DREAM PLACES | DREAMING OF THE DEPARTED: Australian mourning portraits with Margot Riley

Grieving protocols intensified throughout the second half of the 19th century, following the model set by Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Memorial portraiture – the practice of recording a person’s likeness soon after death – was already established in European art but gained greater currency as photography enabled the mechanisation of portrait-making. 

MARGOT RILEY is a cultural historian with special interest in textiles and dress. From 1992-1994, she completed the Masters in Museum Studies Program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and, since her return to Australia, has been working as a Curator with the collections of the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney. Her previous talk at the Collection was SCOTTY IN GUMNUT LAND | Australian Expressions of Scots Identity (2016).

This lecture is generously supported by The Friends of The Johnston Collection.

Maurice Felton (1803-1842), Sophia Statham O'Brien (1820-1841), oil on canvas, collection of the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, DG 427: c074310001