The Confessions of a Collector

by William Carew Hazlitt

When I was at Midhurst in 1877, I had a glimpse of the splendid collection of porcelain formed by the late Mr Fisher. I had arranged with a common friend to go to Up Park, Harting, not far off, to view the Sèvres purchased in or about 1810 by the Featherstonhaughs for £10,000, and which is shortly to be dispersed under the hammer, because the heir is obliged to strip the house to enable him to keep it up. Besides the china, they had a great deal of plate, which was allowed, till the family was warned, to lie about the house, and superb antique furniture. One of the Rothschilds offered, I was told, £1500 for a single Florentine table. It was something of the same kind, which a West End dealer found in a lodging-house at Hastings, whither he had taken his family for the air, and purchased for £500 after a prolonged negotiation with the landlady. He sold it for £300 more.

I once obtained of Brooks a 4-inch vase with a gros bleu ground and painted with birds, without a mark, and sold to me as Worcester. I took it to be Sèvres from the peculiar unctuous appearance of the paste and the method of treatment; and I remain of the same opinion. Mortlock shewed me two cups, asking me not to look at the marks, and to tell him what they were. One was Sèvres and the other a Staffordshire copy. The paste and the bird on the latter betrayed its origin.

It seems strange that the Sèvres of a certain epoch should be valuable beyond all comparison with other porcelain, that of France included, and that the modern manufacture, indeed the whole of this century’s work, should be so slightly esteemed. But the skill and taste lavished on that of the Louis Quinze, or even Seize, period are immense. It is different with Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester, of all of which you may have examples of early date of poor, as well as of fine, quality. The Sèvres and Vincennes seem to have been more especially destined for rich patrons.

Brooks was an excellent judge of china, and fairly reasonable. But he sometimes, like most of us, committed mistakes, and sometimes overshot the mark as to price and value. He long had on view a cup and saucer with the gold anchor, which he had probably bought as Chelsea, and for which he demanded £12. It was a contrefaçon by the wily Flemings of Tournay. I eyed with much longing a beautiful jug of Plymouth ware, but unsigned, which he estimated at the same figure; but I deemed it too high, and Brooks was not the man to give way as a rule. After his death, Reynolds of Hart Street obtained the piece, and sold it to me for a third of the amount.

With respect to Chelsea, Derby, and Worcester china it is necessary, as I have just hinted, to be aware that much of the early work is of poor paste and decoration, and that the date is not a guarantee or criterion. Of all these factories there are abundant specimens of coarse execution and cheap fabric, though undoubtedly of original and genuine character. The Chelsea figure of Justice, 12 inches in height, is, for instance, of two distinct types: the first very inferior to the later, which exhibits the result of the introduction of Italian, perhaps Venetian, workmen. The mark on this porcelain seems to be borrowed from Venice, and is common to the ware made in that city.

Somehow—perhaps in exchange—Mr Quaritch had on sale in the seventies a fine pair of old cylindrical Japanese jars, such as in the common modern ware they use as stick or umbrella stands; I cast amorous glances at them; but the holder demanded sixty sovereigns; and I retired. They were the only objects of interest and value in the lot.

Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul at Zurich had been advised by some one, that I was in possession of an old Zurich jug mounted in silver, and solicited leave to inspect it, as he was engaged on a history of the porcelain factory at that place. I let him see my piece, which was not silver-mounted, but was far more interesting and important, because it had the original china hinge. My visitor averred that he had never met with any similar example, and expressed his anxiety, if I cared to part with it at any time, to become the purchaser. I mentioned that I had been foolish enough twenty years before to give £6, 10s. for it. He stated his readiness to pay £10, and would, I dare say, have doubled the offer; but I declined.

While Waller the bookseller was still in Fleet Street, knowing me to be interested in old china, he shewed me one day upstairs in his private apartments a French cup and saucer, which had been given to him in Paris, and which, according to the donor, had formerly belonged to that misconstrued enthusiast Robespierre. It struck me, I own, as of somewhat later date; it was uninscribed; and of course relics of this class are unlike books in not carrying on their face any valid or satisfactory evidence of their origin and prior fortunes. Waller meant kindly in letting me see his curiosity, and I offered no comment. Credentials I discerned none.

An unhappy acquisition here was one, which I owed to my indiscreet interference with things, which I did not understand. I bought of Waller for £5 a series of plaister casts of medals in a box, and subsequently parted with the lot for precisely as many shillings. I fared nearly as ill in a case, where I took of Stibbs of Museum Street a worm-eaten xylographic block, which placed it in my power to convert five guineas into two; and I fear that the buyer at the lower figure did not bless me. It was some modern fabrication ingeniously executed on a riddled square of ancient wood.

I saw the last of the Diamond collection, when it was offered at Sotheby’s. There was a considerable attendance; but the company was not a strong one, nor was the property. The doctor had preferred multa to multum. There was a large mass of specimens, curious and quaint, and a few handsome pieces, but nothing capital, no productions, which bore accentuation. The affair was the converse of the Fountaine one, where the quantity was limited, the quality magnificent, princely. Naturally the quotations corresponded. The best price was obtained for a lot, which was not in the category of porcelain or pottery. It consisted of a couple of Gothic crowns of Victoria, 1847, which, as Diamond told me, had been presented by Wyon to him, and which were in the original case. They were proofs, but of the ordinary type, and they realised eighteen guineas. If they had belonged to one of the rare varieties, that of 1847 with the décolletée bust, or the one dated 1853, they would have still been extravagantly dear.