A PARADISE OF POSTCARDS.
WHEN one has made a blunder, there is only one thing to do—to own up. In drawing attention to Lord Sudeley's splendid work in regard to the Museum Lcclurers and Guides—work in which he has been magnificently supported by the authorities of the great museums and galleries of London—I had what I am afraid I must call the ignorant impertinence to suggest that the Museum should sell illustrated postcards, not merely of their great pieces of sculpture and major antiquities, but of all the wonderful things in their presses, cupboards, and bookshelves —their glorious illuminated manuscripts, mediaeval and Persian ; their priceless collection of water-colours, drawings, woodcuts, etchings, and hundreds of enchanting things, old and new, often of supreme beauty, which, owing to the physical conditions of time and space, are not immediately visible and available. You may have ten minutes to spare at the Museum, and it may be a delightful ten minutes, but in so short a time you cannot go and ask to be allowed to see a drawing by Millais, or a water- colour by David Cox, a Florentine woodcut, or a Persian manuscript, or an Indian miniature.
Well, it turns out that what I was advising had been already done by the Museum authorities, and done to perfection. I say without hesitation that the sets of postcards issued by the British Museum have almost made a Bureaucrat of me. If a set of officials in a public institution can turn out things of this kind so cheaply, so intelligently, with such judgment and good taste, and without pecuniary loss, but rather an appreciable amount of profit, the State Socialists need not despair. I have just spent a happy morning in going through a whole set of Bloomsbury postcards—a set which I find can be obtained for 18s. or ld. each (there are 240 cards in the set). Further, sets in envelopes, most of which contain a leaflet of admirable criticism and information as to the series, can be obtained in sets of fifteen at ls. the set. The single plain cards are, as I have noted, ld. each. The coloured cards, which, again, have gone a long way to convert me not only to officialism but, still more astonishing, to the three-colour process, are intoxi- catingly fascinating. [These are 2d. each, or the set of fifteen for 2s. 6d., and are to be obtained at the Museum or else from the following agents : Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., 11 Grafton Street, W. 1 ; Oxford University Press, Amen Corner, E.C. 4.] Even if I assume that thousands of people knew of what were hidden delights to me, I expect I am not wrong. in believing that there are still thousands who have not yet heard of the delights before them. To these I propose to address myself. I cannot imagine a better present than the complete set of the postcards, plain and coloured, which would cost only £2 altogether. If they were sent to some man or woman fond of the arts, scholarship, and history, resident in some outpost of the Empire, or in some lonely part of the British Islands, they would carry a microcosm of Paradise with them. It is true that things so small as postcards cannot give one the splendour and glory of a great statue or a great canvas ; but, all the same, their smallness is one of their virtues. A man fond of such things, riding across the Syrian Desert, on the camel tracks in the Sudan, or in Mesopotamia, or making some journey in West or East Africa, in Rhodesia, or on the North-West Frontier of India, or wherever there are wastes to pass and duties to be done, might easily thrust two or three of these little packets into his pocket or his saddle-bags. Then, at some lonely camping ground in tropical woods, in " deserts where the snows are," or in canoes or boats launched on some vast wastes of grey water in ocean-like lakes, he might invoke the divine consolation of the figurative arts through these tiny reflections of the great collections.
"A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled, And little Eagles wave their wings in gold."
The British Museum, and the splendid porticoes with which Smirke endowed it, may cast its spiritual shadow on the snows of Everest or across the paheocrystic ice of the Arctic or the Antarctic seas.
And now for my own pleasure, as much as for my readers', I am going to put my hand into the lucky bag of the sixteen packets or sets and see what I obtain. The first thing to reward me is the " Persian Paintings " (fifteen coloured postcards, 2s. 6d., with a delightful dissertation). Choice has thrown a most fascinating picture to the top. We see Bahrain Gar hunting with his mistress Azadah. Nobody but a Persian could have thought of such a thing. Apparently the hunt is on the snow, but, all the same, the trees are bursting into blossom. The great king is riding a camel, bow in hand, while round him frisk in evident enjoyment hares, antelopes, and gazelles. But most amazing of all is the fact that the fair dame, AzAdah, while riding pillion on the camel, is facing the opposite way to her lord. In her hands she holds an enormous harp and with it apparently beguiles the time, or the Shah, or the aforesaid animals. It is an enchanting adventure, though I am afraid that the serious sportsman will hardly admit that it solves the question of ladies in the hunting field—that question which has perturbed men's minds ever since Xenophon showed such anxiety to bring his charming young wife out with him when he rode with the Attic Harriers. The Shah's hunting kit consists of a bright blue tunic and scarlet undercoat. His crown is golden and his bow red. The lady has a charming red Persian cap, but her gown is a kind of russet. The Shah's arrow case is green. By the way, there are two apparently envious courtiers looking over the edge of the mountain.
