Survivors

When Adolphe Schloss got rich in the export business in Paris, he started buying Dutch and Flemish old masters. By the time he died in 1910 he had one of the world's largest and finest private collections of them. They hung in the gallery of his mansion on the Avenue Henri Martin until the outbreak of World War II, when they were stuffed into crates and spirited away to the chateau of a friend at Tulle, in the south of France.

For three years after France fell, private art collectors for both Hitler and Goring gnashed about in search of the hidden treasure. Finally somebody tipped the Gestapo, and the collection, except for 49 paintings which the Louvre managed to keep, was carted off to Germany.

Last week part of the Schloss collection was on the move again. It was up for auction at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris, in the biggest art sale held in Europe since the war. Nearly an hour before the auctioning began, every little gilt chair in the great, red-velvet-draped gallery had been occupied. Bearded boulevardiers and ladies in fox furs vied for seats with dapper, sharp-eyed dealers from, far & near.

Top price of 5,500,000 francs ($16,500) was brought by 17th Century Adriaen Brouwer's Peasants' Meal, a scene as vulgar and unbelted as an after-supper belch. Anthony Van Dyck's forceful portrait of Engraver Paul Pontius went for $11,700; Jacob Ruysdael's cold but kindly Winter Scene for $9,600; Jan Steen's low-comedy Effects of Intemperance for $8,400.

The prices were right: the market in Dutch and Flemish old masters has stayed fairly steady for the last 20 years. But something was missing. Only 70 paintings, less than half of the once-great Schloss collection, had been recovered. The best of the collection, more than 100 canvases including a Frans Hals, a Pieter Bruegel and four Rembrandts were still missing.

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