The Evening World

W. K. VANDERBILT PAYS $18,400 FOR "A RAG, A BONE AND A HANK O' HAIR."

Purchase of Sir Philip Burne-Jones's Famous Work of Art Is Made Just Before the Buyer's Departure for Europe.

William K. Vanderbilt is now the owner of Sir Philip Burne-Jones's much-talked-of painting, The Vampire. The sale was made just previous to Mr. Vanderbilt's recent departure for Europe, and the price paid was $18,400.

"The Vampire" is not now in this city. After Sir Philip's arrival in March it was placed on exhibition at Knoedler's, and has since gone the round of the larger cities. At last accounts it was in Baltimore on its way back from the West.

Critics Note Not Kind

Local artists will probably say that Mr. Vanderbilt has driven a very fair bargain. Indeed, American critics have had few gracious words for "The Vampire" or the other pictures in Sir Philip's collection. When the painter and the customs officials noted over the amount of duty to be paid on "The Vampire" the local art world rang with sarcastic comments. The advertising the artist and his work received through Kipling's poem seemed to be the sore point.

"Commercially Sir Philip values his work too modestly," said one, and "Artistically he values it extravagantly," chipped in another. "As a work of art it should not be valued at all," chorused the artists, who had written columns in the papers about Sir Philip and his arrival.

A most bitter dubbed the picture and the poem alike penny dreadfuls.

Society Took Him Up.

All this artistic disparagement did not interfere with Sir Philip's success. Society took him up and found him an accomplished gentleman. He opened a studio in the Bryant Park Building, and his first commission was from Liebler & Co. to paint his old friend, Kyrle Bellew, the actor.

Recently Sir Philip was a visitor at Newport. He is now stopping with Mr. Truett at Oyster Bay. Sir Philip is a son of Edward Burne-Jones, the pre-Raphaelite painter. He inherited his father's literary instincts, but not all of his pictorial ability. His English home is at Rottingdean, where his cousin, Rudyard Kipling, also resides.