LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY 
 OF F. VON BOSCHAN
 
 A PLEA FOR ART IN THE HOUSE.
 
 SMITH'S SIDEBOARD.
 
 A PLEA FOR 
 
 ART IN THE HOUSE, 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ECONOMY OF 
 
 COLLECTING WORKS OF ART, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF TASTE 
 
 IN EDUCATION AND MORALS. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. J. LOFTIE, 
 
 B. A., F.S.A., AUTHOR OF " IN AND OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1877. 
 
 [The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved,}
 
 LONDON : 
 LAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS 
 
 BKKAO STREKT HILL, 
 OUKKN VICTORIA STRUCT, E.C.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 following chapters are an attempt 
 to put some practical rules and 
 anecdotes into colloquial language. 
 Almost all that has hitherto been published on 
 Art, either at home or abroad, has been written 
 in a manner which may almost be called poeti- 
 cal, so far does it differ from the plainness of 
 what is practical. I hope I have succeeded 
 in showing, on simple grounds, the advantages 
 of cultivating a love for art, especially art in 
 the family and household. I am under the 
 persuasion that common-sense arguments may 
 be found powerful with many people to whom 
 high flights are unpleasant. Art is therefore 
 pleaded for on such grounds as the manifest 
 prudence of making collections, the civilising 
 effects of taste upon young persons, the plea- 
 sure of pursuing an object, and, generally,
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 the economical value of art training both to 
 the individual, the family, and the nation at 
 large. 
 
 A second volume of the series will be issued 
 almost simultaneously with this one, containing 
 some hints on " House Decoration," by Miss 
 RHODA GARRETT and her partner, Miss AGNES 
 GARRETT. 
 
 Further volumes, by Mr. H. STACY 
 MARKS, A.R.A., on Drawing and Painting, 
 by Mrs. OLIPHANT, on Dress, by Mr. JOHN 
 HULLAH, on Family Music, and by Mr. J. J. 
 STEVENSON, on Domestic Architecture, are in 
 preparation ; and it is hoped that similar trea- 
 tises on Gardening, Sculpture and Carving, 
 Needlework and Lace-making, and other sub- 
 jects connected with Art at Home, may follow 
 in due course. 
 
 W. J. L.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KAGH 
 
 THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING I 
 
 Black-letter books. A bronze cross. Old China. Cheap buying. 
 The judicious collector. Pocket money. Toys. Engravings. 
 Mr. Gillott. A family romance. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE . 
 
 Brown's house and Smith's house. How. not to do it. An old 
 sideboard. How to eat a cake and have it. Congruity and 
 comfort. Imitations. Some rules for choice. Two pretty 
 rooms. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 PICTURES 43 
 
 Pictures are cheap. The cost of a gallery. Three great col- 
 lectors. Old masters. Young artists. A spiritualist painter. 
 Prints. Woodcuts. Photographs. Portraits. Hanging. Art 
 in the nursery. 
 
 b
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 BOOKS AND CHINA 71 
 
 What books are ornamental. Illuminated MSS. A valuable 
 book. Nursery literature Bindings. A sad story. Another. 
 Three old bindings. Oriental and English porcelain. Marks. 
 Domestic museums. Enamels. Ivories. Bronzes and Plate, 
 Glass. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ART AND MORALS 89 
 
 Sacredness of home. A beautiful home. Money not needful. 
 Family art. Drawing classes and clubs. Art in schools. The 
 gin palace. A "beauty mission." A wise father. Landscape 
 a great discovery. Hooker on beauty, moral and material. 
 End.
 
 LIST OF WOODCUTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 SMITH'S SIDEBOARD Frontispiece 
 
 INITIAL, "JUDITH," FROM xin. CENTURY MS i 
 
 TAIL-PIECE, "SPRING" 20 
 
 INITIAL, "JONAH," FROM xin. CENTURY MS 21 
 
 A DRAWING-ROOM 38 
 
 TAIL-PIECE, "SUMMER" 42 
 
 INITIAL, "SOLOMON," FROM xin. CENTURY MS 43 
 
 BEHAM'S " MELENCOLIA," REVERSED FACSIMILE .... 61 
 
 TAIL-PIECE, "AUTUMN" 70 
 
 INITIAL, "JONAH," FROM xin. CENTURY MS 71 
 
 EXAMPLES OF OLD ENGLISH BINDING 79 
 
 CUPBOARD WITH STAINED GLASS WINDOW 88 
 
 INITIAL, "AN APOSTLE," FROM xin. CENTURY MS. ... 89 
 
 TAIL-PIECE, "WINTER" ;oo
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 
 
 FEW years ago a merchant in the west 
 of England had in his employment a 
 traveller who was fortunate enough 
 to possess a taste. That such a pos- 
 session may be of value I hope to 
 show further on. This traveller's taste was for 
 black-letter books. Wherever business took 
 him he visited the places in which old books 
 are to be seen and bought. Such shops are 
 in almost every little town, and sometimes, 
 as I have occasion to remember, they are 
 not ostensibly book-shops ; for I once bought a 
 very scarce black-letter Bible, a Bible of which, 
 so far as I know, there was no example in the 
 British Museum, or any other public collection, ind 
 I found it among some old iron on the counter of a 
 retired tinker at Canterbury. 
 
 LOF. 8
 
 2 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 But this west country bagman never neglected an 
 opportunity of picking up a little book printed before 
 our ordinary type was in common use. He preferred 
 little books. Very small indeed were some of them, 
 and he gave very small prices. He knew that the 
 early popular literature of England was often of such 
 a character that the owner of a book might easily 
 conceal it. In what Mr. Green calls the " English 
 Terror," when Henry VIII. and Thomas Cromwell 
 had set people thinking and questioning, and then 
 hanged or burnt them for pretending to have opinions, 
 some printers issued little books which were never 
 licensed by the authorities : and such books are very 
 scarce and very valuable. And this collector endea- 
 voured whereverhe could to find such books. And one 
 day he found a prize four prizes in fact. They were 
 a number of Wycliffe's writings, printed in London, 
 evidently for popular reading, but very small and 
 curious. He bought them, as I have heard, for a 
 shilling each ; that is, for four shillings altogether. 
 He could find no account of them in apy of the works 
 on bibliography, and began to think they must be 
 valuable. He had them very handsomely bound, 
 which I dare say did not cost him more than 2l. so 
 that his whole investment amounted to about 2l. 43. 
 
 There are copies of the four little books and also of 
 a fifth which belongs to the set, in that wonderful 
 treasure house, the Lambeth Library : but our com- 
 mercial gentleman did not know this, nor did any one 
 else, so far as I am aware, until an event occurred, 
 which gives me my excuse for telling this anecdote. 
 
 Our commercial traveller bethought him once, when
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 3 
 
 times were bad, as they were for so many people in 
 1866 and the following years, that he would sell some 
 of the little books he had collected. So he sent a 
 selection up to a well-known auction-room in London, 
 and included in the parcel his four little Wycliffes. 
 
 They were duly put up and knocked down, and the 
 four little Wycliffes fetched four hundred pounds, 
 that is, one hundred pounds a piece. 
 
 It is easy to calculate the interest our travelling 
 collector made on his original outlay. He spent 
 2/. 4-y., and kept the books two years, during which 
 time he was out of the interest, say, at 10 per cent., 
 or thereabouts, $s. So that when his books were 
 put up they had cost him 2/. 9^. Then the auctioneers' 
 expenses amounted to \2\ per cent, or 5o/. : and his 
 whole profit was 348/. %s. i\d., or about two thousand 
 per cent, per annum, for each of the two years. 
 
 This was, of course, an extreme example of the 
 prudence of collecting : black-letter books are not art ; 
 and it may be objected, that I have no right to take 
 up time with stories not to the point. I hope to 
 return to this question, namely, what is art, and what 
 is not, but first I will tell another collector's story 
 which may be a little more to the purpose. 
 
 The late Canon R. was a man of taste. When he 
 began life he was poor, and was, I believe, chaplain 
 to a nobleman of his own persuasion, in the country. 
 He lived in a small house near the high road, and one 
 day a tinker came to him with his bag of old iron, 
 and said he had heard that Mr. R. was a collector of 
 curiosities. Presently after much fumbling among the 
 old iron, he brought out a bronze processional cross of 
 
 B 2
 
 4. A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 the utmost beauty, made probably in the fourteenth 
 century, and altogether such a magnificent example 
 of the art, that poor Mr. R.'s heart beat with excite- 
 ment merely at the sight of it. His practised eye 
 showed him, as he examined it, that the bronze surface 
 had formerly been heavily plated with silver, and in 
 places even with gold, and the cross must have been 
 borne before some great abbot, possibly before an 
 archbishop. 
 
 With a trembling voice, for he had very little 
 money, he asked the tinker how much he wanted 
 for the cross, 
 
 " Sixpence, sir," said the man ; "and indeed I think 
 it's quite worth it, sir it is, I'm sure." 
 
 Canon R. thought he was dreaming. 
 
 " Sixpence," he repeated. 
 
 " Well, sir, I gave nearly that for it," said the 
 man ; " and there's more than the weight of copper 
 in it." 
 
 Canon R., as he told me the story, said, the mere 
 reference to the weight of copper, and the allusion 
 to the possibility of melting it, made him feel quite 
 sick. He could hardly summon up strength to take 
 out the sixpence. As soon as the tinker had it in 
 his hand, he picked up his bag, and walked away 
 quickly. 
 
 Canon R. looked at the cross, and could hardly 
 believe his good fortune. Then he looked at the 
 retreating figure of the tinker. It seemed like robbery 
 to give him only sixpence for such a treasure. He 
 called nim back. The man came back very slowly 
 and doubtfully.
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 5 
 
 " Look here," said Dr. R., "I think this cross is 
 worth more than sixpence. I'll give you a shilling." 
 
 The tinker took the shilling with hesitation. He 
 looked twice .at it and twice at the priest's face. 
 " There's summat rummy in it," was no doubt the 
 reflection which passed through his mind. Then he 
 took it, and again departed. 
 
 Canon R. looked at the cross, and turned to go into 
 the house with his treasure. He told me as he took 
 it in he felt sure it would melt away into thin air 
 and disappear like a dream. But when he had laid 
 it on the table, his mind was reassured, and again 
 his conscience smote him. It was worth niore than 
 is. 6d. He would give the man half-a-crown, 
 fortunately he had half-a-crown in his pocket. 
 
 The tinker had nearly reached the gate. Canon R. 
 called him. He stopped. " Look here, I think I have 
 given you too little for that cross." 
 
 The man came no nearer. The Canon advanced 
 towards him. He retreated. " I'll give you half-a- 
 crown. Here it is," said the Canon, putting his hand 
 into his pocket. 
 
 The tinker looked at him for a moment. Then 
 with a look of deep suspicion, and the use of a word 
 which sounded very like " Walker," he turned and took 
 to his heels. 
 
 The cross has been engraved more than once, and 
 if I do not mistake, the reader will find a very faithful 
 representation of it as a frontispiece to Paley's Gothic 
 Architecture. If this cut does not represent the same 
 cross, it is one almost exactly like it ; and the reader 
 can judge for himself whether it is worth half-a-crown.
 
 6 A PLEA FOR ART A T HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 Now in both these cases, that of the commercial 
 traveller, and that of Canon R., the quality required 
 was knowledge. 
 
 Mr. D. knew the value and scarcity of black-letter 
 books in duodecimo. Canon R. knew the style of art 
 practised in the fourteenth century, and could judge 
 in a moment of the genuineness of the bronze cross. 
 
 But another and very needful quality is forethought. 
 Some years ago, I think about forty, a young gentle- 
 man who was in a public office in London saw a pair 
 of jars at a dealer's shop. This young gentleman 
 had a small but sufficient allowance from his father, 
 a country squire. The price of the jars was fifty 
 guineas. They were of English make, I forget of what 
 particular pottery, but I think it was Chelsea. Now 
 fifty guineas would be very nearly a quarter's allow- 
 ance, but the young man observed two things about 
 the jars ; first, that they were very beautifully painted, 
 and secondly that the manufactory whose mark they 
 bore had long been closed, and no more ware would 
 issue from it. Such porcelain can never become more 
 common, he reflected, and this is the best work that 
 particular pottery ever produced. So he offered the 
 dealer thirty guineas. 
 
 " No, sir, they're worth the fifty." 
 
 But fifty was more than he had to give. He went 
 away, but came back again the next day. He offered 
 the dealer 4O/. and carried away his jars. 
 
 I need hardly say that his father, when the end 
 of the quarter came, and the son petitioned for a little 
 advance of his allowance, at the same time telling 
 truly what he had done his father was shocked.
 
 !] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 7 
 
 " Forty pounds for a couple of jars ! Such an ex- 
 travagant son was never known." He would not 
 have been in the very least surprised if his son had 
 lost forty or even a hundred guineas on a horse-race, 
 but that he should give 2O/. a piece for a pair of jars, 
 seemed to him simply madness. 
 
 But thirty years later that same pair of jars were 
 sold at Christie's at a price which paid interest on the 
 orignal outlay of 20 per cent, per annum for all the 
 thirty years, and left a good margin over, besides, 
 as profit. 
 
 Thus the young gentleman in the public office had 
 put by in his youth a sum of money quite as profit- 
 ably as if he had invested in shares, and he had, 
 moreover, during thirty years of his life, enjoyed 
 the pleasure of looking at what he considered a pair 
 of very beautiful objects. I did not admire them when 
 I saw them. They were ugly in shape, as I thought, 
 and dingy in colour. But my taste in ceramics is 
 warped, no doubt, by a strong admiration for the 
 porcelain of China and Japan. 
 
 But the collector has another incentive. By forming 
 a collection he does good work for the knowledge of 
 art, and he increases the value of each individual 
 specimen in his collection. I have spoken hitherto 
 only of cases in which a man has bought some one 
 object or set of objects. But collecting involves more 
 than this. It implies what phrenologists call " com- 
 parativeness." 
 
 The collector must endeavour to ascertain the 
 comparative excellence and rarity of the objects he 
 collects. This is especially the case with prints.
 
 3 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 Books, that is printed books, are much like prints 
 in this respect. A unique book is as rare as a unique 
 print. But every painting and every manuscript is 
 unique ; and the collector who can afford to buy 
 pictures and illuminations will perhaps do better than 
 the book collector or the print collector. 
 
 On the other hand, pictures, especially good ones, 
 are much more expensive than books. The question 
 is which will afford the collector the greatest measure 
 of enjoyment. Some men like one thing and some 
 another ; but unquestionably the man who wishes to 
 make his house look nice, and who wants his family 
 and his friends to partake of his enjoyment, will prefer 
 pictures or prints, which can be hung en his walls, to 
 anything else. 
 
 But the cheapest collection that can be made is one 
 of books. The experienced buyer lays out very little 
 money. If he has gathered a library judiciously he 
 can sell it at a large profit : for example : 
 
 A man of moderate means made a study of- a 
 certain class of religious books. They were rare, and 
 often they were beautifully illustrated with cuts and 
 engravings. When he had collected a hundred or 
 more, one by one, and at very low prices, he began 
 to find he knew more about them than anybody else ; 
 he could, therefore, confidently bid for a book, 
 knowing perhaps that it was perfect, perhaps that 
 it was unique, and could exercise a little discrimi- 
 nation. Every now and then he picked up a treasure, 
 and his knowledge grew rapidly. For instance, one 
 day he saw a large volume, which he knew to be 
 rare, put up at a sale. It ft-tched what seemed a
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 9 
 
 good price, 4/., I think. He went home, not having 
 bought it ; but his interest being aroused by finding 
 he knew very little of that particular edition, he 
 tried to discover more. After some research he 
 found it was extremely scarce. No other copy had 
 ever occurred for sale. It had been rigidly suppressed. 
 So, full of excitement, he rushed to the saleroom 
 to discover the name of the buyer, determining to 
 offer him a profit on his purchase. 
 
 The clerk informed him of the name, but added 
 that the book was found to have a worm-hole and had 
 been returned in other words, the buyer, a bookseller, 
 thought his bargain too dear. Our young collector 
 asked when it would be re-sold. 
 
 " In about a month," was the reply ; " you shall have 
 notice." 
 
 A month elapsed, and then another, but at last the 
 precious volume came up again for sale. 
 
 Unfortunately for our friend, he was not his own 
 master. Duty called him away on the long expected 
 day. He found it would be impossible for him to go 
 to the sale. 
 
 He went in his despair to a man on whom he could 
 depend, and said to him, " Buy me that book at a 
 moderate price. It may fetch four or five guineas, 
 perhaps more, but I would go to io/. and even a few 
 shillings more, if there is any chance of getting it." 
 
 All day he thought of the book. Had he offered 
 enough ? Had he offered too much ? Could he have 
 made any mistake about it ? Would his man be 
 punctual ? In short he was full of contradictory 
 questions, and almost trembling with excitement.
 
 io A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 The next morning came. He went to the saleroom, 
 almost afraid to ask about the book. He had not 
 been able to see his agent, and came to ask the clerk. 
 
 " What was the number of the lot, sir ? " 
 
 " It was No. so-and-so." 
 
 The clerk looked it out slowly. My friend felt as 
 if it took hours to find the entry. 
 
 " I find, sir," said the clerk, at length, " that the 
 lot 's entered to your name at four-and-sixpence." 
 
 When he had gathered about two hundred volumes 
 he made an elaborate catalogue. It was much 
 noticed and reviewed. The subject was of some 
 interest to the general public ; and my friend's 
 book, a mere list, was bought by many people who 
 did not care for bibliography. Its publication, how- 
 ever, cut off his sources of supply. Every bookseller 
 could now judge as well as himself, of the value and 
 rarity of books of this class. He determined to sell 
 his collection. 
 
