THE PICTURE CASE.
EXPERTS seem to be dangerous advisers, whether they tell you to buy, or criticise what you have bought. In the one case, they may saddle you with a bad bargain ; in the other, they may make you discontented with a good one. The action of "Lawrie v. Wertheimer," which was settled in the Queen's Bench Division on Tuesday, is an example of the latter kind. Had Messrs. Lawrie never listened to the critics, they would have been spared many searchings of heart and much needless strain on their eye- sight. On the 18th of July last, they bought a certain picture as an undoubted work of Frank Hale. For eleven days they believed it to be genuine, and were propor- tionately blessed in so believing. Had they only trusted their own judgment or the vendor's a little more, they would have continued in this happy state of mina. Unfortunately, it came to their ears that another picture not unlike this one had been the subject of much discussion in Paris, and that this picture and the one they had bought agreed in one particular. Neither of them had the painter's initials. He was accustomed to put "F. H." to all his work, and here the "F. H." was wanting. More than this, it seems that the critics who had condemned the Paris picture made equally short work of the English picture. Frank Hale wrote his signature in one way, and the unknown artist whose work Messrs. Lawrie had purchased wrote his in quite another way. What with the testimony of the experts, and what with the corroborative evidence of the signature, Messrs. Lawrie came to the conclusion that they had better be off their bargain if they could. Mr. Wertheimer, however, had his .own tale to tell, and this showed that whether the picture was genuine or not, it had an undeniably long pedigree. Every step in its history could be traced as far back as the seventeenth century, when it was in the collec- tion of Sir Luke Schaub. Thence it passed into the pos- session of Lord Byron, and was sold with the rest of his pictures at Christie 's in 1762. The purchaser was Lord Braybrooke, and it remained at Audley End for more than a century, and was bought from thence by Mr. Wertheimer. It is thus clear that if it be wrongly ascribed, the error must be of very old date. Sir Luke Schaub was a contem- porary of Frank Hale, and may have easily bought the picture direct from him. Still, this is only a conjecture, and Sir Luke Schaub may have been deceived, and may have bought as the work of Frank Hale what was really the work of somebody else. Against this, however, must be set the improbability that a picture by another artist would have been fathered on Frank Hale at a time when he was not famous. A Frank Hale now is of great value,—Mr. Wertheimer gave Lord Braybrooke £3,000 for this one. But in Sir Luke Schaub's time, Frank Hale was by no means a name to conjure with, for this same picture was sold in 1678 for £43.
It does not seem to have been denied at any time during the transaction that the picture was a very fine one. But it is not enough for a picture to be as good as a Frank Hals,—it must actually be a Frank Hals•' and on this point Messrs. Lawrie remained sceptical even after they had heard Mr. Wertheimer's tale. Apparently, what they could not get over was the signature. Why should a painter, who was accustomed to sign his initials, resort to an undecipherable monogram ? As it turned out, if Frank Hale had any reason for what he did other than the fancy of the moment, it was to make his authorship more than usually unquestionable. As though "F. H.' were not enough, he would put all the letters of his name on to the canvas, and so confute by anticipation the Paris critics of two centuries later. When a great artist is willing to do so much as this, it would be unreasonable to dictate to him the particular way in which the letters of his name should be arranged. He would think that he had conceded enough in putting them all there. For a long time, however, the monogram declined to give up its secret. Monograms are not meant to be easy reading, else why should the order or form of the letters be changed ? The whole art of complicated signatures lies in keeping those who would decipher them, off the scent for as long a time as possible. It is a signature in terms of a conundrum. But every conundrum has its answer ; and the cloud which experts had raised, another expert was to disperse. Under trained eyes, what seemed like a bundle of hieroglyphics took intelligible shape, and became not the initials merely, but the whole surname of the painter. Every one of the letters which make up "P. Hale," exist in the monogram. "P. IL" alone would have contented Messrs. Lawrie ; and now it was proved to them that they had not "F. H." only, but "F. Hals."
From this point, seemingly, Messrs. Lawrie's only desire was to get out of the suit on the best terms they could. When the case was called on Wednesday, the counsel on both sides at once began negotiating a settlement ; and had it not been for Sir Edward Clark's good nature, the public would have known nothing of the story. As it is, we know just enough to appreciate what we have lost by the case being withdrawn from the jury. The expert in mono- grams would have been called, and a whole chapter in the history of caligraphy would have been unfolded to a listening Court. Experts in art would have followed, and we should have had "artists of celebrity, such as Sir John Millais, and also the gentlemen who restore the pictures at the National Gallery," testifying to the authenticity and excellence of the picture,—to the fact that it is by Frank Hals, and to the further fact that it is "one of the finest he ever painted." Messrs. Lawrie's readiness to be convinced has lost us all this, and in its stead we have only such fractional consolation as is contained in the proof the case affords that even experts are not infallible. That is an inference which a good many people will not be sorry to draw. Experts have sat somewhat heavily on the public of late years, and a proportionate sense of relief will be felt that they should -have assailed a picture in defence of which so much can be said. Had Frank Hals never signed it, or had the record of its several owners been lost, it must have been left to the jury to deter- mine whether Messrs. Lawrie had any just title to be allowed to cancel their purchase. The merits of the picture would not have come into the controversy. Experts on each aide would have cherished opposite convictions with equal vehemence, and the only quarter from which a decision could have come would have been from that unsatisfactory tribunal in matters of art, twelve honest men. The moral is that buyers of old pictures should spare no pains to collect every ascertainable fact about their history. Internal evi- dence may show that the picture is worth buying to keep, but it wants more than this to prove that it is worth buying to sell again.
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