Mitchell Vestibule

c.a 1942

One of the most dramatic spaces in the Mitchell Library, the vestibule showcases the work of some of Sydney’s finest artists and craftspeople and is rich with symbolic meanings that reflect the spirit and history of the Library.

The inscription high on the eastern wall is from the influential Hero as Man of Letters lecture series, given by Scottish writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle in the 1840s; the sculpture opposite by Jon Hawley is modelled on the earliest-known printed description of the stars of the Southern Cross, which appears in Lettera di Andrea Corsali, published in Florence in 1516. The Library’s visionary principal librarian William Ifould is honoured with a portrait bust, and Library benefactor Sir William Dixson with the staircase of white marble which leads to the Dixson galleries on the first floor.

The glass doors leading to the portico are etched with the stamp of the Library, then known as the Public Library of NSW. The design is based on the seal of the Australian Subscription Library, a privately run library founded in 1826 and later purchased by the NSW government as the basis of the Public Library. The oil lamp represents the ‘lamp of knowledge’, around which is the NSW state motto ‘Orta recens quam pura nites’ which translates to ‘Newly risen, how brightly you shine.’