The Stamp Book--A Passing Taste--Dr Diamond again--An Establishment in
the Strand--My Partiality for Lounging--One of My Haunts and Its Other
Visitors--Our Entertainer Himself--His Principals Abroad--The _Cinque
Cento_ Medal--Canon Greenwell--Mr Montagu--Story of a Dutch Priest--My
Experience of Pictures--The Stray Portrait recovered after Many
Years--The Two Wilson Landscapes--Sir Joshua's Portrait of Richard
Burke--Hazlitt's Likeness of Lamb--The Picture Market and Some of Its
Incidence--Story of a Painting--Plate--The Rat-tailed Spoon--Dr
Diamond smitten--The Hogarth Salver--The Edmund Bury Godfrey and
Blacksmiths' Cups--Irish Plate--Danger of Repairing or Cleaning Old
Silver--The City Companies' Plate.
I have to retrace my steps to Reynolds, because he was quite fortuitously
instrumental in inoculating me with a new weakness--the Postage Stamp. He
was a man in very indifferent health, and during two years or so was laid
up, so that he was unable to attend to his regular business, and beguiled
his leisure with a study of Wedgwood and philately. The former proved
sufficiently profitable to him, as soon as he was strong enough to attend
to work; the latter was a mere passing amusement, and fructified only to
the extent of placing him in possession of an album, formed by the
consolidation of a number of others purchased and broken up. This he had
by him, and did not propose to sell.
I remarked it on a shelf once or twice; the topic was beginning to awaken
interest; and I elicited from the owner, that he might be tempted by £50.
He was ultimately tempted by £16. There were about 3500 stamps; and the
collection has since been greatly enlarged and entirely rearranged. I
relinquished the pursuit, because I was advised that the liability to
deception was excessive, and there my book lies, a record of a foolish
passion. I sincerely believe, that Diamond had a finger in drawing my
attention to stamps; for he had an important collection, which he shewed
to me at Twickenham and which he sold, I understood, to a public
institution for £70.
The frequenters of the Strand, where it is a gorge toward St Clement's,
must recollect the morality in metal-work over the premises of a
stamp-merchant there. It represented a deadly combat between him and a
figure of more stalwart proportions personifying the evil genius of the
collector--the stamp-forger. This ingenious and impressive piece of
mechanism was illuminated at night, and attracted the attention, which it
so well deserved. But the police inconsiderately suppressed the spectacle,
merely because it blocked the traffic at a difficult point, endangered
human life, and was misconstrued into an advertisement.
I am persuaded that the sole chance of securing certain old issues in a
few series is the acquisition of a genuine collection, as it stands, and
the sale of the _residuum_. I made an effort in this direction one day
some time since at Puttick's; but the album contained a good deal that I
did not want, and some forgeries; and it fetched £66.
I mention it as a flattering mark of confidence on the part of Messrs
Sotheby & Co., that a very valuable album, which was to be sold in a few
days, was lent by them to me for the purpose of examination at my own
house. But I did not bid for it, after all.
My varied tastes necessarily brought me into relations with many
individuals, to whose superior training and experience I have been
indebted for much useful information and much entertaining anecdote. I
have during too large a proportion of my life played the part of a
lounger and a gossip. How much I should have to deduct from my career, if
I were to leave out of the reckoning the time spent in curiosity-shops!
Spent, yet not wholly wasted; for I hang the fruit to ripen, and it has
rendered some of my pages less dull and some of my statements less
imperfect than they might have been. Instead of being dependent on
book-learning, I have handled the objects, into which I proposed to
inquire, and have mixed with the wise men of the West, who had grown up
amid them.
