The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-19
STORIES OF ART FoRGER1Es.
Discovery of skillfully Executed Cop
 ies of Works of Great Masters.


 The sensational discovery that out Of 25O pictures in the Holburne Art Musuem, Bath, attributed to the great est painters the world has known nearly two hundred are forgeries raises a grave doubt, says the London Iit-Bits, as to the genuineness of the treasures of art in our galleries and museums.
 It Is not long since the Corot land- scape presented by the Prince of Wales to the Dublin Art Gallery was pronounced 8 fraud by some of our leading critics, the bold tiara of Safta- pharnes, in the Louvre Museum, was ulscoVered to be a forgery, the Nell son statuette in the musuem of the united Service Institution said to have been presented by George III, to the great Admiral was similarly condemn ed, or since Mr MacWhirter, lR. Al. exposed large number of sham Cor ots, Turner's, and Constables.
 Mr. Firth, R. A, told us recently of collection of Landseers and other modern masters on which a private collector had lavished a fortune and every one of which was forgery while many of the cherished pictures in Continental- galleries are declared to be just as fraudulent "There are,p says Mir. MacWhirter. mot enough old masters to go around. There are more of their reputed works than could possibly have been painted. Hundreds of limitations are sold as genuine
 So skilfully, too, are these forgeries produced that even clever artists are deceived by them. Some years ago MT. MacWhirter himself purchased a. disreputable old canvas from an Ital- ian sailor, of which the vender rave a very plausible history. The paint ing, "A Holy Family" had, he said. been stolen from a church by a Greek sailor, and as it had all the appearan- ces of q genuine old master the R. A. gladly paid 40 pounds for it, Tt turn ed out to be a blend of seven old mastesr done few years back by hack painter who knocked them off by the dozen."
 MT Rudolf Lehman tells an anus ing story of a similar imposition prac- tised on himself. Returning to Rame after some years absence he was at- tracted by picture which he saw in the shop of an art dealer. It was an "old master" and the dealer, after mentioning a tall figure for it, gave most impressive and detailed history of the canvas. Fortunately for Mir. Lehmann, he too, knew something of it's history, for yeans before he had painted it himself and had thought so little of it that when he shut up his studio in Rome he left it benind as lumber!
 Corot, not long before his death, chanced to pay a visit to the studio of young artist and was amazed to find no fewer than thirty canvases, all splendid limitations of his own work and all bearing his signature, Sidney Cooper, too, once stated in a court of law that of 150 "Coopers' that had been submitted to him only eleven were genuine and MT. Dudley sHardy said, referring to forgeries tof his fathers pictures:
 Tt is quite true that there are liter ally thousands of spurious T B. Hardys in dealers shops and private collections, and it is time that the fraud should be exposed I have often been consulted by intending pur- chasers of my fathers work and should only be too glad to place my advice at the disposal of any one who is in doubt about the genuineness of supposed T. B. Hardys. I think I owe it to my fathers reputation to help in suppressing the nefarious practice which has been going on for years.''
 An interesting story which shows with what fidelity the work of even such a difficult artist as Turner can be initiated is told in connection with Ruskin. In 1875 he sent numbers of fac similes of Turner's pictures to Lon don exhibition with this note. q have given my best attention during up- ward of ten years to train copyist to perfect fidelity in rendering the works of Turner, and have now sue ceeded in enabling him to produce fac sln1les so near as to look like replicas- fac-similes which I must sign with my name to prevent their being sold for real vignettes.
 In another case a well known firm of West End dealers for ra4,OOO a can vas which they were quite satisfied was a Constable, and sold 1t to a peer for 96,OO0 more than they paid for it. Great was their amazement when the picture was pronounced forgery by an expert. Legal proceeding followed, and it was ultimately discovered that the Constable was the work of a liv- ing artist in' the North of England, who had been glad to dispose of it for e2O0
 More remarkable still is the story told of Landseer. One day the famous animal painter was present at an auc- tion sale at which two "Landseers"- one genuine, the other admittedly a copy-were offered. The two canvases were submitted to Sir Edwin, who after a careful examination pronounc- ed both of them his own work When artists, critics and dealers are thus imposed on by forgeries It is little wonder that private collectors or even the experts of our public galleries are viotimized.