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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual

..

8
..
..
.. Social Media Information
..
.. Systems

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Define a social media information system (SMIS).

• Explain how SMIS advance organizational strategy.
• Explain how SMIS increase social capital.
• Describe roles that SMIS play in the hyper-social organization.
• Describe how (some) companies earn revenue from social media.
• Explain how organizations can manage the risks of social media.
• Discuss social media issues in 2024.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• What is a social media information system (SMIS)?

o Three SMIS roles
o SMIS components
• How do SMIS advance organizational strategy?
o Social media and the sales and marketing activity
o Social media and customer service
o Social media and inbound and outbound logistics
o Social media and manufacturing and operations
o Social media and human resources
• How do SMIS increase social capital?
o What is the value of social capital?
o How do social networks add value to businesses?
o Using social networking to increase the number of relationships
o Using social networks to increase the strength of relationships
o Connecting to those with more assets
• What roles do SMIS play in the hyper-social organization?
o Consumers become humans
o Market segments become tribes
o Channels become networks
o Structure and control become messy
o How can SMIS foster hyper-social organizations?
• How do (some) companies earn revenue from social media?
o Key characteristics of Web 2.0
o Does mobility reduce online ad revenue?

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 2

• How can organizations manage the risks of social media?

o Managing the risk of employee communication
o Managing the risk of user-generated content
• 2024?

Using MIS InClass 8

Any Kayakers Here at the Grand Canyon?

1. Visit www.salesforce.com/chatter to learn Chatter’s features and applications. Using

what you learn, state one Chatter application for each of the value chain activities in
Figure 8-6.
Since Chatter is a social media network for an enterprise, it can be used to improve
communication between all parts of an organization, internally, and to establish a
better bond with the organization’s suppliers and customers. Chatter can be applied in
any of the value chain activities in Figure 8-6. Students will identify a variety of
Chatter applications for these activities.

2. From the salesforce.com site, find three interesting Chatter applications other than
General Electric’s. Summarize those applications. Classify them in terms of Figure 8-
6.
Since the applications on the Salesforce.com web site are likely to change over time,
the examples selected by students will vary. Here are three examples that are
currently available:
• Burberry - Burberry World, "the ultimate expression of the Burberry brand,"
where visitors can "engage, entertain, and interact, as well as providing the
ultimate online luxury shopping experience." The goal istotal integration among
the company, its employees, its customers, and the all-important brand. "Our
vision is that a customer has total access to Burberry, across any device,
anywhere," says CEO Angela Ahrendts. "They get exactly the same feeling of the
brand and and feeling of the culture. Everyone can come to Burberry World and
understand the journey that Burberry is on." Sales and Marketing/Customer
Service.
• Virgin America - To overcome the challenges caused by rapid expansion and
maintain its fun-loving and people-oriented culture, the company depends on
Salesforce and a Chatter social network to keep everyone connected. "It's
important to interact with everyone on our team and make them all part of our
community," says David Cush, Virgin America's CEO. Although 90 percent of
the airline's employees never sit at a desk or in front of a PC, they interact and
communicate regularly using mobile phones and tablets. Cush continues, "Now,
with Salesforce, they have a powerful tool to see everything that's going on at the
company and stay aligned around our guests." Marketing/Customer Service.
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia - CommBank’s 48,000 employees are widely
distributed around the country. They’re also a very social group, so an employee
social network like Chatter is a natural fit for internal collaboration. “Now the

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 3

narrative of the business can be captured and shared,” says Chief Marketing
Officer Andy Lark. “People can turn every communication into a social
communication—on their own device. That is enormously powerful.” Especially
since many branch employees don’t have their own dedicated computers. “It's
about helping employees do more in less time.” Human Resources

3. One obvious example for SM machines is for the machines to report operational
status, say speed, temperature, fuel usage, and so on, depending on the type of
machine, to a Chatter or other SM site. How can the organization use such reporting
in the context of machine, customer, and employee social media?
Operational status information reported by machines could be fed to the employees
who are responsible for monitoring machine status and performance. Problems that
may be developing might be able to be identified before becoming significant,
enhancing employee maintenance tasks and improving customer satisfaction.
Machine designs can be improved through this status reporting which will appeal to
customers. Machines that must work in a coordinated fashion will be able to be better
coordinated through the direct communication of status information.

4. Consider foursquare for machines. Besides cars with kayaks asking for the presence
of other cars with kayaks, what other uses can your team envision? Consider
machine-to-machine interactions as well as machine-to-human interactions.
Student responses will vary.

5. Besides reporting operational status and foursquare for machines, what other
applications for machine-employee-customer SM can you envision?
Student responses will vary.

USING YOUR KNOWLEDGE

8-1. Using the Facebook page of a company that you have “Liked” (or would choose to),
fill out the grid in Figure 8-5. Strive to replace the phrases in that grid with specific
statements that pertain to Facebook, the company you like, and you and users whom
you know. For example, if you and your friends access Facebook using an Android
phone, enter that specific device.
Student responses will vary depending upon which company is Liked, the users
known, and the devices used. (LO: 1, Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of
information systems in supporting business processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-2. Name a company for which you would like to work. Using Figure 8-6 as a guide,
describe, as specifically as you can, how that company would use social media.
Include community type, specific focus, processes involved, risks, and any other
observations.
a. Sales and marketing
b. Customer service
c. Inbound logistics

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 4

d. Outbound logistics
e. Manufacturing and operations
f. Human resources

Student responses will vary, depending on the company that is chosen. Look for the
following ideas in their responses:

a. Sales and marketing – Communities are defenders of belief. Communities focus

outward to prospects. Social CRM is dynamic; members of community can
promote sales to others in the community through blogs, wikis, and reviews.
Risks include SM messages that are misperceived by the community (and
backfire) resulting in poor public relations.
b. Customer service – Communities are seekers of truth, reaching outward to
customers to provide peer-to-peer support through problem solving. Frequently
very valuable but risk is the loss of control over the community’s solution to the
problem.
c. Inbound logistics – Communities are seekers of truth, solving problems that occur
in the supply chain. Since problem solving requires open exchange of
information, loss of privacy is a major risk.
d. Outbound logistics – Communities are seekers of truth, solving problems that
occur in the supply chain. Since problem solving requires open exchange of
information, loss of privacy is a major risk.
e. Manufacturing and operations – Communities are seekers of truth. Can focus
outward for user design ideas (crowdsourcing) or inward on operations and
manufacturing processes (cooperative work among people within the
organization). Risks include messy and unpredictable processes.
f. Human resources – Communities are defenders of truth. Can search for employee
prospects and recruit candidates. Can also facilitate employee communication
using internal personnel sites. Risks include the possibility of error.
(LO: 2, Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting
business processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-3. Visit either www.lie-nielsen.com or www.sephora.com. On the site you chose, find
links to social networking sites. In what ways are those sites sharing their social
capital with you? In what ways are they attempting to cause you to share your social
capital with them? Describe the business value of social networking to the business
you chose.
Sephora has both Facebook and Twitter links and a link to a Sephora Social page. On
this page, there is a Sephora iPhone app download, links to a Beauty Talk site (a
community where beauty questions and advice are provided), YouTube videos on
beauty tutorials, and links to Sephora’s “Beauty and the Blog” blog site. Sephora is
clearly working hard to forge social capital links with its customers and engage those
customers with each other and the company. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Discuss the
role of information systems in supporting business processes, AACSB: Analytic
Skills)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 5

8-4. Visit www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/legal/intel-social-media-guidelines.html.

