As an Amateur--Old China--Dr Diamond of Twickenham--Unfavourable
Results of His Tutorship--My Adventure at Lowestoft--Alderman Rose--I
turn over a New Leaf--Morgan--His Sale to Me of Various Objects--The
Seventeenth Century Dishes--The Sèvres Tray of 1773--The Pair of
Japanese Dishes--Blue and White--Hawthorn--The Odd Vase--My Finds at
Hammersmith--Mr Sanders of Chiswick and his Chelsea China--Gale--The
Ruby-backed Eggshell--A Recollection of Ralph Bernal--Buen Retiro and
Capo di Monte--Reynolds of Hart Street--The Wedgewood Teapot--The
_Rose du Barri_ Vases--My Bowls--An Eccentric Character and His
Treasures--Reminiscences of Midhurst and Up Park--The Zurich Jug and
My Zurich Visitor--The Diamond Sale.
In crossing over from the literary to other fields, where I have
instructed and amused myself and a few others by my studies, I pass to
ground, where I occupy a somewhat different position--that of an absolute,
incorruptible amateur. I see clearly enough that, whatever advantage may
attach itself to the commercial side in these matters, the genuine
pleasure lies in purchasing for oneself, even if the price is here and
there such as to ensure loss on realisation; for there is the sense of
patronage and superiority. I never descended to petty transactions; but
where an appreciable amount was involved; I would far liefer have stood
aloof, or have acquired for myself. There was only the sovereign motive in
the background, which conquered my instinctive repugnance to the
conversion of literary monuments into a commodity and of my
hardly-acquired knowledge into a mint.
Outside Books, I have conceived, as I proceeded, and as I mingled with
other hobby-riders, an interest in such matters of secondary human
concernment as China, Coins, Plate, Postage Stamps, Pictures, and
Furniture. The two former have occupied in my thought a station not much
less prominent than that of literature; and as I abandoned the practical
inquiry into the first subject after ten years' devotion to it, I shall
commence by giving some account of my observations and experiences in that
particular market, which, like all others, offers its peculiarities and
idiosyncrasies.
There is hardly a triter remark than that we are slaves to our passions;
and the genuine collector certainly is unto his, whatever his line may be.
Where there are ample resources, it signifies less; but the servitude
presses very heavily on the more necessitous or more moderately endowed.
It is in vain to say that a man ought not to buy luxuries, if he cannot
afford them; he will have them, as another will drink alcohol or chew
opium. To secure something which he covets he is capable of pawning his
coat or 'dining with Duke Humphrey.' Had I been exempt from fancies, I
might have spared myself the ordeal of going into the highways and byways
in quest of that doubtful benefactor a publisher; I might have dispensed
with ingratiating myself with booksellers and bookbuyers; I might have
enjoyed the pleasures of reading and thinking amid some sort of _paterna
rura_. But as a citizen, who leaves London only for the sake of the
satisfaction which it yields to return to it (for your Londoner, if he
likes to see and _feel_ the country must _live in urbe_), I naturally
contracted certain pleasant and costly vices incidental to a metropolis,
and became an unthrift and through my unthriftiness a hireling. I often
resolve to break my fetters; but I lack the courage. The tastes, in which
I have graduated, have sweetened my life, and enlarged my vision, if they
have trenched a little on my freedom; and I even think that they have
tended to humanise me, and subdue a not too tractable temper to the harder
and sterner uses of the world.
I have not the least objection to avow that, when I accidentally acquired
in 1869 at Llandudno an example or two of Oriental ceramic art, I was
deplorably ignorant of the bearings and merits of the pursuit, and had, as
usual, no idea that I had embarked in one. A good-natured and
well-informed relative, who was always ready and pleased to serve and
flatter me, suggested that my Eastern porcelain was _Brom'ichham_. Of
course an English factory could not, in the first place, have produced the
things at the price. I received a good deal of encouragement and sympathy
from those near and dear to me just about this time; my extravagance was
censured; and my early insolvency considered probable.
