Richard Batholomew Smith's Wunderkammer, Andrew Montana

Vol 37 no 3, Aug 2015
Article from Vol 37 no 3, Aug 2015

Richard Batholomew Smith's Wunderkammer, Andrew Montana

Abstract:

R.B. Smith made his model of the Strasburg Clock to celebrate the centenary of British settlement. It was hailed as a “scientific triumph of Australian workmanship”. At first, Smith exhibited it privately “like a fat woman in a country fair”1 until it found a home in Sydney’s Technological Museum. The clock has been there ever since, a popular and much-loved exhibit although the mechanism has been unreliable. Now, Andrew Montana turns our attention to identifying the subjects and painters of the portraits decorating Sydney’s Centennial Strasburg Clock.

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The Australiana Society acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.