Lilliputian Treasures

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 32, 7 February 1931, Page 19

Lilliputian Treasures

I If further proof were needed of the Queen's love for miniature objects, it would be furnished by the happy: hour which she spent recently with . -Miss Falcko, in George street, Portman square. She examined all sorts of curious collections, and went through a wholo drawer of miniature treasures with Lady Ampthill—no doubt with the Dudley House exhibition in mind. "Whicldon -pipes of china, some of them with six mouthpieces that can all be smoked at the same time, others with stems coiled in true lovers' knots, amused tho Queen, as did the chin.'i, tulips of the eighteenth century that arc kept for one American clergyman who collects them and nothing else. To add to her own collection of etuis, which is alretfdy laige, the Queen bought a tortoiseshcll etui with mother of pcail fittings. Victorian curiosities such as headwork, .Berlin, woodwork, and cut paper; flowers, have cabinets to themselves I in tho Queen's collection, so she was interested to see Miss Falcko 's amus-1 ing drawer full of woven silk pictures of such diverse celebrities, of tho time as Chamberlain, Burns) Moltke, Lady Godiva, Parnell, and Queen Victoria. They were made by various Coventry i manufacturers about the middle of last century, often to match garters and biaees! Bather earlier are a number of silhouettes with backgrounds painted' in, which are to go to America. Among the miniature objects, the Queen prefeired the whist markers of Tunbridge Wells ware, the inlaid woodwork. done with the local green oak and other woods by French prisoners, and the dainty, ivory toothpick cases which most gentlemen carried about with them.