The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-08-11
Are the Art Fakers.
Forse Equally With Pen and Brush-Produce OLD
or Modern Master, According to Market--Their
Craft an Ancient One. :: =: :: :: =:
X X X X X X

While the taking of work" of art
has been brought to a high perfection
by the methods of modern science,
the industry probably began many
thousands of years ago, when some
cave man copied a rock sketch OF a
mammoth and signed it with famous
initials. 1t is a sad fact hat scarabs
wrapped up with Egyptian mummies
centuries before the Christian era
were often counterfeits produced for
the foreign markets by unprincipled
countrymen of Plato. The period OF
the Renaissance was fertile in imita-
lions. Michael Angelo himself began
his career by burying in the earth a
statue which he carved and thus
turned it into a valued antique. An
drea del Sarto copied Raphael's por-
trait of Leo X, and it is still a ques-
ton whether the picture now at Ma
pies is the original or the copy. The
younger David Teniers made it his
business to supply the world with
multiplied Titians, and another able
counterfeiter kept the memory of Jan
van Huysum green a generation after
the artists death. The wise collector
'reckons not only with modern frauds,
but with the receptions of the old
masters and the ancients.
1t takes art to conceal art. There
is a problem of production and of dis
tribution. A favorite method of dis
tribution is Ito place pictures with a
wet nurse" says Helen Zimmern, in
the National Review. A picture dark
with smoke and dust is hung in some
peasants house in a remote district.
The dealer informs his prey Of a
great discovery and takes him to see
the canvas. The Instructed peasant
vows that the picture is an heirloom;
it has always hung in the same place
from the time of his fathers father,
and he can hardly be induced to sell
it. Finally he names a large figure
as the price. A bargain, whispers the
dealer, and after a little dickering the
customer is out and the dealer and
his rural collaboration are most profit
ably in. When genuine old pictures
are found in peasants houses they
are generally injured owing to prim-
tive cleanings with onions, which
takes off the varnish and some of the
colors. But these wrecks are eagerly
sought by dealers as the basis for res
torations sold as genuine antiques.
An expert who works for s1.25 a day
can turn out tasty old masters calcu-
lated to deceive the most cultured in
habitants Of Pittsburg.
The Italians have a peculiar SYM
pathetic faculty for reproducing the
works of their illustrious ancestors.
At Siena the panels for quaint old
pictures with gold backgrounds may
be seen openly drying before the shop
doors. The panels are suitably worm
eaten and chemically aged. Some
times an ingenious patchwork of the
Giottesque period is made of a num-
Der Of old but ruined pictures, and so
cleverly are the fragments combined
that purchasers are advised to select
simple compositions with few figures
10 as to avoid this particular hoax.
: Bogus Marks Of Age.
It used to be considered an infalli-
BE test of old pictures to rub the sur
face with alcohol, which causes the
varnish and colors of new paintings
to run. But the art forgers have i'm
ported from Mexico the juice Of a cac-
tus, used by the natives as a weather
preservative for their huts, which,
being spread on a painting, protects
it from the attacks of chemicals. The
test of looking at the back of a panel
faker, who attaches by means of a
special paste his copy or pastiche to
the canvas or panel Of some genuine
but worthless old painting. The n.y.
brid product is baked in an oven to
harden the glue n cause the be-
loved cracks of venerability. Wood
ashes and smoke also impart age,
while that warm, golden tint that
is the collectors Joy" is gained by
rubbing the canvas with liquorice |
juice. Authentic fyspecks are pro-
duced with beautiful simplicity. The
operator stands a few feet from the
canvas and with a fine brush dipped
in a mixture of gum and China ink |
or sepia ficks enough fly marks upon
the painting to make it look as if it |
had reposed on the walls of an Amer
lean farm kitchen for several centu-
ries. If these artificial certificates of |
age are accidentally too numerous
some of them can be removed before !
the liquid has set.
When a copyist finds himself in a
technical hole, as rarely happens
among these skilled gentry, he blurs
the painting at the difficult spot and, !
applying a damp cloth, causes a