Islay and the ‘dog on the tuckerbox’
Dog on the tuckerbox statue at Gundagai, New South Wales
Public history and two Australian dogs: Islay & the ‘dog on the tuckerbox’
This article discusses two dog statues. The first is of Islay, a dog who lived with Queen Victoria and who has been depicted in Landseer paintings. She has been sculpted on a fountain outside the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney. The second is of the ‘dog on the tucker box’ at Gundagai, New South Wales a famous, but mythical, dog in Australian history. The article analyses the changing contexts of these depictions of different dogs. Through considering the way in which meaning has changed, it discusses how these monuments might offer the potential for the construction of different Australian histories. Amongst other things it explore the different histories on offer at Gundagai which I visited in the course of my research – much to the surprise of several Australians I know since it is not exactly part of a dynamic metropolis…
Australian Cultural History Journal vol 24 2006, pp.135-162.
Email me if you would like a PDF for personal use: hilda@hildakean.com
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