 So he had a list printed, and sent it to people who 
 were likely to buy, and meanwhile he prepared to sell 
 by auction, if necessary. But in a few weeks he had 
 an offer from a great public library, which he accepted. 
 It was that he should send them all the books in his 
 list, and that the trustees of the library, on condition 
 of his taking a certain sum, would keep the collection 
 together and put them in a bookcase inscribed with 
 his name. 
 
 He could not afford to present them, though he 
 would willingly have done so, but this offer seemed to 
 him so pleasing that he accepted it, and sent the 
 books.
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 1 1 
 
 As I happened to hear both the sum laid out and 
 the sum received, and as this chapter is not so much 
 on the art or ethics, as on the prudence, of collecting, 
 I may as well give them as nearly as I can remember. 
 He had laid out altogether on buying and on binding 
 78/. This outlay had been spread over some three or 
 four years. He received 225/., of which the odd 25/- 
 was absorbed by various expenses connected with the 
 printing and packing. His profit was thus I22/. 
 
 I say nothing of the pleasure he had taken in the 
 pursuit, nor yet of the advantages of the knowledge 
 he acquired, and the many incidental benefits which 
 accrued to him. 
 
 The point on which I am anxious to insist is merely 
 that it is often profitable to collect judiciously. I 
 think this point may be taken as proved. I have 
 purposely avoided, for the present, any mention of the 
 great collections of which one so constantly hears. I 
 only speak of what may be done in a very small way 
 by a man engaged in some other business and only 
 collecting in his leisure hours, and with what may be 
 called his leisure money. 
 
 People who live in great cities are often shocked 
 to find how much is spent without any return. Pocket 
 money makes away with itself and leaves no mark 
 behind. You have bought nothing yet your money is 
 gone. We cannot all bring ourselves to the state of mind 
 of a late nobleman, who having several hundreds of 
 thousands a year used to go out without any money 
 in his purse for fear he should be induced by pity 
 or a passing fancy to spend even sixpence. Without 
 going this length, we might yet find it possible to
 
 12 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 economise considerably in this one particular. The 
 man is singular who does not enjoy buying, just as 
 the sportsman enjoys killing, for its own sake. We 
 must buy, and there are few pleasures more to be 
 enjoyed, and "few also which need cost us so little, and 
 which may be more innocent. For though it may 
 seems a little paradoxical to say that spending 
 money, even judiciously, is a cheap pleasure, I will 
 endeavour to prove the truth of the proposition. 
 
 There are two pleasures in buying. One is in the 
 act of buying itself, the other in the subsequent pos- 
 session of the object bought. But if the object be one 
 which soon loses its value this second pleasure is gone 
 Avith it. A young man likes to go to an arcade and 
 spend his money in gorgeous jewellery, satin neck- 
 cloths, and other things which may safely be summed 
 up in the single word " toys." The pleasure of buying 
 these things, that is of choosing them, must be con- 
 siderable, for many young men of wealth seem to do 
 nothing else, and it would be hard to believe that 
 they do it from any sense of duty, and not rather from 
 self-gratification. But that the choice is not of a kind 
 to give the aesthetic faculties much play is also evident 
 Though the buyer lavishes both time and money on 
 diamonds and cigars, his taste is often not sufficient 
 to enable him to give any reason for his preferences. 
 The fancy shops are furnished to reach him, and they 
 succeed, for as he has no taste, in the true sense of 
 the word, one which implies something of reflection 
 he is guided wholly by his fancy. Novelty, there- 
 fore, is the first thing he seeks. It requires no mental 
 effort to know that you never saw a thing before, or
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 13 
 
 do not recollect it, which comes to the same thing. 
 As your experience increases you begin to find that 
 real novelty is very rare, and that for the most part 
 you have been imposed on. But by this time you 
 have also found that few of the things for which you 
 paid such long prices are worth anything now, and 
 you are disgusted to see that though your money is 
 gone you have nothing to show for it. 
 
 This kind of expenditure, then, is not remunerative. 
 And there is another kind, which is also, as a rule, a 
 loss of money. 
 
 You may buy with taste but without knowledge. 
 Thus a few years ago a young man who had con- 
 siderable command of money, and also considerable 
 taste for, art, took the advice of a well-known print- 
 seller^ who is still alive, and whom therefore I refrain 
 from mentioning by name. This man advised him to 
 buy the large engravings from Landseer's pictures, 
 and offered him proofs at very high prices, telling 
 him that in a very few years .they would be worth 
 twice as much. After a time our young friend 
 married. 
 
 " Now," he said, " I will realize all that money I 
 put into engravings ; they should be worth a great 
 sum by this time." He went accordingly to the 
 dealer. What was his surprise to hear they were 
 only worth twice as many shillings as he had given 
 pounds ! 
 
 At first he said he would bring an action against 
 the printseller. But after a time he grew more com- 
 posed, as he saw that the fault was his own, and was 
 this : He had bought without knowledge. He was
 
 14 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 content with, say, the last proof; and everyone knows 
 that the first ordinary print is almost as good as the 
 last proof, and frequently even better. My friend had 
 thought any proof was equal to any other proof from 
 the same plate, and he had made the further mistake 
 of allowing the dealer to choose for him, without 
 any mental exercise on his own part. 
 
 But I have only shown that buying novelties and 
 buying good things without knowledge are not cheap 
 pleasures. I have still to show how it may be cheap 
 to buy. 
 
 The late Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, began as soon 
 as he had the money to buy a picture or two every 
 year from some rising artist. I am told that he trusted 
 his own judgment. This implies that he had judg- 
 ment to trust. He enjoyed the possession of the 
 pictures very much. They were a constant source 
 of intense pleasure to him. He was an illiterate 
 man, having raised himself from the lowest condition. 
 I do not know whether he could read. He certainly 
 could not read so as to be fond of reading, and 
 his great resource was in his picture gallery. When 
 he died I went to Birmingham to see it before it 
 should be dispersed ; and I afterwards attended the 
 famous sale at Christie's. I may have more to say 
 about it presently. My present purpose is only to 
 show that Mr. Gillott's gallery was a cheap pleasure. 
 The fact is it cost nothing. When it was dispersed 
 there were not wanting people to assert that the 
 increase in the value of the pictures since they were 
 painted was such as to bring in to Mr. Gillott's heirs 
 a sum equal to the aggregate produce at 20 per cent.
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. \ 5 
 
 per annum of all the money spent. And it is curious 
 further to observe, that the pictures which Mr. Gillott 
 had bought at the highest prices fetched less at his 
 sale than those he had given the least money for. 
 The Ettys, the Maclises, the Wilsons, which formed, 
 as he probably thought, the great features of his 
 gallery, fetched nothing in comparison with the 
 Turner water-colours, and the Miillers, for which 
 comparatively he had given very little. 
 
 But let us take a less prominent case, as more illus- 
 trative of the position, that collecting may be a cheap 
 pleasure. A man with a taste for early printed books, 
 and with a knowledge of the history of the art, goes 
 into an auction room or a bookseller's every now and 
 then as he passes by on his daily road to business. 
 Sometimes he sees a rare book going for a low price, 
 and he buys it. More often he has to be content 
 while others buy who are wealthier, but he learns 
 something regarding the comparative value and rarity 
 of particular books. He derives a vast amount of 
 enjoyment from his pursuit. He meets intellectual 
 men on common ground. He has a little wholesome 
 excitement now and then at a sale. And he has the 
 quiet pleasure of collating his treasures of an evening, 
 of mending them, of binding them, perhaps of making 
 one perfect whole from several fragments. He learns 
 a great deal, and that too of a useful kind, and though 
 he often has to walk or go in the omnibus rather than 
 take a cab, he does not mind it. The taste, the con- 
 sciousness that he has something behind the daily 
 routine of business life, is worth much to him, and 
 meanwhile he is steadily gathering a collection. All
 
 1 6 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. CHAP. 
 
 those cab drives he does not take, all those newspapers 
 and magazines he does not buy, all those cigars he 
 does not smoke, all those club luncheons he does not 
 eat, all those coats, hats, hosen, and other garments 
 he does as well without, have gone to increase the 
 collection. Had he bought all these things he would 
 have none of them to leave ; but the mere chips and 
 parings of ordinary life have given him enough to 
 form a good, if a small, collection, and at his death, or 
 before it, they are sold for such a sum as will materially 
 add to the resources of his family. 
 
 This is the kind of case on which I would rather 
 dwell ; and indeed the object of my present book is 
 to show that a very small expenditure on worthy 
 objects of art is both good and pleasant in itself, 
 and also a prudent piece of economy. 
 
 I will take one more example. The facts of it are 
 true, but one or two particulars, of no importance to 
 the matter in hand, are varied, as many of the actors 
 in the story are still alive. 
 
 About forty years ago, let us say, but it may have 
 been fifty, and it may have been ten, a country baronet 
 of moderate wealth married for the second time. His 
 only son did not get on with his stepmother. He was 
 wild, and would not be restrained. She had a large 
 family in the course of time ; and the stepson, having 
 gone on from bad to worse, died in miserable circum- 
 
 o 
 
 stances, into which we need not pry further than to 
 say that, immediately after his death, the old baronet 
 had a letter acquainting him with the fact that his son 
 had married just before his death, and that the widow 
 hoped shortly to present him with a grandchild.
 
 L] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 17 
 
 Knowing, as he too well did, the kind of female com- 
 pany into which his prodigal son habitually entered, 
 the old man was terribly shocked at the news. His 
 second wife's eldest boy was a good lad, and was 
 likely to be a comfort to himself and a credit to his 
 family. But if this woman should have a son then 
 all would go into her control, and the result probably 
 would be the utter ruin of his ancient family. 
 
 So much did these apprehensions distress him that 
 he died a very few months after his eldest son. 
 Almost at the same time the widow wrote to say 
 she was the mother of a boy. 
 
 The consternation in the family may be imagined. 
 The young mother had taken care to provide for 
 all possible contingencies. There were witnesses to 
 the marriage and to everything. And though the 
 witnesses chiefly belonged to the same class as 
 the lady herself, their testimony was not thereby 
 invalidated. 
 
 At first the young uncle and his mother endea- 
 voured to do what they could to draw the heir and 
 his mother to them, and, promising to forget all past 
 errors, offered to receive her into the family, and to 
 make no opposition to the child's succession. But 
 before very long curious rumours reached them. 
 They made inquiries, which were attended with great 
 expense, and led to nothing. By degrees, however, 
 one little circumstance after another accumulated till 
 they were able to take a decisive step. They boldly 
 challenged the paternity of the child, and refused to 
 acknowledge it or its mother. 
 
 Legal proof was still difficult to obtain. It was 
 
 LOF. C
 
 1 8 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 obtained at last, however, and by a mere accident. 
 The child was proved to be the offspring of 
 a washerwoman at Stepney ; and though the 
 marriage was never called in question, it is said 
 that the witnesses to it were no more to be 
 believed than those who testified to the birth of the 
 false heir. 
 
 A more romantic story has seldom been told in 
 our law-courts. The general public were greatly 
 entertained. But the bill had to be paid, and of that 
 the public knew nothing. A great deal of money 
 had been spent or was owed, and the new baronet's 
 success seemed to have been purchased at a cost which 
 would keep him poor all his life. 
 
 But it so happened that shortly after these events 
 a man of taste, who was well acquainted with certain 
 branches of art and archaeology, was staying in the 
 house. And one day the unfortunate young heir 
 showed him a great boxful of old curiosities coins, 
 let us say ; they were not coins, but coins will do for 
 my purpose. "They were gathered by my great- 
 grandfather, and are of all ages and kinds. Do you 
 think they would be worth selling ? They did not 
 cost much, for my ancestor never had much money 
 to spend." 
 
 The connoisseur looked over them for a few minutes. 
 There were a great number, most of them worthless. 
 But presently he jumped up with an exclamation : 
 "This must be a forgery," he cried. "The only 
 known example is in the Museum ; they gave a 
 thousand pounds for it, and it should be worth more 
 now."
 
 I.] THE PRUDENCE OF COLLECTING. 19 
 
 He had two or three more surprises, and finally 
 determined to take the whole boxful to town, and 
 show them to an expert. 
 
 When the box of coins had been thoroughly 
 ransacked, about four hundred were found to be of 
 great value. Of these two hundred were at once 
 bought for a great public collection at an immense 
 price, as it seemed to their owner ; and the rest were 
 sent to a saleroom. There they brought such a sum 
 as, added to that obtained from the museum, paid off 
 all the costs of the lawsuit, and enabled the young 
 baronet to start in life out of debt from that cause at 
 least. 
 
 From which may be drawn the safe moral that, if 
 you collect what may seem common enough now, a 
 few years hence your grandchildren may have cause 
 to bless you. How far it is to be considered worth 
 while to make a collection in order to deserve the 
 thanks of posterity I cannot say, but I can promise 
 you a great deal of pleasure for yourself from the 
 pursuit, and I think I may venture to claim that 
 I have made out some part of my original propo- 
 sition that spending money in this way is a cheap 
 enjoyment 
 
 It may of course be objected that collecting is not 
 in itself the practice of art. But, except for people 
 who are actually artists, much that goes to make 
 home beautiful must of necessity be obtained by 
 judicious collecting. It might easily be proved that 
 articles which are really beautiful owe their chief 
 attraction to the sense of suitability and permanent 
 value which is required to make them satisfactory. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 But, further than this, it may fairly be argued, and, 
 indeed, has several times been pointed out already, 
 that it is the duty of every one who is so fortunate 
 as to possess a home and to be the head of a family, 
 to endeavour, so far as he can, to make his family 
 happy by making his home beautiful.
 
 II.] FURBISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 
 
 VEN economical collecting is open to a 
 certain suspicion. Too many men 
 collect only for their own private gra- 
 tification ; and it may be as well 
 before we go further to draw a sharp line between 
 the man who gathers objects in which he alone is 
 interested, and the man who desires to beautify his 
 house with what he buys. My concern here is with 
 the latter only. The old Adam in me may perhaps 
 make me lenient to the faults of the other class, 
 but Art at Home is art calculated to give pleasure 
 to as many as possible in the home, and to make 
 its rooms as pretty and attractive as possible. The 
 bibliomaniac too often forgets others in his com- 
 paratively solitary pursuit, and the collector of 
 autographs can have but little regard for the plea- 
 sures of his family. If things are only bought to be 
 stowed away in portfolios and cupboards, they are 
 merely money laid by to accumulate. 
 
 But this is not the ideal of collecting which I wish
 
 22 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CH A P. 
 
 to inculcate. If, as we proceed, we keep before our 
 eyes the thought that whatever is brought into the 
 house should go towards the decoration, or at least 
 the beauty of the house, we shall see that it is quite 
 easy to add that nothing should be brought in which 
 is without a permanent value. 
 
 Collecting, indeed, is only one name for the thing. 
 I do not want to see everybody collecting. I do not 
 admire private museums. I think houses which are 
 ugly and badly furnished and uncomfortable, are none 
 the better for being filled with curiosities. But short 
 of this there is something to be done. I go into my 
 neighbour Brown's house, and this is what I see : 
 
 The carpet is modern " Brussels ; " the curtains are 
 figured " rep ; " the hall and passages are covered with 
 oil-cloths ; the furniture is of the last new pattern, 
 designed in the " Gothic style," by Messrs Oak and 
 Velvet, upholsterers and undertakers. Brown tells me 
 complacently that he has spent a thousand pounds on 
 furnishing the sitting-rooms, and asks me to look at 
 the frames of his prints. 
 
 They are gorgeous enough, certainly. " Now," says 
 Brown, " I venture to say you can hardly tell them 
 from carved and gilt wood. They are done by a new 
 process." 
 
 You look at the prints for which the imitation 
 frames were procured. They are late pale impressions 
 of poor second-rate works, of which even proofs would 
 be worthless, but Brown has had to pay some cheating 
 dealer a good sum for them. It is the same with 
 everything. Its only possible value, at the best, was 
 in its novelty. A year's wear makes it worthless.
 
 Ii.l FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 23 
 
 These dining-room chairs are of carved oak, " carved 
 Dy machinery " of course, and the backs are marked 
 with Brown's monogram in gilding on the scarlet 
 leather. They have cost him between two and three 
 guineas apiece, and he is naturally proud of them 
 But what are they worth ? What is anything in the 
 house worth ? Well, at most, a third of the price he 
 has paid. 
 
 Take the chairs as an example, Say they cost 
 Brown 2.1. los. each. They are carved by machinery, 
 and a-re of the latest pattern. But since he bought 
 them, a newer and still more attractive pattern has 
 come out, and so their value as being in the fashion is 
 gone ; and their carving, too, is rather a drawback, for 
 the carvers have invented a new way of doing such 
 work, and can turn it out so cheaply, that chairs twice 
 as fine as Brown's are to be had for 25^. 
 
 It is the same with prints and their frames. The 
 prints never were worth anything, and the frames, after 
 a year's hanging on the walls, have the new look 
 well rubbed off, and are not worth dor ig up a 
 second time. 
 
 It would be useless to go through all the items. 
 But if Brown's things are sold they may perhaps fetch 
 3<DO/. perhaps 4oo/. So that he has paid 6oo/. for his use 
 of them, and if he has them long he will lose still more. 
 
 Now I go into, say, Smith's house. Smith is a 
 poorer man than Brown, but now and then he has 
 what he calls a windfall : so that on the whole he has 
 in the course of a number of years spent about as 
 much on his drawing-rooms, study, and dining-room 
 as Brown on his.
 
