Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-08-02
BRIC-A-BaAC.
what ID Really Il and Some Great Col
ieetiOns oft.

BRIC-A-BaAC.
what ID Really Il and Some Great Col
lectiOns oft.
From, the Continental Tirnes.
What is bric-a-brac? our readers
NAV well ask US. OF this combined
word the popular Interpretation We be-
licvc to be, in auetioneer's parlance
and that of curiosity-dealers, in fact,
Wardour-street language, "Objects of
art"-every vendible article, indeed, of
ancient or modern manufacture which
can be dubbed as such, whether it be 3
tin trumpet once belonging to, and
and played upon by, some crowned and
afterward dethroned monarch OF any
past age, from Tarquin the Superb
down TO Napoleon lll-the pipe on
which Hamlet vainly desired Guilden-
stem to try his sklll-some armless,
headleSS, or otherwise dilapidated group
of old Dresden china yclept Corydon
and PhyIliS-some old suit Of engraved
armor worn by a nameleSs knight, per-
chance a crusader and companion of
Richard the L;On-hearted-a damas-
cened cimeter which was welded by
Saladin in the Holy Wars.
Coming down to the later periods we
meet with strange Japanese ware,
monstrous looking animals in bronze,
of Eastern invention, but which never
came out of Noah's Ark-elegant
Japanese Yases-splendid clocks of the
Louis Quatorze period by RObin-buhl
cabinets and marqueterie writing-tables
and other furniture by Reisener, ex-
uuisitely ornamented with ormolu gild-
ing chiSeled by Gonthiere, once the
property Of unfortunate Marie AntOi-
nette, and sold the other day for the
fabulous sums of $4,000 guineaS in that
great dispersion of bric-a-brac and OBJ
iects of art which formed the Hamilton
collection, the sale of which sthe Won
der of the season, and is in process of
contamination by the little ivory ham
mer which, suspended in the fingers of
either Christie or Manson, keeps an
audience of connoisseurs on the tiptop
of excited expectation till the rap comes
on to the desk at the last bidding OF
some well-knOwn and popular pur-
chaser.
The great sale of the FOnthill Beck
ford collection, that of Bernal, followed
by the OHnillnl guther1tm formed by
Horace Walpole, the treasures of
Stowe are all eclipSed 10y the present re-
GREETED breaking up of the Hamilton
Palace gathering together of much that
is finest in painting, sculpture, books,
furniture-in n word, in every element
of all that is most remarkable and
recherche in the history of bric-a-brac.
The sales of the collections we have
named created great sensation when
they took place, but none caused the
stir and animation among the purchas-
ers of curiOsities or objects of art whether
i'm Great Britain or on the Continent,
which the sale now going on has eX-
cited.
Many have expressed regret on the
several occasions of the breaking up of
great collections, forgetting that while
they existed they were generally almost
exclusively enjoyed by their pOSsessOrs
and perhaps a few of their friends. No
doubt inspection of them was attaina-
bic by appreciative persons under regu-
lationS sometimes annoying, and upon
permission not always easy to obtain,
or a. favOrS ungraciously accorded, all
rather tending to show that the treas
ures were gathered together under the
dOg-in-the-manger principle, as de-
light for the few to the exclusion of the
many.
During these later years, however,
the love of objects of art has been so
disseminated among all classes of peO-
pie that thousands are now anxious to
study and appreciate them in place of
the few who formerly had any desire or
would take the trouble to arrive at the
means of seeing them. The South
KensingtOn Museum and many of the
provincial exhibitions of similar charac-
ter have done so much to educate the
public that vast change has taken
place in these matters, and the regrets
of some at the dispersion Of great col
lections is replaced by the pleasure of
the hundreds who feel that now they
are enabled to indulge a taste which
was so long believed the sole perquisite
ola small and narrOw-minded set of
educated admirers. Time and circum-
stances have changed all this. The inn
pecnniosity of many of the aristocratic
and higher classes, and the increase of
wealth among the middle and trading
members of the community have caused
a remarkable transfer of art treasures
from the great mansions of the one to
the more humble, but not less comforta-
bic, houses of the other, and those things
which were considered caviare to the
million have become in their more
modest dwellings daily source of en-
joyment, "a JOY and a beauty forever"
We cannot leave this subject without
the reflection that all is not gold that
glitters, that many Of the curios that
come from WardOur-street and other
mines of bric-a-brac at home and
abroad, are nothing but plausible and
cleverly manufactured forgeries, copies
or limitations of the things their vendors
pretend them to be, foisted on the mex
perienee of the self-sufficient vanity of
credulous purchasers, and which could
not for a moment stand the test or de-
ceive theprobably dearly bought knowl-
edge of any who has suffered from the
tricks of the trade-a trade that is thriv-
ing successfully wherever eonfiding flies
are to be caught by the honeyed words
or impudent assertions of the curiosity
dealer.
We have only to add, that should
any Of our readers fall victims to the
epidemic and be seized with bric-a-
brae mania We give them this advice
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