Tasmania hails Australia’s first colonial statue as a piss-take – and an ‘extraordinary political statement’

Tasmania’s Maritime Museum has released images of a 1.3-metre sandstone statue believed to be of Lieutenant Governor George Arthur. Photograph: Maritime Museum of Tasmania

A surprise discovery in Tasmania of a historic sculpture may also be the country’s first example of political – and quite rude – protest art.

Tasmania’s Maritime Museum has released images of a 1.3-metre sandstone statue of a well-dressed colonial gentleman, apparently designed as part of a fountain to show him behaving in a decidedly ungentlemanly way.