whole afternoon removing the paint from the eyes. My work was rewarded.
Beautiful blue eyes were beneath the coat of paint. I tried the solvent
on other parts of the picture and soon I found that the whole canvas had
been overpainted. In the course of a week I had removed the entire coat
of overpaint and beneath it was an entirely different painting.
“It was a beautiful portrait of Washington, but surely not the work of
Wertmuller. I spent another week cleaning it and restoring the painting.
It was unmistakably Gilbert Stuart, but it was entirely unlike any
other Stuart picture of Washington.
“I at once went to the library and studied the work of Stuart, comparing
carefully all paintings he had ever done with the one in my possession.
The pose was exactly the same as that of his “Lansdowne” portrait.
“Lord Lansdowne was a very celebrated connoisseur who met Gilbert Stuart
during the artist’s sojourn in London and commissioned him to paint a
life-size portrait of General Washington in 1796. It is a matter of
record that Gilbert Stuart executed this order under grave difficulties.
“France had sent innumerable painters to Mt. Vernon to paint the first
President of the new Republic. Hundreds of artists from all parts of
Europe came to America in order to paint Washington and on the strength
of having painted Washington to receive commissions from the first
families of America. Washington had grown tired of giving sittings to
all these painters, some of whom were really great artists, but others
second-rate craftsmen, who wished to build their reputations upon a
Washington portrait painted from life. Gilbert Stuart begged Washington
to sit for him again, but Washington had sworn off once for all. Then
Stuart used his influence among Washington’s friends and finally Mrs.
Bingham, a great favorite of George Washington in 1796 and also a great
friend of the artist, succeeded.
“The following letter is on record in the Library of Congress:
“Sir:--I am under promise to Mrs. Bingham to sit for you tomorrow
at nine o’clock, and wishing to know if it be convenient to you
that I should do so, and whether it shall be at your own home (as
she talked of the State House), I send this note to ask
information. I am, sir, your obedient servant,”
“GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
“Monday evening, 11th April, 1796.”
“Stuart describes in a letter to Mrs. Bingham, Washington’s visit to his
studio. The great man was nervous, ill-tempered and considered the
whole thing an imposition upon his kindness.”
“I give you an hour,” he cried after entering the studio. “Tell me in
what position you want me and do your work quickly. I am tired and I
want to get back home.”
Washington’s nervousness proved contagious. Stuart became so nervous
that he hardly knew what he was doing. He realized that he never could
induce Washington to sit again, so he took a canvas and threw in
hurriedly Washington’s face in broad strokes. He had set all his hopes
upon this life-size portrait. He had made arrangements with a steel
engraver to have the portrait engraved. He knew that everybody would buy
a good portrait of Washington and that his success would not only crown
his achievement as an artist but also make him financially independent
for the rest of his life.
He made a color sketch of Washington’s features as well as he could. It
was a short sketch of the head. Later on he engaged three different men
to pose for the full length of the body. The Library of Congress retains
the correspondence of Gilbert Stuart with Martha Washington, who loaned
him a complete wardrobe of her husband, her husband’s sword and cape, to
be worn by the models.
Stuart’s portrait not only pleased Lord Lansdowne but it became _the
portrait_ of General Washington. The steel engravings in life size were
sold out the very week that they had been struck off. Millions of copies
circulated all over the world. But the original sketch of the head was
lost. Almost every work as well about Gilbert Stuart as about George
Washington’s portrait contains the notice that the original sketch in
colors of Lansdowne has been lost.
“My picture was that very sketch. I proved it conclusively. It would
lead too far to tell you about the months of detective work I put in
tracing back the proprietors of this painting for the last one hundred
and fifty years. I was successful, and of course you can imagine how
much the painting is worth.
“One day a well known art dealer of Philadelphia strolled into my shop
and I told him the story as I have told it to you.
“‘I will sell the picture for you,’ he said. ‘Give me 50 per cent
commission and I’ll sell it quickly.’
“I knew the man; he had sold very valuable paintings in the past. In
fact, everybody in the art world knows him. I simply cried: ‘Go to it!
Get me the best price that you can get.’
