Year: 1874

can art 10y the revelations of certain iraudu-
lent transactions charged against American
sculptors in Italy. People well acquainted
with the subject were aware, long before
these revelations, that there existed a system
OF art manufacture which might strictly be
placed on the border land of fraud, if not well
within the frontier But when the facts, or
what were alleged to be the facts, were placed
before the public, charges so sweeping wers
made against regulations that were held to
have been honestly and fairly acquired, that
doubts as to their justness were pretty gene
rally entertained. With the vexed question
whether certain American sculptors have
availed themselves unduly of the aid Of other
artists We have nothing to do. 1t is subject
on which it would be unjust to advance an
opinion without the possession of such data as
could only be obtained in court of law. But
the whole question of the status of American
art in Europe is again brought under dis
cussion by the publication of letter
signed by some Italian and American
artists, in which the existence Of
fraudulent practices in art il clearly asserted.
LID tiluo ucltucE iHuiNi AOA
have been mentioned but only the broad fact
that certain persons" have been guilty of
fraudulent dealing by which unwary tourists
have been victimized As the statement is
here put there can be no question of its cor
rectness. But it is only justice to our
American artists to state that if some pre-
tenders have brought disgrace on the pro-
fession the black sheep are by no means con-
fined to Americans, nor are the vic
Tins always simple Yankees. Sculp-
ture has always been the favorite
refuge of pretenders in art, because the
nature of it's processes renders the cheat very
difficult of detection. 1t is so in England,
in Italy and probably in other countries as
well as America Many public statues in
England, in Canada, and probably elsewhere,
have been erected bJ charlatans totally in
competent to perform the work which was in
trusted to them by an intelligent public or
by partial friends Canada boasts of several
of these public monuments that bear the
name of q man who has tact enough to secure
commissions, but who trusts wholly to
the skill Of other men to perform the artistic
part of the work. SO others might be quoted
to show that charlatanism in art is by no
means confined to America; but here the press
is free to hold up to scorn the mountebank
and cheat who betrays the confidence Of the
public and SO transactions of a doubtful char
acter soon get ventilated, while in Europe the
reserve imposed by the laws allows the dis
honest trader in fraudulent art to pursue
his practices without much danger of
detection by the public. But among
the artists these black sheep are known.
Those Americans residing in Italy who have
made very sweeping charges against their own
countrymen were, no doubt, impelled by the
best motives, but unconsciously they have
done great injustice to American artists by
failing to point out that the practices they
condemned were common to the black sheep
of all countries and not peculiarly chargeable
against Americans. So long as men will con-
tinue to purchase art works as q matter Of
fashion rather than from any real love of art
frauds will continue to be perpetrated. If
purchasers would avoid the danger of being
vlctimized let them seek out the objects OF
their patronage in the studio rather than the
drawing room.


DEATH TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Tribune
expressvely sums up sad feature of the
pending scandal when it says: meantime
the wing of the woman suffrage champions
with whom the Tiltons specially associated
appear reyellino in the general nastincss, and