New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-07-27
P4NDILISN IN 4RT.
Stories of the Misfortunes of Mas
terWcccS.

Claude Phillips in The London Daily Telegraph
Horror and dismay must have possessed the
lovers of great art IN all civilized countries when
the news came. G day two ago, that Nicholas
Poussin's famous lie DeluEe"-or "L'Htver." as
It IS sometimes caHed-in the Louvre, had been
slashed pieces. and probably rretrievably
ruined by some miserable creature. in order to
satisfy private spite, or. II may be- draw down
upon himself the attention which he could not
otherwise command.
Passing over Instances Of destruction on a
large scale. caused by popular fury, by or
revolution, We find only too many Instances OF
the deliberate mutilation of great works OF art
which are equivalent 10 wilfUl murder. and in
their results even more far-reaChing and terrible
We need hardly refer TO the smashing OF the
Portland Vase at the British Museum by a
lunatic. Not many years ago a discharged at
tendant of the Museo degli Arazzi at Florence
an 4 1T or red fury, deliberately broke to pieces
with chair the most famous of all archaic
Greek Vases-the so-called FRANCOIS Vase, dating
from before 500 p. G. But this il has been pos
sible with infinite patience 10 restore as nearly
as may be 10 its original condition Titan had 10
suffer much at the hands Of the vandal. even in
His great Madonna and Child with Six
SAINTS. now I'm the Pnacotheca of the Vatican
has been shorn Of all that upper glory of rays
Visible still in enSravinGs) which must have
formed 50 fine a finish to its sumptuous beauty:
the monks of the EsCurial did not hesitate ruth
lossly 10 cut down. and in essentials to mutt
late, his Last supper painted for their re-
fectory but which they found it difficult To lit
into the niche for which 1t had been destined
exposed 10 even grosser and more inexcusab bio
outrage. His greatest work, the Ascension of
Christ" in the dome of 81. Giovanni EVanee-
ltsta mot to be cCnfoundcd with the cathedral)
at Parma. has suffered from the brutal
ignorance and neglect of the 'restorer' that its
very existence is ENDANGERED, and if is for the
present at any rate, lost to the art lover The
famous "Leda and the Swan" Of the Same
master. now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum AT
Berlin, was cut to pieces by that prurient Puri-
tan Louis d'OrlGans. son of the most unpuri-
tanicai Regent OF France and the head of the
Leda completely destroyed. II afterward
mended by Charles Coypel, and by him sup
piled with n head in the place OF Cor
rcggio's and in this state it was, in 1850 ac-
Quired for Frederick the Great. At the same
time, and by the same Sacrilegious hand the
Jupiter and To- Of Correggio, now In the I'm
perial Museum at Vienna, was mutilated the
head of the 10 being cut out and replaced in
similar fashion by painted by Coypel. which,
fortunately for posterity, was again. in 1906.
placed by one painted by the most Correg-
giesque Of modern painters, Prud'hon
Instances of vandalism might be multiplied in
definitely, though perhaps in the whole history
of art there is to he found none of such Infamous
outrage offered to genius as this Contro-
Versy still RACES 10 whether the Might
Watch" of Rembrandt has or has not been mate
rally cut down; but, at any rate his once still
vaster "Claudus Civilis' now in the state gal
unfinished that the original conception of the
master is hardly To be OWNED The great
view OF Dort' at Dorchester House, probably
the finest Cuyp in existence. was at one period
cut into two equal halves which made two dis
tinct pictures 1t the late Mr.. Holford
halves reunited them and restored to the world,
practically uninjured Cuyp's masterpiece. In
the same way Watteau's "Ensegne de Ger
saint" now in the private collection Of the Ger