The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-10-24
spO0K PICTURES TO Be SOLD,
POLICE HAVE HAD'EM sINCE DJSs
BAR FOOLED LUTHER MARSH.
After Twelve Years in the Headquarters
Cellar They've Now been Restored for
an Auction-Maybe They Might He
Old Masters. Says the AuctiOneer,


Tn. .spook" pictures with which Ann
oDels Diss De Bar fooled the late Luther
R Marsh about fifteen years ago have
heen rescued from the cellar at Police
Headquarters and are to be sold at auction
There are Al Of the canvases. They have
been restored and will be placed on exhi-
hilton in Silo's Fifth avenue art galleries
today as preliminary to their sale.
The pictures, which were seized when
rtss De Bar was arrested in this city fot swim
ding Marsh have been slowed away in the
cellar at Headquarters for twelve years or
more and that hasn't done them any good
The Job of restoring has taken months. In
one picture alone. life size Cr,Icifxion,
alleged TO be by Guido REM, eleven holes
had been punched or worn through the
oanvas while it was in Headquarters. All
the rest had been damaged more or less
when the courts ordered the property
clerk AT Police Headquarters TO turn the
PICTURES over to Alfred Pagelow. counsel
for the estate Of s. l.. Lowenherts who was
A well known picture dealer in University
place twenty years ago and one of Diss
De Bars victims.
1t has been asserted frequently and as
often denied by persons Of sound judy
ment that some of the pictures we're genli-
inc old masters Mr. Silo said yesterday:
We have been informed by an expert that
one Of the two Vandyke portraits in the
collection ia undoubtedly genuine and that
the other is at least very good copy
It was by her tricks with The ~ pictures
more than by any other chicanery that Diss
De Bar succeeded in deluding Luther r.
Marsh into thinking that she was a spirit
lalist priestess. She cajoled Lowenhertz
INTO letting her have the paintings and
took them to Marsh's homn in Madison
avenue But first she coated them with
chalk. which at little distance in the
dim mysterious light in which the swinder
touched canvass.
Posing as the spirit of one of the old mas
ters. the woman made her mystic passes
over canvas with a wet sponge con-
cealed in the palm Of her hand, and the
picture appeared before the eyes of
the credulous Marsh. He was so sure
that the spirits of Raphael, Rembrandt.
Michael Angelo and all the rest we're work
ing through Diss De Bar that he surren-
dered his home at 18s Madison avenue
10 her. where she fooled as many other
victims as could be roped in.
The origin OF the paintings was never
cleared up One story was that they origi-
nay belonged to King Ludwig of Bavaria
and were stolen by his mistress, the notori-
Gus Lola Montez. who brought them to
this country when she was driven out of
Bavaria. Dovetailed into that yarn was
Diss De Bars pretension that she was the
ilegitimate child of the Bavarian King
and Lola Montez and that she inherited
the paintings which the discredited mis-
tress of the King had placed In the custody
Of Lowenhertz. the picture dealer of Uni
versity place.
That was one of the explanations Of
the esse with which the spook priestess
secured the pictures. It was shown
when the woman was indicted here that
her claim to being the daughter of Lola
Montez was about as well founded as
her claim to being the spirit OF Michael
Angelo
Since she was driven out OF the town
Diss De Bar has been convicted of swim
ding and other crimes in different cities
in the United States. She Ia now serving
a aovnr xAar farm in nriaon in ENGLAND