Search results for 'Jennifer Sanders, Dr Jim Bertouch'

Vol 47 no 4, November 2025
Jonoski Takuma, Cameo Carver of Emu Eggs: addendum
By Mark R Cabouret   |   November 2025   |   Vol 47 no 4

In our May and August issues of 2025, siblings Jennifer and Lindsey Harris explored the cross-cultural influence ofJapanese craftsman Jonoski Takuma in his carving of Australian scenes on emu eggs around the time of Federation.Their articles led ornithologist and collector Dr Mark Cabouret to look very carefull...

More Information
Vol 47 no 4, November 2025
John Doody, Captain Paterson’s Convict Artist
By Robert Stevens   |   November 2025   |   Vol 47 no 4

The young convict John Doody was an accomplished botanical artist whose fine watercolours, combined with Captain William Paterson’s annotations, were the first attempt to catalogue the flora of Norfolk Island. Though the drawings are unsigned, in a 1794 letter Paterson (plate 1) identified t...

More Information
Vol 47 no 3, August 2025
A Japanese artist in Australia: Jonoski Takuma and his family
By Lindsay Harris   |   August 2025   |   Vol 47 no 3

Jonoski Takuma, a young, missionary-educated Japanese man, arrived in Australia in 1888 and within a few years began engraving emu eggs depicting Australian scenes. Reflecting his Japanese cultural heritage, these delicately carved eggs,along with postcards and a children’s book, embody a fusion of Japanese a...

More Information
Vol 47 no 3, August 2025
The ‘Meat in The Sandwich’ between Boom and Bust: James Clarke Waite’s 'The Saltwater River', 1896
By Sam Nichols   |   August 2025   |   Vol 47 no 3

A chance online encounter with an arresting 19th-century oil painting depicting a scene of forlorn industry on the banks of the Saltwater River, executed by one of Australia’s foremost portrait painters of the Victorian period, and its offering in a Hobart auction may have misled some to assume it depicted a ...

More Information
Vol 47 no 3, August 2025
Phyllis Murphy 1924–2025
By Jock Murphy   |   August 2025   |   Vol 47 no 3

Dr Phyllis Murphy AM, a long-time member of the Australiana Society, died in May, just a few weeks short of her 101st birthday. Born Phyllis Slater in Melbourne in 1924,Phyllis developed a strong interest in buildings and design from an early age. Her son Jock Murphy records her architectural work and her ...

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
President’s update
By Colin Thomas   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

What an outstanding success the 2024
national tour of Victoria was!
Victorian branch chair Robert Stevens
and his team did an absolutely fantastic
job in every regard. From venue selection,
menu selection, to negotiating the best
possible deal with all providers, nothing
more could possibly have been wis...

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
In the detail: the collaborative Arts and Crafts of Mabel and William Blamire Young
By Andrew Montana   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

William and Mabel Blamire Young collaborated in many of their artistic and other endeavours, yet she was overshadowed
and her work has been largely unrecognised. Dr Andrew Montana investigates her contribution, especially to the Arts and
Crafts Movement in Victoria, with the help of their descendants.

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
Now in Australia: proof engravings prepared for Sir Joseph Banks from plant drawings made by Sydney Parkinson on James Cook’s Endeavour voyage
By David Mabberley   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

The Peter Crossing Collection in Sydney recently acquired a set of engravings now identified as very early proof pulls made
in London for Joseph Banks’s unpublished Plantarum omnium detectarum Terrarum maris au∫tralis de∫criptiones & figurae
(Descriptions & illustrat...

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
Victorian Tour 2025 – Melbourne and beyond
By Graham Stanley   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
Remembering Glenn R Cooke 1946 – 2025
By John Wade   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 47 no 2, May 2025
Emu eggs à la japonaise
By Jennifer Harris   |   May 2025   |   Vol 47 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 47 no 1, February 2025
Gold Australian animal sculptures
By Christine Erratt   |   February 2025   |   Vol 47 no 1

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.

More Information
Vol 47 no 1, February 2025
George Hart-Taylor: rediscovering an important Queensland landscape painter
By Dianne Byrne   |   February 2025   |   Vol 47 no 1

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...

More Information
Vol 47 no 1, February 2025
The Thallon Memorial Medal – a gold prize for the children of Queensland railway workers
By Kevin Lambkin   |   February 2025   |   Vol 47 no 1

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...

More Information
Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
A portrait miniature of Captain William Hill
By Gary L Sturgess   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4




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...

More Information
Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
John Wilson Carey and his ‘Queensland’ cabinet timbers
By David Bedford   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4




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. ...

More Information
Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
South Australian malachite brooches
By Jo Vandepeer   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4





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...

More Information
Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
‘A Treasure Chest?’ revisited
By R A Fredman   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4





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...

More Information
Vol 46 no 3, August 2024
Book reviews
By    |   August 2024   |   Vol 46 no 3

Book review byDr David Bedford of David J Mabberley, The Peter Crossing Collection, an illustrated cataloguePeter Crossing AM, Sydney, 2022. $95 plus pack and post; Book Review by Meredith Hinchliffe AM of Christine Erratt Ceremonial maces ofAustr...

