The connoisseur : essays on the romantic and picturesque associations of art and artists

Front matter

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Preface

Italian Renaissance,” “ Royal Patrons,” and “ A Patron of Later Days,” are intended to give some account of the classes of men who have enabled artists to live and work. Those on “ An Intriguing Sculptor” and “The Troubles of an Architect ” sketch the vexations of the artistic life.

“Pliny and Horace Walpole” and “The Indispensable Vasari” are typical historians of the world’s masterpieces.

“The Story of the Gem” shows how an entire branch of art may come at last to be utterly neglefted, while the chapters on “Jewels and Precious Stones ” and “ The Goldsmith and Silversmith ” draw attention to two of the most attractive of the “ minor arts.”

Lastly, the sketches of “ Art and War ” and “ Art and Religion ” suggest some of the external influences which have afleCted artistic production.

F. S. R.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. What People Collect i

II. The Ideal Collector 15

Chapter I. What People Collect

What do lovers of art collect? There is a large proportion of persons who, because they have never turned their minds to it, would be unable upon the spur of the moment to suggest anything beyond the accustomed phrase, “ Pictures and old china.”

It is to this class that the thought of such a place as the South Kensington Museum conjures up only recollections of a smell from hot-air gratings which were noisy to walk upon, and of a refreshment room which was only too difficult to find. Perhaps it Would surprise them to learn that if you have a gallery large enough to house them, you may collect almost all things, from a cast of the Trajan column to the front of a public-house. But not far from the first, concerning which we perpetually wonder how it ever got there, is the “ Sir Paul Pindar,” built in 1600, to prove that after all the collectors field is not so very closely restricted.

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What People Colled*.

There are, of course, many kinds of collections. It is possible for the directors of a great national museum to transplant bodily the whole front of an Indian house, with a sinister effigy of its murderous-looking owner sitting retired in the balcony, or to fill long galleries with the great sculptured stones of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. The private individual feels his impotence in the presence of these achievements. Not for him, as a rule, are the lofty tabernacles and pulpits, screens and fonts from French and German churches, the singing galleries, well-heads and capitals in sculptured marble from Italy, the curious church doors from Norway which recall by their colour and intricacy the Maori carvings of New Zealand.

What a vast field does the word sculpture cover ! We think naturally of the great works of Greece and Rome, but the Italian works of the Renaissance are a revelation. Could anything be more beautiful than Agostino Busti’s recumbent figure of Gaston de Foix, who met an untimely death at Ravenna ? Can those calm, classical features be those of the atrocious youth who, at the age of two-and-twenty years, put the helpless people of Brescia to the sword ? How lovely are the fragments of his tomb, which, like his life, was left for ever incomplete ! And the great reliefs of Della Robbia, in terra cotta covered with enamel colours ; how wonderfully has the burnt clay defied the storms of four hundred years !

“ But all this,” you will say, “ is too big and 2

What People Collect.

too cold for a colle6lor really to love and treasure. Something more intimate, more personal, than these detached ornaments of church and tomb is required to excite enthusiasm.” To everyone it is not given to be stirred by sculptured marble, even though it speak like the life itself in the child heads of Donatello, — but have patience, good sir, there is more here than mere stone and clay and plaster. Hitherto your tired eye has passed in but general review over the innumerable cases in these courts which have so oppressed you with their dazzling multiplicity. Life is not long enough, you have felt, to tarry over each separate piece of handiwork, however dainty. The more minute, indeed, the workmanship, the more wasted the ingenuity of him who spent so long upon affairs so trivial. “ Did that steel coffer really entail a year of labour, that ivory casket another twelve months of toil ? ” Yes, and perhaps longer still, for we have read of a decade spent upon the cutting of a tiny gem. “ Life had need to have gone slowly in those days,” you say, “to justify such expense of workmanship. A hopeless prisoner, or a monk condemned to lifelong seclusion, might amuse himself with such childish intricacies. But the justification of it for a man free to turn his hand to honest, useful labours, tell me where that lies.” Truth to tell, if ever justification were required for art, it is in face of this overpowering congeries of things brought from the ends of the earth, and precluded for ever more from their fundlion of beautifying the everyday

