PICTURES BY THE YARD

Taranaki Daily News, 1 October 1929, Page 9

PICTURES BY THE YARD

CURIOSITIES OF ART.

A CANVAS WITH 6000 PORTRAITS.

From Budapest comes news of a picture problem. The heirs of Tivadar Csontvary, the eminent Hungarian artist, are baffled by the question of what to do with his collection of paintings each as big aa the front of a good-sized house. There was talk of selling them by the yard, cutting off bits which took the fancy of patrons, but so formidable a task wa£ even their unfurling that when it was decided to photograph them the fire brigade was called in to help spread them out in the great courtyard of the city “Mansion House.” Now a relative has bought the lot and is' storing them in his garage for the present. It is difficult to be didactic about huge pictures, for no one knows how many may be lurking here and there aboutthe world, but I suppose the very largest is the remarkable “Pantheon de la Guerre,” on which worked numerous French painters whom age or disability prevented from going to the front'. It took four years to complete, occupied half an acre of canvas, and shows 15,000 figures and 6000 portraits. Two tons of paint were used.

When this picture was sent to America for exhibition last year it was parked in a long oblong crate like a couple of railway carriages on end. Floating derricks at' Le Havre swung it aboard the liner Paris, but it was too big to go into the hold and had to travel on deck. It was the largest package ever shipped across the Atlantic.

In Windsor Castle is a panorama picture of the coronation of King George V. 138 feet long, showing more than 300 horses and 3000 men. A painting occupying 200 square feet, which was Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ last work was placed on view at the Guildhall Art Gallery two-or three years ago. This “King Arthur in the Vale of Avalon” is 10ft. by 20ft. Intended for the library at Naworth Castle, it was found unsuitable for that position and was placed by the painter in his studio at Campden Hill. Even bigger are the Vai Prinsep picture of a Delhi durbar, shown at the Academy of 1880, where it had a whole wall to itself; and the Phillips portrait group of the House of Commons shown at an Academy show about fifty years ago. The latter is 17ft. by 20ft.

In a case that came up in the London Law Courts last year a litigant mentioned that lie had painted a Derby Day picture 55ft. long by 12ft. high. Of the big Old Masters, two of the largest are the Tintoretto “Paradise,” in the Doge’s Palace at Venice, by 34ft., and the Michael Angelo mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 133 ft. by 43ft.