Search results for 'Dr Jim Bertouch'

The York Street Synagogue Ark

Two early arks held in the museum collection of The Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street, Sydney are impressive examples of Australian furniture. Their distinct Egyptian style could have been a source of inspiration for the architectural style of the York Street Synagogue (1844). In her search for the...

A Gift for the Queen: Andrew Lenehan’s Casket

Zealous colonists wanted those ‘at home’ to know how economically successful the British colonies in Australia had become. When gold was found in 1851, the Governor of New South Wales sent specimens of the first gold, in boxes made using selected colonial timbers by Irish-born cabinetmaker Andrew...

Exhibition: Charles Rodius, State Library of NSW

The first retrospective of ‘19th-century Australia’s best unknown artist’, Charles Rodius (1802–1860), bringing together 92 original watercolours, drawings and prints, will be shown at the State Library of NSW. While the host library holds the largest collection, other notable examples are held in the N...

Book review: Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect 1700–1850

The subject of this book is coins
that have had their surfaces engraved, repurposed to communicate private and public messages. It covers the whole spectrum of engraved coins created
in Great Britain and forms a cultural backdrop of Australian culture, which pre-gold-rush era was predominantly
a ...

Australiana: Designing a Nation, Bendigo Art Gallery 18 March to 25 June 2023

Bendigo Art Gallery has drawn on its collections, the Australiana Fund, other collections and especially the National Gallery of Victoria to mount a new survey of Australiana from British settlement to today. Obviously it cannot cover every aspect of Australiana, nor every way artists and crafts...

Spanish Craftsmen at New Norcia Abbey in Western Australia part 2: John Casellas

Spanish monks established the Benedictine mission at New Norcia in Western Australia in 1846. Following on from her article last year on Isidro Oriol,1 Dr Dorothy Erickson concludes her series on the Spanish craftsmen who worked on buildings and furniture for the monastic community. Here she examines...

I Opine it’s a ‘Pine’

From the foundation of the colonies, local cabinetmakers experimented with using the wide range of native timbers. Bob Fredman discusses a chest of drawers, most likely made about 1900 in Bundaberg, Queensland and probably by a local cabinet maker of Germanic heritage, who liked to use contrasting timbers with ...

Considering a Curious Carving

Artists draw inspiration from many sources. Glenn Cooke examines at how a 20th-century Queensland wood carver took his design inspiration from an historical French pottery plaque some 400 years old, finding what seems to be the exact example he used.

An American in the East

In America as in England, tea drinking became highly fashionable in the 18th century. The duty imposed on tea imported into Britain’s North American colonies became a catalyst for revolution, highlighted by the Boston Tea Partyin 1773. Many discrete meetings of revolutionaries were fuelled by nothing more inc...

Early school samplers from Van Diemen’s Land

As part of their education in useful arts, schoolgirls sewed their own individual samplers, which are also important indicators of progress in educational methods and reach. The format is fairly standard, with the letters of the alphabet in either or both lower and upper case and basic numbers, plus the gi...

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...

Thomas Griffiths, a Queensland woodworker

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 Wy...

Timber trays – fun and functional

When furniture or crib board collecting becomes too hard, because of either their cost or scarcity or both, the average Australiana collector can turn to drinks trays. They can turn to drinks too, but this article is just about the trays.

A presentation casket with carving by John K. Blogg, 1915

The box seen here shows the superb carving of John Kendrick Blogg, a successful and entrepreneurial industrial chemist who was born in 1851 in Canada, settled in the Surrey Hills region of Victoria in 1877 and died in 1936. His day job involved making perfumes and extracting essential oils. Family legend has it...

Spanish Craftsmen for the New Norcia Abbey in Western Australia. Part 1, Isidro Oriol

Most craftsmen who emigrated to colonial Australia were trained in the English, Scottish, Irish or German traditions. In Western Australia, several Spanish craftsmen were attracted by the monastery established by their compatriot Bendictine monks at New Norcia. Western Australian craftsmen, mostly using jarrah ...

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...

Through the looking glass – identifying W. H. Rocke & Co’s second Melbourne International Exhibition 1880 drawing-room cabinet

Objects and art shown at international exhibitions always attract a premium. Often, they really were ‘showpieces’, specially made to demonstrate the maker’s skills, ability and cutting-edge design. Three room suites of W. H. Rocke’s furniture displayed at the prestigious Melbourne International Exhibiti...

