Page
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 6, · 1954. '
PARIS SHOW OF FAKES
From Sydney Smith
PARIS.
N exhibition of fakes,
AN
with pieces from Cleopatra's "signature" to un almost perfect Renoir, right down to a near- immaculate £1 note, is just now proving the most suc- cessful "art" show in Paris.
International art dealers and police lave gathered to view it in what is normally one of the most modern and format galleries in Lize luxury art quarter of the Faubourg St Honore-Paris's Diplomats' "Row.
The exhibition officially known at the "Salon des Faux," or roughly, the Fakes' Show- has been organised by Paris Follee Headquarters.
On display is everything from phoney Neolithic pottery and
Ching Dynasty Jade: to printed stamps.
mik-
11 fakes' trenaitre trave and 4 collector's Heartbreak House combined,
Rooms Crammed.
212
Three goed 106LAS
with loveliesi jur wh h enthusiastic collectors bave pa million of pounds. But expert photography - and X-rays reduced the "treasures" to the curiosity value of well- made forgeries.
Every plece has broken somebody's heart es well as his pocket book.
But the show, beautiful a5-11 is, is only worth Insuring for £25,000. It may save collet- tors who view I many millions of pounds in future.
Says Police Commissioner M. Guy Isaard, organiser of the show
and chiot of France's Forgery Squad: The object of this exhibition
to teach collectors and police what n huge business there is in art- faking, and how to spot fraud.
THES
CONT-REPORT
ARMS ESTIMATE
London Express Service
"You'll know all about" atomic explosions and guidad missiles when the Old Man comes to the page about the Arniy being placed second to the Air Force."
East
Kashmir: The Alsace-Lorraine of the
FROM PLAYGROUND
TO
BATTLEGROUND
By James Wickenden
LIGHT-SKINNED
beatman
Fe
ถ
Some from
the
white palace amung pocket mirrors, poured down say that Kashmir will adopt the from willowy deodar trees.
Although stony northwest, Indian Constitution. where inside is a tall, shy, yelling for a holy war. They Muslim, he seeks Hindu sup- Poonch, wearing શ bespectacled man, Sheikh said the Muslim voice had not port. conical Mualim hat Abdulla, "who writes his and an old waistcoat.over blography to while
away the been heard. his grey shirt, poles a gon- time.
Lake.
"Most of the artists who predola on Kashmir's Dul "hug" here have never been? caught. They have.........made everything from medieval Ince to twopenny stamps and they've} made millions of pounds out of it. Those who have not been caught the real artists-are in the majority."
The Fuker Gallery runs to
through As he glides floating gardens he can see the black marble Garden of Love called Shalimar on the : | distant hillside.
Times,"
This illustrates the dilemma of Kashmir. in the nick of time, Nehru
There are two problems. One He is a prisoner of lough, parachuted troops on the Vale is the greed of both Pakistan ronn-nosed
Impetuous and India to possess this state. Bakshi Ghulam, and halted Mohammed, who replaced him "Pathans
sight" " of "The other is, the desire of a
ין
tho withini
Jast year as head of the Kashmir Srinagar, the capital lange minority of both Hindu
anti Maalim Kashmiris vfor-n' Constituent Assembly.
Kashmiri Muslims were op voice of their own, posed to the Raja's plan, But
The Squeeze
they were shocked by the Contradictions
terocious tribal assault and, alongside Kashmir's Hindus,
independence line.
But, in the political rough and tumble following the cease fire, Abdulla was not strong enough to survive. Bakshi took
B ligious fanaticism, which
Kashmir provents
speaking with one voice and encourages ambitions in Karachi and Delhi. No Kashmiri can forget that
ruled
Highest-Priced The gondola curtains are
tattered and the sign which Tite boatman has little. tym for a time supported Abdulla's PEHIND both problems is re-
visitors- pathy, for Abdulla and no forgeries of the highest-priced once attracted names in the art world. Van "Gay
"Double liking for. Bakshi, although they Gogh, Gaugin, Renoir, Pleasso, Sprung. Sents"-is faded are both Muslims like himself. Utrillo and Malisse. Then there and hangs precariously und eighty percent of Kashmir's Is an immaculate
horse of a from rusted nails. Chinese Dynasty.
There are gold an: silver coins that Frangipani
Neither of these men has been
his country is already kcent still hangs certainly look. 3,000 years old instead of 30.
