CHAPTER X

IMITATION OLD MASTERS

Ancient copyists--Genuineness of their work--Forgery thrust upon them--The substitution of labels--All the great makers copied--Difficulties of detection--Genuine labels of the masters in the copies--Tone of the copies--Another class of copyist--Those who imitated age--Their object in so doing--Process of ageing destructive of tone--Honesty of these “fakes”--Another class: the factory imitation--Deceive only the ignorant--Another class: those intended to deceive--Their victims--Their danger to the player--A quotation from a letter and its lesson 58-61