Book reviews

Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and Max Donnelly with Andrew Montana and Suzanne Veldink, Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer.
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, New Haven CT 2021. Hard cover,
256 pp, 200 illustrations, Booktopia price $59 plus postage.
Philip...

‘Angels in the Studio’ in Western Australia part 4: Those who stayed

Dr Erickson concludes her story of the professional women artists who commenced working in Western Australia before World War I. All were born in South Australia or England, coming to Western Australia later, most as young adults and often with other family members. Their careers began in the heady years of the...

Feedback

Robert Stevens, in ‘William Paul Dowling: artist, artist-photographer and photographer’ in our November 2020 issue, and using information provided by Irish genealogist Dr Paul MacCotter, suggested that Dowling may have possibly been the ‘William Dowling’ baptised 26 December 1822 at St Mary’s Roman Ca...

James Whitesides’ chairs for the Parliament of Tasmania

The cabinet maker James Whitesides (c 1803–1890) arrived in Hobart from Ireland in 1832. He came to the colony with established woodworking skills and in the company of fellow artisans William Hamilton and John McLoughlin. The three opened business premises as Hamilton & Co in Argyle Street, but in Octobe...

The Browns of Montrose, near Mintaro

This darling little painting came into the possession of a friend – a friend with a very good eye. It came with no provenance, but it has since revealed a South Australian story. This is a tale of changing fortunes, one that spans the scope of Victorian society from servant, Cambridge scholar, muleteer, garde...

The Goulds in Tasmania

In 1832, John Gould produced A Century of birds from the Himalaya Mountains, the plates ‘drawn from nature and on stone by E. Gould’, and five years later, five volumes on the birds of Europe with 448 lithographic plates, most by Elizabeth Gould with 68 by Edward Lear. The bird specimens his brothers- in-la...

Feedback

Many people help create each issue of Australiana: authors, editor, photographers, owners of items, designer, expert readers, proof-readers and other talented individuals and institutions. Once we publish, each story is pretty much set in stone, so we try to check our research, facts and conclusions first. We c...

Update from the President

It was an absolute privilege at the recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be elected President of the Society. I am very humbled by the fact that the outgoing President Dr Jim Bertouch and Vice President Tim Cha nominated me for the role with the unanimous support of the outgoing Committee and State Chairs.

James Cook’s Killora 'Resolution' and 'Adventure' medal

Lieutenant James Cook took various gifts on his voyages of discovery, to distribute to Indigenous people whom he might encounter. Peter Lane draws attention to the only example of one of Cook’s medals found in Australia, a memento of friendly contact between the European explorers and Indigenous Tasmanians in...

Australian Toys: A Collector’s Story

Many collectors keep up their obsession for decades, but they don’t always begin as children. Luke Jones recounts his passion for collecting Australian toys over nearly 40 years, and how he turned that into a useful and well-illustrated reference book for other collectors.

William Paul Dowling: artist, artist-photographer and photographer

Dublin-born William Paul Dowling (c 1822–1877) worked in London as a draftsman and artist before his Irish Nationalist political activities led to his being transported to Van Diemen’s Land for sedition. Here, the Irish Catholic convict established a reputation as a portrait artist, gradually adapting to th...

President’s Report

Thank you for attending the 2020 AGM and it is a pleasure to present, albeit sadly ... for me at least ... my last report. 40th Anniversary Symposium Well I can say that we really started the year with a bang with the highly successful Australiana Symposium at the State Library in October 2019, which was well s...

Angels in the Studio’ in Western Australia: the precursors

Dr Dorothy Erickson begins a new series of articles on Western Australian art, exploring the production and themes adopted by women artists in the 19th century, and putting their work into its social and artistic context.

W.J. Williams and his paintings

In 2018, Dr Andrew Montana restored William Joseph Williams (1851–1918) as the artist responsible for the late 19th-century painted decoration in South Australia at Ayers House, the Museum of Economic Botany, Rigby’s bookshop, Trew’s South Australian Club Hotel and probably Para Para.1 Now the artist’s ...

At Home' at Clairville: a Tasmanian Branch event

On a beautiful summer’s afternoon, 85 members from Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and northern Tasmania attended the Tasmanian Branch’s 2020 opening event, an ‘At Home’ at Clairville (plate 1) near Evandale, courtesy of the owners, Michael McWilliams and Robert Henley (plates 2-3). The event on 22 ...

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...

