SOME NOTABLE FRENCH COLLECTORS
Speculation, financial disasters--Many collections change hands--
Fakers busy for newly-enriched collectors--Voltaire plays the
silent partner to art and curio dealers--Wonderful unearthings
of Dr. Huber--Collectors of the time: Mme. Pompadour, Cardinal
Soubise, Malesherbes and others--Interspace of the Revolution
--Napoleon revives some of the speedy methods of the Romans--
Italian museums and galleries plundered by his Imperial agents.
From this early period we enter that of the art sales, which, as we
have already said, seem characteristic of the eighteenth century.
Financial disasters and speculations disperse more than one fortune
and usher new-comers into the world of finance. This is the time when
masterpieces begin to change hands so rapidly. The spirit of collecting
is superceded by that of commerce, and faking appears under new forms,
those with no other trickery beyond what commerce with its intrigue and
deceit can supply.
“All amateurs,” writes a contemporary in the _Chronique Scandaleuse_,
“are now mixed up with _brocantage_ (bric-à-brac). There is not a
collector who does not sell or exchange (_troque_), either on account
of unstable taste, or for the sake of gain, or to retaliate his own bad
bargain upon some one greener than himself.”
Even Voltaire, between an epigram and a satire, found himself
implicated in _brocantage_, only, more shrewd than Cicero, he saved
appearances by an associate, the Abbé Moussinot, he remaining the
sleeping partner.
Voltaire’s name and his banter over natural history and explanations
of geological phenomena--Buffon, the author of a Natural History
that Voltaire called “not at all natural,” was one of his victims,
he having replied to Buffon’s learned hypothesis with regard to some
sea-shells found on the summit of the Alps that the shells might have
been lost by pilgrims on their way to Rome--recalls to our mind
an eighteenth-century successful piece of faking and practical joke
played on an erudite collector, Dr. Louis Huber of Würtzburg. In the
year 1727 two doctors of the town prepared a surprise for Huber, a
surprise by which his collection of fossils was to be enriched by some
extraordinary specimens. Speculating on the enthusiasm and good faith
of the learned doctor and impassioned collector, the two accomplices
fabricated fossils of fantastic animals and the most impossible shells.
The imitations were generally modelled in clay with the addition
of a hardening substance. Incredible as it may sound, some of them
represented ants and bees of the most heroic proportions, crabs of new
line and shape, etc. These were carefully buried in ground of suitable
character where Prof. Huber had been seen to excavate.
The rest is easily divined. What is not easy to understand, however,
is the fact that after having made several of these most incredible
discoveries Dr. Huber thought fit to publish a work, consisting of
a hundred folios, written in Latin and issued under the auspices of
Professor Béranger. The book, which was dedicated to the Bishop of
Franconia, had twenty-two illustrations reproducing with extreme
exactitude Dr. Louis Huber’s fantastic antediluvian find.
But this is not all. The learned Faculty of Science of Würtzburg
assembled to honour Dr. Huber and the doyen of the Faculty pronounced a
speech in praise of his discovery.
What followed can be easily deduced. Only his good faith saved
the deceived collector from the sore experiences of a modern sham
discoverer of the North Pole.
The curio world, however, still counts some good art lovers and serious
collectors, such as Gersaint, Basant, whom the Duc de Choiseul used to
call _le marechal de Saxe de la curiosité_ on account of his daring and
successful inroads on the art market, where, by the way, though no
blood is shed no less strategy is needed than on the battlefield. There
are other names worth quoting in this century of decadence, Gloomy
and his friend Remy, painter and dealer in pictures and other curios,
Julliot, Langlier, Paillet, Regnault-Delalande, Pierre Lebrun and his
son, J. B. Lebrun, who married the famous artist Mlle. Vigëe, and owned
the well-known _Salle Lebrun_, often used for celebrated sales.
Other names might be quoted, La Marquise de Pompadour, Cardinal
Soubise, Girardot de Prefond, Fontette, Malesherbes, Marquis de Paulmy,
etc.--then, the Revolution comes, the _ancien régime_ disappears and
with it the dainty furniture, foppish dress, and the supremacy of an
art market which with all its oddities were such perhaps as had never
been seen since the time of the orgy of curio-hunting of Ancient Rome.
This supremacy, deprived of many of its idiosyncrasies, temporarily
crossed the Channel and went to England accompanied by many of the
treasures that dealers and refugees managed to save from the cataclysm
of 1779.
Napoleon may be quoted as an exceptional art collector--if ever such
a name can belong to a man utterly deprived of a sense of art but
shrewd enough to understand the mighty support given to sovereigns by
art--for in the process of time the man formed more than one art
collection by methods that in their drastic character greatly resembled
those adopted by Roman generals and proconsuls.
This statement is eloquently supported by facts and numbers. Here is a
laconic writing of Napoleon in which he informs the Directory of his
first artistic “finds” in Italy. Speaking of his agents, he states:
“They have already seized: fifteen paintings from Parma, twenty from
Modena, twenty-five from Milan, forty from Bologna, ten from Ferrara.”
This is, of course, his first experiment as a novice collector. Other
things were to follow, the Medici Venus from Florence, the Roman
Horses from Venice, and all the best works of art from the Italian
museums, and these but foster more eclectic desires in this strange
art lover, who while preoccupied with the problem of transporting
heavy statues from Rome and harvesting antiques and Renaissance work,
indiscriminately orders to be taken to France with the artistic booty
the votive pen that Justus Lipsius left to the sanctuary of Loretto and
the votive image left by Montaigne to the same sanctuary. The anecdote
of Lucius Mummius of ignorant memory is here repeated in a way, for
the officials acting under Napoleon’s orders have nothing to say about
Montaigne’s ex-voto, but when it comes to the pen of Lipsius these
worthies gleefully remark: “_La plume de Juste Lipse qui avoit été
estimée cinq huitièmes, c’est trouvée peser six huitièmes_” (the pen of
Juste Lipse which was supposed to weigh five-eighths, has been found to
weigh six-eighths).
From the Revolution to the time of Napoleon’s dominion is the period in
which the passion for art collecting is least felt. Faking, of course,
is an art that does not pay and thus has no _raison d’être_. Yet faking
passes from the field of art to that of real life, the new Republic
apes Roman customs. David the artist is faked into a Tribune while
busy painting Romans that seem to have been brought out of a hot-house
and he sketches semi-Roman costumes for the new officials of the
Republic, garments that with all the foppishness of the “old regime”
had Roman Consular swords, Imperial chlamys (mantle), faked buskins or
ornamented cothurnus (boots worn by tragedians). It is this faking of
life that feels the need even to alter the calendar, changing the Roman
etymology of the names of the months into more resounding Latinesque
appellations. At home in this staged drama of life, Napoleon, the
friend of Talma and David, continues the grandiose faking with a sort
of complex etiquette and a veneer of aristocracy, which makes one
sadly think of the truth of the words pronounced by Courier on General
Bonaparte’s elevation to the throne: He aspires to descend.
Yet even in this peculiar and rather negative world the chronicle of
the _curieux_ may contain some glorious names, and these no doubt
prepared at the beginning of the nineteenth century the return of
the cult of art in France, the reappearance of devoted collectors and
enlightened amateurs. We may then name successively art lovers and
intelligent collectors such as Lenoir, Du Sommerville and Sauvageot,
Revoil Willemin. And after them artists, collectors and dealers of the
calibre of Mlle. Delaunay, Escudier, Montfort, Roussel, Beurdeley,
Henry Grandjean, Mannheim, the first of a dynasty of honest and
intelligent dealers; then almost in our own times Baron Davilliers,
Bonnaffé, Emile Peyre and others. But art collecting is now no longer
an accentuated characteristic of France nor of England, Germany and
other European countries which have a tradition and have come to the
fore, but other new and powerful States have joined the contest, cast
new types of collectors and created a new psychology in the art world
which will form the second part of this book.
PART II
THE COLLECTOR AND THE FAKER
CHAPTER XIII
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS
Collectors and collections--Various kinds--Meaning of the
word _curieux_--Various types of collectors: the artist,
the scholar, the eclectic and the specialist--A large class
of collectors as defined by La Bruyère--The ultra-modern
collector--The art and curio market--The three stages of the
collector’s career--The collector’s touch--The elasticity of
prices and an opinion of C. T. Yerkes--Gersaint’s advice and
Schlegel’s opinion--A Latin saying re-edited by Edmond Bonnaffé.
“_La collection c’est l’homme_,” a well-known French lover of art and
first-rate connoisseur used to say. Nowadays this transformation of
Buffon’s threadbare saying is only partially true. It would, perhaps,
be more correct to put it in the past tense, as a new type of virtuoso
has arisen. A collector of the most recent brand prefers to buy
collections “ready-made.” Such collections all gathered in good order
in the houses of these new collectors speak very eloquently of the
owner’s financial power, but say nothing of his taste, ability, or love
for the artistically fine and beautiful.
However, this being somewhat of a recent change brought about by casual
circumstances with hardly any claim as an artistic phenomenon, this
study can be confined for the present to that normal period, barely
past, when the art and curio collector was really a “collector” and
above all a lover of art as well as a passionate hunter after fine
things. From the study of this semi-past world of art it will be easy
to proceed to a comparative analysis of the up-to-date one, to the
new species of collector who in no way comes under the definition “_La
collection c’est l’homme_.”
In the foregoing review of collectors and collections, it has mostly
been a question of art collectors, with only incidental reference to
other kinds of art lovers. Curios, however, imply many other things.
The French word _curieux_, which has often been used for lack of a
better expression, has a wider meaning. The word _curieux_, which
might be translated by the English word “curious,” without losing
much of its meaning, may have originated in the Latin _curiosis_,
though it is doubtful whether the Romans ever applied this word to
connoisseurs of art or other collectors. The fact that the artistic
world was then divided into lovers of the beautiful and faddists or
fools, that erudites had not yet appeared, may have rendered new words
of definitions useless. When speaking of his friend Statius as a
connoisseur and virtuoso, Pliny uses the Greek word φιλόαλος (friend of
the beautiful), a word that might really be used to define the true and
genuine collector.
The French word _curieux_ appears for the first time in a dictionary
by Robert Estienne (1531) and is defined _ung homme curieux d’avoir ou
sçavoir choses antiques_ but later on, presumably from its probable
Italian origin, the word acquires a wider sense, a sense that
even finds an echo in Shakespeare, and so also the old meaning of
_gentilezza_ as used by Lorenzo Medici has a resonance, according to
Lacroix du Maine, in the French _gentillesses ou gentilles curiositez_.
[Illustration: A CHILD.
By Ferrante Zampini.]
[Illustration: SAN GIOVANNI.
By Ferrante Zampini.]