Through my father I became acquainted about that time with Dr Diamond of
Twickenham House, the possessor of one of the most extensive and
miscellaneous assemblages of porcelain and pottery of all ages and
countries ever formed in this country. Who had first bitten the doctor, I
never heard; I found him, on my first introduction, the owner of a mass
of examples, good, bad and indifferent, of all of which, however
insignificant and obscure, he could tell you the pedigree and place of
origin. He had many other tastes; he was curious about photography, books,
pictures, prints, coins, and plate; his house was a museum, of which he
was the curator and showman; but I think that during the last years of his
life old china and plate kept the ascendancy.
My personal progress was at first leisurely, for I do not recollect that I
made any farther investments till 1872 when, happening to be at Lowestoft
where Alderman Rose, brother of James Anderson Rose, also a collector, was
then staying, he and I were equally seduced by the attractions of a shop
kept by a person named Burwood. It was extremely fortunate for the latter
that Rose and myself had nearly all our knowledge to learn; we bought
largely and not too well, and Burwood was so exhausted by the drain on his
stock, that he announced his intention of travelling down into
Herefordshire, in order to buy some very valuable bits reported to him
from a farmhouse in that rather distant shire. There was a second depôt in
the same watering-place, kept by an old man and his wife, with whom it
was a favourite phrase, when their stock ran low, to say that they must
'take a journey.' In short, I amassed a large hamper of ware on this
occasion, and brought it home. Diamond, as soon as he was apprised of my
new foible, exclaimed, 'God help him!' and I suspected that there must be
something in it, when I called at a place in Orange Street, Red Lion
Square, and ascertained that that and the Herefordshire farmhouse were
one.
I soon made a second discovery, which almost discouraged me from
prosecuting the fancy any farther. Diamond had knowledge and feeling; but
I now saw that he was deficient in taste. I had naturally modelled my
small collection on his plan or want of plan; I fell in with one or two
dealers, who opened my eyes; and the Lowestoft cargo was thrown overboard.
A Jew named Moss had a whole tableful of crockery in exchange for a good
plaque of Limoges enamel of the earlier epoch. He once let me have at a
moderate price an old Sèvres plate painted with a pastoral scene, and with
a rich amethyst blue and gold festooned border. I continue to think
favourably of it. He brought it and a number of other pieces, all
rubbish, in company with a co-religionist, to my house at Kensington in
the evening. He was so discouraged by my frugal selection, that I lost
sight of him. He was not miserly in his warnings against his professional
contemporaries. This is a common trait.
I began to work on a new principle--to buy fewer and better things,
studying condition, to which the doctor was more or less insensible; and I
found myself about 1880 the owner, even on such a basis, of a multitude of
wares which threatened to compete in the early future with the Twickenham
prototype.
This was all the more serious, so to speak, inasmuch as while I drew from
very few sources, the doctor was a mark for everybody, while he continued
to buy with zest and avidity. All sorts of people came to the high iron
gates, bringing every variety of article for sale; and few carried their
freights back. Even those who were on the list of private guests
occasionally shewed their good taste by drawing out of their
breast-pockets at dessert some object for Diamond's approval and purchase.
There was Major ----, one of Her Majesty's messengers, who was an
habitual offender (as I thought) in such a way. But in the eyes of our
common host the end in those days justified the means. It was all fish.
I dealt in chief measure with a house in Hanway Street (Morgan), Gale in
Holborn, Brooks at Hammersmith, and Reynolds of Hart Street, Bloomsbury. I
seldom left these tracks, and met there with only too much to tempt me.
