The Gentle Art of Faking / A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present day

If there is any one branch of collecting in which it is necessary to be a specialist to ensure success, that branch is unquestionably antique stuffs. Artistic sentiment and good taste are of comparatively slight assistance compared with technical knowledge, and they may even at times produce two dangerous psychological elements only too often responsible for collectors’ blunders: enthusiasm and suggestion. The technician with knowledge of the different qualities of materials, with an eye for the various peculiarities of the weave and colour, and sound information as to the character of the various patterns, etc., is doubtlessly the best equipped as a connoisseur of stuffs. This may sound absurd to the outsider, especially to artists, whom we have ourselves found to be over-confident as to their qualities, their pictorial eye, their full acquaintance with form. Yet too many of these artists, not being collectors or experts, have bought modern goods as antique, old furniture re-covered with modern brocade that no expert would for a moment have taken as being of the same date as the furniture. We refer, of course, to those modern imitations generally the easiest to detect, however artfully they have been coloured and aged to give them the appearance of genuine antiquity.

The detection of modern products offers no difficulty to the expert. They may look extremely convincing to the uninitiated or beginner, as they possess what may be termed a general impression of antiquity, but to the trained eye of the expert there are too many essential differences; and they lack, above all, a character that in the case of a large quantity of stuff and not a mere sample, is inimitable. For the Jaquard machine is not the old weaving loom, the material used is produced with greater care and precision which gives the fabric a different look even when the coarseness of ancient textiles has been imitated, the colours are different and so is the chemical process for dyeing the thread, etc. The sum total of these elementary differences with which the art of imitation cannot cope, is what reveals to the expert almost at sight the antiquity or modernity of the product. In conclusion, with the exception of some rare samples of small pieces, the modern imitation of ancient stuffs is but a successful optical illusion.

Imitations that count at least a century of age, on the contrary, prove dangerous puzzles to experts and connoisseurs of this speciality, these imitations having been made in almost exactly the same way as the originals, before weaving machines were invented, and when the thread was spun and dyed in the simple old way before aniline dyes had furnished beautiful but most unstable colours.

In France, under Louis XIII, Renaissance patterns were admirably copied, as well as those of the sixteenth century. The reproduction of old designs is not confined to Italy and France alone. In nearly every country there have been imitators of the best samples of ancient stuffs, damasks, brocades and velvets.

As regards imitation, the more complex the pattern in design and colouring, the easier it can be reproduced with success. In fact plain velvet is the most difficult to imitate. No one, not even in the past, has ever reproduced the fine velvets of the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento with complete success.

Methods of ageing modern stuffs which have not the advantage of the genuine hues of age of old imitations, greatly resemble in general lines those adopted to give an appearance of age to other objects. If the colouring is crude and too new looking, the stuff is exposed to atmospheric action, rain, dew and sunshine. Needless to add, this treatment must be followed with care and discrimination otherwise the fabric may be reduced to a rag as well as to an appearance of age. To harmonize the colours and give them a more faded look, some put the goods into a bath of slightly tinted liquid, thus obtaining on the fabric what in painting is termed velatura. Others put the liquid into an atomizer and steam it on to the stuff. This process has the advantage of giving alternate hues without any sharp delimitation between them.

These methods, however, by which the artist can display variation, are not convenient or possible in the case of large quantities of fabric, nor is the result convincing in the proximity of the original. One does not need to be an expert, in fact, to see the difference between the old and the new on a piece of furniture or in a room where imitations have been used to supply what was lacking.

To make imitations more convincing, more especially in the case of small pieces, some antiquaries stitch on bands before discolouring the stuff, which are afterwards taken off leaving parts with fresher colours, as often happens in really antique pieces that have belonged to ecclesiastical copes, etc.

Strict order having been dispensed with in this chapter, and as, after all, fabrics are involved, we may here touch upon the subject of dress and past costumes. The rarity of such collections depends not only upon the fact that the roomy space of a museum is indispensable for their display but largely upon the scarcity of past century costumes. This branch of collecting is very useful to the history of fashion and national costumes, but it must be considered that to be of interest to the collector a dress must be at least forty years old, and very few garments attain that age nowadays. Either they are altered to conform to fashion, or unpicked or given away until they have run through the scale of society and end in rags. The rarity of the genuine article appears to correspond with the rarity of collectors of this line, and there is therefore no question of fakes, unless one should take seriously certain comic incidents and consider as a collector the simpleton who buys the cast-off costumes of an elegant fancy dress ball as genuine articles, those poor imitations, with no pretence at being anything else, of Henry IV, Marie Antoinette, and other historical garments.

