As the taste for collecting objects of art is rapidly developing in
America, it may be not without profit to point out some of the pitfalls
which attend the amateur in this pursuit, especially in Italy, that
exhaustless quarry of "originals" and "old masters"; though it should be
remembered that a work of art may be both original and old and very bad
too,--its intrinsic worth being a separate question from its age and
authenticity. The results given are drawn from an actual experience of
many years.
The most obvious risk is from the counterfeiter,--not from the
vulgar shams distributed so widely over the world from the well-known
_manufactories_ of paintings in France, England, and other parts, which
can deceive only the most ignorant or credulous, but from talent itself
debased to forgery and trickery.
Many of the antique bronzes, terra-cottas, vases, classical and medieval
relics, so jealously cared for in the collections of Europe, are the
clever imitations of a poor and honest artist in one of the Italian
cities, whose miniature studio might almost be put inside one of our
old-fashioned omnibuses. His designs, taken from genuine antiques,
are reproduced with fidelity, and the coatings and marks of time
counterfeited by chemical means and skilful manipulation. He sells his
productions as imitations, at prices that barely provide him with daily
bread, eking out his subsistence by repairs and restorations, in which
he is equally happy. Living in obscurity, without the capital or
sagacity to make himself known to the public, he is at the mercy of
those who are interested in keeping him in privacy and buying his
artistic labors at the wages of a clodhopper. His own responsibility
goes not beyond fulfilling orders for the imitation of certain objects,
the process of which he frankly explains to the inquisitive visitor.
But, once in dishonest hands, antiquity and authenticity replace
modernism and imitation.
There are two ways of seduction and deceit. The one and safer for
the operator is the _suggestive,_ in which appearances are made by
consummate tact and artful flattery to excite the imagination of the
buyer so that he is led to believe what he desires without compromising
the agent. The other is positive intrigue and absolute lying, so nicely
done that the wealthy amateur is fleeced often in a fashion that confers
a pleasure, and which, though he may subsequently detect it, gives him
but a lame chance at redress. In most instances he deserves none. For,
stimulated by vanity or fashion, without any true regard for art, he
has offered so large a premium for a name, that it would indeed be
wonderful, if a corresponding supply were not created. The living artist
is sometimes sorely tempted to pander to illusions to secure that
appreciation which the world gives more lavishly to fashion than to
merit. Michel Angelo tested this disposition, even more current in
his time than now; though some say it was done unknown to him. At all
events, having finished the statue of a Cupid, after breaking off an
arm, it was buried, and in due time discovered, disinterred, and brought
to the notice of a distinguished Roman dignitary, who pronounced it to
be a genuine antique and paid a large price for it, well pleased, as he
had reason to be, with his prize. But afterwards, the deception being
exposed, and the proof by means of the missing arm given that it was
the work of the then unknown Florentine sculptor, the disenchanted
connoisseur was furiously indignant, and disposed to take prompt
vengeance upon the parties concerned.
To come back to our own day. Let us suppose a rich collector to have
arrived in some well-known Italian market for art,--picture-jockeying is
much the same everywhere,--in pursuit of "originals."
Great is the commotion among dealers and their _sensali_ or jackals.
These latter are versed in intrigue and mystification, with enough
intelligence to tell a good picture from a bad one, and a parrot-like
acquaintance with names and schools. They are of all classes, from the
decayed gentleman and artist, to shopkeepers, cobblers, cooks, and
tailors, who find in the large commissions gained a temptation to
forsake their petty legitimate callings for the lottery-like excitements
and _finesse_ of picture-dealing. No sooner has the stranger gone to his
hotel than a watch is put upon his movements, and bribery and cajolery
used to get access to him. It is the _sensale's_ business to discover
and offer pictures. He is supposed to know the locality of every one,
good or bad, in his neighborhood. However jealous of each other, all
are loyally pledged together to take in the stranger. Leagued with the
dealer, artist, owner, courier, or servant, with any one, in fact, that
by any possibility can stand between the buyer and his object, it has
become almost an impossibility, especially for transient visitors, to
purchase anything whatever without paying a heavy toll to intermediates.
When the conspiracy is widely extended, the augmentation of price above
what would be required in direct dealing with the owner is sometimes
double or even quadruple. Occasionally, however, by way of compensation
for their general evil, the _sensali,_ having scented a prize, offer it
first to the amateur, in view of their own increase of gain over what
the dealer would allow. In this way, good pictures not unfrequently
escape the merchant, and reach the collector at a lower price than if
they had gone directly to the former.
The _sensali_ are not without their use in another respect. So indirect
and underhand is the Italian's mode of dealing in these matters, and
so eccentric his notions as to value, that a foreigner is apt to be
speedily disgusted or driven away by the magnitude of demands which in
reality the seller never expects to realize. Hence the negotiation is
best done through an agent, the buyer having fixed his price, leaving
the _sensale_ to make what he can for himself. No purchaser, however,
should give heed to any statement about the history or authenticity of
the works offered to him through such channels, but rely both for value
and facts upon his own resources; otherwise he will be deceived to an
extent that would appear almost fabulous to the uninitiated.
Such are the preliminary difficulties that beset the amateur. We will
suppose him in connection with the seller, and trace his progress.
