The Confessions of a Collector Part 7

A collector had long cast a longing eye on a very beautiful vase in a London shop, but would not have it, because it was odd. He kept a sharp look-out for the companion, and at last he found it to his immense satisfaction at Newcastle, and brought it up to town. On inquiry at the dealer's there, he found that the latter, despairing of getting rid of his piece, had consigned it to a friend at Newcastle in the hope of meeting with a customer.

This was agreeable to the circular system, by which curiosities go the round of the watering-places and spas in quest of homes. I saw a Worcester jug at Bournemouth, which had visited nearly every resort in the kingdom, and still awaited an admirer.

I very soon abandoned the idea about Lowestoft porcelain. Gillingwater in his _History_ of the place (1790) merely mentions that they had clay, suitable for making pottery, in the neighbourhood; but there was no material for fine china. Very possibly certain pieces of Oriental were shipped thither in the white, and locally decorated. But I have yet to see an important example of so-called Lowestoft, which was not really of Chinese origin.

At the place of business long kept by Brooks I was an habitual caller, and used to meet Mr Sanders of Chiswick, whose collection of Chelsea porcelain was probably one of the finest ever brought together. It comprised many large examples in figures and _nefs_ seldom seen and of great importance.

It was Sanders, who related to me the anecdote of a singular find at Antwerp of Chelsea figures in a confectioner's establishment. The proprietor or his family once belonged to Chelsea, and had taken these pieces with them as part of their trade fittings or decorations; and he willingly exchanged them for others on payment of a reasonable difference.

Sanders and myself occasionally met also at Sotheby's. He must have been a person of no mean resources; but his ways were mysterious, and his home, I fear, uncomfortable. Perhaps he found the neighbouring Sign of the Hoppoles more congenial for this reason; he found it, poor fellow, only too much so.

I possess numerous memorials of my transactions with Brooks. He had, besides china, occasional pictures on which I may have sometimes looked with extravagant distrust; and he was in fact an omnivorous buyer and not an injudicious one. I recall a tall Chelsea cup and saucer with a stalk handle, painted with fruit, and marked in puce, which my good acquaintance had obtained from a small house-sale in Chiswick--the sole treasure of the establishment. It was in the finest state. 'They thought me a fool,'

remarked Brooks, 'because I gave 10, 10s. for it.' 'And what would they say of the person,' I put to him, 'who took it of you at a profit?' He grinned, and informed me that a medical man in the neighbourhood would jump at it. This frightened me, and I closed with him at 14. I owed many another prize to the same agency, particularly, in a small way perhaps, an old Dresden plate with a crimson and gold border, painted with a bird and foliage, the prototype of the Chelsea pattern, of which examples have fetched 35. Brooks had this lying in a drawer, and one day I disinterred it, and took it home at 25s. My Hammersmith man was not invariably so discreet in his consumption of liquor as he ought to have been; and I have to confess with some shame and contrition, that I priced, not for the first time, a very fine Cambrian ware mug marked (as usual) in gold, when he was a trifle festive, and he let me have it for 35s. He had two; the other was badly cracked; and I saw it in another shop some time after, valued at 7, 15s.

There were two examples of ceramic ware in his hands at different times, protected and (as I thought) disguised by old black frames. I asked him to take them out for me, that I might be satisfied as to their condition, which he did. One was a Wedgwood plaque, light blue, with figures in relief; the other an original Capo di Monte one, literally hidden under acc.u.mulated dirt. It was of the second period, in the _alto relievo_ style, and represents the Bath of Diana, I believe. The sharpness of the impression was a strong contrast to the modern copies from the moulds.

Brooks asked 6 for it; I took both.

He was _ultimus Romanorum_ in the sense that he left no successor in Hammersmith with a stock of the kind worth regarding.

Brooks was an odd-looking small man, and he and his wife resembled Mr and Mrs Johnson in the Vauxhall song. I once spoke to him of his _confreres_ in the trade, and as to his relations with them, more particularly in the old china line, and his less explanatory than sententious rejoinder was: 'I knows them, and they knows me.'

