Wld 85 aug 2013 793453 by World of Antiques & Art

art

a biannual magazine for collectors of material culture

world

Antiques & of

Innovative British artist Bruce Munro inspired by youthful sojourns Down Under

SEPTEMBER 2013 – FEBRUARY 2014 ISSUE 85 AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95 SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00 US $13.00 €10.50

Terry Ingram assesses the impact on Australian art by recently closed London dealer Agnew’s

Collecting sartorial elegance of the Hollywood variety

SIMPSONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ANTIQUES F I N E

A U S T R A L I A N

A N T I Q U E S

A rare early Colonial Australian cedar corner cupboard in original condition, the two blind doors copy the form of a six panel cottage door, Tasmanian origin, after 1820, 181 cm high.

Au s t ra l i an An t i q u e a n d Art Deal e rs A s s oc iat i on

By appointment Mobile: 0404 051 999 Fax: 61 2 9518 0577 Email: simpson@casuarinapress.com.au

www.australianantiques.com.au

November Selling Exhibition: ‘Royal and Imperial Paris’ Porcelain, silver, ormolu, bronze, furniture and bibelot from the reigns of Louis XIV through to Napoleon III. Of special interest are pieces of Sevres from the Tuileries Palace and chairs signed by Demay, Falconet, Boucault and others

Georgian & Continental Furniture • Porcelain

Silver • Ikons • Paintings • Imperial Russian

www.Roys-Antiques.com.au

410 Queens Parade Clifton Hill Vic 61 3 9489 8467

CONTENTS 112

AROUND THE AUCTIONS

100

Combs: from pre-dynastic Egypt to modern-day Black Power movement

ART 60

Sally-Ann Ashton

The Young Dürer Elspeth Moncrieff

106

Master of Light Abigail Bryant

Home grown – Miles Evergood: the rediscovery of an Australian artist

EDITORIAL

Gael Hammer

HERITAGE 80

James McNeill Whistler:

An American’s love of the Thames

Goodwood: the French Connection James Peill

Margaret F MacDonald 54 96

Great architectural draughtsmen of the past Dr Jerzy J Kierkuć-Bieliński

John Glover’s trip to the coast John McPhee 88

ARTNEWS 28

East End Stories: The Parrish Art Museum Dr Alicia Longwell

Agnew’s and the Australian connection Terry Ingram

Scots in Australia: from First Fleet to Federation Gordon Morrison

The Venice Biennale 2013 Vivienne Sharpe and Tim McCormick

119

120

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS

CONTRIBUTORS DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

A sartorial tale: Evening wear for men – the style and the times

COVER

John Hawkins

Georgiana Huntly McCrae (England/Australia 1804-1890),

Joseph Hamblin: an excellent 19th century craftsman Dr Dorothy Erickson

Self-portrait aged 20, 1824, watercolour on ivory, 8.5 x 6.7 cm. State Library of Victoria, La Trobe Manuscript Collection.

A silk pilgrimage to Lyon Eleanor Keene

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Cowper Bequest

EDITORIAL everal articles in this issue deal with the theme of immigration and assimilation into early Australian society. The front cover celebrates an exhibition at the Ballarat Art Gallery which isolates the extraordinary contribution that Scottish people in particular made to the Australian national psyche, not only in intellectual terms through the influence of the Scottish enlightenment culture and music, but in a practical way through their skills as engineers, businessmen and farmers. A lengthy research article on the Australian artist Miles Evergood throws much light on the Australian diaspora at the turn of the century. The son of Jewish immigrants, this talented and forward thinking artist felt hampered by the constraints of his family and the prevalent Australian art scene and left the colony in 1898 for America and England where he received success and recognition. On his return to Australia over 30 years later, his works and those of his American son, the social realist painter Philip Evergood. were received with great excitement by students and the more avant-garde, who were starved of international art trends. By contrast, George Hamblin, a superb cabinetmaker who emigrated from England to Australia some 50 years earlier, found himself completely in tune with the prevailing taste of the colony’s emerging society. Hamblin’s cabinet-making skills were in great demand, producing furniture for all the upper echelon settler families which today is recognised as some of the finest early Australian colonial furniture residing in major collections. This issue also celebrates the opening of two new museums, Museum für Architekturzeichnung in Berlin, which houses a collection of historical architectural drawings formed by the Russian architect Sergei Tchoban, and the Parrish Art Museum designed by Herzog & de Meuron on Eastern Long Island, New York. Essentially a ‘seaside’ art gallery, the Parrish Art Museum acquired one of the most outstanding collections of modern American paintings as a result of the many artists attracted to the light and tranquillity of the area. The ranks of American artists were swelled by the influx of refugees from Europe during the Great War including such artists as Robert Motherwell, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko joining the likes of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Willem de Kooning. Rather like the St Ives School in England, this summer holiday resort became a leading force in the American art world and now has a superb building to display and celebrate the collection. American immigrant to England, Whistler’s London paintings are examined by Scottish art historian Margaret McDonald focusing in particular on the artist’s fascination with the old wooden Battersea Bridge which was finally demolished in 1890. Concentrating on the life of the River Thames, its changing moods and atmosphere and the bustling Dickensian atmosphere of its shore line and boatmen, Whistler produced some of his greatest landscapes ultimately combining the realism of the London shoreline with his interest in newly discovered art and culture of Japan. An exhibition of Durer’s early drawings provided an opportunity to research what exactly made the artist unique among his contemporaries. A result of his determination to throw away the standard copybooks and focus on drawing and observing from life, when there were no models available, Durer ruthlessly examined his own physiognomy. Such exploration gave a new power and expressiveness to German art of this period and Durer was the most sought-after artist by the leaders and collectors of the day. A review of the Venice Biennale brings the issue up to date with the current international art market and artistic traits. The authors pick out particular highlights and rejoice at the wealth of creative talent it brings together. This is the last time the Philip Cox designed building will be used for the Australian pavilion – it will be replaced by a new pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall to honour Australia’s role in the contemporary art scene. Continuing with the art market, an article by Terry Ingram highlights the historical role of Agnew’s in bringing major works of art to the attention of Australian collectors. It is thanks to Agnew’s exhibitions in Australia in the booming economic times of the late ’70s and ’80s that collectors such as James Fairfax AO and Bill Bowmore AO OBE made significant purchases which now reside in major Australian museum collections. After 136 years in the business, Agnew’s has ceased trading so it is timely to look back on the contribution the dealership made to the Australian art market while most of its peers were concentrating on American collections. Finally, an article by the art historian John McPhee highlights a wonderful painting by John Glover from his early Australian period. Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot’s property – four Men catching Opossums, around 1834, comes onto the market for the first time since it was purchased by the original owners in 1835. The magazine once again pays tribute to and celebrates the creators, interpreters and custodians who together make up our worldwide cultural heritage. Through the many different articles we are reminded how politics, economics and world events mould and influence cultural activity.

[Detail] William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916), Alice in the Shinnecock Studio, c. 1900, oil on canvas, 96.83 x 108.58 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Mrs Robert Malcolm Littlejohn, Littlejohn Collection

Elspeth Moncrief

a b i a n n u a l m a g a z i n e f o r c o l l e c t o r s o f m a t e r i a l c u l t u re

art

world

Antiques & of

Suite 1b, 10 Spring Street Bondi Junction NSW 2022 Australia PO Box 324 Bondi Junction NSW 1355 Australia Tel: 61 2 9389 2919 Fax: 61 2 9387 7487

www.worldaa.com MANAGING EDITOR

EDITOR

ASSISTANT EDITOR

PRODUCTION

CONTRIBUTORS

SALES AUSTRALIA

Eva Jaku editor@worldaa.com Elspeth Moncrieff moncrieff.bray@btinternet.com Paula Towers editor@worldaa.com Brian Cass, Kylie Kennedy, Kathy O’Grady, Brigitta Campbell production@worldaa.com Sally-Ann Ashton, Abigail Bryant, Dr Dorothy Erickson, Gael Hammer, John B Hawkins, Terry Ingram, Eleanor Keene, Dr Jerzy J Kierkuc´-Bielin´ski, Dr Alicia Longwell, Margaret F MacDonald, Tim McCormick, John McPhee, Elspeth Moncrieff, Gordon Morrison, James Peill, Vivienne Sharpe André Jaku 61 2 9389 2919 0412 229 117 andre@worldaa.com David Freeman 61 3 9855 2255 0419 578 184 sales@worldaa.com

SALES EUROPE

PRINTING

PUBLISHER ISSUE 85

Anthony Law Tel: +44 1883 348 082 sales@worldaa.com CaxtonWeb 45 Huntingwood Drive Huntingwood NSW 2148 André Jaku September – December 2013

ANTIQUES & ART IN AUSTRALIA PTY LTD ABN 22 071 181 854 While every care is taken by the publishers, the descriptions and attributions of pieces advertised are the responsibility of the individual advertiser. No responsibility is taken for typographical errors. The publishers reserve the right to refuse and edit material. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. No responsibility will be taken for any decision made by the reader as a result of such opinions. ©Copyright Antiques & Art in Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Johann Philipp Eduard Gaertner (1801-1877), (Detail), View of St Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow,1838 © Tchoban Foundation

SCOTS

IN AUSTRALIA FROM FIRST FLEET TO FEDERATION Although at least one in five Australians claim Scottish descent, few are aware of just how significant was the contribution of the Scots to the formation of the national psyche

Gordon Morrison

Unknown Scottish artist, Alicia Learmonth, c. 1830 oil on canvas, 76 x 63 cm. Art Gallery of Ballarat. Gift of Mrs Norma Campbell, 1993

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t a time when Australia is increasingly diverse culturally, it is important not to lose an awareness of the complex origins of Australian society. An ambitious exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in 2014 will celebrate the extraordinary contribution which Scots have made to the cultural and political life of Australia, whether as pastoralists and philanthropists; preachers, teachers and doctors, governors and administrators, explorers and scientists, architect and engineers. There is practically no aspect of settlement and development of the colonies to which they did not play a substantial role. Nearly one Australian in ten claims to have Scottish roots, and in some regions like Ballarat and the Western District the percentage is much higher. While Australians have been exposed to some aspects of Scottish culture, few people are aware of just how significant was the contribution of the Scots to the formation of the national psyche. The inhabitants of this poor small kingdom made such an impact in the Victorian era that it resulted in a vogue for things Scottish. From Queen Victoria down and throughout the British empire, Scottish music, literature and art and even an romanticised appreciation for the idealised Scottish lifestyle became a daily part of people’s lives. Some of the earliest artists associated with the British discovery of Australia were Scots — such as Sydney Parkinson, the artist on Cook’s voyages and Thomas Watling, the so-called ‘Limner of Dumfriess’, who was transported in 1792 for forging Bank of Scotland notes. Their

reportage and depictions of the exotic landscape, flora and fauna of the new continent informed and inspired both the scientific communities and potential emigrant populations of Europe. The Scottish Enlightenment ensured that the majority of the nation’s populace was literate and this meant that the Scots were well-positioned to advance within the expanding British Empire and to flourish in newly settled lands like the Australian colonies. Governors or military figures were also botanists, astronomers or collectors of natural history; civil servants were also explorers, artists or writers; and pastoralists were also sportsmen, art patrons or anthropologists. The early settlers and officials such as Governor and Mrs Macquarie, Sir Thomas Brisbane, John Hunter, Sir Thomas Mitchell and Alexander Macleay, all testify to the multi-faceted nature of the activities and passions of the Scots. The early Scots in Australia proved particularly adept as businessmen and traders — exploiting the wider imperial maritime system like Robert

Campbell, or else maximising the possibilities of new technology, like Macpherson Robertson and his Steam Confectionary Company. Scots were equally well represented within the professions — Scottish emigrants likewise dominated the pastoral industry. For example, the Western District of Victoria, the so called ‘Australia Felix’ discovered by Scot Major Mitchell — was settled by Scottish pioneers whose homesteads and properties were recorded by leading artists of the day. The Scots brought with them their cultural activities and celebrations in the form of their music, sport, literature and art. The significance of the poetry and writings of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns cannot be underestimated for their influence on iconic Australian poets such as ‘Banjo’ Paterson, who helped shape the Australian national identity.

John Richardson, Highland cows in mountainous landscape, [n.d.], watercolour, 38.5 x 61.5 cm. Art Gallery of Ballarat

For Auld Lang Syne: Scots in Australia from First Fleet to Federation is at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, 12 April to 27 July 2014. www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au

World of Antiques & Art 9

ART GALLERY OF BALLARAT

FOR AULD LANG SYNE: SCOTS IN AUSTRALIA FROM FIRST FLEET TO FEDERATION 12 APRIL 2014 — 27 JULY 2014 Scrimshaw snuff box and spoon, sperm whale tooth, carver unknown, 19th century, Australia. Private collection, Tasmania

› Bagpipe performances, including the street march to mark the opening of the Australian Pipe Band Championships as well as demonstrations and workshops › Highland Dancing in the gallery on selected weekends throughout the exhibition › A Highland Ball or Ceilidh, including demonstrations of Scottish Country Dancing › Spoken word and musical presentations by folk singer and folklorist Danny Spooner › Concert by Scottish folk singer Eddi Reader in association with the Ballarat Symphony Orchestra › A series of talks and lectures at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute

hile the role of individual Scots has been celebrated,

there has never been a serious attempt to assess

the scale of the impact that these driven and dynamic people had on the evolution of Australian society as it can be traced in its visual culture. This high profile exhibition to be presented by the Art Gallery of Ballarat between April and June 2014 celebrates the Scottish ingenuity and industry that fuelled the development of the Australian nation from the First Fleet to the dawn of Federation, by bringing together artworks and objects from painting and sculpture to decorative arts and photography, from national, state and

› An event with a medieval flavour on 24 June, 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn › A day of commemoration on 16 April, anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, involving pipers from across the region › Free Sunday concerts at the Gallery involving both local performers and members of the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club › A classical recital at the Gallery of Scottish chamber music and songs arranged for small instrumental and vocal ensemble by Joseph Haydn, James Macmillan and Peter Maxwell Davies › A whisky tasting evening at the Gallery

regional collections as well as from private collectors. A

› A celebration of haggis

feature of this exhibition will be the rich collections of

› A fashion parade of tartan themed outfits

visual material by Parkinson and Watling in Britain.

› Research your Scottish Ancestors Day

The exhibition will investigate the remarkable achievement of key Scots who contributed to almost every aspect of 19th century life in the Australian colonies — science, administration, exploration, commerce, education, design, farming, philanthropy, education, medicine and the arts. Also to be explored will be the degree to which the Scots brought their cultural activities and celebrations with them in the form of their music, sport, literature and art. From Queen Victoria down, Scottish music, literature and art and even a romanticised appreciation for the idealised Scottish lifestyle became a daily part of the lives of people throughout the British Empire. Thus there will be a comprehensive calendar of complementary public programs, which is likely to include the following:

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The exhibition is placed well within the school year and the Gallery’s education officers will be preparing a comprehensive education program aimed at both primary and secondary levels. In addition, in association with the exhibition the Gallery will be publishing a lavishly illustrated book which will include five or six essays by leading scholars on various aspects of the Scottish presence in Australia. The exhibition curators are: Dr Alison Inglis, Associate Professor, Art History Program, University of Melbourne and Patricia Tryon Macdonald, curator, Exiles and Emigrants, Epic Journeys to Australia in the Victorian era, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2005-2006).

welcome

to the AAADA

Antiques Fine Arts Fair 8 - 11 May 2014

The AAADA Antiques Fair

Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Vic 8 – 11 May 2014 Members from all over Australia will bring together, under one roof, the equivalent of more than 40 specialist shops where visitors can peruse the highest quality items sourced in Australia and abroad. For the convenience of all collectors, view in one visit in a matter of hours, or obtain a complimentary pass out and plan a return visit for that missed item. This world-class display is the official annual AAADA show in Melbourne and is not to be missed. CODE OF PRACTICE Every exhibitor is a member of the Association and bound by our Code of Practice. Every item is vetted for accuracy of description detailing the construction materials, function, origin, age and condition/restoration of the object. Although the Association has determined that 1950 is the latest date of permissible items for our fairs, we do allow inclusion of appropriately described later pieces due to their artistry or rarity or because they are unique. GALA PREVIEW The show opens at 6 pm with a gala preview on Wednesday evening, 24 April and continues until Sunday, 28 April closing at 5 pm.

PARKING Limited parking is available on site. Undercover parking is also available. For more information visit the Melbourne Museum car park page at www.musuemvictoria.com.au. Disability access is available.

DINING Visitors will be able to enjoy informal dining at the Show Café, whether looking for a light repast – including a variety of sandwiches, pastries and beverages – or a more substantial repast choosing from a selection of the finest hot and cold dishes. The café is open all day from 11 am to 7 pm.

ADMISSION PRICES Gala Preview: General Admission:

Wednesday 24 April 6 pm – 9 pm Tickets $30 Thursday to Saturday 11 am – 7 pm Sunday 28 April 11 am – 5 pm Single ticket $20 Concession $15 Children under 16 free Tickets available at the door

SPECIAL SHOW EVENTS Besides the exquisite exhibits, decorative arts societies will be displaying and providing details of their activities and advising on how you can join their respective organisations. AON Risk Services will also be onsite to help with insurance for antiques. The fair will feature a special display commemorating ANZAC Day.

VENUE The Royal Exhibition Buildings Nicholson Street Carlton

Some of the AAADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair 2014 Exhibitors Exhibitor

Abbott’s Antiques Alan Landis Antiques Allpress Antiques Acanthe Anne Schofield Antiques Brans Antiques & Art Cadry’s Classical Rugs Christopher Day Gallery & Day Fine Art Eaglemont Antiques Elizabeth Kwan Etruria Antiques Gallery Greengrass Antiques Kevin Murray Fine Silver Leven Antiques Lee Hardcastle Antiques Lynzay Antiques

Martin Gallon International Art Moorabool Antique Galleries Mossgreen Collection Nomadic Rug Traders Online Antiques Page Antiques Pentimento Pty Ltd Richmond Antiques Rutherford Sebra Prints Simpson’s Antiques Snook & Company Antique Dealers The Goods House of Fine Jewellery The Woodshed Antiques Valentine’s Antique Gallery Virtanen Antiques Westbury Antiques

Check our website for an updated list of exhibitors: www.aaada.org.au/melbournefair/exhibitors

INTRODUCING SOME OF THE DEALERS AT

THE AAADA SHOW IN MELBOURNE 8 – 11 MAY 2014

ABBOTT’S ANTIQUES Brian Abbott

rian runs a business started by his grandfather in Neutral Bay in 1931. In Turramurra since 1990, Brian specialises in 18th and 19th century English furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, jewellery, paintings and bronzes.

14 Eastern Road Turramurra NSW 2074 T: +61 02 9449 8889 M: 0414 445 489 antiques@tech2u.com.au www.abbottsantiques.com.au

ALAN LANDIS ANTIQUES Alan Landis

lan established his antiques business in 1977, being one of Australia’s foremost authorities on English ceramics (1750–1950) and Australian decorative arts. He specialises in fine ceramics, offering rare and unusual Wedgwood, Royal Worcester, Royal Doulton and Australiana pieces. Alan is a registered valuer under the Cultural Gifts Program.

Sydney Antique Centre Shop 44, 531 South Dowling Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 M: 0414 703 759 alanlandis@gmail.com www.alanlandisantiques.com

ALLPRESS ANTIQUES Jamie & Donna Allpress

llpress Antiques was established in Melbourne during the late 1980s and has been operating on Malvern Road since 1990. For all aspects of collecting to restoring fine furniture.

1419 Malvern Road Malvern VIC 3144 T: +61 03 9824 8551 M: 0415 555 998 Jamie@allpress-antiques.com.au www.allpress-antiques.com.au

ANNE SCHOFIELD ANTIQUES Anne Schofield

nne Schofield established her specialist antique jewellery store in Queen Street Woollahra in 1969. Her particular interest is in 18th, 19th and early 20th century fine quality jewellery, including Australian jewellery. She is a member of the International Society of Jewellery Historians, and a registered valuer under the Cultural Gifts Program.

36 Queen Street Woollahra NSW 2025 T: +61 02 9363 1326 asantiques@bigpond.com www.anneschofieldantiques.com

BRANS ANTIQUES & ART Clive Brans & John Brans

rans Antiques & Art is a third generation antiques and art business operating in Perth, Western Australia. They specialise in 17th, 18th and early 19th century English and Continental furniture, and European and oriental objets d’art.

30-34 Glyde Street Mosman Park WA 6012 T: +61 08 9384 7300 M: 0418 959 328 john@bransantiques.com

BUNDA Veronica Bunda

stablished in 1969, originally specialising in furniture, today Bunda specialises in rare and fine antiques and jewels, notably an unrivalled collection of diamond jewels.

Shop 1, Hilton Hotel 488 George St Sydney NSW 2000 T +61 02 9261 2210 veronica@bunda.com.au www.bunda.com.au

KAREN DEAKIN ANTIQUES Karen Deakin

EAGLEMONT ANTIQUES Dawn Davis

o demystify and dispel the air of exclusivity that surrounds antiques, so ensuring greater appreciation for future generations to come, is one of Dawn Davisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; long term goals.

T CHRISTOPHER DAY & DAY FINE ART GALLERIES Christopher & Fiona Day

he Christopher Day Gallery was established in Paddington, Sydney in 1979 by Christopher and Fiona Day. Stocks the finest quality 19th and 20th century Australian and English artworks. Annexed to CDG is Day Fine Art, run by Vincent and Helen Day, which operates from Blackheath.

Christopher Day Gallery Corner Elizabeth and Windsor Streets Paddington NSW 2021 T: +61 2 9326 1952 M: 0418 403 928 cdaygallery@bigpond.com www.cdaygallery.com.au Day Fine Art 29 Govetts Leap Road Blackheath NSW 2785 www.dayfineart.com

49-57 Happy Hollow Drive Plenty VIC 3090 M: 0408 530 259 dawn@eaglemontantiques.com.au

Ian & Belinda Perryman

& B Perryman Oriental Carpets was established by Ian and Belinda Perryman in 1990. They collect pieces from all over the world: rugs, carpets, flatweaves, tapestries and textiles. Each piece is personally selected.

Dymocks Building Shop 9A, Level 4 428 George Street Sydney NSW 2000 T: +61 02 9221 1404 kdeakin@optusnet.com.au

HORDERN HOUSE RARE BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS & PRINTS e specialise in travel and voyage books, particularly relating to the Pacific, rare printed and manuscript Australiana, illustrated books and childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literature, colourplate books including natural history, historical maps and prints, literature and history, and early Australian paintings and voyage art.

77 Victoria Street Potts Point NSW 2011 T: +61 02 9356 4411 M: 0416 299 021 anne@hordern.com www.hordern.com

KEVIN MURRAY FINE SILVER Kevin Murray

evin commenced trading as an antique dealer in Tasmania in the early 1980s. His area of specialisation is in fine English, Irish and Scottish sterling silver.

By appointment M: 0408 534 632 kj.murray@optusnet.com.au

JOHN D DUNN ANTIQUES

LEVEN ANTIQUES

Francis Dunn

Craig R Broadfield

ohn D Dunn Antiques Pty Ltd is a second generation business specialising in 16th, 17th and 18th century Continental furniture and the rare trappings of these periods. The sophisticated provincial furniture is made mainly of walnut with an emphasis on proportion, colour, patination and originality.

stablished in Ulverstone on the north-west coast of Tasmania since 1989, Leven Antiques specialises in English sterling silver and English Georgian period drinking glasses.

J I & B PERRYMAN ORIENTAL CARPETS

or more than thirty-three years, Karen has been an antique jewellery dealer. She specialises in wearable, well-priced antique jewellery and gemstone jewellery.

1431 Malvern Road Malvern VIC 3144 T: +61 03 9822 5637 M: 0412 548 898 johndunnantiques@bigpond.com

Leven Antiques Centre 23 King Edward Street Ulverstone TAS 7315 T: +61 03 6425 5226 M: 0419 509 730 craig@levenantiques.com www.levenantiques.com.au

100 Queen Street Woollahra NSW 2025 T: +61 02 9327 3910 info@antiquerugs.com.au www.antiquerugs.com.au

World of Antiques & Art 15

MARTIN GALLON INTERNATIONAL ART

SEBRA PRINTS

Martin Gallon

century furniture, glass, silver, old Sheffield plate, pewter, prints, paintings and textiles.

afydd of Sebra Prints sells Australian and European historical and decorative original prints and maps dating from c. 1650–c. 1930.

16-18 Ryrie St Geelong VIC 3220 T: +61 03 5229 2970 M: 0414 292 970 query@moorabool.com www.moorabool.com

402 Burke Road Camberwell VIC 3124 T: 03 9809 0222 M: 0410 520 100 daf@sebraprints.com.au www.sebraprints.com.au

PENTIMENTO PTY LTD

THE GOODS FINE JEWELLERY

artin is a specialist consultant in European oil paintings and watercolours. Martin offers a consultancy service regarding all forms of valuations and sales advice and is a registered valuer with the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program.

