WE speak too often of American collectors who have French or Italian castles transported stone by stone across the Atlantic," a contrite French art critic wrote last week. Then he added, with an air of surprise: "Robert Lehman, the banker from New York who is currently showing 300 of his treasures at the Orangerie des Tuileries is, truth to tell, an amateur of art with the best of taste." For once the rest of Paris' many-hued press was in agreement ; the Louvre's guest show for the summer was a smash hit and the talk of Paris. Editorialized Carrefour: "We would like the purchases of our museums to be inspired by a taste as severe as that of which M. Robert Lehman today gives us such dazzling evidence."
Bargains to Taste. There was no question about either the dazzle or the taste of the 293 pieces (valued at $14 million) chosen for display from the collection's total of more than 1,000 works. The finest U.S. collection still in private hands—and the first to be shown abroad—the Lehman collection boasts several of the world's great paintings by Rembrandt, Goya, El Greco, Memling and Petrus Christus (see color pages), includes an eye-stunning array of tapestries. Renaissance furniture, jewelry, enamels, bronzes and even diamond-studded snuff boxes. It represents collecting on a grand scale not likely to be repeated.
When the late Philip Lehman, head of Wall Street's Lehman Bros., and his wife started collecting in 1911, they began cautiously by buying a conventional Hoppner, Rembrandt's Portrait of an Elderly Man, Goya's Countess Altamira, and two matching portraits by 15th century painter Francesco del Cossa. Their first modest plunge, which today would strain most museum budgets, barely caused a ripple in an art world then dominated by such high, wide spenders as J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Clay Frick and Benjamin Altman.
Staying clear of the High Renaissance masterpieces, the Lehmans on their regular summer trips to Europe sought out bargains to their taste, rapidly expanded the collection to include other Italian, Spanish, French and Flemish masters (including the prize of the collection, Petrus Christus' The Legend of St. Eligius and St. Godeberta, bought for $144,000 in 1921), filled it in with matching period pieces of Renaissance furniture, tapestries and majolica plates. Robert Lehman, who as a boy accompanied his parents on their art forays, exults: "It was a fascinating way to get an education!"
Young Robert became a confirmed art enthusiast while he was still at Yale ('13), steered his parents' tastes toward Italian primitives (works by Sassetta and Giovanni di Paolo are among the collection's current high points), began collecting hand-painted illuminations and drawings. In 1929 he proved his taste with a birthday present to his father: Botticelli's exquisite, miniature Annunciation.