Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1919 — SAVED TWO FAMOUS PICTURES [ARTICLE]

SAVED TWO FAMOUS PICTURES

Old Masters Taken by British Officer From the RuiftsofYpres Cathedral.

The king of the Belgians will shortly have returned to him two famous pictures which were rescued, four years ago, from Ypres cathedral. It appears that during the bombardment of Ypres tn 1915 a young British artillery officer noticed inside the cathedral, which was being heavily shelled, that the only things not shattered by German fire were two large Flemish masters, dated 1600, hanging some 20 feet high on the walls. How to get them and save them for Belgium was the question which immediately presented itself. The officer called two private soldiers to help him, and with the ai'd of some long gas pipes which had been blown down by the German fire, and two large hooks, the pictures were lowered to the ground- The officer, Lieutenant Daniels, R. A., then cut the pictures out of their frames and put them in a large sack, which he used for a time as a bed. In the end he took them to London, where, with the approval of the Belgian minister, they have been placed on exhibition prior to being returned to King Albert at Brussels.