406 Burke Road South Camberwell VIC 3124 T: +61 3 9809 0060 M: 0403 364 024 martin@martingallon.com www.martingallon.com

MICHAEL A. GREENE ANTIQUES Michael & Victoria Greene

n 2013 we celebrate 35 years in business, stocking antique, vintage and estate jewellery, sterling silver, porcelain, glass, furniture and collectors’ items from the 18th to 20th centuries.

108 Queen Street Woollahra NSW 2025 T: +61 02 9328 1712 M: 0400 804 978 info@michaelgreene.com.au www.michaelgreene.com.au

Dafydd Davies

Chris & Jill Roberts

ntique dealing for over thirty-one years is a journey in tracing the historical narrative of the decorative arts. Chris and Jill specialise in objects fashioned from tortoiseshell – particularly piqué jewellery and fashion accessories.

Martha Good, T.C. Good

Armadale VIC 3143 T: +61 03 9822 2767 M: 0402 238 976 croberts@bigpond.net.au

Brisbane QLD 4000 M: 0413 834 467 marthagood@bigpond.com www.thegoods.net.au

he Goods Fine Jewellery specialises in master crafted art deco platinum, diamond and coloured stone jewellery, such as Tiffany, Van Cleef&Arpels, Mauboussin, Buccellati, Cartier and others.

VIRTANEN ANTIQUES & MODERN Kent & Sharen Virtanen

haren and Kent Virtanen import Scandinavia pieces – from 18th century Gustavian, Biedermeier and country to 1930s Art Deco.

S SIMPSON’S ANTIQUES Andrew Simpson

ndrew established Simpson’s Antiques in 1978, becoming one of the first antique dealers to specialise in 19th century Australian furniture. He is currently the country’s foremost dealer in early colonial furniture. Two of his books are the standard references on the early history of furniture making in Australia.

A MOORABOOL ANTIQUE GALLERIES Paul Rosenberg

ounded in 1958 by John Rosenberg, Moorabool Antiques is a second generation business with stock representing 6,000 years of ceramics from Neolithic to Art Nouveau including fine English, French and German porcelain from the 18th and 19th centuries, 18th and 19th

16 World of Antiques & Art

PO Box 643 Woollahra NSW 1350 T: 0404 051 999 simpson@casuarinapress.com.au www.australianantiques.com.au

933 High Street Armadale VIC 3143 M: 0412 125 173 sharen.virtanen@bigpond.com www.virtanen-antiques.com

WESTBURY ANTIQUES Harvey Wilkins

estbury Antiques founded 30 years ago specialises in 18th century British country furniture and decorative items.

119 High Street Avoca VIC 3467 T: +61 3 5465 3406 M: 0412 949 721 www.westburyantiques.com.au

Valentine’s Antique Gallery IMPORTERS OF FINE QUALITY ANTIQUES ESTABLISHED 1947

Rare Louis Vuitton trunk, with all original linings and fittings, initialled BB, c.1910

Currently in stock selection of fine quality gold watches, 9 ct gold bracelets, lockets, wax seals and diamond rings, displayed in an early Regency rosewood travelling case

Impressive George II walnut 8 day long case clock by Richard Peckover, London, c.1750

19th century mahogany cylinder top 6 drawer fitted desk, with pull out slide, finely turned & reeded. c.1870

Fine quality William IV flame mahogany 8 day long case clock with hand painted dial, rolling moon, c.1830

Grand William IV mahogany 2 section secretaire bookcase, tooled leather interior to fitted secretaire, flanked by 2 drawers over 3 cupboards, c.1840

NOW ONLINE For weekly updates of new stock “LIKE” us on facebook

Please refer to our website: www.valentinesantiques.com.au for a full listing of new stock

Valentine’s Antique Gallery 369 Hargreaves Street, Bendigo Victoria 3550 Phone: 03 5443 7279 Mobile: 0418 511 626 Fax: 03 5442 9718 Email: peter@valentinesantiques.com.au www.valentinesantiques.com.au

Au s t ra l i an An t i q u e a n d Art Deal e rs A s s oc iat i on

A SARTORIAL TALE EVENING WEAR FOR MEN THE STYLE & THE TIMES The fine fashion mores of The Prince of Wales and Fred Astaire guided men’s evening wear in the early 20th century with white tie and tails being elevated to iconic status in Depression escapism style. Following an evolution of ready to wear and rental options, silver-screen elegance could be accessed by the mass market

DRESS CODE In the English speaking world formal evening dress, ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’ is strictly regulated, comprising: Black or midnight blue dress coat (commonly known as an evening tailcoat) with silk (grosgrain or satin) facings, horizontally cutaway at the front Trousers of matching fabric with one single wide stripe or two narrow stripes of satin or braid in the United States and Europe, worn with braces (called 'suspenders' in the US) White plain stiff-fronted cotton shirt (usually cotton marcella, known as piqué in the US) White stiff detachable wing collar White bow tie (usually cotton marcella) The Prince of Wales’ personal midnight blue, white tie and dress suit by his London tailor Frederick Scholte, the shirt with mother-of-pearl studs. The Prince’s dress Albert chain with matching watch and cigar cutter to fit in the tailored starched white waistcoat were not sold with this suit at Sotheby’s. As a point of interest, trousers should be higher and held up by braces

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White low-cut waistcoat (usually cotton marcella, matching the bow tie and shirt) Black silk socks or stockings Black patent leather court pumps (with black silk bows) Miniature decorations, if so entitled

John Hawkins he evolution of evening wear for men was impacted by royalty of the Hollywood variety as well as by those of the iconic British family. For example, many menswear authorities assert that the bottom of the waistcoat should not be visible below the front cutaway of the tailcoat. This has been the prevalent view in the United States since the 1920s when American film and Broadway dancer and actor Fred Astaire popularised the look of the unbroken black line from head to toe, thereby lengthening his silhouette on-camera. The Astaire look was created from the evening wear worn by the young British Princes of the blood, the sons of George V, to London night clubs such as the Café de Paris in the late 1920s. Full evening dress is the most conservative form of dress for men and has changed little since the 1860s when, under Prince Albert (of the chain), the bottom of the waistcoat was visible below the cutaway of the tailcoat. Although full evening dress or ‘white tie’ is traditionally considered correct only after 6 pm, some etiquette authorities allow for it anytime after dark, even if that means prior to 6 pm. The equivalent formal attire for daytime events is morning dress while a less formal evening counterpart of white tie is black tie. Remarkably, the finest chapter in the history of evening dress was the Great Depression — for at a time of extreme financial hardship, the wealthy elite maintained an after-six wardrobe

A gentleman’s evening wear equipage inherited from my grandfather. An enamelled wafer thin gold Cartier dress watch, with double loop Albert, Cartier chain, with waistcoat attachment swivel. The other end of the chain clipped to a wafer thin partially opened engine turned cigar or cheroot cutter. A pair of gold and enamelled regimental cufflinks. A set of white tie shirt and waistcoat buttons and studs in platinum motherof-pearl and pearl. Gold watch and fob chain with the family seal and Squirrel crested watch key. The whole ensemble in 18 carat gold or platinum, never in silver

that was not only profoundly elegant but at times decadent. In 1935, a New York Herald Tribune society writer calculated that a ‘wellattired’ New York gentleman’s evening kit could be worth as much as $4,975, once his jewellery and fur coat were accounted for. It was this glamorous lifestyle that Hollywood capitalised upon when catering to a world desire for Depression escapism and, in the process, white tie and tails were elevated to iconic status. Silver-screen elegance became more affordable to the average man thanks to the increased availability of ready-to-wear clothes which were first mass-marketed by Philadelphia tailors S. Rudofker’s Sons, predecessor to industry giant After Six. Even more economical was the newly established option of simply renting one's formal wear on a daily basis from firms such as Moss Bros in London. As a result, Rudofker jubilantly advertised in 1930 that the habit of dressing for the occasion previously confined to the ‘idle rich’ had now expanded to include the masses.

Lastly, there was the impact of style. For nearly a century British male apparel had been focused on appearing respectably inconspicuous. A youthful extravagance born of the jazz age and the flapper was epitomised by a young and stylish British Prince of Wales, soon to liberate menswear from such constraints. The Prince’s debonair colour preference of midnight blue for after-six attire was imported to America by Hollywood and was all the rage by the mid-thirties. At first limited to the less formal variations of evening wear, its popularity quickly expanded until by 1934 menswear periodicals were promoting this colour for all types of evening dress. In 1935 it was reported that mills making fabrics for formal dress expected sales of midnight blue to equal or even exceed those of black that season. Their predictions proved true and by the late thirties etiquette and sartorial pundits were announcing that this previously alternative colour was now the primary choice for dress suits and dinner jackets alike.

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Watch Number 1. A superbly designed and made art deco cutting edge platinum and gold dress watch with a secret miniature case incorporated in the wafer thin back. Order No 2212. Signed ATO, the 15-line movement by Piaget (?) with jewelled and nickel finished bridges, compensation balance and flat spring with regulator, the two-tone silvered dial with applied Arabic chapters and diamond pattern hands; octagonal platinum case with pink gold and platinum bezels, the back with a concealed panel, spring loaded to reveal a miniature frame, 41 mm wide. Stock no 26789/96126, design no 2212, case no 26789 completed on 18 October 1929

Costs card for order no 2212 — Octagonal Watch Number 1

In 1933, ‘Waistcoats have become a high style item,’ observed Apparel Arts. ‘No more of the thick ill-fitting affairs but today a suave and sleek arrangement.’ Gentlemen continued to personalise their evening suits with waistcoats of the traditional full-back style or the newer and more comfortable backless design, introduced in the previous decade by the Prince of Wales. In 1936 Esquire was reporting that his creation was the preferred choice in London and rapidly gaining favour in America. It was the sleek look of the starched body-hugging white tie waistcoat that caused the creation and introduction of the wafer thin dress watch, probably by Cartier for its royal patron. The 1920s fashion of wearing a full-dress waistcoat with the informal dinner jacket remained popular in London and France at the decade's opening, thanks to its frequent appearance on the Prince at Continental resorts. However, by autumn 1933 the inaugural issue of Esquire was reporting that ‘The white waistcoat has at last been allowed to rejoin its lawful but long estranged mate, the tailcoat, and the new dinner jackets are matched with a waistcoat of the jacket material, with dull grosgrain lapel 20 World of Antiques & Art

facing.’ The renewed popularity of the tailcoat in the latter part of the decade further reduced the appeal of the mixed-breed combination although some etiquette experts would continue to recommend it as a formal middle ground for decades to come. Not content to simply improve the comfort of the full-dress waistcoat, the Prince of Wales also upped the ante on its style. Like the full dress shirt’s studs and links, the waistcoat’s buttons were traditionally made from mother-of-pearl in order to blend in with the garment’s white fabric. Consequently, when the Prince appeared at London’s exclusive Embassy Club with black waistcoat buttons, well-dressed men took notice. Above the waistcoat the Prince favoured a tall shirt collar which necessitated a wide opening and very broad tabs that were slightly wider than the bow tie. Plain linen remained popular during the era despite the growing trend for the shirt front, waistcoat and bow tie to be made of matching piqué. White dinner jackets premiered alongside the mess jacket in warmer climes at resorts such as Palm Beach and Cannes, albeit with much less fanfare. Constructed of cotton drill, linen or silk they were originally worn with either black or white trousers of tropical weight wool. Their

Watch Number 2. Platinum, diamond and sapphire set art deco octagonal dress watch. The keyless lever movement by Allemand, with fully jewelled nickel finished bridges, compensation balance with flat spring and index regulator, two tone silvered dial with applied Arabic chapters and diamond pattern hands; octagonal case with diamond set band and cabochon sapphire crown, 40 mm wide. The cost of the diamonds was 2800 francs and the total production cost of the watch to produce is documented at 6972 francs. Stock no. 26485/96008, design no 181, case no 26485 completed on 31 August 1927

popularity at tropical locales grew slowly but surely and, by the time the mess jacket had become passé in 1936, they were as common as traditional dark jackets. In its August 1936 issue, Esquire defined the quintessential warm-weather formal evening wardrobe: ‘This year, the big swing is to single- or doublebreasted [light coloured] dinner jackets, collar and self-lapel facings. These are worn with [black] tropical dress trousers, patent leather oxfords or pumps, a white, soft shirt with a soft or laundered collar and a black dress tie.’ The reappearance in the late 1920s of the cummerbund fared much better thanks largely to its pairing with the popular mess jacket. By 1937 Margery Simpson’s The New Etiquette was describing the garment as a ‘popular and chic’ waist covering for informal evening wear at resorts:

‘It is meant for hot weather to obviate the necessity of having the harness of a waistcoat over the shoulder and back when it might be uncomfortably warm. On the right people at the right time it is decorative and correctly in the spirit of colourful gaiety.’

EVENING ACCESSORIES: POCKET WATCH, FOB AND DRESS WATCH WITH CHAIN

The history of the pocket watch’s evolution from purely utilitarian to a more decorative purpose can be traced back to the mid-eighteenth century, which marks the point when the English began to wear their timepieces in small ‘fob’ pockets sewn either inside the waistband of their breeches or on the outside of their waistcoats. When worn in the waistcoat pocket, the watch was attached to a watch chain. When worn in the breeches pocket, the watch was attached to a fob,

Watch Number 3. Wafer thin platinum cased, chinoiserie enamelled dress watch signed Cartier Paris, in original box, c. 1925. The engine turned dial and Breguet hands by the same dial maker as before. The movements by Jaeger-LeCoultre

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Watch Number 4. Cartier, solid black onyx turned case with inset movement of platinum with gold numerals, with Breguet hands to the engine turned dial, in original Cartier box. Signed Cartier France

the main chain at the buttonhole which would be used to carry a watch key and/or seal. The fob continued to appear with evening wear until it fell out of favour after World War I which saw the introduction of the wristwatch for ease of use in the trenches. A wristwatch with white tie is frowned on. Esquire in January 1940 noted ‘The old fashioned Georgian seal watch fob has returned, and is worn on the left side for convenience.’ At the turn of the century there appeared an alternative method for storing the fob watch in one’s evening trousers: the fine-link chain was described in Mrs Burton Kingsland’s Etiquette for All Occasions in 1901: ‘The watch is attached to a gold key-chain and concealed in the pocket. The chain is attached to the suspender or two chains are worn – from one hangs the watch, from the other the key; the greater portion of the chains and their appendages are concealed in the trouser pocket.’

Watch Number 5. A very fine and rare Cartier Butterfly press button secret view, wafer thin, gold platinum and enamel dress watch, c. 1930. The engine turned dial and Breguet hands of standard form, by Jaegar-LeCoultre

so named after the strip of fancy fabric or, rarely, a gold linked strap that hung outside the waistband and was weighted down with the family seal and the watch key. During the Regency era the waistband option was preferred to the waistcoat. As timepieces became thinner the practice of wearing them in the waistcoat pocket became the norm and was championed by Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert who introduced a style of watch chain named after him. The ‘single Albert’ chain was connected to the pocket watch at one end and the other end was attached to a waistcoat button thus creating a single ‘U’ of draped chain between the pocket and button. The ‘double Albert’ chain did not attach to the waistcoat but instead passed through one of its buttonholes (or a purposemade hole) and was attached to a second object in Victorian times, a vesta case for wax matches, kept in the other waistcoat (vest) pocket, thus doubling the number of ‘U’s created by the draped chain. With this style there was often a very short piece of additional chain attached to

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Amy Vanderbilt’s 1952 Complete Book of Etiquette describes the dress watch white tie option at the twilight of their popularity: ‘Wrist watches, unless of delicate design and without a leather strap, are less likely to be worn with evening clothes. Instead, a thin watch, in gold or platinum, on a thin gold or platinum chain (or grandfather's good gold chain, which may be monumental but impressive) is worn. If any ill-advised woman should try to give a man a platinum chain with tiny diamonds between the links, he should return it to the jeweller who was talked into making it and go to Palm Beach on the proceeds or put them on the nearest fast horse.’

THE COLLECTION My collection of iconic art deco gentleman’s dress watches commenced with the purchase through David Lavender of two important documented examples from the atelier of Leon Hatot, sold at auction by Christie’s (International) SA at the Hotel Richmond, Geneva, on 10 May 1989.

Leon Hatot (1883 – 1953) Born on 22 April 1883 at Châtillon-sur-Seine, Leon Hatot trained at the Ecole d’horlogerie in Besançon from 1895 to 1898 before continuing his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the same town. In 1905, at the comparatively young

age of 22, he was already in business for himself specialising in watch case engraving, rapidly establishing a workshop with a dozen contemporaries producing watches and jewellery of high quality. To benefit from his success Hatot needed a branch in Paris and in 1911 he took over Mission Bredillard, whilst continuing to run large workshops in Besançon. For the next twenty-five years Maison Hatot’s flourished as an important supplier of jewellery and watches to the principal jewellers of the Rue de la Paix and elsewhere. Their more famous clients included Asprey, Boucheron, Dunhill, Goldsmith’s and Silversmith’s Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, Vever, Mauboussin, Mappin & Webb, Ostertag, Janesich and Lacloche. At the outbreak of war in 1939 Maison Hatot closed down its jewellery manufacturing workshops and the remaining stock was placed in the bank. It remained untouched until the beginning of 1989. The stock included a range of objects dating largely from the years between the wars 1920–1939, but was by no means a completely representative selection of all the company’s products. Every item was in unused condition, most retaining their contemporary stock labels or tickets and all straps and bracelets (where fitted) are original. Throughout, the standard of workmanship from the smallest ring to the most elaborate pendant is of the highest quality. Hundreds of original designs survive working drawings on paper, painted celluloid outlines and finished artwork remain in the firm’s possession. Despite its lack of a ‘retail’ outlet, Maison Hatot was a leading influence on the jewellery styles of the 1920s and ’30s.

Louis Cartier (1875 – 1942) The collection contains three signed art deco Cartier dress watches all of cutting edge design and probably one-offs. A further unsigned example enamelled all-over is almost certainly made for and retailed by the firm. At the turn of the century the firm of Cartier was a family business in Paris selling fine jewels. In 1898 Louis Cartier joined his father and in 1899 the firm moved to their famous headquarters at 13 Rue de la Paix.

Since its inception the firm of Cartier ran an in-house facility to repair and create their customers jewels while commissions for special pieces were farmed out to independent workshops. Louis Cartier was well aware that outside manufacturing had to increase but this had to be achieved within the framework of exclusive contracts in order to protect his Cartier style and its cutting edge designs. By 1900 Cartier was a respected, successful and fine jeweller with an international clientele. In 1906 Louis’ younger brothers, Pierre and Jacques, joined the firm to create the team that would establish Cartier as the pre-eminent jeweller in the world. In 1906 Jacques moved to London to organise the present Cartier shop in New Bond Street. Pierre travelled to New York, married an American socialite and opened on Fifth Avenue. The move to the present American headquarters at 653 Fifth Avenue took place in 1917. Each brother exercised independent management and creativity within his own country with their respective designers, workshops and shops. Although the brothers had very different interests and abilities, the Cartier image was the key and they turned to Paris as the creative centre of a worldwide business. It was from Paris that Louis controlled the company’s design and production. The advent of platinum, which replaced silver, allowed for a non tarnishing white metal finish which was so important in wearable watches. Classic art deco geometric shapes, as seen in Chinese architecture, as well as the incorporation of Chinese designs often combined with the use

Watch Number 6. As a work of art, this dress watch epitomises all that the art deco stands for. Difficulty of execution in terms of its flatness. The art deco hexagonal shape, far rarer than the octagonal, but required for the 12 signs of the Zodiac. I have not opened the watch for fear of damage, but because of the standard of the enamelling – by an as yet unknown enameller with the initials S.R. or S.A. I suggest it is a Cartier, 1924, Paris Exhibition, Arts Decoratif

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These three 18 carat gold dress watches were not bespoke but each cost between two and three years’ wages for a working man

Asprey was buying in watch movements from leading watch makers to sell to up-and-coming social climbers buying, as they do today — a name

Asprey catalogue, c. 1937

of jade coral, onyx and enamel became the Cartier trademarks of the art deco period. The creation of Cartier Mystery clocks by the firm of Couet is one of the classic examples of the outworking system as created by Louis Cartier in operation. Founded and directed by Maurice Couet (1885–1963), he was the man responsible for reviving Houdini’s invention of the ‘mystery clock’ and transforming its nineteenth century design into the highly stylised and jewelled creation of the 1920s. The technique of manufacturing these clocks was as simple as it was baffling. In time the Couet mystery clock became a symbol of Cartier excellence just as the Imperial Egg stood for the best of Fabergé. A similar but lesser known move was made by Louis Cartier in Paris to employ as an outworker under an exclusive contract the watchmakers Jaegar-LeCoultre. In 1903 the Parisian watch maker Edmond Jaegar asked Jacques-David LeCoultre of Switzerland to manufacture ultra-thin watches to his design, out of this relationship emerged the ultra-thin gentleman’s dress watch. The partnership ceased in 1937 when the Jaegar-LeCoultre brand, as a separate entity, was established. In 1907 Cartier, a client of Jaeger’s, signed a contract with the Parisian watchmaker under which all Jaeger’s movement designs for a period of 15 years would be exclusive to Cartier, the movements to be produced by LeCoultre. In 1907 the LeCoultre Calibre 145 set the record for the thinnest movement of all time at 1.38 mm. Louis Cartier is famous for the introduction of

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the wristwatch in 1911, for the flying of a plane precluding the use of a pocket watch. The Tank watch, created in 1917 but first offered for sale in 1922, created a legend amongst wristwatches. The wristwatch was the commercial arm of the business while the dress watch was a unique concept in male jewellery worn only with a ‘White Tie and Tails’, its thinness being a requirement of line in the starched white waistcoat as worn by the Café Royal set to dinner. The collection contains three signed examples, the fourth attributed to an unknown enameller is probably the iconic art deco octagonal watch of the period — impossible to sign because of the enamelling, it is difficult to open without fear of damage.

Asprey An Asprey catalogue, circa 1935, provides some contemporary retail pricing for gentlemen’s runof-the-mill dress watches. The ultra-thin dress watch without any decoration, contained in a simple engine turned case was £150. A Prince Imperial dress watch made in staybrite steel was fifteen guineas, the nine carat gold example twenty-six pounds five shillings and in eighteen carat gold, thirty-six pounds fifteen shillings, giving the difference in price from the ordinary to the plain gold. Asprey’s standard commercial eighteen carat ultra-flat dress watch by Audemars Piguet was £72 and the top of the range engine turned example, probably by Hatot, cost £150. Opening its doors in 1924, Café de Paris quickly established itself as one of Europe’s premier nightspots. Much of the early success was due to a visit from the Prince of Wales who, after an impromptu midweek visit, became a regular guest bringing with him the crème de la crème of European society. The fusion of a beautiful and elite audience with energetic and ground breaking cabaret performances separated the venue from its rivals. The main aim of Café De Paris was to see and be seen — and a white

tie was the order of dress for the fashionable. The success of the café continued right through the 1930s with a whole new host of powerful and successful figures joining the Café Society. The Aga Khan became a frequent visitor as did Lord and Lady Mountbatten, who nearly always ordered the same dinner of ‘a dozen and a half oysters and steak Diane’. Due to its burgeoning reputation, the top vocalists and cabaret acts from around the world became easy to lure to Café De Paris. The legendary Cole Porter became a regular and used the venue not only to entertain the top singers of the time, but also to showcase his new songs, often for the very first time. This catalogue proves the rarity and expense of these standard creations for a men’s fashion accessory, which could be ordered from a catalogue.

Patek Philippe Featured are examples of some iconic Patek Philippe models. Founded in 1851, Patek Philippe pioneered the perpetual calendar, split second hands, chronograph and minute repeater in watches. Like other Swiss watch manufacturers the company at this period produced mostly mechanical movements of the automatic and manual variety. Patek Philippe made the world’s most expensive watch, an ultra-complicated (with 24 functions) pocket-watch for Henry Graves Jr., who entered into a friendly horological competition with James Ward Packard, which resulted in the production of the watch known as ‘The Supercomplication’ sold to Mr Graves in 1933. After his death the watch was auctioned at Sotheby’s in December 1999 for US$11,000,000 — at that time the most expensive timepiece ever sold.

Denmark and Jörgen Jurgensen (1745–1811) founder of the dynasty. The most eminent watchmakers amongst his descendants are undisputedly his sons Urban (1776–1830) and Jules-Frederik Jürgensen (1808–1877). The latter two continued their father’s business by founding Urban Jürgensen & Sønner. Jules moved to Le Locle, Switzerland while his brother Louis was in charge of the factory in Copenhagen. After Louis Urban’s and JulesFrederik’s deaths, the company went through several more changes of ownership but continued the tradition of ultra-precise timepieces. Following the wish of his father, the founder of the company, Urban Jürgensen spent a major part of his training as a watchmaker in Paris, London, Geneva and Le Locle. It was under his management that both pocket watches and precision timekeepers for navigation and astronomy made by the Urban Jürgensen company achieved international fame and recognition. The Danish King, Frederick VI, granted him the Royal Appointment to supply the court with watches and the admiralty with chronometers.

