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In script: "Telegraph" 25/2/16. A FAMOUS GAINSBOROUGH.

RUMOURED FOR AMERICA. --- Long before the war it was well known that one of the great prizes of British art, for which the embattled art dealers of all nations were lying in wait, was Gainsborough's superb "View in the Mall : St. James's Park." We now understand, from a source on which the greatest reliance may be placed, that the Wiltshire owner of the Gainsborough has been induced, by the force majeure of these strenuous times, to accept a huge sum for his art treasure, and that this dancing glimpse of eighteenth century English grace is destined for America. There may be diplomatic denials, yet we are constrained to believe that the statement–it is beyond a rumour—is true. At present the real principals in the transaction—involving a purchase price much in excess of that paid by the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan for the notorious lost-and-found Gainsborough "Duchess"–will neither admit nor deny knowledge of it. In this beautiful Mall scene Gainsborough saw the fusion of art and Nature, and rendered it in colour as surely as ever did Watteau. The picture was painted for one of his early patrons, Mr. Kilderbee, of Ipswich, and it appeared at Christie's as far back as 1828. For many years it has been in the Neeld collection at Grittleton, in Wiltshire, a fastness hitherto impregnable to every ruse of capture. A photographic reproduction of the picture found on Page Three.