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Mrs Tryphena A Dibbs1897

by Tom Roberts

In 1897, the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney commissioned Tom Roberts, one of Australia's leading artists, to paint a pair of portraits as a gift for its General Manager, Thomas Allwright Dibbs. Having completed 50 years of service with the bank, Dibbs was presented with this portrait of his wife, Tryphena, and a companion portrait of himself.

The portraits were hung at Graythwaite, the grand Italianate mansion on the couple’s lower North Shore estate, where they lived until 1915. The property was given to the state as ‘a Convalescent Home in perpetuity for distressed subjects of the British Empire regardless of Sect or Creed’. No longer considered suitable for its purpose, in 2009 it was sold to Shore School.