Platinum and diamond set dress watch in its original box by Patek Philippe, Geneva, c. 1939. This ultra-thin watch is set with large baguette diamonds for the number markers with diamonds set into the band and loop to the case. A one off order produced irrespective of cost

A jumping hand and minute two colour gold engine turned dial dress watch by Jurgensen, Swiss, c. 1925, in its original case

Jules-Frederik Jürgensen (1808 – 1877) Among the world’s greatest watchmakers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, members of the Jürgensen family, notably Urban and Jules, worked alongside other horological geniuses such as Jacques Frédéric Houriet (1743–1830), Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807) and John Arnold (1736–1799). They greatly contributed to the development of horology. The watch-making family’s roots stretch back to eighteenth century World of Antiques & Art 25

Georgian & Continental Furniture • Porcelain

Since nearly all our furniture was hand crafted between 1690 and 1840, our cabinetmakers and joiners are all long dead. However, their workshops looked much like this for the whole period. Increasingly from around 1840, huge steam power driven machines saws, lathes, carving machines etc filled the large noisy factories and workers just mass-produced furniture components rather than complete pieces. Factory-made furniture was also sold differently; it was sold ready-made in shops, rather than made to order. Couture had given way to pret a porter! Our furniture was made from start to finish in a workshop by men who used hand tools and took great pride in their artisanal furniture. This furniture tradition had remained substantially unchanged for at least 5000 years. The oldest complete articles of timber furniture we have are from the tomb of the Queen Hetepheres I, mother of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), 4th Dynasty (c. 2575–c. 2465 bce). The main differences between the construction of our furniture (1690-1840) and hers (c. 2575–c. 2465 bce) is the addition of glass doors and nailed-on padded upholstery. The joints and construction: marquetry, gilding, painting, varnishing, veneering, plywood, carving, drawers and hinges, are all pretty much the same. Then came the Industrial Revolution, and for us, the magic was gone!

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AGNEW’S

AND THE AUSTRALIAN CONNECTION The famous London dealer Agnew’s has closed its doors for the last time. Uniquely among European dealers it concentrated on the Australian market and through its exhibitions in Sydney many major works entered Australian collections

Terry Ingram he curtain has fallen on the art dealership which put one of Millais’ most saccharine works Puss in Boots on show in Melbourne 123 years ago. The work may eventually have ended up in Dundee, but through Agnew’s Gallery many more serious art works now reside permanently in Australian collections. The closure of Agnew’s in London’s Mayfair has severed yet another valuable direct link between Australian collectors and the international art market. Since 1888 when Puss in Boots showing a young girl with kittens playing in boots, was exhibited at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition along with works by other fashionable painters of the day, Agnew’s has pursued among its peers a rare devotion to the Australian art market. Not many of the works they handled were as kitsch as Puss in Boots nor did others rise quite to the stature of Titian’s truly iconic Rokeby Venus which the gallery steered into London’s National Gallery. But Australia’s national patrimony has been much enhanced by access to an ever changing stock of art that has turned up in the course of Agnew’s work over more than a century. The gallery will be remembered by older visitors when it was in Old Bond Street with its plush velvet curtains and wall coverings. The curtains came down there in the 1990s. In its last days the gallery was a stone’s throw away from the original in much smaller premises on Albermale Street. There it was managed in its final days principally as a contemporary gallery

Sir Joshua Reynolds (English 1723-1792), Miss Sara Campbell, 1778, oil on canvas, 124.3 x 99 cm. Illustrated on catalogue cover of Paintings and Drawings from Agnew’s, London, 28 March-19 April 1973

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by Australian, Georgina Pemberton, who has moved on to Sotheby’s International. Agnew’s former chairman, Mr Julian Agnew, told World of Antiques and Art he planned to continue in the art trade but devoting more time to his family. In various interviews and announcements to the press Mr Agnew said that the London gallery was to cease trading after a final outing to the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht. The sixth generation to work for the family, he said he wanted to retire because there was no obvious successor to the business, which opened in 1877. Negotiations with a prospective buyer failed and the gallery was not in a happy place. Large amounts of capital were required at the upper end of the market, he added, while many of the great Old Masters had been taken off the market for good by art museums. Agnew’s closure is particularly poignant for Australians as it follows a disturbing pattern. Christie’s has ceased auctioning in Australia and Sotheby’s has franchised its Australian operation, distancing it from its activities. The Agnew’s connection began with fourteen paintings to the Melbourne Centennial exhibition of 1888 with chef oeuvres of the acknowledged masters of the day William Holman Hunt and Everett Millais included. Some of the works which Agnew’s brought were obscure or too religious in topic for today’s standards, or even kitsch. The Shadow of Death by Holman Hunt was by a master of great stature but not a subject for the drawing room perhaps. The titles suggest the works were mainly on anecdotal or religious themes favoured by Victorians. They included Frith’s Blessing the Little Children of which there was a partial description/explanation in the official catalogue of the Centennial exhibition. The oil on canvas painting, the catalogue said, depicted an episode in the great annual procession of Our Lady of Boulogne in 1874, ‘In 1854 when the building of Notre Dame was near completion, the Abbot started an annual procession in which a statue of the Virgin Mary was carried through the streets. Frith first visited Boulogne on holiday in 1871.’ There were also four works by Keeley Halswelle, mainly an illustrator who is certainly not

John Everett Millais (British 1829-1896), Puss in Boots, 1877, oil on canvas, 106.7 x 79.3 cm. Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection (Dundee City Council)

regarded as in the same company as Millais or Frith. One of the paintings was of Eton College, the famous English school. The company’s second big incursion into the Australian market did not occur for another 85 years, until 1973 when it held the first of a series of annual exhibitions at the David Jones’ Art Gallery in Sydney. It was largely as a result of this exposure that a graduated sales tax levied on imported non-Australian art was removed Ironically the introduction of GST put an end to this tax free regime. But GST does not differentiate between Australian art or art painted by foreigners, putting both on an equal footing on entering or re-entering the country. Mr Agnew told World that he was encouraged to re-enter the Australian market by the interest shown by collectors from Australia. The keenest of these was Sydney-based Mr James Fairfax and Newcastle-based Mr Bill Bowmore. Mr Fairfax is the heir to what Fairfax media fortunes could be secured before the current downturn in the publishing industry. Mr Bowmore, who died in

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J.M.W. Turner (British 1775-1851), A Mountain Scene, Val d’Aosta, c. 1845, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 122 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the Government of Victoria and donations from Associated Securities Limited, the Commonwealth Government (through the Australia Council), the National Gallery Society of Victoria, the National Art Collections Fund (Great Britain), The Potter Foundation, other organisations, the Myer family and the people of Victoria, 1973

2008, established his fortunes through the hospital and nursing home industry. Many of the works they acquired found their way into Australian art museums. The Art Gallery of NSW even named a gallery after James Fairfax to honour his donations to the institution. The connection with David Jones, whose chairman Mr Charles Lloyd-Jones was particularly supportive, was extended to the Melbourne market through an association with Ms Marianne Bailieu, of the old Melbourne family, who concentrated on the more accessibly priced drawings market. They were exciting times for collecting, explained Mr Agnew. New collectors visited Agnew’s in London and purchased art. Mr Agnew was a rarity in the trade, choosing to put a lot of effort into the Australian art market whereas others concentrated on the American. He became aware of the strength and originality of Australian art and realised that this

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invited exhibiting in London. As a result he held exhibitions of the work of Sidney Nolan, forging an association with the artist’s widow, Lady Mary; and Australian artist Fred Williams in the dealer’s Bond Street premises. Exciting days beckoned in Australia what with the National Gallery of Australia paying record prices in a private deal for Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles for US$2 million. It was sad that this did not flow onto collecting Old Masters, Agnew’s traditional fare, but at least it resulted in a significant development of the AGNSW collection. This big surprise was still around the corner when Paintings and Drawings from Agnew’s, London opened at David Jones’ Art Gallery in Elizabeth Street, Sydney on 28 March 1973. The cover work attracted some attention because of its mark-up of 78 per cent from a previous London auction. Do-it-yourself-inclined Australians still resent allowing dealers a price

for the serendipity of their purchases and regard auctions as retail affairs. As a result, the ravishing and incredibly important portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds went unsold at £102,857. It therefore became available to the Yale Centre for British Art and is one of their showpieces. One work which thankfully did not leave the country and is today part of the very limited collection of the Art Gallery of NSW, was Pastoral Landscape, a small oil on copper, painted by Claude Gelle around 1636. Its short list of impressive past owners included George Salting, an Australian nineteenth-century sugar baron who left most of his large Old Master paintings collection to the National Gallery in London. The last time this work had appeared at auction was at Christie’s in 1860, so any price comparison with its past auction price would have been historic even if available. Priced at $130,000 it was purchased by James Fairfax who subsequently donated it to the AGNSW. Inclusion of a Rembrandt Portrait of a Man was a big visitor draw card but at $550,000 it sold during the exhibition to a buyer back in London. Works by celebrated British and European masters filled the exhibitions but the sales were mostly in the lower range, two small John Constables for $16,000 and $5000, a Peter Verelst for $5000, a Henry Pether at $11,000 and two Walter Sickerts for $3600 and $10,500. One of the big ticket exceptions was Claude Monet’s Le Port de Honfleur at $90,000 which had a sold sticker on it during the show. Agnew’s next exhibition in September 1974 had the misfortune to fall just after the conclusion of a law case in which a local dealer had sued two Dutch dealers over misattributed works purchased from them. There was nothing wrong with Agnews’s handsome Renaissance work, but its attribution had switched around a bit as do many Old Masters. The catalogue cover painting was a portrait by Filippino Lippi, a Renaissance painter who influenced the Tuscan Mannerists of the sixteenth century priced at $750,000, but it had been many things before. The entry in the catalogue thoroughly investigated its past. For many years the work had been attributed to Botticelli and had also

been considered the work of Pollaiolo and Antonello da Messina. In terms of financial importance the final attribution to Lippi is the least of the figures who might have painted it. Lippi had been a pupil of Botticelli but, as the Agnew’s catalogue stated, the figure in the painting did not possess ‘the butter-like consistency of his complexions’. Most buyers, especially in DIY Australia, would prefer to buy a work as a Lippi and upgrade it with their own research, to a Botticelli. By an awkward coincidence a court action was also being held in Sydney in which a leading dealer Mr John Breckenrig, was suing two Dutch dealers over alleged misrepresentation of two works he had bought from them for $220,000. Gerard Dou’s Portrait of a Boy in a Plumed Hat at $14,000 found a buyer as did Jan Steen’s The Wedding Party (price unrecorded). Claude Monet’s Madame Monet Dans un jardin at

Filippino Lippi (Italian c. 1457-1504), Portrait of a man, c. 1480, poplar panel, 42.5 x 31.7 cm. Illustrated on catalogue cover of Paintings and Drawings from Agnew’s, London, OctoberNovember 1974

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Claude Lorrain (France/ Italy, 1600-1682), Pastoral landscape, 1636-1637, oil on copper, 27.9 x 34.7 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of James Fairfax AO 1992

$350,000 did not find a buyer during the show but a portrait of the South American beauty Madame Errazuriz by the Australia-connected Charles Conder at $22,000 was sold to the Art Gallery of NSW. One of the best additions to the collection was a seminal work by J.M.W. Turner Val d’Aosta which has featured in the Turner from the Tate exhibition shown in South Australia and in Canberra in 2013, one of the few local additions. The work borders on abstraction, a movement a century away when it was created. Subsequent exhibitions included a Henry Raeburn for $10,000 and a Philips Wouwerman for $20,000, a Thomas Sidney Cooper The Cattle Drover ‘reserved for a private buyer’ at $30,000 and an Alfred Sisley for $200,000. The missed opportunities did not have quite the splendour of Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus, which later found its way via Agnew’s to London’s National Gallery, but works of the same size by many of the artists exhibited attract at least one extra zero in price nowadays. The Agnew’s century-plus of dealing with

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Australia now looks like a golden age. During the 1980 economic boom time West Australian tycoons were keen buyers in the UK and New York salerooms of French Impressionist art, in particular was Alan Bond’s insistence on borrowing vast additional sums to do so. Bond bought Van Gogh’s Irises for US$53.9 million with the help of a loan from Sotheby’s which was selling it. When a subsequently hardpressed Bond failed to complete the transaction Sotheby’s seized the work and sold it to the J Paul Getty Museum. But at least it (or some say a copy) was here for a while and set an example. Buying by Bond and the other residents of Perth’s exclusive Peppermint Grove (especially Robert Holmes à Court) helped put Australian collectors among the world’s top 100 collectors (now the top 200) compiled by the New Yorkbased Artnews magazine. Sadly, the present mining boom in Western Australia and a high dollar have not produced any visible big collectors, purist or otherwise, to replace them.

JOSEPH

HAMBLIN AN EXCELLENT 19TH CENTURY CRAFTSMAN Dorothy Erickson’s research for her new book Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829-1969 has led to more information she can share with those interested in objects made in Western Australia. In this article the research of Jill Roy, a Joseph Hamblin descendant, has been crucial in obtaining information of his life outside Western Australia.

Charles Wittenoom, St George’s Terrace, Perth, 1830s. Government House grounds are on the extreme right of the picture. Photograph courtesy of Jacqueline O’Brien

oseph Hamblin (1820–1899) was a cabinetmaker and joiner who included undertaking, violin and singing teaching and piano tuning amongst his occupations. He was one of the most accomplished cabinetmakers to ever work in Western Australia, but there are few pieces which can now be traced to his craftsmanship. Hamblin was born in Speenhamland in

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Berkshire in England, son of the Reverend Joseph Hamblin. The musical youngster undertook a nine-year apprenticeship with the Broadwood Piano Company commencing about 1832. Broadwood is one of the oldest and most prestigious piano-making companies in the world, having had royal patronage since George II. The enterprise started in 1728 when a young Swiss, Burkat Shudi, finished his apprenticeship with

Hermann Tabel and set up in business for himself. Shudi soon made a harpsicord for King George II and the firm has made instruments for the English monarchs ever since. Royal patronage has proved useful for the firm which also tunes the pianofortes. Shudi’s daughter married John Broadwood, another fine craftsman, in 1769 and when Shudi died Broadwood inherited a share in the firm which was eventually known as John Broadwood & Sons.1 The firm was managed by the sons at the time Joseph was apprenticed to undertake a sound training. Joseph must have been a gifted and possibly favoured apprentice. Towards the end of his apprenticeship he is reputed to have made an inlaid table for Queen Victoria. The Broadwoods paid him £25 for the work, a large sum for the time, especially for an apprentice. It is speculated that this was a wedding present for Queen Victoria who married in 1840. Her husband Prince Albert commissioned a Broadwood ‘square’ piano for Queen Victoria in 1840 and it is possible that Hamblin worked on that as well. The firm was a large enterprise and by 1842 the Broadwoods were making 2,500 pianos a year in their factory in Horseferry Road, Westminster. All parts were made in-house and it was one of the largest employers of labour in London at the time. Hamblin would have witnessed the various trades being undertaken but must have wished for better things for himself. Hamblin married Rebecca Comley in 1842. They migrated to the colony of Western

Australia one week later, 3 August, as steerage passengers on the Trusty arriving at the new Australind settlement in December. Australind was at this time a virtual wilderness. The Western Australian Company, who had promoted the new settlement south of Perth near the current port of Bunbury, had run into difficulties and the Trusty was one of the last vessels to bring settlers to the scheme. There had been surveying problems in allocating land, which in fact was not suited to small farm holdings as proposed, and the scheme collapsed. The Hamblins had not put in money to qualify as settlers to be granted land and had to make their living elsewhere. He probably assisted the Cliftons in erecting the early houses in the settlement but soon moved on. By December 1843, when their first child was born, they were in Perth with Joseph working as a carpentercabinetmaker for the entreprenerial and wealthy master builder George Lazenby, a leader of the Methodist community. Edwin Foss Duffield, another of the betterknown cabinetmakers in nineteenth-century Western Australia, was an apprentice at the time Hamblin worked for Lazenby and who was most likely his tutor. Another apprentice was George Wandsbrough who later was a builder and carpenter in York. Duffield married Lazenby’s daughter. Lazenby, a trained cabinetmaker, came from a wealthy family. He migrated to Western Australia for the climate which benefitted his health. He was musical and played the cello and violin and was no doubt attracted to employing a

Julian Ashton, Government House, Perth, etching based on an old photograph. Designed and built by Henry William Reveley in 1835 for Governor Stirling and lived in until 1853 by five successive governors. It was constantly being refurbished

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The new Government House built in1853 as seen in the Illustrated London News, 19 March 1864. The illustration shows the presentation of commissions to Captain Leake and Lieutenants Dyett and Roe on December 1863.The furniture discussed was later housed here

One of a pair of cellarettes, c. 1848, attributed to Joseph Hamblin, width 100 x 90 cm deep, made for Government House, Perth. Government House, Perth. Photograph courtesy WA Museum

man with Hamblin’s skills. A man with a social conscience, Lazenby was at times chairman of the Swan River Mechanics Institute, member of Perth Road Committee 1842-44 and chairman of the Public Institutions Society in 1855. There was no ordained Methodist minister in the colony in the first six years and Lazenby became a Methodist lay preacher, one of four with the Hardey brothers and Barnard Clarkson. There was at this time a stigma attached to being ‘Chapel’ in a colony controlled primarily by the ‘Church’ (of England). In defence, the ‘Chapel’ people were a close-knit group who supported each other. In 1846 Joseph Hamblin made a sideboard for Lazenby in ‘native mahogany’ jarrah. It was fullsomely described as ‘Cabinet-Work.’ An article in the Inquirer observed ‘Such of our readers as are admirers of handsome furniture, will do well to visit Mr. Lazenby’s, and see the splendid sideboard just made by Mr. Hamblin from our native mahogany. We have rarely seen a finer specimen of mahogany furniture at home, and we are inclined to think that our jarrah, besides its immense superiority in hardness and durability, lies also a more rich and close luxuriance of shade and colour, and a greater resemblance to marble in texture, than the real mahogany known in Europe.’2 Hamblin is also the attributed maker of the pair of cellarettes in Government House in Perth and the superb table with lion’s feet featured in the Lauder and Howard catalogue An Introduction to Western Australian Colonial Furniture3 and now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The piece reputedly came from the current Government House and the

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provenance is likely to be accurate as items were dispersed by one Governor’s wife in the 1960s. The cellarettes went, one to the National Trust which placed it in Warden Funnerty’s House in Coolgardie, and the other to the storage basement of the WA Museum from where it was retrieved in the 1990s when recognised by myself. George Lazenby had the contract to refurbish Government House. This was in constant need of attention due to white ant infestation, leaking roofs and porous walls absorbing moisture apart from being inadequate for its purpose as it lacked accommodation for visitors and facilities for large functions. The cellarettes are quite magnificent. They are of faded jarrah with a lovely patina and are 100 cm wide and 90 cm deep. They stand on expertly carved lion feet; designed in the Regency style brought to the colony by the earliest settlers. At the time of their making, the preference was for silver to be crafted in this and the Georgian style, and as the periods represent a high period in both disciplines they retain their charm and usefulness and are styles treasured today. The table is also quite magnificent. The top is solid jarrah made from two mirrored boards with a thumbnail moulded edge over a solid apron with rolled moulding. It has a tilt top secured by jarrah pegs and a brass lock and stands on an octagonal column on a platform base. The column and base are veneered over pine. The base is three cornered and similar to other pieces seen at auction and in old photographs. The table is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and was featured in the Out of the West exhibition in 2011.

Hamblin was put in charge of Lazenby’s business when the latter left for England in 1845 with samples for the London market fashioned for him by Hamblin. The advertisement also remarked ‘Pianos repaired and tuned as usual by J. H.’4 Mrs Hamblin and little Joseph Thomas also left for Adelaide on the Victoria enroute for England. The next year, 1846, Joseph made a sideboard for Lazenby in ‘native mahogany’ but ceased being in Lazenby’s employ in 1847 when he sailed on the Despatch to join his wife in England. Their second child, George was born in Walworth, London and the family returned to Western Australia via the Ranee arriving 13 December with Joseph’s sister Eliza Ellen. Eliza was appointed schoolmistress at Perth Girls’Colonial School where she was apparently a most respected teacher from 1849 to 1853. Meanwhile Joseph and Rebecca had two more children in Perth. In 1850 William Harding Hamblin was born and in December 1951 Sarah. Joseph Hamblin went into business for himself at Mew’s Cottage, Bazaar Terrace by about 1848 and no doubt continued to undertake work for Lazenby when requested. Advertisements in the Inquirer list his services as carpenter, joiner, cabinetmaker, piano tuner, undertaker and teacher of violin and singing.5 It was he who prepared the Western Australian timber samples sent to the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (Crystal Palace) in London in 1851. A local reporter wrote: ‘We have been much gratified with a view of several specimens of our colonial timber, which are now under preparation by Mr Hamblin of Perth, for transmission to the Industrial Exhibition; one of the blocks is of peculiar, beauty and is a section of one of those large excrescences which are found upon the York gum, marbled in the most

beautiful and minute manner we can conceive it possible for wood to be, and when well polished we have no doubt will attract much attention at the Exhibition.’6 He was obviously the most skilled and favoured cabinetmaker in Perth while he was there. During his time he was also commissioned to make a chair for the Queen of Spain. This would have been for the Benedictine Dom Salvado (later Bishop Salvado) an accomplished pianist who gave concerts to raise money for his work with the Aborigines. The Benedictines had monastries at Subiaco and in New Norcia in the Victoria Plains district. It is probable Hamblin tuned the piano for Salvado before his Perth fundraising concerts. Dom Salvado returned to Spain in 1849 where his brother, Rev. Father Santos Salvado, was Chaplain to the Queen. It would have been at this time that he took the chair with him hoping presumably for patronage for his monastry. Hamblin, the clergyman’s son, obviously had a social conscience for in 1851 he was the chairman and apparently the driving force of the newly formed Swan River Mechanics’ Institute in which Surveyor General John Septimus Roe had a great interest. It was ‘… established for the purpose of affording means of intellectual recreation and improvement to the Mechanics and other inhabitants of this Colony, and the cooperation and support of all classes is earnestly requested.’7 Hamblin made furniture for upper echelon settler families such as Resident Magistrate Lt. Colonel John Molloy, reputedly the illegitimate son of the Duke of York, one of Queen Victoria’s ‘wicked uncles’ and also for Captain John Septimus Roe RN, the first Surveyor General,

Above left: Table presumed made for Government House Perth by Joseph Hamblin, 75.5 x 136.5 cm (diameter). Wordsworth Collection, National Gallery of Australia. Photograph courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia Above: Table auctioned in June 2011 has very similar detailing but is not in such good condition as the one in the National Gallery and is minus the lion’s paw feet. The veneered sections are fiddleback jarrah, the top two leaves of solid jarrah. The table made by Hamblin for Lt Colonel Molloy was almost identical. Photograph courtesy McKenzie’s Auctioneers

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Squire Phillips’ and his wife Sophia Roe in the drawing room at Culham, c. 1883. Courtesy State Library WA

president of the Mechanics’ Institute and founder of the collection which became the nucleus of the WA Museum. The Molloy table was reputedly at one stage in Wallciffe House at Margaret River. Whether it was there and destroyed in the bushfire of 2011 is not known. The Roe table is probably with one of Molloy’s descendants or may indeed have been auctioned.8 In the 1870 Loan Exhibition of Works of Art and Industry held in the Mechanics’ Institute Captain Roe exhibited a table manufactured by Hamblin which, according to Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 16 September 1870 noted that ‘after a wear and tear of thirty-two years, only required re polishing to be equal to any newly out of the wor’shop, testimony sufficient not only to the quality of the workmanship but also of the wood.’ The Roe table is possibly that depicted in the portrait of Roe’s eldest daughter in her old age as wife of Squire Phillips of Culham near Toodyay in the Avon valley. In June 1852, Eliza Hamblin gave up teaching to become Mrs Benjamin Mason. She married a man who had been an apprenticed carpenter of Lazenby’s and who went on to become a wealthy

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and influential timber merchant employing 100 Ticket-of-Leave men in the timber mills in partnership with the architect Francis Bird and a further 200 at Mason’s landing in Cannington where Bird built Woodloes homestead. The Mason family later had interests in goldmining in Western Australia owning the Murchison New King Mine at Abbotts. Their son Edward had a brooch made as a present for their daughter Eliza who married farmer Frederick Liddelow of Kenwick. The craftsman was Anthony Fouchard, a French émigré jeweller who arrived in 1875 from London. In 1850 gold had been discovered in the eastern colonies and convicts were being introduced into Western Australia so people were leaving for the gold rushes or to escape from the taint of what would be a penal settlement for eighteen years. There had also been some more personal unpleasantness printed in The Inquirer newspaper in February 1852 whereby local workers had been maligned as drunkards, idle and worthless. Hamblin, his brother-in-law Benjamin Mason and a number of other ‘Chapel’ tradespeople, some of whom were total abstainers, inserted a rebuttal in the opposing newspaper.9

Hamblin and Son and then Hamblin Bros. He joined the Salvation Army in the 1880s and died of influenza, 19 November 1899 and was buried in Kyneton Cemetery. A branded piano, reputedly still in playing order, is in the Kyneton Museum. This is wooden framed and was used to record a track for the ABC some years ago of To the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Colony RO 2555 (World Record Club). Another piano is also supposed to be in Matong in NSW. Neither of these has been seen by the author. The Hamblins and four children sailed for South Australia in February 1854 on the brig Hamlet. Emma was born in Adelaide in 1854. By 1855 they were in Sandhurst (Bendigo) where Rebecca was born and by 1857 in Kyneton, then called Carlsruhe, where Benjamin was born in 1860. His wife died soon after of complications. He remarried widow Sarah Britcher ten months later. She was a Baptist with two children. They had a further five children, four of whom survived. He became a Baptist in 1860 but resigned from the congregation in 1863. However Joseph built the Baptist Church in Kyneton as well as the staircase in the local Roman Catholic presbytery and several houses including his own Rose Cottage. The cottage and the church have since been demolished. Joseph Hamblin was trading as a carpenter in 1868 with his eldest son Joseph Thomas. This continued until 1872 at least as he is recorded as a piano maker on his daughter Sarah’s marriage certificate dated 1872. Victorian Post Office Directories 1880–1885 have Joseph Hamblin listed as ‘Pianoforte maker of Kyneton’. Joseph retired in around 1885 and the business became

Above: Gold brooch by Anthony Fouchard, 4.8 x 1.5 cm. Western Australian Museum Left: Eliza Liddelow née Mason, daughter of Eliza Hamblin, c. 1887, wearing a gold brooch made by Anthony Fouchard from gold mined at Abbott’s by her brother Edward Mason who later died during WWI. LSWA 4205P

NOTES 1 www.piano-tuners.org/broadwood/index.html 2 Inquirer, 12 August 1846, p. 4 3 Featured in Lauder and Howard catalogue, An Introduction to Western Australian Colonial Furniture, 1988, pp. 22–3 4 Inquirer, 19 February 1845, p. 2 5 Inquirer, 22 August 1849, p. 1 6 The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 8 Nov 1850, p. 2 7 McKenzies Auctioneers, Claremont WA, June 2011 8 Inquirer, Supplement, 7 May 1851 9 Inquirer, 23 July 1851, p. 2 10 The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 8 August 1851, p. 2 11 The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 16 January 1852, p. 3; Inquirer, 21 January 1852, p. 1 12 The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 13 Feb 1852, p. 4 FURTHER READING Dorothy Erickson, Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829-1969 (Museum Publications 2013) Kevin Fahy and Andrew Simpson, Australian Furniture: Pictorial History and Dictionary 1788-1938 (Sydney: Casuarina Press, 1998), p. 59 Jill Roy, Those Hamblins, typescript kindly loaned to author

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7. 8.

