VANISHED FORTUNE

Northern Advocate, 4 February 1926, Page 3

VANISHED FORTUNE

MILLIONAIRE SELLS TREASURES. The curtain for the final scene in one of the great post-war dramas, enacted during the inflation period—which saw the rise and the sudden decline of immense fortunes—rose at the auction rooms of Frederick Chiller and Co., London, recently, where the worldfamous Castiglioni collection was offered for public sale (says the Amsterdam correspondent of the London “Daily Express”). Camillo Castiglioni, the Austrian Stinnes, son of a Trieste rabbi, whose uncounted wealth acquired since the war gave him the name of “Castibillioni,” has finished throwing his money about. ‘ The art treasures which he collected in his luxurious palace in the Kolowratring at Vienna, estimated at £i;2o0,000, are now thrown on the market, and will soon be dispersed to the four corners of the earth; for the collectors and antique dealers have come from everywhere to assist at this unique occasion in order to complete their collections, or to lay hold of a rare work of art. Each a Masterpiece. There are paintings of Italian. Flemish, and Dutch masters of the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, among which are beautiful Florentine primitives, a splendid Correggio, a Tintoretto, two cherubims of Titian, a Rembrandt, three Rubens, two Van Dycks, and many other masterpieces. Indeed, one does not Igl'ow what to indicate as the most important, every painting being a masterpiece of some famous master, which may fetch a record price. Such, for instance, is the “Resurrection of Lazare,” by Nicholas Froment, a French primitive, who worked in the South of Prance at the Court of Rene of Anjou from 1400-1480". A former painting by this master on the same subject, which hangs at Florence, fetched a record price at the Berlin Kaufman sale. The paintings form only a small part of the collection, which comprises antique furniture, Gobelin tapestries, sculptures, china, and old needlework. T!ie most complete, however, is the collection of antique and Renaissance bronzes, which comprises 108 statuettes. Ricco and his Padua school and the Florentine school of Giambologna are particularly well represented. Seats Booked. The interest which this sale has aroused in international art circles is enormous. During the past three days i the public has thronged the auction rooms to see these splendid specimens of the works of the world's greatest j artists. Many buyers have arrived from , England, the United States, and all parts of Europe, and scats have been booked for the sale, which will last a ; week. j An army of detectives has been re- , cruited in order to guard the art J treasures. Castiglioni disappeared from Vienna last year leaving debts amounting to , about £1,000,000. A warrant for his j arrest was withdrawn, “because he was needed to avert financial disaster.”