AN IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN CEDAR AND SPECIMEN WOOD SIDEBOARD OF GRAND PROPORTIONS CARVED WITH THE PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION AND PROGRESS OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA, CIRCA 1860 ﾖ 1873, BY PETER McLEAN

• Lot Sold $500,000 (Hammer Price)
• $600,000 (Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium)

340CM WIDE, 92.5CM DEEP, 351CM HIGH

PROVENANCE
Peter McLean
James Wright Ferguson; purchased 1927
Elias Baitz, Parkville; purchased with house at 90 The Avenue
Private Collection, Melbourne, since 1944

EXHIBITED
The Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Great Hall, Melbourne, 24 October 1866 - 23 February 1867, cat. 786
Grand Art Union, 4 Collins Street, Melbourne, 18 June 1866
'The Victorian Exhibition' at The London International Exhibition, 14 April - 31 October 1873, cat. 69

LITERATURE
Intercolonial Exhibition 1866: Official Catalogue (2nd ed.), The Commissioners (Blundell & Ford, Printers), Melbourne, 1866, p. 37; The Argus, Melbourne, 22 December 1866, p. 5
The Argus, Melbourne, 18 June 1867, p. 8
The Argus, Melbourne, 19 June 1867, p. 8
The Argus, Melbourne, 22 June 1867, p. 8
The Argus, Melbourne, 2 October 1867, p. 5
The London International Exhibition of 1873: The Victorian Exhibition: Official Catalogue of Exhibits(2nd ed.), The Commissioners (Francis A. Masterman, Printer), Melbourne, 1873, p. 9
'Sideboard Worth £1000: Work of Pioneer: Took 10 Years to Build', The Herald, Melbourne, 16 February 1927, p. 9
W.E. Harrison, 'Carving', Australian Home Beautiful, Melbourne, 1 May 1935, pp. 21-22, illus. p. 23
D. McL., 'The Story of a Much Travelled Sideboard', Australian Home Beautiful, Melbourne, 1 August 1935, p. 39 (illus.)
Juliana and Toby Hooper, A Guide to Collecting Australiana, Macmillan, Melbourne and Sydney, 1978, p. 21
Juliana Hooper, 'Where Is This Masterpiece?', The Age, Melbourne, 14 August 1984, (Melbourne Living) p. 2
Geoff Maslen, 'Carved Buffet Still Missing', The Age, Melbourne, (Melbourne Living) p. 6
Rosa Perlman, 'The Vanished Sideboard', The Weekly Times, Melbourne, 11 September 1985, p. 90
Kevin Fahy, Christina Simpson and Andrew Simpson, Nineteenth Century Australian Furniture, David Ell Press, Sydney, 1985, pp. 188-191, illus. pp. 190, 191
Kevin Fahy and Andrew Simpson, Australian Furniture: Pictorial History and Dictionary 1788-1938, Casuarina Press, Sydney, 1998, p. 87

One of the finest and most remarkable examples of Victorian colonial cabinetmaking, Australia's answer to the Great Exhibition's famous 'Kenilworth Buffet', the London International Exhibition Sideboard is a tour de force of precision joinery, wooden inlay and detailed, high-relief carving. It was described in contemporary accounts as 'a magnificent specimen of the cabinet maker's art' and 'that splendid sideboard'; The Argus considered it the finest piece of furniture ever manufactured in Victoria. Having gained the artist a medal 'for excellent workmanship' at the Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866-1867, it was subsequently redesigned and enlarged, and in its present, final form was included in the Victorian display at the London International Exhibition of 1873, where it was also awarded a bronze medal.

Initially retained by the artist and his family but sold in the 1920s, the sideboard disappeared from public view. However, the survival of its image both in contemporary written descriptions and in a Kerr Bros. photograph led to a spirited search for the piece during the heritage-conscious 1980s, and 'The Vanished Sideboard' has long held an almost mythical status amongst scholars, curators and collectors of Australian furniture.

The sideboard is the work of Peter McLean, of Dumfries, Scotland, who migrated to Australia with his family during the gold rush. Arriving in Port Phillip in February 1853, McLean soon established himself as a cabinet maker , and is listed in Melbourne trade directories as having workshops in Spring Street (1857-1866) and Chapel Street, Hotham (now North Melbourne) (1870). According to the account of 'D. McL.' (in all likelihood a descendant), the sideboard was very much a labour of love, even an 'obsession', preoccupying its maker for 'not merely ten years but the major part of half a lifetime.' In its final, finished state, the sideboard can probably best be described in the words of McLean himself, taken from the official catalogue of the 1873 London Exhibition:

The Buffet is a Pictorial history of the foundation and progress of the Colony of Victoria. The original inhabitants are represented at the extreme panels of the under portion at either end, the one by a native chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe. This figure stands ensconced in a shield panel of decayed gum trees, native birds, animals, snakes, iguanas or lizards, and wombats; the figure at the other end-panel is that of a female native with piccaninny, this panel being also enriched like the other. The pilasters at corners form trees. The two receding doors represent - one, an emu; and the other a kangaroo. The centre door, intended to represent the first step towards civilization, depicts the encampment of Mr Batman and party, and their meeting with a castaway seaman (Buckley) who had been many years with the natives, with a group of natives encamped in the distance; the plinth and top frame being designed in outline to give a good perspective from any point of sight. The mouldings are enriched with entwined English and native ivy, which is also carried round the outline of upper portion. Upper portion: The pedestal at either end represents, on the doors, two figures - the one Peace, the other Plenty - both being ensconced in panels enriched with fruits and flowers, and the inside veneered with native cabinet woods, and furnished with small pedestals for cup stands. The pilasters of doors are also enriched with fruits and flowers, surmounted by full-sized cockatoos in position, playing with a wreath of ivy. The centre, between composite columns in carved work, represents the progress of civilization in order of developments, viz., the pastoral, mining, agricultural, and horticultural interests, with art and commerce, above which is a panel representing a solar eclipse in varieties of native woods. The columns support an arch surmounted by a native eaglehawk, suggestive of the rapid progress of Australia.

While McLean was responsible for the work's overall design and joinery, there has been speculation as to the identity of the carver of its major panels and decorative sculptural elements. At least some of the carvings can now be firmly attributed to the Carlton craftsman Felix Terlecki (?-1869), a name which might explain the work's curious marriage of colonial and British imagery and German (Silesian) artistic style.

 Regardless of the authorship of its individual components, this vast architectural confection must be regarded as an absolutely remarkable feat of imagination, design and craftsmanship; it exemplifies both the extravagance of mid-Victorian British taste and the confidence of the expansive post-gold rush colonial capital soon to be described as 'Marvellous Melbourne.'

From an untraced contemporary newspaper article, quoted in D. McL., 'The Story of a Much Travelled Sideboard', Australian Home Beautiful, Melbourne, 1 August 1935, p. 39.

The Argus, Melbourne, 22 December 1866, p. 5.
Describing an Alcock & Co. billiard table made for presentation to the Duke of Edinburgh, The Argus wrote: 'It is not likely that a finer piece of furniture was ever manufactured in Victoria - if we except the famous sideboard exhibited at the last Exhibition' (my emphasis), The Argus, 2 October 1867, p. 5.

This was the title of a 1985 article by a woman whose family once owned the piece: Rosa Perlman, 'The Vanished Sideboard', The Weekly Times, Melbourne, 11 September 1985, p. 90 'D. McL', op. cit.
See Juliana Hooper, 'Where Is This Masterpiece?', The Age, Melbourne, 14 August 1984, (Melbourne Living) p. 2, where the author suggests both Felix Terlecki and Angus McLean as possible collaborators.

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