The Confessions of a Collector

by William Carew Hazlitt

It is notorious enough, that the picture-market is a man-trap of the most signal and treacherous character. Whatever may be true of books, manuscripts, coins, or stamps, paintings and prints are the greatest snare and pitfall of all. I have frequently gazed with private misgivings, which I might have found it difficult to explain or justify, at a portrait in a broker’s shop, and as I passed and re-passed the place have speculated on the real history of the production. I know full well that the preposterous sums realised for the artist in fashion—at present it is Romney—are explainable on principles, which would make me hesitate to enter the field as a competitor under any circumstances.

At Sotheby’s, many years ago, they had to put into an auction a portrait, to which a curious misadventure had occurred. It was a likeness of Charles the Second in the first instance; but an ingenious person, judging that the Martyred monarch was more negotiable than the Merry one, and unwittingly oblivious of the discordant costume, had painted in a head of Charles the First.

Brooks of Hammersmith once bought a portrait by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., which he could sell—not to me—at 50s. It was not long after Grant’s death. The President, when some one mentioned to him the name of Hazlitt as an art critic, declared that he had never heard of him. Whose fault was that?

I was told a neat anecdote of a celebrated and prosperous adventurer in this particular field of activity, where for the right sort of things the margins of profit are far better than in books or even in china. A party came into his shop, and wished to know if he would buy a picture by so-and-so. He intimated indifference, but on second thoughts asked the price. £100. The work of art changed hands, and was laid on an easel. Client appeared. What a charming picture! Yes, just bought it. Price? £750. Work of art changes hands again. Client reappears. No wall-room; most unfortunate. Oh, no matter; cheque for the amount; picture fetched back, and reinstated on easel. Second client enters. His eye catches the object, placed at the point most likely to accomplish that effect. He demands the figure. The actual cost; the vendor has not long left the premises with a cheque for £750; and, well, ten per cent. commission. Could anything be more moderate? Clever! A sort of commercial legerdemain.

The unsceptical acquiescence of the less experienced West-End picture dealer in the appropriation of an anonymous work of art is perhaps more particularly characteristic of the Leicester Square expert. My uncle Reynell was, I remember, passing a shop in that vicinity, and noticing a portrait suspended near the entrance, with a humble assessment in chalk, said to himself, but in the hearing of the proprietor, ‘Rather like so-and-so.’ The next time he passed, he observed the addition of a ticket, on which was paraded his sotto voce suggestion in an amplified form—‘A very fine portrait of so-and-so (I forget the name which Mr Reynell mentioned) by so-and-so, price £2.’ The enterprising shopkeeper had found an artist to go with a casual passer-by’s speculative identification of the sitter, and had readjusted the figures accordingly.

I am unable to plead that I never went in for prints or drawings. For I looked on, an age since, at Sotheby’s, and saw a lot going for 5s. The firm was not quite so proud at that time, as it has since become, and accepted sixpenny bids. I offered 5s. 6d., and was dismayed when the property fell to me; for it was a bulky portfolio, containing sketches in sepia and water-colour and other matters. There were some signed examples, however, by Stanfield, Sandby, Nasmyth, and Varley, and so I bore up against my fate. Apropos of sixpenny bids, I once wanted a copy of Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum to cut up for a literary purpose, and offered that amount to Mr Hodge, who insisted on having a shilling at one bound. I refused, and had to go round the corner, and buy another copy for double the higher figure. I tried to punish the auctioneer’s pride, and punished my own folly.

I have never personally (for the best of all reasons) trodden the somewhat insidious and evidently very seductive path which leads to the conversion of a share of your estate into ancient gold and silver plate. But I have lived side by side with more than one enthusiast of this type. Diamond contracted in later days a fancy for Queen Anne silver, and grew enamoured of the rat-tailed spoon; and a second friend, whose employments took him all over the country and into provincial towns, before the great change occurred, and everything gravitated to London, has related to me a series of stories of his fortunes as an occasional collector.

In the case of the doctor, the old textbooks on Porcelain and Pottery became of secondary account, and his little lot of early and curious volumes was consigned to an American agent for disposal in the States; but I think that I stumbled on them shortly after at an auction in Leicester Square. Chaffers on Hall-Marks superseded Chaffers on the less favoured topic, and Cockburn’s shop in Richmond and other depôts supplied the material for gratifying the new taste. When one went to Twickenham House (now no more), one was introduced, not to a fresh dish, or cup and saucer, or ceramic knick-knack, but to a rat-tailed spoon of special merit, or a silver mug with an inedited mark. It was growing toward the close of the scene; whatever the plea might have been for the prior line, it was at any rate pursued with ardour and consistency; the owner’s heart and soul were in it; it was a sort of religion with him; he believed in it, as his associates believed in him, and identified him and his name, and his home, with the subject. But the more recent foible was deficient in depth and sincerity; his set had been educated—educated by him—in a different school; and they looked wistfully and languidly at the objects, which their entertainer submitted for their criticism or approbation.

It was in truth a passing whim, an old man’s infection with the prevailing epidemic for what can scarcely be of real interest or importance to private individuals except where there is hereditary association or in the shape of works of reference. Friends noted an abatement in the enthusiasm; pieces mysteriously disappeared; nearly the whole accumulation, never a very large one, melted away; and the master was not long in following.

My remaining friend was imbued with a liking for old silver rather because he was fond of seeing it about him and on his table than in connection with any systematic plan. He was not guiltless of an affection for bargains, and never, I believe, went higher than 10s. an ounce. In the old days—in the forties and fifties—some tolerable examples were procurable at that rate, especially in the provinces; but latterly he found the market too stiff for him—not for his purse, but for his views. Many a desirable lot he has missed for sixpence in the ounce. A large salver engraved with masks by Hogarth, which Lazarus the dealer offered him at 7s. 6d., he lost, because he remained immoveable at 7s., and had the satisfaction of hearing that it eventually brought about four times the money, passing from hand to hand.