Search results for 'David Dolan'

Reclaiming a Suite of Queensland Colonial Furniture

Thomas Griffiths' book box construction

Thomas Griffiths (1856–1943), a Welsh blacksmith and wheelwright, emigrated to Queensland to start a new life as a ‘skilled migrant’, at first clinging to his old profession in the Ipswich area. When the Queensland railway network was expanding, he saw
a new business opportunity and opened a sawmill at...

Photographing your Collection

There are sound reasons why you should have good photographs of items in your collection, whether as a record, for research, for publication, for sale and for insurance.

Book reviews

JOURNAL REVIEW BY DR ROSS JOHNSTON, Queensland History Journal, vol. 24, no. 11, November 2021, (Journal of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland); BOOK REVIEW BY DR LINDA YOUNG, Fringe, Frog & Tassel: The Arts of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration. By Annabel Westman; BOOK REVIEW BY DR DAVID BEDF...

Teaching artists by copying the Masters

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, workshop and guild traditions were based on the principle of emulation, with apprentices learning by copying the works of their masters. In painting, the practice was gradually regularised and systematised in the curricula of emergent national academies of art, beginning at t...

Jack and Achilles: a classical source for Benjamin Duterrau’s Native taking a Kangaroo?

Artists in early Australia were usually trained in Britain and Europe in the Classical tradition going back to ancient Greece and Rome. David Hansen explores the possibility that, in the composition of his paintings created in Van Diemen’s Land, Benjamin Duterrau was influenced by Renaissance and Classical mo...

The use of Australian tulip wood in Australian furniture and boxes

Decorative timber inlay work became popular in British and European furniture and other wooden items in the 18th century. European exploration of the so-called New World tropics and subsequent colonisation gave access to a greatly increased range of superb cabinet timbers. Cabinetmakers initially concentrated o...

Allen Duckworth, woodworker and native timbers crusader

In the preceding article, David Bedford identified four Australian manufacturers of cribbage boards: Grose Manufacturing Co of Brisbane; Clipsal, a brand name of Gerard Industries in Adelaide; John Sands & Co, founded in Sydney as Sands & Kenny in 1851; and Crown Mulga made by A.W.G. Davey & Sons Lt...

Australian cribbage boards – an affordable collectable

Both plain and novelty cribbage boards have been produced around the world for about 400 years. Australian-made cribbage boards can only be post–1788 and at this stage I know of no boards dating before the early 1800s, though very plain boards are difficult to date accurately. By the mid-19th century, many no...

Casuarina Timbers in Australia

One of the most distinctive timbers in Australia comes from trees known by their common name as casuarinas. In botanical taxonomic terms, there are actually two main genera growing in Australia: Allocasuarina and Casuarina. A third genus, Gymnostoma, is restricted to far north Queensland. The timber characteris...

Much more than an E

The State Library of New South Wales recently purchased a rare original ornithological watercolour by Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), formerly in the collection of the late James Fairfax AC. This adds to the collection of manuscript letters and other original materials the Library has acquired relating to this i...

Carl Ewald, ‘Gluepot’ Graetz of Graetztown, South Australia

German settlers in South Australia, notably in the Barossa and to a lesser extent in other parts of Australia, introduced a furniture style based on the rural carpentry traditions of their native lands, rather than the more common styles seen in Australia derived from British cabinetmaking. David Bedford and Ri...

Virtual Show & Tell

Communicating with members is a vital activity of any society. We also aim to share knowledge, mainly through our scholarly magazine Australiana. Another channel of communication is through the internet, which has been used for the last few years by the South Australian Study Group, with its monthly “Show and...

Robert Dowling, the elusive cabinetmaker of O'Brien's Bridge, Van Diemen's Land

David Bedford has researched the life and work of Tasmanian cabinetmaker Richard Dowling (c 1820/1822–1867), little documented till now. He presents new discoveries about Dowling’s life and suggests why Dowling’s story has been so elusive. Evidence has emerged, and examples of his work found, which show t...