“He took the picture along with him and that is the last I ever heard of
it. I let the matter rest for several months and then wrote him a letter
requesting the return of the picture.
“His astounding answer came back: He claimed to be half owner of the
painting; as I had let him in on the 50 per cent profit-sharing basis he
refused to give up the painting.
“I went to my lawyer and my lawyer told me: ‘You are stung. That
gentleman certainly _did_ you. There are only two ways of action open
for you. You either sue him for the value of the picture; no doubt you
will get a judgment, but I doubt whether you will ever be able to
collect on the judgment. And the minute that you sue for the money, you
abandon automatically your proprietary rights to the painting. If you
would know where the painting is you could replevin it.’”
“But do you know where it is?”
“I didn’t at the time. Finally this gentleman of Philadelphia made me a
proposition to put the painting on sale in one of the most prominent art
galleries of New York, who specialize in historic paintings and in old
masters.
“The proposition was to pay this art dealer a commission of 20 per cent
of the prospective purchase price. This proposition made me suspicious.
It would mean 20 per cent to the art dealer; 40 per cent to the man of
Philadelphia. Two votes against my one.
“I realized that I was helpless, therefore I inserted the advertisement.
I at least wish to prevent him and his helpers to get the reward for my
work, for my discovery and all the pains I took in establishing the
identity of the portrait.”
I sympathize with MacCarthy. I wonder where Gilbert Stuart’s famous
painting will find its last resting place?
1919
In New York Book Shops
Every city has its book streets. Book shops are gregarious, and they
grow like mushrooms in groups. There is little competition in the book
business. No matter how large and complete the stock of a second-hand
book dealer may be, his neighbor’s collection will be quite different.
The clients of second-hand bookshops like to “browse about,” they seldom
ask for a certain book, and they love to have a large territory in which
to hunt.
The location of book streets changes with the growth of a city.
Seventy-five years ago the book centre of New York was far downtown on
Ann Street; after the Astor Library had opened its doors, Fourth Avenue
became the city center and soon was lined with picturesque bookshops.
The city grew and Twenty-third Street became the Dorado of the
book-hunter. Then people began to make immense fortunes and build
palaces and mansions on Fifth Avenue, Central Park was opened to the
public ... and Fifty-ninth Street became the book street of New York.
Ever further the city expanded. Harlem grew in population and One
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street is another shopping center for lovers of
books and objects of art.
Most of the book dealers kept step with the times. They moved from
street to street. The grandfather had been prominent on Ann Street, the
son on Fourth Avenue, and the grandson flourishes on One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth.
Fourth Avenue has come to honors again during the past four years. Some
big book dealers had the idea to move back to old “book-sellers’ row,”
new people soon gathered around them and today most of the second-hand
book business of the United States is transacted here on this old
street, surrounded by a ramshackle neighborhood, invaded by factory
buildings and sweatshops.
But some book dealers could never make up their minds to move. They
stuck to their shops. They are the landmarks of New York’s book streets.
The Den of a Pessimist
The Nestor of the book dealers who “have remained” and have withstood
the trend of the times is E. A. Custer on Fifty-ninth Street. Right near
Park Avenue, next to a livery stable in the cellar of an old-fashioned
brownstone house, is his picturesque shop. Large bookstalls with
hundreds of books invite you to rummage about, quaint paintings and
drawings will arrest your attention and make you stop even if you are in
a hurry. Firearms of all descriptions, swords and shining armor add a
war touch that seems quite appropriate in our time. If you look closer
you see a pale face with keen black eyes behind the show window. You
have to look very closely in order to detect it. And if you enter the
store you will meet the proprietor of face and store, sitting at his
look-out, watching his stalls, scrutinizing the passers-by who stop to
glance at his wares. He continues in his position while he is talking to
you; he never takes his eyes from his treasures, even while waiting on a
customer, or delving into the depths of his shop.