Using the four pillars that define a hyper-social organization, explain why Intel
appears to be hyper-social.
Some snippets from the Intel page are included here to help illustrate Intel’s social
media intentions.

1. Consumers become humans – Intel asks its employees to “Talk to your readers like you
would talk to real people in professional situations.” In addition, “Social communication from
Intel should help our customers, partners, and co-workers. It should be thought-provoking and
build a sense of community. If it helps people improve knowledge or skills, build their businesses,
do their jobs, solve problems, or understand Intel better—then it's adding value.” Both of the
comments illustrate the goal of viewing customers as real human beings.
2. Market segments become tribes – Intel focuses on groups of people with common
goals and aspirations. “If it helps people improve knowledge or skills, build their businesses,
do their jobs, solve problems, or understand Intel better—then it's adding value.”
3. Channels become networks – Intel strives to form two-way communication, to
inform about what Intel is doing, but also to learn. “As a business and as a corporate
citizen, Intel is making important contributions to the world, to the future of technology, and to
public dialogue on a broad range of issues. Our business activities are increasingly focused on
high-value innovation. Let's share with the world the exciting things we're learning and doing—and
open up the channels to learn from others.”
4. Structure and control gives way to messiness – Intel encourages and promotes
comments and responses. “Consider content that's open-ended and invites response.
Encourage comments. You can also broaden the conversation by citing others who are blogging
about the same topic and allowing your content to be shared or syndicated.”
(LO: 6, Learning Outcome: Discuss the ethical and social issues raised by the use of
information systems, AACSB: Ethical Understanding and Reasoning Abilities)

8-5. Visit http://socialmediatoday.com/ralphpaglia/141903/social-media-employee-policy-

examples-over-100-companies-and-organizations. Find an organization with a very
restricted employee SM policy. Name the organization and explain why you find that
policy restrictive. Does that policy cause you to feel positive, negative, or neutral
about that company? Explain.

Student responses will vary depending upon the company selected. A good example
of an SM policy that is full of “don’t” messages is that of Baker & Daniels. Baker &
Daniels is a law firm and is therefore very careful to define appropriate and
inappropriate use of SM communications. This policy is a good example of “what not
to do” with social media. (LO: 6, Learning Outcome: Discuss the ethical and social
issues raised by the use of information systems, AACSB: Ethical Understanding and
Reasoning Abilities)

COLLABORATION EXERCISE 8

You most likely do not know much about the particular purposes and goals that Flores’
and his partners and staff have for the social media group they will create to motivate
their cardiac patients to maintain their exercise programs. So, you can’t realistically

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 6

create a prototype social media site for that purpose. Instead assume that you and your
group are going to create a social media group for maintaining motivation on an
exercise program for getting and staying in shape for an intra-mural soccer or other
sports team over the summer. Or, if your group prefers, assume you are going to create a
group to maintain discipline for maintaining a diet, or some other program that requires
discipline that can be assisted by a social group. Using iteration and feedback, answer
the following questions:

1. State the particular goals of your group. Be as specific as possible.

Student group’s answers will vary. Look for the group to select a goal that requires
individual commitment, time, and effort to achieve and has some definite way of
measuring success. Training to complete a 10K race in a certain amount of time on a
certain date is an example. (LO: 2, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance
systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

2. Identify five different social media alternatives for helping your group to maintain
discipline for the activity you selected. An obvious choice is a Facebook group, but
find other alternatives as well. Visit www.socialmediatoday.com for ideas.
Summarize each alternative.
Student responses will vary, depending on the methods the group thinks will be
helpful in promoting the group’s overall goal. Several obvious choices are Facebook
groups and Google +’s new Communities. (LO: 2, Learning Outcome: Explain how
IS can enhance systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

3. Create a list of criteria for evaluating your alternatives. Use iteration and feedback to
find creative criteria, if possible.
Student responses will vary. Look for criteria that will help the group narrow their
selection down to a social media option that will be easy to use, provide the “right”
level of control and privacy, and possibly integrate easily into their existing social
media presence. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance systems of
collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

4. Evaluate your alternatives based on your criteria, and select one for implementation.
Student responses will vary. Look to be sure that the students have accurately
assessed each social media option against their criteria and have not simply chosen an
option because of familiarity. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can
enhance systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

5. Implement a prototype of your site. If, for example, you chose a Facebook group,
create a prototype page on Facebook.
Student responses will vary. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance
systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Use of Information Technology))

6. Describe the five components of the SMIS you will create for your group. Be very
specific with regard to the procedure and people components. Your goal should be to
produce a result that could be implemented by any group of similarly motivated

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 7

students on campus.
Hardware: User: any user computing device; application provider: cloud-based
servers.
Software: User: device OS; application provider: application, DBMS
Data: User: user-generated content; connection data; application provider: content
and connection data storage and rapid retrieval
Procedures: User: plans and commitment to post entries, view other’s posts, and
provide response and support to other group members; application provider: run and
maintain application.
People: User: upfront agreement about who is involved and who can view the posts;
application provider: staff to run and maintain application.
(LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance systems of collaboration and
teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

7. Assess your result. How likely is it to help your group members achieve the goals in
item 1? If you see ways to improve it, describe them.
Student responses will vary. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance
systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8. Write a two-paragraph summary of your work that group members could use in a job
interview to demonstrate their knowledge of the use of social media for employee
motivation.
Student responses will vary. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome: Explain how IS can enhance
systems of collaboration and teamwork, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

CASE STUDY 8
Sedona Social

8-6. Search Facebook for Sedona, Arizona. Examine a variety of Sedona area pages that
you find. Using the knowledge of this chapter and your personal social media
experience, evaluate these pages and list several positive and negative features of
each. Make suggestions on ways that they could be improved.
Student opinions will vary on this topic. Look for student to evaluate the use of this
social media venue to support the sharing of content among networks of users. There
are numerous beautiful photos of the area, but less in the way of engaging
“conversation” on the pages about the area. (LO: 4, Learning Outcome: Discuss the
role of information systems in supporting business processes, AACSB: Analytic
Skills)

8-7. Repeat question 1 for another social media provider. As of this writing, possibilities
are Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, but choose another social media provider if you
wish.
Students’ answers will vary depending on the provider selected. Looking at Pinterest,
even more beautiful photos are found along with more commentary and some local
business advertising. (LO: 4, Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 8

systems in supporting business processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-8. The purpose of a Chamber of Commerce is to foster a healthy business climate for all
of the businesses in the community. Given that purpose, your answers to questions 1
and 2, and the knowledge of this chapter, develop a set of 7 to 10 guidelines for local
businesses to consider when developing their social media presence.
Students’ answers will vary. Their guidelines should encourage businesses to make it
easy to find information, get answers to questions, enable users to share photos and
comments, keep their pages current and inviting, make it simple for users to share
links with their networks, have a plan for dealing with problematic UGC. (LO: 4,
Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business
processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-9. Sedona has quite a number of potentially conflicting community groups. Explain
three ways that the Chamber of Commerce can use social media to help manage
conflict so as to maintain a healthy business environment.
Student answers will vary. Students should recognize that the Chamber of Commerce
has a role of promoting the community as a place for growth and development.
Therefore, it should use social media to foster positive relationships among those who
stand to benefit from the community’s growth and development. Since there will be
conflicting opinions among the various community groups, social media can help
each group feel as if its voice is being heard and listened to. (LO: 4, Learning
Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business processes,
AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-10. Examine Figure 8-6 and state how the focus of each of the primary value chain
activities pertains to the Chamber of Commerce. If one does not pertain, explain why.
In your answer, be clear about who the Chamber’s customers are.

