Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-02-08
FRAUDULENT PICTURES.
Spurious Canvases Palmed or on
 Credulous People.
Whole Car Loads of Counterfeit Art Disposed of in the Leading CitIes
 of This Country--A Huge
 SvRfndIa.

Swtndle.
 Within 8 month there was a picture | sale in New York simply incredible in its thievish audacity, says the Collector on the subject of fraudulent pictures. It was long line of forgeries of we'll known and often-famous names. It was extensively advertised. The licensed auctioneer indorsed it. The pictures belonged to knavish foreign CT 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 cl,ted here, and so saves himself the duty at the custom house. He even grudges the country the small tax it levies on his swindle. Instead of inn porting his forgeries 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 a 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 at glance. l never met one of them who could satis- fy mo that he had any greater proofs than his own conceit to support him. To detect forgery in art a man must | be more than a casual critic, and he will not make his decisions off-hand like criticism of a 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 1880 school turned them out, by con tract, so to speak. tue bad with the good, the worthless with the gems, all given currency by the magic of a famous name, it becomes a matter of impossi- bility to render a decision except in cases of the most fagrantly apparent fraud.
 know a great many canvaSes 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. It is sufti- cient for me that they are artistically
 worthless, and but for the painters
 names would not sell for the value of average native work in a public sale.
 There are pictures by Corot, Diaz, Rous- seau, etc, in many collections which show how well these great men could
 paint when they chose. But the great
 est men have done, and ever will do, work unworthy of them-experiment 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 a 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 l are signed would go far to show that , their market is intrinsic, and dependent f on the name of the artist rather than | the Qudl1UY OI HIS dEI II al WOIA O1 II sells on it's merits, the question o1 s authorship is of no consequence, and all
 our doubts do not lessen the selling , value of the picture.
 a Wherever the picture fraud goes he . leaves dirty trail One after another
 he has used up the eastern cities so that r each season finds him further westward 2 Not only does he prey upon the public l l. S. hut ho coniIc , market for others. A couple of year: r back, for example, Pittsburgh was a fine i art market. rich and cultured city
 just going in for art, she afforded hones - dealers an opportunity well worth ad e vantaging by. The buzzard drummer A scented the feast and swooped dow1 Q upon it. with his job-lot fine arts and hi . cut price list. Ask any dealer what sor 2 of a market Pittsburgh is to-day. ThC n most knowing collectors there nov F come to New York to buy The other ? do not buy any more. The big cities il n the interior of New York state tell tht
 same tale, and it is repeated in Wash
 ington and in Chicago There is on'
 case in the latter city in which a batcl ~ of pictures was sold for about thirt, l- thousand dollars to a newly-made col
 lector by rule of cash. If these picture T had been genuine, in the size and of tn Q quality claimed for them, they could no l. have been bought at even a Seney que tion for less than double the money .- and would have sold at private sal l. right here in New York for three time .' as much. Yet the buyer congratu
 lates himself on his bargain.
 A Queer Old Law.
 u A faIu old toll brifloaS down in Main