Arts: To Lake Forest

To Lake Forest

John R. Thompson, of Chicago, has, like others, a home in Lake Forest, is, like others, member of the Chicago Athletic Club, Hamilton Club, South Shore Country Club. But none but he has in Chicago, 47 restaurants.

The Thompson restaurants “attract by sheer pull of good food, cleanliness, purity, service, prices ailways kept down, even in the War.” Based on these principles, the Thompson Restaurants, now 103, have spread into all principal cities from Milwaukee to New Orleans, from Providence to Kansas City. In 1921, the volume of business exceeded $15,000,000. Mr. Thompson, also in the grocery business, has netted a fortune. Thirty years ago he was a downstate Illinois farmer.

Last week he offered Sir Joseph Duveen $250,000 for a picture, The Laughing Mandolin Player, by Franz Hals, 17th Century Dutch painter. The deal was closed. It was generally considered the most important art transaction since Henry E. Huntington of California bought from the same dealer Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, or since John D. Rockefeller, Jr., bought for $1,100,000 the Verteuil tapestries (TIME, March 3).

A smile made Da Vinci famous: laughter on canvas has contributed to the artistic immortality of Franz Hals. The picture just added to Mr. Thompson’s collection of old masters was formerly owned by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild of Waddesdon Manor. On a canvas, 4×5 feet, it shows a fair tousle-headed boy. He wears a cap; his dark coat is lined with blue; in his upraised right hand he holds a wine glass, and laughs.

“F. H.” in monogram is on the canvas which goes to Mr. Thompson’s Lake Forest home to join five early Italian paintings bought from the Salomon collection for, it is said, $500,000.