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Panel 4    To What Strange Uses

Carved Emu Eggs

[A pair of carved Emu Eggs on Silver Plate and Wood Stands with Fern Decoration] c.1900
[emu eggs, silver plate, wood; height 25cm, and 27cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection
National Library of Australia
A40009637 NK6769/4

Emu eggs have long been used as decorations, sometimes mounted in silver and often with fern leaf ornamentation. They can be carved to reveal increasingly pale layers of green so that a cameo effect is created. Many of those in the Library's collection have Australian birds and kangaroos incised on them and some feature Aboriginal hunters.


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