THE SKETCHER. TALES OF A CHINA EXPERT.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 55

THE SKETCHER.

TALE S OF A CHINA EXPERT.

RBMIEIfcCSNCES OF THE El/DEB MOBGAN

of London.

The knowledge of chinaware came down in the family of Mr Morgan, in New Oxford street, ' London, through several generations. They lived in- an atmosphere of china, 'and tfce whole family were inoculated/with it;" When the 'old gentleman was. out his wife or «itherc-of * his sons could tell the age and* value' and place of manufacture of " a plate^or vase with -almost unerring certainty. Estimating the commercial value of rate 'china,' for sale of probate, constituted an important parti' of the.' business, and" old Mr Morgan made a great improvement in the system of' making valuations. Chinaware to be passed upon used to be taken to an expert, who charged 2£ per cent, of the value he put upon it for his services and knowledge. G. E. Morgan, one of the sons, is as full of interesting stories abouc the business as the shop was of plaques and vases, and when he begins telling humourous anecdotes be is in no haste to quit.

"I do not remember that we boys were ever taught anything about rare china," he says. "It seemed to come natural to' us ; perhaps because it was a constant subject of conversation at home. My father had a farm out in the country, and when I was about half grown I was kept out there several years for my health. Of course I was fond of it, and nothing suited me better than to pub on farmers' clothes and helD with the work — or

pretend to help, perhaps I ought to say. The owner of a large place in the neighbourhood died, and his valuable collection of chinaware was arranged for sale. One day when I was passing the house with a companion, both looking like farmers' boys, we went in to see the collection, which was on exhibition, and I soon began to point but specially valuable pieces to my companion, to tell him their age and value, and various little things aßquV'theYn.'" '~sTwo -gentlemen* who weie standing near us^neard^what I was saying, and' I heard one of them say to the other: ' •*' Loofah thatficountry boy pretending tc nn de*Bt and this tihinal '

" It did not se£m to me at all strange that I should understand it ;"it seemed more re'idarkable that tn*ey should not 'know it as Well as I. > So I turned to them and pointed opt some very old ware that w»9 particularly valuable ; and as they were connoisseurs themselves they soon saw that I knew what I was talking about.

• " * Why, who are you 1 ' one ' of them asked.* " When they found that I was Morgan the expert's son they kept me with them, and made good use of my knowledge in making selections. That was about my first experience in valuing ; and as the articles, they bought were sent to the shop afterwards to be valued by my father I found ' that I had made no mistakes. I don't remember, though, that I got any commission on that job. " Sometimes be bad to hurt people's feelings when they 'wanted to know the truth. You know an article that has been in a family a lorig time is nearly always considered much more valqable than it really is. One day a noble lady drove up to the shop in a very grand coach and walked in, carrying a box carefully in her arms. My father brought a chair for her, and the sat down with the box in her lap and took off the cover. " • I want your opinion of the value of a pair of vases, Mr Morgan,' she said. ' What will you charge me to value them ? '

"•I can't tell till I see them,' ray father replied. • TKe usual price is 2£ per cent, on the valuation ' ; and ba reached down to take them out of the box.

'•• ' Ob, no Tno ! no 1 '- she exclaimed, drawing back. * Twill "unpack them myself. I have them -carefully done up in cotton. I paid a large sum for them, and have always valued them at £5000; but Lord Blank has recently bad the assurance to tell me that they are not worth more than £3500. That is ridiculous, of course ; but I want you'to settle the question for us.'

" She began to remove the cotton very carefolly,.and soon had one of the vaseß about half way out.

'• ' That will do,' said my father ; • you need not trouble to uncover them any further. I have seen all I want.'

" ' Ob, but you can't possibly tell till you see them, Mr Morgan,' she exclaimed ; and she pulled out more cotton. " * Yea, I have seen enough,' my father told her. ' I know the vases very well. They are worth about £10 at a high estimate.'

« « Ten pounds ! ' she fairly cried. 'Do you want to insult me, sir ? They are very valuable vases. You don't understand your business, sir. Yon don't know what you are talking about. I shall take them to someone who knows the value of such ware.'

."'I hope-ycu will, my lady,' my father answered. •We are all liable to make mistakes. I suggest that you take the rased to Christie, the auctioneer, to bet valued. Perhaps he can give you a better opinion of them than I' can.. At any rate, there is no better jtfdge of : china ;in_ London than Mr Christie; but you have treated me rather harshly, and if you find that I am right I expect you to come-back and tell me- of it." .-

> She went off in a passion, but in about half an, hour she came back almost with tears in her eyes. " ' I have come to beg your pardon, Mr Morgan,' said she. 'Mr Chrißtie tells me that the vases are worth about 7gs for the pair. I was shamefully cheated when I bought them, but that is no excuse for my rudeness to you. I was so sure they were very valuable that I thought your estimate ridiculous. Bat you were "right.'

