But it is to be observed that in very
many cases--especially in those branches where art-industry approaches
the most nearly to art proper--the artist or artisan who produced the
works in question has neither co-operated with the fraud we are speaking
of, nor has worked with any view to the perpetration of such by others.
In the next place, it is to be noted that the mortification and
humiliation which many purchasers are conscious of when it is brought
home to them that they have been taken in, and have purchased as old
that which is in truth of recent production, may well be spared to them.
I do not mean, of course, as regards the money they may have been
cheated of, but as regards the slight put upon their own
connoisseurship. The art of imitating the old works in question has been
brought to such a pitch of perfection that it needs a very special
education of the eye and large practice to detect the imposture. A
circumstance occurred a few years ago at Florence which curiously
illustrates both the facts I have mentioned--the frequent innocence of
the producer of the imitation and the extreme difficulty of detecting
the modern origin of the work. The facts are very little known, because
it was the interest of many persons to misrepresent and conceal them.
They ought, nevertheless, to be known, and I do not see any good reason
why I should not tell them here.
A young man at Florence of the name of Bastianini--it must be at least
ten years ago now, or perhaps more--of very humble origin had shown a
remarkable talent for modeling busts in terra-cotta.
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