These plays are hardly new, however. They have been constantly acted and re-acted with creditable success and enlivening innovations. Formerly fools alone were the victims, rarely real collectors. To-day it is different, with the advent of the new type old distinctions have disappeared. Some among the many art collectors are intelligent in their work, and far from being beginners. They are outsiders, however. Let them look within the penetralia, into the mysteries, the hidden secrets of the trade so carefully concealed from them, and they will learn how little exaggeration there is in the saying that a large portion of the business in antiques and curios is tainted with fraud, charlatanism, etc., and that even some of the best collectors of our time have been deceived to such an extent that they live surrounded by their objects of virtu as in a sham El Dorado. One of the late Rothschilds, a man known traditionally and _de facto_ as a connoisseur, a type of genuine collector, used to say that all the objects of his collection were, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. Yet by the side of the finest masterpieces there were some in that collection which were, metaphorically speaking, wives that Cæsar would certainly have repudiated. [Illustration: _Photo_] [_Reali_ THE BATTESIMO. A Bas-relief by Sig. Natali, of Florence, bought by the Louvre as work of Verrocchio. Sig. Natali, a fine imitator of the Quattrocento, like Sig. Zampini, sells his products as genuine modern work even if the connoisseurs decide to believe them antique.] [Illustration: _Photo_] [_Alinari_ BACCHUS. By DONATELLO.] “I would no more admit forgeries to my collection than I would allow my wife to wear paste diamonds,” was the boast of a well-known collector of bronzes in Paris to a party of connoisseurs lunching with him. “But excuse me,” retorted a moralizing friend who was dying to reveal the truth to the “great specialist,” “no one is safe nowadays. There,” pointing to a bronze figure, “that is, what shall I say? a paste diamond! That object is a fake. I can tell you where it was cast. It was offered me very likely by the same fellow that must have palmed it off on you....” There was no trial, however, because the great bronze specialist recovered his money from the dealer--but, alas! not his unblemished reputation. Such stories are not strange when it is considered that museums are regularly infested by forgeries and spurious objects and that these have been admitted to public collections with the full approbation of learned curators and clever specialists. It is easy to estimate how rampant and keen faking must be now that incredible prices are paid for articles of virtu.