Let's Make a Deal

Elmer Kelen turned to leave the studio of a young Hungarian artist, Arpad Sebesy. He was angry and his parting words were, "That's a rotten portrait and I refuse to pay for it."

The artist was crushed. He had wasted weeks on this painting and now the 500 pengos that he was going to lose on the deal flashed through his mind. Bitterly he recalled that the millionaire had only posed three times, so that the painting had to be done virtually from memory. Still, he didn't think it was a bad likeness. Before the millionaire left his studio the artist called out, "One minute. Will you give me a letter saying you refused the portrait because it didn't resemble you?"

Glad to get off the hook so easily, Kelen agreed and wrote the letter. A few months later the Society of Hungarian Artists opened its exhibition at the Gallery of Fine Arts in Budapest. Soon afterwards Kelen's phone began to ring. Within a half an hour he appeared at the gallery and headed for the wing where a Sebesy painting was on display. It was the one he had rejected. He glanced at the title and his face turned purple. Storming into the office of the gallery manager, he demanded that the portrait be removed at once.

The manager explained quietly that all of the paintings were under contract to remain in the gallery the full six weeks of the exhibit. But Kelen raged, "But it will make me the laughing stock of Budapest. It's libelous. I'll sue!"

The manager turned to his desk, drew out the letter Kelen had written at Sebesy's request and said coolly, "Just a moment. Since you yourself admit that the painting does not resemble you, you have no jurisdiction over its fate."

In desperation Kelen offered to buy the painting, only to find the price now ten times that of the original figure. With his reputation at stake, Kelen immediately wrote out a check for 5000 pengos. Not only did the artist sell the rejected portrait to the man who had originally commissioned it, and get far more than the original price, but he achieved his revenge simply by exhibiting it with the title: Portrait of a Thief.