THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE
FOR CONNOISSEURS

VOL. II

Illustrated & Published Monthly

Volume II—June to August

LONDON
THE SAVILE PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED
14 NEW BURLINGTON STREET, W.

PARIS: LIBRAIRIE H. FLOURY, 1 BOULEVARD DES CAPUCINES
BRUSSELS: SPINEUX & CIE., 62 MONTAGNE DE LA COUR
LEIPZIG: KARL W. HIERSEMANN, 3 KÖNIGSSTRASSE
VIENNA: ARTARIA & CO., I., KOHLMARKT 9
AMSTERDAM: J. G. ROBBERS, N. Z. VOORBURGWAL 64
FLORENCE: B. SEEBER, 20 VIA TORNABUONI
NEW YORK: SAMUEL BUCKLEY & CO., 100 WILLIAM STREET

1903

WE must confess that when we published Mr. Philip Norman’s appeal to the Government to save Clifford’s Inn, we had little hope that the appeal would be listened to; it is too much to expect an English Government to take any interest in a question of an artistic nature; in agreeing to ignore such questions the unanimity of political parties is wonderful. Nor does the English public really care about such matters. The appeal received considerable support in the press, but it was a support given by men who, whatever they themselves think, know well enough that an agitation for the preservation of an ancient building would only bore most of their readers. ¶ So Clifford’s Inn has been sold, and sold at a ridiculously low price. It is some satisfaction to know that legal education, which condemned it to destruction, will profit little if at all by its sale, for the income derived from the purchase money can be no larger than could have been derived from the rents of the Inn under proper management. The end, however, is not yet, for the gentleman who now owns Clifford’s Inn is happily not without appreciation of its artistic and historical interest; for the present, at any rate, he will leave matters in statu quo, and all the tenants have been informed that they need not fear early ejection. Moreover we have every reason to believe that, if there were any movement to preserve the Inn, the present owner would be willing to part with his property at a very moderate premium on the sum of £100,000 that he paid for it. ¶ The London County Council—the only public authority in London that cares about such matters—has had its eye on Clifford’s Inn, and a committee of the Council only refrained from recommending its purchase from fear of the ratepayers. We would, however, appeal to the County Council to cast aside fear of the Philistines and reconsider the matter. Expert opinion in such matters holds that Clifford’s Inn could be made, as it stands, to return £3,000 a year; its purchase, therefore, at a little more than £100,000 would involve little or no loss to the ratepayers. The County Council has done and is doing admirable work for the preservation of ancient buildings; it might well add to its laurels by acquiring Clifford’s Inn for the citizens of London. ¶ The case of Clifford’s Inn raises the larger question of the preservation of ancient buildings generally. We in England pretend to be an artistic nation; we talk and write very much about art, and we all collect more or less works of art or imitations thereof; most of us try to paint pictures, and the world will soon be unable to contain the pictures that are painted. But there is one fact that brands us as hypocrites, the fact that Great Britain shares with Russia and Turkey the odious peculiarity of being without legislation of any kind for the protection of ancient buildings and other works of art such as is possessed to some degree by every other country in Europe, and by almost every State of the American Union. We have calmly looked on while amiable clergymen, restoring architects, and legal peers with a mania for bricks and mortar and more money than taste, have hacked, hewn, scraped and pulled to pieces the greatest architectural works of our forefathers; too many modern architects, when they are not engaged in copying the work of their predecessors, are engaged in destroying it. Though the legend of ‘Cromwell’s soldiers’ still on the lips of the intelligent[Pg 4] pew-opener accounts for the havoc wrought in many an ancient church, the historian and the antiquary know that to the sixteenth and not the seventeenth century must that havoc be in the first place attributed, and the observer of recent history knows that the mischief worked by the iconoclast of the sixteenth century has been far exceeded by that worked by the restorer and the Gothic revivalist of the nineteenth. And if this has been done by persons who imagined themselves to be artistic and were actuated by the best possible motives, what has been the destruction wrought by those who made no profession of any motive but that of commercial advantage? Within the memory of the youngest among us, buildings of great artistic and historical interest have been ruthlessly swept away in London and in every other town in the kingdom, and the few that have been left are rapidly disappearing. ¶ There is no way of saving the remnant of our heritage but that of legislation; but we cannot honestly recommend the advocacy of such legislation to a minister or a party in need of an electioneering cry, and we are not sanguine as to the prospects of anything being done. Still, it may be interesting to some to learn what the despised foreigner has done in this respect; we take the information from a Parliamentary paper presented to the House of Commons on July 30, 1897.[1] ¶ We will briefly summarize the facts given in this paper, referring those of our readers who wish for further information to the paper itself. In Austria there has existed for many years a permanent ‘Imperial and Royal Commission for the investigation and preservation of artistic and historical monuments.’ This Commission had, in 1897, direct rights only over monuments belonging to the State (in which churches are included); but it acted in concert with municipalities and learned societies, and promoted the formation of local societies to carry out its objects. No ancient monument coming within its scope can be touched without the sanction of the Commission. Since 1897 its powers have, we believe, been extended. Not only buildings, but objects of art and handicraft of every kind as well as manuscripts and archives, of any date up to the end of the eighteenth century, come within the scope of activity of the Commission, which is a consultative body advising the Minister of Public Worship and Education, who is the executive authority for these purposes. ¶ In Bavaria, alterations to all monuments or buildings of historical or artistic importance (including churches) belonging to the State, municipality, or any endowed institution, have, since 1872, required the sanction of the Sovereign, who is advised by the Royal Commissioners of Public Buildings. The ecclesiastical authorities and even religious communities are prohibited from altering a church or dealing with its furniture without the consent of the Commissioners. ¶ In Denmark there has been a Royal Commission with similar objects since 1807; ancient monuments are scheduled, and since 1873 the Royal Commission has had power to acquire them compulsorily if their owners will not take proper measures for their preservation. ¶ In France the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, who is advised by a Commission of Historical Monuments, has as drastic powers as the Danish Royal Commission; some 1,700 churches, castles, and other buildings (including buildings in private ownership) have been scheduled and classified, and cannot be destroyed, restored, repaired, or altered except with the approval of the Minister, who has power to expropriate private owners under certain circumstances. ¶ Belgium has statutory provisions of a similar character; there a Royal Commission on Monuments was constituted so long ago as 1835, so that Belgium is second only to Denmark in this matter. The Commission[Pg 5] may schedule any building or ancient monument, and the scheduled building cannot be touched without the consent of the Commission, even if it is in private ownership. In Belgium, as in France and Denmark, grants of public money are given for the purchase and preservation of ancient monuments, and the Belgian municipalities are very zealous in the same direction. In Bruges, we understand, the façades of all the houses belong to the municipality, so that their preservation is secured, and also congruity in the case of new buildings. No object of art may legally be alienated or removed from a Belgian church; this law, however, is unfortunately still evaded to some extent. ¶ In Italy several laws have been passed, beginning with an edict of Cardinal Pacca for the old Papal States in 1820. The Minister of Public Instruction may, by a decree, declare any building a national monument, and the municipalities have large powers; works of art, as is well known, cannot legally be taken out of Italy, but this law is often evaded. ¶ In Greece the powers of the State are perhaps more drastic than anywhere else. Even antique works of art in private collections are considered as national property in a sense and their owner can be punished for injuring them; if the owner of an ancient building attempts to demolish it or refuses to keep it in repair, the State may expropriate him. ¶ Holland, Prussia, Saxony, Spain, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, and many American States have provisions of a more or less stringent character with the same purpose. But we need not now go further into details; the whole of the facts will be found in the Parliamentary paper, and we have given enough of them to show how far behind every other civilized country England is in this matter. The protection of monuments of the past which Denmark has had for nearly a century and Belgium for nearly seventy years we have not yet thought of. Surely the time has come to wipe out this reproach; until it is wiped out let us have done with the hypocritical claim that we are an artistic people.

IN the April number of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE we stated that it was our intention not to exclude from the Magazine works of art likely to be of interest to the student and collector because they happened to be in the hands of dealers. The policy of including objects belonging to dealers has been adversely criticized by friends who have the interests of the Magazine at heart; we therefore think it well to refer again to the matter, although the purpose of our decision was, as it seems to us, clearly enough stated in the April number. Suggestions have, it seems, been made in certain quarters that some corrupt or at least commercial arrangement with the dealers concerned is accountable for the publication in the Magazine of objects belonging to them. Such suggestions we may pass over, for they are not and will not be credited by anyone whose opinion need concern us. But we owe it to the friendly critics who are concerned for the welfare of the Magazine, and anxious that it should not be affected even by a breath of suspicion, to state our position quite frankly. ¶ In the first place we may say that we entirely sympathize with their point of view, and we recognize as fully as they do the harm that has been done to artistic enterprises—literary and otherwise—by commercial entanglements, and, in the case of periodicals, by a too intimate relation[Pg 6] between the advertisement and editorial pages. So much has this been the case that we are not surprised at the alarm which is felt by some of our friends lest even a suspicion of a similar tendency should attach to a periodical in the success of which they are, we are glad to know, keenly interested. But we would point out that in such cases as those to which we have referred far more subtle methods are resorted to than that of frankly publishing a work of art that may happen to be for the time in the hands of a dealer; a little reflection will convince anyone that an Editor of a periodical ostensibly devoted to art, if he wishes—to put it quite plainly—to puff the goods of this or that individual, does not set about it in so palpable a way as that of publishing without subterfuge objects which are frankly stated to be in the possession of the individual or individuals whom it is desired to advertise. It is the very purity of our motives that has enabled us to take a course the boldness of which we do not for a moment deny. Nor must it be supposed that the publication of works of art in their possession is necessarily desired by the dealers themselves; on the contrary, as is well known to every one with experience in these matters, the idiosyncrasies of collectors are such that in many cases a dealer who has a fine work of art in his possession does not wish it to be generally known. We have in some cases had considerable difficulty in inducing dealers to allow their property to be reproduced, and we will go so far as to say that, strange as it may seem to the purist in these matters, we believe that some of them are really actuated by a desire to assist the study of art. It would be false modesty on our part to affect to believe that publication of a work of art in THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE is injurious to the owner, whether dealer or collector; we are willing to admit that such publication may, on the contrary, be advantageous to the owner of the work of art published. But, surely, that is not the question to be considered; the only question, it seems to us, is whether the work of art is likely to be of interest to readers of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE and of value to students. This is, at any rate, the only question that we have taken into consideration; and we have felt that if any particular work of art is of interest to our readers, and particularly to those who make a special study of the branch of art concerned, we ought not to hesitate to publish it merely because it happens to be in the hands of a dealer. ¶ Is there not after all just a suspicion of cant in this squeamishness about the publication of pictures or other objects belonging to dealers? Even private collectors have, we believe, been known to sell objects out of their collections, and, so far as our information goes, they do not invariably sell them at a loss; indeed, when one comes to define the boundary between collecting and dealing one finds a considerable difficulty in doing so with exactitude; the border country between the two is very wide in extent and very hazy. We have heard of cases in which private collectors, who would not for the world be considered to be dealers, have written anonymously in a periodical about objects in their own possession and then put them up to auction with a quotation from their own article in the catalogue. Any such practice as that we shall certainly discourage or rather repress; these are difficulties which beset the path of an editor of an art periodical. But if we are to be deterred by such difficulties it will end in our being afraid to publish any work of art in case we haply enhance its value, and thus indirectly do a service to its owner. ¶ Let us restate more fully the case which we have already stated shortly in the April number of this Magazine. At any given time there are in the hands of London dealers not a few pictures which are of profound interest to all students of art, and which may indeed throw light on vexed problems and assist in their solution.[Pg 7] Are we to deprive the readers of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE of the opportunities which the publication of such pictures may give them? Doubtless in a normal state of things such pictures would ultimately find their way either into the National Gallery or at least into the possession of some English collector. But as things are they are far more likely to find a home either, let us say, in the Berlin, Amsterdam, or Munich Museum, or in a private collection on the other side of the Atlantic; and it may be very difficult to trace them if the opportunity is lost of publishing them while they are in London. Were the National Gallery still a buyer of pictures, it might not be necessary for a periodical to take such a course as we have taken. But it is notorious that the National Gallery is no longer a buyer of pictures; not merely is the money allotted by the Government absurdly inadequate, but it is also the case that, inadequate as it is, it is not made the best use of. Only last month Mr. Weale pointed out in this Magazine that the Berlin Gallery had recently bought for £1,000 a charming picture by a rare Flemish master, which was sold at Christie’s eight years ago for £3 10s., and this is merely one example of the almost innumerable opportunities that escape those who at present direct the National Gallery. Although we are told that present prices in England are prohibitive so far as public collections are concerned, it is nevertheless the fact that museums such as those of Berlin, Boston, Munich, and Amsterdam find it worth while to buy largely in London, and we do not suppose that they always pay exorbitant prices, although of course a large and wealthy country like Bavaria can afford to spend more on art than a country like England. In former years a London dealer who had a particularly fine picture in his possession would have offered it to the National Gallery; now that is the last thing that he thinks of doing; he knows too well that the authorities of the National Gallery would probably not take the trouble even to look at it, and that some of those who would have a voice in deciding whether it should be purchased have not the necessary qualifications for making such a decision. The evil has been increased by the insane rule now in force, that the trustees of the National Gallery must be unanimous before any picture is purchased—a rule which, as anyone with sense would have foreseen, has led to an absolute deadlock. Within the last few weeks, for instance, the chance of purchasing a superb work of Frans Hals at a very moderate price has been lost to the nation, simply because one of the trustees of the National Gallery refuses to agree to any purchase that does not suit his own preference for art of what may be called the glorified chocolate-box type. ¶ But we need not now enlarge upon this subject, with which we hope to deal at some future time; we have said enough perhaps to support our contention that it is hopeless to expect that fine pictures which have passed into the hands of London dealers will find their way into that collection which has been made by former directors one of the most representative in the world of the best European art. This being so, we feel very strongly that we ought to risk something in order to give the readers of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE the opportunity of seeing, at least, reproductions of works of art which they may otherwise never have the opportunity of seeing. At the same time we cannot lightly reject the objections which have been raised by those who, as we know, have only the best interests of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE at heart; and, while we do not at present feel disposed to alter our policy in this respect, we are nevertheless open to argument, and if the considerations which we have put forward can be shown to be unsound or inadequate we are prepared to be convinced. We invite from our readers expressions of opinion on the subject.

❧ WRITTEN BY W. A. BAILLIE-GROHMAN ❧

WHEN the burly Landsknechte stormed the walls of the deer park and therewith won the hard-fought battle of Pavia, one of the treasures they captured in Francis’s sumptuous gold-laden tents was a vellum Codex of folio size, almost every leaf of which bore beautifully illuminated pictures of hunting scenes. We know from other evidence that this precious volume was one of the favourite books of the luxury-loving French king, and the fact that he took it with him to the Italian wars in preference to a printed copy, infinitely more portable, such as had been turned out in three different editions by the hand-presses of Antoine Verard, Trepperel, and Philippe le Noir, is a further proof that Francis’s love for finely illuminated manuscript was a ruling passion with him. It is this very MS. which forms the subject of these lines, and the facsimile reproductions, which the writer obtained permission to have executed by competent hands, show the rare skill of the fifteenth-century miniaturist of whose identity we unfortunately know but little. ¶The history of this Codex is an extremely interesting one and well worth the research expended upon it by Gaucheraud, Joseph Lavallée, Werth, and others. The eighty-five chapters are written in a wonderfully regular and perfect hand, and the ink is today as black and clean of outline as it was four and a half centuries ago. The author of what is unquestionably the most beautiful hunting manuscript extant was Count Gaston de Foix, the oft-cited patron of Froissart. This great noble and hunter began the book on May Day 1387, and we know that it was completed when a fit of apoplexy, after a bear hunt, cut short his remarkable career four years later, when he was in his sixty-first year. Of the forty, or possibly forty-one, ancient copies of this hunting book that have come down to us, one or two were written it is almost certain during the author’s lifetime, though the original itself, which was dedicated by Gaston to ‘Phelippes de France, duc de Bourgoigne,’ disappeared in a mysterious manner from the Escurial during the eventful year of 1809, and has not turned up since. None of the other contemporary copies have illuminations at all comparable to those in our MS., for the simple reason that it was not until some decades later that art had reached, even in France, the brilliancy that our illuminations show. For although Argote de Molina—who in his ‘Libro de la Monteria,’ published in Seville in 1582, describes the lost original—says ‘el qual se vee illuminado de excelente mano,’ it is safe to say that, could we place the original side by side with the MS. of which we are speaking, its illuminations would be found to be far inferior to those in the MS. owned by Francis I. ¶ Very likely the lost original MS. was written by one or the other of the four secretaries Froissart tells us were constantly employed by Count de Foix. These he did not call John, or Gautier, or William, but nicknamed them ‘Bad-me-serve,’ or ‘Good-for-nothings.’ The illuminations were probably the work of some wandering master-illuminator attracted to the splendid court at Orthéz by the Count’s well-known prodigal liberality. ¶ Gaston de Foix, to interrupt for a brief spell our tale, was the lord of Foix and Béarn; buffer countships at the foot of the Pyrenees—the castle of Pau was one of Foix’s strongholds. He succeeded, as Gaston III, at the age of twelve to his principalities. Two years later he was serving against the English, and shortly afterwards was made ‘Lieutenant de Roi’ in [Pg 11] Languedoc and Gascony, and at the age of eighteen he married Agnes daughter of Philip III King of Navarre. His person was so handsome, his bodily strength so great, his hair of such sunny golden hue, that he acquired the name of Le Roi Phoebus or Gaston Phoebus, by which latter both he and his hunting book have gone down to posterity.

The oldest copy that is extant is preserved in the same treasure-house that contains our MS. and some fourteen other copies of it, namely the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It bears the number 619 (anc. 7,098), while our MS. is numbered f.fr. 616 (anc. 7,097), and if P. Paris MSS. Franc. V 217 is right, it was Gaston’s working copy. The pictures in this MS. are shaded black-and-white drawings, and are not illuminations. That its origin was the south of France is proved, as M. Joseph Lavallée says, by the spelling of certain words: car being spelt guar, baigner as bainher, montagne as montainhe, a manner peculiar in the fourteenth century to the langue d’Oc. The fact that in the MS. 616 these words are spelt in the more modern fashion supports the theory, according to the last-mentioned authority, that it was written at a later date, i.e. in the first half of the fifteenth century, thus confirming the impression already produced by the far superior illuminations in MS. 616. These latter, as we see by a glance at the two full-page reproductions, somewhat reduced in size though they necessarily had to be to find space in this place, evince the unmistakable signs of having been created during a period of transition in the miniaturist’s art. For while the one has the characteristic diapered background, the other has a more realistic horizon, which betokens a later origin than the beginning of the fifteenth century. Of the eighty-seven illuminations in our MS. 616, only four have a natural horizon as background, the rest are diapered in the conventional older manner, in the invention of which the miniaturists of the fourteenth century developed a perfectly wonderful ingenuity, and of which this exquisite Codex is one of the most remarkable examples. ¶ In the opinion of some experts the illuminations in MS. 616 are by the hand of the famous Jean Foucquet, born about 1415, who was made painter and valet-de-chambre to Charles VII. Amongst the choicest works of this artist rank, it is perhaps hardly necessary to mention, the Book of Hours that he executed for Estienne Chevalier, Charles VII’s Treasurer, another Hours which he made for the Duchess Marie of Cleves, and most famous of all the ninety miniatures of the Boccaccio of Estienne Chevalier which is one of the principal treasures of the Royal Library in Munich. Those who are acquainted with Count Bastard’s monumental work will probably discover a distinct resemblance between one of his reproductions, especially in the foliage and scroll work, and the two full-page pictures now before the reader. On the other hand, the opinion of such a painstaking critic as is Levallée deserves attention. According to him—and nobody expended more time and trouble in Gaston Phoebus researches—the illuminations are not by Foucquet’s hand, but possibly by an artist of his school. If they are Foucquet’s, they cannot have been executed before 1440, or at the earliest 1435. ¶ And now to return to the romantic history of our Codex. On one of the front leaves is painted a large coat-of-arms. It is that of the Saint-Vallier family, and two events connected with the then possessors of this precious manuscript throw a telling sidelight upon French social conditions at the period to which the opening scene on Pavia’s bloody field has introduced us. A generation before that event, namely in 1477, Jacques de Brézé, a rich noble of well-known sporting proclivities, returning suddenly home found his wife in a compromising position with a young noble. Swords flashed on slighter provocation than this one in those days, and the angry husband killed both the lover and his wife without further[Pg 12] ado. Unhappily for him, the latter was no less a personage than Charlotte of France, natural daughter of Charles VII, and it cost the stern husband a fine of 100,000 ducats, a huge sum in those days, and a couple of years’ confinement in a castle to save his life. The eldest of the six children who were made motherless by this event subsequently married Diane of Poitiers, who not long afterwards became the all-powerful mistress of Francis I, and later on of Henry II, his son. Now Diane de Poitiers was the daughter of Jean de Poitiers, Sieur of Saint-Vallier, on whom his King (Louis IX) had bestowed the hand of his natural daughter Marie. The Codex whose reproductions we have before us had been given, probably as part of the King’s dower, to Jean de Poitiers’s wife, hence the armorial bearings. If we want to become acquainted with the circumstances that probably were the cause of its presence in King Francis’s tents on the eventful day of Pavia, we have to turn to another tragic event which occurred two years before Pavia. In 1523 Jean de Poitiers involved himself in the Connétable de Bourbon’s conspiracy, and the discovery by the King’s minions, among Jean’s secret papers, of the code treacherously used by the Connétable in his correspondence with Charles V of Germany, sent Jean speedily to the scaffold. He was in the act of kneeling down to receive the deathblow when the pardon obtained by his daughter from her royal lover, the King, saved his life. But all his goods and chattels were confiscated by Francis I, and amongst them was most probably our Codex, and thus it came to form part of the vast booty captured by Emperor Charles’s rough-handed Landsknechte. ¶ These formidable soldiers, who, under their giant leader, Georg von Frundsberg, had performed in the Italian campaigns deeds of great prowess—they were really the first trained infantry—were recruited almost exclusively in Tyrol, and for this reason it is not surprising that the next authentic news we have of our Codex is from that country. Bishop Bernard of Trent purchased it evidently from some returning booty-laden Landsknecht, and, recognising its great value, he presented it about the year 1530 to Archduke Ferdinand, Duke of Tyrol, one of the greatest collectors of his time, whose museum and library at his castle Ambras, near Innsbruck, was the wonder of the day. ¶ It remained in the possession of the Hapsburgs for about 130 years, when victory returned it once more to the country from whence defeat had removed it. During Turenne’s campaign in the Netherlands, General the Marquis of Vigneau became possessed of the volume—how remains unfortunately a mystery—and on his return to Paris presented it, July 22, 1661, to his King, Louis XIV. Bishop Bernard’s and General Vigneau’s dedications to the respective royalties are inscribed on the fly leaves, the former, in the shape of a long-winded Latin ‘humblest offering,’ taking up a good deal of space, though, unlike the Frenchman’s dedication, it fails to indicate the year when the presentation was made. ¶ Louis XIV deposited it in the Royal Library, where it received its librarian’s birthmark, the number 7,097, which it retained down to recent days, when it was rechristened, to be known henceforth, as already stated, as MS. 616. It never should have left those sacred halls, but Louis XIV was no venerator of his own law when it suited him to break it. Regretting his gift to the Library, a few years afterwards he demanded the volume back, and back again he got it, his son, the Count of Toulouse, becoming the next owner of it. From him it passed to Orleans princes until, in the fateful year 1848, it formed part of the private library of Louis Philippe at Neuilly, when that royal residence was plundered and fired by the populace.

