FEBRUARY – AUGUST 2009 ISSUE 76AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00

US $13.00 €10.50

a biannual magazine for col lectors of mater ia l cul ture

artAntiques &worldof

REWARDING RESEARCH:A RENAISSANCE MASTERPIECE

RECONSTRUCTED

ROUNDUP OFINTERNATIONAL

ART EVENTSJAPANESE ARTS IN 19TH CENTURY SOUTH AUSTRALIA

AMASSING FIVE CENTURIESOF INDONESIAN TEXTILES

ACQUISITIONS

118 Early Australian furniture: Sofa, c. 1820 and Work table, c. 1869

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

120 Roman sarcophagus, c. 290-300 AD

The J. Paul Getty Museum

121 Bessie Gibson, Jeune femme en rose pale, 1912

Queensland Art Gallery

122 Mel Robson, Belmont porcelain suite, 2008

Ipswich Art Gallery Queensland

124 Robert Wade, Pulpit Rock series, 1983-2007

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

131 AROUND THE AUCTIONSAuction highlights from the major houses

ART

18 Anne Marie Graham’s vision of tropical Queensland

Glenn R Cooke

56 Lyndell Brown and Charles Green: Framing conflict

Warwick Heywood

62 Sickert in Venice

Ian Dejardin

66 Chinoiserie in suburbia: the art of Anna Hoyle

Helen Hewson

80 Reconstructing a Renaissance masterpiece

Xavier F Salomon

88 ART NEWSA selection of international events to diarise

143 CONTRIBUTORS

DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

10 A golden era of Japanese arts

Jennifer Harris

28 Silver – with a pinch of salt

Tom Bowtell

50 The Courtauld wedding chests: the story of a Renaissance marriage

Caroline Campbell

74 Bernard Leach and his circle

Sarah Hughes

104 Five centuries of Indonesian textiles

Sharon Sadako Takeda

109 Images of Ancient Egypt

Richard Parkinson

114 A royal passion for French porcelain

Kathryn Cecil

4 EDITORIAL

EXHIBITION REVIEW

42 Byzantium 330-1453 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

Julia Boadle

HERITAGE

36 A new portrait gallery for Australia

Helen Musa

144 INDEX OF ADVERTISERS

LIBRIS

84 Book review: John McDonald, Art of Australia, Volume 1: Exploration

to Federation

Helen Musa

85 Book review: Bernard D Cotton, Scottish Vernacular Furniture

Helen Proudfoot

86 Book review: Emily McCulloch Childs and Ross Gibson, New

Beginnings: Classic Paintings from the Corrigan Collection of 21st

Century Aboriginal Art

W O R L D O F A N T I Q U E S & A R T

2

Contents

COVERLes fleurs dédaignées, 1925 is anarresting painting by Australian expatriateartist Hilda Rix Nicholas (1884-1961). Itwas painted in Paris for submission inthe Salon in 1925.

The subject of this portrait was a Parisian model with areputation for being moody and cantankerous. The dressworn by the model was a costume from the artist’s wardrobechosen for the painting to give the impression of an Italiansixteenth century portrait. She stands before a nineteenthcentury replica of a seventeenth century French tapestry,once owned by the artist, depicting the countryside. Rix Nicholas created a polished, mannerist portrait with asurface coldness. The subject’s pale skin appears smoothand without blemish, as though she was made of porcelain.

W O R L D O F A N T I Q U E S & A R T

10

JENNIFER HARRIS

Even from its opulent beginnings in

1879 when the Bowman family, at a

cost of £30,000, built Martindale Hall on

11,000 acres on the edge of the small

township of Mintaro, Japanese pieces

decorated the main rooms. Six

thousand pound was spent on internal

furnishings such as the blackwood

staircase and marble mantelpieces from

Italy including one in the drawing room

1 Martindale Hall, Mintaro, 1932, photograph. Residence of John Andrew TennantMortlock (1894-1950), built in 1879 by Edmund Bowman. Image courtesy StateLibrary of South Australia

2 Martindale Hall, Mintaro, 1936, photograph, showing sitting hall, stairway andgallery. Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

3 Norimitsu (Japanese, active late 19th century), Elephant carrying urn and rakan,c. 1890, bronze, shakudõ, 114 x 87 x 42 cm. Ayers House Museum, NationalTrust of South Australia, Adelaide

decorative arts & design

The environs of the neo-Georgian Italianate mansion,

Martindale Hall in South Australia’s Clare Valley was the site

of the film classic ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock.’ It also housed a

significant collection of Japanese arts that became

fashionable just after Japanese trade with the West opened

in the mid-19th century. Dispersed in 1965 the collection is

reunited for an exhibition that highlights the fashion for

Japanese objects in the grand homes of Australia at the

turn of the 20th century.

Japanese arts FROM MARTINDALE HALL REUNITED

A golden era:

3

1 2

W O R L D O F A N T I Q U E S & A R T

18

GLENN R COOKE

Graham had been exhibiting her work

for twenty years when Bianca

McCulloch published Australian Naïve

Painters and included Anne Marie Graham

as a ‘borderline case’ because she

‘consistently uses simple shapes and

colours associated with European peasant

art, retaining the power of direct statement

and a youthful freshness of vision.’ Her

good friend and fellow Bell School

Anne Marie Graham is one of the true survivors in the Australian art scene.

For more than fifty years she has pursued her vision of a colourful and engaging world and,

like many artists from ‘the south,’ has been inspired by her visits to tropical Queensland.

art

Bye-bye cold Melbourne1:

Anne Marie Graham’s vision OF TROPICAL QUEENSLAND

1

W O R L D O F A N T I Q U E S & A R T

28

TOM BOWTELL

While today it is something we

blithely sprinkle on our chips,

salt’s rich history makes it much more

than a mere condiment. Salt’s relative

scarcity, and its vital role as a

preservative and flavour enhancer – it

made the unpalatable food of the past

just about bearable – meant that until

1 Standing salt, 1589, gilt, impressedmaker’s mark: I G, h: 30.5 cm. Kindlyloaned by the Salters’ Company

decorative arts & design

Once valued as a highly

prized commodity, as much

for its commercial value as

for its role in cuisine, salt

has inspired generations of

artisans to create vessels in

precious metal of

remarkable complexity to

house what is now

regarded as a common

household condiment.

with a pinchof salt

Silver

W O R L D O F A N T I Q U E S & A R T

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