The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-22


 of statuary or an object of bric-a-brac that looks old, venerable and very much the real thing. They also Go not under
 stand that every day people of modest
 wealth are as liable to be duped as are
 the very rich Everybody knows, of
 rourse that many of the multi-million- aires who have art collections have been swindled time and again. Even royalty
 may be fooled Everybody remembers the case of the masterpiece alleged to be by Corot which King Edward in all in- nocence gave to an art association some time ago and which was promptly chal- lenged by competent critics as bogus. What most people do not appreciate, however, is that through exhibitions or
 works asserted to be by old masters the public in various American cities Is fooled year after year.
 The low prices at which masterpieces" are often sold to Americans ought the connosseurs say, to arouse suspicion. Any undoubtedly genuine work of art nowadays commands its figure in the primary art centers of the world-that is in London, Paris, or to a certain ex- tent in New York. The demand for well authenticated pictures has been such that the appreciation In values has been
 startlingly rapid. Dealers in London are today begging to buy back rom their customers work at from three to twen- ty times what they were sold for 10 or 15 years ago. Every scrap that one of the old masters ever drew or painted is
 preserved and held for prices that sound almost fabulous.
 Yet in spite of the scarcity of genuine pictures and antiquities, the number of schemes for rigging the American mar ket increases all the while. One Paris ian dealer the magnitude of whose op- erations is internationally famous, em- ploys a number of expert copyists who R-x. .rlr- .t..Ix h | buys at auction. The original Is kept | in the owners private collection, per haps to be sold quietly years afterwards, while the copy is put into one of his ex- l hibitions that are sent over to the Unit ed States The circumstances Of the pur- chase of the masterpiece at famous | sale are correctly given to the American public: the only "out'' is that the master l piece itself never comes to these shores. One feature of the dispersal of bogus | works of art to which attention will un- | doubtedly be called in any campaign of | education is the conduct of the big auc- | tions that are held In various cities. | These take place annually with just | about the same accompaniments. Every appearance of responsibility is scrupu- | lously kept up. The exhibition is pro- claimed in we'll printed circulars an- nouncing that distinguished art dealer of Paris or London has acquired in his European travels a number of choice works which are to be shown to the pub 1 lie of the city. They are on free ex- hibtion for three or four days and then are auotioned off for what they will bring. Tn such collections number of really good things are usually included. To these the dealer points with pride as having been acquired from well known and reputable art houses of New York or London. They are sold along with the l.,,t tl,a nfa hot the obscure persons by whom they are
 bought are not familiar as residents of the city. The same genuine picture ap- pears in various cities at auction after auction while works that are unques- tionably fraudulent are dispersed among American homes.
 Another very common device for get ting rid of bogus art is through the sale
 of estates. wealthy man dies leaving
 collection of pictures, bric-a-brac and
 furniture, gathered through many years
 of changing tastes It contains prob
 ably some things that are good, some
 very bad. When the whole collecton.i is
 put up at auction a lot of other works
 which the original collector never saw in
 his life are mixed in and raff1ed off to
 the public which attaches no significance
 whatever to a phrase with additions"
 inserted somewhere in inconspicuous type
 in the catalogue. That phrase covers
 the law and at the same time enables
 the purveyor of the spurious to get rid
 of large consignment of fakes.
 Still another way by which fraudulent
 works are sometimes. dispersed is by of fering them as collater4f. An alleged col
 lector, In league with the art dealer,
 makes the acquaintance of men of
 wealth. Presently the "connoisseur" an-
 nounces that he has got into financial
 difficulties and that he must raise money
 arti of nj uyh
 tains such and such masterpieces and
 which is worth, say. s200.000. From some
 of his new friends he secures accommo-
 daton of perhaps s50,0O0. Later on the
 note is not met, and the lender finds himself in possession of a very large as-
 semblage of pictures which if genuine would make him one of the leading art collectors of the world Sometimes, as in one recent case, the accommodating one discovers that he has been victim ized. There probably have been instances. however, when the new collector has
 died, happy in the envy of his friends and neighbors, who regard him as sec ond only to J. Pierpont Morgan in his
 understanding of art values.
 The only safe rule, say those who have inaugurated this campaign of education, is for the American business man not to buy pictures or other works of art on his own responsibility. In most cities there are artists who would be glad to be consulted by any intended purchasers. How much can be accomplished by campaign to call attention to the perls | of the would-be art collector is still | doubtful The pitfalls are many. Imita- | tion of every known species cf art has | become so expert that even good Judges | are sometimes deceived. The men who | make the limitations are, if not great art | fists. at least persons endowed with a 1 certain unquestioned ability. They sell l their services at living wage to the | Parisian art dealers They have their l specialties One painter excels in imi- | tations of portraits by Clouet with their nrotruding foreheads Another succeeds