First, the quality of his judgment and the impressibility of his
imagination are tested by a series of experiments as delicate as the
atmospherical gauges of a barometer. He is of course not to be entrapped
by copies or fabrications. He has a shrewd distrust of dealers, and
therefore prefers to buy family pictures or originals directly from
chapels and convents. All Italians have a patriotic pride in getting
rid of trash at the expense of the foreigner. The more common baits to
entrap--by bringing pictures mysteriously boxed, grandly baptized, and
liberally decorated with aristocratic seals and eloquent with
academical certificates, anointed with refined flattery and obsequious
courtesy--having failed, his _Eccellenza_ being too knowing to be
seduced into buying the ostentatiously furbished-up _roba_ of shops,
they set about to accommodate him with originals from first hands.
By substituting old frames for new, dirtying the pictures, and other
ingenious processes familiar to the initiated, and then putting them out
to board in noble villas, antique palaces, or other localities the most
natural for good pictures to be _discovered_ in, spiced with a romance
of decayed family-grandeur,--by employing new agents, and by hints
sagaciously conveyed to the buyer, his curiosity is excited, hopes
raised, and, finally, with much trouble and enhanced expense, he
triumphantly carries off the very pictures which in a shop he could not
be tempted to look at for fear of being caught with chaff, but which
now, from a well-got-up romance, have acquired a peculiar value in
his eyes. Not that this sort of delicate mystification is reserved
exclusively for foreigners. For we have detected in an altar-piece,
borne away as a great prize by an Italian friend from a secluded
little chapel attached to a noble villa in the vicinity of Florence,
a worthless specimen of an old painter, from one of the secret
depositories of the city, which had long been wholly unsalable on any
terms.
Honest dealing exists in Italy, as elsewhere, and there are men whose
statements may safely be received. But let the purchaser be cautious
when led into out-of-the-way places to see newly found originals, and be
slow to give heed to stories of churches being permitted to sell this or
that work of art because they have a _façade_ to repair or an altar to
decorate,--and particularly if there be said anything of an inheritance
to divide, or a sad tale of family distress requiring the sacrifice of
long-cherished treasures, backed up by a well-gotten-up pantomime of
unlockings and lockings, passages through mysterious corridors and vast
halls, cautious showings amid a crowd of family-retainers or a retinue
of monks. Sometimes the most wary is thus seduced into offering tenfold
its worth for a common object thus seen by a carefully arranged light
and with artificial surroundings.
Many good pictures are still to be had in Italy, if properly approached
by those who know thoroughly the habits of the country. There are,
however, but two means of procuring them: either to pay their full
value as fixed by rival collectors, or to secure them by fortuitous
circumstances for trifling sums. The extraordinary chances of discovery
and the extreme variations of price attending this pursuit are curious
and instructive. A few examples are worth relating. In 1856, a small
picture, by Niccolò d'Alunno, was sold in Florence, by an artist to a
dealer, for forty dollars; in a few weeks resold to an Englishman
for five hundred; exhibited at the Manchester Exhibition, whence it
subsequently passed into the gallery of a distinguished personage for
twenty-five hundred dollars. The "Leda" of Leonardo, repainted from
motives of prudery by the great-grandfather of Louis-Philippe, was
bought at the sale of that ex-king's pictures in Paris, in 1849, for
thirty dollars, restored to its primitive condition, and sold, we are
informed, for one hundred thousand francs. Ten years ago, an Angel, by
the same artist, was found in the old-clothes market at Florence by an
artist, bought for a few pence, cleaned and sold to Prince Galitzin for
twenty-two thousand francs. The "Fortune" of Michel Angelo, or what was
supposed to be, not long since was discovered in the same locality in a
disastrous condition, secured for a few shillings, put in such order as
was possible, and parted with to a French gentleman for three hundred
dollars and a pension of one dollar a day during the lives of the seller
and his son. Quite recently one of Correggio's most beautiful works was
discovered under the canvas of a worthless picture acquired at a public
auction in Rome for a few dimes, at the sale by a princely family of
discarded pictures, and resold by its fortunate discoverer for fifteen
thousand dollars, although the original proprietor instituted a suit
against him for its recovery, but without success. In Florence, within
three years past, a fine portrait, by Titian, of the Doge Andrea Gritti,
was picked out from a large lot of worthless canvases for six dollars.
The Madonna del Gran Duca, at the Pitti, was bought by the father of
the late Grand Duke, with some other pictures, of a widow, for a few
dollars. Instances like these might be multiplied, to show that in all
times prizes do strangely and unexpectedly occur, and that pictures
in their fortunes resemble their authors, often passing from extreme
poverty into princely homes.
The changes in the money value placed upon the same works in different
epochs are also curious. Indeed, a history of the _caprices_ of art
would be vastly entertaining. In 1740, at the sale in Paris of M.
Crozat's collection, a drawing by Raphael brought only ten francs. The
same drawing, at the sale of the King of Holland's gallery, in 1850,
fetched fourteen thousand francs. For the "Ezekiel," Raphael, in 1510,
had but eight _scudi d' oro,_ equivalent now to thirty dollars. At
present, it would bring a fabulous sum, if sold. Within the memory of
those now living, gold background pictures of the schools of Giotto and
his successors, owing to the contempt the pseudo-classical French taste
had excited for them, were brought out of suppressed churches and
convents and publicly burned to obtain the trifling amount of gold which
remained in the ashes. Amateurs are now more inclined to pay their
weight in gold for such as have escaped the ravages of time and
Vandalism; and the same government that permitted this destruction in
1859 passed stringent decrees to prevent their leaving the country,
sequestering all in public buildings as national property.
