SECRET HOARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1943, Page 4

SECRET HOARD

SHY WOMAN’S TREASURES. COLLECTION OF CHINA. Mrs Agnes Howard, who died three months ago in a Melbourne suburb, had an almost morbid horror of publicity. To her next-door neighbours she was just a pleasant old lady who lived' alone. But, unknown to them, her small house contained one of the finest collections of china in the world, Valued at many thousands of pounds. Even art dealers, whom she met every week to see if they had new specimens for sale, did not penetrate to her home museum. Few other people visited her. • In the rooms, one could scarcely move for fear of knocking over a piece of Chelsea or Doulton. These beautiful things lay heaped on tables,' and jammed, layer upon layer, into glass cases. When she exhibited a section of this treasure last year in aid of the Red Cross, she insisted on remaining anonymous.

Mrs Howard bought her china in Europe and America, as well as locally. If she could not find a representative piece in the open market, she sent to the factory and paid a large sum to have one specially provided for her. /

The collection included some rare and exquisite examples, such as the pierced Worcester vases signed by George Owen; a Doulton vase, nearly 4ft high, on which George White had painted a bacchanalian festival; and a piece of Royal Worcester decorated by C. B. Hopkins with a sumptuous encircling landscape of cattle in fields. At auction, one piece brought £3OO.