In Philadelphia

A Gentleman with a High Hat; a Lady with an Ostrich Feather Fan. Secure in an elegance which time has not soiled, these two look out from history, nameless, irreproachable, erect. Much have they seen since one Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, by painting them, preserved their finery from the fate that overtook its fashion. Lately, they have been themselves much watched, talked of--that serene lady, that impeccable gentleman:--because a destitute nobleman, Felix Yusupov, once prince in Russia, sold them to a U. S. financier and art collector, Joseph E. Widener, of Philadelphia, so cheaply that he felt himself cheated (TIME, Nov. 3). Last week in Philadelphia, they were spoken of again--and for another reason. Their owner announced that since his father, Peter A. B. Widener, had suggested in his will that the collection he had begun should some day be given to a museum, he, Joseph E. Widener, was making plans to carry out the design. Where they would be given was not disclosed; but it was definitely stated that the Lady, the Gentleman, twelve more Rembrandts and other works of art, whose combined value exceeds $20,000,000, would be placed in a public museum either in Manhattan, Philadelphia or Washington.

The Widener collection is rivaled by only three others in the U. S.--those of John P. Morgan (Manhattan), Michael Friedsam (Manhattan), Henry E. Huntington (Los Angeles). In addition to the group of Rembrandts (probably the finest in the world), it contains several items acquired from the Morgan collection: some immensely valuable tapestries, two marbles by Donatello and paintings by such masters as Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney, Constable, Holbein, Hals, Hobbema, Rubens, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, Dupre, Raphael, Tintoretto, Murillo, Goya, Velasquez.