What People Collect.

life of their first owners. Wrenched from their proper environment and crowded thus together, they do afford some ground for condemnation by the rank utilitarian. But if we tell him that they are gathered together as examples, amongst other purposes, for present and future craftsmen, he would resent them all the more. “ That steel coffer might have been as strong to protect without those arabesques, the ivory casket as convenient without those sculptured figures.’' This utilitarian sentiment has crept even into the minds of some of those who make such trifles now. A reticence of ornament unloved in the Renaissance times is commended. The highest kind of decoration, some say, is that which helps to usefulness. All else is superfluous. A grand simplicity is to be our watchword, and so now we are turning out little useful-artistic coffee-pots, and wall-papers so full of simplicity that we have almost succeeded in persuading ourselves that the useful is the true ornamental. But why should the artist or the lover of art try to set themselves right with the utilitarian ? The philosophy of the beautiful is a subjeft in which we can flounder long enough without finding any definite conclusion. Let us leave it to those who prefer theories of art to art itself — a class whom we confess we have always suspefted of an indifferent capacity for appreciating the contents of a museum.

Truly there is something appalling in the contemplation of a great collection of works of art. That a large fraction of man’s life should

What People ColledL

have been expended on some trifle no bigger than a filbert, so that one can say, “ I hold here in the hollow of my hand a month or a year, maybe, of the life-work of some nameless German or Italian craftsman, with all the aspirations that centred in his craft ; ” that this, too, should be but one infinitesimal, thousandth part of what is hoarded here ; these are things hard to realize in a day when such gewgaws are made for the most part by machinery in thousands all alike. But with this thought, perhaps, we have found that loophole of justification which a tenderness for the Philistine has for the moment made us fancy is required. Look round this great collection, and you will be hard put to it to find two single items which are alike as nowadays we make them. There are vast series of sculpture, furniture, arms, earthenware, all the categories of art ; but though you may find resemblance, you will seek in vain for exact similitude. Each object is the record of a human effort, short or prolonged, as the case may be, but still human, not of the machine — an effort, too, of the highest part of our nature, that which competes and strives to obtain the best of which it is capable. For in the realms of the finest art there is no standing still, no attaining to a fixed level of capacity. A man shall not say, “ I will execute this adequately, and so succeed.” No, of the most that we see here the craftsman has said, “ This time I will surpass myself.” So it is that these objects of art which thousands pass by with a careless glance

What People Collect.

to gape at something which bulks larger to the eye, are so many expressions of the unspoken poetry of art, so many examples of the effort for perfection. Often, too, the craftsman has been in his grave a thousand years or more before the full meed of appreciation is paid him. By then his name has long been lost, and his handiwork, perhaps, is crumbling to decay. Then at last we awake to the artistic value of some negleCted trifle of which the original giver but lightly thought, and the recipient valued only for the givers sake. The artist cherished his work, no doubt, and was loath to part with it, as every artist is, even for the sum received, which was not great, but was consoled to think that perhaps one here or there might appreciate its delicacies. Years pass by, and at last there are found a few who can enter into the feeling which inspired the patient skilful craftsman, can note his advancement in design, and appraise the freedom of execution which the hesitating hand has at last attained. Those who can do this are collectors born. To them the artist and the craftsman need no justification. They know that his art was to the artist in great part his religion, and that no bad way of praising God is to do the best with the artistic talent He has given you.

