THE PARISIAN RAGE FOR THE ANTIQUE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6507, 4 January 1882, Page 5

THE PARISIAN RAGE FOR THE ANTIQUE.

The Paris corespondent of the Sydney Morning Herald writes : The prevalent passion for everything antique has set the fashionable world hunting after old things in the most out-of-the-way holes and corners. Old furniture, old carvings, old mirrors, old plates and cups, old clocks, and especially old fabrics, are sought after with a zeal and determination that are showing, to the gay votaries of display, scenes of real life such as they have never seen before. There are certain old hags, living in very unfashionable quarters, who have spent their lives in buying up the “rags and tatters ” of former greatness, and who have collected in their sordid premises an enormous quantity of old satins, silks, tapestries, embroideries, &o. The gayest and grandest of the wealthy dames of this region are flock* ing just now to one of those receptacles, and eagerly buying up the faded treasures there stored away. The mistress of this receptacle, an old Jewess, Mdme Gerber, who is rapidly making a handsome thing of the mania of the hour, lives in an old building in the Marais, the former “hotel" of a lordly family, now literally dropping to pieces from old age and neglect. The vast windows, looking upon an inner court, are half filled with paper and bits of wood, doing duty for the missing panes ; but if you peep through one of the remaining squares of the old dingy glass of other day®, you see long suites of rboms that were formerly elegant drawing-rooms, with sculptured ornaments, carved, gilded, and painted doors, and ceilings still showing cupids and flowers. Over many of the richly carved but broken and discoloured mantelpieces, you see old Venetian mirrors, cracked in a dozen places, smoky and dull, but still surrounded by richly carved frames, with traces of the painting and gilding of “ long ago” on their flowers,doves, sylphs', mermaids and dragons. As for the court by which you enter; it is full of wornout carts, scurvy-looking dogs, and heaps of miscellaneous rubbish, broken tools, remains of harness, old stoves, kettles, and frying-pans, broken crockery, dilapidated chairs, tables, and chests of drawers, scraps of paper, broken toys, household rags, peelings of vegetables, heaps of coffee-grounds, &0., &o. The ancient pavements formerly swept by the trains of Court-beauties, and resounding with the metal boot-heels and swords of gay cavaliers, arc so nearly covered with this sordid refuse, that the gay ladies and fashionable gentlemen who flock to this sordid emporium are obliged to pick their way with uo little care to the sanctum of the Jewess. This presiding spirit of the place occupies a suite of rooms to the right which is entered by a trap-door, of the sort which proved so useful to the heroes of the romances of a generation ago, allowing them, at some critical moment of their adventures, to slip out of sight by some such unsuspected passage through a wall. On entering you are half stifled by the close atmosphere, redolent of grease and of the damp which is the usual concomitant of ground- floor rooms. There is on the other side of the court a vestibule, now used for storing wood and coal, from which rises a broad stone staircase, falling to pieces, with an iron balustrade of exquisite richness and delicacy, which, like the other artistic features of ths hotel, will doubtless be made the ornament of seme now and luxurious dwelling, when the old place comes to be pulled down and its materials disposed of to a lot of sordid harpies of both sexes, who will buy them up for next to nothing and make handsome sums by reselling them. But to reach the dwelling place of “ Mdmc Gerber,”

yon have no »uoh arirtrocatio relics to diftraot your attention, but must climb up a wooden stairway, steep and narrow u though in the interior of a mill; the walls of which are hung with bundles, j n . numerable, which you duck your head to avoid knocking against; and you presently find yourself in a small dingy room, with a smoky ceiling, guarded by a dog who inspects you with every appearance of suspicion, and whose sharp bark brings “Mdme Gerber” from an inner sanctum to see who is there, and to inquire what you want. These rooms, and all the rest of the part of the old hotel occupied by the Jewess, are literally crammed with packages and bundles—hangings from oW palaces, draperies from old chapels, trains of forgotten princesses, robes of doge’s wives from “ The Bride of the Adriatic, banners from devastated monasteries, covered with gold and silver embroideries, heavy as gold* smiths’ work, chasubles embroidered with pearls and silken flowers in high relief, robes of Spanish and Austrian infantas, miracles of floss silk and chenille, altar-cloths, master* pieces of pious patience, with virgins and saints worked in silver on elaborately-painted grounds, curtains from Italian palaces, window cushions from Grenada and Seville—the wonderful needlework of four centuries of proud but industrious chatelainet, and the skilful fingers of their handmaidens. Equally “ rich and rare” are the fluffs of which the old Jewess has a seemingly inez* hanstible stock; silks and satins, covered with exquisite embroideries, all worked by hand, and figured velvets, such as looms make nowadays; cloths of gold and silver, with the quaintest and loveliest fancies woven in the tissue, or patiently worked upon it by the fingers that passed away long ago; stuffs of all ages and styles, such as have not been produced for some hundreds of years, and that have been picked up at sales of ancient heirlooms. A brilliant viscount, grandson of a famous admiral, has spent £24,000 on stuffs from the store of the old Jewess ic question, and has covered therewith all the chairs and lounges of his elegant mansion, besides delighting the eyes of his extensive acquaintances with the rsrd &nd beautiful bangings of bis doors and windows. Countesses, princesses, baroncsies, and marchionesses, French and foreign, are outnvalling each other in securing the treasures accumulated in this sordid corner of the Marais; and the neighbours are getting accustomed to the sight of elegant equipages and servants in livery drawn up in the vulgar street outside, and aristocratic gentry of both sexes mak ; ng their way across the rubbishing court and into the dingy dwelling of “ Mdme Gerber.” A celebrated diva is preparing to take the eyes of operagoers by storm with a wonderful robe, now being made up for her by one of the great men mantua-makers of this capital, the sitm of which it is made—thick enough to stand alone, and covered with fruit, flowers, birds, flies, butterflies, and enpids, the latter in the style of Boucher, the rest in their natural colours—was procured from the stores of the old Jewess.