House and Garden 
That human 
nature, at corres¬ 
ponding points in 
the life of nations, 
does not greatly 
change as the 
years go by, has 
been often prov¬ 
en, and to-day’s 
practice as to old 
garden marbles in 
this country is 
but another illus¬ 
tration of the tact. 
Americans can 
hardly hope, un¬ 
less they lay out 
their gardens in 
the far southwest, 
to find antiquities 
waiting for them 
that are native to 
the soil; and 
even there, the 
chance of coming 
upon some ap¬ 
preciable Spanish 
or Indian archi¬ 
tectural or sculptural relic is almost nil. It 
is not that there is any pretence nowadays 
of admiration for the conditions ot antique 
life, which means, for the purposes of this 
article, that of the Renaissance and post- 
Renaissance periods. Frank content with 
twentieth century comforts and possibilities 
prevails, but the American of to-day has 
learned to believe that the word old is syn¬ 
onymous with beautiful, and so he seeks an¬ 
tique benches and well-curbs and urns for 
his garden. 
Unless he be willing to spend freely, as 
already noted, he cannot get genuinely old 
and good pieces. The Italian field, which 
has sufficed for the steady and long-existing 
English demand, is being carefully gleaned 
by eager buyers. It has not yet come to the 
pass that the best Renaissance garden orna¬ 
ments in stone are as hard to unearth as 
paintings of the first rank by old masters, 
but with the new pressure ot American pur¬ 
chases this condition is within sight. Every 
time an old Italian estate is to be broken up 
American and English agents vie with Ital¬ 
ian dealers in get¬ 
ting first news of 
it,and expeditions 
are made to re¬ 
mote country dis¬ 
tricts for the sake 
of picking up a 
fountain, a crum¬ 
bling urn, a tree- 
tub, an old sar¬ 
cophagus, as if 
they were so 
many Correggio 
or Botticelli can¬ 
vases. So far, so 
good. But like 
the Nibelung 
treasures, harm¬ 
less and beautiful 
in themselves, 
these remains of 
a great past may 
tempt their cap- 
tors to artistic 
u n righteousness. 
The whole 
thing reduces it¬ 
self to a ques¬ 
tion of commercialism. People that can af¬ 
ford to pay two or five or eight thousand 
dollars for a garden ornament are numerous 
enough to absorb all that offers, but not to 
keep the machinery of the average establish¬ 
ment running at full power. Far larger is 
the public that wants to get its antiques, 
“ new or old,” at low prices. Suppose one 
finds that a font or basin that looks of imme¬ 
morial age to the uninitiated may be bought 
for $100, will he not be tempted? If he be 
a sudden and ill-prepared aspirant for garden 
honors, it is not difficult to fancy him writing 
his cheque and ordering the plausible object 
set up in his domain. He is but the mod¬ 
ern instance of a counterfeiter of antique 
ruins. 
The blame is not to be laid wholly upon 
the bargain hunter’s shoulders. The origi¬ 
nal sin was committed, in nearly every case, 
in Italy itself. Antique designs are more or less 
faithfully copied, the very chips and gouges of 
three hundred years of existence being repro¬ 
duced as nearly as possible, elaborate care 
being taken to rub down corners and break 
From the H. D. Gardiner Gallery 
A GOOD PLANT HOLDER 
An old Italian Sarcophagus with drain holes drilled in it 
From the Tiffany Studios 
AN ANTIQUE SARCOPHAGUS 
Found near Ravenna 
75 
