ANCIENT TREASURES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11934, 28 January 1936, Page 3

ANCIENT TREASURES

PRICELESS ART EXHIBITS. Priceless porcelain, ivory, jade, bronzes and paintings which the Emperor of Japan lent from his personal collection to the Chinese Art Exhibition were displayed at Burlington House recently.

From the s.s. Yasukuni Maru, which brought the treasures from Japan, armed guards conveyed them in plain vans to the Academy. There was a bronze Ho (a sacrificial wine vessel) 2141 years old, a tortoiseshell comb from Korea, found in one of the thousand tombs which are all that remain of a colony founded 200 years 8.C., and a painting done on silk by the Emperor Hsuisung, who founded a dynasty and died in exile.

So many people were constantly working around the treasures that guards were almost unnecessary inside the Academy, except at night. Over 80 experts were always in sight of them—as well as stonemasons, men erecting steel scaffolding, framing objects and sewing canvas and rings on carpets. The Chinese experts and their assistants constructed a room entirely in lacquer, representing part of an emperor’s palace. Practically every country in the world lent some of i!s Chinese treasures.

The 20-ton Buddha, the biggest object ever to enter the Academy, caused a great deal of trouble, and two cranes were broken in dealing with it. It came from America. Even the floor underneath had to be shored up with girders to bear its weight.