Notes for Collectors
THE picture-sales of late have been strangely uneventful, but Messrs. Sotheby sold a hitherto unknown Rembrandt on May 14th for 115,000. This portrait of a man in a broad-brimmed hat, signed and dated 1658, was bought some eighty years ago by a Chester man. It is rather sombre, but, if the date may be trusted, it belongs to a memorable phase in the artist's career when, despite his disastrous bankruptcy, he was painting better than ever. The well-known "Rabbi" in the National Gallery, the "Old Woman Paring-her Nails," and the " Young Man with Papers" at New York, and the "Young Man with Long Curls" in the Louvre belong to this year 1658, and the newly found picture, grave and searching, is in the same key, so that the date is probably genuine. Rembrandt's work, however, speaks for itself, whether it is signed and dated or not. He is the most individual of all painters. Several of Messrs. Christie's miscellaneous sales of late have provided opportunities for the shrewd collector. Spotting winners in the sale-room is nearly as much a gamble as it is on the Turf, but, as in the ease of Titian's La Gloria" some time ago, which was picked up for a song, cleaned and then sold to the nation for £11,000, the man who backs his fancy sometimes makes a hand- some profit. In an unattractive collection on May 26th someone noted a little panel, "Eve," attributed to Lucas Cranach, the sixteenth-century German master, and the bidding, once started, went up to 540 guineas. This, of course, is not a record, but it is a substantial price for a painter whose rather homely style is better appreciated in his own country than in England. A small panel of "Diana and Nymphs," apparently a study by Rubens, went for 480 guineas in the same sale. The well-known Scottish collector, Mr. Arthur Kay, who has done much for the cause of Art in this country, dispersed his charming collection of Gainsborough drawings at Christie's on May 23rd. Probably Mr. Kay secured many of them cheaply before the demand for anything from Gainsborough's hand had become so urgent as it is now. At any rate, the bidding was keen ; the average price for the drawings, whether slight or elaborate, worked out at about £40, and several fetched a great deal more. A delightful com- position of a sleeping rustic with cattle and horses• was run up to 165 guineas, and a woodland scene, also from the noted Hawkins' collection, brought 150 guineas. The art-lover with a modest purse would be well advised to look out for drawings by the old English masters. They are almost invariably delightful to live with. The British Empire is well represented in the sales which Mr. H. R. Harmer is to hold at 6, Old Bond Street on June 16th and 23rd. Our old friends, the triangular stamps with which the Cape Colony Post Office set out to amuse and puzzle collectors, are shown in unusual condition in the illustrated catalogue. A block of four of the shilling black is a rarity indeed, and the pair of the fourpenny blue of the 1861 issue is also notable. Among the early West Australia issues with the black swan there is an interesting twopenny stamp of 1857, printed in a brownish black on red. Our own first issues of 1840 and 1841 occur in many of their seemingly endless varieties. The several colonies in Canada and Australia which had stamps of their own before the days of the Dominion and the Commonwealth are recalled by examples. The catalogue includes some air-mail stamps, such as the Ross Smith stamp of 1920, ten years before Miss Amy Johnson's Empire flight. It may be noted here that Mr. Harmer is holding a loan exhibition of air stamps and letters next week, as this new branch is bound to develop rapidly. Probably our passion for gardening accounts for the marked interest now shown in paintings of flowers.
Modern pictures, and especially those of Fantin-Latons, were the first to rise in value. On May 16th, for instance, a fine example of the Frenchman's delicate art, dated 1883, was sold at Christie's for £1,470, and this is not his auction record. From the moderns interest has now spread to the old Dutchmen. It was pleasant to see Jan van Huystu-n's "Flowers in a Terracotta Vase" fetch £1,995 at Christie's. last Friday, in the Meyer sale, for it was a first-rate work by the most accomplished of all Western flower-painters.
The supply of old silver to the London auction rooms is still large, but is far from equalling the demand. Last Friday at Hurcomb's a plain Charles the Second tankard with the hall-mark of 1676, weighing nearly 28 ounces, fetched £464. A small Queen Anne tankard, made in 1706 and weighing 16 ounces, fetched, 1122, and a plain coffee- pot of 1709, weighing 28 ounces, brought £200. Of the same reign was a set of six rat-tail dessert spoons, weighing nearly an ounce apiece, which were sold for £97. These are enormous prices, if we remember that silver has never been so cheap as it is now at less than eighteenpence an ounce and that there was really nothing remarkable in the workmanship of the pots and spoons. The fact remains that for silver which is really old the enthusiast will pay almost anything, and that the number of these resolute folk is increasing.
The wise collector trusts his own eyes and trains them by continual observation of the best work wherever he can find it. He frequents the museums as well as the sale-rooms and the dealers' galleries, so as to become familiar with what is really good. It may be helpful to remind collectors, especially those out of London; that our two great museums strive to help them by publishing important new additions. The British Museum Quarterly, at 2s., has sixteen pages of plates and scholarly descrip- tions: the March number contains some notable Greek coins, Egyptian jewellery and a rare German woodcut by Trant, among other things. Again,- the Victoria and Albert Museum's Review of the Principal Acquisitions, 1929, at 2s. 6d. has a hundred good illustrations of objects in its various departments, and is most instructive for the collector. These cheap and attractive publications deserve to be more widely known. E. G. H.
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