By a wonder it escaped complete destruction on that occasion, and though the covers were badly damaged and blood-bespattered, the inside of the book was left intact. Although a new cover of somewhat gaudy modernity has been supplied to it in[Pg 15] consequence of the fiery ordeal through which it had passed, the student visiting the great Paris library, where this unique Codex is exhibited in what is known as the Reserve, will find its vellum leaves in very much the same perfect condition as they were when Diane de Poitiers and Francis I turned them over with the care that is bestowed upon a work one loves. ¶ Another fine copy of Gaston Phoebus is preserved in the late Duc d’Aumale’s magnificent library at Chantilly, now the property of the French nation. When recently making some researches there the writer came across a pathetic little note in the late Duke’s catalogue respecting our Codex, which, as we have heard, belonged to the House of Orleans for upwards of a century. It occurs where the Duc d’Aumale speaks of the MS. 616, and it runs: ‘Saved from the conflagration of 1848, it was taken to the Bibliothèque Nationale, but our appeals for a return of the volume addressed to the Conservateurs of the Library were rejected, however well founded we considered our claim!’ The miniatures in the Chantilly copy are finely drawn, but evince in some instances a grotesqueness which is absent from those adorning MS. 616. Thus the much suffering reindeer comes in for some exceedingly quaint limning, with antlers of perfectly ludicrous proportions and a coat like an Angora goat’s. ¶ One curious fact obtrudes itself upon our notice as we examine the illumination in almost all the Gaston Phoebus copies that are adorned with illuminations (the majority of the existing forty MSS. are not illuminated, or at best only with very inferior pictures). It is the bright colours of the huntsmen’s dress in the fifteenth century. With the exception of the wild-boar hunters, who are generally garbed in grey costumes, mounted and unmounted hunters engaged in the pursuit of the stag, buck, bear, otter, fox, wild cat, wolf, hare, and badger, wear with curious promiscuousness blue, scarlet, mauve, white, and yellow costume quite as often as they appear in the more orthodox green-coloured dress. It may possibly have been merely an instance of artistic licence on the part of the miniaturists, for according to the text grey and green were the only colours of venery known to the good veneur. ¶ To come to the contents of our MS. we can introduce it by the broad statement that Gaston Phoebus is the first mediaeval hunting-book in prose that does not deal with the subject in the catechism-like form of question and answer. The few previous prose works that have come down to us take the form of questions asked by the keen young apprentice and answered by his instructor, an experienced veneur, explaining to him the A B C of venery. Some bits in Gaston’s Livre de Chasse are borrowed from Roy Modus, written about sixty years earlier, some from Gace de la Buigne (or Vigne), King John’s first chaplain, written less than thirty years earlier, and a few from La Chace dou Serf, a poetic effusion of the second half of the thirteenth century. But taking it as a whole Gaston Phoebus is unquestionably as original as could be any work upon such a popular subject as hunting then was. ¶ To those who know their Froissart, Count Gaston de Foix’s personality will be very familiar; but, considering that the chronicler’s visit occurred in 1388, the year after the commencement of the Livre de Chasse, it is somewhat strange, in view of his long stay and intimate intercourse at the Count’s court, that he does not mention the opus upon which his host was then engaged. ¶ The prologue mirrors in a characteristic manner the spirit of the age, as does also the last miniature in MS. 616, which represents the noble sportsman in an attitude of beatitude kneeling in a chapel. That Gaston was a pious lord we can see by the score or so of Latin prayers said to have been composed by him in the dire hour of mortal distress after the tragic death of his only son by his—the father’s—hand. ‘By the Grace of God’ Count Gaston speaks wisely and well of the good qualities that a hunter should have, and how hunting[Pg 16] causeth a man to eschew the seven deadly sins, concluding his homily with a sentiment that appeals to the sportsman of the twentieth century as much as it did to him of the fourteenth. ‘And also, say I, that there is no man who loves hunting that has not many good qualities in him, for they come from the nobleness and gentleness of his heart of whatsoever estate he be, great lord or little, poor or rich.’ ¶ The prologue once finished, Gaston starts with zest on his task, beginning with the stag, or, to be quite correct, with the ‘nature’ of what was considered in all Continental hunting the most important beast of venery. The next thirteen chapters deal respectively in a similar way with the natural history of the reindeer, the fallow deer, the ‘bouc,’ under which the ibex and the chamois were included, the roe-deer, the hare, the rabbit, the bear, the wild boar, the wolf, the fox, the badger, the wild cat, and the otter. ¶ Following these fourteen chapters, we get ten very interesting ones on the various kinds of sporting hounds, their training, treatment when ill, the construction and management of the kennel, and other details relating to the subject. In Gaston’s time there were five kinds; the first is the Alaunt, which he subdivides into the Alaunt gentle and the Alaunt veautres; the second is the levrier or greyhound; the third the chien courant or running hound; the fourth the bird dog or espainholz, from which the modern spaniel has sprung; and the fifth the mastin or mastiff. Then come two chapters on how to make nets, and how to blow and trumpet, followed by eighteen chapters on how to track the stag and the wild boar, and how to judge of their presence, size, age, etc., by the various signs known to the veneur, who made a very exact science of what we would call woodcraft. The next fifteen chapters relate to the chase proper of the fourteen beasts named at first, with a double chapter on the chase of the wild boar. The concluding twenty-six chapters deal with the various manners of netting, snaring, trapping, and poisoning of wild beasts of prey and other less noxious animals. They are mostly short chapters, and in more than one place the author displays his unwillingness to deal with matter that a good sportsman need have no ken of, except in so far as was necessary to keep down vermin and destroy ‘marauders of the woods’ for the benefit of his legitimate quarry. ¶ Certain historians have called Gaston Phoebus a ‘cruel voluptuary,’ and no doubt some of his repressive measures sound unnecessarily harsh, not to say merciless, in these soft times; but the spirit in which he wrote his famous book is unquestionably that of a really good sportsman who abhors all underhand advantages that curtail the hunted beast’s chances, and who takes his bear or wild boar single-handed, and pursues his stag to a finish, be the forest a trackless maze, and the river to which the hunted deer finally takes a swift flowing stream, into which to plunge is but a minor incident of an exciting sport. ¶ Of the forty or forty-one ancient MS. copies of Gaston Phoebus that are known to exist in Europe to-day, twenty-one are in France, fifteen keeping our MS. 616 company on the shelves of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Five form part of the Vatican Library, and six adorn the principal libraries of Continental capitals. Of the eight copies that are or were in England one is in the British Museum, and two form part of the well-known collection formed in the first half of the last century by the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt., a bibliophile as wealthy as he was discerning. Of these two MSS., No. 11,592 is an incomplete late copy of little value; but the other MS., 10,298, is on the other hand a treasure of great value. Of all the Continental and English copies that the writer has examined this one contains, next to those in MS. 616, the finest miniatures. It is less carefully written, and there are some variations, but nothing of importance so far as is known, [Pg 21] though it has never been carefully collated with the best French copies.

The British Museum copy of Gaston Phoebus, catalogued as Addit. MS. 27,699, is on vellum, quarto, written in the first half of the fifteenth century. The miniatures are by an indifferent hand, and have been left in an unfinished state, the miniaturist having apparently expended most of his time, and nearly all his bright colours and shining gold, upon the diapering of the backgrounds. It was bought at the Yemeniz Sale in Paris, in May 1867, for something less than £400. The Ashburnham Library contained two copies, both early ones, and of these MS. App. 179 is interesting on account of an hitherto unknown treatise on hawking and birds being added at the end of the hunting book, which is incomplete, and the spaces at the head of each chapter for the usual miniatures are left blank. It was bought at the fourth Ashburnham Sale in May 1899 by the writer. ¶ Of the copy which Werth and Lavallée quote as being in the possession of a Cambridge Library, it is regrettable that no information could be obtained by them or by myself. As a rule the lot of the student making researches of this sort in English libraries, always excepting, of course, the British Museum and the Bodleian, is not a happy one. Not only is study in the libraries discouraged, and letters of inquiry are left unanswered, but valuable MSS. seem to get mislaid, lost, or stolen, rather more frequently than should be. The two remaining copies of Gaston Phoebus in this country, one being in a public museum, the other in a well-known ducal library, have shared this fate, and their whereabouts are unknown. The latter copy must have been a very beautiful MS., for it is described in Dibdin’s Decameron, Vol. III, p. 478, and was bought in 1815 for £161, then a large sum, by Loché; and according to Werth (Altfranzösische Jagdlehrbücher, 1889, p. 70) it was, when he wrote, in the Duke of Devonshire’s library, from which, however, it seems to have disappeared, for no trace of it can be found. Curiously enough, this fate is shared by yet another valuable hunting MS., which for the English student has even greater interest, namely, one of the few existing copies (nineteen all told) of the Duke of York’s translation of Gaston Phoebus, which has disappeared from a well-known nobleman’s library. ¶ In conclusion, it is necessary to say a few words respecting the subject matter of the MS. just mentioned, for many erroneous impressions regarding it are abroad. Gaston Phoebus deals with some animals that were not found in England in Plantagenet times, e.g. the reindeer, the ibex and chamois, and the bear. Hence when Edward, second Duke of York, who filled the position of Master of Game at the court of his cousin, Henry IV, made a translation of his famous contemporary’s hunting book, he took only those parts of it which related to game and dogs found in England, and added five original chapters, calling the whole ‘The Master of Game.’ This book is the oldest hunting book in English, but has never been published. The writer’s reproduction of it, illustrated by photogravure copies of the illuminations in the Paris Codex MS. 616, some of which are reproduced in the present article, is now going through the press.[2] It will, it is hoped, fill a gap in English hunting literature, and remove numerous misconceptions concerning this subject.

❧ WRITTEN BY HERBERT P. HORNE ❧

AMONG the books of the Spedale di San Paolo, at Florence, is a volume marked on the cover ‘Testimenti,’ and lettered ‘B.’ It contains a record of all wills between the years 1399 and 1526 under which the hospital in any way benefited; and on fol. 16 recto is the following entry: ‘Alexo di Baldovinecto Baldovinetti has this day, the 23rd of March, 1499, made a donation to our hospital of all his goods, personal and real, after his death, with obligation that the hospital support Mea, his servant, so long as she live: [the deed was] engrossed by Ser Piero di Leonardo da Vinci, notary of Florence, on the day aforesaid.’ ‘Alexo died on the last day of August, 1499; and was buried in his tomb in San Lorenzo; and the hospital remained the heirs of his goods. May God pardon him his sins!’[3] ¶ Milanese, who quotes this ‘ricordo’ textually, though not without some slight errors, in his notes to Vasari, states that the volume in which it occurs is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; whereas the archives of the hospital are now in the ‘Archivio’ of Santa Maria Nuova, San Paolo having been united to the latter hospital by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, c. 1783.[4] ¶ At first sight, this ‘ricordo’ would not seem to bear out the story which Vasari tells of Alesso and his dealings with the authorities of San Paolo. It states only that Alesso made a donation to the hospital of all his worldly goods after his death, upon the condition that his faithful servant, Mea, was to be lodged, clad, and fed, during her life; whereas Vasari, on the contrary, states that the painter himself became an inmate of San Paolo. ‘Alesso,’ he says, ‘lived eighty years; and when he began to grow old, desirous of being able to attend to the studies of his profession with a quiet mind, he, as many men often do, entered the Hospital of San Paolo: and in order, perhaps, that he might be received the more willingly, and be better treated (though it might, indeed, have happened by chance), he caused a great chest to be brought into his rooms, in the hospital; acting as if a goodly sum of money were therein: whereupon the master and the other ministrants of the hospital, believing that this was so, bestowed on him the greatest kindness in the world; since they knew that he had made a donation to the hospital, of whatever was found in his possession at his death. But when Alesso died, only drawings, cartoons, and a little book which set forth how to make the tesserae for mosaic, together with the stucco and the method of working them, were found therein.’[5] ¶ The apparent discrepancy between the ‘ricordo’ in the books of San Paolo and Vasari’s account led me to search, and not without success, for the deed by which Alesso’s property passed to the hospital. I found that both the name of the notary and the date of the execution of the instrument were incorrectly given in the ‘ricordo’ cited above. The instrument was engrossed by Ser Piero di Antonio di Ser Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo da Vinci, and executed on March 16, 1497–8. By this deed Alesso, ex titulo et causa donationis, ‘irrevocably gave and bequeathed during his life-time, to the Hospital of the Pinzocheri of the third order of St. Francis, otherwise called the Hospital of San Pagholo, and to the poor of Christ living in the said hospital for the time being,’ etc., ‘all his goods, real and personal, present and future, wherever situate or existent,’ etc., reserving to himself[Pg 23] ‘the use and usufruct of the said goods,’ etc., ‘for the term of his natural life.’ The ‘rogiti’ of Ser Piero da Vinci for the year 1498 have not been preserved among the ‘protocols’ of that notary now in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; and so it is no longer possible to say under what conditions, if any, the donation was made: but it is to be presumed upon the evidence of the ‘ricordo’ cited above, that it entailed the obligation on the part of the hospital, to maintain Mea, his servant, during her life. ¶ On October 17, 1498, Alesso executed what was technically known as a ‘renuntiatio,’ which was likewise engrossed by Ser Piero da Vinci. This second instrument, which begins by reciting the former deed of donation in the terms quoted above, sets forth how, on that day, Alesso, ‘by reason of lawful and reasonable causes of motion influencing, as they assert, his mind, and by his mere, free, and proper will,’ etc., ‘renounced the said use and usufruct, expressly reserved to himself in the aforesaid donation, and freely remitted and released the said use and usufruct to the said hospital, and to the poor of Christ dwelling in the said hospital,’ etc. The text of this document, which is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence, is printed at length at the end of this article.[6] It allows us to draw but one conclusion; namely, that when the painter executed the deed of donation on March 16, 1497–8, he had been left without wife or children; and that he anticipated but two contingencies against which he would provide after his death—the health of his soul and the maintenance of his faithful servant, Mea. ¶ Alesso had married late in life. It appears from the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by him in 1470, that he was still unmarried at that time, and that he was possessed of no real property, but rented a house in the ‘popolo’ of San Lorenzo, in Florence, described in his later ‘Denunzie,’ as being in the Via dell’ Ariento, at the Canto de’ Gori.[7] In another ‘Denunzia’ returned in 1480, Alesso thus describes his family:—‘Alesso Baldovinetti, aforesaid, aged 60, painter; Monna Daria, his wife, aged 45; Mea, his maid-servant, aged 13.’ As a matter of fact, Alesso was 63 years of age, having been born on October 14, 1427, Milanesi, by the way, in his notes to Vasari, gives the name of his, Alesso’s wife, as Diana, in error for Daria.[8] According to the same ‘Denunzia,’ the painter was at that time possessed of a parcel of land of twelve staiora, situate in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, and another parcel of seven staiora, in the same ‘popolo,’ the latter having been bought in 1479, with a part of his wife’s dowry. It is, therefore, probable that he had not long been married at that time.[9] It appears from a yet later ‘Denunzia’ on which the ‘Decima’ of 1498 was assessed, though the return itself was probably drawn up in 1495, that he possessed, in addition to the two parcels of land in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, a third parcel of over eleven staiora, in the adjoining ‘popolo’ of San Martino a Sesto, on the road to Prato. He was still living at that time in the same house at the Canto de’ Gori; and he also enjoyed the rents of two shops, with dwellinghouses above, which had been made over to him for the term of his natural life, by the Consuls of the Arte dei Mercanti, on February 26, 1483–4, in payment of his ‘magistero e esercitio et trafficho,’ in having restored the mosaics of the Baptistery of San Giovanni.[10] ¶ The Spedale di San Paolo, of which the beautiful loggia, with its ornaments by Andrea della Robbia, still remains on the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella, was originally a hospital for the care of the sick; and as such it is mentioned in a document of 1208.[11] From the time that St. Francis himself is said to have lodged at San Paolo, the hospital appears to have been administered by Franciscans,[Pg 24] called in the records ‘Fratres tertii Ordinis de Penitentia S. Pauli.’ During the fourteenth century, the house underwent certain reforms; and in 1398 it was decreed by the Signoria, ‘that the place was to be no longer a hospital, but a house of Frati Pinzocheri of the third order.’[12] Notwithstanding, the members of the community continued to devote themselves to the care of the sick; and a papal brief of 1452 directs that the revenues of the house were to be set apart for the infirm.[13] At an early period in the history of San Paolo, mention occurs of Pinzochere, that is to say, women attached to the community, no doubt for the service of the hospital; but unlike the men of the house, who are invariably called Frati Pinzocheri, they were not dignified by the title of ‘Monache’: from this Stefano Rosselli infers that they originally had no share in its government.[14] Owing, however, to some cause which is not very clear, the Frati Pinzocheri appear to have died out towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, leaving the women in possession of the hospital. From evidence that Rosselli and Richa adduce, it seems that in 1497 San Paolo was controlled and administered entirely by Pinzochere; and in the document of 1499, cited below, it is called ‘lo spedale di pizichora del terzo ordjne dj san franchesco.’[15] From this we must conclude that, when Alesso renounced the use and enjoyment of his property on October 17, 1498, he entered the hospital of San Paolo, not as a member of the community, but as a sick man who sought nothing more on earth than to be tended during the brief span of life that was left to him. He died ten months later, on August 29, 1499, and was buried in his own tomb in San Lorenzo.[16] The hospital of San Paolo probably inherited, along with Alesso’s other property, all his cartoons and drawings, as Vasari asserts: they, certainly, came into the possession of his books and papers, as we know. The little treatise on the art of Mosaic has long been lost; but Milanesi has stated in a well-known passage in his Vasari, that the autograph manuscript of certain ‘Ricordi’ of Alesso Baldovinetti still existed in his time, in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, among the books of the hospital of San Paolo. He adds that these ‘Ricordi were published at Lucca in 1868, by Dr. Giovanni Pierotti, per le nozze Bongi e Ranalli.’[17] Few of those innumerable, little pamphlets with which Italians, learned and unlearned, delight to celebrate the marriages of their patrons, friends, or relatives, are more difficult to find than the little brochure of ten leaves, in a green paper wrapper, to which Milanesi alludes. The title page runs thus: ‘Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti, pittore fiorentino del secolo xv. Lucca. Tipografia Landi. 1868.’ Unfortunately only a portion of Baldovinetti’s manuscript is given in this pamphlet. The extracts, which fill less than a half of its twenty pages, are partly given in the text, and partly in an abstract, of the original. The rest of the pamphlet is filled with the introductory preface and notes of Dr. Pierotti. ¶ It is now some years ago since I first made an attempt to find the original manuscript of these ‘Ricordi,’ in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, only to discover that I was not the first student of Florentine painting to search in vain for the volume. Whether it had been borrowed by Pierotti, or merely mislaid, or in what way it had disappeared, no one could tell me. Not long after this attempt, however, I chanced upon what proved to be a clue to its history. While searching among the ‘Carte Milanesi,’ the voluminous manuscript collections which the famous commentator of Vasari left to the Communal Library of Siena, I came across a series of extracts from the ‘Ricordi’ of Baldovinetti, in the handwriting of Milanesi, with the title: ‘Estratto del libro dei Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti autografo [Pg 27]essitente nell’ Archivio dello Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze.—Libri dello Spedale di San Paolo, 12 Febb^o. 1850.’ On comparing these extracts with Pierotti’s pamphlet, I found that the two copies agreed word for word with one another. It was evident that Pierotti had made use of Milanesi’s manuscript (indeed, he owns as much in his concluding note), and that he may never have seen the original manuscript. ¶ Last autumn, having occasion to make some researches in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, with my friend Sir Domenic Colnaghi, for his ‘Dictionary of Florentine Painters,’ I took the opportunity of renewing my search for the missing volume. On the top shelf of one of the presses which contain the books and papers of the hospital of San Paolo, I came across a ‘filza’ labelled ‘Libri Diversi,’ and filled with miscellaneous account-books of the hospital, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among these was a small, upright book of forty-seven leaves, bound in a parchment cover which was inscribed:—

RICHORDI[18]

·Ḅ̇·

On the recto of the first leaf was written: ‘1470. In this book I will keep a record of all the expenses that I shall incur in the chapel of the High Altar of Santa Trinita, namely of gold, blue, green, lake, with all other colours and expenses that shall be incurred on behalf of the said chapel; and so we may remain in agreement [I and] Messer Bongiani Gianfigliazi, the commissioner of the work, and the patron of the said chapel, as appears by a writing which I hold, subscribed by his own hand.’ ¶ Fol. 2 tergo, and fol. 3 recto, were filled with entries relating to the purchase of colours and other materials for the work of the chapel, and fol. 3 tergo contained two further entries in the same hand; after which was written, in a different hand: ‘Here follow the records of the hospital of the Pinzochere of the third order of St. Francis, written by Giovanni di Ser Antonio Vianizzi.’ The remainder of the book was filled with entries relating to the hospital of San Paolo, the first of which recorded a payment of twenty-three lire, made by the hospital on October 19, 1499, to Luca d’Alesso Baldovinetti. On comparing the ‘Ricordi’ relating to Santa Trinita, with the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1471, it was clearly evident that both documents were in the handwriting of the painter. Of the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1480, two copies exist in the same hand; but they do not appear to have been written by the painter himself, although Milanesi has reproduced a portion of one of them, in his ‘Scrittura di Artisti Italiani,’ Florence, 1876, Vol. 1, No. 74, as a specimen of his handwriting. ¶ What is more, this manuscript, which I may call ‘Libro B,’ throws a light upon the nature of the missing volume, ‘Libro A.’ In the case of ‘Libro B,’ what undoubtedly happened was, that the good Pinzochere, on looking over Alesso’s property after his death, found an account-book of which only the first three leaves had been used. With a proper spirit of economy, they determined to make use of the rest of the book for the accounts of their hospital: but instead of tearing out the leaves containing Alesso’s ‘Ricordi,’ they fortunately allowed them to stand; their procurator adding the note I have cited above. The same thing probably happened in the case of ‘Libro A.’ From the extracts that Milanesi made, it appears that Alesso’s ‘Ricordi’ only filled some sixteen pages of a volume, that cannot well have contained fewer leaves than ‘Libro B.’ With this clue to its discovery, I leave my friends and rivals in Florence to continue the search for a volume, whose loss every genuine student of Italian painting must regret. ¶ The history of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita affords a curious instance of the tardy process by which many of the Florentine churches and their chapels were brought[Pg 28] to completion. The present church of Santa Trinita was begun c. 1250, but many of the lateral chapels remained unfinished until the fifteenth century, and among them the Cappella Maggiore. On November 1, 1371, the abbot of Santa Trinita, inter missarum solepnia, made an appeal to many of the chief parishioners, who had assembled for mass, to contribute to the expenses necessary for the erection of the Cappella Maggiore.[19] The work appears to have proceeded very slowly, since it is on record that the chapel was but half built in the year 1463. In order to bring it to completion, the abbot, having assembled the parishioners in the church, gave notice that since money was wanting to finish the work, licence to do so would be granted to the family that was able and willing to undertake the expense; and accordingly on February 4 of the same year, the patronage of the chapel was granted by acclamation of the parishioners, to Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and his descendants.[20] ¶ The Gianfigliazzi were an ancient Florentine family, of no little repute in the conduct of affairs and arms during the last two centuries of the republic. Ugolino Verino celebrates them in his Latin poem, ‘De Illustratione Urbis Florentiae’:—

According to Piero Monaldi, the Gianfigliazzi were descended and took their name from one ‘Ioannes filius Acci,’ who is named in a treaty concluded between the Sienese and Florentines in the year 1201.[22] Besides knights of Malta and Santo Spirito, this family boasted of ten gonfaloniers of the republic, and thirty priors; the first of whom held office in 1345. Gherardo Gianfigliazzi was gonfalonier in 1462; and Messer Bongianni, his brother, in 1467, and again in 1470. The latter, ‘magnificus miles’ as he is styled in documents, was a ‘cavalier spron d’oro,’ and famous in his day as a leader of the Florentine forces. He was several times created ambassador of the Florentine republic, and one of the Dieci di Balia. In 1471 he was one of the six ‘orators’ sent to felicitate Sixtus IV on his election to the papacy; and in 1483 he was appointed ‘commessario’ in the war against the Genoese, which ended in the capture of Sarzana. Alesso was not the only famous artist which this family patronized. Their shield of arms, carved with a lion rampant, by Desiderio da Settignano, is still to be seen on the front of their palace on the Lung’ arno Corsini, at Florence.[23] ¶ Giuseppe Richa states that the deed granting the patronage of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita to the Gianfigliazzi, was engrossed by Ser Pierozzo Cerbini on February 13, 1463–4, which we may well believe;[24] but he adds that the ‘ius patronale’ was vested in the persons of Messer Bongianni and Messer Gherardo.[25] The latter statement, however, would seem to be incorrect, for Gherardo was already dead at that time, as we learn from the inscription on the sepulchral slab (one of the most beautiful of its kind in Florence), which is still to be seen on the floor of the chapel, but now partly covered by a choir-organ:

