Vigoroux vs. Demotte

Jean Vigoroux, former New York agent for Georges Joseph Demotte, the French antiquarian, is on trial in Paris, accused of breach of confidence by his former employer. The hearings have apparently degenerated into a character duel between the pot and kettle. M. Demotte's specific charges are that M. Vigoroux embezzled $7,000, about half of the receipts from certain art works sold to American collectors and museums, and made away with Persian manuscripts valued at 1,000,000 francs. M. Vigoroux's testimony turns on the following allegations:

1) The Metropolitan Museum (likewise the Louvre) has been buying bogus antiques from Demotte and others for 20 years, amounting to $600,000.

2) The defendant made sales through the influence of persons prominent in American society, whose names, as a "professional secret," he refuses to disclose and who received substantial rake-offs for their services, this being the money he is charged with diverting to his own ends.

3) He did not know the objects were fakes when he sold them, and he exposed them when he found out.

Art works specified by M. Vigoroux as spurious include 1) A ceramic piece attributed to Lucca della Robbia, 15th Century Florentine sculptor, sold to an official of the Metropolitan for $3,000, and "not worth a sou." (The Metropolitan contains only one della Robbia--a terra cotta bas-relief entitled Prudence, bought in 1921 under the bequest of Joseph Pulitzer.) 2) A 15th Century statue of St. Paul, sold to Assistant Curator Breck, of the Metropolitan, for $3,000. 3) A bas-relief group, Les Lansquenets (a former type of German footsoldier; the figures were called "devils" by the people of Contrisson, where the owner lived), to which it is alleged Demotte added new figures before he sold it to the Louvre. 4) Two capitals from the Church of Notre Dame de la Couldre, at Parthenay, France, 12th Century Gothic, representing Abraham and Isaac, David and Goliath, sold through other dealers to a New York museum. These were classified as "historic monuments" by the French Government and recalled to France. 5.) A Gothic Virgin and Child, in the Metropolitan.

Vigoroux, however, is not the only muckraker, and some French critics have lent color to his charges. The Metropolitan authorities are still standing pat. Edward Robinson, director, is abroad, presumably to make a first-hand investigation. Mr. Breck and other Museum employees refuse to talk. And Robert W. DeForrest, President of the trustees, while not claiming infallibility for the Museum's treasures, has confidence in the judgment of the purchasing committee, composed of experts and collectors who scrutinize every object the Museum buys.