FRAUDS AND FORGERIES
Owing to the important position that jewellery occupies in the domain of
virtu, it is natural that it should receive particular attention at the
hands of the fraudulent. On the question of frauds of jewellery we have
to distinguish between forgeries--articles professing to be genuine
ancient works of art--and counterfeits--imitations of real objects.
Long before the forger, as we define him, set to work on the field of
jewellery, there existed the business of the imitator of precious stones
and precious metals--one of counterfeit rather than of forgery.
The production of false gems dates from the time that precious stones
first came to be generally worn as personal ornaments. The manufacture
of imitations, intended in many cases to pass as real stones, was an
important branch of the art of the famous glassworkers of antiquity.
These glass gems, or pastes as they are termed, were largely set in
rings to meet the tastes of the poorer classes; and are referred to by
Pliny as the "glass gems from the rings of the multitude." Would-be
smart individuals, also, are frequently satirised by Martial for wearing
in their rings glass pastes which they attempted to pass off as real
stones. At the same time coloured foils were placed as the backing to
transparent stones, and were employed to give a full hue to
inferior-coloured stones.
Besides being employed for jewellery, precious stones were made use of
by the mediæval embroiderers to increase the effect of the coloured
materials and gold thread in the decoration of their robes. But when
we bear in mind the accurate descriptions given by Theophilus in his
_Diversarum Artium Schedula_ of the process of making false gems, it is
only reasonable to assume that many of the so-called jewels were not in
fact real gems, but imitations. Certain it is that in mediæval times the
counterfeiting of precious stones was very largely carried on, while
many accounts are preserved in early records of fines and other
punishments inflicted on dishonest traders in gems who attempted to
dispose of spurious stones, usually set in finger rings. In England and
France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was customary
for the jewellers' guild of each town to have a rule prohibiting its
members from setting paste gems in real gold or real gems in plated
metal; from mounting Scottish pearls with those of the East; or mingling
coloured glass, or false, with precious stones. As in earlier periods, a
crystal or a colourless paste was made to imitate a coloured stone by
backing it with a foil. At South Kensington an example exists, set in a
gold ring of sixteenth-century German work (No. 1206-'03), of a white
crystal, which is cut _en cabochon_ and backed with a red foil, and
bears a striking resemblance to a carbuncle (Pl. XXIII, 17).
Many books on precious stones, both old and new, give receipts for the
manufacture of imitation gems, made of flint glass and coloured with
oxides according to the originals they are intended to counterfeit.
Apart from these are false gems produced with really fraudulent intent.
Since imitation stones cannot resist the file, it is the practice,
besides backing a crystal with coloured foil, to back a thin layer
of genuine stone--intended to resist the test when examined for
hardness--with a layer of glass coloured as required. Another process
of fabrication consists of placing a layer of glass between two layers
of true stone. The place of the join in the "triplet" is hidden by the
collet of the setting, and the deceit can only be detected by unsetting
the stone and soaking it in chloroform. Another means employed for
changing and improving the colours of stones is by heat, for the colour
of nearly all gems is affected by heating.
Not pastes only but clear crystals have long been palmed off on the
unwary for diamonds. Perhaps the best-known of these were crystals of
quartz found in the Clifton limestone near Bristol, which went by the
name of Bristol diamonds. They are alluded to as worn in the ears by the
fop described in Lenton's _Young Gallant's Whirligigg_ (1629). Quartz
crystals found in the tin mines of Cornwall, and similar stones from the
neighbourhood of Harrogate, still known respectively as Cornish and
Harrogate diamonds, were also much employed for jewellery from the
sixteenth century. Transparent stones from various parts of the
Continent are given the names of the localities in which they are found.
In France, rock crystal, cut in rose or brilliant form, went generally
by the name of _Pierre d' Alençon_ or _Caillou du Rhin_.
Of the transparent glass paste termed Stras or Strass we have already
spoken. Though an imitation, the paste of eighteenth-century jewellery
does not necessarily belong to the category of frauds and counterfeits,
since it possesses a certain originality of its own, and does not appear
to have been generally worn with intent to deceive. False or mock pearls
on the other hand seem in some way to be rather more associated with
deception, though they also can be made to serve for decorative purposes
entirely apart from any such intent. To reproduce the lustre or "orient"
characteristic of oriental pearls, use is made in the fabrication of
imitations of a pearly essence known as _essence d'orient_, obtained
from the silvery scales on the underside of a fish called the bleak.
Beads of blown glass slightly opalescent and treated with acid to
produce an iridescent surface are coated internally with a film of the
essence, and wax is then introduced to give the bead the desired weight.
Other mock pearls are made up of a vitreous composition formed largely
of the pearl essence. Their surface when burnished presents a fine
lustre. These are generally termed Venetian pearls. Roman pearls are
formed of external coatings produced by frequent dippings into a
solution made of the pearliest parts of the oyster.
From earliest times frauds have been committed in connection with the
precious metals. The goldsmiths and jewellers of the Middle Ages were
forbidden to work in base metal, to use false stones of glass, or to put
coloured foil beneath real stones. They were further expressly forbidden
to manufacture personal ornaments for secular use of gilt or silvered
copper or brass. Documents in the archives of the City of London contain
many references to the perpetration of fraud in passing off as real,
objects of brass or latten that had been silvered or gilded. In 1369 a
conviction and punishment by the pillory took place for selling to
"divers persons rings and fermails of latten, of coloured gold and
silver, as being made of real gold and silver, in deceit, and to the
grievous loss, of the common people"; and in 1376 a workman was
imprisoned for having silvered 240 buttons of latten, and thirty-four
latten rims for gipcières, and having "maliciously purposed and imagined
to sell the same for pure silver, in deceit of the people." From actual
objects that have survived it would seem that the more heinous offence
was not infrequently committed of plating with silver the baser metals
of tin, lead, and pewter. The statutes of the goldsmiths ordained that
no jeweller should sell any article of silver unless it was as fine as
sterling, "nor sett it to sell before it be touched" with the leopard's
head and maker's mark. But exceptions were always made in favour of
small articles of jewellery "which could not reasonably bear the same
touch." Such materials as _pinchbeck_ and _Similor_ and the plated
objects of modern times hardly fall within the present category.
