THE STOLEN MURILLO.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 265, 17 April 1875, Page 3

THE STOLEN MURILLO.

The following account of the recovery in New York of the Murillo stolen from the Seville Cathedral is given in the New York Nation :—“ On the 7th January the Spanish consul was informed by Mr William Schaus, the expert and art importer, that a canvas corresponding with the missing part of the altar-piece had been offered to him by some Spanish strangers. Senor de Uriarte saw the picture, and compared it with the photograph of the original furnished to all Spanish consuls, which it proved to match precisely. The photograph in question shows the entire subject of St. Anthony of Padua beholding the vision of the Holy Child Jesus, the exact outline of the cutting being represented by a white trace. The cut portion, less than a fourth part of the canvas, contains the kneeling form of the saint, as represented in the lower right hand corner of the composition. The stolen figure had not been cut into strips as reported, except that one corner of the cloth, where the purloiner’s knife had made an awkward slant at the most distant part of its orbit, was mended out by the addition of a supplementry triangle. The fragment, forming a rough oval about 7ft high, had been tacked to a new square American-made stretcher, and had previously been very badly handled, the eye and nose, as seen in the profile, having almost entirely peeled off; the cloth had obviously been packed for concealment, like a smuggled shaivl or tapestry, without much care for its profitable preservation. The person holding it, apparently a catspaw, offered it to the dealer at almost any price, and when pressed to name a figure suggested only 250 dols or 800 dol; for the former sum it was secured by M. Schaus, who passed it the consul within twenty-four hours for the mere reimbursement of his outlay, though the rewards offered by the political and ecclesiastical authorities amount, we are told, to 60,000 dols. There are indications that the holders of the painting were considerably embarrassed with their possession, and had previously attempted to pass it off Avith a score of indifferent Spanish canA T asses to a picturecleaner, Mr Vollmering. The consul, being duly notified, arrested the seller at the time of his completing the bargain with the money in his pocket. He calls himself Fernando Garpia, and protests innocence, though he had represented the painting to Mr Schaus as a treasure long owned in his family. In company Avith a detective he has returned to Spain again with his picture, by way of Havanna. Thus the chapel in the Seville Cathedral regains, if there is no counterfeiting in the case, its complete altar-piece; and the saint, having travelled 6000 miles on his knees, resumes his old station after a wider career than those of Raphael’s cartoons or the Elgin marbles.”