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Collector's chest c.1820
Courtesy
of the Dixson Galleries,
State Library of New South Wales
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Collectors
chest
c.1820
The
Dixson Galleries Collector’s chest was probably
constructed in New South Wales around 1818. Nothing
is known about its history before it was purchased
in London in 1937 by one of the State Library
of New South Wales’ most important benefactors,
Sir William Dixson, for 100 guineas. Although
it is an unusual artefact for a library to own,
as one of the most extraordinary works of colonial
art and craftsmanship, and as a summary of a gentleman’s
experience of colonial natural history, the chest
is completely at home among the Library’s pictorial
and manuscript collections documenting the early
colonisation of Australia.
The
chest opens to reveal 13 oil-painted panels, secreted
in drawers or on the underside of its lid. The
existence of a companion chest in a private Sydney
collection with a strong provenance to Governor
Macquarie, its probable date of construction (c.1820),
and focus of the panels on the Newcastle district,
plausibly hint that it was commissioned by the
commandant of the convict settlement at Newcastle,
Captain James Wallis of the 46th Regiment, who
was in command of the Newcastle settlement between
1816 and 1819. One of his charges was professional
artist and convict, Joseph Lycett, who is likely
to have been the artist of the panels.
There
is no doubt that the chest was designed for a
natural history collection, although most of this
has been lost. Natural history proved fascinating
to all classes of colonists, and many were passionate
collectors. It is likely that Wallis saw the chest
as a repository for his own collections. It is
also possible that he gave the other chest to
Macquarie, as a political or strategic gift to
his primary colonial patron. The Collector’s chest
epitomises the way in which many people experienced
natural history in the colony, emphasising as
it does the diversity and difference of Australian
natural history.
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