The Gentle Art of Faking

for art and curio-Faking arrives-Good and foolish collectors as seen by wri

onsequence, imitation and fraudulent art finally had their scope. Fictitious masterpieces 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

. "Nowadays," says the Latin rhetorician and critic, "they prefer the childish monochrome works of Polycletus and Aglæphon 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 t

or 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

emendo" (Sat., 3), the type of a snobbish visionary and sham art-seeker who bought roughly carved statues, supplying their defects with his fancy, and who, in speak

ssed a great many other characters, who, like those of t

his 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 Rh

his27 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,

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

ith the Trimalcho of to-day, decorated, be it understood, with "precious," "rare," "unique" and al

ce of fraud was in some way justified, that in the end the one chiefly responsible for the existence of faking was28 the collector himself. This understanding will be

or by private dealing, the latter in shops or through t

ting on the walls. An idea of what these announcements wer

ere will be sold slaves, furniture, houses, farms. Every

ate rooms adorned with porticos, called atria auctionaria. In speaking of such exhibitions and com

rt 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 employés must have enriched themselves like regular commissaires priseurs. Horace (I. Ep., 7) describes one of these crieurs as indulging in luxury, mak

s or considered out of fashion, quidquid instrumenti veteris aulæ 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 prætor, Aponius Saturninus, became sleepy during the sale, and in dozing

ch shows that then, as now, the auc

ought 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

quaries and bric-à-brac dealers had assembled their shops. A great many of these merc

had their dens, were the30 amateur's fool's paradise and trap, and very likely they

hat 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 candelabras which were almost made to supplant the more artistic ones by a fad, Pliny remarks, "Arborum mala ferentium modo

tationed 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 cand

igniferas manibus retinentia dextris (II, 24). (Figure

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. There31 were also sculpture, ceram

it opes. (Here where golden

on. 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 Crœsuses and rich parvenus abounded; parvenus who, like many of

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 p

e, whims and fads, it may be scrupulous or unscrupulous according to circumstances and, particularly in ar

undisputed reputation in the sigillaria (image market) and other quarters where antiquary32

ilo, and your clients invariably carry their acquisitions away with them! After all your wife is t

ich the collecting mania abounds we

husiasm but for the objects specializing his particular hobby, as Horace remarks in

us are. (This one the glitter of silver

one so crazy over small vases of Corinthian bronze that he spent his days handling the pieces of his collection, taking

he had a fragment of the ship Argo among the rare pieces of his collection. There was also Clarinus, a debauchee, according to Martial, wh

of collector that will never die. Of "Paullus" Martial, observes: "... h

orks 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 h

rnful collector. This is the way Mart

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 ar

e wishes to examine be taken down from the highest spot; afterwards he passes on to examine a hexaclinon, 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

re sold in an over-sized palanquin and with his cortège and train of followers upsets everybody

a purpura filo, Et tamen es

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 si

wn 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 chiefl

ty, 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 chise