We must now give our attention to France as the most prominent country in all that concerns collections of art, because the same conditions appear here that are vanishing from Italy. In the seventeenth century Paris had a well-established market of antiquities3, authentic4 and spurious masterpieces, articles of virtu, etc.; there were also collectors of all types, dealers5 and the whole assemblage of wise and foolish, honest and dishonest, peculiar7 to the commerce when it finds its proper market.
Broadly speaking, in the seventeenth century every Parisian seems to have been a collector of something or other. Painting as a rule is given the preference.
It is about this time that Italy, however rich through the daily excavation8 of antique works of sculpture, no longer seemed to suffice to the greedy demand of France. Peiresse sent his emissaries to Mount Athos, Syria and Africa in search of finds, Tavernier, Thévenet, Lucas, Chardin and Gallant9 scoured10 the world in quest of antiquities and rarities both for themselves and for the King of France. Vaillant, one of the most efficient of these hunters, went to the East, sent by Louis XIV, who too has joined the ring of collectors and in a kingly way played the rôle of art amateur. On his return journey Vaillant was caught by pirates, but managing115 to escape embarked11 for Europe. On the way to France the vessel12 for the second time met the corsairs. They were seen in the distance and were expected to attack at any moment. The ship was able to escape, but fearing to be caught again and of losing the valuable collection of coins and medals he was bringing to Europe, Vaillant swallowed twenty of the best pieces in order to save them from any possible danger of being taken. This odd story, with its consequences, is related in detail by M. Weiss in his Biographie Universelle, with such French frankness as to forbid any attempt at translation.
Besides monarchs14, the princes, noblemen and simple middle class of all conditions seemed to be collectors at this period. The passion for collecting numbers names such as Richelieu and Mazarin, among antiquaries, amateurs and dealers were Jabach and others. The number and importance of art collections, as well as of intelligent art lovers in France during the seventeenth century, can be gathered from the many publications on this century. They are many, and most of the contemporary ones are quite documentary and important for the number of collectors they mention. We may quote among them the Itinerarium Galliæ, 1612, by Just Zinzerling, a German signing himself Jodocus Sincerus, Abraham Golnitz’s Ulysses Belgico-Gallico, a work written in 1631 dealing15 with the collections of medals and painting that the author found in France during his journey. There is also the Voyage pour l’instruction et la commodité tant des François que des Étrangers, printed in 1639 and reprinted by Verdier, with interesting additions, in the year 1687. John Evelyn, the English diarist, visited France in the year 1643 and gave an account of many collections of art and their cabinets, which was partially16 republished in the Voyage de Lister, in an edition of the year 1878. We can enumerate17 further the Traité des plus belles18 bibliothèques, published for the first time in 1644 by Père Louis-Jacob, the librarian of Cardinal de Retz and of President Du Harlay; the Liste anonyme des curieux des diverses villes, etc.
116 In these works thousands of names of collectors of art, whether specialists or not, are mentioned, not only those residing in Paris but in all towns of the provinces.
Collectomania was becoming epidemic20!
The list of seventeenth-century collectors of art has the odd honour of including the name of Charles Sanson, the hangman of Paris, and great-grandfather of the celebrated21 Sanson, the executioner of the hautes œuvres at the time of the French Revolution. According to information given by Grammont, who related to the French king his adventure with Sanson, the man who had been nominated public executioner in Paris by a decision of Parliament dated August 11th, 1688, possibly the first Sanson to enter the undesirable23 profession, this man was not only a collector of paintings but also a specialist; and logically so. Grammont relates how he was one day hunting for paintings at the fair of Saint Germain, when he came across Sanson with Forest, a painter and art dealer6. The hangman was haggling24 over the price of a few works he wished to add to his collection. One of the canvasses25 represented a wife mercilessly scourging26 her husband, another was the portrait of M. Tardieu, the deceased “Lieutenant27 Criminel,” a man Sanson had known very well and to whom he owed a certain gratitude28, because, as he remarked to Grammont, when living he had made him hang and torture so many people that his skill and efficiency were gained through the work done in M. Tardieu’s time. A third painting he finally decided29 to buy represented Japanese torturing several missionaries30 to death. He candidly31 declared that “spectacles of this kind appeared charming to him” and that he intended to hang the painting in his bedroom.
