Again, Duveen

Sir Joseph Duveen, international art tycoon, has emerged unscathed if not triumphant from three $500,000 libel suits. In 1915 Art Dealer Edgar Gorer failed to prove that Sir Joseph's opinionizing had spoiled the sale of a Kang Hsi vase to the late, great collector Henry Clay Frick. In 1921 Mrs. Harry Hahn of Kansas City brought a suit which only last fortnight came to a bootless halt (TIME, Feb. 18 et seq.). In 1923 suit was brought by the late Art Dealer George Joseph Demotte of Manhattan, which ceased when Mr. Demotte was accidentally shot to death while hunting in France.

Thus the bland Sir Joseph may well believe in an angelic guardian. But he must have felt twinges of both chagrin and resentment, last week, when it was announced that the Duveen opinions which had caused the Demotte suit had been sharply repudiated.

Dealer Demotte owned a statuette of the Virgin and Child which he called a 13th century Limoges enamel. He was fond of describing how Queen Isabella of Spain, one of its owners, had caused a niche to be cut under the pommel of her saddle to contain the statuette. With this tiny shrine she could jaunt while worshiping, or worship while jaunting.

The statuette fascinated the late Michael Dreicer, famed Manhattan jeweller. Shortly before his death he arranged to buy it for 350,000 francs. After he died, the bank handling the Dreicer estate engaged Sir Joseph Duveen to pass judgment on the authenticity of the statuette, for which 100,000 francs had already been paid. Sir Joseph called it a modern fake, and the bank promptly refused further payments. Mr. Demotte brought suit. Sir Joseph insisted that he had libeled no one, but had merely expressed a solicited opinion. Mr. Demotte's death kept the affair from the courts.

Last week Lucien Demotte, son of the late dealer, announced that other experts had called the enamel statuette genuine, and that the Dreicer estate had accordingly paid in full a sum of approximately $14,000.