GHERARDO . IANFILIATIO . DE . SE .
FAMILIA . ET . PATRIA . BE[? NE-
MERITO BONIOANNES] . FRATRI .
PIENTISSIMO . SIBI .....  IDVS . SEP .
AN . SAL . MCCCCLXIII

Messer Bongianni appears to have proceeded at once with the work of finishing the chapel. His share of the work may yet be made out: the vaulting, with its heavy roll ribs, too large for the corbels on which they rest, was clearly erected by him. The corbels themselves probably date from the thirteenth century. Furthermore, he constructed the large window of two round-headed lights, and an a ‘occhio,’ or circular light, above, which is still to be seen in the [Pg 31]head of the chapel. The structure being completed, he next turned to the decoration, which he began by filling the lights of the window with painted glass. Alesso Baldovinetti enters, in his ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, that ‘Lionardo di Bartolommeo, surnamed Lastra, and Giovanni di Andrea, glazier, owe me this 14th day of February, 1465[-6], lire 120; which moneys are for the painting of a window placed in the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita; and Bongianni di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi has ordered this window to be executed by the said Lastra and Giovanni, master-glaziers; and I, Alesso, have designed and painted it for them, at the rate of forty soldi the square braccio: the ‘occhio’ above being estimated with the said window, in the said sum, and according to the said measure.‘[26] It appears from the ‘Trattato’ of Cennino Cennini that it was the common practice of the ‘maestri di finestre’ in Florence in the fifteenth century not only to employ painters to design cartoons for their windows, but also to paint the design upon the glass. The ‘maestro di finistre,’ says Cennini, ‘will come to you with the measure of his window, both breadth and length. You will take as many sheets of paper glued together as will be necessary for your window; and you will draw your figure first in charcoal, afterwards you will outline it in ink, having shaded your figure as completely as if you were drawing it on panel. Then the master-glazier takes this design and spreads it out on a desk or board, large and even, and according as he wishes to colour the draperies of the figure, so, piece by piece, he cuts the glasses, and gives you a colour made of copper filings, well ground; and with this colour, piece by piece, you proceed with a little pencil of minever, having a good point, to contrive your shadows, making the joins of the folds and other parts of your figure agree, one piece of glass with another, just as the master-glazier has cut and put them together; and with this colour you are able, without exception, to shade on every sort of glass.’[27] ¶ In 1616, the glass designed and painted by Alesso, ‘being all spoiled, broken, and patched, in such a manner that it yielded no light, except where there was no wire-screen,’ the whole of the lights were reglazed anew, at the joint expense of the monastery and the patrons of the chapel.[28] The beautiful stonework of the window, however, designed in the classic taste of the time, with finely-wrought pilasters at the jambs and mullion, was restored and filled with modern stained-glass during the recent restoration of the church, in 1890–7. ¶ It appears from the ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, of Alesso Baldovinetti, that the painter gave designs for several windows to the ‘maestri di finestre.’ In 1472, he designed an Annunciation to be executed in glass for the cathedral church of San Martino, at Lucca; and in 1481, he designed a window for the church of Sant’ Agostino, at Arezzo.[29] These windows have perished, but there still remains in Florence a painted window which was undoubtedly executed from a cartoon by Alesso. This window, which, so far as I am aware, has never been ascribed to him, is above the altar of the Pazzi chapel, in the first cloister of Santa Croce. [Plate I.] It consists of two lights, a lower circular-headed light containing a full-length figure of St. Andrew, the patron saint of the chapel, with the arms of the Pazzi below; and an upper round window, or ‘occhio,’ containing a half-length figure of God the Father. This window affords a good example of the use of the pure and brilliant colours which the Florentine ‘maestri di finestre’ employed in the fifteenth century, and which to our northern eyes are apt to appear crude and too little wrought upon. But seen, as such windows were doubtless intended to be seen, with the full power of the Italian sun upon them, their colours become fused, and take that jewel-like quality which is essentially distinctive of the finest[Pg 32] painted-glass. The figure of St. Andrew is draped in a golden leaf-green robe, lined with a smalt blue, and worn over an underrobe of a warm and brilliant purple. The frieze of the niche behind the figure is of a colder purple; the capitals of a madder tint; the cupola of a smalt blue; and the sky in the background of a full ultramarine. The figure of God the Father in the ‘occhio’ above, wears a golden purple vest, and a mantle of smalt blue; and the curtains of a madder purple, lined with green, which are drawn apart, reveal a skyey background of ultramarine behind the figure. During the recent restoration of the Pazzi chapel, this window was repaired, and several missing pieces of the glass made good. These repairs are especially noticeable in the ultramarine glass. ¶ The high altar of Santa Trinita was originally placed immediately below the window, in the head of the Cappella Maggiore. Its beautiful marble frontal, carved with the symbol of the Trinity in relief, was found during the recent restoration of the church, in the Cappella della Pura, in Santa Maria Novella, and has once more been put to its original use. For this altar Alesso, as he records in Libro A, received the commission from Messer Bongianni, on April 11, 1470, to paint an altar-piece, in which was to be a Trinity with two saints, namely, St. Benedict and St. John Gualbert, and angels. He finished it on February 8, 1471, and received eighty-nine gold florins in payment for the work.[30] In 1569, the high altar was brought forward, and placed below the arch of the Cappella Maggiore; and the choir which anciently lay before the high altar, in the body of the church, was reconstructed in the chapel, behind the altar. In 1671, the crucifix of St. John Gualbert was brought from San Miniato, and placed upon the new high altar; and Alesso’s altar-piece was left hanging in its original position, below the window of the choir, where it was to be seen when Don Averardo Niccolini collected his notices of Santa Trinita, towards the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] At a later time the picture was removed into the sacristy; and finally, upon the suppression of the monastery in 1808, it was taken to the Florentine Academy, where it is still preserved, No. 159. [Plate II.] It is painted on a panel measuring 7 ft. 8½ ins. in height, and 9 ft. 1¾ ins. in length. God the Father is seated in the centre of the composition, in the midst of a glory of seraphim, supporting the cross on which the figure or Christ is hanging. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, hovers above the crucifix; and at the foot of the cross, which rests upon the earth, is the skull of Adam. In the lower left-hand corner kneels St. Benedict, in the habit of his order; and on the opposite side of the picture kneels St. John Gualbert. In the upper corners, two angels draw back a curtain embroidered with pearls; while other angels hover around, against the skyey background. Dry, almost unpleasing as a whole, and with little or nothing of that delicate feeling for sensuous beauty which distinguishes Alesso’s early works, this altar-piece is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable productions extant of Florentine painting in the fifteenth century. In execution, it shows a mastery of technique to which few of Alesso’s contemporaries attained. The draperies, for instance, are wrought with a richness of colour and texture which recalls the work of some great Fleming. In conception too severely understood, in presentation too precisely wrought out, and with too exacting a definition, this altar-piece seems to forestall something of that profoundly intellectual rendering of constructed form, which Michael Angelo afterwards carried to its height in the fresco of the Last Judgement. Certainly, there are few more striking instances of the manner to which the Florentine painters of the fifteenth century developed the technique and science of painting.

[To be continued.]

❧ WRITTEN BY W. H. JAMES WEALE ❧

THE Exhibition included a number of other works attributed to Memlinc. Three of these are supposed to have been executed in his early years: the Passion of Saint Sebastian (69), belonging to the Brussels Museum; the triptych with the Deposition of Christ in the centre, and Saints James and Christopher (92), formerly at Liphook in the Heath collection, now the property of M. R. von Kaufmann; and the Blessed Virgin and Child with a donor protected by Saint Anthony. The first of these was probably painted by a follower of Dirk Bouts; the second by an imitator of Bouts and Memlinc; the third only has any claim to be considered the work of Memlinc; the date 1472, inscribed in the background, is certainly modern, but probably copied from the frame when this was discarded. The Blessed Virgin and Child (78), lent by Mr. A. Thiem, is a school picture in not very good condition; another (83) belonging to Baron P. Bethune, having long served as the lid of a miller’s flour box, has very little of the original work left. A Madonna enthroned with two angels (82) entirely overpainted, lent by Mrs. Stephenson Clarke, and another belonging to the Museum of Woerlitz (29), are like similar pictures in the Museum at Vienna and in the possession of the Duke of Westminster, works probably painted after Memlinc’s death from his patterns by Louis Boels. The three large panels from the monastery of Najera (84), belonging to the Antwerp Museum, are fine decorative works painted about 1490 by an imitator of Memlinc and Van Eyck. As to the Annunciation lent by Prince Radziwill (85), said by Dr. Waagen to have been painted in 1482, I should, looking at the colour and execution, think it at least twenty years later, and am convinced that Memlinc never had anything whatever to do with it. Mr. Hulin calls it Memlinc’s most perfect composition; Dr. Friedländer, ‘an extremely original composition of remarkable delicacy of sentiment and execution’ (von höchst eigenartiger Komposition und besonderer Feinheit in Empfindung und Durchführung); while a writer in the Athenaeum of September 20 says: ‘In conception it belongs entirely to the master, and the composition is as fine and original as anything to be found in his work,’ and thinks that ‘it was a beautiful and new conceit thus to represent the Virgin as sinking down tremblingly at the angel’s word, but held by the supporting arms of two other attendant angels who look up to her with reassuring smiles.’ Now it is certain that Memlinc, far from being an innovator and an inventor of what the writer properly calls new conceits, was a faithful follower of ecclesiastical tradition, and would never have dreamt of introducing into the representation of this mystery these two sentimental and affected angels. No doubt the Gospel says that Mary was troubled at the words of the angel, but there is nothing to warrant this impertinent addition. The fact is that the beautiful long waving line of the Virgin’s robe with its sudden returning lines has made these critics shut their eyes to these points, which I think are by themselves sufficient evidence that the picture is the work of a sixteenth-century innovator. As to the six panels (176) lent by the Strassburg Museum, it is an outrage to suggest that Memlinc was their author. ¶ After[Pg 36] Memlinc, the greatest master who worked at Bruges was another foreigner, Gerard son of John, son of David, a native of Oudewater in South Holland, who in all probability learnt his art either at Haarlem or under Dirk Bouts at Louvain. He came to Bruges at the end of 1483, and was admitted into the Guild of Saint Luke as free master on January 14, 1484. Although we have no written evidence as to his history previous to that date, yet certain details in his works make it almost certain that he had travelled in Italy after the termination of his apprenticeship. Bruges still possesses the earliest works by him of which the authenticity is established; these with a number of others by his followers not only afforded an excellent opportunity for studying the variations in his manner, but showed the great influence he exercised over his contemporaries and followers. In 1488 Gerard David was commissioned to paint two pictures by the magistrates elected by the three members of Flanders to succeed those who had been deposed after the imprisonment of Maximilian; they were intended by them to commemorate the execution of the judge Peter Lanchals and other members of the late administration who, having been found guilty of corruption and malversation, had been condemned to death and executed. Gerard, however, instead of painting the history of Lanchals, took for his theme an analogous subject originally recorded by Herodotus, which he probably drew from the then much better known works of Valerius Maximus. By so doing he avoided the resentment of the friends of the deposed magistrates, while the subject chosen was equally well adapted to recall to the sitting magistrates that they must be honest and impartial. In the first of the two panels (121), which we reproduce (as the frontispiece of this number), Cambyses, accompanied by his court, is represented entering the hall of justice and ordering the arrest of the unjust judge Sisamnes. In the background Sisamnes is seen at the porch of his house receiving a bag of money from a suitor. The groups of nude children and the garlands of fruit and flowers, the earliest instance of the occurrence of such details in a Netherlandish picture, must have been copied from Venetian or Florentine pictures, and the two Medicean cameos are almost proofs of a visit to Florence; one of these, the Judgement of Marsyas by Apollo, is represented as a breast ornament worn by Lucretia Tornabuoni (?) in the portrait of that lady by Botticelli in the Städel Institute at Frankfort. It is interesting to note that the square seen in the background is an almost exact representation of the Square of St. John at Bruges. The flaying of Sisamnes (122) is an extremely realistic picture vigorously painted with wonderful finish. The composition and pose of the figures in both scenes remind one of Carpaccio, the heads have a great deal of character, and the hands are admirably modelled. For the two pictures, which were not completed until 1498, Gerard received in three instalments the sum of £14 10s. ¶ The National Gallery contains two pictures painted between 1500 and 1510, both formerly in the Cathedral of Saint Donatian at Bruges, the one an altar-piece executed for Richard De Visch Van der Capelle, who held the office of cantor in that church; the other, the dexter wing of a triptych painted for Bernardine Salviati, a canon of the same cathedral. These of course were not at Bruges, but I mention them here because they form a connecting link with the triptych representing the Baptism of Christ (123), of which the centre and the inner face of the shutters were painted before 1502, and the outer in 1508. The next work in order of date, and in my opinion David’s masterpiece, is the picture (124) presented by him in 1509 to the convent of the Carmelite nuns of Sion at Bruges, and now in the Rouen Museum; it represents the Blessed Virgin and Child surrounded by virgin saints and two angels, the [Pg 39] one playing a mandoline, the other a viola, whilst at the extreme ends in the background the painter has represented himself and his young wife. The composition is not quite original; Memlinc had already painted for John Du Celier a small Sacra Conversazione now in the Louvre, and another artist who has not as yet been identified had executed in 1489, for the Guild of Saints Mary Magdalene, Katherine, and Barbara, an altar-piece (114) which doubtless suggested not only the composition of this picture but the mode of characterizing the saints. The author of this earlier work, if one may judge by its colouring, was probably accustomed to design tapestries; most of the figures are exceedingly plain and wanting in expression, whereas in Gerard’s picture the colouring is harmonious and the figures remarkable for beauty of expression, the angels being amongst the most charming conceptions realized by the school.

The large triptych (125) lent by M. de Somzée, with life-size figures of Saint Anne with the Blessed Virgin and Child in the centre, and Saints Nicholas and Anthony of Padua on the shutters, painted for some Spanish church, is a late work inferior in execution to those already mentioned. Six other panels with scenes from the lives of the two saints, said to have been the predella of this altar-piece, not exhibited, are on the contrary charming works; they are now in the possession of Lady Wantage. Two shutters of a triptych (138) with full-length figures of four saints, lent by Mr. James Simon, of Berlin, appear to me to be authentic works; the Saints Christopher and Anthony are especially good. ¶ Of the other eleven works attributed to Gerard by their owners or by those who have written on the exhibition, I can only say caveat lector. We know no picture painted by Gerard before 1488 or after 1512, and the variation of style in the works executed between those dates of which the authenticity is established makes it difficult to say with certainty that any picture painted at Bruges between 1512 and 1527 is or is not by him, and it is certainly mere guesswork to attribute to him any pictures of an earlier date than 1488; it is indeed probable that, being a stranger, he would during his first four years at Bruges have confined himself to the execution of small pictures of religious subjects which would meet with a ready sale. The Adoration of the Magi (135) lent by the Brussels Museum, formerly supposed to be by John van Eyck, was first attributed to Gerard by Dr. Scheibler. Dr. Friedländer believes it to be an original work of about 1500, often copied. It was originally in the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Michael at Antwerp, and I doubt its being a Bruges picture or an original composition. The original painting was certainly executed shortly after 1490 and was copied by the miniaturist who adorned a Dominican Breviary which was in the possession of Francis de Roias in Spain before 1497. ¶ The style of the figures and the colouring of the Annunciation (128) lent by the Museum of Sigmaringen are very much in Gerard’s manner, and it may possibly be by him; the Städel Museum at Frankfort contains a copy of these two panels apparently painted by a Netherlandish artist in the Peninsula or by a Portuguese artist in the Low Countries, the inscription on the border of the angel’s vestments being in Portuguese: Modar de Senor. A triptych representing the Deposition of Christ (126), which though thrice restored, in 1675, 1773, and 1827, is still in fairly good condition, was first included by me in 1863 among the works by Gerard on the authority of a document of the year 1675, preserved in the archives of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood, to which the picture has always belonged. It certainly differs considerably from the pictures painted by him between 1488 and 1510, and shows a strong influence of Quentin Metsys, and I do not think that the opinion of two or three modern critics warrants the rejection of the evidence in its favour. The picture was certainly painted[Pg 40] c. 1520 in Bruges, where several old copies of it were preserved until the middle of the last century. ¶ A Holy Family (343) lent by M. Martin Le Roi is an excellent work painted about the same time, showing even more strongly the influence of Quentin Metsys, and I have little doubt painted by an Antwerp master. Yet this is classed by Dr. Friedländer as an excellent work of David’s later time (Vortreffliches Werk aus der Spätzeit Davids), although there is neither tradition nor documentary evidence in favour of this attribution. The Transfiguration (117) belonging to the church of Our Lady, another work of about the same date, is of interest as representing an event rarely treated by the early masters of the Netherlands. The composition shows an Italian influence; the figures, especially those in the group on the left, that of Gerard; the colouring is light and cool; the picture has suffered very much from neglect. The shutters of this altar-piece, not exhibited, were painted by Peter Pourbus. The lunette (149) lent by Baron de Schickler is a fine piece, but the types of the figures are unlike any in Gerard’s authentic works. ¶ Gerard was not only a painter but also a miniaturist, and as such a member of the Guild of Saint John and the head of a school of miniaturists. Two specimens of his own work—(129) Saint John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness and the Baptism of Christ—and three by his wife, Cornelia Cnoop, were formerly in the Cistercian abbey of Saint Mary in the Dunes; the three last (130), lent by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, are here reproduced; they have been framed as a triptych.

[The previous articles of this series were published in Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE for March, April, and May, 1903.]

WE give reproductions of the portraits of Thomas Portunari and his wife, referred to by Mr. Weale in his third article (THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, No. 3, May 1903, p. 336), as they may be of interest to students of Flemish art, since their authorship is a disputed question. These portraits have hitherto been attributed to Memlinc, but, when they were exhibited at Bruges last year, this attribution was doubted by many critics. Mr. Weale, as our readers know, has suggested that the portraits may be early works of Hugh van der Goes. The question is one on which further opinion will be welcome. Amateurs of mediaeval jewellery, by the way, should notice the very beautiful necklace worn by Portunari’s wife, which is a remarkably fine example of fifteenth-century work.

UNTIL a comparatively few years ago, the literature of science was almost wholly silent on the subject of the Svastika. Professor Wilson, of the Smithsonian Institute, writing in the early nineties, sets forth that in most of the best-known encyclopedias, both European and American, the word Svastika is not so much as mentioned. It was indeed, he says, this to him incomprehensible omission, and consequent admittedly general ignorance, that prompted him to make an exhaustive study of the subject, and to embody the results of his researches in what is undoubtedly the standard work on Svastika at the present time. Yet even Professor Wilson, while giving to his readers the great mass of evidence he has collated, is chary of expressing any definite opinion as to the origin and significance of this universal symbol. In this reserve he is doubtless prudent, at least in so far that he has avoided entering upon a controversy which must probably be endless. The theories, indeed, that have been presented concerning the origin and the symbolism of the Svastika are as numerous as they are diverse. Every kind of suggestion has been made as to its relation to the most ancient Deities, and as to its typifying of certain qualities. Various writers have regarded it as being the emblem, respectively, of Zeus and of Baal, of the Sun God, of the Sun itself as a God, and of the Sun chariot. Of Agni (the Ignis of the Romans) the fire God, and of Indra the rain God. In the estimation of others, again, it is typical of the sky and of the sky God; and finally of the Deity of all Deities, the great God, the maker and ruler of the universe. Again, it has been held to symbolize light and the God of light, and the forked lightning, as a manifestation of that Deity; and yet again, according to some, from its intimate association with the Lotus, it has been regarded as the emblem of the God of water. That it is the oldest known Aryan symbol is hardly in dispute. There are writers who have announced their conviction that it represents Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. Certainly it appears in the footprints of Buddha, engraved upon the living rock of Indian mountains; equally certainly it stood for the Jupiter Tonans and Pluvius of the Latins, and for the Thor of the Scandinavians, though that it represented a variety of the ‘Thor hammer’ is now considered to be disproved. Many have attributed a Phallic meaning to it, or, regarding it as the symbol of the female, have claimed that it represents the generative principles of mankind, while its appearance on the person of certain Goddesses, Artemis, Hera, Demeter, Astarte, and the Chaldean ‘Nana,’ the leaden Goddess from Hissarlik, has caused it to be claimed as a sign of fecundity. But, as Professor Wilson points out, and as every other writer has allowed, whatever else the Svastika may have stood for, and however many meanings it may have had, it was always, if not primarily, ornamental. It may have been used with any or all and other than the above significations, but it was always ornamental as well.

But in whatever other connexion it may have been employed, it was invariably, and still is to-day, an auspicious sign. It is still used by the common people of India, of China, and of Japan, as a sign of ‘long life, good wishes, and good fortune.’ Among many North American[Pg 44] Indian tribes it is called ‘the luck,’ and the men wear it embroidered on their garters, and the women on the borders of their skirts; and in ancient times it was wont to be embroidered in quills on the bags in which they carried their medicinal herbs. In Thibet it is a not uncommon mode of tattooing; and in this connexion it is interesting to note that Higgins in his ‘Anacalypsis’ says, concerning the origin of the cross, that the official name for the Governor of Thibet comes from the ancient Thibetan name for cross, the original spelling of which is “Lamh.” Davenport corroborates this view in his “Aphrodisiaco.” There is, according to Balfour, despite Mr. Gandhi’s contradictions of Colonel Cunningham, a sect in Thibet who receive their name from this symbol. They are the ‘Tao-sse’ of the Chinese. The founder of this doctrine is said to have flourished B.C. 604 to 523. They were rationalists who held that peace of mind and contentment were the only objects worthy of attainment in this life. They assumed the name of Tirthakar, or pure-doers. Professor Max Müller, discussing the question why the sign should have had an auspicious meaning, mentions that Mr. Thomas, the distinguished oriental numismatist, has called attention to the fact, that in the long list of the recognized devices of the twenty-four Jain Tirthankara[32] the sun is absent, but that while the eighth Tirthankara has the sign of the half moon, the seventh is marked with a Svastika, i.e. the sun. Here, then, is clear indication that the Svastika with the ends pointing in the right direction was originally a symbol of the sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal sun, the ‘Suavastika,’ and therefore a natural symbol of light, life, health, and wealth. This ‘Suavastika,’ Max Müller believes, was applied to the Svastika sign with the ends bent to the left, but with the exception of Burnouf (‘Des Sciences et Religions’) no one agrees with him. Burnouf supports his theory (which is, that the word Suavastika is a derivation of the Svastika, and ought to signify ‘he, who, or that which bears or carries the Svastika or a species of Svastika’) by the story of Agni (Ignis), the god of Sacred Fire, as told in the ‘Veda’ (the four sacred books of the Hindus). ‘The young Queen, the Mother of Fire, carried the Royal infant mysteriously concealed in her bosom. She was a woman of the people, whose common name was Arani—that is, the instrument of wood (the Svastika) from which fire was produced by rubbing.’ Burnouf says that the origin of the sign is now easy to recognize. It represents the two pieces of wood which compose the Arani, of which the extremities were to be retained by the four nails. At the junction of the two pieces was a fossette or cup-like hole, and there was placed a wooden upright in the form of a lance (the pramantha), the violent rotation of which (by whipping after the fashion of the whipping-top) brought forth fire.

Zmigrodski agrees with this view; but, as with every other theory connected with Svastika, it has many opponents. ¶ Professor Dumontier holds that Svastika is nothing else than a development of the ancient Chinese characters C. h. e, which carries the idea, according to Count Goblet D’Alviella (in ‘La Migration des Symboles’), of perfection or excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. Max Müller, Waring, and D’Alviella are agreed that neither in Babylonia nor in Assyria are any traces of Svastika to be found. Ludwig Müller, however, finds ample evidence of it on Persian coins of the Arsacides and Sassanides dynasties. ¶ Arsacides was the [Pg 47] name of the Parthian kings whose family name was Arseus. The Arsacidean kings of Armenia, according to Moses of Chorene, began to reign B.C. 130, and ruled until A.D. 45, when the Armenian kingdom was extinguished. The Sassanian kings of Persia ruled from A.D. 226 to 641, when the last monarch, Yez-de-jird the Third, was overthrown by the Mahomedans. This monarchy took its origin when Artaxerxes (the Greek and Roman way of pronouncing Ardeshir) overthrew the Parthian dynasty. This prince, Ardeshir Babekan, son of Sassan, was an officer of King Arsaces Artabanus the Fifth, whom he murdered, assuming the Persian throne as the first of the Sassanian dynasty. ¶ Ohnefalsch Richter holds the view that although no trace of Svastika had been found in Phoenicia, yet that travellers to that country had brought it from the Far East, and had introduced it into Cyprus, and into Carthage and the north of Africa generally. As against the denial of it in Assyria, however, is Wilson’s assertion that the three-rayed design is found on Assyrian coins, as also as a countermark on those of Alexander, B.C. 333 to 323. Professor Sayce, on the other hand, is of opinion that Svastika was a Hittite symbol which passed by communication to the Aryans, or to some of their important branches before their final dispersion took place. The Professor regards it as being fairly established that the symbol was in more or less common use among the peoples of the bronze age anterior to either the Chaldeans, Hittites, or Aryans.

