THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY From the library of Ulrich Middledorf Ulrich Middeldorj I THE GENTLE ART OF FAKING The New Art Library “The admirable New Art Library."— Connoisseur. New Volume. Perspective As applied to pictures, with a section dealing with architecture. 472 Illustrations. 18s. nett. By Rex Vicat Cole. “ Makes perspective quite fascinating." Aberdeen Journal. “An indispensable book to the student of art." Daily Graphic. Recently Issued. Water Colour Painting. By Alfred W. Rich. 60 Illustrations. 10s. 6d. nett. “ Mr. Rich's work has placed him among the comparatively few water-colourists of to day who count, and the work of his students proves that he can teach."— Saturday Review. The Artistic Anatomy of Trees. By Rex Vicat Cole. Over 500 Illustrations. ijs. nett. “ Like all the volumes of the New Art Library, thorough in its teaching, eminently practical in its manner of presenting it, and spendidly illus- trated.' —Connoisseur. The Practice and Science of Drawing. By Harold Speed. 96 Illustrations. 10s. 6d. nett. “ No work on Art has been published in recent years which might be more advantageously placed in the hands of a young student. Every page shows robust common sense expressed in a clear style. . . . We imagine that Mr. Speed is an admirable teacher, and cordially recommend his treatise. "—/I thenceum. The Practice of Oil Painting and Drawing. S. J. Solomon, k.a. 80 Illustrations. 10s. 6d. nett. " If students were to follow his instructions, and still more, to heed his warnings, their painting would soon show a great increase in efficiency." Manchester Guardian. Human Anatomy for Art Students. By Sir Alfred Downing Fripp, k.c.v.o., 159 Illustrations. 15s. nett. '■ Combines the best scientific and artistic infor- mation. ' '—Connoisseur. Modelling and Sculpture. By Albert Toft, a.r.c.a., m.s.b.s. With 119 Illustrations. 15s. nett. “ Will be found an invaluable aid to the student. . . . Takes the student step by step through the various technical processes, the text being sup- plemented by over a hundred excellent illustra- tions."— Studio. Seeley, Service S’ Co., Ltd., 38 Great Russell St. !‘h>to\ Supposed Portrait of the Poet Bastianini Bemvieni. Aliunri A direct cast from tin* original now in Paris and formerly kept in the l.ouvre Museum. THE GENTLE ART FAKING A HISTORY OF THE METHODS OF PRODUCING IMITATIONS fcf SPURIOUS WORKS OF ART FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES UP TO THE PRESENT DAY RICCARDO NOBILI AUTHOR OF “a MODERN ANTIQUE” “ Le dernier mot de Part je le trouve dans la contrefa^n ” Sainte-Beuve WITH 31 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SEELEY SERVICE W CO. LTD. 38 Great Russell Street 1922 N 8l°l0 NlH c.x. THE J PAIA GETTY Qftttg cJRARY TO MRS. MARY S. SHEPARD WITH THE DEVOTED AFFECTION OF A SON THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED PREFACE “ Collectomania ” may with some reason be looked upon as a comedy in which the leading parts are taken by the Collector, the Dealer, and the Faker, supported by minor but not less interesting characters, such as imitators, restorers, middlemen, et hoc genus omne, each of whom could tell more than one attractive tale. In analysing the Faker one must dissociate him from the common forger ; his semi-artistic vocation places him quite apart from the ordinary counterfeiter ; he must be studied amid his proper surroundings, and with the correct local colouring, so to speak, and his critic may perchance find some slight modicum of excuse for him. Beside him stand the Imitator, from whom the faker often originates, the tempter who turns the clever imitator into a faker, and the middleman who lures on the unwary collector with plausible tales. It is not the object of this volume to study the Faker by himself, but to trace his career through the ages in his appro- priate surroundings, and compare the methods adopted by him at various periods of history, so far as they may be obtained. Ethically, there is a strict line drawn between the imitator and the forger, but in practice this line is by no means rigid. Many imitators place their goods before the public as imita- tions ; others tacitly permit their work to be sold as genuinely antique, influenced no doubt by the fact that though possibly n I 2 Preface the imitation and the original may possess equal merit, the one is handicapped by modernity, the other is hallowed by age. The inexperienced and unwary collector is in most cases the innocent originator of fraud ; if there were no buyer there would be no seller. Too often fashion leads folly, and so fictitious values are created, and as demand increases so, too, do the sources of supply, but unhappily they are frequently not legitimate. RICCARDO NOBILI. V ille Marie, Via Dante da Castiolione 3, Fiairence. CONTENTS PART I THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF FAKING CHAPTER PAGE I. Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors . 17 II. COLLECTOMANIA IN ROME .... 24 III. Rapacious Roman Collectors ... 36 IV. Rome as an Art Emporium .... 44 V. Increase of Faking in Rome ... 57 VI. Decadence of Art and Consequent Changes 63 VII. The Renaissance Period .... 68 VIII. Imitation, Plagiarism, and Faking . . 83 IX. Collectors of the Sixteenth Century . 101 X. Collecting in France and England . . 107 XI. Mazarin as a Collector . . . .114 XII. Some Notable French Collectors . . 129 PART II THE COLLECTOR AND THE FAKER XIII. Collectors and Collections . . . 135 XIV. The Collector’s Friends and Enemies . 150 XV. Imitators and Fakers ..... 165 XVI. The Artistic Qualities of Imitators . .181 XVII. Fakers, Forgers and the Law . . .194 XVIII. The Faked Atmosphere and Public Sales . 207 13 Contents r 4 PART III THE FAKED ARTICLE CHAPTER XIX. The Make-up of Faked Antiques • • PAGE 225 XX. Faked Sculpture, Bas-reliefs and Bronzes 234 XXI. Faked Pottery .... • 246 XXII. Metal Fakes .... • 263 XXIII. Wood Work and Musical Instruments 279 XXIV. Velvets, Tapestries and Books . • 287 XXV. Summing Up . • 301 Index ...... 311 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Supposed Portrait of the Poet Bastianini Benivieni . . Frontispiece Marcus Aurelius ....... FACING PAGE 48 Diomedes with the Palladium .... 72 Imitations of the Antique ..... 88 Marsyas ........ 96 The Spinario ....... 120 A Child. By Ferrante Lam pin i .... 136 San Giovanni ....... 136 Athlete ........ 144 The Battesimo ....... 152 Bacchus ........ 152 The Resurrection ....... 184 Pieta ......... 184 A Portrait ........ 192 A Child. By Donatello ..... 200 An Imitation of Roman Work .... 240 An Imitation of Sixteenth-century Work 240 A Mantelpiece ....... 266 A Lamp ........ 266 Plaquettes by Various Artists .... 