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In money value alone, the collection of furniture, porcelain, bronzes, and articles de vertú, mostly of the period embraced within the limits of this chapter, amounts to about £400,000, and exceeds the value of any bequest the nation has ever had.
Costly carpets, huge chairs, bronzes, pictures in gold and velvet frames; photographs on the walls of beautiful women, clever, handsome faces, and striking attitudes; from the drawing-room a door led straight into the garden, by a veranda, and I saw lilac and a table laid for breakfast, rolls, and a bunch of roses; and there was a smell of spring, and good cigars, and happiness and everything seemed to say, here lives a man who has worked and won the highest happiness here on earth.
Huge book-cases filled to overflowing lined the four walls, and pictures precious as their weight in rubies looked duskily down from their heavy frames. Busts and bronzes stood on brackets and surmounted doors; a thick, rich carpet of moss-green, sprinkled with oak leaves and acorns, muffled the tread; voluminous draperies of dark green shrouded the tall, narrow windows.
Some of the bronzes in these stores are of exquisite workmanship, and costly china from Sevres and Dresden feasts the eyes of the lovers of beauty in this branch of art. The American ladies wear very costly jewellery, but I was perfectly amazed at the prices of some of the articles displayed. I saw a diamond bracelet containing one brilliant of prodigious size and lustre.
The drawing room at Rockhold presented a very attractive appearance, with its three chandeliers of lighted wax candles, its cheerful fire of sea coal, its warm crimson and gold coloring of carpets and curtains, and its luxurious easy chairs, sofas and ottomans, its choice pictures, books, bronzes and so forth.
There was still left the old manor-house from which with each generation there came a soldier to uphold the credit of the name and to show the five scarlet roses on the silver shield where it had always been shown in the van. There were twelve bronzes in the little chapel where Matthew the priest said mass every morning, all of men of the house of Loring.
Madame Bonaparte was astonished at such marvelous riches, comprising marbles, bronzes, and magnificent pictures, of which Eugene, Hortense, and the sisters of the First Consul received a large part, and the remainder was used in decorating the apartments of Malmaison. The Empress's love of ornaments included for a while antique curiosities, cut stones, and medals.
It is worth while to recount the wonderful things he saw; they were the cathedral with the dome of Brunelleschi, the tower of Giotto, the marbles and bronzes of Donatello, the baptistery gates of Ghiberti, the pictures of Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, Fra Angelico, and many other older masters, while Michael Angelo and Leonardo were surprising themselves and all others with their beautiful works.
That really is the art of life, to be able to carry things through. Her bronzes are quite remarkable. By the way, she has an excellent brain. She cares for the arts. She is by no means a fribble. I have been surprised by her knowledge more than once." "She seems very fond of Lady Sellingworth. She wants to get her over to Paris." "Adela Sellingworth won't go." "Why not?"
Ludolph looked on as if all was a matter of course while she was present, but afterward said: "You are on the right track, Fleet. You now see the practical result of a little thought and grace in arrangement. In matters of art, people will pay almost as much for these as for the things themselves. The lady would not have bought those bronzes under Berder's system.
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