FEBRUARY – AUGUST 2012 ISSUE 82 AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95 SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00 US $13.00 €10.50 a biannual magazine for collectors of material culture art Antiques & world of GOLD In all its glorious manifestations celebrated in London FROM CANADA TO AUSTRALIA Tying up the loose ends in early colonial art World class destinations for sculpture The new Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire Henry Moore at Perry Green American artists in Italy A rich exchange between cultures
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FEBRUARY – AUGUST 2012 ISSUE 82AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00
US $13.00 €10.50
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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 r eartAntiques &worldof
GOLDIn all its glorious manifestationscelebrated in London
FROM CANADA TO AUSTRALIATying up the loose ends in early colonial art
World class destinations for sculptureThe new Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire
Henry Moore at Perry Green
American artists in ItalyA rich exchange between cultures
136 AROUND THE AUCTIONSAuction highlights from the major houses
ART30 Russell Drysdale (1912-1981): a centenary evaluation
Helen Musa
48 Narimboo: an Aboriginal portrait
Ross Searle
84 Caustic images of Weimar Germany
Penny Fisher
92 Claude Lorrain in a new light
Dr Jon Whiteley
96 Americans in Florence
James Bradburne
128 Re-evaluating Henry Moore’s plasters
Anita Feldman
151 CONTRIBUTORS
DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN36 Indian ivories
Francesca Galloway
42 The power and allure of gold
Dr Helen Clifford
66 Transported to the Colonies: Thomas Tompion’s clock
John Hawkins
74 A Worcester chalice
Andrew Morris
88 Fashion, patriotism and propaganda
Alexandra Huff
106 Malaysian Songtik
Helen Musa
110 Balinese wood carvings
Geraldine Slattery
4 EDITORIAL
HERITAGE14 The Governor, the Ensign and the Convict
Terry Ingram
54 What remains? Paper architecture and the
world of the unmade
Matilda Bathurst
60 A Han imperial burial
Dr James Lin
78 Restoration and renewal in Dresden
Dr Jana Vytrhlik
102 The Hepworth Wakefield
Matilda Bathurst
116 The Scottish National Portrait Gallery transformed
James Holloway
144 INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
PHOTOGRAPHY8 André Roosevelt’s Bali, the ‘Last Paradise’
Annabelle Lacour
20 Polixeni Papapetrou: transforming a pastoral scene
Gael Newton
124 Out of the darkroom: Kim Kauffman
Dr Margaret McNiven
PROFILE120 Celebrating a medium and a collector
Helen Watson
Contents
COVERPolixeni Papapetrou, The Harvesters from
Between Worlds, 2009, colour photograph,
pigment print, 105 x 105 cm.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2 World of Antiques & Art
Gael Newton
Early naturalists described theAustralian colonies as an upside-down world whereinstead of the leaves the bark fell off the trees inwinter. In her enigmatic 2009 photo-tableauxBetween worlds, Australian artist PolixeniPapapetrou also seems to want to craft some senseout of the mix of native and introduced species andtales in the antipodes.
Australian-born, of Greek background and alawyer by first vocation, Papapetrou has been inthrall to masqueraders of various persuasions fromthe real Elvis fans and impersonators andbodybuilders she photographed in Melbourne inthe 1980s through a succession of series of studiotableaux from 2003 in which her young daughterand son are the costumed models but alsomasqueraders in their own right who journeythrough scenarios derived from European fairytales and the fantasies of the British Victorian erawriter/ photographer the Reverend Dodgson,author of Alice in Wonderland.
Followers of Papapetrou’s works have watched asher children have grown their way out of literaryfables and into masked roles in a series of worksbased on well-known European and Australianpaintings and colonial myths. Papapetrou’s interestin her own landscape was heightened after overseastravels in 2004 and her increasingly expanded andmore enigmatic cast of anthropomorphic‘watchers’ are now located outdoors in evocativeand spacious Australian landscapes and settings.
The Harvesters mixes metaphors and motifs.It draws first on French painter J F Millet’sThe Gleaners of 1857, a work which has longintrigued the artist for its ‘aestheticisation of theother’ in this case the grinding poverty of the gleanerscontrasted with the lush harvest of the landowner. TheMillet was seen as controversial and dangerouslysympathetic to the working class; the Aussie‘gleaners’ of 2009 however are girly young pigs inpretty pink nylon flounces recalling stories andDisney films of The Three Little Pigs, a Victorian eramoral tale about being productive and sensible.
The new Harvesters are genetic and gender-bending pretenders whose immaculate frocks showthey glean their grub only for amusement. Theirbucolic setting in this fractured fairy tale isrecognisably Australian only from the brilliantdepth of the blue sky and a strip of rocky untamedland in the middle ground. Perhaps a widermetaphor also wants to break in to the scene. As asettler society of relatively short history,Australians of European descent must perforcedomesticate the immigrant cultural narratives justas the bush land is turned to pastoral haymaking.