A characteristic of the latter part of the seventeenth century is not only the many sales of collections of art in France, England and elsewhere, but the appearance for the first time of printed catalogues, prepared either for the sale or as a simple illustrative document of certain collections. The first printed catalogue of France bears the title, Roole117 des medailles et autre antiquitez du cabinet de Monsieur Duperier, gentilhomme d’Aix, and after this many collectors follow the example. Even the learned Marolles is tempted32 to give to the public his Catalogue de livres d’estampes et de figures de taille douce.
To complete the characteristics of the revived market of antiques and articles of virtu in France, now exuberant33 in its various expressions, we may note the advent22 of the so-called amateur marchand. The “private dealer,” a gentleman with a collection who deals secretly in antiques and at the same time plays the grand seigneur scorning commerce, has been perfected since, and the modern one is perhaps more intelligent, shrewder, more the grand seigneur, but less frank and far more dangerous. It may be said, by the way, that the art critic has not yet put in an appearance as a disguised dealer, the wardrobe of the ambiguous trade not having yet supplied the mask. There was no representative at this time of the type of Pietro Aretino—why not call him one of this species—who in the sixteenth century extolled35 paintings for artists in exchange for paintings and sold his literary eulogies36 to princes and monarchs.
One of the most characteristic collectors of the epoch37 is, perhaps, Mazarin, a merchant and intriguer38 on the one side, and on the other a passionate40 collector and an epic41 type of the lover of art.
A brief sketch42 of his life and of the vicissitudes43 of his collections of art are worth giving. Mazarin, in a way, so thoroughly44 impersonates his time, that to portray45 him as a collector helps to throw light on the milieu46 in which he lived. History handed Mazarin down to us as a politician and capital intriguer, etc., but only few know of him as a lover of art.
As a collector Mazarin recalls the shrewdest kind of the old Roman type. The times are changed and the old ways of Sulla and Mark Antony no longer possible. Violence and proscription47 lists would not be tolerated, but without the extreme methods of a Roman proconsul, Mazarin possesses118 the cunning of a Verres. Like the latter he also finds things by instinct and has the unbounded passion of a true collector. We are uncertain at times whether Mazarin, who was without doubt one of the most appreciative49 collectors of his day, possessed50 that rare sixth sense that goes under the name of the collector’s touch, but he was nevertheless a man of taste and an art lover of unusual promptitude in the use of the ability of others. Like many a genuine and greedy collector of Roman times, Mazarin was persistent51 and obdurate52 in the carrying through of the most complex and discouraging plans in order to secure objects for his collection. In Rome once he saw a painting of Correggio, the Sposalizio. It belonged to Cardinal Barberini, who had made up his mind never to part with the masterpiece. To become possessed of it Mazarin made use of a ruse53. He asked Anne of Austria to demand the painting from Cardinal Barberini, knowing that stubborn as the Cardinal might be he would not refuse a favour to the Queen of France. In fact, Barberini came to Paris himself to present the painting to Anne of Austria. The epilogue of this mazarinade is related by Brienne as follows: “To do proper honour to the gift, the Queen hung the picture in her bedroom in the presence of Cardinal Barberini, but hardly had he left (il n’eut pas le dos tourné) than she took the painting and gave it to Mazarin.” Brienne ends his account with the observation that Mazarin “had conducted this lengthy54 intrigue39 to get possession of a picture.” Considering that intriguing55 was second nature with Mazarin we must say that Correggio’s Sposalizio was worth the trouble of such a mazarinade.
As a collector of art, bric-à-brac and precious things generally, Cardinal Mazarin had an unusually lucky career. Contrary to the rule that exacts a very high price for experience in collecting, Mazarin seems to have been favoured by fortune from the very first; as for scruples56, if they are known to a few connoisseurs58 he knew none.
He was scarcely known. His profession—if his occupation may be so called—was to move between Rome and Paris, to119 play to a certain extent the part of a courier between the two cities, the navette (weaver’s shuttle) between the Roman State and its intriguers in Paris. During this period of his life Mazarin used to land in the French capital at the house of the Chavignys, where he often arrived “covered all over with dirt” (tout crotté).