Our objeCt, however, is not to preach upon the claims of a religion of art, or even a colleCtors appreciation of it, but to consider what a collector deals with. If we try to make a mental arrangement of the items that the col-

What People Collecft.

ledtor may hunt after, the variety of material is only surpassed by the multitude of forms and uses to which the material is adapted. If we confine ourselves to a single material such as bone or ivory, we find that it embraces such different objedts as caskets and pocket-books, combs and crucifixes. At Copenhagen is the crucifix which belonged to Gunhilde, the niece of Canute the Great. At South Kensington is a marvellous cup, more curious than entirely artistic, perhaps, made in 1681 by Senger, ivory craftsman and turner to Cosimo III., Grand- Duke of Tuscany, Of an earlier date are oddshaped carved rests to prevent the hands of scribes when writing from soiling the crabbed charadters of the fifteenth century. Here are horns or “ oliphants ” of Byzantine workmanship, chessmen, pyxes or ciboriums, pen-cases and ink-horns from Turkey, pastoral staffs, wands of office, and even chains of ivory to deck some portly major-domo’s chest. Here, too, are ivory dice, sundials, scent bottles, and powder flasks. Of the seventeenth century are French tobacco graters elaborately ornamented with such themes as that of Venus instructing Cupid, or Harlequin disporting with a viol da gamba. Of the eighteenth century are seals, walking-stick handles, and powder-puff boxes from Germany, while with the date of 1780 are charming ivory buttons from Normandy. But of all the achievements of the artist in sculptured figures and medallions in ivory, perhaps the most enchanting, though some say they

What People Collecft.

lack the finest finish, are those six Italian seventeenth century plaques of little fauns and satyrs by Francis Duquesnoy, called “II Fiammingo.” So much for a single material. This long list has hardly exhausted the variety of objefts to which the artist in ivory has at different ages turned his cunning hand.

But let us suppose that an intending collector, despairing to cover the unlimited breadth of such a field, should determine to confine himself to one or two common forms. Let us see what choice he has in such useful articles as knives and forks and spoons. That they too are made in ivory goes without saying, but the collector will find himself trenching on the domain of many different craftsmen. Spoons are to be seen made with handles enamelled in relief, or deftly decorated with filigree and enamel combined. The Italians used crystal and dark red jasper in the sixteenth century, and blue glass in the seventeenth. The French amused themselves a hundred years ago by gracing ebony with ornaments both of silver and of gold. From Germany, with the date of 1676, comes a spoon entirely of boxwood. A portrait of a fat Elector is carved in the bowl ; Adam and Eve are embracing on the stem ; close by them are the Virgin and Holy Child, while to crown this incongruity a monkey tips the end. Germany sends also spoon handles in ivory, with silver wire inlay, coloured with green and red ; or in marquetry of tortoiseshell and mother of pearl ; while of plainer material are specimens in amber

What People Collect.

and even common iron ; but that is glorified byengraving of the highest artistic excellence. Though the workmen of a past day rejoiced to use the precious metals, they did not disdain to exercise their craft to the utmost upon the commonest materials. If you wish for confirmation of this, observe to what artistic uses mere leather can be applied. Not confined to human footgear or the trappings of horses, leather has been used for such domestic articles as caskets and comb-cases, or such warlike objects as richly decorated shields. Can skill of hand much further go than in this sword-sheath, with its multifarious ornament of lovely figures and medallions ? An historic relic is this, for it belonged to Caesar Borgia, whose monogram is on it thrice repeated. It was made for him, perhaps, by the famous artist Pollajuolo, to be carried at the coronation of Frederick of Aragon as King of Naples in 1497. Much indeed has been done with the common “ cuir bouilli” as a material for the display of the artist’s loving skill.

If, again, we turn to what is collectively denominated “ plate,” we discover, besides an unsuspected variety of form, the same love of beautifying cheap material. We find the common stoneware of Cologne, bought for a few pence, decorated with a few shillingsworth of silver, and turned by the silversmiths of Exeter into a work of art for which the collector is glad to pay ^200 or more. He will pay as much for a “ mazer ” bowl of mere maple-wood with

What People Collect.

less silver and ornamentation still. In this category of plate we find mounted such things as oriental china, shells of the nautilus and trochus, cocoanut and ostrich eggs, gourds and cow’s horns ; while for the matter of shape the artist has exercised himself in such curious forms as those of birds and ships and shoes.

