I have the following motion to move:
"That the Seanad ask the Government to press upon the British Government the return to Dublin of the pictures mentioned in the unwitnessed codicil to Sir Hugh Lane's will."
This is an old question. We have been agitating now for some years, and I have some reason for saying that the opposition against the return of these pictures is dying away. I think the justice of our case has been generally admitted. It is simply a question of the inertia of Government and of giving them the necessary impulse towards arriving at some definite decision. It is necessary, however, I think, to remind you of the circumstances under which that codicil was written. A good many years ago now Sir Hugh Lane established in Dublin a famous gallery of modern pictures. When he established it there was no modern gallery here in which students could study, and they had to go abroad to do so. Sir Hugh Lane was no mere picture dealer, but in the words of an eminent authority, he lifted the trade of the picture dealer into the realm of art. He sold pictures merely that he might buy other pictures, and he bought pictures in order that he might endow a great gallery. After he made the Dublin Municipal Gallery the most important collection of French pictures outside Luxembourg, he was somewhat discourteously treated by some of the Dublin newspapers and certain persons, and an acrimonious controversy arose.
In 1913, under the impulse of that controversy, he made a will leaving certain pictures, generally known as the Hugh Lane French pictures, to the National Gallery of London. These pictures had been given to the Municipal Gallery conditional on certain requests being carried out. Those requests were not carried out, and he gave them to the English National Gallery. He felt the pictures were not valued here. He lent them to the English National Gallery to show that they were real pictures of worth. Then under irritation he made this will, by which he left all his property, with the exception of those French pictures, to the National Gallery of Ireland. He left certain pictures to the Municipal Gallery, but he left the French pictures to the London National Gallery. Two years later, in 1915, when he was going on a journey to America, which he knew to be dangerous, he made a codicil by which the National Gallery was to return the pictures known as French pictures back to Ireland. He wrote that codicil in ink. He signed it on each page. I have a photographic copy of it in my hand; when he made a slight correction in the date he initialled that correction. No document could be more formal except for one omission. He never had it witnessed. He spoke of this change of mind to various people. I have in this pamphlet three affidavits of how he spoke of changing his mind, and wishing that Ireland had his French pictures. Of his intention there can be no question whatever. From those various documents I think I may read you one affidavit made by his sister:
I, RUTH SHINE, of Lindsey House, 100 Cheyne Walk, London, S.W., widow, do solemnly and sincerely declare as follows:
The late Sir Hugh Lane was a brother of mine, and he is hereinafter referred to as "my brother."
In January, 1915, my brother spoke to me of making another will. He went to Dublin, however, without having done so. It was there (on February 3rd) that he wrote and signed his codicil and locked it in his desk at the National Gallery in a sealed envelope addressed to me; it was very clearly and carefully written and I have no doubt whatever that he considered it legal.
My brother had no ordinary business habits in the ordinary sense of the word, and was ignorant of legal technicalities. He dictated both his wills to me, the first leaving all to the Modern Art Gallery in Dublin, and the second leaving all to the National Gallery of Dublin, with the exception of the French pictures left to London. But for my persistence, neither would have been witnessed; even when he dictated the second will he had forgotten all I had told him about that necessity. So little am I surprised at there being no witnesses to the codicil that my surprise is altogether that he should have written it so carefully. He must have made rough drafts, as he composed letters with great difficulty, and the codicil was so well written.
I think from my knowledge of him that if he thought of a witness at all he would perhaps have considered that a codicil to an already witnessed will needed no further formality. When he sealed up the envelope he was going on a dangerous journey to America, and was so much impressed by that danger that at first he had refused to go at all unless those who had invited him for business reasons would insure his life for £50,000 to clear his estate of certain liabilities, and he thought he was going not in seven or eight weeks, as it happened, but in two or three.
I have approached this subject without any bias in favour of Dublin, but as his sister, anxious that his intentions should be carried out, and I make this declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true and by virtue of the provisions of the Statutory Declaration Act, 1835.
RUTH SHINE.
Declared at Markham House, King's Road, Chelsea, in the County of London, this 13th day of February, 1917.
Before me,
G.F. WILKINS,
A Commissioner for Oaths.
That codicil would have been legal in Scotland. It seems to us that a request made to a great Gallery is something different from a request made to an individual; that a great Gallery like this cannot desire to retain property which was left to it by accident, and that it must desire, as we do, the return of these pictures if they are set free by Act of Parliament legalising the codicil. We believe that that Act of Parliament can be obtained. One Irish Chief Secretary had prepared such a Bill, but it has been pushed aside by the pressure of Parliamentary business. It is very important for Ireland to recover these pictures. With the addition of the French pictures the Municipal Gallery is more than doubled in its importance, for those pictures are complementary to the pictures here in Dublin. He was not only a connoisseur; he had the gift of arranging pictures so as to display them to the best advantage. With those pictures there, we should have in the Municipal Gallery a possession which in future generations would draw people to Dublin, and help in enriching the city and the whole population by bringing those pilgrims. The actual money value of the pictures is hard to decide, because pictures constantly change their value, but about twelve years ago they were valued at about £75,000. It is quite probable they are worth more now. One picture, by Malet, might be bought at £20,000 They also have this further importance: they will never be in the market again. The great pictures of that period in French art are already finding their way into national collections. It is precisely for that reason that certain English critics have tried to keep the pictures in England. They know that if they cannot keep these French pictures in London they can never have a representative collection of French art. In fighting to recover these pictures you are fighting for a unique possession which will always remain unique and always give prestige to the Gallery that contains it.
