BLEEDING A MILLIONAIRE

Evening Star, Issue 15074, 4 January 1913, Page 8

BLEEDING A MILLIONAIRE

_» EXTRAORDINARY REVELATIONS. American millionaires who pay fancy prices for art treasures, rare curios, and valuable I pictures may bave their artistic enthusiasms dashed by the realisation that, aristocratic virtuosi who make a. hobby of coliectinc works of art reap an immense profit, by trading them off on rich Yankees, to whom price is no object when they have set their minds on something supposed to be absolutely unique. There were revelations of a very sordid commercialism in the action, already reported by cable, in which Mr A. G. Temple, curator of the Guildhall Museum, sued Sir George Donaldson, the well-known art collector, for commission on the sale of pictures. Plaintiff claimed £7,400, being brokerage at 5 per cent, on £148,000, which Senator Clarke, the Montana "Copper King," hart paid Sir George Donaldson tor paintings. It was alleged that Mr Temple had introduced Senator Clarke to the defendant, and was instrumental in enabling the distinguished ••amateur to effect a splendid de.d. Amusing correspondence in the manner of a smart firm advising a young commercial traveller howto get business had passed from Sir George Donaldson to the intermediary, suggesting a delicate handling of the man' of millions, so that ha might not be nauseated by too much eagerness. He was to be impressed with the idea, of securing something priceless that might be otherwise reserved as an heirloom for the nation. The evidence showed how millionaires with artistic ambitions have to pay through the nose to astute art dealers was highly unsavory, and it was not. surprising ihat the jury gave damages for £6,150. Sir George Donaldson had ho right to all the plunder. The case excites suspicion a? to whether art collections purchased for Australia—some of them at amazing prices, considering the burlesque quality of, the arthave not been the objects of some ingenious angling for munificent patronage. One remembers the fact that a leading public gallery in the Commonwealth paid* a high pries for a Corot that was a genuine enough pici ture, but subsequently discovered to be only i a duplicate of another work by the same artist.