COLLECTOMANIA IN ROME
Collectomania develops--Rampant parvenuism in Rome--Extravagant
prices paid for art and curio--Faking arrives--Good and
foolish collectors as seen by writers and satirists of the time
--Art dealing--The _septæ_, shops and auction rooms.
Such was the earliest type of the real collector of art in Rome,
a first phase in a city where the passion for art was, generally
speaking, rarely genuine. This phase led first to the acquisition of
what might be styled something between ambition and love of display.
Then the trade in objects of art eventually appeared, and as a logical
consequence, imitation and fraudulent art finally had their scope.
Fictitious masterpieces of painting and sculpture, often signed, as in
modern times, with the forged names of noted artists, were already on
the market before Cicero’s time. “_Odi falsas inscriptiones statuarum
alienarum_” (I hate the forged inscriptions on statues not one’s own),
remarks Cicero, who although somewhat of a collector himself never
missed a chance to ridicule the pretentious amateur lost in hysterical
ecstasy before imitations supposed to be original works, or of fanning
the art lover’s pseudo-enthusiasm for the work of Polycletus, which was
extremely fashionable at one time among art collectors.
Thus forgery received a great impulse when art reached its climax in
Rome and multiplied the number of collectors, dragging after it in
its triumphal march wealth and all the fickle forces of wealth. Taste
in art, then, became apparently more exclusive, or rather, according
to Quintilian, more unstable in its standards. “Nowadays,” says the
Latin rhetorician and critic, “they prefer the childish monochrome
works of Polycletus and Aglæphon to the more expressive and more
recent artists.” Yet, very likely not understanding this not unusual
love for the archaic and the odd, so common in collectors of all ages,
Quintilian cannot explain the preference for work he considers gross,
except by fashion or what we should call to-day a snobbish sentiment.
Criticizing the art in vogue, he adds, in fact: “I should call this
art childish compared to that of most illustrious artists who came
afterwards, but in my judgment it is, of course, only pretension” (XII,
10).
It is evident that with the Romans as with us--the times are not
entirely dissimilar; indeed but for art critics, the new modern fad,
they might be called identical--prices paid for works of art, or
simple curiosities, became freakish and fabulous, going up or down in
a single period according to fickle fashion. The momentary passion
for _murrhines_, for instance, tempted a collector to pay for one of
these cups of fluor-spar a sum approximating to £14,200. Another mania
succeeded, that of tables made of _citrus_, a species of rare wood,
possibly Thuja, grown on the slopes of Mount Athos. Cathegus invested
in one of these fashionable tables a sum equivalent to twelve thousand
pounds. Then at another time wrought silver becomes the rage, and
prices for this article soon reached absurd figures. When Chrysogon,
Sulla’s wealthy freedman, was bidding at an auction for a silver
_autepsa_ (a plate warmer), people standing outside the auction room
imagined he was buying a farm from the high sum he offered.
As might be expected, high prices tempted brainless parvenus. There
were many in Rome like that Demasippus of whom Horace said, “_Insanit
veteres statuas Demasippus emendo_” (_Sat._, 3), the type of a snobbish
visionary and sham art-seeker who bought roughly carved statues,
supplying their defects with his fancy, and who, in speaking of his
historical pieces, stated that to be admitted into his very choicest
collection a basin must at least have served Sisyphus, son of Æolus, as
a foot-bath!
Next to this foolish type of collector of art Rome possessed a great
many other characters, who, like those of to-day, might be classified
as odd specimens of art lovers.
