BUVELOT, ABRAM LOUIS (1814-1888), painter,

was born on 3 March 1814 at Morges, Switzerland. His father, François Simeon Buvelot, was a postal official who had married Jeanne Louise Heizer, a school teacher. Louis Buvelot, he disliked his first name and never used it, worked under Arland at Lausanne, and continued his studies at Paris with Camille Flers, a well-known landscape painter of the day. After a few months in Paris he migrated to Bahia in Brazil where he worked on his uncle's plantation. Four years later he removed to Rio de Janeiro and attracted the notice of the emperor Don Pedro II, who bought some of his pictures and decorated him with the order of the rose. Buvelot returned to Switzerland in 1852 and in 1856 was awarded a silver medal for a picture exhibited at Berne, but having lived in a warm country, he found the cold of Switzerland trying to his health and sailed for Melbourne in 1865. For a few months he was in business as a photographer in Bourke-street but soon resumed his painting. He lived for some years in Latrobe-street East, and then removed to George-street, Fitzroy. His wife helped by teaching French, and presently he began to find buyers for his pictures, of whom James Smith (q.v.) was one of the earliest. In 1869 the trustees of the national gallery of Victoria bought two of his pictures, and in 1870 paid £131 for the "Waterpool at Coleraine". In 1873, 1880 and 1884 he was awarded gold medals at exhibitions held in Melbourne, and he also received a silver medal at the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876. His reputation became established, his only interest was his work, and he went on steadily painting until his death on 30 May 1888. He was married twice, (1) to Marie Félicité Lalloutte, (2) to Julie Beguin. His widow, also an artist, survived him for many years. There were no children. In July 1888 a memorial exhibition of his work was held at the national gallery, Melbourne, and one of the galleries in that building was subsequently named after him.

Buvelot was a simple, kindly, sincere man who walked about "in the clothes of a peasant with the air of a king". In his old age he sometimes reminded people of the well-known portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. He would go into the country and steep himself in the landscape he intended painting, making pencil and water-colour sketches until he had complete possession of it. His drawing and composition were both good, and he was easily the best painter of his time in Victoria. He is represented in the galleries at Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Castlemaine, and his bust by Bertram Mackennal (q.v.) and a portrait in oils by J. C. Waite are also in the Melbourne gallery.