Rusconi's Amazing Marble Masterpiece (22/3/14 Part 1)

---

We got up at 9am, by which time a few of the others had left. We decided to have lazy day, although I did want to see the little Historic Museum just up the road.
The Museum looks like an old house but there’s a lot more than you’d expect behind those doors! Inside most of the rooms are beautifully set up as if they are still lived in but with furniture and fittings from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It is jam-packed with so many treasures that it’s hard to remember them all. Next to the kitchen was an old concrete boiler for the laundry (Barry’s Mum used to use a similar copper one when she was young in Brisbane – I’m glad I don’t have to do the washing like that nowadays!). Outside was a huge shed with a large collection of old kitchen equipment and appliances (like the history of washing machines from the tub and plunger through to the early electric ones with a wringer attached); a Model T Ford; a large threshing machine – with spiked metal wheels, presumably to go through mud; and a huge drovers cart, nearly as tall as me, that could carry 8 tons and would have been pulled by 8 horses. The walls of the shed were lined with lovely pictures of farming and droving made from carded natural sheep’s wool.

Just outside the shed was a replica of a 2 room Bark Hut with 3 dressed dummies “living” inside the very realistic interior. I’ve seen a few Bark Huts but it’s the first time I could actually see someone using it as a home. It had been there for years, too, and was still watertight.

There was one more surprise that sparked a memory for me. They had Rusconi’s home-made marble lathe and tools on display. I remembered seeing his Masterpiece more than 30 years ago, and being extremely impressed, so I asked if it was still on display anywhere and was told it was in the Tourist Information Centre – so I knew where I was going next!

At the TIC, for the modest fee of $3, I got to gaze in awe upon Rusconi’s Marble Masterpiece again, and it was just as fabulous as I remembered. Frank Rusconi was born in NSW but was apprenticed in the marble trade in Italy as a teenager, finally returning to Australia in 1901 and settling in Gundagai four years later. He noticed that NSW had its own beautiful coloured marbles and started to collect them. To show the world that they are world class examples he decided to make a miniature marble building in the 17th Century Baroque style. Starting in 1910, he laboured for 3 hours a night, after working all day, for 28 years to complete it, using 20 different types of NSW marble. He worked without a plan and each section was put away for assembly when it was all completed. It has 20,948 pieces, ranging in size from one eighth of an inch to five inches (3mm and 12.5cm) and he had also made another 9011 pieces which he discarded as not perfect. Just before he finished he lost the sight in his right eye but kept on with it.

Having completed the Masterpiece, and with only one eye, he then constructed a replica of the altar in St Marie’s Cathedral, near Paris, the original of which he had worked on as a youth. He finished this piece at the grand age of 77 years. Imagine still having the skill and dexterity to do such fine work at that age.

It is amazing that such world class works of art should be tucked away in the back room of a country town Tourist Information Centre! After all this time it is still perfect, under its glass dome, except for one small piece that has fallen from a garden fence. I mentioned it to the lady working in the Centre and was told that it had happened when the 5.6 Richter-Scale earthquake had struck Newcastle in 1989, and despite the shaking, was the only damage sustained. If you appreciate amazing workmanship and you’re ever heading between Sydney and Melbourne, make a detour – I think it’s well worth it.

---

Photos

Morley's Creek Rest Area, Gundagai
A mob of sulphur-crested cockatoos were feeding very near our RV today.

Historic Museum, Gundagai
One of the carded wool pictures on the walls of the shed. It shows a bullock cart about the same size as the one in the museum.

Historic Museum, Gundagai
The lathe and tools made and used by Frank Rusconi to create his Masterpiece.

Rusconi's Marble Masterpiece, Gundagai
The amazing Baroque style building made of NSW marbles that took Rusconi 28 years to complete.

Rusconi's Marble Masterpiece, Gundagai
This close up of the garden area is showing more like the actual colours of all the marble used. Even the tiny flowers in the garden beds are made of marble.

More amazing work by Rusconi, Gundagai
This is a replica of the altar in St Marie’s Cathedral, near Paris. Rusconi worked on the original as a lad. He was blind in one eye when he made this.