[4] He was a "sumptuous colourist and splendidly erudite painter of ideal themes, and the creator of the most ambitious Salon paintings produced by an Australian.

She married Henry Leishman, and English immigrant, and settled with him in Queensland before moving to Albany, Western Australia in 1892, and died in Perth in 1951.

[8] Critics give responsibility to his cosmopolitan childhood for his ability to assimilate easily into Parisian society and its artistic circles, unlike many other expatriates.

[9] The paintings showed an amalgamation of his traditional training, through the technicality, with the more experimental style of the Europeans at the time, seen in the sensibility.

[2] Meeting his wife, Jeanne Heloise Morel, in 1895, his style shifted to a Pre-Raphaelite depiction of romantic, indolent female figures.

[2] Morel was continually depicted in these paintings, and has been referred to as Bunny's "eternal muse", such as in the works Returning from the garden (1906) and Jeanne (1902).

[7] These depictions of angelic women suggested the influence of British Pre-Raphaelites John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

[4] With growing critical and financial success, Bunny began exploring modernity in his works such as In the Luxembourg Gardens (circa 1909).

"[7] Particularly influenced by Matisse and Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Bunny's works developed into compositions with "heightened colour and abstracted, rhythmical forms".

His painting The Rape of Persephone (circa 1913) was described by artist and critic George Bell as "a glorious riot of colour from the finest imaginative Australia has produced".

[8] In his career, he painted many portraits of notable musicians, including Nellie Melba, Percy Grainger and Ada Crossley.

[8] His subject matter which portrays mythology, musical and literary allusions and modern dance are suited to "a leisured class of viewers".

[8] This was a meditated choice, and is evidence of Bunny's understanding of the market his artworks targeted, namely the middle and upper classes.

[8] "By employing a lexicon of orientalism and Japonisme, Bunny tapped into a timeless, borderless belle époque mood".

"[10]Bunny led a cosmopolitan lifestyle in Paris, mixing with artists and musicians such as Claude Debussy, Auguste Rodin, Nellie Melba, and Sarah Bernhardt.

[8] While still studying under Laurens, Bunny continually attended his teacher's open studios, which allowed him to meet many 'high-society figures'.

[8] Additionally, he attended the salons of the well connected artist Jacques-Émile Blanche, Emmi de Némethy and her grandmother the Countess Schärffenberg, the Hungarian poet József Kiss' wife and Madame Ayem, a collector of Gustave Moreau.

[14] As Australian art critic John McDonald stated, "It is no exaggeration to say that Bunny had the greatest international reputation of any Australian-born painter".

[8] He was the first Australian to receive an honourable mention in 1890 at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français for the painting Tritons (circa 1890).

[14] Sea Idlyll, exhibited in the Royal Academy, was bought by Alfred Felton, who gave it to the National Gallery of Victoria in 1892.

[15] In 1904 the French government bought his work titled Aprés le Bain from the New Salon exhibition for the Musee de Luxembourg, Paris.