Blog

Caitlin Mudge in the lab. Image courtesy the author

Whale, whale, whale, what do we have here?

18 Feb 2021

DNA analysis reveals the origins of a curious object in the museum's collection.

Gina Sinozich, We are sailing the Suez Canal on our way to Australia, 2003. ANMM Collection Gift from Gina Sinozich 00037916

Sail, steam and Suez views

17 Nov 2020

This week marks the 151st anniversary of a great historic coincidence – the opening of the Suez Canal and the launch of the British tea clipper Cutty Sark.

The sinking of the Greycliffe ferry on 3 November 1927 remains the most significant accident on Sydney Harbour to date. Forty lives were lost when the ferry collided with the Union Steamship Company’s liner Tahiti.

Left to right: Monga Khan AUSSIE and Gladys Sym Choon AUSSIE posters by Peter Drew, 2020. National Maritime Collection, reproduced courtesy the artist

The art of making: New immigration acquisitions

12 Oct 2020

There are more than 10,000 objects in the museum’s collection relating to Australia’s rich immigration history. But the museum is also committed to contemporary collecting about immigration. Curator Kim Tao discusses three new acquisitions that explore the art of making through activism and sustainable socially engaged design.

Fold-out engraving from Ferrante Imperato's Dell'Historia Naturale (Naples 1599), the earliest illustration of a natural history cabinet. Source: Wikimedia

Cabinet of curiosities

23 Jul 2020

Weird, wonderful, quirky – and odd. What objects are hiding in our collection? And how did they come to be part of the National Maritime Collection?

Arthur Pringle as a lieutenant in 1899. Image courtesy of Eliots of Port Eliot

'Ever your loving son': Arthur Pringle and his letters home

21 May 2020

Arthur Pringle as a 13-year old boy wrote to home to his mother while training for the Royal Navy on HMS Britannia. The letters, in true teenage style, are hardly full of information, but they tell enough to show this young boy was keen to impress his parents back at home.

Women in their swimming costumes on the beach at Lindeman Island, Queensland, Christmas 1928

Frolicking and Fossicking: Touring the Great Barrier Reef in 1928

17 Feb 2020

Over two million people visit the Great Barrier Reef region each year, with the coral reef continuing to rank in the top 10 ‘must do before you die’ travel lists. But it was not always so. Curatorial Assistant Myffanwy Byrant looks at the origins of this tourist destination with the Embury Expedition in 1928.

Vintage beach glamour: Five stylish swimming caps

16 Jan 2020

Swimming caps were a popular fashion accessory in the 1950s and 1960s, with decorated caps the new vogue. We've selected our top five favourite swimming caps from the collection, featuring bright colours, applique and bedazzled jewels!

Advertising poster showing a woman surfing at the beach

Vintage beach glamour: Five stylish swimming caps

13 Jan 2020

Swimming caps were a popular fashion accessory in the 1950s and 1960s, with decorated caps the new vogue. We've selected our top five favourite swimming caps from the collection, featuring bright colours, applique and bedazzled jewels!