Without cautious study and much well-paid-for experience, the stranger
has small chance of successfully coping with the artifices that beset
his every step. He must be well-grounded in the history of Italian
painting, and possess a practical knowledge of the technical execution
of its various masters. Haste and ignorance, united to wealth and
vanity, are a rich mine for the _sensali._ To such collectors
America--not to speak of Europe--owes many of its galleries of great
names, to the very natural astonishment and skepticism of the spectators
and the defamation of great reputations. Many of these purchases are
the speculations of couriers, who, having artfully inoculated their
employers with a taste for originals, take care to supply the demand,
greatly to the benefit of their own pockets and the gratitude of those
with whom they bring their masters into connection. We have been called
by a countryman to admire his gallery of Claudes, Poussins, Rembrandts,
Murillos, and Titians, for which he had expended a princely sum, but
which there was no difficulty in recognizing as the shop _roba_ got up
expressly to entrap the unwary. One picture, worth, perhaps, for mere
decoration, fifty dollars, had been secured as a great favor for
twenty-two hundred dollars, the "last price" asked for it being three
thousand. Another, by a feeble artist of the Carlo Dolce school, had
been converted, by a substitution of names and sundry touchings-up, into
a brilliant Guercino, at the cost of nearly one thousand dollars, of
which the owner got about one-third, the confederates pocketing the
rest.
Some amateurs deceive themselves after a manner which acquits the
dealer of any participation in their illusions. A gentleman entered a
well-known studio in Florence, not many years since, and inquired the
price of a picture.
"Sixty dollars: the painting is by Furini," was the reply.
"I will take it," said the gentleman, eagerly insisting upon paying for
it on the spot; which was no sooner done, than he turned round to the
amused artist and triumphantly exclaimed, "Do you know you have sold me
a Murillo for nothing?"
Benvenuti, President of the Academy of Florence, was once asked to
attest the originality of an Andrea brought to him by some speculators.
"I should be happy to gratify you, gentlemen," he replied, "but
unfortunately I saw the picture painted." Nevertheless, certificates
were obtained from more facile authorities, and the painting officially
baptized for a market.
Certificates and documents need to be received as cautiously as the
pictures themselves; perhaps more so,--for they are more easily forged.
When genuine, the former are valuable only as they are the opinions of
honest and competent judges; and both are trustworthy only so far as
they are attached to the pictures to which they legitimately belong.
Genuine pictures have been sold and their documentary evidence kept for
skilful imitations. We have even detected in certificates the fraudulent
substitution of names. And sometimes, when honestly given, their
testimony is of no value. One professional certificate in our
possession, of the last century, ascribes the portrait in question to
Masaccio or Sauti di Tito: as sensible a decision as if an English
critic had decided that a certain picture of his school was either by
Hogarth or Sir Thomas Lawrence. Cases are indeed rare, even in the
public galleries, in which, outside of the picture itself, there is any
trustworthy historical testimony as to its genealogy.
Counterfeits of the old masters of the later Italian schools, supported
by false evidence, have at various times deceived good judges and
obtained posts of honor in the galleries of Europe. Even when detected,
their owners do not always repudiate their spurious treasures. They give
their collections the benefit of doubts or of public ignorance. The most
noted imitator of this class was Micheli of Florence. In view of his
success and the use for a time made of his works, he must rank as
a forger, though they are now in esteem solely for their intrinsic
cleverness. Some still linger in remote galleries, with the savor of
authenticity about them. A Raphael of his make long graced the Imperial
Gallery of Russia. He did not confine himself to literal repetitions,
but concocted new "originals" by combining parts of several pictures
in worm-eaten panels or time-stained canvases, with such variations of
motive or design as their supposed authors would naturally have made
in repeating their ideas in fresher combinations,--sometimes leaving
portions unfinished, ingeniously dirtying their surfaces, and giving to
them that cracked-porcelain appearance common to the old masters.
One thus prepared was bought at his studio for one hundred dollars,
consigned to a priest in the country, in due time _discovered_, and the
rumor of a great master in an exceedingly dirty and somewhat dilapidated
state, but believed to be intact beneath the varnishes and grime of
centuries, brought to the ears of a Russian, who after a delicate and
wearisome negotiation obtained it for eight hundred dollars, and perhaps
paid half as much more to the manufacturer for cleaning and restoring
it.
Another sort of deception is the alteration of pictures by artists
less-known or of inferior reputations to suit more fashionable and
profitable names. In this way many works of much local interest, and
often indeed of equal merit to those they are made to represent, are
exterminated, to the serious detriment of the history of art, Lombardy,
Umbria, and the Legations especially have suffered in this way.
Though no deception be intended, if pedigrees are lost, criticism is
often sorely perplexed to decide upon authorship. Out of the multitudes
of pictures in the European galleries, which are so decidedly baptized
in catalogues, the public would be surprised to learn how few
comparatively can be historically traced to their authors. The majority
are named upon the authority of local judges, whose acquaintance with
art may be limited to one speciality, or who rely upon such opinions
as can be gathered from the best available sources. Hence the frequent
changes in the nomenclatures. We cannot, therefore, accept such
documents as infallible, except in those cases where internal evidence
and historic record are alike unimpeachable.
The difficulty of deciding often arises from repetitions, and the
excellence of pupils painting from the designs of their masters, and not
unfrequently assisted by them. As we go back in art, this difficulty
increases, from the oblivion which has overtaken once well-known names,
and from the greater uniformity of processes and the more limited range
of motives of the earliest artists.
