LIBEL SUIT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 104, 2 April 1929, Page 8

LIBEL SUIT

WOMAN CLAIMS £IOO,OOO. “LA BELLE FERRONIERE.” The United States and Canada have been watching with amused interest the daily progress for four weeks of an art libel suit over La Belle Ferroniere, a creation of the brush of Leqnardo da Vinci, one of the most treasured possessions of The Louvre, in Paris.

is La Belle in the Louvre or in Mr Justice Black’s Courtroom? That is the question. Sir Joseph Duveen, famous art critic, says she is in the Louvre. Mrs Halm, wife of an automobile dealer in Kansas City, says that she owns the original. Eight years ago, Mrs Hahn offered the picture to the Kansas City Art institute for £50,000. Sir Joseph Duveen, hearing of the offer, said that the painting was a copy, and the sale was killed. Mrs Hahn and her husband went to Paris and for some years collected evidence that would aid in disturbing Sir Joseph’s opinion, which is accepted in art circles all over the world. Mrs Hahn returned to America and sued Sir Joseph tor £IOO,OOO. Sir Joseph appeared to defend the suit. Thirteen art specialists and a battery of legal talent attended him. No one suggested that La Belle herself should cross the Atlantic to appear in person. She attended by proxy in the form of a copy. The public prejudged the suit to the extent at least of bliving up large supplies of copies of the Louvre painting which shrewd New York dealers retailed at 17 dollars apiece, f Good things and bad, mainly bad, were said about Mrs Hahn’s La Belle. Sir Joseph said that her hair was “mud, just plain mud.” One of his experts said that she was “saggy and podgy, lacked vitality, had hair like a wig, a cheek like a child’s doll, and an expression that was bovine.” A solitary Russian went into ectasies over her, but was unable to translate his ectasy into English. The lady was X-raved for the 12 retail .storekeepers on the jury, who came to know her features better than those of their own wives. Mrs Hahn’s lawyer, one Miller, fought her case with a tenacity that drew approval from Sir Joseph, when he was not mildly cynical, as in an incident surrounding his acquaintace with authorities on various phases of “And Vita Privata,” continued Mr Miller. “Do you know him, too?” “ 1 know him rather well,” replied the baronet. “Vita Privata is the Latin for ‘private life.’ ” The jury failed to agree. The case set all museums and art galleries in the United States looking over their * highly-priced paintings to se if they were copies. It is understood that one gallery, which purchased an old master for £400,000, has grave doubts whether it is an original. Here is possibly another job for Sir Joseph Duveen.