LAFAYETTE'S PORTRAIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 307, 28 December 1934, Page 15

LAFAYETTE'S PORTRAIT.

WORTH £200 WHEN PAINTED

NOW VALUED AT £50,000,

Samuel F. 13. Morse's heroic-size portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette returned recently to New York from its •summer sojourn at the Lafayette Centenary Exposition in Paris, and was rehung in its place of honour at City Hall. Dr. I. X. Phelps Stokes, chairman of the Municipal Art Commission, said the •painting was valued at £50,000 and was considered one of the finest historical portraits in America." It was executed by the inventor of the telegraph in 1820, with the Marquis posing for several sittings in the same City Hall where his likeness now hangs. When it was shipped to France last June it was insured for £20,000. An interesting discovery, .was made when the canvas was being reset in its huge gilt frame, which remained in City Hall after the portrait went abroad. A time-yellowed label on the frame showed that the painting was valued at £200 when it was shipped to the Philadelphia Centennial in 1870. Mr. Morse began work on tllo painting in 1525, when lie was .president of the National. Academy of Design. Becausc of several interruptions the work was not completed until the spring of the following year, ten years before the Marquis died. The French. Government paid tUe expenses of shipping it to Paris and back, and chose the Lafayette of the French Line on which to send it home.