“Isn’t Euctus a bore with his historical silver?” asks Martial, adding
that he would rather eat off the common earthenware of Saguntus than
hear all the gabble concerning Euctus’ table-silver. “Think of it! His
cups belonged to Laomedon, king of Troy. And, mind, to obtain these
rarities Apollo played upon his lyre and destroyed the wall of the city
by inducing the stones to follow him by his music.” But concerning this
odd type of collector Martial merits quotation. “Now, what do you think
of this vase?” asks Euctus of his table companions. “Well, it belonged
to old Nestor himself. Do you see that part all worn away, there where
the dove is? It was reduced to that state by the hand of the king of
Pylos.” Then showing one of those mixing bowls that Latins called
_crater_, “This was the cause of the battle between the ferocious
Rheucus and the Lapithæ.” Naturally every cup has its particular
history. “This is the very cup used by the sons of Eacus when offering
most generous wine to their friend--That is the cup from which Dido
drank to the health of Bythias when she offered him that supper in
Phrygia.” Finally, when he has bored his guests to death, Euctus offers
them, in the cup from which Pyramus used to drink, “wine as young as
Astyanax.”
Trimalcho is so well known that we are dispensed from a detailed
illustration. Petronius must have drawn from life this capital
character of his _Satyricon_. Like Euctus, Trimalcho extols the
historical merits of his articles of virtu; he has the same mania for
inviting people to his table and forcing them to admire his rarities.
He talks very much in the same manner as the type quoted by Martial.
Thus he informs his guests that his Corinthian vases are the best and
most genuine in existence, because they were made at his order by a
workman named Corinth. As a side explanation of this remark, fearing
that the guest might suppose he did not know the historical origin of
the metal, he adds: “Yes, yes, I know all about it. Don’t take me for
an ignoramus. I know the origin of this metal perfectly well. It was at
the capture of Troy, when Hannibal, a shrewd brigand by the way, threw
on to a burning pyre all the statues of gold and silver and bronze. The
mixture of the metals produced the alloy from which goldsmiths have
made plates, vases and figures. From this, of course, comes the name
of Corinth to designate this mix-up of three metals, which, of course,
is no more any of the three!” Trimalcho also possesses a cup with a
bas-relief representing Cassandra cutting her children’s throats. Not
content with this gorgeous historical blunder, and forgetting that he
is talking of the bas-relief of a cup, Trimalcho adds as an artistic
comment that the bodies of Cassandra’s children are so life-like that
one might suspect they had been cast from nature.
Continuing our comparison with Euctus we may add that Trimalcho also
possesses a rare pitcher with a bas-relief representing Dædalus putting
Niobe inside the wooden horse of Troy! When he has finished maiming
history, and the guests have patiently listened to his fantastic tales,
like a true parvenu, Trimalcho never fails to add, “Mind, it is all
massive precious metal, it is all my very own as you see, and not to be
sold at any price.”
Except for the wording, a trifling difference--the word “expensive”
would play a conspicuous part with the Trimalcho of to-day, decorated,
be it understood, with “precious,” “rare,” “unique” and all the rest of
the arch-superlatives of modern idioms--such collectors have not been
lost to our day.
But there are other types worth quoting. They will certainly help us
to understand the part played by art imitations and forgery among the
Romans, and how the existence of fraud was in some way justified, that
in the end the one chiefly responsible for the existence of faking was
the collector himself. This understanding will be greatly aided by a
glimpse at the _septæ_, antiquity or simple bric-à-brac shops, that
were grouped together in certain streets of ancient Rome like they are
nowadays.
Like to-day, too, sales of art were effected by auctions or by private
dealing, the latter in shops or through the usual go-between, the
so-called _courtier_ of our time.
Public auctions were announced by placards or a simple writing on the
walls. An idea of what these announcements were like is given by the
following one from Plautus’ Menœchme:
“Within seven days, in the morning, sale of Menœchme. There will be
sold slaves, furniture, houses, farms. Every article bought must be
paid for at the time of buying.”
As in our days, an exhibition of the goods preceded the auction. These
shows were held in appropriate rooms adorned with porticos, called
_atria auctionaria_. In speaking of such exhibitions and commenting
upon some special one, Cicero remarks, _Auctionis vero miserabilis
adspectus_ (Phil., II, 29).
