Art: Tales of the Hoffman House

A fabulous painting which scandalized the '80s was seen in public last week for the first time since 1901. In Manhattan's Durand-Ruel Galleries visitors could look upon Adolphe William Bouguereau's nearly 12-ft. masterpiece, Nymphs and Satyr. A quartet of ripe, naked maidens prancing around a preoccupied faun was for 24 years the despair of Victorian moralists and the delight of the clubmen who crowded Manhattan's Hoffman House bar.

In 1901, after the death of Owner Edward S. Stokes,* the Hoffman House's art treasures (valued around $200,000) were sold. Nymphs and Satyr vanished until last year, when Durand-Ruel Director Herbert H. Elfers stumbled...