Salutes in London

At the reopening of London's National Gallery last week, King, Queen and ordinary art lover saluted old friends as Rembrandt's Woman Bathing, Rubens' Judgment of Paris and Titian's Christ and Mary Magdalene. These and 47 other choice paintings were the first of the National Gallery's treasures to be returned to London from the 300-ft.-deep mountain caves near Blaenau Festiniog, Wales, where they had been stored since the blitz. What with shortages of transport, return of the entire collection will take about three months.

Plans for the evacuation were made before Munich, and they were being carried out as Chamberlain made his declaration of war speech. In a single week 2,000 pictures were removed in 64 special railway container vans--first to country houses and museums; then, after widespread raids began, to the Welsh caves. The caves were air-conditioned, equipped with a single-track narrow railway, and wired with a burglar alarm system.

By one of the ironies of war, the National Gallery passed through the frightful destruction of the blitz and robomb years with only one gallery (No. 26) damaged. Far harder hit were the British Museum, whose Greek and Roman rooms were destroyed by incendiaries in 1941, and the Tate Gallery, which will not reopen for six months.

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