OLD MASTERS

Shannon News, 12 October 1926, Page 4

OLD MASTERS

VICISSITUDES OF TUB SALES,

THE TRIUMPH OF ROMNEY.

The extrordinary increase that has occurred in the value cf the works of the great masters of the 18th century British School during the past twentyfive years is emphasised by the sale of the Romney portrait of Mrs Davenport at Christie's fo,r the record auction price of £60,900. Less than fifty years ago this charming out-of-doors study of the pretty wife of a Cheshire M.P. would have failed to realise more than £IOOO to £ISOO if'put up for auction. In 1872 "Old Wood," of Christie's, wanting a picture for his den, paid 28 guineas for Romney's "Stanhope Children," and on his death thirtyfour years later this same picture realised 4600 guineas.

At the first Hamilton Palace sale in 1882 the highest price for a Romney was 1320 guineas, but in 1913 the whole art world was thrilled when the same painter's full length portrait of Anne Lady d e la Pole broke all records by realising £42,370.

In 1919 this amazing price was surpas/setf wren from an opening bid of 10,000 guineas the beautiful Romney portrait of the Misses Beckford went to the astounding figure of £54, 600. ,

Five-Shilling Portrait And yet at the sale of the contents of Romney's studio in 1807 a portrait, of Joe Beckford made only five shillings, several others made under a £1 apiece and the highest price in the sale was £6B. -,:

It is very doubtful if Romney ever received more than £3OO for any one picture. His charges were considerably less than those of Reynolds, ranging from 20 guineas for a threc<iuarter to 80 guineas for a whole length, and though an indefatigable worker, often painting for 13 hours a day, the sum paid for his portrait of Mrs Davenport undoubtedly far exceeds his total earnings for the forty years during which he worked. The auction history of Romney's two, great rivals, Reynolds and Gainsborough, cannot compare with his for exciting incident, but it should be put on record that Gainsborough's "Market Cart," sold in 1913 for £2O, 160, only co/3t its owner 4,500 guineas less than twenty years before; Reynolds* "Earl and Countess of Ely," sold in 1920 for £11,340, was bought in 1891 for 651 guineas; and the same painter's famous portrait of Mrs Siddons as the "Tragic Muse," sohi with Gainsborrough's "Blue Boy" to Mr H. P. Huntington for £200,000, only cost the Earl Grosvenor £1537 in 1823. ■ Cheap Raeburns. Less than fifty years ago one could j buy 'cheap Raeburns. At the sale held by the artist's family in 1887, 50 I magnificent portraits by the Scots Velasquez failed to produce moro than . £SOOO all told, though many no*-\ would fetch £20,000 apiece. At present Raeburn's auction record is £25,410, paid for his virile portrait of "The Macnab," in 1917. It was bought by Lord Dewar, and hangs in his office in the Haymarket. Old Crome. whose auction record is nearly £IO,OOO, sold when he could for £SO, and Richard Wilson, the father of the English landscape, starved in many lodgings. < Turner's orgies of colour were realts-i

ing four figures during his lifetime, but even that astute and businesslike little man could never have forseen that a single of his works, "Rockets and Blue Lights," would attain an auction value of £25,800. In 1884, for instance, a portrait by Franz Hals was sold at Christie's for the modest sum' of £5. Exactly thirty years later it appeared at Sotheby's rooms, and was bought for Holland for £9OOO, the rich Dutch collectors having begun to admire the work of their old masters again. "The Laughing Cavalier" in 'the Wallace collection once sold for £BO. Now it would fetch £40,000. Since then several of • Hals' paintings have changed hands privately for over £50,000 apiece, while one of his portraits. "Joseph Coymans," whiOh was bought by Sir George Drummond , one of Montreal's princes of commerce, for £2500, realised £26,775 at auction. Rembrant died bankrupt, and yet his masterpiece," "The Mill," was sold by Lord Lansdowne to Mr Widener, the American millionaire, for £IOO, 000.

To qome to the Italian school, thre e pictures by Carpaccio, Botticelli and Verrochio, which cost Lady Abdy £2250, produced a total,j)f £30.550 in 1911; in Berlin sold In 1903 for £4OOO made £29,500 in 1912; and Titian's "Man With a Red Cap," which made £13,650 in the Grenfell sale in the year of the war, only cost 2100 guineas in 1906. Only Trees. Forty years ago £IOOO for a Corot was unknown. "They are only trees and water," said the scoffers. Now his "Birdnesters" is worth £13,650, though it cost its owner only £SOO, and in New York his "Fishermen", sold for £16,100. On the other sid e of the picture we find a steady and ruthless revalua" tion of mid-Victorian art, especially the work of Landseer and Leslie, Philip, Frith, Ford, and Webster, many of whose pictures were readily bought by wealthy Midland manufacturers for £SOOO and more in the 'GO'S and *7o's.

Falling Prices.

In a list taken at random one find 3 42 of these pictures purchased at a to ( tal cost of £50,000, realising no more than £9500 when again submitted to the ordeal of auction. They include Leslie's "Falstaff," sold in 1887 for £1522 and for £126 in 1910; Stacy Marks' "St. Francis and the Birds," also sold in ISB7 for £1155 and for £lO5 in 1913; John Philip's "Selling Relics" depreciated