Art: International Laughter

Director Philip Adams of the Cincinnati Art Museum made a gleeful announcement last week. “For peanuts,” he said, he had picked up in Florence, Italy a painting that turned out to be a genuine Botticelli. which he values at $80,000. The picture was a smaller (11½ in. by 8½ in.) version of Botticelli’s great Judith, which hangs in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. Adams guessed his painting to be one of the master’s preparatory studies of the subject. Cleaning at Cincinnati had corrected some “bungling repairs,” made Judith’s head look less prettified.

Italy, of course, has the world’s foremost Botticelli experts. When the big news was flashed to Florence, it drew a dry laugh from the city’s superintendent of fine arts, Filippo Rossi. “The picture,” said Rossi flatly, “is catalogued here as a copy by an unknown student.”

Adams laughed right back: “Aha, methinks the poor man is hiding behind a red face. The gentleman doubtlessly is covering up for allowing an important painting to escape Italy.”

Art experts are a cautious lot, slow to take sides in such controversies. So it may take years to determine whether Adams or Rossi really had the last laugh.