House & Garden 
Straw marqueterie tea caddy 
after the Chinese manner, 
probably made by a French 
prisoner of war during the 
late Napoleonic period 
OBJECTS of ART MADE by PRISONERS of WAR 
A New Collecting By-path That Peace May Now Open Up 
to the Rider of Unusual Hobbies 
GARDNER TEALL 
I N traveling to the Adriatic coast some years 
ago I stopped for several days in a little 
Italian town not far from Ancona. I sup¬ 
pose few visitors ever alighted there, at least 
that is the impression I got from the profuse 
welcome accorded me at the primitive albergo 
where I put up. Just why even the slow creep¬ 
ing trains of the Marche ever bothered to stop 
here at all I have yet to determine. With my¬ 
self I seem to have established a precedent. No 
errand other than that of the spirit took me 
there. It all happened because, when journey¬ 
ing eastward, I had asked a fellow-traveler 
what there was of interest in this town, and 
then, why the train made so short a stop. 
‘‘No one ever gets out here,” he explained, 
‘‘there is nothing to see.” 
From that moment my curiosity was aroused, 
for experience has taught me that the most in¬ 
teresting places are those which most people 
find uninteresting. 
A Medieval Hostelry 
One of the things I found in this little town 
will, perhaps, dear reader, interest you, and so 
I will make mention of it as introduction to my 
subject. The room to which I was assigned 
by my host of the inn was, I 
have reason to believe, the cham- 
bre de luxe of tlie countryside. 
The high beamed ceiling was 
painted much after the manner 
of the great ceiling of the Floren¬ 
tine church of San Miniato al 
Monte, although 1 saw nothing 
of it all by the flickering candle 
which lighted my arrival in the 
midst of this medieval hostelry. 
In the morning a burst of golden 
sunlight awakened me and in 
through the windows was wafted 
the fragrance of the grape-flow¬ 
ers in blossom outside. My 
sleepy eyes followed the walls 
around and then opened wide on 
beholding a quaintly framed 
canvas of beautiful freshness, 
the picture of a group of saints. 
Jumping out of bed and going 
over to inspect the painting I ob¬ 
served on an old marqueterie 
secretaire which stood just below 
it an array of curious, golden- 
hued objects. On closer exami¬ 
nation I found some to be boxes, 
some jewel-caskets, others yarn 
containers, while needle-cases, 
frames, book-covers and the like 
completed this odd assemblage 
of curious antiques. Then I discovered that 
these things were all examples of straw mar¬ 
queterie, but finer, any one of them, than pieces 
of the sort that ever before had happened to 
come to my attention. 
The Landlord Who Collected 
I suppose being a collector makes one a dis¬ 
coverer. At any rate a discovery it was, and I 
asked myself how on earth these things hap¬ 
pened to be here. That morning my host ex¬ 
plained. 
“All these things,” said he, “ I have been col¬ 
lecting as a hobby for years, things made by 
prisoners of war, interesting and worth pre¬ 
serving. The inlaid straw things are but part 
of what I have,—ivories, carved cocoanuts, 
jewelry, paper models, embroideries, and so on, 
all made by prisoners of war, mostly in Italy, I 
presume, as I have picked them up here in my 
own country in traveling around. I would not 
part with them for the world!” 
This declaration dashed my hopes to the 
ground, but one can forgive much in a landlord 
who collects things more spiritual than rent, 
and a landlord in Italy who “travels around” 
also commands one’s respect for his ability to 
be so independent. That is why 
I listened instead of bargained, 
and in that morning I learned 
many interesting things about 
my host’s unusual collection. 
Perhaps there were few kindred 
collecting souls in the neighbor¬ 
hood who deigned to listen as 
sympathetically as I did or who 
made no effort to conceal an en¬ 
thusiasm which these things 
awakened within me. At any 
rate-the amiable inn-keeper who 
would not part with his things 
for the world proved finally 
willing to part with a few of 
them for considerably less than 
a hemisphere, which gave me a 
chance to weave tales of my own 
in the years that were to follow. 
One of Hodgkin’s Hobbies 
I remember telling the late 
John Eliot Hodgkin, F. S. A., 
that renowned antiquarian whom 
I met in London, of my adven¬ 
ture. “Ah,” said he, “do you 
know that happens to be one of 
my chief hobbies, and that I am 
collecting those very same sorts of 
straw marqueterie things ? I am 
planning to write a monograph 
Portrait of Napoleon, the work of a French 
prisoner, done a Piqure d’ Epingle—paper 
pricked with various sized needles 
A Japanese cabinet of straw work. Such pieces found their way to 
Europe and inspired the tvork of French and Italian prisoners 
