From the quiet depths of the State Library of New South Wales, a centuries-old artefact has captured the imagination of Burgmann alum Phillip Bartlett (1972–1974).
Phillip, one of the Library’s 2025 Summer Fellows, is exploring the enigmatic ‘bottom drawer’ of the Macquarie Collector’s Chest, a colonial curio cabinet whose contents tell a more complex story than its austere exterior suggests.
Presented as a gift to former New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie around 1818 by Captain James Wallis of the 46th Regiment and Commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement, the unassuming Macquarie Collector’s Chest opens like a theatre set piece to reveal a fantastic display, showcasing stunning paintings and objects that would have fascinated colonial viewers.
The lid of the chest features a collection of brightly hued native Australian fish. Upon opening, the Chest’s top layer reveals 12 painted panels that depict native birds, landscapes, and the Newcastle settlement. Convict painter Joseph Lycett is believed to have been the artist.
The top drawers of the chest contain collections of native Australian flora and fauna, including bugs and seashells arranged in ornate patterns, colourful birds that have been carefully preserved, and seaweed and algae specimens tucked away in concealed side drawers.
But it is the lowest drawer that has captured Phillip’s interest and is the focus of his Fellowship with the State Library of New South Wales, where he is developing his project, ‘A Possible Narrative of the Macquarie Chest’s Bottom Drawer’.
‘The bottom drawer is—literally, metaphorically—what a bottom drawer is’, said Phillip. ‘It’s got all sorts of knick-knacks in it. It’s got a rattlesnake rattle, two toucan beaks, a coral necklace from the Soloman Islands, pieces of lacebark, dried flying gurnard fish, and a string basket from Papua New Guinea.’
It was the coral necklace from the Solomon Islands that initially caught Phillip’s attention. Fresh out of the ANU with an Economics undergraduate degree, Phillip worked in the then-Chief Minister’s Office of the Solomon Islands, managing a five-year development plan as the islands transitioned from a British protectorate to its own country.
‘When I saw what was in the bottom drawer, like anyone who has seen something from their family or their past in some shape or form, the connection was very strong, so that’s why I targeted it,’ he said.
Part of what makes the chest so intriguing is that it defies the normal expectations of what constituted a ‘collector’s chest’ from the colonial era, and the bottom drawer’s seemingly random collection of objects from countries outside of Australia further adds to the mystery. Some of the objects were potentially gifted to Macquarie as souvenirs, and some were believed to have been sold at auction in England in 1962, so the original collection is incomplete.
Remarkably, the chest survived by being passed from the Macquarie family to their cherished family friends, the Drummond family, who later inherited the Macquarie family estate. The Drummonds would eventually keep the Macquarie Collector’s Chest in their home, Strathnallen Castle in Scotland.
The chest was kept in the castle’s attic—and enjoyed by generations of Drummond children as a curious plaything—until a Curator of Photographs from the New South Wales State Library visited Strathnallen Castle in 1986 and photographed the chest. In 1989, the chest was acquired at auction by a notable private Australiana collector, then acquired by the State Library of New South Wales in a private sale in 2004.
Since its acquisition by the library, the chest has been stored in the lower storage levels and has been periodically exhibited to the public. In 2026, the Macquarie Collector's Chest will celebrate its 150th anniversary, and the library will display the chest once again, allowing a new generation of viewers to admire and puzzle over its mysterious contents and past, alongside Phillip Bartlett’s fresh commentary on the chest’s peculiar bottom drawer.
Through his Fellowship, Phillip is developing original artworks in response to the contents of the bottom drawer.
'I gave a talk on the concept that the bottom drawer was the antithesis of the magnificence of the upper part of the chest. That is, it truly is the bottom’, said Phillip. ‘Whereas the upper part has these beautiful, fully preserved birds and shells and sponges, beautiful paintings by Lycett, and the plethora of bountiful fish image on the top, the bottom drawer is the unloved drawer, so I gave my talk along those lines.’
As an economist and commercial developer turned printmaker and Master of Fine Arts student, Phillip’s professional journey is perhaps as delightfully disparate and well-storied as the bottom drawer’s contents.
When considering his tertiary education options, Phillip had nearly attended the National Art School to pursue his love of art, but ultimately, he chose to attend the ANU to study economics at that time.
When Phillip first arrived at Burgmann at the end of 1972, he came in search of connection and better structure. ‘I had tried living on my own, and that wasn’t working. I figured the best way to do it was to live where there was some social infrastructure around me, so I put my name down to live at Burgmann’, he said.
Barassi Wing had just been completed, and Phillip remembers enjoying the social life at Burgmann.
‘I managed to do some study, I think’, he laughed. ‘[Burgmann] was a very social place, and I enjoyed myself immensely. We all stayed quite engaged, and I made a number of life-long friends.’
After graduating with his Bachelor of Economics, Phillip managed a five-year transition project in the Solomon Islands housed under the Chief Minister’s Office. Following this he managed projects in other countries, including developing cities in China.
Eventually, he came back to Australia and worked on large-scale master planning and urban planning projects for the public and private sector, including Kosciuszko-Thredbo master planning, new city developments for the Bathurst-Orange Development Corporation, and serving as the Executive Director for the sustainability-focused Greensquare Town Centre in Sydney.
Phillip embedded his love for the arts throughout his career, involving artists in his property development projects, and working on projects with the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In recent years, Phillip fulfilled a lifelong ambition, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the National Art School. He is now pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at the National Art School, and earlier this year he was awarded a Summer Fellowship position at the State Library of New South Wales.
'I made a submission [to be considered for the Fellowship] on the basis that I would look at the bottom drawer of the Macquarie Chest. The top part of chest has been very significantly researched and analysed by some fabulous historians, so it’s well-documented, but the bottom drawer is a bit unloved’, he said.
Phillip has promised to share the creative outcomes of his Fellowship with us, and we look forward to seeing what the intriguing bottom drawer inspires.
In the meantime, curiosity-seekers intrigued by this wonderfully peculiar historical artefact are encouraged to visit the State Library of New South Wales when the Macquarie Collector’s Chest is displayed next year for its 150th anniversary and enjoy a fellow Burgmann alum’s fascinating commentary on the chest’s enigmatic bottom drawer.