Gale, who lived in Holborn, where I regularly visited him, was the brother of the County Court judge. He was an intelligent fellow, but not very speculative, nor did I ever, save once, carry away from him anything very notable. He set before me, however, on one occasion a splendid pair of ruby-backed eggsh.e.l.l plates painted with quails, and said that the price was 6. I felt slightly nervous, lest he should have made a mistake; but I agreed to his terms, asked him to pack the things up, and departed. I nearly broke them by a collision on the pavement, but eventually landed them in safety, calling _en route_ at Reynolds's in Hart Street, who told me that a customer would give him 60 for them, if I would let him have them at a figure below that. They are as thin and transparent as paper. It may be just worth noting that a cup and saucer of Capo di Monte of the first type, the paste opaque and the decoration Spanish, was sold to me by Gale as Buen Retiro. It is painted in the same taste, and has the same mark--_M_ for Madrid; but I have always regarded it as of Italian origin, and as the work of the operatives who migrated from the neighbourhood of Madrid to Capo di Monte. The real Buen Retiro resembles eggsh.e.l.l.

Ralph Bernal had formerly dealt with Gale, who was fond of narrating anecdotes of the great collector's hesitation and nearness. There was a particular Sevres cup and saucer, which brought a heavy sum in his sale, and which he got for 5, 5s., after a palaver with the holder of some months' duration.

Reynolds allowed me to make his premises in Bloomsbury one of my regular lounges. I did not altogether take a great deal off his hands, as he paid attention to Wedgwood, bronzes, ivories, and jade, rather than to china; and as I grew wiser, I also grew more exclusive, from a persuasion that one or two subjects are amply sufficient for any single madman, especially a rather poor one.

I have stated that my range of sources of supply was limited. I was now and then attracted by an object in a strange window, and might go in, and demand the figure expected. It was the height of the run upon Chelsea, when I did so in Holborn, and the owner, in response to my appeal, proceeded to disengage from a hook an old Chelsea plate valued by him at 14, 14s. Unfortunately the poor fellow lost his balance, and let the plate go; it was broken into I know not how many fragments. I shall never forget his astonishment and dismay. What could I do? A neighbour of his once fixed me with a Nantgarw plate, and was lavish in his eulogy. 'Why,'

he exclaimed, allusively to its l.u.s.trous brilliance, 'it laughs at you.'

My acquisitions at public sales have in thirty or more years been limited to two: a Derby mug painted with a military subject, which I gave away, and a large Dresden plaque in a rich frame, which occurred at Sotheby's ever so long ago, when sales were occasionally held in the warehouse downstairs. The piece was an exquisite copy of the painting by Rubens of his second wife and their child on her knee. Although there was no picture or china buyer present, it fetched 12, 12s., and F. S. Ellis p.r.o.nounced it a bargain at that figure. I verily trust it may be so (Ellis named such an amount as 50); for it has hung in my study ever since, and owes me some interest.

Time was, when the bijou tea-pot held me in bondage. I have two of that very soft paste made at Mennecy in the department of the Seine, and a third of the finest Dresden porcelain, painted with landscapes (even on the lid), and with the spout richly gilt.

I was tempted, side by side with the Mennecy pieces, by a milk-jug with a silver hinge of Sceaux-Penthievre, of which the paste is also remarkable for its softness. It was a factory conducted under the patronage of the Duc de Penthievre. Its products are very rare.

A Welsh clergyman obliged me with a present of a few specimens of china, including a small octagon blue and white dish with _Salopian_ impressed in large characters on the bottom. I value it the more, because the authentic early Salopian is most difficult to procure, and it is the fashion to ascribe to this manufactory the Worcester marked with an _S_.

I look upon the Nantgarw, of which I relate a trivial anecdote, the Swansea, and the Colebrooke Dale groups, as rather cold, insipid, and tawdry. The first-named is common enough in plates, dishes, and shaped pieces; but I possess a cup and saucer most exquisitely painted in roses with their stalks and leaves, but without a mark, which I have always attributed to this source. I never saw another similar.

But I did take from Reynolds from time to time a few articles: a Wedgwood tea-pot of solid green jasper, a small Chelsea dish of the Vernon service with exotic birds and the gold anchor, a pair of _rose du Barri_ tulip-lipped Sevres vases, 6 inches high, painted with cupids, and so on.