Very wonderful is the illustration showing Rustam kneeling before the body of his son SohrAb, after mortally wounding him. Perhaps Matthew Arnold saw it in some private collection. Another Rustam and Sohrab picture from a Persian manuscript is specially enchanting, because, though it is full of Eastern feeling, it also has the Missal touch about it.
There are more Persian and Indian paintings in Set C. 9. One of them is specially apropos to-day. We have had of late two republications of the Emperor Babur's Memoirs, and very good memoirs they are. Here we see him por- trayed in the " Persian style, Mogul School," as a young man. He is reading, probably, his own immortal work in a garden, such as we know from his writings he loved above all earthly things. He has kicked off one beautiful bright blue slipper with a yellow lining. The flowers spring round his feet ; but we miss the water rills in which he particularly delighted. This collection has a great many pictures of hermits, holy men and emperors, and " domestic scenes." For example, there is quite an enchanting picture of " Tame Black Buck and Groom." The groom is entirely arrayed in yellow. The buck has painted and gilded horns and his coat is made of a red fabric plentifully sprinkled with gold spangles and with a deep gold fringe. It is difficult to say which of the two looks the prouder of his clothes. " Lovers letting off Fireworks over a Tank " is delicious, and there is a picture entitled " Elephant escaping " which is full of humour as well as of sympathetic drawing. The fat old beast is delighted with his escapade, especially as he is dressed in his best clothes, has got his tusks magnificently gilded and sports large gold bangles on his legs. I ought not to say any more about the Indian pictures, but I must notice in " Set C. 4, Indian Paintings," a picture which appeals to me very greatly. I have always been fond of hermits, but I never knew to what lengths the hermit habit could go till I saw the postcard " Mughal School, Two Musicians visiting a female Hermit by night." They are having a most delightful moonlight picnic. More discreet, but equally pleasant, is the picture of " Two Women visiting a female Hermit by night." Evidently the hermits of those days had no lack of company ! Very sweet and very highly coloured is " A Moslem Divine." Members of the Established and Free Churches please copy l I commend " Kablr, the Hindu religious poet, working as a weaver at his loom, with two disciples," to the new schools of verse. The colouring in this set is not perhaps so good as in the Persians, but a Moslem saint giving an audience, apparently in the middle of the night, to a charming group of religious ladies is full of feeling. Of these three sets, indeed, one may fairly say that no country house can be considered complete without them.
And now I fly to something very different—Set 14, which contains charming reproductions of Pre-Raphaelite drawings. " Jephthah's Daughter," by Millais, is a wonder- ful piece of imaginative illustration, but even more attrac- tive is Charles Allston Collins's " Girl reading a letter." The fame of Rossetti's prowess with the pencil is great, and the drawings to represent him here have been admirably selected. " An Irish Girl " is very fascinating. Another wonderful drawing by C. A. Collins is " Study for ' They that sow in tears, ' Millais's unfinished drawing of " The Deluge " is quite wonderful. On the whole, however, the most fascinating draughtsman in this series is Collins. , Frederick Sandys's A Woman's Head " is a fine piece of work.
