Several of the articles brought extraordinary prices. Among the most costly items were: A Sèvres cabinet, £465; a pair of Dresden candelabra, £231; a pair of vases, painted à la Watteau, 95 guineas; King Lothaire’s magic crystal, bought by Mr. Bernal for 10 guineas, and once sold in Paris for 12f., brought 225 guineas; Sir Thomas More’s candlesticks, bought by Mr. Bernal for 12 guineas, were sold for 220 guineas; the celebrated reliquaire of the King’s, 63 guineas; a metal-gilt Moresque dish, £57 15s.; a curious steel lock for a shrine, £32; St. Thomas à Becket’s reliquaire, 27½ guineas; a Limoges enamel portrait of Catherine di Medicis, 400 guineas; a Faenza plate, bought at Stowe for £4, brought £120; a circular Bernard Palissy dish, £162. Among the armour, steel gauntlets, 50 guineas a pair; a warder’s horn, £56; and a Spanish breastplate of russet steel, £155. The first three days the porcelain produced upwards of £6,000; and about 400 lots of Majolica ware, which cost Mr. Bernal 1,000 guineas, in this sale realized upwards of £7,000,—a proof of the skill of Mr. Bernal as a collector; and showing that the purchase of articles of vertu, guided by correct taste and judgment, may prove a very profitable means of investment.
Rarely has the dispersion of any assemblage of works of art realized such high prices as the first portion of Mr. Bernal’s Collection. In neither of the sales of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill, at the Strawberry Hill sale (in 1842), or at that of Stowe (in 1848), were there assembled so many choice articles as in the Bernal Collection. Fonthill, Strawberry Hill, and Stowe included many treasures of historic repute, more valuable for having been possessed by celebrated personages than for their perfection as works of art. Mr. Bernal’s Collection, however, presented higher claims; inasmuch as his judgment was acknowledged over Europe. The entire sale realized £62,680 6s. 5d.
Mr. J. R. Planché, who by request wrote a few introductory lines to the catalogue, thus speaks of his departed friend, with whom he had been associated for thirty years: “Distinguished among English antiquaries by the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge, the difficulty of imposing upon him was increased by the necessity of the fabrication being fine enough in form, colour, or workmanship to rival the masterpiece it simulated; to be, in fact, itself a gem of art, which it would not pay to produce as a relic of antiquity.” Mr. Bernal was for many years a member of parliament, having sat successively for Lincoln, Rochester, and Weymouth, and held the post of Chairman of Committees. In politics he was a supporter of the Grey and Melbourne ministries. He died at his house in Eaton Square, on the 25th of August, 1854.
SALE OF DANIEL O’CONNELLS LIBRARY, PRINTS,
PICTURES, ETC., IN MAY, 1849.
The last day’s sale is thus described by the Freeman’s Journal:—“The auction on Monday concluded the sale of the standard works, and at its close all were disposed of save some few insignificant lots for which no bidders could be found. A large number of miscellaneous works of small value were sold in lots at very trifling prices. One lot, including a number of loose pamphlets and tracts, many of them bearing O’Connell’s autograph and notes, sold for £2. The sales of the preceding day were varied. A number of the Irish and Scottish Art Union prints sold at prices varying from 2s. to 3s. each. A fine proof copy of the well-known print, ‘Cross Purposes,’ brought a guinea. A copy of the now scarce print of ‘Henry Grattan’ fetched (after some spirited bidding) one guinea, Landseer’s ‘Angler’s Daughter’ (engraving), 10s. 6d. ‘The Volunteers in College Green’ was then put up. This engraving, now scarce, was keenly competed for; it brought £1 10s. A paltry landscape painting in oil, ‘The Meeting of the Waters,’ brought 7s. An engraving of Carlo Dolce’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ fetched 6s. A little portrait of that little man, Lord John Russell, was then put up for competition; but, amongst a sale-room full of gentry and citizens, not a solitary bidder was found willing to hazard the risk of even by chance becoming the possessor of this work of art. The accomplished salesman displayed the portrait in every possible light, and solicited an initiatory movement towards setting Lord John a-going, by infinitesimal beginnings in specie; but non eundum erat. It was no use; in vain was the noble lord’s eidolon turned towards each group of by-standers,—in vain did Mr. Jones insinuate ‘Any advance?’ ‘Sixpence for it?’ ‘Eightpence did you say, sir?’ said the indefatigable Mr. Jones (to an old gentleman with a white hat). ‘No, sir, I didn’t; nor fourpence,’ replied the gentleman, angrily. ‘Oh, I beg pardon; well then, fourpence. Any advance?’ Alas! no; not a solitary bidder. Even the Liffey Street picture-brokers looked angrily at this useless and protracted inquiry as to whether there was any advance with regard to Lord John. Finally, the lot was withdrawn. The next lot was a small and handsomely framed portrait in oils of O’Connell. It seemed a tolerably clever copy of the well-known medium size engraving of the original. This picture was put up at a low figure, but was warmly competed for, and was knocked down at £1 10s. A large oil painting of the ‘Madonna and Child,’ not of very high merit, sold for £1. Two engravings, large size,—one, ‘The Trial of Charles I.,’ the other, ‘The Trial of Lord Strafford’—sold at 30s. each. Several other pictures, engravings, and statuettes were sold at very low prices. A splendid Norman steel cross-bow, with appurtenances complete, sold for £1 8s. The sales closed with some miscellaneous articles, none of which brought beyond average prices. The library, altogether, was certainly not such, either in the number of the volumes or their description, as might be supposed to form the collection of O’Connell; and as to the prices obtained, they were, as we have before remarked, not beyond the intrinsic value of each lot, apart from all associations connected with them.”
HOLBEIN.
Holbein, the painter, once engaged with his landlord to paint the outside of his house. The landlord found that the painter left his work very frequently to amuse himself elsewhere, and determined to keep a constant eye upon him. Holbein, anxious to get rid of his suspicious taskmaster, ingeniously contrived to absent himself at the very time when the landlord fancied he was quietly seated on the scaffold, by painting two legs apparently descending from his seat; and which so completely deceived the man, that he never thought of ascertaining whether the rest of the body was in its place.