FIGHT FOR PICTURES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1913, Page 10

FIGHT FOR PICTURES

THE LATE SIR H. LAYARD'SCOLLECTION. ■ Simultaneously with the publication last month of the will of the late Lad^,' Layard, the London Chronicle received from its Milan correspondent a telegram', giving further details of the efforts which, are being made in Italy to prevent our' National Gallery from obtaining possession of the famous collection of pictures which reverted to the institution on her ladyship's death. Lady Layard was tho widow of Sir Henry Layard, formerly British Ambassador in Tin key and elsewhere, and ho got together n magnificent collection of Italian paintings—one of the finest in private hands— and housed them at Ca'' Gapello, his residence in Venice. In his will he stipulated that on the death of his widow (which occurred last month) they should be removed from Venice and sent to the National Gallcrv. Sir Charles Holroyd, Director of the "Gallery, 13 now in Paris after « visit to Venice, to make an inventory of the collection. The coirespondpnt states that tho public movement calling- upon the Italian Government to veto, under the existing laws relating to Italian works of art, the removal of tho pictures to London 5e gaining powerful support in artistic and political circles. Of the seven chief masterpieces, says the Corriere della Sera, the Ministry of Fine Arts has already forbidden the removal from Italy of the splendid portrait at first attributed to of Messina. t It ia further proved, adds the Italian journal, that Lady Layard's protest, six years back, that the entire Collection was introduced into Venice from abroad is inexact. It has been discovered that Bellini's "Adoration of the Magi" was sold to Sir Henry Layard in Venice in 1866 by a local antiquary named Favenza. who had purchased the canvas from Count Thienne, of Vicenaa, in which city this and dther pictures now in the Layard gallery formed an integral and ihalienable part of- the patrimony I of St. Bortolo'g Chapeli i Savoldo's "St. Jetotne in tho Desert" and "The Adoration of the Magi," by Bramantino, it is also asserted, camo from the Manfrin collection. Sir Henry paying 60 Napoleons for the latter picture. - A writer in the Chronicle states that some years ago he received assurance from Lady Layard that the wishes of her late husband would > not be defeated Jby legal intervention, and that the eventual removal of the pictures would not be affected by the law which the Italian instihet of self-preservation had passed, "The restrictions," she wrote, "have in this case been taken off by agreement between the Italian and our Government."