The purchase shows just deep curators fish for potential acquisitions at all sorts of auctions around Australia as these sales are not universally hyped, but targeted to interested parties.
The seaweed was collected, according to an inscription on an old sheet of paper attached to the folders which contain the lot, at Port Arthur in the 1830s.
The library already has a book of seaweed collected at Port Philip in its early days of settlement.
Dr Kirsten Wehner, head curator, People and the Environment told the Australian Art Sales Digest's writer that the album related to the very Victorian passion of collecting specimens of seaweed ("flowers of the sea"), moss and ferns.
The acquisition consists of beautiful colourful specimens with a decorative twist. But Dr Wehner said that it also related to the museum's commitment to the environment. An analysis of the specimens might give some idea of who the marine life had changed at Port Arthur since settlement.
Seaweed pops up frequently in the decorative arts. In Tasmania its most eminent representation is on the vast Feraday dinner service commissioned by Sherriff Fereday and bearing his crest highlighted by seaweed in transfer printed decoration.
Dudley Fereday was appointed sheriff of Van Diemen's Land in February 1824. A common collier, he amassed a fortune but died a bankrupt in France after an unpopular spell in office in Tasmania.
New research has ditched the theory that the service was made by Spode, as traditionally thought and it is now attributed it to Chamberlain Worcester.
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London has a muffin dish from this extensive service, a popular piece of Australiana made around 1825, of which Sydney dealer Mr Alan Landis has turned up pieces shown at antique fairs.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O307261/muffin-dish-chamberlain-worcester/
