Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1884-06-12
The Trade in Modern Antiquities.

One of the chief delights of Cont
mental travel, as every person of ex-
perience will admit, is the unlimited
opportunities it affords for buying an
tiquities. The statuary, the coins, and
the pictures that NAV be purchased in
Italy are a source Of never failing in
terest TO English travellers and of never
falling profit to Italian dealers. An
dalusia, again, is huge curiosity
shop. Being once upon a time in
Seville, we came across 4 retired Brit
ish grocer or tailor. or something of
that kind, who had Just purchased a
Madonna and Child-unhappily, un-
signed-which he had picked up for a
few pounds in dingy back street: He
was going to send it to the Exhibition
of Old Masters, and, if he ever did so,
he probably found that it was worth
only pound or thirty shilling at the
outside. 1t is the same, indeed,
throughout Spain. The altar cloths,
the broken fans, the inlaid tables and
cabinets, rs resplendent as anything in
the convent of the Cartufe At Granada,
the wonderful chairs, and the still
more extraordinary scraps of ancient
lace, upon which all VINO have ever
travelled in Spain have spent much
money-these abound from Malaga to
Irun, and naturally one is inclined to
speculate little on the odd circum-
stance that the supply is more abun-
dant than ever, although the demand
is fairly brisk. Tangers is, we should
say, hot-bed of modern antiquities,
and even Mr.. Chamberlain bought
some of them when he was over there
year or so ago. He ought to have
known something about this class of
goods, being Birmingham man, but
the childlike faith of the President of
the Board of Trade in all things an
cient is notorious. America, oddly
enough, has taken to this business of
manufacturing the antique Dutch cabi-
nets that, with bronze panels, dingy
and marked with the cracks of ticti-
tious centuries, are turned out every
day from Chicago furniture stores, and
for some purposes they are quite as
useful as if they had indeed belonged
to some departed Eurgher in the dead
cities of the Zuyder-Zee. New York
experts in this sort of forgery make
specially of Queen Anne chairs and
tables, and the imitation is so perfect
as to deceive all but those who have
studied such things minutely in Eu-
rope. The explorer of furniture stores
may come upon magnificent specimens
of English Gothic chamber pieces or
ancient-looking Chippendale and Sher-
atom chairs, which might have belong
ed to Queen Elizabeth but for the fact
that they did not. 1t must be puzzling
at first to discover in New York shops
stamped leather chairs of the time of
Louis Treize, plentifully ornamented
with brass nails, whose heads are fully
an inch in diameter, and the citizens
of that enterprising city are invited to
become the happy possessors of as
many of these treasures as they like,
on ridiculously low terms. If, how
ever, the explorer is inquisitive, and
the furniture venders are in tolerably
candid mood, the visitor may be con-
Quoted into some back yard where
these gems of high art are produced.
A Queen Anne's chair just made can,
for instance, be supplied with worm
holes by the simple process of fitting it
bottom side up and firing charge of
pigeon shot into the bottom and front
of the seat. Old armor, too, is good
line in this business, the drawings re-
quired for the purpose being made
from the collection in the Grand Opera
House, in Paris. 1t is said that Bir-
mingham knows something about this
branch of the trade, and that helmets,
shields, casques, breast-plates, and
complete suits of mail are regularly
manufactured for the qualification of
oil Spectators and retired pill manu-
facturers. If u man starts q lot of an
cestors, he likes to have dummies of
them in his hall, rugged in their medi-
eval ironmougery. If Birmingham
did not CRAFTY him, Germany would.
1t is astonishing how many tons of
antiquities are annually sold along the
Rhine, and it is even asserted that in
Castle Colburg, where Martin Luther
threw his ink stand at the devil-and
unhappily, missed him-the original
splash was cut up and sold long ago;
but that as the timber is massive, the
place is carefully reinked every night
for the purposes of sale next day. We
cannot say how much truth or false
hood there may be in this particular
story. There might have been some
excitement in seeing the original tran
saction if both the distinguished parties
to it were present. There can be none
in gazing on patch of ink. The trade
in modern antiquities, however. is a
curious reality, as real as the sale of
old clothes or tombstones. 1t is fact
calculated to weaken ones faith in life.
THE British Trade Journal.