• Sales and marketing – the Chamber’s customers are the owners of prospective
businesses in the region. Social CRM can help the chamber manage its contacts
with business prospects.
• Customer service – provides answers to current Sedona area businesses and also
connects existing and prospective businesses.
• Inbound logistics – could apply to the process of obtaining the content included in
Chamber/community promotional material.
• Outbound logistics – used to distribute promotional material to the Chamber’s
customers (current businesses and business prospects).
• Manufacturing/operations – operations applies to the Chamber – employees can
share knowledge and problem solving techniques.
• Human resources – use for prospecting, recruiting, and evaluating employees.
(LO: 2, Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting
business processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-11. Given your answer to question 5 and considering your responsibility to manage
the Chamber’s social media presences, state how each applicable row of Figure 8-6
guides the social media sites you will create.

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 9

By considering each row of Figure 8-6, a variety of uses of social media become
apparent. Keeping all these uses in mind will help ensure that social media sites are
created for all parts of our value chain, not just one or two. (LO: 2, Learning
Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business processes,
AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-12. Using your answers to these questions, write a job description for yourself.
The Social Media Manager will help moderate and inspire promotional
communications via Chamber of Commerce specific Internet-based applications to
encourage the exchange of user-generated content. This position will serve as a
conduit between the Chamber staff and website consumers (current Sedona
businesses, prospective Sedona businesses, and the general public) to report events
via social media channels. Manages the social media elements to foster interaction,
education, engagement and discussion regarding the Chamber’s promotional efforts
through the use of both internal and external online communities. The Social Media
Manager will manage, update and enhance through creative efforts our social media
efforts; Facebook, Twitter, and other blogs and social media channels. (LO: 2,
Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business
processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

8-13. Write a two-paragraph summary of this exercise that you could use to
demonstrate your knowledge of the role of social media in commerce in a future job
interview.
Student answers will vary. Look for students to recognize the variety of uses of social
media sites and to link the organization’s particular value chain activities to its social
media presences. (LO: 2, Learning Outcome: Discuss the role of information systems
in supporting business processes, AACSB: Analytic Skills)

MyMISLab

8-14. According to Paul Greenberg, Amazon.com is the master of the 2-minute

relationship and Boeing is the master of the 10-year relationship. Visit
www.boeing.com and www.amazon.com. From Greenberg’s statement and from the
appearance of these Web sites, it appears that Boeing is committed to traditional
CRM and Amazon.com to social CRM. Give evidence from each site that this might
be true. Explain why the products and business environment of each company cause
this difference. Is there any justification for traditional CRM at Amazon.com? Why or
why not? Is there any justification for social CRM at Boeing? Why or why not? Based
on these companies, is it possible that a company might endorse Enterprise 2.0, but
not endorse social CRM? Explain.
Boeing has a very traditional Web site that is focused primarily on providing
information to the site user—a one way flow from the company to the user. You can
sign up to follow Boeing on Twitter so that Boeing can send short messages to its
followers. Amazon, on the other hand, has been a pioneer in using the Web for
creating social CRM. The two companies have such a different product line that the

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 Kroenke - Using MIS 7th Ed - Instructor’s Manual 10

different use of the Internet makes sense. Boeing offers products that are enormously
complex and expensive and are purchased by only a few customers, whereas Amazon
sells thousands of small ticket products to thousands of customers. Traditional CRM
makes sense for Boeing but not for Amazon. Similarly, social CRM makes sense for
Amazon but not for Boeing.

Enterprise 2.0 involves applying Web 2.0 technologies, collaboration systems, social
networking, and related technologies to facilitate the cooperative work of people in
the organization. Certainly, it is possible that an organization can embrace Enterprise
2.0 for its own employees without extending that approach out to its customers. That
may make a lot of sense for companies like Boeing. (LO: 3, Learning Outcome:
Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business processes, AACSB:
Analytic Skills)

8-15. Google or Bing “Chloé” and search for sites that offer Chloé fashion products.
Identify companies that have purchased the Chloé AdWord. Follow three or four such
links. Identify as many Web 2.0 features in the sites that you encounter as you can.
Explain what you think the business rationale is for each site.
Companies that have purchased the Chloe AdWord include
www.bergdorfgoodman.com, www.matchesfashion.com, and
www.designerapparel.com.

The Bergdorf Goodman site is a traditional e-commerce site, but does include links to
Facebook, Twitter, and has a “Bergdorf Buzz” link for user-generated content.

MatchesFashion.com is a traditional e-commerce site, but does include links to

Facebook and Twitter.

DesignerApparel.com is a traditional e-commerce site.

It appears that Bergdorf Goodman is making more use of Web 2.0 features than the
other sites so that it can strengthen its relationship with its customers. The other sites
are more focused on enabling purchase transactions only. (LO: 5, Learning Outcome:
Discuss the role of information systems in supporting business processes, AACSB:
Analytic Skills)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