The great religious masters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
gathered around them crowds of scholars, who travelled with them from
city to city, partaking in their commissions and executing their
designs, especially of _ex-voto_ pictures, multiplied in that age by the
piety of noble families, to commemorate some special interposition of
divine power in their behalf and to honor their patron saints. Their
usual compositions were the Madonna enthroned with the infant Jesus in
her arms, surrounded by holy personages or angels, with the portraits
of those who ordered the paintings, in general of diminutive size to
express humility, and kneeling in adoration with clasped hands and
upraised eyes. Unless the characteristics of the master-hand are
unmistakable in this class of works, they are to be ranked as of the
schools of the great men whose general features they bear. And it must
not be forgotten that frequently pupils developed into distinguished
masters themselves. Taddeo Gaddi and Puccio Capanna worked under Giotto
while he lived, and afterwards acquired distinction in an independent
career.
A like close relation between master and scholar, the effect of which
was to multiply works by joint labor, obtained among the contemporaries
of Raphael as well as of Giotto. The precise number of the genuine works
of Raphael, owing to the cleverness of many of his pupils, will perhaps
never be known. Coindet ascribes to him from one hundred and eighty to
two hundred Holy Families alone. Some writers compute the entire number
of his paintings at from five hundred to six hundred; others quote
twelve hundred as authentic. These exaggerated estimates only prove how
extremely popular his designs became and the great number of pictures
ordered from them, some of which no doubt had the advantage of being
touched by his hand, while all in some way or other bear his mental
impress.
Moreover, the great masters frequently changed their methods and styles,
so that one might be mistaken for another, and at times studied and
copied each other. Andrea del Sarto's copy of Raphael's Leo Tenth passed
undetected even by Giulio Romano, who had himself worked on the latter.
Rubens and Velasquez imitated and copied the great Italian masters,
particularly Paul Veronese and Titian; the Caracci and their followers
multiplied Correggios, Raphaels, and the chief Venetians; Girolamo da
Carpi of Ferrara the same; and all with a degree of success that has
greatly perplexed later generations: their own works, in turn, as they
became popular, experiencing from subsequent artists the same process of
multiplication. Of the celebrated Madonna of Loreto there are not fewer
than ten rival claimants for authenticity; while sketches, studies, and
works not directly imitated from, but partaking of the character of
great artists, and often clever enough to be confounded with their
undoubted works, are not rare. Portraits, being direct studies from
Nature, are difficult to decide upon. Hence it is that criticism is so
variable in its decisions.
Beside the above sources of perplexity, it encounters another obstacle
from the restorations pictures have undergone. Injured by time or
obscured by repeated varnishings, they often require some degree of
cleaning to make them intelligible. Unfortunately, in most instances,
the process is sheer assassination. Many of the best works of public
galleries have been subjected to scrubbings more analogous to the labors
of a washtub than to the delicate and scientific treatment requisite to
preserve intact the virgin surface of the painting. Mechanical operators
have passed over them with as little remorse as locusts blight fields
of grain. Their rude hands in numberless instances have skinned the
pictures, obliterating those peerless tints, lights, and shadows, and
those delicate but emphatic touches that bespeak the master-stroke,
leaving instead cold, blank, hard surfaces and outlines, opaque shadows
and crude coloring, out of tone, and in consequence with deteriorated
sentiment as well as execution. The profound knowledge and vigorous or
fairy-like handling which made their primary reputation are now forever
gone, leaving little behind them except the composition to sustain it in
competition with modern work. As bad, however, as is this wanton injury,
that of repainting is greater. Inadequate to replace the delicate work
he has rubbed off, to harmonize the whole and make it look fresh and
new, the restorer passes his own brush over the entire picture, and thus
finally obscures whatever of technical originality there might still
have been preserved after the cleaning. The extent of injury European
galleries have thus received is incalculable. One instance will suffice
as an example of many. Some years gone by, the Titian's Bella Donna of
the Pitti was intact. Unluckily it got into the hands of a professional
cleaner. A celebrated dealer happened to be standing by when it was
rehung. Looking at it, he exclaimed,--"Two weeks ago I would have given
the Grand Duke two thousand pounds for that picture on speculation; now
I would not give two hundred."
Each restoration displaces more of the original and replaces it with
the restorer. As the same hands generally have a monopoly of a public
gallery, the contents of some are beginning to acquire a strange
uniformity of external character, while the old masters in the same
degree are vanishing from them. These remarks, however, are more
applicable to past than to present systems; for a reform founded on true
artistic principles is being everywhere inaugurated.
Oil-paintings gradually deepen in tone; while tempera, if protected from
humidity, retain their brilliancy and clearness as long as the material
on which they rest endures. The true occupation of the restorer is to
put the work given to him in a condition as near as possible to its
original state, carefully abstaining from obliterating the legitimate
marks of age, and limiting himself to just what is sufficient for the
actual conservation of the picture. One of the chief needs of many old
pictures is the removal of old repaintings. This done, the less added
the better, unless, if a piece be wanting, it can be so harmonized with
the original as to escape observation. But this is a special art, and
to be done only by those acquainted with the old methods. In perfect
condition ancient paintings cannot be. We must receive them for what
they are, with the corrodings and changes of time upon them. How
interesting in this respect is the Sienese Gallery! Here the restorer
has been stayed, and we find the pictures genuine as time itself,
and more precious by far to the student than the most glaring and
"refreshed" surfaces of those works in other galleries which are the
wonder and admiration of superficial observers.
The greatest difficulty of the restorer is to harmonize _permanently_
the new vehicles with the old; for the fresh tints are always liable
to assume a different tone from the original, which have already been
chemically acted upon by time.
It may be said that the skill which can escape detection in restoration
is adequate to successful counterfeiting. This is true only in part;
for _mending_ is very different from _creating._ Instances, however, do
occur of such attempts; but they seldom long escape detection, and never
impose upon those who have experience in the arts of the restorer.
