Events Calendar

Displays - Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection

The Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, located at the Mint in Sydney, hosts a number of semi-permanent and temporary displays. The displays focus on and highlight aspects of the Library's collection, which broadly covers the history of house and garden design and interior furnishing in New South Wales. The image galleries below provide a taste of the library's past and present displays.

More examples of collection items can be accessed via the Library's extensive collection databases: the Library catalogue, Pictures catalogue and Museum collections catalogue.

Current display

Imitation and obsolescence in Australian home furnishings
4 March 2013 - 5 July 2013

Some things are not what they seem; others are puzzling reminders of another era. Items commonly used to furnishing the home in the 19th and early 20th centuries can sometimes appear strange to the modern eye.

Find out more about the current display of imitative and obsolete furnishings in Australian homes.
 

Past displays

Painted decoration at 'Valetta', Petersham NSW
16 November 2012 - 22 February 2013

The display showcases late 19th century painted decoration at 'Valetta', a modest house in the Sydney suburb of Petersham.

Find out more about the Valetta painted decoration display.

Textile time capsule

The Textile time capsule display dips into the underfloor cavities at the Hyde Park Barracks to reveal a few of the thousands of 19th century textile fragments discovered during archaeological excavations.

Find out more about the Textile time capsule display 

 

Art Nouveau display

The Art Nouveau display shows how designers adapted the style for a wide variety of home furnishings and fittings. A range of sources held by the CSL&RC are featured, from catalogues and original design drawings to cabinet handles and a wallpaper sample book.

Find out more about the Art Nouveau display

 
Chip-carving

Chip-carving is a woodcarving technique in which geometric patterns are incised into timber surfaces. On display is a wonderful example of this craft - a demountable occasional table, produced in Melbourne around 1902 by English-trained emigrant carpenter George Stevenson Liggins (1874–1907), together with tools used for chip-carving, a manual and a pattern book showing chip-carving designs.

Find out more about the Chip-carving display

 

Crown lighting

The Crown Crystal Glass company was a Sydney-based manufacturer of lighting and all types of domestic glassware. The lights featured in this display were used in the lounge room of a house, built in 1950, in the Sydney suburb of Epping.

Find out more about Crown lighting

Rag or hooked rugs

Making rag or hooked rugs became a popular pastime in Australia and many other Western countries during the 1920s and 30s. Rugs were often made from scraps of fabric, worn pieces of clothing and other recycled textiles.

Find out more about rag rugs

Encaustic tiles

Encaustic tiles are a type of tile that is inlaid with a decorative pattern. They were first used in Medieval churches but are commonly found on verandahs of mid-19th to early 20th century Australian houses - they are usually laid alongside plain geometric tiles that together form a tessellated pattern.

Find out more about encaustic tiles 

Gas lighting

Gas was introduced to Sydney in 1841, but it was not commonly used as lighting in suburban homes until the 1870s. For entrance halls, a pendant light often incorporating coloured glass and of cube or box shape was usually advocated. Despite the introduction of electricity in the 1890s, gas lighting could still be found in many Sydney suburban homes until at least the 1930s.

Find out more about gas lighting
Figured rolled glass

Figured rolled glass is a type of 'obscured' sheet glass which is smooth on one side and has a figured or patterned surface on the other. By the end of the 19th century, few Sydney homes were complete without the addition of some kind of coloured ornamental glass in windows, internal and external doors. Figured rolled glass provided both decoration and privacy and was often installed in small panels of alternate colours in the same or different design.

Find out more about figured rolled glass
Taraxacum pendant light

The ‘Taraxacum’ pendant light was designed by Italian brothers Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1960 and produced by Flos, Italy. In Australia, Flos lighting was imported by interior designer, Marion Hall Best, and most famously featured in a display room, 'A room for Mr Peter Sculthorpe', designed by Best and her daughter Deirdre Broughton for the Society of Interior Designers of Australia’s ‘Rooms on view 1971’ exhibition in Sydney.

Find out more about the Taraxacum light and Marion Hall Best