Art: It Always Comes Back

As an art dealer, bald Edouard Jonas, Conseiller du Commerce Exterieur de la France, Expert Conseil du Gouverne-ment, has had a brilliant career. An expert in the graceful decadence of the 18th Century, he owns a gallery on the smartest corner in Paris, Place Vendome & Rue Castiglione. He has been appointed director of the Government’s new Cognacq-Jay Museum of 18th Century paintings and antiques.* He married the former wife of Cigar Store Tycoon David Schulte, and until six months ago he operated a large and very elaborate shop in New York.

That was his first defeat. Depression strangled sales. The New York Gallery was forced to close and M. Jonas went back to Paris. Last week marked his return from Elba. Up New York Bay came M. Jonas as field commander of a $1,200,000 French syndicate formed to buy back (at Depression prices) French works of art from hard-up millionaires. In the S.S. Champlain’s smoking room he explained his campaign to ship news reporters:

“Things are worth more in Paris now, and there are more people who want to buy famous French paintings. There can be no question that Paris now is the center of the art world, and the market is decidedly brisk. . . . Our pool so far has only $1,200,000 behind it, but if we are successful we shall get all the capital we need. . . .

“The Spreckels family closed their place on the Riviera not long ago. Quite foolishly, they brought their art treasures to the United States for sale. They got less than they would have in Paris. Many of their pictures have been picked up in the United States and shipped to the Paris market at a fine profit. . . .

“For 25 years French art has been coming this way. Now it is going back. It was the same after the Franco-Prussian War and the French Revolution except that then wealthy Englishmen bought it up. We have since taken it back at a profit both ways. I consider French art excellent propaganda. We send it .out, making money in the process, and then it always comes back to us.”

Art Dealer Jonas is by no means the only person to discover that money can be made from the U. S. habit of paying fantastic prices in boom times, panic selling in lean years. Dealers in English furniture and antique silver have been shipping their best pieces back to London for over a year. A spokesman for Yamanaka & Co. said last week that three years ago there was scarcely an important Japanese print left in Japan. Wall Street collapsed, and Tokyo dealers began quietly to buy. Today, even with the collapse of the yen, rare Utamaros and Yeishis bring far more in Tokyo than in New York. Brokers know that when U. S. stocks hit bottom in July the first big buying orders came from Paris, London and Amsterdam.

-The late M. Ernest Cognacq, founder of the Samaritaine Department Store, left his antiques (which Dealer Jonas assembled) to the City of Paris four years ago with the understanding that M. Jonas be appointed director. A small new building, the museum is on the Boulevard des Capucines directly opposite the Grand Hotel.