The approaching completion of the gallery which the Dublin Corporation
is having built to contain the city's collection of modem pictures will bring once more before the public the question of the thirty-nine Lane Bequest pictures at present retained by the Tate Gallery. Dublin's claim to the pictures is based on an unwitnessed codicil found in Sir Hugh Lane's desk in the Dublin National Gallery ten days after his death in the Lusitania disaster. The extreme care with which the document had been drawn up shows that the author was under the impression that it would be legally effective. There can indeed be no doubt at all about Lane's intentions. The only question to be decided is whether the legal precedent that would be created by the passing of an Act to amend the will would be justified by the importance of the facts. The committee appointed by the Labour Government in 1924 came to the conclusion that it would not, and it might well be that a further committee appointed now would endorse their decision. But the action of the Tate Gallery Trustees need not be fettered by that con- sideration. The return of the pictures to Dublin, nominally on loan, would be deeply appreciated on the other side of St. George's Channel and widely approved on this.
* * *
Previous page