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hilt.
“Which do you advise me to buy? I must decide between the
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To be frank, they both looked genuine to me, but the Baron’s
question roused a suspicion in my mind that one of the two swords
was a forgery.
“I should buy this one,” I answered, pointing to the sword
almost deprived of ornament.
“You have a good eye,” complimented the Baron. “The other
sword is an imitation, one of the most admirable I have ever seen.”
My discernment, however, was merely based on the accepted
aphorism that the combination in art of simplicity and extreme
elegance is difficult to imitate, otherwise who knows but what I
might not have selected the faked sword.
It must be added here, that an imitation can very rarely bear
close comparison with a genuine piece. The proximity of the genuine
article is always rather disastrous to the fake, and never more so
than in the case of arms and armour. This may be accounted for by
the difference in the modern methods of working and ornamenting
steel. These methods not only produce a difference in the raw and
worked steel that connoisseurs claim to distinguish, but the
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ornaments, especially on pieces that do not aim to deceive first-rate
connoisseurs, are rarely done by the old method but preferably by
acids.
Damascening, such as is rarely done now even in the East, was
a skilful and complicated operation by which steel blades and armour
were inlaid with gold or silver ornamentations. The designs were first
cut deep into the steel with a burin, then the gold or silver was
beaten in with a hammer, not only until the surface was smooth, but
until the inset was securely worked into and held by all the
irregularities of the groove. Such work is now imitated by gilding
over a rather shallow groove obtained by the action of nitric acid.
The sombre shine of old steel is generally reproduced by a thin coat
of encaustic. The sum total of these differences, together with a
certain loss of artistic sense in the art, are the causes perhaps of the
disastrous effect upon fakery of a close proximity with genuineness,
as above noted.
This, of course, is in common cases, for, as we have said, there
are sporadic workers in steel who produce pieces that baffle the best
connoisseurs—as an artistic object cannot always be tested by
breaking it and examining the texture of the metal, which would be
the safest method at present.
Here again we are forced to advise the new-comer in the field of
connoisseurship during his search for arms in his first enthusiastic
stage, to use more than one grain of salt with what he hears, and
several pounds of scepticism when he comes across what would
seem to be a real find. For over thirty years arms, we mean fine
specimens, have practically disappeared from the market. Pistols,
guns and weapons of a late epoch may still be seen, but not swords
of the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento.
Also in this field the semi-faked article has the usual luck of
fetching a good price with the majority of collectors. Plain old pistols
are often embellished with all kinds of most seductive additions.
Mottoes are engraved or inlaid in silver on blades originally simple
but deprived of the elegant simplicity to which we have already
alluded.
These, however, are the cheap articles of the trade; but the
story of three shields, a well-known incident still recounted among
Paris collectors, offers ample proof that there are also in this field
imitations that defy the best connoisseurs, as we have already said,
and gladly repeat, in order to render our warning to the novice all
the more emphatic.
One of these skilled imitators flourished several years ago in
Italy’s chief rival in antiquities and faking. We refer, of course, to
Spain.
The first of the three identical shields, all of which came to Paris,
was palmed off on Mr. Didier-Petit, an excellent connoisseur, who
paid the good round sum of £400 for this fine piece of imitation. It
was repoussé work with a mythological subject in the centre, “Jove
fulminating the Titans.” The person to be struck down really,
however, was poor Mr. Didier-Petit, rather than the Titans, for on
realizing that he had been fooled he died of grief or apoplexy,
brought on by his disillusion, and wounded pride as a connoisseur.
Under the auctioneer’s hammer at a subsequent sale, the famous
shield fetched £20.
The second, of identical make, was very nearly passed off on
Baron Davillier, perhaps the most esteemed connoisseur of his time.
Baron Davillier was offered the rare piece in Spain. He was struck at
first by its beauty and appearance of authenticity as well as the
plausible story by which the owner explained his possession of such
a valuable object. The bargain was struck at £320 and, happy over
his piece of good luck, Baron Davillier, like a true collector, hastened
to convey his find safely to his home in Paris. Noticing at the Custom
House that the official treated his precious find with indifference, he
became suspicious, and his suspicion of having been cheated grew
to certainty before the end of the journey. It would take long to
recount the circumstances by which Baron Davillier recovered his
£320, suffice it to say that he did recover them and the Spaniard
replaced the faked shield in the panoply from whence the Baron had
taken it down, swearing all the time that it was genuine even though
the Baron had seen another like it, that there might be twins among
articles of virtu, etc.
But there was still the third of the shield triplet fated to come to
Paris, bought by the well-known expert called, or rather nicknamed,
Couvreur. Curiously enough, this third expert from one and the same
city was also a specialist in arms, as Baron Davillier might have been
considered, had his immense knowledge not conferred upon him the
character of a specialist in almost every branch of connoisseurship.
 Plaquettes of Various Artists.
Imitations of Roman work.