More Information
Vol 46 no 3, August 2024
Research assistance needed: Rabbi Leib Aisack Falk
By    |   August 2024   |   Vol 46 no 3

The family of the late Rabbi Leib Aisack Falk (1889–1957) is preparing a comprehensive book about him. Rabbi Falk was born in what is now Latvia, moving to Scotland in 1911, next going to Plymouth, then becoming a British Army chaplain in Egypt and Palestine 1918–1921. He came with his wife and c...

More Information
Vol 46 no 2, May 2024
Knud Geelmuyden Bull (1811–1889), Norwegian-born convict artist
By Robert Stevens   |   May 2024   |   Vol 46 no 2

Knud Bull was born in Norway. He trained as an artist and painted in Norway, Dresden, Copenhagen and Stockholm before moving to London in 1845, where he was arrested for counterfeiting and sentenced to 14 years transportation in Australia. Arriving at Norfolk Island, after nine months he was transferred t...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
President’s update
By Colin Thomas   |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

I trust all members had an enjoyable festive season with family and friends, and took the opportunity to relax. During this period of relaxation, you may well have spent some time reading Australiana and the book so generously donated regarding John Mitchell Cantle, Australia’s first native-born orn...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
Book Reviews
By    |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

BOOK REVIEW BY WARWICK OAKMAN
Mark R. Cabouret, Out From The Shadows
John Mitchell Cantle 1849 – 1919 Australia’s First Native Born Ornithological Draughtsman.
The Australiana Society Inc, Bondi Junction, NSW, 2023. Soft cover,
175 pages, 683 colour & sepi...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
A Treasure Chest?
By R A Fredman   |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

Chests of drawers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and are easy to describe using some basic elements such as dimensions and number of drawers, types of timber, feet, knobs etc. For scholars of early furniture many more parameters come into play, not the least being an assessment of whether all its ...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
Artur Loureiro, a navigator of the fine arts: from Porto to Melbourne
By Andrew Montana   |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

Born in Portugal and trained in Europe, Artur Loureiro (1853–1932) settled in Melbourne where he painted and taught art for a living between 1884 and 1904. Painting various subjects in a wide range of styles, he associated with all the leading Melbourne artists of the time – Streeton, Conder, McC...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
Twin Chests of Drawers for Government House, Hobart
By E J Bateman   |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

An exploration into the construction and history of an early, distinctively veneered chest of drawers from Tasmania reveals that it has a twin. E.J. Bateman presents the evidence of the two chests' provenance, noting the 'broad arrow' Government inventory marks, and suggests that they were made by convict cabin...

More Information
Vol 46 no 1, Feb 2024
Members' Awards on Australia Day
By    |   February 2024   |   Vol 46 no 1

Members of the Australiana Society have many distinctions. Our president Colin Thomas has already praised the work of Di Dorothy Erickson AM on receiving her Member of the Order of Australia award, but at least two more Australiana Society members were honoured. Julian Bickersteth AO and Dr Judith McK...

More Information
Vol 45 no 4, Nov 2023
William Milner and his ceramic legacy
By Gregory Hill   |   November 2023   |   Vol 45 no 4




European immigrant William Milner was a little-known entrepreneur who established a porcelain manufacturing business after
arriving in Melbourne in 1911. The porcelain industry was largely driven by a massive need for electrical insulators, and, as
COVID-19 has demons...

More Information
Vol 45 no 4, Nov 2023
An enigmatic colonial sculpture
By Chris Tassell   |   November 2023   |   Vol 45 no 4




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...

More Information
Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
The York Street Synagogue Ark
By Jana Vytrhlik   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
A Gift for the Queen: Andrew Lenehan’s Casket
By Yvonne Barber   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Exhibition: Charles Rodius, State Library of NSW
By    |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Book review: Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect 1700–1850
By Peter Lane   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

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 ...

More Information
Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Australiana: Designing a Nation, Bendigo Art Gallery 18 March to 25 June 2023
By Emma Busowsky   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
Spanish Craftsmen at New Norcia Abbey in Western Australia part 2: John Casellas
By Dorothy Erickson   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
I Opine it’s a ‘Pine’
By R A Fredman   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

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 ...

More Information
Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
Considering a Curious Carving
By Glenn R Cooke   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

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.

More Information
Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
An American in the East
By John Wade   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Early school samplers from Van Diemen’s Land
By Nicola Kissane   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Thomas Griffiths' book box construction
By David Bedford   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Thomas Griffiths, a Queensland woodworker
By John Wade   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Timber trays – fun and functional
By R A Fredman   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

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.

More Information
Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
A presentation casket with carving by John K. Blogg, 1915
By Sarah Guest   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Spanish Craftsmen for the New Norcia Abbey in Western Australia. Part 1, Isidro Oriol
By Dorothy Erickson   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

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 ...

More Information
Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Book reviews
By    |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

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...

More Information
Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Through the looking glass – identifying W. H. Rocke & Co’s second Melbourne International Exhibition 1880 drawing-room cabinet
By Andrew Montana   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

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...

More Information
Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
Book reviews
By Claire Blakey & Nat Williams   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

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...

More Information
Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
‘Angels in the Studio’ in Western Australia part 4: Those who stayed
By Dorothy Erickson   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

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...

More Information
Vol 43 no 2, May 2021
Feedback
By John Wade   |   May 2021   |   Vol 43 no 2

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...

More Information
Vol 43 no 2, May 2021
James Whitesides’ chairs for the Parliament of Tasmania
By John Short   |   May 2021   |   Vol 43 no 2

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...

More Information
The Australiana Society acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.