COSMOPOLITAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 303, 23 December 1929, Page 11

COSMOPOLITAN.

ROUND THE CONTINENT. DAUBS AND THE ART HORDE. ENLARGED EYES. (From Our Special Correspondent.) PARIS, November 12. A new filip lias been given to the "consulting" professions by the vogue for the consultation dressmaker. You no longer content yourself with a mannequin display before deciding on your new gown. You must have a consultation, and it will cost you a thousand francs or more. But for this you may have a baroness, a duchess or even a princess to receive you luxuriously and advise yen in an aristocratically leisured way. Tea is generally thrown in, and your baronness or duchess will probably tell you where to get the garb she advocated for you at a bargain figure. The- sceptical may scorn the idea, but reassurance as to colour schemes, materials and styles given by an exquisitelygowned or pyjainaed nobility in gorgeous surroundings may have a lasting psychological cll'ect, whose fruits are the wearing of the recommended clothes a good deal longor than usual. Therefore let husbands think upon the dispositions of their ladies before dissuading them from these consultations. Both the consulted and the consulted arc looking upon the idea as a n..w form of art and art will have its fashions. Witness the current craze for the negro school. Sidike, the coal-black Senegalese painter, is the darling of the moment. His landscapes have brought him from a cotton plantation to the artists' colony of Montparnasse, _ and into the favour of Paris. So far Sidike seems to have preferred exhibiting his works in the orthodox gallery manner to showing them al fresco. The- open-air picture exhibitions by the artists of Montparnasse are now, of course, a feature of Paris life. Financially these exhibitions' are not unsuccessful, but Montparnasse has been grumbling about the public ignorance of art. And because Montparnasse has accused the man in the street of not knowing a masterpiece when he sees one, the group called the "Horde of Montparnasse" decided to put the matter to the test. Some of the open-air picture fairs now include works by famous masters, with the signatures temporarily obliterated. Those treasures, sprinkled among the works of the struggling geniuses of to-day, are. for sale at the same prices as those, demanded for the efforts of the artist on whose stand they happen to bo exhibited. Now, says the Horde of Montparnasse, the knowledge that they may pick up an old master at a "Daub Fair" price will set the public a-learning something about modern painting. Well, it should open the eyes of the man in the street, but as to those of his women folk, they are being opened in a much mote literal sense. The beauty surgeon who has already lifted faces, reshaped noses and eliminated redundant chins, has now turned his attention to enlarging the eyes. This he does by slitting them at the outer corners and "button-hole" stitching the newly-cut portion and by removing some of the cartilage from the upper lid. My lady must take care that by too extensive an excavation she is not constrained, like Chaucer's "smale foules" to 'slepen all the niht with open eye.' , A Princess , Jewels. Princess Marie Jose's jewels include two very beautiful bracelets. One, of platinum set with a fine sapphire, her iianCe gave her a twelvemonth or so ago, and the other, a diamond and platinum trellis about two inches wide, was one of her engagement presents from her father and mother. Perhaps it was because he had already given her the sapphire bracelet (her favourite stone) that Prince Humbert chose the Princess' engagement ring in ruby and diamond. di- it mav have be«n because the ruby is Marie Jose's birthstone, her birthday being in August. 'J. he Italian royal house seems to favour ruby engagement rings, though, so perhaps it was a happy coincidence. Another engagement present to the Princess from the King and Queen of the Belgians was a very line row of large pearls.

Virgil's Birthplace. Next year Italy will celebrate the bimiilcnary of the birth of Virgil. The celebration will for the most part take the form of the opening of a Virgilian wood, stocked with all the trees, shrubs and flowers mentioned in the Eclogues, the Georgics and (though less frequently) in the Aeneid. The park will be laid out on part of the banks of the Milicio, and twelve acres of land have already been granted for the purpose by the authorities near the village of Pietole, Virgil's birthplace; moreover, thbitgli the bi-milleiiary does not fall until October 15 next, the leading citizens of Mantua have already met iii discussion of the scheme.

The "Incus yirgilianiis" is by no means a new idea. It occurred to Vittorino da Feltre, the famous humanist, as far back at 1400; the project was brought up again by General Miollis, the French Governor of Mantua in 1797, and by Giacomo Boni, the archaeologist, in 1910, when he recommended the scheme to the Royal Virgilian Academy; Tlie park is to be inaugurated by Sigiior Ariiaido Mussolini, brother of the Premier.

Italy and Its Grapes. "Eat more grapes" is one of the great appeals of the moment. The "rowers no longer want to think of their produce only in terms of wine; they want more and more grapes to grace the tables of Rome and indeed of Italy. All of us who have stayed in Italian hotels would be inclined to think the exhortation rather unnecessary; the '• fruit? " at the end of the menu always materialise as grapes to the extent of at least fifty per cent. In Milan one remembers great black wine-flavoured grapes, rich and delicious; in Venice, small, firm grapes, with delicate threads of ice about them as one lifts them from the bowl. If in the summer you visit the Island of Tofceljo, lying off Venice, you will be greeted by gondoliers clamouring to take you up the little stream to the famous old church, and also by grape sellers, who will supply you with their tempting wares for about twopence a pound, and here, as well as in Venice itself, you will see innumerable small children with a bunch of white grapes cupped in the left hand; they pick off the fruit? and eat them almost unconsciously as they run about at play. Berliners' Pastimes. In a very ordinary looking cafe, near the Alexander Platz, hangs a singular notice: "In addition to the Berlin address book the. criminal Code may be

consulted here." The neighbourhood is distinctly in favour with sharp gentlemen, and one assumed, with the management of the cafe, that with typical German thoroughness' they like to know before undertaking a "job" just what penalties they may be risking. The proprietor is to be congratulated on catering so well for his clientele, but would he agree with Mr, Sclfridge that " the customer is always right"?

Ono can feel nothing- but admiration for the selfless spirit, in which a gallant company of Berlin doctors has set out upon three months voyaging in small boats ill the Baltic Sea. Their leader is Dr. Schmidt, of the Chauto Institute, and the object of their terrible experiment—the Baltic is notoriously rough at this time of the year—is to rid the world of the terrible scourge of seasickness. Could anything be nobler? Our hearts go out to them, and theirs arc probably going out into the Baltic Sea by this time. And what is more, these stalwarts are testing upon themselves the efficacy of no fewer than one hundred and two different remedies for sea sickness. Will they look with hope or despair upon the ono hundred and second, one wonders. It sounds as though the necessity for the Channel tunnel may vanish away —if the brave doctors come back to tell their woeful tale. The Lions of Zurich. Zurich has a zoo at last. Many years ago, King Mcnelik, of Abyssinia, wanted to present Zurich with some lions in honour of his minister, Alfred Ilg, citizen of that zooless city, but there was no place in which to entertain a respectable lion, let alone one in which to invite him to spend a considerable time. This was particularly lamentable, since a lion appears on the city arms, and the good people of Zurich have wanted some nice lions ever since. Now they have at last some very line ones, as well as many other notable?, from the animal world. There is a large aquarium, a bear pit, and a monkey house, and fifteen thousand of the human animal came to sec them the other day when the zoo was opened. Polish Maidens. The maidens of Poland have decided that eggs are the fuel to feed the fires of beauty, and they are eating eggs with enthusiasm. This is because Mile. Anastasia Zablocka, acclaimed by artists and sculptors as their leading beauty, attributes her good looks in large measure to a diet consisting of eggs and nothing but eggs. The demand for eggs lias now increased to such an extent in Poland that the Federation of Polish Poultry Fanners has presented Miss Zablocka with an egg of solid gold.