Elder Wing of Australian Art: Plain English Tour
Work 4 of 15

This table was made in 1877.

It was made by Heinrich Hugentobler and Conrad Sturm.

It shows off the skills of Heinrich and Conrad.

Heinrich Hugentobler was from Switzerland.

Conrad Sturm was from Germany.

They both lived in South Australia.

Their workshop was in Blumberg.

Blumberg is now called Birdwood.

This type of table is called a Loo table.

Loo tables were used for playing the card game Loo.

Loo tables fold down, and can be stored standing up.

This made it easy to put away.

The top of the table is made up of many small pieces of wood.

There are about 30,000 pieces in this table.

The pieces are many different colours.

This is because the wood comes from different types of Australian tree, such as:

- Australian cedar

- Red Gum

- Black Gum

- Stringybark

- and, Pine

Soon after it was made, the table was put on show in many different places, like:

- Adelaide

- Melbourne

- and, Sydney

Newspapers in these cities talked a lot about the table.

This is what Heinrich and Conrad wanted.

They wanted people to know how good they were at making tables.