Art: Still in Washington

It is a matter of fact that Andrew Mellon bought Raphael’s famed Alba Madonna from the Russian government in 1931, that he paid a whopping $1,166,400 for the picture, and that it now hangs in Washington’s Mellonrbuilt National Gallery. So why on earth should the Reds claim they still have the painting? That question, raised in last week’s Art News magazine, put critics in a whirl. It need not have.

The source of Art News’s story was Voks Bulletin, a Communist “cultural relations” magazine published in Moscow. What Voks Bulletin actually said was that Leningrad’s Hermitage collection includes two Raphaels—The Holy Family and the Conestabile Madonna* which is true. Voks blunderingly illustrated the story with Mellon’s Madonna, mislabeled it The Holy Family. People have been sent to Siberia for less.

*So-called because the Italian Counts Cone-stabile owned it for almost a century.