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THE LIBRARY
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IRVINE
GIFT OF William C. Tesche
How to Visit the Great Picture Galleries
BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON
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LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART. THE GOLDEN ROD FAIRY BOOK. THE WILD FLOWER FAIRY BOOK.
DUTCH NEW YORK. Manners and Customs of New Am- sterdam in the Seventeenth Century. A GUIDE TO THE OPERA. A GUIDE TO MODERN OPERA. How TO VISIT THE GREAT PICTURE GALLERIES.
LA BELLE JARDINIERE— Kaphael
LOUVRE
How to Visit the Great Picture Galleries
By Esther Singleton
With Numerous Illustrations
New York Dodd, Mead and Company
1910
As/
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published, Mav. 1910
PREFACE
THIS book is compiled for the use of the art- loving tourist who wishes to see the most im- portant pictures in the great galleries of Europe. The tourist is always in a hurry: he wants to reap the greatest possible pleasure and profit with the least expenditure of time. Generally speaking, he allows two days on the average for seeing a city ; and of this time he cannot spend much in the Art Museums. Baedeker, for in- stance, allots less than one morning each to the famous galleries of Antwerp, Brussels, The Hague and Amsterdam. Therefore, in rushing through a collection of from six hundred to two thousand works of the Old Masters, the tourist wants to devote his attention to the most fa- mous only. He knows that every great collec- tion contains a number of mediocre works that are interesting only to students and historians of art, and that many pictures are falsely attrib- uted to and are not worthy of the great masters whose names they bear. The visitor, therefore, wants to see, first of all, the recognised gems of the gallery, the masterpieces whose fame has reached him, and the great pictures with which he has become familiar through photographic and other reproductions.
To get the best and most lasting impressions from a brief visit to a great gallery, the traveller should be in a measure prepared for what he is
vi PREFACE .
going to see. He cannot stand the shock of sur- prises. It is bewildering enough to see so many great and famous works one after another with- out a pause. The effect that absorbing such a feast of paintings has upon a cultivated and in- tellectual mind is graphically expressed by Haw- thorne after a visit to the Uffizi. He says:
" We looked pretty thoroughly through the gallery, and I saw many pictures that impressed me; but among such a multitude, with only one poor mind to take note of them, the stamp of each new impression helps to obliterate a former one."
In going through a gallery, it is well to enjoy the little as well as the great, not only for the sake of contrast and rest to the eye and the mind, but because the art itself is often of the first order. On this same visit to the Uffizi, Hawthorne also says :
" Until we learn to appreciate the cherubs and angels that Raphael scatters through the blessed air, it is not amiss to look at a Dutch fly settling on a peach, or a humblebee burying himself in a flower."
If the tourist knows beforehand what are the gems of the gallery he can go directly to those he specially wants to see, without losing any of the precious moments that, like the Sibylline Books, became more precious as they lessened in number.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to enable the tourist to satisfy these wants with the least trouble to himself. Out of the great mass of works I have selected what are recognised by all critics as the gems; and from the works of
PREFACE vii
art-historians and critics of authority I have se- lected passages descriptive of the pictures or that give an insight into the special points, fea- tures or meaning of the works. The visitor is often curious to know what it is that makes one picture more famous than others that his own taste approves, and is glad in consequence to have a critic point out the special qualities of tone, line, expression, or composition that ren- der it preeminent. It is interesting to know who the saints are that are represented in a " Holy Conversation " and why certain saints accom- pany the donors of a work. Such works as Bot- ticelli's Spring, Cranach's Fountain of Youth, and Raphael's Virgin of the Fish become more attractive when their subjects are elucidated, and such masters as Crivelli, Carpaccio, Bellini, Viva- rini, etc., are better appreciated when their qual- ities are emphasised by appreciative critics.
Some portraits owe their chief interest to the celebrity of the individual represented; some to the beauty of the artist's work ; and some to the mystery that surrounds the " unknown " subject. Other pictures have romantic histories, or have been special favourites with rulers and princes ; and still others have obscure subjects that need explanation by the informed.
Believing that the average tourist is desirous to know the opinion of the most authoritative experts and those discriminating judges who have studied the works and expounded their his- tory, meaning and beauties, I have drawn freely upon the English, French and German art-critics and hope that with their aid this little hand- book will be a practical guide to the traveller
Vlll
PREFACE
while abroad and a useful book of reference when he returns.
I wish to thank Mr. Arthur Shadwell Martin for valuable assistance in the work.
E. S. NEW YORK, April, igio.
ABBREVIATIONS OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED
W. A.— Sir Walter Arm- strong
J. B. A.— John Beavington Atkinson
B.— Dr. Bode
B-L— Sir Edward Bulwer-
Lytton
A. B.— Dr. A. Bredius C. B— Charles Blanc H. B— Henri Beyle J. B.— J. Burckhardt S. B. — Selwyn Brinton W. B.— William Burger Wm. B.— William Blake W. B. B— William B. Boul-
ton
C.— Crowe
C. and C.— Crowe and Cav-
alcaselle Ch. — Chesneau A. F. C— A. F. Calvert C. B. C— Charles B. Curtis E. T. C— Edward T. Cook H. de C. — Henri de Chen-
nevieres
J. C. — Julia Cartwright M. C— Maude Cruttwell
D. — A. Demmin
A. D. — Austin Dobson.
G. S. D.— Gerald S. Davies
C L. E.— Charles L. East- lake O. E. — Dr. O. Eisenmann
F— E. Fetis
F.-G. — Fierens-Gevaert
A. de F. — Abbe de Fontenai
E. F. — Eugene Fromentin
R. F.— Richard Ford
R. E. F— Roger E. Fry
A. G. — A. Gorling A. Gn. — Aime Giron
E. and J. de G.— E. and J. de Goncourt
F. A. G.— F. A. Gruyer
G. G. — Gustav Gruyer H. G. — H. Guiness
J. G. — Jules Guiffrey
T. G.— Theophile Gautier
H— Hiibner
E. H.— Edward Hutton H. H— H. Hymans J. B. S. H— J. B. S. Hoi- born J. G. H. — James Gibbons
Huneker
M. H. — Maurice Hamel M. Hew. — Maurice Hewlett M. M. H— M. M. Heaton S. and J. H— S. and J. Horner
ABBREVIATIONS OF AUTHORITIES
A. J. — Anna Jameson C. J. — Carl Justi H. J. — Henry Jouin
K— Kiigler
H. K— H. Knackfuss
K. K— Karl Karoly
L. — Lord Lindsay A. H. L— A. H. Layard C. R. L.— C. R. Leslie E. L. — E. Leclercq G. L. — G. Larroumet G. Laf. — G. Lafenestre P. L.— Paul Lafond P. Lef.— Paul Lefort M. — Eugene Miintz
Mar. — Marietta A. M. Andre Michel A. de M. — A. de Montaig- lon
A. Mic. — A. Michiels
B. M.— B. Meyer
C. M. — Cosmo Monkhouse E. M. — Emile Michel
E. W. M— E. W. Moes
F. M.-B.— Felix Mendels- sohn-Bartholdy
G. M. — G. Morelli
J. M. — Julius Meyer
P. M.— Paul Mantz
R. M.— Richard Muther
M. 0— M. Oliphant
P. — Passavant
B. P.— Betty Paoli'
C. P.— Claude Phillips M. P. — Maurice Pernot W. P.— Walter Pater
R. — John Ruskin
Von R. — C. F. von Rumohr
A. R. — A. Rosenburg
C. de R.— Clement de Ris
M. R. — Max Rooses M. Rey. — Marcel Reymond McN. R— -McNeil Rush- forth
J. R. — Sir Joshua Reynolds S. R— S. Rocheblave
A. S. — A. Streeter
C. A. S.-B— C. A. Sainte- Beuve
F. G. S. — Frederic G. Ste- phens
H. S. — H. Swinburne J. A. S. — John Addington
Symonds
J. S. — John Smith M. H. S.— M. H. Spielmann R. A. M. S— R. A. M. Stevenson
H. von T. — H. von Tschudi H. A. T.— H. A. Taine M. T. — Moriz Thausing
V.— Vasari
Vos. — Vosmaer
A.V. — Anthony Vallebregue
L. V. — Louis Viardot
W. — Dr. Waagen
A. W.— Alfred Woltmann
A. J. W— A. J. Wauters
D. W.— David Wilkie
F. W. — Frederick Wedmore
F. C. W.— Francis C. Weale
G. C. W— G. C. William- son
H. W:— Horace Walpole
J. F. W— J. F. White
W. H. J. W— W. H. J.
Weale
K. W— Karl Woermann Van de W. — M. Van de
Wiele C. Y.— Charles Yriarte
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE NATIONAL GALLERY — LONDON ... i
THE LOUVRE — PARIS 45
PALAIS DES BEAUX-ARTS — BRUSSELS ... 95
MUSEE ROYAL DES BEAUX-ARTS — ANTWERP 109
THE HAGUE GALLERY — THE HAGUE . . 124
THE RIJKS MUSEUM — AMSTERDAM . . . 140
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM — STOCKHOLM . . 172
THE HERMITAGE — ST. PETERSBURG . . . 183
THE BERLIN GALLERY — BERLIN .... 207
ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY — DRESDEN . . 235
THE PICTURE GALLERY — CASSEL .... 275
OLD PlNKAKOTHEK — MUNICH .... 285
THE IMPERIAL PICTURE GALLERY — VIENNA 310
THE VENICE ACADEMY — VENICE .... 339
THE BRERA — MILAN 355
THE ACADEMY — FLORENCE 362
THE PITTI PALACE — FLORENCE .... 372
THE UFFIZI — FLORENCE 392
THE VATICAN — ROME ...'.... 418
NATIONAL MUSEUM — NAPLES 430
THE PRADO MUSEUM — MADRID .... 436
INDEX 467
La Belle Jardiniere. Raphael . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Madonna of the Rocks. Leonardo da Vinci . 2
The Nativity. Botticelli 3
The Annunciation. Fra Filippo Lippi . . 6
Raphael and Tobias. Perugino .... 7
The Annunciation. Crivelli 14
Vision of St. Helena. Veronese .... 15
The Tailor. Moroni 20
Doge Loredano. Bellini 21
The Ambassadors. Holbein 32
Angels' Heads. Sir Joshua Reynolds . -. • 33
Mrs. Siddons. Gainsborough 40
Portrait of Himself. Hogarth .... 41
St. George and the Dragon. Raphael ... 48
Charles the First. Van Dyck . . ..;•',.. 49
Adoration of the Shepherds. Ribera . . 56
Parnassus. Mantegna 57
Marriage at Cana. Veronese 64
The Holy Family. Murillo ' 65
Anne of Cleves. Holbein
Cardinal Richelieu. P. de Champaigne
Gilles. Watteau •. . .• •.;
La Cruche Cassee. Greuze
Portrait of Himself. Fragonard .... Fecundity. Jordaens .......
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
St. Barbara. J« van Eyck 114
Christ as King of Heaven. Memling . . 115
Coup de Lance. Rubens 118
The Seven Sacraments. R. van der Weyden 119
Helena Fourment. Rubens 124
The Fiddler. A. Van Ostade .... 125
View of Haarlem. Ruysdael 138
The Syndics. Rembrandt 139
The Floating Feather. M. d'Hondecoeter . 148
The Spinner. Maes 149
The Country House. P. de Hooch . . . 156
The Water Mill. Hobbema 157
Dordrecht. J. van Goyen 166
The Parrot Cage. Jan Steen . . . . 167
Birth of Venus. Boucher 172
Salon of Rubens. C. de Vos 173
Virgin and Child with Saints. Francia . . 182
Madonna del Latte. Correggio . . . . 183
Girl with the Broom. Rembrandt . . . 192
Virgin with the Partridges. Van Dyck . . 193
Doge Going to Wed the Adriatic. Canaletto 204
Angel Musicians. J. and H. van Eyck . . 205
George Gisze. Holbein 212
Xurse and Laughing Baby. Frans Hals . 213
Madonna with the Finch. Diirer .... 232
The Sistine Madonna. Raphael .... 233
La Xotte. Correggio 240
Madonna della Catina. Giulio Romano . . 242
Christ Crowned with Thorns. Guide Reni . 260
Gallant Proposals. Metsu 261
Shepherd and his Flock. Paul Potter . . 276
Landscape in Winter. Rembrandt . . . 277
ILLUSTRATIONS - ix
Animals at Pasture. Paul Potter .... 284
Children with Garland. Rubens .... 285
Defeat of Sennacherib. Rubens .... 294
Rubens and Helena. Rubens 295
Still Life. Snyders . 308
Virgin with the Cut Pear. Diirer . . . 309
Virgin of the Cherries. Titian .... 320
St. Ildefonso. Rubens 321
Landscape. Ruysdael 330
Girl with Candle. Schalcken 331
Madonna of the Two Trees. Bellini . . 340
Presentation of the Virgin. Titian . . . 341
St. Ursula. Carpaccio 348
Miracle of the Holy Cross. Gentile Bellini 349
Marriage of the Virgin. Raphael . . . 356
Madonna of the Rose Hedge. Luini . . 357
Spring. Botticelli 364
Flight into Egypt. Fra Angelico . . . 365
Madonna della Sedia. Raphael .... 374
The Concert. Giorgione 375
The Disputa della Trinita. Andrea del Sarto 384
La Bella. Titian 385
Marriage of the Virgin. Fra Angelico . . 392
Salome with Head of John the Baptist. Luini 393
Madonna of the Magnificat. Botticelli . . 402
Madonna di San Francesco. Andrea del Sarto 403
Virgin and Child. Correggio 412
The Transfiguration. Raphael .... 413
Last Communion of St. Jerome. Domenichino 424
The Magdalen. Guercino 425
Las Meninas. Velasquez 436
Las Hilanderas. Velasquez . . . .. . 437
x ILLUSTRATIONS
j
The Little Bird. Murillo 444
The Immaculate Conception. Murillo . . 445
Family of Charles IV. Goya 452
The Holy Family ("The Pearl"). Raphael 453
Fruit and Animals. Snyders 458
The Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. Coello 459
LONDON
THE National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, was built on the site of the old King's Mews in 1832-8 and enlarged in 1860, 1876, and 1887. It was formed by Act of Parliament in 1824. To the An- gerstein Collection of thirty-eight pictures, the Rob- ert Vernon was added in 1847 ; the J. M. W. Turner in 1856; the Wynn Ellis in 1876 and the Peel in 1871. These, with various bequests and purchases, have increased the gallery to about fifteen hundred works. The gallery is one of general excellence. The gems are the Holbeins, Raphaels and Leonar- dos, but the Italian and Dutch Schools are particu- larly well represented and kept together. The pic- tures of the modern British School have been and are being removed to the Tate Gallery, which is an annex.
Duccio of Buoninsegna's Madonna and Child
is one of the earliest pictures in the gallery and one of the first in which the little Christ appears as a real child instead of a priestly babe. Here He is familiarly drawing aside His Mother's veil.
The Battle of St. Egidio, by Paolo Uccello (I397-I475)> is also one of the earliest pictures in the gallery; one of the first that represents a con- temporary event ; one of the first in- which portraits are introduced ; and, moreover, one of the first in which scientific perspective is apparent.
2 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
"Look at the young Malatesta riding into the battle of Sant' Egidio. His uncle, Carlo, the leader of the army, has just given orders for the Knights to close : two have pushed forward with lowered lances, and the melee has begun only a few yards in front ; but the young knight riding at his uncle's side, has not yet put his helmet on, nor'intends doing so yet. Erect he sits, and quiet, waiting for his captain's order to charge ; calm as if he were at a hawking-party, only more grave; his golden hair wreathed about his proud white brow, as about a statue's. The armies meet on a country road beside a hedge of wild roses ; the tender red flowers tossing above their helmets and glowing between the lowered lances." — (R.)
The Rape of Helen, by Benozzo Gozzoli, is a charming scene in which the landscape, with its mountains and cypress trees, strangely shaped ships, and temple, forms a beautiful setting for the episode.
" One can scarcely imagine a face or figure much less classical than that of the blonde with the retrousse nose (presumably Helen herself), who is riding so compla- cently on the neck of the long-legged Italian in the centre. The figures in the Temple are of a finer type, and the lady in the sweeping robe, with the long sleeves, who turns her back to us, has a simple dignity which reminds one less of Gozzoli's master than of Lippo Lippi or Masaccio. There is nothing so classical or so natural in the picture as the beautiful little bare-legged boy that is running away in the foreground. This little bright panel — so gay, so naive, s,o ignorant, and withal so charming — is of importance in the history of art. It is the first in which the artist has given full play to his imagination, and entered the romantic world of classic legend, and, with one exception, the first which is purely secular in sub- ject, and was designed for a ' secular ' purpose." — (C. M.)
Fra Angelica's Christ with the Banner of the Redemption possesses great decorative beauty and spiritual charm. Christ stands in the central
MADONNA OF THE ROCKS— Leonardo da Vinci
NATIONAL GALLERY
THE NATIVITY— Bo tticelli
NATIONAL GALLERY
f
LONDON 3
•<•
panel in the midst of the angelic host relieved upon a golden background. There are two hundred and sixty-six figures, no two of which are alike. On Christ's right are the Seraphim in red, on his left are the Cherubim in blue. The angel choirs are exquisite.
" With the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven." — (R.)
One of the most characteristic and beautiful ex- amples of Florentine Art is the Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ, with an Angel standing on each side of her. It is variously attributed to the School of Verrocchio, and to A. Pollaiuolo.
" It shows the most delicate appreciation of the beauty of the human body, especially in the hands and the heads of the angels. Hardly elsewhere shall we find hands so refined in modelling and so subtle in their curves, or faces of so sweet and childlike a loveliness. In the presence of pictures of so rare a quality, one does not need the au- thority of a great name to stimulate admiration. The perfection of the execution of this beautiful pic- ture, in which complete finish of the most delicate detail is achieved without a sense of over-elaboration, or diffi- culty, betrays a hand and eye almost as fastidious and highly trained as Leonardo's." — (C. M.)
Compare this with the Madonna and Child, by Lorenzo di Credi, a pupil of Verrocchio.
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Pollai- uolo, is one of the first pictures in which the human form is studied for its own sake.
4 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
" A remarkable and admirably executed work, with numerous horses, many undraped figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings. The painting has been more extolled than any other ever executed by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature to the utmost of his power, as we perceive more particularly in one of the archers, who, bending towards the earth, and resting his weapon against his breast, is employing all the force of a strong arm to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to the effort."— (V.)
Signorelli's Circumcision of Christ is notable for its stately architecture, and the fine grouping of the figures.
" This also is considered a wonderfully beautiful pic- ture; but the Child, having been injured by the damp, was repaired by Sodoma, whereby the beauty was much diminished." — ( V. )
The pictures by Botticelli reveal many sides of his genius. The largest is the Assumption of the Virgin.
" Original and grand in its conception, the wide expanse of sky being filled with great zones of the angelic hierarchy, and all the company of heaven, while below, and behind the figures of the Apostles who stand round the Virgin's tomb, we see the valley of the Arno, with the city of Florence and another town. The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest the invention of Botti- celli."—(C. M.)
The Nativity was painted thirty years later.
" In this picture we see that intensity of feeling, which is the peculiar characteristic of Botticelli, strained to its highest pitch. The fervour of the still Madonna, as she kneels before the Child; the extraordinary nervous tension which the artist has managed to suggest in the seated figure of Joseph; the rapture of the angels below at meet-
LONDON 5
ing their redeemed friends ; the ardour of the angels at the sides, who introduce the awestricken shepherds and kings ; and, finally, the wild ecstasy of the angels above as they dance around the throne, present such a picture of highly wrought emotion as even Botticelli himself has never equalled." — (C. M.)
Mars and Venus was probably intended as the decoration of a doorway for one of the Medici pal- aces. In Venus we may see a likeness of Simonetta. She half reclines in a graceful attitude, the drapery sweeping about her in rich folds. Mars lies asleep. Little Satyrs play with his armour, and one of them is blowing a shell in his ear to arouse him.
" How he revelled in the soft wavy lines of their curly- haired little flanks, in the curves of their baby arms en- twined at intervals round the straight shaft of the hero's spear. Their gleeful little faces faintly recall some of Fra Filippo's children's heads; and there is a distinct rem- iniscence of Botticelli's Pollaiuolesque training in the ad- mirable foreshortening of the warrior's face. The colour- ing of this panel is in the pale, cold tints that Botticelli al- ways employed for his decorative work, the darkness of the myrtles in the background being carefully calculated to throw up the lines of the lady's draperies and the contour of the nude figure."^(A. S.)
Among mythological pictures the Death of Procris, by Piero di Cosimo, is notable.
" In creating his Satyr, the painter has not had recourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a being half human, half bestial, and yet wholly real ; nor has he portrayed in Procris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animals and gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further remove the subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Floren- tine realism and quaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may be profitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism of the earlier Re- naissance."— (J. A. S.)
6 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
Fra Lippo Lippi's St. John the Baptist is a
Holy Conversation in which six saints appear.
" All these saints are also men, clearly characterised. Their heads are, indeed, more or less typical, but they are individual also. They are like portraits ' idealised,' as we say, in conformity with the traditions of the particular saints. The features and gestures of some of them were studied from men who were alive in Florence when the picture was painted. They have all different modes of ex- pressing their attention to the golden words which fall from the mouth of the Baptist. S. Cosmos looks up, S. Damian looks down, the eyes of S. Francis are fixed on S. John, those of S. Lawrence on the ground, or perhaps on the stigmata of S. Francis, S. Anthony stretches his right hand towards the speaker, S. Peter Martyr holds his up to his ear as if in fear to lose a word. Without undue familiarity, there is a sense of society; the feeling as well as the composition is bound in one by a tie of human sympathy." — (C. M.)
The Annunciation is a tender and poetic con- ception.
" Robbed of his nimbus and wings, the announcing angel is only a comely, round-headed Florentine boy with closely curling hair, who delivers his message with simple and charming grace, and she, the Virgin who receives it with so sweet and humble a courtesy, might be his sister. The whole composition is lovely and harmonious. The gentle bearing of the angel is beautifully echoed by the timid reverence of the Virgin and the note of delightful wonder which these figures strike is sustained at the same pitch throughout by the strangeness, the variety, and the beauty of the details. From the exquisite wings of the angel to the richly coloured marbles which floor the Virgin's little court, everything in the picture is pure and lovely." — (C. M.)
Raphael's Vision of a Knight is his earliest known work.
RAPHAEL AND TOBIAS— Perugino
NATIONAL GALLERY
LONDON 7
The Knight, sleeping under a laurel, sees in a dream the figure of Duty, purple-robed with book and sword, and that of Pleasure, decked in ribbons and a coral wreath, offering the sprig of myrtle, dear to Venus.
To his second 'period belongs St. Catherine of Alexandria, who leans on her wheel, and looks up to heaven with her right hand on her bosom, and her lips parted in ecstasy. Note the landscape and the beautifully painted dandelion that has gone to seed.
The Aldobrandini Madonna, also called the Garvagh Madonna, belongs to Raphael's third period.
The group consists of the Madonna, the Child and the Infant John the Baptist, to whom Jesus is handing a pink.
" In this picture, one of the gravest and most noble of Raphael's works, is seen, more than in all the preceding ones, the influence exercised over the artist by the beauty of the Roman women, so different from those whom he had painted in Umbria." — (M.)
The Ansidei Madonna was purchased from the Duke of Marlborough in 1884 for £70,000, at that time the highest price ever paid for a picture :
" In the centre is the Virgin seated upon a somewhat lofty throne and holding on her lap the divine Infant, whom she is teaching to read; to the right, St. Nicholas of Bari, in his episcopal robes and reading from a book, which he holds in both hands ; to the left, St. John the Baptist. The throne of the Virgin is surmounted by a canopy, and the background of the picture is a landscape with a fortified town, while the whole composition is in- closed in an arcade with massive pillars." — (M.)
Perugino's Virgin and Child, with St. Jerome
8 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
•
and St. Francis, is a beautiful example of this Umbrian master.
" Not even in the Pavia altar-piece is the peculiar virtue and true mastery of Perugino more clearly shown than in this work of his later age, which glows as if the whole air was woven of golden light." — (C. M:)
A greater work is the Virgin Adoring the In- fant Christ, with the Archangel Michael on the left wing, and Raphael and Tobias on the right. It was originally an altar-piece of six wings.
" Clear, calm, placid, perpetual vision far and near; end- less perspicuity of space, unfatigued veracity of eternal light, perfectly accurate delineation of every leaf on the trees and every flower in the fields (notice especially in the foreground, the ' blue flower fit for paradise ' of the central compartment). There is no darkness, no wrong. Every colour is lovely and every space is light. The world, the universe is divine ; all sadness is a part of harmony; and all gloom a part of peace." — (R.)
The right wing is one of the most beautiful ex- amples of the story of Tobias ever painted.
" The scene is of the simplest. It takes place in a land- scape shut in by quite low hills; and the two personages, the Archangel Raphael and young Tobias, are placed ex- actly in the foreground, upon a hillock sown with all kinds of flowers. The archangel is represented as a handsome and slender young man with fine blond hair falling over his shoulders. In his left hand, brought up to the height of his chest, the archangel holds a little box ; his right hand, with graceful action, clasps that of Tobias, who lifts his eyes towards his guide and contemplates him with a tender and submissive glance ; suspended by a string upon his right -wrist, the latter carries the fish, the gall of which is to restore his old father's sight. The painter has represented young Tobias in the elegant costume worn by the Italian nobility at the end of the Fifteenth Century. A nimbus encircles his head.
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" It would be impossible to carry any further than the old Umbrian master has done in this panel naivete and delicacy of expression, purity and correctness of drawing, grace and religious sentiment, tenderness and beauty of colouring, taste in the attitudes, and a strange and some- what peculiar charm; impossible ever to find lines that are happier or more delicate." — (P. L.)
One of the greatest treasures is Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks, which, like the Vierge aux Rochers in the Louvre, claims to be the original work (see page 53).
The influence of Leonardo is seen in Luini's Christ Disputing with the Doctors.
" This picture, besides its splendid colouring, is a good instance of that law of order or symmetry which is char- acteristic of all perfect art. The central figure faces us; there are two figures on one side, balanced by two on the other ; the face in the left corner looks right, that in the right corner looks left, whilst to break any too obtrusive symmetry, the head of Christ itself inclines somewhat to the left also."— (E. T. C.)
Titian is finely represented. His Bacchus and Ariadne always compels attention.
"Though as yet half unconscious, Ariadne is already under her fated star : for above is the constellation of Ariadne's crown — the crown with which Bacchus presented his bride. And observe in connection with the astronomical side of the allegory the figure in Bacchus's train with the serpent round him: this is the serpent-bearer (Milton's ' Ophiuchus huge ') translated to the skies with Bacchus and Ariadne. Notice too another piece of poetry: the marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne took place in the spring, Ariadne herself being the personification of its return, and Bacchus of its gladness ; hence the flowers in the fore- ground which deck his path.
" The picture is as full of the painter's art as of the poet's. Note the exquisite painting of the vine leaves, and
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of these flowers in the foreground, as an instance of the ' constant habit of the great masters to render every detail of their foreground with the most laborious botanical fidelity.' "— (E. T. C.)
" To Ariadne is given (say the critics) a red scarf to relieve the figure from the sea, which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, but for another of much greater consequence ; for the sake of the general harmony and effect of the picture. The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group ; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold, and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group ; accordingly, Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchante a little blue drapery." — (J. R.)
His Noli me tangere is:
" A picture deservedly celebrated for the expressive gesture of the figures, the beauty of its sycamore tree and landscape and its excellent preservation. This picture, from its earliness and the simplicity of its subject, is a good one to compare with those of Bellini and his earlier pupils."— (C. M.)
In the Holy Family, with a shepherd adoring, the Virgin and the colour of her drapery are rem- iniscent of Palma Vecchio. It is a work that marks the advance made by Titian in the treatment of landscape.
" Titian is never more charming than when he paints his figures in a landscape setting. The Virgin and Child zvith St. John and St. Catherine show this perfect accord
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between the figures and the sweet and harmonious sur- roundings, and all the charm that the beauty of sky and foliage can add to the Christian idyll. The sombre line of a forest dips and runs away on the right to join distant ridges that bar the horizon; meadows spread under the sweet and fine sky, streaked with rays through which angels pass in their flight: a work of exquisite grace, full of peace and silence." — (M. H.)
The Portrait of Ariosto by Palma Vecchio is by some critics attributed to Titian.
" The poet is dressed in the richest materials, and adorned almost like a beautiful lady, with a gold chain encircling his neck several times, and even a bracelet, but the rarest and most beautiful part of the picture consists in its expression. Its laurel background serves to com- plete the poetic symbolism." — (A. G.)
The Family of Darius, representing Alexander the Great surrounded by his generals, and receiving the family of the defeated Persian King, is called by Ruskin " the most precious Paul Veronese in the world." It glows with colour. The chief fig- ures are portraits of the Pisani family.
" The work is in itself a school of art, where every quality of the master is seen in perfection — his stately male figures, his beautiful women, his noble dog and even his favourite monkey, his splendid architecture, gem-like colour, tones of gold and silver, sparkling and crisp touch, marvellous facility of hand and unrivalled power of com- position."— (A. H. L.)
Of exquisite beauty is the Vision of St. Helena asleep at her window, while two cherubs appear in the sky with the Holy Cross.
" The head of the saint is resting gracefully upon her right hand ; her profile is delicious ; and from her parted lips escapes the soft breath of slumber. Her expression is
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of the greatest purity. All the charm of the woman is revealed in the curve of her neck, her ear and in her rich hair, a tress of which is falling upon her shoulder. The harmony of the lines and the harmony of the colours are one ; the careless attitude delights us ; and the work, wrought according to the relative importance of each of its parts, for the pleasure of the eye is complete." — (P. L.)
Veronese's Adoration of the Magi is
" A striking example of the old symbolical conception, according to which the Adoration of the Magi — the tribute of the wise men from the East to the dawning star of Christianity — was represented as taking place in the ruins of an antique temple, signifying that Christianity was founded upon the ruins of Paganism." — (E. T. C.)
In the Origin of the Milky Way, we have an example of Tintoret's treatment of classical sub- jects, which is still more characteristic, in the head- long flight of Jupiter, and the daring way in which the white tapering limbs of Juno are flung across the canvas.
" In certain qualities of light and colour, especially in lustre and variegation, it would be difficult to excel." — (C. M.)
The great Venetian exhibits his fiery spirit in St. George Destroying the Dragon.
" A sketch rapid and careless, but full to the corners with the rapid heat of a tumultuous conception in which earth, sky and creatures, living and dead are impregnated with the force of an august imagination." — (C. M.)
There are eight splendid examples of Crivelli ; perhaps the most beautiful of these is the Annun- ciation, in which is seen the inside of the Virgin's chamber, the outside of her house, and a realistic street scene.
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" His lively fancy has had its fullest play, and revels in a gorgeousness and elaboration of detail even beyond his wont. Fortunately for him, his imagination was not tram- melled by questions of historical accuracy or physical possibilities.
" Here, for once, also he gives us not only the incident, but introduces spectators, as was the custom of the Floren- tine School of the same period. Besides the frankly anachronistic bishop, there are several figures in the street dressed in the Italian costume of Crivelli's time. One noble-looking gentleman, dazzled by the sudden beam of light that strikes across the road, raises his hand to his brow, the better to investigate the extraordinary phenome- non. Still more naive and delightful is the little child who timidly peeps from a place of vantage at the mysterious occurrence that is taking place over the way.
" Thus we have the whole scene idyllically, even dramat- ically, rendered, as though we were present at an exquis- itely mounted play." — (C. M.)
Our Lady of the Swallow is another beautiful picture, taking its name, Madonna della Rondine, from the swallow above the throne. The Virgin's dress is magnificent and the fruits and vase of flow- ers are beautifully treated.
In another great altar-piece, No. 788, he has
" used the crown of a cherub's head as a decorative fea- ture on the base of the throne of the same picture. It is to be remarked that the beautiful festoons which decorate the base, though adjusted to resemble carved ornament, are meant for real fruit. They are tied with string and fastened with nails. Such ingenious and abundant fancies, if they do not make the greatest art, are full of interest and charm, and render the work of Crivelli fascinating in no usual degree, if only for its decorative detail." — (C. M.)
Bellini's Christ's Agony in the Garden shows Christ kneeling on a little hill, with His apostles in the foreground, and an angelic vision on a cloud.
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" We see for the first time an attempt to render a particular effect of light, the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with the lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining from the sky on hill and town — the first in which a head is seen in shadow against a brilliant sky." — (C. M.)
His Madonna of the Pomegranate is an early work. The Child is about to take a pomegranate from the Virgin's hand. On either side of the green hanging, which forms the background, the landscape is visible.
" In all his versions of the Madonna and Child, the exact shade and variety of the feeling are perfectly explicit and almost always distinct ; and the richness of his in- vention is shown by the perfect harmony of the particular feeling expressed by the mother with the pose and expres- sion of the Child."— (R. E. F.)
A masterpiece by Pisanello is the Miraculous Stag appearing to St. Eustache, famous for its beautiful treatment of animal life.
" The Saint himself riding out to the chase, reins back his steed, covered with rich trappings, as he sees before him a great stag with between his horns the Crucified Christ. Elsewhere in the picture a hound is chasing a hare ; in the marsh above herons are fishing in their quiet deliberate manner; stags are browsing; a bear climbs the hillside ; and every hair, every feather of these creatures is finished to perfection." — (S. B.)
Marco Basaiti's St. Jerome Reading in a land- scape, where walls and flowers rise on the steep hillside, should be compared with one by Catena, also a masterpiece.
" His period of penitence over, the Saint is seated in the study of the monastery which he built at Bethlehem, read- ing intently and engaged perhaps in his translation of the Scriptures (the Vulgate). The sense of retirement and
THE ANNUNCIATION— Crivelli
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VISION OF ST. HELENA— Veronese
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peace is perfectly given, and is undisturbed even by the presence of his lion, his dog and his partridge, who are en- joying a luxurious leisure. His figure is beautiful and full of serene dignity as he sits absorbed in his book with his slender hand raised to his forehead. The colour is pure, bright and clear, and the details are all painted with such truth and care that they might suggest the hand of a Fleming, except that no regard is paid to the reflection of colour. It will be observed that his cardinal's hat is blue." -(C M.)
Mantegna's Madonna exhibits a thoughtful and contemplative Virgin with the Child on her knee, and on either side the tall and earnest Magdalen and John the Baptist.
" The drawing of the bodies as well as of the draperies is worthy of admiration, and the extremities, especially the feet, are excellently treated. The figures, in the subdued dignity of their motions, and the bright clearness of their colours, stand out in a genuine poetic spirit from the back- ground of dark green orange trees laden with golden fruit, and the sky with its silvery clouds." — (A. W.)
The Triumph of Scipio represents Scipio re- ceiving, according to the command of the oracle, Cybele, the Phrygian mother of the gods. The de- tails show the painter's familiarity with classical traditions.
The Madonna and Child with Saints, by Er- cole di Giulio Grandi, is an altar-piece remarkable for its decorative details and splendid throne with sculpturesque ornaments on which the Madonna sits. Costa's Madonna and Child, also enthroned, has a landscape in the background that recalls Peru- gino.
Garofalo has a fine Madonna and Child En- throned.
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The Vision of St. Augustine, which refers to the lesson the Saint received from a child on the seaside trying to empty the sea into the hole he had dug. St. Catherine, standing by, looks into the sky at the Virgin, Child and angels :
" This picture is of that period of Garofalo's career in which he combined the powerful and full mode of painting by which Raphael's pupils from Bologna and Ferrara dis- tinguished themselves above the others, with the more noble expression, the purer forms and the grace of Raphael."— (W.)
The Virgin Enthroned and St. Anne is Fran- cia's best-known work. Little St. John with his scroll appears at the foot of the throne, near which stand three other saints.
The Piet^, in which the Virgin and two angels are weeping over the dead body of Christ, was the lunette for this altar-piece:
" There is no finer representation of the dread scene to be found in the whole range of Italian art. There is noth- ing in which pathos and sublimity are so happily blended, and in which there are no distracting elements to be con- sidered."—(G. C. W.)
Noticeable for its gentleness and sweetness is Girolamo dai Libri's Madonna, Infant Christ and St. Anne. The lemon tree, the trellis-work of roses, and the three little angels making music are beautifully painted. The slain dragon at the Virgin's feet is emblematic of Christ's victory over evil. This charming picture hung in the Church of the Scala in Verona next to the San Rocco of Cavaggola by Morando now also its neighbour. In the last, St. Roch, or Rocco, patron of the plague-stricken, has prepared to die when an angel appears to dress his sores.
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Other lovely altar-pieces are Marco Basaiti's Madonna of the Meadow, at one time attributed to Giovanni Bellini ; Cima da Conegliano's Virgin and Child with the characteristic hilly landscape of this master; Madonna and Child, by Paolo Morando; Sodoma's Madonna and Child with Saints; Beltraffio's Madonna and Child, recall- ing Leonardo in the languishing grace of the Vir- gin; and a Nativity by Romanino.
Sebastiano del Piombo's Raising of Lazarus was painted for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, for whom Raphael painted the Transfiguration. Both pictures were exhibited together ; and many persons preferred Sebastiano's, in which it is said that Michael Angelo helped him.
Correggio's Madonna della Cesta (Virgin of the Basket) takes its name from the basket repre- sented in the painting.
" The composition is quite simple, consisting merely of peaceful representation of domestic life. The Madonna is sitting in a charming landscape background, and has a basket near her containing linen and a pair of scissors. She has just put a little shirt over the Infant Jesus, who is sitting in her lap, and with the impulsive impatience of childhood throws himself side- ways in order to take hold of something. Joseph is at work carpentering in the background. Mengs praises in this picture the way in which Correggio has softened off the light to the background, the gradual melting away of the objects represented, till they are absorbed in the haze of distance. Everything looks enveloped in a soft veil of light and air. The refined and delicate management of the chiaroscuro constitutes the chief charm of the picture." — (J. M.)
Ecce Homo belongs to Correggio's mature period. " The genuineness of the Ecce Homo has been doubted,
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but quite without grounds. The treatment is wonderfully fine. Every nerve of the thorn-crowned Saviour throbs with bodily pain, as may be seen in the quivering of his lips and in his overflowing eyes; and the Virgin is rigid, as if in a state of convulsion or of half conscious- ness. At the same time there is a moral depth in this con- ception of pain, refined by the highest beauty." — (A. G.)
The School of Love, or Education of Cupid, is unusually fine in composition and grouping.
" Surrounded by a lovely landscape through the upper part of which appears the sky, are three blooming figures delineated in flowing outlines. Mercury, who is in a sit- ting posture, helps Cupid, who is standing near him, to decipher the letters of a paper that he holds in his little hand. Cupid is very zealous, and his unwonted efforts are displayed with charming naturalness in the constrained position of his delicate limbs. Close to him in a front view with her left arm resting against a tree, stands Venus, also winged, looking down archly upon the spectators. Graceful and easy, the attitude of her slender limbs is sug- gestive of rest. Her rounded and delicate form, though not derived from the antique, is yet of great beauty."— (J. M.)
Salvator Rosa's Mercury and the Woodman
is an illustration of yEsop's fable of the workman who threw his axe into the stream. Mercury is standing in the water, rebuking him for his folly. The picture is strikingly lacking in colour and the painter's choice of withered trees " is precisely the sign of his preferring ugliness to beauty, decrepitude and disorganisation, to life and youth." —
(R.)
Rinaldo Mantovano's Rape of the Sabines de- picts the attack upon the Sabines by Romulus and his followers, in the upper compartment, and the
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battle of the Sabines to recover their daughters, and the reconciliation, in the lower.
The Capture of Carthagena is a companion picture.
These two works were formerly attributed to Giulio Romano.
Guido Reni's Youthful Christ Embracing St. John is a charming study of children. Annibale Carracci's Landscape with Figures reveals the influence of Titian and Paul Bril. Canaletto's Eton College was painted about the same time that Gray published his famous ode. Canaletto's representations of Venice also have a lovely mellowness of tone.
Among the portraits, Andrea del Sarto's Young Man (supposedly himself) is particularly famous.
" The cool, sweet colour of the picture, and its silvery tone, distinguish it from all its surroundings, and the contrast is increased by its free but sure handling, the soft modulations of the flesh, and the broad scheme of chiaroscuro, which now begins to take its place as a prom- inent element in the composition of a picture. It is doubt- ful whether Leonardo himself ever succeeded so well in rendering the shadowed softness of nature as Andrea does in this picture." — (C. M.)
Of Moroni's splendid portraits, the Lawyer and the Tailor are masterly.
" If we take into consideration the excellence of its preservation (it seems as fresh in colour as the day it was painted), the crispness of its execution, and its spirited character, the Lawyer ought to be awarded the first place. But the Tailor, besides its beautiful and subtly gradated tones and its life-like attitude, has the great merits of ex- treme simplicity and naturalness. The action of the man, as he stays his shears for a moment to listen to a customer,
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gives the picture the charm of incident, the attraction of a genre picture added to that of a portrait; and so it has become, and deservedly become, one of the most popular of all portraits by an old master. It is perfect in char- acter, exquisite in tone, and completely intelligible to every- body— a beautiful picture and a peepshow into the Six- teenth Century, which tells us that the men then living were very much like ourselves. We meet Tagliapanni (for this was his name) every day in the street." — (C. M.)
Giovanni Bellini was eighty years of age when he painted the great portrait of the Doge Loredano. The personality of his model must have appealed strongly to so noble a painter.
" The likeness that Bellini has left us of this great Doge worthily reflects the serenity of his soul and the strength of his will. His aspect is dignified, his physiognomy is grave, and his mouth is firmly closed as if the lips were contracted, indicating decision. From the point of view of the matter of the painting, Time, that becomes the collaborator of men of genius, gives to their works that admirable tone that, so to speak, embalms and conse- crates them, has preserved intact the very flower of this painting, and we may also say its soul. This prodigious portrait is certainly the most beautiful of all the images that remain to us." — (C Y.)
A Family Group, by Lorenzo Lotto, consists of the artist, his wife, and their two children.
" Their faces have that glow of inner life so character- istic of the master. They are charming studies, especially that of the little girl on the table, whose expression of in- terest in the cherries has been caught with singular felicity."— (C. M.)
To the portraits belong Giorgione's beautifully finished Knight in Armour and Solario's Ve- netian Senator and Milanese Lawyer. The last two have landscape backgrounds.
Of the Flemish masters let us first note John
THE TAILOR— Moroni
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DOGE LOREDAXO— Bellini
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Van Eyck's panel representing Arnolfini, a draper of Bruges, and his wife, Jeanne de Chen- any, one of his most important pictures:
" This admirable and interesting piece represents the union of a man and woman dressed in state and hold- ing each other's hand ; the lady wearing a wedding-ring half way up her finger, and attended by a terrier of won- drous workmanship. Harder outlines and clearer general tones distinguish this from the painter's previous works ; yet in no single instance has John Van Eyck expressed with more perfection, by the aid of colour, the sense of depth and atmosphere; he nowhere blended colours more carefully, nowhere produced more transparent shadows. The carnation tints of the man's visage are more remark- able for these peculiar qualities than any previous ones. The finish of the parts is marvellous, and the preservation of the picture perfect ; and there are few things more won- derful than the chandelier which hangs above the pair, the bed and chairs, the floor and pattens, of the concave look- ing-glass, in which the figures are reflected, round the frame of which ten circular scenes from the Passion of Christ are painted." — (C. and C.)
His Portrait of a Man of mature years in black fur garments and rich red drapery on his head, is painted in such detail that the single hairs on his shaven chin are visible. Another Portrait of a Man, of a yellowish tinge, is also highly fin- ished.
Memling's Virgin and Child Enthroned (1475) is a beautiful combination of landscape and figures. The group is in a portico opening into a garden. The Virgin is seated under a canopy with the Child in her lap, and holding a book in her left hand. Jesus is touching the book with one hand and pointing to a little angel playing a lute on His right. On the other side is the donor with his patron saint, St. George, standing behind him,
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lance in hand. The garden is bright with flow- ers ; and the landscape, with its river, boats and castle, is charmingly treated.
The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, by Gerard David, is a sumptuous picture. The scene is a garden where the Virgin is seated in a nicely decorated chair, her long hair confined by pearls. St. Catherine, who leans forward to receive the ring from the Holy Child, is splendid in crimson and gold brocade, and jewelled crown. Beside her is the donor, Richard de Visch van der Capelle; and, on the other side of the Virgin, are Magdalen and St. Barbara.
" Beyond the wall to the right are some pretty bits of domestic architecture, which remind one immediately of Bruges. On the left are a palace and an unfinished octag- onal tower, bearing reference to the legend of St. Bar- bara. A squirrel eating a nut on the transom of one of the windows of the house on the right, a stork on the chimney top, and a bullfinch on the garden wall on the left enliven the scene and are painted with great skill. The jewellery, stuffs and draperies are rendered with David's usual skill, while the background, with its rich vegetation, vigorously coloured trees and picturesque buildings, is hardly surpassed by that of any of his other pictures." — (W. H. J. W.)
In a panel from an altar-piece, the landscape is fine and the vestments of the saints are marvellously painted. St. Martin's crimson velvet cape is a masterpiece.
Two Usurers, by Marinus van Romerswael, also called de Zeeuw (the Zeelander), is similar to works by Quentin Matsys.
Mabuse's Portrait of a Man, Flemish in type, with Italian Renaissance architecture in the back- ground, is a notable work.
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Family Portraits, by Coques, a group, consist- ing of a father, mother and six children in a gar- den,
" justifies the surname of the ' Little Van Dyck ' which has been given to Coques, for it nearly approaches that great artist in elegance and ease of design, in correct drawing and warmth of tone." — (W.)
One of the most celebrated works in the gallery is Rubens's portrait of a young lady of Antwerp, known as the Chapeau de Faille. As the hat she wears is beaver, Chapeau de Foil is probably the original title.
" The cast shadows and light local tones, the knowledge displayed in the treatment of the sunny reflections and the exquisite transparency and truth with which this youthful and beautiful head is rounded, produce an effect of which without having seen the picture, it is impossible to form an idea. Here we must confess that Rubens is the painter of light par excellence. The head is painted so con amore, the expression has so much life and fascination, that I willingly believe the tradition that Ru- bens fell in love with the young lady while painting her picture. The colour is heightened by the blue sky par- tially covered with thin clouds, against which the head is relieved. The black velvet stomacher, with the scarlet sleeves, and the arms crossed in an easy position, are most masterly and rather more broadly treated, as well as the bosom."— (W.)
A lovely work is his Autumn Landscape, with a view of the
" Chateau de Stein, the residence of Rubens, near Mechlin, showing as in a magic mirror the beautiful and fertile scenery of Brabant in all its luxuriant verdure, illumined by the morning sun. All that art could effect by means of single trees and by shadows of clouds, to pro- duce variety in an extensive level surface, is done here, while the execution is so minute that singing birds are
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seen upon the trees: the landscape is also enlivened by numerous figures of men and animals." — (W.)
Of the many equestrian portraits of Charles I. by Van Dyck, the one in this gallery is :
" A courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers — a portrait of the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the noble horse. Then in Charles himself note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage — with no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind. One remembers only, in looking upon this pic- ture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults." — (E. T. C.)
The so-called Portrait of Gevartius has often been described as one of the finest portraits in the world. Van Dyck used to consider it his master- piece and carried it about with him from court to court to show what he could do.
" The rather simplified, but very decidedly rendered forms, are expressed with the utmost skill, and so freely painted that the spirited touches of the brush may be seen. The admirable gradations are produced in a full local tint, which is very like Rubens. The swimming moisture of the eyes is wonderfully given. The marking of the bones and the modelling give the picture a very energetic effect, resembling sculpture." — (W.)
Horses is also very spirited and was probably inspired by the horses of Achilles.
Everyone is more or less familiar with the Old Woman (1634), aged eighty-three, the most fa- mous of all Rembrandt's elderly women.
" The harmony of the colour is only to be equalled by its boldness; on close inspection of the luminous flesh-tints we are amazed at the audacity of the tones, the touches of pure vermilion on lips and cheeks, the daring brilliance of high lights applied with unerring assurance, the resonance
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of colours juxtaposed without fusion, yet melting into harmony, and when viewed at a distance, vibrating in uni- son."—(E. M.)
In the Portrait of a Man (No. 243), the head alone is in full light.
" The most conspicuous colours are vivid brown and red. The features with the gray beard and moustache, though heavily painted, are well defined, and look almost as if chiselled by the brush, while the effect is enhanced by the greenish tint of the colouring. The face and the dark eyes in particular, are full of animation." — (Vos.)
The Portrait of Himself (1640) is
" Strong and robust with powerful head, firm and com- pressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance — altogether a self-reliant man, who would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popu- larity waxed or waned." — (J. F. W.)
Another Portrait of himself painted about thirty years later depicts the painter in a red- brown coat bordered with fur and a cap.
" It is distinguished from other portraits of Rembrandt by being in full light, and thus enabling him to display the skilful modelling with which he treated the truthful and transparent local tones of the flesh." — (W.)
The Woman Taken in Adultery is another great study in light and shade.
" Rembrandt has here made a remarkable use of his skill as a colourist in rendering the subject intelligible. The eye falls at once upon the woman, who is dressed in white, passes then to the figure of Christ, which, next to her, is the most strongly lighted, and so on to Peter — to the Pharisees — to the soldiers — till at length it perceives in the mysterious gloom of the Temple the High Altar, with the worshippers on the steps." — (W.)
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Perhaps a greater triumph is achieved in the Adoration of the Shepherds.
" The light proceeding from the Child has a most magi- cal and warm effect, which is rendered particularly strik- ing by the dark figure of a shepherd kneeling in the fore- ground directly against the brightest light. Compared with the divine light, that in the lantern of one of the shepherds is hardly perceptible. The arrangement of the eleven figures which form this composition displays the greatest skill. The main stress is here laid on the action and the effect ; the handling is therefore broad and sketchy, and the countenances not individually made out." — (W.)
A Woman Wading or Bathing (1654), is a study of Rembrandt's servant, Hendrickje Stof- fels.
" The young woman, whose only garment is a chemise, stands almost facing the spectator in a deep pool. Her attitude suggests a sensation of pleasure and refreshment tempered by an involuntary shrinking of her body at the first contact of the cold water. The light from above glances on her breast and forehead, and on the luxuriant disorder of her bright hair; the lower part of her face and legs are in deep transparent shadow. The brown tones of the soil, the landscape background and the water, the purple and gold of the draperies make up a marvellous setting alike for the brilliantly illuminated contours and the more subdued carnations of the model." — (E. M.)
A fine Portrait by Van der Heist is of a mem- ber of the Braganza family, wearing a superb blue brocade dress and pearl necklace.
Thomas de Keyser's Merchant and his Clerk shows the artist at his best.
" The merchant has his globes before him : he was one of those who had built up the riches of his country by foreign trade. But he is a man of taste as well as of business and the two things are closely united. His office is itself hung with rich tapestry and amongst the imple-
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ments of his trade, his plans and books and maps, is a guitar." — (E. T. C.)
The Peace of Munster is Ter Borch's most im- portant work. The Spanish ambassadors and the delegates of the United Provinces are represented in an old hall around a table on which the treaty is laid and all are taking their oath upon the terms agreed upon.
His Guitar Lesson, though not so important, is a piece of exquisite painting. Here occurs one of the painter's famous white satin skirts, worn by the young lady who is playing upon a lute. Her yellow velvet jacket trimmed with ermine is also a marvel of technical skill. The master is beating time and singing, and another man is listening. The room is beautifully furnished. The favourite pet of the day, a spaniel, is present. A spaniel also appears in Metsu's Duet where a woman is about to sing, and a man is tuning his violin :
" This picture has all the excellences of the master, who is distinguished above all of this class by a more spirited and freer handling, greater truth of nature and better drawing. It is besides painted in the warm, full tone which is especially valuable in his pictures." — (W.)
Turn now to Jan Steen's Music Master, a tiny picture of about a foot square, of delicate execution and fresh colour.
" A young girl in a yellow stomacher and blue dress sitting at the harpsichord ; her whole soul seemingly in the music, on which the master is making some observation ; behind is a boy with a lute." — (W.)
The works of Nicholas Maes here, The Cradle,
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the Dutch Housewife, the Idle Servant and the Card Players, are all masterpieces.
" The Cradle is an excellent specimen of warm harmony of tone. The flesh tones vie with the red carpet in glow of colour. The execution is very solid." — (W.)
" There are few pictures in the National Gallery before which I find myself more often standing than at this. The Dutch Housewife sits intently engaged in scraping a pars- nip, whilst the child stands by her side watching the process as children will stand and watch the most ordinary opera- tions, with an intensity of interest, as if the very existence of the whole world depended on the exact manner in which that parsnip was scraped." — (C. R. L.)
The Idle Servant-Maid is a humorous story in paint.
" A girl is looking out laughingly at the spectator, draw- ing his attention to a cookmaid, who is sitting sleeping, surrounded by her scattered utensils. A cat is about to steal a duck ready for the spit. Behind in chiaroscuro are the family at table. This picture is on.e of the chefs d'ccuvre of the master, who, for warmth of tone and ex- cellent impasto, is worthy to be called the Cuyp of genre- painters. — (W.)
The Card Players is so fine that it has been at- tributed to Rembrandt, and Fabritius. A young man and woman are seated at a table playing cards. It is the woman's turn to play. The man wears a black furred cloak covering a grey and silver doub- let, and the girl is dressed in red with slashed sleeves. The figures are life size, which is unusual for Maes.
Pieter de Hooch has three splendid works :
A Dutch Courtyard ; Court of a Dutch House ; and a Dutch Interior.
The first in its neatness and cheerful colour re- flects the happy Dutch home; in the Dutch In-
LONDON 29
terior two men are seated at a table; and the Court of a Dutch House represents a courtyard in Delft, where the wife stands in the porch under the vine leaves to await the husband's return while a servant is bringing the child to complete the happy group.
Three charming works by Netcher demand at- tention, all being of the first order, and the treat- ing of children in which he was particularly suc- cessful. Maternal Instruction depicts a girl be- ing taught to read while another plays with the dog. Another picture represents two boys blowing bub- bles ; and the third, a pretty girl, in white satin dress and fur-trimmed jacket, meditating by her spinning-wheel.
Wouvermans's Interior of a Stable is one of his finest works; a Battle, remarkable for trans- parency and careful detail. La Belle Laitiere depicts an officer who has alighted in front of a sutler's booth and is caressing the attractive milk- maid, unmindful of the companion on horseback and a trumpeter:
" This picture combines that delicate tone of his second period with the great force which he adopted especially towards the end of it. The effect of the dark figures re- lieved against the landscape is extraordinary." — (W.)
Paul Potter is at his best in a Landscape and Cattle.
" Under a group of trees are seen on one side four cows, a sheep and a horse, with a peasant ; on the opposite side two other men unloading a cart, and eleven sheep. Other cattle are dispersed on a meadow in the background. The evening sun uniting glowing lights with deep shadows, heightens the effect of this picturesquely arranged piece, which combines the master's plastic precision of forms
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with softness, his solid impasto with great warmth and clearness of colouring, and is, therefore, one of his choicest specimens." — (W.)
Cuyp's Horseman and Cows in a Meadow is
also a masterpiece. The landscape is in bright warm morning light ; two cows lie in the fore- ground, and a woman is talking with a horseman, while around her are a flock of sheep and three dogs. The bright golden tones are reflected in the river.
On the Meuse is charming with its reflections in the water; and the beautiful Ruined Castle in a Lake depicts
" an old castle with towers, gilded by the most glowing evening sun reflected in the clear water by which it is sur- rounded. In the background, misty mountains ; in the fore- ground, in happy contrast, a horseman on a black horse, and some sheep. Few pictures excite in so high a degree the poetical feeling of the silence of a fine summer evening, with the melancholy sense of a time long past." — (W.)
Many of the best pictures by William Van de Velde hang here.
" Of his calm seas Nos. 149, 870, 871 and 874 are most charming for delicacy of finish and tenderness of tone. Breezy seas are admirably represented in 872, 873 and 875. Gales of wonderful skill and truth are Nos. 150 and 876." -(C.)
In one work he had the help of his brother.
" The coast of Scheveningen, with the sea gently agitated in the evening light. The numerous figures are by Adriaen Van de Velde. The union of these two great masters makes this one of the most charming pictures of the Dutch school."— (W.)
A Winter Landscape, by Adriaen Van de
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Velde, shows a frozen canal with numerous fig- ures skating and sleighing. It is
" admirably drawn, touched with great spirit, and of a very pleasing, though for the subject perhaps too warm a tone."— (W.)
The Ford is also a fine work of this painter's middle period. It represents a herdsman and wo- man with their cattle crossing a ford.
" The composition very tasteful and the contrast be- tween the concentrated mass of light and the clear half shadow, which is repeated in soft broken tones upon the horizon, is very attractive. The colouring is warm and the execution highly finished without being smooth." — (W.)
Adriaen Van de Velde also contributed the fig- ures to the beautiful Landscape by Philip de Ko- ninck.
Adriaen van Ostade's Alchymist is one of his best productions.
" An Alchymist surrounded with various instruments, blowing the fire under a crucible. His family, meantime, do not appear to be very well off. A boy on the ground is eating a piece of bread ; a little girl is seeking something to devour; the mother, who in the original state of the picture was washing a child, is now looking into a basket. If Teniers is the greatest master in silvery tones and cold colours, Adriaen Ostade is the same in golden tones and in the scale of warm colours. As such he proves himself in this picture, which is one of the most perfect that he ever painted. The effect of light in the foreground is striking, the predominant golden tone of extraordinary brightness and clearness, the execution equally careful and spirited, and the contrast of the deep, chiaroscuro in the background has a peculiar charm." — (W.)
Isaac van Ostade's Village Scene in Holland is a perfect picture of its kind.
" A man on a grey horse riding past a house followed
32 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
by two dogs, one of which is caressed by a boy. On the other side of the picture are two pigs; in the very pic- turesquely arranged middle distance are peasants and cat- tle. This delicately drawn picture combines the greatest solidity with the most spirited execution, and the finest 5m- pasto with the greatest glow and depth of tone." — (Wf)
A Canal Scene in Winter is vivid with toil and pleasure.
" The great truth, admirable treatment, and fresh feeling of a winter's day, expressed in this piece render it one of the chefs d'oeuvre of the master." — (W.)
Gerard Dow's best work here has for its subject an old woman at an open window chaffering with a girl over a hare; two other persons and a variety of accessories.
" One of the most pleasing works of the master ; for, besides the extreme finish in which he holds the first place, it surpasses many of his other pictures in its unusual clearness and in the agreeable and spirited heads." — (W.)
The gallery is particularly rich in the works of Hobbema. Here we find a Forest Scene, with a piece of water in the foreground ; a Water-Mill on a broad stream, covered with plants and ani- mated by ducks, and several cottages among the trees; the Ruins of the Castle of Brederode, strongly lighted by a sunbeam and reflected in the dark water; and the Avenue of Middelharnais, which is described as follows:
" Some small and slender trees, branchless almost to their tops, border the two sides of a road, which occupies the centre of the picture, and extend all the way to a vil- lage which closes the horizon with several masts and hulls of ships in profile against a sky where the sun is veiled ; to the right, a nursery-garden of shrubs and rose-trees separ- ated from the road by a wide ditch full of water ; then, in the middle distance, the buildings of a farm; to the left,
THE AMBASSADORS— Holbein
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ANGELS' HEADS— Sir Joshua Reynolds
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a clump of trees and another ditch, and further back the spire of a church; a huntsman, with a gun on his shoulder and preceded by his dog, is walking on the road, and two peasants — a man and a woman — have stopped to chat on the path that leads across to the farm ; a horticulturist is grafting the shrubs in the nursery-garden; and this corner of a landscape has sufficed for Hobbema to produce a masterpiece.
" What is most admired in this picture? Is it the firm- ness of touch, the brilliancy of the key, the ease and breadth of execution without the slightest sign of hesitation or al- teration, or the extraordinary perfection with which the perspective is rendered? We do not know. Despite the complexity of the subject, the general effect of the picture is simple and powerful, and the gradation of colour har- monious and correct. It would be impossible to go any farther than this artist has done in the interpretation of this tranquil Dutch landscape. The deep values of the trees, the yellowish greys of the road, and the sluggish water of the ditches, together with the blue sky flecked with little grey and white clouds, produce an ensemble of absolute calm. The little figures which give life to this canvas are so fine and delicate in execution that they leave nothing to be desired. Here, as very rarely happens, the multiplication of details does not spoil the effect of the whole. This is a picture absolutely without a peer, and a page by itself in Hobbema's work." — (P. L.)
Vase of Flowers, by Jan Van Huysum, contain- ing peonies, iris, hyacinths, narcissus, carnations, polyanthus, roses, convolvulus, apple-blossoms and other flowers and fruits, is a beautiful pic- ture. Hollyhocks and Other Flowers is also a work of great beauty.
Velasquez appears in works of varied subject. First come two portraits of Philip IV. of Spain, one representing him in middle age, and the other younger, and with the Order of the Golden Fleece around his neck.
" The smaller picture might be called in the art-slang of
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to-day 'a harmony in black-and-gold ' ; this, from the shimmer on its lace and the flashing on the rapier-hilt ' a harmony in black and silver.' " — (E. T. C.)
Here, too, is Admiral Pulido Pareja so life- like that it is said that the King who had or- dered him to sea, on entering Velasquez's studio and seeing this portrait exclaimed : " What ! still here ! " thinking it was the Admiral himself.
The Wild Boar Hunt is doubly interesting for its splendid execution and its reproduction of a court pastime. The hunting-party is in a royal en- closure, with the huntsmen and followers and car- riages for the ladies. The two dogs in the left- hand corner are marvellously depicted.
The Adoration of the Shepherds, an early work, shows the influence of Ribera and Cara- vaggio.
" In the distance is the guiding angel as the star of the Epiphany ; but there is little adoration in the rough peasant group. It is, however, a pretty piece of observation of child nature that makes Velasquez paint the boy offering his animals to the infant Christ."— (E. T. C.)
More famous is Christ at the Column.
" An intensely dramatic rendering of the central lesson of Christianity. The absence of all decorative accessories concentrates the attention at once on the figure of the Divine sufferer — bound by the wrists to the column. His hands are swollen and blackened by the cords; the blood has trickled down the shoulder, and the scourges and rod have been flung contemptuously at his feet. Yet abnega- tion of self and Divine compassion are stamped indelibly on his countenance, as he turns his head to the child who is kneeling in adoration. The guardian angel behind bids the child approach the Redeemer in prayer (hence the alternative title that has been given to the picture, The Institution of Prayer)."— (E. T. C.)
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In this gallery Murillo is strong in quality though weak in numbers. St. John and the Lamb is a tender idyl. The Holy Family is a late work in the master's vaporoso manner. The Spanish Peasant Boy is a youthful Bacchus of the soil.
One entire room is chiefly devoted to the land- scapes of Claude Lorrain and the two Poussins. It is interesting to note that Turner left the Sun Ris- ing in a Mist and Dido Building Carthage to the British nation on condition that they should hang side by side with Claude's Isaac and Re- becca and the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. The former is a version of the Mill in the Doria Palace in Rome. Like all of Claude's works, the subjects and figures are subordinate to the land- scape. The Queen of Sheba, starting on her journey in the early morning, is considered one of Claude's masterpieces. The Embarkation of St. Ursula also forms an excuse for an ideal sea-port ; its quiet sky is greatly admired by critics.
The Classical Landscape and David at the Cave of Adullam also exhibit the characteristics of this painter.
" Claude had a fine feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage. His tenderness of con- ception is especially shown in delicate aerial effects, such as no one had ever rendered before, and in some respects, no one has ever done in oil colour since. Thus a perfectly genuine and untouched sky of .Claude is beyond praise in all qualities of air. But he was incapable of rendering great effects of space and infinity. As with his skies, so too with his seas. They are the finest pieces of water painting in ancient art. But they are selections of the par- ticular moment when the sea is most insipid, and char- acterless."— (J. R.)
Nicholas Poussin's Bacchanalian Festival pre-
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sents all the wild ecstasy of man, maidens, gods and mortals, in the Vales of Arcady.
" His best works are his Bacchanalian revels, always brightly wanton, full of frisk and fire; but they are coarser than Titian's and infinitely less beautiful." — (R.)
Caspar Poussin's Calling of Abraham, in which a somewhat grotesque angel accosts Abraham and points to God seated in the clouds, is notable for its vast space of sky stretching far away into the yel- low horizon. Some critics consider his Sacrifice of Isaac a still better picture. Here Abraham and Isaac are ascending the hill, the former carrying a lighted torch and the latter the wood, while the servants await Abraham's return.
" The whole spirit of the picture is solemn and un- broken in perfect harmony with the subject." — (E. T. C.)
Of several by Greuze The Head of a Girl, look- ing up, and Girl with an Apple; and Sophie Arnould, are the most famous examples.
" In the portrait of Mile. Sophie Arnould, there is, no doubt, a touch of the poseuse — there is the affectation of the pretty woman, who, with all her consummate wit and self-command, could not quite lose her self-consciousness when standing before the easel of the painter. Greuze shows her for what she is. The jaunty pose of the hat, the quiet confidence of the sitter, the grace, half-studied, half- natural, the lack of ' that,' as the French say, which gives the perfect grace of the well-bred woman, all proclaim the attributes of the actress who sprang into the dazzling light of the joyous world in Eighteenth Century France, and fizzled out at the end of it."— (M. H. S.)
The Ambassadors is the most important of all Holbein's existing portraits.
" In charm it may yield to the Darmstadt Madonna or to the Duchess of Milan, in perfection of artistic unity to such
LONDON 37
things as the Moretie at Dresden, the Gisze at Berlin, or even the Duke of Norfolk at Windsor; but in colour and in that extraordinary instinct which enabled Holbein to give his work a look of subordination when in fact it has none, it yields to nothing he ever did.
" Of the two ' Ambassadors,' one is vastly more impor- tant than the other. His costume of crimson silk, white fur, and some black stuff, makes a brave show, and over- whelms the modest richness of the younger man's robe of greenish-brown brocade. The accessories arranged on his left include a terrestrial and a celestial globe, and various instruments used in astronomy. The younger man wears a doctor's cap, but the rest of his costume does not seem to belong to any particular office or degree. The attributes of this second figure seem to proclaim him a musician. A lute, a joined flute, an open book with the words and music of a popular German chorale, lie upon the lower shelf of the what-not. Low down, behind the principal figure, appears the inscription ' JOANNES HOLBEIN, PINGE- BAT, 1533.' The background is a curtain of green silk brocade. With the deep blue-green of the celestial globe and the crimson sleeve beside it, it makes up the finest colour passage in the picture." — (W. A.)
Hogarth's series, The Marriage A-la-Mode,
deserves earnest study for the beautiful colours, the fine composition and the wealth of detail in each picture so finely subordinated to the episodes and characters.
" The plot, like that of all masterpieces, is extremely simple. An impoverished nobleman who marries his son to a rich citizen's daughter ; a husband who, pursuing his own equivocal pleasures, resigns his wife to the tempta- tions of opportunity ; a foregone sequel and a tragic issue : — this material is of the oldest, and could make but slen- der claim to originality. Submitted to Colman or Garrick as the scenario of a play for Yates and Mrs. Woffington, it would probably have been rejected as pitifully thread- bare. Yet combined and developed under the brush of Hogarth, set in an atmosphere that makes it as vivid as nature itself, decorated with surprising fidelity, and en- livened by all the resources of the keenest humour, it
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passes out of the line of mere transcripts of life, and, re- taining the merits of the specific and particular, becomes a representative and typical work, as articulate to-day, as direct and unhesitating in its teaching, as it was when it was first offered to the world. These paintings of William Hogarth are well-nigh as fresh to-day as when, new from the easel, they found their fortunate purchaser in Mr. Lane of Hillingdon. They are soundly, straightforwardly, and skilfully executed. Everywhere the desired effect is exactly produced and without effect." — (A. D.)
Lavinia Fenton appears as Polly Peachum in the Beggar's Opera.
" Her dress is green, with shoulder-bands and facings of brownish red. She has dark sparkling eyes and red lips ; but a certain want of regularity in her features suggests that her charm must have been chiefly in her voice and ex- pression."— (A. D.)
Hogarth's wife was the model for Sigismonda, who is about to poison herself, having received her lover's heart.
The lovely Angels' Heads belongs to the close of Sir Joshua's life. The artist was commissioned by Lord William Gordon to paint a portrait of his little daughter, Isabella.
Reynolds began his studies, and
" from the fresh face of Isabella Gordon, he successively made five studies, one representing the little girl full face, and the others showing her in profile and three-quarters full. Having thus obtained five similar heads, for they reproduced the same type, though slightly differing in ac- cordance with the altered position of the model and the direction of the light, he added a portion of wing here and there, and introduced appropriate light and vaporous clouds here and there, and gathered these heads into a bouquet, like an angelical group worthy of figuring in an Assumption, and to mount into the skies in the train of the triumphant Virgin.
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"In the Angels' Heads, Reynolds" no longer thinks of imitating the Old Masters; he is entirely under the influ- ence of the artists of his own time, and the good workers of the reign of Louis XVI., who, like Fragonard in his lively sketches, sought lightness of touch above every- thing else. There is no heavy pigment nor useless layers, but everywhere a flowery freshness and spontaneous suavity in this picture that seems to be composed only of the deli- cate petals of a flower." — (P. M.)
Among the portraits of children, the Infant Samuel, the model for which was a little orphan boy that Sir Joshua found in the streets, and The Age of Innocence are deserving of their great popularity.
" The landscape in the distance of The Age of Innocence is as thoroughly in keeping with the subject as it can be: thus here are fields easy to traverse, a few village elms, and just seen above their tops the summits of habitations, — the hint is thus given that the child, all innocent as she is, has not gone far from home, or out of sight of the household to which she belongs." — (F. G. S.)
Robinette, with her arch face and pet bird, is a fancy portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Tollemache, and the Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen are fanciful portraits of the daughters of Sir William Montgomery.
"" If you examine the picture of the Graces you will find it reverses all the ordinary ideas of expedient treat- ment. By other men flesh is firmly painted, but accessories lightly. Sir Joshua paints accessories firmly, flesh lightly; — nay, flesh not at all, but spirit. The wreath of flowers lie feels to be material ; and gleam by gleam strikes fear- lessly the silver and violet leaves out of the darkness. But the three maidens are less substantial than rose petals. No flushed nor frosted tissue that ever faded in the night- wind is so tender as they; no hue may reach, no line measure, what is in them so tender and so fair." — (R.)
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The Portrait of Lord Ligonier, on his pranc- ing horse, also, is one of Sir Joshua's most famous productions. He used to say that the effect which pleased him most in all his pictures was that shown in Lord Ligonier, the chiaroscuro of which he found suggested in a rude wood-cut upon a half-penny ballad.
Lady Albemarle and Her Two Daughters is another of his most graceful works.
The most famous Gainsborough in the gallery is the portrait of Mrs. Siddons.
" According to the opinion of Leslie and Tom Taylor, biographers of the painter of the Tragic Muse, Reynolds was outdistanced by Gainsborough in the interpretation of Mrs. Siddons's features. With the former, the model and the pose are apparent; with the second, nature is not on her guard, and allows herself to be surprised. Mrs. Sid- dons was twenty-nine when Gainsborough obtained per- mission to paint her portrait. She is in street costume, sitting, at half-length, and seen nearly in profile; a dress of blue and white stripes, a shawl with golden reflections envelops the slender body of this young woman ; and a black hat, surmounted with a feather of the same colour, is placed on the head and brings out the dead whiteness of the face ; the eye, with its penetrating expression, looks into space and seems disdainful of the spectator's admira- tion. The resolution, the character and also the great tranquillity of the soul, and a self-possession that nothing can disturb distinguishes this severe and quiet image. Visitors to the National Gallery remain spellbound by the facility that the painter has shown in this picture." — (H. J.)
The Family Group (the Baillies of Ealing Grove) was considered by Ruskin the best Gains- borough in England.
" His hand is as light as the sweep of a cloud, as swift as the flash of a sunbeam. His forms are grand, simple,
MRS. SIDDONS— Gainsborough
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HOGARTH'S PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF
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LONDON 41
ideal. He never loses sight of his picture as a whole. In a word, Gainsborough is an immortal painter." — (R.)
Musidora Bathing Her Feet is the only nude figure that Gainsborough ever painted. It illus- trates the line from Thomson's Summer:
" This cool retreat his Musidora sought."
Gainsborough painted portraits for money, and landscapes because he loved them, and the Suffolk woods always seemed to him the most beautiful in the world. His scenes are simple: market-carts, horses in the fields, woodcutters going home to sup- per, girls with pigs and other rustic figures are his limited subjects. We find here several versions of a Watering Place. Other rural scenes are Gains- borough's Forest, with a view of a church through the trees; Country Children; and the Market Cart.
Turning now to Constable's works, we find the House in which the Artist was Born; the Cornfield; The Hay Wain; the Valley Farm; View on Hamstead Heath ; The Salt-Box ; Ham- stead Heath; Bridge at Gillingham, Suffolk; and Flatford Mill, all are characteristic pictures of scenes familiar to the painter from boyhood.
" Gentle declivities, luxuriant meadow-flats sprinkled with flocks and herds, well-cultivated uplands with nu- merous scattered villages and churches, with farms and picturesque cottages," Constable said made him a painter. He particularly loved to paint spring and early summer, and thought the landscape painter should walk in the fields with a*n humble mind.
John, called " Old Crome," who painted chiefly the scenery around his native Norwich, can be
42
studied here with advantage in Welsh Slate Quarries, a picture of desolate hills, where men are working; The Windmill; and Household Heath near Norwich:
" A work the simplicity of which is so great that only a master could have imparted to it any character. It repre- sents a vast slope of pale verdure, which, from a fore- ground covered with flowering grass and heath, rises rapidly towards the sky. Great golden clouds float on the summit of the hill. There is nothing more. With sc little subject as this, Crome has yet given the truest representa- tion of solitude and stillness." — (Ch.)
A curious work by the imaginative William Blake is the Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth, an allegory of the power of statesman- ship (Pitt) in controlling the brute forces of the world (Behemoth) .
'•* The earth bursts into flame at the touch of the plough- share, and from behind the flames cannons are discharged upon a group of flying figures, at the back of which is seen a great building on fire. Beneath the figure of the reaper another group is being shot down by musketry, while a terrible rain, lit up as by lightning, falls from heavy clouds." — (Wm. B.)
George Morland's Inside of a Stable, said to be the White Lion at Paddington, is sometimes called the artist's masterpiece .
"He was the painter of all English rural life on its homeliest, commonest side — bearing memories of it, strangely rich and keen and sympathetic, into the London Streets, and across the foul nights of tavern and sponging- house. An animal painter, in the strict sense, he certainly was not. The importance of animals in his work has been habitually exaggerated." — (F. W.)
• Landseer appears in many of his best works.
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One is a Newfoundland dog, named Paul Pry, re- clining on the last stone of a quay while the sum- mer waves lap upon the sea-wall; Dignity and Impudence is another, in which a bloodhound and a little Scotch terrier are contrasted; Alexander and Diogenes, the former represented by a big white bulldog with a military collar regarding the sullen Diogenes in his tub and accompanied by many other dogs; High Life and Low Life, typified by a stag-hound (probably a portrait of Sir Walter Scott's Maida), and a butcher's dog, two small panels of great celebrity ; and Spaniels of King Charles's Breed. The last
" due to not more than two days' labour, and a triumph of dexterity in brush working, showing as much facility as the ancient fresco painters exhibited when they dealt with and completed an important head of a man in one day. The sweeping touches by which the feather in the felt hat is expressed, have been placed with exquisite pre- cision, and deserve the most careful consideration of all students and amateurs in dexterous art. This kind of execution, of which Landseer's pictures exhibit innumer- able illustrations, is magical." — (F. G. S.)
Among works by Sir David Wilkie, the most celebrated of British genre painters, we have the Blind Fiddler; Village Festival; Blind Man's Buff; the First Earrings; and John Knox.
" Wilkie is the Goldsmith of painters, in the amiable and pathetic humour, in the combination of smiles and tears, of the familiar and the beautiful. He is the exact illustra- tion of the power and dignity of the popular school in the hands of a master." — (B-L.)
Among the celebrated works inspired by literary subjects are: Titania and Bottom, by Fuseli; Maclise's two Shakespeare scenes from Hamlet
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and Twelfth Night; Leslie's Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman; and Stothard's Canter- bury Pilgrims, ambling along the Kentish road in the early spring morning.
Of Etty, one of the best English colourists, the Bather and Youth on the Prow and Pleasure at the Helm may be noted; and of Ward, the South Sea Bubble, depicting Change Alley in 1720.
THE LOUVRE PARIS
THE magnificent Picture Gallery of the Louvre took long to form. It had its beginning in the works, chiefly Italian and Flemish, gathered by Francis I. at Fontainebleau. From his time, the Cabinet du Roi was practically unchanged until the days of Louis XIV., when Colbert bought the collection of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, and that of the banker Jabach in 1671. The Cabinet, which contained 200 works at the beginning of the Seven- teenth Century, contained 647 in 1681, when it was removed to the Louvre. In 1710, the collection numbered 2,403 pictures. It was transferred to Versailles, to the Luxembourg, and again to Ver- sailles before it was finally deposited in the Louvre and opened to the public in 1793. The catalogue then numbered 537 works ; and in 1795 more were brought from Versailles. Additions were made in 1815, and 1848; and, after 1851, the Gallery was greatly developed. In 1862, the Campana Collec- tion enriched the Louvre with 200 pictures of the Italian Schools. The superb legacy of Dr. La Caze in 1869 brought 275 pictures ; and, during the Third Republic, 300 more were acquired. Subsequent be- quests from Comte Duchatel, M. M. Gattaux, His de la Salle, Moreaux, Mme. V. Pommery and others have contributed valuable additions. Greuze's La Laitiere is one of the comparatively recent acquisitions, a legacy from Mme. la baronne Na- 45 * ,
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thaniel de Rothschild. The Thorny Thiery Collec- tion, opened in 1903, consists of paintings of the Barbizon School. Works from the Luxembourg are constantly being added. The pictures are ar- ranged in schools. Some idea of the wealth of the Louvre may be gathered from the numbers of ex- amples of a few of the masters. Of the Italians there are nine by Albani ; fifteen by Annibale Car- racci ; ten by Guercino ; ten by Luini ; four by Man- tegna ; thirteen by Raphael ; eleven by Guido Reni ; eleven by Tintoret ; eighteen by Titian ; and six by Leonardo da Vinci. Of the French masters there are twenty-three by Boucher ; twenty-eight by Chardin ; sixteen by Claude ; nine by Courbet ; twenty-five by Desportes ; twelve by Fragonard ; twelve by Lancret ; forty by Poussin ; and eleven by Watteau. Of the Flemish paintings there are four by Peter Brueghel ; eight by Velvet Brueghel ; twenty-three by Van Dyck ; seven by Jordaens ; fifty-four by Rubens (of which thirty-one com- prise the Marie de' Medicis series painted for the Medici Gallery in the Luxembourg Palace) ; thir- teen by Snyders ; and thirty-five by Teniers the Younger. Of the Dutch there are eleven by Ber- chem ; six by Cuyp ; twelve by Dow ; six by Hals ; eleven by Jan Van Huysum ; eight by Metsu ; thir- teen by A. Van Ostade; eight by Isaac Van Ostade ; twenty by Rembrandt ; and fourteen by Wouvermans. There are also twelve by Murillo.
What are usually considered the gems are: the Raphaels, the Leonardos ; the Murillos, the Titians, the Correggios and the Veroneses — La Belle Jardiniere, the Virgin of the Diadem ; The Holy Family; Saint Michael; Mona Lisa; the Vir- gin of the Rocks; and Saint Anne; the Im-
PARIS 47
maculate Conception and the Holy Family; Alfonso D'Este and Laure de' Dianti and the Man with the Glove; the Marriage of Saint Catherine and Antiope; and the Marriage of Cana. ' v '
Raphael is perhaps more satisfactorily repre- sented in the Louvre than in any other gallery. Here we have a series of paintings of rare beauty, which, extending from 1506 to 1518, embrace the whole active period of that life that was so full and so soon ended. Thus in turn appear before our eyes the St. George (1506), the Belle Jardiniere (1507), the Portrait of a Young Man (1508 or 1509), the Virgin with the Blue Diadem (1512), the Portrait of Balthazar Castiglione (1515), the Large St. Michael, and the Large Holy Family
(1518).'
In St. George the spirit and hand of a painter who had attained independence is recognised.
" Would not one be inclined to say that this was one of those beautiful enamels of the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, preserved in the cabinets of our Gallery of Apollo? For the background of this picture, we have a land- scape with suave and harmoniously cadenced lines, fresh, springlike, and virginal, in which the verdurous valleys melt into the azure distances of the mountains which themselves fade and are lost in the blue of a pure and luminous sky. There is nothing present that is not of ex- quisite grace and delicious sentiment, even to the little female figure, robed in rose, and fleeing in the distance. Thus, everything in this picture is of the very first order. Under modest appearances, the forms have a firmness of accentuation which is the work no longer of a student but of a master. As for the colour, limpid, transparent, and of a tempered harmony, it reveals a state of preservation that nearly four centuries have not been able to injure." — • (F. A. G.)
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The Little St. Michael is a justly celebrated conception.
" He might have dispensed with the shield and its red cross on a white ground which protects his left arm, for, coming as the messenger of divine justice, he wings his flight from heaven and puts his foot on the demon, who struggles vainly against him. He has only to bring down the sword which he holds in his right hand to terminate the unequal combat. His beauty, his tranquil mien and the light which environs him, show that his is a purely moral victory, and in order to accentuate the supernatural char- acter of the scene, Raphael has represented it as being enacted in the middle of hell. A hideous owl, horrible dragons, figures of the damned devoured by serpents, or bowed down beneath the weight of leaden capes, form the cortege of Satan, and a sinister light is cast upon the back- ground by a town in flames." — (M.)
La Belle Jardiniere takes us to 1507-08, when Raphael left Florence for higher triumphs in Rome.
'' It is the song par excellence of this pastoral symphony, the harmonious preludes of which are the Virgin in the Meadow and the Virgin with the Finch. It follows in their train and forms almost the conclusion of one of the important chapters in the master's life. The Virgin is seated between the Infant Jesus and the little St. John : she has ceased looking at her book that still lies open and apparently forgotten on her knee. Entirely absorbed in contemplation of her Son, she is leaning towards him and supporting him with both hands. She is as fresh in heart as in countenance. Her brow is serene and fair ; her eyes are full of love and suffused with sadness ; her mouth that wants to smile, notwithstanding its sweetness, assumes an expression that is almost austere. This Virgin is al- ready far removed from the Madonnas, immobile in their mysticism, that had cradled Raphael's childhood. We feel Nature palpitating within her. In her physiognomy even, there is something personal and individual that be- trays the living model and make us suspect a portrait. The Infant Jesus, entirely naked, is standing in front of the Virgin. Standing with both feet upon his mother's
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON— Raphael
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CHARLES THE FIRST— Few Dyck
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PARIS 49
right foot, he raises his head towards her and his eyes are beaming jvith love. Whilst he supports himself against his mother's knee with his right hand, he stretches out his left hand towards the book in the Virgin's lap. It is impossible to imagine a sweeter union or more intimate communion betwee i the Virgin and the Bambino. Gazing at his mother Jesus seems to be desirous of telling her of the homage he is receiving from his forerunner. The little St. John in fact, clad in the fleece of a lamb that falls from his right shoulder and encircles his waist, is bending the knee be- fore his master and fervently contemplating him. The picture charms the eye by the landscape back- ground dominated by the divine group and the fresh and limpid atmosphere in which dwell the Virgin and the two children. The Church has attributed to the Virgin all the splendours of the regenerated world, and popular faith continues through the centuries to fete in Mary the dawn of beautiful weather. She is the Lady and the Queen of Nature revived by the divine maternity in her original dignity. Raphael shows here the Mother of the Word modestly seated in the middle of a meadow, in which an abundance of plants and flowers are grow- ing. Thence arises the name of the Beautiful Gardener by which this picture is generally known. Behind the Virgin, the planes slope harmoniously, succeeding one an- other without brusque transitions, and gradually leading on the eye without fatigue and with gentle modulations to the distant horizon bathed in light. To the left, a few trees rise lightly into the air. Farther away we perceive groves, buildings and a lake that leads on its opposite shore to a city situated on the banks of limpid waters. Then come blue mountains covered with eternal snow, the summits of which are lost in the sky." — (F. A. G.)
The Madonna of the Diadem belongs to the Roman period.
" The Virgin has made of her shawl a bed for the Infant Jesus to sleep on. In prayer, she watches over the slum- bers of her Son, and, carefully lifting the veil that pro- tected the infant, she gazes fixedly at this divine beauty; she adores it but is not at all amazed at it, and remains
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calm and silent. The little St. John, on the contrary, al- lows his joy and admiration to break out, and pressing close against Mary, seems to want to spring towards Jesus. What tenderness and gentle familiarity are in the move- ment that draws the Forerunner to her ! But what is in- describable in this picture and suffices to lift us above the earth is the unmixed purity in this Virgin face.
" To complete this picture, Raphael has evoked the natural scenery, the ruins and the memories of Rome. The improvised bed of Jesus is backed up against a forgotten block of stone in the foreground of the landscape. Then come substructures which like dismantled ramparts are succeeded by half fallen arches and vaults. Vegetation, which is the life of ruins, has invaded these glorious frag- ments. The colour of the sky dominates this picture throughout. The drapery upon which the Saviour is re- posing is blue ; the Virgin's diadem is also blue ; Mary's blue tunic almost extinguishes the red in her robe ; and finally the atmosphere that bathes the city and the horizon is entirely blue. The whole creation seems to be rejoicing in this ideal light that penetrates all things and yet has nothing wounding in its brightness." — (F. A. G.)
The Large Holy Family for three centuries has been known as the Holy Family of Francis I., and is the last of this subject painted by Raphael.
" In this masterly work so full both of power and emo- tion, we admire in turn the tenderness of the young mother holding out her arms to her Son, who springs towards her beaming with happiness, the dignity of St. Joseph and the grace of the angel who scatters the flowers over the divine pair."— (M.)
The large St. Michael Overthrowing Satan, thirteen years after the small one, differs but little from it. In this work, the Archangel is armed with a lance with which he is about to transfix the demon.
" Radiant with a divine beauty, he betrays more con- tempt than wrath towards his adversary, who, stretched on
PARIS 51
the ground, trembles with rage and pain. There is no trace of the fallen angel in the representation of the latter, as there was in the picture of 1504; the demon is drawn with a satyr's face, hooked claws and muscular form. The artist, perhaps, had his task been to paint Satan alone, would have made him, like Milton, the most beautiful of all angels. But in St. Michael Overthrowing Satan a vio- lent contrast is absolutely required between the ugliness of the demon on the one hand, and the grace and pride of his vanquisher on the other." — (M.)
According to Vasari, St. Margaret was almost entirely painted by Guilio Romano after Raphael's design. It is supposed to have been executed for Marguerite of Valois.
" He shows us his heroine resplendent with glory ; she is full of the joy of her triumph and of eternal happiness. Holding a palm-branch, her foot resting on the hideous dragon which covers the ground with his monstrous coils, the saint advances towards the spectator, pure, radiant and transfigured. Though so near to evil and deformity her thoughts are only of heavenly bliss. She is one of the most ethereal of Raphael's creations." — (M.)
Balthazar Castiglione was painted with rapid- ity and enthusiasm.
" The great charm of this head is in its gaze which is at the same time gentle and firm, loyal and sincere to the highest degree. The nose is not irreproachable in form. The mouth, with lips somewhat strongly accented, is small, full of humour, amiable and benevolent. The cheeks, partly covered with heavy blonde whiskers, are strong of hue and full of health. We feel attracted with strange force towards this personage who is all frankness, good- ness and virtue. This painting is masterly in execution. There is nothing dry in the drawing, and it is remarkable in its purity." — (F. A. G.)
The Portrait of a Young Man is " worthy of deep consideration on account of its beau-
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tiful brush-work and its masterly mingling of colours. The head looks alive ; the character of the design is great and finely felt with much firmness and precision. One would say that Raphael painted it rapidly at the first attempt. On that account, it is more piquant than any other that we possess by this great man. Some people regard it as the portrait of this painter; but it is hard for us to persuade ourselves that at so tender an age as that of the youth represented in this picture, Raphael had so far departed from his first manner as appears in this picture." — (Mar.)
Perhaps of all portraits in the world Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is the most famous.
" La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's master- piece, the revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In suggestiveness, only the Melancholia of Diirer is comparable to it; and no crude symbolism disturbs the ef- fect of its subdued and graceful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in the marble chair, in that cirque of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least.
" That there is much of mere portraiture in the picture is attested by the legend that by artificial means, the pres- ence of mimes and flute players, that subtle expression was protracted on the face. Again, was it in four years and by renewed labour never really completed, or in four months and as by stroke of magic, that the image was projected?
" The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years man had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all ' the ends of the world are come,' and the eye- lids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite pas- sions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty into which the soul with all its maladies has passed? All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there in that which they have of power to refine and make ex-
PARIS 53
pressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the middle age with its spirit- ual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits ; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave ; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her ; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern mer- chants ; and, as Leda, was mother of Helen of Troy, and as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand ex- periences, is an old one ; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by and summing up in itself all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea." — (W. P.)
In the Madonna of the Rocks we find just as mysterious and fantastic a background, — this time a kind of grotto where the Virgin presents the little St. John to the Child Jesus, who blesses him with uplifted finger. An angel watches over the Holy Child.
" The Madonna of the Rocks may be considered the type of Leonardo's second manner. The roundness of the bodies obtained by gradation of tints, the exactness of the shad- ows and the parsimonious reserve in the light in this un- paralleled picture betray the habits of a sculptor.
" The appearance of the Madonna of the Rocks is singu- lar, mysterious, and charming. A kind of basaltic grotto shelters the divine group placed on the bank of a spring which shows the stones of its bed through its limpid wa- ters. Through the arched grotto we see a rocky land- scape dotted with slender trees and traversed by a stream, on the banks of which is a village ; the colour of all this is as indefinable as those chimerical countries that we pass through in dreams and is marvellously appropriate to set off the figures.
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" What an adorable type is the Madonna ! It is quite pe- culiar to Leonardo, and does not in the least recall the virgins of Perugino nor those of Raphael: the upper part of the head is spherical, the forehead well developed; the oval of the cheeks sweeps down to a delicately curved chin ; the eyes with lowered lids are circled with shadow; the nose, although fine, is not in a straight line with the fore- head, like those of the Greek statues ; the nostrils seem to quiver as if palpitating with respiration. The mouth, rather large, has that vague, enigmatical and delicious smile which da Vinci gives to all the faces of his women; faint malice mingles there with the expression of purity and kindness. The hair, long, fine, and silky, falls in wav- ing locks upon cheeks bathed in shadows and half-tints, framing them with incomparable grace.
" It is Lombard beauty idealized with an admirable execu- tion whose only fault is perhaps too absolute a perfection.
" And what hands ! especially the one stretched out with the fingers foreshortened. The arrangement of the drap- eries is of that exquisite and precious taste that character- izes da Vinci. An agrafe in the form of a medallion fas- tens on the breast the ends of a «mantle lifted up by the arms which thus produce folds full of nobility and ele- gance.
" The angel who is pointing out the Infant Jesus to the little Saint John has the sweetest, the finest, and the proud- est head that brush ever fixed upon canvas. He belongs, if we may so express it, to the highest celestial aristocracy. One might say he was a page of high birth accustomed to place his foot on the steps of a throne.
" Hair in waves and ringlets abounds upon his head, so pure and delicate in design that it surpasses feminine beauty and gives the idea of a type superior to all that man can dream of; his eyes are not turned towards the group that he is pointing at, for he has no need to look in order to see. A divine indifference is depicted upon his charming face, and almost a smile lurks in the corners of his lips. He accomplishes the commission given him by the Eternal with an impassible serenity.
" Assuredly no virgin, no woman, ever had a more beau- tiful face; but the most manly spirit and the most dominat- ing intelligence shine in those dark eyes, fixed vaguely
PARIS 55
upon the spectator who seeks to penetrate their mys- tery.
" In the little St. John the position of the child, who pre- sents several portions of his body foreshortened, is full of grace, a grace sought for and rare, like everything else that the sublime artist ever did, but natural nevertheless. It is impossible to find anything more finely modelled. The shadow advances towards the light by gradations of in- finite delicacy and gives an extraordinary relief to the figure. Half enveloped in transparent gauze, the divine Bambino kneels, joining his hands as if he were already conscious of his mission and understood the gesture which the little St. John repeats after the angel. With regard to the colour, if in becoming smoked it has lost its proper value, it has retained a harmony preferred by delicate minds for the freshness and brilliancy of its shadows. The tones have deadened in such perfect sympathy that the re- sult is a kind of neutral, abstract, ideal and mysterious tint which clothes the forms like a celestial veil and sets them apart from terrestrial realities." — (T. G.)
St. Anne, though a work of singular nobility, is odd in conception. The Virgin, sitting on St. Anne's lap, leans over towards the Infant Jesus, who is holding a lamb by the ears and trying to climb upon its back. The great interest of the pic- ture lies in the two female figures.
" One is the mother of the other, but Leonardo scarcely pays any attention to that. It strikes his fancy to repre- sent a group of two figures, young with the same youth and beautiful with the same beauty : that cuts short all ob- jections. From the point of the evangelic drama, there was a contrast to be drawn between these two women. St. Anne can smile without any hidden thoughts at the pranks of the Bambino, but the Virgin cannot, for, being in the secrets of God, the lamb, the embfem of sacrifice, must awake in her the presentiment of the cross. Leonardo sets this distinction also entirely aside. The Virgin and St. Anne shall be animated with the same joy: his picturesque combinations demand this, and so much the worse for the Christian idea if it does not receive its dues here. Here,
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therefore, we have neither St. Anne nor the Virgin : the former is far from the Biblical austerity that should belong to the spouse of St. Joachim, and the latter is still farther from the divine humility that is the symbol of the mother of Jesus ; but the concord of these two faces is ravishing, and the harmony of their smiles is one of the most har- monious that ever could be dreamed of. Both are en- chantresses endowed with that Italian beauty that bursts forth and is always accompanied with majesty. One would credit them with being made of light and shadow. Life flows in them with brimming banks without the appearance of any gross clay. Enigmatic and mysterious, animated by a strange sensibility — I was about to say sensuality — they provoke admiration whilst at the same time troubling the soul with an emotion that almost amounts to enervation." -(F. A. G.)
La Belle Ferronniere, though not so great as Mona Lisa, is also a haunting work. She repre- sents
" a young woman with brown hair parted in the middle, combed flat, brought down over the ears, and kept in place by a black cord around the head having a diamond at the centre of the forehead ; whence arose the name ferronniere, afterwards given to every kind of hair-dressing similar or analogous to this one. The figure, cut across the middle and halfway down the arm, by a transverse supporting bar, is clothed with a red bodice with gold stripes and orna- mented with black embroidery. A thin necklace wound four times around the neck falls down over the chest, which is exposed, the bodice being cut rather low and square. The head is beautiful, because it is of absolutely correct form and proportion. It has an expression of strong will, and perhaps even sheer obstinacy, and a suggestion that can scarcely be explained of hardness and scowling. The features, perfectly in accord with one another, are very strongly accentuated. The eyes are deeply set, endowed with fire, and capable of passion ; the outer world seems to be reflected darkly in them. The nose is small and deli- cately formed ; the mouth is also small, with a sort of moue that completes the expression of the eyes. The strongly
ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS— Ribera LOtTVBE
Q C =-.
s
S *•«
^ K IT* ?
§3 vn
PARIS 57
moulded chin is marked with a small dimple. The cheeks have the solidity of marble. In this painting there is some- what of the quality of plasticity. The painter and the sculptor have mingled, so to speak. One is astonished rather than captivated ; and one is particularly struck with the relief and the singular character presented by this por- trait. It imposes itself upon one with such authority that after having once looked at it one can never afterwards forget it."— (F. A. G.)