Curiously enough the auction sales of the Urbs were provided with an
employé whose function seems to have survived in the public sales
of Paris. The Latin _præco_ is something like the French _crieur_
whose office it is at public auctions to extol and praise the objects
offered for sale. It must be said that the _præco_, however, was not
only a simple _crieur_ but at times a sort of director of the sale,
thus combining the functions of _commissaire priseur_, _expert_ and
_crieur_, but it was certainly in the latter function that his ability
best contributed to the success of the sale. Some of these employés
must have enriched themselves like regular _commissaires priseurs_.
Horace (I. Ep., 7) describes one of these _crieurs_ as indulging in
luxury, making money easily and scattering it like water, allowing
himself every kind of pleasure and yielding tremendously to fashion. A
curious description, suggesting that this Vulteius Menas of Horace must
have had the lucky career of some of the Parisian auction employés and
cannot have been indifferent to that form of gay self-indulgence that
Parisians call: _Faire la bombe_.
Speaking of auctions and the way Romans disposed of their goods to the
highest bidder, it is worth while to refer to what Suetonius tells us
happened at the sale held by Caligula, who being short of money thought
fit one day to put up to auction everything in the royal palace that
was either useless or considered out of fashion, _quidquid instrumenti
veteris aulæ erat_. According to Suetonius not only was the Emperor
himself present at the auction, but he put prices on the various
objects, bidding on them as well. An old prætor, Aponius Saturninus,
became sleepy during the sale, and in dozing kept on nodding his head.
Caligula noticed it, and told the auctioneer not to lose sight of that
buyer and to put up the price each time Saturninus nodded. When the old
man finally awoke he realized that without knowing it he had bought at
the Imperial auction about £80,000 worth of goods (Cal., 39).
Pliny relates an amusing story, which shows that then, as now, the
auctioneer was allowed to group objects.
“At a sale,” he says, “Theonius, the _crieur_, made a single lot of
a fine bronze candelabra, and a slave named Clesippus, humpbacked
and extremely ugly. The courtesan Gegania bought the lot for 50,000
sesterces (about £400). The same night at supper she showed her
acquisitions, exhibiting the naked slave to the gibes of the guests.
Then yielding to a freakish passion, made of him her lover and heir.
Clesippus thus became extremely wealthy and worshipped the candelabra
with a devotion as though it were his god” (XXXIV, 6).
As stated above, other sales generally took place in various parts of
Rome where antiquaries and bric-à-brac dealers had assembled their
shops. A great many of these merchants had gathered in the Via Sacra or
the _Septa_ of the _Villa Publica_, or _Septa Julia_.
Those parts of Roman streets called _Septæ_, where antiquaries and
bric-à-brac dealers had their dens, were the amateur’s fool’s paradise
and trap, and very likely they were as inviting and picturesque as
similar places in modern European towns to-day.
These shops and shows, it is said, offered real rarities at times, such
as bronzes of Ægina by Myron, Delos bronzes by Polycletus, genuine
rarities in Corinthian bronze, marvels in chiselling signed by Boethus
or Mys. The _septæ_ not only exhibited artistic pieces but also sham
rarities that had won public appreciation in a moment of fashion. Among
these was a certain kind of candelabra shaped like a tree with one or
more branches. Concerning these candelabras which were almost made to
supplant the more artistic ones by a fad, Pliny remarks, “_Arborum
mala ferentium modo lucentes_” (like trees bearing shining apples),
and states with caustic humour that although their name bore a common
etymology with the word _candela_ (candle), a cheap means of lighting,
they were sold at prices equivalent to the yearly appointment of a
military tribune (Plin., XXXIV, 8).
Speaking of candelabras, it may be stated that the finest ever seen
in Rome belonged to Verres, being part of the vast plunder of Sicily
he accumulated when stationed there by Rome as proconsul. This fact
prompted the sarcastic remark in Cicero’s indictment of the proconsul,
that Verres had in his _triclinium_ a candelabra casting light where
darkness would have been more appropriate. This rich candelabra must
have been of a statuesque style, the kind Lucretius describes:--
Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædes
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris (II, 24).
(Figures of youths holding lighted lamps in their right hands.)
Naturally it was not only a single speciality, valued through fashion
or fad, that was to be found on the market, it was a regular emporium
of antiquities in art, and of all kinds of bric-à-brac. Besides
murrhines, tables of citrus and other specialities there were paintings
of all schools and sizes, down to miniatures, an art not unknown to the
Romans. There were also sculpture, ceramics, fine pieces of Rhegium
and Cumæ, Maltese tapestries, Oriental embroideries, etc. In fact,
mixed with a good deal that was dubious, these places also offered fine
treasures, as Martial says:--
Hic ubi Roma suas aurea vexit opes.
(Here where golden Rome brought her treasure.)
It is easy to understand that the people moving in this _milieu_ were
not dissimilar from those who indulge in articles of virtu in our
enlightened times, or who are somewhat of a victim to the collector
passion. Such a _milieu_, not to be found in Athens where the passion
for art was genuine and essential, was quite consistent in Rome where
improvised Crœsuses and rich parvenus abounded; parvenus who, like
many of the collectors of our times, took to buying objects of art as
a fad or hobby. This type of collector is easily recognized and in its
grotesqueness is not essentially different from some of our modern
society.
It is true that Rome also produced many genuine lovers of art, many
first-rate connoisseurs and collectors such as Agrippa, magnificent
collectors of the calibre of Cæsar, keen, intelligent, lovers of art,
as greedy as unscrupulous, such as Sulla, Verres and Mark Antony, but
as in America to-day, the magnitude of quickly-made fortunes, the
impetus of a passion suddenly aroused without any previous preparation,
produced only a few types of the true collector. As in America now, for
one Quincy Shaw, how many a--Trimalcho and Euctus.
Needless to say, the art market generally follows the inclination of
the client, it tries to meet his taste, whims and fads, it may be
scrupulous or unscrupulous according to circumstances and, particularly
in art and antiques, these circumstances chiefly depend upon the great
despotic ruler of all markets, the client.
Thus in the _septæ_, side by side with Firminius, Clodius and
Gratianus, dealers enjoying an undisputed reputation in the
_sigillaria_ (image market) and other quarters where antiquary shops
were gathered, there were to be noted types like the Milonius of whom
Martial says:--
“Rare stuffs, chiselled silver, cloaks, togas, precious stones, there
is nothing you don’t sell, Milo, and your clients invariably carry
their acquisitions away with them! After all your wife is the best
article in your emporium, always bought and never taken away from your
shop” (VII-XII, 102).
The whole gamut of oddities with which the collecting mania abounds
were really to be found in the _septæ_.
There was the particular collector who has no eyes but for one certain
thing, no enthusiasm but for the objects specializing his particular
hobby, as Horace remarks in his “Satires” about people who have either
the passion for silver pieces or bronzes:
Hunc capit argenti splendor, stupet Albius are.
(This one the glitter of silver holds, Albius stands dumb before
bronze.)
Seneca informs us that in his time there was an amateur with the hobby
of collecting rusty fragments, another who had gone so crazy over small
vases of Corinthian bronze that he spent his days handling the pieces
of his collection, taking them down from the shelves, putting them back
again and continually arranging and rearranging them (De Brev. Vit.,
XII).
Martial tells us of a man who made a collection of pieces of amber
containing fossilized insects, and of another collector who boasted
that he had a fragment of the ship _Argo_ among the rare pieces of his
collection. There was also Clarinus, a debauchee, according to Martial,
who vaunted himself upon possessing samples of all the goldsmith’s art
of his time. “But,” remarks Martial, “this man’s silver cannot be pure!”
Another type noted by Martial makes one realize that there is a species
of collector that will never die. Of “Paullus” Martial, observes: “...
his friends, like his paintings and his antiques: all for show” (XII,
69).
_Codrus_, quoted by Juvenal, is the needy collector. He keeps his
books “in an old basket where mice allow themselves the luxury of
nibbling the works of divine Greece.” He sleeps “on a pallet shorter
than his little wife.” His collection and furniture are all in
his bedroom, the only room he has for living and sleeping in, and
conspicuous are six cups, a small _cantarium_ on a console with a
figure of Chiron the Centaur below it (III).
