John Rosenberg with his first ‘Antique’ – a Staffordshire spill, purchased around 1950! With sadness we note the passing of John Rosenberg, founder of Moorabool Antiques, after a short illness on Friday 19th June. He went to his first auction aged 7, with his Grandmother. This was at ‘Kerleys Auctions’, Geelong; Aged 80, he was…
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…
‘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…
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…
An interesting case of re-attribution. Ridgway jug c.1820 – close to our example We had a fine couple of Imari pieces put out in a recent ‘Fresh Stock Tuesday’ release, catalogued as Ridgway. Thanks to a keen collector online, and their nicely worded email (“I think there might be a mistake….”) – we now have…
A serious piece of British History has surfaced in Australia…. or has it? In our current Exhibition is a remarkable discovery: a ‘Nottingham Alabaster’ carved figure of a Lady at prayer, a small dog at her side. The costume is superbly detailed, and allows us to date it firmly within the Elizabethan period, mid-16th century.…
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…