272 Europa on the Bull ...... • • 288 15 THE GENTLE ART OF FAKING Part I THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF FAKING CHAPTER I GREEKS AND ROMANS AS ART COLLECTORS Why the Greeks by not being collectors in the modern sense were spared faking in art — How the Romans became interested in art— Genesis of their art collections — The first collectors and their methods — Noted citizen’s indictment against art plundering of Roman conquerors — Attitude of noted writers towards art, and art collecting. The collector, the chief patron of fakery, being somewhat of a selfish lover of art, it is quite natural that the Greeks, who saw in art a grand means of public education and enjoy- ment, cannot be called art collectors in the modern sense of the word. Consequently there was hardly room for sham art in a country where art as the direct emanation of public spirit was rigorously maintained for the sake of the people. It was the temples that became art emporiums — museums that everyone was allowed to enjoy — or free institutions, like the pinacotheca of the Acropolis, the collection of carved stone at the Parthenon, the gymnasium of the Areopagus, containing a collection of busts of the most celebrated philosophers. With this public spirit in the enjoyment of art Delphi gathered a famous picture gallery in the oracular temple and, according to Pliny, possessed no fewer than three 17 B 1 8 Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors thousand statues, one of them being the famous golden Apollo. From this temple Nero carried off five hundred bronze statues, and later on Constantine removed many of the remaining works of art to Constantinople. An identical spirit of public enjoyment of art had turned the temples of Juno in Olympia, of Minerva in Plataea and Syracuse into veritable museums of art and — curiosities also. The temple of Minerva at Lyndon in the island of Rhodes, for instance, contained a cup of electrum (amber) offered by Helen of Troy, which was said to have a cavity cut to the exact shape of the bosom of the beautiful wife of Paris (Pliny, XXXIII, 23). That the Greeks at their highest historical level did not indulge in the private and artistic delights of the collector may also be gathered from the poor construction of their usual dwelling-houses. It is well known that thieves, more especially in Athens, were called “ wall breakers,” and obtained this odd nickname from their peculiar method of entering houses, namely, by making a hole through the wall rather than troubling to unlock the door. Such flimsy dwellings can hardly have sheltered the treasures of an art collection. Thus simplicity of customs and a clearly defined manner of enjoying art, saved the Greeks to a great extent from a regular trade in antiques with all its strange and deplorable etceteras. As a matter of fact, we have no information as to any- thing that might be called a private art collection in Athens, though quite consistently, considering their extreme passion for knowledge, the Greeks had fine private libraries, such as those of Aristotle and Theophrastus. But even these, though containing the rarest and most precious works, were true libraries, not collections of elaborate volumes. The mania for fine bindings of costly materials was later on the caprice of the learned Roman, not of the Greek. The home of the “ collector,” and consequently of his faithful companion, the faker, was Rome. The Roman was not a born lover of art. In fact during Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors 19 the early and primitive period of its existence Rome had not only been somewhat negative as regards art, but was even rather averse from its enjoyment. It took centuries for the Roman to overcome the belief that matters of art were trifling amusements that might be left as toys to their conquered people. Thus for a long time Romans saw in the enjoyment of art the chief source of the weakening and degeneration of the enemies they had subjugated. Springing from a progeny of soldiers and agriculturists, born to conquer the world, the Roman citizen assumed as an aphorism the Virgilian saying that his sole duty was to subjugate enemies, by granting them pardon or humiliating their pride. Thus the early Romans not only show great ignorance as to marvels of art, but even contempt for them. When art treasures were brought to Rome as booty for the first time by Marcellus from conquered Sicily the Senate censured such an innovation. Fabius Maximus, called the “ shield of Rome,” rose among others in protest, saying that after the siege of Tarentum, he, unlike Marcellus, had brought home only gold and valuable plunder. As for statues, more especially images, he had preferred to leave to the conquered people “ their enraged gods.” In fact the only statue Fabius took away from Tarentum was the Hercules of Lysippus, a bronze colossus which must have appealed to him either for its heroic size or the large quantity of material. A type of the early ignorant Roman art collector is given by Lucius Mummius, the general who destroyed Corinth, and of whom Velleius Paterculus tells (I, 13) that in sending to Rome what might be styled the artistic booty of the destroyed city he consigned the statues and paintings to those in charge of the transport with the warning that should the goods be lost they would be held responsible and would have to reproduce them all at their own expense. Even when with the progress of time art was finally appreciated in Rome, the old contempt for it was transferred in a way from the product to the maker. Thus with the feeling that seems to characterize the parvenu in art, and 20 Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors with inexplicable inconsistency, the Roman lover of art persisted in seeing in the artist either a slave or a good-for- nothing, and never for a moment regarded the artist as worth the consideration he granted to art. Notwithstanding his belief of being a lover of art and an intelligent connoisseur, Cicero calls statues and paintings toys to amuse children ( oblectamcnta puerorurn). In his fourth oration, In Verrem, lie candidly confesses that he fails to understand the im- portance attached by Greeks to those arts which the Romans most rightly despise. Valerius Maximus, who lived at the time of Tiberius, that is to say when Rome had fully completed its education in art, calls the profession of the painter a vile occupation ( sor - didum studium), and wonders how Fabius, a Roman and patrician, can bring himself to sign his painting with full name and qualification, “ Fabius Pictor ” (VIII, 14, 6). In one of his letters (No. 88) Seneca, the contemporary of Nero, states that sculpture and painting are unworthy to be classified as liberal arts. Petronius, the magister clegantiorum of Rome, two hundred years after the destruction of Corinth, that is to say when Rome had reached its maturity in the understanding of art, calls Apelles, Phidias and other famous artists of Greece, crack-brained ( grceculi delirantes). With such an innately negative sense of art and strong racial prejudice, it is not surprising that when brought to an appreciation of art by circumstances, the Romans, though willing and fully prepared to pay extravagant prices for works of art, should still retain their old contempt for artists, those grceculi delirantes who had come to beautify the Capital as slaves or tempted by gain. As a result of this peculiar feeling and in full contrast with the Greek sentiment which has handed down to pos- terity a great deal about the artists who lived in Athens and the honours they received, Rome has preserved for us hardly a name of painter, sculptor or architect. And they must have been legion if we consider the magnitude of the work accomplished. Vitruvius (VII, 15) informs us that Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors 