ARTIFACTS FROM OLD CHINA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 10

ARTIFACTS FROM OLD CHINA

Rewi Alley’s Gift To Museum UNIQUE PERMIT FOR EXPORT Hundreds of pounds worth of old Chinese artifacts have been given to the Canterbury Museum by Mr Rewi Alley, and for the first time in its history, the People’s Government of China has granted a special permit for the export of such items. They are valuable old pieces of porcelain, jade, bronze, and scroll paintings. With a very large collection of books on Chinese art, they fill seven large crates now awaiting direct shipment by a Chinese vessel. This announcement was made by Dr. Roger Duff, Director of the Canterbury Museum, when he returned to Christchurch yesterday afternoon after visiting China with a New Zealand party invited there by the People’s Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Since the People’s Government took office in 1949. there had been a regulation forbidding the export of original works of art more than 80 years old. Dr. Duff said. “This was a very natural reaction from the earlier period, when the best things were immediately shipped overseas. Whereas the ordinary visitor doing the rounds of dealers in Peking is not permitted to buy anything older than 80 years. Rewi Alley, as a permanent resident of China, has been able to amass a wonderful collection in his suite in the Peking Hotel,” he said. “The things I was able to buy Cor the museum myself were very good fasciiniles of early wares, including a perfect copy of the pottery horses which were buried in graves of the Tang dynasty 1000 years ago, and a very fine example of modern carving in translucent agate, in the shape of an incense burner.” Dr. Duff said. Sanction for Gift “The day before I left Peking, advice came through that the Government had decided to sanction Rew' Alley’s gift to the Canterbury Museum. This is the most valuable Chinese collection ever to come to the museum,” Dr. Duff said. “Rewi Alley has been sending material to us ever since 1935, and was only awaiting my arrival to apply for permission to transfer the major, older and more valuable part of his collection to his native city, so that interest in the Chinese people might be spread by means of their unique artistic achievements.”

Rewi Alley had resigned from the directorship of the Baillie Industrial Co-operative School at Kansu some years ago to make way for a Chinese successor; but he retained his close interest in the schools which had spread through several provinces. “Although he misses that outdoor activity, he is fully employed writing and lecturing,” Dr. Duff said. “His two Chinese adopted sons are themselves now both parents. “Rewi Alley is now sufficiently free from official duties to visit New Zealand, and in our delegation there was a widespread invitation,” said Dr. Duff. “Personally, I would like the Canterbury Museum Trust Board to invite him to come to New Zealand for the official opening of the new hall of Oriental culture in our new museum, where the main feature will be the Rewi Alley collection.” The museums of China were almost entirely a creation of the new regime, Dr. Duff said. The Government obviously supported them on a generous scale, and the specialist staffs were at least double those in New Zealand. A Nanking museum, smaller than the Canterbury Museum, had 10 display men and 14 guide-lecturers. Some of the buildings were converted temples, not really suitable for their new purpose; and the oddest was in Shanghai, where the second floor of the grandstand and the private hotel of the former British Horse Racing Club had been taken over.

Archaeology Encouraged Dr. Duff said these museums were devoted almost entirely to archaeology, but there were proposals for the first Chinese museum of natural history in Peking, and he had assured the director that the Canterbury Museum would be happy to help build up collections. Archaeology was given major importance, said Dr. Duff. In all State public works programmes, there was a regulation that work must cease the moment any archaeological site was uncovered, and that operations must not continue until the local archaeological committee, with expert staff, had completed their excavations. The public was also fully alive to this attitude, as evidenced by one poor peasant whom he had seen present to his State museum valuable articles of gold and silver from an ancient grave. “I found museum officials and archaeologists most anxious for contacts with their colleagues in other countries. They are aware of their isolation since the end of the Japanese war,” Dr. Duff said. “One of their chief problems is the lack of library material from other countries, and they want to exchange publications with museums in New Zealand.” Officials believed that the translation of brief abstracts would overcome the language difficulty. During his tour, Dr. Duff visited the museums at Peking, Sian, Nanking. Shanghai, Hanchow, and Canton, besides making some field excursions to sites of scientific interest. The museums of Shanghai and Nanking presented him with books and facsimiles of ancient paintings for his own museum.