The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Collectors, by Frank Jewett Mather

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Title: The Collectors

Author: Frank Jewett Mather

Release Date: August 4, 2004 [eBook #13114]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLLECTORS***

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE COLLECTORS

Being Cases mostly under the Ninth and Tenth Commandments

by

FRANK JEWETT MATHER, Junr.

1912

Comprising a Ballade, wherein the Wrongfulness of Art Collecting is conceded, and as well Certain Stories: Campbell Corot, which recounts the career of an able and candid Picture Forger. The del Puente Giorgione, which tells of an artful Great Lady and an Artless Expert. The Lombard Runes, a mere interlude, but revealing a certain duplicity in Professional Seekers for Truth. Their Cross, so called from an inanimate Object of Price which wrought Woe to a well meaning New York Couple. The Missing St Michael, a tale of Italianate Americans which is full of Vanities and, though alluring to the Sophisticated, quite unfit for the Simple Reader. The Lustred Pots, again a mere interlude, but of a grim sort, as it grazes the Sixth Commandment and The Balaklava Coronal, which, notwithstanding its exotic title, is mostly of our own People, showing the Triumph of a resourceful Dealer over two Critics and a Captain of Industry. To which seven stories are added some Reflections upon Art Collecting, setting forth Excuses and Palliations for a Practice usually regarded as Pernicious.

FOREWORD

Of the seven stories of art collecting that make up this book "Campbell Corot" and the "Missing St. Michael" first appeared under the pseudonym of Francis Cotton, in "Scribner's Magazine," and are now reprinted by its courteous permission. Similar acknowledgment is due the "Nation" for allowing the sketch on art collecting to be republished. Many readers will note the similarity between the story "The del Puente Giorgione" and Paul Bourget's brilliant novelette, "La Dame qui a perdu son Peintre." My story was written in the winter of 1907, and it was not until the summer of 1911 that M. Bourget's delightful tale came under my eye. Clearly the same incident has served us both as raw material, and the noteworthy differences between the two versions should sufficiently advise the reader how little either is to be taken as a literal record of facts or estimate of personalities.

CONTENTS

A Ballade of Art Collectors

Campbell Corot

The del Puente Giorgione

The Lombard Runes

Their Cross

The Missing St. Michael

The Lustred Pots

The Balaklava Coronal

On Art Collecting

A BALLADE OF ART COLLECTORS

Oh Lord! We are the covetous.
  Our neighbours' goods afflict us sore.
From Frisco to the Bosphorus
  All sightly stuff, the less the more,
We want it in our hoard and store.
  Nor sacrilege doth us appal—
Egyptian vault—fane at Cawnpore—
  Collector folk are sinners all.

Our envoys plot in partibus.
  They've small regard for chancel door,
Or Buddhist bolts contiguous
  To lustrous jade or gold galore
Adorning idol squat or tall—
  These be strange gods that we adore—
Collector folk are sinners all.

Of Romulus Augustulus
  The signet ring I proudly wore.
Some rummaging in ossibus
  I most repentantly deplore.
My taste has changed; I now explore
  The sepulchres of Senegal
And seek the pots of Singapore—
  Collector folk are sinners all.

Lord! Crave my neighbour's wife! What for?
  I much prefer his crystal ball
From far Cathay. Then, Lord, ignore
  Collector folk who're sinners all.

CAMPBELL COROT

The Academy reception was approaching a perspiring and vociferous close when the Antiquary whispered an invitation to the Painter, the Patron, and the Critic. A Scotch woodcock at "Dick's" weighs heavily, even against the more solid pleasures of the mind, so terminating four conferences on as many tendencies in modern art, and abandoning four hungry souls, four hungry bodies bore down an avenue toward "Dick's" smoky realm, where they found a quiet corner apart from the crowd. It is a place where one may talk freely or even foolishly—one of those rare oases in which an artist, for example, may venture to read a lesson to an avowed patron of art. All the way down the Patron had bored us with his new Corot, which he described at tedious length. Now the Antiquary barely tolerated anything this side of the eighteenth century, the Painter was of Courbet's sturdy following, the Critic had been writing for a season that the only hope in art for the rich was to emancipate themselves from the exclusive idolatry of Barbizon. Accordingly the Patron's rhapsodies fell on impatient ears, and when he continued his importunities over the Scotch woodcock and ale, the Painter was impelled to express the sense of the meeting.

"Speaking of Corot," he began genially, "there are certain misapprehensions about him which I am fortunately able to clear up. People imagine, for instance, that he haunted the woods about Ville d'Avray. Not at all. He frequented the gin-mills in Cedar Street. We are told he wore a peasant's blouse and sabots; on the contrary, he sported a frock-coat and congress gaiters. His long clay pipe has passed into legend, whereas he actually smoked a tilted Pittsburg stogy. We speak of him by the operatic name of Camille; he was prosaically called Campbell. You think he worked out of doors at rosy dawn; he painted habitually in an air-tight attic by lamplight."

As the Painter paused for the sensation to sink in, the Antiquary murmured soothingly, "Get it off your mind quickly, Old Man," the Critic remarked that the Campbells were surely coming, and the Patron asked with nettled dignity how the Painter knew.

"Know?" he resumed, having had the necessary fillip. "Because I knew him, smelled his stogy, and drank with him in Cedar Street. It was some time in the early '70s, when a passion for Corot's opalescences (with the Critic's permission) was the latest and most knowing fad. As a realist I half mistrusted the fascination, but I felt it with the rest, and whenever any of the besotted dealers of that rude age got in an 'Early Morning' or a 'Dance of Nymphs,' I was there among the first. For another reason, my friend Rosenheim, then in his modest beginnings as a marchand-amateur, was likely to appear at such private views. With his infallible tact for future salability, he was already unloading the Institute, and laying in Barbizon. Find what he's buying now, and I'll tell you the next fad."