The Australiana Society’s first national
tour of Victoria from 20 to 24 March
was a huge success. The tour got off to
an unusual start at Gary and Genevieve
Morgan’s Gallery, with our host Gary
Morgan addressing us on a large screen
from his hospital bed...

Frequent contributor to Australiana and former curator at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA),
Glenn R Cooke, died in January. Australiana editor John Wade encapsulates Glenn’s immense influence, drawing on the
orations at his memorial in Brisban...

Once again, the task of judging
the Peter Walker Fine Arts Writing
Award has proved challenging. The
challenge comes from the diversity of
well-researched, well-illustrated articles.
Inevitably the short list for the Award
will come from the longer articles but the
interest of the magazine comes as much
...

Frederick II of Sicily made contact with the Kurdish al-Malik Muhammad al-Kamil in 1217, a year before he became Sultan
of Egypt. Over the next 20 years, the two rulers communicated regularly, exchanging letters, books and rare and exotic
animals. One exotic gift the Sultan sent Frederick was a Sulphur-creste...

The fashion for emu eggs for decorative purposes gained momentum through the latter part of the 19th century as Australia
approached Federation. As aligned to Australian identity as the emu is, it may come as a surprise to discover that emu
eggs attracted Japanese artisans who expressed their artistry in inno...

Acanthus leaves have been used as decoration in buildings, furniture and pottery since the birth of western architecture.
They were often a decorative feature on Australia’s early Neo-Classical furniture until the advent of Australian themes
towards the end of the 19th century. Bob Fredman discusses the use...

Two gold sculptures featuring Australian animals expertly cast in Sydney bySimon Adrien Schagen (1923–2013)were offered by West Sussex auctioneersToovey’s on 8 August 2024.

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

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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. ...

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...

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 ....

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...

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...

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
Fredm...

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...