2 1 Damophilus, Gorgas, Agesilas, Pasiteles and other artists were called to Rome by Julius Caesar, and that so many Greek artists were in Rome that when the temple of Jupiter Olympicus was to be finished in Athens the citizens were obliged to send to Rome, as none of their architects were to be found in Greece. It is interesting to trace how the Romans gradually became collectors of art, and how there gradually developed in Rome a whole world of lovers of art with all its true and fictitious enthusiasms, furnishing a group of varied types of collectors not altogether dissimilar from those of our modern society of lovers of art. As we have said, conquest and booty furnished the first articles of virtu. At first statues and objects of art of all kinds were brought to Rome without discrimination, then education gradually progressed, taste developed and plunder became more enlightened. Fulvius Nobilior, to quote one of the many conquerors who brought artistic war booty to Rome, enriched it with 285 bronze statues, 230 marble ones, and 112 pounds of gold ornaments. Following the custom of the Greeks, the Romans at first presented statues and paintings to various temples as ornaments. Later on, with more discrimination and less greed, Roman officials proceeded to a systematic spoliation of Greece and the Orient of their treasures of art. Statues and paintings followed in the triumphs of Roman generals as did slaves and prisoners of war. Occasionally returning officials brought home with them pillaged artistic mementoes of the place they had been ruling in the name of mighty Rome. Thus Fulvius, consul in Ambracia, brought home the finest statues of that country. One of these mementoes was excavated in the year 1867 ; it bore the naive and candid confession of the consul : — Marcus Fulvius Marci Filius Servii Nepos Nobilior Consul Ambracia Cepit 22 Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors Having carried off the statues of the Nine Muses in his conquest of Ambracia, this same Fulvius Nobilior placed them in the temple of Hei'cules. At this time Roman con- querors had progressed, and they already travelled with experts and advisers. Fulvius Nobilior was accompanied by the poet Ennius (Strabo, B. X, 5), whose suggestion it may have been to place Hercules in the midst of the Nine Muses playing the lyre like an Apollo, a metamorphosis of the god showing that the Roman had finally harmonized “ Strength,” his chief and most cherished quality, with the gentler feelings of an understanding of art. This “ Hercules Musagetes ” seems to symbolize a first conquest of art over the rude, sturdy Roman character. Departing from the established rule of presenting their artistic plunder to the temples after it had followed in their triumphs to enhance the importance of their conquest, in time the generals began to keep part of the spoil them- selves. In this w r ay were the first private collections in Rome formed. The real artistic education of the Romans dates from this time. The passion and ambition to enrich and embellish private houses helped to teach what was worth consideration. Sulla, who plundered Greece and Asia Minor, is said to have acquired a sure eye for valuable objets de virtu ; Verres, who with an excellent eye had robbed and collected all that came within his reach, was perhaps Rome’s best connoisseur of art. He and Sulla were practically the first to organize that enlightened manner of plundering subjugated countries that finally made Rome the first emporium of art in the world. Naturally, these early Roman collectors rarely bought their articles of virtu. When they could not obtain by pillage they had ready to hand a speedy and coercive means of gratifying their artistic craving. Sulla placed on the pro- scription list the names of all possessors of artistic objects who were so unwise as to refuse to give them up to him. Mark Antony did the same to Verres. The latter paid with his life his refusal to offer the despotic Triumvir some famous Greeks and Romans as Art Collectors 23 vases of Corinthian bronze which he sorely longed to have in his collection. It was, we repeat, in Sulla’s time that the passion for collecting arose among the Romans, not only guided by an artistic sense of discrimination, but with all the peculiar characteristics that seem to attend the development of this passion. Sulla’s collection — to which the spoils of the temple of Apollo in Delphi and of the temples of Jupiter in Elis and .dSsculapius in Epidaurus, considered the richest emporium of art in Greece, had contributed — must have been magnificent and without an equal — except, perhaps, that of Verres, Sulla’s pupil, who surpassed his master in the art of plunder- ing, and sacked Sicily of all the island possessed of art. CHAPTER II COLLECTOMANIA IN ROME Collectomania develops — Rampant parvenuism in Rome — Extravagant prices paid for art and curio — Faking arrives — Good and foolish collectors as seen by writers and satirists of the time — Art dealing — The septa s, shops and auction rooms. Such was the earliest type of the real collector of art in Rome, a first phase in a city where the passion for art was, generally speaking, rarely genuine. This phase led first to the acquisi- tion of what might be styled something between ambition and love of display. Then the trade in objects of art eventu- ally appeared, and as a logical consequence, imitation and fraudulent art finally had their scope. Fictitious master- pieces of painting and sculpture, often signed, as in modern times, with the forged names of noted artists, were already on the market before Cicero’s time. “ Odi falsas inscriptiones statuarum alienarum ” (I hate the forged inscriptions on statues not one’s own), remarks Cicero, who although some- what of a collector himself never missed a chance to ridicule the pretentious amateur lost in hysterical ecstasy before imitations supposed to be original works, or of fanning the art lover’s pseudo-enthusiasm for the work of Polycletus, which was extremely fashionable at one time among art collectors. Thus forgery received a great impulse when art reached its climax in Rome and multiplied the number of collectors, dragging after it in its triumphal march wealth and all the fickle forces of wealth. Taste in art, then, became apparently more exclusive, or rather, according to Quintilian, more Collectomania in Rome 25 unstable in its standards. “ Nowadays,” says the Latin rhetorician and critic, “ they prefer the childish monochrome works of Polycletus and Aglaephon to the more expressive and more recent artists.” Yet, very likely not understanding this not unusual love for the archaic and the odd, so common in collectors of all ages, Quintilian cannot explain the pre- ference for w r ork he considers gross, except by fashion or what we should call to-day a snobbish sentiment. Criticizing the art in vogue, he adds, in fact : “ I should call this art childish compared to that of most illustrious artists who came afterwards, but in my judgment it is, of course, only pre- tension ” (XII, 10). It is evident that with the Romans as with us — the times are not entirely dissimilar ; indeed but for art critics, the new modern fad, they might be called identical — prices paid for