At the English agency of Rollin & Feuardent of Paris I have passed, I
should think, months in the aggregate. I have had opportunities of
examining there antique jewellery, gems, bronzes, porcelain, medals,
coins; and there I have met men, who sympathise in my predilections, and
whom I have been enabled to emulate only at a distance--Canon Greenwell,
Sir John Evans, Mr Murdoch, Mr Montagu, Lord Grantley, and more. I have
seen a duke enter the room, hat in hand, to sell a bronze to the firm. I
have seen the _soi-disant_ representative of the Gonzagas of Mantua come
to arrange a small pecuniary transaction. I have passed on the stair a
Turkish gentleman, who might have been mistaken for the Grand Signior, on
his way down from turning something or other into currency. It was on
those very boards that Ruskin knelt to examine the Cypriot antiquities of
Cesnola.
The effect and success of the great Montagu sale, now nearly completed,
were rather spoiled by the aim of the late owner at exhaustiveness; and
the result was that numerous lots occurred, containing coins in poor
state, which had been acquired for the sake of rare mint-marks. They not
only fetched, as a rule, little themselves, but exercised an unfavourable
influence even on other items, which happened to be in their
neighbourhood. If the collection had been restricted to fine examples, the
prices would have been much higher. How often and how long will it be
necessary to reiterate the warning that coin-fanciers cannot fall into a
more serious and costly error than the sacrifice of other considerations
to technical _minutiæ_, which do not strictly concern them in the way of
ownership?
Montagu was rather weak or incomplete in British and Saxon, till he bought
Addington's collection _en bloc_. Mr Whelan mentioned to him one day,
that he ought to strengthen himself in this direction, and he spoke of
Addington. 'But,' said M. 'he would not sell, would he?' Whelan asked his
leave to put the inquiry; A. agreed; and the price was £7000, on which W.
took five per cent., and the vendor made him a present of £100. Montagu
subsequently parted with the Scotish portion to Mr Richardson for £2000.
Canon Greenwell most powerfully and favourably impressed me. He was a
churchman with the most liberal views and a scholarly archæologist. He was
very intimate with Mr Whelan, and stayed with him, when in town. We had
good talk over the topics, which interested us in common; but with Mr
Whelan himself my intercourse, spreading over many years, has been most
regular, as it has been most agreeable and instructive. He was born in the
business, and has been largely employed by the British Museum and by the
auctioneers as an expert. He of course attended some of the country sales,
and his experience could not fail to be singular. I called on his return
from Staffordshire. He had been unlucky on a visit to the same
neighbourhood; all the world was there, and heavy prices ruled. Undaunted,
he made a second attempt, and got an extraordinary haul of _cinque cento_
bronze medals, which went for about 30s. each. The auctioneer knew nothing
about them, and Whelan drew up an _extempore_ catalogue, by which they
were sold--mainly to him. His principals struck me at first, I confess, as
rather _laisser aller_ folks; but while they do not disdain petty traffic,
their profits chiefly arise from transactions, where there is a nabobish
margin of £1500 or £2000. It comes to what F. S. Ellis used to say, that
it is of no use to clear 100 per cent., if the amount is only
eighteenpence; nor is it a great deal better to do as Mr Quaritch has ere
now done, to lay out nearly £3000 on a volume, keep it a year or two, and
then sell it at £25 advance.
Whelan told me a funny story of a Dutch priest, who once smuggled 600
cigars into London. He related the affair to Whelan in this way in his
broken English. 'I bring over six hundred cigar. They ask me in English at
custom house, "you have any thing to declare?" I shrug the shoulder. They
ask me in French same thing. I shrug the shoulder. They ask me in Jarman.
I shrug the shoulder. They ask me in Hollands. I do same. Then they hold
up board with writing in six language. I shrug the shoulder again. "What
devil language," they say, "do this man talk?" and I go forth on my way.'
A few family portraits and miniatures descended to me by reason of two of
my foregoers having been artists; and one of the former, a likeness of
Hazlitt in oils by himself, met with a curious adventure. Before the
Exhibition of 1851 a sculptor borrowed it of my father on the plea that he
desired to execute a bust for that great event; and we lost sight equally
of him and it, till I received one day from Mr Frederick Locker a
catalogue of a sale at Christie's, where our long-lost picture formed a
lot, against which Locker had placed a mark, to draw my attention. I
represented the circumstances to the auctioneers, but finally bought back
the property.