Some years ago a Roman artist for a while successfully passed off his
imitations of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and their schools, as originals,
at large prices, with the usual guaranties of authenticity. To disarm
suspicion, he was accustomed to allow himself to be seen at work only
upon cheap, vulgar pictures, pretending he was competent to nothing
better. Having sold one of his Claudes for four thousand dollars, the
trick being detected, he was threatened with a public prosecution, the
fear of which brought on his death.
The favorite field of the early masters was fresco-painting. Unlike
painting in oils, it has no resources of transparency, brilliancy, and
richness of coloring, but depends for its nobility of effect upon the
hardier virtues of art and the more robust genius of the artist. His
success lies in strong and eloquent design and composition, with but
feeble aid from color. Fresco and tempera paintings were chiefly
intended for the interiors of churches or public buildings, whose dim
light harmonized their more or less crude and positive tones. It was,
however, only through the breadth and freedom of wall-painting that the
ambition of the early masters was fully aroused and their powers
found ample scope. Out of it they created a world of art unknown
and unappreciable by those who cannot view it as it exists in the
consecrated localities and amid the solemn associations whence it
originated. All over Italy, by the road-side and in the sanctuary, there
exists untold treasure of this sort, pure, grand or quaint, telling
truth with the earnestness of conviction, and exhaling beauty through
aroused feeling and refined sentiment, overflowing with virgin power
and exalted efforts. Everywhere untransportable, often in localities
untrodden except by the feet of the stolid peasant or the heavy-jawed
monk, seen only by enthusiastic seekers, these monuments of a noble art
are once more being awakened into vital existence by the piety and taste
of a generation whose great joy it is to uncover and restore to the
light of day those precious remains which were so often barbarously
whitewashed by the clergy of the past two centuries, from no more cogent
motive than to give greater light to their churches. Especially in
Tuscany every souvenir of ancestral greatness is now cared for with a
jealous patriotism honorable alike to the feeling and knowledge of its
population. The chief desire of the country is now to reinvest her
republican monuments with the character and aspect which best recall her
olden freedom and enterprise. And the highest glory that can be bestowed
upon these monuments is their careful conservation or restoration as
they originally were designed; nothing being added or taken away except
to their loss.
Not merely patriotism, but selfish acquisition demands of Italy the
strict conservation of art. Her monuments are funds at interest for
posterity. Indeed, her livelihood depends in no stinted measure upon
her artistic attractions. And nowhere is there a livelier feeling for
artistic beauty, greater respect for the past, and a wider-spread
knowledge of art. In all times will other peoples come within her
borders to enjoy and study that which she can still so lavishly bestow.
Tourists soundly rate Italians for their sordid indifference to their
art, attributing to the people at large the spirit of the mercenary
or ignorant class with whom they are most in contact. It is true that
others may hear, as we have heard, from a noble marquis, in reply to a
question about his family-pictures, "Ask my majordomo; had your question
been about horses, I could have told you." They may meet aristocratic
personages not above acting the picture-dealer in a covert manner, and,
still worse, receive propositions to buy works of art robbed from public
places. But such instances are uncommon. The common feeling is an
enthusiastic pride in, and profound respect for, the names and the
works that have done so much for the good and glory of Italy. Even the
spirited deportment of the Signorina Borgherini, as told by Vasari,
towards a dealer, who, during the siege of Florence, attempted to get
possession of certain paintings belonging to her husband, to speculate
upon by sending them to the king of France, may still find its
counterpart in feeling, if not in fact, among some of the living
daughters of that city.
"How, then," she exclaimed, "dost thou, Giovanni Battista, thou vile
broker of frippery, miserable huckster of farthings, dost thou presume
to come hither with the intent to lay thy fingers on the ornaments which
belong to the chambers of gentlemen,--despoiling, as thou hast long
done and art ever doing, our city of the fairest ornaments to embellish
strange lands therewith? I prize these pictures from reverence to the
memory of my father-in-law, from whom I had them, and from the love I
bear to my husband; I mean to defend them, while I have life, with my
own blood. Away with thee, then, base creature of nothingness! If again
thou shouldest be so bold as to come on a similar errand to this house,
thou shalt be taught what is the respect due to the dwelling of a
gentleman, and that to thy serious discomfort; make sure of it!"
And so she drove the intriguing bargainer away, with "reproaches of such
intolerable bitterness, that the like had never before been hurled at
man alive." Be it remembered, too, that Vasari was a good judge of the
quality of a Florentine dame's scolding, for he had himself in his
younger days passed a painful apprenticeship under the weight of
Lucretia Feti's tongue.
Criticism is too often local in its tone, being pledged, as it were, to
the admiration of its favorite subjects and a corresponding disregard of
those with which it is not familiar. Particularly in Italy, where the
municipal feeling has been so strong, the partisans of each school were
greatly prejudiced. Each people also very naturally prefers its own to
another's art, and does not always question its motives of preference.
The Florentines have overlooked the merits of their rivals, the
Venetians and Sienese,--who, in turn, have reciprocated; while Italy,
as a whole, has had but small regard for the works of other nations.
England has been slow to recognize the great merits of the Southern
schools; and France, Holland, and Germany are equally in the bondage of
local tastes or transitory fashions. But true criticism is cosmopolitan.
It tests merit according to the standard of the nature on which it is
founded, not overlooking excellence in whatever respect or degree. A
truly catholic view of art is the result only of its universal study.
