Binder, Faker and Artist

Abstract The sad story of how the collector John Blacker was deceived by the forger Hagué, masquerading under the name of Caulin, through the intermediacy of the bookseller Bernard Quaritch, has already been told. However, after the death in 2009 of Carmen Blacker, the great-grand-daughter of the unhappy collector, and the papers concerning her great-grandfather's library, that she had inherited, combined with some hitherto unexplored material in Quaritch's archive, further light has been shed on what happened to the collection after John Blacker's death on 6 April 1896 and the discovery by his son, Carlos, that his father's priceless library consisted of heavily over-priced fakes. Of particular relevance in this context is a number of ‘coffrets’, caskets in silver, leather, bronze, and iron, engraved, tooled or painted, enclosing some of the books and often offered at quite steep prices. Did Bernard Quaritch knowingly deceive his best client? What happened to Mr Blacker's books after his death? This article addresses these and other details in the light of the surviving evidence.