_Eros_ is another type, that of the mournful collector. This is the way
Martial describes this not unusual type:--
“Eros weeps every time he comes across some fine murrhine of jasper or
a finely marked table of citrus. He sighs and sighs from the bottom
of his heart, for he is not rich enough to buy all the objects of the
_septa_.” And here Martial comments, “How many are like Eros without
showing it, and how many banter him for his tears and sighs and yet in
their hearts feel like him!” (X, 80).
_Mamurra_, another type handed down to us by the inexhaustible Martial,
never misses a day without visiting the _septa_. “Spends hours in
gadding about, reviews the rows of young slaves which he devours
with the eye of a critic, not, if you please, the common ones but
the choicest samples, those that are not on show to every one, not
to common people like us,” adds Martial. “When he has had enough of
this show, he goes to examine the furniture; there he discovers some
rich tables (_orbes_, round tables) hidden under some covering; then
he orders that some pieces of ivory furniture he wishes to examine be
taken down from the highest spot; afterwards he passes on to examine
a _hexaclinon_, a couch used in the _triclinium_, with six places,
veneered with tortoise-shell, and measures it four times. What a pity
it is not big enough to match his citrus table! A minute later he goes
to smell a bronze: Does it really smell of the Corinthian alloy? Of
course he is ready to criticize even your statues, O Polycletus! Then
those two rock crystals are not pure, some are a trifle nebulous,
others are marred by slight imperfections. Ah! here’s a murrhine. He
orders about a dozen to be put aside. He goes to handle some old
cups as if he would weigh the merit of each one, more especially that
of Mentor. He goes to count the emeralds on a golden vase, and the
enormous pearls we see dangling together on the ears of our elegant
ladies. Afterwards he goes to look everywhere on every side for real
sardonyx; his speciality is to collect large and rare pieces of jasper.
Finally, about the eleventh hour of the day, Mamurra is completely
exhausted, he must go home. He buys for an _as_ (less than three
farthings) two bowls and takes them with him” (IX, 59).
_Tongilius_ is the ponderous, important collector. He goes through the
places where the antiques are sold in an over-sized palanquin and with
his cortège and train of followers upsets everybody and everything.
Juvenal, by whom his character is handed down to us, remarks rather
sarcastically:
Spondet enim Tyrio stlataria purpura filo,
Et tamen est illis hoc utile (_Sat._ VII).
_Licinius_ is the type of the lunatic lover of art. He has a fine
collection, is wealthy and can buy the most expensive objects of virtu,
but he is far from happy. His mania is the fear that his rarities
may be stolen or become the prey of fire. He keeps hoards of slaves
watching his precious curios, night and day. “At night,” says Juvenal,
“a cohort of guardians sits up with buckets of water ready to hand in
case of emergencies; the poor man is in continual fear for his statues,
his amber figures, his ivory and tortoise-shell veneered furniture.”
Naturally, in contrast to the foolish type of collector who seems to
have kindled the verve of Roman satirists, the true amateur was to be
found, and most select collections of art were known in Rome. Among
these also the city afforded all the types of the true collector, the
selfish one who never showed his collection to anyone, and the man who
gathered objects of art chiefly to share the enjoyment of them with
others. Some of these latter wished the public to have the benefit of
their purchases, and adorned porticoes and public places with their
collections.
According to Statius, _Vindex_ is the real connoisseur. “Who can
compete with him,” remarks the poet in his _Silvæ_, lib. IV, “who
possesses so sober an eye? He is deeply versed in the technical
procedure of all the artists of antiquity, and when a work bears no
signature he can decide at sight to which master it belongs. He will
point you out a bronze that has cost the learned Myron many a day’s
and night’s work, the marble to which Praxiteles’ untiring chisel has
given life, the ivory polished by the hand of Phidias, the bronzes of
Polycletus which seem to breathe life on coming out of the furnace, he
can see the artistic line, the true mark of all authentic Apelles.”