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, ...