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Show INTERESTING- DISCOVERY. Painting of G.at Value Discovered in St. Louis Cafe. fSt. Louis Globe-Democrat.) A painting has recently been discovered discov-ered in a small Market street restaurant restaur-ant that has caused considerable comment com-ment in local art circles and has aroused a great deal ,of real interest among the most competent judges and critics of art work in the city. Despite De-spite the fact that only a portion of the painting Is at present visible, such well known' authorities as Professor Halsay C. Ives, Mr. Charles M. Kurta i and Mr. Charles Ward Rhodes are of I the opinion that it will verv nmhohiv I prove to be either a Carle or Horace Vernet, with the chances very much in favor of the latter. While neither of these painters, who were, by the way. father and son, is great in the sense that Rembrandt. Rubens or Raphael are great,- they may at least be classed arcing the more eminent French painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, . and their hunt and battle pictures are held in especially espe-cially high esteem. :. - $ $ 4 The first hint of its true worth was (arrived at by Dr. Gustave Lippman about ten . days ago, and his opinion about it has since been proven entirely entire-ly correct in every respect. Having detained from his luncheon through the exigencies of business, an, being in the vicinity of the little cafe at a time when he had a few moments to spare, he entered it to obtain ob-tain a cup of coffee, and it was to this the discovery was due. The painting hanging -on the wall attracted his attention, at-tention, and. after a careful examina-was examina-was dark and 'dismal in tone, the flg- "-"P" Win .l'"JllllUpWHIIHH II HI I )lllfll.lMMum,MU Jiuiiin, ' tion of it, he concluded that there were inconsistencies in it wnlch were not readily explainable, and ac his request it was removed to a place where a better bet-ter light could be obtained and a still more thorough examination made. The entire color scheme of the painting ures of men and animals were but dim-lv dim-lv visible, yet the drawing of one of the central hgures, an angry lioness, was so finely done that Dr. Lippman was unable to reconcile it with the distorted proportions of other figures in the picture and the entirely improbable improb-able coloring for a daylight scene. He ) pondered over this at some length, i when he suddenly found that the paint-: paint-: ing had- apparently been cut from a ! larger canvas, and that a part of it j which had been lapped over the back of the frame revealed a . blue sky, whereas the sky in front was a sort of dingy yellow. This led the physician to believe that the entire surface of the picture had been painted over with semi-transparent colors for some unknown un-known reason, and certain distortions of the figures painted on this to give tne picture a cruqe ajpetiiiin.c detract from its value. The lioness had been left untouched, however, and its splendid proportions stood at variance with everything else in the frame. It required some little effort .to induce the owners to submit the picture to a cleaning process, but the thing was finally done, and as the laborious work proceeds Dr. Lippman's conclusions have been justified at nearly every point. For what reason the picture was disguised can, of course, now only be conjectured, but that it was very skillfully done and with every precaution precau-tion taken to insure the preservation of the original painting is apparent. The picture was first subjected to several sev-eral heavy coats of varnish, and then over this the sky was limned with a dark yellow, while brown and red tints were used for the other parts. Through this the entire painting was visible, but only darkly, and all the details, which are now found to give the picture ita greatest charm, the exquisite ex-quisite blendings of color, were completely com-pletely blotted out. Not satisfied with this, the person engaged in the work, and he was clever at his occupation, went still further and distorted the appearance ap-pearance of the figures by painting out some of. their outlines and giving them proportions that were simply ludicrous lu-dicrous and seemingly the work of a crude hand. The painting which is the subject of this discussion is about sixty-six inches wide by fifty, in height, and shows a group of Arabs mounted on horses and camels, engaged in a combat with a lioness, whose cubs they have seized and are seen in the possession of a Nubian. Nu-bian. The lion, who gave battle first, has already been dispatched, but the artist pictures the lioness springing forward in the act of leaping upon a prostrate Arab, whose camel has apparently ap-parently been felled by the lion in his death throes. The subject -has been handled with vigor and animation, and the terror shown in every line of the horses and camels,- the resolute deter mination or tne AraDs ana tne nerce anger of the lioness are triumphant proofs of the masterly skill of the artist. |