the shoulders in a poor fashion, the plaits of flesh below the chin are not natural; the neck itself is a dummy cylinder of flesh, and the left hand profile of the neck is out of design: the moulding of the shoulders and neck is primitive.” 8
A trial by jury was held in the Supreme Court of New York, before Justice William Harman Black. It commenced on February 5, 1929, and lasted twenty-eight days. The trial was a populist tour de force, including dramatic and controversial testimony by Duveen and his experts. Among them was a man named Bernard Berenson, who was a world-renowned authority on the Renaissance and a connoisseur of the Masters. Hahn referred to him as “the majordomo of the picture guessers.” 9 In a curious incident, Berenson had previously gone on record as saying he doubted that the Louvre version was authentic; now he appeared at the trial prepared to testify otherwise. Harry Hahn cynically judged Berenson’s change of heart as the result of the generous payment Duveen was giving him.
Berenson’s description of his qualifications as an expert included this lofty statement: “You get a sense, if you have had sufficiently long training—this is not for beginners. It takes a very long time before you get a sort of sixth sense that comes from accumulated experience. When you get that, you get a sense of what the master is up to, what he is likely to do, able to do, and what he is not likely to be able to do.” 10
Nonsense, responded Harry Hahn—doublespeak. He later wrote that he was not alone in challenging the hoity-toity mentality of connoisseurs, whose pretentions relied on such questionable attributes as Berenson’s sixth sense: “Some groups in the art world have at last commenced to breathe and bestir. They are demanding something more than a neatly worded attribution from a Mr. Berenson or his like as a guarantee of authenticity. They have seen some highly questionable old masters cluttering up our public museums.” 11 That was probably wishful thinking on Hahn’s part, for no such revolt ever occurred.
When Duveen took the stand, he insisted that the Hahns’ painting was a fake, even though he seemed to contradict his own connoisseurship with this testimony in this exchange with the Hahns’ lawyer, S. Lawrence Miller:
Miller: What is your method of expertizing paintings?
Duveen: First I look to see whether it is an original or a copy.
Miller: Oh, then you have to see it in order to pronounce on it?
Duveen: I have bought paintings by looking at a photograph.
Miller: Then it is necessary to see either the painting itself or a photograph of it?
Duveen: Yes.
Miller: In this case, however, you saw neither when you passed judgment on the painting?
Duveen: In this case I saw neither. 12
Time magazine wrote colorfully of the trial, describing Duveen on the stand:
For four days Sir Joseph had been a harried witness. He had flayed the Hahn picture, testily calling its left eye “dead,” “very dead,” and “beadlike.” On the fifth day he covered the whole damozel with one more coating of scorn. “She is a fat person!” he gibed. “A peasant type.” Then he joyously pointed to a reproduction of the Louvre Belle . “This is a great lady of the period.” Reverting to the Hahn painting he described the shoulders as flabby, the arms as puffy, the breast as lacking modeling, the embroidery as untrue to Leonardo’s period. “The hair!” he exclaimed, “That’s not hair—that is mud! . . . If an artist paints wood it must be wood, not steel. If he paints hair it must be hair, not mud.” 13
The Hahns had their supporters, including Georges Sortais, who had made the initial attribution, and J. Conrad Hug, the elderly art dealer who had represented the work in the museum sale. Evidence was also presented that a number of experts had judged the Louvre portrait as being by Leonardo’s school but not by the Master himself.
At the end of the day, the task of sorting out the
A trial by jury was held in the Supreme Court of New York, before Justice William Harman Black. It commenced on February 5, 1929, and lasted twenty-eight days. The trial was a populist tour de force, including dramatic and controversial testimony by Duveen and his experts. Among them was a man named Bernard Berenson, who was a world-renowned authority on the Renaissance and a connoisseur of the Masters. Hahn referred to him as “the majordomo of the picture guessers.” 9 In a curious incident, Berenson had previously gone on record as saying he doubted that the Louvre version was authentic; now he appeared at the trial prepared to testify otherwise. Harry Hahn cynically judged Berenson’s change of heart as the result of the generous payment Duveen was giving him.
Berenson’s description of his qualifications as an expert included this lofty statement: “You get a sense, if you have had sufficiently long training—this is not for beginners. It takes a very long time before you get a sort of sixth sense that comes from accumulated experience. When you get that, you get a sense of what the master is up to, what he is likely to do, able to do, and what he is not likely to be able to do.” 10
Nonsense, responded Harry Hahn—doublespeak. He later wrote that he was not alone in challenging the hoity-toity mentality of connoisseurs, whose pretentions relied on such questionable attributes as Berenson’s sixth sense: “Some groups in the art world have at last commenced to breathe and bestir. They are demanding something more than a neatly worded attribution from a Mr. Berenson or his like as a guarantee of authenticity. They have seen some highly questionable old masters cluttering up our public museums.” 11 That was probably wishful thinking on Hahn’s part, for no such revolt ever occurred.
When Duveen took the stand, he insisted that the Hahns’ painting was a fake, even though he seemed to contradict his own connoisseurship with this testimony in this exchange with the Hahns’ lawyer, S. Lawrence Miller:
Miller: What is your method of expertizing paintings?
Duveen: First I look to see whether it is an original or a copy.
Miller: Oh, then you have to see it in order to pronounce on it?
Duveen: I have bought paintings by looking at a photograph.
Miller: Then it is necessary to see either the painting itself or a photograph of it?
Duveen: Yes.
Miller: In this case, however, you saw neither when you passed judgment on the painting?
Duveen: In this case I saw neither. 12
Time magazine wrote colorfully of the trial, describing Duveen on the stand:
For four days Sir Joseph had been a harried witness. He had flayed the Hahn picture, testily calling its left eye “dead,” “very dead,” and “beadlike.” On the fifth day he covered the whole damozel with one more coating of scorn. “She is a fat person!” he gibed. “A peasant type.” Then he joyously pointed to a reproduction of the Louvre Belle . “This is a great lady of the period.” Reverting to the Hahn painting he described the shoulders as flabby, the arms as puffy, the breast as lacking modeling, the embroidery as untrue to Leonardo’s period. “The hair!” he exclaimed, “That’s not hair—that is mud! . . . If an artist paints wood it must be wood, not steel. If he paints hair it must be hair, not mud.” 13
The Hahns had their supporters, including Georges Sortais, who had made the initial attribution, and J. Conrad Hug, the elderly art dealer who had represented the work in the museum sale. Evidence was also presented that a number of experts had judged the Louvre portrait as being by Leonardo’s school but not by the Master himself.
At the end of the day, the task of sorting out the
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