Having mentioned the subject of costumes, we may speak of another kind of collection that is also very useful to the history of past usages and fashions, that of dolls and toys of past centuries. Dolls and children’s toys are not an invention of to-day. It is safe to say that their existence can be traced almost as far as the history of civilization. The Romans used to bury dolls and toys with the bodies of their little ones or place them in the funereal urn, a usage that has preserved for us specimens of these tiny objects that have drawn smiles from young lips closed and sealed centuries ago. Together with these relics are other images that illustrate the history of costumes like the dolls, the statuettes offered to temples and churches as ex-votos and those used in the construction of the old presepio (birth of Christ scene), the Christmas Eve representations of the Bethlehem scene. These wooden dolls and statuettes are not only artistic in themselves, but are dressed in stuffs of their epoch very often cut in the fashion of the time.

Some of these collections have really been excellent commentaries on the history of fashion and domestic customs of past ages. Among the few important collections we may quote as an example that of Mme. Agar, exhibited by this celebrated French artist several years ago in the Palais de l’Industrie now demolished. Mme. Agar’s collection was very complete and illustrative of fashion and life in Holland centuries ago. The collection had originally belonged to the infant princess, the daughter of William of Orange and Nassau. Not only was it extremely artistic, containing several interiors of Dutch houses with inmates and accurate details suggesting a painting by Terburg or Teniers, but it represented all kinds of expression of seventeenth-century Dutch life. Mme. Agar came into possession of this fine collection under the following circumstances. Returning from one of her artistic tours in Belgium she visited the city of Ghent and found the collection in the hands of a gentleman to whom she had been introduced upon her arrival. She offered to buy it, but the owner refused all offers declaring that he did not wish to part with the precious collection. However, after having heard Mme. Agar at the theatre one evening, he was so taken by her art that he wrote to the actress the very same night, “Come to fetch my toys. I offer them to you, they are yours.”

There is no question of fakes in this branch either. The difficulty in finding old stuffs and linen with which to garb the figures is sufficient to discourage the trade, especially when one remembers how few customers the imitator could hope to attract.

The art of tapestry weaving is the most complete of the class. Although technique may play its part in constituting expert knowledge, it is certainly subordinate to the artistic qualities necessary to perfect connoisseurship.

Faking plays no part in this field, at least not the conspicuous part that it plays in painting and other artistic products likely to attract rich amateurs. This is easily understood when one takes into consideration the time, patience and money needful to the making of tapestry; it costs something like eighty pounds a square yard. The imitator also knows that it would be a waste of time and money to fake old tapestries as any expert can tell modern work from old. The apparatus has hardly undergone any essential change it is true, but the materials are so different from formerly that fairly tolerable imitations can only be given in the case of repairs to old pieces. On account of the great cost of modern tapestry the few existing factories either belong to the State or potentates, or they are supported by the lavish encouragement of some modern Mæcenas. As we have said, the difference between the work of modern and ancient tapestry does not lie in a difference of process, unchanged in essentials since the Egyptian dynasties, but rather in the impossibility of obtaining materials like the old ones.

Although some unscrupulous dealers do palm off over-repaired pieces of tapestry on foolish novices, the repair of tapestry is no faking after all, for the decorative character of the fabric fully justifies the mending and restoration of missing parts and, unlike painting, the work does not bear an individual imprint. It is our duty, however, to warn the neophyte that repairs are very seldom pointed out by dealers and that it is absolutely necessary for the collector to train his eye in order to be able to detect the modern parts from the old and to know how much must be bought as antique and how much as modern. This is not so difficult as it may appear. The modern parts are worked in with the needle and although the threads have generally been specially dyed, as the usual colours now on sale are very rarely suitable, there is a slight difference in the final effect. Nothing to offend the eye, even when closely examined, but enough to warn the expert of the size of the repaired piece. Sometimes the repairer of tapestries uses a method which in our opinion comes under the head of faking. This consists of re-colouring faded parts with water-colours or tempera. Some of this touching up is really cleverly done, at other times it is so clumsy that one wonders how even a novice can be taken in. If there is any suspicion that the tapestry has been coloured, a practical test is the displacement of the threads with a needle as the fresh colours are generally laid on with a brush and never penetrate between the threads where the old faded colour is visible. Incredible as it may seem, some tapestries are touched up with pastel. This was sometimes done even in the eighteenth century to disguise defects and crudeness of tone and now it is practised to deceive the eye by making a better match between the old and the new parts. Of course pastel work is easily detected if one is allowed to rub the part, but this is not always feasible, especially at public sales where the tapestry is hung on the wall, sometimes very high up, on purpose to defy close inspection. There is also a method of fixing the pastel retouch with an atomizer and a certain liquid sold in Paris, but even these means are not so effective as milk and tempera, and hard rubbing with a white cloth will always reveal the deception when pastel has been used.