Notwithstanding this limitation, for many the word _curieux_ has
the widest meaning and includes all kinds of collectors. Trevoux’
definition “_res singulares, eximiæ raræ_” with Millin’s broadening
comment “_tout ce qui peut piquer la curiosité par la singularité des
formes ou des usages_” (all that may excite curiosity in strangeness
of form or use), is the proper one, regardless of Mme. de Genlis,
who as late as 1818 goes back to the old meaning and includes under
_curiosité_ the entirely scientific Natural History collections.
It must be said that the distinction between scientific and artistic
pursuits is not always clearly defined. Science mingles with art with
undisputed right, and scientific pursuits at times have artistic
interest. The two seem either to alternate their rights or share them
in the fields that lie between.
In the artistic field, or rather in that which tallies with Millin’s
definition of _la curiosité_ there are two quite typical classes even
though they cannot be separated by a sharp line of delimitation on
account of linking subdivisions. The one includes the art collector
alone and the searcher for the beautiful, the other those gathering the
rest, things which for “strangeness of form or use” present a certain
interest to the collector.
There is no doubt that those of the first class possess the
impulsiveness that generally characterizes intuitive and non-learned
experience in art, and those of the second combine artistic and
scientific interests. The one has a tendency to consider and value
objects in a different manner from the other: the artistic temperament
has a penchant for synthesis, the scientific is inclined towards
analytic methods.
While the collector of the first class has a direct purpose--the
search for what is artistically fine, the other is less absolute,
and for him objects have what may be called a relative value, the
value of the series. In collecting coins or medals, the latter more
especially, art plays an undisputed part, but science claims the right
of classification, thus placing a relative value of no secondary
importance. As a consequence, for instance, a medallist is likely to
speak of the rare in place of the fine, or at times use one word for
the other. It may be that in the eyes of a numismatist a sample of
inferior art acquires great value through its rarity and through the
place that it may occupy in the series of his collection.
There are some collections consequently in which the best artistic
samples are forced to play a secondary part, the object of the
collection being classification, just as shells, minerals and other
purely scientific gatherings would be arranged.
This peculiar tyranny of science may even find scope for action in
expressions of art, where science and erudition should have no claim.
In museums of painting and sculpture the history of art demands that
the objects should be classified according to epochs, schools, etc.
The man intent upon such classification often becomes so engrossed
in this one scientific side as to grow indifferent to those artistic
considerations which give the painter and the real lover of art the
joy art is intended to give. Even connoisseurship is often too tainted
by erudition, and the curators of museums are very rarely æsthetes. At
the sight of a fine work of art, a connoisseur is very often so intent
upon discovering the name of its author, the probable school and the
epoch--all forms of classification--that he forgets he is before a
work of art, that is to say, an expression of human sentiment, which
whether good or bad was created solely to arouse artistic emotion in
the beholder. The artist, while creating it, had certainly not in mind
the history of art and all its erudite paraphernalia.
There are two other distinctions in art collecting, distinctions so
closely allied to the above classes that they share the respective
characteristics in a very similar manner. They are represented by the
eclectic collector and the specialist, two distinct orders both useful
in a way, both belonging to the artistic sphere. The eclectic is well
defined by Gersaint as “an amateur whose passion presupposes taste
and sentiment”; the other, the specialist--generally regarded as
having perfected his taste by dropping his initial eclecticism--is a
collector who has restricted the field of his activity by grafting, so
to speak, the purity of his artistic penchant on something that tends
to diminish the broad outlook of an eclectic lover of art, and this in
order to enlarge the possibilities of research and information. Thus
although the specialist has very often passed through an initial period
of eclectic wandering, when he becomes a specialist he is very apt
to forget his past enthusiasm for anything but his chosen speciality.
Show a fine Limoges enamel to a collector of medals or a medal to a
collector of enamels and you will realize the truth of the statement.
Of course he will understand the beauty of the work--though not
invariably--but he will take no interest in it. While having
perfected his taste in some single branch of art, the specialist has
unquestionably atrophied all artistic qualities in other directions.
This theory naturally becomes more or less elastic according to the
genre and the character of the art lover. A man who is a specialist on
certain epochs is hardly a specialist in the true sense, but rather
an eclectic who has restricted his pursuits so as to reconstruct in
his mind the whole artistic expression of a certain age: the medallist
and such like collectors have not such a wide scope and their pursuits
generally come to be characterized by method, order and a whole Indian
file of historic and erudite considerations. The _tout ensemble_ of an
eclectic’s house presents a very decorative appearance, that of the
specialist does not always, being mostly encumbered with glass cabinets
or pieces of furniture with shelves adapted to his speciality. The
eclectic collector will often speak of the beauty of a certain find
from a purely artistic point of view, the specialist will grow poetic
over the perfect cast, patina, etc. The specialist in medals will often
show you two or three specimens of the same medal only distinguished
by the colour of the patina or differences of no artistic value, and
chronological considerations weigh with numismatists. The specialist
must therefore frequently recur to scientific methods.
In Paris there is a loose belief that an art lover who is an eclectic
reveals a somewhat provincial sentiment, and that to be characterized
as a true Parisian one must be a specialist in some one thing. This
belief naturally implies that the specialist has refined his taste
and acquired distinction from the grossness and obtuseness with
which eclecticism is libelled. Yet this is hardly true, the best
French collectors, such as Davilliers, Piot and others, were always
enlightened eclectics in their various pursuits though having a bent
towards specialization.
Nevertheless, we repeat that distinctions cannot be made with
mathematical precision. The difference between artist and erudite,
eclectic and specialist would seem to have been well defined only by
Bonnaffé in his characteristic saying: “The first throws himself upon
his knees before Beauty; the other asks her for her passports.”
Neither of the two methods ensures infallibility. The artistic
collector, a lover at first sight, may be deceived by an imitation
possessing character and general effect sufficient to pass in his
eyes for an original; the erudite with his brain in the place of his
heart, who demands “passports” before making up his mind, may be duped
by a forged “passport,” by an imitation, that is to say, in which the
details are respected even to the sacrifice of the totality which so
greatly appeals to artists.
There is one more kind of art and curio collector, perhaps the most
numerous of all. They have been well defined by La Bruyère more than
two hundred years ago. This particular type of art lover is on the
look out not for what he really loves but for that which affords him
gratifications other than those art is intended to give.
“It is not an amusement,” says the author of _Les Caractères_ in his
chapter on Fashion, “but a passion often so violent that it lags behind
love and ambition only as regards the paltriness of its object.”
Passing then from the description of the effect to the cause, La
Bruyère proceeds:
“_La curiosité_ is a taste for what one possesses and what others do
not possess, an attachment to whatever is the vogue or the fashion; it
is not a passion felt generally for rare and fashionable things, but
only for some special thing that is rare and above all in fashion.”
To this last category, with a few slight modifications, belongs the
type of collector who might be called ultra-modern to distinguish
him from his modern confrères of yesterday, a type that can lay no
claim whatever to the definition “_La collection c’est l’homme_,”
because he never troubles himself to hunt for works of art or curios,
never experiences the joys of discovery, experiences nothing perhaps,
but being cheated by dealers, friends and experts. The ultra-modern
collector is, of course, amply supplied with money, and relies chiefly
on his cheque-book. He is always far from the spot where he might learn
wisdom, yet not so far as to be beyond the pale of the deceit and
trickery of the market of _la curiosité_.
This latest variation carries one direct to the modern American type
of collector. Not because the type does not exist in other countries,
but because America has furnished the champion specimens who through
the magnitude of their speculations in art- and curio-hunting have
stamped the type. Yet even in America, where art lovers like the late
Quincy Shaw, Stanford White, H. Walters, etc., have been known, the
ultra-modern type represents a very recent and astonishing novelty.
One conversation on art with this modern collector is generally
sufficient to reveal all absence of real passion. These greedy buyers
of works of art and curios have often hardly the time to give even
a glance at their glamorous purchases. They have certainly not the
enjoyment that other collectors have. When they show their collections,
a common way of soliciting admiration is to recount the unreasonable
and extravagant prices paid.
What are they after? What is their main object in ransacking old Europe
for artistic masterpieces to be carried off by the sheer force of money?
Lovesque says one is a connoisseur by study, an art lover by taste, and
a _curieux_ by vanity, to which Imbert wisely adds: “or speculation.”
Making every possible exception, vanity and speculation still appear to
rule alternately the ultra-modern collector.
We do not deny that many of them may be animated by the noble desire
to leave their collections to their countries, but yet on closer
study the attraction for the greater number of them seems to be
either a modification of their financial interests, namely, sport
and speculation combined, or an inclination to spend money lavishly,
everything being too easily possible by reason of their great money
power. In a humorous toast at an American dinner, Stanley, the
explorer, said that a citizen of the United States is never at rest
till he has found something that he actually cannot afford to buy. The
definition fits the millionaire art collector with more correctness and
exactitude. In this field he shows himself a regular blasé of buying
possibilities--and his passion for art and curios may to some extent
bring him out of his torpidity by the extra magnitude of the investment.
As Bernard Shaw says, a millionaire can buy fifty motor-cars but can
only drive one at a time. He can buy food for a whole city but has
only one stomach to digest it, secure all the seats in the theatre
but can only occupy one, etc. But to own a work by Michelangelo or
Raphael is a different tale; it affords one the sensation of owning and
driving a hundred or more motor-cars all at the same time in a sort
of modern--ultra-modern--triumphal march of glory to the up-to-date
Olympus of the privileged, where fame is highly seasoned with
self-advertisement, and superlatives the daily ingredient of reputation.
For others the modern whim of collecting works of art may represent a
diversion from business, or a way in which “to astonish the natives.”
From this type we come to the old forms of foolishness, the Trimalchos,
Euctuses and Paulluses, etc., who have changed the ancient palanquin
carried by slaves for a brightly coloured motor of sixty or ninety
horse-power.
One reason why this modern type of collector is so commonly deceived
is because he generally lives in a sort of fool’s paradise of art
trumpery separated from the real art market by a little understood
feeling of aristocratic pride. The art collector of olden times used
to mingle with dealers, learn from them where and what to buy, tramping
from place to place, the former El Dorado of the “find.” The modern
species would consider it beneath him to have anything to do with
common dealers or to attend a public sale even for the sake of interest
in art. How can they gain experience? They may engage an expert. No
doubt a good expert can assist them, but the real collector carries his
experience in his pocket, for the expert, like the gendarmes of the
well-known French operetta, arrives always too late.
Sometimes a legion of experts are not able to save one from deception.
A well-known American collector on a visit to Italy with his small
court of experts was once offered in Florence a crystal cup supposed
to have been cut by Valerio Vicentino. With the full approval of the
experts the cup was bought for the not inconsiderable sum of four
thousand dollars. The handsome find turned out to be the work of a
faker practising in the North of Italy and the whole scheme planned by
a non-Florentine dealer.
