Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ancestral Art of the Indonesian Archipelago

Posted on March 6, 2018 by ianburnet

In 2010 the Art Gallery of New South Wales was fortunate to acquire a collection of ancestral works of art, from present day Indonesia, as part of a bequest in honour of the collector Christopher Worrall Wilson. This generous bequest … Continue reading →

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Explore the Collision of Continents

Posted on February 12, 2018 by ianburnet

Reposted with permission from an AIYA blog and my thanks to Lachlan Haycock Prolific writer and historian Ian Burnet has authored numerous books about Indonesia, and has travelled expansively across the archipelago. With the recent release of his latest publication, Where … Continue reading →

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Batavia and the Dutch Golden Age

Posted on January 16, 2018 by ianburnet

The exhibition Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, is on display at the Art Gallery NSW until 18 February. The United East India Company (VOC), one of the world’s first joint stock companies, was founded in … Continue reading →

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The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

Posted on December 18, 2017 by ianburnet

Ian Burnet has asked me to post the Prologue of his new book Where Australia Collides with Asia -The Epic Voyages of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and the Origin of On The Origin of Species, so here … Continue reading →

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Alfred Russel Wallace – The letter from Ternate

Posted on December 11, 2017 by ianburnet

From January 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace made the Dutch controlled island of Ternate his principle residence and base for the next three years, while he embarked on collecting natural history specimens around the adjacent islands and as far east as … Continue reading →

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Seen and Unseen – Book Review

Posted on December 9, 2017 by ianburnet

Russell Darnley seeks to cover an extensive time span in his book Seen and Unseen: a century of stories from Asia and the Pacific. I have read it as a memoir written as 29 stories, beginning when he was a … Continue reading →

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‘Where Australia Collides with Asia’ – Jakarta Post book review

Posted on November 30, 2017 by ianburnet

Don’t be confused by the title. Ian Burnet’s latest book, Where Australia Collides with Asia is not about the clash of civilizations. It is the story of how continental drift has created the world in which we live, and, in … Continue reading →

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Alfred Russel Wallace – The voyage to Aru

Posted on November 27, 2017 by ianburnet

The British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was the greatest of all archipelago travellers in his search for rare and exotic natural history specimens to send back from eastern Indonesia to collectors in Britain. Macassan traders made annual voyages to the … Continue reading →

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The Wallace Line

Posted on November 13, 2017 by ianburnet

In June 1856 the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace crossed the narrow strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok. During the few days when he stayed on the north coast of Bali he saw birds highly characteristic of Asian … Continue reading →

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The Banda Islands – Fort Belgica

Posted on October 17, 2017 by ianburnet

The original Fort Belgica was rebuilt in 1673 and the new design consisted of a low outer pentagonal structure with five angled corner bastions and a higher inner pentagon with five tall circular towers. The fort was built by the … Continue reading →

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