Search results for 'Robert La Nauze'

Cootch and Kitty: two studio potters and the modern kitchen

Australiana Society visit to Fairfield Tasmania

Ginni Woof reports on the Australiana Society visit to Fairfield at Cressy in north-east Tasmania, about 30 km south of Launceston, in December.

President’s update

I trust all members had a most enjoyable festive season with family and friends. 2025 is well and truly upon us with significant events planned for the calendar year.It was most pleasing to finish 2024 with 556 members. This is a record for the society and demonstrates the value which members perceive they are ...

George Hart-Taylor: rediscovering an important Queensland landscape painter

Some hold the view that, except for Conrad Martens and Isaac Walter Jenner, no accomplished artists found anything to interest them in the wilder regions of colonial Queensland. Where are the grand landscape paintings to rival those of John Glover or Eugene von Guérard? In fact, several accomplished but n...

The Thallon Memorial Medal – a gold prize for the children of Queensland railway workers

Over a period of nearly 60 years from 1913 to 1970, about 200 outstanding Queensland school students, sons and daughters of employees of the Queensland Railways, were awarded gold medals valued at £3/10/, or the equivalent in scholastic books, in memory of Railway Commissioner J F Thallon (1847–191...

The 1889 Queensland Deposit Bank and Building Society silver trowel

A new bank in 1880s Brisbane needed a solid, impressive building and a ‘pleasing and interesting’ event to lay its cornerstone. The Queensland Deposit Bank arranged a formal ceremony, with a silver trowel to symbolically ‘well and truly lay’ the corner stone, under which were placed current newspapers a...

Ian Stephenson 1 December 1955 – 20 October 2024

When we eventually and inevitably lose some of our friends and colleagues, we have a duty to encapsulate their contributions to the heritage movement generally. Ian Stephenson was such a person, an active member of the Australiana Society and many other organisations. Starting his working life at the Tax Office...

An industrial souvenir rediscovered

Curators know that the best place to find good artefacts is in the neglected corners of a museum store. Megan Martin found an interesting cast-iron historical plaque, an item from a radical time when a commitment to state-owned enterprises was a central plank of the policy platform of Queensland’s Labor Gover...

Joseph Forrester’s silver marks

London silver dealer Wynyard Wilkinson suggests an explanation and chronology for the punches used on silver created by the convict silversmith Joseph Forrester, who worked in Tasmania and later Victoria. In the absence of a formal hallmarking system in Australia, he postulates that some Scottish-trained silver...

President’s Report for the 2024 Financial Year

The 2024 Financial Year has again
proven to be a great year of activities
and development for the Society!

My highlight was the March tour of Adelaide and its environs. I would
remind members this was the first
occasion the Society had conducted a
...

A portrait miniature of Captain William Hill

Artefacts relating to Australia's early colonists, military and convicts are rare. They can even be endangered if their
provenance is lost. Gary Sturgess located this miniature depicting a NSW Corps officer and ensured its survival by
drawing it to the attention of the State Libr...

John Wilson Carey and his ‘Queensland’ cabinet timbers

Scottish-born immigrant cabinetmaker John Wilson Carey (1829–1902) made two exceptional items of Queensland
cabinetwork in the 1870s which still exist today. His skilful use of many different Queensland timber veneers makes them
cabinetmaking tours de force. ...

A window into the past

Through The Glebe Society, local homeowners contacted members Peter Crawshaw and Robert Hannan to ask what was
known about a large stained-glass window, obviously not in its original location, which had been installed in their house.
By using their contacts and research skills, they di...

Remembering Terry Lane

Geoffrey Edwards encapsulates some of the spectacular achievements of his friend
and colleague Terry Lane, a former Senior Curator at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Terry was one of the greatest and most influential collectors, researchers and
exhibition curators of Australia...

South Australian malachite brooches

We can often recognise items as being Australian because of their subject matter (such as kangaroos) or raw materials (such
as red cedar). Even regional variations in subject matter or raw materials across the continent can lead to distinctive products
or artworks t...

John Wilson Carey, cabinetmaker and saw-miller

While David Bedford has analysed two extant examples of veneered Queensland desks made by J W Carey, Yvonne Barber
provides biographical information about this man devoted to the Queensland timber industry, who remarked that ‘taking a
man like him from his business was li...

President's update

Vale, Mr Terence Lane OAMIt would be remiss of me not to commence this update without recognising the loss of esteemed member Terence Lane. Most would be aware of Terry’s contribution to the arts, primarily through his involvement as senior curator of decorative arts at the National Gallery of Victoria. Terry...

