Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany

Biography

German painter, scene-painter and briefly a professional photographer, arrived in Melbourne at an early age and worked as a scene painter with John Black at The Princess Theatre then the Geelong Theatre with George Meadows and Clarence Holt. He showed two works, Scotsman’s Creek, Oakleigh and View of Edinburgh (medium unspecified), at Melbourne’s fourth Annual Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1864. Both 'H.M.’ and 'H.N.’ were used as the artist’s initials in the catalogue but he was listed as a practising artist of Gore Street, Fitzroy, in each case. Freyberger was briefly in partnership with Tensfeld in a Melbourne photographic firm at Bourke Street East the following year. On the dissolution of their studio, in 1865 Freyberger worked for the Theatre Royal as a scenic artist. He accompanied W,B and Mrs Gill to India in 1870 staying on after the couple left for America. He returned to Melbourne in ill health a week before his death. Freyberger worked as a scene-painter in Melbourne theatres from at least 1862. In December 1864 he assisted the scene-painter John Hennings with the splendid 'pictorial effects’ for the pantomime The Enchanted Isle , 'a travestie of Shakespere’s [ sic ] “Tempest”’ at the Theatre Royal. As scene-painter for W.S. Lyster’s opera season at Melbourne in 1867, Freyberger provided the scenery for the production of Auber’s opera, Gustavus III; or, the Masked Ball . Although recalled in the Argus of 29 June 1878 as being 'all that could be desired’, this was criticised at the time by James Neild for its lack of realism. Neild singled out for special complaint the anatomical and proportional deficiencies of the skeletons in acts II and III and Harold Love describes how, a few days after this criticism appeared in print ( Australasian , 13 June 1867), Freyberger had his revenge: 'Neild received a large crudely wrapped parcel. Inside it was the canvas skeleton’. In November 1867 Freyberger painted a 12 × 8 foot (3.65 × 2.43 m) transparency for George Robertson’s bookshop in Collins Street, one of the decorations installed for the Melbourne visit of the Duke of Edinburgh. Above a portrait of Queen Victoria supported by cupids were three Gothic arches, 'the left containing a view of an English winter landscape by night; the right, an Australian summer landscape at sunrise; in the centre arch, a figure of Britannia … to illustrate the saying, “The sun never sets on the British dominions”’. For the same occasion Freyberger was commissioned with Kursteiner to paint an illusion of the façade of the Melbourne Public Library on a canvas hoarding stretched in front of the unfinished building. Freyberger was still painting theatrical scenery in Melbourne in 1870, often as Hennings’s assistant. Sometimes he was chief painter, as with the production of Frou Frou at the Princess Theatre in August 1870 when 'entirely new scenery [was] painted expressly by Mr Freyberger and assistants’. Writers: Staff Writer newtog Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2021

Born

b. c.1 January 1838

Summary

A painter and part time photographer, Freyberger was best known as a scene painter in Melbourne theatres in the 1860s and 1870s. He also painted street scenery for the 1867 visit of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Gender

Male

Died

c.5 April 1886

Age at death

48