Yellow with age, and dark about the ridges, the teeth, doubtless worn on
many an occasion of the greatest importance to the young republic, are im-
pressive to one who views them for the first time. Pictures of the banquets
and the great occasions of state to which they were worn flash through the
mind of the observer.
Fake Art Being Ousted Fro Independence Hall
efforts to forestall disclosures of the extent to
which fake paintings have foisted on the city of Philadelphia reached
a climax when the city council passed an ordinance recently that led to the
Trery revelations which the measure
was designed to suppress.
The ordinance provides for the
creation of a commission to take
charge of Independence hall and all
its paintings and relics. It is nothing
more nor less than a "ripper bill"
aimed at the art jury, which has been
engaged in cleaning out the fakes from
Independence hall for the last three
months.
More than a third of the 342 paint
ings in the collection at Independence
hall have been passed upon by the art jury. The percentage of rejections haa
not been announced, but it is large. Paintings ascribed to early American
artists of note like Gilbert Stuart and Charles Wilson Peale, and denounced as
fakes heretofore, are to be eliminated.
But the big task which the art jury has set itself is to clean out the
"French" gallery at the hall, the paintings by Albert Rosenthal, Philadelphia
artist, of which no originals exist. Nearly all these paintings were sold to
the city by Rosenthal as copies of originals in the Museum of Versailles.
