Some counterfeiting is too laborious for profit, but it is marvelous to see some of the things that emanated in the early days from the shameless fake-factories of Pietro Fondi and others at Venice and in Corfu. The Sienese, too, were skilful copyists of the various trecento, quattrocento, and cinquecento objects of art. Terra-cotta figurines and Greek and Etruscan vases have ever been subjects for the hand of the forger and fabricator of antiques. Pottery and porcelain have always seemed to tempt art-forgers and imitators. The way of the collector of Chinese and other Oriental porcelains and pottery has been made especially difficult in consequence. Even Bernard Palissy is believed by some to have imitated the wares of Briot, and in turn imitations of these imitations were once acquired by a museum. In our own day Palissy’s own ware has been imitated by Lesnes, Barbizet, and M. Pall. Perhaps the London Jarman was the prince of fakers. He obtained undecorated Sèvres pieces from France and had a Quaker potter from Staffordshire, one Randall by name, add all sorts of delightful scenes. They were purchased by the royal family, who took the pieces on good faith as being Sèvres decorations. European enamels and early ivories have not escaped attention at the forger’s hand. When Sir A. W. Franks was innocently attempting to arrange the purchase of the _Diptychion Leodiense_ for eight hundred pounds in England, he discovered that this object was nothing more than a clever combination of copies of two other panels of unquestioned authenticity. And so things go merrily on, even in this day and generation. But your _true_ collector is one who studies the objects he collects and he is not likely to be easily deceived. Photography has stretched forward a helping hand and by means of enlarged photographic prints of a subject in dispute, the minute comparisons between authenticated and merely attributed works of a period may be studied. It was Juvenal who coined the name “_rara avis_”; and the impatient collector who would acquire a “rare bird” of art as it flies toward him from the horizon of opportunity must be sure he knows something of its “ornithology” before he rushes recklessly forth, perchance to put the salt of good money on some worthless tail.