I deemed the tea-pot dear at 7; but the vendor, who had studied the particular branch of the subject, rea.s.sured me by offering to buy it back at any time at the same price; and he put this in the receipt--not to great purpose; for he died years ago. For the Vernon dish he asked 20, and took 11. The pair of _rose du Barri_ vases, which belong to the Louis XVI. epoch, he picked up at a Lombard's for a trifle, and paid me the compliment of charging me 10 for them. But their quality was excellent, and in their gilding there was that free hand, which distinguishes the early work, and is charming from its very informality.

The rich gold scrolls and foliage on either side do not correspond, as they would in pieces of modern fabric.

I appear, as I look back, to have been thrown from my early manhood among curiosity hunters and dealers. I was once very dead on the Bowl, when it offered special attractions of any kind. I have one, which is _jewelled_ round the border inside and out, but of which the drawback is that it has in the heel an extremely unconventional painting. The jewelling is in the manufacturing process, and was imitated at Sevres. A second came from Scotland, and is remarkable for the presence of a Christian legend in the base of the interior, derived from the teaching of the Jesuits in China. I negotiated it at a marine-store dealer's at North End; but he thought so well of it or of me, that he would not surrender it under 3, 3s. The most expensive specimen I possess cost me 9. It has a turquoise ground, is very richly decorated inside and out, is of large size, and of course absolutely perfect. But I was vouchsafed the sight of one at Deal in the hands of a private owner, for which a matter of 50 was expected. I preferred my own.

The Palissy, Henri Deux, and other costly _faence_ I never acquired.

There was a fellow at Hammersmith, named Glendinning, who had on sale during countless years a specimen of Palissy, for which he suggested a cheque for 250, and which was a palpable copy. This strange character, who was a sort of commercial Munchausen, never wearied of spinning the most outrageous yarns about the goods, which he had, or had had, for sale, and would repeat conversations between the 'Prim'er' (Gladstone) and himself, no doubt as thoroughly _bona fide_ as everything else about him.

The works of Correggio were to be seen only on his first floor; but you might inspect copies in Trafalgar Square and the Louvre.

There was a pair of modern French decorative vases at this establishment, said by the proprietor to have been obtained by him at the sale of the effects of a great lady in Hyde Park, a _chere amie_ of His Majesty Napoleon III. His Majesty, quoth my friend, paid eighty guineas for the objects, which were manufactured expressly for his lady friend in 1869.

The vendor judged his purchase with all this imposing provenance rather reasonable at thirty guineas; nor did I contradict him. I did not order the vases to be sent home; but they arrived on approval; and there they remained. I repeatedly invited him to fetch them away, as, however cheap, they would not suit me at the price. He eventually sacrificed them and himself, and his family, by accepting 7, 10s.

When I was at Midhurst in 1877, I had a glimpse of the splendid collection of porcelain formed by the late Mr Fisher. I had arranged with a common friend to go to Up Park, Harting, not far off, to view the Sevres purchased in or about 1810 by the Featherstonhaughs for 10,000, and which is shortly to be dispersed under the hammer, because the heir is obliged to strip the house to enable him to keep it up. Besides the china, they had a great deal of plate, which was allowed, till the family was warned, to lie about the house, and superb antique furniture. One of the Rothschilds offered, I was told, 1500 for a single Florentine table. It was something of the same kind, which a West End dealer found in a lodging-house at Hastings, whither he had taken his family for the air, and purchased for 500 after a prolonged negotiation with the landlady. He sold it for 300 more.

I once obtained of Brooks a 4-inch vase with a _gros bleu_ ground and painted with birds, without a mark, and sold to me as Worcester. I took it to be Sevres from the peculiar unctuous appearance of the paste and the method of treatment; and I remain of the same opinion. Mortlock shewed me two cups, asking me not to look at the marks, and to tell him what they were. One was Sevres and the other a Staffordshire copy. The paste and the bird on the latter betrayed its origin.

It seems strange that the Sevres of a certain epoch should be valuable beyond all comparison with other porcelain, that of France included, and that the modern manufacture, indeed the whole of this century's work, should be so slightly esteemed. But the skill and taste lavished on that of the Louis Quinze, or even Seize, period are immense. It is different with Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester, of all of which you may have examples of early date of poor, as well as of fine, quality. The Sevres and Vincennes seem to have been more especially destined for rich patrons.

