ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 86

ART AND ARTISTS.

REMBRANDT—AS PAINTED BY HIMSELF. To the latest period of Rembrandt's career, that between 1650 and 1669, belongs a great succession of counterfeit presentments of himself, painted by himself, ■which, 'with s, sublimity that has hardly been equalled in portraiture, and an art of such authority as to rise high above all subterfuge, bring us face to' face with the struggle waged by the forlorn yet undaunted master against Fate. It has cast him down, furrowed and marred his rugged features, yet leaves him still "the captain of his soul" —full to the end of the wonderment of his boyish days, full of that human love and sympathy which in its intensity has become well-nigh divine. It the most beautiful of all these pictures is. perhaps, the portrait of 1657 in the Imperial Museum of Vienna, the most tremendous in Titanic grandeur is that of 1658, which from the collection of the Earl of Ilchester has passed into' that of Mr Frick, of New York. This was done at the very moment of his failure, and —The Total Collapse of All His Fortunes. — Yet he faces the world, daring the lightnings, and seems to say: " Impavidum ferient ruinae.'' To enumerate, one by one, this wonderful ?eries of late portraits would be superfluous on the present occasion. We must look for them at Bridgewater House, in the National Gallery, at Montague House, in the Louvre, in the Uffizi, and at Rossie Priory, where is preserved the most pathetic of the whole set —the portrait in which wonderment is no longer as to the beauty and the sadness of the world, but ai the strangeness and the sadness of the forlorn man's own destiny. Lore; Iveagh's magnificent portrait (1663), once In the collection of the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows in the period of old age a Rembrandt not only of. undaunted nnen still, but nerved to a momentary revival of worldly dignity. Terrible again ic the effort and the anguish in the later portrait of the Vienna Gallery (about 1666). Wholly exceptional, luckily, in the late time, is an auto-portrait of 1668, to be found at Berlin, in the collection of Frau v. Carstonjen:. This has a Voltairian "ricanemenr," something of the Mep'histophelian iiegativeness, which hurts us -more than sorrow, more than mute upbraiding. It would have been bitter, indeed, iiad the great magician, the great diviner and beautifier of souls, so near to the eternal sleep, taken leave of the world thus —with something like a negation of his whole life-work in his eyes and on his lips. Happily, 'however, the last portrait of all —that of 1669, in the collection of Sir Audley W. Neeld, at Grittleton House—suggests and brings peace. It shows in the last year of his life a white-haired Rem-

' brandfc, strangely calm, with anguish appeased and life-struggles nearing their end. It leads us to hope and to believe that, notwithstanding poverty, neglect, and isolation, these last hours were not the unb.appiest in the e'hbqucred life of the inspired painter, whose genius in adversity (showed but the vaster, the more potent, the more penetrating in pathos, whose art was molten in the furnace of woe, and recast in a form grander and simpler, mightier and more convincing than before. —'Claude Phillips, in the Telegraph. THE FAKING OF PICTURES. —How It's Done.— There is very little in the art line that cannot bo "faked." Ivories, ceramics, ironwork, brasswork, furniture, bindings, silver, enamels, crockery, arms, sculpture, painting?, and prehistoric ''finds"—all are corner 1 and reproduced with a skill that deceives oven the highest authorities. Thi« traf fie is carried on every day on a vast. soak. in every branch of art. and in Paris and other cities on the Continent thetv> exist veritable "factories" for the making of fraudulent mas'erxneces. Largo staffs of artists are employed, and they seldom have a, elack timo, for the number of collectors grows every dav, and there is a constant demand for what are believer] to be g-enuine paintings, bibelots, and curios. Xfc is oa.>=y to say that the artist who knowing'y counterfeits a work of art is a base scoundrel, but it is a fact that many artists who in. later years have attained a well-deserved renown did not hesitate in their youth to "fabricate" bo<rns works of art in order to obtain their daily bread. The most considerable commerce in the business of turning out faked works' of art is undoubtedly that of producing counterfeit painting?, ancient, and modern. But; the work must Ibe done very cleverly, and only those possessed of artistic ability, real talent, and an undoubted facility of assimilation can hope to attain nerfection in the art of imitating the paintings of celebrated artists. The usual method is to fix the freshlypainted copy on an old canvas, bought for a few sous at the shop of some secondhand dealer, bv means of strong and tenacious glue. The painting is then daubed all over with a mixture of cinders and water, and given a coat of scot, to impart the sombre and warm tones which characterise old painting?. Some "operators" make U'?e of liquorice juice for this purpose. Finally, the canva's is treated -with a mixture of. varnish and transparent glue, which, when exposed to the henf of a stove, cracks' and stretches, and forms a dry,, scalv surface which adds to the antiquated look of the picture. All that then remains to do is to find the confiding collector. In regard to the "eenre mederne," bogus Corots, Delacroix, Roybets, Henncrs, and Ziems are the canvases most freauen'-'y met with, and there are "ateliers" in this city where numbers of painters are employed exclusively in turning out counterfeits of these masters, which are launched on the market in considerable 'quantities. These counterfeit specialists are well-known to the dealers who trade in faked works of art, and they do not hesitate to apoly to them when a vogue sets in in the works of any artist, ancient or modern, and the. supply from genuine sources is not equal to the demand. Manv artists in Paris who to-day are celebrated remember the historic banouet given a few years ae'o by a dealer in imitation paintings to indicate his satisfaction with the bogus Michels which his guests had produced for him at a moment when there was a revival of the vogue in the works of that uainter. The placing of counterfeit paintiners has alwavs been a very orofitable enfernrise. In 1885, in a shon which at that time was known as the Bazar St. Honore. there was a permanent exhibition of nictures. One day an Englishman asked the price of a "Descent from the Cross," attributed to Van Dyck. | " £1320." was the answer. "I'll pive you £1200," said the visitor, and finally that figure was accepted. But before concluding the transaction the Englishman consulted an expert, who, after examination, informed him that the painting was not genuine, and was hardlv worth £6. Some time after the proprietor of the bazaar died, and his pictures were put uo for sale. The "Descent from the Cross" was offered for £B, and acquired by a dealer for £l3. Later he sold it to an art broker for £24. and he put it on view. One day a wealthy South American visited tne galleries, and, on being assured that the canvas was a veritable Van Dyck, acquired it for £I6OO. Another curious story concerns a- certain Correze, which found its way to England, i and remained there from 1830 f-o 1?35 without finding a purchaser. The nrice de- ; manded was £1360, but the best offer nade j was £6OO. The picture was sent oack to j France, where an art collector bought it j for £960. A few years later he sold it ! for £3200, and the Correze finally racrossed the Channel. These examples could be easily multiplied, and it is perhans not astonishing that ' ingenious artists and art. dealers should be ! willing to juggle with brushes, paint, and ; canvas when such rich rewards await them, j —Paris correspondent of the Globe.