The critic may be just to all inspirations, and yet enjoy his own
preferences. But, as Blackwood observes, too many "are self-endowed with
the capacity to judge all matters relating to the fine arts just in
proportion to the extent of their ignorance, because it is not difficult
to condemn in general terms and to attain notoriety by shallow
pretence." Neither "the narrowness of sect nor the noise of party"
should be heard in this matter. As a great gallery should represent
all phases of art through their several stages of progress and decay,
meeting all wants and tastes, so criticism should be based upon a
foundation equally broad,--not proud of its erudition nor dictatorial,
but with due humility uttering its opinions, prompt to sustain them, and
yet ever ready to listen and learn.
"Old masters" are almost a by-word of doubt or contempt in America,
owing to the influx of cheap copies and pseudo-originals of no artistic
value whatever. It is the more important, therefore, that they should be
represented among us by such characteristic specimens as are still to
be procured. Some modern artists are jealous of or indifferent to past
genius, and sedulously disparage it in view of their own immediate
interests. Bayle St. John, in his "Louvre," relates that he heard an
associate of the Royal Academy deliberately and energetically declare,
that, if it were in his power, he would slash with his knife all the
works of the old masters, and thus compel people to buy modern. This
spirit is both ungenerous and impolitic. If neither respect nor care for
the works of departed talent be bestowed, what future has the living
talent itself to look forward to? Art is best nourished by a general
diffusion of aesthetic taste and feeling. There can be no invidious
rivalry between the dead and the living. Alfred Tennyson looks not with
evil eye upon John Milton. Why should a modern be jealous of a mediaeval
artist? The public can love and appreciate both. Nor should it be
forgotten that it is precisely in those countries where old art is most
appreciated that the modern is most liberally sustained.
'TENTY SCRAN'.
"Patience hath borne the bruise, and I the stroke."
"I think she's a-sinkin', Doctor," sobbed old Aunt Rhody, the nurse, as
she came out of Mary Scranton's bed-room into the clean kitchen, where
Doctor Parker sat before the fire, a hand on either knee, staring at the
embers, and looking very grave.
Doctor Parker got up from the creaky chair, and went into the bed-room.
It was very small, very clean, and two sticks of wood on the old iron
dogs burned away gradually, and softened the cool April air.
Before this pretence of a fire sat an elderly woman, with grave, set
features, an expression of sense and firmness, but a keen dark eye that
raised question of her temper. Miss Lovina Perkins was her style, being
half-aunt to the unpleasant-colored baby she now tended, rolled up in
a flannel shawl, and permitted to be stupid undisturbedly, since its
mother was dying.
Dying, evidently; she had not been conscious for several hours. Her
baby had not had its welcome; she knew nothing, cared for nothing, felt
nothing but the chill of the blood that stood still in her veins, and
the choking of the heart that hardly beat.
Poor child! poor widow! Her head lay on the pillow, white as the linen,
but of a different tint,--the indescribable pallor that you know and
I know, who have seen it drawn over a dear face,--a tint that is best
unknown, that cannot be reproduced by pen or pencil. Yet, for all its
pallor, you saw at once that this face was still young, had been
lovely, a true New-England beauty, quaint and trim and delicate as the
slaty-gray snow-bird, with its white breast, and soft, bright eyes, that
haunts the dusky fir-trees and dazzling hill-side slopes when no other
bird dare show itself,--a quiet, shy creature, full of innocent trust
and endurance, its chirp and low repetition dearer than the gay song of
lark or robin, because a wintry song.
But Mary Perkins had never been called handsome in Deerfield; if they
said she was "a real pretty girl," it only meant kindly and gentle, in
the Connecticut vernacular; and Tom Scranton, the village joiner, was
first to find out that the delicate, oval face, with its profuse brown
hair, its mild hazel eyes, and smiling mouth, was "jest like a
pictur'." So Tom and Mary duly fell in love, got married,--nobody
objecting,--went West, and eight months afterward Mary came home with
a coffin. Tom had fallen from a ladder, been taken up and brought home
dead, and she had travelled back five hundred miles to bury him in
Deerfield, beside his father and mother; for he was their only son.
There were about a hundred dollars left for Mary. She could not
work now, and she went to board with her half-sister, the Deerfield
tailoress.
Mary Scranton was only nineteen; but she did not want to live,--not even
for her baby's sake. All her sunshine and her strength went out of this
world with Tom, and she had no energy to care to live without him. She
did not say so to her sister,--for Miss 'Viny would have scolded her
smartly,--nor did she tell Doctor Parker; but she prayed about it,
and kept it in her heart all those silent days that she sat sewing
baby-clothes, and looking forward to an hour that should, even through a
death-agony, take her to Tom. She thought the baby would die, too, and
then they should all be together;--for Mary had a positive temperament,
without hope, because without imagination; what she had possessed and
lost eclipsed with her all uncertainties of the future; and she thought
seven times of Tom where she once thought of her child, though she took
pains to make its garments ready, and knit its tiny socks, and lay the
lumbering old cradle, that she had been rocked in, with soft and warm
wrappings, lest, indeed, the child should live longer than its
mother. So she sat in Miss 'Viny's bed-room in an old rush-bottomed
rocking-chair, sewing and sewing, day after day, the persistent will and
intent to die working out its own fulfilling, her white lips growing
more and more bloodless, her transparent cheek more wan, and the
temples, from which her lustreless hair was carelessly knotted away,
getting more hollow and clear and sharp-angled.
And now she lay on the bed, one hand under her cheek, the other picking
restlessly at the blanket,--for consciousness was fluttering back.