The reinterment of Captain Matthew Flinders RN

A new high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham led to archaeological excavations at St James’s burial ground under Euston Station. In 2019, archaeologists uncovered a wooden coffin bearing an engraved plate identifying the remains as those of Captain Matthew Flinders (1774–1814); his to...

Making the winning crochet design of 1924

Peter Lane’s article, ‘Australian filet crochet, The Weekly Times Book of Patterns’ that appeared in May 2024 Australiana, included biographies of the crochet designers and judges of the newspaper’s crochet competition. But it did not record the journalist, who used t...

Phillis Seal, a remarkable woman

On the death of her husband Charles in Hobart in 1852, Phillis Seal (1807–1877) became the first woman to own and run a whaling fleet. Buffeted by falling prices for whale oil and labour shortages due to the gold rushes, Phillis eventually sold her ships and retired to live near her eldest son at Ballarat in ...

‘I’m on the throne!’

Bob Fredman brings some country humour to discussing the design inspiration of a chair discovered in Brisbane, made of Queensland timbers, which also displays Egyptian design elements. He suggest it was probably made in Queensland and inspired by the finding of Tutankhamun’s tomb at Luxor in 1922.<...

Portière 1901, lost and found. Arts and Crafts needlework in South Australia

From either ends of the globe, Portière 1901 has been rediscovered. Over 120 years ago, it was created to commemorate the colony of South Australia joining the Federation of Australia. The Portière was commissioned and made by the first women in the world to gain both the right to vote and to st...

Decoding the Ex Libris designs of Eric Thake

When a library was a necessity for a well-educated person, ownership of a book was indicated by the presence of a bookplate pasted into their books. While generic bookplates exist, book collectors often approached an artist to design an ex libris specifically for them,...

Research assistance needed: Rabbi Leib Aisack Falk

The family of the late Rabbi Leib Aisack Falk (1889–1957) is preparing a comprehensive book about him. Rabbi Falk was born in what is now Latvia, moving to Scotland in 1911, next going to Plymouth, then becoming a British Army chaplain in Egypt and Palestine 1918–1921. He came with his wife and c...

Miss Rutherford and Australian flora

Many items of Australiana are distinguished by their use of Australian materials or their use of Australian motifs. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several English ceramic factories made wares specifically for the Australian market. The scanty records of the Sydney Technological Museum noted th...

President's update

The 2024 National tour to Adelaide
and its environs proved, from all
reports, to be another outstanding
success. It is difficult to believe that
this was the first tour to Adelaide in
the Society’s 46-year history. It was
fantastic to provide the opportunity f...

Australian Toys 1880–1965: The Luke Jones Collection

The David Roche Foundation, Adelaide will show highlights from the Luke Jones toy collection this winter.

Australian filet crochet, The Weekly Times book of patterns

Australiana is sometimes accused of being exclusive, publishing articles only on fine, expensive, early-19th century art and artefacts associated with famous men or families from the Eastern States. South Australian contributor Peter Lane delves into the makers and designers of early 20th cent...

Knud Geelmuyden Bull (1811–1889), Norwegian-born convict artist

Knud Bull was born in Norway. He trained as an artist and painted in Norway, Dresden, Copenhagen and Stockholm before moving to London in 1845, where he was arrested for counterfeiting and sentenced to 14 years transportation in Australia. Arriving at Norfolk Island, after nine months he was transferred t...

President’s update

I trust all members had an enjoyable festive season with family and friends, and took the opportunity to relax. During this period of relaxation, you may well have spent some time reading Australiana and the book so generously donated regarding John Mitchell Cantle, Australia’s first native-born orn...

Castlemaine’s Portrait of the Duchess of York

The Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) visited Australia to open our new Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra in 1927. On their royal tour, the Duke and Duchess briefly stopped at Castlemaine station in April 1927, met by an enthusiastic crowd.

Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEW BY WARWICK OAKMAN
Mark R. Cabouret, Out From The Shadows
John Mitchell Cantle 1849 – 1919 Australia’s First Native Born Ornithological Draughtsman.
The Australiana Society Inc, Bondi Junction, NSW, 2023. Soft cover,
175 pages, 683 colour & sepi...

Sydney Technical College and Australian Flora in Art

For 65,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated Australian materials into their art, objects, weapons and tools. From the first year of British colonisation, settlers tried to adapt Australian materials and later, Australian motifs, into their art, manufactures and tools. A century later, Frenc...

A Treasure Chest?

