The story of the art of building

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Class

THE CONNOISSEUR.

THE

CONNOISSEUR

ESSAYS ON THE

ROMANTIC AND PICTURESQUE

ASSOCIATIONS OF ART

AND ARTISTS

*

*

BY FREDERICK S. ROBINSON

NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

1897

CHISWICK1 PRESS :— CHARLES WHIT TINGHAM AND CO.

PREFACE.

THESE sketches are an attempt to suggest the
atmosphere of romantic interest which surrounds
the region of art connoisseurship and collecting.

For his introduction to these attractive pursuits
the author is indebted to his father, Sir J. C.
Robinson, H.M. Surveyor of Pictures, whose
long previous experience as Superintendent of
the art collections of the South Kensington
Museum has supplied him with a portion of the
contents of this volume.

Much of the remaining material is the common
property of all lovers of art. The writer's pur-
pose will be in part attained if the perusal of
these sketches should lead the reader to a
further study of the numerous authorities from
whom they have been derived.

# * * # * #

In the chapters on " The Ideal Collector,"
" Vogue and Prices," " Frauds and Forgeries,"
" Treasure Trove," and " Famous Collections,"
the collector's point of view is touched upon.

The chapters on " Patrons of Art in the

v

226392

Preface.

Italian Renaissance/* " Royal Patrons," and " A
Patron of Later Days," are intended to give some
account of the classes of men who have enabled
artists to live and work. Those on " An In-
triguing Sculptor " and " The Troubles of an
Architect " sketch the vexations of the artistic
life.

" Pliny and Horace Walpole " and "The
Indispensable Vasari" are typical historians of
the world's masterpieces.

"The Story of the Gem" shows how an
entire branch of art may come at last to be
utterly neglected, while the chapters on "Jewels
and Precious Stones " and " The Goldsmith and
Silversmith " draw attention to two of the
most attractive of the "minor arts."

Lastly, the sketches of " Art and War" and
" Art and Religion " suggest some of the external
influences which have affefted artistic produc-
tion.

F. S. R.

vi

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. WHAT PEOPLE COLLECT i

II. THE IDEAL COLLECTOR 15

III. VOGUE AND PRICES 30

IV. FRAUDS AND FORGERIES 46

V. ART TREASURE TROVE 68

VI. FAMOUS COLLECTIONS 80

VII. PATRONS OF ART IN THE ITALIAN RENAIS-
SANCE 93

VIII. ROYAL PATRONS 108

IX. A CONNOISSEUR OF LATER DAYS .... 123

X. AN INTRIGUING SCULPTOR 135

XI. THE TROUBLES OF AN ARCHITECT . . . . 150

XII. PLINY THE ELDER AND HORACE WALPOLE . 166

XIII. THE INDISPENSABLE VASARI . . . . . . 185

XIV. THE STORY OF THE GEM 203

XV. JEWELS AND PRECIOUS STONES 222

XVI. THE ART OF THE GOLD AND SILVERSMITH . 238

XVII. ART AND WAR 255

XVIII. ART AND RELIGION 271

Vll

THE ART COLLECTOR.
CHAPTER I.

WHAT PEOPLE COLLECT.

WHAT do lovers of art colle6l ? There is a
large proportion of persons who, because they
have never turned their minds to it, would be
unable upon the spur of the moment to suggest
anything beyond the accustomed phrase, " Pic-
tures and old china."

It is to this class that the thought of such a
place as the South Kensington Museum con-
jures up only recollections of a smell from
hot-air gratings which were noisy to walk upon,
and of a refreshment room which was only too
difficult to find. Perhaps it would surprise
them to learn that if you have a gallery large
enough to house them, you may colleCt almost
all things, from a cast of the Trajan column to
the front of a public-house. But not far from
the first, concerning which we perpetually
wonder how it ever got there, is the " Sir Paul
Pindar," built in 1600, to prove that after all
the collector's field is not so very closely
restricted.

What People Collect.

There are, of course, many kinds of collec-
tions. It is possible for the directors of a great
national museum to transplant bodily the whole
front of an Indian house, with a sinister effigy
of its murderous-looking owner sitting retired
in the balcony, or to fill long galleries with the
great sculptured stones of Egypt, Assyria, and
Greece. The private individual feels his im-
potence in the presence of these achievements.
Not for him, as a rule, are the lofty taber-
nacles and pulpits, screens and fonts from
French and German churches, the singing
galleries, well-heads and capitals in sculptured
marble from Italy, the curious church doors
from Norway which recall by their colour and
intricacy the Maori carvings of New Zealand.

What a vast field does the word sculpture
cover ! We think naturally of the great works of
Greece and Rome, but the Italian works of the
Renaissance are a revelation. Could anything
be more beautiful than Agostino Busti's recum-
bent figure of Gaston de Foix, who met an
untimely death at Ravenna ? Can those calm,
classical features be those of the atrocious youth
who, at the age of two-and-twenty years, put the
helpless people of Brescia to the sword ? How
lovely are the fragments of his tomb, which, like
his life, was left for ever incomplete ! And the
great reliefs of Delia Robbia, in terra cotta
covered with enamel colours ; how wonderfully
has the burnt clay defied the storms of four
hundred years !

" But all this/' you will say, " is too big and

2

What People Collea.

too cold for a collector really to love and
treasure. Something more intimate, more per-
sonal, than these detached ornaments of church
and tomb is required to excite enthusiasm." To
everyone it is not given to be stirred by sculp-
tured marble, even though it speak like the life
itself in the child heads of Donatello, — but have
patience, good sir, there is more here than mere
stone and clay and plaster. Hitherto your tired
eye has passed in but general review over the
innumerable cases in these courts which have so
oppressed you with their dazzling multiplicity.
Life is not long enough, you have felt, to tarry
over each separate piece of handiwork, however
dainty. The more minute, indeed, the work-
manship, the more wasted the ingenuity of him
who spent so long upon affairs so trivial. " Did
that steel coffer really entail a year of labour,
that ivory casket another twelve months of toil ? "
Yes, and perhaps longer still, for we have read
of a decade spent upon the cutting of a tiny
gem. " Life had need to have gone slowly in
those days," you say, "to justify such expense of
workmanship. A hopeless prisoner, or a monk
condemned to lifelong seclusion, might amuse
himself with such childish intricacies. But the
justification of it for a man free to turn his
hand to honest, useful labours, tell me where
that lies." Truth to tell, if ever justification
were required for art, it is in face of this over-
powering congeries of things brought from the
ends of the earth, and precluded for ever more
from their function of beautifying the everyday

3

What People Colledt.

life of their first owners. Wrenched from their
proper environment and crowded thus together,
they do afford some ground for condemnation
by the rank utilitarian. But if we tell him that
they are gathered together as examples, amongst
other purposes, for present and future crafts-
men, he would resent them all the more. " That
steel coffer might have been as strong to pro-
te£l without those arabesques, the ivory casket
as convenient without those sculptured figures."
This utilitarian sentiment has crept even into
the minds of some of those who make such
trifles now. A reticence of ornament unloved
in the Renaissance times is commended. The
highest kind of decoration, some say, is that
which helps to usefulness. All else is super-
fluous. A grand simplicity is to be our watch-
word, and so now we are turning out little
useful-artistic coffee-pots, and wall-papers so
full of simplicity that we have almost succeeded
in persuading ourselves that the useful is the
true ornamental. But why should the artist or
the lover of art try to set themselves right with
the utilitarian ? The philosophy of the beautiful
is a subject in which we can flounder long
enough without finding any definite conclusion.
Let us leave it to those who prefer theories of
art to art itself — a class whom we confess we
have always suspe6led of an indifferent capacity
for appreciating the contents of a museum.

Truly there is something appalling in the
contemplation of a great collection of works of
art. That a large fraction of man's life should

4

What People Collect.

have been expended on some trifle no bigger than
a filbert, so that one can say, " I hold here in the
hollow of my hand a month or a year, maybe,
of the life-work of some nameless German or
Italian craftsman, with all the aspirations that
centred in his craft ; " that this, too, should be
but one infinitesimal, thousandth part of what is
hoarded here ; these are things hard to realize
in a day when such gewgaws are made for the
most part by machinery in thousands all alike.
But with this thought, perhaps, we have found
that loophole of justification which a tenderness
for the Philistine has for the moment made us
fancy is required. Look round this great col-
lection, and you will be hard put to it to find
two single items which are alike as nowadays
we make them. There are vast series of sculp-
ture, furniture, arms, earthenware, all the cate-
gories of art ; but though you may find
resemblance, you will seek in vain for exact
similitude. Each object is the record of a
human effort, short or prolonged, as the case
may be, but still human, not of the machine — an
effort, too, of the highest part of our nature, that
which competes and strives to obtain the best
of which it is capable. For in the realms of the
finest art there is no standing still, no attaining
to a fixed level of capacity. A man shall not
say, " I will execute this adequately, and so
succeed/' No, of the most that we see here the
craftsman has said, " This time I will surpass
myself." So it is that these objects of art
which thousands pass by with a careless glance

5

What People Collect.

to gape at something which bulks larger to the
eye, are so many expressions of the unspoken
poetry of art, so many examples of the effort
for perfection. Often, too, the craftsman has
been in his grave a thousand years or more
before the full meed of appreciation is paid him.
By then his name has long been lost, and his
handiwork, perhaps, is crumbling to decay.
Then at last we awake to the artistic value of
some negle6led trifle of which the original giver
but lightly thought, and the recipient valued
only for the giver's sake. The artist cherished
his work, no doubt, and was loath to part with
it, as every artist is, even for the sum received,
which was not great, but was consoled to think
that perhaps one here or there might appreciate
its delicacies. Years pass by, and at last there
are found a few who can enter into the feeling
which inspired the patient skilful craftsman, can
note his advancement in design, and appraise
the freedom of execution which the hesitating
hand has at last attained. Those who can do
this are collectors born. To them the artist
and the craftsman need no justification. They
know that his art was to the artist in great part
his religion, and that no bad way of praising
God is to do the best with the artistic talent He
has given you.

Our object, however, is not to preach upon
the claims of a religion of art, or even a col-
lector's appreciation of it, but to consider what
a collector deals with. If we try to make a
mental arrangement of the items that the col-

6

What People Collect.

lector may hunt after, the variety of material is
only surpassed by the multitude of forms and
uses to which the material is adapted. If we
confine ourselves to a single material such as
bone or ivory, we find that it embraces such
different objects as caskets and pocket-books,
combs and crucifixes. At Copenhagen is the
crucifix which belonged to Gunhilde, the niece
of Canute the Great. At South Kensington is
a marvellous cup, more curious than entirely
artistic, perhaps, made in 1681 by Senger, ivory
craftsman and turner to Cosimo III., Grand-
Duke of Tuscany, Of an earlier date are odd-
shaped carved rests to prevent the hands of
scribes when writing from soiling the crabbed
characters of the fifteenth century. Here are
horns or " oliphants " of Byzantine workman-
ship, chessmen, pyxes or ciboriums, pen-cases
and ink-horns from Turkey, pastoral staffs,
wands of office, and even chains of ivory to deck
some portly major-domo's chest. Here, too,
are ivory dice, sundials, scent bottles, and
powder flasks. Of the seventeenth century are
French tobacco graters elaborately ornamented
with such themes as that of Venus instructing
Cupid, or Harlequin disporting with a viol da
gamba. Of the eighteenth century are seals,
walking-stick handles, and powder-puff boxes
from Germany, while with the date of 1780 are
charming ivory buttons from Normandy. But
of all the achievements of the artist in sculp-
tured figures and medallions in ivory, perhaps
the most enchanting, though some say they

7

What People Collecft.

lack the finest finish, are those six Italian seven-
teenth century plaques of little fauns and satyrs
by Francis Duquesnoy, called " II Fiammingo."
So much for a single material. This long list
has hardly exhausted the variety of objects
to which the artist in ivory has at different ages
turned his cunning hand.

But let us suppose that an intending collector,
despairing to cover the unlimited breadth of such
a field, should determine to confine himself to
one or two common forms. Let us see what
choice he has in such useful articles as knives
and forks and spoons. That they too are made
in ivory goes without saying, but the collector
will find himself trenching on the domain of
many different craftsmen. Spoons are to be
seen made with handles enamelled in relief, or
deftly decorated with filigree and enamel com-
bined. The Italians used crystal and dark red
jasper in the sixteenth century, and blue glass
in the seventeenth. The French amused them-
selves a hundred years ago by gracing ebony
with ornaments both of silver and of gold.
From Germany, with the date of 1676, comes a
spoon entirely of boxwood. A portrait of a fat
Elector is carved in the bowl ; Adam and Eve
are embracing on the stem ; close by them are
the Virgin and Holy Child, while to crown this
incongruity a monkey tips the end. Germany
sends also spoon handles in ivory, with silver
wire inlay, coloured with green and red ; or in
marquetry of tortoiseshell and mother of pearl ;
while of plainer material are specimens in amber

8

What People Colled*.

and even common iron ; but that is glorified by
engraving of the highest artistic excellence.
Though the workmen of a past day rejoiced to
use the precious metals, they did not disdain to
exercise their craft to the utmost upon the com-
monest materials. If you wish for confirmation
of this, observe to what artistic uses mere leather
can be applied. Not confined to human foot-
gear or the trappings of horses, leather has been
used for such domestic articles as caskets and
comb-cases, or such warlike objects as richly
decorated shields. Can skill of hand much
further go than in this sword-sheath, with its
multifarious ornament of lovely figures and
medallions ? An historic relic is this, for it be-
longed to Caesar Borgia, whose monogram is on
it thrice repeated. It was made for him, per-
haps, by the famous artist Pollajuolo, to be
carried at the coronation of Frederick of Aragon
as King of Naples in 1497. Much indeed has
been done with the common " cuir bouilli " as a
material for the display of the artist's loving
skill.

If, again, we turn to what is collectively
denominated " plate," we discover, besides an
unsuspefted variety of form, the same love of
beautifying cheap material. We find the com-
mon stoneware of Cologne, bought for a few
pence, decorated with a few shillingsworth of
silver, and turned by the silversmiths of Exeter
into a work of art for which the collector is glad
to pay ^200 or more. He will pay as much
for a " mazer " bowl of mere maple-wood with

9

What People Collect.

less silver and ornamentation still. In this
category of plate we find mounted such things
as oriental china, shells of the nautilus and
trochus, cocoanut and ostrich eggs, gourds and
cow's horns ; while for the matter of shape
the artist has exercised himself in such curious
forms as those of birds and ships and shoes.

Steel is a metal the craftsman has delighted
especially to honour, because it is the material
of weapons of war and chase. To the mind of a
wealthy noble, or mere soldier of fortune, how
could an artist be more suitably employed than
in decorating a good blade of Solingen or
Toledo ?

Wonderful, too, were the feats of the Moors
in damascening shields and daggers. But most
fascinating to us are those dainty little rapiers
known as " dress swords," which form a class
apart. What pictures of court gallants, what
suggestions of intrigue and duels do they conjure
up ! If we could only see the young bloods
who once flourished these in night affrays or
crossed them in the stately figures of the dance,
whilst their ladies passed with smiling faces
upturned beneath the avenue of steel !

But steel in England has graced the fair sex
also to advantage. An interesting collection
might be made of the graceful buckles, clasps,
bracelets, buttons, and fan handles which our
English craftsmen used to make a hundred
years ago.

We cannot hope, indeed, within the limits of
one short chapter to describe what people may

10

What People Collect.

or do collect. If we think of personal adorn-
ment, there, besides jewellery, are watches, fans,
and snuff-boxes made of every material and
gathered from every country. Each different
class has formed the subject of some enthusiastic
collector's exclusive study. Should a man con-
fine himself to the peasant ornaments of different
nationalities, he will have enough to occupy his
thoughts ; or should he collect only finger-rings,
he finds the field too vast when he compares the
great thumb or signet ring of a pope with a
French betrothal ring or the wedding ring that
graced some Jewish bride.

When mere personal ornament implies so
much, what are we to say of the larger objects
of household use which art has beautified ?
The inlaid "cassoni" of Italy, the carved oak
of our own country, the gilded elaborations from
France of Louis Quinze and Seize are too many
to describe. A pathetic interest attaches to
that lovely escritoire a toilette made by David
in tulip and sycamore for the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette. When, too, some cabinet of Floren-
tine marquetry, with houses and landscapes of
inlaid wood, is found to conceal a little chamber-
organ ; or a masterpiece in ebony, lapis lazuli,
and marble reveals the strings of a clavecin or
spinet, we learn that we have come upon
another field. Who would not wish to possess
the Italian virginal which belonged to Queen
Elizabeth, that German organ which Luther is
said to have owned, or the harpsichord on which
Handel played ?

u

What People Colled.

We have said nothing of textile fabrics, but
the collector has busied himself with the splendid
carpets of Persia, the ancient garments from the
tombs of Egyptians, and the shrouds of buried
Copts. If these are too faded and sepulchral
for our taste, we may amuse ourselves with the
tapestry of Flanders, or with those gorgeous
ecclesiastic embroideries, the albs, and chasubles
of Italy and Spain. Or, if these last are of too
brilliant a hue, we can turn to the Italian laces,
Venetian rose-point, or the pillow — made of
Brussels, Mechlin, or Valenciennes.

How can we hope to describe what the lover
of the ceramic art may gather around him ?
We knew well a collector who confined himself
to some branches of English pottery alone.
When we have recalled the names of Worcester,
Staffordshire and Chelsea, of Bristol and Lam-
beth Delft and Fulham stoneware, we have
mentioned a few of the kinds which ornamented
our old friend's rooms with rows on rows six
deep.

If we leave England we are lost indeed. The
title Hispano-Moresque recalls the lustre wares,
the secret of which the modern potter has,
perhaps, rediscovered. The name of Bernard
Palissy reminds us of a story of a life's devotion,
and suggests quaint dishes ornamented with
lizards, frogs, and snakes. " Henri Deux" im-
plies that rarest perhaps of all made at Oiron
or St. Porchaire in the sixteenth century, and of
which, perhaps, not sixty specimens exist. The
luxurious finish of the French porcelain of

12

What People Collect.

Sevres contrasts with the comparatively rougher
vigour of the Italian earthenware which, under
the generic title of majolica, renders famous such
cities as Gubbio and Urbino. Dutch ware of
Delft, ware of Dresden, Venice, and Capo di
Monte open an unending vista which leads as
far as Mexico and Peru.

Our enumeration will never be complete.
Enamel, as we have seen, helps to assist the
decoration of many an objecl, but it has to be
considered for its own sake in the productions of
Limoges, where it completely covers salvers and
ewers, salt-cellars and caskets, and keeps green
the names of Jean and Leonard Limousin and
Jean Courtois. From this we are led on to the
intricacies of " cloisonne " and " £mail de plique
a jour," while we can range at will from the
enamel portraits of Petitot to the rough pro-
ductions of Battersea and Bilston.

Enamel is but glass, and the glass collector
will be indignant if we forget that a pilgrim's
bottle fetched at auftion, in the year of grace
1896, nearly four hundred pounds.

We have to dismiss another whole army in a
page. The archaeological collector will resent
being dismissed with a mere reference to his
Egyptian scarabaei and his terra-cotta uglinesses.
The coin collector must be congratulated on the
artistic beauties of his unending series of Greek
drachms and di-drachms ; the bronze collector
loves to be felicitated on the " patina " or surface
texture of his little Venuses and Victories. The
book lover has a divided interest, that in the

13

What People Colled*.

cover and the contents of his treasures. The
latter, except in the matter of such beauties as
missal illumination, is, perhaps, beyond our scope,
but in the binding the resources of art are ex-
hibited to the utmost. Metal and enamel, leather
and gilt, embroidered silk and seed pearl are all
found to beautify some " book of hours " or
"Office of the Virgin." And from books to
engravings the step is short, but the territory to
be -traversed limitless.

We have, no doubt, omitted the favourite
pursuits of many a collector. The lovers of
Chinese and Indian art will object to the neglect
of their specialities, claiming for them, perhaps,
a higher level of taste than we should willingly
admit. No such excuse could we urge for omit-
ting mention of their fancies to the numerous
votaries of Japan, that wonderful country whose
art in the last thirty years has taken us by
storm. In the fine lacquered work of Japan per-
fection lies. What, too, shall we say of its silks,
porcelains, and bronzes, its sword-guards, and
its drawings by Hokusai ?

We relinquish the attempt to enumerate all
the quaint conceits of this and other countries so
as to satisfy each exacting specialist. We do
not write for them. They are all so exceedingly
well-informed. But those who wish to glance
at the pursuits of that instructed class will
have gathered from our brief review that there
are other things in Collector's Land besides
" pictures and old china."

CHAPTER II.

THE IDEAL COLLECTOR.

MOST men can practise with success but one or
two branches of art. There have been con-
spicuous exceptions to the rule, men of an
astounding versatility, the accomplishments of
any one of whom might have furnished repu-
tations for six ordinary mortals. Such were
Leonardo da Vinci, painter, architect, engineer,
to mention but a few of the arts in which he
was proficient, and Michael Angelo, painter,
sculptor, and poet all at once. These were
universal creative geniuses. A collector of
objects of art, whose knowledge should be co-
extensive with the whole field of art, cannot
indeed claim a place beside these creative
heroes ; but he is a heroic chara6ler nevertheless.
Though not so scarce as a Leonardo, he is not
often met with in the course of a century. The
limited quest of the specialist collector is as dust
in the balance compared with the operations of
such a man as we are considering. The true
connoisseur in the widest sense is never caught
napping outside his period or blindly straying
beyond his department. To him art is an
organic whole, in which the parts rea6l upon

15

The Ideal Collector.

each other. Sculpture speaks to him not only
in the colossal or life-size marble, but also in
the exquisite delicacies of the intaglio. He
traces the forms of architecture in the creations
of the gold and silver smith — the gothic chalice
reproduces the carved work of the cathedral.
A true connoisseur finds confirmation in one
branch of art for the peculiarities of another,
though they may deal with such different mate-
rials as pigments and cotton threads.

He is not merely able to take an aesthetic
pleasure, based upon historical study, in all mani-
festations of art, but he has also the intuitive gift
of distinguishing the genuine from the spurious.

This combination of historical knowledge with
the intuitive perception which renders know-
ledge practical, marks a man out as a king
among collectors. It is difficult for those who
are interested in art to imagine a more delightful
life's work. Let us spend a few pages in con-
sidering the necessary accomplishments of such
a man, and his sphere of action. In so doing
we may glean a hint or two for the safe pro-
secution of our own more humble operations.

He will not be found amongst the dealers in
works of art, for they are for the most part
wanting in the necessary education of a con-
noisseur. Their knowledge is not even equal to
the exigencies of their trade. An uncommon
form of a particular type of object they are
obliged to regard with suspicion, because they
have not the experience which would enable
them to say whether it is genuine or not. And

16

The Ideal Collector.

so they have been known to let many a prize
slip through their fingers, and even to be im-
posed upon by palpable imitations of unique
objects of world-wide reputation. Yet a long
career has sometimes made no mean connoisseurs
of men of this stamp. The late M. Spitzer
combined with business qualities real taste and
knowledge and love.

I agree with one Dr. John Brown, who says
that he is convinced that " to enjoy art thoroughly,
every man must have in him the possibility of
doing it as well as liking it. He must feel
it in his fingers as well as in his head and
eyes." This applies most of all to the collector.
We should not infer from this that it is expedient
for a practising artist, who has spent most of his
life in the exercise of his creative skill, to succeed
to the directorship of our galleries and museums.
This is hardly the case. Our painters for the
most part have been fully occupied in learning
the technique of their profession. They have
not had the time or the inclination for the
general education of their taste. They have not
had the chance of handling and comparing many
objefts in many branches of art. Without wide
experience a man is likely to have too marked
a preference for one phase of art, and in the
case of pi6lures would fill our galleries with
specimens of second-rate painters of the early
Italian schools, when our pressing need is for
some recognition of Watteau and the later
Frenchmen.

Neither is it sufficient to be steeped in the

17 c

The Ideal Collector.

biographical history of art, to know all about
Rembrandt's mother, and Saskiaand Hendrickje
Stoffel, or even to have added an entirely new
member to the list of his relations. You must
be acquainted with the " handwriting " of the
painters, and to do that successfully you must
first have practised painting yourself, and then
have had leisure to go wherever pictures are to
be found.

The Germans are industrious to a degree in
the pursuit of a painter's domesticities, but not
many of them could be trusted to buy for the
nation, and not many Englishmen either. You
must have the courage to back your opinion
by bidding for a doubtful picture, hung up high
and covered with dirt, which may turn out a
prize. Those who have not the true collector's
intuition must restrict themselves to the accre-
dited masterpieces that come to the sale with
a pedigree — and that means money.

No, the ideal connoisseur must be a man who
has practised art with success in the commence-
ment of life, and has relinquished his profession
for the study and acquisition of works of art in
general. Such men have existed, and do exist ;
of such a stamp should be the makers and
directors of great national museums, men whose
" flair" and experience mark them out for a
post where they have had the chance of dealing
with sums sufficient to give them a fairly free
hand. If they collect for themselves we may be
certain that not much that is spurious will be
found amongst their treasures.

18

The Ideal Collector.

Now and again some collection comes to the
hammer with a reputation based on the thou-
sands which were paid for it, and lo ! the bubble
is burst in the auction room in spite of the
trumpetings of prefaces and photogravures and
wide-margined catalogues. Next week another
collection is on sale, but a whisper has gone
round that so and so had to do with the forma-
tion of it, and that is sufficient guarantee.

It is in the smaller sales, when several pro-
perties are sold together and the dealers are at
fault — having only their own judgment to go by
—that the true connoisseur will find the un-
noticed gem. It may be the only genuine
picture in a crowd of worthless copies, but at
any rate it will be so dirty and have been hung
so high in a corner on the viewing days that no
one notices its existence. Then, if he has
marked it, many an anxious hour will he pass
before the sale day arrives and the bidding
shows whether the keen-scented have discovered
it too. If they have, the price will go up by
leaps and bounds, and the connoisseur may
be left lamenting. If they have not, it may " go
for a song," and he will bring home his prize in
triumph. Perhaps a few days after it may leak
out that someone with two eyes in his head
picked up a Rembrandt for £20 at such and
such a sale. There will be a wailing among
the dealers : " Why, we were there ourselves all
the time ! " " Very likely, my friends, and so was
the picture, to be discovered by only one person,
and that one not the auctioneer !" " Knowledge is

19

The Ideal Collector.

power " is a proverb that holds very true in the
purchase of artistic treasures. A sharp eye is
required both to discover the prize and also to
take care of what you have bought. Do not
leave your purchases about by unsold lots, or
they will be certainly put up and bidden for
again. There was also the sad case of a Hebrew
gentleman. He was a great dealer in snuff-
boxes. As each lot was knocked down to him
he put it into a capacious pocket in the tails of
his long coat. When the sale was ended Mr.
Moses got up and felt for his snuff-boxes. To
his horror his pockets were light. A clever
thief had been behind him, relieving him of each
one as it was dropped into its deep receptacle,
and had decamped with all but the very last.
Great was the uproar that ensued ; Mr. Moses
was for shutting the doors and searching every-
one in the room, but that was not feasible, and
he was compelled to put up with his irreparable
loss.

Christie's is the best and cheapest pifture
exhibition in London for the disinterested
spe6lator, and a happy hunting-ground for the
collector, but our real heroic connoisseur
worked in a far wider field than that of the sale-
rooms, in the days when London and a few
other cities had not yet absorbed almost all there
was to collect.

It is difficult to imagine a more delightful life
than that of a thorough-going collector. It
might include foreign travel and a spice of
danger, the excitement of rough journeys to

20

The Ideal Collector.

out-of-the-way places, long rides in the wilder
parts of Spain or Italy, with the added anxiety
caused by the consciousness of plenty of ready
money in your belt. Hazardous journeys in
times of war have been made in Italy a genera-
tion ago, when it was a question of arriving in
time to buy, en bloc, a collection which half-a-
dozen purchasers were anxious to snap up.
Moments of mild intrigue and personal adven-
ture increase your delight in the acquisition of a
coveted treasure.

Is it a question of church plate which the
priests are anxious to sell ? Then you may
have judiciously to grease the palms of half a
cathedral chapter. His holiness the bishop
will display for the future a brighter diamond
on his finger since he facilitated the exchange
of his old communion plate for new. Most of
the proceeds will go to the completion of the
cathedral, as at Saragossa twenty years ago,
when the votive offerings of the Vergen del
Pilar were dispersed — to be found again, some
few of them, at the all-embracing South Ken-
sington Museum.

Expeditions in search of special things may
lead to curious accidents. Here is a true story
of Segovia. There is an "alcazar" used as a
barrack, which thirty years ago was half in
ruins. In the ruined part was a room lined with
a dado of exquisite Moorish tiles. No one cared
for them ; the soldiers destroyed them daily.
The difficulty was for those who affected such
things to get at them. The public were not

21

The Ideal Collector.

admitted to the ruins, as they were not con-
sidered safe. The only way was to bribe a
soldier to bring the tiles. This was done;
but to the collector's disgust there was one
wanting to make up the pattern. Nothing could
make the simple soldier understand. If you
want such things you must go yourself. So
it was arranged that in the gray of the morning
the collector should slip in while the sentry was
busy with a market cart that came every day at
a fixed hour. All went well ; the missing tile
was secured, and the collector was nervously
escaping from the clutches of the military. Sud-
denly behind him he heard a noise like thunder.
His first idea — prompted by a rather guilty con-
science— was that a cannon had been fired at
him. Helter-skelter he ran down the slope ;
then turned and saw a cloud of dust hanging in
the still morning air. The ruined tower in which
he had been a moment before, was gone. Blow-
ing of bugles, shouts of Spaniards suddenly burst
forth, but the tile was safe.

Recent rains had sapped the strength of what
was left of the tower. One might fancy that it
fell out of resentment at the rifling of its last
beauties.

There is a certain pathos in this description
of a visit made by a well-known connoisseur to
a convent in Spain : " It took two days' ride on
mule-back to reach my destination, which lies
very remote. There is no carriage road to the
convent, only a rough mule-track. I was given
full powers by the ecclesiastical authorities to

22

The Ideal Collector.

explore the whole building, and the Lady
Superior was enjoined to afford me every facility.
The local doctor accompanied me to the gate,
but when I was received into the building he
was left on the other side of the grille, in spite
of his evident anxiety to accompany me. My
chief object was to inspect a celebrated altar-
piece, said to be the work of Velasquez. I
asked to be taken first to the chapel. Dimly
lighted, and austere in decoration, it harmonized
with the pale, sad, but kindly faces of the Lady
Superior and her attendants. * Well, senor,
what do you think of our altar-piece ? ' I
answered that it seemed to me at the first glance
to be a work of Velasquez.

" ' Ah, senor, I see you know something, but
you are at once both right and wrong/

" ' How is that ? ' I asked.

" ' Well, the story is that this is a copy by
King Philip IV. from a picture by Alonzo Cano.
He did it with his own royal hand, but Velasquez
added certain finishing touches. King Philip
presented it to Olivarez, his prime minister, and
by him it was given to this convent, which he
kept under his especial protection. So you see,
senor, that our picture is unique, the work of a
king and of the first painter in Christendom ! '
On a closer inspection the truth of the Lady
Superior's story was apparent. She was ex-
tremely desirous that a privileged visitor, the
friend of the king, should see everything. The
truth is, there was little more to see. We con-
tinued our round, an attendant going before

23

The Ideal Collector.

and warning the nuns to retire as we approached.
There would be a sound of hasty flight, and
once only a stifled laugh. We entered several
cells, white-washed, and dimly lighted by a
barred window high in the wall. A bed, a prie-
dieu, and a crucifix constituted the chief furni-
ture. Before I left the Lady Superior regaled
me with sweetmeats, ' which we have made
ourselves from our own traditional receipt,' and
then she asked me whether it was my pleasure
that the nuns should sing me a hymn. I ac-
cepted the offer gratefully, and it was with a
tightening in the throat that I listened to the
beautiful old hymn sung by choristers unseen.
Many of the voices were still young, but the
effe6t of the distant music was saddening to a
degree. The inmates that I saw were all pale
and bloodless. It was as if the refle6led light
of the whitewashed walls, yellowed slightly by
the sun-blinds on the south side of the building,
had struck indelibly into the waxen faces of the
Superior and her flock. I was glad to emerge
into the bright sunlight after parting with the
kind and stately Lady Superior, who, I was after-
wards told, and might have guessed, was a lady
of high degree. Outside I met the do6lor, who
was anxious to interrogate me. * You will
hardly believe, senor/ he said, ' that though I
am the medical practitioner attached to the
convent, I have never been further than the
grille where you left me to-day. If an inmate
is ill, and several of them always are, I have to
interview her in the presence of the Superior

24

The Ideal Collector.

and several nuns, with the iron bars between
me and my patient. They suffer continually
from a malignant low fever, and though I am
confident that, if I were allowed, I could remove
the cause, they will never permit their doctor to
entdf. You are the first man, with the excep-
tion pf the village carpenter, who is both deaf
and iumb, that has been received within my
recoliution."

If Ue needs of the collector take him into out-
of-the-vay places, the history of his " finds " is
very of en equally curious.

Then existed once an altar-piece by Raphael
in a smal Italian town. It was a large picture
with a " iredella," or smaller picture, beneath in
three portions. An earthquake ruined the
church, the main picture was destroyed, but the
reigning ppe bought up the fragments of the
predella, and pieced them together. When
he died hu property was sold, and the three
pieces of th predella were lost sight of. In
1832 a Portuguese nobleman was living in Rome.
There came to him a stranger, who disclosed
from under a-loth a small picture, evidently by
Raphael, and \bviously part of a triptych. The
cholera was ten raging in Rome, and the
stranger said yat he had obtained the picture
from a house ^ the inmates of which had died
of the epidemic After taking precautions to
disinfect the stager, himself, and the picture,
the Portuguese pbleman bought it, discreetly
asking no questi^s. He returned to Portugal
and sold it to the -ing. A certain collector had

25

The Ideal Collector.

seen this pi6lure at Lisbon. Some years after
his visit he saw, in a London sale-roorr, a
pi<5lure which he at once recognized as the
central part of the predella. He bought it,
and it eventually became the property <)f a
friend. Efforts were made by him to induce
the authorities at Lisbon to accept an advan-
tageous exchange for their subordinate piece
of the predella. They, however, refused, tnd he
had to be content with a copy, which he placed
alongside of the original part in his posses-
sion. Two-thirds of the predella are :hus ac-
counted for. A small fortune awaits :he man
who can produce the remaining orighal third
portion.

Lastly, objects of art, whose " prov<nance " is
quite unknown, will themselves sometimes un-
expectedly reveal their own histor/. In the
exhibition of goldsmiths' work in January, 1895,
at the Royal Academy, was a chalie of Italian
workmanship, upon which it was jecessary not
long ago to make some slight repairs. On
separating the bowl from the foot^he goldsmith
was surprised to see a small piece of parchment
fall out of the hollow, with ar inscription in
Italian to the following effect : 'In the ' Annals
of the town of Anghiari,' vol. ii p- 185, may be
read the following memoir : ' Vhereas the Jews
resident in Anghiari were compiled on the feast
of St. Martin to furnish a priz'for a foot-race of
the value of 90 soldi ; therefo", to do away with
the remembrance of that flly, on the loth
August, 1572, the value of -ie prize was com-

26

The Ideal Collector.

muted into a chalice bearing the arms of the
city, the bowl to be of silver-gilt, and it was pre-
sented to the sacristy of St. Francis of the Cross,
where down to the present day it maybe seen.'
1 The present memoir was extracted by the Very
Rev. Signer Provost Niccola Tuti, and con-
signed to me for preservation, and to that end,
on the 1 5th of June of the year 1829, I placed it
under the enamelled plaque in the foot of the
chalice in question, that by this means might be
handed down to posterity the memory of this fa6l,
as it may be found in the annals of Taglieschi.
Pietro Bagiotti, Capellano Sacristan, his signature
in his own handwriting."

Excellent Bagiotti, if every Capellano Sa-
cristan had been as methodical as you, what
romantic interest might attach to many a work
of art which at present we admire for its beauty
only !

We have seen that the colle6tor's life may
have its touch of adventure. What interesting
reminiscences of his journeys, explorations, and
hard bargainings should be afforded by the
works of art with which his house is filled !
What diverse epochs and styles here jostle
together ! Look on this Louis Quinze side-
table, with gilt legs and marble top. At one
end is a marble bust of a charming little high-
born French maiden of 1750, with sweet ex-
pression as yet unhardened by the callousness
of a heartless period ; at the other end — St. John
the Baptist, in the guise of a little Italian gamin,
betrays the master hand of Donatello. Next,

27

The Ideal Collector.

the figures on a large Venetian door-knocker of
bronze are taking stock, with gravity, of a
curious Japanese dragon of a most archaic type.
A dead Christ, by Michel Angelo, rests on a
companion table, flanked on one side by Demos-
thenes, the orator, with broad head and nervous
lips, on the other by the strained expression of
a fine example of the so-called Seneca. It is a
continual series of concrete antitheses. Italian
cassoni, French clocks of Boule's work, cabinets
of Japanese lacquer with Dutch mounts in metal,
cabinets of the curious ivory inlay of the Indo-
Portuguese manufacture of Goa. And round
about the walls piftures of every country and
period — except the most modern — in the frames
which were meant to adorn them, true master-
pieces of the designer's and carver's art. Seville,
Sevres, Venice, Urbino, Nuremberg, and a host
of other cities, each renowned for its special
handiwork, have added their items to form a
varied but harmonious whole, a collection which
would make no small commotion if brought to
the hammer.

But that is an evil day which is not yet ; the
true collector regards his treasures with an ex-
ceeding joy. The latest acquisition is ever the
most beloved. Is it a picture ? it is the best
example he has ever seen of the master, or one
of the best. Is it a cloisonne enamel ? then its
colour is remarkably fine. A jewel ? it is of a
very unique type. A door-knocker ? it is a
very important one.

And, last of all, the collector himself is worth
28

The Ideal Collector.

looking at, as he bends over his latest darling
in a fine Rembrandtesque light and shade, in-
spe6ling the technique of a picture, fingering a
jewel, or prying with a magnifying-glass into
the exquisite delicacies of an Attic gem.

29

CHAPTER III.

VOGUE AND PRICES.

THERE has never, perhaps, been such a rage for
collecting anything and everything as at the
present time. Human nature has not changed
much since the days of Pliny, when modern
artists were neglected in favour of old masters,
and old silver was valued the more in propor-
tion as the design was obliterated. But the
present generation has an advantage over Pliny
in the artistic production of another eighteen
hundred years. Collectors of to-day are not re-
stricted to a few branches of art. Things have
changed since the time when, as the result of a
grand tour, a taste was brought home for pic-
tures, antique sculpture, gems, and medals,
which in the eighteenth century were regarded
as the only objects of vertu, and were exclusively
collected by those who had the fortune to travel
at their ease. There has been in this century
a small Renaissance, or rather an awakening to
the infinite variety of the artistic field. The
spread of artistic education and the rise of pro-
vincial art museums have democratized the col-
lector's country. In the last century it was in
the prerogative of an oligarchy, who kept for the

30

Vogue and Prices.

most part to those kinds of artistic objects which
properly belonged to the ''grand/' that is, the
antique style. Horace Walpole was one of the
exceptions, and he paid for it by evincing certain
aberrations of taste at Strawberry Hill not un-
natural to an enthusiastic pioneer in a new field.
But the more old-fashioned " cognoscenti " and
" dilettanti " collected many magnificent trea-
sures. Then, later, came good erudite old
Dr. Waagen conscientiously to discover the
" Art Treasures of Great Britain" which travel-
ling noblemen had collected. He writes home to
Germany the results of his researches in long-
winded letters, enlivened only by such ex-
periences as his sufferings on the sea-passage
and his introduction to Scotch whiskey, which he
sums up as a beverage that might, he could well
understand it, be imbibed with a certain enthu-
siasm. Since his first visit in 1830, many of the
great collections he describes, as those of Stowe
and Hamilton Palace, have been brought to the
hammer. Their treasures have been scattered
far and wide to form the nucleus of other collec-
tions, less individually important perhaps, but
far more numerous. So the ball has been set
a-rolling, until not, perhaps, " all the world," but
a good fraction of it, enjoys a visit to Christie's
before a great sale, even if it can never hope to
do more than merely dabble in, and perhaps
burn its fingers with, curiosities. The news-
papers have recognized the spread of this once
exclusive taste, and are quick to note the rise
and fall of prices in the market of art. The

Vogue and Prices.

" Times" could no longer afford to speak con-
temptuously of such a sale as that of Horace
Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill. When,
in 1842, it was brought to the hammer of that
inimitable puffer, George Robbins, the " Times "
spoke disparagingly of a collection which con-
tained such precious objects as a silver bell said
to have been made by Cellini for Clement VII. ;
the missal of Claude, the neglected queen of
Francis I. ; the wonderful hunting-horn of
Limoges enamel, pictured with the life of St.
Hubert, the patron saint of huntsmen, said to
have been made for Francis I., and sold in
1892 for nearly ,£7,000. Lastly, there was the
clock which Henry VIII. gave to Anne Boleyn
on her marriage morning. This was bought at
a quite moderate price for the royal collection.
Our queen, we venture to say, would have to
pay a larger price to-day than was then given for
" the silver-gilt timepiece bearing a true lover's
knot, with motto ' The Most Happye." Of it
Harrison Ainsworth wrote : " This love token
of enduring affection remains the same after
three centuries, but four years after it was given
the object of Henry's eternal love was sacrificed
on the scaffold. The clock still goes. It should
have stopped for ever when Anne Boleyn died."
This was in 1842. Thirty-four years later the
" Times," in 1876, gives a special article upon
the sale of a single picture, which well illustrates
the rise of price which vogue and fashion bring
about.

It is true that the picture in question was the
32

Vogue and Prices.

notorious Gainsborough portrait of Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, which became a nine
days* wonder when, three weeks after the sale, it
was cut out of its frame in Bond Street by a
thief, and has not since been seen. But that
was subsequent to the publishing of the " Times "
article, which is enthusiastic over the price,
10,100 guineas, the highest ever till then paid
for a pifture bought at Christie's. Since then,
greater prices have been paid, both at sales and
in private contracts. The nation has paid
,£70,000 for a Raphael, and portraits by Sir
Joshua have sold for higher sums than that paid
for the ill-fated duchess. But 10,100 guineas is
a notable price to pay. We quote here from
the " Times" description of the scene : "When
the portrait was placed before the crowded
audience a burst of applause showed the uni-
versal admiration of the picture. . . . The
biddings then commenced at 1,000 guineas, which
was immediately met with one of 3,000 guineas
from Mr. Agnew, and amid a silence of quite
breathless attention the bids followed in quick
succession, at first by defiant shots across the
room of a thousand guineas ; then, as if the
pace was too severe, the bids were only 500 up
to 6,000 guineas, when again another thousand
pounder was fired by Mr. Agnew, making it
7,000 guineas. Still the fight went on briskly
with 500*5 till there was a shout of applause at
10,000 guineas, and then a serious pause for
breath between the combatants, when Mr.
Agnew was the first to challenge * any further

33 D

Vogue and Prices.

advance' with his 10,100 guineas, and won the
battle in this extraordinary contest. The whole
affair was of its kind one of the most exciting
ever witnessed : the audience, densely packed
on raised seats round the room and on the
' floor of the house,' stamped, clapped, and
bravoed."

Now this pi6lure that raised so great a furore
was bought in 1839 for a paltry ^50, and was
sold to Mr. Wynn Ellis for ^63. As if also to
emphasize the truth that the pictures for which
the very largest prices are paid are frequently
not the very best examples of the master, many
were the doubts expressed upon its deserts.
1 'The do6lors, though they differ as to the
authorship, agree as to the high merits of the
picture," says one writer. " It was a true Gains-
borough," said another, " but left unfinished by
him and repainted by some recent hand." This
writer recalls that Allan Cunningham relates in
his " Lives of the Painters," that Gainsborough
once failed in painting a full-length portrait of
Georgiana, saying he found the duchess was too
much for him.

The prices of pidlures by Sir Joshua and
Gainsborough have gone up with an extra-
ordinary bound. It is but a year or so since
Sir Joshua's " Lady Betty Delm6 and her
Children," and Gainsborough's " Lady Mulgrave"
fetched figures as high, or higher still, than that
paid for the " Duchess of Devonshire," while a
Gainsborough landscape, sold for ^840 in 1867,
fetched ^3,225 at Sir Julian Goldsmid's sale in

34

Vogue and Prices.

1896. A point to be noticed as regards present
prices is that extravagant sums are now paid for
•wery ordinary examples of a master. Fine ex-
amples of Rembrandt have fetched much money
during the present century. In 1807, the
"Woman taken in Adultery" brought ,£5,250.
In 1811, the " Master Shipbuilder" fetched the
same price, but the prices in two figures common
enough earlier in the century are seldom paid
now. Five thousand pounds sufficed only to
buy a comparatively unimportant pi6lure for the
Edinburgh Gallery a short time ago.

Quite as astonishing has been the continuous
rise in price of Rembrandt's etchings. The
celebrated print of " Christ healing the Sick " is
called the " hundred guilder print," because
Rembrandt is said to have given an impression
to a dealer in exchange for prints by Marc
Antonio valued at 100 guilders, about 800 francs.
An impression was sold in 1755 at the Burgy
sale for a modest ^7. In 1840 the price of a
print at the Esdaile sale had reached by fairly
steady progression to ^231. Between 1840
and 1860 a great awakening of England in
matters of art had commenced. How did it
affect the sale of etchings ? It added a thousand
pounds to the value of this particular " scratch-
ing upon copper." At the Price sale in 1867
a "hundred guilder print" fetched ^1,180.
Twenty years later, in 1887, at the Buccleugh
sale, the enormous sum of ;£ 1,300 was not con-
sidered too much to pay. We must remember
that these prices were paid for a print of which

35

Vogue and Prices.

but few are known to exist. The available
number is continually being reduced to even
smaller dimensions by the securing of prints for
public museums. There they are to reside for
ever more in a haven of rest, no longer bandied
about from collector to collector, and emanci-
pated once for all, unless national misfortune
happens, from the chances of the sale-rooms.
A quite pathetic incident is related of the sale
of a very scarce etching by Rembrandt, the
" Dr. Arnoldus Tholinx," sometimes called the
Advocate Van Tol. M. Charles Blanc says
that at the Pole Carew sale in 1835 the Cheva-
lier de Claussin, who catalogued Rembrandt's
works, wished greatly to buy a fine proof.
The warmth of the bidding was at its height.
Every face became changed. M. de Claussin
could scarcely breathe. As the print was
handed round and finished the circuit of the
table, the bidding rose to ,£200. Poor Claussin
grew pale, a cold sweat ran down his temples.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, and
feeling certain that he had to deal with a
powerful antagonist, he tried to soften the heart
of the unknown competitor, who was waging so
hard a fight. After stammering out some words
in English, " Gentlemen," he said in that lan-
guage which he could speak almost as well as
his mother tongue, " you know me. I am the
Chevalier de Claussin. I have devoted a
portion of my life to preparing a new catalogue
of the works of Rembrandt, and to copying the
rarer etchings of this great master. I have

36

Vogue and Prices.

now been searching these twenty-five years for
the Advocate Van Tol. ... If this example
escape me, I cannot at my age ever hope to
meet with the print again. I beg my com-
petitors to take into consideration the services
that my work may render to amateurs, the fact
that I am a stranger, and the sacrifices which
all my life I have imposed upon myself in order
to form a collection which shall enable me to
make fresh observations on the masterpieces of
Rembrandt. A little generosity, gentlemen/'
added Claussin, by way of peroration. The
tears were already in his eyes. The unexpected
speech produced some sensation ; many were
affected by it. Some smiled, and whispered to
each other that this same M. de Claussin, who
was capable of running up the price of a print
to ^200, might often be seen of a morning in
the streets of London going to fetch in a little
jug his two pennyworth of milk. But after a
moment's pause a sign was made to the
auctioneer, a bid was declared, and the fatal
hammer fell to the offer of ^"220.