works of art, or simple curiosities, became freakish and fabulous, going up or down in a single period according to fickle fashion. The momentary passion for murrhines, for instance, tempted a collector to pay for one of these cups of fluor-spar a sum approximating to £14,200. Another mania succeeded, that of tables made of citrus, a species of rare wood, possibly Thuja, grown on the slopes of Mount Athos. Cathegus invested in one of these fashionable tables a sum equivalent to twelve thousand pounds. Then at another time wrought silver becomes the rage, and prices for this article soon reached absurd figures. When Chrysogon, Sulla’s wealthy freedman, was bidding at an auction for a silver autepsa (a plate warmer), people standing outside the auction room imagined he was buying a farm from the high sum he offered. As might be expected, high prices tempted brainless parvenus. There were many in Rome like that Demasippus of whom Horace said, “ Insanit veteres statuas Demasippus emendo ” (Sat., 3), the type of a snobbish visionary and sham art-seelcer who bought roughly carved statues, supplying their defects with his fancy, and who, in speaking of his historical pieces, stated that to be admitted into his very 26 Collectomania in Rome choicest collection a basin must at least have served Sisyphus, son of ^Eolus, as a foot-bath ! Next to this foolish type of collector of art Rome possessed a great many other characters, who, like those of to-day, might be classified as odd specimens of art-lovers. “ Isn’t Euctus a bore with his historical silver ? ” asks Martial, adding that he would rather eat off the common earthenware of Saguntus than hear all the gabble concerning Euctus’ table-silver. Think of it ! His cups belonged to Laomedon, king of Troy. And, mind, to obtain these rarities Apollo played upon his lyre and destroyed the wall of the city by inducing the stones to follow him by his music.” Rut concerning this odd type of collector Martial merits quotation. “ Now, what do you think of this vase ? ” asks Euctus of his table companions. Well, it belonged to old Nestor himself. Do you see that part all worn away, there where the dove is ? It was reduced to that state by the hand of the king of Pylos.” Then showing one of those mixing bowls that Latins called crater, “ This was the cause of the battle between the ferocious Rheucus and the Lapi- thae.” Naturally every cup has its particular history. “ This is the very cup used by the sons of Eacus when offering most generous wine to their friend — That is the cup from which Dido drank to the health of Bythias when she offered him that supper in Phrygia.” Finally, when he has bored his guests to death, Euctus offers them, in the cup from which Pyramus used to drink, “ wine as young as Astyanax.” Trimalcho is so well known that we are dispensed from a detailed illustration. Petronius must have drawn from life this capital character of his Satyricon. Like Euctus, Tri- malcho extols the historical merits of his articles of virtu ; he has the same mania for inviting people to his table and forcing them to admire his rarities. He talks very much in the same manner as the type quoted by Martial. Thus he informs his guests that his Corinthian vases are the best and most genuine in existence, because they were made at his Collectomania in Rome 27 order by a workman named Corinth. As a side explanation of this remark, fearing that the guest might suppose he did not know the historical origin of the metal, he adds : “ Yes, yes, I know all about it. Don’t take me for an ignoramus. I know the origin of this metal perfectly well. It was at the capture of Troy, when Hannibal, a shrewd brigand by the way, threw on to a burning pyre all the statues of gold and silver and bronze. The mixture of the metals produced the alloy from which goldsmiths have made plates, vases and figures. From this, of course, chines the name of Corinth to designate this mix-up of three metals, which, of course, is no more any of the three ! ” Trimalcho also possesses a cup with a bas-relief representing Cassandra cutting her children’s throats. Not content with this gorgeous historical blunder, and forgetting that he is talking of the bas-relief of a cup, Trimalcho adds as an artistic comment that the bodies of Cassandra’s children are so life-like that one might suspect they had been cast from nature. Continuing our comparison with Euctus we may add that Trimalcho also possesses a rare pitcher with a bas-relief representing Daedalus putting Niobe inside the wooden horse of Troy ! When he has finished maiming history, and the guests have patiently listened to his fantastic tales, like a true parvenu, Trimalcho never fails to add, “ Mind, it is all massive precious metal, it is all my very own as you see, and not to be sold at any price.” Except for the wording, a trifling difference — the word “ expensive ” would play a conspicuous part with the Tri- malcho of to-day, decorated, be it understood, with “ pre- cious,” “ rare,” “ unique ” and all the rest of the arch- superlatives of modern idioms — such collectors have not been lost to our day. But there are other types worth quoting. They will certainly help us to understand the part played by art imitations and forgery among the Romans, and how the existence of fraud was in some way justified, that in the end the one chiefly responsible for the existence of faking was 2 8 Collectomania in Rome the collector himself. This understanding will be greatly aided by a glimpse at the septa?, antiquity or simple bric-a- brac shops, that were grouped together in certain streets of ancient Rome like they are nowadays. Like to-day, too, sales of art were effected by auctions or by private dealing, the latter in shops or through the usual go-between, the so-called courtier of our time. Public auctions were announced by placards or a simple writing on the walls. An idea of what these announcements were like is given by the following one from Plautus’ Menoechme : “ Within seven days, in the morning, sale of Menoechme. There will be sold slaves, furniture, houses, farms. Every article bought must be paid for at the time of buying.” As in our days, an exhibition of the goods preceded the auction. These shows were held in appropriate rooms adorned with porticos, called atria auctionaria. In speaking of such exhibitions and commenting upon some special one, Cicero remarks, Auctionis vero miserabilis adspectus (Phil., II, 29). Curiously enough the auction sales of the Urbs were pro- vided with an employe whose function seems to have sur- vived in the public sales of Paris. The Latin prceco is some- thing like the French crieur whose office it is at public auc- tions to extol and praise the objects offered for sale. It must be said that the prceco, however, was not only a simple crieur but at times a sort of director of the sale, thus combining the functions of commissaire priseur, expert and crieur, but it was certainly in the latter function that his ability best contributed to the success of the sale. Some of these employes must have enriched themselves like regular covimissaires priseur s. Horace (I. Ep., 7) describes one of these crieur s as indulging in luxury, making money easily and scattering it like water, allowing himself every kind of pleasure