Stained-glass windows were an important architectural feature in Australian public and domestic interiors during the late nineteenth century.

Sidney House, Toowong, was built in 1882 in the fashionable Italian domestic style for Mr Thomas Finney, on the present inner-suburban site of the Brisbane Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) radio studios. Finney was one of the proprietors of the department store Finney Isles & Co., and he named the property in honour of his wife Sidney Ann.

The stained-glass window, which was imported from Ireland and placed prominently in the stairwell of the house to light and dominate the entrance, was a sign of Finney's success in Brisbane's retailing industry.

The top panel, depicting a kangaroo hunt, is unique in Australian pictorial glass, while the image of a bullock-drawn plough in the panel below is almost as rare. Originally there was an arch-shaped section at the bottom which depicted another unusual subject, a duck-hunting expedition.