EXHIBITION OF ORIENTAL CURIOSITIES AT THE NEW CITY HALL.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 84, 16 April 1870, Page 2

EXHIBITION OF ORIENTAL CURIOSITIES AT THE NEW CITY HALL.

As a way of spending a pleasant hour, we would strongly recommend a visit to the collection of Oriental curios in the upper gallery of the City Hall. They have been imported by Messrs. Cruickshank, Smart and Co., and are for sale by auction on Tuesday next; but waiving marketing intentions, a look at these singular combinations of skill and perseverance gives a modified impression of the boasted superiority of our Western over the Eastern civilisation. The speciality of our civilisation is progression; so much so, that we- are disposed to view it as an essential in civilisation. But if we disabuse our minds of this impression, and view the manners, habits, arts aud sciences, and works of skill among these strange eastern peoples, as expressive of their state for many centuries, we must lose much of that disrespect with which we are prone to regard the dwellers in the " Flowery Land," and the " Land of the Rising Sun." The collection is a most varied and singular one. Chinese and Japanese silks, heavy and flowered, and rich enough to drape the sacred form of the Mikado ; or, light as gossamer, to grace the sylphlike forms that flit through the tea-gardens of Yokohama ; grass clothes there are, rivalling silk in sheen and texture, and fitted for the lady of the noblest Daimio, or of the Tycoon himself ; and handkerchiefs of flowered silk worthy of the nose of him who is full brother of the Moon, and closely related to all the leading constellations. But perhaps it is in the works of skill in carving that will attract the greatest attention; card-baskets of bone, with exquisite tracery, and light as cardboard itself; card cases and boxes of puzzles of the most elaborate kind ; fans of feathers in every device, to suit the most fastidious or whimsical tasce of the almond-eyed beauties of Pekin ; feather dusters with tho ever present Fusihama; vases fearfully tmd wonderfully made, bronzed wooden ornaments in closest imitation of bronzed metal; fishing rods disguised as walking sticks ; teacups and porcelains generally in the loudest of patterns ; lacquered work in every form of cabinets, tea-caddies, glove boxes, tea-trays with the sacred mountain of the Jf.panese for ever in the background. Immense pictures large as life and suspended on the walls representing Chinese distinction, in the costume of the country. As works of art, in Chinese painting, they are excellent, although the drapery is not according to the taste of the "outer barbarian," and the coloring is of tlie most pronounced description. But we venture to say that in all this collection of curios nothing will captivate the taste of visitors as the contents of the central table. These consist of picture frames and frames for suspending cartes-dc visite, and exhibiting skill in carved tracery and chasteness in ornamentation, combining tlie excellencies of the taste of east and west. Ihere is in these curios at least a total absence of the outre character, and properly filled with painting or carte, they would be in tlie highest degree becoming and ornamental to our prettiest drawing room. Altogether, as specimens of Oriental taste and skill, this collection is of the most interesting kind.