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 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...
Four early Australian silver flatware items – two spoons and two forks – engraved with the three initials ‘WEB’ present a challenge warranting research. Whose engraved initials (WEB) are they and when were the items made and engraved? Christine Erratt offers an answer. Four flatware1items with...
A quite remarkable amount of wood-carving was produced in Australia, in the framework of the Arts and Crafts movement, at the beginning of the 20th century which is, and remains, unidentified. If we don’t have a provenance we can look at stylistically similar works, such as Queensland’s Harvey School,...
BOOK REVIEW BY MICHAEL LECHRuth Lane Poole: a woman of influence. Canberra Museum and Gallery, 2021, 58 pages. BOOK REVIEW BY ANNE-MARIE VAN DE VENChristine Stewart,
Collits’ Inn: Uncovering the Past, Tellwell, Australia 2021 ISBN 978-0-2288-3720-6
Finding more examples of the silver brooch with Indigenous motifs that she discussed in our May issue, Christine Erratt delved further into their history. In the National Archives of Australia, Christine uncovered the 1954 design registration applications.
Six different designs, of which five were inspired b...
We often recognise Australiana by the presence of motifs depicting Australia’s unique flora and fauna and, especially in the 19th century, representations of Indigenous figures. Anthropologists studied Indigenous people, while the things they made – much of it, what we would describe today as art – were r...
I trust all members had an enjoyable festive season with the family and friends they were fortunate enough to be able to see. As I have stated all too often, COVID never ceases to amaze with the number of twists and turns it continues to deliver. Who would have ever thought that, with the vaccination levels mos...
The late Professor Kenneth Cavill’s article published in Australiana1 identified about 50 spoons of Australian and British manufacture, marking royal
and other occasions, with heraldic motifs, maps of Australia or Tasmania and flora and fauna, made either in factories or in craft workshops. Overlapping almos...
Christine Erratt, Ceremonial maces of Australian universities. Parker Press, Sydney 2018. 56 pages, 138 colour images, perfect bound 230 x 190 mm. ISBN 978 0 646 989235
Beleura, the house and garden on the Mornington Peninsula on the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay, is an estate left to the people of Victoria by John ‘Jack’ Morton Tallis (1911–1996), the youngest son of Sir George Tallis of J C Williamson theatres fame... Here was a mystery: how did John Tallis know K...
How things are designed and made should interest all those with a passion for the creative arts. One of our members, Christine Erratt, was involved in the process of designing a new mace for the Australian Catholic University because of the important articles she wrote for Australiana, and another member, W.J. ...
During the second decade of the new millennium, many pioneers of the crafts movement in Australia, which began to flourish in the 1970s, will celebrate four decades of working in studio practices with their chosen materials.
Cricket is in the news with the Ashes being played in England. Sir Donald Bradman (1908–2001) is respected as the world’s best and most famous cricketer, both in Australia and the United Kingdom. His grandfather, Charles Bradman, lived in the small Suffolk village of Withersfield until he emigrated to Austr...
The first update to my book Convict and Free: the Master Furniture-makers of NSW 1788–1851 will be available on CD in December, with at least two new chapters, on Thomas Mercer Booth and John McMahon. However, Australiana members may be interested to learn now that a reader from Ireland has provided me with d...
On 1 January 2014, the University of Ballarat and the Gippsland campus of Monash University amalgamated to form Federation University Australia. The ceremonial mace formerly used at the University of Ballarat is currently in use as the ceremonial mace for the new university... It was not John [Joseph] Thomas Ha...
After a short career in the British army, John Jardine, the youngest brother of the eminent Scottish ornithologist Sir William Jardine, in 1839 decided to emigrate to Australia. In 1861, he served as a police magistrate and gold commissioner at Rockhampton, then became a pioneer settler at Somerset on Cape York...
