International studio (82.1925)

mueRnACionAL

Bulletin, "its history is unknown and it does not
appear in any of the catalogues." To stand before
the canvas one is not apt to care a whit about its
history. The work is its own justification and in
many of its details it is a thing of joy to those who
love characterization in a portrait, fine painting
and composition of a kind that is a distinction in
itself. AH these qualities are here, especially the
fineness of the painting. Saskia's hands alone are
among the rarest passages in portraiture. The
painting of the gorgeous blue-and-white and gold
gown is a thing of allure, so suave is it, so rich in
the feeling of tactile values. And the proud pose
of the head befits the presumptive air of the great
Roman divinity.

Rembrandt painted his sister twice as Minerva.
One version of this is in the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum in Berlin, the other in the F. Kleinberger
collection in Paris. The only other appearance of
Saskia as a goddess is in the canvas formerly in
the Donaldson collection in London, and yet this
picture appears in the books with the title printed
in this guise: "Saskia (?) as Bellona," which indi-
cates that the authorities are not certain that the
often posed and painted Saskia really was the
original of this figure. Certain it is that the
woman in that canvas is nearest in age appearance
to the one in this of Mr. Bache. And yet our
Saskia is more mature than was the original when
she died at the age of thirty years. This Minerva
is very like the chief figure in the "Sophonisba
Receiving the Cup of Poison from Her Flusband"
that is in the Prado in Madrid, and she is very
like the bride in "The Wedding of Samson." The
dress and hands in this painting are closest to
those of the heroine of the "Mordecai Before
Esther," but here the face is finer in characteriza-
tion. Rembrandt apparently was much pleased
with this work as he signed it in bold, clear letters.
Few indeed of his canvases are handsomer. This
discovery of a wholly unknown picture by so well
known and much sought after master gives added
point to the whimsical suggestion made by E. V.
Lucas in his little book on Vermeer as to the fame
that might come to some millionaire who would
finance expeditions for searching out unknown art.

The acquisition by Governor Fuller of six
pictures by Sargent at the sale of his collec-
tion in London and the purchase by a resi-
dent of Miami, Florida, from the Grand Central
Art Galleries of the superbly romantic portrait of
Miss Wertheimer, calls attention to the fact that
few Americans who might have done so in the
past ever "collected" Sargents. Some of our
museums have been unusually far-sighted in this

respect, notably the Brooklyn Museum, that of
Boston, of Worcester, and the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art. In private ownership in Chicago,
Boston and New York there are a few groups of
watercolors and drawings by Sargent. But in no
single one of these is there more than fifteen
pictures. Once again a prophet has been without
honor in his own country. And this in spite of
the fact that it is not so long ago one of those
exquisite Italian figure groups by this great
American master could have been bought for a
few hundred dollars. England is in a much better
case than is the United States in relation to a
permanent collection of the paintings of its own
son. Through the generosity of Sir Joseph Duveen
and his unfailingyZcnr for what Henry James called
"the real right thing," England now has its Sar-
gent Room in the Tate Gallery. In a published
interview Martin Birnbaum has suggested that
it is not too late to attempt the creation of such
a room here. Such a memorial would depend on
generous sacrifices of private owners of Sargents.
But what a splendid sacrifice that would be if
Sargent's fame was perpetuated in some such
form as is Whistler's in the Freer Gallery!

Tohn Frew, who modeled the "punchful"
p/ football group entitled "The Tackle" which
is reproduced on the cover of this issue, is a
striking example of a man who turned from the
practice of pictorial art to sculpture in middle life
with marked success. He is a New Yorker who
had won both a reputation and a large earning
capacity as a commercial artist before he. took up
modeling as a student at the American School of
Sculpture conducted by W. Frank Purdy. In the
first of the three years he has been working in the
classes there he won a scholarship and the moni-
torship of the school. It is a tribute to the serious-
ness with which he takes his new vocation that in
spite of the fact that he is past forty and has no
pressure of need weighing him down, as is the
case with so many art students, he takes his duties
as monitor as seriously as he does his own work.
This is the first sculpture he has had cast in bronze
for public exhibition.

onstantin Guys' drawing, "Woman with a
Muff," is not only new to this country but
represents his art in a phase that is his
happiest since it is without the slightest trace of
that chilling irony marking so much of his repre-
sentation of the social life of Paris in the surfacely
brilliant days of the Second Empire. The fame of
Guys is so firmly connected with Parisian life that
he is seldom thought of as a Dutchman, which he

NOVEMBER I 9 2 5

one forty-jive