John the Baptist has been called a second por- trait of La Joconde.
" The mysterious gloom of a grotto throws into bold relief the gleaming body of a young god, effeminate in type, pale of countenance, and with a breast that is almost womanly. The gesture of the right hand is indeed that of the ' Precursor Domini,' but the head is crowned with a wreath of vine-leaves, and the other hand holds a thyrsus. Leonardo has metamorphosed the locust-eater of the Bible into a Bacchus, a youthful Apollo who — with an enigmatic smile upon his lips, and one white leg crossed over the other — surveys us with an intoxicating glance. Indeed, we cannot even tell with certainty whether it be youth or maiden. It is a figure out of the times of Alcibiades or Antinous. Leonardo, the great erotic artist, mingled in this picture with a trembling hand the charms of both sexes." — (R. M.)
This gallery is rich in works of small size, of inti- mate and familiar charm, in which Titian, while giving first place to figures, incorporates them with Nature so that their poetical and moral expression are inseparable. Among these is the St. Cathe- rine, or the Virgin of the Rabbit.
" Nothing could be more simple, or more delicate, more rich, or more sonorous. There is also here a Holy Family of the same charm and striking beauty, with a sweeter and more silvery note. Still more important is the part Nature plays in the St. Jerome of such mysterious effect : a stifled harmony, through which pass in sourdine notes the sombre
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purple of a mantle, almost black greens and browns and silvery sparks float in the bluish and nocturnal air." — (M. H.)
The Madonna and Child Adored by Saints is
one of the most important works of the master here. There is a replica of it in the Belvidere. The colours are warm, various tones of red pre- dominating.
" The Virgin's features are very beautiful, and her robes are admirably disposed, both as regards form and effect of light, in broad masses of drapery, with telling shadows." — (C. L. E.)
The Pilgrims of Emmaus depicts the celebrated meal after the Resurrection. The pilgrims are said to be portraits, the one on the left in a green robe being the Emperor Charles V., and the one on the left, with clasped hands, Cardinal Ximenes. The servant bringing a dish is identified as the future King of Spain, Philip II. The landscape background is admirable.
Christ Crowned with Thorns is one of the most heart-rending scenes of agony ever irnagined ; but it is executed in violent tones with all the fire and energy of which Titian was capable.
Grief is also at its highest expression in the Entombment.
" Passion attains its highest point of excitement ; this ex- pression is maintained by all devices of colouring, half- light, and by the concurrence of landscape accessories, but the conception is at once so noble and expressive that the emotional is not felt at the expense of beauty. As a touching lamentation, this picture takes as high a rank as is held by the Assumption of Mary as an inspired thanks- giving song of joy and delight." — (A. G.)
The Allegory of Avalos shows the Marquis on
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the point of leaving his young bride, the beautiful Mary of Aragon. Before departing to face the risks of war, in accordance with the allegorical taste of the day, he desired that the image of his happiness should mingle with the idea of death and glory. Love, Victory and Hymen are therefore introduced. The success of the picture was so great that the painter had to repeat the motive with variations for other patrons. Two of these are in Vienna, and one in Munich.
Jupiter and Antiope, known also as Venere del Pardo, was painted in 1562.
" In this brilliant painting, the octogenarian, reviving the most delightful memories of his youth, once again recov- ers, in order to express female beauty and landscape loveli- ness, the suppleness and splendour of his best days." — (G. Laf.)
It has been the fashion of late years to identify Laura de' Dianti with the picture of a girl at her toilet attended by a man holding two mirrors, and it is supposed that the man in the back- ground is Alfonso d'Este.
" The light is concentrated with unusual force upon the face and bust of the girl, whilst the form and features of the man are lost in darkness. We pass with surprising rapidity from the most delicate silvery gradations of sunlit flesh and drapery, to the mysterious depths of an almost unfathomable gloom, and we stand before a modelled bal- ance of light and shade that recalls da Vinci entranced by a chord of tonic harmony as sweet and as thrilling as was ever struck by any artist of the Venetian school." — (C. and C.)
Parnassus is one of Mantegna's most precious works.
" One of the purest masterpieces of the Italian Renais~ sance is Parnassus, — -that picture where, in a landscape
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that one only sees in dreams, the nine Muses, in light tunics, of varied and changing hue, gaily dance and sing upon the grass to the sounds of the lyre with which Apollo, seated on the left, accompanies his own songs. Pegasus is on the right, and Mercury is standing near him; while in the middle distance, on a rock, cut out in the form of an arch, and showing in the distance the green and flowery declivities of Helicon, Mars and Venus are revealed, stand- ing in front of a mass of orange trees. Near them, Cupid annoys with his arrows Vulcan, who appears, furious, at the entrance of a grotto where his furnace flames.
" Nowhere else, in all the work of Mantegna, does wo- man hold so great a place as in this picture, inspired by a woman as attractive by the charms of her beauty as by the cultivation of her mind. These Muses, in their varied at- titudes of healthful grace, without affectation or archness, reveal memories of antique sculpture ; and we believe that we can see the inspiration, or the copy of a Greek marble, in the beautiful body of Venus, who is the one nude fe- male preserved to us in all the works painted by Man- tegna."—(J. G.)
The Madonna of the Victory was painted to commemorate the achievements of Francesco Gonzaga in the Battle of Fornovo. The Madonna and Child are represented as protecting the donor, and on either side are the Archangel Michael, and St. George, and the patron saints of Mantua, Andrew and Longinus. The head of Michael with its golden locks is of rare beauty. The throne, in- crusted with precious stones and ornamented with reliefs, and the canopy, with its wreaths of fruits and flowers, should be noted.
" The impression made by this painting is too powerful to be described. It is in every detail grandiose— masculine energy being combined with incomparable grace, religious feeling with dignity, and luxuriance of ornamentation with serene gravity of composition." — (J. A. S.)
The Coronation of the Virgin is one of the
PARIS 61
most beautiful pictures that Fra Angelico ever painted.
" Time has not tarnished the ideal freshness of this painting, delicate as a miniature in a missal, and whose tints are borrowed from the whiteness of the lily, the rose of the dawn, the blue of the sky, and the gold of the stars. No muddy tones of earth dull these seraphic beings com- posed of luminous vapours. Upon a throne with marble steps, the varied colours of which are symbolic, Christ is seated, holding a crown of rich workmanship which he is about to place upon the head of his divine mother, kneel- ing before him, with her head modestly inclined and her hands crossed upon her breast. Around the throne throng a choir of angel-musicians, playing the trumpet, the theorbo, the angelot, and the viola d'amore. A light flame flutters about their heads and their great wings palpitate with joy at this glorious coronation which will transform the humble handmaid of the Lord into the Lady of Paradise. To the left, an angel kneels in prayer. In the lower part of the painting with faces uplifted to the sky the hosts of the blessed, distributed in two groups, adore and contemplate. In the foreground is the charm- ing group of saints of perfectly celestial grace ; the kneel- ing Magdalen offers her vase of perfumes ; St. Cecilia ad- vances crowned with roses, St. Clara gleams through her veil, constellated with crosses and golden stars ; St. Cathe- rine, of Alexandria leans upon her wheel as calmly and peacefully as if it were a spinning-wheel ; and St. Agnes holds in her arms a little white lamb, the symbol of in- nocent purity.
" Fra Beato Angelico has given to these youthful saints a celestial and ideal beauty, whose type exists not upon this earth. They are visible souls rather than bodies, they are thoughts of human form enveloped in these chaste draperies of white, rose, and blue, sown with stars and embroidered, clothed as might be the happy spirits who rejoice in the eternal light of Paradise. If there be paint- ings in Heaven, surely they must resemble those of Fra Angelico." — (T. G.)
No picture gives a better idea of Luini than Salome Receiving the Head of John the Baptist.
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Luini painted this subject many times. Here Salome holds the dish above which the head is sus- pended by the hand of the executioner.
Salome receives it with the utmost indifference. Her youth and gracefulness make her altogether charming. She is dressed modestly and her lovely auburn hair is correctly arranged and falls in waves as far as her shoulders. There is nothing about her to suggest the daughter of Herodias. She is one of Luini's beautiful creations.
" The head of John the Baptist is seen nearly full face and seems to be asleep rather than decapitated. The fea- tures are beautiful, a great calm has overspread them and death has given them an exalted purity. The august and serene face with the beard that frames it and the hair, which in the hand of the executioner rises above the head as the strophium of the gods, inspires respect and com- mands admiration. Luini confounds John the Baptist and Jesus in the same ideal." — (F. A. G.)
Correggio has only two works here, but these are of supreme quality. In the Marriage of St. Catherine
" the master's individuality is thoroughly asserted. The religious thought is thrown quite in the background, and the Christian idea of uniting the chaste St. Catherine to the Infant Jesus, and making her the bride of Heaven by means of a ring, is utterly lost sight of in this joyous rep- resentation of sensuous life. The natural grace displayed in the attitudes of the figures is very striking. Even St. Sebastian, who takes a prominent part in the ceremony in spite of his wounds and arrows, is the very embodiment of tranquil joy and glows with the rich, warm tints of animated life. All appear United by ties of the warmest affection. The rich golden tone of the flesh, the colour of which seems to blush from beneath, is particularly strik- ing in this picture. It is peculiar to Correggio, and notice- able in most of his works, as well as the power he possesses
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of producing the most subtle gradations of light and varieties of tint." — (J. M.)
Jupiter and Antiope possesses the same warm flesh tones and beautiful high lights, but is stronger in its display of technical skill, and is one of the finest works of Correggio's middle period.
" The sweet repose of sleep has, perhaps, never been more gracefully portrayed. In a warm thicket with the light breaking through the foliage, lies a nymph on rising ground, quite naked, with her arms thrown into easy posi- tion expressive of rest. The light falls full upon the broad surface of her body, which stands out in bright relief from the blue cloth upon which she is lying. Upon her head that reclines on her arm, a half shade falls, investing her with such a life-like appearance that one almost seems to hear her breathe. Beside her sleeps the most charming winged Amor, as soundly as it is only possible for a child to sleep. On the other side a little farther back, under the shadow of the tree, is a cloven-footed satyr, a fabulous being, but real flesh and blood for all that. He stands close to the tree against which the nymph is resting and holds the garment which he seems to have lifted in order to display the nudity of her form. All around is a lovely wooded landscape with a vista, through which we discern a distant view, and upon which the light is thrown in such a manner as only Correggio understands. The grand out- lines of the forms, the light glimmering through the foliage and the perfect realism of the whole render this a most masterly work." — (J. M.)
The Madonna and Child by Perugino is sweet and spiritual. In the middle of an atrium, paved with marble and surrounded by a wall above which the beautiful Umbrian landscape is seen, sits the Virgin holding her Child. On the left stands St. Rose with a crystal vase in one hand and a branch of a flowering rose-bush in the other. Opposite is St. Catherine of Alexandria with a book and a palm
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branch. Behind them stand two angels with out- spread wings and clasped hands in devout adora- tion. Everything is beautiful and chaste. The saints are not of this world, but seem to look with their far-away gaze into mysterious depths. The Virgin has delicate, beautiful features and a lov- able expression. Her hair is blonde and artistically arranged and her veil gracefully disposed as are the folds of her robe. A rich jewel is placed above her loosely-tied scarf.
" Reason cannot penetrate the mystic beauty of this pic- ture. One stops before it filled with reverence as before a mystery. Here we find the precious germ which Peru- gino placed in Raphael's soul which was destined to blos- som in Rome under unique conditions." — (F. A. G.)
In the Holy Family, by Andrea del Sarto, the Virgin seated on the ground holds Jesus in her arms and presents him to the little Saint John, who is standing before his kneeling mother, Elizabeth. Two angels with outspread wings are behind the Virgin in ecstasy.
" This picture is remarkable for the masterly combina- tion of lines and the suavity of the effect. The six figures which are united here form a concert, the harmony of which, though a little heavy, is delicious." — (F. A. G.)
Veronese's celebrated Marriage at Cana is about thirty-two feet in length by twenty-two in height.
" If we speak merely of jeasel pictures, which are mov- able, this is, I believe, the largest picture ever painted. It is known that under pretence of these festive scenes Paul Veronese painted simply the feasts of his own times. It is also known that the persons collected in these vast compositions were usually portraits. Thus, among the guests in the Marriage of Cana, some have recognised, or
fe
THE HOLY FAMILY — Murillo LOUVRE
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thought they recognised, Francis I., Charles V., the Sultan Soliman I., Eleanor of Austria, the Queen of France, Mary Queen of England, the Marquis of Guastalla, the Marquis of Pescara, the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, his wife, etc. In the group of musicians placed in the centre of the long table, in the shape of a horse-shoe, may be recognised with more certainty Paul Veronese himself, dressed in white silk, seated and playing on the violoncello. Then his brother, Benedetto Cagliari, standing with a goblet in his hand ; then Tintoretto playing on the violin, the old Titian playing on the double bass, and Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) playing on the flute. All these circumstances cer- tainly increase the historical interest of the picture." — (L. V.)
The Feast in the House of Simon the Phari- see is about half the size of the Marriage Feast at Cana, but is none the less remarkable for the action of the figures, the colours and the archi- tecture. The scene takes place in a magnificent palace where the personages are dressed in the cos- turns of wealthy Venetians. Jesus occupies the place of honour at the table on the right and Simon that on the left, while between the two the fair penitent is kneeling. The tables are set and served with sumptuous vessels and dishes and the bal- conies are crowded with spectators. Air and light circulate freely and in the sky two angels unfold a banderole.
" What a masterly work ! What nobility in the manner of seeing and interpreting nature! How living are all these figures, how varied, how individual, how true ! What wealth of picturesque invention! What breadth of execu- tion! What surety of touch! What freedom of drawing! What freshness of colour! What radiant serenity in this vast picture! "— (F. A. G.)
The Disciples of Emmaus is another great com- position entirely lacking in religious feeling; but
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the amplitude of the design, the beauty of the draperies, the richness of the costumes, the grace of the children's figures, and the strength and har- mony of the colours rank it high among the works of this master.
In Giorgione's Concert Champetre
" strange and variegated costumes, types of a clearly written character, warm and red carnations detach them- selves gaily from the greenery of a landscape ; that is what he loves, that is what has sufficed for him to produce an admirable painting, for it is nothing less." — (P. M.)
The Nativity, by Francia, is a small but char- acteristic example of this master. In a beautiful landscape, with bluish mountains on the horizon, the Virgin, St. Joseph and two angels are adoring the Holy Child. The face of the kneeling Mother is very beautiful and full of devotional expression.
Solario's Madonna and Child, known as The Green Cushion, is a good specimen of his grace, beauty of colour and feeling.
The Descent from the Cross, by Jacopo da Ponte (Bassano), is a group of the usual men and Holy Women. A striking effect is obtained by the burning torch that is placed near the cross and illu- minates the scene of darkness and mourning.
The Message to the Shepherds, by Palma Vecchio, shows the Madonna seated before a ruined building supporting in his humble bed the Child before whom a shepherd is kneeling. St. Joseph is seated near the Virgin, and the donor kneels on the left. On the right is a landscape where the three angels are seen telling the joyful news to the shep- herds in the early dawn, which is beautifully ex- pressed.
" The beauty of the heads, the easy pose of the figures,
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the suppleness of the draperies and the vivacious colours make this one of the most beautiful pictures of the Vene- tian school." — (T. G.)
Ghirlandajo's Visitation is full of thought and beauty. The Virgin bends modestly towards the kneeling Elizabeth in a vestibule, the arcades of which afford glimpses of a vast landscape. Behind Elizabeth a young woman with clasped hands stands bowing respectfully to Mary, behind whom another woman stands in dignity, as if to show her pride at being the attendant on the Mother of the Saviour.
" These two accessory figures are admirable : they are two angels without wings. The second one in particular possesses a beauty before which that of the principal per- sonages pales." — (F. A. G.)
Sebastian del Piombo's Visitation is one of his best works, executed in the full strength and matur- ity of his talent under Michael Angelo's guidance. Particularly admirable are the heads of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth, which are irreproachable in de- sign. It is even said that the Virgin's head was painted by Michael Angelo himself.
Tintoret's Paradise is a long horizontal picture crowded with tiny figures — angels, prophets, martyrs and others of the heavenly host — arranged in rows around the central group consisting of Christ who is crowning the Virgin. Celestial light and rings of cloud show the genius of this great painter.
Of two examples of Susannah, by Tintoret, the one called Susannah at the Bath is the most celebrated. Susannah is seated before a grove with two maids, one of whom is attending to her foot,
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and the other combing her hair. The elders are seen in the background.
" A number of animals and birds which play on the grass and sport on the water show very plainly that when Tintoret abandons his violent brush, he is capable of the most exquisite details." — (F. A. G.)
In his own Portrait, Tintoret appears in som- bre aspect.
" He is seen full face, old and dressed in black ; his features are austere, his regard profound with something of sadness and disillusion. Years have accumulated with- out robbing him of vigour. No labour has marked him with fatigue. His robust old age seems ready to begin the battle of life afresh."— (F. A. G.)
Two Men, by Gentile Bellini, long passed for likenesses of himself and his brother Giovanni. They are simple busts, facing one another, of men in the prime of life. A landscape is seen in the background on either side of the curtain.
" The execution of this picture is naive and charming at the same time. The design is that of a master and the colours are deliciously melted. It may be considered as the prelude to the most beautiful Venetian pictures." — (F. A. G.)
Among the striking portraits by Italians are Titian's Man with the Glove; Paris Bordone's Man, in a black costume that brings out the fresh- ness of his complexion; John of Calcar's Man with a Red Beard; Bronzino's Sculptor holding a statutette ; and Caravaggio's Alof de Vignacourt, Grand Master of Malta, are notable. The armour of the latter is splendidly treated.
" This portrait is a veritable page from history, soberly conceived, solidly painted, and skilfully lighted." — (F. A. G.)
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•
Two Concerts, by John of Bologna (Valentin), are masterly works. One consists of eight persons seated around a table covered with a rich cloth. A richly-dressed man in plumed hat plays a curved hautboy ; a young woman plays a spinet ; other men play stringed instruments and the rest are singing. Blanc points out the fact that although the company is well dressed, all have such bad faces that they are probably thieves and robbers. The second Concert consists of seven figures grouped around a stone pedestal, playing lutes, guitars, and violins, and singing. In the background, a woman is empty- ing a bottle. It is a splendid triumph of colour and costume, and captivating in its treatment of chiaroscuro and contrast.
Guercino's Resurrection of Lazarus, painted with great force, has many vulgar details. He is also represented by the Patron Saints of Modena, where the Virgin is seated on the clouds with the Child Jesus in her arms, accompanied by two angels. On the earth, St. Geminiano receives from an angel the model of the town of Modena ; another angel behind him bears his cross. St. John the Baptist is kneeling to the Virgin ; St. George is standing in full armour; and behind is St. Peter Martyr in the Dominican habit.
Dejanira Carried off by Nessus shows Guido in full possession of his distinguishing qualities — grace and delicacy, correct and elegant drawing, soft and brilliant colouring, and rich and harmoni- ous distribution of light.
The Entombment, by Annibale Carracci, is notable for its excellent grouping, fine sense of form, light and shade and pathos in the expression and attitude of the Virgin.
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The Virgin Appearing to St. Luke and St. Catherine is also a famous work; as is also his Virgin with the Cherries. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen is another of his best works.
Caravaggio's Concert represents ten musicians, four of whom are playing instruments and six are singing in a room, a door of which opens into the country. They are well dressed. The picture is remarkable for the firmness of execution and the individuality of the heads. The group evidently consists of portraits.
The Death of the Virgin is noted for its in- tense dramatic treatment; and the Fortune Teller for its truth as a character study.
Spada's Concert represents three musicians and a child seated around a table. One tunes a lute, the other holds a violin and points with his bow to a music-book, and the third places his finger on his lips to command silence.
Salvator Rosa's Battle with its conflict of horse- men, temple in ruins, and burning vessels portrays all the horrors of war.
" This is a large picture full of gloom and horror, the men engaged in the fight looking more like demons let loose from the infernal regions than gallant soldiers. Be- yond the trick of light and shade, which relieves the figures from each other, and the variety of action delineated, there are really no points of merit in the picture." — (C. L. E.)
One of the most beautiful of Murillo's many Immaculate Conceptions is the inspired work in the Louvre.
" In a diaphanous atmosphere gilded with an invisible clearness as of Paradise, the winged heads and bodies of little angels are moving: the former gracefully grouped, the latter bodily and skilfully disposed. The celestial in-
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fants have followed all the way to the earth the rays of celestial light in its elusive gradations of colour under its imperceptible glazing. In the centre, in the act of ascent, the Virgin rises in ecstasy. One corner of a cloud, the crescent moon, and a masterly group of little angels, naked and enraptured, bear the Immaculate aloft. Gracefully and statuesquely posed, and broadly draped in a white robe with sober folds enriched by an ample scarf of light blue, she modestly hides her feet under the drapery and chastely crosses her hands over the breast in which she feels the conception of the Son of God operating. Her head under its dishevelled waves of black hair, a little turned back and bending slightly to one side, is raised to heaven with up- lifted eyes and open mouth, as if to receive in every sense the flow of the spirit. The face, in the exquisite sweet- ness of a surrender to piety, reflects the bliss of Faith, of mystical voluptuousness, and divine ecstasy. The ex- pression is religious, but the Virgin is human, and full of life in the firmness of her lines and the warmth of her flesh-tints. Beneath the suppleness of the drawing and the soft touches we recognize in Mary the Immaculate, the woman, and even the Andalusian.
" The whole work is a most harmonious and well- balanced composition, of the greatest opulence of colour, solidly laid in, and here and there lightly glazed over in the Venetian manner; a superb work this, in which Murillo has found the right point where his idealism and his materialism meet and mingle." — (A. Gn.)
Of almost equal fame is the Holy Family. The Virgin's face is one of the most beautiful Murillo ever painted and never did softer hues come from his palette.
"What serenity is contained in The Holy Family! The Virgin holds, standing upon her knees, the Infant Jesus, who is leaning towards Saint John the Baptist. The latter is presenting the Infant God with a cross of reed. In his left hand he is holding a scroll on which the words Ecce agnus Dei are inscribed. A lamb is lying in the fore- ground. Saint Elizabeth, with a contemplative glance, is on her knees. A dove hovers above the Bambino's head,
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and, in the sky, God the Father leans towards the group. I admit that the Virgin's head is a delicate portrait, but it is not merely a portrait. This reservation made, I am ready to pronounce an unbounded eulogy for the harmony of the composition, the happy contrasts of the positions and types, the correctness of the attitudes and the lightness and transparency of the colouring. Some imponderable cherubim are playing in the ether, but nearer to the spec- tator is the body of the Infant Jesus, which with its clearly marked contours, and without dryness, surpasses in elegance, distinction and gracefulness, the cherubim that are happy to contemplate him." — (H. J.)
The Miracle of San Diego, also called the Angels' Kitchen, was carried away from Seville by Marshal Soult.
" On the right of the spectator two knights stand amazed at the scene which represents the culinary operations of the Convent being carried on by angels. Two celestial figures with wings outspread stand in the foreground ; others are occupied in preparing food. Meanwhile St. Diego in rapture is poised in the air returning thanks for the timely help accorded to his prayers on behalf of his needy Franciscans. In front of the two principal figures of the angels is a tablet with a narrative of the miracle." -(A. F. C.)
Soult also obtained the Birth of the Virgin
from the Seville Cathedral, threatening to shoot two reluctant members of the Chapter unless they gave up the picture.
" In the foreground four female figures are about to place the infant in her bath ; one has the child in her arms, another attends with linen ; two angels are in attitude of adoration. To our left are two sturdy boy angels bringing linen, one of whom, his head turned aside, is noticing a dog. To our extreme left, and in the background, St. Anne is raised in bed receiving visitors, who are seen in half-light. On our right two attendants are airing linen at a fire-place. In the upper part of the chamber are four
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child-angels in glory. The bare left arm of the woman in the foreground, whose back is towards the spectator, is said to have excited the jealous envy of the ladies of Seville by its beauty of shape and colour." — (A. F. C.)
The Beggar Boy, a dirty, ragged little urchin sitting on the ground under a wall, with a pitcher and a basket of fruit beside him, is illumined by a wonderful stream of yellow light.
Velasquez is represented by seven fine works. The Infanta Maria Marguerita is one of the most famous portraits of childhood ever painted. The little daughter of Philip IV., already conscious of her majesty, is shown here at the age of seven or eight, standing with her hand on a chair and looking directly at the spectator. She wears a dress of white silk trimmed with black lace and pink bows, a necklace, bracelets and golden chain, and holds a flower in her left hand. A pink bow ornaments her fair hair. The painter has sug- gested in the subtlest way the atmosphere that sur- rounds the queenly child.
" This is a charming portrait, full of child-like grace, the delicate flesh tints blending admirably with soft grey transparent shadows, and the whole swiftly but dexter- ously painted." — (C. L. E.)
Herrera's St. Basil Dictating his Doctrine
represents the Saint in episcopal robes, pen in hand. Four other saints are present.
" These convulsed faces are distorted with an infernal malignity, and the Holy Spirit which flaps its wings above the saint looks like a falcon that wants to eat his brains. All this is carried out with inconceivable fury of the brush, and gleams with the reflections of an Auto da Fe." — (T. G.)
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The Club-Foot (Pied de Botte), by Ribera, is a remarkable work by a savage nature.
" A picture that without exaggeration may be called a classic of realism. In the breadth of the treatment and the sincerity of the characterization, it challenges Velas- quez, not unworthily, in the mood in which he painted his marvellous dwarfs." — (A. F. C.)
Four devotional works also illustrate the powers of his remarkable genius : the Adoration of the Shepherds, an Entombment, St. Paul the Her- mit, and a Virgin and Child.
Clouet's Elizabeth of Austria is a masterpiece that stands comparison with its contemporary, Holbein's Anne of Cleves.
" The French artist has never been more French, that is to say, more exact, true and poetic in his own way with- out effort than in this little picture painted from life at a date when the bad Italianism of Fontainebleau had already poisoned our national school. Look at that brow that is too high and slightly bulging towards the roots of the hair; and those lips pressed together in a kind of grimace that is not without a certain childish stupidity ; and that long nose broad at the nostrils — all so many restrictions of beauty, whilst the eyes alone, gentle, observant and kind beneath their still undecided shrewdness, turn towards the corners of the lids under the very high, pure and almost imposing arch of the brows. If now we go through the various parts of the costume, from the pearls of the head- dress to the rings that adorn the two crossed hands, we shall find everywhere the same conscientiousness and the same exactitude of disposition. The blonde hair, raised and puffed over the curve of the temples above the fore- head, is then plaited and brought down over the neck in a net embroidered with pearls and fastened on the top of the head by a gold ornament. The neck is confined in a ruff of fluted lace beneath which runs a collar of precious stones, an admirable piece of goldsmith's work the disposi- tion of which is repeated along the edging of the bodice, the puffed chemisette divided into lozenges by a lacing of
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pearls and gold buttons is in keeping with the magnificence of the robe which is all of gold brocade damasked with silver with a border of rubies and emeralds. Finally, the sleeves slashed with white sown with pearls support the splendour of the rest of the costume, the principal motive of which is the heavy pendant which is displayed on the breast and ends with an enormous fine pear-shaped pearl. Just below, the tapering hands resting on something un- seen, show only two rings and look modest in the midst of all this richness." — (S. R.)
Holbein's famous Portrait of Anne of Cleves in her purple velvet flashing with gems, and mas- sive bonnet decorated with pearls'" that frames her expressionless face, gained for this noble lady a royal husband. In 1539, Holbein was sent to Ger- many to paint her likeness, so that Henry VIII. might, if pleased with her appearance, make her his queen. Her portrait gave too flattering an impres- sion of the " Flanders Mare," who was soon divorced.
" The Portrait of Anne of Cleves by Holbein is the per- fection of an official lie. Yet one can read between the lines and discover something of the truth. The first glance at this picture leaves an impression almost of charm ; but on examining it certain imperfections unveil themselves and as you carry the examination farther the ugliness appears. But what skill, what innuendos, and what prodigious cleverness in the dissimulation. In order to diminish the unattractiveness of his model, Holbein has painted it smaller than life. Anne of Cleves is standing, seen full face and in complete immobility. Her small and beautifully painted hands are laden with rings and clasped. Owing to the amplitude and magnificence of her costume, the truth disappears and the figure grows slighter until it seems to be almost delicate. Anne of Cleves in her magnificent and rigid costume has something about ner that is sacerdotal and quasi archaic. Thus pompously dressed she looks like an idol, and the woman has entirely disappeared. No wonder that Henry VIII. was taken by
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the mirage. Holbein's genius accomplished a transforma- tion."—(F. A. G.)
Holbein's other portraits are magnificent. There is one of a man dressed in a gown lined with fur, holding a carnation and a rosary; another of Sir Richard Southwell, wearing a purple velvet cloak and black cap with a cameo set in gold, re- markable for its vitality and minute and careful finish ; an Old Man in a large black cap and brown cloak, holding a small book bound in red velvet, striking for the ugliness of the model with his bulbous nose and stern expression; Sir Thomas More, a triumph of faultless workmanship ; Wil- liam Wareham, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the mitre, pastoral staff and other accessories are painted with extraordinary skill; Erasmus, marvellously life-like as he sits writing in profile with a diapered curtain for a background ; and Nicholas Kratzer, astronomer to Henry VIII. , treated much in the same style as Georg Gisze (Berlin) Gallery. In Kratzer
"the features are admirably modelled (without cast shadow) in warm flesh tones, the long upper lip giving strong individuality to the expression. A black gown, open at the chest, discloses linen delicately embroidered with black thread in so minute a pattern, that the design can scarcely be distinguished without a magnifying glass. The rule, compasses and scissors laid on the table and the mathematical instruments are all painted with elaborate care. On a slip of paper may be traced a Latin inscrip- tion, which includes the name of the sitter and the date, 1528."— (C. L. E.)
The Madonna and Child is one of the finest examples of John Van Eyck in existence.
" In an open porch, or vestibule, arcaded on three sides
ANNE OF CLEVES— Holbein
LOUVBE
CARDINAL RICHELIEU— P. de Champaigne
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and paved with marble of different colours arranged in compartments, the Virgin sits on the right hand, clad in a long mantle of dull red, the border of which is embroidered with gold and enriched with precious stones. Her head is uncovered and bound with a fillet from which the hair falls in profusion round her shoulders. Her eyes are downcast and the lips firmly compressed. On her knees she holds the Infant Christ, who bears in his left hand a crystal globe surmounted by a gold cross decorated with gems, and raises His right hand in benediction towards the donor, a middle-aged man who kneels opposite at a prie- dieu, dressed in a richly brocaded robe trimmed with fur. Through the open arches in the background is seen a garden gay with lilies, roses, and corn-flags, terminating in a battlemented terrace. Peacocks and other birds are in the garden, and a man leaning on a stick stands near an- other figure who stoops forward to look through one of the embrasures. Beyond the garden is a river spanned by a bridge and studded with islands. In the distance is a town and a range of mountains completes the landscape. Of this marvellous picture it is sufficient to say that for elaboration and almost microscopic finish of detail, there is nothing so remarkable in the gallery." — (C. L. E.)
St. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalen
are two wings of a triptych by Hans Memling. Each figure is about twelve inches high only, and in the background are depicted incidents in their lives.
" It is the extraordinary minute finish of these subjects and the delicate beauty of the landscape by which they are surrounded which invest this work with its chief interest. The ' noli me tangere ' group does not occupy a square inch of space, but it is instinct with devotional feeling." — (C. L. E.)
Memling's Marriage of St. Catherine is also a charming composition. The Virgin with the Child in her lap is seated in an exquisite landscape surrounded by six female saints. St. Catherine sits
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in front with her hand on a book holding out her finger for the ring which Jesus places on her finger. St. Agnes with her lamb, Cecilia with her organ, St. Lucia with her dish of eyes, St. Margaret with her dragon, and either Barbara or Bridget. Three angels in the sky above are playing instruments.
Magnificent in colour and costume is Rubens's Thomyris and Cyrus. The Queen is on her throne surrounded by attendants and on the left a kneel- ing man holds the head of Cyrus above a vase of copper. There are six principal actors. This is one of the most brilliant pictures ever painted, even Paul Veronese pales beside it. The queen in white and gold and ermine with her feet on a blue cushion is the climax of light and brightness. The carpet that covers the steps of the throne, the draperies and the robes of the other figures are superb.
" The expression of the principal faces are of little im- portance : the minor personages have nothing to say. Thomyris exhibits a somnolent air that hardly suits her role. Rubens has sacrificed everything to brilliancy of colour. As is generally the case with the works of his last manner, the execution is more important than the conception, the pictorial qualities than the drawing. A warm glow overspreads the picture and illuminates it with a soft and harmonious light — a fairy light — which leaves no shadows nor coldness, but penetrates everything with its brilliant warmth and causes reflections to play every- where."—(M. R.)
The Flight of Lot is entirely by the hand of Rubens, and is a masterpiece. An angel with out- spread wings encourages the weeping Lot to look ahead ; his wife, grieving for Sodom, looks back, although a second angel pushes her onward. The daughters follow with an ass laden with silver ves- sels ; on the left is the gate through which the party
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has left the city, and above in the sky four demons are hurling fire upon Sodom.
" The little picture has the breadth of a large composi- tion ; and owing to the action which animates the scene, the illusion of a procession is give'n. The expression of the chief personages is very successful and dramatic ; the grief of Lot and his wife forms a contrast to the indiffer- ence of their daughters, bright with youth and exuberant in health."— ( M. R.)
The Rainbow, by Rubens, is a landscape simi- lar to the one in the Hermitage, but differing in some details.
Baron Henri de Vicq, with black hair and grey moustache and beard, wearing a black costume and fluted ruff, is a fine solid head, something like Rubens's own, and splendidly painted. The back- ground is red.
Very spirited is the group of Rubens's Wife and her Three Children.
" The individual expression of the faces is intelligently characterized by a few strokes with extraordinary life and freshness ; Helena's head, especially, is softly touched in with a caressing, liquid brush, as is also her breast, which is in a warm, transparent penumbra. The execution, an exquisite mixture of vague forms and firm touches, reveals Rubens's pleasure in painting, and is a sort of reflection of the domestic happiness which he still enjoyed in his rare moments of freedom from pain." — (E. M.)
Van Dyck's Virgin and Child Jesus, with Magdalen, King David and John the Baptist, shows an Italian influence.
" The purple glow of the setting sun, the clear and amber tones of the flesh, and the warm harmony of the whole would almost lead us to seek the painter of this picture in the Venetian School." — (J. G.)
Of Van Dyck's many portraits of Charles I.
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the one here in which he stands beside his horse in a wood is the most celebrated.
" It is a splendid piece of colouring. The King, in a white satin jacket, red hose and light yellow jack-boots, with a wide-brimmed black hat on his long, brown hair, stands out against a piece of wooded country, sloping away to the seacoast, with a distant view of the sea and a sunny sky with white clouds. The horse, a grey, is re- lieved effectively by the deep brownish-green of the forest trees and the dull red of the groom's dress. 'By the side of the groom, and partly hidden by his figure, we also per- ceive a page who carries the King's short cloak of light silk."— (H. K.)
Richardot, President of the Privy Council of the Netherlands, and His Little Son, a work of high artistic quality, is attributed to Van Dyck and also to Rubens.
One of the greatest portraits in the gallery is Philippe de Champaigne's Cardinal Richelieu, which Michelet studied and from which he drew his impression of the great minister, " sphinx in a red robe," that " phantom with grey beard, fixed grey eyes, and delicate, thin hands."
" The spectator sees in that head with its broad brow, burning eyes, long straight nose, lips compressed beneath the fine moustache, and chin pointed by the goatee, only genius, will and sadness, — a double sadness of suffering without respite and labour without rest. The walking and gliding attitude is of unequalled nobility; the gesture of the hand, which receives and commands, is an observation of genius. The arrangement of the folds of the red robe crossed by the white rochet and the blue cord of the Holy Spirit, is noble and simple. The whole picture is a symphony in red, where the sheen of the silk and the heaviness of the cloth produce, in their balanced tonality, a learned and simple harmony. Never has the most bril- liant and pompous of colours been treated with a more sober and masterly strength." — (G. L.)
Among the seven valuable works by Jordaens,
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in The King Drinks, so full of life and light, we recognise his wife and others dear to the painter. The Infancy of Jupiter, in which a woman is milking a goat while Jupiter, crying, is handing her a flagon, is one of Jordaens's typical mythological pictures with landscape background. A satyr with a bunch of grapes is present.
Peasant Brueghel has two panels of small size but of great importance, depicting a Village and Dance of Peasants. They are finely painted, carefully drawn and they illustrate the artist's first manner.
Among the several works of Frans Hals, the bril- liant gipsy girl, La Bohemienne, takes the first place.
" It is thinly and lightly, but firmly painted, with a very full and very liquid brush, each tone brought up to the other and overlapping; but set there once, and once for all, with absolute knowledge and certainty, no after-thoughts, no changes, no happy accidents. It is all seen unerringly, touched unerringly. So she was, for that hour or two, so she was painted for that hour or two, and so she was left. And it has all that delicious freshness and charm which belong to a first sketch before nature of a great artist, and belong to that alone." — (G. S. D.)
Rembrandt is represented in the Louvre by no less than twenty works, among which the Carpen- ter's Household is very famous, particularly on account of the light effects. Among the portraits Hendrickje Stoffels, a likeness of Rembrandt's housekeeper, is the most important and also the best of the many pictures he made of her. She wears a fur-trimmed jacket, a green velvet cap ornamented with red bows and ornate earrings with long pearl drops splendidly treated.
" The shaded lights, the chiaroscuro of the neck, the
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white tone of the linen, the warm and transparent bitu- men of the fur, and the light on the brow and nose render this portrait an unrivalled painting." — (T. G.)
Dow's Dropsical Woman is, perhaps, the finest picture he ever painted. In addition to his usual perfection of execution, we here find also real and deep feeling; the scene is touching, and the com- position is well ordered.
Jan Steen's Flemish Feast in an Inn is in this painter's typical strain of jollity, where people are variously grouped, eating, drinking, laughing and dancing. All are dressed in brilliant costume.
Ter Borch's Soldier Offering Gold to a Girl hangs close to Metsu's Soldier Receiving a Young Lady. They form companion pictures.
" They are the two marvels, the two gems of conversa- tion painting. The former is a masterpiece of execution ; and the greatest punishment that could be inflicted on an amateur would be to make him choose between the two pictures. In its own way, each is the last word of art." -(C. B.)
Of the six landscapes by Ruysdael, Le Buisson is particularly celebrated. On the right is a steep sandy road bordered with trees on which a peasant is walking away from the spectator, accompanied by three dogs. On the summit of a hill is the roof of a cottage; on the left are meadows; in the dis- tance a village ; and on the left in the foreground, a thicket which gives its name to the canvas. The sky is cloudy.
A remarkable series of small panels depicting the Life of St. Bruno, by Le Sueur, repays care- ful scrutiny to appreciate their beautifully treated details. His greatest work, however, is the Vision of St. Scholastica to St. Benoit, her brother:
" St. Benoit is one of the masterpieces of religious paint-
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ing. Look how the body of the monk in the ample robe of the Benedictines assumes magnificent proportions and look at the grandeur of his gesture. What a divine ex- pression shines from his ascetic face ! Never has ecstasy been carried further. Never has the invisible been made visible with more success. Never has there been expressed in the human countenance such an avidity for things eternal."— (F. A. G.)
Of Jouvenet's thirteen works, including his own portrait, the Descent from the Cross is his mas- terpiece. It is composed with great harmony and lighted with such fine effect that the figures stand out in splendid relief. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is a masterly drawing, and the figures also stand out in bold relief, — one of the special qualities of this painter.
Poussin's forty works show the great French painter in every mood and style. The Bergers d'Arcadie is very characteristic. Here three shep- herds and a young girl are reading from an ancient tombstone the words Et in Arcadia Ego. The landscape is beautiful, the picture full of charm and a perfect illustration of Meleager's famous line. Another famous work is St. Francis Xavier Re- suscitating a Young Girl, depicting the saint and his companion, Jean Fernandez, in prayer at the girl's bedside, with two sorrowing women and Indians amazed at the miracle, and Christ and two angels appearing in the upper part of the pic- ture. Of equal celebrity is Diogenes throwing away his Porringer, an incident in a large aca- demic landscape with Athens in the distance.
Of the sixteen typical examples of Claude Lor- rain there is a beautiful Sea-port at Sunset, which should be noticed for its glowing orange, pink and yellow light. Also remarkable for its
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beautiful effects of light is Ulysses Returning Chryseis to Her Father, which is but an excuse for a sea-port with the Temple of Apollo in the distance. The High Priest is receiving his daughter from Ulysses in the presence of a large crowd.
Cleopatra Landing at Tarsus is another lovely harbour scene, where Cleopatra on the arm of Del- lius and accompanied by six women is about to land on the steps of a palace. Antony, followed by his soldiers, advances to meet her. On the left, two richly dressed boats ride at anchor and to which small boats are hastening to unload them. The setting sun illumines the scene and casts beau- tiful reflections on the waves ruffled by the breeze.
Another great work is the View of Campo Vac- cino, Rome, with the arch of Septimus Severus and the colonnade of the temple of Antoninus on the left; the Capitol in the background; the Portico of the temple of the Concord and the columns of Jupiter Sator farther back on the left; and many people in the foreground and in the Forum.
Among Mignard's nine works, including his own portrait and one of Madame de Maintenon, the Virgin with the Grapes is the most celebrated. It is a charming picture of maternal tenderness. Seated in an arm-chair, the Madonna offers the Child a bunch of grapes. A basket of fruit on the neighbouring table is beautifully painted.
There are twenty-three works by Le Brun — reli- gious, historical, mythological and portraits, in- cluding one of himself in his youth. The Battle of Arbela is characteristic, showing Alexander on horseback and Darius in a chariot drawing his bow, the Persian army with its elephants, and a heap of corpses in the foreground.
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The Repentant Magdalen, by Le Brun, seated before a mirror weeping and rending her garments, with a halo around her head and a casket of jewels at her feet, enjoys a great celebrity, largely owing to the fact that the saint is none other than Madame La Valliere.
" What perfect drawing ! What a noble and pathetic expression of the beautiful penitent! What beautiful draperies, arranged with such art and taste ! What gentle harmony ! And what a prodigious effect of the whole ! " —(A. de F.)
Among the portraits of the period we note Nicholas Poussin, painted by himself, represented in his studio holding a design in his hand ; Rigaud's Bossuet, in a robe of blue watered silk, white sur- plice trimmed with lace and ermine cape, and also two of Madame Le Brun and her Daughter, painted by herself.
" Although she did not die until March 30, 1842, she remains in French art the portrait painter par excellence of the Court of Marie Antoinette. When she suddenly left France at the first rumblings of the Revolution, terror- stricken before the Reign of Terror, it might be said that her work was accomplished. Her truly important por- traits belong to her youth. If we want to catch in one attitude and look the moral reflection of a period, or to divine the thoughts or dreams hatched under the compli- cated head-dresses of the great ladies who sheltered behind transparent fichus of linen sentimental and light hearts, it is Madame Vigee Le Brun to whom we must go." — (A. M.)
Perhaps the greatest work of this talented woman was achieved in her dashing Mademoiselle Mole Reymond, of the Comedie-Francaise.
" She wears a large blue hat and apron, picturesque and charming in themselves, but somewhat out of key with the
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pure-coloured dress. She carries a huge brown muff, probably the biggest that ever figured on canvas. It is a merry-looking face, full of health and happiness. The painting is admirable in execution, reminding one in cer- tain qualities of Gainsborough — but more finished and even in impasto." — (C. L. E.)
We turn with delight to the French masters of the Eighteenth Century. Here * Watteau, Lancret and Pater invite us to green swards and leafy parks, and lift the curtain upon happy groups swinging, skating, dancing, bathing, dressing, or embarking for isles of fancy; they introduce us to Gilles, Scar- pin, Harlequin and the other members of the Italian Comedy; Boucher and Fragonard charm our eyes with their nymphs, loves, bathers, shepherds and shepherdesses, gods and goddesses, and young men and maidens in scenes of frolic or fantasy; Nattier and Greuze show us living personages; and Char- din, Oudry and Desportes, domestic scenes, still life, hunts and fruits and flowers. Among the most characterictic works are Watteau's Em- barkment for Cythera; Lancret's Actors of the Italian Comedy; Pater's Bathers; Boucher's Three Graces, Nest, Breakfast, Vulcan present- ing Venus with Arms for Aeneas, and the Girl with the Muff; Fragonard's Coresus and Calli- rhoe; and L'Etude, the Portrait of a Young Woman ; Nattier's Portraits of Madame Adelaide and of Daughter of Louis XV. as a Vestal; Greuze's La Laitiere, La Cruche Cassee, and 1'Accordee du Village; Oudry's Blanche, a dog of Louis X V.'s pack, and Still Life ; and Dog and Two Partridges and Dog Guarding Game, by Desportes.
Diderot thought Greuze appeared at his best in
GILLES— Watteau
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LA CRUCHE CASSEE— Greuse
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1'Accordee du Village, honoured him as a man of mind and taste, delicacy and skill. The episode re- quires no explanation if the original title — A Father Paying the Dowry of his Daughter — be remembered. The scene is laid in a simple village house where the chickens feed upon the floor and the whole family has assembled. The contract has been drawn up by the notary, who is still seated at the table opposite the old father, who is giving the bag of money to his future son-in- law. The bride and her younger sister, who is leaning her head upon her shoulder, are painted with Greuze's characteristic freshness.
La Cruche Cassee is of delicate colour and beauty.
" Greuze has a very individual talent for painting woman in her first bloom, when the bud is about to burst into the rose and the child is about to become a maiden. As in the Eighteenth Century all the world was somewhat libertine, even the moralist, Greuze, when he painted an Innocence, always took pains to open the gauze and give a glimpse of the curve of the swelling bosom; he puts into the eyes a fiery lustre and upon the lips a dewy smile that suggests the idea that Innocence might very easily become Voluptu- ousness.
" La Cruche Cassee is the model of this genre. The head has still the innocence of childhood, but the fichu is disarranged, the rose at the corsage is dropping its leaves, the flowers are only half held in the fold of the gown and the jug allows the water to escape through its fissure." — (T. G.)
La Laitiere is worthy to rank with the above. The painter attains perfection in it. The aristo- cratic milkmaid, leaning in graceful attitude upon her horse's neck and holding a measure in her right hand, looks at the spectator with a dewy smile and
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reminds one of the dairy-maids of Trianon, or a lovely village belle of an opera comique waiting, perhaps, for her lover.
All of Watteau's genius and charm is embodied in the glowing yet delicate picture of pleasure, the Embarkment for Cythera.
" Observe all that ground lightly coated with a trans- parent and golden varnish, all that ground covered with rapid strokes of the brush lightly laid on with a delicate touch. Notice that green of the trees shot through with red tones, penetrated with quivering air, and the vaporous light of autumn. Notice the delicate water-colour effect of thick oil, the general smoothness of the canvas, the relief of this pouch or hood ; notice the full modelling of the little faces with their glances in the confused outlines of the eye and their smiles in the suggested outlines of the mouth. The beautiful and flowing sweep of the brush 'over those decolletages, the bare flesh glowing with voluptuous rose among the shadows of the wood ! The pretty crossings of the brush to round a neck ! The beau- tiful undulating folds with soft breaks like those which the modeller makes in the clay! And the spirit and the gal- lantry of touch of Watteau's brush in the feminine trifles and headdresses and finger-tips, — and everything it ap- proaches ! And the harmony of those sunlit distances, those mountains of rosy snow, those waters of verdurous reflections ; and again those rays of sunlight falling upon robes of rose and yellow, mauve petticoats, blue mantles, shot-coloured vests, and little white dogs with fiery spots. For no painter has equalled Watteau in rendering beauti- fully coloured objects transfigured by a ray of sunlight, their soft fading and that kind of diffused blossoming of their brilliancy under the full light. Let your eyes rest for a moment on that band of pilgrims of both sexes hurrying, beneath the setting sun, towards the galley of Love that is about to set sail : there is the joyousness of the most adorable colours in the world surprised in a ray of the sun, and all that haze and tender silk in the radiant shower involuntarily remind you of those brilliant insects that we find dead, but with still living colours, in the
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golden glow of a piece of amber. This picture is the wonder of wonders of this master." — (E. and J. de G.)
Coresus and Callirhoe is Fragonard's great tragic composition.
" A painting of the opera, and demanding from the opera its soul and its light. But what a magnificent illu- sion this picture presents ! It must be seen in the Louvre so that the eyes may feast upon the clear and warm splendour of the canvas, the milky radiance of all those white priestly robes, the virginal light inundating the centre of the scene, palpitating and dying away on Callirhoe, en- veloping her fainting body like the fading of day, and caressing that failing throat. The rays of light and the smoke all melt into one another ; the temple smokes and the mists of incense ascend everywhere. Night is rolling above the day. The sun falls into the gloom and casts a reflected glare. The gleams of sulphur flames illuminate the faces and the throng. Fragonard lavishly threw the lights of fairyland upon his masterpieces: it is Rembrandt combined with Ruggieri.
" And what movement, what action are in this agitated and convulsive painting ! The clouds and the garments whirl, the gestures are rapid, the attitudes are despairing, horror shudders in every pose and on every lip, and a great mute cry seems to rise throughout this entire temple and throughout this entire lyrical composition.
" This cry of a picture, so new for the Eighteenth Cen- tury, is Passion. Fragonard introduces it into his time in this picture so full of tragic tenderness where we might fancy the entombment of Iphigenia. The phantasmagoria raises his art to the level of the emotion of the Alceste of Euripides ; it reveals a future for French painting : pathos." — (E. and J. de G.)
The Grace (Le Benedicite) is one of Chardin's most popular works. It attained instant success and the artist made several versions of it. The young mother in brown dress, blue apron and white cap and kerchief is serving soup to two little girls,
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one of whom is folding her hands and trying to remember the words of the grace which she must repeat before she can have her soup.
" Charming in its composition, simplicity, and expres- sion Chardin's Grace is even more admirable owing to its freedom of touch, the perfect harmony of its colouring and its delicacy of light and shade." — (G. L.)
La Pourvoyeuse is an exquisite study of colour. The housekeeper in a striped petticoat, lavender apron, and white cap and bodice has just returned from market with a leg of mutton and some loaves of bread. In the background, a servant is stand- ing in a yellow dress, white cap and bodice.
" So beautifully harmonious is the colouring, so broad and free the way it is painted, and so luminous the atmos- phere, that words can give no idea of its charm." — (H. de C.)
Among the still-life pictures look at Grapes and Pomegranates, in which grapes, pomegranates, two apples, a pear, two wine-glasses and a knife are arranged around a coffee-pot of flowered china.
" See how effective, how true to nature, are those grapes, just a little bit bruised — perhaps, too, a little over-ripe! And how perfectly the luscious purple centre of that open pomegranate accords with the red wine in the glasses ! The key of colour, enhanced by the light reflected in the various objects, is clear, and the whole effect of the picture bright and gay." — (H. de C.)
The best of all the many portraits of Madame de Pompadour is the pastel by La Tour. It is not only a remarkable representation of personality, but is a beautiful study in colour. All the details of the scene are finely treated.
" But it is the person herself who is in every respect marvellous in her extreme delicacy, gracious dignity, and
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exquisite beauty. Holding her music-book in her hand lightly and carelessly, her attention is suddenly called away from it; she seems to have heard a noise and turns her head. Is it indeed the King who has arrived and is about to enter? She seems to be expecting him with cer- tainty and to be listening with a smile. Her head, thus turned aside, reveals the outline of the neck in all its grace, and her very short but deliciously-waved hair is arranged in rows of little curls, the blonde tint of which may be divined beneath the slight covering of powder. The head stands out against a light-blue background, which in gen- eral dominates the whole picture. Everything satisfies and delights the eye; it is a melody, perhaps, rather than a harmony. A bluish light, sifting downwards, falls across every object. There is nothing in this enchanted .boudoir which does not seem to pay court to the goddess, — nothing, not even L'Esprit des Lois and L'Encyclopedie. The flowered satin robe makes way along the undulations of the breast for several rows of those bows, which were called, I believe, parfaits contentements, and which are of a very pale lilac. Her own flesh-tints and complexion are of a white lilac, delicately azured. That breast, those ribbons, and that robe — all blend together harmoniously or rather lovingly. Beauty shines in all its brilliance and in full bloom."— (C. A. S-B.)
Gerard's Cupid and Psyche represents an inter- esting phase in French art.
" The painter has succeeded in investing it with a neo- classic grace which is both delicate and refined, a remark- able achievement considering the subject, the date and the nationality of the work. Both faces are very beautiful, that of Psyche is a model of maiden purity and innocence, and the drapery is painted with extraordinary care and finish."— (C. L. E.)
David's Sabines and Leonidas at Thermopylae
enjoy great fame. They are excellent examples of the style of this painter.
" One of the most pretentious and foolish of David's in- ventions. The attitude of Tatius can only be compared to
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those which used to be designed for the cardboard char- acters in a toy theatre. It requires some knowledge of the usages of ancient Roman warfare to justify the appar- ent absurdity of representing Romulus rushing into battle with nothing on but a helmet. But his naked form af- forded an opportunity of displaying the artist's dexterity in painting the human figure larger than life; and it can- not be denied that every limb is drawn and shaded with anatomical correctness. The draperies are studied with equal care, but there is very little of them.
" Leonidas is painted on exactly the same plan and with the same disregard of colour. There are acres of canvas covered with similar designs in the Louvre ; they display a vast amount of industry and, in some instances, of tech- nical skill, but are utterly deficient in the most essential elements of pictorial grace." — (C. L. E.)
The Oath of the Horatii and Paris and Helen are also typical works of this painter. More pleasing is his Madame Recamier.
" Nothing could be more simple and dignified than this reclining figure. The plain white dress, absolutely without even a ribbon on it, is sufficiently relieved by the yellow and grey of the couch. There is, perhaps, too much ex- panse of emptiness in the background ; but this tends to concentrate interest on the figure. In technical quality of execution it bears some resemblance to a large water- colour drawing." — (C. L. E.)
Guerin's Aeneas Relating to Dido the Fate of Troy, with figures larger than life, is much in the style of David.
Alexander Roslin's Young Girl Decorating a Statue of Love with a Garland of Flowers is notable for her graceful attitude and her lustrous white satin dress.
Prud'hon's Crime Pursued by Justice, a wild rocky scene lighted by the moon where the mur- derer and his victim are alone and Vengeance with
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her flaming sword and Justice with her scales are approaching, has its admirers.
" I know of nothing more beautiful, nor more in the ' grand style ' in any school than these two goddesses that glide so proudly and calmly through the blue air of night, and nothing more dramatic and sinister than the silhouette of the assassin or more touching than his vic- tim."—(T. G.)
Gericault's enormous Raft of the Medusa per- petrates a terrible catastrophe. The frigate Medusa, with three other vessels, sailed from France on June 17, 1816, having on board the gov- ernor of St. Louis (Senegal) and about four hun- dred others. On July 2 she ran aground; and, after vain attempts to float her, one hundred and forty-five of the crew and passengers were set adrift on a raft Fifteen were rescued in a dying state by the Argus, after twelve days of suffering.
" This is an enormous picture of an inexpressibly pain- ful subject. It is impossible to judge of such a work by any recognized standard of artistic criticism. The colossal figures are grouped after a melodramatic fashion." — (C. L. E.)
Gericault's Wounded Cuirassier Quitting Battle is also a famous work.
Of Gros the most celebrated works are Napo- leon Visiting the Battlefield of Eylau, on his light brown horse, and The Plague at Jaffa, which was crowned at the Salon of 1804.
" Gros has placed the scene under the picturesque arcade of an Asiatic edifice, through which we see the town rising in the form of an amphitheatre and a glimpse of the sea. This sacrifice was necessary in order to concentrate the interest on the group where Bonaparte touches the breast of a victim with his hand. Moreover, the youth of the general, his handsome appearance, his gentleness and
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the noble serenity of his face all show the hero, all call for admiration. Around him everyone moves away or shows terror. Bessieres is covering his mouth with his handkerchief, Desgenettes himself is anxious over the danger that menaces the General; but the latter alone is calm, noble, charitable, without affectation and without fear. How simple and natural is that gesture of the ill man who involuntarily lifts his hand to his head to salute the illustrious visitor! And what contrasts strike the eye! Here we see handsome Arabs with calm faces dis- tributing food or solacing the dying; there the famished, sick, or desperate that are seen in the shadows and depths of the picture remind me of the damned of Michael An- gelo."— (C. B.)
FRAGONARD'S PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF
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PALAIS DES BEAUX-ARTS BRUSSELS
The Musee Royal de Peinture Ancienne et de Sculpture is housed in the Palais des Beaux- Arts, built in 1875-1881. The gallery of Old Pic- tures was purchased from the city by the state in 1845, and numbers about 600 works. The wealth of the gallery consists chiefly in the works of the early Flemish masters. Rubens, Snyders and Jor- daens are particularly well represented.
Van Eyck's two panels of Adam and Eve be- longed to the Adoration of the Lamb. Both are nude, full-length figures, and stand in niches above which are represented in grisaille, the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel and the Murder of Abel.
" Upon the naked figure of Eve the painter seems to have concentrated all his knowledge of perspective as applied to the human form and its anatomical development. It would be too much to say that Hubert rises to the con- ception of an ideal of beauty. The head is over large, the body protrudes, and the legs are spare, but the mechanism of the limbs and the shape of the extremities are rendered with truth and delicacy, and there is much power in the colouring of the flesh. Counterpart to Eve, and once on the left side of the picture, Adam is equally remarkable for correctness of proportion and natural realism. Here again the master's science in optical perspective is con- spicuous, and the height of the figure above the eye is fitly considered." — (C. and C.)
The Adoration of the Magi, so precious that it is sheltered under glass, is given by the catalogue to John Van Eyck.
" Nevertheless it is by Herri de files. It differs notably 95
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from Van Eyck's style, and, to speak plainly, it is superior to anything he ever did ; it is even superior to Memling's productions. The drawing is freer, the execution easier, the colour more intense and harmonious, the gestures and movements more natural than in the panels of Van Eyck and Memling. This admirable composition evidently de- notes a progress in painting and manifests a more ad- vanced art. No other Fifteenth Century master attained that profound strength in the shadows, that marvellous opulence in the half-tones, and that soft sweetness in the general aspect." — (A. M.)
A small Pieta, by Roger Van der Weyden, is remarkable for the grouping of the figures and the atmospheric effects. The Cross stands out boldly against the sky glowing with sunset hues. The ex- pression of poignant grief, natural emotion and human sympathy in the Holy Woman and the Be- loved Disciple is remarkably life-like and sym- pathetic.
The Head of a Weeping Woman, in grey robe, red mantle, and white hood, who is wiping her eyes with her right hand, appears in many of Roger's pictures, where she is seen weeping by the side of St. John and hiding half of her face with her neck- erchief as she contemplates the body of the Crucified Christ.
" This head is a resume of the dramatic genius of Roger van der Weyden, and of his extraordinary power of ex- pression."— (F-G.)
To Roger Van der Weyden is attributed Charles the Bold. He wears a black doublet, red cap, the order of the Golden Fleece around his neck, and holds an arrow in his hand. The work has also been given to Hugo Van der Goes.
" The portrait is of the first order— its slightly yellowish
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flesh-tints stand out with extreme delicacy from the blue background."— (F-G.)
Two pictures by Thierry Bouts depict the Legend of Otho III.
" A great mind has conceived the whole ; true feelings pervade each scene; types of absolute verity are immortal- ised; and the entire physiognomy of a whole century is epitomised.
" In the first picture, the Emperor Otho, at the instigation of his wife, has an innocent gentleman de- capitated. Behind the wall that encloses their domain, the accuser and her husband are present at the execution. The Emperor finds it necessary to listen to his wife to be convinced of the condemned one's guilt, but is tormented by doubt ; the Empress tries to dissipate his doubts and watches his face to see the effect of her lies. The gentle- man walks firmly to his death. He turns from the Queen, whose love he has repulsed, and who has denounced him in consequence, and exhorts his wife to support this trial courageously. A Franciscan monk accompanies them and seems more moved than the victim. The work of the executioner is, however, accomplished. In the centre of the picture stands the executioner — the head of the gentle- man is placed on a piece of mortuary linen as if all suffer- ing was ended, while the widow's face shows that a firm resignation has taken the place of tears and sobs. Thus the motive of the second picture is announced in the chief episode of the first.
" In the second panel, the widow submits to the ordeal by red-hot iron to prove the innocence of her husband. To make amends for his unjust sentence, Otho condemns the Empress to the stake. The irresolute but good Em- peror, full of remorse forms a contrast to the energetic woman kneeling before him. The courtiers manifest their surprise and emotion just as the magistrates assembled in the other picture show their imperturbability. But how significant are these bourgeois of Louvain, how true to life and how they reveal their century and their race. The grouping of these figures is of so new a character that they recall certain frescoes of the Quatrocentists.
" As for the scene of the burning at the stake in the
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second panel, it is treated, although in minute proportions, with a lightness — we are fain to say spirit — which is a charming surprise in this austere art; some one has said it is almost in the style of genre painting of the Nineteenth Century. The colouring of these pictures merits a long attention, particularly that of the second, in which the scarlet robe of the king, the green surcoat and red hose of the fop, leaning on his cane, the carmine dress of the widow, the rich costume of the courtier behind her, the fine tiles of the floor, the sombre marble of the throne, the brightly-lighted landscape in the background, produce a rich and grave harmony, a little less powerful than that of the pictures of John Van Eyck, but perhaps more subtle and more penetrated with vital and expressive light."— (F-G.)
The Legend of St. Anne (1509) is the earliest known work of Quentin Massys.
" The landscape background of the central panel of the triptych, Holy Family and Saints, makes us think that Joachim Patenier collaborated in the work of his friend, who, later, was to become the guardian of his children." — (G. Laf.)
The subject of the front of the left shutter is The Angel Announcing the Birth of the Virgin. On the back is St. Anne and St. Joachim making Their Offerings. The right shutter represents the Death of St. Anne.
" Never has the supreme moment, when the soul is about to shed its mortal envelope, been so strikingly rep- resented. The artist has not shown us the decomposition of the body, but the flight of the soul to the celestial sphere." — (F.)
" By the merit of its execution, this scene overshadows any Flemish work that had yet appeared. Van Eyck has more splendour. Memling more gentleness. Neither at- tains a more complete realization, nor models with greater science. The expression is in no way inferior in nobility to the drawing; and the harmonious whole evokes the memory of Francia." — (H. H.)
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The best early Flemish work is plentiful here. The Descent from the Cross, by Petrus Christus, shows early Italian influence. It also reminds us forcibly of Roger Van der Weyden in some aspects. Memling's beautiful Pieta also recalls that mas- ter. Another early gem is a Holy Family, by the Master of the Death of the Virgin.
The Last Judgment, by Frans Floris, is a magnificent composition, full of quaint, mediaeval naturalism. It is splendid and terrible.
Other famous early Sixteenth Century works are: The Last Supper and Jesus in the House of Simon, by Albert Bouts; the Temptation of St. Anthony, by Herri de Bles; The Last Sup- per, by Michael Coxie; and Mater Dolorosa, by Patenier.
Van Orley's masterpieces are here: in them may be admired the learned character of his drawing, the boldness of the attitudes, and the vigour of ex- pression. In them also, the artist's indebtedness to Raphael, and, more especially, to Michael Angelo is manifest. The Troubles of Job are dramatic- ally pictured. On the first panel, Jehovah talks with Lucifer and gives him permission to torment his pious servant. Below, we see the Chaldeans driving away the good man's flocks and herds. The pillagers and animals are surrounded by a mysteri- ous landscape. The other paintings show us suc- cessively Job's children feasting and overwhelmed by the falling palace ; Job on the ash-heap ; the death of the just, described in conversation with his friends; the punishment of the wicked in hell fire ; and the healing and glorification of the Hebrew sage.
" These pictures are interesting for many reasons. In
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them the artist presents himself as a great painter: we see that he has mastered his art; and that, when he wields his brush, he evokes at will the forms that captivate his imagination. The warmth of the work announces that he felt inspired." — (A. M.)
Van Orley's Descent from the Cross
" commands the attention and captivates the sight by its intense and vigorous colour, learned composition and drawing of quite Italian correctness. If the human types are somewhat lacking in elegance, their faces are full of expression, and betray the profound grief they feel." — (A. W.)
Heemskerck's Entombment is the central panel of a splendid triptych, signed and dated 1559.
" The work of a pure apostle of linear form, dry, angular, trenchant and blackish, which cuts in hard steel its figures vaguely imitated from Michael Angelo." — (F.)
The student would not willingly miss several masterly works by the Brueghel family: Hell- Fire's fantastic Fall of the Angels; Pieter's Massacre of the Innocents (in a Flemish town, with deep snow on the ground) ; and Jan the Younger's lovely and decorative Autumn, and St. Norbet Preaching.
Let us now look at Rubens's Adoration of the Kings, which
" is neither the first nor the last expression of an idea that Rubens has treated many times. It is certain that it comes after the Paris and before the Mechlin example. The idea is ripe: the stage-setting more than complete. The neces- sary elements which later will compose this work, so rich in transformations, types, personages with their costumes, and in their habitual colours, are all found here, playing the parts written for them, occupying their destined place on the stage. It is a vast page, conceived, contained, con- centrated and summarized as an easel picture should be,
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but less decorative than many others. A great clearness, and a great care, with the maturity of the most perfect knowledge. The whole of the school of Rubens might have been instructed by this single example." — (E. F.)
According to Max Rooses, the upper part of the Assumption of the Virgin was painted by Cornells Schut, who also collaborated in the St. Stephen in the Valenciennes Museum.
" It belongs to the master's first period, being like the pictures of that date, polished, clean in surface, and some- what vitrified. It is at once brilliant and cold, inspired in idea and prudent in execution. In it, Rubens's palette sounds already in the somewhat dominant notes — red, yel- low, black, and gray, with splendour but with crudity. Apart from a few imperfections, all Rubens is here more than in germ. Nothing could be more tender, frank, or striking. As an improvisation of happy tints, as life, and as harmony to the eyes, it is accomplished : a summer fes- tival."—(F.)
Christ Bearing the Cross, or the Ascent to Golgotha, is one of those scenes of bustle and ani- mation in which Rubens delighted. The centurion on horseback pointing out the way is a portrait of the painter himself.
" Here we have movement, tumult and agitation in the form, gesture, face, disposition of groups, and oblique cast from below upwards, and from right to left. Christ falls beneath his cross, the mounted escort, the two thieves held and pushed on by their executioners, are all proceeding along the same line, and seem to be scaling the narrow staircase that leads to the execution. Notwithstanding that tree of infamy, those women in tears and grief, that con- demned man crawling on his knees, with panting mouth, humid temples and haggard eyes that excite pity, notwith- standing the cries, the terror, the imminent death, it is clear, to whomsoever cares to see, that this equestrian pomp, these flying banners, this cuirassed centurion who turns around on his horse with a graceful gesture, — all
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this makes us forget the execution, and gives the most manifest idea of a triumph." — (E. F.)
In 1618, Rubens, at the age of forty-one, in the full development of his genius, painted the Miraculous Draught of Fishes (at Mechlin) and other masterpieces, including the two splendid portraits of John Charles de Cordes and his sec- ond wife, Jacqueline Van Caestre.
Four Heads of Negroes are particularly admir- able. The work was originally a study for an Adoration of the Magi. One of them occurs in an altarpiece in the church of St. John in Mechlin.
Two portraits painted for the triumphal arch erected in Antwerp on the occasion of the entrance of Ferdinand of Austria are more than life-size. The Archduke Albert, represented in a profile view, with a hat in his right hand and the left on the hilt of the sword, is habited in a black dress, relieved with gold buttons, and a broad ruff round his neck.
" Companion. The Archduchess Isabella. The face is seen in a front view, with the head inclining a little on one side. The dress is composed of a broad full white ruff round the neck, a beautiful figured black silk robe with six rows of large pearls, a splendid cross, and the Order of the Virgin suspended in front; a rich tiara of pearls and other jewels adorns the head. The right hand holds a fan. . . . These portraits are painted in a broad, free, and masterly manner." — (J. S.)
Meleager and Atalanta is a magnificent ver- sion of the Calydonian hunt. In the middle of the forest scene stands Atalanta, who has just pierced the boar with an arrow ; on her left are two men on horseback; on her right stands Meleager, spear in hand.
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De Craeyer, whom Rubens so greatly admired and praised, has many fine canvases with subjects from the Bible and saintly legends.
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes reveals De Craeyer's obligations to Rubens.
" One would think that it was painted in the studio of the great colourist; and it would not suffer in company with his most brilliant productions. The vast sky spread- ing above the personages, the sea stretching to the right behind them without anything to veil this double space, are all that are in opposition to the method and customs of Peter Paul. The splendour and beauty of the colour, the elegance of the types, the truth of the attitudes, and the harmony of the whole constitute this a superior work. Beneath his violet robe and purple mantle, the Saviour is in such relief that he seems to rise out of the canvas, and we expect to see Him walk out of the frame. The little blond mariner in rose-red is the equal of the most charm- ing creations of any master whatsoever. In a word, this picture is so sparkling that one might attribute it to Jordaens: the tone surpasses the scale of Rubens." — (A. M.)
Van Thulden's Christ at the Column is this artist's most serious work.
" Here at least the painter had the feeling of the subject he wished to represent ; and the sombre colouring with which he has veiled his canvas gives to this severe page a grand character of melancholy." — (P. M.)
Jordaens has seven works here, several of which are of prime importance. Fecundity is a decora- tive group of nymphs and satyrs, and the fruits of the earth.
" If Jordaens had always drawn and painted in this manner, his glory would have been quite different. This is true, simple, sustained, powerful. These are women and not those exaggerated beings he ordinarily painted. The colour is firm, real and not false : it is flesh and not brick.
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We could not too often repeat that it is a magnificent painting." — (A. de M.)
A fine Still-life by Snyders depicts a heap of fruits and vegetables on a table; among the game we recognise a swan, a stag, a peacock and a lobster.
" The picture is very well painted in true and brilliant colour, and with a finish that is rare with this painter. The lights and shadows are of extraordinary vivacity and strength respectively ; moreover, the local tones are of great beauty. Fur and feathers, fruits and birds are all per- fectly rendered." — (A. M.)
Adriaen van Utrecht's Kitchen is one of his finest works. In the background, a gentleman is making love to the cook who has a chicken in one hand and a spit in the other. The intrigue is not noticed by the richly-dressed lady of the house, who is seated at a table intently observing a pheasant pie and other delicacies with which the table is loaded — meat, chicken, vegetables and fruits. Jugs and glasses also suggest festivity. The accessories form a fine study of still-life.
Koedyck's Interior is a masterly piece of work- manship. A woman sitting with a boy beside her in a lofty room is rummaging in the drawer of a piece of furniture. In a gallery over a high bed in the wainscot a child is looking down. A decora- tive chimney-piece, high settle, chair, and cat mak- ing itself comfortable on a foot-warmer, complete the accessories which are painted with rare art.
Erasmus Quellin and Daniel Seghers often collab- orated. Quelin composed a medallion en gri- saille, which his friend surrounded with Flowers.
" The God-Made Man, treated in a fine style of drapery and distinguished by a fine type of character, is the sub-
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ject here. It is encircled by a green and flowery garland, full of grace and freshness." — (A. M.)
David Teniers the Younger has several works here, some of them ranking among his very best. The Five Senses is especially famous, since it is one of the rare occasions on which he introduces us to polite society. In the company are himself and his wife, one playing the guitar and the other smelling a lemon.
The Archduke Leopold's Picture Gallery is very celebrated; and so is a grotesque Tempta- tion of St. Anthony.
The Kermesse (dated 1646) depicts a village merry-making in front of an inn, with various groups eating and drinking, dancing and love- making.
" It is an example of the artist's most spirited and fas- cinating style of handling, aided by a sparkling brilliancy of colouring, which gives life and movement to the numer- ous groups which compose it. It is clear and silvery in tone, and perfect in preservation." — (J. S.)
The Village Doctor is seated at a table scruti- nising the contents of a flask that he holds up to the light while a woman awaits the result of his examination. Three men in the background are seated at a table covered with various utensils. In the foreground, a stove, and earthen pots afford full scope to the artist's loving treatment of still- life.
The liveliest Jan Steen here is the Gallant Offering: a brilliant interior depicting a comedy played by five figures : a sixth at the window is an interested spectator-
" One of the women is seated in the centre of the apart- ment, turning good-humourdly round to look at a merry
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fellow who is entering with a herring in one hand and three onions in the other. This bustle has excited the barking of a dog, and attracted the attention of the other woman who stands by a table with a coffee pot in her hand. An excellent production, painted in the artist's most esteemed manner." — (J. S.)
The Crimps (formerly Rhetoricians) is a gay tavern scene, with soldiers enjoying themselves after their kind, while one reads a proclamation at the window to laughing villagers outside.
Brilliant and vigorously painted is Reading. An old woman in white cap, red bodice and black skirt is sitting in a big arm-chair, in an easy atti- tude in absorbed perusal of a big book. The ac- cessories are vividly rendered.
The Weaver at Rest is the work of A. Van Ostade and his friend Decker in collaboration. The loom is on the left, strongly lighted by a high window. The weaver, with his pipe in his mouth, is sitting on an upturned barrel by a table at which his wife is sitting nursing a child. Behind them, a little girl is opening a crockery cupboard. In the background is a fireplace with cooking utensils. Hams hang from the rafters, and a dog is scratching itself in the foreground.
" Nothing could be more plebeian ; well ! one would say it was a golden chamber, a chamber to put into a casket, so splendidly does the sun illumine it ! The loom, with its hanks of hemp, shines, gleaming, dazzling and sparkling like a shrine. The caldron looks like a jewel of fine gold, and everything, even up to the skin of the hams beneath the ceiling, has the gleam of straw and a kind of golden glaze."— (M. Van de W.)
Brussels is rich in great portraits of all periods : Charles the Bold, by Van der Weyden; Sir
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Thomas More, by Holbein ; the Duke of Alva, by Moro; Artist and Family, by C. de Vos ; and Van der Heist's Portrait of Himself are among the most celebrated.
Rembrandt's Man, dated 1641, is a splendid study in black and white on a neutral ground ; and an Old Woman is even superior.
" ' Dr. Scheuring,' the old man with the shaved upper lip, beard, and hair over his forehead, by Lucas Cranach, and Jean Gossart's ' Chevalier of the Golden Fleece,' are masterly portraits. Van Cleve, Van Orley, Key — perhaps a portrait of the bloody Duke of Alva — also one of him- self, and Coello's ' Marie of Austria,' and Philippe de Champagne's portrait of himself, are among the sterling specimens in this gallery.
"Of Frans Hals there are two fine specimens; one, a portrait of Willem van Heythusen, is a small picture, the figure sitting, the legs crossed (booted and spurred) and the figure leaning lazily back. On his head a black felt hat, with a broad upturned brim. The expression of the bearded man is serious. The only Jan Vermeer is one of the best portraits by that singularly gifted painter we re- call. It is called 'The Man with the Hat.' Dr. Bredius in 1905 considered the picture as by Jean Victor, but it has been pronounced Vermeer by equal authorities. The man sits, his hand holding a glove, resting negligently over the back of a chair. He faces the spectator, on his head a long pointed black hat with a wide brim. His collar is white. A shadow covers the face above the eyes. These are rather melancholy, inexpressive; the flesh tints are anaemic, almost morbid. We are far away from the Ver- meer of the ' Milkmaid and the Letter.' There is some- thing disquieting in this portrait, but it is a masterpiece of paint and character." — (J. G. H.)
Few Italians are here: there is a good Veronese, and a sumptuous Crivelli. Guercino's Madonna and Saints (1616)
"belongs to his early naturalistic manner; in which, how- ever, he corrected the inky blackness of his master's man-
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ner (Caravaggio) by a richer and more coloured sombre- ness, derived from the example of Correggio." — (C. P.)
A highly-prized landscape by Salomon Ruysdael is the Ferry, signed and dated 1647. In the boat are a chariot and four horses ; boats are in the middle of the stream and the banks are dotted with groups of trees and farmhouses.
" A beautiful composition, harmony of brown tints op- posed to greenish grays; silvery sky." — (E. M.)
Hobbema's Mill is composed of
" a picturesque landscape, with an overshot watermill on the right, having a red-tiled roof, and a large wheel under cover near it. A large stream of water flows in front of the mill and extends across the foreground. A peasant stands on the bank, and opposite is a man angling. On the left is a large cottage, and a cluster of trees, with a road, on which are two men ; and a third is close to the cottage fence. Cottages amid trees are in the middle dis- tance. The aspect of a fine summer's day adds an in- describable charm to the rural scene." — (J. S.)
Claude Lorrain's Aeneas Hunting the Stag on the Libyan Shore is a lovely landscape with sunrise on the sea. Seven ships are at anchor near the shore ; and, on the right near the wood, lie sev- eral victims of the hero's arrows.
*' The great quality of this picture is that it is open air : the line of the horizon of the sea is of astonishing depth; the rocks and trees, ships and bushes are bathed in that fluid atmosphere that gives its relative value to every plane."— (E. L.)
MUSEE ROYAL DES BEAUX-ARTS ANTWERP
THE Musee Royal des Beaux-Arts of Antwerp was erected in 1879-1890. The ground floor is occupied by the sculpture gallery, views and studies of old Antwerp and the Rubens Collection founded in 1877, which consists of reproductions of most of Rubens's works. The great vestibule de Keyser is decorated with paintings, the subjects of which are drawn from the Antwerp School of Art. The Picture Gallery is on the first floor and includes about eight hundred pictures. To those gathered from the churches and suppressed monasteries of Antwerp, the Hotel de Ville and the Steen, were added the Collections of Burgomaster Van Ert- born in 1840, and the Baroness Van der Hecke- Baut in 1859.
The strength of the gallery lies in Rubens and the works of the early Flemish school. A Calvary, dated 1363, belongs to the very fount of ,. tin- art. The chief masterpieces are John Van Eyck's St. Barbara and Virgin and Child; Roger Van der Weyden's Seven Sacraments ; Memling's Christ as King of Heaven; Massys's Entomb- ment; Clouet's Francis II.; Rubens's Coup de Lance, Adoration of the Magi, Portraits of Rockox and Wife, Prodigal Son, Communion of St. Francis, and St. Theresa; Van Dyck's Pieta; Hals's Fisher Boy; Jordaens's Family Concert; Antonello da Messina's Crucifixion; and Portrait . 109
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of Abraham Graphaeus and St. Norbert, by Cornells de Vos. John Van Eyck's Virgin and Child
" may be noticed for the red and opaque quality of tone. Finish and minuteness characterize the panel in a marked manner, but its chief feature of interest is that in it we find the only point of contact between the schools of Bruges and Cologne. This Virgin and Child seems in- spired by the larger picture at Cologne, painted, it is be- lieved, by the celebrated Wilhelm." — (C. and C.)
St. Barbara, seated on the ground, pensively turning the leaves of a book, though unfinished, is a most attractive work.
" In her right hand she holds a palm. Her ample robe lies in folds about her; in the background is the tower, her emblem, a conspicuous landmark in a landscape of hills dotted with trees. The sky is colored, the rest of the picture merely indicated by minute contour, showing how careful the master was to leave nothing to chance." — (C. and C.)
Roger Van der Weyden's famous triptych, the Seven Sacraments, consists of a central panel oc- cupied by the Eucharist; on the right wing Bap- tism, Confirmation and Confession ; and on the left, Ordination, Marriage and Extreme Unction. The central panel represents the interior of a Gothic church treated so realistically that one seems actu- ally within the building. The light, sifting through the windows and arches of the nave and apsis, brightens the scene which is so strangely con- ceived.
" A cross almost as high as the vaulting is elevated in the church in the second transept. Jesus here again sub- mits to the horrors of death and the sacrifice on Golgotha is repeated. The Son of Man is not carved on the Cross, but is represented as alive, perishing as of old, for the salvation of the world. Mary Magdalen and Mary Salome
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are upon their knees at the Cross, the first regarding Christ with grief, and the second turning away to wipe her tears. As for the Virgin, she cannot support the terrible spectacle, and faints in the arms of St. John. Behind these groups and behind the Cross, a priest officiates at an altar, the back of which is against the jube, and elevates the monstrance that holds the emblem of the divine immolation. The symbol is therefore connected with the Sacrifice by an audacious disregard of probability and of chronological order. On an altar you see the statue of the Virgin holding her son; and before them a real angel in adoration : St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John oc- cupy the brackets. In this work the painter has combined the real and the unreal with great boldness." — (A. M.) .
The wings, each of which contains three little pictures, are equally admired.
" The details of the architecture and sculpture that adorn the central nave, the little figures in the far distance are all painted with correct minuteness, and harmonize with the whole. The heads are animated with an ex- tremely dramatic passion, or are marked by pious serenity : they are all marked by an individuality that can not be forgotten. The delicate angels, cast into the air like birds taking flight, possess an elegance peculiar to Roger, al- though he borrowed them from Van Eyck, who seems to have taken them from the Cologne School : for we meet almost similar ones in the pictures of Master Wilhelm and Master Stephan."— (W. B.)
A small Annunciation is attributed also to Roger Van der Weyden.
" This enables one to appreciate with what ingenuous grace Roger interpreted the initial mystery of the Redemp- tion. This little picture is a sort of miniature, very bril- liant with its bed with green canopy and scarlet coverlid and the beautiful contrasts of the white and blue robes of the angel and the Virgin." — (F-G.)
There is also a portrait of Philip the Good, on a green background: probably a replica of a lost work.
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St. Christopher, by Thierry Bouts, must not be neglected ; ancf a Nativity, by his son, Albert, merits attention.
Memling has three fine portraits, and three altar- pieces. In one of the latter, the Virgin stands with the Child in the nave of a Gothic cathedral. She is of gigantic proportions, reaching up to the tri- forium. She wears a green robe, red mantle and jewelled crown. In the choir, in the distance, angels are reading a book, and probably singing. In front of the Virgin are flowers in an ornate vase.
The visitor's attention would be called to Mem- ling's Christ as King of Heaven on account of its size, if for no other reason (23 feet by 5^ feet). Christ occupies the centre of the central panel wearing a rich chasuble of brocade clasped with a jewel and a golden crown. His left hand rests on a globe surmounted by a large cross, and His right is raised in benediction. The rays of light behind His head form a star. Three angels sing from a book on each side of Him. On each of the wings are five angels with musical instruments.
Herri de Bles has a Repose on the Flight into Egypt of fine execution, with blue landscape, beautiful cloud-flecked sky and distant moun- tains. The type of the Virgin is charming, deli- cate, and very original. The verdure has the sombre tints that Memling loved, and the plants are painted with his precision, or even with superior sharpness. The foliage shows great patience and minute observation. To the right of Mary is a little cascade of very natural aspect. This is a work of high distinction.
The Burial of Christ is his masterpiece.
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" We find ourselves in a world where everything speaks out deeply, pointedly, and earnestly. Sorrow here reveals itself, not only on the surface of the figures, but we see it working inwardly in them, violently moving them, and breaking through their passive demeanour. The very structure of the body seems no longer the same, its usual soft outlines yielding to a passionate, quick action, the sudden predominance of which leads more to angular forms than to soft contours. Outward nature itself, the very landscape shows none but rugged forms. It is wild and rocky, and by projecting upwards from behind the group towards the vertical point of the picture leaves but little space for the sky."— (O. E.)
The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Frans Floris, is remarkable for facial expression: the heads are fine and gentle ; and the accessories and animals are painted with fine breadth.'
More famous is his Fall of the Rebel Angels, a phantasmagoric conception with its human forms of animal heads.
•" Neither the Middle Ages, nor popular legend, ever saw in their nightmares a more strangely diabolical army. The dwellers of the sky, on the contrary, are of radiant and serene beauty ; and their strength is mingled with a grace that is reminiscent of Italy." — (P. M.)
Christ Appearing to the Virgin and St. John gives us a high idea of the powers of Jacques van Opstal.
" Feeling, character, elegant forms and easy pose are here found in combination with true, intense and harmoni- ous colour. The great pupils of Rubens could not have done better." — (A. M.)
One of Jan Snellinck's most interesting pictures is Christ Between the Two Thieves (1597). " Rubens was twenty years old ; but this work proves
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that the Flemish School was already preoccupied with painting, luminous and living flesh. The figures here show those white and rose carnations that Van Balen is soon going to imitate, and which later will fascinate Rubens, Jordaens and all the Antwerp painters." — (P. M.)
Among the gems of the gallery is Clouet's Por- trait of Francis II. as a child (1547).
" This is a masterpiece made of nothing. Janet's light brush has laid nothing but light upon the canvas. The little Dauphin who was to wed Mary Stuart is charming in his yellow doublet slashed with white covered with a surtout with red sleeves. His black hat with swan's feathers, his fair hair that shows under it, his soft and gentle eyes, his fine infantile and royal grace, all render him entirely worthy of the delightful little bride that His- tory promised. But, alas ! neither the enamelled insigntim on the brim of his hat, showing St. Francis kneeling before Christ, nor the blessed medallion hanging at his neck could preserve either him or his wife from the tragedies of the future."— (C. B.)
Van Orley's Last Judgment enables us to study the painter's last manner. In the head of the triptych, in the centre, we see Jesus Christ, the Virgin, Saints and Angels ; but all this upper part of the altarpiece has been sacrificed to the lower, the artist devoting himself particularly to representing the separation of the good from the wicked. We see them in countless multitudes leaving their graves.
The fine and intense colour of the painter, and his sound knowledge of anatomy are fully displayed in this masterpiece.
A sacred subject in lovely landscape settings is Patenier's Flight into Egypt. Mabuse has sev- eral fine works, of which the Four Maries Re- turning from the Tomb is especially remarkable for its sympathetic treatment.
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ST. BARBARA — J. Van Eyck
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Coming1 now to Rubens, some critics consider Christ Between the Two Thieves, also called Le Coup de Lance, a greater masterpiece than the Descent from the Cross, in the Antwerp Cathe- dral.
" To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, whilst another with a bar of iron is breaking IhT'ltmbs" of one of the malefactors, who in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The ex- pression in the action of this figure is wonderful : the at- titude of the other is more composed ; and he looks at the dying Christ with a countenance perfectly expressive of his penitence. This figure is likewise admirable. The Virgin, St. John, and Mary, the wife of Cleophas, are standing by with great expression of grief and resignation, whilst the Magdalen, who is at the feet of Christ, and may be supposed to have been kissing his feet, looks at the horseman with the spear with a countenance of great horror: as the expression carries with it no grimace or contortion of the features, the beauty is not destroyed. . This is by far the most beautiful profile I ever saw of * Rubens, or, I think, of any other painter; the excellence v' of its colouring is beyond expression. The good centurion ought not to be forgotten, who is leaning forward, one hand on the other, resting on the mane of his horse, while he looks up to Christ with great earnestness.
" The genius of Rubens nowhere appears to more ad- vantage than here: it is the most carefully finished picture of all his works. The whole is conducted with the most consummate art; the composition is bold and uncommon, - with circumstances which no other painter had ever before ^s thought of; such as the breaking of the limbs, and the ex- preTsTorT^f the Magdalen, to which we may add the dis- position of the three crosses, which are placed perspec- tively in an uncommon picturesque manner : the nearest bears the thief whose limbs are breaking; the next the Christ, whose figure is straighter than ordinary, as a con- trast to the others; and the furthermost the penitent thief: this produces a most picturesque effect, but it is what few
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but such a daring genius as Rubens would have attempted. It is here and in such compositions we properly see Rubens, and not in little pictures of Madonnas and Bam- binos.
" In this picture the principal and the strongest light is the body of Christ, which is of a remarkably clear and bright colour; this is strongly opposed by the very brown complexion of the thieves (perhaps the opposition here is too violent) who make no great effect as light. The Vir- gin's outer drapery is dark blue, and the inner a dark purple ; and St. John is in dark, strong red ; no part of these two figures is light in the picture but the head and hands of the Virgin.
" I have dwelt longer on this picture than any other, as it appears to me to deserve extraordinary attention : it is certainly one of the first pictures in the world, for com- position, colouring, and what was not to be expected from Rubens, correctness of drawing." — (J. R.)
The Adoration of the Magi is gorgeous in colour and contains about twenty figures more than life-size, besides camels and horses in the suite of the Three Kings, combined with wonderful variety, freedom and boldness of attitude. This master- piece is said to have been painted in a fortnight. The light is very beautifully arranged, most bril- liant in the foreground, and gradually diminishing into the shadowy background. The Virgin, in red robe and grey mantle, stands in the stable holding the Child in the cradle. St. Joseph stands behind them. Near the Virgin stands also the Ethiopian King in a green robe, black fur-lined mantle and white and red turban. In the full light kneels the second King, in rich dalmatic and white surplice, his page presenting a cup; and the third King, in red mantle, faces the spectator and holds a rich cup. This work is in the master's third style.
" The great altar, the Adoration of the Magi ; a large
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and magnificent composition of near twenty figures in Rubens's best manner. Such subjects seem to be more particularly adapted to the manner and style of Rubens; his excellence, his superiority, is not seen in small com- positions. The head of the ox is remarkably well painted."
-(J. R-)
The Prodigal Son was much admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, particularly for the dramatic way in which repentance is shown in the face of the sinner. The scene is laid within a stable, where grooms are busy with the horses and a servant woman is feeding the pigs. The Prodigal is kneel- ing near the trough. Note the woman with a lighted candle going towards the cows in the back of the stable.
^he Virgin with the Parrot, also called the Holy Family, is an early work. The Virgin, seated on a bench and caressing the Infant Jesus who stands beside her and St. Joseph who is in the shadows, are by Rubens ; but the landscape and the parrot biting a branch are by an assistant, and were retouched by Rubens.
In Christ on the Cross, the figure of Christ is by Rubens ; but a pupil is responsible for the dis- tant view of Jerusalem. The sky is filled with dark clouds ; and an eclipse of the sun is represented.
The Last Communion of St. Francis is solely the work of Rubens. The influence of Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, and Domenichino are plainly seen.
The Incredulity of St. Thomas is the central panel of an altarpiece that Rubens painted for the mortuary chapel of Nicholas Rockox in the Re- collet's Church.
" The head of the Christ is rather a good character, but
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the body and arms are heavy: — it has been much damaged. On the inside of the two folding doors are portraits of the Burgomaster and his wife, half-lengths : his is a fine portrait; the ear is remarkably well painted, and the anatomy of the forehead is well understood. Her portrait has no merit but that of colour. Van Dyck likewise has painted a portrait of Rockox, a print of which is in his book of heads of eminent men. It should seem that he was a great patron of the arts : he gave to this church the picture of the great altar, which has been already men- tioned."—(J. R.)
The Education of the Virgin dates from about 1625. Amid climbing roses on a stone balustrade St. Anne is seated, while the Virgin stands by her side, richly dressed in white silk with a blue scarf. She has the face and form of Helena Fourment.
" Behind St. Anne is a head of St. Joachim ; two angels in the air with a crown. This picture is eminently well coloured, especially the angels ; the union of their colour with the sky is wonderfully managed. It is remarkable that one of the angels has Psyche's wings, which are like those of a butterfly. This picture is improperly called St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read, who is represented about fourteen or fifteen years of age, too old to begin to learn to read. The white silk drapery of the Virgin is well painted, but not historical ; the silk is too particularly distinguished, a fault of which Rubens is often guilty, in his female drapery; but by being of the same colour as the sky it has a soft harmonious effect. The rest of the picture is of a mellow tint." — (J. R.)
Christ a la Faille (of the Straw) was origin- ally in the Antwerp Cathedral, where Sir Joshua Reynolds saw it. Christ is resting on a stone bench- covered with straw, partly supported by Joseph of Arimathsea, and mourned over by the Virgin, St. John and Magdalen.
" A Pieta by Rubens, which serves as a monument of the family of Michielsens, is fixed on one of the pillars:
COUP DE LANCE— Rubens
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H w £ £
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this is one of his most careful pictures ; the characters are of a higher style of beauty than usual, particularly the Mary Magdalen, weeping with her hand clenched. The colouring of the Christ and the Virgin is of a most beautiful and delicate pearly tint, opposed by the strong high colouring of St. Joseph." — (J. R.)
St. Theresa was painted between 1630 and 1635, for a chapel in the Carmelite Church.
" At an altar on the opposite little niche on the left Christ relieving Souls out of purgatory by the interces- sion of St. Theresa. The Christ is a better character, has more beauty and grace, than is usual with Rubens ; the outline remarkably undulating, smooth and flowing. The head of one of the women in purgatory is beautiful in Rubens's way; the whole has great harmony of colouring and freedom of pencil; it is in his best manner." — (J. R.)
The Pieta, or Entombment, was a favourite subject with Van Dyck: he has two famous examples in this gallery, one, painted in 1628, and the other in the following year. In the first
" we see the sacred body stretched out long and rigid, with head and shoulder resting on the mother's lap. The Virgin leaning back against the dark side of the rock, a cleft in which is about to receive the departed, spreads out her arms in loud lamentation. The disciple John has grasped the Saviour's right hand and shows the bleeding wounds to the angels who have drawn nigh and who burst into tears at the sight. This group of St. John and the Angels stands out in soft, warm tones from the pale blue sky. The pallid flesh colour of the body is shown up with a peculiar and striking effect by this juxtaposition of a cool, light tone and a warm, dark one on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by the pure white of the linen sheet and the bluish green of the drapery spread over the Virgin's lap."— (H. K.)
Jordaens's Family Concert is one of the best of his many examples illustrating the proverb : " As
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the old ones sing, so the young ones pipe." Al- though a meal is served on the table around which the people are grouped, no one is taking any in-* terest in it. The handsome young woman in the centre, who wears her blue cap with yellow plumes and pearls with such an air, is the paint- er's wife. The little child in her arms is blowing a pipe; the old woman in the high-backed willow chair is singing from a sheet of music; the old man opposite is singing and beating time; the bagpipe player reads also from his music; and the little boy between his knees is playing a pipe. The Adoration of the Shepherds differs from most of the religious pictures painted by Jor- daens.
" This time the artist has managed to paint a noble, graceful and intelligent Virgin : the shepherds are ani- mated with real piety, and St. Joseph takes off his cap with great simplicity. Moreover, the painting is fine, har- monious, and quite different in touch from the usual pro- ductions of this master." — (A. M.)
Among the religious pictures Cornelis de Vos's St. Norbert Receiving the Host and Sacred Vessels, that had been hidden during a period of war is of especial interest.
Ter Borch's Mandolin Player is an interior of elegance, fine colour and exquisite finish.
Jan Steen's Village Wedding is in the painter's merriest mood, and is an interesting record of con- temporary life. The company is gathered in a hall where a fiddler, standing on a table, is play- ing for the dancers. The bride is seated at the head of the table.
In a different vein is Samson Insulted by the Philistines. The strong man is seated in the
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vestibule of a palace, bound by ropes, taunted by children, and insulted by a man who is placing a fool's cap upon his head. His hair is strewn over the floor by his side. Delilah, on the left, is re- ceiving attentions from an old man and mocking at Samson. The scissors with which she cut Sam- son's hair are conspicuous in the foreground. Musicians, soldiers and many other people are vis- ible in the background.
Rembrandt's Dutch Burgomaster shows the model seated in an arm-chair. In the background a table with some books is discerned. His Old Jew is even more striking, in his brown doublet, red and white turban and careless necktie. His beard and moustache are greyish and his right eye is half-closed.
Van Dyck's portraits are of the first order, especially those of the Bishop of Antwerp, Jean Malderus, and of a little girl with the two dogs. The latter, however, are by Jan Fyt.
A Dutch Lord, by Frans Hals, is seated with a glove in his gloved right hand. He is smooth- shaven ; his hair, long and brown, his dark doublet is slashed with white and braided with yellow ; and he also wears a flat collar and a black mantle. His coat-of-arms appears in the background. , More celebrated is the half-length Fisher Boy of Haarlem, painted about 1640.