and yielding tremendously to fashion. A curious description, suggesting that this Vulteius Menas of Horace must have had the lucky career of some of the Parisian auction cm- Collectomania in Rome 29 ployes and cannot have been indifferent to that fonn of gay self-indulgence that Parisians call : Faire la bonibe. Speaking of auctions and the way Romans disposed of their goods to the highest bidder, it is worth while to refer to what Suetonius tells us happened at the sale held by Caligula, who being short of money thought fit one day to put up to auction everything in the royal palace that was either useless or considered out of fashion, quidquid instrumenti veteris aulce erat. According to Suetonius not only was the Emperor himself present at the auction, but he put prices on the various objects, bidding on them as well. An old praetor, Aponius Saturninus, became sleepy during the sale, and in dozing kept on nodding his head. Caligula noticed it, and told the auctioneer not to lose sight of that buyer and to put up the price each time Saturninus nodded. When the old man finally awoke he realized that without knowing it he had bought at the Imperial auction about £80,000 worth of goods (Cal., 39). Pliny relates an amusing story, which shows that then, as now, the auctioneer was allowed to group objects. “ At a sale,” he says, “Theonius, the crieur, made a single lot of a fine bronze candelabra, and a slave named Clesippus, humpbacked and extremely ugly. The courtesan Gegania bought the lot for 50,000 sesterces (about £400). The same night at supper she showed her acquisitions, exhibiting the naked slave to the gibes of the guests. Then yielding to a freakish passion, made of him her lover and heir. Clesippus thus became extremely wealthy and worshipped the cande- labra with a devotion as though it were his god” (XXXIV, 6 ). As stated above, other sales generally took place in various parts of Rome where antiquaries and bric-a-brac dealers had assembled their shops. A great many of these merchants had gathered in the Via Sacra or the Septa of the Villa Publica, or Septa Julia. Those parts of Roman streets called Scptce, where anti- quaries and bric-a-brac dealers had their dens, were the 30 Collectomania in Rome amateur’s fool’s paradise and trap, and very likely they were as inviting and picturesque as similar places in modern European towns to-day. These shops and shows, it is said, offered real rarities at times, such as bronzes of yEgina by Myron, Uelos bronzes by Polycletus, genuine rarities in Corinthian bronze, marvels in chiselling signed by Boethus or Mys. The septce not only exhibited artistic pieces but also sham rarities that had won public appreciation in a moment of fashion. Among these was a certain kind of candelabra shaped like a tree with one or more branches. Concerning these candclabras which were almost made to supplant the more artistic ones by a fad, Pliny remarks, “ Arborum mala ferentium modo lucentcs ” (like trees bearing shining apples), and states with caustic humour that although their name bore a common etymology with the word candela (candle), a cheap means of lighting, they were sold at prices equivalent to the yearly appointment of a military tribune (Plin., XXXIV, 8). Speaking of candclabras, it may be stated that the finest ever seen in Rome belonged to Verres, being part of the vast plunder of Sicily he accumulated when stationed there by Rome as proconsul. This fact prompted the sarcastic remark in Cicero’s indictment of the proconsul, that Verres had in his triclinium a candelabra casting light where dark- ness would have been more appropriate. This rich cande- labra must have been of a statuesque style, the kind Lucretius describes : — Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per aedes Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris (II, 24). {Figures of youths holding lighted lamps in their right hands.) Naturally it was not only a single speciality, valued through fashion or fad, that was to be found on the market, it was a regular emporium of antiquities in art, and of all kinds of bric-a-brac. Besides murrhines, tables of citrus and other specialities there were paintings of all schools and sizes, down to miniatures, an art not unknown to the Romans. There Collectomania in Rome 3 1 were also sculpture, ceramics, fine pieces of Rhegium and Cumae, Maltese tapestries, Oriental embroideries, etc. In fact, mixed with a good deal that was dubious, these places also offered fine treasures, as Martial says : — Hie ubi Roma suas aurea vexit opes. {Here where golden Rome brought her treasure.) It is easy to understand that the people moving in this milieu were not dissimilar from those who indulge in articles of virtu in our enlightened times, or who are somewhat of a victim to the collector passion. Such a milieu, not to be found in Athens where the passion for art was genuine and essential, was quite consistent in Rome where improvised Croesuses and rich parvenus abounded ; parvenus who, like many of the collectors of our times, took to buying objects of art as a fad or hobby. This type of collector is easily recog- nized and in its grotesqueness is not essentially different from some of our modern society. It is true that Rome also produced many genuine lovers of art, many first-rate connoisseurs and collectors such as Agrippa, magnificent collectors of the calibre of Caesar, keen, intelligent, lovers of art, as greedy as unscrupulous, such as Sulla, Verres and Mark Antony, but as in America to-day, the magnitude of quickly-made fortunes, the impetus of a passion suddenly aroused without any previous preparation, produced only a few types of the true collector. As in America now, for one Quincy Shaw, how many a — Trimalcho and Euctus. Needless to say, the art market generally follows the in- clination of the client, it tries to meet his taste, whims and fads, it may be scrupulous or unscrupulous according to circumstances and, particularly in art and antiques, these circumstances chiefly depend upon the great despotic ruler of all markets, the client. Thus in the septce, side by side with Firminius, Clodius and Gratianus, dealers enjoying an undisputed reputation in the sigillaria (image market) and other quarters where antiquary 3 2 Collectomania in Rome shops were gathered, there were to be noted types like the Milonius of whom Martial says : — “ Rare stuffs, chiselled silver, cloaks, togas, precious stones, there is nothing you don’t sell, Milo, and your clients invariably carry their acquisitions away with them ! After all your wife is the best article in your emporium, always bought and never taken away from your shop ” (VII— XII, 102 ). The whole gamut of oddities with which the collecting mania abounds were really to be found in the septce. There was the particular collector who has no eyes but for one certain thing, no enthusiasm but for the objects specializing his particular hobby, as Horace remarks in his “Satires” about people who have either the passion for silver pieces or bronzes : Hunc capit argenti splendor, stupet Albius are. (This ono the glitter of silver holds, Albius stands dumb before bronze.) Seneca informs us that in his time there was an amateur with the hobby of collecting rusty fragments, another who had gone