What makes a home, a home?

Each room of atmospheric 1860s East Melbourne townhouse, Fairhall, has been re-imagined, to reveal new stories about the meaning of ‘home’ in the 1700s and 1800s.

Home Comforts features over fifty historical quilts displayed alongside treasures of British and European fine and decorative arts from The Johnston Collection. The beautifully preserved quilts - from the private collection of Melbourne-based textile researcher and historian, Janet O’Dell - showcase a fascinating variety of techniques.

Each room of Fairhall reveals how families lived in the long eighteenth century: an elegant dining room for entertaining; a nursery with dolls house and cradle; a breakfast room to enjoy luxuries such as tea, coffee, chocolate and spices; the commercial world of a gentlemen’s study; a welcoming drawing room for family games; and the work of staff in the kitchen.

Discover technological innovations, and objects and ideas from other lands that brought a new sense of comfort to homes, then and now.

Experience Georgian and Regency family life ‘at home’ in the intimate, domestic setting of The Johnston Collection.