This issue of the Art Bulletin of Victoria 1971–72 encompasses essays that examine works from a variety of areas across the NGV’s collection:
Eric Westbrook presents a short essay on the life and work of Pierre Bonnard; William Culican examines a corroded iron dagger from Iran; D. B. Harden discusses two core-built glasses of the classical period; Peter Connor remarks on the acquisition of a marble Roman head of Vespasian; Ursula Hoff analyses the tapestry Carlo and Ubaldo at the Fountain of Laughter, based on a painting by Simon Vouet; and Basil Gray and Wei-ping Lui present two articles, first delivered as lectures at the Melbourne session of the twenty-eighth International Congress of Orientalists, regarding the wall paintings of the Sui and T’ang Dynasties and the creative spirit of Chinese painting, respectively.
We are also pleased to include Beth Sinclair’s notes on the Castlemaine Art Gallery’s acquisition of Lord and Lady Ashbourne at Compiègne by Roy de Maistre; Frances McCarthy’s comments of the Geelong Art Gallery’s acquisition of Bush burial by Frederick McCubbin; and R. R. McNicoll’s updated ‘News from the National Gallery Society’.
We trust you will enjoy the articles and appreciate the breadth and depth of the contributors’ research and scholarship in this edition.