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NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1935
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Notable Paintings Which Are Being Sold From the J.P. Morgan Collection

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[[photos caption]]Courtesy of M. Knoedler & Co.
At top: "St. Lawrence Enthroned," a triptych by Fra Filippo Lippi, which has been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The other paintings shown on this page are now being considered by prospective purchasers whose names have not been divulged [[/photos caption]]

Morgan Sells 2 Paintings to Metropolitan
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Morgan Library, 29 East Thirty-six Street, also declined to discuss the matter.

It was understood at Mr. Morgan's office that the sales were being made with a view to putting his estate into a more liquid condition.  As a matter of business, it was said, Mr. Morgan obviously would like to leave a well-balanced estate for his heirs, and there was a possibility that a little too much of his wealth was represented by works of art.  He is sixty-seven years old.

Since the present time is considered good for art sales, it was felt that Mr. Morgan probably was taking advantage of a rising market.  According to Mr. Henscel, Mr. Morgan still has a large collection of paintings inherited from His father, in addition to the many rare works in the Morgan Library.

According to Mr. Henschel, the sale of the Morgan pictures is an event of great importance to the international art world.

"The transactions are of great value in stimulating purchases by collectors and museums," he said.  "Pictures of such remarkable rarity as these are great pictures, and are of interest to all collectors and institutions.  This is the largest sale of its kind that I have handled since I helped dispose of some of the paintings in the Hermitage Museum, in Leningrad, in 1929 and 1930."

"Not Interested" in Buying

Mr. Henschel has been active in the transaction for about ten days.  Recently, he said, he approached Mr. Morgan regarding "an extremely important painting" which had come in the market, but the banker said he was not interested.  Then he asked Mr. Morgan if he would be interested in disposing of some of the works in his own collection, and after considerable thought Mr. Morgan agreed to place the six paintings on the market.

Mr. Henschel then announced privately that Knoedler's was acting as agents for Mr. Morgan, and began communicating with dealers, collectors and institutions all over the world.  He has had telephone calls from all parts of the country at all times of the day, he said, regarding the works, and hopes to be able to announce the sale of the remaining four pictures shortly.

The Ghirlandaio portait, Mr. Henschel said, was on an easel in the Pierpont Morgan library, where the Fra Filippo triptych also was displayed.  The other pictures were hung in Mr. Morgan's home at Glen Cove, L. I.  All the pictures originally were purchased by the late J.P. Morgan, father of the present owner.

At present the two Hals portraits are on private view on the fifth floor of Knoedler's.  The Lawrence portrait is being cleaned and reconditioned, while the Ghirlandaio is being examined for sale by a person whose identity Mr. Henschel would not reveal.  The Rubens and the Fra Fillipo Lippi will be exhibited soon at the Metropolitan Museum, according to Mr. Blumenthal.

Bought Early in Century

The Lippi triptych is one of the Florentine master's most mature works.  In addition to being a splendid example of oil painting in field where tempera was mostly used, it is highly prized for its association value.  Fra Filippo painted it about 1440 on the order of Cavaliere Messer Alessandro degli Alessandri, a prominent Florentine, who used it as an altar piece in the Church of Vincigliata, where he worshiped.  In the foreground the Cavaliere is represented as one of the small kneeling figures on the right, while his two sons are shown on the left.  The painting remained in the church until the edifice was rebuilt in 1790, when it was transferred to the Palazzo Alessandro degli Albrizzi, where it remained until the elder Morgan bought it.

According to Mr. Henschel, it is extremely rare for Renaissance paintings to remain in the hands of their original owners for so long a period.  The late Mr. Morgan acquired most of pictures now being sold in the early years of this century, he said.

In the center panel is St. Lawrence, the martyr, in a green mantle profusely embroidered in gold, seated on a carved throne.  In his right hand he holds a palm, while in his left is a closed book.  Serving as a footstool is a gridiron, the symbol of the saint, who was a deacon of the Roman Church and perished during the persecutions of Valerian in the year 258.  Standing at his sides are two saints, while the wings of the triptych each show another saint, dressed in a monk's garb.

The gridiron became St. Lawrence's symbol, because of the somewhat apochryphal legend that he was executed by minions of the emperor by burning on a red hot frame.

One of the Great Italians

Fra Filippo was one of the great painters of the Italian quatrocanto,
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who infused religious painting of the time with the deep current of Florentine humanism.  He was born in 1406 and at an early age became a student in the Carmelite monastery in Florence.  Although he took his vows as a monk with scant seriousness, the religious motive was preeminent in his pictures.  His natural son was the painter Filippino Lippi, well known in the art history of the later fifteenth century.  Fra Filippo died in 1469.

