Excerpt from Early English, Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Blakeslee Galleries: 353 Fifth Avenue, Cor. Thirty-Fourth Street

The mutations of time, however, have wrought changes in the fortunes of many of England's great families, and there has come occasionally the inevitable need for money. Col lections, for one reason or another, have been dispersed; death and the division of great estates have scattered galleries and furnished opportunities to secure masterpieces for centuries the proud possessions of royalty, nobility, or the Croesus of his time.

Attracted early to these canvases, buying at a time even when there was little market, we have established not only unusual and exclusive relations with English and foreign agents for the securing of these works, but we make bold to lay claim to an expert knowledge of the men, their methods and characteristics, that has enabled us to select intelligently and authoritatively canvases that worthily represent their talent and best efforts. For several years we have dealt almost exclusively in such works, and our importations of recent years have included some of the most important examples of the older masters, and in particular the early Englishmen, from Sir Joshua through all his contemporaries and followers, that have ever been brought to this country. These canvases we have placed in the galleries of many of the greatest collectors in America, where they remain among their most prized possessions. In offering this catalogue, which covers, of course, only a minor portion of the paintings in the gallery, and which is the second of a series whereof the first was received with much favor, it is announced that many of the works included since the catalogue was com menced have passed from our possession. It has been deemed wise, however, to allow the reproductions to be included in this edition, and where the permission of the purchaser has been obtained the present ownership is given.

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