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…
Australiana? Not Quite!
This interesting unsigned watercolour was an exciting recent purchase from a local estate. Exciting, because my imagination ran wild… I could see: Colonial period ships. Rather dark people standing up in a ‘canoe’… The tree so prominently featured looks just like a large Eucalypt specimen, as depicted by early colonial artists. On the left are a…
John turns 80!
A special milestone occurred this week, with John Rosenberg, founder of Moorabool Antiques, turning 80. John Rosenberg turns 80, 2019 Back in the 1950’s, a young John Rosenberg could have never believed he would be proprietor of a business such as Moorabool was to become. His first purchase at the age of 12 was a…
Machin & Potts… a detective tale
There are two pottery jugs in this week’s ‘Fresh’, sourced from the same amazing collection of early 19th Century pottery & porcelain as all the similar pieces we have released recently. Our research team had been working overtime (thanks John!) and poured through every book in the library to help identify the vast number of…
The Boyd ‘Medieval’ chess set
A fascinating and most probably unique creation is also the most modern item in stock at Moorabool – dating to the 1960’s, it is an Australian Pottery ‘Medieval’ chess set, by David & Hermia Boyd, members of the remarkably artistic Boyd family. Medieval Chess set by David & Hermia, 1960’s David & Hermia Boyd Chess…
Sir John Franklin portrait discovery, c.1828
An exciting find at Moorabool is this portrait silhouette of Sir John Franklin. His name is very familiar in Tasmania; as stated on the back of this newly discovered portrait, he was Governor there 1837-43, and his name appears across the state with a town on the Huon River, and a major river which narrowly…
Lest We Forget: Anzac memories
Today is an important one in Australia; the 25th of April 1915 was a ‘coming of age’, the first military action as an independent dominion. While the troops of the young nation didn’t achieve what they set out to do, and 8,709 didn’t return, it resulted in a sense of pride in those who did return…
A Ming Dynasty Dragon roof tile, 16th – 17th century
Ming Dynasty Roof Tile A fresh item to Moorabool is this quirky Ming Dynasty roof tile figure. As the name suggests, these were part of the roof decoration on Chinese buildings. Ming Dynasty Roof Tile Many different ‘characters’ appear as roof tile figures, each with a symbolic purpose. Our Dragon is actually a water…
A scroll with a tale; an Ethiopian Coptic Scroll brought back from the Abyssinia Expedition, 1868
An interesting recent arrival at Moorabool is literally Magic….. The Ethiopian Magic Scroll, 19th century or earlier This curious artefact came from an elderly local lady, who challenged me: ‘I bet you don’t know what this is’ and was amazed at my guess of an Ethiopian magic scroll. I had never held one, but knew…
Samuel Alcock
There’s a certain style that defines the late Regency and early Victorian era, when the designers looked beyond the classically inspired Regency designs and re-visited the curves and flourishes of the Rococo. One manufacturer who excelled at this was Samuel Alcock. He began his own production of pottery in 1828 at Cobridge, and opened another…