"There ia too much opportunity for swindling in that business if the expert is not honest. After I had become a member of the firm an artist came in one day — an artist who bad a good reputation and bad made considerable money! But I was not particularly glad to see him, for I had had some dealings with him, and I knew that he would take advantage of me wherever he could.

" 'Morgan,' said he, • there's a bib of china up the river at Kingston that I want you to valae for me.' . ■

" ' All right,' said I. ' I'll go up and value it for a guinea.'

" Bat he thought that was too much. He explained that the article was a large chinaware dog that he thought was very old and valuable, and that he could buy it for £20. If it was 60 years old it was certainly worth the £20, but ' if it was as much as a hundred he was sure it was very valuable indeed.

"• I'll tell you what I'll do,' said he ; Til go you halves in the speculation, if you like. Lady So-ancJ-so (naming a well-known and Very wealthy collector) will give a big price , for it if yo.a thick it is good, or particularly iififc is old,^ .4 "Well, it- was a pleasant afternoon, for a ,run up the river, so -I told him I would-go-and look at it, and he gave me the address of : the house. Wheo I got back I told him the dog -was considerably over : a hundred years old, more likely a hundred and fifty, but that' £20 was a good fair price for it, and that I did not care to have anything to do with it. " However, he was not to be done out of his speculation. The age of the thing was enough for him, and he flew out to Kingston and bought it for £20 and then came back to Lady So-and-so's town house. " I have discovered something very rare 'out in the country, my lady," he told her.

• that I am sure you will want to add to your collection. I ran across it accidentally in an old oastle about 100 miles from London, and, aaitwas for sale, I bought ib immediately. It is a large china dog, over a hundred and fifty years old.'

"'Ob, a dog.' said- Bhe, as he told me afterwards. ' Bub you say you found it 150 miles from the city. What do you want for it?'

1 "'I am willing to sell it at a reasonable profit,' be replied. ' I bad to pay 75gs for it, and I am willing to take 80ge.'

" ' Well, bring it in and let me see it,' said the lady ; and the artist was so eager about it that he had it at her bouse the next morning. ,

" ' What, that old dog ! ' the lady exclaimed the minute she set eyes on it ; 'I declare that dog has been the plague of my life. This is the fourth time it has been here, and I wouldn't have it at any price. Yes, this is the same old <3og. I remember this- little piece broken off the right ear. But it did not come from any old castle. I will tell you where it was. It stood on a table in the front drawing room at No. So-and-so Blank street, Kiugston — and Kingston is 15 miles away, not 150. Take the horrid thing away — do 1 '

" The artist tried to induce the Kingston owner to take it back, but failed ; and in the end he bad to keep the dog and pecket the loss. I could not sympathise with him very much.

" A curious "thing, and, as it turned out, rather a comical thing, happened to my father about a' vase at one time. It was a small vase that belonged to a wealthy business man in London, and of no great value at any time, but worth still less since it had been broken and mended. But it had been in the family a long time, and they were attached to it, and the owner, brought it to the shop to see whether my father could get him a duplicate of it. It stood there a long time without a duplicate being found : and when at length the owner came for it it had disappeared. We did not imagine that any one had stolen it, for the shop was full of such things on every floor, and we supposed

it had only been mislaid. At any rate, we looked high and low for it, and no such vase could be found.

"My father said he was very sorry that such a thing should have happened, but under the circumstances the only reparation he could make was to pay for it. It was not a valuable vase, but he would pay £2, since he had lost it.

" ' Two pounds V the man shouted ; • £200 wouldn't pay me for that vase ; nor £5001 I don't want your money, I want my vase. It was an heirloom, I tell you, and you must find it.' *

11 Well, to make the story short, that vase led to a lawsuit. The owner sued my father for damages, and after a while the case came up, the owner being the first witness. "'How large was this vase?' the jadge asked.

"•lt was about so high,' the owner answered, holding one hand about two feet above the table.

" Toe next witness was the owner's housekeeper, and her ideas were larger, or else she wanted to make her employer's case as stroDg as possible. <Whea asked the size she held, her hand nearly 3ft above the table and said she was. sure it was as big as<ttjat. She recdllected'the width of it too ; it waß bigger around than a water paih '-~> " Before any of my father's witnesses had been called there was a little commotion in the,court, and one of our shopmen pushed?his way in, oarryin'g a small box. _The vase had been found I It was soon unpacked and placed on the table, and then everybody burst into a laugh except the judge ; for the vase was just Bin higb, and as big round as a sugar bowl. The judge was very angry about it, and gave the owner a severe lecture, and threatened to commit the housekeeper for perjury: Wa did not need any witnesses after that. " One day my father was looking over

some articles in a provincial town that were offered for sale, and took up a plaque that was handsome but not valuable.-

" ' That is something very fine,' said the owner.- • I have bad that valued by Morgan, and he tells me it is worth over £200.'