There are mis-them but Kashmir is noble to find a solution to longer a Himalayan playground. Kashmir's problem of being printed stamps that cost penny has become instead a beauti- squeezed between .the and were bought by someone ful battlefield the for a thousand pounds. -
Comments Police Commis- .stoner Isnard: "The world's experts were deceived by these things because they trusted only their eyes and their judgment."
Lorraine of the East.
people.
Alsace hostile states
Pakistan.
Always Tension
DECAUSE of it, India and "Our photo enlargements and Bakistan
spend more than half their national Incomes on the armle's which watch_cach olher on the ridges over Shall- mar.
over.
two
A Dilemma
of India and
way.
from outside. The evidence is "there" in- the dusty-marching. columns of Hindu troops in the cast and Muslim troops In the west
that
Naither Pakistan nor India the situation from the At one time, it looked as if HE sought support the tough secs Abdullu might have been the
Slums were cleared; Kashmiri point of view. Pakistan of needed saviour. He made his houses demolished and streets demands the withdrawal reputation over twenty years by widenedi. Profiteers were troops essential for a free standing for 171 independent dragged into the open and plebiscite - but assumes Kashmir neither pro-Hindu Baksbi beat them up personally Kashmir will be incorporated in nor pro-Muslim.
with a horsewhip..
Pakistan. india non-fanatle, he
He Imagines that he is a Was
speaks popular with the mild Kashmiris ealist, He does not make rights as a sovereign nation, right at India's curve-up in 1947. For Abdulla's mistake of harping on particularly of Kashmir's While they remain, there is. when Raja Sir Hurl Singil Kashmir Independence. That to exert her own policy in the 1 notes, always
of Buddhist northern erca neither Pakistan, nor and, perhaps, plumped fie alliance with India, pleases the forger of misprinted stamps the danger of war.
Pakistani Moslems attacked. India,
But Nehru will not Ladakh. countenance withdrawal of and the imitator of old masters,
а the game is up-the science begins to probe..
X-rays beat them every time."
After walking around the Fakes Gallery where often the real is hung beside the lake, anyone enn see that, for the engraver of phoney
tension
Looking past rotting house- moment
As
1
Vain, baggy-trousered tribes-
Instead he has forood the his troops. boats to the shore, the boatman men, with bobbed hair and puppet Constituent Assembly to ·
BERLIN CONFERENCE SHOWED
UP RUSSIAN INTENTIONS
GERMANY remains
T divided, Austria Incks a
treaty, but few in Britain
By Vaughan Jones
term the Berlin conference the fact that Russia will pain
!
a failure.
A
It was never expected that the Big Four's Foreign Ministers would achieve u rettlement.
Way
tain a line of outposts stretching from the Baltle (almost to the Adriatic.
Tito's truancy has marred the Jook of these defences in the
extreme south.
republle of seven million people, was a threat to peace,
But 1
in Europe. And the U.S. w press for the establishment of the long projected European army.
America claims that German
2
of Kashmir's
The reasons for these con- tradictions is in the population figures: 80 percent. Muslim, 20 percent Hindu.
Neither view, considers, an-, other solution partition. Yet that is the de facto situation in Hindus Kashmir today. The have fled from Muslim Poonch, and the few Muslims in indu Jammu hove, emigrated in the opposite direction.
More Estranged
of
free Austria would rent needed the AS for a plebiscite, the people in the West's defences against A of Ladakh are too primitive loosen Russla's grip on Eastern aggression from the East. to realize the implications Europe.
voting. Finally thero is the Vale of Kashmir. Its population of nearly two million oul ́es
half million four-and-a almost half of the state,
revolt
Molotov knew that once the But the risk of rearming the Red Army
had quit Austria, Germans is just now seriously Aurcement. ot leait,
would no disturbing many Britons. smtl-Red Czech But the withdrawal of Soviet longer fear Soviet intervention reathed to hold a Big Fige forces from Austria would de- meeting-ncluding Red China.
from
the pouth should they to try to astablish testing peace molish the line's central part-
against the Comihunist TWICE TOO OFTEN Prague government. And Dini troops had quit when Soviet Southeast Europe, the way would be left open for other Furthermore, it would remove popular uprisings. Russia's prétext for maintaining
in Korea and Indo-Chinu,
What emerged in Berlin waz
that Malenkow. like Stalin previously, has do Intention of
quitting. Russia's positions ntraddling Central, Europe...
What was ticar, too, was that
Malenkov, despite his reforms
•
SIDESTEPPED IT
is
This educated minority would decide, the issue in a picbbelte. But it does not seem likely Those believe that a rearmed that their voices, will be heard Germany will seek to play East for roine time, in spite of the and West off against each other, restraint of Pakistan's Premier, India's finally to emerge as the Con-Mohammed All, and So Molotov could not agree tinent's dominant nation.
