the pretext of putting his retouches in accordance with the rest, has been so unskilful as to occupy more space with his new colours, than the evil which he wished to conceal required.

But if such repaints diminish nothing of the real price and intrinsic merit of a picture, at least not more than the defects which they mask, seeing they may be removed at pleasure, they yet often diminish the apparent merit of it, and by consequence the value, in the eyes of young amateurs who have not acquired sufficient firmness to decide on the real value of a work when it presents itself under disadvantageous appearances. To be able to do this is a privilege, the benefits of which are reserved exclusively for accomplished connoisseurs!

To terminate this chapter it only remains for me to say, that restorations ill executed betray themselves sometimes by the tint, sometimes by the touch, sometimes by the empasto, and occasionally even by the design, although much more rarely.

The tint will offend by being false, discordant with the neighbouring ones, deeper or brighter, often more dull and flat, occasionally too dirty, and often too clear and free from the dirt which is perceived more or less on the rest of the picture; and if by chance the colour be too new to have yet changed its tone, and the tint of it has been chosen at the first in exact conformity with those which surround it, the varnish alone will suffice to betray the retouch; for the oil, by evaporating on the place, renders it nebulous, dull, and without true

transparency. This may be very easily discovered by viewing the picture horizontally in a strong light.

But the touch beyond every thing denounces the inexpert and injudicious restorer, who, in place of imitating with exactness and intelligence that of the original, shall have only been able to extract from his stupid pencil a touch that is timid, laboured, uncertain, affected, confused, without neatness or firmness; in a word, altogether different from the model which he ought to have followed.

A surreptitious empasto will discover itself from the original by not being of the same level, that is to say, by being more or less raised, or more or less united than it; or from being too dull and heavy, or too little transparent, or finally, if it remain cutting and without being melted into the neighbouring tints.

The design may betray a repaint, when the figures or other bodies have been so effaced throughout, or in their contours, that the restorer is under the necessity of replacing them out of his own head, and has not acquired sufficient firmness to re-design them well, or has not sufficient discernment to follow the taste of design which prevails in the original.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE MANNER OF KNOWING AND APPRECIATING COPIES.

Or all the parts of connoisseurship necessary to an amateur, there is none in which it is more difficult to lay down general rules applicable to all cases, than in that which regards the difference in handling between one copy and another. The knowledge required to distinguish well between them depends for the most part so much on practice in seeing and comparing, that, to my regret, I find it impossible to supply the necessary instruction by rules, or to communicate to young amateurs by words, that decisive and unerring vision so necessary in this matter, which experience alone can give, and which it will give them without doubt, if they accustom themselves to observe and reflect. But if, for want of expression, I am not able to convey to them this certain something, which is acquired by comparison and practice only, and which enables the jeweller to distinguish at first sight the impure diamond, and other stones or compositions that often deceive unpractised eyes, I console myself in part with the satisfaction of being able at least to save them much labour, and very much to smooth their way, by the general observations which long experience has

enabled me to make. The application of these, which will not be difficult, will enable them to know the greater part of copies, especially the least meritorious, until they learn by means of seeing and comparing to know them as well as they can ever hope for.

Among copies there are some, as I think, which it is quite impossible to discover, whatever writers may say, who in that are almost all opposed to me in opinion. These copies are such as masters have made after their own works. It is in vain to object that on confronting the copy with the original one will always find in some place the one inferior to the other, although both bear infallible proofs of their being wholly by the same hand. Where, I ask, is the Argus sufficiently penetrating to decide whether in this case the copy is the worst, because of the artist not having been able to put into it the same fire which had animated him in executing the original, and because of his pencil being more constrained than in the first composition? or whether, on the contrary, the copy is the best, because the artist has learned to avoid in it the faults which he had committed in the original, as every author improves his work on repeating it? For my part I say, without hesitation, that the word copy is very much out of place here as regards the public, who will only see in them two productions of the same artist, the dif ferent merit of which in their eyes will make all the difference of price, depending on the degree

of pleasure which they experience from them. For the rest I give full liberty to the rigidly exact to treat as a copyist the man who, eminent in his art, has, from taste or complaisance to his admirers, executed more than once the same work without

changing any thing in it. I confine myself to making my readers aware, that such cases are so far from being unfrequent, that I have seen for my part more than a hundred examples, of which very many were in the principal public galleries! Alas! in that case for the individual who comes into competition with them! His picture will be sure to be the copy, however original it may really be! For an absurd prejudice makes it to be believed that every thing is original in the galleries, notwithstanding the multiplied proofs to the contrary furnished by the galleries of Dresden, Dusseldorff, Saltzthalum, Cassel, and very many others; above all by those of Italy, which all contain more than one copy very easy to be distinguished; and amongst them are a pretty considerable number of which I have seen the originals in private collections! But in the galleries copies often escape the eye even of the connoisseur, who is too much occupied with the numerous gems and wonders of art around him to observe every thing narrowly.

The copies which a very practised eye alone can know, but which it becomes occasionally very difficult to distinguish, are those which excellent scholars have made of the pictures of their master, often under his superintendance and correction;