" Here in the sunburnt, rather earnest, stupid face of the open-mouthed lad, in the eyes bloodshot with wind and sand, one has the rudiments , of that sympathetic insight into the life itself of the peasant which was, however, not destined in that century to go much further either with Hals, or his followers There is a certain rude pathos in the picture which reminds one that there was in Dutch peasant life a healthier, worthier and more pathetic side
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than Brouwer, Ostade, or Jan Steen had it in them to see."— (G. S. D.)
Gonzales Coques has a fine Portrait of a blonde lady leaning on a pillar. She has a watch in her hand ; and a crimson curtain is draped behind her.
" She has an intelligent and benevolent expression. It is a painting of great finish, soft and sweet colour, and lights skillfully distributed: a little salon gem." — (A. M.)
Cornelis de Vos has a curious portrait of Abraham Graphaeus, a servant of the Guild of St. Luke. His breast is covered with medals and plaques, and he is about to place a large drinking- cup on the table where similar cups stand. These were all cups presented to the Guild of St. Luke, and were melted down in 1794. They give the artist opportunity to show how he could paint metal.
" Notwithstanding the strangeness of his accoutre- ment, the portrait of Graphaeus is full of intimacy and good nature. It is, moreover, a painting of solidity, pre- cision, and soberness, without great intensity of tone, or violence of touch." — (P. M.)
Salomon Ruysdael's Ferry is remarkable for its typical Dutch landscape and action.
The Italians are generally unimportant here.
True to the Sienese custom, the background of Simone Martini's Annunciation is gold, from which the kneeling figure of Gabriel stands out boldly, in its pink and blue draperies. His wings are strong, and he holds in his crossed hands a tall lily stalk. In his hair is a diadem.
Antonello da Messina's Crucifixion
" has nothing Flemish in its treatment ; the landscape and the finely conceived motives of the mourning figures recall
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Carpaccio. Antonello repeated this subject with various changes. On a small panel in the National Gallery, the crucified thieves are omitted and the attitudes of the Vir- gin and St. John are modified and perhaps improved. In the Corsini collection the Crucified Saviour alone appears. The three are equally remarkable for minute finish : the two former for their carefully executed background, ar»d for the vehement yet truthful expression of the figures." — (A. H. L.)
Titian's Alexander VI. and Bishop Pesaro is
an early work.
" In the Bishop Pesaro Kneeling Before St. Peter, as in the Virgin of the Parapet (see p. 321), in which constant affinities with Giorgione, Palma, and even other con- temporaries testify of youthful effort to assimilate all the progress of those about him, we see being somewhat rapidly accentuated quite an individual taste for the rhythmic delicacies of colour harmonies, for the simple nobility of large and full forms, for the natural and bril- liant rendering of the carnations, stuffs, accessories and landscapes, for the grave and affable expression of the faces. The handling of the brush is already singularly lively and supple ; so that these first manifestations of his youth in flower retain, in their exquisite timidity, an indel- ible charm of poetry and freshness." — (G. Laf.)
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THE Hague Gallery, consisting of about 500 pic- tures, owes its origin chiefly to William V. of Orange, who purchased his treasures from the best collections available, such as the Lomier, Braam- camp and Slingerlandt. The pictures were sheltered at first in the Buitenhof ; and in 1820, after works were returned from the Louvre, in the Mauritshuis, originally the Palace of Count John Maurice of Nassau. In 1829, King William I. bought Rem- brandt's Anatomy; and under William III. the gallery was greatly increased. The collection is also greatly indebted to Baron Victor de Stuers. The strength of The Hague Gallery lies in the Dutch and Flemish masters. Rembrandt's An- atomy, Presentation in the Temple, and Portrait of Himself as an Officer; Potter's Bull and Vache qui se mire; T. de Keyser's Four Burgo- masters; Ruysdael's View of Haarlem; Ver- meer's Delft; Dow's Good Housekeepeer; Ter Borch's Despatch; Rubens's Helena Fourment; Teniers's Good Kitchen; and Steen's Oyster Feast, are counted as the chief treasures.
The most famous picture by Rembrandt is the Anatomy Lesson, which established the paint- er's reputation. Soon after Rembrandt's arrival in Amsterdam, he received an order from Dr. Tulp to represent him at an operation, to be hung in the dis- secting room of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Although Rembrandt followed the general plan of
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HELENA FOURMENT— Rubens
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the famous anatomy pictures of the day, he showed his genius in the arrangement of the figures and their illumination.
" The circumstances and the way it is painted deprive the picture of all disgust. In contrast with his predeces- sors, Rembrandt has painted his doctors, not as if they were having their photographs taken and gazing at the spectator, but in the most natural way — some looking at the body and some at the lecturing Dr. Tulp. Tulp him- self quiet, and explaining his subject with the greatest authority. The body is painted in a masterly manner, and the portraits are beyond all praise." — (B.)
All critics agree that the Presentation in the Temple, also called Simeon in the Temple, is
Rembrandt's first important work. Beneath the high roof of a temple supported by tall columns, the Virgin and St. Joseph make their offering, and present the Holy Child to the Lord. Simeon, in a robe glittering with gold, holds the Infant; and the High Priest stands in front of the group with his hands lifted in ecstasy. The latter's robe of violet makes a beautiful note of colour, which is carried through the lights and shadows. In the vaporous distance, other persons are discerned ascending and descending the steps. All the light is concentrated on the central group, and the cold, mysterious depths of the vast fane are expressed with marvellous skill.
" How appropriately are the groups distributed beneath the fantastic vaults! How masterly is the chief group in the middle distance! How complete in drawing and ac- tion is every single figure, though so minute ! How pow- erfully is the light sprinkled over the chief figures before it slowly melts away into the mystic darkness of the broad nave whereby that peculiar mood of reverence — the holy calm of the place — results as the most happy effect of handling." — (B.)
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Susanna, about to step into the bath, and alarmed by the presence of the two Elders who are lurking in the shrubbery, is a splendid piece of painting as regards flesh. Both Bode and Burger think Rembrandt's wife Saskia was the model.
" Placed by the side of the School of Anatomy and the Simeon, the merits of this work are too often overlooked. Yet Susanna, strongly relieved against a dark back- ground, is one of the most interesting female figures ever painted by Rembrandt, being remarkably faithful to nature, though not of classic beauty." — (W. B.)
David Playing the Harp Before Saul dates from Rembrandt's ripest period (about 1660), and is one of his most important Biblical compositions.
" The big Saul listening to the playing of David is still mystifying. Is Saul smiling or crying behind the uplifted cloak? Is he contemplating in his neurasthenia the at- tempt on David's life with a whizzing lance? His sunken cheeks, vague yet sinister eye, his turban marvellous in its iridescence, form an ensemble not to be forgotten. David is not so striking. From afar the large canvas glows, and the chiaroscuro is miraculous."— -(J. G. H.)
Homer Reciting His Poems, an old man in a yellow robe, and several portraits complete the Rembrandts. Among the latter are two of Rem- brandt's own likenesses : one at the age of twenty- two or three, wearing a steel cuirass, and painted in so strong a manner and with such deft manage- ment of light and shade that the future style of the painter is foreshadowed in it. The second work, about six years later, is familiar to every one.
" A portrait of a young man by Rembrandt, dressed in a black cap and feathers, the upper part of the face over- shadowed ; for colouring and force nothing can exceed if '-(J. R.)
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Paul Potter has three famous pictures here : first comes The Bull, painted when the artist was but twenty-two.
" A great bull in a vast plain, an immense sky, and no horizon, so to speak, — what better opportunity is there for a student to learn once for all a host of very difficult things, and to know them, as they say, by rule and com- pass. The action is very simple ; he did not fail with it ; the movement is true, and the head admirably full of life. The beast has his age, his type, his character, his disposition, his length, his height, his joints, his bones, his muscles, his hair rough or smooth, in flocks or curls, his hide loose or stretched, — all is perfection. The head, the eye, the neck and shoulders, the chest, from the point of view of a naive and powerful observation, form a very rare specimen, perhaps, really without an equal. I do not say that the pigment is beautiful, nor that the colour is well chosen ; pigment and colour are here subordinated too visibly to preoccupations of form for us to exact much on that head, when the designer has given all, or nearly all, under another. Moreover, the work in that field ac- complished with such- force results in rendering nature exactly as she is, in her reliefs, her nuances, and her power, and almost in her mysteries. It is not possible to aim at a more circumscribed but more formal result and attain it with more success. People say Paul Potter's Bull, and that is not enough, I assure you : they might say The Bull, and, in my opinion, that would be the great- est eulogy that could be bestowed upon this work, so mediocre in its weak parts and yet so decisive." — (E. F.)
La Vache qui se mire was painted a year later (1648) than the above.
" In my opinion it is a chef-d'oeuvre and not merely an hors-d'oeuvre like The Bull. Paul Potter has painted here what he never did elsewhere — nude figures ! Yes, bathers, which made Smith call the picture The Bathers.
The left foreground is occupied by a strip of water. On the bank in the centre is a clump of willows; some sheep and a goat are lying down in the meadow; a cow comes down to drink; another cow and a sheep stand knee-deep in the water that reflects their images. How
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pretty the inverted little dun cow looks in this mirror! Farther to the left, bathers are swimming and sporting in the water and undressing on the bank. These little figures are wonderful in drawing, modelling and action, especially one standing with his back to the spectator. In the middle distance, we see a little carriage drawn by six horses, some trees and a village ; and, on the distant horizon, a town in miniature. On the right, near a cottage, a woman is milking a black cow on which a peasant is leaning as he talks to her. Two cows are lying beside them. The grass and flowers are as fine and beautifully coloured as in the pictures of John van Eyck and Memling. The sky has dropped her wintry veil, and everything is radiantly gay. The picture, of the most exquisite quality, is painted on wood." — (W. B.)
The third Potter is a Landscape with Cows and Pigs.
" Mist effects over the ground, with much light in the sky, and little clouds, fine and light, of a pale golden hue. This is one of those frequent Autumn struggles between the sun and haze ; the leaves on the trees are already dry and reddened. In this warm picture, Paul Potter, sometimes somewhat dry and cold, is as vaporous as Claude Lorrain, as broad and firm as Cuyp, and as har- monious as Adriaen Van de Velde." (W. B.)
Of Rubens we have to examine three portraits and three fanciful works. Naiads Filling the Horn of Plenty was once assigned to Hendrik Van Balen. The landscape is, however, by Velvet Brueghel, who also aided Rubens in Adam and Eve in Paradise. Some critics think that Venus and Adonis is a copy.
Father Michael Ophovius, a Dominican monk, who had been 'made Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, by Rtibens's influence, is here portrayed in the cos- tume of his order. It is a broad and vigorous painting. Rubens's two wives are both busts — Isabella Brandt, painted about 1618, wears a black
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dress, cut square in the neck, the bosom slightly covered with gauze and pearls in her hair. A green curtain forms the background, behind which is a glimpse of the sky. Burger, who greatly admired this picture, went into raptures over the hands. Dr. Bredius, however, thinks the hands may have been painted by Van Dyck; but he concludes that the second portrait is un- doubtedly all Rubens's work. Sir Joshua Rey- nolds considered both fine portraits, but " Eleanor Forman," by far the most beautiful and the best coloured. Her face is brilliant and beautiful in colour and expression. Her eyes are bright and her red mouth about to smile. The costume is exquisite : the dress is blue satin, the sleeves being slashed with white; a black velvet cloak with -fur collar and gold buttons ; a velvet toque adorned with a long plume, and magnificent jewels. In her right hand she holds two pink roses. A red curtain is looped above the grey background.
"What flesh! What brilliance! What glow of colour! What virtuosity in the painting of the details and the material ! What life streams from this warm, youthful, proud wife upon her husband!" — (B.)
Blanc ranks Thomas de Keyser's Four Burgo- masters with Rembrandt's Syndics, and Ter Borch's Peace of Minister. The figures are only eight and a half inches high. Four old men dressed in black are gravely considering how to entertain Marie de' Medici, when a messenger enters, hat in hand, to announce her arrival.
" All the costumes being black — that beautiful, warm, transparent silky black peculiar to Velasquez and Antonio Moro — you only notice in this picture the hands and the heads. The heads have an expression that will remain engraven in the mind forever, for the painter has ac-
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cented them so deeply and brought into contrast both physical and moral features." — (B.)
The Portrait of a Scholar is also one of De Keyser's masterpieces. The face, full of fire and energy, stands out vividly from the black costume and sober background. The left hand turning the leaves of a book that lies on a table is finely painted, but the right hand that rests on his hip is a triumph of technique.
Of Frans Hals, there are but two portraits — Jacob Olycan of Haarlem and his wife, Aletta Hanemans — splendidly modelled and executed with the great painter's characteristic sweeps of the brush and palette knife that bring the person- ality of the subject before us as if in life itself. • Of Van Dyck's three portraits, that of the painter Quentin Simons has always been particularly ad- mired by" critics.
" This is one of the very few that can be seen of Van Dyck which is in perfect preservation ; and on examining it closely it appeared to me a perfect pattern of portrait- painting — every part is distinctly marked, but with the lightest hand and without destroying the breadth of light; the colouring is perfectly true to nature, though it has not the brilliant effect of sunshine, such as is seen in Rubens's wife; it is nature seen by common daylight." — (J. R.)
The other two portraits are of Sir Shef- field in a large cloak and holding a glove in one hand, and his wife, Anna Wake, dressed in black silk with slashed sleeves, lace fichu and pearl necklace.
Van der Heist's life-size picture of Paul Potter is said to have been painted three days before his death.
" This precious portrait of superb execution was painted
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by Van der Heist at one sitting doubtless, with an al- together magistral stroke, as the painters of that day did. In it we admire the certitude and simplicity of the design, the calm frankness of the touch, the truth of the tone, and in the general expression a kind of eloquent sincerity which communicates to the spectator the intimate emotion which the portraitist felt in the presence of nature. Van der Heist, usually somewhat cold, must have been strongly moved on that day when contemplating the young and glorious artist who was about to die." — (W. B.)
Among the other portraits to be especially noticed is one of a goldsmith by A. Moro, one of his best works ; and several by Rembrandt's forerunner, Jan Van Ravesteyn, including the Countess of Hanan. Adriaen Key's William the Silent is also celebrated. Bol's portrait of Admiral de Ruyter's Son is one of this artist's mature works, but the great admiral's picture is a copy after Bol.
Four portraits here are attributed to Holbein. One is a copy of Jane Seymour (the original of which is in the Belvedere) ; another is the original, or copy, of a Young Woman, and the others are each of a Man holding a Falcon, each a marvel of masterful handling and vital force.
The early masters are scarce here. Massys has a Virgin in Glory, with her son in her arms, standing on the crescent moon and surrounded by angels. When St. Donatian Cathedral, Bruges, was demolished, it was found mortared up be- tween two' walls, where it had been since the days of the Iconoclasts. Though seriously in- jured by falling bricks, it has been restored with the most tender care.
To Memling and to Roger Van der Weyden an unknown Descent from the Cross has been at-
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tributed; but although the attribution has not been determined, the work is a characteristic ex- ample of the early Flemish School. Memling has a fine male portrait.
Dow's Good Housekeeper is one of the gems of the gallery. It was so highly valued in its day that when Charles II. left Holland for his Restoration to the English throne, the directors of the East In- dia Company bought this picture and presented it to him. William III. brought it back to Holland. The work is dated 1658; and, although it has darkened, it is still full of rich colour. It needs careful study, for it is full of detail. First, we look at the group in the foreground on which the stream of light falls — the young mother, who, handsomely dressed and sewing by the side of a cradle, where a little servant is watching the baby, looks up at the spectator in a friendly way. She has evidently just returned from market, for there is an unplucked fowl in a basket on the window seat, an unplucked bird on a table with a cabbage, a hare hangs on the wall, and there is a fish on a platter on the floor near a pot and a bunch of marvellously painted carrots. The room that seems to serve as hall, dining-room and kitchen betokens wealth and comfort. The brass chande- lier of splendid design should be noted.
" Dow carried subtlety of execution almost to its high- est pitch, and spared no pains to accomplish his aim. He not only rubbed his own colors, but he prepared his own varnish, and made all the very fine brushes he needed for his work, expending on his painting an^ unlimited amount of care and patience on even insignificant and secondary objects. Sandrart relates how he was struck on visiting Dow's studio by the wonderfully careful execution of a broom, Dow remarking that it required three days' more work. One of his finest pictures in the Mauritshuis makes this anecdote almost credible. It represents a lovely
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young woman sitting at an open window. She is busied with some work and is just looking up. Near her is a child in a cradle, over which a young girl is bending. One seldom sees a picture so full of peace, geniality, and bliss. It is an idyll of quiet, silent happiness. In this picture there is, among other things, a broomstick in which every fibre of the wood is so faithfully rendered that it is easy to believe it took a few days to paint it." — (A. G.)
Two of Jan Steen's famous compositions, the Steen Family and the Oyster Feast, are com- panion pieces both in subject and dimensions. They represent family festivals participated in by the master's nearest relatives. They are full of life and humour, and are strong in colour and forceful in execution.
Two pictures of the Doctor's Visit, which was a favourite subject of Steen's, are also universally esteemed. The most remarkable composition here, however, is the Menagerie. This is a charming picture of birds, a child feeding a lamb and two farm servants.
" Jan Steen has taken great pleasure in painting it after nature and has put into it all his realistic and expressive science. The head of the fellow with the basket of eggs is marvellously realistic, and I do not believe that either Jan Steen or any other of the Dutch Little Masters ever produced a head more life-like and correctly modelled. This painting, so free in drawing, so firm in execution, so scrupulous in detail, so simple and just in lighting, resembles no other by this master and at first sight one might be embarrassed to name the painter." — (B.)
Two small pictures by Adriaen Van Ostade, Peasants in an Inn and the Fiddler, are famous companion pieces. The first is enlivened with eight personages and a dog. The company is smoking, drinking and playing and singing. A child is also
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amusing herself with a little white spaniel. Burger says it is perfect in style, spirit and colour.
The Fiddler is even more generously furnished with figures of rustic life. The open air lends even more varied light effects for the embellishment of the charming vine-covered cottage and the villagers grouped around listening with delight, or with mockery, to the itinerant fiddler.
" The painter was sixty-three years old. One would not suspect it after seeing the frank gaiety of the com- position, the delightful freshness of the colour, the abund- ance and at the same time the sureness of the handi- work."—(W. B.)
David Teniers the Younger is represented by his masterpiece, the Good Kitchen. The young housewife, surrounded by abundance of fish, game, meat, fruit and vegetables, evidently pro- vided for a feast, is peeling a lemon, while cooks are seen in the background busy at the spit. She wears a crimson skirt, a blue bodice and a broad collar of white that Metsu would have envied.
" The whole is painted with great breadth and ease, with that true and free touch and those witty accents that characterise the works of Teniers. The date is 1644, during his best days when his silvery period was begin- ning."—(W. B.)
A characteristic work by Metsu is the Amateur Musicians, sometimes called a Lady Writing, a group that exhibits this painter's fine feeling for colour and the portrayal of high life.
" In the centre is seated a young woman who is writ- ing. She wears a cherry-coloured velvet jacket bordered with ermine, a jonquil-coloured skirt edged with silver, a light blue apron and a white cap over which is thrown
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a black veil. The tip of her little red slipper rests on a foot-warmer. A gentleman, dressed in black and holding his hat in his left hand, is leaning on the back of her chair. On the other side of the table on which is an Oriental carpet a young girl stands playing the lute. Be- hind her is a mantelpiece surmounted by a picture. From the ceiling hangs a copper chandelier. In the foreground on the right is a spaniel." — (W. B.)
Sir Joshua Reynolds greatly admired the picture of Frans Van Mieris and His Wife, although he did not know who the personages were. The artist is standing by his wife's side and playfully pulling the ear of the little spaniel that she holds in her lap, while she gently pushes him away with her right hand. The little dog's mother is also trying to jump into the lady's lap to protect the puppy. The table-cloth and the lute lying on it are marvellously painted.
Soap Bubbles is likewise one of Van Mieris's best works. Every detail is perfect : the boy blow- ing bubbles at an epen window framed with creep- ers; the fragile bubbles, with their prismatic re- flections ; the boy's red hat with white plumes lying on the window sill, near a bottle in which is a spray of heliotrope ; the cage hanging above, and the wo- man with a dog in her arms in the background.
Ter Borch's Portrait of Himself as Burgo- master of Deventer, at the age of fifty, is a strik- ing work.
" The background, like the floor, is a neutral grey and the whole of this envelopment of the figure forms a fine harmony recalling certain sweet portraits of Velasquez in which there seems to be only atmosphere around the per- sonage."—(W. B.)
The Despatch, called also the Interruption, is
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full of life and expression, and is regarded as one of the most charming compositions of this master. The full brilliance of its colour has been retained in the figures.
Nine splendid examples of Philip Wouvermans are counted among the special treasures of the gal- lery. These include the Arrival and Departure from the Inn; the Hunter's Halt; the Hunt with Falcon; and the Hay Wain. These pic- tures exhibit this painter in his three manners, of which his middle one is the best, according to some critics, while others prefer his more forceful last period.
" Besides his great skill in colouring, his horses are correctly drawn, very spirited, of a beautiful form, and always in unison with their ground. Upon the whole he is one of the few painters whose excellence in his way is such as leaves nothing to be wished for." — (J. R.)
Four fine examples of Jacob Van Ruysdael are among the treasures of the gallery. First let us notice the View of Haarlem taken from the Dunes of Overveen, a bird's-eye view of an im- mense stretch of country.
" In the foreground on a level and well-mown meadow, long strips of white linen are spread on the grass to bleach. A little to the left are grouped the houses of the washerwomen. Beyond, the eye loses itself in the vast expanse of country, uniformly level and almost devoid of trees and dwellings. Very far away on the horizon is dimly discerned the town of Haarlem with its bell-tower. And all these miles of country are represented on a little canvas only one foot eight inches high!" — (W. B.)
Ruysdael painted many cascades ; but the Cas- cade in this gallery is one of his best. The water falls, rebounds, foams and sparkles in the fore-
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ground. In the left background there is a forest ; and, on the right, a hill surmounted by a building. A stormy sky overshadows the whole.
Heavy gathering clouds that predict a coming storm and from which only dim and broken light is sifted upon the water and shipping render the Beach at Scheveningen a specimen of the Dutch painter's poetic gifts. On the left are the sand dunes; on the right little boats ride the waves. The strand is animated by tiny figures of men and women, painted by some other hand, probably Esaias Van de Velde's.
The fourth picture is a View of the Vyver at The Hague.
Molenaer's Five Senses in five small panels are reminiscent of Hals and Brouwer.
Abraham Begeyn's Quarry is a broad and spirited composition.
Simon de Vlieger, the first to represent the ocean in its varying moods, famous for his free, soft touch and aerial perspective, can be seen in the Beach at Scheveningen, a splendid example of his style.
" The diversity of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and animals in an extensive landscape or a boat gliding along a canal, or on the beach at Scheven- ingen, where, in The Hague picture, we see them hud- dling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with its shells and fishes ; the art of lighting them so as to delight the eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of vast nature and the infinite ocean — all that makes Simon de Vlieger one of the most remark- able Dutch masters." — (B.)
Let us now turn to his supposed master — Jan van Goyen. Here we find his famous View of the City of Dordrecht and a Rough Sea.
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Adriaen Van de Velde's Beach at Scheven- ingen is
" a little pearl of art, extremely interesting for the ad- mirable truth of the aerial perspective and the local tints of its colour." — (J. S.)
Animals in a Landscape is another pearl of the most precious quality. It is exquisite in col- our. Though the animals are numerous, they are painted in miniature, for the panel is only one foot high.
One of the most beautiful pictures in the gallery is Vermeer's View of Delft:
" All the light which the artist saw fall upon his town, he has succeeded in concentrating at once in this picture : the broad, masterful, sure painting, the luminous colours, and the clear sky which arches over the town, all excite our highest admiration." — (B.)
A late acquisition that deserves particular atten- tion is his Portrait of a Girl, very striking in costume and colour, with marvellously painted earrings.
" The head of a young girl by Vermeer, with its blue turban and buff coat, its pearl earrings, is charming. And the 'View of Delft' seems as fresh as the, day it was painted. The long fagade of the houses and warehouses and the churches and towers facing the river are rendered with a vivacity of color, a solidity in drawing and an absence of too marked literalism which prove that this gifted artist had more than one style. The envelope is luscious ; there is air, though it be stagnant. Down-stairs is an allegorical subject, 'The New Testament/ which is not very convincing as a composition, but warm in tint. The ' Diana and Her Companion ' must have inspired Diaz and many other painters. But the real Vermeer, the Vermeer of the enamelled surfaces and soft pervasive lighting, is at Amsterdam." — (J. G. H.)
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Vigorous in colour and striking for its knowl- edge of chiaroscuro is the Adoration of the Magi, once attributed to G. van den Eeckhout, and now known to be the work of Salomon Koninck. One of the Magi has a rich golden mantle and an- other one of red.
Snyders has two large compositions of fine dec- orative effect : in the Stag Hunt, Rubens painted the landscape; and in the Kitchen, the female figure.
A beautiful picture of Flowers by Abraham Van Beyeren, also one of Fish and Lobster, are noteworthy examples of this genre. Shells, -by Balthasar Van der Ast, is also both curious and interesting.
THE RIJKS MUSEUM AMSTERDAM
THE Gallery of Pictures in the Rijks Museum consists of about 2000 paintings, the nucleus of which was formed by the Prince of Orange. In 1798, the National Museum was opened at the House in the Wood, near The Hague ; and in 1808 was removed to Amsterdam, to the Palace on the Dam. The collection was greatly en- riched from various sources. In 1814, the pictures were removed to the Trippenhuis, and in 1885 to the Rijks Museum. Among the special bequests are the Van der Hoop Collection (1854); the Dupper (1870); the Bicker (1879); the Van de Poll (1880) ; and the second Van der Hoop (1880).
The Rijks Gallery is distinguished above all others for the number of " Corporation " pictures it contains, and pictures of assemblages of notabili- ties at banquets, and in military companies. The three most important of these, which are also the most important in the gallery, are Rembrandt's Night Watch and Syndics, and Van der Heist's Civic Guard Banquet and Captain Roelof Bicker's Company. Next to these come : Frans Hals's Captain Reael's Company of Arquebusiers ; Karel du Jardin's Directors of the House of Correction; Govaert Flinck's Company of Arquebusiers; N. Elias's Banquet of Captain J. Backer's Company ; Santvoort's Manageresses of the Amsterdam 140
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House of Correction; Pietersen's Staalmeesters ; and Bol's Regents of the Leper Hospital, and its companion, the Female Directors, which Burger ranks on an equality with the Rembrandts. The raison d'etre and characteristics of these great works are described as follows:
" Commissioned by the Guild of Drapers, or Goth- Workers, to paint a portrait group of their Syndics for the Hall of the Corporation, Rembrandt in 1661 delivered to them the great picture which formerly hung in the Cham- ber of the Controllers and Gaugers of Cloth, at the Staal- hoff. At Amsterdam, they formed a conspicuous body; and an admirable work, also in the Ryksmuseum, painted by Aert Petersen in 1599, has immortalized the Six Syndics of the Cloth Hall of that date. On this brilliant and perfectly preserved panel, the arrangement of the six figures has, it is true, a somewhat accidental appearance, and evidently cost the artist little trouble. But the frankly modelled heads have a startling energy and in- dividuality, notably that of the central figure.
" The model traders of Holland brought the qualities they had acquired in the exercise of their calling to bear upon their management of public business, and it was not unusual for the most prominent among them, who had proved their capacity in the administration of their various guilds, to be elected councillors and burgomasters, or to undertake the management of those charitable institutions which abounded in all the Dutch towns. As was the custom among the military guilds, which gradually de- clined as the civic corporations increased in importance, it became a practice among the latter to decorate their halls with the portraits of their dignitaries. Whatever the character of the Company, the manner of representation differed little in these portraits. Save in the case of the Anatomy Lesson, painted for the guilds of Physicians and Surgeons, or some few awkwardly rendered episodes in- spired by the distribution of alms to the aged and the orphaned, the painters of these compositions contented themselves with arranging their patrons round a table, making no attempt to characterize them by any sort of accessory. The balancing of accounts had become a f^-
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vourite motive in such groups. The administrators would appear seated at a table, covered with a cloth, busily verify- ing their accounts, and the contents of their cash-boxes, and explaining with gestures more or less expressive, that all was in order, and that they had faithfully fulfilled their trust. In the background, standing apart with un- covered heads, some subordinates awaited their pleasure, or aided them in their task. Such was the trite theme, which was adapted to each of the societies in turn, and to which all the painters of corporation groups conformed with more or less exactitude.
" Such a spirit had already manifested itself in the Regents of the Asylum for the Aged, by Cornelis Van de Vort, and in the pictures of Werner Van Valckert, who painted The Four Syndics of the Mercers' Guild in 1622. In the hands of Thomas de Keyser and Nicholas Elias the genre had reached its full development. Proclaimed their painter in ordinary by the leading citizens of Amsterdam, Elias was commissioned in 1626 to paint the Regents of the Guild of Wine Merchants, and in 1628 produced his fine work, The Regents of the Spinhuis. Santvoort in his turn — though his talents lay chiefly in the direction of female portraiture — displayed his powers very credit- ably in his Four Regents of the Serge Hall of 1643, a serious and well-considered work, finely modelled and very characteristically treated. But to Haarlem belongs the honour of having produced the finest corporation picture executed before Rembrandt's masterpiece — Hals's Regents of the Hospital of St. Elizabeth, painted in 1641. Hals here combines with the magnificent technique usual in his works, a precision and dignity to which he had never before attained.
" At this period, Dutch art had reached its apogee, and corporation pictures were beginning to show symptoms of decline. The unquestionable talent of Ferdinand Bol, one of Rembrandt's best pupils, had not preserved him from a certain mannerism in his Regents of the Asylum for the Aged, dated 1657. The six persons are seated in the usual manner round a table. The heads are some- what round and soft in the modelling, and have little of the strong individuality that impresses us in the works of Bol's predecessors. The composition is lacking in simplicity, and the painter's anxiety to give variety to the
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attitudes is somewhat distractingly obvious. Each figure seems to claim exclusive attention, and this neglect of artistic subordination injures the unity of the composition, though it was indeed one of the main causes of Bol's success, for each model was flattered by the importance of his own figure in the group.
" Such were the important productions in this genre when Rembrandt was commissioned to paint his group of Syndics. On this occasion Rembrandt made no attempt to vary traditional treatment by picturesque episode, or novel method of illumination, as in the case of the Night Watch. As Dr. Bredius ' remarks : ' He recognized, no doubt, that such experiments were far from grateful to his patrons, or it may be that they themselves made certain stipulations which left him no choice in the matter.' Be this as it may, Rembrandt accepted the convention of his predecessors in all its simplicity. The five dignitaries of the Corporation are ranged round the inevitable table, prosaically occupied in the verification of their accounts. They are all dressed in black costumes, with flat white collars and broad-brimmed hats. Behind them, and some- what in the shadow, as befits his office, a servant also in black, awaits their orders with uncovered head. The table cloth is of a rich scarlet; a wainscot of yellowish brown wood, with simple mouldings, forms the back- ground for the heads. No accessories, no variation in the costumes ; an equally diffused light, falling from the left on the faces, which are those of men of mature years. Wath such modest materials, Rembrandt produced his masterpiece. At the first glance, we are fascinated by- the extraordinary reality of the scene by the commanding presence and intense vitality of the models. An exam- ination of the various details confirms our admiration. We note the solid structure of the heads and figures, the absolute truth of the values, the individual and expressive quality of each head, and their unity one with another. Passing from the drawing to the colour, our enthusiasm is raised by the harmony of intense velvety blacks and warm whites with brilliant carnations, which seem to have been kneaded, as it were, with sunshine; by the shadows which bring the forms into relief by an unerring perception of their surfaces and textures ; and, finally, by the general harmony, the extraordinary vivacity of which can only be
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appreciated by comparing it with the surrounding can- vases.
" The execution is no less amazing in its sustained breadth and sobriety. As Fromentin justly observes: ' The vivid quality of the light is so illusory that it is difficult to conceive of it as artificial. So perfect is the balance of parts,' he adds, ' that the general impression would be that of sobriety and reticence, were it not for the undercurrent of nerves, of flame, of impatience, we divine beneath the outwardly calm maturity of the master.'
" Never before had he achieved such perfection ; never again was he to repeat the triumph of that supreme mo- ment when all his natural gifts joined forces with the vast experiences of a life devoted to his art, in such a crown- ing manifestation of his genius. Criticism, which still wrangles over the Night Watch, is unanimous in admira- tion of the Syndics. In it the colourist and the draughts- man, the simple and the subtle, the realist and the idealist, alike recognise one of the masterpieces of painting." — (E. M.)
The Night Watch, or the Sortie of the Com- pany of Captain Banning Cock, shows twenty- nine guards in varied costume and uniform (life- size) pouring in a confused throng into the street from their guard-house for some purpose undeter- mined by critics. The perspective has suffered be- cause the original sketch shows that the canvas was cut down later. The figures are all portraits, the names of which are inscribed on an accompany- ing plate. A detailed description of this picture, which is as familiar to the picture Fover as any ever painted, would be superfluous. Its chief in- terest lies in its introduction of the cult of chiaro- scuro.
" To envelop and immerse everything in a bath of shadow; to plunge light itself into it only to withdraw it afterwards to make it appear more distant and radiant ; to make dark waves revolve around illuminated centres,
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grading them, sounding them, thickening them; to make the obscurity nevertheless transparent, the half gloom easy to pierce, -and finally to give a kind of permeability to the strongest colours that prevents their becoming blackness, — this is the prime condition, and these also are the difficulties of this very special art. It goes without saying, that if anyone ever excelled in this, it was Rem- brandt. He did not invent, he perfected everything; and the method that he used oftener and better than anyone else bears his name.
When explained according to this tendency of the painter to express a subject only by the brilliance and obscurity of objects, the Night Watch has, so to speak, no more secrets for us. Everything that might have made us hesitate is made clear. Its qualities have their raison d'etre; and we even come to comprehend its errors. The embarrassment of the practitioner as he executes, of the designer as he constructs, of the painter as he colours, of the costumer as he attires, the inconsistency of the tone, the amphibology of the effect, the uncertainty of the time of day, the strangeness of the figures, their flashing ap- parition in deep shadow, — all this results here by chance from an effect conceived contrary to probability, and pursued in spite of all logic, not at all necessary, and with the following purpose : to illuminate a real scene with unreal light, that is to say, to clothe a fact with the ideal character of a vision. Do not seek for anything beyond this audacious project that mocked the painter's aims, clashed with received ideas, set up a system in opposition to customs, and boldness of spirit in opposition to manual dexterity." — (E. F.)
The Jewish Bride is also famed as one of the gems of the gallery.
" This capital picture exhibits a gentleman and a lady ; the former, having the appearance of nearly sixty years of age, and habited in a yellow dress with richly-embroid- ered sleeves, is bending forward to embrace the lady, who stands in nearly a front view, with her hands on her waist. Her attire consists of a crimson silk gown, a lace frill and ruffles, and muslin scarf, with pearl necklace and
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other jewels. A pot of flowers is faintly indicated in the background. This picture is painted with astonishing freedom and mastery of hand, and with a prodigality of colour and brilliancy of hues rarely exceeded by the master. In its execution may be discovered the application of the colour with the palette knife, the thumb, the dry stick, and the broad spreading brush. He has seldom produced anything finer in portraiture than the character and expression of the gentleman ; but the lady has not been attended with the like success." — (J. S.)
After the Night Watch, Van der Heist's Ban- quet is the most important picture. The Civic Guard is represented as feasting on June 18, 1648, in the hall of St. George's Company House in celebration of the Peace of Miinster. The food, dishes and glasses are painted with as much skill and truth to life as the twenty-five life-size por- traits. Captain Wits, who sits at the head of the table, is holding on his knee the superb silver drinking-horn of the Company, the original of which is kept in a glass-case in this Museum.
" This is perhaps the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen : they are correctly drawn, both head and figures, and well- coloured ; and have great variety of action, characters, and countenances, and those so lively and truly expressing what they are about, that the spectator has nothing to wish for. Of this picture I had before heard great com- mendations; but it far exceeded my expectations." — (J. R.)
Some critics prefer the companion picture, Cap- tain Roelf Bicker's Company, in which the offi- cers are welcoming a new ensign in front of the Cock Inn. There are thirty-two figures here, all remarkable for their action and vitality. The costumes of the men are very brilliant.
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Govaert Finck's Arquebusiers of Amsterdam at a Banquet celebrating the Signing of the Peace of Minister (1648) is his greatest work. The same characters appear as in Van der Heist's work. The tall man in black and in profile is sup- posed to be the painter. His equally important work portrays Captain Albert Bas's Company of Arquebusiers.
This gallery is particularly rich in pictures of birds, fruits, flowers and still-life. Of the ten Hondecoeters, the most celebrated is the Float- ing Feather.
" This feather of a duck floats on the surface of a pool that mirrors ducks, a pelican, a flamingo, and other aquatic birds grouped on the bank. Do not breathe on the feather; it would fly away ! The background is a park landscape. The canvas is six feet high by four to five broad: signed in full. This is not, however, in my opinion, the best Hondecoeter here. The Landscape with a Peacock and Hen and Exotic Birds is superior in breadth of execution and general harmony. The two peafowl are on the right. On the left is a white hen surrounded by her chicks. In the centre, one of those bold cockerels, with dead-leaf plumage and red crest, and which will develop into a fine cock, gallantly faces the peacock beak to beak. It is a vigorous painting." — (W. B.)
Weenix, whom Sir Joshua Reynolds so enthu- siastically praised for his beautiful colouring and general excellence, has a beautiful Dead Game with the Castle of Honselaersdyk in the back- ground. His two pictures of Dead Hares also deserve attention.
Aelbert Cuyp's Fight between a Turkey and a Cock is remarkable for its fury of action, truth- ful colouring and fine chiaroscuro.
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Van Beyeren's Fish look as if they had just come out of the water; and Pieter Claesz's Break- fast is another fine example of still-life. Snyders's Dead Game and Vegetables and Fruit and Game show the painter's skill in depicting to the life deer, boars' heads, lobsters, artichokes, aspara- gus, fruits, porcelain bowls and crystal vases with flowers ; and among many floral pieces Van Huysam's Flowers (1723), in which roses, hya- cinths, anemones, appear in a vase on a marble table beside a nest of four eggs, should be no- ticed for its elegance and delicacy of treatment.
Dow's Evening School is a work of the first im- portance. The schoolmaster is seated at his desk on which is a lighted candle and an hour-glass. He shakes his finger threateningly at a little boy who is walking toward a group of scholars seated around a table dimly lighted by a candle. A scarcely visible figure is descending a winding staircase. Half the background is hidden by a big brownish drapery doubtless used so as to con- centrate the light and dark effects under this kind of theatre curtain. In front of the master a little girl in profile and leaning against the table is spell- ing out words, following them with her fingers. To the left is another group consisting of a boy with his back to us ciphering on a slate by the light of a candle held by a little girl who stands and points out the figures with her left hand. Finally, a fourth candle burns in a lantern on the ground at the foot of the table near the centre of the room. The various groups are beautifully distributed, and the flickering candle light is most skilfully depicted.
" All this is painted on a little panel twenty inches high
THE FLOATING FEATHER— M. d'Hondccoeter
RIJKS MUSEUM
THE SPIXXER— Macs
KIJKS MLSKl.'M
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and fifteen inches wide. Doubtless, what people admire so highly in this is the struggle of the candlelight — a stroke of cleverness, very true and very skillful." — (W. B.)
Gerard Dow's portrait of himself leaning out of a window is a splendid character study. His Hermit is a marvel of minute painting.
" One can count the hairs and wrinkles of the little man on the six-inch-square panel. The clasped hands hold a crucifix. There is also an open book, and a chaplet, an hour-glass, a basket — bread and wine for meditation at leisure — and other minute accessories. On the right is a tree trunk, and in the background, arcades — the cloister, doubtless. It is as tiny and precious as it could possibly be." — (W. B.)
Reading, by Ver Meer of Delft, is a charming interior.
" Again the Sphinx ! An interior with a woman in a blue robe. The woman is standing, in profile to the left, knee-length. She is reading a letter. She wears a blue jacket and a pale grey skirt. In front of her is a table, also a chair with a blue back. Behind her is another blue chair. Her bust stands out against a geographical chart hanging on the pale wall. The execution is very delicate : the colour weak, and even somewhat dry. The face is exquisitely fine ; the bare arms and the hand that holds the paper are wonderfully drawn." — (W. B.)
The Laitiere belongs to Ver Meer's second period.
" The Laitiere is the last word of simplicity. A cook pours milk from one vessel into another in a room which may be a larder. Nothing could be more actual. Not a touch upon the panel but is governed by loyalty to truth, but neither is there a touch which fails to contribute to that unity which is art." — (Sir W. A.)
Of Jan Steen's pictures, the Parrot Cage is generally considered the finest.
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" On the right are two men playing backgammon, one sitting and the other standing; the third looks on as he smokes. On the left is a woman in front of a wide chimney, and a boy feeding a cat. In the middle fore- ground a young woman with her back to the spectator has her arm raised to feed a parrot in a cage hanging from the ceiling. The principal motive of the picture is the young woman, who is delightfully proportioned. Cor- rect drawing, very strong modelling; the light of marvel- lous gradations throughout; the local tone vigorous as in the Venetians."— (W. B.)
St. Nicholas Eve is a typical Dutch scene in which father, mother and grandmother are inter- ested in the rewards St. Nicholas has bestowed upon the children according to their deserts. The light is centred upon a little girl whose arms are full of toys and her mother who is sitting beside a table loaded with St. Nicholas cakes and confec- tionery. Some of the children are looking up the chimney to see where St. Nicholas descended and one child is crying because his shoe contains a birch rod. This is supposed to be a picture of the painter and his family.
Of equal merit is the Dancing Lesson, a charm- ing representation of two children playing with a cat.
The Quack, standing on a platform under a tree vaunting the virtues of his nostrums, is in Steen's best vein. Below him are many little fig- ures very humorously treated, and comic epi- sodes. One woman has brought her drunken husband to be cured by the eloquent doctor; a peasant is being operated on by the charlatan's assistant, etc.
The Scullion is a highly finished picture of a
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kitchen interior, with a young woman, in white jacket and blue skirt, scouring a pewter pot on the top of a tub. Beside her on a table are a brass lantern, a pewter jug and other utensils.
As the Old Ones Sing so the Young Ones Pipe is a famous scene of family merry-making in which the participants are eating, drinking, smok- ing, playing and singing.
" It is of the most valiant quality in his broad and free manner." — (W. B.)
The Orgy, or Toast, tells a story in the vein which Hogarth afterwards worked with such suc- cess.
" A jovial old fellow of a most humorous expression, seated, with a tankard in one hand, and a goblet of liquor in the other, is in the act of raising his glass, and appar- ently giving the health of his fair companion, who is recumbent on a form by his side, reclining her head on his knee, her eyes half-closed, a pipe falling from her relaxed fingers, and one leg extended on the form, evi- dently overcome with her copious libations. Music has lost its charms, and the two musicians are seen retiring from the room, while a woman, seizing the opportunity, has mounted a chair, and is in the act of stealing a mantle hanging on a peg. A cat and an owl complete the com- position of this masterly production." — (J. S.)
Another masterpiece is The Sick Girl.
" Of the Faculty of Physicians created by Jan Steen, this doctor is the most admirable of all. Grey-bearded, he stands in profile : except for a little violet cloak, his costume, including cap, is all black. He is solemn in attitude and pensive in countenance. This little picture belongs to ' grand painting ' by its breadth, its execution at once so ample and restrained, its learned drawing, its just imitation, and its depth of colour, so that it recalls the life-size figures of the Venetian Masters. Jan Steen, who is not always so distinguished, here touches the real
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style. No master is more variable or complex than he." — (W. B.)
The Birthday of the Prince of Orange is an animated scene, in which the Court is drink- ing his health and offering congratulations. It is painted in the artist's best manner.
The Satin Dress was painted three times by Ter Borch. The inappropriate name of Pater- nal Advice was bestowed upon it by Goethe ; but the foppishly dressed young man is too young to be the father of the young lady who stands with her back to the spectator, showing the lustrous folds of her rich gown to such advantage.
" What a singular thing ! A frightful sacrifice of a woman's head to a robe of satin, the unheard-of triumph of an accessory — a charming infraction against all the principles of art — we might call it a colossal fault — but a privilege only allowed to great artists. The painter has by this aroused our curiosity regarding the face of the young girl, who has turned away her head, and so we have to imagine her blushing cheeks and her lowered eyelids."— (C. B.)
Nicholas Maes has two pictures of the Spinner. The one in the Dupper room is a solemn, quiet and charming presentation of a solitary old woman at her wheel. The fading daylight sifting through the window falls upon the rich red of her costume and the dull hues of the table cloth.
The Spinner in the Van der Hoop room is sitting at her wheel ; she wears a black head- dress and beautiful red sleeves. She stands out strongly against a brightly-lighted wall : both figure and lights are heavily impasted. Smith calls it a brilliant and very masterly production.
" If this Maes could be transported to the Louvre,
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what enthusiasm it would excite among the artists ! That strong, simple, and profound talent, that accentuation of the drawing and framework of the personages with an incomparable colour, that bold and true touch, the skill of the brush in the accessories, the transparence of the depths and brilliance of the lights, and the striking effect of the whole, would immediately place Maes by the side of Rembrandt."— (W. B.)
The Dreamer (or Musing), by Maes, represents a young woman looking out of her casement win- dow framed with peaches and apricots. The gen- eral tone is a beautiful red. The head is full of life and expression and the left hand admirable.
Among the Little Masters, Caspar Netscher must not be overlooked. His Maternal Care is cer- tainly a gem of the first water in this genre.
" A lady, of a fair complexion, and light hair, elegantly attired in a dark blue satin jacket bordered with ermine, and a peach-colour satin skirt, seated, combing a boy's hair; he is kneeling at her side. A second child stands near a table which is covered with a Turkey carpet, making wry faces in a looking-glass : a silver box, a cup, and a plate are on the table. A maid with a silver ewer and salver, is advancing from a door at the side ; a stool covered with red velvet, on which lies a cap and feathers, is in front, and a cat is behind the lady's chair. This is an exquisitely painted picture. — (J. S.)
The Sportsman's Present is a picture of ad- mirable quality ; Burger begs us to think of the charming harmony that Metsu found in those tender rose tints, flat whites and emerald greens.
" A lady, dressed in a scarlet jacket, bordered with ermine, seated, having a lace cushion on her lap, and her right arm upon a table covered with a Turkish carpet, upon which stands a little spaniel ; her attention at the same time is directed towards a sportsman, who sits on her left, in the act of presenting her a brace of partridges;
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he is accompanied by a fine setter dog. A gun, a pouch, and a dead duck lie on the floor in front; and upon the top of the cabinet, which stands behind the lady, is a figure of Cupid. — (J. S.)
The Breakfast is a tiny canvas only one foot square. Seated at the table are a woman pouring out wine from an earthenware pitcher into a tall glass and a man, helping himself to a plate of meat. The colour scheme is exquisite, and the rendering of the accessories exceedingly minute.
The Old Toper is as good as anything Metsu ever painted. The jolly old man, dressed in a dark drab coat and fur cap, sitting and. leaning his right arm upon a cask, with a pipe in one hand and a jug in the other,
" is painted with elaborate care, and possesses extraor- dinary truth of expression, and identity of character." -(J. S.)
Metsu's Woman with a Cat and Old Woman Reading are also two brilliant works of true feel- ing.
The Country House is one of the compara- tively few exteriors painted by De Hoogh, who generally prefers treating the varying lights of communicating apartments.
"The subject represents a young lady and a gentleman, sitting at a table, in the open court of a Dutch residence. The former, dressed in a red jacket and a yellow skirt, is in the act of squeezing the juice of a lemon into a glass of liquor, while the gentleman, who has withdrawn his pipe from his lips, is leaning forward, and apparently saying something gallant to his fair companion. The mistress of the house stands on the farther side of the table, and a servant-maid is scouring a pot, on a cask, at the corner of the house. A doorway, at the end of the court, leads into an adjacent field. The brilliant
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sunshine of a fine afternoon lends a peculiar charm to the scene. This is an admirable production. — (J. S.)
The Store Room is remarkable for its simplic- ity of subjects, warm tones and chiaroscuro. At an open door, which leads down into a cellar, a woman is giving a child a drink of beer. The front room leads into the back one, which has an open window, thus producing three light effects that are marvellously treated in the artist's char- acteristic manner.
Two Musicians is attributed to this artist ; also to Isaac Koedyck.
" It is a fine and large painting, simple and harmonious, in the style of Pieter de Hoogh. The woman playing the clavecin wears a red velvet jacket edged with ermine and red skirt. She is sitting in a wooden chair over the back of which is thrown a violet drapery. On her right, in front of the instrument, a man stands with his back to us, accompanying her on a guitar, the neck of which only is visible. He wears a big black robe with brown reflections, an avalanche of red wig, and his hat is on the grey tiling at his feet. To the left, a window opens on a town interior; at the back is a sort of library veiled by a green curtain. On the wall is a glass in which the man's bust is reflected." — (W. B.)
Hendrik Martensz Zorg is credited with five fine pictures, but La Poissarde has a false signa- ture, and was painted by Brekelenkam.
" His Fish Market, with twenty-eight figures, is a paint- ing of great solidity and simplicity, though somewhat cold for this warm colorist." — (W. B.)
His Lute Player shows his affinities with Adriaen Van Ostade; and this and other works here display his profound feeling for nature, taste in composition, correct design, careful execution, and warmth and harmony of colour.
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Jan Miense Molenaer, who appears so rarely in the big public galleries, has two little gems here: a Grace before Meat, and a Lady at the Clavecin. Both will reward more than a passing glance.
There are seven pictures by David Teniers the Younger, the best of which is generally considered to be the Dice Players, which is broadly painted. The Farm, or Rest, is also a fine piece of work, with its two figures in conversation, and carefully studied utensils and vegetables.
" On the right, a ray of sunlight falls on a greenish grey landscape, lightly painted in the style of what are called Teniers's breakfasts." — (W. B.)
Brekelenkam, who belongs to the school of Metsu, A. Van Ostade and N. Maes, is repre- sented here by one of his very best works, the Tailor's Shop. It is signed Q. B., and dated 1661.
" Painting very strong, very sober, very learned, very true in action and effect. Analogy with Pieter de Hoogh, but a little drier."— (W. B.)
Adriaen Brouwer is worthily represented here.
'' Side by side with Brouwer's masterpieces in Munich must be set the Peasants' Orgy, and the Peasants' Brawl, \vhich Dr. Bredius considers the type of the master's first manner. These pictures, sometimes verging on cari- cature and lacking in what austere people call style, yet belong to eternal art, and abound in qualities of the first order. By his implacable sincerity of observation, his profound sentiment of mimicry, the mocking or moving truth of gesture and attitude, Adriaen Brouwer is one of the greatest painters of human comedy." — (P. M.)
A pupil of Codde, William Duyster, has two notable pictures : Backgammon Players and the Marriage of the Lord of Oudegein and the Widow Broekhuyzen.
THE COUNTRY HOUSE— P. de Hooch
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r^ ^
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Palamedes painted the Concert or Musical Party with several variations. Havard cata- logues more than twenty in private collections, and the public galleries of Berlin, St. Peters- burg, The Hague, Rotterdam, Nantes, Antwerp and Brussels. The example here, as in Jordaens's domestic revelry, shows
" an interior with figures, seated and standing. Same faces, poses, accessories, — same valet pouring out wine. A jolly painter after all! "— (J. G. H.)
The Return from the Hunt is the masterpiece of A. C. Beeldemaker, who so rarely occurs in the galleries. Hunting and hawking-parties in the style of Wouvermans and Cuyp are this painter's specialty. The work is full of seignorial life in a beautiful landscape setting.
Of the dozen pictures here by Philip Wouver- mans, the Landscape, in which ladies and gentle- men are enjoying a stag-hunt, is, perhaps, the best.
The Halt is one of the best works of Salomon Ruysdael, — a sort of resume of his talents.
" One might say that in it he wanted to accumulate the proofs of his ability, so rich is the composition in all kinds of details. That stream in which those so happily-posed cows are drinking, those two coaches, those mounted ladies and gentlemen halting at the door of an inn, with the host and hostess busy among them; close by, a woman washing, another carrying a child, a shep- herd and his dog, turkeys and fowls ; above, oaks with thick foliage, and, on the horizon, a sea of verdure domi- nated by two spires of a church, — all that is painted with masterly sureness, and forms an ensemble the olive harmony of which is full of distinction. In spite of these numerous details that animate it, the picture has a great simplicity of aspect, and the strength of its colour is altogether marvellous." — (E. M.)
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The Windmill at Wyk is an exception in the work of Jacob Ruysdael, who rarely sought other than scenes of grandeur and melancholy. In this case, he followed the example of his uncle, Salo- 'mon, and his predecessor, Van Goyen, in paint- ing the course of a broad river.
" In a word, the subject is this: a corner of the Meuse probably; on the right, ground terraced with trees and houses, and, on the top, the black mill with its sails high in the breezes, a line of piles against which the water of the river softly laps, water dark, thick and admirable; a little strip of distant horizon, very strong, very pale, very distinct, against which rises the white sail of a boat, a flat sail without any wind in it, of a sweet and altogether exquisite value. Above this, a broad sky filled with clouds pierced with holes of pale blue, gray clouds mounting directly in escalade to the top of the canvas ; no light, so to speak, anywhere in the powerful tonality, composed of dull browns and sombre slate colours ; one single gleam in the centre of the picture, a ray that from some- where comes like a smile to illumine the disk of a cloud. A great square picture, engraved (we need not fear to abuse the word with Ruysdael) with extreme sonority in the lowest register, and my notes register marvellous in the gold. Beyond the preciousness of its details, its beauty of form, grandeur of expression, and intimacy of sentiment it must be regarded as simple decoration." -(E. F.)
Haarlem Seen from the Dunes of Overveen is full of light and transparence; it is one of the best examples of this motive so often treated.
The Woodland, signed and dated 1653, is some- what cold and bluish in tone: on the left an oak is very finely studied.
Another Woodland (signed) is one of the painter's* larger masterpieces. It shows the edge of a forest, with a cascade in the foreground. It belongs to Ruysdael's maturity: the execution is very broad, and the harmony striking.
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Another wooded Landscape, signed and dated 1661, is dark and strong; but rather heavy in touch.
A Winter Effect is of wonderful execution, and striking sadness.
Isaac Van Ostade has two variants of a Road- side Inn.
" These inns, with halts of travellers, form a compact series from 1646 to 1649. In this, the last form of his art, Isaac has very distinct peculiarities. The air which per- vades his composition is warm and sunny, yet mellow and hazy, as if the sky were veiled with a vapour coloured with moor smoke. All blemishes are forgotten when one looks at the broad contrasts of light and shade, and the masterly figures of steeds and riders, and travellers and rustics, or quarrelling children, and dogs, poultry and cattle, amongst which a favourite place is always given to the white horse, which seems as invariable an ac- companiment as the gray in the skirmishes and fairs of Wouvermans." — ( C. )
Esaias Van de Velde's characteristic Winter Amusements produces a striking impression and lively effect.
" Under the somewhat harsh light of a gray-blue sky, sad and lowering, the silhouettes of the people clothed in sombre garb are strongly outlined. The groups are well disposed and the attitudes are very natural. In the foreground, in the middle of a group of ladies of slender forms, a gallant kneels to adjust the skates of his charmer, who, with a graceful movement, half turns and coquettishly reveals her amiable and smiling face to the spectator. Figures and landscape here are of equal value, and testify to the suppleness of the talent of Esaias." ~(E. F.)
Adriaen Van de Velde has several of his most charming works here.
In the beautiful picture dated 1667, he has painted himself with his wife in a Landscape, both
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dressed with elegant simplicity. On the left, a servant seated on the trunk of a fallen tree holds their youngest child in her arms, and the little Pieter, about nine years of age, leads a spaniel that drags him to a pool to drink. Not far off, in the middle distance, a groom in grey is adjust- ing the harness of two fine grey horses that have drawn the carriage to the pretty spot.
" In this beautiful autumn afternoon, amidst this land- scape broken with groves and meadows through which a stream winds, this pleasant household loves to enjoy the pure air with the children. We, in turn, enjoy resting our eyes on this exquisite .image of so legitimate a hap- piness."— (E. M.)
The Hunt is one of his most charming com- positions. Horses, hounds, grooms, and elegant ladies and gentlemen are about to start in a beau- tiful park landscape.
" This picture is of an extraordinary richness of com- position, fineness of colour (in spite of so much red), state of preservation and purity." — (W. B.)
In 1667, Adriaen Van de Velde and Jan Hack- aert came to an agreement before a notary by which the former was to " stuff " some of his friend's landscapes, " having no doubt that, later, the pictures in which he had collaborated would be worth five times more than the others." This was to settle for a volume of engravings sold to him by Hackaert. The Avenue of Ash Trees (see page 166) is undoubtedly one of the land- scapes " stuffed " with figures by Adriaen in conformity with his undertaking. Several other masters were similarly aided by Van de Velde.
" Adriaen and Van der Heyden collaborated in more
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than one hundred pictures, and never was an association happier than that of these two artists. We know the absolute correctness of Van der Heyden, his execution of extreme finish, but sometimes cold and dry in its pre- cision. His Town Interiors assuredly would lose much of their value without Adriaen's delightful figures. It was Van de Velde who gave life to the quays, streets and squares of Amsterdam that his friend painted, by animating them with his numerous personages : peasants, loungers, idlers, women going to market, urchins playing, lords greeting one another hat in hand, or chatting over the news of the day. Through this throng, carriages and wagons thread their way, and dogs chase or fraternize with each other. The hurly-burly of the crowd, the cos- tumes and attitudes of the little elegant figures initiate us into the movement and habits of the great city. With remarkable tact, Adriaen always subordinates his execu- tion to that of his fellow painter, and in certain tiny landscapes painted by the latter, especially in the two Quays (in this gallery) he succeeds, without sacrificing his own breadth of execution, in rivalling him in finish and perfection." — (E. M.)
The Water Mill, standing out from a back- ground of tall trees, is in Hobbema's happiest vein.
" The composition offers on the right a large overshot water-mill, and an adjoining red-tiled house, backed with clusters of trees. A stream flows along the front, beyond which is some level ground, where a man and a boy are seen approaching, and a woman standing at a tub washing. The distance is terminated with clumps of trees and low hedges, enclosing meadows, over which passes a gleam of sunshine." — (J. S.)
" The little Landscape, which Smith calls ' a pleasing little picture by the master,' is considered by Burger to be superior even to the Water Mill. Near the house are a man and woman : excellent figures by the unknown artist who also ' stuffed ' Ruysdael's pictures. The in- verted trees reflected in the water are exquisite in colour." — (W. B.)
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About 1640, Rembrandt made about twenty sketches from life of the animals in the Amsterdam menagerie. Potter followed his example; and, in 1650, painted Orpheus Charming the Animals, which hardly adds to his reputation. It is not so grotesque as Cuyp's interpretation of the same sub- ject; but though he gives proof of his ability in painting the domestic animals of his acquaintance (including a viper and a lizard) he is not so suc- cessful with the lions, buffalo, camel, elephant, uni- corn, wolf, and stag. The landscape, however, is charming.
" The Shepherds and Flocks in a Landscape presents an analogous disposition. The left half of the canvas is occupied by an eminence covered with shrubs and topped with a small grove of trees. On the right rises the paint- er's favourite oak with rough and broken bark. In the broad perspective appears a horizon of dunes and woods of wild aspect, with an old brick tower rising above the mass of verdure. The shepherd leans against the oak playing his bagpipe. His wife sits at his feet and nurses an infant, and his dog is tied to the tree. The placid sky, half overcast, the heavy tonality of the landscape, the tranquil attitudes of the animals, all indicate the calm of one of those soft summer days on which pastoral melody alone breaks the silence." — (E. M.)
Potter's Herdsman and Cattle is a tiny gem, ten inches by six only. Sitting beside a hut, the cowherd is watching his cows and sheep.
" It is a sort of excellent sketch, coloured in fine red tones like a Cuyp." — (W. B.)
Another notable Dutch Landscape is by Philips de Koninck, signed, and dated 1676, with figures by Lingelbach. A Clearing in a Wood, with figures by A. Van de Velde, is a charming sylvan scene of high quality.
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Painters Studying from Nature may be re- garded as Johannes Both's masterpiece. It shows an extensive landscape of great beauty. The artist is seated on a rock with his back to us. His brother sits facing him, listening to a third person who is pointing out some beauty in the scene. A shepherd bends down in conversation with the artist. Other figures enliven the landscape in the distance.
" The eye glances over an extensive lake to a hill which rises in the centre of the valley, and along the base of which the mist of the morning still floats. A few build- ings are visible on the surrounding eminences, and the more distant mountains recede in diaphanous gradation until their summits either blend with the clouds, or are faintly distinguishable from the glowing warmth of the horizon. The appearance is that of a glorious summer's morning. In contemplating this splendid work, it is impossible not to feel the most intense delight ; for such is the exhilarating beauty of the morning, the grandeur and wildness of the scenery, the rich luxuriance of the vegetation, the cooling freshness of the roaring cataract, and the enchanting prospect of the lake and the surround- ing hills, that the more we gaze, the more we become enraptured with such a consummation of all that is at- tractive in nature, and excellent in art." — (J. S.)
Van der Venne, who rarely painted life-size figures, has an enormous canvas of a Cavalcade of Prince Maurice and his relatives in a fine land- scape. The train of nobles and servants is drawn up like a procession.
" Correct drawing, elegant carriage, expressive faces, beautiful colour, free and solid touch, Van der Venne has put into it all the fine qualities that distinguish his little pictures, together with a certain grandeur and very deliberate pride." — (W. B.)
His remarkable picture, the Fishers of Souls,
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is a satire on the warring religious sects of the day.
" The Romanists, headed by a figure of Folly, are on the right. Behind the Fool, who is cheered by the urchins, throng doctors, lords and cardinals preceding the Pope himself borne in triumph in this carnival crowd. In the middle of the composition is a broad river with boats to save those who have fallen into the water and are in danger of drowning — in heresy. On the other side of the river are the Protestants — thousands of little figures. In the background is a rainbow — the sign of the new light. From beginning to end the composition is a very witty allegory, excellently painted. The Fool and all the heads in the foreground possess incomparable expression and vivacity."— (W. B.)
The View of Amsterdam from the Y, painted in 1686, is the largest of Willem Van de Velde's works. He here represents the panorama of the city with its port, docks and principal buildings. In the centre is the merchant ship Holland, home from one of her first voyages to the East Indies, received with salutes by the ships at anchor, with! the city yacht, flagged and richly adorned, coming to meet her.
" The artist has employed all the resources of his palette on the scene. His most brilliant colouring, his broadest and most animated work are in perfect accord with the subject treated." — (E. M.)
The Cannon Shot is a brilliant record of minute and privileged observation.
" Besides the purely picturesque aspects of the sea which he had to paint for private persons, he was more than once charged with the duty of reproducing some of the most glorious actions of the Dutch navy. Associated with the official mission which the Admiralty had confided to his father, by accompanying him to sea, he was able to profit from the facilities that were granted to him for
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his studies. In his picture of the first of the engagements of the Four Days' Battle, we see in the foreground the artist standing in a ship's barge so as to follow the course of the fight at close quarters. From the sixth to the thir- teenth of June, 1666, Willem, like his father, stayed with the fleet, and had himself taken to the spots he considered most favourable for taking sketches from nature. It is even said that for the study of the effects that he wanted to produce, De Ruyter, who held him in high esteem, sometimes had the guns of the flagship fired expressly for his benefit. At any rate, that is the subject of the Cannon Shot, in which he has represented, in a dead calm, a great ship in full sunlight standing out against the thick clouds of smoke produced by its guns." — (E. M.)
Jan van Goyen has five fine river, meadow, and city views. His View of Dordrecht (1650) ranks as a masterpiece with the Dutch River Banks (1653) of the Louvre, which also belongs to his best period. About 1650, his colour passed to the silvery grey, and his execution continued to broaden.
Ludolf Bakhuysen has eight pictures of marine subjects. In the View of the Y at Amsterdam from the Mopelsteiger Quay,
"many vessels of various descriptions are in port; and on the quay in front are a number of persons, amongst whom are a woman with a child in her arms, sitting on the steps of a house, and a boy near her, playing with a dog. On the opposite side are a sailor seated on some bales of goods, and a gentleman (said to be intended for the artist) standing near him.." — (J. S.)
" Bakhuysen has a great reputation for his stormy seas — an overdone reputation, in my opinion. If he is some- times able, as in the tempest effect in Haarlem Lake, he is often detestable."— (W. B.)
The Embarkation of De Wit is a view from the shore, looking out to sea, where several ships are ready for sailing.
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" The whole extent of the shore is occupied by numer- ous persons, assembled to witness the embarkation of the Grand Pensioner. He is attended by soldiers, and surrounded by numerous spectators." — (J. S.)
Hackaert's Avenue of Ash Trees represents the entrance to a park from which a party of hunts- men is about to start forth in the early morning. There is a large sheet of water on the right, and the light shines beautifully on the trunks of the trees that border the park.
The Primitives and their immediate successors are almost entirely lacking here. Exceptions, how- ever, are a striking portrait by the Master of the Death of Mary, and another excellent one, Philip, Bishop of Brabant, by Mabuse. Herri de Bles is credited with an early altar-piece of fine quality. Paradise is so well preserved that it might have been painted a year ago.
" The circular picture shows us in various episodes Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from the Creation until the Fall. Around the edges are signs of the Zodiac. The colour is rich, the figures delicate. The story is clearly told and is not unlike a ' continuous performance.' You see Adam asleep and over him stoops the Almighty ; then Eve is shown. The angel with the flaming sword is por- trayed with a vivid line that recalls the miniaturist. A rare painter." — (J. G. H.)
Jan van Scorel's Mary Magdalen shows Italian influence. The seated Mary is richly dressed.
" She holds in her right hand a box of perfume, her left hand, beautifully painted, rests on her knee. Behind is a mountainous landscape, distinctly Italian, beside her a tree. The head is north Lombardian in character and colouring, the glance of the eyes enigmatic. A curi- ously winning composition, not without morbidczsa." — (J. G. H.)
Van der Heist's Admiral Aart van Nes and his
e
O
THE PARROT CAGE— Jan Steen
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Wife are companion pieces, which, placed beside the Syndics, are able to maintain their own in that dangerous vicinity. The head of the woman is superb. Both have marine backgrounds by Back- huysen.
Mary Henrietta Stuart is seated in an arm- chair with gold carvings surmounted by a canopy of violet silk. She is dressed in white and she holds an orange, the emblem of her husband's race.
" There is one Van der Heist we could not pass. It looks like the portrait of a corpulent woman, but is that of Gerard Bicker, bailiff of Mniden. A half-length figure turned to the left, the bailiff a well-fed pig, holds a pair of gloves in his right hand, which he presses against his Gargantuan chest. His hair is long and curly. The fabrics are finely wrought." — (J. G. H.)
The character study of Admiral Lieffde is also a masterly work.
One of the most charming pictures in this gal- lery is the Little Princess by P. Moreelse, which is also one of the most frequently copied pictures in the Rijks. The little girl is superbly dressed and her rich clothing, jewels and enormous ruff are superbly painted. She places her hand on the head of a spaniel.
Rubens has a very charming portrait of his be- loved, plump Helen. It is a bust, hair puffed over the ears, high and stiff fan-collarette rising behind the head, bare neck, satin corsage, necklace and other jewellery. His Anne of Austria is also famous.
J. B. Franck is a masterpiece in Van Dyck's Flemish manner. He has an oval face, light curl- ing hair, moustache and small tufted beard. He wears a full black cloak, and plain pendant collar. The colour is exceedingly fresh and brilliant.
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Two striking portraits are those of Prince William Henry of Orange and Princess Mary of England, whom he afterwards married.
" The former appears to have been about twelve years of age; he has dark flowing hair, and is dressed in a vest and hose of red silk, a mantle of the same colour, and a broad lace frill. His left hand holds his hat, and the right the hand of the princess. She is attired in a richly- embroidered white satin robe and a lace kerchief, and is decked with a pearl necklace and a diamond brooch."
-a s.)
T. De Keyser has a brilliant Equestrian Portrait of Pieter Schout, Bailiff of Hagestein. N. Elias ranks high with his two representations of Renier Hinlopen and his wife.
One of the best portraits in the gallery is Maria Voogt, an old lady with a silver-clasped Bible in her hands.
" As a piece of insight into character this picture by Hals stands in the very highest order of portrait-painting. As a piece of mere painting, apart from any such consider- ation, it may be set side by side with any portrait from any hand and will be found to have no superior. Hals has given one here the inner life of his sitter — that which at times one is tempted to declare he cannot give. That brown, Dutch-bound, silver-clasped Bible there has got itself well into the life of the clear-eyed old dame. It is no hypocrisy — you may swear it from her face — that made her choose to be painted so.
" That book, indeed, is so matchless a piece of still-life painting, that it would be open to the charge of being too interesting in itself, and too little of an accessory, if it were not kept entirely in its place by the interest of the face itself."— (G. S. D.)
It is very instructive to compare this with Rem- brandt's Elizabeth Bas.
" Walk two rooms off and look at Rembrandt's portrait
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of Elizabeth Jacobs Bas, the widow of Admiral Swarten- hont. You will see at once that Hals's picture is in cool daylight compared with the artificial golden light with which Rembrandt's picture is suffused. As one looks at the admiral's wife, one feels the conviction that, whatever happened at sea, it was she who commanded the ship at home. There is strength in every line of the shrewd, homely face, and in the quiet ease of the strong hands which lie folded upon one another. The hands of Hals's portrait are fully as expressive of character, but the char- acter is different. There is quiet, firm decision in them, but they do not belong to a personality of the same rugged and robust strength as the other housewife." — (G. S. D.)
Nicholas Hasselaer and his wife are two of Hals's masterpieces.
Hals's Jester or Lute Player with the wonder- ful smile and truthful pose, of the hands is widely known.
"An old tradition has it that this is a portrait of the artist's pupil, Adriaen Brouwer. But, whoever be the original, it is quite impossible to stand before the picture without feeling assured that it is a portrait to the life of some one. Perhaps in the whole range of art there is nothing more convincingly life-like." — (G. S. D.)
The Jolly Toper is in similar vein ; and near this hangs another Jolly Toper by Hals's pupil Judith Leyster.
Another fine female portrait by Hals is Feyna Van Steenkiste. Hals and his wife is also a gem.
" Hals has painted himself by the side of his young wife and the two figures stand out against a strong and charming landscape background. This work is one of the greatest breadth and mastery that ever left the hands of the master."— (P. M.)
Barent Fabritus is nobly represented by a por- trait of Willem van der Helm, architect of the
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city of Leyden, with his wife and child, signed, and dated 1656.
Ter Borch's
" Helena van der Schalcke is a quaint Dutch child stand- ing: a serious little body carrying a basket on her right arm like a good housewife." — (J. G. H.)
Of Thomas de Keyser's eight portraits, Pieter Schout (dated 1660) is generally considered the finest. It was celebrated in verse by the poet Jan Vos.
Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck's Pieter Ja- cobsz, Burgomaster of Haarlem in 1614, is a splendid presentment of a Dutch " Schout." It is dated 1641.
Codde's Adoration of the Shepherds is en- tirely out of the line of his usual subjects.
" He belongs to that group of Little Masters who de- voted their brush to pleasant social gatherings, military parties, and gallant entertainments. He sought his heroes in boudoirs, barracks and gambling-hells. He was of the same art sect as Esaias Van de Velde, the disciple of Dierck Hals, the rare competitor of Le Ducq and Palam- edes, with whom he had often been confounded." — (H. Havard.)
Dierck Hals has a lively Open Air Party in which the particularities of the school he founded are fully displayed.
Jan Lijs's Music Party, dated 1625, belongs to his best period. The picture deserves attention, be- cause the works of this admirer of Caravaggio are rare.
In Govaert Flinck's Isaac Blessing Jacob (1638), a subject affected by all Rembrandt's pupils, the cunning of Jacob's face is finely ex- pressed.
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Santvoort's talents lay chiefly in the direction of female portraiture. His powers are brilliantly dis- played in his Four Regents of the Serge Hall (1643) (see page 142).
" A serious and well-considered work, finely modelled and very characteristically treated." — (E. M.) -~~
Peasants in friendly converse in an inn ranks among this artist's best interiors.
The newest acquisition
" is the work of an unknown seventeenth-century master, possibly Spanish, though the figures, background and ac- cessories are Dutch. Two old men, their heads bowed, sit at table. Across their knees are napkins. A youth attired in dark habiliments, his back turned to the specta- tors, is pouring out wine or water. The canvas is large, the execution flowing; perhaps it portrays the disciples at Emmaus." — (J. G. H.)
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM STOCKHOLM
THE National Museum, a handsome edifice in the Renaissance style, was erected in 1850-1866. It is beautifully situated at the south end of Blasii- holm, on the broad quay of Blasiiholmshamnen, looking across the water to the Royal Palace. The principal fagade is ornamented with bas-reliefs and marble statues, and the marble stairway within is a work of art. Like the Louvre, this is a collec- tion of museums. The Picture Gallery occupies the second floor and contains more than 1000 works. The chief treasures are Boucher's Birth of Venus; Rembrandt's Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis; and the Chardins.
The Gallery of Old Masters was chiefly collected during the Eighteenth Century, and was enriched by Queen Louise Ulrica, a sister of Frederick the Great. She was aided by Count Karl G. Tessin, the Swedish ambassador at Paris, whose collection, principally of French pictures, she purchased. Her son, Gustavus III., also an art-lover, did much for the gallery, which has grown by the addition of collections from royal castles, special bequests, gifts and purchases.
The Flemish and Dutch Schools outnumber all others ; and include several works of the first order. The great strength of this gallery, however, lies in the superb collection of the works of the French Masters of the Eighteenth Century, which is only equalled by the Louvre, Wallace Gallery, and the Hermitage.
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The Heilborn Collection, bequeathed in 1902. consists of examples of Millet, Corot, Dupre and others of the Barbizon School.
The Italian Masters will not detain us; and we, therefore, hasten to what are considered the gems of the Museum.
Boucher's beautiful works charm the eye at once with their scenes of delicate fancy and lovely col- our. The " Michael Angelo of coquetry," a French critic has aptly called him. Here we have Venus at Her Toilet, surrounded by the three Graces; Venus and the Graces at the Bath, similar to the one in the Louvre, but with more figures ; Leda and the Swan, one of the treasures of the gallery ; Pensent-ils aux raisins, where a shepherdess seated beneath a tree offers grapes from her basket to a shepherd at her feet in an idyllic landscape; the Toilet, depicting a young lady of fashion seated before her mirror and turn- ing to look at the wares a kneeling milliner is ex- hibiting from her boxes, while a white cat sleeps upon a red arm-chair; and, finally, the Birth of Venus, also known as the Triumph of Galatea.
" The Birth of Venus is one of the most beautiful pic- tures that Boucher ever painted: it is clear, luminous and smiling. The attendants form a beautiful throng of loves, doves, nymphs and dolphins, amorously fluttering in the air and sporting in the waves. Seated in her car, Venus smiles on the pearls and jewels that are offered to her on a gold plate by a nymph lifted up in the arms of a robust Triton. The abandoned and provoking grace of the attitude, and the nudities of the nymphs are by an epicurean who peopled his Olympus with easy goddesses. The abundant composition, the can- vas filled to the brim with a sort of easy-going pleasure and irrepressible dash, and the forms born as if by en- chantment under the swift brush, are by an artist of true
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race, in love with life, who never knew what a dull effort was, and for whom production was a delight." — (A. M.)
Lancret's Swing, Blind Man's Buff and Skater, in which the young girl rests her foot upon the knee of her admirer, who is fastening her skate, are characteristic examples of his best work.
Pater's Bathers is a variant of the one in the Louvre, with fewer figures.
Jean Baptiste Oudry was a great friend of Count Tessin, and, therefore, it is not surprising to find eleven of his works in this gallery. The most re- markable are:
Musical Instruments, where a monkey on a stone pedestal is playing the violin, and below, by a blooming rosebush, a cock, hen and chickens are grouped ; Flowers and Fruits, one of those charm- ing canvases that Oudry called " devant des cheminees " ; The Lion and the Gnat, one of those pictures illustrating the Fables of La Fontaine which Oudry designed for the Beauvais manufac- tory of tapestry; and Still Life, representing a silver dish on a Persian cloth, a dead hare and other pieces of game. More famous, however, is the Stag-Hunt, exhibited at the Salon of 1751. It is a large picture, representing the animal in the forest surrounded by dogs, and is the equal of those that adorn Fontainebleau.
Of Desportes, the best are Remains of a Break- fast; and Dead Game and Fruits. The latter depicts two dead pheasants, a vase and a superb silver bowl containing velvety peaches that reflect their glowing hues into two silver plates standing on the oak sideboard.
" It was not hard for Desportes to find on his palette
STOCKHOLM 175
the velvety vermilion of the peach, the ruby of the pome- granate or the pale ashy yet transparent gold of the Fon- tainebleau grape. Moreover, he brought to this modest branch of art a rare perfection, and in our school I see only Chardin who excels him in the firmness of the im- pasto and originality of manner." — (C. B.)
Ten fine Chardins claim attention. These are the Tapestry- Worker ; the Artist Designer; Ser- vant Drawing Water ; Amusement of Private Life (Lady reading); Economy; Laundress; the Morning Toilet; Dead Hare; and copies of Mother and Daughter and Benedicite in the Louvre (see page 89). Of these, the Morning Toilet is perhaps the most valued.
Nattier's Duchess of Orleans as Hebe, the Marquise de Broglie, and the Marquise de 1'Ope- tal are choice specimens of this graceful colourist. The latter's smiling countenance is set off by her white dress, rose-coloured scarf and wreath of bluets.
Rigaud's Cardinal Fleury, life size, dressed in red, and seated in an arm-chair with a table on the right, is a magnificent portrait.
The Portrait of Louis XV. as a child, by Van Loo, is also one of the treasures here.
Eight representative works by Rembrandt show this painter at all periods of his career. First in importance comes The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, formerly known as The Conspiracy of John Ziska against John Huss. This is a frag- ment of a great work, painted in 1661 for the Town Hall of Amsterdam, and represents the mid- night banquet at which Claudius Civilis persuaded the Batavians to throw off the Roman yoke. The picture was rejected, and it became difficult to dis-
176 THE NATIONAL MUSEUM
pose of the enormous canvas (about sixty-five feet square), the largest work Rembrandt ever pro- duced. This was consequently cut down to the central group, which, after many vicissitudes, finally reached Stockholm.
" The broad execution of the surviving fragment har- monises perfectly with the obscure character of the epi- sode, and the powerful effect obtained by the simplest means attests the painter's mastery by the varied play of the colours and the delicate harmonies they produce. The portion of the right in particular is a miracle of brilliance. The man with long white hair in a cymar of pale gold tissue, and the four strongly illuminated figures nearest him, make up a chromatic passage of exquisite grace and distinction."— (E. M.)
A very important early work is St. Anastasius, an old man, bald and with long white beard, medi- tating in the shadows.
" The saint is seated near a window in a lofty vaulted oratory, divided by an arcade from a flagged corridor beyond ; against one of the uprights of this arcade is an altar of carved stone and on it a crucifix set in a frame- work of small reddish marble columns with gilded shafts and capitals. He rests his left hand on the arm of his chair and reads devoutly from a great folio on the table. His dress is a red skull-cap and a long robe of that purple-grey tint so much in favour with the painter at that period. Its cool tones repeated here and there in the pale sky beyond, the curtains of the arcade, and the pavement of the adjoining vestibule, are happily con- trasted with the warm browns and yellows that pervade the picture. The harmony of these deliberately juxta- posed tints is very delicate." — (E. M.)
To this period also belongs St. Peter, a study of an old man in a brown mantle, grasping a staff, and pressing a key to his breast. The other Rem- brandts in this gallery are portraits.
STOCKHOLM 177
That of Saskia, painted in 1632, the year of her marriage, represents her in profile, enveloped in an embroidered mantle and adorned with pearls. She holds a closed fan in her right hand.
About the same period, Rembrandt painted the Portrait of a Young Girl, supposed to be his sister. To 1654 belongs the Young Servant, or Cook, who appears as the Girl with the Broom in the Hermitage (see page 193). Here she is a little older, but her features have altered but little, the face being a trifle longer and the hands less coarse.
" Leaning in a musing attitude on a window-sill, she indulges in some youthful day-dream. Rembrandt, no doubt, to give her pleasure, seems to have adorned her simple dress with some trinkets from his own stores. She wears a pearl necklace; her red frock is bordered with gold embroidery, and her hair is drawn stiffly off her forehead and confined in a smart cap. The execution is .more careful and finished in this study, but it has all the vigour and freshness of the earlier portrait. The strong shadows are relieved by warm reflections, very boldly and brilliantly applied. The face, though calm, is full of vitality. The skin is firm and supple, showing the blue veins here and there. Youth, health and the glow of expanding life seem to breathe from the sturdy little body."— (E. M.)
A Portrait of an Old Man and one of an Old Woman are signed and dated 1655.
" The picture of the wife, who wears a turban and a loose brown gown, trimmed with fur, is a broad and sober piece of work subdued in colour, but distinguished by a gentle refinement of handling in admirable harmony with the serene personality of the sitter. The portrait of the husband, a grey-bearded man in a brown dress and black hat, is no less remarkable in treatment ; though unfortunately in very poor condition." — (E. M.)
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A splendid Portrait of Daniel Van Aken, a Lute-Player, by Frans Hals, was acquired in 1901 ; and his pupil, Judith Leyster, is repre- sented by a Flute-Player, which is probably a portrait. It is interesting to compare these works with F. Bol's Lute-Player.
When Rubens was in Madrid he copied Titian's Sacrifice to Fertility and the Abandoned Ariadne so beautifully that these copies have all the charm and freshness of original work. Particularly beautiful is the luminous turquoise light in the Sacrifice to Fertility.
The Three Graces, supporting a basket of flowers, similar to the one in the Prado, is charm- ing in colour. Of his four sketches, The Daugh- ters of Cecrops finding Erichthonios is highly valued.
The Salon of Rubens, once attributed to Van Dyck, is now given to Cornelis de Vos, as the elder of the two women in the foreground is sup- posed to be De Vos's wife. The other is Rubens's first wife, Isabella Brandt. The room is simple but elegant in style, with windows looking out upon a garden. The walls are hung with green and gold leather, and adorned by three pictures, copies in miniature of Rubens's own Last Judg- ment (in Munich), Lot and his Daughters (Vi- enna), and Rubens as St. George. One of these is placed over the marble chimney-piece. Three children are playing in the foreground near the ladies with a puppy.
Van Dyck's St. Jerome, an early work in Rubens's style, shows the saint in red drapery, reading from a book. Behind him stands an angel ; and his lion is at his feet.
STOCKHOLM 179
Snyder's Still-Life and the Fox as the Guest of the Crane; Jan Fyt's Dead Game; Jordaens's Adoration of the Shepherds and King Candaules tempting Gyges are splendid works.
A Satyr and Peasant, by G. van den Eeckhout ; a Stag Hunt, by Paul de Vos ; Cavaliers at Cards, by Cornelis de Vos; and Four Smokers Round a Table, by David Teniers the Younger, claim more than a passing glance.
Peasants at their Door, by Adriaen Van Os- tade, is a charming work; and an Old Woman Reading, painted in 1658, by an unknown artist, is also considered a masterpiece.
Pieter de Hooch's Letter and a Woman by a Cradle are among his best works.
The former shows a young woman reading a letter, which has just been brought to her by a servant, who is standing in the door that opens into the courtyard. In the back of the room a young man, glass in hand, is looking out of the window.
The Woman by a Cradle depicts a young mother holding her child on her knees.
" She stands out vigorously from the wall that is lighted by a ray of sunlight. In the background the serv- ant prepares the bed with its green hangings. Through the open door — I do not think there is a closed door in a single picture of Pieter de Hooch — we perceive a street flooded with sunlight. The portions in shadow lack trans- parency, but the luminous street is delicious." — (C. de R.)
Of landscapes we find a famous large wooded Flemish Landscape, by Jacques d'Arthois ; sev- eral Ruysdaels ; a View of Dordrecht, by Jan Van Goyen ; and Hobbema's fine Landscape, consist- ing of a red-roofed farmhouse shaded by four trees and situated on the bank of a canal with
i8o THE NATIONAL MUSEUM
a church spire in the background. Among ex- amples by Wouvermans, are a charming Winter Scene, a Coast Scene and a Bridge.
A Calm Sea, by Jan van de Capelle, is the best marine in the gallery, and H. van Vliet's Interior of St. Ursula's Church, Delft, the best archi- tectural painting. Fish, by A. van Beyeren, and Flowers, by Simon Verelst, and Flowers, by D. Seghers, are the best works of their class.
Among the German masters, there are portraits by Denner and works by the Cranachs. We note a Portrait of Philip IV. of Spain, attributed by some critics to Velasquez and by others to G. de Craeyer.
Against a wall and a column the young beardless King is seen bareheaded, dressed in black, with yellow boots. He holds his hat in his right hand. His white horse walks to the left, his long mane tied with knots of red ribbon. The saddle is of purple velvet embroidered with gold.
Four rooms are devoted to the Swedish masters of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, among which are Rosin's large Portrait of Gus- tavus III. and his two Brothers, seated around a table discussing a plan of campaign. The cos- tumes and other details are remarkably executed. Marie Antoinette and her Children in the Park of the Trianon, by Wertmuller, was presented to Gustavus III. by the Queen of France, who, in request for her portrait, out of courtesy had it painted by a Swedish artist resident in Paris. The Queen is seen full length, with her children on either side, wearing a white dress with a train of the colour known then as gorge de pigeon. The columns of the pavilion appear behind the trees.
STOCKHOLM 181
Portraits of Swedish Kings and Queens and one of the painter, Ehrenstrahl, by himself, will not detain us long ; for we prefer to spend a few moments with the Northern Masters of the Nine- teenth Century. The earliest group fell under the influence of Dusseldorf; but between 1860 and 1870 Munich and Paris attracted the Swedish painters. Of late years they have followed in the wake of Parisian Impressionism.
To the first group belong Tidemand Hans Gude, Bengt Nordenberg, Fagerlin and K. H. d'Unker. To the second, Boklund, Hockert, Wahlberg, Georg von Rosen, Cederstrom, Kronberg, C. G. Hell- qvest, Nils Forsberg, and J. E. Bergh; while the modern impressionists include Salmson, Hagborg, Skanberg, Zorn, Larsson, Bjorck, Liljefors, Josephson, Prince Eugene of Sweden, Nordstrom and Kreuger.
One of the most modern in style, as well as earliest of Swedish artists, Fahlcrantz (1774- 1881), is well exhibited by his Castle of Kalmar by Moonlight.
Historical scenes, landscapes, portraits, and scenes of peasant life predominate. A few scenes of northern mythology, wedding-parties in Lap- land, Lapland interiors, elfin dances and twilight scenes tell the visitor that he is in a northern clime. Of special note are P. G. Wickenberg's Dutch Coast and Winter Landscape; Walberg's Twilight on the Sea-Coast, and Landscape by Moonlight; Rydberg's Spring in Skane; Foger- lin's On the Way to Recovery; G. von Rosen's King Eric signing a Death Warrant; Edward Rosenberg's March Evening; Hockert's Lapp Interior, Wedding Party in Lapland and Burn-
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ing of Stockholm Palace in 1697; E. Joseph- son's E. Osterlind, the Painter ; Skanberg's Vene- tian Scene; Borg's Elks in Summer; Ekstrom's Swedish Landscape ; Kroyer's Edward Grieg, the Composer, and his Wife; H. Glide's Sandviks- Fjord in Norway; Cederstrom's Body of Charles XII. on its way to Sweden; and Liljefor's Sea Eagle and Foxes. There are also some animal pictures by Kjoerboe; religious works by Koer- berg; allegories by Winge; and some excellent landscapes by Charles XV., who was a very clever painter.
VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH SAINTS— Francia
THE HERMITAGE
MADOXXA DEL LATTE— Correggio
THE HERMITAGE
THE HERMITAGE ST. PETERSBURG
THE Hermitage is a sort of continuation of the Winter Palace, with which it communicates by means of several covered galleries. It was orgin- ally a retreat for the Empress Catherine, where she could enjoy herself without the formalities of court. Here she also had a picture gallery. Many of the original rooms were destroyed when the building was remodelled by Leo von Klenze, of Munich, between 1840 and 1850. The Hermit- age as it now appears, for architectural elegance, sumptuous use of materials and richness of decoration is unequalled by any museum. In fact, it is a Palace of Art. The pictures hang upon wall-hangings of silk ; and tables, vases and candelabra of malachite, violet jasper, porphyry lapis-lazuli, syenite and aventurine meet the eyes everywhere.
The Hermitage Gallery is a collection of master- pieces. Two famous collections formed the nucleus: Sir Robert Walpole's, from Houghton Hall, in Norfolk (principally gems) ; and that of Crozat, Baron de Thiers. To these were added eleven pictures from the Choiseul Gallery ; thirty- eight from the Empress Josephine's, at Malmaison ; the Spanish Gallery of Mr. Coesvelt, the banker; seven from the Collection of Dr. Crichton of St. Petersburg; thirty from the Collection of Queen Hortense of Holland ; three from the Soult Col- lection; the Barbarigo Collection, purchased by the 183
.
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Emperor Nicholas in 1850; and several from the gallery of William II. of Holland. Sir Robert Walpole's Collection contained a large proportion of Italian, Flemish and Dutch works.
By Italian masters there are more than three hundred pictures, many of which are masterpieces ; and the Flemish and Dutch schools are splendidly represented. There are 60 by Rubens, 50 by Wouvermans, 41 by Rembrandt, 40 by Teniers, 34 by Van Dyck, 10 by B. van der Heist, 9 by Paul Potter; and a number of fine works by Snyders. In short, the Hermitage houses about 2000 works.
First let us look at the Italian masters, selecting Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna Litta and Holy Family to begin with. There are few works of the great master more important than these. In both, the Virgin is of a lovely type, and all the de- tails are delicately treated.
The Madonna Litta came from the Collection of the Duke di Litta of Milan, whence its name. It is also called The Holy Virgin Suckling the Infant Jesus. The execution and style of this picture, as Passavant points out, resembles the School of Van Eyck.
The Holy Family was painted for Leo X. The group consists of the Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Cathe- rine, and the Child, who is holding out his hand to receive a tassa from little St. John. The Ma- donna's head is of great dignity and tenderness, and the shadow cast by her drooping eyelid^s gives a pensive beauty to her face. The hands, heads, and draperies are highly studied.
" Mary is seen full face ; she gazes on her son with pride, and is one of the grandest figures of the mother of our Saviour that was ever painted; the Child, full of
ST. PETERSBURG 185
gaiety and life, embraces her; behind them, to the left of the spectator, is a young woman reading. This figure is frequently named St. Catherine ; but it is probably the portrait of the sister-in-law of Leo X., wife of Giulio de Medici, to whom she was married in 1515. On the op- posite side is St. Joseph, whose head is the most original one in the picture ; he looks down smilingly upon the Holy Child with a graceful expression of playful humour, v This is Leonardo's own idea ; for it was far from the • spirit of that age to introduce any gaiety into a sacred V picture; in this respect he was the precursor of Correg- gio."-(H. B.)
The famous St. Sebastian, representing a nearly nude man bound to a tree by black and red ribbons, is attributed by some authorities to Leo- nardo and by others to Luini. The figure is sup- posed to be a portrait of Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan. Blanc, however, thinks that while it may have been painted by one of Leonardo's fol- lowers, or pupils, it was certainly composed by him. He considers it a work of rare beauty ; and calls attention to the splendid anatomy of the figure, the rounded curves, the correctly drawn muscles, the warm amber glow that illuminates the figure, the studied pose, the delicacy of the physiognomy, the melancholy expression and, finally, the beautiful flowers in the foreground.
The Portrait of a Young Woman
" was formerly assigned to the master, Leonardo, and is worthy of him. No head can be more exquisite in delicate pencilling, in careful detail and in refined senti- ment."—(J. B. A.)
One of the most beautiful of Luini's picture, known as The Columbine, represents a graceful young woman, whose face we see in all of Luini's pictures, gazing with downcast eyes and smiling at
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a columbine that she holds in her right hand. In her left, which rests on her lap, she has a spray of jessamine. Her dress is white with a yellow figure, and her mantle blue. Her hair is elabo- rately braided, and her jewels rich. In the back- ground on the right is some ivy-leaved toad flax (Linaria cymbalaria) and on the left some as- plenium adiantum nigrum, and below Edelweiss.
Another beautiful work by Luini is St. Cathe- rine, who wears a red robe with a loose diaphan- ous scarf around her neck. She is wreathed with jessamine, and holds a book at which she is look- ing. On either side is a child angel, one holding a wheel and the other a palm.
The Madonna della Casa Alba, though painted
/ Q in 1508 after Raphael had left Florence, recalls
/Ao^-the Madonnas of his Florentine period. The
Virgin, with a book in one hand, looks fondly
upon the children, and tenderly draws the little St.
John towards her Son.
" The modelling of the Infant Christ has never been surpassed for roundness and softness, and the articulations are well pronounced. The group is arranged with a symmetry and compactness suited to the circular form of the canvas : the Madonna seated in the centre, the chil- dren playing around, with a truly Raphaelesque land- scape beyond, make ^.comrjositiDri^as.. musical^. in^its^lines^ as it is placid and blissful in its sentiment/' — (-M.)
The Conestabile Madonna belongs to Raphael's early period.
" This beautiful little picture is taken from the same design of Perugino which Raphael had already copied in his drawing of the Madonna with the Pomegranate. But here he has altered the pomegranate into a book, and changed the position of the Child, who turns over the pages in childish delight. He has removed the nun-like
ST. PETERSBURG 187
veil from the Virgin's brow to show the hair smoothly braided on each side of her youthful face, and while pre- serving his master's original design has given a far sweeter and more natural picture of the Mother and Child than any which Perugino painted. In the background, we have not only the usual landscape of green slopes and slender trees, but a lake with a boat sailing upon its waters and distant hills capped with the first winter's snow. This little work is charmingly composed and painted with gem-like finish and brightness." — (J. C.)
The Holy Family has been so assiduously " re- stored " as to be almost unrecognizable as Raph- ael's work.
St. George is painted with spirit and fire. The patron saint of England is represented galloping on a white horse and piercing the dragon with his lance. The picture was commissioned by the Duke of Urbino, who had just received the Order of the Garter, as a present to Henry VII. of England, and the Garter is noticeable around the leg of the Knight.
The Virgin and Child with Saints by Francia, the " Calcina altar-piece," was painted for Ludo- vico de Calcina of Bologna. The Virgin is seated on a highly-decorated throne, with the Child on her knee. On one side stands St. Laurence ; on the other St. Jerome ; and, at the foot of the throne, two of Francia's characteristic child angels, whose fair curls are confined by fillets, are seated, one playing a lute, the other a large tenor viol, or a small bass one, having seven strings. Both instru- ments are elaborately inlaid and beautifully painted. Notice should be taken of the perfect pose of the hands. Two trees and a landscape are seen in the background.
The Madonna hushing the Infant Jesus was
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a favourite subject with Correggio. Here the Holy Child turns from His mother's breast, and stretches out His arm eagerly for the fruit which a little angel is bringing to Him.
" La Madonna del Latte, nowhere surpassed, bears re- semblance to La Vierge au Panier in the National Gal- lery. The figures are liquid as gems, ripe as rich fruit, indeed to borrow a saying sometimes applied to Murillo, the colours might almost have been mixed with milk and honey."— (J. B. A.)
In The Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto, the Virgin is also seated with the Infant on her lap, who turns smilingly to St. Catherine, leaning on her wheel on the right. On the left are St. Eliz- abeth and John the Baptist.
