AN ART STIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1938, Page 6

AN ART STIR

DISPUTED WORKS

NATIONAL GALLERY'S DEAL

GIORGIONE PANELS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, December 29.

i A keen controversy is being waged over the four panel-pictures, attributed' to the great Venetian master, Giorgione, recently bought by the National Gallery for £14,000, of which £2000 was contributed by the National Art Collections Fund. The claim to -Giorgione's responsibility for the works has been contested and in any case, , the expenditure of a large sum of'public money for the purchase has in some quarters met with severe comment.

It is understood that the National Gallery was itself a house divided .as to the transaction. While some of its officials took the unprecedented step of formally- recording their disapproval of the acquisition, the trustees sanctioned an advance on the payment of £8000, which Mr. Kenneth Clark, the director, recommended.

It is reported that at the time when the refusal for the panels was at the gallery's discretion Lord Duveen offered £30,000 for them-in the-event of the sale not 'being completed, though other prominent dealers estimate their value at only £4000. Doubts regarding the authenticity of the work account for these fluctuations.

EXPERT'S OPINION.

Dr. G. N. Richter, the, world-famous expert on Giorgione, 'attributes the painting of the panels to the Venetian artist Previtali, who lived from 1480 to 1528. He bases this view on : the identity of Previtali's treatment' of trees, vista-prospects, sharp mountain inclines, the figures'.clothes,' and' the opposition of light and shade compared with Giorgione's even lighting. The colours are also characteristic of Previtali, the browns, for instance, being strange to Giorgione's palette.

But though Dr. Richter regards .Previtali as the actual painter, he finds it hard to credit that minor artist with •the invention shown in the panels,'the date of which he places in 1510, the ,year of Giorgione's death. He' is in favour of connecting Giorgione with then* since they are "the most perfect revelation of the Giorgibnesque style."

"Why not call them Giorgione and Previtali?" he sums up. ' "The gallery was right to buy the pictures, and is to be congratulated on them.'!

HISTORY OP THE PANELS.

The whole matter has been further complicated by the gallery's departure from its usual practice of making public the previous history of works purchased. It is understood now, however, that •■ the panels were first discovered in Malta some months ago, when they were priced at £1 apiece. Subsequently they were in the possession of a well-known Italian picturedealer established in Venice, Signor Podio. From him they were' bought by a Viennese dealer, Herr Salzer,".:at a figure stated to be in the neighbourhood of 10,000 lire, or just over £100.

They were next consigned to London. Their acquisition by the National Gallery at £14,000 followed. This spectacular rise in value-is the more notable since as yet no recognised expert on Giorgione who lias seen the pictures has come, forward to endorse satisfactorily thoir ascription. to that rarest of all Venetian masters.

On the other hand, a characteristic work by Andrea Previtali, the artist whom Dr. G. N. Richter claims as painter of the panels, could be easily obtained in the art market for £200.

' Italy's Government Fine Arts. Commission has opened an ; inquiry in Venice ; into the. sale. But the sale and the departure of the pictures -from Italy arc legal, since they were not stamped as national treasures with the Government seal. •