Welcome to the all-new Moorabool Antiques home on the web. We have been busily preparing since the start of the year, and are pleased to introduce our new site. It’s been designed to make browsing our immense stock a pleasure for you, our online customers. Right from the front page, you’ll find lots of different…
Take Care out there….
A Vienna ‘Harvester’ Re-united
Moorabool is often a place of meeting, both for people who enjoy Antiques – and for the Antiques themselves! We have occasionally been guilty of ‘match-making’ in the Antique world, discovering pieces that were quite literally made to be together…. but somehow became separated. It’s a thrill to re-unite pieces. Ready for the harvest…..? In…
A Victorious Italian Madonna, dated 1619
A fascinating fresh item at Moorabool is this tinglaze plaque – inscribed & dated ‘Della Vittoria / 1619’. It depicts a Madonna and Child, with her arm supporting a spear/staff from which flutters a banner with a cross. A depiction of a crowned Madonna & Child, set in a wall in the village of Sommana,…
Delft….and delft. What’s the difference?
They are both tinglaze- but did you know there is a difference between ‘Delft’ and ‘delft’…. ? ‘Tinglaze’ describes the pottery products with a thick lead glaze containing an opaque white made from the oxide of tin. The result is the body of coarse buff-coloured pottery is covered with a pleasing glossy white, similar to…
17th Century Cutlery
Solid silver miniature sculptures….. Rarely seen, these solid silver handles are sculptural works of art. They are Dutch, date to the mid-17th century, and have a fascinating lineage we can trace back to Renaissance Italy and the collections of the Dutch master Rembrandt himself. St George & the Dragon… see it here>> “Fingers were made…
17th century Boxes
Amongst the early English Oak in this week’s ‘Premium’ furniture release are some ‘Bible Boxes’. These are simple products, the side planks merely overlapping and secured with a peg or nail- no fancy dovetail joins. As their name suggests, they were the perfect place to keep your large leather-clad Bible safe from being destroyed by…
Zangzhou Ceramics, Ming Dynasty
Formerly known as Swatow Wares…. A selection of Zangzhou pieces, either from the Binh Thuan wreck (1608) or of the exact type recovered from it in 2002. Zangzhou (Changchow) is a major production centre for this type of distinct porcelain body, and appears to have been focused on the export market to South-East Asia in…
A connection with our earliest settlers…. and a formidable female farmer!
Old Sheffield Plate teapot with gadrooned half body and gadroon & leaf border, wooden handle, circa 1835. Re-purposed in 1929 as a cattle Trophy Prize for the Royal Melbourne Show, inscribed as follows; THE FRANK REYNOLDS MEMORIAL TROPHY / presented by AUSTRALIAN HEREFORD SOCIETY / best pair of yearling Bulls, MELBOURNE…
Indian ‘Alabaster’ …?
‘Alabaster’ has always been the term used by us Antique dealers to describe any translucent, whitish stone…. but have we been mis-labeling it? Sometimes, different industries have different terms for the same thing; I remember arguing with a floor-tile salesman, who insisted that with tiles, ‘ceramic’ was not the same as ‘porcelain’, something I still…
Swedish Royalty!
Us Rosenbergs always joked about having Scandinavian Royal blood – my Grandfather came from Sweden, and in the heart of Copenhagen there’s ‘Rosenborg Castle’, full of wonderful treasures such as the Crown Jewels and lots of Meissen porcelain. On visiting a few years ago, my father John enquired if family members got free entry; no…