MUCH-DISCUSSED BUST

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 29

MUCH-DISCUSSED BUST

INGREDIENTS ANALYSED, BERLIN, March' 17. The analysis of the wax composing the Flora bust which Dt W. Bode, director of the Berlin Art Gallery, purchased in England for £BOOO, attributing it to •Leonardo da Vinci, the famous sixteenth century artist, shows that it consists of lac, spermaceti, and beeswax, which is the same composition as the artist R. C. Lucas, of Southampton, was in the habit of using. It is now thought that the bust was probably made by Lucas, as spermaceti was unknown before 1700. LONDON, March 17. The London Times of October 23 describes the bust, and a Southampton auctioneer who handled it, in a subsequent letter to the same paper, states that R. D. Lucas was brought into association with the art dealer Buchanan, who brought him a reputed picture by da. Vinci. This picture was copied in oils by Albert Durer Lucas, son of R. C. Lucas. Buchanan asked R. C. Lucas if he could reproduce the subject of the picture in the 'orni of a wax bust, as there would be a good market for it. Lucas undei'took the commission, which was duly completed. Subsequently Buchanan was unable to carry out his 'share of the bargain, but took away the da Vinci picture, leaving the bust in the hands of the artist. \ Some time ago the sensational announcement was made that Dr W. Bode, the Director of the Berlin Museum, had acquired during a visit to London a wonderful Renaissance wax bust of a slightly draped woman, in which h» was inclined to see an original work by Leonardo de Vinci. This bust had tprned up about a. year ago at a Southampton curio dealer's, who sold it for a trifling sum. It passed subseqtiently for £l5O from a King street dealer into the hands of Mr Murray Marks, a well-known expert and partner in the Bond street firm of Messrs Durlacher. From him Dr Bode 1 bought it for the Bei-lin Museum at a price which rumour fixed at £BOOO. ' Great was the sorrow of English art'overs at the loss to the country of so rare and important a masterpiece, when their grief was turned to laughter by the publication in The Times of a letter written by Mr C. F. Oooksey, of Southampton, in' which this gentleman, with much circumstantial evidence, ■ endeavoured to prove that the Italian Renaissance bust in question was made about the : middle of last century by a clever and versatile London sculptor named Richard Cockle Lucas ior an art dealer named Buchanan. The bust remained on Lucas's hands, as the dealer wan unable to carry out his share of the bargain. Lucas lived subsequently, in the neighbourhood of Southampton, and after his death the bust, was sold, with his two houses and the objects contained therein, to a Mr Sampson. Mr Ccok=ey says that he remembers seeinjr thej bust in an arbour, where it would have sufficient protection to save it from total rujn. And Mr Lucas, the son of the supposed author of the bust, not only 'declares it to be his'father's work, b'li is most definite in his assertion that he himself, then a. youth of 18, assisted his father in the fabrication by preparing the .•naterial for the castinsr and by painting with his own hand the flowers in the woman's hair! The defenders of the Leonardo attribution do not deny that the bust is the same which .ras known to Messrs Cooksey and Lucas. They only deny that the elder Lucas was its author. '