 24 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 When he and Mrs. Smith went into residence, there 
 was very little furniture in the house. They dined on 
 a small, deal table, and had no sideboard. Their dinner 
 chairs had cane seats. But there was a very pretty 
 old Turkey carpet on the floor. " I was looking out 
 for a carpet like that," said Smith, " for years. They 
 are not made now. See how beautiful is the contrast 
 of bright blue and scarlet, with black to quiet them. 
 Nowadays they are magenta and dark blue, and I 
 prefer to do without a carpet rather than have to look 
 every day at anything so discordant. Now this one 
 was made a hundred years ago, I dare say. It is not 
 the better for that, but it has been all the time in an 
 old country house, and it is not much the worse. 
 Money would not buy such a Turkey at a shop, and 
 I picked it up cheap enough, by looking after it 
 myself." 
 
 When I go to Smith's again at an interval of a few 
 months, I find he has managed to acquire a sideboard. 
 It is a chest or large cupboard of oak, beautifully 
 carved. 
 
 " Now," he cries in triumph, " you thought me an 
 ass to have no sideboard. But I knew better. Ten 
 years ago I happened to be at a furniture sale, and I 
 saw that very same cupboard knocked down for a 
 small sum, but failed to catch the buyer's name. I 
 did not want a sideboard then, nor for a long time 
 after, but one day on going through a Wardour Street 
 warehouse only not in Wardour Street, you know, 
 I saw my old friend. I said nothing then. But when 
 I came here I went to ask for it. ' It's gone to a gent 
 in the country,' said the dealer. So I asked no more,
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 25 
 
 but felt very sorry I had not secured it. After 
 waiting some months, and seeing nothing I liked to 
 go with my Turkey, I went and asked the dealer if he 
 had any pieces out of which I could make up a jury 
 sideboard for the time being. He said he had an old 
 chest without any back or any feet, which he was 
 going to break up and put into other pieces of 
 furniture. ' Is it old ? ' I asked. ' As old as Methu- 
 salem,' he answered. ' Is it pretty ? ' I asked again. 
 ' Was be-ootiful,' he , answered, ' but werry dilapi- 
 dated.' ' Let me see it,' said I. So he took me up 
 to the topmost story of his house, to a little back 
 room. I recognized the place, and the outside of the 
 door as that of the room in which my lamented cup- 
 board had once stood. Could it be there still, after 
 all ? thought I. I actually felt my heart beating under 
 my waistcoat. He opened the door. There was my 
 old friend, dilapidated as he had said, but the carving 
 whole, and all this lovely frieze, and the heads of these 
 Corinthian pillars, and above all the date only look at 
 that! 1632 and it looks a hundred years later, so 
 fine is the carving ! ' Well/ I said, trembling, ' what 
 do you want for that ? ' ' I'll take half a dozen 
 guineas, if you'll spend a couple more in doin' of it up 
 at my shop/ I jumped at the bargain, only for ap- 
 pearance' sake, offering him pounds instead of guineas. 
 I do not think," continued Smith, with hesitation, 
 " I do not think he saw the date on it. You cannot 
 see it till you look for it, but what's the good of my 
 having the use of my eyes, and ever so many years' 
 practice if I can't get a bargain now and then ? " 
 Smith's sideboard is represented in the frontispiece,
 
 26 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. JCHAI. 
 
 and his house is, after a few years, becoming very 
 pretty. He has two or three pictures, for instance, 
 bought at long intervals. " Who is that ? " I ask 
 him, " an ancestor, I suppose ; it looks like a 
 Reynolds." 
 
 "It is a Reynolds," he replies with complacency. 
 
 It would be rude to make any further remarks ; 
 but I cannot help wondering how Smith comes to 
 have a Reynolds worth, say, 25O/. 
 
 " An ancestor ? " I repeat. 
 
 " Not at all," he replies. " My illustrious ancestors, 
 'stirps preclarorum Smithorum' as a monument in 
 the Abbey puts it, never coul'd have afforded to sit 
 to Reynolds. He would have asked a long price for 
 such a portrait as that ; and it's worth more now. I 
 bought it " 
 
 Of course he told me all about it ; whom it repre- 
 sented, what he gave ; what he had been offered for 
 it since ; and so on. 
 
 Then Smith has a very nice pair of tapestry por- 
 tteres for curtains, and his chandelier is of wrought 
 brass, and a little china is in a cabinet in the drawing- 
 room, and I observe everywhere, with a certain 
 economy, a distinct effort to have everything of the 
 best, ancient or modern ; and I know that if anything 
 should happen to Smith, he will leave something 
 behind. He says himself with truth, 
 
 " I have been three years furnishing. I have paid 
 for all drawing-rooms and bedrooms as nearly as 
 possible IOOO/., and now the babies are multiplying 
 and I must stop buying, but it is a satisfaction to think- 
 that what I have will sell for as much as I gave, or
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 27 
 
 more, even after a few years' wear; and that it is 
 pretty to look at and pleasant to live in the house 
 with; and that moreover I have had a lot of fun 
 buying it. 
 
 " In fact," he concludes, " buying things that are 
 pretty and good, is the only way I know by which 
 you can both eat your cake and have it too." 
 
 Smith is undoubtedly right, and if any one will 
 compare his house with Brown's after a few years are 
 past, he will see the advantage of Smith's method. 
 
 We live so much with our furniture that it seems 
 to me very odd that we care so little about its look. 
 We have, many of us, got a false idea that pretty 
 things cost more than ugly ones. There cannot be a 
 greater mistake, but we make it very easily. If we 
 go into an ordinary furniture shop we find the price 
 depends almost solely on the amount of ornament. 
 But ornament is not beauty in itself. An old Greek 
 vase, used for carrying water from the well, without 
 any ornament or pattern on it of any kind is more 
 beautiful to look at than anything we can make now : 
 and it is the same with furniture. We want chairs, for 
 example, not to have monograms on the backs where 
 we have no eyes to correspond, but to be solid under 
 us, and to give us the idea when we sit down that we 
 can never get to the bottom of the springs. 
 
 The permanent things in the room should carry the 
 ornament. The best ornament the chairs and sofas 
 can have is good upholstery, and a look of comfort. 
 But a cabinet against the wall may be as ornate as 
 you please, if it is not more ornate than what it 
 contains. It is ridiculous to see a gorgeous buhl
 
 2S A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 cupboard, with glass doors, and covered all over with 
 tortoiseshell and ormolu, yet only containing Bohe- 
 mian glass, Swiss cottages, and the leaning tower of 
 Pisa in alabaster. 
 
 This incongruity is very unpleasing and the most 
 common of all forms of household discord. I have 
 seen a room decorated in the Louis Quatorze style 
 and filled with Gothic furniture. And I have seen an 
 ancient and beautiful " oak parlour " in a manorhouse 
 with a Wardour Street chimney-piece, and a German 
 transparency in the window. 
 
 It is however, impossible in furnishing to avoid 
 incongruity altogether, and all we can do in order to 
 counteract its effects is to avoid extremes. 
 
 It was the fashion some years ago, with many 
 people to go in for things in a style invented by the 
 late Mr. Pugin and by him called " Perpendicular/' 
 They were for the most part applications of the 
 architectural principles of the I5th century to chairs 
 and tables. The most familiar examples of this sys- 
 tem of treatment are to be seen in the committee 
 rooms of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. 
 
 Now furniture in this style has the singular pro- 
 perty of looking bad itself with furniture in any other 
 style and also of injuring the appearance of whatever 
 is placed with it. This is simply because it is an 
 extreme style. I do not believe they really used 
 furniture like it when the perpendicular houses and 
 churches were first built. As a matter of fact hardly any 
 examples of that period have come down to us. The 
 few that we see which look like it are not really " per- 
 pendicular," being the work of the French, Flemish
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 29 
 
 or German schools, and they look just as bad with the 
 real thing as if they were Grecian. 
 
 I do not want to disparage Gothic furniture. Much 
 of it is very beautiful, especially when the carving is 
 worthy of the style ; but I want, in passing, to notice 
 it as a typical extreme; and I do so for this reason : 
 the best periods of domestic furniture are not Gothic ; 
 so, if you have beautiful furniture, it is almost a 
 necessity to have it of a very different character from 
 Pugin Gothic, and the result is unpleasant. 
 
 It is only millionaires who can hope to have so 
 much genuine old -Gothic furniture as to make it pos- 
 sible to furnish a room, much less a house. But the 
 case is different with a later style. The Queen Anne 
 style, of which people talk so much now, is a very 
 good one for furniture. The best specimens come from 
 Holland, where the operation of the Code Napoleon 
 is breaking up the great old families ; beautiful ex- 
 amples of inlaid work are to be had at a moderate 
 cost, and harmonise very well with modern furniture 
 in any style except " Pugin." This is not the place 
 to go into particulars as to design in furniture ; the 
 Misses Garrett have discussed the whole subject in 
 their little manual of House Decoration, which 
 forms the second volume of this series : but the prin- 
 ciples of selection may be briefly laid down, as 
 depending on comfort, durability, and beauty. 
 
 The first thing to think of in choosing furniture is 
 comfort. If you want chairs for a dining-room your 
 object will be to find chairs on which a man may sit 
 to eat at table without being obliged to lean forward 
 too much, without finding himself so far elevated that
 
 30 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 he cannot touch the ground with his feet, and without 
 backs so carved that after dinner he is in a hurry to 
 remove to the sofa. Comfort in the dining-room is 
 very different from comfort in the drawing-room. It 
 is usual to have a number of little light chaJrs which 
 have only one merit, namely, that they are easily 
 moved about. But a comfortable drawing-room 
 should have plenty of low arm-chairs on good easy 
 running casters, with a sofa or two, all covered with 
 some material on which one need not be afraid to 
 sit. There should be no central table, but, as at 
 a club, there should be a number of small but firm 
 tea-tables on which you may safely place your lamp 
 or your cup and saucer. A fender stool is a comfort- 
 able addition in winter, and there should be little 
 brackets by the fireside where you may lay down a 
 book or a cup. 
 
 As to durability, it will be found a source of 
 economy. I once saw a gentleman sit down on one 
 of the flimsy spider chairs of which I have spoken, 
 and when he leaned back, the whole back of the 
 chair broke away, and not only gave him a dangerous 
 fall, but cut a large piece out of his new coat. But a 
 strong well upholstered chair with very little wood- 
 work visible will last a long time and may be repeat- 
 edly re-covered. 
 
 When you have obtained a chair or a sofa which 
 is both strong and comfortable, you will find, perhaps 
 with surprise, that the beauty has come of itself. A 
 comfortable chair looks pretty on account of its 
 evident fitness for the place it occupies, while an un- 
 comfortable chair let it be never so finely carved, is
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 31 
 
 ugly because it produces in the seer, an unpleasing 
 sense of the unhappiness of sitting in it. 
 
 So far I have spoken chiefly of chairs. But there 
 are many things in which taste is more necessary. 
 Cabinets and bookcases, for example, being often 
 made very gorgeous, not to say, ornamental, are cal- 
 culated to challenge observation, and should be chosen 
 with care. But the same principles will apply to them 
 as to tables and chairs. Fitness for their employment 
 and strength will generally ensure a certain amount 
 of beauty; the ornament maybe added under certain 
 restrictions. It must be remembered that ornament 
 is not in itself necessarily beautiful. Too often a 
 handsome, strong, well-arranged bookcase is ruined in 
 appearance by useless and meaningless ornament. 
 Books are the best ornament of the bookcase, and if 
 you have a bookcase covered with ornament you 
 cannot without violating harmony put shabbily bound 
 books into it. The same principle applies to cabinets, 
 as I remarked above. If you have curiosities, which 
 are not works of art, to display, you must be very 
 careful not to turn your room into a museum. But if 
 you have beautiful china, or ivories, or anything else 
 of the kind, you will find that a very magnificently orna- 
 mented cabinet may sometimes be used with advantage. 
 But on the whole I think it will be found that the 
 plain brass and glass cabinets for the display of china, 
 which are preferred by the great collectors are really 
 the prettiest as well as the best. Sometimes, it is 
 true, a piece of beautiful carving or inlay, may be 
 worth having as a cabinet for its own sake. A fine 
 specimen of Indian lacquer, or ebony and ivory, cr
 
 32 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 marqueterie is often a great set off to a drawing-room. 
 One good thing of the kind will, so to speak, furnish 
 the apartment. The great difficulty is to know what 
 to put into it, and the selector will find, as a rule, that 
 when he buys anything of this kind he had better 
 choose, if it is a cupboard or cabinet, one with close 
 doors than one with a glass front. The glass front is 
 more attractive at first sight, but a fine cabinet filled 
 with shabby books, or with things packed away and 
 looking as if they were in a shop greatly mars the 
 effect of a room. 
 
 In choosing things of this kind, therefore, a few 
 general principles may easily be laid down. It is 
 better to have your drawing-room cabinets too plain 
 than too ornamental, unless the ornament is of the 
 very best and highest character. And again, it is 
 better to have one thing of first-rate quality, and 
 everything else of the utmost plainness, than to have 
 a mixture of styles and degrees, and to have one thing 
 good, another poor, and a third, perhaps, imitation. 
 
 Nor can I leave this subject without a few words as 
 to imitations in general. A very prominent and re- 
 markable example occurs to me. A late eminent 
 collector of fine furniture left among other valuable 
 things some Louis Quatorze tables inlaid and mounted 
 in bronze and ormolu. They had cost him fabulous 
 sums, yet at his famous sale, two years ago, they 
 fetched very moderate prices. 
 
 Everyone was surprised who knew their beauty, 
 except those who knew further that their late owner 
 had been at great pains and expense to have a table, 
 or some tables, made in exact imitation of old work.
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 33 
 
 He had succeeded so well that it was found impossible 
 after his death to know the copy from the original, 
 and both suffered in consequence. I have heard that 
 for a pair of such tables his expenses were as follows : 
 the original Louis Quatorze, price 25o/. ; the copy, 
 35O/., or thereabouts, thus making the two cost no 
 less than 6oo/. Considering the increase in value of 
 such articles, the genuine table should have fetched 
 almost that sum alone, and the new one a price at 
 least equal to its cost. But one fetched less than 
 2OO/., and the other, which some judges pronounced to 
 be the original, about 23O/. 
 
 The lesson to be drawn from this is that the market 
 for objects of taste is extremely sensitive, and that, 
 though one article may be just as good as another, 
 tables may have a character to lose like men and 
 women, and should be absolutely above suspicion. 
 Everything in the sale was affected by the doubts 
 thrown on these tables, and everything suffered 
 accordingly. 
 
 In furnishing handsomely, therefore, it will be 
 better to buy either genuine old things or good new 
 things, and to avoid new things which profess to be in 
 the style of something old. Good, durable, solid 
 furniture in the best style of the day will always be 
 valuable, and for the most part it may safely be said 
 that genuine work, if it is pleasing to the eye and 
 commodious, will always command a good price. 
 
 So much then for tables and chairs. The dweller 
 in the modern house suffers more from a slighter 
 cause. There are few things which give the sensitive 
 eye more pain than ugly curtains, covers, wall-papers, 
 
 LOF. D
 
 3i A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 and carpets ; and few, on the other hand, which will 
 allow of more artistic, harmonious, and satisfactory 
 treatment. 
 
 A few years ago chintzes were made of startlingly 
 brilliant colours, and covered with large flowers, some- 
 times natural and sometimes of the kind known to 
 tradesmen as " exotic." They were often very hand- 
 some, and in days when four-post beds were in 
 common use and iron beds were only known in 
 legends of Procrustes and of Og, the King of Bashan, 
 they formed appropriate hangings, and looked better 
 with old oak or well-turned mahogany than anything 
 else. 
 
 But of late we have been taught that the patterns 
 on curtains and walls should always be flat, that is, 
 unshaded ; and our fine old chintzes have been dis- 
 carded, and wretched little spotty things substituted. 
 No doubt, as a matter of principle, patterns should be 
 flat. But the flatness of a modern speckled calico and 
 the flatness of a Turkey or a Persian carpet are two 
 very different things. 
 
 In choosing chintzes and calicoes for curtains, then, 
 it may be necessary to remember that shaded patterns 
 must be very handsome and contain a great many 
 colours to be at all endurable, and that the modern 
 patterns are more easily harmonized with other furni- 
 ture and with wall-papers. The rules for the form of 
 the patterns, again, will be that a large pattern makes 
 a little room look still more little, and that a perpen- 
 dicular stripe tends to lower the appearance of height. 
 So that if your ceiling or your window is low you will 
 avoid a stripe lest you should make it look lower even
 
 ii.j FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 35 
 
 than it is, and if your room is small you will adapt 
 the pattern to it, so as, by multiplying the parts, to 
 increase the appearance of size. 
 
 In sitting-rooms it is usual to have net curtains in 
 summer,, and to use some woollen material in the 
 winter. Sometimes the "rep" and the net hang 
 together. Net curtains with large patterns of ferns, 
 flowers, trees, and other pictures on them are ex- 
 tremely ugly as a rule. The material has no relation 
 to the picture, which is an imperfect one at the best ) 
 and the forms are often exceedingly ungraceful. The 
 prettiest lace curtains are covered with a simple diaper 
 or spot, such as a cross or a fleur-de-lis, but too often 
 the border is of a different character from the main 
 pattern, and both are in consequence spoilt. 
 
 The woollen materials, or " reps," are also often very 
 ugly from the bad taste of the patterns on them. But 
 if we had the courage to use them, we should probably 
 find they were better without any pattern. A plain 
 rep curtain with a border at the bottom may be made 
 to look very well. And at a very moderate expense 
 it Is very possible to turn such curtains into a very 
 decorative feature of the drawing-room furniture. I 
 have seen them treated in various ways with success. 
 For instance, in an old house in the country I have 
 seen the pair of curtains each almost covered with an 
 appliqut figure in coarse canvas, of one of the family 
 supporters. We are not all privileged to bear sup- 
 porters, but any heraldic animal might be employed 
 with success, as, for example, the lions are placed on 
 the mantle of Lady Tiptoft in the well-known brass at 
 Enfield. But a simpler ornament may be made b} 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 sewing tape of some suitable colour on the curtains 
 in transverse lines, six inches or so apart, and placing 
 a motto in large twisted letters, also made of tape, 
 between the lines. This sort of treatment admits of 
 endless variety, and circles containing monograms or 
 coats of arms may be placed on the centre of the 
 curtain. But all such devices involve a considerable 
 amount of trouble and some knowledge, and if they 
 cannot be done at home it is better not to attempt 
 them, as furniture tradesmen make it a rule to over- 
 charge their customers for anything the least out of 
 the common, and seldom carry out such an order with 
 real taste. 
 
