Vol 37 no 1, February 2015
Book Review: Jewels on Queen
By John Wade   |   February 2015   |   Vol 37 no 1

In 1970, Anne Schofield opened the first shop in Australia dealing exclusively in antique jewellery (in Queen Street, Woollahra, hence the book title) and has been dealing from there ever since. She is well-known from her appearances at fairs and in the media, for her support foreword which introduces the reade...

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Vol 36 no 4, November 2014
From the President
By Jim Bertouch   |   November 2014   |   Vol 36 no 4

Australiana magazine has been presenting important information and original research about Australian decorative arts and heritage for 36 years, and is now the leading publication in the field. While we promised a bumper issue in November, I can now announce an even better alternative – our first monograph, t...

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Vol 36 no 4, November 2014
Gold Rush jewellers of Melbourne and Dunedin: Wagner & Woollett, Lamborn & Wagner and Wollett and Hewitt
By Michel Reymond   |   November 2014   |   Vol 36 no 4

Jewellers William Lamborn, Leopold Wagner and Samuel Woollett all arrived at Melbourne in the first few years after the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851. Recent research has uncovered new information on these jewellers and their firms – Wagner & Woollett, Lamborn & Wagner and Woollett & Hewitt. The new i...

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Vol 36 no 4, November 2014
Miss Purnell's wildflower screen
By Lesley Brooker   |   November 2014   |   Vol 36 no 4

Another of the talented women artists who came to the colony of Western Australia was Annie Purnell. She was not a professional artist, but the “Angel in the House” for her bachelor brother, the Anglican minister the Reverend Robert Purnell. As was typical of gentlewomen of the time, she would have been tra...

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Vol 36 no 4, November 2014
A ‘Poket Time Keeper’, John Arnold, Joseph Banks and Constantine John Phipps
By John Hawkins   |   November 2014   |   Vol 36 no 4

In the 18th century, a time keeper that would keep accurate time at sea was essential to find longitude. Britain’s Board of Longitude offered a massive prize of £20,000 for the inventor of such a device, contributing to major advances in timekeeping. John Hawkins argues that a time keeper by London watchmake...

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Vol 36 no 4, November 2014
A Fine Possession: jewellery and identity, Powerhouse Museum Sydney
By Dorothy Erickson   |   November 2014   |   Vol 36 no 4

This spectacular exhibition of jewellery spanning cultures and millennia is billed as the most ambitious jewellery exhibition the Powerhouse Museum (part of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) has ever staged. With 700 exhibits drawn from public and private collections across Australia, it takes several vi...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
A Berlin woolwork picture
By Margaret Carlisle   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

tracing the provenance of a Berlin woolwork picture now held in the Powerhouse Museum led to information about the involvement of the Agricultural society of New south Wales in setting up the 1870 Exhibition in sydney, a bronze medal awarded at that event, the winner of the medal and maker of this extraordinary...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Joseph Hamblin, cabinet-maker and piano maker
By Dorothy Erickson   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

dorothy erickson’s research for her new book Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829–1969 has uncovered more information about objects made in Western Australia and their makers. Her previous articles published in Australiana on Amy Harvey, William Howitt, Charles May and ...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Annual dinner and lecture 2014
By Paul Donnelly   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

A beautiful late summer’s evening greeted guests to the 2014 Annual Australiana Dinner held this year in the junior common room of Edmund Blacket’s splendid mid-1850s neo-gothic building, St Paul’s College, at the University of Sydney. One of the first university colleges to be built in Australia, the san...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Taking tea in the colonies
By Jim Bertouch   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

Tea drinking, that very British and colonial habit, is ingrained in our Australian culture and regarded by many as an essential daily ritual. tea is cheap and plentiful today, but this was not always the case.

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
A.S. Trood, a silver medal and Belle Vue Hall School
By Karen Eaton   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

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...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Book review: Jean Fornasiero & John West-Sooby, 'French Designs on Colonial New South Wales'
By Prof. John Ramsland   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

A lengthy title, but for a magnificently appointed book. It not only provides a translation of Péron’s memoir for the first time, but insightfully explores every relevant nook and cranny of colonial history of the period. The book is considerably enhanced by art works and contemporary maps, particularly thos...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Book review: Jenny Cullen, 'Sir Charles Lloyd Jones'
By Silas Clifford-Smith   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

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...

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Book review: Kevin Power, 'John Campbell Pottery'
By Tim Cha   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

Produced from its premises in Launceston, Tasmania, Campbell’s pottery products were shipped to shops and agents in Tasmania, mainland Australia, New Zealand and as far as India and the USA. Examples can be found regularly at antique shops and auction rooms throughout Australia. The vast majority of pieces av...

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
The Australiana Society Canberra Centenary Members' Tour 2013
By Judy & Ian Higson   |   May 2014   |   Vol 36 no 2

The Australiana Society Canberra Centenary Members’ Tour conducted from 5-8 September 2013 was extremely successful and thoroughly enjoyed by all who participated. It was superbly organised and led by committee member Lesley Garrett, assisted by Dr Paul Donnelly, another committee member.

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
A South Australian colonial wax relief by Josef David Herrgott (1823-61)
By Gary Morgan   |   May 2014   |   Vol 36 no 2

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.

