The trustees rejoice to be able to say, also that within the last year they have been enabled to extend their operations, by commencing the establishment of the Museum, and enlisting an auxiliary element of refinement.The sum of £2,000, voted by Parliament for that purpose, has been remitted to England, for the purchase of casts of some of the choicest statues, busts, and altorelievos by the most celebrated sculptors; of coins, medals, and gems – the useful handmaidens of history as well as of decorative adornment; and representations of remarkable architectural objects of Europe and elsewhere, taken by the process of photography.These when received, will be placed in the hall and chambers on the ground-floor.7
Vestibule of the Public Library, Melbourne, 1863
Wood engraving, Australian News for Home Readers, 21 October 1863.
Joseph Anderson Panton's inscribed copy of D. Brucciani, Prices of Casts from Ancient Marbles, Bronzes, etc. in the British Museum, [1857], Joseph Anderson Panton Papers, MS 10071, Australian Manuscripts Collection.
. . . the walls, which are without architectural features have (as an experiment,) been painted of a delicate light purplish grey, and have been divided into panels by lines and ornamental corners of a darker tint of the same colours. The ceiling is divided into deep panels of a light grey colour, the beams of a stone colour; the whole is decorated with Greek ornament, of the leaf and scroll pattern ... It is worthy of remark that the tint adopted for the walls gives a pleasing tone and a roundness and animation to the casts.20
[T]he proximity of various objects would, as it was considered, attract to them an observation more prolonged and instructive than that bestowed during visits to isolated buildings in which they might be dispersed, and would create and promote a sympathy between the different branches of Literature, Science and Art, the continuity of which would not be so adequately maintained were the illustrations deposited in different places.24
it was necessary to send to Europe for the objects which form the collection. . . . The selection required much discrimination, the execution of the orders much
care and attention. The mere transit of the instructions and of the objects occupied many months. Under these circumstances then, the trustees may be absolved from the charges of having caused any unnecessary delay or unreasonably disappointed public expectation.25
resolved to abandon the attempt to form such a classification [i.e. of casts into historical periods from antiquity to modern] as that suggested in the letter of Mr Justice Barry, it being the opinion of the meeting that the design could not be carried out without exclusion ... of works of which the absence could hardly fail to create both surprise and disappointment among the community for which the collection was intended . . .'30
First Reading-Room, Public Library, Melbourne, 1862
Wood engraving by Samuel Calvert, Illustrated Melbourne Post, 30 August 1862.
My Dear Wornum,The Govt. here applied to me to know how I should recommend them to lay out 2000 pounds in art. I suggested that it was desirable to begin a collection by purchasing plaster works of art but . . . I cautioned them that it was necessary to leave the matter in the hands of a competent artist & said you were the only person in England acquainted with the wants of a new people . . . I understand they have placed the matter in your hands . . . I think it better to inform you . . . their object is to begin a collection with which they can commence a School.46
If a School is started it is possible I may be consulted upon the most desirable plan & therefore I shall be glad of any advice you will give me or any recommendation you can give them with regard to me. . . If you will furnish me with any Catalogue (if there is one) descriptions of the antiques that I may fix on the pedestals as it may be left to me I shall feel greatly obliged . . .54
I am informed that the Trustees of the Public Library . . . have desired the [sum of] 500 [pounds] may be expended in photograph [sic] this I hope you will not agree to as it is merely to please one architect55 who has been consulting but please to let us have the orders (the small ones) that are published in Paris & in most of the Schools of Design. I gave the Trustees a list but you know much better than me what is required.
