THE PRICE OF PICTURES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 232, 19 February 1876, Page 23

THE PRICE OF PICTURES.

With the accumulation of great fortunes in our city (says an American authority) there is a dawning of taste for the fine arts, which is very encouraging. Our community, however, is in its first stage of knowledge about pictures—we are deluged with gaudy French and German paintings—and it will take some years for our millionaires to learn what are the true works of art which will stand the test of generations. Some of those lately exhibited here and loudly praised are most meretricious in their character, and ten years hence will have lost their value.

Now and then, even in Europe, a furore sweeps over the community on some basis of false taste, but a few years correct it. Thus, in England, at the close of the last century, Benjamin West's pictures were "the fashion." He was made president of the Royal Academy and patronised by the court and the nobility. Now, his pictures are rarely seen in any fine collection. Lately, an altar piece, which he had painted for some church, was sold at auction for £B.

So, a few years later, in France, David was the great artist. He painted the huge picture of "The Coronation of Napoleon," and another most absurd one of "Napoleon Crossing the Alps," sitting on a horse in a most melodramatic attitude, as no horse is ever seen except in a circus. Now his pictures have no value except with collectors. Another illustration of this is now seen in England, where Ruskin has written up a reputation for Turner which no one who has seen his pictures in the EZensington Museum can believe will last twenty years. But at present his pictures sell for a fabulous price. Yet the value of pictures is well understood there, and those grand paintings of the old masters which seldom come into market, when they do, bring increasing prices every generation. We have made a list of some of the late sales, that our collectors may see the estimate of those in Europe who really understand this subject. At the San Donato sale in 1868 twenty-three pictures were disposed of at auction for £54,392, averaging £2400 each. A little Cuyp brought £5600, and a Van Ostade £4480. In February, at a larger sale from San Donato, " Broken Eggs," by Greatze, sold for £SOOO, and De la Roche's "Lady Jane Grey" for £4400. At the Paturle sale, in Paris, in February of last year, a picture by Leopold Robert was knocked down at £3200, and at the Perete sale in March, 1872, a landscape by Hobbema brought the same price. At the auction of the collection of Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, in April and May last year, a landscape by Turner, "Walton Bridge," painted in 1857, measuring 3ft. by 4ft., brought £5230 in gold. A water-color by the same artist, " Bamborough Castle," measuring only 20in. by 28in. —a small bit of paper which might be utterly destroyed in five minutes by a single spark of fire, or a few drops of water —brought £3307. The total proceeds of this sale amounted to £164,501.

At a late sale in London, at the auction rooms of Christie and Co., Turner's picture of " The Grand Canal," for which the artist received £SOOO, was sold for £7330. All the works of the old masters brought increased prices from former sales. Both's " Abraham and Hagar" sold for £4901 ; and a " Pastoral Scene," by Tan der Velde, for £4513.