The fancy prices paid for antiques to-day and the peculiar
idiosyncrasies of this new species of collector have quite logically
somewhat changed the character of the commerce, have given another
tonality to the _milieu_ in which the art lover moves. It must be
admitted that the trade in antiques and curios is now far less
interesting than formerly. The antiquary and dealer of yore were most
interesting and characteristic. Their business could be defined by the
Horatian adage, _Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci_ (he wins
the praise of all who mingles the useful with the pleasant), for while
they had a keen eye to business, they also possessed the passion and
intelligent understanding of art. The real antiquary hardly exists
to-day, at best he is represented by some old champion, the solitary
survivor of a past generation. The modern variety, even the most
enlightened, is nothing but an ordinary dealer. It is no exaggeration
to say that traders and antiquaries like old Manheim and the rest
whose intelligent criticism and learning was of such assistance to the
collector are no more. The vulgar jobbery of the dealer of to-day may
eventually find its justification in the commonplace, unintelligent
and gross clientele upon which it practises. With few exceptions, the
ability of this pseudo-antiquary of to-day is more the ability of a
common jobber than of an intelligent man. The trade has lost to a great
extent the old artistic savour, bluff has succeeded capability. The
new strategy is based upon knowing before others when some new Crœsus
has become a votary of art, upon getting in touch with him before he
has lost his money or his illusions; it relies also upon what the
French call “puffing what he has to sell,” and a keen insight into the
client’s weak side, the ability to fan his pride and ambition.
Of course, as stated above, there are happy exceptions, merchants still
honouring the trade who deal with absolute rectitude, and would be
ashamed to resort to the aforesaid indirect methods to conclude a sale,
but nevertheless “the gods are departing” and the erstwhile dealer plus
antiquary, this interesting figure once afforded by the art and curio
market, has vanished.
To whatever order a collector may belong--exception being made for
the ultra-modern type who, generally speaking, has in our opinion
hardly any claim to the title of art collector or even simple
curio-hunter--there generally exists a preparatory stage in his
career. No matter how the mania or passion has been caught, there are
three stages in its course that can very rarely be suppressed.
The genesis of the passion is seldom spontaneous, there is generally an
infective cause that helps the development of the fever for antiques
and curios.
[Illustration:
_Photo_] [_Alinari_
ATHLETE.
Imitation of Roman Work by an unknown artist of the 15th Century. It is
attributed to Pollajolo.]
“I believe,” says Major H. Bing Hall in his book _The Adventures of a
Bric-à-brac Hunter_, “my friend Mrs. Haggleton’s taste for collecting
the plate of Queen Anne’s era originated in the fact of her aunt
having left her a teapot of that admirable period of the goldsmith’s
art in England. The teapot inspired an ardent desire to possess
other articles of the same style. The lady mildly commenced with
salt-spoons, and became in due course the proud owner of mustard-pots,
salt-cellars, and one large piece of sideboard plate, which from the
day she purchased it to that of her death every night faithfully
accompanied her to her bedroom. My old bachelor friend Croker, again,
began collecting Wedgwood because some one had told him he possessed a
very fine specimen; while to my certain knowledge he was as ignorant of
its value and exquisite design as his own footman could have been.”
There are naturally worthier causes, far higher and more pleasing
motives to lead a man of refined taste to become a real practical
collector--or dreamer according to circumstances--but the genesis
above-quoted, to which might be added the having of a collector among
friends or relations, is the most common.
One thing is certain, when the passion is genuine and consequently
gives proof of being of a character that promises success and
satisfaction, there is no cure for it, it becomes chronic almost
invariably.
The first stage upon which the collector or simple bric-à-brac hunter
is likely to enter might be called the rosy period of his career. He is
generally inclined to optimism, he dreams of nothing but masterpieces
and astonishing finds, to such an extent that he sees _chefs-d’œuvre_
everywhere. If he owns capital, this is of course his most perilous
period; if he has no capital, everything depends upon his wisdom, his
credit, or the possibility of borrowing money. Naturally we are only
referring to the most acute cases, temperaments vary, and the infection
may be more or less dangerous according to the disposition of the
individual.
Curiously enough, in this Collectomania fever, the first time what
might be called a chill is taken, improvement sets in, convalescence
perhaps. Chills in the purchasing of curios and antiques often mean an
awakening of suspicion of being cheated.
A very bad chill, ague in fact, is usually experienced with the first
bad bargain, when, ignorant of possible dangers, one considers oneself
a full-fledged connoisseur and adds to one’s private collection
a pseudo-masterpiece, realizing too late that the purse has been
considerably lightened by a round sum paid for--rubbish. There is
hardly a more sudden and effectual method of learning wisdom. Some
learn at once, others are obdurate and need a whole sequence of
misadventures before realizing that they have been cheated, or becoming
aware that they themselves are chiefly responsible for being cheated.
These latter over-cheated ones, more especially, either abandon the
amusement in a moment of despondency or, if they persist, enter upon
the second stage of preparatory training, a stage mostly characterized
by scepticism and distrust. At this moment you might offer the neophyte
a genuine Titian for a mere song and, blinded by fear, he is likely to
believe it a copy; offer him the most authentic medal by Pisanello,
the very one he desired, and he will hesitate. Hesitation and
colour-blindness are metaphorically the main characteristics at this
time.
There is, however, a good-natured type who oscillates, pendulum-like,
between one stage and another, from enthusiasm to depression.
Emerging from this second stage of semi-despondency, the neophyte is
in all probability regaining a certain equilibrium and realizes above
all that the buying of antiquities and curios is no easy matter to be
handled by the first new-comer, even though well-stocked with money.
This is a salient point in real progress, and from this time each year
will add experience and connoisseurship. If the art lover possesses the
so-called collector’s touch, it is at this particular stage he will
discover that such a gift without study and practice does not lead to
infallibility.
Speaking of this quality which every beginner believes himself to
possess, it cannot be denied that there are people who do have a
certain happy intuition of things, an almost miraculous sixth sense,
fully testifying to the existence of what the English call the
collector’s touch and the French name _le flair_, but, alas! it is so
very rare. Think of it, rhabdomancy in art!
An amateur’s education is in most cases slow and by no means an easy
conquest. There are no books that can teach him the practical side, the
safe and important side. Book-learning is certainly of great assistance
as secondary matter and completely subordinated to the education of the
eye. Some of the best art connoisseurs, those of the surest touch, come
from an ignorant class of workers, such as the celebrated Couvreur of
Paris or the Milanese Basilini, a former carter who was often consulted
by Morelli, the Italian art critic and inventor of the analytical
method, a connoisseur of undisputed merit.
An antiquary of repute and art dealer of the old school claims that
the perfecting of the eye resembles the focussing of a photographic
apparatus, with the difference that in photography one can learn how to
focus with almost mathematical precision, whereas in connoisseurship it
is a continual focussing for when what looks like a supreme conquest is
reached, the eye becomes still more perfect and exacting.
Similar progress characterizes the proper valuation of prices, the most
elastic side of the trade.
It must be remembered that as soon as an object leaves the shop to
enter the collection of a collector of repute, it increases in value,
because it is presumed to be genuine and choice, having been selected
by an art lover of cultivated taste. Then, too, away from the chaos of
the shop and in a good light a work of art shows at its best.
In every branch of commerce there are shops and shops, Piccadilly and
Cheapside mean the same also in the world of curio and bric-à-brac.
In conclusion, apart from the pleasure afforded by the pursuit of fine
objects, there is hardly a better way for a collector to invest his
money, provided he knows how to do it; and there is no worse business,
none so unreliable and hastily ruinous as curio hunting if one is not
a true and real hunter.
What to buy as safe investments is told by Gersaint, a dealer and
connoisseur of the eighteenth century. He says that “by sticking to
what is beautiful and fine one has the satisfaction of becoming the
possessor of things that are always valuable and pleasing. I dare say
that going in for the _beautiful_ diminishes the probabilities of being
duped, as often happens to those who are content with the mediocre or
are tempted by low prices. It is very rare that a first-rate work of
art does not realize at least the price paid for it. The mediocre is
likely to lead to a loss.”
This advice, however, tacitly presupposes the collector to be able to
tell the fine from the mediocre, to be, in a word, either an artist or
a connoisseur.
With this part of connoisseurship we propose to deal in another chapter
at the end of this work. At present we would state that the safest
thing for an art and curio collector to do, whatever his ambition, is
to become acquainted with the various ways of the peculiar _milieu_
into which he is about to enter, to train his eye as much as possible,
to be diffident at first and to have a passionate love for his
interesting pursuit.
It will then be for the collector a source of no common enjoyment and
a most pleasing occupation, an occupation somewhat justifying the
following lyricism of Schlegel:
“There is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than the adoration
of the beautiful.
“All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste without respect
to the object.
“They purify the thoughts as tragedy purifies the passions. Their
accidental effects are not worth consideration; there are souls to whom
even a vestal body is not holy.”
As the reverse to the ideal side let us warn the neophyte that the
supreme joy of art-hunting is often embittered by the jealousy of
colleagues, and that benevolence in the environment in which the
collector moves is as rare as the ceramics of Henry II and the
painting of Michelangelo; so much so that Edmond Bonnaffé was fully
justified in re-editing an old Latin saying into:--
“_Homo homini lupus, fæmina fæminæ lupior, curiosus curioso
lupissimus_” (A man against man is like a wolf, woman against woman
still more so, but most of all is curio-hunter against curio-hunter.)
CHAPTER XIV
THE COLLECTOR’S FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
Curio-trading--The collector’s friends, semi-friends and enemies
--The antiquary, the so-called private dealer, the dealer,
bric-à-brac vendor and others of the species--Art critics and
experts--_Courtiers_ and other go-betweens.
Madame Rolland writes in her famous _Memoirs_ that one of her greatest
objections to a certain suitor was the fact that he was a trader. “In
commerce,” said this brilliant victim of the French Revolution, “one
is supposed to buy at a low figure and sell at an exaggerated price, a
scheme usually demanding the aid of lies.”
Leaving with Mme Rolland the responsibility of such an assertion,
it is quite safe to say that the trade in antiques, the flourishing
commerce in curios, is a trade, if ever there was one, in which objects
are bought cheap and sold at a high price, with a stock of lies as a
necessary asset.
Naturally the statement does not imply that every dealer is a confirmed
liar, ready to take advantage of the incautious and unskilled novice
through misrepresentation. Yet even at its best the character of
the trade in our day is such that it is difficult to score success
without--what shall we say?--flavouring opportunity with fantastic
tales, without firing the client’s enthusiasm with some form of
mirage, namely, tricking his good faith to entice him within the orbit
of--faith.
Point out to a buyer, for instance, the different parts of an object
that have been skilfully restored, and nine times out of ten the
customer will drop the whole business.
It is incredible the amount of stuff even a good art lover will
swallow, if properly offered by a person he trusts, just as it is
incredible to see how the enhancing of merits with--grey lies, will
help the conclusion of a good round piece of business. One must have
had a glimpse at the make-up, have taken a peep behind the scenes to
become aware that the more imposing the transaction, the more diverting
and genial is the comedy played before the customer, who, at first a
spectator, in due time will be called in most cases to take his part in
the play, the part of the duped.
