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TELEPHONE BEEKMAN 3-452B

WM. K. DREWES & CO.
ART APPRAISERS
100 WILLIAM STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y.

REGARDING A CANVAS ATTRIBUTED TO ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO.
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touched, it still retains a display of energy and rhythm and shows Pollaiuolo's "power to directly communicate life, to immensely heighten our sense of vitality". Pollaiuolo in composition, drawing and coloring is always the disciplined Master.
  In the "Rape of Proserpine by Pluto", on the other hand, the composition, drawing and color reveal a general sloppiness that is impossible in a Pollaiuolo. Instead of the energy that permeates all of the Master's works we find stagnancy.
  The tendency of an artist to repeat certain details unconsciously in the same way that any handwriting shows certain characteristics, is as important a sign of authenticity to the expert and critic as a genuine or fake signature is to a bank teller.
  The infinitesimal curves and lines, the peculiar employment of certain spots of color and light and shade may mean very little standing alone, as many of them can be repeated by a clever copyist. But the recombining of them is so habitual for any artist, great or small, that in the expert's minute examination fine differences will be revealed that show at once the master or the copyist.
  Pollaiuolo's face are always Italian and Patrician, even when fierce and threatening, always faces of quality in which the mouth shows a natural firmness. The faces in the disputed canvas