Morgan sold me a few pieces of Sèvres and some very fine Oriental. It was
curious that, just after my purchase of three or four large porcelain
dishes, the 'china earth' of the Stuart era, a gentleman of old family
from Newcastle-on-Tyne looked in at Morgan's, and observing a broken
specimen of the same lot, mentioned that at home he had some precisely
similar, which had belonged to his predecessors since 1650. A very
beautiful Sèvres tea-stand of small dimensions, with a circumference
representing a tressure of six curves, has the marks of the maker, the
painter, and the gilder, and belongs to 1773; I gave him £23 for it;
Morgan tried to get the companion cup and saucer; but it brought £86; and
was bought, I think, by the late Mr Lawrence, F.S.A.
He had a rather prolonged and troublesome negotiation in one instance on
my behalf. The executors of some gentleman offered him a pair of superb
Japanese dishes, 24 inches in diameter and of a rare pattern and shape,
for £140. I declined them at that figure, and heard no more of the matter,
till he informed me that his correspondents had modified their views, so
as to make it possible for me to possess the lot for £85. I took them; and
the vendor has repeatedly applied to me, asking if I have the dishes
still, and care to part. He sold me a few other rather costly
articles--costly in my eyes.
Morgan initiated me in the true facts about Blue and White, and helped me
to steer clear of the blunders, which many of my contemporaries
perpetrated over that craze. I have a small cylindrical bottle, white and
ultramarine, which illustrates the matter as well as a dearer example, and
shews the pains which the Chinese took to prepare their paste and pigments
during the best period--the seventeenth century. Both are most brilliant,
and it is alike the case with Chinese and Japanese ware of this class,
that the ancient appears to a superficial or inexperienced observer more
modern than that made in our own time, of which the ground and the
decoration are faded and weak.
I likewise gained an insight from the same source into the mysteries of
Hawthorn, which seems to be rather Plum-blossom. I handled a goodly number
of specimens; but I encountered scarcely any, which awakened a very strong
interest. Really fine examples are of the rarest occurrence, and it is
still more difficult to obtain pairs of vases or jars with the genuine
covers or lids. They are generally false or wooden. Odd pieces are not
wanted. You must have either a couple or a set of two, three, five, six,
according to circumstances.
A collector had long cast a longing eye on a very beautiful vase in a
London shop, but would not have it, because it was odd. He kept a sharp
look-out for the companion, and at last he found it to his immense
satisfaction at Newcastle, and brought it up to town. On inquiry at the
dealer's there, he found that the latter, despairing of getting rid of his
piece, had consigned it to a friend at Newcastle in the hope of meeting
with a customer.
This was agreeable to the circular system, by which curiosities go the
round of the watering-places and spas in quest of homes. I saw a
Worcester jug at Bournemouth, which had visited nearly every resort in the
kingdom, and still awaited an admirer.
I very soon abandoned the idea about Lowestoft porcelain. Gillingwater in
his _History_ of the place (1790) merely mentions that they had clay,
suitable for making pottery, in the neighbourhood; but there was no
material for fine china. Very possibly certain pieces of Oriental were
shipped thither in the white, and locally decorated. But I have yet to see
an important example of so-called Lowestoft, which was not really of
Chinese origin.
At the place of business long kept by Brooks I was an habitual caller, and
used to meet Mr Sanders of Chiswick, whose collection of Chelsea porcelain
was probably one of the finest ever brought together. It comprised many
large examples in figures and _nefs_ seldom seen and of great importance.
It was Sanders, who related to me the anecdote of a singular find at
Antwerp of Chelsea figures in a confectioner's establishment. The
proprietor or his family once belonged to Chelsea, and had taken these
pieces with them as part of their trade fittings or decorations; and he
willingly exchanged them for others on payment of a reasonable difference.
Sanders and myself occasionally met also at Sotheby's. He must have been a
person of no mean resources; but his ways were mysterious, and his home, I
fear, uncomfortable. Perhaps he found the neighbouring Sign of the
Hoppoles more congenial for this reason; he found it, poor fellow, only
too much so.