Where did Couvreur buy this third shield? From the very man
who tried to cheat Baron Davillier. It appears it was not the same
shield as the Baron’s, though of identical workmanship, for there
were trifling differences between it and the fake No. 2 to reach Paris.
Couvreur had paid a fine price for his find, £800. He never recovered
his money and created a scandal by presenting the piece for
exhibition at the World’s Show of 1878, insulting the judges upon
their refusal to place it among the genuine pieces. Thus he lived and
died maintaining that all who believed the piece to be a fake were
fools.
This story only goes to prove that in every branch of imitation or
faking there exist some artists of unusual talent able almost to attain
perfection. Those who remember the story of the famous Gladius
Rogieri quoted by Paul Eudel in his amusing book, Le Truquage, and
all the discussion held in Court over this supposed sword of the
valiant King Robert of Sicily, are aware how a good connoisseur such
as M. Basilewski and a well-informed dealer like M. Nolivos can be
taken in by a fine piece of faking, and how a legion of experts may
give contrary evidence as to the authenticity of an object. And if this
could happen in Paris, one of the most enlightened cities as to
connoisseurship, and among a coterie of specialists, it may be
imagined what possibilities for deception are offered by America,
that El Dorado of fakers.
While speaking of first-rate imitations by fakers conscientious
enough to use steel, we may add that there are successful imitations
in which iron and cast iron have been substituted for the orthodox
metal for weapons.
The learned Demmin declares that “the casting which forgery
has made it very difficult to recognize” is a source of no little
embarrassment to collectors. He suggests that when there is a
suspicion that a piece is cast, an unimportant part of it should be
filed and, as usual, the texture of the material be examined. If under
the magnifying glass the grain appears coarser and very shiny, the
piece has been cast. To tell iron from steel Demmin suggests that a
drop of sulphuric acid diluted with water should be applied. If the
action of this liquid turns the metal black it is steel, if a greenish
mark is made that can be easily washed away with water, then it is
iron. The black stain is produced on steel because the acid eats into
the iron and not the carbon contained in the composition of steel.
 Before closing the topic of arms and armour, we may observe
that marks on these pieces, whether engraved or impressed, are
hardly a guarantee, as marks can be as easily imitated on these
articles as on any other kind of artistic imitation. In the case of
weapons they have even been imitated by workers contemporary
with the artist they fraudently copy, in order to take advantage of
the high reputation of certain marks. The work of a Missaglia,
Domenico or Filippo Negroli, however, is not only attested by the
stamped name or sigla but by the inimitable sum total of their art.
Many imitators have made a great study of copying impressed
marks, but have neglected or failed to copy the individual
characteristics that bear witness to an artist as much as his
signature.
In the imitation and faking of ancient art in its various branches,
the methods and the results all differ so little that we fear to grow
monotonous in this brief sketch of the questionable trade when now
entering another class of metal work, that of silver and gold.
The precious metals require no recipe for patinæ, as patinæ play
no part. This is especially so in the case of gold, but as naïve
collectors of all branches of art present the same idiosyncrasies, it is
evident that the general trend of trickery in the human comedy is
more or less identical, when allowance is made for the different
materials peculiar to each particular art. Indeed the whole matter
might be reduced to a simple equation with no unknown quantity,
namely a fool on one side and on the other a fraud which works out
to a positive and disastrous result for the former.
In the case of silver, although there is not exactly a question of
patina properly so-called, there is certainly a question of colouring or
oxidizing, for old silver, as everyone knows, never keeps the brightly
shining appearance of a new piece. It rather improves with time by
the acquisition of a low, pleasing tonality which has a most
favourable effect, a sort of pleasing light and shade, which the flat
negative shininess of a new piece rarely possesses.
 In England the conservatism of the upper classes has preserved
some really genuine silver articles with duly authenticated pedigree.
In France the spirit of the Revolution may be responsible to a certain
extent for the scarcity of rich pieces of artistic silver, only long before
the ruit hora of the Revolution various circumstances had rendered
the life of artistic silver precarious, risks to which all artistic objects
in precious metals are liable. Many fine pieces of silver, in fact, were
coined into money during Louis XIV’s time, when the State became a
financial wreck under the glorious reign of the Roi Soleil. Changing
fashion and taste also, combined with the fact that the silver was for
use and not collections, contributed to the destruction of old types of
silver-plate to make way for new ones more in keeping with the new
forms dictated by fashion or altered taste. To the combined effect of
financial distress and changing taste Italy also owes the destruction
of old silver that would otherwise have come down to us intact, just
as nowadays plated silver is likely to pass undisturbed from one
generation to another.
It is not uncommon in Italy, to hear that some aristocratic family
had ancient silver melted down a few years ago, to make new and
commonplace table spoons and forks. A lady from Siena who did this
for a whim, kept one piece of the old silver service and was much
astonished to learn later that this one piece alone would have
fetched a sum sufficient to buy the coveted new set of table silver.
In Italy, and more especially in Tuscany, the heavy taxes levied by
Napoleon during the occupation forced many Florentine families to
get rid of their silver-plate. As a matter of fact in Italy and elsewhere
fine pieces are very rare nowadays. Yet a few years ago fickle
fashion helped several people of good taste to form excellent
collections, gatherings of artistic pieces that the art lover would seek
in vain to-day. That was the happy time, when old-fashioned and yet
artistic silver was hardly reckoned above the intrinsic value of the
metal it contained. Fifty or so years ago it was not uncommon for
one of the few collectors of artistic silver to come across some
artistic beauty offered at so much a gramme, generally a very
moderate figure slightly above the current price of the metal or at
times at the actual value of the silver. To quote one instance out of
many. In 1855, at the sale held after the death of Mlle. Mazencourt,
some particularly fine flambeaux and other pieces of silver were sold
at the price of 20 centimes a gramme. Such conditions explain how
Baron Pichon, a collector of taste, was able to buy for the moderate
sum of 300 francs an artistic bowl which was sold at his death for
14,000 francs, a price that could easily be surpassed nowadays.
Unfortunately for the true collector, not only has old silver
become fashionable, but it has become fashionable to be a collector
of artistic silver, and thus real connoisseurship and ignorant greedy
wealth have started the usual competition that inevitably creates an
artificial standard of values, all too apt to generate faking. Faked
silver, in fact, came at once triumphantly to the front in forms of all
kinds, entirely new pieces successfully parading as old, were
launched upon the market as well as plain old pieces decked out
with the heavy ornamentation likely to suit the taste of the parvenu.
There was also the usual piecemeal of different authentic parts,
joined together more or less harmoniously by modern work, in fact
all that the faker’s genius and versatility is able to produce.
Silver marks, which on genuine pieces guarantee the quality of
the metal and the authenticity of the piece as the work of a certain
artist, factory or mint, can, unfortunately, be imitated with success.
In fact the faker who is a good psychologist and knows that the
neophyte amateur relies largely upon his knowledge of marks,
generally expends great care upon the imitation of the various hall-
marks.
Though, as we have already said, silver has no patina properly
so-called, there is the tone and colour which has to be imitated. To
dull silver—to give it, we mean, the leaden-brownish colour acquired
by age—a mixture with sulphur or chlorine is used. A solution of
pentasulphide of potassium—the liver of sulphur of the shops—is
generally used. Liver of sulphur is prepared by thoroughly mixing
and heating together two parts of well-dried potash and one of
sulphur powder. This mixture also takes effect on cupriferous silver,
but the result is not so fine. A velvety black is obtained by dipping
the article into a solution of mercurous nitrate previous to
oxidization. This method is used when a half polish is to be given to
the silver, leaving the dark tones in the grooves. Another method
consists of dipping the article into chlorine water, a solution of
chloride of lime, or into eau de Javelle. Special works on metals also
give many other methods and it is for the imitator to chose the best
adapted for the particular case and to use his artistic criterion to
obtain a convincing effect.
Passing on to gold, more especially in jewellery, we may say that
imitators and fakers have wrought havoc by filling the market with
spurious products. Imitation in this branch ranges from copying the
old art of working gold, of which the famous tiara of Saitaphernes,
bought by the Louvre, is one of the most striking examples, to the
small piece of jewellery with imitated enamels or more or less
genuine stones. In this line there is something to suit all tastes, from
the eager connoisseur, difficult to please, still on the look out for the
marvellous jewellery of the Rennaissance and early sixteenth
century, to the less exclusive, satisfied with later epochs down to the
eighteenth century.
There is no way of helping the neophyte to collect jewellery, not
only because fine old pieces are extremely rare, but because no
advice or theoretical hints can help the discernment of the genuine
article, only sound and well-tested experience, gained often at great
cost, is of any real avail.
In this branch also there are imitations that are entirely new and
others, like the above-said tiara, that have become such by the
preponderance of restored parts, or because the latter are the most
important artistically speaking. In the tiara of Saitaphernes the
genuine part, if genuine, is the upper portion of the domed tiara,
which is said to have been an ancient drinking cup reversed and
placed at the top of the tiara.
Many well-imitated rings are really old worn-out rings used for
the circle, to show that they have been used, on which the artistic
setting of the jewel or other ornamental part has been soldered.
In conclusion, when you would buy old jewellery buy as if it
were modern and pay the price of imitations, then if by some rare
chance you are mistaken you will experience the unique pleasure of
possessing a “find,” but never reverse the process, for if you buy an
ancient piece of jewellery you will certainly realize in due time that it
is really modern.
 CHAPTER XXIII

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Carved wood—Artistic furniture—Wood staining and patina—The merits of
elbow-grease—Painted and lacquered furniture—Veneer and inlaid
work—Musical instruments—Imitations and fakers of musical
instruments—Connoisseurship of musical instruments twofold—
Attribution and labels—Some good imitators—The violin as example—
The restoration and odd adventures of well-known musical
instruments—Legends and anecdotes that help—Analysis of form and
of sound—Rossini’s saying.

