first set it on the canvas. How far is it in its altered state a fraudulent affair? The question could not well arise (or would at least be an indifferent one) while the owner kept his purchase on his own walls. But suppose he were to sell it, or present it to a public gallery? It would then, beyond question, be his duty to show his own part in the renovated work. 66 An exhaustive catalogue of the things that are faked or counterfeited would run through a page. Jewellery in the precious metals should always be suspected. The gems of this sort very rarely find their way into the open market, and one that does so is usually a jewel manufactured in pieces, being really a genuine article of very simple workmanship which has been covered with ornamentation and flourishes." Enamels are imitated so inimitably that the imitations will often fetch excellent prices. Engravings forged by chemical methods will stand the closest scrutiny. Artistic bindings are removed from books worth nothing in themselves and fitted to others that are in request. Missing titlepages are concocted as readily as frontispieces. Weapons and armour are fabricated all over Europe. Imitation lace-which is of any kindmay suffer from its mechanical evenness of pattern, but in fineness it will rival the unsophisticated product. The microscope has come unwittingly to the aid of the violin forger; and this, in two or three words, makes a rather interesting story. No musical instrument has been more tensively falsified than the violin, though at one time it was thought that the masterpieces of Stradivarius, Guarnari, and Amati were charmed against the imitators. What were their secrets? Did the mystery reside in the shape, in some subtlety of varnishing, and had time contributed in any degree to the melodious power of the instruments? "But shape and varnishing can be imitated," says a modern expert, "and as to time, the wood can be dried. For no one nowadays believes that by usage alone the atoms of wood in the instrument are disposed in a new and more fashionable manner." The microscope revealed a great part of the magic. It pointed out that "the violin makers of other days used only to employ wood grown in a certain way, and the rings of which were superimposed in a particular manner." This wood is of a most uncommon kind, but it still grows, and may be found. Hence your "old" violin is another thing that can be made to order. "Old" bronzes, again, produced by the thousand, are so like the real articles that the very patina or incrustation which forms after burial or exposure to weather-once so difficult to counterfeit-is there in the truest colour. A veritable world of simulacra ! Glassware has already been referred to. It is much sought after, and not very difficult to counterfeit. Dr. Hans Gross, in an exhaustive chapter on the varieties of cheating and fraud, says that in the old fortress of Rilgersburg there is a window in the dining-hall on which are engraved the words: Drinking began the 17th of May, 1549, and was kept up until St. Vincent's day, and every day all were drunk." This little window" has already been replaced many times, and for each renewal a collector believes he has the real one." 66 But it is the guileful potter who finds as excellent an account as any one in the simplicity of buyers pre-ordained for hoaxing. Beyond calculation are the bastard trifles in clay that carry their deceptive qualities over the world. There seems a kind of blarney in pottery; it wins to the purse. The potter, too, has a certain grievous pull over us. He works in the same clay as the ancients used; his baking process seems identical with theirs; chemistry puts him up to every dodge of colour; and he has but to step into the nearest museum to procure models in abundance. Mercury, that tutelary deity of rogues, is with him at his wheel. Range upon adjacent shelves ten false and ten unimpeachable Tanagra and Myrrhina figures: it will tax the knowledge of very learned men to distinguish them. 66 Dr. Gross makes us privy to one of the innumerable tricks in the “ antique pottery " trade. "Whoever wishes nowadays to sell a wellimitated article does not expose it in the shop of a merchant, but places it in the ancient garret of some poor widow who swears that it has come down to her from her grandparents, at whose house she played with it, and she finishes by deciding to let it go for an enormous sum. Every day are such stories told, and one can hardly help laughing when one sees the happy owner unfolding a certificate given him by the widow, which certifies that the jug sold today (here follows a detailed description of the jug) is a gift made by Count X to his nurse, the grandmother of the vendor." Guides and hotel touts are often hired by the dealer to persuade the tourist that they have found some unique treasure in the cottage of a peasant. French and German museums contain many specimens of the work of that extraordinary forger of pottery, Michael Kauffmann of Rheinzabern. Michael, who was no other than a village master mason, carried his game on for forty years, discrediting "the Roman art trade with his flying tortoises and other attributes of the gods," and inventing inscriptions which the pundits are wrangling over to this day. Michael must have had a heavenly time. He was |