A large crowd of art lovers, Queanbeyanites, Canberrans, and descendants of the pioneer, Charlotte Faunce Ryrie, yesterday (May 4) packed into Queanbeyan Art Society’s gallery for a remarkable art event they were labelling “Charlotte’s Day”.

Tagged by historian Nicole Overall “the Princess of Canberra,” Charlotte was the daughter of Alured Tasker Faunce, the police magistrate at Queanbeyan and spent 76 of her 77 years in the township.

Joining members of the extended Faunce and Ryrie families was the distinguished artist Shen Jiawei, known for his portrait of Princess Mary of Denmark which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery and for many other works, including a Portrait of Pope Francis, presented to the Pontiff in 2014.

Shen was commissioned in 1991 to paint the portrait of the young, then flaxen-haired Charlotte, by family descendant, 89-year-old Peter Ryrie. He  has now decided to place the work on public display at the art society’s riverside gallery under the Queanbeyan Bridge, the very bridge which at age 19  Charlotte had  launched with a bottle of wine and named  “Queens Bridge”.

After a welcome by the secretary of the art society, Rosanna Burton, president Barry Cranston, praised Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council for its preservation of the old building in which the gallery was housed and told how the very active society had raised $16,000 last year at its annual City Walk charity event.

On hand were folk musicians Graeme Adler and Chris Hood, who sang an old French tune to lighten the atmosphere.

Mayor of Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council, Tim Overall, ventured back into history to speak not just of the Ryrie and Faunce clans, but of the famous indigenous identity, Queen Nellie, who, born at about the same time as Charlotte, had triumphed over adversity and named herself “the queen of Queanbeyan”.

Family member Prof Tom Faunce outlined the background of Charlotte’s controversial father, who had been sent by Governor Bourke to Brisbane Waters to break the back of the squatters and was later rewarded with a posting to Queanbeyan, which Faunce described as “a bit wild and woolly” at the time. He described the rapid expansion of the two families. Charlotte, for instance, married Alexander Ryrie, later a politician, and had nine children by him, while her sister married another Ryrie and had eight.

He speculated that the book she has shown in her hand, inspired by an old photograph on which the painting was based, would have been the Bible, as Charlotte was a staunch Protestant. “Jiawei has captured her, it feels like she’s from the family,” he said.

Historian and “CityNews” columnist, Nichole Overall, described Charlotte as “a lovely woman” and explained that during her 76 years in Queanbeyan and Michelago she had been witness to the earliest pioneering days of the town.

As the veil over the painting was removed, Mayor Overall exclaimed: “Wonderful, just brilliant, she’s alive,” after which, the formalities done, everyone adjourned to enjoy a lavish repast provided by the Country Women’s Association.

The portrait of Charlotte Faunce Ryrie by Shen Jiawei can be viewed daily at Queanbeyan Art Society’s gallery in Trinculo Place.