Bargain Finder

Director Walter Heil, 59, of San Francisco's M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, got his reputation for sharp eyes and cagey bargaining in 1948 when he spotted a marble boy on a Manhattan art dealer's window sill, bought it for $1,800. Experts agreed that it was one of the few existing works of the 18th Century Italian master, Andrea del Verrocchio (TIME, March 14, 1949), and worth many times its purchase price.

While traveling in Europe last July, Bargain Hunter Heil dropped in at a tourist art shop in Florence, asked the proprietress if she had "anything old" on hand. She opened a drawer, pulled out a wooden panel containing a portrait of 16th Century Venetian Doge Leonardo Lore-dano, observed that she had long thought it might be the work of the great Venetian painter, Gentile Bellini. Heil took a sharp look, decided she was probably right and closed the sale on the spot. Later, Italian experts confirmed his verdict, and he shipped the picture to the U.S.

This week the De Young Museum put the Bellini Doge on display along with the Verrocchio boy and a picture of Christ and the Magdalen, painted in collaboration by Flemish Masters Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Bruegel the Elder, which Heil also bought cheap from a Canadian dealer last spring. The three works of art had cost the museum less than $10,000; the museum put their combined value at $100,000.

Director Heil smilingly warned San Franciscans not to expect such luck indefinitely: "We can't always keep buying things at bargain prices." He hoped his bargain display might encourage San Franciscans to chip in and help the museum buy on the open market.

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