Good Riddance

Recently the Metropolitan Museum announced an auction sale of paintings no longer deemed worthy of wall space. Last week the euphemistically-termed "surplus" art was sold. The highest price was $3,500, paid by Circusman John Ringling for Hans Makart's Diana's Hunting Party, a giant canvas (15 by 32 feet), garish and breezy as a circus poster. This will hang in Mr. Ringling's sunny, spacious museum at Sarasota, Fla. For more than 100 pieces the museum received $53,442. Meticulous connoisseurs called it sheer profit, good riddance.