Society News

Forty years of collecting: a love affair with Australiana

David Bedford and Jennifer Stuerzl reflect on the pleasures of 40 years of collecting Australiana. Jennifer is a practising artist, painter, print and artist’s book maker and curates international print shows. David was trained as a botanist and became Director of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens before ...

An exhibition quality display case veneered with an ornate Australian timber

This two-height cabinet (plate 1) has a capped, ogee-shaped cornice above, two glazed, veneer-bordered upper doors and two veneered panel doors below flanked by columns (plate 2), standing on a plinth. Its known provenance, as reported to me, is that it was found in Strathfield, Sydney, in the 1970s. Antique de...

How to use protein glues

Furniture restorer Paul Gregson follows up Dr David Bedford’s article on “hide glue” in Australiana for November 2018 with some practical advice, although he suggests that a demonstration is more informative to understand the process.

A tribute to John Houstone

David Scott Mitchell (1836 –1907) had a private income which allowed him to pursue his collecting and become the greatest Australiana collector. About a century after British settlement, Mitchell identified the need to collect Australiana that was, at the time, rapidly disappearing. His collection of somewher...

Using hide glue to repair antique furniture

David Bedford cautions against using modern glues for antique furniture restoration, recommending instead that you stick with old-fashioned animal glues.

Moreton Bay pearls in Australian jewellery

Australian colonial artists sought to use local materials and to appropriate local motifs in their artworks for several reasons: to reflect the Australian origin of their work, to distinguish it from the art of other nations, and to foster a stronger sense of connection with the country. Moreton Bay pearls are ...

Book Review: David Kelly, ‘Convict and Free’

David Kelly sets out in this book to chart the history of 100 or so master cabinet-makers working in New South Wales up to 1850. His introduction discusses that bland sentence in some detail, meticulously defining those terms and the parameters of his research. Then Kelly outlines the structure of the book, sou...

Backchat

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...

James Semple Kerr, Miriam Hamilton and David Ell

Some people are or have been particularly influential in the development of appreciation and understanding of our heritage in Australia. Here we pay tribute to three individuals who contributed significantly, each of them in different ways, and who will be sadly missed both personally and professionally.

Book review: Jenny Cullen, 'Sir Charles Lloyd Jones'

There are many fine artists who barely rate a mention in the history of Australian art, so it was gratifying to read a long overdue biography of Charles Lloyd Jones (1878–1958). Jones is best known today as the Managing Director of David Jones department store during its boom times in the first half of the la...

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.

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...

A colourful clash in Castlereagh Street: ‘Paddy the bolter’ and ‘the sailor's whore’

Morris Castle, cabinet maker of London & Sydney

More on Butler

Lawrence Butler

David Collins' blackwood Tea caddy

Colonial furniture: provenance and its pitfalls

The David Collins Box and miniature portrait

The David Collins box & miniature portrait

Reference collections and the art of science

Dining habits and toilet furniture

John Glover and the colonial picturesque

Rediscovered: the Joubert jewel cabinet

Misdescription at auction: whose responsibility?

The Eureka Stockade - Ballarat, Victoria

A turbulent town: Ballarat and the Eureka Stockade

At dawn on Sunday, 3 December 1854, a momentous event occurred in Australian history, the battle of Eureka Stockade at Ballarat. It would turn out to be pivotal in our political journey as a nation.On that fateful morning, a contingent of the British 40th Somersetshire Regiment of Foot, supported by a sect...

Joseph Thomas Sleep: Jeweller, &c. Ballarat

Sydney Mint Museum

Book review: David Moore (with text by Rodney hall), 'Sydney Harbour’ 1994

Forthcoming Australian-American Walter & Marion Griffin Exhibition

Quo Vadis Toona Australia

Recent Museum Acquisitions of Australiana - J. D. Mackay and the Co-operative Flint Glass Company of Balmain

Book review: Scott Carlin (edited by David Wells), ‘Terracotta Australis: Potters and Brickmakers 1833-1981’, The Newcastle Regional Museum 1992