Rugs, particularly Oriental rugs, belong in a way to the same family as tapestry and may be classified with it. There is this difference, however: being less complicated in character and for the most part adorned only with geometrical patterns and rudimentary arabesques, rugs are imitated with greater facility. Things do not change so quickly in the East as in Western countries, and there the old weaving apparatus is still in use and materials are only just beginning to be imported from Europe. A large field is thus opened up to imitation, and to a certain extent to faking also. It is nevertheless hard to deceive experts and specialists. Keen-eyed and accustomed to distinguish between different kinds, and to judge of age, they are also able to detect modern frauds. But, alas, good experts are rare and conceited collectors abound, and for this reason fraud is rampant and remunerative, even in this field. Those buying rugs for the sake of having a collection and not to furnish their houses with a comfortable and highly artistic luxury are advised to place themselves in the hands of an expert. It will save time and trouble. An eclectic collector, however gifted, will rarely consent to go deeply into this branch, as the mastery of it implies great sacrifice of time and the boredom of learning a difficult language, things that prove no obstacle to the passionate lover of the speciality, but tedious and irksome to the general art lover.

Following an erratic course in this chapter, we will now pass on to books, manuscripts and autographs, a branch with many devotees and all kinds of collectors, in which trickery and faking find an almost incredibly large sphere of action.

Book collectors are of two kinds, the one who prizes the work for the rarity of the edition, and the other who is attracted by the binding. The former is the true book collector, the latter is really only a collector of rare and artistic bindings. The two preferences do not mutually exclude one another, of course, and when found together offer the most complete kind of book collector.

It might be imagined that imitations in this branch would be confined to such pieces as only require the faker’s shrewdness and imitative skill and not the great amount of work and money demanded by the reproduction of a whole edition, but this is not the case. As soon as fashion—sovereign and despotic in this department also, taste and art being secondary—sets a value on what is called a rare edition, false ones find that the work pays and imitations are thrown upon the market at once. About the end of the eighteenth century a speciality was made in Lyons of reproducing all the rare editions of Racine’s works, while Rouen acquired a certain notoriety in faking old volumes of Molière with every detail carefully and accurately copied—quality of the paper, the type, decorative initials, tailpieces, etc. That the labour was worth the trouble and expense is amply proved by the high prices that some original editions have fetched. The first edition of Molière’s works, dated 1669, was sold in Paris for 15,000 francs. At M. Guy Pellion’s sale separate works bearing various dates were sold—Le Tartufe, 1669, for 2200 francs, Le Misanthrope for 1220 francs, and few volumes below this price. Fashion having set extravagant prices—the original edition of Molière’s works was sold at 70 to 100 francs apiece at Bertin’s sale, 1885—old incomplete editions have been completed, and for the late-comers not in time for this half-genuine article, full and first-class imitations are provided.

Missing pages of rare volumes, incunabula or precious, highly prized editions, are often supplied by the most skilful pen and ink work. It is surprising to see how well the clever calligraphic artist can imitate the printed characters, and how carefully and faithfully the missing pages are copied from some complete edition. In a damaged edition it is generally the frontispiece that is missing or the ornamental title on the first page. Some of the latter are true works of art and require most artistic penmanship for their reproduction. The illusion is, nevertheless, often complete. Paul Eudel tells an amusing story of an expert who had not noticed that one of the pages of a certain work was a clever piece of penmanship added later, but to whom the secret was revealed by circumstantial evidence which saved him from being cheated. The work was so admirably done that the expert had not detected it to be pen work, till he happened to notice a worm-hole in the parchment of that page whereas the preceding and following pages bore no hole. As it was impossible for a worm to reach a page in the middle of the book without boring through the others, he surmised that the hole must have been there when the page was done, that the page was a later addition in fact. Once suspicious, it is easy to ascertain the truth. A closer examination showed M. Pourquet, such was the name of the expert, that the page in question was hand work, and not print.