Steel is a metal the craftsman has delighted especially to honour, because it is the material of weapons of war and chase. To the mind of a wealthy noble, or mere soldier of fortune, how could an artist be more suitably employed than in decorating a good blade of Solingen or Toledo ?

Wonderful, too, were the feats of the Moors in damascening shields and daggers. But most fascinating to us are those dainty little rapiers known as “ dress swords,” which form a class apart. What pictures of court gallants, what suggestions of intrigue and duels do they conjure up ! If we could only see the young bloods who once flourished these in night affrays or crossed them in the stately figures of the dance, whilst their ladies passed with smiling faces upturned beneath the avenue of steel !

But steel in England has graced the fair sex also to advantage. An interesting collection might be made of the graceful buckles, clasps, bracelets, buttons, and fan handles which our English craftsmen used to make a hundred years ago.

We cannot hope, indeed, within the limits of one short chapter to describe what people may

What People Collecft.

or do collect. If we think of personal adornment, there, besides jewellery, are watches, fans, and snuff-boxes made of every material and gathered from every country. Each different class has formed the subjedl of some enthusiastic collectors exclusive study. Should a man confine himself to the peasant ornaments of different nationalities, he will have enough to occupy his thoughts ; or should he colleCt only finger-rings, he finds the field too vast when he compares the great thumb or signet ring of a pope with a French betrothal ring or the wedding ring that graced some Jewish bride.

When mere personal ornament implies so much, what are we to say of the larger objects of household use which art has beautified ? The inlaid “cassoni” of Italy, the carved oak of our own country, the gilded elaborations from France of Louis Quinze and Seize are too many to describe. A pathetic interest attaches to that lovely escritoire a toilette made by David in tulip and sycamore for the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. When, too, some cabinet of Florentine marquetry, with houses and landscapes of inlaid wood, is found to conceal a little chamberorgan ; or a masterpiece in ebony, lapis lazuli, and marble reveals the strings of a clavecin or spinet, we learn that we have come upon another field. Who would not wish to possess the Italian virginal which belonged to Queen Elizabeth, that German organ which Luther is said to have owned, or the harpsichord on which Handel played ?

What People Collecft.

We have said nothing of textile fabrics, but the collector has busied himself with the splendid carpets of Persia, the ancient garments from the tombs of Egyptians, and the shrouds of buried Copts. If these are too faded and sepulchral for our taste, we may amuse ourselves with the tapestry of Flanders, or with those gorgeous ecclesiastic embroideries, the albs, and chasubles of Italy and Spain. Or, if these last are of too brilliant a hue, we can turn to the Italian laces, Venetian rose-point, or the pillow — made of Brussels, Mechlin, or Valenciennes.

How can we hope to describe what the lover of the ceramic art may gather around him ? We knew well a collector who confined himself to some branches of English pottery alone. When we have recalled the names of W orcester, Staffordshire and Chelsea, of Bristol and Lambeth Delft and Fulham stoneware, we have mentioned a few of the kinds which ornamented our old friend’s rooms with rows on rows six deep.

If we leave England we are lost indeed. The title Hispano-Moresque recalls the lustre wares, the secret of which the modern potter has, perhaps, rediscovered. The name of Bernard Palissy reminds us of a story of a life’s devotion, and suggests quaint dishes ornamented with lizards, frogs, and snakes. “ Henri Deux” implies that rarest perhaps of all made at Oiron or St. Porchaire in the sixteenth century, and of which, perhaps, not sixty specimens exist. The luxurious finish of the French porcelain of

What People Collect.

Sevres contrasts with the comparatively rougher vigour of the Italian earthenware which, under the generic title of majolica, renders famous such cities as Gubbio and Urbino. Dutch ware of Delft, ware of Dresden, Venice, and Capo di Monte open an unending vista which leads as far as Mexico and Peru.

