FORTUNES IN THE PAINT-BOX.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 187, 11 September 1909, Page 3

FORTUNES IN THE PAINT-BOX.

£72 picture sold at auction FOl! £23,000. When J. M. W. Turner, "the littlo Jewish-nosed man, in an ill-cut brown tail-coat, striped waistcoat, and enorurihs frilled shirt," painted luU glorious canvases in his squalid studio-attic ami was thankful to sell the best <«f them for a ft'w dive-pound notes, he little dreamed that a day would come when some Hjf them would find eager purchasers glad to pay a thousand pounds for every live pounds he 'was a'ble 'to put inilo his" pocket; or Unit, as was laljsiy proved, his wonderful painting of tho burning of the Wouses of Parliament would one day realise over £13,000 — more than a hundred times as much as he received for it. And so it • hn> often been with the great magicians of the palcKc. They produced their immortal works for sums liarelv suflicient to "keen the wolf from the door,'' while later generations have paid more 'for one of them than the artist earned with a whole lifetime of labor.

ABOUT.' MILLET. When Jean Francois .Millet, the peasant-artist, first luegun his art career he was thankful to paint .portraits at ten or fifteen francs apiece—portraits which to-day would be snapped up 'or thousands oi' pounds. When lie painted liis worWMaiuous "Angelus" lie was i - ing ''from band to mouth" in a tiny cottage at Barbizou; and lie was tr.i''--ported with delight at .receiving t. /- for it. "A year's income for a s'iiiuh' canvas!" he exclaimed, jubilantly, as i.e feasted his eyes on his new-found | 'wealth. Thirty years later this very picture fetched £23,220 at the Sccretan eaile in Paris. . Sir Joshua Reynolds 'was quite Telighted to sell his portrait of "Mrs. Siddone as the Tragic Muse" for £l5O, considering the sum quite a handsome return <for a few weeks' work, fcot Ion" ago this canvas "was- bought l>y a well-known dealer for the enormous sum of £17,000, and actually resold "oy hhu within a week far £SOOO more. When George Romney, the Lancashire carpenter's son, hid been practising his art for some years he travelled through the North of Englaud executing likenesses at a couple of guineas each, with, occasionally, his "bed and board" thrown in. In his more prosperous years he considered £SO a handsome sum for one of his portraits, and this was 'the price actually paid for his •'Georgiana, Wife of Lord J. Townsend," nhich°a short time ago was knocked down for 3150 guineas. Only a few years ago Gainsborough portrait of "Frederick Duke of York" realised 2500 guineas. What the artist himself received for it, unfortunate'.} wc do not know; but we do know thai it was acquired at the Bickncll sale in fortieth of its later value. GaiU3 borough's "Right Hon. Wm. Pitt," foi ' which the artist was paid £IOO, has been 'bought for 2300 guineas quite rv ' cently, and at the same sale two othci • Gainsborough canvases realised 410( ' guineas, or, roughly, forty times tin ; price paid bv the original purchaser. I 1 £30,000 FOR A PICTURE. ; It is unfortunate that 'we do not ' know what sum Titian received for his ' portrait of Ariosto, which was secured 1 a short time ago for £30,000 for our ' National Gallery; what was the prico paid to Raphael for his Ansidci Maf donna, for which ithc Dnkc o ifMarl--1 borough received £70.000; and what ' were the original prices of Van Dyek's ! £17,500 portrait of Charles I. and of ; Paul Veronese's "Family of Darius," 1 which cost us £13,G50. B j John Cromc, the Sorwicli houseB painter, was a proud man when he could ' sell one of his 'beautiful landscapes for any sum from £1 to £5, and lie would have held his good honest sides in laughter if anvone had told him that one day a couplc'of his canvases. "On the Yare," would fetch £3050. i DRUNKARD AND GENIUS. And the same story is told of George llorland, drunkard and genius. And yet Morland could paint better when drunk iha almost any of his rivals .when In bis last eight years of dissipation b, "produced nearly 000 paintings and more than 1000 drawings; and of his paintings the greater number were snapped up C !by dealers—some for as lititle as 30s Only" the other day two of these 30s canvases" found purchasers for £OOO. — [ Home paper.