Acquisition: Style of Giacomo Francisco Cipper, 'Head of a Man in Blue' and 'Head of a ...

Maurice Woolff Jacobson, an antique dealer based in Paris, bequeathed 6 pictures to the National Gallery in 1944. As many of the pictures were unaccounted for at the time of the notification of the bequest the Gallery accepted only those then available: two portraits (Goitre and companion picture) and a Primitive subject 'Christ, the Virgin Mary and St John', which entered the collection in 1944. A circular picture of Cleopatra was subsequently recovered and accepted by the Gallery in 1947 as part of the bequest. The picture accepted as the Primitive 'Christ, the Virgin Mary and St John' in 1944 was subsequently returned when it was discovered that this was not the correct work intended in the testator's will. An Italian primitive matching this description was recovered in Paris in 1947 but was declined by the Board, as was a portrait of a Rabbi by Rembrandt. 'View of the Prada' by Velazquez, the sixth work bequeathed by Jacobson, was never recovered.