It is true that nowadays, by means of photo-mechanical reproductions old books, characters and illustrations can be imitated to perfection, and there are also mills that can supply all sorts of old-fashioned paper to order, as near as possible to a given sample. Experts claim, however, that such fakes are only dangerous for the inexperienced collector, that a magnifying glass reveals the action of the acid in a sort of scalloped edge to the ink lines, and that, although well imitated, the paper has a different grain when closely examined, etc. But it is, of course, understood that fakes are not as a rule intended to baffle the skill of the expert but rather to take advantage of the inexperienced.

The expert who gives his attention chiefly to the bindings of the books needs to be more of an artist than the other. We know that editions, too, have their elegancy, forms and tasteful simplicity needing, as it were, an artistically trained eye to enjoy their beauty and appreciate their value, but compared with bookbinding their artistic quality seems to be of a more restricted kind. In bookbinding, art in all its decorative eloquence appears to claim full rights. There are bindings of past centuries—more especially in Paris, where bookbinding has always been a grand art—that are really chefs-d’œuvre. As usual it is the unwary who in this branch also pays the highest tribute to fakery.

From the Grolier bindings down to the last specimens of the eighteenth century, imitation has a wide field of action for its versatility, but according to experts the most exploited period is that running from the early years of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, one of the most difficult to imitate and yet one of the most profitable. There are, of course, various ways of faking old bindings. Many have tried to fake the whole, beginning with the fabrication of the ornaments cut in iron which are used to stamp the gilt ornaments on leather or parchment. In the opinion of the connoisseurs of Paris, where these imitations appear to find their best market, they are far from convincing, being only intended for such as seek a certain decorative quality without pretending to be experts or collectors. Specialists say there are imitations of a far more dangerous character, those composed of various genuinely antique parts, those relying upon some authentic element in the process of making, and original bindings fitted to other books which thus embellished and enriched fetch higher prices. The first of the above operations knows no limits but those set by the material, it may be a question of using old leather or aged parchment, or of using old labels, or of taking advantage of the characteristic coloured lining papers that modern industry reproduces fairly well. Here we have, in fact, the usual composite style with which a fanciful binding is made or a book put together out of various elements that are perfectly genuine, but belong to different sources.

The second manner of faking in decorating the cover of a book is to use some old iron stamps for the impress on the leather of the binding. Some of these old implements that have escaped destruction are now used to advantage, especially to stamp decorative coats of arms on imitation antique bindings, so that the buyer should think the books have come straight from the former library of a nobleman. The faker has used this trick successfully with Americans particularly. In this way the stamps of the Sacré de Louis XV, which are, apparently, still in existence, have been used as a decoy on fine bindings, as well as that of the Rohan-Chabot family coat of arms perpetuating the supposition that books belonging to that illustrious family are still on the market. The third method is called in French rembotage and consists, as we have said, of transferring covers from one book to another. There are some good editions that have lost their covers and some worthless books with fine bindings—fakery repairs this injustice of fate by transferring the good binding to the more meritorious book, a simple act of justice invariably rewarded in the world of fakery by the large sum that can be asked for the edition thus treated.

There are naturally many ways to discover the bindings that have in one way or other received the paternal and not at all disinterested caress of the faker, but the best and safest way—shall we ever tire of repeating it—is to train one’s eye to that helpful synthesis of judgment called experience. Newly coloured and patinated leather does not stand rubbing with a damp cloth like the old does, modern gilding and modern stamping imitating antique designs are heavier and less clean cut as well as not so rich—qualities best understood by comparing modern work with the old, for although the differences are slight they are, nevertheless, plain to the experienced eye accustomed to comparing old and new. Even rembotage, the most difficult to detect, may be found out by examining the way one part is joined to the other, the peculiarities of the work, etc. All that can be said, however, to put the neophyte on his guard who may imagine that hints from books or special works on the subject are sufficient to assist him, is: Go slow, and if you are really anxious to have a good collection and prepared to pay good prices, in the beginning ask the man who knows for his help—Experto crede.