As against all these theories, Major-General Gordon, writing to Dr. Schliemann in 1896 from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, of which he was then Controller, points out that the Svastika is obviously Chinese, and that on the breech of a large gun captured in the Taku Fort in ’61, and at the time of writing lying outside his office at Woolwich, the same symbol is displayed. Dr. Lockyer, who was for many years a medical missionary in China, also says that the sign is thoroughly Chinese. Colonel Sykes, another authority on matters Chinese, concludes that according to the Chinese authorities, Fa-hiau, Soung-Young, and Hiuantusang, the ‘doctors of reason,’ Taosee or followers of the mystic cross were diffused in China and India before the advent of Sakya in the sixth century B.C. (according to other authorities in the eleventh century B.C.), continuing to Fa-hiau’s time, and that they were professors of qualified Buddhism, which it is stated was the universal religion of Thibet before Sakya’s advent, and continued until orthodox Buddhism was introduced in the ninth century A.D. As to this Colonel Tod holds the opinion that the first Buddha of the four flourished circa B.C. 2250. This was Budh the parent of the lunar race. ¶ The Greeks undoubtedly connected the symbol with the cult of Apollo, but it seems probable that the sign came to them from Egypt, where the Tau which was a cross was anciently a symbol of the generative power, and afterwards was introduced into the Bacchic mysteries. Such a cross has been found at Pompeii in a house, in juxtaposition with the Phallus and with other symbols embodying the same idea. This mystic Tau, or Standard of the Cross as it has been called, formed just half of the Labarum,[33] or idolatrous war standard of the Pagans. The Labarum bore at once the crescent and the cross, the crescent as the emblem of Astarte the Queen of Heaven, and the cross as[Pg 48] that of Bacchus. ¶ The controversy, if so it can be called, will doubtless rage for all time, but the one essential point remains salient: namely, that the symbol is admittedly universal, and equally admittedly it is the basis and the mainstay in one form or another of all conventional decorative design. It is to be found everywhere in our modern life. In our household appointments, in our mural decorations, in the shapes and adornment of articles of our furniture. Even does it come down to us in the shape of those old irons on houses with which we are all familiar, and which, though a few persons fondly believe them to be so placed for the purpose of remedying cracking walls, are regarded by every right-thinking country person as a protection against lightning and fire. Unconsciously Svastika permeates our whole existence. We cannot even sit down to dinner without finding it set before us in some of our table appointments; and nowhere is the symbol more constantly and more permanently evident than in oriental rugs and carpets. In every specimen of these, of whatsoever provenance, and no matter how much the flowing line of curves may have encroached on the rectilineal design of convention, the Svastika is traceable. It may not be at once discovered in the main body of the pattern, though it is always present, but it is invariably and inevitably to be found in the border, which it may at once be said is as much an historical asset as is the central design itself.

Of course throughout the natural working of Time’s processes, the merging of myths and the blending of conceptions, certain bold and salient developments, if projected with sufficient force and persistency, must ever remain paramount. This is the case with the Svastika and with that other symbol, that of the lotus, with which it is almost invariably found in conjunction. There are many indeed who claim that the two symbols are indivisible. Professor Goodyear, no mean authority, is specially insistent on this point. He holds that it is the lotus that is the keynote of decoration. The lotus, he contends, is the Tree of Life, or rather the accepted Tree of Life is really the lotus in one or another of its many aspects. The spiral scroll, he urges, comes from the bent sepals of the lotus much exaggerated, which being squared becomes the Greek fret or meander or key pattern, and this doubled forms the Svastika. ¶ The Lotus and the Tree of Life will form the subject of the next article.

[Previous articles of this series were published in Nos 1 and 3, for March and May, 1903.]

THERE is every probability that the current exhibition of early and modern pictures by Dutch artists will prove to be one of the most popular which has yet been held at the Guildhall; not, indeed, because it is of finer quality than its predecessors, but from the fact that the pictures are well within the grasp of the average man. There is nothing incomprehensible to those least acquainted with Dutch art, and there is something that will appeal to all. It must have occurred to many with regard to pictures of Holland by artists of varying nationality that only the Dutchman really grasps the subtleties of the country. All the rest look upon it with alien eyes, and give us but the external form. They never get behind the veil and infect us with that indefinable exquisiteness and charm so characteristic of Holland with its pastoral flats, pollard willows, canals, picturesque craft and windmills and, most wonderful of all, that delicate atmosphere softening the harshest lines into a melodious ensemble, and overhead the immensity of sky, vast in its expanse and with its delicacies of blues and greys. The finest Dutch landscape painters have always painted in a minor key; whenever they seek to modulate into the major they lose themselves and become commonplace. This applies equally to Rüysdael and to Jacob Maris; doubtless it is an expression of the national temperament of the Dutchman. Generally upon emerging from a contemplation of the old men into a modern artistic environment a feeling of repulsion creeps over one, but this is not the case here. Rüysdael and Rembrandt seem strangely in harmony with Maris and Mauve, and in this fact may be found a plea for the endurance of the latter. A very different impression is given, for instance, when one leaves an eighteenth-century French picture and comes to a modern French landscape. The modern Dutch school have maintained the traditions of their predecessors, and one of them at least—Jacob Maris—is worthy to be put on the same plane as Rüysdael and Hobbema. ¶ In the small gallery upstairs the student of seventeenth-century Dutch art will find much to admire, still more to interest him, and not a few examples which will tax his ingenuity as to attribution. Among these last are some of the six pictures ascribed to Rembrandt. The most important, and perhaps the one which should attract the most attention, is the large landscape Le Commencement d’Orage, which is surpassed by little in the landscape work of Rembrandt for poetical intensity and incisive truth. This picture is by most modern critics denied to Rembrandt; as the question is one which must be fully dealt with, its discussion may conveniently be postponed to the end of this paper. ¶ When we leave this and come to the portraits we find but one, the Portrait of the Painter’s Son Titus, which has any serious pretensions to be considered as coming from his brush. Against this, however, nothing can be urged in point of quality. Of the Dutch master’s last and finest manner—it is dated 1655—it has all the pathetic realism of his unsubdued genius. It is interesting to compare this canvas, which is undoubtedly a portrait of Titus, with that of the same boy in the Wallace collection. As this is dated authentically 1655, the Hertford House picture should be painted within the next year, or at the latest in 1657, whereas it is approximately dated in the catalogue 1658–60. On the score of quality there is little to choose, but perhaps the English picture is[Pg 52] in a better state of preservation. The Head of a Man, a careful work, and with many good qualities to recommend it, is in all probability a work of Solomon de Koninck, who was one of those pupils of Rembrandt who assimilated most of his technicalities. The extreme timidity of many of those points in which the bolder qualities of Rembrandt would be brought into play, such as the handling of the nose, mouth and hair, go far to convince us of the correctness of this attribution. Coming to The Portrait of the Artist, it appears quite incomprehensible that a picture of such inferior artistic qualities should have been seriously considered for so long a period as a work of the master. Coming from the collections of M. de Calonne, the Marquis Gerini and Mr. Agar, engraved by Seuter and Townley, quoted in Smith, it serves to show the hazy idea of even the best connoisseurs in the early days of the last century. Such a work would be difficult to affiliate upon any of the best known of Rembrandt’s pupils. The weakness of the drawing and lack of power and roundness are clearly the work of but a second-rate man of the period. The signature, moreover, presents no claim to serious consideration. In Ruth and Naomi is possibly to be found the work of a very interesting painter of the school of Rembrandt—Karel Fabritius, who is little known yet in this country. It is painted with remarkable strength and solidity, and although not a great achievement, is worthy of comparison with some of those pictures which are ascribed to the greater light upon very slender foundation. The picture, however, is in such bad condition and has suffered so much that no one can tell what it may have been when fresh. ¶ More interesting upon the whole than the representation of Rembrandt and his School is that of Frans Hals. His so-called Admiral de Ruyter (which is not a portrait of that admiral) for decision and fearless handling has not an equal in the gallery. It is not Hals as we see him at Hertford House, careful and conscientious, though successful, but the spontaneous, daring master whom we find at Haarlem and in the Louvre, at Cassel and St. Petersburg. It is the Hals that we not only admire but also love, the wonder of the cultured art-loving public, and—may we add it?—the despair of the modern portrait painter. Such brushwork has only been equalled, we shall not say surpassed, by a few masters, of whom Velasquez stands out prominently. When, however, we turn to Van Goyen and his Wife and Child, we have another instance of more than doubtful attribution. The landscape is probably by Van Goyen, for it has many of his characteristics of tree draughtsmanship and sober colour. The figures, however, betray nothing of Hals beyond his influence, and even the latter is only just allowable. They are well and strongly painted in parts; but Hals would never be guilty of such loose handling as is observable in the child in the foreground or such weak drawing as the foot of Van Goyen betrays. There is but little from which to deduce an attribution with any degree of certainty. The present ascription is part of that system which insists on fathering upon Hals all the portraits in this manner and of this period, in much the same way as in the past all portraits which betrayed any of the technicalities of Rembrandt were attributed to that master.

Turning from this to a Group of Three we have a splendid example by a master whose history is enshrouded still in much mystery, but who was, if one can judge from his art, a pupil of Hals—we are referring to Jan Miense Molenaer. It was evidently painted in the earlier portion of his career and has much in common with The Spinet-players in the Rycks Museum at Amsterdam. A scene which Hals would have revelled in depicting, full of uproarious good humour, the picture presents attractions quite apart from its superb technical qualities and masterly composition. Curiously enough, upon the same wall we have two examples, [Pg 55] Jovial Companions and The Health of the Troop, by Molenaer’s wife, Judith Leyster, a painter of the school of Haarlem of the period when Hals was at the height of his fame. They are both catalogued as being collaborations by Hals and Judith Leyster, but beyond the potent influence of the former they have nothing to do with him. As pictures they are interesting to the student, but not for any striking qualities which they present. The brushwork is of a character which one expects from a painter who from self-assurance endeavours to emulate a bold and dashing manner without possessing the ability of the prototype, with the inevitable result of a coarse disjointedness irritating to the last degree. The colour scheme of each is unpleasing too, blues and reds being foiled against one another with a rashness which is born of over confidence. Of quite another character is the little Portrait of a Gentleman by Thomas de Keyser. The strong and firm modelling of the face has not a weakness apparent anywhere, whilst, as is usual with this master, he has placed a restraint upon himself which sustains him through the most arduous task without loss of dignity or ease of presentment. This grasp of his material leaves him when he attempts anything on a large scale: he loses concentration and becomes straggling. The picture is, however, overcleaned. ¶ But to revert to the school of Hals again, there are few more instructive pictures in the exhibition than The Portrait of a Dutch Lady by Jan Verspronck, who was in many respects his cleverest pupil. This is a remarkably characteristic example, the authenticity of which is convincingly attested by the presence of the signature with the date 1643. It must have occurred to many students that the scarcity of Verspronck’s pictures is accounted for by their being not infrequently converted into examples of the better-known master. They lend themselves very readily to this from the strong affinities of technique. The great point of difference is to be found in the lack of brilliancy and freedom, qualities eminently characteristic of Hals, both in his early and late period. But the delicate silveriness and luminosity of Hals find an echo in the finest portraits of Verspronck. I remember seeing a portrait of a man some years ago in London which was ascribed with all confidence to Hals, until a close examination revealed the traces of an obliterated signature of Verspronck on the background. Further, I have always held the opinion that the superb Portrait of a Lady at Antwerp is by this master, and a contemplation of the present picture strengthens this view. ¶ One other portrait is well worthy of mention, although it may be observed that it hardly comes within the scope of an exhibition of Dutch Art, but we should have been considerably the losers without it—the Portrait of Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola, by Cornelis de Vos. It is a superb piece of direct portraiture, full of dignity and precision, and the ruff and breastplate are handled with remarkable accuracy and vigour. ¶ Of the genre paintings the most attention will be attracted by The Cook Asleep, a picture ascribed to that very rare master Jan Vermeer of Delft. There is little of his characteristic technique displayed in the treatment of the accessories—the fruit and the bottle. Still, the girl, particularly in the head and bosom, and the handling of the table-cloth, point to the work of the great Delft master, to say nothing of the signature, which has every appearance of being authentic. Nevertheless, to extol it as a masterpiece—it is set forth as such in the catalogue—by Vermeer, is quite unjustifiable when one remembers the picture in Mrs. Joseph’s possession, the two in the Six Collection at Amsterdam, or those in the Rycks Museum, the Louvre, and at Dresden and Berlin. There are weaknesses, as witness the flat painting of the arms, and the diffusion of light is not grasped with his wonted skill. It lacks just that which delights one most in the master’s work. It is unfortunate that a better picture to represent[Pg 56] Vermeer’s contemporary Gabriel Metzu could not be obtained than A Woman Dressing Fish. I cannot agree with Smith in describing it as ‘this excellent little picture’; indeed I have grave doubts as to its being a genuine picture at all. Neither does a Portrait of a Lady worthily display the magic and refined art of Terborch, for the painting is careful even to timidity. Better by far is the Portrait of a Young Woman, which, in spite of an unequal tussle with the restorer, still presents some of his most charming qualities. Both the head and hands are in his best manner, and the black dress with its semi-transparent frills is full of such delicate painting as characterizes The Portrait of a Gentleman in the National Gallery. ¶ A most interesting panel, A Lady at a Harpsichord, is ascribed to Palamedes. Great confusion has existed with regard to his works in the past, arising from the fact that several painters have an almost identical technique and painted similar subjects. Foremost among these are Willem Cornelisz Duyster, Pieter Codde, Dirk Hals, and that controversial and mysterious master, Hendrik Pot. The fine picture at Hampton Court, described in the Commonwealth Inventory as ‘A Souldier making a Strange Posture to a Dutch Lady, by Bott,’ which has been in turn assigned to Pieter Codde, Poelenburgh, Palamedes, Mytens, and Hendrik Pot, is now permanently and rightly ascribed to the last, an attribution arrived at by careful comparison with other works, and further confirmed by the presence of Pot’s initials on the chimneypiece—all in addition to the suggestive entry in the Commonwealth Inventory. Now the panel in the exhibition is almost identical in treatment, and also with that of the Convivial Party in the National Gallery, and I think that Pot is much more likely to be its creator than Palamedes. ¶ The life work of Jan Steen, so badly illustrated at present in our public galleries, is well summed up by the humorous and most masterly Portrait of Himself. Seated on a chair, he bawls without restraint a ditty, no doubt culled from his own cabaret, accompanying himself with a mandoline, which he plays with evidently greater gusto than expression. Steen was no idealistic dreamer: he believed in earthly enjoyment, and from this fact arose the tales of dissipation of which modern investigation has proved the falsity. Still, he seems to have largely been in sympathy with the views of Omar Khayyam, and making ‘the most of what we yet may spend.’ ¶ The ascription to Adriaen Brouwer of An Interior with Figures is perhaps another misnomer. There is none of his exquisite transparency, the colouring is opaque and lacks the brilliancy of his palette, and the draughtsmanship has not nearly his precision. Again, the figures in the foreground, although having much in common with Brouwer, betray the influence of David Teniers, an influence still more marked in those talking through the window. Consequently there is a strange mixture of Dutch and Flemish art, which points to a master conversant with both. Two men suggest themselves as its author, Hendrik Sorgh and Joost van Craesbeeck, and the weight of evidence is in favour of the latter, largely because of the Flemish sentiment which pervades the whole composition and the presence of mannerisms which are peculiar to Brouwer, which leads one to give the preference to Craesbeeck rather than to Sorgh. Some particularly fine examples of the still-life painters of Holland are shown, Jan van Huysum and Jan van Os especially; whilst one of the three canvases by Willem van Aelst (No. 167) is quite a new revelation of his powers.

Coming to the landscape men, in some respects a pleasurable surprise awaits us, and in others something akin to disappointment. The latter was furnished by the representation of Jacob van Rüysdael, by whom no less than three examples are shown. Good as they all will be considered, not one shows to the full the intensely poetical side of his genius, a side which, [Pg 59] exemplified by the magnificent View of Haarlem in the Mauritshuis at the Hague or the View over an extensive flat wooded Country in our own National Gallery, places him far ahead of any painter of the Dutch school for the rendering of dreamy poetry of nature. He must yield the palm to Hobbema in tree painting and to Cüyp in landscape full of delicate shimmer and sunny glow, and if Philips de Koninck is his equal in the presentment of immensity of distance, he is left far behind by Rüysdael’s atmospheric achievements. One point may be conceded to Hobbema, namely, that he is more equal: he never painted a bad picture, whereas Rüysdael frequently did so; but when the two are seen at their best, the latter surpasses him by reason of his superiority in catching that essentiality of landscape—stimmung. For want of these qualities A Forest Scene, fine as it is from a technical standpoint, and in a perfect state of preservation, does not show the better side of Rüysdael. The Seapiece is better, but fails by reason of its obviously forced sky. Its redeeming feature is the masculine painting of the sea and its finely-felt distance. Perhaps the best is the so-called View on the Brill, which is impressive whilst remaining unsatisfactory. It is particularly unfortunate that a picture of Rüysdael in his best and most soulful mood could not be found, for then he would more than hold his own against any of the plein air men in the remaining galleries. By Hobbema there are two superb panels, A Woody Landscape with a gentleman on a grey horse, and A Landscape, between which, although painted at different periods of his career, there is little to choose in point of quality. However, the latter suffers from over cleaning, particularly in some of those parts—notably the middle distance—where Hobbema shines most, and this gives it a rawness quite foreign to the picture in its pristine state. Still, they are both profound in their grasp of nature and magnificence of achievement. Cüyp, too, is equally well represented by A Herdsman and a Woman tending Cattle, with its suffusion of golden sunlight over the placid river. A delicately soft and delicious haze, so essential a feature on a summer afternoon in the vicinity of a river, envelops the whole composition from the finely-grouped cattle and figures in the immediate foreground to the distant tower, and the portrayal of the relation of the exquisitely truthful sky to the landscape was vouchsafed to no Dutchman to a greater degree than to Cüyp. This is the only example here of the Dordrecht master, for few will consider seriously the pretensions of the Head of a Cow to be from his hand. It is signed (but it is to be questioned if it is a contemporary signature) Berchem, and it is possible that it is by that master, but there are other men equally likely. ¶ A capital little landscape with cattle represents the art of Adriaen van de Velde at its best. It is well that such a picture has been chosen, for it is in its original condition, unlike all too many which have become dark in parts owing to the employment of unstable pigments. Another noteworthy example is that by Jan van der Heyden; whether or not one is allowed to altogether admire such finish, one cannot but wonder at the minute and painstaking rendering of detail and at the masterly way with which, in spite of his finesse, he preserves the unity of his composition. ¶ When we come to the Aart van der Neer, a Moonlight River Scene, we are confronted with a clever picture, but one which almost presents doubts as to its being really from the hand of the master. In the first place it is painted with a much fuller brush and broader handling than is usual with Van der Neer. The trees, instead of being delicately, even minutely wrought, are treated in broad masses, and the buildings have not his directness; and one’s doubts are strengthened by the figures. Now Van der Neer was never loose—if anything, his failing is in the opposite direction—but here we have men in the foreground who are even clumsy, whilst the whole[Pg 60] work has a lack or transparence which raises grave doubts whether it is a Dutch picture at all. Here and there is just a trace of a copyist, although a man of no mean talent and one who was copying to arrive at the spirit of the Dutchmen. We have at least one man of the English school who, if this hypothesis has foundation, is capable of this, and many little mannerisms are very like him; but some good authorities regard the picture as an early work of Van der Neer, much over-cleaned and repainted. ¶ The two Jan van de Cappelles are of unsurpassable beauty. In the little Seapiece, with its placid water, an awful stillness pervading the whole scene before the approaching storm, the last glimpses of lurid light which catch the distant town before a complete envelopment in inky blackness of the scene is accomplished, and the depth of the picture, are quite wonderful. But it is rather to Off Scheveningen we look for a thoroughly characteristic Van de Cappelle. The wonderful sky and the amount of atmosphere infused into the whole theme raises it quite on a level with the River Scene of the Wynn Ellis bequest in the National Gallery, an equal of which for pure aerial painting we have yet to see in a European Gallery. The present example is one which surpasses Willem van de Velde at his best in all the higher qualities of art. Another curious picture is the Rising in a Dutch Town, ascribed to Gerrit Berkheyde. ¶ We will now return to Le Commencement d’Orage; and in this connexion it may be convenient to quote the passage referring to this picture which occurred in the notice of the Guildhall Exhibition published in The Times, since it expresses a view now widely held. The passage is as follows:—‘Another picture, of great beauty and greater importance, has for more than a century borne Rembrandt’s name—ever since de Marcenay engraved it with that attribution. Yet it is absolutely certain that Lady Wantage’s great picture, The Beginning of the Storm (174), is not by Rembrandt at all, but is the masterpiece of Philip de Koning, who has two or three similar but smaller works in the National Gallery, and whose signed pictures since the days when Dr. Waagen wrote, have become perfectly well known. Such a picture places de Koning in the very first rank of landscape painters, and it is unjust to deprive him of it. It would take us too long to give reasons for the change of name, but there can be no doubt whatever about it. The picture, of course, shows the influence of the mighty teacher throughout, but it is in point of fact a better, truer, less fantastic landscape than he himself ever painted. It makes the Cassel and other landscapes seem what they really are—dreams, not transcripts from nature in any sense of the term.’ ¶ That the opinion thus dogmatically expressed is that of the majority of critics cannot be denied, but I venture still to acquiesce in the attribution to Rembrandt and I will give my grounds for so doing. In the first place the view is just of such a character as de Koninck painted—an extensive landscape seen from a height with river and distant sandhills, the intervening space studded here and there with hamlets. When, however, we come to compare the technique here with that in accepted pictures by de Koninck, such as the landscape No. 836 in the National Gallery, the only similarity which can be traced to him is in the handling of the bank of the river at the right and the bushes above it. But this is much too powerfully realized for de Koninck, it has a force and breadth which the pupil never put forward. This point can be observed by comparison with the National Gallery picture, which has a very similar foreground only much more restrainedly achieved. Again, the qualities to be found in the roofs by the windmill on the left of the picture and the trees over them are such as are found in all Rembrandt’s work, whether he is working in oil or with the etching needle. Further, none of the finest works of Philips [Pg 63] de Koninck have such an impressive and powerful opposition of sunlight and gloom as we have here. He may be wonderfully fascinating in rendering the delicate silveriness of certain phases of atmospherical freshness but he is never soul-stirring, which is a quality I claim for Lady Wantage’s picture. In the sky painting there is much affinity between this and the Peel picture as regards the cloud cumuli, but a reference to the Landscape with Tobias and the Angel (No. 72) in the National Gallery will disclose an identity which demonstrates that the other similarity is only of such a character as would be found in the work of a very clever pupil assimilating his master’s technique.

