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Ill
AN EXPENSIVE " MASTERPIECE "
BECAUSE we all know stories of first-rate works
* art navmg been offered at
ridiculously low
prices to English galleries and museums and
refused by them on the ground that there was
no money even for the purchase of what was
very good and very cheap, we are surprised
and even excited when we hear that a big
price (some say as much as 5000) has been
paid for a Chinese pottery figure. And those
of us who have the fortune to belong to the
privileged, and therefore well-behaved, sex
hurry off to see what Mr. Hobson describes in
the May number of the Burlington Magazine
as " a new Chinese masterpiece in the British
Museum."
Mr. Hobson is a sound archaeologist ; con-
sequently it is impossible to read his careful
and admirably frank article without surmising
that he himself feels some qualms of suspicion
about the date, if not the beauty, of his treasure.
"
Is
For us the first question to be asked is :
this a fine work of art ?
188
"
For Mr. Hobson