Names

Ship menu collection

IDs

VC000041

http://emuseum.anmm.gov.au/code/emuseum.asp

Descriptions

A collection of nearly 1,000 menus from passenger liners, cruise ships and naval vessels, spanning a century from the 1890s to the 1990s. The collection includes menus, menu cards, unused menus and souvenir items such as silk fan menus. Shipping lines represented include Aberdeen, Blue Funnel, Burns Philp, Canadian Pacific, Lloyd Triestino, Matson, Orient, P&O, Royal Mail, Royal Viking, Shaw Savill, Sitmar and Union. The collection also contains a small number of menus relating to Royal Australian Navy ships, primarily celebrating Christmas Day luncheons.

Ship menus, with their delightful cover illustrations, have always been cherished mementoes of a long sea voyage. Menus were printed on board for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as gala events such as Captain's dinners, Christmas meals, equatorial dinners, fancy dress balls and landfall dinners. They often featured illustrations by well-known Australian and international artists and graphic designers including Douglas Annand, F W Baldwin, Dorrit Dekk, Charles Sidebotham (Strom) Gould and Kay Stewart. Illustrations ranged from ships and overseas destinations to flora, fauna and well-known stories. Ship menus document the meals, social events and entertainments onboard passenger liners, cruise ships and naval vessels over a 100 year period. They are valued as souvenirs and also provide a visual record of the work of prominent artists.

Some material included in this collection may be subject to copyright

By appointment only, please contact ANMM

Parts of this collection are digitised and available on the ANMM web site www.anmm.gov.au

Subjects

1890s1990s; Cruise ships; Food; Illustrations; Naval ships; Passenger vessels; Souvenirs

Cooking; Food; Meals

Menus

Coverage Spatial

Europe; United States; Canada; Great Britain; New Zealand; Australia

Coverage Temporal

1890

1999

Related Collections

Dates

2012-05-30 23:40