“I have to watch my property,” he offers as explanation while excusing
himself. “I am listening to what you say,” he adds, “don’t mind if I
don’t look at you while we talk. All people who stop out there to look
at my books are thieves, and if I give them a chance to get away with my
books they prefer to acquire them that way rather than to buy. They
steal from earliest childhood and never cease until they are dead. I
have been forty years in this very place and I know what I am talking
about. And though I am as watchful as a dog, I lose about twenty per
cent of the stock that I put in my stalls through thieving. All book
collectors are thieves; people who never would think of taking anything
else without paying for it must think a bookshop is different from all
other stores. Their consciences are not sin-stricken if they
incidentally slip a book they like into their pocket and walk out with
it. I have long ceased to read books. I read human nature for my
pastime.
“There is not a day that I do not lose books by theft. Take for instance
last week. I had a set of Dickens on my stands. A cheap edition on the
table where I keep books for boys. I saw a little freckled, red-haired,
bare-footed lad inspecting the Dickens books for longer than half an
hour. Some time later he came back and looked at them again. This time
he had a few books under his arm. He laid his books on the table and
managed very cleverly to pick them up after a while together with one of
my Dickens books. The boy really wanted to read the book and I let him
get away with it. I knew that he was passing my shop every day, and I
thought of speaking to him another time.
“The next day he came again, inspected the remaining volumes of my
Dickens set for a few minutes, repeated his trick of the day before and
stole another volume. He came every day and acquired six of the seven
volumes. It was only on Saturday that he stole the sixth volume; this
time I went after him, told him sternly to come back with me, handed him
the seventh volume and said to him:
“‘Here, my boy, I don’t keep open on Sunday, and somebody might buy this
one and spoil your set. Better take it along. You have the right spirit.
Continue and one of these days you will find yourself a millionaire.
Perhaps then you will endow libraries.’
“Or the old Irish woman whom I caught only yesterday. She came with a
basket covered with newspapers, examined my books very carefully, and
dropped every once in a while one of the books in her basket. I waited
until the basket was filled, then I told her to come inside of my shop;
I emptied the basket and handed it back to her. I didn’t say a word. She
took her basket and went outside.
“Well-to-do-looking men come in, examine books, tear out plates, and
walk out again without buying a penny’s worth of my stock.
“I don’t think they are all bad at heart. They simply don’t look at
books as merchandise and if they can get something for nothing, they
take it. Women are the worst. Especially those modern women who write
and try to reform humanity. They are quite shameless and do anything as
long as there is a slight chance of getting away with it.”
“But,” I interjected, “mustn’t it be dreadful to sit in your shop day
after day as a sort of watchman?”
“I’m accustomed to it,” he answered, “and that’s the only way I can make
my business pay. It was not always so. There was a time when people
really loved books and bought them in order to read. Then they had time
to read. The successful man of today has an automobile, has to go out
joy-riding after business hours, has to spend his time in cabarets and
road-houses. He needs books only as decorations when he buys a home or
furnishes an apartment. And then he leaves it usually to his decorator
to choose the most attractive and expensive bindings in keeping with the
color scheme of his library.
“I tell you, New Yorkers dont know books, dont want to know them. The
men read newspapers, the women magazines, and the young people trashy
novels. Of course there are our modern book collectors. They know as
much about the commercial values of books as I do. They buy books as an
investment, just like pictures. They follow the auction sales and gamble
in books. You can hardly call such people booklovers. Thirty years ago I
used to have comfortable chairs in my shop and in the evening big
business men, lawyers, and physicians would drop in and examine at
leisure some tomes that I had laid before them because I knew they were
interested in this or that subject. Today most of the men who are
interested in books are so poor that they can hardly pay their room
rent.”
And then he proceeded to show me some of his treasures. “Who do you
think buys this sort of books in our day? Dealers, nobody but dealers.
And they sell them again to dealers. Finally they find their way into
the auction rooms and are bought again by a dealer.”
Mr. Custer has traveled all over Europe and is a lover of beautiful
paintings. Original Corots, Millets, original drawings by Aubrey
Beardsley lean against piles of books, hang in cobwebbed corners. “Are
you not afraid that someone will steal them?” I asked him, commenting on
his carelessness.