It is said that all versions of a myth are true, butmaybe the disquiet underlying Papapetrou’s images ishow they suggest Australians have not quite yetdomesticated their inherited and transportednarratives. Or are these now unforgettable creaturesof Papapetou’s creation Darwinian adaptations to anew land. So what if the gleaners have cross-bredwith cartoon pigs and are even a little monstrous. Butthey are Our Monsters, and rather friendly at that.
photomedia
Polixeni Papapetrou,The Harvesters from
Between Worlds,2009, colour
photograph, pigmentprint, 105 x 105 cm.
National Gallery ofAustralia, Canberra
Polixeni Papapetrou
transforming apastoral sceneThe not so gentle relationship between fantasy and reality
20 World of Antiques & Art
Francesca Galloway
The trade in Indian ivory objects
has a long history. Described as one of the noblest
crafts in Vedic literature ivory was already in
considerable demand during the Achaemenid
Empire in Iran (650-330 BCE) and later, during the
Roman Empire in Italy where Indian ivory was
found amongst the ruins of Pompeii (79 CE).
The most famous group are the Begram ivories,
excavated in modern times from the ruins of a
building in Begram, in present-day Afghanistan,
which had been destroyed during the Sassanian
invasions of around 241 CE. These Indic ivories,
dating from 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE,
were luxury goods of a secular nature. They were
found together with Syrian glass, Roman and
Alexandrian sculpture and Chinese lacquer ware,
revealing the cosmopolitan and sophisticated
lifestyle of the wealthy elite living along the
Silk Route.
It was in the sixteenth century that trade in such
objects really flowered with the arrival of the first
Europeans in India, intent on establishing trade.
Most surviving examples of ivories before the
sixteenth century tend to be small-scale such as
Buddhist votive objects from Kashmir, medieval
erotic ivories from Orissa and elaborate carved
throne legs also from Orissa and south India, which
were made for domestic palace and temple use.
An unusual and beautiful example of sixteenth
century south Indian figurative ivory carving is a
decorative arts
Indian ivoriesfor the luxury market
With the expansion of foreign trade in the sixteenth century India developed an important market inthe production of high quality ivories for the export market. The strong demand for these beautifullycrafted items among collectors and museums continues today
Ceylon cabinet, late 16th-17thcentury, ivory and tortoiseshellveneered, made for thePortuguese market, h: 16.75 xw: 51 x depth: 32.5 cm. Thiscabinet is decorated withsmall panels of ivory finelycarved with Ceylonesezoological imagery, includinghamsa and winged beastsamidst exotic scrolling foliage,serrated leaves, stylisedflowers and pearled stems.Image courtesy ofFrancesca Galloway
couple from Madurai in Tamil Nadu now in the
British Museum in London. The Musée Guimet in
Paris and the Cleveland Museum of Art in the USA
all have famous collections of early Indian ivory.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to
secure trading settlements at Cochin in 1503 and
then at Goa in 1510 and their arrival marks the start
of the export trade to Europe. By the seventeenth
century the Dutch and the English had established
major trading posts or factories in different parts of
the Indian subcontinent, expelling the Portuguese by
the middle of the century.
The number of pieces that survive from this
period is relatively large although the condition and
quality of such pieces vary hugely. The best
examples are generally held in museums such as the
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London.
Precious and exotic objects such as intricately
carved ivory caskets from India and Ceylon (now
Sri Lanka), sometimes inlaid with precious jewels
and exquisitely carved fans, fly whisks and combs
were exported to Portugal and Spain, many
commissioned by or given to members of the royal
courts of Europe at the time they were made.
These luxurious objects were highly fashionable in
Europe and were displayed in royal collections
(Kunstkammes) in Florence, Naples, Madrid
and Munich.
Ceylonese ivory workshops, famed for the high
quality of their workmanship, created a hybrid style
that blended traditional Sinhalese forms and motifs
with those derived from European iconography. The
Ceylonese style of this period included zoological
Britain in the form of sheets formed into crescent
discs, called lunulae and basket rings, such as the
celebrated ‘basket-rings’ found in a grave near
Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in 2002.
The Amesbury Archer and his companion were
both buried some 4,300 years ago with great
ceremony, each with a pair of gold ‘basket rings’
placed close to the side of their heads. Their
precise function is still unclear but they may have
been worn round locks of hair. Analysis of the
archer’s tooth enamel reveal that he originated
from the Alps region. Perhaps he was one of the
early migrants who first brought Britain into
contact with the continent of Europe and with it
the trade that brought goldworking to Britain.
The technique of embossing sheet gold was
known across Europe and a gold ewer from
Anatolia, dated to c. 2500-2000 BCE, shows how
ancient civilisations shared this technique of
decorating. It is one of the earliest gold vessels
known in the world.