I once purchased a couple of Richard Wilson landscapes in the original
frames, with the painter's initials and the date 1755; and I have dabbled
a little in water colours. But, on the whole, I have been only an
onlooker, with an hereditary feeling for art and a consciousness of total
incapacity for it.
I was at Althorp in 1868, just when Lord Spencer had acquired the portrait
by Sir Joshua of Richard Burke for £100; and I happened to be in
conversation with Mr Christie-Miller at St James's Place, when some one
delivered at the door as a present (I believe) an original drawing of the
Right Honourable Thomas Grenville.
Without being aware that the National Portrait Gallery possessed the real
likeness of Charles Lamb by Hazlitt, which had been purchased for £105, I
was led a few years since to go to Hodgson's rooms in Chancery Lane by the
entry in a catalogue of what was alleged to be the Lamb painting. My
father approved, subject to my opinion, of the purchase at £50 or so. I at
once dismissed the notion of bidding, because I felt sure, that there was
something wrong; and the late Mr Macmillan became its possessor at £60. A
visit to South Kensington and an interview with the curator of the
Gallery, where I beheld the fine, if rather bizarre, work itself,
confirmed my judgment and my distrust.
It is notorious enough, that the picture-market is a man-trap of the most
signal and treacherous character. Whatever may be true of books,
manuscripts, coins, or stamps, paintings and prints are the greatest snare
and pitfall of all. I have frequently gazed with private misgivings, which
I might have found it difficult to explain or justify, at a portrait in a
broker's shop, and as I passed and re-passed the place have speculated on
the real history of the production. I know full well that the preposterous
sums realised for the artist in fashion--at present it is Romney--are
explainable on principles, which would make me hesitate to enter the field
as a competitor under any circumstances.
At Sotheby's, many years ago, they had to put into an auction a portrait,
to which a curious misadventure had occurred. It was a likeness of Charles
the Second in the first instance; but an ingenious person, judging that
the Martyred monarch was more negotiable than the Merry one, and
unwittingly oblivious of the discordant costume, had painted in a head of
Charles the First.
Brooks of Hammersmith once bought a portrait by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A.,
which he could sell--not to me--at 50s. It was not long after Grant's
death. The President, when some one mentioned to him the name of Hazlitt
as an art critic, declared that he had never heard of him. Whose fault was
that?
I was told a neat anecdote of a celebrated and prosperous adventurer in
this particular field of activity, where for the right sort of things the
margins of profit are far better than in books or even in china. A party
came into his shop, and wished to know if he would buy a picture by
so-and-so. He intimated indifference, but on second thoughts asked the
price. £100. The work of art changed hands, and was laid on an easel.
Client appeared. What a charming picture! Yes, just bought it. Price?
£750. Work of art changes hands again. Client reappears. No wall-room;
most unfortunate. Oh, no matter; cheque for the amount; picture fetched
back, and reinstated on easel. Second client enters. His eye catches the
object, placed at the point most likely to accomplish that effect. He
demands the figure. The actual cost; the vendor has not long left the
premises with a cheque for £750; and, well, ten per cent. commission.
Could anything be more moderate? Clever! A sort of commercial legerdemain.
The unsceptical acquiescence of the less experienced West-End picture
dealer in the appropriation of an anonymous work of art is perhaps more
particularly characteristic of the Leicester Square expert. My uncle
Reynell was, I remember, passing a shop in that vicinity, and noticing a
portrait suspended near the entrance, with a humble assessment in chalk,
said to himself, but in the hearing of the proprietor, 'Rather like
so-and-so.' The next time he passed, he observed the addition of a ticket,
on which was paraded his _sotto voce_ suggestion in an amplified form--'A
very fine portrait of so-and-so (I forget the name which Mr Reynell
mentioned) by so-and-so, price £2.' The enterprising shopkeeper had found
an artist to go with a casual passer-by's speculative identification of
the sitter, and had readjusted the figures accordingly.