10. 9.

11. 12. 13. 1. Rolex Datejust Wristwatch, 2012, stainless steel and 18 ct white gold, Oyster Perpetual Datejust automatic movement, ref no 116234 V479582, silver dial with luminous baton markers, original Jubilee bracelet with fold over clasp, with papers. Sold $5428

7. Large Chinese export porcelain bowl, 18.5 x 47 cm (diam), over-glaze coloured enamels decorated with a scene of Canton (Guangzhou) waterfront and the 'Thirteen Factories', inside rim featuring floral and foliate border in red and gold. Sold $9440

2. Tanzanite and diamond pendant on chain set in 18 ct white gold; tanzanite, wt: 21.80 ct (approx). 10 brilliant cut diamonds, belcher link style chain, secured with a parrot clasp. ATDW 0.20 ct. Sold: $14,160

8. Set of six Italian rococo style lacquered dining chairs, late 19th century, h: 116 x w: 59 x depth: 58 cm, leather-covered drop-in seat, foliate and rocaille decoration, cabriole front legs with a low H-form stretcher, the carved details with traces of gilding. Sold $2478 (set)

3. Pair of sapphire and diamond earrings, c. 1950s, 18 ct white gold, emerald cut sapphires 5.65 ct, 5.85 ct, claw set, 8 grain set brilliant cut diamonds total 0.16 ct, baguette cut diamonds: 0.04 ct, carre cut sapphires, clip on fittings. Sold $8260

9. Rare antique walrus head humidor, early 20th century, h: 36 x w: 42 x depth: 51 cm, set on an oval platform base with four brass lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paw feet, silverplate and brass fitted four various sized removable containers. Sold: $4012

4. Piaget 18 ct gold wristwatch, c. 1980s, manual movement, golden dial with baton numerals, herringbone linked gold integrated bracelet with original fold over clasp, total weight: 72.1 grams. Sold: $3658

10. Spode part tea service, c. 1815, Imari style pattern no. 1956, New Oval shape teapot (h: 15 cm), six Bute shape cups and saucers, a pair of saucer dishes (diam: 18 cm) and a waste bowl, decorated with a scene of a building amidst flowering trees and other designs within various panels, painted marks and pattern numbers underside. Sold: $1298

5. Sterling silver bowl, c. 1950s, ovoid bowl of reclining swan-like form marked Mexican silver 925 underside, h: 19 x l: 40 x depth: 27 cm, wt: 1399 grams. Sold $2124 6. Bracelet c. 1960s, 18 ct gold arabesque shaped links featuring claw set 24 pink/red rubies in a double cluster, fitted with the concealed clasp and safety catch, length: 19 cm, weight: 64.7 grams. Sold: $3068

11. Chinese 19th century soapstone figure of a horse, set on a low carved and stained wood base, 15.5 x 22 cm (stone figure only). Sold: $3304 12. Chinese Late Qing dynasty (1644-1912), blue and white porcelain double-gourd vase h: 30.5 cm, decorated with writhing dragons. Sold $1770 13. Easy Chair No 4 designed 1959 by Illum WikkelsĂ¸ ( Danish 1919-1999), oak and wool, h: 77 x w: 68 x depth: 78 cm. Sold $590

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A SILK PILGRIMAGE TO LYON

In the opulent, eighteenth-century, Lyon’s fine reputation as the centre for skilled silk making was sealed with Marie Antoinette's order for her court’s famous gold and silver costumes. The revolution, industrialisation and textile developments all impacted on this craft’s development, the latter still evident today in Lyon’s renowned technological advances and cutting edge fabrics.

Eleanor Keene n the eighteenth-century, Lyon was one of the world centres for silk making, and a period and place which had always fascinated me with its changes in textile developments. So when an opportunity to visit Lyon last year presented itself, I jumped at it. I wanted to explore where the rich woven silks of Marie Antoinette’s famous luxurious court had come from, where the gold and silver threads had been skilfully worked into brightly woven floral silks in such exquisite detail. So on a rainy autumn day in October I booked my ticket on the Euro Star and set off on my silk pilgrimage from London to Lyon. Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs – The Textile and Decorative Arts Museum – is a traditional style museum, with an impressive selection of textiles. Boasting ‘4,500 years of universal textile history’, it lives up to its word, but what I was hankering to see was Lyonproduced silk, and I wasn’t let down, although I felt the exhibition was lacking context and any social history relating to Lyon’s heritage and history of silk production. Back in the gift shop / ticket office – where I bought far too many books – I asked the staff

Top left: The Old Town Hall in Place des Terreau Left: Statue of Andre-Marie Ampere, Mathematician and Physicist in Ainay Square

where I should visit to discover more on Lyon’s incredible silk history. I had booked myself on the walking tour for my last day in Lyon that would take me around the city streets of the silk making districts, but what I really wanted to see was how the fabric was woven. It was suggested I visit La Maison Des Canuts, up on the hill in La Croix Rousse. The next day I awoke to a bright sunny day, and set off on a funicular railway up the short but steep trip up the mountain side. Lyon is located in the mountain region bordering Italy and Switzerland, so the altitude is high, the skies are blue and the light is clear and strong – perfect conditions for silk production. The mountain rivers are another reason Lyon was chosen as France’s key silk production region, as two rivers border the old city and meet in lower Lyon, creating a perfect way to transport the silk. Lyon has been producing silk since the fifteenth century, although it was not until the seventeenth century that the city matched its rivals in Italy in the quality and technique of silk production. By this stage mulberry trees had been planted throughout the area, to cultivate the silk worm. La Maison Des Canuts is hidden down a little residential street and runs workshop tours at regular intervals. We were taken from their museum to their workshops across the road, and our small group crammed into the weavers’ room with two looms: the older draw thread loom and

Above: 18th century Lyon-made textile

Jacquard woven picture of Joseph Marie Jacquard Queen’s chamber, apartment of MarieAntoinette, Versailles. The fabric covering the walls and bed rewoven in Lyon

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From top: Demonstration of a Jacquard loom Braid loom Jacquard punch cards Below: Bobbins Bottom from left: Bobbins at braid loom Braid loom with Lyon stamp Gold braid on braid loom

Lyon’s famous Jacquard loom. Our guide then set to work explaining and demonstrating the weaving process. The majority of eighteenth-century silk was produced on a time-consuming draw thread loom. This needs at least two people to operate: the weaver and the ‘drawboy’. The drawboy controlled hundreds of mechanism threads on the loom. As these were pulled (or drawn up) in an order, he would control the weaving of the warp thread. He would draw the warp threads apart and, by separating them, the weft thread colours could be fed in and woven to create intricate patterns and designs. This all changed when Lyon inventor Joseph-Maire Jacquard developed his ‘Jacquard loom’ at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This was operated with a punch card system, and is the forerunner of early computer technology. Do you remember those computer coloured punch cards of the early ’80s? This technology is all thanks to the textile industry and Monsieur Jacquard. He designed a machine where the warp threads were automatically raised by the use of a perforated card. The card either blocked or allowed the thread raise depending on the perforations. From La Maison Des Canuts I was given instructions to visit the braid museum, only a few streets away, where gilt braid was still being woven to order on old braid machines using the Jacquard technology. Visually it was very beautiful, so many spools of thread, weaving away at row upon row of braid, generated by machine power since the 1930s. From there they suggested another workshop with completely mechanised looms. This was of interest in that the small live-in workshop had been retained as a pocket of time, with its mezzanine floor housing living compartments.

Silk in the eighteenth century was still very much a small family cottage industry. In the nineteenth century, with industrialisation, this changed for many of the weavers as large factories started to emerge. In 1831 and 1834 there were silk riots over weavers' working rights and pay; over 600 died during this dispute but out of it came the bones of early trade unions, giving more protection to the rights of the workers. Reputedly, in the previous decadent eighteenth century, fabric would be ordered by wealthy Parisians to have their court frocks made — as Lyon was the only city allowed to use gold and silver threads as worn in court attire — and payment would be made upon collection. If the buyer disliked the fabric or had changed their mind, it would not be paid for, and weeks of a family’s work weaving would go unpaid. When the French Revolution hit towards the end of the century, some silk workers associated with creating this opulence are said to have met untimely ends. Napoleon revitalised Lyon and strongly patronised the city and its silk production, having many of his home furnishings made to order. Today Lyon can still be found creating cutting edge textiles and is known for its technological advances. Workshops create fabric ranging from that used in the nose of aeroplanes, to medical substitutes for arteries. The old part of Lyon is a beautiful city in which to walk around, with seventeenth and eighteenth century stone buildings, rivers with mountains

Clockwise from top left: Exotic fruit were popular in 18th century fabrics as can be seen in this fabric design with grapes and pomegranates © Musee des Tissus Woven portrait of Catherine II, 1771. Woven portraits became more fashionable in the 19th century with the development of the Jacquard loom © Musee des Tissus Beautiful 18th century green silk woven with a repeating cornucopia design and foliage © Musee des Tissus Pheasant and swan wall panel, designed by Lyon Master Weaver Philippe de Lasalle in 1773 as a commission for the Russian court © Musee des Tissus

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Church on the hill, Lyon White dress parade, Fête des Lumières Antique shop in Lyon

Painted scale pattern of an 18th century silk design Sample of an 18th century textile Courtesy Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs, Lyon © D.R.

rising up on two sides. Notre Dame de Fourvere Basilica towers over the city on one hillside, which is well worth a visit. Amazing mosaics cover its walls and ceilings, and the view from outside is breathtaking, spanning over the rooftops of Lyon as far as the eye can see. I caught Lyon’s other funicular railway up and down, but if I had more time, I would have liked to have taken the garden walk back down to the city. On my second night in Lyon, I stumbled across the Fête des Lumières, an annual festival where the street holding the antique, art, books and modern design shops was carpeted in red, and fairy lights were strung up between the old buildings. The shops and street were all open and brimming with life. Champagne and music was

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everywhere, and at one point in the evening a group of models in white dresses came parading down the red carpet. A little shop brimming to maximum capacity with stuff, piled high from the floor, was crammed all evening and when I finally got into it, I found costume and Bakelite jewellery at amazingly low prices. For the more discerning antiques buyer, there are many traditional antique shops catering to higher budgets. Disappointingly, there were very few textiles in any of the antique shops I visited. I had hoped to pick up a nice fragment of eighteenth-century silk, but it was not to be. I am told there is a silk market every November at the Palais Du Commerce, so I think one day I’ll have to make my way back to Lyon, as three days just wasn’t quite enough.

482 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006 - 07 3254 0404 - www.uniquefrance.com.au

GOODWOOD

FRENCH HERITAGE AND ENGLISH HISTORY INTERTWINED A liaison between Charles II and a young French aristocrat began the Dukes of Richmond’s French connection which continues to this day

Henri Gascars (1635–1701), Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth and Aubigny, depicted as Venus, with her son Charles, first Duke of Richmond, painted as Cupid, c. 1673, oil on canvas, 137 x 112 cm

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James Peill o many people, Goodwood in West Sussex is the epitome of an English sporting estate firmly rooted in the history of England and its traditions. However, there are more connections with France than one might initially imagine. Indeed, the present Duke of Richmond is also the Duke of Aubigny in France. How did this come about and what are those connections that link one of England’s great ducal families with our Gallic neighbours across the Channel? It all started with a romance. Louise René de Penancoët de Keroualle was a young French aristocrat from Brittany who became the mistress of King Charles II. Together, they had a son who was given a plethora of titles including Duke of Richmond and Lennox. As a young man, the first duke rented and then bought Goodwood as a base from which to hunt with the fashionable Charlton Hunt, the earliest recorded fox hunt in the country. When Charles II died in 1685, Louise returned to France, taking with her two ships filled with treasures from her Whitehall apartment. Twelve years earlier, Louise had been granted the ancient Stuart estate at Aubigny-sur-Nère, east of Orléans and in 1684 she was made Duchess of Aubigny. The estate included the romantic Château of La Verrerie where Louise lived happily for nearly

fifty years. When she died in 1734, it passed to her grandson, the second Duke of Richmond (who also became Duke of Aubigny) and it remained in the family until 1841. The second duke (who was almost posted as British Ambassador to the Court of Louis XV at Versailles, but for diplomatic reasons never went) was a considerable patron of the arts. A patron of Canaletto, he rebuilt Richmond House in London (to designs by the architect Richard Boyle, the third Earl of Burlington) and enlarged Goodwood under the direction of Roger Morris and Matthew Brettingham.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), Charles, third Duke of Richmond, 1758, oil on canvas, 126 x 97 cm

The Château of La Verrerie, Aubigny, once owned by the Dukes of Richmond and home to Louise de Keroualle for almost 50 years

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Part of the Sèvres tea service, 1765–66, commissioned by the third Duke of Richmond when he was British ambassador in Paris

The Tapestry Drawing Room showing some of the Gobelins tapestries given by Louis XV to the third Duke of Richmond in 1766 when he was the British ambassador

Strong links with France were maintained by the third Duke of Richmond who was sent as British Ambassador in 1765. While he was there, Louis XV presented him with a magnificent set of four Gobelins tapestries showing scenes from the story of Don Quixote, the deluded Spanish knight of Cervantes’ novel. They were brought back to Goodwood where the architect, James Wyatt, incorporated them into a beautiful neoclassical drawing room in the new wing he had designed for the duke. While in Paris, the third Duke of Richmond also commissioned a superb Sèvres green and blue dessert service with a matching green tea and coffee service, the teapot being unusually large. Artists from the Sèvres factory came to the George Romney (1734–1802), Henriette le Clerc, 1796, oil on canvas, 125 x 100 cm

Richmonds’ Paris residence and copied the birds from George Edwards’ Natural History of Birds borrowed from the library at Goodwood. The French edition was dedicated to the second Duke and Duchess. It was the first time real birds had been painted on Sèvres porcelain. The service is marked 1765 and 1766 and is very unusual in being decorated in both blue and green. He also purchased several handsome vases including three painted with military scenes and a number in the fashionable neoclassical taste. His patronage of the Sèvres factory makes him England’s greatest patron of Sèvres porcelain. Today, the porcelain is on display in the Card Room at Goodwood. There are many pieces of French furniture at Goodwood, although surprisingly they do not all date from the third duke’s time as ambassador (1765–66). The grand suite of gilt wood seat furniture by Louis Delanois, which retains its original Lyons cut-velvet upholstery, almost certainly dates from the time of his ambassadorship. However, two commodes, one stamped by Couturier and Moreau, the other in the manner of Bury, date from about ten and fifteen years later respectively. One reason for this might be that the duke was making purchases on his trips to Paris to visit his mistress, Madame la Viscomtesse de Cambis, Princess de Chimay, an attractive and amusing member of the Parisian smart set. The duke almost certainly had a daughter from this liaison. Christened Henriette Le Clerc, she was known in the family as ‘The Poor Orphan’. She came to live at Goodwood in 1778 and there is a charming portrait of her by George Romney. Although it was never openly acknowledged that Henriette was the result of a liaison between the third duke and Madame de Cambis, all of the clues certainly point in that direction. Much of the French furniture is displayed in the Tapestry Drawing Room against the backdrop of the third duke’s Gobelins tapestries which are set

into the walls in the French manner, and as well as the Tapestry Drawing Room, the third duke made further additions to Goodwood. The magnificent stable block was built by Sir William Chambers in 1757 (who also completed Brettingham’s unfinished south wing). In the early 1800s, following a disastrous fire in 1791 at Richmond House in London, two new wings were added on to the house to display the art collection that had been saved; here, English furniture sits happily alongside French furniture below family portraits and pictures collected on the Grand Tour. The architect for the new wings was James Wyatt who also designed the celebrated Kennels (for the fox hounds) and various lodges around the estate. Just two years before the third Duke of Richmond died, he bought a huge picture by van Dyck of Charles I and his family, in a superb French carved gilt wood frame, to hang in his new picture gallery. It had belonged to the Duke of Orléans who was guillotined during the French Revolution and then sold to a dealer who spirited it down the Seine on a barge to avoid the Paris mob. It was sold by Mr Hammersley, a banker, to the third duke in 1804 for £1,100. It is not surprising, given the family’s French links, that there are many French books in the libraries at Goodwood. These include Baron Dominique Vivant Denon’s Planches du Voyages dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte. Denon was one of the artists Napoleon had taken with him on his Egyptian campaign and his book was first printed in French in 1802. After Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the Egyptian style had suddenly become the height of fashion in England and the Egyptian Dining Room was created soon afterwards with James Wyatt using Denon’s book as a source. In the Edwardian era,

the Egyptian Dining Room was completely dismantled, with every Egyptian motif being eradicated. Fortunately, the Earl and Countess of March decided to recreate the room in the 1990s. After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Duke of Wellington gave the fourth Duke and Duchess of Richmond several trophies of war, including Napoleon’s campaign chair, as a thank you for hosting the famous ball in Brussels a few days before the battle. The chair, which is probably by the important French furniture making firm, Jacob Frères (1796–1803), has been used ever since by the Dukes of Richmond, and Lord March continues the family tradition of sitting in it whilst working at his desk. Links with France continue to the present day. In 1992, the present Duke of Richmond loaned just over 150 treasures from Goodwood for an exhibition at the Mona Bismarck Foundation in Paris entitled Chefs d’Oeuvre de Goodwood: Collections des Ducs de Richmond et d’Aubigny. He has also fostered links between Goodwood Racecourse and Angers Racecourse in France (whose chairman is the Duc de Brissac), creating the Richmond-Brissac Trophy Stakes which was run at Goodwood and in Angers from 1977. Today, the family’s French heritage is perhaps best remembered by the family motto En La Rose Je Fleurie (I flourish in the rose). The motto was first adopted by Louise de Keroualle and refers to the Lennox rose, instantly taking one back through time to the fifteenth century and the age of chivalry when John Stuart and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of the Earl of Lennox, were granted lands and properties at Aubigny.

From left to right: Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) and Studio, Charles I and his Family, c. 1635, oil on canvas, 305 x 246 cm The Egyptian Dining Room Napoleon’s campaign chair, given as a trophy of war by the Duke of Wellington to the fourth Duke and Duchess of Richmond after the Battle of Waterloo

Goodwood: the French Connection runs until 14 October 2013. For further details about opening times visit www.Goodwood.com.

