HIGH PRICE

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1933, Page 2

HIGH PRICE

FOR REMBRANDT PICTURE

SYDNEY, May 4

There lias been considerable controversy abou the decision of the trustees of the Melbourne Art Gallery to pay £21,500 for a selfportrait by Rembrandt it is stated that with the exchange added the total cost Avill be more than £26,000, and there is dispute among artists as to whether the expenditure of such a huge sum on one picture can be justified. The money is provided b.) the famous Felton bequest, tire proceeds from Avhich cannot be used for any other purpose but the purchase ol works of art. Purchases have not been extensive in recent years, and a large sum had accumulated.

Remarkable comment on the Melbourne purchase was made by Air J. S. Macdonald, Director of the Sydney Art Gallery, and one time Director pi the Melbourne gallery. “If the reproduction of this Rembrandt does not lie like a trooper,” he said, “I think the Melbourne people have been diddled again. Perhaps it might seem unfair lor me to say this, but I have been asked for my opinion, and that is my honest thought. From the reproduction it looks like a very poor thing indeed.” Asked to explain ivhat he. meant by “diddled again,” Mr Macdonald said: “Yes, for £6600 Melbourne purchased a Titian, and frankly it is very doubtful. Nobody is game to sivear it is a Titian, and I am sure that it novor came from his brush.”

In addition to tho turn pictures referred to by Mr Macdonald there are in Australia'' about 12 other valuable works of art, apart from etchings and panels. All are in Melbourne, and the most valuable are: A Van Eyck, £31,000; a Vn Dyck, £16,000; a. Tintoretto, £14,000; Raeburn, £8000; and a Raeburn, £3OOO. These, ivitli the Titian and the latest Rembrandt, bring the value of paintings by old masters noiv in Australia, to £107,500, but there are other valuable works by Turner, Memlijng, Reynolds, Zoffany, Goya, and a three-panel picture by an unknown early Flemish artist.

TRIPOLO’S WORK FOR £25,000.

(Australian Press Association.)

MELBOURNE, May 15. ! The Felton Bequest • Committee : has completed another expensive purchase, having paid £25,000 for Tripolo’s “Bam quet of Cleopatra,” a famous painting by the -Venetian master,: ivhich•' name from the Imperial Hermiriage collection' at St. Petersburg l of the Czar’s. •' The' picture 1 measures' {twelve by nine feet.