It is obvious that no artistic temperament, taste or knowledge of art is necessary in order to become a collector of autographs. This class of collector, who may boast an uninterrupted line from scholars to specialists, has neither the assistance nor complicity of art. Consequently the faker, who inevitably follows suit, must have a knowledge of history in order to avoid historical blunders, he must be acquainted with particulars connected with the personage whose autograph is to be forged, and above all must be an expert imitator of other people’s hand-writing, in fact in him the art of forging signatures must be brought to the highest perfection, for here documents are to be forged, a succession of calligraphic characters and idiosyncrasies far more difficult of execution than a mere signature on a false cheque.

The aptitude of a bank clerk gives promise of a good expert in this subject. Studies of various papers according to epoch is not of such assistance here to the expert as in the case of books, for there is still plenty of old-fashioned paper on the market, enough of it at least to bear a few lines from a celebrated man, the chief quality needed is experience gained by comparing originals with forgeries, or better still such familiarity with a given man’s hand-writing that its genuineness can be judged at sight, as a bank clerk does with a signature.

There are some artists also in this class, but not only is it rarer, but their work deals less with autographs properly so-called than old documents mostly on parchment with illuminations, etc.

Stamp-collecting hardly comes within our sphere, and represents rather a minor department of connoisseurship. Several books have been written on the subject, many with valuable hints as to prices and with reproductions of the best samples, etc. We would warn our readers who may perchance be interested, that every stamp of value has been faked, that, strange to say, some of these fifty-year-old fakes fetch handsome prices and flourishing factories have been established to supply not only the rare specimens already acknowledged as such, but to produce at a few hours’ notice any sample despotic fashion may suddenly raise to the rank of a rarity. Art plays so small a part that the way to become an expert on the subject is to become an—expert. Beyond this, which is only in appearance an idem per idem, there is very little to be done. Experience consists of being familiar with the original, the kind of paper used, the colours, peculiarities and also defects, particularly the defects, as when the stamps were printed that are now rare, the art of printing was in its infancy compared with our times.

There is no occasion to speak of minor fancy collections that, as usual, form links between the true collector and the man with a mania. Even in these minor branches there may be more than one interesting collection, such, for instance, as that of General Vandamme who left his relatives no fewer than sixty thousand pipes, and Baron Oscar de Watterville’s and others. Art plays no great part in these minor expressions of curio-collecting and science also occupies but a limited field. One axiom may be given, however, which holds good for all classes of collecting, whether artistic, scientific, or anything else, and that is that as soon as the prices of certain articles come under the nomenclature of fancy prices, through fashion or merit, the faker is ready to hand.

In the Paris world of fakers, a larger world than the outsider may imagine, an amusing anecdote is told. Learning the high prices paid by astronomers for bolides, an inveterate faker called upon a well-known chemist to propose a partnership for the production of imitations of meteorites. Even if an invention, the anecdote gives the full size of the faker’s spirit of enterprise.

CHAPTER XXV
SUMMING UP

The same art lover assures us that in this peculiar world not only is kindliness (bienveillance) rare, but the opposite sentiment has been developed almost to the point of genius. Collectors, especially first-rate collectors who have finally emerged into fame through the complex resultant of a good eye, shrewdness and extreme skill in fencing with strong competitors, have a regular talent for flavouring bitter pills for deceived friends and comrades with troublesome innuendoes and smarting disclosures, for, as the above-quoted connoisseur declares, they have a way of praising with “praise that exasperates and with homicidal compliments,” and there is a type of collector who knows his repertory by heart, a man who is a “toreador raffiné—il massacre artistement.”

What the neophyte can do to avoid being “artistically” massacred, as the French connoisseur puts it semi-euphemistically, is difficult to say. Books and special treatises may explain the nature of the deceit, point out the dangers awaiting him and show how traps are laid and how they work, but to pretend to become a truly safe buyer on the security of knowledge gathered from books and manuals would be like attempting the ascent of some dangerous peak on the strength of wisdom drawn from works on Alpine climbing.

The rudiments of the art do not concern so much the knowledge of how to buy as of how not to buy, how to resist, namely, the first impulse, which in an inexperienced art lover proves to be one of the worst dangers. The slow, prudent method must be learnt of not listening to first impulses till the first impulses are supported by something better than the innate conceit of a beginner. We know, of course, that there may be occasions when even a beginner may have cause to regret not having listened to a first impulse, but such a thing is further from the general rule than the beginner claims, and in any case it pays in the long run to let a good chance slip rather than risk becoming the possessor of some expensive would-be chef-d’œuvre.