Of the general law that in this age of col-
lecting the price of everything tends to rise, we
may be tolerably well convinced. An inquiry
into the reasons for exceptions to the rule
would result in no definite conclusion. What
vagary of chance, for instance, has ordained
that the pictures of Franz Hals should only
quite recently have advanced to a value con-
sistent with their merits ? We do not compare
him with Rembrandt as an artist. We only

37

Vogue and Prices.

wonder that pictures by the man who could
paint such delightful and freshly-executed por-
traits as that of the " Laughing Cavalier" of Lady
Wallace, the " Burgomaster " in Buckingham
Palace, or the examples in our National Gallery,
should have been picked up twenty years ago
for under ,£50 apiece.

At the Bernal sale in 1855, ,£14 were
paid for a pidlure 18 inches by 16, and
£2 i$s. for a 34 x 26. In 1859 a portrait
of himself from Lord North wick's collection
fetched 18 guineas. These of course may not
have been fine specimens, but not till 1885 did
a picture by Franz Hals fetch £1,000 at public
auction. Now the story is very different. Any
leathery specimen which can be fathered on
Franz Hals, and foisted on to the public, fetches
a considerable price. His name and that of
Romney have been names to conjure with of
late. Romney's " Miss Shore " has gone up

from ,£i,953 in l895» to ,£2>887 in l89^.
Similarly " Lady Shore," in the same sale — Sir
Julian Goldsmid's — has advanced from ,£1,890
;£2,ioo. As a general rule the portrait of a
lady fetches a far higher price than that of a
gentleman, and an inferior specimen at the sale
of a well-known collection has as good a chance
as a masterpiece without a pedigree to back it.
Size is no guide to prices. The Dudley
Raphael, " The Three Graces," only 7 inches
square, fetched £25,000 in 1885.

Other painters' works have fetched high prices
of late years. Though Hobbemas have frequently

38

Vogue and Prices.

been sold for one and two thousands, the art
world was taken by surprise when some five
years ago a masterpiece of his fetched ^9,00*0.
Paul Potter had never reached ^2,000 until in
the Dudley sale, in 1892, a small picture went
for full ,£5,000. The minute and precious
Francis Mieris shows signs of falling back-
wards in public estimation. His matchless
" Enamoured Cavalier," only about 17 inches
by 14, sold for ^4,100 in 1875, fetched only
,£3,675 in 1876, and at the Dudley sale some-
what less still. This may remind us that
there is a reverse state of affairs to be con-
sidered. Painters who have been honoured in
former days drop out of repute. Guercino was
thought great once, but he fetches low prices
now. His " Sibylla Persica," once so popular,
and so often repeated by him, is in disrepute.
A " Christ and the Woman of Samaria," sold for
^"530 in 1859, went down to ^378 in 1873.
We know of a similar subjecl by him for which
Lucien Buonaparte gave ,£700, and the auftion
value of which some fifteen years ago was but

£25.

About 1860, ^10,000 was refused when
offered for a Carlo Dolce ; no such offer would
now perhaps be made. There are many other
names of painters once valued whom the same
fate has overtaken. Some have earned inflated
prices while alive, and directly after death the
bladder of their reputation has been pricked
most ruthlessly. Others, like Richard Wilson,
have never been adequately appreciated. He

39

Vogue and Prices.

struggled with poverty during life, and only
once or twice has a picture by him reached
;£ 1,000. Yet those who know the works of the
" English Claude " feel their noble charm. The
greatest sale of this year, 1896, Sir Julian
Goldsmid's, has shown the fluctuations of the
market. Gainsborough, as will be guessed from
what we have said before, still advances. " Mr.
and Mrs. Delaney," sold for ,£157 los. in 1882,
jumps to ,£2,205 m 1896. Reynolds, with
"Mrs. Mathew" and the " Hon. Mrs. Monck-
ton," about holds his own at £4,200 and ,£7,875
respectively. Turner has made an appropriate
leap with " Rockets and Blue Lights," from
£"745 i OF. in 1886, to ,£3,865 at the present
time. But Linnell, the often delightful Linnell,
has fallen heavily from ,£1,365 for " A Welsh
Landscape," to but £840.

Two pictures are said to have changed hands
this year at a price of £20,000 in each case, the
" Naples " Raphael and the " Darnley " Titian
of " Europa and the Bull."

Our critics and painters have of late years en-
throned Velasquez. We hear very little from
them about Murillo, though in the sale-room,
till within the last twelve years, he has always
been the greater favourite. Mr. Curtis, in his
work on these two artists, points out that Murillo
has always, up to 1883, been on the whole more
highly valued. He shows that twenty-one pic-
tures by Velasquez only averaged about 38,000
francs, as compared with a 62,000 francs average
for fifty-three works by Murillo. Yet this is

40

Vogue and Prices.

quite intelligible. Velasquez is a painter's painter.
Technique counts for much with him, and sub-
ject little. He has been handicapped in the
sale-rooms by the stolidity of the features of his
princes and the acidulated expressions of his
little princesses. Velasquez is however at last
revenged. Our whole-length Philip IV. in the
National Gallery was bought in 1882 at the
great Hamilton sale for ,£6,300, which far tran-
scends what had ever been paid for Murillo.
Since then the portrait of the Admiral Pareja
has been acquired for the National Gallery at a
much higher price.

General attractiveness certainly counts for
much in determining the scale of prices. To
this and historical associations we must attribute
such prices as are paid for French furniture.
In the Hamilton sale a Louis Seize secretaire
in ebony inlaid with black and gold lacquer,
mounted in brass by Gouthiere, and with the
monogram of Marie Antoinette, fetched the
astounding price of ,£9,450. Limoges enamels,
which for theii combination of durability, finish,
and brilliant colouring are beloved of connois-
seurs, fetch prices proportionately high. If
Horace Walpole could have seen the prices
gained by his examples sold at the Magniac sale
in 1892, he would have felt that his hobbies were
justified. A note in the catalogue upon a large
dish by Martial Courtois, sold for £"1,207 ios.,
informs us that it originally belonged, together
with a fine ewer, to two aged ladies in Bedford-
shire. When, about 1835, the ladies, having

Vogue and Prices.

understood that these pieces were of some value,
sent them to Messrs. Town and Emmanuel, the
dealers, to be sold, they valued them at a small
sum, declined to purchase them on their own
account, and offered the two to Mr. Magniac for
;£i 5 . Mr. Magniac being made acquainted with
the circumstances, and thinking this amount in-
adequate, gave ^30 for the two pieces, a much
greater sum than the real vendors expefted to
receive. For two pairs of historic portraits in
the same enamel, more than ,£3,000 for each
pair was paid. So much for superficial attrac-
tiveness combined with genuine qualitj'es of art.
Upon these very grounds we should have
expe6led that Watteau's pictures would always
have pleased. Some little time ago a lady left
three pictures to the Gallery at Edinburgh. She
was probably unaware that she was presenting
the city with a small fortune. The three would
very probably fetch ,£15,000. It ;'s only of late
that we have awakened to the factthat Watteau
was one of the world's greatest draughtsmen and
a colourist to boot. Not till 1873 ^ a picture by
him reach £ i ,000. We have heard it said that
in the days of Ingres students in Paris had been
known to paint studies of heads over canvases
on which Watteau had worked. Not that Ingres
had encouraged them to it. He had silenced a
student who talked scornfully of Watteau in the
expectation of sympathy fron Ingres, with the
brief words, " Let me tell you that you are speak-
ing of a great master." Anc this we are finding
out at last. It will be a pleasant thing when the

42

Vogue and Prices.

authorities of the National Gallery can afford to
buy a specimen.

Of the drawings of the old masters the same
tale as that of Rembrandt's etchings might be
told. Forty years ago good drawings might be
picked up "for a song" upon the bookstalls of
Paris. Now every pencil-mark of a master has
its value. The British Museum has lately ac-
quired the magnificent Malcolm collection at a
large price, but one far below its present value,
thanks to the generosity of its late owner. The
sums paid by the collector who formed the larger
part of that collection would astonish the un-
initiated by contrast with their present value.
For a drawing by Michel Angelo ,£1,400 has
been bid this year, 1896.

Things have changed since the nation first
entered the lists as a bidder at Christie's and
elsewhere. At the great Bernal sale in 1855
the nation's representatives were tightly re-
strained with red tape. They were obliged to
furnish beforehand an estimate of the prices the
coveted lots were likely to fetch — an impossible
task. On the first day of sale some lots fetched
prices below the estimate, some far above ; the
net result was that the nation's representatives,
hampered by their instructions, saw with morti-
fication the desired prizes escape them. They
determined to throw instructions overboard.
They bought as unfettered competitors, and the
nation has had no cause to regret it. Those
were times when to pay £120 for a majolica
plate was regarded as raving lunacy. People

43

Vogue and Prices.

wrote to the papers to complain of the waste of
public money when the celebrated " Painter "
plate, with a picture of an artist painting majolica,
was bought for that sum. At this time, perhaps,
not ,£2,000 would buy that plate if it were to
come to the hammer. It is among those de-
scribed in the general guide of the South Ken-
sington Museum as of " European celebrity."
At the Stowe sale it fetched only ^4, and was
sold to Mr. Bernal for £5. A " Maestro Giorgio"
plate, sold for a large sum at the Fountaine sale in
1884, had actually been purchased for £&o for
South Kensington Museum, and handed back
because the Treasury refused to ratify the pur-
chase as too extravagant.

It is impossible to do more than touch the
fringe of a subject such as this. A systematic
account of collector's crazes would reveal unac-
countable expenditures. There are always the
two elements of artistic merit and mere rarity to
be considered. A work just published upon
" Horn-books" reveals the fact that £60 or
more have been paid for one of these, whose
artistic merits are doubtful, and whose original
cost was but a few shillings only. Not so
many years ago, about the time that blue and
white porcelain was so greatly in demand, there
was a craze for "ginger pots." Full £70 was
paid for a specimen the own brother of which
was bought by a collector who " knew his way
about" for £2 los. Who knows what strings
are pulled so as to cause certain objects of art or
the works of certain artists to come into vogue

44

Vogue and Prices.

and suddenly fetch large prices ? We have
noticed elsewhere how the Florentine terra
cottas were neglected till a connoisseur drew
attention to them, and then ^300 was not
thought too much for a bust which turned out a
fraud after all. Of late years Egyptian antiqui-
ties have been in fashion. We remember well
hearing in 1889 a well-known Paris dealer say,
pointing to his scarabsei and blue-glazed little
gods and mummies, "J'ai pouss6 cela tres
loin." That phrase does much to explain the
situation. Someone rediscovers and pushes,
the collecting public pays. We have just now a
healthy competition for book plates, and a
literature of the subject rapidly being made.
We are continually unearthing some forgotten
worthy. A few years ago that misguided eccen-
tric, Blake, was disinterred from oblivion. As a
consequence, there are people quite ready to pay
for his feeble artistic efforts. The very latest
artist to be discovered at the time of writing is
Hough ton, of the era of Frederick Walker, Pin-
well, and Sandys. Those who have the good
fortune to possess copies of the publications in
which his drawings are to be found, will find
them worth a price after all. The reductio ad
absurdum is perhaps arrived at when the modest
volumes of a living minor poet are by means of
limited editions ingeniously fostered into fictitious
values.

45

CHAPTER IV.

FRAUDS AND FORGERIES.

A WHOLESOME scepticism, or the traditional un-
belief of the Hebrew — who, by the way, is very
frequently a dealer in works of art — forms an
important part of the equipment of the collector.
When there is a demand for any kind of work
of art, then for a certainty appears a miraculous
supply. There will never be wanting workmen
clever enough to copy the genuine work of art,
so long as there are innocents to be deceived by
their fabrications. They would, indeed, con-
found the original artist himself, so expert are
they, so long as they confine themselves to the
production of facsimiles. When they commence
to invent, the connoisseur is ready to detecl;
them. Some fault of style, some small ana-
chronism will expose the fraud, but the judges
competent to point out these deviations, how
few are they, and how often have those few
been found to disagree !

We are not able to say when the first artistic
fraud was perpetrated, but as early as about
1510 Albert Durer was sorely tried by the
imitative skill of the Italian Marc Antonio.
The latter was most accomplished in the art of

46

Frauds and Forgeries.

engraving upon copper, which had been dis-
covered by Maso Finiguerra about the year
1450. When Marc Antonio was in Venice
there arrived some Flemings who brought
numerous copper-plate engravings and wood-
cuts by Albert Durer, which they offered for
sale on the Piazza of St. Mark's. Amazed at
their excellence, Marc Antonio spent almost all
his money in the purchase of these plates, which
included thirty-six woodcuts of the Passion of
our Saviour. He perceived that there was
money to be made in Italy by the new art of
engraving. Unfortunately his method of making
a fortune was not strictly upright. He began
to copy these engravings of Albert Durer, imi-
tating them stroke by stroke, until he had pro-
duced facsimiles of the whole thirty-six plates
of the Passion. Then he added the signature
A. D. of the German artist, which completed
the imposture. These clever imitations were
freely bought and sold as the works of Albert
Durer himself. One of the counterfeits was
sent to the latter, who hastened in a fury to
Venice, and laid a complaint against Marc
Antonio ; but the only justice he could obtain
was an injunction against the engraver prohibit-
ing him from affixing the A. D. to his plates.
Retribution, however, came upon Marc Antonio
in the end. In the sack of Rome he was taken
prisoner by the Spaniards, who made away with
all his property, and compelled him to pay such a
ransom that he ended little more than a beggar.
The forging of works of art may safely be

47

Frauds and Forgeries.

said to have never ceased since the days of
Marc Antonio. We have seen the traffic which
was made in false antique gems in the eighteenth
century, which King has called the " Age of
Forgery." The painter, too, was hard at work
in those days. Hogarth was moved to rush into
print, so indignant was he at the vamping up of
" Black Masters " to be sold to the credulous
at the expense of contemporary painters. He
could be as incisive with the pen as with the
brush. " There is another set of gentry," he
writes to the " St. James's Evening Post" in
1 737, " more noxious to the art than these. . . .
It is their interest to depreciate every English
work, as hurtful to their trade of continually
importing shiploads of Dead Chris ts, Holy
Families, ' Madonas,' and other dismal dark
subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental,
on which they scrawl the terrible cramp names
of some Italian masters, and fix on us poor
Englishmen the character of universal dupes.
If a man naturally a judge of painting, not
bigoted to these empirics, should cast his eye on
one of their sham virtuoso pieces, he would be
apt to say, ' Mr. Bubbleman, that grand Venus
(as you are pleased to call it) has not beauty
enough for the character of an English cook-
maid/ Upon which the quack answers with a
confident air, ' O Lord, sir, I find that you are
no connoisseur. That picture, I assure you, is
in Alesso Baldovinetto's second and best manner,
boldly painted and truly sublime ; the contour
gracious ; the hair of the head in the high Greek

Frauds and Forgeries.

taste ; and a most divine idea it is.' Then
spitting on an obscure place and rubbing it with
a dirty handkerchief, takes a skip to the other
end of the room, and screams out in raptures,
' There is an amazing touch ; a man should
have this picture a twelve-month in his collection
before he can discover half its beauties/ "

It has been reserved for our own times, per-
haps, to see the greatest achievements in every
branch of counterfeited art. There has hardly
ever been so outrageous a fraud committed as
those of the soi-disant Constable and Turner
pictures offered for sale in 1869. " Lovers of
the works of the two great masters of the British
School, Turner and Constable," were specially
invited in June of that year to come and see
four splendid pictures. " Turner is represented
by a glorious Italian composition, the distance
bathed in marvellous sunlight ; the whole work
lovely in design, colour, and execution, painted
in the meridian of the artist's power and genius."
By Constable were " three grand rural land-
scapes, which show how truly this great English
painter could delineate the sunny meadows
and refreshing streams of Dedham's rich pastures
and Sarum's fertilizing valley." It was natural
that the whole picture-loving world should flock
to see these pictures, which the auctioneers, a
well-known and most respected firm, represented
as "painted by express commission and never
publicly exhibited." On the first day that the
pictures were exposed to view, the expectant
connoisseurs noticed an unusually strong smell

49 E

Frauds and Forgeries.

of varnish in the room. Suspicions were im-
mediately aroused by the Constable pictures.
They were " six-footers," not exhibited under
glass as the Turner was. No one had heard of
them before, though the whereabouts of all
Constable's pictures were supposed to be known
to collectors. Three first-class pictures of Con-
stable uncatalogued before, this was sufficient
to try the faith of an expert ! " What do you
think ? " said one to another, and they would
shake their heads and pass on. " Curiously
enough/' writes in " The Nineteenth Century " an
eyewitness of the scene, " there was a certain
unmistakable kinship discernible betwixt the
Constables and the Turner, certain peculiarities
of touch and colouring, just as if Turner had
worked on Constable's pi6lures, and Constable
had in his turn rendered the same service for
him." This writer was one of those who at
length tried the pin test. Oil paints, especially
those which have much white in them, become
very hard after the lapse of years. If a pin will
stick easily into a lump of white, the inference is
that that lump of white has not been on the
canvas for long. He selected an unctuous
morsel, and lo ! the pin penetrated it with ease.
"The picture might have been turned into a
veritable pin-cushion." The late Mr. Wallis,
proprietor of the French Gallery, was amongst
those who tried the pictures with the thumbnail,
with the same result. The secret soon was
spread abroad, and the auctioneers wisely with-
drew the pictures from sale.

50

Frauds and Forgeries.

Mr. Joseph Gillott, of pen-making fame, a
great collector in his day, and patron .of W.
Muller, another artist whose Eastern scenes
have been widely imitated, had telegraphed to
Mr. Cox, his agent, " Buy all the Constables at
any price." His agent laconically telegraphed
back, " Not for Joseph." It is well to know
that these frauds no longer exist as traps for
the unwary. They were insured by their owner
for the amount which he had paid for them, and
on February i3th, 1874, they perished in the
great fire at the Pantechnicon furniture ware-
house.

They belonged to a gentleman who, besides
a vast collection of " duffers," possessed many
good pictures, some of which he bequeathed at
his death to the National Gallery. In his col-
lection was that notorious " Georgiana, Duchess
of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, for which
Messrs. Agnew paid 10,100 guineas, the highest
price that had ever then been paid for a picture
at Christie's. Three weeks after, it was stolen
out of its frame, and has never been seen since.
We refer to it elsewhere.

Constable frauds still continue. Modern
pictures without the brown tone of the old
masters are easier to imitate, and the demand
for Constables, and especially Corots, at the
present time, is most amply supplied. It is a
truly astonishing thing that a great buyer of
pictures should be so simple as to purchase
as an original for several thousand pounds
an arrant copy of one of Constable's best-
Si

Frauds and Forgeries.

known landscapes, and that one which has been
twice exhibited to the public in the last few
years !

How are we to distinguish an original from a
copy ? This is not the place for a technical
disquisition. We may remark, however, that
a copy is, as a rule, darker in tone than its
original. This arises perhaps from the fact that
the genuine work is often hung in a badly-
lighted room or gallery, and the copyist is com-
pelled to imitate it as it seems to be in that
half-light. When the copy is completed, if the
original could be brought into the same light as
that on the copyist's easel — naturally the best
that could be obtained for the painter's opera-
tions— then the tone of the original would be
found to be in reality much lighter. The copyist
discovers that he has made his imitation on too
dark a scale.

A contemporary copy of an old pi6lure is
frequently a deceptive snare. Is it not on
record that when Federigo, Duke of Mantua,
begged Clement VII. to give him Raphael's
portrait of Leo X., those who were instructed
to despatch the pifture substituted a copy by
Andrea del Sarto in its place ? Even Giulio
Romano, the pupil of Raphael, was deceived
by it, and when Vasari showed him the sign by
which alone the two could be distinguished,
Giulio Romano, who had actually himself worked
upon the original, shrugged his shoulders and
said, " I esteem it as highly as if it was by the
hand of Raphael, nay more, for it is a most

52

Frauds and Forgeries.

amazing thing that one master should have
been capable of imitating the manner of another
to such an astonishing degree."

But if an interval has elapsed between the
painting of the original and the copy, the two
may be distinguished by the different pigments
employed. Certain colours are of modern in-
vention. If we discover the use of these upon
a picture which purports to be ancient, we need
no longer hesitate as to the fraud. Such was
the case with the notorious Constables we have
mentioned. Though less than fifty years need
have elapsed between the painting of these
pictures and the best time of Constable, new
colours had been invented in the interval which
the great painter never saw.

The substance upon which a picture is painted
is often a sure guide. The panel of an Italian
picture is made of a different wood and jointed
up in a different manner to that of an English
or German panel. If we found upon an Italian
panel a picture purporting to be a Franz Hals
or a Velasquez, we should be compelled to
regard it with suspicion.

But the considerations which guide the expert
are many and various. All minor details are
subordinated to his knowledge of the " manner "
and " handwriting " of each particular master.
A lifelong study of that is an indispensable
qualification.

Not so very long ago there was said to have
been discovered in a country house not far from
Stratford-on-Avon a portrait of William Shake-

53

Frauds and Forgeries

speare. The event was hailed with enthusiasm
both by Shakespeare scholars and lovers of art.
It was even said to be the original from which
the well-known engraving by Martin Droeshout
was made. This it certainly was not, but so
skilfully was it manufactured that it might almost
have passed as genuine. It was executed with
all the rough untutored vigour which would have
been characteristic of a portrait of the time, as
it is of the bust in Stratford-on-Avon church.
When, however, the back was inspected, the
pi6lure was found to have been painted upon
an Italian white-wood panel. This, though not
absolutely conclusive, was practically so to a
connoisseur. It is just barely possible that an
English portrait painter of that time may by
chance have used an Italian panel. We shall
see that there were other considerations which
determined the picture to be a fraud. It was
too difficult a task to manufacture a panel that
should look old. The cracks which appear
when the " keying " overtightens the panel, and
the ravages of worm-holes, are not easily pro-
duced. So the. painter had done the next best
thing — he had taken an old panel upon which a
portrait already existed. He well knew that
underlying paint, especially dark paint, has a
habit of appearing through the paint which is
laid upon it. He had endeavoured to obviate
this contingency by painting his Shakespeare's
face very solidly, but the inevitable had super-
vened in spite of his precautions. Close observa-
tion revealed the portrait of a lady dressed in a

54

Frauds and Forgeries.

ruff — a very unusual apparition to appear be-
neath an original portrait. The texture of the
drapery had a corrugated appearance which
experts know results only from the use of
" megilp," a varnish of oil and resin. But
megilp, unfortunately for our painter, was not
used at the time this portrait was supposed to
have been painted. The frame was also in-
geniously chosen. At the bottom was a car-
touche with the name of" Wilm Shakspeare " and
the date " 1609 " upon it in the cursive lettering
of the time, except that in the case of one single
letter a mistake had been committed. It was
of a modern shape. Strangely enough, this car-
touche had, like the panel, done service before,
for when it was detached it was found to have
been turned inside out, and on the original face
was revealed that of a Dutch painter. The true
date of the frame was about 1 640. These and
other considerations too long to mention showed
that this aspirant to the honours of an original
Shakespeare portrait was but one more in the
long list of clever forgeries.

Many genuine pi<5lures have, of course, been
painted upon panels or canvases which have
before been employed by the artist, as in the
case of that one which Sir Joshua sent to Russia
with the remark that there were eleven pictures
more or less good upon it. We are acquainted
with an amusing instance of this. A rapid
sketch portrait of Rembrandt by himself was
being cleaned by its owner, a well-known con-
noisseur. Some strange evolution seemed to

55

Frauds and Forgeries.

be taking place upon the surface, and it was not
long before he realized that if he did not cease
his operations he would be the possessor, not of
a Rembrandt portrait in the painter's best
manner, but of a " Joseph and his Brethren " of
an earlier period. Joseph was clad in bright
red breeches which the great artist had adapted
into his own red waistcoat.

With sculpture it is perhaps easier to deceive
than with painting. In the days now past,
when pictures, antique sculpture, and gems
were almost the only objects of art collected,
the process of imposition was achieved by un-
lawful restoration. The Roman dealer would
attach the head of one antique bust to the torso
of another statue, and so produce a new statue
which yet might be said to be entirely antique.
The rage for this branch of art has died away ;
but thirty years ago the " quattro-cento " terra
cottas of Florence first attracted the notice of
collectors. Here was a new demand, and it
was not long before the cleverest series of
apparently quattro-cento busts was placed upon
the market.

There is something at once ludicrous and
pathetic about the story of Bastianini. He was
a wasted genius, who spent his short life in the
manufacture of imitations of Donatello and
others for the enrichment, not of himself, but of
the dishonest dealer who led him astray. He
was a peasant, born in 1830, and employed to
sweep out his studio by a sculptor named
Torrini. By watching him work, just as Juan

56

Frauds and Forgeries.

Pareja watched his master Velasquez, he laid
the foundations of his astonishing technical
skill. Somehow or other he became tied to a
dealer in genuine and forged sculpture named
Freppa, who employed him in his shop at two
francs a day, and sold his work as genuine
Florentine terra cotta of the fourteenth century.
A bust of Savonarola caused great excitement
when it was offered for sale. The buyer of it,
one Nino Costa, paid a price of 10,000 francs.
One day Castellani, the well-known connoisseur,
began to speak to Costa of a certain bust of a
poet which had been bought by the authorities
of the Louvre in 1867 as a genuine work, but
which he knew to be the production of Bas-
tianini. Remarking that that bust was nothing
in comparison with one of Savonarola which he
had seen in Bastianini's workshop, he wondered
where the Savonarola then was. Costa then
told him that he had bought it, thinking it was
a genuine piece of fourteenth century work.
Then Castellani told him that an antiquary
named Gagliardi was in the secret, and could
point out the model who had sat for the bust,
and the furnace where the clay was baked.
Costa went to see Bastianini, who confessed
that the work was his. It is said by the well-
known writer upon spurious works of art in
"The Nineteenth Century " review, from whose
account, and that of another writer in " The
Magazine of Art," our details have been taken,
that the fraud upon the Louvre was thus dis-
covered. Freppa had an enemy, an eccentric

57

Frauds and Forgeries.

dealer named Dr. Foresi. He had offered some
genuine sculpture to the Louvre, which was
declined, and even regarded with suspicion.
Foresi in a rage said : " You refuse to buy
genuine work, and yet you go and give 13,000
francs for that fraudulent bust of a poet." At
this there was a commotion. " The authorities
of the Louvre laid the matter before a sele6l
assemblage of the most competent and highly-
placed art connoisseurs and critics of Paris, one
and all men whose names were of European
celebrity, and whose judgment was received as
gospel truth. After a most searching scrutiny
of the bust, these high authorities unanimously
agreed that it was a perfectly genuine work of
the Italian quattro-cento period, and that Foresi's
representations were malicious and baseless
calumnies." Foresi was not to be put down.
When the Louvre authorities caused the bust
to be photographed, Foresi, who had found the
original model, a Florentine tobacconist, photo-
graphed him in the same attitude, and sent it to
all the connoisseurs. " The resemblance was
absurdly 'convincing." " At that time France was
politically most unpopular in Italy, and the
affair soon assumed quite the proportions of an
international art duel." Freppa and Foresi
made friends, and the former now announced
that he had sold the bust for 700 francs,
Bastianini receiving 350 for his work(!), and
had " planted" it in Paris " as an artistic trap
for the express purpose of humbling French
pride." But French pride is a plant of stubborn

58

Frauds and Forgeries.

growth. The Louvre authorities never did
admit that they had been taken in. As a
quattro-cento work they had bought it, and as
quattro-cento it should remain. The poor
artist, whose poverty had originally compelled
him to make frauds for a dealer, but whose
skill under more fortunate auspices might have
brought him fortune and legitimate fame, died
of a low fever at the age of thirty-eight, broken-
hearted from disappointment at his non-
recognition.

In the South Kensington Museum is a
beautiful marble bust of " Lucrezia Donati,"
described now as nineteenth century, and by
Bastianini. It was bought for ^84, and is
cheap at the price, although it has been ousted
into an obscure place opposite the refreshment
room. There are also there a " Savonarola,"
bought for ^328 qs. 4^., another male head,
which was given, and a " Dante," which has
been lent.

The same writer in " The Nineteenth Cen-
tury" suggests that it was Giovanni Freppa
who commenced the frauds in " majolica " ware
about the year 1856. He allied himself with a
young chemist of Pesaro, who at last succeeded
in imitating the celebrated ruby -lustre of
Maestro Giorgio. Freppa undertook to " plant
out" these apparently fine old specimens with
local dealers, farmers, peasants, and other agents
in the neighbourhood of Pesaro and Urbino,
where real old specimens would naturally be
found. Now Freppa had an ally, a Captain

59

Frauds and Forgeries.

Andreini, a retired officer in Florence, who also
dealt in works of art. He had not told him the
secret of his new venture in lustre-ware. One
day the captain in great excitement brought
him a splendid specimen which he said he had
unearthed in a little village of the Romagna.
He asked Freppa 1,000 francs for his prize.
" To the captain's utter disappointment and
surprise Freppa not only did not rise to the
occasion, but even displayed an inexplicable
coldness — the very reverse of his usual style
and conduct. Giovanni, in fac~t, had immediately
recognized one of his own children, so to speak,
and he was so taken aback and annoyed at the
contretemps that his usual sangfroid deserted
him in this emergency. Determined not to re-
purchase his own property at an exorbitant
price (which after all would have been his best
policy), he unwisely depreciated the precious
trouvaille, and in the heat of discussion unwit-
tingly let it appear that he even doubted its
authenticity." The enraged captain determined
to expose the fraud by an aclion at law, even at
the expense of his own reputation as a con-
noisseur. The result was a compromise. " They
were too useful to each other to remain per-
manently estranged. The Italian public were,
nevertheless, duly enlightened ; they laughed a
great deal at Giovanni and the captain, but
probably did not think much the worse of either
of them in the long run."

The same writer informs us that the ware of
Bernard Palissy, made of pipeclay, and orna-

60

Frauds and Forgeries.

mented with shells, lizards, fish, ferns, and
leaves, is easily imitated, and that Palissy him-
self had imitated in earthenware the embossed
pewter of Frangois Briot, who lived at the same
time, in the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury. A dish in imitation of Palissy 's copies of
Briot was brought for sale to a connoisseur. It
had been broken in pieces and carefully put
together again. At the back was an apparently
ancient impression of the seal of a former
possessor. It seemed an entirely genuine work.
Fortunately it was again broken by accident,
and the wax seal becoming detached, revealed
a manufacturer's mark of a modern French
pottery. Finding it impossible to erase this
mark, which was stamped in beneath the glaze,
the man who had tried to sell it had covered it
with a fabricated wax seal, which, he had argued,
would naturally never be removed.

For an English fraud, the great fabrication of
Sevres china is worthy of mention. Shortly
after the restoration of the monarchy in France
an astute English dealer bought up the entire
remaining stock of pate tendre china, which had
for twenty years ceased to be made at Sevres.
He bought up perhaps some thousands of
pieces in the white, and requiring the addition
of the coloured ornament. He was lucky enough
to discover the one man capable of executing
this, and he was a Quaker working in the
Staffordshire potteries. For years the two con-
nived to sell their concocted wares, which still
frequently are found at art sales as a trap to

61

Frauds and Forgeries.

those unacquainted with the story of this fraud.
This Staffordshire Quaker was so clever that he
could even add additional ornament to genuine
pieces, and thus enhance their value.

But we must desert the branch of pottery, and
turn to other things. About the same time
there flourished a dealer whose special line was
that of false illuminated missals. M. Shapira is
not the only manufacturer of MSS. whose tricks
have been exposed. Living in the palmy days
of miniature painting, before photography had
swamped the art, he had plenty of clever work-
men at his call, who besides making false minia-
tures of Milliard, Oliver, and Cooper, would
decorate his new parchments or improve inferior
old ones. Unluckily the bursting of a sewer
flooded the room in which he kept his manu-
scripts, each in a separate tin case, and " it is
recorded that the tin cases went off with the re-
port of pistol-shots, when the water, causing the
vellum leaves of the books to swell out, burst
them violently asunder."

There is a touching innocence amongst the
uninitiated which makes them regard the endless
supplies of spurious furniture and plate with un-
abated faith. Wardour Street is not now, as
formerly, the chief emporium of "old oak,"
though we have met a young married couple
who informed us lately that, having been given
a cheque wherewith to buy a piece of " old oak,"
they had gone to Wardour Street because it
was "well known to be the best place" for
articles of that description. The provinces

62

Frauds and Forgeries.

have, however, " distanced Wardour Street in
cunning imitations, with the exa6l colour of time-
stained oak, its shrunken and fibrous surface-
texture, and the meanderings of the worm-tracks
on its surface."

In plate at the present time a thriving trade
is being carried on. People must still be making
wedding presents of little bits of Queen Anne
plate, as if every householder in that worthy
queen's reign had his sideboard loaded with
genuine silver. If they would consult such a
work as Mr. W. Cripps's " Old English Plate/'
they would learn that as early as 1327 a gold-
smith's guild was formed because dishonest
persons were becoming so plaguy skilful in
coating tin with silver, and making false work
of gold, " in which they set glass of divers
colours, counterfeiting right stones." The sys-
tem of hall-marking plate was introduced to
cope with fraud and preserve a right standard
of gold and silver. In these present days, to
quote Mr. Cripps, " the amateur . . . will find
that the modern forger scorns to be at the
trouble of transposing or adding — call it what
you will — genuine old hall-marks to modern
plate. He boldly fashions antique plate, marks
and all. . . . How shall we distinguish the real
from the spurious ? Well, one chance is that
our inquirer finds, in nine cases out of ten, that
the forger has not learned his lesson thoroughly."
He will put on a piece of plate a certain maker's
name, and add to it " a date-letter of a year that
had elapsed long before the adoption and regis-

63

Frauds and Forgeries.

tration by that maker of the particular mark in
question."

That is all very well in matters of plate, but
with old jewellery, which it is often imprac-
ticable to hall-mark on account of its delicacy,
even if it were compulsory, there is no such
protection, as the writer himself well knows.
We have before us at this moment what pur-
ports to be a Portuguese peasant jewel of the
type made at Oporto during the eighteenth
century. It is distinctly inferior in design and
treatment to several finer specimens of the same
kind with which we are acquainted, but a well-
known expert has declined to say whether it is
a fraud or simply a late specimen made when
this particular art was commencing to decline.
In the case of bronzes, the " patina," or surface
which time has given them, is a safe test with
connoisseurs. When the Italian medallists of
the early part of the sixteenth century repro-
duced antique coins, and even made new ones
of their own, this question of the " patina" was
a difficult one to deal with. The present fabri-
cators in Paris and Florence of casts or "sur-
moulages" from Italian Renaissance portrait-
medallions are troubled by the want of " patina,"
not to mention the shrinkage after casting, which
always makes the sham slightly smaller than its
original prototype. But with gold objects there
is no difficulty about "patina," for the simple
reason that gold does not take a "patina" at
all. Neither does the colour of gold serve as a
test, for unless the object is made of pure gold,

Frauds and Forgeries.

which alone has a natural lustre, and is too soft
for most purposes, it has, both in the case of an
original or a fraud, when completed, to be
coloured or gilt anew.

Perhaps one of the most ingenious frauds ever
perpetrated was in the matter of a splendid
crucifix of early date, which originally belonged
to a cathedral in Hungary. It was given to a
jeweller to repair. He first made a copy, and
then skilfully transplanted parts of the original
to the new cross, and from the new to the
original in turn, until it was practically im-
possible to accuse either of being genuine. That
which he left the most original of the two, he
sold to a nobleman in Italy, whence it eventually
found its way to London, where it has recently
been exhibited.

In Vienna are made many rough imitations
of Renaissance jewellery. Placed side by side
with genuine work they would be easily de-
tected, for the enamelling, which is done on
silver gilt, is of a very poor colour. Gold is the
necessary ground for the production of the most
brilliant ruby enamel. These imitations look
too inferior to deceive any but the ignorant.

It is, however, possible for a jewel to look
too fine, and fall unjustly under suspicion by
reason of its grand appearance. There has
been exhibited lately a large German pendant
with a body of mother-of-pearl, decorated with
a dragon's head in silver gilt, enamel, and pre-
cious stones. It was bought by its owner at a
celebrated sale in 1848. Wishing to sell it, he

65 F

Frauds and Forgeries.

left it with a dealer, who said he could easily
obtain a large sum for it ; but the sale hung fire,
and at last it leaked out that the jewel was
suspect. Never was greater injustice done. It
was a unique specimen, larger than is usual even
with German precious metal work. Its un-
commonness had caused the dealers, whose
knowledge is as a rule but inadequate, to class
it in the ranks of the " duffers."

Space will not allow us to pursue this subject
further. Collectors of books of drawings by the
old masters, of engravings, of ivories, of the
thousand and one little objects upon which the
artist has employed his invention and per-
severance, could tell us tales of imposture with-
out end. Enough has been said to impress
upon those who have not considered the subject,
and for whom these chapters are written, the
maxim " Caveat emptor."

Since this chapter was written one of the
most notable artistic frauds of recent times has
been perpetrated. The authorities of the Louvre
have recently purchased a so-called golden tiara
of the Scythian King Saitapharnes for ;£ 10,000.
Dr. Blirges, of the Vienna Museum, it now leaks
out, had been offered the tiara and had declined
it It is at once interesting and comforting to
our national self-respect to know that a similar
tiara was offered to the authorities of the British
Museum, but was refused on the grounds that
the inscription did not agree in style with the
tiara itself. Now comes Professor Furtwangler,

66

Frauds and Forgeries.

the great German expert, and decides against
it as a vulgar imposture. He claims to be able
to point out the published sources from which
the medley of anachronistic ornament has been
borrowed. Some clever workman in a small
town named Otschakow in South Russia is
suspected of the manufacture.

The huge price paid for this gold ornament,
and the ability of the experts upon whom it has
been foisted, render this last imposition memor-
able indeed. It might, however, be well still to
preserve an open mind upon the subject. Too
hasty conclusions may be refuted.

CHAPTER V. ;

ART TREASURE TROVE.

IT is curious to reflect upon the extraordinary
carelessness of our forerunners. We owe them
a debt of gratitude for this same fault of
character, for it has resulted in a legacy of
objects of art which is not to be despised. We
do not mean to impute carelessness to them as
their chief characteristic, for we have elsewhere
too much reason to credit them with a prominent
bump of destru6liveness. It is, however, re-
markable, that after showing a business-like in-
sight into the relative worth for themselves of
works of art, they have often either utterly
negle6led many things of immediate pecuniary
value, or else hidden them away with a peculiar
careful forgetfulness which has had the most
beneficial results for us. The numismatist has
often had reason to congratulate himself upon the
discovery of some forgotten hoard concealed in
a vase, which, after eluding the vigilance of
eager relatives and lying hidden for fifteen hun-
dred years or more, has been found half-revealed
one day under a hedge, as if it had been placed
there but half-an-hour before. Or else in a field
within the space of a few feet a whole collection

68

Art Treasure Trove.

will be discovered when by chance the plough-
share has cut its furrow more deeply than usual.
Who dropped the pailful of coins found at
Hexham in Northumberland, and now in the
British Museum, it is impossible to say. Perhaps
it could tell a tale of sudden attack by some half-
hearted robber, who fled in horror at the deed he
had committed, and by neglecting his booty left
the crime without apparent motive. On the
other hand, perhaps it could tell no such tale !
We are left at any rate with a large field of con-
jefture, and the solid fact that a large amount of
our artistic treasures in the precious metals has
been discovered precisely in this fortuitous way.
It is quite intelligible that sculpture and pictures
and objects of art whose value depends upon in-
tellectual appreciation should see the light after
years of obscurity, just as ivories are found unin-
jured because the plunderer of old time found
no use or value in the panels of a diptych. He
cast it carelessly aside after he had wrenched off
its gold or silver mounts for the melting-pot.
Thanks to its comparative hardness, it survives
for later generations. But that objects made
entirely of the precious metals should one day
reveal themselves by the roadside to the first
comer is subject for congratulation indeed.

The " treasure of Hildesheim," which consists
of drinking-cups, dishes, ladles, fragments of
tripods and handles of vases, all in silver of
a fine Roman period, is a case in point. It was
found in 1869. Some German soldiers were
digging a trench under the hill above the city,

69

Art Treasure Trove.

and throwing up butts for rifle shooting. How
the plate came there is a mystery. It is no
doubt part of the camp service of some Roman
commander, which, as the Romans had no
station at Hildesheim, had been captured,
perhaps, by some German, and by him aban-
doned when pressed by an enemy.

If the story of these treasures, which are so
obviously Roman, is an historical enigma, there
is a greater mystery still attached to the " trea-
sure of Petrossa," now in the museum of antiqui-
ties at Bucharest. This consists of vessels of
pure gold, originally set with stones. They were
found in 1837 on the banks of a tributary of the
Danube by some peasants, who cut them up and
concealed the fragments. It is a mixed booty,
for there are dishes, ewers, a piece of armour, a
collar or torque, and brooches, showing a well-
known form of ornament difficult to assign to a
particular nationality.

No one would anticipate the discovery by the
wayside of not merely one, but many crowns of
gold, except in a fairy story. Yet, in 1858,
some Spanish peasants travelling near Toledo
found a treasure of no less than eleven crowns
of gold set with precious stones. As usual they
cut them up, but someone who recognized that
they had more than a mere gold value bought
them up and took them to Paris. Once there,
they found their way to the museum of the
Hotel de Cluny. There were three crosses be-
sides, and an engraved emerald. One of the
crowns has the Gothic name of Suinthila, who

70

Art Treasure Trove.

reigned from 621-631, another that of Recesvin-
thus, 649-672. They were mostly votive offer-
ings, but one or two might have been actually
worn. These crowns are known as the " trea-
sure of Guarrazar." Of somewhat barbaric ap-
pearance, they excite our impotent curiosity to
an extreme degree. We long to know the whole
story how they came to be buried in the earth,
and who was the freebooter who made such
splendid loot and left it all uncared for.

Perhaps, however, it is well that something
should be left to the imagination, and that every
artistic treasure should not have such a pedigree
attaching to it as has the gold cup which was
acquired in 1892 for the British Museum. This
was probably made to be presented to Charles
V., " The Wise," of France, who was born on the
feast of St. Agnes, January 2ist, 1337. He
died in 1380, and in 1391 the cup was given by
his brother, Jean, Due de Berry, to his nephew,
Charles VI., in whose possession it remained
till 1400. From Charles VI. it came to his
grandson, Henry VI., King of England, who
possessed it in 1449-1451, when it was included
in schedules of plate to be pledged for loans. It
figures in the inventories of Henry VIII. and
Queen Elizabeth, and in documents of James I.,
by whom it was given with much other plate to
Don Juan Velasco, Duke de Frias and Constable
of Castille, when he came to conclude a treaty of
peace between England and Spain. The Con-
stable gave it, in 1610, to the nunnery of Santa
Clara de Medina de Pomar, near Burgos. A

Art Treasure Trove.

few years ago it suffered the ultimate fate which
attends the treasure of monasteries. The abbess
sent it for sale to Paris, where it was bought by
Baron Pichon. Finally Messrs. Wertheimer
purchased it, and generously ceded it for the
same price to the public-spirited subscribers
who helped to buy it for the nation. There is
still scope for the play of the imagination in
guessing as to the motives which thus passed
this beautiful cup from hand to hand, but after
all there is more genuine romance attaching to
the unrecorded story of the crowns of Suinthila
and Recesvinthus.

We have not time to relate all the stores of
objects in the precious metals which chance has
preserved. The brooch of Tara is an epitome
of the knotted Celtic ornament in which the
Irish goldsmiths of the seventh century excelled.
Christianity was introduced into Ireland about
400 A.D. The Northmen invaded Ireland in
the eighth and ninth centuries, and swept away
every vestige of church plate and jewellery they
could find. This splendid brooch, one of the
few remnants left by those invasions, might have
been dropped by a careless pirate as he hastened
down to regain his long low galley. A peasant
child picked it up on the seashore in 1850.

There is in the British Museum the silver
service found in 1883 at Chaourse in France,
consisting of a set of thirty-six vases of different
shapes, adorned with niello and gilding. There
is the collection of silver statuettes found near
Macon on the Saone in 1 764, and the portrait

72

Art Treasure Trove.

bust of Antonia, wife of Drusus, found along
with "a large treasure of silver vases," at
Boscoreale, near Pompeii, in 1895.

Our contention that there was much careless-
ness displayed by our ancestors is surely not
unfounded. Else why should the silver ingots,
jewels, and coins of Saxon kings, " evidently
stored as bullion," have been left at Cuerdale
in Lancashire from A.D. 910 to 1840? Why
should the ring of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex,
have been found at Laverstock in Hampshire,
and that of his daughter Ethelswitha, Queen of
Mercia, in Yorkshire ?

The wonderful variety of objects which are
discovered in tombs must be counted by us as
art treasure trove, for places of ancient burial
are often found by chance. It is only within the
last few years that Coptic cemeteries in Egypt
have been lighted upon, and the mummies de-
spoiled of their shrouds, which display perhaps
the earliest remaining specimens of ancient
embroidery. The tomb of the ancient Egyptian
was painted with scenes descriptive of his life. By
his side were laid figures of stone, wood, earthen-
ware, or wax, called Ushabti, or " Answerers," to
perform the behests of the dead in his sojourn
under ground. For the refreshment of the
corpse were alabaster vessels filled with wine,
food, and ointments. Close to the bier were
laid what the dead person most prized during
life, and funeral gifts of relatives and friends.
Thanks to this practice, we know far more
about the habits and history of ancient nations

73

Art Treasure Trove.

than we should ever have learnt if their
cemeteries had been left tmrifled.

From the Greek tombs have been gathered
in large part the vases which adorn the British
Museum. The Greeks also buried bronzes,
armour, weapons, mirrors, caskets, brooches,
armlets, and musical instruments, such as lyres
and flutes. Doubtless in earlier ages the aftual
property of the deceased was buried with him,
but human nature was not long in asserting
itself, and so we find that many of the bronze
and gold ornaments are mere undertaker's orna-
ments, as thin as possible. More ancient civili-
zations than that of the Greeks had practised
this shabby economy. The tombs of a race
which held sway in Egypt during the eighth
dynasty, nearly 3000 B.C., about thirty miles
north of Thebes, have lately been discovered by
Professor Flinders Petrie. The bodies were
buried with a pot of ashes and a jar of sweet-
scented fat. The saving spirit of relations had-
prompted them to deceive the dead, just as the
Greek undertaker foisted off upon him a flimsy
jewel. The pots in some instances were filled
with earth, which was concealed by the merest
layer of fat.

After all, the holes and corners of a great
city are as fit and genuine places of treasure to
the collector as the forgotten tomb or the sud-
denly exposed hiding-place by the wayside.
Though the fa6l of the existence of a work in
some unfrequented byway be known to a few,
ignorance neglects it till knowledge makes it

74

Art Treasure Trove.

treasure trove. In the days of the Italian
Renaissance there were great searchings after
the beauties of the antique. We have the story
of the discovery of the famous Laocoon. Fran-
cesco, the son of Giuliano da San Gallo, de-
scribes how Michel Angelo was almost always
at his father's house, and, coming there one
day, he went, at San Gallo's invitation, to the
ruins of the Thermae of Titus. " We set off
all together, I on my father's shoulders. When
we descended into the place where the statue
lay, my father exclaimed at once, ' That is the
Laocoon of which Pliny speaks/ The opening
was enlarged so that it could be taken out, and
after we had sufficiently admired it, we went
home to breakfast." The temperate enthusiasm
of the youthful son of the architect San Gallo
is amusing as expressed in the last phrase, but
the excitement of scholars and art lovers at the
discovery of a statue which Pliny describes was
so great that more than one poem was written
in its praise.

Good fortune has brought to light two of the
works ascribed to Michel Angelo himself. Theso-
called " Cupid" in the South Kensington Museum
was discovered some forty years ago hidden
away in the cellars of the Gualfonda Gardens
at Florence, by Professor Miliarini and the
Florentine sculptor Santarelli. The " Entomb-
ment" in the National Gallery has no pedigree
to pronounce it authentic. It was discovered
by a Mr. Robert Macpherson in a dealer's shop
in Rome in 1846. It was completely painted

75

Art Treasure Trove.

over. He had it cleaned, and the imder-surface
then disclosed was ascribed to Michel Angelo.

