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Hokitika Guardian, 23 April 1928, Page 1

LOUVRE’S NEW GEM. PARIS. Jan. 31. At a recent sitting of the Academic des Inscriptions it was announced that the Louvre had bought the lamous head from the Parthenon known as the Laborde bead which, with the one in the British Museum, alone remains of all the figures which formerly decorated the Parthenon.

M. Mil-lion recalled that in 16x7. during a war between the \ euetinns and the Turks, Morosini. with a Venetian force, besieged the Acropolis. A bomb thrown by the \ enetians damaged the Parthenon. San Gallo. Mornsini’s secretary, brought back the head and hail it encrusted in the wall ol bis house. The house was pulled down 115 years later and the head was bought in 1824 by a German artist named Weber. Twenty years later the Comte Leon de Laborde, a former conservator of the Louvre, bought the head.

Although would-be American purchasers offered fabulous sums for the head, the family of Laborde refused to allow it to leave the country, anti have now ceded it to the Louvre at a price much below tbe American offers. The head is that of a young man with a singularly pure Greek profile and curly hair. 7 TONS OF FISH IN ONE NET. PARIS, Jan. 30. Seven tons of freshwater fish have been taken in a single net haul near Gien (Department of Loirct) in a lake belonging to the Marquis de Ganay. ! the French racecourse owner. The lake is dragged every year, hut yesterday the nets nearly broke with the catch. There were found 3001 b. of perch. 3.3001 b. of pike, and 11.0001 b. of carp. Most of the fish was sent to the Paris markets. Hauls of two or three tons have frequently been made in the lakes near Orleans, but this is so far a record for 1 a single petting.