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at forty percentum ad valorem. An illustrious parade of witnesses, including sculptor Jacob Epstein, critics Henry MacBride and Forbes Watson and "Vanity Fair" editor Frank Crowninshield, appeared in the third district Customs Court to defend the "natural form" of the sleek, airplane propellor-like shaft. They admitted it had neither "head nor feet nor feathers" and Steichen confessed that if he "would see it in a forest," he "would not take a shot at it."

But they also made such eloquent bird-defenses as this statement of Crowninshield: "It has the suggestion of flight, it suggests grace, aspiration, vigor, coupled with speed, in the spirit of strength, potency, beauty just as a bird does."

The significant fact is that no one put forth any claim that a bird was represented in its "true proportions of length, breadth and thickness." And it was this clause in particular, so dear to academic sculptord, which was forever after rendered negligible by Judge Waite's decision. Recognizing that under earlier decisions the Brancusi would not have been acceptable as a work of art, he said in part: "...there has been developing a so-called new school of art, whose exponents attempt to portray abstract ideas rather than to imitate natural objects...The object now under consideration is...beautiful and symmetrical in outline, and while some difficulty might be encountered in associating it with a bird, it is nevertheless pleasing to look at and highly ornamental, and as we hold under the evidence that it is the original production of a professional sculptor...we sustain the protest and find that it is entitled to free entry."

As a result of this decision, although the natural form requirement is still binding, an abstract or stylized version is acceptable. Thus, where-