STUDIES FROM THE NUDE.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 April 1919, Page 3

STUDIES FROM THE NUDE.

When does a study from the nude by a world-famed artist, cease to be simply " a thing of beauty," and degenerate into an indecent or obscene production ? Apparently this happens as soon as the celebrated painting is reproduced in the form of a picture post-cards. At any rate this seems the only conclusion possible, judging by the Magisterial decision in a case heard at Auckland Police Court a day or two ago, when a Queen Street stationer and his wife were charged with selling certain "indecent documents" to a plainclothes Constable. The said " indecent documents " were reproductions in miniature, of the well-known paintings "Venus Asleep," " The Three Graces," " The Satyr and the Bacchante," and others, and formed items of a series of what are known as '"art post - cards." After hearing counsel for the defendants, who pleaded that his clients had acted in good faith in offering the cards for oale, although they made it a rule not to sell them to young people, but supplied them almost entirely to adults interested in art, the Magistrate summed up.