BY FRANCIS S. DIXON 
PART II. 
N otwithstanding the fact that the paint¬ 
ing of old masters by moderns is a notorious 
and lucrative trade abroad,old paintings play 
an important part in the fakir’s business. Everyone 
knows ol the Gainsborough portrait which was 
accepted by supposedly competent judges, and which, 
when it was removed from the frame, disclosed a 
young man in modern evening dress. It was no doubt 
a shock to the learned gentleman, who accepted it, but 
those who did not see it wondered how such a palpable 
counterfeit could have escaped the discerning eye of 
anyone with ordinary intelligence. Little do the inex¬ 
perienced realize the difficulties encountered by those 
who attempt to discriminate between old things and 
new. Few dealers attempt 
to foist upon the market 
fakes of the work of well- 
known painters, but numer¬ 
ous portraits of the beautiful 
ladies with powdered hair 
who are supposed to have 
sat at mahogany desks are 
sold every year, to be hung 
on the walls of rooms filled 
with antique furniture still 
in its infancy. These por¬ 
traits bring as much as two 
or three hundred dollars and 
are usually painted by art 
students or dimmed artistic 
lights who are glad enough 
to accept twenty-five dol¬ 
lars for their efforts. 
The pictures are usually 
put through an antiquing 
process before being placed 
in the showroom. The 
process of making old 
masters or rather antiqued 
paintings are many and 
varied. Old canvases were, 
of course, woven by hand and when wooden pan¬ 
els were used they were of mahogany or some 
other hard wood. Copper plates were also used 
to a great extent tor smaller pictures and a paint¬ 
ing on copper is considered quite a prize. For por¬ 
traits or large pictures canvas is essential and but 
little difficulty is experienced in obtaining the required 
weave. Baking paintings is an old trick. The can¬ 
vases are placed in an oven under which a slow fire 
has been built and the oil soon dries out without 
cracking the paint to excess. A little doctored var¬ 
nish completes the job. A coating of clay allowed to 
dry on the surface of a picture and then carefully re¬ 
moved will give a decidedly dead look to the paint but 
the baking process requires 
less attention and is natur¬ 
ally more in vogue than the 
other more laborious one. 
In varnishing, care must 
be taken to have the var¬ 
nish thin enough to flow 
evenly over the canvas. 
With it must be mixed any 
color or combination of col¬ 
ors that will give the re¬ 
quired tone. Mummy and 
raw sienna are the colors 
usually used as they give a 
warm mellow glow which 
is difficult to obtain in any 
other way. Mummy is 
particularly desirable if the 
painting is at all light in 
tone for the sediment works 
into the interstices in the 
brush strokes and gives un¬ 
mistakable aspect of age, 
readily understood when 
one recalls the fact that 
the pigment is popularly 
supposed to be made from 
A FAKF PORTRAIT OF GFORGF. WASHINGTON 
220 