To show the glorious catholicity of the Museum I pass to " Set 57, Drawings by Claude Lorrain." They are most attractive, specially the admirable landscape of Rome, which shows St. Peter's with the " Cempanile since demolished." Very fascinating is " Rebekah at the Well " and the enchanted and enchanting " Seaport at Sunset." If connoisseurs will not be shocked, I venture to add the amen of the unlearned to this delightful packet. - Very interesting, both from the historical and art points of view, are " German Medals of the Great War." Here is all the psychology of German militarism in little. These medals, indeed, justify Pope's magnificent epistle on medals. Very wonderful is the satiric medal representing America's contribution to the War and the menacing towers of the New York sea front. Fine, too, is the German Auxiliary Service medal, but finest of all from the pictorial point of view is the reverse of the medal struck to commemorate the victory at Tannenberg. The realistic portrait of Hindenburg is ugly and brutal, but the mediaeval swordsman on the reverse has great grandeur and vigour. The Tirpitz medal is conventional as well as brutal, and the Crown Prince one would have thought was meant for satire if one had not known the German nature. The reverse, however, shows an exceedingly fine design.
The German Sixteenth Century Woodcuts are very attractive, but if I go on wondering with a foolish face of praise I shall weary my readers. I must not, however, in admiration for the postcards forget their bigger brothers. Take, for example, the excellent reproductions of mezzo- tints, by famous engravers, • prices according to size. People who wish to see these plates, ten by eight inches, price ls. a set of four, should send to the Museum authorities for the catalogue. [The British Museum, London, is enough address.] This will include the fine collotype reproductions of drawings by the old masters, ls. 6d. a set of four. These provide some of the " best values for the money " to be found at the present time in what I may call the reproduction world.
" The Chinese pictures," of which there are many charming examples, were most of them—if indeed, not all— exhibited in London at the opening of the last extension of the Museum. Most readers will, I am sure, remember the impression made upon them by the famous ." Earthly Paradise " by an unknown painter who flourished at the time equivalent to the end of our Middle Ages. This is one of the strangest, as well as one of the most beautiful, pictures in the world. It has been very well reproduced, though, of course, no copy made by mechanical process or by hand can give the full rapture conveyed by the original. Still, it is a delightful reminder of a fascinating work. The scholarly catalogue tells us that it is " a group of beatified ' immortals ' arriving at the shores of a lake, where the Jade Emperor, consort of the ' Fairy Queen' Si Wang Mu, descends through the air to greet them." But that sounds like heaven, and the picture looks like it ; but then why " The Earthly Paradise " ? However, these questions are not material, though I am sure that even the old Somersetahire man, if he saw the picture, would not say of this heaven, " That be a'l very well, but ge of Compton Dando." The well-known " Wild Geese by a Mountain Stream," by Lin Liang, are, of course, reproduced, and so is that " Tiger by a Mountain Torrent " who poses as " a symbol of the elemental forces of the universe," and does it exceedingly well. He looks "real wicked," but, I am pleased to say, also very unhappy. Perhaps the most amazing picture of the whole collection is the reproduction of a copy made in the eighteenth century of a picture of one of Buddha's dis- ciples, painted by Wu Tao-tzu, famed as the greatest of all Chinese painters. None of his works, however, survives. All the same, we get from the copy a tremendous impression of what the artist's power of characterization must have been. He seems the Goya of the flowery land. There is also a Goya touch in the delightful pictures, " Admonitions of the Instructress of Manners in the Palace." In one of these we see a sage reproving a lady of the Court, and in the other an instructress notes down the frivolous gossip of two ladies. These pictures are real Capricios. I have reserved my last word for the reproductions in colours from Missals, &c., which are larger than postcard size. " Christ and His People," an exquisite illumination from the Book of Hours which is often displayed, if my memory serves me rightly, in the King's Library, will be pleasing to many, though it is inevitable that there should be some disappointment in the representation of the heavenly blues and greens of the original. Still, to return to my contention—imagine the delight of having these things to look at by the banks of the Congo, or the Tigris, in camps upon Judiean Hills, or in the marshes of Lake Chad. Though I have only named two, there arc plenty of these bigger reproductions of Mediaeval Art. The price is Is. each. Let me say as a postscript that, if anyone thinks that I have been exaggerating in what I have said about the Museum reproductions, and especially about the charm of the postcards, plain and coloured, let them try to confute me by writing for specimens to the Museum. I am perfectly certain that he or she will not be disappointed.
Unfortunately, I have no room to-day to speak of the National Gallery Postcards and other reproductions, plain and coloured. They are all excellent, but that must
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