A COSTLY CATALOGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 135, 10 June 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

A COSTLY CATALOGUE.

THIRTY GUINEAS TOR A COPT.

COLLECTOR SPENDS £20,000.

One of the most remarkable catalogues ever produced is that which Sir Percival David, whose collection of pottery and porcelain holds a unique position among the great private collections of the world, is having printed and which will be published shortly. Although the catalogue is being produced primarily as a hobby, a few copies are to be offered for sale at thirty guineas each, and others at twelve guineas each, and already a number of them have been subscribed for by collectors of Far Eastern ware in various parts of the world. "Work on the book actually began some two years ago," said Mr. Fairfax Hall, the "publisher, of the Stourton Press, "when Sir Percival David's collection was taken piece by piece to the Barnet firm of art printers and there photographed. "Perhaps the most remarkable of all the reproductions in colour is that of the saucer, which became known as 'Kitchener's Dream,' because of the late Field-Marshal's many, but futile, attempts to purchase it. "The saucer is of such thin egg-shell porcelain and eo translucent that the colour reproductions of the back and front photographs of it are almost identical." Even if Sir Percival David sells every copy of the catalogue, which has been compiled in historical sequence by Mr. R. L. Uobson, of the British Museum, and the world's greatest authority on Far Eastern art, he will loeo several thousands of pounds on its production. The very type was specially designed for the book by Mr. Eric Gill, as it was felt that the ordinary Roman type with which everyone is familiar clashed with the somewhat sharp Chinese characters. In all, £20,000 is being spent on the catalogue's production, and a complete history of Chinese ware is given in it from tho Sung Dynasty (9CO A.D.) to the end of the eighteenth century. It is being printed on Imperial Japanese paper.