Our enumeration will never be complete. Enamel, as we have seen, helps to assist the decoration of many an objeCt, but it has to be considered for its own sake in the productions of Limoges, where it completely covers salvers and ewers, salt-cellars and caskets, and keeps green the names of Jean and Leonard Limousin and Jean Courtois. From this we are led on to the intricacies of “ cloisonne ” and “ email de plique a jour,” while we can range at will from the enamel portraits of Petitot to the rough productions of Battersea and Bilston.

Enamel is but glass, and the glass collector will be indignant if we forget that a pilgrim’s bottle fetched at auCtion, in the year of grace 1896, nearly four hundred pounds.

We have to dismiss another whole army in a page. The archaeological collector will resent being dismissed with a mere reference to his Egyptian scarabaei and his terra-cotta uglinesses. The coin collector must be congratulated on the artistic beauties of his unending series of Greek drachms and di-drachms ; the bronze collector loves to be felicitated on the “ patina ” or surface texture of his little Venuses and Victories. The book lover has a divided interest, that in the

What People Colled.

cover and the contents of his treasures. The latter, except in the matter of such beauties as missal illumination, is, perhaps, beyond our scope, but in the binding the resources of art are exhibited to the utmost. Metal and enamel, leather and gilt, embroidered silk and seed pearl are all found to beautify some “ book of hours ” or “ Office of the Virgin.” And from books to engravings the step is short, but the territory to be traversed limitless.

We have, no doubt, omitted the favourite pursuits of many a collector. The lovers of Chinese and Indian art will object to the negleCt of their specialities, claiming for them, perhaps, a higher level of taste than we should willingly admit. No such excuse could we urge for omitting mention of their fancies to the numerous votaries of Japan, that wonderful country whose art in the last thirty years has taken us by storm. In the fme lacquered work of Japan perfection lies. What, too, shall we say of its silks, porcelains, and bronzes, its sword-guards, and its drawings by Hokusai ?

We relinquish the attempt to enumerate all the quaint conceits of this and other countries so as to satisfy each exacting specialist. We do not write for them. They are all so exceedingly well-informed. But those who wish to glance at the pursuits of that instructed class will have gathered from our brief review that there are other things in Collector’s Land besides “ pictures and old china.”

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Chapter II. The Ideal Collector

Most men can praftise with success but one or two branches of art. There have been conspicuous exceptions to the rule, men of an astounding versatility, the accomplishments of any one of whom might have furnished reputations for six ordinary mortals. Such were Leonardo da Vinci, painter, architedl, engineer, to mention but a few of the arts in which he was proficient, and Michael Angelo, painter, sculptor, and poet all at once. These were universal creative geniuses. A collector of objects of art, whose knowledge should be coextensive with the whole field of art, cannot indeed claim a place beside these creative heroes ; but he is a heroic character nevertheless. Though not so scarce as a Leonardo, he is not often met with in the course of a century. The limited quest of the specialist collector is as dust in the balance compared with the operations of such a man as we are considering. The true connoisseur in the widest sense is never caught napping outside his period or blindly straying beyond his department. To him art is an organic whole, in which the parts reaft upon

The Ideal Collector.

each other. Sculpture speaks to him not only in the colossal or life-size marble, but also in the exquisite delicacies of the intaglio. He traces the forms of architecture in the creations of the gold and silver smith — the gothic chalice reproduces the carved work of the cathedral. A true connoisseur finds confirmation in one branch of art for the peculiarities of another, though they may deal with such different materials as pigments and cotton threads.

He is not merely able to take an aesthetic pleasure, based upon historical study, in all manifestations of art, but he has also the intuitive gift of distinguishing the genuine from the spurious.

This combination of historical knowledge with the intuitive perception which renders knowledge pradlical, marks a man out as a king among collectors. It is difficult for those who are interested in art to imagine a more delightful life’s work. Let us spend a few pages in considering the necessary accomplishments of such a man, and his sphere of aCtion. In so doing we may glean a hint or two for the safe prosecution of our own more humble operations.

