FORGING THE RAVAGES OF TIME

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 119, 13 February 1926, Page 22

FORGING THE RAVAGES OF TIME

MAKING ANTIQUES FOR TOURIST DUPES

Scattered over various parts of Eng- . land may be found, by the curious investigator, some of the most extraordinary factories that England possesses, the factories for antiques, where chairs , and tables, bureaux and tallboys grow two hundred years older in a single week. This curious industry is described by Mr. Paul Trevelyan in the “Weekly Dispatch.” Tightly barred doors keep away the general crowd, for these factories are staffed by true artists, whose secrets are too precious and too hard won to be casually betrayed. Almost literally they create antiques. Using the rich old woods with care, they recapture the delicacy of the veneer, they bore holes as skilfully as any worm, they carve with as much . fineness as the Adam brothers, they produce even the bumps and swellings of age. There is no trace of glue; no roughness of workmanship—nothing but a faithful, almost uncanny echo of the traditions of the past. What happens to these antiques—the truly artistic as opposed to the crudely , faked? Some go to honest dealers, and there. their wanderings end, for they are simply described as what they are—perfect reproductions Some, however, fall into dishonest ways and spend a period masquerading as of ancient blood. a

The factory is usually a fairly silent place, though there are periodic outbursts of hammering and filing. Against the wall of the first room we enter are piled stacks of wood which once braved the seas in the shape of an old battle-' ship’s bows. When that wood is made up into whatever form is chosen for it no expert could say it was not genuine, for the simple reason that it really is old.

In the next room a man with the fervour of a true artist is ‘'converting” a genuine tripod of solid mahogany. Its value as it stands at the moment is not more than £5. But when he has finished carving the legs and has put the whole of his'exquisite workmanship into the remoulding of the stem it would be worth, if it were a "genuine” piece, little under £lOO. So far as the unscrupulous dealer Is concerned—and how are the creators to differentiate between the true and the false in human nature ?—these products, which have a ready sale, are divided into two classes. The comparatively "easy” pieces, in which the workmanship is fairly straightforward and the faking not particularly elaboiate, are destined for some of the ancient cottages in obscure villages whose owners carry oti such an excellent trade by unwillingly disposing of "heirlooms”‘to eager and innocent tourists.

“Difficult” pieces, on which months of labour may have been spent, are carefully considered. They may be sold outright in the shop as genuine pieces, or they may be gracefully introduced for re-sale, into the home of that small class of society men and women who dishonour their names by making themselves partners in sharp practice.

Imagine that Lady X is anxious to obtain money from a rich climber who may be called Mrs. Parvenu. On the day before the dinner a mysteriouslooking crate makes its entrance by way of the basement. Descending, my lady superintends its unpacking. As the foldings arc removed there appears, in radiant beauty, a Queen Anne cabinet in blue lacquer, which is duly transported by the butler, and his underlings to a place of honour in the corridor on the first floor. Standing there, beneath the portrait of my lord’s great grandfather (who was a very cynical gentleman), one would have said that it had been there for generations.

Mrs. Parvenu arrives, dinner is served, Mrs. Parvenu is enchanted with her hostess’s amiability. She is so different from the usual run of hostesses to whose tables she has managed, after infinite difficulty, to be invited. She docs not ask one to subscribe to a charity before one has finished one’s soup, or to help a struggling artist after one’s first glass of champagne. In fact, she does not mention charitv at all.

When dinner is over, and Mrs. Parvenu walks with excessive dignity from the room (for she has had just half a glass too much champagne), what could be more natural than to pause before that lovciy Queen Anne cabinet (on which the light is cunningly directed), to inquire into its history, to listen entranced to the romantic tale which is promptly unfolded. The price is £BOO. The cost, to the manufacturer was a little over £BO. The clea r profit < f £7OO is divided equally between my lady and the dealer” Nobody is any the wiser, and one person, at least, is very much happier. That person is Mrs. Parvenu, who never grows tired of showing her friends this latest acquisition.

Ladv X. does not always “get away with ft” so easily as that. There is on record a story of a certain woman who still holds her shingled head high in London’s social world, who possessed a very beautiful bed of old, unpolished panelled oak. This bed, with its accompanying antique tapestry, she sold, quite honestly, to a rich and climbing friend for the sum ot £lOO. No sooner had it gone than another bed appeared in its place, so like its predecessor that only a very few experts could have told the difference. This bed she intended to keep. But times were hard, and one week-end, when Mrs. Climber was among het guests, she succumbed to temptation and sold the bed, as the original, to Mrs. Climber, this time for the sum of £5OO. The very next week-end Mrs. Climber went to stay with the original purchaser of the bed. Tableau 1 Mrs. Climber saw her opportunity She would not take her monev back—certainly not. She had a far more valuable asset than that—the knowledge that for as long as she chose Lady X. would have to do her social bidding. And Lady X. still docs.