I possess numerous memorials of my transactions with Brooks. He had,
besides china, occasional pictures on which I may have sometimes looked
with extravagant distrust; and he was in fact an omnivorous buyer and not
an injudicious one. I recall a tall Chelsea cup and saucer with a stalk
handle, painted with fruit, and marked in puce, which my good acquaintance
had obtained from a small house-sale in Chiswick--the sole treasure of the
establishment. It was in the finest state. 'They thought me a fool,'
remarked Brooks, 'because I gave £10, 10s. for it.' 'And what would they
say of the person,' I put to him, 'who took it of you at a profit?' He
grinned, and informed me that a medical man in the neighbourhood would
jump at it. This frightened me, and I closed with him at £14. I owed many
another prize to the same agency, particularly, in a small way perhaps, an
old Dresden plate with a crimson and gold border, painted with a bird and
foliage, the prototype of the Chelsea pattern, of which examples have
fetched £35. Brooks had this lying in a drawer, and one day I disinterred
it, and took it home at 25s. My Hammersmith man was not invariably so
discreet in his consumption of liquor as he ought to have been; and I have
to confess with some shame and contrition, that I priced, not for the
first time, a very fine Cambrian ware mug marked (as usual) in gold, when
he was a trifle festive, and he let me have it for 35s. He had two; the
other was badly cracked; and I saw it in another shop some time after,
valued at £7, 15s.
There were two examples of ceramic ware in his hands at different times,
protected and (as I thought) disguised by old black frames. I asked him to
take them out for me, that I might be satisfied as to their condition,
which he did. One was a Wedgwood plaque, light blue, with figures in
relief; the other an original Capo di Monte one, literally hidden under
accumulated dirt. It was of the second period, in the _alto relievo_
style, and represents the Bath of Diana, I believe. The sharpness of the
impression was a strong contrast to the modern copies from the moulds.
Brooks asked £6 for it; I took both.
He was _ultimus Romanorum_ in the sense that he left no successor in
Hammersmith with a stock of the kind worth regarding.
Brooks was an odd-looking small man, and he and his wife resembled Mr and
Mrs Johnson in the Vauxhall song. I once spoke to him of his _confrères_
in the trade, and as to his relations with them, more particularly in the
old china line, and his less explanatory than sententious rejoinder was:
'I knows them, and they knows me.'
Gale, who lived in Holborn, where I regularly visited him, was the brother
of the County Court judge. He was an intelligent fellow, but not very
speculative, nor did I ever, save once, carry away from him anything very
notable. He set before me, however, on one occasion a splendid pair of
ruby-backed eggshell plates painted with quails, and said that the price
was £6. I felt slightly nervous, lest he should have made a mistake; but I
agreed to his terms, asked him to pack the things up, and departed. I
nearly broke them by a collision on the pavement, but eventually landed
them in safety, calling _en route_ at Reynolds's in Hart Street, who told
me that a customer would give him £60 for them, if I would let him have
them at a figure below that. They are as thin and transparent as paper. It
may be just worth noting that a cup and saucer of Capo di Monte of the
first type, the paste opaque and the decoration Spanish, was sold to me by
Gale as Buen Retiro. It is painted in the same taste, and has the same
mark--_M_ for Madrid; but I have always regarded it as of Italian origin,
and as the work of the operatives who migrated from the neighbourhood of
Madrid to Capo di Monte. The real Buen Retiro resembles eggshell.
Ralph Bernal had formerly dealt with Gale, who was fond of narrating
anecdotes of the great collector's hesitation and nearness. There was a
particular Sèvres cup and saucer, which brought a heavy sum in his sale,
and which he got for £5, 5s., after a palaver with the holder of some
months' duration.
Reynolds allowed me to make his premises in Bloomsbury one of my regular
lounges. I did not altogether take a great deal off his hands, as he paid
attention to Wedgwood, bronzes, ivories, and jade, rather than to china;
and as I grew wiser, I also grew more exclusive, from a persuasion that
one or two subjects are amply sufficient for any single madman, especially
a rather poor one.
