One day she discovered a glistening surface under the
flowered paper which covered it, and when this was torn away, there
stood revealed a picture of Jacob and Rebecca at the Well, by Paul
Veronese; doubtless thus concealed with a view to its secret removal
during the first French Revolution. The missing Charles First of
Velasquez was lately exhibited in this country, and the account its
possessor gives of the mode of its discovery and the obstacles which
attended the establishment of its legal ownership in England is a
remarkable illustration both of the tact of the connoisseur and the
mysteries of jurisprudence.
There is scarcely, indeed, an artist or a patron of art, of any
eminence, who has not his own "story of a picture." Like all things
of beauty and of fame, the very desire of possession which a painting
excites, and the interest it awakens, give rise to some costly
sacrifice, or incidental circumstance, which associates the prize with
human fortune and sentiment. I remember an anecdote of this kind told me
by a friend in Western New York.
"Waiting," said he, "in the little front-parlor of a house in the town
of C----, to transact some business with its occupant, I was attracted
by a clean sketch in oil that hung above the fireplace.
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