The New -York Historical Society If he casually casts doubt about a certain attribution, you may be sure that before he is through there will not be a peg of genuineness left upon which to hang your hat. And yet it is all done so feelingly, so graciously, and so understandingly that it leaves no unpleasant impression — only a deep realization of having added to your store of knowledge. But when he recognizes deliberate falsification, no painter, no subject, no dealer is spared and his amiable disposition, his dry humor, and his quizzical smile have a hard time. He cannot condone the amount of speculation and arbitrary attributions that go hand in hand with commercial interests. He feels that no progress can be made without proper identification and that a critical re-examination of many of the paintings in supposedly fine collections would reveal an astonishing amount of unfair dealing. Now these are strong words, but they are no more than we owe to future generations if we are to counteract and correct many of the inaccurate deductions which have been made through hurried or casual glances at canvases and published with an authority they do not possess. Of course it would be fine if it ended there, but does it? A dealer recently showed us a number of photographs of paintings and asked if some of them didn't resemble the work of Stuart and Copley. Another dealer who chanced to drop in shortly after remarked that apparently it wasn't what they were, but what they could be made to look like, that counts. But you get the point and this article has chiefly to do with the importance of a society like ours to stress the need of continuous and conscientious study so that false attributions, whether wittingly or unwittingly made, may be recognized and corrected. Now, we do not contend that it is always possible to identify these early American paintings—far from it. Take our own portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, for example. When Mr. Sawitzky presented its slide upon the screen in one of his lectures he called attention to the fact that we could not