ART AND GOLD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 579, 4 February 1929, Page 8

ART AND GOLD

LODGED unpretentiously, and often unrecognised, in homes throughout New Zealand, are masterpieces of painting, superb examples of the china-maker’s art, and rare, delightful books that, once seen, would cause a loosening of the pursestrings of wealthy barterers and collectors whose haunts are the auction marts of London. The present auction season has brought profit to two Auckland families, and although Mrs. Lushington has had good fortune in the prices realised for two pictures—s,3oo guineas—the Martin family was much less lucky in receiving £SOO for the original set of Blake’s “Illustrations to the Book of Job.” However, the commercial aspect is not always the one which needs greatest consideration, although it is the one which makes the readiest appeal to public imagination. In the past 20 years many interesting discoveries have been made in New Zealand, and from the nature of them it is reasonable to conclude that there are many finds, quite as spectacular, yet to be made. New Zealand has been fortunate in its early settlers, and frequently, when they left England for the last time, they brought with them little things that would serve to remind them of home. The pictures, often casually picked out; the books taken at random from old libraries, seemed, perhaps, of no great value then; but during the twentieth century there has been a tendency to revise the value of these things, and in the passage of years they have been transmuted into gold. Wealthy people of humble origin must now have pictures for their newlyacquired ancestral halls, and the libraries of gentlemen must be furnished with the choicest volumes that the markets have to offer. The result is that the markets have been subject to curious financial stimulation. America, with its great resources, and lack of tradition, has now entered into competition with Englishmen, and the result, while satisfactory to English purses, is not always so satisfactory to English culture. There is one American whose agreeable hobby it is to acquire as many copies of the famous First Folio Shakespeare as possible. There are only 100 odd copies in existence, yet this man has no fewer than 12, and the current price for good copies is £IO,OOO, and often more. Each year, precious cargoes cross the Atlantic to find their resting-place in the homes of millionaires. New Zealand, being remote from this commercial turmoil has not the same desire to search out these things, and after all it is well so. Although there are books in the Dominion that would rouse the acquisitive lusts of a bibliophile, and pictures that would brighten the eye of a connoisseur, it is far better to have them undisturbed in their present quiet lodging, than have them put to exile for profit. Of course, this is an uncommercial attitude, somewhat difficult to appreciate; but it certainly would be much more satisfactory to leave them in the Dominion. Good example was set by men such as Sir George Grey and the late Mr. Henry Shaw, both of whom left superb collections of books to the city. Such philanthropy is not always possible, and Auckland should b£ grateful that even this much has been done.