The finest pieces of faked furniture are very rarely entirely new,
sometimes they are old pieces to which rich ornaments have been
added; at other times, and this is the most common occurrence,
they are put together from fragments belonging to two, three, or
even four different pieces, the parts and debris, in fact, of old
broken furniture. There is also the entirely new fake imitating old
furniture, but this is rarely as convincing as the other which is the
really dangerous type even for an experienced collector.
Impressed by the great amount of faked furniture glutting the
Paris market, Paul Eudel says, “in principle there is no more such a
thing as antique furniture. All that is sold is false or terribly repaired.”
In Italy, that inexhaustible mine of past art, it is still possible to
find genuine pieces, provided, of course, that the collector does not
insist upon having those first-rate pieces now belonging to museums
or collections formed several years ago. There are, however, in Italy,
as in every other country, modern productions of antique furniture
for the novices in the collector’s career. This furniture may be carved
out of old pieces of wood or ordinary wood. In both cases it is
generally necessary to give an old colouring to the wood, for which
there are a variety of methods according to the desired effect, tone,
colour, etc. Many use walnut-juice, others permanganate of potash,
and still others the more drastic system of burning the surface of the
wood with acid. The old way of imitating worm-holes was to use
buckshot, a ridiculous method which nevertheless had its vogue and
apparently satisfied the gross eye of some collectors. Nowadays
worm-holes are made with an instrument that imitates them to
perfection, although they do not go so deep as the genuine ones,
and this difference, by the way, is one of the tests to tell real worm-
holes from spurious ones. As new furniture that imitates old is
generally too sharp-edged and neatly finished, it is usually subjected
to a regular course of ill-treatment. French dealers call this process
“aviler un meuble,” and it consists of pounding with heavy sticks,
rubbing with sand-paper, pumice, etc.
The finishing touch, that peculiar polished surface characterizing
ancient furniture, is usually given by friction with wool after a slight
coating of benzine in which a little wax has been dissolved. The less
wax used and the more elbow-grease, the more will the polish
resemble that of real old furniture and the more difficult does it
become to detect the deceit. If much wax has been used the scratch
of a needle is sufficient to reveal even the thinnest layer, but if it is
so imperceptible as to stand this test it is very difficult to tell the real
from the imitation. The polished parts of an old piece of furniture are
not casual but the result of long use. Prominent parts are naturally,
therefore, the ones to get so polished rather than other parts.
I remember witnessing a curious sight one day when admitted
to the sanctum of a well-known antiquary. Half a dozen stools had
been repaired, most generously repaired, a new patina had been
given and now they were to receive the last touches, the polished
parts that add such charm to old furniture. The workman who had
half finished the job kept passing and repassing close to the stools
which he had arranged in a row, rubbing his legs against each one. I
asked him the meaning of the performance and he answered that as
there were no sharp edges on the lower part of those sixteenth-
century walnut stools, he wanted to find out where and to what
extent they would be most polished by use. Not having a genuine
stool from which to copy, he had resorted to this means so as to
make no mistake. I very nearly asked him if he thought everyone
was the same height and had the same length of leg. But as the
work proceeded I gathered from the practical application of his
method, better than I could have done from any explanation, that he
was endeavouring to get a mere hint, where to begin to rub with his
pad, in order to produce that vague patch of hollows one notices
sometimes in church benches.
The same patience is necessary in making imitation worm-holes,
which are so cunningly distributed, so convincingly worked in their
erratic manner of piercing wood as to suggest to Edmond Bonnaffé
the fine bit of sarcasm: “Des vers savants chargés de fouiller le bois
neuf à la demande.”
That piecemeal kind of furniture, the parts of which are
unquestionably antique but of various origins, being the remains of
more than one piece of furniture—l’assemblage, as the French call it
—may prove a danger to the best connoisseurs if done well and with
taste. In certain respects the piece is genuinely antique, but not
exactly as the collector understands the word, hence its fraudulency
entitles it to be classified among fakes. It is incredible what an
industrious antiquary is able to do in the way of piecing furniture
together. This consists not merely of finding a top for table-legs, or
legs for a table-top, but there is no limit to the invention of this
piecemeal furniture. A wooden door may furnish the back of a
throne when well matched with a rich old coffer; the gilded
ornamentation of an altar may be transformed into the head of a
Louis XV bed, and so on. In the same way a simple piece of furniture
may be enriched by attaching ornaments, coats of arms, etc. The
whole is invariably toned and harmonized by means of one of the
above-mentioned methods.
 Naturally, ignorance of style sometimes leads some fakers to
extremely amusing blunders, but it must be confessed the cases are
rare, and this piecemeal furniture has been palmed off on too many
connoisseurs, and graces too many well-reputed collections to be
dismissed with a smile of incredulity. Were antiquaries more
disposed to talk or less indulgent towards the conceit of collectors, it
might be learnt that all the rich furniture sold during the last twenty
years to museums and collectors belongs to this composite order.
A special branch of the imitation of antique furniture is inlaid
work, the French marqueterie and Italian tarsia, by which designs
are traced upon the surface by inlaying wood, ivory or metal. There
are various epochs and styles of inlaid furniture. One may begin with
the geometrical patterns of the Trecento or the cappuccino of about
the same time and later, and gradually pass through the many styles
and methods to the complex ornamentation of Buhl’s work.
The early work, including the cappuccino, a peculiar inlaid ivory
work with geometric patterns, is very well imitated in Italy where
restorers of this kind of furniture generally turn into good imitators,
and become at times impenitent fakers of the most fantastic would-
be old style. Skill in inlaying wood and ivory according to different
epochs and the ordinary collector’s love of ornamented furniture
have suggested to some imitators the most absurd combinations of
styles, a riot of incongruity and incompatibility. It is not rare to see
fine chairs that would otherwise be tasteful but for the heavy
ornamentation of inlaid wood or ivory arabesques, grotesques, etc.
The outrage of having a fifteenth-century, inlaid after the style and
designs of at least a century later, is not uncommonly excused by
the explanation that it appeals to the tawdry taste of customers and
that the article commands a higher price by the addition of the
heavy incongruous ornamentation.
This peculiar form of degeneration in taste, the passion for
excessive ornamentation, is also what often mars the imitations of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painted furniture, imitations of
the Venetian style especially being generally very carelessly finished
but overcharged with gilding and cheap bits of painted
ornamentation.
French imitations in this line are not so debased as some Italian,
but like them they are not very convincing, as it is almost impossible
to imitate the French eighteenth-century gilding, and the carving of
this epoch shows such neatness and is so clean cut that the gilded
parts assume an appearance of metal, a quality that the modern
industry of antiques does not find convenient or is unable to imitate.
The French Buhl also is often imitated with celluloid instead of
tortoise-shell and can only succeed in attracting the very easily
satisfied collector. This is the case with some other cheap imitations
overcharged with ordinary gilded bronze. By the side of these
specimens, however, French art also counts some excellent
imitations done by real artists, which if not successful in deceiving
experienced collectors are nevertheless regular chefs-d’œuvre in the
art of imitating the finest and richest pieces of the Louis XV and
Louis XVI styles.
The simplicity and purity of line that characterized English styles
from the end of the seventeenth century to the best period of the
next, helped to keep the imitators of this country within bounds.
Their fancy in any case was less inventive and less disastrously
enterprising than that of the cheap imitators of Italian furniture.
Before leaving the subject, we may say that many of the walnut
panels in furniture, which appear to be so elaborately carved, are
not carved at all but burnt into the desired patterns. The process
consists of making a good cast iron matrix from a fine bas-relief,
then heating it and pressing it upon the wood by a special procedure
by which all the superfluous wood is burnt away and the rest takes
the shape of the mould. This method not only gives the wood the
desired form in perfect imitation of carving, but the burning stains it
to a fine brown tone very much resembling old wood, after which an
application of oil or encaustic is sufficient to give it a semblance of
patina.
 In another part of this book we have noted that in Bologna more
especially imitations of old tables are placed for a time in cheap
restaurants where, through grease, dirt and rough wear and tear,
they acquire that fine patina so highly esteemed in ancient wood.
Such pieces are not only found in towns but are housed here and
there about the country, sometimes in old palaces and villas, or else
in out of the way nooks. The former system gives the alluring
sensation of buying something really worth while, and at first hand,
from its historical owner; the latter that a real find has been
discovered, that find which is the eternal fata Morgana of freshman
collectors.
Imitations of musical instruments vary according to the style of
the instrument and its musical quality. In some fakes the musical
quality is of minor importance to a certain extent, the artistic
properties and ornamentation being the chief consideration with the
collector. In other instruments the quality of the tone is of
importance, so that though the form may not be neglected, the
faker must bear in mind that his imitation will have to stand a double
test: it must satisfy the ear and stand the examination of an
experienced eye.
The first class includes collectively such instruments as are no
longer in use and are highly ornamented with carving, inlaid work or
gilding such as lutes, archilutes, harps, virginals, spinets, etc.; the
second comprises instruments still in use such as violins, ’cellos, etc.
The ornamental, strange and obsolete instruments are the ones that
fakers chiefly furnish to the ordinary trade.
Naturally the trade in imitating instruments for the mere curio
hunter and non-musical collector, is not so remunerative as other
branches of the shady art of faking. The number of collectors in this
branch is comparatively restricted, many of them talented and not
easily duped as is the case in all branches not enjoying popularity.
The tourist would rather go home with a painting or faked bronze of
Naples or elsewhere, than carry an instrument he cannot play, which
will probably be an encumbrance and dust-catcher in the small
rooms of big cities. On the other hand, however, there is nothing
complicated about this branch of faking. It is usually an easy matter
for a guitar or mandoline maker to invest in the small amount of
material needed, and to turn his hand to the work. It must also be
taken into account that these workers are very often repairers of
ancient instruments whereby they learn to make their imitations
technically correct, though this is by no means always the case. We
have, indeed, seen appalling exceptions, pianos of an early period
transformed into spinets, lutes with grotesque and impossible finger-
boards, etc. Some careless and certainly unmusical imitators go so
far as to make instruments that could never be played, and even put
common wire instead of gut strings, which makes one wonder what
kind of collector it can be who delights in such delusions.
Our intention is to deal only with the artistic side of musical
instruments, so we lay no claim to real connoisseurship of musical
instruments, more especially as regards the family of stringed
instruments which finds its best and most complete expression in the
violin. Yet the fact that the great discoveries have generally been
made by ignorant men like Tarisio, not necessarily fine musicians,
goes to show that connoisseurship of form has its importance,
greatly resembling after all, the connoisseurship of other branches in
its summing up of various analyses into a final synthesis of form and
character. True, in a good violin there is rarely any ornamentation, or
if there is, it still more rarely furnishes a clue; but although all is
entrusted to simplicity of line and form in its most aristocratic and
elemental expression, there still seems to be enough to tell of the
“touch of a vanished hand.”
“How interesting,” justly remarks Olga Racster, “it is to observe
an expert spelling out the name of an old fiddle by the aid of this
‘touch of a vanished hand.’ How eagerly he seeks it and finds it with
the help of that alphabet which lies concealed in the colour, shape,
height and curves of an old violin.”
Together with the difficulty of faking instruments the synthesis of
connoisseurship in this line could not be better expressed. As for the
quality of the tone, the expert relies purely and simply upon his ear,
no book or hints of a practical character can assist the expert to
perfect his ear. All depends upon natural disposition and the
experience of a well-trained organ in this most important part of
connoisseurship of musical instruments.
When Rossini was asked what is required to make a good singer,
he said: “Three things, voice, voice, voice.” The quotation fits here
for the chief requirement of a good connoisseur of musical
instruments as regards their musical quality consists of a triply good
ear.
 CHAPTER XXIV

