Wichita eagle., 1889-03-14
FEMALE COLLECTORS.
Rare Specimens Of Lace Belonging
to Queen Victoria
Beautiful and Costly Fancies of Royal
and Other Titled Conference.-The
Queen OF Italy's Fine Things
Eugenie's Books and China.
london Society.I

Belgian women, has been of late years
little appreciated by their English sisters.
Coarse, common limitations, with no pre-
tension to be any thing else, were worn on
costly robes, and the trimmings of the
lingerie of even rich ladies were lament
ably inferior. A purer taste and finer con-
noisseurship is now asserting itself, and
the immediate results have not tarried in
making their appearance. The only bits
of good lace seen are no longer the deli
cate lappets obligatory with court Co.'S
tune, and which were evidently heir.
looms descended from some appreciative
ancestress, worn on state occasions only,
but to-day Mechlin, Flanders, Barrano
and Venice points, Valenciennes as
ethereal as cobwebs, Brussels shaded
like an aqua fortis are worn
with prodigal magnifcence. No gown
is considered complete unless it
is shrouded or draped with costly modern
or antique laces; it helps to soften
the somewhat garish splendor of the mate.
rials beneath, and as they are worn by
day as well as by night, in the open air rs
much as in the house, there is a cha nee Of
seeing in the flesh those marvellous women
ofOuida's novels, who are always "trail-
ing perfumed laces" on marble terraces
There they reposed, dear ever to collec-
tors, If spurned by the multitude follow
ing On the footsteps of Burne Jones and
Alma Tadema. Among the foremost Of
those collectors was the Queen. She owns
some of the finest specimens of lace in any
country, and is fully aware Of their rarity
and value. Occasionally she opens her
boards and hands founce, a lappet or
scarf to favorite child or grandchild.
The Queen of Italy, ''the Maguerite of
Marguerites," as King Umberto calls her,
has the genius and instincts of the inborn
collector. This beautiful and popular
woman, dressed by Worth, changing her
gowns four times day, dancing like a
sylph and riding like an amazon, has yet
time to fill the Quirinal and her palace at
Monza with crystals from Venice, carv-
ings in ivory, old iewelry and intaglios;
she has ransacked the reTesses of musty
olde "garde marbles" where the relics Of
ancient generations slumbered in obscur-
ity, and brought forth spoils Of superb
Florentine, Milanese and Venetian art.
Cases let into the embrasures of the Rom
an palace dazzle and confuse by the
wealth of their contents.
The Empress Eugene, with more senti-
ment than real connoisseurship, has given
evidences of her very real admiration for
her hapless predecessor, Marie Antoinette,
by purchasing any genuine or apocryphal
object supposed to belong TO the un-
fortunate Queen. She has been some-
times deceived, not infrequently deliber-
ately cheated, but she has yet sue
ceeded in forming a very interesting and
sufficiently important collection of books,
china, fans and small articles of furniture
proceeding from the same source. She paid
100000 francs for a little bureau (bOnheur
Ju jour supposed to come from V ersailles.
a similar one, about the origin of which
there is not the slightest certainty, was
purchased by the South Kensington
Museum (where it now stands) for 10000
pounds, 5000 pounds more than the En-
press cost her.
Among the ladies of less exalted ranks
known as intelligent and successful COL
lectors is the Countess Dziatiniska, sister
of Prince Czartorisky and sister in law of
Princess Marguerite of Orl cans. She has
enriched the Hotel Lambert, her brothers.
residence, with unique original portraits
and matchless etchings and engravings,
the unrivaled gem among them being the
only complete work of Albert Durer ex-
tant
The Marquise de Briffe boasts of differ
ent but still more quaint collection. 1t
consists of series of small portraits, as
nearly as possible the same size, of her
ancestors and celebrities from the time of
Francis l. to the present day. Some of
them are signed by illustrious names, and
they form valuable historical gallery of
costume and genealogy.
Baroness Adolphe de Rothschild, the
chatelaine of Pregny on the Lake of Gene
va, the mistress of the little palace of the
Rue Monceau, protesting a deep admira-
tion for the "great century" in general
and Nine. de Pompadour in particular, has
spared neither pains nor money in secur-
ing memories of that epoch. She owns an
admirable portrait of the Favorite, painted
by Poucher books bearing her coat-of-
arms, tools, jewelry and furniture used
by her in the palmy days of her omnipo-
tence Two other ladies of the same fam
lily, Mesdames Alphonse and Nathaniel de
Rothschild, collect respectively, the
former paintings, the latter articles of
vertu.
English women, as rule, are more con-
servative than acquisitive. They pre-
serve the relics of other days that come to
them by marriage or inheritance, even if
at times ignorant of their value or indif-
ferent to their merits, cherishing and pre-
serving alike the worthless and the VAL
liable, because'it was cherished and pre-
served by those who preceded them, but
rarely deeming it advisable to add to
them. They make, however, one excep-
tion TO that rule of abstention in favor Of
old oak. This they esteem enough to
spare no pains in obtaining 1t. They 1
purchase for their country houses whole /
staircsses, entire panelings, monu-
mental mantel-pieces either In their
entity or constructed out of the spoils Of
churches and ahbeys; and il must be (
confessed that English women have q
natural gift for disposing them to the best
advantage They procure their antique
oak from who~ever il is TO be found. from
all parts of the country, and commission
special we'll known dealers in Chester,
Guildford, Salisbury, and London to keep
them informed of any choice bits that
happen TO be in the market Much of it
comes from Italy and Flanders, but
should the original article be scarce q
plerteous supply is manufactured to or
der. with rubbed corners and worm eaten
panels, and if the purchaser is deceived it
is only in his purse that be is mulcted, for
the goods delivered are as beautiful and