To the editors:

I read with interest James Panero’s thorough and even-handed account
of the episode that has had the international art trade
“tuned in” for several months: the convulsions and final
collapse of the Salander-O’Reilly Galleries (“Gallery chronicle,”
November 2007). As everyone knows, the principal of the gallery, Lawrence
Salander, is now entangled in myriad civil suits and may be
facing criminal indictment. As Mr. Panero noted, Salander is a man with
a solid, even distinguished, record as a dealer for nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century art. Most attribute his downfall to
the fact that, starting about five years ago, his gallery began
an ambitious foray into the realm of European Old Master painting
and sculpture. The expertise of Andrew Butterfield, an assistant
with proven scholarly credentials, helped the gallery
score a number of impressive successes, particularly with
sculpture. Then things began to spin out of control, for reasons that are
still unclear.

The fact that Mr. Salander is alleged to have played fast
and loose with his artists,’ consignors,’ and clients’ money
is, of course, serious enough. What has not, as yet,
received attention is the damage that this dealer has
inflicted on an entire category of serious, committed, and
scrupulous colleagues who have struggled to
persevere in New York despite the contemporary-art tsunami
that has engulfed the field of older European art. This
“category” now actually counts hardly a handful of
professionals who, quite justly, feel betrayed. Barely a
generation ago, Fifty-seventh Street