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
Hilda Rix Nicholas: a cosmopolitan artist in 1920s Sydney
By Julie Petersen   |   May 2014   |   Vol 36 no 2

Hilda Rix Nicholas was one of Australia’s most successful international artists. When she returned to Australia in 1918, she brought her magnificent paintings infused with post- impressionist light and colour to a generation of young Australian artists, yet her triumphant homecoming had been marred by the los...

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
A colonial Grecian library table
By Warwick Oakman   |   May 2014   |   Vol 36 no 2

An early colonial library table in the neo-classical style, with a maker’s label for Clarke of Castlereagh Street, Sydney, c. 1835, came to light in a distressed state a decade ago. Warwick Oakman ponders who might have made the table, where such an impressive piece of furniture might originally have been use...

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
Australiana Society Annual Reports 2013

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 ...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
A ‘Grecian’ colonial chair'
By John D Watkins   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

We all relish finding an unrecognised treasure in an out-of-the-way place. John Watkins discusses a chair bought at a country auction, and suggests that, during its 185 years, it may have travelled all the way from Woolley’s workshop in Hobart to the little village of Wooli in northern NSW.

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
Australian cartography: a numismatic perspective
By Peter Lane   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

For centuries, coins and medals have depicted maps of Australia, although rarely if at all have they been studied by scholars. Perhaps this is because of their limited contribution to cartography, as they were used mainly in a political sense. Perhaps collectors and academics are simply unaware of their existen...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
A Venetian gondola on Farm Cove?
By Megan Martin   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

Colouring photographs by hand added to the attraction of black and white photographs in the 19th century. An 1870s view of Government House from across Farm Cove in Sydney Harbour not only has been coloured, but the artist has added some extra touches, including a gondola cruising off the Governor’s residence...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
‘dear Emily’ in Western Australia
By Dorothy Erickson   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in her misogyny speech on 9 October 2012, was not the first to react to men allegedly putting down women’s activities. A century ago, English designer and artist C R Ashbee – his business damaged by low-priced competition from amateur women artists – condescendingly re...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
John Rider Roberts
By Michel Reymond   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

Two years ago, we published a watercolour by John Rider Roberts that is especially important as a visual record of Robert Fowler’s industrial pottery, bottle and pipe works at Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west. As manufacturing in Australia is replaced by service industries, such manufacturing sites are bei...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
Book review: Tony Kanellos, 'Imitation of Life'
By Lesley Garrett   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

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...

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Vol 36 no 1, February 2014
Book review: Elizabeth Ellis, 'The Sydney Punchbowl'
By John Wade   |   February 2014   |   Vol 36 no 1

Hordern House commissioned Elizabeth Ellis OAM, the Emeritus Mitchell Librarian, to research the background to the Chinese export porcelain punchbowl in the Mitchell Library showing scenes of the colony about 1814.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
David G. Reid - printmaker, painter and plumber
By Silas Clifford-Smith   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

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.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Joseph Bridekirk, Cabinetmaker: Hobart, Sydney and Maitland
By David Kelly   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

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...

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Grant of $5,000
By Jim Bertouch   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

I am very pleased to announce that the Australiana Society would like to invite submissions from institutions to assist in the acquisition of an object or objects of Australiana.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
London calling
By Bill Blinco   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

London being London, many wonderful and stimulating exhibitions were on when we visited in September – October 2013. They are worth recording here to remind us of the importance of mounting exhibitions aimed at stimulating the audience rather than pandering to a market.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Jewellery is for giving
By John Wade   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

Collectors and Australiana Society members Graham and Elizabeth Cocks will be remembered by a collection of Arts and Crafts jewellery, generously given by their daughters to the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Powerhouse Museum.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Fit for a Queen: two Royal jubilee testimonies from colonial Queensland
By Timothy Roberts   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

On 6 February 2012, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, the 60th anniversary of her accession. This milestone has afforded an examination of her life and reign, and has revived interest in the Royal Family at large, including Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. Queensland – on...

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
The Macquarie Event
By Tim Cha   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

The Wallis album is closely linked to the two chests through Captain James Wallis (1785?–1858). Wallis, appointed commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement by Macquarie in 1816, had the Macquarie chest made as a parting gift for Governor Macquarie around 1818. It is possible that Wallis, who retired from t...

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
John Wood, gentleman turner
By John Hawkins   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

The construction of the complex and difficult-to-make oval cedar case for the Woodstock Challenge Cup (plate 1) illustrated in my article “Essie Jenyns and her Australian Terriers” has prompted me to wonder how and why it came into being. Recently I purchased for my reference library a complete set of the B...

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Book review: Penny Olsen, 'Cayley & Son'
By Richard Neville   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

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...

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Book review: Penny Olsen, 'Collecting Ladies'
By Dorothy Erickson   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

As the daughter of a botanist, botanical artist and writer for whom species and genera have been named, and currently researching the women artists of Western Australia, I was really interested to review what looked to be a lovely book. The attractive layout designed by Kathryn Wright has numerous illustrations...

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Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Letter to the Editor
By Dorothy Erickson   |   August 2013   |   Vol 35 no 3

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Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
The puzzle of Gannon House
By Sean Johnson   |   August 2013   |   Vol 35 no 3

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Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Mac the Wire King
By John Wade   |   August 2013   |   Vol 35 no 3

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Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 3, August 2013
Vol 35 no 2, May 2013
Vol 35 no 2, May 2013
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.