so crazy over small vases of Corinthian bronze that he spent his days handling the pieces of his collection, taking them down from the shelves, putting them back again and continually arranging and rearranging them (De Brev. Vit., XII). Martial tells us of a man who made a collection of pieces of amber containing fossilized insects, and of another collector who boasted that he had a fragment of the ship Argo among the rare pieces of his collection. There was also Clarinus, a debauchee, according to Martial, who vaunted himself upon possessing samples of all the goldsmith’s art of his time. “ But,” remarks Martial, “ this man’s silver cannot be pure ! ” Another type noted by Martial makes one realize that there is a species of collector that will never die. Of “ Paullus ” Martial observes- : “ . . . his friends, like his paintings and his antiques : all for show ” (XII, 69). Codr us, quoted by Juvenal, is the needy collector. He Collectomania in Rome 33 keeps his books “ in an old basket where mice allow them- selves the luxury of nibbling the works of divine Greece.” He sleeps “ on a pallet shorter than his little wife.” His collection and furniture are all in his bedroom, the only room he has for living and sleeping in, and conspicuous are six cups, a small cantarium on a console with a figure of Chiron the Centaur below r it (III). Eros is another type, that of the mournful collector. This is the way Martial describes this not unusual type : — “ Eros weeps every time he comes across some fine murr- hine of jasper or a finely marked table of citrus. He sighs and sighs from the bottom of his heart, for he is not rich enough to buy all the objects of the septa” And here Martial comments, “ How many are like Eros without show- ing it, and how many banter him for his tears and sighs and yet in their hearts feel like him ! ” (X, 80 ). Mamurra, another type handed down to us by the in- exhaustible Martial, never misses a day without visiting the septa. “ Spends hours in gadding about, reviews the rows of young slaves w T hich he devours with the eye of a critic, not, if you please, the common ones but the choicest samples, those that are not on show to every one, not to common people like us,” adds Martial. “ When he has had enough of this show, he goes to examine the furniture; there he discovers some rich tables ( orbes , round tables) hidden under some covering ; then he orders that some pieces of ivory furniture he wishes to examine be taken down from the highest spot ; afterwards he passes on to examine a hexa- clinon, a couch used in the triclinium, with six places, veneered with tortoise-shell, and measures it four times. What a pity it is not big enough to match his citrus table ! A minute later he goes to smell a bronze : Does it really smell of the Corinthian alloy ? Of course he is ready to criticize even your statues, O Polycletus ! Then those two rock crystals are not pure, some are a trifle nebulous, others are marred by slight imperfections. Ah ! here’s a murrhine. He orders about a dozen to be put aside. He goes to handle some old 34 Collectomania in Rome cups as if he would weigh the merit of each one, more especi- ally that of Mentor. He goes to count the emeralds on a golden vase, and the enormous pearls we see dangling to- gether on the ears of our elegant ladies. Afterwards he goes to look everywhere on every side for real sardonyx ; his speciality is to collect large and rare pieces of jasper. Finally, about the eleventh hour of the day, Mamurra is completely exhausted, he must go home. He buys for an as (less than three farthings) two bowls and takes them with him ” (IX, 59 ). Tongilius is the ponderous, important collector. He goes through the places where the antiques are sold in an over- sized palanquin and with his cortege and train of followers upsets everybody and everything. Juvenal, by whom his character is handed down to us, remarks rather sar- castically : Spondet enim Tyrio stlataria purpura filo, Et tamen est illis hoc utile [Sat. VII). Licinius is the type of the lunatic lover of art. He has a fine collection, is wealthy and can buy the most expensive objects of virtu, but he is far from happy. His mania is the fear that his rarities may be stolen or become the prey of fire. He keeps hoards of slaves watching his precious curios, night and day. “ At night,” says Juvenal, “ a cohort of guardians sits up with buckets of water ready to hand in case of emer- gencies ; the poor man is in continual fear for his statues, his amber figures, his ivory and tortoise-shell veneered furni- ture.” Naturally, in contrast to the foolish type of collector who seems to have kindled the verve of Roman satirists, the true amateur was to be found, and most select collections of art were known in Rome. Among these also the city afforded all the types of the true collector, the selfish one who never showed his collection to anyone, and the man who gathered objects of art chiefly to share the enjoyment of them with others. Some of these latter wished the public to have the Collectomania in Rome 35 benefit of their purchases, and adorned porticoes and public places with their collections. According to Statius, V index is the real connoisseur. “ Who can compete with him,” remarks the poet in his Silvce, lib. IV, “ who possesses so sober an eye ? He is deeply versed in the technical procedure of all the artists of antiquity, and when a work bears no signature he can decide at sight to which master it belongs. He will point you out a bronze that has cost the learned Myron many a day’s and night’s work, the marble to which Praxiteles’ untiring chisel has given life, the ivory polished by the hand of Phidias, the bronzes of Polycletus which seem to breathe life on coming out of the furnace, he can see the artistic line, the true mark of all authentic Apelles.” CHAPTER III RAPACIOUS ROMAN COLLECTORS Sorao collectors’ hobbies — Sulla idolized statuette — Verres the most rapacious of Roman art collectors — Mark Antony and his speedy methods — Cicero as an art lover — Pompey the unselfish art lover — Julius Caesar. Shrewd and impassive connoisseurs like Sulla also had their hobbies and fancies. Sulla’s particular fancy was a little statue of Apollo he had pillaged from the temple of Delphi. This statue was more to him than all the rest of the precious things forming his unique collection. From this little god, called by Winckclmann “ Sulla’s private travelling god,” he never separated. lie used to kiss it devoutly and seems to have consulted it in great emergencies. At times he used to carry it in his breast, says Plutarch. We may note by the way that this Apollo was not considered by connoisseurs the best piece of Sulla’s collection, the real gem was his Hercules, a work by Lysippus. The story of this Hercules is told by Martial and Statius, who inform us that it measured a little less than a Roman foot, about nine inches. Notwithstanding its modest dimensions the statuette was modelled with such grandeur and majestic sentiment as to cause Statius to comment, “ parvusque videri, sentirique ingens ” (small in appearance, but immense in effect). It represented Hercules in a smilingly serene attitude, seated on a rock, holding a club in his right hand and in the other a cup. It was in fact one