Note 32 — Chapter VIII

In those days it was certainly better to be a live artist than a dead one, for, a little further on among these pages, I came upon a marginal note of the prices fetched by three works of Meissonier, "Le Corps de Garde," "Une partie de piquet," and "Un jeune homme regardant des dessins," all of which had been in the salon of that year,[32] and each of which fetched 3000 francs. I should not like to say what their purchasing price would be to-day, allowing for the difference in the value of money. Further on still, there is a note of a picture by Alfred de Dreux, which realized a similar amount. Allowing for that same difference in the value of money, that work would probably not find a buyer now among real connoisseurs at 200 francs.[33] At the same time, the original sketch of David's "Serment du Jeu de Paume" did not find a purchaser at 2500 francs, the reserve price. A landscape by Jules André, a far greater artist than Alfred de Dreux, went for 300 francs, and Baron's "Oies du Frère Philippe" only realized 200 francs more. There was not a single "bid" for Eugène Delacroix' "Marc-Aurèle," and when he did sell a picture it was for 500 or 600 francs; nowadays it would fetch 100,000 francs. On the other hand, the drawings of Decamps' admirable "Histoire de Samson" realized 1000 francs each.