Burragorang Valley near Picton

Presumed to be the son of well-known Scottish genre painter Alexander 'Old Carse' Carse, James Howe Carse was born in Edinburgh in 1818 or 1819 and immigrated to Australia at the height of the Victorian gold rush in 1867. Carse became a painter of note in the colonies, exhibiting from the 1860s to 1880s, travelling widely throughout Australia and New Zealand, and painting off the beaten track.

In 'Burragorang Valley near Picton', Carse presents a panoramic view of the Wollondilly River snaking through the pastures of the Burragorang Valley – Country belonging to the Burra Burra. To the left, a pair of pioneers and their cattle dog steer their herd down the 'jump-up', a precarious road leading down into the valley. This location is completely changed today as Burragorang Valley was flooded during the construction of the Warragamba Dam in the late 1950s.

This work is probably one of the two Burragorang paintings exhibited by Carse in the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 and in the Art Society of New South Wales in 1880.