FINE AETS IN 1901. 



i-.mil. and among the other rooms special gal- 

 n-ries were assigned to special artists. One of 

 these contained 20 examples by Rodin, of which 

 his plaster group Les Bourgeois de Calais was 

 bought 'for the Venice New Gallery. In the in- 

 ternational Gallery was hung J. Lavery's portrait 

 of Mrs. Brown Potter on horseback, and excellent 

 portraits by J. S. Sargent. Lenbach's wonderful 

 portrait of 'Bismarck was exhibited on an easel. 



Miscellaneous. An interesting art note is 

 that the ruinous wall-painting The Last Supper, 

 bv Leonardo da Vinci, in the old refectory of 

 the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 

 is once more in the hands of restorers. This 

 noted picture, finished in 1498, which is 14 feet 10 

 inches high by 28 feet 3 inches long, has suffered 

 many vicissitudes. Its colors, mixed with a de- 

 fective oil medium, caused it to fade rapidly, 

 until it became little more than a shadow of its 

 original self. In 172G it was repainted by Bel- 

 lotti. and in 1770 by Mazza. In 1796, w T hen the 

 refectory was made into a stable against Na- 

 poleon's* orders, the picture w r as greatly damaged 

 by dragoons, and in 1800, when the room w 7 as 

 Hooded for fifteen days, it received further injury. 

 In 1883 it was again repainted by Barozzi. The 

 picture is best known by Raphael Morghen s en- 

 graving, but this w r as not made from the original 

 picture, as generally supposed. Morghen engraved 

 it in Florence from a drawing by Teodoro Mat- 

 teini, who undoubtedly took many details from a 

 opy of the original by Marco d'Oggionno, now in 

 the Royal Academy, London, in which the heads 

 are not closely copied. The present restoration is 

 said to be in the hands of three eminent experts, 

 one a bacteriologist, who are to do all that mod- 

 ern science can suggest to insure the preservation 

 of this celebrated work. 



The long-lost portrait of the Duchess of Devon- 

 shire, by Gainsborough, whose disappearance for 

 a quarter of a century has aroused the curiosity 

 of art lovers, has at last come to light, and found 

 its way back to its owners, the Messrs. Agnew, of 

 London. This famous picture, a full-length well 

 known through engravings, was exhibited at the 

 Royal Academy in 1783. It passed to a Mrs. 

 Maginnis, who sold it for 50 to Mr. Bently, 

 who sold it in turn to Wynn-Ellis for 63. At 

 the Wynn-Ellis sale in 1876 it was purchased by 

 the Messrs. Agnew for 10,100 guineas. When on 

 exhibition at the gallery of the New British In- 

 stitution, Bond Street, London, it was cut from 

 its stretcher and stolen, during the night of May 

 20-27, 1876, by persons unknown." Rumors of 

 its recovery have been frequent, but none have 

 been verified until now. It is said to have been 

 found in Chicago through the efforts of an agent 

 of the thieves, who are reported to have received 

 $25,000 for its return. It is also reported that 

 its owners, the Messrs. Agnew, sold it, soon after 

 its recovery, to Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan for $125,- 



Another theft of a valuable picture is reported 

 from Rome, where the masterpiece of Sassoferrato, 

 the Madonna del Rosario, has disappeared from 

 the Church of Santa Sabina, on the Aventine. It 

 is an upright picture rounded at top, measuring 

 4 by 2* feet, and represents the Madonna and 

 Child enthroned. The Child, seated on the Vir- 

 gin's knee, hands a rosary to St. Catharine of 

 Siena, who kneels on the right, while the Virgin 

 gives a similar one to St. Dominic, represented 

 as a young man with flaxen hair and beard, who 

 kneels on the left. Above are flying cherubs, and 

 below, at the foot of the throne, are white lilies 

 juid a wreath of roses. 



An extremely interesting art and archeological 



discovery is the finding by sponge-divers near the 

 island of Ceregotto, the ancient Anticythera, off 

 Cape Malea, the southernmost point of the Pelo- 

 ponnesus, of w r hat are apparently the remains of 

 an art-laden vessel, perhaps a Roman galley bear- 

 ing the spoils of Greece to enrich the Imperial 

 City. Among the articles recovered are bronze 

 and marble statues and fragments of statues of 

 the best period of Greek art, the fourth century 

 B. c., many corroded by long immersion in sea 

 water, but some in good preservation, especially 

 those that had been buried in the sand. The most 

 important bronze recovered is a lite-size Hermes, 

 of which the head, bust, and arms are in excel- 

 lent preservation, while enough of the body and 

 legs have been found to insure a complete restora- 

 tion. It is an admirable work of the period of 

 Praxiteles and Lysippus, the cast of the features 

 resembling that of the Hermes of Praxiteles found 

 at Olympia, but more noble and dignified. An- 

 other bronze statue, of a youth, is a remarkable 

 w r ork of the last half of the fifth century B. c., 

 and a third, a little later, represents the muscular 

 style of the Argive and Sicyonian schools. Other 

 finds are a marble statue of a youth, life-size, nu- 

 merous fragments of bronze and marble statues, 

 and a beautiful bronze statuette of Apollo, with- 

 out a head, standing on a base of red marble. 

 ' A discovery of importance to the history of 

 early Italian painting is the finding behind the 

 stalls of the choir on a wall facing the apse of 

 Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, of frescoes rep- 

 resenting the Last Judgment. They prove to be 

 works of the thirteenth century, by Pietro Caval- 

 lini, a Roman painter, pupil of Giotto, according 

 to Vasari, who died in 1344 at the age of eighty- 

 five. The only older series of Last Judgments 

 preserved in Italy are those in Sant Angelo in 

 Formis, near Capua, and those on the island of 

 Torcello, near Venice. 



Botticelli's Madonna of the Thorns, announced 

 last year as purchased by P. A. B. Widener, of 

 Philadelphia, is now said to belong to Mrs. John 

 L. Gardner, of Boston. The picture, discovered 

 in 1899 in the old Colonna Palace, was sold by 

 Prince Chigi to an unknown purchaser for $65,- 

 000. As the ftalian laws forbid the exportation 

 of a national art object until the Government 

 experts have examined it and granted the right, 

 Prince Chigi was sued for the sum obtained for 

 the picture, but on appeal the penalty was reduced 

 to $400. The state appealed from this decision, 

 and the case is still before the court at Perugia. 

 The picture was lately exhibited in London by 

 Messrs. Colnaghi, " by kind permission of Mrs. 

 John L. Gardner." 



A new Rembrandt, lately discovered in the pal- 

 ace at Compiegne, has been added to the national 

 collection in the Louvre. The picture, which rep- 

 resents the disciples going to Emmaus, was dis- 

 covered by a Dutch expert who detected its Rem- 

 brandtish qualities under layers of dust and var- 

 nish. When the canvas w 7 as cleaned Rembrandt's 

 signature was found upon it, and mention of it 

 has since been found in an old catalogue of pic- 

 tures belonging to the Crown. 



The Art Museum of Princeton University has 

 lately acquired a replica or a copy of Titian's 

 Magdalen of the Hermitage Gallery, St. Peters- 

 burg. The original, a canvas 3 feet 9 inches by 

 3 feet 3 inches, was painted in 1561 and is signed. 

 It represents the figure of the saint to the hip, 

 scantily clad in a white garment striped with red 

 and black, the well-developed bosom and throat 

 covered by long wavy hair. At the right are a 

 skull and open book, at the left a small vase. 

 Replicas of- this picture, with variations, are in 



