The Pleasures of Collecting

The detection of fraudulent antiques and curios and other bogus works of art has become a science. Phædrus, who lived and wrote in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, tells in his fifti...

Far better it is that one man or a small number of men should make their profit from some art by living honestly, than that a large number of men should struggle, one against th...

In Beau Brummel’s time not to know all about gem-engraving, the intaglio and the cameo, was thought to be devoid of one of the most important cultural attributes of every eighte...

While it is true that few collectors of the present day can aspire to any goodly number of really fine examples of European enamels, the subject is nevertheless one of great int...

Should any one with a taste for antique furniture also find interest in old-fashioned verse, he might some day come across Cowper’s lay which elegantly hints at the evolution of...

Once upon a time an old gentleman moved into the house across the street. Whence he came no one knew, no one ever came to know. His name was Kyttyle--Major Kyttyle. As midsummer...

On traveling to the Adriatic coast some years ago, I stopped for several days in a little Italian town not far from Ancona. I suppose few visitors have ever alighted there; at l...

There are many persons--some of them collectors of other antiques and curios--who ask what the fascination of old pewter can be, frankly declaring that to them it has no attract...

Time has crumbled many a granite monument erected to the memory of monarchs of early Egyptian dynasties, but a tiny scent-bottle of yellow glass, with the name Amenophis worked...

Old Chelsea--with what associations is the name endowed! Hither came the wits--Smollett, Steele, Swift, Horace Walpole, and others of the _monde_. Those were the days when Chels...

There are few general collectors who have not, at some time, come under the enchantment of old glass. It is remarkable that objects so fragile in fabric should have survived the...

One afternoon of a day late in autumn we were having tea in Camberwell. The home of our English friends was a house redolent with memories. The Brownings, Carlyle, and many othe...

This is an age in which Achilles gives way to Douglas Fairbanks, Helen of Troy to Mary Pickford. At least Homer in the original is unpopular and to confess to a liking for Virgi...

The appeal of old furniture which has the merit of form, design, and workmanship of high order is one that is not the reflection of a passing fad or fancy; it has come to be one...

Fifteen hundred years ago there lived a Chinese painter, Wu Tao-tzu, famous in Celestial lore, of whom it was said that it seemed as if a god possessed him and wielded the brush...

When Horace Walpole’s ceramic treasures at Strawberry Hill came by inheritance to Lord Waldegrave they were sent to the auction room. It took twenty-seven days of long sessions...

Chintz has been called the _tapisserie d’Aubusson_ of the cottage home. Its place in the affections of the collector of antiques and curios has long been secure. For fully fifty...

There is no continental porcelain better known by name to every one than the French porcelain of Sèvres. Nevertheless, fewer chance collectors and lovers of old china appear to...

The art of the enameler throughout the ages has ever proved to be a subject of interest to connoisseurs and collectors. While learned monographs in many languages have been writ...

Small objects beautiful to contemplate, exquisite in workmanship, intrinsically valuable, and at the same time rich in historical associations have attracted men of all ages. Li...

Among collectors in America there is an ever-increasing interest in “things American.” One of the most attractive fields in which one’s hobby may browse is that of old furniture...

What a marvelous field for enjoyment is opened to the collector by medallic art! To the uninitiated any coin or medal a hundred years old will seem instantly to suggest an almos...

Not to know something of Chinese porcelains, their history and their periods, is to be denied a pleasurable interest. The old porcelains of China are the ancestors of all china-...

Whether one is a general collector or a collector of pottery and porcelain in particular, Italian maiolica will be found to be one of the most interesting of “lines,” historical...

Every one is familiar with the name “Sheffield Plate,” and many have a vague idea as to what, superficially, marks its distinction; there are fewer, however, who know its story....

Few pieces of the lacquer of China and of Japan reached the hands of collectors before the beginning of foreign trade by China and the opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth cen...

Before the age of machine-made things, and of attire much more conventional than in many of the earlier periods, there was, of course, great need of skilled needlewomen, not onl...

Strange it seems that so many fragile objects have come down to us from antiquity while cities of stone, statues of marble, and monuments of bronze too often have appeared lost...

The old-fashioned idea that a collector must arrange his treasures grouped in one spot no longer obtains. I recall asking one who had returned from a visit to a very interesting...

Blessed is the man who has a hobby! declared Lord Brougham; and of all the hobbies it is doubtful if any are more blessed than those of the collector of antiques and curios, old...

At first thought it would appear both ambitious and somewhat futile--this hobby of collecting consoles. But that depends on how you consider collecting in general; on whether yo...

It is surprising how rare the cup-plates of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century have become, considering their universal use during that period when they wer...

The mention of the name Wedgwood naturally suggests to the general reader those blue-and-white pieces which made famous England’s greatest potter--Josiah Wedgwood. We picture to...

The Stuart period of embroideries is one of great interest to the collector. A few years ago comparatively little attention was paid to examples of English embroidered work of t...

Old porcelain and earthenware, and even old glass, may be skilfully mended so as almost to pass as whole; and lost parts may be “restored” to a condition that will leave an obje...

The collector who has been fortunate enough to make a pilgrimage through the villages of New England, visiting the antique shops in search of adornments to the shrines of their...