Suit for Damages Continues After Reappearance of Missing Painting

BULLETIN

Harry Lacey, a Boston interior the Rubens' painting, "Descent from the Rubens' painting, "Descent from the Cross," to the Fogg Art Museum, it was reported early today. Lacey allegedly had no knowledge of the value of the print, and recovered it from a pile of debris in the basement of the Boston Art Club.

Rubens' wandering masterpiece, "Descent from the Cross," has been returned to the Fogg Museum of Art, but Mrs. Jean Bullitt Darlington, the owner, has refused to drop the $100,000 damage suit she filed against the University until responsibility for the disappearance of the painting has been fixed.

According to University officials, the painting--valued at $100,000 by Mrs. Darlington--was returned by an unnamed man who bought it from an equally anonymous art dealer for $40. Whether the oil is the original or merely a copy has not yet been definitely established.

The Boston law firm of Robes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg, representing Harvard in the suit, reported that an attorney called them the day after stories of the suit appeared in Boston newspapers, claiming that a client of his was confident he had the art-work in question.

Subsequent comparisons of Mr. X's painting with X-rays taken of Mrs. Darlington's painting while it was in Fogg in 1940 proved them to be the same. Aside from commenting that Mr. X is neither a "prominent Bostonian" nor anyone connected with Harvard, officials here refuse to talk about the return of the long-missing masterpiece.

Bought in Antwerp

After buying the painting from the Tessare family of Antwerp, Belgium, where it had been on exhibition, Mrs. Darlington brought the painting to the United States and placed in on exhibition in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1940 she commissioned a representa- tive of the Horne Galleries of Boston to bring the painting to Fogg for authentication. Apparently without Mrs. Darlington's knowledge, the same agent returned to the Fogg Museum and took the painting to the Horne Galleries