LOAN BY QUEEN MARY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 4

LOAN BY QUEEN MARY

* ■ ■ JADE INCENSE BURNER EXHIBITION OF CHINESE ART IN NEW ZEALAND (non OUB own COREISPOKDBKT.) LONDON, December 2. Queen Mary has lent a valuable jack incense burner for exhibition in New Zealand with the Chinese art collection, recently gathered in England by Captain Humphreys-Davies, curator of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It is to leave England in the Napier Star on December 9 and will be delivered to the director of the Auckland Museum (Mr G. E. Archey). The casket and cover are rectangular in shape. They rest upon a carved wooden stand, and together are about six inches high. The casket itself is about four inches high and about six inches wide, including the two handles. A dark green in colour, it is of translucent seaweed jade, exquisitely worked. It dates from the Ch’ien-lung dynasty, 1736. Queen Mary is a well-known collector of objets d’art and jade pieces, and it was one of Captain HumphreysDavies’s earnest desires that her Majesty might be approached and asked whether she would permit a piece of her collection to be exhibited in New Zealand. When the suggestion was made to her by Mr Peter Sparks, whose firm holds the Royal Warrant of Antiquary of Chinese Art, Queen Mary immediately agreed, and expressed great interest in the exhibition.

The incense burner, which was loaned to the International Exhibition of Chinese Art at Burlington House this year, has been insured for a considerable sum, and will probably be placed in the care of the captain of the Napier Star during the voyage to New Zealand.