I have stated that my range of sources of supply was limited. I was now
and then attracted by an object in a strange window, and might go in, and
demand the figure expected. It was the height of the run upon Chelsea,
when I did so in Holborn, and the owner, in response to my appeal,
proceeded to disengage from a hook an old Chelsea plate valued by him at
£14, 14s. Unfortunately the poor fellow lost his balance, and let the
plate go; it was broken into I know not how many fragments. I shall never
forget his astonishment and dismay. What could I do? A neighbour of his
once fixed me with a Nantgarw plate, and was lavish in his eulogy. 'Why,'
he exclaimed, allusively to its lustrous brilliance, 'it laughs at you.'
My acquisitions at public sales have in thirty or more years been limited
to two: a Derby mug painted with a military subject, which I gave away,
and a large Dresden plaque in a rich frame, which occurred at Sotheby's
ever so long ago, when sales were occasionally held in the warehouse
downstairs. The piece was an exquisite copy of the painting by Rubens of
his second wife and their child on her knee. Although there was no picture
or china buyer present, it fetched £12, 12s., and F. S. Ellis pronounced
it a bargain at that figure. I verily trust it may be so (Ellis named such
an amount as £50); for it has hung in my study ever since, and owes me
some interest.
Time was, when the bijou tea-pot held me in bondage. I have two of that
very soft paste made at Mennecy in the department of the Seine, and a
third of the finest Dresden porcelain, painted with landscapes (even on
the lid), and with the spout richly gilt.
I was tempted, side by side with the Mennecy pieces, by a milk-jug with a
silver hinge of Sceaux-Penthièvre, of which the paste is also remarkable
for its softness. It was a factory conducted under the patronage of the
Duc de Penthièvre. Its products are very rare.
A Welsh clergyman obliged me with a present of a few specimens of china,
including a small octagon blue and white dish with _Salopian_ impressed in
large characters on the bottom. I value it the more, because the
authentic early Salopian is most difficult to procure, and it is the
fashion to ascribe to this manufactory the Worcester marked with an _S_.
I look upon the Nantgarw, of which I relate a trivial anecdote, the
Swansea, and the Colebrooke Dale groups, as rather cold, insipid, and
tawdry. The first-named is common enough in plates, dishes, and shaped
pieces; but I possess a cup and saucer most exquisitely painted in roses
with their stalks and leaves, but without a mark, which I have always
attributed to this source. I never saw another similar.
But I did take from Reynolds from time to time a few articles: a Wedgwood
tea-pot of solid green jasper, a small Chelsea dish of the Vernon service
with exotic birds and the gold anchor, a pair of _rose du Barri_
tulip-lipped Sèvres vases, 6 inches high, painted with cupids, and so on.
I deemed the tea-pot dear at £7; but the vendor, who had studied the
particular branch of the subject, reassured me by offering to buy it back
at any time at the same price; and he put this in the receipt--not to
great purpose; for he died years ago. For the Vernon dish he asked £20,
and took £11. The pair of _rose du Barri_ vases, which belong to the
Louis XVI. epoch, he picked up at a Lombard's for a trifle, and paid me
the compliment of charging me £10 for them. But their quality was
excellent, and in their gilding there was that free hand, which
distinguishes the early work, and is charming from its very informality.
The rich gold scrolls and foliage on either side do not correspond, as
they would in pieces of modern fabric.
I appear, as I look back, to have been thrown from my early manhood among
curiosity hunters and dealers. I was once very dead on the Bowl, when it
offered special attractions of any kind. I have one, which is _jewelled_
round the border inside and out, but of which the drawback is that it has
in the heel an extremely unconventional painting. The jewelling is in the
manufacturing process, and was imitated at Sèvres. A second came from
Scotland, and is remarkable for the presence of a Christian legend in the
base of the interior, derived from the teaching of the Jesuits in China. I
negotiated it at a marine-store dealer's at North End; but he thought so
well of it or of me, that he would not surrender it under £3, 3s. The most
expensive specimen I possess cost me £9. It has a turquoise ground, is
very richly decorated inside and out, is of large size, and of course
absolutely perfect. But I was vouchsafed the sight of one at Deal in the
hands of a private owner, for which a matter of £50 was expected. I
preferred my own.
