Montsalvat is an artists' colony in Eltham, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established by Justus Jorgensen in 1934, the colony is set among gardens on five hectares (12 acres) of land, and is home to dozens of buildings, including houses, halls, studios, galleries and stables. All of Montsalvat's buildings were designed and built by residents using materials from a variety of sources, including Victorian era buildings then being demolished in the city centre. The grounds and buildings are currently used for exhibitions, performances, conferences, seminars, weddings and receptions; however, artists working in a variety of mediums continue to reside in Montsalvat. Several classes on various disciplines of art are offered year round by the resident artists. Today Montsalvat is a popular tourist attraction and the entire complex is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Etymology The name Montsalvat features in both German and English mythology. In the opera Parsifal by German composer Richard Wagner, Montsalvat is the castle, built by Titurel, where the Holy Grail is protected; and in Act III of his namesake opera, Lohengrin sings of it as home. In the English legend of "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", Montsalvat is mentioned as the home of the Holy Grail. Though established only in 1934, Montsalvat has created its own myths and legends. Montsalvat means "Saved Mount" in Catalan. History Background Montsalvat is the creation of Justus Jorgensen and the work of many hands. Born in 1894, Jorgensen trained as an architect with a Melbourne firm of architects, Schreiber & Co. Later, he turned his talents to painting, enrolling at the National Gallery School of Art in Melbourne, whose principal was a leading member of the Heidelberg School of Artists, Frederick McCubbin. In 1917, after hearing a lecture by the artist Max Meldrum, Jorgensen decided to join the Meldrum Studio and adopt his tonalist technique. In 1924 Jorgensen married a medical student from Brisbane, Lillian Smith. In the same year the couple travelled to Europe with a group of artist friends including John and Polly Farmer, Colin Colahan and Archie Colquhoun. The group painted at various places on their way across Italy, Spain, France and England. In their travels they visited many of the great European galleries to study the old and modern masters of European painting. Meldrum joined the group while they were painting in Cassis, a small French village near the Mediterranean