A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
VV" E do some things very badly. The opening of the exhibition of French tapestry at the Victoria and Albert Museum ought
to have been a great occasion, for France has sent us something in- comparable and unique. For chief speaker the Minister of Educa- tion—this is not a Ministry of Fine Arts—was chosen. With all his sterling qualities, and they are many, there is no reason for thinking, either before or after the delivery of his speech on this occasion, that Mr. Tomlinson possesses any special knowledge of tapestry. He paid a tribute to the British workmen who had arranged the hangings so admirably on the walls—not, I am told, sharing it with the craftsmen who had so patiently and so marvellously produced the hangings in past centuries. Surely some personality eminent in the world of art could have been called on to lend further distinction to an occasion outstandingly notable. M. Georges Salles, the Director of the Museums of France, from which so many of the Victoria and Albert's exhibits come, was, I under- stand, not invited to speak at all.
* *
Previous page