Actual forgeries of personal ornaments can scarcely be said to have been
committed until comparatively recent years--not, in fact, until the
demand for specimens of old jewellery on the part of the antiquary and
connoisseur rendered their reproduction profitable.[191]
[191] Munro (R.), _Archæology and false antiquities_.
Eudel (P.), _Le Truquage_, 1887. _Trucs et Truqueurs_, 1907.
Owing to the high prices they command from collectors, or to various
facilities afforded for their production and disposal, three classes of
objects--Greek and Etruscan jewellery, mediæval rings, and enamelled
pendants of the Renaissance--offer the strongest temptation to the
forger; and he on his part displays such an amount of skill and
ingenuity, that the fabrication of spurious antiquities of this kind
may be said to have amounted almost to a fine art.
The much sought after gold jewellery of Greece and Etruria has received
more attention than any other, partly on account of the fact that gold
is subject to but slight oxidisation; for the patina of age is lacking
even on ancient examples. Setting aside the beautiful imitations by
such artists as Castellani, father and sons, and later by Melillo and
Giuliano--which clever reproductions are known to have been sometimes
foisted upon collectors by unscrupulous dealers--a great deal of really
false work made with the intent of passing for old has been produced in
Italy--chiefly at Rome, Naples, and Florence. On the subject of such
pseudo-antiques Count Tyszkiewicz has several good stories to tell in
his _Memories of an Old Collector_. Of all objects of this kind, that
which has claimed the largest share of public attention is the notorious
"Tiara of Saitapharnes," which deceived several well-known authorities,
and reposed for several years as a genuine antique in the Louvre, until
the revelation in 1903 of the person of its ingenious author--a Russian
Jew of Odessa.
The disclosure of this remarkable fraud was the climax of a long series
of forgeries of ancient Greek jewellery from Southern Russia, which,
purporting to be recovered from the Greek tombs of Olbia and Kertch,
long renowned for their wealth in such objects, were purchased by more
than one well-known collector. So keenly has the forger pursued his evil
course in this particular domain, that, apart from that preserved in
museums and in the cabinets of collectors whose personal judgment is
sound on such matters, M. Eudel goes so far as to say that the greater
portion of the antique jewellery extant is of recent fabrication.
Mediæval ornaments of all sorts are forged at the present day upon the
Continent to a considerable extent, though less than are those of later
times. One important centre of their production is Paris. Another,
in earlier years in particular, was Frankfort, where visitors to
watering-places on the Rhine have long been the victims of fraudulent
vendors. Such mediæval objects, however well supported by a dealer's
warranty of place and time of discovery, require, says Mr. King, to be
examined by the amateur with a very suspicious and critical eye. Among
other personal ornaments of this period that have received attention at
the hands of the forger are the leaden badges known as pilgrims' signs.
Many ingenious forgeries of the kind were produced about forty-five
years ago, and purported to be brought to light by workmen engaged in
excavations near the Thames in the City of London. These were in large
part the work of two illiterate mud-rakers on the banks of the river;
while articles of like kind were shortly afterwards made by two men
known as "Billy and Charley," who manufactured a number of curious
pendent medals of lead and "cock-metal."[192] The discovery in the
Seine, about the same time, of many genuine pilgrims' signs led to the
circulation also in France of a quantity of spurious objects of a
similar nature.
[192] _Archæological Journal_, XXI, p. 167. A collection of
pseudo-antiques of the kind made at the ateliers of Messrs. Billy and
Charley, Rosemary Lane, Tower Hill, is shown in the Cuming Museum,
Walworth Road, London.
Renaissance pendants, the prizes of the connoisseur, are favourite
subjects for reproduction at the present day, for, unlike the earlier
objects, they are not ill-adapted for personal use. Jewellery in the
Cinquecento style has for several years past been made in large
quantities at Vienna. These jewels are generally not in gold, like the
works they profess to imitate, but in silver-gilt, and as a result their
enamel is never of fine quality, their general appearance is not up
to the standard of the old, and their workmanship is mostly very
mechanical. Apart from these and similar works, made also in France and
generally sold in jewellers' shops as modern productions, there are
others which pretend to age. Though one seldom meets with examples that
approach the best productions of the Renaissance, objects of the kind
are occasionally imitated with such proficiency, that in collecting
specimens of early jewellery in no instances is it necessary to exercise
greater caution than in those of the Cinquecento.
Fine jewellery of the eighteenth century, now almost equally sought
after--watches, chatelaines, rings, and brooches--has been multiplied in
quantities during recent years. As the brooches of this date are very
often mounted with rose-cut diamonds, care has been taken to employ
stones cut in this manner. Their settings generally distinguish the
copies. Again, as M. Eudel points out, when fine old diamond-work has
been sent to be reset, the jeweller preserves the old mounts, sets them
with modern stones or pastes, and sells them as genuine old work. For
the purpose of furthering the deception complete parures purporting
to be seventeenth or eighteenth century work are offered for sale in
genuine old leather or shagreen cases. A set of jewels may even be made
for the special purpose of fitting such a case, or an entirely new case
constructed, and treated in such a manner as to give it an appearance of
age.