New Acquisitions
We present 125 recent acquisitions: travel and exploration, natural history, 19th-century Australia (including ephemera and photography), Australian art – and much more.
-
# 49803
EMBLING, Sabina Howitt [&] SINGLETON, Violet Etta
Commonplace book compiled by a young Melbourne woman (1867-78) with later entries by her daughter (1889-1890).
An astonishing artefact of Melbourne social history, in which the intimate voices of two young women – a mother and daughter from one of the city’s most elite families of the second half of the nineteenth century – cry, whisper and sing from the pages, after having been lost to history for over 130 years. …
-
# 50593
[Photographer unknown].
Aboriginal group with gulmari shields, Macintyre River (Northern New South Wales or South-East Queensland), c.1870.
Stereoscopic albumen print photograph, each half of the image approximately 72 x 75 mm, on original flat mount of grey card, 83 x 173 mm; the mount has a fully contemporary inscription in ink in the right margin: ‘McIntire Blacks’; verso blank; the print and mount are in very good condition. The Macintyre River, which …
-
# 50465
MELA, Pomponius (c.15 - 45 CE)
De Situ Orbis Libri III.
Cum notis integris Hermolai Barbari, Petri Joannis Olivarii, Fredenandi Nonii Pintiani, Petri Ciacconii, Andreae Schotti, Isaaci Vossii, et Jacobi Gronovii. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden] : apud Samuelem et Johannem Luchtmans, Academiae Typographos, 1782. Third edition. Three parts in one volume, thick octavo (215 x 140 x 80 mm), in a contemporary academic prize binding of full vellum, …
-
# 50463
MENPES, Mortimer and Dorothy
World Pictures (deluxe edition, with original signed watercolour)
London : Adam & Charles Black, 1902. Quarto, gilt-lettered decorated cloth over bevelled boards (spine ruled, light wear), top edge gilt, others uncut, pp. x; 332, illustrated with 100 colour plates with captioned tissue guards, a very good copy. The edition de luxe, limited to 500 numbered copies printed on hand-made paper. This is copy …
-
# 50616
HUME, Fergus (1859-1932)
The Mystery of a hansom cab
A sensational novel … A startling and realistic story of Melbourne social life. London : The Hansom Cab Publishing Coy., 60 Ludgate Hill, [1887-1888]. “Two Hundredth Thousand” (t.p.). Small octavo (182 x 122 mm), original pictorial wrappers, the upper wrapper featuring an illustration of the hansom cab in a Melbourne street, lower wrapper with advertisement …
-
![[MELBOURNE THEATRE] Weston's New Opera House. Bourke Str. East, Melbourne. Soirée d'Ethiop. Opera. Instrumental. Comedy. Terpsichore. Burlesque. West & Hussey's Minstrels, presented with the compliments of Messrs. Weston & Hussey. H. Peachman, Agent.](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2026/06/2026_DSFB_3996-300x300.jpg)
# 50560
TROEDEL, Charles (printer)
[MELBOURNE THEATRE] Weston’s New Opera House. Bourke Str. East, Melbourne. Soirée d’Ethiop. Opera. Instrumental. Comedy. Terpsichore. Burlesque. West & Hussey’s Minstrels, presented with the compliments of Messrs. Weston & Hussey. H. Peachman, Agent.
[Drop title]. [Melbourne : Charles Troedel, 1869]. Souvenir programme printed in purple on cream silk, bifolium, 200 x 140 mm, a bifolium printed on two of [4] sides, stitched at left edge and opening to reveal the third side containing the programme itself, headed ‘Grand Vice-Regal Command Night’; extremely well preserved; accompanied by two typed …
-
# 49358
BROINOWSKI, Gracius (1837-1913)
The birds of Australia, comprising three hundred full-page illustrations with a descriptive account of the life and characteristic habits of over seven hundred species.