Rubens's portrait of Anne of Austria was painted between 1622 and 1625, about the time that he was engaged in a variety of vast undertakings, including paintings in Antwerp, Paris and Spain, and diplomatic missions.  The Queen is shown facing toward the left, with a background of hangings and decorated walls.  She is dressed in full regalia of her rank and position.

Belonged to Duke of Marlborough

Anne was the elder daughter of King Philip III, of Spain, and was born in Madrid on September 22, 1601.  After being demanded in marriage by the Emperor of Abyssinia, which behest her father refused, she was married by proxy to King Louis XIII on October 18, 1615, at Burgos,
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Spain.  A few weeks later the ceremony was performed with both principals present at Bordeaux.  She died in 1666.

Rubens, the greatest master of the Flemish School, was born at Siegen, Westphalia, in 1577, and after a life of the most prodigious artistic output, died in 1640.  Many of his best paintings were produced shortly before his death.

The Rubens portrait belonged to the Duke of Marlborough, who hung it in his seat at Blenheim, until 1886, when it was bought in by his family during a sale of his paintings.  It remained in the possession of Lily, Duchess of Marlborough, until Mr. Morgan purchased it.

Domenico di Tommaso di Bigordi, called Ghirlandaio, was essentially a fresco painter, and only a few of his portraits are extant.  The one of Giovanna degli Albrizzi, wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, is among the most renowned of his works.  It was painted in 1488, at the time when he also painted the well-known "Adoration of the Magi," in the Church of the Innocenti at Florence.  Three years before the subject of the portrait commissioned him to renew the frescoes in the choir of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which is now
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known as one of his greatest productions.

On the portrait is the following Latin inscription:

Ars Vtinam Mores
Animvm Qve Effingere
Posses Pulchrior in Ter
Ris Nvlla Tabella Foret
MCCCCLXXXVIII

which, roughly translated, reads: "Art, couldst thou but depict character and mind, there would be no more beautiful picture in the world."

The portrait was in the collections of the Tornabuoni and Pandolfini families of Florence for many years.  Before 1824 it was known to have vanished from Italy, probably through the arrival and departure of Napoleon's armies.  It turned up in the collection of Baron Achille de Seilliere, of Paris, and was bequeathed in 1873 to his daughter, Mme. de Sagan.  In 1876 the picture went to London, for the collection of Henry Willet, and after several years it returned to Paris as part of the famous collection of Rodolphe Kann.  The elder Morgan bought it in 1907.

Ghirlandaio was born in 1449 and died in 1494.  Like most of the painters of his period, he was apprenticed to a craft, in his case goldsmithing, before studying painting and fresco.  His son Ridolfo, though also a painter, is not well known.

Sir Thomas Lawrence's painting of Miss Farren also has a great association value.  It was made in 1790, when Lawrence was but twenty-one years old and on the threshold of his fame.  As Miss Farren, a famous actress in the Haymarket and the Drury Lane Theaters, entered his studio he impulsively commanded her to stop.  She held her pose for a moment and Lawrence said he would paint her in just that position.  The picture firmly established him as one of the leaders of Early English School, and according to a contemporary newspaper account he was highly praised for it.

"Mr Lawrence, young as he is," reads the clipping, "treads already on the kibe of the moset eminent of his profession."  The picture was widely exhibited and critics of the day compared the artist with the mature Sir Joshua Reynolds.  Later Lawrence was knighted and eleceted president of the Royal Acadamy.  He died in 1830.

Miss Farren, whose first name was Elizabeth or Eliza, was born in Cork, Ireland, the daughter of a surgeon and apothecary.  She became a strolling player with her mother and sisters at an early age, and after a long apprenticeship in the provinces she made her first London appearance at the Hay-[[clipping cut off here]]
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[[images: at the top of the page is the triptych "St. Lawrence Enthroned;" below the tryptych are portraits captioned: "Miss Farren," by Sir Thomas Lawrence; and "Giovanna Tornabuoni," by Domenico Ghirlandaio.  Below those are two portaits captioned: "De Heer Bodolphe," by Frans Hals; and "Merrow Bodolphe," by Hals.]]

Transcription Notes:
This is not the same as page 10 in this collection, which is NYT January 29th (but looks the same at first glance)