Before leaving this picture it would be useful to draw attention to the parallel rendering of several details—the trees and the sunlight hill in the background. Now in the second period of Rembrandt, which is tentatively placed by students as lying between 1640 and 1649, much attention to landscape is a prominent characteristic. Particularly was this the case with regard to his work with the needle. This culminated in the production of that most impressive of all his landscape etchings, The Three Trees. If that etching is compared with the present picture, many points of similarity will be observed, not only with regard to the extensive view on the left of that etching, but with regard to its realization and general feeling, beside which the art of de Koninck appears but a triviality. The Three Trees is dated 1643, and I am inclined to place this picture at about the same period, or at any rate between 1640 and 1643. With this date the technique is in strict consonance. Philips de Koninck we know was born in 1619, so that at this period he would be twenty-one, a very impressionable age, and I would hazard the suggestion, although the evidence is purely presumptive, that not only was this landscape the forerunner of The Three Trees, but that its production at the period when de Koninck was probably a pupil of Rembrandt, or at any rate had but just emerged from his studio, influenced the former to such an extent that it actually inspired his future landscapes, the similar character of which is so well known. Hence the importance of Le Commencement d’Orage for us. ¶ Yet another plea may be urged for the acceptance of the work as being by Rembrandt. It is an accepted fact, that the etchings of Hercules Seghers had great influence on Rembrandt. The inventory of his effects made in 1656 shows that he had in his possession six landscapes by Seghers in addition to the copper of Tobias and the Angel, which latter he reworked and it appears in Rembrandt’s work as the Flight into Egypt. Seghers, as is well known, was a lover of these vast Dutch plains seen from a height, as witness his flat Dutch landscape seen from a height with water in the foreground, and a flat Dutch landscape with a winding river. Now Seghers was born about 1590 and died somewhere about 1640, and it is fair to presume that at this latter date Rembrandt came into possession of the plate of Tobias and the Angel. This is the very period to which I attribute the production of Le Commencement d’Orage, and it is a noteworthy fact that prior to this date we have nothing akin to this and subsequent landscapes, so that it is fair to presume that the art of Seghers created the landscape art of Rembrandt as exemplified by The Three Trees and subsequent etchings, and through him the art of Philips de Koninck. ¶ Moreover the picture of Tobias and the Angel in the National Gallery is directly executed under the influence of Seghers, and I have already drawn attention to the similarity between the building of the sky in this picture and that of Lady Wantage’s. In view of these considerations it would seem that the champions of Philips de Koninck must show more adequate reasons before robbing Rembrandt of the authorship of this superb landscape.

❧ WRITTEN BY R. L. HOBSON ❧

IN beginning a series of articles on Staffordshire wares, which are intended to sketch the history of those fascinating old pieces now so eagerly sought by the collector of pottery, our first duty is to select a convenient starting point. It is improbable that in a county so rich in materials as Staffordshire the making of pottery has suffered any serious intermission since prehistoric times; but I think we may safely assume that the collector, as distinct from the antiquary, will feel little interest in any of the productions of this district prior to the seventeenth century. If we except Gothic paving tiles, a few of the better costrels or pilgrim’s bottles, and the mysterious ‘poteries gracieuses de la reine Elizabeth’ (which, whatever they are, no one thinks of claiming for Staffordshire), it may be said that for five centuries after the Norman conquest the ceramic art of this country boasted nothing better than coarse pitchers, gotches, gourds, and gorges of clumsy shape and uncouth ornament, which appeal to few but the sternest antiquarians. With the seventeenth century, however, begins a new period of development, very gradual at first, but full of interest. ¶ To anyone who has recently visited the Potteries, and seen the great conglomerate of towns intersected by railways and tramlines, with its forest of chimneys and the constantly burning kilns of numberless factories that supply the markets of the world, it is difficult to picture the same district 300 years ago, wooded, wild and picturesque. The great towns were then represented by a few moorland hamlets, the teeming factories by occasional ‘hovels’ and ‘sun-kilns,’ and the armies of workmen by the solitary potter, who, helped by one or two labourers or by his own household alone, threw, glazed and fired his weekly ovenload of crocks, which his wife took to town on a donkey to exchange for the necessaries of life. It is not a very promising picture from a collector’s point of view; and yet in the first few years of the seventeenth century and in circumstances little less primitive than those we have just described, a number of pieces were made that are now eagerly sought after by persons of taste. I need hardly say that it is not the common crocks made for the market or fair that have achieved this apotheosis. The vessels with which we are at present concerned were, we may be sure, of the kind ‘made for honour,’ tours de force to celebrate special occasions, and to be cherished among the heirlooms of the poor.

[Pg 66]

For the right understanding of our subject, it will be necessary to go into a few technical details gathered from the earliest notice (in Dr. Plot’s ‘Natural History of Staffordshire,’ 1689) of the industry, and from the silent evidence of the pots themselves. At Burslem, which even in Plot’s time was the ‘greatest pottery’ of the district, only four kinds of clay were in use for the body of the wares: bottle clay, hard fireclay which was mixed with red blending clay to make black wares, and a white clay, so called because it produced a yellow ware, which was the nearest approach to white then obtainable. Besides these there were three finer clays reserved for decorative purposes, known as orange slip, white slip, and a red slip which burnt black. Slip, it must be explained, was a creamy fluid made of clay softened by water. The glaze was produced by powdered lead ore dusted on to the ware. For special pieces the ore was first calcined. Used in its simple form, this powder, when fired, covered the ware with a transparent glass of a warm yellow tone, which gave a rich reddish brown surface to a red body, a yellow colour to white slip ornament, and a similar augmentation to clays of other tints. Only two colouring oxides appear to have been used—manganese, from which a colour was obtained varying according to its intensity from purplish brown to black, and commonly used to streak or mottle the glaze, and oxide of copper, which produced a bright green effect. The unsophisticated potter called the lead ore smithum and the manganese magnus. A little Latin went a long way in the district. ¶ Such were the simple materials that the seventeenth-century potter had at his disposal, differing scarcely at all from those used by his mediaeval forerunners. Let us see what use he made of them, when working at his best. Fig. I shows an ornamental dish for a cottage dresser. Fig. II is a type of drinking cup used on special occasions. Other not inelegant drinking vessels of the period are beaker-shaped, or in the form of an elongated dice-box with two handles close together; these are always in black ware. Another shape is seen in Fig. III. The principal feature of most of these quaint tygs, or loving-cups, is their astonishing number of handles, which range from two to as many as twelve. It is supposed that the purpose of this equipment was that the cup might pass from hand to hand, and each guest have a fresh portion of the rim to himself, no doubt an excellent arrangement for the first time round! Not content with half a dozen or so of full-grown handles, the potter frequently inserted between each of them a sort of rudimentary handle consisting of a looped strip of clay. Another variety of the[Pg 67] tyg was called a posset pot, and was usually distinguished by a spout. The posset pot would seem to have been a family possession preserved with great respect, and used only on special occasions, such as Christmas time. It also suffered from a plethora of handles. Of any exact recipe for a posset I must plead ignorance, but I fancy it as a compound of mulled ale with an indefinite something floating on the surface, succulent, and exceedingly popular. There were other and still more fanciful drinking vessels besides these. A fuddling cup is shown in Fig. VIII. When it is realized that the six cups communicate with each other internally, so that to empty one you must empty all, the force of the name will be apparent. Any doubt as to the use of these formidable vessels is dispelled by the inscription on a similar piece, Fill me ful of sidar, drink of me. The puzzle jug is another playful variety. Fig. IX is an elaborate example from which it will be seen that the liquor must be extracted in some unusual way if the drinker wants to get his full measure, and has any respect for his clothes. The rim and handle are tubes, communicating with the body of the jug, through which the contents must be sucked from a spout in front of the rim, in this case the bird’s beak. To complicate matters there are usually one or more concealed holes in the tubes which must be stopped by the fingers, in addition to a false spout or two, such as is seen on the side of the rim. The puzzle jug is a joke of long standing. Specimens have been found which go back to the fourteenth century, and the trick is not quite unknown at the present day. No doubt their existence was prolonged by the far-seeing publican who appreciated the possibilities implied in the following doggerel that appears on one of them:—

Another pleasant surprise was furnished by the toad mug, in which the drinker as he neared the bottom discovered a well-modelled toad, usually of red clay with white slip eyes. Fig. XI is an example of a rarer class. The owl jug was made with a removable head which could be used as a cup. It is, however, a disputed question whether these jugs are of Staffordshire origin, and it is hinted that they have a suspiciously close parallel in German pottery. Other special forms of a less bibulous kind are shown in Fig. VII, a model of a cradle which tells its own tale; and Fig. X, a horn lantern. Candlesticks, handovens and condiment trays also occur. ¶ We must now return for a moment to technicalities in order to understand the remaining feature of our wares, their ornament. The tyg, jug, cradle or piece of whatever form, was sometimes left to depend for its popularity on its streaky purplish brown or glossy black[Pg 68] glaze alone, neither of them a recommendation to be despised; or it was embellished with a scratched design, a pattern impressed by wooden stamps, or applied pads of clay moulded or stamped with rosettes, formal ornament, and occasionally with the human form. I have seen a tyg with busts of King Charles I disposed round its perimeter, an unusually ambitious design for a potter of the period. The handles were made a still more conspicuous feature by the addition of twists of coloured clay, knobs and bosses. ¶ Another and a larger group were ornamented with the slips we spoke of above. These were applied in various ways. First as simple washes to give a light surface to a dark body or vice versa (see Figs. IX and XII). Or again they were dropped or trailed on from a spouted vessel in quaint tracery, dotted patterns, or outlined designs. As might be expected at this period, the tulip more or less conventionalized was a favourite motive. The process is best understood by taking an example. Fig. VII is of light buff ware: the ornament on the upper part, and the inscription and date, WILLIAM CHATERLY, 1696, were traced in black slip dotted with white; the lower half was immersed in black slip, and the pattern added in white; the whole was then leaded and fired. ¶ A third method consisted in dropping slip of one or more colours on the surface and working it about with a wire brush or leather comb until an effect similar to our graining or paper marbling was obtained. Wares so treated are called combed or marbled wares (see Figs. XI and XIII). This process, seen on the tall bottle-shaped costrels attributed to the sixteenth century, continued in its primitive form to the middle of the eighteenth century, when it developed into the agate ware of Whieldon and Wedgwood and their contemporaries. ¶ Lastly, there was graffiato ware, in which a thick coating of slip was laid over a body of contrasting colour and the pattern scratched through so as to discover the body beneath (see Fig. VIII). This kind of ornament has been in use in all countries and from the earliest times. It is seen at its best on Italian pottery from the quattrocento onwards, and the continuance of its Italian name is a compliment to the masterpieces of that country.

It remains to speak of dates and localities. Those of our wares that have no slip decoration can be traced back to the first years of the seventeenth century, if not to Elizabethan times. They continued to the early part of the eighteenth century, when they either disappeared or were improved out of recognition. Like all primitive wares, they were manufactured all over the country, and though it is certain that a large number of them were made in Staffordshire, it would be difficult to claim any particular piece for that district. Slip decoration, which dates back to mediaeval times, was equally universal. Indeed we know that a well-defined class of slip ware with stamped ornaments and patterns of dots and dashes was made at Wrotham in Kent from 1612–1717. Another group with a distinctive kind of scroll and fern ornament in thin white slip, and inscriptions usually of Puritanical tone, was made in or near London from the middle of the sixteenth century. A third kind is attributed with much probability to Cockpit Hill, Derby. It is characterized by moulded patterns with raised outlines which contained the coloured slips much as the cloisons contain the enamels on cloisonnée work. ¶ But the best slipware of[Pg 69] Staffordshire, as exemplified by Figs. I, XII, and XIV, is unmistakable in style, and yields to none in picturesque effect. Our earliest clue to its history was given by the simple legend scratched on the back of a dish similar to Fig. I, THOMAS TOFT. TINKERS CLOUGH. I MADE IT., 166–. Tinker’s Clough is a lane between Shelton and Wedgwood’s Etruria. On the strength of this modest confession the name Toft ware has been applied by many writers to all slipwares of this class, and even to slipware generally. A number of other names, sometimes with dates, are found on these wares (e.g. Ralph Toft 1676, Charles Toft, Ralph Turnor 1681, Robart (sic) Shaw 1692), many of them no doubt the names of potters, others of those for whom the pots were made. Slipware, though naturally superseded by the finer earthenwares of the eighteenth century, is not yet extinct, and may be seen occasionally at country fairs of the present day. ¶ The question of Staffordshire delft ware is too long to consider here. It is a moot point if any such thing existed before the eighteenth century, and it is certain that delft was never made there to any extent worth considering. But this article would be incomplete if one omitted to give a few of the quaint inscriptions that are a feature of the various kinds of pots we have discussed. They tell their own story and need no comment:—

The aposiopesis in the last is pregnant with meaning. ¶ Naturally after all these years good examples of old Staffordshire wares are scarce, and when they appear in the market they can only be bought at proportionately good prices, owing to the eagerness with which they are sought by the collector. And me judice they deserve all the attention they get. There is something genuinely fascinating in their naïve simplicity and their entire lack of all that is artificial or extraneous. We do not, of course, pretend that for instance the use of slip originated in this country, but the particular application of it that is so characteristic of the Staffordshire wares is of purely native development. These early pots are like the potters who made them and their friends who used them, English to the backbone.

A MEDIAEVAL SILVER CHALICE FROM ICELAND

THE national collection of silversmiths’ work at South Kensington has lately been enriched by the acquisition of a silver chalice of exceptional beauty and interest, which has reached this country, by way of Denmark, with the history of having belonged formerly to the church of Grundt, a village in the north of Iceland. ¶ As will be seen from the illustration, the chalice is of the early type in which the round contour prevails, in hemispherical bowl, bulb-shaped knop, and circular foot. The bowl is of fine workmanship, fashioned with the hammer with admirable uniformity, and finished with a high polish on the outside. Round its margin runs the leonine hexameter (with some allowances) + SVMMITVR HINC NVNDA DIVINI SANGVINIS VNDA (no doubt for ‘sumitur hinc munda divini sanguinis unda ’).[34] The lettering of the inscription, of which a rubbing is shown, is interesting, apart from the beauty and freedom of its forms, in helping to fix an approximate date for the object it adorns. ¶ The knop, separated from the bowl by a narrow indented necking with beaded edges, is cast hollow, pierced and chiselled with four compartments of foliage. The leafage in each compartment is of a different design, and in each springs from the turned-up ends of a circumscribing band stamped with a row of annulets (see illustration). The upper spandrels so formed are filled each with a small leaf; the lower are blank. ¶ The trumpet-shaped foot is finished round the margin with a bevel, engraved with a rudimentary fret and turned out at the edge in a narrow rim. At its junction with the knop it is enriched with a border of vertical leaves rising from a kind of nebuly band. The workmanship of the foot is notably inferior to that of the bowl; the hammermarks are plainly visible inside, and outside no careful polishing has smoothed away the concentric markings of the turning tool which was used, after the hammer, on both bowl and foot. It may perhaps be suggested that the inferior finish of the foot is evidence of its not having originally belonged to the bowl; but the suggestion is discredited by the excellent proportion existing between the two, and by the similarity of both to the corresponding parts of other examples about to be noticed. It is more probable that a higher finish was imparted to the bowl in deference to its function as the receptacle of the consecrated wine. ¶ To conclude the description, the enriched portions, that is to say, the band of inscription round the bowl, the knop with the parts adjacent, and the bevel of the foot, and these only, are gilt, by the old mercury process, with a pale gold. The measurements are: height 413⁄16 in. (12˙2 cm.), diameter of bowl 3¾ in. (9˙5 cm.), diameter of foot 39⁄16 in. (9 cm.). With the chalice is a paten of plain silver, a slightly concave disc 51⁄16 in. (12˙9 cm.) in diameter, with a roughly-formed circular depression. As this is of very rough make, and has no appearance of being that which originally accompanied the chalice, it need not be referred to further.

The shape of the chalice is sufficient, by comparison with other examples, to determine its date approximately. It may be compared, in respect of its hemispherical bowl, its flattened globular knop, and its trumpet-shaped foot with bevelled margin, with a much larger and more ornate example in the church of [Pg 73] the Holy Apostles at Cologne, shown by the character of its ornament to be of the early part of the thirteenth century.[35] While in the latter example, however, the bowl and knop are separated by a stem equal in length to at least half of the height of the knop, in our chalice they are separated only by the narrow indented band with beaded edges already noticed.[36] ¶ A closer parallel, though again on a larger scale, is furnished by an example dated 1222, formerly in the Heckscher collection, and now in the possession of Sir Samuel Montagu, where all the main features referred to are reproduced, and a much closer similarity in the spacing of bowl and knop is observable.[37] ¶ Still more to the point, however, is a silver chalice found at Sorö, in Denmark, in the year 1827, with an episcopal ring, in the grave of Absalon, bishop of Lund (died 1201).[38] We have here an example from the latter part of the twelfth or the first year of the thirteenth century, reproducing almost exactly the outlines of our chalice already described, and in almost the same dimensions. In the bishop’s chalice the knop is plain, and set off by a band of shallow fluting above and below; but these differences of detail, and even a somewhat wider separation of bowl and knop, cannot veil the striking resemblance of type between the two. ¶ The inscription with its combination of uncial and capital letters furnishes further evidence of date. In general style, as well as in its peculiarities of the use of both varieties of D, the freely curved G, and the A with bent cross-stroke, it shows considerable affinity to the inscription on the ivory cross of Gunhilda (died 1076), grand-niece of Canute, in the Copenhagen Museum.[39] The same peculiarities, as well as the V with a circle on its sinister stroke, are to be observed in the inscriptions on the altar frontal of Lisbjerg, in Denmark, assigned to the twelfth century. The tendency towards curved forms, however, shown in the rounding of the interior of the capital D’s and in the curving-in of the tails of these letters and of the R may be more closely matched, in default of a Scandinavian example, in the inscriptions on the bronze font at Hildesheim, assigned to the second quarter of the thirteenth century.[40] At this date, however, the fully-developed Lombardic character has so far prevailed over the roman capital that it is only by picking out letters here and there, existing as survivals among their curved supplanters, that such pure capital or transitional characters as form the staple of our inscription can be matched. ¶ The foliage on the knop is in two of the groups of that conventional type which, apparently in reality a debasement of the classical acanthus, is employed in the decoration of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the leafage of the symbolical vine; and the bud-shaped objects springing among the leaves in one compartment are clearly intended for such bunches of grapes as are similarly rendered in ironwork of the thirteenth century. Foliage of similar character, rising in the same way from the curved ends of the circumscribing band, may be observed on certain of the carved church doors of the twelfth century in Norway,[41] where such groups, employed in rows side by side, distinctly recall an enrichment of classical architecture. It is less easy to speak confidently of another of the bunches of leaves, which suggests the growth either of a trumpet-shaped lichen or possibly of an arum lily.[Pg 74] The single flat leaf with curled edges seems clearly the leaf of a water-plant. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to see in this and the vine foliage already noticed a reference to the two constituents of the sacramental element. ¶ Turning to the question of nationality, it is to be remarked that the inscription and the lines enclosing it, one above and two below, are entirely engraved in that zigzag line, reminding one of the mark of an assayer’s tool, which is an almost constant characteristic, even till recent times, of Scandinavian silversmiths’ work; and the fret round the foot shows the same peculiarity. It has already been said that the chalice comes to us with a tale of a distant but active centre of Scandinavian art. If it be doubted whether such highly developed work could have been produced in Iceland at the date indicated it may be recalled that this remote island, whose inhabitants anticipated by five centuries the discovery of Columbus, was at this time the home of a culture such as could hardly be boasted by continental Scandinavia—a land, indeed, ‘where, long before the “literary eras” of England or Germany, a brilliant period of intellectual life produced and elaborated in its own distinct form of expression a literature superior to any north of the Alps.’[42] ¶ Gathering the conclusions to which all indications point, there seems every reason to regard this beautiful little chalice as an example of Scandinavian work, of a date not later than the early part of the thirteenth century, produced, it may well be, in that farthest outpost of European culture whence already in the dark ages a hand was stretched out from the old world to the new.

H. P. MITCHELL.

One of the most interesting of the Italian manuscripts is a Book of Hours—Officium Beatae Virginis Marine secundum consuetudinem Romanae Curiae—belonging to the early part of the sixteenth century, and evidently made for a member of the famous Bentivoglio family: perhaps Giovanni, born in 1505. The Bentivoglio arms appear on the first page; on folio 41 in two cartouches within the border are the words IOANNES, BEN; and on folio 109, in one cartouche similarly placed, IO·BEN. The writing of this volume is very good; the more important initials are well drawn, and pleasantly placed in architectural compartments decorated above and below with the characteristic ornament of the period. Indeed one would say that the composition and arrangement of the less ornate pages of the book are its best features. There are twenty-two full-page illuminations, each containing an elaborate initial, within a rich border of brightly-coloured arabesque ornament, generally in compartments. The decoration is well drawn and distributed, though the drawing of the figures in the initials, and of the half-human grotesques in the borders, leaves something to be desired. An interesting and useful feature—though one by no means uncommon—is the use of jewellery to give relief to the arabesques. ¶ From the calligraphic point of view only, a tall folio of the four Gospels, with commentary (Italian, twelfth century), is possibly the most important of the gift, and should be especially useful to students. The text is written in a large minuscule character, beautifully spaced and proportioned, occupying the centre of each page. In either margin occur the notes in much smaller writing. Practically the whole decoration consists of initials in blue and red, with here and there a rare display of bold but simple pen-drawn ornament and a few chapter headings of tall, cramped lettering, of which the initial has never been supplied. A ‘Thesaurus’ of St. Cyril of Alexandria is another valuable example of fine Italian writing; in this instance, of the end of the fifteenth century in date. A border and a few fine initials in gold, blue, pale red and green of cunningly contrived interlacements—in[Pg 75] the case of the border further embellished with amorini, birds, etc.—are the only decorations of note. This volume also includes a work by St. John Chrysostom, and formerly belonged to the Minutoli Tegrimi family of Lucca, whose stamp defaces some of the pages. A small Book of Hours is to be referred to the same period and locality as the latter; it has, however, much more elaborate decoration; the superposition of numerous beasts, birds, and insects on the interlacing scroll-work of the borders, is, though interesting, by no means an improvement. These animals are, it must be admitted, rendered with curious care; while the two full-page miniatures adorning the volume, as it stands, are of quite a high order of merit. They represent The Annunciation and David killing Goliath—a particularly spirited drawing, with a beautiful little miniature of the Man of Sorrows in a cartouche on the page facing it; four storied initials within borders also serve to mark the commencements of various offices. The capitals, in gold, on these pages are very finely written. The kalendar is complete, and contains references to several local saints, indicating Umbria as the district for use in which it was made. ¶ A Missal belonging in date to the beginning of the fifteenth century, is a good example of Italian writing adorned with fine pen-drawn scrolls and storied initials treated in a broad, simple style of colouring and foliage. The pen-work, interesting for its restraint and formality, differs greatly in this respect from that of the more northern schools. There are sixteen large storiated initials, of which attention may be drawn to those on folios 283, a Monstrance displayed on an altar; 292, the Celebration of Mass; and a representation of the absolutions at the side of a dead man, clothed and hooded in red and lying on a couch; the prayer is read by a monk in a white habit, attended by another similarly dressed who supports a tall cross which has lighted candles on either arm. The kalendar is very full, and has been corrected in a later handwriting in several places. Immediately following it, in two pages of small script, is the Ordo ad faciendum aquā bn̄dictam. ¶ A small Italian Book of Hours is archaeologically interesting because it is signed in a colophon on folio 266. ‘Frater paulus de mediolano ordīs scī B’tholomei de hermineis sc’psit’ (late fifteenth century). The name of this writer is believed to be unrecorded hitherto; the script is thoroughly Italian in character, but the decoration has decided Netherlandish tendencies. Several northern saints are inserted in the kalendar—by another hand—including St. Brandan. ¶ In conclusion mention may be made of a small Book of Devotions with borders and miniatures of considerable merit and interest, placed within architectural frames. On the first page is a coat of arms, which however has evidently been superimposed on an earlier design. The writing is good and the initials well placed and coloured. At the end on a tablet are the initials S.H., but these have not been identified. The work is French, probably southern, and in date belongs to the first half of the sixteenth century. ¶ The works mentioned in these notes are only a few of the large collection given by Mr. Reid. They are all now exhibited near the entrance to the National Art Library.