He will not be found amongst the dealers in works of art, for they are for the most part wanting in the necessary education of a connoisseur. Their knowledge is not even equal to the exigencies of their trade. An uncommon form of a particular type of objeCt they are obliged to regard with suspicion, because they have not the experience which would enable them to say whether it is genuine or not. And

The Ideal Collector.

so they have been known to let many a prize slip through their fingers, and even to be imposed upon by palpable imitations of unique objects of world- wide reputation. Yet a long career has sometimes made no mean connoisseurs of men of this stamp. The late M. Spitzer combined with business qualities real taste and knowledge and love.

I agree with one Dr. John Brown, who says that he is convinced that “to enjoy art thoroughly, every man must have in him the possibility of doing it as well as liking it. He must feel it in his fingers as well as in his head and eyes.” This applies most of all to the collector. We should not infer from this that it is expedient for a practising artist, who has spent most of his life in the exercise of his creative skill, to succeed to the directorship of our galleries and museums. This is hardly the case. Our painters for the most part have been fully occupied in learning the technique of their profession. They have not had the time or the inclination for the general education of their taste. They have not had the chance of handling and comparing many objeCts in many branches of art. Without wide experience a man is likely to have too marked a preference for one phase of art, and in the case of pictures would fill our galleries with specimens of second-rate painters of the early Italian schools, when our pressing need is for some recognition of Watteau and the later Frenchmen.

Neither is it sufficient to be steeped in the 17 c

The Ideal Collector.

biographical history of art, to know all about Rembrandt’s mother, and Saskiaand Hendrickje Stoffel, or even to have added an entirely new member to the list of his relations. You must be acquainted with the “handwriting” of the painters, and to do that successfully you must first have practised painting yourself, and then have had leisure to go wherever pictures are to be found.

The Germans are industrious to a degree in the pursuit of a painter’s domesticities, but not many of them could be trusted to buy for the nation, and not many Englishmen either. You must have the courage to back your opinion by bidding for a doubtful picture, hung up high and covered with dirt, which may turn out a prize. Those who have not the true collector’s intuition must restrict themselves to the accredited masterpieces that come to the sale with a pedigree — and that means money.

No, the ideal connoisseur must be a man who has practised ait with success in the commencement of life, and has relinquished his profession for the study and acquisition of works of art in general. Such men have existed, and do exist ; of such a stamp should be the makers and directors of great national museums, men whose “flair” and experience mark them out for a post where they have had the chance of dealing with sums sufficient to give them a fairly free hand. If they colleCt for themselves we may be certain that not much that is spurious will be found amongst their treasures.

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The Ideal Collector.

Now and again some collection comes to the hammer with a reputation based on the thousands which were paid for it, and lo ! the bubble is burst in the auction room in spite of the trumpetings of prefaces and photogravures and wide-margined catalogues. Next week another collection is on sale, but a whisper has gone round that so and so had to do with the formation of it, and that is sufficient guarantee.

It is in the smaller sales, when several properties are sold together and the dealers are at fault — having only their own judgment to go by — that the true connoisseur will find the unnoticed gem. It may be the only genuine picture in a crowd of worthless copies, but at any rate it will be so dirty and have been hung so high in a corner on the viewing days that no one notices its existence. Then, if he has marked it, many an anxious hour will he pass before the sale day arrives and the bidding shows whether the keen-scented have discovered it too. If they have, the price will go up by leaps and bounds, and the connoisseur may be left lamenting. If they have not, it may “ go for a song,” and he will bring home his prize in triumph. Perhaps a few days after it may leak out that someone with two eyes in his head picked up a Rembrandt for £ 20 at such and such a sale. There will be a wailing among the dealers : “ Why, we were there ourselves all the time ! ” “ Very likely, my friends, and so was the picture, to be discovered by only one person, and that one not the auctioneer ! ” “ Knowledge is