The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. CONVERSATIONS IN A STUDIO. I. Belton. Did you read the account of the last sale of pictures and china at auction in Paris? Mallett. Yes; and it struck me that the prices which some of them brought were enormous. B. What struck me more than anything was, that the modern pictures brought such high prices. One expects the works of the old masters to bring large prices. Time itself has added value to them. They are comparatively rare, and every day they are diminished in number by accidents of every kind. There is a factitious value attached to them beyond their real and undoubted merit. They are sealed with the stamp of Fame. Centuries have gone by since they were painted. Generation after generation has praised and copied them; and one feels secure, in purchasing an undoubted original by Titian, Raffaelle, or any of the great masters, that, beyond the delight it will give, it is a safe investment. It is not very probable that the verdict of centuries will suddenly be reversed, and that they will lose the estimation in which they are held. M. I am not quite so sure of that. Tastes change very rapidly, and pictures which were highly esteemed fifty or thirty years ago are now looked at with a cold, critical, and inauspicious eye. We can each of us remember when Guido was a great name, and when his pictures stood in the first rank. He has certainly fallen very much from his pride of place. We are getting more critical and fastidious, and a new taste is growing up. Prices indeed have risen, and a good picture of his would probably bring nearly if not quite as much as it would have done twenty years ago; but relatively he has very much fallen in the scale. B. What do you say, then, of Carlo Dolce, — Charles Sweet, as I like to translate his name into English, it so truly expresses his feebleness? He used to hold a certain rank among distinguished names, but I suppose the universal verdict now would be, that he was a very weak and mannered painter -without imagination, feeling, or sense of color. M. True; and will not the same change take place in the popular estimate of our modern artists? Many a name which now stands very high will vanish out of sight, and some, perhaps, who are undervalued at present will steadily grow in reputation. B. Fashion has a great deal to do with success, and humbug, perhaps, even more. Prices depend on names quite as much as on merit. Fortunes are made every day by men who have no taste, but BUYING PICTURES AN EDUCATION. 3 who think it is "the thing" (that is the slang) to have a gallery of art, and all they want are works by artists who have a name. They buy not from a love of art, and not from any enjoyment they expect to get from the works they buy, but because they come thus to be known and spoken of, and envied as the owners of works that are valued by the world. M. Even more: some of these new millionaires, I am told, prefer to give extravagant prices for works of art. It gives an éclat to their names; society talks about them, asks who they are and wonders at their extravagance, and thus their riches are placed in high relief before the world; and they become known and issue from obscurity. B. I scarcely believe these reports. You must take them cum grano salis. Why should not a new rich man, who has made his own money, have as much enjoyment out of art as any one? Those who want the pictures and can't afford to buy them raise this outcry and invent these stories-in part at least and scandal is always ready to gild and embroider the flattest and tamest facts. Taste and feeling are innate. They may be cultivated undoubtedly, but all the cultivation will be of little avail without the natural sentiment-while the natural sentiment will go a good way even without cultivation. Besides, the very buying of pictures begets cultivation. The man who begins by admiring a colored print will soon tire of it and replace it with something better; and better will beget better. There is always a chance that the admirer of a chromo-lithograph will finally long for a Titian. Let us be glad to see an interest in anything belonging to art. Nothing is so hopeless as utter indifference. Any picture on the wall is better than none. If there be real feeling and susceptibility in the man, the bad will soon bore him, and he will insensibly begin to be cultivated in his taste. He will compare what he has with what others have, and so gradually reform his taste. M. Do you remember the story of Jefferson J. Q. Shoddy of New York? After suddenly making his fortune, he endeavored to enlighten his mind and enlarge his experience by traveling in Europe. He was accompanied by a person whom he was pleased to call his "lady," and they visited together all the famous cities and galleries, and learned the names of many artists of whose existence they had never heard before. A noble desire at last possessed Shoddy to become the owner of a great picture by a great name; and by one of those singular chances which sometimes occur, fortune favored him. He made the acquaintance, through his valet, of Prince Comesichiama, a gentleman of most illustrious family, who had married into the equally illustrious family of the Chilosas, and who was possessed of a remarkable picture, which his valet insinuated that perhaps the Prince might as a great favor be willing to sell, as he unfortunately had made a bad speculation lately, and |