" ' Indeed V said my father, very much interested ;' ' and wh&t sort of -looking man is Morgan 1 '

" ' Ob, a man of about average height,' said he, a little confused. ' I should say 60 or 65, with almost white hair.'

" ' Then my hair must have turned black again!' my father laughed, 'for I am Morgan.'

" Once a gentleman came in with a vase that bad been sent for examination by a dealer who did not pretend to be an expert. The vaee had been cracked while in the gentleman's house, and the dealer demanded £6 for it.

" ' Two pounds,' said my father, after looking it over. ' Not a farthing more than that.'

"Later in -the same day a shopman came in with the same vase. It had been sent to a gentleman for examination he said, and the gentleman had cracked it, and was not willing to pay the £6 that was its price. Would my father value it ?

" ' Two pounds,' said my father, of course without any mention of the vase's previous visit to the shop.

"We are all likely to ba deceived sometimes, you know. For instance', I have a handsome little inlaid cabinet;, very 'small" but very pretty, and of considerable value. Years ago I -wanted a case for it, as I intended to take it on a journey, and I sent it to our cisc-maker to have a leather one made. When it came home my father* and brother both laughed at ir, for it' was a heavy modern case for a delicate little antique cabinet. I thought I must make the cage look a little more appropriate, so I took the thin leather from an old pair of Wellington boots and glued it over the outside, completely hiding the clumsy seams. I had no idea of deceiving anyone with it, and the cabinet in its case lay for some time in the shop*

" While it was there a professor in one of our colleges came in. He was a frequent visitor, being fond- of antiques and a good judge of them, and his eye .soon caught my leather'case.

" ' Ab, there is something good,' said he, taking it up. ' That is a fine piece of work.'

" ' That is only the outer case, professor,* I told him. ' There is a pretty little cabinet inside. 1

" • I don't care anything about the cabinet,' he exclaimed. 'It is ttiis leather case I am talking about. This is a fine bit of Spanish work, and I should place it about the middle of the seventeenth oentury. With a little study, I think I could tell you just the Spanish province it was made in.'

" I did not have the heart to tell him that it had been made of an old Wellington boot about 10 days before. Ton seethe minute a man gets out of the grooves he iuns in he is like a child for innocence. A sharper hardly needs to try to deceive him : let him alone, and he deceives himself. I. have told you about other people's mistakes ; now I must tell you one of my own. My father had, a number of paintings, and after -bis death some or them fell to me. There were-two in particular—- both in my share — that rwere supposed to be valuable. They had been in the family so long that we had come to look upon them as worth their weight' in gold almost. The larger of the two waa thoughtto be .wofcth about £600 "and the smaller one £200. You know, we did not handle paintings in the shop, and did not pretend to be ' experts in thtt branch of art. I don'c know what it was that led me to send them out to be valued, but, at any rate, I sent them down to the National Gallery, with a request for an opinion of their value. They kept them about a week, and then sent them back with the brief message, ' If you can get £20 for the two, better take it.' " — New . York San. "

LA URAKUE CHARTREUSE. A The existing mother-house of the great Carthusian Order, a picturesque group of buildings- enclosed within lofty walls which give it the air of a fortified town, dates no further back than 1676, having been .built under the direction of that remarkable head, of the Order, Djuq/Lb Massocf, to whom also we owe the splendid road from St. Laarent-du-Pont and' the beautiful Bridge of St. Bruno. Many vicissitudes had overtaken the mother-house eince Bruno and his companions first established their hermit cells higher up the valley. ... In the existing monastery the different buildings have slate roofs, and are all separate, and connected only by cloisters, on to which open the separate little houses in which each pere or " Dora " lives in solitude, ODly emerging therefrom for the daily and nightly services in the chapel, the solitary walk which each is obliged to take once a week, and the midday meal on Sunday. This Sunday meal is the only time they may ]3in in conversation. During the week their meals are handed in through a trap-door^ so built that one can see neither from within nor from without. Bach little section is quite separate, and contains a tiny ante-cbamoer, an oratory, a cell with a pallet-bed in an alcove, a writing-table, and a book-case ; and down a fi'ghfc of steps underneath is a workshop, with a turning-lathe, a place for chopping wood (each Father has ta do air the manual labour of keeping bis cell and his weolten- garments clean and in order and his stove burning), and a Promenoir three yards long, in which to take exercise. •- Ouiside : is-" the tiny gardenallotted to each cell,- and walled off, like' the rest, so as to prevent all inter-communica-tion. Thus are preserved the features of the life laid down by St. Bruno; as being the most perfect for health of soul and bodysolitude without isolation ; religious absorption and contemplation, varied by manual labour ; and, once a week, the relaxation of speech and social intercourse with others. Two things are absolutely forbidden within the monastery wails : women and meat. It is only since the French Revelation th&t

