Evening Star Newspaper, November 17, 1929, Page 97

THE SUND/\Y STAR, WASHINGTON D. C.. NOVEMBER 17, 1929. — — ender of Rare White House Heirlooms - Just a Little Basement W orl(jbbp in Wash- ington and a Tinkering Artist With Paste Pot and Glue—But He Has Saved Pre- cious Curios of World’s Great and Sal- vaged Priceless Gifts of Celebrities. BY NELL RAY CLARKE. You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. —Thomas Moore. RS. HERBERT HOOVER sends him precious pieces of White House china to mend. Recently she sent some pieces belonging to the set used when the Roose- velt family was in the White House. It is now on exhibition with the china of the other Presidents in the cabinets in the east wing ol the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant brought him the _ Mrs. Grover Cleveland, who sent many precious pieces of china to Mr. Burfeind. * precious ivories which she and the President * collected on their trip around the world that he might replace the parts broken or lost in shioping them home. A dignified United States Senator wandered into his shop recently with a quaint old copper- luster cream pitcher which had belonged to " his great-grandmother. He wanted the missing handle and the spout replaced so as to defy . detection. . Lady Spring-Rice brought her internationally known collection of fans for him to replace the - lost and broken ivory and pearl sticks, to mend - the broken silk and paint on the missing parts . of the exquisite paiterns. It is doubtful if there is any one else in the United States who could undertake the delicate tasks which come into George H. Burfeind’'s little basement shop down on New York avenue, in Washington. Mr. Burfeind is an artist, al- though he would never claim that distinction for himself, a sort of versatile genius who can turn his hand to anything and does everything with skill and artistry. All the mistresses of the White House, with " one exception, since the time when the gracious - Mrs. Grover Cleveland held sway, have been his - clien's. So have members of the diplomatic corps in Washington, as well as internationally - known importers of objets d'art. HE mends delicate china, pearl and ivory ) fans, marble and tortoise-shell curios; he carves delicate pieces of ivory, teakwood and sandalwood; he fashions bits of silver or pearl * inlay to repiace fragments which ruthless hands " have torn o1t of some precious object. He can " build up an enfire article from a fragment. * Therefore, he must know the rudiments of clay modeling, glazing, firing and painting of china, the tricks of the wood-carver’s art, and, in ad- dition, he must be a research expert to supply himself with the information to make his re- productions and his fragments his'orically ac- curate. Naturally, his clients have been men and women who have owned and prized precious old things. For the most part they have been women of prominence rather than men, for it is usually th> woman of the family who looks after the family mending, even when the ar- ticle to be mended is some treasured posses- sion of her husband’s. Although his work is not always heavy and he must often turn his hand to some other occupation to supplement his income, he is known all over America and in several foreign countries for the very fine work he can do. I found him bending over a workbench mend- ing a valuable Bavarian china cake plate. One of the handles on the side had been broken and the fragment had been lost. He was rounding off the ends into an attractive in- verted horseshoe-like ornament and cutting the handle on the opposite side to match. There was a white-and-gold vegetable dish which had suffered the same catastrophe and was be- ing finished off in the same manner. After the two sides had been made to look alike, they had to be glazed and repainted and fired. There were two beautiful Delft china figures on a shelf at his side. One of the statues needed fingers and the other needed its head mended. Both were awaiting the minis‘rations of the artist to become perfect again. Mr. Bur- feind picked up the Senator’s copper-luster pitcher and fingered it lovingly. Any lover of china would understand the reverence with which he handled that old pitcher. The handle he had added looked real enough to me, and I positively couldn’t see where he had joined on the new spout. He brought out a fan. Beneath one of the ivory sticks he had placed a little silver plate which was invisible from the front side of the fan. He showed me an Irish china tray made in the form of a pale pink seashell. I had not known how lovely Bleeke china could be. It was a very rare old piece. The tray had been broken into a dozen pieces, He had put it together with tiny silver rivets on the bottom and had fitted the fragments together so per- fectly that the work defied detection frcm the top side of the tray. Then he brought out two lovely china vases studded with jewels, They had once been bot- tles, but the stoppers had been lost, so he had cut off the necks of the bottles and made them into vases shaped like rose jars. “My first customer, after I had served my year's apprenticeship under Mr. Marrow, who befora coming to this country had mended the precious objects belonging to the King and Queen of England, was Judge Andrews of the Supreme Court of New York,” Mr. Burfeind told me, “Judge Andrews brcught me plates to mend which were worth as much as $400 apiece. They were studded with jewels. You soon learn that you must not ruin things like those plates, because they could not be replaced cven if you had unlimited means. “I recently mended several