There is no knowing where or when artistic
treasures may turn up ; in churches and hotels,
in barracks or in pawn-shops, the unsuspected
may be found. Many a drawing by the old
masters has been discovered in provincial book-
shops or on the stalls on the Quai Voltaire
at Paris. They have been found between the
leaves, or even pasted in to form part of the
binding of some dusty tome. In the lumber-
rooms of ancestral houses have been found,
stacked away, pi6lures, furniture, and china
worth far more than the showy stuff which graces
the state-rooms below. Some new young wife
has come to reign. Her proud husband has
refurnished the house to do her honour. Fashion
has pronounced the doom of all the old tables,
cabinets, and faded hangings ; they are banished
out of sight until a hundred years after, on some
wet day, the fancy takes a younger generation
to explore the garrets. Then, if there is one
amongst the party who has the collector's insight,
he tells the welcome news that there is a fortune
in the attics. The portrait by Gainsborough of
Mrs. Graham, which is the pride of the Edin-
burgh Gallery, was walled up for years by the
sorrowful husband, who could not bear to see
his dead wife's portrait. One of the finest
portraits of Queen Elizabeth has been lately
found in the garrets of the Fine Art Gallery in
Siena. The picture was found rolled up and
partly eaten away by rats. Pictures and other

76

Art Treasure Trove.

works of art may be said to vegetate for years
until the discerning eye discovers and sets a
value on them. Some time ago there was a
fine game piece by Snyders in a room of a hotel
at Greenwich, in which hundreds of visitors had
sat to eat their whitebait. At last came one
with a knowledge of Snyders and a retentive
memory. Twenty years after, a notice of the
sale of the furniture and effects of that hotel was
put into his hands by chance ; he remembered
the picture, sent down a man to bid, and bought
it for fifty shillings, " including frame."

A man of this stamp, and a great treasure
hunter, was Ralph Bernal, whose fine collection
was sold in 1855. He was one of those who
have a genius for finding out what is artistically
valuable in unlikely places. He was, in fact, a
born connoisseur, and many curious things came
into his hands. In the British Museum now
lies what is known as " King Lothaire's Magic
Crystal." It is a circle, four inches in diameter,
engraved with a representation of the story of
Susannah and the elders, and the words,
" Lotharius Rex Franc, fieri jussit." The de-
grees of knowledge which exist amongst dealers
and collectors are exemplified by the successive
prices paid for this curious relic. It was found
in an old curiosity shop in Brussels, the owner
of which valued the crystal at ten francs. He
sold it to a well-known Bond Street dealer, who
thought it was not worth to him more than^io.
Ralph Bernal bought it at this price, and when
his collection was dispersed the talisman of

77

Art Treasure Trove.

Lothaire went to the British Museum for the
round sum of ^267. Bernal was never more
pleased than when he obtained a bargain from
a dealer who had knowledge of his subject.
The late Mr. Redford tells us how one day
Bernal entered Colnaghi's shop in Pall Mall,
and found the late Dominic Colnaghi, who was
one of the best experts in his line, engaged in
turning over a heap of prints bought at a sale.
Glancing over his shoulder, Bernal spied a
proof of Hogarth's " Midnight Modern Conver-
sation," and said carelessly, " You seem to have
got a good impression there ; what will you
take for it ? " Colnaghi, busy searching for
better things, said, without looking at the print,
" Three guineas ; shall I send it home for you ? "
" No, I'll take it with me/' said Bernal, who
quickly rolled up the print, and walked out of
the shop chuckling at the idea of having got the
rare early impression on which the word modern
is spelt "moddern." When this proof was pur-
chased for the British Museum, £&i was the
price demanded.

Such exploits made the dealers wary in their
negotiations with Bernal. He came to think
at last, probably with some truth, that they con-
cealed their best things from him. Calling one
day at the shop of Messrs. Town and Emmanuel,
he caught sight of Mrs. Town hastily shuffling
something out of view into a drawer. Bernal
was immediately alive with the keen instincl; of
the collector. " What have you got there, Mrs.
Town?" he said ; "let me see it, let me see it."

78

Art Treasure Trove.

" Oh no, sir ! it is nothing that you would care
about," she replied. " Come, come/' said Bernal,
" I know it is something good." Whereupon
the bashful lady displayed to the eager eyes of
the virtuoso a pair of her husband's old socks,
which she had been assiduously darning when
their inquisitive client entered.

79

CHAPTER VI.

FAMOUS COLLECTIONS.

THE history of collecting in England during the
last hundred years is marked by certain great
events which have occurred at irregular in-
tervals. The dispersal of famous collections,
though giving rise to a passing regret, affords
a stimulus to enthusiasts, who form out of the
scattered fragments of some great gallery the
groundwork of other collections which in their
turn may perhaps become famous. A dozen
great collections, called either after their owners'
names, or that of the great house which con-
tained their treasures, are familiar to connois-
seurs. Between these great landmarks is a
packing of less familiar and often anonymous
collections, which contained a few fine things,
but not enough to make them celebrated. In
the second half of the eighteenth century, and
especially during the " Reign of Terror/' a new
class began to vie with the noble owners of a
former generation. These were men whom the
chances of their vocation in life had thrown in
the nick of time into those foreign places where
works of art were to be bought. To the fac5l
that Sir W. Hamilton was for thirty-seven years

80

Famous Collections.

Minister Plenipotentiary at Naples, the British
Museum had owed a large part of its mag-
nificent collection of Greek and Roman antiqui-
ties. They were bought by special vote for
^8,400 in 1772. The Elgin marbles had
similarly been collected during the Earl of
Elgin's embassy at Constantinople, and were
purchased for the Museum in 1816 for ,£35,000.
At and after the Revolution less known col-
lectors had through residence abroad the same
chances of forming important collections. Mr.
Day was an artist studying in Rome when the
city was in the possession of the French army.
He thus had the chance of buying cheap in
those troublous times fine pictures from the
Colonna and Borghese collections. A Mr. Udny
was British consul at Leghorn, where he bought
many pictures, and sent them home to a brother
in England. They made an important sale in
1804. Mr. John Trumbull, attached in 1795
to the American Legation in Paris, had excep-
tional chances of buying the pictures of the
proscribed nobility.

Such men bought pictures cheap because
they had unique opportunities. Collectors vary
in their ways, just as other men differ in the
pursuit of other hobbies. Some will pay any
price for the best examples. Some on principle
never pay much for anything. The worthy
Samuel Rogers, whom one might have expected
to be as free-handed as poets often are, never
paid more than ^250 for anything in his collec-
tion. He, however, began collecting in 1816,

81 G

Famous Collections.

when obje6ls of art were comparatively cheap,
and it must be remembered that he ingeniously
combined second-rate poetry with the careful
trade of banking. He was the typical connois-
seur of his day, and left a collection which was
sold in 1850 for ^42,000. At the munificent
end of the scale was Gillott, the penmaker. He
was never afraid of paying a high price, and
accosted Turner in the proper way when he
offered to exchange pictures with the great
painter. " I have my pictures in my pocket," said
Gillott, and he waved some ,£1,000 notes in the
artist's face. " You seem to be a sensible sort
of fellow," said Turner ; " come in and have a
glass of sherry."

The headings of old catalogues refer to col-
Ie6lors and collections in phrases which at the
present time are beginning to sound curious to
our ears. Sometimes they are " purchased from
the most distinguished cabinets here and on the
continent/* or else the works of art are " the un-
doubted property of a nobleman, sele6led about
fifty years ago with great taste and at a most
liberal expense." They may be " pictures of the
very distinguished class recently consigned from
Italy," or " of a nobleman brought from his seat
in the country," perhaps to pay off gambling
debts contracted in town. There may be con-
cealed some sad story of misfortune behind a
colourless expression, such as " the collection of
a gentleman who has left off the pursuit of
pictures," or the tale is half revealed by the
more definite phrase, "the collection of an

82

Famous Collections.

emigrant gentleman," which suggests in one
word the uprooting of old families and the ruth-
less destruction of ancestral homes.

The descriptions of these old catalogues have
an old-world flavour. We are offered for sale
" two neat landskips," " a fine shipping," or " a
curious limning." We may have for a price "a
curious vase from the antique with a Baccha-
nalian of boys," or " a picture of the King of
Spain by Titian as big as the life." If interiors
are more to our taste, there is waiting for us
" an inside of a church very rare and good, and
the figures are done by Polemburge." Richard
Symonds's diaries, preserved in the Egerton
MSS., regale us with such notes as these of the
pictures of Charles I. : "St. Jerome whole
body sitting in a cave, leaning on a rock, a lion
by him, and is bound about with cords and
almost naked," wherein at first sight there lurks
a puzzling ambiguity. Sometimes he amuses
his reader with a smack of Italian, such as "a
strange ritratto (portrait) of a great thin old
bald-head given to the king by Sir H.
Wotton."

Disintegration and accretion are the two con-
flicting influences in the world of art. Like the
circulation of the blood in the human, there is a
continual state of flux in the collecting system.
It is interesting to trace the course of single
particles from one country to another, until
sometimes they return to the self-same point
from which they last commenced their circuit.

We have referred elsewhere to that thorough
83

Famous Collections.

and discriminating connoisseur, King Charles.
After his execution tradespeople and hangers-
on of the court obtained possession of many of
his pictures, gems, and jewels, and sold them
for very little to those who had greater know-
ledge, if not more honesty. Cromwell himself
purchased at a fair price, and stepped in
effeftually to prevent the farther "embezzling''
of the pictures. They were sold to such buyers
as Don Alonzo Cardenas, for the King of
Spain ; to Christina of Sweden, who took
medals, jewels, and pictures ; to the Archduke
Leopold, Governor of the Netherlands, for the
Belvedere Gallery of Vienna. To the Duke of
Alva was sold the famous Correggio, " Venus,
Mercury, and Cupid," which has found its way
back to our National Gallery. Through M.
Eberhard Jabach, a banker and amateur of
pictures, many came to Cardinal Mazarin, the
Duke de Richelieu, and Louis XIV., and may
now be found in the Louvre. Sold later to Sir
Robert Walpole, many of Charles's pictures
went from the Houghton collection to the
Empress Catherine of Russia, to find a home in
the Hermitage. While some repose at Florence,
where perhaps they were originally painted,
others, which were recovered by Charles II.,
and escaped the fire at Whitehall in 1697, may
be seen again at Hampton Court and Windsor.
Buchanan's " Memoirs of Painting " tells us
the story of another great landmark, the Orleans
Collection. In 1639 the Cardinal Richelieu
ceded to his king the palace which we now know

Famous Collections.

as the Palais Royal. Louis XIV. handed it over
to Philip, Duke of Orleans, his only brother,
afterwards Regent of France. He formed a
splendid gallery of 485 pictures, acquired from
thirty collections. At his death his son Louis
succeeded. To please the priests who swayed
him he ordered that all pictures of the nude
should be destroyed or sold. Correggio's
" Leda," which had been presented by Christina
of Sweden, was cut into quarters, but Coypel,
the director of the gallery, secreted the fragments
and put them together. In 1755 it was bought
for the King of Prussia and placed in Sans
Souci. In 1792 Philip Egalite, <4 for the purpose
of procuring money to agitate the national spirit,
of which he always hoped ultimately to profit,"
sold all the pictures of the Palais Royal. Those
of the Italian and French Schools were ulti-
mately bought by M. Laborde de Mereville for
900,000 francs. He had commenced to build a
superb gallery in the Rue d'Artois, " in which
to place the collection he had preserved to
France." The " Reign of Terror " ensued. M. de
Mereville transported his collection to England,
but misfortune dogged him. Some cause made
him return to France, where he fell a victim to
the guillotine. By the loss of France England
gained. The Flemish, Dutch, and German
pictures were also sold in 1 792 by the Duke of
Orleans to a Mr. Thomas Moore Slade, for
350,000 francs. By great management he " suc-
ceeded in having them sent to this country at
the moment matters began in France to wear

85

Famous Collections.

the most serious aspect." The real buyers were
Mr. Slade, Mr. Morland, Lord Kinnaird, and
Mr. Hammersley. The Italian pictures of M.
de Mereville had been consigned to a London
house. Mr. Bryan, the dealer, but for whose
discriminating purchases "this country," says
Buchanan, " would now have been but very poor
in works of art," bought them for the Duke of
Bridgwater, the Earl of Carlisle, and the Mar-
quis of Stafford, for ^43,000. They selected
what they wanted for their private collections,
and made a large profit, nearly ^40,000, by
selling the remainder at Mr. Bryan's rooms in
Pall Mall and " at the Lyceum in the Strand.''
A name important in the history of British col-
lecting here emerges. Mr. Angerstein bought
some of the most important pictures, including
Sebastian del Piombo's " Raising of Lazarus."
In 1824 this large pifture and twenty-three
others were bought for the National Gallery.
" Until the arrival of the Orleans Collection,"
says Buchanan, " the prevailing taste and fashion
had been for the acquisition of the pictures of the
Flemish and Dutch schools ; . . . a new turn was
given to the taste for collecting in this country."
Great was the belief also, in those days, in the in-
fluence of masterpieces upon contemporary paint-
ing. When Soult wished to sell the Murillos he
had filched from Spain," these pictures," said the
marshal, " are capable of forming a revolution
in the science of modern painting, and of creating
a new school of art. Whole masses of pictures
may be brought into position on the walls of a

86

Famous Collections.

gallery, but what will these avail without a few
great leaders ?" The military metaphor is cha-
racteristic of the great warrior and plunderer of
galleries.

Any private collection from which pi6lures
have been given to or bought for semi-public
or national museums should be of interest. It
was a curious concatenation of circumstances
which led to the founding of the Dulwich Gallery.
Des Enfans, or Desenfans, a French teacher of
languages, merchant, and finally picture dealer,
became a consul in London, and collected pic-
tures for Stanislas II., King of Poland, when
the French nobility were rushing to realize their
property. Stanislas had intended to found an
Academy of Art and National Gallery in Poland.
The inevitable fate of that country prevented
this laudable intention from being realized when
Russia and Prussia partitioned Poland and
Stanislas was dethroned in 1798. The pictures
were left on the hands of Desenfans, who offered
them for sale. He seems to have been of a
somewhat pragmatical disposition, and to have
found it necessary to fulminate in the preface of
his catalogue against modern artists. He ac-
cused them of not caring for good art and not
loving one another. There was a certain amount
of truth which stung in both of these proposi-
tions. He had awakened the hostility of some
of the painters, who could not be expected to
rejoice at the sight of extravagant prices being
paid for old masters. The influence of Benjamin
West as President of the Academy was sufficient

87

Famous Collections.

to ruin the sale. Desenfans eventually left his
pictures to Sir Francis Bourgeois, who, in his
turn, bequeathed them to Dulwich College, with
;£ 10,000 to erect a gallery, and ,£2,000 for the
care of the pictures. That delightful Watteau,
" The Dance under a Colonnade," is one of the
glories of this collection.

We can only refer briefly here to some of the
great landmarks of collecting. In 1822 Beck-
ford had intended to hold a great sale of the
treasures of Fonthill. A catalogue was made,
and the collection was to be sold at Christie's,
when a Mr. Farquhar stepped in and paid
,£350,000 for Fonthill and most of its contents.
This gentleman sold the collection he had
bought on the spot. The sale lasted forty-one
days. The lots comprised, amongst other things,
Cardinal Wolsey's ebony chair ; a state bed of
ebony, with damask hangings, and a purple silk
quilt worked with gold, which had belonged to
Henry VII.; tables of verd-antique ; cabinets
of the time of Elizabeth and James I., and
cabinets from Japan. A vase of the largest
known block of Hungarian topaz, mounted in
gold and diamonds, a present to Catarina
Cornaro, was the work of Cellini. His favourite
pictures were not sold by Beckford to Mr.
Farquhar. In 1839 he disposed of three which
he had kept back, and of which one was the " St.
Catherine" of Raphael, for ^7, 3 50 to the National
Gallery. Other parts of Beckford's collection
came, through his daughter, to the Duke of
Hamilton, and were sold in 1882.

88

Famous Collections.

The history of the Lawrence Collection is one
of lost opportunities. Sir Thomas Lawrence
died in 1830. In his will he referred to his
magnificent collection with the words, " My
collection of genuine drawings by the old
masters, which in number and value I know to
be unequalled in Europe." He offered them
for ^20,000, half of what they cost, first of all
to George IV., and, if not accepted by him, then
to the British Museum, Sir Robert Peel, or the
Earl of Dudley. An attempt was made to bring
about their purchase for the nation. The
Academy headed a subscription with ^1,000,
but nothing came of it. Mr. Samuel Woodburn
had been in the habit of buying for Lawrence,
and Messrs. Woodburn eventually bought the
collection for ,£16,000. They sold many draw-
ings, of which some went to the King of Hol-
land. In 1 840 and the two following years efforts
were again made to induce the Government to
buy the residue, but with no effect. At last the
majority of the Raphael and Michel Angelo
drawings were bought for Oxford University.
The King of Holland's drawings were sold in
1850. Mr. Samuel Woodburn bought many
back, while others were purchased for the
Weimar Gallery and the Louvre. Finally, the
Woodburn Collection was disposed of in 1866,
and Government at last purchased some of the
drawings. Even then they missed many of the
best, and several hundreds of pounds were re-
turned to the Treasury — a piece of foolishness
which also happened at the Bernal sale.

Famous Collections.

To return to chronological order, the next
great sale was that of Horace Walpole's trea-
sures from Strawberry Hill in 1842, to which
we have referred elsewhere. It lasted ten days,
and made a total of about ^40,000, a mere frac-
tion of what the collection would now fetch.

In 1848 came the " Stowe sale " of the Duke
of Buckingham's collection, which lasted forty
days, and brought in ,£75,000.

In 1855 an event occurred which will always
be held in remembrance by amateurs of " bric-a-
brac/' as objects of art are sometimes irreve-
rently called. The collection of Mr. Ralph
Bernal was sold. From it the newly-formed
museum now at South Kensington obtained
some of its greatest treasures. Ignorant busy-
bodies complained at the prices paid by the
nation for majolica plates which would sell now
for twenty times the really moderate sums they
then fetched.

Large collections continue to come at intervals
of a few years to the hammer. In 1871 the
wonderful Peel Collection was added by private
purchase to the National Gallery. In 1876 was
the well-known Wynn Ellis sale, in which,
together with some genuine pictures, were so
many of doubtful authenticity. In 1882 came
the monster sale of all, that of Hamilton Palace.
The last treasures of Beckford were dispersed
amongst the Duke of Hamilton's possessions.
The sale lasted seventeen days, and some 2,213
lots fetched nearly ,£400,000.

A patriotic syndicate, formed by certain con-
90

Famous Collections.

noisseurs, goaded the Government into securing
some of the best lots in the Fountaine sale of
1884. These gentlemen subscribed more than
£"12,000, and resold their splendidly selefted
purchases to the Government at the prices for
which they were bought.

At the sale of the Marlborough Collection
eleven masterpieces of painting were offered to
the nation for ,£350,000. This was, perhaps,
rather more than the authorities could be ex-
pe<5ted to pay at one fell swoop. The nation,
however, rejoices in the Ansidei Raphael and
Vandyke's equestrian portrait of Charles I.,
which were bought for ,£70,000 and £"17,500
respectively in 1885. Since that time we have
seen the Spitzersale take place at Paris in 1892.
Many English connoisseurs attended this, well
knowing the quality of that clever dealer's
cherished works of art. Provincial galleries,
besides the national museums, have entered the
lists at these great sales, and it is to be hoped
that what they have bought will never be found
amongst that class of objects of art which, as the
late Mr. Christie once said, "are quite old friends,
and a sort of annuity to the firm/' so frequently
do they recur in the auction-room.

It will thus be seen that the history of our
splendid collections of the British Museum, the
National Gallery, and the South Kensington
Museum, is largely written in that of the public
sale of collections. We should far exceed the
limits of this chapter if we attempted to give
any full account of the gradual and sagacious

91

Famous Collections.

formation of our national art treasure-houses.
We must not, however, omit to mention that
they would not be what they are but for the
munificence of private benefa6lors. Men like
the late Mr. Jones, whose splendid furniture
and bric-a-brac given to South Kensington is
still grouped together under his name ; Mr.
Henry Vaughan, who gave us Constable's
"Hay Wain;" Sir A. W. Franks, and Mr.
Fortnum, are but a few of those who have done
so much to enrich our wonderful galleries.

92

CHAPTER VII.

PATRONS OF ART IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.

OF the two periods in which, by general agree-
ment, art has exhibited her greatest manifesta-
tions, the age of the finest Greek art, and that
of the Italian Renaissance, the latter is the more
satisfactory to deal with, both from the his-
torian's and the collector's point of view. The
remnants of Greek art which are left probably
give us but a limited notion of the capacities
of that wonderful race. There is a sense of
sepulchral coldness bequeathed to us from the
marble and bronze sculpture, the gems, the vases
and small tomb ornaments which constitute the
chief bulk of Greek art as we have it. The old
writers speak with enthusiasm of the paintings
of Zeuxis and Apelles. We are deprived of
them. If the gold ornaments of the Greeks
were magnificent in colour of precious stone and
enamel, only traces of it are left. Charming as
their little winged " victories " and necklets are,
the unrelieved colour of the gold is somewhat
monotonous. The indications of colour on their
delightful terra cottas are faded for the most part,
so that we can scarcely judge of their original
effe6l. Their vases are of a peculiar tone, which

93

Patrons of Art in the

is out of harmony with almost everything but
itself. They look well only by themselves, as
if there still clung to them the aloofness of the
tomb from which so many of them have emerged.
We have not enough of their art left to enable
us to do the Greeks full justice ; consequently
our estimate of them, based chiefly on their
magnificent sculpture, leads us to cherish a con-
ception of Greek art as sculpturesque and colour-
less, though the numerous tales that are told of
the realism of the Greek painters leads us to
suppose that they were acquainted with much
more than the mere requirements of form. The
incompleteness of our legacy in the history of
Greek art and the art itself is a matter for
perpetual regret.

Our position as regards the Italian Renais-
sance is different. We have most ample material,
historical and artistic. Splendid architecture,
pictures, and sculpture remain to us compara-
tively uninjured. Parallel to this we have the
records of literary men who were friends of
artists, the biographies of artists themselves,
such as the inestimable life of Cellini, the lives
of painters by a contemporary painter such as
Vasari, and the reminiscences of faithful ser-
vants such as Michel Angelo's Ascanio Condivi.
Such writers tell us of the enthusiasm with
which the artists unearthed every fragment of
antique ornament, and the untiring zeal with
which they copied them. It was the natural
outcome and counterpart of the excitement of
students at the re-discovery of manuscripts when,

94

Italian Renaissance.

after 1453, the Greek refugees from fallen Con-
stantinople flocked into Italy. To adorn and
illustrate this great historical inheritance we
have objects of art, fine and applied, of every
kind in profusion and uninjured. While we are
left suspecting that the Greeks may have been
acquainted with numerous processes of which
we have not examples left, there is not perhaps
a single branch of art known to the men of the
Renaissance of which examples are withheld
from us.

Thus of these two great manifestations of art,
while the one seems too cold for average human
interest, the other is aglow with such life and
colour, that unless we are careful we are apt, as
regards the golden age of the Renaissance, to
purge both artist and patron of worldly dross
to an extent which they hardly deserve.

When we come to consider the period 1450-
1550, we find many of those preconceived notions
which we all like to possess very rapidly upset.
From our historic recollections of Athens in the
age of Pericles we have been accustomed to the
idea that the highest culminations of artistic
activity are reached in periods of untrammelled
political liberty. Florence is the counterpart of
Athens in the Italian Renaissance. Her air is
not inferior in its effects to the pellucid atmo-
sphere of Attica. " Florence is the place," says
a poor painter of Perugia, " where above all
others men attain to perfection in all the arts,
but more especially in painting. The air of
that city gives a natural quickness and freedom

95

Patrons of Art in the

to the perceptions of men, so that they cannot
content themselves with mediocrity in the works
presented to them, which they always judge
with reference to the honour of the good and
beautiful in art, rather than with respect to or
consideration for the man who has produced
them." In the artist, too, is generated by that
fine air the desire for glory and honour. Yet
while at Athens the golden age of art was the
outcome of political liberty gained by citizens
who scorned the pursuits of commerce, in Italy
the freer cities did not excel in art, and Florence
the paragon, at the height of her artistic glory,
was enslaved by the Medici, who were bankers
and merchants, the heads of a commercial estab-
lishment. Perpetual conspiracies failed because
the populace was too enslaved to rise. " The
facts of the case/' says J. A. Symonds, "seem
to show that culture and republican independence
were not so closely united in Italy as some his-
torians would seek to make us believe." The
Italian despots disarmed their subjects and sub-
stituted a tax for military service. Then they
proceeded to lay down arms themselves, to
substitute diplomacy for warfare, and hold their
states by craft and corruption. Lorenzo de'
Medici developed " a policy of enervation,"
employing great artists to adorn popular fes-
tivals with the set purpose of keeping the
citizens in good humour. War was carried on
by means of the " condottieri," mercenaries who,
though opposed to each other to-day, were as
likely as not to be on the same side to-morrow.

Italian Renaissance.

" They adopted systems of campaigning which
should cost them as little as possible, but which
enabled them to exhibit a chessplayer's capacity
for designing clever checkmates/' The astonish-
ingly beautiful ornamentation lavished upon arms
and armour seems almost to suggest that the
pomps of war were more present to the Italian
mind than its grim realities. Though the con-
dottieri occasionally let themselves loose upon
defenceless populations, not till the invasion of
the French under Charles VIII. did the Italians
experience once more the hideous cruelties of
war as carried on by Frenchmen, Spaniards, and
Germans, whom they contemptuously classed all
together as "barbarians/' Until the invasion
of the foreigner Italy lived almost in a fool's
paradise of fine art and warfare of comparative
mildness. Yet we must not imagine a golden
age of art and innocence. Though war had for
years spared Italy many of its terrors, we have
to remember that art was flourishing while
assassination and private vengeance were ram-
pant. We read with horror of Lorenzino's
hideous plot to murder Alessandro de' Medici.
We feel sorry for Alessandro until we realize
that he poisoned Ippolito, and was, if possible,
worse than his assassin. These doings are a
later specimen of what had been taking place
in every Italian city. Such men were the
patrons of artists, who were willing and obliged
to work for any scoundrel.

We have to remember in the next place that
when art flourished most, it was by no means as

97 H

Patrons of Art in the

the handmaid of religion. The day when artists
painted for the Church with a single-minded
devotion passed away when the revival of Greek
learning, together with the re-discovery of
antique art, awoke a new and natural sympathy
for all that was sensuously beautiful. Painters
and sculptors began to work with art mainly in
view, no longer religion. The notable exceptions,
who painted still with religious fervour upper-
most, included only those who were attracted by
the austere teaching of Savonarola, or frightened
into monasteries by some horrid a6l of violence.
" Perugino, the painter of placid pieties, was a
man of violence." Single-minded purity of re-
ligious feeling in artistic matters could not exist
when the great patrons, the popes and cardinals,
were so often monsters of wickedness. " Let us
enjoy the papacy," said Leo X., " since God has
given it us." When a Fleming as Adrian VI.
was pope for a short space, and condemned
nearly every artistic manifestation, Vasari, in
the cause of art, congratulates Providence, and
the general public the do6lor, upon the pope's
demise.

It is impossible in a few pages even to sketch
the complicated nature of Italian civilization at
that day. General phrases must sum it up.
"The Renaissance," says Symonds, "was so
dazzling by its brilliancy, so confusing by its
rapid changes, that moral distinctions were
obliterated in a blaze of splendour, an outburst
of new life, a carnival of liberated energies. . . .
The national genius for art attained its fullest

Italian Renaissance.

development simultaneously with the decay of
faith, the extinction of political liberty, and the
anarchy of ethics." In a country in which
every man did that which seemed right in his
own eyes, it was no wonder that in art, as in
conduct, an astonishing diversity was exhibited.
This diversity was kept as a rule within the
bounds of taste and style by the new apprecia-
tion and actual re-discovery of antique art.

To correspond with and help to produce and
encourage this wonderful outburst of artistic
energy was a long succession of rich patrons.
In Florence the Medici, between the years 1434-
1471, spent 663,755 golden florins upon alms
and public works, of which 400,000 were supplied
by Cosimo alone. His grandson, Lorenzo the
Magnificent, who succeeded his father in 1469,
had a splendid collection of antique sculptures
in his garden at San Marco. He wished to
raise sculpture in Florence to the level of
painting, and placed Bartoldo, a follower of
Donatello, in charge of the sculptures that he
might help and instruct the young men who
studied them. Lorenzo then asked Ghirlandaio,
the painter, to select his most promising pupils
and allow them to study in his gardens. Ghir-
landaio sent Granacci and Michel Angelo.
The story goes that Lorenzo first recognized
the talents of Michel Angelo about a year
after he came to the gardens, when he saw him
polishing a piece of refuse marble which he had
begged and carved into a copy of an antique
Faun. He took him into his own household,

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where the young man lived as an honoured
guest or adopted son. Condivi relates how at
dinner those who came first sat each according
to his degree next the Magnificent, not moving
afterwards for anyone who might appear. So
it happened that the boy found himself often
seated amongst men of the noblest birth and
highest public rank. " All these illustrious men
paid him particular attention, and encouraged
him in the honourable art which he had chosen.
But the chief to do so was the Magnificent him-
self, who sent for him oftentimes in a day, in
order that he might show him jewels, cornelians,
medals and such like objects of great rarity,
as knowing him to be of excellent parts and
judgment in these things." It is impossible to
conceive circumstances more congenial or more
conducive to the formation of the taste of the
young genius. Unfortunately, after three years
Lorenzo died, worn out at forty-four, and
Michel Angelo lost a man who would have been
a perfectly appreciative patron, though the
artist's political sympathies were afterwards not
with the family of the Medici. Piero, the son of
Lorenzo, was a man of a different stamp. He
cared little for art, and only sent for Michel
Angelo when, in January, 1494, there was a
heavy fall of snow in Florence, and he desired
to have a colossal snowman modelled in the
courtyard of the palace. It was quite natural
that an old inmate of the household should help
to amuse the family, though some writers have
called the request an insult. Piero, however,

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Italian Renaissance.

treated Michel Angelo with great kindness,
and asked him back to live with him. Condivi's
account proves that Piero was not of the same
culture as his father. He "used to extol two
men of his household as persons of rare ability,
the one being Michel Angelo, the other a
Spanish groom, who, in addition to his personal
beauty, which was something wonderful, had so
good a wind and such agility, that when Piero
was galloping on horseback he could not out-
strip him by a hand's-breadth." In November,
1494, Piero was driven from Florence by the
supporters of Savonarola, and Michel Angelo
had to look for new patrons elsewhere. His
" Sleeping Cupid," fraudulently sold by a dealer
as an antique, led to a brief connection with the
unappreciative Cardinal di San Giorgio, and
from him he passed on to Rome, where, in the
service of successive popes, most of his life was
spent. We have only space to sketch the
general character of these men and their patron-
age by citing a few salient facls. A banker,
Jacopo Gallo, introduced Michel Angelo to the
Cardinal di San Dionigi, who was given his red
hat by the Borgia Pope Alexander VI. For
him Michel Angelo made the splendid " Pieta,"
the Virgin with the dead Christ in her arms,
which established his fame. Before his car-
dinal's " Pieta " in 1503 lay in state the repulsive
corpse of Alexander VI., which was shortly
wrapped in an old carpet, and then with force
of fists and feet crammed into a coffin that was
too small for it, " without torches, without a

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ministering priest, without a single person to
attend and bear a consecrated candle." When
such treatment was meted out to the corpse of
a pope, it was not to be expected that much
attention would be paid to the carrying out
of their artistic intentions when interrupted
by death. So we find that Michel Angelo's
life-story is largely one of diverted energies
on account of the whims and fancies of succes-
sive pontiffs. To them is due the facl that so
much that he intended to perform came to
naught. The republic of Florence, under
Soderini as " Gonfalonier," has the credit of
having commissioned one great statue, the
" David," which is one of the few that remain to
us complete. Of Soderini is told the well-
known tale that illustrates the bluntness of a
patron's perceptions. When the " David " was
finished he took exception to the nose. Michel
Angelo hid some marble dust in his hand, and
let it fall while pretending to chip away at the
statue. "Look at it now!" he presently said.
Soderini replied, " Ah, now I am much more
pleased with it. You have given the statue
life." The patron who was in 1505 to com-
mission a tomb which should enslave Michel
Angelo for forty years, was Julius II., the pope
who should have been a soldier. " We cannot
but regret," writes Symonds, "the fate which
drove Michel Angelo to consume years of
hampered industry upon what Condivi calls
' the tragedy of Julius's tomb/ upon quarrying
and road-making for Leo X., upon the abortive

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Italian Renaissance.

plans at S. Lorenzo, and upon architectural and
engineering works which were not striclly within
his province." Julius II. died in 1513, and there
ensues a long story of quarrels and new con-
tracts with his successive executors, in each of
which the first magnificent scheme of forty
statues dwindles down more and more, until the
tomb is completed in 1545 as it still exists, with
the " Moses " as sole principal figure, and the rest
of it not the aclual work of Michel Angelo, but
of Raphael da Montelupo. " My whole youth
and manhood have been lost," wrote Michel
Angelo, "tied down to this tomb." The popes
who first interfered with its completion were
Leo X. and Clement VII. It is difficult to
understand why Leo X., the first pope of the
house of Medici, has obtained so great credit for
patronage of art as to give his name to an age.
Julius II. was the projector of a new St. Peter's
Church. Michel Angelo and Raphael had long
made their fame when Leo was elecled. His
reign was a brief one of less than nine years,
and " Rome owes no monumental work of art
to his inventive brain."

A chorus of joy arose when his well-meaning
but bigoted successor, Adrian VI., the foreigner
who shut his eyes to art, died in less than two
years. His doctor was hailed as " saviour of
his country," and Giulio de' Medici succeeded
as Clement VII. He was more in sympathy
with Michel Angelo than Leo X. had ever
been, and would have tied him to his interests
by giving him an ecclesiastical benefice, just as

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Leo was reported to have offered to make
Raphael a cardinal. He was not a terrible and
obstinate patron like Julius II., and could be
dissuaded from his more foolish intentions, as
when he proposed to have a colossus of forty
cubits high on the piazza of S. Lorenzo. He
had consideration for Michel Angelo when he
fell ill in 1531, and besides issuing an interested
brief, enjoining the sculptor only to work on
the Medicean tombs, told him to selecl; a work-
shop more convenient for his health. Cellini,
however, gives the best picture of this pope.
It is remarkable how anxious such patrons
were to exploit every accomplishment they were
told a clever man possessed. Wiser and less
selfish men would have urged an artist to con-
centrate his energies upon what he felt to be his
special vocation. Clement found that Cellini
could play the flute. It was in vain represented
that Cellini's business was that of a goldsmith
and jeweller. The pope's reply was, " I am the
more desirous of having him in my service,
since he is possessed of one talent more than I
expected." In like manner, though Michel
Angelo had protested to Julius II. that he was
not a painter, he was compelled to paint the
roof of the Sistine Chapel. He asserted later
that architecture was not his trade, but the
Medici compelled him to build. Cellini becomes
musician, artilleryman, and goldsmith to Clement
VII. He melts down the pope's treasure in
1527, when Clement is besieged in the castle of
St. Angelo. For nine fearful months the

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Italian Renaissance.

ruffianly Spaniards and Germans practised
every atrocity during the prolonged sack of
Rome, while Clement helplessly watched it from
the ramparts of the castle. The effects of their
inhuman wickedness were indelibly impressed
upon the minds of artists. Giovan Antonio
Lappoli, the painter, was " grievously tormented
by the Spaniards to the end that he might pay
them a ransom." He escaped literally with
nothing but the shirt upon his back. Peruzzi's
fate was similar. Parmegiano was more lucky ;
he was only compelled to paint and draw for his
less barbarous captors. The indolent Sebastian
del Piombo, whose letters to Michel Angelo
show him to have been of a cheerful disposition,
writes to Michel Angelo after the events of
1527, " I do not yet seem to myself to be the
same Bastiano I was before the sack. I cannot
yet get back into my former frame of mind."
Such were the later accompaniments of this
golden age of art. Soon afterwards we find
Clement commissioning Cellini for a button for
the pontifical cape, after absolving him of a
little peculation in the matter of the melted
jewels, and appointing him stamp-master of the
mint. The Holy Father is alternately bowed
down to by Cellini for absolution, and reviled as
a man whose word is not to be relied upon, and
who shows the temper of a wild beast. That
he could, indeed, be cruel enough was shown by
his slowly starving to death, in the dungeon
that Cellini feared so much, Fra Benedetto da
Foiano, who had encouraged the patriots of

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Florence to resist the Medici. He was suc-
ceeded in 1534 by Cardinal Farnese as Paul III.
This pope requested Michel Angelo to enter
his service. The artist saw that he should
again be interrupted from the tomb of Julius II. ;
he therefore replied that he was not his own
master. " It is thirty years," answered the pope
in anger, "that I have cherished this desire, and
now that I am pope may I not indulge it ? Where
is the contract? I mean to tear it up." He
settled a new and restri6led contract with the
Duke of Urbino, nephew of Julius II., and
appointed Michel Angelo sculptor and painter
to the Vatican. Then was completed the fresco
of the " Last Judgment," which so scandalized
Paul's master of the ceremonies, but it was
Paul IV. who commissioned " II Braghettone,"
" the breeches-maker," to veil its nakedness.
The rest of Michel Angelo's long life was ex-
pended in the service of three or four more
popes. " Francis of Holland," a Portuguese
miniature-painter, in his version of the great
sculptor's conversations with his friend, the
accomplished lady, Vittoria Colonna, represents
him as saying, " I am bound to confess that even
His Holiness sometimes annoys and wearies
me by begging for too much of my company."
Truly, from the time when Julius II. had a private
drawbridge made from his apartment to enable
him to visit the sculptor at his work, until the
end of his life, Michel Angelo must have had
his fill of papal patronage. Lesser dignitaries
and private citizens were perhaps less exacting.

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Italian Renaissance.

Such were the Cardinal da Bibbiena, who was
so attached to Raphael as to consent to give
him his niece in marriage, if the artist had not
prematurely died. No sketch of the patronage
of the Renaissance could omit the name of
Agostino Chigi, who built the palace which was
bought by the family of Farnese and called the
Farnesina. He commissioned Raphael to deco-
rate it with the story of Cupid and Psyche,
which still exists. ' He was a man of the finest
taste in art and literature, but even of him
Michel Angelo complains that he appropriated
two blocks of marble which cost the artist fifty
golden ducats. Colossal fortunes were not made
by artists in those days. In spite of all his
papal patronage, Michel Angelo left but a
moderate fortune, and did much work to his
own loss. Writing in 1497 to his father, he
says, " I have not yet settled my affairs with the
cardinal, and I do not wish to leave until I am
properly paid for my labour ; and with these
great patrons one must go about quietly, since
they cannot be compelled." The pleasantest
relations of art-lover and artist are, doubtless,
those in which the patron is not too far exalted
above the artist's rank. Many of the countless
treasures of Renaissance art which we still have,
and which gave most pleasure in the making to
their creator and possessor, were probably the
outcome of friendly intercourse between artists
and their more intimate associates and appre-
ciators.

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CHAPTER VIII.

ROYAL PATRONS.

THE attitude of reigning princes to art will
always be a subject of interest. Those who
concern themselves with the personal relations
of kings and princes with their favourite painters
or sculptors, may do so without incurring sus-
picion of mere king-worship. It is not a ques-
tion of casual encouragement to this or that
artist. The fashion set by a king is far-reaching
in its consequences. Courtiers desire to stand
well with their sovereign. No greater compli-
ment can be paid by an astute subject than by
taking, or affecling to take, pleasure in the
artistic pursuits of a royal amateur. Art will
always be to a certain extent the handmaid of
fashion, and no one can sway the fashion more
potently than a king or queen. We may feel
tolerably certain that when Mithridates of
Pontus, perhaps the earliest royal colle6lor, set
himself to the acquisition of gems, his courtiers
were not behindhand. History gives us many
examples of such influence. When Cardinal
Farnese, afterwards Pope Paul III., commenced
his architectural operations in the town of
Castro, now demolished, palaces sprang up on

1 08

Royal Patrons.

every hand. Rich nobles wished to gain credit
with their pope, " for so it is," says Vasari, " that
many seek to obtain favour for themselves by
flattering the humours of princes."

Their superstitions led warlike monarchs in
early days to promise votive offerings of churches,
pictures, reliquaries, and what not, provided
heaven would only vouchsafe them a happy
issue to their campaigns. Later princes, like
the Medici, fostered art, from love of it in part,
but largely for political reasons. They were
anxious to distract the attention of their subjects
from the loss of true freedom by the beauty with
which they adorned their splendid city of
Florence. So when the Medici were exiled all
artists felt the blow. When Duke Alessandro
was assassinated, Vasari mourns the loss to art.
When Leo X. died, Vasari uses the forcible
phrase, " his death completely astounded the
arts and artists both in Rome and Florence.''
When the pious but bigoted Adrian VI. suc-
ceeded to the chair of St. Peter, the artists were
all secretly praying for his providential removal.
" The arts and talents of all kinds were held in
so little esteem, that if he had long retained the
apostolic seat there would once more have hap-
pened in Rome what had taken place at a former
time, when all the statues left by the Goths, the
good as well as the bad, were condemned to the
fire. Nay, Pope Adrian had already begun,
perhaps in imitation of the pontiffs of those times,
to talk of his intention to destroy the chapel of
the divine Michel Angelo, declaring it to be

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Royal Patrons.

a congregation of naked figures, and expressing
his contempt for the best pictures and statues.
. . . The eleclion of Clement VII. was thus as
the restoration to life of many a timid and de-
jefted spirit : many were the artists consoled and
reassured by that event." Our good Vasari
is prone indeed to regard the fathers of the
Church as chiefly deserving of praise or blame in
proportion as they alternately promoted or re-
pressed the arts. His rejoicing when Provi-
dence also " was pleased to remove " those suc-
cessors of St. Peter who, in Vasari's day, were
inimical to paintingand sculpture, is not disguised
as becomes a good Catholic.

It is interesting to trace the story of art during
the successive reigns of our own kings and
queens. We have no glorious period to boast of
such as the age of Leo X. and some of the suc-
ceeding popes. England was behindhand, and
her artistic beginnings were small indeed. Our
earliest records begin with Henry III. Wai-
pole descants upon the simplicity of that king,
who gave orders that the sheriff of Southamp-
ton shall cause the king's chamber wainscot in
the castle of Winchester " to be painted with
the same piclures as formerly." " This," says
the writer, " is like the Roman general who
threatened his soldiers if they broke any of
the antique Corinthian statues that they should
pay for having others made."

A supposed portrait of Richard II., said to
have been painted in oil in 13 77, gives ground for
the very doubtful hypothesis that oil painting

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Royal Patrons.

was known in England before it was discovered
by Van Eyck in 1410.

As late as Henry VI. affairs of art, as far as
painting is concerned, were in a very primitive
condition. " If Henry III. bespoke pictures by
the intervention of the sheriff, under Henry VI.
we were still so unpolished that a peer of the
first nobility, going to France on an embassy,
contracted with ( his tailor for the painter's work
that was to be displayed in the pageantry of his
journey. ... If it is objected to me that this
was mere herald's painting, I answer," says
Walpole, " that was almost the only painting we
had."

Art flourished little under succeeding kings
until Henry VII., "who seems never to have
laid out any money so willingly as on what he
could never enjoy, his tomb ; ... on that he was
profuse."

Mabuse the Fleming was encouraged by
him. That painter is said to have painted the
portraits of Prince Arthur, Prince Henry, and
Princess Margaret. This jovial artist was
always in want of money. When he was in the
service of the Marquis of Veren, Charles V.
visited that nobleman. The marquis gave
orders that all his household should be finely
clothed in white damask. Mabuse secured the
materials on pretence of making them up him-
self. He sold them for drink, and painted a
paper suit in imitation. When the attention of
the emperor was drawn to the equipment of the
household of the marquis, Charles found that

in

Royal Patrons.

of Mabuse the finest of all. It defied dete6lion
except by touch.

With Henry VIII. a nobler period begins.
" The accession of this sumptuous prince brought
along with it the establishment of the arts." He
invited Raphael and Titian to come from Italy,
but had to content himself with Torregiano and
Girolamo of Trevisi. The latter he employed
chiefly as an engineer, paying him 400 crowns
a year. "Girolamo," says Vasari, "thanked
God and his destiny for having permitted him
to reach a country where the inhabitants were
so favourably disposed to him." Evidently art
was beginning to move in England ; but alas
for poor Girolamo, at the siege of Boulogne a
cannon-ball cut him in two pieces as he sat on
his horse, " and so were his life and all the
honours of this world extinguished together ! "

The great name of Holbein is Henry VIII.'s
chief glory. Holbein, born at Basle, was intro-
duced to Erasmus by Amerbach, a painter of
that city. Either the Earl of Arundel or the
Earl of Surrey is said to have advised him to
go to England. Erasmus sent him with a letter
to Sir Thomas More, and, as a present to the
latter, his own portrait by Holbein, which he
said was more like himself than the one drawn
by Albert Durer. On the strength of his handi-
work, and his sitter's testimonial thereto, Hol-
bein was received into More's house, where he
worked for some time. No one who has seen
his splendid portrait of Sir Thomas, exhibited
at the Old Masters' Exhibition of 1896, will

I 12

Royal Patrons.

easily forget it. Holbein was destined soon to
have a more exalted patron. Henry one day
visited the chancellor, and robbed him of his
prottgt. He gave him a fixed salary of 200
florins, and a house to live in. In return
Holbein painted his many portraits of Henry,
his wives, and those also who declined the
honour of his hand. On one occasion he fell
into serious trouble. He had the temerity
to throw an intruding nobleman downstairs.
Horrified at what he had done in the heat of
the moment, Holbein ran to the king, and
besought his pardon for an offence which he
did not specify. The king, it is said, promised
to forgive him if he would tell the truth. When
that was elicited matters at first looked serious
for the painter. Presently in came the injured
lord with a twisted tale. Then the king's wrath
was turned upon him. He reproached him for
his want of truth, and said, " You have not to
do with Holbein, but with me. I tell you that
out of seven peasants I could make as many
lords, — but not one Holbein."

Those splendid Windsor drawings, which
give many of us more pleasure than Holbein's
painted portraits, were lost sight of for many
years. Sold after Holbein's death into France,
they were purchased and presented to Charles I.
by a M. de Liancourt. King Charles exchanged
them with the Earl of Pembroke for a Raphael.
Pembroke gave them to the Earl of Arundel,
the most noted connoisseur, except Charles I.,
of his time. From him they seem to have gone

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Royal Patrons.

to Henry, Duke of Norfolk, at whose death they
are said to have been repurchased for the crown
in 1696. After this they are said to have been
forgotten, till Queen Caroline discovered them
in a bureau in Kensington Palace, where they
had lain unnoticed To Horace Walpole belongs
the credit of having suggested their reproduc-
tion, which was first done between 1792 and
1800. Now, through the aid of photographic
process, they are familiar to all lovers of art.

For Henry Holbein did much besides paint-
ing. He was a universal genius. He was an
architect, and modelled and carved portraits ;
he fashioned all kinds of ornaments for arms
and plate ; he was unsurpassed as a designer of
jewels. As Francis L, Henry's rival, had pat-
ronized Benvenuto Cellini, so the English king
had his Benedetto di Rovezzano, whose gold-
smith's craft doubtless gained from the inventive
genius of Holbein.

Of Torregiano, Henry's sculptor, and his tragic
end we speak elsewhere. From 1 5 1 6 to 1519 he
was engaged on Henry VI I. 's tomb, and then
he left on his ill-fated journey to Spain, where
the fact of his having been the servant of the
Protestant King Henry perhaps sealed his fate.

