Australiana, Vol 46 no 4, November 2024

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 tour to South Australia in our 46-year history. The event was appreciated by our South Australian members with many attending their first ever national event at the Kevin Fahy Lecture delivered by passionate South Australian member and collector Justin Gare during dinner at historic Ayers House...

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 Library of NSW.

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 discovered that its provenance can be traced to one of Sydney’s 19th-century shopping arcades, the Imperial Arcade opened in 1891 and demolished in 1961.

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. Dr David Bedford explores what they reveal of the use of cabinet timbers in Queensland and his parquetry veneering designs. He explores the challenges in translating the common names used for timbers in the 1870s to the current common and botanical names of those timbers.

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 like taking a rudder out of a ship.’ After starting out ‘on the tools’ as a cabinetmaker in the 1860s and 1870s – for which he will be best remembered – Carey moved on to become a saw-mill proprietor, a contractor constructing prefabricated buildings and an inventor.

We encourage lively, informed discussion about items of Australiana. Contributions to this magazine usually give the author’ s email address, so readers can initiate contact and give feedback. As a result of readers’ correspondence and questions, Bob Fredman has now modified some of the information he presented, and the conclusions he reached, about an early chest of drawers that featured in our issue of February 2024.

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 that are associated with the individual colonies or states. Dr Jo Vandepeer examines the production of jewellery made from the green copper mineral malachite mined there, typically and proudly denoting a South Australian origin.

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 Australian and international fine and decorative arts. Recently he had been an active participant in Australiana Society events held in Victoria.

Geoff and Kerrie Ford from the National Museum of Australian Pottery in Holbrook had ‘a bit of an anxious month’ in the build-up to acquiring at auction in Sydney recently, what they believe is the most important piece of early Australian convict pottery stamped ‘J. LEAK’ ever discovered.

Australiana Society Inc ABN 13 402 033 474. PROFIT & LOSS STATEMENT For the year ended 30 June 2024