A GREAT EXHIBITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 8

A GREAT EXHIBITION.

ART TREASURES AID

ANTIQUES.

MODEL 6F MAORI CAXOX.

NEW ZEALAND POSTAGE STAMPS.

(From Onr Own Correspoadait)

LONDON, Jaly * In the same manner as America * now looting Europe of treason aal ancient art, so England during tfc eighteenth and nineteenth centurfe looted the Continent, with the retak that it will be many years before even the wealth of America can make aav really serious inroads on the accneZ lated treasures still available in tU large houses of the older EmS families. The exhibition now open** Olympia is organised by the Telegraph."

It consists largely of English ait treasures, and first and foremost tf these is undoubtedly the Wilton Dipt** —an English primitive, painted some, where in the second half of the fomt teenth century, and more than equal to anything of any school produced in •» country of the world. It depiete RiduS 11., the kneeling figure on the left ntnd. with three patron saints, John the Statist (holding the lamb), Edward Uβ Confessor (holding a ring), Tili.gy king and martyr (holding an arrow) The drawing is a marvel of derterity and the colouring recalls, more than u> other passage in early English pictorial art, the work of world-famous masten. like Fra Angelico.

The exhibition shows works of era* school of English painting, from Uβ beginnings in religious pictures thronj* portraiture down to modern landscape, of which the most recent is a Cotaaa. " The Silver Birches," a landeeaai essentially English, and Crome's "Wfl. low Tree," recently recaptured fro* America after a fierce tussle in the saleroom. The richness of our treasures ia portraiture is shown in the large number of Romneys, Gainsborough*, Key. nolds, Hogarths, Raeburns lent by their owners. Of the Raeburns, the portrait of - The Mac Nab " is the most strikine. It has been lent by Lonl Dewar, wfi lent also that typical Victorian piece, •' The Monarch of the Glen," by seer, the reproduction of which was to be seen in British homes the world ore in Victoria's days, not, of course, a school of painting which the modern consider worth any wall space now, bit certainly worthy a place in this exhibition as essentially typical of its time. The wealth of Continental art dkplayed is equally g-eat: a hitherto unknown Titian found in a London safe. room, two Franz Hals, Vandyke's "Abba Scajlia," vrhich Sir William Berry bought for over £30,000 at the receat Holford sale, Raphael, Rubens A mere catalogue indicates how wide a" net has been cast by the organisers. Feuchtwanger, whose novel "Jew Suss," followed after no great interval with " The Ugly Duchess," gave us eoca realistic and minute studies of life ia the middle ages that the characteristics stood out for us lifelike in their settings. The Ugly Duchess—the Dnchea of Carinthia and Tyrol—lives again for us in this exhibition on the canvas of Quentin Metys, a contemporary artist who painted her ; n the flesh—that gorilla-like mask, well named "mad tasch," which made child and grown upg shudder. Here the heroic woman wk* beat down circumstances, and her hohrible handicap of an ugliness which was repulsive, is revealed.

But the exhibition contains more **«q pictures. There is old furniture, soma set in their appropriate period rooms; there are musical instruments used by those long dead forbears of ours that claim most personal interest—a piaat which Beetham had been wont to play, jewels, trinkets, antique objets d'art of every conceivable kind—one can easily get lost. But while walking round, trying not to be seduced into lingering toe long, oni object calls a halt. It is a model of a Maori canoe exhibited by Messrs. Spink, the famous goldsmiths and art dealers. It is a beautiful little thing, about six feet long, carved oat of a block of kauri. It was brought to England more than one hundred years ago by one of the whaling captains* wh» first exploited New Zealand waters commercially for the white man. The carving, unusually fine and of the whorllike design characteristic of Maori work, is inlaid with pawa shelL The figurehead is one of these Maori deities, showing contempt and derision of foes by the out-thrust tongue, and tie hands show only three fingers, a symbol which we are told no Maori of to-day understands, or at least will reveal. The model has a most unusual feature, another head is carved under the prow. The whole model is stained to that dark brown which the Maoris delight in—boti the kauri forming the boat itself and the puriri of the curved parts. It is in this stand, too, that is to be seen the unique head recently dug up in Hamadan, Persia. It is a bust in pure gold—the hair is even of gold wiredates from the third or even fourth century B.C. This figure, of only fifteen inches height, is valued at £20,000!

Of close interest to New Zealand, too, are a number of postage stamps displayed. One is an examp'e of tilt early device, when postage was dear, of a shilling stamp halved to serve for tee sixpenny postage. This is on a letter addressed to C. Mottram, Esq. and belongs to Sir T. A. Clark's CJliectioßi Quite a number of New Zealand stamps are from letters salred from tbe wreck of the Colombo in 1862. There are two letters each showing two penny stamps. One letter posted in Aack"*nd on the 13th August, ISoo, reached Birmingham on the 29th December, 1855; the other addressed, one would have imagined rather vaguely, just Henry Martin, Esq., Halifax,* England—for Halifax must have been a large tow« then—left Auckland on the 12th October. 1535, and reached Halifax on the 14th February, 1856. Thus is history written in philately. One rarety from the Ferrari collection is uncatalogued—X.Z. 2d, 1573, second plate 11., red vermillion!