to admire his gallery of Claudes, Poussins, Rembrandts,
Murillos, and Titians, for which he had expended a princely sum, but
which there was no difficulty in recognizing as the shop _roba_ got up
expressly to entrap the unwary. One picture, worth, perhaps, for mere
decoration, fifty dollars, had been secured as a great favor for
twenty-two hundred dollars, the "last price" asked for it being three
thousand. Another, by a feeble artist of the Carlo Dolce school, had
been converted, by a substitution of names and sundry touchings-up, into
a brilliant Guercino, at the cost of nearly one thousand dollars, of
which the owner got about one-third, the confederates pocketing the
rest.

Some amateurs deceive themselves after a manner which acquits the
dealer of any participation in their illusions. A gentleman entered a
well-known studio in Florence, not many years since, and inquired the
price of a picture.

"Sixty dollars: the painting is by Furini," was the reply.

"I will take it," said the gentleman, eagerly insisting upon paying for
it on the spot; which was no sooner done, than he turned round to the
amused artist and triumphantly exclaimed, "Do you know you have sold me
a Murillo for nothing?"

Benvenuti, President of the Academy of Florence, was once asked to
attest the originality of an Andrea brought to him by some speculators.
"I should be happy to gratify you, gentlemen," he replied, "but
unfortunately I saw the picture painted." Nevertheless, certificates
were obtained from more facile authorities, and the painting officially
baptized for a market.

Certificates and documents need to be received as cautiously as the
pictures themselves; perhaps more so,--for they are more easily forged.
When genuine, the former are valuable only as they are the opinions of
honest and competent judges; and both are trustworthy only so far as
they are attached to the pictures to which they legitimately belong.

Genuine pictures have been sold and their documentary evidence kept for
skilful imitations. We have even detected in certificates the fraudulent
substitution of names. And sometimes, when honestly given, their
testimony is of no value. One professional certificate in our
possession, of the last century, ascribes the portrait in question to
Masaccio or Sauti di Tito: as sensible a decision as if an English
critic had decided that a certain picture of his school was either by
Hogarth or Sir Thomas Lawrence. Cases are inde