Garden Marbles from Abroad 
off projections, as though the weather and the 
petty accidents of centuries had left their 
scars. The next step is one that stamps the 
practice as indefensible. Diluted acids are 
poured over the stone, to eat away the sur¬ 
face in irregular patches, in imitation of de¬ 
cay. Finally, the calendar is put back for 
it by rubbing the marble in damp earth, and 
thoroughly impregnating its skin with a dingy 
color. For the result there is, of course, 
only one word. That word is counterfeit. 
So far as the writer is aware, no pretence is 
made by the few New 
York dealers carrying 
such pieces that they 
are genuine antiques. 
Prices range from $80 
or $100 for small exam¬ 
ples up to several hun¬ 
dred for large specimens. 
It is needless to say that 
no illustrations of these 
deliberate shams will be 
found in this article. 
To the connoisseur, 
the lack of enthusiasm 
and of sharp directive 
force in their lines, taken 
with their sodden and 
often disagreeable color 
and their capricious and 
unlikely imperfections, 
generally betrays them, 
but they are sometimes 
executed with dangerous 
skill. These are turned 
out of Italian marble 
cutting shops with sur¬ 
prising rapidity. They 
find their way, some of 
them, into the knowing 
but unrepentant hands of certain American 
dealers. Just how inexcusable this is may 
be gauged by the comparative excellence 
of honest reproductions in natural stone, 
such as the familiar bench from the Tif¬ 
fany Studios, New York, with winged lion 
end pieces, after a famous Venetian model. 
H ere there is no effort to make the marble 
appear older than it is. Set it in a garden 
or court, however, and a year of exposure 
to the weather would impose upon it a 
tone enriched normally and advantageously. 
The workmanship in this is thorough, 
though it lacks personality. Another good 
specimen is seen in a second bench. A 
third reproduction worthy of a place is a 
nearly spherical bowl, after an original in 
a Florentine museum. The modern copy 
has been done with a care and feeling quite 
rare, and the texture and color, that of old 
ivory, have been delightfully preserved. 
This bowl is cut from a solid block, and 
hollowed for only about half its depth ; its 
design is absolutely simple, and the scale of 
its ornamentation is so 
well chosen as to convey 
a sense of immediate 
harmony. 
This matter of copy- 
quite on a par with the 
reproduction by casting, 
of terra-cotta models, for 
garden ornaments, but it 
also may be justified, 
within narrow limits, by 
both theory and practice. 
When a craftsman of 
first rate ability repro¬ 
duces an ancient piece of 
stone in fresh material, 
the result may be as de¬ 
fensible and even desir¬ 
able as the copy of the 
Velasquez “ Las Meni- 
nas ” at the Prado by a 
creative modern painter. 
In each case, a new pub¬ 
lic is obtained for an 
object well worthy ad¬ 
miration, while the copy 
itself, under the hypoth¬ 
esis cited, may be a work 
of intrinsic interest and value. Again, the 
practical need of more than one example 
of a single design was often felt, even by 
the early gardeners. Look at Versailles, 
at Fontainebleau, at the Boboli Gardens 
in Florence, at the Villa Pamfili Doria 
at Rome — at nearly any formal garden 
on a large scale, and you find stone or 
marble urns and benches, repeated in fac¬ 
simile to fill out the needs of a decora¬ 
tive design. Probably, however, these 
were made by one hand, or set of hands, 
From the H. 0. Watson Gallery 
A GARDEN URN 
The central member old , the remainder modern 
76 