There are methods to work up public enthusiasm greatly resembling those
adopted by the scheming capitalist in the Stock Exchange.
An English curio dealer of unquestionably high repute realized large
profits on Dresden china by the artful way he put before the public an
article apparently out of fashion with collectors of ceramics. For two
or three years he bought all the Meissen ware within reach until he had
accumulated a large quantity at extremely low figures. Then he began
sending pieces to noted auction sales, where he invariably sent agents
to buy them in after running the objects up to an extravagant price.
This trick gradually built up a reputation for Meissen china, some
noted collector began to take an interest in it, others followed in his
wake. When Meissen ware became the rage and prices were accordingly
high, the shrewd dealer got rid of his stock at an astonishing profit.
Nothing absolutely dishonest, one may observe. Yet without stopping
to ask whether the action comes within Mme. Rolland’s hyperbolic
conception of honesty, it cannot be denied that in the fine art and
curio trade what might be defined as the staging part is the most
important, even if it finds its greatest justification in clients who
follow one another in taste like so many sheep.
The trade in curios may be more specifically outlined by the study of
the dramatis personæ taking part in it. It will then be seen that the
artifice practised by the London antiquary of good repute is rather an
anodyne form of misrepresentation. Such trade tricks differ from the
commonplace ones characterizing unclean dealing in other branches of
commerce; there is a smack of genius about them which might at times
plead for the pardon that Draconian laws accorded to well-thought-out
and talented forms of theft. A picture of the clever plots and amusing
intrigues planned to the detriment of the modern collector would demand
the pen of a Molière. Only the illustrator of Monsieur Tartuffe could
give the proper colouring to such inconceivable plays.
These plays are hardly new, however. They have been constantly acted
and re-acted with creditable success and enlivening innovations.
Formerly fools alone were the victims, rarely real collectors. To-day
it is different, with the advent of the new type old distinctions have
disappeared.
Some among the many art collectors are intelligent in their work,
and far from being beginners. They are outsiders, however. Let them
look within the penetralia, into the mysteries, the hidden secrets of
the trade so carefully concealed from them, and they will learn how
little exaggeration there is in the saying that a large portion of the
business in antiques and curios is tainted with fraud, charlatanism,
etc., and that even some of the best collectors of our time have been
deceived to such an extent that they live surrounded by their objects
of virtu as in a sham El Dorado.
One of the late Rothschilds, a man known traditionally and _de facto_
as a connoisseur, a type of genuine collector, used to say that all the
objects of his collection were, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion.
Yet by the side of the finest masterpieces there were some in that
collection which were, metaphorically speaking, wives that Cæsar would
certainly have repudiated.
[Illustration:
_Photo_] [_Reali_
THE BATTESIMO.
A Bas-relief by Sig. Natali, of Florence, bought by the Louvre as work
of Verrocchio. Sig. Natali, a fine imitator of the Quattrocento, like
Sig. Zampini, sells his products as genuine modern work even if the
connoisseurs decide to believe them antique.]
[Illustration:
_Photo_] [_Alinari_
BACCHUS.
By DONATELLO.]
“I would no more admit forgeries to my collection than I would allow my
wife to wear paste diamonds,” was the boast of a well-known collector
of bronzes in Paris to a party of connoisseurs lunching with him. “But
excuse me,” retorted a moralizing friend who was dying to reveal
the truth to the “great specialist,” “no one is safe nowadays. There,”
pointing to a bronze figure, “that is, what shall I say? a paste
diamond! That object is a fake. I can tell you where it was cast. It
was offered me very likely by the same fellow that must have palmed it
off on you....” There was no trial, however, because the great bronze
specialist recovered his money from the dealer--but, alas! not his
unblemished reputation.
Such stories are not strange when it is considered that museums are
regularly infested by forgeries and spurious objects and that these
have been admitted to public collections with the full approbation of
learned curators and clever specialists. It is easy to estimate how
rampant and keen faking must be now that incredible prices are paid for
articles of virtu.
How the antiquary, the dealer, the go-between and other characters in
this world of deception may prove to be, according to circumstances,
the friend or the enemy of the curio collectors, is readily understood.
Discrimination, sometimes too late, will teach who is a helper and who
not.
The antiquary is generally a dealer who has no shop, but keeps objects
of art in his tastefully furnished house, allowing his private show to
be visited only by whom he chooses. He is as it were the aristocrat of
the trade, the one who is presumed to ask and get the highest prices.
This select dealer’s success is according to his ability, integrity
or the reputation for trustworthiness he enjoys among collectors. We
would repeat that the “private dealer” belongs to this high branch of
the trade without any definite division. Very often he is a disguised
trader with the grand air of a gentleman--an air that has to be paid
for by the client, who is less likely in such a sphere to attempt to
drive the hard bargain that is peculiar to the humble bric-à-brac shops.
The best and most reliable antiquaries and private dealers must
logically be reckoned among the friends of the art lover. The latter is
likely to pay them astonishing prices, but he also pays for security.
He knows that the dealer’s experience is absolutely at his service, and
that if by mischance an object is not what it has been represented to
be, the honest dealer will make it good.
To end with a brief classification, it may be noted that there are
dealers whose shops have private rooms in the rear where trade can be
carried on in the same way as with a dealer who has no shop. From this
double-faced form we pass to the real shopkeeper, the vaster class
ranging from the vendor who can afford to fill his window with the
choicest samples down to the modest curio shop, the benevolent harbour
of the humbler modes of expressing art.
With the exception of the unassuming curio shop, which is still
unchanged though less replete with interesting things and quite
denuded of tempting “finds,” the disappearance in the dealer of his
former artistic sentiment has fomented in the trade the spirit of
association. Trusts and alliances have been formed by big firms, though
the advantage to the amateur is to be doubted. At one time such a thing
was very uncommon, if not impossible, being apparently prevented by the
dealer’s originality and artistic temperament.
“_Monsieur, je ne suis pas le gendarme de la curiosité_,” old Manheim
used to say to the novice showing him objects not purchased from his
gallery. This was the old attitude of the trade. We do not mean that
all behaved like Manheim in refusing to play the part of “policeman of
curio-dealing,” others may have taken the opportunity to run down an
article sold by a neighbour, but there was no probability of an object
passing from one firm to another in search of better success, or going
from Paris to London and vice versa to find the proper atmosphere
or the suitable kind of knavery. Psychologically speaking this is
speculating on a faddism similar to that which induces the Parisian
dandy to send his shirts to London to be ironed, and at the same time
suggests an inverted game to the London snob who may believe that
Parisian starch is without an equal for shirt fronts.
The spirit of association and a perfected knowledge of the
idiosyncrasies of the modern buyer have led to the discovery that
some objects show to better advantage in Paris and that others gain
in the sombre grey atmosphere of London, that each background has
its peculiar value and may be turned to account respectively in the
realization of higher figures. There are even special cases when to
fetch the best price an object must be sent to its birthplace where
the freakish or immature client’s fancy may be tickled to advantage.
The whole of this complex game in modern curio-dealing may be summed
up in the single maxim: “Find the vulnerable spot, the Achilles’ heel
of your client, and you are safe.” It must be added that the Achilles’
heel of the modern collector may be of a more complex anatomy but is
of more extended proportions than that of the Greek hero. As soon as
a star of first magnitude bursts forth upon the financial sky to rise
upon the artistic one, all the forces of the latter quickly learn
dynamic precision, the extent of possibilities. Whether erratic or not,
the orbit of the new star will be studied throughout its course with
astronomical exactitude. To continue the metaphorical image it may be
added that should the new star prove to be of solar magnitude a whole
planetary system of cupidity and greedy desire will soon be formed
within its golden rays.
From now forward it is of this shady brilliancy of the planetary system
of the curio world that we intend to speak. The honest dealer needs
neither our praise nor defence, he can take care of himself, and the
esteem he enjoys plainly divides him from the sphere upon which we are
entering, the precinct of an art and curio inferno which might bear
Dante’s superscription: “Through me is the way to the city dolent.”
As the main principle of curio-dealing is to buy at a low figure and
sell at the highest price possible, it is evident that when this
apophthegm falls into the hands of the unscrupulous, the art of buying
and selling takes on most Machiavellian hues.
The infrequency of good bargains, which are becoming rarer every
day, has lately fostered the activity of competition, making the art
of buying a shrewd, unscrupulous game, in which the dealer, with his
numerous emissaries, is prepared, Proteus-like, to invest himself with
every imaginable part.
If an object cannot be secured in a direct manner, the dealer will
indulge in side-play, called in the Italian argot of the trade, _di
mattonella_. When dealers are not admitted and it is important that
the object should be inspected before the conclusion of a business
transaction, the antiquary or shopkeeper, namely the buyer, is
generally careful to hide his professional quality. He is often
introduced as a foreign casual visitor interested in art.
If the pretended foreigner does not succeed in obtaining the object
because the owner, perhaps a gentleman, has demanded a big price, then
other characters, the decoys in the play, may be put upon the stage to
say that the object is not worth the price, that it has been injured in
restoration, etc. Sometimes the pseudo-foreigner assumes the part of a
novice naively confessing that he is not versed in antiques, but should
Professor So-and-so give a favourable opinion he would willingly remit
the price. The rest is left to the sham professor.
Of the self-disguising tendency of a noted Italian antiquary when in
search for the ever-rarer good bargains, the following amusing story is
told.
A noble family of Pisa were induced, by financial circumstances, to
part with some of their valuable works of art and made the condition
that no antiquary or dealer was to be mixed up in the transaction.
A certain Florentine antiquary noted for craft and trickery, in
particular, was to be excluded.
The said antiquary got wind of the unusual opportunity and managed to
visit the palace in the guise of a stranger. He saw a certain work of
art and a bargain was struck with Count Z., the head of the family,
to the satisfaction of them both. As the antiquary was about to leave
the nobleman said, confidentially, “Don’t let anyone know about this
affair, nor that I am selling things. I have a particular objection to
dealers, above all to a certain intriguer and thief----” Here he named
the very man he was addressing.
When bargains are made on the plan of exchanging one object for
another, they are no less disastrous for the unwary and ignorant owner.
There are Madonnas by good Renaissance artists that countrymen and
villagers have gladly bartered for cheap modern chromo-like paintings
worth only a few francs, old artistic stuccos and bas-reliefs secured
for some cheap piece of plaster-cast, pieces of old damask exchanged by
ignorant priests for a few yards of brand-new shining satinette.
Even such exchanges necessitate at times certain wiles, such as stories
by “go-betweens,” garbed as monks or priests, posing as benevolent
friends of the church or some other meek character.
A philodramatic society, owning a small theatre, once used a piece
of fine Flemish tapestry as a drop curtain. Dark and unattractive
to the untrained eye, the curtain was hung for lack of a better. It
was objectionably heavy to raise or lower. To make things easier and
lighter, a Mæcenas of the dramatic art offered to exchange the old
clumsy curtain for a new one painted in the most approved style. The
proposal was accepted with enthusiasm, and after some time it was
casually found out by one of the actors that their former curtain had
been sold in Paris to a French collector for a sum that would have
built the needy society a palatial theatre.
