ROMANCE OF THE AUCTION ROOM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8056, 26 February 1906, Page 2

ROMANCE OF THE AUCTION ROOM.

Kveryone has I'elt a certain thrill when present a big auction sale; there is an iindelinablc romance about the most humdrum transnclion if gone through with io the accompaniment of the auctioneer's hammer. In the many good stories of famous sales which, apI near in the Christmas number of' Pearson s Magazine,' this romance is well shown. .\'o auction sale had more oj. romance in i| than tha' at which Gainsborough's portrait of Ihe Duchess ol Devonshire was sold. We , |uo (e „„ account ol this extraordinary affair from the article in • IVarsonV : - "A lainous sale in nuclion annals was that of the Wynn IClli.s collection m May, 18,5, lor at il the celebrated portrait of Gcorgiua, Duchess of Devonshire, by Gainsborough, fetched l(l,l()<hi guineas. A few days hilcr London was pelrilied with astonishment to learn that Ihe picture had been stolen Iroiu the rooms of ils purchaser, Mr Agncw, ut Old Bond street, having been cut out of Ihe frame during the night. A reward of .CI,t)()t) was offered, and for many years police investigation went on, but without success. The following year a portrait purporting | 0 be, 'The orignal and laments portrait of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire,' was exhibited, but found io be an impudent fraud.' Other so-called originals have made then' appearance from time t 0 time but only last year the picture itself imule a dramatic reappearance in London. It had, it seems, been stolen by Adam Worth, an American proles, sionai criminal, who, has since died in ICngland. The robbery i\as carried oul under coyer of a London log, and was not undertaken for Ihe purpose of making mouev, but to induce Mr Agncw In go bail for one ol Worth's burglar Mends, who was und-r arrest in Paris. The picture was nailed into the false bottom of a trunk ami smuggled to America, The hue and cry prevented Worth from coming forward, but eventually, through the meditation of two men, named Pat Sliced}' and liobcrt l'inkcrton, the painting was restored to the Agncw i'amily. Mr Aguew eventually sold it to Mr l'ierpont Morgan, in whose possession, it now remains, for the sum of £4000."