 But rules for the country will not apply in town, 
 where smoke spoils everything of the nature of 
 drapery, and where all colours are soon reduced to 
 the same dingy brown. In town, therefore, it is 
 better to have a succession of curtains which can be 
 taken down and sent to the dyers to be cleaned at 
 short intervals. Beauty in such things must be sub- 
 servient to cleanliness, and the prettiest pattern is that 
 one which will take the least dirt and bear cleaning 
 best. 
 
 It is the same with wall-paper. In bedrooms in 
 town nothing is so pleasant as a paper without any 
 pattern and well covered with varnish. At short 
 intervals it can be washed down with soap and water, 
 and is wholesome as well as pretty. But in the 
 country the pattern on the bedroom walls is a matter 
 of importance, and great diversities of opinion exist as 
 to shaded patterns, natural flowers, spots, stripes, and 
 grounds. The fact is, no absolute rule can be laid
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 37 
 
 down. I have seen a pretty sunny room covered with 
 paper which violated every rule. It represented a 
 trellis work with roses peeping through, and looked 
 exceedingly well, as roses grew on the outside of the 
 window, and looked in at their own portraits. In the 
 country, too, it is possible to have what is absolutely 
 forbidden in town, that is, a white ground : and the 
 only rule I should care to lay down would be this, 
 that the smaller the room the less prominent should 
 the pattern be. 
 
 In sitting-rooms the paper is always a serious sub- 
 ject. I like to see dining-rooms painted or panelled, 
 especially in town, but the drawing-room, according 
 to all received traditions, must be papered ; and 
 nothing can be more hideous than the majority of, the 
 London drawing-room wall-papers. It is melancholy 
 to see the helplessness of a couple who go to choose 
 among a number of patterns in a book. All the 
 pattern pieces are of the same size, so that it is ab- 
 solutely impossible to compare a large one with a 
 small one, and we are surprised to find when the 
 paper is hung that it looks quite different from what 
 we expected. 
 
 In a woodcut on the next page will be seen an 
 example of how a drawing-room may be papered with- 
 out any pattern. The room is small, being only some 
 twenty feet by eighteen, but it is high for its sire. The 
 paper is of a cool grey, all over, a tint between blue 
 and slate colour. When it was hung the tenant of 
 the house enlisted the services of what is called a 
 "writer," a painter of names over shop doors, who, 
 under his direction, painted at intervals of a few feet
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP.
 
 IT ] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 39 
 
 a series of mottoes in black, in Old English characters. 
 These inscriptions were sloped diagonally, " per bend," 
 as heralds say, and the black looked well on the grey ; 
 between the lines a few little shields were stencilled. 
 At the opposite side of the room, over the fire-place, 
 was a line from the book of Job, old version, " Man 
 is born unto travail as the sparks fly upward," at the 
 top of the projection of the chimney, and the sloping 
 mottoes were continued wherever there was sufficient 
 space, a different slope being adopted, to avoid uni- 
 formity of effect. 
 
 This arrangement would have been impossible had 
 there been a pattern on. the paper, and it is easy to 
 understand that a plain paper, absolutely without a 
 pattern, would be better than one with an ugly or an 
 unsuitable pattern. It is not easy to make up one's 
 mind to do without the pattern, but after a little edu- 
 cation a man's eye becomes as sensitive as his ear, 
 and he prefers plainness to offensive ugliness, just 
 as he prefers silence to the sound of a barrel organ. 
 
 In London and some other northern capitals it is 
 necessary to " remember the blacks." I am not going 
 to say anything about the Slave Trade. But when 
 we are arranging the decorations of our rooms we 
 must make all our calculations with a distinct reserva- 
 tion. Nothing must come in but what can be easily 
 cleaned. I know a house in which the owner, a 
 French lady, had her drawing-room " done up " in the 
 Parisian style. There was a pretty bright Aubusson 
 carpet with a white ground, a magnificent bunch of 
 flowers, and a broad border. The carpet only covered 
 the centre of the floor, and the edges were waxed.
 
 40 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 The walls and doors had looking-glasses let into them 
 framed in fantastic gilt mouldings. The general effect 
 at first was very pleasant. 
 
 But when a year was past a more deplorable spec- 
 tacle can hardly be imagined. Had the room been 
 very plain one might not have perceived its change. 
 But everywhere the eye was offended, assaulted, I 
 may say, by faded flowers, blackened mouldings, 
 layers of soot, tarnished gilding, filthy curtains, the 
 floors sticky with a kind of black mud, the sprightly 
 carpet the colour of yellow blotting paper after a 
 week's use, and a general air of poverty and dirt, 
 scarcely imaginable. The housemaid could not clean 
 the mouldings, the waxed floor caught the " blacks/ 
 the gas soon left its shadow on the painted ceiling, 
 and an army of servants could not have rescued 
 that unfortunate room. 
 
 Just as bright and as pleasant a room, but with a 
 brightness which will last was shown me lately. The 
 floors were stained and strongly varnished, so that 
 they could be as easily washed as a tile pavement, 
 and would not imbibe any dampness. A Persian 
 carpet with a black ground was in the centre. Round 
 the walls up to the height of the lock of the door 
 was a framing of slightly chamfered wooden panels 
 painted maroon, and behind it, kept close to the 
 wall by the framing, was some thin Japanese or 
 Indian matting, without pattern, of a dark cream 
 colour ; by unscrewing the panelling it was easy at 
 any time to change or turn the hangings. Above 
 the panels, and reaching as high as the top of the 
 door, was a broad band of handsome paper of full
 
 II.] FURNISHING AND OLD FURNITURE. 41 
 
 toned colour and pretty modern pattern; This band 
 was finished at the top with a narrow shelf or cornice, 
 on which were ranged a few china plates and vases 
 and a jug or two. Above the cornice the wall was 
 either painted or papered of a pale grey blue, and a 
 few Japanese-looking birds had been^cut out in paper 
 and stuck on here and there, the whole effect being 
 that of air and space above the height of one's 
 head. 
 
 Over the chimney-piece, which was handsome, but 
 not remarkable, was an ingenious arrangement, a very 
 mantel-board. The owner of the house, who himself 
 designed and carried out all the decoration, happened 
 to know of a country church in which what is techni- 
 cally termed "restoration;" was going on. Restora- 
 tion in this case consisted chiefly in turning out a 
 series of fine solid oak-panelled pews in favour of the 
 orthodox stained deal " sittings " of modern Gothic. 
 The panelling was of course sold at a moderate 
 rate and was, no doubt, for the most part con- 
 verted into firewood, or applied to the use as ivain's 
 cote, or waggon sides, from which oak planking derives 
 its usual name. One large piece was purchased and 
 brought to London and forms the chimney-board in 
 the room of which I speak. It is about six feet wide 
 by seven or eight high, magnificently framed with 
 deeply cut mouldings, in the style of the last century. 
 A cornice has been added,, partly to finish it at the 
 top, partly to serve as a shelf, In the centre an 
 oblong panel has been filled with looking glass. Two 
 or three brackets have been added at the sides, each 
 supporting a little work of art, whether in china or
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 ivory or bronze. The whole thing is suspended above 
 the chimney-piece and can be taken down and hung 
 up again in another house if necessary. 
 
 I have said nothing about painting wood-work : 
 but in the drawing-room I have just endeavoured to 
 describe, the door there was but one was in two 
 shades of blue to harmonise with the paper and there 
 were some gold mouldings which looked well on the 
 blue. 
 
 I need say nothing against graining, and would not 
 even mention it but that I heard with great surprise that 
 in a very fine house lately remodelled and decorated 
 in London, the owner imported painters from Paris 
 and had his doors made to imitate walnut, mahogany, 
 and other" woods, at an expense which would have 
 paid for the doors in the genuine material.
 
 MI.] 
 
 PICTURES. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PICTURES. 
 
 ICTURES and prints are perhaps 
 more connected in our minds with 
 Art at Home than furniture. And to 
 a certain extent our homes are more 
 dependent on such things for decoration 
 and for the pleasant air which a little art 
 diffuses than on the character of the fur- 
 niture. And pictures have two advantages 
 over every other kind of art for household 
 purposes. They are cheap and they are 
 movable. 
 
 When I say that pictures are cheap, it 
 must be explained that by the word picture 
 I mean every description of drawing, print- 
 ing, engraving, and photograph. But much 
 of the kind which is hung on people's walls 
 does not decorate them, and much, too, is a 
 positive disfigurement. I want, therefore in this 
 chapter to try and find a few safe rules by which a
 
 44 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 man who desires to have pictorial decorations for his 
 rooms may manage to do it, and to do it without 
 loss. 
 
 Such is the problem before us. I have so far pre- 
 judged the case that I have said pictures are a cheap 
 form of decoration. I can best illustrate my meaning 
 by an anecdote or two. 
 
 It is well-known that Mr. Gillott of Birmingham 
 commenced to buy pictures, not only before he was 
 wealthy, but before he knew much about art. Yet he 
 had a natural eye for paintings and could tell what 
 was good from what was bad, though, perhaps, he 
 could not have distinguished genuine from counterfeit. 
 As soon as he could afford it he used to visit the 
 Royal Academy and buy from a young artist. It was. 
 not until comparatively late in life that he ventured 
 to commission a picture. But Mr. Gillott onjy bought 
 new pictures. All that were in the famous sale at 
 Christie's were modern, or at least had been modern 
 when they went to Mr. Gillott's gallery, having been 
 bought from living artists. And, as I remarked 
 in my introductory chapter, the pictures which 
 fetched the highest prices were those for which he 
 had given the least. He had seen merit in a work 
 of a young artist and had bought it at a very 
 moderate price. The next purchase was perhaps from 
 a different artist at the same rate. And perhaps a 
 third would come from a well-known and highly prized 
 painter like Etty. But in the course of years, one of 
 the younger artists would have failed to become great, 
 a second would have succeeded, and a great man 
 would have fallen back. Thus, one of the highest
 
 in.] PICTURES. 45 
 
 prices was the 3,9So/. given at the sale for Muller's 
 Chess Players, which cost Mr. Gillott, some 6o/., while 
 the Ettys for which he gave great sums sold for a few 
 hundreds apiece at most, and some of them did not 
 even reach " three figures." So that the Miiller had 
 to pay for the others. Had Mr. Gillott known a little 
 more about art when he began to buy he might have 
 depended on his own judgment, and only bought 
 from such men as Miiller, and there would have been 
 no drawback as* in the case of his Ettys. 
 
 It was the same with Mr. Wynn Ellis, who 
 deserves, even more than Mr. Gillott, to be remem- 
 bered in the annals of English art; for though he 
 did not "make people steel pens," he left the choice 
 of his Old Masters to our National Gallery. Of the 
 404 of which the collection consisted, most of which, 
 as I am informed, Mr. Ellis considered genuine, the 
 selectors have only accepted some 70. It will therefore 
 be understood that he was not by any means a first- 
 rate judge. I mention this to show that without 
 being a judge of the genuineness of a picture, it may 
 yet be possible for a man to choose what is good. 
 For Mr. Ellis certainly had some good pictures, and 
 one of his it is which has, up to the date of this 
 writing, the reputation of having brought the highest 
 price ever given for a modern picture. The reason the 
 so-called " Portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire 
 by Gainsborough" fetched more than io,ooo/. 
 was simple enough. It was very pretty. No one 
 who saw it could help being charmed with it. As 
 a critic observed, it was as graceful as a Reynolds, 
 as pretty as a Lawrence, and as full of expression as
 
 46 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 a Gainsborough. It was not a matter of much conse- 
 quence that it bore a damaged reputation, and that 
 persons of authority were not wanting who said it 
 was not the Duchess of Devonshire and was not by 
 Gainsborough. I do not say the io,ooo/. was not a 
 very high price, and though it may be generally 
 assumed that a thing is worth what it fetches, it 
 would be rash to prophecy that this picture will ever 
 bring so much again. 
 
 And it was the same, also, with a greater collector 
 than either Mr. Gillott or Mr. Ellis. Judgment and 
 taste, not money, were Mr. Sheepshanks's capital. He 
 was able to recognise good work when he saw it, and 
 though good work was not very common in the days 
 when he began to buy, he got what there was of it, 
 and he not only benefited art by bringing together 
 what was worth looking at, but he encouraged young 
 artists to greater efforts. Nothing can be more difficult 
 than for an artist to struggle on in spite of the sneers 
 of friends and relations, while, though he works never 
 so hard, he makes no money, perhaps, for years. He 
 is constantly tempted to paint " pot-boilers," and will 
 often sell his best pictures at prices which do not cover 
 the expenses he has been at in painting them. No 
 doubt, occasionally, a man who believes in himself and 
 his own work may do work which is in reality bad 
 and undeserving of encouragement. There are many 
 people willing to say that Blake is an example of this 
 kind, and that the French artist Corot is another. 
 Corot worked for years without encouragement, and 
 then was run up to such prices that his last years were 
 passed in affluence. Blake was never appreciated by
 
 III.] PICTURES. 47 
 
 the public in his life-time ; and even now it is seriously 
 questioned by some how far he deserves his reputation. 
 Both Corot and Blake, however, must have had quali- 
 ties in them which appealed to certain minds. They 
 must have had a mission to touch certain hearts. I do 
 not disparage them, if I say that the young collector 
 will do well to avoid such artists, if only because they 
 are uncertain. Some men are attracted by one kind 
 of work, and some by another, and you may be a 
 good judge of what you like and a poor judge of 
 what you do not like. But, on the whole, eccen- 
 tric work is doubtful, and a picture which requires 
 the help of a showman to point out its meaning and 
 its beauty, is but half a picture. Mr. Sheepshanks, 
 however, had powers of discrimination in art and 
 needed no one to tell him that the young Edwin 
 Landseer was working hard and could touch the 
 feelings of a large and enlarging audience. It is said 
 that the first picture Mr. Sheepshanks ever bought 
 was Landseer's Two, Dogs and that he gave the young 
 artist 3O/. for it. How much is it worth now ? About 
 a hundred times thirty. 
 
 If, therefore, your knowledge and taste are such 
 that you can be sure of recognising good work, and if 
 you have a little money to lay out, you cannot do a 
 more judicious thing than to buy from young artists. 
 You do a kindness to them, and you, so to speak, back 
 your own opinion. 
 
 Next to buying from young artists, you may buy 
 " old masters." There is, perhaps, no branch of trade, 
 not even excepting horse-dealing, in which there is 
 more deceit and chicanery than in picture-dealing.
 
 48 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 The commercial axiom that supply always equals 
 demand is as true in the old picture market as in any 
 other. If a master comes to the front, is written up by 
 Mr. Ruskin, or is brought into fashion for any other 
 reason, his works suddenly find their way into the 
 market from all sorts of unexpected places. Who 
 had ever heard, out of art circles, of Piero della 
 Francesca, when Mr. Barker's pictures caused so much 
 controversy a few years ago ? Immediately afterwards 
 Pieros were quite common. Every dealer's shop 
 contained one, all were equally genuine, and dozens, 
 perhaps hundreds, of collectors were taken in. Rem- 
 brandts are manufactured by the thousand. Had the 
 artist been a Briareus he could. not have painted even 
 the pictures which are said to be authentic. If you 
 go in for old masters, therefore, you lay yourself out 
 for a prey to the designing, and unless you are a really 
 excellent judge of art you will be taken in over 
 and over again. I could fill this whole volume with 
 stories of people who have been thus deceived. One 
 old lady, who bought a Crucifixion for fifty guineas 
 and asked a few good judges to see it, and was never 
 on good terms with them afterwards ; one young 
 gentleman who squandered his patrimony, meaning 
 when he came to his last penny to sell the Coreggios 
 and Claudes his father had paid so high for, and 
 who was mortified to find they were only worth as 
 many shillings as they had cost pounds ; the learned 
 literary man who was deceived by a contemporary por- 
 trait of Shakespeare ; these and many other cases occur 
 to me ; and the first advice I should give anyone who 
 proposed to embark in old masters would be, " Don't."
 
 1II.J PICTURES. 49 
 
 But old pictures are dangerous for another reason 
 besides that just indicated. They are not only liable 
 to forgery and imitation, but they are very liable to 
 fluctuations of taste. Some of us remember well 
 when Mr. Ruskin began to write up Turner and write 
 down Claude. People who had Claudes were in 
 despair. Pictures bought for thousands sold for 
 hundreds, and Turner himself was induced to commit 
 the incredible folly of leaving certain paintings to be 
 hung in the National Gallery beside the masterpieces 
 of Claude. Turners are still very valuable, and those 
 which contain good work will always be very valuable, 
 but Turner's poor work is worth very little, and 
 Claudes are probably as valuable now as they ever 
 were. Meanwhile people who wanted to sell' their 
 Claudes must have lost heavily. Another master who 
 has fluctuated very much is Murillo. Good Murillos 
 have been sold very cheap of late years. No doubt 
 they may recover, but it would be hazardous to buy 
 them on speculation. 
 