E. F. S.

The most interesting among recent additions to the Print Room are woodcuts, both old and new. A chiaroscuro by Andreani, after Alessandro Casolani of Siena, representing the Pietà, or Lamentation for Christ, is remarkable both for its great size—it measures nearly six feet by four—and for its rarity. Other impressions exist at Bassano and Berlin. The figures, St. John supporting the dead Saviour, and a second group of three holy women in attendance on the Virgin, are nearly of the size of life, and the[Pg 76] wood-engraver evidently set himself the task of producing the closest possible facsimile of a large cartoon, outlined in charcoal and washed with neutral tints. He has succeeded very well, and he was fortunate, considering the date, 1592, in obtaining so fine a composition on which to exert his skill. The design has been cut throughout on three sets of blocks, one for the black outline and two for tone. The impression, on many sheets of paper joined together, is in good preservation, but the lowest portion has perhaps been cut away, for there is no trace of the inscription, recorded by Kolloff in his catalogue of Andreani’s works (No. 15), that contains the dedication of the print to Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, with the names of the artists and the date and place of publication. Andreani had worked hitherto at Rome, Florence, and Siena. It was to this dedication, apparently, and to his success in such an important print, that he owed a summons to Mantua, his native city, and a commission from the duke to reproduce in chiaroscuro Mantegna’s Triumph of Caesar. ¶ Another woodcut of smaller but still considerable dimensions (39¾ by 28¼ inches) bears the address ‘Gedruckt zu Nürmberg Bey hans Wolff Glaser,’ cut upon the block in a tablet at the left lower corner. Glaser was a ‘Briefmaler’ or petty publisher, printer, and wood-engraver, who was at work at Nuremberg in the middle, or third quarter, of the sixteenth century. His name is most familiar as the publisher of one of the late editions of the portrait of Dürer at the end of his life. The present work represents the Trinity, with angels in adoration. These angels are copied, for the most part, from Dürer’ fine woodcut of 1511 (B. 122), but they have been sadly spoilt in the process of enlargement. Glaser’s work is coarse throughout, and remarkable only for the rarity which it shares with most early woodcuts of exceptional size. ¶ A fine impression of the portrait of Luther as an Augustinian friar, after Cranach, dated 1520 (P. 194), has been well coloured by a contemporary hand. A tablet at the bottom contains the undescribed Latin inscription, EFFIGIES DOCTORIS MARTINI LVTHERI | AVGVSTINIANI WITTENBERGĒSIS | 1520. The Holy Dove is added at the top on a separate block, which also completes the arch. The portrait, rare in the early, original impressions, hardly deserves to rank with the woodcuts drawn by Cranach himself on the block; it seems, rather, to be a good adaptation of an engraving on copper of the same year (P. 8, Sch. 7), in which Luther stands in front of a niche. Dr. Flechsig finds much fault with the engraving itself, and will not allow it to be more than a copy of the other engraved portrait of Luther (B. 5, Sch. 6), with a plain background. With this woodcut were purchased three interesting and undescribed etchings of knights arrayed for the tournament, by the monogrammist C. S., a German artist of about 1550. ¶ A dainty little book, without text, but with the address, A LION | PAR IAN DE TOVRNES. | M.D. LVI, within a graceful arabesque border, on the first page, contains proofs of sixty blocks by wood-engravers of the Lyons school, printed throughout on the recto of the leaf. ‘Das gebet Salomonis’ (S. Grimm, Augsburg, 1523; 8vo.) has a pretty border to the title, and a woodcut, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law, both by the fascinating illustrator known provisionally as ‘The Master of the Trostspiegel.’ A more important illustrated book is ‘Die Legend des heyligen vatters Francisci,’ printed by Hölzel at Nuremberg in 1512, and profusely illustrated with woodcuts by Wolf Traut. The fine copy recently purchased for the Print Room was formerly in the library of William Morris. ¶ Another volume, still more intimately associated with the author of ‘The Earthly Paradise,’ is the gift of Mr. George Young Wardle, a friend and associate of Morris. It contains a complete set, one of a very small number in existence, of proofs rubbed by hand from unpublished blocks, designed by Burne-Jones, to illustrate the[Pg 77] tale of ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ The illustrations, forty-four in number, were drawn upon the block by Mr. Wardle himself from the rough sketches of Burne-Jones, which are now at Oxford. Morris, in revolt against the methods of professional wood-engravers, had a few blocks cut by amateurs, chosen among his own friends, and then took up the task himself and cut by far the larger number with his own hands. To these illustrations are added some initials and decorative borders, both designed and cut by Morris. The story of the projected edition has been told in ‘A Note on the Kelmscott Press.’ The scheme was abandoned about 1870. The woodcuts, accordingly, belong to the period of English illustrations generally described as ‘the sixties,’ and are separated by a long interval from the later Burne-Jones woodcuts, including the Chaucer series, which were printed in the ‘nineties,’ at the Kelmscott Press. They are as full of romance as anything that Burne-Jones ever drew, and the cutting, inexperienced and occasionally faulty as it is, often preserves the freshness of the original sketch as no mere hack engraver’s work would have done. It must not be forgotten, however, that the defects of the cutting, in the opinion of Morris and Burne-Jones themselves, were so serious as to make the publication of the blocks undesirable. In addition to such rubbed proofs as those lately in Mr. Wardle’s possession, a small number of proofs exist which were pulled at a later date in the printing-press, and do more justice to the blocks.

C. D.

THE Leuchtenberg Gallery at St. Petersburg has lately yielded up some of those treasures which it has long and jealously guarded. In 1852 Passavant published a catalogue raisonné of the pictures, with illustrations in outline, and to many this large volume has been the sole medium of introduction to the collection. Several of the originals have now found their way to London, among them two which bear the great name of Giorgione—an Adoration of the Shepherds, and a Madonna and Child. Both appear in outline in Passavant’s book, under the name of Barbarelli, the supposed cognomen of Giorgione, to which, however, as modern research has shown, he is not entitled.[43] ¶ The Madonna and Child picture has now passed into the rich collection of Mr. George Salting, of which assuredly it will not be one of the least ornaments; here moreover it will hang in company with another picture from the same hand, each admirably illustrating two different phases of Cariani’s art. For to Cariani, the Bergamesque painter, must be ascribed the authorship of this Madonna and Child, which reveals him in a mood no less characteristic than does the fine Portrait of one of the Albani Family, which Mr. Salting has generously placed on loan at the National Gallery. It would be a fitting complement to see the new Cariani hung near the other, if only to prove how charming an artist he can be at times, and how far superior these examples are to the two which the nation actually possesses at Trafalgar Square. ¶ Like all artists not absolutely in the first rank, Cariani varies considerably in quality of workmanship; indeed, owing to the peculiar local characteristics of Bergamesque art Cariani is exceptionally protean in form, appearing now in Venetian guise, now in Brescian, now in his own native awkwardness. For by nature he was not gifted with great refinement, or with a strong individuality, and when the temporary influence of Lotto, or of Palma Vecchio, or even of Previtali, was withdrawn, he easily lapsed into a slovenliness which repels, or into a tastelessness which betrays his provincial origin. Fortunately this is not the mood we feel in Mr. Salting’s Madonna. There is a homely strain indeed, which makes the subject simply Mother and Child; a conception which we find exactly paralleled in another charming work of his known as La Vergine Cucitrice, or The Sempstress Madonna, in the Corsini Gallery in Rome (see illustration). But the homeliness of conception is in each case relieved by the exquisite setting; the landscape background and especially the decorative foliage being treated with a rare feeling for beautiful effects. Girolamo dai Libri’s lemon trees and the leafy arbours of Lotto and Previtali do not make more charming bowers than do Cariani’s rose hedge and his hanging limes. Add, moreover, a certain fullness of form, a softness of expression, and a harmony of colour, which can be traced to the direct influence of Palma Vecchio in Venice, and you have in Mr. Salting’s picture probably the most attractive Madonna and Child which Cariani ever painted. Can there be better evidence of appreciation on the part of some bygone owner than that he considered it worthy of the great Giorgione himself, and that up to now it has borne this courtesy title?

The second ‘Giorgione’ which comes from the Leuchtenberg Gallery is an Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the possession of Mr. Asher Wertheimer, by whose kind permission it is reproduced here. No [Pg 83] excuse need be offered for its publication in The Burlington Magazine, inasmuch as it bears directly on one of the lesser problems in our National Gallery, where, in the Venetian Room, has hung for some years a similar painting ascribed to Savoldo. That this ascription is erroneous is admitted in the large illustrated edition of the catalogue, published a year or two ago by Sir Edward Poynter, the director, and it seems a pity to keep the old label with Savoldo’s name still attached to the frame. The National Gallery is a place of public resort, and the public believes in the labels it reads; for what does the public know of Savoldo? Those, however, who have studied his work at Venice, Milan, Verona, and elsewhere know that our National Gallery picture is only in a remote degree akin to him in style, and anyone who will take the trouble to make a comparison with the Magdalen in the same room (which is a genuine example), and also with the two pictures by him at Hampton Court, will be able to convince himself that Sir Edward Poynter is right in removing the Brescian master’s name from the catalogue, and more wisely substituting ‘Venetian School.’ Now comes the Leuchtenberg picture, a comparison with which proves that such likenesses exist as to exclude all theory of chance resemblance, yet such differences also exist as to dispel any suspicion that the one may be a copy of the other. In such cases a common original can usually be inferred, a deduction which modern archaeologists habitually make in similar circumstances; and rightly, for a common idea, or conception, underlies the outward divergencies of detail, so that when the highest common factor can be found we can reconstruct in idea what such an original must have been like. Now it is curious that Giorgione’s name is attached to the Leuchtenberg picture, for anyone at all familiar with Venetian painting must see at a glance that the style proclaims a period at least a decade after his death in 1510. It is more than probable that both this picture and that in the National Gallery date from about 1530 or so. Giorgione cannot possibly have produced either the one or the other: but is it altogether beyond possibility that some idea of his may have served as basis for later artists to work up? Strictly speaking, neither picture is Giorgionesque, except by reflection, for the dazzling personality of the young Castelfrancan shed lustre even on the succeeding generation in Venice. In neither does the painting show much trace of that mysterious glamour which the master, above all Venetian painters, knew how to impart. Yet in the romantic rendering of the subject, and in the picturesque treatment of landscape, we may trace an ultimate connexion with the art of Giorgione. In neither is the handling so unmistakably individual as to warrant a positive opinion as to authorship. It is true that several competent judges profess to recognize the hand of Calisto da Lodi in the National Gallery picture,[44] but further research is needed before certainty of judgement is reached; and as to the Leuchtenberg example—well, it matters little whether Beccaruzzi or some other imitator of better things be the author. Two separate painters have taken a common theme, they have treated the group of St. Joseph and the two Shepherds practically alike, and have laid down the outlines of landscape and architecture in the same way. Each has shown his independence in the treatment of the Madonna and Child and in the minor accessories. One of these details in the Leuchtenberg picture shows the sort of man the painter was, for he has calmly appropriated the idea of the boy angel playing at the trough, a motive which Titian first introduced in the world-famous Sacred and Profane Love. He seems also prone to introduce non-significant detail, such as the dog (very wooden, by the way) and the elaborate accessories of the ruined stable, the architecture of which baffles analysis.[Pg 84] The Magi also appear in procession, thus distracting attention from the simple theme of the Adoration of the Shepherds. Yet as a colourist this painter is worthy of praise, though not such a master of chiaroscuro as his fellow-artist of the National Gallery. We may say then that the Leuchtenberg picture adds to the interest attaching to the other, and raises the question whether some Giorgionesque motive is not at the bottom of the composition.

HERBERT COOK.

THE two bas-reliefs reproduced were not only known but also celebrated before they came to the Louvre. The first, a bust and profile, represents a juvenile figure, almost feminine, clothed in shining armour, wearing a helmet decorated with a surprising dash and fantasy, round which may be read this unexpected and rather unusual inscription: ‘P. Scipioni.’ It is not known under what circumstances this was acquired by M. Paul Rattier, an amateur of Paris. On his death he bequeathed it to the Louvre with reserve of usufruct on behalf of his brother. The latter has just died, and the museum thus enters into absolute possession of the legacy. In the various exhibitions where this bas-relief has been displayed it has not failed, as may be imagined, to attract the attention and excite the curiosity of students and critics. As it recalls by the expression of the face a great number of Leonardo’s figures and, in the decoration of the armour and the helmet, motives frequent in the work of the master, notably the celebrated warrior in the Malcolm collection, we think firstly and very naturally of Leonardo da Vinci. We know, too, that he was a sculptor as well as a painter; he himself says expressly in his treatise on painting that, having practised the two arts with equal care, he has a good foundation for pronouncing on the difficulties of both. But we know of no authentic sculpture from his hand which could serve as a starting-point or as a means of comparison for the purpose of making a decisive attribution. Is the St. John the Baptist in the South Kensington Museum, which came from the Gigli Campana collection, really from his hand? No one can prove it. And of the busts of children and women which, according to Vasari, he executed in clay (‘Facendo nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune teste di femine che ridono, che vanno formate per l’ arte di gesso, e parimente teste di putti che parevano usciti di mano d’ un maestro’), none have come down to us. ¶ Bode, who was the first to pronounce the name of Leonardo in connexion with the Scipio of the Rattier collection, proposed, afterwards, that of his master Verrochio. The reasons which prompted him are as follows: Vasari has told us that Verrochio had made ‘due teste di metallo; una d’Alessandro Magno in profilo; l’ altro d’ un Dario, a suo capriccio, pur di mezzo rilievo, e ciascuno da per se, variando l’ un dall’ altro ne cimieri, nell armadura od in ogni cosa; le quali amendue furono mandate dal magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de’ Medici al re Mattia Corvino in Ungharia, con molte altre cose....’ Why should not the Scipio belong to the same series? The ornamentation of the helmet, the design of the streamers which decorate it, especially the modelling of the mouth, do they not recall other works of Verrochio, and notably the execution of the mouth of his David? These arguments, no matter on what authority we have them, are not decisive. Courajod, Muntz, Muller-Walde, and the latest historian of Verrochio, M. Mackowsky, incline rather towards maintaining the name of Leonardo da Vinci or of his school. All that can be said with [Pg 89] certainty is, that the sculptor who turned out this brilliant piece of work must have been a very skilful decorative artist, and that he was evidently inspired by the achievements and the spirit of the master. But it would be very rash to assert that the hand of Leonardo himself worked this marble.

If There does not seem any possibility for doubt or difference of opinion with regard to the attribution of the other bas-relief which, only a few days after the arrival of the Scipio, was acquired by the museum. To him who has seen the interior decoration of the temple of Rimini, the front of San Bernardino at Perugia, and the Madonna of the Opera di Duomo at Florence, the name of Agostino di Duccio invincibly presents itself. This bas-relief was found framed, over an altar, in the wall of a little church in the department of the Oise, a dependent of the commune of Neuilly-sous-Clermont. This rural church was originally the chapel belonging to the chateau of Auvillers, which belongs to the family of Bonnières-de-Wierre. One of the general officers of Bonaparte’s army was a member of this family, and brought this precious bas-relief home with him (the archives of the family might possibly reveal to us the place and the circumstances under which he found it), and he placed it in the chapel belonging to the chateau. It was thence that the Louvre, with the consent of the members of the family of Bonnières and of the commune, acquired it. A former lamented head of the department of Mediaeval and Renaissance Sculpture, Louis Courajod, published, in 1892, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, an account of this charming piece of sculpture, and, to put it out of the reach of any attempts that might be made by collectors or merchants, he had it placed on the list of historical monuments. Events have proved that this was not an unnecessary precaution; however, the admission of this bas-relief into the Louvre puts a stop to all competition.

ANDRÉ MICHEL.

THESE two remarkable and curious pictures appear to us likely to interest students of mediaeval painting. They are painted on thin panels measuring 12⅛ ins. by 7⅞ ins. The wood has first been covered with a rather coarse canvas, over which the usual gesso ground has been laid; directly on this, and without the usual preparation of bole, gold leaf was laid over the whole surface. The gold is elaborately tooled in the halos and crowns. The pictures are painted in tempera over the gold ground. The handiwork is of exceptional fineness, the hatchings being extremely minute, and the whole is wrought to an enamelled surface of extreme beauty. I can recall only one other work in which quite the same minuteness and perfection of surface quality are attained, and that is the Richard II diptych at Wilton House, which indeed surpasses the present examples. Unfortunately the tempera has not adhered perfectly to the gold, and in many places only a trace of colour is left; the faces are, however, for the most part intact. ¶ This somewhat lengthy description of the methods employed in these pictures may not be without value in view of the attempt to determine the origin of these curious and unusual works. Many characteristics of the pictures seem to point to a Siennese origin, such, for instance, as the tooling of the halos, which may be almost be matched in the works of Ceccharelli and Vanni; the Madonna’s face seems like a vulgarized version of Simone Martini’s type, while the treatment of the hair by separate, rather thick, continuous, and parallel lines of light is such as we find frequently in Siennese art. The seated figures in the Dormition of the Virgin, again, if not distinctly Siennese are decidedly Italian, and are among[Pg 90] the common properties of Giotto’s heirs. Italian, again, is the appearance of the inlaid woodwork of the bed-stand. The use of a canvas basis for the gesso ground is, too, in Italy, a peculiarly Siennese tradition, though it is there only a late survival of what was probably a universal practice. On the other hand the absence of a bole foundation for the gilding is quite unlike the practice of any Italian painters. Again, the types with their heavily modelled features, their full round staring eyes and protruding noses, seem to suggest a northern origin for these works. No less distinctive is the colour. The chief characteristic of this is the extraordinary brilliance and purity of the local tints, combined with an absence of any feeling for a distinct colour scheme as opposed to the mere putting together of agreeable tints. The main notes are an ultramarine of quite astounding intensity and saturation, a pure deep rose, and a bright green midway between apple and myrtle green. The flesh is florid and full coloured without traces of a terra verte foundation being apparent. These qualities of colour are such as we might expect from a miniaturist, and other things point to the same conclusion; first, the extreme minuteness and the marvellous perfection of the workmanship, then the crowding of the composition, and the elegant but singularly unstructural disposition of the draperies. Finally, one may surmise that no artist who was accustomed to work on a large scale would have made so elementary a blunder in space construction as our unknown master has in the Adoration of the Magi. The Madonna is clearly intended to be seated beneath the thatched roof, yet the foremost support, instead of coming down in front of her knees, is placed behind her. Such a mistake would be possible, however, to an artist who was accustomed to the almost hieroglyphic symbolism of miniature painting. ¶ Taking all these points into consideration I think it most probable that we have here two of the rare and singularly beautiful works of the French school of painting of the fourteenth century. This is made probable most of all by the colouring. This intense ultramarine never occurs in Italian work, but is to be found in the paintings attributed to Jean Malouel in the Louvre. It indeed remained endemic in French art, for we find it in many miniaturists, and something not unlike it turns up again in the work of Ingres. There is, moreover, in the Louvre a small picture, No. 997, representing the Entombment, in which not only does the same blue appear, but united with the same deep rose and vivid myrtle green. It has also the same rare perfection of surface quality, the same even, hard smalto. This picture is no doubt rightly attributed to the French school of the end of the fourteenth century. But neither this nor any other French picture in the Louvre shows so strong an Italian influence as our panels do, and it is partly for their interest as yet another proof of the constant interchange of ideas between Italy and the North about this period that we give them publicity. Of such intercourse there are, of course, already many proofs in the work of painters like Enguerrand de Charenton, of Fouquet, and most remarkable of all in a miniature by Pol de Limbourg, which is a free copy of a fresco by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce at Florence.

R. E. F.

BORN towards 1515, either at Paris or Loué, and dying only in 1590, Germain Pilon lived through a momentous century in the history of France. The native art, so prolific during the two preceding centuries, which commands our admiration to-day by its originality and simplicity, was essentially French in feeling and execution, but towards the close of the fifteenth century the [Pg 95] all-powerful influence of the great Italians manifested itself, partly by the general spread of knowledge which noised abroad the fame of achievements in Italy to which the civilized world was then paying homage, and again by the migration of Italian artists to adjacent countries, which, in the majority of cases, received them with acclamation.

In one way this had a beneficial effect upon the productions of the northern countries, for it incited a spirit of emulation laudable in the extreme, but it was also the cause of a decline in native resourcefulness and originality due to an unduly thorough assimilation of Italian methods and aims. The result of this was a strange co-mingling of Italian and native ideas and technique producing an eclecticism which robbed art somewhat of the virility apparent in the creations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Still, side by side with this we have a growing tendency to tenderness and sympathetic treatment quite in keeping with the lofty aims of the sixteenth century, which compensates to some extent for the loss of robustness and impetuous energy. ¶ In such a condition did Pilon find art in France, when, leaving his father, also a sculptor, with whom he had hitherto collaborated, he came to Paris about 1550, and here we find him, in conjunction with Pierre Bontemps and Ambrose Perret, at work upon the tomb of François I, which had been designed by Philibert Delorme. After the designs of the latter Pilon was employed from 1560 to 1565 upon the well-known tomb at Saint-Denis of Henri II and Catherine de Médicis, which must be counted amongst his most important achievements. For the King and Queen he executed about this time the fine group of Les Trois Grâces in the Louvre, which represents, perhaps, the culminating point of his genius, and is manifestly superior both in elegance of contour and in technical qualities to Les Trois Parques ascribed to him which has found a permanent resting place in the Hôtel de Cluny. In Les Trois Grâces he presents to us the culmination of the French Renaissance in sculpture; the rhythm and balance of the composition is aided by the superb technique displayed in the modelling of the well-chosen figures, and a further beauty is added by the grace with which they support the urn. ¶ But quite equal to any single figure is the fine example of Pilon’s art which we illustrate this month by permission of Mr. E. Lowengard, its present owner. It represents as an emblematical figure of Charity a tall and dignified woman holding a child to her breast with the right hand, whilst the left, with protecting care, sustains another, which is clinging to her mantle; a third stands at her feet with a look of trustful assurance upon its upturned face. The head of Charity is crowned with laurel. The drapery is entirely characteristic of Pilon at his best; while not unduly severe, it does not err in being too florid, a failing of Pilon on many occasions. Moreover, it fully illustrates the French master’s profound knowledge of anatomy, a study in which he easily outstripped most of his contemporaries. It is open to question whether such an important and characteristic example of Pilon’s work has been seen in London before, and its presence at the moment furnishes an admirable opportunity of studying the style of this master.

THE lace of Mrs. Alfred Morrison at Fonthill House is of special interest among private collections. Mrs. Morrison has long interested herself in the exertions of M. M. Lefébure, the Honiton revival by the late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, and even the crochet work of Ireland, and has in many cases supplied designs, or suggestions for design, to these centres; hence, with her well-known collection of antique lace she has included the best of its modern derivatives[Pg 96] and modern design. Among the specimens illustrated are:—

Plate I: (1) A curious example of a rare type of lace made in Russia, consisting of a scarf with arms worked upon either end. This lace was made in the early part of the nineteenth century (when needle-point was first introduced into Moscow) at a private lace school. The design, which is upon net, and very unlike the characteristic Russian vermiculate patterns with their oriental character and occasional colouring, consists of a chain of jours enclosing coarse, simple, and prominent fillings similar to those of provincial pillow-laces of England and France, and a semé of small sprigs. Although the workmanship is even throughout, the drawing is so naïve as to suggest that the lace-worker was unused to that type of lace. There is a border of similar jours alternating with small leaves and sprays.

(2) Gros point de Venise.—In the central strip of this lace very few brides have been introduced, and only so far as is necessary for strength, and those used are plain. The bride work forms no essential part of the design, the parts of the pattern being chiefly held together by being worked in contact with one another. In the joined border, which is of later date, the work, and especially the raised scallops, is of a superior evenness and regularity. Short brides, both plain and picotées, connect the design, which is closer and more florid, and remarkable for the compact, firm character which careful and precise workmanship has given to the piece, as it were scolpito in rilievo.

(3) Point de Venise.—Two long strips (3½ inches wide) of excellent and open scroll and floral design. The brides which connect the design are decorated with small stars and whirls. Upon some of the raised borders are set small scallops, or picots. Seventeenth century.

(4) Alençon lappet, a design of interlacing ribbons, filled in with light modes, enclosing a small ornament. Eighteenth century. Period, Louis XV.

(5) Modern Irish Needle-point lace, à brides picotées, specially made and designed for Mrs. Alfred Morrison [very much reduced]. Nineteenth century.

Plate II: (1) Brussels veil (three sides of which are ornamented, the fourth being plain), containing floral devices made in pillow, and applied to pillow-made mesh grounds. The softness of the grounds, the workmanship of the flowers, of which the cordonnets have little or no relief, the lightness of the fillings of the modes, place these Brussels points in a category quite distinct from any other lace. The design is of light leafy festoons of roses and forget-me-nots. In the corner is an urn-shaped ornament with lateral festoons. The border has a scalloped edge. Throughout the veil are pillow renderings of various modes, the réseau rosacé, star devices, etc. Eighteenth century.

