AMERICA AND ART TREASURES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20355, 12 March 1928, Page 5

AMERICA AND ART TREASURES.

li Part of file payment, of our war debt to America, is being made in works of art and objects of historic interest. I suggest that the payment might be made in some thing we can better do without, writes Lieutenant-commander Kenwortliy, R.N., M.P., in the Star. “ There is a steady shipment of paintings by the great Fng hsh masters. Sometimes whole buildings cross the Atlantic. Th e latest example is the historic Broadhemluiry Grange in Devonshire. It is to be demolished and re-erected in the United States. The Grange is not only one of the finest ro maining examples of Tudor architecture, but its carved panelling, as Sir Martin Conway has pointed out, is among the finest examples of its kind remaining. A couple of years ago the historic Warwick Priory was bought by a dealer, dernol isbedj tile stones shipped over to America, and there re-crected. Nor are citizens of the United States the only ones who pay us the compliment of acquiring our native art treasures. Wealthy Brazilians and Argentines are entering the market. Ancient books, including the first folio edi turns of our greatest writers, pictures, genuine plate armour—a great rarity these flays—are leaving these shores. Fortu nately, Stonehenge has ( been preserved ; and a similar attempt to hnv Sulgrave Manor, the birthplace of George Washing ton, and snip it to ‘ Gods’ Own Country,' has been frustrated. If it would really cement Anglo-American friendship, I would be prepared to present America with Sulgrave Manor or any authentic homo of one of the original Pilgrim Fathers : but I object to part of the national patrimony being bought over our heads and this country, being deprived of it for ever, for commercial gain. Italy is a far poorer country, financially, than Kngland ; and yet we must admit that she ; s far richer in works of art. Nevertheless, for many years now Italy has had a law in force prohibiting the export of certain scheduled art treasures. 1 suggest that some such law is needed for (his country. A law might he passed giving power to schedule certain buildings, pictures, books, and other rare or artistic objects, and to prohibit their sale for shipment abroad. Certain individuals might suffer, but w<; must think of the interests of generations coming after us. We might compromise on the lireaking-uo of the art collections 'if very wealthy dead men hv allowing a payment of part of the death duties in works of art (for the national collections) at a fair valuation. Nor is there an-.’ new principle in mv proposal We schedule certain ancient monuments, historic castles, and so on. and prevent their destruction and removal ; so wliv, not do the same thine for the more portable. hut equally irreplaceable, pictures of Joshua Reynolds and Turner, the remaining first folio editions of Shakespeare, and the hotter examples of Tudor and Gothic art?