 But, as I shall have occasion to point out by and 
 by, there is one thing which will always command a 
 price, namely, honest hard work. The highly finished 
 pictures of the great Dutch school are liable to less 
 fluctuation than any other works of art. They steadily 
 and quietly increase in estimation. Mr. Ruskin cannot 
 write them down if he would. And the reason is 
 easily found. They contain good, downright, hard 
 work; they are not scamped; there is no "execu- 
 tion" for execution's sake in them, as there is in 
 Murillo ; and, for the most part, their subjects, though 
 homely, are of a kind which will always command 
 
 LOF. E
 
 50 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 popularity even with those who know little or nothing 
 about art. 
 
 If you must have old pictures, it will not be difficult 
 to point out a few rules for your guidance. Do not 
 expect to find good old pictures for a small price. 
 The sources from which such works come are 
 thoroughly well examined. A cheap old master can 
 hardly be a good one, so do not think a picture good 
 merely because it is old. Not only are some genuine 
 old pictures worthless, but some genuine pictures by 
 great painters are equally without value. A man 
 may pick up a Morland, for instance, at a very low 
 price, yet there are few of the early English school, 
 as it is called, which command a better price than his 
 good works. The young amateur often hears a good 
 name attached to a picture, and has every reason to 
 believe it is painted by the artist to whom it is 
 attributed, yet finds that it is to be had at a low 
 price and so thinks it must be cheap. And I have 
 known several men who have filled their rooms with 
 Cromes, and Turners, and Constables, and Ettys, 
 all of them "picked up for a song." Such ques- 
 tionable bargains are to be had in plenty. But 
 they are only worth what they will fetch, namely, 
 1:he "song" aforesaid, and they are not pretty or 
 pleasant to look at or else they would have com- 
 manded better prices. It is not uncommon to see 
 the walls of a room hung with inferior Turners 
 and Constables, and other little works of great artists. 
 The names on the frames have a very fine appear- 
 ance. They may even be said in some cases to be 
 rather ornamental ; but the pictures to which they are
 
 .III.] PICTURES. 
 
 annexed are valueless in the market and are not 
 pleasant to the eye. 
 
 Old pictures that have been restored are also a bad 
 investment. Of such pictures there are two kinds at 
 least. First those which are overlaid with inferior 
 work ; and second, those which never were good. The 
 principles of " restoration " are rather complicated. 
 The dealer who wants a purchaser to think a picture 
 genuine works in one way. The dealer who wants a 
 purchaser to think he is about to buy a good picture 
 but overlaid with inferior painting works in a different 
 way, though the result is the same. The purchaser 
 is taken in. He may say, " Here is a good painting 
 by a first-rate hand ; injured, perhaps, and mended ; 
 covered with rough paint, and varnished a great deal 
 too much." The amateur is perhaps anxious to per- 
 form the necessary processes of restoration for him- 
 self, and he buys the Van Eyck or the Crome of 
 Norwich and sets to work. After he has taken off the 
 varnish he finds there is very little left ; and by the 
 time the panel or canvas is completely cleaned the 
 chances are he has nothing at all but the canvas 
 left. But in spite of one or two cases to the contrary 
 which I shall mention, it may be taken for granted, that 
 the best face of which the picture is capable is put for- 
 ward, and that the restoration, if it is bad, is bad for a 
 purpose, and if it is good is the best that can be made. 
 
 There are two remarkable instances of good pictures 
 having been discovered under bad ones. The famous 
 Correggio, Egeria or Mary Magdalene, which was 
 painted over with a landscape, in order, no doubt, to 
 escape the vigilance of customhouse officers, or the 
 
 E 2
 
 52 A PLEA' FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 cupidity of French soldiers, was discovered by a cleaner, 
 and is now one of the gems of Lord Dudley's gallery. 
 Another example was that of the unfinished picture 
 by Michael Angelo of the Entombment, now in the 
 National Gallery, which had a picture of some im- 
 portance on the surface. In this case, the unfinished 
 sketch of the great master was probably not thought 
 to be worth preserving. But these two examples, and 
 a very few, if any more, are really responsible for 
 great destructions and for wonderful probing of var- 
 nishes, and for many a purchase of bad pictures. 
 The amateur may be pretty certain that the dealer 
 knows his own business best, and that a bargain is 
 very seldom to be had. 
 
 Old Masters, then, which profess to be genuine, can 
 only be offered cheap when their authenticity is 
 doubtful and when they are disagreeable in subject. 
 
 But in choosing them, as well as in choosing all 
 works of art, the young collector cannot go wrong if 
 he prefer what is pretty and good for its own sake 
 Where you have a pleasant subject like the Duchess 
 of Devonshire, the history of the picture is of 
 secondary importance. When Mr. Wynn Ellis gave 
 63/. for it because he liked it, he did a much wiser 
 thing than when he paid vastly higher prices for 
 pictures with great names and magnificent pedigrees, 
 which Mr. .Burton has not cared to hang. 
 
 I cannot too strongly impress it, that though a 
 good name is a good thing for a picture to have, it 
 is a far better thing for the picture itself to be good. 
 One of the best pictures in the National Gallery has 
 no artist's name to it, the beautiful Knight adoring
 
 llLl 'PICTURES. 53 
 
 the Holy Family, which is believed to be of the 
 Venetian School. On the other hand, some of the 
 worst pictures have good pedigrees, as Titian's and 
 Leonardo da Vinci's, and, no doubt, cost their late 
 proprietors large sums. A picture is not an auto- 
 graph. Because a great man's hand has been over it, 
 and because, perhaps, it bears his signature, it is not 
 necessarily valuable. Look, for example, at many of 
 the hideous daubs which bear Rembrandt's hand 
 writing, and, almost without doubt, came from his 
 studio and were really signed by him. They are 
 unpleasant to look at, whether they are really by 
 Rembrandt or only by Van Eckhout, his pupil, but for 
 a time they deluded buyers, and we have one of the 
 largest and worst in our National Gallery. With them 
 compare the modest pictures by P. de Hooghe. A 
 few years ago this great painter's name was abso- 
 lutely unknown to the general public, and his works 
 jwere attributed to other artists. Yet they are now 
 among the most expensive pictures you can buy, 
 and they well deserve their popularity, for they are 
 full of the best and most conscientious work. 
 
 The principles on which to choose modern pictures 
 are not very different from those which apply to old 
 masters. When a man buys to decorate his walls, and 
 not to sell again, it need not very much signify what 
 names are attached to his pictures. There are pictures 
 which bear Mr. Cope's name, and also Mr. O'Neil's, 
 which would be an ornament to any collection, and I 
 cannot believe that if they were to be, offered at 
 Christie's they would fetch poor prices, even though 
 the artists in question have not been at the pains.
 
 54 A PLEA FOR ART A T HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 to sustain their early reputation. Young artists must 
 be chosen entirely on their merits, and when a new 
 painter promises well and turns out badly, the buyer 
 of his early works loses by him ; that is, he loses if 
 he thinks to get a profit. 
 
 The safeguard against loss of this kind, however, is 
 very simple. Do not confine yourself to the work of 
 one artist ; and, unless your taste runs very decidedly 
 in one direction, do not confine yourself to a single 
 school. It is said that the buyers of works by Mr. 
 Burne Jones and Mr. Rossetti and other pictures of 
 the so-called " pre-Raphaelite " class cannot take any 
 pleasure in ordinary painting. I do not wonder at it ; 
 but if they buy for their own pleasure only, it does not 
 matter. If, however, they have an idea that some 
 day their collections may be sold with other assets 
 of their personal estate, they must leaven their 
 " advanced " works with a few of the kind people 
 usually prefer. 
 
 And it may be necessary to give intending patrons 
 of art another caution. Do not encourage bad paint- 
 ing. We often see a boy taken up by a country 
 circle, and puffed and praised till he thinks himself a 
 prodigy all because he may have a happy trick of 
 hitting a likeness, or may have a little more power 
 than the ordinary sketching amateur. Local magnates 
 buy his works, and provincial mayors have their por- 
 traits done, and he goes up to London, or some other 
 centre, and enters a school. Sometimes he succeeds- 
 It was thus that John Philip came to London. But 
 in a great majority of cases such patrons know 
 nothing about art, and think it a marvellous thing that
 
 in.] PICTURES. 55 
 
 anyone can draw a likeness or a landscape without 
 special training, although every ploughboy who can 
 whistle a tune without musical training is not of 
 necessity a Mozart or a Purcell in disguise. In some 
 foreign countries, as, for instance in Japan or Italy, 
 everybody draws, just as here everybody whistles, but 
 a talent for painting pictures is a long way beyond 
 sketching, just as a talent for composing oratorios 
 is a long way beyond singing popular melodies. 
 
 There are young gentlemen, in London especially, 
 who practise art with an idea that it is not only the 
 pleasure but the duty of patrons to buy from them, 
 and that a man has no right to have any views on the 
 merits of a picture but those taught him by the artist. 
 These loquacious artists talk of the poetry of aesthetics 
 till the listener wishes he could dose them with anaes- 
 thetics, and in many cases they persuade men who do 
 not know much about art that their works are superb. 
 The purchaser of such pictures is astonished when he 
 gets one of these wonderful productions home to find 
 it looks ill beside his other pictures, and that, for the 
 life of him he is unable to explain its meaning to his 
 wife or his visitor, though the artist had such a glowing 
 story to tell. It may be assumed as an axiom that, 
 as I said before, a picture which does not tell its 
 own story is but half a picture, and that these young 
 gentlemen who can talk so much are not likely ever 
 to have time to spare to learn painting. You are 
 doing an injury to good art and hard-working artists 
 when you encourage such people in idleness, for, after 
 all, it is idleness; and it is but a false kind of good 1 
 nature which urges you to buy from them.
 
 56 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP.- 
 
 A little while ago an artist came to a lady well 
 known both for her liberal charities and also for 
 her interest in spiritualism. The gentleman told her 
 that he had received in a trance the design of a 
 picture, and that he was very anxious to paint it, 
 but, though he described to her very fully the ideas 
 he had, he delayed or hesitated to put them on 
 canvas. The lady, after she had seen him several 
 times, took so much interest in the work, or was so 
 much influenced by the glowing imagery and flowing 
 eloquence of the spiritualist painter, that she commis- 
 sioned him to paint the scene. He still hesitated. 
 She suspected that he wanted money for models and 
 other such like purposes, and generously offered him a 
 cheque in part payment for the unpainted picture. 
 The fact was he hesitated because he knew that to 
 paint such a picture as he had described was wholly 
 beyond his powers. I do not say that he meant dis- 
 honestly. I only know, from his previous work, that 
 he was absolutely incapable of painting anything well, 
 and that his only endurable pictures were some fairly 
 accurate likenesses, in which all the details of drapery 
 and background were ill drawn and worse coloured. 
 As to painting the gates of heaven, and the spirit of 
 the deceased husband of the lady, as he had appeared 
 to the artist, coming to welcome his wife to the realms 
 of bliss, the subject was as much beyond his utmost 
 powers as if he had undertaken to pay the National 
 Debt or swim to New York. 
 
 However, he set to work. I believe he conscien- 
 tiously thought he had seen the vision : and also, that 
 he should be able to make a picture of it, expecting^
 
 III.] PICTURES. 57 
 
 perhaps, some help from another world. Be this as it 
 may, the picture went on, and the lady was charmed 
 as the design became more apparent. She again 
 gave him money, until the whole sum promised had 
 been spent. At last the artist, I suppose, found he 
 could do no more ; he took the picture home. The 
 poor woman was sadly disappointed. It did not 
 answer her expectations. She knew nothing about 
 art, but fancied she knew a good deal, and the picture 
 did not satisfy either her taste or her expectations. 
 The artist, however, though he could not paint, could 
 talk, and before the interview was over had persuaded 
 his patron not only "that there was a great deal in 
 the picture," but also that as a painting it would have 
 been a great deal better if the means at his disposal 
 had been larger. The lady hesitated : she would 
 consult her friends. They condemned the picture 
 with ridicule. Something must be done with it. She 
 could not bring herself to burn it, for it had cost her 
 much money. So the artist was recalled and set to 
 work again with a " refresher." The process may be 
 going on still, da capo, for aught I can tell to the 
 contrary, and the artist has probably a small income 
 out of his picture, but if not it must be owing to the 
 failure of his eloquence. 
 
 You may be quite certain that a young man who is 
 willing to work and really able to learn painting, will 
 have but a moderate difficulty in getting into the 
 School of the Royal Academy, in which, after all, the 
 majority of the best English artists of all kinds are 
 educated. When an artist beginning life has not per- 
 severance enough to make the very slight exertion
 
 5 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP: 
 
 necessary to pass the entrance examination, it must be 
 a very sanguine patron that will spend any large sum 
 on his pictures. There are cases, no doubt, where a 
 man of taste and knowledge will venture to back his 
 own opinion. But such cases hardly come within the 
 scope of the present treatise. 
 
 Instead of pictures, either ancient or modern, prints 
 may be chosen for decoration. Strange as it may 
 seem, more taste and knowledge are required in the 
 choice of prints than in the choice of paintings. 
 Few of the rules for picture-buying apply to print- 
 buying. For instance, it is much safer and wiser to 
 buy old masters of engraving than new. Restoration 
 of prints is on a very different footing from restoration 
 of pictures. A torn plate may be mended. A margin 
 may be put on a close clipped print, but no one can 
 make a bad impression into a good one, or produce 
 an imitation of Rembrandt or Diirer at such a cost 
 as to make it worth the trouble. Photography has 
 enabled some foreign cheats to produce prints with 
 which to deceive tourists, but no one acquainted with 
 the originals could have been deceived for a moment. 
 If the copy of a print is as good as the original it is as 
 valuable. There was some talk in art circles a few 
 years ago about an unsigned print, for which a coK 
 lector had given a long price. Wise people said the 
 print had been sold as a Marc Antonio, and as being 
 unique, but that it was not a Marc Antonio, and that 
 another impression existed. But the fact is neither ot 
 these questions affected the beauty of the print 
 Whether engraved by Marc or by one of his pupils, it 
 was well engraved. Whether absolutely unique or
 
 in.] PICTURES. 59 
 
 not, no other impression had ever occurred for sale. 
 In either case, and at all events, it was a beautiful 
 work and therefore of value. 
 
 Prints may be roughly divided into two great 
 classes. Those in which the engraver has interpreted 
 his own design, and those in which he has copied 
 from a picture by some one else. 
 
 The French call original engravers peintres graveurs. 
 The works of Du'rer and Rembrandt, of Meryon 
 and Mr. Seymour Haden, are all of this kind. 
 
 Marc Antonio, though he made some engravings 
 of his own designs, chiefly copied Raffaelle or Titian ; 
 and in our own day Thomas Landseer has both pro- 
 duced etchings of his own and has also engraved his 
 more famous brother's pictures. 
 
 The great majority of modern engravers have only 
 copied from pictures. Such were Smith and others, 
 who made mezzotints from Reynolds, and whose 
 works sometimes fetch very high prices. We have 
 frequently seen a single print by Smith after Reynolds 
 bring more than Reynolds obtained for the original 
 picture. 
 
 On the whole, for decorative purposes, modern 
 prints are the best where there is plenty of wall space, 
 and ancient, being smaller, where there is little. As 
 prints do not suffer by being exposed to the light, 
 but are injured by being rubbed together in portfolios, 
 it seems strange that we do not more often see 
 good engravings hung on the walls. A MelencJiolia 
 by Durer, or a Burgomaster Six by Rembrandt, is 
 eminently decorative. It gives a room an aif which 
 some of the best modern pictures would fail to impart.
 
 60 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 Good Landsecr prints, too, are very ornamental in 
 frames, but terribly unwieldy and liable to tearing in 
 a portfolio. 
 
 Old prints by a peintre graveur are, on the whole, 
 the best for the judicious collector. He can choose a 
 master, say one of Diirer's pupils, and buy quietly good 
 impressions, here and there, hanging them in frames 
 where he can see them, and comparing impressions 
 until he has a good collection. He will find that 
 great pleasure is to be derived from the pursuit, that 
 it increases incidentally his knowledge of other kinds 
 of art, and that, unless he is very extravagant, he 
 is making a perfectly safe investment of his money. 
 
 Many years ago Dibdin praised the works of one 
 of these " little masters," as they are called, namely, 
 Hans Sebald Beham, and had two facsimiles made 
 from his engravings. But they never seem to have, 
 come much into fashion. I cannot imagine any old 
 master whose works are better suited for decorative 
 purposes in a small town house. They are all very 
 small, some of the best being only two inches long by 
 one high, but they are very pretty in sets in a frame, 
 and are, for the most part, in the highest style of the 
 high German art of the time. 
 
 I subjoin a reversed copy from Beham's version of 
 the Melencholia, partly because it is another render- 
 ing of Diirer's famous subject, and partly because 
 it seems to be less known than it should be. 
 
 All the older engravings have greatly increased in 
 value of late years, and as they are no longer to be 
 had in good condition at prices which bring them into 
 ordinary competition with modern works, I will not
 
 III. 
 
 PICTURES. 
 
 fti 
 
 delay over them, except just to offer a few rules to 
 the collector. 
 
 You may safely give a high price for a unique 
 impression, or for any impression in an early state. 
 Proofs of old prints are not always recognised. If 
 
 you have knowledge of the subject, you may feel very 
 secure in this respect. 
 
 Secondly, it is better to have a few good impres- 
 sions than a complete set of a master in an inferior 
 condition. In order to form a thorough acquaintance 
 -with the work of an artist, it is sometimes necessary
 
 62 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP 
 
 to have poor impressions to compare with good. But 
 this is a point on which much might be written, and it 
 does not exactly enter into our subject, being rather 
 a matter for discussion in a treatise on prints. 
 