Holbein was alive during the short reign of
Edward VI., but Sir Antonio More was the
chief painter of Mary's time. When she died
he followed Philip in Spain, where, as Cumber-
land, in his " Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in
Spain," tells us, his fate, owing to his want of
ceremony, hung on a hair. " This great artist

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Royal Patrons.

wanted discretion, and he met the king's ad-
vances with the same ease that they were
made ; so that one day, whilst he was at his
work, and Philip looking on, More dipped his
pencil in carmine, and with it smeared the hand
of the king, who was resting his arm on his
shoulder. . . . The king surveyed it seriously
awhile ; the courtiers, who were in awful at-
tendance, revolted from the sight with horror
and amazement. Caprice, or perhaps pity,
turned the scale, and Philip passed the silly
action off with a smile of complacency. The
painter, dropping on his knee, eagerly seized
those of the king, and kissed his feet in humble
atonement for the offence, and all was well, or at
least seemed to be so ; but the person of the
king was too sacred in the consideration of
those times, and the act too daring to escape the
notice of the awful office of the Inquisition; and
they learnedly concluded that Antonio More,
being a foreigner and a traveller, had either
learned the art of magic, or more probably ob-
tained in England some spell or charm where-
with he had bewitched the king/'

We do not find that Rubens or Velasquez
ever lapsed into such indiscretions as this.

But we must return to English history.
Elizabeth had no great taste for anything but
portraits of herself. In 1563 she issued a pro-
clamation by which none but "a special cun-
ninge paynter," perhaps Hillyard, is allowed to
draw her portrait. All others were to be burned.
Yet, in spite of this, says Walpole in a curious

Royal Patrons.

phrase, " these painters seem to have flattered
her the least of all her dependents." The most
suggestive record of her interest in art is given
by Sir James Melville in his memoirs. While
on his visit to Elizabeth from Mary Queen of
Scots, he saw much of the Queen of England.
" She took me to her bedchamber and opened
a cabinet wherein were divers little pictures
wrapped within paper, and their names written
with her own hand upon the papers. Upon the
first that she took up was written, ' My Lord's
picture.' I held the candle, and pressed to see
the picture so named : she seemed loath to let
me see it ; yet my importunity prevailed for a
sight thereof, and I found it to be my Lord of
Leycester's."

It was well for the arts, says Walpole, that
King James I. had no disposition to them ; he
let them take their own course. Mytens was
his painter. He was one of those who portrayed
Jeffery Hudson, the smallest man in England,
appropriately born at Oakham, the chief town
of the smallest county. This little creature, who
never grew to more than eighteen inches high
till he was thirty, and then shot up to three
feet nine, was the butt of the whole court. One
day he was provoked beyond measure by a Mr.
Crofts, whom he challenged to fight a duel.
Crofts came to the rendezvous with a squirt.
The dwarf was so enraged that a real duel took
place, and Hudson killed his opponent at the
first shot. Vandyke has also placed the little
fire-eater's features upon record. The story

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Royal Patrons.

of his life is romantic, and may be found in
Walpole's " Anecdotes." We have referred to it
because of the fashion that seemed to prevail for
having the portraits of dwarf favourites painted,
both in the courts of England and of Spain.
Velasquez has left a whole series. It is difficult
to account for the subject on the score of in-
herent attractiveness. When Vandyke intro-
duces Hudson into a portrait of Henrietta Maria
it is perhaps as a foil to the loveliness of the
queen. Perhaps, however, a dwarf was regarded
as at least as worthy of commemoration as the big
dog that appears in the portrait of the children
of Charles I.

With Charles I. came our only royal con-
noisseur. " If Charles," says Gilpin in his " West-
ern Tour," " had a6led with as much judgment as
he read, and had shown as much discernment
in life as he had taste in the arts, he might have
figured amongst the greatest princes. Every
lover of pi6turesque beauty, however, must re-
specT: this amiable prince, notwithstanding his
political weaknesses. We never had a prince
in England whose genius and taste were more
elevated and exaft. The amusements of his
court were a model of elegance to all Europe ;
and his cabinets were the receptacles only of
what was exquisite in sculpture and painting.
None but men of the first merit in their pro-
fession found encouragement from him, and those
abundantly. Inigo Jones was his architect, and
Vandyke his painter. Charles was a scholar, a
man of taste, a gentleman, and a Christian. He

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Royal Patrons.

was everything but a king. The art of reigning
was the only art of which he was ignorant."
We need not stop to consider the political part
of this judgment. Certain it is that Charles was
a connoisseur born. As soon as he came to the
throne he collected together the crown pictures
and commenced to add to them. He sent com-
missioners to France and Italy to purchase pic-
tures, and received many as presents from his
courtiers. When his queen's second daughter
was born, one, Whitlocke, says the Dutch sent
as presents "a large piece of ambergrease, two
fair china basons almost transparent, a curious
clock, and four rare pieces of Tintoret's and
Titian's painting. Some supposed that they did
it to ingratiate the more with our king, in regard
his fleet was so powerfull at sea." Whatever
the reason, they knew what Charles had most at
heart. So fond was he of his pictures, so anxious
for their protection, that when two " Masks "
were represented at Whitehall in 1637, he had
a special temporary guardroom built to obviate
the risk of fire.

His keeper of the cabinet was Abraham
Vanderdort, who compiled the catalogue of the
pictures. This poor man had a tragic end. The
king had told him to take particular care of a
certain miniature which he had newly purchased.
Vanderdort put it away so carefully that when
the king asked to see it he was unable to recol-
lect its place of safe keeping, and actually hanged
himself in despair. After his death the miniature
was discovered safely laid aside.

118

Royal Patrons.

The celebrated cartoons of Raphael were pur-
chased by Charles from Flanders for the manu-
factory of tapestry established at Mortlake ; but
his chief glory is that he was the patron of
Rubens and Vandyke.

Rubens it was who told the king where the
cartoons of Raphael were to be found. That
great painter decorated for Charles the ceiling
of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and was
knighted by him there in 1630. Rubens's great
pupil, Vandyke, on his first visit to England
was disappointed in his hope of an introduction
to the king. But as soon as Charles learnt
" what a treasure had been within his reach," he
bade Sir Kenelm Digby, who had sat to Van-
dyke, invite the painter over to England again.
Vandyke was lodged at Blackfriars, whither the
king and his court would go by barge upon the
river to sit to him, or watch the progress of his
paintings.

Looking at his three portrait heads of Charles
on one canvas, Bernini, who modelled from
them a bust of the king, said that there was
*' something unfortunate in Charles's face." This
prophetic utterance was too soon proved true.
It is a melancholy story to trace the dispersal of
Charles's noble collection after his unhappy end.
Many pictures and much jewellery fell into low
hands, but as soon as Cromwell obtained sole
power he stopped their further sale. Some of
the best had been bought by the King of
Spain. These arrived while the ambassadors
of Charles II. were at that court. For fear

119

Royal Patrons.

their feelings should be hurt at the sight of the
pictures, the King of Spain gave orders that
they should retire for a time. They did so,
under the false impression that their dismissal
was due to news of another viftory of Cromwell
having lately arrived.

When the king came by his own again, so
many of the crown pictures were collected to-
gether, that when good Samuel Pepys, a true
lover of art, saw Charles II.'s collection, he
admits himself " properly confounded."

The son was but an unworthy successor to
the father. He had no inborn love of art. He
imitated Louis XIV. without having his ex-
ample's taste. The amount of his sympathy
and tact in the treatment of painters may be
gauged by the fa6l that to save sittings he
compelled Lely and Kneller to paint him at
one and the same time. This was the com-
mencement of Kneller's fortune. Though Lely,
as the painter of repute, chose the best light
and pose, Kneller had completed his portrait
when Lely seemed to have only begun. Charles
had a certain frankness which must have been
intimidating to a shy painter. Sitting to Riley,
a painter of merit obscured by the greater
publicity of Kneller, the painter in his time of
no less than ten kings, Charles asked the bashful
artist, " Is this like me ? Then, od's fish, I am
an ugly fellow ! " To Charles's credit we must
put it down that he encouraged Vandevelde. It
was, however, his love for sailing more than his
love for art which accounted for this. Pepys

120

Royal Patrons.

makes mention of his nautical proclivities. The
writer is acquainted with a small piclure of
Vandevelde, which represents two yachts pre-
paring for a sailing match. On one of them is
a figure which is probably the king, to judge
from the respeclful attitudes of the surrounding
figures. The picture might well represent that
occasion upon which a certain " little Dutch
bezan " sailed clean away from the English
crack, as Pepys relates.

Our succeeding kings may be passed over
without much delay. James II. reigned but
four years. Of William III., Walpole says this
prince, like most of those in our annals, con-
tributed nothing to the advancement of arts. . . .
He courted Fame, but none of her ministers."
Kneller's career lasted through William's and
Anne's reigns. He lived to draw the portrait of
George I. A mercantile painter was he, and
chose the branch of art that paid. " Painters
of history make the dead live," he said, " and do
not begin to live till they themselves are dead.
I paint the living, and they make me live ! "
When one day a friend remonstrated with him
for letting a badly-painted picture leave his
easel, his easy answer was, " Pho ! they will
never think it was mine ! "

There was no connoisseur amongst the first
three Georges. On the reign of the first, Wal-
pole says he shall be as brief as possible in his
account of " so ungrateful a period." No great
name emerges. With George II. our historian
becomes more cheerful, but with no great reason.

121

Royal Patrons.

Architecture he says in that reign " revived in
antique purity ! " Perhaps so, but it was to the
destruction of many a fine old mansion. His
other cause for congratulation was the rise of
the hitherto unknown art of landscape garden-
ing. This new art soon reached the limits of
the absurd, when Kent planted dead trees in
Kensington Gardens to imitate the ways of
nature.

The field was indeed lying fallow for a time,
to blossom soon with the glories of Reynolds
and Gainsborough, but these bright native stars
drew their clients from all classes of society. By
their time the painter has long ceased to be a
retainer of the king's household. The intimate
relationship between kings and artists of former
days exists no more.

George IV. laid the foundations of the large
collection of bric-a-brac which belongs to the
crown. He collected Sevres china, Louis XV.
and XVI. furniture, ormolu, bronzes, mounted
oriental porcelain, and snuff-boxes from France.
Of English works of art his fancy was for old
plate, miniatures, and Chelsea china. His agent
was a French cook, who established relations
with the emigres in England and their friends
abroad. This man often went to France, and
shipped his acquisitions, by way of St. Malo, on
board of a British frigate conveniently stationed
at Guernsey.

122

CHAPTER IX.

A CONNOISSEUR OF LATER DAYS.

MOST people care to know little more about
Beckford than the two facts that he built Font-
hill and was the author of " The History of the
Caliph Vathek." Few remember that he made
that great collection which in our time is asso-
ciated with the name of the Duke of Hamilton
who married Beckford's daughter. Those who
have only become acquainted with him through
the pages of " Vathek," would have done better
to have read his letters from Spain and Portugal
and Italy.

Beckford was, indeed, a typical connoisseur
of the days when to be a collector meant usually
that a man was instructed and refined. Born
in 1759, he lived under the full sway of the
classical idea, which permeates his thoughts and
their expression. Of the thousands who have
made the grand tour of the Continent, he was
amongst the few who have been able, in spite
of a propensity to talk about " impending" rocks
and trees, to make their reminiscences interest-
ing. We shall acquire a very fair idea of the
eighteenth century connoisseur's ways of thought
if we follow him for a short time on his con-
tinental tours.

123

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

Italy, of course, is the goal of Beckford's
every thought. He has no patience with Hol-
land, and very little with Germany. He has
got all the way to Mannheim before he strikes
an enthusiastic note. There everything pleases
as far as " inanimate objects " are concerned.
So early as this he evinces that love for large
architectural proportions, which his enormous
wealth enabled him to gratify, and which culmi-
nated in Fonthill. The galleries of the Electoral
Palace, he notices, are nine in number, and " about
three hundred and seventy-two feet in length."
His enthusiasm for everything he sees, the
gardens and fountains where " the dubious poetic
light . . . detained me for some time in an alcove
reading Spenser," finds a further outlet in music
played on " an excellent harpsichord." We find
that his love of music wherever he is — he seems
to have carried a piano about with him — is not
more inveterate than his tendency to have always
the appropriate book ready to hand for every
emergency. In front of S. Giorgio Maggiore
at Venice we discover him conveniently supplied
with a suitable Italian poet. " Whilst I remained
thus calm and tranquil, I heard the distant buzz
and rumour of the town. Fortunately a length
of waves rolled between me and its tumults, so
that I ate my grapes and read Metastasio un-
disturbed by officiousness and curiosity. When
the sun became too powerful, I entered the nave
and approved the genius of Palladio." At
Padua he was " too near the last and one of the
most celebrated abodes of Petrarch to make the

124

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

omission of a visit excusable. ... I put the
poems of Petrarch into my pocket."

In Virgil's country he appropriately quotes at
the sight of a large crop of apples those very
informing lines :

" Strata jacent passim sua quaeque sub arbore poma."

It is unkind of fate, therefore, to ordain that
at Mantua, the very birthplace of the poet,
" the beating of drums and sight of German
whiskers " shall " scare every classic idea."

Though troubled with a good many of these,
Beckford was in truth no dry classical scholar
or antiquary. An overnight flirtation with " the

fascinating G a" "on the banks of the Brenta"

was quite sufficient to destroy all his interest in
the antique baths, at the foot of the Euganean
hills, to which his friends escorted him. It is
interesting, by the way, to notice that Shelley is not
the only Englishman who has found inspiration
in these same hills. " After dinner," says Beck-
ford, " when the shadow of domes and palaces
began lengthening across the waves, I rowed
out ... to contemplate the distant Euganean
hills." If we are to believe the writer, this
habit of contemplation was sufficient to tear him
away even from trout and cherries. At Mit-
tenwald there is a fine effecT: of sunlight, "which
filled me with such delight and with such a train
of romantic associations that I left the table and
ran to an open field ... to gaze in solitude
and catch the vision before it dissolved away/'
Beckford has an ineradicable tendency to give us

125

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

all his thoughts and heartbeats in front of a fine
view, but this was to be expefted of the man
whom the elder Pitt pronounced " all air and
fire," and warned against the habit of reading
the "Arabian Nights."

It is possible, we admit, to weary of his " in-
terior gloom" and of his "transportations in
thought." Has he not, however, prepared us
for this by the title of his epistles, which is
" Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents" ?
If the former two are apt to pall, the latter item
fully compensates us. We very soon find that
he can describe most incisively even that which
he affecls at times to scorn.

We must remember that Beckford lived before
the days of the Gothic revival. Not seldom,
however, he is betrayed into an expression of
admiration for a triumph of Gothic art. Of the
shrine of the Three Kings of Cologne, he says,
" Nothing to be sure can be richer than the
shrine which contains these precious relics."
Then follows an expression of the scepticism
characteristic of the eve of the Revolution — a
scepticism which contrasts oddly with the en-
thusiastic and dreamy side of Beckford's nature.
" It seems the holy Empress Helena . . . first
routed them out ; then they were packed off to
Rome. King Alaric, having no grace, bundled
them down to Milan, where they remained till
it pleased God to inspire an ancient archbishop
with the fervent wish of depositing them at
Cologne. There these skeletons were taken into
the most especial consideration, crowned with

126

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

jewels and filigreed with gold." He notices
what we have observed elsewhere with regard
to this shrine, the extraordinary agglomeration
of profane gems upon its surface. " I was rather
surprised to find it not only enriched with
barbaric gold and pearl, but covered with cameos
and intaglios of the best antique sculpture.
Many an impious emperor and gross Silenus,
many a wanton nymph and frantic bacchanal,
figure in the same range with the statues of
saints and evangelists. How St. Helena could
tolerate such a mixed assembly passes my com-
prehension." The reason, as we show else-
where, is that these gems were not recognized as
pagan at all, but rather as the work of the
Israelites in the wilderness ; or if they were
known to the Empress Helena to be heathen,
their attributes were changed by consecration to
Christian uses. Later on, at Munich, he notices
" St. Peter's thumb enshrined with a degree of
elegance, and adorned by some malapert enthu-
siast with several of the most delicate antique
cameos I ever beheld; the subjects, Ledas
and sleeping Venuses, are a little too pagan,
one should think, for an apostle's finger."
At the Grande Chartreuse the fathers as usual
came into dessert, "and served up an admirable
dish of miracles well seasoned with the devil
and prettily garnished with angels and moon-
beams." Beckford is never tired of making sport
of the " holy crows" of the cathedral of Lisbon,
or the Angel Gabriel's wing feather at the
Escurial. At the latter place his attitude seems

127

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

to have inspired his cicerone, a stern and
suspicious Catholic father, with doubts as to
whether Beckford was a fit person to view such
a precious relic. He seems occasionally to have
forgotten that though he despised relics, their
guardians frequently regarded them with the
deepest veneration. A more recent traveller in
Spain was, he told the writer, much amused by
the relative degrees of authenticity ascribed to
various relics. In a cathedral sacristy a long
procession of bones of saints and martyrs was
displayed for his edification. At last the good
fathers produced their greatest treasure, a piece
of the Cross, with these enthusiastic but equi-
vocal words, " And now we are going to show
you a relic which is really true ! "

The same doubting frame of mind — in spite
of Metastasio — is observable in Beckford on the
occasion of that visit to S. Giorgio Maggiore
which we have before mentioned. There is a
sly remark at the end of his description of Paul
Veronese's masterpiece, " The Marriage of Cana
in Galilee." " I never beheld so gorgeous a
group of wedding garments before ; there is
every variety of fold and plait that can possibly
be imagined. The attitudes and countenances
are most uniform, and the guests appear a
very genteel decent sort of people, well used
to the mode of their times and accustomed to
miracles."

Beckford's admirations in the sphere of paint-
ing are interesting. They serve to mark the
evanescence of the reputations of some artists

128

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

who were heroes in their day, and the durability
of the fame of the giants of art. Amongst dead
artists, Poelemburg, whom Bryan's dictionary
sums up as a " painter for the boudoir," is one
of his minor demigods, and of contemporary
painters Zuccarelli is mentioned with enthu-
siasm. Beckford has another fling at Flemish
art in the following apt description: " When-
ever a pompous Flemish painter attempts a
representation of Troy, and displays in his
background those streets of palaces described in
the Iliad, Augsburg, or some such city, can easily
be traced. Sometimes a corner of Antwerp
discovers itself; and generally above a Corinthian
portico, rises a Gothic spire." He has little or
nothing to say of Rembrandt — whose star,
perhaps, had not risen high as yet above the
eighteenth-century connoisseur's horizon, al-
though Sir Joshua Reynolds had several ex-
amples in his collection when he died in 1792.
Raphael, of course, no gentleman of that day
had commenced to despise. We are surprised
to find so little mention of Velasquez when he
visits Madrid, considering the rather misdirected
extravagance of his one allusion to him. " My
attention was next attracted by that most pro-
foundly pathetic of pictures, Jacob weeping
over the bloody garment of his son ; the loftiest
proof in existence of the extraordinary powers of
Velasquez in the noblest work of art." Modern
admirers of the great realist would perhaps
demur to the nature of this appreciation. Beck-
ford tells us an amusing incident that happened

129 K

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

at a villa which Rubens was said to have in-
habited. " True enough, we found a conceited
young French artist in the arabesque and Cupid
line busily employed in pouncing out the last
memorials in this spot of that great painter ;
reminiscences of favourite pictures he had
thrown off in fresco upon what appeared a rich
crimson damask ground. Yes, I witnessed this
vandalish operation, and saw large flakes of
stucco imprinted with the touches of Rubens
fall upon the floor, and heard the wretch who
was perpetrating the irreparable ac~l sing 'Veil-
Ions, mes sceurs, veillons encore/ with a strong
Parisian accent all the while he was slashing
away." At Aranjuez he notices " a set of twelve
small cabinet pictures touched with admirable
spirit by Teniers, the subjects taken from the
1 Gierusalemme Liberata/ treated as familiarly
as if the boozy painter had been still copying
his pot-companions. Armida's palace is a little
round summer-house ; she herself, habited like
a burgher's frouw in her holiday garments,
holds a Nuremberg-shaped looking-glass up to
the broad face of a boorish Rinaldo. The fair
Naiads, comfortably fat, and most invitingly
smirkish, are naked, to be sure, but a pile of
furbelowed garments and farthingales is osten-
tatiously displayed on the bank of the water ;
close by a small table covered with a neat white
table-cloth, and garnished with silver tankards,
cold pie, and salvers of custards and jellies.
All these vulgar accessories are finished with
scrupulous delicacy." A better summary of the

130

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

qualities and defects of Teniers could scarcely
have been penned.

Connoisseurs of Beckford's day were stricl;
partisans of a refined style — grand it might be,
but refined it must. This worship of style, the
natural result of being educated in the Classical,
which is the style par excellence, peeps out even
when the writer describes his own idle dreams
or attempts in music or art. Mounted on his
high horse, " the chimaeras which trotted in my
brain ... I shot swiftly from rock to rock, and
built castles in the style of Piranesi upon most
of their pinnacles." Nowadays we should follow
our own fancies (which might turn out Gothic
or Classical in the end), irrespective of the style
of any favourite artist. On the Bridge of Sighs,
the complaint seizes him very badly. " I could
not dine in peace, so strongly was my imagina-
tion affe6led ; but, snatching my pencil, I drew
chasms and subterranean hollows, the domain
of fear and torture, with chains, racks, wheels, and
dreadful engines ... in the style of Piranesi."
It is the same with music. A bell begins to toll.
" Its sullen sound filled me with sadness. I
closed the casements, called for lights, ran to a
harpsichord prepared for me, and played some-
what in the style of Jomelli's Miserere." We
are impatient with this attitude of conscious
imitation. At the present day style is negle6led
too much, and we lay ourselves open to the
chance of a perpetration of horrors with no style
at all. There is this to be said, that by giving
untrammelled play to his fancy a man of talent

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

may hit upon something good and original.
The slavish imitation of a Beckford can never
lead to anything but prettiness of the corre6test
attitude.

Of sculpture Beckford has many excellent
things to say. He rhapsodizes over the " Venus
de Medici." The " Milo" was not as yet the glory
of the Louvre. A " Morpheus " in white marble
gives occasion for an excellent exposition of one
of the true principles of sculpture. " When I
see an archer in the very aft of discharging his
bow, a dancer with one foot in the air, or a
gladiator extending his fist to all eternity, I grow
tired, and ask, 'When will they perform what
they are about ? When will the bow twang ?
the foot come to the ground ? or the fist meet
its adversary ? ' Such wearisome attitudes I can
view with admiration, but never with pleasure.
The 'Wrestlers/ for example, in the same
apartment, filled me with disgust. I cried out,
' For Heaven's sake, give the throw and have
done!'

As to the " Perseus" of Cellini, he confines his
admiration chiefly to the pedestal, " incomparably
designed and executed." His masterpiece he
finds at the Escurial, in " that revered image of
the crucified Saviour formed of the purest ivory,
which Cellini seems to have sculptured in
moments of devout rapture and inspiration. It
is by far his finest work. His ' Perseus ' is tame
and laboured in comparison."

A special interest attaches to the later letters
of Beckford, from the fact that he was one of

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

the last travellers who have written upon works
of art seen during travels made before the out-
break of the French Wars. He had the ad-
vantage of viewing the rich treasures of Spain
and Portugal in situ. The cathedrals and con-
vents still possessed those magnificent pictures,
reliquaries, monstrances, and other works of art,
which their guardians little guessed were to be
carried off before long or melted down by the
invader. Beckford's great wealth and influential
friends obtained for him the entrde to every
secluded monastery he had a desire to see.
Perhaps the most interesting of all his letters
are those which describe the life in the great
Portuguese foundations of Alcobaga and Batalha.
This journey was made in 1794, in company
with the Grand Prior of Aviz and the Prior of
St. Vincent's, who were making a semi-official
visitation to the monastery of Alcoba^a.
Beckford's experience was perhaps unique.
The revenues of Alcobaga then exceeded
,£24,000 a year, and the treatment the visitors
received was royal. A play written by one of
the monks, " The excruciating Tragedy of Donna
Inez de Castro," was performed for their sole
edification. Beckford was among the last
foreigners who saw these magnificent founda-
tions in their glory. Miss Pardoe described
Alcobaga after its plundering by the French.
The wanton mischief they did may be estimated
from this one fa6l, which we have learnt from
an informant before quoted. He visited Alco-
baga some forty years ago, when the place was

133

A Connoisseur of Later Days.

deserted, and the galleries where Beckford and
his jolly companions feasted were untenanted.
In the place of worship were many side-chapels,
each with large wooden altars and super-altars
highly decorated. The French had set fire to
every one of these, and the stonework blackened
high up showed where the devouring flames had
leaped. Our informant was also told by a
friend, who was British vice-consul at Lisbon,
that he was present when the last monks were
expelled from Alcobaga. This gentleman with
his duties as vice-consul combined the trade of
purveying " bacalao," or salt fish, for the monas-
teries. He was astonished one day, just before
the final suppression, to receive an unprece-
dented order for fourteen cartloads of his com-
modity. He asked no questions, but executed
the order, learning afterwards that the carts of
fish had been used by the prior for the purpose
of carrying to Lisbon without raising suspicion
— which the use of the monastery's carts would
have entailed — the remaining silver plate belong-
ing to the foundation. All this treasure was
thus finally dispersed, and much of it was sold
in England.

134

CHAPTER X.

AN INTRIGUING SCULPTOR.

OF the greatest sculptors the stories are well
known. Their rivals, men who during their lives
not unjustly disputed the palm with these great
masters, have fallen on evil days. But their
life-histories are perhaps as interesting as those
of their more successful companions. We may
learn what makes an artist great by studying
the defects of lesser lights. Art is a matter of
feeling and love, not of mere assiduity and
desire for worldly success. If hard work could
make a master, then ought Baccio Bandinelli to
rank higher in the roll of sculptors. But hard
work, even combined with backbiting and in-
trigue, will not serve to win undying fame.
By as much as a man is unfaithful, consciously
or the reverse, to the pure love of art, in so
much will he be ultimately rewarded. Thus
Baccio Bandinelli, whose " Hercules and Cacus "
was placed as a rival alongside of Michel
Angelo's " David," is now almost less than a
name to most of us.

This chapter points a moral upon which
Vasari, who knew the sculptor, contrary to his
usual practice at the commencement of each of

135

An Intriguing Sculptor.

his biographies, does not dwell. For our own
purposes we have supplied the omission. We
now proceed to tell how Baccio Bandinelli was
the son of a clever goldsmith devoted to the
interests of the Medici. As a little boy Baccio
showed great energy and talent, if not genius.
One winter's day he took into his head to make
a recumbent snow giant, a " Marforio," of colos-
sal size. This work, says Vasari, caused great
astonishment to the painter who was teaching
him, " not so much for the aftual merits of the
figure, as for the spirit with which the little
creature, quite a child, had undertaken the
work." Sculpture was evidently more to his
taste than painting. He would model the half-
clothed figures of the labourers working in the
hot summer weather at his father's villa of
Pinzirimonte, and the panting cattle on his
farm. Leonardo da Vinci encouraged him, and
his father built a studio expressly for him,
which he stocked with marble from Carrara.
Baccio was a hard worker, and if his chara6ler
had been in harmony with his chosen profes-
sion he might have made a more honoured
name. He distanced his fellow-students in his
copy of the celebrated cartoon of the soldiers
surprised while bathing, called " The Battle of
Pisa,'' which Michel Angelo made for Piero
Soderini, and showed a greater knowledge of
anatomy than the rest. It would seem that in
hard work, and a certain talent which did not
amount to genius, lay the secret of this first
success. Vasari accuses Baccio of having no

136

An Intriguing Sculptor.

scruples in taking unfair advantage of his com-
panions. He is said to have counterfeited the
key of the Hall of the Grand Council, where
the cartoon was displayed, so as to be able to
enter in and go out at all times unhindered.
In 1512 Soderini was deposed on the restora-
tion of the Medici. During the disorders the
cartoon was torn to pieces. Vasari, in his
second edition, 1568, accuses Baccio, who was
then twenty-five years old, of having done this,
though in the first, published 1550, he had said
that it was the result of the carelessness of the
artists who copied it. Symonds attributes this
second version to the spite Vasari had against
Bandinelli, and which he did not scruple to
show after Bandinelli died in 1559. In support
of this view he points out that Cellini, who
hated Bandinelli with a more bitter hatred than
that of Vasari, does not attribute the destruction
of the cartoon to Bandinelli. This he certainly
would have done if he had felt there was the
least possible justification. However this may
be, some humorist said that Bandinelli tore
up the cartoon for the sake of studying it in
detail. Other detractors accused him of a
wish to deprive the other students of their
beloved model. Vasari copiously gives two
more reasons : one, his affection for the reputa-
tion of Leonardo da Vinci, which had been
sensibly diminished by Michel Angelo's triumph ;
the other, Bandinellfs private hatred of Michel
Angelo. One thing is certain, that of all the
artists in Florence, Bandinelli was the best

137

An Intriguing Sculptor.

hated, and likely to be the scapegoat of all
iniquities.

He had a fixed idea that artistic success
might be won by labour, that a man can do
whatever he wishes strongly enough to accom-
plish. To gain his ends he did not suffer
scruples of conscience to interfere. His crooked
nature seems to have prompted him to deal in-
sincerely by his best friends. Believing that
he might learn to paint as well as he could
draw, and wishing to gain an insight into the
process, he begged Andrea del Sarto to paint
his portrait. He purposed to watch the painter's
method during the sittings, and to keep the
portrait as a guide for himself. After a little
practice he intended to blossom out as a self-
taught painter. Poor Andrea, who was the
dupe of a beautiful but heartless wife, was alert
enough in matters of painting. He resented
Baccio's underhand methods, and, though he
did not refuse, he defeated his object. Andrea
painted the portrait, but so swiftly and with so
many colours that Baccio learnt nothing, except
to admire the dexterity of the master. His
next attempt was more open. He applied
directly to II Rosso, who gave him, with that
freemasonry which characterizes most artists
when properly approached, all the information
he required. But nothing could make Baccio a
painter of merit. He had neither an eye for colour
nor a sympathetic hand. He drew with more
correctness than feeling, and his style was con-
sequently always hard and uninteresting. Those

138

An Intriguing Sculptor.

who are familiar with the plates that were en-
graved from his cartoons of the "Slaughter of the
Innocents " and his " Martyrdom of St. Law-
rence," cannot but feel that Michel Angelo was
right when he said that painting was no trade
for Baccio BandinelH. They are most stagey
and jejune performances, conspicuous more for
the exaggeration of all the muscles than for any
artistic charm. They do not augur well for his
success in coping with the additional difficulties
of brushwork and colour. He attempted fresco
also with poor success. The plaster, he found,
dried too quickly for his execution to keep pace
with the exigencies of the material. When the
truth dawned upon him he remedied the situa-
tion characteristically, by hiring a young man
named Agnolo, brother of Francia Bigio, " who
handled the colours very creditably/' to do all
his painting for him. Henceforth he confined
himself to sculpture and to designing cartoons
for others to paint. Returning to his anatomical
studies, he spent years on their dry details.
He made the mistake, in fa 61, of thinking that
artistic success was to be won through the
minuteness of his study of the bones and
muscles. " Impelled," says Vasari, "by a firm
will, with which it was manifest that he had
been endowed by nature from his earliest youth
even more largely than with aptitude or readi-
ness for art, he spared no labour . . . hoping
by incessant practice to surpass all who had
previously pursued his vocation, as he firmly
believed he should do."

139

An Intriguing Sculptor.

The Medici, partly for his father's sake, were
his good patrons. In 1515 Leo X. allowed him
to commence a colossal " Hercules," which
Baccio confidently promised should eclipse
Michel Angelo's "David," close to which it
was to be creeled. Now Michel Angelo had
himself proposed, while Leo X. was alive, to
employ a certain block of marble at Carrara for
a statue of " Hercules and Cacus," to be placed
near to his " David." When Clement VII.
became pope, Domenico Boninsegni, superin-
tendent of the quarries, had the effrontery to
propose to Michel Angelo that they should
unite to make a secret profit out of the marbles.
This Michel Angelo excused himself from
doing, not wishing to degrade himself and his
art by defrauding his patron. As a natural
consequence the superintendent became his
bitter enemy, and persuaded the pope to hand
over the great block of marble to Bandinelli,
who thus stole from the master both his subject
and his material. In vain were the remon-
strances of Michel Angelo. The pope was
pleased with the model of Baccio's " Hercules/'
" and thus," says Vasari, "the city was de-
prived of a fine ornament which that marble
treated by the hand of Michel Angelo would
indubitably have become." Symonds describes
Baccio's statue as " the misbegotten group
which still deforms the Florentine Piazza."

But trouble was in store for the usurper.
During its transport from Carrara, when about
eight miles from Florence, the block was acci-

140

An Intriguing Sculptor.

dentally let drop into the mud of the Arno, and
was only recovered with difficulty. Many were
the jokes, both in Italian and Latin verse, upon
the subject at Bandinelli's expense. So un-
popular was he from his boasting, evil-speaking,
and hatred of Michel Angelo, that one writer
declared that the stone, finding it was destined to
be blundered over and botched by Bandinelli, had
plunged into the river in despair ! Not till 1534
did Baccio complete the " Hercules." Though
he sharpened up the contours of all the muscles
on finding that the modelling lacked force in the
open air, the statue was received with a chorus
of satire. So ingeniously acute were many of
these that Duke Alessandro at last became dis-
pleased at the indignities thus offered to a public
work, and finally put some of the scoffers in
prison. The close neighbourhood of Michel
Angelo's " David" destroyed the effect of Baccio's
" Hercules," but Vasari, who disliked the sculptor
as a man, ungrudgingly gives him all the praise
his work deserves, pointing out, as he does,
that though it might compare ill with Michel
Angelo's, it was better than similar colossal
works of other sculptors. The moderate success
of the " Hercules " is typified by that juvenile
production of the snow giant. It was a produc-
tion huge in size, but cold and uninspired by
the spark of genius, and it resulted in a " frost."
His comparative failure embittered the hatred
with which Baccio pursued Michel Angelo.
Some time afterwards he had the effrontery to
persuade Cosimo de' Medici to allow him to take

141

An Intriguing Sculptor.

from Michel Angelo certain marbles which the
latter had received from the duke. On many
of these the great master had commenced work.
One, indeed, was a statue in a forward state.
But the ruthless Baccio had no pity. He did
not refrain from inflicting upon Michel Angelo
the most grievous wrong which one artist can
do to another, the wanton destruction of his
handiwork. We can have but small sympathy
for Bandinelli, even if he was hurt by Michel
Angelo's perfectly just condemnation of his
painting, while he praised his draughtsmanship.
To say the truth, Baccio was more than half a
tradesman. Instead of confining himself to
sculpture, in which he had facility, if not grace,
he was ready to do anything which would bring
in money. It was a constant habit with him to
draw large sums for work which he neglefted
and perhaps never intended to finish. At the
same time, he was never behindhand in pushing
his interests. The methods he employed to
ingratiate himself with Cosimo de' Medici were
as effective as their results were baneful to
others. A present of a " Deposition from the
Cross" to Charles V. secured him the honour of
knighthood and a commandery of St. James, in
which he took no small pride.

Do what he would, however, Baccio was con-
tinually in trouble. The contempt with which
his " Hercules" was received, and the difficulties
thrown in his way, were largely owing to the
fact that he could not restrain himself from
mischief-making. While completing his great

142

An Intriguing Sculptor.

statue he had apartments in the Medici Palace.
To create the impression of an extraordinary
fondness on his part for his patron the pope, he
wrote him every week a letter in which he acted
as a spy upon the administration of the govern-
ment of Florence, to the detriment of the
citizens. Later on he nearly fell a victim to
the suspicions which his conduct aroused. He
was continually dancing attendance upon Car-
dinal Salviati, in the hope of obtaining the com-
mission for the tombs of Leo X. and Clement
VII. The cardinal was at that time intriguing
against Duke Alessandro. Baccio's constant
dogging of Cardinal Salviati inspired a belief
that he was acting as a spy upon his movements,
and had not the business of the monuments
been, fortunately for him, soon concluded, the
younger amongst the cardinal's supporters had
determined to put him out of the way by
assassination.

These tombs were the cause of a great morti-
fication to Bandinelli. One evening Cardinal
Salviati and others were dining together for the
purpose of deciding upon the design of the
monuments. Presently there entered Solosmeo,
a sculptor and friend of Cellini, who was quite
as free-spoken as Bandinelli, for whom he had
an antipathy. Cardinal Ridolfi said to the
latter, <( We should like to hear what Solosmeo
will say about the contract, so, Baccio, hide you
behind the curtain." Asked his opinion, Solos-
meo, who was somewhat inebriated, immediately
began to abuse the cardinals for their bad

143

An Intriguing Sculptor.

choice and revile Bandinelli. The latter rushed
forth in a rage ; when Solosmeo, turning to the
cardinals, said, " What kind of tricks are these,
my lords ? I will have nothing more to do with
priests," adding to Baccio as he went off amidst
the shouts of laughter of the cardinals, " You
know now what other men think of your art.
You have only to prove them in the wrong by
your next work."

Events justified the opinion of Solosmeo.
Bandinelli was more anxious to receive the
money than to produce a masterpiece. Though
he extorted the whole sum he neglefted the
principal figures, which were eventually com-
pleted by others. Compelled to refund, he did
not scruple to sculpture the portrait of Baldas-
sare da Pescia, who was the cause of this, upon
a bas-relief with a live pig upon his shoulders.

Yet Baccio seems to have been smooth-
tongued enough when he had a purpose to serve.
We have seen that he persuaded Cosimo de'
Medici to allow him to rob Michel Angelo of
his marbles and sketches. He now proceeded
to perpetrate, in partnership with Giuliano di
Baccio d'Agnolo, his greatest and most scan-
dalous imposition. The two persuaded the
infatuated duke to give them the enormous
commission to decorate the Palazzo Vecchio
with the most elaborated architectural additions
and reliefs. The conspirators were aware that
if they disclosed the whole of their designs
at once the duke would be staggered by the
expense. They spoke first therefore only of

144

An Intriguing Sculptor.

the decorations of the Audience Chamber and
the exterior facade with its various statues.
The duke agreed, and paid Baccio a weekly
stipend on his own terms. But neither of the
two intriguers were architects. Baccio openly
affected to despise architecture. The result was
that, although they were working on the Hall,
which was out of square for several years, the
niches of the exterior fa$ade betrayed the
irregularity, and the work was only half com-
pleted. The entire scheme was rearranged and
ultimately finished by Vasari. Moreover, of the
few statues which Bandinelli did complete, that
on which he spent most labour, the portrait of
Cosimo, the duke and his whole court denied to
be in the least like his excellency.

Finding that everyone blamed his statue,
Baccio angrily knocked off the head, intending
to make another and join it to the torso ; but
this, too, he never accomplished.

The practice of joining marbles was a favourite
one with Bandinelli, but was universally con-
demned by sculptors.

Knowing that he should never complete the
commission, and having offended all his assis-
tants by his overbearing ways, Baccio began to
make new projects and to persuade the duke
to allow him to complete the o6lagonal choir of
Santa Maria del Fiore. This, too, was an ill-
advised and over-elaborate scheme.

Bandinelli spent his greatest efforts upon two
figures of Adam and Eve. His first Adam
turning out " too narrow in the flanks and some-

An Intriguing Sculptor.

what defective in other parts," he adroitly turned
him into a Bacchus. A new Adam necessitated
a new Eve, the old one being developed into a
Ceres. When the new " Adam and Eve " were
exhibited to the public, they suffered the same
fate as the " Hercules and Cacus," being cruelly
pelted with derisive sonnets. Vasari, generally
just to those who loved him not, finds neverthe-
less much to praise in them. A "gentlewoman"
asked to give her opinion, discreetly remarked
that as to the Adam she was not competent to
judge, but that the statue of Eve seemed to
have two good points, its whiteness and firm-
ness. It was fortunate for the artist that he
was fairly thick-skinned. He concerned him-
self less with the strictures of his critics than
with the pursuit of wealth, and amassed several
fine estates in the country besides his house in
Florence. He had become in fact an inveterate
money-grubber, and henceforth cared little for
work. No complaints of the unfinished state of
the Hall of Audience or other works affe6ted
him in the least, though his jealousy of the
success of others continued as strong as ever.
Meanwhile he had fallen into disfavour with
Duke Cosimo, who was tired at last of seeing so
many ambitious commencements never brought
to a conclusion. But Baccio, who, as Vasari
says, had contrived to render himself so ac-
ceptable to the duke, and frightened everyone
by his haughty demeanour, was at last to meet
his match. Nemesis came upon him in the
form of Benvenuto Cellini. Bandinelli was

146

An Intriguing Sculptor.

consumed with jealousy at the idea that Cellini
should be commissioned by the duke to make
his famous " Perseus." Henceforward there were
never-ending recriminations between the two,
which, while the contest was confined to words
in his presence, afforded the duke fresh amuse-
ment. One day Cellini the fire-eater fixed his
fierce eye upon his rival, and with a menacing
gesture said, " Prepare yourself, Baccio, for
another world, for I intend myself to be the
means of sending you out of this." Not a whit
behindhand — in words at least — " Let me
know beforehand," Baccio retorted, " that I may
confess and make my will, since I don't wish to
die like a brute-beast, as you are." The duke
interfered, and the quarrel was hushed for the
time. It burst out with greater vehemence
than ever when Cellini and Ammanato con-
tested with Bandinelli for a large block of marble.
By favour of the duchess, who was always
— thanks to one or two little presents of statues
—the friend of Baccio, and Cellini's bitter
enemy, in spite of his gifts of silver plate, the
marble was adjudged to the former. His be-
haviour was characteristic of his jealous nature.
Too lazy by this time to produce a large statue
himself, he had the marble so frittered and re-
duced at Carrara as to make it impossible for
himself or anyone else to make an important
work. This and other aggravations so vexed
the artistic soul of Cellini that, says he, " I
resolved to kill the scoundrel wherever I could
catch him, and set off for the purpose of seek-

147

An Intriguing Sculptor.

ing him/' He met Baccio coming through the
Piazza, di San Domenico, but seeing that he was
"unarmed and on a wretched mule no bigger than
a mouse, pale as death, too, and trembling from
head to foot," he spared his life, contenting
himself with saying, " You need not shake so
violently, you pitiful coward ; you are not worth
the whacks I had intended to give you." At this
Baccio looked somewhat reassured, but was un-
able to find the appropriate retort. The facl:
was that he had met more than his match in the
man, who, as Vasari says, was " of a bold, proud,
animated, prompt and forceful character ; a man
but too well disposed and able to hold his own
by word in the presence of princes." Of the
abuse Cellini served out to Bandinelli " in the
presence of princes," the following is a speci-
men of his method of conducting an argument
over certain antique statues : " Your excellency
does not need to be told that Baccio Bandinelli
is himself a compound of all evil : so that what-
ever he looks at with his vipers eyes instantly be-
comes bad." " While I spoke,"adds Cellini, " Ban-
dinelli was making the most hideous contortions,
and exhibited the most detestable visage in the
world, for he was indeed so extremely ugly that
nothing human could well look more repulsive."
We are disposed to agree with Cellini, for we
have before us as we write the profile portrait
in marble relief of himself which Bandinelli
sculptured over the door of his house in
Florence. It represents a long-headed man,
unpleasantly underhung, and with a harsh ex-

148

An Intriguing Sculptor.

pression. Such a countenance might well be-
long to one so entirely devoid of nerves or sym-
pathetic feelings as to illtreat his only son, who
was himself a most promising artist. Upon the
side of the panel is inscribed, " Bacius Bandi-
nellius, Eques Romanus," and beneath the head
is the motto, " Candor Illaesus," which he bor-
rowed from his long-suffering patron, Cosimo de'
Medici.

He thoroughly deserves the opprobrious
terms in which, while doing full justice to his
capacity, Vasari sums up a detestable character.

149

CHAPTER XI.

THE TROUBLES OF AN ARCHITECT.

A PERFECT foil to the character and life of
Bandinelli is to be found in the story of Brunel-
leschi, the famous architect. No intriguer was
he who prompted his patrons to waste their
money on huge commissions which he never
intended to complete. Filippo Brunelleschi
executed many works, but his masterpiece, to-
wards the completion of which he trained him-
self for years beforehand, was the Duomo at
Florence. When he was appointed architect,
the commission was not obtained, as often with
Bandinelli, by favour of a clique, but won as the
reward of acknowledged and conspicuous com-
petence. Brunelleschi was a man of a versatile
nature. After succeeding in many branches of
art, he subordinated all to architecture. Bandi-
nelli had been compelled to relinquish his efforts
in other lines, and to fall back upon his original
practice of sculpture. Bandinelli detracted from
the merits of all his rivals. Brunelleschi, with
his friend, the wonderful sculptor Donatello, was
conspicuous for unselfishly recognizing the
talents of others. Bandinelli had not scrupled
to destroy the works of Michel Angelo. Brunel-

150

The Troubles of an Architect.

leschi and Donatello were no small factors in
the great success of Ghiberti. If Bandinelli's
praiseworthy works were laughed at, it was due
to an unpopularity for which he had only himself
to thank. Brunelleschi suffered long annoy-
ances, but he could boast that he had deserved
better at the hands of the man for whom he had
done so much.

We gather from Vasari's preface that Brunel-
leschi was, like Socrates, a little man of insigni-
ficant appearance. " So much force of mind
and so much goodness of heart are frequently
born with men of the most unpromising exterior,
that if these be conjoined with nobility of soul,
nothing short of the most important and valuable
results can be looked for from them, since they
labour to embellish the unsightly form by the
beauty and brightness of the spirit. This was
clearly exemplified in Filippo di Ser Brunellesco,
who was diminutive in person, but of such
exalted genius withal, that we may truly declare
him to have been given us by heaven for the
purpose of imparting a new spirit to architecture,
and to leave to the world the most noble, vast,
and beautiful edifice that had ever been con-
strufted in modern times. He was, moreover,
adorned by the most excellent qualities, among
which was that of kindliness, insomuch that there
never was a man of more benign and amicable
disposition. In judgment he was calm and dis-
passionate, and laid aside all thought of his own
interest, and even that of his friends, whenever
he perceived the merits and talents of others to

The Troubles of an Architect.

demand that he should do so. Never did he
spend his moments vainly, but although con-
stantly occupied in his own works, in assisting
those of others, or administering to their neces-
sities, he had yet always time to bestow on
his friends, for whom his aid was ever ready."

Thus far Vasari, in a strain of eulogy which
Brunelleschi's life goes far to justify. Born in
1377, he soon displayed great practical intelli-
gence, though, boy-like, he was averse to learn-
ing his letters, " but rather seemed," as his
biographer quaintly remarks, " to direct his
thoughts to matters of more obvious utility."
As, however, his father, who was a notary, saw
that the boy's mind was continually bent upon
matters of mechanics and art, he put up with his
disappointment that Filippo was not to follow
his own profession. He wisely compelled him
to learn writing and arithmetic, and then placed
him in the guild of the goldsmiths as appren-
tice to a friend. He soon became an extremely
expert jeweller in stone-setting, " niello " work,
and, as might have been guessed from the other
practical side of his mind, in watch-making also.
Very soon the limits of the goldsmith's craft be-
came too small for him. He began to execute
bas-reliefs, and his ambition to be a sculptor
brought him in contact with Donatello, then
a youth of the very highest promise. Attracted
by each other's talents they became bosom
friends. Filippo, more versatile than the
sculptor, was very soon considered an excellent
architect. He advanced the study of perspec-

152

The Troubles of an Architect.

live, which was then imperfectly understood,
and the too persistent study of which, Vasari
says elsewhere, leads, as we can well believe, to
melancholia. He turned everything he studied
to a practical use. The celebrated Masaccio
was taught perspective by him, and did him
credit in his pictures, while the makers of
" tarsia," or inlaid furniture work, which often
included landscape in wood, were improved in
their art by studying under him the same
accomplishment. That Filippo was a genius
there is no doubt. He could quote scripture so
well, owing to his prodigious memory, that the
illustrious Paolo Toscanelli, the friend and
counsellor of Columbus, called him a second
St. Paul.

