A HANDSOME GIFT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 10

A HANDSOME GIFT

TO PUBLIC LIBRARY

THREE ART VOLUMES

Through the good offices of Mr. T. J. Burton, until recently managing director of Lever Bros., New Zealand, and now managing director in Australia, three particularly iiuo art volumes, the Levcr-llulmo Art Monographs, have been presented to the Wellington Public Library, and may be inspected by those interested in art generally, and particularly in the subjects of ceramic art, old English furniture, tapestry, etc., aud English painting, of the eighteenth and nineteenth^ centuries. The volumes, however, are too valuable to be placed among the usual run of reference books and are in the keeping of the chief librarian, Mr. J. Norrio, to whom application should be made. Some months ago Mr. Burton sent along to Mr. Norrie his personal copies of the monographs, and upon Mr. Norrie expressing his admiration of the volumes as line productions, and as very valuable from a reference and library point of view, Mr. Burton undertook to communicate with his principals > and the trustees of the Lady Leverhulme Art Gallery. Very promptly an answer came from London that tho trustees would be pleased to give a set of monographs, and that, in fact, they were on the way. A SPLENDID MEMORIAL. These three large volumes are, in fact, finely produced "catalogues" of the remarkable collection of paintings and examples of fine art in tho Lady Leverhulme Art Gallery at Port Sunlight, Cheshire, England. The art gallery was erected and the collection made by Lord Leverhulme to tho memory of Lady-Leverhulme. It undoubtedly constitutes one of the most remarkable collections in the world. Many collectors—all of them essentially wealthy men —have built up galleries of paintings, or ceramics, or of old tapestries, but the Leverhulme collection covers these and more.

The first volume deals with Chinese porcelain and Wedgwood pottery, and is compiled by R. L. Hobson,, R.A., keeper of the department of ceramics of the British, Museum. The illustrations are very fine'indeed, particularly those -■ in colour, chiefly of brilliant examples of old Chinese pottery. The second volume, dealing with English furniture, tapestry and needlework of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, will probably have a wider appeal in New Zealand than the first, in its old furniture section especially. The author is Percy Macquoid, R. 1., a wellknown authority in England. The third monograph is, from the point of view of fine art illustration, the most attractive of all. It's editor is E. R. Tatlock, of the Burlington Magazine, and the monograph has an introduction by Roger Fry, a recognised art critic at Home. It is illustrated by over a hundred full-page photographic plates and a dozen plates in colour, and contains analytical and descriptive accounts of one thousand pictures, drawings, etc., as well as notes upon various: schools of painting. To the art student such a volume is of very real value. THE FINE SIDE OF LIBRARY WORK. Up to date the Wellington libraries have sadly lacked volumes of the type of the three monographs; the fine art section has been considerably neglected. For this there are two main reasons—first, -finance, and, secondly, the difficulty of making adequate provision in the crowded reference department. There is a third quite important consideration, and that is that the present Wellington Library is hardly such as to induce collectors of books to hand over or bequeath for public use and instruction private collections; it is in this way. that art sections of many public libraries have been built up. Recently, for instance, there was handed into the keeping of the Auckland Public Library the Read collection of Dumas's books, and manuscripts, considered to be one of the finest, if not the finest, Dumas collection in the world. The art section of the Dunedin Public Library has also been greatly helped.along by the gifts of private collectors, who, wisely preferring that their cherished volumes shall be kept together, and made available to the greatest number to being dispersed, and their value,: quite possibly forgotten, have had them eared for by the city officials. When the new library is built, at v date which is unfortunately very hazy, such a section as this will rceeivo the consideration that cannot be given it in the present out-of-date and. cramped building. An art section cau never, of course, in a public library become a leading section, nor is that anywhere attempted, but unquestionably there is a demand from a very considerable number of people for serious works upon the finer arts, and at present, as far as the city libraries are concerned, it is practically in no wise catered for.