FORTUNATE DEAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20607, 22 December 1936, Page 11

FORTUNATE DEAL

PICTURE FOR FEW POUNDS

LONDON. November 21

Not long ago a furniture dealer in a small way of business picked up an old picture of a saint at prayer for a few pounds, writes A. C. R. Carter, in “The Daily Telegraph.” At a fair profit he sold it to another dealer, who, being puzzled by the panel, had the nous to take it to Christie’s.

At once Sir Alec Martin discerned that the work bore distinct traces of the style of the Paduan painter Andrea Mantegna <1431-1506), and that It probably depicted St. Jerome at his devotions in the desert. He thereupon catalogued the panel (19in by 14 Jin) as by Mantegna, inferring thereby that it was of strong claims to the master and his immediate school. The big dealers, who nowadays know much more about old masters than their predecessors of 30 years ago, instructed their ambushed agents to bid for them. The result was that, although Mr Edward South, acting for Dr. V. Bloch, fought hard throughout, the prize fell to Mr Betts at the goodly sum of 4200 guineas. The much larger panel by Mantegna, “The Agony in the Garden,” was bought from the Earl of Northbrook in 1894 for the National Gallery at only £l5OO. In 1883 the “Samson and Delilah,” from the Duke of Marlborough’s collection, cost 2250 guineas.