Evening star., 1906-06-16
RoMANCEs OF GREAT PICTURES.
Strange Places in Which Famous
Works of Art Have Been Discovered.

FROM the London Tit-Bits.
The recent discovery of a valuable Cor
reggio in the mountain home OF a Moroc-
can bandit furnished the latest example
? of the romantic vicissltudes of old mas
: ters many OF which are at least as strange
as fiction.
II pictures had tongues what curious
stories of wandering and adventure some
of them could tell! Take. for instance,
that magnificent picture of Titan. a can
vas sixteen feet long and seven feet high,
representing the entombment OF Christ.
which was lost for centuries, only to
come to light In church in the heart of
Mexico; or that portrait of Nell Gwynne,
by Sir Peter Lely, which was discovered
not long ago by doctor in Birming-
ham slum.
Take. too, Raphaers famous Massacre
ter generations of disappearance in the
cottage OF poor widow at Como. Piece
by piece 1t was possible, with much diff
hculty. to reconstruct some OF the his
tory of this treasure of art, and strange
story II Is. At one time 1t belonged to
+ the celebrated Cardinal Yppolito Este,
Ariesto's patron. from whose hands IL
passed into those of another cardinal.
Luigi d'Este. AT his death a priest of
Reggie became Its owner for the ridicu-
lous sum OF a sovereign; and he. after
refusing thrice this sum for 1t, presented
B. II to the Duke Alfonzo d'Este. who In
turn gave II to the Princess Margherita
GonZaga, his niece
When the princess died the picture
passed to the Duke of Urbino, and from
that stage Of its history nothing more
was heard of II until 1858, when the Duke
: q Este employed a Franciscan monk to find
1t at any cost. For five years the monk
sought everywhere In vain and at the end
of tho time he reported to the duke that
"after having Travelled all over Italy on MS
quest and employing every means, ootn
spiritual and material. he was forced to
ebardon the hopeless task And now, two
and half centuries later. the long lost pic
ture has come thus strangely to light
few years ago one of Albert Durer 8
masterpieces was discovered dust smoth-
cred and despiSed. among the lumber In a
grarary near Courtrai. The farmer-a wo-
man--took 1t into her head one day to clear
the granary of Its rubbish" and for few
eoppers she was glad TO get the son of the
local coach painter to remove It all. includ-
! ing the dirty piece of painted wood" The
painting was cleaned and submitted to an
, expert, who recognized It as Durer which
had been stolen from the national museum
OF Munich many years earlier.
Among some old canvases which were
knocked down for the equivalent of few
oil illugs at an auction sale at Rome to Herr
Hunterspergh. a Tyrolese restorer of old
pictures, was very inferior picture of
flowers which was practically worthless
Tho canvas however, attracted the atten-
zion of an art connoisseur, who suspected
that there might be another painting be-
meath the surface presentment OF flowers,
b nnd by skillfully removing the layers OF
paint he revealed an exquisite work OF Cor
reggio. which he later sold 20 Lord Bristol
for IL 600
Lord Crewe has among his art treasures
a valuable canvas, OF which the following
romantic story Is told: Many years ago
one of his ancestors had picture painted
OF his son and daughter. the former. who
was very young being presented as a
Cupid. In later years. when the son had
grown to manhood. he QuarreIed with his
father. and. by way of revenge. cut the
Cupid out OF the canvas. For a century
nothing was seen OF the portion of the pic
turf thus removed. when 1t fell into the
hands Of a dealer, who restored II to the
then head OF the house.
A similar mutilation was practlced on a
valuable painting. The Field of the Cloth
OF Gold" the property OF Charles /. When
Cromwell negotiated with a continental
dealer for the sale OF the royal pictures II
was found that the head OF Henry VIII
was missing from this canvas. which thus
escaped the fate of It's fellows When the
second Charles came 10 the throne the miss
inS part was restored by q great nobleman
who had adopted this ingenious method of
preventing the picture from going out OF
tbs country.