¹ The Danish Consul who previously owned the elegant 1840s building had renamed the 800-metre hill behind the property ‘Mt Valdemar’ in honour of Valdemar the Great, King of Denmark from 1157 – 1182, but its true name is Gingenbullen in the language of the traditional custodians, the Gundungurra and Dharawal people. Adjoining Bunya Hill is the agricultural property Newbury Farm which sits on 1,005 acres (406 hectares) of land. In 1927, de Maistre revisited the area and painted Landscape, Sutton Forest. Instead of capturing a scene of the Newbury Farm homestead and gardens, de Maistre instead chose a humbler view from the rear, looking towards Mt Gingenbullen which is itself obscured by the artist’s chosen focus, likely a majestic pine and two eucalypts which tower over a couple of hand-built sheds. Of particular note is de Maistre’s use of separated, radiating brushstrokes in the sky, a technique he developed earlier in France and which was subsequently utilised by both George Lambert and Grace Cossington Smith.² It also bears a striking similarity to a second Landscape, Sutton Forest, 1927, sold through Deutscher and Hackett in 2017.³

The current work was likely exhibited in the 1930s with The Artists’ Society, Canberra (catalogue not located). The painting has also had significant owners, the first being Mrs. K. S. Hungerford of Greenwich, NSW, a notable Australian art collector who owned other works by de Maistre.⁴ For over three decades from 1992, the painting belonged to long-time owners of Newbury Farm, Edward Simpson and his wife Caroline, also a noted collector and the sister of James Fairfax AC.

1. De Maistre was christened Roi de Mestre and changed to de Maistre in 1931.
2. See George Lambert, William (Billy) Morris Hughes CH PC QC, 1927 (Parliament House Art Collections) and Grace Cossington Smith, Gum Blossom, c.1928 – 32 (Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 28 August 2024, lot 49)
3. See Deutscher and Hackett, Important Australian Works of Art from the Estate of the late James O. Fairfax AC, Sydney, 30 August 2017, lot 32
4. Including Landscape, Sutton Forest, 1927, see ibid.

ANDREW GAYNOR