Margaret Carlisle

In the 19th century, many artists trained in Europe came to Australia, where the strange new land often impacted on how they saw the world and what they depicted. French china painter Madame Bourdic did not succumb to the Australian environment. She continued to paint china in the academic tradition she had learned in France and Italy, and taught those delicate painting techniques to married and single women students in Melbourne.

tracing the provenance of a Berlin woolwork picture now held in the Powerhouse Museum led to information about the involvement of the Agricultural society of New south Wales in setting up the 1870 Exhibition in sydney, a bronze medal awarded at that event, the winner of the medal and maker of this extraordinary item depicting a scene from shakespeare’s play, Henry VIII.