Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1892-03-11
FRAUDULENT PICTURES.
Spurious Canvases Palmed Off on
Credulous People.
Whole Car Loads of Counterfeit Art
Disposed OF In the Leading Cities
of This Country-A Huge
Swindle.


Within n month there was a picture
sale in New York simply incredible IL
its thievish audacity, says the Collector
on the subject of fraudulent pictures
1t was long line of forgeries of well
known and often-famous names. II
was extensively advertised. The
licensed auctioneer Endorsed it. The
pictures belonged to knavish foreign
er who runs his artistic bunco game IN
the respectable neighborhood of Mad
ison square. Formerly, ] believe, this
rogue had his forgeries painted in
Paris, where he has an artistic connec-
ton.
am told that he now has them exc
cuted here, and so saves himself the
duty at the custom house. He even
grudges the country the small tax il
levies on his swindle. Instead of i'm
porting his forgerics he imports his
compatriots to execute them. They
grind the mill around the corner from
Fifth avenue, instead of in the garrets
of Montmarte, and the Batignolles.
Nor are his frauds confined to New
York. They are spread by his agents
over the whole country, and especially
in the west, where whole cargoes
of counterfeit art are unloaded at job
lot prices The last time / was in Chi
cago. heard big board of trade man
pricing pictures in gallery.
-Four thousand dollars for that Diaz?'
he exclaimed, why, bought one from
Soandoso last week for four hundred
dollars, and it was twice the size"
do not believe in these impeccable
gentlemen who stroll around a gallery
denouncing this, that and t'other as
fraudulent and false "a Il glance. |
never met one of them who could salts
fy me that he had any greater proofs
than his own conceit to support him.
To detect forgery in art man must
be more than 4 casual critic, and he
will not make his decisions finland
like a criticism of comic song. The
most expert of experts is fallible, any
how, and when pictures are turned out
as. for instance, the French painters of
the 1850 school turned them out, by con-
tract, so to speak, the bad with the
good, the worthless with the gems, all
given currency by the magic Of famous
name, it becomes matter of impossi-
bility to render decision except in
cases of the most nagrantly apparent
fraud.
know great many canvaScs OF this
imprint that | would not hang on my
wall as gifts, but do not take it upon
myself to say that these latter are coun-
terfeits. even did think so. 1t is sutli-
Gent for me that they are artistically
worthless, and but for the painters
names would not sell for the value of
average native work in n public sale.
There are pictures by Corot, Diaz, Rous-
seau, etc, in many collections which
show how we'll these great men could
paint when they chose. But the great
est men have done, and ever will do,
work unworthy of them-eXperiments
which they are not satisfied with them
selves, sketches made as memoranda
and left as such. The artist dies. His
accumulations are sold.
And the next thing we know they are
put upon the market.
There is only one point about great
deal of this posthumous rubbish that
is really suspicious-this is that so much
of it is signed. Artists do not make a
practice of signing their sketches or
their incomplete works. Who, then,
signs them? The mere fact that they
are signed would go far TO show that
their market is intrinsic, and dependent
on the name of the artist rather than
the quality of his art. If work of art
sells on its merits, the question of
authorship is of no consequence, and all
our doubts do not lessen the selling
value of the picture.
Wherever the picture fraud goes he
leaves dirty trail. One after another
he has used up the eastern cities so that
each season finds him further westward.
Not only does he prey upon the public
on his own account, but he spoils the
market for others. A couple of years
back, for example, Pittsburgh was fine
art market. A rich and cultured city,
just going in for art, she afforded honest
dealers an opportunity well worth adj
vantaging by. The buzzard drummer
scented the feast and swooped down
upon it, with his job-lot fine arts and his
cut price list Ask any dealer what sort
of market Pittsburgh is to-day. The
most knowing collectors there now
come to New York to buy. The others
do not buy any more. The big cities in
the interior of New York state tell the
same tale, and it is repeated in Wash
ington and in Chicago, There is one
case in the latter city in which batch
of pictures was sold for about thirty
thousand dollars to a newly-made col
lector by rule of cash. If these pictures
had been genuine, in the size and of the
quality claimed for them, they could not
have been bought at even 4 Seney auc-
ton for less than double the money,
and would have sold at private sale
right here in New York for three times
as much. Yet the buyer congratu-
lates himself on his bargain.