OUTLOOK

by the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. A large selection from their holdings has recently been on show at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and has now moved on to the Melbourne Museum where it will remain until mid-February 2006. The centrepiece of the Morris exhibition is the Adoration of the Magi tapestry commissioned from Morris & Co. by the South Australian George Brookman in 1900, and part of the AGSA collection since 1917. Most of the rest of the works, which all have an Adelaide provenance, have been systematically collected since 1989 when the current director of the Gallery, Christopher Menz, was curator of European and Decorative Arts. Recent additions to the collection includean example of the company’s most sumptuous drapery. The Rose and Lilycurtain (1) was designed in 1893 by Morris & Co.’s head designer, John Henry Dearle, for the morning room of

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Auchendarroch, the Barr Smith family’s magnificent summer house in the Adelaide Hills. The woven combination of wool and silk is lush with exuberant flowers constrained within the repeating framework of an ogival grid, in a manner that clearly owes a debt to Mughal prototypes. A number of the touring textiles belong to a distinct group designed in England by Morris’s daughter, May, and later embroidered in Adelaide by Mary Isobel Barr Smith, the daughter-in-law of Robert Barr Smith, reputed to be the richest man in Australia in the last decades of the 19th century (4). For a period of 45 years from 1884 to 1929, successive generations of the family used Morris & Co. as the main source of decoration for at least seven houses in and around Adelaide. A number of carpets designed by Morris & Co. and used extensively in the decoration of these houses, are included in the exhibition.

3. Left: Royal banner, Cirebon, west Java, 1776. Batik with handspun cotton, silk, natural dyes, 1.72 x 3.22m (5'8" x 10'7"). Jakarta Textile Museum, Indonesia

4. Right: Morris & Co. Gladiolustable cover (detail), attributed to May Morris, embroideredby Mary Isobel Barr Smith, Adelaide, ca. 1900. Silk and linen, 1.20 x 1.22m (3'11" x 4'0"). Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

While the renowned Morris & Co. pieces are out on large-scale loan for the first time, the AGSA has launched ‘Crescent Moon: Islamic Art and Civilisation of Southeast Asia’, the first major international exhibition to focus on the Islamic art of this part of the world. Works in a variety of mediums have been drawn from museums, palace treasuries and private collections in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The idiosyncratic beauty of the works on display show a distinctly regional interpretation of the Islamic heritage. A monumental 18th century banner from the court at Cirebon in western Java dominates the entrance to the exhibition (3). At its centre, the miraculous twin-bladed Sword of Zulfikar, flanked by a vivacious tiger rendered in zoomorphic calligraphy (the local symbol for Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet) has been dramatically drawn in batik. Surrounding the deep indigo blue field are more talismanic symbols and inscriptions in a local calligraphic style characterised by scrolling flourishes and floral appendages. The banner, which is said to have had sacred heirloom status at the palace in Cirebon, appears to be a more vibrant and provincial version of the shield-shaped flags with similar iconography used by the Ottoman Turks from the 15th century onwards. Elsewhere, the imperial imagery of the Safavid Persian court is echoed in an elegant batik baby carrier and shoulder cloth from the north coast of Java (6). Repeating images of the early 19th century Javanese prince, Dipanagara, mounted on his horse and leading an unsuccessful jihad against Dutch colonial rule fill the centre of the cloth. The deeply saturated hues of the royal figures against the sombre red ground colour create a strong contrast with the delicate floral borders which appear to have been drawn

by an artist of exceptional skill and the lightest of touch. Additional Indonesian textile loans from the renowned National Gallery of Australia Collection in Canberra include some examples recently acquired by gift and museum purchase from Robert J. Holmgren and Anita Spertus in New York (see HALI 135, 2004, pp.74-81), and not previously shown in Australia. A 19th century ceremonial skirt cloth from Pontianak, west Kalimantan (5) radiates light, its silk ground cloth encrusted with sequins, gold thread and additional silk appliqué, most likely brought into the island community by Chinese traders. Southeast Asian traders also ventured far afield, as an extraordinary series of Australian aboriginal bark paintings in the exhibition clearly demonstrate. Oral traditions indicate that the Makassan people of south Sulawesiin the Indonesian Archipelago sailed regularly to the northern tip of Australia from the second half of