The Palissy, Henri Deux, and other costly _faïence_ I never acquired.
There was a fellow at Hammersmith, named Glendinning, who had on sale
during countless years a specimen of Palissy, for which he suggested a
cheque for £250, and which was a palpable copy. This strange character,
who was a sort of commercial Munchausen, never wearied of spinning the
most outrageous yarns about the goods, which he had, or had had, for sale,
and would repeat conversations between the 'Prim'er' (Gladstone) and
himself, no doubt as thoroughly _bonâ fide_ as everything else about him.
The works of Correggio were to be seen only on his first floor; but you
might inspect copies in Trafalgar Square and the Louvre.
There was a pair of modern French decorative vases at this establishment,
said by the proprietor to have been obtained by him at the sale of the
effects of a great lady in Hyde Park, a _chère amie_ of His Majesty
Napoleon III. His Majesty, quoth my friend, paid eighty guineas for the
objects, which were manufactured expressly for his lady friend in 1869.
The vendor judged his purchase with all this imposing provenance rather
reasonable at thirty guineas; nor did I contradict him. I did not order
the vases to be sent home; but they arrived on approval; and there they
remained. I repeatedly invited him to fetch them away, as, however cheap,
they would not suit me at the price. He eventually sacrificed them and
himself, and his family, by accepting £7, 10s.
When I was at Midhurst in 1877, I had a glimpse of the splendid collection
of porcelain formed by the late Mr Fisher. I had arranged with a common
friend to go to Up Park, Harting, not far off, to view the Sèvres
purchased in or about 1810 by the Featherstonhaughs for £10,000, and which
is shortly to be dispersed under the hammer, because the heir is obliged
to strip the house to enable him to keep it up. Besides the china, they
had a great deal of plate, which was allowed, till the family was warned,
to lie about the house, and superb antique furniture. One of the
Rothschilds offered, I was told, £1500 for a single Florentine table. It
was something of the same kind, which a West End dealer found in a
lodging-house at Hastings, whither he had taken his family for the air,
and purchased for £500 after a prolonged negotiation with the landlady. He
sold it for £300 more.
I once obtained of Brooks a 4-inch vase with a _gros bleu_ ground and
painted with birds, without a mark, and sold to me as Worcester. I took it
to be Sèvres from the peculiar unctuous appearance of the paste and the
method of treatment; and I remain of the same opinion. Mortlock shewed me
two cups, asking me not to look at the marks, and to tell him what they
were. One was Sèvres and the other a Staffordshire copy. The paste and the
bird on the latter betrayed its origin.
It seems strange that the Sèvres of a certain epoch should be valuable
beyond all comparison with other porcelain, that of France included, and
that the modern manufacture, indeed the whole of this century's work,
should be so slightly esteemed. But the skill and taste lavished on that
of the Louis Quinze, or even Seize, period are immense. It is different
with Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester, of all of which you may have examples
of early date of poor, as well as of fine, quality. The Sèvres and
Vincennes seem to have been more especially destined for rich patrons.
Brooks was an excellent judge of china, and fairly reasonable. But he
sometimes, like most of us, committed mistakes, and sometimes overshot the
mark as to price and value. He long had on view a cup and saucer with the
gold anchor, which he had probably bought as Chelsea, and for which he
demanded £12. It was a _contrefaçon_ by the wily Flemings of Tournay. I
eyed with much longing a beautiful jug of Plymouth ware, but unsigned,
which he estimated at the same figure; but I deemed it too high, and
Brooks was not the man to give way as a rule. After his death, Reynolds of
Hart Street obtained the piece, and sold it to me for a third of the
amount.
