“Three hundred.”
A pause.
“For three thousand three hundred guineas.”
A longer pause.
“For three thousand three hundred guineas.”
And the hammer falls and the room vibrates with the tapping of sticks and clapping of hands; and “The Four Mills” disappears, bound for the house of a dealer, who was to sell it, in time, to an English connoisseur, whom, upon my soul, I envy. He is the right kind of connoisseur, too; no Peer he, or National Gallery Trustee enamoured of American dollars, but a simple gentleman who has already given pictures to the nation and intends (I am told) to give more—perhaps this very Dutch masterpiece.
Lot 78. “Feeding Chickens.” This also is by Matthew Maris, and was painted in 1872. “A Girl in buff dress and blue cap, is feeding chickens with some grain which she holds in the fold of her white apron; foliage background.” Such is the Christie description, and it serves to recall the little enchanted scene to mind; but it says nothing of the mysterious romantic feeling of it, or the richness and delicacy and sweetness of it, or even of the fascinating mediæval city in the distance.
For this Sir John Day gave £300, and at the sale it began at a thousand guineas and reached three, falling also to a Scotch purse—and it is now, I hear, in Canada. Two hundred and sixty-four thousand six hundred saxpences never went bang to better purpose. This second picture, by the way, was painted from the same model that lends such charm to “The Girl at the Well,” feeding pigeons, in the McCulloch collection.
Six William Marises[1] follow, and then we come to another Dutch painter whose work is every year more and more desired of collectors—Anton Mauve, the pastoral poet of Holland, who did for its cows and sheep and blue-coated peasants what Israels has done for its fisher-folk and James Maris for its skies. The place that Mauve’s sincere and modest art has won in the eyes of the best connoisseurs is a refreshing proof that honesty in painting is ultimately the best policy, although the honest artist may have every opportunity of starving before the tide turns his way.
[1] William Maris also is coming to his own. On June 30, 1911, one of his pastoral scenes brought £3200, at Christie’s.