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Open Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 10.30am to 4pm

www.aada.org.au

Abbott’s Antiques

Member

The Established Name for Quality Antiques since 1931

Pair of George III mahogany carvers with reeded crest rails and arms, c.1820

Two fine Royal Crown Derby floral painted, enamelled and gilt decorated vases by Desire Leroy, dated 1900 and 1904

Fine George IV mahogany sideboard with 3 beaded concave centre drawers, c.1830 – attributed to Gillows

George III sterling silver crested and embossed coffee pot, London 1761 by Fuller White

19th century mahogany 8 day hour striking bracket clock with twin fusee movement, c.1850

George IV Sheffield Plate crested and scrolled edge soup tureen, c.1825

Pair of Swansea specimen plates with painted floral sprays & moulded borders, c.1814 – 17

19th century patinated bronze Dutch weaver and companion figures signed Geo. Maxim, c.1890

Pair of Grainger Worcester reticulated mask head vases, c.1880 – 89

Max Dupain, Surf Race Start, 1940s, silver gelatin photograph

Fine George III mahogany longcase clock with rosewood cross banding and painted dial with moon phase & calendar by George Monks, Prescot, c. 1810

Max Dupain, Nina Raievska in Thamar, 1937, vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed & dated lower right

Specialising in Fine English 18th & 19th century Furniture, Sterling Silver, Porcelain, Jewellery, Sheffield Plate, 18th century Drinking and Table Glass, Bronzes, Paintings, Art Nouveau and Art Deco

14 Eastern Road, Turramurra NSW 2074 • Tel 02 9449 8889 Visit www.abbottsantiques.com.au for a further selection of current stock

GREAT ARCHITECTURAL

DRAUGHTSMEN OF THE PAST The recently opened Museum für Architecturzeichnung in Berlin houses the collection of architectural drawings formed by the architect Sergei Tchoban. He shares much in common with the nineteenth-century architect and collector Sir John Soane

Jerzy Kierkuc´-Bielin´ski n 1809, Sir John Soane opened his collections of architectural models, antiquities, casts after the antique and architectural drawings to his students at the Royal Academy for their study. As Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, and as one of the foremost architects working in Britain, he was very conscious of the

central importance of architectural drawing to both students and practising architects. The architectural drawing was a tool for exploring architectural ideas, it was a way of explaining structure, mass, volume and ornament and it was a tool for recording buildings. By his death in 1837, Soane had amassed a collection of 30,000 architectural drawings, including works by some of the most significant architects that Britain has produced such as Sir

Johann Philipp Eduard Gaertner (1801-1877), View of St Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow,1838 © Tchoban Foundation

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Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanburgh, Nicholas Hawksmoor and Robert Adam. These drawings, along with his entire collections and the housemuseum he designed to house them, were left to the British nation by Private Act of Parliament in 1833. Through his desire to educate students, professionals and the public about architecture Sir John Soane created the world’s first and oldest architectural museum. The St Petersburg-born and Berlin-based architect Sergei Tchoban also champions the centrality of architectural drawing, both in his working practice and also in his role as a collector and as the founder of Europe’s newest museum of architecture. In 2009, Sergei created a foundation that would promote architectural drawing. As he explained: ‘Today a hand-drawing is never required for the realisation of an airport, an item of designer furniture, a football stadium or a façade. We cannot afford to lose such a powerful medium if today’s architecture is to endure like its forebears in antiquity. The drama and emotion of the drawing can convey a feeling and a vision for a building that will persuade and inspire clients and lovers of art and architecture for centuries to come.’ In June 2013, his collection of historical and modern architectural drawings, which to date encompass some 600, were transferred to the newest museum of architecture in Europe — the Museum für Architecturzeichnung, Berlin. Like the Soane, the museum has also been designed by the architect whose collection it houses. It is the first privately founded museum in Germany and is also the first museum there to be solely dedicated to architectural drawing. Like the Soane, it is a unique institution and over the coming decades the collection of drawings will grow and expand. The present exhibition draws upon some of the great treasures from the Tchoban Foundation, in particular, Russian and German architects, from the seventeenth through to the twentieth centuries. Germany and Russia have long been linked dynastically, culturally and economically by trade through their northern ports on the Baltic Sea and architects have played their role

Museum für Architecturzeichnung, Berlin Detail: Museum für Architecturzeichnung, Berlin

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Vincenzo Brenna (1747-1820), Main façade of St Michael’s Castle (Mikhailovsky Castle or Engineers’ Castle) in St Petersburg, 1797 Boris Mihailovich Iofan (1891-1976), Palace of the Soviets, 1933-34

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in these cultural links. This history is represented through the work of representative architects. An added dimension is work by draughtsmen from Britain and from France that is also on display. Amongst the earliest drawings is one for a fantastical, fortified, French château. Dating to c. 1565–75 by the architect Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (c. 1515–1585), the drawing on vellum (which looks so fresh that it may have come from du Cerceau’s hand last week and not some four hundred years ago) was never intended to be realised. Rather, the draughtsman wanted to instil a love of and curiosity about architecture through this virtuoso design. Another great French work is a red chalk drawing entitled View of the Tarpeian Rock in Rome, c. 1775–80, by JacquesLouis David (1748–1825) produced while he was in Rome from 1775 to 1780. David was raised by his uncles following his father’s death. They worked as architects and hoped that the young David would follow in the family career. As we know, this was not to be. This drawing is one of the rare occasions where David undertook a topographical / architectural study. The brilliance of the Imperial Court at St Petersburg is represented in a drawing, c. 1797, by Italian-born architect Vincenzo Brenna

(1747–1820), showing the Main façade of St Michael’s Castle (Mikhailovsky Castle or Engineers’ Castle) in St Petersburg. This moated ‘castle’ was designed for the ill-fated and mentally disturbed Emperor Paul I (1754–1801). Brenna treated each façade of the ‘castle’ in a very different manner. Here, for the principal façade of the ‘castle’ a powerful ‘masculine’ classical vocabulary is used by the architect. It is, perhaps, not too far-fetched to compare this dramatic shifting of architectural styles to Paul’s dramatically altering mental states. The archaic moat proved ineffectual in protecting the Tsar for Paul would be assassinated in his ‘castle’ in 1801. Russia’s more recent and turbulent history can be seen in a series of drawings which chart the various aesthetic trends in post-Revolution architecture from Constructivist-inspired pavilions by the avant-garde architect Andrei Konstantinovich Burov (1900–1958) to a design for the second, temporary wooden mausoleum to Lenin on Red Square, Moscow by Alexei Viktorovich Shchusev (1873–1949). Pride of place, however, is taken up by a monumental drawing (nearly two metres squared) of the Palace of the Soviets by Boris Mihailovich Iofan (1891–1976). Dating to 1933–34, and crowned by a colossal statue of Lenin, had this skyscraper been built it would have been the tallest building in the world. A similar ideological and aesthetic struggle can be seen in the twentieth-century German drawings on display. These range from a modernist villa by Mies van der Rohe to a highly Expressionist architectural study by Hans Poelzig (1869–1936), probably from the 1930s. This work should be read in conjunction with another architectural drawing produced in Germany during the 1930s. To fully understand twentieth-century German architectural history we must touch upon darker areas. Poelzig decided to leave Germany due to the rise of National Socialism (he unfortunately died shortly before he was due to emigrate). His avant garde style was in aesthetic and ideological opposition to the new dictatorship. Instead, the Nazis turned to architects such as Hermann Giesler (1898–1987).

Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727-1801), Hercules of Gaul, or the Victorious French People in the image of Hercules, 1800-1801 © Tchoban Foundation

Giesler’s work is represented by a Design for the Reichsstatthalter Building in Linz, Austria, 1943–1945. Working very closely with Hitler (he was also a personal friend of the architect) the Reichsstatthalter (or district hall) formed part of a master plan to transform Linz into one of the Third Reich’s ‘Führer’ cities (dedicated to looted art). Giesler worked on his plan (possibly including this highly finished drawing) right up until the end of the war and it is an eerie thought that this highly finished drawing may well have been presented to Hilter. Following the war, Giesler was sentenced to life imprisonment for World of Antiques & Art 57

his involvement in the mass murders committed at the Mühldorf concentration camp. Although he was an unreconstructed supporter of Hitler, he was released from prison in 1952 and continued to work as an architect. Thus one architectural drawing can act as a document of the most evil period in Europe’s modern history. Of the other important German drawings on display, mention should be made of a very rare work by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann (1662– 1736), the architect of that most riotous Baroque confection — Dresden’s magnificent Zwinger. His Project for the Orangery of the Peterswaldsky von Peterswald Palace, Silesia, c. 1720, although unrealised, bears great similarities to the complex of exuberant pleasure pavilions Pöppelmann built for Augustus the Strong in Dresden. However, the most poignant

Sergei Tchoban (b. 1962), Lenin’s head, 2003 © Tchoban Foundation

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drawing in the German section is in the hand of a sixteen-year-old lad. Unfinished, dating to 1797 and drawn on a small page of a sketch book, it shows a minutely observed tree branch against a brilliant blue sky. This small (admittedly nonarchitectural sketch) is by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841), who would later rebuild much of Berlin in the neoclassical style. This is the earliest known drawing by this great master of German classicism. British draughtsmanship is represented by one, very choice work: Joseph Michael Gandy’s (1771–1843) Design for a Cenotaph of 1804. This truly splendid vision — in that it combines elements of the sublime with beauty — shows the interior of a mausoleum (sometimes identified as that of Agamemnon) with the sarcophagus illuminated by a delicate and mysterious light that emanates from some hidden external source. This drawing entered the collection of the collector and designer Thomas Hope (1769–1831) who designed the richly adorned neoclassical frame in which it is still displayed. Sergei Tchoban is influenced by these great architectural draughtsmen of the past. He is also influenced by the experience of his native St Petersburg and his adopted home of Berlin, both ‘new’ imperial capitals and both cities whose architecture is inextricably linked to extensive waterways. A selection of his own contribution to the tradition of architectural drawing is also on view alongside that of the great draughtsmen of the past from whom he has taken inspiration. In particular, this can be seen in the series of fantasy cityscapes that draw upon both these northern capitals but also evoke the atmospheric etchings of Piranesi. Tchoban’s work as a draughtsman and his role as a collector and as the founder of the Museum für Architecturzeichnung demonstrate why architectural drawing should still have a central role in a modern architectural practice — something with which Sir John Soane would have fully agreed.

Northern Vision: Master Drawings from the Tchoban Foundation is at the The Soane Gallery, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London until 28 September.

THE

YOUNG DÜRER Covering the years 1490-1496, this rarely seen collection of early Dürer drawings at the Courtauld Institute, London shows the young artist breaking free from the accepted artistic idiom to create a new type of expressive art

Elspeth Moncrieff he starting point for this exhibition, which brings together fifteen early drawings by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) from across the world as well as comparable material by his contemporaries, is the Courtauld’s masterpiece The Wise Virgin from the parable of The Wise and Foolish Virgin. Executed in 1493, when Dürer was only twenty-two years old, the drawing is a milestone in the history of art. Here, Durer moves away from the rhetorical, copybook gestures of his predecessors to express the emotional and psychological drama of the moment as the Virgin turns to meet the bridegroom. Even though the figure of the groom is not present, the narrative is implied. However Dürer is still struggling to produce an anatomically correct drawing – the arm is not correctly foreshortened and the Virgin’s right arm and breast are awkwardly drawn. While this is a finished, complex, presentation drawing it still has an immediacy lacking in the work of his contemporaries. Compare, for example, the stiffness of the etching by famous compatriot artist Martin Shongauer (c. 1430–1491) of The Foolish Virgin, an important source for the drawing. The inaccuracies of Dürer’s drawing combined with the sensitive rendering of the head and dress show Dürer struggling to break out of the accepted artistic idiom to create a new type of expressive art. Dürer’s ambition even at this early stage was overwhelming.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), A Wise Virgin (recto), 1493, pen and brown ink, 29.1 x 20 cm. Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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The exhibition focuses on the so called Wanderjahre, the years 1490 to 1496 when, following his apprenticeship, Dürer travelled widely to extend his artistic education. It was a period when he was absorbing all sorts of new influences. His first trip took him south to Colmar (Alsace, France) and Basle (Switzerland) returning briefly to Nuremburg before a second trip to northern Italy. It was with the intention of meeting Martin Schongauer, the leading northern European engraver and printmaker of his time, that he travelled to Colmar, but he arrived shortly after Schongauer’s death to be welcomed by his brothers. Nonetheless he absorbed the importance of printmaking as a medium for disseminating his art. While the norm at the time was to learn to draw through copying prints and copy books, such as that produced by the Master of the Housebook (the master was an anonymous artist responsible for the fine illustrations in the manuscript of Master of the Housebook, a manual for life in the late Middle Ages), Dürer unusually also wanted to study from life. He was after the human drama of a story, portraying the

body with a new expressive power. He wanted to base his art and drawing on accurate observation, in particular correct anatomical drawing. Some of the highlights of this show are Dürer’s remarkable early drawings of his own features and anatomy, a subject he continued with all his life. On the reverse of the drawing of the Foolish Virgin, Dürer drew his left leg twice. He turned the page upside down holding it in his lap. Analysis of the ink shows that it was done at the same time as the drawing of the Virgin, using the other side of this expensive sheet to complete the quick exploratory sketch. He then carefully added the date 1493 to the top of the drawing. Even at this stage, Dürer was aware of the importance of his drawings, recognising them as more than just working studies for compositions. Many of his drawings are annotated by him and he also collected drawings by other people. The drawing of the Virgin is executed on a large sheet with a Strasbourg watermark suggesting that Dürer bought the paper on his travels and may have intended to present this as a large scale exhibition piece. Dürer’s Virgin could well have been drawn with the possibility of turning it into a print.

Above left: Martin Schongauer (1440/45-1491), A Foolish Virgin in half-length, c. 1470-1482, engraving, 14.6 x 11 cm. British Museum, London Abobe right: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Study of the artist’s left leg from two view points(verso), 1493, pen and brown ink, 29.1 x 20 cm. Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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Albrecht Dürer (14711528), The Prodigal Son, c. 1495/96, pen and ink, 21.5 x 22 cm. British Museum, London

While he was apprenticed to prominent Nuremberg engraver and book illustrator Michael Wolgemut (1434–1519) and conversant with the techniques of book engraving, on his travels Dürer learnt of the importance of printmaking in publicising and disseminating his work. Returning to Nuremburg he realised there was a gap in the market and began to produce engravings along the lines of Schongauer, employing agents to help sell his prints. The Prodigal Son is Dürer’s earliest extant drawing designed for a surviving engraving. Apart from the beautiful naturalistic details so praised by Italian painter, writer and historian GiorgioVasari (1511–1574) – who is best known for his important biographies of Italian Renaissance artists – the drawing is extraordinary for the way it captures the psychological drama of the moment through the human figure. Like his drawing of the Virgin, the figure of the Prodigal Son is still not entirely anatomically

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correct, the right leg appears awkward and incorrectly foreshortened but the whole essence of the story is implied in his posture and the dramatic presence Dürer gives to the figure, his supplicating gesture, entwined hands and bare legs. He is not content to merely represent a figure but rather delve into the underlying emotions of the character. The gesture of the Prodigal Son’s hands is central to the whole composition and a drawing by Dürer of his own left hand shows the lengths he went to record his own anatomy – the hand beautifully drawn and cross-hatched in several different positions. His finished compositions have a greater truth to nature than had ever been achieved before. By contrast, the reverse shows a more freely drawn study of his mother but superbly executed in its simplicity, extraordinarily modern for his time is the way he indicates the volume of her head with a few simple pen strokes.

In the self-portrait from Erlangen, Dürer stares at himself with an intense scrutiny. He holds his head in his hand, itself a study in foreshortening, pulling back the skin of his face and exploring how the flesh and the body feels. The intensity of this small, swift sketch predates Rembrandt by 200 years. On the reverse of this drawing is a finished Study for The Holy Family. Again one sees him working on a highly finished, ambitious drawing only to flip it over, producing an extraordinary penetrating study of himself on the reverse. The self-portrait is accompanied by a study of his wife, Agnes Frey (1475–1539). Durer shows her leaning on the table, holding her head in her hands. This small sketch is so modern in feeling, so ahead of its time. The artist’s control of line is remarkable, the way he indicates the volume of

the girl’s head and the line of her hair with a single stroke of the pen. This remarkable exhibition brings us close to the mindset of this hugely ambitious and driven young artist. One can picture him lifting his left leg to briefly sketch it, or resting his left elbow on the table to draw his hand. The study of the figure is at the heart of his art and he is exploring, searching, scrutinising – changing the course of northern European art. Exhibiting his observational studies and sketches alongside the finished drawings shows us how he acquired the knowledge and power to develop the drama of a story. Bringing in the drawings by contemporaries such as the Master of the Housebook provides a sounding board from which we see him develop. Focussing on the Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) Self-portrait (verso), c. 1491-92, pen and ink, 20.4 x 20.8 cm. GraphischeSammlung der Universität, Erlangen

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Foolish Virgin in the Gallery’s own collection, the exhibition enriches our understanding of this famous early drawing and provides a unique opportunity to study so many related works together, many of which – like the Erlangen selfportrait – are rarely, if ever lent. The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure, is at the Courtauld Gallery, London from 17 October 2013 to 12 January 2014.

Left: Master of the Housebook (active c. 1470-1500), A pair of lovers seen from behind, c. 1485/1490s, silverpoint, 17.7 x 13.3 cm. Museum der BildendenKünste Below left: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Three studies of the artist’s left hand (recto), c. 1493-94, pen and ink, 27.1 x 17.9 cm. Albertina Museum, Vienna Below: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Mein Agnes (My Agnes), c. 1494, pen and ink, 15.6 x 9.8 cm. Albertina Museum, Vienna

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THE

VENICE BIENNALE 2013 The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art professionals, collectors and curators descend on Venice every two years to check the health of contemporary art. This fifty-fifth Venice Biennale although overwhelming is still highly relevant, presenting issues and exhibitions central to the international contemporary art scene

Opening of the Australian pavillion by Rupert Myers AM, Chairman, Australian Council for the Arts

Simryn Gill, Half Moon Shine and Eyes and Storms, 2012, 2013, 8 Ilfachrome prints from a series of 23, 125 x 125 cm. Photo by Jenni Carter

Vivienne Sharpe and Tim McCormick t first glance the eighty-eight national pavilions and countless additional official and non-official associated curated shows seem daunting. However, it is only this abundance of work that provides a true survey of international contemporary art

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practice. Furthermore, you must commit to seeing everything for that one gem to appear: the Angolan pavilion that was awarded the Golden Palm for the best pavilion with its amazing photographic installation by Edson Chagas of derelict objects in the Angolan capital, capturing the beauty in everyday objects that usually pass unnoticed. This is what the Venice Biennale can provide: a moment when an undiscovered artist, curator, and subject matter can be enlightening, awe-inspiring, and simply transcendent.

The Australian Pavilion is positioned within the Biennale Gardens (Giardini della Biennale) and is one of 29 pavilions within the Biennale Gardens, all built at different periods by various countries. The Australian Pavilion, owned and managed by the Australia Council, was designed by renowned Australian architect Philip Cox and opened in 1988

Catherine de Zegher and Simryn Gill, Here art grows on trees. Australian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2013 Photo by Jenni Carter

This edition of the Biennale presents a more refined nuance than the bombast of previous editions, evidenced by the American Pavilion. Here Sarah Sze creates a delicate world of everyday objects as opposed to Allora and Calzadillas’s, the previous American participants, over-the-top machismo. The highlight of the Arsenale curated exhibition was a sublime Walter De Maria installation that worked beautifully with its surrounds when last time Urs Fischer’s audacious statue candle and Christian Marclay’s Clock stole the show. This more refined sensibility was evidenced in the International Pavilion curated by Massimiliano Giono. The exhibition focused around the theme of the ‘Encyclopedic Palace’, a work executed in 1955 by a self-taught artist, Marino Auriti, who created a scale model of an imaginary museum to house all worldly knowledge. The exhibition uncovers a rich vein of art by current and historic artists that were not easily identifiable as mainstream, creating a veritable storehouse of human imagination. These artists were either self-taught or had not been discovered in an international sense previously. World famous artists are neglected in favour of an historic look at contemporary art practice. Some curators questioned the focus of this particular exhibition and the choices made. A common refrain was that many of the artists are dead, therefore technically not contemporary. They must have missed the wonderful Fischl & Weiss installation of hundreds of simple clay figurines of mundane still-lives that captured the imagination in its completeness or R. Crumb’s epic graphic, and somewhat naughty, depiction of the book of Genesis. Contemporary art is always informed by the works that have gone before exploring the historical themes of found objects, the natural environment and our social condition. Such themes, whether by design or chance, were mirrored across many of the national pavilions.

Below: Simryn Gill, Untitled, 2004, still from Super 8 mm film. Courtesy the artist Bottom: Simryn Gill, Naught, 2010 (detail), objects in the shape of zeros found on walks, methods of display and dimensions variable Photo by Jenni Carter

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Simryn Gill, Let Go, Lets Go, 2013, collage and ink on 12 paper and wood panels, each 120 x 280 cm, 144 books Photo by Jenni Carter

Simryn Gill. Photo by Jamie North

Simryn Gill, the Australian representative, exemplified this. Her site specific project entitled Here Art Grows on Trees presents paper works which will degrade over the time of the Biennale and return to an organic state. She has, by removing the roof of the pavilion, ensured the demise of her art, or perhaps pre-empted the demolition of the pavilion. She provided a lyric entrance where she created a swarm of extracted words from books. This insect-like installation draws you into the pavilion where your attention focuses on a series of stunning photographs. Here, she creates artistic juxtaposition by seemingly celebrating images of open cut mines that ravage their immediate environment. Australian participation was also evident at the Palazzo Bembo on the Rialto, where a curated exhibition Personal Structures, featured five Australian artists. Some are well known, such as Sam Jinks, Dale Frank and the indigenous artist, Sally Gabori, and others previously unknown but now with a Venetian pedigree, like Selby Ginn showing her Golemesque leather giant and Yhonnie Scarce. The environmental theme continued through other pavilions with the Belgium artist, Berlinde De Bruyckere’s huge fallen tree, occupying the whole pavilion, a metaphor for psychological and social collapse. Alfredo Jaar, at the Chilean pavilion, created a model Giardini which every three minutes submerged in a murky pool foretelling a possible future. The Russian artist commented on the destructive influences of money and power, whilst Jeremy Deller in the British pavilion critiques contemporary British society by parodying news stories. The Portuguese sailed their pavilion, in reality a boat, from Lisbon, docking in the lagoon. Their artist, Joana Vasconcelos created a magical

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experience of a woven wonderland simulating a mysterious dark sea cave with pulsating fairy lights. Several satellite exhibitions are most noteworthy including the Prada Foundation’s historical investigations of contemporary art and the not to be missed Palazzo Fortuny exhibition. This year it featured the works and collection of Spanish artist, Antoni Tapies. The other must see was at Palazzo Grassi where Rudolf Stingel carpeted the entire interior. Simryn Gill should be congratulated on walking the fine line between bombast and striking beauty that the Biennale requires of artists in order to stand out from the crowd. She accepted the challenge and delivered a memorable pavilion that does herself and Australia a great service. Kudos should also go to Simon Mordant, this year’s commissioner. Given the work he has done to achieve this year’s edition we are assured the exciting redevelopment of the Australian pavilion is in the best of hands. This is the last iteration of the Biennale to utilise Philip Cox’s temporary Australian home in Venice. The building achieved precisely what it was designed for: to allow Australia to take a permanent position in the Giardini, the last country to be offered such an honour entirely due to the efforts of Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, and without channelling Robert Hughes, at the time Australia and our art scene was still in its adolescence. Indeed, the Pavilion itself has grown to be apologetic to its immediate neighbours. A new pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall will rise in its place. Australian contemporary art has reached an international maturity that needs a more substantial presence. Our artists need a greater stage in their dialogue with their international peers. This will be delivered by 2015 and will challenge current and future artists to ensure Australia can be proud of our international standing. The fifty-fifth Venice Biennale is open to the public until November at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various other venues around the city of Venice.

HOME GROWN

MILES EVERGOOD THE REDISCOVERY OF AN AUSTRALIAN ARTIST The Australian artist Miles Evergood (1871–1939) spent the formative years of his career in America and Europe, only returning to Australia in 1931. His work as a vibrant colourist was well received by his fellow countrymen

Gael Hammer

Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Self Portrait, c.1938, etching, 13 x 6.2 cm. Private collection

orn Myer Blashki in Melbourne, 1871, the eleventh of fourteen children, his family moved four times in his first eight years setting a pattern for his life. He was never able to settle anywhere or find a place he belonged.1

Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Queensland landscape, c. 1932, oil on board, 30.5 x40.7 cm

Myer’s father, Phillip, was born Favel Wagczewski in Russian-controlled Poland in 1837. Immigrating to England before his eighteenth birthday, he was probably avoiding the twenty-five year military conscription imposed by Czar Nicholas I on all first-born male Jews. Favel found employment in Manchester with a tassel maker who encouraged him to change his name to the more pronounceable Phillip Blashki.

