Daniel's Client

Enjoying the brisk October sunshine, a middle-aged man strolled along Manhattan's art-dealers row, East 57th Street, last week. Before the E. & A. Silberman Galleries he paused, startled. In the window was a large and ancient painting of Susanna. And Susanna was naked. The middle-aged man entered.

"Is that picture in the window very valuable?" he asked.

"Oh yes," smiled a clerk. "It is by Tintoretto you know.* Until a few weeks ago it belonged to the estate of the late Grand Duchess Marie of Russia./- Professor Frank Jewett Mather is trying to buy it for Princeton University, and we value it at between $35,000 and $50,000."

"Well, then," said the middle-aged man, "you wouldn't want the police to take it away, would you?"

Partner Abraham Silberman came forward to learn the cause of the discussion. The middle-aged man produced his card. He was that spear of righteousness JOHN SAXTON SUMNER of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Said Partner Silberman: If Mr. Sumner would bring his wife to the gallery and if she found the picture objectionable they would remove it and apologize publicly. Otherwise Susanna would remain in the window. Mr. Sumner refused the offer, turned on his heel.

Like almost every other artist of the Renaissance, Tintoretto painted the legend of the "exceeding delicate" Susanna, wife of Joakim, who was spied on by two amorous elders while taking an oil bath with "washing balls" in an orchard. The repulsed elders accused her of adultery. Attorney for the defense was the young prophet Daniel who proved perjury by examining the witnesses separately. Puritans who object to the depiction of Susanna in art cannot read about her in their Bibles. Omitted from the King James version, the story may be found in the Douay version (for Roman Catholics), Daniel XIII.

Episcopalian Sumner's objection to the heroine of Daniel XIII was reported in the papers. Next day so many casual art lovers came to admire the work of Tintoretto that police were assigned to keep the crowds moving. Proud of the picture, the Silberman Galleries' doorman, a Eugene Herr, was conscience stricken to realize that the show window was not so clean as it ought to be. He got his bucket. Late comers expecting to see Susanna in the nude saw instead Mr. Herr in his overalls. They raged.

Mr. Herr made a brief speech on behalf of the galleries, promised that as soon as he had finished swabbing, Susanna would return. She did.

*Jacopo Robusti (1518-94) was known as Tintoretto because his father was a Venetian dyer. An admirer, never a friend, of the great Titian, he painted innumerable murky powerful portraits of the Doges and Senators of Venice, great intricate murals. In an age when all artists were commercial artists he was one of the first to adopt an advertising slogan. Outside his studio was an inscription:

"The drawing of Michelangelo and the color of Titian."

/-Not to be confused with her niece, author of The Education of a Princess.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.