Curator · Museum buyer · Cataloguer · Scholar
Arthur Dale Trendall
1909–1995 · New Zealand, Australia
Professor of Greek at Sydney and Honorary Curator of the Nicholson Museum who arranged the 1946-47 Cambridge loan of Cypriot antiquities and the 1953 Stanford exchange.
Biography
Arthur Dale Trendall, born in Auckland on 28 March 1909, took the chair of Greek at the University of Sydney in 19394,7. He was Honorary Curator of the Nicholson Museum from 1939 to 19541. He died in Melbourne on 13 November 19957.
After the war he and Walter Beasley arranged for Jim Stewart to come to Sydney4. Julia Powell describes a "begging campaign" by Stewart and Trendall for donations and swaps to fill gaps in the Nicholson collection, and says both knew they had to move before post-war export bans in the Near East4. In 1946-47 Trendall and A. W. Lawrence arranged a permanent loan of Cypriot material from three Cambridge museums, 195 objects in all, which reached Sydney in October 1947; some of it derived from the 1883-92 Lawrence-Cesnola sales1. In 1948 he and Stewart published a handbook to the museum6. In 1953 he arranged an exchange with Stanford of five Mycenaean vases (NM53.21-25), whose given provenance of Alambra is regarded as untrustworthy1.
Hector Catling thanked Trendall among those who tried to recover the records of Asproyi Tomb IV at Kouklia that had been taken to Australia5.
Life and work
- 1946–1947As Honorary Curator arranged with A. W. Lawrence for Cypriot pottery to go on permanent loan from the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge; 195 objects listed, six cases arrived at Sydney on SS Taranaki in October 1947.
Cambridge / SydneyBarker & Merrillees 2017, pp. 67-68
- 1946–1950With Stewart pressed to buy Cypriot antiquities quickly before post-war export bans; Eve Dray Stewart negotiated export permits in Cyprus for purchases made for the Nicholson.
Sydney / CyprusPowell 2013, pp. 110-111
- 1948Handbook to the Nicholson Museum, 2nd ed., by Trendall and J. R. B. Stewart; Stewart wrote the Near East and Cyprus sections.
- 1953Received five Mycenaean IIIA:2 vases (NM53.21-25) from Stanford University in an exchange (ex-Cesnola, labelled Alambra); no record found of what Sydney gave in return. Reported by him on 6 Oct 1953 to the Classical Association of NSW and on 26 Oct 1953 to the University Senate.
Connections
4 peopleScholarship
- Wrote with James Rivers Barrington Stewart1948
- Corresponded with Hector Catling
Colleagues & contacts
- Worked with James Rivers Barrington Stewart1945–1954
- Worked with Walter Beasley1945–1948
- Worked with A. W. Lawrence1946–1947
Objects
Five Mycenaean IIIA:2 vases (2 pithoid jars, 2 stirrup jars, squat jar)
From stated: AlambraNicholson Museum, Sydney NM53.21-251953Barker & Merrillees 2017, p. 67
Cambridge Cypriot loan (195 objects)
Nicholson Museum, Sydney NM47 / C.L. numbers1947Barker & Merrillees 2017, pp. 67-68
Sources
- 1.Craig Barker, Robert S. Merrillees (2017). “Cypriot Antiquities from the Cesnola Collections in the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney”. Mediterranean Archaeology 30, 51-71.
- 2.Craig Barker (2012). Aphrodite's Island: The Cypriot Collection of the Nicholson Museum. Sydney, Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.
- 3.Craig Barker (2012). Aphrodite's Island: The Cypriot Collection of the Nicholson Museum. Sydney, Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.
- 4.Judy Powell (2013). Love's Obsession: The Lives and Archaeology of Jim and Eve Stewart. Kent Town, South Australia, Wakefield Press.
- 5.H. W. Catling (2020). Kouklia: Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Tombs at Palaepaphos 1951-1954. Oxford, BAR Publishing.
- 6.A. D. Trendall, J. R. B. Stewart (1948). Handbook to the Nicholson Museum, 2nd ed.. Sydney, University of Sydney.
- 7.Arthur Dale Trendall (Wikidata Q709072 / GND 119053861). Online