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One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business sitting: this picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
Thus there gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles as men who collected Kenistons. Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and purpose.
“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,” he said to himself. “I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.” The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised the entrées, and insisted on another helping.
But I found a number of gentlemen who were evidently connoisseurs in the battery business. They had batteries of which they were extremely fond. They parted with some of superior quality upon the consideration of a friendly regard for me and a slight emolument on my part. I was evidently very popular. At a breathless speed I returned to not to the doctor. He had vanished.
It was constantly surrounded by a crowd of the curious and connoisseurs. They pointed out the beautiful work to each other; but, though most of them acknowledged the skill of the master who had painted it, many ascribed its superiority to the magical charm of the model.
Why all the very very early pictures of the Virgin, and many of our blessed Saviour himself, done in the first ages of Christianity should be black, or at least tawny, is to me wholly incomprehensible, nor could I ever yet obtain an explanation of its cause from men of learning or from connoisseurs.
When this pastime is practiced by connoisseurs ashore, they wear heavy, wired helmets, to break the force of the blows. But the only helmets of our tars were those with which nature had furnished them. They played with great gun-rammers. Sparring consists in playing single-stick with bone poles instead of wooden ones.
Two of these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a group waiting the moment of sale to begin.
Kindness and gaiety sparkled in her eyes; while her plump white hands, her rounded finger-tips, her pink nails, her breast, which the corset seemed scarcely able to restrain, her dainty feet, and her prominent hips, made her worthy of the chisel of Praxiteles. She was just on her eighteenth year, and so far had escaped the connoisseurs.
The invitation which the Administration of the Museum gave to the National Institute to attend the restoration of the Madonna di Foligno by RAPHAEL, is to us a sure pledge that the enlightened men of whom it is composed felt that they owed an account of their vigilance to all the connoisseurs in Europe." Paris, December 10, 1801.
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