Not infrequently the responsibility of the attribution is left to the owner of the work of art, by which means objets d’art are often christened with names of a most fantastic paternity. This is easily done; take for instance a canvas that might or might not be righteously baptized “School of Leonardo.” The work is presented by the owner to be sold by auction and declared as a Leonardo da Vinci, and in the catalogue it will naturally be put down to Leonardo. When the owner goes to buy in his own canvas, he has, of course, no interest to run the price up to a fancy figure, his sole aim is to be able to show to some future buyer a catalogue with the attribution printed—and, curiously enough, printed attributions would appear to carry undisputed weight! It is nevertheless a bait only for greenhorns, with whom its effect rarely fails.
To prevent objects put up to auction from being knocked down at an unreasonably low figure it is an accepted system to place a reserve price upon them, to write down when consigning the goods, namely, a certain sum representing the lowest figure at which the object may be sold. The auctioneer keeps this price in pectore, on his private list, that is to say. When the article is put up for sale it is either offered straight away for the price quoted or the latter is led up to by by-bidding. If this proves to be impossible, the object is bought in and the owner has merely a slight percentage to pay on the last bid and can withdraw his property. Thus while an auction sale always presents hazards, the reserve price is a guarantee against the risks of flagging moments. The room may chance to be deserted of its best public through unforeseen circumstances, enthusiasm may suddenly cool unaccountably, and for these and other reasons a reserve price is therefore a legitimate defence.
Strange to say, even this honest and recognized safeguard has been turned to cunning abuse. The principle of the reserve price, at least, has brought into being that questionable personage nicknamed in English auction rooms Peter Funk, a most undesirable “faker of situations.”
The fact that the reserve price given to the auctioneer is often disclosed to interested collectors, and that it may be divulged by auction-room clerks and so become known, induced collectors with objets de virtu on sale to send friends or agents secretly, in order to run up the bidding to a certain figure. The name long since given to this complacent, secret partner shamming the art buyer is Peter Funk.
“Funkism,” if one may be allowed to coin a neologism, certainly has its right to existence and originated in the legitimate desire to protect objects from falling at ridiculous prices in depressed moments of the sale, but it has now become a regular curse, especially at first-class auctions, where by reason of the great interests at stake, the system can be worked to its full magnitude and no expense spared. As an example—and one that to our knowledge worked greatly to the advantage of the seller and not at all to that of the buyer, from whom “funkism” robs all chance of the “fair play” which should be the dominant note in auctions—we may quote the sale of an Italian collection at Christie’s at which, certainly without the knowledge or even suspicion of the auctioneers, Peter Funk played havoc under every form and guise. To make sure that the keen-eyed collectors should not discover the pseudo-collectors, the latter were all imported from the Continent and given strict injunctions to buy at the stated price, to bid without comment and to indulge in none but commonplaces in conversation with the public, the dealer employing them knowing how impossible it is for a non-collector or a feigned art lover to say three words about a work of art, without giving himself away. A good appearance, natural bidding without emphasis or theatrical pose, an occasional “yes” or “may-be” or “hem” when questioned, and a whole string of uncompromising banalities, these are the stock-in-trade of an improvised Peter Funk, who may not be so capable as the professional one but has the advantage of being less easily detected.
A clever Peter Funk knows the right moment to run up a price, judging from his competitor’s enthusiasm up to what sum he can safely bid before abandoning the game, and by counting on his opponent’s rashness and impulsiveness runs him up to bids which he afterwards regrets. Risky as it is, rarely does an object remain in the hands of Peter Funk, and if it does, the owner will supply him with the money and withdraw the article, paying the auctioneer’s dues, a comparatively modest percentage.
These combined forces in the auction room secretly working as a sequence of traps caused a well-known French collector to propose as an inscription to be put over the door of one of these dangerous dens: “Ici il y a des pièges à loups.”
It is not meant by this that all auction rooms are infested by brigands, who leave no chance for fair-play, and that all who ever enter them come out regretting the attempt to buy by a system that appeals to the public for its square dealing. Not at all, the best artistic investments are often made at public sales, but rarely, alas, by the inexperienced novice who has but a limited knowledge of art, and is besides wholly unfamiliar with the ways of auction rooms.
This double form of ignorance needs the warning that there are traps, so that coolness and wisdom may enter the brain of the enthusiastic beginner, two necessary items in gaining experience at a reasonable price.