With respect to Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester china it is necessary, as I
have just hinted, to be aware that much of the early work is of poor paste
and decoration, and that the date is not a guarantee or criterion. Of all
these factories there are abundant specimens of coarse execution and
cheap fabric, though undoubtedly of original and genuine character. The
Chelsea figure of Justice, 12 inches in height, is, for instance, of two
distinct types: the first very inferior to the later, which exhibits the
result of the introduction of Italian, perhaps Venetian, workmen. The mark
on this porcelain seems to be borrowed from Venice, and is common to the
ware made in that city.
Somehow--perhaps in exchange--Mr Quaritch had on sale in the seventies a
fine pair of old cylindrical Japanese jars, such as in the common modern
ware they use as stick or umbrella stands; I cast amorous glances at them;
but the holder demanded sixty sovereigns; and I retired. They were the
only objects of interest and value in the lot.
Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Zurich had been advised by some one,
that I was in possession of an old Zurich jug mounted in silver, and
solicited leave to inspect it, as he was engaged on a history of the
porcelain factory at that place. I let him see my piece, which was not
silver-mounted, but was far more interesting and important, because it had
the original china hinge. My visitor averred that he had never met with
any similar example, and expressed his anxiety, if I cared to part with it
at any time, to become the purchaser. I mentioned that I had been foolish
enough twenty years before to give £6, 10s. for it. He stated his
readiness to pay £10, and would, I dare say, have doubled the offer; but I
declined.
While Waller the bookseller was still in Fleet Street, knowing me to be
interested in old china, he shewed me one day upstairs in his private
apartments a French cup and saucer, which had been given to him in Paris,
and which, according to the donor, had formerly belonged to that
misconstrued enthusiast Robespierre. It struck me, I own, as of somewhat
later date; it was uninscribed; and of course relics of this class are
unlike books in not carrying on their face any valid or satisfactory
evidence of their origin and prior fortunes. Waller meant kindly in
letting me see his curiosity, and I offered no comment. Credentials I
discerned none.
An unhappy acquisition here was one, which I owed to my indiscreet
interference with things, which I did not understand. I bought of Waller
for £5 a series of plaister casts of medals in a box, and subsequently
parted with the lot for precisely as many shillings. I fared nearly as ill
in a case, where I took of Stibbs of Museum Street a worm-eaten
xylographic block, which placed it in my power to convert five guineas
into two; and I fear that the buyer at the lower figure did not bless me.
It was some modern fabrication ingeniously executed on a riddled square of
ancient wood.
I saw the last of the Diamond collection, when it was offered at
Sotheby's. There was a considerable attendance; but the company was not a
strong one, nor was the property. The doctor had preferred _multa_ to
_multum_. There was a large mass of specimens, curious and quaint, and a
few handsome pieces, but nothing capital, no productions, which bore
accentuation. The affair was the converse of the Fountaine one, where the
quantity was limited, the quality magnificent, princely. Naturally the
quotations corresponded. The best price was obtained for a lot, which was
not in the category of porcelain or pottery. It consisted of a couple of
Gothic crowns of Victoria, 1847, which, as Diamond told me, had been
presented by Wyon to him, and which were in the original case. They were
proofs, but of the ordinary type, and they realised eighteen guineas. If
they had belonged to one of the rare varieties, that of 1847 with the
_décolletée_ bust, or the one dated 1853, they would have still been
extravagantly dear.
I remember Cockburn the Richmond silversmith mentioning to me that a
customer, who owed him £6, begged him as a favour to take the amount in
Gothic crowns, of which he handed him twenty-four unused. There was a
ridiculous notion, that the _graceless_ florin was rare, and Diamond
inquired about it of Hugh Owen, author of the monograph on Bristol china,
and cashier of the Great Western Railway. The following Sunday Owen came
down to Twickenham with a small cargo of them.