Gump's

Everyone in San Francisco knows what Gump's is. Gump's is a discreet, three-floored store on Post Street, with a notable array of Oriental art, the best collection of jade in the U. S. On its second floor last week Gump's put on a show drawn from its own rich stock, "Thirty-three Centuries of Chinese Art," which it claimed no single museum or collection in the world could entirely parallel.

In 1860 Solomon Gump left his grocery store in Tallahassee, Fla., went to California. When he saw the rococo mansions which new millionaires were building on San Francisco's Nob Hill, he opened a furniture store, later expanded into the arts. Soon every self-respecting mansion on the West Coast had something from Gump's.

Present head of the firm is Solomon's son, plump, jovial Abraham Livingston ("A. L.") Gump, who resembles one of his own Buddhas. He took over in 1906, just before the earthquake. Same year he hired Oriental Expert Daniel Newell, rebuilt the store and its reputation for Oriental art together. Now nearly blind, A. L. is still a shrewd judge of jade by touch. He knows the store so well that he can guide important visitors around and comment on each object, without giving away his handicap.

Gump's show of Chinese art was arranged by suave, seam-faced Daniel Newell, now its general manager. Characteristic art forms of successive Chinese dynasties were each represented by top-notch pieces. Bronzes of the Shang Dynasty (1766 B.C.-1122 B.C.), green with age, included the earliest known oil lamp. Other high lights: spirited pottery horses and camels of the T'ang Dynasty, Sung paintings, Ming porcelain. Since most good jade carving is fairly modern, Gump's specialty plays only a small part in the show. But privileged visitors could also see Gump's famed Jade Room, which has goddesses, screens, rings, roosters, bowls of flowers in different colors of jade, a translucent green sailboat on a yellow jade river.

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