The Origin of a Curious Hobby.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10, 8 September 1906, Page 35

The Origin of a Curious Hobby.

The by-ways of collecting are rich in eccentricity. In the July “Pall Mall Magazine,” Mr. Frederic Lees recounts the way in which a now famous Paris amateur conceived the idea of gathering and preserving characteristic works of art—not pictures by great artists, but the palettes which liad helped to make them, and the narrative has a strangely dramatic flavour, as the following anecdote will show’. On December 4, 1851, when Louis Napoleon committed that political crime which will ever remain a blot on his name, the great painter Edouard Manet and his friend Antonin Proust, who at that time were quite young men and unknown to fame, were walking down the Rue Laffitte in the direction of the Boulevard des Italiens. A pistol-shot, fired by some unknown Republican, had been the signal for a general massacre of inoffensive citizens by Louis’ drunken soldiers, and the gutters and pavement opposite Tortoni’s celebrated restaurant, ran red with blood. The terrified people sought protection from the rain of bullets in the Rue Laflitte, down which, suddenly, there swept a body of cavalry. The two friends gave themselves up for lost; but at the very moment they were about to be crushed a pair of vigorous arms seized them from behind, they were forcibly

dragged into tlje interior of a shop, and the- doer was to bolted. Face to face with their rescuer, they found him to be a middle-aged man, with an open,smiling countenance, combined with a manner'so pleasing tliatj they immediately felt at their ease. In reply to his exclamation, “As narrow a shave as ever I saw in my life!” they, thanked him profusely, after which they; stated their names and profession. “Theia I have done a service not only to you, but to art,” said their protector, with K satisfied air; “and 1 am, therefore, doubly thankful. My name is Beiigniot; and as to my easing, it is closely allied to yours, as you can see for yourselves by looking at’these walls.” And the pic-ture-dealer motioned with his hand to his collection of paintings. I_ have related this little anecdote, which Antonin Proust, long years afterwards, loved to tell his friends, not because either he or Manet was connected with the remarkable 'collection which I am about to describe, but on account of M. Georges Beugniet’s connection with the same. Endowed with a most original mind, he was no ordinary picture-dealer; he possessed, at one and the same time, a thorough knowledge ami love of pictures and a clear understanding of the requirements of his customers. Many were the bright ideas which occurred to him in the course of his relations with connoisseurs, and which his flair told him would meet with tlib approval of buyers. Nine years after rescuing Manet and Proust from Louis Napoleon's cavalry, it occurred to him that, since lie came into contact with so many great artists, it would be an easy thing for him to start a collection of a most novel and interesting kind —a collection, of, palettes, and, more than that, palettes with pictures painted by the very painters who had used them. As the years went by, M. Beugniet’s collection began to assume, qnhoped-for proportions. Most of the leading painters of the sixties and seventies were represented in it, and almost all of them had complied with the picture-dealer's request for “just a little sketch,” little thinking that they were thus enabling him to form not merely a collection of palettes, but also a gallery pf valuable pictures. The larger the collection grew the greater became M. Beugniet’s affection for it. lie was several times offered large sums for it, but he stubbornly refused to part with a collection which he knew was entirely unique in_.thc world of art. And thus it came about that he retained it to the end of his days. Its next owner was M. Georges Bernheim,’ in whose possession it still remains, and who has considerably added to it. In his little room in the Rue larllitte. where the collection has remained ever since 18150, it now consists of no fewer than 120 painted palettes, which connoisseurs assess at a sum not far short of £BOOO.