“They don’t know enough,” was his answer. “Some months ago I had a
wonderful painting of Corot’s in the show window. A man whom I knew as a
notorious miser came in and asked if it was genuine. I said in a
matter-of-fact way that I have no proof but the picture, and that I
would sell it for one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I myself had paid
for it three thousand. He looked at it for a long time and then said he
would come in again. The following day he brought his wife and
brother-in-law to look at it. They examined it very carefully and went
out. The following week I sent the painting to an auction sale where it
realized eight thousand eight hundred dollars, notwithstanding the bad
times on account of the war. On the very day that I received my check in
payment for the picture, the man came in again and proposed to buy it
for one hundred dollars. I showed him the check, and it pleases me even
today to think how disappointed and crestfallen he was; because I never
told him that I would not have sold him the picture even if he had given
me a hundred and twenty-five dollars at the time I offered it to him.
“I have my worries, but I also have a lot of enjoyment watching my
contemporaries and noting their faults.”
Mr. Custer is a small man with a kindly smile, and after I saw him
chatting with the ragamuffins swarming around his bookstalls, and
talking kindly to a girl who wanted some information, his piercing dark
eyes did not seem so very misogynic and his pessimism seemed of the kind
of the dog who barks but does not bite.
A Whitman Enthusiast
Little Max Breslow, who isn’t taller than a good-sized doll and has such
tiny hands that he can hardly hold two books at the same time, is so
vivacious and young looking that everybody must like him if for no other
reason than his continuous smile. He is the last of his guild on
Twenty-third Street. Max sold books since his earliest youth; he sold
his school books. When a boy he used to go about “picking up” books and
selling them to book dealers; he started in as apprentice in an
out-of-the-way bookshop on Eighth Avenue, and then opened up the cellar
which he has made so attractive since.
As neighbors he had the potentates of the second-hand book market, Mr.
Schulte and Mr. Stammer, both of whom have moved to Fourth Avenue since,
and many other less important sellers of books who have dispersed in all
directions during these latter years. He loves Twenty-third Street and
intends to stick there till the last house is transformed into a
factory. You almost fall into his shop from the street, so steep are the
stairs and tread-worn. He has the instinct of the born second-hand book
dealer to find out-of-the-way books on out-of-the-way subjects. There is
always something unusual in his shop and his prizes are within the reach
of the poor man’s purse. He likes his books and he likes to sell them to
good homes. And therefore he often fits his price to the purchaser’s
purse. His hobby is Walt Whitman. He has the most famous collection of
Whitman items in this country, even larger and more extensive than the
one Horace Traubel has guarded. He has original manuscripts of Whitman,
proof sheets of his books, everything that was ever written in any
language about Walt Whitman, more than four hundred pictures of the
“good, gray poet,” and you couldn’t buy one of those precious things for
any money in the world.
An Optimist
Frank Bender, who is considered at present one of the leading
second-hand book dealers of Fourth Avenue, and that means of the United
States, is an entirely self-made man, and his career is unique even
among book dealers. Only five years ago he started his shop, without
books, without money, and without knowledge. In a short time he acquired
all these three essentials, and here is his own story:
“I used to sell books to architects on the road, architectural
year-books and magazines, and later I added books on decorations which I
sold to decorators. It occurred to me one day that I could save rent if
I opened a shop where I could sell enough books of all kinds to pay
expenses. That was five years ago. I signed a lease for a little
one-story building that stood where the new post-office on Fourth Avenue
and Thirteenth Street is at present. I sold enough architectural books
to pay my first month’s rent and to buy lumber to fix up my shop. I
literally built up my own business. I laid the floors, built the
shelves, the tables. My shelves remained empty because I had no money to
buy books. One day a friendly print dealer came along who must have
taken interest in and pity on me. “Why don’t you hang some prints around
your shop to fill out the wall spaces?” he asked. “It will make it look
better. I have a bunch of prints I will sell you for forty dollars and
I’ll give you six months’ time in which to pay it.”