Passing Monferrato on one of his journeys he bought a rosary, the beads59 of which were supposed to be glass, but were in fact precious stones, emeralds, sapphires60, rubies61 and diamonds. The rosary Mazarin bought for a mere62 song was sold in Paris for ten thousand ducats.
His reputation as an excellent bric-à-brac hunter, with a fine eye for works of art, reached Richelieu and this secured to Mazarin the protection of the omnipotent63 Cardinal; the rest is known.
Mazarin really remained a “private dealer” all his life, a fact that his opponents could not forget. More than one mazarinade alludes64 to the Cardinal’s dealings.
Even when writing to potentates65 or diplomats66 on the most important political schemes, Mazarin never lost sight of his hobby. In his letter to Cardinal Grimaldi on the importance of watching our “affairs in Italy” he reminds him, by the way, to be on the look out for good books and good paintings, etc.
Through a well-organized network of agents and political friends he received objects for his collection almost daily. Chiefly from Rome, Florence and other cities of Italy, statues, paintings, furniture arrived in a continual stream at the Cardinal’s palace. His library numbered twelve thousand volumes in a very short time.
The Fronde, however, is no longer satisfied with gibing67 the Cardinal with mazarinades on his buying of books without being able to read them. His opponents, antagonistic68 to the Cardinal’s policy, finally rose up boldly against him. Mazarin was obliged to fly from Paris. By a decree of Parliament his goods were seized and sold. Whatever criticism may be passed on the Cardinal’s shady policy, the120 destruction of his collection and library is an unpardonable sin and an artistic69 loss.
Mazarin does not seem to have been discouraged by this unexpected contretemps. Learning that Jabach was going to London to be present at the sale of the collection of Charles I, he asked him to buy paintings for him, and through this friend was able to secure for a new gallery the Venus by Titian, the Antiope and the Marsyas by Correggio, the Deluge70 by Carracci, as well as tapestries71 of inestimable value.
Two years later Mazarin triumphantly72 entered Paris again, was reinstated in his former power, and started a new library, while reconstituting his dispersed73 gallery; and when he died his collection contained, according to an inventory74 of the year 1661, 546 pictures, of which 283 were of the Italian school, 77 German or Dutch, 77 French and 109 of various schools. The Italian school included names such as Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Tintoretto, Solario, Guido Reni, the Carracci, Domenichino, Bassano, Albani, etc.
Many of these works are now in the Louvre Museum and nearly all his statues, 350 in number, have also passed to the Louvre and are now kept in the Galérie des Antiques.
The inventory also informs us that the Cardinal left twenty-one cabinets, some in ebony, others veneered with tortoise-shell and ivory, and a large quantity of marble tables and Venetian glass, chandeliers in rock crystal, and irons in silver or gilded75.
The precious stones were valued at 387,014 francs, the silver of the chapel76 at 25,995, the plates in silver, gold or gilded (761 pieces) at 347,972, etc. The same inventory also notes 411 fine pieces of tapestry77 estimated at 632,000, perhaps what a single piece of the best would cost nowadays, but an enormous sum considering the time. There were also 46 Persian rugs of unusual length, 21 complete “ameublements” in velvet78, satin, gold embroidered79 silk, etc.
The library included 50,000 volumes and 400 manuscripts.
Photo]
[Alinari
The Spinario.
A cherished Roman subject of the imitators of the XVth and XVIth Centuries. Several museums have similar imitations. There is a fine original in Naples Museum.
Brienne, who was a collector himself on a smaller scale, and who filled at the time the position of secretary to the121 Cardinal, relates with a certain pathos80 the last moments of this frantic81 art collector, and how during his last illness he grieved to leave his cherished masterpieces.
“I was walking,” says Brienne, “in the small gallery in which is the woollen tapestry representing Scipio—the Cardinal did not possess a finer one. By the noise of his slippers82 I heard him coming, shuffling83 along like a suffering man or a convalescent. I hid myself behind the tapestry and heard him say, ‘I must leave all this!’ Being very weak he stopped at every step, leaning first to one side and then to the other; gazing at the various objects of his collection, and in a voice that came from his heart, he kept on repeating ‘I must leave all this!’ Then turning his head to another side—‘and also that! What trouble I had to buy all these things. How can I leave them without regret?—I shall not be able to see them where I am going.’ I gave a sigh, I could not help it, and he heard me. ‘Who is there?’ ‘It is I, Monseigneur——’ ‘Come here,’ he said to me in a doleful tone. He was nude84, only covered with his robe de chambre de camelot lined with petit-gris. He said, ‘Give me your hand, I am so weak; I can hardly bear it——’ Then returning to his first idea, ‘Do you see, my friend, that fine painting by Correggio, that Venus by Titian and that incomparable Deluge by Carracci—I know that you too love and understand painting. Alas85, my dear friend, I must leave all this. Good-bye, dear paintings that I have loved so much, that have cost me so high a price!’” (Brienne, Memoires, II, XIV).