Chests of drawers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and are easy to describe using some basic elements such as dimensions and number of drawers, types of timber, feet, knobs etc. For scholars of early furniture many more parameters come into play, not the least being an assessment of whether all its ...

Artur Loureiro, a navigator of the fine arts: from Porto to Melbourne

Born in Portugal and trained in Europe, Artur Loureiro (1853–1932) settled in Melbourne where he painted and taught art for a living between 1884 and 1904. Painting various subjects in a wide range of styles, he associated with all the leading Melbourne artists of the time – Streeton, Conder, McC...

More light on colonial silversmith Alexander Dick

This article presents new information and some speculation relating to the prominent Sydney colonial silversmith Alexander Dick, whose works are found in many Australian public and private collections.

The face in the footstool: James Barclay’s rare clocks

Recycling ain’t what it used to be. Launceston clock and watch experts Graham and Sallie Mulligan came across a tapestry
footstool which their sharp eyes recognised as comprising re-used parts of an old clock. Further investigation revealed that the
parts came from a sign...

Annual Report of the Australiana Society 2023

... 







The 2023 financial year has proven to be another great year for the Society.
With the disaster that was COVID-

19 behind us, your board got to work at a national and state level to deliver
enhanced opportunities to benefit
me...

The Lahey Project: recording the oeuvre of a prominent Queensland artist

Vida Lahey is a well-regarded Queensland artist who exhibited in 33 solo exhibitions beginning in 1902. More recent interest in
women artists rekindled interest in her works. Glenn Cooke reveals a project to document Lahey’s output and seeks the help of
collectors in this...

Henry F Hutton and the Hutton family, Victorian jewellers

Jewellers in colonial Australia, often lured by the gold rushes, came from various parts of Britain and Europe, arriving already
having served their apprenticeships. Teaghan Hall tells the story of several members of the Hutton family, who initially came to
the colonial Victorian...

William Milner and his ceramic legacy

European immigrant William Milner was a little-known entrepreneur who established a porcelain manufacturing business after
arriving in Melbourne in 1911. The porcelain industry was largely driven by a massive need for electrical insulators, and, as
COVID-19 has demons...

Robert Ponsonby Staples and early plein-air painting in Australia

British artist Robert Ponsonby Staples was a casual visitor to Australia with his father Sir Nathaniel Staples, sailing on the first
voyage outwards of the SS Orient in November-December 1880. After a month in Sydney, the pair departed on SS Orient’s return
voyage i...

An enigmatic colonial sculpture

The earliest known free-standing, full-length sculpture created in Australia is a highly detailed sandstone statue of a well-dressed
colonial gentleman, urinating. Functionally plumbed, this statue is as extraordinary as it is enigmatic. Chris Tassell speculates on
who might have...

What makes an exhibition remarkable?

Leo Schofield describes his first (and last!) gig as chair of the curatorium which devised the current exhibition at the Powerhouse
Museum in Ultimo in Sydney, the first major and kaleidoscopic show of objects from the Museum’s holdings since 1988. It has
proved exception...

Reclaiming a Suite of Queensland Colonial Furniture

President’s Update

As announced in the May issue, the 2024 National Tour will be held in and around Adelaide, South Australia. The organising committee has already secured visits to several private collections belonging to South Australian members and these will be combined with enhanced viewing of some sig...

Tasmanian Aboriginal (Pakana) Shell Necklaces

Antique jewellery dealer Anne Schofield recently exhibited a collection of rare Aboriginal shell necklaces from Tasmania, which were on show in June at her Woollahra gallery... Tasmanian Aboriginal shell work is unique, the patterns and shell types indicate the maker and also reflecta place or places, the ...

Wedgwood: Master Potter to the Universe

Curator and historian Tim Roberts previews a new exhibition on the English ceramics firm Wedgwood, founded by Josiah Wedgwood in 1759, and linked with the British colonisation of Australia through its design and manufacture of the ‘Sydney Cove Medallions’ in 1789. These were made from Sydney clay sent...

The Squatter’s Delight, or ‘A Man’s Chair’

Robert Griffin makes the case for the introduction of the squatter’s chair – a robust easy chair with swing-out leg rests – as an idea imported from India in the early 19th century. These chairs found a home on the shady verandahs of homesteads, particularly in Queensland and NSW, where the lan...

Book Review: Ron Radford, John Glover. Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australian Landscape

Leading colonial artist? Or leading early 19th-century British artist working in the colony of Van Diemen’s Land? Clearly the latter. Ron Radford, John Glover, Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australian Landscape reveals how John Glover (1767–1849), a leading artist...