THE ANTIQUE EYE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3334, 16 August 1926, Page 7

THE ANTIQUE EYE.

(By Murray Adams-Acton, F.S.AJ The art dealer’s most valuable possession is what is known as “an eye" whereby lie can tell at a glance whether a thing is good. The eye oau be trained and developed, but unless a anvn lias instinctively that inborn sense which an artist has for a work of art, he will be in continued difficulties and buy unsaleable things. My father, when a young man, was sent' to Home by the Royal Academy as a gold medallist and travelling student. He was a sculptor, and had no training as a painter, hut from time ti, time he would buy a picture if die drawing pleased him. He had no thought of values, but his judgment always proved correct, as many of these pictures, winch he bought over sixty years ago, are now hanging in the National Gallery. If a man has artistic acumen it is not necessary for him to hunt lor a

signature on a canvas or to turn over a vaso and examine its mark to ascertain whether it is genuine. An. expert win;so eye has become matured by constant practice should be able to place any average article —whether a picture, 'bronze, tapestry, or porcelain —almost immediately, and to say within twenty years the date when it was made. Sir Charles Allom. when a. young art student, was travelling one day on the top oi : an omnibus and saw a picture in a shop window. He alighted from the omnibus to moke a closer inspection, anu was so impressed by the fine quality of its execution that he managed to save .the sum of £l6, no small sum for a. student, with which to purchase it. Some time later he sold n again for double this amount. Long lifter wards, he was _ advising one of the American millionaires in regard to the arrangement of his p iva e museum, and was astonished to see th same picture hanging on the wall. “There is my picture,” he exclaimed bought it when I was a student twenty vears ago; shall 1 tell you wba. paid for it?”' “No. thank you.” re plied the millionaire “1 know what it cost me.” A dealer must be quick to under-

•suum.l a. client. It is no use trying to interest a man in the fourteenth century Gothic panel it lie prefers Louis Quinzc! But tact, though, important, is not essential to successful dealing. It is the “eye” that particularly counts. The prospective dealer’s eye should lie trained from the earliest agt to he in sympathetic contact with things which are known to possess artistic merit, even it they be but photographs : such training protects the mind from the danger of unwise admiration leading to unprofitable speculation.

Perhaps there is no occupation in the world less monotonous than that of an art dealer. Pictures are always changing hands and pass from place 1o place all over the world. It is the “flukes” which make the game pro

iif able. gome authentic “flukes”' are almost incredible. A small vase' only eight inches high stood in a West Fnd window for almost a year and was then bought for twelve and sixpence. T n 1912 the same little vase was sold for six thousand guineas! A small casket of pure gold, now in the London Museum, was purchased at the Caledonian Market for ninepence. \