In addition, during the early stages in particular, a certain amount of scepticism must temper a too ready belief in what the dealer has to say or show, in support of his assertion. There will come a time when experience will help the collector to detect more easily than at first alluring, suggestive information, etc.

Naturally it is not all dealers who are on the watch to take advantage of the beginner. On the contrary, there are more honest dealers in the antique market than one would think, but the trouble is that the dishonest ones seem to be to the fore, to be ever there ready to confront the inexperienced novice, and their noisy deceits become far more known than good, honest dealing, causing perplexity in some collectors so that it may be they disbelieve the man who is telling the truth and give credence to the liar, who being a perfect master in the art of misrepresentation, seems to be honesty itself.

Here, too, the determination to be rather sceptical as to documents, letters, pedigrees and mercantile evidence may lead the beginner to miss some good opportunity, but the case is rare and such losses are as a rule amply covered in the summing up of the total cost of apprenticeship, through not having paid for experience the extravagant price usually demanded. In due time the art lover’s ability to discern between dealing and dealing will be sharpened, and he will be able to defend himself better.

This merely concerns dealing and experience in distinguishing the genuine from the fake. But even supposing perfection has been attained in this part, the fact does not necessarily imply qualification as a connoisseur, collector, expert or even simple lover of art. A collection may be composed of genuine articles and yet be a poor one, utterly devoid of artistic merit or even commercial value of importance. To have paid a high price is no guarantee of merit. There are, as a matter of fact, perfectly genuine paintings for which extravagant fancy prices have been paid, but which in the eyes of a true connoisseur are not worth the nail they hang on.

It is almost impossible to conceive that experience in distinguishing the genuine from the false should be acquired without the attainment of some artistic progress prompting discrimination between poor art and mediocre, and mediocre art and fine art, yet this artistic side is the most difficult to develop to that perfection and semi-intuition of the beautiful, so necessary to the real and first-rate connoisseur.

By what method this artistic side may be perfected in the collector is still more difficult to tell, for in this direction experience only counts to a certain extent. In fact as regards this artistic education of the connoisseur we are inclined to repeat with Taine, in his Philosophie de l’Art: “Precepts? Well, two might be given: first to be born with genius—that is your parents’ affair, not mine; second to work a good deal to bring it out, and that is not my business either.”

Here too, then, actual methods are out of the question. They are, perforce, of such a general character as to be no more use than telling a blind man to keep in the middle of the road because there are ditches on either side. It is, further, not uncommon for contrary systems to lead to equally happy results according to the person employing them. One antiquary when undecided as to the genuineness of a painting used to have a photograph of it taken, for, he said, he could easily detect the traits of forgery on seeing the work in black and white with all colours eliminated, or, to put it in his own words: The faked side sweats out. Another connoisseur held exactly the contrary theory, declaring that he could tell nothing from photos but needed the colours to help to detect the genuineness or fraud of the painting. Perhaps the former had an artistic temperament based chiefly upon the charm of form while the latter was what in art is termed a colourist.

In addition, at times another misleading cause may be added which comes under the form of intervening suggestion and may put even a highly gifted artistic temperament off the scent.

Perhaps an example will best illustrate this peculiar interference, which is not only of a circumstantial order, as we have seen in another part of this book, but may be the result of an unconscious parti pris.

Some years ago when Mr. Stanford White imported works of art and antiques for his millionaire patrons, a Mr. X., who owned a fine mansion on Fifth Avenue, very much admired an early fifteenth century single andiron that was among the imported goods. He wished, however, to have a pair. The suggestion that a modern copy should be made from the only remaining original at first disgusted him, for everyone knows how easily American collectors buy imitations for originals and how disgusted they are if the dealer honestly says that a certain work is an imitation. On being assured that the imitation should be perfect, the new piece was finally ordered and the antiquary arranged for an artistically exact copy of the ancient andiron to be made in Italy. However, possibly because not wishing to be suspected of concocting “modern antiques,” or for some other reason, the Italian firm sent a perfect copy of the original in a brand new condition, suggesting that a certain Italian artist living in New York should give it the proper patina as he was fully initiated in the cryptic art of making new objects look as old as might be desired. The art critic chosen to come and judge of the final result of the work was, as the artist knew, rather distrustful of Italians and their tricks, as he put it.