 It is better to have a common print which is in- 
 teresting in subject than a much superior one which 
 is unpleasant or ugly. It is necessary to include this 
 among our cautions, because it often happens that 
 the old masters differed from us moderns in their 
 ideas of what is good taste, and though some of 
 Durer's prettiest prints are the most common, they 
 always fetch their price, and are eagerly sought after. 
 I allude especially to such engravings as his Knight of 
 Death, his Melencholia, and his four beautiful little 
 Madonnas with the crescent. You may be deceived 
 into buying a print because it is cheap, but you will 
 generally find, if it is a good impression, that on 
 account of the subject it is not fit to be hung up, and 
 that you have therefore given its full value. As 
 success in collecting prints greatly depends on having 
 a good eye for states and impressions, the wise 
 collector will constantly compare what he possesses 
 with the best examples in public museums. 
 
 The buying of modern prints is a very different 
 thing. I have already in my introductory chapter 
 told the story of a man who was induced to buy 
 " proofs " at great cost without knowing enough 
 about the subject His fate was a common one. 
 The word" proof" has been corrupted from its ancient 
 usage. It originally meant a trial impression taken 
 of a plate to see how it approached completion. 
 Such impressions were supposed, partly because of
 
 III.] PICTURES. 63 
 
 their rarity, and partly because of their being early 
 and unworn, to be more valuable than prints from, the 
 completed plate. After a time " proofs " were held 
 to include impressions taken after the engraver had 
 done with his work and before the caligrapher had 
 engraved the title. Later impressions taken with 
 " open letters," that is while the letters of the title 
 were still in outline, were added to the lengthening 
 list. But the crowning absurdity was reserved for the 
 deception of buyers in our own day. Prints are now 
 " published " by publishers, just like books, and they 
 advertise the prices without much reference to the 
 state of the plate. The number of proofs is in most 
 cases, and especially where the publisher is unscru- 
 pulous, only limited by the number of subscribers, and 
 I have heard, on good or bad authority, that of one 
 modern popular print there were six thousand 
 " proofs " taken. 
 
 Line engraving is now almost extinct, and more 
 rapid work, either mezzotint or a combination of 
 mezzotint and line is in fashion with engravers. But 
 the whole condition of engraving was altered when the 
 process of " steeling " a plate was invented, and good 
 impressions may still be had after many thousands 
 have been taken off. After a large number of so-called 
 proofs have been printed the plate is often retouched 
 by the engraver, so that it sometimes happens that a 
 'proof" is not so good as an ordinary impression. 
 
 In works on copper, however, there is much more 
 variety. It may safely be said that of a delicate 
 etching no two impressions are alike. The collector 
 -is very safe if he has selected judiciously, but it
 
 64 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 seems to me that there is a great want of better 
 art in such things. The most ardent admirer ci 
 modern etching has little opportunity of buying 
 anything except landscapes, and of them very few 
 that are of an interesting type. When modern etchers 
 go back to figure subjects such as Rembrandt studied, 
 and to chiaroscuro like his, they will be well worthy 
 of attention. But to the general taste Mr. Whistler's 
 ragged style of rapid execution is absolutely without 
 meaning, and Mr. Legros' figures are too unpleasing, 
 too rigid, too slight, to be attractive except in the 
 eyes of those who are educated in etching. 
 
 For, it must be remembered, in buying prints to 
 hang on our walls, that we do not live alone in our 
 houses, but that what we hang is for the entertainment 
 of our guests and for the instruction of our children, 
 and only for our own enjoyment in a secondary degree. 
 The object of this book, as I have already more than 
 once pointed out, is to help a man who wishes to bring 
 art home. Why the modern efforts of the " aqua- 
 fortist " should be so greatly concerned with land- 
 scape, I cannot tell, except it be that professional 
 artists who are in the habit of drawing the figure are 
 too busy to engrave, and that the copper-plates are 
 left chiefly to amateurs to whom landscape is more 
 possible than figure. Such amateurs are and were 
 Mr. Haden, Mr. Hamerton, the famous Meryon, who 
 was, I believe, a lieutenant in the French navy, and 
 many others who ha,ve become known in this branch 
 of art. The few professional artists who have taken 
 to it are chiefly of what may be called the landscape 
 persuasion. But it is .much to be hoped that before
 
 in.J PICTURES. 65 
 
 long the list of peintres graveurs may contain a 
 larger number of young names, and that even the 
 dry point and the admirable line of Diirer and Marc 
 Antonio and the Behams may revisit the earth. 
 
 Turner's Liber Stitdiornm stands at the head 
 of all modern copper-plate work. To know these 
 prints thoroughly, to be able at sight to distinguish 
 the states and to tell bad from good, is a science in 
 itself. Of late years they have been very much 
 sought after, and good impressions have become 
 exceedingly scarce. But now and then fair examples 
 of odd prints are to be had, and they are, on the 
 whole, very decorative, especially if mounted on a 
 grey or blue paper. 
 
 Two or three minor kinds of art may be said to 
 come under the denomination of " pictures," such 
 as woodcuts or photographs. They may be briefly 
 dismissed. Woodcuts, at least modern ones, are seldom 
 effective when hung on a wall. For such a purpose 
 are almost always unsuited. It seems to be the great 
 object of modern engravers to make the cut as like 
 a steel engraving as possible, and if you frame one 
 of the great pictures with which the illustrated papers 
 " present " the public now and then, you will be dis- 
 appointed at its appearance on the wall. It looks 
 only like a worn-out print, or like a very hard mezzo- 
 tint at best. A few of the older wood artists made 
 attempts at producing good decorative pictures for 
 a wall. There are some very fine shaded and tinted 
 copies of Tintoretto which have a large handsome 
 effect, and the style might be revived with advantage. 
 The slightly shaded works of Diirer on wood, though 
 
 LOF. F
 
 66 A PLEA FUR ART AT HOME. ICHAP. 
 
 they are generally too quaint to be very pleasing, 
 may yet be found to look well in frames. But I do 
 not think I know any modern wood engravings 
 of a large size which are suitable for hanging as 
 decorations. The moment wood-engravers began to 
 attempt what was impossible, in cross-hatching, for 
 example, they lost the life which was the essence of 
 their art. 
 
 Whether photographs can be considered decorative 
 is a matter of some controversy from this point of 
 view. I should be sorry to condemn them. On the 
 contrary, I think good photographs of scenery, of 
 buildings, and of archaeological remains generally, 
 are both interesting and beautiful. They do not look 
 well on the same wall with water-colours, and the 
 man who buys many should remember that they will 
 probably fade before long, and that the same money 
 spent on one picture might do something for the 
 encouragement and improvement of real art. But 
 people who travel much find no record of places 
 they have seen so faithful as photography, and it is 
 pleasant to lean back in one's chair and be trans- 
 ported to distant countries at a glance. 
 
 Photography is of little use for portraiture. I mean 
 that large pictures of landscapes in photography are 
 much more common and more pleasing than large 
 likenesses. The vulgar staring portraits produced by 
 many photographers do not bear enlargement, but 
 Mrs. Cameron and others have shown us that in this 
 respect much is possible, and the day may come 
 when people will have their ' ancestors " well and 
 pleasantly photographed.
 
 III.] PICTURES. 67 
 
 I have purposely said little about portraits as 
 pictures. People who have family pictures do not 
 take them down because they are ill done. The whole 
 subject of portraiture, so far as it enters into the scope 
 of this little book, is to be considered less as art than 
 as something to be calculated upon and allowed for. 
 A man can no more help his family portraits being 
 hideous or ill painted than he can help being born the 
 heir of an estate in one county rather than in another. 
 He must endeavour, if the bulk of his portraits are 
 of a particular period, as so often occurs owing to 
 some passage in the family history, such as an access 
 of wealth or position, to assimilate the furniture and 
 surroundings to the costume of his ancestors. I 
 have known an insolent young gentleman who sent his 
 family portraits to the bedrooms because they did not 
 agree with his new Gothic furniture; but I think such 
 a man did not deserve to be blest with ancestors of 
 which he had no other reason to be ashamed. 
 
 In a different case a gentleman had about twenty 
 little crayon drawings of the family of his grandfather 
 early in the last century, and he arranged them round 
 the walls of a room alternately with ornamental 
 panels containing shields of arms, with the happiest 
 effect. 
 
 This question of arrangement is one of the most 
 important with which art at home is concerned. It is 
 often said that only water-colours should hang in the 
 drawing-room/and portraits in the dining-room. But 
 all such hard and fast rules are absurd. The true rule 
 is to put the pictures where they look best. 
 
 One of the accompanying woodcuts shows a room 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 in which oil-pictures and water-colours have been 
 mixed. It is a drawing-room, and has already been 
 mentioned (p. 39). On the wall to the left of the cut 
 hangs a row of water-colours. As the owner considers 
 them all worth looking at, and as he takes much 
 pleasure in looking at them himself and in showing 
 them to his friends, he has hung them in a straight 
 line opposite the eye. Strange to say the effect is not 
 at all formal, and for a simple reason. The pictures 
 are of various sizes and shapes, and only the bottom 
 of each frame ranges with the bottom of the next. 
 The tops are at all levels. The same effect mighthave 
 been attained by having the tops all level, and the 
 bottoms irregular. The row consists wholly of water- 
 colours ; but oil pictures, especially portraits, might 
 very well be disposed on the walls above. 
 
 For the most part, a dark red ground is the best for 
 pictures, especially old ones in oil, but the frames must 
 be adapted to prevent the wall paper from interfering 
 with the pictures. To isolate a painting from its sur- 
 roundings is, indeed, the final cause of frames, and 
 to make the frame more ornamental than the picture, 
 seems to me little less than a crime. 
 
 Hanging is a fine art in itself. A well-arranged 
 gallery is as rare as a well-painted picture, and the rules 
 most often given are of little use. Even experienced 
 people are often puzzled how to show their possessions 
 to the best advantage. What suits one picture does 
 not suit another, and it is impossible to say before 
 hand what will look best. For my own part, I think 
 the great object of having pictures is that they may 
 be looked at, and at the risk of ruining the
 
 in,] PICTURES. 69 
 
 of my room I am inclined to hang them where I can 
 see them with the most ease. Mr. Wynn Ellis had 
 movable shutters to suit different lights and hung his 
 pictures on them. But most owners of pictures will 
 prefer to consider them as ornaments of the house, 
 and will place them where both the pictures are at the 
 greatest advantage and the room itself is most orna- 
 mented by the pictures. To hit this mean is not easy, 
 but since no two' pictures and no tv/o rooms are 
 exactly alike it must be left to the taste and pleasure 
 of the owner to dispose his pictures in his rooms 
 as they seem to him to look best, 
 
 I cannot conclude this chapter without some refer- 
 ence to art in the nursery. Putting aside toys and 
 books for. the present, there is still much scope for 
 pictures on the walls. Children study such things 
 much more than some people suppose. They re- 
 member them long afterwards, and many a child 
 looks back to the picture which hung over his bed 
 years and years after other and better pictures might 
 have been expected to drive it out of his head. The 
 importance of supplying children with examples of 
 good art cannot be insisted on too much. Their taste 
 may be warped unconsciously by some piece of poor 
 design, or some gaudy inharmonious colouring. When 
 a child ib working at music we do not let the piano 
 get out of tune, lest the little performer's ear should 
 be spoiled. But we think much more of the subject 
 of the nursery pictures than of their merit as designs, 
 and never remember that the children may have in 
 after life to complain of an inability to judge of colour, 
 or a deficient eye for form owing to our neglect.
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 It is not easy, I confess, to obtain good pictures for 
 the nursery wall. On the whole rather than hang up 
 some of the poverty-stricken scriptural subjects which 
 are to be had, I should be inclined to use the worn- 
 out engravings of good pictures which may be bought 
 so cheap, and which have no prominent fault, though 
 they are pale and weak. A child's taste may be 
 greatly influenced by the habitual contemplation of a 
 print after Raffaelle, or Rembrandt. I am glad to 
 hear that an effort is being made by one of the educa- 
 tional societies to take up the questions here suggested, 
 and to enable us to decorate the walls of the nursery 
 and schoolroom with prints whose teaching will not 
 have to be unlearned if possible in after life.
 
 IV.] 
 
 BOOK'S AND CHINA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BOOKS AND CHINA. 
 
 VERY reader may not 
 agree with me if I say that 
 pictures ornament a house 
 more than anything else, 
 but that next to pictures 
 I am inclined to place 
 books. Most people would 
 perhaps give the prece- 
 dence to china. But if 
 china is really valuable it 
 is too fragile to be used for decorative purposes, and 
 if it is left out of the cabinet it may be broken. An 
 exception must be made in favour of the very beautiful 
 earthenware of Flanders and Germany, but almost all 
 other kinds of pottery are very fragile. Books on 
 the other hand, are very indestructible, and I cannot 
 help thinking a well-filled bookcase one of the best 
 ornaments of any sitting-room. 
 
 Ornamental books may be roughly divided into
 
 '72 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 three classes, manuscripts, books of prints, and books 
 whose binding is their chief feature. A word should 
 also be said about nursery literature since it is often 
 from " toy books " that young people derive their 
 first ideas on art. 
 
 Manuscripts which contain illuminations have an 
 altogether exceptional character. If we look at them 
 as p-ictures painted before the modern schools of oil- 
 painting were instituted we shall not be far wrong. 
 A book of " Hours " will sometimes contain a series 
 of designs by a great but anonymous artist who 
 flourished perhaps a ce-r.-tury before Raffaelle. For 
 such a " pocket gallery " we may have to pay less than 
 for a single picture by an artrst of the same period. 
 This is sometimes very strange, and must be chiefly 
 owing to the want of intelligent books on the greatest 
 of the art of the middle ages. There is no classifica- 
 tion into styles and schools, no attempt to identify 
 various works of the same artist. I can promise 
 the industrious amateur who wants employment for 
 his leisure hours, not only a great deal of pleasure, 
 but also the warm thanks of all connoisseurs if he will 
 take the books in a public collection and classify them 
 with some reference to period, school of art, country > 
 and individual artist. 
 
 To many people it will be new to hear that we had 
 a school of art in England in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries such as we have never had since, and that 
 there were painters and sculptors among our ancestors 
 in the reign of Henry III. whose works excel any- 
 thing that has been produced in our island in the 
 nineteenth century.
 
 ' rv.] BOOKS AND CHINA. 73 
 
 The initial letters of the chapters of this book 
 are taken from Bibles of that period written in 
 England, because such Bibles are among the most 
 common examples of this style of art, while they best 
 illustrate my meaning, owing to the identity of the 
 subjects in several. Jonah in the act of falling into 
 the jaws of the whale, or else just rising from them 
 again, is a favourite subject and is sometimes treated 
 with exceeding quaintness. The crossbar letter E, 
 with which in the Latin the Book of Jonah com- 
 mences, was made use of to give the picture a kind of 
 upper story. 
 
 In buying manuscripts the great difficulty consists 
 in knowing whether they are perfect or not. It would 
 be impossible to give rules for the purpose of assisting 
 a buyer in the space at my disposal, but I may ven- 
 ture a caution as to two of the most common of such 
 books. In Missals always look for a painting of the 
 crucifixion. If this is wanting the book is almost 
 certainly imperfect. In books of " Hours," you may 
 be equally particular in seeking a calendar. Without 
 a calendar the book would have been practically 
 useless, and I cannot believe any book of " Hours " is 
 perfect without some sort of calendar. 
 
 Of manuscripts, too, it may safely be said that some 
 of the most gaudy are the least valuable, and that the 
 judicious buyer will prefer that which has an especially 
 quaint treatment of a subject, or any sign of being the 
 work of an original and untrammelled mind. 
 
 Modern illustrated books may be very briefly dis- 
 missed. The best have woodcuts, the worst have 
 chromo-lithographs ; but it may be worth while to
 
 74 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 point out that different copies of an illustrated book 
 have very different impressions of the pictures; an'i 
 that a late edition of one of Bewick's books, fo v 
 example, is a very inferior work to an early edition. 
 
 There has been a kind of run on early woodcuts of* 
 late years, and we are at length, after centuries of 
 neglect, beginning to recognize the beauty of the early 
 French school that of Paris, from which issued so 
 many devotional books in the fifteenth century, and 
 the early part of the sixteenth, as well as of the later 
 school, and that of Lyons, from which issued so many 
 exquisitely illustrated Bibles, Testaments, Dances of 
 Death, Emblems, and other books, all now become 
 exceedingly valuable, though once, not many years 
 ago, to be had very cheap. If we could tell what will 
 be the next fashion we might commence collecting 
 now, and make a fortune when the tide turns. The 
 French are busy at present with books illustrated 
 with copper-plate vignettes, and chiefly belonging to 
 the period before the Revolution. But we have little 
 art to show for that period in England, and must come 
 down to the times of Stothard and Westall for some- 
 thing original and good of native growth. 
 
 The book collector may, however, form a collection 
 of many kinds of books different from any already the 
 fashion. If he buy with knowledge he can hardly 
 lose by it, but the kind of knowledge required is rathei 
 literary than artistic, and does not exactly belong to 
 our subject. So I will pass on at once, only pausing 
 to encourage the book collector with an anecdote 
 relating to circumstances which lately occurred. A 
 gentleman happened to stroll into a saleroom during
 
 iv.j BOOKS AND CHINA. 75 
 
 a sale of books, and seeing an unbound book full of 
 engravings, and described as a Sarum Service-book, 
 he bid 5/. for it, imagining it to be worth much more. 
 It was knocked down to him, however, and for months 
 he amused his leisure with that book. First he went, 
 to the British Museum and soon ascertained that no 
 example of the same edition was in the library there. 
 Then he had it handsomely bound, and taking it to 
 Oxford and other places compared it with various 
 specimens, sometimes finding a fragment of the same 
 edition bound into another book, and once a very 
 imperfect copy wanting the large cuts. At last he 
 grew tired of his toy, and having written a full account 
 of its beauties and peculiarities he put it up at an 
 auction and received 3O/. for it. This example speaks 
 for itself. 
 
