Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves by Jacqueline Yallop Read Free Book Online Page B

What was cast out was usually immediately rescued, Janin went on to explain, by ‘a whole army of antiquarians. . . whose life and fortune are spent in collecting these scarce remains, in saving from oblivion these precious remembrances’. 2 Medieval and Renaissance art works could be picked up cheaply in junkshops and market stalls – everything from sixteenth-century furniture to prints by Dürer or Rembrandt, from armour and ceramics to marriage caskets. Across France, church silver pulled from the altars now appeared in auction rooms, and family collections were broken up and sold. Within a generation, a treasure trove of previously hidden, often completely unknown, objects became available: silver and tableware that had belonged to princes and nobles; paintings, tapestries and jewellery; precious religious objects and even entire walls, altarpieces and massive doorways torn from churches, private chapels and monasteries. Some of Europe’s most beautiful and valuable pieces were now appearing for sale to anyone who could afford them.
    By the 1850s, when the fashion for the leftovers of the French
ancien régime
had really taken off, Paris was the heart of the collectors’ circuit. Calling at a renowned dealers in Utrecht in 1869, Charlotte found there was ‘absolutely nothing’ because ‘he had 84 cases packed up for Paris’, and visits to the curiosity shops of Alicante in March 1870 were equally unsuccessful because ‘thebest things’ were all kept back to be sold to the French capital. 3 The violence of the Commune in 1871 interrupted Paris’s preeminence but the setback was temporary. By May 1872, Charlotte was noting that ‘all the great English dealers’ were again gathering at the Paris sales, and not long afterwards she was delighted to be finding so many promising shops. ‘We enjoyed our
chasse
very much,’ she observed. 4
    The Schreibers’ peripatetic lifestyle was not always so enjoyable, however. Charlotte’s journals include plenty of accounts of days when nothing was bought. The couple were sometimes ill, and frequently tired. The stock of worthwhile objects was often exhausted and dealers could be obstructive, rude or even mad. Disappointment was commonplace.
    The story of Charlotte’s gourd-shaped bottle at first appeared to be one such disappointment. It was February 1873 and, unusually, Charles was alone on a short trip to dealers in Holland, leaving his wife at home. We know very little about Charles as a partner in the couple’s collecting. Charlotte’s journals provide her point of view, and, although she sometimes records her husband’s opinion – referring to him always as C. S. – we learn little of his character. We discover most about his often precarious state of health, the apparently constant headaches, sore throats, inflamed eyes, undefined pains and exhaustion that may have been symptoms of an underlying and untreated condition. He was clearly as enthusiastic about collecting as his wife, however, and it may even have been his encouragement which first inspired Charlotte’s interest. Beyond this, it is difficult to be sure of the nature of his contribution.
    As a scholar, it is likely that he shared in the research that made their collecting of such value, but he never published anything. The impressive catalogue of the collection of English ceramics at the Victoria and Albert was written after his death and bears hiswife’s name. Like Charlotte, he clearly had an interest in politics and was elected MP for Cheltenham in 1865, but he lost the seat three years later and did not stand again until 1880, when he became MP for Poole without distinguishing himself on any particular political issue. Apart from his parliamentary role, he did not work. Charlotte herself suggests that he was often at a loose end: after a visit to the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, she noted: