Australiana, Vol 46 no 1, February 2024

I trust all members had an enjoyable festive season with family and friends, and took the opportunity to relax. During this period of relaxation, you may well have spent some time reading Australiana and the book so generously donated regarding John Mitchell Cantle, Australia’s first native-born ornithological artist. Cantle was clearly a very talented individual who has been magnificently documented in Dr Cabouret’s exhaustive, groundbreaking research, which since publication has achieved worldwide acclaim. Thank you again to all involved in this most wonderful publication.

This article presents new information and some speculation relating to the prominent Sydney colonial silversmith Alexander Dick, whose works are found in many Australian public and private collections.

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

An exploration into the construction and history of an early, distinctively veneered chest of drawers from Tasmania reveals that it has a twin. E.J. Bateman presents the evidence of the two chests' provenance, noting the 'broad arrow' Government inventory marks, and suggests that they were made by convict cabinet makers in the Hobart Lumber Yard, for the use of Lt Governor Arthur in his private apartments in Government House, about 1828.

Judging the annual Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award, established in 1999 to encourage authors to write for Australiana, has proved especially challenging this year, with so many well-researched contributions.

Born in Portugal and trained in Europe, Artur Loureiro (1853–1932) settled in Melbourne where he painted and taught art for a living between 1884 and 1904. Painting various subjects in a wide range of styles, he associated with all the leading Melbourne artists of the time – Streeton, Conder, McCubbin, Roberts and others. ANDREW MONTANA explores Loureiro’s life, subjects, styles, family, teaching, patrons and commissions, building up a picture of Loureiro through newspaper and literary references, and not least through analysing his artworks.

Chests of drawers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and are easy to describe using some basic elements such as dimensions and number of drawers, types of timber, feet, knobs etc. For scholars of early furniture many more parameters come into play, not the least being an assessment of whether all its features are original and whether there have been later ‘improvements’. To describe a piece of furniture properly requires knowledge that only a systematic investigation involving visual and forensic procedures, coupled with appropriate research, can provide. The physical evidence within the cabinetmaking can reveal many secrets. Bob Fredman takes us through the step-by-step process of his analysis and shows how a closer look can reveal its origin and history.

For 65,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated Australian materials into their art, objects, weapons and tools. From the first year of British colonisation, settlers tried to adapt Australian materials and later, Australian motifs, into their art, manufactures and tools. A century later, French-born artist and teacher Lucien Henry was a leading proponent of employing Australian motifs, his ideas permeating the Sydney Technical College, where he taught art and design. Some of Henry’s colleagues and students pursued his ideas, which were taken up by craftspeople working in the Arts and Crafts tradition, and by other technical colleges in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sydney’s Technological Museum acquired some of their works early on; Yvonne Barber reveals some of these people.

BOOK REVIEW BY WARWICK OAKMAN
Mark R. Cabouret, Out From The Shadows
John Mitchell Cantle 1849 – 1919 Australia’s First Native Born Ornithological Draughtsman.
The Australiana Society Inc, Bondi Junction, NSW, 2023. Soft cover,
175 pages, 683 colour & sepia images, coloured end papers, 320 x 250 x 20 mm. ISBN 978-0-6457920-0-3. $100, available only from the Australiana Society.

BOOK REVIEW BY JOHN WADE
Dorothy Erickson, Inspired by Light & Land.
Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1970 to the 21st Century.
Western Australian Museum, Welshpool WA, 2023. Hard cover, 700 pages, hundreds of illustrations, chronology, bibliography, artists’ websites, index. ISBN 978 1 925040 46 3 $129.

The Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) visited Australia to open our new Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra in 1927. On their royal tour, the Duke and Duchess briefly stopped at Castlemaine station in April 1927, met by an enthusiastic crowd.