"Give me the brandy, Aunt Rhody," said Doctor Parker, softly.
He poured a few drops into the spoon she brought, and held it to Mary's
lips. The potent fluid stung the nerves into life again, and quickened
the flickering circulation; her thin fingers lay quiet, her eyes opened
and looked clear and calm at the Doctor. He tried to rouse her with an
interest deeper to most women than their own agony or languor.
"You've got a nice little girl, Mary," said he, cheerfully.
The ghost of a smile lit her face.
"I'm content," said she, in a low whisper.
Aunt Rhody brought the baby and laid it on its mother's arm. The child
stirred and cried, but Mary took no notice; her eyes were fixed and
glazing. Suddenly she smiled a brilliant smile, stretched both arms
upward, dropping her baby from its place. Only for one moment that
recognizing look defied death and welcomed life; her arms dropped, her
jaw fell;--it was over.
"I guess you'd better take the baby into the kitchen, Miss Loviny," said
Aunt Rhody; "'tisn't considered lucky to keep 'em round where folks has
died."
"Luck a'n't anything," grimly returned Lovina, who had squeezed her
tears back, lest the two or three that inclined to fall should spot the
baby's blanket; "but I'm goin' to take her out into the kitchen, because
I calculate to open the winder in here."
So the baby and Aunt 'Viny went out.
It was a new thing and a hard thing for Lovina Perkins to have a baby
on her hands; she would rather have charged herself with the care of a
farm, or the building of a house; she could work, she could order,
plan, regulate, and execute; but what to do with a baby? There it
lay, helpless, soft, incapable, not to be scolded, or worked, or made
responsible in any way, the most impracticable creature possible: a
kitten she could have put into a basket at night, and set in the shed;
a puppy she could and would have drowned; but a baby, an unlucky, red,
screeching creature, with a soul, was worse than all other evils.
However, she couldn't let it die; so she went after some milk, and, with
Aunt Rhody's help, after much patient disgust, taught the child how to
live, and it lived.
Mary Scranton was buried next to Tom, and the June grass grew over both
their graves, and people thought no more about it; only every now and
then Doctor Parker came to Miss Perkins's house to ask after "baby," who
grew daily fat and fair and smiling; and on one of these occasions he
met the minister, Parson Goodyear, who had come, as Miss 'Viny expressed
it, "o' purpose to take me to do, because I ha'n't presented the child
for baptism."
"Fact is," continued she, "I ha'n't an idea what _to_ call her. I don't
favor callin' of her Mary, because that was her mother's name, and I
couldn't think of two on 'em at once; and Scripter names are generally
rather ha'sh. Miss Parker, Doctor, kind of favored her bein' called
Aribelly, because there was one of that name rather come over in the
Mayflower; but I think it's too mighty for a child that's got to
work;--what do you say?"
"I think you're right, Miss 'Viny," said the Doctor, as gravely as he
could.
"I don't believe in fine names myself. I should think you might do worse
than to call the baby Content;--that was your own mother's name, wasn't
it? and it was the last word Mary spoke."
"Well, now, that's quite an idea, Doctor! I guess I will."
"And you will present her on the first Sabbath in May?" said Parson
Goodyear.
"Well, yes, if I'm spared," said Aunt 'Viny; and, being spared, on that
sweet May-Sunday she carried the smiling little child up the aisle of
the meeting-house, and had it baptized Content.
Strange to say,--yet not all strange,--before it was a year old, the
baby had found its way quite down into the middle of Aunt 'Viny's
heart. To be sure, it was a deal of trouble; it would ache and cry in a
reasonless way, when nobody could tell what ailed it; it would take a
great amount of caring-for with ungrateful silence and utter want
of demonstration for a long time;--but then it was so helpless!
--irresistible plea to a woman!--and under all Miss 'Viny's
rough exterior, her heart was as sweet as the kernel of a butternut,
though about as hard to discover. True, she was hard of feature, and
of speech, as hundreds of New-England women are. Their lives are hard,
their husbands are harder and stonier than the fields they half-reclaim
to raise their daily bread from, their existence is labor and endurance;
no grace, no beauty, no soft leisure or tender caress mitigates the
life that wears itself away on wash-tubs, cheese-presses, churns,
cooking-stoves, and poultry; but truth and strength and purity lie
clear in these rocky basins, and love lurks like a jewel at the
bottom,--visible only when some divine sun-ray lights it up,--love as
true and deep and healthy as it is silent and unknown.
So Miss 'Viny's hardness gave way before "baby." She could not feel
unmoved the tiny groping hands about her in the night, the soft beatings
of the little heart against her arm, the round downy head that would
nestle on her neck to be rocked asleep; she could not resist that
exquisite delight of miserable, exacting, feminine nature,--the
knowledge that one thing in the world loved her better than anybody
else. Sorry am I to betray this weakness of Aunt 'Viny's,--sorry to know
how many strong-minded, intellectual, highly educated and refined women
will object to this mean and jealous sentiment in a woman of like
passions with themselves. I know, myself, that a lofty love will regard
the good of the beloved object first, and itself last,--that jealousy
is a paltry and sinful emotion; but, my dear creatures, I can't help
it,--so it was. And if any one of you can, with a serene countenance
and calm mind, see your husband devote himself to a much prettier, more
agreeable, younger woman than yourself,--or hear your own baby scream
to go from you to somebody else,--or even behold your precious female
friend, your "congenial soul," as the Rosa Matilda literature hath
it, fascinated by a young woman or young man to the neglect of
yourself,--although in one and all of these instances the beloved object
seeks his or her best good,--then let that superhuman female throw a
stone at Aunt 'Viny;--but for the present she will not be lapidated.
