Excerpt from Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16, South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex
This collection of the Italian pictures, gathered together during the last thirty years in London, Paris, and Italy, represents the personal taste of its owners, Robert and Evelyn Benson, so far as their opportunities have permitted. Their pictures of the English school, consisting mainly of seventeenth-century portraits, landscapes by Gainsborough and Cotman, and works of Watts, Burne-Jones and Sargent, still await a catalogue.
They were inspired primarily by the example of two great collectors of the past generation, Mr. William Graham and Mr. Holford, of whom, and of one or two others, a few words may be said.
Mr. Graham could hardly resist any Early Italian picture, sacred or profane, provided it was reverent or true in feeling. With him conception was more potent than execution, and attributions were of secondary importance. Withal he considered it a duty to buy prudently. "Make up your mind," he said, "beforehand as to the value, and always put on a limit. Or, if it be a masterpiece and you want it badly, you may go up to double its market value, or even more! But be sure and think it out beforehand, and don't be carried away at the auction, nor rushed by a clever seller."
The capacity to plunge coute que coute for a masterpiece is one of the rarer virtues of the good collector.
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