modeling and we who love Renoir's art accept his convention. Again, Renoir is interested in mass, in the modeling within the outline, and the shading is used to express the modeling, not, as I have said, to indicate light and shadow. The drawings attributed to Renoir show an interest in line not in the form within the outline. Renoir is monumental; these drawings do not go beneath the surface. They are sentimental.
"In 'Aratra Pentelici,' Ruskin says of the head on a Greek coin of the debased period: 'The third coin will, I think, strike you by what we moderns should call its "vigor of character." You may observe also, that the features are finished with great care and subtlety, but at the cost of simplicity and breadth. But the essential difference between it and the earlier art, is its disorder in design—you see the locks of hair cannot be counted any longer—they are entirely dishevelled and irregular.' I cannot recall a single drawing by Renoir in which the locks of hair are dishevelled or irregular. The treatment of the hair in his drawings is almost sculpturesque.
"Lastly, let me speak of the signatures on the drawings. Renoir signed his drawings as a man of taste would sign them. The signatures never obtrude. Usually they are placed in one of the lower corners, and from a few feet off they are invisible. Many of these ninety-six drawings are signed in most conspicuous places; in places where they injure the works by their undue prominence."
The next installment of the story was published in the Eagle the following Sunday. Here it is:
"From the moment I entered the room where the 'Renoir' drawings were being shown at the Anderson Galleries there was no question in my mind about their authenticity. They were false. There was, however, the question whether the hand which had signed the drawings had not also fabricated documentary evidence which might prove troublesome. That no such evidence had been given out was no proof that it did not exist. There were rumors that there were many more pastels and drawings at the source from which these two first installments had been drawn. It would not have been strange if the 'irrefutable' evidence was being held back for a subsequent sale. A Sherlock Holmes was needed. The mysterious owner must be discovered.
"Save for the showcases and the fact that the proprietor and his clerks stood behind them, instead of sitting Turk-fashion on piles of rugs, the illusion was all but complete. I might have been in Stamboul. Before me were piled up rugs, shawls, tapestries, works of art of all kinds and of all periods, things of value, things which had never had a value and never would have, curious odds and ends. I wished to ask the proprietor two questions, and I wished to see him alone. From the conversation I soon found out which person he was. When I succeeded in gaining his ear, after gossiping about art, I asked him my questions: 'How do you know that your drawings which were sold at the Anderson Galleries were genuine Renoirs?' 'I have only the word of the person who gave them to me.' 'May I see those which you have not yet sold?' 'I have sold them all. I have no more left.'"
The mysterious owner was Mr. C. V. Miller of whom I was destined to hear further.
My going abroad was an interruption to the publication of the story, but I came back with absolute proof that the drawings were not by Renoir but by Lucien Mignon. In the Eagle of October 31st appeared the continuation of my story:
"When I left for Europe last spring after the publication of my three articles on the drawings wrongly attributed to Renoir, but which were sold as his work at the Anderson Galleries, I felt as if a serial detective story had suddenly been interrupted after the third installment. Let us resume the publication.
"Lucien Mignon, a Parisian painter, living somewhat apart from his brother-artists, was looking over a number of the Bulletin de la Vie Artistique early one evening about the middle of May. Suddenly an illustration caught his eyes and held them, for it was a reproduction of one of his own drawings. He read the text which accompanied it and was stupefied to learn that the drawing was one of many which had been sold in New York at auction as being by Renoir. Immediately Mignon recognized that his honor was at stake. He must prove without delay that he had had no part in the fraud. He hastened to the theatre where he knew Pierre Renoir was playing. The doorkeeper at the stage entrance told him that the actor was on the stage and could not be seen until the intermission. The minutes of waiting seemed to Mignon to lengthen out into days. At last Pierre Renoir appeared. Mignon explained hastily about the false Renoir drawings, how he had sold them himself as his own work to a New York antiquity dealer, and that each drawing when it left his hands bore the signature 'Lucien Mignon.' 'How came it,' asked Pierre Renoir, that they bore my father's signature?' 'That,' answered poor Mignon, 'I can in no way explain.'
"The next morning, when Joseph Durand-Ruel came to his gallery on the Rue Laffitte, he found Mignon and Pierre Renoir, who had been waiting for him for hours. Before the close of the interview Lucien Mignon had been completely exonerated.