women have even been allowed to enter tht confines of the Desert; and, as regards meat** any Carthusian eating it under any circumstances whatsoever, no matter whether hid life or health depended thereon, would be re« garded as a renegade, shunned, and cast oat from among his brethren.

This and much more valuable in* formation do I pour into the. ears of tha Duena and Carmen as we toil up the final precipitous bill that leads to the convent. We pass its inhospitable doors, and before deciding whether we shall bend our proud necks to the . Hotellerie dcs Dames (an ugly barn-like building about 100 yards from the lordly monastery), which the monks s.allow to be desecrated by feminine visitors, or whether we shall drive on to the hotels of St. Pierre de Char-" treuse, about .four kilometres away, we climb the grassy slope to a little Calvary that dominates the monastery, which looks like a kindergarten toy with its' quaint, highpitched 'roofs and absurd little towers. The hotellerie within the walls, where male visitors .are given board and lodging, is a lofty; building of three otoreys, the windows, like all those of the monastery,, being closely barred— whether to^keep the^men in or tb© women out ' ,is not ; explained. Carmen's nostrils twitched with suppressed scorn as she glanced down over the 'enclosure' where hundreds bf timid, well-meaning 1 * men. have ■fled for- .safety from the wiles of the descen* dants of enlightening Eve. «' Carmen 1 " I say -severely,- "you remind , me of an otter watching a salmon pool I " - "Salmon I " she retorts ; " say trench, rather, which are con* tent to live out their lives among weeds and stagnant water. Otters would need to be indeed hungry before they would eat mud fishl"

My knowledge of the appetite of otterd being somewhat limited, I seek safety in silepcs ; and we descend to the Hotelleria dcs Dnmes, where the white-capped Sceurs de la Providence from the convent at Grenoble (half a dczsn of whom look after the hotellerie dnring the summer months} consent, afcer a good deal of parleying, to give ub a room^with the requisite number of beds. The sleeping accommodation is ' chiefly in dormitories, and we are apparently lucky to get a room to ourselves ;' for when we return to the benches outside the, door to wait for ' supper time and watch the rosy, sunset flush on the cross-crowned cliffs of the Grand Sam we are. regaled by a fat lady from Strasbnrg, who visits the Grande Chartreuse every year, with tales of what often happens to the lady lodgers. Three in a bed,and the unappropriated blessings finding what rest they , may on the benches of the refectory 1 The prospect is too lively 1 to be reassuring. ; and we .determine to barricade: ourselves into the room we have obtained.' " I pity the woman that is put into my bed" ;, says Carmen grimly, eyeing,-- tfce- jfat lady, ' with an . evident. appreciation of her softestcorners \ "she will certainly; have the right? ;to claim at least a' nundred days ol plenary,indulgence,- • fnr- value- -received,- I ' 'before morning 1 " "It is all part of the local; colour," I say soothingly as we make our •way to the refectory, where the two long 1 tables are already nearly filled with females 1 of all ages, chattering like budgerigar parrai keets, and curiously plain in form and feature. If such are the usual female visitors to the Grande Chartreuse, they might .'jfeally be warranted without danger to the ■hermit saint?/ even if admitted to the monastery. The supper is ample in quantity, but abominable in .quality. It is all' cooked at' the monastery and brought across to the hotellerie ; and the onlj satisfaction is to think that the pampered male visitors over the way are given the same fare. It consists of onion soup, which is chiefly bread soaked in water ; an omelette, which is a mixture of leather and froth that would disgrace the skill of a cabin boy ; bits of carp fried in oil (uneatable); a poultice of lice boiled ia milk and salt ; and fritters, apparently of" shoe-leather. We get more and more rueful as we taste each impossible dish, for we are hungry after our long drive; but these viands are beyond our powers of deglutition. However, we manage to assuage our appatites on bread, wine (the latter an honest petit bleit which can do no harm), and stewed prunes, followed by a liqueur-glass of yellow Chartreuse. Whether it is that the latter is a brand, foe home .consumption, or, that our distinctly frugal supper has given { an added flavour to the things we can swal-, low, I. do not- know^ but certainly, "this yellow Chartreuse- is better than any I have ever, tasted "elsewhere.— : World. v , ',