Wld 85 aug 2013 teaser

art

a biannual magazine for collectors of material culture

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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

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

70

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

4

EDITORIAL

Gael Hammer

HERITAGE 80

James McNeill Whistler:

48

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

8

Scots in Australia: from First Fleet to Federation Gordon Morrison

66

The Venice Biennale 2013 Vivienne Sharpe and Tim McCormick

119

120

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS

CONTRIBUTORS DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

18

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

COVER

John Hawkins

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

34

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.

42

A silk pilgrimage to Lyon Eleanor Keene

2 World of Antiques & Art

Cowper Bequest

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

T

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

28 World of Antiques & Art

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

I

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

54 World of Antiques & Art

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

World of Antiques & Art 55

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

T

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

100 World of Antiques & Art

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 bull’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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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

B

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,

World of Antiques & Art 71

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