But the man who found it died, and it passed
with a few other unvalued possessions to Sabina Prestwich, now
deceased.
The result of Eden Kineagie's visit to the house in Cambridge Avenue
was the immediate transference of the canvas to Sotheby's Sale Rooms, a
concerted rush on the part of every European and American connoisseur,
a threatening letter from the Italian Foreign Office, some extravagant
bidding and the ultimate purchase of the picture for the nation, after
a heated debate on the part of twenty-two Royal Academicians and five
painters of the new school, who would have accepted death rather than
the letters; R.A., after their names. Extensive correspondence appeared
in the leading papers; persons wrote expressing the opinion that the
picture had never been painted by Del Sarto, that it was the finest
example of his work, that the price paid was a further example of
government waste, and that the money would have been better employed
repairing the main road between Croydon Town Hall and Sydenham High
Street, the condition of which constituted a menace to motor-cyclists.
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