The elaborate staircase which leads down from the domed room at the end of old court 13 to the Library is made entirely of marbles quarried in New South Wales. The red and pink tinged steps are of marble quarried at Borenore, 13 kilometres west of Orange. Around 1898, while on a picnic there, Frank Rusconi, a monumental stonemason from Italy, recognised the rich quality of this marble. It was mined for around thirty years from the turn of the 20th century and was considered to be some of the best marble in the world. Many varieties were produced, but the most widely utilised were red and blue. The red, which is a breccia of red and buff coloration, is to be found in a number of major public buildings, including Central Railway in Sydney and Melbourne's Council Chambers.
The broad handrail, general moulding and dado of the walls are of Fernbrook marble from Palmers Creek. This district also produced a wide variety of marbles. The Gallery's staircase uses over five different colorations. The turned and polished posts supporting the handrail, or the balusters, are of Molong marble. Molong is north west of Orange and was one of the most extensive areas of marble in the State. Finally, the newel shafts, or the posts at the foot of the staircase, and the central supporting pillar around which the staircase winds, are of Rockley marble. This is a beautiful black and white, crinoidal marble, mined at Rockley, south of Bathurst.
One newspaper described the completed staircase as "a monumental piece of 'day-labour' extravagance, the exact cost of which no man knoweth." The exact cost is unsure, but we do know that the Government allotted £2,000 in 1900 for modifications to the Gallery's southern basement and for the construction of a staircase leading to it. The stairway and modifications were constructed during 1900-1901, at the same time as the long picture gallery above, or courts 11, 12 and 13. It is unusual that the Trustees and the Government Architect decided upon such an elaborate stairway entrance to what was essentially a basement gallery. They decided to leave the interior of the basement gallery "in the rough" as it was intended "for the display of objects of educational value, which would be more appropriately exhibited in the Basement than in the fine upper Galleries." Why the entrance to this gallery was not treated in the same way might be explained by the fact that they were given more money than they asked for. They had applied for £1,500 for the modifications and for the addition of "two spacious staircases." The Government, in an uncharacteristic act of generosity, allotted £2,000, asking that only one staircase be built. It would appear that the most of this grant was spent on the marble stairway, which was officially opened to the public on 31 October 1904.
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The staircase connected the recently completed upper courts with the southern basement court, designed to showcase statuary, copies from the antique, decorative arts and "other heavy and bulky" exhibits. The photograph above shows the basement gallery shortly after its official opening. A number of copies from the antique are clearly visible - at the foot of the staircase are the Venus de Medici and the Venus of Canova, and on the left hand wall metopes cast from originals in the Elgin Room of the British Museum, illustrating a battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths at the marriage feast of Peirithous. Below the metopes is a cast from the Vatican Museums of The Pyrric Dance, presented to the Gallery by Sir James Fairfax, and alongside is a Caryatid. She is one of six female figures which served as columns in the southern portion of the Erectheion, an Ionic temple on the north side of the Acropolis. These copies are no longer in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In the middle of this court are placed showcases containing Sevres china, Royal Doulton ware, metalware, examples of oriental embroidery and the artworks presented by the Japanese commissioners of the 1879 International exhibition in Sydney.
This staircase and gallery were closed during the Second World War, when the room was used as storage for artworks to protect against air attack. Forty thousand sandbags were lined inside against the exterior walls on 9 x 9 timbers. Sand being particularly hygroscopic, this lead to considerable damp problems in the following years and meant that the area was considered unsuitable for the display of art. This photograph shows the flooding which regularly occurred in the area after the War years. When the Captain Cook wing of the Gallery was being built, staff offices and the Library were relocated here. In 1973 Tony Tuckson planned the remodelling of the basement gallery for the display of Aboriginal and Melanesian art. This Gallery was opened on 18 October 1973. Since 1994 the area has been used as the main Reading Room of the Gallery's Research Library and Archive.
(Research by Steven Miller, Archivist) |