If a dealer does not succeed in securing a work of art he is apt
to spoil all chances for others by what is known as _mettere il
bavaglino_, that is, metaphorically, to tie a bib round the neck of the
object. The game is played by enthusiastically praising the article
that it has not been possible to acquire.
When a certain kind of dealer finds that his offer has not been
accepted he becomes artful, admitting that he has tendered all he is
able to give, but that he honestly recognizes the article to be worth
more. Proceedings now evolve much as follows: “How much do you think
it is really worth?” asks the owner with legitimate curiosity. “A
dealer richer than myself might pay so and so, but then an outsider, of
course....” Here the trickster is not likely to estimate the work but
will vaguely convey an idea of its immense value by telling of recent
sales where millions have been paid for works of art. The result is
that the owner loses all balance as regards the value of his object,
and in all probability will never sell it for the simple reason that
he raises the price every time the sum demanded is reached. A doctor
in Lucca who possessed a passable Maestro Giorgio, a ceramic piece
that may have been worth ten thousand francs, was unacquainted with
its value and would have been willing to sell it for five francs. He
received an offer of fifty francs for it, and thinking it generous
for a cracked bit of earthenware, became suspicious. Very soon the
dealer bid a thousand francs, then gradually worked up to three
thousand, the price he had made up his mind not to pass. Then when the
“bib” was properly bound round the article he boldly offered fifty
thousand--naturally intending to turn it all into a joke should the
offer be accepted in good faith. The castle-builder died dreaming of
millions, of course before having parted with his dish. The heir sold
it for a moderate sum, so moderate a one that it might have raised a
posthumous protest from the dead doctor.
In like manner, but this time by way of a joke, an antiquary persuaded
a countryman that a brass dish he owned, for which he had refused the
few francs that it was worth, was priceless, that there was gold in the
alloy and that the chiselling was a lost process in the art of working
brass. The specimen was _rarissimo_, he said. As a finishing touch and
to give it a flavour of Boccaccio-like humour, he occasionally sent
friends to play the part of anxious buyers, offering higher and higher
sums. Gradually dealers entered into the spirit of the joke and on
passing the village never failed to offer a few hundred francs more for
the now celebrated dish.
This trick is also called _inchiodare un oggetto_ (to nail down an
object), and is variously denominated in the different provinces of
Italy, the curio-dealers’ argot varying according to district. The
slang peculiar to the trade has not a wide vocabulary, but comprises
a few phrases and words by which the initiated can express an opinion
upon some special thing or the artistic value of a certain object
without being understood by the outsider. For instance, the word
_musica_ is indicative of faked objects, not as a single word but
set in a colloquial phrase. A dealer who wants his aide-de-camp or
go-between to know that the object in question is modern and not worth
wasting time over, yet would convey this opinion in the presence of
the proprietor without letting him understand, is likely to warn his
colleague in some such a way as this, “Before I forget it, remind me
to buy that piece of music,” or any other phrase in which music comes
in naturally. To state that a price is too high, that there is no
margin for business, or maybe even risk, the dealer will use the word
_bagnarsi_ (to get wet). It may also be merely hinted as, for instance,
“Have you your umbrella?” if it should be raining, or in good weather,
“No need for umbrellas.” Rather than containing a wealth of words the
jargon is fanciful and pliable, forming a sort of summary esperanto
which with a few words furnish the freemasonry of the trade with
multiform expressions.
The complementary characters to which we have alluded in our bird’s-eye
view of the curio market are liable to exchange their functions
according to the moral principles directing their actions, and in
this peculiar chameleon-like attitude change colour and hide, from
friendship to enmity, assisting the collector in his pursuit, namely,
of helping the dealer to dupe him. In broad terms they include art
critics, experts, go-betweens and many metamorphoses of the most
variegated agents. To these forces must be added the silent help
that is generally operative in favour of the dealer. These are drawn
from the multiform and numerous guilds of the restorer, and from
the questionable side of the trade, namely, fakers, assumed owners,
noblemen or pseudo-noblemen willing to lend paternity and pedigree
to works of art, smugglers and other degenerate forms of criminal and
semi-criminal activity.
Speaking of the friends and enemies of the collector whose co-operation
is more or less openly apparent and of a less mysterious character,
it may be said that the art critic and expert once represented two
entirely distinct forms of interest in art. A certain recent evolution
of the art critic tends to intermingle the two groups.
The art critic of years ago was, as a rule, either a literary man
who had a notion that he knew all about art by simple instinct, or a
scholar who, having studied the historical part of art, imagined that
this knowledge was more than sufficient to label him a connoisseur.
The victims of this misunderstanding were not only the art critics
themselves but museums and public institutions trusting to their
knowledge of art and giving them posts as curators or advisers, thus
throwing their gates wide open to faking--as erudition without eye or
experience seems to possess that deceitful form of suggestion which so
rarely affects the cold, keen intuition of the real connoisseur.
That scientists fall an easy prey to suggestion and are prone to daring
or misleading hypotheses in art or archæology is beyond question. It is
perhaps in the nature of their analytical work to tend to remain purely
and simply analytical.
Numerous and interesting anecdotes could be repeated.
A case of archæological suggestive fancy is told by Paul Eudel.
A piece of pottery was brought to a member of the _Académie des
Inscriptions_ as it bore a rather cryptic sequence of letters that
had proved puzzling to other authorities. The pot with the letters in
question, M. J. D. D., had been excavated near Dijon. As soon as the
_Academicien_ saw the letters he had no hesitation in pronouncing it to
be a Roman vase, a small amphora used as an ex-voto. The letters, he
said, represented the initials of the Latin invocation:--
MAGNO JOVE DEORUM DEO.
Being a question of a votive offering, nothing would be more consistent
than the words, “To the great Jupiter, the god of gods.” Unfortunately
such a splendid piece of inductive learning was shattered when an
ordinary art dealer examined the jar and declared it to be anything but
ancient, a mustard-pot in fact, the initials meaning
MOUTARDE JAUNE DE DIJON.
For a considerable time an inscription found on a worm-eaten piece of
a sign-board puzzled the world of erudites. The inscription, evidently
the work of a jester, ran thus:--
I.C.I.................E.........S.
T.L..............E..C.H.........E.
M...................I.N......D..E.
S.A................N..E.........S.
Needless to say many explanations of the obliterated letters were
prompted by the learned suggestive fancy of professors, and many
interesting reconstructions of the ancient inscription were given. The
riddle, however, was not solved till some one perfectly unacquainted
with the art of reading old inscriptions happened to read the letters
straight off without regard to spacing, furnishing the following true
explanation:--
ICI EST LE CHEMIN DES ANES.
This is the way for asses! has since become a byword in lampooning
blind erudition.
Though art was not in question here, the anecdote nevertheless
illustrates a tendency of inductive science, a mania, namely, for
hypothesis and explanations which in the case of art often encourages
the blunders of auto-suggestion. A great distinction between practical
and learned opinion is that the former rarely gives at first sight
the name of the author of a painting or statuary, whereas the latter
almost invariably baptizes works of art. Hardly has a learned art
critic cast his eye upon a work and out pops the name of the artist,
the school, etc. Let him talk and you will soon discover that his
conclusions are not based chiefly on the perfected comparative work of
his eye, but upon notions that book-reading has massed in his head. He
will refer to the now almost prohibited and threadbare authority of
Vasari--what would an art critic do without Vasari either to abuse
or quote--saying that such and such an artist painted so and so, and
speak of the influences of masters and schools, go through a list of
quotations from Crowe and Cavalcaselle down to more modern writers,
display any amount of borrowed wisdom but no originality; finally,
through lack of a trained eye, he will grow poetic and enthusiastic
impartially before a genuine work or a faked masterpiece.
Were not curio dealers a rather close-mouthed guild, they might divulge
some interesting incidents with regard to this subject, and prove that
though the case is uncommon there are in this trade not only fakers of
great masters but master fakers of public opinion as well.
Of the expert, Henry Rochefort says:
“At first this name _expert_ appears to awake in us the majestic idea
of science and authority. A dangerous opinion to entertain.”
As a matter of fact there is no control, for, as Rochefort goes on to
remark: “Who can prevent a citizen from calling himself, for instance,
an expert in pictures?”
The dangerous vagueness of the profession, the facility with which the
title is acquired, together with the multitudinous offices it fills,
make of the expert a perilous companion at times.
There is no doubt that when the magniloquence of the title is
justified, through unquestionable ability, supported by a reputation of
untainted honesty, the expert may be of the greatest and most valuable
assistance a collector can desire. His ability must then be paid for
at what it is worth. But even when highly paid it is cheap compared
with the blunders the expert is likely to save the collector--those
costly blunders that are so often an integral part of the commencement
of the career.
On the other hand, what an ignorant expert, in his supreme disdain
for learning, is capable of saying when tendering information, is
incredible.
Rochefort has made an amusing collection of blunders by experts when
called upon to pronounce an opinion on matters in which practice
counts for nothing. The anecdotes were gathered by the French writer
in the public auction rooms of Paris where the expert has an official
function. Here he is prepared to furnish details and useful hints
regarding the objects put up for sale, to enhance their importance.
A collector confided to the care of an expert, Monsieur F----,
a painting of a religious subject representing a scene from the
Apocalypse. Giving this information, the owner asked the expert to put
the painting up to auction at the first important sale.
According to arrangement, Monsieur F---- included the work among
other canvasses at a public sale and printed in the catalogue as a
description of the subject: _Tableau de sainteté d’après l’Apocalypse_
(Sacred picture after Apocalypse).
“_D’après l’Apocalypse?!_” questioned some one when the work was
offered for sale. To which the unabashed expert promptly replied:
“Yes, sir, Apocalypse; a German painter not very well known in Paris
but highly esteemed abroad.”
Another such catalogue, the product of a no less imaginative expert,
announced a canvas on sale to be the portrait of Louis XV by Velasquez!
A figure of a woman washing dishes, attributed by the expert to Rubens
on account of the exuberant rotundity of the model, needed perhaps a
further justification for this daring attribution, for it was decorated
with the following astonishing comment: “Portrait of Rubens’ wife.” (It
is generally known that Rubens married his cook.)
The recent mania of the collector to possess masterpieces has turned
the expert to a most versatile form of activity in order to please
this exacting fancy of the buyer. A painting becomes “of the school”
of this or that artist when it is really too bad to bear even the
uncompromising qualification, “attributed to so-and-so.”
It is difficult to tell when a man ceases to be an expert and becomes
invested with the part of _courtier_, because in keeping with the
general character of the various functions of the curio world, there
is no definite and plain delineation between the one capacity and the
other. The _courtier_ is naturally supposed to know all about the
trade, to possess the necessary elements for appreciation of artistic
value and to make others appreciate it. His chief mission, however,
is to smooth over business difficulties that might arise between the
seller and the buyer. As may be logically expected, the metamorphoses
of this personage are infinite and may be useful or not to the
collector according to circumstances. In conclusion, the go-between is
not only often a necessary complement but may at times be used to great
advantage. The difficulty lies in knowing how to choose the right sort.