These three paintings, Correggio’s Sposalizio, Titian’s Venus, and Carracci’s work, are now in the Louvre Museum.
“Que j’ai tant aimés et qui m’ont tant couté!” The second part of the sad exclamation86 would indeed seem to belong to this shrewd adventurer, but those not knowing to what lengths the passion for collecting can go, would hardly imagine that a man of Mazarin’s temperament87 could love, really love, anything on earth but power and intrigue.
As a most remarkable88 contrast to this passionate love for122 beautiful things, Destiny ordained89 that the greater part of the Cardinal’s statues and paintings should fall into the hands of his nephew and heir, Armand-Charles de la Porte, Duc de la Meilleraye, the husband of Mazarin’s niece, Hortense Mancini. This nephew, who on becoming the Cardinal’s heir was allowed to take his uncle’s name and titles, was bigoted90 to the last degree. Idiotically deprived of all artistic sense he thought it his duty to destroy the art collection, to purge91 the world of the offence offered to morality by nude sculpture, to rid society of the Cardinal’s paintings with their shocking mythological92 subjects. Saint-Evremont relates how this fanatic93 iconoclast94 left his mansion95 at Vincennes one day with the deliberate intention to destroy the fine gallery left to him by the Cardinal, and how on his arrival in Paris he entered the place where it was kept and taking a hammer out of a mason’s hand proceeded to smash statue after statue and destroy paintings. But the statues and works of art were altogether too many to be destroyed single-handed, so he armed half a dozen servants with hammers and ordered them to help him in his artistic hecatomb. It was indeed fortunate that upon the Cardinal’s death Louis XIV made up his mind to buy some of the best paintings, and that some of the statues had also been taken away from this strange curator of Mazarin’s museum, or there would be very little left to-day of one of the most famous collections of Paris. Some of the statues now in the Louvre still show this fanatic nobleman’s abuse of the hammer, more especially the one bearing the title “Le Génie du repos eternel.”
The monarchs of this time bought paintings, statues and fine things, sharing enthusiasm with private citizens. However, they played their part well and the attitude of the art lover gave them a finishing touch. Yet in less dangerous and despotic an age the pen of a Molière might have tried its caustic96 ability on some of these types. Louis XIII is, after all, but a mild art lover, at least so he appears by the side of Marie de Médicis who learned the part of Mæcenas at the court of Tuscany. He collects arms and had a cabinet of123 choice weapons, among other curios, his grosse Vitri, a carbine of rare merit left him by Vitri. We know of this collection of Louis XIII because it is recorded that when Concini, the Florentine intriguer whom Marie de Médicis had created Maréchal d’Ancre, was killed in the court of the Louvre, “the king, who was in his cabinet des armes, heard the noise of the pistols.” Anne of Austria, his wife, one of the few women to detest97 roses and who could not even bear to see this magnificent Queen of Flowers painted in a picture, had a passion for fine book-bindings, and Monsieur Gaston d’Orléans sported medals and also rare books.
As for Louis XIV, the best-staged king of his time, he was apparently98 ready to buy anything that would add magnificence to his court and be in keeping with his rôle of Roi Soleil.
