"SALE OF THE CENTURY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 14, 16 July 1936, Page 11

"SALE OF THE CENTURY"

WORLD BUYERS IN LONDON

The art treasures collected by the late Henry Oppenheimer are to be dispersed at Christie's in July, says the "Daily Telegraph." This sale, which will last thirteen days, is destined to be one "of the greatest in art chronicles, and possibly the event of the century. Buyers are sure to come from every art centre in the world.

Mr. Oppenheimer was especially proud of his 500 drawings by the Old Masters. These are to occupy three days of the sale. If the British Museum had not been able to acquire the celebrated John Malcolm of Poltalloch array, formed by Sir lan Malcolm's grandfather, for the comparatively moderate sum of £25,000 in 1896, it seems certain that a big effort would have had to-be put forth to buy the Oppenheimer collection en bloc for the nation.

This section must have cost at least £100,000 in its formation. One of the greatest rareties in it is a superb drawing by the Tours artist Jehan Foucquet, of the papal legate, Teodoro Lelli, who visited that forbidding monarch, Louis XI, in 1464.

In the Royal Library at Windsor there is a copy of it in red chalk, but elsewhere there are only three portrait drawings known by Foucquet—at Berlin, Vienna, and Leningrad. The British Museum will, therefore, desire this drawing greatly.

In Christie's finely-illustrated catalogue this rare Foucquet portrait has been chosen as the frontispiece, yet this honour could have been claimed by many others, such as Leonardo da Vinci's study of a rearing horse; Michelangelo's drawing for his marble figure of Christ; Durer's very beautiful "Wise Virgin"; Raphael's "St. John the Baptist"; Rembrandt's "Adoration of the Shepherds"; or by a superb study of a young Fleming by Dirk Bouts once ascribed to Memling. Another three days will be required for the sale of the Oppenheimer examples of medieval' and Renaissance works of beauty, including rare Italian majolica by the craftsmen of Florence, Deruta, Gubbio, and Caffagiolo. A wonderful Faenza bust of an old woman is comparable with works in the Pierpont Morgan collection and in the Ashmolean. An exquisite onyx cameo pendant, carved with three Cupids and two dolphins, was in the great sale of the , Marlborough gems, 1899. Since then it has been confidently attributed to Cellini.