Studio: international art (60.1914)

Reviews and Notices

PLASTER DESIGN FOR CORBEL BY A. BUTTNER

f L. C. C. Central School of Arts and Crafts)

The authorities of the Victoria and Albert Museum
are anxious that students of the arts and crafts
should derive as much benefit as possible from
close study of the objects in the collections, and for
some time special facilities for such study have
been afforded. A further step in this direction has
been taken by the institution of a series of free
evening lectures on the technical processes con-
nected with three branches of the textile art—
Plain and Ornamental Weaving (Mr. Luther
Hooper); Printed Fabrics (Mr. C. T. Lindsay);
and Embroidery Stitches (Miss Louisa Pesel). The
practical value of such lectures, illustrated as they
were by lantern slides and actual specimens from
the museum collection, cannot be over-estimated,
and it is to be hoped that the Board of Education
will not only extend the scope of such lectures but
make them a regular feature of the museum adminis-
tration. A course of lectures, for instance, on the
furniture of various epochs would prove popular not
only among craftsmen but also among the general
public, whose ignorance is amply demonstrated by
the vast quantity of spurious “antiques” now in
existence.

The Board of Education has also provisionally
appointed an official guide to conduct parties of
visitors, not exceeding twenty in number, round the

museum twice daily at noon and 3 p.m. The
guide’s services may be obtained at other times by
special arrangement, and in all cases no charge
is made for his services and no gratuities are to be
offered. The arrangement is to continue till
March 31.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Leonardo da Vinci. By Dr. Jens Thus. (Lon-
don : Herbert Jenkins.) 42/- net.—As is pointed
out by Dr. Thiis in his deeply interesting mono-
graph, which has been admirably translated by Jessie
Muir, it is only comparatively recently that the price-
less manuscripts left by Leonardo da Vinci have
been rendered accessible to the student. Widely
scattered in public and private libraries in many
different countries and written in a mirror-script
exceptionally difficult to decipher, they remained a
closed book until they were translated and edited
by a few earnest scholars, whose names and the

PLASTER EAGLE. MODELLED BY T. W. PARFITT
(L. C. C. Central School)

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