I have been to the Kensington Museum several times ... and have received much assistance from Mr Cole CB the Superintendant and Mr Redgrave RA: with their assistance I have made a list of the objects most suitable for your purpose . . . The selections consists of Electrotyph [sic] reproductions in metal . . . [and] photographs . . .60
What you have seen forms but a small part of what the collection will be – the remainder, which has not yet arrived, consists of objects of equal interest. It embraces, moreover, many remarkable illustrations of works of artistic excellence, which the ingenuity and felicity of modern scientific invention have multiplied to lend their charms to those denied the opportunity of dwelling on the sublime originals.63
I shall ever be ready to co-operate, to the best of my ability, in promoting the development of the industrial resources of the colony, and in encouraging the cultivation of a taste for Art in the various branches of its local manufactures.69
J. Burke, 'Foreword', in L. Cox, The National Gallery of Victoria 1861 to 1968: a search for a collection, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, [1970?], p. xi. | |
See, E. La Touche Armstrong, The Book of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery of Victoria, 1856-1906, Melbourne: Trustees of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery, 1906; A. Galbally, 'The Lost Museum, Redmond Barry and the Musée des Copies', Australian Journal of Art, vol. vii, 1988, pp. 29-50; A. Galbally, and A. Inglis, The First Collections: the Public Library and the National Gallery of Victoria in the 1850s and 1860s, Parkville, Vic.: University Gallery, the University of Melbourne Museum of Art, 1992; K. M. Fennessy, 'For "Love of Art": the Museum of Art and the Picture Gallery at the Melbourne Public Library 1860-1870', La Trobe Journal, no. 75, Autumn 2005, pp. 5-20. | |
C. Aspinall, Three Years in Melbourne, 1862, quoted in A. Galbally, 'Patron of the Arts at the Antipodes', La Trobe Journal, no. 73, Autumn 2004, p. 5. | |
S. Burt, 'Library Trustees at Work: letters from Barry to Childers 1859-60', La Trobe Journal, no. 73, Autumn 2004, pp. 75-94. | |
Address of the Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library, presented to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B., Governor-in-Chief of the Colony of Victoria, on the opening of the Museum of Art, on Friday May 24th, 1861, being the Birth Day of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria; with his Excellency's Reply, Melbourne: Public Library Trustees, 1861, np. | |
'Opening of the Art Room at the Public Library', Age, 25 May 1861, 'Opening of the Museum of Art in the Public Library', Argus, 25 May 1861, p. 5; 'Museum of Art', Ballarat Star, 27 May 1861, p. 15; 'Public Library Melbourne', Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, 3 June 1861, p. 3; 'Victoria', Brisbane Courier, 10 June 1861, p. 3. | |
'The Public Library: Opening of New Wing', Argus, 25 May 1859, p. 6. | |
'Opening of the Art Room at the Public Library', Age, 25 May 2011, p. 10. At the bottom of the replica of the 25 May 1861 page was written: 'From a room in a library to a Melbourne icon, The Age congratulates the NGV on 150 years'. | |
It should be noted that the Argus reversed the order of proceedings in its publication of the speeches, placing Sir Henry Barkly's response before Sir Redmond Barry's address. | |
Barkly, in Address of the Trustees... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861, np. | |
Sir Redmond Barry in, Address Presented by the Trustees to His Excellency Major-General Macarthur, Acting Governor, at the Opening of the Library, 11 February, 1856, cited in La Trobe Journal, no. 72, Spring, 2003, p. 17. | |
For a discussion of the models that influenced the development of the Public Library and Museum of Art, see Galbally and Inglis, The First Collections, pp. 9-10. | |
A. Galbally, Redmond Barry, an Anglo-Irish Australia, Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1995, p. 96. | |
Richard Overell, 'Introduction', in Early Book Purchases in the Melbourne Public Library: Redmond Barry's instructions to the Agent-General, December 3rd 1853, Clayton, Vic.: Ancora Press, 1997, p. vi | |
Galbally and Inglis, The First Collections, p. 101. | |
Sir Redmond Barry quoted in Early Book Purchases in the Melbourne Public Library, p. v. | |
