January 2016
Fabric of Life has been busy conserving a silk parasol for the upcoming opening of the David Roche Foundation Galleries, in Melbourne St, North Adelaide. The David Roche Foundation collection, housed in Adelaide, South Australia, spans two centuries of European design from the early Rococo of France to Fabergé in Russia. The collection’s great strengths lie in European decorative arts of superb quality, much of which was produced by leading makers such as Meissen, Sèvres and Chelsea, and designers including Thomas Hope, George Bullock and many others. With its focus on European neoclassical design of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the collection celebrates exquisite craftsmanship and luxurious materials. This is a collection of national and indeed, international significance. The David Roche Foundation was established in 1999 to maintain and preserve the collection in the longer term and to secure it for future generations to enjoy, study and learn from. This is currently achieved by exhibiting items from the David Roche Foundation collection in the purpose-built gallery on the foundation property in North Adelaide.