“I accepted his offer, and those prints netted me over five hundred
dollars in a surprisingly short time. If one keeps a bookshop something
unusual happens almost every day. It is the uncertainty of the book
business that always attracts me. Of course every book dealer who wants
to make a decent living must have a specialty of his own. Mine is
architectural books. I have a large clientele of architects and
decorators; I know these books well, and they were the backbone of my
business. Chance and good luck are the great factors in the book
dealer’s life. Let me tell you a few instances:
“A few months after I opened my shop at the time of the big auction
sales, I felt very gloomy. Of course I needed cash in order to buy
books, and I did not have it. One morning one of my best customers
walked into my shop and asked for a copy of Canina’s Ancient Rome. I
told him that the book was so scarce that there was no use to ask for
it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am willing to give you two hundred and fifty
dollars for it any time you bring me a copy.’ The very same afternoon I
noticed a copy of the book in an auction catalog to be sold the next
day. I went to the auction and sat there shaking like a leaf, waiting
for the first bid after the book was put up. Nobody seemed to be
interested to buy it. Somebody bid five dollars, and I got it finally
for six dollars and seventy-five cents. I had it wrapped up, took it
around the corner to my customer and collected two hundred and fifty
dollars. That was the first real money I made, and it gave me a chance
to acquire better books.
“Take only yesterday. I was very busy writing when a man who introduced
himself as a rag paper-dealer, offered me linen-bound copies of a
historical encyclopedia for seven and a half cents a volume. I didn’t
even want to spend time talking to him, and so I declined abruptly. ‘I
have many thousands of these books,’ the man insisted, ‘make me an
offer.’ He went out and, strange to say, came back in a half hour with a
cart-load of the books and said to me, ‘Here they are.’ The books proved
good sellers and I made a pile of money. The people that come into my
shop are my only source of information. They all tell me what they know
about the books they are interested in. I love to talk to them, even if
they seem to be cranks. No, I don’t mistrust them. They are welcome to
make themselves at home in my place. I believe that everybody that
enters my shop is just as honest and straight as I am myself. Only once,
after I had lost a valuable book in a mysterious way, I became
suspicious. I was busy talking to some customers as a man entered whose
looks I did not like. He busied himself with some fashion books at the
back of my store. I grew so nervous about him that I approached him
quite roughly with a question, ‘What is it you are looking for?’ He
answered, as I thought guiltily, naming the title of a certain fashion
book that I happened to have in stock. I brought it out, he examined it
and asked the price. It was seven dollars and fifty. The book had cost
me five dollars. He said that he could not pay seven fifty for the book.
‘If he really wants to buy the book,’ I thought, ‘and didn’t come in
here to steal, he will purchase it for three fifty.’ I firmly believed
that the man did not have ten cents in his pocket. I offered the book
for three dollars and fifty cents. ‘At this price, I take it,’ he
answered. I lost one dollar and fifty cents, but regained my belief in
humanity.”
A Gambler
On Thirty-fourth, near Lexington Avenue, Jerome Duke has opened a
bookshop of a peculiar sort. It is not exactly a book shop because there
are antiques and curiosities all over the place. The books are thrown
together topsy-turvy, Latin authors, modern novelists, theological
books, old French tomes and German philosophers. I asked the proprietor
about his books and his answer was:
“I don’t know anything about them. I never read books and would not be
bothered with them. I buy them at a certain price and I try to sell them
at a profit. In fact, I intend to buy anything I can get cheap enough,
no matter what it is. I went into the book game in order to gamble and I
am going to gamble on anything that people bring in here.
“There is one thing I have just refused to buy because the man wanted
too much for it. He said that he had recently returned from Europe, had
been a soldier, and wanted to sell me the embalmed finger of a German
general. I forget the name of the general, but the man said that it was
authentic and that he would sign a document before a notary public,
swearing that he had been present at the time the finger was cut off of
the general’s hand. Now, if he had asked fifty cents or a dollar, I
would have been willing to take a chance, because it would make a good
window display in this time of war; but he wanted five dollars, and I
couldn’t see my way clear. That’s too much of a chance, to stake a
five-spot on an embalmed finger of a German general. So I bought a
slipper instead. It belonged to a Madame Jumel, and she is supposed to
have worn it on the day that she got her divorce from Aaron Burr. I paid
a dollar for it and I consider it a pretty sound gamble.”
“How so?” I asked.