VELVETS, TAPESTRIES AND

BOOKS
Olla Podrida: Genuine and faked antique stuffs—The peculiar knowledge
necessary to an expert on stuffs—The difficulty in imitating
Renaissance velvet—Collectors of costumes—Collections of dolls—
Tapestries—Repairs and faked parts or qualities—Book collecting—
Two kinds of book collectors—The faking of editions and rare bindings
—The extended and ambitious activity of the art of faking—Faked
aerolites!

Assembling in this chapter a variety of objects under the title of minor

branches of art collecting, we do not use the term artistically, but
merely because these branches apparently attract fewer art lovers
than the others, and the activity of the faker is more restricted in
their case. In many of these branches, too, the art of collecting and
connoisseurship is reduced to technical knowledge and artistic
sentiment plays a very secondary part.
If there is any one branch of collecting in which it is necessary to
be a specialist to ensure success, that branch is unquestionably
antique stuffs. Artistic sentiment and good taste are of comparatively
slight assistance compared with technical knowledge, and they may
even at times produce two dangerous psychological elements only
too often responsible for collectors’ blunders: enthusiasm and
suggestion. The technician with knowledge of the different qualities
of materials, with an eye for the various peculiarities of the weave
and colour, and sound information as to the character of the various
patterns, etc., is doubtlessly the best equipped as a connoisseur of
stuffs. This may sound absurd to the outsider, especially to artists,
whom we have ourselves found to be over-confident as to their
qualities, their pictorial eye, their full acquaintance with form. Yet
too many of these artists, not being collectors or experts, have
bought modern goods as antique, old furniture re-covered with
modern brocade that no expert would for a moment have taken as
being of the same date as the furniture. We refer, of course, to those
modern imitations generally the easiest to detect, however artfully
they have been coloured and aged to give them the appearance of
genuine antiquity.
The detection of modern products offers no difficulty to the
expert. They may look extremely convincing to the uninitiated or
beginner, as they possess what may be termed a general impression
of antiquity, but to the trained eye of the expert there are too many
essential differences; and they lack, above all, a character that in the
case of a large quantity of stuff and not a mere sample, is inimitable.
For the Jaquard machine is not the old weaving loom, the material
used is produced with greater care and precision which gives the
fabric a different look even when the coarseness of ancient textiles
has been imitated, the colours are different and so is the chemical
process for dyeing the thread, etc. The sum total of these
elementary differences with which the art of imitation cannot cope,
is what reveals to the expert almost at sight the antiquity or
modernity of the product. In conclusion, with the exception of some
rare samples of small pieces, the modern imitation of ancient stuffs
is but a successful optical illusion.
Imitations that count at least a century of age, on the contrary,
prove dangerous puzzles to experts and connoisseurs of this
speciality, these imitations having been made in almost exactly the
same way as the originals, before weaving machines were invented,
and when the thread was spun and dyed in the simple old way
before aniline dyes had furnished beautiful but most unstable
colours.
 Photo] [Alinari
Europa on the Bull.
By Andrea Brioschi called “Il Riccio.” Imitation of the Antique, Padua
School.