Donatello was the friend to whom he un-
bosomed himself, and though they had their
little quarrels, these were, as might have been
expected from two such dispositions, but of
short duration. The only recorded one hap-
pened, appropriately enough for a " second St.
Paul," over a crucifix. Donatello had com-
pleted one in wood for the church of Santa
Croce, upon which, thinking that he had this
time surpassed himself, he cheerfully asked
Filippo his opinion. Now the criticism of an
artist, unless he tells the truth as it appears to
him, is perfectly valueless. When, however, a
man is in love for the moment with his own
work, he sometimes receives a rude awakening.
This was what happened to poor Donatello.
" Why, my dear fellow/' was the dictum of his

153

The Troubles of an Architect

candid friend, " you have put a rustic upon the
cross ! " Thereupon Donatello, more hurt than
he was perhaps willing to admit, said, " Well, I
should like to see you make one yourself — take
some wood and try." The expression, " Piglia
del legno e fanne uno tu," became a proverbial
one to use towards anyone who disparages a
thing upon which the maker prides himself.
Fileppo's censure was probably just. Donatello
had a certain phase of uncompromising realism,
as may easily be observed by anyone who looks
at the cast of his " St. John Baptist preaching " to
be seen at the South Kensington Museum.
Filippo, however, felt himself bound to show
that his practice was equal to his precept and
his critical powers. After working in secret for
months he one morning came to invite Dona-
tello to dine with him. The two were proceed-
ing towards Filippo's house, when he stopped in
the market to buy some provisions, saying,
" You go on ; I will be with you in a moment."
Donatello entered the house, and immediately
saw the crucifix which he had challenged Filippo
to make. He found it so beautifully finished
and so far surpassing his own that he let fall his
apronful of eggs and cheese, and the entire load
lay smashed upon the floor. Presently up came
Filippo, saying, " What are you going to have for
dinner, Donato ? You have smashed everything
up." " Don't talk to me of dinner," said Dona-
tello, " I've had enough dinner to-day. Your
Christ is a miracle ! "

The friends were both recognized as excellent
154

The Troubles of an Architect.

masters, and executed more than one commis-
sion together after this. In 1401 it was deter-
mined to reconstruct the two doors of the church
and baptistery of San Giovanni. All the best
sculptors in Tuscany competed. Donatello' s
design was well conceived, but not so well
executed. Filippo's was also good, but Lorenzo
Ghiberti's was the best. All were exhibited to-
gether, when Filippo and Donatello came to the
disinterested conclusion that Ghiberti was the
man to make the doors. So they persuaded the
syndics by their excellent reasons assigned to
give him the work. " Now this was, in truth/'
says Vasari, " the sincere reclitude of friendship :
it was talent without envy and uprightness of
judgment in a decision respecting themselves by
which these artists were more highly honoured
than they could have been by conducting the
work to the utmost summit of perfection.' '
11 How unhappy," adds Vasari, referring no
doubt to Bandinelli and those like him, " how
unhappy, on the contrary, are the artists of our
day, who labour to injure each other ; yet still
unsatisfied, they burst with envy while seeking
to wound others."

The disinterested conduct of Filippo is en-
hanced by the facl that he might have shared
the commission with Ghiberti. He refused,
and we shall see what return the successful
competitor made him in after days.

Having failed in this competition, the two
friends, Filippo and Donatello, determined to
study for some years in Rome. On their arrival,

155

The Troubles of an Architect.

Filippo was amazed at the beauty of the archi-
tecture of the eternal city. His vocation in life
was settled. There now became fixed in his
heart the ambition to excel as an architect, and
to discover a method for constructing the cupola
or Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.
Since the death of Arnolfo Lapi no one had
been found bold enough to make the attempt.

He kept his great purpose to himself, not
confiding it, for fear of ridicule perhaps, even
to Donatello. The two measured and drew
every antique building and fragment they could
find in Rome and the Campagnafor miles around.
They were so continually excavating fallen
capitals, columns, and cornices, that they began
to be called the " treasure-seekers." People
believed that the two negligently-attired young
men were studying geomancy for the discovery
of gold, because they did one day unearth a
vase full of copper coins.

Filippo supplied his needs by working as a
jeweller. Donatello at length returned to Flo-
rence, but Filippo remained noting everything
that could possibly be of use — forms of arches,
methods of clamping and construction, down to
such details as the way in which a hole was
made in each stone to insert the iron fastening
by means of which it had been drawn up by the
pulley into its destined position. In 1407, his
health necessitating a change of air, he returned
to Florence. Perhaps he had received informa-
tion of the meeting to be held for the purpose
of considering the means of raising the cupola

156

The Troubles of an Architect.

of Santa Maria del Fiore. At any rate, Filippo
was amongst the architects and engineers who
gave their opinions, and provisional models were
constructed according to the views of Brunel-
leschi. He spent the succeeding months in
secretly preparing models and machines to
further his great objeCt. He also amused him-
self by helping Ghiberti in finishing his famous
doors. One morning, however, hearing that
there was talk of providing engineers for the
construction of the cupola, he took it into his
head to return to Rome. His practical know-
ledge of his fellow-citizens had persuaded him
that, on the principle that familiarity breeds
contempt, a residence at Rome would enhance
his reputation. His policy was justified. As
the years rolled on, and the projeCt was no
nearer completion, the syndics remembered that
the absent Filippo had alone showed sufficient
belief in himself to undertake the task. So the
superintendents of the works of Santa Maria
wrote at length to Rome to implore Filippo
to come back to Florence. Filippo was well
pleased to return, but he showed himself not too
eager to give the superintendents the benefit of
his studies by revealing all his models without
adequate return. In the course of his speech
he said, " How can I help you in the matter,
seeing that the work is not mine? I tell you
plainly that if it belonged to me, I should no
doubt have the courage and power to find means
to ereCt the cupola without so many difficulties."
He proceeded to suggest that they should invite

157

The Troubles of an Architect.

all the well-known architects of all countries to
discuss the matter. He then signified his inten-
tion of returning to Rome. Although, in 1417,
the superintendents had voted him a sum of
money to defray his expenses, he was not to be
dissuaded from going away to resume his studies.
He was by this time convinced that he could
carry out the task, but he wished to be invited
to undertake it after competition with all his
peers. He had no desire to be awarded the
commission through interest, so as to give a
handle to envious detractors.

At last, in 1420, thirteen years after the first
meeting which Filippo had attended, the com-
petitors were gathered together from the ends
of the earth. " A fine thing/' says Vasari, " it
was to hear the strange and various notions
propounded on the matter." Some said that
the cupola could not be supported without
columns, others that it must be made in light
sponge stone to diminish the weight. Oddest
of all was the opinion that it should be moulded,
so to speak, upon a mound of earth modelled to
the correct shape. " Then," said the wiseacres
who supported this plan, " if you have sprinkled
plenty of small coins in the earth, you will get
plenty of people to take the earth away. When
it is all removed, then your hollow dome will
appear intact ! " Filippo alone said that none of
these appliances were necessary. As, however,
he had apparently formulated no plan of his
own, everybody laughed at him for a madman.
Then he said that the only way was to make it

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The Troubles of an Architect.

with a double vaulting, one inside the other,
leaving a space between the two. He also
undertook to dispense with any preliminary
framework, but gradually to erect the actual
structure. The superintendents, who were by
this time finely bewildered, seemed to think
that Filippo's plan was the wildest of all. The
more he excitedly demonstrated the feasibility
of his scheme, the madder they thought he was,
and at length, after repeated dismissals, they
caused our hero to be forcibly removed. Filippo
said afterwards that he dared not show his nose
out of doors for fear of being shouted after for a
fool. The poor architect was at his wit's end.
He was a dozen times on the point of leaving
Florence in despair. He resolved at last to be
patient, knowing from experience that the heads
of the city never remained long fixed to one
resolution. He was afraid to show them his
model, because of the imperfect intelligence of
the superintendents in architectural matters, and
the jealousy of other artists. He now set him-
self to convince individuals, superintendents,
syndics, and private citizens, in detail. The
plan succeeded. The board at last determined
to give the work either to him or one of the
foreign architects. There was another great
discussion, at which, after refusing to exhibit
his model, Filippo is said to have settled his
opponents, as we are told Columbus did, by
asking them to make an egg stand upright.
When Filippo showed the architects who had
all failed to balance the egg that it could easily

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The Troubles of an Architect.

be done when you know how — by tapping it
gently so as to flatten one end — they all pro-
tested they could have done the same. " So
you could make the cupola too," retorted Filippo,
"when you have seen my models and designs ! "

At length the board resolved to give Filippo
the commission if he would furnish full details.
He gave them in writing, and the board, like
any other mixed assembly, were utterly unable to
understand them. Yet, as the other architects had
not a word to offer, and Filippo seemed as con-
fident as if he had erected ten cupolas, after
retiring to consider their determination they
announced that they had awarded Filippo the
commission. They were still unable to conceive
that he could do without a preliminary frame-
work. Fortunately he was able to point to
certain small chapels he had creeled on the same
system. The cautious board voted him master
of the works by a majority of votes, but refused
to empower him to carry them to a greater
height than twenty- four feet. If the result
was successful they said he should certainly
be appointed to carry out the rest. This
want of confidence was annoying enough, but
more mortifying still was the result of a plot
inspired by the jealousy of the unsuccessful
artists.

They persuaded the board to associate
Lorenzo Ghiberti with Filippo. The bitter
vexation of the latter, says Vasari, the despair
into which he fell, may be inferred from the facT:
that, in spite of the honour that had been paid

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The Troubles of an Architect.

him, he was on the point of leaving Florence
once more.

The board excused themselves to Filippo, at
first, by pointing out that after all he would be
the real inventor and author of the fabric. All
the same, they gave Ghiberti a stipend equal to
his own. The injustice of this was only equalled
by the ingratitude of Ghiberti. Instead of re-
paying the debt he owed the man who had so
generously secured him the construction of the
bronze doors of San Giovanni and taught him
the art of perspective, he only sought to share
without labour in the proceeds of Filippo's
genius. But the latter determined not to labour
under the incubus of Ghiberti for long. He
now made a complete model of the cupola.
Ghiberti, hearing of this, was naturally very
anxious to see it. When Filippo refused, he
made one of his own, for which he drew six
times as much money as the other had cost.
Ghiberti's only object in making it seems to
have been that he might not appear to be
drawing his stipend absolutely for nothing.

For seven years this unsatisfactory state of
things continued. In 1423, the double walls
of the cupola having already risen twenty feet,
Brunelleschi casually asked Lorenzo whether
he had thought of the works necessary to
strengthen the fabric. Ghiberti, quite taken by
surprise, replied that, as Brunelleschi was the
inventor, he had naturally left that to him !
Meanwhile, the builders were waiting for direc-
tions how to proceed. One morning Filippo

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The Troubles of an Architect.

did not appear at the works. He was said to
be ill. The builders appealed to Ghiberti. He
referred them to Filippo. "Why, don't you
know what his intentions are ? " asked the
astonished workmen. " Yes," was his reply,
" but I would not do anything without him."
The builders went again to see Filippo, who
was still in bed. " You have got Lorenzo there,"
he said, " let him begin to do something for
once." All work was suspended. The work-
men complained that Lorenzo, who was good
enough at drawing his salary, was utterly in-
capable of directing them. Then the superin-
tendents called upon Filippo. "Well, is not
Lorenzo on the spot ? " he asked. " Why does
not he do something ? " The superintendents
replied, " He will not do anything without you ; "
to which Filippo very quickly answered, " Ah,
but I could do it well enough without him ! "

The superintendents took the hint, and began
to devise means for getting rid of Lorenzo.
Filippo recovered with miraculous rapidity, and
was ready with another scheme to assist them.
" As your worships have divided the salary,
let us also divide the labour." He gave Lorenzo
his choice whether he would undertake the
scaffoldings or the "chain- work" that was to
strengthen the eight sides of the cupola.
Lorenzo, equally averse from both undertakings,
chose the " chain-work," because he remembered
that in the vaulting of San Giovanni di Fiorenza
there was some that he might copy. He did
an eighth part, which Filippo, though he said

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The Troubles of an Architect.

nothing to the superintendents, explained to his
friends to be quite unsuitable. Hearing of this,
the superintendents called on Filippo to explain
to them how it should be done. His designs,
as complete in this respect as in every other,
convinced them at last that Lorenzo was a
stumbling-block as an architect, however noted
he might be as a sculptor. To show that they
were at last capable of distinguishing true merit,
in 1423 they appointed Filippo Brunelleschi
chief and superintendent of the whole fabric
for life. Such, however, was the influence of
Ghiberti's friends, that he continued to draw his
salary for three years after that date. His
faction continued to annoy Filippo by bringing
forward models for details in opposition to those
that Filippo had made. But that he was the
right man to execute the work was shown by
the course he followed when his masons went
on strike. He hired ten Lombards in their
place, and by dint of attending to their every
process himself, saying, " Do this here, and do
that there," he taught them so much in a day
that this handful of men was able to carry on
those huge works for several weeks. When
the astonished masons offered to come back to
work, Filippo kept them several days in sus-
pense, and finally took them on again at a rather
lower price than the handsome wages they had
received before. That he was exacting in his
demands on the energies of his workmen is
probable. Most men of genius are impatient
with their assistants, and expect more of him

The Troubles of an Architect.

than the average man can perform. On the
other hand, he was ever ready to help them at a
moment's notice. He would cut rough models
out of turnips on the spot to show them how a
stone should be carved, or a piece of iron
shaped. He was for ever devising safe and
convenient scaffolds, and labour-saving pulleys
to lighten their toils. There was nothing for
which his forethought had not provided, even
to wine and eating-shops in the cupola to save
the time of the workmen that was lost in going
to and fro from that great height for meals.

The superintendence of this great work was
indeed no sinecure. Every mortification which
the jealousy of rivals and the meanness of con-
tractors could devise was inflicted on Brunel-
leschi. Though, about the year 1423, he had
been elected a magistrate, and had performed
his duties with honour to himself, he later on
found himself cast into prison by the petti-
fogging consuls of the guild of builders, be-
cause he had omitted to pay some annual tax to
which he was liable. The superintendents of
Santa Maria del Fiore were furious when they
heard that their architect had been put in
prison. They issued a solemn decree com-
manding that he should be instantly liberated,
and that the consuls of the guild should be
put in his place — a sentence which was straight-
way carried out.

When the question of the design of the lan-
tern which was to crown the cupola arose,
another pitched battle ensued. It might have

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The Troubles of an Architect.

been thought that the man who had designed
the dome was the only fit and proper architect
for the lantern. Not so thought other artists.
We find the barefaced Ghiberti and three
others competing against Brunelleschi again.
They had the impudence to copy details of his
own model, which this time he had unwisely
not kept secret. There was even "a lady of
the Gaddi family who ventured to place her
knowledge in competition with that of Filippo."
When his friends told him that he should have
kept back his model, as one artist in particular
had followed it rather closely in parts, he
laughed, and said, " The next one he makes will
be mine altogether." Filippo, however, con-
quered. His was the chosen model, and though
he did not live to see the lantern completed, he
raised it many feet, and left the minutest direc-
tions in his will for its completion.

Here must end the story of the building of
the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, that
wonderful work familiar to all visitors to
Florence. So much did Michel Angelo admire
it, that he made it his model for the construc-
tion of the great dome of St. Peter's at Rome.
It remains the greatest among many monu-
ments that attest the perseverance and genius
of Filippo Brunelleschi.

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CHAPTER XII.

PLINY THE ELDER AND HORACE WALPOLE.

PLINY THE ELDER, Vasari, and Horace Walpole
are three writers whose works are mines of gold
to writers upon art. The history and anecdotes
of art would have been meagre indeed for want
of these industrious writers. A short considera-
tion of their different points of view may not be
unamusing.

Pliny was a soldier, a historian, and, above
all, an encyclopaedist. Vasari was himself an
artist, and writes as an expert who has known
and lived with those whose works he describes.
Horace Walpole, accused by some of wasting
his life and opportunities, is the type of a
dilettante. He has written with taste a most
useful work.

As Pliny took all knowledge for his province,
it is natural that he should deal with the ques-
tion of art. He comes to it at last in the thirty-
third and succeeding books of his " Natural
History," the only one of his voluminous
writings which has come down to us. A
"Natural History" is not, at first sight, a book
to treat of art. His remarks on that subject,
indeed, are of the nature of a conscientious

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

digression. Pliny never knew where to stop.
Mineralogy is his real subject for the time
being. Unable to limit his researches, he
feels bound to describe the various uses to
which the metals have been applied. This
leads him on to discourse of chasing and
statuary in metal, and to give an account of
the most celebrated artists in each branch. The
heading " marble " commits him to a notice of
Pheidias and his peers, just as the item of
mineral colours condemns him to a history of
painting in all its manifestations. His con-
fessedly utilitarian leanings are exhibited in an
amusing way. Discussions of the fine arts are
interrupted by digressions upon medicinal
remedies, and the beneficence of the materials
of painter's colours when taken internally.
Sinopis, or red ochre, " used medicinally is of a
very soothing nature," and arminium, a blue
colour very similar to caeruleum, is calculated to
make the hair grow.

It is very unfair to complain, as writers do,
that Pliny has filled his books with " a barren
inventory, enlivened by very few remarks which
can satisfy the curiosity of the artist or the lover
of art." Pliny's anecdotes have been quoted
without acknowledgment again and again, and
the interest of them frequently omitted. The
wellworn tale of Apelles finding Protogenes not
at home, and tracing a wonderful fine line upon
a panel to signify that he had called, is quoted
from Pliny. Protogenes drew a still finer line
inside the outline of Apelles, and went away

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

again ; whereupon Apelles came back and split
the two with one finer still, and Protogenes ad-
mitted his defeat. " This panel I am told/'
says Pliny, " was burnt in the first fire which
took place at Caesar's palace on the Palatine
Hill ; but in former times I have often stopped
to admire it. Upon its vast surface it contained
nothing whatever except the three outlines, so
remarkably fine as to escape the sight. Among
the most elaborate works of numerous artists it
had all the appearance of a blank space ; and
yet by that very fact " (he characteristically
adds) " it attracted the notice of everyone, and
was held in higher estimation than any other
painting there." It would be juster to Pliny if,
when his anecdotes are quoted as unsatisfying,
the entire passage could be given.

Is he making another quiet hit at the public,
or merely recording a fa6l, when he says that a
picture by Parrhasius has been three times
struck by lightning, " which tends to augment
the admiration which it naturally excites " ? We
are inclined on the whole to think that these are
two instances of unconscious satire against the
crowd that gapes at pictures on the part of the
industrious encyclopaedist.

Although he occasionally makes futile criti-
cisms, Pliny is often very much to the point
upon the technique of painting and sculpture.
He gives us also a very good idea of the luxury
of his own age and the simultaneous decline of
its art. In this latter item he is in sharp con-
trast with Vasari, who rightly speaks with a

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

fine enthusiasm of his age as a climax of artistic
endeavour.

Pliny affects to hold, in accordance perhaps
with a literary fashion of the time, a strong
brief against luxury. The first man to introduce
an expensive novelty is always in disgrace with
him. We soon come to a tirade against the
malefactor " who committed the worst crime
against mankind in putting a ring upon his
finger." Unfortunately Pliny has not been able
to discover his name, or no doubt he would
have held him up to more particular detestation.
" Men at the present time wear gold bracelets,
and women have chains of gold meandering
along their sides, and in the still hours of the
night sachets of pearls hang suspended from
their necks, so that in their very sleep they
retain the consciousness of their rich posses-

sions."

The next malefactor is the man who first
stamped a gold coin, but Pliny soon leaves him
to fall upon artists in general, who have succeeded
in making a silver-gilt object by mere skill of
workmanship cost more than one of solid gold.
This saving in the precious metal should have
commended itself to the " Scourge " of luxury.
It seems that Pliny rather gives away his case at
this point, and turns himself to rend shams. At
any rate, he emphasizes his want of innate
appreciation of artistic workmanship. What
would he have said to the jewellers of India,
whose pride it is to spin the smallest quantity
of pure gold into an apparently solid bracelet ?

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

Very soon afterwards he is convi6led of a
lack of science also, a charge he would have
much more bitterly resented. He says that the
reflections of silver mirrors are due to the re-
percussion of the air thrown back upon the
eyes. We can forgive him this little scientific
romance in consideration of the interesting side-
light he throws upon the fashion of his day in
silver plate. " The work of no one maker
is long in vogue. At one time that of Furnius,
at another that of Clodius or Gratius is all the
rage. First it is embossed and then chiselled
work that reigns supreme. Nowadays the art
is lost. Only the old is valued, and that only
when the design is nearly worn away." How very
like our present hankering for " Queen Anne ! "
But the Romans have the advantage of us in
quantity. Pompeius Paulinus, a mere pro-
vincial, had a campaigning service of silver
plate that weighed 12,000 pounds. Shoe-
buckles, swords, couches, chargers, sideboards,
and baths are all of silver, or mounted with that
metal. But art is bad in Pliny's day in spite of
all. Speaking of Corinthian bronze, " it is diffi-
cult to say," he remarks, ''whether the work-
manship or the material is worse." Such was
the value attached to ancient specimens that
Antony is said to have proscribed Verres, whom
Cicero prosecuted, merely with the object of
getting hold of some Corinthian bronzes in his
possession.

When he arrives at the subject of sculpture
Pliny shows that he is no advocate of the

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

advancement of women. He remarks that Clelia,
who swam the Tiber, was honoured with an
equestrian statue, " as if it had not been thought
sufficient to have her clad in the toga," i.e., in
gentleman's attire. He atones for this instance
of misguided conservatism by rightly blaming
Nero for having his favourite statue of the
infant Alexander gilt. This addition to the
value of the statue so detradled from its artistic
beauty that the gold was removed. We are
compelled to doubt his subsequent story of
Aristonidas, who wished to express the fury of
Athamas subsiding into repentance. He blended,
so Pliny says, copper and iron in order that
the blush of shame might be more exaftly
expressed by the rust of the iron which made
its appearance through the shining substance of
the copper. This, indeed, is a subtlety which
does credit to the ingenuity of Pliny or his
informant.

Upon painting Pliny has much to say that is
of interest. He complains that in his day
pictures are banished in favour of variegated
marble, just as at present a rage for oak-
panelling is reducing the wall space available
for the artist. He bewails the fate of portrait
painting, " and yet, at the same time," he adds,
" we cover the walls of our galleries with old
pictures and prize the portraits of strangers."
He has heard, we are interested to note, of the
titled amateur. " Titidius Labeo, a person of
praetorian rank, who lately died at an advanced
age, used to pride himself upon the little pi6lures

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

which he executed, but it only caused him to be
ridiculed and sneered at." Neither is he alto-
gether unacquainted with the military igno-
ramus. He has a good anecdote of Mummius,
the plunderer of Corinth in 346 B.C. When the
spoil was sold, King Attalus paid a large sum
for a pifture by Aristides of Thebes. Mummius,
surprised at the price, "and suspecting that there
might be some merit in it of which he himself
was unaware," cancelled the bargain. He would
have been a fit companion for the envoy of the
Teutones, who, when asked what he thought the
value of a picture of an old shepherd in rags and
leaning on a staff, replied that he would rather
not have the original, even at a gift. Public
exhibitions of pictures are no novelty. Pliny
applauds M. Agrippa for making an oration on
the advantage of public picture displays, and
tells us* how Mancinus secured the consulship by
standing near a picture of the siege of Carthage
which he was exhibiting, and obliging the spec-
tators with a lecture on its details.

Our author is in his simpler vein when of a
picture by Nicias he says, " the thing to be
chiefly admired is the resemblance that the youth
bears to thfe old man his father, allowing, of
course, for the difference of age." This is
worthy of the critic who notes that the statue of
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, is remark-
able for having no straps to the shoes.

Pliny, however, constantly recovers himself.
Very soon afterwards we find him sensibly
pointing out that, although the best and most

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

varied colours are attainable in Rome, and
though the picture-buyer himself pays for the
brightest and most expensive, " made of the
slime of Indian rivers and the corrupt blood of
her dragons and elephants," yet, strange to say,
in spite of all this, there is no such thing as a
pifture of high quality produced. Yet, says
he, "the ancients could produce a masterpiece
with but four pigments. Nowadays size is
everything. " One folly " (Pliny would never
have dared to say this while Nero was alive) " I
must not omit. The Emperor Nero had a por-
trait of himself painted that was a hundred and
twenty feet high."

It is to Pliny that we owe all the well-known
tales about Zeuxis and Parrhasius and Apelles.
One less familiar story of Zeuxis is that " in a
spirit of ostentation he went so far as to parade
himself at Olympia with his name embroidered
on the check pattern of his garments in letters
of gold," an example of sartorial taste which no
modern has ever surpassed.

Nothing can be better than Pliny's technical
appreciation of Parrhasius as the artist best able
to suggest modelling (as Holbein could so well)
with the outline, " so as to prove the existence
of something more behind it." We are com-
pelled to attribute such remarks as these to the
promptings of some genuinely artistic friend,
from whom also he must have acquired what
follows on his next page. " Timanthes," he
says, " is the only artist in whose work there is
always something more implied by the pencil

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

than is expressed, and whose execution, though
of the very highest quality, is always surpassed
by the inventiveness of his genius." Pliny here
thoroughly realizes that ideas and technique are
greater far than technique alone, a matter which
at the present time we are rather inclined to
ignore.

Incidentally we are informed that, owing to
the influence of Pamphilus, master of Apelles,
all the freeborn children of Greece were taught
drawing. Drawing was considered the " first
step in the liberal arts."

Apelles particularly prided himself upon know-
ing when to stop, and not worrying his pictures
to death. That artist treated his great patron,
Alexander, in a somewhat cavalier fashion. The
king was one day in his studio talking a great
deal about painting without knowing anything
about it. Apelles quietly asked him to quit the
subje6l for fear he should begin to be laughed
at by the boys who were mixing the colours.
And after this Pliny lets us down with the calm
assurance that Apelles, having painted a horse
in competition with other artists, had some
horses brought to decide which picture was the
best. " Accordingly it was only at the sight of
the horse painted by Apelles that they began to
neigh, which thing our author gravely avers to
have always been the case ever since, when the
test has been employed ! "

After this triumph one feels it is time to
leave Pliny. We may note, however, that the
customs of his day were singularly like those of

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

our own. The unskilful pi6lure-cleaner is no
new thing. A pi6lure by Aristides of Thebes
" has lost its beauty owing to the unskilfulness
of the painter to whom M. Junius, the praetor,
entrusted the cleaning of it." The artist, too,
had the same struggle for life two thousand
years ago as he often experiences now. Proto-
genes of Caunus had a hard task to succeed,
when young. He lived for some time upon
soaked lupines, " by which means," the encyclo-
paedist naively remarks, " he avoided all risk of
blunting his perceptions by too delicate a diet."
In order to protect a pifture from the effects of
ill-usage and old age he painted it over four
times, so that when an upper coat was worn
out there might be an under one to succeed it."
We fear that Pliny's friend was playing him a
trick the day he gave him this valuable hint.
Such passages make it obvious that Pliny's
information was gained largely at second hand.
His discrimination between good and bad
authorities is not of the keenest, and this
liability to fall from the sensible into the
ludicrous upon a single page is the natural fate
of a writer who, however well-intentioned,
stands very much outside of his subject.

No more complete contrast to Pliny can be
imagined than Horace Walpole. It is impos-
sible to fancy the owner of Strawberry Hill and
the author of the letters to Sir Horace Mann
groaning over a lost ten minutes like the inde-
fatigable Roman. Though some have accused
Walpole of idling away his life, he speaks with

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

authority upon the history of art, for he was a
born connoisseur, which the busier man was
not. We are not disposed to quarrel with Wal-
pole for recording trivial details as to which he
feels himself bound occasionally to apologize.
" The reader must excuse," he says on one
occasion, " such brief or trifling articles. This
work is but an essay towards the history of our
arts : all kinds of notices are inserted to lead to
farther discoveries, and if a nobler compendium
shall be formed, I willingly resign such minutiae
to oblivion." There was no need to apologize.
It is a quaint surprise to learn that Samuel
Butler, the author of " Hudibras," figures as a
painter on the strength of some pictures " said
to be of his drawing," and a pleasant sidelight
is thrown upon the domestic life of General
Lambert, who is enshrined as a painter of
flowers.

Walpole has been too humble. His work,
based on the researches of Vertue, to whom he
has given immortality, has been edited and
enlarged again and again. It contains much
more than mere " Anecdotes of Painting." Wal-
pole is the English Vasari, and, though not an
artist as Vasari was, he is a better writer, and
has a greater discernment of relative merit than
the simple and enthusiastic Italian. We are
at liberty to demur occasionally, as successive
editors do, to his judgments, which are never
wholly devoid of truth. Here, for instance, is
his opinion upon Vandyke. " Sir Anthony had
more delicacy than Rubens, but like him never

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

reached the grace and dignity of the antique.
He seldom even arrived at beauty. His Ma-
donnas are homely ; his ladies so little flattered
that one is surprised he had so much custom.
He has left us to wonder that the famous
Countess of Carlisle could be thought so charm-
ing ; and had not Waller been a better 'painter/
Sacharissa would make little impression now."
Many would agree to this, though most would
cavil at it. When he deals with the subject of
allegory in painting, he surely carries us all
with him. " I never could conceive that riddles
and abuses are any improvements upon history.
Allegoric personages are a poor decomposition
of human nature, whence a single quality is
separated and erefted into a kind of half-deity,
and then to be rendered intelligible, is forced to
have its name written by the accompaniment of
symbols. You must be a natural philosopher
before you can decipher the vocation of one of
these simplified divinities. Their dog, or their
bird, or their goat, or their implement, or the
colour of their clothes must all be expounded,
before you know who the person is to whom
they belong, and for what virtue the hero is to
be celebrated, who has all this hieroglyphic
cattle around him. How much more genius is
there in expressing the passions of the soul in
the lineaments of the countenance ! Would
Messalina's character be more ingeniously drawn
in the warmth of her glances, or by ransacking
a farmyard for every animal of a congenial con-
stitution ? "

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

These forcible expressions must have helped
to reduce the demand for allegorical painting,
which is fortunately a thing of the past.

Common sense, indeed, is the essence of
Horace Walpole. His opening sentences strike
the keynote of his book. " Those who under-
take to write the history of an art are fond of
carrying its origin back as far as possible. . . .
Some men push this further, and venerate the
first dawnings of an art more than its productions
in a riper age/' We cannot help thinking we
have met some of these men since the time of
Horace Walpole. " Mr. Vertue," he continues,
" has taken great pains to prove that painting
existed in England before the restoration of it
in Italy by Cimabue. . . . That we had gone
backwards in the science farther almost than
any other country is evident from our coins
. . . and so far therefore as badness of drawing
approaches to antiquity of ignorance, we may
lay in our claim to very ancient possession. As
Italy has so long excelled us in the refinements
of the art, she may leave us the enjoyment of
original imperfection."

It would be quite an error to suppose from
this that Walpole thought little of his country's
later art. His was not one of those natures
which delights in finding everything better else-
where than at home. He shows his true critical
gift more than once at the expense of French
art. One Charles De La Fosse, a name little
known in England, but of great celebrity in
France, is described (by a Frenchman) as " Un

Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

des plus grands coloristes de 1'ecole Frar^aise."
" He might be so," says Walpole, quietly, " and
not very excellent : colouring is the point in
which their best masters have failed." He is
not quite able to do justice to the great excep-
tion to the rule of French colouring, Antoine
Watteau. " England," he says, " has very
slender pretensions to this original and en-
gaging painter," whom he consequently dis-
misses in a page and a half. It was perhaps
impossible for a man living in Walpole's age to
appreciate as we do now the old-world charm of
Watteau, who by the mere force of genius gave
pictorial greatness to the triviality of his little
subjects. We must forgive our author when
he says " there is an easy air in his figures and
that more familiar species of the graceful which
we call genteel." We do not call it genteel
now, and we are able to recognize that, though
Watteau's ladies are sham shepherdesses, they
are without periphrasis actual grace itself.

Walpole is very much the child of an age
when fashionable painters were allowed to be
familiar on sufferance, but when a " gentleman
painter " was a rarity to be duly noted down.
Francis Le Piper he describes as a gentleman
artist who, "though born to an estate, could not
resist his impulse to drawing." Compare with
this his notice of Thomas Sadler, who " painted
at first in miniature for his amusement, and
portraits towards the end of his life, having by
unavoidable misfortune been reduced to follow
that profession." We may be sure that Walpole's

179

Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

turn of expression arises not from snobbishness,
but simply from the general view then taken of
the painter's profession. The artist of that day
was a Bohemian for the most part. Sir Joshua
was an exception in the company he kept, and
came later than the time of which we are speak-
ing. Of Le Piper, the gentleman, Walpole says
" most of his performances were produced over
a bottle, and took root where they were born."

Nothing, indeed, is more noticeable in the
course of these biographies than the frequency
of deaths among painters at an early age from
the gout, which seems to have carried them off
by scores at the age of six-and- forty. Irregular
living resulted no doubt largely from irregular
education, and prejudiced the painter's status in
society.

Walpole's liberality of mind in this respect, and
his patriotism, by the way, are pleasingly ex-
hibited in his notice of Isaac Oliver, the minia-
ture painter. " Hitherto we have been obliged
to owe to other countries the best performances
exhibited here in painting ; but in the branch in
which Oliver excelled we may challenge any
nation to show a greater master — if perhaps
we except a few of the smaller works of Hol-
bein. . . . Of the family of Isaac Oliver I find
no certain account ; nor is it of any importance;
he was a genius, and they transmit more honour
by blood than they receive."

In certain circles, at any rate, there was plenty
of recognition of even very moderate genius.
The poets were continually praising the painters

180

Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

by name in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. There was certainly a genuine admira-
tion for the sister art among the literary men.
Pope even went so far as to learn drawing from
Jervas for a year and a half, and was very proud
of having dabbed a few strokes on a landscape
by Tillemans while the artist was not looking —
which the prudent painter was perhaps careful
afterwards not to obliterate. Kneller came in
for a great share of praise. " Pope was not the
only bard that soothed this painter's vainglory.
Dryden repaid him for a present of Shake-
speare's picture with a copy of verses full of
luxuriant but immortal touches ; the most beau-
tiful of Addison's poetic works is addressed to
him. . . . Prior complimented Kneller on the
Duke of Ormond's pi6lure. Steele wrote a
poem to him from Whitton. . . . Can we wonder
that a man was vain who had been flattered by
Dryden, Addison, Prior, Pope, and Steele ? "

There seems to be little of this artistic ex-
change nowadays. That age was perhaps less
critical in matters of painting than the present.
There was more belief in the actual existence of
genius alive, and less tendency to wait for the
verdict of posterity. People with pretensions to
judge were less captious and more appreciative.
Walpole is perhaps right when he says, "In
truth the age demanded nothing correct, nothing
complete. Capable of testing the power of
Dryden's numbers and the majesty of Kneller's
heads, it overlooked doggrel and daubing."

There is a curious quaintness about the
181

Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

artistic phraseology of the eighteenth century.
This man " painted some histories," the other
depi6led " small conversations." We have
absolutely no equivalent now for that useful and
concise expression. Of Kneller, Walpole says,
" his airs of heads have extreme grace — the hair
admirably disposed." A later critic of Vande-
velde remarks, " We esteem in this painter the
transparency of his colouring, which is warm
and vigorous, and the ' truth of his perspective/ "
His vessels are " designed with accuracy and
grace," and his small figures " touched with
spirit." His storms are " gloomy and horrid,"
his " fresh gales are most pleasingly animated,"
and "his calms are in the greatest repose/'

Curiosity of phrase was equalled by curiosity
of practice. One Medina, who died in 1711,
was encouraged to go to Scotland by the Earl
of Leven, who procured him a subscription of
",£500 worth of business." He went, " carry-
ing with him a large number of bodies and
postures, to which he painted heads."

But Walpole has a truly modern gift of terse
expression on occasions. Of Richardson, the
portrait painter and writer upon art, he says,
" The good sense of the nation is characterized
in his portraits." Fully appreciating Hogarth
he reserves that great and original genius to a
class by himself, while of Sir Joshua he says
that " he ransomed portrait painting from in-
sipidity."

It is a recommendation to Walpole that a
painter should also be a man of humour. He

182

Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

never fails to note the characteristic when he
has the chance.

His largeness of view is evinced by his
remarks on landscape and upon American
art. Whatever enormities he may have com-
mitted at Strawberry Hill as a precursor of the
Gothic revival, Walpole certainly has a feeling
for nature. Modern artists have recognized the
pifturesqueness of the hop gardens of England,
but Walpole has been beforehand with them.
"The latter, which I never saw painted, are
very pifturesque, particularly in the season of
gathering. ... In Kent, such scenes are often
backed by sandhills that enliven the green, and
the gatherers dispersed among the narrow
valleys enliven the pifture."

Of America he says, "As our disputes and
politics have travelled to America, is it not
probable that poetry and painting too will
revive amidst these extensive tracts as they in-
crease in opulence and empire, and where the
stores of nature are so various, so magnificent,
and so new ? "

Benjamin West's noble pifture of " Wolfe at
Quebec " was the inspiration of that new world.

Walpole's estimate of the mass of English
taste is to be noticed in his remarks upon
Wootton, " a capital master in the branch of his
profession by which he was peculiarly qualified
to please in this country, by painting horses and
dogs." There is a large section of the public of
all ages which is ever the same. In Elizabeth's
reign lived Cornelius Ketel, upon whom Wai-

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Pliny the Elder and Horace Walpole.

pole severely animadverts. " He laid aside his
brushes, and painted only with his fingers, begin-
ning with his own portrait. The whim took ;
he repeated the practice, and they pretend
executed those fantastic works with great purity
and beauty of handling. . . . As his success
increased so did his folly ; his fingers appeared
too easy tools ; he undertook to paint with his
feet. . . . That public, who began to think, like
Ketel, that the more a painter was a mounte-
bank the greater was his merit, were so good
as to applaud even this caprice."

History repeats itself. We seem to remember
that a few years back one of the sights in the
gallery at Antwerp was a painter who employed
his feet in the same manner as Ketel, and with
greater excuse.

We cannot leave Horace Walpole without
a tribute of gratitude for his excellent " Anec-
dotes of Painting." Enough has been said to
show that he was not the fribble that Macaulay
paints him. Devoting himself to the congenial
talk of breaking a so-called butterfly on a wheel,
that unreliable writer, though admitting that
Walpole is not often dull, shows himself utterly
incapable of appreciating the interests of a con-
noisseur. He has misused Walpole the son
for the most part as a foil to the more historic
reputation of his father, to whom he devotes the
greater part of a misnamed essay.

184

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INDISPENSABLE VASARI.

LANZI, in the preface of his " History of
Painting," sneers at those former writers who
have filled their volumes with descriptions of
the personal appearance of artists, and narrated
so many frivolous anecdotes. Doubtless he has,
amongst others, Vasari in his mind. The ver-
di6l of the world is for Vasari. It is probable
that he has ten readers for every one of Lanzi.
We would not dispense even with Vasari's most
pointless anecdote about his hero, Michel Angelo.
It serves to throw a light, if it does nothing else,
upon the estimable character of our simple-
minded historian, whose sense of humour may,
indeed, have been not quite the equal of his
enthusiasm. Who would not regret the absence
of his stories about Buffalmaco, his jokes and
merry companions ? Or of the ingenious Paolo
Uccello, who so adroitly performed the task of
depicting the four elements. Earth was figured
as a mole, water by a fish, fire of course by a
salamander — a comparatively common beast in
those days, for did not Cellini see one, to his
juvenile sorrow, in the fire ? But how to
signify air, that was the crucial difficulty. The

185

The Indispensable Vasari.

chameleon was the natural symbol, for, as every
schoolboy in Italy of the fifteenth century knew
for certain, the chameleon lives entirely upon
air. So far so good, but Paolo had never been
so fortunate as to catch a chameleon. " So,"
says Vasari, " he painted a camel, which he has
made with wide open mouth swallowing the air
with which he fills his belly. And herein was
his simplicity certainly very great; taking the
mere resemblance of the camel's name as suffi-
cient representation of or allusion to an animal
which is like a little dry lizard, while the camel
is a great ungainly beast!" If Lanzi gave us
stories with comments half so informing, we
should think the more of his work.

The last seventy pages of his book are de-
voted by the good Giorgio to the record of his
own life. It was a happy and successful one,
as it deserved to be. Success, indeed, brought
him some enemies, but they were more than
counterbalanced by troops of friends. His
justice to both enemies and friends alike is
exemplified, together with his other good quali-
ties, in his great work, " The Lives of the
Artists."

A member of that fraternity, Vasari was not
a great, but a prolific artist. No one was more
conscious of his defects than he was himself.
"Wherefore as their faults" (those of his pictures
and architecture) " may, perchance, be described
by some other, it were better that I should my-
self confess the truth, and accuse them with my
own lips of those imperfections whereof none

1 86

The Indispensable Vasari.

can be more firmly convinced than myself."
He claims credit for a wish to do well and for a
true love of art. " And now shall it happen,
according to the laws usually prevailing, that
having openly confessed my shortcomings, a
great part thereof shall be forgiven me." The
good man makes the public his father confessor
in the reasonable hope of a lenient absolution.

Vasari's artistic life was similar to that of
the companions of his craft. The artist went
where work was to be done and he could secure
the doing of it, hiring himself out to conflicting
popes and princes just as the " condottieri " of
former days fought indiscriminately on either
side wherever they could get the highest wage.
Thus, in 1529, he had to leave Florence because
the war interfered so much with art. So he
crossed from Modena to Bologna, " where, find-
ing that certain triumphal arches decorated with
paintings were about to be erecled for the coro-
nation of Charles V., " I had an opportunity,"
he says, " of employing myself, even though but
a youth, to my honour as well as profit." Arezzo,
his birthplace, Rome, Florence, Naples, and
many other places were thus visited by Vasari
in the pursuit of his vocation. Happy was the
man who so commended himself to some princely
patron as to receive perpetual employment.
It was eventually Vasari's good fortune to be
employed by Duke Cosimo after having in
a few years lost Pope Clement, Alessandro, and
Ippolito de' Medici, in whom all his best hopes
had been placed. " I resolved," he says, after

The Indispensable Vasari.

the death of these patrons, " to follow courts no
longer, but to think of art alone, although it
would have been easy for me to have fixed
myself with the new duke, Signor Cosimo de'
Medici/' The patronage which he refused to
jump at after his disappointments became, as we
have seen, eventually his reward. We are un-
able to follow the life of Vasari in detail. It
was one of constant and honourable labour. We
can but touch on a few points of interest. It
was his early patron, Ippolito, who rewarded
him for " the first work that proceeded from my
hand, or as it were out of my own forge — about
the qualities of which I need not say much, for
it was but the work of a youth," with a com-
mission for another larger pi6lure and an entire
new suit of clothes ! It was the remembrance
of this first consideration for his early work
which perhaps suggested to Vasari in later life
the idea of offering to his pupils and assistants,
Cristofano Gherardi and Stefano Veltroni, a
similar reward of " a pair of nether hose of a
scarlet colour " for whichever of the two should
do the most excellent work.

Vasari never forgets a friend, and seldom
fails to do justice to those with whom, as with
Cellini, he was not on the best of terms. He
acknowledges the help he obtained from that
arch-intriguer, Baccio Bandinelli. There is,
indeed, a pathetic truthfulness about him, though
Symonds says he depreciates his own character
unjustly when he speaks of himself. He re-
ceives a commission to construe!: a facade in

188

The Indispensable Vasari.

the manner of a triumphal arch, and other
works, on the occasion of the visit of Charles V.
to Florence in 1536. "These works," he con-
fesses, " were indeed too great for my strength,
but, what was worse, the favour by which I
obtained them attracted a host of envious rivals
around me, and at their suggestion about twenty
men who were assisting me . . . left me on the
spur of the moment/' Whoever hears nowa-
days of an artist the victim of a strike ? Vasari,
however, was equal to the occasion. He worked
night and day with his own hand. Painters
came from other places to assist him. He com-
pleted his work in time, to the satisfaction of
Duke Alessandro, while those who had been
more earnestly busied in interfering with his
affairs than in completing their own had in
several cases to exhibit their work unfinished.
Vasari had a punctual mind. He takes an
ingenuous pride in the rapidity of his execu-
tion. " These pictures," he remarks on one
occasion, " were without doubt accomplished to
the best of mine ability, and at the time they
may perchance have pleased me, yet I do not
know that they would do so at my present age.
But as art is difficult in itself, we must be con-
tent to accept from each that whereof he is
capable. This, however, I may say, that all my
pictures, inventions, and designs of whatever
sort have always been executed, I do not say
with very great promptitude only, but with
more than ordinary facility and without laboured
effort."

189

The Indispensable Vasari.

It was indeed a fatal facility. To this, in his
consideration for the impatience of patrons, and
out of hatred of the practice common with
many artists of drawing large sums in advance
for work which they never completed, Vasari
unconsciously sacrificed his hopes of lasting
fame as an artist. He was successful in painting
portraits, but of these, he says, " it would be
tedious to enumerate these likenesses, and, to
tell the truth, I have avoided painting them
whenever I could do so." How often does the
ambition of the artist lead him to neglect that
less aspiring branch of art in which he might
succeed. " It is true that Vasari painted many
portraits," says Masselli, " and it is also true
that in them he appears greater than himself.
This difference proceeds, as I believe, from the
fa6l that while painting a portrait he was com-
pelled to keep the reality before him, and could
not avail himself of that facility of hand which
he turned to account in his larger compositions/'
It would be interesting to note the differences
between the technical practice of Vasari's time
and the present day. To copy the actual details
from nature is a rarity with him to be duly
recorded. Of a picture at Bologna, he says,
" the vestments of the pontiff were copied from
the real textures, velvets, damasks, and cloth of
gold and silver, with silks and such like." Few
would think of dispensing with the actual
draperies nowadays. Our system of study is
based on the copying of nature. The disciple
does not spend all his days in copying the

190

The Indispensable Vasari.

works of his master. That habit, however, was
eminently calculated to produce the necessary
capacity for covering large spaces from "chic,"
as French painters say. The demand for de-
corative oil and fresco painting, which was best
done without retouching, inculcated exaclly this
method of procedure. Commissions could not
have been executed by an artist without assis-
tants skilled in a style of bravura painting which
our more careful method of drawing does not
encourage. Buchanan, in his " Memoirs of Paint-
ing," says that Vasari's pi6lures " possess much
of that ' grande gusto ' of the school in which he
studied, and of those great men whose works he
imitated, and to whom he was cotemporary."

There were results attaching to the use of
assistants which, though Vasari was always re-
solved above all things to please his patrons by
finishing his work in time, weighed heavily upon
his conscience. He had experience before of a
strike. At a later date the whole of his young
men were " wanted " by the police, and so
were obliged to leave him in the lurch. At a
monastery in Naples where he was working, the
abbot and some monks had quarrelled with the
Black Friars when they met in rival proces-
sions. The civil magistrate came to the monas-
tery to arrest the abbot, " but the monks, aided
by some fifteen or sixteen young men who were
helping me in my stucco works, having made
resistance, certain of the sbirri were wounded ;
this compelled my assistants to take refuge in
the night-time, some here, others there, and

191

The Indispensable Vasari.

