ART TREASURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27082, 17 May 1949, Page 5

ART TREASURES

LONDON EXHIBITION, EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, May 16. Some of the most notable art treasures of Europe are at present on exhibition in London, and are attracting large crowds to the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery, and the Tower of London, where they are housed. At the Tate Gallery is a selection from the world-famous collection of paintings, Scriptures, and objects of art accumulated during the many centuries of their reign by the Hapsburg Emperors and housed in the Imperial Museum in Vienna until they were removed for safe keeping during the war. From the. purely monetary point of view this collection, which has been lent to the British Arts Council for three months by the Austrian Government, is literally beyond price. (No insurance companies would accept the risk of covering it, for the valuation of these treasures on a pounds, shillings and pence basis is impossible. The 200 paintings which form the major part of the collection include some of the most notable, works of some of the world’s greatest masters — Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Tintoretto, Holbein** "Jan Steen, and Peter de Hoogh, to mention only a few. Historical Insignia Accompanying them are such additional treasures as the insignia and vestments of the historical Order of the Golden Fleece, one of the world’s greatest orders of knighthood, the great golden salt cellar of Benvenuto Cellini, considered one of the world’s most notable examples of craftsmanship, the world's largest emerald and jewellery ornaments, and insignia bought and looted by the Hapsburgs from most of the treasure houses of Europe. i At the National Gallery is another almost equally famous collection of paintings from the Alte, Pinakothek Gallery, in Munich, which was established chiefly from the original collections of thq Rbyal nouse of Bavaria and of the city of Dusseldorf. The selection sent to London comprises. 121 paintings, including -some of the most notable works of-Rubens, Rembrandt, Botticelli, and Franz Hals.. Thus, in one month, • - Londoners have had brought' to them the best of two of the greatest art collections in Europe outside ‘ the Louvre in Paris and-the Vatican galleries in Rome, Mediaeval Armour Finally, in the reconstructed armoury in the Tower of London, there is what is probably the most complete collection of mediaeval armour in the world, for to the famous British collection already housed there has been added a collection lent by the Austrian Goy- - ' eminent. This collection was largely the creation of Emperor Maximilian, the first one of the greatest mediaeval patrons of the armourer’s art, and of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. The collection reveals some unexpected Austrian links with England—for instance, that Emperor Maximilian added the Arms of England to his own armorial bearings on the grounds that he supported the pretensions to the English Throne of Perkin Warbeck. Among the former possessions of the Archduke Ferdinand now exhibited in the Tower are two minia-tures-of the famous British Elizabethan explorers, Raleigh and Drake. Both were painted at the command of the archduke as part of the collection he formed of famous contemporaries. Fever of Activity The arrival of these three great collections, together with the opening of the annual summer exhibitions of the Royal Academy and of the Society of British Artists has thrown British art critics into a fever of activity. While there are many opinions about the standard of this year’s academy exhibition, of which the kindest are that it is “ average,” there is only one about the magnificence of the treasures sent from Vienna and Munich, Tn between their reviews of.these collections and t-heir discussion of the angry controversy between the traditional and modernist schools of painting initiated by the president of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings, the critics were presented with an illustration of the public knowledge of art which would appear to provide some valuable ammunition for Sir Alfred. “ Example of Modernism ” A Loughborough artist hunting in his attic for packing paper discovered a painting by his six-year-old son on which the paint had been upset and which had been smeared by the cat rubbing its tail across it while it was wet. To test local knowledge, the father entitled the juvemile work “ Skegness—Figure Eight,” and sent it to the Loughborough Exhibition. There, to the surprise and chagrin of the parent, who exhibited some of bis own works without recognition, it was awarded first prize and hailed by the Leicester Mail as “ a fine specimen of modernism.” When the six-year-old artist went to see it in the exhibition he was put out by the caretaker, because he stood on his head in the corner of the gallery.