BRITISH MUSEUM’S NEW BRONZES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 288, 31 August 1929, Page 29

BRITISH MUSEUM’S NEW BRONZES

A TRADE 2300 YEARS OLD If the estimates made by the British Museum of the date of the four bronzes which it has just acquired are correct, it is more than 2,300 years ago that French artisans began making ornaments of the distinction, individuality and style which are still the characteristics of what is known all over the world as the “article de Paris” (remarks the Paris correspondent of' ‘‘The Observer.”

Museum curators and antiquaries all over France are now kicking themselves at the thought that only last year they could have had, for a thousand francs, or £B, these unique GrecoCeltic fiagons and amphorae, which the British Museum has now been glad to acquire for more than six hundred times that sum.

Not only could they have had them, but the offer of them was actually made to the Louvre, and refused, because, presumably, nobody had ever seen anything quite like them. The curator of the museum of Metz did, indeed, think they were sufficiently interesting to him to try to find a local benefactor to put up the money; but he failed, and for a month these curiosities —for they were considered to be no more—were exhibited in the window of the local paper, the “Messin,” where anyone might have had them for the original price. It was not much more than a year ago that these bronzes were first unearthed in the Valley of the Moselle by two brothers called Wenner, small farmers at Bouzonville. If the Louvre had been wise enough to take them, they would have stood as remarkable examples of the art of a period of which the collection, and indeed the whole country, only possesses a few very imperfect pieces, the metal of which is almost perished. Perhaps the curators were afraid of a new tiara of Saitaphernes, and decided to reject the bronzes as forgeries. In any case, the principal flagon, with its delicate ornament, its handle representing the curved body of a wolf, its lid with two wolf cubs modelled upon it, and its long spout, with the little duck swimming along it, might have been considered to be worth a thousand francs for its beauty, even if it could be supposed that a forger could have profitably made it for the money. No doubt the forgers with the necessary artistic knowledge and technical craftsmanship could have been found without difficulty in France, as they could probably have been found at any time during the twenty-three hundred years. The recent exhibition of the Artistes JJecorateurs shows that the great French tradition in the applied arts is not lost, and is constantly being reinforced by really 'original invention. The article de Paris in any shop, from the most pretentious to the most modest, shows that the independent artisan still exists in sufficient numbers to add the individual touch which gives the character either to a small toy or an expensive piece of jewellery. They say the independent artisan is disappearing, but until he is absolutely starved out by mass production, I think there will always be a good many of him in France. There will always be a good many workers who prefer to earn less money and be on their own —with the chance of one day striking lucky and making a fortune, like the man who invented and made a penny toy, which caught on, and is now the owner of the largest toy factory in France. There will always lie many, also, who want to make to their own design and not to someone else’s.