WINDFALLS IN ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 5, 6 January 1934, Page 6 (Supplement)

WINDFALLS IN ART.

VANDYCK FOR TEN SHILLINGS.

POOR WOMAN'S LUCKY FIND. PARLIAMENT'S "SINFUL WASTE." A poor woman of Birmingham, who loved beautiful things, recently scraped enough money together to buy a canvas she had for some time coveted in a shop window. The picture cost her 10/. Now crowds are reported to bo invading the Birmingham Art Gallery for a view of it, for S. C. Kaines Smith, tho keeper of tho gallery, to whom tho poor woman showed it, has pronounced it to be an authentic Vandyck. Most of the art critics of London papers agree with him. A. C. R. Carter, of the "Daily Telegraph," has seen it, writes about it, and is inspired to write about other curious discoveries that have come to his knowledge. "The public dearly loves a story about a picture. Our National Gallery trustees could devise equally popular methods of increasing the number of visitors. Take the superb Vandyck equestrian portrait of Charles L for example. Rich Find by Marlborough. "During a lull in one of his campaigns the great Duke of Marlborough picked this up very cheaply in Munich. In 1885 the Blenheim trustees, after much bargaining, were persuaded to accept £17,500 from the Government. The Germans had offered much morei for a work which had been sold for only £150 when the Commonwealth ordered the dispersal of Charles' magnificent collection. "To-day this Vandyck is probably worth £100,000. Yet in 1885 ono member of Parliament did not hesitate to de' nounco the price of £17,500 as ' sinful waste,' while another said that if he owned such a horse as Vandyck had painted ho would send it straightway to tho knackers. In view of the lack of sporting pictures at Trafalgar Square, this criticism should be kept alive. "Long before Vandyck were those great Netherlandish painters, the brothers Van Eyck. Everybody remembers The Three Mayors,' which Sir Herbert Cook lent to Burlington House in 1927 —also worth at least £100,000 to-day. Yet even at Christie's in 1872 Sir Herbert's father was 'able to pick this up for the comparatively paltry sum of 320 guineas, because at the time the market craze was for Victorian pictures, one of which, Webster's ' Roast Pig,' was potent enough to fetch 3550 guineas. ■Wounded General's Good Luck. "The great Duke of Marlborough, as T have stated, found his Vandyck in Munich. Another soldier picked up a Van Eyck near Brussels. Wounded badly at Waterloo, Major-General Hay was carried to a private apartment. As he lay in bed his eyes wero riveted by a little panel picture on the walL After recovery he had no difficulty in buying it for a few golden sovereigns, and- when in 1842 the National Gallery gave him 600 guineas for his find he was quite pleased. This little panel is the world famous 'Jean Arnolfini and His Wife.' We, now know that at one time it belonged to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, but between 1550 and 1815 tho picture was ' lost.' "But these stories .are endless. In the year before the war Lord Glanusk sent a little portrait by Frans Hals to auction. It brought £9000, yet in 1884 it had been purchased for only £5, with a still-life subject thrown in. And did not Charles Wertljeimer, in 1903, give 9000 guineas for a Gainsborough portrait of the lovely Miss Linley, which had once been used by playful children as a dar£ target ? Its later end was to hang in the obscure entrance! hall of a small house at the seaside."