I was left almost alone." It was an additional
annoyance to be disappointed in the results of
his helpers' collaborations. To please Cardinal
Farnese he completed the frescos in the Hall
of the Chancery in the palace of San Giorgio at
Rome by a certain day. " But of a truth, if I
laboured hard in making the cartoons. . . I confess
to an error in having confided the execution of
the same to my young assistants for the sake of
having them completed more rapidly and within
the time (100 days) when the Hall was required,
since it would have been better that I had toiled
100 months, . . . for then I should have at
least had the satisfaction of having effected all
with my own hand and done my best. But this
error caused me to resolve that I would never
undertake work of which I could not paint the
whole myself, permitting nothing more than the
mere sketch to be effected by others after my
own designs." A worthy resolve by which we fear
the good man was unable strictly to hold. That
he was a man of business and a good courtier in
the best sense is certain. To combine the
trades of good courtier and first-rate painter
was perhaps only possible to such geniuses as
Rubens and Velasquez. That Vasari, though
no great artist, wras upright, as well as business-
like, we learn from an interesting passage of his
early life. The monastic fathers of Camaldoli
proposed to give him a commission. " I per-
ceived," he says, " that at the first these vener-
able fathers seeing me to be so young began to
doubt of the matter ; yet taking courage I dis-

192

The Indispensable Vasari.

coursed to them in such a manner that they
resolved to accept my services. ... I refused
to make any fixed agreement as to the price at
that time ; considering that if my work pleased
the monks, they might pay me what they found
right, but if it did not satisfy their expectations,
I was ready to keep the picture for myself ; and
they finding these conditions upright and favour-
able to themselves, were content to have the
work commenced at once." His uprightness
was equalled by his modesty. Of his great
picture of Esther and Ahasuerus, he says : " In
fine, if I were to believe what I then heard from
the people, and what I still hear from all who
have seen the work, I might be tempted to
imagine I had effected something ; but I know
too well how the matter stands, and what I
would have accomplished had the hand only
been capable of performing what the spirit had
conceived/'

In the course of his happy life Vasari took
part in some curious incidents, although he was
fortunately a boy of fifteen, safe at Arezzo, when
the fearful sack of Rome took place in 1527.
He tells a sinister tale of the first attempt of
Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici upon the
life of Vasari's patron, Alessandro, whom Lorenzo
ultimately assassinated. In the general rejoicings
upon the marriage of Alessandro with Margaret
of Austria, Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici,
called Lorenzino and the " Traitor," composed a
drama, the representation of which, with the
music, he undertook himself. "As Lorenzo,"

193 o

The Indispensable Vasari.

says Vasari, " was then fully occupied with the
thought how best he might compass the death
of the duke, by whom he was so much beloved
and favoured, so he now believed that means
for accomplishing his purpose might be found in
the preparations for that representation." He
commissioned Aristotile da San Gallo, the
painter and architect, as overseer of the neces-
sary alterations of the stage of the theatre.
Aristotile approved of all the changes except
one which left the musicians' gallery above the
stage, upon which the duke and his retinue
would be seated, supported only by a few in-
sufficient props. Lorenzo's ostensible reason was
that the acoustic properties of the stage would
thereby be improved. " But Aristotile clearly
perceived," says Vasari, " that in this plan there
was a danger by which many lives might be
destroyed ; ... he could therefore by no means
be brought to agree with Lorenzo on that point,
and it is certain that the intention of the latter
was no other than the destruction of the duke."
" Giorgio Vasari, who, though then but a
youth, was in the service of Duke Alessandro
. . . chanced to hear the contention between
Lorenzo and Aristotile." Throwing himself
dexterously between them he heard what each
had to say, and perceiving the danger threatened
by Lorenzo's plan, suggested another way in
which the gallery might be made secure. Lorenzo
would nevertheless listen neither to Aristotile
nor to Vasari. "He would have nothing done, in
short, but what he had from the first desired,

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The Indispensable VasarL

yet he offered no opposition to the opinions given,
only such manifest sophistries and cavils that his
evil intentions became obvious to everyone."
" Wherefore Giorgio (Vasari), well knowing the
frightful consequences that might result from
Lorenzo's design, and certain that this was no
other than a plan for the wilful slaughter of
some 300 persons, declared that he would very
certainly describe the method to the duke, when
his excellency might send to examine the matter
and provide against the consequences to be
expected. Hearing this, and fearing to be dis-
covered, Lorenzo after many words gave Aris-
totile permission to follow the plan proposed by
Giorgio, which was accordingly done." Thus
the unfortunate but not well-deserving duke's
life was saved by the outspoken courage of a
youth in his employ, but not for long, for he was
fated to be " ultimately assassinated by the above-
named Lorenzo."

Another curious incident which shows the
good terms upon which he stood with his patrons
occurred to him later in life, while he was busy-
ing himself with his " Theories of Architecture,
Sculpture, and Painting."

He was going out of the city gate to meet
Cardinal Monte, who was passing through on his
way to the conclave. N o sooner had Vasari bowed
and spoken a few words than the cardinal said,
" I am going to Rome and shall infallibly be
ele6led pope. Wherefore, if thou hast anything
to desire, hasten to follow me as soon as the
news shall arrive, without waiting any other

195

The Indispensable Vasari.

invitation than that I now give thee or seeking
any further intelligence." Nor was this a vain
prognostic. While he was at Arezzo in that
same year there came a messenger with the
news that Cardinal Monte was elected as Pope
Julius III. Mounting his horse, Vasari hurried
back to Florence. Bidden " God speed you " by
the duke, he started for Rome to be present at
the coronation of the new pontiff. Arrived at
Rome, he went immediately to kiss the feet of
his holiness, " which, when I had done, his first
words were to remind me that the prediction he
had uttered had not proved to be untrue."

We must not linger over the details of Vasari's
life, or we shall have no space to record how the
great " Lives " came to be written. Monsignore
Giovio, one of Cardinal Farnese's brilliant liter-
ary circle, had expressed his desire to write " a
treatise concerning men who had distinguished
themselves in the arts of design." "What
think you, Giorgio," said the cardinal, " would
not this be a noble labour ? " Upon his assent-
ing, the cardinal suggested that Vasari should
supply Giovio with the particulars and the neces-
sary technical information. So Vasari, though
he "felt the work beyond his strength," put
together the notes which his interest in the
subject had led him to collect since his boyhood,
and took them to Giovio. The generous Giovio
saw at once that Vasari was a better man to
write the lives than himself. Even if he had
the courage to undertake the task, the best that
he could do he said would be " a little treatise

196

The Indispensable VasarL

after the manner of Pliny," a mere handbook in
fact. Other friends urged Vasari to the work,
and thus Vasari, not by painting, nor even by
architecture, though no mean performer in either
branch, has earned immortality.

In the course of his biographies he refers
frequently to " Our book." This was a port-
folio of drawings by the various artists whose
lives he narrates, and to which he refers when
he passes judgment upon their capacity for
drawing. This collection is well known. Many
of the drawings have been in the writer's family.
They are rendered doubly interesting by the
fact that the mounts are often decorated in the
most lavish manner with elaborate Renaissance
ornament, drawn out of sheer love and perse-
verance by their owner in his spare time of an
evening.

It is impossible to review the " Lives " in
brief. We have had occasion to quote much
from them already. A special feature of each
life is the " saw " with which it begins. Vasari
loves to generalize and point his moral by a
particular case. " Happy," for instance, " is he
who possesses also the advantage of living at
the same time with any renowned author from
whom, in return for some little portrait or similar
expression of artistic courtesy, he obtains the
reward of being once mentioned in his writings,
thereby securing to himself eternal honour and
fame. . . . Great then was the good fortune of
Simon Memmi in that he lived at the same time
with Messer Francesco Petrarca, and that he

197

The Indispensable Vasari.

further chanced to meet that love-devoted poet
at the court of Avignon."

That Vasari believed that " there is but one
art " is to be gathered from the opening sentences
of his life of Andrea Orcagna. " We seldom
find a man distinguishing himself in one branch
of art who cannot readily acquire the know-
ledge of others. . . . We have a case in point
exhibited by the Florentine Orcagna." In sharp
contrast, this from the first paragraph on Delia
Robbia paints the pathos of the artistic fight.
" No man ever becomes distinguished in any art
whatsoever who does not early begin to acquire
the power of supporting heat, cold, hunger,
thirst, and other discomforts ... for it is not
by sleeping, but by waking, watching, and
labouring continually that proficiency is attained
and reputation acquired." Vasari fully and liter-
ally carried out this precept in his own life. He
was ever a believer that the labourer is worthy
of his hire, and also that the emoluments of art
are not to be despised.

He has a thorough way with mean patrons.
Peruzzi of Sienna, he says, was too simple and
faint-hearted. He did not treat his patrons
strenuously enough. We should be discreet
with magnanimous friends, but "importunate
and pressing towards those who are avaricious,
ungrateful, and discourteous ; . . . to be modest
with such people is an absurdity and a wrong."
And so say we.

The lady artist is nothing new, and Vasari is
no despiser of the sex. " It is a remarkable

198

The Indispensable Vasari.

fact," he begins in his life of Properzia de' Rossi,
" that whenever women have at any time de-
voted themselves to the study of any art or the
exercise of any talent they have for the most
part acquitted themselves well ... as did our
Properzia de' Rossi of Bologna, a maiden of rich
gifts, who was equally excellent " (mark this !)
"with others in the disposition of all household
matters, while she gained a point of distinction
in many sciences well calculated to excite the
envy not only of women but of men also." We
have seen that Pliny had but a low opinion of the
public appearance of women. Could anything
be more handsome than our good Vasari's pro-
nouncement upon the other side ? His thought-
ful reference to domestic affairs seems to sug-
gest that the emancipation of woman was a
vexed question in his days. If we wanted
further confirmation of his partisanship, we
should find it in his reference to Diana Ghisi,
the lady engraver. " Nay, what is still more
remarkable, he (Ghisi) has a daughter called
Diana, who engraves so admirably well that the
thing is a perfect miracle ; for my own part —
who have seen herself — and a very pleasing and
graceful maiden she is — as well as her works,
which are most exquisite, I have been utterly
astonished thereby."

A terrible ladies' man, our good Vasari !
See his reference to the four beautiful daughters
of Signor Amilcar Anguisciola — Sophonisba,
Lucia, Europa, and Anna, " who is still only a
little girl." "At a word, the house of the

199

The Indispensable Vasari.

Signer Anguisciola (the most fortunate father
of an admirable and honoured family) appears
to me to be the very abode and dwelling-place
of painting, or rather of all the excellences."
The most thorough-going advocate of the
emancipation of women must admit that the
great historian of art blows their trumpet with
no uncertain sound.

As we might expect from one who was so
reliable as to have the entree into so many
households full of budding female genius,
Vasari is eminently respectable by nature. Even
the man-artist should know his place, thinks he.

" Alfonso Lombardi, a person of attractive
and youthful appearance," used to wear too many
gold ornaments for his biographer's taste, " prov-
ing himself thereby to be rather the vain and idle
follower of a court than a meritorious artist con-
scientiously seeking the acquirement of an honest
fame/' Vasari recommends a golden mean.
You must not dress beyond your station, but
above all things beware of Bohemianism. Is he
speaking with prophetic knowledge of a certain
class of French and English art-students when
he describes the companions of Jacone, the friend
of Aristotile da San Gallo ? We are almost
disposed to think so, the parallel is so close.
"Art," he says, "just at that time had fallen in
Florence into the hands of a company of persons
who thought more of amusing and enjoying
themselves than of the labour required for the
success of their works ; their principal delight
being to get together in the wine-shops and

200

The Indispensable Vasari.

other places, where, in their absurd jargon, they
would decry the productions of other artists,
or censure the lives of those who laboured
steadily and passed their time with respectable
companions. . . . A company, or rather a horde
of young men, who, under the pretext of living
like philosophers, demeaned themselves like so
many swine or other brute beasts. Never did
they wash either hands or face or head or beard ;
they did not sweep their houses, they never
made their beds save twice in each month only,
they used the cartoons of their pictures for their
tables, and drank only from the bottle or the
pitcher." Scandalous indeed — though we seem
to remember that Michel Angelo, the revered
of Vasari, was somewhat sparing of the basin
and the towel. Anyhow, Jacone painted some
good pictures, and if he had listened to the
rebuke of our good Giorgio, which forcibly sug-
gests to our recollection Hogarth's series of the
industrious and idle apprentices, he might have
escaped his sordid end. These untidyyoung men
met Vasari as he was returning from Monte Oli-
veto, a monastery outside Florence, in that mood
of sedate self-complacency which is the natural
concomitant of a good day's work conscientiously
performed, and perhaps not illiberally rewarded.
He had even been able to allow himself the
luxury of a horse to ride home from his labours.
This seems to have excited the derision, or
more probably the envy of these young men.
"Well done, Giorgio!" said Jacone. " How
goes it with your worship ? " "It goes excel-

201

The Indispensable Vasari,

lently well with my worship,'7 responded Giorgio,
" seeing that I who was once as poor as any one of
you all, can now count my three thousand crowns
or more. You have considered me a simpleton,
but the monks and priests hold me to be some-
thing better. Formerly I was serving among
you, but now this servant whom you see serves
me, as well as my horse. I used to wear such
clothes as we painters are glad to put on when
we are poor, but now I am clothed in velvet.
In old times I went on foot, now I ride on
horseback. Thus you see, my good Jaco, my
worship does excellently well. God give you
good day, Jacone."

202

CHAPTER XIV.

THE STORY OF THE GEM.

SMALLEST of all works of art, yet most precious
when its dimensions are considered, is the en-
graved gem. No thing of beauty fashioned by
the hand of man has had a longer history. The
gem is engraved on even the hardest of the
precious stones, to injure which in the least
degree destroys their value. Gold jewels of
priceless beauty have been ruthlessly sold by
the marauders for what the mere metal would
fetch. Splendid plate has been melted down
to aid some hopeless cause. Sculptures and
mosaics have been battered by barbarian hands.
The engraved gem wrenched from the body of
its fallen owner or pilfered from the shrine is
protected by its precious material and by its
magic virtues. Throughout all ancient history,
during the long twilight of the Middle Ages, and
even in modern days, the precious stone, and
the engraved gem more than all, has been
venerated as a talisman to ward off disease and
all the powers of darkness. Most beautiful and
most refined, it yet was made at first to serve
the daily purposes of sealing treasure chests
and documents and contracts. Secluded for its

203

The Story of the Gem.

artistic beauties from common use, it has be-
come the cherished ornament of kings and
emperors. Easy to pilfer, and easy to conceal,
it has been abstracted at their deaths from
murder, or on the field of battle, and carried to
some distant country, where its new and ignorant
possessor has never known its origin, and has
considered it the work of nature, or the solace
of the idle wandering years of Israel when they
came out of Egypt. So throughout a thousand
years he has adorned with it the shrines that
contained the relics of the Saviour and the
Saints. Then at last, after these vicissitudes,
the gem, always valued and generally misunder-
stood, has emerged as that obje<5l of art the
collection of which, through the associations of
classical antiquity, stamps its collector with the
highest mark of culture and refinement.

Small though it be, the engraving of the gem
entails the most unremitting careful loving
labour. Ten years have not been considered
too much to spend upon a single masterpiece.
But what matters a generation to the life of a
work of art that counts its years by thousands ?
We speak of " engraved gems/' but the precious
stone is not incised by a graver guided by the
hand. The earliest artist chipped a soft stone
with a harder flint, but at Nineveh had already
been invented, two thousand years at least before
the birth of Christ, the drill fixed to a drum and
turned by a wheel. The simplicity of the en-
graver's tools has remained unaltered. The
Greek artist would have seated himself unem-

204

The Story of the Gem.

barrassed before the engraver's table of modern
times. Both turned the wheel and pressed the
precious stone against their various drills charged
with oil and the dust of the corundum. This is
the hard basis of the ruby, the sapphire, the
emerald, and many other precious stones. To
cut their glittering facets the Indian lapidary
uses corundum to this day. With these simple
materials the engraver can slowly but surely eat
into all the precious stones. The diamond alone
he has never satisfactorily engraved, but in
revenge has used its biting dust to drill the
rest.

When the engraver hollows out his figures
upon the stone, so that, if a wax impression
were taken, it would appear raised in relief, his
work is an "intaglio."

When, having chosen a stone in layers of
different colours, such as the sardonyx, he cuts
away the upper layer till only figures are left
raised upon a layer of a different shade — so that
a wax impression would be a hollow concave
mould — the engraving is a cameo. This curious
word is found in the thirteenth-century Low
Latin as " camahutum," derived perhaps from
the Syriac word for charm, " chemeia," or else
from " camaut," the camel's hump.

In the arid early periods of artistic history
we will not tarry long. The prototype of the
classic gem is found in the piece of reed or
wood with which the Assyrian rolled flat the
clay plastered round the lid of his vase or chest
of treasures.

205

The Story of the Gem.

This seal he wore by a string round his neck
ready for all the needs of life. To copy the
reed cylinder in the more durable stone was
but a step, and so we have preserved to us in
the British Museum the a6lual signet of Sen-
nacherib. In Egypt the seal takes the form of
the sacred beetle, " Scarabseus " — often most
realistically carved — as the symbol of immor-
tality or the sun. This shape is carried by the
Phoenician merchant to every part of the Medi-
terranean Sea. The Etruscan and the Greek
employ it, but as their art improves they both
discard it, and imprint their own individuality
upon the gem in shape and subject. Wearying
of the winged Assyrian lions or the dog-headed
Egyptian god Horus, they illustrate their own
mythology. The Assyrians had contented them-
selves with the stones of their native rivers and
mountains, the lapis lazuli and the amethyst, but
the Greeks, through the Phoenicians, who dealt
in the riches of Arabia, had a wider choice. In
the culminating age of Alexander they employed
perhaps every precious stone except the diamond.

Whence the Etruscans came has been and
always will be a matter of conje6lure. "They
do not," says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, "re-
semble any people in language or manners."
Their finest period corresponds in date, 500
years before the birth of Christ, to the archaic
period of the Greeks, who very likely learned
the art from them. Greek gem - engraving
attained perfection first in Sicily and Magna
Grecia, where were colonies neighbouring on

206

The Story of the Gem.

the Etruscans, far richer than their mother-
country of Greece proper. The Greeks full
soon improved on the stunted Etruscan type.
Their glorious victories over the Persian in-
vaders heralded the golden age of Pheidias.
With the age of Praxiteles, the matchless
sculptor in 364 B.C., we find upon the gem the
slender graceful forms of the finest bas-reliefs.
Again and again are found copied with more or
less fidelity the lifesize masterpiece in marble.
Sometimes the gem alone preserves a record of
some noted statue which is lost for ever. Upon
a gem of Nisus is reproduced Alexander hold-
ing the thunderbolts of Zeus, the celebrated
pifture of Apelles. Art can no further go when
Alexander reigns. The names of all the en-
gravers we shall never learn, for the gem was a
private seal, and if it bore a name it was more
often that of the owner than the artist. Some
few have come down to us on which is inscribed
that "Philo" or " Nicander made it." The
name of Pyrgoteles has been preserved. He
alone might engrave the portrait of his master,
Alexander the Great. For others of inferior
talents to dare was sacrilege.

So we come to Roman times, when Macedon
declined, and Italy became the home of wealth
and power. The Romans even of Republican
days held gem-engraving an important art. As
they increased in riches their love for gems
became intense. Pliny even attributes the
downfall of the Republic to a quarrel originating
from the sale of a ring. The demagogue Drusus

207

The Story of the Gem.

and Caepio the senator fell out while bidding at
an au<5lion, and thus were laid the foundations
of the feud which culminated in the Social War.
Not once alone has the gem played an import-
ant part in the fortunes of a country. When
Marcellus fell into the Carthaginian ambush at
Venusium, his ring was used by Hannibal to
seal the forged dispatches with which he hoped
to sap the loyalty of neighbouring towns.
Pompey had dedicated to Jupiter the spoils of
Mithridates, the first gem-colle<5lor in a royal
line of which the Empress Josephine was per-
haps the last. Julius Caesar in emulation of
his rival offered six cabinets of gems to Venus
Viftrix, whom he called his ancestor. From
Seneca we learn the curious tale that when
Caesar gave back his forfeited life to a suppliant
enemy, he held out his foot for him to kiss.
This the friends of Caesar said he did, not from
arrogance, but only to show off the splendid
gems upon his sandals.

The Romans could not vie with the Greeks
in cutting the intaglio, but in the engraving of
the cameo they were their equals, if not superior.
In the reign of Hadrian the cameo reached its
highest excellence. Again and again we find
perpetuated the melancholy beauty of Hadrian's
favourite Antinous, who was drowned untimely
in the Nile. One emperor dissipates the
cherished treasures of another. Marcus Aurelius,
the philosopher, sells the gems of Hadrian, the
lover of art, to pay the expenses of the Marco-
mannic war.

208

The Story of the Gem.

Cameos of huge size and matchless workman-
ship have been bequeathed to us. Largest of
all is the celebrated so-called " Apotheosis of
Augustus." Thirteen inches long by eleven
wide this splendid stone of five layers has
unique historic interest. When Constantine
founded his new capital at Byzantium he took
this treasure with him. There it remained set
in a splendid golden setting until the day when
Baldwin II., the last Prankish emperor of Con-
stantinople, wished to incite St. Louis to a new
crusade. Then he pawned it to the French
king, together with the "Crown of Thorns"
and the "Swaddling Clothes of the Infant
Saviour." For these priceless relics and the
cameo St. Louis paid a sum amounting to two
hundred thousand pounds. Thus the cameo
found its way to the treasury of the Sainte
Chapelle in Paris. There throughout the Middle
Ages it received the homage due to a gem sup-
posed to represent the triumph of Joseph at the
Court of Pharaoh. In 1791, when the Assembly
determined to sell the treasures of the Sainte
Chapelle, Louis XVI. made an ineffectual pro-
test, but the cameo and some few other things
were deposited in the Bibliotheque. Its eventful
history does not end here.

On the night of the i6th or 1 7th of February,
1804, it was stolen and despoiled of its Byzantine
mounting by some thievish vandals for the value
of the gold. The gem was about to be offered
for sale at Amsterdam when the police stepped
in and saved it once more for France.

209 P

The Story of the Gem.

We are accustomed to speak of the " Dark
Ages," but do we fully appreciate that darkness
of a thousand years, when the brilliant and
gracious completeness of classical antiquity gave
place to the crabbed inventions of the Gothic
invader ? Lost from its sunny Italian home,
art lingered on in the foreign twilight of By-
zantium, whither fled for refuge the artists of
the West. When it revived to supply the
demands of new masters who were learning the
lesson of magnificence and luxury, it had lost
the memory of its former triumphs and drew
its first feeble inspirations from the gloomy
forests of Germany. In those ages of barbaric
inroad to even the most learned the origin of
the antique gem was a mystery. The best
informed, all ignorant of Greek, could only
hazard a guess that engraved stones were the
work of the children of Israel during their years
of wandering in the wilderness, and so they
called them "pierres d'Israel," or "Jews' stones."
A fa6l such as this gives new force to the mean-
ing of the term, " The revival of letters."

We shall see to what uses the gem inscribed
with the mysterious Greek characters which
none could understand, was presently applied.
Meanwhile the rise of Christianity had its in-
fluence upon the fortunes of the gem. The
later emperors were Illyrians, Franks, and
Goths, who brought with them a horde of bar-
barous companions as their court officials, to
oust the former patrons of the art. When Chris-
tianity gained strength, it struck another blow by

210

The Story of the Gem.

condemning the mythological subjects which the
artist delighted to engrave. The use of elabor-
ate signets was discouraged by -the early Church.
Clemens Alexandrinus in the second century
restricts his hearers to the use of the simple
devices of the anchor, the lyre, the ship, the
dove, and the fisherman, symbols pagan
enough, if he had only bethought him of it.
The " Good Shepherd," the eventual symbol of
the Church, was of later introduction. They
shrank at first from portraying the Son of Man.
So, apart from the intrinsic evidence of its Re-
naissance origin, the famous emerald of the
Vatican upon which the head of Christ was
engraved must be pronounced a forgery.

It was supposed to have been made by order
of Pontius Pilate, and presented to Tiberius.
It was treasured up by the Roman and Byzan-
tine emperors, and by their Ottoman successors,
until it was paid by the sultan to Innocent VIII.
as a more than equivalent ransom for his brother,
who had fallen into the hands of the pope. In
reality it is neither antique, nor even Byzantine,
but a mere copy from a medal of the time of
Innocent VIII.

The fish was most popular from the outset
because the Greek name IX9Y2 contains the
initials of the sentence 'Ir/crove Xpiarog Gtov Yioc
^(jjrrjp, " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the
Saviour."

With those, too, who remained pagan, oriental
mysticism ousted the legends of the old mytho-
logy. Finally, the combination of paganism and

211

The Story of the Gem.

oriental demonology with Christianity resulted
in those strange unintelligible se6ls, the Gnostics.
The later glory of Greek civilization was to be
found at Alexandria, and here these sects, who
were so profuse in their use of gems, arose. The
Gnostics embodied, it has been said, the spirit
of the old religion warring against the Church.
They were intelle6lually-minded persons who
could not remain in the old paganism when the
whole world was astir with the new and vital
truths of Christianity. The Gnostic resented
the necessity of sharing the new belief with the
common herd — of worshipping humbly beside
the man who might have been his slave. So,
asserting that the intellectual few could alone
understand the essence of Christianity, they left
the ordinary form to the multitude, and formed
esoteric se6ls out of a mixture of Christianity
and pagan mysteries. Their prolific cult of
symbolism found its natural outlet in the use
of the talismanic properties of the engraved
stone. We no longer find the beautiful classical
subject, but cabalistic signs and monstrous
figures, borrowed from the Mithraic creed of
Pontus and the worship of Egypt. Their
favourite symbol of all is the Abraxas-god made
up of the serpent, the eagle, the human torso,
and the scourge. To these they added Hebrew
and Syriac inscriptions and mystic numerals,
while beneath their creed was an underlying
substratum of astrology.

Christianity and Gnosticism soon put an end
to the artistic life of the gem. At Byzantium,

212

The Story of the Gem.

whither the western artists fled for refuge from
the Gothic invader, the art lingered on.

Strange to relate, while art declines in Europe,
the Persians revived it under that Sassanian
dynasty which annihilated the Roman power in
Asia, and struggled on until its conquest by the
Arabs in 651 A.D. Thus, when western civiliza-
tion has lost it, the art is found again enriched
with the utmost wealth of material at least,
almost in its original home.

To the Arabs, under a stricter rule than that
of the early Christians, only inscriptions were
allowed by the Mohammedan religion. The in-
scriptions on their seals are in the fine running
hand which is characteristic of the Arabs. Such
a seal was that which, inscribed with the words,
" The slave Abraham relying upon the Merci-
ful," Napoleon I. picked up with his own hand
during his campaign in Egypt. This he after-
wards always carried about, as did Napoleon III.
By him it was bequeathed to the late Prince
Imperial. "As regards my son/' so runs the
will, " I desire that he will keep as a talisman "
(how the old superstition recurs !) " the seal which
I used to wear attached to my watch." The
prince carried it fastened by a string round his
neck, but its talismanic powers, alas ! were of
no avail against the cruel Zulu assegai.

With Gothic time begin ten centuries of dark-
ness. A Gothic gem cut on a hard stone is
hard indeed to find. The art itself is lost, and
for five hundred years the Gothic seal is incised
in metal. Love of the art gives place to adora-

213

The Story of the Gem.

tion of an amulet, whose origin is buried in
oblivion. Every engraved gem had its value
as a talisman to ward off disease and danger.
None were too rough for the goldsmith to mount
in the mediaeval seal. The legends of antiquity
are turned wholesale to Christian uses. The
triple Bacchic mask of the Roman stage be-
comes a representation of the Trinity, as a
legend on the metal mount attests, " Haec est
Trinitatis imago/' " Every veiled female head,"
as Mr. King says, " passed for a Madonna
or a Magdalene." ... " Isis nursing Horus
could not but serve for the Virgin and the Infant
Saviour." Most curious of all, Thalia holding
her mask is translated into Herodias carrying
the head of John the Baptist, " whilst the skip-
ping little Bacchic genius, her usual companion,
becomes the daughter of Herodias, who danced
to such ill purpose ; and so they appear on a
seal of the fourteenth century, with the allusive
motto, "Jesus est amor meus." "Jupiter with his
eagle at his side did duty amongst Charles VYs
jewels for the Evangelist, but the unlucky Pan
and his satyrs were for ever banished from the
finger, and their forms now appear recast as
devils in later pictures of the realms of torment :
and all this in virtue of their caprine extremi-
ties." But the highest glory ever attained by a
work of the engraver was that of the cameo of
the abbey of St. Germain des Pres in Paris,
which enjoyed for 1,000 years the transcendent
(though baseless) fame of adorning the espousal
ring of the Virgin Mary, and of preserving the

214

The Story of the Gem.

portraits after the life of herself and Joseph.
It is in reality the seal of " Alpheus with Aretho,"
two unknown Roman freedmen.

The great repositories of gems in these later
days were the shrines of the saints. On that of
the three kings of Cologne were 226 gems
incrusted. The shrine was made in 1 1 70 to
contain the skulls of the Three Wise Men from
the East. These were brought from Constan-
tinople, and presented by the Emperor Francis I.
to the Archbishop of Cologne. In 1794, on
the advance of the French army, all the cathe-
dral treasures were taken to Arnberg. In 1804
they were solemnly brought back — as the Ark
was brought back from the Philistines — but
during the interval the shrine had been crushed,
and many a gem stolen. It was, however, re-
paired, and may now be seen at Cologne.

The shrine of Marburg was made in 1250 to
contain the bones of Elizabeth, Landgravine of
Thuringen and Hesse, canonized in 1235. On
this were 824 precious stones, of which many
were engraved gems. In 1810 the shrine was
taken to Cassel till 1814 by order of the West-
phalian government, and during that interval all
the engraved gems but one were stolen. One
was the celebrated luminous gem believed to
give light in the hours of darkness, and called the
" Karfunkel of Marburg." The people of Mar-
burg regarded the engraving on the gems as
the work of nature, so utterly had all know-
ledge of the civilization of antiquity departed.

But at last comes the Renaissance, when the
215

The Story of the Gem.

gem comes by its own again as far as due appre-
ciation is concerned. " Towards the middle of
the fifteenth century," says Mr. King, " Italian
art was fast growing more classical, having
gradually freed itself from the trammels of
Gothicism in proportion as the power of the
German emperors waned away all over the
peninsula. . . . The restoration of St. Peter's
chair to a native line of popes after its long re-
moval and occupation by a Gallican dynasty,
contributed to this result. Pope Paul II. (1464-
1471) formed a collection of gems, and is said
to have been a martyr to them, as he died of
the weight and the chill of the rings with which
he loaded his fingers.

The reason why the art rose to perfection so
quickly after long years of disuse, was that the
skilled hand of the goldsmith practised in " niel-
latura " and all miniature work was ready to
undertake the task, when guided, perhaps, by
the artistic refugee from fallen Constantinople.
This is the golden age of cameo cutting. The
demand for them as ornaments for superb gold
and enamelled neck-chains and hat medallions,
and for inlaying in plate, passed all belief. To
this period belongs the fatal ring that Elizabeth
had given to Essex. When he lay under sen-
tence of death his messenger, Lady Nottingham,
treacherously abstained from returning it to the
queen ; so Elizabeth made no sign of relent-
ing to the anxiously expelling favourite, who
perished on the scaffold. From his daughter,
Lady Devereux, it has descended in an un-

216

The Story of the Gem.

broken female line down to the present time.
It is a cameo bust of the " virgin " queen, on a
sardonyx of three layers. The ring is simple,
and enamelled on the back with flowers in blue.
Horace Walpole says : " There is no evidence
that she had much taste for painting, but she
loved pictures of herself. In them she could
appear really handsome." So it was natural
that her portrait should appear upon the ring ;
but whether she valued the art of gem-engrav-
ing for its own sake is more than doubtful. It
is pleasant to turn to George Carey, second
Lord Hunsdon, a true lover of the art. When
he died in 1603 ne bequeathed to his wife,
Elizabeth Spencer, and afterwards to his only
daughter, Lady Berkeley, the celebrated Huns-
don onyx, which is three and a quarter inches
square. He gave stricT: injunctions that it was
to be transmitted to his posterity with other
jewels, to be preserved "soo longe as the con-
science of my heires shall have grace and
honestie to perform my will : for that I esteem
them right jewels and monuments worthie to be
kept for their beauty, rareness, and that for
monie they are not to be matched, nor the like
yet known to be found in this realme." From
the wording of the first sentence we might con-
clude that this true lover of art was already
imbued with a presentiment of the Philistinism
of later days. But so far as refers to this cameo,
a sardonyx of three layers, representing Perseus
and Andromeda, his wishes have been re-
spe6led.

217

The Story of the Gem.

From 1550, with the loss of the rich art-loving
popes like Leo X. and Clement VII., and
kings like Charles V. and Francis I., and, above
all, Lorenzo de' Medici (1448-1492), and with
the frequency of wars and tumults, until the
accession of Louis XIV. gem-engraving de-
clined. When, after the barren seventeenth
century, the art awoke in the eighteenth, it was
to an age of imitation and unscrupulous forgery.
This is the " age of the dilettanti" The intaglio
supersedes the cameo once more. Originality of
design is no longer aimed at. Artists are for
the most part content to make repeated copies
of well-known antiques. They prided them-
selves less on their professional skill than on
their adroitness in imposing their copies upon
the collector as originals. " For every antique
gem of note," says Mr. King, " fully a dozen of
its counterfeits are now in circulation." " One
of the most difficult things," says one of the
greatest living authorities upon gems, writing in
"The Nineteenth Century/' " was to simulate the
peculiar appearance of the salient surfaces of
antique gems. After infinite endeavours, some
more than usually astute Roman gem-engraver
found that the best way was to cram his modern-
antique gems down the throats of turkeys kept
in coops for the purpose, when the continual
attrition which they received from contact with
other stones and pebbles crammed into the bird's
crop at the same time, ultimately induced almost
exactly the desired appearance." Poor antique
gems they would most skilfully retouch and im-

218

The Story of the Gem.

prove, inscribing an antique artist's name upon
them, through the mistaken belief that the
names upon the antique gems are always those
of the engraver. Casanova, the painter, men-
tions a fine antique gem which was unsaleable
until a name was inscribed upon it, when it at
once fetched four times the sum first asked.
They would buy up antique paste gems at a
high price, and having copied their subjects,
they would destroy the paste, " thus at one
stroke securing the antique spirit for their own
compositions and safety against the detection
of plagiarism." Lastly, they would fabricate
the ingenious "doublet," made out of a glass
paste moulded from an antique cameo. This
was backed with a layer of real sard, carefully
fixed by a transparent cement. The writer re-
members being present at a bargain between
one of the best known Parisian dealers, a true
gentleman of the old school, and one of the
greatest living authorities upon gems. A
" doublet " deceived them both ; it was sold in
good faith, and accepted in the same spirit.
The chance insertion of a finger-nail exposed
the fraud. The raised subject of the cameo
flew off, and the bargain had to be unmade.
Let the inexperienced beware when two such
experts were deceived.

The arch-forger was a Hanoverian spy upon
the movements of the Young Pretender, Baron
Stosch. He formed a huge collection, in which,
though much was genuine, most were false, and
sold it to Frederic of Prussia. To Baron Stosch

219

The Story of the Gem.

a M. Hardieu was one day exhibiting the ring
of Michel Angelo, said to be the work of Pyrgo
teles, and one of the chief glories of the collec-
tion of the Bibliotheque in Paris. This ring,
which commemorated the birth of Alexander
the Great, he presently missed. Knowing with
whom he had to deal, he kept his counsel.
Without expressing his suspicion, he privately
despatched a servant for a strong emetic, which
he insisted that the baron should swallow then
and there, with the result that the missing ring
was happily re-discovered.

With this century gem-cutting has gradually
declined. True artists have slowly disappeared,
and those workmen who remain confine them-
selves to the cutting of shell cameos, which
were unknown to antiquity, and are carved out
of the soft material of the Indian conch.

This tale of fraud and imposition fitly ends
with the greatest forgery of all.

Three thousand gems, more or less antique in
style, were executed for the Prince Poniatowsky,
who died at Florence in 1833, by the best Roman
artists of the day. Opinions differ as to the
motives of the prince. Some say he was the
vi6lim of a fraud combined amongst the en-
gravers ; " others again defend his knowledge at
the expense of his honesty," and assert that he
intended to palm them off as antiques himself.
The true solution is to be found, perhaps, in the
personal vanity of the prince. He loved the art,
and fondly believed that he himself could inspire
the modern engraver, by his choice of subjects,

220

The Story of the Gem.

with the true antique spirit. The sums he paid
must have been immense. A fraud dies hard.
The Poniatowsky gems are now discredited, but
once the government was nearly persuaded to
pay ,£60,000 for a third of the collection.
Supineness saved them from this catastrophe.
Since then they have been sold for the mere
value of their gold settings, a fate unkind, for of
many the workmanship is beautiful. In 1858
there were people who still had such a blind
faith in them as to publish a most costly work
upon these gems, in the full belief that they
were undoubted masterpieces of antiquity.

221

CHAPTER XV.

JEWELS AND PRECIOUS STONES.

SOMETIMES we have held in our hands a splendid
jewel of the period of the Renaissance, glittering
with the shifting sparkle of enamel and precious
stones, and experienced a poignant regret that
it could not reflect from its shining facets some
image of the events that it has witnessed. No
thing of beauty could tell a more interesting
story than the jewel. An object of personal
adornment, it has been the close companion of
those by whom history was made — has nestled
on the bosoms of lovely maidens and stately
dames, and listened to the secrets their beating
hearts contained. If, in the opinion of the
Middle Ages, the gem could draw an influence
to ward off danger and disease from the stars
and planets that are so distant, surely the pure
gold of the jewel might have communion with
the souls of those to whom it has clung so close.
The artist, at any rate, who made one of these
tiny masterpieces, should have felt a keener
pleasure at the thought that his work was meant
as a last enhancement of the charms of what is
fairest in creation. Necklace, "jazeran," love
token, or betrothal ring, it was sure to be the

222

Jewels and Precious Stones.

subject of more personal delight than any other
form of art. As it lies closest to the human
form, so it stays by it longest. Our knowledge
of the jewellery of the ancients has come to us
from their custom of burying personal ornaments
in the tomb.

One melancholy fact we have to notice, that
the jewel, besides being the victim of war, has
also been always subject: to the vicissitudes of
fashion. Thousands of splendid works have
been melted up to pay for a campaign, even as
the papal jewels were melted by Cellini when
Clemen t VI I . was besieged in Rome. Thousands,
again, have been melted down when the vogue
was changed. The hat medallion, for instance,
came into fashion in 1458. Previous to that
time hats had been adorned with something in
the nature of phylafteries, sold at the monas-
teries and at pilgrim centres as preventives of
disease. But with the period of Charles VIII.
they became ornaments of splendid and elaborate
workmanship. Many bronze casts of them still
exist, but how few of the original gold ! As at
the present time, there have no doubt always
been miserable huckstering jewellers who have
the face to advertise their readiness to refashion
the beautiful heirlooms of ancient families.

The French draw a distinction between
"joaillerie," and "bijouterie." The first im-
plies jewels in which the precious stone is the
principal feature. The second constitutes that
far more artistic class in which the goldsmith
and enameller has had unrestricted freedom. It

223

Jewels and Precious Stones.

is obvious that the latter, as containing more
gold to melt, is likely to have suffered the most.
The settings of diamonds are rarely of much
account ; the stones are all in all. A fine pend-
ant, in which the gold work is the predominant
feature, once melted down, is a work of art com-
pletely lost. If interesting memories attaching
to precious stones are more common than those
of jewels proper, the fault lies in the perishable
nature of the latter.

A curious historical circumstance preserved
many jewels for some hundreds of years in the
city of Zaragossa. When the Moors of Cordova
cast off their allegiance to the Caliph of the
East, about 755 A.D., it was no longer possible
for them to make their pilgrimages to Mecca.
They set up a substitute in the mosque of Cor-
dova. When the taking of Jerusalem by the
Turks, in 1076, incited Peter the Hermit to
preach the first Crusade in 1095, tne Spaniards
were forbidden to go as crusaders to the holy
city, on the ground that they were better em-
ployed against the infidel on their own soil.
The Castilians therefore set up a holy place at
Santiago. Then the Aragonese, not choosing
to worship at a foreign (i.e., Castilian) shrine, set
up at Zaragossa a rival place of worship, that of
the " Virgin of the Pillar." The legend runs,
that Santiago (St. James), soon after the Cruci-
fixion, asked the Virgin for permission to preach
the gospel in Spain. Having " kissed her
hand," he came to Zaragossa, converted eight
pagans, and fell asleep. Then, on January 2nd,

224

Jewels and Precious Stones.

A.D. 40, the angels of heaven brought the
Virgin alive from Palestine on a jasper pillar,
and carried her back again, after she had com-
manded Santiago to put up a chapel. However
that may be, in the cathedral " El Pilar," a
building of clustering domes, roofed with green
and white glazed tiling, is the shrine of the Virgin
of the Pillar. Therein is a figure of the Virgin
rudely carved in black wood on an alabaster
pillar which works miraculous cures. As thank-
offerings for these cures it has been the custom
to present jewels of all descriptions to the shrine.
Here many remained, until, about 1 870, they were
sold to complete the building of the cathedral.
They were but a small part of what were once to be
seen. The " complimentary gift " of the chapter
to Marshal Lannes, in the French invasion,
was estimated at the value of 130,000 dollars.
Some specimens of what he left may be seen
in the South Kensington Museum. Enamelled
representations of the Virgin on her pillar are
a favourite form ; but the collection includes
jewels of every shape, from a little gold-mounted
fir-cone to a parrot with a jacinth set upon its
breast. Other and finer specimens — master-
pieces of the Spanish goldsmith — are in private
hands. Amongst those with which the writer is
familiar is a small cross carved somewhat archi-
tecturally in solid gold. It is set on one side
with diamonds ; on the other it is ornamented
with black and white enamel and tiny sparks of
red. Though far from being the largest, it is
undoubtedly one of the grandest specimens of

225 Q

Jewels and Precious Stones.

jewellery ever made. The South Kensington
Museum might have possessed this and others,
if the money had been forthcoming. Could we
learn the private histories attaching to these
jewels, the votive offerings of rich and suffering
pilgrims, there would be unfolded many a touch-
ing tale of pious faith and thanksgiving, and
also, we fear, of heartrending disappointment.

In the same collection which contains the
beautiful cross just mentioned, there is a circular
gold medallion, with the remains of an enamelled
setting, which was dredged up from the bottom
of the Grand Canal at Venice. Did its wearer
lie stark and cold beneath those olive-green
waters, or was it perhaps only dropped by acci-
dent by its owner returning from some brilliant
scene of pleasure ? Hard by is a Spanish jewel
in the favourite form of a little ship, or " nef,"
which was found in Ireland. It is a relic of the
miserable flight of the battered Armada, when,
after the great fight off Calais, the wearied rem-
nant of the fleet fled northwards, doubled Cape
Wrath, and came to a sad end on the inhos-
pitable Irish shore.

Next comes a curious spherical gold ornament
on the model of an " armillary sphere," an astro-
nomical machine in which the " circles " of the
world, such as the equator and the ecliptic, are
marked in their relative positions by hoops of
metal. Such things were worn attached to a
long chain hanging down the front of the dress
from the centre of the waist girdle. This one
contains a " bezoar " stone — a concretion taken

226

Jewels and Precious Stones.

from the stomach of an animal, and supposed to
have occult protecting properties. This relic
was presented by Charles V. to the wife of the
adventurer, " stout Cortez," to commemorate
the event —

" . . . . When with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surprise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

In the family of Cortez it has remained until
the present day.

Here, too, is a tiny prayer-book splendidly
bound in enamelled metal, and small enough to
be suspended by a chain round the neck of the
Emperor Charles V., for whom it was made.
Lastly, there is a " George," which belonged to
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and which he may
have worn on the day of his execution. It con-
sists of an onyx cameo set round with large rose
diamonds. The back is finely enamelled. When,
if ever, this was handed back to its royal donor,
he little guessed that within a few short years
he, too, would be the chief aftor in another
" memorable scene," and that his splendid pic-
tures and jewels would be scattered to the four
winds of heaven.

Monarchs frequently received New Year's
gifts from their faithful subjects. Jewels were
a fitting offering for a " Virgin Queen." Horace
Walpole notes that the chivalrous Sir Philip
Sidney presented to Elizabeth one year a whip
set with jewels, and another year a castle en-
riched with diamonds. Another gift was " a

227

Jewels and Precious Stones.

flower of gold garnished with sparkes of dia-
monds, rubyes, and ophals, with an agath of her
Majestie's visnomy and a perle pendante with
devises on it given by eight maskers" in the
twenty-fourth year of her reign. Elizabeth's
jeweller was Nicholas Milliard, celebrated for his
miniatures. One of his jewels contained por-
traits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI.,
and Queen Mary. On the top was an enamelled
representation of the Battle of Bosworth, and on
the reverse the red and white roses. Charles I.
purchased this jewel from Hilliard's son. A
very interesting agate cameo, Walpole says, be-
longed to a Duchess of Leeds. It combined
the portraits of Elizabeth and the ill-fated Essex,
whose name is inscribed as her champion knight.
A gold chain once stood Ferdinand the
Catholic in good stead when he was leaving a
court of law at which he had been presiding.
In Prescott's words, " As the party was issuing
from a little chapel contiguous to the royal
saloon, and just as the king was descending a
flight of stairs, a ruffian darted from an obscure
recess, in which he had concealed himself early
in the morning, and aimed a blow with a short
sword or knife at the back of Ferdinand's neck.
Fortunately the edge of the weapon was turned
by a gold chain or collar which he was in the
habit of wearing." But for this he would cer-
tainly have died, for the wound was deep and
serious. Doubtless Ferdinand continued to wear
the ornament which had saved his life. EVTV^Q
i is the motto of a Greek gem with
228

Jewels and Precious Stones.

which we are acquainted, and in like manner the
gold chain of Ferdinand was lucky for the
wearer. His wife, Isabella of Castile, had a
gracious custom. When travelling she attired
herself in the costume of the country, borrowing
for that purpose the jewels and other ornaments
of the ladies, and returning them with liberal
additions. At the end of her will she says :
" I beseech the king my lord that he will accept
all my jewels, or such as he shall select, so that,
seeing them, he may be reminded of the singular
love I always bore him while living, and that I
am now waiting for him in a better world ; by
which remembrance he may be encouraged to
live the more justly and holily in this."

What Odysseys of adventure these trinkets
may pass through ! Listen to the story of the
Sancy diamond. It was said to have been
brought from Constantinople, and to have
adorned the helmet of Charles the Bold, who
lost it and his life at the battle of Granson. It
was found by a soldier, and sold by him for two
francs to a monk, who in his turn sold it for
three. Then it was lost sight of; but in 1589
we find it amongst the treasures of Antonio,
King of Portugal. This prince mortgaged it
to De Sancy, the King of France's treasurer,
who eventually became its owner for the sum
of 100,000 livres. It remained long in the
possession of the Sancy family. Henry III.
borrowed it from them. It was to have served
the purpose of raising a body of Swiss, but the
servant who was charged to take it to the king

229

Jewels and Precious Stones.

was attacked by robbers and put to death. It
was believed that the diamond was lost. All
research was made, and at last it was discovered
that the servant had been assassinated in the
forest of Dole, and that, by the kindness of the
cure", he had been buried in the cemetery of the
village. "Then," said the Baron de Sancy,
" my diamond is not lost." It was aftually re-
covered from the body of the faithful but un-
fortunate servant, who had swallowed it in the
moment of danger. The diamond again dis-
appeared in 1792, when the royal jewels of
France were stolen on September 17 from the
Garde- Meuble, a short time after the inventory
made by order of the Constituent Assembly
was concluded. Many were recovered by Napo-
leon I., who caused search to be made all over
Europe for the missing treasures, and spent
large sums to get them back.

At this period, indeed, the French govern-
ment had been much troubled with diamonds.
The episode of the Diamond Necklace, which
Carlyle so magnificently describes, was one of
the most astonishing intrigues with which any
work of art has ever been connected. Not
everyone has the courage to struggle through
the philosophical reflections which the great
historian makes upon the subject, although the
persevering are rewarded with one passage at
least, concerning poor Marie Antoinette, which is
among the finest of all his rhetorical declamations.
The story, apart from the romance with which
Dumas has embellished it, 'is briefly this.

230

Jewels and Precious Stones.

About the year 1770 one Boehmer was
joaillier-bijoutier to Louis XV. He had an am-
bition to surpass himself in the production of
a diamond necklace which should transcend all
previous efforts. The finest stones were searched
for far and wide, such as should be fit to grace
the neck of Madame Dubarry, the king's mis-
tress. The necklace was an elaborate work of
art, consisting of seventeen large diamonds as
big as filberts, and an infinity of smaller ones
intricately arranged. Its value was nearly
;£ 1 00,000. Unfortunately Louis XV. died in
1774, and Madame Dubarry 's reign was over.
Now, the necklace was so valuable that only a
king could purchase it. Boehmer had hopes
that it might please the Infanta of Portugal,
but there was no money to spare in any of the
capitals of Europe. Even Marie Antoinette
was compelled to deny herself the luxury.

Such was the state of affairs when Prince
Louis de Rohan, ambassador at Vienna, was
recalled to Paris. He had fathered certain
don-mots directed against Maria Theresa, which
displeased her daughter, Marie Antoinette.
Consequently, he found upon his return that
he was excluded from the court. He was a
weak man, and in his despair fell under the
influence of Cagliostro, the arch-impostor, who
preyed upon him in his retirement at Saverne,
near Bar-sur-Aube.

