£500,000.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 178, 13 July 1927, Page 8

£500,000.

FAMOUS ITALIAN PICTURES. SOLD TO SIR J. DUVEEN. London, July 11. Mr Robert Henrv Benson, a merchant and art collector, has sold his famous collection of Italian pictures to Sir Joseph Duveen for £o00.0()0. The collection includes notable examples of works by Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, Titian, Carpaccio, Del Sarto. Luini Duccio, and Giovanni Bellini.—(A. and N.Z.) The record price paid for a painting at an auction in England was the 74,000 guineas paid for Sir Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie” last October, by Sir Joseph Duveen, the famous dealer, the picture finding a home in the magnificent collection of MiHenry Huntington, the Californian collector who died recently, having bequeathed his art treasures to the nation. The record prior to that was 60,000 guineas for Romney’s portrait of Mrs Davenport, also bought by Sir Joseph Duveen. Recent sales have been remarkable for the rapid appreciation in values of paintings by standard masters, all the most highly priced going to swell the collections of wealthy Americans, the most sensational instance of the kind being Mr Henry Huntington's acquisition of Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy,” at a cost of £150,000. Turner is the apostle of light; by his marvellous chromatic use of brilliant coloui 1 he endeavoured to paint sunlight. aerial, and atmospheric effects, by methods that anticipate Claude Monet and many of the followers.