NEGLECTED FORTUNES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5319, 29 August 1928, Page 4

NEGLECTED FORTUNES.

ARTICLES IN CURIOSITY SHOPS. RARE PRIZES TO BE FOUND. In those, most fascinating tales of old Arabia the owner. of the magician)]) cOjiild have his every wish immediately granted. In real life good foitune comes not so easily. But now and again, by the strange working of that magical thing called luck, a person here and there stumbles upoai a fortune- in the mc>st unexpected manner . One of the most remarkable examples of this has just come to light in Paris. It is. of course, the dream an.d desire of every collector of antiques 01 paintings so,me time to come, upon, a lind qf great value, and to buy it fojr a few pounds. But to have, this- great good fortune granted you, and then not even know your astounding luck, is the most unusual story ojf Mrs Mary Louise- Westmoreland 1 , who in Paris just a short time ago bought for, the sum of £-1 a great work of which accoi’ding to experts, is worth some £B,OOO. It is said that lightning never, strikes- twice in the ; same place, but certainly luck does. And if luck had not repeated itself in an amazing way, Mite Westmoreland might have looked for the rest of her life af a picture hanging on her apartment wall in Paris, and never, known :how great was the value of her chance-found treasure. On the Boulevard Pereire in Paris —truly a city where anything queer may happen—stanefe a junk shop- a small an;d dingy place, cluttered with such a medley of okl furniture, bronzes, statues, pictures, ancient arms, and the- like that there is hardly ro.oni for a customer to; move about. Even the low rafters are 16a,ded with ancient things. Over one of the rafters hung i an o.ld canvas. For ten years it had'laid thus ignored and neglected until .the accumulating dust and cobwebs of industrious spiders almost 'hid the portrait painted upon it. The fat old woman who kept the- shop had forgotten, its existence. Whence the canvas came she had no recollection. Dirty and-worthless-, it rested upon the rafters. A small portion of it hung down, revealing the head or a woman, wearing a coronet In this position it lay, as- it had for the, last teji years, until one spring day in the year 1924’ when Mrs Westmoreland came wandering into the shop. The picture held iher attention, and for two widely varied rca.sbiu. First, because- the eyes, and nose of the woman reminded her of hen eldest?daughter ; and, second, because the picture had that indescribable something about it- which speaks from a real Work of art. And Mrs Westmoreland, while- no expert, had an odd instinct which recognised this-- subtle something, an instinct which had proved true on two previous occasions. Yielding to her “hunch,” 'or whatever one likes to call that feeling which moye.s people to action in ®,ome cases, she asked the owner to, take down the picture.. But the dealer was fat and bld and; without- imagination. For ten, years the canvas had hung ignored. In spite of the old lady’s- protest that madame would not want the pie--lure, Mrs Westmoreland .insisted, until very reluctantly the propretor bought the chair.' This was, however, as far -she would go, into the matter. If madame really wanted the picture she co.uld climb up and take it down, duet and all. Such things do happen in “Alice in Wonderland” — and in Paris.

In a cloud of dust , the American buyer brought down her trophy. Full inspection showetr the remarkable likeness to her daughter. Also the colouring, so delicate, so sure, attracted the amateur art collector. So she. bought the portrait for £4. The happy buyer carried her purchase home, dusted it, Iliad it framed, and hung it upon .the wall of her apartment on the Cha.inps-Elysees. Then, the goddess Chance, one spring day in the year 1928, once more took a hand in the proceedings, proving once again the saying that a. great work of art will always be found cut; There called on.e afternoion at tlie home of Mrs Westmoreland, upon a matter of business, M. zlr.drc Sin.et, so ( n of the distinguished French artist, and himself an a-uthorhy of standing in tlie world of painting, who pronounced it a Goya, and most pi'pl-ably a work of the painter’s latter years. I'kely some time after his great ser'es of portraits of the famous people of tlie 18th century was completed'. The announcement of tlie discovery caused great excitement in Spain, where the Government has for years been carefully tracing up all the known works of Goya.

Two noted authorities at once hurried to Paris to view the find, an.d .■rom-tb.a design of'the coionet worn by the woman in the portrait it is now believed the entir.ei history of the picture may ne traced. While perhaps most of the import' taut discoveries of old masters . arcniad'e. by the people with some knowledge of- painting,s,- there, aie many

valuable finds accidentally acquired by those wholly ignorant of art- Such is the ease of Mr Finnigan, Dublinwho last year purchased the lost Romney with -junk taken from the historic Kilmainl'am Castle, near Dublin. This portrait is of LoM Nelson at'the age. of 12- and has been widely searched for during the last hundred! years. Fn|nigan thought nothing, about the ca-nva.s unt’’l he, read in the papers an account of the. search being made foi» the, lost Romiiuv of Nelson, which was wanted for the British national collection. Finnigan took the painting in Londqn, where a dealer olf-e-red him £lB,OOO. Two. years- ago an original Titian “Venus and the Organ Player.” was discovered by Dr- Ott<j Buchat-1 in a little out-of-the-v, ay antique shop in Berlin. Burchard, a famous art historian, recognised the Titian at once. A cleaning brought out- tire clean colours of a typical Titian, especially the deep blue sky. Offers have- been made fur other Titians as high as £250.000. These discoveries, made during the last several years, sonic by actual search an,d others by accident, show the great value of things antique- m art. They are pi’iceJess and no definite- money value- can lie set upon them unless they are said, which, of cour.-c the true collector is loath to do, unless pressed for money. The senjse of satisfaction derived froan disco,very is hardly less than that of creation.