I am unable to plead that I never went in for prints or drawings. For I
looked on, an age since, at Sotheby's, and saw a lot going for 5s. The
firm was not quite so proud at that time, as it has since become, and
accepted sixpenny bids. I offered 5s. 6d., and was dismayed when the
property fell to me; for it was a bulky portfolio, containing sketches in
sepia and water-colour and other matters. There were some signed
examples, however, by Stanfield, Sandby, Nasmyth, and Varley, and so I
bore up against my fate. _Apropos_ of sixpenny bids, I once wanted a copy
of Bacon's _Sylva Sylvarum_ to cut up for a literary purpose, and offered
that amount to Mr Hodge, who insisted on having a shilling at one bound. I
refused, and had to go round the corner, and buy another copy for double
the higher figure. I tried to punish the auctioneer's pride, and punished
my own folly.
I have never personally (for the best of all reasons) trodden the somewhat
insidious and evidently very seductive path which leads to the conversion
of a share of your estate into ancient gold and silver plate. But I have
lived side by side with more than one enthusiast of this type. Diamond
contracted in later days a fancy for Queen Anne silver, and grew enamoured
of the rat-tailed spoon; and a second friend, whose employments took him
all over the country and into provincial towns, before the great change
occurred, and everything gravitated to London, has related to me a series
of stories of his fortunes as an occasional collector.
In the case of the doctor, the old textbooks on Porcelain and Pottery
became of secondary account, and his little lot of early and curious
volumes was consigned to an American agent for disposal in the States; but
I think that I stumbled on them shortly after at an auction in Leicester
Square. Chaffers on _Hall-Marks_ superseded Chaffers on the less favoured
topic, and Cockburn's shop in Richmond and other depôts supplied the
material for gratifying the new taste. When one went to Twickenham House
(now no more), one was introduced, not to a fresh dish, or cup and saucer,
or ceramic knick-knack, but to a rat-tailed spoon of special merit, or a
silver mug with an inedited mark. It was growing toward the close of the
scene; whatever the plea might have been for the prior line, it was at any
rate pursued with ardour and consistency; the owner's heart and soul were
in it; it was a sort of religion with him; he believed in it, as his
associates believed in him, and identified him and his name, and his home,
with the subject. But the more recent foible was deficient in depth and
sincerity; his set had been educated--educated by him--in a different
school; and they looked wistfully and languidly at the objects, which
their entertainer submitted for their criticism or approbation.
It was in truth a passing whim, an old man's infection with the prevailing
epidemic for what can scarcely be of real interest or importance to
private individuals except where there is hereditary association or in the
shape of works of reference. Friends noted an abatement in the enthusiasm;
pieces mysteriously disappeared; nearly the whole accumulation, never a
very large one, melted away; and the master was not long in following.
My remaining friend was imbued with a liking for old silver rather because
he was fond of seeing it about him and on his table than in connection
with any systematic plan. He was not guiltless of an affection for
bargains, and never, I believe, went higher than 10s. an ounce. In the old
days--in the forties and fifties--some tolerable examples were procurable
at that rate, especially in the provinces; but latterly he found the
market too stiff for him--not for his purse, but for his views. Many a
desirable lot he has missed for sixpence in the ounce. A large salver
engraved with masks by Hogarth, which Lazarus the dealer offered him at
7s. 6d., he lost, because he remained immoveable at 7s., and had the
satisfaction of hearing that it eventually brought about four times the
money, passing from hand to hand.
