I don't exactly know (he has been dead so long) how many pictures he turned out, from first to last; but we will say, for the sake of argument, five hundred.

Not five of these are offered for sale, perhaps, in the course of five years.

Enlightened collectors of old pictures pour into the market by fifties, while genuine specimens of Claude, or of any other Old Master you like to mention, only dribble in by ones and twos.

Under these circumstances, what is to be done?
Are unoffending owners of galleries to be subjected to disappointment?
Or are the works of Claude, and the other fellows, to be benevolently increased in number, to supply the wants of persons of taste and quality?
No man of humanity but must lean to the latter alternative.

The collectors, observe, don't know anything about it--they buy Claude (to take an instance from my own practice) as they buy all the other Old Masters, because of his reputation, not because of the pleasure they get from his works.