Another work by Andrea is a half-length figure of St. Barbara, dressed in a red robe, with gold belt and a pearl necklace. She holds a model of the tower in her hand. The background is a green drapery.
Tintoret appears here to great advantage.
" The Resurrection of the Saints, a mere sketch for the tremendous composition known in Venice as // Paradiso, yet displaying vast facility, extempore power, command of colour and readiness in expressing intention. Genius here asserts itself incontestibly. The Nativity of John the Bap- tist is in Tintoret's most romantic and brilliant style; the conception of beauty is high and truly Venetian, the colour of the flesh and of the drapery can only be reached by the school which reflected the radiant gold and blue of the Lagoons. Again, for care and delicacy in the nude, nothing even in the Ducal Palace, Venice, can surpass The Deliverance of Andromeda." — (J. B. A.)
In the latter, the figure of Andromeda, in col- our and beauty of form, is equal to the finest work of Titian. Two famous works by Sebastian del
ST. PETERSBURG 189
Piombo are Christ Carrying His Cross, painted on slate; and the Descent from the Cross.
" Perhaps the work which of all others took me most by surprise is The Descent from the Cross, by Sebastiano del Piombo. The forms are of the grand school of Midiael Angelo, while the colour is Venetian, though more than usually solemn in tone. The landscape back- ground, which rises more than three-fourths up the canvas, is truly Titianesque : as for the action it reaches tragic grandeur. Such a work is almost more than a picture, it moves the soul as music does the passions, it carries imagination to the before and after, and thus like an inspired narrative shadows forth the infinite." — (J. B. A.)
The Entombment, by Parmigiano, is full of colour and pathos.
" Christ laid in the Sepulchre, one of the finest pictures that Parmegiano ever painted, and for which there is a tradition that he was knighted by a Duke of Parma. There are eleven figures ; the Expression, the Drawing and Colouring, the Perspective and Chiaroscuro are as fine as possible. The figure of Joseph of Arimathea is Parmegiano's own portrait." — (H. W.)
The works of Titian that merit special notice are Magdalen; the Toilet of Venus; Danae; a Head of Lavinia, and a Madonna and Child, painted when Titian was still under the influence of Giovanni Bellini.
Palma Vecchio's Holy Family, distinguished for the beauty of the heads; Paul Veronese's Dead Christ supported by the Virgin and an Angel ; and Garofalo's Adoration of the Shep- herds, are fine works of individuality.
Schiavone's Jupiter and lo is remarkable for its landscape background.
Judith, by Moretto da Brescia, long attributed to Raphael, is a figure of remarkable beauty and
190 THE HERMITAGE
grace ; and Tiepolo's masterpiece is The Banquet of Cleopatra, where the Queen of Egypt, seated opposite Antony, is about to drop the pearl into her cup of wine.
Eleven fine works by Salvator Rosa include Three Soldiers Playing at Dice, marines, and landscapes, two masterpieces. One of these is Democrites and Protagoras, in which the figures, trees and sky are of equal excellence ; the other, is The Prodigal Son, who is represented on his knees imploring forgiveness, in a most impressive attitude, tragic in the extreme.
" In Lord Orford's Prodigal is represented the ex- tremity of misery and low nature ; not foul and burlesque, like Michael Angelo Caravaggio ; nor minute, circum- stantial and laborious like the Dutch painters. One of them would have painted him eating broth with a wooden spoon, and have employed three days in finishing up the bowl that held it. In the story of the old man and his sons, one sees drawing and a taste of draperies equal to the best collected from the antique. Salvator was a poet and an excellent satirist." — (H. W.)
Guido Reni was a great favourite of Horace Walpole, who ranked him with Raphael. Several of his works from Houghton Hall found their way to The Hermitage. Among these are The Doc- tors of the Church Disputing over the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and The Adora- tion of the Shepherds.
" In this picture (the Dispute), which is by Guido in his brightest manner and perfectly preserved, there are six old men as large as life. The expression, drawing, design, and colouring wonderfully fine. In the clouds is a beautiful Virgin all in white, and before her a little sweet angel flying. After Sir Robert had bought this picture, and it was gone to Civita Vecchia to be shipped
ST. PETERSBURG 191
for England, Innocent XIII., then Pope, remanded it back, as being too fine to be let go out of Rome ; but on hear- ing who had bought it, he gave permission for its being sent away again." — (H. W.)
" The Adoration of the Shepherds, a most perfect and capital picture of Guido, not inferior to the Doctors. The beauty of the Virgin, the delicacy of her and the Child, the awe of the Shepherds, and the chiaroscuro of the whole picture, which is in the finest preservation, are all incomparable. You see the Shepherds ready to cry out one to another Deus! Deus ille! Menalca! " — (H. W.)
David with the Head of Goliath, with dark shadows in the style of Caravaggio, the Repose in Egypt and St. Francis, fine works by Guido, are worth more than a passing glance ; also The Seamstresses, or Youth of the Virgin, which is much admired for the graceful group.
The Rembrandt Collection is unparalleled. Biblical pieces, portraits, genre studies, and land- scapes show the master at every period of his life and in every phase of his art.
The Holy Family is as familiar in treatment as the Carpenter's Household in the Louvre.
" The picture which seems to me the finest in quality is a Holy Family; indeed this composition, simple enough in its component parts, and consisting of nothing more than a mother, an open book, a cradle and an infant, leaves nothing to be desired, in light, shade, colour, or texture. The spectator is here impressed not with the mannerism, but with the consummate merit of the mas- ter. In fact, this Holy Family in Dutch costume is noth- ing more than a humble group within a cottage : the cherubs come tumbling in without ceremony, like bats or cockchafers." — (J. B. A.)
Among other religious pictures, The Descent from the Cross inspires the spectator with awe, for the shades of night are depicted with grandeur
192 THE HERMITAGE
and mystery. In Abraham Entertaining the Angels the plumes of the heavenly visitors should be noticed for their prismatic colours. The Re- turn of the Prodigal Son is told with pathos, and, though coarsely painted, is placed in a bold landscape.
" Heedless of the spectators around, the father and son give themselves up to their emotion, the one full of shame and repentant humility, the other of rapture at finding once more the lost son he clasps to his breast." — (E. M.)
The Sacrifice of Isaac is unusually touching.
" Abraham's head and the naked body of Isaac are very fine ; the painter has avoided much of the horror of the story by making Abraham cover the boy's face to hide the horror from himself." — (H. W.)
St. Peter's Denial, with life-size figures, is a marvellous study of light effects.
" The scene takes place in the middle of the night. The darkness is relieved only by the flaming torch in the hand of a maid-servant, the light of which falls full on the figure of the apostle, wrapped in a loose woollen robe of a yellowish tint. He returns the questioning look of the maid with a steady gaze, emphasising his denial by an expressive gesture. A soldier sits on the edge of a wall, before the two central figures, his helmet and part of his armour in his hand ; another soldier stands listening to the altercation; several barely distinguishable figures be- yond are illuminated only by the fitful gleams from a fire burning in the background. The concentrated glow of the torch falls on the face of St. Peter, and on the red bodice of the servant, a finely modelled figure in a tasteful costume. The broad execution brings out the picturesque elements of the conception; and the brown and golden tones that predominate are happily relieved by the vivid scarlet of the bodice, the one brilliant touch of colour in the picture." — (E. M.)
His best landscape, A View on the Rhine, has
GIRL WITH THE BROOM— Rembrandt
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a beautiful sky of grey clouds that contrasts well with the warm browns in the boat and figures.
Among the twenty-four portraits, there are four of Rembrandt's Mother; and several of Old Men and aged Jews.
" Rembrandt, I think, is the most literal transcriber of a face when dilapidated by time which the world has yet seen. But an old man or an old woman by Rembrandt is something more than a mechanical reproduction of wrinkles. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say that the Head of an Old Man (816) ranks with the greatest portrait pictures in the world. Almost unsurpassed is this face for individuality, and for quiet dignity, for firrf yet soft and fleshy modelling, and for handling of brush, which in its play expresses the endless undulation of features, tossed about by time and trial." — (J. B. A.)
Among other portraits is a small head of a Woman putting on an earring ; and the Girl with a Broom.
" She faces the spectator, dressed in the usual costume of a Dutch servant, a square-cut bodice with braces over a white chemisette with full sleeves. Her facial type is a vulgar one, round and full, with a turned-up nose, thick lips, a quantity of fair hair, and a prominent forehead. She leans over a rough fence and gazes straight before her with widely-opened eyes. Beside her are a pail and basket, and in her coarse little red hands she grasps a broom, the emblem of her calling. This implement she clasps to her breast as if to suggest its importance in he? scheme of life. The master seems to have been moved to typify and extol the housewifely instincts of his countrywomen in this bold, vigorous and rapidly painted study."— (E. M.)
In 1634, Rembrandt painted the portrait of Saskia, known as The Jewish Bride.
" The title Flora would be more appropriate. Follow- ing a very general fashion of the period, Saskia is arrayed
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as a shepherdess, and stands at the mouth of a grotto hung with creepers. In her right hand she holds a flower-twined crook; on her head is a heavy wreath of ranunculus, anemone, fritillary and iris, a columbine, and a striped red and white tulip. The rosy face, turned almost full to the spectator, is strongly illuminated. The luxuriant hair enframing it falls in disorder upon the shoulders. An oriental scarf is crossed upon her breast, and with her left hand she draws round her the folds of a wide mantle of pale green, which is thrown over her white brocaded gown. Her attitude, the slightly bent figure, and the massing of the folds about the waist, give her a somewhat matronly air. Innocent and engaging in her brilliant draperies and gaily tinted flowers, she stands, a graceful apparition, the light falling full upon her. Spring itself seems to be singing a paean of love and poetry from the master's palette, at the dawn of that year which was to bring about the propitious union." — (E. M.)
The so-called Portrait of Sobieski (1637) is a familiar picture, but this identification is pure conjecture. Rembrandt himself was fond of military trappings.
" A closer examination convinces us that we have seen Rembrandt himself wearing the heavy gold chain, the pearl earrings and the ornament in the cap, and we are led to conclude with M. Mantz that Rembrandt himself was the original of the ' fancy Muscovite.' Admitting a certain puerility in the disguise, we may justly call atten- tion to the breadth of treatment in this powerful por- trait, and to the vigour of chiaroscuro and richness of colour so admirably suggestive of the character and ex- pression depicted." — (E. M.)
In no gallery can Paul Potter be studied to such advantage. Nine fine works hang here, of which The Farmyard is considered his master- piece. This picture is remarkable for the beauti- ful landscape, the brilliant sunlight and the variety of life represented. Here we see seven cows, ten
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sheep, two goats, three horses and an ass, standing and lying down in a meadow beneath the trees and near a farm-house on the right. The human figures are equally numerous. The picture is also known as La Vache qui Pisse.
" Notwithstanding this accumulation of animals and people the groups are so well arranged, the details so accurately rendered, and the light and air circulate so freely that the picture does not seem encumbered. The impression is that of an animated rural scene, full of life and movement. It is true that you notice here and there animals, persons, trees and plants previously utilized by the artist in former works, but these borrow- ings are so happily associated, the proportions so ac- curately observed, the key is so light and the execution so supple and skilful, that you can look at this masterpiece for a long time and constantly discover new subjects for admiration." — (E. M.)
The Watch Dog, though not so celebrated as the Bull at The Hague, ranks with it as an ani- mal portrait. A great dog is standing outside of the kennel to which he is chained, looking across a typical Dutch landscape. His shaggy coat is mar- vellously depicted, and his bright eye has the lustre and gaze of life itself.
A curious work is The Hunter's Life, also called The Animals Sitting in Judgment on the Sportsman.
" It consists of two large divisions, one of which may be drawn over the other: these are surrounded by twelve smaller pictures of framework. The top corners repre- sent the transformation of Actaeon (the nude figures by Poelemburg, as Potter felt he could not do justice to them) and St. Hubert paying homage to the stag with the crucifix between his antlers. The other ten small divisions represent hunting the wild boar, lion, buffalo, monkey, bear, chamois, wolf, leopard, hare, and rabbit. For thejr wrongs the animals have vowed vengeance.
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The upper large picture represents the dreadful judgment passed upon the hunter by the animals sitting in coun- cil. The types are rendered with rare truth and humour. The sportsman, in irons with his dogs chained in couples behind him, is led into the judgment hall. The lower large picture represents the carrying-out of the sentence — the sportsman is roasted on a spit, the dogs are hanged. This scene is replete with drollery and whimsical detail." -(A. G.)
Perhaps the most celebrated of Rubens's works in this gallery is Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee.
" The arrangement of the composition, the servants in the middle distance and the portico in the background recall, on a smaller scale, the banquets of Veronese. The picture is one of great beauty : the gentleness of Christ and the devotion of the Magdalen are contrasted with the hatred of the Pharisees ; and the varied attitudes of the personages give the work a highly dramatic character. The work was done by pupils after a sketch by the mas- ter and was finished by him ; but the Magdalen, the head of Christ and those of the other guests are all by Rubens." — (M. R.)
The Expulsion of Hagar, which Waagen calls a jewel, is a companion to the Departure of Lot from Sodom, in the Louvre. The work is by Rubens solely. The old couple are at the open door. Sarah wears a gooseberry-coloured dress with blue sleeves, a white neckerchief and a yellow veil around her head. One of her hands rests on her hip, and the other is raised with a menacing gesture towards Hagar. Abraham remains within the house, showing his head in the doorway ; but a dog has come out and is barking at the unhappy fugitive. The latter, in a red dress and carrying a bundle, wends her way to the desert.
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In The River God Tiber (or Tigris) with the Goddess of Plenty, the figure of the Goddess is of particular beauty. Very fine, too, are the figures of Perseus and Andromeda, the armour of the hero contrasting with Andromeda's warm flesh:
" Against the dark background of a precipice the hero is seen advancing. Upon his waving locks Victory places a crown of bay, whilst around the figures of the rescued maiden, Victory, the winged horse, and the fearful Gor- gon's head hover a number of laughing Cupids. In the foreground, we may observe a portion of the dead mon- ster, represented somewhat indistinctly, in order not to interfere with the joyous impression of the rest of the composition." — (H. K.)
Among the fifteen portraits by Rubens, there is a famous one of his first wife, Isabella Brandt, who is seated in an arm-chair of scarlet velvet. She wears a dress of red and gold brocade, bodice and sleeves of the same, ornamented with collar, chemisette and cuffs of lace. Around her neck are a pearl necklace, and a gold chain ; and a black cloak which she has thrown over all is held by another gold chain. In one hand she holds a pea- cock-feather fan, and in the other a white rose. On the right is the door of Rubens's house; and through the arches of the court the garden is vis- ible. In the left background there is a balustrade on which stands a statue. A cloudy sky is seen beyond a red curtain.
It is interesting to compare this with the beauti- ful Helena Fourment, one of the most famous of the many Rubens painted of his second wife. She appears full length, dressed in black silk, cut low and square in the neck. Her sleeves are
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white, ornamented with lace cuffs and mauve rib- bons, and her large black hat is adorned with feathers and a purple ribbon. A filmy ruff edged with lace lies flat over her shoulders, and in one of her hands she carries a fan of ostrich plumes. She wears earrings ; and around her neck a chain that belonged to Isabella Brandt.
Violets bloom at her feet; and a cloudy sky af- fords the background. The hands and sleeves are painted in the most exquisite manner.
The visitor must also notice a portrait of another nature, a Lioness Between Two Lions, painted from animals in the Zoological Gardens of Ant- werp.
" Nothing can be livelier, or in greater style, than the attitude of the Lioness."— (H. W.)
The famous Rainbow, incomparably more beau- tiful than the Rainbow in the Louvre, is entirely the work of Rubens.
" The ground is very uneven. In the background, on the right, are mountains, and a river that flows towards the foreground, passing under a stone bridge near which are a cluster of houses, and also beneath a wooden bridge nearer the foreground. On the left, a group of trees, be- neath the largest of which a shepherd is seated playing a pipe. Behind him are a man and a woman, the man crowned with leaves ; and in the distance a flock of sheep and another shepherd. In the middle foreground two lovers are seated, the shepherd with his arm resting on an overturned vase, and the shepherdess with her arm lean- ing on her lover's knee. Near them stands a dog. On the left are two sheep. Between the mountains and the trees a rainbow throws its luminous arch, and there is the most wonderful contrast between the light back- ground and the sombre foreground ; the figures near the spectator compared with those in the background appear gigantic. The picture is of the greatest value owing to
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its rich colour and its gentle and delicate lighting." — (M. R.)
Another famous landscape is Le Voiturier.
" Rubens, rejoicing in endless resource, was ready to challenge difficulties from which painters of less power are wont to retreat. Bold effects of atmospheric light and colour are to the artist's liking; thus, in a striking composition, Le Voiturier, on the borders of a river sur- rounded by rocks and trees, Rubens contrasts with telling effect the conflict of light between the setting sun and the rising moon. The trees are drawn with a care worthy of Wynants, the elements assume a dramatic action and a phantasm of colour rarely equalled by de Loutherbourg or by Turner." — (J. B. A.)
Among the thirty-seven pictures by Van Dyck is the famous Virgin of the Partridges.
" In La Vierge aux Perdrix, with landscape and clouds, including the accessories of partridges, fruits, trees and sunflowers, there is a care and a minuteness to which we are wholly unaccustomed, at least after the time when Van Dyck fell into the profitable trade of generalising and beautifying his fashionable sitters." — (J. B. A.)
Horace Walpole considered it "too much crowded with fruits, flowers and birds," but ad- mired the two finely painted partridges in the air. He called it, however, a most celebrated picture.
" The chief part of it is a dance of boy-angels, which are painted in the highest manner. The Virgin seems to have been a portrait, and is not handsome." — (H. W.)
Of Van Dyck's portraits, the most famous are Lord P. Wharton and Snyders and Family.
The visitor should not neglect a room devoted to pictures of fruit, flowers and game, chiefly by Dutch and Flemish masters. Among these are
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four large Markets by Snyders: one is a Fowl Market, another a Fish, a third a Fruit, and a fourth an Herb. These came from the Walpole Gallery, as did also A Concert of Birds, by Snyders.
One of Teniers's elaborate Kitchen scenes represents numerous cooks, fishermen, provisions and utensils, and the artist himself, in a grey doublet and fur cap, holding a falcon on his wrist and having his dogs beside him. Very humorous and clever is his Kitchen Invaded by Monkeys. The Schiitzenfest is another fine work.
A striking picture by B. van der Heist is The Presentation of the Bride; and Gerard Dow's Alchymist is one of his best works.
Of Wouvermans the best are: Riding-School, " Katzenvith " and In the Dunes. Ter Borch's Glass of Lemonade should be studied.
Quaint and decorative is the Adoration of the Magi, by Velvet Brueghel.
" There are a multitude of little figures all finished with the greatest Dutch exactness ; the ideas too are a little Dutch, for the Ethiopian King is dressed in a sur- plice with boots and spurs, and brings for a present a gold model of a modern ship." — (H. W.)
John Van Eyck's Annunciation worthily repre- sents the great Flemish Primitive.
" The scene is laid in a marble hall with a mosaic floor; the archangel Gabriel appears richly clad; the jewelled drapery as a piece of painting has scarcely been equalled and never surpassed." — (J. B. A.)
The Coronation of the Virgin, by Quentin Massys, is remarkable for the strong heads, beau- tiful draperies and resplendent jewels.
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Of Jan Massys are two variants of the famous Misers. This was, however, attributed to the elder Massys by Horace Walpole.
" An Usurer and his wife by Quentin Massys, the Blacksmith of Antwerp. This picture is finished with the greatest labour and exactness imaginable, and was painted for a family in France ; it differs very little from one at Windsor, which he did for Charles the First." — (H. W.)
The Hermitage contains the best and most varied collection of Spanish pictures out of Spain, in- cluding no less than twenty by Murillo and six by Velasquez. There are also works by Zurbaran, the rare Alonso Cano, Ribera, Ribalta and others, representing therefore the four schools of Toledo, Seville, Valencia and Madrid.
Beginning with Murillo, first must be noticed The Flight into Egypt. The Virgin seated on an ass, with the Child reclining in her arms, looks upon Him tenderly. St. Joseph walks beside her, staff in hand, and having a wallet on his shoulders. Three cherubs hover above in the clouds.
This should be compared with a Repose in Egypt- Here the Virgin is seated under a tree watching the child, who is asleep on a rock. On the right, St. Joseph holds the ass by the bridle. Two cherubs stand beside the Virgin.
St. Anthony of Padua and the Infant Jesus shows the saint kneeling in a hilly landscape. The Infant appears as if walking on an open book that lies on a rock. Above are five cherubs, one of whom holds a bunch of lilies.
A fine Immaculate Conception represents the Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her mantle gathered over her left arm. She is surrounded by
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many cherubs, bearing the rose, palm, olive and lilies.
The Assumption of the Virgin, a beautiful picture, resembles that in the Prado, noticeable for its suggestion of great depths of cloud, where the Virgin seems floating with a group of beautiful cherubs.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is a work of the master's early style. The Child lies naked on a crib, the Virgin at His feet holding up His covering of linen. St. Joseph stands behind her and in the foreground kneels a shepherd whose hand nearly touches a lamb. Behind an old woman on the right are two other shepherds ; and above the Child's head, the heads of an ox and an ass are seen.
A Crucifixion is conventional in treatment, but sympathetic in feeling and beautiful in tone.
Jacob's Dream and Isaac Blessing Jacob are companion pictures. In the former, Jacob, in red doublet and yellow mantle, is sleeping in the fore- ground with his head on a stone, his staff by his side. At his feet, on the left, stands a graceful angel with outstretched wings, pointing to the lad- der, on which two angels are ascending and three descending.
The second picture is in two parts : on the right is a rustic house through the open archway of which Isaac is sitting up in bed blessing Jacob, who kneels before him, his mother's arm around him. Beside the bed is a table with a dish of game, a spoon and bread. On the left, outside of the house, a woman is seen with a jar under a beautifully painted tree; and in the landscape in the distance, Esau is approaching with a dog.
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A Peasant Boy, dressed in red and holding a white dog by the ear as he Jiunts for vermin ; an- other Peasant Boy standing before a wall with a basket and turning his head to observe a dog; with its companion a Peasant Girl standing by a wall with a basket in her hand and half holding to her face the end of a scarf which covers her head, are characteristic examples of Murillo's types of com- mon life, which, strangely, are more appreciated by foreigners than by Spaniards.
Attributed to both Murillo and Velasquez is Celestine and her Daughter in Prison, two women looking out of a grated window the bars of which the daughter clasps with both hands. The two women are said to have been celebrated intrig- uantes.
Of the works of Velasquez, the most speaking is the Portrait of Pope Innocent X., wearing a red cap, cape and a rolling linen collar.
Zurbaran's finest works are Prayer of the Ma- donna and St. Lawrence. In the former
" the figure is as charming for its simplicity as for its truth, and the handling is strong as it is tender. The Madonna is represented as a young girl, clad in red and blue, seated on a chair; she has for a moment left the needlework on which she was engaged, and clasps her hands in prayer. St. Lawrence, robed in richest sacerdotal habits, has his eyes cast towards heaven in contemplation of his martyrdom." — (J. B. A.)
The Hermitage is second only to the Louvre in French pictures. Nearly every French painter of importance is represented, and many of them by masterpieces. There are no less than twenty-two pictures by Nicholas Poussin. One of these, The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite, remark-
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able for its fine drawing and beautiful female figures, is ranked among this painter's best works. Two classical landscapes, one representing Her- cules and Cacus, the other Polyphemus, are noticeable for the silvery moonlit clouds of the one and the twilight effects of the other. The Holy Family and Moses Striking the Rock were pic- tures in his father's collection that Horace Walpole particularly admired.
" The Holy Family, large as life, by Nicolo Poussin. It is one of the most capital pictures in this collection, the airs of the heads and the draperies are in the fine taste of Raphael and the antique ; Elizabeth's head is taken from the statue of an old woman in the Villa Borghese at Rome. The colouring is much higher than his usual manner. The Virgin's head and the young Jesus are particularly delicate." — (H. W.)
Of Moses Striking the Rock he writes :
" There is a great fault in it ; Moses is by no means the principal figure, nor is he striking the rock angrily, and with a great air, but seems rather scraping out the water. The thirst in all the figures, the piety in the young man lifting his father to the stream, and the devotion in others, are extremely fine." — (H. W.)
Eleven fine Landscapes by Claude Lorrain show this painter in every mood.
Among the other French works there is a por- trait of Mary Queen of Scots, by a pupil of Clouet, said to have been painted at Fotheringay; a Group of Children gathered around a cask, which they are using as a table, by Fragonard ; and The Death of the Paralytic, by Greuze.
In the English gallery, the following are note- worthy: a Landscape in which Dido and y£neas figure, by Thomas Jones ; a portrait by Sir Godfrey
Kg
ANGEL MUSICIANS— H. and. I. tan Eyck
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Kneller of Grinling Gibbons ; one by Robert Walker of Oliver Cromwell, and three by Sir Joshua Reynolds. His Infant Hercules Stran- gling the Serpents was painted by order of the Empress Catherine, who left the subject and the price to the painter. Fifteen hundred guineas were paid for it; and the Empress sent Sir Joshua a gold snuff-box with her portrait encircled with diamonds.
" Reynolds took for his subject a passage from Theoc- ritus where the Infant Hercules grasps and throttles the snakes by which he was attacked by the orders of Juno. The idea was a compliment to the Russian nation, whose growing power was typified by the vigorous child. He places the child in a massive cradle, furnished with wolf- skins for bedclothes. Iphicles crouches in fear at his side; Alcmena runs in with a crowd of attendants on one side of the composition ; on the other, Amphitryon, with a naked sword, and accompanied by servants with torches, stands aghast at the prowess of the child, who throttles the serpents in a very convincing fashion. The baffled Juno looks down from a cloud, and the blind Tiresias, painted from the ' Blinking Sam ' portrait of Johnson at Streatham, concludes the composition. Hodges, the land- scape painter, described the picture as looking ' as if it had been boiled in brandy.' Reynolds undoubtedly took great pains with the picture. It was of this work he re- marked that there were half a dozen other pictures, all better, underneath it."— (W. B. B.)
Dr. Waagen says that The Hercules need not fear comparison with the magnificent pictures by Rembrandt. The Empress also purchased a large picture, The Continence of Scipio, which is un- finished, but valuable as showing how Sir Joshua laid on his shadows in a green tone preparatory to the warm glazing with which he so successfully imitated the glowing tones of the Venetian School,
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The third picture, Cupid Unloosing the Girdle of Venus, also known as The Snake in the Grass, is " the portrait of a pretty Englishwoman whose obliquity of vision is artfully concealed by the position of her hand."
If the visitor has time, he may care to look at a few of the most celebrated examples of the Russian School, founded in 1759 by Lossenko, whose Sunrise on the Black Sea is a characteristic work. By his pupil, Ugriumoff, are two historical works : The Capture of Kazan in 1552, showing the Czar of Kazan kneeling to Ivan the Terrible, and The Election of Michael Romanoff to the Russian Throne, represented with Oriental splendour.
Bruni's enormous Brazen Serpent is academic in treatment ; and many critics prefer his Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Kermesse at Amsterdam, by Bogoliubof, is a remarkable presentment of the effects of varie- gated lamps and moonlight.
The most important work of the Russian School, however, is the Last Days of Pompeii, by Briilow, no less than twenty-five feet long, with thirty groups of intensely dramatic figures. Finally, Ayvasowsky's extraordinary extravaganzas, The Deluge and The Creation of the World, call attention to one of Russia's most famous and suc- cessful painters.
THE BERLIN GALLERY BERLIN
THE Berlin Gallery is housed in the Emperor Frederick Museum (established in 1829) and re- sembles in its completeness and arrangement the National Gallery of London. It is rich in works of early Italian and Flemish masters ; contains several gems of the early German school, and beau- tiful works of the best period of Italian art in the Sixteenth Century. Among individual artists, John Van Eyck, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Frans Hals, Jacob Van Ruysdael, Botticelli, Signorelli and Caravaggio are particularly well represented.
The nucleus of the Berlin Gallery is the collection of Mr. Solly, an Englishman, purchased in 1821, to which were added selections from the royal galleries of Berlin and Potsdam, the Giustiniani Collection (chiefly Italian masters of the Seven- teenth Century) and the Suermondt Collection (chiefly Dutch works.)
If for no other reason, art-lovers would visit the Berlin Gallery in order to study the six panels of Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb, trickily ob- tained by a dealer from the Canons of St. Bavon, Ghent.
Four of these depict pilgrims led by saints wending their way to the Mystic Lamb. The landscapes through which the processions wind are exquisitely treated and all the varied costumes of Emperors, Kings and Anchorites with their 207
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banners are highly finished. In one of the pictures Hubert Van Eyck appears, a mild, benevolent old man in blue velvet trimmed with fur, riding a splendidly caparisoned white horse ; and farther back is John, dressed in black with his shrewd, sharp countenance looking at the spectator. The other two panels belonged to the upper portion of the altar-piece. Heavenly music is the theme of each.
" On one panel stand eight angels singing before a music-desk. They are represented as choristers in splendid vestments and crowns. The brilliancy of the stuffs and precious stones is given with the hand of a master, the music-desk is richly ornamented with Gothic carved work and figures, and the countenances are full of expression and life. On the opposite wing, St. Cecilia sits at an organ, the keys of which she touches with an ex- pression of deep meditation : other angels stand behind the organ with different stringed instruments. The ex- pression of these heads shows far more feeling, and is more gentle; the execution of the stuffs and accessories is equally masterly." — (C. and C.)
John Van Eyck's Man with the Pinks is one of the most famous portraits in the world.
" It represents an elderly individual of by no means prepossessing appearance. His face is deeply wrinkled, his eyes have a puffy line of flesh beneath them, his mouth droops at the corners and is of a hard, somewhat coarse type, while his ears are specially hideous, being large and prominent : altogether he has a very unpleasant cast of countenance. But John Van Eyck has been faithful to his love of veracity — not a feature is softened down — he has portrayed the man as he was in the most lifelike manner conceivable. He wears a dark grey coat with fur collar and cuffs, which is sufficiently low in the neck to allow the brocaded tunic beneath to appear, and a large broad- brimmed beaver hat. Around his neck is a silver chain from which hangs a tau cross with the bell of Saint An-
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thony attached thereto. In his right hand, on the third finger of which he carries a fine ring, he holds three wild pinks."— (F. C. W.)
Another remarkable portrait is that of Giovanni Arnolfini, painted about two years before the more celebrated one in which he appears with his wife (see page 21.) Van Eyck has not flattered him; his ugly features, his long nose and blue eyes, half opened under their thin lids, give him the cunning look of a crafty merchant.
" The skin, clear and transparent, even in the deepest shadows, stands out boldly from beneath the glowing red of the turban, which with the deep olive green of the wall that forms the background makes a wonderful harmony." — (H. von T.)
The Virgin and Child, attributed to Van Eyck, is said to be the original of the Antwerp picture, given to Memling (see page 112). A Crucifixion with minutely treated landscape background is also attributed to Van Eyck.
Roger van der Weyden's Nativity was painted to order. Philip the Good appears as Augustus.
" In the centre is the Nativity with the kneeling donor and angels of great beauty, some of whom kneel close to the Infant, while others hover over the roof of the stable. On the one side is the Annunciation to the Ruler of the West — the Emperor Augustus — by means of the Tiburtine Sibyl ; on the other, the Annunciation to the Rulers of the East — the Three Kings who are keeping watch on a mountain where the Child appears to them in a star. The arrangement of this portion is peculiarly grand and the heads highly characteristic. This is one of the most remarkable and best preserved examples of Roger van der Weyden." — (C.)
Among the gems of early Flemish works is Hugo Van der Goes's Nativity. Two Prophets are
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drawing back a green curtain so that we may see the Virgin, Joseph and the host of angels adoring the Christ Child in the manger. On the left are the shepherds; and on the right, a view of the landscape where the shepherds are hearing the joy- ful news.
The Crucifixion, by the Maitre de Flemalle, is noteworthy for its landscape and sky on a gold background.
Elijah in the Desert, wakened by the angel, and the Feast of the Passover were two wings of Thierry Bouts's Last Supper in St. Peter's, Louvain.
"The landscapes contribute greatly to diminish the first unfavourable impressions, and there is much agreeable brilliance in the full juicy tones." — (C. and C.)
The Madonna and Child, by Quentin Massys, belongs to his middle period.
" It is characterized by a pure childlike sentiment, a warm though bright tone and excellent draughtsmanship." -(O. E.)
Lucas van Leyden's Madonna and Child is seated before a curtain. Angels are playing instru- ments and one is handing a pink to the Christ Child.
Early portraits of special excellence are Etienne Chevalier, by Fouquet, and Johannes von Ryht, by an unknown Fleming.
Diirer's Madonna with the Finch (1506) once hung in Holyrood Palace. It is a decorative work. The fair-haired Virgin is holding the Child, who has a finch on his arm and offers a spray of lilies-of-the-valley to little St. John. Two cherubs hover over her head with a floral garland,
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Hieronymus Holzschuher is the most vital of all Diirer's portraits.
" The clear and brilliant eyes shadowed by brows that indicate a very strong will have a very unusual vivacity; they allow us to perceive a very keen intelligence, and a grave, loyal and sincere soul. The very well-formed head is covered with abundant hair of silvery grey, which falls in curls upon the collar of the garment while a few wisps partly hide the strongly developed forehead. The long beard, which is also almost white, brings out the rosy tones of the skin. The face stands out from a very luminous background of light green.
" The execution of the portrait which occupies our at- tention, denotes the most minute care. We cannot too much admire the accuracy and precision of the contours, the delicacy of the modelling and the general harmony of the colours. If the face and figure as a whole present a striking veracity, the slightest details are prodigies of patience and skill. What minuta. and perfect work there is in the soft hair, in the light and tangled beard, and also in the fur ! "— (G. G.)
It is interesting to compare this with Holbein's Georg Gisze, a young, wealthy and elegant mer- chant seated in his office.
" In attentively examining our personage we are struck with his reflective and searching glance. We seem to have a glimpse in him of an undefined melancholy. This is a state of mind which is also indicated to us by a motto traced above his name on one of the walls of his office : Nulla sine mcerore voluptas.
" He has long fair hair confined beneath a black cap ; his smooth-shaven face is rather thin. He wears a rich cos- tume, a pourpoint of cerise silk with puffed sleeves, and, over this pourpoint, a cloak of black wool lined with fur. The table on which he is leaning is covered with a Persian rug, and, besides the various objects scattered upon it, you notice a bunch of carnations in an artistically wrought Venetian glass.
" The master has fully displayed with supreme power, and with all the resources of his art, the colours of the
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costume, the paleness of the face, and the freshness of the flesh standing out from the background of green panels. He has played with all the various tones of the accessories, book and registers, inkstand, watch, and scales for weighing the gold. Every detail, with no link missing, contributes to form the perfect harmony of the whole."— (A. V.)
Durer's pupil Altdorfer's Rest in Egypt is a highly decorative work.
The Holy Family is grouped by a Renaissance fountain with the buildings of a city behind it. Angels are singing and playing instruments and sporting on the edge of the fountain and in the water.
It is interesting to compare this with Cranach's Repose in Egypt, his earliest known work (1504). The Virgin is seated with her Child in a landscape with St4 Joseph leaning on his staff. Little angels are grouped variously; some are making music; one runs after a parrot on the wing; and another is offering strawberries to the Child.
Several portraits and mythological pictures show this Cranach at his best. The Fountain of Youth requires explanation.
" A large basin, surrounded by steps, and with a richly- adorned fountain, forms the centre. On the one side, where the country is stony and barren, a multitude of old women are dragged forward on horses, waggons, or car- riages, and with much trouble are got into the water. On the other side of the fountain, they appear as young maidens, splashing about and amusing themselves with all kinds of playful mischief; close by is a large pavilion into which a herald courteously invites them to enter, and where they are arrayed in costly apparel. A feast is prepared in a smiling meadow, which seems to be followed by a dance; the gay crowd loses itself in a neighbouring grove. The men unfortunately have not become young, and retain their grey beards." — (C.)
GEORGE GISZE— Holbein
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NURSE AND LAUGHING BABY— Frans Hals
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Schongauer's Nativity, in which the Child lying on the ground under a shed is being adored by the Virgin, St. Joseph and two shepherds, is remarkable for its landscape in which a river and a city appear; and in Kulmbach's Adoration of the Magi there is also a delicately executed land- scape, seen through the open rafters of the shed, down which the Kings and their retinues are approaching.
Among the important early Italian works are an Entombment by Simone Martini; three Ma- donnas by Lippo Martini; and a Nativity by Duccio di Buoninsegna.
Fra Angelico has two pictures of the Last Judgment; one much finer than the other.
" Genuine ' airs from Heaven ' pervade that happy side where angels lead the long-tried denizens of earth — chiefly poor friars — in harmonious measures; one angel even gracefully jocund, as it heads the dance with arm gently a-kimbo. Nor are the human conditions of the Redeemed omitted. Nowhere has a painter so touchingly illustrated the mourner's watchword ' meet again.' The first glance of the rising Dead falls on those near and dear who have gone before, and greeting looks and gentle caresses do all that pious art may do to reconcile the apparent mystery of ardent human hearts and spiritual conditions." — (A. H. L.)
The Madonna Adoring the Child, by Filippo Lippi, is a poetic idyll in colour.
" The Infant lies among grass and flowers in a secluded landscape ; on the right the happy Mother kneels in adora- tion with an expression of the most hallowed earnestness and charming simplicity, while to the left John appears as a marvellously beautiful, serious, and intelligent child, holding the cross and banner. The Dove hovers above the Infant. The Father appears with outstretched arms and grey head, full of majesty, encircled by rays of glory.
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The landscape is worked out very lovingly, and the light radiating from the Child seems to shed a magic glow on the chiaroscuro of the wall." — (K. W.)
Filippino Lippo has a sympathetic Crucifixion. His pupil Rafaello del Garbo is represented by three examples of the Virgin and Child in which angel music and human tenderness are combined.
" Here indeed, two epochs come in contact : the severity and restraint of the old, with the freedom of the new. With regard to the drawing and general loveliness of the expression this picture belongs among the best in the collection."— (K. W.)
Another magnificent Virgin Enthroned with angel musicians, saints, and superb architectural accessories, by Alvise Vivarini,
" is in my eyes not only the most important work of that master, but one of the most important productions of Venetian art in the Fifteenth Century. Alvise is as noble and vigorous in this painting as Bartolommec Montagna, and, besides Giovanni Bellini, I do not know of any master in Venice who could have produced such a painting in the last decade of the Fifteenth Century." — (M.)
In a famous Madonna Enthroned by Andrea del Sarto, eight saints stand beside her and on the steps of the throne.
Baldassare of Este's small Virgin and Child, with landscape background beautified with a lake, is reminiscent of the School of Padua, but the colouring and chiaroscuro effects seem to be derived from Piero della Francesca.
Andrea Verrocchio has also a fine Madonna and Child with landscape background.
Carpaccio's Consecration recommends itself by the beauty of its group of old men, the boldness
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of its perspective, and the wealth of its picturesque details.
In Francia's Virgin and Child Enthroned with Six Saints (1502),
" we see the Madonna bearing the Divine Child seated within a halo of cherubs thoroughly Peruginesque and painted just at the time when Perugino's influence was strongest upon the artist; but the personality of Francia is apparent in the angel with outstretched arms which is under the feet of the Madonna, and which is not in the least like the work of Perugino. Below, grouped in the familiar Umbrian manner, and in the midst of a land- scape almost Umbrian in its character, are six saints." — (W.)
Cosimo Tura's Madonna Enthroned is a splen- did example of the School of Ferrara.
" In spite of the multiplicity of details, this important and remarkable picture, in which the brilliant hues of the vestments, the gold of the mosaics, the bronze of the bas- reliefs and the blue of the firmament combine so happily to give an idea of the magnificence that ought to sur- round the humble Mary and her Son, loses none of its moral signification : it is deeply religious. The figures are in perfect harmony. Moreover, it reveals meritorious efforts towards ideal beauty." — (G. G.)
Cima da Conegliano also has a Virgin En- throned, attended by four saints. The canopy over the throne is magnificent. A greater work by Cima is St. Mark Healing Ananias in the market-place of Alexandria.
The Madonna and Child with Saints is one of the few works of Botticelli for which there is documentary evidence. The Madonna is dejected, patient and passive ; St. John the Evangelist an old man of philosophical mien ; and John the Baptist an emaciated ascetic. The Holy Child, however,
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feels none of this sadness as He playfully lies on His mother's lap.
" The entire background is filled by three bower-like niches of thickly woven foliage, which, in lieu of marble canopies, shelter the three figures: plaited palm branches for the Madonna, cypress boughs for the Baptist and myrtle for the Evangelist. Bowls of roses and vases with lilies and olive sprays are placed on the richly-chiselled marble balustrade; and innumerable flowers peer up from the grass below and caress the sculptured stone-work at the Madonna's feet. All this delicate beauty of detail, all the sense of freshness and repose in the surroundings, only serves to enhance the expression of human suffering in the figures." — (A. H. S.)
" The Madonna Enthroned is in a recess between seven youthful angels with flowing dress and wings, rose-wreaths on their heads and wax tapers in their hands. There are four to the right and three to the left, the gap on this side being filled by the head of the Child .supported by the Mother, as he stands on the balustrade of the throne, so that here great beauty is imparted to the usually some- what formal symmetry of such compositions. Charming are two naked little winged boys, artlessly looking down from above the moulding of the recess." — (K. W.)
Crivelli's Madonna and Saints is also a decora- tive work of high order. The Holy Child, one of Crivelli's loveliest inspirations, is giving with ex- quisite grace the keys to St. Peter in an assemblage of saints.
" The composition is simple, yet free from monotony. As a whole, the picture depends for its effect on the in- terest of the heads and on the decorative effect of the magnificent fabrics in which the chief saints are vested. Nothing could surpass the execution of this superb pic- ture."—(G. McN. R.)
Vittore Pisano's Adoration of the Magi is a charming work. The magnificent cavalcade wirrds through the hills and along the roads to the shed
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before which sits the Virgin with the Child in her lap. All the figures wear the superb Italian cos- tumes of the middle of the Fifteenth Century. Pisano has not neglected his favourite birds, for two falcons appear in the air with a heron and a peacock on the straw roof of the shed. The back- ground is gold.
Antonio Vivarini's Adoration of the Magi is similarly treated and suggests Fabriano's work in the Florence Academy.
In Raphael's Madonna di Casa Colonna
" the freedom of handling is so great that one is in- clined to think Raphael must have painted it without a model. The Child is attempting to stand upon his mother's knee by holding on to the bodice of her dress, while she, looking up from her book with a very sweet expression, tries to keep him quiet. The Madonna di Casa Colonna is full, however, of beauties of the very high- est order, and, in spite of the exuberance of life, the out- lines are purer and more severe than in any of his pre- vious drawings; but, unfortunately, the painting itself was never completed." — (M.)
The Terranuova Madonna is one of the first instances in which Raphael included the little John the Baptist in the group with the Madonna and Child. Here he introduces a third child, probably St. John the Evangelist. The Virgin is seated in the middle with Jesus on her knee. The two other children are at her side, and John the Baptist is handing the streamer with the words, ECCE AGNUS DEI, to the Holy Child.
" The figure of the Virgin is alone remarkable for its beauty, which in some degree reminds one of the Ma- donnas of Leonardo, and for the softness of expression, which seems to reflect the disposition of Raphael himself."
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In Montagna's Christ Appearing to Magdalen, who kneels on the ground before Him, the moun- tainous landscape with a city in the background is exceptionally fine. John the Baptist and St. Jerome are on the right and left.
An altar-piece by Alessandro Bonvicino (Mor- etto da Brescia) represents the Virgin and Eliza- beth in Glory. They are seated in the clouds with the little Jesus and St. John, while below them kneel the donors.
Leonardo da Vinci's Ascension, where Christ is rising from a red marble tomb in white grave clothes holding a banner in His hand, is notable for its beautiful landscape through which a river winds. Kneeling in the foreground with astonished ex- pressions are two young Saints: Lucia, holding a dish of eyes ; and St. Leonard, a young deacon.
To Leonardo's friend and pupil, Francesco Melzi, is attributed the large picture of Vertumnus and Pomona. Vertumnus, in the guise of an old woman, has entered Pomona's garden and touches her gently on the shoulder. The goddess is seated under a tree holding a basket of fruit. Her oval face, with the drooping lids and smiling mouth, resembles Leonardo's type of beauty. The picture is full of poetic charm, and the colours are wonder- fully fresh.
A beautiful display of colour and wonderful treatment of light and shade occurs in Tintoret's Luna and the Hours, a decorative work in which the moon-goddess in her car drives through the clouds on the rays of the setting sun, accompanied by her attendants, the Hours.
Correggio's famous Leda was mutilated by the Duke of Orleans, son of the Regent.
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" The composition is richer and more varied than in most of Correggio's paintings. There is no doubt but that Correggio has distinctly portrayed love in its different phases, namely, the approach, the embrace and departure in this allegorical work. On the other side of Leda, turning his back to her, and standing more in the shadow of the leaves, is a winged boy-genius on the threshold of manhood. He is playing happily upon his lyre, apparently quite unconcerned at the scene that is passing before him, and is a perfect specimen of that joyous life that char- acterises Allegri's creations in real life as well as in the world of fable. At his feet and quite to the left margin of the picture are two merry little horned Putti playing music. The whole idyll is represented in a charm- ing richly-wooded landscape, which together with the bright distance, is favourable to the play of the chiaro- scuro and brings out the brilliancy of the flesh tones." — (J. M.)
Signorelli's Pan as God of Natural Life and Master of Music with his Attendants has been identified as the picture of which Vasari wrote : " He painted for Lorenzo de' Medici on canvas some nude gods, which were much praised." It is considered one of Signorelli's best easel pictures.
" It is full of poetry and of idyllic charm with all its stately solemnity. The sad beauty of the god as he listens to the music of the pipes, the golden sunlight on the moss-green grass, the quiet peace of the scene have an entrancing effect, and we are transported in spirit to the same ' melodious plot of beechen green and shadows numberless ' where Pan holds his court. The bronze coloured body of the god is magnificently modelled, with a solidity unequalled even in the Orvieto frescoes. The style of Pollainolo is noticeable in the attitude of the youth lying at Pan's feet, particularly in the treatment of the legs."— (M. C.)
Antonio Pollaiuolo's David stands against a slate-grey wall, as in many of the portrait figures
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of the day, and, but for the sling and the head of the giant, might pass as the portrait of some young Florentine noble.
The Annunciation is ascribed solely to Piero Pollaiuolo; but Antonio probably had a hand in the beautiful landscape, with its view of Florence, painted with all the delicacy of a miniature.
Francesco Cossa's Autumn,
" a young and vigorous creature, a real country girl, is lacking neither in elegance nor in a certain pride, although she is very simple and very natural. Realism here has nothing to shock the taste: it even allies itself with native distinction. Strange to say, we do not see any of Cossa's familiar, fanciful rocks in the landscape dominated by the figure. The colour is clear and limpid, and the atmos- phere is rendered with great finesse." — (G. G.)
Caravaggio's Saint Matthew receiving dicta- tion from an angel is a colossal and strong figure.
" There is no less strength and more naturalness (I might even say nobility) in his great Entombment; his Love Triumphing over Science and Art, and his Genius of War Triumphing over Love. There is much simple and naive grace in his portrait of a young Roman girl holding a wreath of orange blossoms." — (L. V.)
Tiepolo's Martyrdom of Saint Agatha is a masterpiece
" not only on account of the discreet handling of the repel- lent subject, but because of the broad treatment, the skilful disposition of light and shade and the harmony of the colour."— (R. M.)
Of Titian's portraits, first comes his daughter Lavinia, holding up a silver dish of fruits and flowers.
" As depicted in the broad manner characteristic of Titian about 1550, Lavinia, at Berlin, is full-grown but of
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robust shape, dressed in yellowish flowered-silk with slashed sleeves, a chiselled girdle round her waist, and a white veil hanging from her shoulders. Her head is thrown back, and turned so as to allow three-quarters of it to be seen as she looks from the corners of her eyes to the spectator. Auburn hair is carefully brushed off the temples, and confined by a jewelled diadem, and the neck is set off with a string of pearls. A deep red curtain partly concealing a brown-tinged wall to the left, to the right a view of hills, seen from a balcony at eventide, complete a picture executed with great bravura, on a canvas of coarse twill." — (C. and C.)
The Daughter of Robert Strozzi
" is one of the most sparkling displays of youth that was ever executed by any artist. The child stands with her left hand on the silken back of her pet dog. In her right is a fragment of cake they have both shared. She is bejewelled as befits a princess. The flesh is solid and pulpy, the balance of light and shadow as true as it is surprising in the subtlety of its shades and tonic values, its harmonies of tints rich, sweet, and ringing; and over all is a sheen of the utmost brilliance. Well might Are- tino, as he saw this wondrous piece of brightness, ex- claim : ' If I were a painter, I should die of despair, but certain it is that Titian's brush has waited on Titian's old age to perform its miracles.' " — (C. and C.)
Titian's own Portrait shows him in the closing years of his long life, in profile, with his big, strong nose, and his long white beard.
" Nothing could be more striking. We feel the strong will of this grand old man who has been overwhelmed neither by sadness nor by incredible production. He is watching, and seems to follow in space an ideal image : he is still greedy to express that beauty of the universe and of the human form that he has so often celebrated." — (M. H.)
Among other portraits of the first rank are Giorgione's Young Man dressed in violet, and
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Bronzino's Ugo Martelli. The latter is sitting at the table in his Florentine palace among his books.
" For nobility of sentiment, clearness of drawing and delicacy of modelling, this picture is the best work of the Italian portrait-painter." — (A. R.)
Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of an Architect is an excellent example of his mature period. His Portrait of a Youth is thought to be himself.
" They both have refined, inward elegance of feeling which marks the culminating point in the last stage of progressive art in Italy." — (G. M.)
Sebastian del Piombo's Young Woman is re- markable for her striking individuality, aristo- cratic bearing and rich dress. Beautifully painted are the fruits and flowers in her basket.
Agostino Carracci's Johanna Parolini-Guicci- ardini, dressed in grey and seated in a chair with a book, is admired for its simplicity and verity.
Guardi's lovely View of the Giudecca ranks with his masterpieces in Dresden.
There are three fine portraits by Velasquez. Juana de Miranda is supposed to be his wife.
" She has the easy attitude of refined culture, although the proud bearing, the firm grasp of the arm of the red chair, and the expression seem to betray more character than is seen in the royal ladies. In the quick glance of the brown eyes and the play of the mouth there is some- thing sprightly, exulting, even roguish, at variance with the cold seriousness of high-born dames." — (C. J.)
Velasquez is also represented by a Portrait of the Infanta Maria, wearing a conventional dress with a border of eight golden bands, and holding a handkerchief.; and the corpulent Field-Marshal Alessandro del Borro, beneath whose feet is a red
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and white flag sprinkled with the golden bees of the Barberini family.
In Murillo's celebrated St. Anthony of Padua and the Infant Jesus, taken by Soult in 1810 from Seville, St. Anthony's attitude is full of grace as he kneels in profile on the ground, pressing his cheek to that of the Holy Child, whom he rever- ently holds in his arms. Five cherubs are in a glory above and two are on the ground. One of the latter is holding a lily and the other opening a book. The landscape is beautiful.
The Miracle of the Crucifix is one of Zurbaran's best works, and represents the young Francis- can monk paying a visit to the study of Bona- ventura, who, drawing aside a curtain, shows him the image of Christ on the cross as an ex- planation of the mystic words of St. Paul : " I have determined not to kno^ anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."
" The translation into painting of these words is ac- complished with marvellous clarity and dramatic force. Truly remarkable also is the representation of the study and library of a theologian of the Seventeenth Century." — (R. M.)
Ribera's Saint Sebastian is one of this painter's best works.
" In his Holy Sebastian, who, pierced with arrows, has sunk under the trees, Ribera has reached beauty. The beautifully lighted body of splendid modelling stands out boldly from the dark background where the moon is about to disappear behind the clouds." — (R. M.)
The lovely Child's Head by Rubens is a study of his youngest son, Nicholas, in which the little boy's rosy cheeks, face, and mass of curly hair are set off by a white dress, a necklace of pearl and
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coral and a green parrot that the boy holds by a cord.
Neptune and Amphitrite belongs to the period of 1614-1615. The figure of Amphitrite is beauti- fully mounted and delicately painted. The painter has represented himself in the left background as a river-god. The animals and shells are lovingly painted.
Rubens painted several pictures of Perseus and Andromeda, and perhaps of all the examples this is the most satisfactory.
" What a delicious invention are those little Cupids who press about the young couple. Two are at their feet to help loosen the bonds of the captive ; another has taken the bridle of Pegasus, who is neighing at his ease; and two others help each other to climb upon the wide back of the gentle steed ! And what shall we say with regard to execution? How shall we give an idea of the har- mony and the brilliancy of the carnations? What an as- semblage of fresh shades and what happy juxtapositions are presented by the milky tints of Andromeda's flesh with the purple mantle and steel armour and helmet of Perseus! And then those firm little bodies of Cupids, with their blonde heads and flesh of rose and mother-of- pearl ; that Pegasus of dappled grey and his tail, mane and great wings of white; that blue sky and that glaucous sea that throws its foam upon the rocks!" — (E. M.)
Diana and her Nymphs Molested by Satyrs is a masterpiece of his latest period. Diana with her crescent on her brow is lying on red drapery with her quiver beside her, enjoying the repose of the forest. Very beautiful are the rocks, the blue sky and the jet of water. The nymphs and their diaphanous draperies are delicately executed.
Diana Hunting is a beautiful animated group with flying draperies and lovely flesh-tints as they chase the animals through the forest. The land-
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scape is by Wildens; and the dogs and deer by Snyders.
" The characters and the expression are more elevated than usual in the works of Rubens : the colour is uncom- monly bright, the execution is broad and spirited, and the treatment of the whole harmonious and beautiful." — (W.)
Admirers of Frans Snyders should not fail to notice his Cock Fight, where two feathered knights with beautiful plumage are fighting furiously, while two hens look on. Four Dogs' Heads is also a magnificent piece of work. A clever Still Life depicts a Japanese porcelain bowl standing on a table, filled with fruit.
Van Dyck's Pieta is remarkable for the beauty of the little weeping angel who is pointing to Christ's wounds.
Two famous companion portraits are the Genoese senator, Giustiniani and his wife; and also one of his groups of the Children of Charles I. with their faithful dog.
Cornelis de Vos has a Nobleman and his Wife, seated on the terrace of their country home; and a lovely picture of his own Daughters — two attractive little Flemish girls, with blonde hair, sitting on the ground and eating peaches and cherries. The evening light falls beautifully upon the landscape background.
Nowhere else is Frans Hals so lavishly and characteristically represented. Standing out prominently from the splendid array of portraits is the Young Singer, the famous Nurse and Laughing Baby, of the Ilpenstein family (1535). The baby, so comfortably held in the proud nurse's arms and wearing a cap and gorgeous
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yellow flowered dress, is wonderfully portrayed. The homely nurse is also a portrait of the first order.
" The child's lace stomacher, cap and collar are made out with a far more exact precision than it is easy to quote in any other picture by the master. The child's dress is, with like intention, wrought with great care. And the result is a certain air of primness and primitive- ness in the canvas which is charmingly correspondent to the note of the whole picture.
" And this child's face should be studied. If you watch the little face, you will see it just beginning to ripple all over with the laughter that will come in a minute." — (G. S. D.)
Hille Bobbe, a grotesque old fish-wife of Haarlem, is also one of Hals's greatest triumphs :
" As a piece of slashing, instantaneous execution, a superb snapshot with brushes and colour, nothing can go far beyond it. It is done — you may see it in every single brushmark — at lightning speed. ' Careless, hasty, reck- less work,' it, and other of Hals's work of the date, has been called. Nothing of the kind. It is careful — the care of extreme, though habitual, tension and breathless con- centration— the sort of care which a first-rate game-shot uses, and which seems like a kind of jugglery to the looker-on. It is fully considered, each almost shapeless touch. It is calculated, every splash of it, and never hasty or reckless, though always at full speed. The best — and Hals's best was good — he could do in the time; and the time was, pne's instinct tells one, limited by Hille Bobbe's patience; and that, one's instinct says again, was in its turn limited by the depth of the pewter of schnapps which she holds in her withered old hand."— (G. S. D.)
The Merry Trio is an old copy ; but it exhibits, nevertheless, Hals's humour and dashing technique. The company is far from dignified — a richly dressed young woman seated on an old man's
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knee, while another young woman holds a crown of sausage above their heads — but the spirit and gaiety of the group carry the spectator along with irresistible power.
The Young Singer, with uplifted hand, is an- other dashing performance.
Rembrandt's Renier Anslo is supposed to represent a minister offering spiritual consolation to a widow. Simplicity is here carried to an ex- treme.
" The minister's air of conviction and authority, and the respectful attention with which his listener receives his exhortations, once more attest Rembrandt's clarity in the rendering of his thought. The sober costumes of his sitters serve to emphasise their fresh carnations; and the general harmony very happily completes the some- what austere effect of this fine picture." — (E. M.)
The Money Changer, remarkable for its distri- bution of light and representing an old man exam- ining a coin by the light of a candle, is said to be a portrait of Rembrandt's father.
" Unlike Elsheimer and Honthorst, who in treating such subjects made the actual source of light in all its in- tensity a main feature of the composition, Rembrandt conceals the flame, and contents himself with rendering the light it sheds on surrounding objects, especially on the very delicately modelled head of the old man." — (E. M.)
The Man in a Golden Helmet is said to be the artist's brother; one of Rembrandt himself was painted in 1634; one of Saskia was painted after her death in 1643; and one of a Woman at the Window, richly dressed and in a graceful pose, is thought to be Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's servant.
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Of the several Biblical pictures, Susannah and the Elders is perhaps the most famous. The bath is hollowed out among rocks, and on its wall are seen flowers, creepers, branches of trees and a peacock. Above in the background rise a tower and other buildings. Susannah's rich garments of purple and gold lie on the circular stone seat be- hind the bather.
" These vivid tones are enhanced by the neutral grey of the sky and the stone, the deep green of the trees and the strong yellows of the bushes, and throw the dazzling whiteness of Susannah's body into forcible relief." — (E. M.)
The same tower appears in the Vision of Daniel, in which landscape plays an important part.
" Daniel has fallen forward on his face by the river- side, trembling with fear at the apparition of the strange beast on the opposite bank. The angel Gabriel stoops to raise him from the ground and expounds the vision, pointing to the fantastic ram from which the young prophet averts his terrified gaze. But though the beast is rather grotesque than terrible, its absurdity is more than redeemed by the awe-struck face of Daniel, his at- titude and that of the consoling angel, the mysterious brightness which throws the two figures into strong re- lief against the brown tones of the surrounding land- scape, and, finally, the skill with which the handling is adapted to the dimensions. The work remains, in spite of its defects, one of the most poetic of the master's creations of this period." — (E. M.)
Joseph Accused by the Wife of Potiphar is admired for its expressive faces and attitudes of the three figures, and still more for the richness and harmony of the colour-scheme in which reds and greens are splendidly contrasted.
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Samson Threatening his Wife's Father was long a puzzle to critics ; and some of them thought this a likeness of Duke Adolphus of Guelders shak- ing his fist at his imprisoned father-in-law. The picture was greatly admired by Napoleon I., who kept it in his private room at St. Cloud.
Ter Borch is represented by a number of works of the first order. The Satin Dress is a replica of the original at the Ryks (see page 152). The Smoker is a splendid character study; and so is the Visit of an Old Lady to the Physician. A stronger work than either is the Knife-Grinder. The whetstone stands before a poor dwelling-house, and in the background appears the high gable with a stork's nest. The weather-beaten and crumbling wood and stone of the house are marvellously de- picted ; and a warm brown tone suffuses the whole work. Another masterpiece is The Concert, where a young lady in a white silk dress, red jacket and black fur collar, is sitting with her back to the spectator, playing the viola de gamba; an- other lady is accompanying her on a spinet.
Two works of Jan Vermeer, of Delft, show this master at his best. One represents a Lady standing before her Mirror removing her pearl necklace; and, although the subject is devoid of beauty, the fine treatment, the combination of colour — the citron yellow of her jacket and the pearl-grey of the background and the light and atmosphere that penetrate the room — make this a most attractive picture. The Gentleman and Lady Drinking Wine is equally fine in its treatment of light. All the accessories, too, are exquisitely rendered.
A little jewel by Pieter de Hooch represents a simple Dutch living-room, where a mother is sit-
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ting by the cradle, having evidently just put her child to sleep. Through the open door, we gain a glimpse of the room beyond ; and, through another open door, the morning sun streams in and falls on the bed and curtains with that peculiar brilliancy that this master understands so well.
Jan Steen is also well exhibited. A very charm- ing Inn Garden shows a group of happy people seated under a green arbour, eating and drinking. On the left, with his foot on the bench, the painter himself may be recognised about to give a piece of herring to an expectant dog. The work is a marvel of delicate workmanship and beautiful treatment of sunlight and shadow.
Another splendid work is The Christening, where in a well-furnished guest-room the family have assembled around the cradle. A well-spread table and a servant bringing in a fine pie show that preparations have been made for a feast.
The only known work with a landscape back- ground, by Dow's pupil, Gottfried Schalcken, painter of candle-light effects, should be noticed on account of the beautiful treatment of the gnarled willows and yellow water lilies and reeds that grow by the canal where the Fisher Boy is angling. A butterfly has lighted on one of the flowers.
Of the four beautiful landscapes by Cuyp, bathed in the sunlight, note three small pictures : one of the Dunes; a Flooded Landscape where two cows are drinking from the river; and a Spring Landscape.
Paul Potter's Bosch near The Hague is a hunt- ing-scene. In the foreground appear huntsmen with dogs and falcons; and on the road, Prince Frederick Henry's carriage, drawn by six white
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horses, is visible. In the background there is an opening; and, near a grove of trees, a windmill. The landscape is beautiful ; the numerous animals are true to life; and the close and humid atmos- phere of a shady place is marvellously expressed.
Adriaen van der Velde's Farm is a true and beautiful combination of landscape and animals. His more famous work, the Summer Morning, challenges Paul Potter.
" In the Summer Morning the colour is of delicious harmony. That meadow, still wet with dew, in which sheep and horses are grazing in freedom, that low and tranquil horizon dominated by a few dwellings under a clump of trees, those pools whose still waters mirror a warm and limpid sky, — all that landscape, so simple, so frankly Dutch, gradually penetrates you with its benefi- cent serenity, its sweet and intimate poetry." — (E. M.)
Philips Koninck's landscape at the Mouth of the Maas, with its flat meadows and canals, shows plainly the influence of Rembrandt in its deep col- ours and dark shadows.
The painter of winter scenes, moonlit land- scapes, and conflagrations — Aert van der Neer — may be studied in several typical works. The Winter Scene, a beautifully composed picture, with a town in the distance, shows people walk- ing, skating, sleighing and playing golf on the ice. All the effects of snow and ice are brought out with much charm. The Moonlight Land- scape is a tender and delightful picture, showing a canal, a village street and trees, a windmill and hamlet in the distance.
A Calm Sea, by Jan van de Capelle, is a magi- cal work. The quiet waves, the boats, and the distant green island are serene in the warm even-
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ing light. The reflection of the sky in the glassy water is accomplished with perfect skill.
A picture that encloses a large space of country in small compass is a Woody Landscape by Hob- bema. A group of oak trees stands on the right ; on the left, in the far distance, a windmill and a church are seen in the full sunshine.
It is interesting to compare this with Ruys- dael's Oak Forest, a picture of great poetic feel- ing, where under the dark oaks a pond sleeps in the shadow with water lilies blooming on its dark waters.
Another famous example is his View of Over- veen from the Dunes.
" This is Ruysdael's masterpiece as regards atmos- pheric effects. Across the dark dunes in the foreground the eye falls on meadows and fields to the middle dis- tance, where amidst trees and bushes lies the little vil- lage of Overveen with its bleaching ground; still farther in the distance, Amsterdam, with its towers, and a por- tion of Haarlem are visible. The sky is filled with white clouds, and beneath it the earth lies in shade and sun- light."—(R. M.)
One of Ruysdael's best marines is the Stormy Sea.
" In the foreground of this little picture is a foam- bespattered pile-work against which the little waves are breaking; towards it a boat is speeding, her sails black against the sky; in the far distance on the left is a strip of coast with a church tower. The sky is filled with heavy clouds that throw dark shadows upon the water. A larger work shows dark masses of cloud above a stormy sea. One ray of sunlight falls upon a boat with its swelling red brown sail ; and behind is a Dutch man- of-war at anchor and giving a salvo.
" Not one of the recognised marine painters has ever depicted the poetry of the sea with such force."— (R. M.)
MADONNA WITH THE FINCH— Durer BERLIN
THE SISTINE MADONNA— Raphael
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Jacomo Victor's picture of Birds in a Park owes half its charm to Ruysdael, who supplied the land- scape, as he frequently did for other painters.
In Nicholas Poussin's Roman Campagna near Aqua Acetosa Saint Matthew is writing his Gospel at the Angel's dictation. The landscape is beautifully treated; and the reflection of the sky in the shining river and the warm brown tone of the Campagna make a beautiful harmony.
Gaspard Dnghet (Poussin) has also a Roman Landscape with mountains rising in terrace form and illuminated with sunshine, and giving a view of the Campagna through the trees.
Watteau is exhibited by four exquisite works. The French Comedy and The Italian Comedy, better known as Love in the French Theatre and Love in the Italian Theatre, show the familiar types of masques and players — Colum- bines, Harlequins, Pierrots, etc. The other two works — An Open Air Party and an Al Fresco Breakfast — repay study. In the former
" his theme is love and joy — the great theme of all time. At the close of evening, when the sun is setting and the whole enchantment of Nature is felt as the night ad- vances with quiet step, an aristocratic party has assem- bled in the Park for an excursion into a romantic country. Some of them sing and dance, others flirt and whisper, here a cavalier plays a lute and here sits a lady so ab- sorbed in her note-book that she sees and hears nothing that is going on around her ; and at last we ourselves are drawn into this mood and lose ourselves in contempla- tion. We enjoy the lovely colour and scent of the rose, we hear the nightingale flute and the cooing of the dove, and the light rustling of the branches, as if to cover the soft whispers of love and attract the attention of the intruding wanderer. With sketchy handling, the tech- nique is extremely clever, quite like a masterpiece thrown
234 THE BERLIN GALLERY
off in a happy moment, as, of all the painters of the Eighteenth Century, Watteau alone could do.
" The composition consists of only four figures, two seated ladies, and one sitting and one standing cavalier. The elegance of the movements, the grace of the ar- rangement, the complete rendering of the figures of the company of that day, the wonderful expression of the faces, the life-like drawing of the hands, are all in com- plete union with the entire charm of colour of the art- ist."—(R. M.)
Mignard's Marie Mancini, with her black hair, pearls and flashing eyes, is full of the fire of life.
Pesne's Frederick the Great, at the age of twenty-seven, and Chodowiecki's Dr. Herz, an old, slightly corpulent and beardless man seated in a green arm-chair, are fine examples of these Eighteenth-Century masters.
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THE gallery, one of the finest in the world, owes its pre-eminence chiefly to Augustus III. (1733- 1763). It had its origin in the Kunst Kammer collected by the Elector Augustus I. in his palace in Dresden as early as 1560. In 1722, the pic- tures were taken from this and other palaces and castles in Saxony to form a " Gallery " which was housed in the Electoral Stallgeb'dude in the Jildenhof. In 1746, the Modena Gallery arrived, a hundred pictures owned by Duke Francesco Este- Modena. Augustus III. also acquired the Sistine .Madonna, Carreggio's Reading Magdalen, and Holbein's Madonna of the Meier Family.
In 1741, 268 pictures were obtained from Count Wallenstein's Collection from the Palace at Dux; in 1748, 69 were brought from the Royal Gallery of Prague ; Dutch and Flemish works were ac- quired in 1742, 1763, and 1854, from the Lormier Collection of The Hague and from the Carignan and Bouexiere Collections ; seven pictures from the Dubreuil Collection (Paris) in 1742; and valuable Italian works from Professor Steinla's Collection in 1857, and Samuel Woodburne's of London in 1860. Fifteen Spanish pictures, including Mu- rillo's St. Rodriguez the Martyr, were acquired in 1853 from Louis Philippe's Collection.
The most famous picture in this gallery — per- haps in any gallery — is Raphael's Sistine Ma- donna.
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" Deep shadows were veiling from us the majesty of the skies. Suddenly light succeeds the obscurity, and the ^ Infant Jesus and Mary appear surrounded by a bright- V*' ness so intense that the eyes can scarcely bear it. Be- tween two green curtains drawn to either side of the pic- ture, amid an aureole of innumerable cherubim, the Vir- gin is seen standing upon the clouds, with her son in her arms, showing him to the world as its Redeemer and Sovereign Judge. Lower down, St. Sixtus and St. Bar- bara are kneeling on the clouds on either side. Nothing is visible of the earth, but it is divined by the gestures and glances of the two saints, who are pointing to the multitude for whom they are imploring the divine mercy. Two angels are leaning on a kind of balustrade whose horizontal line forms a solid plane at the base of the composition. Nothing could be more elementary than the idea of such a picture; the ancient symmetry and the most rigid parallelism are scrupulously observed. The principal figure is the Infant Jesus. He is no longer the graceful Bambino tHat we have so often seen in the arms of Raphael's Madonnas, gentle and encouraging to the eyes of mankind ; it is the God himself, it is the God i qf Tgstice and of the Last Pay. In the most humble ' state of our flesh beneath the veil of infancy, we see the I terrifying splendour of infinite majesty in this picture. The Infant Jesus seems to recoil from the spectacle of human shame; he lovingly presses against the Virgin's breast, softly rests his forehead against his Mother's cheek, and darts towards the world one of those flaming and terrible glances at which, it is said, everything in heaven, on earth, and in hell trembles. His disordered hair stands upright and quivers as in the breath of the tempest, and sombre clouds pass across the widely mod- elled forehead; the brows are frowning, the pupils dilate and the flame is ready to dart forth ; the eyes, profound and terrible, are preparing to flash with lightning; they still withhold it, but we fed that it may break forth, and we tremble. This glance is truly splendid ; it fascinates you, attracts you," and, at the same time, fills you with terror. The Infant Jesus assumes a formidable aspect ; we recognize in him the Sovereign Judge; his power is infinite and one act of his will be sufficient to "condemn or absolve. The Virgin remains calm and serene beside
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her enraged son, and reassures our heart also with her confidence. If she presents the Son of God to the world tinder a terrifying aspect, at the same time she presses him so tenderly against her breast, and her features, un- der the splendour of the divine radiance, shine with such purity that we feel the flame that purifies all passing within ourselves. The Virgin of St. Sixtus, like every Madonna, wears a red robe and a white mantle; and Art has never done greater things with drapery with such simple elements. A long scarf of the same colour as the veil, but tinted with bistre, is placed on the crown of the head, and, distending like a sail above the left shoulder, returns to the left hand to serve as a support for the In- fant, and runs along the body of Jesus, who grasps it with his right hand. The Virgin's head appears in full illumination without any artifice and glows solely with its own beauty. This Virgin, in which Raphael has sur- passed himself, was painted in a moment of veritable ex- altation of genius. But everything in this picture is food for admiration, even the atmosphere that envelops it and those innumerable and endless legions of cherubim that gravitate around the Virgin and the Word of God. The v aureole that encircles the divine group shows nothing at v first but dazzling and golden light ; then, as it recedes v from the centre this light gradually pales and insensibly v merges from the mmost intense gold into the purest blue, y and is filled with those heads, chaste, innocent, and fervent, v that spring beneath the brush of Raphael like the flowers v at the breath of Spring. These aerial creatures throng to contemplate the Virgin, and their forms recall those radiances in the shape of crowns that fill the Dantesque Paradise, making the name of Mary resound with their praises. Our eyes and mind lose themselves in the im- mense multitude of these happy spirits.
" On either side of the Virgin kneel St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. Placed also amid the clouds, but below the Madonna, they are near the sovereign mediatrix, as mediators also between the world and the Sovereign Judge. St. Sixtus is seen on the right in profile; his head is raised towards the Infant Jesus, his left hand is placed devoutly on his breast, while his right is fore- shortened and points towards the spectator. It is im-
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possible to find a representation of pontifical sovereignty of greater fervour, grandeur and truth. He is praying with extraordinary fervour. His gesture, so resolute and respectful, is in itself an act of love and charity, and his very hands, so true in drawing and so bold in action, have their special eloquence. It seems impossible that the divine justice will not allow itself to be swayed by such intercession.
" St. Barbara is opposite St. Sixtus. Her head is as beautiful, youthful and fresh as the action of her whole figure is easy, elegant and noble. The saint, gently
'. bending towards the earth, seems to want to receive our
\ hopes and vows to bear them to Heaven. St. Barbara's hair is arranged with elegance. Her eyes, lowered to-
,; wards the earth, are perfectly beautiful ; her mouth is calm < and sweet ; and purity shines in all her features. Her shoulders are bare, only covered with a veil of white gauze which falls down her back, passes under her arm and returns to her breast, where her left hand holds it. Her robe of violet shading into a neutral tint, is only
.' visible where it covers her leg; for a green mantle, thrown over it, envelops the body, only revealing the arm, the sleeve of which is blue on the upper arm, yellow, and slightly puffed at the shoulder, and yellow also on the fore
'. arm. All this is of a grand air and in exquisite taste.
" Raphael, doubtless, had thought that the figures of the Virgin, the Infant Jesus, St. Sixtus, and St. Barbara would alone be sufficient for his picture ; but the empty space remaining beneath the feet of the Madonna was too considerable to be filled up simply by clouds : and therefore he added that rigid and horizontal supporting bar on which two angels lean upon their elbows, con- templating the glory of the Virgin with such rapture. In fact, these angels seem to be painted as an afterthought, for, laid in with a light brush, they scarcely cover the clouds, but allow the underlying pigment to show through. " Raphael aimed at the sublime ; and the rest was given to him as increase. The colour is just what it should be in such a subject; whilst keeping to a sweet, calm, and peaceful scale, it is resplendent with light, and we_ask ourselves whether it is not the hand of an angePrather than that of a man that has been able to realise such a marvel.
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" The rirgin of St. Sixtus is the most beautiful picture in the world. To copy this Virgin is to attempt the im- "possihle. Study it a hundred times and a hundred times it \vill reveal itself under a new aspect. It was before this picture, it is said, that Correggio cried: 'And I also, I am a painter.' " — (F. A. G.)
The Magdalen in the Desert stands first among the small Correggios.
"There are two kinds of Magdalens in art: I. the Repentant, emaciated, growing ugly, disfigured by tears and penitence at the end of her life, with a skull in her hand or before her eyes, not baying had even— like the one sculptured in the Cathedral of Rouen—' for three times ten winters any other vesture than her long hair,' according to Petrarch's verse; II. the Sinner, always young, always beautiful, always sejjuctlve, who has not lost any of her charms nor even of her coquetry, and with whom the Book of Life takes the place of the Death's Head. Our Magdalen belongs to the latter class. In a solitary spot, but attractive with its verdure and rocks, on a grassy knoll the saint is stretched out at full length, with her shoulder, her bosom, her arms, and her feet adorably bare. A blue fabric drapes the rest of her body and forms a coquettish hood for her head and neck. Her flesh has a robust elegance of line. Leaning on her right elbow, her hand, half hidden in her hair, supports a charming and meditative head, while her other arm is slipped under an open manuscript. Her hair, long and blonde, according to legend— which she loves and still cares for because it once wiped the feet of her Saviour — falls in thick curls, or strays at will with a premeditated abandon. On the ground, to her right, stands the vase of perfumes of her first adoration; to the left are the stones of her supreme expiation. What grace in her attitude! What beauty of form! She is thrown in with a rare happiness and painted with an ex- quisite delicacy of touch and tint. The blue drapery upon the green landscape defines her sufficiently without mak- ing her stand out too much, leaving the figure and the landscape to mingle without disturbing each other in skilful harmony. All of this is in most finished exeoi-
240 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY
tion, a little elaborate, perhaps, and the expression of the face reflects the sweet, sad memory of the Beloved, whose Gospel she is reading just as one reads again tender let- ters of the past." — (A. Gn.)
Correggio's Adoration of the Shepherds, known as La Notte, is also of world-wide celebrity.
" Nothing in this radiant canvas gives you the idea of darkness ; dawn is breaking behind the distant moun- tains that you see through the stable door, constructed of frame-work resting upon the ruins of an ancient edifice : and the whole picture is illuminated by a supernatural light that is emanating from the body of the Infant Jesus. The new-born child in the lap of Mary gives out such brilliancy that, like the sun, he illuminates all the objects surrounding him. The Virgin's face, lovingly bending towards him, receives silvery reflections of an ideal transparency and freshness. The smile of the happy mother causes its rosy line to wave across the whiteness of mother-of-pearl, milk, or opal, where the long lashes of lowered eyes are slightly traced in light shadow. Touched by this celestial splendour, the humble straw of the manger shines like the golden threads of an aureole. The splendour flashes upon the handsome shepherdess who is bringing a couple of turtle-doves in a basket and makes a naive gesture of wonder at the divine baby; it enlightens the young herdsman, who, with one hand on the edge of the manger and the other on the back of a large dog, raises his head in ecstasy and seems to be con- templating with a visionary glance the group of angels who are balancing themselves on a cloud in the ceiling of the stable ; and finally it comes up to that old shep- herd of Herculean build, holding a stick that looks like a club or an uprooted tree, and who is scratching his head with an embarrassed air like a peasant in the presence of a king. One cannot imagine with what miraculous art that light leaving its peculiar source is conducted, di- minished and melted from the centre to the edge of the picture. All these figures are bathed in it as if in the at- mosphere of Paradise. Never did a colourist play more powerfully with such a difficult problem, and this is not a vain tour de force, but it is the triumphant expression
LA NOTTE — Correggio
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MADONNA DELLA CATINA— Giulio Romano
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of an idea, perfectly charming, perfectly poetic, and full of tenderness, which could .only belong to the happy genius of Correggio. That feeble little one, that baby crying on the straw and shedding about him in the stable even now that light whose radiance will illumine the whole world ! The Virgin is not astonished, perhaps, in- deed she does not see anything; — every child is glorious to its mother ! — and with a passionate caress she makes a cradle for him with her arms, and presses him to her heart.
" In the middle distance, Saint Joseph is clutching the ass by the mane to lead him to the manger. Farther away two young boys hold the ox by the horns. Is it not necessary that the dumb creation should have these two witnesses to the birth of our Saviour? Good and gentle beasts touched dimly in their souls that are warm- ing the child with their breath ! This familiar and tender detail of pure materialism gives to the scene an appear- ance of real life without detracting from the divine side. Nothing strained, nothing forced, and nothing of false grandeur, but everywhere the most lovable grace." — (T. G.)
The St. Sebastian, painted in 1525, and St. George, painted in 1530, are fine examples of Correggio's best work.
" In these pictures, the wealth of Correggio's artistic power is displayed, but it had already passed all bounds. The figure of St. Gimignanius, of which we have a side view in the first picture, and which recedes into the back- ground in a wonderful manner, is very beautiful and we are charmed by the grace of the little girl who nestles At his feet, holding the model of a church, but the ecstasy of the dreaming St. Rochus and St. Sebastian, with up- turned glance, approaches the theatrical." — (A. G.)
" The St. George is more solemn in character than most of Correggio's paintings. The Madonna is represented in an architectural inclosure, consisting of a chapel in the rich Renaissance style, through the round arched en- trance of which peeps a sunny landscape. This frame- work was made to correspond with the painted archi- tecture of the surrounding wall, so that the picture pre-
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242 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY
•
Sented an illusive appearance. Mary is depicted seated with her Child strongly foreshortened from beneath to
^ above on a high throne, of which the richly ornamented pedestals only are risible, and in such a manner that she appears in the middle of the open arch reflected against the bright sky of the background. At her side stands St. George in shining armour, which displays his powerful
^ frame to full advantage. He rests one leg on the head of the dragon; behind him stands St. Peter the martyr, turning to the Virgin and pointing to the congregation. In the right foreground is the youthful St. John the L.Baptisr, covered with a fur cloak, and behind him the aged St. Geminianus in the act of receiving the model of a church from off the shoulders of a boy angel. The naked Infant Jesus stretches out His little arms long- ingly for this model. The joyous angels and genii are this time represented on the ground. Two of them are in front frolicking and laughing; a third tries on the gi- gantic helmet of St. George, while a fourth endeavours to draw his sword. Correggio did not choose, moreover, to miss his representations of frolicsome children up above, so he brings in two statue-like genii as if made of stone in the corners of the architectural framing. A similar statue of a genius is discernable in the pedestal of the throne. The manner in which he combines life with the architectural decorations is very charming, and the whole H invested with a rich festive character which is not common in Correggio's altar-pieces, which are usually represented in an idyllic landscape setting. The playful boy^ genii are truly beautiful. The play of chiaroscuro upon their delicate bodies, "the light shades and half-tones are truly charming. How the soft effects of light spirit- ualise the appearance of the flesh! The maidenly head of Mary turned sideways is also very graceful, although the foreshortening gives a strange look of rotundity to the figure."— (J. M.)
The three Virgins in Glory are distinguished by the name of the principal saint in the Celestial Court: — respectively St. George, St. Sebastian and St. Francis. The latter is the greatest both in subject and dimensions.
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" It would be plainly superfluous to say that this pow- erful composition is of the most noble, strong and grandiose style, and that in its arrangement it recalls the simple and noble style of Fra Bartolommeo; but what raises Correggio in this case, even above the illustrious Florentine monk, is the colour, and the marvellous brush- work."— (L. V.)
A portrait of a Man in Black is supposed to be that of Correggio's physician.
Paul Veronese has three splendid works here that command general admiration : The Finding of Moses; the Adoration of the Kings; and the Marriage at Cana.
" The master can best be studied in the Dresden Gal- lery. There, the king's daughter at the Finding of Moses appears as an Italian princess, in gorgeous ap- parel, surrounded by her court, her ladies, a Moorish dwarf leading a dog, and halberdiers. Of equal beauty are the Adoration of the Kings, which is especially en- chanting in its colouring; £he Madonna, approached by a founder with family, all led by Faith, Hope and Charity, a masterly composition with many naive and affecting features ; and lastly, the Marriage at Cana. He painted many pictures on these and similar subjects for the deco- ration of cloistral refectories. Leonardo's Last Supper was designed for the same purpose. But the physiological characteristic of Leonardo, that depth of thought by means of which he expressed the religious element, is scarcely found in Paul Veronese, who in place of this does not arouse any devotion, or ecclesiastical enthusiasm, but rather sensualizes the subject by his artistic treat- ment. The pleasures of life and of the table form the soul of his compositions, a_nd jthe only compensation of- fered to the spiritual element is the selection of a Bibli- cal subject as a pretext for these representations. When sacred personages, or Christ himself, appear in such pic- tures, they do not attract the gaze and form the centre of the subject: they are always noble, but purely human in conception, and taking a part subordinate to the general
244 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY
whole. Aristocrats of distinguished bearing, and with the demeanour of the world, are seated at the board, en- gaged in intimate conversation with courtly ladies, who are mostly too corpulent and voluptuous in their appear- ance to be beautiful. Servants hurry to and fro, foot- soldiers keep watch at the stairs, pages and Moors are in attendance, dogs snap crumbs from under the table, beg- gars wait for alms on the threshold, women from amongst the people press in with their children and listen behind the pillars, while, from the balconies of grand buildings, troops of inquisitive spectators gaze down upon the dis- tinguished company. While Titian usually attains his ef- fects of colour by a few simple tones, Veronese introduces magnificent costumes of the period, Oriental garbs, beau- tiful marble halls, with golden goblets and table decora- tions. Twilight heightens the effect and a soft silvery light takes the place of golden sunshine. A previously unknown severe ecclesiasticism took offence at this method of handling and Paul had to report himself before the In- quisition on account of one of his feasts at the Phar- isee's house (see p. 337). He was accused of disrespect to the Saviour in the introduction of dwarfs, foreigners, buffoons, dogs, arms and such extravagances into the scenes. Paul appealed with courageous determination to the license permitted to the artist, and he made no alter- ation in style throughout his life." — (A. W.)
Several times Titian painted Lavinia. Here she holds a fan; in Berlin a bowl of fruit; and in Madrid she appears as Salome.
" From the first stroke to the last this beautiful piece is the work of the master. His is the brilliant flesh brought up to a rosy carnation by wondrous kneading of copious pigment; his the contours formed by texture and not defined by outline; his again the mixture of sharp and blurred touches, the delicate modelling in dazzling light, the soft glazing, cherry lip, and sparkling eye. Such a charming vision as this was well fitted to twine itself round a father's heart.
" Lavinia's hair ia yellow and strewed with pearls, showing a pretty wave and irrepressible curls in stray locks on the forehead. Earrings, and a necklace of pearls
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glitter with grey reflections on a skin incomparably fair. The gauze on the shoulders is light as air, and contrasts with the stiff richness of a white damask silk dress and skirt, the folds of which heave and sink in shallow pro- jections and depressions, touched in tender scales of yel- low or ashen white. The left hand, with its bracelet of pearls, hangs gracefully as it tucks up the train of the gown, whilst the right is raised no higher than the waist, to wave the stiff plaited leaf of a palmetto fan. Without any mechanical strapping or adjustment of shape — nay, with something formless in the stiff span and lacing of the bodice — the figure is the very reverse of supple, and yet it moves with grace, shows youth and life and smiling contentment, and a stirring grandeur of carriage com- bined with lady-like modesty." — (C. and C.)
" In the strongest contrast to the conscious allurement of the Lavinia with a Dish of Fruit in Berlin (see p. 220) is the demure Lavinia as a Bride, here. In this, she wears a costume of warm white satin and a splendid necklace and earrings of pearls. Morelli has pointed out that the fan, in the form of a little flag which she holds, was only used in Venice by newly-betrothed ladies ; and this fixes the time as 1555, the date of the marriage con- tract. The execution is beyond all comparison finer here the colour more transparent in its warmth, than in the more celebrated Berlin piece. Second to none as a work of art — indeed more striking than any in the naive and fearless truth of the rendering — is the Lavinia Sarcinelli as a Matron. Though the demure, bright-eyed maiden has grown into a self-possessed Venetian dame of por- tentous dimensions, Sarcinelli's spouse is still fresh and can not be more than three and thirty. This would fix the date of the picture at about 1565."— (C P.)
The magnificent Portrait of a Man presents a " Venetian gentleman in his usual habit, but bearing a palm branch such as we associate with saints who have endured martyrdom. Strangely sombre and melancholy in its very reserve is this sensitive face, and the tone of the landscape echoes the pathetic note of disquiet. Like the Knight of Malta in the Prado (see p. 259) the ex- pression given is that of a man who has withdrawn him-
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self in his time of fullest physical vigour from the pomps and vanities of the world, and sadly concentrates his thoughts on matters of higher import." — (C. P.)
The Virgin and Child with Four Saints belongs to the close of Titian's first period of maturity.
" The type of the Madonna is still very similar to that in the Madonna of the Cherries. In both instances we have the Giorgionesque conception stripped of a little of its poetic glamour, but retaining unabashed its splendid sensuousness, which is thus made markedly to stand out."— (C. P.)
" His Madonnas and Holy Families show the idyllic character prevalent in the Venetian school — maternal joy, childish simplicity and a quiet contented existence are de- picted. The most attractive of these subjects at Dresden is in a more subdued style. Here the Madonna receives homage, and the distinguished lady who advances to- wards her as the holy Magdalen forms an imposing con- trast to the finished heads of the men around, represented as saints." — (A. G.)
The Tribute Money ranks high among the works of this master. It
" bears witness to Titian's power in the treatment of re- ligious subjects. Here we are surrounded by no atmos- phere of devotion and miracle, but the most elevated nobility of which nature is capable is embodied in this Christ; and the inward victory of this noble, but mild nature, over human narrowness and vulgarity, is the spiritual meaning conveyed by this simple but impressive work. Two heads and two hands suffice to represent this profound physiological situation, whilst gentle grada- tions of colour unfold a glorious harmony." — (A. G.)
Of Tintoret look at Virgin of the Crescent, where the Virgin and Child, surrounded by angels and enthroned in a nimbus on a half-moon, are adored by St. Barbara, St. Catherine, John, Chrys- ostom and Augustine. Others of his to be studied are: The Muses and Graces on Par-
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nassus, with Apollo above them; Six Women with Musical Instruments; Christ and the Adul- tress; and a Man and Youth, the former very grave and seated in an arm-chair.
The Venus asleep in a landscape, formerly given to Titian, is now attributed to Giorgione (by the identification of Signer Morelli).
" No artist of any time has exceeded the exquisite beauty of outline and nobility of conception in this lovely figure, which, notwithstanding many and injudicious res- torations, still preserves much of its original brilliancy and transparency of colour. From it Titian, Palma Vec- chio, and other masters took their well-known reclining Venus and other nude women. But no one will hesitate to acknowledge the superiority of the original to the copies and imitations — the one of the utmost purity and refinement, the others realistic and sensual." — (A. H. L.)
Palma Vecchio's Venus is a late work.
" Venus lying on white drapery is in his blonde manner, a naked woman, finely painted, but completely wanting in the purity and refinement of the sleeping Venus by Giorgione in the same room." — (A. H. L.)
Jacob Saluting and Embracing Rachel is a tender idyl,
" I do not know any picture by Palma Vecchio where the master shows himself so amiable, so bright and in such poetic mood as in this charming idyl, for that it is his work is clearly shown by the sturdy and somewhat heavy figure of Rachel, the rose-pink flesh colours pe- culiar to his third or blonde period (1550-1525), and also the very type of face in Rachel which agrees with that of his Venus in this gallery (No. 269). And the sitting shepherd, whose ear alone would betray the master, is also drawn and painted in Palma's manner. On the other hand, if we look at the beautiful, broadly treated land- scape, with the herd of cattle, such a landscape as no Flemish painter could have painted at that time, we can-
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not help seeing in it a freer and later style than that of the Bergamese, such as, for instance, that of his talented pupil, Bonifazio Veronese. It seems to me, therefore, that Bonifazio may have had some share in the execu- tion of this charming picture." — (G. M.)
The Holy Family with St. Joseph and St. Cath- erine is in his third manner. The Child is sitting in His mother's lap, and caressing St. John.
The Madonna and Child, with John the Bap- tist and St. Catherine, is a brilliant work.
" The Virgin presses the Infant to her bosom and cheek as she receives a scroll from the Baptist in presence of St. Catherine. There is so much loveliness in the se- rene rapture of St. Catherine, such sprightliness in the Child nestling at its Mother's throat, so much tender in- quiry in the Virgin's eye and a meaning so earnest in the glance of the Baptist, that we dwell with pleasurable sen- sation on each figure of the group and wonder at the har- mony it creates. We admire too the form, substance, and marble fairness of the skin, the brown-haired, dark- eyed types of the Child and Mother, the yellow auburn of St. Catherine, the muscular swarth of the Baptist, and the chords of blue, red, brown and green which vibrate so sweetly to the eye." — (C. and C.)
In the Three Sisters, which is a work of his middle period, the painter's daughter is supposed to have posed for all three figures.
" These three young women are grouped with pleasing variety and artifice in front of a very pretty landscape. There is hardly a single peculiarity in the master remain- ing unrepresented : his melting shapes, his fair almost waxen complexions, his fine chiselled features, small hands, brocades and slashes, his draperies without depth, flow, or winding contour." — (C. and C.)
There are seven works by Dosso Dossi; and two attributed to his School. No collection is so rich in the works of this master as the Dresden
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Gallery ; indeed, Dosso Dossi is so rare, that, out- side of Italy, it is only in Dresden that he is well represented.
Antonello da Messina's famous Saint Sebastian shows this Italian painter at his best.
" Here we detect the deep impression that Mantegna's frescoes in the Capella degli Eremitani of Padua must have made on Antonello. Here also he shows himself a master of linear perspective. How livingly and sugges- tively those small figures in the centre and background are put in, and the sentry who has gone to sleep, pro- ducing almost a comic effect ! How delicate the execution, down to the minutest detail ! And that dear little couple looking down from the terrace!" — (G. M.)
A Madonna and Child with the Infant John,
an early picture by Leonardo, was once attri- buted to Lorenzo di Credi. The Child is sealed on a red cushion on the lap of His mother, who is holding a grape for Him. The Infant John is in adoration on the left. In the background on the left is a bed, and on the right an open window through which is a distant view of cities and mountains.
" Who besides Leonardo da Vinci, it may confidently be asked, could at that time (about 1470). have produced a picture of such grandeur of arrangement, such depth of feeling and grace, combined with such astonishing breadth of execution! Look, for instance, at the vase at the side of the bed, scarcely to be seen with the unaided eye; and at the wonderful delicacy in the execution of the landscape, almost surpassing that of Van Eyck and Memling, if not in picturesqueness, at least in drawing. It is, moreover, characterised by a classic beauty of ar- rangement, a high ideality in the little head of the Ma- donna, and a depth of feeling in the adoring St. John, such as are rarely to be found in the works of any period." — (H.)
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Signorelli's Holy Family with Angels is a
circular picture where the Virgin is gazing at the Infant Christ lying before her on a stone which is covered with her mantle; the little St. John is em- bracing His head ; St. Joseph is seated on the left ; and angels are singing above the group.
" Signorelli's painting exhibits in a picture of con- siderable dimensions, that earnest and solemn character of Florentine Art in the pre-Raphaelite period, which is perfectly shown in its beautiful and almost symmetrical arrangement, in the characteristic style of the forms, and especially in the drapery, as well as in the rich and bril- liant tone of the colouring which loses nothing of its power seen even by the side of Correggio." — (H.)
Abraham's Sacrifice is another very famous Italian work here. It was sent by Andrea del Sarto to Francis I. to appease his anger for having misappropriated funds. It is somewhat theatrical, but its dimensions prove that size is not a necessary qualification for the highest style.
" It has little of the simplicity and ferocity demanded by the Biblical subject, but if we merely look at the paint- ing, in the choice of forms, modelling of the figures, ex- quisite beauty of the colours, grandeur of a design which for once has as much dignity as delicacy, we can account for Vasari's enthusiasm for the work. The figure of Isaac is admirable. The tenderness of the flesh tints is marvellously rendered. We can distinguish the parts that have been exposed to the sun from those that gar- ments have covered. As for the face of the little angel descending to stop the sacrifice, its grace and morbidezza have never been excelled. Far away, at the foot of the mountain, in a pastoral landscape, we see a servant asleep beside a grazing ass. Nature completes the picture." — (C. B.)
The Marriage of St. Catherine under a coni- cal dais, the curtains of which are held up by
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angels, is an example of Andrea imitating Era Bartolommeo, very rich and sfumato in colour.
Another early Florentine masterpiece is by Fran- cesco Ubertino (Bacchiacca). It is called the Three Archers. It illustrates an old Sicilian legend which tells of a king, deceived by his wife, who died, leaving three sons of doubtful legitimacy. The lords decided to suspend the corpse from a branch and adjudge* the crown to the son whose arrow struck nearest to the heart One refused to mutilate his father's corpse, preferring to lose the crown ; whereupon he was recognized as the true son and heir.
Bronzino's magnificent portrait of the Duchess Eleanor of Tuscany must not be overlooked.
The Virgin of the Rose, by F. Mazzuoli (Par- megianino), is famous for its beauty and its strange history.
" The Infant Jesus rests one hand on a terrestrial globe, and holds a rose in the other. The Virgin, whose head is very graceful, wears a robe with pale yellow, gauze sleeves. The flesh tints are very delicate ; and the hair is ravishingly rendered. This picture was originally intended for Aretino, who was more deeply devoted to Venus than the Virgin. Notwithstanding the care taken by the painter to destroy the profane character of the first idea (Venus and Cupid), we still see the traces of his repentance. For example, below the top coat of paint we can discover the bracelets worn by the goddess, and the wings on the shoulders of Love." — (C. B.)
