ART DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 12

ART DISPUTE

A LOUVRE PAINTING

SALE THAT WAS SPOILT

CRITIC SITED FOR LIBEL

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOEK, 6th March.

The United States and Canada have been watching with amused interest the daily progress for four weeks of an art libel suit, in which a blacksmith'• daughter, beloved of students and travellers for four centuries, is involved. She is La Belle Ferroniere, a creation of the brush of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most treasured possessions of The ! Louvre, in Paris. Is La Belle, in the Louvro or in Mr. Justice Black's Courtroom? That is the question. Sir Joseph Duveen, the famous art critic, says that she is in the Louvre. Mrs. Hahn, wife of an automobile dealer in Kansas City, says that she owns the original, and that the painting in the Louvre is—something else. Eight years ago Mrs. Hahn offered the picture to the Kansas City Art Institute for 250,000 dollars. Sir Joseph Duveen, hearing of the offer, said that the painting was a copy, and the sale was killed. Mrs. Hahn and her husband went to Paris and for some years collected evidence that would aid in disturbing Sir Joseph's opinion, which is accepted in art circles all over the world. Her researches stirred Parisians to ask was sho making disrespectful reflections on the blacksmith's daughter. When their interest became warm, Mrs. Hahn felt the need to assure them, that she was merely investigating whether Da Vinci repeated his work. But no,_ said Sir Joseph, who had been, drawn into the controversy; Leonardo never repeated his work. Parisians eventually took the matter as a joke or a dealer's .whim and went back to work, after renewing their vows of devotion and loyalty to the beautiful Florentine whose' beauty undermined the power of her lover, Ludovieo the Moor, Duke of the reigning house of Sforza, letting France into Italy by way of his stronghold, and making Italy the political football of Europe for 300 years. LAWYER'S TENACITY. Mrs. Hahn returned to America and sued Sir Joseph for half a million. Sir Joseph appeared to defend the suit at some personal inconvenience, as NewYork was very cold and he usually winters in the Riviera or Florida. Thirteen art specialists and a battery of legal talent attended him. No one suggested that La Belle herself should cross the Atlantic to appear in person, bhe attended by proxy in the form ofa copy. The public prejudged the suit to the extent at least of buying un large supplies of copies of the Lonvre painting, which shrewd New York dealers retailed at seventeen dollars apiece. Good things and bad, mainly bad were said about Mrs. Halm's La Belle iair Joseph said her hair was "mud' 3«st plain mud." One of his experts said S l, c was «« Baggjr and d i ikf'l M' ° I lr,, Hko a Wig ' a Cheek like a child's doll, and an expression ' ™* b°vme." A solitary Kussian went into ecstasies over her, but } f 7 °, t0 to^te his ecstasy into English. The lady was x-rayed the urv t'° retail st°r<*ee P ers °n Irives. th°Se Of their ow *

au'thoHr"^ Wainten" £?h Mild «m Pm; at«." continued Mr. lUiHci 'Do you know him, too?" ye Tho judgment is not handed down

The jury failed to agree. The cian Wit * A 7m 3^ ivpSL \ ookmg over their h'^coT Pal. ntlllS? t° if they wfre & • " 1S understood that one galwhpfi 0 M Ol':U' 51 haS «raVC doubt* whether it is au original. Here is £nvccL y.*7 theY;° b f°r Sir JOS6p" UCC"' a'^ possibly another libel suit.