Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

Sidney House, Toowong Portrait of Thomas Finney. Photograph courtesy John Oxley Library, Brisbane applied and fine arts, evidenced in trade exhibitions, which were, she suggests, 'public demonstrations of commercial enterprise and industrial progress'. Colonial artists continued to be separated from imported artists and the art of Royal Academy pupils was singled out as a desirable item to be imported to decorate Australian homes. The didactic role of art was encouraged, even though there were questions about whether the climate of Brisbane was conducive to an appreciation of art over material goods. As Maynard put it: 'Art was a last refinement that a busy community like Brisbane could afford'.20 By the mid-1880s, Maynard contends that the conditions necessary for the acquisition of works of art had improved with the commensurate development of a leisured class. The purchase of fine art and the decoration of fine buildings became increasingly evident as the equation between material well-being and cultural enlightenment grew stronger. The auction record for John Forsyth, proprietor of the Redbank Brick and Tile Company, provides a fascinating insight into the collecting habits of a wealthy businessman in late nineteenth-century Brisbane. The room-by-room listing of the house contents includes a separate category for an 'art gallery'. Old master prints by Titian, van Dyke and Correggio were displayed alongside sepia sketches, photographs, oils on porcelain and a mounted stag's head. In an adjoining room stood an eight-foot- high ebony statue of a 'Negress and Boy', while in the dining room, Grecian vases, a pair of carved kangaroos, and a pair of emu eggs mounted in silver complemented the extensive range of exhibits.21Awide-ranging vision based on the assumption of equality between copy and original, exotic and refined, new and old, apparently was the hallmark of late-Victorian collecting mores.22 / l- It is difficult to construct a similar taxonomy of the Sidney House collection without auction records, interior photographs or other source material. There are some obvious crossovers, such as the eclectic combination of period furniture, Japanese screens, and references to medievalism, literature and antiquity. However, of greater interest than this is the TASTE AND THE LATE-COLONIAL BRISBANE RESIDENCE 43