Duveen on da Vinci

The painting of a buxom brunette called La Belle Ferroniere was still displayed, last week, in a Manhattan courtroom. Was it the work of Leonardo da Vinci? To this question Georges Sortais, French connoisseur, had answered YES, and the owner of the painting, Mrs. Harry J. Hahn of Kansas City, had believed him. But Sir Joseph Duveen, potent millionaire art dealer, had murmured NO, thus preventing the sale of the painting to the Kansas City art museum. Therefore Mrs. Hahn had sued Sir Joseph for $500,000 (TIME, Feb. 18). The trial involved comparisons with the famed and very similar La Belle Ferroniere in the Louvre, also perhaps a Leonardo. To this question Connoisseur Sortais and Mrs. Hahn answered NO, Sir Joseph Duveen answered YES. Last week this notable trial continued.

Duveen. For four days Sir Joseph had been a harried witness. He had flayed the Hahn picture, testily calling its left eye "dead," "very dead," and "beadlike." On the fifth day he covered the whole damozel with one more coating of scorn. "She is a fat person!" he gibed. "A peasant type." Then he joyously pointed to a reproduction of the Louvre Belle. "This is a great lady of the period." Reverting to the Hahn painting he described the shoulders as flabby, the arms as puffy, the breast as lacking modeling, the embroidery as untrue to Leonardo's period. "The hair!" he exclaimed, "That's not hair--that is mud! ... If an artist paints wood it must be wood, not steel. If he paints hair it must be hair, not mud."

The Hahn Lawyer, stalwart S. Lawrence Miller, grinned. "In short," he suggested, "she has a face like a mask and the rest of her is like a balloon."

"Exactly!" cried Sir Joseph.

Hug. Into the courtroom came J. Conrad Hug, the Kansas City art dealer who has twice mortgaged his home to obtain money to combat Sir Joseph. A withered, white, frail little old gentleman, he told how he had arranged the sale of the Hahn painting to the Kansas City museum for $250,000, how the Duveen dictum had quashed the bargain. He said that he dealt in picture frames, paintings and etchings. Sir Joseph's lawyer, Louis S. Levy, was quick, acid. "The picture frames are a very big part of your business, aren't they?" Mr. Hug's murmurous answer was lost in his throat. Soon afterward he went away, assisted by bailiffs.

Chernoff. The next witness for the plaintiff was Vadim Chernoff, a blond Russian expatriate, a painter of ikons. Excitedly, with an accent like a musical comedian, he dilated for an hour on Renaissance pigmentation, explained both how and what colors were used. He called the Hahn painting "translucent," and the Louvre painting "dirty." Technically he was wise, but Lawyer Levy confounded him with questions on art history and showed that M. Chernoff's advice had rarely, if ever, been sought in weighty controversy. Sir Joseph chuckled as the Chernoff lecture began. Later he gazed into a newspaper with obvious boredom. When M. Chernoff gave his opinion that the Hahn painting was a Leonardo and that the Louvre painting was not a Leonardo, Sir Joseph mumbled: "By Jove! Sacrilege!"

Sortais. The testimony of Connoisseur Georges Sortais, as given in Paris in 1927, was read to the court. M. Sortais was fully convinced, after a minute study of the detail of the Hahn painting, that it was by the hand of Leonardo. Erudite M. Sortais customarily answered all questions on art history by consulting reference books. "Is there anybody alive," M. Sortais was asked, "whose opinion of Italian art you respect?" "No," answered the connoisseur. "Do you know of any man, dead or alive, whose expert opinion on 15th Century Italian art you would give way to?" "No, I have only my great experience of things seen." "Then, so far as you are concerned, you are the only man whose opinion on the authorship and authenticity of an Italian picture you would consider?" "Yes," concluded M. Sortais, "that is it."

Proof. There is probably only one way of convincing a 20th Century jury that a given painting is by a particular 15th Century master. That is by absolute evidence, such as a fingerprint, document or signature known to be valid. Such evidence the Duveen trial did not produce. Arguments on technique, expression, nuances of genius, only served to exhibit the latitude and variance of personal opinion.

In Paris there were overtones of laughter. Gaston Rouches, assistant curator of paintings in the Louvre, issued a statement: "Four years ago a number of world experts gave [the Louvre Belle] a thorough examination. They reached the conclusion that while it was undoubtedly made by one of the Leonardo school, it probably is not by the master himself. But that does not make much difference when one doesn't take the commercial view. The important thing is that the picture is a beautiful one and of great interest."