My Few Things

My Few Things by Frederick Wedmore

Frederick Wedmore surveys the modest art collection he has assembled over the years, framing the essay as a defense of collecting with limited means rather than great wealth. He traces his first acquisitions, a small Varley drawing and a Morland mezzotint inherited from his great-grandfather, who had been friends with the earliest patron of an unnamed painter whose work Wedmore goes on to describe at length. He explains his preference for prints over drawings, arguing that fine prints can be had cheaply while still being full of artistic merit, and he describes the pleasures of comparing impressions and papers. He recalls buying his first print, a "Liber Studiorum" plate, after an exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, with his friend Stopford Brooke helping him choose the best impressions of "Hind Head Hill" and "Severn and Wye." He distinguishes buying "for the wall" from buying "for the folio," a phrase borrowed from the dealer Halsted, whom he remembers vividly from visits to his Rathbone Place shop, along with Halsted's less capable brother and the elderly dealer Mr. Tiffin. Wedmore discusses his holdings further, including an early state of "Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne, Morning" given to him by a friend, and etchings related to the "Liber." He explains his preference for fine impressions over rare "states," and extends his survey to other engraved works like the "Rivers of England" and "England and Wales" series, praising the engravers Girtin and William Miller. He laments that few wealthy English collectors pursue Rembrandt etchings, causing fine examples to leave for Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and American cities. He describes his own Rembrandt holdings, including a First State of the "Clément de Jonghe" portrait and a rare sketch sheet featuring Rembrandt's self-portrait, acquired from the Arozarena collection via a Paris shop run by "Monsieur Jules." He identifies his specialty as Méryon and Whistler etchings but warns against narrow specialization, mentioning Renaissance and German prints he also owns, such as Zoan Andrea's "Dance of Damsels." He expresses fondness for French Eighteenth Century prints by Watteau, Chardin, and others, defending the period against English disdain, and recalls visiting Philippe Burty in Paris and later Edmond de Goncourt at Auteuil, admiring Goncourt's renowned "Dix-Huitième" collection. He describes gathering ceramics (Worcester, Nantgarw, Frankenthal) and books, including an early "Lyrical Ballads." He details his roughly forty Méryon and seventy Whistler prints, tracing provenance of several Méryon impressions through French collectors like Bracquemond, Aglaüs Bouvenne, and the eccentric M. Wasset, whom he profiles at length. He contrasts Méryon's laborious, monument-like craftsmanship with Whistler's quick, vivacious sketching, and recounts Whistler's public jabs at him in print. He regrets owning only a few Seymour Haden etchings and discusses Legros's austere, unfashionable genius, naming specific plates like "La Communion dans l'Eglise Saint-Médard" and "Les Chantres Espagnols." He turns to Jacquemart's still-life etchings, quoting Browning on ornamented weapons, and recommends Jacquemart's porcelain and jewel series plus a Holloway-published folio as economical ways to enjoy decorative art through etching. He closes by praising younger etchers Frank Short, William Strang, C. J. Watson, Paul Helleu, and Charles Holroyd for their distinct qualities of draughtsmanship, imagination, and restraint.

By Frederick Wedmore · First published 1899 · Genre: Essays, Memoir, Art Criticism · 8,801 words

First lines

‘My few things! ' In the very title there is conveyed, I hope, some apology for writing of them. If I accept the invitation to do so, it is partly because I must needs know more of what they are -- they are ‘but poor few,' in Shakespeare's phrase -- than any one else can know; partly again because, as I am pleasantly informed, it may be interesting to certain readers to be told, for a change, not what can be amassed -- amassed and perhaps neglected -- by a millionaire who gives several thousand guineas for a modern painting, but what can be got together with merely ‘joyful trouble,' -- with pains, and waiting, and love of the things, and only a little money -- by a simple man of Letters, who happens to have been concerned, to some extent, with other arts than his own; and partly also because, connected with the few things that one has, there are associations, not few but many.

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art collecting · print collecting · etchings · Turner · Rembrandt · Whistler · Méryon · connoisseurship · modest means · artistic taste · provenance · print impressions

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