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SOCIETIES

extended to the artists of the day. The dispersals of these collections began in 1863 with the Bicknell Gallery, and continued at irregular intervals for many years, e.g., Gillott (1872), Mendel (1875), Wynn Ellis and Albert Levy (1876), Albert Grant (1877), and Munro of Noyar (1878). These patrons purchased at munificent prices either direct from the easel or from the exhibitions not only pictures in oils but also water-colour drawings. As a matter of investment their purchases frequently realized far more than the original outlay) sometimes, however, the reverse happened, as, for instance, in the case of Landseer’s “ Otter Hunt,” for which Baron Grant is said to have paid £10,000 and which realized shortly afterAvards only 5650 guineas. One of the most striking features of the sales of the ’seventies was the high appreciation of water-colour drawings. At the Gillott sale 160 examples realized a total of £27,423, when Lord Dudley paid 3150 guineas for Turner’s “ Bamborough Castle”; and three years later at the Quilter sale (1875), when David Cox’s “ Hayfield,” for which a dealer had paid the artist 50 guineas in 1850, realized 2810 guineas. Water-colour drawings have never recovered the inevitable effect of the “ boom ” in the ’seventies, but even within late years prices at auction indicate a distinctly upward tendency; in 1895 David Cox’s “WTelsh Funeral” (which cost about £20) sold for 2400 guineas, and in the same sale Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s “ Hesperides ” realized 2560 guineas. The demand for works by modern artists, whose works sold at almost fabulous prices thirty years ago, has greatly declined ; but during all its furore there was still a small band of collectors to whom the works of the Old Masters more especially appealed. The dispersal of such collections as the Bredel (1875), Watts Bussell (1875), Foster of Glewer Manor (1876), the Hamilton Palace (17 days, £397,562)—the greatest art sale in the annals of Great Britain—Bale (1882), Leigh Court (1884), and Dudley (1892) contained, as did many minor collections sold each season, many very fine examples of the Old Masters which found eager purchasers at high prices. It has been frequently said that the Old Masters are no longer in fashion with collectors, but the fact is that firstrate examples are now rarely offered for sale; when they do occur prices are invariably high. Scarcely a season passes without affording a proof of this, the most striking one of all being the £24,250 realized by the pair of Yandyck portraits of a Genoese senator and his wife in the Peel sale, 1900. The chief feature of the picture sales of the last quarter of the 19th century was the demand for works — more particularly female portraits — by Reynolds and his contemporaries. The origin of this fashion is perhaps traceable to the exhibitions held at South Kensington, 1867 and 1868, and the annual winter exhibitions at Burlington House, which revealed an unsuspected wealth and charm in the works of many English artists who had almost fallen into oblivion. The prices which have been paid at auction during recent years for such pictures can only be described as fabulous, and a few of the records may be quoted—Reynolds’s “Lady Betty Delme,” 1894, 11,000 guineas; Romney’s “The Ladies Spencer,” 1896, 10,500 guineas; Gainsborough’s “Duchess of Devonshire ” (the picture which so mysteriously disappeared a few days after the sale, and which was as mysteriously restored to its owners, Messrs Agnew, in April 1901), 1876, 10,100 guineas; Constable’s “Stratford Mill,” 1895, 8500 guineas; and Turner’s “Wreckers,” 1897, 7600 guineas. Since 1880 works of the modern Continental schools — more especially the French — have become popular with English collectors, and high prices have accordingly figured in auction sales. The “appreciation” is, how-

ever, circumscribed, and perhaps does not extend much beyond a dozen well-known names, of which the principal —with a few of their chief pictures—are Rosa Bonheur, “Denizens of the Highlands,” Bolchow sale, 1888, 5550 guineas; Jules Breton, whose “Girls going to the First Communion ” realized £9100 in New York in 1886 ; Corot, Fortuny, Gallait, Gerome, Greuze, Israels; Meissonier (of whose works sold by auction two may be mentioned): “Napoleon I. in the Campaign of Paris,” 12£ inches by 9| inches, for which Mr Ruskin gave 1000 guineas in 1869 and which realized 5800 guineas in 1882, and “The Sign Painter,” which in the Bolckcno sale of 1891 realized 6450 guineas; Munkacsy, Troyon, and Yerboeckhoven. “ Specialism ” is the one important development in art collecting which has manifested itself during the last half century. This accounts for and explains the high average quality of the Wellesley (1*866), the Buccleuch (1888), and the Holford (1893) collections of drawings by the Old Masters; for the Sibson Wedgwood (1877), the Due de Forli Dresden (1877), the Shuldham blue and white porcelain (1880), the Warwick enamels (1896), the Dudley porcelain (1886), the Massey - Mainwaring gold boxes (1897), and also for the objects of art collected by Mr Magniac (1892) and by Herr Lleckscher (1898). Yery many other illustrations in nearly every department of art collecting might be quoted—the superb series of Marlborough gems (1875 and 1899) might be included in this category but for the fact that it was formed chiefly in the 18th century. The appreciation—commercially at all events—of mezzotint portraits and of portraits printed in colours, after masters of the early English school, was one of the most remarkable features in art sales during the last years of the 19th century. The shillings of fifty years before were then represented by pounds. The Fraser collection (4th to 6th December 1900) realized about ten times the original outlay, the mezzotint of the “Sisters Frankland,” after Hoppner, by W. Ward, selling for 290 guineas as against 10 guineas paid for it about thirty years previously. The H. A. Blyth sale (11th to 13th March 1901, 346 lots, £21,717 :10s.) of mezzotint portraits was even more remarkable, and as a collection it was the choicest sold within recent times, the engravings being mostly in the first state. The record prices were numerous, and, in many cases, far surpassed the prices which Sir Joshua Reynolds received for the original pictures; e.g., the exceptionally fine example of the first state of the “Duchess of Rutland,” after Reynolds, by Y. Green, realized 1000 guineas, whereas the artist received only £150 for the painting itself. Even this unprecedented price for a mezzotint portrait was exceeded on 30th April 1901, when an example of the first published state of “ Mrs Carnac,” after Reynolds, by J. R. Smith, sold for 1160 guineas. Such prices as these and many others which might be quoted are exceptional, but they were paid for objects of exceptional rarity or quality. The demand for the finest works of art of all descriptions is much greater than the supply. As an illustration of the magnitude of the art sale business it may be mentioned that the “turnover” of one firm in London alone has occasionally exceeded £1,000,000 annually. Bibliography.—The chief compilations dealing with art sales in Great Britain are — Art Sales, by G. Rkdford (1888), and Memorials of Christie’s, by W. Roberts (1897) ; whilst other books containing much important matter are W. Buchanan’s Memoirs of Painting; The Year’s Art, 1880 and each succeeding year ; The Connoisseur, by F. S. Robinson tableaux, dessins et objets d’art au XIXe Siecle (chiefly French), by L. SouLLik. (w. R.*) Art Societies. — In banding themselves into societies and associations artists have always been especially remarkable. The fundamental motive of such leaguing
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