Never, indeed, had she been quite as happy as now. Her life had been
a routine of hard work. Love and marriage had never looked over the
palings at her; and--to tell the truth--she had not suffered by their
neglect, in her own estimation. She was one of those supernumerary women
who are meant to do other people's work in life: servants, nurses,
consolers; accepting their part with unconscious humility as a matter
of course; quite as good as the Santas and Santissimas of legend and
chronicle, and not nearly so intrusive. So this new phase had its own
sweetness and special charm for Aunt 'Viny; the happiest hour in her
day lying between daylight and dark, when waistcoats and jackets and
trousers were laid aside, the dim light forbidding her to sew, and
economy delaying the lamp,--so she could with a clear conscience spare
half an hour, while the tea-kettle boiled, for undressing "baby,"
rubbing the little creature down,--much as a groom might have done,
only with a loving touch not kept for horses,--enduing it with a long
night-gown, and toasting its shell-pink feet at the fire, till, between
the luxury of ease and warmth and tending, "baby" cooed herself to
sleep, and lay along Miss 'Viny's lap like a petted kitten, the
firelight playing soft lights over its fair head, sealed eyelids, and
parted lips, tinting the relaxed arm and funny dimpled fist with a rosy
glow, while Aunt 'Viny's face took on a tender brooding gleam that
nobody who had seen her in church on Sunday, severely crunching fennel,
or looking daggers at naughty boys, could have believed possible. But
this expression is an odd wonder-worker. I saw but the other day a
bad-eyed, bronzed, "hard-favored" Yankee, with a head all angles, a
dirty face, the air of a terrified calf, and the habiliments of a poor
farmer; I looked at him aristocratically, and thanked the Lord for my
mind, my person, and my manners, in true Pharisaic triumph,--when his
little blue-eyed daughter came round the corner and pulled at the tail
of his ragged coat. Why, the man was transfigured! I wondered he was
willing to shake hands with me when I left him; I knew before that his
hands were brown and big and dirty, and mine were little and white and
soap-scented; but I thought afterwards I'd as lief have been Peter as
myself just then,--and I think so still. Wherefore, young ladies all,
learn from this that the true cestus, fabled----No! I shall make an
essay on that matter some day; I will not inflict it here.
So, by dint of hard work, Aunt 'Viny brought up her dead sister's child
in the way it should go, nor ever for one moment grudged her labor or
her time. Neither did she spoil Content by over-indulgence; her good
sense kept the child unharmed, taught her hardy and self-reliant
habits, made her useful all the time, and, even if Nature had not been
beforehand with her, would have made her happy. But 'Tenty had her
father's firm and sunny character; she never cried but for good reason,
and then screamed lustily and was over with it; fretting was out of the
question,--she did not know how; her special faults were a strong
will and a dogged obstinacy,--faults Miss 'Viny trained, instead of
eradicating; so that 'Tenty emerged from district-school into the
"'Cademy's" higher honors as healthy and happy an individual as ever
arrived at the goodly age of fourteen without a silk dress or a French
shoe to peacock herself withal. Every morning, rain or shine, she
carried her tin pail to Doctor Parker's for milk, hung on the
tea-kettle, set the table, wiped the dishes, weeded a bit of the
prolific onion-bed, then washed her hands and brushed her hair, put
on the green sun-bonnet or the blue hood, as the weather pleased, and
trotted off to school, where she plodded over fractions, and wearied
herself out with American history, and crammed geography, and wrote
copies, for a whole year, when Aunt 'Viny thought she might learn her
trade, being a stout girl of fifteen, and the 'Cademy knew her no more.
There is but little incident in a New-England village of the Deerfield
style and size,--full of commonplace people, who live commonplace lives,
in the same white and brown and red houses they were born in, and die
respectably in their beds, and are quietly buried among the mulleins
and dewberry-vines in the hill-side graveyard. Mary Scranton's life and
death, though they possessed the elements of a tragedy, were divested of
their tragic interest by this calm and pensive New-England atmosphere.
Nothing so romantic had happened there for many years, or did occur
again for more; yet nobody knew a romance had come and gone. People in
Deerfield lived their lives with a view to this world and the next,
after the old Puritanic fashion somewhat modified, and so preserved the
equilibrium. No special beauty of the town attracted summer-visitors.
It was a village of one street, intended to be straight, crossing a
decorous brook that turned the mill, and parting itself just below the
church and the "store," to accommodate a small "green," where the geese
waddled, hissed, and nibbled Mayweed all summer, and the boys played
ball sometimes after school. There was a post-office in the "store,"
beside boots, sugar, hams, tape, rake-tails, ploughs, St. Croix
molasses, lemons, calico, cheese, flour, straw hats, candles, lamp-oil,
crackers, and rum,--a good assortment of needles and thread, a shelf of
school-books, a seed-drawer, tinware strung from the ceiling, apples in
a barrel, coffee-mills and brooms in the windows, and hanging over the
counter, framed and glazed, the following remarkable placard, copied out
in a running hand:--
No
Credit Will be Given
in
This Store after
This Date.
Under no circumstances whatever.
My Reasons
I cannot buy goods or do business without cash, and as the bulk of my
capital is now trusted out with the promise to pay which that promise
has never been full filled I deem it a duty to myself and my Cash paying
customers to sell goods for cash at the lowest market price.
I shall indeavor make it an interest of my customers to pay cash for
all goods purchas by them. I shall offer goods at reduced rates as an
inducement for all to pay cash.