Mary Ellen Roberts Australia, 1866-1924
Past Sales
Sales by Medium
Where to buy or sell art works by Mary Ellen Roberts
Auction Houses
About Mary Ellen Roberts
Dressmaking and craft teacher, Mary Roberts was born in 1866 near Wandiligong in north-west Victoria. She taught women's handicrafts in Tongan government schools from 1882-89. From 1900 she was lecturer in charge of dressmaking at Sydney Technical College established and ran the Women's Handicrafts Department in 1908, then combined it with the Domestic Arts Department as the Department of Women's Work in 1917. She also published three basic dressmaking manuals. While the Australian Art Sales Digest records two small works in pastel and a large oil on canvas offered at auction by Roberts, she was much better known for her dressmaking skills. The auction catalogue for the sale by Leski Auctions in 2020 notes that this latter work is possibly a painting of Mary Ellen Roberts and not a painting by her.
According to our records which cover the last 50 years, only 3 works by this artist have been sold by auction, of the 3 works offered for sale.
Mary Ellen Roberts is listed in the following standard biographical references:
- Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, an online resource for biographical data about Australian artists, designers, craftspeople and curators.
Artists' Resale Royalty
Could the second and subsequent works by this artist sold after June 9, 2010 for over $1,000 be liable for the Artists' Resale Royalty? More info…
No, ineligible. The artist has been deceased for more than 70 years.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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