Notwithstanding his more or less decorative99 magnificence, however, this monarch13 was at times a hard bargainer, and like Isabella d’Este, knew how to take advantage of needy100 or impecunious101 clients. His transactions with Jabach to buy from him the finest art collection in France are scandalous, nor can these transactions be solely102 attributed to Colbert, who was for a long time the go-between in this affair. Jabach was a German by birth and Parisian by election, a rich banker, the director of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, intelligent and a most passioned art collector. With great care and expense he had formed the finest collection of his time. Later, through business reverses, his unbounded liberality to artists and the extravagant103 prices he paid for his masterpieces, Jabach finally found himself forced to part with his collection, and entered into negotiations104 with Louis XIV who knew its immense value. Dealings dragged on for a long time, and every day Jabach was more pressed by his creditors105. Notwithstanding his necessitous condition he rebelled at the absurd price offered and wrote to Colbert to beg the king to treat him “as a Christian106, and not as a Moor107.” Finally Louis XIV, the Roi Soleil, though in this affair a planet certainly that did not shine in generosity108, gained his point124 and for the absurdly paltry109 sum of 200,000 livres became the owner of the renowned110 Jabach collection, composed of no fewer than 101 paintings, a great many of them masterpieces, and 5542 drawings. It is sufficient to say that in this Jabach collection were works by Leonardo da Vinci, the Saint John, the “Concert champêtre” by Giorgione—one of the few authentic works of this master—the Entombment of Christ, the Pilgrims of Emmaus and the Mistress of Titian by Titian, all of which now belong to the Louvre Museum.
With a king who played the connoisseur57 and collected objects of art and virtu, no gentleman of the French court would acknowledge indifference111 towards art, or be without a certain hobby of his own, collecting some one thing in particular, being in fact what is generally defined as a specialist.
Speaking of “La Mode” in his Les Charactères, La Bruyère lashes112 the collecting craze of his time without mercy. His Chapter XIII treats of fads113 and fashions, and in it he tells of the ridiculous freaks of collectors and cleverly points out how utterly114 deprived of genuine meaning were the artistic pursuits of such amateurs.
Nevertheless, with its good sides and its bad, the epidemic spread, and not only in France, but in other countries as well. We will, however, confine our study of this epoch to France as for the purposes of this brief résumé of the collecting craze France was ahead of the other countries, and thus by the side of the wise and genuine lover of art, possessed all the other degrees of Collectomania.
Though conforming to fashion, every one has his own views on the matter, so that there are dreamers and speculators on all kinds of antiques, but painting is given the preference.
“Pictures are bullion,” writes the fat Coulanges to his cold-blooded and well-behaved cousin, Mme. de Sévigné, “you can sell them at twice their price whenever you like.” In fact during one of his journeys to Italy, Coulanges, who had caught the collecting fever, made a considerable sum of money in buying and selling pictures, so much money that125 it spoilt his taste for, as a chroniclist says, “The treasure, which he saw piled up at the Hotel de Guise34 awoke in him more expensive tastes.” His wife, Marie-Angelique du Gue-Bagnol, collected raretés curieuses. Mme. de Sévigné tells us of her delight when she saw in her cousin’s house a looking-glass that had been owned by Queen Marguerite.
At this epoch the art and curio market comprised all sorts of odd characters and, as might be expected, the subject gave ample food to writers and chroniclers for skits115. La Bruyère is not alone in making sport of the obsessed116 art collector and crazy curio-hunter. From Molière to the Italian Goldoni the antiquary and his victim are capital subjects. Poetry also contributes its sarcasm117. In France some of the minor118 and justly obscure poets are very useful in the reconstruction119 of our milieu. There are even chronicles written in verse.
For instance, Marie-Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV, goes to see Caterine Henriette Bellier de Beauvais, the first lady of the bedchamber of the queen dowager Anne of Austria, a lady who is evidently collecting art. The poetical120 chronicle at once informs the public that:—
Mercredi, notre auguste Reine Fut chez madame de Beauvais Pour de son aimable palais Voir les merveilles étonnantes Et raretés surprenantes....
We will spare the reader the description of the collection given in a sort of litany of praise, a sequence of lines like the following:—
Tant de belles orfevreries Tant d’éclatantes pierreries
* * * * *
Tant de vases si précieux, Tant de bustes et tant d’images, etc.
Le Maisel Prieur des Roches is crazy for books, and like a true bibliomaniac he never reads his books, which are generally126 bought for the title, etc. This of course is more than enough for his introduction into one of these rhyming chronicles, called Rymaille:—
Les livres Des Roches en belle19 couverture, Mais leur Maistre n’en donne Science ny Lecture.
