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Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
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Dame Nellie Melba GBE
Biography
Dame Nellie Melba GBE (1861–1931), world-renowned soprano, was born Helen Porter Mitchell in Melbourne.
8 portraits in the collection
Dame Nellie Melba, c. 1890
Walery
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Portrait sketch of Nellie Melba, 1902
Hugh Ramsay
Portrait, oil on canvas
Gift of the Mitchell Family and the Fullerton Family 2000
Dame Nellie Melba,
an unknown artist
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Madame Melba, 1922
Harold Cazneaux
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Purchased 2015
Dame Nellie Melba, n.d.
Aime Dupont
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Dame Nellie Melba, c. 1901
Rupert Bunny
Portrait, pencil on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Fame or celebrity?
About Face article
A question lately cropped up in connection with Madame Melba as to whether fame and celebrity are not essentially the same thing. My feeling is that they are different.
Nellie Melba, 1898
Ernest Walter Histed
Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Doodles of the Diva
Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010
Three tiny sketches of Dame Nellie Melba in the NPG collection were created by the artist who was to go on to paint the most imposing representation of the singer: Rupert Bunny.
Pretty in peach
Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008
It's remarkable that the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond has produced two of Australia's most successful opera singers. Three decades apart, but within a short distance of each other, both Helen Porter Mitchell and Florence Wilson were born.
Suave
Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010
Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.
Great stylists: Caruso, Melba, Pavarotti, Bonynge and Sutherland, 1983
Arthur Horner
Portrait, pencil on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Eric Harding and Athol Hawke 2002
The Payne family, 1888-1889
A Flegeltaub
Portrait, albumen photograph on cabinet card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John McPhee 2018
Portrait 20
June - August 2006
Magazine
This issue of Portrait Magazine features Dame Nellie Melba and Frances Alda, Leigh Bowery, Karin Catt, Sidney Nolan and more.
Florence Austral, c. 1930
Howard Barron
Portrait, oil on canvas
Gift of the University of Newcastle (Australia) 2007