Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/355

 preter who himself takes an interested hand in the game. Add to this that the average foreign tourist carries with him to Japan, and the average foreign resident retains throughout his sojourn there, a secret conviction that art-treasures are lying around waiting to be picked up by any really astute gleaner, and that the gathering must be done privately lest others enter the field. The situation is perfectly gauged and adroitly exploited by the Japanese middle-man. He knows well that the pride of acquisition influences many collectors more than the merit of a specimen, and that nine bric-à-brac hunters out of every ten are ready to be persuaded that fortune treats them with special favour, and that for them alone gems of applied art have been waiting swathed in brocade and laid by in the recesses of a dealer's strong room. Some of the best experts are in the exclusive employment of a middle-man. They obey their employer reluctantly but faithfully, and at his request devote their abilities to forging "old masterpieces" with which he delights credulous collectors. It does not follow that the collector is seriously victimised. The specimens he acquires are almost if not quite as good from an artistic or a technical point of view as the originals they simulate, and though more costly than frankly modern objects, they are cheaper than genuine old ones. The artist is the chief sufferer, since he is obliged to efface himself for the sake of a fraud, and the art since its progress is checked for the sake of dishonest gain. Fortunately this evil state of affairs is disappearing. A new class of middle-men have appeared who eschew deception and rely upon clients that patronise good work without regard to its antiquity.