LOAN COLLECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 4, 5 July 1939, Page 13

LOAN COLLECTION

PAINTINGS AND POTTERY

AT NATIONAL GALLERY

. From today for about a fortnight there will be on exhibition at the National Art Gallery an interesting collection of pictures and pottery lent by Mr. and Mrs. E. Mayer, of Wellington. The pottery consists of about 60 pieces of European peasant work and products of the modern European pottery workshops. There are also seven pictures, including a pastel by Renoir and an oil painting by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo.

The peasant pottery is of the kind which has been in common household use on the Continent of Europe, made by the villagers themselves. But this peasant art is rapidly becoming a thing of the past: enamel and aluminium utensils are now used instead, for the old peasant .pottery will not withstand the heat of modern gas or electric stoves. Among the pieces on view is a very large plate decorated with the figure of Christ. This and a few of the other pieces were made by a peasant potter who had no education as an artist, but who brought the old I tradition* of Cologne to the new technique of the modern works. He has now becomp a teacher at an art school. There is one Swiss piece which is quite different from any of the others, being strongly influenced by Italian art. This was made by a young potter, one of a family of artists, in the south of Switzerland near the Italian border. The great charm of this pottery lies in its simplicity. In most of the works there is a consistent feeling for relation between the shape of the vessel and the pattern applied. The beauty of the designs' is . enhanced by the slight irregularities in force of touch and quality of curve which occur when the curves are drawn swiftly and freely by hand. When such work is imitated by a factory process, these irregularities are eliminated, and though the design may still be good, much of its life and spirit is lost. INTERESTING PICTURES,: ■■"- The selection of paintings includes two very early German works'-attri: buteii' tb pitcher 115 th: century) ■.'-the beiiig1 '"The "Mount of- Olives" and:'"The Scourging of Christ"- • A peculiarity of these two pictures is that they are partly painted and partly of parved wood. Another picture is a small pastel :of a little girl by Augusts' Renoir- Though only..' a sketch, this charming .portrait gives an indication -of the genius of this artist,-who probably was'the greatest ■ master: of the impressionist school.

A painting of "A Lady in a Black Dress," by Thomas. Phillips, R.A., is a charming and dignified portrait. The artist, a'contemporary of Lawrence, Hoppner, and Beechy, belonged to the great period of English portrait painting. Notwithstanding the number of eminent portrait'painters with whom he had to compete, Phillips, during his career, kept steadily growing in public favour and seemed to be the selected painter for men of genius. Among his portraits are those of William Blake, Napoleon, Lord Byron, Sir Joseph Banks, and Michael Faraday.

Another portrait is of an Italian gentleman by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, son of the more famous Domenico Ghirlandajo. Ridolfo studied under Cosimo Roselli and Fra Botolommeo. His talents were so highly esteemed by Raphael that the latter entrusted him to finish a picture, "Virgin and Infant," he had commenced for one of the churches at Siena. He also invited Ridolfo to assist him with his great work in the Vatican, an invitation which Ridolfo refused. The portrait is a typical example of the Florentine School of Painting. It is beautifully drawn and modelled, realistic, but with a fine sense of design and painted in an accomplished style of great dignity.

The two other pictures in the collection are by Scheibe and Truebner, both artists of the modern German school.