VALUABLE TITIAN

Evening Star, Issue 18668, 24 June 1924, Page 5

VALUABLE TITIAN

Many connoisseurs (says the London correspondent of the 1 Manchester Gazette ) went to the National Gallery to see the picture ‘The Monk,’ by Titian, which has just been acquired for the Melbourne_ Art •Gallery. It was hunt: next to Titian’s ‘ Bacchus and Ariadne.’ the chief glory of our National Gallery. There ts no_ Titian portrait, of its particular type in the National, although a boarded, middle-aged man in dark clothes is a favorite litian subject. The portrait has the gravity and keenness and reserve force that were all indicated in the absurd but happy remark of JJazlitt’s friend about Titian: “Isut he an old mouser?” The provenance of the picture Ims not, yet been disclosed, but the fact tbni_ I is hung for a time in this place of high honor m the National Gallery shows that it Ls accepted by the experts. _ Writing not as an expert, one would incline to think that at some time or other the face had born cleaned. A lack of_ subtlety in certain passages, particularly in the relation of the flesh to the flat blackness ot the drjss. is noticeable. But even in Inc National Gaflerv few of the famous paintings are in pristine condition. Australia is To he congratulated on her ‘The Monk’ is. I think, the first Titian to go to Australia. There are no great private collections of old masters there, as there arc in America, and to a less degree in Canada and South Africa. Australia. which is so careful to protect the perceptions of its artists from paintings from outside, oven from paintings by Australian artists in England, that it levies n duly of 25 per cent, against them, also levies That duty against the old masters, although Australia as yet has no old masters to protect, nor—to judge from the history of art elsewhere—is 'he likely to have them if her young painters aft not to have every advantage of common ing with the masters of their craft. Oi course, pictures for the public collections go in free of duty, but without the ordinary freedom for private collectors (whose collections nearly always go in the end to the State', Australia will bo starved of a great civilising boon which Europe alone can give, and which other new countries welcome.