Near the latter is a place called Fontette,
whose last seigneur, descended illegitimately
from Henri II., had died a pauper. He left a

231

Jewels and Precious Stones.

daughter, Jeanne, who was bred up as a sort of
companion and dressmaker by a charitable
Countess Boulainvilliers, who, on the strength
of Jeanne's descent, obtained for her a small
court pension. Genteel poverty did not suit
Jeanne de St. Remi of Fontette, countess, as
she called herself, and tf of a certain piquancy,"
as Carlyle loves to repeat. One fine summer's
day she made a journey to Fontette, hoping to
get back some remains of her paternal property.
Her hopes were dashed, but she consoled her-
self with a private sentinel in the king's gen-
darmes, named Lamotte, whom she met and
married. She styles herself in future Countess
de Lamotte.

About this time Countess Boulainvilliers was
staying at Saverne on a visit to Cardinal Prince
Louis de Rohan. Here her companion, Countess
de Lamotte, makes his acquaintance. Mean-
while, Countess Boulainvilliers dies, and her
husband casts off the Lamottes. They retire to
penury at Versailles, where they again meet
Prince Louis de Rohan, who has come there on
his usual spring visit.

It occurs to Madame de Lamotte to exploit
De Rohan, whose one fixed idea is to regain the
queen's favour. She tells him that she has
access to the queen. She becomes a go-
between, and carries messages to and from the
palace, two hundred in all, at first verbal, and
afterwards in writing, those purporting to come
from the queen being forged with the aid of one
Villette de Rdtaux, a supposed valet of the queen.

232

Jewels and Precious Stones.

De Rohan is soon persuaded by Madame
Lamotte that the queen has been graciously
pleased to allow him to disburse from his own
pocket certain sums for charitable purposes on
her behalf, money being scarce in the royal
coffers. Madame Lamotte is always the inter-
mediary to distribute the money for the queen.

Presently Madame Lamotte lets drop the tale
of Boehmer and his wonderful unsaleable neck-
lace, of which she has but recently heard some
rumours. She " confesses at last, under oath of
secrecy, her own private opinion that the queen
wants this same necklace of all things : but dare
not, for a stingy husband, buy it." The cardinal,
suggests Madame Lamotte, might perhaps in-
gratiate himself with her majesty by becoming
her agent to facilitate the acquisition of the neck-
lace. There would be nothing presumptuous in
that. Has he not already, as her private almoner,
advanced charitable loans on her behalf ?

At last, on the 28th of July, 1784, De Rohan
has an interview at nightfall with the shadow of
his beloved queen in the gardens of the palace of
Versailles. She gives him a rose "with these
ever-memorable words, * Vous savez ce que cela
veut dire ! ' The cardinal, cherishing his pre-
cious rose, determines that the queen shall have
her diamonds. That, of course, is the meaning
of the mysterious sentence cut short by the alarm
of approaching footsteps.

Meanwhile Madame Lamotte has stealthily
intimated to Boehmer that the Cardinal Prince
Louis de Rohan is the man to buy his necklace.

233

Jewels and Precious Stones.

The Countess Lamotte will not personally take
a hand in the bargain-making, no commission,
or anything of that nature. She leaves it all to
her majesty and the gilt-edged autographs.
The queen, however, is unacquainted with
business, it turns out, and refuses to write any
autograph actually authorizing the cardinal to
make a bargain, but writes to say that "the
matter is of no consequence, and can be given
up."

This makes the cardinal more eager than ever
to do her the service.

On the 2Qth of January, 1785, "a middle
course " is hit on. Boehmer is to write out his
terms, which are 1,600,000 livres, to be paid in
instalments. Agreed between Boehmer and
Bassange, court jewellers, and Prince Cardinal
Commendator Louis de Rohan.

Countess Lamotte takes this agreement to
Versailles, and returns with it marked, " Bon —
Marie Antoinette de France."

Rohan signs for Boehmer a receipt of delivery
at his palace in Paris. The cardinal then
hastens with the precious necklace in a casket to
Versailles, whither, in the Countess Lamotte's
apartments, enters " de par le Reine " queen's
valet, Villette de Retaux. He receives the
necklace and casket, which vanish for ever !

But why does not the queen receive the
Cardinal de Rohan in return for the necklace ?
Once he has seen her in the CEil de Bceuf, in
the gallery of the palace of Versailles. She
seems to look towards him, " does she not ? " says

234

Jewels and Precious Stones.

Countess de Lamotte. Except this and a few
more autographs, nothing comes of it.

The cardinal returns to Saverne, and expos-
tulates with his queen through the countess.
Meanwhile Lamotte, the sentinel, has crossed
the channel and has sold some of the diamonds,
to Jeffreys, jeweller of Piccadilly, ;£ 10,000 worth,
to Grey, 13, New Bond Street, some more, while
Villette, at Amsterdam, sells others still.

On July i Qth, the first instalment being due,
is not forthcoming. On July 3Oth, a beggarly
,£1,500 comes from the " queen" to pay the
interest on the first portion. Poor Boehmer
accepts, but only as part payment. Presently
the Countess Lamotte returns from Versailles,
saying that the queen, if harassed, will deny
ever having received the necklace !

This determines Boehmer to complain privately
to Breteuil, the controller of the household, who,
on August 1 5th, arrests De Rohan in that very
CEil de Bceuf where he had so often eagerly
watched for the signs of her majesty's relenting.
There is barely time to send a note to his
secretary, the Abbe* Georgel, who burns all the
gilt autographs before Breteuil' s sheriff arrives
to affix the seal of confiscation. There is a
commotion in court circles. Her majesty is said
to have been seen in floods of tears. Cagliostro
and his wife, whom Countess Lamotte had con-
ciliated when she first began her attempts on De
Rohan, are in prison. The countess herself is
brought from Bar-sur-Aube. Demoiselle Gay
d'Oliva — an unfortunate woman of the Palais

235

Jewels and Precious Stones.

Royal, who personated the queen at the fateful
interview — is brought from Brussels. Villette,
forger of the autographs, notably the one,
" Bon — Marie Antoinette de France," which
alone should have exposed the fraud, for she
was of Austria, is haled back from Geneva.

The " Proces du Collier" lasted nine months.
Carlyle's is the truest account possible of " the
largest lie of the eighteenth century." Countess
de Lamotte, branded " voleur," and imprisoned
in the Salpetriere, either fell from the roof of
her house while attempting to escape seizure for
debt, or else was flung by someone out of the
window.

Villette confessed, and ultimately was hanged
at the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, where
Cagliostro also died under the auspices of the
Inquisition. Gay d'Oliva married one Beausire,
who eventually turned informer and counter of
victims for the guillotine in the Luxembourg
prison. Lamotte, on his wife's death — or
murder — returned to Paris, and, after long im-
prisonment, escaped. Cardinal Prince Louis de
Rohan was released from the Bastille on May
31, 1786. He was regarded by the revolu-
tionary party as a victim of court intrigue !
Elected to the Constituent Assembly, he was
one of the very first to emigrate.

Poor Madame Dubarry, whose frail but good-
natured character has been lately renovated, was
unfortunate with her jewellery. She was dis-
appointed of the great necklace of Boehmer, but
she had colle6led plenty besides. One day her

236

Jewels and Precious Stones.

jewels werestolenand carriedoff to England. The
thief was captured, and Madame Dubarry made
two visits to England to identify her diamonds.
She seems to have succeeded in this preliminary,
but justice — so often misnamed — put difficulties
in her way. The authorities refused, for some
reason, to hand over to her her own property,
although they praclically acknowledged her
lawful ownership by making her pay over to the
captors of the thief the reward which had been
offered. On her return to France she very
soon perished on the scaffold, accused perhaps
of intriguing with the emigres in England. Her
jewels remain somewhere unclaimed, or have else
been made away with.

Diamonds are an anxious possession, but use
makes callous the owners of celebrated stones.
The famous blue diamond of the Hope family,
valued at about ^40,000, was once exhibited at
Marlborough House, where was formed what has
become the South Kensington Museum. After
the loan exhibition was over, the diamond was
carefully hidden away. One day Mr. Hope
called and said, " By the way, I will take my
diamond/' The curator was aghast ; he had
completely forgotten it. He sent for his assist-
ant, who seemed equally at fault. After a pain-
ful moment, recollection burst upon him. He
had put the diamond for extra safety into the
base of one of the large glass cases, where it
was found stowed away. The owner took
it and carried it off, dropped loose into his waist-
coat pocket.

237

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ART OF THE GOLD AND SILVERSMITH.

IN his " Panoplia," or series of woodcuts, Jost
Amman, the Swiss engraver, represents the
various processes of the trades and handicrafts
of the sixteenth century. Amongst them is one
which gives a realistic view of the conditions
under which the gold and silversmith carried on
his art. In a light and cheerful room, with a
large window that offers no obstruction to the
summer sun, may be seen men engaged in every
process of the profession. Here, in the fore-
ground, one is thinning a sheet of metal upon a
wooden block. Close to him metal is being
melted in a crucible placed upon a three-legged
stool. At a long table which stretches away to
the window a man is engaged in small repousse
work. On the other side of the table another is
embossing the lid of a vase. Behind, on the
left, a man works the bellows of a forge. At
the nearer end of the table rises a cabinet, on
the top of which are finished works, cups, tazzas,
and a fine " hanap." Here, then, in a single
room, is epitomized the whole handicraft, from
the metal sheet to the finished masterpiece.

238

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

Most characteristic of the artistic feeling that
pervaded the workshop of the Renaissance
goldsmith is the tall vase containing flowers,
to suggest forms for his designs, which is so
placed in front of the window that it cannot
fail to attract the eye. We look fruitlessly for
such graces in the workshop of the nineteenth
century. It would be hard, indeed, to find a
single room where every process is carried
through without external help. We might
search the backyards of Soho and Clerkenwell
in vain. The nearest approach to the six-
teenth century workman would be a man who
styles himself " embosser," and whose know-
ledge is confined to brazing and repousse work,
but who would not dream of jewelling, or
enamelling, or engraving, or any of the other
processes which constitute the art of the ac-
complished smith.

In the golden age of art handicrafts the
apprentice who wished to become a master had
to execute a masterpiece by himself in the hall
or meeting-place of his guild. Thus was good
workmanship insured in an age when overtime
work was generally forbidden on the ground
that night work resulted, as Erasmus, too, held,
in bad productions. In those times each trade
and craft had its patron saint and a chapel in
the parish church of the quarter in which the
members of a trade congregated for mutual
assistance and protection. So we are not
surprised to learn that in the ordinances of
Paris a young man who aspired to become a

239

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

master might forfeit his chances if he were con-
vi6ted of a disordered life.

Such was the goldsmith of rule and ordinance.
Now let us consider the goldsmith of actuality.
Both Spain and Germany have produced wonders
of the goldsmith's art. The names of Beceril
and Juan d'Arphe are enough alone to throw
glory over Spain, and Jamnitzer is but one only
of the artists of Germany. But none have left
such a record of themselves as the immortal
autobiography of Cellini. Benvenuto Cellini,
born with the wonderful sixteenth century, gives
us the type of the Renaissance goldsmith in his
life-history, a work for all time. Vasari says
that, as a goldsmith, he was the most renowned
artist of his age. That he was an heroic liar
has been generally agreed. An early anecdote
suggests that conclusion. One day as he and
his father sat by the fire they saw a curious
little lizard emerge from the burning coals. Just
then Benvenuto — "The Welcome," as his
father had lovingly christened him — received a
most unexpected box on the ear. " My dear
child/' said his father to the outraged infant,
" I do not give you that blow for any fault of
your own, but that you may remember that the
little lizard which you see in the fire is a Sala-
mander, a creature which no one that I have
heard of ever beheld before ! "

When we come to his remarkable feats of
marksmanship we are convinced that he is trans-
gressing the limits of truth. He may or may
not, as he asserts, have shot the Duke of Bour-

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The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

bon and the Prince of Orange. That he was
able habitually to shoot pigeons through the
head with a single ball is extremely unlikely,
considering the fowling-pieces of those days.
We may note that, while he talks of his " de-
structive business of engineer," he admits at
the same time that he objected very strongly to
the presence of two cardinals, of Ravenna and
Gaddi, who came near him in their scarlet hats,
because they made such a good mark for the
enemy.

When, however, he is merely giving the reins
to his imagination, and has not wholly divorced
himself from truth, his stories are delightful.
What can be more amusing than his long account
of an expedition with a priest to practise necro-
mancy in the Colosseum ? " This ceremony "
(of drawing circles on the ground and making
noxious odours) " lasted above an hour and
a half, when there appeared several legions
of devils, insomuch that the amphitheatre was
quite filled with them." He asks them news of
his Sicilian mistress, Angelica. More devils
appear than they bargain for, so that it behoves
the priest to be civil to them. " I," says Cellini,
" gave myself over for a dead man." All turns
out well, and the priest afterwards incites him to
indulge in higher flights, with a view to discover-
ing riches by diabolical aid, " these love affairs" —
as a priest would naturally feel — " being mere
follies from which no good could be expected."
Nothing comes of this, as Cellini seemed quite
content with the fright he had already received

241 R

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

and the promise of the devils that he should see
his beloved Angelica within a month, which
prophecy of course comes true.

Cellini has been often reckoned up as a liar,
a braggart, and an assassin. If we are to
believe him, he certainly did some dirty work.
To avenge the death of his brother, Cecchino,
he assassinates a musqueteer as he sat at his
own door after his supper. " I with great
address came close to him with a long dagger,
and gave him a violent back-handed stroke,
which I had aimed at his neck." The unfortu-
nate man turns to fly. " I pursued," says
Cellini, " and hit him exactly upon the nape of
the neck. So deep was the penetration of the
weapon that I could not withdraw it." Con-
sidering the time and country, this deed of
vendetta was committed, Cellini certainly con-
sidered, in an excellent, nay almost holy cause.

There is no doubt that he had a discreet
regard for his own safety, in spite of a very hasty
temper, which injured his professional prospects
throughout life. He quarrels with his master,
Firenzuola, over a question of wages. " The dis-
pute " (in words) " was warm, for Firenzuola was
still a better swordsman than jeweller." From this
we may infer that Benvenuto was not the man
to be drawn into a quarrel without calculating
his chances of escaping with a safe skin. Neither
was he beneath taking his revenge in a highly
unromantic manner when he could not see his
way to obtaining it with the accompaniments of
drums and trumpets. Having been insulted by

242

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

an innkeeper, who demanded payment of his
account beforehand, Cellini lies awake all night,
" being entirely engaged in meditating revenge
for the insolent treatment of our landlord. Now
it came into my head to set the house on fire,
and now to kill four good horses which the
fellow had in his stable." Mature consideration
determines him to do fifty crowns' worth of
damage by cutting to pieces four brand-new
sets of bed linen.

The student of art finds more interest in the
pi6lure which Cellini gives of his professional
life — the real obje<5t, as he says, of his auto-
biography. Thanks to him we have an admir-
able account of the generosities and jealousies
which swayed the Italian artist, as well as of
that system of noble patronage which enabled
the splendid works of that period to exist.

Very early in his career, a lady, Signora
Porzia Chigi, recommended him to open a shop
entirely on his own account. " I did so/' he
says, " accordingly, and was kept in constant
employment by that good lady, so that it was
perhaps by her means chiefly that I came to
make some figure in the world." It was as a
jeweller, par excellence, that Cellini first made his
mark. " My agreeable art of jewelling," he calls
it ; and to judge from the pleasant story of his
professional emulations as regards Lucagnolo
the silversmith, the handicrafts were often carried
on in an agreeable and courtly manner, pro-
fessional jealousy notwithstanding. These two
agreed to hold a competition, to see whether

243

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

Lucagnolo could make more money out of a
piece of plate than Cellini from a tiny jewel.
Cellini was successful, whereupon Lucagnolo
cursed his art of silver plate hammering, and
swore that he would take to making " gew-
gaws." Cellini fires up at this word, and pro-
mises to defeat Lucagnolo in his own line. So
he makes a splendid piece of plate for the
Bishop of Salamanca, who worries him every
day during the making of it, though as a
finished workman there is nothing more hateful
to Cellini than being hurried over his work.
At last it is completed, and Cellini, having
dressed up Paulino, his beautiful apprentice, in
his finest clothes, sends him to Lucagnolo with
a message in these words : " Signer Lucagnolo,
my master Benvenuto has, in pursuance of his
promise, sent me to show you a piece of work
which he has made in emulation of your per-
formances, and he expects in return to see some
of your little ' nick-nacks/ ' To this message,
Lucagnolo, whom Cellini had in the heat of the
moment called a Boeotian, replies : " My pretty
youth, tell thy master that he is an excellent
artist, and that there is nothing I desire more
than his friendship." The sequel of the story
does as much credit to Lucagnolo as it reflects
disgrace on the bishop. The plate was taken to
the prelate when Lucagnolo was by. "He
spoke of my work so honourably," says Cellini,
"and praised it to such a degree, that he even
surpassed my own good opinion of it." The
bishop having taken the plate in his hands, said

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The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

like a true Spaniard, " By God, I will be as
slow in paying him as he was in finishing it ! "

It is the fashion to lament the destruction of
art craftsmanship by the modern system of the
division of labour. Much harm has certainly
been done ; there is, however, somewhat of a
tendency to exaggerate the difference between
the age of the Renaissance and our own in
this respect. A corrective may be found in
the pages of Cellini. Ambition led him to
attack the difficult arts of seal engraving and
enamelling, in addition to his other accom-
plishments. " These several branches," he
says, "are very different from each other, in-
somuch that the man who excels in one
seldom or never attains to an equal degree of
perfection in any of the rest." There is no
doubt that Cellini had a remarkable versatility,
such as, though not unfrequent in those days,
was by no means universal. His rival, Baccio
Bandinelli, as Vasari points out, made a lament-
able failure in the arts of painting and archi-
tecture while aiming at universal excellence.
The capacity of Cellini to turn his hand to
many arts does not by any means imply that
everything he supplied to his patrons was en-
tirely by his own hand. To have done that he
would have been compelled, as Paul Lamerie in
the last century was, to confine himself to one
branch of work. There is no doubt that much
was done simply from his own designs, and was
not his actual handiwork. Speaking of two
jewels made for Francis I., Cellini says : " The

245

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

workmanship of these jewels was exquisite, and
done " (be it observed) " by my journeymen
from my own designs." At the age of twenty-
nine, he says, " I kept five able journeymen,'*
and when he was working for Francis, he tells
the Duke of Florence he had as many as forty
men of his own choosing. But that Cellini
could, if necessary, execute in all the different
branches he mentions there is no reason to
doubt. He was not like the inartistic head of a
firm of to-day, which produces poor work, the
emanation of no one particular brain. Cellini
and his peers were able to produce fine works
by means of assistants because their versatile
handskill enabled them to direcl each one of
their workmen in his particular branch.

A point to be noticed is that this employment
of assistants was much more universal in the
artistic profession then than it is now. The
painters made hardly less use of them than the
sculptors and the goldsmiths. Michel Angelo
intended to employ many artists for the roof of
the Sistine Chapel, had they not been after all
inadequate to execute his ideas. Recent writers
reje<5l the tradition that he worked entirely
unaided. Modern feeling in this matter has
become more strict. We draw a more definite
line between arts and artistic crafts. The
painter's is an art which can be delegated
nowadays to assistants only to a limited extent.
The accusation of a " ghost's " assistance has
been frequently made of late years. The gold-
smith of to-day may, to the detriment of his

246

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

craft, divide labour as much as he likes. Cellini's
brain was in direct relation with his assistants,
and had not to wage a perpetual war against
market prices and machinery.

Hence it was that goldsmiths like Cellini,
whom his friend, Michel Angelo, specially re-
commends as a designer as well as a workman,
and who, Giulio Romano says, is too good an
artist to work to other people's designs, could
entertain painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths
upon equal terms. As Vasari says, " He who
was not a good designer and well acquainted
with working in relief (i.e., he who was not a
draughtsman and sculptor) was at that time
held to be no finished goldsmith." A large
number of the best known painters were trained
first as goldsmiths. Cellini, a complete master
of that art, was a member of an artistic society
in Rome which contained painters, statuaries,
and goldsmiths alike. He gives a delightful
pidlure of a dinner at which the founder of the
society, one Michel Agnolo, a sculptor (not the
great Michel Angelo), was the host of such
men as Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco,
both celebrated pupils of Raphael. It was a
Bohemian gathering, to which Cellini, not being
provided with a lady, took a handsome youth
named Diego dressed as a girl. Sonnets were
written by each guest upon some subject or
other, and read aloud by the host; music was
charmingly played ; a wonderful improvisatore
sang some admirable verses in praise of the
ladies present, and finally Cellini's fair but false

247

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

damosel was discovered, to the great disgust of
the ladies and the general amusement of the
rest of the company.

The patronage of popes and princes made
possible the execution of so many important
works of art ; but the favourite artist of a
wealthy patron did not lie always upon a bed of
roses. He was exposed to the machinations of
court intriguers, and to the usurious swindlings
of court secretaries and stewards. When
Clement VII. proposed to Cellini to make a
model for the button of the pontifical cope, a
host of rival designers competed. Cellini's
model was chosen ; but his patron sagely re-
marked that it was comparatively easy to make
the model in wax, but a very different task to
execute the work in gold. Cellini promised to
make it ten times as good as the model. The
carping bystanders raised an outcry that he was
a boaster who promised too much, whereupon a
nobleman came to the rescue with the naive re-
mark, that from the admirable symmetry of
shape and happy physiognomy of the young
man, he ventured to engage that Benvenuto
would perform all his promises and more
beside.

Other difficulties were likely to arise. Car-
dinal Salviati sends one Tobbia to the pope,
saying that if his holiness should employ that
great artist he would have the means of " hum-
bling the pride of your favourite Benvenuto."

When, again, the pope had commissioned a
splendid chalice, there was never a sufficiency

248

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

of gold forthcoming to enable the artist to con-
tinue the work. It must be remembered that
artists were retained on the strength of a yearly
salary paid by their patrons, who supplied them
with a workshop and all precious materials
necessary to the work in hand.

There were, however, times when the artist,
feeling more secure after a period of good treat-
ment and the completion of a masterpiece, felt
able to take his patron to task, though it might
be the holy father himself. When Cellini
presented to the pope the medal he had made
to commemorate the peace which lasted from
1530 to 1536, he remonstrated with him
seriously for his fitful behaviour . His holiness
became confused, "and fearing," says Cellini,
" that I might say something still more severe
than I had already done, told me that the
medals were very fine " — and ordered a double
reverse to be made, doubtless by way of paci-
fying his exacting favourite. The fact that
after this time Cellini opened a shop " next door
to Sugarello the perfumer," accentuates still
more strongly the intimate relations of pope
and goldsmith, and the difference between the
patronage systems of that day and the present.

If a patron could be sometimes hostile, he
could also be useful. A craftsman in trouble
would first seek the protection of his trade com-
panions. When Cellini killed Pompeo, the
Milanese jeweller, Piloto the goldsmith, a trade
companion, says to him : " Brother, since the
mischief is done, we must be thinking of pre-
249

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

serving you from danger." Here we have an
instance similar to the uses of the Paris guilds,
which had a police and, to a certain extent, a
criminal jurisdiction over their members, and,
above all things, set themselves to protect any
member in trouble. There is a long story of
struggle in the Paris guilds against the munici-
pality and the king, who both tried to restrict
the guilds to mere trade regulation. But in the
case of a homicide some other protection was
necessary if the dead man had a patron who
was likely to avenge his death. So we find
Cellini very glad to come under the shelter of
the Cardinals Cornaro and Medici. He finds it
advisable to go away to Florence, and is no
sooner back in Rome than he is nearly captured
by the city guard. However, the safe condu<5t of
Cardinal Farnese, just ele6led Pope Paul III.,
saves him from municipal correction.

If only the favour of popes and cardinals were
permanent ! It is not very long before Cellini
is cast into the Castle of St. Angelo on a
trumped-up charge of stealing gold when Pope
Clement intrusted him with the melting down of
the papal jewels during the siege of Rome. He
escapes through pluck and ingenuity, but,
having annoyed the pope's son, is handed back
to Paul III. by the Cardinal Cornaro, who had
formerly protected him, in exchange for a
bishopric ! Imprisoned again, it is his good
friend the Cardinal of Ferrara who obtains his
freedom, on the ground that the French king
desires his services. Out of gratitude Cellini

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The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

makes for him a seal, which the cardinal in the
joy of his heart ostentatiously compares with
the seals of the other Roman cardinals, which
were all by the famous seal-engraver, Lautizio.
It is a pi6luresque detail which Cellini gives us
of the cardinal connoisseurs boasting one against
the other in the possession of a seal or ring by
such and such a master hand.

The infamous bargain of Cardinal Cornaro
and Paul III. shows the artist as a chattel
bandied about between the pope, his cardinals,
and the French king, in very much the same
way as his productions were alternately praised
or blamed, according to the fortunes of court
intrigue.

The Cardinal of Ferrara first introduced
Cellini to Francis I. Benvenuto acknowledges
his debt to the king for causing his delivery
from the pope's prison, but he turns up his
artistic nose at the idea of coming all the way
to France for a beggarly salary of 300 crowns.
In a pet Cellini determines to go off on a wild
pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, or part of
the way at least ! The cardinal had said in a
passion : " Go wherever you think proper ; it is
impossible to help a man against his will/'
Some of the courtiers remarked : " This man
must have a high opinion of his own merit, since
he refuses 300 crowns/' The connoisseurs re-
plied : " The king will never find another artist
equal to him, and yet the cardinal is for abating
his demands, just as he would bargain for a faggot
of wood."

251

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

It is not, however, likely that Cellini was
ever a very submissive chattel. On the way to
France he had had a quarrel with the cardinal's
agent, who required him to travel post. Cellini
refused, whereupon the agent said that sons
of dukes rode in the way that Cellini proposed
to travel. The goldsmith's answer was that
the sons of the art he professed travelled in the
manner he had mentioned. Cellini's personal
friends were very much aware of his headstrong
nature. " His affairs will do well/' writes Caro
to Varchi, " if he would let them — with that
unmanageable head of his." "We are con-
tinually holding up his own interest before his
eyes, but he will not see it." No doubt there
was truth on both sides. The man of affairs is,
and always has been, incapable of quite seeing
things with the eyes of the artist.

Cellini soon abandons his crusade to Jerusa-
lem with the fear of imprisonment in his eyes.
Francis I., the connoisseur king, who, when he
was meditating to do you an ill turn, was in the
habit of calling you most affectionately either
" father/' " son," or " friend," did not as a rule
release a prisoner till full five years were past.
Cellini had had sufficient prison fare in St.
Angelo, and the offended pride of the artist was
soothed by the offer of 700 crowns a year, which
was exactly the sum that the great Lionardo da
Vinci had received from Francis. How could
the right relations between patron and artist be
better expressed than by the king, who said,
" I do not know which pleasure is the greatest,

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The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

that of a prince who meets with a man after his
own heart, or that of an artist who finds a prince
to carry his sublime ideas into execution " ?

It was an anxious life, that of a foreign artist
in a strange country, put by his patron into
a house from which he had to eje6l the jealous
Frenchmen who laid claim to it. One little
detail will make this clear. In a list of the
workmen he employed, Cellini casually re-
marked that one, Paolo, " had made but little
proficiency in the business, but he was brave
and an excellent swordsman." It was no doubt
excellent policy to keep someone in the nature
of a bully upon the premises. Though a woman
helped him to independence, it was a woman
who brought Cellini's five years' service from
1540 to 1545 in France to an end. Madame
d'Estampes, the king's mistress, thwarted him so
much that he was glad to get away and take ser-
vice with Cosimo de' Medici, Duke of Florence.
Here he satisfied his ambition to prove himself a
sculptor by performing what he perhaps unwisely
considered the great work of his life, the colossal
statue of " Perseus " which stands before the
Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. It would take too
long to tell the exciting story of the casting of
the " Perseus " and the squabbles he had with
Baccio Bandinelli, whom he accused of enticing
his workmen away. Suffice it to say that, when
the statue was exhibited in an incomplete state,
it was hailed by shouts of applause, and that on
the very first day more than twenty sonnets
" containing the most hyperbolical phrases "

253

The Art of the Gold and Silversmith.

were pinned upon the gate of his garden. When
it was publicly unveiled the crowd was immense.
The duke stood at a lower window of the
palace, and listened half-concealed to the chorus
of applause. Even Bandinelli had the generosity
or the policy to praise it, as does also Vasari, the
historian of art, whose relations with Benvenuto
had not always been of the best. Vasari never-
theless sincerely sums him up as "a man of
great spirit and vivacity, bold, active, enterpris-
ing and formidable to his enemies ; a man, in
short, who knew as well how to speak to princes
as to exert himself in his art." A modern writer
has described him as " the glass and mirror of
corrupt, enslaved, yet still resplendent Italy."

254

CHAPTER XVII.

ART AND WAR.

" THIS Oriflamme is a precious banner, and was
sent first from heaven for a great mystery. . . .
And the same day it showed some of its virtue,
for all the morning there was a great thick
mist, that one could scant see another, but as
soon as it was displayed and lift up on high, the
mist brake away and the sky was as clear as at
any time in the year before. The Lords of
France were greatly rejoiced when they saw the
sun shine so clear that they might see all about
them. It was great beauty then to regard the
banners and streamers wave with the wind."

This extract, one of many similar descriptive
passages from Sir John Froissart, proves that
that delightful writer, though chiefly interested
in the feats of arms of knights and " free com-
panions," was singularly alive to the picturesque-
ness of the actions he describes.

The pomps of war have supplied many mo-
tives to the sculptor and the painter, though the
tale of war's injuries counterbalances, perhaps,
the effects of the stimulus it has given to art.
From the time of the making of the Elgin
marbles and the painting by Panaenus, the
brother of Pheidias, of the battle of Marathon,

255

Art and War.

down to the rearing up of Trajan's column and
the embroidering of the Bayeux tapestry, and
so onwards through subsequent ages, art has
amply illustrated war.

Certain it is that a little knowledge of history
will imbue with interest what, as a mere pi6lure,
has before seemed to us but a jejune perform-
ance. Here is a case in point. In the gallery
of the chateau of Chantilly is a picture by one
Thierry Bouts, a Flemish painter, whose works
are rare and valued, and who lived from 1420
to 1475. It represents, in characteristically stiff
fashion, a procession of people entering a church.
Some, clad in robes, are supporting on their
shoulders a "chasse" or tabernacle for containing
relics. A knight in rich armour escorts them.
On the steps of the church, waiting to receive
them, are a bishop with mitre and crosier accom-
panied by other ecclesiastics. Behind are seen
the spears of a considerable troop, and in the
distance is the smoke of a conflagration over
which a devil seems to gambol. We are inclined
to despair of the interpretation of all this, until
history, in this case that of the Dukes of Bur-
gundy, written by Enguerrand de Monstrelet,
comes to the rescue. " In 1466," so it runs,
11 Philip the Good and his son, the Count of
Charolais, were besieging Dinant, which was
garrisoned by 4,000 revolted Liegeois. In
spite of the terrible artillery directed by the
Sire de Hagenbach, the inhabitants, relying on
the protection of the French king, replied with
insults to the heralds who summoned them to

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Art and War.

capitulate. ' What craze/ they asked, ' has
brought your old mummy of a duke to come
and die here ? Has he lived so long only to
court a miserable end ? And your count, what
is he doing ? Why does not he go to Mont-
lhe"ry and fight the noble King of France, who
will certainly come to succour us ? For so he
has promised. As for your count, his beak is
too tender yet to snap at us ; he has come to
meet misfortune!' Not content with insults,
they actually beheaded and quartered the mes-
senger of the people of Bouvignes, who urged
them to surrender. The two enraged princes
swore to raze the town, to plough it up and sow
it with salt as in the days of old. Dinant was
taken. The women and ecclesiastics were carried
from the town. Eight hundred of the citizens
who escaped the first massacre were tied two
and two and cast into the river Meuse. The
sack lasted four days, until fire broke out in
many places, and attacked the church of Our
Lady. The pious Count Charolais (no obje<5tor
to " just massacres") had given orders above all
to respect the church. Sorely afflifted, he was
the first to cast himself into the flames, at the
risk of his life, to save the holy relics and the
jewels of the altar. The purity of his pious
motives may be gauged by the fact that he was
so occupied by his righteous efforts as to allow
his own baggage to be burnt without a thought
in the quarter where he lodged. At last he suc-
ceeded in saving the chasse of St. Perpetua,
which was taken to Bouvignes, opposite Dinant.

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Art and War.

This transference is the subject of Thierry Bouts,
his picture. History has clothed its dry bones
with a more living interest. The knight in
armour is the good Count of Charolais. The
smoke in the background is that of plundered
Dinant, over which the fiend is exulting. This
last detail might seem a mere effort of the
artist's private fancy. That is by no means the
case. He is typifying, in the most matter-of-
facl manner, the conviction of the time. Belief
in personal devils was paramount throughout all
the Middle Ages. Froissart gives us a fine
example. Before the battle of Rosebeque, or
Rosbach, which was fought by Philip d'Arteveld
and the obstreperous men of Ghent against the
French king in 1382, there was an alarm in the
night. A damosel in the train of Philip d'Arte-
veld " about the hour of midnight issued out of
the pavilion to look out on the air and to see
what time of the night it was by likelihood, for
she could not sleep." Small wonder, poor thing,
in view of the morrow's battle ! Gazing towards
the Frenchmen's watch-fires she seemed to hear
the French war-cry ring out on the still night
air. Of this thing she was sore affrayed and
so entered into the pavilion, and suddenly
awaked Philip, and said : " Sir, rise up shortly
and arm you, for I have heard a great noise. . . .
I believe it be the Frenchmen that are coming
to assail you." Philip rose up, axe in hand,
heard the noise, and alarmed the sentinels, who
came to him saying that they too had heard the
strange sounds, but had seen no Frenchmen

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Art and War.

stirring. "And when they of the watch had
shewed Philip these words, he appeased himself
and all the host : howbeit he had marvel in
his mind what it might be. Some said it was
fiends of hell that played and tourneyed there
where the battle should be the next day, for joy
of the great prey that they were likely to have."
We may be certain then that the critics of
Thierry Bouts the painter, whatever else they
might object to, would not be surprised at his
pictorial representation of the fiend, whether he
were engaged in prospective, present, or mere
retrospective enjoyment. Does not William of
Malmesbury's " English Chronicle" say that St.
Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, had foreseen
the murder of King Edmund by a robber in the
year 944, " being fully persuaded of it from the
gesticulations and insolent mockery of a devil
dancing before him " ?

From Velasquez with his " Lances " or the
" Surrender of Breda," to Vernet and his long
series of Napoleonic battle-pieces, and beyond
him to the clever French military painters of to-
day, the practice has been always the same.
Art would have lost much if wars and rumours
of wars had not inspired the military patron and
the obsequious or patriotic painter.

We can but touch, for instance, upon the sub-
ject of arms and armour. What a field of artistic
employment has existed in the decoration of
weapons with gold and silver inlay and precious
stones ! Pliny speaks of the soldiers of his time
as men who, holding even ivory in contempt,

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Art and War.

have the hilts of their swords made of chased
silver. " Their scabbards jingle with silver
chains and their belts with the plates of silver
with which they are inlaid." The Moorish con-
querors of Spain vied with the Spaniards in the
production of finely-tempered and ornamented
weapons. A peculiarly suggestive dagger is
figured by M. Juan Riano. The handle of this
murderous-looking weapon consists of a skeleton
realistically modelled, its legs entwisted with a
serpent. Nothing ever more appropriately sug-
gested poison and destruction.

Kings and princes loved to look well on the
day of battle. Froissart mentions that " the
King of Castile at the battle of Aljubarrota had
a knight of his house who bare his bassenet,
whereupon there was a circle of gold and stones
valued at twenty thousand franks." This the
king intended to wear " when they came to the
business/' In the press the knight was sepa-
rated from the king, but was fortunately able
to bring the helmet faithfully back after the
defeat.

Holbein did not disdain to design dagger-
sheaths for the goldsmith to execute, and Ve-
lasquez has faithfully copied, in an allegorical
picture of " Jael and Sisera," into which Olivarez
is introduced, a magnificent suit of armour made
for Charles V. in the ancient Roman style, which
still exists in the armoury at Madrid. There, too,
may be seen the very suit that John of Austria
wore at Lepanto, and the armour of Columbus
in black and white, with silver medallions.

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Art and War.

There also exist the swords of Charles V.,
Philip II., and the adventurers Cortez and
Pizarro. The sword which Francis I. sur-
rendered at Pavia was annexed by Murat, King
of Naples.

The connection of art and war may be viewed
from another standpoint. In the days when a
hard and fast line was not drawn between the
professions, and versatility seemed common, we
find that the artist, as well as the churchman, was
often a conspicuous man of war. When Earl
Douglas lay wounded at the battle of Otter-
bourne, " a chaplain of his with a good axe in
his hands scrimmished about the earl there as
he lay . . . whereby he had great praise, and
thereby the same year he was made archdeacon
of Aberdeen." He was a worthy companion to
Guido, the fighting Bishop of Arezzo, whose
warlike doings were recorded on twelve reliefs
surrounding his tomb, which was afterwards
destroyed by the French under the Duke of
Anjou. When priests could fight, and even win
preferment by such unorthodox means, it is not
unnatural to find Leonardo da Vinci recommend-
ing himself to Ludovico Sforza of Milan on the
f rounds that he can make bridges, scaling lad-
ers, mines, cannons, mortars, and " fire engines,"
catapults, mangonels, and many other useful
articles. These he puts in the forefront of his
memorial, adding as an afterthought, " Then I
can execute sculpture ; . . . also in painting I
can do as much as any other, be he who he may/'
Dr. Jean Paul Richter, in his life of Leonardo,

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Art and War.

says that "it is probable that as long as da
Vinci remained at Milan in the duke's service,
his talents and his activity were more directed
to engineering than to art." Cellini, too, early
in his career acts as an artillerist for Clement
VII. during the siege of Rome, and performs
great prodigies by his own account. Later on he
mentions that, when Florence was fortified by
Duke Cosimo, he himself, goldsmith and sculp-
tor, Bandinelli, sculptor, and Francesco da St.
Gallo, sculptor, were all employed as engineers.
A notable instance of the reverse procedure is
to be found in the free companion or soldier of
fortune turning artist. Giacomo Cortese, called
" II Borgognone " (Burgundian), was first led to
become a painter by seeing in the Vatican a
picture of the battle of Constantine, while en-
gaged in one of his Italian compaigns. His
experiences fitted him to be a battle-painter.
His biographer says of his pictures, "we seem
to see courage fighting for honour and life, and
to hear the sound of the trumpets, the neighing
of the horses, and the screams of the wounded."
The excellence of contemporary French battle-
painters is in a large measure due to the fact
that they are recording what they have actually
seen. Great was the loss to French art when
Henri Regnault, the painter of the splendid
portrait of " General Prim," " Salome," and the
" Moorish Execution," died at his post as a
volunteer during the siege of Paris. West's
picture of the " Death of General Wolfe" is
familiar to us through the widely-sold engraving

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Art and War.

of Woollett. Bryan's dictionary says, " per-
haps no English pifture ever had so great a
degree of popularity as the ' Death of Wolfe/ '
West had lived among the Indians, is supposed
indeed to have received his first lessons in colour
from the Cherokees. What wonder, then, that
the man who at first sight compared the " Apollo
Belvedere " to a Mohawk warrior bow in hand,
was inspired to reproduce the Indians and the
British soldier as he saw them, and so revolu-
tionise historic painting ? Reynolds had tried
to dissuade him from such an innovation, but in
the end admitted he himself was in the wrong.
Barry, Romney, and two other painters had
competed against Benjamin West in the same
subjeft. Barry's pifture, evolved from his own
fancy strictly according to the principles of the
classical undraped figure, was naturally a disas-
trous failure.

If Barry's pifture deserved its fate, vicissitudes
undeserved and ludicrous sometimes befall the
military pifture. In the chapel of one of the
principal colleges in Paris there was a pifture
representing Napoleon I. and his staff in Egypt
visiting the plague hospitals. After the restora-
tion of the Bourbons, Napoleon was converted
into a Christ and his aides-de-camp into
apostles. The costumes, however, were not
entirely changed, and our Saviour appeared in
the boots of Napoleon.

That name is the connecting link between the
tale of the advantages of war and the story of
the wrongs which it has done to art. In our

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Art and War.

chapter on the Renaissance we have noted the
effe6l upon artists of the fearful sack of Rome
in 1527. Since then there have been many a6ls
of robbery and plunder committed in many a
just or unjust cause. If, for instance, the
civil war in England was supported on King
Charles I.'s side by the sacrifice of the college
plate of loyal Oxford, whereby Cambridge, the
Parliamentarian university, is to-day the richer
of the two in salvers and tankards, the Parlia-
mentarians were as much to blame. In a history
of the " Civil Warres of Great Britain and
Ireland, By an Impartiall Pen," which takes little
trouble to disguise a Royalist devotion, we find a
notice of the pulling down of Cheapside Cross
in these words : " But now the zeal of the
Roundhead party begins to appear in its height,
no monument of pretended superstition must
stand. Cheapside Cross (as the conclusion of
their reformation), which for a long time had
stood the glory and beauty of the City of London,
must down as a thing abominably idolatrous ;
but there was certainly more in it than the
idolatry of it, the gold and lead about it would
yield money to the advancement of the cause."
The " Impartiall Pen " was shrewd enough to
see that the Puritans were adepts at the art of
killing two birds with one stone.

While earlier stories of loot and plunder are
vague and wanting in detail, the devastations of
the generals of Napoleon in the Peninsular War
have been put on record by the Spanish his-
torians. Demetrius Poliorcetes is said to have

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Art and War.

refrained from capturing Rhodes by means of
fire in order to save one pi6lure the city con-
tained. The French generals sacked towns and
butchered their inhabitants, but took care first to
plunder their works of art. Ford, in his " Hand-
book of Spain," tells a characteristic story of
Soult. At Seville were two fine Murillos, which
were concealed by the chapter of the cathedral
on the approach of the French. A traitor in-
formed Soult, who sent to beg them as a present,
hinting that if refused he would take them by
force. The marshal was one day showing his
gallery in Paris to an English colonel, when he
stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, " I very
much value that, as it saved the lives of two
estimable persons." An aide-de-camp whis-
pered, " He threatened to have them both shot
on the spot unless they gave up the picture."
Here is a companion story about Junot, the
sergeant who rose from the ranks and contracted
a taste for art in the process. The writer was
told this by a well-known connoisseur who had
the story from the sacristan of the cathedral at
Toledo. The sacristan said that his predecessor
was showing to Junot the crown of the Virgin,
who admired it greatly. Presently he reached
up his hand, and adroitly wrenched off a fine
emerald, with the playful phrase, " Ceci me
convient a moi," and put it in his pocket. His
foibles were jewellery and manuscripts. He stole
a magnificent illuminated missal from Lisbon,
which was eventually returned. Soult fancied
pictures. The inhabitants of Seville sent many

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Art and War.

of their valuables to Cadiz. A pifture by
Correggio upon panel, belonging to one of the
convents, was sawn into two pieces for the sake
of portability. On the way the two parts got
separated ; one part was sold to a connoisseur
with the promise that the other half should be
delivered to him. The other part was sold to
another collector on a similar agreement. Both
parts eventually came to England, and the pos-
sessor of each stoutly maintained that he had a
right to the other's lot.

When Soult left Seville after Marmont's
defeat at Salamanca, such was his hurry that he
left more than 1,500 piftures behind. The
yawning gaps caused by his removal of four
Murillos from the cathedral La Caridad have
purposely never been refilled. The majority of
the pi6lures were no doubt requisitioned by
Napoleon for the glory of France, but Soult's
private collection, which came to the hammer in
1852, was a very notable one. In the preface
to the catalogue are the following remarks :
" The celebrity of the gallery of the late Marshal
Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, is European. Its
reputation was that of a museum rather than of
a private collection, and the general excitement
which the announcement of its sale has caused
is enough to certify its importance. ... It is
one of those events which occur but once or
twice in a century. The gallery owes its fame
not merely to the masterpieces with which it
abounds, but also to the facl that they belong
specially to the Spanish School. Outside of

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Art and War.

Spain it is the only collection containing so many
works of the great masters of that school. It
contains fifteen Murillos . . . of the highest ex-
cellence . . . also eighteen Zurbarans . . . four
Riberas . . . seven Alonzo Canos. . . . May we
express the regret," the writer goes on to say,
" that we feel at the idea that the majority of
these masterpieces are probably fated to leave
France." Thus was the collection dispersed in
the odour of sanctity, without a reference to the
manner of its formation.

When General Hill was about to occupy
Aranjuez, the Duke of Wellington wrote to him
to take care that the officers and troops respected
the king's houses and gardens. The Frenchmen,
Soult, Victor, and others, plundered them several
times over. At Santiago Ney suffered a dis-
appointment. After three months' occupation
he was compelled to leave in haste with half a
ton of silver plate from the cathedral ; but his
accomplice, Bory, laments that the apparently
solid silver candelabra were as thin as a half-
penny and weighed very little. Much of the
plunder of the French was recovered when they
suffered their numerous defeats ; but so small a
part was it of the whole, that the belief long
existed that large quantities were buried. Many
treasure-hunting expeditions were indulged in.
Borrow, in his " Bible in Spain,"gives an account
in his picturesque manner of a search made
for diamonds and moidores at Compostella on
the instigation of one Benedict Mol, a Swiss
soldier in the Walloon Guard that accompanied

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Art and War.

the French to Portugal : " A solemn festival
was drawing nigh, and it was deemed expedient
that the search should take place upon that day.
The day arrived. All the bells in Compostella
pealed. The whole populace thronged from
their houses, a thousand troops were drawn up
in the square, the expectation of all was wound
up to the highest pitch. A procession directed
its course to the church of San Roque ; at its
head was the captain-general and the Swiss,
brandishing the magic rattan ; close behind
walked the ' Meiga/ the Gallegan witch- wife
by whom the treasure-seeker had been originally
guided in the search ; numerous persons brought
up the rear, bearing implements to break up the
ground. The procession enters the church ;
they pass through it in solemn march ; they find
themselves in a vaulted passage. The Swiss
looks round. ' Dig here,' said he, suddenly.
'Yes, dig here/ said the ' Meiga/ The masons
labour; the floor is broken up — a horrid and
fetid odour arises. . . .

" Enough ; no treasure was found, and my
warning to the unfortunate Swiss turned out
but too prophetic. He was forthwith seized and
flung into ihe horrid prison of St. James, amidst
the execrations of thousands, who would have
gladly torn him limb from limb. The affair did
not terminate here. The political opponents of
the government did not allow so favourable an
opportunity to escape for launching the shafts
of ridicule. . . . The Liberal press wafted on its
wings through Spain the story of the treasure-

268

Art and War.

hunt of St. James." The Swiss, Benedict Mol,
was done to death in secret.

The works of art with which Napoleon
beautified Paris soon becamea subject of patriotic
admiration. It was a bitter blow when, after
Waterloo, the celebrated Venetian bronze horses
were removed from the Place du Carrousel. We
are told in Milton's " Letters from Paris," that
the French could not be persuaded that the
event could take place. The mere attempt, it
was asserted, would lead to a general insurrec-
tion. This did not, however, take place. The
populace were restrained by the Austrian cavalry,
and the removal was witnessed by crowds of
sightseers. " English ladies were seen contest-
ing places with French officers, whose undis-
guised animosity appeared rather to amuse than
to frighten them." When one of the horses
was suspended in the air, " the French could no
longer bear the sight, most of them drew back
from the windows, unable to suppress or dis-
guise their feelings. ... It was impossible at
the moment not to feel some pity for the
humiliation and misery of the French."

The same writer describes the stripping of
the Louvre. " That part of the gallery which
was filled with the productions of the Flemish
masters is become little else than a wilderness
of empty frames. . . . We expect that the rich
treasures of Italy will shortly disappear. The
statues and pictures that belonged to Prussia
. . . Prince Blucher took away without cere-
mony, the first leisure day after his arrival in

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Art and War.

Paris." ..." One of the Dutch commissioners
was affefted with so lively a gaiety as almost to
dance round the pictures as they lay on the
floor. He assured us that it was the happiest
day of his existence : that he lived at Antwerp,
and that now he could go to church in comfort."
From Stocqueler's " Life of Wellington " we
learn the reasons why all these restorations were
carried out. The king, Louis XVI 1 1., had
promised the King of the Netherlands that if he
should ever recover his crown, he would restore
all the works of art belonging to Holland and
Belgium which Napoleon had removed. When
this agreement became known, all the other
powers put in their claims. The odium which
rightly belonged to Louis XVIII. for having
made his unfortunate promise was taken on to his
own shoulders by Wellington, who foresaw how
unpopular the new king would be from the outset
in Paris if known to be the cause of the stripping
of the Louvre.