CHAPTER XV
IMITATORS AND FAKERS
The dealer’s silent partners--The important and interesting guild
of restorers--The imitator an unwilling accomplice--On the
shady side of silent activity--Again the faker--The patrician
who supplies the pedigrees--The smuggler and his ways--The
“black band”--Wise tactics.
We now enter the department of the curio dealer’s silent helpers, the
manifold activities assembled under the broad if not indefinite name
of restorer. A brief glimpse into this part of the trade will lead us
to another artistic division, that of the imitator, and these two last
classes of an unquestionable character will serve admirably to herald
and usher into that deeper, darker stratum of the commerce in which the
faker represents the principal character.
That the restorer should be called the curio dealer’s silent partner
is quite correct as a true definition. The day one of these mute
confidants should feel inclined to boast, he would find no mercy from
the dealer and no gratitude from the duped or disappointed collector
whose eyes he had opened by revealing the truth.
This was fully exemplified by a clever restorer of paintings, employed
by an Italian antiquary at forty francs a day--no mean pay--on
account of his unusual ability in the imitation and restoration of
works by Botticelli more especially, as well as for other _pastiches_.
Thinking to start a profitable business of his own as an art restorer
and that his merits would be valued _per se_, he disclosed the secret
of the made-up Botticellis to a rich collector and let out that he
himself to all practical purposes had painted the gem of the gallery.
He was promptly discharged by his employer and the collector to whom
he had told the truth became his worst enemy.
The activity of the restorer is naturally multifarious, many-sided as
is the trade in curios. His methods will be better explained when art
faking is described. The procedure in imitating, restoring and faking
is more or less identical, though in faking it is more synthetically
perfect than when limited to restoring various articles of virtu. There
are people who consider restoration a blessing, others the reverse,
a regular curse; particularly in the case of works of art of no mean
merit.
Without doubt the restoring of works of art has at times greatly
contributed to their preservation, and more than one masterpiece has
come down to us, thanks solely to some clever restorer who at the
right time prevented its complete ruin. This is the good side of the
profession, but as for its reverse, the art of restoring has, through
the ignorance of workers, greatly damaged well-known works of art
by the repainting or obliterating of different parts, often helping
deception by embellishing bad art into deceitful good art. In this way
the art of restoring has proved a bridge to fakery.
Restoration at its best and in the true artistic spirit never consents
to falsify any part of the work. Lies, even in art, no matter how well
they may be told, remain lies.
Artistically and ethically speaking the operations of the restorer
should be confined to work intended to save a work of art from the
ravages of time. These operations are many, most varied and not
at all easy. They demand long practice, a deft hand, patience and
skill as well. The process of restoration may mean, for instance,
the transference of the layer of paint from a rotted panel to a new
one or to canvas, the consolidation of a ceiling painting or other
deteriorating forms, revarnishing and, to a certain extent, cleaning.
In sculpture orthodox restorations appear to be of a more limited
character, being chiefly confined to collecting broken pieces and
surface cleaning. Of course the repairing of limbs and missing parts
has its importance if done with great artistic discrimination.
According to responsible art critics the restoration of paintings may
consist of repainting the missing and obliterated parts and that of
sculpture in the replacing of lost fragments only when decorative parts
are concerned, important for the better comprehension of the whole but
not expressing any marked characteristic of the artist.
When in the service of the antiquary, the art of restoring has no such
scruples or limitations. As a matter of fact its limits then rest with
such restrictions as the dealer’s conscience may impose, and it must
be confessed that this is rather a narrow and at the same time very
elastic boundary. The different views as to restoration are epitomized
by the curious distinction made by connoisseurs and dealers, when
judging between the two cleverest restorers of Italy. The upshot is: If
you have a painting that needs repairing and you wish to restore it to
its former state go to Cavenaghi, but if perchance you are interested
to sell it go to--the other one.
Disproportion and overdoing in restoration turns this very legitimate
art at times into sheer faking. A bust of a Roman emperor, for example,
that may have been found headless and which the restorer completes into
a Julius Cæsar by copying the head of the great Roman dictator from
another statue, represents a form of faking. Yet, were our programme
one of disclosing the names of saints and sinners instead of that of
pointing out sins, we could designate more than one dealer of good
repute who sincerely thinks, we may assume, that his form of daring and
attractive restoration cannot be called faking.
Another rather questionable form of restoration is that of composing,
say furniture or any other ornamental goods, from old bits or fragments
taken from various rotten objects. There is no doubt that a tasteful
artificer can do effective work by composing a table out of two or
three broken ones, but nowadays such is the abuse of the method that
we are only surprised that the trick is not more easily discovered.
Some of these gross and hastily put together compositions of uneducated
dealers must count upon clients not only ignorant, but utterly deprived
of good taste. The faking qualities of this method are proved, for as
soon as the buyer knows of the admixture he refuses to buy the object.
Yet such trickery is generally admitted in the trade.
There is, perhaps, a justification for this method of restoring
antiques when the character of the article is decorative, as in certain
pieces of furniture, marble or stone work, such as chimney-pieces,
ornamented doors and so forth. Yet even in such cases honesty would
seem to claim that the buyer be warned as to the extent of the
restoration.
Nevertheless the temptation to keep the secret must be great,
considering how rarely such patchwork is discovered even by experts,
and how easily it calls forth the praise and enthusiasm of art critics.
Another form of restoration of a most questionable character, as the
decorative nature of the object cannot be claimed as an excuse, is
that, by which a painting is transformed or embellished by repainting
large missing portions more or less fantastically, or by supplying the
artistic quality that is wanting. Such work is either done by totally
repainting the missing parts, or by veiling and repainting here and
there, so as to give the work the attractiveness of a masterpiece.
Naturally in the vast field covered by the questionable genius of this
deceptive art, limits are set by the greater or lesser capacity of the
restorer, just as the quality of the restoration determines whether he
is to be called a professional repairer of paintings or a faker.
It is incredible what an amount of work is executed nowadays intended
to give a coquettish character to a daub, or to enhance the value of a
fairly good painting. Even many masterpieces sold in recent times have
been to our knowledge decorated with fantastic backgrounds of castles
and quaint landscapes, and mottoes and coats-of-arms have been added to
portraits. A barrel of alcohol--spirit, it is known, dissolves fresh
varnish and modern retouching--would accomplish wonders with famous
masterpieces of recent acquisition and cause many a disillusionment to
the curators of museums.
As regards the juggling of poor or deficient works of what is generally
called a school, into a _trompe-l’œil_, making one believe it to be
a painting by the master of the said school, should Italian export
officials be inclined to make public what is intended to remain
private, many an astonishing _coup de théâtre_ would reveal the true
nature of supposed masterpieces bought by unwary collectors as genuine
_chefs-d’œuvre_.
A member of the board of exportation explained to the author, how it
happens, that the officials are frequently led into the penetralia
of the make-up of a pseudo-masterpiece. Sometimes the work is done
so well that it would deceive the very officials and experts of the
export bureau. In this case the antiquary, who has sold the painting
and is desirous that it should reach its destination without hindrance
from the export office, pays a visit to the inspector and shows him
a photograph of the supposed masterpiece, as it appeared before its
coquettish restoration. After this graphic proof the office has nothing
more to say and permission to export is granted. The members of the
Commission do not consider themselves to be responsible to collectors.
But they do demand documents as guarantees, and two photos, one taken
before restoration and one after, are generally exacted and kept in
the office. One of the Commission showed us some of these photographs,
two in number for each object, before and after the restoration. One
could hardly believe the miracles accomplished in this line. Botticini
easily becomes a Botticelli after a few caresses by a clever hand,
and we know cases in which a mediocre work by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio
has been turned into a Raphael. These photographs are exacted by the
inspectors as a protection from any possible accusation from the
central department located in Rome. When the Press gives an elaborate
account of some American having captured a masterpiece, giving facts
and details and the reproduction of the _chef-d’œuvre_, adding that
it comes from Italy, when London art magazines go into ecstasies over
some newly-acquired find, and wonder how the Italian Government came to
allow such a magnificent “find” to slip through its fingers and cross
the frontier, the Central Office in Rome naturally becomes alarmed
and demands an explanation from the local office responsible for the
exportation permit. As a convincing answer the two photographs are then
sent to Rome, with the consequence that the case is dismissed. The
various export offices, whose chief duty it is to impede the exodus of
fine works of art, do not consider themselves under any obligation to
prevent sham masterpieces from leaving Italy.
The imitator, a type to figure later as a help to the better
understanding of the faker, occasionally becomes an involuntary or
accidental accomplice in deception. His complete equipment, his
excellent work, which but for his rectitude and scruples might turn him
into a formidable faker, are frequently exploited by others, who, on
coming into possession of some of his good imitations launch them upon
the collector world, just as they might any species of faked works of
art. Many of the noted bastard masterpieces in museums are the work
of imitators that have been palmed off by tricky dealers without the
consent or knowledge of the artist, and it has often been the latter
who has helped in the discovery of the fraud.
There are also cases when simple plagiarism or chance similarity has
been turned to advantage by shrewd people. The fact that Trouillebert’s
painting greatly resembled Corot, was sufficient to give corrupt
dealers the chance to pass off Trouillebert’s landscapes as works
by the famous French master. This was done, of course, in spite of
Trouillebert’s protests, who never thought of imitating Corot.
It is curious when some work of a clever imitator or genial faker
falls in the course of time into the hands of the restorer to be
repaired--there are circumstances in which modern paintings may
need repair. Something still more extraordinary happened to a clever
restorer and imitator living in Siena who received from England one of
his own paintings--one of his first imitations of Lorenzetti--obviously
damaged and entrusted to him for restoration.
There are other characters which will form the subject of a more
particular study. These individuals belong to the shady side of the
commerce and have no redeeming points whatever. They comprise fakers,
forgers, smugglers, deceivers at large, and the whole clan included in
the vague and broad term “the black band,” as some collectors call them.
The faker is the _Deus ex machina_ in the most varied kinds of
deception. Fakers are not only those who furnish spurious works of
art and well-imitated articles of virtu, but also those who help in
any form or manner to dispose of sham objects. Thus the parts played
by masquerading aristocrats, lending their names and swearing to
heirlooms, the debased patricians helping to build the reputation of an
artistic product, are forms of faking, as well as others which aim at
cheating or deflecting public opinion or a genuine appreciation--forms
of faking that will be more clearly outlined when degenerate varieties
of art sales are described.
One of the most clandestine helpers of art and curio-dealing and one
who is in close contact with the dark side of the commerce is the
smuggler, a genuine specialist not resembling other smugglers but with
characteristics of his own worth notice.