My friend acted on a different principle from that, which I should have
followed with ample funds at my command. I would have secured a few
first-rate examples, as he did, to some extent, in china. He had bought
Chelsea figures, when they were at reasonable prices, and he gave only £3,
10s. for a set of four (out of five) beakers of the same porcelain,
painted with exotic birds on a dark blue ground. Benjamin bade him £50 for
them; but he quietly remarked: 'If they are worth that to you, they are
worth as much to me.' This was a favourite saying of his; he would draw
out the expert, and then shut him up so. He never ceased to lament the
Lazarus salver.
At a sale at Christie's a young man present heard a valuable piece of
plate going for 15s. (as he thought), and it struck him that it would be a
nice present for a young woman of his acquaintance; and at 16s. it was
his. The auctioneer's clerk forthwith solicited a deposit of £20. There
was a gesture of impatience from the salesman, accompanied by a general
titter, and the lot was put up again.
£10 per ounce may be regarded as a maximum figure even for fine early
work; but this limit is constantly exceeded; it was the other day, when
some _cinque cento_ example reached £22. The Edmund Bury Godfrey tankard
realised £525 in 1895, and weighed only 35 oz. 18 dwt. The Blacksmiths'
Cup, once belonging to that Gild, has been more than once sold under the
hammer. It was bought by Ralph Bernal about sixty years since at £1 per
ounce; but on the last occasion it exceeded £10. The cup weighs 35 oz. The
Irish collection of Mr Robert Day, of Cork, dispersed at two intervals,
the last in 1894, eclipsed the normal standard of value, as it embraced
some of the finest extant specimens of the workmanship of the silversmiths
or hammerers of Cork, Youghal, and other Irish localities.
Antiquities in metal-work have their share of romance. Bargains fall to
the vigilant or the experienced seeker. We have all heard of the solid
silver picture frames at Beddington, the seat of the Carews, as black as
ink, and bought by the Jews at the price of ordinary material; and not so
long since there was a house-sale at Wimbledon, where the trade acquired
among them ornamental objects of solid gold, described in the auctioneer's
catalogue as silver-gilt.
There is no problem in commerce or in morality more difficult of solution
than that, which is involved in the question of right on the part of
persons, who in the first place make it their study, and in the second
their livelihood, to outstrip and outwit the rest of the world in a
particular sphere of industry, to combine together for their own profit
and the defeat of what is termed legitimate competition. The contention on
the other side is that these specialists are to waive their superior
information for the benefit of proprietors, in whom they have no interest,
and to whom they are under no obligation.
It awakened my personal attention to the cogent need of exercising the
utmost care in sending plate to the cleaner and repairer, when a tankard
of the George I. period returned home to me with part of the hall-mark
obliterated. The piece had at one time been in daily use, and was
slightly dented; and in straightening it the maker's symbol suffered from
encroachment. Sending your treasures of this class to the doctor's is as
parlous as committing a book or tract in old parchment or sheep to the
mercy of the uncanny bibliopegist or a piece of unblemished porcelain to
the duster of a charwoman.
The marks in the works by Chaffers and Cripps are not implicitly reliable,
and a _Manual_ furnishing actual facsimiles of them is still a deficiency.
The same criticism applies to the monograph of Chaffers on Porcelain and
Pottery. I was led to look into the question of hall-marks on old silver
plate by seeing a spoon of Henry VIII.'s time with the leopard's head, the
animal's mouth open, and the tongue protruding. This was also a mint-mark
on some of the Anglo-Gallic money and on the groats of Henry VII. with the
full-faced portrait.
My volume on the Livery Companies of London laid on me, among innumerable
other duties, that of making the circuit of the Companies' Halls, and of
studying the admirable monograph of Mr Cripps. I had an opportunity, owing
to an old friend being a past master, of reproducing the illustrations
from the Clockmakers' book of the plate belonging to that Gild; and I
followed the same course with one or two others in a more limited measure.
When I was dining at Merchant Taylors' Hall one evening, I observed
immediately in front of me at table a large silver salver, which I felt
sure I had recently seen somewhere; but I only regained the clue, when I
remembered that it was one of the examples engraved in my own work.