270

CHAPTER XVIII.

ART AND RELIGION.

THE debt of art to religion is unquestionably
very great. Some of its greatest manifesta-
tions have derived their inspiration therefrom,
as every lover of antique and Christian art well
knows. We are, however, apt to forget that
there were long periods in the history of the
Christian Church when its attitude to art was
quite removed from that of a beneficent patron.
Vasari's opinion is strongly stated. "In-
finitely more ruinous than all other enemies to
the arts above named, was the fervent zeal of
the new Christian religion, which after long and
sanguinary combats had finally overcome and
annihilated the ancient creeds of the pagan
world, by the frequency of miracles exhibited,
and by the earnest sincerity of the means
adopted. Ardently devoted with all diligence
to the extirpation of error, nay, to the removal
of even the slightest temptation to heresy, it not
only destroyed all the wondrous statues, paint-
ings, sculptures, mosaics, and other ornaments
of the false pagan deities, but at the same time
extinguished the very memory, in casting down
the honours, of numberless excellent ancients,

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Art and Religion.

to whom statues and other monuments had been
ere6led. And although the Christian religion
did not effect this from hatred to these works of
art, but solely for the purpose of abasing and
bringing into contempt the gods of the Gentiles,
yet the result of this too ardent zeal did not fail
to bring such total ruin over the noble arts that
their very form and existence was lost."

It is a curious reflection that the successors of
of St. Peter in the fifteenth century should have
begun to treasure up every scrap and fragment
of this antique art which their predecessors had
so ruthlessly destroyed.

But apart from destructive zeal, the first
effects of the rise of Christianity upon art were
deadening. To take a concrete instance, we
have seen in our chapter on Gems, that the
glyptic art decayed beneath the influence of
the Gnostics and the early Christians. The
Abraxas mysteries and occult mottoes of the
Gnostics, the limited symbols of the Christians,
such as the fish, the anchor, and the ship, were
but a poor substitute for the pagan mythology.
Slow and painful were the steps to be taken
before the art which Christianity helped to
abolish was replaced by the later splendours of
the Renaissance.

The attitude of religion as a whole to art, if
we take different epochs and countries into
consideration, will be found to be one of con-
tinual inconsistency.

It was a cruel blow when the Iconoclasts
began their barbarous attacks. In his interest -

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Art and Religion.

ing book upon ivories, Maskell says, " The
Christian iconoclasts of Constantinople, even if
they did not follow the ' heresy ' of Mahomet in
this matter (the prohibition of the representation
of the deity and man in art) to its fullest extent,
at least equalled it in hatred of all holy images
and sacred sculpture, and in the severity with
which they persecuted the workers and pur-
chasers of such works. Towards the middle of
the eighth century the power and influence of
these fanatics reached their height, and with
Leo the Isaurian on the throne received the
fullest support which an emperor could give.
We must attribute to the rage of the Iconoclasts,
indiscriminating in its fury, not only the de-
struction of Christian monuments and sculpture,
but of many of the most important remains then
still existing of the best periods of ancient Greek
art. This persecution continued for more than
a hundred years, until the reign of Basil the
Macedonian, A.D. 867, who by permitting again
the right use of images restored to the arts their
free exercise." These puritans commenced that
reprehensible practice of whitening, in which
later on we shall find the Italian monks so fond
of indulging. Says Gibbon, " The sect of the
Iconoclasts were supported by the zeal and
despotism of six emperors, and the east and
west were involved in a noisy conflict of 120
years." . . . " Three hundred and thirty-eight
bishops pronounced and subscribed a unanimous
decree that all visible symbols of Christ ex-
cept the Eucharist were either blasphemous or

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Art and Religion.

heretical." But this decree was not received
without resistance. " The first hostilities of Leo
were directed against a lofty Christ on the
vestibule and above the gate of the palace. A
ladder had been planted for the assault, but it
was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and
women : they beheld with pious transport the
ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high
and dashed against the pavement."

The Italians of the Western Empire would
have nothing to do with Iconoclasm. Religion
was divided against itself upon the question of
art, and by a decree of ninety-three bishops
Gregory II. pronounced "a general excom-
munication against all who by word or deed
attack the tradition of the fathers and the
images of the saints."

That the loss to Eastern European art was
compensated to some extent by the gain of the
West is certainly the case. Exiles from Con-
stantinople were welcomed by Charlemagne,
and kept alive the old traditions, but that these
infatuated Iconoclasts deeply intensified the
darkness of the dark ages can hardly be denied.

The story of the relations of art and religion
is thus to a certain extent to be found in the
history of the sects whose tenets have alternately
triumphed and succumbed. But, as Gibbon
says, after one hundred and twenty years of de-
struction, " zeal was fatigued, and the restora-
tion of images was celebrated as the feast of
orthodoxy." We shall see, then, that the or-
thodox religion regarded art as an orthodox

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Art and Religion.

manifestation and not a heresy. So in the
gloomy periods of the barbarian inroads we
shall find the monastery its shelter and its home.
But we shall also learn that when in the name
of religion an Inquisition perpetrates the most
hideous iniquities, it is not unaccompanied by
the adornments of art. We shall discover that
the spirit of religious fervour could be so incon-
sistent in different times and places, that art in
England could be eventually starved by a re-
formation which was kindled by the Indulgences
issued to obtain the money for the adornments
of art upon St. Peter's Church at Rome. At the
same time the artist who beautifies religion in
the fifteenth century may fall into the clutches of
the Holy Office for a supposed insult to an
image for the construction of which, in the time
of the Iconoclasts, he would have equally been
burnt alive.

Let us not anticipate, but glance for a moment
at the benefits conferred on art by monasteries,
which, according to Montalembert, were at once
the schools, record offices, libraries, hostelries,
and studios of early Christian society. Who
has not admired at once the architecture of
ruined monasteries and the artistic feeling which
seems to have inspired the placing in their
particular environment of so many beautiful
abbeys ? What wonder if the peaceful inmates
of such lovely edifices were led to art as well as
literature ! Edouard Drumont, in his charming
book, " Mon vieux Paris," has given a delightful
pidiure of the Abbaye de Saint- Germain-des-

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Art and Religion.

Pres from the literary and artistic point of view :
" While the services within the abbey take the
inmates to their chapel each day at the same
appointed hours, outside the seasons follow each
other, alternating with calm and terror. Long-
haired kings, with strange names and uncouth
manners, were being humanized by this moral
power, which swayed them though they knew it
not. They would bring thither the volumes
they had found upon some warlike expedi-
tion. After them would come others, more
rugged still, and almost savages. Sometimes,
at the first glimmer of daybreak, while matins
were being read, a dread noise disturbs the holy
exercise. It is the Normans beaching their boats
crammed with warriors, whose shouting echoes
from as far off as Saint-Cloud. They rush upon
the abbey, and the poor monks are forced, for
the fifth time at least, to seek a shelter in the
Cite. Some carry the holy vessels, others save
the manuscripts, and so the worship of God and
the genius of man vanish together in flight
before the precipitate invasion. The barbarians,
masters of the abbey, have found a reliquary of
gold, which they melt down at a fire fed with
the last books of Tacitus or the comedies of
Menander."

" Later on there is still fighting, but the greater
perils of invasion are overpast. Now appears a
master who makes living works, some stone-
mason inspired with a spark of genius, glad
enough to praise God after his fashion, and ex-
press his faith in sculpture of wood and stone.

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Art and Religion.

He has found a home in these abbeys and
priories, where his art is understood, as it never
can be by, the powerful baron, however well-
meaning, who vacantly watches the mason at
his work, while his own mind is bent upon some
distant expedition."

These passages describe the earlier age, when
religion was all in all, and the Church fostered
art without an adverse influence. But when the
artist had found his feet, though he continued
glad of the patronage of the Church, he began
to resent its exclusive inspiration. " It may
fairly be questioned," says J. A. Symonds,
" whether that necessary connection between
art and religion, which is commonly taken for
granted, does in truth exist ; in other words,
whether great art might not flourish without
any religious intent. This, however, is a specu-
lative problem for the present and the future
rather than the past. Historically it has always
been found that the arts in their origin are de-
pendent on religion." Art aims at expressing
an ideal, and ideals in unsophisticated societies
are only found under the forms of religion. We
may say, then, that while art was tentative, the
artist was content to be dependent on religion.
Until the re-discovery of the beauty of the
antique art emancipated the painter from the
utterly conventional and untrue forms of the
angular and expressionless Byzantine saints, he
had not discovered the capacity of art to exist as
an end in itself. When at last he found that his
skill was sufficient to reproduce everything that

277

Art and Religion.

was beautiful beneath the bright Italian sun, and
that pictures were worth painting for art's sake
alone, then religion became a hindrance and a
stumbling-block. The sensuous pagan spirit
which was awakened by the new admiration for
the antique, which sprang up contemporaneously
with the laxest period of ecclesiastical corruption
in Italy, carried the artist too far, and led to the
reaction of Savonarola. This made artists like
Fra Bartolomeo destroy their studies of the
nude, and take to evolving in a chastened spirit
works inferior to what they would have done if
unhindered by considerations of religious re-
quirements. But the time had passed when
many painters fasted and prayed before com-
mencing a picture of the Madonna. The re-
ligious pictures of Raphael and Perugino were
painted by two men as world-loving as any that
ever lived. The merit of them is in the art, the
religious feeling which so affects the spectator is
imparted to the canvas by such means as the
trade trick of lowered eyes and elevated eye-
brows.

It was natural that in Italy, the home of art,
the monasteries should add their quota of creative
geniuses. Vasari is as sensible as usual upon
this subject. It appears to him in his life of
Don Lorenzo, a monk of the Angeli of Florence,
that permission to pursue some honourable occu-
pation must needs prove a great solace to a good
and upright man who has taken monastic vows.
Music, letters, painting, or any other liberal or
even mechanical art, any of these, the writer

278

Art and Religion.

thinks, must be a very valuable resource. He
might have gone further and laid down that
unless he was engaged in charitable works, only
the pursuit of some useful profession or trade
could justify the existence of a monk. " Ex-
perience," he says, " has sufficiently proved that
from one sole germ the genius and industry of
men, aided by the influences of time, will fre-
quently elicit many fruits," and thus it happened
in the monastery of the Angeli, founded by
Guittone d'Arezzo of the Frati Gaudenti in
1294, " of which the monks were ever remark-
able for their attainment in the arts of design
and painting." Don Lorenzo was not the only
excellent master among them. Don Jacopo
was " the best writer of large letters that had
ever then been known in Tuscany, or, indeed,
in all Europe ; nor has his equal been seen even
to the present day." So great was his fame that
Don Paolo Orlandini, a monk of the same
foundation, wrote a long poem in his honour,
and the right hand that had made so many
beautiful flourishes was, together with that of
Don Silvestro, who adorned the same books
with miniatures, enshrined in a tabernacle as a
venerable relic. Leo X., who had heard these
books praised by his father, Lorenzo the Magni-
ficent, coveted them greatly for St. Peter's at
Rome. Embroidery was also a favourite occu-
pation of these fathers who successfully practised
so many kinds of art.

No doubt the fathers of the Angeli were ex-
ceptionally gifted, but from other monasteries

279

Art and Religion.

came monks more celebrated still. Fra Gio-
vanni da Fiesole, the masterly painter and holy
man known to fame as Fra Angelico, had the
rare generosity to refuse the archbishopric of
Florence. He suggested that it should be
conferred on Frate Antonio, who was even-
tually canonized by Adrian VI. "A great
proof of excellence," says Vasari, "was this
act of Fra Giovanni, and without doubt a very
rare thing."

Fra Bartolomeo, who was of a timid disposi-
tion, made for the cloister, when the faction
opposed to Savonarola attacked him in the con-
vent of San Marco, " vowed that if he might be
permitted to escape from the rage of that strife
he would instantly assume the religious habit of
the Dominicans." In the life of this celebrated
painter we come across another instance of the
effects of fanaticism upon art. He had become
an ardent disciple of Savonarola, who preached
vigorously against undraped pictures. " It was
the custom in Ferrara to erect cabins of firewood
and other combustibles on the public piazza.
during the time of carnival, and on the night of
Shrove Tuesday, these huts being set on fire,
the people were accustomed to dance around
them, men and women joining hands, according to
ancient custom, and encircling the fire with songs
and dances." Savonarola's preaching so worked
upon the people that they brought pictures and
sculpture by the most excellent masters, which
they hurled into the fire, with books and instru-
ments of music — "a most lamentable destruc-

280

Art and Religion.

tion," says Vasari, " and more particularly as to
the paintings." To this pile brought Fra Bar-
tolomeo all his studies and drawings from the
nude. His example was followed by Lorenzo
di Credi and many others, who received the
appellation of the " Piagnoni," or " Weepers."

Fra Bartolomeo was the type of a monkish
artist. More adventurous was the career of
Fra Filippo Lippi, the Carmelite, who at the
age of seventeen threw off the clerical habit
when he heard his painting compared with that
of Masaccio. Some time afterwards he was
rowing with his friends near Ancona on the sea,
when they were all captured by a Moorish
galley and taken to Barbary, where Fra Filippo
was a slave for eighteen months. One day he
took a piece of charcoal from the fire and
astonished his fellow-slaves by drawing on a
whitewashed wall a life-size portrait of their
master in his Moorish robes. It was regarded
as a miracle, and secured him his freedom. Re-
turning to Florence he became known to Cosimo
de' Medici, who was his staunch friend. Fra
Filippo was exaclly the reverse in disposition to
Fra Bartolomeo. Cosimo wished him to finish
a work in the Palazzo Medici, so he shut him
up that Fra Filippo might not waste his time as
usual in running about after his pleasures.
Filippo endured it for two days, but then made
ropes out of the sheets of his bed, let himself
down out of the window, and did nothing but
amuse himself for a week.

His elopement with Lucrezia, the beautiful
281

Art and Religion.

daughter of Francesco Buti, a citizen of Florence,
from the convent of Santa Margherita, was in-
deed a scandal. He had persuaded the nuns to
allow her to sit to him as a model for the Virgin,
and on a certain day when she had gone forth to
do honour to the cintola or girdle of Our Lady,
Filippo most inappropriately carried her off. If
religion lost, art was a gainer, for the result of
this escapade was Filippino Lippi, no less cele-
brated a painter than his father. Authority
seems for once to have looked lightly on the
misdoings of the amorous artist. Giovanni de'
Medici in a letter to Bartolomeo Serragli says,
" and so we laughed a good while at the error of
Fra Filippo." He was not meant for the cloister.
As Browning says :

" The beauty and the wonder and the power,

The shapes of things, their colours, light, and shades,

Changes, surprises . . . ."

made the four walls of a monastery too narrow
a limit for a vigorous artistic temperament.

There were plenty of clerics with all the fail-
ings of Fra Filippo, but without his artistic
perceptions. The Holy Father, Sixtus IV.,
judged artistic success by the gaudiness of the
colours employed. Cosimo Rosselli, when
competing in the Sistine Chapel for a prize
offered by that pontiff, felt that his invention
and drawing were inferior to that of his rivals.
He concealed his deficiencies as much as possible
by covering his canvas with the finest ultra-
marine and gold. His opponents jeered and

282

Art and Religion.

bantered him without compassion. But Cosimo
knew his pope, whose eyes were so dazzled that
he ordered all the other painters to cover their
pictures with similar colours.

In contrast with Sixtus IV.'s predilection for
strong colour was the inordinate love of white-
wash evinced by some monks and friars. Giotto's
paintings in the chapter house of the Friars
Minors at Padua had been whitened over.
Later on some of them were with great pain and
labour restored, when " who could have imagined
it," says the Marchese Selvatico, " these friars,
who are mad for the ' candido/ took the whiten-
ing brush and covered them over again ! " What
shall be said of those successors to the monks
who commissioned Leonardo da Vinci's " Last
Supper " ? These vandals permitted a door to be
broken through the feet of the central figure of
the Saviour for some trivial purpose of their own
convenience.

Besides treating the work of older masters
with contumely, the monks were not averse to
stinting the moderns. We have noted else-
where that such expensive colours as ultra-
marine were supplied in the fifteenth century by
the patron of the painter. Pietro Perugino
executed many pictures for the convent of the
Frati Gesuati. Now the prior of this cloister
was very successful in the production of ultra-
marine, but being of a stingy nature he always
insisted on being present while Perugino was
painting, and doling the colour out in small
quantities. Perugino washed his brush out so

283

Art and Religion.

often in water that a large quantity of the
ultramarine was deposited as a sediment in the
bottom of the cup. The prior, finding his bag
of powder becoming empty while the work did
not seem to progress, cried out, " Oh, what a
lot of ultramarine this plaster does swallow
up ! " " You see for yourself how it is," said
Perugino, and at last the prior went away.
Thereupon the painter strained off the water
from the ultramarine sediment, and returned it
eventually to the prior, with the injunction to
trust an honest man, who had no desire to
deceive those who confided in him, but could
easily circumvent the suspicious.

Another ingenious monk was the sacristan of
the monastery of the Servites, who, by playing
on the jealousies of Andrea del Sarto and
Francia Bigio, who, friends at first, were now
rivals, contrived to beautify his monastery at a
small cost. He represented that Francia Bigio
for the mere sake of fame was ready to do all
the paintings required. Fear of this induced
Andrea del Sarto to undertake a contract for
the whole at the paltry sum of ten ducats for
each picture. This the wily sacristan declared
that he paid out of his own pocket, saying
that the commission was more for the advantage
of his friend Andrea than for the need or benefit
of the monastery. It was, indeed, the fate of
Andrea del Sarto to be cheated and cajoled, for
he destroyed his happiness in life by becoming
the abject slave of a hard and worthless woman.

These same Servite fathers do not appear to
284

Art and Religion.

have been so much endowed with tac~t as with
chicanery. They presumed to uncover Francia
Bigio's paintings before they were finished. This
enraged Francia Bigio as perhaps only an Italian
artist can be enraged. He hurried to the place,
seized a mason's hammer, beat the heads of two
female figures in pieces, ruined that of the Ma-
donna, and falling upon a nude figure dashed
the plaster from the wall. The horrified fathers
implored him to stop, offering to pay him double
price to have the painting restored. But the
irritated painter refused, and so the fresco
remains to this day.

Lucky for him was it that this onslaught was
made in Italy and not within the sphere of the
Spanish Inquisition, that " Holy Office" which,
while perpetrating the most hideous and unjustifi-
able enormities, did not omit to adorn its bloody
scaffold with the sculptured effigies of the
apostles or prophets.

Botticelli, it is true, had painted a picture in
Italy of the Assumption of Our Lady, and all
the heavenly circles, which incurred the stigma
of heresy. It was reserved for Torregiano, the
blustering sculptor with whom Cellini was so
disgusted because he broke Michel Angelo's
nose, to fall into the pious clutches of the
religious fiends of Spain. Torregiano made
the tomb of Henry VII. in his beautiful chapel
at Westminster. From England, the land of a
reformed religion, he went to Spain, where the
cruellest bigotry was rampant. There the Duke
of Arcos commissioned him to make a Madonna

285

Art and Religion.

and Child. For this he is said to have paid
him with an immense amount of copper coins.
A Florentine friend represented to Torregiano
that this vast weight only came in value to
thirty ducats. Torregiano, enraged at the de-
ception, recklessly smashed the statue to atoms.
But, alas ! he had forgotten what country he was
in. The fact that he had been employed by
Henry VIII. and had lately come from reform-
ing England perhaps stood him in evil stead.
The Spanish scoundrel denounced him for
sacrilege to the Inquisition, by whom he was
condemned to death. Despair caused him to
starve himself in his miserable prison, and so
cheat the Holy Office of at least one victim.

It was in Spain, perhaps, that the deadening
influence of legislation was most felt upon art.
The Church was a more exclusive patron of art
in that country than in Italy. Ferdinand and
Isabella had signalized themselves by the enact-
ment of useless sumptuary laws which destroyed
the art of silk embroidery. They were also the
encouragers of that Inquisition which did Torre-
giano to death. Stirling, in his life of Velasquez,
says: " The inquisition, which, like death, knocked
when it pleased at every door, and would be
refused admittance at none, which ruled the
printing press with a rod of iron, and even
pried into the recesses of an author's desk,
was not slow in finding its way to the studio,
and asserting its dominion over art. It put
forth a decree forbidding the making, expos-
ing to sale, or possessing immodest pictures,

286

Art and Religion.

prints, or sculptures, under pain of excommunica-
tion, a fine of 1,500 ducats, and a year's exile.
Inspectors or censors were likewise appointed
by the tribunal, in the principal towns, to see
that this decree was obeyed, and to report to
the Holy Office any transgression of it that
might fall within their notice. Pacheco (father-
in-law of Velasquez) was named to this post at
Seville in 1618 and held it for many years, and
Palomino, later in the same century, fulfilled
similar functions, which he esteemed an honour,
at Madrid. Both of these writers devote a con-
siderable portion of their treatises on painting to
laying down rules for the orthodox representa-
tion of sacred subjects. The code of sacro-
pictorial law was first, however, promulgated in
a separate form in Spain by Fray Juan Interian
de Ayala, a monk of the order of Mercy and a
doctor of Salamanca. Several pages are de-
voted to a disquisition on the true shape of the
cross of Calvary ; the question whether one or
two angels sat on the stone rolled away from
Our Lord's sepulchre at the Resurrection is
anxiously debated ; and the right of the devil to
his prescriptive horns and tail is not admitted
until after a rigorous examination of the best
authorities." The painter was regarded as the
servant of religion and the Church. There was
hardly a Spanish artist who had not passed some
portion of his life, many passed the whole, in
convents and cathedrals. Velasquez was the first
to escape the trammels of the Church, only to fall
into the equally narrow limitations of a court.

287

Art and Religion.

But not in Spain alone did clerical law and
edict restrict art. In England reforming zeal
during the reign of Edward VI. had dire effects
upon church plate. Previous to his reign
English communion chalices had been of a very
beautiful description. Though no ordinance of
any kind can be discovered prescribing one
pattern for chalices, the extraordinary uniformity
of the ornament must surely have been due to
some stringent regulation. It consisted of one
or two bands of engraving in a woodbine design
which was a poor substitute for the magnificent
church plate of previous reigns.

The Puritans carried their vexatious inter-
ference many steps further, and started a new
crusade against church windows and pictures
which was worthy of the original Iconoclasts.
There was an admixture of hypocrisy about this
destruction. Under the disguise of religious
zeal they cherished an appreciation of the pro-
ceeds of their confiscations as a useful addition
to the support of their arms. Henry VIII.'s
tomb by Rovezzano, which, when completed,
was to have had, besides the recumbent figures
of Henry and Jane Seymour, 133 statues and
44 "stories" or bas-reliefs, was sold by the
Parliamentary Commissioners in 1646 for ^600,
and the rich figures of copper-gilt melted down.
Here are some of their enactments : " Ordered
that all such pictures there (at York House) as
have the representation of the Second Person
in Trinity upon them, shall be forthwith burnt."
" Ordered that all such pictures there as have

288

Art and Religion.

the representation of the Virgin Mary upon
them, shall be forth with burnt."

"One Bleese," says Walpole, was hired for
half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass
windows of Croydon church.

We have fallen on days of religious toleration
at last Art is no longer much trammelled even
if it is no longer much supported by the Church.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, and others
about the year 1773 offered, at the suggestion
of Dr. Newton, Dean of St. Paul's, to decorate the
cathedral with painting. The Royal Academy
had made an application, in the course of which
it was remarked that " the art of painting would
never grow up to maturity and perfection unless
it were introduced into churches as in foreign
countries," but the Bishop of London and the
Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in and pre-
vented future church patronage of artists. Not
till our own time has the ban of intolerance beea
removed, and our great cathedral decorated -

289 u

INDEX OF PRINCIPAL NAMES.

ACADEMY, Royal, 87, 89, 289.
Addison, Joseph, 181.
Adrian VI., 98, 103, 109.
Agnew, Mr., 33, 51.
Agnolo, Michel, 247.
Agnolo, Giuliano di Baccio d',

144.

Agrippa, Marcus, 172.
Alaric, 126.
Alcobaga, 133.
Aljubarrota, 260.
Alva, Duke of, 84.
Alexander the Great, 171, 174,

207, 220.

Alexander VI., 101.
Amman, Jost, 238.
Ammanato, 147.
Amsterdam, 235.
Andreini, Captain, 60.
Angeli, monastery, 279.
Angelico, Fra, 280.
Angerstein, Mr., 86.
Anghiari, 25.

Anguisciola, Sophonisba, 199.
Anne, Queen, 63, 121.
Antinous, 208.
Antoinette, Marie, u, 41, 230-

235-

Antonius, Marcus, 170.
Antonio, Marc, 35, 46-48.
Antwerp, 129, 184.
Apelles, 93, 167, 173, 174, 207.
Aranjuez, 130, 267.
Arezzo, 187, 193.
Aristides of Thebes, 172, 175.

Aristonidas, 171.
Arnberg, 215.
Arphe, Juan d', 240.
Artevelde, Philip d', 258, 259.
Arundel, Earl of, 113.
Athens, 95, 96.
Attalus of Pergamus, 172.
Augsburg, 129.
Augustus, 209.
Aurelius, Marcus, 208.
Austria, John of, 260.
Ayala, Fray Juan Interian d',
287.

Baldwin II., 209.

Bandinelli, Baccio, 135-149,

150, 1 88, 253, 262.
Barry, James, R.A., 263.
Bartoldo, 99.

Bartolomeo, Fra, 278, 280, 281.
Basil the Macedonian, 273.
Bastianini, 56-58.
Batalha, 133.
Battersea, 13.
Bayeux, 256.
Beceril, 240.

Beckford, 88, 90, 123-134.
Belvedere Gallery, 84.
Bernal, Mr., 44, 77-79.
Bernini, 119.
Berry, Jean, Due de, 71.
Bibbiena, Cardinal da, 107.
Bibliotheque, 209.
Bigio, Francia, 139, 284, 285.
Bilston, 13.

291

Index of Principal Names.

Blanc, Charles, 36.

Blucher, 269.

Boehmer, 231-235.

Boleyn, Anne, 32.

Bologna, 187, 190, 199.

Bond Street, 33, 77, 235.

Borghese Collection, 81.

Borgia, Caesar, 9.

Boscoreale, 73.

Boule, 28.

Botticelli, 285.

Bouvignes, 257.

Bourgeois, Sir F.,R.AM 88.

Bouts, Thierry, 256-259.

Brescia, 2.

Bridgwater, Duke of, 86.

Briot, Frangois, 61.

Bristol, 12.

British Museum, 43, 66, 69,

71, 72, 74, 77, 78, 81, 89,

91.

Brunelleschi, Filippo, 150-165.
Brussels, 12, 77.
Bryan, Mr., 86.
Buchanan, Mr., 84, 86, 191.
Bucharest, 70.
Buffalmaco, 185.
Buonaparte, Lucien, 39.
Biirges, Dr., 66.
Burgos, 71.
Busti, Agostino, 2.
Butler, Samuel, 176.
Byzantium, 209, 213.

Cadiz, 266.
Caesar, Julius, 208.
Cagliostro, 231-235.
Cambridge, 264.
" Cameo," 205.
Cano, Alonzo, 23, 267.
Canute, 7.
Capo di Monte, 13.
Cardenas, Don A., 84.
Caroline, Queen, 114.
Carthage, 172.
Cassel, 215.

Castellani, 57.

Castro, 1 08.

Catherine of Russia, 84.

Cellini, Benvenuto, 32, 88, 94,

104, 105, 114, 132, 137,

146—148, 185, 1 88, 223,

240 — 254, 262.
Chantilly, 256.
Chaourse, 72.
Charlemagne, 274.
Charles I., 83, 84, 91, 113,

117.

Charles II., 84, 119, 120.
Charles V., Emperor, in, 142,

187, 189, 214, 227, 260,

261.

Charles V. of France, 71.
Charles VI. of France, 71.
Charles VIII. of France, 97.
Charles the Bold, 229.
Charolais, Count of, 256.
Chartreuse, Grande, 127.
Cheapside, 264.
Chelsea, 13, 122.
Chigi, Agostino, 107.
Christ, 28, 211, 263.
Christie, Mr., 91.
"Christie's," 20, 31, 33, 43, 51,

88.

Christina of Sweden, 84, 85.
Cicero, 170.
Claude, Queen, 32.
Claussin, Chevalier de, 36, 37.
Clelia, 171.
Clement VII., 32, 52, 104, 105,

1 10, 140, 143, 223,248.
Clodius, silversmith, 170.
Cluny, Hotel de, 70.
Cologne, 9, 126, 215.
Colnaghi, Dominic, the late

Mr., 78.

Colonna Collection, 81.
Columbus, 159, 260.
Colosseum, 241.
Compostella, 268.
Condivi, Ascanio, 94, 100, 101.

292

Index of Principal Names.

Constable, John, R.A., 49, 50,

Si, 53,92.
Constantinople, 81, 95, 216,

229, 274.
Cooper, Samuel, miniaturist,

62.

Copenhagen, 7.
Copts, 73.
Cordova, 224.
Corinth, 172.
Cornaro, Cardinal, 250.
Cornaro, Catarina, 88.
Corot, 51.

Correggio, 51, 84, 85, 266.
Cortese, Giacomo (" II Borgog-

none"), 262.
Cortez, 227, 261.
Courtois, Jean, 13.
Courtois, Martial, 41.
Coypel, 85.

Credi, Lorenzo di, 281.
Cripps, Mr. W., 63.
Cromwell, Oliver, 84, 119, 120.
Croydon, 289.
Cuerdale, 73.
Cunningham, Allan, 34.
Curtis, Mr. Charles B., 40.

Dante, 59.

" David " (Roentgen), 1 1.

" Delaney, Mr. and Mrs.," 40.

Delft, 13.

" Delme, Lady Betty," 34.

Demosthenes, orator, 28.

Desenfans, 87, 88.

" Devonshire, Georgiana,

Duchess of," 33, 34, 51.
Dinant, 256-259.
Dionigi, Cardinal di San, 101.
Dolce, Carlo, 39.
Donatello, 3, 27, 56, 99, 150,

152, 154-156.
Donati, Lucrezia, 59.
Dresden, 13.
Droeshout, Martin, 54.
Dryden, 181.

Dubarry, Madame, 231, 236,

237.

Dudley, late Earl of, 89.
Dulwich Gallery, 87,
Duquesnoy, Francis (" II

Fiammingo "), 8.
Durer, Albert, 46, 47, 112.

Edinburgh, 35, 42.
Edward VI., 114, 288.
Elgin, Earl of, 81.
Elgin Marbles, 81, 255.
Elizabeth, Queen, n, 71, 76,

88, 115, 116, 216, 227.
Ellis, Mr. Wynn, 34.
Erasmus, 112, 239.
Escurial, 127, 132.
Essex, Earl of, 216, 228.
Estampes, Madame d}, 253.
Exeter, 9.
Eyck, Van, 1 1 1.

Farnese, Cardinal (Paul III.),

106, 192, 196.
Farnesina, 107.
Farquhar, Mr., 88.
Ferdinand the Catholic, 228,

286.

Ferrara, 280.

Ferrara, Cardinal of, 250, 251.
Finiguerra, Maso, 47.
Florence, 64, 84, 95, 96, 99,

100, 101, 106, 109, 150,

156, 157, 187, 189, 200,

220, 253, 262, 278, 280.

Foix, Gaston de, 2.
Fonthill, 88, 124.
Foresi, Dr., 58.
Fortnum, Mr. C. D., 92.
Fosse, C. de la, 178.
Francesco, Giovanni, 247.
Francis I., Emperor, 215.
Francis I., King of France, 32,

114,245,251,252,261.
Franks, Sir A. W., 92.
Freppa, Giovanni, 57-60,

293

Index of Principal Names.

Froissart, 255, 258.
Fulham, 12.

Furnius, silversmith, 170.
Furtwangler, Professor, 66.

Gainsborough, T., R.A., 33,

34,40, 51, 76, 122.
Gallo, Jacopo, 101.
Garde- Meuble, 230.
George I., 121.
George II., 121.
George IV., 89, 122.
Ghiberti, 150-165.
Ghirlandaio, 99.
Ghisi, Diana, 199.
Gillott, Mr. J., 51, 82.
Giorgio, Maestro, 44, 59.
Giotto, 283.
Gnostics, 212, 272.
Goa, 28.
Goths, 109.
Gouthiere, 41.
" Graham, Mrs.," 76.
Granacci, 99.
Granson, 229.
Gratius, silversmith, 170.
Gregory II., 274.
Gualfonda Gardens, 75.
Guarrazar, 71.
Gubbio, 13.
Guercino, 39.

Guido, Bishop of Arezzo, 261.
Gunhilde, 7.

Hadrian, 208.
Hals, Franz, 37, 53.
Hamilton, Sir W., 80.
Hamilton, Duke of, 88, 90,

123.

Hamilton Palace, 31.
Hampton Court, 84.
Handel, n.
Hannibal, 208.
Henry III. of England, no,

in.
Henry VI. of England, 71, in.

Henry VII. of England, 88,

in, 285.
Henry VIII. of England, 32,

71, 112, 113, 114,286,288.
Henri II. of France, 12.
Henri III. of France, 229.
Hermitage Collection, 84.
Herodias, 214.
Hexham, 69.
Hildesheim, 69, 70.
Hilliard, Nicholas, 62, 115,

228.

Hobbema, 38.
Hogarth, 48, 78, 182, 201.
Hokusai, 13.

Holbein, 112, 113, 180,260.
Holland, King of, 89.
Hope, Mr., 237.
Houghton, W. Boyd, 45.
Houghton Collection, 84.
Hudson, Jeffery, 116, 117.
Hunsdon, Lord (George

Carey), 217.

Iconoclasts, 272-274.

Ingres, 42.

Innocent VIII., 211.

Inquisition, 285-287.

" Intaglio," 205.

Isabella of Castile, 229, 286.

abach, Eberhard, 84.

acone, 200.

ames I., 71, 88, 116.

ames II., 121.

amnitzer, 240.
Jerusalem, 224.
Jervas, 181.
Jones, Inigo, 117.
Jones, The late Mr. John, 92.
Josephine, Empress, 208.
Julius II., 101, 103, 104.
Junot, Marshal, 265.

Kent, architect, 122.
Ketel, Cornelius, 183, 184.

294

Index of Principal Names.

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 120, 121,
181, 182.

Labeo, Titidius, 171.
Lambert, General, 176.
Lambeth, 12.
Lamerie, Paul, 245.
Lamotte, Jeanne, Countess de,

232-236.

Lannes, Marshal, 225.
Laocoon, 75.
Lapi, Arnolfo, 156.
Lappoli, Giovan Antonio,

105.

Lautizio, 251.
Laverstock, 73.
Lawrence, Sir T., P.R.A., 89.
Leo the I saurian, 273.
Leo X., 52, 98, 102, 103, 109,

no, 140, 143, 279.
Leicester, Earl of, 116.
Lely, Sir Peter, 120.
Leopold of Austria, 84.
Lepanto, 260.
Limoges, 13, 41.
Limousin, Jean, 13.
Limousin, Leonard, 13.
Linnell, John, 40.
Lippi, Fra Filippo, 281.
Lippi, Filippino, 282.
Lisbon, 127, 134, 265.
Lombardi, Alfonso, 200.
London, 37, 264.
Lothaire (King of France), 77,

78.

Louis XIV., 84, 85, 120.
Louis XV., 41, 231.
Louis XVI., 209.
Louis XVI 1 1., 270.
Louvre, 57, 58, 66, 84, 89, 269.
Lucagnolo, 244.
Luther, n.

Mabuse, in.
Macaulay, Lord, 184.
Macon, 72.

Madrid, 260, 287.

Magniac, late Mr., 42.

Mahomet, 273.

Malmesbury, William of, 259.

Mancinus, 172.

Marathon, 255.

Marburg, 215.

Marcellus, 208.

Margaret of Austria, 193.

Maria, Henrietta, 117.

Mary I., 114.

Mary Stuart, 116.

Masaccio, 153.

" Mathew, Mrs.," 40.

Mazarin, Cardinal, 84.

Mecca, 224.

Mechlin, 12.

Medici, 96, 99, 103, 104, 109,
137, 140.

Medici, Cosimo de', 99, 146,
281.

Medici, Lorenzo de' (The
Magnificent), 96, 99, 100,
279.

Medici, Piero de3, 100.

Medici, Alessandro de', 97,
109, 141, 143, 187, 193-
195.

Medici, Cosimo de', I. of Tus-
cany, 116, 141, 142, 144,
145, 149, 187, 253, 262.

Medici, Ippolito de', 97, 187.

Medici, Lorenzo di Pier Fran-
cesco de' (Lorenzino), 97,

I93-I95-

Medici, Giulio de' (Clement
VII.), 103.

Medina, 182.

Melville, Sir J., 116.

Memmi, Simon, 197.

Mereville, M. Laborde de, 85.

Michel Angelo Buonarroti, 15,
28, 43, 75, 76, 89, 93-107,
109, 135, 136, 137, 139,
140, 141, 142, 144, 150,

165,201, 220, 246, 247, 288.

295

Index of Principal Names.

Mieris, Francis, 39.

Milan, 126.

Mithridates, 108, 208.

Mol, Benedict, 267.

" Monckton, Hon. Mrs.," 40.

Monstrelet, Enguerrand de,

256.
Monte, Cardinal (Julius III.),

195, 196.

Montelupo, Raphael da, 103.
More, Sir Thomas, 112.
More, Sir Antonio, 114.
Mortlake, 119.
" Mulgrave, Lady," 34.
Miiller, W.J., 51.
Mummius, 172.
Munich, 127.

Murat (King of Naples), 261.
Murillo, 40, 41, 86, 266, 267,

268.
Mytens, D., 116.

Naples, 81, 187, 191.
Napoleon I., 213, 230, 263,

264, 269.

Napoleon III., 213.
National Gallery, 41, 43, 51,

84,86,91.
Nero, 173.
Newton, Dr., Dean of St.

Paul's, 289.
Key, Marshal, 267.
Nicander, 257.
Nicias, painter, 172.
Nineveh, 204.
Nisus, gem-engraver, 207.
Northwick, Lord, 38.
Nuremberg, 28.

CEil de Boeuf, 234, 235.

Oiron, 12.

Olivarez, 23, 260.

Oliver, Isaac, 62, 180.

Oporto, 64.

Orcagna, Andrea, 198.

Orleans Collection, 84, 86.

Orleans, Louis, Duke of, 85.
Otschakow, 67.
Otterbourne, 261.
Oxford, 89, 264.

Pacheco, 287.

Padua, 124, 283.

Palais Royal, 85.

Palissy, Bernard, 12, 60, 61.

Palladio, 124.

Palomino, 287.

Pamphilus, 174.

Panaenus, 255.

Pareja, Admiral, 41.

Pareja, Juan, 56, 57.

Paris, 42, 43, 58, 64, 70, 72, 91,
214, 219, 239, 250, 265,
269.

Parrhasius, 168, 173.

Paul II., 216.

Paul III. (Cardinal Farnese),
1 08, 250.

Paul IV., 106.

Paulinus, Pompeius, 170.

Pavia, 261.

Peel Collection, 90.

Peel, Sir Robert, 89.

Pepys, Samuel, 120.

Pericles, 95.

Petrossa, 70.

Perugia, 95.

Perugino, 98, 278, 283.

Peruzzi, 105, 198.

Pesaro, 59.

Petitot, 13.

Petrarch, 124, 197.

Philip the Good (Duke of Bur-
gundy), 256.

Philip II. of Spain, 114, 261.

Philip IV., 23, 41.

Philip Egalite, 85.

Philo, gem-engraver, 207.

"Piagnoni," 281.

Pichon, Baron, 72.

Pilar, Vergen del, 21, 224-226.

"Pindar, The Sir Paul," i.

296

Index of Principal Names.

Pinwell, 45.

Piombo, Sebastian del, 86, 105.

Piper, Francis Le, 179, 180.

Piranesi, 131.

Pizarro, 261.

Pliny the Elder, 30, 75, 166-

175, 197, 199, 207.
Poelemburg, 83, 129.
Poliorcetes, Demetrius, 264.
Pollajuolo, 9.
Pompeii, 73.
Pompey, 208.
Poniatowsky, 220.
Pope, 1 8 1.
Potter, Paul, 39.
Praxiteles, 207.
Prim, General, 262.
Protogenes, 167.
Protogenes of Caunus, 175.
Puritans, 264, 288.
Pyrgoteles, 207, 220.

Raphael, 25, 33, 38, 52, 88, 89,
103, 104, 113, 119, 129,
278.

Ravenna, 2.

Recesvinthus, 71, 72.

Redford, late Mr. George, 78.

Regnault, Henri, 262.

Rembrandt, 18, 19, 35, 36, 37,
43, 55, 56, 129.

Retaux, Villette de, 232-236.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, P.R.A.,
33, 34, 40, 55, 122, 129,
180, 182, 193,263,289.

Rhodes, 265.

Ribera, 267.

Richard II., no.

Richardson, Jonathan, painter,
182.

Richelieu, Cardinal, 84.

Richelieu, Due de, 84.

Riley, John, 120.

Robbins, George, 32.

Robbia, Delia, 2, 198.

Rogers, Samuel, 81.

Rohan, Louis de, 231-235.
Romano, Giulio, 52, 247.
Rome, 8 1, 103, 109, 156, 158,

173, 187, 195, 220.
Romney, 38, 263.
Rosebeque (Rosbach), 258.
Rosselli, Cosimo, 282.
Rossi, Properzia de', 199.
Rosso, II, 138.
Rovezzano, Benedetto da, 114,

228.
Rubens, 115, 119, 130, 176,

192.

Sacharissa, 177.
Sadler, Thomas, 179.
Saitapharnes, 66.
Sales by auction :

Bernal, 38, 43, 89, 90.

Buccleugh, 35.

Burgy, 35.

Dudley, 39.

Ellis, Wynn, 90.

Esdaile, 35.

Fountaine, 44, 91.

Goldsmid, 34, 38, 40.

Hamilton, 41, 90.

Magniac, 41.

Marlborough, 91.

Pole Carew, 36.

Price, 35.

Spitzer, 91.

Stowe, 31,44,90.

Strawberry Hill, 90.
Salviati, Cardinal, 143.
Sancy, De, 229.
Sandys, Mr. Frederick, 45.
Santa Clara de Pomar, 71.
San Gallo, Aristotile da, 194.
San Gallo, Giuliano da, 75.
San Gallo, Francesco da, 262.
San Giorgio Maggiore, 124.
San Giorgio, Cardinal di, 101.
San Lorenzo, 102.
Santa Maria del Fiore, 156-
165.

297

Index of Principal Names.

San Marco, gardens, 99.
Sarto, Andrea del, 52, 138, 284.
Saskia, 18.
Savonarola, 57, 59, 98, 101,

278, 280.
Segovia, 21.
Seneca, 28, 208.
Senger, 7.
Sennacherib, 206.
Servite Fathers, 284.
Seville, 28, 265, 287.
Sevres, 13, 28, 61, 122.
Seymour, Jane, 268.
Sforza, Ludovico, 261.
Shakespeare, 53-55, 181.
Shelley, P. Bysshe, 125.
" Shore, Miss," 38.
"Shore, Lady," 38.
" Sibylla Persica," 39.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 227.
Sienna, 66, 76.
Sistine Chapel, 104, 246.
Sixtus IV., 282.
Slade, Mr. Thomas Moore, 85,

86.

Snyders, 77.
Soderini, 102, 136, 137.
Solingen, 10.
Solosmeo, 143.
Soult, Marshal, 86, 265, 266.
South Kensington Museum, 7,

21,44, 59, 75, 90,91, 154,

225, 237.

Spitzer, the late Mr., 17.
Stanislaus II., 87.
Steele, Sir Richard, 181.
Stoffel, Hendrickje, 18.
Stosch, Baron, 219.
Strafford, Wentworth, Earl of,

227.

Stratford-on-Avon, 53, 54.
Strawberry Hill, 3 1, 32, 175, 183.
St. Agnes, 71.
St. Angelo, Castle of, 104, 236,

250.
St. Chapelle, 209.

St. Elizabeth of Hesse, 215.

St. Francis, 217.

St. Germain des Pres (Abbey

of), 214,275,276.
St. Helena, Empress, 126, 127.
St. Jerome, 83.
St. John Baptist, 27, 154.
St. Louis, King of France, 209.
St. Malo, town, 122.
St. Mark's, Venice, 47.
St. Martin, 26.
St. Perpetua, 257.
St. Peter, 127.
St. Peter's, Rome, 103, 165,

275.

St. Porchaire, town, 12.
Suinthila, 70, 72.
Symonds, J. Addington, 96,

98, 101, 140.

Tara brooch, 72.

Teniers, 130.

" Tholinx, Dr. Arnoldus," 36, 37.

Tillemans, 181.

Timanthes, 173.

Titian, 40, 83.

Toledo, 10, 70, 265.

Torregiano, 112, 114, 285.

Town and Emmanuel, Messrs.,

42, 78.

Trajan, I, 256.
Trevisi, Girolamo da, 112.
Turner, J. M. W., R.A., 40,

49, 50, 82.

Uccello, Paolo, 185, 186.
Urbino, 13, 28, 59.
Urbino, Duke of, 106.

Valenciennes, 12.
Vandevelde, W., 120, 182.
Vanderdort, Abraham, 118.
Vandyke, 91, n 6, 119, 176.
Vasari, 52, 94, 98, 109, 1 10, 112,

135,136,137,140,141,145,
146, 1 66, 1 68, 176, 185-202.

298

Index of Principal Names.

Vatican, 106, 262.
Vaughan, Mr. Henry, 92.
Vecchio, Palazzo, 144.
Velasco, Don Juan, 71.
Velasquez, 23, 40, 41, 53, 57,

115, 117, 128, 129, 192,

259, 286, 287.

Venice, 13, 28, 47, 124, 226.
Venusium, 208.
Veren, Marquis of, in.
Vernet, H., 259.
Verres, 170.
Versailles, 234, 235.
Vertue, George, 176, 178.
Vienna, 65.

Voltaire, The Quai, 76.
Vinci, Leonardo da, 15, 136,

137, 252, 261, 283.

Waagen, Dr., 31.
Walker, Frederick, A.R.A., 45.
Waller, Edmund, 77.
Walpole, Sir R., 84.
Walpole, Horace, 31, 32, 41,

90, no, in, 114,115,117,

121, 175-184.

Wallace, Lady, 38.
Wardour Street, 62.
Watteau, 17, 42, 88, 179.
Weimar, 89.

Wellington, Duke of, 267, 270.
Wertheimer, Messrs., 72. . <^j
West, Benjamin, P.R.A., 87,

183, 262, 289.
Whitehall, 84, 118, 119.
William III., 121.
Wilson, Richard, R.A., 39.
Winchester, no.
Windsor, 84, 113.
Wolfe, General, 183, 262.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 88.
Woodburn, Samuel, 89.
Woollett, engraver, 263.
Wootton, John, painter, 183.
Worcester, 12.
Wotton, Sir H., 83.

Xeuxis, 93, 173.

Zaragossa, 21, 224.
Zuccarelli, 129.
Zurbaran, 267.

CHISWICK PRESS :— CHARLES WH1TTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

299

ERRATA AND ADDITIONS.

P. 15, 1. 9, for " Michael" read " Michel."

P. 45, 1. 20, for " feeble " read " too often feeble."

P. 84, 1. 20, for " Duke" read " Due."

P. 112, 1. 7, for " of Trevisi " read " da Trevisi."

P. 114, 1. iS,for "di Rovezzano" raz^"da Rovezzano."

P. 115, 1. 31, for "Hillyard" read " Hilliard."

P. 155. Note that Vasari's account is given. It is, however,

more than doubtful whether Donatello was a competitor.

P. 220, 1. 13, insert "Some good stone-engravers still exist, as

Mr. Edward Renton."

P. 252, 1. 29, for " Lionardo" read " Leonardo."
P. 256, 1. i8,/or "are a bishop" read " is a bishop."
P. 262, 1. 10, for " St." read " San."

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