Francia's Baptism of Christ (dated 1509) is a notable late work. Hampton Court has an earlier picture of the same subject.
" The faces have acquired that grace and sweetness that Francia was so well able to produce ; the draperies lack the crumpled metallic folds that mark the nello
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stage; the bushy trees contrast with the finer ones in the regular fashion; and the effect of the light on the water, which is so marked a characteristic in the Hampton Court picture, in this one has assumed an even greater import- ance, and is treated with much skill and effect."— (G. C. W.)
Francia's Adoration of the Magi has many of Raphael's characteristics.
" The very arrangement of the picture is Raphaelesque, and the drawing of the horse, and the attitude of the Holy Family recall the Umbrian influence, even if the landscape were not there to proclaim loudly the same origin. The love of detail is, however, to be seen in this work as in all the rest. Francia painted the golden gifts, the necklaces of the Magi, the ornaments of the servants and the jewels in their turbans as a goldsmith enamoured of his craft would do, and yet with it all is so careful never to allow mere ornament to usurp a place that does not belong to it, but keeps it under restraint in the most judicious manner." — (G. C. W.)
David and Bathsheba is another famous Flor- entine masterpiece by Bigio.
" Francia Bigio was an ardent worker ; he always had a live model in his studio after which he studied the laws of form and the reason of attitude. Sometimes he treated religious subjects in which he could utilize his long studies in the nude. His last work (David and Bathsheba) belongs to this order of ideas : in this painting he has striven for grace. Vasari considered it too ' precieuse ' and too laboured." — (P. M.)
The Virgin and Child accompanied by Joachim, Anna and the youthful Baptist is a fine example of Mantegna's late work.
Ercole Roberti has the Betrayal of Christ, and Christ Led away to be Crucified, two parts
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of an altar-piece containing numerous figures skil- fully grouped, and of great variety of expression.
" In these pathetic compositions of very careful execu- tion the imitation of Mantegna's style and procedure is manifest, but without any betrayal of Ferrarese traditions. Some analogies with Giovanni Bellini's early pictures are also noticeable. Foreshortenings of rare boldness oc- cur."—(G. G.)
Garofalo's Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bruno, a very large picture,
" may be. considered as the best work of this painter, whose almost constant custom was. to paint small figures. In this painting he displays his graceful and elegant, as well as firm, style, which, even when confined within nar- row limits, rises to' grandeur." — (L. V.)
The Annunciation by Cossa is typical of his style. Here we see the thick waving folds of the Virgin's dress and mantle, and the shape of the hand with the broad fingers.
Bartolommeo Ramenghi (called Bagnacavallo) has a grand Virgin and Child Throned in Clouds.
"At the bottom of the picture, four grand figures — SS. Geminianus, Peter, Paul, and Anthony of Padua — con- ceived and designed in the taste of Raphael, present a nobility of attitude and beauty of expression worthy of the master who inspired them. The colour of this great picture is intense, profound and harmonious." — (C. B.)
La Madonna della Catina is a genuine and very characteristic work of Giulio Romano.
" The Virgin is preparing to wash the Child who is standing in a basin, while the little St. John playfully pours in the water. The picture has thus a familiar do- mestic character. It is beautifully drawn and cleverly painted."— (A. H, L.)
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The Lute Player, by Annibale Carracci, is a portrait of the celebrated actor, Giovanni Ga- brielle, named II Siello, or Mascarone.
Guido Reni's Ninus and Semiramis, one of his best works, was once known as Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Here also hangs his famous Christ Crowned with Thorns, presented by In- nocent XII. to Augustus II.
" Ninus and Semiramis Sharing the Throne, a Virgin in Glory Adored by Saints, and a Christian Allegory, in which Jesus, between Adam and Eve and preceded by an angel bearing a displayed banner, symbolically represents the object of His divine mission, the salvation of man- kind cleansed from original sin, are three works of the most beautiful colour and grandest style that Guido ever attained."— (L. V.)
The Card Sharpers, by Caravaggio, represent- ing a young soldier cheated by two older compan- ions, is one of his most popular compositions.
Of several characteristic works by his pupil, Ribera, we particularly note St. Mary of Egypt, kneeling in prayer before her grave, and an angel investing her with her shroud. His Diogenes with a Lantern is supposed to be a portrait of himself.
There are two versions of the great Holbein Madonna: one in this gallery; and one in Darm- stadt.
" The Madonna of the Burgomaster Meyer was long considered the original ; but in 1871 it was ascertained that it was a copy of the original, owned by the Princess Charles of Hesse. The patron of the work was the same Jacobo Meyer of Hasen, whom Holbein had painted with his wife in 1516.
" The Dresden picture, the product of a later period, shows a difference in the proportions; apparently the
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copyist considered the arrangement of the figures and the architectural background too compressed, and added height to the picture, thus giving an undeniable increase of freedom in the design, whilst not detracting from the general harmony of the composition. In one respect the copy has an advantage over the original ; in the latter the head of the Madonna is over-painted, and therefore falls short of the perfect womanly grace and beauty of the Dresden copy." — (A. W.)
" When one has seen this picture in the same gallery in which shines the Sistine Madonna, it is as impossible not to remember Holbein as to forget Raphael. In pres- ence with these two masterpieces, we are able to measure the entire distance there was in the Sixteenth Century be- tween religious painting as conceived by the Southern and Roman Catholic genius and Christian Art as felt by the genius of the North, already Protestant." — (C. B.)
Among Holbein's portraits there is one of Mr. Thomas Godsalve of Norwich and his son John, both sitting at a table. A letter which the father has just written bears his name and age as forty-seven. The father and son look much alike, and are good types of English gentlemen. A greater work is the Morett Portrait.
" The most beautiful portrait from Holbein's hand in Germany is that of the goldsmith Morett : a stately figure, the features expressive of dignified repose, and the white beard, placed in relief by the dark velvet curtain in the background. It is one of the most noble and perfect pic- tures which has ever been painted ; and, amongst the por- traits of the Sixteenth Century, it can only be equalled by the masterpiecees of Raphael." — (A. W.)
The small portrait of a Man with Cap and fur- trimmed coat and short brown whiskers belongs
to 1537-
" In spite of a certain hardness in the execution, we can not doubt that it is the work of Holbein." — (A. W.)
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Diirer's Crucifixion is a small work of exquisite quality.
" For proportion, power, life and noble character, this exquisite piece rivals the creations of Leonardo da Vinci. The flesh is treated with a soft blending, and with a firm- ness of touch and richness of enamel almost unrivalled; and such is the minuteness of the detail that we can see the hairs on the frame and the reflections in the eyes. A gem of this kind would naturally attract the attention of the great Venetians, and lead them to analyse nature with more care than was their wont; and it can hardly be doubted that studies of this sort were the moving cause of Titian's undertaking and completing that marvel of his youth, the Christ with the Tribute Money." — (C. and C.)
" The little Christ on the Cross is both genuine and a masterpiece. Most admirable are the intensity of ex- pression and the delicate execution, rendering this work one of the most precious treasures of this collection." — (W. S.)
Another gem is a Virgin by Van Eyck.
" In the central compartment of a triptych, Mary with the Infant is seated on a throne in a Gothic chapel ; on the wings St. Catharine and St. Michael with the donor, and on the outside the Annunciation. This little altar- piece possesses such wealth of minute details, and the whole is at the same time so delicately worked out, that it may well have deserved, as the legend states, to have been carried about by the Emperor Charles V. on his journeys, for his private devotion." — (O. E.)
He has also two portraits, one of an old man named Jodocus Vyts, and another of a youth whose family name, Leeuw, is figured by a little lion. Both portraits are brilliant and finely- preserved examples of the master.
Peasant Brueghel's Fighting Peasants, who have quarrelled over cards, is justly famed.
" The poses, gestures, and facial expressions are very animated and of striking verity. The hamlet forms an
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agreeable and very natural perspective. The lights and shadows are in energetic contrast. The colour, lively and just, has something vulgar in it also, that suits the sub- ject. Unfortunately, the perspective leaves something to be desired. It is, however, a good work, conceived en- tirely in the vein of comic art. A more expressive face than that of the man who has just been struck on the head with a flail has rarely been painted."— (A. M.)
Bathsheba at the Fountain was painted by Rubens in his last period. She is seated by a foun- tain whose silvery stream falls into a marble basin. Above her, a red curtain is looped; and she wears a light drapery of black. Upon her seat a red carpet is spread. On the right, a servant is comb- ing her hair; and on the left, a negro page in a blue jacket brings her a letter from King David, who appears in the background looking on the scene from a portico of white stone. The sky is filled with white clouds.
St. Jerome in the Desert belongs to his first period. It shows careful workmanship. St. Jerome is kneeling before a crucifix on a rock, ab- sorbed in prayer. A skull lies on the open book before him; and, beside him, his lion is asleep. Dark rocks and trees form the background ; and through a vista the sky is seen. The light falls beautifully upon the face of the saint which stands out strongly from the darkness.
Mercury and Argus, which belongs to the mas- ter's last period, is entirely by his own hand. Argus, represented as a vigorous man, is sleeping against a tree. Near him stands the cow, lo. Mercury holds his pipe to his lips with one hand and his sword in the other as he stealthily ad- vances to kill him. Venus is hovering in the air.
" The tone of the picture is extremely warm, and the
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air is saturated with burning vapours that throw their re- flection on the bodies of the personages. The cow of pale hue is broadly painted." — (M. R.)
The Boar Hunt has a superb landscape with a beautiful treatment of light and shadow. A mag- nificent oak has fallen, and around its noble trunk and roots the boar is brought to bay.
In the fascinating portrait of a Lady with a Baby on her lap, we may recognise Isabella Brandt, her face somewhat thin and worn, and her son, Albrecht, whose godfather was the Arch- duke Albrecht.
The Head of an Old Priest (1634) is by the hand of Rubens. He has a beard and is dressed in a red velvet robe over which passes a band em- broidered with figures on a background of gold. The expression of the face is severe. The flesh and hair are treated with great sureness of touch.
Painted with great vitality is A Woman with a Gold Chain, with hair confined by a tight white cap. She wears a black dress embroidered with gold, a white ruff, lace cuffs, and gold bracelets. She toys with a golden girdle. The clothes were painted by a collaborator.
There are no less than twenty-nine pictures by Van Dyck : Drunken Silenus, led by Bacchantes ; St. Jerome; Jupiter and Danae; and Portrait of Thomas Parr in his I5ist year, are the most notable.
" For Van Dyck, all the classical legend of gods and heroes was nothing more than a great reference book of subjects for study of the nude, especially of the female sex. For this very reason his mythological figures have no air of primeval nature about them : the undraped model is only too much in evidence. The Danae, a pretty,
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youthful form, extended on a couch, stretching out her arms towards the gold which falls from heaven, whilst her old hand-maiden endeavours to catch some of it in her lap, produces the impression of an elegant woman of the world."— (H. K.)
"A Bacchanale hangs near a Danae who displays on rich stuffs the charms of her white and delicate body. This pic- ture and Jupiter Surprising Antiope Asleep, are almost the only compositions in which the artist sought to ren- der the seductions of female beauty deprived of all veils. The Susannah, of Munich, still half hides herself in the drapery which the old men are trying to tear away." — (L. G.)
Two pictures are interesting to study for the sake of comparison. Rubens and Van Dyck often treated the same motive; but these identical com- positions are rarely found together. The authori- ties here have taken care to place in company two St. Jeromes of similar size, by these two artists. Their juxtaposition renders more striking the dif- ference between the masters. The effects obtained by one, naturally, and without apparent effort, are laboriously sought by the other. In Van Dyck, the colour assumes an extreme violence. The flesh, withered and seamed with deep wrinkles, is lighted with ardent tones before which the vivid but harmonious colour of Rubens almost pales. Here, Van Dyck is far below his model.
Among the portraits
"the busts of an elderly couple (Nos. 1073, 1074) may be mentioned as examples of the most simple treatment. The artist has contented himself with throwing the heads, framed in fine white linen, into strong relief against the dark surface composed of the black costume together with a deep shade in the background." — (H. K.)
Another famous Van Dyck is a portrait group
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of the Children of Charles I. and represents the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles II.), the Princess Mary (afterwards the wife of William II., Prince of Orange), and the Duke of York (afterwards James II.).
A famous composition with life-size figures by Jordaens is Diogenes.
In a market-place, Diogenes searches for a man, with lantern in his hand, surrounded by a mob of men, women and children, mocking and laughing at the philosopher.
" This composition, which the artist first took seriously, he ended by finding pleasant, grotesque and even absurd. It is painted with incredible boldness and a prodigious exuberance of colour, with personages as large as life." — (A. M.)
The Prodigal Son is in Jordaens's best vein.
" It is a farm-yard scene, with cattle about, and pigs at the trough. The farmer is accompanied by his wife and mother-in-law, with the same faces that occur in all the table pictures of this artist. The women are carrying brass vessels, beautifully rendered. The vagrant, naked except for a loin-cloth, begs for alms. He aches with hun- ger; not only his gaze and his outstretched hand, but his whole body implores and cries. The people look at him sympathetically : the master holds out a welcoming hand while the two women look at him with benevolent curi- osity. Only the dog declares himself against the strange intruder, and bares his teeth. But the Biblical story of the reckless youth and the people to whom he goes for help is of secondary importance here. The chief thing is the animals and the art with which they are painted. The dog is magnificent in his strong and distrustful attitude. The other quadrupeds are painted sleekly and smoothly. With the rest of the scene, they are suffused with warm light that seems to penetrate them. Men and animals stand in a sunny mist that deprives the forms of all harshness
CHRIST CROWNED WITH THORNS— Guido Reni
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and solidity, and transfuses them with a faint light glow." — (M. R.)
Coques's Family Group, one of the artist's best productions, is supposed to be his own family. Several musical instruments lie on the floor.
David Teniers, Jr., has two dozen works here, the most important of which are a large Ker- messe, three other Village Festivals, a Bleach- ing-Ground, a Tavern, a Chemist, a Corps de Garde, a Kitchen Interior, a Dentist, Tric-Trac Players, a Drinker, Peasants Playing Dice, Card Players, Sorcerers, and Landscapes.
David Ryckaert has two Tavern Scenes of peo- ple singing and drinking. The first has fine colour, and an air of truth that excites and holds our interest. Having carefully selected his types, the painter has ingeniously grouped them. The second picture is even superior. The figures of the peasants are droller, and the execution is firmer. Children are also enjoying themselves with shouting and playing the fife. This vulgar episode is poetised with an admirable colour.
Many of Van Thulden's works are hidden in gal- leries under other names, but here we find one with authentic signature and the date 1654. This is a Virgin Enthroned with her Son, receiving the adoration of three women, who represent allegori- cally Flanders, Brabant and Hainault.
Danae, by Van Thulden, is a young girl, nude and lying on a bed. The golden shower is falling and she holds out her arms to it. Cupid has picked up a piece of gold and seems to taunt with it the young girl who has treated him with disdain.
" Few painters have as supple and varied a talent as
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Van Thulden. He obtained the most striking dramatic effects, showed equal inspiration for comic scenes, and shone with elegance, charm and poetry in graceful sub- jects and finally leaped without awkwardness into those confused regions of mystic art. It might be said of him that he was the cleverest painter of the school of Ant- werp. He possessed, indeed, such a skilful hand that many of his pictures have been attributed to Van Dyck and Rubens."— (A. M.)
Two works by Diepenbeck show the influence of Rubens: The Fete of Venus and Cupid and the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite. The former represents an excavation among the rocks where the statues of the goddess and her son are objects of a special ceremony. A troop of nearly naked men and women come to render their hom- age, satyrs are festooning garlands about the rocks and little Cupids dance in the air. The colour is very beautiful, — the clear and lively tints that Die- penbeck loves. The second picture is also distin- guished by an agreeable colour.
Van Uden, whose landscapes were highly prized by his contemporaries, has one of his best works here.
" A vast landscape shows a row of hills which rise in the background and continue to the foreground where the ground is divided into three natural steps. The upper plateau is crowned on the left by a large rustic house with a high roof, probably an inn, the chimney of which is smoking and to which a village wedding party is has- tening in the plateau which is adorned with large trees which cross the entire canvas and are lost in the frame. In the lower portion some peasants greet each other and talk, or are joining the others to take part in the fete. On the right side of the picture there is an immense plain bathed by a river that breaks into various arms and halts in various pools.
"A sky sown with clouds crowns this scene; it is of
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extreme simplicity and does not reveal any attempt to give to the vapours a striking or original aspect. There is the same lack of effort in the distribution of light: the landscape is illumined by a tranquil and monotonous day; you wish that the sun would throw some shafts of light to form striking contrasts. The colour is correct, gentle and agreeable, but does not offer any of those delicacies or vigorous tones that the great masters love. In sum, the entire work has a naive appearance: it is a study after nature, made with an ingenuity that is a little too primi- tive."—(A. M.)
The Dead Stag with Fruits is perhaps the finest work of this class by Snyders. A dog- laps the blood that flows from the stag's nostrils. In this picture, the human being is of equal interest with the still-life, which is unusual. It is a young girl with a parroquet, which greatly enlivens the canvas.
Among other works by Snyders are a Wild Boar Hunt, with figures by Rubens; and Game and Poultry on a Bench, with Rubens and his wife as cooks, the figures in this picture were also painted by Rubens.
Dresden also possesses fine fruit and flower pieces by Jan Davidz, Jan and Cornelis de Heem. Of the former, there is a beautiful group consisting of white grapes, a red and white rose, winter cherries and an anemone bound together by a blue ribbon ; a large Bouquet of peonies, roses and other flowers ; and Fruit and a boiled lobster on a table. Of Cornelis de Heem, note his Fruit, consisting of white grapes, figs, an orange, a partly peeled lemon and an oyster; and of Jan, a Glass of Wine standing in a carved recess of stone around which is a wreath of fruits and flowers.
Among other examples of fruit, flowers and ani-
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mals we may note that there are, for instance: 23 by Velvet Brueghel ; 14 by Van Dyck ; 4 by Brou- wer; 25 by Teniers; 6 by D. Seghers; 7 by Fyt; 5 by De Heem ; I by J. van Kessl ; 6 by Snyders ; and 3 by imitators of Snyders ; i by Paul de Vos ; i by A. Van Utrecht ; I by J. Jacob sen ; I by Van Apshoven; 3 by Van Son; 2 by O. Elliger; and 2 by Van Veerendael.
Rembrandt with Saskia on his Knee has a world-wide fame.
" So fragile and dainty is the little bride that she looks a mere child, in spite of her twenty-two years ; and her delicate charm is enhanced by contrast with Rembrandt's robust manhood. The artist is seated in a chair, dressed in a military costume, and brandishes a long glass of sparkling wine in his right hand. With his left he clasps his wife's waist. Saskia wears a rich, but somewhat fan- tastic dress. Her sweet, fresh face is turned towards the spectator. Before them is a table covered with an Eastern rug, on which are a plate and a raised pie surmounted by a peacock with outspread tail. Rembrandt, whose eyes are slightly misty, laughs aloud, displaying both rows of teeth and shakes his flowing hair." — (E. M.)
In the portrait of Saskia, dated 1633,
" The head is slightly turned and gaily illuminated by a ray of sunlight. The crimson cap with its grey plumes throws a warm, transparent shadow over the forehead. A blue dress patterned with white is coquettishly trimmed with gold loops and shoulder knots and the hands are encased in grey gloves. The half-closed eyes twinkle roguishly, and the smiling lips reveal teeth whiter than the pearls upon the chemisette." — (E. M.)
In Saskia holding a Flower in her hand (1614) :
"The strongly illuminated face that confronts the spectator in this portrait beams with health, the cheeks are round and blooming, the expression gay and untroubled. But the resemblance to Saskia is far from striking — the figure is fuller and apparently taller. Something akin to
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Saskia in the features suggests that the sitter may have been one of her sisters." — (E. M.)
Saskia also appears as Delilah in Samson's Marriage Feast.
" Bedecked like a votive shrine, a diadem on her brow, the young woman sits enthroned at the table, a stolid spectator of the feast. Samson reclines at her side, but turns his back to her as if already indifferent, and pro- pounds his riddles to a group of musicians in fantastic Turkish costumes. The guests, if we may judge by the license of their attitude, have hardly observed the sobri- ety proper to the East and we are inclined to wonder what it was that attracted the master in the uninteresting epi- sode. But if disregarding the extravagances and puerili- ties of the composition, we examine its technical qualities, we are struck by the breadth of treatment, by the skilful distribution of the light, which is concentrated on the prin- cipal group dying away in a transparent penumbra full of delicate gradations. Finally, though the figures lack dig- nity, the harmonious splendours of the East are happily suggested in the rich costumes and in the picturesque dis- play of costly stuffs. Blues interwoven with silver and reds, mingled with gold, contrast happily with the pre- dominant green tones of the picture." — (E. M.)
The Sportsman with a Bittern (1639) is said to be Rembrandt himself.
" It is of great interest as showing the results of those studies from nature which deal more especially with col- our, and as manifesting Rembrandt's conscientious ear- nestness in such investigations. The sportsman, almost wholly in shadow, is partly hidden behind a bird he holds up by its legs. The light falls full on its carefully printed plumage, which under Rembrandt's brush yields a rich- ness of effect truly surprising in view of the restricted colour scheme. By means of tones closely allied and very simple — greys, pale yellows, yellows rather more in- tense, russets, streaked or flecked with browns, the happy distribution he utilizes with great skill — the master pro- duces a most original harmony."— (E. M.)
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Portrait of an Old Man (1654) is one of Rem- brandt's best.
" The head, with its broad-brimmed cap, enframed in its long white hair and beard, is modelled in a full, fat im- pasto, handled with consummate knowledge and decision. The sitter was very probably a chance model, picked up in the streets of Amsterdam, but in his rich crimson dress and heavy mantle he is a most commanding figure, his proud bearing, confident gaze, powerful frame and deeply furrowed skin suggesting a parallel with some rugged oak towering above its forest brethren." — (E. M.)
Another Old Man (1665-1667) is vigorous.
" The somewhat strong shadows enhance the brilliance of the high lights, which are very carefully studied, the touches being juxtaposed, but without fusion, a device by which the play of the impasto takes on a vibrating quality of extraordinary depth and harmony. The more loaded passages — such as the brocaded drapery and the clasp which fastens the mantle — are rather modelled than painted, and from a short distance are almost illusory in their rendering of the glimmer of gold and the glint of precious stones." — (E. M.)
Manoah's Prayer (1641) is one of the finest works in the gallery.
" Manoah's awe and amazement at the angel's heaven- ward flight, his wife's terror at the thought that the divine vision may cause their death, these were the fea- tures of the sacred story which Rembrandt emphasised in his striking interpretation of the episode. The angel is a truly grotesque conception — a clumsy, loutish boy, encumbered by a long tunic, whose wings seem quite in- sufficient for his support. On the other hand, the life- size figures of Manoah and his wife are among the most beautiful and touching of artistic creations. Never did the master so eloquently express the intimate communion of two souls, mingling in the fervour of a common prayer. Their reverent devotion impresses itself on the spectator,
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and so absorbs him that he scarcely notes the breadth and simplicity of the execution, the dignified cast of the draperies and the magnificent quality of the skilfully con- trasted reds. In Manoah's robes these are somewhat sub- dued, while in his wife's they glow with extraordinary intensity, both tones blending into absolute harmony with the smoking entrails of the sacrificial victim."— (E. M.)
Arent van Gelder, Rembrandt's pupil, is repre- sented by his masterpiece, an Ecce Homo, where Christ bound is being presented to the Jews by Pilate.
Bol's Repose on the Flight into Egypt and Jacob's Dream, with the ladder reaching to heaven, deserve attention, particularly as the latter is the artist's masterpiece.
Adam Elsheimer's Joseph cast into the Pit and the Flight into Egypt are two fine examples of his Biblical subjects in Italian landscape settings.
Thomas de Keyser's Two Cavaliers on Horse- back are supposed to be portraits of Don Juan of Austria and his adjutant
A very valuable work by the rare Cesar von Everdingen represents Flora, Pomona, Bacchus and Cupid, with a satyr and negress in the back- ground. His brother Allart von Everdingen's landscapes are very fine. A Waterfall depicts a dashing stream that falls between pine woods and over masses of rock ; and a Stag Hunt, where the stag is being chased by huntsmen through the water, in a rocky country beneath a cloudy sky, is a masterpiece.
Berchem's Fishers and Cattle are also superior. Both are notable for their fine landscapes. In the former, fishermen are drawing their nets to the
268 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY
shore; and in the second, animals and men enliven the foreground.
Among the scenes of inn interiors " Bega's Dance in the Tavern is full of life and spirit, and full of sentiment also; and it presents a selection of astonishing caricatures." — (C. B.)
Brouwer's Brawl is a small but excellent work depicting three peasants quarrelling over dice.
Ruysdael is seen in one of his many views of the Chateau of Bentheim; the Monastery; Forest Path; Waterfall by Schlossberg; the Heath; the Chase; and the Jewish Cemetery.
Some of these are early examples of this mas- ter, as is shown by the extraordinary minuteness with which the trees, plants, and unevennesses in the ground are treated.
" The Chase consists of a beech wood, with a wooded plain seen through the trunks of trees. Here in the calm water in the foreground — through which a stag- hunt, by Adriaen van der Velde, is passing — clouds, warm with morning sunlight, appear reflected. In this picture, remarkable as it is for size, being 3 ft. ioi in. high by 5 ft. 2 in. wide, the sense even of the fresh morning is not without a tinge of gentle melancholy. The broken re- flections in the water, also, are incomparable, the general tone unusually warm and the treatment broad and free.
" In the Jewish Cemetery, a pallid sunbeam lights up some of the tombstones between which a torrent impetu- ously flows. The profound melancholy of this scene can be conveyed by no description." — (C.)
Paul Potter has three pictures, painted in 1652, at the close of his short and brilliant career. The Shepherd and Flock is a beautiful landscape with hillock, trees, water, farm buildings and cattle. The sky is bathed in vapour of a very delicate grey. The lazy animals walk slowly, followed by
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the herd, and their hides stand out sometimes brightly and sometimes strongly against the sand of the dunes, sown here and there with a few tufts of scanty herbage.
Animals in Repose is of the same dimensions.
" With different animals, the subject is also the dunes, but its impression is more penetrating. It would not be possible to carry any further the truth of attitude of these animals, especially of the horse that is asleep standing and the bull that is rubbing itself with delight against a post. The serenity of the sky, the happy rhythm of the lines and tonalities, — all here is full of calm. In the simplicity of this faithful image we feel the soul of the artist."— (E. M.)
Dresden possesses more than sixty carefully- finished pictures by Wouvermans. Nowhere can his three styles be studied more profitably than here. His first style is marked by a brown and warm tone, a race of massive horses, and human types of angular design which recall Bamboche. To this class belong the Announcement to the Shepherds, the Preaching of John the Baptist, and the Com- bat on a Bridge. His second manner is noticeable for a warm but more clear and brilliant colour; his horses have more slender proportions, his touch is firmer and surer. The Inn Stable and the Burning of the Mill belong to this period. In his third manner, which he adopted after 1660, he changed his tone to a seductive silver scale, still preserving his fine and soft touch. An ex- cellent Stag Hunt is the best example of this period here. Very admirable also are the Smithy, the Milkcan, and the Almsgiving in which a friar is bringing food for the poor from a monas- tery.
Other masterly works are a Woman Drinking
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out of a Glass, and a Landscape with Ruins, amongst which cattle are grazing and a man in a red cloak is drawing in the foreground.
Karel du Jardin's Cattle-Grazing, containing an ox, some goats and a shepherd boy in the back- ground, passed at one time for a Paul Potter.
Adriaen Van Ostade's early works have a slightly golden tone of extraordinary clearness. After- wards, this golden tone becomes redder, har- monising with the warm and deep violet of the costumes. In his last manner, the reddish tone becomes colder, and the shadows thicken. Adriaen's first manner may be seen in the picture of Guests at a Round Table in a Dutch Tavern. Another tavern scene, with women and children present, belongs to his last period. Waagen calls The Artists' Studio an incomparable master- piece for its light, splendour and depth of tone.
The picture of Cattle Grazing before a peasant's cottage, by A. van der Velde,
"possesses great brilliancy of tone and charming fresh- ness of nature." — (C.)
Van der Neer has three exquisite landscape panels. One shows a few houses near a lake. A Dutch Landscape is a sunset and moonrise effect. The country is traversed by a river bordered with trees and buildings. A city is visible in the dis- tance. A pendant to the latter represents a plain, water with boats and beautifully executed clouds, the whole producing a magical moonlight effect.
Dresden is rich in works of Gerard Dow.
" First his portrait, twice repeated, showing him in familiar occupations: in one Gerard Dow is playing on the violin ; in the other he is drawing in a book. Then
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the Schoolmaster mending a pen and looking at it through his spectacles; the Dentist, holding his victim by one hand and showing the glorious trophy of his victory with the other; then an Old Woman threading a needle by the light of her lamp ; a young girl sleeping by her spinning- wheel and being awakened by a young man who holds a candle near here eyes; a .praying Hermit; a young girl in a cellar kneeling before a wine cask, listening, glass in hand, to a young man who preaches sobriety ; and finally a young girl standing at a window with a candle pluck- ing a bunch of grapes from a vine. For grace, harmony, charm and marvellous finish, Gerard Dow has never sur- passed this last picture, one of the most brilliant jewels of his rich casket." — (C. B.)
A Girl Reading a Letter, at an open window where the green curtain is raised, and An Officer Embracing a Young Woman and placing a gold piece in her hand, are by Vermeer of Delft.
One of Metsu's choicest works is the Game Dealer, or the Smoker. His cook comes to inter- rupt his reverie with inquiries about a fowl an old woman wants to sell. The latter makes a grimace and holds out her hand for the bird on hearing the price he offers. This simple domestic scene could not be rendered with more life and spirit. In another picture, the Game Dealer sits on an upturned tub, and offers a fowl to a young lady of fashion. In a third famous Game Dealer, a couple of women are bargaining over a hare.
In the Fireside a man is lighting his pipe with a live ember while listening to an old woman who is taking a jug from a table on -which stands a lighted lamp.
" In this, the only night-piece I know by Metsu, the influence of Gerard Dow is evident, whom he equals in glow and clearness of effect, and in the truth of every part."— (C.)
2/2
The Lacemaker, a single figure, with a cat at her feet, is a fascinating picture in Metsu's very best style. The Gallant Proposals shows a jovial cavalier in an inn, holding a glass of wine in one hand, and passing the other around the neck of a young woman. In the rear, the landlady is chalking up the score of the rake's account. This is also classed among the painter's best works.
Ter Borch's Trumpeter shows an officer seated at a table apparently writing a letter for which a trumpeter is waiting.
There are many admirable examples of Net- scher. A portrait said to be of himself, dated 1664, is painted with great delicacy in a cleat golden tone; a gentleman accompanying a lady's voice with a guitar is of great charm and of warm, clear colouring and soft touch. A lady with a spaniel; a maid arranging her hair; and the Music Lesson should be noted.
" Netscher, like Terburg, was especially esteemed as th* elegant portrait painter of the upper classes. In his simple and tasteful genre pictures he displays a remark- able preference for musical scenes, to which he lends all the charm of aristocratic elegance. The principal of these pictures and his most celebrated work in respect of size, and wealth of beauty of composition, is that of Dresden — a lovely lady in white satin accompanying on the piano a gentleman who is singing. This beautiful picture is dated 1668, and belongs to his best period, which may be reckoned from 1664 to 1668."— (B. M.)
F. Van Mieris has fourteen charming pictures.
" The Fortune Teller is an adorable work. A courtesan robed in mauve satin listens not exactly to her fortune, but to the propositions of an old duenna. This courtesan possesses incomparable grace and beauty." — (C. B.)
The Tinker compels attention.
" In the conscientiously careful examination bestowed
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" In the conscientiously careful examination bestowed by the tinker upon a woman's kettle, and in her anxious suspense, a species of humour is evident which points to the influence of Jan Steen. Both as regards size (i ft. 8 in. high, I ft. n in. wide) and artistic merit, this may be considered a chef d'ceuvre by the master."— (C.)
A Young Soldier Smoking His Pipe is also a striking work. In the Painter's Studio, Mieris has represented himself with his wife, whose por- trait is sketched on the easel. The Connoisseur's Visit is also a painter's studio, in which the artist, palette in hand, is standing by a visitor who is examining a picture.
So rich generally, Dresden is poor in Spanish masters ; three fine portraits by Velasquez ; a Ma- donna and Child and the Death of Saint Rodri- guez, by Murillo, being the most important.
The Death of St. Rodriguez, who, mortally wounded, receives the martyr's crown from an angel, is specially noted for the painting of the richly embroidered vestment, still preserved in the Seville Cathedral and known as the " Murillo Vest- ment." The Madonna, with uplifted eyes holding the Child in her lap, is also a splendid example of this master. There are eight works by Ribera, the most striking of which are
* the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence and of St. Bartholomew, the most terrible subjects of the Legend, both in the bold, proud and fiery style, and in the exaggerated naturalism of his first model, — Caravaggio. Then comes a St. Mary the Egyptian, covered by an angel with her shroud, and praying beside her open tomb, in the more sweet and gentle manner of his other master, Correggio.)" — (L. V.)
The French exhibit is meagre. N. Poussin has
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six pictures. There are two fine Claudes. Four landscapes are by G. Poussin, the Mountain Lake and the Waterfall being very fine. Watteau's two canvases of good society in Arcadia are in his best style. Lancret's three pictures of dancing in seignorial domains are also delightful. Pater also has two works in the same vein, formerly given to Lancret.
Claude Lorrain's two beautiful landscapes are: Flight of the Holy Family, a lovely scene with marvellous atmospheric effect, and a waterfall in the middle distance; and a Scene on the Coast of Sicily, in which Acis and Galatea appear in the foreground and Polyphemus sits on a rock with his flock.
\
THE PICTURE GALLERY CASSEL
THE Picture Gallery stands on the Schone Aussicht, a handsome modern building in the Renaissance style, at the main entrance of which are statues by Rubens and Rembrandt. The collection consists of about eight hundred pic- tures. The gallery owes its origin to the Land- grave William VIII., Governor of Breda and Maestricht in the Eighteenth Century. Hals and Rembrandt are the lions of the gallery. Very famous is the Young Scholar and his Sister, by Gonzales Coques; the Barber's Shop, by David Teniers the Younger; and the Madonna En- throned, by Van Dyck.
The only authentic pictures by Holbein are a middle-aged Lady holding a Rosary and the half- length figure of a Man dressed in Black and gloomy in expression.
Massys has an excellent genre picture of a Girl Caressing an Old Man who holds a purse, while an old woman watches at the door.
Mabuse's Triumph of the Christian Religion is a work of the first order. In this triptych, the painter employs the ancient method to the point of illusion. Although daied 1523, one might think it was painted about 1470.
" The method of the Van Eycks is employed without modification. The colour has the fineness, the splendour, the £lose^jjrain and__the__ enamel surface that distinguish 275
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in part their works ; the drawing also has an extraordinary precision and strength. The details of the costumes, jewels and armour are minutely reproduced. For example, like a mirror, Joshua's helmet reflects David and Moses standing near." — (A. M.)
The museum is unusually rich in works of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
"The Sea Shore, Suburbs (signed and dated, 1597), Stretch of a River (1598), and Winter Effect (1509); are particularly interesting, on account of their date? for the study of the early days of the artist. In the last of these, the landscape was painted by Josse de Momper." -(E. M.)
The most celebrated of the undated portraits of Hals (of his last period) is The Man with the Soft Hat.
" The silvery tone, which, under Rembrandt's influence, had become somewhat intensified, reappears and absorbs almost all the local colours, but this beautiful silvery grey becomes gradually obscured till at last diverse colours are juxtaposed without any transition. There is no longer that wealth and splendour of the old colour, but merely black and white. To a certain point, this is the consequence of changes in the costume, which, from be- ing multicoloured, had become, even in the highest cir- cles, generally black, the white collars and cuffs forming the sole contrast." — (E. W. M.)
The Two Musicians is a piece of vigorous brush-work. The expression of the youthful faces shows that they are discoursing sweet music most discordantly.
Hals's Laughing Toper is strong, vital, and full of character.
Jordaens painted many pictures of the Satyr and the Peasant, the best being here.
"The inhabitants of the city, who greatly admire it,
£g
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tall it the Soup Eater. It is distinguished for great vigour of execution and perfect naturalism." — (A. M.)
The Infancy of Bacchus is a delicate and charming production. Two nymphs are bringing up the yowng god: one is milking a goat, which sets its foot in the bowl and overturns it. The strong baby is howling and shedding tears. The other nymph, amused at his petulance, laughs and glances meaningly at the spectator. On a hillock, a faun is playing his pipe. Trees are in the middle distance; and behind is a distant landscape with a cloudy sky of incomparable harmony.
" This is one of Jordaens's most perfect works, and one of the marvels of painting The two nymphs are charm- ing in type, expression 'and attitude. The little god is beautifully formed, and so true that he might be taken for a real child rather than an image. The sheep and goats are equally well rendered. As for the colour, softer tones were never associated with greater splendour. The golden gradations of the flesh tints are of prodigious magnificence." — (A. M.)
" There is a little picture, by Jordaens, that may be compared with the gems of Rubens. Near a magnificent monument, we see an old lord to whom a negro is bring- ing a fine horse, while someone is offering him a stirrup- cup. In a corner the god Mercury appears. The com- position is of rare elegance, and the design in the most delightful taste. The colour is extraordinarily magnifi- cent, and the brushwork of unsurpassable vigour." — (A. M.)
The Jordaens Family
" shows the painter, still quite young, with a little moustache, playing the guitar. His wife, a heavy and vulgar Fleming, sits facing him. A charming little girl, the handsomest person in the picture, is bringing a basket of flowers to her mother. It is a picture of quiet work- manship and aspect, which is exceptional with this mas-
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ter. It possesses a prodigious vigour of tone, and, at the same time, the most suave harmony." — (A. M.)
Sixteen Van Dycks are worthy of his reputation, the majority being portraits of the first rank. A Madonna and a Hero and Leander are not par- ticularly important.
" The portraits here are more democratic, further away from conventionality, and more richly endowed with an individual accent and real life, than those of the English aristocracy. Among them are a syndic of Brussels, a burgomaster of Antwerp with his wife and children, the brothers Lucas and Cornelis de Wael, an unknown lady; and lastly, and perhaps chiefly, Snyders, the artist, and his wife. Of his fellow citizens and friends Van Dyck has made marvellous works, far superior, I think, to those of the nobles." — (L. V.)
Portrait of a Lady of thin face and fair com- plexion, almost front view, is very striking.
" Her dress consists of a plain cap, a full plaited ruff and a black figured silk robe bordered with fur ; her right hand holds a rose. Painted with a rich impasto, and ac- companied with a brilliancy of hues worthy of Rubens."
-(J. s.)
Rubens has fifteen pictures of sacred and mythological subjects. Of the former the Flight into Egypt is the most important.
" We can describe it in three words : happy arrange- ment, precious finish, splendid light." — (L. V.)
There are also several fine portraits. One par- ticularly, an Asiatic,
"is very remarkable for an accent of truth, and a vital power that Rubens himself has rarely attained to the same degree." — (L. V.)
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Teniers the Younger has eight panels.
Let us leave Pilate to wash his hands clean of the blood of the Just; let us leave the Archduchess Isabella making her entry into Wilvorden by torchlight; but let us speak of a piquant Temptation of St. Anthony, a sub- ject which r~think the painter has treated oftener, with- out ever repeating himself, than Raphael has painted Madonnas ; also of a very spring-like Landscape, of very fresh and tender verdure, but to which nobody would be tempted to apply the disdainful name of ' dish of spinach ' ; finally, of a little Kermesse which combines the most charming gaiety with the most exquisite touch; and the Shop of some village Figaro, barber-surgeon, in which the doctor is tending a man's wounded foot. The last two works show us Teniers in full possession of his diverse qualities, in which we see charm always associated withstrength. and the grace oFThe brush with the grace 'of the mind."— (L. V.)
In the number of Rembrandts, Cassel stands very high, being surpassed only by the Hermitage, Dres- den, and the Louvre.
The Portrait of the Calligrapher Coppenol was painted about 1633.
" With wrinkled brow, serious air, and close attention to the grave operation in which he is engaged Coppenol is about to cut his quill pen. It is no small matter, for at that time in Holland those calligraphers were esteemed the equals of authors, and were celebrated by poets. The execution here has become broader, and, although strong, the shadow that falls over part of the face has preserved all its transparence." — (E. M.)
The Woodcutter's Family is dated 1640 and greatly resembles his Holy Family in the Louvre.
"This singularly composed picture presents the in- terior of a room of a picturesque appearance, disclosed to the spectator by the drawing aside of a red curtain, which is suspended on the left. On the right of the apartment sits a young woman, pressing to her bosom an infant
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which she appears to have just taken from a cradle, and is endeavouring by caresses to appease its crying. A little fire blazes on the floor before her, and an earthen pot and a cat are by the side of it. The master of this humble dwelling, with an axe in his hand, is seen at the entrance of the room, which is partly concealed by the curtain. Although the chief charm of this estimable pic- ture is derived from the magic of its chiaroscuro, yet the unaffected truth and simplicity which reign both in the habitation and its occupants, must always awake feelings of the warmest admiration." — (J. S.)
Landscape in Winter is an excellent example of Rembrandt's out-of-door scenes.
" The picture represents a view in Holland, and is chiefly distinguished by a building on the bank of the river, and a rustic bridge over a creek. Among the figures which animate the scene is a man having on a pair of skates, who is seated on the right ; a little retired from him is a woman followed by a dog. Three other persons are also on the ice, one of whom is seated, fixing on his skates. The aspect is that of a fine winter's day." -(J- S.)
The undated Portrait of Himself at the age of twenty is considered one of Rembrandt's first pic- tures. It is half in sunlight and half in shadow,
" The type is that of a young peasant, simple, robust, a trifle uncouth. The broad and summary execution rein- forces this impression ; the touch is free and dashing, and the hair is drawn with rapid strokes of the butt-end of the brush in the fat impasto. The eyes, though barely visible through the shadow, seem to gaze at the spectator with singular penetration." — (A. M.)
In the Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph (1656)
" the tonality is soft and subdued, and the master achieves an eloquence at once simple and pathetic by depth and intensity of sentiment. He had now come to the full maturity, of his powers, as is well shown in the masterly
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execution of his portraits, notably that of An Architect, absorbed in meditation." — (E. M.)
Of the numerous engravings and pictures of his wife, which Rembrandt produced, or which she in- spired,
" first comes the great Cassel portrait, painted with ex- treme care, probably in their early married days, though it is neither signed nor dated, that being unnecessary since it was intended for Saskia herself. She is seen in profile, wearing a large scarlet velvet cap with a white feather. The straight nose, rather fat at the tip, the pursed lips and rather plump chin, form a combination that is piquant rather than regular. The features are not very beautiful, but the saucy look of those little eyes, the freshness of the lips, the brilliance of the complexion and the delicate modelling of the brow lend them an irresistible charm of youth and ingenuousness. Her hair, as curly as that of the painter's own, escapes capriciously from her cap. Her costume is exceedingly rich : a fur pelisse thrown negli- gently over a red velvet bodice, and fastened by a girdle with big bronze gold buckles. For jewels, gold chains, and fine pearl necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. In this picturesque accoutrement, although somewhat overdone, we feel the uxorious spouse who spares nothing to adorn his beloved. The painting is minutely studied, and all this jewellery detailed piece by piece." — (E. M.)
Drost's Christ and Magdalen shows how closely he could imitate Rembrandt. Another worker in the genre of the latter was Roland Rog- man, who is represented by two fine landscapes.
Godfrey Schalcken has three admirable works here. Magdalen is a pretty penitent, with clasped hands on an open book. A torch fixed in the rock provides the light effect. Another beautiful fe- male, half-nude, sits leaning on her elbow on the bank of a river. Cupid stands beside her. Bril- liant light falls from a crown above. A fine lamp-
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light effect is that of a youthful female in profile, moralising on the uncertainty of life and the end of beauty. She points to a scroll she holds.
Paul Potter's Animals at Pasture (1644) has two signatures. The first was so low down that it was hidden by the original frame, so that the artist added another in full view.
" The animals — two cows, an ox, and a bull — are strik- ingly life-like : the white cow lying down seems to be about to get to her feet ; and one would say that the young bull, brown spotted with white, was about to bel- low. The details are evidently lovingly treated : notably the frog in the/ foreground, the little leafless oak, and we can recognise a Vanessa Atalanta in the butterfly that has settled on on the broad-leaved plant. But the rude and dry touch betray the youth of the painter and the habits of an engraver." — (E. M.)
The Shepherd and His Flock is dated 1648. The pictures painted by Potter at this date deserve special attention, because notwithstanding the simplicity of their subjects they rank among his most remarkable works. The animals here repos- ing in the middle of an immense pasturage show keen observation and loving treatment.
" In my opinion, it is in his maritime landscapes that the master has most completely given his measure. He had early been attracted by the sea. During his stay at Haarlem he had made numerous studies along the shore and among the dunes near the town. But the environs of Scheveningen especially must have furnished him with motives to his taste, which he has reproduced in some of his most famous pictures. The one in Cassel, dated 1658, is, I believe, the first in which he treated this sub- ject. In it, he shows us, under the light of a half-veiled sun, the dunes with the tufts of dry grass that crown their tops dominated by the village spire and fishermen's huts. On the shore at the foot of the dunes, beside the flotilla of boars drawn up on the sand, move chariots, a four-horse coach, and gentry on foot and horseback.
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Urchins are playing about, fishers displaying their catch, and squatting a little apart a sailor scans the offing after the manner of his kind. To the right, the whole space is occupied by the sea, a grey-blue sea, the waves of which, swollen as if by a last effort, roll harmoniously before exhausting themselves in a long silver streak on the sand. We are confounded with admiration when we think that the artist was only twenty-seven when he painted this beautiful work in which maturity of talent is equalled by freshness of impression." — (E. M.)
Of the Ter Borchs, the best are a Lady and Gentleman, and a Woman and Lute.
There are several fine works by Philip Wouver- mans, preference being generally given to the Harvest Wain.
The rare and delicate Coques has a luxurious in- terior with a Lady standing by a Clavecin, and a Young Scholar sitting at a table.
Steen's Twelfth Night is a scene in which some fifteen persons are indulging in seasonable foolery. Jan Steen and his wife are seated at the side observing the fun. This superlative example of the master's powers is dated 1668.
Gabriel Metsu has several highly finished works. The Lute Player, or Duet, shows a young lady seated at a table tuning her instrument while a gen- tleman, with hat in one hand and glass of wine in the other stands behind her chair. A spaniel is in the foreground. The Poultry Dealer and the Charitable Lady are two other fine character studies.
There are three lively scenes of peasant life by A. Van Ostade: Peasants under a vine-trellis in front of an inn, two of whom are quarrelling over cards. Peasants in an Ale-House shows ten persons. One of them is touching his hat
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to a woman who holds a long glass of liquor in her hand. Five Men and a Woman at Table in the yard of a country inn represents one handing a glass of liquor to a comrade.
Ruysdael's Cascade is a lovely variant of one of his favourite themes.
" The banks of the ravine are dotted with various buildings, ruins and cabins, softly lighted on a cloudy day by melancholy sunlight : another marvel of art, an- other prodigy of human genius! Certainly on returning to Rembrandt's landscape, one would not know which to award the palm to." — (L. V.)
Van der Neer's Sunset is one of the gems of the gallery.
The Marine, dated 1653, is one of the earliest works of Willem Van de Velde.
" In it he has been extremely happy in rendering the impression of one of those absolute calms that occur so rarely in the northern seas. Artistically grouped boats with motionless sails are mirrored in the water with per- fect clearness. The sweet colour, the warm haze of the atmosphere, the penetrating charm of that soft and caress- ing light which with delicate gradations softens all the outlines, — everything in this exquisite work testifies to an attentive study and intelligent love of Nature." — (E. M.)
A full-length portrait of the Marquis Davalos shows Titian's style in its later development.
" He stands in a red-striped doublet and red hose in a hilly landscape. The figure is slender and well made. » The treatment is rapid and bold." — (C. and C.) ^
Tintoret has also a fine portrait here.
The Spanish School is poorly represented.. There is a doubtful Murillo. One Ribera is very fine.
" This Mater Dolorosa unites the master's two principal and generally irreconcilable qualities, — Correggio's suav- ity and Caravaggio's energetic precision." — (L. V.)
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TgEOjd Pinakothek was built in 1826-1836 and containsaDouti4OOpictures, many of which were gathered by the Bavarian princes who were very fond of art. The Elector Maximilian I. secured many of Diirer's works in Nuremberg. In 1805 the Diisseldorf Gallery with its fine collection of Dutch and Flemish masters, including the splendid works by Rubens, was removed here ; in 1827, the Boisseree Gallery, collected by the Boisseree brothers from the churches and monas- teries suppressed in Cologne in 1805-1810; and in 1828, the Wellerstein Collection.
The Madonna of the Tempi Palace belongs to Raphael's Roman period.
" In this picture the two figures are so completely fused that it seems as if they made but one, and there is a wealth of tenderness in the expression of the Mother and of love in that of the Child as he huddles himself against her. It is easier to feel than to analyse the beauties of this picture." — (M.)
In the Holy Family of the Casa Canigiani, St. Elizabeth is included.
" St. Joseph, standing up with his hand upon a staff, dominates and completes the group — which is at once animated and well balanced — his air being as usual serious and pensive. Previous to a clumsy restoration which was attempted with this picture, there were some angels flitting in the clouds. The landscape seen behind the figures is rugged and uneven. In the place of the cool 285
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shades of which Raphael was so fond, we have a town situated on an eminence, with towers and steeples cutting through the mountain outlines in the background." — (M.)
Of a later period is the Madonna della Tenda, painted in Rome, and somewhat similar to the Madonna of the Chair. The picture is in the circular, or tondo, form and takes its name from the olive green curtain effectively looped in the background. The Virgin is dressed in a crimson robe, turquoise blue mantle, and wears an orange- coloured scarf on her fair hair. Her right arm encircles the Holy Child and her left rests on the little St. John who elevates his cross.
The Portrait of Bindo Altoviti, a young Ro- man banker, famous for his wealth and liberal patronage of art, represents a young man with long fair hair, blue eyes and smiling mouth. It is a splendid piece of colour and drawing. It presents a remarkable likeness to Raphael's portrait of him- self in the Uffizi.
r Of the five works of Giotto, The Last Supper and The Crucifixion are particularly remarkable. In the former the table is so arranged that four of the Apostles turn their backs on the spectator. In the Crucifixion the expression which so aston- ished his contemporaries is noticeable. This pic- ture is only two feet high, and represents Christ on the cross surrounded by the Virgin, the Holy Women, St. John, Nicodemus, and St. Francis, the latter kissing his feet.
Three pictures by Fra Angelico illustrating the Legend of St. Cosmo and St. Damian show how the saints were summoned before the pro-consul who vainly endeavoured to force them to practice
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idolatry ; next we see them saved from drowning;
and lastly is represented their crucifixion. The figures, trees and architectural backgrounds are painted with care and attention to perspective:
" As examples of mediaeval art in Italy and indicating its earliest aim towards the pictorial representation of human life and incident, these little works are full of interest." — (C. L. E.)
Francia's Madonna in the Rose Garden
" is treated with all the loving devotion to nature that was a part of the character of Francia. In this picture, he has painted the roses on their trellis, and the birds and lizards that sport in the branches, not as a grand, rich background for the figures in the picture, but has sub- ordinated them to the central figure, and yet given to their execution all the careful detail that he felt was their due. He has painted them lovingly, in a realistic manner, evi- dently from Nature, and as one who loved what he was depicting, and he has simply enclosed the Virgin within this hedge of exquisite flowers, planting her feet upon a green sward that is also spangled with flowers. The whole is set in a fine landscape, and the humility of the Virgin, as she adores her Divine Son, could have no more fitting surroundings. The picture is an altogether charm- ing one." — (G. C. W.)
St. Catherine, by Luini, has a great reputation.
" This picture, whether by Luini or not, is evidently the work of a painter who fell under the same artistic in- fluence. The drawing of St. Catherine's mouth, with its upturned accentuated corners, the general expression of her features, half mirthful, half cunning, the closely ring- leted hair, and soft, vague shadows — above all, the mysterious and delicate beauty of the distant landscape, are reminiscent of a school whose chief characteristics centre in Leonardo da Vinci." — (C. L. E.)
Bashful modesty is the prevailing note of
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Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna with the Carna- tions.
" The figure of the Child, as well as the careful detail of the ornaments, vases and flowers, reminds us of Lor- enzo di Credi. It is only the Dolomite landscape, melting into blue haze, the undulating draperies, and the delicate type of Madonna that proclaim the hand of Leonardo." — (R. M.)
Perugino's Virgin and Child with Saints shows the Virgin standing with clasped hands adoring the Child, who lies on the. ground. Beside her stand St. John and St. Nicholas in devotional attitudes.
" It would be difficult to say which of the three heads is the finest in conception. Each possesses a character and beauty of its own. St. John's features wear an ex- pression of dreamy spiritualism, St. Nicholas, one of ear- nest thought, while the Virgin's countenance is a model of purity and feminine grace. In the Infant Christ are united a childish dignity and loveliness, which approach the highest ideal of which the painter's art is capable. The draperies are arranged tastefully, but after a some- what conventional fashion, and it is curious to note that some of the principal folds in the Virgin's robe are re- peated in those of St. Nicholas. The colour throughout is delicate and charming, the blues and greens combining well, and the white mitre of St. Nicholas claiming its proper value in the chromatic scheme. The hues of St. John's mantle, in which amber and puce blend, are too subtle for description. This picture is one of the gems of the gallery." — (C. L. E.)
Perugino is also represented by two companion pictures that were long assigned to Raphael — a Baptism and a Resurrection. Each is set in a typical Umbrian landscape. In the former the Saviour and John the Baptist stand in the stream, the latter pouring the water on Christ's head from
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a shell. The tomb in the Resurrection is remark- ably well foreshortened, and the landscape with hills, trees and distant town is very attractively presented.
" Beyond this is a range of hills, painted conventionally in a beautiful turquoise colour, which passes from blue to green with exquisite gradations. The foreground is dark, and a hillock which rises on the left hand partly conceals the town from view. This is a charming little work, full of excellent qualities, both in design and execution. Ob- serve the tasteful introduction of herbage at the base of the tomb, relieving the severity of its outline." — (C. L. E.)
His Vision of St. Bernard inspired Lippo Lippi, Filippino, and Fra Bartolommeo's similar pictures. St. Bernard in the white robes of his order raises his hands with a reverential gesture as the Virgin approaches. Behind her are two angels, and behind St. Bernard stand St. John and St. Bartholomew.
" This picture is painted in a more sombre key than Perugino usually adopted. The figures are grouped under a vaulted arcade, the upper portion of which is in deep shadow. This gives great value to the calm evening light diffused over a serene and beautiful bit of landscape seen through an open window. The scheme of colour is rich but subdued, and the flesh tints dark in tone. Great grace is noticeable in the design and action of the figures and a quiet devotional feeling pervades the whole work." — (C. L. E.)
The Virgin in Glory is only partly the work of Ghirlandaio.
" The St. Michael is a beautiful young figure, which carries us back to the Melchior of the Innocenti. It is, perhaps, the last thing to which the master put his hand. But the folds of the drapery of the St. John are hard and sharp, and the angels of the upper portion are wholly by another hand. So, too, the face of the Ma-
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donna never came from Domenico himself. The two wings of this portion of the altarpiece are by Mainardi and are fine examples of the master." — (G. S. D.)
A very fine example of Cima da Conegliano is called Virgin and Child with Saints, the latter being Magdalen and Jerome. The Virgin and Magdalen are beautiful types, and their hands are delicate. The landscape background is very charm- ing. The colour is Venetian in character.
Palma Vecchio's Portrait of Himself is a real gem of Venetian portraiture.
" Admirable alike for the natural beauty of the head and the masterly style in which it is painted. The form and sculpturesque modelling of the mouth is like that of a Greek statue, the eyes are full and expressive, and a mass of dark hair falls picturesquely round the neck." — (C. L. E.)
The Virgin and Child with Saints is a charm- ing composition by this master. The scheme of colour in this little picture is thoroughly Venetian and brilliant in tone.
Andrea del Sarto has two Holy Families of ' -unequal size, in which appear the Virgin on her knees supporting the Holy Child, who is standing before her and leaning towards the little John the Baptist. In the larger picture, St. Elizabeth and two angels complete the group.
" These two pictures are painted in the noblest style and with the most marvellous execution of the great Florentine colourist. They equal, particularly the second, his best pictures in the Pitti Palace." — (L. V.)
The small Holy Family is graceful in treat- ment. " The picture is a lovely one, and the landscape to the
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right with blue mountains and nearer ranges dotted with church and campanile is beautifully painted." — (C. and C.)
Titian at the age ol ninety painted Christ Crownecf with"Thorris.
" It remained unfinished in Titian's workroom till Tin- toretto saw it one day and begged the master to give it to him. Titian did so, and Tintoretto put it up in his atelier as a model of what a modern picture ought to be. Boschini, who saw it in the hands of Tintoretto's son, justly describes it as 'a marvel worthy of a place in an academy to show students all the secrets of art and teach them not to degrade but to improve nature.'" — (C and C.)
" One would say that in this Tintoretto found all the mysteries of painting revealed. Here, in fact, Titian pushed back the boundaries of the art of painting. By means of unheard-of fire and boldness, by strokes of the brush which, when viewed at close range, form a chaos of scars, he evokes a tragic and nocturnal scene of bodies in action, vibrating colours, and the sinister glow of lamps. This learned impressionism opened the way for the future."— (M. H.)
The Portrait of a Man in Black is painted with great force and finish.
Charles V. is one of this master's triumphs in\ portraiture.
" The old Emperor, with pinched lips and pensive mien, absorbed in morose meditation, clothed in black, alone by an open window, is Jjie strongest and most ex-
g'essive definition that anybody has ever given of politics, ere. Titian's psychological intuition attained its high- est degree. In sobriety of performance, it is admirable ; as an expression of the character of an epoch, it is in- comparable. It was the very Genius of History that guided the hand of the artist on that day." — (M. H.)
Venus Initiating a Young Bacchante is a doubtful Titian, but a beautiful picture.
" Note the exquisite sense of colour expressed in the
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silver dish full of fruit held up by a satyr against the bright Italian sky. Venus herself is a sensuous-looking beauty. The lovely blue sky, with at least three distinct shades of colour in it, forms an excellent background to the figures, which are admirably modelled." — (C. L. E.)
Tintoret's Portrait of Andrea Vesalius, the Anatomist, is broadly painted. Some critics have attributed it to Domenico Tintoret.
" A fine portrait. He has a skirrous bone in his left hand, the other holds a compass : he looks at the spectator with a most penetrating eye." — (J. R.)
The Assumption of the Virgin is said to be by Guido, but it is probably a copy.
" It has that regularity of composition which is fre- quent with Guide's two large angels and two little angels on each side and two cherubim, regularly placed in the middle, under the Virgin's feet. This formality is cer- tainly a defect in Guido, however it might become other painters who have adopted a style of more dignity." — (J. R.)
In no gallery are the old German masters repre- sented to better advantage.
A picture of St. Veronica by William of Cologne is one of the earliest, as it dates from the Four- teenth Century. It is small but highly interesting. The saint holds the handkerchief imprinted with tKeTface of Christ. Another valuable pictureTs by an unknown Cologne master, the Death of the Virgin, dated 1515.
" The composition is certainly scattered and the in- cidents wanting in repose ; but the head of the Virgin is tender, the female saints on the wings of lovely char- acter and the portraits of the donors truthful." — (C.)
The anonymous painter known as the Master of
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the Lyversberg Passion may be studied here in several works, the most important of which is the Annunciation.
" The Holy Virgin, kneeling at a faldstool, turns her head round towards the angel who appears behind her clad in a beautiful cape of gold tissue brocaded with a large pattern in Venetian red. In the background, two groups of angels draped in blue, with wings of the same colour, hold up a curtain of gold brocade on which a diaper pattern of large size is indicated. Above this, and relieved against a flat sky, is a representation of the Almighty attended by angels. The figures in the prin- cipal group are distingushed by a conventional treatment of features, carefully detailed hair and attenuated ex- tremities. The accessories are painted with far more truth to nature, as, for instance, the brass vase which holds the lily in the foreground and the play of light on the cushions of a settle in the rear." — (C. L. E.)
Early examples of German portraiture may be studied in the works of Martin Schaffner. His Count Wolfgang of Getting, in black velvet with cap of black and gold stripes, painted on a dark background with hunting-scenes outlined in gold, shows refined feeling. Of greater delicacy is his portrait of the mathematician, Peter Appian, painted in a light key with little shadow on a grey background. He wears a fur-trimmed coat and holds a pair of compasses.
In The Departure of the Apostles on their Mission, by Michael Wohlgemuth, St. Peter is drinking, St. Thomas has a cup in his hand, and St. John is stooping to fill a ewer.
" The action throughout is easy and life-like. A tree in the middle distance bears evidence of careful study. The landscape background, which includes the walls of a fortified town, a church and hill, with meadows beyond, is remarkable for its excellence." — (C. L. E.)
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Durer's two pictures of the Four Apostles, John and Peter and Mark and Paul, are life-size, and were the master's last work of importance. An old tradition asserts that these figures represent the four temperaments : St. John, whose mind is ab- sorbed in contemplation, represents the melancholy temperament; St. Peter, the phlegmatic; St. Mark, the sanguine; and St. Paul, the choleric.
" What masterly finish there is in the execution ! Such as is only suited to a subject of such sublime meaning. What dignity and sublimity pervade these heads of varied character! What simplicity and majesty in the lines of the drapery ! What sublime and statue-like repose in their movements ! The colouring, too, is perfect : true to nature in its power and warmth. Well might the artist now close his eyes. He had in this picture attained the summit of art : here he stands side by side with the greatest masters known in history." — (C.)
A life-size Lucretia is taken from an unattrac- tive model, but the figure is superbly modelled. She is committing suicide, and wears a metallic green scarf that contrasts with a pink coverlid and a blue pillow.
In the Birth of Christ
" the composition and the figures of the centrepiece are ugly, but the features of the donors, Stephen and Luke Baumgartner, are full of character." — (W. S.)
The Portrait of Himself, painted two years later than the famous one in the Uffizi and its copy in the Prado, is dated 1500, and shows great development in character. He is dressed in a cloak, trimmed with fur, which he holds with one hand.
The Portrait of his Master, Wohlgemuth, at the age of eighty-two, is a masterly performance. The countenance is sharp and bony, the nose
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aquiline and the skin shrivelled. Wonderfully treated are the coat and fur collar.
Diirer's Portrait of his Father is of great excel- lence.
" The earliest portrait by Albert Durer known to me is that of his father, dated 1497 — (at Sion House). It is of most animated conception ; the execution light, but spirited, and of draughtsmanlike character; the colouring warm, and truly harmonious. The same portrait, bearing the same date, but differing in many respects, and with the inscription ' I painted this face of my father when he was seventy years of age,' is now in the Munich Gallery. It is closely allied to the former in conception and treat- ment, and is also of great excellence, though of less force of colour."— (Dr. W.)
In the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, a triptych, with St. Barbara and St. Elizabeth painted on the wings, Hans Holbein, the Elder, shows the in- fluence of the German .Renaissance. The pic- turesque character and charming colour of the dresses, the beauty of the distant landscape, with a fortified town, towers, bridges, a river and moun- tains make this a very attractive work. The figures of St. Barbara and St. Elizabeth are extremely graceful and brilliant in pose and costume.
The wonderful altar-piece of The Magi, by Roger Van der Weyden, contains his very best work.
" The splendours of the Burgundian epoch are rendered in the magnificent costumes ; and the groups animate with princely solemnity the ruins among which Jesus has just been born. This is a work that cleverly shows the great Flemish master's admiration of Gentile da Fabriano. Charm, splendour and spirituality all harmonise admirably here. Archaic simplicity has disappeared ; there are no more banderoles, nor inscriptions ; and if the personages are still arranged too exclusively in the forefront of the scene, if the urban landscape is nothing but a decoration, exquisite and distant, from which the soul of the work
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seems to be absent, yet the total effect is so happy, the technical execution so sure, the candour of the Virgin so sweet and good that ideas of admiration and adoration alone possess our minds. The wings represent the An- nunciation and the Presentation in the Temple." — (F. G.)
The Adoration of the Magi, by Thierry Bouts, is the central panel of a triptych of which St. John the Baptist and St. Christopher form the wings. Each of the three pictures is a gem. In the cen- tral picture
" the Kings are magnificently attired, and followed by a retinue whose figures diminish in correct proportion along the distant road, their features wonderfully life-like and expressive, and the costumes detailed with extraordi- nary care. Indeed, the whole scene, whether we examine the texture of the stonework or draperies, the distant hedgerows, or the rose-tree in the foreground, even the slug which crawls along the top of the wall, leaving its slimy track behind it, is a marvel of minute and truthful finish.
" St. John, clad in a purple mantle thrown over a coat of camel's hair, bears the Agnus Dei in his arms, sur- rounded by a rich and charming landscape varied by hills, foliage and winding roads. On the details of this scene the most loving care has been bestowed. In the left- hand corner, a stream of water flows from a crevice in the rock and a kingfisher perches to drink. The pebbles by the rill's side, the grass and plantains, the white lilies and dandelion with its feathery seed, and the lizards sporting in the path, all show an intense admiration of nature and wonderful patience in its portraiture. The distant lake and fortified town with mountains beyond are detailed with delicacy and truth. The whole is ex- quisitely beautiful.
" 5V. Christopher carrying the Infant Christ on his shoulders, wades with bared limbs through the sea along a rocky shore. The upper portion of his body is draped in a crimson mantle, the colour of which is reflected on the rippled surface of the water. Behind, the sun, ris- ing in a sky barred with gold and purple clouds, gleams
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over the distant waves. It would be difficult to over- rate the unaffected grace and refined sentiment of this delightful work."— (C L .E.)
Thierry Bouts may be also profitably studied in two wings of a great altar-piece, the other parts of which are at Berlin and Louvain. The subjects here are the Meeting of Abraham and Mel- chisedek and Gathering the Manna.
" The latter, by the magnificence and fineness of its colour, and the quality of its landscape and atmosphere, anticipates the art of succeeding centuries. A bright light illumines the figures in the foreground and makes their costumes brilliant, while those in the background sink gradually into a twilight that is ably graded. This striv- ing after an expressive ambiance announces the luminism of the Seventeenth Century Dutch."— (F. G.)
Memling's Seven Joys of the Virgin represents the principal events in the life of Christ and the Virgin.
" Not in several compartments, but as one great whole, united in a landscape, with an endless number of subordi- nate events: a whole world of life, and joy, and sorrow — all executed with wonderful grace and beauty." — (W.)
Rubens has here two versions of the Last Judg- ment— one of enormous size, and one small. The latter is generally considered the superior.
Of the large Last Judgment, Sir. Joshua Rey- nolds says.
" Three naked women and a naked man join together to make the great mass of light of the picture. One of the women, who is looking out of the picture, has for that reason the appearance of a portrait, and is said to be one of Rubens's wives; and a figure rising out of the grave in the foreground is said to be his own portrait.
"The Small Last Judgment: As in the large picture the blessed are the most conspicuous, here the damned make in a manner the subject of the composition; the
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blessed are faintly represented at a distance in the upper part of the picture near Christ and the Virgin Mary. This picture is far superior to the large one on the same subject in every respect.
f " But there is another picture of the Fallen Angels of the same size as this, which even exceeds it. It Ts im- possible to form an adequate idea of the powers of Rubens without having seen this picture: he seems here to have given a loose rein to the most capricious imagina- tion in the attitudes and invention of his fallen angels, who are tumbling one over the other, ' with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition.'
" If we consider the fruitfulness of invention which is discovered in this work, or the skill which is shown in composing such an infinite number of figures, or the art of the distribution of the light and shadow, the freedom of hand, the facility with which it seems to be performed, and what is still more extraordinary, the correctness and admirable taste of drawing of figures foreshortened, in attitude the most difficult to execute, we must pronounce thi- picture to be one oi the greatest efforts of genius that ever the art has produced." — (J. R.)
The Massacre of the Innocents is an intensely dramatic composition.
" Herod's terrible command strikes ruthlessly at all mothers irrespective of rank. Some of the women are very richly dressed, whilst others are clad in poor gar- ments, and some even scarcely clothed at all. Some throw themselves furiously on the murderers and try to tear from them their deadly weapons; others piteously plead for mercy; whilst others cast themselves weeping over the tiny corpses of their children, which they bear tenderly away, or hold up their arms in wild grief to heaven, whence angels descend with crowns of martyrdom." — (H. K.)
The Conversion of St. Paul and The Destruc- tion of Sennacherib are famous.
" The horse of St. Paul is in a remarkably fine attitude, and there is a great spirit and bustle through the whole
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picture. Tameness or insipidity is not the character of Rubens: in whatever he employs his figures, they do their business with great energy. The Battle of Sennacherib is the companion to the Fall of St. Paul. In this picture there is a great repose of shadow in large masses : the figures and horses are full of animation." — (J. R.)
In Samson overpowered by the Philistines the haste and eagerness of the Philistines, the fruitless resistance of Samson, and the malicious joy of the false Delilah, are admirably expressed ; and the management of the light and transparency of the chiaroscuro are of uncommon excellence." — (W.)
Caster and Pollux Carrying off the Daughters of Leucippus is worthy of first mention among Rubens's mythological works.
" The Dioscuri, mounted on spirited steeds, are about to carry off the two damsels. The calm expression of strength in the male and the violent but fruitless resist- ance of the female figures form a striking contrast. One of the Dioscuri is assisting his brother with his right arm to raise one of the females — she vainly imploring Heaven for aid, — whilst with his left hand he has seized upon the other sister, who is attempting to escape. Al- though the Dioscuri are merely represented as two coarse and powerful men, and the naked damsels have only com- mon and rather redundant forms and Flemish faces, yet the picture altogether produces such a striking effect, owing to the admirable manner in which the subject is conceived, the power of imagination which it displays, and the exquisite colouring and keeping, that it would never occur to any unprejudiced spectator to regret the absence of antique forms and character.
Another great work of splendid dash is the Battle of the Amazons.
"With great judgment, he has chosen the moment when the Amazons are driven back by the Greeks over the river Thermodon ; the battle takes place upon a bridge, and thus the horror of the scene is carried to the highest pitch. Two
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horses are in savage combat upon the bridge; one of the Amazons is torn from her horse ; a second is dragged along by her sable steed. Two other Amazons, with their horses, are falling headlong into the river below, where again several are trying to save themselves by swimming. On the other side, a mounted Amazon, who has just dashed into the water, turns half round, and wounds her pursuer ; near to her are the dead bodies of several Amazons, which, though already half naked, are about to be robbed of their last vesture. In the distance, beneath the arches of the bridge, other Amazons are seen struggling, in various attitudes. The admirable effect of the whole is increased by a decided and masterly arrangement of the light ; the colouring is forcible without being overcharged. In the whole range of modern art there exists no other historical battle-piece worthy of being compared with Raphael's Battle of Constantine; and it has the advantage over the latter in the well-planned concentration of inter- est, and in the contrast afforded by the male and female figures." — (W.)
Rubens never tired of painting his second wife, Helena Fourment, in rich costumes that set off her charming face. Here we find four portraits. In one she is seated in an arm-chair on a terrace in a sumptuous gown and high lace collar framing her face and head :
"She seems perhaps a little astonished at herself; but her smiling expression preserves something of the in- genuousness of innocent candour. The execution is ad- mirably delicate, easy, and sure, and the flesh tints, the freshness of which is set off by the blue of the sky, have what De Piles so rightly called ' the virginity of Rubens's tints.' "— (E. M.)
Another represents Rubens and Helena walking in their garden.
" His arm is in Helena's ; her pink complexion is pro- tected from the sun by a large straw hat. Her hair, with its golden reflected lights, escapes round her face in fair
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curls. Her black bodice opens over a chemisette; her dull yellow skirt is turned up over a grey petticoat, and a white apron falls over both. She holds a feather fan in her hand, and a pearl necklace sets off the whiteness of her throat. The couple approach a portico, beneath which a table is spread beside the statues and busts which decorate it ; some bottles have been set to cool in a large basin on the ground. The air is warm, the lilacs are in bloom; and the flower-beds are gay with many-coloured tulips. At the side, the waters of a fountain fall into a basin. The pair are about to seat themselves under this portico, surrounded by domestic animals, with the blue sky and the flowers before their eyes.
" When we have thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful pic- ture, our eyes involuntarily turn to the other canvas in the same room of the gallery, in which, on an equally fine spring day, Rubens painted himself in a honeysuckle arbour with his wife Isabella whom he had so loved." — (E. M.)
" The air of sober affection in the couple, who are seated in an arbour of honeysuckles, the expression of calm intellect and energy in the head of Rubens, and of cheerful, good-humoured contentment in that of his wife, lend a particular attraction to this picture, and speak direct to the heart: in this respect it differs as much from the peculiar style of his later works as it does in the more strongly marked outlines, the less glowing colouring, and the careful execution of the well-adjusted and elegant attire of the figures, as well as of the foliage and herbage in the foreground." — (W.)
A triumph of portraiture also is the group of the Count and Countess of Arundell with their dwarf and jester, dog and hawk.
The famous Lion Hunt is full of the dramatic fury of Rubens ; but the landscape is said to be by Wildens, and the human figures by Van Dyck.
One of the most admired works in the gallery is a Group of Children of extraordinary beauty bearing a garland of fruit and flowers.
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" Boys, carrying a festoon of fruit, painted by Snyders, is one of Rubens's best pictures both for colouring and drawing; it is indeed soft and rich for flesh itself. Though the flowers are painted with all that beauty of colour which is in nature, yet Rubens has preserved such brightness and clearness in his flesh, though in contrast with those flowers, as perhaps no other painter could have done."— (J. R.)
A lovely Madonna and Child, surrounded by flowers and eleven boy angels, is all exquisitely painted.
" The flowers are by Velvet Brueghel. Those pictures painted by Rubens, in conjunction with Snyders and Brueghel, are almost as valuable as those painted solely by his own hand." — (W.)
Twelfth Night, by Jordaens, afforded the painter a brilliant opportunity for depicting food and crockery, as well as human figures.
" A merry-making of Jordaens is by far the best pic- ture I ever saw of his hand. There is a glow of colour throughout and vast force ; every head and every part per- fectly well drawn : vulgar tumultuous merriment was never better expressed ; and for colouring and strength, few pictures of Rubens are superior. There is a little grey about the women's dress ; the rest are all warm col- ours and strong shades." — (J. R.)
Among the notable portraits by Van Dyck we may note one of Himself in youth ; a young man supposed to be Frans Snyders; portraits of an Antwerp Burgomaster and his Wife ; of the Duke Charles Alexander de Croi, an enormously stout man with effeminate features ; of Heinrich Libert! of Groningen ; of Peter Snayers, the landscape painter ; and of Liberti, the organist.
A Madonna and Child with St. John is admir- ably composed and executed.
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The Infant Saviour is painted from a fine model whose limbs are drawn with consummate skill. In execution the flesh tones are distinguished by soft shadows and reflected lights in which greys and browns commingle.
The Virgin and Saints Mourning over the Dead Christ is painted in the style of Rubens.
" The whole figure of Christ is equally light ; which, with the help of the white linen on the Virgin's knee, makes a large mass of light : her head and the head of Mary Magdalen make the lesser lights. St. John's drap- ery, which is a light red, makes the light lose itself by degrees in the ground." — (J. R.)
Velvet Brueghel has a striking Crucifixion with soldiers at daggers drawn — over the robes of Christ. The city of Jerusalem and mountains are in the background. On the left, the sky is re- markable for the prodigious multiplicity of its details. It is painted on a large sheet of copper. The execution is full of delicacy and lightness.
The Family Picture, by Frans Hals, belongs to his best period.
" The finest family portrait I know is in the Munich' Gallery. Here the easy arrangement, lively heads, the admirably painted hands, recalling Van Dyck, and the delicately cool keeping, render this a very attractive piece." — (W.)
David Teniers the Younger has several fine works here.
" Of the pictures in Munich Gallery I observed the following: A Drinking Party of ten persons, cabinets of masterly carrying out in a silvery tone; a Dinner of Monkeys and a Monkey and Cat Concert, of extraordi- nary delicacy of tone and of charming humour ; Peasants Dancing and Playing Cards in a Dutch Alehouse; of the same time and similar tone, finely composed and with the
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figures, despite their larger proportions, very delicately .treated, a Peasant Wedding in the open air, dated 1651 ; and still richer in composition and warmer in tone a party smoking and playing cards at a round table." — (C.)
Trie Man with a Cap is a picture that appeals to a painter's eye. It represents Rembrandt at an advanced age, and is obscured by dark shad- ows.
" The crimson velvet drapery, dark fur cap and green- grey background suggest rather than realise a chromatic harmony." — (C. L. E.)
A Steward and his Mistress, by Thomas de Keyser, is notable as having little or no colour ex- cept the flesh tints. The man is explaining his accounts to the lady, who appears to be in a bad temper. It is a vigorous work, and might be de- scribed as a study in black and white.
Frans Van Mieris is fully represented by six- teen pictures. The Fainting Lady is particularly noticeable for the marvellous representation of the cream-coloured satin dress the invalid wears. She is fainting in the arms of an old woman, and the physician is examining the contents of a bottle which he holds up to the light. The figures are only about eight inches high, but are beautifully lighted and drawn. There are variants of this subject in other galleries.
" There are some small pictures of the rarest beauty, viz., his own portrait with a wine-glass. The features breathe the utmost cheerfulness ; the execution, in the pur- est golden tone, is admirable. Another represents boys, one beating a drum, another blowing a flute.. The full light, the clear golden tone, the fine enamel, and the solid impasto render this small picture, of only 6 inches high by sk wide, a perfect gem. As admirable specimens of
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single figures of ladies in elegant attire T may quote one playing on the lute (No. 415) and two examples of an- other giving an almond to her parrot (Nos. 188 and 417) as the true originals of so many of the copies attributed to this master." — (C.)
Pieter de Hooch's Interior shows a room lighted by the reflection of the sunlight :
" Although the back of the girl reading is all that is seen in the room, yet the impression of peaceful domestic happiness is given in a high degree. In the kind of har- mony and also in the unusually careful touch, the in- fluence of Ter Borch is here recognised." — (C.)
Netscher, who followed Metsu in picturing scenes and figures from the common people, has an interesting work here called the Shepherd Lovers, dated 1681.
Gerard Dow's Quack stands on a raised platform in front of a house, offering his cures to the by- standers, among whom are a gardener, a sportsman and a market-woman. The figures are all life-like; and the curiosity of the spectators is well contrasted with the assurance of the quack. This is singular in being perhaps the only scene by this master in the open air ; and it is interesting to note the painter himself looking out of the window with his palette in his hand.
Brouwer has nine works here, six of which are masterpieces.
"A party of peasants at a game of cards (No. 199) affords an example of the brightness and clearness of those cool tones in which he evidently became the model of Teniers. Spanish soldiers throwing dice (No. 207) is equally harmonious, in a subdued brownish tone. A surgeon removing the plaster from the arm of a peasant (No. 465) is not only most masterly and animated in
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expression, but is a type of his bright, clear and golden tone and singularly free and light in touch. Card-players fighting furiously (No. 273) is in every respect one of his best pictures. The momentary action in each figure, all of them being individualised with singular accuracy even as regards the kind of complexion, is incomparable, the tenderness of the harmony astonishing, and the execu- tion of extraordinary delicacy. A village barber dressing the wounded foot of a peasant (No. 527) affords an admirable example of reddish harmony and melting beauty of touch." — (C.)
Of Ter Borch there is A Trumpeter Bearing a Letter to a Lady in White Satin, which seems to be the sequel to a similar picture in Dresden (see page 272). The lady's dress and her fur- trimmed jacket are marvellously treated.
Eglon Van der Neer's Lady in a White Satin Robe Tuning Her Lute is a splendid portrait of this master's first period. His Fainting Lady re- calls the most celebrated works of this genre by Mieris and Netscher. This is of larger dimensions than is usual with Van der Neer: it is executed in full light with great warmth and harmony of colour.
Munich is rich in Wouvermans. Of the seven- teen pictures by his brush here, the Grand Stag Hunt is a vast and magnificent work, surpassed by none of this master's paintings. The other compositions most worthy of study are :
" a horseman dismounted at a bridge which leads over a small waterfall (No. 361), only 9! in. high by 8 in. wide, — a little gem for the beauty of reflected sunlight and the lightness, freedom, and delicacy of touch. A Battle between the Swedish and Imperial troops. In the representation of momentary action, in the expression of a raging battle, and in precision of execution, this is a picture of the highest order. The plundering of a village
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by soldiers is striking in motive, not less admirable in finish and in better preservation." — (C.)
One of the best examples of Everdingen's Nor- wegian landscapes is the Cascade (dated 1650) with its waterfall in a picturesque and savage spot, which is being viewed by three travellers of dis- tinguished appearance. The latter were probably painted by Philip Wouvermans.
Jan Both has several fine landscapes, with figures painted by his brother Andre, Wouvermans, or K. du Jardin. All of them are to be admired for their warm golden and luminous tones. The most remarkable is Mercury Charming Argus to Sleep, which Decamps cites as this painter's masterpiece.
The Dune is one of the finest of Ruysdael's early pictures. Its simplicity and breadth of treat- ment make it worthy of his best period. One would hardly think that so modest a subject could be made so attractive.
" A white, hardly-traceable path winds through con- fused land; below, a blackish stream flows through thick vegetation; around are coarse and sparse clumps of stunted trees and bushes, tangled and thorny. At the top of the hillock approached by the road, the vegetation be- comes more sparse till the top shows bare but for one tree on the right. A wagon is just disappearing beyond the crest of the eminence. A traveller is seated on the grass in the solitude at the top of the hill, so absorbed in contemplation that he does not see a shepherd who ap- proaches him. The place is, however, quite ordinary in character, and neither the lines nor the colours of the landscape are particularly interesting; but this poor scene has appealed to the soul of the painter: in it he has found the echo of his thoughts ; and he has not failed to pro- duce a masterpiece with it." — (E. M.)
Of the five fine landscapes by Hobbema, The
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Cottage Under the Oaks is perhaps the most characteristic. Here we have a house under a grove of trees relieved against a mass of white cloud. On the right, a road runs through a pool of water. The work is charming and somewhat resembles Ruysdael.
A. Van der Neer is represented by a large and beautiful picture of A Lake in the Middle of a Forest the trees of which are reflected in the water. This picture proves that the celebrated painter of moonlight effects was equally able to render nature under sunlight.
J. van Huysum has a Basket of Flowers and Fruits.
" Two masterpieces among those of this master, un- equalled in the genre taught him by his father." — (L. V.)
Among the French masters, Poussin holds the first place. He is represented by five pictures. King Midas is able to bear comparison with the most famous Bacchanales of this painter.
The Adoration of the Shepherds and the En- tombment of Christ are
" two superb works, full of elevation and religious feeling in which are clearly revealed strength of expression and depth of thought."— (L. V.)
Claude Lorrain has two pairs of pendants that are capital works.
" The first pair consists of a Sea Port, confined, as is habitual with Claude, between two palaces of classical architecture, and the other a calm Landscape where cattle are fording a river under the shadow of large trees. In the one the rising sun throws its silvery rays that break on the waves ; and in the other the setting sun gilds and purples the mountain peaks. The second pair, which is smaller, also represents Morning and Evening, but these pictures are enlivened with Biblical subjects.
VIRGIN WITH THE CUT PEAR— Durer
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In the first, Hagar is leaving Abraham's house with her child Ishmael ; and in the second, she is succoured by an angel who is showing her a spring. These figures, painted doubtless by Filippo Lauri, are bathed in the warm, luminous, burning tones of a southern clime during the dog-days. They are two marvellous works among the marvels of Claude." — (L. V.)
Munich is unusually rich in Murillo's subjects of humble life.
Two Peasant Boys Eating a Melon represents two urchins seated on the ground, one eating a slice of melon and the other observing him while he dips his hand in a dish, while a dog seated on the right watches them both. On the ground is a basket of fruit and a wallet. The other picture, Two Peasant Boys Eating Grapes and a Melon, is similar: one boy is eating grapes from a bunch which he holds over his mouth with one hand while in the other is a slice of melon. His companion has a melon and a knife in his right hand, and a slice of melon in his left. On the left is a basket of grapes.
Another famous picture represents Boys Play- ing Dice, two of whom are throwing dice while the third is eating a crust of bread, at which a dog gazes hungrily. A basket of fruit and a broken jar are on the ground.
Two Peasant Girls are seated in a landscape near a wall, one is counting money and the other is watching her. Near the latter is a basket of grapes. More famous, however, is the Old Woman and Boy, the former seated on the right hunting for vermin in the head of the boy who lies on the floor eating a piece of bread and playing with a dog.
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THE Picture Gallery, housed in one of the two Imperial Museums erected in the Burg-Ring, in 1872-1889, was removed here in 1891 from the Belvedere, a chateau built for Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1693-1724. The pictures, numbering about 1700, hung in the Belvedere from 1776 to 1891, and represent several collections. The fine collection made by the Emperor Rudolph II. was greatly diminished by plunder and sales; that of the Archduke Leopold William, stadtholder of the Netherlands in 1646-1656, is remarkable for its pieces by Dutch masters and fine Venetian works ; and the collection of the Archduke Ferdi- nand of Tyrol contains many gems. The only additions are modern pictures chiefly by Austrian painters. The Belvedere gallery is particularly famed for its works by Diirer and Rubens and its fine examples of Venetian masters. It is also strong in portraits.
Among so many masterpieces of high rank, Paris would be embarrassed to award the apple.
The Virgin with the Cut Pear belongs to Diirer's middle period, and receives its name from a piece of pear that the Child is holding. The white-veiled Virgin bends tenderly over Him, gracefully draped in blue.
" The Virgin's head exhibits a profound tenderness and fervour. The painting is uncommonly limpid and 310
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harmonious ; the flesh tints are rosy in the lights and grey in the shadows and the hair is rendered with an in- credible minuteness and precision. Of all Diirer's pictures of the Virgin this is the most perfect and the best pre- served."—(M. T.)
The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Saints in the Reign of King Sapor II. of Persia con- sists of a multitude of small figures arranged in groups in a rich landscape.
" Nothing but executions, with death in every shape and details of the most horrible kind, can hardly be deemed a very attractive subject ; but it gave the artist the opportunity of representing a number of nude figures in movement and of displaying his skill in bold fore- shortening. In the foreground, on the right, appears the King on horseback, arrayed, like his suite, in Turkish costume. Almost in the middle of the picture, as un- concerned spectators of the scene, stand Diirer and his friend Pirkheimer. Diirer, dressed entirely in black, holds in his hand a little scroll on which is the inscription : Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Diirer Alemanus. The excellence of the drawing, the delicate and refined execution and the solidity and depth of the colouring combine to make one forget the terrible nature of the subject." — (M. T.)
The magnificent All Saints picture, also called the Adoration of the Trinity, was painted for the chapel of an almshouse in Nuremberg which was dedicated to All Saints. For it Diirer also designed an elaborate carved frame ; for this altar- piece consisted of a single picture without wings. It requires a great deal of study to appreciate this great work. It is arranged in five complete circles, the lower one consisting of a charming coast landscape with an inlet on which boats are sailing. On the right bank stands a little full-length figure
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of Diirer in fur-trimmed cloak holding a tablet with his name and date, 1511.
" How was the Christian's heaven reflected in the ,soul of aTTerman? Here is no assemblage of experts, of men of independent spirit, eager and ready for discussion. All and each are absorbed in a lively feeling of joy and satisfaction at the deliverance of the creature from its suffering through the mystery of the divine Passion. What a throng of happy beings there are even in the bright distant background, and how eagerly they press for- ward towards the fount of life ! The Almighty Father, throned in indescribable majesty, holds before him the token of the world's redemption — the Crucified Mediator. Seraphim in a circle float above the Trinity, while on either side is a choir of ministering angels holding the instruments of the Passion. Below are ranged the saints: on our left, and consequently on the right of the Trinity, the martyrs of the New Testament, chiefly repre-
vt*1"^ sented by females, led by the Virgin, in the midst of whom appear Moses and David, with St. John the Baptist at their head. The predominating colours in the draperies
^ ' of these saints are blue, green and rose, while the mem- bers of the church militant below are chiefly clothed in red and gold, and are represented not by any particular individuals, but in accordance with German ideas at that period, by different classes of society. On the left are the clergy with the Pope at their head. A cardinal is turning round with a gesture of encouragement to the donor, Landauer, who kneels awestruck in an attitude of humble adoration with the female members of his family behind him. On the other side the circle is com- pleted by the members of the laity. First comes the Emperor under the ideal form of the aged Charlemagne, in gold embroidered robes ; behind him are kings and princes, and a doge ; and, farther off again, a knight kneeling stiffly in a suit of armour richly inlaid with gold. The light-hearted peasant, too, with his flail is not want- ing, and there is a touch of irony, quite in harmony with the times, in the way in which a young burgher appears to be greeting him, as much as to say, ' What, you here, too?'
" The whole picture has a golden, tender, hazy look.
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It does not absorb or distract the mind by details, but
fixes attention by the unity of sentiment, which is its pervading characteristic, by the inward feelings of joy and satisfaction reflected in the countenance of the saints, by the charm of its delicate execution and by the clear and lively harmony of colour that is able to glorify every part of the subject. There is an ideal intention in the choice of this colouring. No such attempt was ever made by Diirer or any other artist to spiritualise colour. Tt is as though he had tried to produce a pictorial equivalent for the music of the spheres. Even to this very day the picture dazzles us with its undiminished brilliancy — a per- fect jewel of art."— (M. T.)
Holbein has two splendid portraits, male and female, here. Not the slightest tradition has sur- vived regarding the identity of the Young Man.
" A beardless young man stands against a table covered with a green cloth and looks out at the spectator. A round black hat rests upon his short hair; over his coat of reddish violet silk lies a black furred mantle; a bit of his shirt shows in front. The left hand grasps a glove, the right rests on the table and holds a half-open book. Rings adorn both hands. To the right stands a desk. Upon the grey background appears this inscription : ' Anno. Dni. 1541. Etatis. Sua, 28.' In design this is one of the most successful of all Holbein's portraits. Nothing could well be simpler, nothing could be more complete and coherent. The turn of the body, the out-V" look of the face, the action of the hands, the placing of V' every line, of every tint, of every step from light to v shadow, lead to that ahsnjqfag flpfty whi<ft_ja Jhe. aim of v^ j£t/'— (W. A.)
" A small female portrait most delicately executed and true to life, is a citizen's wife depicted in half-length figure, and apparently at the most about thirty years of age ; her whole appearance is unusually fascinating from her air of refined dignity, noble repose, confidence, gentle- ness and intelligence; her beautiful blue eyes express a kindliness of nature ; in her fine lips, in the delicate con- tour of the throat, and in the almost entire absence of
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eyebrows, she exhibits a certain resemblance to the Dres- den Madonna ; she wears over her brown hair a little white cap, ornamented with gold and falling from it in a black veil. The neck is seen, the shoulders are covered ; she wears a violet brown dress trimmed with black, red velvet sleeves and white cuffs from which emerge the life-like and somewhat masculine hands. A large gold medal, apparently containing two figures sacrificing at an altar, is suspended on her breast." — (A. W.)
St. Catherine in a Landscape, attributed to Hubert Van Eyck, is probably the work of John.
"We observe in it the same technique and the same kind of sentiment as in the Virgin and Child in this gallery. The two pictures, moreover, arc so exactly similar in size that they may be regarded as pendants. The prodigiously careful execution of the accessories and of the landscape displays the realistic spirit of the School. The personages are of elegant and slender pro- portions, which in certain parts, the hands notably, ap- proach leanness. The heads, in spite of the delicacy of the forms, have a grave and almost rude character. The vestments with broken folds, the angular lines of which are equivalent to John's signature, make amends for the fault by the magic splendour and intensity of their col- our,— those of the Virgin especially. Certain details, such as the architectural ornaments of the niche in which Mary is seated, and her long floating hair, are worked with such care that their delicacy is almost beyond belief." — (A. M.)
A Descent from the Cross, formerly attributed to Van Eyck, is now given to his School. The holy women are grouped with rare skill, and their poses and gestures have more freedom than is common in the works of John.
The gallery possesses one of Memling's best works, formerly attributed to Martin Schongauer. This is a little portable altar-piece. The panel in
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the middle represents Jesus on the Cross with His mother, St. John and the kneeling donors; on the right wing, St. Veronica; and on the left, Magdalen and four angels hovering above her.
" The whole composition breathes a holy and deep grief: this emotion finds its most tragic note in the mother of the expiatory victim, who embraces the cross with indescribable grief. The portraits of the donors are marvellous, particularly the noble and intelligent figure of the young woman : she lowers her head in saintly medita- tion, while her husband lifts his towards the Redeemer with an expression of ardent prayer. The two saints that occupy the wings charm the mind and eye by grandeur combined with originality. The materials are draped in a true and graceful manner and the colour is natural and harmonious ; but it has not the brilliancy that we ad- mire in John Van Eyck."— (B. P.)
Memling has also a striking diptych represent- ing Bearing the Cross and the Resurrection.
" Although the personages are somewhat long and thin, they possess a magical grace, and with the excep- tion of a young man in the foreground, their gestures and attitudes are perfectly natural. The heads are full of the purest feeling of beauty and the modelling reveals an im- portant progress in art. The luminous and harmonious colour fascinates our eyes. The finish of the accessories, stuffs, and arms has never been surpassed by any master." ~(B. P.)
A Virgin Enthroned is attributed to Hugo Van der Goes, but it has all the characteristics of Mem- ling's style.
" The feeling is pious, noble and intimate ; the execu- tion is of charming simplicity and serenity. Mary, seated on a throne in the open, holds her Son, to whom an angel offers an apple ; facing the angel is the donor. Nothing could be more amiable and attractive than the face of the supernatural visitor. The landscape, as in all
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the contemporary works, is treated with extraordinary care. It would seem as if the artists, after having sub- stituted an animated nature for the monotonous splendour of backgrounds of gold, could never tire of reproducing scenes of the country. They therefore untiringly adorned their landscapes with hills, trees, towns with numerous towers, grass, streams and flowers." — (B. P.)
The wings, in the same room, are of very inferior work, — probably by another hand.
Jerome Bosch has two Temptations of St. Anthony.
" In these works he shows much inventiveness. He creates a strange world, in which baroque forms become normal forms. The execution is particularly remarkable by the intense splendour of its colour, and its happy light effects."— (B. P.)
Joachim Patenier has two notable works: the Baptism of Christ and St. Jerome in the Desert.
" The subjects are evidently as simple accessories of landscape, which constituted the painter's chief aim. The grandiose conception of nature and simple handling are still strangers to the artist : caring little for the general effect, he is prodigal with his details and overloads his picture with them. His colouring even does not look natural, particularly in the depths, where green is strangely allied with blue." — (B. P.)
The Flight into Egypt, by Herri de Bles, has a landscape background. The picture is very small (9 in. by 5 in.) fine, curious and charming.
Almost on the eve of his death (1515) Giovanni Ucllini, the austere painter of Alacfonnas, painted trTe~~Young Woman at Her Toilette.
" Seated half nude at her open window through which we see a smiling landscape, she is nonchalantly combing
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her beautiful golden hair. This was the testament of the aged painter who had seen his pupils Giorgione and Titian grow great around him, and who, warmed by their flame, was gently converting himself to the ideas of the Renais- sance."— (P. M.)