Galbally, Redmond Barry, p. 97 | |
Alexander Sutherland, Victoria and its Metropolis, Past and Present, Melbourne: McCarron, Bird and Co., 1888, vol. 1, p. 389. | |
A full listing of art books is in The Catalogue of the Melbourne Public Library for 1861, Melbourne: Melbourne Public Library Trustees, 1861, p. iii. | |
The Catalogue of the Melbourne Public Library for 1861, p. ix | |
Ibid. The exact attendance figure listed in the catalogue is 26,003, p. x. | |
Census of 1861 – Distribution of the Population, Victorian Government Gazette, 23 July 1861(112), pp. 1403-6. | |
Library, Museums and National Gallery Act, Victorian Government Gazette, 31 December 1869 (published as a supplement), pp. 245-47. | |
Report of the Trustees of the Public Library, Museum and National Gallery of Victoria, 1870-71, quoted in Galbally and Inglis, The First Collections, p. 7 | |
Sir Redmond Barry, in Address of the Trustees ... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861, 1861, np. | |
Barry to Childers, 14 May 1859, quoted Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 35. | |
Ibid. | |
Burt, 'Library Trustees at Work', p. 86. | |
Ibid. | |
Waters to Barry, quoted Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 37. | |
Ibid. | |
Francis Haskell and Penny Nicholas, Taste and the Antique, the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, London: Yale University Press, 1981, p. 117. | |
Barry to Childers, 15 April 1859, quoted Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 35. | |
Waters to Barry, 26 October 1860, quoted Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 36. | |
Joseph Anderson Panton Papers, MS 10071, MSB 142, Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library of Victoria. The authors would like to thank Gerard Hayes, Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria, for drawing this catalogue to their attention. | |
Joseph Anderson Panton Papers. | |
For the details of Panton's career as public servant and artist, see the entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) on-line (http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/panton-josephanderson-4362) and the Design and Art Australia on line (http://www.daao.org.au/bio/josephanderson-panton/). | |
For the significance of the Elgin Marbles for Victorian artists, see R. P. Asleson, 'Classic into Modern: the inspiration of antiquity in English painting, 1864-1918', PhD Thesis, 1993, UMI Dissertation Information Service, 1999, pp. 167-197. | |
Address of the Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library, Presented to the Governor-in -Chief Sir Henry Barkly KCB ..., Melbourne: Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library, 1859, p. 2. | |
'Catalogue and Account Book of the Museum of Art', nd, pp. 1-16. This book, documenting the acquisition of works of art for the Museum of Art, is held in the Registration Department of the National Gallery of Victoria. The authors would like to thank Janine Bofill, Head Registrar, the National Gallery of Victoria for her generous assistance in providing access to the Museum of Art/National Gallery of Victoria Stock-Books. | |
Waters to Barry, 26 October 1860, quoting Barry's letter of 25 August 1860, in Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 36. | |
Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 38. | |
Sir Redmond Barry, in Address of the Trustees ... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861, np. For sculptor, Charles Summers see ADB online: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/summerscharles-4668. A list compiled on 9 February 1861 by a Lloyd's agent in Melbourne gave details of the damage to friezes, statues and busts, and a market value given for insurance purposes (see VPRS 1074/P7/35, Miscellaneous Reports, Catalogues, Lists, Statutes, University Accounts etc. 1862-1875). | |
Barry Papers, MS 8380, Box 599, 1 (b), State Library of Victoria; Letter, Barry to Childers, nd. [written after the official opening of the Museum of Art]. Barry sent 'a few copies of the address by Gov. Barkly on opening the Museum of Art' with the letter. | |
National Gallery Archives, London, NGA2/4/2/37. Pamela Tuckett would like to thank Nicholas Donaldson of the National Gallery London Archives for notification of the existence of this letter. | |
Ibid. | |