Paintings being given the preference, they are also the cherished subject for verse. Impassioned specialists who collect the works of a single artist and spend a lifetime in doing it are a capital subject. There is also an Arcadia among art collectors, worthy121 of the eighteenth century, a regular Arcadia with pseudo-names, etc. One of these rhymed chronicles records the various names assumed by the collectors and amateurs of the Arcadia. As we have said, many of these collectors of paintings are specialists possessed of the hobby of collecting the works of a single master. Poussin is at one time the most fashionable, and while the Poussinists are among the most impassioned in proclaiming the merits of their artist, there are also other “ists.” Gamarre, Sieur de Creze, lieutenant des chasses, is apparently at the head of the Poussinists. His Arcadian name is Pantolme.
The widow of Lescot—the jeweller who was one of Mazarin’s advisers and was sent by the Cardinal to Spain in search of fine things—collects paintings, but happens to be a Rubenist. However, in due time she is converted by Pantolme (Gamarre) to the Poussinist persuasion122 and deserts the Flemish art of Rubens and starts a new collection as a Poussinist. She is called Irene in the Banquet des Curieux.
It would take long to go over all the pleasantries of the curio-hunters of this time. Bizot, named Lubin in the Banquet des Curieux, is a type of collector we have already introduced:—
Lubin, amateur d’antiquailles, De livres anciens et de vielles médailles, Philosophe sans jugement, Curieux sans raisonnement,...
* * * * *
127 Other odd characters have escaped record in rhyme. A Sieur Basin de Limeville of Blois is a well-known collector of medals. He spent his whole life in buying nothing but medals. Yet no one ever saw his collection; as soon as they were bought the medals were put away in his cabinet, declares an informant of the time. His cabinet is provided with an iron door and a lock with a key of most complex make. At his death the heir tried to open the door but the key refused to open, there being some special handling beside the difficulty of the lock. The man who had made the key was dead and the case was so hopeless that the heir was forced to enter Sieur de Limeville’s cabinet through an opening in the wall. Inside the cabinet there was found among a mass of cobwebs a dirty sack filled with the precious medals, the collection to which the deceased had given his whole life.
La Bruyère tells of a man who spent all his years hunting for a bad etching of Callot. He knew the work was the poorest ever done by the artist, that it was not worth the trouble, but he nevertheless gave his whole time and activity to the search for that etching because it was the only work of Callot that he did not possess.
Jacob Spoon, a doctor of medicine and an intelligent but odd individual who died in the year 1685, declares that in his native city of Lyons every one is collecting something or other. Then, and perhaps as a physician he was in a position to know, he says that collecting is a disease, contagious123 though not fatal.
There is no need of special documents to say that faking must have worked with a certain ease in such a world. Brienne tells us that when Cardinal Mazarin received objects from Italy, Jabach and Magnard were charged to examine them and very often more than one piece of faking was discovered, very successful counterfeits124 (Memoires de Brienne, Chap. IX).
There is no instance to my knowledge of any sentence passed by tribunal upon fakers at this time when everything seems128 to have been decided by the almighty125, power of Louis XIV or the ever-ready Parliament.
Yet the police of Louis XIV seem to have one interest in the collecting of art. They must watch that the books, prints and paintings, etc., offered for sale contain nothing immoral126 or what we should call nowadays subversive127. By this duty the police of Louis XIV become specialists, going in chiefly for medals. In the year 1696 Pontchartrain wrote to M. de la Reynie “to send a man to watch the sale of Abbé Bizot and be on the look out for the médailles insolentes of the said cabinet.” After other injunctions, he then adds: “It is His Majesty’s wish that the medals incurring128 suppression should be put into a sack, this to be sealed and taken to the mint....”
It is clear from this that over and above interest in bad coins and faked medals the police of the Roi Soleil were on the look out for a particular historical coin bearing some unfriendly allusion129 to the King of France, and their earnest efforts to suppress it had naturally made it so rare that it kindled130 the ambition of numismatists and collectors at large.
The eighteenth century might be called the period of sales of art collections. Everywhere auctions131 were held of well-known collections; in Holland alone we can register 185 catalogues of art sales from 1700 to 1750. This may be called a sort of record, however, as France in the same period of time counts only thirty catalogues. Following the art sales in Paris we find that from 1751 to 1760 an average of four sale catalogues a year is reached. From 1761 to 1770 the average increases to thirteen; from 1771 to 1775 to twenty-eight, and from 1776 to 1785 to forty-two each year. This is the climax133; at this point art sales were social functions and the auction132 room a place where society met. Collections are dispersed and new ones formed, and the transference of masterpieces from one collection to another through the auction room acquires unusual rapidity. Such a state of affairs inspires Thibaudeau with the following reflection. (Thibaudeau. Préface du Trésor de la Curiosité.)