Right: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Flame tree, Brisbane, c.1931, watercolour, 24.5 x 34.7 cm Bottom right: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Wattle and gum, c. 1932, oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm

In 1857 Phillip married Warsaw-born Hannah Immergut Potash, a widow with an infant, and together they planned a new life in America. The ship they had booked passage on left without them but with all their worldly goods; in exchange, they were offered passage to Australia, arriving in 1858. From that unplanned journey onwards came a series of devastating misfortunes, eventually followed by success for his masonic regalia firm P. Blashki & Sons, which is possibly best known for being engraved on the Sheffield Shield, often considered the most significant piece of Australian-made silver. It was designed and made in 1894 in Phillip’s Melbourne workshop and is still the prize for the annual interstate cricket competition. An earlier example of important Blashki silver is the Hordern Shield awarded for cricket competitions in Sydney. Myer’s first art show was said to have been when he was fifteen. However, it was his ability with horses that suggested to his father that an army career could be appropriate as a career in art was not even to be contemplated. Myer enlisted as a lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment, Victorian Mounted Rifles under Colonel Templeton, training with Captain John Monash of the Artillery. But his consuming passion was art. Myer’s brother Aaron, eleven years his senior, was instrumental in introducing Myer to his theatre friends who probably issued the invitation for Myer to join painting excursions at the Heidelberg cottage of theatrical entrepreneur Charles Tait. When Myer was showing characteristic stubbornness about following a career as an artist, it would likely have been Aaron who would have suggested photography. Aaron, now living in Sydney, had a financial interest in the popular portrait photographers, Falk Studios. So, Myer, aged twenty, became a photographer’s apprentice. Where he learned much about portraiture, eventually becoming a skilled photographer. His Sydney earnings, despite all parental and sibling censure, enabled his enrolment in the drawing class of Frederick McCubbin at the School of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, in 1892. That year’s class included Max Meldrum, George Coates, Leon ‘Sonny’ Pole, James Quinn, George Bell,

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Miles Evergood (1871–1939), ‘Boomerang’, Elizabeth Bay, c. 1934, watercolour, 24.5 x 34.7 cm

Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Penseroso, c. 1934, detail of etching, 19 x 12.5 cm

Hugh Ramsay, Leslie Wilkie, A.M.E. Bale and Rose McPherson (known later as Margaret Preston). McCubbin was a friend as well as master, inviting students to his home at weekends. Camaraderie that grew between many in the group lasted all their lives. Myer again enrolled in McCubbin’s drawing class in 1893. In 1894, Myer travelled to Sydney meeting Robert Louis Stevenson who was visiting the city. The outcome of this encounter was a sketch of the renowned novelist shortly before his death. That year Myer also exhibited in the Royal Art Society of New South Wales show. On 10 February 1895 his youngest sister, Beccie noted in her diary: ‘Myer has returned from Sydney. I think he has improved greatly in some ways but he has lost some of his freshness of thought and expression and is more practical. He took a sketch of me last night which is rather good.’ Members of the family remember that he sketched all his sisters, but only that of Eva (the fourth of his seven sisters) still exists. Myer enrolled in the painting classes of Bernard Hall at the Victorian Art Gallery School from February to June 1895. For their May exhibition, the Victorian Artists Society accepted six of his paintings. To be shown by this esteemed society

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was a notable achievement, giving him enough self-confidence to stop attending Hall’s classes. ‘It took me only a little while to realise the limitations of such an outlook’, he wrote later. 2 At the end of the following year Myer was contracted by The Champion (1895–97), a Melbourne weekly with socialist leanings promoting women’s rights, to do this short-lived publication’s front cover woodcut cartoons and line drawings of theatrical people for the stage reviews. John McDonald states ‘In the 1880s, it became an article of faith that no colonial artist could consider his education complete without spending a few months in a French atelier. To be fair, the Americans, the rest of Europe and even the British had the same idea.’ Artist travellers to Paris included Tom Roberts, Fred McCubbin and Charles Conder. When they returned, it was camping out in the countryside painting directly from nature en plein air that gave a focus for fraternity and group identity, introducing, in McDonald’s words, ‘Australia’s unorthodox brand of Impressionism.’3 The Australian economic climate, especially in Melbourne after the 1890s depression, left little money for investment in art. It was also believed that art study could be completed only in Paris or

From top: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Collaroy Beach, 1935 (Sydney NSW), oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Fruit study, c. 1934, watercolour, 24.5 x 34.7 cm Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Bush Fire, c. 1936, oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm

London. The pinnacle of success was to be hung at the London Royal Academy or the Paris Salon, understandable when all the art teachers in Australia had come from the European tradition. Myer’s restless and adventurous spirit now sought wider horizons. At the beginning of 1898 he left Sydney bound for America. He would not return for thirty-three years. In Honolulu, Myer found an illustrator’s position with the Star Bulletin. The job sent him to Tahiti and the Philippines, to record the Battle of Manila Bay for The Overland Magazine during the SpanishAmerican War. This gave him a foot in the door of the art department of Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner. There he also received enough painting commissions in the then very popular Barbizon style to enable him to reach his nirvana, New York. Carrying a stack of paintings, he strode into Boussod Valadon Gallery on Fifth Avenue and requested an exhibition. The gallery’s manager was so surprised at this audacity that he agreed. Myer might have been good at faking Barbizons, but a similar looking movement arising at that time was the Tonal School of America. It is more likely that fortunate timing rather than Myer’s audacity persuaded the gallery manager that showing his pictures might prove rewarding. Despite this success life in New York was difficult and Myer needed raise finances if he planned to make the city his home. In 1899, the political situation in South Africa between the Boers and the British was creating virulent antiBritish press in New York. Britain was finding it difficult to raise an army to go to South Africa and was offering free fares to London as an inducement. Myer took up the offer as he was still an officer in Her Majesty’s forces, ostensibly to enlist in the Roughriders who were embarking for Cape Town, or at least that is how the story was reported in a Melbourne newspaper. But whether or not he attempted to enlist is unknown. What is known is that he contacted wealthy merchant Josiah Perry and his daughter, Flora, whom he likely met at an art show in Sydney. They married in St Martin-in-the-Fields on 10 February 1900. Myer was then aged 28. The devastation this news must have caused the family in Australia is not recorded although Phillip

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Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Study for Pasture, watercolour, 24.5 x 34.7 cm

disinherited him. Perry endowed Flora with two thousand five hundred pounds annually which was not transferrable and would cease with her death. With that very adequate sum, the couple set up home in Manhattan. On 26 October 1901, their only child, Philip Howard Francis Dixon Blashki, was born. This began a decade of halcyon New York years for Myer. The Blashkis were living in a small community of artists and writers, including Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser and Albert Ryder, the eccentric reclusive artist who used a thick impasto painting technique that Myer was later to favour to the amazement of the Australian art world. Through these neighbours the Blashkis came to know actress Sarah Bernhardt, writer Gertrude Stein, dancer Alla Nazimova and other contemporary celebrities. Myer’s arrival in New York coincided with increasing interest in the Tonalist School, whose self-styled leader was Henry Ward Ranger. Inspired by James McNeill Whistler, it evolved in the late 1890s as an American heir to the Barbizon tradition. Tonalists, who were also known as the ‘Old Lyme School’, included John Twatchman, Albert Ryder, J. Alden Weir, Gifford Beale, Ralph Blakelock and George Inness.

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Myer soon adapted to this new art scene. He was doubtless at least initially appreciative of Ranger’s friendship and mentoring, and interested to see how his neighbour Albert Pinkham Ryder worked. He was elected to both the Lotos and the Salmagundi Clubs, both of which today continue to be selective organisations aiming to promote art and artists of high calibre — holding quality exhibitions and attracting discriminating patrons meant that art critics and the buying public began seeking him out. ‘[Blashki’s] is a work of individuality and new entirely. There is expressed a mind that has not been seen before.’4 This success together with the annuity from his wife allowed Myer to spend time in Europe visiting Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France and England. In France he met Monet in his studio and discussed the division of colour with him. Each summer the little family would holiday in rural areas of Maine, Connecticut, Highland Falls, Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia — Myer always sketching and painting his characteristically austere landscapes. In September 1909, eight-year-old Philip was sent to attend Stubbington Preparatory School in England. In 1910 his parents followed him, a move that resulted in Myer not being represented

in the seminal International Exhibition of Modern Art, held in 1913 and known as the Armory Show. It was the decisive point in the evolution of taste in art in America, introducing the works of Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Rousseau and other Europeans whose work had influenced artists but until then, had not been seen by the American public. At this exhibition, the local artists also hung their own work juxtaposed with the Europeans who inspired them, and the American public then began to understand what the local artists were trying to express. In London, where he was known from previous visits, Myer was well-received. He became friendly with writer Israel Zangwill, the sculptor Jacob Epstein and artists Walter Sickert, Augustus John, and other anti-academicians. It was this group who challenged art values in Britain at the beginning of the century. Together with many other expatriate Australian artists he gathered at the Chelsea Arts Club. Several enlisted at the outbreak of World War I, serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps at Wandsworth Hospital. Myer joined up with John Longstaff, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, A.H. Fullwood, George Bell and Joseph Wolinski. Young Philip was eligible for a cadet commission at Osborne Naval Academy because his father was still a British officer. After the interview, Philip was refused admission, so Myer wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston

Churchill, asking if a change of name would make a difference. Churchill sent a hand written reply, implying that ‘Blashki’ was not really a suitable name in an Anglo-Saxon navy. Sometime between August 1914 and May 1915, Myer officially became Miles and they changed their surname by deed poll to Evergood. Miles became a sergeant in the War Office. However, the war experience was so traumatic he was obliged to spend some time in an institution. In a letter written to Sir John Monash by his sister, Louise Rosenhain dated 30 October 1918, she stated that Miles Evergood had been in touch with her, wondering if John recalled the old days ‘when he was in the Infantry and you, the Artillery.’ Miles offered Louise to do a portrait of Monash, but was never realised. Despite Flora’s uncertain health and ongoing illness, and her clearly being happier in England surrounded by family Miles was steadfast in his intention of returning to America. With the completion of Philip’s higher education, they returned to the United States. Although England received artists well, the cutting edge of modernity was emanating from New York. In 1927 Flora died, depriving Miles not only of a life partner but also of her father’s generous allowance. The loss of this regular income meant that Miles had to live frugally and became quite unwell. About 1930, he met a young carpet designer, Pauline (Polly) Konitzer Romero, and

Above left: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Peace, c. 1937 oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Portrait of a Woman, [n.d.], etching in brown ink, 11 x 8 cm

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Above: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Mt Dandenong No.2 from Ridge Rd, c. 1937 (Melbourne VIC) oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm Right: Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Self Portrait, c. 1931 oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm

despite the Depression, they decided impulsively to take a trip to Australia. Their ship docked in Brisbane where Miles was stimulated by the sunshine and vivid colours. Queensland Art Gallery must have been astonished by his trenchant criticism of their artistic buying policy. ‘Many better pictures could have been acquired for less money Local art needs encouragement and is sadly neglected.’5 He consistently encouraged young people and innovative ideas. In a personal letter he wrote: ‘The terrible stagnating dead, flat and uninspired Art of England with its academic limitations is still accepted by authorities in Australia.’ His February 1932 exhibition was widely reviewed in daily papers including The Daily Mail, Brisbane Courier Mail, The Telegraph and The Daily Star. He received a less welcoming reception in Sydney. Art administrators were not pleased to read: ‘Any Australian student who gains his conception of the art of today from the Sydney Gallery is in the position of the science student who is asked to ignore the works of Einstein and Edison,’ as he told The Sydney Morning Herald. A redeeming feature was the joy of revisiting old haunts, and the birth of a friendship with a soul mate, the art critic and journalist, Gavin Long. His paintings produced during his time in both Brisbane and Sydney are vibrant. In 1935, Miles and Polly went to Melbourne. Here at last he was warmly welcomed home by his artist friends — especially notable were George Bell, Rupert Bunny and John Longstaff. He again sought old haunts, painting with extraordinary vigour on the beach at Beaumaris and in Heidelberg, before finally settling in Kalorama in the Dandenong Ranges. He held two

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exhibitions at the Athenaeum Gallery. In December 1935 he was favourably reviewed although one reviewer thought his work undisciplined and flamboyant. Two years later he held a joint show with his son, Philip, who sent sixteen works from America. Philip was now a recognised force there in the social realist style of painting. This exhibition came in the midst of a controversy over the establishment of Robert Gordon Menzies’ sponsored Australian Academy of Art. The conservatives liked the idea of maintaining a school of traditional landscapes. The progressives saw it as a giant step backwards. Miles’ brilliant landscapes were received with faint praise. Philip’s huge people-filled comments on American life on the street and of the moment were viewed by many with anger, ridicule and lack of understanding of their environment. But the students were amazed and excited. By dint of sheer out-politicking the Gallery trustees, Miles was able to have one of Philip’s works, Art on the Beach, accepted as a gift to the National Gallery of Victoria and Joseph and His Brothers, to the Geelong Art Gallery. In January 1939, Miles suffering from cancer, died suddenly in Melbourne. Polly held two retrospective memorial exhibitions and the National Gallery of Victoria bought Pasture, which was very likely the last canvas he completed prior to his death. Polly returned to the USA in 1946, taking the bulk of Miles’ work with her. It remained in her possession until shortly before her death in California in 1984.

Charles Gray, a collector found the pictures at a flea market. He liked them for their intrinsic appeal, knew nothing of the names Blashki or Evergood but purchased them anyway and began enquiring from Australian galleries because the dealer had Australian newspaper cuttings. At exactly the same time, I was researching Miles’ life in order to give a paper to the Australian Jewish Historical Society. Deborah Edwards, then at the Queensland Art Gallery, put us in touch. There developed an extraordinary partnership between us existing to this day. In 1988 a large Evergood retrospective exhibition was held at the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Museum. It was later shown at the Jewish Museum of Australia, at the Great Synagogue, Sydney, and at Carrick Hill Gallery in Adelaide. His works are held today by the state galleries in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Castlemaine, the National Gallery of Australia, as well as by private collectors. His son Philip wrote: ‘My father’s work shows many gifts — he was a splendid craftsman in paint. He knew a good deal about the chemistry of pigments and even for some years made his own brushes. His eye for colour and his sense of the subtle variations in the moods of nature is unusually keen. He had a poetic lyrical turn of mind which always is noteworthy in every bit of paper or canvas he touched. He felt for the medium of paint as Jongkind or Sisely or Constable did. But above all he was a lover of Nature and of human beings — in this he never wavered.’ Evergood’s work is hard to categorise. In New York in the early twentieth century, he was seen by the critics as something decidedly different. His outdoor excursions were to stark glacial sites, painting the gritty realism of rocks, and skies, rarely romanticised versions. The available corpus is small, but there is enough evidence to see that his style matured during his English years when he was able to spend time especially in France, where the Fauves — whose works were characterised by vibrant colours — were a powerful influence on him. His works on paper from this period are like Constable in their intense obsession with clouds. He travelled to Bournemouth, walked around Poole Harbour, on to Corfe Castle and then Wales. Always in his sketch book are the graphic

expressions of nature, human activity hardly noticed, on a rock, under a tree or bush. Roman aqueducts, Corfe Castle, country stiles and bridges are dwarfed by trees, clouds and rolling fields. There is a harshness in Wales, of torrid waterfalls, huge rocks, swirling streams. He expresses the qualitative difference between the weight of nimbus clouds and the weight of rocks and land forms. Nearly a century after they were painted, even his watercolours have lost nothing in their jewel-like vibrancy and vividness. The colours, pure and separate, come alive. His return to Australia unleashed a pent-up hunger for colour. ‘The Antipodean sunshine floods every painting, indoors or out. He cannot get enough of the brilliant light he missed in the northern hemisphere. His use of colour was described as “ardent” and “courageous”, harmonising tints which would seem to defy peaceful association’.6 He succeeds in interpreting essential colour elements unhindered by academic restrictions. At last his robust and energetic passion unleashes the opalescence of paint, allowing volume, depth and tremulous light to overcome the constraints imposed by form.

Miles Evergood (1871–1939), Narrabeen Lakes, c. 1934, oil on board, 30.5 x 40.7 cm

Gael Hammer’s forthcoming book Miles Evergood – No End of Passion is due out in December. www.milesevergood.com.au NOTES 1 For a complete history of the Blashki family see G. R. Hammer, Phillip Blashki – a Victorian Patriarch, Blashki Books, Melbourne, 1986 2 Letter from M. Evergood to G. Long, Brisbane, 18 March 1932 3 John McDonald, Art of Australia Vol. 1: Exploration to Federation, Macmillan Australia, 2008, p. 533 4 H.P. Du Bois, ‘An Art Lover’s Notebook’, New York American, March 1902 5 ‘Mr. Evergood Attacks Policy of Art Gallery’, unidentified newspaper, Brisbane, March 1932 6 The Bulletin, 11 December 1935

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The Gold Coast Antique Centre is an exciting gallery in Miami with over 25 dealers displaying an ever changing range of rare antiques and collectables. It’s an Aladdin’s cave of treasures including the finest glassware, antique furniture, jewellery, clocks, toys, movie memorabilia and much more.

The Gold Coast Antique Centre is a must see venue located at

2076 Gold Coast Highway, Miami • Phone 07 5572 0522 • Mobile: 0414 338 363 More than a website – shop online @ www.goldcoastantiquecentre.com.au OPEN 7 DAYS 10 - 5 Sun 10 - 4

JAMES

MCNEILL WHISTLER AN AMERICAN’S LOVE OF THE THAMES A controversial painter, a master printmaker, an obsessive craftsman, a superb draughtsman, a dandy, wit and confrontational character – all these things and more was the American-born artist James McNeill Whistler

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Portrait of Whistler, 1859, etching and drypoint on paper, 22.5 x 15 cm © The Trustees of the British Museum

James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903), The Last of Old Westminster, 1862, oil on canvas, 60.96 x 78.1 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, A. Shuman Collection

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James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Wapping, 1860-1864, oil on canvas, 72 x 101.8 cm. John Hay Whitney Collection. Image courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Margaret F. MacDonald here are many conflicting opinions and anecdotes about James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) but one of which there is no argument was his on-going love affair not with a model or mistress, but old Father Thames. The great river which runs through what was, at the time, the largest city in the world and centre of the British Empire, upon which shone (as said Whistler and many others) ‘the sun that never sets’. Despite being born in land-bound Lowell, Massachusetts, Whistler had considerable experience of the sea and ships. In his youth he lived near the eastern sea-board of the United States (one of his earliest major commissions on arrival in France was from a Stonington seacaptain), and he had stayed in New York, Baltimore and Washington. A cousin, Donald McNeill Fairfax, was a naval officer, and

Whistler, having failed at West Point, worked briefly for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he learned to etch maps. In 1855 he abandoned America, sailing for Europe to study art in Paris. Shortly after his arrival he wrote home: Now Mama, shall I tell about my long long voyage? ... we were all of us like an amiable family, over which Captain Horey presides as a kind of goodnatured Patriarch ...the weather was delightful, and the vessel went smoothly across the Atlantic – when I say across I don't mean in a straight line for we wandered about and sideled [sic] along in the most extraordinary manner, finding ourselves in all sorts of latitudes and remaining in different parts of the Ocean for days, without any particular knowledge as to where we would go next! ... so you can fancy with what joy we saw the land! [we] left the Amazon at Dartmouth in a Pilot boat, and came by railway to London. 1

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Above: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Battersea Reach from Lindsey Houses, 1864-1871 © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2013

This was the third transatlantic voyage undertaken by the well-travelled young artist. He had already visited London, staying with his halfsister Deborah and her husband Sir Francis Seymour Haden (1818–1910) a surgeon and wellregarded etcher who encouraged and influenced Whistler, and they enjoyed visiting art galleries and attending lectures together at the Royal Academy. Whistler even sailed to and from Russia via Britain and Scandinavia; his later life was punctuated with one voyage to Valparaiso and frequent ferry trips across the English Channel. After his student years in Paris, Whistler settled in London, and was immediately drawn to the Thames, working in the busy, and sometimes dangerous, docklands around Wapping, Rotherhithe and Greenwich. A ‘Thames Set’ of etchings, started in 1859 and exhibited in the 1860s to considerable acclaim, was completed and published in 1871. The Port of London on the River Thames, the biggest and busiest port in the world, fascinated him. He focussed at first on the life of the Thames, the sailors and stevedores, whores and workers, the longshoremen and ‘wharfingers’ (the old term for a keeper or owner of a wharf), and the boats – every size of boat from rowboats to barges to paddle steamers and

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the great sailing clippers, ships propelled by wind and steam. Scenes of city life, the bustling, squalid, vigorous life of the riverside, appealed to him. He found himself in Dickens’ London – he had read the novels hot off the press while still at West Point. Whistler’s etching of Limehouse includes the pub The Bunch of Grapes, which was immortalised as the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend.2 Also in the back of his mind may have been the writings of Baudelaire, urging painters to depict scenes from modern life. When etchings from the ‘Thames Set’ were exhibited at Martinet’s gallery in Paris in 1862, Baudelaire praised Whistler’s choice and treatment of subject matter: ‘A marvellous tangle of rigging, yardarms and rope; a chaos of fog, furnaces and gushing smoke; the profound and complicated poetry of a vast capital.’3 Work on the etchings alternated with paintings of the river. He acquired patrons among rich merchants who commissioned pictures of the Thames and its bridges: in 1862 George du Maurier wrote that Whistler was ‘painting river pictures for the Greeks’. For instance, Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge (Addison Gallery of American Art) was commissioned by Alexander

Constantine Ionides, shipping merchant, art patron and collector, and The Last of Old Westminster (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) was bought by George John Cavafy, partner in G. J. Cavafy & Co. These atmospheric, realistic, depictions of the river were admired by art critics at the Royal Academy. But it wasn’t easy to etch or paint the bustling life of the riverside. When Whistler was at work on the painting Wapping (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) he told one of his closest friends, French painter and printmaker Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904): I assure you that I have never attempted such a difficult subject – it will certainly be said that it is not finished – because as the boats leave I have only just time to put in their shades of colour – you understand me – and for those who are in the habit of making their seascapes at home and to paint models and toys for warships my real boats will not be finished.4

The freshness of the result comes mostly from the treatment of colour – expressive brushstrokes of white and grey, cream and ochre, pale blues and deep browns, set off by a single red funnel, contrast with the rather sombre appearance of the figures on an inn balcony in the foreground. These include Whistler’s friend the French-born British painter, etcher and sculptor Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), and Whistler’s Irish mistress, redhaired Joanna Hiffernan (1843–?), the famous ‘White Girl’, here classed as a prostitute or at least a courtesan, and who patiently posed again and again for this and other portraits. Work on Wapping overlapped with painting and etching other Thames subjects. Shortly before Wapping was exhibited at the Royal Academy, Whistler wrote again to Fantin: ‘I have also done two little pictures of the Thames – an old bridge, and an effect of fog – I thought they were all right when I finished but now I don’t care for them Oh Fantin I know so little – things do not go James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge, 1859–63, oil on canvas, 63.8 x 76 cm. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. Gift of Cornelius N. Bliss 1928

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Above: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Battersea Bridge, 1878, etching and drypoint, 20.16 x 29.37 cm. Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker Left: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge, 1872–75, oil on canvas, 68.26 x 51.2 cm © Tate London 2012. Presented by the Art Fund 1905

quickly!’5 The foggy scene may have been the mysteriously misty Battersea Reach from Lindsey Houses (The Hunterian). The ‘old bridge’ was probably Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge, commissioned in 1859 and finally exhibited at the 97th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy, London, in 1865. Another possibility is the vigorously painted oil, The Last of Old Westminster, painted in 1862. The river was one of the vital arteries of the city, but to cross the city required either boat or bridge. The river provided a steady income for the toll-keepers and ferrymen but a burden for workers. Navigating the fast flowing river with its dangerous currents could be difficult, particularly near the bridges, but at other times and places it was broad and peaceful (if smelly). The river was both a vital route but also a barrier. From its source to the sea there were over 200 bridges – pedestrian, road, and eventually rail bridges. The first Roman bridges across the Thames were at London Bridge and Staines:

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James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Vauxhall Bridge, 1861, etching © Victoria & Albert Museum

thereafter a succession of bridges in wood and stone succeeded one another. Whistler returned again and again to depicting old Battersea Bridge, which crosses the river Thames between Chelsea (where he lived for many years) and Battersea. The old timber bridge dated back to 1771–72, and was built by John Philips under the direction of Henry Holland. The old bridge, battered and dangerous, was closed to traffic in 1883 and demolished in 1890. The bridge commissioned by Sir Joseph Bazalgette (chief commissioner to the Metropolitan Board of Works) was built to replace it, between 1886 and 1890. Between 1859 and 1879 Whistler portrayed the old bridge in drawings, etchings, lithographs, lithotints, paintings, as well as on a folding screen and on a wall in his house in Chelsea. The first painting by Whistler to show the whole bridge was Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge. It is painted carefully and truthfully, and is topographically accurate (it shows the factories of Battersea, the Crystal Palace on the horizon) and yet it was also painted freely. ‘One seems to be looking back right into last November, through a little square in the Academy walls,’ wrote one reviewer when it hung at the Royal Academy in 1865.6 A series of paintings of the bridge and river followed, during which Whistler evolved a simpler, more stylised technique. Liquid creamy brushstrokes swept across the canvas, a restricted colour scheme created harmonies of colour emphasised by the titles such as Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach (Freer Gallery of

Art). He concentrated on painting the river through mist and fog, by twilight or at night, to produce the famous and even notorious ‘nocturnes’. His compositions showed the strong influence of Japanese woodcuts, the work of Hiroshige (1797–1858) in particular for instance, in the iconic Nocturne: Blue and Gold, Old Battersea Bridge (1872–5; Tate). In these images are seen his experimental and challenging attempts to blend East and West, classical and contemporary art and culture in his work. An American in London, Whistler and the Thames is at Dulwich Art Gallery, London 6 October 2013–12 January 2014, and travels to the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts and the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC

NOTES 1 10 October 1855 2 Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, online at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk (G. 48) 3 C. Baudelaire, ‘Peintres et Aqua-fortistes’, Le Boulevard, [14 September 1862], and in Revue Anecdotique, 2 April 1862; C. Pichis, ed., Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Complètes, Paris, 1866, pp. 1148, 1150 4 January/June 1861. GUW 08042. GUW is the abbreviation for Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855–1903, ed. by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp, including The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855–1880, ed. by Georgia Toutziari, online edition, Centre for Whistler Studies, University of Glasgow, 2003–2006, www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/index.htm 5 4 January–3 February 1864, ibid, GUW 08036 6 ‘English Pictures in 1865’, Fortnightly Review, vol. 1, 1865, pp. 665–6

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EAST END STORIES

THE PARRISH ART MUSEUM

Alicia Longwell Parrish Art Museum, view from west. Photograph © Matthu Placek Installation view of Alice Aycock Drawings: Some Stories Are Worth Repeating. Photograph © Hufton + Crow

he collection of the Parrish Art Museum and its new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron reflects the landscape and history of eastern Long Island. Situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound, defined by its beautiful beaches, spectacular landscapes, and incomparable light, the East End seems a world away from New York City. Ever since the Long Island Railroad was extended to the region in 1870, city dwellers

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have made the trip east for rest and recreation. Some of the earliest visitors were the artists who found inspiration in the picturesque windmills, saltboxes, and beaches, among them members of the Tile Club. The Tile Club was a group of some thirty notable New York painters, sculptors, and architects — including Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, J. Alden Weir, John Henry Twachtman, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White — who met together between 1877 and 1887. The club, which organised group excursions and sketching trips, did much to popularise plein air painting and the impressionist style. The group’s 1878 visit was sponsored by Scribner’s Monthly magazine in exchange for a written account of their adventure, which was published in the February 1879 issue and helped establish the allure of the north and south forks of Long Island. In 1891 the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, the first out-of-doors art school in the United States, opened to allow amateur and professional art students from all over the country to study plein air painting under the tutelage of the eminent American painter William Merritt Chase. One contemporary observer commented, ‘Shinnecock Hills is a synonym of what is utterly barren and useless.’ Yet it was on that scrubby, exposed landscape, donated by Samuel Parrish, that the school was established. Chase served as director of the school from its inception until 1902. A McKim, Mead and White house was built for him and his family along with a studio that was surrounded by cottages. Life at what was called the Art Village consisted of hard work mixed with recreational activities. On Monday mornings, Chase conducted formal criticism in the school studio; on Tuesdays, he spent the day outside with models and criticised the work of his students while they did their plein air sketching. The students worked independently outdoors on

drawings and paintings during the rest of the week. Many of the social activities in the Southampton community were organised by the students of the Art Village. The Parrish Art Museum opened during Chase’s tenure at Shinnecock, but its original mission did not include the collection of American art. Samuel Parrish, scion of a wealthy Philadelphia family, first developed his taste for the Italian Renaissance while a student at Harvard. Parrish began collecting art seriously in the early 1880s, shortly after moving his successful law practice from Philadelphia to New York. At the same time, he regularly visited his family home in Southampton. While traveling in Italy in the fall of 1896, Parrish decided to build a museum in Southampton to house his rapidly growing collection of Italian Renaissance art and reproductions of classical Greek and Roman statuary. The first Art Museum at Southampton, as the Parrish was then known, was a single large exhibition hall. Constructed in wood and entered from Main Street, the hall was built during the summer of 1897. Parrish’s death in 1932, coupled with the Depression and the war years that followed, slowed developments at the museum. In 1941, the Village of Southampton accepted the building, grounds and founding collection as a gift from Parrish’s estate. In the 1950s, Mrs Robert Malcolm Littlejohn, a civic-minded Southampton resident with an abiding interest in the arts, became president of the Parrish’s Board of Trustees and assumed the momentous task of reviving the museum. Perhaps most important, Mrs Littlejohn believed the museum should look not only to past civilisations, but to American artists, especially those who had worked on the east end of Long Island. Her estimable collection of American paintings, including those of William Merritt Chase, Thomas Moran and Frederick Childe Hassam, which she bequeathed to the Parrish in 1961, became the core of the outstanding collection of American paintings held by the museum today.