(2) Honiton lace, made by the late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, from an old design. The pattern is connected by small brides covered with a number of small picots.

(3) Rose point à brides (Venetian), of close workmanship, in silk (natural-coloured). The free use of ornate picots clustering upon flying loops edging the scallops, as well as upon the brides, is noticeable. The brides are thickly ornamented with stars and whirls. [This sort of lace is sometimes called point de neige, probably on account of its snowy appearance.] The stems of the pattern are of light work, and not strengthened on the edge by an outer cordonnet or button-hole stitched work. Seventeenth century.

A very similar specimen of Venetian needle-point lace in silk is to be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum [835–’68]. It is also square and of similar size and date, and is also remarkable for the series of scallops and picots upon the raised portions of the design. The design of this specimen ‘consists of a symmetrical distribution of floral forms grouped about an ornamental arrangement in the centre.’ It was probably a ‘pall’ or covering for a chalice or sacramental cup. Though Mrs. Morrison’s specimen is said to be of Jewish work, and used in the synagogue to cover the law, it is more probable that it is a ‘pall,’ like the above-mentioned example.

[Pg 103]

(4) Drawn thread-work [Turkish?].

(5) Point de Venise, period Louis XIII.—A conventional design somewhat resembling Italian Renaissance ironwork. The pattern and some of the short brides which connect it are ornamented with picots, giving lightness and variety to the work.

(6) Irish crochet lace, specially made for Mrs. Alfred Morrison, adapted from the above design, which it well reproduces. An experiment in improving the spiritless and confused effect of Irish crochet, where conventional motifs are fitted together without any pre-arranged design. In natural-coloured silk.

(7) Imitation point d‘Alençon.—The ground or réseau of this piece is a very wide-meshed knotted net of coarse thread. A stiff and simple flower issuing from a horn or vase is set in the centre of a waved diamond-shaped compartment. The flowers are filled in with small pieces of coarse linen, and are appliqué to the net by stitches which hold the twisted thread outlines—the substitute for the cordonnet of button-hole stitches in the Alençon it imitates—to the little bits of linen.

Plate III: (1) Embroidered Turkish drawn thread work.—An eight-pointed star within the centre of which is a circle of drawn-work, of which the threads are overcast with fine button-hole stitches.

(2) The old conventional cut-work of Italy; Reticella, with punto in aria vandykes attached. Reticella differs from cutwork in that, though it also is worked on a linen foundation, the linen has almost entirely disappeared. The threads left as the framework of the design, dividing it into square compartments, are closely covered with stitches. Into these squares are introduced geometrical forms (star-forms) set in circles and enriched with patterns in solid needlework. This lace is frequently called Greek lace, principally owing to the fact that a great deal was found during the occupation of the Ionian islands by the English. It is, however, undoubtedly Italian in origin. The lace is shown upon the linen on which it is made; most specimens have been cut off for sale from the original linen ground. The punto in aria vandykes developed from the reticella, and are made with the same geometrical designs. The pointed edge was worked on threads laid down in the required shape, and the spaces filled in various designs. Brides picotées were sparingly added to connect the various portions of the pattern.

(3) Venetian-made Alençon (Burano).—A design of small sprays upon mixed grounds. Along the lower portion of the design runs a twisting ribbon enclosing various à jours and diapered grounds. The scalloped border shows blossom modes set upon a large hexagonal mesh picoté, alternating with a scalloped ribbon, enclosing varieties of diaper-patterned grounds, similar to those to be seen in the modes of Venetian heavy point laces.

(4) Venetian-made Alençon, design of palm leaves, with straight-edged border of flowerets and leaves.

(5) Alençon bordering lace, eighteenth century. Period, Louis XVI.—Under Louis XVI it became the fashion to multiply the number of flounces to dresses and to gather them into pleats, or, as it was termed, to badiner them, so that ornamental motifs, more or less broken up or partially concealed by the pleats, lost their significance and flow. The spaces between the motifs, therefore, widened more and more, until the design deteriorated into semés of small devices, detached flowers, pots, larmes, or, as in the present design, a dot set within a rosette. Instead, also, of wreaths, ribands, or festoons undulating from one side of the border to another, we have a stiff rectilinear border of purely conventional design. Naturalistic patterns are not met with in lace of that period.

M. JOURDAIN.

[Pg 104]

The book published by Lady Dilke, at the end of last year, is one of the most complete and definite works on an important section of our artistic history that we French possess. For we are marked by this rare characteristic, that the qualities of our own distinguished men are most often revealed to us by foreigners. While we have in our midst a number of specialist writers to instruct us in minute detail concerning the most trifling acts and deeds of a Fleming or Italian, we lack historians who will take a general view of our national art. It would seem that the Frenchman who shall have written a book on the eighteenth century as full and thorough as Lady Dilke’s is yet to be born. From time to time men of great attainments have produced a monograph, have described the work of a Watteau or a Lancret, but this has always wanted the necessary general commentary, the linking with general history, the grouping of facts, which lend so great an attraction to the works of Lady Dilke. It affords me a two-fold pleasure to say this, first because I profess a deep and very respectful sympathy for the author’s person, and secondly because I have always been greatly touched by the French side of her character. Lady Dilke and I know the faults of our respective countrymen; we speak of them when necessary; but we also know our reciprocal good qualities and speak of these too. Lady Dilke has written in praise of the school of the French Minor Masters of the eighteenth century with a conviction and an ardour of which we are very proud, and I feel charged to express to her in this review our deep-felt gratitude. ¶The difference between England and ourselves is made manifest from the very first. Whereas with us a more or less florid, amusing, or, let us say, sensational narrative is in most cases sufficient to satisfy the French reader, Lady Dilke’s book, although intended to be read by everybody, does not fear to display an integral erudition. This handsome and well-illustrated book, while it gladdens the eyes of a person indifferent to these questions, will interest profoundly the specialist and the scholar. It contains not a line unsupported by at least one reference and often by many. All that the contemporaries of our eighteenth-century artists have left concerning them, all records of inventories and even judicial notes, have been read and employed in their season by their kindly historian. It is easy to read into the impartial, nicely-turned, but apparently impassive text a genuine woman’s admiration for these feminine, evasive and exquisite artists; but the passion is restrained and displays itself only at the last. When the author is occasionally obliged to lament certain rather gross errors, she does so with filial moderation, with that which a child might show towards its grandfather; and we have learnt all, we are able to deplore all, while not one serious word of blame shall have fallen from the historian’s pen. ¶ Lady Dilke divides her work into eleven chapters, each bearing the name of an art-lover or artist. The first of these chapters is devoted to the Comte de Caylus and the great amateurs. For, though the collectors date very far back, the ‘amateur,’ in the French and modern sense of the word, came into being together with the speculations of Law. There is a singular and never-changing agreement between the rabid collector and the stock jobbing financier; it is as though the man who had grown suddenly rich wished to find no less suddenly in his new palace the ancestral elegance of the man of quality. ¶ Lady Dilke has selected the Comte de Caylus because he exercised an enormous influence upon the whole of the eighteenth century. Himself an engraver—though of no great merit—he was the cause that men and women of the world amused themselves with the pastime, that Madame de Pompadour tried her hand at engraving, and that, trying her hand, but with only slight success, she favoured to an extreme degree the artist-engravers of her time. ¶ The second chapter is devoted to those lovers of engravings, the print-collectors Mariette and Basan, who, for the rest, had no great affection for the artists of their time, but who favoured the iconographic movement. ¶ The typical French engraver of the eighteenth century is Charles Nicolas Cochin, who was known as the Chevalier Cochin. Cochin, through his family, his connexions and his works, touches every section of society. He belongs to the Court, to the nobility, to the middle class. His mother was a Horthemels; his sisters were Mesdames Tardieu and Belle. Cochin was trained in the school of different masters; he shows traces of Watteau, Gillot, Chardin and Detroy. But he is above all himself; his mind is composed of a thousand amiable,[Pg 105] witty, and refined things; his art is the very spirit of a nation; and it is not too much to say that in him French art is summed up. ¶ The men whom Lady Dilke studies in Chapter IV of her book, the engravers Drevet and Daullé, are different people. They descend from the great century; they go back by easy degrees to Louis XIV and those famous artists, Audran, Nanteuil and Edelinck. But, though they have style and even majesty, they have neither the charm nor the grace of their contemporaries. This is also, to a certain extent, the case with Wille, who came to France to learn and who borrowed from us only the solemn and majestic side of the great masters. ¶ Lady Dilke studies in succession the Laurent Cars, the Le Bas, and, lastly, Gravelot. Gravelot the author regards almost in the light of a fellow-countryman. The greater part of his career was spent in London. We know that, in so far as this part is concerned, the author is in possession of even still more varied and personal notes. From Gravelot to Eisen, from the “Opera de Flora” to the “Contes de Lafontaine,” is an imperceptible transition. And thus we come to the masters of the end of the century, to Moreau the younger in particular, who presents its definite synthesis, linked as he is to Cochin by the brothers Saint-Aubin, the “exquisite poets of the most charming decadence.” ¶ Finally, Lady Dilke speaks of the engravers in colours, of those men, such as Demarteau, Debucourt, and others, who, without eclipsing their English colleagues, keep step with them. And then we come to the relations of the engravers with the Academy. Here, what severity is shown! On one occasion, the engraver Balechou, who is a member of the Academy, engraves a full-length portrait of the King of Poland, Augustus III. He had promised not to pull a separate proof of it. Having done so in one single case—this proof is still preserved in the Paris Print-room—he was struck off the list of Academicians. ¶ It is impossible, in a short review, to set forth in detail the importance of a book of this kind. We need this book in France, and it is to be hoped that one of our publishers will issue a translation, because it is a revelation to us. The English publisher has undoubtedly produced a practical and easily-handled book, but his reproductions are a little inferior in quality, given the value of the work. It would have been desirable that all the illustrations should have taken the form of heliogravures. Nevertheless, and putting this little criticism on one side, Lady Dilke’s book is, sincerely speaking, the newest and most “encyclopaedic” work that we at present possess on the French draughtsmen and engravers of the eighteenth century.

HENRI BOUCHOT.

It was a happy thought of Messrs. Cassell to issue an illustrated catalogue of the National Portrait Gallery similar to that of the National Gallery. The Portrait Gallery, in spite of great difficulties in the matter of space and funds, has become a place of which the nation may well be proud. It already contains a series of British portraits which if not absolutely complete, is at least representative, sensibly arranged, and catalogued with much more fullness and accuracy than some better endowed collections. One or two possible improvements may suggest themselves to the outsider—the addition, for instance, of photographs (we hear that some arrangement of this kind is actually contemplated) or careful copies of unique portraits of famous men which can never leave their present owners. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge contain several pictures which would fill gaps in the Gallery, and other works in private hands are equally desirable. Nevertheless, the National Portrait Gallery, like the British Museum, has hitherto been so fortunate in its directors that there is no reason for regarding its future with serious anxiety. ¶ Nor can we be surprised that Mr. Cust, who has had so much to do with the well-being of the Portrait Gallery, has edited its illustrated catalogue on thoroughly sound lines. To precisians a chronological arrangement may seem to have disadvantages. These disadvantages, in our opinion, are minimized by the addition of an index of portraits and an index of artists, while the grouping together of men of the same generation, family, or profession, has the enormous advantage of making the book a thing attractive both to the casual reader and to the student of history, instead of a dry alphabetical list. ¶ We have only one fault to find with the abbreviated biographies which Mr. Cust supplies. They are laudably impartial, but the impartiality is sometimes carried to an extreme which places a second-rate man on the same level as a first-rate one. ¶ As a rule, a very wise discretion has been exercised in reproducing the pictures on a scale proportionate to their actual size and[Pg 106] importance, so that the defects which marred the kindred volumes on the National Gallery have generally been avoided. One or two exceptions may perhaps be noted. We do not, for instance, think that justice is done to Kneller’s vivid portrait of the poet Gay (No. 622) by a cut less than two inches in height and less than one and a half inches in breadth, especially when Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Coventry Patmore is honoured by a full-page engraving. The juxtaposition of the two portraits of Sir William Hamilton also is not a success. The figure by David Allan looks a giant compared with that painted by Reynolds. ¶ The photographing, engraving, and printing of the pictures have on the whole been so admirably done that we have no more fault to find with them than with the letterpress or the arrangement of the book. We notice, indeed, that Kneller is again unfortunate. His portrait of John Smith, the mezzotint engraver (No. 699), is one of his most masterly works, showing a grip of character, an artistic taste, and a technical perfection for which in his Court portraits we seek in vain. In the reproduction the portrait loses all its spirit and all its quality. On the other hand, almost all the slight sketches and pencil drawings in the gallery come out excellently, so that any occasional failure cannot be attributed to want of care or want of science. ¶ Perhaps, considering its price, the publishers might have bound the book more strongly, even if they retained the limp cover which allows the book to open comfortably. The present paper binding is too flimsy for a book that has to be used for reference, and to send a work of reference to the binder often results in deprivation just when one needs the book most. ¶ These, after all, are minor details. As a whole, the catalogue is a thoroughly sound piece of work, and does credit to its editor, publishers, and printers (if not to its binder), and we have no doubt it will take its place by the Dictionary of National Biography on the shelves of all who are interested in the past history of the British race.

C. J. H.

There are three ways of writing history which rejoice all serious readers and students. The first and best is, alas, rare, for it requires constructive imagination based on sound scholarship. It is the history which bestows upon the characters portrayed that quality which makes them live on in the reader’s mind like great myths. Gibbon’s ‘Julian,’ Mommsen’s ‘Hannibal,’ Carlyle’s ‘Voltaire,’ Creighton’s ‘Pius II’—to take a very few instances chosen at random—live on in our imaginations like the heroes of romance, like Don Quixote, or Julien Sorel, or the ‘Egoist.’ ¶ On the other hand, there is the work of the mere archivist, the conscientious finder and transcriber of documents, who leaves the imaginative reconstruction of character entirely to the reader. For this, too, the student cannot be too grateful. And then there is the via media of the gifted compiler, whose efforts are also welcome, provided they are honest and careful, and free from the taint of journalism. ¶ It is this middle path that Mrs. Ady is accustomed to take, and always with peculiar success in her biographies of women. Those who have already enjoyed her ‘Beatrice d’Este’ will be prepared for finding interest and pleasure in reading her account of that noble lady’s even more accomplished and more famous sister, Isabella, marchioness of Mantua, the leader for more than forty years of the most continuously brilliant and intellectual court in Italy. Mrs. Ady does not claim originality of research, but her task of weaving the documentary researches of others into a readable, accurate, and interesting account is extremely well done. It is true that she has no great or genial gifts for the presentment of character, but she knows at least how to describe it with the appropriate background of historical events and of court and family life. She has better taste than to make of it a lurid tale, as some popular writers would have done. Isabella is painted as the faithful and devoted wife and daughter and sister, the careful and affectionate mother—nay, even the doting grandmother—as well as the ‘prima donna del mondo,’ the Muse of poets and humanists, the patroness and friend of great artists, the confidante of popes and emperors, and the victim, too, of family and political tragedies. ¶ For us in this place, her interest lies chiefly in one aspect of her many activities—in her relations with the artists of her day. Her portrait was drawn by Leonardo, and painted by Mantegna, Titian, Francia, Costa, as well as by various artists of less importance, such as Maineri and Buonsignori, and her medal was cast in bronze by the sculptor Cristoforo Romano. She was a passionate collector of beautiful[Pg 107] things, decorating her private apartment with pictures by Mantegna, Costa, and Perugino, and sending her emissaries over nearly the whole of Italy to extort from dilatory or overworked painters the fulfilment of commissions she had given them, getting now a Nativity from Giovanni Bellini, a Magdalen and a St. Jerome from Titian, Allegories from Correggio, portraits from Francia, and even from Raphael himself. She employed Timoteo Viti to make designs for her majolica dinner-service, and most of the northern sculptors of note were at one time or another set to work for her. Lorenzo da Pavia made her priceless viols and lutes of inlaid ivory and ebony, and Caradosso carved her a wonderful inkstand in ebony and silver, while the most famous glass-blowers and jewellers of her time contributed their best efforts to her matchless collection. But even dearer to her than contemporary art was the antique, and she spared no pains or expense, no wiles or selfishness, to get into her possession every available antique statue or fragment that she heard of. The collector’s passion was on her, and even her fine taste and that of her cultivated advisers did not always protect her from the collector’s misfortunes. In the light of recent revelations, it is amusing to hear how she was taken in by the forgeries of a certain Roman dealer who bore the splendid name of Raphael of Urbino, and how this shifty precursor of many an Italian ‘antiquario’ of to-day managed to get out of giving her back her money! ¶ Curiously enough, Isabella, although a fast friend of the Medicean popes and their relatives, seems to have taken no interest at all in the art of Florence, except in Michelangelo, and in Leonardo, who came to her, not from Florence, but from Milan. She sent to Florence, it is true, for a picture, but it was to Perugino she wrote, and not to any of the great Florentine masters. ¶ Mrs. Ady has tried to trace carefully the present whereabouts of Isabella’s portraits and possessions, but we miss in the index any assembling of her scattered remarks on this interesting subject. The Leonardo pastel sketch (reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. I, but wrongly described as red chalk) is well known in the Louvre; one of the Titians (the one copied by Rubens) she identifies in the collection of M. Leopold Goldschmid at Paris, while the other, in Vienna, is reproduced as the frontispiece to the second volume. As to the latter, she says it was painted by Titian after a portrait by Francia, itself not done from the life, but from sketches and descriptions. If this be indeed the one referred to, Titian has managed to give no hint of his obligation to the Bolognese master. The portrait by Maineri, a painter of Parma, the author suggests as being the same as that in Mrs. Alfred Morrison’s collection, exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894; but she admits, on the other hand, that this portrait may be from the hand of Beltraffio, which indeed it clearly is. Although it has apparently not occurred to Mrs. Ady, is it not possible that the untraced portrait of Isabella painted by Costa, was, like so many of her treasures, bought for Charles I, and that it is the Portrait of a Lady which now hangs in Hampton Court (No. 295)? The face resembles the one he painted as Isabella’s in the Louvre Allegory, but, on the other hand, they are both so thoroughly Costa in every detail that neither can be called real portraits in the modern sense of the word. The objective photographic style of portraiture in vogue to-day was quite foreign to the habits of most Renaissance painters, who were satisfied, once they had found a type that suited them, to stick to it for everything—Madonnas, portraits of ladies, and allegorical figures, indifferently. ¶ Perhaps the most vivid part of Mrs. Ady’s book is her description of Isabella’s experiences in that fatal sack of Rome, which, as Erasmus wrote to her friend Sadoleto, was ‘not the ruin of one city, but of the whole world.’ Barricaded in the Palazzo Colonna with three thousand distressed souls under her care, Isabella, safe in the protection of her son, Ferrante, one of the leaders of the imperial forces, looked down from her windows with anguish upon the scenes of horror and vandalism enacted in the streets below. Her house was the only one in Rome that escaped, except the Cancelleria, which was occupied by Cardinal Colonna. But except for the irreparable destruction of so many of the world’s masterpieces of beauty, this and many another interesting incident in Isabella’s career belong rather to history than to art.

M. L.

On comparing the number of monographs that have appeared on other than Dutch artists with that of books in our possession treating of Dutch painters, we see that the latter have been allotted but a scanty measure in literature; indeed, one may go further and say that during the past[Pg 108] twenty years, excepting Rembrandt and a few other great masters, no extensive and comprehensive work has been written on the old Dutch painters. For this neglect a very well-founded reason exists: the native art historians of the Netherlands are still collecting materials, and cannot as yet think of writing exhaustive books concerning their great masters; for they are much too well aware of the vast gaps that are still to be found in their knowledge. This is so in the case, among others, of Frans Hals, and it will remain so for many years to come; we must needs wait until all the records are accessible before being able to arrive at a definite knowledge of Hals’s personality. ¶ Mr. Davies has been deterred by no such considerations; he not only, with a ready pen, describes Hals’s life and works, but, thanks to the spacious manner in which he conceives his subject, finds occasion to indulge in digressions on old Dutch conditions, art and so forth, which might undoubtedly possess an interest for English readers if they were correct, but that, unfortunately, is far from being always the case. ¶ After treating in his first two chapters of the ‘Rise of a National Art’ and ‘Holland and its Art in the Seventeenth Century’ the author collects the few known facts concerning Hals’s life in Chapter III, and endeavours to draw a conclusion touching his personality. We quite admit that legend may have represented Hals as being a more dissolute man than he actually was. Nevertheless, one who ill-treated his wife as he did can really not have had any particularly aristocratic manners. It would be better for us to say that we do not know enough about his life to be able to white-wash it of the few disagreeable facts that have been handed down to us. There can be no doubt, however, that he was a Bohemian, as Mr. Davies rightly characterizes him. ¶ The following chapters are devoted entirely to Hals’s artistic career and works; those preserved at Haarlem of course occupying a great place. The description of these is a lively one, and is evidently based upon a repeated examination. There are a good index, bibliography, useful indications such as the approximate dates of Hals’s life and of his principal paintings, etc. In a word, the writer has industriously brought together all that he has been able to ascertain touching his subject from books and pictures. But there is one matter in which Mr. Davies has not succeeded, and that is the producing of a critical work. It is true that he himself expressly says this as regards the catalogue,[45] but he constantly makes the same mistakes in the text itself. This is an exceedingly dangerous standpoint; for, thanks to it, so soon as one sets to work on a scientific basis, one finds him, for instance, describing two pictures (Illustrations Nos. 1 and 54) as Portraits of the Painter which do not represent Hals at all, while, again, the Portrait of Admiral de Ruyter (Illustration No. 55) is not a picture of that admiral. ¶ In the same way, the catalogue—which, from the very nature of the standpoint of the writer, is incomplete—contains childish mistakes, which are due to a lack of adequate critical knowledge. For to say of the Hille Bobbe with a young man smoking behind her, merely that it is ‘generally recognized as the work of F. Hals the son’ surely denotes an excess of caution, considering that it is established beyond all doubt that this picture was, in fact, painted by the son, and therefore it ought not to have been included in the catalogue. Some of the paintings in English collections which we missed in the catalogue we were fortunate enough to find mentioned in the ‘List of Pictures which have appeared ... in the Winter Exhibitions ... at Burlington House,’ which is inserted after the ‘List of Works.’ But these data are also, we regret to say, uncritical. We also searched the catalogue in vain for the oldest dated portrait by Frans Hals, namely, that of Scriverius, dated 1613, which forms part of the Warneck Collection in Paris, although it is mentioned by the author on pp. 27, 29, 84, and 96 of the text. Again, we find no mention of the delightful Portrait of a Man[46] in the Van Lynden collection, at present lent to the Mauritshuis at the Hague, nor of various other pieces.[47] As regards the drawings, there is no doubt whatever that the drawing in the British Museum is an original Hals. There are more of this sort, and we are sorry not to find them mentioned in Mr. Davies’s book. ¶ We must deliver ourselves of one or two further remarks, not from any love of fault-finding, but to remove mistaken ideas. The picture mentioned on p. 22, which is traditionally, and by Mr. Davies, supposed to represent Hals’s workshop, was painted by Michiel Sweerts, and has nothing to do with Hals’s workshop. Nor is what the author observes touching Hals’s[Pg 109] manner of painting (p. 124) quite correct. Hals slowly perfected his technique, proceeding along a road which is quite easily traced. It is true that he underpainted a considerable number of his pictures, but there are also many, very many indeed, which he finished at once, in the wet paint, without the least underpainting. One of the best examples of the latter is the Portrait of a Man, in Lord Spencer’s collection, which is at present in the Guildhall Exhibition. ¶ Mr. Davies’s book has been very handsomely printed and produced, and is filled with mostly satisfactory illustrations. It is to be regretted that the contents of the book are not more worthy of its format; as a critical guide to the art of Frans Hals it is wholly untrustworthy.