of those statuettes which Romans called by the Greek word epitrapezios, and which were placed on dining-tables as the genius loci of the repast. The history of this gem of Sulla’s collection is uncommon, and its vicissitudes most remarkable. The statue was 30 Rapacious Roman Collectors 37 originally a gift made by Lysippus to Alexander the Great. This sovereign and conqueror was so attached to Lysippus’ present that he carried the statue with him wherever he went. When dying he indulged in a touching adieu to the cherished statuette. After Alexander, the little Hercules fell into the hands of another conqueror, Hannibal. It is not known how he came to be the possessor of Lysippus’ work, but it may be ex- plained by the fact that Hannibal, being a collector of art and somewhat of a connoisseur and, above all, as Cornelius Nepos states, a great admirer of Greek art, was a keen-eyed hunter after rarities in art. However, be that as it may, Hannibal seems to have been possessed by the same fancy as Alexander, for he carried the little statue with him on all his peregrina- tions, and even took it to Bithynia, where, as history informs us, he destroyed himself by poison. At his death the Hercules passed, in all probability, into the hands of Prusias at whose court Hannibal died. A century later the statue reappeared in Sulla’s collection. Very likely it came into Sulla’s possession as a present from King Nicomedes, who owed gratitude to Sulla for the restitution of the throne of Bithynia. After Sulla’s death it is difficult to locate this precious statue of his famous collection. Presumably it passed from one collector to another, and never left Rome. “ Perhaps,” says Statius, “ it found its place in more than one Imperial collection.” The statue reappears officially, however, under Domitian. At this time it is in the possession of the above- quoted Vindex, a Gaul living in Rome, a friend of Martial and Statius and one of the best art connoisseurs of his time. At Vindex’s death the statuette disappears again, and no mention of it has ever been made since by any writer. What may the fate have been of this chef-d'oeuvre of Lysippus which passed from one collection to another for more than four centuries ? Among greedy lovers of art, with a connoisseur’s eye as good as his soul was unscrupulous, Verres takes the prize. 38 Rapacious Roman Collectors lie had learned the rapacious trade of art looting under Sulla. Later on, not being powerful enough nor daring to go to the length of the Dictator by placing reluctant amateurs on the list of proscribed, he studiously sought to gain his end by all forms of violence and vexatious methods. When in Sicily as proconsul, he actually despoiled and denuded every temple in the island. “ I defy you,” says Cicero in his indictment of Verres, “ to find now in Sicily, this rich province, so old, with opulent families and cities, a single silver vase, a bronze of Corinth or Delos, one single precious stone or pearl, a single work in gold or ivory, a single bronze, marble or ivory statue ; I defy you to find a single painting, a tapestry, that Verres has not been after, examined and, if pleasing to him, pillaged.” As for private property, when he heard of a citizen pos- sessing some object that excited his cupidity, to Verres all means of extortion seemed good, including torture and fustigation. His passion was of such an uncontrollable nature that even when invited to dinner by his friends he could not resist scraping with his knife the fine bas-reliefs of the silver plates and hiding them in the folds of his toga. Yet this greedy, unscrupulous amateur, whom Cicero mercilessly indicted in his In Verrem, was such a lover of the objects of his collection that he faced death rather than give up some fine vases of Corinthian bronze which Mark Antony had demanded from him as a forced gift. Mark Antony, who followed Sulla’s methods in forming one of the finest of collections, was, like his violent predecessors, a type of collector which rinds no counterpart in our times. Ilis fine library had cost many victims, his taste being rather eclectic, there seems to have been no security in Rome for any kind of amateur who happened to possess rare and in- teresting curios. Nonius was proscribed because he refused to part with a rare opal, a precious stone of the size of a hazel- nut. “ What an obstinate man, that Nonius,” remarks Pliny (XXXVII, 21) most candidly, “ to be so attached to an object for which lie was proscribed ! Animals are certainly Rapacious Roman Collectors 39 wiser when they abandon to the hunter that part of their body for which they are being chased.” Mark Antony was not so good a connoisseur as Verres, but having no less a passion for collecting art and being no less unscrupulous and more in a position to use violence without the risk of being accused before the Roman citizens, as happened to Verres in the end, there was no limit to his schemes. After the battle of Pharsalia he managed to seize all Pompey’s artistic property, as well as his furniture and gardens, and after Caesar’s murder Antony, to whom we owe one of the finest orations ever conceived, the one he delivered before the dead body of his friend, lost no time in plundering Caesar’s property and transporting to his gardens all the objects of art Caesar had left to the people of Rome. The information comes from Cicero with these words : “ The statues and pictures which with his gardens Caesar bequeathed to the people, he (Antony) carried off partly to his garden at Pompeii, partly to his country-house.” Speaking of this collection, it is believed that the colossal Jupiter now in the Louvre Museum not only belonged to Mark Antony, but was the work of Myron which the Tri- umvir had stolen from Samos. Should this be so, the pedigree of this statue is one of the few that can be actually traced through the centuries. Brought to Rome by Mark Antony, this Jupiter was later placed in the Capitol by Augustus. The fine statue was then passed from one emperor to another, to sink into the general oblivion of art at the end of the Roman Empire. It reappears in Rome in the sixteenth century. It was then in the possession of Marguerite of Antioch, Duchess of Camerino. The statue was greatly mutilated, having lost both legs and arms. The Duchess presented what re- mained of this famous Jupiter to Perronet de Granvelle. Subsequently cardinal and minister of Charles V, on his retirement to his native country, Perronet de Granvelle took the Jupiter to Besan^on and placed it in the garden of his castle. When Louis XIV took Besan^on, the magistrates of the city offered the French monarch what he might otherwise 40 Rapacious Roman Collectors have taken, the statue of Jupiter. Transferred from Besan- ?on to Versailles, this magnificent statue which by rare chance had escaped serious damage during the barbarian ages finally met two authentic barbarians in the artists charged with its restoration. To clean off the old patina from the statue — think of it — Girardon had a layer of marble taken off with the chisel, and Drouilly, not perceiving that the god had been formerly in a sitting posture, or more pro- bably not choosing to notice the fact as not appealing to his artistic conception, made the Jupiter a standing statue