Nehru And troops and lines of communica- to an Austrian treaty.
then that Germany will onco The two feaders have agreed tion in Rumania and Hungury. At the conference, Molotov again raise a cry for theto a plebiscito and to the ap in his own country,, will con- Soviet radio stations thunder The West's apokommen ware, this time the rich feemlands shu April.
polite than usual; liberation" of her territories polniment of an arbitrator in tinue to beck the Red regimesed that the West has provented after all, negotiating from the lot to Russia and Poland after in the Satellite Stater:with the Austria from having her treaty strength of their growing armies, power of the Soviet army,
tung, the
Western now being progressively better the last war.. The West's Foreign Ministers Foreign Ministers tried to reach equipped with atomic weapons. may have hoped that the Redeement on granting Austria And The Big, Four parted on Britons would rather have the countries were good. Now they
fuit independance, Molotov alde- Army would withdraw from stepped the sued terms. Southeast Europe doop,
;- Navertheless, Volt, is expected' Now, at least, they know that Molotow himself could not that the United States will con- they must base their plona"da have believed that i Asistem, aliinue, to keep, i powital forens
-
Yet every
was more
7
But Sir Owen Dixon did not succeed. as arbitrator in 1950, when relations between the two
present altations than listen to are-bad; and India and Pakistan the new version of the old are being, further estranged by Gorman' ˇery, for living space. | the US-Pakistan: /arms
ald They have already heard that prognonyme and Pakistan's tresty cry, twice too often.
with Turkey}"
HERMES
BABY
#IB, PORTABLE TYPEWRITER ·
IDEAL FOR AIR TRAVEL
SPALINGERS
29. Kody 01. Jak 37709 Q
BOOTH'S
FINEST
DRY GI
LONDON BATTLE REASS OUR SIŠNÍ
In all things... there is
only
Choose
BOOTH'S
Sole Distributors;
GILMAN & COMPANY LIMITED
HONG KONG
Made to order-
for an ill-fated Queen
THE MARSArcowers. Thor moved watch, make Abraham Konts Bregnet for Mark""Antutuet
all the complicatkaki known ti the 18th century, Du boere- mena contald host, 'quarter and minuti repeaters; Independent contra hanutej small svecy arcendiz calendar: matrupeing power zanerva tadiosters and, flosity a metallic thermonatge†' Every part, miuta potabis, ver made from voluit pull, and thái netrpimi tak samb - twenty years to completaus na
IN 1783, the great watchmaker Abraham - A Louis Breguet was commissioned to make the finest watch the work had ever seen, for his Queca, Marie Antoinetto.
-He worked nearly twenty years to completo.. this project. But long before he could finish, the beautiful Marie Antionette had met her fato at the guillotine.
Such is the story of this, labour of love for ... ́... a gracious Queen, who wai destined never to
see its completion...
Today, conditions demand a more practicn!. approach. While we still demand beauty and
Todayłe - masterpiece -- the Rolex Datejust, Perfectly manproof, Infallibly self-rebuding, automatically and dowƐy showing the date, the Rolex Datejust servei de m ruududer that the pride of true cruftemanship la 2503 alive and very much in evidenco:
*
elegance, we demand also utmost reliability, perfect accuracy, compactness and durability, All these, and many other features, are ine corporated in the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust.
Here is a graceful gold wrist watch whose intricate movement is perfectly guarded from dust, damp, powder and perspiration by the famous Oyster waterproof case. It is self- wound by means of the exclusive Rolex Perpetual self-winding "rotor," and it shows the date automatically in a gold frame,
Every Rolex Datejust is an Officially Certified Chronometer, having successfully passed the stringent tests of a Swiss Glovero- ment Testing Station.
In this 20th century, the Rolex Datchet serves as an eloquent reminder that the days of patient craftsmanskip and infinite skill are not just a thing of the past:
ROLEX
A landmark in the history of
·Tima measurement
“The Rolex Red Seal is a sign used by Rolex to show that the watch so which it is attached has garcessfully passed the train of an Official Government Truing Stailon and her been awarded the thile of Folegnamatar, Krety'Kodin Dotsfunt'exertes wish it the Bolia Bat Seal
Now Available
1953 GILES ANNUAL
$5.
at
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST LTD., HONG KONG & KOWLOON.
Page 5Page 6