Needless to say smuggling has no _raison d’être_ in such countries
as have no custom laws to regulate the export of artistic goods nor
put duty upon their entrance within the precinct of the State. It is
also obvious that the dual form of such legislation, laws to prevent
exportation, and importation dues, has produced two corresponding kinds
of smuggling, the one aiming to baffle prohibitive laws on exportation,
and the other trying to undervalue artistic goods generally taxed _ad
valorem_.
Italy being the classical country of art treasures which have been
exploited for centuries, and the first to issue laws and penalties on
the subject, it is naturally ahead in the cryptic art of smuggling.
The high tariff of the United States, but recently abolished, and the
incredible prices paid by the citizens for antiques and works of art in
general, make it the country best adapted to illustrate the branch of
smuggling which aims at avoiding Custom House dues.
When reading old and modern laws promulgated against illicit
exportation of works of art, one cannot help wondering how such daring
still exists, and how there should still be people willing to brave
the severity of these laws. The Medicis, it is known, prescribed
punishments in the second half of the sixteenth century; the Papal laws
that followed were if anything even more Draconian, to say nothing of
the iron laws of the former kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the severest
of them all. Modern governments may not impose prison and galley so
freely upon the culprit, but they are no less hard on the transgressor.
Money fines are certainly exceedingly heavy, they amount at times to
large fortunes.
The present laws on the export of art from Italy have a preventive
character which the old regulations had not. Every owner of a work of
art is himself eventually responsible, and is bound to bring it before
the inspectors of the Export Office, who after close examination give
or withhold permission to pass the frontier. When permission is granted
there is a tax to be paid averaging between 5 per cent and 20 per cent
_ad valorem_, according to the inspector’s estimate, and should the
object leave the country after permission has been refused, the owner
is held responsible and may be called before the tribunal to answer for
his action and to pay damages.
An Italian adage runs: _Fatta la legge trovato l’inganno_, which in a
free translation may be rendered: Make a law and the means of evasion
are found.
This is somewhat the fate of the protective laws regarding art in
Italy, the more stringent and circumspect they are the law-breaker
apparently becomes correspondingly bolder and more astute.
The way in which Italian authorities have been hoodwinked at times,
points to the magnitude attained by the shrewd activity of the
law-breakers, and to how their art has almost been turned into a
science, even calling in the aid of psychology--in this case a deep
study of the faulty idiosyncrasies of the officials.
A few skirmishes between the two parties concerned will serve to
demonstrate the variety of the _modus operandi_ adopted by the
law-breakers and their final success over an easily conquered opponent.
In the case of a painting of unusual artistic value, a work that has
not been put upon the prohibited list of the official catalogue, and
the reproduction of which is unknown to the authorities, but which
might, nevertheless, by its good qualities catch even the generally
inexperienced eye of the inspectors--mostly art critics of the
literary species--the work is transformed into a daub without
damage to the painting or change to any essential part. The process
is exactly the reverse of that helping a poor painting by clever
restoration and additions. Here it is a question of reducing a good
work to an apparently bad one, obtainable chiefly by veiling the good
qualities of the work, altering good drawing by cleverly introducing
offensive disproportion of limbs, etc. There is a difference, however,
between the work intended to embellish a painting and that aiming to
do the reverse. The former, with the idea of facilitating the sale,
is permanent, the latter is only temporary, just to get permission to
export. This latter work must be executed in such a way that it can be
washed out without damage to the work after the painting has safely
crossed the frontier. For this operation a coat of glue is generally
given as a preparation, then the modifications are painted in with
tempera on the layer of glue, which is easily dissolved in water,
together with the retouching when the work is to be restored to its
original state.
Similar treatment is also given to statues, busts and bas-reliefs, more
especially when of material that allows the addition of parts that can
be removed afterwards without damage to the original. How well the work
is done and how successful it proves is hardly credible. Security lies
in the fact that should a question be raised afterwards when the work
has been sold to some noted collector outside the country, nothing
can be said or done, as permission has been granted and there is no
pictorial proof that the work had been done for the occasion.
Naturally this method is not of daily or common occurrence, nor, as we
have stated, can it be applied to well-known works the photographs of
which could be obtained to contradict evidence.
Sometimes more is undertaken than retouching or apparently maiming the
artistic qualities of a work. One antiquary who intended to send off
a painting that might be detained at the Export Office, pasted paper
over the picture, and then after the usual coat of glue painted in
tempera a very mediocre landscape. With this he obtained the export
permit and packed his work as prescribed by law before the eyes of the
authorities, after which the case was sealed by them and safely sent on
its way to the frontier.
Leaving the endless tricks which might be grouped more or less with
the above we will take up other curious ways of eliciting permission,
methods showing the deceiver to be as good an observer of human nature
as he is a true psychologist.
A noted bric-à-brac dealer entered the Export Office bringing a Della
Robbia with him. According to custom when official inspection is
sought, the bas-relief was packed ready for the permit and seal of the
office. Taking off the lid of the case, the dealer handed the documents
to the inspector to be signed.
“You must take us for fools,” said the latter, struck by the beauty
of the work. “Do you really think we allow such works to leave the
country?”
“Well, don’t say anything and I’ll explain things--look here.”
The bas-relief was taken from the case and with a pocketknife the
dealer scraped a piece of plaster from the apparently aged back,
showing not only freshly baked clay but the mark of a well-known modern
factory of ceramics.
“Modern! I confess I should never have thought it.”
“Keep our secret,” pleaded the bric-à-brac dealer. “You see they go to
America.”
Satisfied that his professional honour was safe with the dealer, who
would naturally not expose the blunder, and not considering it within
the sphere of his activity to see that Americans were not fooled as
he himself had been, the inspector granted permission, provided the
documents should be honestly endorsed by the declaration “modern.”
Later on the dealer presented himself with a similar work. The case was
hardly opened when the same inspector exclaimed, “Oh these Americans!
Another cuckoo.”
“Well, as you stop the genuine we have to content ourselves with
sending off imitations,” observed the dealer with intentional flattery.
“They seem to prosper,” laughed the inspector, signing the papers and
sealing the case for expedition.
Needless to explain, this time it was a genuine Della Robbia, sent off
with all the requisite legal papers, and labelled by the man of law as
a modern work.
Some years ago an antiquary of Rome, the owner of a statue of fine
Greek workmanship, knew that if the work should be presented to the
Export Office, permission would be refused. The statue had been
excavated in three separate parts and subsequently recomposed, and it
was thought wise to take it apart again and send it off in that state.
The head, the finest piece, was taken across the frontier as luggage by
a tourist, the torso was sent out of Rome to get the permission from
the office of another city, and the legs were the only part to leave
the capital with free and unsuspecting permission from the Central
Office.
A marble statue, now in the Museum of Art in Berlin, a work of heroic
proportions, passed the frontier in two parts, each piece packed in
separate trunks such as are used by ladies. The statue had been sawn
in two along the line of the drapery in such a way that when the two
parts were united the join could hardly attract attention. That the
great weight should not arouse suspicion the two marble blocks were
hollowed out and thus considerably lightened. The two parts of the
statue were first conveyed to Paris, that haven of smuggled goods,
where they were reunited and the reconstructed statue was finally
sent to its destination. Though cleverly put together the joint is
noticeable to an experienced eye upon close inspection. One wonders
whether the authorities of the Museum ever discovered that their fine
specimen of Roman Renaissance, which had been bought in a single piece
in Italy, with the assurance that it was the dealer’s affair to get it
to Berlin, had been delivered in two patched pieces almost as hollow as
a plaster-cast.
Another curious form of smuggling, which must be classed among the
suggestive methods, consists of perturbing and influencing the opinion
of the Export Office employé or, if necessary, that of his immediate
superior, very often the curator of a museum or the highest authority
on artistic matters in the province.
This sort of innuendo is accomplished in several ways. Sometimes a
confrère will drop into the office as if by accident when the case is
there ready for examination, and on seeing the object will exclaim,
“That awful thing, sold at last!”
He will naturally be asked to explain what he knows about it. He may
say that it was offered to him, but that he had refused it because
repainted and restored by so-and-so. He is likely to conclude by
saying, “Ask the man who restored ----” of course, another confederate.
Though it may appear naïve and clumsy to the outsider, this latter
method has been known to work extremely well. It is only to be
expected, too, when the depth and calibre of Italian official wisdom
on art matters is taken into consideration, the post of inspector
being filled chiefly by scribblers or art critics, seeking Government
employment; or perhaps they may be students fresh from a recently
instituted university course on art, their main equipment being
historical studies. There is no question but that they are excellently
informed, so far as art erudition is concerned, but they lack
experience, and the trouble is that the chief requisite in an office
such as the Export Office is a long experienced and sure eye, with a
thorough knowledge of the trade in curios, and its peculiar resources
in deceit. One word of doubt let fall at the right moment works wonders
when dealing with people whose lack of practical knowledge is so
appalling.
We recall the case of an inspector who felt uncertain as to the
artistic value of a painting and finally resorted to the experience
of his immediate superior, the curator of a museum and a well-known
art writer. On examining the work the latter pronounced it to be a
good specimen of the Ferrara school, and declared that permission
could not be granted. The owner and would-be exporter, an antiquary
in great favour, called on the curator, who had had the painting
transferred to his own private room with a view to making a careful
examination. He directed the curator’s attention to the repainted and
repaired condition of the work. Persuaded finally that the painting was
nothing but a shocking piece of modern restoration the curator granted
permission. A friend who was present and noticed the dealer’s satisfied
smile, asked him afterwards whether the work was really so bad as he
had represented to the curator.
“Not a single retouch,” was the answer, “most genuine.”
“But you convinced him. You pointed out the restored parts.”
“Yes, suggestion is one of our most formidable weapons,” assented the
antiquary, doubling his crafty smile. “Yes. Suggestion is one of our
best accomplices.”
Although recognizing that many of the employés of the Export Office
are quite unfitted for their difficult task, through their particular
form of education, we are ready to admit that to decide almost at
sight, what may safely leave the country and what must be retained, is
no easy affair. Imitations at times are so perfect that even the most
experienced eye, without mature and well-pondered examination of the
object, is apt to be duped.
Some years ago one of the sons of Professor Costantini, a well-informed
antiquary of Florence, made a copy of an Antonello de Messina that
was in his father’s collection. The copy was undertaken to oblige an
English friend, and being painted on an old worm-eaten panel of wood,
so cleverly imitated the original as to be mistaken for it. When the
work was to be exported the official refused his permission on the
ground that it was by a great master and must consequently remain in
Italy. However, as the young artist insisted in his declaration that
it was a copy made by himself, appeal was made to the curator of the
Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Professor Ridolfi. The latter confirmed the
inspector’s verdict, reiterating the prohibiting injunction, and a sort
of consultation was held, with the aid of Professor Supino, curator of
the National Museum, Professor Elia Volpi, a highly esteemed antiquary
of Florence, and a German artist, acting restorer of paintings at the
Uffizi Gallery. They unanimously declared the work to be old. Some
attributed it to Antonello himself, others to his school, there was no
suspicion of modernism. The whole affair was afterwards settled as it
should have been from the first. Professor Costantini invited Professor
Ridolfi and the others to see the original painting at his house.