by adjusting and cutting the parts otherwise in the way for this kind of adaptation. The only part of the statue that does not seem to have suffered any damage is the head. Even Brutus and Cassius appear not to have been in- different to the collector passion. Brutus, more especially, used to devote to the collecting of art the less agitated moments of his troubled life. The gem of his collection was considered to be a bronze by Strongylion. Pliny tells us that this statue of Brutus was called “ the young Philippian,” Strongylion fecit puerum, quem amando Brutus Philippiensis cognomine suo illustravit (XXXIV, 19). Cicero may be quoted as a type of the inconsistent art collector. A man of dubious artistic taste and snobbish tendencies but who becomes a true art lover when he special- izes in that part of art collecting more closely in keeping with his studies. Thus in his letter to Atticus he reveals his love of books and old Greek works, and how fond he was of good bindings, etc. As a collector of art Cicero leaves one doubtful as to his taste and connoisseurship, qualities to which he seems to lay claim in more than one of his speeches. When he writes to his friend Atticus, his good counsellor, the man charged to buy art for him, he does not express himself either as a real lover of art or a genuine connoisseur. “ Buy me anything that is suited for the decoration of my Tusculum,” he writes to Atticus. “ Hermathena might be an excellent ornament for my Academy, Hermes are placed now in all Gymnasia. ... I have built exedras according to the Rapacious Roman Collectors 41 latest fashion. I should like to put paintings there as an ornament,” etc. In Paradoxa, a collection of philosophical thoughts called Socratic in style by Cicero, in which he says he has called a spade a spade, Socratica longequc verissima, Cicero has the courage to write the following paragraph in defence of Carneades, who maintained that a head of a Faun had been found in the raw marble of a quarry at Chios : — “ One calls the thing imaginary, a freak of chance, just as if marble could not contain the forms of all kinds of heads, even those of Praxiteles. It is a fact that these heads are made by taking away the superfluous marble, and in modelling them even a Praxiteles does not add anything of his own, because when much marble has been taken away one reaches the real form, and we see the accomplished work which was there before. This is what may have happened in the quarry of Chios.” The gamut of art collectors would not be complete without quoting a few samples of worthy art lovers who either under- stood art, like the Greeks, as a means of public enjoyment, or in some way showed genuine and most praiseworthy qualities as true collectors of art. It is doubtful whether the great Pompey really felt any pleasure in collecting art pieces, or whether he simply did it to ingratiate himself with the public. But as a matter of fact his attitude towards the enjoyment of art was certainly of a most unselfish character. Though he very sumptuously embellished his gardens on the Janiculum, this was nothing compared with the public buildings he enriched with rare statues, paintings, etc. His theatre was a magnificent emporium of art of which we possess some samples in the colossal Melpomene of the Louvre Museum and the bronze Hercules excavated under Pius IX, now one of the finest pieces of the Vatican collection. Both these statues were found buried on the spot where once the monumental theatre of Pompey had stood. But the artistic glories of this theatre were perhaps even 42 Rapacious Roman Collectors surpassed by the interminable portico Pompey constructed and adorned for the benefit of the public. This spot, which was called the Promenade of Pompeius, became one of the fashionable walks of Rome. “You disdain,” asks Propertius of his lady love, “the shady colonnades of Pompey’s portico, its magnificent tapestries and the fine avenue of leafy plane-trees ? ” (IV, 8). And in another place Cynthia forbids her paramour this promenade with the words : “ I prohibit you ever to strut in your best fineries in that promenade.” Pliny (XXXV, 9), says that Pompey had some famous paintings in his galleries and seems to have been more especi- ally struck by a work by Polygnotus, representing “a man on a ladder,” and a landscape by Pausias. Curiously enough the characteristics that seem to have attracted Pliny in the two works do not point to the noted writer as a great art critic. He says that the remarkable side of Polygnotus’ painting was that the beholder could not tell whether the man on the ladder was ascending or descending, and that the main characteristic of Pausias’ work consisted in two black oxen outlined on a dark landscape. Caesar, who showed himself to be a better connoisseur than his rival Pompey, and who, being of a more refined nature, would not, as did Pompey, have indulged in the gratification of parading the chlamys of Alexander the Great in a triumphal car drawn by four elephants, spent consider- able sums on the embellishment of Rome with art. He also, like many collectors of art, had his hobbies, carrying with him through his various campaigns an endless number of precious mosaic tables, and always keeping in his tent a fine work of a Greek artist, a statue of Venus, with whom he claimed relationship. Though he showed eclectic taste in his gifts to the town and temples, he was in private, like a true con- noisseur and refined lover of art, somewhat of a specialist, being extremely fond of cameos and cut stones. Of these he had six distinct collections that held the admiration of all the connoisseurs of the city. Rapacious Roman Collectors 43 He was, however, not only a passionate seeker after antiques, most boldly acquiring precious stones, curiosities, statues, pictures by old masters ( gemmas , tereumata, signa, tabulas opens antiqui animosissime comparassc), as Suetonius tells us, but also the ever-ready patron of modern art. In this character he paid 80 talents (about £ 16 , 000 ) for a painting by Timonacus. Damophilus and Gorgas, painters, sculptors and decorators, worked for him to embellish the Arena he built in Rome, an edifice capable of holding 2500 spectators. Many artists worked at his Forum, a monument to his name for which he paid a sum equivalent to twenty million liras for the ground alone. Meanwhile he was also busy embellish- ing other cities of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Greece, and even Asia. Suetonius states that Caesar sent a company of artists and workers to rebuild destroyed Corinth and to replace its statues on their pedestals. Being a most unselfish kind of lover of art, Caesar was one of the few who did not yield to the momentary fashion that led patricians to send their art pieces out of Rome, to em- bellish and decorate their country houses and magnificent villas. This peculiar fashion that exiled so many fine statues from Rome, leads us to speak of another noble type of col- lector, Marcus Agrippa, who, like Caesar, not only set a good example by keeping all his treasures of art in Rome, mostly for the enjoyment of the public, but protested against the new custom, and held meetings and lectures to dissuade wealthy Romans from sending away from the city their chef -