Chats on Old Miniatures

by J. J. Foster

To be a successful collector of miniatures demands that one should be conversant with their market value, which, in its turn, presupposes some knowledge of the various painters and the characteristics of their work. Here again, I make so bold as to assert, there is no royal road. Knowledge of this sort, like most other knowledge worth possessing, has to be acquired by experience, by patience, and by degrees. The various handbooks which have appeared in such plenty of late years professing to teach "How to Identify this" and "How to Collect that" are, no doubt, valuable in their way, but, in my opinion, are apt to lead the inexperienced collector to believe that the discrimination and the judgment essential to safety are more easily acquired than is likely to be the case in so difficult a pursuit.

And it is difficult, because, as no doubt the reader will often have observed for himself, it is so very frequently the case that miniatures do not bear the names of either the person whom they are intended to represent, or of the artist who drew the likeness. So that the collector who would judge of some little head, it may be, is thrown back upon the necessity of having an intimate knowledge of the technical characteristics and qualities of the work before him, which is often the sole test that he can apply and the trifling clue he has to follow. In the case of old silver there are, at any rate, the stamps to guide the connoisseur, to say nothing of other differences which I need not stop to point out. Most old china, too, is marked.

Again, as with china, and also with silver, there is the forger to beware of, and he constitutes a very real danger, even to collectors of experience, because the forgery of miniatures is brought in these days almost to the level of a fine art, and the ingenuity employed to deceive is indeed remarkable. Take by way of illustration the practice of painting miniatures upon old playing-cards—or what appear to be old playing-cards, for I am told that such things as the latter are expressly fabricated. In the days of the Stuarts miniatures were painted upon pieces of playing-cards, and when framed they were often backed up by one or two other pieces fitted in behind them. These latter pieces afford valuable opportunity for the forger's exertions. Old papier-mâché frames, from which some silhouette or comparatively worthless portrait has been taken, are employed to mislead the unwary. A copy, painted only the week before, is put into some old frame of the eighteenth century, and although costing but a few shillings (and dear at that), is offered at as many guineas to the confiding collector, who, if he falls into the trap, thinks he has got a bargain, as no doubt he would have if—if only the prize were an original, and what it professed to be.

Then the manufacture of copies of well-known examples in public collections is carried on unblushingly and upon a wholesale scale. I have had large leather cases of such things, containing tray after tray of them, offered me repeatedly, and "upon highly advantageous terms." These are the work of continental copyists, German and French. In Paris they may be found by the gross in the shops of the Rue de Rivoli and in the purlieus of the Palais Royal. And let not the collector make light of this persistent fabrication, because, remember, they are bought by somebody. The distribution of them is going on, as Americans say, "all the time." They become dispersed and crop up again under all sorts of circumstances, from all kinds of sources; they have endless fictitious origins given to them. Generally you are told that they have been in the possessor's family for untold generations, and that the grandfather of the would-be vendor refused a fabulous sum for them.

Perhaps the best advice that I, as one of some experience in such matters, can give, is to be summed up in the word "caution." I say, then, use caution, and always caution, and once more caution.

There remains the alternative of acquiring miniatures by private treaty, often a somewhat delicate matter.

It would not be difficult to write an essay on the Ethics of Collecting, but it might be hard to discriminate with nicety between the use the collector is justified in making of his superior knowledge, to the detriment of the possessor, because we must not forget that when a bargain is "picked up," the owner does not benefit much. It is of the essence of "a bargain" that the coveted object—whether it be old china, old furniture, jewels, or what not—shall be acquired below its customary, real, and interchangeable value. Well, that clearly is a transaction in which both parties cannot reap the advantage, and the gain of the one is measured exactly by the loss of the other. The tactics of the buyer are well understood in the East, where they are universally practised to-day, as they have been for untold centuries. Do we not read in Proverbs, "The buyer saith it is naught, it is naught, and when he goeth his way he rejoiceth"?

But enough on a matter which, after all, must be left to the individual conscience, always supposing a "collector" has one.

Uncertainty and confusion often arise in the mind of purchasers owing to miniature painters of widely different abilities bearing similar names, and sometimes owning the same initials. It is important, therefore, to be able to discriminate in such cases. Thus we shall find three "Arlauds" and an "Artaud," though I suspect the last named is a misprint. It occurs on a miniature shown at Kensington in 1865.

Amongst the early men there represented were two Betts, or Bettes, Thomas and John, probably brothers, though their relationship is really uncertain.