The Australiana Society Canberra Centenary Members' Tour 2013

The Australiana Society Canberra Centenary Members’ Tour conducted from 5-8 September 2013 was extremely successful and thoroughly enjoyed by all who participated. It was superbly organised and led by committee member Lesley Garrett, assisted by Dr Paul Donnelly, another committee member.

A South Australian colonial wax relief by Josef David Herrgott (1823-61)

Gary Morgan’s research into this recently rediscovered colonial wax relief, reported here for the first time reveals it to be an important relic and memento of the early exploration of South Australia.

A colonial Grecian library table

An early colonial library table in the neo-classical style, with a maker’s label for Clarke of Castlereagh Street, Sydney, c. 1835, came to light in a distressed state a decade ago. Warwick Oakman ponders who might have made the table, where such an impressive piece of furniture might originally have been use...

Hilda Rix Nicholas: a cosmopolitan artist in 1920s Sydney

Hilda Rix Nicholas was one of Australia’s most successful international artists. When she returned to Australia in 1918, she brought her magnificent paintings infused with post- impressionist light and colour to a generation of young Australian artists, yet her triumphant homecoming had been marred by the los...

Australiana Society Annual Reports 2013

Our first event after the last AGM was the show-stopping evening at the Mitchell Library to view the Macquarie collector’s chest, the Dixson collector’s chest and the Wallis album with Elizabeth Ellis and Richard Neville. This was one of the very best events that I can remember, with the unique opportunity ...

A ‘Grecian’ colonial chair'

We all relish finding an unrecognised treasure in an out-of-the-way place. John Watkins discusses a chair bought at a country auction, and suggests that, during its 185 years, it may have travelled all the way from Woolley’s workshop in Hobart to the little village of Wooli in northern NSW.

Australian cartography: a numismatic perspective

For centuries, coins and medals have depicted maps of Australia, although rarely if at all have they been studied by scholars. Perhaps this is because of their limited contribution to cartography, as they were used mainly in a political sense. Perhaps collectors and academics are simply unaware of their existen...

A Venetian gondola on Farm Cove?

Colouring photographs by hand added to the attraction of black and white photographs in the 19th century. An 1870s view of Government House from across Farm Cove in Sydney Harbour not only has been coloured, but the artist has added some extra touches, including a gondola cruising off the Governor’s residence...

Book review: Elizabeth Ellis, 'The Sydney Punchbowl'

Hordern House commissioned Elizabeth Ellis OAM, the Emeritus Mitchell Librarian, to research the background to the Chinese export porcelain punchbowl in the Mitchell Library showing scenes of the colony about 1814.

‘dear Emily’ in Western Australia

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in her misogyny speech on 9 October 2012, was not the first to react to men allegedly putting down women’s activities. A century ago, English designer and artist C R Ashbee – his business damaged by low-priced competition from amateur women artists – condescendingly re...

John Rider Roberts

Two years ago, we published a watercolour by John Rider Roberts that is especially important as a visual record of Robert Fowler’s industrial pottery, bottle and pipe works at Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west. As manufacturing in Australia is replaced by service industries, such manufacturing sites are bei...

Book review: Tony Kanellos, 'Imitation of Life'

In masterminding and producing this fine book, Tony Kanellos, Cultural Collections Manager and Curator of the Santos Museum of Economic Botany located in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, has provided both reader and book collector with a gem. It clearly demonstrates his care of and expertise in the safekeeping of t...

David G. Reid - printmaker, painter and plumber

Scottish immigrant David Reid was a plumber and gasfitter who worked in Sydney’s inner western suburb of Newtown. He enriched his life by taking up painting and etching, mostly of pastoral scenes, and by participating in the life of the artistic community.

Joseph Bridekirk, Cabinetmaker: Hobart, Sydney and Maitland

In his new book Convict and Free: The Master Furniture-makers of Early New South Wales, David Kelly presents well-researched biographies of dozens of previously little-known cabinetmakers. Tasmanian and NSW cabinet-maker, undertaker and upholsterer Joseph Baronet Bridekirk is just one of them. His story is docu...

Grant of $5,000

I am very pleased to announce that the Australiana Society would like to invite submissions from institutions to assist in the acquisition of an object or objects of Australiana.

London calling

London being London, many wonderful and stimulating exhibitions were on when we visited in September – October 2013. They are worth recording here to remind us of the importance of mounting exhibitions aimed at stimulating the audience rather than pandering to a market.

Jewellery is for giving

Collectors and Australiana Society members Graham and Elizabeth Cocks will be remembered by a collection of Arts and Crafts jewellery, generously given by their daughters to the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Powerhouse Museum.

Book review: Penny Olsen, 'Collecting Ladies'

As the daughter of a botanist, botanical artist and writer for whom species and genera have been named, and currently researching the women artists of Western Australia, I was really interested to review what looked to be a lovely book. The attractive layout designed by Kathryn Wright has numerous illustrations...

Fit for a Queen: two Royal jubilee testimonies from colonial Queensland

On 6 February 2012, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, the 60th anniversary of her accession. This milestone has afforded an examination of her life and reign, and has revived interest in the Royal Family at large, including Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. Queensland – on...

The Macquarie Event

The Wallis album is closely linked to the two chests through Captain James Wallis (1785?–1858). Wallis, appointed commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement by Macquarie in 1816, had the Macquarie chest made as a parting gift for Governor Macquarie around 1818. It is possible that Wallis, who retired from t...

John Wood, gentleman turner

The construction of the complex and difficult-to-make oval cedar case for the Woodstock Challenge Cup (plate 1) illustrated in my article “Essie Jenyns and her Australian Terriers” has prompted me to wonder how and why it came into being. Recently I purchased for my reference library a complete set of the B...

Book review: Penny Olsen, 'Cayley & Son'

The Neville Cayleys – father and son – are a curious case. Both were prolific, and are well represented in the market. The most recent iteration of the Australian Art Sales Digest (www. aasd.com.au) lists 605 works by Neville Henry Cayley and 572 works by Neville William Cayley sold at auction since the 197...

The Cambewarra connection: William Bauerlen, Gertrude Lovegrove and The Wild Flowers of New South Wales

The lost galantry medals of Joseph Maxwell VC, MC and Bar, DCM

Frank Piaggio and Piaggio & McKinlay, watchmakers and jewellers of Perth

Letter to the Editor

Ceremonial maces of Australian universities, part 3

The puzzle of Gannon House

Mac the Wire King

Book review: JM Houstone, ‘Early Australian Silver: The Houstone Collection'

Book review: Michael Fahey & Mike Coward, ‘The Baggy Green'

Book review: Andrew Montana et al, ‘Australia Revealed'

Reports from the Annual General Meeting of the Australiana Society Inc.

The Peter Walker Fine Writing Award 2012: Judge's Report

Royal Bounty. George III's gifts to the Governors of New South Wales

Upholding King and Church

Hookum Chan and Family. 19th-century furniture makers in Western Australia

Porcelain painting in the 1970s and 1980s

Neville William Cayley, the bird illustrator of Australia

The IHC bronze kangaroos

‘Lalla’: Alice Rochford Cayley and Jack Castle Harris, part 2

Louis Somme, an intriguing migrant craftsman

The John Watts necklace: a masterpiece of Australian gold jewellery by Christian Ludwig Qwist

Henry Frith's ‘The Last of the Tasmanians’: the three versions

Review: Treasures and Traditions of the German community

Victorian mourning dress in colonial Australia

James Mitchell's games table

Treasure trove

Billy Hughes doorstops

‘Lalla’: Alice Rochfort Cayley and Jack Castle Harris, part I