Year: 1877

lScN OIk CONIcSpODueliCc DUSuOll Gazette: The sale of cheap pictures at auction is not confined exclusively to this city, but I will venture to say that the majority of pictures which are used for that purpose are manu- factured in New York. The business is conducted as regular and legitimate traffic would be, in which the dealer makes his purchases at the lowest price and sells for all he can get. There is furthermore, a fixed tariff for pictures of various sizes, which those who con duct the auction pay for their wares

 The paintings are furnished by the frame-maker, who employs his so-called artists to make pictures to fit the regular sizes and styles of the frames. One painter, who has for many years made good wages in this branch of the profession, 1 am told, receives from twenty-five to fifty cents apiece for his pictures, and makes from one hundred to two hundred per week. His method is as follows: A loft with a sky light is rented over some large store, and strip of prepared canvas, two hundred feet long, is tacked conve- nient height against the wall. The picture which is to he reproduced is placed upon an easel mounted on rol. lers, and is pushed around the room by small boy in front of the "artist. He is provided with some large and some smaller brushes, and with pot of paint of one tint only. He applies this color to the canvas until each pic ture receives its share. Then he goes over the same route with the next col or, and so on until the one hundred pictures of this subject, twenty by twenty.four inches in dimension. are finished. They are then allowed to dry, after which they are cut apart and mounted on stretchers for the frame maker. The frames are of a quality equally cheap, the largest sizes being made of inch boards, painted and pre- pared by machinery, so that they cost but triAe. The gliding is done, not with gold leaf, but with Florentine leaf, which costs about'one-twelfth of what the genuine leaf costs. This material will average only few cents for each frame. They are then inclosed iA a shadow-box. and when completed, the smallest-sizs picture canvas eight by ten inches costs with frame and shadow-box, just twenty-two dollars

 per dozen next larger size-fourteen

 by twenty inches-just thirty dollars

 and the largest sixty dollars per

 dozen. As the pictures in each sale

 throughout the country are the same

 during the season, the catalogues are

 bought by the fifty or hundred thou

 sand, and each auctionecr supplies

 himself with what his trade requires

 There are several grades or auc'

 ton pictures, of which those whose

 manufacture I have just described are

 the lowest. The careful suctioneel

 usually provides himself with few

 higher grade pictures to put in his

 window and to stand on easels neal

 the door, so as to be seen and attract

 the eye of the passer-by. This is

 technically termed "fronting the sale

 with good pictures, as farmer "faces'

 basket of peaches with the choicest fruit. 1 know of one painter in this city who works exclusively for auction trade, and makes more money than most of the conscientious artists. He receives four dollars and a half for pictures twenty by thirty inches, and makes from fifteen to twenty week.

 He never copies the work of other painters, nor does he repeat his own pictures. He says that it would take too much time. Each picture is a genuine and original composition, and through practice he has acquired this remarkable facility of design and execution. I can not say that his pictures are good, neither can say that they are wholly bad, but can say that they would puzzel many peo- pie who consider themselves possessed of critical judgment. Another class of auction pictures is made by skillfully painting photographs, usually figure subjects, which are afterwards mounted on panels and thickly yarn. ished. After they have Teen framed handsomely, and put under glass, they become a very dangerous quality of picture. The designs are, of course, excellent, and the color and handling good; so good, indeed, that I have known of experienced dealers being deceived and paying high prices for these worthless works of art. These pictures are framed cxpensivcly, and every precaution is taken to deceive the purchaser. saw one of this sort sell for five hundred dollars in down. town auction shop during the winter. To the credit of the auctioneer, it must be said that he had been fooled on the picture by flash dealer, and tha. when he discovered the swindle, he event for" the swindler, who pre- tended that he had been imposed up- on. The longer I study this subject the more convinced am I of the dan ger of buying pictures without first obtaining the opinion of an expert, whose technical knowledge would shield the buyer from swindles, for there is more deception practiced in the picture trade, as such, than in any other branch of industry, unless you