"ST. JOAN"
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Now that St. Joan is again before the public, it may interest some of your readers to learn more about the reputed portrait of Joan—the " tete casquee "—which appears on the programme.
It is given as a frontispiece to the late Mr. T. Douglas Murray's Jeanne d'Arc, but without any evidence as to its history. I saw the original sculptured head in the Musee Historique at Orleans last summer, with a notice below it warning visitors against the belief that it represents Joan of Arc. I have since corresponded with the Conservator of the museum on the subject. He affirms that this piece of sculpture was found in 1828, during the demolition of the Church of St. Eloi at Orleans (not St. Maurice) and is believed to represent one of the Saints whose statues adorned that church ; also to date from the sixteenth century. He traces
• the tradition of its connexion with St. Joan to the ignorant talk of a concierge of the museum, and he holds that no such portrait, if authentic, could have escaped recognition for four centuries. It was copied by Dubois for his statue -of St. Joan, and has thus acquired notoriety.
We cannot, we know, prove a negative, in accordance with the challenge of the author of St. Joan, but the above facts should give us pause in accepting his views of its origin.—
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