Patience Rewarded

Detroit's Institute of Arts, which has been energetically working its way up the list of the nation's top museums, added a treasure last week that even such giants as Manhattan's Metropolitan and Washington's National Gallery would be proud to own. The painter was Italy's Renaissance Master Stefano di Giovanni Sassetta (1392-1450). The work: a dramatic series of three small (the largest, 19 1/4 by 25 in.) panels from a 15th century altarpiece showing Christ's Agony in the Garden, The Betrayal of Christ and the Procession to Calvary. Together the three paintings make up the only Sassetta predella (i.e., a strip of paintings along the base of the altar), in the U.S., and it was something that took the museum almost 30 years to acquire.

Detroit had bought the Procession to Calvary in 1925 when the present building was under construction, got The Betrayal from an English collector 21 years later. Both were magnificent pieces, devout scenes of Christ under the burden of the cross and accepting the fatal kiss from Judas. But Sassetta's Agony in the Garden, in brilliant gold leaf, soft roses and browns with a rosy-cheeked angel under a cobalt-blue sky, was the handsomest of the three--and the hardest to get. It belonged to an English noblewoman named Lady Mary Catherine Ashburnham, who guarded it jealously in her private gallery, rarely let anyone see the picture, much less talk of buying it.

Lady Mary Catherine was the last of her branch of an 800-year-old line, and after she died last winter her collection went up for auction. By common consent most big dealers withheld their bids, and when the auctioneer's hammer fell for the last time, Detroit owned Sassetta's prized Agony for a bargain $25,000. The institute could hardly believe its good luck at bringing together three pictures that had been separated for centuries. Said Assistant Director Paul L. Grigaut: "Both English and American dealers were very cricket about it. Our biggest trouble was getting it away from Italian collectors. Amazingly enough, they have few Sassettas on display in their own country and they wanted to take it back to Italy."

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