The Madonna & the Goddess

Until last week, the best-kept secret in the art auction world was: Who put up the record $770,000 to buy Rubens' Adoration of the Magi through London Dealer Leonard Koetser (TIME, July 6)? The Daily Express offered $1,500 for any clue, after nine months got the tip-off from one of Koetser's former employees: AT

LAST THE BUYER IS UNMASKED! The buyer: wealthy ("I have a bit of property") Major A. E. Allnat, who headed up a patriotic syndicate to keep the Rubens in England and turn it over to the National Gallery. "Frankly," said the major when tracked down, "I do not like the picture. I wouldn't have it in my house.

In any case, it's too big." In what had been billed as the major sale of old Dutch masters since World War II, London's Christie's gallery last week hoped to get a fortune for its client --especially since the lot included Rembrandt's "lost" Juno. But after an agonizing period of unenthusiastic bidding, the auctioneer finally declared: "Fifty thousand guineas [$147,000], Himmelheid." Himmelheid was only a name--a face-saving fiction for Rembrandt's battered and fading goddess, whom no one wanted enough to put up the 100,000 guineas the sellers had hoped for. "If you won't pay," they had said in effect, "we won't play."

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