Lunulae, the term used to describe a distinctive
type of early Bronze Age collar, shaped like a
The power and
allure of gold
decorative art
The confluence of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee andthe Olympic Games in London in 2012 offers an opportunity tocelebrate the story of Britain’s largely unsung relationship with gold
pre-war architectural glory and restoring its rich
museum collections. The historical centre of the
city was destroyed in the final days of World War
II and many of the public buildings remained in
ruins under the East German government.
Pre-war Dresden still lived in people’s
memories so the colossal task of rebuilding and
recovery was highly emotive. Architects and the
city authorities were faced with two opposing
views about the new development. On the one
hand advocates of meticulous reconstruction, on
the other, those who believed in the creation of a
modern day city of the twenty-first century.
Within the historic city centre the
conservationists prevailed. The baroque palaces
and churches have been restored exactly as they
were before the bombing. One of the most
influential supporters of the rebuilding of the
famous Frauenkirche church was Günter Blobel,
a German-born US scientist who donated his
Nobel Prize award money to this project in 1999.
Blobel embraced the modernist’s approach by
supporting the building of the ‘New’ Synagogue
in Dresden (completed 2001), whose cubic
design references the geometry of the ancient
Temple in Jerusalem.
Restoration and renewal
in DresdenThe city famed for its magnificent buildings and art collectionsamassed by Augustus the Strong faces the delicate issue ofbalancing its historical importance with the needs of a dynamicand growing modern city
heritage
Top: Photograph of rebuilt square, 2011
Bottom: Frauenkirche reconstruction of its1726 style completed in 2005, 2011
Libeskind, achieved a powerful fusion of modernity
with the existing nineteenth-century classicist
building. Libeskind’s extension to the Bundeswehr
Military History Museum re-opened to acclaim last
year after seven years of building and refurbishment
work. The futuristic thirty-metre tall glass, steel and
concrete structure signifies a museum which deals
with and interprets Germany’s difficult past. As
Dresden is rebuilt so its national and international
standing has grown. The city is now a regular host to
international conferences, festivals and trade fairs
and a centre for German federal and foreign
government cultural programs.
Historically, the city is still most strongly
identified with the era of Augustus the Strong
(1670-1733), the Elector of Saxony and King of
Poland. Augustus transformed Dresden, building
extravagant baroque palaces and museums to
house his incredible art collections. Like
Rudolph II a century earlier in Prague, his court
attracted the best architects, artists, goldsmiths,
jewellers and inventors. His enthusiasm for
porcelain resulted not only in his world famous
collection but the European discovery of the
making of porcelain and the foundation of the
first ever European porcelain factory at Meissen.
Augustus made major additions to the already
outstanding collections of his predecessors. In
the 1720s, his still growing collections of
paintings, sculpture and decorative arts were
displayed in a series of purpose-built ‘museum’
rooms. This collection formed the basis of the
State Art Collections, the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden, or SKD today.
The precious works of art survived the bombing
because they were evacuated two years earlier and
hidden in caves and quarries east of the city, only to
be seized at the end of the war by the Red Army
troops. By an irony of fate, Dresden became part of
the Eastern Block and in a political and ideological
gesture of communist solidarity the Soviet
government returned a proportion of the treasures to
Dresden in 1958. The collections are now housed in
a group of historical buildings which include the
Zwinger, Royal Palace and Albertinum as well as the
nearby hunting lodge Jägerhag and castles of Pillnitz
and Moritzbur. The buildings are gradually being
restored to incorporate twentieth-first century
museum technology and visitor facilities.
The collections incorporate twelve museums in
all. They include the Cabinet of Prints and
Drawings, one of the oldest and most important
collections of drawings, prints and photographs
in Europe. It holds over half a million items by
more than 20,000 artists, spanning 800 years.
The Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Zwinger
is world renowned. The Italian Renaissance rooms
include Rafael’s Sistine Madonna and works by
Giorgione and Titian. Dutch and Flemish
masterworks are represented by the best of
Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens and Van Dyck. The
collection of old German masters includes many
works by Dürer, Cranach and Holbein.
Left: Synagogue rebuilt, 2011
Right: The controversialbridge over Elbe Riverviewed from the river, onlya few kilometres from theold city centre, 2011
Jacob Zeller(German 1581-1620), Table centrepiece designedas a frigate borne by Neptune,1620, ivory, gold, iron,h. 116.7 cm. Grünes Gewölbe.Photo: Jürgen Karpinski
Below right: Castle Pillnitzhousing rich decorative artscollection in originalsurroundings, 2011
92 World of Antiques & Art
Claude Lorrainin a new light
New research by curators at the Ashmoleon Musum in Oxford and the Städel Museum,Frankfurt shows Claude as the revolutionary artist he was