dinner plates of George H. Burfeind, who mends the White House heirlooms. put much of th: col'ection in order from time to time as it has be>n added to. “Mis. Hoover does not come to my shoyp herself. Sh2 s:nds one of her secrefaries over in one of the White House cars with th2 precious pileces. They are too valuable to b2 trusted to an ordinary messenger, “I also mended a White House vase for M:s. Hoover. The vas2, a very rare plece of Eng- lish china, had becen presented to the United States by some foreign country. The top had been broken, “Mrs. Cleveland was the first mistress of the White House who brought me work to do. That was during Cleveland’s second administration, 1 wasn’t here during his first. She used to come in herself. She was very good-looking and had a very charming manner. She had a kind word for everybody. I mended various objects in her personal collection. I remember especially some very fine candlesticks of Meissen ware. “After Gen. Grant’s death Mrs. Grant moved back to Washing'on and she had me mend many things in her fine collecticn, which has since been given to the National Museum. There was a mirror with a beautifully carved ivory frame and a numper of fine pieces of china and somec glass bottles which had been " studied up on it. know. He did all there was to do to fly. He wasn't very well when I knew him and shortly. afterward he died. He knew a lot about pot- tery and china. He was especially interesfed in the old blue Colonial china, of which he had quite a collection. He gave me some pieces out of the museum’'s collection to mend and he sent other people to me.” > MR. BURFEIND stepped over to a shelf and picked up the top to an old blue china tea- pot, one that was made in the Colonial days. An exquisite Indian blue it' was, darker than the blue of Canton ware, “This top was smashed in small bits,” he said, “and I had to mold a new knob out of bisque for it and then color it over.” It looked perfectly preserved to me. “How did you know what shape that knob should be?” he was asked. “Oh, I got some books from the Library and Sometimes I am fortunate enough to find a cut showing how an old piece should look. Then it is very easy,” he explained. “And here is an old earthenware pitcher, a very fine one, made by the early Virginians.” It was gold and brown and green in gorgeous splashings of color. “I have put the handle back and now I am going to fire it in and then rub down these chipped places on the spout and glaze it again. I have mended a number of old Colonial plates of the Gov. Bradford china now in the Boston Museum. “Mrs McKinley was especially interested in the china for the White House cabinets and she sent me some of it to mend. I did a few odd jobs for the Roosevelts and for the Tafts, but not a great deal for either family. The Taf's did bring me a few of the plates which had belonged to President Lincoln’s china. “I DID one rather interesting job for a South American diplomat. I don’t suppose it would do to tell just which one. His country had sent to President Roosevelt a very fine vase in ebony, showing the map of his country. The base was of gold and it was adorned with a gold eagle. Somewhere on its long journey be- fore it reached the Minister of that South American country who was to present it to Mr. Roosevelt, it was smashed to bits. “The much-disturbed Minister brought it %o me and wanted a perfect job made of it for the presentation c:remonies. I can’t tell you how many pieces it was in. He had a photo- graph of the vase from which I could work.” Mr. Burfeind laughed significantly. “Well, # got through the presentation ceremonies with- out detection of the breakage, and, so far as I know, the repairs have never been noticed to this lay. *I did lots of work for the second Mrs. Wil- son. Some one in China sent her a miniature Chinese villag= carved in ivory which was valued at $2,500 to $5,000. I think the presem- tation was made through the Chinese legatiom. At any rate, the village was scrambled when it arrived. I had to mend or to replace parts of the little suites of furniture in the houses and W hite House exhibit of china used by the various Presidents. Mr. Burfeind has mended many of these rare pieces. the Roosevelt set for Mrs. Hoover. You know, of course, that collections of china belonging to the various Presidents of the United States have been made and are constantly being added to when an old piece comes to light some- where. It is on exhibition in the cabinets in the east wing of the White House, which is always open to the public. Most of the Presi- dents’ wives in recent years have expressed interest in this collection of china, and I have presented to her and to Gen. Grant on th:ir trip around the world. Several of these bottles were from the glass factory owned by the famous songbird, Jenny Lind. “I used to know Prof. Samuel Pierpont Lang- ley, too, and Prof. Mason, one of his assistants. One job that I took to do on the side was help- ing put in a vault at the Smithsonian Institu- tion. I got acquainted with Prof. Langley dur- ing the time he was working on his airplane experiments. He really invented flying, you parts of the fences and the houses themselves. “For Mrs. Coolidge I did nothing personal— only some of the White House china. When Lady Spring-Rice was at the British embassy she came into my shop herself and brought me some of her very fine fans to mend. She had a particularly famous collection with carved ivory and pearl sticks, some of them painted on white kid by well known French artists. They were very old, but most of them were in beautiful condition.”