A number of the members of the Literary Department of the American Woman's Club were entertained at tea at the home of Mrs. F. Ayscough on Saturday afternoon and were given the opportunity of examining many Chinese art objects and paintings.
As this was the second visit of the Department to Mrs. Ayscough's home, many of the ancient porcelains, celadon ware, coloured glass and miscellaneous curios have been described before. New objects of unusual interest were two large Ming cabinets of lacquer with gold lacquer work on the doors and sides illustrative of landscape scenes. The work of the artist was especially good and gave the cabinet the value of ancient paintings. Silver had been used to produce cloud effects and distant mountain peaks. The sides of the cabinets were decorated with the Flowers of Spring in one case and of Summer in the other, which suggested that they might have been of a set of four originally representing the four seasons.
Another new acquisition was a rich yellow velvet scroll bearing the longevity character in gold. This was very old but had retained the vich tones of the Imperial yellow and was perhaps, one of the scrolls which were used by the populace for purposes of worship on the Emperor's birthday in lieu of a pilgrim age to the Court. On a table beneath this scroll, a collection of blue and white porcelain was arranged. Some of this belonged to Mrs. George Wilson, in particular a round plate which was decorated with an illustration of the "carp turning into a dragon."
Tue CoLourep Grass.
A collection of coloured glass was arranged by a western window so that the sun was shining on it and through it making a most attractive display. A pink piece formed the background for bats carved in green. A rich wine coloured bowl, an amber plate, two brilliantly blue
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.