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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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.

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."

Pliny relates an amusing story, which shows that then, as now, the auctioneer was allowed to group objects.

Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per aedes Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris .

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-?-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 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:--

Hic ubi Roma suas aurea vexit opes.

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 inclination 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.

"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" .

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.

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 .

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" .

Spondet enim Tyrio stlataria purpura filo, Et tamen est illis hoc utile .

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 benefit of their purchases, and adorned porticoes and public places with their collections.

RAPACIOUS ROMAN COLLECTORS

Some 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.

The history of this gem of Sulla's collection is uncommon, and its vicissitudes most remarkable. The statue was 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 explained 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 peregrinations, 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.

Among greedy lovers of art, with a connoisseur's eye as good as his soul was unscrupulous, Verres takes the prize. He 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."

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 finds no counterpart in our times. His 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 interesting curios. Nonius was proscribed because he refused to part with a rare opal, a precious stone of the size of a hazelnut. "What an obstinate man, that Nonius," remarks Pliny most candidly, "to be so attached to an object for which he was proscribed! Animals are certainly 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 carried off partly to his garden at Pompeii, partly to his country-house."

"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 understood 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.

But the artistic glories of this theatre were perhaps even 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?" . 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 , says that Pompey had some famous paintings in his galleries and seems to have been more especially 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 considerable 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 connoisseur 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.

He was, however, not only a passionate seeker after antiques, most boldly acquiring precious stones, curiosities, statues, pictures by old masters , as Suetonius tells us, but also the ever-ready patron of modern art. In this character he paid 80 talents 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 embellishing 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 embellish and decorate their country houses and magnificent villas.

Such was the spirit characterizing Agrippa as a lover of art.

ROME AS AN ART EMPORIUM

Rome an art emporium--Every rich man is more or less a collector-- Chrysogon, Sulla's freedman, competes with patricians--Scaurus' extravagant display--The type of a crack collector as described by Petronius Arbiter--The Roman palaces have special rooms for art gatherings--The Pinacotheca, the Library, the Exhedra, etc., according to the rules of Vitruvius--Fashion creates new distinctions in the appreciation of art and curios--The craze for Corinthian bronze and the classification of bronze "patine" --The hobby of murrhines and citrus tables.

It is easy to understand that the above statistics only give a faint idea of the magnificence of Rome, for the 423 streets and 1790 private palaces noted in the same statistics as existing in Rome at the time of Constantine were in a measure respectively open-air museums and repositories of private collections of art, as no patrician mansion, according to Vitruvius, was complete without a place where paintings and objects of art could be exhibited with advantage.

Cicero allows us a peep at the collections and gorgeous palaces owned by notable Romans as well as their style of living. In his oratio he speaks of Chrysogon in these words:

When one thinks that this Chrysogon, Sulla's freedman, had the chance to amass such an accumulation of art, it is not difficult to imagine the artistic wealth that must have been acquired by Scaurus, the terrible Sulla's unscrupulous son-in-law, the embezzler, the deplored and deplorable Roman AEdile whom Cicero defended before the tribunal with the inconsistency of his easy eloquence.

To give some idea of his fatuous munificence, we may state that this Roman multi-millionaire built, for one month's performance, a theatre in the city, to hold eighty thousand spectators, and adorned the edifice with three thousand statues and three hundred and sixty columns. Among the precious things of Scaurus' collection were a great number of paintings by Pausias, works intended by the artist for his native town of Sycione, if the Romans had had milder methods of collecting art.

"I entered the Pinacotheca, where marvels of all kinds were gathered. There were works by Zeuxis which seemed to have triumphed over all the affronts of age, sketches by Prothogenes that appeared to dispute merits with nature herself, works that I did not dare to touch but with a sort of religious fear. There were some monochromes by Apelles which moved me to holy reverence. What delicacy of touch and what precision of drawing in the figures! Ah! the painter of the very soul of things. Here on the wings of an eagle a god raising himself higher than the air; there innocent Hylas repulsing a lascivious Naiad; further on Apollo cursing his murderous hand...."