VPRS 903/P144/69/20885: Letter, Thomas Clark to Secretary, Board of Education, Victoria, 7 November 1869; and VPRS 1074/P5: Applications for Drawing Master, Thomas Clark to The Trustees of the Public Library, 2 July 1870. Awards to a 'Mr T. Clarke' from the Royal Academy London were listed in the Art Union in 1846. See 'Royal Academy, The Distribution of Medals', Art Union, January 1846, p. 12. | |
Galbally notes 'Clark was said to have been director of the Nottingham School of Arts before he was appointed anatomical draftsman at King's College, London, in 1843 . . . In December 1846, at his own request, Clark was also appointed drawing-master at the King Edward's School of Design'. See A. Galbally, 'Clark, Thomas (1814-1883)', ADB online http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/clarkthomas-3218 | |
Victorian Society of Fine Arts and John Shillinglaw, Prospectus for the Victorian Society of Fine Arts' School of Design, Melbourne: [?], 1857 [?]. Clark was to have taught 'Free-hand Drawing from Copies & Models; Geometrical Perspective, Architectural; the Human figure and Modelling', the modelling being three dimensional building and casting. | |
Barry Papers, MS 8380, Box 599, 1 (b) Letter, Barry to Childers, 24 April 1860, SLV. | |
Dictionary of Art Historians, 'Ralph Nicholson Wornum', http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/wornum/htm. | |
For the careers of Cole and Wornum, see S. Macdonald, The History and Philosophy of Art Education, London: University of London Press, 1970, pp. 129-142, 157-199, 241-44. | |
Its full title was, Analysis of Ornament, the Characteristics of Styles: an introduction to the study of the history of ornamental art, being an outline of sixteen lectures on the subject, originally prepared for the Government School of Design in the Years 1848, 1849, 1850, London: Chapman and Hall, 1856. Macdonald claims it had 'as much influence on the teaching of aspiring designers in the Schools of Art as Jones' Grammar of Ornament' (see History and Philosophy, p. 244). The State Library of Victoria holds a copy, as well as three other texts by Wornum, all listed in the Fine Art section of the Library's 1865 catalogue. | |
National Gallery Archives, London, NGA2/4/2/37. | |
The identity of the architect is not given, but it could be Joseph Reed, the architect of the Public Library or William Wilkinson Wardell, who was later appointed to the Fine Arts Commission in 1863. | |
M. Baker, 'The Reproductive Continuum: plaster casts, paper mosaics and photographs as complementary modes of reproduction in the nineteenth-century museum', in R. Frederiksen and E. Marchand, eds, Plaster Casts: making, collecting and displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010, pp. 487, 494-95. | |
Clark's attitude is curious, as he himself was a practicing photographer. See M. Robinson, Thomas Clark (1814-1883) Artist and Educator, Conference Paper, the Joint Conference of Australia and New Zealand and British History of Education Societies, Swansea, November 2002. | |
Quoted Burt, 'Library Trustees at Work', p. 81. Barry added 'He [Wornum] must be paid I suppose which will encroach on our small funds but that outlay may save us immensely besides we get the advantage of his acquaintance with the subject'. | |
National Gallery Archives, London, NGA2/4/2/37. Wornum and Cole had clashed publicly before Cole was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Practical Art in 1852; see Macdonald, History and Philosophy of Art Education, pp. 138-139. | |
Waters to Barry, quoted Galbally, 'The Lost Museum', p. 37. | |
Ibid. | |
For an enthusiastic review of these 'invaluable' reproductions following their installation in the Museum of Art later in the year, see Argus, 9 November 1861, p. 4. | |
Writing to Childers, soon after the event, Barry mentioned the arrival of the vessel, Flying Cloud, with further works for the Museum of Art, including stereoscopic views and some seals, but obviously too late for the opening. See Barry Papers, MS 8380, Box 599, 1 (b), State Library of Victoria, Letter, Barry to Childers, written after the official opening of the Museum of Art. | |
National Gallery Archives, London, NGA2/4/2/37. | |
Barry, in Address of the Trustees ... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861. | |