When the high tariff on imported works of art and curios was still in
force in the United States, smugglers relied chiefly on undervaluation,
as orthodox smuggling, namely introduction into the country without any
payment of duty, was hardly possible under the vigilance of Argus-eyed
Custom House officials. Thus the grand art of smuggling works of art
and antiques of repute, always pliable to circumstances, relied mainly
upon the ignorance of the so-called appraisers. At first a legal
estimate enclosed with the documents accompanying the goods from their
place of departure was sufficient and very rarely discussed. Gradually
the United States Custom House agents grew suspicious, and to support
the low valuation it became necessary to adjust the objects, in very
much the same way as was done to obtain export permission, from the
Italian office.
One of the tricks practised in the case of furniture is to take off all
ornamental and carved parts by disjointing or sawing and then polishing
or in some way adjusting the place left bare. The ornaments are sent
separately to be replaced when the piece of furniture is safely beyond
the reach of the Custom House laws.
Custom House officials all the world over are generally reckoned by
trained smugglers to be very poor judges of art. They consider them
capable of making a great fuss over the wrong article and letting
the dutiable ones slip through their fingers. Something of this kind
happened at the Custom House of Bercy, Paris, where, with no intention
of smuggling or deceiving the officials, Dazzi, an Italian dealer, came
to pay duty in a sort of topsy-turvy way. Together with other things,
Dazzi was importing into France a box of modern bronzes, imitating
objects of Pompeiian excavation and coated with an indecent patina,
green as a lizard’s skin, and a piece of seventeenth-century silk
damask, which according to French law should have been duty free as
only antique goods of the eighteenth century and onwards pay. After
a long confabulation the appraiser of the Custom House decided that
being, as he thought, of modern fabric, the damask must pay duty
and that the bronzes, supposed by him to be two thousand years old,
might enter free of duty. Dazzi saw that this queer exchange was to
his advantage and submitted to the strange verdict without further
observation.
In Italy, the law on exportation, intended to prevent the exodus of
fine works of art, is often turned to advantage by sharp dealers who
manage to have their mediocre goods detained at the Export Office, and
when exportation has been finally permitted make use of the momentary
detention to enhance the merits of the object exported.
This trick has been practised to such an extent that, particularly in
America, it is not unusual to hear an amateur extol some bit of rubbish
with the remark, “It was stopped by the Italian inspectors, but my man
managed to get it through by greasing the paw----”
An imitation of the work of Bellano, a bas-relief in clay, was in
custody at the Export Office and afterwards allowed to pass, being
recognized as modern. This was quite enough to advertise the work as
excellent, so excellent that it was held up at the Italian Export
Office. The bas-relief is now shown in the collection of a New York
amateur, and the romantic tale of the refused permit adds flavour and
draws particular attention to the masterpiece, and yet----!
This is more or less the dark side of the traffic in curios and the
various questionable forces that many collectors call “the black band.”
As will be shown later, the “black band” is a Parisian expression,
denoting a more restricted field of activity.
How is the beginner to cope with such odds? To become acquainted
with the peculiar _milieu_ to be avoided in the commerce of antiques
requires time, to learn to detect restorations and repairs, we mean
undue repairs, is an art in itself that demands considerable experience.
To sum up, while striving daily to become more efficient, relying as
little as possible on the help of others, or knowing how to choose the
right sort of aid, it is most important to be circumspect, to assume in
principle that the beginner is likely to be duped at the start, and to
believe that there is more wisdom than people are ready to think in the
advice of Paul Eudel, _Soyez athées en objets d’art_ (Be sceptical in
art objects!).
CHAPTER XVI
THE ARTISTIC QUALITIES OF IMITATORS
Sculptors--A few notable examples--Bastianini’s art and the
adventures of his Girolamo Benivieni--A modern imitation of
Renaissance art entered at a Munich museum as a genuine antique
--The sculptor’s art and method--The Verrocchio, Robbia and
Co., Ltd.--Signor Natali’s art and Signor Bonafedi’s patina--
Various methods of would-be makers of old masters--Painting
--The Sienese imitative school--Mr. Salting’s experience--
Professor Ezio Marzi’s imitation of the Flemish school--Stone
and ornamental work--Professor Orlandini’s art--Iron work--
Weapons, etc.
From the point of view of art, the creator of “finds,” the imitator of
masterpieces, and faker of sham “_chefs-d’œuvre_” are not attractive
personalities. The value of their art--if it deserves so noble a
title--is likely to vanish as soon as the scheme is detected and to
leave us with something of the disillusionment experienced when viewing
a set of stage scenery by broad daylight.
The simple imitator, the man who honestly declares his work to be
modern, though of a higher moral standard than his comrade the forger,
is no more likely to win our admiration. The difference between the
two, artistically speaking, is that the one is apt to irritate us
from the first, the other only after we have been “taken in,” the
first cheats himself alone when he believes his patchwork to be good
art, the second is ready to deceive any and everyone who credits his
artistic lies. High above these two classes, however, stand a few
gifted beings who seem to have actually imbibed the artistic qualities
of Renaissance art to such an extent as to have attained a new and
genuine personality--modern in date but old and faithful to the past in
creative conception. In this case, imitation becoming creative, as we
have said, it rises to the rank of real art.
Up to the present, since Bastianini’s excellent work was first
launched, many of the imitators who followed and who have successfully
duped museums and art lovers, belong to the commonplace order. Their
success is chiefly due to the deficiency and lack of practice among
curators, collectors and connoisseurs at large.
The more recent imitations that have deceived some of the most
experienced eyes in Florence, Munich and Paris have revealed the names
of two sculptors, Zampini and Natali, who apart from their imitative
ability may, like Bastianini, be studied and admired _per se_.
Both these artists have some points in common with the sculptor who
puzzled all the French connoisseurs of the Second Empire. Both, like
Bastianini and other good and honest imitators, have made the fortunes
of others, not their own; like him, too, have sold their products as
modern, only to realize that as soon as believed antique they reached
fabulous figures.
The portrait bust of Girolamo Benivieni--for which Bastianini
received 350 francs--was finally sold to the Louvre for 14,000
francs. Before landing in the Paris Museum it had passed through the
hands of Freppa--a Florentine antiquary--Nolives, a connoisseur who
travelled in Italy in search of “finds,” and Nieuwerkerque, Princess
Mathilde Bonaparte’s all-powerful protégé, who was responsible for its
acquisition by the Museum.
This classic piece of fakery is worth recalling in all its details,
together with the stir succeeding Bastianini’s declaration of himself
as the author of the Benivieni bust and the humiliating figure cut
by the officially recognized connoisseurs and art critics after the
_dénouement_.
Contrary to the general mode adopted by imitators and fakers of copying
the various parts here and there from Renaissance work, welding them
into a would-be _tout ensemble_ of originality, Bastianini had so
imbibed the character of the fifteenth century that he was able to
work without immediate suggestions other than the influence of the
recollections and skill he had acquired by copying from good old models
in his preparatory period. Thus the work was done straight from nature,
the model chosen being an old man nicknamed the _Priore_, employed in
a cigar factory. When the clay was still fresh, struck by the unusual
Renaissance style of the bust, someone suggested the name by which it
was finally christened, and Bastianini inscribed the words: HIER^{MUS}
BENIVIENI.
The name of Girolamo Benivieni, Savonarola’s poet friend, was in
keeping with the austere features of the portrait, and the modest
employé of the Florentine cigar factory well represented one of the
most illustrious types of Republican Florence.
When Nolives exhibited Bastianini’s work in 1867 as a specimen of
Renaissance sculpture at the Retrospective Art Show of the Palais des
Champs Élysées, an influential art critic wrote:
“We have not known Benivieni, but are prepared to swear that this
portrait must be extremely like him. Who is the artist that modelled
it? We are almost tempted to label the work with a string of names from
the glorious period of Florentine art.”
Noting, incidentally, that the art critic’s temptation to go through
a long litany of names by way of attribution is simply delightful, we
may state that the illustrious writer was not the only one to be caught
and duped by Bastianini’s capital work. The supposititious Girolamo
Benivieni had turned the heads of all the art intellectuals of Paris.
Later on, when Nolive’s collection was put up to auction the bust was
acquired, as we have already stated, by Nieuwerkerque for the sum of
13,600 francs and was finally placed in the Louvre Museum.
It is said that, believing the bust to be antique, Nolives wrote
to Bastianini bantering him upon his gross error in letting such a
stupendous “find” slip from his hands.
Finally the name of Bastianini as the author of the bust leaked out.
Admiration began to cool, opinions as to the genuineness of the work
were divided and a long polemic over the case ensued.
When Bastianini, up to then an obscure Florentine artist, finally
declared in a letter sent to the _Diritto_, an Italian newspaper, that
he himself was the author of the Benivieni, he was supposed to be an
imposter.
Among others to contest Bastianini’s assertion was the talented
sculptor Lequesne, who went so far as to call the Florentine artist a
liar, maintaining that the men who could mould clay into such forms
as that of the bust were no more of this world, having long since
disappeared. At the end of his invective against the Florentine
sculptor, M. Lequesne swore that should Bastianini be able to prove
himself to be the sculptor of the Benivieni, he himself would be
willing to serve such a sculptor, if only to mix his clay.
It would be tedious to follow the long and spicy polemic from which
Bastianini was perforce to issue triumphantly. Pamphlets and articles
were written on both sides, Bastianini himself taking part in the
controversy and showing himself to be a wit worthy of those old
Florentines whom Dante designates as having a “_spirito bizzarro_.”
Irrefutable proofs--the first plaster-cast of the head which had
been kept by the sculptor, witnesses who had seen Bastianini at
work, the assurance of the model and his true resemblance to the
pseudo-Benivieni--cut short all possibility of further discussion. The
actual author of the Renaissance bust that had puzzled the learned
public of the French capital, was beyond all doubt Bastianini.
Naturally this was not Bastianini’s first essay. In the year 1864 a
bust by him, an effigy of Savonarola, had been exhibited at the Palazzo
Riccardi in Florence. This work, too, was taken for antique. Vincenzo
Capponi, a Florentine dealer, secured it for 640 francs and sold it for
ten thousand. Another work, a charming type of Florentine youth, a girl
singing, was sold to M. Édouard André of Paris.
[Illustration: RESURRECTION.
By Signor Ferrante Zampini, bought at Munich as work of the XVth
Century. Zampini was a clever Italian artist, who possessed the rare
gift of imitating Renaissance work. He never deceived anyone with his
imitations, but his work passing through several hands eventually
deceived the connoisseurs of the Munich Gallery.]
[Illustration: PIETÀ.
By Sig. Ferrante Zampini.]