Bache Museum

Giuliano, Due de Nemours was a peace-loving Medici with pensive eyes and a stubby beard, not to be compared, however, with his potent father, Lorenzo the Magnificent. But Giuliano had his picture painted by Raphael once. That picture, once the property of Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, was bought by Manhattan Stockbroker Jules Semon Bache in 1929 for $600,000.

Last week, four hours after Banker Bache, 75, had sailed to spend the summer in London with his daughter, wife of Theatrical Producer Gilbert Miller, Mr. Bache's lawyer summoned reporters, gave them news that within a year not only the Grand Duchess Marie but any other resident or visitor in Manhattan will be able to see Raphael's Giuliano de'Medici at almost any time. Banker Bache, for a quarter-century one of the most important art collectors in the U. S., was giving his entire collection to the public and turning over his home at No. 814 Fifth Avenue as a museum to house it. Other headliners in the Bache collection:

The French Comedians by Antoine actors reciting something turgid by Moliere, this great but florid painting was once the property of sour-faced Philosopher Voltaire, who gave it to his great admirer, Frederick the Great of Prussia. Claiming it as his personal property, Wilhelm II was able to ship it out of Germany to his exile at Doom, later was forced to sell it to Sir Joseph Duveen who passed it on for a handsome consideration to Mr. Bache.

Edward VI, Prince of Wales by Holbein, generally considered the last portrait ever painted by the great German artist, court painter to Henry VIII, Mr. Bache found a bargain at $250,000.

Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga by Goya, shows the little grandee with a gay sash round his waist, leading his pet magpie with a string tied to its leg while two big-eyed cats gaze hungrily from a corner.

A Self Portrait by Velazquez. One of the few that the Spanish genius had time to do in his eternal task of grinding out fresh likenesses of his master, horse-faced Philip IV of Spain.

Also, three Bellinis. three Titians, three Fragonards, three Gainsboroughs, a room full of authenticated Chippendale furniture and an inlaid table of Marie Antoinette.

Almost a duplicate of the already opened Frick Museum in purpose, the Bache Museum too will preserve the collection of a very rich man in the rooms and in the setting that he chose for it. There are certain minor differences. It took the forceful daughter of Henry Clay Frick. her trustees and architects, four years to remodel her father's home as a public museum. For many years Banker Bache kept his great collection in a large Manhattan apartment, bought his present house in 1925 with the idea of turning it into a museum. For his own use Mr. Bache kept only a small suite on the third floor. By this autumn all remaining changes should be completed.

Art Map. Fifteen years ago the vast bulk of the Metropolitan Museum, the cluster of dealers along Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, and pre-auction exhibits at the Anderson and American Art Galleries (since combined), were about all the art that a visitor to Manhattan could see. Since then, thanks to public-spirited tycoons, the art map of New York has spread and sprouted richly. Today an art-conscious visitor should not leave Manhattan without a pilgrimage that will cover more than ten miles, take him into some 100 institutions. Among the most important stops (see map, p. 28) :

City Hall. One of the finest examples of 18th Century architecture in the U. S., New York's frequently neglected city hall can hold its own with anything in Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston. It contains antique furniture and historical portraits of great importance. Prize: Telegraph Inventor Samuel F. B. Morse's portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette.

Whitney Museum. U. S. painting and sculpture only, with particular accent on contemporary work, is collected in Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's salmon stucco repository at No. 10 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. Best known pieces: Bellows' Dempsey-Tunney Fight and The Blue Clown by Walt Kuhn.

Museum of Living Art is a collection of esoteric paintings all bought by Albert Eugene Gallatin, great-grandson of the fourth Secretary of the Treasury and presented by him to the Washington Square Branch of New York University (TIME, April 5).

Cooper Union. That this fusty building near the rear door of Wanamaker's department store houses a public museum is unknown to many New Yorkers. That it contains many of the most important drawings and paintings of Winslow Homer and his contemporaries is unsuspected by more.

Morgan Library. The Italianate white marble building that the elder J.P. Morgan built to house his treasures became a public trust in 1924. Polite persistence by any visitor will win a free pass from Custodian Belle da Costa Greene to see. besides the books, numerous paintings, prints and drawings that can still hold their own with any of the great U. S. collections, despite numerous sales and gifts to other museums.

Museum of Modern Art has become best known in recent years for its tremendous loan exhibitions, sponsored by its patron, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. Just as worthy, though it can seldom be seen, is its permanent collection, based on the private collection of French masters assembled by the late Lillie P. Bliss. Most popular recent acquisition: The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali's famed Surrealist panel of limp watches on a dead tree. Last week preliminary plans were filed by Architect Philip Goodwin for a new building to allow more of this permanent collection to remain on view while the loan shows continue.

New York Historical Society. Directly across West 77th Street from the ungainly American Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical Society boasts and refuses to transfer 464 of the most important original watercolor drawings of John James Audubon. Other treasures include rooms full of historical portraits, the Isaac J. Greenwood Collection of 405 watercolor drawings of powder horns.

Museum of the City of New York, most important civic museum in the U.S., has most elaborately displayed everything from wax figures of Peter Minuit to Boss Tweed's fire engine with the original Tammany tiger, Saint-Gaudens' preliminary study for the Diana of Madison Square Garden.

Hispanic Museum contains valued Velazquez, Murillos, Zurbarans and a room full of gaudy murals by Joaquin Soralla, besides numerous sculptures by the Museum's patron, Mrs. Anna Hyatt (Archer M.) Huntington.

Chester Dale Collection. Unlike the Frick and Bache collections, the great collection of French moderns assembled by knowing, tawny-haired Mrs. Chester Dale is not yet a public museum, but visitors are welcome within reason.

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