Jennifer Bartlett (American b. 1941), At Sands Point X16, 1985-1986, oil on canvas, 91.44 x 60.96 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Douglas Baxter in memory of Jay Rogers William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916), Alice in the Shinnecock Studio, c. 1900, oil on canvas, 96.83 x 108.58 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Mrs Robert Malcolm Littlejohn, Littlejohn Collection

Rackstraw Downes (American, b. England 1939), Currie’s Woods Housing Project, Jersey City, Buildings One and Three, Vacated and Fenced for Demolition, 1992, oil on canvas, 73.66 x 192.12 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Mr & Mrs Robert F. Carney Fund, partial gift of Rex Auchincloss

Chuck Close (American, b. 1940), Alex/Reduction Block, 1993, screenprint, 182.88 x 147.32 cm. Parrish Art Museum, Museum. Daniel Downs Bequest Fund

By the mid-1980s it was clear that the Parrish had outgrown its original building. In 2005 the museum purchased fourteen acres in Water Mill, New York, and the Board of Trustees selected the internationally celebrated architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron to design a new and expanded building there. Ground was broken in July 2010, and the 34,400 square-foot building opened to the public 10 November 2012. The museum’s holdings now consist of more than 2,700 works ranging from early nineteenthcentury landscape paintings through American Impressionism and into the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. It includes such important artists as John Henry Twachtman, John Sloan, James Whistler, William Glackens, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Esteban Vicente, Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain, as well as such members of the dynamic contemporary art scene as Ross Bleckner, Chuck Close, Elizabeth Peyton, April Gornik, Cindy Sherman, Eric Fischl, Dorothea Rockburne, Jack Youngerman and Joe Zucker. The Parrish holds the largest public collection of William Merritt Chase (over forty paintings and works on paper) and an extensive archive, including more than 1,000 photographs relating to the life and work of the artist, in particular family photographs of summers spent on the East End. As portraitist and landscape painter, and as a teacher of art, Chase was unequalled in his day. The museum’s collection features paintings from all periods of his work, including the early Still Life with Fruit (1871); works from the famous

New York park scenes series, notably Park in Brooklyn (c. 1887); major studio paintings from the 1880s, such as The Blue Kimono (c. 1888); and of course, the paintings made during those summers in the Shinnecock Hills, including The Bayberry Bush (c. 1895). Fairfield Porter was the most important American realist painter from 1949 until his death in 1975. Not coincidentally, those were the years when Porter lived in Southampton, and in 1979 his estate recognised the bond between the artist and the museum by donating some 250 works to the Parrish collection. Porter was both a gifted painter and an accomplished writer who produced some of the most lucid art criticism and commentary of the time, notably his reviews for the magazine Art News. Porter painted what he was familiar with — his family and friends and the places he lived and visited, including Southampton and a familyowned island off the coast of Maine. An artist who steadfastly maintained a figurative vision, Porter knew and admired many Abstract Expressionist artists on the East End, especially Willem de Kooning. Porter once wrote: ‘The realist thinks he knows ahead of time what reality is, and the abstract artist what art is, but it is in its formality that realist art excels, and the best abstract art communicates an overwhelming sense of reality.’ World War II saw the departure of many notable artists from Europe to the United States, and many of those émigrés visited the East End. American artists of the New York School

followed, such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning and Esteban Vicente. For the past 60 years, the East End has been home to a veritable pantheon of modern and contemporary artists, among them Fairfield Porter, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher, Roy Lichtenstein, April Gornik, Cindy Sherman, Eric Fischl, and Dorothea Rockburne. Almost everybody now enshrined in the history of the New York School — poets as well as painters — either lived in or visited the East End during the 1940s and 1950s: Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, Robert Motherwell, Jane Wilson, James Schuyler, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko, to just skim the surface. That period, captured in photographs by John Jonas Gruen and Hans Namuth, can be viewed with hindsight as a kind of golden age in which the art community was small enough to be cohesive and in which neither the remarkable creative activity nor the camaraderie were contaminated by excessive celebrity or money. Since the heyday of the New York School, the region hasn’t seen as cohesive a group of artists — either socially or stylistically. However, the migration of artists to the region has, if anything, increased, and the composition reflects both the growth and the diversification of the art world since the 1960s. Artists as different as Alan Shields, Frank Wimberley, Roy Lichtenstein, Dan Flavin, Andy Warhol and Jennifer Bartlett all established homes on the East End between 1970 and 1975. The 1980s saw the arrival of Dennis Oppenheim, Lynda Benglis, Keith

Sonnier, Eric Fischl, April Gornik and Jullian Schnabel, among others. The creative population includes not only bold-faced names but emerging and mid-career artists who exhibit internationally, maintain vigorous careers, and, in many instances, have made the East End a permanent home. Every artist who lives on the East End — whether a long time resident or recent arrival, a year-rounder or one of the ‘summer people’ — is never more than a few miles from the shoreline, and each has been drawn to the land, the light, and the water in countless ways. Despite diverse artistic practice and divergent social circles, they have at least one thing in common. Like the generations of artists who came before them, they have found a haven and a home on the eastern tip of Long Island. In recent years, the Parrish has taken two important initiatives with regard to the region’s history as an art colony. A grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, made possible the museum’s East End Stories website, which launched in 2007. East End Stories documents the dynamic history of visual artists on the east end of Long Island. This website provides access to biographical information, art historical narratives, photographs, and maps that enable visitors to explore the lives of hundreds

April Gornik (American, b. 1953), Light before Heat, 1984, oil on linen, 66 x 132 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Jeannette Sarkisian Wagner Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996), The Nominal Three (to William of Ockham), 1963, cool white fluorescent light, height: 182.88 cm (dimensions variable). Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Dorothy Lichtenstein in memory of Roy Lichtenstein and Dan Flavin Jane Freilicher (American, b. 1924), Grey Day, 1963, oil on canvas, 60.96 x 81.28 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Larry Rivers

of artists who have lived on or visited Long Island from the 1820s to the present. In 2009 the museum launched Artists Choose Artists, a biennial juried exhibition that highlights artists on the East End and the dynamic relationships uniting the areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creative community. Seven notable artists of the region serve as jurors and ultimately choose two artists, per juror, whose work will be exhibited alongside his or her own. Artists Choose Artists is designed to catalyse creative networks and encourage mentorships and conversations between artists at varying stages in their careers. The 2013 exhibition, which opens 10 November, will be judged by Laurie Anderson, Judith Hudson, Mel Kendrick, David Salle, Ned Smyth, Keith Sonnier and Robert Wilson.

Frederick Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935), Church at Old Lyme, c. 1906, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 64.14 cm. Parrish Art Museum, Gift of Mrs Robert Malcolm Littlejohn, Littlejohn Collection Fairfield Porter (American, 1907-1975), Backyard Southampton, 1953, oil on canvas, 106.68 x 111.13 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of the Estate of Fairfield Porter John Henry Twachtman (American, 1853-1902), Horseshoe Falls, Niagara, c. 1894, oil on canvas, 77.47 x 64.45 cm. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Mrs Robert Malcolm Littlejohn, Littlejohn Collection Esteban Vicente (Spain/USA 1903-2001), No. 13, 1960, oil on linen, 93.98 x 124.13. Parrish Art Museum. Gift of Robert Warshaw

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Brasac enterprises

One of a set of five framed photographs selected by Max Dupain from amongst his favourites, for sets of limited edition prints published for the Royal Blind Society in the late 1980s. Set of five framed $2,500. Individual $600 each.

Moonflower, 1982

Sunbaker, 1937

Interior Elizabeth Bay House, 1978

At Toowoon Bay, 1985

Blue Gum Forest, c. 1940

Girard-Perregaux 9 ct white gold stainless steel case back 17 jewel $2750

International Watch Company 18 ct gold, c. 1970, $3950

24 Jewel VGOC 31198614 case 168018, 18 ct gold Omega Constellation c. 1971 $3800

Of the three nine piece sterling silver tea sets made by Garrard & Co London in honour of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, this is the only known surviving example. Hallmarked Garrard & Co London 1953/54, weight approximately 11 kilos

Omega Seamaster 14 ct c. 1960s $1895

Longines Admiral 10k gold filled, c. 1965 $2295

Girard-Perregaux gyromatic, original band, c. 1960 $1295

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Gold diamond and jade stick pin $3750

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A selection of English hallmarked sterling silver frames and antique silver available

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JOHN GLOVER’S TRIP TO THE COAST

Exhibited at Glover’s London exhibition of Tasmanian landscapes in 1835, the painting of ‘Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot’s property’ was acquired by William Talbot’s father, Lord Talbot de Malahide of Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and has been in the family since that time

John Glover (1767–1849), Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot's property — four Men catching Opossums, c. 1834, oil on canvas, 76.8 x 114.9 cm. Private collection

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John McPhee t is an example of his ability to accurately observe and depict the natural world that within days of his arrival in Launceston on 18 February 1831, his 64th birthday, John Glover made some extraordinarily accurate sketches depicting the landscape. While waiting for his ship moored in the Tamar after a long voyage to Van Diemen’s Land, Glover and his eldest son John Richardson Glover were exploring the surrounding bush. Glover’s earliest sketches, executed in England in the late eighteenth century when he was a self-taught observer of nature, demonstrate his ability to depict the landscape without the overlay of the fashionable Claudean conventions. While his understanding of these conventions later contributed to his fame, his first sketches of the Australian landscape with its peculiar vegetation prove that he had not forgotten his origins. His Australian paintings with their understanding of the nature of the bush, its colours, and the clear light of the Antipodes, ensure Glover has a place as one of the first artists to accurately depict the Australian landscape. In March the following year, Glover, his wife and family, travelled overland in a convoy of wagons and settled on the land he had been granted on the banks of the Nile River which he named Patterdale, after the area in the English Lake District which he had so enjoyed. His immediate, but not so close, neighbour was the adventurous John Batman, the pioneer settler of Melbourne, whose property Kingston, was the subject of one of Glover’s most beautiful Australian paintings. With Batman Glover is said to have ascended Ben Lomond, the mountain that towered over their properties in late January 1833. Settled and with his sons running the property, Glover began a busy period of sketching and painting. While he delighted in the immediate landscape and most often depicted Patterdale in his paintings, he did make a significant journey through the mountainous landscape of Ben Lomond and the Fingal Valley, and down to the east coast of Tasmania. A sketchbook1 inscribed:

‘John Glover begun March 22nd 1832’, contains pencil, pen and ink sketches recording the journey. Sketches show the progress noting such places as St Paul’s Dome at the western end of the Fingal Valley and views of Ben Lomond and St Patrick’s Peak from Mr Talbot’s and of Ben Lomond a little further down the valley from Mr Legge’s at Break of Day Plains. Eventually he made the coast, although there are no sketches depicting what he saw. There are only two known paintings from this journey, Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot’s property – four Men catching Opossums, about 1834,2 and Moulting Lagoon and Great Oyster Bay from Pine Hill, painted several years later in about 1838.3 Both are remarkable for their realism. Except for its title the earlier painting shows little evidence of European settlement. This is still anedenic wilderness in which man is at one with nature. In the later painting the flock of sheep watched over by a shepherd, his red jacket suggesting a convict labourer, documents the changing use of land and its threat to the traditional lifestyle of the Aboriginal people. These two paintings show Glover to be a remarkable observer of the world around him, aware both of tradition and change in the colonial landscape. Known as the ‘Talbot Glover’, the magnificent oil on canvas is coming up for the autumn sales in London. NOTES 1Sketchbook, 1832-33, No. 97, 17.3 x 25.4 cm. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart 2 Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot’s property – four Men catching Opossums, c. 1834, oil on canvas, 77 x 114 cm. Private collection 3 Moulting Lagoon and Great Oyster Bay from Pine Hill, c. 1838, oil on canvas, 77.4 x 114.8 cm. National Gallery of Victoria

Zig zag road up Ben Lomond, Tasmania. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

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2013 Asia's Leading International Fine Art Fair

4-7 October 2013 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre www.fineartasia.com

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Image coutesy: ÂŠ City of Westminster Archives Centre

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COMBS

FROM PRE-DYNASTIC EGYPT TO MODERN-DAY BLACK POWER MOVEMENT The afro comb originated 6,000 years ago and has made a great impact on world-wide culture. From archaelogicol finds to modern work these combs of remarkable beauty form a crucial insight into our understanding of culture across Africa and the Diaspora

SALLY-ANN ASHTON he origins of the ‘Afro’ pick are thousands of years old and in fact it was community responses to a 3,500 year old comb that prompted the research for the present exhibition. Found in a burial at the site of Abydos in Egypt (Fig. 1) this comb was carved from animal bone by an unknown artist and features a cultural symbol on the handle in the form of a set of bull’s horns. Although at first glance these two

Above: (Fig.1) Egypt: Early dynastic period (1st-2nd Dynasty 3400–2980 BCE), comb made of animal bone. recovered from burial site at Abydos, decorated with cultural symbol in the form of a set of bull's horns. Fitzwilliam Museum Right: Wooden (ebony) hair comb. Combs featuring similar decoration have been found in Zanzibar, South Africa, Nigeria, East Africa and Egypt. Fitzwilliam Museum Far right: Iconic black fist comb designed by Anthony R. Romani in 1972

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combs probably appear to have little in common, other than their form, the people who created them both chose to imbue the comb with a cultural symbol. In doing so, the combs take on a new meaning beyond simply being a useful tool for maintaining and combing hair. The earliest hair combs were found in Sudan over 6,000 years ago and it appears from the excavations of burials that they were associated with status.1 Hair combs were buried with men, women and children and by the fourth millennium BCE had seemingly become an important accessory for the After Life, along with other cosmetic items. It is during the earliest periods of African history that we find the most frequent occurrences of hair combs in graves, and the most variations in form and decorative motifs. In addition to the previously mentioned bullâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s horns, birds, quadrupeds and human figures were also used to decorate the handles. Many of the combs from this period are smaller than modern combs and it was initially suggested that they functioned as decorative hair pieces rather than tools for combing or styling the hair. In addition to combs, hairpins were also commonly found in graves in Ancient Egypt and Sudan. There is a gap of around 600 years in the sequence of hair combs from this region, probably as a result of changing burial practices rather than of people not using hair combs. When the combs re-emerge in the second millennium BCE they are generally of a different form. The more traditional vertical combs also continued to be produced into the Late Period in Egypt and until the present day in Nubia and Sudan. With mass settlement from outside cultures came changes in the design of hair combs in Egypt. The most obvious difference was that the gaps between the teeth, which are often narrower than on the earlier combs and the teeth are also shorter, signifying a change in hair type and/or length. Another significant difference during the later periods of Egyptian history is that the decoration on the handles no longer shows the deities of earlier civilisations, on account of the change in religion. Some human and animal figures

continue to be featured on combs following the adoption of Christianity, but during the Islamic period most hair combs are decorated with geometric or floral designs; some occasionally have writing on them. A number of traditional cultural groups from the area of modern day Nigeria offer important evidence for the styling of African hair and hair combs. The earliest among these is the Nok culture, dating from around 500 BCE to 200 CE.2 The elaborate hairstyles on sculptures representing Nok people show that hair was an important aspect of appearance. This tradition continued throughout time but it is not until the Kingdom of Benin that we find evidence of hair

Above left: Ashanti, Ghana, comb showing female figure wearing necklace with cross, a reference to change from traditional animistic religion to Christianity Above right: Kingdom of Benin, ivory comb, h: 31.5 cm. The image of horseman represents status and wealth, the comb has been linked to royalty

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Egypt: Late period (26th Dynasty 664-525 BCE), traditional vertical comb Fitzwilliam Museum

Folding comb originally patented in 1970, designed in response to Afro hairstyle introduced in the African Diaspora in the 1960s and 1970s

combs. A comb from the British Museum collections is made from ivory and is a substantial size, measuring 31.5 cm in height. The top of the comb is decorated with an image of a horseman, representing status and wealth, and it was linked to the royal family. The peoples of this region would have had hair combs prior to this example, but they have not been found, and possibly did not survive. As noted, with the ancient Egyptian and Sudanese examples, much of the archaeological material comes from funerary contexts and only at certain periods did people choose to be buried with their hair combs. It is as a consequence of this practice that our knowledge of combs from Egypt and Sudan is arguably the most informed out of all of the African regions. People in West Africa continued to produce giant hair combs into the twentieth century. Some of these combs were used as house decorations. However, large combs also traditionally indicated status, and were often imbued with an iconography to support this. On the comb from the Delta State region of Southern Nigeria we see a leopard. In Benin this refers to a legend of a battle between an elephant and a leopard for supremacy and thus refers to the ruling class. Some masquerade masks from Nigeria incorporate hair combs as part of the hair style. An example belonging to the Igbo culture shows an elaborately braided hairstyle, decorated with four hair combs. This exact style was also recorded by the anthropologist Northcote W. Thomas in the early twentieth century. Sowei masks worn by the Mende women in Sierra

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Leone also show a rich variety of hairstyles, and on one example a comb is carved into the hairstyle. These masks were worn by senior members of the Sande Society during the rite of passage ceremony for young women marking their journey into adulthood. Ghana also has a strong tradition of hair comb manufacturing. Of particular note are the Ashanti combs showing a female figure with a variety of different items adorning the neck. On some examples the subject wears a necklace of beads, whereas on others she wears a cross, a reference to the change from the traditional animistic religion to Christianity. Combs were often given as a marriage gift, or as a declaration of interest in a woman.3 Appropriately, one example has â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;LOVEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; inscribed onto the comb. The tradition of giving a woman a hair comb as a declaration of intentions or feelings was also found in the Caribbean in the 1980s where it was not uncommon for a man to carve a comb and present it to a woman he admired. An example of such a comb has a dedication on one side and a map of the parishes of Jamaica on the other. The division of Africa created artificial boundaries, across which individual cultural groups continued to function and produce hair combs that reflected a shared heritage. The beaded hair combs that are part of the Yao cultural group were collected in Malawi and Mozambique in the late nineteenth century and included imported glass beads from Italy.4 Elsewhere we find that different cultural groups manufacture combs from similar products and in a similar style, most likely on account of trade.

Sowei culture mask worn by Mende women in Sierra Leone. The comb is carved into the hairstyle. Trustees of British Museum

In some cases the regions where combs were collected did not necessarily correspond to where they were made. One particular group of hair combs that are made from the same wood, possibly ebony, and are decorated in a similar fashion have been found in Zanzibar, South Africa, Nigeria, East Africa and Egypt. It is not known if they originate from a single source or whether the design itself appealed to people in many regions and was transferred by copying. Another tradition found in many African regions is the production of painted wooden barber shop signs. Such signs are placed outside barber shops and advertise the range of hairstyles for both men and women. Styles are named as the creation of an individual stylist, or can be linked to occupations. Since the 1980s there has been an increase in referencing American styles or celebrities. Styles can also be named after regions or countries, for example ‘American’ or ‘European’. In the late 1960s and 1970s the Afro comb reemerged among the African Diaspora as a response to the introduction of the Afro hairstyle and increased cultural autonomy among African American people. The new combs had one crucial element in common, the width of the teeth. Like the combs found in Ancient Egypt two styles soon emerged: the horizontal comb

Left: Igbo culture mask incorporates four hair combs as part of an elaborately braided hairstyle Trustees of British Museum

with widely set teeth and the traditional pick variety of comb, with longer teeth also with wide gaps between them. Many of the combs designed during this period are still available today, including the folding comb which was originally patented in 1970 and is still in production. The iconic black fist comb, which reflects the Black Civil Rights and Power Movement in the USA, is the combination of the functional pick, the clenched fist as a reference to the power salute, and the peace sign at the base of the handle on the original design succinctly represents this political movement. The comb was designed by Anthony R. Romani in 1972 and is still produced by Antonio’s Inc., both in its original design and in a variety of different forms.

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Although once produced in the US, the majority of the combs that are sold in Britain are now manufactured in China. In the 1980s different coloured versions of the black fist comb were produced in Nigeria, as indicated by the hair comb that belonged to Grace Salome Kwami. Today, these multi-coloured plastic combs that are popular in Nigeria are mostly imported from China, although some that were purchased in 2012 appear to have been made locally, as indicated by the reference ‘Nig’ that is stamped on the back. The appearance of this particular design of hair comb in Africa marks a full cycle of exchange between the continent and its Diaspora. The black fist combs are the most familiar to most visitors to the exhibition and in many respects continue the tradition of hair combs for African type hair. It is worth considering that their design is now over forty years old. Nevertheless the symbol of the clenched fist still has a universal appeal and relevance in the twenty-first century.

