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CHAPTER XXXVIII
FADS IN COLLECTING
In a New York home one room is devoted to a so-called panier fleuri
collection which in this case means that each article shows the design
of a basket holding flowers or fruit. The collection is to-day so
unique and therefore so valuable, that it has been willed to a museum,
but its creation as a collection, was entirely a chance occurrence.
The design of a basket trimmed with flowers happened to appeal to the
owner, and if we are not mistaken, the now large collection had its
beginning in the casual purchase of a little old pendant found in a
forgotten corner of Europe. The owner wore it, her friends saw it, and
gradually associated the panier fleuri with her, which resulted in
many beautiful specimens of this design being sought out for her by
wanderers at home and abroad. To-day this collection includes old
silks, laces, jewellery, wax pictures, old prints, some pieces of
antique furniture, snuffboxes and ornaments in glass, china, silver,
etc.
Every museum is the result of fads in collecting, and when one
considers all that is meant by this heading, which sounds so trifling
and unimportant to the layman, it will not seem strange that we
strongly recommend it as a dissipation!
At first, quite naturally, the collector makes mistakes; but it is
through his mistakes that he learns, and absolutely nothing gives such
a zest to a stroll in the city, a tramp in the country, or an
unexpected delay in an out-of-the-way town, as to have this collecting
bee in your bonnet. How often when travelling we have rejoiced when
the loss of a train or a mistake in time-table, meant an unexpected
opportunity to explore for junk in some old shop, or, perhaps, to
bargain with a pretty peasant girl who hoarded a beloved heirloom, of
entrancing interest to us (and worth a pile of money really), while
she lived happily on cider and cheese!
It is doubtless the experience of every lover of the old and the
curious, that one never regrets the expenses incurred in this quest of
the antique, but one does eternally regret one's economies. The
writer suffers now, after years have elapsed, in some cases, at the
memory of treasures resisted when chanced upon in Russia, Poland,
Hungary, Bohemia—where not! Always one says, "Oh, well, I shall come
back again!" But there are so many "pastures green," and it is often
difficult to retrace one's steps.
Then, too, these fads open our eyes and ears, so that in passing along
a street on foot, in a cab or on a bus, or in glancing through a book,
or, perhaps, in an odd corner of an otherwise colourless town, where
fate has taken us, we find "grist for our mill"—just the right piece
of furniture for the waiting place!
Know what you want, really want it, and you will find it some time,
somewhere, somehow!
As a stimulus to beginners in collecting, as well as an illustration
of that perseverance required of every keen collector, we cite the
case of running down an Empire dressing-table.
It was our desire to complete a small collection of Empire furniture
for a suite of rooms, by adding to it as a supplement to the bureau, a
certain type of Empire dressing-table. It is no exaggeration to say
that Paris was dragged for what we wanted—the large well-known
antique shops and the smaller ones of the Latin Quarter being both
ransacked. Time was flying, the date of our sailing was approaching,
and as yet the coveted piece had not been found. Three days before we
left, a fat, red-faced, jolly cabby, after making a vain tour of the
junk shops in his quarter, demanded to know exactly what it was we
sought. When told, he looked triumphant, bade us get into his cab,
lashed his horse and after several rapidly made turns, dashed into an
out-of-the-way street and drew up before a sort of junk store-house,
full of rickety, dusty odds and ends of furniture, presided over by a
stupid old woman who sat outside the door, knitting,—wrapped head and
all in a shawl. We entered and, there, to our immense relief, stood
the dressing table! It was grey with dust, the original Empire green
silk, a rusty grey and hanging in shreds on the back of the original
glass. There was a marble top set into the wood and grooved in a
curious way. The whole was intact except for a loose back leg, which
gave it a swaying, tottering appearance. We passed it in
silence—being experienced traders! Then, after buying several little
old picture frames, while Madame continued her knitting, we wandered
close to the coveted table and asked what was wanted for that broken
bit "of no use as it stands."
"Thirty francs" (six dollars) was the answer.
Later a well-known New York dealer offered seventy-five dollars for
the table in the condition in which we found it, and repaired as it is
to-day it would easily bring a hundred and fifty, anywhere!
As it happened, the money we went out with had been spent on
unexpected finds, and neither we nor our good-natured cabby were in
possession of thirty francs! In fact, cabby was rather staggered to
hear the price, having offered to advance what we needed. He suggested
sending it home "collect" but Madame would not even consider such an
idea. However, at last our resourceful jehu came to the rescue. If the
ladies would seat themselves in the cab, he could place the table in
front of them, with the cover of the cab raised, and Madame of the
shop could lock her door and mounting the box by the side of our
cocher, she might drive with us to our destination and collect the
money herself! He promised to bring her home safely again!
