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Read Ebook: The Gentle Art of Faking A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present day by Nobili Riccardo
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Ebook has 1426 lines and 108233 words, and 29 pages
PART I
THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF FAKING
PART II
THE COLLECTOR AND THE FAKER
THE FAKED ARTICLE
INDEX 311
FACING PAGE Marcus Aurelius 48
Diomedes with the Palladium 72
Imitations of the Antique 88
Marsyas 96
The Spinario 120
San Giovanni 136
Athlete 144
The Battesimo 152
Bacchus 152
The Resurrection 184
Piet? 184
A Portrait 192
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
THE GENTLE ART OF FAKING
PART I
THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF FAKING
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.
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 anything 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 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 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.
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 , and wonders how Fabius, a Roman and patrician, can bring himself to sign his painting with full name and qualification, "Fabius Pictor" .
As a result of this peculiar feeling and in full contrast with the Greek sentiment which has handed down to posterity 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 informs us that 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
Having carried off the statues of the Nine Muses in his conquest of Ambracia, this same Fulvius Nobilior placed them in the temple of Hercules. At this time Roman conquerors had progressed, and they already travelled with experts and advisers. Fulvius Nobilior was accompanied by the poet Ennius , 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 themselves. In this way were the first private collections in Rome formed.
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 proscription 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 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 AEsculapius 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 plundering, and sacked Sicily of all the island possessed of art.
COLLECTOMANIA IN ROME
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 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 preference for work 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 pretension" .
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.
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 Trimalcho of to-day, decorated, be it understood, with "precious," "rare," "unique" and all the rest of the arch-superlatives of modern idioms--such collectors have not been lost to our day.
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