New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-06-25
ENGLISH ART SALES.
Romances of AUCTION Room-Amer-
lean Investments IN English Masters.
London. June IL


famous Van Eyck. Jan Arnoldfni and His
Wife" which was a Bruges barber-surgeon's
Gift to Queen Regent; there are the treasures
NJ the palaces, works like Van Dycks portrait Of
charles and CorTegsio's Mercury 1nstructing
ounid in the Presence of Venus" which were
sad by the Crornwellans for song and bought
hack after many vicissitudes at high cost there
,s the Parish Clerk" which Gainsborough gave
70 an honest carrier: and there is the sumptu-
ans Family OF Darius" which veronese painted
during his convalescence in Italian villa and
left behind in acknowledgment OF the kind
treatment received from his host-a masterpiece
for which over S6Soo0 was eventually paid.
f-r-Istie's is also fascinating realm of romance
where neglected pictures from the backstairs of
country houses auctioned off for thousands
NJ sIineas. or drinking cups for which sixteenth
century craftsmen We're paid in shlngs for their
drudgery are sold for more than $4,000 orna-
npents for American dining rooms. What grim
sport there must be for ghosts. if that bustling
salesroom in King-st., where a smooth faced.
dry voiced auctioneer keeps the run OF the
euineas and occasionally taps the desk with
hammer. be haunted place.
How eloquent would be the spirit rappings OF
George Morland. if these could be heard when
his works held I'D before a fashionable
throng Saturday afternoons and the rival
dealers begin to compete for them! His stern
fathers prediction that he would either be
hanged would turn out genius can be IA
vorabIy interpreted when a little work ike The
Dancing Dogs for which he was glad TO take
IS suineas, commands a buzz Of ad
rniration at Christies and 1000 guneas as a
record price. Genius seems to have won the
day when a hastily painted sketch Of an timer
ant Snowman making a monkey and some dogs
dance in front of cottage door has so high
valuation placed upon 1t: and the final victory
is not surprising when Morland's father,
mother and grandfather painters before
him, and he came naturally by his vivacity of
style. his bold craftsmanship and his habits Of
observation Yet when that work was painted
the artist a spendthrift and drunkard,
working in debtors prisons and spongins
houses. carousing with boon companions when
ever dealer would advance him few guineas
and plungng from one excess or vagary into
another. Who could have ventured 10 forecast
his ultimate triumph artist on that gloomy
day when he buried in obscure church
gard on Hampstead Road, drunkard who had
always been in debt? Yet it has come at last;
and in consequence of the high prices at Chris
ties for The Dancing Dogs and "Higglers in
the Morning. all the Morlands. with which town
and country houses are well stocked. have in
creased heavily in value.
There is also rising market for Raeburns.
une when she was twenty-five, and never knew
what it was TO struggle for living. his success
as a portrait painter being uninterrupted and
complete, first in Edinburgh and finally in Lon
don. He was an industrious painter, who was
content with receiving small prices for his work,
and when he died a large collection of his por-
traits were kept together by his executors. This
collection Of forty-nine portraits was sold In
1877. half century after his death, for an ag-
M
Lord Tweedmouth's pictures were dispersed at
auction, one of these portraits, that of Lady
Raeburn. charming combination of whites ami
browns was sold for S.7G0 guineas. For this
PORTRAIT and another Of Sir Henry Raeburn HIM
self. in dark coat, yellow waistcoat and white
stock. 1850 guineas was paid thirty years ago.
There was z slight decline in values when the
pair were resold in 1887 for 1920 guineas, but
on Saturday. when a standard was estab-
Tshed. the two portraits between them brought
1920 gufneas having advanced tenfold in
eighteen wears The other Raeburns from
Brook House were sold at high prices. The por-
trait OF Sir Walter Scott, which was once in the
possession OF the poet Campbell ran UP from
200 guineas the previous auction price, to 1OoO
guineas, and the portrait Of Mrs Oswald OF
Auchincruive a white robed beauty, with
shapely neck and gold earrings, for which Zoo
guineas was paid in 1887, was fercely COM
reted for and finally sold for 3,6O0 guineas- Ihls
was not the good lady of Auchincruive whose
funeral pageantry drove Burns out OF a COM
Portable inn on a frosty night and inspired the
gloomy ode "Dweller in yon dungeon dark;
but il was the fair Lucy tombstone, whose
beauty and graces dazzled the poet so COM
pleteIy that he at first resolved 10 say nothing
at all about her lin despair of saying anything
adequate" and finally wrote the charming poem
20 wat ye wha's in yon toun" in praise of her
Ioveliness The sweet lady's portrait is now
eighteen times as valuable as it was eighteen
years ago. and has kept company as long as
possible with Lady Raeburn, who headed the
advance in prices and kept it Lady Raeburn
was the painters good genius from the moment
when. as the fascinating widow of Count Leslie
she set her cap for him. and even as she enabled
him with her money to take Sir Joshua's aoVice
and to prepare himself for his career oy TWO
years study in Italy, also by this portrait
she lifts the values Of all his works and places
them close behind the Gainsboroughs ana
Reynoldses as priceless masters of the Ensnsn
school of portraiture
Other pictures sold at Christie's disclosed the
1arne upward tendency In valuea ana the con-
trssts between the painters earnings ana the
dealers 'speculations. Hogarths Assembly at
Wanstead House" with portraits OF the nrst Edli
of TyIney and many of his relatives, was soo TOT
f2T5o-a big price for small work aosarI
himself received $50 for IL from his patron anu
considered himself lucky to get so much TOT III
and well he might, when he had started IN MS
career as a proofreader and engraveT OF sriiis
and shop bills. John Hoppner, born 10 poverty III
whitechapel and struggling stIenuously 10 Keep
soul and BODY together while he was learning