As we had only the next day for boxing and shipping, there was no
alternative. Before we had even taken in our grotesque appearance, the
horse was galloping, as only a Paris cab horse can gallop, toward our
abode in Avenue Henri Martin, past carriages and autos returning from
the Bois, while inside the cab we sat, elated by our success and in
that whirl of triumphant absorbing joy which only the real collector
knows.
This same modest little Empire collection had a treasure recently
added to it, found by chance, in an antique shop in Pennsylvania. It
was a mirror. The dealer, an Italian, said that he had got it from an
old house in Bordentown, New Jersey.
"It's genuine English," he said, certain he was playing his winning
card.
It has the original glass and a heavy, squarely made, mahogany frame.
Strange to say it corresponds exactly with the bed and bureau in the
collection, having pilasters surmounted by women's heads of
gilded wood with small gilded feet showing at base.
PLATE XXXI
An end of a room containing genuine Empire furniture, Empire
ornaments and a rare collection of Empire cups, which appear in a
vitrine seen near the dull-blue brocade curtains drawn over
windows.
We would especially call attention to the mantelpiece, which was
originally the Empire frame of a mirror, and to a book shelf made
interesting by having the upper shelf supported by a charming
pair of antique bronze cupids.
This plate is reproduced to show as many Empire pieces as
possible; it is not an ideal example of arrangement, either as to
furniture in room or certain details. There is too much crowding.
A Collection of Empire Furniture, Ornaments and
China
As the brother of the great Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain
and Rome, passed many years of his self-imposed exile in Bordentown,
in a house made beautiful with furnishings he brought from France, it
is possible this old mirror has an interesting story, if only it could
talk! Then, too, it was Bordentown that sheltered a Prince Murat, the
relative of Joseph Bonaparte. If it was he who conveyed our mirror to
these shores, a very different, but as highly romantic a tale might
unfold!
For fear the precious ancient glass should be broken or the frame
destroyed, we bribed a Pullman-car porter to let us bring its six by
four feet of antiquity with us, in the train!
When you see a find always take it with you, or the next man may, and
above all, always be on the lookout.
It was from a French novel by one of the living French writers that we
first got a clue to a certain obscure Etruscan museum, hidden away in
the Carrara Mountains, in Italy. That wonderful little museum and its
adjacent potteries, which cover the face of Italy like ant-hills, are
to-day contributors to innumerable beautiful interiors in every part
of America.
We recall a dining-room in Grosvenor Square, London, where a
world-renowned collection of "powder-blue" vases (the property of Mr.
J.B. Joel) is made to contribute to a decorative scheme by placing the
almost priceless vases of old Chinese blue and white porcelain, in
niches made for them, high up on the black oak panelling. There are no
pictures nor other decorations on the walls, hence each vase has the
distinction it deserves, placed as it were, in a shrine.
In the Peter Hewitt Museum, New York, you may see an antique Italian
china cabinet, made of gilded carved wood, which shows on its
undulating front, row after row of small niches, lined with red
velvet. When each deep niche held its porcelain chef d'oeuvre, the
effect must have been that of a gold screen set with gems!
Speaking of red velvet backgrounds, in the same museum, standing near
the Italian cabinet, is an ancient Spanish one; its elaborate steel
hinges, locks and ornaments have each a bit of red velvet between
them and the oak of the cabinet. One sees this on Gothic chests in
England and occasionally on the antique furniture of other countries.
The red material stretched back of the metal fret-work, is said to be
a souvenir of the gruesome custom prevailing in ancient times, of
warning off invaders by posting on the doors of public buildings, the
skin of prisoners of war, and holding it in place with open-work
metal, through which the red skin was plainly seen!
At Cornwall Lodge, in Regents Park, London, the town house of Lady de
Bathe (Lily Langtry) the dining-room ceiling is a deep sky-blue, while
the sidewalls of black, serve as a background for her valuable
collection of old, coloured glass, for the most part English. The
collection is the result of the owner's eternal vigilance, when
travelling or at home.
A well-known Paris collector, now dead, found in Spain a bust which
had been painted black. Its good lines led him to buy it, and, when
cleaned, it proved to be a genuine Canova, and was sold by this
dealer, a reliable expert, to an American for five thousand dollars!
It had been painted during a Revolution, to save it from destruction.
The same dealer on another occasion, when in Spain, found an old silk
gown of lovely flowered brocade, but with one breadth missing. Several
years later, in an antique shop in Italy, he found that missing gore
and had it put back in the gown, thus completing the treasure which
some ruthless hand had destroyed.
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