 The nursery literature of the present day is one 
 of the wonderful things of our wonderful age. Chil- 
 dren are indeed provided for in this respect better than 
 their parents were when they grew up. Many a 
 child has a library that would have sufficed a hundred 
 years ago for a country town. 
 
 Mr. Marks led the way in seeing the difficulty of 
 making good " toy books." His nursery rhymes 
 marked an epoch in pictorial literature. Since then 
 Mr. Crane and others have taken up the tale, and the 
 parent who desires to bring up a child as if harmony cf 
 colour was to be compared in importance with har- 
 mony of sound, may easily provide that the infantine 
 eye shall only be used to what is good. 
 
 Picture books have all the same drawback as pieces 
 of household decoration, but bindings are sometimes
 
 76 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 very pretty. For the most part however our modern 
 bindings are hideous and one longs to go back to the 
 time when every book was bound in calf or sheep 
 at the least, if it was bound at all. 
 
 Binders follow many very objectionable practices 
 in binding books. It is quite impossible to persuade 
 the ordinary binder, for instance, that there is any 
 beauty in wide margins, nay in any margin. He 
 ruthlessly cuts off all such superfluities. According 
 to his view the printed portion only should be left 
 of the page, and where he is in doubt as to whether 
 he has left enough margin he settles the question 
 by cutting a line or two of the printing at the top 
 and bottom. How many valuable books have been 
 rendered valueless by the binder, no one can ever 
 know. 
 
 His enmity against margins is only equalled by his 
 abhorrence of fly leaves, an abhorrence extending 
 even to such useless things as title pages. He argues 
 perhaps that the world did very well without title 
 pages before printing was invented, and even for 
 twenty or thirty years later, so that though he habit- 
 ually preserves the title, more especially if told to do 
 so, he thinks it a vanity. As to the half title no 
 persuasion can save it, and he looks on people who 
 preserve the covers of books issued in covers, as 
 simply idiotic. Lately I had some volumes of a scarce 
 though modern German book on Hymnology bound. 
 I had bought it in numbers and gave directions that 
 the green paper covers should be included in the 
 binding. When the book came home I found the 
 binder had spared the front cover, but had taken off
 
 iv.] BOOKS AND CHINA. 77 
 
 the other though both front and back leaves had 
 contained notices of the greatest importance. 
 
 A still more melancholy example of the hopeless- 
 ness of trying to resist fate's shears in those of the 
 binder came before me recently. A gentleman who 
 collected Bibles was greatly elated one day at finding 
 a copy of one of the black-letter quartos with, ar 
 he expressed it, "the rare sheet A before the title.'' 
 Bibliographers are inscrutable in all their ways, and 
 attach great importance to such external features 
 So he bought the book, though it was a poor copy 
 wanting a leaf or two, and of a common edition. 
 True, the " rare leaf A " was in all probability unique, 
 and the happy owner broke up another copy to make 
 this one perfect, and took his treasure to a binder, 
 charging him to spare no expense in covering it suit- 
 ably. The result is too dreadful for words, and I 
 cannot dwell on it. But the unfortunate bibliographer 
 had gone to great expense, and had in return a very 
 worthless book. One wonders whether binders keep 
 albums of rare fly leaves and title-pages. 
 
 Another, and very similar case is famous. A lady 
 who had a nephew, wished as his birthday approached 
 to give him a present. She knew that he greatly 
 admired an old book in her library. It was the 
 " First Folio " of Shakespeare, a very large copy in 
 the original binding. She would give him this book, 
 and thinking it looked shabby she sent it to her 
 binder, who took off the rubbed old calf, and put the 
 book into a neat half-binding of green roan, at the 
 same time cutting the edges close to the text and 
 gilding them. The lady's nephew found it difficult
 
 73 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 to express his thanks in suitable terms, for his chief, 
 if not his only, admiration for the book consisted in 
 its being one of the " tallest " copies in existence. 
 
 This story has, I believe, been often in print before. 
 But not long ago I knew an almost precisely similar 
 case in which, however, it was only a Bewick which 
 was mutilated by being clipped close, title taken off 
 as soiled, and the title of the second volume prefixed 
 to the first. 
 
 There is in fact a certain excitement in sending a 
 precious book to be 1 bound, and the most singular 
 thing, one of the most singular things, indeed, in the 
 history of human nature, is the constant persistence 
 of binders in the same habits which, for hundreds of 
 years have caused them to be universally reprobated 
 by all right-thinking book collectors. Roger Payne 
 used to boast that he bound books so strongly, that 
 they might be laid down in a pavement, and the 
 suffering tribe of bibliographers retorted that his 
 books were only fit for that position. But Payne did 
 not cut a book if he could help it, and some of his 
 modern disciples in " bibliopegistry " are quite as 
 careful. It is only the ignorant second-rate book- 
 binder who does the damage, but it must be allowed 
 that whether owing to the large number of such 
 binders, or to their amazing energy, the harm they 
 do is enough for themselves, and for their more 
 careful congeners too. 
 
 Bindings pleasing to the eye need not be expensive. 
 If you fix on a pattern, you will find the cost greatly 
 diminished by sending a dozen volumes together to 
 the binder. Some variety of " Roxburgh " half-
 
 iv. J BOOKS AND CHINA. 79 
 
 binding looks well, both on the shelf and on the 
 table. As to patterns for whole bindings, we have 
 plenty of examples, and need never be at a loss for a 
 good one. In the woodcut I have shown two ancient 
 books in my own collection. The smaller one may 
 
 possibly date from the fourteenth century : its two 
 sides are not stamped with the same pattern, although 
 they match very well, two varieties of the fret being 
 employed. The result is very pleasing, and I can .vouch 
 for its being suitable for a modern book, as I have 
 tried it. The principles of decoration at present in 
 use only present two varieties, but here we have a 
 third. We have books with one side plain and one 
 side ornamented, or else we have both sides bearing 
 the impression of the same pattern. But this example 
 shows what a good effect may be produced by having 
 the sides both ornamented but with different patterns, 
 designed to harmonize with each other but not to 
 match exactly. 
 
 The larger volume is equally picturesque, but not 
 so useful for imitation. It is stamped all over with
 
 8o A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 little heraldic dragons, in rows, divided by mottoes in 
 English, and is interesting as an example of* English 
 work of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Another style of the binding would be suitable, 
 pretty and convenient for prayer-books and hymn- 
 books. It is such a binding as we see in the hands 
 of Van Eyck's Madonna at Ghent. Service-books, 
 which had to be carried to church, and which were 
 constantly opened and thumbed at the same place 
 were bound with a kind of hanging curtain or veil 
 which both served to attach the book to its owner's 
 belt, and also to turn up and put under the fingers 
 during the time the book was in use. There are very 
 few examples remaining of such a binding, but modern 
 binders have copied some specimens from pictures. 
 
 Of later bindings much has been said and written : 
 many fine collections have been made, but, so far, very 
 little done as to classification and identification. The 
 greatest French binder was probably Derome, the 
 greatest English was Roger Payne, but bindings are 
 chiefly distinguished by the names of the binders' 
 patrons ; Grolier, with his motto on every book, 
 " Grolierii et amicorum," and Thuanus, otherwise 
 known as De Thou. There is also a very fine old 
 English style, much sought after, and harmonizing 
 very well with " Queen Anne " furniture and decora- 
 tions. 
 
 I have perhaps spent more time on books and 
 bindings than they deserve, considered as specimens 
 of art at home. I have still to speak of china, of 
 ivories, and of many other things most commonly 
 met with in our houses.
 
 IV.] BOOKS AND CHINA, 81 
 
 For decorative purposes, " Oriental," that is Chinese 
 and Japanese china, only, is worth much. Some 
 Sevres, and a good deal of what the modern English 
 makers have produced of late years, is also to be 
 admired, but chiefly in so far as it approaches the 
 " Oriental." As to the porcelain, for which, under 
 the names of Chelsea, Bow, and Bristol, such fabulous 
 prices are often given, I have little or nothing 
 to say. They are ugly, inharmonious, sometimes 
 dingy, sometimes gaudy, and only valuable as very 
 fragile curiosities. I cannot remember ever to 
 have seen a beautiful example of any of these much-: 
 prized potteries. Of Worcester and Derby, on the 
 other hand, some very beautiful specimens occa- 
 sionally occur, close imitations of the Oriental patterns. 
 It is some times quite absurd to see a plate or a 
 bowl of Oriental ware put up and sold for a few shil- 
 lings, while a similar piece, imitated from it and not 
 nearly so' good, but bearing a Worcester mark, fetches 
 as many pounds. 
 
 The mark, indeed, generally determines the value 
 of the china. So far we have only deciphered and 
 identified a few of the Chinese and Japanese marks, 
 and cannot always tell what is valuable or scarce. 
 But on European marks many great volumes have 
 been written, and there is no need I should go into 
 them here. If you buy with a view to making your 
 house look pretty you will avoid the European and 
 cleave to the Oriental, and a few years hence the 
 labours of investigators may have determined the 
 comparative rarity and value of the pieces in your 
 collection. As an example of the difference in value 
 
 LOF. G
 
 82 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 at present between European and foreign work I may 
 mention the case of an eminent Parisian manufacturer 
 who produced at a price of forty guineas each a 
 pair of jars such as could be imported from China, 
 and sold here for forty shillings. 
 
 Of all so-called bric-a-brac, the highest prices are 
 given for early examples of Sevres. They are seldom 
 beautiful, yet they deserve a certain amount of praise 
 as being among the few original pieces of European 
 work we can point out. The Sevres decoration was its 
 own invention. It is not imitated from China or Japan, 
 though it has been imitated in all directions of late.' 
 The colours are generally staring, but sometimes very 
 delicate, and the little pictures are often exquisite 
 examples of miniature painting. It is not, however, 
 for such specimens that the highest prices are given, 
 but for an early style of purplish pink, known as Rose 
 du Barry, and an equally unpleasing green, both 
 spotted with a kind of diaper work of feebly painted 
 rosebuds. 
 
 I do not think plates look well hung on the wall 
 They should be put on shelves in a kind of dresser. 
 Such a piece of furniture looks very suitable in a 
 dining-room, and may be made convenient as well as 
 pretty. China in the dining-room may consist of 
 plates and dishes, ranged neatly on the sideboard, but 
 china in the drawing-room should only consist of 
 purely ornamental objects and of tea things. 
 
 I have seen brown ware and Flemish grey pottery 
 used with good effect in a library or on a staircase. 
 Such pottery is very strong, and the housemaid will 
 seldom succeed in breaking: it when she is dusting.
 
 iv.] BOOKS AND CHINA. 83 
 
 Some of the forms are very pretty, and the grey has 
 the further merit that no two pieces are exactly 
 alike. I speak here only of the original ware. 
 In modern imi-tations dozens of jugs and jars are 
 moulded to the same pattern, but such examples 
 are valueless. You can always tell the genuine from 
 the cast work by the marks of the mould, and by 
 the evident tokens of original handywork in the 
 older vessels. 
 
 Maiolica also has a very decorative effect, but it is 
 not easy to obtain Maiolica. Time was when tourists 
 in Italy, if they were wise, always brought some 
 home ; but now you cannot obtain anything good, 
 and must be on your guard as to forgeries. I am 
 frequently asked to look at so-called Maiolica and 
 faience which I can see at a glance is a forgery. But 
 failing old Italian pottery there is plenty of beautiful 
 and effective ware made in Algiers, and even in Spain, 
 which may be picked up very cheap, and if artfully 
 disposed in a room be made to look very pretty. 
 Such things, however, must be carefully selected and 
 still more carefully placed. Do not be induced to 
 turn your rooms into a museum ; and if you place a 
 large quantity of china or pottery on your shelves 
 take care that some at least is bright and fresh- 
 looking, for nothing can be more dingy than a large 
 quantity of such things as Etruscan or Greek vases, 
 Moorish brown and black ware, Egyptian stone bottles, 
 and modern Norman or German gres. These are all 
 things beautiful in themselves. They will have an 
 excellent effect if judiciously contrasted with Japanese 
 jars and bowls, but by themselves they only suit a 
 
 G 2
 
 84 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 great hall, or at best, the buffet of a very large 
 dining-room. 
 
 In speaking of the objects on which the collector at 
 home spends his admiration, I have avoided men- 
 tioning a number of things of value and beauty 
 because they do not in the ordinary course of events 
 come into our houses, and because it is only people of 
 great wealth who can buy enough of them to make 
 any great show. 
 
 Such are enamels, ivories, bronzes, marbles, jewels, 
 and gold or silver plate. Yet it may be worth while 
 to say a few words about them in order. 
 
 Enamels are very ornamental, very valuable in the 
 history of art, and very indestructible. But a single 
 picture of Limoges work, some six or seven inches 
 square, will cost you forty, fifty, or sixty guineas, 
 according to the period and beauty. The brilliant 
 Japanese Cloisonne enamels are much cheaper, and 
 have a very charming effect ; they may be bought at 
 very reasonable prices in comparison with Limoges, 
 but they are still dearer than porcelain, though well 
 worth the difference. If you collect such things you 
 had better give some special study to the subject. It 
 is a complicated and difficult one, and forgeries are 
 common. 
 
 Ivories, generally speaking, cannot be forged. In 
 that respect they are like illuminated MSS. An ivory 
 carving is valued by the merit of the workmanship 
 bestowed on it, and if the carvers could produce 
 diptychs and triptychs like those of the middle ages, 
 they would be nearly, if not quite, as valuable. The 
 collector of ivories, therefore, may trust to his own
 
 IV.] BOOKS AND CHINA. 85 
 
 taste, if he has any, and need not fear to be taken in. 
 If he is taken in he deserves his fate. .Imitations of 
 late years have been attempted of some very ancient 
 ivories. For the most part these are not ornamental 
 objects, and are chiefly of interest to the scientific 
 collector. It is therefore hardly necessary for me to 
 warn my reader that if he is offered the leaf of a con- 
 sular diptych of the third century he had better take 
 it to the British Museum or South Kensington before 
 he buys it. 
 
 But there can be no question about the beautiful 
 statuettes of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 
 centuries, which sometimes occur for sale ; and I cannot 
 but wish our Gothic revival had directed some artist 
 of genius to work in ivory. Fiammingo's work, too, of 
 a totally different style is very pretty, and good 
 imitations of it are to be had. But it is safe to avoid 
 what is rude and what is commonplace. We see 
 numberless Venuses and Cupids and a few Saints in 
 the ivory shops, but it is seldom we find one in which 
 the carver has shown any knowledge of anatomy or 
 proportion, or has been able to give his work any 
 expression. 
 
 Bronzes may in many respects be classed with 
 ivories, except that forgeries are very common and 
 very deceptive. It requires special study to judge of 
 a good bronze, and it is not worth while to go into 
 the whole subject here. A separate treatise would 
 be required for it. 
 
 And it is much the same with plate. Within the 
 last few years the date marks on old gold and silver 
 have been carefully examined. The connoisseur can
 
 86 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 tell easily what age a piece of silver purports to be. 
 But electrotyping has made forgery so easy that it 
 hardly deserves the name of forgery. The collector 
 must judge by merit alone. There is great beauty in 
 some styles of silver work, and it does not require 
 much knowledge to tell the genuineness of any but rare 
 and ancient marks. The precious metals are always 
 worth their weight, and good workmanship, whether 
 genuine or imitative, also counts for what it has 
 cost. 
 
 It would be easy, indeed, to Write a chapter on the 
 silversmith's art as it is at present. The revival in 
 painting, architecture, and many other arts does not 
 seem to have reached the silversmith. There are few 
 more distressing sights to the sensitive eye than a 
 sideboard set out with yachting or racing prizes. A 
 " cup " consists of a block of silver on which is a cast 
 metal representation of a cutter in full sail, or a stag 
 after Landseer, but a long way behind, or a group of 
 ill-modelled horses and jockeys. Of chasing and 
 repousse work, as it was understood by Cellini, our 
 designers know nothing. Their most ambitious efforts 
 resemble the Prince Consort Memorial or a wedding- 
 cake indifferently, and their ordinary works violate 
 every canon of taste, and are so evidently only 
 vehicles for the employment of so many ounces of 
 netal that they do not come under the denomination 
 of art in any sense. 
 
 Much the same is to be sai'd of jewellery, but some 
 attempts have been made of late years to improve 
 design and setting. In such matters we are too much 
 in the hands of professional tradesmen, and might
 
 iv.] BOOKS AND CHINA. 87 
 
 with advantage, when we wish to give a friend an 
 ornament insist on designing it for ourselves. In such 
 matters, however, emancipation is not easily attained. 
 All the power of queen, lords, and commons could 
 not prevent the jewellers from cutting down the koh- 
 i-noor, though they materially reduced its weight, 
 and consequently impaired its value in the process. 
 Nor could all the criticisms of judges, nor the ridicule 
 of the whole money-using public, prevent us from 
 having such a design as that on our florins put into 
 circulation and retained as English money. We can 
 never assert before a foreigner that as a nation we 
 love art, so long as he has only to take out a two- 
 shilling piece, or even a penny, and show us the 
 image and superscription. . 
 
 Stained glass is sometimes an object of pursuit 
 with collectors, and few things more beautiful can be 
 brought into a house. It is now much used for 
 window screens with pleasing effect. But for the most 
 part our modern glass fails in having too much colour, 
 or too many colours in one composition, and not 
 enough of a neutral character. Enough light cannot 
 be transmitted where this is the case. But sometimes 
 good pieces, old or new, are to be had. When a 
 window has to be closed permanently, which some- 
 times happens where there are cross lights, a black 
 board with holes in which specimens of glass are 
 inserted may be used with excellent effect. Such 
 a window is represented in the annexed cut. A 
 thorough light in a library had to be stopped, and 
 although the window was very large it was easily 
 managed by placing a great oak cupboard across
 
 88 
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 the lower half, and by hanging a picture in stained 
 glass framed in a black board across the upper. The 
 effect thus simply attained is very satisfactory.
 
 v.] ART AND MORALS. 89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ART AND MORALS. 
 