Brooks was an excellent judge of china, and fairly reasonable. But he sometimes, like most of us, committed mistakes, and sometimes overshot the mark as to price and value. He long had on view a cup and saucer with the gold anchor, which he had probably bought as Chelsea, and for which he demanded 12. It was a _contrefacon_ by the wily Flemings of Tournay. I eyed with much longing a beautiful jug of Plymouth ware, but unsigned, which he estimated at the same figure; but I deemed it too high, and Brooks was not the man to give way as a rule. After his death, Reynolds of Hart Street obtained the piece, and sold it to me for a third of the amount.

With respect to Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester china it is necessary, as I have just hinted, to be aware that much of the early work is of poor paste and decoration, and that the date is not a guarantee or criterion. Of all these factories there are abundant specimens of coa.r.s.e execution and cheap fabric, though undoubtedly of original and genuine character. The Chelsea figure of Justice, 12 inches in height, is, for instance, of two distinct types: the first very inferior to the later, which exhibits the result of the introduction of Italian, perhaps Venetian, workmen. The mark on this porcelain seems to be borrowed from Venice, and is common to the ware made in that city.

Somehow--perhaps in exchange--Mr Quaritch had on sale in the seventies a fine pair of old cylindrical j.a.panese jars, such as in the common modern ware they use as stick or umbrella stands; I cast amorous glances at them; but the holder demanded sixty sovereigns; and I retired. They were the only objects of interest and value in the lot.

Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Zurich had been advised by some one, that I was in possession of an old Zurich jug mounted in silver, and solicited leave to inspect it, as he was engaged on a history of the porcelain factory at that place. I let him see my piece, which was not silver-mounted, but was far more interesting and important, because it had the original china hinge. My visitor averred that he had never met with any similar example, and expressed his anxiety, if I cared to part with it at any time, to become the purchaser. I mentioned that I had been foolish enough twenty years before to give 6, 10s. for it. He stated his readiness to pay 10, and would, I dare say, have doubled the offer; but I declined.

While Waller the bookseller was still in Fleet Street, knowing me to be interested in old china, he shewed me one day upstairs in his private apartments a French cup and saucer, which had been given to him in Paris, and which, according to the donor, had formerly belonged to that misconstrued enthusiast Robespierre. It struck me, I own, as of somewhat later date; it was uninscribed; and of course relics of this cla.s.s are unlike books in not carrying on their face any valid or satisfactory evidence of their origin and prior fortunes. Waller meant kindly in letting me see his curiosity, and I offered no comment. Credentials I discerned none.

An unhappy acquisition here was one, which I owed to my indiscreet interference with things, which I did not understand. I bought of Waller for 5 a series of plaister casts of medals in a box, and subsequently parted with the lot for precisely as many shillings. I fared nearly as ill in a case, where I took of Stibbs of Museum Street a worm-eaten xylographic block, which placed it in my power to convert five guineas into two; and I fear that the buyer at the lower figure did not bless me.

It was some modern fabrication ingeniously executed on a riddled square of ancient wood.

I saw the last of the Diamond collection, when it was offered at Sotheby's. There was a considerable attendance; but the company was not a strong one, nor was the property. The doctor had preferred _multa_ to _multum_. There was a large ma.s.s of specimens, curious and quaint, and a few handsome pieces, but nothing capital, no productions, which bore accentuation. The affair was the converse of the Fountaine one, where the quant.i.ty was limited, the quality magnificent, princely. Naturally the quotations corresponded. The best price was obtained for a lot, which was not in the category of porcelain or pottery. It consisted of a couple of Gothic crowns of Victoria, 1847, which, as Diamond told me, had been presented by Wyon to him, and which were in the original case. They were proofs, but of the ordinary type, and they realised eighteen guineas. If they had belonged to one of the rare varieties, that of 1847 with the _decolletee_ bust, or the one dated 1853, they would have still been extravagantly dear.

I remember c.o.c.kburn the Richmond silversmith mentioning to me that a customer, who owed him 6, begged him as a favour to take the amount in Gothic crowns, of which he handed him twenty-four unused. There was a ridiculous notion, that the _graceless_ florin was rare, and Diamond inquired about it of Hugh Owen, author of the monograph on Bristol china, and cashier of the Great Western Railway. The following Sunday Owen came down to Twickenham with a small cargo of them.

