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A passion eating into your vitals
The ‘Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square’ in court, 18 December 1865
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The salacious and sordid details of Henry Kinder’s death transfixed Sydneysiders with a case combining murder with seduction, mesmerism, blackmail and poisoning.
Banksia and grevillea
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Portraits can render honour to remarkable men and women, but there are other ways.
Missing Persons
Thomas Woolner in Australia
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Desperately seeking Woolner medallions
Beyond the bow tie
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Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.
The outlaws coolly disported themselves
Ned Kelly & co at Euroa, 9 and 10 December 1878
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'Each man arrayed himself in a new rig from head to foot, and even such luxuries as soaps and perfumery were not despised'
The personal and the historical
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Where do we draw a line between the personal and the historical? Although she died in Melbourne in 1975, when I was not quite eleven years old, I have the vividest memories of my maternal grandmother Helen Borthwick.
Portraiture in a Bleak House
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It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.
Remembering Ursula
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I first knew Dr. Hoff when in 1986, long after retiring from the National Gallery of Victoria, she taught a graduate seminar on Rembrandt.
Indexing, the art of
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The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.
Empirical art
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Several years ago I came across this curious painting on the racks in a distant, dusty corner of the store room in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery in South Africa. Since then the mystery surrounding it has never been far from my mind.
Cocky McGrath
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The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
Portrait dendrochronology
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Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'
Diseased curiosity
Captain Moonlite et al on trial for murder
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Just after 10.00 o'clock on 3 December 1879, four prisoners were brought from their cells at Darlinghurst Gaol and placed in the dock of a courtroom heaving with agitated spectators
The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush
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Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.
Desert Island Discs
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I agonized over the choice of four songs to take with me to the ABC Studios for Alex Sloan’s Canberra 666 afternoon program, a sort of iteration of the old BBC Desert Island Discs.
Audacity, audacity, audacity
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Angus delves into the biographies of two ambitious characters; Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir John Pope-Hennessy.