Nineteenth-century Western Australian furniture The Wordsworth Collection, purchased 2010
As British, European and Asian settlers arrived in Western Australia through the nineteenth century, they learned to match and modify craft and trade skills they may have possessed to the particular physical properties of the region’s raw materials, in particular its native hardwoods such as jarrah, karri and sheoak. The provision of furniture for the nascent state’s civic, commercial and domestic buildings in its cities and towns revealed how styles were interpreted in the interests of regional expression through practical design and skilled and inventive crafts and trades practice. Such furniture reflected the world the makers had left behind while giving form to the aspirations of the society that they were creating and joining. The possession of craft skills was a valuable asset for an immigrant and many capitalised on this by adapting their methods and knowledge of styles and functional design to exploit the local resources available to them. Recently acquired furniture by nineteenth-century Western Australian makers gives an insight into some of the prevailing styles and production methods used in the state’s colonial period. A circular, tilting-top jarrah table with a panelled veneered wood tripod pedestal base and carved lion paw feet is the work of Joseph Hamblin. He built the table while employed by Perth furniture maker George Lazenby, who was supplying furniture for the refurbishment of Perth’s Government House in 1848–49. It shows the enduring simple style
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of the English Regency period that was still popular at the time of the foundation of the Swan River Colony. Its simple and unadorned surfaces suited the hard jarrah available to cabinetmakers, leading to a strong and enduring local appreciation of the wood’s figured grain patterns and deep colour resembling mahogany. A twin-pedestal jarrah sideboard and an ingenious double-sided jarrah and cedar music stand, fitted with adjustable candleholders, show other variations of this style. They were commissioned by the settler Henry Prinsep, a civil servant, draughtsman and artist from a British family in India. The furniture was probably made by Hookum Chan, an early settler and carpenter from India who had worked for Prinsep at his Dardanup property. Another settler, Robert Heppingstone made a jarrah cabinet for his own use after his arrival in the Swan River Colony in 1830. It was later used by his descendants in their home at Cundinup, near Busselton. Its robust construction of pitsawn local jarrah, in the manner of English vernacular country furniture, suggests an intended use as a kitchen cabinet. These and several other examples of nineteenth-century Western Australian furniture allow the Gallery to provide a national scope to the furniture design, craftsmanship and manufacture of Australia’s colonial period. Robert Bell AM Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design