In France, under Louis XIII, Renaissance patterns were

admirably copied, as well as those of the sixteenth century. The
reproduction of old designs is not confined to Italy and France alone.
In nearly every country there have been imitators of the best
samples of ancient stuffs, damasks, brocades and velvets.
 As regards imitation, the more complex the pattern in design
and colouring, the easier it can be reproduced with success. In fact
plain velvet is the most difficult to imitate. No one, not even in the
past, has ever reproduced the fine velvets of the Quattrocento and
early Cinquecento with complete success.
Methods of ageing modern stuffs which have not the advantage
of the genuine hues of age of old imitations, greatly resemble in
general lines those adopted to give an appearance of age to other
objects. If the colouring is crude and too new looking, the stuff is
exposed to atmospheric action, rain, dew and sunshine. Needless to
add, this treatment must be followed with care and discrimination
otherwise the fabric may be reduced to a rag as well as to an
appearance of age. To harmonize the colours and give them a more
faded look, some put the goods into a bath of slightly tinted liquid,
thus obtaining on the fabric what in painting is termed velatura.
Others put the liquid into an atomizer and steam it on to the stuff.
This process has the advantage of giving alternate hues without any
sharp delimitation between them.
These methods, however, by which the artist can display
variation, are not convenient or possible in the case of large
quantities of fabric, nor is the result convincing in the proximity of
the original. One does not need to be an expert, in fact, to see the
difference between the old and the new on a piece of furniture or in
a room where imitations have been used to supply what was lacking.
To make imitations more convincing, more especially in the case
of small pieces, some antiquaries stitch on bands before discolouring
the stuff, which are afterwards taken off leaving parts with fresher
colours, as often happens in really antique pieces that have
belonged to ecclesiastical copes, etc.
Strict order having been dispensed with in this chapter, and as,
after all, fabrics are involved, we may here touch upon the subject of
dress and past costumes. The rarity of such collections depends not
only upon the fact that the roomy space of a museum is
indispensable for their display but largely upon the scarcity of past
century costumes. This branch of collecting is very useful to the
history of fashion and national costumes, but it must be considered
that to be of interest to the collector a dress must be at least forty
years old, and very few garments attain that age nowadays. Either
they are altered to conform to fashion, or unpicked or given away
until they have run through the scale of society and end in rags. The
rarity of the genuine article appears to correspond with the rarity of
collectors of this line, and there is therefore no question of fakes,
unless one should take seriously certain comic incidents and consider
as a collector the simpleton who buys the cast-off costumes of an
elegant fancy dress ball as genuine articles, those poor imitations,
with no pretence at being anything else, of Henry IV, Marie
Antoinette, and other historical garments.
Having mentioned the subject of costumes, we may speak of
another kind of collection that is also very useful to the history of
past usages and fashions, that of dolls and toys of past centuries.
Dolls and children’s toys are not an invention of to-day. It is safe to
say that their existence can be traced almost as far as the history of
civilization. The Romans used to bury dolls and toys with the bodies
of their little ones or place them in the funereal urn, a usage that
has preserved for us specimens of these tiny objects that have
drawn smiles from young lips closed and sealed centuries ago.
Together with these relics are other images that illustrate the history
of costumes like the dolls, the statuettes offered to temples and
churches as ex-votos and those used in the construction of the old
presepio (birth of Christ scene), the Christmas Eve representations
of the Bethlehem scene. These wooden dolls and statuettes are not
only artistic in themselves, but are dressed in stuffs of their epoch
very often cut in the fashion of the time.
Some of these collections have really been excellent
commentaries on the history of fashion and domestic customs of
past ages. Among the few important collections we may quote as an
example that of Mme. Agar, exhibited by this celebrated French artist
several years ago in the Palais de l’Industrie now demolished. Mme.
Agar’s collection was very complete and illustrative of fashion and
life in Holland centuries ago. The collection had originally belonged
to the infant princess, the daughter of William of Orange and
Nassau. Not only was it extremely artistic, containing several
interiors of Dutch houses with inmates and accurate details
suggesting a painting by Terburg or Teniers, but it represented all
kinds of expression of seventeenth-century Dutch life. Mme. Agar
came into possession of this fine collection under the following
circumstances. Returning from one of her artistic tours in Belgium
she visited the city of Ghent and found the collection in the hands of
a gentleman to whom she had been introduced upon her arrival. She
offered to buy it, but the owner refused all offers declaring that he
did not wish to part with the precious collection. However, after
having heard Mme. Agar at the theatre one evening, he was so
taken by her art that he wrote to the actress the very same night,
“Come to fetch my toys. I offer them to you, they are yours.”
There is no question of fakes in this branch either. The difficulty
in finding old stuffs and linen with which to garb the figures is
sufficient to discourage the trade, especially when one remembers
how few customers the imitator could hope to attract.
The art of tapestry weaving is the most complete of the class.
Although technique may play its part in constituting expert
knowledge, it is certainly subordinate to the artistic qualities
necessary to perfect connoisseurship.
Faking plays no part in this field, at least not the conspicuous
part that it plays in painting and other artistic products likely to
attract rich amateurs. This is easily understood when one takes into
consideration the time, patience and money needful to the making
of tapestry; it costs something like eighty pounds a square yard. The
imitator also knows that it would be a waste of time and money to
fake old tapestries as any expert can tell modern work from old. The
apparatus has hardly undergone any essential change it is true, but
the materials are so different from formerly that fairly tolerable
imitations can only be given in the case of repairs to old pieces. On
account of the great cost of modern tapestry the few existing
factories either belong to the State or potentates, or they are
supported by the lavish encouragement of some modern Mæcenas.
As we have said, the difference between the work of modern and
ancient tapestry does not lie in a difference of process, unchanged in
essentials since the Egyptian dynasties, but rather in the
impossibility of obtaining materials like the old ones.
Although some unscrupulous dealers do palm off over-repaired
pieces of tapestry on foolish novices, the repair of tapestry is no
faking after all, for the decorative character of the fabric fully
justifies the mending and restoration of missing parts and, unlike
painting, the work does not bear an individual imprint. It is our duty,
however, to warn the neophyte that repairs are very seldom pointed
out by dealers and that it is absolutely necessary for the collector to
train his eye in order to be able to detect the modern parts from the
old and to know how much must be bought as antique and how
much as modern. This is not so difficult as it may appear. The
modern parts are worked in with the needle and although the
threads have generally been specially dyed, as the usual colours now
on sale are very rarely suitable, there is a slight difference in the
final effect. Nothing to offend the eye, even when closely examined,
but enough to warn the expert of the size of the repaired piece.
Sometimes the repairer of tapestries uses a method which in our
opinion comes under the head of faking. This consists of re-
colouring faded parts with water-colours or tempera. Some of this
touching up is really cleverly done, at other times it is so clumsy that
one wonders how even a novice can be taken in. If there is any
suspicion that the tapestry has been coloured, a practical test is the
displacement of the threads with a needle as the fresh colours are
generally laid on with a brush and never penetrate between the
threads where the old faded colour is visible. Incredible as it may
seem, some tapestries are touched up with pastel. This was
sometimes done even in the eighteenth century to disguise defects
and crudeness of tone and now it is practised to deceive the eye by
making a better match between the old and the new parts. Of
course pastel work is easily detected if one is allowed to rub the
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