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...
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...
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...
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...
George Richard Addis (1864–1937) is best known as one of Western Australia’s leading late 19th- and early 20th-century goldfields jewellers, whose Western Australian work has been documented by Dorothy Erickson.1 Many jewellers however worked in different colonies, and here Michel Reymond records for the fi...
R.B. Smith made his model of the Strasburg Clock to celebrate the centenary of British settlement. It was hailed as a “scientific triumph of Australian workmanship”. At first, Smith exhibited it privately “like a fat woman in a country fair”1 until it found a home in Sydney’s Technological Museum. The...
John Locksley Kemp, a descendant of Richard Kemp, gave a silver medal, passed down through the Kemp family, to the Powerhouse Museum in 1984. Very little was known about the medal’s history until Karen Eaton came across it by chance while viewing the Museum’s on-line collection database. Also a descendant o...
Our first event after the last AGM was the show-stopping evening at the Mitchell Library to view the Macquarie collector’s chest, the Dixson collector’s chest and the Wallis album with Elizabeth Ellis and Richard Neville. This was one of the very best events that I can remember, with the unique opportunity ...
In masterminding and producing this fine book, Tony Kanellos, Cultural Collections Manager and Curator of the Santos Museum of Economic Botany located in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, has provided both reader and book collector with a gem. It clearly demonstrates his care of and expertise in the safekeeping of t...
The Neville Cayleys – father and son – are a curious case. Both were prolific, and are well represented in the market. The most recent iteration of the Australian Art Sales Digest (www. aasd.com.au) lists 605 works by Neville Henry Cayley and 572 works by Neville William Cayley sold at auction since the 197...