Sir Henry Barkly, cited in Address of the Trustees ... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861. | |
D. McCaughey, N. Perkins and A. Trumble, Victoria's Colonial Governors 1839-1900, Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1993, pp. 93-98. | |
Barkly's efforts in sending botanical specimens to Kew during his terms of office in Guiana, Jamaica, Victoria and Mauritius, eventually would 'earn him an F. R. S. [Fellow of the Royal Society]', see M. Macmillan, Sir Henry Barkly, Mediator and Moderator 1815-1898, Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1970, p. 35. | |
Sir Henry Barkly, 'Reply' to 'Address presented to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, KCB, on the opening of the eighth exhibition of the Society, February 11, 1858', Victoria Industrial Society, Catalogue of the Eighth Annual Exhibition of Manufactures, Produce, Machinery and Fine Arts, Melbourne: Victoria Industrial Society, 1858, p. viii. | |
Argus, 5 January 1857, quoted M. Hancock, Colonial Consorts: the wives of Victoria's governors 1839-1900, Carlton, Vic.: The Meigunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, 2001, p. 52. | |
Macmillan quotes a contemporary account of the Barklys touring Jamaica: '. . . H. E. [His Excellency] at once brought his pencil into requisition and sketched the enchanting scenery ... Nor was Sir Henry Barkly . . . the only devotee of art, fairer fingers had a pencil too.' Macmillan comments: 'In fact, Lady Barkly may have been the better artist of the two. Two oil-paintings by her of . . . Highgate, the Governor's hill residence, hang in the Institute of Jamaica, and are something more than amateur efforts'. Macmillan, Sir Henry Barkly, pp. 71-72. | |
Tim Bonyhady, Australian Colonial Paintings in the Australian National Gallery, South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 179, note 44. | |
C. Downer, 'Images of Empire: Sir Henry Barkly's Photographic Album, 1858-1877', La Trobe Journal, no. 62, Spring 1998, p. 39. For this earlier vice-regal commission, see H. Botham, La Trobe's Jolimont: a walk around my garden, Melbourne: C. J. La Trobe Society & Australian Garden History Society, 2006. | |
See Macmillan, Sir Henry Barkly, pp. 29-33, 112. | |
Album compiled by Sir Henry Barkly during his time as Governor of Victoria, Mauritius, Cape Province (South Africa) after his retirement to England in 1877, (c. 1858-c.1877), H92, 101/1-107, Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria. | |
Downer, 'Images of Empire', p. 39. | |
Sir Henry Barkly's first wife, Elizabeth, Lady Barkly, tragically died in Melbourne in 1857. It is his second wife, Annie, whom he married in 1860, who appears in the work of colonial photographers. See Hancock, Colonial Consorts, p. 60. | |
P. Reynolds, 'A Note on Henry Burn, 1807?-1884', La Trobe Library Journal, no. 11, April 1973, pp. 52, 58. | |
For example, see Henry Short's letter to Sir Henry Barkly, dated 16 April 1862, describing his painting, Our Adopted Country, 'in memory of the lamented heores of the Victorian Expedition, 1861, and asking him to take shares in the Art Union formed to sell the painting. Sir Henry agreed to take two shares. C. Downer, 'The Language of Flowers: Henry Short's Our Adopted Country, La Trobe Journal, no. 30, Spring 1998, pp. 19-20. | |
Thomas Clark, Sir Henry Barkly, G G. M. G., K. C. B., Governor of Victoria, 1864 oil on canvas, H2003.55, Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria; Charles Summers, Sir Henry Barkly, 1864, white marble, LTS 4, Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria. | |
Various portraits of Barkly were produced by Frederick Grosse, Samuel Calvert, John Botterill among others. See the Pictures Collection Catalogue of State Library of Victoria for a more complete listing. | |
See Macmillan, Sir Henry Barkly, p. 136. | |
For differing opinions of the portrait's success, see Argus, 18 May 1864; Melbourne Punch, 12 January 1865. | |
It is now on permanent display in the Red Rotunda Room off the Cowen Gallery in the State Library. | |
Second Progress Report of the Commission on the Fine Arts quoted in Philippa Murray, The NGV Story: A Celebration of 150 Years, Melbourne, Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, 2011, p. 11. | |
Sir Henry Barkly, cited in Address of the Trustees ... to his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, May 24th, 1861. |