Raphael's famous Madonna al Verde represents the Virgin steadying the as yet faltering steps of her Child, who is advancing towards the infant St. John with a cross, which the latter is on his knees to receive. The figure of the Virgin, at once gentle and proud, is very beautiful, especially in the"contour of her shoulders, which the dress does not hide, and the drawing of the hands. Raphael has in this instance rivalled Leonardo in grace, and he lias also drawn inspiration from him in the land- scape which forms a frame-work for the composi- tion. The robust vegetation in the foreground, which gives the picture its name, forms a very charming contrast with the beautiful panorama in the background with the lake, the town, and the mountains bathed in the rays of the setting sun.
Bonifazio Veneziano has two beautiful com- panion pieces of the Annunciation, somewhat reminiscent of Titian.
Benpzzo Gozzplj, whose works are so rare in public galleries, is represented here by a Virgin and Child, which is full of cism of his master, Fra Angelico.
There are six of Palma Vecchio's beautiful ladies in this gallery, one of which is the cele- brated Violante, who wears a blue bodice with sleeves of yellowish brown brocade and a blue mantle draped over her left arm. Her flowing hair is held in place by a golden ribbon. Her eyes are dark, her complexion fair and her ex-
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pression beautiful. She wears a violet in her dress, probably in allusion to her name.
" The charm of the picture is overpowering. It fas- cinates by an intense femininity, a femininity which in Titian and even in Giorgione is leavened too often with a touch of masculine severity. Palma is content with woman as she is." — (W. A.)
Palma Vecchio's Visitation is a grand composi- tion, but very remote in style from Raphael's idea of the same subject, and in colour approximating to Titian's fine works. Splendid also are two pic- tures of the Virgin and Child. In both, the figures of the worshipping saints are almost life- size.
Two choice works by Giorgione are here.
" The treatment of genre subjects combined with rich and poetical landscape may be said to have originated with Giorgione. Of this class are the Chaldean Sages, 'called the Three Philosophers (Geometricians from the East} said to have been finished by Sebastian del Piombo ; and the so-called Family of Giorgione — an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy, seated with a child in her lap, and a standing warrior gazing upon her, a storm break- ing over the landscape, — a picture of idyllic beauty. The charm of these two pictures can not be described. It is as if Giovanni Bellini were here seen with every delicious quality full grown." — (A. H. L.)
" It (Geometricians') is characterized by plump form, soft blending, pure drawing, and sure impast in flesh bathed in vapour and made transparent by delicate glazes. We must admire the spirited and easy reproduction of instant motion, the lightness of touch, and the subtle feel- ing for colour." — (C. and C.)
Luca Giordano's Fall of the Angels is a
dramatic composition.
" His works are of such varying merit that the Italians say he used sometimes a golden, sometimes a silver, and
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sometimes a leaden pencil — the last unfortunately most frequently. This picture, however, is one of the few that may be assigned to his golden brush; the composition shows a powerful imagination, and the attitudes are very effective." — (W.)
Agostino Carracci's St. Francis is
" an admirable example of this rare master, who sur- passes the other Carracci in purity of drawing and taste. The composition is well considered, the drapery carefully executed, and the colouring unusually clear and harmo- nious."— (W.)
The Pieta, by Andrea del Sarto, shows the Dead Christ mourned by the Virgin and two angels.
" It is a hasty work, and the crayon shows through the paint in several places; but the style has so much nobility, the expression so much charm, the colour so much bril- liance and transparence, and the general effect so much grandeur that this picture would hold an honourable place among his masterpieces." — (L. V.)
Mantegna's St. Sebastian is small in size, but great in style and perfect in execution.
" We recognize in the arrangement of this little pic- ture, and particularly in the landscape background, the master who studied, with the same care, Antiquity in its smallest fragments, and Nature to its most minute de- tails."—(L. V.)
The most admired pictures here of Veronese are the Virgin in Glory between St. Catherine and St. Barbara and Christ Healing the Sick Woman, in figurines, but fine, luminous and charming. Curtius also belongs to the first rank of this artist's work.
The Madonna with St. Catherine and St. Barbara is a remarkable work.
" Seldom do we find in this master such well-ordered
composition, and such fine feeling in the heads (espe- cially the nuns) coupled with his own peculiar cool and silvery harmony." — (W.)
Veronese's Christ and the Woman of Sa- maria is opulent both in form and colour. The experienced widow is a young and lovely Venetian blonde, richly attired. The figures are set in a vast landscape. The student will like to compare this treatment of the subject with others in the same gallery. Lorenzo Lippi's Samaritan is attended by a child who nestles against her with a kind of frightened timidity. In Biliverti's picture, there is also a little boy in the shadow behind the well. The woman, seen in profile, has a bearing full of elegance, and an attentive and passionate face. In Annibal Carracci's picture Christ is seated, with outstretched finger. The woman, of noble and beautiful countenance, slightly bends her head and listens with profound attention.
Of Fra Bartolommeo,
" few pictures give a finer idea than the Presentation in the Temple, with the figure of Simeon standing with unparalleled dignity. The picture has been deprived of its harmonious colouring by over-cleaning." — (A. H. L.)
" There are few subjects due to Fra Bartolommeo in which there is a softer gravity or more melancholy beauty." — (C. and C.)
Several great works display the style of Titian at various periods of his long career.
The Virgin of the Cherries shows us the type of the youthful Madonna gradually departing under Titian's brush from its early relationship with the favourite types of Bellini, Giorgione and Palma.
" The young mother turns in ecstasy towards her Child,
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3
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who is offering her the fruit, with a lively and tender movement, a supple arid noble action. It is a beautiful ges- ture which the painter has long sought and will fre- quently reproduce. The face is longer, the expression more decided, the flesh tints clearer, the carriage prouder; we feel that the artist's ideal is becoming higher, purer and nobler in proportion as his growing ability enables him to transfigure his models with less effort. The exe- cution is inexpressibly harmonious, in a delicate and sweet scale, with accents of morning freshness, notably in the body of the bambino, modelled, like a rose-leaf, with in- comparable lightness. — (G. L.)
The Virgin of the Parapet, also called the Bohemian Virgin, belongs to the end of Titian's first period.
" It is a sort of coming into possession of nature : the plenitude of the reliefs and the vigour of the tones re- mind us of Giorgione; but its more perfect beauty, its more exquisite choice and its more tender emotion an- nounce a face that is more restrained and directed by a superior art." — (M. H.)
The Allegory of Avalos may rank among Titian's masterpieces; it is a prodigy of colour.
The Ecce Homo shows Christ introduced at the top of a flight of steps by a corpulent Pilate (a portrait of Aretino) to a tumultuous and fanatical rabble below clamouring for His crucifixion.
" The work is brilliant, pompous, though somewhat heavy in certain parts, where we recognize the aid/ of pupils. It is rather cold, but it also contains exquisite traits of naivete. It blazes the way for Veronese and Rubens."— (M. H.)
The Danae is one of several. Here Cupid is supplanted by an old hag catching the gold coins in her apron. The forms are less delicate, but the colour more ardent than the Naples variant;
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besides being inferior in sentiment and caressing tenderness.
There is a fine repetition of the Diana and Actaeon here, painted about 1558.
" Since the glorious times of the Bacchanales, at Fer- rara, Titian had not treated mythological and plastic subjects of this importance. The care he took in the work is shown in the fine equilibrium of the composition, the variety and grace of the attitudes, the justness and strength of the modelling, and the vigour and harmony of The colourings. ( — G. L.)
The Portrait of Strada is a firm, brilliant and bold painting in which there is no sign of the eighty years of the master's age at the time.
The natural pendant of Charles V., at Munich, is his prisoner, the Elector of Saxony, that hangs here. The big man is seated, bareheaded, in an arm-chair. He holds a black cap in his hand. His fat rubicund face shows the scar of the wound he received at Muhlberg.
" Titian has well expressed his apoplectic character with a strong heat that his ordinary painter, Cranach, never knew. The superiority of Italian art at this period shines still more in the impression of nobility, and the breadth of the rendering of this physiognomy that is so energetic and interesting in spite of the thickness of its forms." — (G. Laf.)
C. Allori (Bronzino) has a fine duplicate of his Judith in the Pitti.
Correggio's Ganymede, representing the youth being carried to Olympus by the eagle, was once considered to be by Parmigiano. Beneath is a bird's-eye view of a beautiful landscape. In gen- eral treatment it resembles the picture of lo, also in this gallery. Both paintings have greatly suffered.
" It is impossible to carry the representation of sensu-
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ous joy and beauty in art further than Correggio has done in this painting. lo, perfectly nude and almost turning her back on the spectator, is sitting on a little hill with her body slightly thrown back. She seems act- ually to shine forth out of the misty clouds that surround her and throw a haze over the landscape. The head of Jupiter, whose lips are raised to meet hers, is scarcely recognizable in the enveloping cloud. Her lovely face, turned bashfully aside, is charming in its expression of sweetest sensibility, and the golden hair and delicately coloured cheeks are exquisitely beautiful. The light and tender glimmer of the chiaroscuro play brilliantly on the beautiful form and more effective than the expression even is the light on the figures in which the warm tones of the flesh look almost spiritualised in contrast with the surrounding darkness enveloping the figure of the god in its shadow." — (J. M.)
Of the Umbrian School here, Perugino holds first place with his two Madonnas.
" One, accompanied by two female saints, is beautiful, gracious and holy at the same time, and exquisite in colour. The Virgin in Glory between St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Jerome and St. John the Baptist, dated 1493, is one of the largest and best of what we may call his capi- tal works. But it has been cleaned and retouched beyond all measure." — (L. V.)
St. Margaret, trampling the Dragon under foot, formerly attributed to Raphael, is one of Giulio Romano's finest productions.
A Repose in Egypt, given to the School of Ra- phael, and sometimes to Raphael himself, is prob- ably the work of Giulio Romano and Penni in col- laboration. The kneeling Virgin holds the Child in her arms; the little St. John is also kneeling and offering fruit. Joseph holds the ass, and is lifting St. John to his feet. The picture is freely and boldly painted. The Infant is extremely beau- tiful, as is also the head of the Baptist.
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Bassano's Good Samaritan is a fine composition of original conception, in which he has not hesi- tated to depart from Holy Writ by accompanying the Samaritan with a servant. The solicitude of the merciful traveller is well expressed, as is also the exhaustion of the victim of the highwaymen ; and the painter has grouped his figures in a land- scape painted with much vigour and charm. This picture should be compared with an Early Flemish work of the same subject by Herri de Bles.
In the Triumph of Venus on the Sea, by Al- bani, the goddess seated in a chariot drawn by sea- horses is riding over the waves with Cupid near her and other Loves variously grouped. One holds a scarf that floats in the breeze and another rides a dolphin. Nymphs and other attendants hold out their arms to Venus.
There are magnificent portraits by Italian mas- ters, the most celebrated of which are by Correg- gio, Parmegianino, P. Bordone, Palma Vecchio, Sebastian Bombelli, and Tintoret. The latter has two Doges, of which Niccolo de Ponte is the finer work.
" The grandeur of conception, the tone of the carna- tions, and the broad handling combine to make this a historical work. The great colourist is seen at his best in the depth and harmony of tone of the cap, chair, and curtain."— (W.)
" Palma Vecchio is seen in undisputed originality in several female portraits, which, though greatly rubbed and injured, bear the stamp of beauty and amplitude which is his peculiar type. A Lucretia is a commanding figure of fine expression." — (A. H. L.)
Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of a Young Man, in Venetian costume, exemplifies the artist's remark-
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able refinement and rare power of seizing character and expression.
Of Moro's two splendid portraits, Margaret of Parma and Cardinal de Granvelle, the first, " although a masterpiece of expression, is eclipsed in technical skill by that of the Cardinal, the colour of which is extraordinarily fresh and beautiful. The bust of the young man whose forehead is marked by a scar is con- ceived in a very noble sentiment ; the likeness of a young woman who wears a black costume has a striking sim- plicity and truth."— (B. P.)
Viardot regards St. Justina by Moretto as one of the gems of the gallery, and attributes it to Pordenone.
" The highest type of Moretto's charm of dignity of figure and richness of colour is seen in the picture repre- senting a Brescian nobleman kneeling before St. Justina, who is standing with the Unicorn, the emblem of chastity, by her side — a very noble work." — (A. H. L.)
Velasquez has two splendid portraits of children, — Don Balthaser and the Infanta Maria Theresa. There is also one of the court fools that his brush so vividly represented. The most famous picture, however, is that of his own Family. It is of capital importance in his work. In the foreground, his wife, Juana Pacheco, is sitting, trying to console a tiny child who is crying. Four boys, varying in size and age, stand about their grandmother. Behind the second eldest, with her hand laid on his head, stands Dona Francesca, the daughter of Velasquez and wife of Mazo. Behind her and to the left, we see Mazo himself bending slightly towards his eldest son, a youth already serious and grave. Beside him stands Pareja, that faithful slave who accompanied Velasquez everywhere, and one fine day sud-
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denly revealed himself as an able painter. At the end of a rather long gallery lighted by a large window, we see Velasquez busy on a por- trait of Queen Marianne of Austria. A nurse, holding an infant in leading strings, is approach- ing him. On the back wall on the left is a por- trait of Philip IV. in an ebony frame; and in front of it on a table draped with velvet are some books, a vase of flowers, and a white mar- ble bust of Elisabeth of Bourbon, the first wife of Philip IV., whose memory had remained the object of veritable adoration to Velasquez.
" On this canvas, of very high value as to its colour and execution, and so interesting in so many other re- spects, the artist has therefore grouped all that, near or far, was most dear to him. It is wonderful to see what variety, what intensity of life, and what grace at once tender and spiritual he has put into the painting of all these simple characteristics of children, and how he has succeeded in imprinting on the features of the mother and grandmother an expression of the most exquisite tenderness." — (P. L.)
The most important work of Rubens here is the celebrated St. Ildefonso altar-piece.
The Virgin is seated in the pulpit from which St. Ildefonso was accustomed to preach, dressed in her conventional robe of red and her blue man- tle. The saint kneels before her receiving from her hands the beautifully embroidered chasuble. St. Barbara, St. Catherine, St. Rosalie and St. Agnes are grouped around the Virgin dressed in richest robes. Three cherubs, holding hands, hover above, one with a wreath of roses. What Rubens particularly sought for in this picture was the effect of light : the whole scene is flooded with celestial brightness.
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" Everything is calculated to produce the impression of opulence : the golden throne, the rich draperies of red and blue, the white satin, the robes of gold and ermine, the gauze veil, and, particularly, the soft, fresh flesh tints of the Virgin, the saints and angels. It is a super- natural vision. The dramatic force and strong emotions that Rubens loves are banished from this picture, terres- trial passions have lost their sway and have given place to the emotions, felicity and beauty of heaven." — (M. R.)
On the left wing kneels the Archduke Albert in rich mantle lined with ermine and the Order of the Golden Fleece around his neck. Behind him stands St. Albert of Liege in the violet robes of a cardinal. Both are looking towards the Virgin. On the opposite wing and kneeling likewise before a prie-Dieu is the Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, sumptuously dressed and accompanied by her patron saint, Elizabeth of Hungary.
" The shimmering draperies, the golden brocades, the silken stuffs and the warm carnations are inundated with the same light that floods the scene of the miracle and brings these two wings entirely in harmony with the cen- tral panel. On account of their majesty, and the nobility of their features as well as their brilliancy of colour, these portraits are among the most beautiful that Rubens ever painted."— (M. R.)
In St. Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius the Bishop of Milan is refusing the Emperor ad- mission to the church on account of the massacre of Thessalonica. He stands in front of the door in his magnificent robes and with a firm gesture repulses the Roman Emperor, who wears his purple mantle over his warrior's costume. Three warriors stand behind him astonished at the re- fusal.
" The composition is simple and eloquent : the bishop
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and emperor are strong, noble figures ; and the contrast between the group of robust warriors behind Theodosius and the placid followers of St. Ambrose is very striking."
Two great works depict the miraculous powers of St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier.
"The boldness of the whole composition, the striking manner in which the action is represented, the admirable keeping in the masses, the vigour of the colouring, and the ease and freedom of the execution, render this a most effective picture and one of the most favourable specimens of the peculiar style of Rubens. A pendant to this, the St. Francis Xavier raising the dead and healing the sick, must be mentioned on account of the same perfections." -(W.)
Meleager and Atalanta Slaying the Caly- donian Boar is a fine work of collaboration — Rubens being responsible for the figures, Snyders the animals, and Wildens the landscape. It is painted in soft tones and with great freedom. The outlines are clean in drawing, the colour full, and the shadows strong.
Among Van Dyck's works two
" The Mystic Marriage of St. Rosalie with the Infant Jesus, who holds out a crown of roses to her, and the Blessed Herman Joseph with the Virgin are subjects in- spired by the mysticism in honour at that period. Smith does not say too much when he praises the beauty of the St. Rosalie; he might have added that the other canvas may be classed among the best by this master. It is worthy of remark that this order of subjects, for which the calm and gentle expression of tender sentiment suf- fices, is marvellously well suited to the distinguished tal- ent, but one little suited for tragic scenes, of Van Dyck. The two pictures are distinguished by a skill of compo- sition not common in Van Dyck. But the subject of the second renders it particularly delightful. The body of the Divine Child is exquisitely graceful; the saint's robe,
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made of a splendid material of gold ground, illumines the whole canvas. St. Paul stands beside the Virgin in an attitude full of nobility and grandeur." — (T. G.)
Le Roi Boit is the most animated variant of this favourite subject of the brush of Jordaens — the jollification of Twelfth Night. It is full of verve and character.
In the opinion of many critics a landscape by Ruysdael ranges with Diirer's Trinity and Ru- bens's St. Ildefonso as one of the three greatest works in the gallery.
" The landscapes are numerous. Ruysdael has the largest, most important and perfect work of his brush, — the one we may unhesitatingly call the chief of his master- pieces. It is six feet wide and five feet high ; and the unusual size of this canvas shows that Ruysdael wanted to make it an extraordinary work. Nothing could be simpler than the subject ; under a calm sky traversed by floccu- lent clouds, is a clump of tall trees on a flat and bare plain through which winds a path, which is cut by a stream in the foreground and loses itself on the horizon ; that is all. And yet it is the most beautiful real land- scape, the most excellent portrait of nature that could be seen or imagined. The two other works by Ruysdael, of ordinary dimensions are a Forest and a Cascade falling over rocks." — (L. V.)
The most important Marine in the gallery is by Vlieger.
There are several very varied pictures by Gerard Zeghers.
" A Holy Virgin bearing on her knees the sleeping Christ; Hagar and Ishmael in a forest is a superior work in every respect ; Mary with her Son and little St. John in the middle of a landscape; another Holy Family in a landscape; St. Stanislas nourished by angels; and a Tri- umph of Silenus. The backgrounds were executed by Jacques d'Arthois, who often framed the pictures of Zeg-
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hers, but rarely signed with him. There is one excep- tion, however, in the Belvedere, St. Francis Borgia, and his companions, kneeling in a great forest before a lumi- nous monstrance which lights a chapel." — (A. M.)
The visitor to this gallery would never imagine that David Teniers the Elder owed his great rep- utation to his pictures of sorcerers, bohemians and scenes of peasant life. Here we have only Biblical and Mythological subjects: — Tobias and the Angels, Juno Demanding the Metamorpho- sis of lo, Mercury Putting Argus to Sleep, Vertumnus and Pomona and Pan and a Nymph. In his religious pictures he reminds us of Elzheimer and F. Pourbus: in his Gods and Goddesses, he is rather heavy.
David Teniers the Younger has about twenty works here. The Archery Festival which was held annually at Brussels is one of the most cele- brated. Among the people who throng the Place des Sablons, the portraits of the painter and his family may be recognised.
" Leopold stands under a canopy that overhangs his arm-chair, which is therefore a kind of throne, holding his cross-bow in his hand and surrounded by his cour- tiers and the Swiss guard. All the personages are por- traits. An immense crowd swarms around them and among them the painter has represented himself and his family. As each individual is so carefully represented this vast composition must have exacted a long work. The figures in the foreground are little over a foot high. This is the most important and brilliant work by Teniers in the Belvedere. The Prince has a calm dignity and ele- gance of bearing that form a contrast with the common expressions and heavy attitudes of the bourgeois and peasants. The skilfulness of the composition, the har- mony and picturesque effect of the whole, the ingenious distribution of light and the delicacy of the colours give to this complicated work the aspect of life." — (A. M.)
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GIRL WITH CANDLE— Schulcken
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The Picture Gallery, by Teniers the Younger, usually attracts curious attention. It represents part of the gallery of Leopold William, Archduke of Austria. In it we see fifty pictures by Italian masters, copied exactly in miniature. Many of the originals hang in the vicinity of the work. (See page 310.)
" The Archduke is examining a picture placed on an easel and is pointing with his cane to David Teniers him- self to ask the name of the painter. Here all the per- sonages are portraits. The collection of the Archduke having passed to Vienna at the same time as this picture, critics and amateurs took pleasure in comparing with the originals these reduced but faithful copies. We admire the suppleness which allowed him to reproduce so well in little the large pictures where are found exactly the style of each master. The entire world praises the ar- rangement and the delicate touch of this beautiful work, the colour of which, though somewhat cold, has a lumi- nous transparency." — (A. M.)
Brueghel (Peasant) has eleven pictures that dis- play the various phases of his genius. The Com- bat between the Carnival and the Careme is one of his masterpieces. It might be called the Combat between Epicurianism and Asceticism. It takes place in the great square of the city. On the right are the corpulent followers of Epi- curus with full and rubicund faces; on the right are the partisans of abstinence with hard biscuits figured on their shields. Both forms and incidents are comic in the highest degree.
The Massacre of the Innocents, having hap- pened at Christmas, is a snow-scene. All are in Sixteenth-Century costumes. The March to Calvary is also a contemporary scene. Each thief is accompanied by a priest with a crucifix,
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exhorting him to repent! In the Combat be- tween the Hebrews and Philistines, the former are armed like Mediaeval Knights, and the latter like Moslems. Marvellous is the care be- stowed on the swarm of minute figures. Spring shows children playing all sorts of games in a public square. Kermesses and a Wedding are also full of humour. Nowhere else can this artist be studied to better advantage.
The Building of the Tower of Babel is one of his most celebrated pictures ; it is signed and dated 1563. Van Mander and Baldinucci speak of this as an exceptional work.
Valkenburg appears under several aspects, as a painter of rustic scenes imitating Brueghel the Elder, as a landscape and portrait painter.
" When he paints the country, he distinguishes himself above his forerunners by his choice of original motives. One landscape in which a chase animates the background and where the Archduke Mathias is seen fishing in the foreground is particularly successful. In the Portrait of the Margrave de Burgau, in Roman costume, the painter has followed the archaeological style of his time. The execution is minute ; but the tone is cold, the shading in- different and the flesh not very true to life." — (B. P.)
Schalcken's Girl with a Candle is a remark- able tour de force as a study of direct, transfused and reflected light.
Balthazar Denner's portraits of an Old Man and an Old Woman are remarkable for their minuteness of detail.
Balthazar Denner's ideal
" was the representation of old age, not that heroic old age that is saluted by the poet as the evening of a fine day, but that vulgar falling away which is called decrepi- tude, and which accumulates on a withered mask the
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seams, blotches and scars of the combat. Denner's con- temporaries did not agree with the modern critic, for the Emperor Charles VI. paid 5,875 florins for the Head of an Old Woman, and kept it under lock and key, showing it only to the privileged. The Old Man with Long Hair is a companion picture of equal celebrity. Mariette says that ' Denner does not know how to put a figure to- gether, and his brushwork is so fine that it escapes the most piercing eyes. He expresses the tiniest wrinkle of the flesh ; the smallest hair and the most imperceptible pore of the skin are rendered in such detail that we are sure that not one has been omitted." — (P. M.)
An unusal class of subjects for Snyders is the Biblical. His Terrestrial Paradise, however, is only an excuse for the treatment of all kinds of wild and tame animals. The creation of Eve is relegated to the rear.
Martin Van Heemskerk's pictures are scarce. He has three here.
" He turned to the contemporary Italian masters and surpassed them in labour and affectation. St. John in the Desert has nothing attractive in it. A mythological pic- ture, a Bacchanalc in which we should expect to find a little spirit, is repulsingly vulgar; the Triumph of Silenus is more convincing because it is inspired by a composition by Guilio Romano." — (B. P.)
The Treasure Seeker gives us a very high opinion of David Ryckaert's powers as a fantastic painter. An old woman, a kind of sorceress, is grubbing among ruins by the light of a torch. It is very finely composed and produces the strong- est effect. The painter was fond of artificial light effects. The Old Man Reading is a splendid work in which the light concentrated in a small space produces a dazzling effect. The volume on the desk seems to glitter. Rembrandt himself has never done better with chiaroscuro.
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The Town Market is true to nature, has great vivacity of expression, and is clear in colour. It is a charming picture.
Among several fine examples of German mas- ters conspicuous is the portrait by Burgkmaier of Himself and his Wife.
" To judge the quality of Burgkmaier as a portrait painter, nothing could serve better than the picture in which we see the artist and his wife, who holds a mirror, that, instead of their faces, reflects two death's-heads — a sinister allegory that perfectly represents the melancholy and mystical tendency of the period, and recalls analogous compositions of Diirer." — (A. D.)
The Crowing Cock is a magnificent example of Hondecocter's intimate knowledge and sympa- thetic treatment of poultry.
An interesting picture painted by Jan Fyt and Thomas Willeborts in collaboration is Diana's Repose.
"The ardent huntress is resting after her labours; her nymphs are tending the hounds and placing in order the pieces of game which they have brought in from their courses through the woods. Needless to say, in the brotherly competition established here between the two masters, victory remains with Willeborts."— (P. M.)
The Doctor Feeling the Pulse of a Young Patient (dated 1656), shows that Mieris had at- tained the height of his genius at the age of twenty- one. The sentiment of the heads, the distribution of the light, the harmonious scale of colours and the finish of the details were never carried farther by this painter.
In the Silk Mercer we feel the study that the young master has given to Metsu ; and we note the
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same care in giving to a simple picture of an in- terior the interest of a scene of Italian comedy.
Abraham Van Diepenbeck has an allegorical representation of the nothingness of human affairs.
" It is a work not only full of ideas, but of very happy execution. In the principal figure there is something of Faust's despairing scepticism. On a scroll in the clouds is the sentence: ' Nosce te ipsum' " — (B. P.)
Jan Van Kessel was not solely a skillful flower painter. One of his contemporaries enthusiasti- cally wrote:
" Animals particularly, animals without feathers, or birds little and big that move among the clouds, marine monsters that glide in the waves, footless reptiles that work in the sand, deformed monsters and strange crea- tures, Van Kessel has painted them as though they were alive, and his ability is not in the least noticeable, so nat- ural do they look."
Two pictures of this genre are here: one shows a room in which a company of monkeys are playing cards and smoking ; the other, a bar- ber's shop in which monkeys are combing and shaving cats.
Pieter Aertzen, familiarly called " Long Peter," has a characteristic work here. It rep- resents two peasants, a man and a woman, who . are selling butter and eggs and poultry in the foreground of a market, which occupies the en- tire background.
Joseph Heins, commonly called the Swiss, be- cause he was born at Basle, and noted for his deli- cate style, painted historical, sacred, mythological
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and allegorical works. As the productions of this artist are rare it is well to note that this gallery owns seven pictures by his hand, among which the best are Venus and Adonis, Diana and Actaeon, Christ on the Cross and more partic- ularly the Emperor Rudolph, painted in bust and dressed in black.
There are five excellent works by Frans Pour- bus.
" Two of these pictures — the image of a Knight of Calatrava and that of a charming young lady — are spe- cially remarkable for the dignity of their bearing and the luminous transparency of the colour. The fondness of this painter of observing nature and his fidelity in repro- ducing it became habitual, for the false style and manner of his master, Frans Floris, could not corrupt him." — (B. P.)
Frans Francken the Younger's religious pictures, Nicodemus and the Son of Man Talking by the Light of a Lamp and Christ on the Cross, are not of great moment, though their technique is good. His two pictures of Witches on the other hand, show a rich and an audacious imagination. The absence of all comic element proves that the painter really believed in magic and mysterious alliances of certain women with demons ; he shows down to the smallest details the lugubrious ritual of their departure for their Sab- bath; but a lively feeling for the beautiful makes him avoid in a similar subject horrible or disgust- ing circumstances. Among these wives of the kings of darkness several have forms young and charming enough to tempt the devil.
Frans Francken the Elder, seems to have liked
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architectural effects. His Cabinet d'amateur is filled with pictures, statues and other works of art. " The picture called Solon at the Court of King Croesus is arranged with taste and treated with remarkable ele- gance. The Feast takes place in a great Renaissance hall, of magnificent appearance and beautiful effect. More- over, all the guests are splendidly represented, the ele- gance of the personages corresponding with the splendour of the place."— (B. P.)
Sebastian Vranck has two pictures here. One is a valuable historical document, for it shows the interior of the Church of the Jesuits in Antwerp with all the pictures by Rubens before fire de- stroyed it in 1718. On the high-altar you see the Miracles of Saint Ignatius which this gallery owns. (See page 328.) The other work shows travellers in wagons, assailed by Spanish soldiers.
Among the pictures by Snayers twelve are historical works depicting the most memorable actions of the Archduke Leopold William and the Field Marshal Octave Piccolomini. The other four works are also battle scenes, one of which is a cavalry-charge near a river and a bridge. The other two portray respectively a troop of horse- men near a pond and a band of travellers riding through a verdurous landscape.
An Adoration of the Shepherds, by Van Oost the Elder, is a superior work. The Child Jesus is lying before his mother on a piece of white linen, and the daughter of the House of David gazes at the entering shepherds.
" She charms the eyes by her purity, her graceful fea- tures and her elegant proportions. Behind her stands St. Francis of Assisi, whom we are somewhat astonished to find in Bethlehem so soon after the Birth of Christ. A
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young shepherd, who is kneeling before the cradle, merits the greatest praise. The colours have a charm and a rare beauty and mingle very harmoniously." — (A. M.)
The works of A. C. Lens are very scarce in pub- lic galleries. His style and colour may be studied here in Jupiter and Juno Asleep on Mount Ida.
THE VENICE ACADEMY
VENICE THE Accaderaia di Belle Arti is situated in the
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old Scuola di Santa Maria della Carita (the oldest brotherhood in Venice, founded in 1260), on the Grand Canal. The picture gallery dates from 1798, and consists almost exclusively of Venetian painting's. The greatest treasure is Titian's Assumption. Of special interest are the pictures of old Venice by Gentile Bellini and Car- rjaccio.
The Academy is rich with the priceless work of the founder of the Venetian School, Giovanni Bellini. The Virgin and Six Saints, also known as the San Giobbe altar-piece, is a beautiful picture, painted for a chapel which was especially arranged to bring all its beauties into relief. It is the crowning work of this great master: it estab- lished his fame and led to his employment by the State. The three angels playing musical instru- ments at the foot of the throne are especially grace- ful.
"As a piece of oil painting and what the artists call composition with entire grasp and knowledge of the ac- tion of the human body, the perspectives of the human face, and the relations of shade to colour in expressing form, the picture is deservedly held unsurpassable." — (J. R.)
The Madonna with a Choir of Cherubs is an
early work, and is noted for the beauty of the Vir- gin and the wondering expression of the lovely 339
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Child, the landscape background and the circle of rosy cherubs in the sky.
" Here there is a conscious attempt at a strange effect of light, this time of early dawn, the pale apricot glow in the sky indicating the exact moment when the white of the Virgin's headdress becomes luminous, though the flesh is still dull in tone. The charming conceit of the choir of cherubim amusing the Infant Christ (now en- tirely human) marks the change in Bellini's feeling." — (R. E. F.)
In the Madonna between St. Catherine and Mary Magdalen, three beautiful female figures stand out from a dark-green background with great effect. The Virgin is in the centre hold- ing the Child ; on her right, St. Catherine with pearls and flowers in her hair; and on her left Mary Magdalen. The picture is very thinly painted and glazed.
" The illumination and the colour scheme are peculiar, and appear to have been suggested by a lamplight effect. The way in which the local colours are all modulated to a single key of rich golden brown is an anticipation of Ti- tian's art of arousing the sensation of colour by a varied monochrome. Here, for instance, so perfectly is the key kept throughout that the periwinkles in St. Catherine's hair appear blue, although the actual pigment is almost a brown grey." — (R. E. F.)
The Madonna of the Two Trees (1487) takes its name from the formal trees that stand on either side of the parapet of marble.
'' We know not which to admire most, the noble gravity of the mother or the pulsation of life in the Child. Bel- lini never so completely combined relief with transparence, or golden tinge of flesh with rich and tasteful harmony of tints. By dint of perseverance he had succeeded in los- ing all trace of hardness and acquired what may be called the Giorgionesque touch." — (C. and C.)
Another early work is the Virgin and Child
MADONNA OF THE TWO TREES— Bellini
VENICE ACADEMY
o
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between St. Paul and St. George. It has a red
hanging behind the Virgin, on each side of which the sky is visible.
" This work is unrivalled for its extreme precision of drawing, its breadth of light and shade, easy cast of drap- ery and bright enamel of colour." — (C. and C.)
Five Allegories are supposed to have been painted as panels for a cassone. They were doubt- less inspired by some mediaeval work.
" The art is classic like that of an old cameo, recalls the Florentines, Pollaiuolo, or Botticelli, reveals the study of the antiques treasured in the museums of Venetian pal- aces and breathes the spirit of Titian's later bacchanales. But the feeling, substance and handling are not so much a prelude to Titian as they are to Giorgione." — (C. and C.)
Gentile Bellini's True Cross tells a story. The Cross, having fallen into a canal during a pro- cession to St. Lorenzo, is saved by Andrea Ven- dramin, Guardian of the Confraternity. Catarina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, and her suite are among the spectators lining the sides of the canal. Foremost amongst a kneeling group on the right, is said to be the artist himself. The picture is particularly interesting as a record of Mediaeval Venetian architecture and the ancient type of gondola without the tall necked prow.
Gentile Bellini's Miracle of the Holy Cross is laid in the piazza S. Marco, showing the church of St. Mark in minute detail. The procession has issued from a gate between the church and the Ducal Palace. Near the shrine the Brescian mer- chant, Jacopo Salis, whose son was cured, is kneeling.
" The Procession in the Piazsa of Saint Mark is an archaeological curiosity. You see at once that it is St. Mark's Piazza in 1496. The Campanile did not exist, and,
342 THE ACADEMY
with a single exception the mosaics on the exterior were not the same as they are to-day. The finials on the facade, the arches, the statues and the horses from Corinth are gilded. The composition preserves a miraculous episode related by Ridolfi. A merchant of Brescia whose son had knocked his head against a column and was in danger of death, made a vow to the Holy Cross as the relic passed in the Procession on the Piazza of St. Mark and his son was cured. The members of the Brotherhood are present bearing candles in their hands and the square is filled with an animated crowd in brilliant and varied costumes. Here, where Giovanni Bellini would have given us touching ex- pression, Gentile only sees a vast parade, a luminous scene which pleases the eye and serves as an historical docu- ment."— (C. B.)
Titian's Assumption always has an admiring throng before it.
" The Assunta is one of Titian's greatest works, the one in which he attains his highest flight : the composition i- balanced and distributed with infinite artTTne upper portion, which is arched, represents Paradise: garlands of angels floating and submerged in a wave of light of incalculable depth, stars scintillating in the flame, and brighter glints of the everlasting light from the aureole of the Father, who arrives from the depths of the infinite with the action of a hovering eagle, accompanied by an archangel and a seraph whose hands support the crown and the nimbus.
" ThisTehovah, like a divine bird appearing head-fore- ^' horizontally foreshortened beneath a
wave of drapery flying open like wings, astonishes us by its sublime boldness; if it is possible for the brush of a human being to give 'a' countenance to divinity, certainly Titian has succeeded. Unlimited power and imperishable youth radiate from that white-bearded face that need only nod for the snows of eternity to fall : not since the Olympian Jove of Phidias has the lord of heaven and earth been represented more worthily.
" The centre of the picture is occupied by the Virgin Mary, who is surrounded by a wreath of angels and souls of the blessed: for she has no need of any aid to mount
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to Heaven ; she rises by the springing upward of her ro- bust faith, by tfie purity of her soul, which is lighter than the most luminous ether. Truly there is in this figure an unheard-of force of ascension. The Madonna is a very true, very living, and very real woman, with a beauty as solid as that of the Venus de Milo, or the sleeping wo- man in the Tribune of Florence.
" At the base of the picture, the apostles are grouped in happily-contrasted attitudes of rapture and surprise. Two or three little angels, who link them to the inter- mediary zone of the composition, seem to be explaining to them the miracle that is taking place. The heads of the - apostles, who are of various ages and characters, are painted with a surprising force of vitality and reality. The ^ draperies are of that fullness and abundant flow that char- ^ acterise "Titian as the richest and at the same time the simplest of all painters." — (T. G.)
The Pieta was the picture at which Titian was working when death claimed him at the age of ninety-nine.
" This picture, so grave and melancholy, the subject of which seems a presentiment, represents a Descent from the Cross. The sky is dark, a livid gleam illumines the corpse piously held by Joseph of Arimathea and Magdalen. They are both sad, sombre, and depressed, and seem to despair of their Lord's resurrection. In fact, TJtjan never painted a more lifeless corpse. For the first time, the great Ve- netian has lost his ancient and unalterable serenity. The shadow of approaching death seems to struggle with the light of the painter who always had sunlight on his palette, and envelops the picture in a cold twilight. The^^rtisCs hand froze before his task was finished, as is shown by an inscription in the corner: 'The work which Titian left unfinished, £ajjflik respectfully completed, and offered \S to God.' This noble, touching, and religious inscription makes a monument of this picture. Great painter as Palma was, he could only have approached the master's work with trepidation, and his brush, able as it was, doubtless hesitated and vacillated more than once as it went over Titian's strokes." — (T. G.)
The Presentation in the Temple is the finest
344 THE ACADEMY
and most complete creation of Venetian art since the Peter Martyr and the Madonna di Casa, Pesaro.
"It was in the nature of Titian to represent a subject like this as a domestic pageant of his own time, and seen in this light, it is exceedingly touching and surprisingly beautiful. Mary in a dress of celestial blue ascends the steps of the temple in a halo of radiance. She pauses on the first landing place, and gathers her skirts, to ascend to the second. The flight is in profile before us. At the top of it the high priest in Jewish garments looks down at the girl with serene and kindly gravity, a priest in cardinal's robes at his side, a menial in black behind him, and a young acolyte in red and yellow holding the book of prayer. At the bottom are people looking up, some leaning on the edge of the steps, others about to ascend, — Anna, with a matron in company ; Joachim turning to address a friend. Curious people press forward to wit- ness the scene, and a child baits a little dog with a cake. Behind and to the left and with grave solemnity, some dignitaries are moving. Uniting the majestic lines of a composition perfect in the balance of its masses with an effect unsurpassed in its contrasts of light and shade, the genius of the master has laid the scene in palatial archi- tecture of great simplicity. From the windows and bal- conies the spectators look down upon the ceremony, or converse with the groups below. With instinctive tact the whole of these are kept in focus by appropriate grada- tions of light, which enable Titian to give the highest prominence to the Virgin, though she is necessarily smaller than any other person present. The bright radiance round her fades as it recedes to the more remote groups in the picture, the forms of which are cast into deeper gloom in proportion as they are more distant from the halo, the monumental dignity of the groups and architecture X*Mhe distance perfectly corresponds. We admire the won- derful expressiveness of the painter's mountain lines. The splendid contrast of palaces and Alps tells of the master who was born at Cadore, yet lived at Venice. The har- mony of the colours is so true and ringing, and the chords are so subtle, that the eye takes in the scene as if it were
VENICE 345
one of natural richness, unconscious of the means by which that richness is attained.
" The picture is built up in colours, the landscape is not a symbol, but scenic, and the men and palaces and hills are seen living or life-like in sun and shade and air. In \f this gorgeous yet masculine and robust realism Titian V*~ shows his great originality and claims to be the noblest \s~ representative of the Venetian school of colour." — (C. v and C.)
St. Mark Rescuing a Slave is an early Tin- toret in his full Titianesque golden tone.
" In this picture, perhaps for the first time, Tintoretto goes beyond all the traditional Venetian aims in painting. The scene is far more living, and rather confused. The artist tries for foreshortenings of the most difficult kind, and betrays, for instance, in the ugly Saint floating head downwards, that all higher considerations are nothing to him, as long as he has the opportunity to display his mas- tery of external means. (Rubens studied much from this picture.) There is also an equally beautifully painted, but frivolous representation of the /4</M//r£.M, who shows that she has no respect for the commonplace Christ." — (J- B.)
The Fall of Man, sometimes simply called Adam and Eve, and the Death of Abel are un- fortunately rather at a disadvantage by having their quiet warm brown colouring thrust into too close proximity to the Miracle of St. Mark, and all three pictures suffer from the colour of the wall. The Death of Abel is the finer composi- tion.
" There is no artificiality about it, no struggle for bal- ance and symmetry, which is perhaps just evident in the other; and the result is completely satisfactory because it defies analysis. The conception is as good as the com- position ; the tempest of motion that the winds of passion have stirred — the sad world of sombre browns — with just a hope of better things suggested in the blue vista be- yond. There is plenty of colour, nevertheless, in these
346 THE ACADEMY
low tones, exquisitely lovely in their gradations, and the
drawing is no less wonderful than the colour. Only
Raphael could have drawn a figure so splendid as that of
'Abel. But if this pose and its contours are a marvel,
| what is to be said of the modelling of Adam's back in
>the companion picture? Many think it unsurpassed in
^this world."— (J. B. S. H.)
Mantegna's St. George is notable for a land- scape marvellous in its detailed truthfulness:
" To which give ten minutes quietly, and examine it with a magnifying glass of considerable power. For in that you have a perfect type of the Italian methods of execu- tion corresponding to the finish of the Dutch painters in the north ; but far more intellectual and skilful. You cannot see more wonderful work, in minute drawing with the point of the brush ; the virtue of it being that not only every touch is microscopically minute, but that, in this minuteness, every touch is considered and every touch right. It is to be regarded, however, only as a piece of workmanship. It is wholly without sentiment, though the distant landscape becomes affecting through its detailed truth — the winding road under the rocks, and the towered city, being .as full of little pretty things to be searched out as a natural scene would be." — (R.)
Finest of Veronese's paintings here is his grand altar-piece from San Zaccaria. The Madonna is a beautiful and high-bred Venetian lady, and the richly attired prelate bending before her has little of the saint about him. The freedom and full, broad manner of the picture, and the brilliant, though most tender, colour are altogether superb. In these respects, it is surely one of the finest of pictures.
A large Madonna Enthroned with Saints is a splendid composition in which the figures are finely modelled, especially the infant St. John.
" This is a characteristic example of the master, espe- cially in its chromatic scheme. St. Jerome's head is of a
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noble type. He is represented in a crimson velvet hood and a watered silk robe of a pale rose tint ; the whole ex- quisitely harmonized. The marble inlay of the pedestal is carefully and delicately rendered." — (C. L. E.)
The Supper in the House of Levi was appro- priately paid for, in part, with a few barrels of wine, the rest being what the poor monks could scrape together in the way of alms and penalties to replace a burned Titian in their refectory.
" Many of the figures, especially that of the master of the feast, are full of the noblest Venetian character. It was this picture that caused him to be hauled before the Inquisition for his irreverence in painting buffoons, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs, and similar indecencies, at supper with our Lord. It resembles the other feasts in the Louvre and elsewhere except that in this the archi- tecture occupies too large a place. It not only fills the whole upper part of the composition, dividing it into ar- cades decorated with female bas-reliefs, but it is continued below, where, as ever, we see pages playing with big hounds in the balustered staircases, negroes bringing in beakers, and blonde Venetian ladies with golden locks." — (C. B.)
" We could not leave Venice without going to the Academy if only to see one picture by Veronese among many others. I speak of the Virgin Presenting her Son to St. Jerome, St. Francis and St. Justine, a marvel of colour. The little St. John, who, standing on a pedestal, is giving his hand to St. Francis, is a delicious piece of morbidezza, grace and freshness. The composition is strange and lacking in unity, the personages are placed without relation to one another, or speaking to one an- other. The Infant Jesus is simply adorable. And what life-like heads ! What an unexplicable enchantment ! What irresistible magic! " — (C. B.)
By Carpaccio there are eleven important pictures, eight from the legend of St. Ursula. Ruskin rec- ommends looking at them in the following order.
" I. Maurus, the King of Brittany, receives the English
348 THE ACADEMY
ambassadors, and has talk with his daughter touching their embassy. II. St. Ursula's Dream. III. King Maurus dismisses the English ambassadors with favourable answer from his daughter. (This is the most beautiful piece of painting in the rooms.) IV. The King of England receives the Princess's favourable answer. V. The Prince of Eng- land sets sail for Brittany, there receives his bride, and embarks with her on pilgrimage. VI. The Prince of Eng- land and his bride, voyaging on pilgrimage with the eleven thousand maidens, arrive at Rome, and are received by the Pope, who, 'with certain Cardinals,' joins their pil- grimage. (The most beautiful of all the series, next to the Dream.) VII. The Prince with his bride, and the Pope with his Cardinals, and the eleven thousand maids, arrive in the land of the Huns, and receive martyrdom there. In the second part of the picture is the funeral pro- cession of St. Ursula. VIII. Ursula, with her maidens, and the pilgrim Pope, and certain Cardinals, in glory of Paradise. The architecture and landscape are unsurpass- ably fine ; the rest much imperfect ; but containing noble- ness only to be learned by long dwelling on it."
In the Dream of St. Ursula
" Carpaccio has taken much pains to explain to us, as far as he can, the kind of life she leads, by completely painting her little bedroom in the light of dawn, so that you can see everything in it. It is lighted by two doubly- arched windows, the arches being painted crimson round their edges, and the capitals of the shafts that bear them, gilded. They are filled at the top with small round panes of glass ; but beneath, are open to the blue morning sky, with a low lattice across them ; and in the one at the back of the room are set two beautiful white Greek vases with a plant in each ; one having rich dark and pointed green leaves, the other crimson flowers.
" These flower-pots stand on a shelf which runs all round the room, and beneath the window, at about the height of the elbow, and serves to put things on any- where : beneath it, down to the floor, the walls are cov- ered with green cloth; but above are bare and white. The second window is nearly opposite the bed, and in front of it is the princess's reading-table covered by a red
03
VENICE 349
cloth with a white border and dainty fringe; and beside it her seat, a very small three-legged stool like a music stool, covered with crimson cloth. On the table are a book set upon a slope fittest for reading, and an hour-glass. Un- der the shelf, so as to be easily reached by the out- stretched arm, is a press full of books. Opposite this win- dow, on the white wall, is a small shrine, or picture, with a lamp before it, and a silver vessel hung from the lamp, looking like one for holding incense.
" The bed is a broad four-poster, the posts being beau- tifully wrought golden or gilded rods, variously wreathed and branched, carrying a canopy of warm red. The princess's shield is at the head of it, and the feet are raised entirely above the floor of the room, on a dais which pro- jects at the lower end so as to form a seat, on which the child has laid her crown. Her little blue slippers lie at the side of the bed, — her white dog beside them, the cover- lid is scarlet, the white sheet folded half way back over it; the young girl lies straight, bending neither at waist nor knee, the sheet rising and falling over her in a narrow unbroken wave, like the shape of the coverlid of the last sleep, when the turf scarcely rises. She is some seven- teen or eighteen years old, her head is turned towards us on the pillow, the cheek resting on her hand, as if she were thinking, yet utterly calm in sleep, and almost col- ourless. Her hair is tied with a narrow riband, and di- vided into two wreaths, which encircle her head like a double crown. The white nightgown hides the arm raised on the pillow, down to the wrist.
" At the door of the room an angel enters (the little dog, though lying awake, vigilant, takes no notice). He is a very small angel, his head just rises a little above the shelf round the room, and would only reach as high as the princess's chin, if she were standing up. He has soft grey wings, lustreless; and his dress, of subdued blue, has violet sleeves, open above the elbow, and showing white sleeves below. He comes in without haste, his body, like a mortal one, casting shadow from the light through the door behind, his face perfectly quiet; a palm-branch in his right hand — a scroll in his left.
" So dreams the princess, with blessed eyes, that need no earthly dawn. But the lovely characteristic of all is the evident delight of her continual life. Royal power
350 THE ACADEMY
over herself, and happiness in her flowers, her books, her sleeping and waking, her prayers, her dreams, her earth, her heaven." — (R.)
Bordone's Fisherman Presenting St. Mark's Ring to the Doge treats of a popular Venetian legend. One night three mysterious persons bade a gondolier take them to the Lido. Soon the lagoon began to chop and swell strangely, the waves gleamed with sinister lights ; monstrous apparitions approached to the great terror of the gondolier ; and hideous devils, half man, half fish, seemed to swim from the Lido towards Venice, making the waves emit thousands of sparks and exciting the tempest with whistling and fiendish laughter in the storm ; but the shining swords of the two knights and the extended hand of the saintly per- sonage made them recoil and vanish. The battle lasted for a long time ; new demons constantly suc- ceeded the others ; however, the victory remained with the personages in the boat, who had them- selves taken back to the landing of the Piazzetta. As they were about to separate, the oldest of the group said to the gondolier : " I am Saint Mark, the patron of Venice. I learned to-night that the devils assembled at the Lido had determined to bring on a frightful tempest and overthrow my beloved city." St. Mark then gave his ring to the gondolier and told him to take it to the Doge.
" The moment selected by Paris Bordone is that when the gondolier falls on his knees before the Doge. The composition of the scene is very picturesque ; you see in perspective a long row of the brown or grey heads of sen- ators of the most magisterial character. Curious spec- tators are on the steps, forming happily-contrasted groups : the beautiful Venetian costume is displayed here in all its splendour. Here, as in all the canvases of this school, an
VENICE 351
important place is given to architecture. The background is occupied by fine porticos in the style of Palladio, ani- mated with people coming and going. This picture pos- sesses the merit, sufficiently rare in the Italian school, which is almost exclusively occupied with the reproduction of religious or mythological subjects, of representing a popular legend, a scene of manners, in a word, a romantic subject such as Delacroix or Louis Boulanger might have chosen and treated according to his own special talent; and this gives it a character of its own and an individual charm." — (T. G.)
Another picture here, which has been attrib- utd to various painters (Vasari gives it to Palma Vecchio), represents the Combat between the Saints and Demons.
" The tempest in the Venice academy — that spacious, but inky, canvas, in which the large and impulsive hand- ling of an advanced Sixteenth Century craftsman is ap- parent under layers of more recent deposit — was never touched by Giorgione, or, if it was, underwent such com- plete transformation as to appear in part at least — by Paris Bordone ; nor can we reconcile the calm and refined individuality of the painter of the Pitti Concert with the wildness of this stormy sea, the fantastic agility of the imps in the rigging of the labouring galley, or the muscu- lar mould of the brawny fisher under straining at the row-locks before the saints in the distant bark have quelled the fury of the waves." — (C. and C.)
The Cure of a Lunatic, by Carpaccio, is a scene on the Grand Canal, near the old wooden Rialto bridge, in which the Patriarch di Grado, by vir- tue of the relics of the Holy Cross, delivers a man possessed of a devil. On the left, officers of state are gathered under the portico of a palace.
" In the loggia above, a crowd of ecclesiastics (some bearing large and massive candalabra) pay reverence to the sacred relics. The foreground is occupied by boats and gondolas in which richly-attired persons are sitting.
352 THE ACADEMY
The gondoliers are gaily and picturesquely attired. The roofs and chimneys of -Gothic Venice, set against the warm tones of an evening sky, are very truthful in ef- fect. The faces of many of the figures have great char- acter and expression." — (C. L. E.)
The Presentation in the Temple is an excel- lent example of Carpaccio's later manner when he painted with a full brush and his execution was supple.
" It is signed and dated 1510; and is generally consid- ered his masterpiece. The Virgin, holding the Child and followed by two women of exquisite grace, presents her Son to Simeon who, superbly robed, bows before Him. In the lower part of the picture, three angels, celestial musicians, complete the composition, and temper its se- verity by the familiar grace of their infantile attitudes. To the feeling of the heads and the religious fervour, is also joined the charm of a powerful and unctuous colouring." -(P. M.)
Bartolommeo Vivarini's Madonna and Four Saints (1464) is one of the master's earliest works, being- painted with the old Byzantine taste on a gold ground.
" A noble picture ; not of any supreme genius, but com- pletely containing the essence of Venetian art." — (R.)
Rocco Marconi, who was a devoted follower of Palma Vecchio and whose style also resembles the Spaniard, Juan de Juanes, has a masterpiece here, full of grandeur and touching expression.
" Few have equalled his colouring in glow and trans- parency. He was very unequal in his characters, but put forth his whole strength in a great effort — the Descent from the Cross." — (J. B.)
Cima da Conegliano has two masterpieces here: Christ between St. Thomas and St. Magnus
VENICE 353
and Tobias and the Angel with St. Nicholas of Bari and St. James. The latter is
" an entirely sincere and noble picture of the central epoch. Not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and praiseworthy in all; and, as a conception of its subject, the most beautiful you will find in Venice." — (R.)
Boccaccio Boccaccino (of Cremona), who some- times shows the influence of Cima, rather reveals his indebtedness to Vivarini in a beautiful com- position of high finish.
" It is a Madonna with Four Saints (Peter, John, Cath- erine and Rosa) seated in the open air; one of the earliest and most beautiful examples of this type of Holy Con- versations with kneeling and sitting figures in a land- scape around them, for which, later on, Palma and Titian showed such strong predilection." — (J. B.)
Bonifazio's Banquet of Dives is an invasion of the domains of Veronese.
" Bonifazio was a portrait painter. His studied and characteristically individual faces faithfully recall the patrician types of Venice who so often posed for him. The anachronism of the costume shows that Lazarus is merely a pretext, and that the real subject of the picture is a banquet of the lords with courtesans, their mistresses, in one of those beautiful palaces that bathe their marble feet in the green water of the Grand Canal." — (T. G.)
There are two fine works by Marco Basaiti.
" To 1510 belongs the Calling of the Sons of Zebedee; and, to the same time, the Agony in the Garden, with the hanging lamp and leafless tree seen against a solemn toned evening sky — a picture of great earnestness in the person of the Saviour." — (A. H. L.)
Pordenone's San Lorenzo Guistiniani with six other figures has a great reputation.
" The composition unites all the peculiar qualities of
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the master, and we can see that a supreme effort has been made to produce a grand impression." — (C. and C.)
Very celebrated is Christ at the Column, by Antonello da Messina.
" The head of Christ is wild and superb, the lips are half open and seem to cry out, the black eyes are raised to Heaven with an extraordinary expression of anguished desolation. The execution is rather hard and dry, but the work is poignant in sentiment and irresistibly eloquent." — (P. M.)
In a gallery that contains few examples of the early art of the Netherlands, Lucas van Leyden's Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine is conspicu- ous. It has a charming landscape background. The vine-leaves on the arched trellis behind the Virgin's throne are painted with loving minuteness.
Bernard Van Orley has a delicate and carefully studied portrait of a Young Woman.
Of the Primitivis, there is an exquisite portrait of Lorenzo Fraimont, by Roger Van der Wey- den.
" The hands, remarkable for their delicate modelling are clasped in prayer. The warm brown flesh tones are scarcely relieved by shadow. Dark blue background. This most interesting and exquisitely finished work was for- merly ascribed to Holbein." — (C. L. E.)
THE BRERA MILAN
IN the Palazzo di Brera, built for a Jesuit College in 1651, and now the home of science, letters and art, the Picture Gallery founded in 1806 is housed. The collection has been greatly enlarged since 1901. The Brera is rich in examples of the Lom- bard and Venetian Schools. The gem of the Gallery is regarded as Raphael's Sposalizio.
In 1503, the Franciscans of Citta di Castello ordered a picture representing the Marriage of the Virgin. It was delivered the following year ; and, in general character, greatly resembles the same subject, painted in 1496, by his master, Peru- gino, in whose studio he was then working.
" Nothing could be more unjust than to say that Raph- ael only followed his master. The art of composition, which is nothing in Perugino, belongs to Raphael. In the grouping of the Brera picture there is none of the stability of the other ; we no longer see in evidence the precise point that forms the centre of gravity of the whole mass ; but the picturesque equilibrium is definitely established; the air circulates more freely among the people who are more closely assembled. The drawing, the movement of every figure, the arrangement of the draperies, the ex- pression of the heads — all differ entirely. Without any loss of sincerity, every figure reveals a science unknown to Perugino. If the contours are finer, the colour also is more suave and learned, and in this respect also it eclipses Perugino's work." — (F. A. G.)
The famous Pieta, by Giovanni Bellini, is an extraordinary conception. The dead Christ is ap- 355
356 THE BRERA
parently standing, supported by the Virgin and St. John, whose faces grief renders repulsively ugly. The three figures are life-size, but visible only to the waist. There is a landscape background of con- ventional treatment.
A whole collection of frescoes by Luini has been removed from various chapels into this gallery.
" In quiet devotional pictures of this kind, where the subjects protected him from unsymmetrical arrangement, his loveliness is enchanting. The remaining frescoes here appear to be pretty early ; for instance, in the somewhat timid mythological and genre subjects, the naivete of which quite indicates the coming glow of the golden time ; and also the pictures from the life of the Virgin and the well-known simple and beautiful composition of the Angels Carrying the Body of St. Catherine." — (J. B.)
St. Catherine Carried away by Angels is the
finest of Luini's frescoes.
" Its grace is inimitable, because it is not in the least laboured, and it seems to have been found in one of those divine dreams that traverse the souls of poets. Luini has represented the saint asleep rather than dead. One might say that she had fainted in an ecstasy and would awake in the delights of Paradise. Three angels respectfully bear in flight the delicate and immaculate body that is weighted by no venial sin and that exhales the odour of sanctity. There is something of Raphael in Luini." — (C. B.)
The Brera is particularly rich in works by Crivelli. A Crucifixion, a splendid Coronation of the Virgin, a Virgin and Child with Four Saints, and a Virgin and Child are of the first rank among his works. In the Crucifixion, the landscape is most charming; the Coronation ex- hibits Crivelli's most advanced style regarding the unity of composition, wealth of detail, and a sky
MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN— Raphael THE BRERA
MADOXXA OF THE ROSE HEDGE— Limit'
THE BRERA
MILAN 357
instead of his usual gold background; the Ma- donna and Saints is painted in the form of a triptych (all three subjects being painted on a single panel), the Virgin and Child on a marble throne, occupying the centre, St. Peter and St. Dominic on the left, and St. Geminianus and St. Peter Martyr on the right; and the Virgin and Child (No. 193) is a late work. The Virgin's gold and blue brocade mantle falling in rich folds is superbly painted. Note the vase of lilies and roses on the lowest step of the throne, the small votive taper on the left, and, above all, the won- derful treatment of the flowers and fruit. The Virgin is queenly and human.
" It is one of the finest of the whole group, and as a work of art forms a worthy conclusion to Crivelli's career as a painter. The Virgin is a grand and statuesque figure. Nothing could be finer than the pose and magnificent drapery of this figure. The Child is less successful. The canopy of the throne is formed by arches of fruit and foliage, full and rich in design. As a whole, nothing more satisfactory was ever produced by Crivelli." — (G. McN.
R-)
Mantegna has two remarkable works here, his most salient characteristics being exhibited in the Dead Christ.
"It is a picture in which his grandest style is im- pressed, foreshortened with disagreeable boldness, but with surprising truth, studied from nature, and imitating light, shade and reflection with a carefulness and perse- verance only equalled by Leonardo and Diirer; displaying at the same time an excess of tragic realism, and a pain- ful unattractiveness in the faces of the Maries." — (C. and C.)
One of the gems of the gallery is a great altar- piece in twelve compartments by this master. The
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niches are filled with saints, Christ and the Virgin, painted on a gold ground. Some of the costumes are painted with exquisite delicacy and sense of colour.
Gentile Bellini's St. Mark Preaching at Alex- andria is in a setting of Moorish architecture, and the turbans and Oriental costumes of many of the spectators remind us of the artist's residence in Constantinople and his studies there. The indi- vidual character of some of the heads shows that they are portraits. The picture is one of rare artistic merit.
" The composition is fine, the figures have the individ- uality which he imparted, and the whole scene is full of stern and solid power." — (C. and C.)
The Madonna of the Rose Hedge is one of the most beautiful of Luini's works, in which the Virgin is seated in front of a trellis-work and roses. The Child is about to pluck Luini's fa- vourite flower, the columbine, growing in "a vase by His side.
Lorenzo Lotto has a Pieta and three fine por- traits.
" The best is an old man in a black dress. The female may be noted for the beauty of the costume rather than that of the wearer." — (C. L. E.)
Other critics, however, think that the lady's
" fine chiselled features, extremely pure in drawing, charm by their mild expression. A delicate but healthy complex- ion is displayed in warm sweet tones of extraordinary transparence ; and masterly transitions lead the eye from opal lights into rich and coloured shadows." — (C. and C.)
Titian's St. Jerome " is, pictorially, a lofty poetical work, energetic in form,
MILAN 359
beautiful in lines, a pleasant ensemble of the nude, the red drapery, the linen, with the steep hollow way as background ; only the expression of the inspired ascetic is not sufficiently inward." — (J. B.)
His Count Porica is considered one of the finest portraits in the gallery.
Tintoret's Finding of the Body of St. Mark is a typical impressionist picture of consummate power that can hardly fail to strike the most casual observer.
"It is low in tone, but with wonderful colour; the up- per part is cool with fine blue greys, while the lower part is of a rich golden brown. A startling note of colour is introduced by the figure on the left, which is clad in robes of blue and a high-toned red much cooled. The delicate variety of colour in the golden browns of the female fig- ure on the right is a characteristic piece of the master's best work."— (J. B. S. H.)
Domenichino's Madonna with Saints is justly celebrated.
" With his great sense of beauty, he can not throw off the commonness of the Bolognese forms. In his angels, he follows Correggio very obviously, as is seen in the large picture at the Brera." — (J. B.)
Leonardo's pupil, Beltraffio, is represented by a single work; and that, though exceedingly fine, is of contested attribution.
" It is a semi-nude figure of St. John the Baptist, with a dark grey mantle thrown carelessly over his loins and shoulders. The limbs are well drawn and modelled; the colour subdued and mellow, and the shadows soft and diffused, especially on the features." — (C. L. E.)
A striking work by Ercole de Roberti is a Ma- donna Enthroned, attended by two male and two female saints.
360 THE BRERA
What is generally regarded as Bartolommeo Montagna's masterpiece is the Virgin and Child Enthroned. She is supported by SS. Andrew, Monica, Sigismund, and Ursula. Three charming angel figures are playing stringed instruments on the steps of the throne. The faces are unusually expressive.
Cima da Conegliano has six works, none of which is more characteristic of the master, or re- fined in taste and execution, than St. Peter En- throned.
" In an open loggia enriched with details of cinque cento architecture, St. Peter, in Papal vesture and tiara, sits en- throned in the act of benediction. On either side stand St. John the Baptist and St. Paul. At the base of the throne sits a youthful angel playing on a lute. These figures are designed with great dignity and devotional feeling. The composition is well balanced without ob- trusive formality, and the whole work may be considered one of the gems of the collection." — (C. L. E.)
Two other altar-pieces by Cima that are par- ticularly admired are Madonna Enthroned, ac- companied by the Saints John the Baptist, Sebas- tian, Roche and Magdalen ; and St. Peter Martyr, with St. Nicholas of Bari and St. Augus- tine on either side.
" In the distance is a carefully-painted landscape, repre- senting the side of a lake skirted by a road, with moun- tains beyond. There is little or no positive colour in the composition, with the exception of the blue dress of the in- fant angel at the foot of the pedestal." — (C. L. E.)
Bonafazio's Finding of Moses is a rich and beautiful composition, full of anachronisms allow- able in a work in which the poetry of form and colour is realised with such surpassing excellence.
MILAN 361
Pharaoh's daughter is a sumptuous Venetian lady surrounded by elegant courtiers of both sexes. They are strolling in a lovely Italian landscape.
" Warm tints predominate, but a detailed examination of the costumes will show how ingeniously the orange and russet browns and toned crimson stuffs are opposed to dark blue, dark green, and black velvets. The faces of the figures are nearly all in broad light, and are full of ex- pression. In action all the figures are graceful and inter- esting, save one, an old man." — (C. L. E.)
Gerolamo Savoldo's large Madonna on clouds is one of his best works. Veronese is also well represented in this gallery.
" In his Holy Conversations, Veronese follows the ar- rangement of the later works of Titian; the Saints are, for instance, freely grouped around the pedestal on which the Madonna is seated. The most beautiful of these pic- tures, St. Cornelius, St. Anthony the Abbot, and St. Cy- prian, along with a priest and a page, is here." — (J. B.)
Great pictures of the Dutch and Flemish Schools are almost entirely wanting. The Brera possesses a female half-length portrait in the well-known early manner of Rembrandt, signed with his name and the year 1632. Van Dyck has an excellent three-quarter length of a blonde young English- woman.
THE ACADEMY FLORENCE
THE Accademia di Belle Arti, housed in what was originally St. Matthew's Hospital, in the Via Ri- casoli, contains a remarkable collection of Italian paintings from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries. Characteristic works of the Tuscan and Umbrian Schools are here exhibited. Cima- bue's Madonna Enthroned with eight angels is one of the oldest pictures extant. Giotto's Ma- donna Enthroned shows an anvance in form and expression, particularly in the heads of the angels. The gradual development of the Madonna from the conventional Byzantine type to the human woman as portrayed by Gaddi, Fra Angelico, Ghirlandaio, Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Perugino, Signorelli L. de Credi and Andrea del Sarto, may be traced in splendid examples by these masters.
The most popular picture is Botticelli's Spring, a fanciful work suggested by a passage from Lu- cretius, and painted for Cosimo de' Medici's villa at Castello, at the same time as the Venus in the Uffizi (see p. 400). It is supposed that the cen- tral figure is a portrait of one of the Medici, and that the other figures are allegorical of the vir- tues attributed to her or to her family.
" What Botticelli was, Spring will tell us ; and this work is so significant, its essence expresses the thought of the master so clearly, that it has' preserved all its charm for us, although its particular meaning is not known to us. We call it Spring, but if one of the figures in the pic-
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FLORENCE 363
ture really represents Spring, it is only an accessory fig- ure ; and, moreover, this name given to the picture is en- tirely modern. Vasari says that it represents Venus sur- rounded by the Graces, but if we find the three Graces in the picture, it is not likely that the principal figure represents Venus. In my opinion, it is that principal fig- ure that is the key to the picture ; it is for this figure that everything has been done and this it is, above all, that we must interrogate if we wish to know Botticelli's meaning. Evidently it is neither Venus, nor Spring; and the pre- cision of the features, and the fidelity of the smallest de- tails of the costume make us believe that we are in the presence of a veritable portrait. . . . Around her, Nature adorns herself with flowers ; Spring and the Graces surround her like a train of Fays. Here is one of the familiar poetical forms of the Fifteenth Century; and, doubtless, by attentively reading the Florentine poets, we should discover the meaning of all the allegorical fig- ures that Botticelli has united in his work and which we do not understand.1
" But whatever may be the particular meaning of each of these figures it is certain that here we have to do with love and beauty, and that perhaps in no other work may we find the charm of woman described in more pas- sionate accents.
" Look at these young maidens of Botticelli's. What a heavenly vision ! Did Alfred de Musset know these veiled forms that seem to float over the meadow and did he think of them in the sleeplessness of his nights in May? Did he think of that young girl whose arm rises supple as the stem of a flower, of that young Grace so charming in the frame of her fair hair confined by strings of pearls, or, indeed, of that Primavera, who advances so imper- iously beautiful, in her long robe of brocade, scattering handfuls of flowers that she makes blossom, or of that
1 See notably the Stanse of Politian, where one will find nearly all the details of Botticelli's picture; the shady grove, the flowery meadow, even the attitudes and the garments of the personages. Is it not a figure of Botti- celli's which is thus described : —
" She is white and white is her robe, All painted with flowers, roses, and blades of grass."
364 THE ACADEMY
young mother more charming stiU in her modest grace, with her beautiful eyes full of infinite tenderness? And around this scene what a beautiful frame of verdure and flowers ! Nature has donned her richest festal robes ; the inanimate things, like the human beings, all speak of love and happiness, and tell us that the master of this world is that little child with bandaged eyes, who amuses him- self by shooting his arrows of fire.
" To say a word about the technique of this work, we should remark that Botticelli always painted in fresco or distemper, and that he did not seek the supple modelling that painting in oil affords ; and, on the other hand, he submitted profoundly to the influence of Pollaiuolo; he observed Nature with the eyes of a goldsmith ; and he painted his works as if, working a niello or enamel, he had. to set each figure in gold-wire.
" Finally, is it necessary to speak of the date of the Primavera? Most historians, relying upon Vasari, place nearly all of Botticelli's works before his trip to Rome in 1481. I think, on the contrary, that the great productive period of Botticelli belongs to the ten last years of the century and that the Primavera should be classed in this period. The Primavera represents, with The Birth of Venus and The Adoration of the Magi, the culminating point of Botticelli's art." — (M. Rey.)
The Madonna with Two Seraphs, between Barnabas, Michael, John the Evangelist, Ambrose and Catherine of Alexandria, is also a remarkable work.
" The Madonna appears enthroned in a very rich and imposing architectural scene, between six saints standing in the foreground, and two cherubim by her side, pro- vided with instruments of martyrdom, the whole revealed to us by two other angels drawing aside the heavy and massive curtains before the heavenly throne. This beau- tiful work is distinguished by a severe symmetry of com- position."— (K. W,)
The Coronation of the Virgin is greatly ad- mired.
" By its oblong arched shape it contrasts with the
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FLORENCE ACADEMY
FLORENCE 365
broader pieces of Fra Filippo dealing with the same sub- ject. Here again the scene is laid in the open, unconfined celestial regions. God the Father, in papal robes, reminds us of the corresponding figure of Fra Filippo's work; but the Madonna, as she kneels with crossed hands, in the deepest and most earnest lowliness before the Highest, is a genuine Botticelli figure. Very characteristic also are his angels strewing roses in the heavens round about the hallowed scene, and dancing in rows, with rich and flowing draperies, though somewhat mannered in their foldings. In an open, simple landscape beneath are fond noble-look- ing saints with expressive heads, and robes grandly handled."— (K. W.)
It is interesting to compare this with Fra Filippo Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin, one of his masterpieces.
" The picture, broader than high, is enclosed above by three curved lines, in the centre and highest of which God the Father is enthroned in papal robes placing the crown on the Virgin kneeling on the step before him and arrayed as a bride. All the rest of the space is filled by hosts of saints and angels. The corner to the front, on the right of the observer, is occupied by John the Baptist, that on the left by the bishop St. Ambrose. An excep- tionally fine group of saints is disposed right in front, and beneath the throne of the Most High, in the centre fore- ground, the space occupied by them being screened off by rails of an architectural description. Amongst these fig- ures especially remarkable is a beautiful and most life- like female kneeling to the right and gazing on the spec- tator with an expression of indescribable grace, childish guilelessness, and, at the same time, a deep and thought- ful look, which seems almost to question you. Before her kneel two children, evidently belonging to her. Behind her, at the feet of John the Baptist, kneels a Carmelite friar, with folded hands, gazing on her with an expression of passionate fervour. That this Carmelite brother is no other than the artist Fra Filippo himself he has evidently wished to leave us in no doubt, for an angel, somewhat lower down in front of him, bears a scroll waving towards him and containing the Latin words, 'Is perfecit opus,'
366 THE ACADEMY
that is ' he did this work.' And it may be taken for granted that the woman with the children, on whom he gazes almost worshippingly, must have stood on close terms of intimacy with him.
" The two side semicircular compartments are entirely filled with angels, who, with their long robes, stand as firmly on their feet as the other figures below them. Chaplets of roses and other flowers encircle their golden hair, whilst in their hands they bear long-stemmed lilies and their charming youthful features express, some of their feelings of devotion, others of unconsciousness of self, and others, again, of gladsome serenity. The treat- ment of the outline in the details, as in the hands and heads, as well as in the drapery itself, displays great care and consummate skill. Every line is characteristic, but at the same time, rightly conceived and carried out with perfect command of the materials. The painting is, in every respect, a standard work for Filippo's fully-devel- oped style, and one of the most characteristic and inter- esting of the whole Florentine School of the Fifteenth Century."— (K. W.)
The Madonna Enthroned, by Ghirlandaio, is one of his early works, more mature than the work of the same subject in the Uffizi. The Madonna is seated in a niche with the Child on her knee. On either side of her throne stands an angel hold- ing a vase in which a tall lily is placed with flowers and buds blossoming, at the top of the stalk. The steps of the throne are carpeted; and at the left and right stand St. Thomas Aquinas as a Domin- ican, with open book, and St. Dionysius, while at the foot of the throne kneel St. Dominic and St. Clement.
Of great beauty is his Adoration of the Shep- herds.
" The Virgin in a dark blue robe, whose border, wrought with a gold pattern to delight the heart of a goldsmith, spreads around her in a circle, kneels with her
FLORENCE 367
hands folded and looks down at the Babe, who, thumb in mouth and curling himself together, with his leg kicking, is showing delight after the manner of babies. The face of the Virgin is very beautiful. This is not the stately Madonna, the grave majestic queen of heaven, as in his Madonnas enthroned. Here she has stepped from her throne — she is the human Madonna — in simple dress with no ornament — any mother with any child — a beautiful, pure being, but such as one may have seen and has seen in life. The shepherds are characteristic portraits." — (G. S. D.)
In Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi, we find the faithful representation of con- temporary scenes.
" The Virgin, completely enveloped in a large blue cloak, is seated in front of the stable, with her head piously inclined towards her Son, whom she is regarding with tender gaze. St. Joseph is at her side and behind her are two young women who are holding and admiring the gifts offered to the Saviour. The Infant Jesus has laid his hand on the head of the oldest of the Magi, who, prostrated, kisses 'his feet with devotion. The two other Kings are much younger than the first one. They are presenting their offerings to the Son of God, and are about to lay their crowns before him. Then follows the retinue of these Magi ; and in this throng, where may be counted at least seventy figures on foot and on horse- back, of all ranks, of all ages, and of all sizes, it is easy to recognize a trace of those popular festivals instituted in the preceding century. Despite some slight Oriental disguises, one may easily recognize the bearing, the gen- eral features, and the costumes of the Italy of the first years of the Fifteenth Century. Gentile was also pleased to add to the ' superb chargers ' mentioned by Lattuda, all kinds of animals, especially the apes that the Milanese loved to include in their pompous processions. Finally, in the background of this picture he has painted the em- battled walls of a Guelph city with two massive gates ; the one through which the Magi have entered, the other through which they will take their departure. Is there anything here, either in the foreground or the background,
368 THE ACADEMY
that suggests Jerusalem? Do you not notice rather a re- semblance to the fortifications of Milan, with the Porta Romana and the Porta San Lorenzo?" — (F. A. G.)
Fra Angelico can be studied to great advantage here. His scenes from the Life of Christ, though greatly injured, show some of his most charming work, particularly the Flight into Egypt, and the Visit of the Magi, in which one of his most beautiful and delicate Virgins appears.
His Descent from the Cross is also a master- piece.
" The expressions and actions of the numerous figures are the most appropriate, and therefore touching, with which painting has invested this subject. The Gothic- Italian frame is richly studded with small bust and full- length figures of saints, among which those of SS. Peter and Paul may be instanced." — (A. H. L.)
Another artist who is splendidly represented here is Perugino with no less than seven fine works. First of all should be noticed the magnificent As- sumption of the Virgin, painted for the monks of Vallombrosa. The founder of the monastery, San Giovanni Gualberto, stands with Cardinal Bernardo degli Uberti, St. Benedict, and the Archangel Michael below the mystery taking place in the heavens. The Virgin is seated in a mandorla framed by cherubs with angels play- ing musical instruments at her side. Above her in a circle, also accompanied by angels and cherubs, the Eternal Father appears.
" The general scheme of the picture is one which Pietro made somewhat hackneyed, but there are certain special features that must not be overlooked. The Virgin is seated in the skies within a glowing radiance of pure white light, and this of itself is an unusual feature. Never
FLORENCE 369
has Perugino painted the Madonna so finely. There is a celestial beauty upon her face, and her hands and robe are depicted with the utmost skill and care. The angels are somewhat loosely drawn, insipid in countenance, and lacking in proportion, especially in their attenuated legs, and in the large size of their hands; but the artist's main attention has been given to three points in the picture — the figure of the Virgin, the four figures on the ground, and the landscape in the rear. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of the four attendant saints as ' magnificent as iso- lated creations,' and the words are none too strong." — (G. C. W.)
Two of the most remarkable works in the gal- lery are the portraits of the Abbot Baldassare and Don Biagio Milanesi — that Perugino also painted at Vallombrosa.
" They are painted with the lightest of touch and with extraordinarily little colour. The tone is that of old yel- low parchment, and each picture contains only the up- turned head and a few inches of the brown monastic robe ; but the effect is perfect. The marvellous feature, however, of each portrait is its absolute truth and its perfection of modelling. There is no accessory; there is no cap, or hood, or costume; there is only a plain brown background : but the effect is that of living, breathing life. The task was a stern one, uncompromising in its severity; but it is nobly executed and two delineations of character are presented." — (G. C. W.)
Christ Praying on the Mount of Olives
shows all the characteristics of Perugino. The landscape is of great beauty and the figure of the sleeping St. John on the left reminds one of Raphael.
" In the immediate foreground are the three disciples sound asleep in the attitudes that convince you of heavy slumber. In the centre of the picture is our Lord kneeling on a hillock deeply engaged in prayer, and above
370 THE ACADEMY
is an angel flying towards him bearing the chalice of sor- row. Below and still further removed from the eye of the spectator are groups of soldiers on the one hand and of priests and people on the other rapidly moving towards the central figure. Their proportions are finely adjusted to their distance and position, and there is an admirable sense of movement in all. Beyond them are the distant town, the hills, the country, and above with its depth and arch and vastness, suggested in most subtle manner by the light fleecy clouds and by the very curves of the an- gels' figures and the movement of his wing, rises the blue vault of the heaven." — (G. C. W.)
The Pieta is a work of the same period.
" The dead Saviour lies in the lap of the Virgin, sup- ported by the head on the shoulders of Joseph, by the feet on the knees of the Magdalen, whilst St. John the Evangelist looks up in prayer to the left, and another saint on the right. In its present condition one hardly recognizes the probable beauty of the original colour. Much repainted." — (C. and C.)
The Virgin Appearing to St. Bernard shows all the qualities of Fra Bartolommeo, his lofty feel- ing, imposing draperies and symmetrical arrange- ment. St. Bernard kneels before his prie-dieu with St. Benedict and John the Evangelist behind him.
" Here the group of angels round the Madonna is com- posed with the usual severe symmetry, but very beauti- fully placed in profile, or three-quarter view, while at the same time their floating is expressed with as much light- ness as dignity." — (J. B.)
Another interesting work by Fra Bartolommeo is Savonarola as St. Peter Martyr, which ex- plains the cut in his head. The features are plain, but the expression is devout.
Of Albertinelli's works, The Trinity is the
FLORENCE 371
most celebrated. It was painted after he left Fra Bartolommeo, but still shows his influence. Orig- inally the background was gold. The picture is notable for its fine modelling and strong colour. " The face of the Eternal is fine and well preserved. Two angels at his feet are pleasing. The arrangement is on Fra Bartolommeo's principles ; the drapery broad, but the colour is of the same kind as in the Annunciation." — (C. and C.)
Lorenzo di Credi's Nativity is beautifully painted, particularly the landscape in the fore- ground. The shepherd with the lamb in his arms is greatly admired.
" In this picture there is something of the superfluous sentiment so prominent in the Peruginesque School (see the youth with the lamb), only that one forgets this as well as the slightly artificial arrangement of the group in the enchanting beauty of most of the figures." — (J. B.)
The Baptism of Christ is perhaps the only authentic work extant by Andrea Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo da Vinci, who is said to have painted the beautiful angel on the left; and it is said that when Verrocchio saw this beautiful figure he never touched colours again. John the Baptist remains unfinished. Leonardo's angel has been termed a ray of sunlight on a faded page.
" Verrocchio's modelling is conscientious and endeavours to sound all the secrets of anatomy as well as chiaroscuro; but with all this it is remarkable how lifeless the drapery still remains. The angel painted in by Leonardo shows a sweeter type of head, which, indeed, was not unfamiliar to Verrocchio as a worker in bronze." — (J. B.)
THE PITTI PALACE FLORENCE
ALTHOUGH the Pitti contains about five hundred works, their excellence is so great that it may be considered a gallery of masterpieces. Most of the pictures belong to the golden age of Tuscan art, from Botticelli to Andrea del Sarto ; but there are fine works of earlier masters. The collection was made chiefly by the Medici family, who brought the pictures scattered in their various villas and palaces to Florence about 1640, after they had be- come sovereign princes, and placed them in the Pitti Palace, which was then converted into a royal residence. Vittoria della Rovere, daughter of the Duke of Urbino, brought a fine collection on her marriage to the Grand Duke Ferdinand II., who removed from the Uffizi to the Pitti many of the pictures collected by his father, Cosimo II., and ac- quired many others from churches in Tuscany and by purchase. The collections of the Cardinals Leo- pold and Giovanni de' Medici came into the Pitti at their deaths; and Francis I. also added a num- ber of works. The sixty pictures carried off by Napoleon's army were returned.
The rooms in which the pictures are hung are beautifully decorated with allegorical paintings and take their name from the subjects on the ceiling, viz., Sala di Venus, Sala dell' Iliade, Sala di Saturno, Sala di Marte, etc., etc.
The Pitti is especially rich in works of Raphael, 372
FLORENCE 373
Titian and Andrea del Sarto; and contains many portraits of great reputation.
The gems of the gallery are Raphael's Madonna della Sedia, Leo X. and two Cardinals, the Ma- donna del Gran' Duca, and Angelo Doni and his wife; Titian's La Bella; and Giorgione's Concert.
The Madonna della Sedia, or Seggiola, so called from the sedia, or chair in which the Virgin is seated, is only a little over two feet in diameter. It is the most popular of all Raphael's works. It was exhibited in the Tribuna as early as 1589.
" Seated in a chair (sedia), the Virgin holds the Infant Jesus close in her arms. They are both looking at the spectator, and are radiant with beauty against a sombre background. Beside them appears St. John an the ecstasy of prayer and contemplation. Nothing can be simpler, nor at the same time more striking. It is only the Infant in the arms of his Mother, with another child beside them.
" If La Fornarina is behind the Virgin of the Chair, there is nothing less than a world that separates them. The two beauties are measured by the two lives : terrestrial love put into Raphael's hand the brush that painted the portrait of the Barberini palace ; divine love armed the master with sufficient power to produce the Madonna of the Pitti Palace.
" The Virgin of the Chair raises us directly to God by the tenderness with which she surrounds and seems to want to protect Him who protects all; but she is richly adorned, and she seems to belong to the world by the external splendour with which the world surrounds her. She belongs to it especially by the love that she gives to Him and by the internal sentiment that stamps com- passion upon her beauty ; compassion the kin to sadness. Her head bends gently towards the Saviour's head, on which it rests. The hair, rather chestnut than blonde, is divided in slightly waved bands and completely exposes the ear and the cheeks. The brow is beautifully propor- tioned : it is lower than in the Umbrian faces, and higher
374 THE PITTI PALACE
than in the antiques. The eyes, pensive, brilliant and fully open, look towards the left of the spectator with a gravity bordering on grief. The outline of this face is a beautiful oval, and does not in the least recall the portrait of the Barberini Gallery. Therefore, away with all reminiscence of La Fornarina; away with all living reality! This image is purely impersonal. We are in the presence of the Virgin : it is she ; she alone whom we see ; she alone who is looking at us. The external beauty of the Virgin of the Chair is as great as anything that could be imagined, but the internal beauty is not in the least sacrificed to it. The chief characteristic of this face is its regularity and the purity of its features. All the lines are simple, regular, and traced as though by inspiration. It is true that Raphael, carried away by the genius of harmony, has represented his Madonna as brilliantly and richly attired, but it is without anything jarring, without anything too staring, and without anything hurtful of the principal impression. A scarf, admirable in colour, is wound around the crown of her head and falls down to her neck. A green shawl, enriched with various shades that respond to those in the scarf, envelops the breast, the right shoulder, and falls behind the back, where it is con- founded with the golden fringe that decorates the back of the chair. Beneath this shawl appears the purple robe, the sleeve of which is tight-fitting, with a cuff, and the blue mantle that covers the knees. The two hands, one crossed above the other over the body of the Infant Jesus, are charming in shape and delightfully modelled. Everything in this arrangement is enchanting: in the en- tire effect of this image everything is seductive.
" Yet, in the Virgin of the Chair, there is something still more elevated and beautiful than the Virgin, and that is the Infant Jesus. Seated on the blue drapery that covers the knees of the Mother, he looks fixedly at us, recoils, as if struck with our miseries ; and presses close against the virginal bosom that conceived him. A slight vestment covers his shoulders and breast and leaves his legs, hips and arms bare. This infant body is taken from life and belongs wholly to humanity; but the head is that of a God. Three flames radiate from this infant head and mysteriously gleam in the obscurity of the back- ground. The ruffled hair seems to obey an impulse that
-
MADONNA DELLA SEDIA— Raphael
PITT!
FLORENCE 375
springs from the spirit; the eyes shine brilliantly; the mouth with its severe lines is grave, and the whole countenance is immobile, fixed, majestic, solemn and al- most terrible."— (F. A. G.)
The Madonna del Gran' Duca belonged to the Grand Duke Ferdinand III., who carried it with him wherever he went; it therefore received the sobriquet of Madonna del Viaggio (of the voy- age). This is the first picture Raphael painted in Florence after leaving the School of Perugino.
" The Virgin is singularly modest and sweet ; the con- tour of her face and the delicate form of her mouth, as well as the soft downcast eyes, are pre-eminently beau- tiful, even among Raphael's Madonnas, although, it is neither as classical as the Madonna della Seggiola (Pitti) nor as sublime as his greatest creation, the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden) ; but for simple dignity, loveliness and purity, this representation of the Virgin is unrivalled. Her hands are rather large. The child is less lovely than his mother, but his flesh is beautifully painted and modelled."— (S. and J. H.)
The Holy Family, called Madonna dell' Im- pannata (cloth-window), from the window in the background which is covered with a kind of linen instead of glass, was painted for Bindo Altoviti, a young Florentine banker. The aid of Giulio Romano and others is evident. The scene takes place in a cottage. The Virgin is presenting the Child Jesus to Elizabeth, and Mary Magdalen is showing John the Baptist, who is about eight years old, to Jesus.
"The incident is most charming: the two women have brought the Child and hand it to the mother; and while the boy turns, still laughing, after them, he takes fast hold of his mother's dress, who seems to say, ' Look, he likes best to come to me.' " — (J. B.)
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Raphael left the Madonna of the Baldaquin unfinished.
"The Virgin with her Son in her arms appears on a throne surmounted by a conical baldaquin to which cur- tains are attached. Two seraphim, hovering in the air, raise the curtains and reveal the spectacle that they them- selves view with happiness. At the foot of the throne, two angels, entirely nude, are holding a banderole, from which they are reading and singing the mysteries of God. To the left stand St. Augustine and St. James the Greater; to the right, St. Peter and St. Bruno. What distinguishes this picture from those that precede it, is the independence shown in the grouping of the figures. Not that the ancient symmetry is abandoned or broken ; it could never be more rigorously observed. The Ma- donna and Infant are still a sort of mathematical centre whence start equal and similarly placed rays leading to the seraphim, the angels, and the saints that correspond two and two.
" This last Florentine Virgin has not the imposing grandeur that the Roman Virgins are soon to assume : she is more human, less plastic, more personal and yet there is nothing too individual in her. She is happy, but without earthly emotion, or worldly exaltation. No sad- ness, no trouble, no presentiment of any kind has left the slightest trace upon her. The Mater speciosa, whose youth has not withered in the least, has conquered perfect tranquillity, and found for all eternity the Divine Son with whom she has sacrificed herself for the salvation of the world. That is the religious idea contained in this image. The Infant Jesus also shows Himself under ex- ternals of natural and living verity; nevertheless He rises to the ideal, and if He does not impose Himself as God, He makes Himself so loved as a child that by that love alone He still leads to God. Sitting on the left knee of His Mother, He abandons Himself to the charm of life. He looks pleasantly at the saints, smiles on them, and gives Himself familiarly to them. His hair is blond and thin ; eyes brilliant ; and mouth amiable in expression. Let us not forget that here we have only a sketch ; that Raphael would certainly have added something to this Infant; and that nowhere in this picture has he put the finishing touch." — (F. A. G.)
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The Vision of Ezekiel is only eighteen inches high and thirteen inches wide, yet is one of Raph- ael's noblest compositions, and of very delicate execution. On the left Ezekiel may be discovered in the landscape, looking up at the sublime appari- tion of the Eternal Father.
" This picture is supposed to have been executed by Raphael as early as 1510; but, to judge from its affinity with the earlier pictures of the Loggia, it must have been produced in 1513. It contains the First Person of the Trinity, in a glory of brightly-illuminated cherubs' heads, his outstretched arms supported by two genii, and resting on the mystical forms of the ox, eagle and lion ; the angel is introduced adoring beside them. Dignity, majesty and sublimity are here blended with inexpressible beauty : the contrast between the figure of the Almighty and the two youthful genii is admirably portrayed, and the whole composition so clearly developed, that it is undoubtedly one of the master works of the artist. Michael Angelo, who had also given a type of the Almighty, represents Him borne upon the storm; Raphael represents Him as if irradiated by the splendour of the sun ; — here both masters are supremely great, similar, yet different, and neither greater than the other." — (K.)
One of the gems is Leo X., with his cousin, Cardinal Giulio de Medici (afterwards Clement VIII.), on the left, and Cardinal Luigi de' Rossi (probably by Giulio Romano), the Pope's secre- tary, on the right, leaning against the Pope's chair. Wonderfully painted are the missal that lies on the table before the Pope, the silver bell, and the large glass that he used for his bad eyesight.
" As a portrait, it holds the same rank among Raphael's artistic productions as the Sistine Madonna, in the order of his sacred compositions. It is the best thing of its kind that Raphael did— truth itself, if compared with naturey- yet not realistic in the sense of faithful rendering, as in Van Eyck, Antonello, or Holbein, though combined with
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a realism that none have ever surpassed. The chief sitter was a Pontiff, whose features were all singular, from the projecting, near-sighted, blood-shot eye, to the bloated nose and cheek and chin, lips beyond the common size, and a girth portentous in a churchman. And yet all these features combined make up something noble and expressive of life and power. They show a man with a penetrating spirit, good-natured but irascible, smooth but possibly cruel. We must recollect that Leo X. sat to Raphac'. in 1518, after the execution of Cardinal Petrucci, who had conspired against his life." — (C. and C.)
A masterpiece of painting as well as a superb character study is the Portrait of Cardinal Bibiena, a great friend of Raphael's, who even offered him his niece in marriage.
" Bibiena is represented in a chair, wearing a surplice and barret and a watered cape of purple silk. The nose is long and tending to aquiline, yet fleshy where it over- hangs a large mouth capable of voluble speech and mobil- ity. The seat of power is in the face, in the wide fore- head free from hair. The grey-blue eyes are free and open, yet suggestive of cunning. The head alone seems worthy of Raphael." — (C. and C.)
A still greater work is the Portrait of Tom- maso Phaedra Inghirami, humanist and Papal secretary, a protege of the Medici family. Raph- ael has represented him in the red robe he wore at the conclave of 1513 that elected Giovanni de' Medici Pope Leo X.
" Phaedra was obese by nature and bloated by sedentary habits. His shape is round, his ringed hand puffy and swollen. But his right eye is disfigured by a cast, which drags the pupil upwards, and Raphael gave the squint a curious realism. The very functions of the secretary and sermon writer are suggested by the prelate's sur- roundings. He looks up as if meditating the words he is about to write. The portrait is executed with mar- vellous truth and delicacy, and in spite of the ravages
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of restoring, the broad and skilful treatment of the roll- ing flesh and the humour in the whites of the eyes, the expression are still admirable. The finish is as minute as Holbein's, the outline as conscientious as Van Eyck's, and the rounding perfect in its accuracy." — (C. and C.)
The portrait of Pope Julius II. is supposed to be a copy of the original in the Uffizi (see p. 393).
Agnolo and Maddalena Doni are ranked among the triumphs of great portraiture.
" Agnolo Doni, one of the most discerning and at the same time one of the most niggardly lovers of pictures in Florence, whose palace was a museum of antique and contemporary art, had lately bought Michelangelo's famous Holy Family of the Tribune, after wrangling with Buonarotti for months over the price. Now in his anxiety to obtain good pictures at the lowest possible price, he employed the young painter from Urbino, who was as yet little known in Florence, to paint his own portrait and that of his wife, a lady of the Strozzi family. Both of these portraits, which hang to-day in the Pitti Gallery, are ad- mirable examples of Raphael's close and faithful study of life. They are painted with the same minute attention to detail, the same anxious rendering of each single hair, that we note in the Borghese portrait. The wealthy mer- chant in his black damask suit and red sleeves, with re- fined features and keen anxious gaze, his staid, richly- dressed wife in her blue brocades and jewelled necklace, well satisfied with herself and all the world, are living types of their class. Yet in the form of the pictures, in the pose of Maddalena Doni's head and of her placidly folded hands, we are conscious of a new influence. If from the picture we turn to the pen-and-ink sketch in the Louvre, we see at a glance that Leonardo's Mono Lisa was in Raphael's mind when he painted Maddalena Doni's portrait. The cut of the dress, the ripple of the hair, the very folds of the bodice are exactly copied from that famous picture, which Raphael must have seen in Fran- cesco Giocondo's house in Florence. Only instead of Leonardo's rock landscape, he has sketched a view of Umbrian hills and Urbino towers, framed in between the columns of an open loggia. There is, we must confess,
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a charm in the drawing which is lacking in the picture. The maiden with the dreamy eyes and youthful face was the painter's ideal ; the other was the actual woman, Mad- dalena Doni, the rich merchant's wife, a subject, it may be, not very much to his taste, but none the less to be painted with perfect accuracy and truth." — (J. C.)
The identity of the famous Donna Velata has not been determined.
" It is painted on canvas, like the portraits of Castig- lione and the two Venetians in the Doria Palace, with the same pearly shadows and the same warm golden glow. The maiden is of noble Roman type, her features are regular, her eyes dark and radiant. The white bodice that she wears is embroidered with gold, and the sleeves are of striped yellow damask. A veil rests on her smoothly parted hair and a string of shining black beads sets off the whiteness of her finely modelled neck. Here, then, we have the woman whom Raphael loved to the end. Whether she was the lady of the sonnets, and his verses are written in the book that she clasps to her heart, or the Mamola bella whom he mentions in the letter to his uncle we cannot tell. But we know that the same beau- tiful face meets us again in the royal-looking Magdalen, who stands at St. Cecilia's side in the Bologna altar-piece, and in that most divine of all his Virgins, the Madonna di San Sisto."—(]. C.)
Giorgione's Concert is a masterpiece over which critics do not quarrel.
"The Concert, in which a monk, with cowl and ton- sure, touches the keys of a harpsichord, while a clerk, placed behind him, grasps the handle of a viol, and a third with cap and plume, seems to wait upon the true interval for beginning to sing, is undoubtedly Giorgione's. The outline of the lifted finger, the trace of the plume, the very threads of the fine linen, which fasten themselves on the memory, in the moment before they are lost al- together in that calm unearthly glow, the skill which has caught the waves of wandering sound and fixed them for ever on the lips and hands — these are indeed the master's
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own; and the criticism which, while dismissing so much hitherto believed to be Giorgione's,- has established the claims of this one picture, has left it among the most precious things in the world of art." — '(W. P.)
Lorenzo Lotti's Three Ages of Man is so much in the style of Giorgione that it has been attributed to him. The picture is simple, composed only of three half-length figures : a child, whose golden curls escape from his black cap in the centre; a young man, in green, on his left; and an old man, in a red mantle, on his right.
Titian's portraits are among his best. First comes La Bella, who is Eleanor Gonzaga, who appears also in the Uffizi (see p. 394).
