Fortunes in Junk Piles

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 394, 30 June 1928, Page 24

Fortunes in Junk Piles

“Collector’s Luck”... Rare Prizes Found In Most Unlikely Places.,. A £4 Purchase Brings Lucky Owner £B,OOO ■ N those fascinating tales of old Arabia the owner of the magic lamp could have his every wish immediately granted. In real life good fortune comes not so easily. But now and again, by the strange working of that magical thing men call luck, a person here and there stumbles upon a fortune in the most unexpected manner. One of the most remarkable examples of this has just come to light in Paris. It is, of course, the dream and desire of every collector of antiques or paintings some time to come upon a find of great value and buy it for 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 of Mrs. Mary Louise Westmoreland, who in Paris just a short time ago bought for the sum of £4 a great work of art which, according 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, Mrs. Westmoreland might have looked for the rest of her life at 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—stands a junk shop, a small and dingy place, cluttered with such a medley of old furniture, bronzes, statues, pictures, ancient arms and the like that there is hardly room for a customer to move about. Even the low rafters are loaded with ancient things. Over one of the rafters hung an old canvas. For ten years it had lain 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 of a woman wearing a coronet. In this position it lay, as it had for the last ten years, one spring day in the year 1924 when Mrs. Westmoreland came wandering into the shop. The picture held her attention; and for two widely varied reasons, First, because the eyes and nose of the woman reminded her of her 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 moves people to action in some cases, she asked the owner to take down the picture. But the dealer was fat and old 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 picture, Mrs. Westmoreland insisted, until very reluctantly the proprietor brought a chair. This was, however,

as far as she would go in the matter. If madame really wanted the picture she could climb up and take it down, dust 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 showed the portrait to have a 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, had it framed and hung it upon the wall of her apartment on the Champs-Elysees. Then the goddess Chance, one spring day in the year 1925, once more took a hand in the proceedings, proving once a/gain the saying that a great work of art will always be found out. There called one afternoon at the home of Mrs. Westmoreland, upon a matter of business, M. Andre Sinet, son of the distinguished French artist, and himself an authority of standing in the world of painting, who pronounced it a Goya, and most probably a work of the painter’s latter years, likely some time after his great series of portraits of the famous people of the 18th century was completed. The announcement of the 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, and from the design of the coronet worn by the woman in the portrait it is now believed the entire history of the picture may be traced. While perhaps most of the important discoveries of old masters are made by people with some knowledge of paintings, there are many valuable finds accidentally acquired by those wholly ignorant of art. Such is the case of Mr. Finnigan, in Dublin, who last year purchased the lost Romney with junk taken from the historic Kilmainham Castle, near Dublin. This portrait is of Lord Nelson at the age of 12 and has been widely searched for during the last hundred years. Finnigan thought nothing about the canvas until he read in the papers an account of the search being made for the lost Romney of Nelson, which was wanted for the British national collection. Finnigan took the painting to London, where a dealer offered him £IB,OOO. Two years ago an original Titian, “Venus and the Organ Player,” was discovered by Dr. Otto Burchard in a little out-of-the-way antique shop in Berlin. Burchard, a famous art historian, recognised the Titian at once. A cleaning brought out the clear colours of a typical Titian, especially the deep blue sky. Offers have been made for other Titians as high as £250,000. These discoveries, made during the last seveial years, some by actual search and others by accident, show the great value of things antique in art. They are priceless and no definite money value can be set upon I them unless they are sold, which, of course, the true collector is loth to do unless pressed for money. The sense of satisfaction derived from discovery is hardly less than that of creation.