The Italian artist did the work as well as it could be done, and knowing that it was going to be judged side by side with the original, the hardest test that can be inflicted upon an imitation, he managed to cheat the art critic by being excessively frank and honest, taking advantage of his prejudice against Italians and a probable momentary mental attitude. The two pieces were shown in the artist’s atelier, the imitation being placed by the artist in the full light and the original in the most benevolent corner, far from the window in a half-shade. The first thought that passed through the art critic’s brain as he entered the studio was that the “tricky Italian” had put the imitation where the light was less strong and the shade more benevolently helpful.

“Very good,” he remarked, “but of course even when not in the full light an imitation is always an imitation.”

“But that is the original,” replied the artist, for to make his positive assertion the more definite the critic had been pointing to the wrong piece.

A stony silence followed.

The story ends here and we do not know whether the critic ever forgave the artist his honest trick. Knowing that the art critic was a real connoisseur, a good exception to the class, we are quite sure that his judgment was perverted by the preconceived notion that the Italian had placed the imitation in the shade and thus had hardly let his artistic temperament and knowledge of art come into play in forming an opinion, or rather the opinion was already formed, and too quickly expressed, by a semi-subconscious process of reasoning that had nothing in common with art judgment.

So many are the special cases, and so little the assistance generally given to new-comers, that the safest method in conclusion is to have no actual method, to watch and study one’s own temperament, value the first results objectively, to be ready to learn as much as possible from experience under whatever form it comes and finally, like in so many cases of human life and possibilities, to work out one’s own salvation.

In this way, even if not called to the Olympus of the elect, the art lover will certainly reduce his bad bargains to a minimum—bad bargains in the way of buying the wrong things as far as the genuineness of the article is concerned as well as with regard to its artistic worth. With this he must rest satisfied for, as we gladly repeat once more with the Nestor of French connoisseurs: “Beware of the collector who never makes a mistake; the strongest is he who makes the fewest mistakes.”

As we have seen, the genus curieux (curio-hunter) comprises a most complex and multiform assembly of types. From the distant ages of Roman dominion down to our times, collectomania has produced characters graduated in originality from the grotesque to the tragic, the false to the genuine, the sordid or wicked like Mark Antony and Verres to noble representatives like Julius Cæsar, Augustus and Agrippa.

Curiously enough the noble type of collector and the usefulness of his mission have generally escaped the observation of writers of all ages. They seem to have been quicker to see the grotesque side of collectomania than its utility. Martial, Juvenal, Pliny, Seneca and others are not dissimilar in their remarks from—say, Molière and La Bruyère.

So strong is the inclination to place the types in a grotesque setting, to make them the target of witty sallies, that they very often mistake oddities for signs of idiocy, idiosyncrasies and peculiarities for craziness, and, carrying their analysis no further, they let loose the vein of their satire on people whose passion for collecting has been of extreme use to the intellectual world, greatly assisting progress and the civilization of humanity.

“Just like a donkey beholding a lyre,” gibes an old Greek epigram in allusion to collectors who, while buying eagerly, give so little time, or none at all, to the enjoyment of the artistic merits of their acquisitions. Addressing one of his contemporaries who had a passion for collecting manuscripts and volumes but no inclination to read them, Lucian remarks: “Why so many literary works? Do you collect them in order to lie on the learned thoughts of others, or to paste the parchment of the volumes to your skin? With it all you will not become a jot more learned; a monkey is always a monkey, even though covered with gilded garments.”

To follow up the special case of book-collecting to which Lucian’s remark casually leads us, the same sentiment as that of the Greek writer was entertained centuries later by Petrarch and Robert Estienne. The former was a poet and bibliophile, the latter a famous printer, author of the Thesauros linguæ latinæ. The two did not spare satires on the mere collector of books.

A like attitude is taken towards Mazarin by a mediocre poet of La Fronde, who reproaches the Cardinal with collecting books without reading them; the same reproach that contemporary writers make to Magliabechi, a passionate collector of rare editions who never went further in a book than the title-page. Yet, to confine ourselves to these alone, to Mazarin is due one of the finest libraries of Paris which still bears his name, and by his careful, patient work, Magliabechi was the founder of the Magliabechiana, now the National Library of Florence, a marvel and model of historical character to other more modern institutions of the kind. These two persistent and passionate book collectors have certainly contributed more to science and its progress than many of those scholars who made fun of their hobby.

