QUEEN MARY VISITS ANTIQUE DEALERS FAIR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 42, 12 November 1937, Page 11

QUEEN MARY VISITS ANTIQUE DEALERS FAIR

If Qn- teen Mary could be persuaded to accede to that apparently impossible plea — to write a book upon her adventures in art collecting — the result would be the issue of a "best-seller" in every continent, wrote A. C. R. Oarter in the Daily Telegraph. At the Antique Dealers ' Fair and Exhibition, Grosvenor House, of which -she is the active patron, she visited every stand in the entire^ exhibition. Her tour lasted two hours. She was accompanied by the Prineess Royal with the Dowager Lady Aoipthill in attendance. Mr Cecil Turner, the chairman of the Fair, showed them round. After Qneen Mary had left I heard a well-known dealer, who had confused portrait busts of the Duke of Clarence and Prineess Adjlaide — late'- William IY and his Queen— with those of George IV and his daughter the Prineess Charlotte remarked that her Majesty had inAantly noticed the error. From all sides came tributes to Qucen Mary's flair and accurate memory. Espying a silver-gilt George I digh and ewer with the arms of Newton and Craddock and those of Sir M. Warton when promoted to the Order of the Bath, she at onee recognised them as having once belonged to a friend who had sent them to Christie'a some years ago. Every stand received a Royal inspeetion. Every dealer at the Fair has the memory of a word of friendly encouragement. . Queen Mary's first call was at Stand No. 108, where the magnificent sixteenth century bronze figure of -an anatomieal horse by Riccio, the pupii of Leonardo, is being displayed. She quite agreed that this tropliy should be housed in a national collectidn. After the Prineess Royal had drawn her mother's attention to eighc superb Hepplewhite chairs, both soon fiastened upon a. marvellous Augsburg set of chessm'en and silvcr-mounted table of tortoise--shell and mother-of-pearl ,exeeuted in 1737 for Frederick William I of Prussia son of the Great Elector and father of Frederick the Great. Apart from the beauty of the Augsburg's craftsman's art, the 32 painted and carved boxwood figures with Frederick William and his consort as King and Queen of the set. are wonders of skill. ' The figures are lively portrayals of types of stalwart husbandmen, knights, yeomen and farmers who became the Uthers of Fre'derick the Great's g'gantic grenadiers. And, as they left this attraetive stand, Queen Mary and Prineess Royal paused to admire a pair of Derby spar and ormolu vases designed by Matthew Boulton. Her Majesty's purchases ineluded a Regency tea caddy with mercurial gilt mounts; various clioice bits of orhamental jade, of which the Queen is an expert judge; and a flowing silk scarf with jewrelled ornamentation and portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte. It is certain that Queen Miary'e visit to the fair will induce thousands of eager collectors to go to it, especially when all her loans are on public view. Prominent among these is the wonderful pieee of point d'Aleneon lace, once owned -by Queen Gbarlotte, inherited by Queen Victoriia at her accession, and given by her shortly before her death to Queen Mary.