Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1900 — ONE MILLION FOR A PAINTING? [ARTICLE]

ONE MILLION FOR A PAINTING?

Fabulous Price Bald to Have Been ( ffered for a Work of Titian. The preimsterous report that someone hnd offered £200,000, or $1,000,000, foK Titian's celebrated painting of “Sacred and Profane Love,” iu the Borkliesc collection nt Rome, is due, says the Boston Transcript, in all probability to the universal hunger for astonishing people, although It may have some color of possibility to the Imagintiou of kindergarten financiers. Insensate prices have been paid for Raphaels, that In tlie National Gallery especially, which came from the Marlborough collection; also for the works of other old masters, hut never any such incredible price as this. Yet It would l»e a hard matter to set the exact limit of value In the case of a sale of Titian, more particularly such an example as tlie nbsunlly misnamed "Sacred and Profane Dive.” If there exists In the world u picture worth $1,000,000, who would he bold enough to deny the right of Titian, the potentate of painters, to he the author of that work? As to the picture known by the title of "Sacred nnd Profane Love”—a title which Titian did not give It, and which has ncedlemly puzzled many commentators—lt Is now generally considered simply as a fanciful or romantic composition. But Franz Wlokoff, a German critic, has evolved a theory which has a good deal to recommend It, that this picture represents an incldeut in seventh book of the “Argonnutlca” of Ynlerius Flaccus, the iAtln poet, where It is related that Medea, the enchantress, daughter of Aectes, King of Colchis. fUnwlHlng to yield her love for the Areek Jason, 1a visited by Venus, who

pleads for the lover and endeavors to persuade Medea to follow her into the wood, where Jason is waiting. Titian has represented this scene as taking place in the open air; the dawn is just breaking, and rosy streaks appear oh the horizon. A young woman richly dressed is seated on one side of a fountain, on the edge of which she has placed a costly casket. Her right hand is in her lap and holds a bunch of magic herbs. Deeply moved, she gazes fixedly before bet\ lending ear the while to the persuasive voice of another woman seated near. The form of this woman, around which flutters a red mantle, is of a marvelous beauty. She rests her right hand upon the fountain edge, and "'lth her left luilds on high a vase, from which Issues a light smoke. Between the two women the god of love is splashing In the water with his chubby little hands. Ms. Wickoff maintains that in the beautiful nude figure You us is easily recognizable, even were her son not there’ to Indicate her presence. The woman to whom she spoke, and who. though unwilling to yield blindly, still feels herself drawn by an irresistible power, is Medea, who betrayed the King, her father, and followed Jason, the stranger and enemy of her people.