Adventures Of A Picture

We have heárd of the adventures of a guinea. The story of a painting brought to Rome by Queen Christiria oí Sweden is not less interesting. The subject is Leda and her attendant nymphs attaeked in a bath by swans. It was painted 367 years ago for the Duke of Mantua, and given by htm to the Emperor Charles V. PhHlippa II. took it from Italy to Spain. It was brought there by the sculptor Leone Looni. who sold it to a picture dealer for the collection of the Emperor Rodolph II. The Swedes took it, with other spoils of the Seven Years' War, to Stockholm, where Christina took a fancy to it, and with other treasures transported it to Rome. She left it to Cardinal Azzolino.who died a few months after it was handed over to him. It passed on to nis nephew, and was sold by him to Prince Livio Odescalehi, who left it to a cousin, Prince Barda6sone Odescalehi, who sold it to the Duc d'Orleans, Regent of France. His son Louis, Duc d'Orleans, a pious prince, thought the head of Leda too pagan, and had it cut out. Coypel bought the painting and painted in a head from memory. He sold it to Pasquín, a collector, who sold it at a l&rge proflt to Frederick the Great. Marshal Davoust took it from a Prussian palace and brought it back to Paris. It was there restored and given back to the King of Prussia in 1815. The head feil off the canvas on the way, and a new head was inserted by Schlesinger. The picture is now ia the possession of the Germán emperor, who is ïa&cinated by the swans. As ha likes to think nimself a Lohengrin, this is as it should be. The curious thing is that the artist's name has not gone down to posterity, though the picture has been famous for so many centuriee.