129 “It is like a game of shuttlecock in which the bourgeoisie and nobility throw masterpieces to each other and with such swiftness that one really does not know to whom they belong.”
The eighteenth century, from the very beginning, numbers collectors such as Crozat, who had a palace in Rue48 Richelieu and a collection of 19,000 drawings, 400 paintings and 1400 cameos, etc., Comtesse de Verrue and Baudelet. The Duke of Orleans’ gallery includes 478 paintings, of which three were by Leonardo da Vinci, 15 by Raphael, 31 by Titian, 19 by Paul Veronese, 10 by Correggio, 12 by Poussin, and many others of the Dutch, Spanish and other schools.
This collection of the Duke of Orleans, one of the finest in France after that of Cardinal Mazarin, seems to have been pursued by the same ill-luck as the latter. The Regent’s son, with deplorable prudery, destroyed all the paintings with nude figures; as for the rest of the collection, it was sold later to some English amateurs by Philippe-Egalité.
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advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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excavation
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| n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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12
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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13
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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15
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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16
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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17
enumerate
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| v.列举，计算，枚举，数 | |
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18
belles
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| n.美女( belle的名词复数 )；最美的美女 | |
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19
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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20
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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21
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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22
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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23
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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24
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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25
canvasses
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| n.检票员，游说者，推销员( canvass的名词复数 )v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的第三人称单数 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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26
scourging
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| 鞭打( scourge的现在分词 )； 惩罚，压迫 | |
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27
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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28
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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29
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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30
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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31
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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32
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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33
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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34
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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35
extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
eulogies
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| n.颂词，颂文( eulogy的名词复数 ) | |
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37
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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38
intriguer
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| 密谋者 | |
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39
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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40
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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41
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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42
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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43
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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44
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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45
portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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46
milieu
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| n.环境；出身背景；(个人所处的)社会环境 | |
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47
proscription
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| n.禁止，剥夺权利 | |
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48
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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49
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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50
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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51
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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52
obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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53
ruse
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| n.诡计，计策；诡计 | |
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54
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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55
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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56
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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57
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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58
connoisseurs
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| n.鉴赏家，鉴定家，行家( connoisseur的名词复数 ) | |
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59
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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60
sapphires
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| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
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61
rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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62
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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63
omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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64
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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65
potentates
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| n.君主，统治者( potentate的名词复数 )；有权势的人 | |
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66
diplomats
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| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
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67
gibing
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| adj.讥刺的，嘲弄的v.嘲笑，嘲弄( gibe的现在分词 ) | |
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68
antagonistic
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| adj.敌对的 | |
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69
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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70
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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71
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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72
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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73
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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74
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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75
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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76
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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77
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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78
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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79
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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80
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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81
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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82
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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83
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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84
nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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85
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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86
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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87
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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88
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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89
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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90
bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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91
purge
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| n.整肃，清除，泻药，净化；vt.净化，清除，摆脱；vi.清除，通便，腹泻，变得清洁 | |
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92
mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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93
fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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94
iconoclast
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| n.反对崇拜偶像者 | |
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95
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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96
caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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97
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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98
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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99
decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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100
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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101
impecunious
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| adj.不名一文的，贫穷的 | |
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102
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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103
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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104
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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105
creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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106
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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107
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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108
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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109
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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110
renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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111
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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112
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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113
fads
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| n.一时的流行，一时的风尚( fad的名词复数 ) | |
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114
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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115
skits
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| n.讽刺文( skit的名词复数 )；小喜剧；若干；一群 | |
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116
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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117
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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118
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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119
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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120
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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121
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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122
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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123
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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124
counterfeits
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| v.仿制，造假( counterfeit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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125
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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126
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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127
subversive
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| adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子 | |
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128
incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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129
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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130
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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131
auctions
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| n.拍卖，拍卖方式( auction的名词复数 ) | |
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132
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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133
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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