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.

“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:—

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.