Germans to Pay Highest Flattery to Harvard Museum by Lmitating It--To Copy Germanic Plaster Casts

The reputation of the Germanic Museum, which has already been called the greatest collection of its kind in the world, has reached the point of imitation. The most salient features of the museum, according to an article by Dr. Carl Heise in "Die Wache", a Berlin weekly, are to be copied in a new museum which is being created in the neighborhood of the German capital.

The tinted plaster casts, replicas of famous examples of German artistic work, which are the prizes of the Germanic Museum, will be taken as models by the Germans. They plan to devote a large amount of space to the exhibition of such casts, which, the article points out, the Germanic Museum was the first to use successfully. Many of the casts will be modelled directly on those at present in the University.

Professor Emeritus Kuno, Francke Litt, Hon, 12 and Honorary Curator of the Germanic Museum, in commenting on the article, said:

"When I was in Berlin in 1923 I visited the grounds of the huge museum which is now under construction, and was told that one entire ward of the building will be devoted to plaster reproductions of architectural and sculptural subjects in the style of those in our local museum.

"Although the Germans possess most of the originals which have been our models, they have has nothing resembling our plaster collection, which is famous throughout artistic Germany for its size, scope and absolute accuracy. Such great interest has been aroused in German architectural circles that the success of the proposed collection is assured.

"The fact that we, here is Cambridge, have copied German masterpieces so skillfully as to attract Germans to this country to recast our reproductions of their own originals, speaks well for the work of the University Germanic museum, and for further artistic cooperation between Germany and the United States".