" Le bella di Titiano is one of Titian's likenesses in which every feature tells of high lineage and distinction. The pose, the look, the dress are all noble. We may pre- sume that the name was accepted for want of a better. The face was so winning that it lurked in Titian's memory, and passed as a type into numerous canvases in which the painter tried to realise an ideal of loveliness. The head being seen about two-thirds to the left, whilst the eyes are turned to the right, the spectator is fascinated by the glance in whatever direction he looks at the can- vas. The eye is grave, serene, and kindly, the nose deli- cate and beautifully shaped, the mouth divine. Abundant hair of a warm auburn waves along the temples, leaving a stray curl to drop on the forehead. The rest is plaited and twisted into coils round a head of the most symmetri- cal shape. A gold chain falls over a throat of exquisite model, and the low dress with its braided ornaments and slashed sleeves, alternately tinted in blue and white and purple, is magnificent. One hand — the left — is at rest; the other holds a tassel hanging from a girdle. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and subtlety with which the flesh and dress are painted; the tones being harmonised and thrown into keeping by a most varied use and application of glazings and scumblings." — (C. and C.)
Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici (1511-1535),
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painted in 1532 after the Cardinal had taken part in a campaign against the Turks, is represented in a Hungarian costume consisting of a garnet velvet doublet and a red cap adorned with a buckle and plumes. His left hand holds a sword; his right the baton of command.
" Nothing shows to better advantage the marvellous suppleness of Titian's genius and his skill in varying treatment according to the requirements of the subject than this portrait, where strength of modelling is shown in the face, the principal character of which lies in the contrast of the delicacy of the skin with the clear-cut fea- tures and the extraordinary penetration of the eyes." — (C. and C.)
Aretino was ordered by the " Scourge of Princes " in 1546, as a present to his patron, Cosimo I., bujt the latter had to pay for it. Are- tino called it a " hideous marvel," though admit- ting that it was the very living image of himself and seemed actually to breathe. He wears a yel- low tunic and red mantle held by his gloved left hand, and a gold chain.
" A marvel of finish. The face is idealized, and, as far as possible, ennobled. The model has not lost its characteristic cunning and audacity; the type of the blust- erer and bully is not completely effaced, nor has the natural effrontery of the scribe entirely disappeared ; but the worst points are cleverly toned down." — (C. and C.)
The Young Man, sometimes called the Duke of Norfolk, is, however, peculiarly Venetian in type, with his blue eyes, reddish-brown hair, and deli- cately-cut features. It is a marvellously life-like production, and belongs to Titian's best period.
" This is one of the greatest masterpieces that I know. He is a man of thirty-five, dressed in black, pale, and with a fixed glance; his face is somewhat thin; his eyes
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are pale blue; and a small moustache joins his beard. He is of a great race and of high rank; but seems to have enjoyed less of ease than action; experiences, anxieties and dangers have left their trace, as well as in- cessant hard work. His energetic, weary and dreamful head has had to form sudden resolutions at critical mo- ments."—(H. A. T.)
Philip II. is a copy with slight changes of the one in the Prado.
The very beautiful Magdalen is a theme that the master often treated, because this mixture of piety and sensuality appealed at once to his own taste and to that of his day. So he repeated it more than once; and his pupils reproduced to satiety the image of the Penitent, with eyes drowned in tears, and hair flowing over her shoulders and half hiding her breast. The Pitti example and the one in the Hermitage are the finest expressions of this mystical and sensual theme.
" Even in spite of its sensuality of flesh tint and golden hair, — painted from pure delight in beauty — Titian's Penitent Magdalen retains its spiritual purport of affect- ing penitence." — (A. G.)
Swinburne said that only in Florence could one realise how great and versatile was Andrea del Sarto. The Pitti is very rich in his works. One of the most celebrated is the Disputa, or Confer- ence of the Fathers of the Church regarding the Doctrine of the Trinity, in which Andrea's fine sense of colour is shown to the best advantage. The single female figure is a lovely portrait of the painter's wife. The picture was once damaged by a rising of the Arno, traces of which can be seen. " The so-called Disputa della SS. Trinita is particularly
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fitted to exhibit Andrea's affinity with the Venetian School. This is a Santa Conversazione of six saints. St. Augustine is speaking with the highest inspiration of man- ner; St. Dominic is being convinced with his reason and St. Francis with his heart; St. Lawrence is looking earnestly out of the picture; while St. Sebastian and the Magdalen are kneeling in front, listening devoutly. We here find the most admirable contrast of action and ex- pression, combined with the highest beauty of execution."
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The Descent from the Cross, painted for the sisters of a convent where Andrea lived during the plague of 1523, is also beautiful in colour. The Virgin and St. John are holding the body of Christ ; the two female saints are Mary Magdalen and Catherine, and St. Peter and St. Paul stand on the right and left.
" The Italians call him il pittore senza errori, or the faultless painter. What they meant by this must have been that in all the technical requirements of art, in draw- ing, composition, handling of fresco and oils, disposition of draperies and feeling for light and shadow, he was above criticism. As a colourist he went further and pro- duced more beautiful effects than any Florentine before him. His silver-grey harmonies and liquid blendings of hues, cool yet lustrous, have a charm peculiar to himself alone."— (J. A. S.)
Two Assumptions of the Virgin are master- pieces. In one picture the Virgin is raised up to- wards heaven very gracefully and the atmosphere is like Correggio's. The other, in which the painter appears as one of the apostles, was never finished ; but it is full of lightness and vapour.
Of three Annunciations, No. 124 is the best: the Madonna in Glory with Four Saints was completed by Bonilli ; the Madonna and Child and
THE DISPUTA BELLA TRINITA— Andrea del Sarto
PITTI
LA BELLA — Titian PITTI
FLORENCE 385
Saints is also a famous work. Two panels depict- ing episodes from the story of Joseph are among the choicest examples of his art. They formed the decorations for a wedding-chest in' one of the rooms of the Borgherini Palace.
The half-length John the Baptist, an ideal youth, draped in a skin, has the face of the painter's wife, Lucrezia.
Quiet, reverent and tender is Perugino's En- tombment, framed in a landscape remarkable for the space suggested and for its beauty.
" The picture is one of the most beautiful that Peru- gino ever painted. The composition is very clever, well balanced and well grouped, while the faces are of a serene beauty that was never surpassed in later works. It is well to notice that the dead body of Our Lord retained much of the flexibility of life, while quite as clearly is seen the weight and looseness of death. The mourners around are full of tender pity, while the grief of the Virgin is too great for words, and evinces itself in the look of deep affection that fills that wonderful face."— (G. C. W.)
Fra Bartolommeo's Risen Christ was painted in 1516.
" The most perfect thing which Bartolommeo ever produced is, perhaps, the Risen Christ with Four Saints; the gesture of benediction could hardly be more grandly or solemnly represented; the Saints are sublime figures; the two Putti supporting a round mirror, with the picture of the world (as a landscape), complete in the loveliest way this simple and severe composition." — (J. B.)
The colossal St. Mark was painted on this scale because the artist was accused of not being able to paint in large dimensions.
" Here the Frate falls into the same perversion which we find in Michael Angelo : he creates an immense motive for merely artistic reasons; in the head, also, there is
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something falsely superhuman; but the drapery, which was really the principal object, is a marvellous work." — (J. B.)
The Holy Family is Raphaelesque in treatment and composition. The Pieta, or Descent from the Cross, is a remarkable exhibition of fore- shortening.
" It is not possible to cite an instance in which a life- less form is rendered with more flexibility, or with more anatomical accuracy. As regards foreshortening, the Magdalen is unsurpassed." — (C. and C.)
His symmetrical, stately and pyramidal form of composition appears in the Marriage of St. Catherine.
" In composition, drawing and relief, it was beyond Fra Bartolommeo's power to come nearer perfection. The whole is put upon the panel, as Vasari says, in so gallant a style as to leave the impression of a living scene." — (C. and C.)
The Madonna with Saints, by Fra Filippo Lippi, is a circular picture. The Madonna is the novice, Lucretia Buti, whom Fra Filippo stole from a convent, and one of the most beautiful he ever painted. She is seated in an arm-chair and is giving a pomegranate to the Child Jesus in her lap, who has taken one of the seeds. Joachim and Anna, and the Nativity of the Virgin are repre- sented in the background.
Tintoret's Venus, Vulcan and Cupid is one of his early works. It glows with colour, and has been called " the most perfect representation of the human flesh which the art of painting has pro- duced." Venus lies in the centre on a green drapery with pearls in her blonde hair, and a quiver in her
FLORENCE 387
right hand. Cupid, with an arrow in his hand, is leaning against her breast. On the left, Vulcan is kneeling; and, in the background, the chariot of Mars is descending through the air.
The Three Fates was designed by Michael Angelo and painted by Rosso Florentino. Accord- ing to legend, Michael Angelo took for his model for all three women an old woman who brought her son to him to fight for Florence during the siege of 1529. Clotho holds the spindle, Lachesis twists the thread, and Atropos is ready to cut it with her scissors.
Judith with the Head of Holofernes is C. Allori's best known picture. The head of Holo- fernes is the artist's own portrait; that of Judith, his mistress; and the old woman, her mother.
" He represents her as a beautiful and splendidly-at- tired womarn with a grand, enthusiastic expression, and a countenance triumphant and Medusa-like, conveying all that the loftiest poetry can express in the character of Judith."— (A. H. L.)
The Martyrdom of St. Agatha, by Sebastian del Piombo, is a work of great power and great fame. The Pretor Quintianus, who ordered the torture, is leaning on a bench.
" This picture combines the composition of Michael Angelo with a trace of Venetian colouring." — (K.)
Sebastian del Piombo's equally famous Portrait of a Man, with long black beard dressed in a black baret, green cloak that allows you to see his red sleeves, and fur collar is a mixture of the severe Florentine School with the brilliant colour of the Venetians.
The portrait of a woman, called the Monica,
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attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, has also been given to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi and Franciabigio. She is simply attired in a low-necked black dress and white veil and holds a prayer-book in her left hand, on the fore- finger of which a ring is conspicuous. Through the arcades, in front of which she stands, the land- scape with old Florentine buildings is visible.
" This is not an abstract being emanating from the painter's brain, but an actual woman who has lived, a sister of Mona Lisa (Louvre), as full of inward con- trasts and as inexplicable. Is she a nun, a princess, or a courtesan?"— (H. A. T.)
The Goldsmith, once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, is on good authority given to Ridolfo Ghir- landaio. The man wears a black doublet with brown sleeves, and a black barret confines his light hair. He is looking down at a jewel in his right hand. The landscape background is finely treated.
Lorenzo Costa's Portrait of a Man is sup- posed to be Giovanni Bentivoglio.
" A fine portrait in which the strong brown tone, broad treatment and successful modelling of the master's best period prevail." — (C. and C.)
Daniel Barbaro, Venetian ambassador to the Court of Edward VI., who was also sent to the Council of Trent, is a noble example of Veronese and of Ventian art.
" The hands are magnificently painted, the attitude easy and the fur of the dress treated with great breadth." — (S. and J. H.)
Sustermans of Antwerp, who passed nearly all
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of his life in Florence, and painted so many por- traits of the reigning family and other celebrities, sometimes approaches Van Dyck and sometimes Velasquez. One of his most interesting pictures here is the Holy Family, in which the Virgin is Vittoria della Rovere, wife of Ferdinand II. de' Medici, and the Infant Jesus her son Cosimo III. Vittoria also appears in this gallery as a Vestal. A notable work is the son of Frederick III. of Denmark, with light curly hair, and dressed in armour, with a lace collar and blue sash.
Van Dyck's whole-length Cardinal Bentivoglio is a marvel of painting.
" The artist has rendered with marvellous success the profound character of that piercing eye, that thin, austere, almost ascetic face. Robed in the Roman purple whose wide folds envelop his whole figure with dazzling splen- dour, the cardinal is seated before a little table covered with papers. In the midst of this scale of harmonious in- tensity the head and hands stand out with astonishing re- lief. It is life itself caught and transferred to canvas. Of all Van Dyck's portraits this is rightly counted as one of the most perfect." — (J. G.)
To Van Dyck is also attributed a portrait of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, but some critics give it to Van Ceulen. The queen's lace and pearls are beautifully treated.
Rembrandt's Old Man, painted about 1660, is seated in an armchair, his right arm resting on a table. The man, with grey hair and a long white beard, is dressed in black with a brown mantle, making a very sombre picture.
Velasquez's Equestrian Portrait Philip IV. of Spain was sent to Florence so that the sculptor Tacca might make a statue from it. The work is a small replica of the one in the Prado.
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Here we find a very famous portrait group by Rubens, the Four Philosophers, sometimes called Lipsius and his Pupils, representing four men in a room, where a looped curtain reveals a beauti- ful landscape. At the table are seated Rubens's brother, Philip, a noted philologist, with pen in hand; on his left is Lipsius, wearing a rich fur col- lar and pointing out a passage in a book with his forefinger; and next to him is seated a man, sup- posed to be Hugo Grotius, " the marvel of Holland," with a dog at his side. In a niche is a bust of Seneca and a vase of tulips, a flower much loved by Lipsius. Rubens himself stands behind his brother.
Ulysses and Nausicaa is a masterly work full of strength. The landscape is by Van Uden, re- touched by Rubens, who painted the figures. Ulys- ses is trying to hide himself; and Nausicaa, having witnessed the shipwreck, lifts her veil while her frightened companions hide. A town appears on the shore on the left; and on the right there is a hill crowned by a castle and down which a cascade falls. Jupiter and Minerva are seen in the clouds.
Van Uden also painted the landscape in the Hay Harvest, or the Return from Work, in which peasants with their tools are moving towards the right ; two horses draw a wagon on the left ; and the town of Mechlin is visible on the horizon.
" The Hay Harvest at Mechlin, in the quietest land- scape lines, gives quite a delightful sense of air and light, while the Nausicaa, with its rich landscape of rocks and sea and its fanciful effects of light, elevates us into the en- joyment of a fabulous state of existence." — (B.)
The Allegory of War is considered one of Rubens's best works, and one in which he had no
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aid. It is also called Mars Going to War and was a present from him to the painter, Sustermans, who had asked for a picture from him as a sou- venir. On the right the Temple of Janus stands open; in the centre, Mars is tearing himself away from Venus, urged forward by Discord and pre- ceded by Famine and Pestilence. Study, Archi- tecture, Music, and Charity all suffer as the God advances ; and Europe, dressed in blue, raises her arms in lamentation to the sky. In the background, a battle is in progress. The work is brilliant in colour.
The Holy Family is another masterly work.
Salvator Rosa's Battle (No. 133), with its two detachments of cavalry and Turks on the right, contains a portrait of the painter, who has repre- sented himself as the knight, unhorsed, with a shield on which the word Saro is inscribed. A Harbour is one of Salvator's best marines, the sky having all the glow and softness of Claude Lorraine. His Portrait represents him, palette in hand, wearing blue and a large white collar.
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THE UFFIZI FLORENCE
THE Galleria degli Uffizi is contained in the Palazzo degli Uffizi built by Vasari in 1560-1574 for the municipal offices of Cosmo I. and connected to the Pitti Palace by a covered corridor a quarter of a mile long. The nucleus of the pictures was the collection from the Villa Medici in Rome and was enriched by various collections of the Medici family. Cardinal Leopold began the collection of portraits of masters by themselves, which is one of the features of this gallery. The gems are hung in the Tribuna. Chief among these is Raph- ael's Madonna del Cardellino (of the Goldfinch), a forerunner of La Belle Jardinere (Louvre), painted for Lorenzo Nasi in Florence, who gave it to his bride for a wedding-present. The picture was badly injured by an earthquake when Nasi's house was destroyed in 1548; but Nasi's son put the fragments together with great skill. The work takes its name from the goldfinch (Cardellino) which little John the Baptist presents to the Child Jesus. Florence, with the Duomo and Campa- nile, appears in the distance.
" The group is relieved equally against the warm brown- ish ground and the cool distance and sky. The children stand out clearly against the coloured dress of the Virgin. The attitude of Christ contrasts in statuesque and classic rest with the impulsive movement of the Baptist, who has just arrived after finding the bird and shows by the twitch of his eye and puffed cheeks and open lips that he has been 392
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running and is blown by his exertion. All the affectation and conventional grace of the Umbrian has vanished to make room for something better and more refined. The flowers, chiefly white, which adorn the foreground, are all suited to the occasion on which the picture was produced." — (C. and C.)
The celebrated Julius II., represented in white surplice, violet cape lined with fur and red skull- cap, and holding a handkerchief in his hand, is supposed by most critics to be the original work of Raphael, although the one in the Pitti also claims to be the original.
" No token of insatiable ambition is apparent in the likeness. Julius sits quiescent in the royal chair. Buried in thought he seems to brood over the memorable sentences which he spoke on his death-bed, a confession of deadly sins and an assurance that he knew he had ruled the church as it ought not to have been ruled. His very at- titude is that of a man bending under cares. The beard which grew as a symbol of defiance (when he arrived in Bologna in 1510, he dismissed his barber and resolved that his beard should remain uncut until the French had been expelled from the peninsula. Raphael met him on his return to Rome, June 27, 1511, with a beard of eight months' growth), the head thrust deeply into the skull- cap, the wrinkles above the eyelids, and the eyes them- selves under a veil of pensiveness ; all indicate moodiness and age. The handkerchief in the right hand and the left hand on the arm of the chair, are not suggestive of mar- tial spirit." — (C. and C.)
The so-called Fornarina (or baker's daughter), dated 1512, was long believed to be by Raphael, but it does not resemble Raphael's authentic pic- ture of the Fornarina in the Barberini Palace in Rome, nor the Donna Velata (Pitti). Many critics attribute it to Sebastian del Piombo.
" La Fornarina is represented in a rather strange cos-
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tume; she is clothed almost as a Bacchante, and wears on her left shoulder a panther's skin, the same which Raphael painted in the St. John and in the Madonna dell' Impan- nata. At the period when Vasari wrote his book the por- trait of the Fonwrina belonged to Matteo Botti, guarda roba of the Grand Duke Cosmo I., to whom he left it by will. However, notwithstanding this testimony and tra- dition, many connoisseurs doubt if this portrait be really that of the baker's daughter of Trastevere, and even whether it be the work of Raphael. Some maintain that it is the portrait of the celebrated Marchioness of Pescara. Vittoria Colonna, by Sebastian del Piombo; others, the portrait by Giorgione of that much-loved mistress whose infidelity caused his death." — (L. V.)
To Raphael is also attributed the Portrait of a Lady dressed in the Florentine style of the pe- riod, long thought to be Maddalena Doni.
The two portraits of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Eleonora Gonzaga (La Bella, Pitti), rank with Titian's greatest achievements in this line. In the former the character of the man and his sallow complexion are brought out with subtlety, and the armour with its reflections and the soft plumes are mar- vellously depicted.
" We see him with the plumed helmet and the emblems of his rank in the background of a semi-circular niche covered with red velvet. The steel armour in which his muscular frame is encased stands out a marvel of cool bright polish in front of the niche, whilst his head is turned to the right, and relieved in light against the brown wall of a room. His martial aspect is enhanced by the firmness of his pose, the staff with his arms, which he holds in his right hand, and rests on his hip, and the batons, with the tiara and keys, and the motto, Se Sibi, which are displayed behind him." — (C. and C.)
Eleonora, who is the original of La Bella
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(Pitti) and Venus au petit chien (see below), being now over thirty, wears a matron's cap. She is beautifully dressed in a dark gown with sleeves slashed with yellow; a rich girdle and chain with jewel around her neck.
" Her look is stately, yet subdued. Her delicate ringed hands are at rest, one of them on the arm of a chair. At her side a table with a rich green cloth supports a lap-dog and a chased metal clock, whilst the afternoon sun sheds a mild light through an open casement. Out- side the sky is pure and lightly flecked with clouds and a haze rests upon the distance of a verdant landscape. To make the difference apparent between the blanched com- plexion of a lady accustomed to luxury and ease and the tanned face of a soldier habitually exposed to the weather, Titian skilfully varied the detail of technical execution. Here he is minute and finished, there resolute and broad. Here the tinted and throbbing flesh is pitted against a warm light ground, there the sallow olive against a dark wall." — (C. and C.)
Of Titian's two pictures of Venus, Venus au petit chien is the famous one, supposed to be an idealised portrait of Eleonora Ganzaga. Venus lies on a white drapery, with flowers in her hand. At her feet is a little dog, which gives the picture its name.
" Nature, as he represents her here, is young and lovely, but conscious and triumphant without loss of modesty. The flesh is not marbled or cold, but sweetly toned. Per- fect distribution of space, a full harmony of tints, atmos- phere both warm and mellow." — (C. and C.)
It is interesting to compare Flora with the pic- ture in the Louvre called Laura de' Dianti (see page 59).
" Here instead of vivid colour and powerful effect of light and shade, we have all light, all softness, and a suf-
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fusion which is not without dazzling brightness, though it is without strong contrasts. Here in fact Titian evi- dently desires to suggest another phase of life — not the maiden, but the woman — with the roses which she has plucked, the woman whose skin is fair, but blanched by art, whose shape is softened by seclusion, a woman of delicate whiteness, seductive and lightly clad. Tradition again suggests Titian's mistress." — (C. and C.)
Another remarkable portrait is that of Becca- delli of Bologne, Papal nuncio at Venice :
" Titian finished this portrait in July, 1552, and it is a magnificent likeness, in which the true grain of what may be called Churchman's flesh is reproduced in a form both clear and fair but with the slight puffiness and tendency to droop, which is characteristic in priests. The whole picture is painted after Titian's fashion in these days with broad immediate sweeps of a brush loaded with plenteous consistent pigment grained to a pleasant warmth. The oblong but regular head with spacious forehead, pointed beard and tumid lips, is seen to great advantage beneath a black triangular cap. A black silk cape and lawn sleeves admirably relieve a pair of hands of perfect workmanship holding between them a piece of unfolded paper. The prelate is seated in an armchair, and looks up as if he were about to communicate the contents of the paper to some one near him." — (C. and C.)
The Madonna and Child with St. John and St. Anthony the Hermit, also called the Virgin with the Roses, is beautiful in colour, composition, faces, and figures, and the landscape, that extends into a wooded country, is also notable.
" The boy Baptist with his offering; the Infant Christ, stooping this time from His mother's lap, accepting the roses, or rather having taken as much as he could carry, looking down at the bunch which the Baptist still holds up to him ; the Virgin smiling at the scene as she sits under the shelter of a brown hanging in the corner of a land- scape ; at her side the white-haired and bearded St. An-
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thony with his bell, leans on his staff, his face almost Leonardesque in type and regularity of feature. Nothing as yet approaching this work in sweetness of tone, freedom of modelling or clever appeal to nature has come from Titian's hand." — (C. and C.)
Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi,
although unfinished, is a magnificent composition with a fanciful and charming background. The most complete work is found in the trees.
" This- picture in which the distribution and composition are of a studied simplicity, in which the numerous per- sons are arranged in groups, bound together by skilful disposition of masses, and where all the figures, though placed in a common obscurity, are made visible by the reflections of feeble and broken lights, is the most com- plete example that Leonardo has left to painters who, like Fra Bartolommeo, have devoted themselves to the art of distributing light, and combining the composition of their pictures by the use of shade on shade." — (C. F. von R.)
The Head of Medusa, whether by Leonardo or a copy of his work, or painted from Vasari's de- scription of Leonardo's picture that long belonged to the Duke Cosimo de' Medici, is an extraordi- nary picture.
" It is a death-like head, of a fantastic yet realistic type and marvellously drawn. The glassy eyes extinguish themselves in rolling in their orbits, the mouth is distorted with agony and the hair, which seems bristling with hor- ror, is composed of hideous green snakes, which Leonardo has rendered with an extreme fineness of touch ; they ex- tend themselves as if fearfully hissing ; even as though they shrunk from the fatal breath that escapes from that terrible mouth."— (M. M. H.)
An Annunciation, catalogued to Leonardo, is now supposed to be by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Beau- tifully painted is the marble table at which the
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Virgin is seated ; and the landscape, with its for- mal trees and flower-bed near which Gabriel is kneeling, is of the greatest charm. The work has also been attributed to Lorenzo di Credi.
Perseus Delivering Andromeda from the Sea Monster is a picture exquisite in its details. There is authority for believing that it was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci and painted by Piero.
" Piero di Cosimo never painted anything better, for it is impossible to conceive a sea-monster more whimsically imagined than this, nor a more resolute attitude than that of Perseus, who strikes at him in the air with his sword. Here is Andromeda bound, divided between fear and hope, of a most fair countenance; and here, in the foreground, are many people collected in various and strange cos- tumes, playing on instruments and singing, among whom some laugh and rejoice at the liberation of Andromeda. The landscape is beautiful and agreeable in colour, and for gradation of tints and soft effects this work is managed with great care." — (V.)
We find two examples of Luini's Salome and the Head of John the Baptist. One was long attributed to Correggio and the other to Leonardo da Vinci, but modern criticism has given them both to Luini. It was a favourite subject with this master. Of the two examples here, No. 1132 is the better.
" The princess is turning aside towards an old woman at her side, while the executioner holds the head over a splendid gold chalice-like cup. Her expression is a very sweet one, but quite out of keeping with any idea either of sorrow, sympathy, or fear." — (G. C. W.)
The Holy Family is the only easel picture in existence by Michael Angelo, and is peculiarly unattractive. The nude figures in the background
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greatly resemble those in a similar picture by Sig- norelli, also in this gallery.
" It must have been sheer caprice that led him to paint this pictr.re. The power of the picture is so thrust upon the spectator by the uncomfortable attitude of the Virgin that the subject loses in sweetness and grace more than can possibly be gained by any exhibition of the artist's mastery over strained muscles and colossal form." — (M. O.)
A curious Allegory (sometimes called Madonna by the Lake), by Giovanni Bellini, has long been a puzzle. Recently Dr. Ludwig discovered that it was inspired by a mediaeval work, Le Pelerinage de Tame, by Guillaume de Guilleville.
" The railed-in space is the earthly paradise where souls represented as children shake down fruits from a tree, the mystical tree of the Cantus Canticum. Saints Peter and Paul guard the door, while the hermit across the water indicates the life of asceticism and resistance of temptation (typified by the centaur), by which alone the probation of purgatory is lessened." — (R. E. F.)
Giorgione's Ordeal of Moses and Judgment of Solomon are supposed to have been painted be- tween his sixteenth and eighteenth year, but they already show the deep tones, brilliant touch, radiance of sky and landscape and fine figures that were among his distinguishing characteristics. The subject of the first is taken from a Rabbinic legend describing Moses as being brought before Pharaoh and offered a dish of burning coals and a ruby in order to decide a point. His life hung on the choice of the coals. At first the child reached for the ring; but the angel Gabriel, who was present, turned his hand aside. Moses took
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a coal and put it in his mouth, and burnt his tongue so that he never after spoke distinctly.
" Pharaoh sits on a throne inlaid with marbles and carved with reliefs. His court surrounds him. Two pages in front present the dishes in which fire and gold are placed. The infant Moses supported by his mother plays with the fire and surprises the bystanders. The background is a glade with tall trees, through the trunks and boughs of which the forest and distant hills appear. There is a high and courtly air in the graceful setting and proportion as well as in the rich dress of the dramatis persona. The diverse shades of intensely bright foliage relieved upon each other or thrown upon the radiant sky, the blue mountains from which the nearer slopes and flow- ers are so cleverly parted — all this is laid in with exquisite touch and minuteness of finish ; and a clear exhilarating sparkle suggests those delightful hours of the warmer climes when rain has cooled the air and filtered it." — (C. and C.)
The Judgment of Solomon is also a combina- tion of figures and landscape. Although the dis- tribution of the actors is similar, the figures are not quite so fine.
" There is more vividness of tone, more variety of ground and episode, and more richness of contrasts, yet not more gorgeous vegetation ; and the country is the same, seen from a more interesting side. The figures alone are less ably wrought and numerous repaintings and mod- ern alterations of costume deface the composition." — (C. and C.)
Botticelli is splendidly represented here in every phase of his art. First there is the famous Birth of Venus; the allegory called Calumny; the exquisite Madonna of the Magnificent; The Madonna della Melagrana; the Adoration of the Magi and the Return of Judith; and Por- trait of Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici.
The Birth of Venus is Botticelli's greatest mas-
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terpiece in decorative design, and although the colours are pale and cold and probably somewhat faded, they are exquisitely blended. Modern criti- cism has rejected the idea that it is a companion to the Primavera, although both pictures were painted for Lorenzo de' Medici (see p. 362).
" In pictures like this of Botticelli's you have a record of the first impression made by the Hellenic spirit on minds turned back towards it in almost painful aspira- tion from a world in which it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the energy, the industry of realization, with which Botticelli carries out his intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence over the human mind of the imaginative system of which this is the central myth. The light is, indeed, cold — mere sunless dawn ; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you can see the better for that quietness in the morn- ing air each long promontory as it slopes down to the water's edge. Men go forth to their labours until the evening; but she is awake before them, and you might think that the sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long day of love yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blows hard across the grey water, mov- ing forward the dainty-lipped shell on which she sails, the sea ' showing his teeth ' as it moves in thin lines of foam, and sucking in one by one the falling roses, each severe in outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as Botticelli's flowers always are. Botticelli meant all that imagery to be altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness of resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued and chilled it ; but his predi- lection for minor tones counts also; and what is unmis- takable is the sadness with which he has conceived the goddess of pleasure as the depository of a great power over the lives of men." — (W. P.)
Calumny is a small picture, only two by three feet, but it is nevertheless a great one. The subject was taken from Lucian's description of a lost mas- terpiece by the old Greek painter Apelles. Botti-
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celli follows the narrative closely, laying the scene in a spacious Renaissance audience-hall decorated with statues and friezes with large open arches giving a view of the sea and sky. On the right is enthroned the Judge who is listening to the two women, Ignorance and Suspicion. Calumny with flaming torch in one hand is dragging in a young man. She is accompanied by her two maids, Deceit and Hypocrisy, and is led by an evil-looking man, who is Envy or Rancour. Remorse clad in dark robes stands to the left, and behind him naked Truth, strikingly like Venus in the Birth of Venus.
" The scene is vividly and dramatically realised ; but it is rendered with a vehemence both of sentiment and ex- pression which somewhat detracts from the artistic effect. . . . The picture displays a bitter irony of feeling that is quite unprecedented in Botticelli's art. It seems to have been painted in some mood of exasperation, as a passionate protest against intrigue and falsehood, a passionate ap- peal for right and justice. For the first time he subordi- nates, even sacrifices, aesthetic effect to an ethical purpose, and uses his art as a means for expounding moral truths." -(A. S.)
The Madonna of the Magnificat, so called because the Virgin is writing this hymn in the book on her lap, is in tondo form, and is one of the most beautiful of Botticelli's works. The Virgin in face expression, as well as the arrangement of her drap- eries, recalls Fra Filippo Lippi. Beautifully painted is the jewelled crown that two angels are holding above her head, and beautiful is the angel that hovers over the two grandsons of Cosimo, Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, rep- resented also as angels.
"In feeling, the Magnificat shows far less intensity of
MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT— Botticelli
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MADONNA DI SAX FRANCESCO— Andrea del Sarto
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emotion, much more suavity of mood, than is usual in Botticelli's religious pictures. The sadness with which he habitually invested his Madonnas is here reduced to a vague, soft melancholy; and but for the inspired eyes of the Holy Child, and the eager life of the child-angels, the religious as well as the human interest is subordinated to the development of a motive of artistic beauty. The com- position of this picture has been likened by Mr. Symonds to the 'corolla of an open rose.' The grouping is su- perbly designed to suit the requirements of circular distri- bution. Not only are the attitudes of the figures so ar- ranged that their leading lines shall follow the marginal curve, but in almost every detail, in the trailing wreaths of the Madonna's veil, in the loosely coiled plaits of her hair, the careless knot of her kerchief, and even the carved tracery of her chair, as well as in the wavy masses and soft locks of the angel's hair, and the windings of the distant river, the artist has introduced an elaboration of curves and undulations which respond to the external circle and repeat its flow of line with infinite variations. The colouring is clear and soft and so harmoniously blended as to appear almost subdued in tone. There is considerable use of gold in the hair and ornaments; and in every detail the picture is exquisitely and delicately finished."— (A. S.)
It is interesting to compare this work with the Madonna della Melagrana deriving its name from the pomegranate in the hand of the excep- tionally beautiful Infant on the Virgin's lap. This is also a tondo and similar in colour, though very different in composition and feeling.
" In returning to his old theme of Our Lady enthroned among angels, he represents it in an indeterminate region which is neither heaven nor earth. A celestial light falls on her from above ; but her thoughts seem rather occupied with the things of earth. This woe-begone Madonna, wistful beyond all his other Madonnas, is possessed by a melancholy which is not only that of apprehension for what is inevitably coming, but also of vague regret for
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what has been irrevocably missed. She is not only sur- veying the sorrow that awaits her in the future, the agony of the Pieta, the pain that is part of her love for her Di- vine Child; she is also measuring the sacrifice of the pres- ent— the renunciation of all the natural joys of life and youth that are incompatible with her miraculous mother- hood."—(A. S.)
The Adoration of the Magi was ordered by the Medici for the Church of Sta. Maria Novella shortly after the death of Cosimo and was intended to honour him. Cosimo kneels before the Virgin and kisses the Infant's feet. The other two Magi are portraits of Giuliano and Giovanni de' Medici (Leo X.). The young man, on the left, on horse- back is probably Lorenzo the Magnificent.
" It is the most scientific and realistic of all Botticelli's masterpieces, and as such it furnishes a remarkable in- stance of the versatility of his genius. Though belonging to the same period as the panel of the warrior's dream, it has nothing in common with this work, except an obvious desire to do honour to the Medici, of which family it contains several portraits." — (A. S.)
The portrait supposed to represent Giovanni de' Medici, younger son of Cosimo, a man of haughty bearing and holding a medal of Cosimo in his hands, has a fine landscape background.
" In the strong intellectual features Botticelli shows his power of reconstructing a vigorous and commanding per- sonality ; and the soft mass of thick, wavy hair which frames the hard, almost gaunt outlines of the face, is rendered with wondrous delicacy and life." — (A. S.)
Judith is a tragic subject treated with rare grace and restraint. " Mr. Ruskin, in his petulant-playful way, has touched
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upon the feeling of amaze most people have who look for the first time at Botticelli's Judith tripping smoothly and lightly over the hill-country, her steadfast maid dogging with intent patient eyes every step she takes. You say it is flippant, affected, pedantic. For answer, I refer you to the sage himself, who, from his point of view — that paint- ing may fairly deal with a chapter of history — is perfectly right. The prevailing strain of the story is the strength of weakness — ex dulci fortitude, to invert the old enigma. " O God, O my God, hear me also, a widow. Break down their stateliness by the hand of a woman ! " It is the re- frain that runs through the whole history of Israel, that reasonable complacency of a little people in their God- fraught destiny. And, withal, a streak of savage spite : that the audacious oppressor shall be done scornfully to death. Giuditta, dainty, blue-eyed, a girl still and three years a widow, flits homeward through a spring land- scape of grey and green and the smile of a milky sky, being herself the dominant of the chord, with her bough of slipt olive and her jagged scimitar, with her pretty blue fal-lals smocked and puffed, and her yellow curls floating over her shoulders. On her slim feet are the san- dals that ravished his eyes ; all her maiden bravery is dancing and fluttering like harebells in the wind. Behind her plods the slave girl folded in an orange scarf, bearing that shapeless, nameless burden of hers, the head of the grim Lord Holofernes. Oh, for that, it is the legend it- self! For look at the girl's eyes. What does their dreamy solemnity mean if not, ' the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a woman '? One other delicate bit of symbolizing he has allowed himself, which I may not omit. You are to see by whom this deed was done : by a woman who has unsexed herself. Judith is absorbed in her awful service; her robe trails on the ground and clings about her knees; she is unconscious of the hindrance. The gates of Be- thulia are in sight; the Chaldean horsemen are abroad, but she has no anxiety to escape. She is swift because her life just now courses swiftly; but there is no haste. The maid, you shall mark, picks up her skirts with careful hand, and steps out the more lustily for it.
" No blood if you please. Therefore, in Botticelli's Judith, nothing but the essentials are insisted on : the rest we instantly imagine, but it is not there to be sensed. The
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panel is in a tremor. So swift and secret is Judith, so furtive the maid, we need no hurrying horsemen to re- mind us of her oath, — ' Hear me, and I will do a thing which shall go throughout all generations to the children of our nation.' Sudden death in the air; nature has been outraged. But there is no drop of blood — the thin scarlet line along the sword-edge is a symbol if you will— the pale head in the cloth is a mere ' thing ' ; yet we all know what has been done."— (M. Hew.)
An altar-piece of Domenico Ghirlandaio's early years is the Madonna Enthroned.
"The Virgin sits beneath a canopy holding the Child upon her left knee, while he with one hand holds to his side a crystal ball surmounted by a jewelled cross, and raises the other hand in the act of blessing. The Virgin wears a rose-red robe, over which a blue robe, lined with green, is clasped across her breast by that brooch which appears so often — this time the central stone is blue in- stead of red — in Domenico's pictures, and is perhaps a memory of the Ghirlandajo goldsmith's shop. By her side stand attendant angels, two on either hand, crowned with garlands and at once carrying the mind back to the ' Coronation ' picture of the Accademia by Filippo Lippi. On the steps of her throne stand St. Michael and St. Raphael, two charming naive figures, of whom the former reappears in more developed but not more engaging shape in the altar-piece, now at Munich, which Domenico de- signed for Sta. Maria Novella in the last two years of his life. Below the steps on either side, kneel the two bishop saints, St. Zenobius and St. Justus. A rich carpet of the kind beloved by Baldovinetti and Domenico lies upon the steps before the Madonna, while cypresses and oranges are seen against the sky in the upper part of the picture. The architectural setting is lovingly painted and strangely beset with jewels, an offence indeed to the architect, though a delight to the jeweller. The picture is thus full of the traits of Ghirlandajo's art, to which may be added one minor detail which recurs over and over again in his paintings, and may be called a persistent mannerism of the painter; I mean the curious and outward crooking of
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the little finger. If this peculiarity be looked for in the hands in any of his pictures painted after 1475, it will sel- dom be found to be wholly absent.
" This Madonna Enthroned has much charm together with some obvious shortcomings. It is delightful in its fresh, gay, simple pleasure in the brightness of youth and life. The Madonna has the sweet, simple face of one who does not forecast her sorrow but is content with her pres- ent joy. She has in her attitude, and cast of drapery, and form, memories both of Filippo Lippi and of Verrocchio." -(G. S. D.) ,
The round panel, or tondo, The Adoration of the Kings, is dated 1487:
" By reason of its gaiety and life, and the presence of a certain na'ive delight in bright colours and strange uni- forms and animals and flowers — for Ghirlandajo's favour- ite flower, the Star of Bethlehem, 'carpets the foreground — it is a fascinating picture. Here the Virgin's throne is lowlier than in most cases, just as she herself is less of a queen and more of a village maiden than in the Innocenti group.* She sits on a low pedestal — a marble fragment which has fallen from the mined classical arches seen be- yond."—(G. S. D.)
Ghirlandaio has also a lovely Madonna En- throned with six saints at her side arid St. Domi- nic and St. Francis kneeling in front.
" The two kneeling monks are made much smaller than the Virgin, the St. John, or the other saints. They are to be thought of as living men at the time of their so kneeling, and so by the old tradition must be made smaller than the glorified saints above. The picture is indeed that of a sound painter enough, one who saw no visions, had no strong individual aim, loved bright colours and pretty patterns and was fond of flowers and animals. The trees thrown against the sky above the line of the canopy, es- pecially the orange trees, are good, and are the work of a man that loved them. There is, too, a richly painted car-
. * Adoration of the Magi, Innocenti Hospital, Florence.
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pet, which appears again in his San Miniato fresco." — (G. S. D.)
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's two masterpieces are here. One depicts the Transference of the Relics of St. Zanobius to their resting-place in the Duomo, with the miracle which the shrine in its transit performed in the Piazza. San Gio- vanni behind the Baptistry.
" The shrine having been lowered to give the bearers rest, the legend had it that a dead tree revived and sprang into life. To-day in that Piazza a column marks the site of this legendary miracle. In the other compan- ion picture, St. Zanobius restores to life the dead child of a French lady in the Borgo degli Albizzi. In the first picture the shrine, which by the way is not the shrine of Ghiberti's workmanship which now contains the relics, is carried on the shoulders of bishops, while the tree is seen flinging its fresh foliage into the sky above. The colours are deep and transparent, but with a certain tendency to blackness, which reminds one of the same defect in Fra Bartolommeo's later work. The drawing is good upon the whole, but the figures are somewhat short and the hands lack character, that of the bishop holding up his robe in the far left being weak. The companion subject, the Miracle of San Zanobius, is inferior to the other, pre- senting the same faults in a higher degree." — (G. S. D.)
Filippino Lippi's Adoration of the Magi is a brilliant and rich composition, with the walls of the stable broken away to give a view of a beautiful landscape and glimpse of the sea. It is both sump- tuous and devotional and contains portraits of well- known contemporaries, especially members of the Medici family. The old King, with bald head, holding a quadrant, is Piero Francesco de' Medici .
" No careful and grateful student of this painter can overlook his special fondness for sea-sides ; the tenderness and pleasure with which he touches upon the green open-
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ing of their chines or coombs, the clear, low ranges of their rocks. This picture bears witness to this. Beyond the furthest meadows and behind the tallest trees far-off downs and cliffs open seaward, and further yet pure nar- row spaces intervene of gracious and silent sea." — (H. S.)
The Madonna di San Francesco, or Madonna dell' Arpie, was painted for the nuns of St. Fran- cis in Florence. Ferdinand de' Medici was so charmed with it that he bought it and gave the Franciscans a copy. It is one of Andrea's best works and the most beautiful of all his Madon- nas, which is a portrait of his wife.
" The beauty of this picture is beyond praise — dignified, harmonious, luminous. The Virgin stands on a low pedes- tal, one arm supporting the Holy Child, who clings to her neck with a movement of exquisite grace; her other hand holds a book upon which the Child has placed a foot; on either side stand St. Francis and St. John the Evange- .list. Two child angels cling to the Madonna's feet ; on the pedestal below are carved harpies who have given their name to the picture." — (H. G.)
Fra Bartolommeo's Virgin Enthroned with St. Anna was left unfinished, otherwise it would have been his masterpiece. It is but a sketch in bistre. St. Anna stands beside the Virgin praying to the Trinity, and on the left and right of the throne are the ten tutelary saints of Florence, St. Reparata being particularly fine. Among the eight Dominican monks the painter has portrayed him- self. The boy-angels on the steps of the throne are worthy of Raphael.
Albertinelli's Visitation is a simple and grand picture, with a predella depicting the Annuncia- tion, Nativity and Circumcision.'
" The Virgin bends slightly forward as Elizabeth steps up to take her hand. The arrangement of the two figures
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is natural and noble, the drawing and the expression ex- cellent. The drapery is admirably arranged and the white handkerchief on the head of Elizabeth is managed with great skill so as not to attract the eye or divert attention from her face, which is in shade. The figure of Elizabeth is singularly beautiful." — (K. K.)
In Filippo Lippi's Virgin and Child the Vir- gin is Lucretia Buti.
" The Virgin is seated in a window with a pleasing land- scape in the distance, composed of rocks and trees, a winding river and the sea-shore ; two boy-angels bear the Infant Christ to his mother. She is seen in profile, and her face is that of a fair young girl ; her hands are clasped reverently and her eyes cast down, as she accepts the gift without surprise or elation. The Child extends his arms towards her; one of the angels looks back laughing, as in triumph. Although the heads here are without idealistic beauty, the artist has given a tender expression and youth- ful freshness to his representation of the Virgin, which has a charm apart from perfection of form and figure." — (S. and J. H.)
One of the most beautiful works the painter- monk ever executed is the Coronation of the Virgin.
" Quite unearthly is the Coronation of the Virgin ; the Madonna crossing her arms meekly on her bosom and bending in humble awe to receive the crown of heaven, is very lovely, — the Saviour is perhaps a shade less excellent ; the angels are admirable, and many of the assistant saints full of grace and dignity, — but the characteristic of the pic- ture is the flood of radiance and glory diffused over it, the brightest colours — gold, azure, pink, red, yellow — pure, unmixed, yet harmonizing and blending like a rich burst of wind-music, in a manner incommunicable in recital — distinct and yet soft, as if the whole scene were mirrored in the sea of glass'that burns before the throne." — (L. V.)
The Virgin and Child, surrounded by twelve
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angels — two of them in attitudes of homage and the rest playing on musical instruments — is one of the few works of Era Angelico the date of which is known ; and with its wing pictures, representing St. John the Baptist and St. Mark on the inside and St. Mark and St. Peter on the outside, and its predella, is, perhaps, the best of all his composi- tions. It was painted in 1433 for the Company of Flax Merchants, whose patron saint was Mark. The figures are painted on a gold ground, and the angels are particularly beautiful.
The predella to this work, consisting of the Adoration of the Magi, with an especially lovely Virgin, as the central picture ; St.* Peter preaching and St. Mark writing his Gospel, on the left ; and the Martyrdom of St. Mark on the right are ranked among Fra Angelico's most exquisite works.
His Marriage of the Virgin (a predella) con- tains twenty-two figures beautifully grouped and very animated. All the colours are lovely, par- ticularly the rose-hued mantles of the Virgin and St. Joseph. The latter carries a flowering branch on which is perched a dove. Correggio has a beautiful Virgin and Child in the open air.
" The Virgin is enveloped in a mantle in a peculiar way; it is bunched up from the waist, and thrown over the head like a veil, one of the falling flaps serving as a sup- port for the Child. This idea, which has been censured and considered to be an invention of Correggio's, is not new : it is found in paintings of the Florentine and German Schools, and also in a picture of the Veronese master, Girolamo dai Libri. There is something almost playful in the arrangement of the rich voluminous garment which is made to occupy so prominent a place in this picture. The smiling Madonna bends playfully over the charming little being lying before her, with her elegant hands clasped in adoration, and, like some beautiful idyl, the
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whole is set in a lovely landscape, which blinds effectively the beauty of the southern scenery with the stateliness of Classical architecture. A full light is thrown over the In- fant Jesus and the Madonna, and gradually toned off towards the background. The effect produced is almost as if the figures emitted their own radiance, which grew fainter and fainter till at last dissolved into space." — (J. M.)
Correggio's Repose on the Flight into Egypt is an early work, showing the straw-colour peculiar to Dosso Dossi and Garofalo. The Virgin's face is very spirited. Authorities disagree as to whether this is Correggio's own work, but all believe that the composition is his.
" Here for the first time, the scene becomes the charm- ing genre picture, which before this time has not been the case with the realists of the Fifteenth Century in spite of all the triits taken from reality. The colouring is un- equal, in parts wonderfully finished." — (J. B.)
Correggio's Madonna and Child with Angel Musicians is also a youthful work, though exqui- site in colour and finish. It has been attributed by some critics to Titian.
One of the Sienese Sodoma's best works is St. Sebastian, which is considered the most beauti- ful example of this subject in all painting. It was painted for a banner for the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian.
" Gifted with an exquisite feeling for the beauty of the human body, Sodoma excelled himself when he was con- tented with a single figure. His St. Sebastian, notwith- standing its wan and faded colouring, is still the very best that has been painted. Suffering, refined and spiritual, without contortion, or spasm, could not be presented with more pathos in a form of more surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part of its
VIRGIN AND CHILD— Correggio
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THE TRANSFIGURATION— Raphael
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unanalysable charm may be due to the bold thought of combining the beauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of martyrdom. Only the Renaissance could have produced a hybrid so successful, because so deeply felt."— (J. A. S.)
Mantegna's Madonna and Child in a Rocky Landscape was painted during his Roman period. The detail is marvellous and the whole work a specimen of delicate miniature painting.
" It is surprising that Andrea should have compelled his usually hard and rugged pencil to so much softness. The Virgin sits on a stone supporting the sleeping Infant upon her knee, her glance downcast, tender and mournful; she seems to hush the half-dying and flexible child into slumber; about her a fine cast of sculptural drapery; be- hind a rugged shred of rock tunnelled by quarrymen; a road with shepherds and their flocks, a distant hill and a castle — for Mantegna's stern habits a wonderfully tender performance." — (C. and C.)
In different style but one of the artist's most carefully finished works is his triptych representing the Adoration of the Magi in the centre with the Circumcision on the right panel and the Ascen- sion on the left. The high lights are heightened with gold and all three pictures are greatly ad- mired by all critics.
" A triptych, the central part slightly concave — the Adoration of the Magi, the Circumcision and the Ascen- sion— is another specimen of solemn grandeur of concep- tion combined with the minutest finish, — Mantegna's finish never being mere labour, but simply the conscientious sat- isfaction of the keenest eye and most intelligent hand." — (A. H. L.)
One of Cristofano Allori's most attractive pic- tures is the Infant Jesus Sleeping on the Cross, much in the style of Correggio.
" On the parted lips there is a placid smile, which seems
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to tell of happy dreams, or, according to the old super- stition, the angels are whispering to the Child; the little arms are folded on the breast, and the peaceful land- scape background harmonises well with the subject."— (S. and J. H.)
The Madonna and Child, enthroned and ac- companied by John the Baptist and St. Sebastian, is a beautiful example of Perugino. The group is placed under the vaulted arch resting on square pillars of which the painter was so fond. The faces of the Virgin and St. Sebastian are partic- ularly beautiful in expression.
Perugino's splendid portrait of Francesco delle Opere, representing a clean-shaven man with bright eyes and bushy hair with a roll in his hand on which is inscribed " Timete Deum," long passed for a portrait of the painter himself. The landscape in the background is particularly fine.
Domenichino's Cardinal Agucchia is also seated in an arm-chair, wearing red robe and camail and white rochet, leaning his right hand that holds his cap on the arm of the chair, and w'ith the left is about to lift a bell that is stand- ing on the table near a letter.
Portraits of Federigo di Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, by Piero della Francesca, are extraordinary works. On the back is a repre- sentation of these two personages seated in trium- phal cars, the horses of which are splendidly drawn. This allegory is accompanied with complimentary verses.
" This work is a landmark in the progress of art. It is executed with the utmost precision of drawing and minute- ness and softness of method. It is remarkable for the beauty of the landscape backgrounds in which he dis-
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plays his knowledge of aerial perspective. These master- pieces of the artist were finished as early as 1472. They are the more interesting from the history of the persons represented. The ancestors of Federigo were the two Montefeltri, mentioned by Dante. Federigo was created Duke of Urbino by Sixtus IV., when the Pope's nephew, Giovanni della Rovere, married Federigo's second daughter. Federigo was distinguished as a soldier and as a patron of arts and letters. The depression in his nose was caused by a wound received in battle. His wife was celebrated for her learning as well as beauty. She died when only twenty-six years old." — (K. K.)
Two works by Angelo Bronzino claim attention — Bartolommeo Panciatichi and his wife. The former is standing in a gallery, full face, his left arm resting on a console, beneath which a dog is standing. His hair, beard, and moustache are blonde set off to advantage by the black cap with plume and black doublet with sleeves of cerise. The fingers of his right hand lightly rest between the leaves of a book.
His wife, Lucrezia dei Pucci, is seated in an arm-chair, her right hand resting on an open book on her lap. She wears a red dress with violet sleeves, and a pearl necklace with pendant, gold chain and silver belt.
" Bronzino painted for Panciatichi two portraits — his wife and himself — so natural that they seemed to be alive. They lacked only breath." — (V.)
Sustermans's Galileo, representing the great astronomer, dressed in black with white hair and white moustache, was considered by his contem- poraries a marvel of portraiture.
Clouet's Francis I. in armour, with green cap and white plumes and mounted on a richly capari-
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soned horse, and Holbein's Richard Southwell are included among the most famous portraits.
In the Gallery of Painters by themselves, the most remarkable examples are perhaps Raphael, Holbein, Van Dyck, Pourbus the Elder, Rubens, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Watts and Ingres.
Laneret's Flute Player, catalogued to Watteau, a beautiful landscape where men, women and chil- dren are amusing themselves, is one of the choice works.
Durer's Adoration of the Magi is his first im- portant easel-painting.
" Mary sits on the left, looking like the happiest of German mothers, with the enchantingly naive Infant on her knees ; the three Wise Men from the East in magnifi- cent dresses glittering with gold, approach, deeply moved, and with various emotions depicted on their countenances, while the whole creation around seems to share their joy- ous greeting, even to the flowers and herbs, and to the great stag-beetle and two white butterflies, which are in- troduced after the manner of Wolgemut. The sunny green on copse and mountain throws up the group better than the conventional nimbus could have done. The fair- haired Virgin, draped entirely in blue, with a white veil, recalls vividly the same figure in the Paumgartner altar- piece. Aerial and linear perspectives are still imperfect, but the technical treatment of the figures is as finished as in Durer's best pictures of the later period." — (M. T.)
In the Virgin of the Cornflower the Ma- donna is enveloped in a rose-coloured garment with fair hair falling on her shoulders. She holds an apple in her left hand, and with her right supports the Infant, who has a blue cornflower in his left hand.
" The Child is looking to the right with an anxious ex- pression on His face, and the upper part of His head is extraordinarily large, while His limbs are small. The
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features of the mother are noble and elevated, but without any depth of expression." — (M. T.)
Durer's Portrait of his Father, painted in his nineteenth year, in 1490, is a remarkable work for any master at any age.
" The face and the hands, which hold a red rosary, are wonderfully life-like; the expression is one of dignified earnestness and kindly repose, with strong lines of deter- mination about the mouth; and the eyes, small indeed, but clear and intelligent, look out upon the world with a keen glance that seems to interrogate the future. The painting is unusually broad and vigorous." — (M. T.)
The Uffizi is particularly strong in the Little Dutch Masters, the most striking specimens of which are Dow's Pancakes, Ter Borch's Lady Drinking, Steen's Family Feast and Metsu's Lady and Huntsman and Lute Player.
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ON March 28, 1909, Pius X. formally opened the new picture gallery of the Vatican, the expense of which he bore personally, in the left wing of the Vatican. Of the three hundred pictures gathered here, about sixty were brought from the old Vati- can Gallery (founded by Pius VII.), and the others from the Lateran Palace, the Vatican Li- brary, and the private apartments and other rooms of the Vatican.
The greatest treasure in the collection is Raph- ael's Transfiguration, which has been called " the grandest picture in the world." It was or- dered by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (afterwards Clement VII.) for the Cathedral of Narbonne. Raphael was at work upon it when he died and it was hung over his couch as he lay in state, and carried in his funeral procession. In the following year Giulio Romano completed the unfinished part and the Cardinal presented the work to the Church of San Pietro in Montorio, sending in its place the Raising of Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo, now in the National Gallery, London (see p. 17). The Transfiguration was carried off by the French to Paris in 1797 and hung in the Louvre. When returned to Italy in 1815, it was placed in the Vatican.
" If we remove to a certain distance from it, so that the forms shall become vague, indistinct, and only the masses of colour and the light and shade perfectly distinguishable, 418
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we shall see that the picture is indeed divided as if hori- zontally, the upper half being all light, and the lower half comparatively all dark. As we approach nearer, step by step, we behold above, the radiant figure of the Saviour floating in mid air, with arms outspread, garments of trans- parent light, glorified visage upturned as in rapture, and the hair uplifted and scattered as I have seen it in persons under the influence of electricity. On the right, Moses ; on the left, Elijah; representing, respectively, the old law and the old prophecies, which both testified of Him. The three disciples lie on the ground, terror-struck, dazzled. There is a sort of eminence or platform, but no perspec- tive, no attempt at real locality, for the scene is revealed as in a vision, and the same soft transparent light envelops the whole. This is the spiritual life, raised far above the earth, but not yet in heaven. Below is seen the earthly life, poor humanity struggling helplessly with pain, infirm- ity, and death. The father brings his son, the possessed, or, as we should now say, the epileptic boy, who ofttimes falls into the water or into the fire, or lies grovelling on the earth, foaming and gnashing his teeth ; the boy strug- gles in his arms — the rolling eyes, the distorted features, the spasmodic limbs are at once terrible and pitiful to look on.
" Such is the profound, the heart-moving significance of this wonderful picture. It is, in truth, a fearful approxi- mation of the most opposite things ; the mournful helpless- ness, suffering, and degradation of human nature, the un- availing pity, are placed in immediate contrast with spiritual light, life, hope — nay, the very fruition of heavenly rap- ture.
" It has been asked, who are the two figures, the two saintly deacons, who stand on each side of the upper group, and what have they to do with the mystery above, or the sorrow below ? Their presence shows that the whole was conceived as a vision, or a poem. The two saints are St. Lawrence and St. Julian, placed there at the request of the Cardinal de' Medici, for whom the picture was painted, to be offered by him as an act of devotion as well as munifi- cence to his new bishopric; and these two figures com- memorate in a poetical way, not unusual at the time, his father, Lorenzo, and his uncle, Giuliano de' Medici. They
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would be better away; but Raphael, in consenting to the wish of his patron that they should be introduced, left no doubt of the significance of the whole composition — that it is placed before worshippers as a revelation of the double life of earthly suffering and spiritual faith, as an excitement to religious contemplation and religious hope."-(A. J.)
The Madonna di Foligno was ordered by Sigismondo Conti for the church of Ara Cceli and removed to Foligno in 1565, when his niece took the veil at the convent of St. Anna, founded by the Conti. It was carried off by the French and while in Paris was transferred to canvas. A fall- ing bomb indicates that the donor offered this in thanksgiving for his escape during a siege of his native Foligno, which appears in the land- scape background. This picture is considered one of the most brilliant examples of the Italian brush.
" In the opening skies, the Virgin and the Infant Jesus appear in the middle of a circle glittering with light, out- side of which an innumerable company of angels is throng- ing. On the earth, transfigured by the radiation of the eternal beams, the donor contemplates the divine vision, in company with St. John the Baptist, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Jerome, who are recommending his prayers to the Virgin and Saviour. One angel, detached from the celestial train, also adds his voice to those of the saints, and holds a tablet on which was to be mentioned the destination of the picture.
" TJ^JVirgin is there as the intermediary between man and God, at the same time reflecting human suffering and divine splendour. The vesture is one of rigorous chastity; for a robe of beautiful clear red, and a mantle of almost equally clear blue form the whole. The robe, very mod- estly cut, leaves the neck bare to the beginning of the shoulders, and severely envelops the breast and arms; the bodice is trimmed with a gold embroidery that gives a truly royal appearance to that humble purple.
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" From the pictorial point of view, the Infant in the Foligno Madonna is in perfect accord with his Mother : he is held to her by the strictest bonds and seems almost to form one with her ; but he remains more exclusively than she confined within the domains of sensible form, and does not at once arouse that great idea of Godhead that Raphael is soon to give its highest expression in the Sistine Madonna.
" The Infant Jesus has heard the prayer of the donor, and hastens to meet him. His arms are outstretched and with his hands he opens his Mother's veil. Ready to spring forward, he is held back only by the red scarf that girds his body and is held by the Virgin's right hand.
" Above the clouds that form the aerial throne of the Virgin, and beyond the circle of golden light surrounding the divine group, the eye loses itself in the midst of a glory formed by a gathering of the most beautiful angels. These mysterious infants that throng around the Virgin and the Word swim in an atmosphere of an inexpressibly soft azure. Some are pushing aside the clouds, to get a better view of the divine spectacle; others give themselves up to prayer, or abandon themselves to ecstasy; some with closed eyes, seem in their sleep to be visited by celestial dreams; and others are embracing one another in fervour and love.
" Below the Virgin and the Infant Jesus, and between St. John the Baptist and St. Francis, St. Jerome and the donor, a full-face angel is standing, with his head and eyes raised towards the Madonna. With both hands he holds a tablet the inscription of which has long disap- peared, if it was ever written. (No author makes any mention of it.) In painting this little figure, Raphael has taken pleasure in displaying all the contrasts of his art. The beauty of the face, the purity of the lines, the fervour of the features, the arrangement of the hair and the wings, the truth and simplicity of the nude, the strength of the modelling, the brilliance of the light and the harmony of the chiaroscuro? all this is inimitable and adds to this work, which is otherwise so complete and so marvellous, ^particularly just and sentimental note.
" Lastly, what is quite as marvellous in this picture is the atmosphere and the landscape. The sun sheds its pure and warm rays over the earth transfigured by the presence
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of the Virgin and the Word. From the blade of grass and the meadow flower dotting the foreground to the sum- mits of the far horizon and even up to the sky, all is full of the glory of God. The saints, the donor and the angel stand upon ground that has nothing unreal in it; but be- yond the foreground, the apotheosis begins, and everything seems to be bathed in an ocean of azure. The eye then loses itself among ideal meadows, gently undulating, fur- rowed by streams, and shadowed by tints of infinite sweet- ness. On these meadows a flock of sheep is led by a shepherd ; two persons are in conversation ; and a knight is travelling, preceded by an attendant. Farther away, a city piles its monuments, temples, and ruins one above another. Woods add to the mysterious beauty of this city which nestles against the sides of high peaks, the sum- mits of which are lost in the clouds. The rainbow, with irised fires, serves as aureole for this immensity, in the midst of which the vibrations of an intense light make the sweetest and most brilliant melodies audible." — (F. A. G.)
In Raphael's Coronation of the Virgin, with its predella depicting the Annunciation, Adora- tion of the Magi and Presentation in the Temple,
" we see for the first time what Perugino's style could reach ; how different, how far superior to his master is Raphael in the whole result, in the divine purity with which he expresses tender devotion, beautiful youth and inspired old age, besides that, he is already far more re- fined in drawing and drapery." — (J. B.)
His Faith, Hope and Charity, circular medal- lions in bistre, formed the predella to the En- tombment in the Borghese Gallery.
Raphael designed the Madonna di Monte Luco, which was painted by Francesco Penni and Giulio Romano. The former executed the lower portion, representing the apostles and the tomb of the Virgin filled miraculously with blooming hearts-
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ease and ixias ; and the latter is responsible for the upper part depicting the Virgin and angels.
The authorship of the Resurrection is still a puzzle to critics. According to tradition, Peru- gino painted Raphael as one of the sleeping soldiers, and Raphael painted Perugino in the back- ground.
" Vasari ascribes it to Perugino ; Orsini suggests that Raphael had a hand in it; Crowe gives it entirely to Raphael as an early work; and Morelli ascribes it entirely to the hand of Lo Spagna. In the midst of so many con- flicting theories, it may be allowable for me to agree with Vasari. It is not very likely that in all his work Peru- gino would preserve the same level of beauty. The figure of the Saviour is inaccurate and badly drawn, the face is quite unsatisfactory, the mandorla clumsy and rigid, the angels poor and lacking in expression, and their draperies feeble. The colouring of the picture, the land- scape, the faces and hands, the wonderful detail, the com- position, the balance and, above all, the technique, speak to me strongly of the master, to whom I ascribe the pic- ture unhesitatingly. I can see no hand of Raphael in it, and while I see no special reason for our crediting the story that gives the sleeping soldier on the right the face of Raphael, yet even that statement but renders it less likelv that Raphael had a hand in the picture itself." — (G. C. W.)
The Madonna Enthroned is a lovely work of Perugino's early period. Beneath the throne stand four noble saints — Herculanus, .Constantius, Lawrence and Louis of Toulouse — patrons of Perugia, all richly dressed.
" The picture is exquisitely beautiful, full of Perugino's special charm, and bearing marks of the Piero della Fran- cesca influence in the arches that support the. canopy, while below the feet of the Madonna, to make quite clear as to who painted the picture, is the signature in some- what remarkable form — Hoc Petrus de Chastro Plebis Pinxit."—(G. C. W.)
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Ranking almost with Raphael's Transfigura- tion is Domenichino's masterpiece, the Com- munion of St. Jerome, painted for the monks of Ara-Cceli, who quarrelled with the painter and suppressed the picture. Some time afterwards they ordered Poussin to paint an altar-piece and gave him this canvas to paint upon. Poussin re- fused and made its existence known to the world.
" The aged saint, — feeble, emaciated, dying, — is borne in the arms of his disciples to the chapel of his monastery and placed within the porch. A young priest sustains him ; St. Paula, kneeling, kisses one of his thin bony hands ; the saint fixes his eager eyes on the countenance of the priest, who is about to administer the Sacrament, — a noble, dignified figure in a rich ecclesiastical dress ; a deacon holds the cup and an attendant priest, the book ; the lion droops his head with an expression of grief; the eyes and attention of all are on the dying saint, while four angels, hovering above look down upon the scene." — (A. J.)
Another masterpiece is Leonardo's St. Jerome, but very differently treated. This is painted in bistre, and corresponds in character with the Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi).
" The St. Jerome inspires the beholder with a feeling of surprise that Leonardo should have been at so little pains to convey the idea of a weather-beaten hermit. On the contrary, we are shown the kneeling figure of a comely old gentleman with the refined features of a philosopher, against a background of rocky landscape which shows up the alabaster whiteness of his skin." — (R. M.)
One of Titian's most beautiful " Holy Conversa- tion " pictures is his Madonna and Saints, rep- resenting St. Nicholas in full episcopal costume; St. Peter with a book; St. Catherine, who is very beautiful ; St. Francis ; St. Anthony of Padua ; and St. Sebastian.
LAST COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME— Domenichino THE VATICAN
THE MAGDALEN— Guercino
NAPLES
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" In this picture there are three stages, the same as in the Transfiguration. Below, saints and martyrs are repre- sented in suffering and abasement; on every face is de- picted sadness, nay, almost impatience : one figure in rich episcopal robes looks upwards, with the most eager and agonized longing, as if weeping, but he cannot see all that is floating above his head, but which we see standing in front of the picture. Above, Mary and her Child are in a cloud, radiant with joy and surrounded by angels who have woven many garlands : the Holy Child holds one of these, and seems as if about to crown the saints beneath, but his Mother withholds his hand for the moment. The con- trast between the pain and the suffering below, whence St. Sebastian looks forth out of the picture with gloom and almost apathy, and the lofty unalloyed exaltation in the clouds above, where crowns and palms are already await- ing him, is truly admirable. High above the group of Mary hovers the Holy Spirit, from whom emanates a bright streaming light, thus forming the apex of the whole composition." — (F. M-B.)
Crivelli's Pieta, a lunette, is an extraordinary combination of the expression of emotion and dec- orative effect. The body of the Saviour is tem- porarily resting on a board placed across the sarcophagus and covered with a piece of brocade which is also used as a background for the heads of Christ and His mother. On either side stand the Magdalen and St. John, whose faces are con- torted with grief.
" The accessories are superb both in design and execu- tion. The cherub heads are meant apparently to float in the air, but they are so thickly set that they produce the effect of a background of burnished metal — a magnificent variety for the ordinary gold field. The whole picture is extraordinarily brilliant in colour and strong in relief." — (G. McN. R.)
A Pieta, which has always enjoyed a great rep- utation, consisting of five persons dramatically
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posed, the most striking of which are Christ and Magdalen, is attributed by some critics to Man- tegna and by others to Montagna.
St. Petronilla is regarded by some critics as Guercino's masterpiece.
" Here is represented with an almost Venetian opulence of splendid costume and detail, but with a startlingly pow- erful, if somewhat violent and scattered chiaroscuro — de- vised from Parmese originals — the disinterment of the fair saint's body at the bidding of her lover, while, in the upper part of the canvas, her immortal part, still sumptu- ously clad in mnndane garments, already appears kneeling in Heaven before the Saviour." — (C. P.)
One of the most important works of the whole Naturalist school is Caravaggio's Entombment.
" A picture wanting in all the characteristics of holy sublimity; but it is nevertheless full of solemnity, only perhaps too like the funereal solemnity of a gipsy chief. A figure of such natural sorrow is the Virgin, who is repre- sented as exhausted with weeping, with her trembling, out- stretched hands, has seldom been painted. Even as mother of a gipsy chief, she is dignified and touch- ing.''-^.)
Andrea Sacchi's St. Romualdo requires ex- planation. It represents the dream the saint had of a ladder like Jacob's, uniting heaven and earth, upon which he saw the monks of his Order ascending by twos and threes, all clothed in white. The monks in their robes are noble figures, and the landscape is also noteworthy.
A Repose of the Holy Family in Egypt, by Baroccio, is natural and charming.
" The right part of the picture (the Child, the ass, and the landscape) is particularly good. The faces, the naked • feet of the Virgin and the Child recall Correggio and the draperies Tiepolo." — (M. P.)
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A number of Byzantine and early Italian mas- ters are grouped in one room. Here we find a triptych, dated 1371, with the signature Giovanni Bonsi, of Florence, an unknown artist ; and a fine Crucifixion, attributed to Giotto. Among the Sienese Primitives, we find Christ the Redeemer on a gold background, by Simone Martini ; and a Crucifixion, very fine in colour, by Lippo Memmi. There are also several works by the Lorenzetti; two scenes of the Funeral of the Virgin, by Taddeo di Bartolo ; and one rare work by his master, Bartolo di Fredi.
Of the early Florentine School, Lorenzo Mon- aco and his pupils occupy the place of honour. He, himself, has a Nativity and a History of St. Benedict, both remarkable for their transparent and harmonious tones. A beautiful Madonna, by Bernardo Daddi, holding a book in her left hand, is particularly attractive. Among many Madonnas and Saints we may note a fine triptych by Allegretto Nugi, signed and dated 1365, who is probably the author of a Madonna and Child, Dead Christ, and a very fine little picture, The Virgin between St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine.
The Miracles of St. Nicholas de Bari, by Gen- tile da Fabriano, or his pupils, contains one in par- ticular— the Storm, in which the sea and sky are marvellously treated. The Miracles of St. Hya- cinth, by F. Cossa, also deserves study.
Ottaviano Nelli's Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty, and Circumcision should be noted, as well as Francesco di Gentile's Madonna with the Butterfly; and Antoniazzo Romano's Madonna della Rota.
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The second room (Fifteenth Century) is largely devoted to Melozzo da Forli, Fra Angelico, and to their pupils. Conspicuous is the famous fresco by Melozzo, originally in the Vatican Library, de- picting Platina, the historian of the Popes and prefect of the Vatican Library, kneeling before Pope Sixtus IV., behind whom are his nephews, Cardinal Giovanni della Rovere (afterwards Julius II.) and Girolamo Riario.
" This fresco, painted in the most severe Paduan style, is very interesting on account of the distinctly marked por- traits, the rich architecture in perspective, and the masterly clear colouring." — (J. B.)
By Benozzo Gozzoli there is a magnificent work representing a Priest administering the Host to several nuns ; above, the Virgin adored by angels ; and, at the base, six charming scenes representing the life and death of the Virgin.
" This capital work, in perfect state of preservation, dates from the youth of Gozzoli and affords a curious specimen of his first manner, inspired by Fra Angelico." — (M. P.)
A Miracle of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Sas- setta, is admirable in composition, colour and ex- pression ; as are two fine specimens of his School : the Virgin, with St. Bernard, St. Sebastian, and St. Catherine of Alexandria, in the style of Piero della Francesca ; and an Umbrian-Florentine work, St. Francis in Prayer, probably by a pupil of Piero.
There are several fine works by Sano di Pietro; and a series of small pieces by Giovanni di Paolo, among which Christ at Gethsemane, an En- tombment and a Nativity are striking. Very
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refreshing by contrast with so many religious works is the Portrait of Francesco Sforza, as a child, by Bernardino de Conti.
Of Fra Angelico's school is the Life of Christ; and the master himself is represented by his His- tory of St. Nicholas of Bari, and a Madonna with Angels, on a gold ground. The latter is very characteristic of Fra Angelico.
" The little cell was as one of the houses of heaven pre- pared for him by his Master. What need had it to be else- where? Was not the Val 'Arno, with its olive woods in white blossom, paradise enough for a poor monk? Or could Christ be indeed in heaven more than here? Was He not always with him? Could he breathe or see, but that Christ breathed beside him, or looked into his eyes? Under every cypress avenue the angels walked ; he had seen their white robes — whiter than the dawn — at his bedside, as he woke in early summer. They had sung with him, one on each side, when his voice failed for joy at sweet vesper and matin time ; his eyes were blinded by their wings in the sunset when it sank behind the hills of Luni."— (R.)
Among the noteworthy foreign works are two by Murillo — Adoration of the Shepherds and a Marriage of St. Catherine; a remarkably fine Teniers; and a Portrait of George IV., by Lawrence, presented to Pius VII. by that sove- reign.
NATIONAL MUSEUM
NAPLES
THE picture gallery of Naples occupies the west wing- in the National Museum built for a bar- racks in 1586; occupied by the University in 1615; and arranged for a museum in 1790. The pictures are somewhat overshadowed by the treasures unearthed at Herculaneum and Pom- peii and the magnificent sculpture gallery.
John Van Eyck's Jerome shows the saint sit- ting in an arm-chair in his study extracting a thorn from the lion's foot.
" His head is vulgar in type as well as in expression. The work bears throughout the stamp of an exclusive realism : the author has treated the accessories with quite as much love as he has the solitary and his strange com- rade. The red-brown tone that dominates the whole colour is found in several other panels by John." — (A. M.)
The scene in Raphael's Madonna del Divino Amore is more solemn than that in the Pitti Ma- donna del Impannata.
" Elizabeth wants the child Christ to bless the little John kneeling on the left, and leads him gently by the hand. Mary prays as if confirming it ; she has let go her hold of the child on her knee, rightly, for if he is capable of blessing, he must also be able to sit firm. It is just in traits of this kind that later art is so poor. The execution must be the work of pupils." — (J. B.)
Close by hangs Giulio Romano's Madonna della Gatta.
" A repetition, given in his style, of the Perla of Raph- 430
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ael. The additions made by the pupil are mere desecra- tions, such as the cat, the transformation of Elizabeth into a gipsy, and various other changes." — (J. B.)
Perugino's Madonna and Child represents the Virgin seated with the Infant Jesus on her knee, in a rocky valley of much beauty. On the left a man on a white horse is approaching with three young companions; and on the right, five persons, two of whom are holding golden cups.
Moretto's Christ Scourged is a charming little composition of exquisite finish.
Andrea del Sarto's great Assumption of the Virgin was painted by his pupils from his sketches and partly executed by himself.
His copy of Raphael's Leo X. (in the Pitti) shows that Raphael's shadows were much lighter at the time they were painted.
" The copy is executed with colours chemically better in the shadows : it shows how the original must have been harmonized." — (J. B.)
Parmegianino's portraits of Columbus and Vespucci, both arbitrarily so named, and of his own daughter, and of De Vincentiis, are among the pearls of the gallery.
" He has several pictures of the most exquisite distinc- tion, with heads fine and long, among others a young girl, modest and candid, who gazes at us with a look of aston- ishment. A great portrait represents a lord of the period, lettered, learned and military. He wears a sort of red cap, and his cuirass is in a corner. His noble face is fine and dreamy, his hair and beard are of admirable beauty and abundance. One could not imagine a more aristo- cratical hand; and his whole expression is gently contem- plative. He is a captain, a thinker, and a man of the world."— (H. A. T.)
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Guercino's well-known Magdalen is also here.
" His charming Magdalen, nude to the waist, in the most graceful attitude, with the most beautiful hair, the most beautiful breast, and the sweetest imperceptible smile of tender and dreamy melancholy. She is the most touching and amiable of all lovers ; and she is contemplat- ing a crown of thorns ! How far we are from the energy and simplicity of the preceding century!" — (H. A. T.)
In Luca Giordono's Pieta
" he here endeavours to be intense, but at least does not surround the body with Caravaggesque gipsies, but with good-natured old mariners." — (J. B.)
St. Francis Xavier Baptizing the Savages was completed in three days. His other pictures here,
" though without any really firm outline, without any choice in forms or motives, yet exercise a great charm, chiefly through a certain careless absence of pretension, and through the whole pleasing appearance of life." — (J. B.)
" This Luca Giordono, so decried, so vapid, is a true painter. With his smiling faces, and graceful rounded forms, his foreshortenings, his silken stuffs, with all the movement and vivacity of his painting, he has the genius of his art : I mean, he knows how to please the eyes." — (H. A. T.)
The beautiful portrait of Cavalieri Tibaldeo is now attributed to the unknown.
Among Mantegna's easel picture, the much- restored figure of St. Euphemia (1454), is the earliest and perhaps the grandest conception of ideal beauty ever attained by him.
Titian's Pope Paul III., painted in 1543, is one of the master's most life-like productions. The hands as well as the face are to be noticed; and
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the balance of light and shade is most harmo- nious.
" The pontiff's likeness is that of a strong man, gaunt and dry from age. A forehead high and endless, a nose both long and slender, expanding to a flat drooping bulb with flabby nostrils overhanging the mouth, an eye pecul- iarly small and bleary, a large and thin-lipped mouth, display the character of Paul Farnese as that of a fox whose wariness could seldom be at fault. The height of his frame, its size and sinew, still give him an imposing air to which Titian has added by drapery admirable in its account of the under forms, splendid in the contrasts of its reds in velvet chair and silken stole and rochet and subtle in the delicacy of its lawn whites." — (C. and C.)
Pope Paul III. also appears in another work by Titian, this time accompanied by Cardinals Ales- sandro and Ottavio Farnese.
" The first picture to which Vasari refers as a work of Titian at Rome is the likeness of Paul the Third with Cardinal Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese, ' executed with great skill and entirely to the satisfaction of those con- cerned.' The canvas which contains these three person- ages was left to the very last unfinished, and we may think that the cause of this mishap lay in the dislike of the Pope to sit. Though the Palace of the Belvedere had been chosen as Titian's habitation because it was likely to facili- tate his intercourse with the pontiff, Paul was too old, too ailing and too peevish to visit the painter's room fre- quently. Titian finished the heads of Cardinal Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese carefully, but left that of the Pope incomplete." — (C and C.)
In 1550, Titian went to Augsburg and made a character study of Philip II. from which in a few successive years he sent forth a long series of por- traits, the best of which adorns this gallery.
" This fine canvas shows Philip at full length, his right hand playing with the tassel at his belt. The treatment is
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more conventional here than at Madrid, but the head is still life-like, and the features are given with masterly skill."— (C and C.)
Danae is one of several mythological pic- tures ordered by Ottavio Farnese, son-in-law of Charles V.
" It is a beautiful female form couched in a supple and voluptuous attitude. In this work, the naive sensuality of the Renaissance is expressed with a freedom entirely antique. The nude is treated with a breadth, suppleness and plenitude in which we recognize the influence of Michael Angelo; but that of Greek statuary even more." — (M. H.)
Sebastiano del Piombo's Madonna Covering up the Sleeping Child belongs to his last period, but is still full of Venetian colour.
Correggio's Marriage of St. Catherine is not a repetition of the Louvre picture. It is the same subject treated differently and with infinite deli- cacy. The execution is a marvel of finesse, brilliant flesh tints, and transparence in the shadows.
" It is a small picture easily and boldly painted. That the child should look up questioningly to the mother at the strange ceremony is quite a feature in the manner of Correggio, who would never conceive children other than naive.
" There is also the Zingarella, the Madonna bent over the child seated on the earth ; above in a cloud of palrns hover delicious angels. Correggio here brings out the ma- terial element, as also not seldom elsewhere, with a cer- tain passion, as though he felt he could give no higher meaning to his type. The execution perhaps somewhat earlier, otherwise of the greatest beauty." — (J. B.)
The Madonna and Child was painted in 1520 and is known as the Madonna del Coniglio from
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the rabbit, and also under the name of the Zingar- ella, because of the strange headdress the Virgin wears. The Madonna is supposed to be the por- trait of Correggio's wife.
" Mary is sitting with her face in profile in a beautiful landscape under a palm tree. The Infant Jesus is slumber- ing on her lap, clasped with one arm, while the other sup- ports his foot. She bends over him affectionately, and touches his head with her forehead. Above her, among the palm trees and clouds, hover genii without wings, one of whom approaches nearer than the rest, and holds a branch over her as a shade and protection. The character of the picture is stillness and repose. The genii seem playfully to hold a dreamy spell over the group; the rab- bit in the green grass close at hand watches them all with curiosity, but without fear, and Mary herself lets her head fall, half slumbering, like a calm vision in a dream ; the naked forms of the angels above float in the soft illusive shimmer of twilight. It is interesting to see how Correg- gio always strives to invest his conceptions with the look of every-day life, and he has consequently given Mary a sort of Eastern costume. A cloth is folded round her head in turban fashion, and a long garment with narrow sleeves reaches to her feet, which are encased in sandals." — (J. M.)
THE PRADO MUSEUM MADRID
THE excellence of the Prado Gallery has been de- fined as " the excellence of exclusion." It stands alone among galleries ; for, although the pictures number more than two thousand, the majority of them are masterpieces. With few exceptions the pictures belong to the Crown. The Real Museo de Pintura del Prado was begun in the reign of Charles III. for an Academy of Natural History; but was completed by Ferdinand VII., who founded the Picture Gallery.
" When Ferdinand married his second wife, La Portu- gaise, one Monte Allegre, who had been a Spanish convert in France, persuaded him to refurnish the palace with French papers, and ormolu clocks, and chandeliers — his particular fancy ; thereupon the quaint original cinque- cento furniture, much of which was of the period even of Charles V. and Philip II., was carted out, and the pic- tures taken down and stowed away in garrets and corri- dors, exposed to wind, weather, and the worst plunderings of Spanish Custodes. They were fast perishing and dis- appearing when the Marques de Sta. Cruz, Mayor Duomo, Mayor or Lord Steward, and the Duque de Gor, one of the few grandees blessed with a particle of taste or talent (our authority for this anecdote), persuaded the Queen to remove the pictures to the Prado. She advanced £40 a month towards repairing a few rooms for their reception, and by November, 1819, these saloons were got ready, and 311 pictures exhibited to the public; the extraordinary quality of which, especially of Velasquez, instantly at- tracted the admiring eyes of foreigners, who appreciated the merits of the Old Masters of Spain much better than the natives. Ferdinand VII., seeing that renown was to be obtained, now came forward with £240 a month and • 436
LAS MENINAS— Velasquez
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the Museo was slowly advanced, one more saloon being opened in 1821." — (R. F.)
Here Ferdinand gradually collected all the pic- tures from his palaces except the Escorial. In 1840, the early Spanish and Flemish paintings that were removed from the convents in 1836 and placed in the Museo Nacional de la Trinidad were also brought to this gallery.
In 1890, the famous Salo de la Reina Isabel, which corresponds to the Tribuna in the Uffizi, and the Salon Carre in the Louvre, was redeco- rated, relighted and rearranged. In this hall are collected the masterpieces of every school, while one section of the Long Gallery is devoted to mas- terpieces of the Spanish School, and the other to those of the Italian.
Velasquez is the hero of the Prado; but in no other gallery are Titian and Rubens seen to better advantage. Murillo is splendidly represented by forty-six works, and Raphael by ten.
Of the great Italian masters, there are no less than forty-three by Titian, twenty-four by Paul Veronese, twenty-seven by Tintoretto, fifty-five by Luca Giordono, sixteen by Guido and twenty- seven by Bassano; and of the Dutch and Flem- ish, there are sixty-two by Rubens, twenty-three by Snyders, fifty-two by Teniers, ten by Wouver- mans, twenty-two by Van Dyck, and no less than forty-nine by Brueghel.
" The Prado is the shrine of Velasquez ; and the art- lover cannot enter the room where his name is written above the door without some consciousness of treading upon holy ground. . . . The difference of seeing Velasquez at the Prado and elsewhere is this : in other places you see two, three, maybe half a dozen of his
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masterpieces ; here you have every phase of his genius. All around you are different expressions of his art. More than any other painter, Velasquez bears the test of close acquaintance. His pictures hold you in Madrid ; they lure you from Titian, from Rubens, from every master in the Prado. Do you wander away for a time, their call, so quiet, yet so strong, will draw you back. And as you sit before each canvas, one by one, each in turn will hold your homage. One day it will be the glamour and sunlight of The Tapestry Weavers that will engross you ; and this picture, although the most cleaned of all the over-cleaned canvases here, will seem to tell you the last word Velasquez had to say about light and colour. Sometimes you will be charmed by black and white effects like those of Pablillos of Valladolid; at others more brilliant colours will claim your love — such as you see in the picture of Antonio el Ingles, the dandy-dwarf, very brightly dressed, as he stands by the side of his su- perb dog. Again and again you will be charmed by fine portraits of animals. It is certain that Velasquez loved dogs and children. And you will come to regard him as the supreme painter of childhood, when you know the wonderful portrait of the Infanta Margarita in Red, that glad lyric of colour ; or its companion picture, the boy, Baltazar on horseback, the gayest portrait in the world. It is difficult to decide between the merits "of the three equestrian portraits of the young Prince, of Philip, and of Olivares. And there is the same uncertainty with the hunting scenes, with the group of portraits of Philip, with the character studies of the dwarfs and buffoons — in fact with all the pictures. Day by day as you study each canvas anew it will suggest a new point of admiration. Each picture is as beautiful as true, as are all the rest ; yet each is alone in the freshness of its appeal. This is the charm of Velasquez — he is a perfect companion ; he never wearies you, never cloys." — (A. F. C.)
Las Meninas might be called a portrait of the Princess Margaret, who is the central figure, at this period in her fifth year. The curious ar- rangement was the result of an accident, for one
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day while the King and Queen were sitting to Velasquez in his studio, they sent for the Princess Margaret. The light from the open window on the sitters also fell upon the little visitor; and, at the same time, Velasquez requested Nieto to open the door in the back. The King, struck by the effect, exclaimed : " This is a picture ! " and desired to have it perpetuated.
" Hence the peculiar character of the composition which as an invention would be inexplicable. It is, so to say, a tableau vivant.
" We see the company as one sees the audience in the pit from the stage, and precisely from the standpoint of the king, who is reflected in the mirror in the wall by the side of the queen. He had seated himself opposite this mirror in order to be able to judge of his posture.
" In this instantaneous picture the artist himself had also of course to be taken. He stands at his easel, but slightly concealed by the kneeling figure in front, his head dominating the whole group. In his right hand he holds the long brush, in his left the palette and painter's stick. The hand, like those of this picture generally, is exqui- sitely painted, the motion of the fingers being distinctly in- dicated by four strokes of the brush.
" On his breast he wears the Red Cross of Santiago. According to the legend, Philip, on the completion of the painting, had reserved a royal surprise for its creator. Remarking that it still lacked something, he seized the brush and added this Red Cross.
" The picture is broadly painted, as if with reckless haste, on a coarse canvas with long bristly brush, al- though of all his works it produces the softest and most tranquil impression. In no other are the processes laid so completely bare. In the shadows we distinguish the brown parts of dead colouring rubbed in ; the grey sur- faces in white blends applied over this ground ; the local colours and lights in one place dashed off with rich, angular, formless touches, in another softly blended.
" The figures are formed with such broad grey touches, and then full bodily substance and the pulse of life are
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imparted to their still dim existence, often with a few sharp strokes. The local colouring is kept in reserve, the artist operating chiefly by means of light and shade; a deadened greenish blue, dark green, or white is lightly applied above, while here and there small red patches come to the front. The secret lies in that thin super- position of dark on light, light on dark, unblinded, hover- ing one above the other, the outlines receiving an appear- ance of quivering motion by broad brown strokes of the brush as if stippled. But the essential point is the nuances improvised on the spur of the moment, by the fire of the hand struggling with the impression of the eye." — (C. J.)
Las Hilanderas is a jewel of the first water.
" The foreground, bathed in warm and transparent shadows, shows a workshop in which women are em- ployed in spinning thread. In a second room at the back, communicating with it by a wide arcade, female visitors to the factory are examining a tapestry of mythological subject that is illuminated by a flood of sunlight. It is hot outside, and the air inside is stifling; so the workers have taken off their outer garments for greater comfort. All are occupied at some task or other. In the centre, a superb old woman, with the figure of a Fate, holds a dis- taff and with her foot turns a wheel so rapidly as to make the spokes invisible. On the left, a girl is pulling aside a large red curtain ; on the right another, whose facial beauty is left to the imagination, is winding off a skein on a frame : her chemise, clinging to her humid back, leaves one shoulder exposed and reveals a neck bathed with perspiration. Two other girls are carding and wind- ing thread. That is all ; and this scene, so simple, so inti- mately familiar, has sufficed for Velasquez to produce a masterpiece.
" We know of no picture in which the perfect and sud- den action is more vitally surprised on the spot, or more fully expressed. We feel that the artist has taken less pains to render women occupied in some task than in rendering a piece of nature, an ensemble seized and copied at a particular moment under a determined light.
" He saw in this scene an entire picture, with its planes, gradations, backgrounds and aerial envelope. Here, as in
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physical life, the atmosphere and the individuals share in the same movement and vibration. Therefore what reality there is here! And how everything holds together in this astonishing painting! It all lives and palpitates; and Art has never succeeded in giving the illusion of reality to such a degree.
" When in this marvellous work, almost Dutch in the intimacy of its subject and skilful disposition of its light, but so Spanish in the simplicity of its arrangement and still more in its character, we try to take account of the means employed by the artist' in attaining this height of execution, we are amazed at their sobriety.
" These colorations so vibrant, these carnations that are of the flesh, these tones of space so aerial and so pro- found, he has obtained by the aid of four or five colours : a greenish blue, reds varying from brown red to crimson, an ecru, white, and grey. And with these and with some scarcely sensible gradations of value, Velasquez has painted his picture of greatest colour and most perfect execu- tion."—(P. L.)
Las Borrachos (The Topers) with landscape background, is in his first manner.
" The half-naked Bacchus, crowned with vine-leaves, sits enthroned on a cask, and smiles as he places a leafy crown on the head of a young soldier who kneels before him ; on the left is a peasant seated, and another, naked and crowned, reclining on a bank with a cup in his hand ; on the right, five jovial peasants watch the ceremony. The scene is irresistibly comical, and the success of the artist in seizing a laugh and fixing it on the canvas without converting it into a grimace, is an unparalleled triumph of skill."— (C. B. C.)
The Surrender of Breda, also known as Las Lanzas, is a work of brilliant realism and gran- deur.
" A vast and spacious sky full of light and vapour, richly laid in with pure ultramarine, mingles its azure with the blue distances of an immense landscape where sheets of water gleam with silver. Here and there in- cendiary smoke ascends from the ground in fantastic
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wreaths and joins the clouds of the sky. In the fore- ground on each side, a numerous group is massed : here the Flemish troops, there the Spanish troops, leaving for the interview between the vanquished and victorious gen- erals an open space which Velasquez has made a luminous opening with a glimpse of the distance where the glitter of the regiments and standards is indicated by a few masterly touches.
" The Marquis of Spinola, bareheaded, with hat and staff of command in hand, in his black armour damascened with gold, welcomes with a chivalrous courtesy that is affable and almost affectionate, the Governor of Breda, who is bowing and offering him the keys of the city in an attitude of noble humiliation. No one has known so well as Velasquez how to paint the gentleman with such su- perb familiarity, and, so to speak, as equal to equal. He himself is one of the King's favourites (privados del Rey.)
" It would not be easy to convey in words the chivalric pride and the Spanish grandeur which distinguish the heads of the officers forming the General's staff. They ex- press the calm joy of triumph, tranquil pride of race, and familiarity with great events." — (T. G.)
There are several portraits of the Infante Bal- thazar Carlos, who died in early youth.
" The equestrian portrait of the young prince is one of the finest things painted by the master. The boy rides an Andalusian pony and flourishes his baton with an en- gaging mimicry of his father. In decorative brilliancy of colour Velasquez never excelled this picture. A positively dazzling effect is produced by the richly-dressed little horseman, in his green velvet doublet, white sleeves, and red scarf against the irridescent landscape. The mane and tail of the Andalusian pony, the boy's rich costume and his flying scarf, and the splendid browns, blues and greens of the landscape background make up a decorative whole as rich and musical as any Titian." — (C. J.)
Never in his whole career did Velasquez equal this picture in spontaneous vitality or in splendour of colour.
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" The boy gallops past at an angle which brings him into the happiest proportion with his mount. His attitude is the natural one for a pupil of Philip and Olivares, two of the best horsemen in Europe ; his look and gesture ex- press just the degree of pride, delight and desire for ap- proval which charm in a child.
" Velasquez was afterwards to paint many pictures in which the more subtle resources of his art were to be more fully displayed than here, but he was never again to equal this Don Balthazar Carlos in the felicity with which directness and truth are clothed in the splendours of deco- rative colour, and that without drawing upon the more sonorous notes of the palette. Only once in after-life does he seem to have let himself go in the matter of col- our and to have tried what he could do, so to speak, with the trumpet. The extraordinary portrait of the Infante Margarita in rose-colour against red was the result, but wonderful as it is, it leaves us cold beside the delicious tones, like those of a silver flute, of this Balthazar Carlos." -(W. A.)
Another fine equestrian portrait is the Conde Duque de Olivares. Nothing can be better than the chary use of gaudy colour in this picture.
Philip III. is a marvellous specimen of the effects produced by placing a figure on cool greys ; the royal head is full of the individual imbecility of this poor bigot, who was twelve years learning his alphabet. Among the great equestrian por- traits the following must be noted :
" Philip IV., witching the world with noble horseman- ship, the only attitude in which the monarch of Caballeros ought to be painted. The bounding horse is alive and knows its rider; how everything tells up on the cool blue and greens in the background ! Queen Isabel, first wife of Philip IV., on a superb white steed ; observe how her costume is painted, and despair; remark also the differ- ence of the horses; those which carry men are fiery and prancing, while those on which women are mounted are
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gentle and ambling, as if conscious of their timid, deli- cate burdens." — (C. J.)
In the same apartment containing the series of large hunting-pieces, there hung three figures, the King, his brother, Don Ferdinand (the car- dinal), and his little son, Balthazar, in hunting costume and with dogs.
"The three portraits are exactly the same height (1.91 metres), agree somewhat closely in arrangement, costume and scenery, and seem to supplement each other in various details.
" Prince Ferdinand was the handsomest and the most richly endowed of the three brothers, without a trace of that indolence which, since the death of Philip II., seemed to have clung to the family. His activity in business and in the field was amazing ; he shared with the king his pas- sion for sport, and in 1639 slew a wild boar in the Brus- sels woods, which had killed eight dogs, wounded four, and ripped up two horses. Those in his immediate inti- macy called him ' the kindliest and most courteous prince that Heaven has sent us for centuries.'' Although he seems physically more delicate than the king, he still betrays more of the stuff of a ruler in his resolute, intelligent ex- pression.
" The landscape, in a cool, light, blue-grey tone, is treated with great breadth and freedom : we can feel the very atmosphere of the hills.
" All the costumes are the same, even to slight details — hunting-caps showing one ear pressed back or turned up; vest of dark figured silk under a leather jerkin or short cloak with false sleeves, long leather gloves, white knee- breeches, military boots. The prince rests his little gun jauntily on the sward; the king's long heavy piece is held under the left arm hanging by his side; Ferdinand holds his in both hands ready to take aim.
" The scene lies amid the hills, perhaps in the neigh- bourhood of the Escorial, the sierra showing in the dis- tance. The view is most open in Don Balthazar's picture, where we see in the middle distance a hill with a castle and thin undergrowth of oak, beyond it a stretch of level
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION— Murillo
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ground with a little tower close to the foot of the range. Everywhere harmony between figure and environment, in the distribution of forms and high lights. The glimpses of sunshine flashing in the clouds and piercing through the foliage stand in nicely calculated relation to the high lights on the faces, and the white spots and bright patches on the trusty companions at the feet of the sportsmen." — (C. J.)
Great among the portraits are the following: Cristobal de Pernia is a fine study of a famous actor in the costume of a Moorish corsair.
Francisca, said to be the daughter of Velas- quez, aged about seven, in greyish costume with slashed sleeves wearing a bow of red and white ribbon on her breast, and holding a bunch of flowers.
The only Spanish lady in the gallery is the so- called Sibyl.
" The portrait is remarkable as the only instance in which the painter has selected a profile more of a plastic than pictorial character. The lineaments of this profile are less beautiful than interesting, more full of character than pleasing, but in any case purely Spanish. Its serious cast is enhanced by the shadows over the forehead and eyes caused by the light coming from behind.