Letter to the Editor

Charles Rodius, convict artist

Charles Rodius began his prolific art career in Paris and London. Convicted of thefts in 1829, he was transported to Sydney, where the convict artist produced landscapes, portraits of leading Sydney settlers as well as notable portraits of Aboriginal people, many translated into lithographs. Rodius had a good s...

An unrecorded miniature by Ludwig Becker

Dr Gary Morgan’s research into a recently re-discovered Tasmanian miniature, reported here for the first time, identifies – partly by using new facial recognition technology – that it is a memento of a Tasmanian colonial family, as well as shedding new light on the technique of the artist, Ludwig Becker.

Australiana Society annual report 2018

As you all know we are in our 40th year and will finish our celebrations with a three-day symposium on 18–21 October 2019 at the State Library of NSW. This is going to be a very big and significant event. We have more than 25 confirmed speakers and very many different areas of Australiana will be covered in t...

The 'Paris Studio' of George de Nemes

Gold Rush craftsmen and artists brought their European traditions with them in the mid-19th century, just as George de Nemes (György Nemes) brought his techniques, Hungarian folk art tradition, conceptions of what art should be, fantasies and recollections of totalitarian regimes under the Fascists and Communi...

And to beautify his house": Lyon, Cottier & Co.'s ecclesiastical window glass and decoration during the 1870s'

Sydney stained glass artists Lyon Cottier & Co. carried out many commissions in public, private and religious buildings in their 50 years of activity from 1873 to 1924. Prominent architects chose their work for Sydney’s GPO, Government House and Parliament House. Religious services were an important and frequ...

Kingston’s vision: South Australia’s earliest and most enigmatic piece of colonial furniture

Three South Australian researchers explore the possible genesis and history of a massive red gum bookcase which came up at an Adelaide auction in 2017. Using a variety of evidence, sources and methods, they identify the bookcase as a very early piece of South Australian furniture and mount a case for who commis...

A table for the Asylum, New Norfolk

You might easily pass by, without noticing, a basic item of furniture with little decoration or character, but a closer look can be revealing. Dr Philip Reid brings to life a small pine table, through a paper label pasted underneath, which reveals its maker, date, means of delivery and destination – the Hospi...

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.

Book Review: With Heart & Hand. Art Pottery in Queensland 1900-1950

With Heart & Hand: art pottery in Queensland 1900–1950. Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, 2018. Standard edition $125, limited edition (with designer print)

W. J. Williams: art decorator of Ayers House, North Terrace, Adelaide

At a heritage conference in Adelaide in 2015, Dr Donald Ellsmore attributed the superb interior decoration at Adelaide’s Ayers House and Gawler’s Para Para in South Australia to the Sydney decorating firm of Lyon, Cottier & Co. and their employee Charles Gow, purely on speculation. Till now, his opinion has...

Dr John White FLS, Surgeon-General of NSW: a portrait by Thomas Watling

John White was born at Drumaran, County Fermanagh in north-western Ireland about 1756 – not England as is sometimes claimed.1 He entered the Royal Navy as a surgeon’s mate in 1778 and rose to naval surgeon; in this capacity he was appointed to serve as surgeon on the transport Charlotte in the First Fleet, ...

Exhibition Review: Colony; Australia 1770-1861

The NGV touted its landmark 2018 exhibition Colony as “drawing from public and private collections across the country, Colony: Australia 1770–1861 brings together the most important examples of art and design produced during this period.”1 Although the show has over 600 exhibits, John Hawkins claims the s...

Australiana Society Annual Report 2018

Kevin Fahy Annual Lecture 2018: Tasmaniana

Firstly thank you to Jim and the Society Committee for demonstrating the faith you have in me to deliver what I regard as this most important lecture. We all owe the late Kevin Fahy a significant debt for the time that he took researching, collecting and preserving Australia’s heritage, particularly in the bo...

Banks: the inside story

The design and manufacture of a writing desk for the Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin (1879–83). We are familiar with immigrants trained in Britain or Europe coming to Australia and continuing their craft, or with Australian artists travelling to Europe to learn and expand their skills and ideas. Rarely have we l...

Australiana Society tour of Tasmania 2018

“Bring forty members to Tasmania to celebrate the Australiana Society’s 40th anniversary” was president Jim Bertouch’s brief. The new Tasmanian Chapter of the Australiana Society accordingly set to work under the leadership of chairman Colin Thomas to emulate the success of the Society’s 2015 Tasmania...