Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-10-17


present
Briefly, has Junction City. Kan.
recognized and taken to itself an
original Leonardo da Vinci painting.
the first in America, brought in the
dowery of Leavenworth aviator's
bride. and exhibited to stony unap
probation in New York? The more
you investigate. the more it looks SO.
At request of the kensas City and
Texas newspapers. l have investi
gated La Belle Ferronniere in Paris.
Had an art magazine done the same. it
had not scoffed SO artlessly at the
idea of a real da Vinc being carried
undiscovered through New York to
the raw plains of Kansas City" And
Joseph Duveen. the international art
dealer. will probably explain that it
was in haste of sailing for London
that he told a New York newspaper
man that lit would be impossible to
get genuine da Vinci out of France"
The original of La Belle Ferronniere
is in the Louvre" he added. Which is
equally true, if you will; but there
are other truths to put with it.
\ x x x
Furthermore. if the Junction City
canvas has been attack ed. the early
presentation of it's story is much TO
blame. New York cablegrams to E.u-
rope and syndicated Sunday feature
stories in eastern papers Gully -, set
forth details which indisposed the
judicious. Somebody gave them to
the writers.
L began in Paris with Sortais, the
well-wnown expert. who has twice
pronounced the canvas to be an origi-
nal Leonardo da Vinci. From him I
obtained the address of the Marquis
de Chambure. uncle of Mile. Louise de
! Montaut. who owned the painting, and
gave it as wedding present to Mile.
Andree LardouX, her own war god
daughter and niece of her friend. the
Comtesse de Pontbriand, when Mile.
Andree married Capt. Harry Hahn.
the Leavenworth aviator.
l have met Mile. de Montaut. With
out lmpertinence. she makes SYM
pathetic impression, but it is equally
obvious that this lady. unworldly, i'm
petuous. original, turning from her
dream of past family glories to throw
herself into volunteer hospital work
throughout the war, is not a figure to
intimidate a bold art dealer. One
such, at Tarbes, during the settle
ment of her deceased sisters estate.
had the impudence to offer her 500
francs for pair of Clodion statu-
cites confided to his safekeeping-
and which he promptly sold for zoe
lar experiences, particularly of her
sister Marguerite gave her a poor
idea of selling ones affairs"
One day Marguerite, surrounded -
i'll advisers and of not strong win,
arrived finally at this painting which
they had inherited jointly. Il am
told that it is very valuable" she
said Il shall sell it"
On this. the Marquis de Chambure.
their uncle. took La Belle Ferron-
Mere under his arm to his own house
in the Avenue Friedland. Il shall
tent Marguerite and TO keep it from
going with the rest" Nothing more
was said about a sale, although a
collecting baron who saw the picture
in 1911 had the first Sortais eXpertise
done. and on the strength of it Of
his letter. The war interviewed.
Marguerite died in 1915. And Louise
de Montaut. having no direct heir and
small confidence in the laws loyalty
to testators' wishes, made the we'd
ding gift we know, to 'the bride OF
one of those noble young Americans
who came to the war in France, and
whose gallant conduct won him the
French croix de guerre." I see moth
ing to scott at in all this. She pro-
claims defiantly that she is fiftythree
years old. and it is with a catch in
her breath that she laughs and calls
the new Hahn baby my little fellow"
AS a fact. she recently returned from
Junction City. where she herself had
carried the painting-pretext to be
with the baby-because it was the
Comtesse de Pontbriand who was to
have gone. Six months before the
new decree putting a prohibitive tax
on valuable old art objects leaving
France, she had wind that something
of the kind was coming, and deposit
ed La Belle Ferronniere in Belgium.
So all those absurdities about evad-
ing the decree by American citizen
ship fall to the ground.
The picture comes through their
grandmother, Vincent, nee Pascalis, who
(having been an orphan at six years)
, received it as wedding gift among
other beautiful things, tapestries, brio
a-brac, furniture. etc, from her legal
guardian and adaptive father, Gen.
Louis Tourton, of a family of bankers
and enlightened collectors in a day
when collecting was easy.
have seen the inventory great MSS.
volume bound in calf, in which. along
with three millions, this Tourton re-
ceived a mass of such stuff in the resi-
duary estate of his father. La Belle
Is not IneHllOIeu III II Dt
name, but neither are the Poussin, Fra
gonards, Horace Vernets, Clodions. lit
tie rosewood tables. etc. which came
down to the de Montaut sisters. In
the grabbed handwriting. one sees sim
pie mentions like landscape" painting
of woman, etc. Jumped with two
armchairs and a sofa" in derisory valu-
atoms. They knew how to evade death
duties and taxes, already" says Mile.
de Montaut. She is still hunting in old
family papers-since this imbroglio
from America. Yesterday she found a
letter from her father to her mother
just before the investment of Paris in
friend, Nine. Theirs (Thiers became,
later president of the republic) to get
the Theirs horses out Of the threatened
capital IT hope to get the Belle Fer
ronniere away also runs the letter
Later on, at need, it may be resource
for you"
Mile. de Montaut is innocently proud
of these family souvenirs; of old min
iatures of ancestors. painted on ivory !;
of the house her mother owned, just off
the Avenue du Bots; of her grandmoth-
cr's wedding in the Luxembourg palace.
where her godfather. the Duo Decazes.
had a residence as grand referendary
of the chamber of peers of hundred
things alas which are not the Belle
E'erronniere. But has the Louvre a bet
ter record of the persistence of its pres
ent-day canvas through the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries-and not mere
w mentions "a Belle Ferronniere, and
two, and three!
Georges Sortais has suite Of Of
foes and their walls are hung with
beautiful paintings not his own. He
is a Well-known expert who has been
connected at various periods with a
number of the great art dealers, and
is officially attached to the civil tri-
bunal of the Seine. This means that
he sees critically more great paint
ines than most, on which he is bound
.anacc and for w hitch in lepal ga