A CURIOUS PICTURE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 93, 29 April 1880, Page 2

A CURIOUS PICTURE.

Danouvy News.

A curious picture was sold a few days since at the auction rooms in the Rue Drouot. It was purchased for eleven thousand francs by a well-known Parisian amateur. The peculiarity connected with the picture was the strange fact that it is painted upon human skin. Its origin is attributable to a shipwreck which occurred on a savage coast, and which led to the capture of a number of the victims by a party of Indiana. One of the shipwrecked was an artist, and as the ceremony of tatooing was being proceeded with by the Indians, the artist, who had saved his painting utensils and colors, volunteered to paint the grand chief. The offer was accepted, and the French .artist at puce painted a magnificent view of the harbor and the king’s palace on the breast of the savage. Towards the end of 1870 some of the Indian tribes revolted, and pursued by the Americans, several of thorn were killed or made prisoners ; one of the latter died in the hospital, and when his chest covering was withdrawn, the landscape in question, in an excellent state of preservation, was discovered on the breast of the Indian. A Frenchman purchased the body, took off the skin of the chest, bad it framed, and brought it to Paris, where it has been knocked down to the highest bidder by a tap from the auctioneer’s hammer.