At Wembley

At the Wembley Exhibit, English craftsmanship is again a British glory --beauty and care of execution in the applied arts compensating for the noticeable lack of imagination and emotional power in the so-called fine arts. The Queen's Doll House (TIME, Oct. 29) is a huge and delicious toy, perfect to the last minute detail. The art of bookmaking touches the highwater mark in the artistic display, perfect in taste and in texture. Decorated interiors, varying in merit, may be observed in six rooms, one of 1750 with Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, a Handel duet on the table; one of 1815 designed to reproduce the character of a sitting- room of the Becky Sharp-Waterloo period; the 1852 room of the now so fashionable mid-Victorian era is the most amusing, every available inch strenuously decorated--that great age when even ladies were upholstered; the 1888 room is all preRaphaelite, with the arts, crafts and esthetics of William Morris, Holman Hunt and deMorgan pottery; ending up with two modern rooms, not too successful, particularly in the dining-room, a product of that hokum theory that if you use enough color it must be modern.

In the exhibition hall devoted to the Arts are examples of weaving, needlework, lace, jewelry--"faultless taste, painstaking craftsmanship." Ecclesiastical ornament is displayed in a basilica expressly designed for that purpose-- banners, books, altar carpets, stained glass, tiled floors, sanctuary lamps, "full of traditional design and symbolism but signifying little." There are interesting photographs of architectural projects as well as the architectural manifestations of the exposition itself. The art of the Theatre is more historical than contemporary in import, as Gordon Craig, Lovat Eraser and others of the modern theorists are absent. There are contemporary drawings of David Garrick, and stage designs by John Webb and Inigo Jones, 1650, a Shakespeare first folio, the program of an amateur performance of the Merry Wives in which Dickens and Cruikshank took part, and delightful models of the old theatres which help to swell the interest in this section. The pictures merely serve for a comparison of English Art with itself. Particularly, a comparison of the immediate predecessors of our generation is illuminating, for men like Watts, Landseer and Edward Burne-Jones are here. It is only mildly entertaining to note the increased intensity of color in Canadian painting, more like our own in key, and the distressing effect of occidentalism on Indian Art.

Fake Show

Recent occurrences in the world of Art--lawsuits, faulty attributions and real frauds--have engendered a strong feeling of suspicion not only among collectors but also among connoisseurs and students. With this in mind the Burlington Fine Arts Club (London) has organized an extremely interesting Exhibition, furnished with a catalogue raissone by Sir Robert Witt, in which he points out that the practice of copying and reproducing works of art has been equally widespread in other ages and for the greater part without a dishonest or nefarious purpose. Some of the world's greatest artists have not been above it--"Raphael copied Masaccio; Rubens, Mantegna and Titian (Mrs. Gardner of Boston owns along with that magnificent canvas Europa and the Bull by Titian, Rubens' wish drawing of it), Teniers, many of the 16th Century Italians, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Gainsborough, Constable and many more all made copies." Among examples of this sort on view is a sanguine drawing Portrait of a Man by Amstel made "for the purpose of reproduction in the volumes of facsimiles of his drawings left unfinished after his death, published by Josi in 1821." Another item is the Harvard Museum Benozro Gozzoli Madonna in its original state, with a photograph made of it before the modern tempera and oil painting was removed. There are real and forged Chinese ceramics, remarkable furniture fakes beside the genuine pieces, carefully analyzed in the catalogue. Even modern Impressionists and Post-Impressionists have been forged. Mr. Walter Sickert (the English artist whose famous portrait of George Moore hangs in the Tate Gallery) says that he has seen pictures exhibited for sale bearing his signature which have never passed through his hands.

Personal Jewelry

Just as the unco elegant have their gowns and hats, houses and gardens designed to shadow forth their personality, individuality or lack of it as the case may be, so Mme. Annie Hystak, a goldsmith of Vienna, designs her jewelry exclusively for its wearer--"she studies the hand for which she is to make a ring, its characteristic movements, its shape, its coloring, and only after she has managed to get a real insight into the personality of the prospective wearer does the ring shape itself before her mental vision." She prefers silver to platinum because silver oxidizes and in the course of time tones into every conceivable shade from the brightest white to darkest gray, while platinum retains always the same cold surface. She has an instinctive feeling for the different qualities of every gem and always tries to create the setting which will most enhance the special beauty of each individual stone. The execution, taste and discrimination of Mme. Hystak's work in the little exhibition arranged at the Mannheim Art Gallery proclaim her no mere craftsman but a real artist. It may be recalled that many of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance began their artistic careers in the atelier of a goldsmith--Ghirlandajo, Cellini, Bartolini, Verrocchio among them.

In London

On July 4 an important auction at Christie's will dispose of a newly authenticated Rembrandt, Two Men Conversing, with certificates attached, and 63 of the Duke of Westminster's collection, including important canvases by Rubens, Van Dyck, Bellini, Murillo, Raphael, del Sarto, Titian, Veronese.

On July 18 Christie's will sell by order of the Princess Royal, Duchess of Fife, eldest daughter of King Edward, part of her private collection, with well-known paintings by Sir Henry Raeburn and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Mrs. E. M. Ward celebrated her 92nd birthday by bringing out a fat volume of reminiscences, Memories of go Years*. Still active with the brush and able to receive many visitors in her small house in Chelsea's art colony, she recalls the guns saluting the coronation of Queen Victoria when she was a child of six, the assistance offered her by Wilkie Collins on the occasion of her elopement at the age of 16 with E. M. Ward, R.A., also an artist, her stay at Windsor Castle in 1857 when she was commissioned to paint the portrait of the infant Princess Beatrice. The great painters of the mid-Victorian days she knew as young men--Millais, Leighton, Alma-Tadema, and among her intimate acquaintances in the field of literature were those household giants, Dickens and Thackeray. Her grandfather and uncle were R.A.'s and her father was one of the most famed engravers of his time.

*Published by Hutchinson.