Bargain Back

Proudly last week Samuel Henry Kress watched his name in mighty granite letters emerging on the Fifth Avenue facade of his newest 5-10-25-c- store, which is rapidly nearing completion on the Manhattan site of the famed old Wendel house.

Even prouder was Merchant Kress last week to know that his name was on the tongue of the entire art world. One purchase of $250,000 had lifted his little known collection of Italian paintings to front-rank eminence. For that sum Mr. Kress had just bought from Clarence Hungerford Mackay one of the four paintings by Duccio di Buoninsegna in the U. S. Art dealers throughout the country agreed that the 5-10-25-c- storeman had got a bargain.

Duccio di Buoninsegna (circa 1255-1319) was the last and possibly the greatest of Byzantine painters. Their style of flat, formalized, brilliantly colored art was already dying in Duccio's time. Working in Siena as a decorator of book covers and gift boxes, he kept the tradition alive through his interest in the illuminated miniatures of old Byzantine manuscripts.

Of all Duccio's work just one piece is completely authenticated: the great altarpiece for Siena's cathedral completed on June 9, 1311. Most of the altarpiece and all the contracts connected with it are still preserved in Siena. Missing are several of the 24 gilded wooden panels that once covered the back. It was one of these, entitled Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew, that Mr. Kress bought last week, a 17-inch square, showing the figure of Christ on a rocky shore calling Peter and Andrew from their fish nets. All summer it has been on view in the great international show of Italian art in Paris (TIME, May 27).

Nearly 50 years ago this and three other Siena back panels were found in an Italian antique shop by the late British Collector Robert Henry Benson. In 1927 his entire collection was bought by Lord Duveen for $3,000,000, brought to the U. S. Lord Duveen quickly wrote off a third of his investment by selling the four Duccios for $1,000,000, two to John D. Rockefeller Jr., one to the Frick Collection, and the fourth to Mr. Mackay who sold it to Mr. Kress for exactly what he paid for it less the Duveen commission. For the same panel six centuries ago the City of Siena paid Artist Duccio two and a half gold florins (about $5.75) in addition to the cost of his pigments and gold leaf.

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