 HERE seems to be something para- 
 doxical in talking- of the cultivation of 
 taste as a moral duty. Yet a little 
 reflection may perhaps convince us, not 
 only that it may be a moral but even a religious duty. 
 Strangely enough, in the minds of most of us, music 
 enters largely into the idea we form of the happiness 
 of heaven. But why do we exclude all other kinds of 
 art ? And if we look on the home here as the prototype 
 of the home hereafter, we may see reasons for making 
 it as a sacred thing, beautiful and pleasant, as, indeed, 
 we have no hesitation about making our churches. 
 
 If we follow Bishop Butler in speaking of this life 
 as a state of probation, and if we allow that home 
 life is the highest " ideal type of the life in heavenly 
 ' mansions,' " we find ourselves forced to go a little 
 further, and to contemplate our own houses, our fire- 
 sides, our sitting rooms, our surroundings in the house, 
 or, in a word, all those things which go to make up
 
 90 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 our notions of home, with a kind of moral and even 
 a religious reverence. 
 
 I cannot go here into the religious topics started 
 by the contemplation of home life, but I have said 
 enough to show that reasons may exist for asserting 
 that a working view of Christianity would include an 
 ideal of heaven as a home, and help us to do some- 
 thing while we can to establish and increase neatness 
 and order, beauty and sweetness, music and art, in all 
 the houses which may come under our influence, 
 feeling as we do so that we do something towards 
 raising ourselves and others, and bringing heaven 
 nearer to earth. 
 
 To make home what it should be, a cheerful, happy 
 habitation, to which the absent members of a family 
 may look with love, and to which the wanderer will 
 always return with joy, we must have it not only 
 clean, for cleanliness is next to godliness, and whole- 
 some, which is another way of saying holy, but also 
 beautiful. Refinement cannot go with sordidness and 
 ugliness. Even the Scotch meeting-house is now 
 beginning to lose its distinctive plainness. We in 
 England have decorated our churches sometimes per- 
 haps a little too much. And it is surely time we 
 turned to that second church, the temple in which 
 even the old heathen placed a family altar, and would 
 give our homes a little more of the beauty which 
 comes of order and purity. 
 
 Money is not what we most require for such a 
 purpose. I have endeavoured to show this already. 
 A pleasant and lovely home need not be expensive. 
 To make a house beautiful we do not require gilding
 
 v.] ART AND MORALS. 91 
 
 and carving, marble and bronze, but we do want a 
 little taste, and perhaps a little trouble. Simplicity is 
 not incompatible with art, even high art. It is, indeed, 
 as we are so often taught by the art of the Greeks, 
 and the scarcely less perfect art of our own thirteenth 
 century, an element in true beauty, and no one can 
 think a room less pleasant because it is furnished with 
 studied plainness. 
 
 A pretty and pleasant house, whether in town or 
 country, is a centre of life radiating into other houses. 
 If a house in a London street shows signs of being 
 cared for and well treated, other houses soon begin to 
 look like it. Art is very infectious in such things. 
 Taste spreads with wonderful rapidity. Thirty years 
 ago if you asked schoolboys or young ladies about 
 their knowledge of architecture they would probably 
 have repeated the names of the five classical orders, 
 and there would have begun and ended their informa- 
 tion. Now every church, almost every school, in our 
 land shows signs of the knowledge and taste in Gothic 
 and Elizabethan art of young curates and rectors' 
 daughters. It is high time something of the kind 
 should spread to our dwelling-houses. How many 
 young ladies now spend their time making minute 
 water-colour sketches while their father has to bring 
 in a house-painter to " do up "a sitting-room. Yet 
 there is no reason I can think of why a young lady 
 should not paint and decorate a door as easily as she 
 paints a view in the Highlands or a fisherman's 
 family. If the complete decoration of a room would 
 be too much, all the details, not only the carving of 
 mouldings, and the colouring of panels, but even
 
 92 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 the arrangement of a tile pattern and the design of 
 a window leading might be done at home. 
 
 One house in which the inmates set themselves 
 from their first coming to do nothing except in good 
 taste would soon become a centre of civilisation in a 
 country district. Nothing will keep the boys at home 
 of an evening more certainly than a little art, whether 
 music or painting. The sons of a family in moments 
 of leisure could carve a chimney-piece which would 
 be a credit to the country at large. The trouble 
 spent in learning a quartet would be perhaps just as 
 well, certainly no worse, spent in learning to paint a 
 motto over the door. It requires no greater exertion 
 to make an embroidered curtain or portiere than to 
 make a dozen " anti-macassars." What is chiefly 
 wanted for such ambitious efforts is a little taste and 
 knowledge, and the schools of art all through the 
 country might supply both if they would. So far 
 they have done very little for the improvement of 
 home art. Perhaps the school water-colours are a 
 little less hard and impossible. Perhaps a few students 
 have learned enough figure drawing not to make the 
 men and women in their sketches look so like jointed 
 dolls. But very little has yet been done to give 
 people rules how to draw and stencil a diaper all over 
 a bedroom wall, how to choose two delicate colours 
 for the panels of a cupboard, or how to make a 
 plaster work pattern for the drawing-room ceiling. 
 This is what the local schools have yet to do, what 
 some sanguine people imagined they would do, and 
 what they never will do under South Kensington, 
 management as it is at present.
 
 v.] ART AND MORALS. 93 
 
 To prove that I am not expecting too much, 1 have 
 only to point to cases like that one at Lambeth, in 
 which a school of art becoming connected with the 
 practical art of a pottery, has produced some of the 
 best work we have had in England for five hundred ' 
 years. 
 
 Drawing classes and clubs sensibly conducted might 
 do much for the improvement of art at home, but, 
 so far as they have hitherto been tried, they have 
 usually degenerated into parties for the cultivation of 
 the art of flirting, and if I recommend that the sexes 
 study drawing apart I lay myself open to the answer 
 that under such conditions the sexes will prefer not 
 to study drawing at all. In any case a good teacher 
 is one of the first requisites and one generally done 
 without. The second thing required is subordination, 
 which of all virtues is the one most often wanting 
 among amateurs. A class well conducted and well 
 organized might undertake the painting and decora- 
 tion of a village school, or a mechanics' institute, but 
 the difficulty would of course be double. It would be 
 necessary for every one to work under the direction 
 of one master-mind, and for such a master-mind to 
 be found. 
 
 The village is very small in which during the winter 
 something of the nature of penny readings is not held. 
 At penny readings, lectures, and especially illustrated 
 lectures on art, might be given with advantage. Few 
 clergymen are without some knowledge of architec- 
 ture. Few intelligent men, in fact, are without some 
 special knowledge of one branch of art or another. 
 It is very easy to get such people to give shore
 
 94 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 lectures. People would not be tired by a quarter of 
 an hour on the structure of a flying buttress, or the 
 life of Reynolds, or the frescoes in the Campo Santo 
 at Pisa, or the meaning of Durer's Melencholia, or the 
 Japanese way of drawing foliage. I do not speak 
 without some experience of the subject. I have seen 
 a large audience composed chiefly of working men in 
 a mining district very much interested by a series 
 of short lectures on architecture, delivered as part of 
 the entertainments of an evening. A few diagrams 
 are necessary, but they are easily made, and few 
 places are without an amateur able to draw them. 
 
 The civilising influence of art has been matter of 
 remark since the time of Ovid at least, and it is high 
 time in these days of culture that we should try its 
 virtue. We talk too much about these things and do 
 too little. The smallest child in the village school 
 learns singing, but no child learns drawing. Yet of 
 the two singing and drawing which is the most 
 likely to be of use in after life ? It is objected 
 perhaps, that all children have not a taste for drawing, 
 but neither have all children a taste for music, as we 
 have full proof every Sunday in church, at least. A 
 more serious objection is that masters and mistresses 
 have already too many " subjects," and cannot make 
 them all equally familiar. But the thing might at 
 least be tried, and I think it would soon be found that 
 an amateur would turn up to solve the difficulty in a 
 great many places, just as at present the village choir 
 is often trained by voluntary labour. 
 
 But it is more among adults than children that the 
 beneficial influence of art may be seen. In small
 
 v.] ART AND MORALS. Q5 
 
 country towns and villages it is sometimes not easy to 
 get so many performers together as will constitute a 
 band, but a class for art study, for drawing, or carving, 
 would not require any particular number. No matter 
 how small the village, the public-house finds no diffi- 
 culty in keeping full ; and there is nothing so 
 efficacious in counteracting the public-house as a 
 little cultivation. It is ridiculous to lecture on tem- 
 perance and force total abstinence on hard-worked 
 men, unless you often find them some compensating 
 entertainment, and I hope and believe that before 
 very long this truth will be recognized, and some 
 artistic object of interest for evening entertainment 
 be added to the few now existing to counteract the 
 tavern. The longing for beauty is acknowledged by 
 the tavern-keepers. They are obliged to supply the 
 want. They have music if possible, and the grog 
 shop is transformed into a palace. Marble and granite 
 columns, carved oak stalls, shining glass and silver, 
 coloured lights and mirrors, are lavishly spent to 
 attract the workman. If such an outlay pays, and it 
 must pay or it would not be incurred so frequently, 
 we may feel perfectly sure that the "licensed victualler" 
 has hit on a want and supplies it. All these scenic 
 and architectural effects are produced because he 
 knows that the people whose lives are spent in labour 
 have a craving for the sight of what is beautiful, and 
 that if they can resist the mere attraction of drinking 
 by itself, they will not be able to resist it when it is 
 backed up and helped by all the gorgeous surround- 
 ings of the gin palace. 
 
 A movement has of late years been made at the
 
 96 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. 
 
 east end of London to do something to mitigate the 
 sordid ugliness of home life. That working people 
 should care for art or should like to see pretty 
 things was thought a short time ago perfectly ridi- 
 culous. Their houses were miserable and filthy, and 
 they showed no taste either in their dress, or in 
 their personal habits. One of the first moves was 
 made by a parochial exhibition of works of art, 
 which was held in one or two places. The people 
 brought some curious specimens of domestic manu- 
 facture. Old samplers, full rigged ships in fish-bone, 
 cardboard models, a few drawings, a black letter 
 family Bible or two, an old German engraving many 
 such objects were shown, and the interest excited 
 was very great. Then came the Bethnal Green 
 Museum. To everybody's surprise the people flocked 
 there in crowds, and competent witnesses declared 
 that the working man's remarks on pictures were 
 often at least as sensible as those of some professed 
 critics. 
 
 It will be a great pity if this movement is allowed 
 to die out. Mr. Harry Jones has got leave to make a 
 garden of the dreary waste of tombs which surrounds 
 St. George's-in-the-East, and some benevolent ladies 
 are endeavouring to start a " Beauty Mission " for the 
 homes of the people, and I heartily wish them success. 
 A few bare walls hung with pictures, a few flowers in 
 the windows, a pretty tile on the hob, would, in my 
 opinion, do more to keep men and women at home, 
 and to promote family love, than libraries of tracts 
 and platforms full of temperance lecturers. 
 
 While we thus think of the homes of the poor, it
 
 V.] ART AND MORALS. 97 
 
 will not do for us to neglect our own. Mothers wonder 
 oftentimes that their sons care so little for staying at 
 home. But does it occur to them to ask themselves 
 what they have done to make home happy and 
 pleasant ? not happy only but pleasant also. Even 
 a merry house, if it is untidy and dirty, if it is dingy 
 and ugly, is unattractive to young people. They are 
 unconsciously very sensitive to external impressions. 
 The comfort and good taste of the club drawing-room 
 has as much to do as the company and newspapers 
 in bringing young men from home. Our sons are 
 literally driven out to seek away from home that 
 comfort and order which is there denied them. We 
 nip the youthful taste in the bud : we look on mere 
 art as a useless expense, and we lose hold of the 
 strongest cord by which we might bind our children 
 to home. 
 
 A wise father all whose children have turned out 
 well, and in different places and employments still 
 love their home told me that he encouraged each of 
 them from the first to " make a collection." Some of 
 them had more decided taste than others. To several 
 postage stamps and such insipid objects were enough. 
 Others preferred pictures, engravings, carvings, or 
 something distinctly artistic. In after life all these 
 young men and women found themselves in the 
 possession of at least a portion of the pocket-money 
 they had received in youth, and found themselves 
 moreover possessed of that inestimable advantage, 
 whether in a busy or in an idle life, a love for 
 something which would serve as an amusement and 
 relaxation for leisure hours. 
 
 LOF. H
 
 9 S A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP 
 
 Such people have no occasion for card-playing or 
 gambling to pass a long evening. To them a spare 
 hour is not an enemy to be killed. Satan finds no 
 mischief for their idle hands to do. They wonder 
 how anyone can complain of ennui, for their time is 
 fully occupied, and life is only too short for what they 
 want to get into it. 
 
 So, too, even their passive enjoyment is immensely 
 increased. The taste for fine scenery is a modern 
 invention, and assuredly it is one of the greatest 
 benefits mankind has received. I cannot help think- 
 ing our modern love of beautiful landscape is the sign 
 of a general improvement of all our race. Mankind 
 has not been able till within the last few centuries 
 to see fully how beautiful nature is, and now the love 
 of nature is like a sixth sense. Virgil and the classical 
 poets only introduce landscape incidentally. The 
 Christian poets, with King David himself to lead 
 them, alone describe natural loveliness properly 
 that is, religiously. 
 
 There is a yearning towards beauty in form and 
 colour as well as in sound and in morals : and this 
 yearning has almost always taken a religious direction. 
 Even the impure worship of the Grecian gods had its 
 pure aesthetic side : and the neglected author of the 
 Book of Wisdom points it out in words worthy to be 
 remembered : " The sky is fair," he says, " but He 
 that made it fairer ; " and he counsels those who love 
 Nature to look beyond it, observing that they "deemed 
 neither fire or wind or the swift air, or the circle of the 
 stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to 
 be the gods which govern the world ; with whose
 
 v.] ART AND MORALS. 99 
 
 beauty if they being delighted took them to be gods, 
 let them know how much better the Lord of them is : 
 for the first author of beauty hath created them." 
 And St. Augustine expresses the same thought or one 
 like it, and with almost equal majesty. 
 
 It is to this upward yearning of men's minds that 
 the wise educator will address himself. The higher 
 our conception of material beauty, the higher will be 
 our ideal of moral beauty. The more we study nature 
 the more complex, the more complete she appears. 
 The higher we rise in our intellectual progress, the 
 further does wisdom seem to soar above us. And as 
 day by day, year by year, age by age, we enlarge our 
 power of conceiving beauty and harmony,- the more 
 beautiful, the more harmonious does Creation appear 
 to us. " Man doth seek," says an old writer, 1 " a 
 triple perfection. First, a sensual, consisting in those 
 things which very life itself requireth, either as neces- 
 sary supplements or as beauties and ornaments 
 thereof. Then an intellectual, consisting of those 
 things which none underneath man is either capable 
 of or acquainted with. Lastly, a spiritual or divine 
 consisting in those things whereunto we tend by 
 supernatural means here, but here cannot attain unto 
 them." And again, a little further on, " although 
 the beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and 
 perfections of all men living were in the present 
 possession of one : yet somewhat above and beyond 
 all this there would still be sought and earnestly 
 thirsted for. So that Nature, even in this life, doth 
 plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection." 
 
 1 Hooker, EccL Pol., B. i. 35.
 
 100 
 
 A PLEA FOR ART AT HOME. [CHAP. v. 
 
 What this perfection is, how we shall know it, not 
 even Hooker could tell us. To some it may appear 
 in one way, to others in another. It may conie to us 
 at home in the monotonous round of duty: it may be 
 like a vision of angels by a stony pillow in a foreign 
 land : or it may be reserved for that hereafter in 
 which we shall recognise without doubt the author of 
 all moral and material beauty, and know openly the 
 features which here perchance we have often passed 
 by in the crowd. 
 
 LONDON : 
 R CtAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
 
 COLLINSON & LOCK. 
 
 ARTISTIC FURNITURE IN THE OLD ENGLISH STYLE, 
 
 Inexpensive. 
 
 Soundly constructed. 
 
 Most finished workmanship. 
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE WOODWORK FOR INTERIORS, 
 
 Staircases, "Wall Panelling, 
 Ceilings, Windows, 
 Mantel-Pieces, and Doors. 
 
 CURTAIN FABRICS OF SILK, WOOL, AND COTTON. 
 
 Of Special Design 
 
 and Colour. 
 
 Keproductions of Old Brocades. 
 
 DECORATIVE WALL AND CEILING PAPERS. 
 
 109, FLEET STREET, 
 
 LONDON, B.C.
 
 ART AT HOME SERIES. 
 
 A Plea for Art in the House. With Special Reference 
 to the Economy of Collecting Works of Art, and the Importance of 
 Taste in Education and Morals. By W. J. LOFTIE, B.A., F.S.A., 
 Author of " In and Out of London. " With Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 
 2s. 6d. [Heady. 
 
 Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting, 
 
 Woodwork, and Furniture. By RHODA and AGNES GARRETT. 
 With Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. [Ready. 
 
 Drawing and Painting. By H. STAGEY MARKS, A.E.A. 
 DreSS. By MRS. OLIPHANT. 
 Family Music. By JOHN HULLAH. 
 Domestic Architecture. By J. J. STEVENSON. 
 
 Other Vols. on Gardening, Sculpture and Carving, Needlework and 
 Lace-mahing, and other Subjects connected with Art at Home, will follow. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
 
 III 
 
 U 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.