Green fist comb, made in Nigeria, 2013

Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and identity is at Fitzwilliam Museum: Gallery 13 (Mellon) & 8 (Octagon) + The Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA) until 3 November 2013. The installation at the MAA closes 28 September. www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/

NOTES 1 S-A. Ashton, 6000 years of African hair combs, England: Palindrome Press, 2013 2 E. Eyo and F. Willett, Treasures of Ancient Nigeria. Legacy of 2000 years, New York: Knopf, 1982, pp. 50-62 3 J.A. Antiri, ‘Akan combs’ African Arts 8, 1: 32-35 4 M. Carey, Beads and beadwork in East and South Africa. England: Shire Ethnography, 1986, pp. 28-29 This article is reprinted from the exhibition catalogue Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and identity, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, July 2013

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19–25 March 2014 The 22nd Annual British Antique Dealers’ Association Fair at the Duke of York Square, off Sloane Square, LONDON SW3 Tel: +44 (0)20 7589 6108

Visit our website for the latest information including recommended luxury hotels and to book a table at the Cellini restaurant within the Fair. bada-antiques-fair.co.uk

T HE FI N E ST A RT & A N TIQUE S F OR S AL E

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MASTER

OF LIGHT Bruce Munro is one of the most innovative artists working with light today. Many of his most influential ideas were formed during an eight year visit to Australia in the mid-80s

Abigail Bryant Above right: Bruce Munro Below: Bruce Munro, Field of Light, 2008, Eden Project, Cornwall Bruce Munro, Field of Light, 2013, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Tennessee, USA

unro’s large-scale immersive light artwork such as Field of Light and Water-Towers has been described as ‘serene, surreal and cerebral’. Field of Light, created from thousands of acrylic stems, topped with glass spheres and threaded with fibre optics, has evolved over several iterations, including exhibitions in London at Kensington Palace and the V&A and the Eden Project, Cornwall since its first incarnation in 2004 in the field behind Munro’s house in rural Wiltshire, UK. On the subject of his most

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recognisable work, the artist says ‘Field of Light has many guises and amazingly it’s a catalyst that helps people appreciate the space. It also seems to inspire good feeling in people.’ Talk to Munro about the inspiration for his work and you’ll soon discover that each piece he creates in the here and now is a manifestation of thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences collected and curated over the last thirty years. Of his approach he says, ‘an idea in my head only goes so far. The process of an installation starts with an idea. It can be quite a long journey from start to finish.’ When interviewed he often mentions his lifelong habit of journaling and

recording ideas and sketches in an ever expanding collection of little blue notebooks; about seventy at the last count. And so it is a reflective Bruce Munro that today shares tales and memories of how his time in the southern hemisphere as a young man shaped him as a person and an artist and provided the inspiration for many of his most iconic pieces. Although he didn’t discover light as his medium until relatively late on, Munro was engaged by the concept of art from a very young age. Born in 1959 in London, he studied fine art at Bristol Polytechnic in the late 1970s. He is very clear that ‘obtaining an art degree doesn’t make you an artist. I used to walk around the art school studios and see people creating amazing things displaying great technical skills. What some people lacked is a passion, if you haven’t got the will or the passion then it doesn’t matter how skilled you are. It’s about having drive and interest and seeing where it leads you.’ Having graduated from the Royal West of England, Academy Munro spent eighteen months working at the Medici Gallery in London. Not

exactly fulfilled, he didn’t take much convincing when a friend suggested a six month working holiday in Australia. The six month holiday turned into an eight-year stay and naturalisation as an Australian citizen. Looking back across his career now his time in Australia could not have been more significant to him personally and as an artist. Whilst working on an Award course at Saatchi and Saatchi in Sydney, Munro recalls how he was called a ‘butterfly’ by an advertising executive in reference to his mind being full of ideas and never being able to settle on any one thing. This off the cuff comment irritated the young Munro, but also struck a chord with him. Bruce had all the drive and passion and ideas a young artist could wish for. What he lacked was focus. One day in Sydney his eye was caught by a product in a shop window; a kind of plastic that glowed when irradiated with ultra violet light. He bought a load of it wholesale and started making lights, using cardboard boxes and painting them black — ‘very basic stuff’ he says. The same advertising agency commissioned one of the lights for an awards dinner. Munro ended

Bruce Munro, Angel of Light, 2012, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire

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Right: Bruce Munro, Blue Moon on a Platter, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire Below: Bruce Munro, Cantus Arcticus, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire

up doing corporate identity work using the glow material for international companies in Australia and New Zealand. In addition he had managed a design outlet that sold Italian and Swedish furniture. ‘Light wasn’t perceived as an artistic medium back then, in the early 80s it was still pretty undiscovered, to dabble in, it was a really technical thing but the fact I had no technical training in it never worried me.’ He used this time to learn about products and processes many of which still underpin the physical creation of his artworks today. ‘By limiting myself in this way I discovered it helped me to find new ways of expressing my thoughts and ideas that were previously difficult to convey,’ he explains. Travelling around the country in an old car with a tent and his then fiancée (now wife) for

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four months provided him with the inspiration for his first iconic installation — Field of Light. During a trip through the Australian red desert, they would stop at roadside campsites, oases of green in a barren landscape. Bruce was transfixed by the way the desert was so flat and bare until it rained and then, as if from nowhere, dormant seeds burst into bloom. ‘The landscape was just so powerful,’ he remembers. ‘It felt like electricity was coming up out of the ground.’ He wrote the idea in his notebook ‘at the time I was simply trying to express how alive I felt.’ It took him another twelve years to realise the idea. When the time was right Field of Light came into being, the seeds of it having been sown in the Australian outback. Munro sold up the shares in his company and left Australia in the early nineties travelling home to marry and soon had a young family to support. He built up a lighting business from scratch applying his own artistic approach to the business of lighting people’s homes. He still took every opportunity to create and exhibit his artworks, often paying for the materials out of his own pocket and relying on the help of friends and family to make it happen. In June of 2010 Munro once again gathered friends and family to the field behind his house to lay out 600,000 CDs, creating an inland sea which had been donated to the project by people all over the world. CDSea created a glimmering carpet of light, one of the most enduring images of his art. As with Field of Light, Munro credits

Australia with giving him the inspiration for the piece. ‘I was sitting by the sea at Nielsen Park where I would go when I was a bit homesick. The light was strong on the water, like a blanket of shimmering silver light. I had this childish notion that by putting my hand in the sea I was somehow connected to my father who lived by the sea in England.’ Munro remembers the transformative effect that the reflected light had on him that day, it stayed with him to be recreated, harnessing the refractive quality of CDs. And what of his continuing connections with Australia? Munro explained, ‘I’d love above almost

Munro continues his residency at Waddesdon Manor until 27 October with a single artwork, Cantus Arcticus. The inspiration for this was the orchestral composition by the Finnish composer Einohujani Rautavaara (b. 1928). Interwoven with arctic birdsong, the orchestra score suggested shimmering curtains of light expressive of the Aurora Borealis

anything else to create a major installation there, which would bring the source of my inspiration into realised form.’ In June of 2012, Munro announced his intentions to create his biggest installation to date — a quarter of a million solar powered light stems to cover one square kilometre of Australia’s red desert at Uluru. In this he has been aided by a partial sponsorship from Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia, a management company owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation. Will it happen? Munro shrugs, ‘I’ve always started with the dream.’

Bruce Munro, CDSea, 2010, Wiltshire

interspersed with the silhouettes of circling birds. A major solo exhibition at the end of the year Winter Light at Waddesdon (13 November 2013 –1 January 2014) will feature six large-scale, outdoor, site specific art installations. Visitors will be able to follow a trail around the gardens at Waddesdon, even more spectacular by night.

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G N I S O CL DOWN! SALE!

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Gilded standard lamp set on carved base fringed white shade $865 Stunning Tiffany style dragonfly lamp, h:70 cm $850 Captain’s chair made in oak with cast iron adjustment wheel, metal castors to feet, stamped ‘I756F’ $1,250 Sensational French art deco six branch chromed hanging light, c. 1920 $6,950 Boudoir chair made by Pacific Furniture Design & Upholstery, Qld, brocade upholstery with tuft back $595 Pair Louis XV style walnut parlour chairs, c. 1880, with velvet embossed upholstery $2,950 pair John R Hood, Untitled - Parisian scenes, oil on canvas, 53 x 66 cm each, signed $8,500 pair Three seater chesterfield: three available $3,125 each Two seater chesterfield: two available $2,200 each Three seater salon suite with two matching bergère chairs in walnut with lovely silk brocade upholstery $16,000 Chesterfield with matching ottoman $3,750 Noll style three-piece lounge suite, brocade upholstery, feather cushions, fully sprung seats. Large extra cushions for maximum comfort $12,000 John O’Hanlon, Into the Rocks, pastel, 102 x 85.5 cm $2,450 Japan Edo period, warrior fitted out in European suit of armour mounted on papier-mâché armoured horse, set on an oak pedestal base with a marble top, h:175 cm w:90 cm l:88 cm P.O.A.

Silver, Ceramics, Advertising, Clocks, Kitchenalia, Bakelite, Perfume Bottles, Oriental, Costume Jewellery, Cruet Sets

LIMITED FLOOR SPACE / CABINETS AVAILABLE. CONTACT DENISE 02 9550 5554 212–220 Parramatta Rd, Camperdown NSW 2050 Phone 61 2 9550 5554 Fax 61 2 9550 4990 www.camperdownmewsantiques.com Open 7 days 10 am–6 pm Off-street parking

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PHILIPS AUCTIONS MELBOURNE

Diamond bracelet set in 18 ct white gold, grain set throughout with small brilliant cut diamonds, slide clasp and concealed safety catch. A.T.D.W.: 3.90 ct. Sold $4184

Aquamarine and diamond ring set in 18 ct white gold; emerald cut aquamarine weighing approximately 0.70 ct, framed by brilliant cut grain set diamonds, single princess cut bezel set, merging to a fine diamond set band with engraved detail. Sold $590

Emerald and diamond cluster ring set in 18 ct yellow and white gold, central claw set emerald weighing approximately 2.50 ct, framed by grain set 18 brilliant cut diamonds, total: approximately 0.63 ct. Sold $5310

Diamond ring set in 18 ct white gold, crafted as a modern three stone ring of graduated design, scalloped work to gallery. A.T.D.W.: 1.28 ct. Sold $3304

Pair of tanzanite and diamond cluster earrings set in 18 ct yellow gold, claw set tanzanites framed by 12 claw set brilliant cut diamonds, fitted with pierced posts. Tanzanite total weight: 3.60 ct; diamond weight total: 0.48 ct. Sold $1888

World of Antiques & Art

Sapphire and diamond cluster ring set in 18 ct white gold; central oval claw set sapphire weighing approximately 2.92 ct, oval cut diamond approximately 0.25 ct, four brilliant cut diamonds, eight claw set diamonds total: 0.80 ct. A.T.D.W.: 1.30 ct. Sold $5075

Sapphire collier set in 14 ct white gold, graduated strand of 17 large oval faceted sapphires, total: 165 ct, with 16 claw set brilliant cut diamonds, total: 1.80 ct, completed with clasp and safety catch. Sold $11,800

Strand of golden South Sea pearls, length: 46 cm, consisting of 33 off-round South Sea pearls, graduated in size ranging from 11.5 mm to 15.5 mm, knotted throughout, double sided 14 ct yellow gold clasp with a double cluster of grain set brilliant cut diamonds. Sold $2000

Signed French art deco figure of a woman posing with a pheasant by Menneville, c. 1930, cold-painted spelter and ivorine, set on a marble base. Sold $649

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Opal set pendant/brooch set in 14 ct yellow gold, crafted as a series of small polished and etched panels with 13 single marquise shaped claw set white opals, fitted with pin and flexible bail. Sold $260

Pair of golden South Sea pearl and diamond earrings set in 18 ct white gold; pave set brilliant cut diamonds, South Sea pearls each: 14.5 x 13.8 mm, fitted with pierced posts set to top leaf panel. Sold $1416

Ladies Omega Constellation wristwatch, stainless steel and 18 ct gold bracelet with fold over clasp; current model, quartz movement, applied black Roman markers, gold dial with single cut diamond markers, two hands, boxed with papers and receipt. Sold $2478

PHILIPS AUCTIONS MELBOURNE French 19th century bronze clock in the gothic style, movement by A.D. Mougin, the dial with enamel cartouche Roman numerals, set on a wooden base. Sold $3894 Victorian taxidermy bird group under a glass dome set on an oval timber base, 19th century, with ten species realistically posed amongst branching foliage. Sold $2596

Group of four contemporary Chinese Yixing teapots; l to r:censer form on tripod legs with an elephant handle and archaistic designs; two red terracotta ovoid lidded pieces; tapering flared form embellished with dragons and applied medallions of Chairman Mao. Sold $590

Chinese enamelled metal vase on a rosewood stand, the whole decorated with polychrome panels of birds in magnolia and peony gardens and women in interiors, on a cobalt ground abundantly embellished with floral and foliate designs. Sold $1652

Late Ming Chinese jade cup, c. 1650s, fashioned as a double headed ram. Sold $1062

Chinese bronze ‘alms bowl’ form censer, c. 1900, rich burnished finish, compressed globular form with an inverted rim in the Ming manner, impressed seal mark underside. Sold $2478

English or European military breastplate, 18th century, possibly Cromwellian, hand-worked and beaten steel, studs, and unidentifiable and rubbed incised armourer’s stamps to front, including the letters ‘AOS’. Sold $944

Three piece Indian silver coffee set, 19th century, richly worked with repousse and chased arabesque patterns and reserves with Indian deities encircling, surmounted by caparisoned elephant finials, and upon four dainty scroll legs. Sold $1416

French rosewood sideboard, c. 1950, parquetry top above a central cupboard inlaid with mermaids and aquatic motifs, flanked by two double doors covered in cream leatherette opening to lined and fitted cupboards, sitting on lyre-like metal legs over a shaped plinth base; with the cartouche of Bataille Meubles ‘Lux’. Sold $1770

French walnut display cabinet, c. 1900, shaped cornice above simple floral and foliate relief carving, glazed door below opening to a cabinet with two shelves, bow fronted carved full width drawer and conforming double door with fitted cupboard, sitting on squared scroll feet. Sold $1121

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NOBLE NUMISMATICS SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE

Adelaide Assay Office 1852 cracked die pound. Sold $116,500

Australia fifty cent brockage. Sold $6,407

George V florin,1932. Sold $16,543

Phillip IV of Spain, silver 50 reales dated 1636, issued by the Segovia Mint. Sold $118,830

Roman gold aureus of Faustina Junior. Sold $9,320

Port Phillip, Kangaroo Office 1853 gold quarter ounce. Sold $14,679

Australian 1937 pattern florin. Sold $133,975

George V 1926 specimen sovereign, Sydney. Sold $47,765

Oliver Cromwell 1658 crown. Sold $3,611

Sydney Mint 1855 first type sovereign. Sold $11,067

Perth Mint 1952 George VI proof penny. Sold $31,455

German New Guinea gold 20 mark, 1895A. Sold $29,125

South Africa 1902 ZAR ‘veld’ pound. Sold $18,640

Sydney Mint 1856 first type half sovereign. Sold $40,775

Port Phillip, Kangaroo Office copper pattern shilling. Sold $16,310

International QRA (Queensland Rifle Association) Match 1889, silver and gold badge. Sold $815

New South Wales 1813 fifteen pence or dump. Sold $20,970

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Waterloo Medal awarded 1815 to a Tasmanian settler. Sold $14,446

NOBLE NUMISMATICS SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE

Ten shilling note, Cerutty/Collins, 1918. Sold $11,067

Union Bank of Australia Limited, New Zealand 1923 ten pound note, Wellington. Sold $6,990 Five dollar star replacement note, Coombs/ Randall 1967. Sold $13,397

Five pound note, Riddle/Heathershaw, 1927. Sold $9,786

The Union Bank of Australia Limited, New Zealand 1920 ten shilling note, Wellington. Sold $5,708

Emergency issue ‘rainbow’ one pound, Collins/Allen,1914. Sold $12,815

WW II Hay Internment Camp, two shilling note, Epstein/Stahl, 1941. Sold $17,475

National Bank of South Africa Limited 1916 ten shilling note, Durban. Sold $3,203

Bank of New South Wales 1884 five pound note, Sydney. Sold $5,475

Queensland Government 1902 five pound note, Brisbane. Sold $19,805 Bank of Australasia, uniface proof twenty pound note, Warrnambool. Sold $2,197

Bank of North Queensland 1889 one pound note, Townsville. Sold $2,563

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AMANDA ADDAMS AUCTIONS MELBOURNE

Rene Lalique ‘Mures’ rocker blotter (ink blotter), c. 1920 opalescent glass decorated with blackberries over metal slide, l: 17 cm. Sold $1662

Walnut and brass figurine made by Franz Hagenauer (Austria 19061986), h: 30 cm. Sold $890

Australian themed sterling silver bookmark, h: 7 cm. Sold $71

Miniature figurine made Birmingham UK, c. 1997, sterling silver, h: 10 cm. Sold $415

Set 6 sterling silver spoons made Birmingham, 1915, in original box. Sold $1187

Vase by Pilkington’s Royal Lancastrian Pottery, orange vermillion glaze, h: 27 cm. Sold $771

Art deco head study by Hagenauer, c. 1930, bronze and ebony, h: 31 cm. Sold $712

Art Deco geometric vase by Karl Palda, c. 1930s, heavy quality faceted crystal glass, h: 29.5 cm. Sold $415

R. Lalique ‘Papillons’ vase, h: 22 cm. Sold $1127

R. Lalique ‘Mures’ vase, opalescent glass with blue patina, h: 19 cm. Sold $4748

Moorcroft ‘Moonlit Blue’ vase, c. 1925, decorated with trees in varying shades of blue, h: 22.5 cm. Sold $2374

Japanese cloisonné vase by Hattori Tadasaburo, c. 1950, h: 26 cm. Sold $415

Captions

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R. Lalique ‘Eucalyptus’ vase, designed 1927, manufactured until 1947, press moulded opalescent glass, h: 17 cm. Sold $1425

AMANDA ADDAMS AUCTIONS MELBOURNE

Signed photograph of Walt Disney, 24 x 20 cm. Sold $950

Robert Henderson Grieve (Australian 1924-2006), Vic Market, 1952, oil on board, 19 x 23 cm. Sold $1780

Edith Holmes (Australian 1893-1973), Opera House, Sydney, oil on canvas, 59 x 75.8 cm. Sold $5935

Mirka Mora (France b. 1928/ Australia from 1951), Birds and children, 1963, pen and ink, 25 x 19 cm. Sold $1246

Harold Frederick Neville (Hal) Gye (Australian 1888-1967), Aboriginal family, watercolour, 30 x 19 cm (unframed). Sold $285

Archibald Douglas (Archie) Colquhoun (Australian 1894-1983), Glenn Loss with mill, oil on board, 35 x 45 cm. Sold $750

Hand coloured photograph, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ol Roy Reneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, 23 x 18 cm. Sold $106

William Buelow Gould (England/Australia 1803-1853), Still life with fruit, oil on canvas, 61 x 71 cm. Sold $11,514

Bill Leak (Australian b. 1956), Sir Don Bradman, 1990, mixed media on paper, 65 x 50 cm. Sold $2967

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Contemporary buttoned back leather upholstered executive chair $1,450

Late 19th century French Henri II style fine carved gilt pillow mirror $2,500 Heavily carved Chinese camphorwood trunk, c. 1930

Manhattan range pendant and flush $410

Late 19th century European walnut semi pedestal desk fitted with five drawers and tooled leather top $1,950

Winifred Jensen, Not far from the Maddening Crowd, watercolour $465

Art Nouveau kauri pine fire surround and grate in excellent condition $2,750 Antique Victorian sewing stand or work table set on trumpet base, embroidery lined interior $3,000

Jon O'Hanlon, Balmain & the Working Harbour, 2002, acrylic on paper set in gilt frame $485 Antique walnut grandfather armchair set on casters and upholstered in diamond pattern studded fabric $750

Chinese camphorwood chest with decorative incised carving, c. 1930s $650

William IV mahogany dumb waiter c. 1840 $3,250

Pair of French walnut marble topped nightstands $1,950 pair

Glebe Antique Centre Phone: +61 2 9550 3199 Fax: +61 2 9550 3833

88-90 Parramatta Road, Camperdown NSW 2050 Two levels of quality furniture, lighting, jewellery, glass, porcelain and general collectables

Open 7 days 10am to 6pm

Art Deco French queen size bed head and foot featuring walnut parquetry with gilt bronze ormolu mounts, includes specially made new pillow top biddell spring quality mattress $3,950

Email: sales@glebeantiques.com.au Check out our up-to-date websites Edwardian kauri pine dressing table fitted with bevelled swing mirrors, four drawers $2,250

American 19th century black timber striking mantle clock $600

www.glebeantiques.com.au www.desksofdistinction.com.au

Waterford external wall bracket $295

The largest collection of genuine antique furniture in Sydney

French Louis Philippe style walnut chest of drawers, c. 1860 $3,650 Edwardian cedar double pedestal desk with tooled leather top, fielded panels, cupboards to rear, brushing slides and eight drawers including two large filing drawers $3,950

William IV mahogany chest of drawers in good original condition $3,950

Edwardian kauri pine kitchen dresser featuring six sliding doors, three drawers $3,250

Fine quality 19th century French mahogany bookcases fitted with drawers to the base $6,850 each

Edwardian kauri pine bookcase, c. 1900 $1,650

Mahogany display cabinets fitted with bevelled glass and mirror backs $795 each Australian three door wardrobe with central mirror made in Richmond River cedar, c. 1860 $4,500

CONTRIBUTORS Sally-Ann Ashton is senior assistant keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Previously she worked at the British Museum and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London and has curated a number of special exhibitions: Cleopatra of Egypt: from history to myth (Rome, London and Chicago 2000-2001); Roman Egyptomania (Cambridge 2004), and Triumph Protection and Dreams: African headrests in context (Cambridge 2011). Abigail Bryant has taken a lead role since 2011 in developing and managing Bruce Munro’s studio (Wiltshire, UK). Working closely with Bruce and the studio team to co-produce his exhibition program across Europe and North America she regularly contributes to magazine, blogs and publications providing a unique perspective from inside the artist’s studio. Dr Dorothy Erickson is an art historian, curator, editor, founder of the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of

Dr Jerzy J Kierkuc´-Bielin´ski is exhibitions curator at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. His publications include: The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, 2008 (with Stephen Coppel), George Scharf: From the Regency Street to the Modern Metropolis, 2009, Stadia: Sport and Vision in Architecture, 2012, Piranesi’s Paestum: Master Drawings Uncovered, 2013. Dr Alicia Longwell is Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education at the Parrish Museum and has a special interest in the art and artists of Eastern Long Island. Since joining the museum in 1984 Dr Longwell has organised numerous survey exhibitions and curated solo exhibitions on artists including Barbara Bloom, Frederick Kiesler, Charlotte Park and Alan Shields among many others. Margaret F MacDonald, is professor of Art History School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow. She has curated the exhibition An American in London, Whistler and the Thames.

Australia and author of Gold and Silversmithing In Western Australia: A History (2010). She is also a practising jeweller and has participated in over 35 exhibitions. Her work is held in various Australian state galleries, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany and the National Fine Arts Collection in Malta. Gael Hammer is a great-niece of painter Miles Evergood. Her grandmother Rebecca, was his youngest sister. Gael is the family historian, a writer, teacher and community activist. John B Hawkins specialises in Australian colonial furniture, silver and pottery and widely published; he is a founder member and past president of the Australian Antique & Art Dealers’ Association. He established J B Hawkins Antiques in Australia in 1967. Among his published works is Nineteenth Century Australian Silver (1990). Terry Ingram has written for the Australian Financial Review on the art market for over forty years and still contributes to its Thursday Saleroom section which he initiated in 1969. Eleanor Keene originally trained as a period costume designer for film and television, earned a Masters Degree in History of Textiles and Dress, and formerly headed the Costume and Textile Department for Bonhams UK. She now freelances in the auction and textile industries from her Sydney base.

Tim McCormick is an antiquarian book dealer and art dealer in Sydney, with expertise in Australian maps, prints, manuscripts, photographs, paintings and drawings before 1900; and Australian colonial art and ephemera to 1870. John McPhee is an independent curator, art historian, and formerly the founding curator of Australian Decorative Arts and later senior curator of Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. He was also a former deputy director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. He is the author of books on the colonial artist John Glover, Australian art, decorative arts, and folk and popular arts. Elspeth Moncrieff is editor of World of Antiques and Art. An art journalist her curatorial credits include the Tate Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Gordon Morrison has been director of the Art Gallery of Ballarat since 2004. He curated Capturing Flora: 300 years of Australian botanical art (September 2012-December 2012) and is author of Ballarat in pictures (2006). James Peill is the curator of Goodwood House in West Sussex. He was previously a director of Christie’s where he was a specialist in the furniture department. He is the co-author (with the late Knight of Glin) of Irish Furniture and The Irish Country House. His latest book, The English Country House is published in October. Vivienne Sharpe is an art dealer and consultant and director of Vivienne Sharpe Fine Art in Sydney, Australia.

Bruce Munro, Blue Moon on a Platter (detail), Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire

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AMANDA ADDAMS AUCTIONS Auctioneers and Valuers

AMANDA ADDAMS AUCTIONS

AUCTIONS HELD ON THE FIRST MONDAY NIGHT OF EACH MONTH AT 6.30 PM Receive all the latest news. Register for our new email newsletter and receive all the auction details and catalogues SALE DATES 2013 Monday 7 October 2013 6.30 pm Viewing: Saturday 5 October 11 am – 4 pm

QUALITY SINGLE ENTRIES OR LARGE COLLECTIONS (ANTIQUES, ART, COLLECTABLES, DECORATIVE ARTS AND DECEASED ESTATES) ARE ALWAYS INVITED FOR SPECIAL AUCTIONS

Monday 7 October 12 noon – 6 pm Monday 4 November 2013 6.30 pm

AMANDA ADDAMS AUCTIONS

Viewing: Saturday 2 November 11 am – 4 pm

344 High Street, Kew, Victoria 3101 Tel: 03 9855 2255; Fax: 03 9855 2244

Monday 4 November 12 noon – 6 pm Monday 2 December 2013 6.30 pm Viewing: Saturday 30 November 11 am – 4 pm Monday 2 December 12 noon – 6 pm

www.aaauctions.com.au David Freeman 0419 578 184 Amanda Freeman 0419 361 753

J.B. HAWKINS ANTIQUES 44 INVERLEITH PLACE EDINBURGH EH3 5QB SCOTLAND UK Mobile: 07 831 0931 98 Fax: 44 (0) 131 558 1727 Email: emma@emmahawkins.co.uk www.emmahawkins.demon.co.uk

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A magnificent pair of silver military statuettes of the 15th Hussars by Stehen Smith of London 1876.

Au s t ra l i an An t i q u e a n d Art Deal e rs A s s oc iat i on

In 1876 the 15th Hussars were stationed in India and actively employed in Afganistan. This pair of silver statuettes were presumably commissioned by a serving officer or gifted to a retiring officer in that year. Pairs of mounted military statuettes of this quality outside of the Officers Mess of the British Regiment would be considered extremely rare.