At a certain moment the owner of the collection, apparently, arrives. He is of a type not yet extinct: the man who lives for his collection, the man so engrossed in his cherished objects as to forget and neglect other pleasures in life, social obligations, etc.

"I thought of questioning him. He was more of a connoisseur than myself in the epochs of the paintings and their subjects; some of the latter incomprehensible to me. 'What is the reason,' I asked him while we were speaking of painting, 'for the weakening, the great decadence of the fine arts nowadays; more especially of painting which seems to have disappeared and to have left no trace of past glory?' He answered, 'The passion for money, that is the cause of the great change. Years ago when merit, though left to starve, was glorified and appreciated, art flourished.... Then, only to mention sculpture, Lysippus was perishing of hunger at the feet of the very statue he was intent upon perfecting; Myron, that marvellous artist who could cast in bronze the life of men and animals, Myron was so poor that at his death no one was to be found to accept his inheritance. We of our time, given over to orgies, wine and women, have no energy left to study the fine art pieces under our very eyes. We prefer to abuse and slander antiquity. Only vice nowadays finds great masters and pupils!... Do you believe that in our day any go to the temple to pray for the health of their body? Before all else, even before reaching the threshold of the temple, the one will promise an offering to the gods if his rich relation dies and makes him his heir, the other, if he discovers a treasure, and another if he shall achieve the dispersal of his third million in health and safety.... And are you surprised that painting languishes, when in the eyes of every man an ingot of gold is a masterpiece that cannot be equalled by anything that Apelles, Phidias and all the crack-brained Greeks have been able to produce.'"

The Roman collector of books very often went in for elegant bindings and all the showy and decorative side of a library. Seneca deplores the fact that while every elegant house in Rome contained a library, many of these collections of books were simply for show. Too many collectors, not dissimilar in this from our bibliomaniacs of to-day, had quantities of works they did not care to read. "What is the use of having so many thousand volumes," cries Seneca, "the lifetime of their owners would hardly suffice to read the titles of the works.... There is a man with scarcely the literary knowledge of a serf, and he is buying volumes, not to read them, but as an ornament for his dining-room! There is another who is proud of his library only because it is in cedar and ivory; he has the mania of buying books that no one looks for. He is always gaping among his volumes, which he has bought solely for their titles. Lazy people, who never read, are likely to be found with complete collections of the works of orators or historians, books upon books. One could really forgive this mania if it had originated in a real passion for reading, but all these fine works, the great creations of divine genius, works ornamented with the portraits of their authors, do but serve to decorate the walls" .

A large library was the desire of Horace. He wrote to Lellius:

"Do you know my daily prayer?--Great Gods! let me keep the little I own, less if it is your pleasure; let me live according to my choice the days your indulgence has granted me; let me have plenty of books, one year's income in advance that I may not be obliged to live day by day from hand to mouth.... As regards the peace of my heart and my happiness, that is my affair" .

Such contrarieties have a genuine echo in our society where the bibliomaniac is rarely a literary man or even slightly interested in literature. Bibliomaniacs collected volumes for the most part either because some of them were considered rare, and therefore advertised the high price paid for them, or because they might serve as a decorative show, but the collecting of general art and curios, with a few exceptions, appears to have been vacuous and freakish. Even specialization, which is held to be progress in modern times, but as a matter of fact more often merely represents the triumph of erudition over art and taste, exercised in Rome the momentary tyranny of fashion.

Another craze in Rome that greatly fostered imitation and forgery was that of murrhines, cups of a mysterious material which was more valued than any other rare stone or rock crystal, though a cup of the latter, according to Pliny , easily fetched 150,000 sesterces, an amount equivalent to ?1200. As a rule, always according to Pliny, for one of these cups a bigger price was paid than for a slave.

If the Romans, unlike the Americans, had no detectives at festivals and banquets, they certainly took precautions to guarantee the safety of the treasures displayed and to guard against the possible greed of some guest.

"Whereas Virro drinks from pateras of beryl," remarks Juvenal, speaking to a parasite, "no one would trust you with even a simple golden cup, or, if perchance they do let you use one, be sure a guardian near you has previously counted the precious stones studding it and follows with his eye the movements of your fingers and your sharp nails."

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