It must be taken into consideration that collecting, after all, is a passion, at times a deep and firmly rooted one, and that passion, like love, in its most exalted expression does not represent normality, but while on the one hand presenting qualities of an intuitive character, can be coupled with oddities and idiosyncrasies, frequently the inevitable heritage of originality.

Hannibal who stored his money in the hollow of the bronze statues of his collection, Sulla who put to death citizens to seize their rare pieces of art, and Julius Cæsar who travelled with his cherished objects of virtu, are known to us as collectors mostly through their peculiarities, the amusing anecdotal side of a passion, certain to be exploited by a writer, be he chronicler or historian.

Yet, to go back to the unjustified and indiscriminating spirit of satirists, both of ancient and more recent times, which tends to consider the collector a maniac or fool, many a Greek and Roman chef-d’œuvre of art has nevertheless been spared to our admiration by the patient persistence and art-loving care of collectors.

It would, indeed, be interesting to follow the passage of some of the most noted specimens of past art. If one could trace the true history of each one of these objects in all its details, it would perhaps give us the history of the collecting passion together with tangible proof of its merits and utility.

It would, indeed, not only be interesting but also instructive to know the vicissitudes of some of the works of art that have come down to us. The few hints existing as to the lineage of owners of some of the most famous pieces of Greek and Roman art, certainly promise interest even though marred at times by the fact that much of the information rests upon the vague authority of tradition, or is strongly doubted by modern criticism.

“We owe, it is more than possible, the Venus of the Hermitage to Cæsar; the well-known ‘Whetter’ has almost certainly been saved to our admiration by Lucullus, just as Cicero may be thanked for the ‘Demosthenes’ and the collecting passion of Sallust has handed down to us the ‘Faun,’ the ‘Hermaphrodite’ and the ‘Vase’ of the Villa Borghese.”

These remarks of a well-known French collector who mainly notes works contained in the Louvre Museum might be extended to many other collections, especially those of Rome, where several of the works of art have old historical records of undisputed character.

From the Renaissance down to our own days the pedigrees of celebrated works of art are not only surer, but present at times a less interrupted line of descent. With such it is not uncommon to find a rare object pass from one collector to another, receiving the same care and consideration as though passing from father to son as a cherished heirloom—and it is, in fact, passing from one to another member of the same family, the family bound by an identical burning passion, that of collecting.

As to the essence of this passion, so often confounded with mania—a mistake calling forth the following comment from a French collector: “... confondre la ‘manie’ avec la curiosité, c’est prendre l’hysterie pour l’amour, ‘la Belle Helenè’ pour l’Iliade”—we should like to quote Gersaint, one of the few men who as art dealer and collector in one, what might be styled private dealer in modern phrase, impersonated the passion, as we have said, in its highest expression among the many collectors of the eighteenth century. It must be understood, of course, that Gersaint, one of these maniacs in, say, La Bruyère’s opinion, was a representative of those passionate collectors who subordinate every other passion of mankind to the one they have made the sole aim of their lives. “... A curieux,” says this unilateral lover but not hobbyist collector, “has the advantage of not falling an easy prey to the many passions so familiar to the human family: the curiosité fills all the empty spaces of his leisure moments. Entertained by his cherished possessions, he has time only for working at the advance of his curiosité, and his cabinet becomes the centre of all his pleasures, and the seat of all his passions.”

The outsider and half-way-insider will agree that this is a trifle too much; but, after all, the great collectors who have left to the museums of their countries fortunes that would have been lost but for their intense passion—treasures of art left by the ignorant to the doom of decay—have all felt, more or less, the burning passion described by Gersaint, in the passage quoted which goes on to assert that a true paradise awaits the perfect collector, who is never bored, and never the prey of spleen.

Without discussing the promises held out by Gersaint, as the perfect collector is, to our knowledge, rare, let us state that our book does not hope to urge any reader on to the perfection that ushers into Gersaint’s bliss, but if the brief glimpse we have given of Collectomania with its pleasures and dangers should convince some really passionate lover of art that collecting has a nobler aim than that of mere pleasure, if we should discourage a Tongilius or Paullus, or if this work should scare some modern Clarinus and do away with a noisy, useless up-to-date Trimalchus, we shall feel that the purpose of the book has been justified to some extent.