The Confessions of a Collector

by William Carew Hazlitt

I have stated that my range of sources of supply was limited. I was now and then attracted by an object in a strange window, and might go in, and demand the figure expected. It was the height of the run upon Chelsea, when I did so in Holborn, and the owner, in response to my appeal, proceeded to disengage from a hook an old Chelsea plate valued by him at £14, 14s. Unfortunately the poor fellow lost his balance, and let the plate go; it was broken into I know not how many fragments. I shall never forget his astonishment and dismay. What could I do? A neighbour of his once fixed me with a Nantgarw plate, and was lavish in his eulogy. ‘Why,’ he exclaimed, allusively to its lustrous brilliance, ‘it laughs at you.’

My acquisitions at public sales have in thirty or more years been limited to two: a Derby mug painted with a military subject, which I gave away, and a large Dresden plaque in a rich frame, which occurred at Sotheby’s ever so long ago, when sales were occasionally held in the warehouse downstairs. The piece was an exquisite copy of the painting by Rubens of his second wife and their child on her knee. Although there was no picture or china buyer present, it fetched £12, 12s., and F. S. Ellis pronounced it a bargain at that figure. I verily trust it may be so (Ellis named such an amount as £50); for it has hung in my study ever since, and owes me some interest.

Time was, when the bijou tea-pot held me in bondage. I have two of that very soft paste made at Mennecy in the department of the Seine, and a third of the finest Dresden porcelain, painted with landscapes (even on the lid), and with the spout richly gilt.

I was tempted, side by side with the Mennecy pieces, by a milk-jug with a silver hinge of Sceaux-Penthièvre, of which the paste is also remarkable for its softness. It was a factory conducted under the patronage of the Duc de Penthièvre. Its products are very rare.

A Welsh clergyman obliged me with a present of a few specimens of china, including a small octagon blue and white dish with Salopian impressed in large characters on the bottom. I value it the more, because the authentic early Salopian is most difficult to procure, and it is the fashion to ascribe to this manufactory the Worcester marked with an S.

I look upon the Nantgarw, of which I relate a trivial anecdote, the Swansea, and the Colebrooke Dale groups, as rather cold, insipid, and tawdry. The first-named is common enough in plates, dishes, and shaped pieces; but I possess a cup and saucer most exquisitely painted in roses with their stalks and leaves, but without a mark, which I have always attributed to this source. I never saw another similar.

But I did take from Reynolds from time to time a few articles: a Wedgwood tea-pot of solid green jasper, a small Chelsea dish of the Vernon service with exotic birds and the gold anchor, a pair of rose du Barri tulip-lipped Sèvres vases, 6 inches high, painted with cupids, and so on. I deemed the tea-pot dear at £7; but the vendor, who had studied the particular branch of the subject, reassured me by offering to buy it back at any time at the same price; and he put this in the receipt—not to great purpose; for he died years ago. For the Vernon dish he asked £20, and took £11. The pair of rose du Barri vases, which belong to the Louis XVI. epoch, he picked up at a Lombard’s for a trifle, and paid me the compliment of charging me £10 for them. But their quality was excellent, and in their gilding there was that free hand, which distinguishes the early work, and is charming from its very informality. The rich gold scrolls and foliage on either side do not correspond, as they would in pieces of modern fabric.

I appear, as I look back, to have been thrown from my early manhood among curiosity hunters and dealers. I was once very dead on the Bowl, when it offered special attractions of any kind. I have one, which is jewelled round the border inside and out, but of which the drawback is that it has in the heel an extremely unconventional painting. The jewelling is in the manufacturing process, and was imitated at Sèvres. A second came from Scotland, and is remarkable for the presence of a Christian legend in the base of the interior, derived from the teaching of the Jesuits in China. I negotiated it at a marine-store dealer’s at North End; but he thought so well of it or of me, that he would not surrender it under £3, 3s. The most expensive specimen I possess cost me £9. It has a turquoise ground, is very richly decorated inside and out, is of large size, and of course absolutely perfect. But I was vouchsafed the sight of one at Deal in the hands of a private owner, for which a matter of £50 was expected. I preferred my own.

The Palissy, Henri Deux, and other costly faïence I never acquired. There was a fellow at Hammersmith, named Glendinning, who had on sale during countless years a specimen of Palissy, for which he suggested a cheque for £250, and which was a palpable copy. This strange character, who was a sort of commercial Munchausen, never wearied of spinning the most outrageous yarns about the goods, which he had, or had had, for sale, and would repeat conversations between the ‘Prim’er’ (Gladstone) and himself, no doubt as thoroughly bonâ fide as everything else about him. The works of Correggio were to be seen only on his first floor; but you might inspect copies in Trafalgar Square and the Louvre.

There was a pair of modern French decorative vases at this establishment, said by the proprietor to have been obtained by him at the sale of the effects of a great lady in Hyde Park, a chère amie of His Majesty Napoleon III. His Majesty, quoth my friend, paid eighty guineas for the objects, which were manufactured expressly for his lady friend in 1869. The vendor judged his purchase with all this imposing provenance rather reasonable at thirty guineas; nor did I contradict him. I did not order the vases to be sent home; but they arrived on approval; and there they remained. I repeatedly invited him to fetch them away, as, however cheap, they would not suit me at the price. He eventually sacrificed them and himself, and his family, by accepting £7, 10s.