Melbourne : Charles Stuart & Co., 1890-1891. Six volumes, bound in three, folio, full roan lettered and ruled in gilt, edges rubbed and joints a little cracked, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, contemporary owner’s wet stamp to title page of first volume, unpaginated, 303 chromolithographed plates, text sheets, tissue guards; occasional spots of foxing but …
-
# 50604
[Max Harris; Sidney Nolan; James McGuire; Harry Roskolenko]
Angry Penguins Broadsheet : a complete set of ten issues
Editors: Max Harris, nos. 1-10; James McGuire, nos. 1-9; Sidney Nolan, nos. 2-9; Harry Roskolenko, no. 10. [Melbourne : Reed & Harris, 1946]. Ten issues, no. 1 (Jan. 1946) – no. 10 (Dec. 1946), large octavo, staple-bound, pictorial wrappers, illustrated; a couple of minor stains, a very good complete set. The Angry Penguins Broadsheet was …
-
![Década primeira [-terceira] da Asia de João de Barros dos feitos que os Portugueses fizerão no descobrimento & conquista dos mares & terras do Oriente. [WITH] Quarta década da Asia de João de Barros ...](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2026/06/2026_DSFB_3786-300x300.jpg)
# 50134
BARROS, João de
Década primeira [-terceira] da Asia de João de Barros dos feitos que os Portugueses fizerão no descobrimento & conquista dos mares & terras do Oriente. [WITH] Quarta década da Asia de João de Barros …
Lisbon : Jorge Rodriguez, 1628 (complete second edition of the first three Décadas) ; Madrid : na Impressão Real, 1615 (first edition of the fourth Década). Four volumes, folio (300 x 205 mm, the fourth volume slightly taller), uniform early twentieth-century bindings of gilt-ruled quarter black morocco over marbled papered boards, spines in compartments lettered and …
-
# 50528
SIMPSON, M. M. (Martha Margaret)
Work in the kindergarten. An Australian programme, based on the life and customs of the Australian black.
Paper contributed by Miss M. M. Simpson, Teachers’ College, Sydney. Series title: New South Wales. The Teachers’ College, Sydney. Records of the Education Society. No. 2. Sydney : Teachers’ College, 1909. (Sydney : William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer). Octavo (245 x 155 mm), original printed wrappers; pp. 44, with numerous b/w photographic illustrations of childrens’ …
-
# 50497
BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT, Jean-Baptiste (1778-1846)
Carte de l’île de la Réunion, par Bory de S.t Vincent, officier d’État-Major, pour servir à son Voyage dans quatre îles des mers d’Afrique;
Dédiée à son Excellence le Maréchal Berthier, Ministre de la Guerre. [Paris, Dépôt de la Guerre, 1804]. Engraved map, dissected into eighteen panels and laid on linen, 645 x 860 mm., some light stains and wear along the folds, title label with manuscript Carte de Bourbon, a very good example. The very rare separately issued version …
-
# 50382
HEYLYN, Peter
Cosmographie, in four books. Containing the Chorographie & Historie of the whole World, and all the Principal Kingdoms, Provinces, Seas, and Isles thereof.
by Peter Heylyn. With an accurate and an approved Index of all the Kingdoms, Provinces, Countries, Inhabitants, People, Cities, Mountains, Rivers, Seas, Islands, Forts, Bays, Capes, Forests, &c. of any Remarque in the whole World; Much wanted and desired in the former, and now annexed to this last Impression, Revised and Corrected by the Author himself …
-
![[NEW CALEDONIA] Archive of original photographs taken by a German geologist, documenting mining, interactions with indigenous people, and the landscape in New Caledonia's North Province, 1930-31.](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2026/06/2026_DSFB_3652-300x300.jpg)
# 50453
"J. O. H." (photographer and compiler)
[NEW CALEDONIA] Archive of original photographs taken by a German geologist, documenting mining, interactions with indigenous people, and the landscape in New Caledonia’s North Province, 1930-31.
Group of 58 (fifty-eight) gelatin silver print photographs, in uniform 80 x 110 mm format, all neatly mounted on green paper backing sheets, 140 x 210 mm, each with the meticulous cataloguing of the photographer in the form of typed information in German, including in the upper margin a main heading ‘Neu-Kaledonien’ and a sub-heading, …
-
# 50511
ARLINGTON, L. C.
The Chinese Drama from the earliest times until today
A panoramic study of the art in China, tracing its origin and describing its actors (in both male and female roles); their costumes and make-ups, superstitions and stage slang: the accompanying music and musical instruments: concluding with synopses of thirty Chinese plays. Shanghai : Kelly and Walsh, 1930. Quarto, quarter cloth, lettered in gilt, over …
-
# 50406
DE PINNA, Prof. Francis "Frank"
A Melbourne family posed outside their mansion (possibly on St. Kilda Road), c.1895.
Large format silver albumen print, 230 x 285 mm, on photographer’s studio mount of brown card with gilt decorative border and imprint: ‘Prof. de Pinna / Melb.’; both the print and the mount are in excellent condition. Relatively little is known about Prof. Francis “Frank” de Pinna, artist, musician and photographer (1864-1914), although he was …
-
# 50544
[MAKER UNKNOWN]
“A Lady’s Dressing Case”
[English, 1820-1840]. Handmade amusement. Single card sheet representing a lady’s vanity case, 190 x 230 mm, the recto covered in green paper, with manuscript title at head “A Lady’s Dressing Case”, the nine “drawers” below in the form of paper flaps with manuscript labels describing items associated with a lady’s toilet – in other words, …