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NEW YORK TRIBUNE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1916.
Duveen Brothers as Secret Agents Purchase Famous Gainsborough Black-and-white, photographic reproduction of "The Mall, St. James's Park" Thomas Gainsborough's "The Mall, St. James's Park."
Refuse to Disclose Price Paid for "The Mall"—To Be Brought Here.
It was no surprise to those in intimate touch with the art world on this side of the Atlantic to learn last night that the "American collector" mentioned in the cable dispatches who had purchased "The Mall" is the Duveen Brothers, of this city and Paris. Joseph Duveen, of that firm, when seen at the Hotel Plaza last night, confirmed the news. "Yes; the picture is now our property," said Mr. Duveen. "The sale was consummated this week. We bought it from Sir William Agnew, to whom it was recently sold by Sir Audley Dallas Neeld, in whose country seat at Grittleton, Chippenham, Wiltshire, it has hung for many years." Mr. Duveen said that the painting will be brought to this country in a short time, but he declined to say for what American collector it was bought, if any, or what price was paid for it. "That," said he, "is something we are not at liberty to state at present." Sir Audley Neeld, Bart., was late commander of the Second Life Guards, and he was commander of the Household Cavalry Regiment in South Africa in 1899–1900. One of his brothers is Rear Admiral Reginald Rundell Neeld, R. N., the other Lieutenant-Colonel Mortimer Graham Neeld, of the British Army. Some of those familiar with the values of paintings by the old masters agree that it would not be surprising to hear that the Duveens had paid anywhere from a quarter to half a million dollars for "The Mall."
[By Cable to The Tribune.] London, Feb. 25.—Louis Duveen, interviewed by "The Telegraph," admitted that his American house, in association with Lockett Agnew, bought the famous Gainsborough picture, "View in the Mall, St. James's Park." Mr. Duveen refused to mention the purchase price.
Gainborough's "Mall" Adds to Joy of Life By ROYAL CORTISSOZ. The huge sums paid for old masters have sometimes invited rather sharply critical comment. But like Artemas Ward, who did not care how many of his wife's relations were drafted into the war, we do not care how much has been paid for Gainsborough's "View in the Mall, St. James's Park," the picture just acquired for an American collector, according to yesterday's dispatches. It is said that a portentous price was paid to the owner, Sir Audley Neeld. It does not matter. If one of the two most likely buyers, Mr. Frick or Mr. Widener, has paid half a million for it, we can only congratulate him on his bargain. Why? Because "The Mall" is reckoned amongst those paintings which add appreciably to the joy of life. Other masterpieces may be worth having for other reasons. This one is renowned merely as a boon of beauty. It measures about four feet by three and every square inch of it is drenched in the radiance of romantic landscape art. Gainsborough never painted a lovelier thing. It is a souvenir of his old age, painted, it is believed, only two years or so before his death, but it more properly represents the very springtide of his art. Sir Walter Armstrong, his definitive biographer, cites a delightful saying of Walpole's about the picture—"it is all in motion and in a flutter like a lady's fan." Constable, a sure judge of a landscape if ever there was one, is credited with a sedater observation, "an exceeding fine picture." But the famous dilettante struck the apter, more dithyrambic note. In doing so he recognized the peculiar element in Gainsborough's genius, the element which set him apart from all the other painters of his school. As the tradition of Van Dyck filtered down into eighteenth century English art it promoted in the first place a certain courtly formalism. The stately portraiture characteristic of the Georgian masters is distinguished above all things by elegance of design. In Sir Joshua's hands it takes on something of the grand style, and, indeed, this tendency is perceptible in all the members of his circle, in Gainsborough as in the rest. But the painter of "The Mall" had some curiously modern streaks in him. Like Ruysdael before him, like Constable and the Barbizon men, he had a profound feeling for nature. Where Reynolds would use landscape only for background purposes, choosing his motive from some majestic English park, Gainsborough would paint it for its own sake and go to the countryside for his theme. Then, too, like Valasquez [sic.] and Rubens before him, like Manet and Alfred Stevens and a host of modern painters, he had an instinct for pigment as pigment, knew how to extort from which oil paint the special quality which belongs to that medium as to no other, and made himself one of the great exemplars of pure technique. You look at some of his portraits, at the great "Mrs. Siddons," for example, with appreciation, chiefly, of their broad merits of style. When you encounter a portrait like the bewitching :'Perdita' Robinson," of the Wallace collection, you think only of the shimmering dress, the blues that float upon the canvas like rose leaves on a silvery stream, the "feathery" brushwork, which is as consummate in its way as the legerdemain of Hals. That has long been acknowledged to be the secret of "The Mall." Armstrong compares it with Watteau's "Embarkment for Cythera," in the Louvre, and though he is not sure that Gainsborough ever saw one of the Frenchman's paintings he cannot resist the surmise that in "The Mall" he "consciously measured himself" with the foreign master. Such surmised are irrelevant. The important point is the simple one that in this picture, consciously or unconsciously, he very nearly matched Watteau on his own ground. We say "very nearly" because, as a matter of fact, Gainsborough never quite achieved the Frenchman's mastery of form and he never discovered the secret of that honeyed, golden tone which, like his tints of rose, Watteau practically invented. But all the other enchantments have exerted their spell in "The Mall," the savor of light, gracious romance, the fascination of exquisite movement under murmurous foliage, the play of light and air and color in a gossamer web of painted charm. Old masterpieces brought from abroad to the United State have a pathetic way of disappearing from view into the private collections for which they are purchased. It is to be hoped that in this case there may be a public exhibition.