" The picture is painted on a yellowish-grey ground, with a free broad touch in smooth, thin colours. The grey tone, as well as the profile which painters regard as insufficient for the likeness in portraits, agrees well with the character of reserve impressed upon this noble figure, which is turned from the light and from the observer." — (C. J.)
The tall standing figure known as Aesop is familiar to every one.
" The most cleverly-handled of all Velasquez's heads is the one that most supports the legend of his swaggering dexterity in flourishing a paint-brush. It is a rough im-
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pasto woven into a most marvellously expressive texture. . Mcenippus again is painted in large over-lapping smears, very softly but very broadly, so that nothing specially arrests the eye, which floats over a face, figure and accessories all bathed in liquid depths of air." — (R. A. M. S.)
Nearly all the portraits of dwarfs and buffoons in which the Prado is so rich, were executed for the king, and are mentioned in the royal inven- tories. At Fraga, when Velasquez accompanied the king on his expedition to Lerida in 1644, he painted El Primo, or El Escribano, a dwarf in a black dress and wide-brimmed hat, seated on a stone, turning over the leaves of a book on his lap. All the other representations of dwarfs, monsters and idiots in the Prado were painted about the same time — between 1644 and 1648 — including El Nino de Vallecas, Sebastian de Morra, El Bobo de Coria, Pablillos de Valladolid, Don Juan de Aus- tria, or The Artillerist, and Don Antonio el In- gles.
Sebastian de Morra is perhaps the most famous : a man with coarse features, black hair and beard, wearing a cloak and linen collar, and sitting on the ground with his legs marvellously fore- shortened.
" Seated as Velasquez saw him, and as no one else could have ventured to paint him." — (R. F.)
In Mercury and Argus, the latter is asleep, re- clining against a rock on the right ; Mercury, with a sword is approaching on his knees to despatch the slumberer; and lo is behind them in the form of a cow.
" Nothing can exceed the profound sleep of Argus or
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the stealthy action of Mercury; the god of thieves is painted in an absolute anticipation of Sir Joshua's style." -(R. F.)
The Forge of Vulcan shows Apollo entering the smithy of Vulcan to tell him of the infidelity of Venus. Vulcan stops his work to listen and four Cyclops cease their labours to hear the scandal.
Of religious pictures, the Adoration of the Magi, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Crucifixion are notable. The latter is
" a sublime representation of the death of the Son of Man ; the treatment is solemn and impressive. How fine the darkness over the face of the earth, and the partial concealment of the face by dishevelled and scattered hair!"— (R. F.)
A Fountain at Aranjuez is
" an exquisite landscape full of local colour and verdurous freshness, with groups that realize the very form and pres- sure of the period of Philip IV. and of the stately Spaniard. These pictures are, in fact, in painting what the letters of Madame D'Alnoy are in description. Compare with Avenue of the Queen, another view at Aranjuez. Observe, however, particularly all his small bits of landscape, studies of ruins and architecture done at Rome, others with moon- light effects, and all marvellous gems of art." — (R. F.)
A beautiful landscape forms the background for St. Anthony the Abbot and St. Paul the Her- mit, one of the latest and most important of the master's religious works. St. Paul in brown and St. Anthony in white are seated before a grotto raising their eyes and hands in thankfulness for the food a raven is bringing them.
" In breadth and richness unexampled the beau ideal
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of landscape, not much detail or imitation, but the very same sun we see and the air we breathe, the very soul and spirit of nature." — (D. W.)
The Prado contains nearly fifty of Murillo's works, representing the master of Seville in his early realistic style, and in his warm and vaporous styles.
His most famous works here are four of the Immaculate Conception; The Children of the Shell; The Child Jesus as Shepherd; The Child St. John; The Little Bird; Infant Jesus Asleep on the Cross, Education of the Virgin ; Adoration of the Shepherds ; and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
Theophile Gautier particularly admired in the Prado
" three pictures by Murillo, — the Foundation of Santa Maria May or a (two pictures) and Saint Elisabeth wash- ing the hands of persons afflicted with scurvy; two or three admirable Riberas; a Burial by El Greco, some por- tions of which are worthy of Titian ; a fantastic sketch by the same artist, representing monks performing differ- ent acts of penance, and surpassing the most mysterious and gloomy creations of Lewis, or Anne Radcliffe ; and a charming woman in Spanish costume, lying on a divan, by the good old Goya, that pre-eminently national painter, who seems to have come into the world expressly to col- lect the last vestiges of the ancient manners and customs of his country, which were about to disappear forever."
Of the St. Elizabeth, he says :
" It will be noted that however much her charity enno- bles these horrors, her woman's eye dares not look on them, but her royal hand heals them. Her beautiful, almost divine head, contrasts wonderfully with that of the beggar-hag in the foreground."
" In St. Elisabeth, probably the most noted of all Mu-
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rillo's pictures, the figures are simple, free from affec- tation of pose and finely created ; and the expression of St. Elizabeth is grave. The execution throughout is par- ticularly fine, and the lighting and colour are extremely good."— (A. F. C.)
The females in the Education of the Virgin are probably portraits of Murillo's wife and daughter.
St. Anne is seated with an open book in her lap, and by her side stands the Virgin. Above the lat- ter's head hover two angels with a chaplet.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is painted
" in his second style, hovering between Velasquez and Ribera ; the drawing is fine and careful ; observe the local colouring and foot of peasant, and how the rich browns give value to the delicate flesh of the Virgin and Child."— (R. F.)
In El Pajarito (The Little Bird), the Infant
Saviour, fully draped, leans against the right knee of St. Joseph, playfully holding "the little bird" from the reach of a small dog " begging " for it. The Virgin, seated at a table, weaving, suspends her work to watch the scene.
In the Child Jesus as Shepherd, the Child, wearing a red tunic and sheep-skin garment, is seated on a rock behind which are a fluted column and a piece of broken cornice overgrown with foliage. His left arm is lovingly placed around a lamb, and His right hand holds a crook.
In the Infant Jesus asleep on the Cross the transverse beam serves for a pillow. His left hand is on His breast, His right rests on a skull which is behind Him, and beneath is a red drapery.
Murillo painted twenty pictures on the favourite dogma of the Spanish Church — the Immaculate
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Conception ; and his success won for him the name of el pintor de las Cqncepciones.
" It is curious to glance at the directions which Pacheco ' the law giver of Sevillian art ' laid down for the treat- ment of this all-important subject. Our Lady's eyes are to be turned to Heaven and her arms are to be meekly folded across her bosom ; that the mantling sun is to be expressed by bright golden light behind the figure ; the pedestal moon is to be a crescent with downward pointing horns ; and the twelve stars. The idea of the ' holy woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and having upon her head a crown of twelve stars ' is, of course, derived from a vision in the Apo- calypse, but ' in this gracefullest of mysteries ' it was presently enjoined that ' Our Lady is to be painted in the flower of her age, from twelve to thirteen years old, with sweet grave eyes, a nose and mouth of the most perfect form, rosy cheeks, and the finest streaming hair of golden hue; in a word, with all the beauty that a brush can ex- press ' . . . The Virgin's robe covering her feet with decent folds must be white, and her mantle blue, and round her waist must be tied the cord of St. Francis. This is the reason for the directions ; in this guise the Virgin appeared to the noble nun of Portugal, who, in 1511, founded a religious order of the Conception at Toledo. Except that Murillo commonly dispenses with the Fran- ciscan cord and the crown of stars, and takes the liberty of reversing the horns of the moon. As for those sturdy zephyrs of Christian mythology, they are also provided for by Pacheco, who decides that they are to hover above the figure bearing emblematic boughs and flowers." — (A.F.C.)
Four great examples are in this gallery. In one of the finest,
" the Virgin stands, looking front, in the hollow of a cresent with one horn; the palms of the hands touch be- fore her left shoulder; her mantle on her left descends to her feet and falls over the crescent; on her right, it floats out boldly; beneath are four cherubs, all holding flowers, etc. ; the one on the right is on his back, and in his hands, which are spread apart, he holds a long palm-branch balanced across his body; four heads in each corner above."— (C. B. C.)
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Los Ninos de la Concha (the Children of the Shell) and the Child St. John are both beautiful child-studies with landscape background.
" In his landscapes, Murillo again surprises us by a new use of colour — pale greys so much truer than the sun- light of melting yellow in which he loved to steep his religious compositions. Once or twice we are held by a suggestion of coming rain in some sky; by the cool dark green in the vegetation. — (A. F. C.)
Here may be seen two excellent examples : One, representing a mountainous country where a river passes with ruins on its steep banks. Four figures enliven the scene — one is a peasant who is direct- ing a traveller.
The other is a rocky shore with trees and build- ings ; and in the distance a fortress and a bridge. In the middle distance a sailor is carrying some luggage to a vessel.
There are six works by Francisco Ribalta, and fifty-three by Ribera, chief of which is the Mar- tyrdom of St. Bartholomew.
" How one feels the stretched sinews of the men as they strain to raise the body of the tortured saint. Gaze long enough upon the canvas and the figures will appear to move ; the effort represented is so united and so real that involuntarily one pictures the result. The fluency of the lines and the balance of the colours — black shadows and warm browns contrasted with the ivory of whites and the pale quality of blues — give this work a high place among Ribera's compositions. Equally fine in their drawing, though far behind in their colour, are his Prometheus Chanted on the Summit of the Caucasus and Ixion on the Wheel. Both are pictures eminently characteristic of RiberaV— (A. F. C.)
Other works in the Sala de Ribera include : Two Women Fighting, two pictures of Magda- len, the Child Jesus with St. Joseph, the En- tombment, a fine Conception of the Virgin, and Jacob's Dream.
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Of Zurbaran, we have fourteen pictures. One of these is the Child Jesus Sleeping on the Cross. Several paintings of male saints also show this master at his best.
Passing by the followers of Velasquez and Murillo, we reach Goya, with his Caprichos, bull- fights, disasters of war and great portraits, in- cluding the Family of Charles IV.
Raphael has ten pictures here, the most re- nowned of which is the Holy Family, called the Pearl.
" The phrase by which Philip expressed the impression produced upon him by this smiling picture does indeed give a just idea of the kind of merit that characterizes it and the perfection that distinguishes it. Among all Ra- phael's works, there is nothing more finished nor more pure. In it we see united all the truth, spirit and delicacy that the brush of this master could express.
" The scene is entirely gracious in manner. The little St. John, lifting with both hands the shaggy skin that serves as his vestment, is presenting some fruit to the Infant Jesus in the kind of basket thus formed. About to take it, Jesus, sitting on his mother's knees, turns round towards her, smiling as if to communicate his joy to her. Mary is supporting him with her right hand, while her left reaches out and rests upon St. Anne's shoulder, while at the same time she is looking affectionately at the Fore- runner. Anne, on her knees, with one elbow leaning on her daughter's left thigh, gives herself up to meditation as she watches the two children. The cradle stands in front of the Virgin, who rests one foot on each side of it.
" The character which Raphael has generally given to the Infant Jesus is one of the most poetic conceptions of this great master. The type is that of an infant Hercules. The extremities, however, are more delicate and the con- tours are finer. In the movements as well as in the fea- tures of this extraordinary being, we see a superabundance of power accompanied by an inexpressible grace.
" The colouring, although slightly darkened by time, still preserves a ravishing vigour, skill and harmony, are parts in it that the Venetian schools could never
HOLY FAMILY "THE PEARL"— Raphael
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have surpassed. The flesh tints of the Infant Jesus are as brilliant as the outlines of his figure are pure, and the movements lively and graceful. The delicacy of the brush here is almost prodigious ; and this in a master the ele- vation of whose ideas so often distracted him from the minute cares of execution. Amid the strongest shadows, all the relief of nature forces our admiration. The landscape, adorned with figures, charms the eye with the precision of its details and the transparency of its dis- tances ; and in the depths of the ruined edifice, where St. Joseph is visible, a soft and silvery light plays.
" A masterpiece of taste, this picture contains all the kinds of perfection proper to the subject; and the most severe criticism would find difficulty in discovering any negligences in it. The composition, the design, the ex- pression and the colour present an almost perfect merit in every part." — (F. A. G.)
The Virgin of the Fish owes its name to the fish hanging from the wrist of Tobit, whom an angel is presenting to the Virgin and Child.
" By the simultaneous presence of the youthful Tobit, the angel and St. Jerome at the foot of the Madonna's throne, Raphael, anticipating the decision of the Council of Trent by about thirty years, maintains the Ninevite captive in the rank of the prophets and proclaims the canonicity of the version to which, moreover, Rome has pinned her faith in all ages. Tobit, still a child, comes trembling before the Saviour. Before recognizing the prophet's mission, the Virgin hesitates, and thus recalls the hesitation of the Church. The Infant Jesus, on the contrary, resolutely pronounces in favor of Tobit, and with a gesture confirms the authenticity of the Book admitted by St. Jerome.
" The Virgin with the Infant Jesus is the principal figure of the picture. Seated, she holds her divine Son in both arms and seems to be trying to restrain His eager- ness to go to the young Ninevite captive. The reserved attitude of the head, the gaze so calm in its investigation, the mouth ready to soften, but still immobile and mute, the prudent movement of the body and the arms, all re-
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veal Mary's hesitation in recognizing the vocation of the prophet. Nothing could be more severe or graceful than this whole effect in which the colour is in harmony with the simplicity of line. The fresh and transparent rose of the flesh and the blonde of the hair are in enchanting accord with the white of the veil and the two blues of the robe and mantle. A masterly hand, and one sure of itself, has broadly disposed rapid effects that yet have nothing abrupt in them, and co-ordinated the colours in accordance with the mysterious laws of the noblest har- mony. Vasari has said : ' Raphael has shown what beauty can be put into the face of a Virgin, by giving modesty to the eyes, honour to the brow, grace to the nose, and virtue to the mouth/ No Virgin merits this eulogy more than this one.
" The Infant Jesus completes and explains the intent of the picture with a vivacity of expression and a spontaneity of movement that are decisive and irresistible. He recog- nizes Tobit as one of his own, and tries to spring towards him. While with his left hand and arm reaching backward and lying in St. Jerome's bible he affirms the authenticity of the Scripture, with his right hand extended forward he seems to want to draw Tobit towards him, to hold and caress him. His head also leans towards Tobit and rests gently against the Virgin's cheek ; he wants to influence his Mother and make her also decide in favor of the Ninevite captive. The countenance of this Infant Jesus is serious, serene and, like the Virgin's, perfectly kind. The naked body is drawn and modelled with perfection: it is nature herself with the spontaneity of her movements and her gestures. But what elegance there is in the form, and what discernment in the choice of the precise moment when the real touches the ideal ! The colour is also de- lightful : it is impossible to imagine a brush more supple, learned, free, scrupulous, or independent.
" Tobit bows at the Madonna's feet. He is a charming youth, viewed in right profile, in an attitude at once re- spectful, timid and confiding. His head, very animated and very warm in tone, is of rare beauty. Long curls of golden blonde fall upon his shoulders. His gaze fixed on the Word, is full of light, his lips part, desiring, but not daring, to speak. Gratitude and admiration give an ex- pression to the face in which we are forced to recognize
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something more beautiful than nature. Raphael put his whole heart into this delightful figure.
" The angel possesses a still grander beauty. Seen also in right profile, with body bending forwards above Tobit, and head stretched towards the Virgin, he keeps behind the youthful prophet whom with his left hand he presents to the Saviour, pushing him forward with his right hand towards the divine group. The gaze, the mouth and all the features of this face burn with the saintliest ardour, and are almost adorable in their adoration. The flesh glows with a lively and almost Venetian colouring. The hair, of a somewhat dark blonde, falls away, leaving bare the temples, ear and cheek, at the same time rising so as to form a sort of flame at the top of the brow.
" The face is so serene ; it possesses such divine ardour and such real fervour, and seems to be almost intoxicated with divine love. Never has painting produced such a beautiful angel. Nothing can be more harmonious than the disposition of the colours in this picture. The colour- ing of the heads is fresh, dazzling and entirely appropriate to the age, character and condition of each. The draperies, always of simple shades, preserve a perfect equilibrium of tonality with the flesh-tints, and form oppositions among themselves of equal softness and sonority. The blue mantle and white veil of the Virgin, the two neighbouring yellows of the robes of Tobit and the angel, the strong red of St. Jerome's vesture and the no less vivid blue of the sky, — all these different notes, which seem exclusive on account of frankness and brilliance, vibrate with in- tensity and especially in harmony, melt into and join one another without any violence, and over these modulations the green curtain is thrown like a deep holding-note which serves as a bond for all these parts of the same chant." — (F. A. G.)
The Spasimo is a representation of Christ Bearing the Cross. It has had a romantic his- tory, suffering shipwreck on its way to Palermo. According to Vasari
" everything perished, men and cargo alike ; nothing but this picture escaped. Carried by the billows into the Gulf of Genoa, the case containing it was found and brought
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to land ; then, on this divine work being discovered intact, free from the slightest stain or blemish, it was resolved to preserve it with care. It seemed as if winds and waves had determined to respect its beauty. The noise of this event spread far and wide, and the monks soon hearing of it, endeavoured to gain possession of their picture, which was restored to them through the intervention of the Pope, when they liberally remunerated the salvors. Again placed on board ship, and carried to Sicily, the picture was set up at Palermo, where it became more famous than the mountain of Vulcan."
Philip IV. carried the Spasimo secretly to Madrid, granting the monks a revenue of a thou- sand scudi to keep silence. The French carried it to the Louvre, and while in Paris it was trans- ferred from its worm-eaten panel to canvas and much repainted. It was again repainted in Madrid in 1845.
" The artist has chosen the moment when Christ is sinking beneath his burden, and the Virgin, overcome with grief, helplessly stretches out her arms to her Son. The expression of these two faces is admirable ; in that of Christ a touching resignation is combined with the physi- cal suffering, while the mother's features, on the other hand, show naught but grief. The despair of the holy women is rendered with no less eloquence, and forms a most striking contrast to the roughness of the execu- tioners."—(E. M.)
The Visitation was painted between 1517 and 1519. It is supposed that Giulio Romano aided in this work. St. Elizabeth advances to meet the Vir- gin, whom she takes by the hand. The land- scape is very fine.
It is in the Portrait of a Cardinal (supposedly Giulio de' Medici) you see Raphael's work at its highest.
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" With what clarity of mind and art he has painted that unknown figure, how perfectly he has expressed every- thing, simply concealing the subtlety of his art ! It is al- most a miracle of simplicity, living there in the beautiful painted panel by some means hidden from all, about which we may know nothing, perfect as a flower, or any other thought of God."— (E. H.)
The Equestrian Portrait of Charles V. at the Battle of Muhlberg was painted in 1548, when Titian was seventy years old.
" In a rich and beautiful landscape, on the verge of certain sweet miles of park, the Emperor rides alone to battle. With what sadness he seems to go, like a solitary prisoner, the prisoner of himself in his own dream of a world ! How melancholy is that pallid grey face, hardened by ambition and the inevitable sacrifice that one must make in order to realise even the tiniest of our dreams ! He sits his horse easily, is indeed perfectly a part of it, firmly grasping his spear. An immense dignity, the tragic splendour of all his House seems to isolate him almost from the world, to thrust upon him divine honours. He is so alone that we are made affaid. . . . Titian is at his greatest in this miraculous work, perhaps the finest picture in the gallery." — (E. H.)
Another likeness of this King is also a master- piece.
" We see Charles V . in a gala costume of white ; his right hand rests upon a dagger, his left is placed upon the collar of a great hound ; and how intimate and soul- searching is the summing up of the personality of that great, tired life. Deep, delicate and deliberate, this por- trait is one of Titian's triumphs ; it ranks among the great- est portraits of the world." — (A. F. C.)
Prince Philip (1550) is also one of the most wonderful of portraits. It was sent to England when the marriage of Philip with Mary Tudor was being arranged.
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" Knowing the type of Philip's face and the blemishes of his figure, we should think it hard for a painter to real- ize a portrait of him true to nature, yet of elevated con- ception and regal mien. Titian overcomes the difficulty with ease. The sallow ill-shaped face may haunt us and suggest uneasy forebodings as to the spirit and temper of the man, but gloom here is cleverly concealed in grave intentness, and every line tells of the habitual distinction of a man of old blood and high station. The head stands out from the gorget relieved by a frill of white linen, be- neath which the handsome collar of the Golden Fleece falls to the chest. A breastplate and hip pieces richly inlaid with gold cover the frame and arms. The fine embroidery of the sleeves and slashed hose, the white silk tights and slashed white slippers, form a rich and tasteful dress. The ringed left hand on the hilt of the rapier, the right on the plumed morion which lies on a console covered with a crimson velvet cloth, the whole figure seen in front of a dark wall — all this makes up a splendid and attractive full-length standing on a carpet of a deep reddish brown." -(G J.)
The Venus and Adonis was a companion to the Danae, and was sent to Philip II. in London about three months after his marriage to Mary Tudor.
Philip appears in La Gloria, a picture that his father always kept with him.
" It is really as the son of Charles V., passionate about nothing save God as it were, that he appears to us with his father and Isabella of Portugal, in that strangely beautiful picture, La Gloria, where before the Holy Trinity, among a crowd of saints and martyrs, the King of Spain, the Emperor of Rome, wrapped in a winding-sheet with his crown at his feet, really just risen from the dead, worships the Omnipotent and Divine God, the mysterious Trinity that seems to have haunted both father and son so unfortunately almost all their lives. Much that is strange in this immense picture so full of energy, the equal Majesty of Father and Son, for instance, their aloof- ness from humanity, may be explained perhaps as the will
THE IXFAXTA ISABELLA CLARA EUGENIA— Coello
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of Charles, here, for once at any rate, imposing itself on the old painter." — (E. H.)
Danae,
" in spite of the superb painting, very beautiful and sensitive in its quality, repels us not a little; not per- haps for its coarser realism, but because we miss that sug- gestion of joyous passion that lives perfectly in the painted poems of the Garden of Venus and the Bacchanal. And for this reason we turn, too, from the so-called Farnese and his Mistress and from the Venus with the Young Man playing an Organ. And here there is no magic in the paint itself to charm us; these pictures were painted for money and are poor variations of the Venus of the Tribune. But in the sacred picture of St. Margaret, and in the much greater Entombment, one finished two years before the other in the same period as the Danae, we find again the Titian of our love. In the solitude of a lovely landscape, St. Margaret waits for a moment, in a passion- ate attitude of hope, as she flees from the dragon over the rocks. We have here an epitome of Titian's rarest quali- ties— his passion, breathing the very spirit of life, and his superb unconsciousness of effort." — (A. F. C.)
A repetition of the figure known as Titian's daughter, Lavinia, appears here as Salome bear- ing in her raised arms the head of John the Bap- tist on a silver dish. She is younger than the fig- ure in the Berlin picture; her arms are bare; and she wears instead of yellow, a dress of red dam- ask. Some critics think this was painted by one of Titian's followers from the Lavinia of Berlin (see page 220).
A Maltese Knight represents a man in black, the vest embroidered with a Greek cross.
" This noble portrait has not yet been identified. It has lost some of its delicate finish in the head, but is still a very fine example of the master's middle time. Par- ticularly admirable is the way in which the black dress is detached on the lighter yet still gloomy background."— (C. and C.)
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In the Garden of Venus
" we see an immense crowd of little Loves, winged really with the wings of the sky, playing together furiously beneath great trees in a garden before the statue of Venus. It is as though you heard an exquisite incomprehensible laughter in the woods at midday. Two women are just within the picture ; one is about to fling herself before the statue in some joy of mad worship ; the other, more serious, less frantic, looks away as though doubtful of her desire."— (E. H.)
" The Bacchanal, spoiled by some too brutal process of restoration, is even to-day one of the great treasures of the gallery, full of the immense joy and strength of youth, of youth that is about to pass into maturity and is sure of itself at last, just for a moment before it has gone for ever. ' Chi boist et ne reboit, ne gais que bois soit ' he has written on the leaf of music that is spread out before the beautiful woman who holds a bowl aloft to be filled with wine. What is this company of men and women that has passed singing over the hills and is come to the sea- shore? In the background a naked figure, shaggy and splendid, has fallen upon the primitive wine-press, and the juice of the grapes pressed by his weight flows down to the sea. It is from this purple stream they are drink- ing as they dance or throw themselves on the ground in the shadow of the trees. Who are they that are so joy- ful on a summer's day, so thirsty in the genial heat? And, above all, who is she, that beautiful nude woman whom they seem to have come upon by chance as it were, while she is wrapped in 'a passion of sleep '? The picture is like a gesture of joy, irresistible in its beauty and de- light, that is about to be interrupted by an irreparable dis- aster."—(E. H.)
A lovely Virgin and Child with attendant saints is attributed to Giorgione.
" A charming combination of Palmesque and Titian- esque features is the Madonna with saints, where the Child on the Virgin's lap plays with the flowers held up by a lovely maiden, and a saint in armour unfurls the banner of his order. We shall not easily find a Venetian work
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of the good school more attractive for freshness and blending or tender richness of tints, or one in which a more winning Titianesque grace adorns the Ma- donna."—(C. and C.)
Paul Veronese appears in all his splendour in the Marriage of Cana; Christ at the Column; Christ and the Centurion, fine; Rebecca at the Well, and Moses found in the Nile, a charming, gay cabinet picture, ascribed by some critics to Tintoret Giorgione.
In the Moses, Pharoah's Daughter, with her at- tendants, is sumptuously dressed as a Venetian lady in rich brocade, and stands under a tree looking with interest at the child brought to her in a cloth.
Admirable also is Venus and Adonis, a picture of great repose and effect, the flesh and rich draperies of which are equal to Titian. Painted in an entirely different mood is Cain,
" an outcast with his family, a magnificent composition, a picture of a man's despair, consoled by a true wife, who will not desert the father of her children : the brown land- scape, lowering sky and breaking halo are in sombre har- mony with the sentiment." — (R. F.)
Correggio's Noli me tangere (1519) is world- renowned.
" In a charming, richly-wooded, mountainous landscape, Magdalen is kneeling, attired in rich and flowing raiment, still looking the beautiful sinner, while, not less lovely in appearance, the Redeemer is advancing towards her with a light step. Vasari says it was impossible to imagine anything better and more softly painted." — (J. M.)
Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) has nearly a dozen pictures here : most of them are of large size. With him, animals constitute the principal part of
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the composition. One of these subjects is the Entrance into the Ark, into which all kinds of living creatures are marching. A companion is Leaving the Ark.
There is also View of Eden, in which the Al- mighty reproaches our first parents with their dis- obedience, the subject being a mere pretext for assembling around them all the animal races; also an Orpheus attracting wild beasts with his lyre; a Journey of Jacob, a picture of camels, horses, asses and mules, etc. The style of Bassano is more elevated in his Moses and the Hebrews, which represents the people resuming their march after the miracle of the water gushing from the rock; but he attained the highest grandeur in the painting of Christ Driving the Money-Chang- ers from the Temple.
" This picture is perhaps the finest of all the works of Bassano. Never has he shown himself more ingenious and animated in the composition, more natural and bril- liant in the colouring; and never has he displayed more fully the various qualities of the painter who first intro- duced into Italy the worship of simple nature, and painted scenes of real life." — (L. V.)
Andrea del Sarto has six pictures here, the Sacrifice of Isaac being noteworthy, but not par- ticularly original in treatment. The best of his talent, however, appears in the portrait of his faith- less wife, Lrucrezia della Fede.
" It is one of the most beautiful portraits of a woman that I can remember. The beauty of the model — idealised perhaps by love — the grace of the position, the exquisite taste in the dress, and the wonderful execution of the whole, combine to render this picture interesting in the history of painting. It has a double title to be so, as it is the type of all the women painted by Andrea, even of
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his Madonnas, and also it is a masterpiece in his style."— (L. V.)
" The famous Madonna and St. John (Asunto Mistico) also shows Sarto at an unusual height of power. The grouping is managed with much more than his wonted thought; and the whole composition breathes an air of restraint that compels a sincere tribute to its beauty. Then, despite retouching, we can appreciate in its cool and luminous colours, and especially in the beautiful land- scape, that mastery of the oil medium with which the painter astonished the Florentines." — (A. F. C.)
The only important works by early Italian mas- ters are the Annunciation, by Fra Angelico, and the Death of the Virgin, by Mantegna.
" In no picture of the Tuscan master are we more conscious of the glamour of his art ; that blithe and deli- cate spirit that somehow carries us out of our dull grown- • up selves, and wafts us back to the hours of childhood, when angels really lived for us and the world was full of the sounds of music and was fair. Fra Angelico and Mantegna are at two opposite poles of emotion and thought. Here, in his Death of the Virgin, we see the simplicity, the inwardness and the deep humility of Man- tegna's art. There are passages of beautiful and vigorous colour; it is one of the gems of the Prado; a work of quiet and exquisite charm." — (A. F. C.)
" The best pictures here of the Flemish School are those by Rubens, Van Dyck and Antonio Moro, who was long in Spain. The specimens of Wouvermans are gems of purest art, beyond all price. Those by Teniers, Snyders, Brueghel, P. Neefs, and Both, are very fine. To give any particular description of the wilderness of monkeys by Teniers, of the dogs, game, kitchenware and dead drunken Dutchmen by Ostade, would be as tedious as to count the cattle of the Bassans." — (R. F.)
" In Munich, in Paris, and, of course, in Antwerp, Rubens is on a grander scale than in Madrid ; but nowhere else is his special quality of vivid joy greater than here, where he seems to have painted not so much for us as for himself, quite naturally as a bird sings. The quality and range of his power are shown to the full in his three
464 THE PRADO MUSEUM
masterpieces here: the Rondo, and Garden of Love, with their riot of movement and colour, and, yet more, in the wonderful Three Graces, very beautiful in its frank and passionate delight. The three figures stand side by side, alike in contour, alike in features, different only in the colour of the hair, — fair, dark-brown and copper-red. The lovely, shimmering flesh stands out in exquisite harmony against the blue sky, and against a landscape background wherein a herd of stags are feeding. The drapery of dark green hangs on the left, the waters of a fountain fall into a marble basin on the right; above, roses are climbing; and the turf is embroidered with flowers. All these three pictures take their place, quite worthily, among the rare beauties of Titian, near whose works they hang." — (A. F. C.)
" Nothing in the whole range of Raphael's portraits sur- passes (Marie de' Medici) for the marvel of its character- isation and its art alike. It teaches us more than a whole volume could do about this queen; and before it we are conscious that our impressions of her as a foolish and vain woman must be wrong. It is one of the finest portraits of woman in the world." — (A. F. C.)
The Brazen Serpent, attributed to Van Dyck by some critics and to Rubens by others,
" is sombre in colour. Moses's and Eleazer's robes are of a blackish grey-green ; their backs are turned to the spec- tators, and they form the obscure part of the picture. Moreover, the tone is heavier than the ordinary colour- ing of Rubens. In general the flesh is brown or greyish, except in the two women on the extreme right, that stand out strongly above the general tonality of the picture, and even the figure that is unwinding the serpents does not remind us of Rubens. All these sombre and firm contours stand out strongly against the clear or glowing sky. The whole grouping is extremely simple, with a Romanesque character contrary to the custom of Rubens. We do not hesitate to attribute it to Van Dyck." — (M. R.)
The Adoration of the Kings is not a night scene, although the stars are visible. The scene is
MADRID 465
splendidly illumined by a mass of the most varied tones that the brush of the great colourist ever brought together, by the gleam of silk, gold, jewels and armour, the reflections of which mingle and produce the highest and richest harmony. The scarlet draping of the old king alone sounds a pro- longed and dominant note ; and it is draped and folded as was not customary in the early period of Rubens. The whole picture makes one think of Italy : the shadows, flesh tints, forms, and draperies recall the land the master had just left when he composed this superb work (1608).
The Sala de Retratos has been called the great- est portrait collection in the world, where hung great works by Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, Diirer, Holbein, Jordaens, Velasquez, Raphael, Antonio Moro, Moro's pupil, Alonso Sanchez-Coello, etc..
" In the unerring, analytic Portrait of himself Diirer has given us of his art the most typical and the best. Against a dark panel, relieved on the right by a landscape, very modern in feeling and effect, we see the beautiful head, grave but alert, perfect in physical and intellectual charm. The folding of the expressive hands should be noted as an example of Diirer's keenness of observation." — (A. F. C.)
Hans Imhoff (a Nuremberg banker), painted in 1521, is one of the finest of his works. It de- picts a strong man in hat and furs, who holds a scroll in his left hand.
Rembrandt's sole work is Queen Artemisia about to Swallow the Ashes of her Husband, which an attendant is bringing in a nautilus cup. Artemisia is supposed to be a portrait of Saskia.
"The harmony is high and cool in tone; the colour scheme, as in the Jewish Bride of the Hermitage, being made up of pale greens and silvery grays."— (E. M.)
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Abraham and Melchisedek, 297.
Abraham, Calling of, 36.
Abraham's Sacrifice, 250.
Accordee de Village, 87.
Adam, 95.
Adam and Eve, 128.
Admiral Pareja, 34.
yEneas Hunting the Stag, 106.
Adoration of the Lamb, 207.
Adoration of the Kings, D. Ghirlandaio, 407; Ru- bens, 100, 464; Veronese,
243-
Adoration of the Magi, Fra Angelico, 411; Bot- ticelli, 404 ; Thierry Bouts, 296; Brueghel, 200; Diirer, 416; J. Van Eyck, 96; G. da Fabri- ano, 367 ; Francia, 252 ; Kulmbach, 213; Kom- nick, 139; Filippino Lippi, 408 ; Mantegna, 413 ; Pisano, 216; Rubens, 116; A del Sarto, 384; Velasquez, 447 ; Vero- nese, 12; L. da Vinci, 397 ; A. Vivarini, 217.
Adoration of the Shep- herds, Codde, 170; Cor- reggio, 240; Floris, 113; Garofalo, 189 ; Ghirlan- daio, 366; Guido Reni, 191; Jordaens, 120, 179; Murillo, 202, 429, 449; Van Oost, 337; Poussin,
467
308; Rembrandt, 26; Ve- lasquez, 34.
Adoration of the Trinity, 3il.
Aesop, 445
Age of Innocence, 39.
Agony in the Garden, 353.
Albert, Archduke, 102.
Alchymist (Dow) 200; (A Van Ostade), 31.
Alessandro del Borro, 223.
Alexander VI. and Biship Pesaro, 123.
Alexander and Diogenes. 43-
Al Fresco Breakfast, 233.
All Saints, 311.
Allegories, Five, 341.
Allegory of Avalos. 58.
Allegory of War, 391.
Almsgiving, 269.
Alof de Vignacourt, 68.
Amateur Musicians, 134.
Ambassadors, The, 36.
Amsterdam from the Y. 164.
Anatomy Lesson, The, 124.
Andrea Vesalius, 292.
Andromeda, Deliverance of, 188.
Angels' Heads, 38.
Angels' Kitchen, 72.
Animals at Pasture, 282.
Animals in Repose, 269.
Animals in a Landscape, 138.
Animals Sitting in Judg- ment on the Sportsman, 195-
468
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Anne of Cleves, 75.
Announcement to the Shep- herds, 269.
Annunciation, The, Fra Angelico, 463 ; J. Van Eyck, 200; Cossa, 253; Crivelli, 12; R. Ghirlan- daio, 397 ; Lippo Lippi, 6; S. Martini, 122; Master of the Lyversberg Pas- sion, 293 ; P. Pollaiuolo, 220; Veneziano, 317; R. Van der Weyden, in; Apostles, Four, 294.
Apostles, Departure of The,
293
Apparition of the Virgin St. Bruno, 253.
Archery Festival, 330.
Ark, Entrance into, 462; Leaving the, 462.
Aretino, 382.
Architect, an, 222.
Ariadne Abandoned, 178.
Ariosto, Portrait of, 1 1.
Arnolfini, G., 21, 209.
Arnolfini and wife, 21.
Arnould, Sophie, 36.
Arquebusiers of Amster- dam, 140, 147.
Artists' Studio, 270.
Arundell, Count and Coun- tess of, 301.
As the Old Ones Sing, so the Young Ones Pipe (Jordaens), 120; (Steen), 151.
Ascension, 218.
Asiatic, an, 278. '
Assumption of the Virgin (Botticelli), 4; (Guido Reni), 292; (Murillo), 202; (Perugino), 368; (Rubens), 101 ; (A. del Sarto), 384, 43U (Tit- ian), 343.
Autumn Landscape, 23.
Autumn, 220.
Avenue of Ash Trees, 160,
166. Avenue of Middelharnais,
32.
Bacchanalian Festival, 35. Bacchus and Ariadne, 9. Backgammon Players, 149. Balthasar Carlos, Infante,
325, 442, 444. Banquet, Van der Heist's,
146.
Banquet of Dives, 353. Baptism of Christ, 371 ;
(Francia), 251; (Pate-
nier), 316; (Perugino),
288.
Barbaro, Daniel, 388. Barber's Shop, 275, 279. Bas, Elizabeth, 168. Basket of Flowers, 308. Bathers, The, 174. Bathsheba at the Fountain,
257- Battle (Salvator Rosa), 70,
391; (\vouvermans), 29. Battle of the Amazons, 299. Battle of Arbela, 84. Battle of St Egidio, 1-2. Bacchus, Infancy of, 277. Bearing the Cross, 315 Beccadelli of Bologna, 396. Beggar Boy, 73. Bella, La, 373, 381, 394. Benedicite, Le, 89, 175. Bergers d'Arcadie, 83. Betrayal of Christ, 252. Bicker, Capt. R., Company
of, 146.
Bindo Altoviti. 286. Bird, The Little, 449. Birds, Concert of, 200. Birds in Park, 233. Birth of Christ, 294 Birth of Venus, 172, 173. Birth of the Virgin, 72.
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
469
Birthday of Prince of
Orange, 152. Boar Hunt (Rubens), 258;
(Snyders and Rubens),
263.
Bohemian Virgin, The, 321. Bohemienne, La, 81. Borrachos, Las, 441. Bosch near The Hague,
.231.
Bossuet, 85.
Bouquet, 263.
Boys Playing Drill, 309.
Braganza, 26.
Brandt, Isabella, 128, 197.
Brazen Serpent (Bruni)
206; (Van Dyck), 464. Breakfast (Claez), 148;
(Metsu), 154. Bride, Presentation of the.
200.
Buisson, Le, 82. Bull, The, 124, 127. Burgkmaier and Wife, 334. Burgomasters, Four, 124
129. Burial of Christ, 112. See
Entombment. Burning of the Mill, 269.
Cabinet d' Amateur, 337. Calcina altar-piece, The
187.
Calligrapher Coppenol, 279. Calling of the Sons of
Zebedee, 353. Calm Sea, 180, 231. Calvary, March to, 331. Calvary, 401. Campagna near Aqua-Ace-
tosa, 233. Campo Vaccino, View of
84.
Canal Scene in Winter, 32. Cannon Shot, The, 164. Canterbury Pilgrims, 44. Capture of Carthagena, 19.
Card Players, The, 28.
Card Sharpers (Caravag- gio), 254.
Cardinal, Portrait of a (Raphael), 456.
Cardinal Agucchia, 414.
Cardinal Bentivoglio, 389.
Cardinal Bibiena, 378.
Cardinal Fleury, 175.
Cardinal de Granvelle, 325.
Cardinal Ippolito de Med- ici, 381-2.
Cardinal Richelieu, 80.
Carpenters Household, The 8l.
Cascade (Everdingen),
307; (Ruysdael), 137, 284. _
Castiglione, Balthazar, 51.
Castor and Pollux, 299.
Cattle-Grazing K. du Jar- din), 270; (A. van der Velde), 270.
Cavaliere Tibaldeo, 432.
Cavalcade of Prince Mau- rice, 163.
Celestine and her Daugh- ter in Prison, 203.
Chapeau de Paille, 23.
Charitable Lady, 283.
Charles I., 24, 79.
Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, 389.
Charles V., 291, 4^7.
Charles the Bold, 96, 106.
Chase, The, 268.
Child Jesus as Shepherd, 449-
Child Jesus Sleeping on the Cross, 452.
Child St. John, 451.
Children with Garland, 301.
Children, 204.
Children of Charles I., 260.
Child's Head, 223.
Christening, The, 230
470
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Christ a la Faille, 118.
Christ and the Adulteress, 247.
Christ and Magdalen, 281.
Christ and the Woman of Samaria, 320.
Christ Appearing to Mag- dalen, 218.
Christ Appearing to the Virgin, 113.
Christ at the Column (A. da Messina), 354; (Van Thulden), 103; (Velas- quez), 34.
Christ Bearing the Cross (Rubens), 101 ; (Ra- phael), 455.
Christ between two Thieves, (Snellinck), 113; (Ru- bens), 115.
Christ Crowned with Thorns (Guido Reni), 254; (Titian), 58, 291.
Christ Carrying his Cross (S. del Piombo), 189.
Christ disputing with the Doctors, 9.
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemahe. 206.
Christ in the House of Si- mon the Pharisee (Ru- bens), 196.
Christ, King of Heaven, 112.
Christ, Life of (Fra An- gelico), 368.
Christ Led away to be Crucified ( Robert!) , 252.
Christ and the Money Changers, 462.
Christ on the Cross, 117.
Christ on Mount of Olives, 369-
Christ Scourged, 431.
Christ with the Banner of the Redemption, 2-3.
Christ's Agony in the Gar- den, 13.
Church, Interior of St Ursula's, 180.
Circumcision of Christ, 4.
Classical Landscape (Claude Lorrain), 35
Claudius Civilis, Conspir- acy of, 172, 175.
Clearing in a Wood, 162.
Cleopatra Landing at Tar- sus, 84.
Club-Foot, The, 74.
Cleopatra, Banquet of, 190.
Cock Fight (Snyders), 225.
Columbine, The, 185.
Combat between Epicurian- ism and Ascetism, 331.
Combat between Hebrews and Philistines, 332.
Combat between Saints and Demons, 351.
Comedy, The (French),
233-
Comedy, The Italian, 233. Communion of St. Francis,
Last, 117. Communion of St. Jerome,
424. Company, Capt. Albert
Bas's, 147. Company, Capt. R. Bicker's,
146.
Company of Captain Ban- ning Cock, Sortie of, 144. Concert (Caravaggio), 70;
(Giorg'ione;, 373, 380;
(Spada), 70; (Ter
Borch), 229. Concert Champetre (Gior-
gione), 66.
Concerts (John of Bolog- na), 69 Conference of Fathers of
the Church regarding the
Trinity), 383. Connoisseurs Visit, 273. Consecration. 214 Cook, Rembrandt's, 177.
See Stoffels, H
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Coresus and Callirhoe, 89.
Coronation of the Virgin . (Fra Angelico), 410; (Botticelli), 364; (Cri- velli), 356; (Fra Filippo Lippi), 365; (Q. Massys), 200; (Raphael), 422; (Velasquez), 447.
Corporation pictures, 140- iji
Count Wolfgang of Get- ting, 203.
Country House, 154.
Coup de Lance, Le, 115.
Cottage Under the Oaks, 308.
Cradle, The, 27.
Creation of the World, The, 206.
Crime Pursued by Justice, 92.
Crimps, The, 106.
Cristobal de Pernia, 445.
Crowing Cock, 334.
Crucifixion, The (Anto- nello da Messina), 122; (Brueghel, 303; (Dii- rer), 256; (J. Van Eyck), 209; (Giotto), 286; (Filippino Lippi), 214 (Maitre de Fle- malle), 210; (Mnrillo), 202; (Velasquez), 447.
Cruche Cassce, La, 87.
Cupid and Psyche, 91.
Cupid Unloosing the Girdle of Venus, 206.
Cure of a Lunatic, 351.
Danae (Van Dyck), 259; (Titian), 189, 321, 434, 458; (Van Thulden), 261.
Dance in Tavern. 268
Dance of Peasants, 81.
Dancing Lesson, The, 150.
Daniel, Vision of, 228.
Daughter of R. Strozzi,22i.
Davalos, The Marquis, 284.
David (Pollaiuolo), 219.
David at the Cave of Adul- lam, 35.
David and Bathgheba 252.
David Playing the Harp, 126.
David with Head of Go- liath, 191.
Dead Christ (P. Veronese), 189; (Mantegna), 357.
Dead Game (Weenix), 147.
Dead Game and Fruits, 174.
Dead Hares, 147.
Dead Game and Vegeta- bles, 148.
Dead Stag with Fruits, 263.
Death of Abel, 345.
Death of the Virgin (Cara- vaggio), 70; (Mantegna), 463; (Unknown Cologne master), 292.
Dejanira Carried off, 69.
Delft, View of, 124, 138.
Deluge, The, 200.
Democntes and Protagoras. 190.
Dentist, The, 271.
Descent from the Cross (Fra Angelico), 368; (P. Christus). 99; (Early Flemish), 99; (Marconi), 352; (J. da Ponte), 66; (S. del Piombo), 189; (Rem- brandt). 192; (A. del Sarto), 384.
Despatch, The, 124, 135.
Diana and Actaeon, 322.
Diana Hunting. 224.
Diana and her Nymphs 224
Diana's Repose, 334.
Dice Players, 156.
472
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Dignity and Impudence, 43
Diogenes (Jordaens), 260;
(Poussin), 83; (Ribera),
25f
Disciples of Emmaus, 65.
Dispute, The, 383.
Doctor feeling Pulse, 334.
Doctor's Visit, 133.
Doctors of the Church Dis- puting, 190.
Dogs' Heads, Four, 225.
Donna Velata, 380.
Doni A. and M., 373, 379.
Dordrecht, View of, 137, 165, 179.
Dreamer, The, 153.
Dropsical Women, The, 82.
Duet, The, 27, 283.
Dune, The, 307.
Dunes, In the, 200.
Dunes (Cuyp), 230.
Dutch Burgomaster, 121.
Dutch Housewife, The, 28.
Dutch Interiors, 28.
Dutch Landscape, 270.
Dutch Living Room, 229.
Dutch Lord, 121.
Dwarfs, 446.
Ecce Homo (Correggio), 17; (A. Van Gelder), 267; (Titian), 321.
Eden, 462.
Education of Cupid, 18.
Education of the Virgin (Murillo), 449; (Ru- bens), 118.
Elector of Saxony, 322.
Eleanor of Tuscany, 251.
Eleanora Gongaza, 394.
El Escribano, 446.
Elijah in the Desert, 210.
Elizabeth of Austria, 74.
El Pajarito, 449.
El Primo, 446.
Embarkation of De Wit, 165.
Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 35.
Embarkation of St. Ursula, 35-
Embarkment for Cythera, 88.
Emmaus, Pilgrims of, 58.
Entombment, The (A. Car- racci), 69; (Carravag- gio), 426; (Van Dyck), 119; (S. Martini), 213; (Parmigiano), 189; (Pe- rugino),385; (Poussin), 308; (Titian), 58. See Pietd.
Erasmus, 76.
Eton College, 19.
Eve, 95.
Evening, 308.
Evening School, 148.
Faith, Hope and Charity,
422. Fainting Lady (Van Mie-
ris), 304; (E. Van der
Neer), 306. Fall of the Angels (L.
Giordano), 318. Fall of Man, 345. Fall of Rebel Angels (Flo-
ris), 113. Family Concert (Jordaens),
119. Family Group (Coques),
261; (Gainsborough), 40;
(Lotto), 20. Family Picture (Hals),
303. Family Portraits (Coques),
23-
Family of Darius, 12.
Farm (A. Van de Velde), 230; (Teniers), 156.
Farmyard, 194.
Father, Durer's Portrait of his, 417.
Feast in the House of Si- mon, 65.
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
473
Feast of the Passover, 210. Fecundity, 103. Fenton, Lavinia, 38. Ferdinand, Don, 444. Ferronniere, La Belle, 56. Ferry, The, 122. Fiddler, The, 134. Fighting Peasants, 256. Fireside, The, 271. Fish, 148, 180. Fish and Lobster, 139. Fisherman Presenting Ring
to the Doge, 350. Fisher Boy, 230. Fisher Boy of Haarlem,
121.
Fishers and Cattle, 267. Fishers of Souls, 163. Fish Market, 155. Five Senses, 137. Flemish Feast, 82. Flemish Landscape, 179. Flight in Egypt (H. de
Bles), 316; (Elsheimer),
267; (Murillo), 201;
(Rubens), 278. Flight of the Holy Family,
274.
Floating Feather, The, 147. Flooded Landscape, 230. Flora, 395. Flora, Pomona, Bacchus
and Cupid, 267. Flowers (A. Van Beyeren),
J39; (J- Van Huysum),
148; (Seghers), 104, 180;
(Verelst), 180. Flowers and Fruits, 174. Flute Player (Lancret),
416; (Leyster), 178. Ford, The, 31. Forest Scene, 32. Forge of Vulcan, 447. Fornarina, The, 393. Fortune-Teller (Caravag-
gio), 70; (Van Mieris),
272. Fountain at Aranjuez, 447.
Fountain of Youth, 212. Four Philosophers, 390. Fourment, Helena, 124, 128-
9,. 197, 300.
Fraimont, Lorenzo, 354. Francis I., 415. Francis II. as a Child, 114. Francisa, 445.
Francesco delle Opere, 414. Frederick the Great, 234. Fruit and Game, 148. Fruit (C. de Heeni), 263;
(J. Van Huysam), 308.
Gainsborough's Forest, 41.
Galileo, 415.
Gallant Offering, The, 105.
Gallant Proposals, 272.
Game and. Poultry (Sny- ders and Rubens), 263.
Game Dealer (Metsu), 271.
Ganymede, 322.
Garden of Venus, 460.
Gentleman and Lady Drink- ing, 229.
Gibbons, Grinling, 205.
Girl with an Apple, 36.
Gevartius, Portrait of, 24.
Girl with the Broom, 177,
.193-
Girl with Candle, 332. Girl Caressing an Old Man,
275-
Girl Reading 3 Letter, 271. Gisze, G., 211. Gipsy, Laughing, 81. Giudecca, View of the, 222. Glass of Lemonade, 200. Glass of Wine, 263. Gloria, La, 458. Godsalve and Son, Thomas,
2SS. Goldsmith, Portrait of a,
388.
Grace, The, 89. Grace Before Meat (Mole'
naer), 156. Graces, The Three, 178.
474
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Graces Decorating a Statue
of Hymen, 39. Grapes and Pomegranates,
90. GrapHaeus, Abraham, no,
122.
Green Cushion, The, 68. Guests in a Tavern, 270. Guitar Lesson, 27. Gustavus III. and his Two
Brothers, 180.
Haarlem, View of, 124, 136,
158.
Hagar, Expulsion of, 196. Hals and his Wife, 169. Halt, The, 157. Harbour, The, 391. Hasselaer, N. and Wife,
169.
Hanemans (Aletta), 130. Hay-Harvest, The. 390. Hay-Wain, 136. Helm, William van der,
169.
Hercules and Cacus, 204. Herdsman and Cattle, 162. Hermit, 149, 271. Herz, Dr., 234. High Life and Low Life,
43-
Hilanderas, Las, 440.
Hille Bobbe, 226.
Holy Family (Fra Barto- lommeo), 386; (Michael Angelo), 398; (Murillo), 35, 71; (N. Poussin), 204; (Raphael), 187, 452; (Rembrandt), 191; (Ru- bens), 117, 391; (A. del Sarto), 64, 290; (Signo- relli), 250; (Suster- mans), 389: (Titian), 10; (Palma Vecchio), 189, 248; (L. da Vinci), 184.
Holy Family of Francis I.,
50 Holyhocks, 33.
Holzschuher, H., 211.
Homer, 126.
Horseman and Cows, 30.
Horses, 24.
Household Heath, 42.
Housekeeper, The Good,
124, 132. Hunt, The, 160. Hunt with Falcons, 136. Hunt, Return from the, 157. Hunters Halt, 136. Hunter's Life, The, 195.
Idle Servant, 28. Imhoff, Hans, 465. Immaculate Conception, 79,
201, 449. Incredulity of St. Thomas,
117.
Infant Hercules, 205. Infant Jesus Sleeping on
the Cross (Allori), 413;
(Murillo), 449. Infant Samuel, 39. Infanta Maria, 222. Infanta Maria Theresa,
325.. Infanta Maria Marguerita,
73-
Inn (A. Van Ostade), 133. Inn, Arrival and Depart- ure from the, 136. Inn Garden, 230. Inn Stable, 269. Innocent X., 203. Interior (P. de Hooch),
305; (Koedyck), 104. Interruption, The, 135. Isaac and Rebecca, 35. Isaac Blessing Jacob
(Flinck), 170; (Murillo),
202.
Isaac, Sacrifice of, 192. r Isabel, Queen, 443.
Jacob Blessing the Children
of Joseph, 280. Jacob Saluting Rachel, 247.
Jacob's Dream (Murillo),
202; (Bol), 267. Jardiniere, La Belle, 48. Jesus on the Cross, 315. Jewish Bride, 193. Jewish Bride, The, 145. Jewish Cemetery, 268. Job, Troubles of, 99. Joconde, La, 52. John the Bapiist (A. del
Sarto), 385; (L. da Vin- ci), 57- Jolly Toper, The (Hals),
169; (Leyster), 169. Jordaens Family, The, 277. Joseph, 385. Joseph Accused by the
Wife of Potiphar, 228. Joseph cast into the Pit,
267.
Journey of Jacob 462. Judith (C. Allori), 322, 387
(Botticelli), 404-5; (Mo-
retto), 189. Julius II., 379, 393- Jupiter and Antiope (Cor-
reggio), 63; (Titian),
59-
Jupiter and To, 189.
Jupiter and Juno, 338.
Jupiter, Infancy of (Jor- daens), 81.
Katzenvith, 200.
Kazan, Capture of, 206.
Kermesse (Bogoliubof), 206; (Teniers the Younger), 105, 279.
King Drinks, The, 81.
King Midas, 308.
Kitchen (Teniers), 200; (Snyders), 39; (A. van Utrecht), 104.
Kitchen, The Good (Teni- ers), 124, 134.
Kitchen Invaded by Mon- keys, 200.
475
Knife-Grinder, The, 229. Kratzer, Nicholas, 76.
Lace Maker, 272.
Lady Albemarle, 40.
Lady, Portrait of a (Ra- phael), 394; (Van Dyck), 278.
Lady at the Clavecin, 156
Lady holding a Rosary, 275.
Lady in White Satin, 306.
Lady of the Swallow, 13.
Lady standing before Mir- ror, 229.
Lady Writing, 134.
Laitiere, La (Greuze), 87; (Ver Meer), 149.
Laitiere La Belle (Wouver- mans), 29.
Lake in the Middle of a Forest, 308.
Landscape (Hobbema), 179; (Koninck), 31, 162; (C. Lorrain), 308; (Ruys- dael), 159, 329; (Teniers the Younger), 279; (A. van de Velde), 159; (Van Uden), 261; OWouver- mans), 157.
Landscape in Winter (Rembrandt), 280.
Landscape with Cattle (Potter), 129.
Landscape with Cows and Pigs, 128.
Landscape with Figures (A. Carracci), 19.
Landscape with Ruins (Wouvermans), 270.
Lanzas, Las, 442.
Last Judgment (Floris), 99; (Fra Angelico), 213; (Rubens), 297; (Van Orley), 114.
Last Supper, 286.
Laughing Toper, 276.
Laura de Dianti, 59.
Lavinia, 189, 220, 244.
Lawyer, 19.
Le Brim and Daughter, Madame, 85.
Leda (Correggio), 218,
Leda and the Swan (Bou- cher), 173.
Leo X. (Raphael), 373, 377.
Leo X. (Copy), 431.
Leomdas at Thermopylae, 91.
Letter, The, 179.
Lieffde, Admiral, 167.
Lion and Gnat, 174.
Lioness Between Two Lions» 198.
Little St. Michael, 40.
Doge Loredano, 20.
Lord Ligonier, 40.
Lot, Flight of, 78.
Lot fleeing from Sodom, 196.
Louis XV. as a Child, 175.
Love in the French Theatre,
233-. Love in the Italian Theatre,
233-
Lucrezia (Diirer), 294. Lucrezia della Fede, 462. Lucrezia dei Pucci, 415. Luna and the Hours, 218. Lute Player (Bol), 178;
(Carracci), 254; (Hals),
178; (Metsu), 283;
(Zorg), 155.
Maas, Mouth of the, 231.
Madonna and Child, (Bel- traffio), 17; (Correggio), 412, 434; (Costa), 15; (L. di Credi), 3; (Daddi), 427; (Duccio), i; (Van Dyck), 302; (J. Van Eyck), 76; (Garafalo) i5;(Ercole di G.Grandi),
15; (L. van Leyden), 210; (Mantegna), 15, 413; (L. Martini), 213; (Moran- do), 17; (Murillo), 273; (Perugino), 63, 323, 414, 431; (Rubens), 302; (A. del Sarto), 384; (Savol- do), 361; (Sodoma), 17; (Solario), 66; (Titian), 58, 189, 396; (P. Vec- chio), 248; (Verroc- chio), 214; (L. da Vin- ci), 249.
Madonna Enthroned
(Cima), 360; (Cimabue), 362; (Van Dyck), 275; (Ghirlandaio), 406, 407; (Giotto), 362; (Peru- gino), 423; (Tnra), 215; (Veronese), 346.
Madonna with Saints (Boc- cacino), 353; (Botticelli), 215; (Crivelli), 216. 357; (Domenichino), 359!
(Guercino), 106; (Fra
Filippo Lippi), 386; (Ti- tian), 424; (B. Vivarini), 352.
Madonna adoring the Child, 213-
Madonna, Aldobrandini, 7.
Madonna, Ansidei, 7.
Madonna dell' Arpie, 409.
Madonna of the Balda- quin, 376.
Madonna with the Butterfly, 427.
Madonna with the Carna- tions, 288.
Madonna del Cardellino, 392.
Madonna di Casa Alba, 186.
Madonna di Casa Colonna, 217.
Madonna with St. Catherine and St. Barbara, 319.
Madonna with St. Catherine and Mary Magdalen, 340
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
477
Madonna della Cesta, 17. Madonna of the Chair, 286. Madonna of the Cherries,
246. Madonna with the Choir of
Cherubs, 339. Madonna Conestabile, 186. Madonna del Coniglio, 434. Madonna Covering the
Sleeping Child, 434. Madonna of the Diadem, 49. Madonna with the Finch,
210.
Madonna di Foligno, 420. Madonna di San Francesco,
409.
Madonna Gavagh, 7. Madonna della Gatta, 430. Madonna del Gran' Duca,
373, 375- Madonna of the Harpies,
409. Madonna hushing the Infant
Jesus, 187. Madonna dell' Impannata,
375- Madonna with Infant Christ
and St. Anne, 16. Madonna by the Lake, 399. Madonna del Latta, 188. Madonna Litta, 184. Madonna of the Magnificat,
402. Madonna della Melagrana,
403- Madonna of the Meadow,
17-
Madonna of the Meier Fam- ily, 235, 254.
Madonna di Monte Luco, 422.
Madonna of the Pomegran- nate, 14.
Madonna of the Rocks, 53.
Madonna in the Rose-Gar- den, 287.
Madonna of the Rose- Hedge, 358.
Madonna della Sedia, 373.
Madonna Sistine, 235.
Madonna of the Tempi Palace, 285.
Madonna della Tenda, 286.
Madonna Terranuova, 217.
Madonna al Verde, 317.
Madonna del Viaggio, 375.
Madonna of the Victory, 60.
Madonna with the Two Seraphs, 364.
Madonna of the Two Trees, 340.
See Virgin.
Madonna, Prayer of the, 203.
Magdalen, (Guercino), 432; (Memling), 77; (Scha- Icken), 281; (J. van Scorel), 166; (Titian), 189, 383-
Magdalen in the Desert, 239.
Magdalen Repentant, 85.
Magi, The, 295.
See Adoration of the Magi.
Maintenon, Madame de, 84.
Maltese Knight, 459.
Man, Portrait of a (Paris Bordone), 68; (Costa), 388; (J. van Eyck), 21; (Mabuse), 22; (S. del Piombo), 387; (Rem- brandt), 25, 106; (Titian),
245-
Man in Black (Correggio), 243; (Holbein), 275; (Ti- tian), 291.
Man with a Cap (Holbein), 255; (Rembrandt), 304.
Man holding a Falcon, 131.
Man with a Glove, 68.
Man in a Golden Helmet, 227.
Man with the Pinks, 208.
Man with a Red Beard, 68.
Man with the Soft Hat, 276.
Man and Youth, 247.
478
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Manna, Gathering the, 297.
Mandolin Player, 120.
Manoah's Prayer, 266.
Margaret of Parma, 325.
Marie Antoinette and her Children, 180.
Marie Mancini, 234.
Maries Returning from the Tomb, Four, 114.
Marine (W. van de Velde), 284; (Vlieger), 329.
Market Cart, 41.
Markets (Snyders), 200.
Marriage a la Mode, 37.
Marriage at Cana, 64, 243.
Marriage of St. Catherine, (Fra Bartolommeo),
386; (Correggio), 62, 434; (G. David), 22; (Lucas van Leyden), 54; (Mem- ling), 77; (Murillo), 429; Andrea del Sarto, 250.
Marriage of the Virgin (Fra Angelico), 411; (Raph- ael), 355-
Mars and Venus,5.
Martyrdom of St. Agatha, 220; Tiepolo, 387 (?).
Martyrdom of St. Lawrence and St. Bartholomew, (Ribera), 273, 451.
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (Durer), 295; (Pollaiu- olo), 3.
Martyrdom of St. Stephen (Carracci), 70.
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Saints, 311.
Mary Henrietta Stuart, 166.
Mary Queen of Scots, 204.
Massacre of the Innocents (P. Brueghel), 331; (Ru- bens), 298.
Mater Dolorosa, 284.
Maternal Care, 153.
Maternal Instruction, 29.
Medici, Giovanni de, 404.
Medusa, Head of, 397. Medusa, Raft of the, 93. Meleager and Atalanta,
102, 328.
Menagerie, The, 133. Men and Women al Table,
Five, 284. Meninas, Las, 438. Merchant and Clerk, 26. Mercury and Argus (Ru- bens), 257, 446. Mercury Charming Argus to
Sleep, 307. Mercury and the Woodman,
18.
Merry Trio, 226. Message to the Shepherds,
66.
Meuse, On the, 30. Mieris and his Wife, Van,
135-
Milkcan, The, 269. Milky Way, Origin of the,
12.
Milanese Lawyer, 20. Mill, 106.
Miranda, Juana de, 222. Miracle of the Crucifix, 223. Miracle of the Holy Cross,
341-
Miracle of San Diego, 72.
Miracle of St. Thomas Aquinas, 428.
Miracles of St. Hyacinth, 427.
Miracles of St. Ignatius, 337.
Miraculous Draught of Fishes (De Cracyer), 103; (Jouvenet), 83; (Ru- bens), 102.
Miraculous Stag appearing to St. Fustache, 14.
Misers, The, 201.
Mona Lisa, 52, 388.
Moenippus, 446.
Money-Changer, 227 .
Monica, The, 387, 388.
Monks, Portraits of, 369.
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
479
Monkeys (Van Kessel), 335; (Teniers), 303.
Montefeltro, F. di, 414.
Moonlight Landscape, 231.
More, Sir Thomas, 76.
Morning, 308.
Moses, Finding of (Bona- fazio), 360; (P. Vero- nese), 243, 461.
Moses and the Hebrews, 462.
Moses, Ordeal of, 399.
Moses Striking the Rock, 204.
Mountain Lake, 274.
Munster, Peace of, 147.
Music Lesson, 272.
Music-Master, 27.
Music Party, 170.
Musical Party, 157.
Musical Instruments, 174.
Musicians, Two, 155.
Musidora, 41.
Musing, 152
Naiads, 127.
Napoleon visiting the Battle- field of Eylau, 93.
Nativity (Botticelli), 4; (L. di Credi), 371 ; (Dtic- cio), 213; (Francia), 66; (H. van der Goes), 209; (Monaco), 427; (Roman- ino), 17; (Schongauer), 213; (R. van der Wey- den), 209.
Nativity of John the Baptist 188.
Negroes, Heads of, 102.
Neptune and Amphitrite (Diepenbeck), 261;
(Poussin), 203; (Ru- bens), 224.
Nes, Admiral Aart vao and Wife, 166.
Night Watch, The, 140, 144
Ninos de la Concha, Los, 451.
Ninus and Semiramis, 254. Noli me Tangere (Correg-
gio), 461; (Titian), 10. Notte, La, 240. Nurse and Laughing Baby,
225.
Oak Forest, 232.
Officer Embracing a Young Woman, 271.
Old Jew, Rembrandt, 121.
Old Man, Denner, 333 ; Hol- bein, 76; Rembrandt, 177, 193, 266 (2).
Old Man Reading, Ryckaert,
333- Old Priest, Head of, Rubens,
258.
Old Toper, 154. Old Woman, Denner, 333;
Dow, 271 ; Rembrandt, 24,
106, 177. Old Woman Reading, 154;
Metsu, 179. Old Woman and Boy, Mur-
illo, 309. Olivares, Conde Duque de,
443-
Olycan, Jacob, 130.
Open Air Party, 170; 233.
Ophovius, Father M., 128.
Opetal, Marquise de 1', 175.
Orpheus, 462.
Orgy, 151.
Orleans, Duchess of, 175. _
Orpheus Charming Ani- mals, 162.
Otho III., Legend of, 97.
Overveen from the Dunes, 232.
Oyster Feast, 124, 133.
Painter's Studio, 273.
Painters Studying from Na- ture, 163.
Pan as God of Natural Life, 219.
480
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Pancakes (Dow), 417. Panciatichi, B, 415. Paradise (H. de Bles), 166;
(Tintoret), 67. Paralytic Death of the,
(Greuze), 204. Parnassus, 59. Parnassus, Muses and
Graces on, 246-247. Parolini-Guicciardini, Johan- na, A. Carracci, 222. Parr, Thomas, (151 years
old), Van Dyck, 258. Parrot Cage, 149. Paternal Advice, 152. Patron Saints of Modena,
69-
Peace of Miinster, 27. Pearl, The, 452. Peasant Boy, 203. Peasant Boy Eating Grapes,
309. Peasant Boys Eating a
Melon, 309. Peasant Girl, 203. Peasant Girls, Two, 309. Peasants, 283. Pensent — ils aux raisins ?
173- Perseus and Andromeda
(Piero di Cosimo), 398. Perseus and Andromeda,
Rubens, 197, 224. Peter Appian, 293. Phaedra Inghirami, 378. Philip II. (Titian), 383. Philip IV., 389, 443- Philip IV. of Spain (Vel- asquez), 33.
Philip IV. of Spain, 180. Philip Bishop of Brabant,
166. Picture Gallery, Archduke
Leopold's, (Teniers), 105. Picture Gallery, Leopold
Williams, 310. Pied de Botte, 74. Pieta, Fra Bartolommeo,
386; G. Bellini, 355; Cri- velli, 425; Van Dyck, 119, 225 ; Francia, 16 ; Luca Giordano, 432 ; Lotto, 358 ; Mantegna, 425 ; Perugino, 370; A. del Sarto, 319; R. van der Weyden, 96.
Pitt Guiding Behemoth, 42.
Plague at Jaffa, 93.
Platina, 428.
Poissarde, La, 155.
Pourvoyeuse, La, 90.
Poussin, Nicholas, 85.
Presentation in the Temple (Fra Bartolommeo), 320; (Carpaccio), 352; (Rem- brandt), 124, 125; (Ti- tian), 343.
Priest and Nuns, 428.
Primevera, 401.
Prince Philip (Titian), 457.
Princess, The Little, 167.
Procris, Death of, 5.
Prodigal Son, The, 190; (Jordaens), 260; (Ru- ben), 117; (Rembrandt), 192.
Polyphemus, 204.
Pompeii, Last Days of, 206.
Pompadour, Madame de, 90.
Pope Paul III. (Titian) (2), 432, 433.
Porica, Count, 359.
Portrait of a Child, 170.
Portrait of his Father (Diirer), 295.
Portrait of a Girl, 138.
Portrait of Himself, (Dow), 149; (Diirer), 294, 465; (Rembrandt), 25, 124, 227, 280; (Salvator Rosa), 391; (Ter Borch), 135, 272; (Tintoret), 68; (Ti- tian), 221; (P. Vecchio), 290.
Portrait of a Lady, 122.
Portrait of a Youth, 222,
Potter, Paul, (130).
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
481
Poultry-Dealer, 283.
(Metsu),
Quack (Dow),
(Steen), 150. Quarry, 137. Queen Artemesia, 465.
30S5
Rainbow, 79, 198. Raising of Lazarus, 17, 418- Rape of Helen, 2. Rape of the Sabines, 18. Reading (J. Steen), 106;
(Ver Meer), 149. Reading Magdalen, 235, 239. Recamier, Madame, 92. Regent Pictures, 140-144. Regents, Four, 142, 171. Rembrandt with Saskia, 264. Rembrandt's Mother, 193. Renier Anslo, 227. Repose on Flight into Egypt,
(H. de Bles), 112; (Alt-
dorfer), 212; (Bol), 267. Repose of the Holy Family,
426. Repose in Egypt (Correg-
gio),4i2; (Cranach), 212;
(Guido Reni), 191; (Mu-
rillo), 201; School of
Raphael), 323. Resurrection (Memling),
315; (Perugino), 288,
423- Resurrection of Lazarus
(Guercino), 69; (Ru- bens), 225.
See Raising of Lazarus. Resurrection of the Saints,
188.
Return from work, 390. Reymond, Mile. Mole, 85. Rhetoricians, The, 106. Rhine, View on the, 192. Richardot and Son, 80. Riding-School, 200. Risen Christ, 385
River God Tiber, The, 197.
Robinette, 39.
Roi Boit, Le, 329.
Roman Landscape, 233.
Romanoff, Election of Mich- ael, 206.
Rough Sea, 137.
Rovere, Francesco Maria della, 394.
Rubens and Helena, 300.
Rubens, Salon of, 178.
Ruined Castle in a Lake, 30.
Ruins of Castle of Breder- ode, 32.
Sabines, The, 91. Sacrifice to Fertility, 178. Sacrifice of Isaac, 36; (A.
del Sarto), 462. Saint Ambrose and the Em- peror Theodosius, 327. St. Anastasius, 176. St. Anne (L. da Vinci), 55. St. Anne, Legend of, 98. St. Anthony of Padua
(Murillo), 201. St. Anthony of Padua and
the Infant Jesus, 223. St. AntTiony and St. Paul,
447. St. Barbara (John van
Eyck), 109, no; (A. del
Sarto), 188. St. Basil, 73. St. Benedict, 427. St. Bruno, 82. St. Catherine of Alexandria,
St. Catherine (Luini), 186, 287; (Titian), 57-
St. Catherine in a Land- scape (Van Eyck), 314.
St. Catherine carried away by Angels, 356.
St. Cosmo and St. Damian, 286.
St. Elizabeth, 448.
St. Euphemia, 432.
482
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
St. Francis (Guido Reni), 191; (Correggio), 241-242; (A. Caracci), 319.
St. Francis Xavier, 83, 328,
432-
St. George (Mantegna), 346; (Raphael), 47, 187; (Tintoret), 12.
St. Ildefonso, 326.
St. Ignatius Loyola, 328.
St. Jerome (Leonardo da Vinci). 424; (Titian), 358; (Van Dyck), 178, 259,430; (Patenier), 316; (Rubens), 257.
St. Jerome Reading, 14.
St. John, (Dtirer), 294.
St. John the Baptist (Bel- traffip), 359; (Lippo Lippi), 6; (Memling).
77- St. John and the Lamb,
35-
St. Lawrence, 203. St. Margaret (Raphael)
51; (Giulio Romano).
323.
St. Mark (Fra Bartolom- meo), 385; (Diirer).
294- St Mark at Alexandria
358. St. Mark, Finding the Body
of, 359- St. Mark Healing Ananias
215- St. Mark Rescuing a Slave
345- St. Mary of Egypt (Ri-
bera), 254, 273. St. Matthew, 220. St. Michael overthrowing
Satan, 150.
St. Nicholas Eve, 150. St. Norbert, no, 120. St. Paul (Durer), 294. St. Paul, Conversion of,
298.
St. Peter (Diirer), 294;
(Rembrandt), 76.
St. Peter Enthroned, 360.
St. Peter's Denial, 192.
St. Peter Martyr, 360.
St. Petronella, 426.
St. Rodriguez the Martyr,
235- St. Rodriguez, Death of
273-
St. Romualdo, 426. St. Scholastica, Vision of,
82. St. Sebastian (Correggio),
241 ;( Mantegna), 319;
(Ribera), 223; (Sodo-
ma), 412; (L. da Vinci),
185.
St. Theresa, 119. St. Ursula, 348. St. Veronica, 292. St. Zanobius, 408. Salome (Luini), 61, 398;
(Titian), 459. Samaritan, The, 320. Samson, 120. Samson Threatening his
Wife's Father, 229. Samson's Marriage Feast,
264. Sam Lorenzo Guistiniani,
353- San Rocco of Cavaggola,
16. Saskia, 177, 193, 227, 264
265, 281.
Satin Dress, The, 152, 229. Satyr and Peasant, 276. Savonarola, 370. Scholar, Portrait of a, 130. Scipio, The Continence of,
205.
Sculptor, 68. Scheveningen, Beach at
(Ruysdael), 137; (S. de
Vliearer1), 137; (A. Van
de Velde), 138. Scholar and his Sister, 275.
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
483
School of Love, 18. Schoolmaster, The, 271. Scullion, The, 150. Sea Port, 308. Sea Port at Sunset, 84. Seamstresses, The, 191. Sebastian de Morra, 446. Sennacherib, The Destruc- tion of, 298. Senses, Five, 105. Servant (Rembrandt's),
177- Seven Joys of the Virgin,
297.
Seven Sacraments, 109, no. Seymour, Jane, 131. Sforza, Battista, 414. Sheffield, Sir — 130. Shells, 139. Shepherd and Flock, 162,
268, 282. Shepherd Lovers, The,
305.
Sibyl, The, 445. Sicily, Scene in Coast of,
274-
Sick Girl, 151. Siddons, Mrs., 40. Sigismonda, 38. Silk Mercer, 334. Simeon in the Temple, 124
125.
Simons, Q., 130. Sisters. Three, 248. Sistine Madonna, 235. Skater (Lancret), 174. Smithy, 269. Smoker (Metsu), 271;
(Ter Borch), 229 Snake in the Grass. The,
206. • Snyders, Portrait of F.,
302.
Snyders and Family, 199. Soap Bubbles, 135. Sobieski, 194. Soldiers Offering Gold to a
Girl, 82.
Soldier Receiving a Young
Lady, 82.
Soldier Smoking, 273. Solomon, Judgment of, 399,
400.
Soup Eater, The, 277. South Sea Bubble, 44. Southwell, Sir Richard, 76,
416. Soldiers Playing at Dice,
190. Spaniels of King Charles's
Breed, 43.
Spanish Peasant Boy, 35. Spasimo, 456. Spinner (Maes), 152. Sportsman with a Bittern
(Rembrandt), 265. Sportsman's Present, The
(Metsu), 153. Sposalizio, 355. Spring (Botticelli), 362;
(Brueghel), 332. Spring Landscape, 230. Stable (Morland), 42;
(Wouvermans), 29. Stag-Hunt (Oudry), 174;
(A. von Everdingen),
267; (Snyders), 139;
(Wouvermans), 269, 306. Steen Family, The, 133. Steward and his Mistress,
A., 304. Still Life (Oudry), 174;
(Snyders), 104, 225. Stoffels (Hendrickje), 26,
81, 227.
Store Room, 154. Stormy Sea, 232. Strada, Portrait of, 322. Summer Morning, 231. Sunrise on the Black Sea,
206.
Sunset, 284. Supper in the House of
Levi, 347- Surrender of Breda, The,
442.
484
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Susanna (Rembrandt), 126,
228. Susannah at the Bath
(Tintoret), 67. Syndics, The, 140, 143.
Tailor, 19.
Tailor's Shop, 156.
Tavern Scenes, 261.
Temptation of St. Anthony (Bosch), 316: (Teniers), 279.
Terrestrial Paradise, 333.
Three Ages of Man, 381.
Three Archers, 251.
Three Fates, 387.
Thomyris and Cyrus, 78.
Tinker, The, 272.
Titania and Bottom, 43.
Toast, The (Steen), 151.
Tobias and the Angel, 353.
Tobias and Raphael, 8-9.
Topers, The, 441.
Transfiguration, The, 17, 418.
Treasure Seeker, 333.
Tribute Money, 246.
Trinity, The, 370.
Triumph of Scipio, 15.
Triumph of the Christian Religion, 275.
Triumph of Galatea, 173.
Triumph of Venus on the Sea, 324
Trumpeter, 272.
Trumpeter and Lady in White Satin, 306.
True Cross (Gentile Bel- lini), 341.
Turkey arid Cock, Fight be- tween, 147.
Twelfth Night (Jordaens), 302; (Steen), 283.
Two Cavaliers, 267.
Two Men, 68.
Two Musicians, 276.
Ugo Martelli, 222.
Usurers, Two, 22.
Uncle Toby, 44.
Ulysses Returning Chry-
seis to her Father, 84. Ulysses and Nausicaa, 390.
Vache qui se Mire, La, 124, 127.
Vache qui Pisse, La, 195.
Vase of Flowers, 33.
Venere del Pardo, 59.
Venetian Senator, 20.
Venice, 19.
Venus (Botticelli), 362, 400; (Giorgione), 247; (Palma Vecchio), 247.
Venus and Adonis (Ru- bens; 128; (Titian), 458; (Veronese), 461.
Venus and Cupid, 262.
Venus and the Graces, 173.
Venus and Young Bac- chante, 291.
Venus at her Toilet, 173.
Venus au Petit Chien, 385.
Venus, Vulcan and Cupid, 386.
Vertummus and Pomona, 218.
Vicq, Baron Henri de, 79.
Vierge au Panier. See Virgin with the Basket.
Vierge aux Perdrix, 199.
Vierge aux Rochers, 9, 53.
Village, 8r.
Village Doctor, 105.
Village Scene in Holland,
3i.
Village Wedding, 120. Violante, 317 Virgin and Child (Fra An-
gelico), 410-411; (Bal-
dassare of Este), 214;
(Cima), 17; (Crivelli),
357; (Van Dyck), 79;
(J. Van Eyck), 256;
(R. del Garbo). 214;
(Giorgione), 460; (Goz-
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
485
zoli), 317; (F. Lippi), 410; (Mantegna), 252; (Memling), 21, 112, 209; (Montegnia), 360; (Pera- gino), 7-8; (Ramenghi), 253; (P. Vecchio), 318.
Virgin and Child with Saints (Bellini), 339, 340; (Cima), 290; (Francia), 187; (Peru- gino), 288; (Titian), 246; (P. Vecchio), 290.
Virgin and Child with Saints mourning, 302-
303-
Virgin and Child En- throned with Six Saints
(Francia), 215. Virgin Enthroned (Cima),
215; (Memling), 315;
(Van Thulden), 261;
(A. Vivarim), 214. Virgin Enthroned and St.
Anne, 16. Virgin Enthroned with St.
Anna, 409 Virgin in Glory (Correg-
gio), 242; (Ghirlandaio),
289; (Massys), 131;
(Veronese), 319. Virgin and St. Elizabeth in
Glory, 218 Virgin Adoring the Infant
Christ 2-3; (Perugino),
8. Virgin Appearing to St.
Bernard, 370 Virgin Appearing to St.
Luke and St. Catherine,
70.
Virgin of the Basket, 17. Virgin of the Cherries,
320. Virgin of the Cornflower,
416. Virgin of the Crescent,
246. Virgin of the Fish, 453.
Virgin of the Parapet, 321. Virgin of the Partridges,
190.
Virgin of the Rabbit 57. Virgin of the Rocks, 9. See
Vierge aux Rochers. Virgin of the Rose, 251. Virgin with the Cherries
(A. Carracci), 70. Virgin with the Cut Pear,
3io Virgin with the Grapes,
84. Virgin with the Parrot,
The, 117.
Virgin with the Roses, 396. Vision of Ezekiel, 377. Vision of a Knight, 6-7. Vision of St. Augustine,
16. Vision of St, Bernard,
289.
Vision of St. Helena, n. Vision of St. Scholastica,
82. Visit of an Old Lady to a
Physician, 229. Visitation (Albertinelli),
409; (Ghirlandaio), 67;
(S. del Piombo), 67;
(Palma Vecchio), 318;
(Raphael), 456. Voiturier, Le, 199. Voogt, Maria, 168. Vyver, View ot, 137. Vyts, Jodocus, 256.
Wake, Anna, 130. Wareham, William, 76. Watch Dog, 195. Waterfall (A. von Ever-
dingen), 267; (Poussin),
274.
Water Mill, 32, 161. Weaver at Rest, 106 Weavers, The, 440. Wedding at Cana, 243.
486
INDEX OF PAINTINGS
Weeping Woman, Head of,
96.
Welsh Slate Quarries, 42. Wild Boar Hunt, 34. William of Orange and
Mary Stuart, 168. Winter, 231.
Winter Amusements, 159. Winter Effect, 159. Winter Landscape, 30. Windmill at Wyk, 157. Witches, 336. Wohlgemuth, Portrait of,
294.
Woman Drinking, 270. Woman by a Cradle, 179. Woman Taken in Adultery,
25.
Woman with a Cat, 154. Woman with Gold Chain,
258. Woman at the Window,
227.
Woman Wading, 26. Women with Musical In- struments, Six, 247. Woodcutters Family, 279.
Woodland, 158. Woody Landscape, 232.
Y at Amsterdam, 165. Young Girl Decorating
Statue of Love, 92. Young Man (Giorgione),
221; (Holbein), 313;
(Raphael), 51; (A. del
Sarto), 19; (Titian),
382.
Young Scholar, 283. Young Singer, 225, 227. Young Woman (Holbein),
131; (S. del Piombo),
222; (L. da Vinci), 185. Young Woman at Toilette,
3i6. Youth, Portrait of, (Van
Eyck), 256.
Youth of the Virgin, 191. Youthful Christ, 19.
Zingarella, 435. Ziska, Conspiracy of John, 175-
INDEX OF PAINTERS
Aertsen, P., 335.
Albani, 324.
Albertinelli, 370, 409.
Allori, C, 322, 387, 413.
Altdorfer, 212.
Angelico, Fra, 2, 60, 213,
286, 368, 410, 463. Fra Angelico, School of,
429. Antonello da Messina, 122,
249,. 354-
Arthois, Jacques d', 179. Ast, B. van der, 139. Ayvasowsky, 206.
Bagnacavallo, 253. Bakhuysen, L., 165. Baldassare of Este, 214. Baroccio, 426. Bartolo, Taddeo di, 427. Bartolommeo, Fra, 320, 370,
385, 409.
Basaiti, Marco, 14, 17, 353. Bassano, 324, 461. Beeldemaker, A. C, 157. Bega, 268.
Begeyn Abraham, 137. Bellini, Gentile, 68, 341,
35.8. Bellini, Giovanni, 13, 17, 20,
3i6, 339, 355, 399- Beltraffio, 17, 359. Berchem, 267. Beyeren, A. van, 139, 148,
180.
Blake, William, 42. Bles, Herri de, 99, 112, 166,
316.
Boccaccino, B., 353. Bogoliubof, 206. Bol, F., 131, 140, 178.
Bologna, John of, 69. Bonafazio, 353, 360. Bonsi, Giovanni, 427. Bonvicino, A., 218. Bordone, Paris, 68, 350. Bosch, Jerome, 316. Both, J. 163, 307. Botticelli, 4, 215, 362, 400. Boucher 86, 172, 173. Bouts, Albert, 99, 112. Bouts, Thierry, 97, 112, 296. Burgkmaier, 334. Brekelenkam, 155, 156. Bronzino, 68, 251, 415. Brouwer, A., 156, 268, 305. Brueghel, Hell Fire, 100. Brueghel, Jan the Elder,
276. Brueghel, Jan the Younger,
IOO.
Brueghel, Peasant, 81, 256,
331.
Brueghel, Pieter, 100. Brueghel Velvet, 200, 303. Briilow, 206. Bruni, 206. Buonaroti. See Michael
Angelo.
Calcar, John of, 68. Canaletto, 19.
Capelle, J. van de, 180, 231. Caravaggio, 68, 220, 254. Carpaccio, 214, 347, 351. Carracci, Agostino. 222,
319. Carracci, Annibale, 19, 69,
254-
Champaigne, P. de, 80. Chardin, 86, 89, 172 175. Chodowiecki, 234.
487
488
INDEX OF PAINTERS
Christus, Petrus, 99.
Cima da Conegliano, 215,
290, 352, 360. Cimabue, 362. Claesz, P., 148. Clouet, 74, 114, 415. Codde, 170. Constable, 41. Coques, G., 23, 121, 261,
275, 283. Correggio, 17 62, 187, 218,
235, 239, 240, 241, 242,
243, 322, 412, 434, 461. Cosimo, Piero di, 5, 398. Cossa, F., 220, 253, 427. Costa, 15, 388. Coxie, Michael, 99. Craeyer, G. de, 103, 180. Cranach, 212 Crivelli, 12, 107, 216. 356,
425. Credi, Lorenzo di, 3, 249.
371-
" Crome, Old," 41. Cuyp, A., 30, 147, 230.
Daddi, B., 427. David, Gerard, 22. Denner, B., 332. Desportes, 86, 174. Diepenbeck, 262, 335. Domenichino, 359, 414. Dosso Dossi, 248. Dow, Gerard, 32, 82, 124, 132, 148, 200, 270, 305,
417-
Drost, 281. Duccio of Buoninsegna, I,
213. Dughet, G., 233. See Pous-
sin, G. Diirer, 210, 256, 294, 310,
416, 465. Dyck, A. van, 24, 79, 80,
109, 119, 178, 199, 225,
258, 275, 278, 302, 361,
389, 464-
Eeckhout, G. van den, 139,
179-
Elsheimer, Adam, 267. Etty, 44- Everdingen, Allart von,
307-
Everdingen, C. von, 267. Eyck, Hubert Van, 208. Eyck, J. and H., 95, 207. Eyck, John Van, 21, 76,
1 08, no, 200, 208, 256,
314, 430.
Fabritius, 169.
Flinck, G., 140, 147, 170.
Floris, Frans, 99, 113.
Fouquet, 210.
Fragonard, 86, 89, 204.
Francia, 16, 66, 187, 215,
251, 287.
Franck, J. B., 167. Fabriano, Gentile da, 367,
427. Francken, Frans the Elder,
336. Francken, Frans the
Younger, 336. Fredi, Bartolo di, 427. Fuseli, 43. Fyt, Jan, 179, 334.
Gainsborough, 40. Garbo, R. del, 214. Garofalo, 15, 189, 253. Gelder, Arent van, 267. Gentile, F. di, 427. Gerard, 91. Gericault, 93. Ghirlandaio, D., 67, 289,
366, 406. Ghirlandaio, R., 388, 397,
408. .
Giordano, Luca, 318, 432. Giorgione, 26, 66, 221, 247,
3i8, 373, 38o, 399, 460. Goes, H. van der, 96, 315. Giotto, 286, 362. Goya, 452.
INDEX OF PAINTERS
489
Goyen, Jan van, 137, 179. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 2, 317,
428.
Grandi, Ercole di G., 15. Greuze, 36, 86, 87, 204. Gros, 93. Guardi, 222.
Guercino, 69, 108, 426, 432. Guerin, 92. Guido, Reni, 19, 69, 190,
254, 292.
Hackaert, Jan, 160, 166.
Hals, D., 170.
Hals, Frans, 81, 107, 121,
130, 168, 199, 178, 225,
275, 276, 303- Heem, Cornelis de, 263. Heem, J. D. de, 263. Heemskerk, M. van, 100,
333-
Heins, J., 336. Heist B. van der, 26, 146,
1 66, 200. Herrera, 73. Hobbema, 32, 108, 161, 179,
232, 307. Hogarth, 37. Holbein, 36, 75, 76, 107,
I3L 235, 254, 255, 275,
416.
Hondecoeter, 147, 224. Hooch, Pieter de, 28, 154,
179, 229, 305. Huysum, J. van, 148, 308.
Jardin, K. du, 270. Jones, Thomas, 204. Jordaens, 80, 103, 109, 119,
179, 260, 277, 302, 329. Jouvenet, 83.
Kessel, J. van, 335. Key, Adriaen, 131. Keyser, T. de, 26, 124, 129,
168, 170, 267, 304. Kneller, Sir G., 205. Koedyck, 104, ISS-
Koninck, P. de., 31, 162,
231.
Koninck, S., 139. Kulmbach, 213.
Lancret, 86, 174, 274, 416.
Landseer, 42.
La Tour, 90.
Lawrence, 429.
Le Brun, 84.
Le Brun, Madame, 85.
Lens, A. C, 338.
Leonardo. See Vinci,
Leonardo da. Le Sueur, 82. Leslie, 44.
Leyster, Judith, 169, 178. Lijs, J., 170. Libri, Girolamo dai, 16. Lippi, Filippo, 6, 213, 365,
386, 410.
Lippi, Filippino, 214, 408. Lippi, Lorenzo, 320. "Little Vandyck," The, 23. Lorrain, Claude, 35, 83, 108,
204, 274, 308. Luini, 9, 61, 287, 356, 358,
398-
Lossenko, 206. Lotto, Lorenzo, 20, 222,
324, 358, 38r. Lucas van Leyden, 210, 354.
Maes, N., 27, 152. . Maitre de Flemalle, 210. Mantegna, 15, 59, 252, 319,
346, 357, 413, 426, 432,
463-
Mantovano, Rinaldo, 18. Martini, Lippo, 213. Massys, Jan, 201. Massys Quentin, 98, 109,
114, 131, 200, 210, 275. Mabuse, 22, 114, 166, 275 Maclise, 43. Martini, Simone, 122. Marconi, Rocco, 213, 352,
427.
490
INDEX OF PAINTERS
Mazzuoli, F., 251.
Melzi, F., 218.
Memling, 21, 77, 99, 109,
112, 131, 297, 314. Memmi, Lippo, 427. Messina, Antonello da.
See Antonello. Metsu, G., 27, 82, 134, 153,
283, 334, 417.
Michael Angelo, 387, 398. Mieris, F. van, 135, 271,
272, 304, 334. Mignard, 84, 234. Molenaer, J. M., 137, 156. Monaco, L., 427. Morando, Paolo, 16, 17. Moretto da Brescia, 189,
218, 325, 431. Moreelse, P., 167. Moretto, 431. Moreland, George, 42. Moro, A., 131, 325. Moroni, 19. Montagna, B., 218, 360,
426. Murillo, 35, 70, 201, 223,
235, 273, 309, 429, 437,
448.
Nattier, 86, 175
Neer, Aert van der, 231,
270.
Neer, Eglon Van der, 306. Netscher, 29, 153, 272, 305. Nugi, Allegretto, 427.
Oost, Van, 337. Opstal, Jacques van, 113. Orley, B. Van, 99, 100, 114. Ostade, A. Van, 31, 106,
133, 179, 270, 283. Ostade, I. van, 31. Oudry, 86, 174.
Palma Vecchio, u, 66, 247,
290.
Palamedes, 157. Parmegianino, 251, 431.
Parmigiano, 189.
Patenier, 99, 114, 316.
Pater, 86, 274.
Penni, 323.
Perugino, 8, 63, 288, 323,
368, 385, 414, 423, 431. Pesne, 234.
Piero della Francesca, 414. Piombo, S. del, 17, 67, 189,
222, 387, 393, 418, 434. Pisanello, 14. Pisano, V., 216. Pollaiuolo, A., 3, 219. Pollaiuolo, Piero, 220. Ponte, Jacopo da, 66. Pordenone, 353. Potter, Paul, 29, 124, 127,
162, 194, 230, 268, 282. Poussin, G., 36, 274. Poussin, N., 35, 83, 203,
232, 308.
Pourbus, Frans, 336. Prud'hon, 92.
Quellin, Erasmus, 104.
Ramenghi, B., 253. Raphael, 6, 47, 186, 217.
235, 285, 317, 323, 355,
373, 392, 418, 430, 452. Rembrandt, 24, 81, 107, 121,
124, 162, 168, 172, 175,
191, 227, 264, 275, 279,
304, 361, 389, 465. Reynolds, Sir J., 38, 205. Ribalta, 451. Ribera, 74, 223, 254, 273,
284.
Rigaud, 85, 175. Roberti, Ercole, 252, 359. Rogman, R., 281. Romanino, 17- Romano, Guilio, 19, 253,
323, 456.
Romerswael, M. van, 22. Rosa, Salvator, 18, 190, 391. Roslin, Alexander, 92. Rubens, 23, 78, 79, 100, 102,
INDEX OF PAINTERS
491
109, 115, 124, 127, 178, 196, 223, 257, 258, 263, 278, 297, 310, 326, 390,
437. 464- Ruysdael, Jacob van, 82,
124, 136, 158, 232, 268,
284, 307, 329- Ruysdael, Salomon, 108,
122.
Ryckaert, David, 261, 333.
Sacchi Andrea, 426. Santvoort, 140, 170. Sarto, Andrea del, 19, 64
188, 214, 250, 290, 319,
383, 409, 431, 461. Sassetta, 428. Savoldo, 361. Schaffner, Martin, 293. Schalcken, G., 230, 281, 332 Schiavone, 189. Schongauer, 213. Schut, Cornells, 101. Scorel, Jan van, 166. Seghers, D., 104, 180. Signorelli, 4, 219, 250. Snyders, R, 104, 139, 148,
200, 263, 225, 301, 333. Snellinck, Jan, 113. Sodoma, 17, 412. Solario, 20, 66. Steen, Jan, 27, 82, 105, 120,
12 J, 133, 149, 230, 283,
417.
Stothard, 44.
Sustermans (?\ 389, 415 Swedish painters, 180-182.
Teniers, David the Elder, 330.
Teniers, David the Young- er, 105, 124, 134, 156, 179, 200, 261, 275, 279, 303, 330-
Ter Borch, 27, 82, 120, 124, 135, 152, 170, 200, 229, 272, 283, 306, 417.
Terburg. See Ter Borch.
Thulden, Van, 103, 261.
Tiepolo, 190, 220.
Tintoret, 12, 67, 188, 218,
246, 292, 324, 345, 359, 386.
Titian, 9, 57, 68, 122, 189,
220, 245, 246, 247, 284,
291, 320, 343, 358, 373,
381, 394, 424, 432, 437,
457- Tura, Cosimo. 215.
Ubertino, Francesco, 251. Uccello, Paolo,i. Uden, Van, 261, 390. Ugriumoff, 206. Utrecht, A. van, 104.
Valentin, 69.
Van Loo, 175.
Vecchio, Palma, 66, 189,
317. Velde, A. van de, 30, 31,
138, 159, 160, 162, 231,
268.
Velde, Esaias Van de, 159. Velde, W. van de, 30, 164,
284. Velasquez, 33, 73, 180, 203,
222, 273, 289, 325, 437. Veneziano, B., 317. Venne, Van der, 163. Verelst, Simon, 180. Vermeer, J., 124, 138, 149,
229, 261. Veronese, Paul, II, 64, 189,
243, 31.9, 361, 388, 461. Verrocchio, A., 214, 371. Verrocchio, School of, 3. Verspronck, J. C, 170. Victor, J., 233. Vinci, Leonardo da, 9, 52,
184, 218, 249, 288, 397,
424.
Vivarini, A., 214, 217. Vivarini, B., 352. Vlieger, S. de, 137, 329. Vliet, H. van,i8o.
492
INDEX OF PAINTERS
Vos, C. de, no, 120, 122,
i?8, 179-
Vos, Paul de, 179. Vranck, Sebastian, 337.
Ward, 44.
Watteau, 86, 88, 233, 274.
Weenix, 147.
Wertmiiller, 180.
Weyden, Roger van der,
96, 109, no, 131, 209, 295,
354-
Wilkie, Sir David, 43. Willeborts, T., 334. Wohlgemuth, M., 293.
Zeeuw, De, 22. Zeghers, G., 329. Zorg, H. M., 155. Zurbaran, 203, 222, 452.
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