CHAPTER XI

The Stamp Book--A Pa.s.sing Taste--Dr Diamond again--An Establishment in the Strand--My Partiality for Lounging--One of My Haunts and Its Other Visitors--Our Entertainer Himself--His Princ.i.p.als Abroad--The _Cinque Cento_ Medal--Canon Greenwell--Mr Montagu--Story of a Dutch Priest--My Experience of Pictures--The Stray Portrait recovered after Many Years--The Two Wilson Landscapes--Sir Joshua's Portrait of Richard Burke--Hazlitt's Likeness of Lamb--The Picture Market and Some of Its Incidence--Story of a Painting--Plate--The Rat-tailed Spoon--Dr Diamond smitten--The Hogarth Salver--The Edmund Bury G.o.dfrey and Blacksmiths' Cups--Irish Plate--Danger of Repairing or Cleaning Old Silver--The City Companies' Plate.

I have to retrace my steps to Reynolds, because he was quite fortuitously instrumental in inoculating me with a new weakness--the Postage Stamp. He was a man in very indifferent health, and during two years or so was laid up, so that he was unable to attend to his regular business, and beguiled his leisure with a study of Wedgwood and philately. The former proved sufficiently profitable to him, as soon as he was strong enough to attend to work; the latter was a mere pa.s.sing amus.e.m.e.nt, and fructified only to the extent of placing him in possession of an alb.u.m, formed by the consolidation of a number of others purchased and broken up. This he had by him, and did not propose to sell.

I remarked it on a shelf once or twice; the topic was beginning to awaken interest; and I elicited from the owner, that he might be tempted by 50.

He was ultimately tempted by 16. There were about 3500 stamps; and the collection has since been greatly enlarged and entirely rearranged. I relinquished the pursuit, because I was advised that the liability to deception was excessive, and there my book lies, a record of a foolish pa.s.sion. I sincerely believe, that Diamond had a finger in drawing my attention to stamps; for he had an important collection, which he shewed to me at Twickenham and which he sold, I understood, to a public inst.i.tution for 70.

The frequenters of the Strand, where it is a gorge toward St Clement's, must recollect the morality in metal-work over the premises of a stamp-merchant there. It represented a deadly combat between him and a figure of more stalwart proportions personifying the evil genius of the collector--the stamp-forger. This ingenious and impressive piece of mechanism was illuminated at night, and attracted the attention, which it so well deserved. But the police inconsiderately suppressed the spectacle, merely because it blocked the traffic at a difficult point, endangered human life, and was misconstrued into an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

I am persuaded that the sole chance of securing certain old issues in a few series is the acquisition of a genuine collection, as it stands, and the sale of the _residuum_. I made an effort in this direction one day some time since at Puttick's; but the alb.u.m contained a good deal that I did not want, and some forgeries; and it fetched 66.

I mention it as a flattering mark of confidence on the part of Messrs Sotheby & Co., that a very valuable alb.u.m, which was to be sold in a few days, was lent by them to me for the purpose of examination at my own house. But I did not bid for it, after all.

My varied tastes necessarily brought me into relations with many individuals, to whose superior training and experience I have been indebted for much useful information and much entertaining anecdote. I have during too large a proportion of my life played the part of a lounger and a gossip. How much I should have to deduct from my career, if I were to leave out of the reckoning the time spent in curiosity-shops!

Spent, yet not wholly wasted; for I hang the fruit to ripen, and it has rendered some of my pages less dull and some of my statements less imperfect than they might have been. Instead of being dependent on book-learning, I have handled the objects, into which I proposed to inquire, and have mixed with the wise men of the West, who had grown up amid them.

At the English agency of Rollin & Feuardent of Paris I have pa.s.sed, I should think, months in the aggregate. I have had opportunities of examining there antique jewellery, gems, bronzes, porcelain, medals, coins; and there I have met men, who sympathise in my predilections, and whom I have been enabled to emulate only at a distance--Canon Greenwell, Sir John Evans, Mr Murdoch, Mr Montagu, Lord Grantley, and more. I have seen a duke enter the room, hat in hand, to sell a bronze to the firm. I have seen the _soi-disant_ representative of the Gonzagas of Mantua come to arrange a small pecuniary transaction. I have pa.s.sed on the stair a Turkish gentleman, who might have been mistaken for the Grand Signior, on his way down from turning something or other into currency. It was on those very boards that Ruskin knelt to examine the Cypriot antiquities of Cesnola.