Page 24 - Vision & Ecstasy - Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's St. Francis.

precisely, and the contract was prepared. A pre-condition had been to clean the painting which would make a
subsequent resale to a museum more complex.With the deal seemingly in the bag at the very last instant, as I was
later informed by a friend at the BJP Foundation, Basia’s former art advisor turned up and apparently in a fit of
jealousy,since he was not‘included’in the transaction,proclaimed that he knew another version in Italy which could
be bought (through him) at a fraction of the price.Indeed,there was another‘version’which had once been published
by Pallucchini, but it was a copy.The contract had been sealed and the courier was due to pick it up that day. It never
arrived in London and the deal collapsed. In 1996 we sold the painting toThe National Gallery ofArt,Washington.

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B arbara Johnson sadly passed away on April the first 2013 after fighting a long illness. I have been honoured
to regard her as a friend and, in recent years, to visit her in Monaco and latterly in her unique house inAssisi
where she often cooked a delicious lunch for me.We would sit there under the thousand year old olive trees she
had had transported from Andalusia and watch the birds drink from the puddles of water that collected among
their gnarled roots. Many are aware that Basia could sometimes be somewhat capricious but I was fortunate in
having a relationship that transcended any such difficulty. During her life Basia worked tirelessly for charitable
purposes, perhaps the best known being her extensive financial support for Solidarity and the Gdansk Shipyard.
Less universally known was her support through her Foundation, established in 1974, for autistic children, a
cause she took very personally founding The Institute for Child Development in Gdansk which is a centre of
excellence for the treatment of autism.This institute cooperates withThe Princeton Child Development Institute
in the United States, a world leader in the field. Basia also had a passion for music and, of course, Chopin first
and foremost so that it was natural that we should listen to the Études together played by Krystian Zimerman.
In addition she has supported both Polish students, enabling them to continue their studies in the United States,
as well as Polish victims of martial law and also homes for single mothers and selected health facilities. Basia
endowed her Foundation with a collection of Polish art and works of art. I am pleased to acknowledge here the
debt that my gallery owes to Barbara Johnson's dedication down the years to collecting prime examples of

16. Martial (MarcusValerius Martialis) 40 AD - c.102-104AD, Twelve Books of Epigrams. Since Martial was born on March the first,
as indeed am I, the quotation seemed doubly apposite. I am grateful to Larry Nichols for drawing my attention to this quotation
which is also on a placque on a house in Maastricht.

17. 16. Saint Bonaventure,‘The Life of St Francis of Assisi’ from the Legenda Santi Francisci of S. Bonaventure, edited, with a preface by
Henry Howard,Archbishop ofWestminster, London, 1868.

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