W. M.

GAZETTE DES BEAUX ARTS.—The April number opens with an article by M. Salomon Reinach, in which he brings to light a great unknown miniaturist whom he identifies with the painter Simon Marmion, known as the author of the altarpiece of St. Bertin, now in the castle of Wied. Of this magnificent and little-known work the National Gallery possesses two fragments representing a chorus of angels rejoicing at the birth of the saint and two angels carrying his soul up to heaven, a strange and imaginative composition, in which the ridge of a roof cutting into the base of the composition gives an effect of supernatural strangeness. The manuscript in which the miniatures in question occur is in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg, and has remained till now unnoticed. It is in the main the French compilation entitled the ‘Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denys,’ but the history is continued with extracts from various historians to the beginning of the reign of Charles V. It contains fifteen full-page miniatures which are of quite extraordinary merit, and which may be by Simon Marmion. The smaller miniatures are by another hand, and are distinctly inferior. The most interesting of the miniatures is the title-page representing Fillastre, Abbot of St. Bertin, offering the Grandes Chroniques to Philippe le Bon of Burgundy, by whose side stands the aged Chancellor Rollin; behind stand three figures, among which M. Reinach recognizes the youthful Charles the Bold and the Grand Bâtard. The heads are admirably rendered, and show that Marmion, if it be indeed he, must be reckoned as one of the great masters of portraiture of a school in which portraiture attained to the utmost perfection. The landscapes are, however, scarcely less remarkable. They do not, of course, rise quite to the height of imaginative realism shown in the Hubert van Eyck miniatures published by M. Durrieu, but they are conceived in a similar vein and executed with absolute mastery. If M. Reinach’s conjecture is correct, and it rests on a number of subsidiary proofs besides the likeness of style to the Wied altarpiece, he has done a great service in bringing to light the work of a great artist whose reputation as a miniaturist was such that his name was coupled with that of Fouquet in the eulogies of contemporary poets. Marmion was born at Amiens about 1420. In 1454 he was at Lille employed by the Duke of Burgundy, but he seems to have worked chiefly at Valenciennes. His style shows the influence of the Van Eycks, and still more of Van der Weyden. But there is, we think, in his manner of composition, and in the freedom of his fancy, something which distinguishes him from the pure Flemish painters, something which is due to his French origin and early training. ¶ The next article by M. Casimir Stryienski is concerned with French art of a very different kind. There exist a number of catalogues of the early exhibitions of the Salon, illustrated throughout with minute sketches by Gabriel de St. Aubin. The author has had the idea of reconstructing by the aid of one of these catalogues the Salon of 1761, and discussing the subsequent history of the various works. Many of these are quite lost, and survive only in St. Aubin’s marvellous sketches. Delicate as St. Aubin’s more serious work is, as a tour de force nothing could equal the dexterity of these minute notes. Between two lines of the catalogue he will insert a whole row of sketches, in which not only the composition but some suggestion of the chiaroscuro of the originals is given. Many of the works of Vien, J. B. M. Pierre, Vanloo, and Hallé make a more pleasing impression when interpreted thus than the originals can have done. ¶ M. André Michel, who carries on the work inaugurated by the genius of Courajod, commences a series of articles on the acquisitions made by his department of the Louvre. The finest of these came from Courajod’s collection, and include a wooden crucifix of the twelfth century, in which we can trace the first germs of the new sentiment for life and dramatic expressiveness working in the old hieratic formula. The exquisite statue of a man of the thirteenth century, also in wood, shows[Pg 110] the new art arrived already at perfect command of the means of expression, but still restrained by a reminiscence of earlier schematic treatment. This and the stone statue of St. Geneviève show French sculpture at a point which it has never surpassed. The fifteenth and sixteenth century sculptures which have been added to the national collection, though of great beauty, have nothing of the supreme sense of design of the earlier work. ¶ M. F. de Mely publishes two sarcophagi with figures in relief discovered at Carthage. In spite of Greek and Egyptian influences the author considers that at least one of the figures, that of the priestess, bears the impress of a special racial type, and he considers that this and the Elche head taken together give us an idea of a distinctively Punic ideal type. M. Pierre Gusman describes, without adding anything very new, the Villa Madama, and M. André Pascal begins an account of the eighteenth century sculptor Pierre Julien.

In the May number Monsieur Gaston Migeon, who has done much towards the classification of Mahommedan copper work, writes on the Exhibition of Mahommedan Art recently held at the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in the Pavillon de Marson. Several remarkable specimens of copper work are reproduced, perhaps the most interesting being that lent by M. Sarre which is supposed to date from the first years of the Hegira, and to be of Sassanian workmanship. Some fourteenth-century Persian velvets and tissues of singularly fine and naturalistic design are also figured, as well as two splendid Indo-Persian miniatures from the collection of M. Bing. ¶ In his second and concluding article on the acquisition of the department of sculpture in the Louvre, M. André Michel describes a remarkable polychrome wooden statue of the beginning of the sixteenth century belonging to the Franconian school. In this the author finds the influence of Albert Dürer. It is certainly a more deliberate and scientific work of art than the majority of Franconian sculptures of the period. Several works by Houdon, Deseine and Clodion are also described and reproduced. The prints of the Dutuit Collection are described in a brilliant and humorous article by M. Henri Bouchot, in which he concerns himself more with the collector than the collection, which is in fact rather remarkable for the number of prints of ascertained pedigree than for its artistic character. M. Pascal completes in this number his study of Pierre Julien.

JAHRBUCH DER KUNSTHISTORISCHEN SAMMLUNGEN DES ALLERHÖCHSTEN KAISERHAUSES. Band XXIII, Heft 5.—The present fascicule is devoted entirely to researches by Herr Julius von Schlosser on ‘Artistic Tradition in the late Middle Ages.’ Under this title the author brings together several separate researches; the connexion between them lies in their illustration of the contrast between mediaeval art with its direct visual symbolizing of ideas and the Renaissance and modern habits of actual imitation of natural forms. ¶ The first of his researches is concerned with a large illuminated parchment, too large to have formed part of a book and probably meant to be framed and hung on a wall. It depicts in the centre the Nativity, around which, in a large number of medallions enclosed in late Gothic scrollwork, are represented the various analogies by which the immaculate conception was rendered credible. It is an early example of the ‘Defensorium inviolatae virginitatis beatae Mariae,’ in which the miracle is rendered plausible by a record of all the miraculous things in nature. The origin and propagation of this popular form of doctrinal exegesis is discussed. The author of the ‘Defensorium,’ Franciscus of Retz, was a Dominican, and professed theology in the University of Vienna from 1385 to 1411. The earliest illustrated version is the manuscript of Frater Antonius of Tegernsee of 1459, and the work was published as a block-book as early as 1470. The best-known is Eysenhut’s block-book of 1471, of which the British Museum possesses a copy. In the early sixteenth century it was published also in a French translation at Rouen, but it was most popular in Bavaria and Austria. The parchment picture of the Vienna Hofmuseum, which forms the subject of these researches, is, the author considers, by an Austrian artist of the latter half of the fifteenth century. ¶ Of greater artistic merit are the small folding tablets of the Vienna Hofmuseum, in which are depicted a series of men and animals which served as patterns for artists. There are, for instance, the heads of Christ, the Virgin, and St. John, in poses which show that they would serve for a Crucifixion; there is the Veronica, and a number of varied types which experience and tradition showed were likely to be useful to an artist. It is certainly a striking example of the essentially practical methods of artistic production at a time when painting was an actual necessity, and when, therefore, the picture was of more importance than the artist’s personality. This work belongs to about the year 1400. ¶ Another[Pg 111] artist’s pattern-book discussed by Herr von Schlosser, though this has already been published in part, is that used by the miniaturists of a Rhenish monastery, now in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna. This contains, besides initials and borders, the traditional receipts for various animals both real and fabulous. This the author compares with Villars de Honnecourt’s famous sketch-book and the similar pattern-book of Stephen of Urach in Munich. Villars de Honnecourt, however earlier in date, had indeed much more than a merely practical aim in view. He had already begun those researches into the laws of proportion and harmony in natural form which later on absorbed Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer. ¶ Herr von Schlosser aptly concludes this part of his researches by a reproduction of an Attic vase in Berlin, on which is represented the workshop of a vase maker with the pattern receipts for gods and animals hanging on the wall. ¶ Finally, in an appendix, Herr von Schlosser discusses Giusto of Padua’s frescoes of the virtues in the Eremitani at Padua, which have recently been relieved in part of their covering of whitewash. He reproduces the two best preserved figures. Here again the question is of the rôle played by a traditional pattern-book, for there exist similar representations of the virtues in manuscripts at Florence and Vienna, while recently Signor Venturi has acquired for the national collection at Rome another version, which he considers is Giusto of Padua’s own sketch-book and the model for the frescoes. Herr von Schlosser shows, we think conclusively, that this is of later origin by a belated Giottesque of the early fifteenth century, while he brings forward as the original of the whole series a MS. at Chantilly by Bartolommeo de’ Bartoli, executed in all probability between 1353 and 1356 in Bologna.

REPERTORIUM FÜR KUNSTWISSENSCHAFT. 1903. Part II.—Constantin Winterberg continues his minute analysis of Albert Dürer’s theory of the proportions of the figure. In this article he deals with the second book, and shows how Dürer freed himself increasingly from the traditional mediaeval canon and sought to establish his theory on inductive lines. ¶ Mr. Campbell Dodgson publishes a transcript of David de Necker’s preface to the Landsknechts, from which it appears that the original drawings were by Hans Burkmair, Christopher Amberger, and Jörg Breu, and were engraved by Jost de Necker, David’s father. This settles a much-disputed point, and shows that Beham, to whom a number of the originals were ascribed, must be excluded altogether. ¶ Count Luigi Manzoni writes on the stained glass in Perugia in the quattrocento, and in particular on the great window in S. Domenico, which he ascribes in part to Fra Bartolommeo di Pietro Accomandati, who appears to have worked in stained glass already in the fourteenth century at a time when most Italian towns were forced to employ foreigners for such work. The greater part of the window was executed, according to the author, in the second half of the fifteenth century, and by the painter Benedetto Bonfigli. ¶ In this number Dr. Friedländer concludes his notices of the Bruges Exhibition. He deals with Albert Cornelis, an artist who was first recognized by Mr. James Weale, and with Jan Provost, with regard to whom he follows M. G. Hulin. He agrees therefore in giving to the artist, Mr. Sutton-Nelthorpe’s Legend of St. Francis. More surprising is his suggestion that the Madonna, lent by Madame André under the name of Van Eyck, which was reproduced in the April number of The Burlington Magazine, is a youthful work of Jan Provost. With regard to Jan van Eeckele, the author maintains a sceptical attitude. He supposes the signature J.V.E. attached to certain works to be forgeries intended for Jan Van Eyck. After discussing the works of the later Flemish and Dutch artists, Dr. Friedländer discourses on the works which are not of purely Flemish origin. Among them the most interesting was the so-called Antonello da Messina, lent by Baron d’Albenas, representing the Pietà. This, following M. Hulin, Dr. Friedländer gives to a French artist, and dates about 1470. The mixture of Italian and Flemish influence in this work is, we think, of quite a different kind from that found in French works of the period.

RASSEGNA D’ARTE.—To the April number M. George le Brun contributes an enthusiastic, though by no means exaggerated, appreciation of the elder Breughel, ‘the only artist of his time who knew how to withstand the enchantments of the Italian masters,’ though he too travelled in Italy. Signor Enrico Cavilia calls attention to the imposing ruins of the basilica at Squillace which he ascribes to about the year 600. If this is accurate it becomes, after St. Abbondio at Como, the earliest example of a basilica in the form of a Latin cross. This important example of early Christian[Pg 112] architecture has been little noticed hitherto. Signor Rivoira, for example, makes no mention of it. ¶ A small piece of stuff with a woven pattern of figures, rabbits, birds, and ornamental intreccie, which was found at Modena in 1900, forms the subject of an article by Isabella Errera. This has hitherto been supposed to be of Byzantine workmanship, but the author by comparison with other pieces of similar design and workmanship ascribes it to Arab workmen under Byzantine influence.

In the May number Signor Paoletti publishes an ancona (insufficiently reproduced) by Jacobello Bonomo. This ancona in its original carved frame is dated 1385, and is important as showing how early the traditional form of the ancona as it appears in the works of the Muranese school was fixed. This indeed differs but slightly from the altarpieces of Antonio da Murano in Sta. Zaccharia at Venice, which are dated nearly half a century later. ¶ Signor Ricci continues to elucidate the little-known Giovanni Francesco da Rimini, an artist of the Romagna influenced by Benedetto Bonfigli, and through him deriving many motives which recall the work of Filippo Lippi. These are specially noticeable in the Baptism belonging to Signor Blumenstihl at Rome. The other picture, which he attributes to this mediocre but agreeable painter, is a Madonna adoring the Infant Saviour which is No. 255 of the Bologna Gallery. ¶ Signor Augusto Bellini Pietri discourses on the frescoes of S. Piero a Grado which were brought to light in 1885 at Cavalcaselle’s instigation. Cavalcaselle himself judged of them as feeble productions of the early Pisan school which might be connected with the name of Giunta Pisano. He failed to see traces of true Byzantine influence. Signor Pietri’s view practically coincides with this, except that he considers them of much greater artistic significance and as indicating the dawn of the new Italian spirit, the beginnings of a dramatic and expressive art as opposed to the hieratic and purely architectonic character of the Byzantine. ¶ Signor Ricci calls attention to an interesting portrait of Luca Pacioli acquired by the Naples Gallery with a Cartellino bearing the inscription JACO. BAR. VIGENNIS. 1495. If vigennis is a corruption of ventenne, and if Jaco. Bar. stands for Jacopo de Barbari, it brings that artist’s birth down to a much later period than has hitherto been assumed. Unfortunately Signor Ricci does not indicate how far the painting in question conforms to the manner of Jacopo de Barbari’s known works. ¶ Signor Ferrari announces the installation of the new museum at Piacenza, and describes its two chief treasures, the Christ at the Column by Antonello da Messina and the tondo (poorly reproduced), which is ascribed, somewhat rashly we think, to Botticelli himself.

ONZE KUNST contains two articles by Max Rooses; in one he describes the Pacully collection in Paris, which has recently come into the market, and, à propos of the picture of a young woman writing, by the Master of the half-figures, which was exhibited at Bruges, makes a suggestion that possibly the half-figure pictures were executed by Jan Matsys when he was absent from the Netherlands, and may have come into connexion with Clouet’s school in France. The colour scheme and scale of modelling of Jan Matsys’s signed Lucretia is, we should have thought, quite distinct from that of the half-figure pictures. ¶ In the second article the author makes known a Rubens belonging to the Countess Constantin de Bousies. The picture is of a satyr pressing grapes into a cup held by a young satyr; in the foreground a tigress is suckling her young. M. Rooses declares this to be the original of the similar picture at Dresden.

ATENEUM. HELSINGFORS.-No. 1 contains an article on mediaeval art in Finland with illustrations of sculptures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which shows how closely the types of early French and German Gothic sculptures were followed. The St. Margaret from Vemo has almost the grace and ease of movement and the large disposition of draperies of the best French work of the end of the thirteenth century. The later work indicates more clearly German influence. Osvald Siren publishes two Florentine Madonna reliefs, at present in Sweden. One is a stucco copy of a relief by Desiderio, lately in the possession of Mrs. Pepys Cockerell.

THE REVUE DE L’ART contains some illustrations from the Pacully collection, and the record by M. Paul Vitry of an interesting discovery, an almost contemporary copy of a lost portrait of the Comte de Dunois, the original probably being by Jean Fouquet.

L’ART, for April, contains a number of reproductions of mediaeval works by royal and titled amateurs, an article on the Museum of Tapestry[Pg 113] at the Gobelins factory, one on Horace Vernet as a caricaturist, and one on the exhibition of the Société National des Beaux-Arts, remarkable for its violent and ill-judged attack on Rodin, à propos of the fact that he is not exhibiting this year.

THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, May, is mostly devoted to contemporary architecture, but contains the second part of Mr. Lethaby’s article on ‘How Exeter Cathedral was Built,’ with many illuminating remarks on mediaeval methods of work; not the least interesting is the suggestion that when columns of Purbeck marble were ordered from Corfe, the designs of mouldings and sections were left to the Corfe masons.

R. E. F.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR BÜCHERFREUNDE, April, 1903.—The first number of the seventh annual volume of this periodical opens with a detailed account by H. A. L. Degener of the John Rylands Library at Manchester. The building is described and the history of its foundation related. The biography of John Rylands himself is followed by an interesting account of the founders of the Althorp collection, now incorporated, through the munificence of Mrs. Rylands, with the other contents of the palatial building at Manchester. The purchase of the Crawford collection of MSS. by Mrs. Rylands is duly recorded, and a good summary is given of the most important treasures of the library in the way of block-books and incunabula, with special attention to the books from early English presses. The article is illustrated with sketches of the building and facsimiles of rare specimens of printing. An article follows on the contemporary book-decorator, Hugo Hoppener, whose pseudonym is Fidus. His work is unknown in this country, and such specimens as are given do not inspire us with any desire for a closer acquaintance with it. Modern printing in Russia is described by P. Ettinger, and there is a review of two important facsimiles of block-books recently published by Heitz, and edited by Professor W. L. Schreiber, the ‘Twelve Sibyls,’ at St. Gallen, and the edition of the ‘Biblia Pauperum,’ in fifty leaves, at Paris. A specimen of each facsimile accompanies the review.

C. D.

SIR,

Professor Douglas’s long and elaborate reply to my note is no doubt interesting; but it seems as if he considers the subject of more vital importance than I do; and I fancy most readers of The Burlington Magazine will agree with me so far. It is scarcely necessary to point out the personal turn to which his arguments veer; but I am unregenerate enough to draw attention to the fact that, in spite of much circumlocution, he brings out none that really prove me wrong in my contentions. I do not deny the talents of either Signor Centofanti or Signor Donati (of the works of the former and the friendship of the latter I have reason to speak most highly); but their names alone scarcely carry conviction to the ordinary English reader. I must repeat that I do not consider that Professor Douglas’s assertions with regard to Sodoma will bear close examination. The explanation of this in detail would take too long here; but I hope some day to have an opportunity of going fully into the subject of that artist’s name and family. That Beccafumi was very frequently designated as ‘Mecharino,’ or ‘Mecarino,’ is beyond dispute, and the statements here brought forward are certainly not sufficient to account for the entire omission of this important fact from Professor Douglas’s work. With regard to Matteo’s Massacre of the Innocents, I can only suggest to anyone interested in the subject to go and look at the picture, signature, and original document, and then form his own opinion.

On both these points the reader cannot do better than compare the statements here set forth with those in the ‘History of Siena.’ I need say no more; but, in conclusion, I cannot resist remarking how great was my astonishment to find that until last April Professor Douglas, in spite of all his studies at Siena, was not aware that the Archivio dei Contratti of that city (Archivio Notarile Provinciale)—referred to continually by Milanesi and others, and containing many important documents (including two wills of Francesco Tolomei, in the second of which Matteo’s picture is not mentioned)—is an absolutely different institution from its younger, and admittedly more imposing and interesting, rival—the Archivio di Stato, is under different control, and is even a cause of jealousy. Surely, when preparing to overthrow the consensus of opinion of a number of competent predecessors, it is scarcely safe to trust implicitly to copies, and a search for[Pg 114] this original will would have saved that situation anyhow. Had I not received this information from the writer’s own lips, I could not have believed it possible. For the historian of Siena to admit ignorance of the separate existence and constitution of this important storehouse seems to me to be more damaging to his reputation for accuracy than any points of detail upon which differences of opinion can arise.

ROBERT H. HOBART CUST.

SIR,

The Madonna by Solario which you reproduce in your number for May is a picture by no means unknown in art literature. It is reproduced on Plate XXXVII of Rosini’s ‘Storia della Pittura Italiana,’ and as No. 29bis, IIS. in Muxell’s ‘Catalogue of the Leuchtenberg Collection,’ and such well-known critics as Waagen, Rumohr, Hettner, and Crowe and Cavalcaselle have spoken of it. The last-named writers unhesitatingly ascribe the picture in question to Andrea Solario of Milan, declaring the signature a coarse forgery. Rosini, who seems to have known all about the picture, says:—‘Could we trust this signature—Antonius da Solario Venetus f—there would be no doubt regarding the home of this artist. But are we bound to have a blind faith in a signature, when we happen to know the history of the picture, and how it passed through the hands of restorers and dealers before it was sold to the collection where it now hangs? Experience has taught me to entertain very serious doubts.’[48]

I share these doubts, for I cannot hesitate a moment in ascribing this very charming Madonna to Andrea Solario. Mr. Roger Fry in his admirable note on this picture mentions the points of likeness which it has with the Brera Madonna and Saints, dated 1495. There happens to be another work even closer to this one, and in my opinion certainly by Solario, although not attributed to him.[49] It belongs to Dr. J. P. Richter, and represents the Madonna adoring the Holy Child. So Venetian are its colour, tone, and feeling, that more than one good critic has attempted to find its author in Venice; but so singularly like are the ovals, so identical the eyes and mouths of the Virgins in Dr. Richter’s and in Mr. Wertheimer’s pictures, that they could not have been painted by different hands. A Madonna belonging to Signor Crespi of Milan, never, that I am aware, ascribed to another than Solario, although of later date, again betrays identity of hand, in the landscape at least, with Mr. Wertheimer’s painting.

But Mr. Fry, who, if any one, has a right to an opinion, admits the possibility that the signature is genuine; in which case Mr. Wertheimer’s picture would be by a painter famous in Neapolitan art-mythology, who is supposed to have executed the frescoes in the cloister of Sanseverino at Naples. Mr. Fry, with a candour by no means common among recent writers on art, tells us that he is not acquainted with these frescoes. I happen to know them well, and I can assure Mr. Fry that these paintings and Mr. Wertheimer’s Madonna have nothing in common. The latter, like all of Solario’s works, even the most Venetian, displays many characteristics of an art substantially Milanese, while the frescoes contain no element of the kind. The principal author of the series (he freely employed assistants) seems to have been a Sicilian educated under Antonello, Gentile Bellini, and Carpaccio. In his wanderings up and down the peninsula his fancy seems to have been taken by Pintoricchio’s landscape—a taste for which Carpaccio’s romantic scenery had doubtless prepared him. No other influences are visible in his work, neither Lombard, nor Ferrarese, nor Florentine. I am amazed that paintings so obviously Venetian should have remained so long unrecognized for what they are.

I would gladly say more of the author of these frescoes (there is not a little to be said), but I must now hasten to answer the question that may be asked: But what if the inscription is ancient? Even then Mr. Wertheimer’s picture does not cease to be Andrea Solario. The inscription may in fact never have been intended for a signature, but for a label. Soon after it was painted this picture may have fallen into the hands of a person who, like so many of us to-day when addressing a letter, confused the Christian name of the painter with one resembling it, and, wishing to make sure that he did not forget it altogether, had it inscribed according to his inaccurate recollection upon the panel, with the addition of the fact that the picture was painted in Venice—for that is all that the word Venetus need mean here. Or if it does mean more, this more would tend to establish the value of connoisseurship. It was on internal evidence alone that I came to the conclusion, published in my ‘Lorenzo Lotto’ some nine years ago, that Solario must have made a long enough sojourn at Venice to have become deeply imbued with the ideas of Alvise Vivarini: and now Mr. Wertheimer’s picture, if the inscription be ancient, would confirm this hypothesis to the extent of proving that Solario remained long enough in Venice to be considered a Venetian, just as Lotto, for instance, owing to a residence of two or three years at Treviso, was called a Trevisan.

BERNHARD BERENSON.

❧ WRITTEN BY ROGER FRY ❧

LAST summer, by the courtesy of Sir Hubert Parry, I was enabled to visit Highnam Court in company with Mr. Berenson. It was intended that we should collaborate in the work of bringing to the notice of students some of the very remarkable Italian paintings in this collection. Owing to ill health and the pressure of other work Mr. Berenson has not been able to do what he had hoped. Under these circumstances I shall confine myself to a brief account of these pictures in the hope that at some future date Mr. Berenson will again take the subject in hand and draw from these examples those more definite conclusions which his far wider knowledge of Italian art would justify. In justice to him I must add that, except where expressly stated, he is not responsible for the ideas here put forward. ¶ A few words on the collection in general may be appropriate; for, no less than the house, the garden, and all its surroundings, the collection at Highnam bears the impress of a very remarkable personality, that of Thomas Gambier Parry, the father of the present owner. On leaving the university, in 1838, Parry bought the Highnam estate, near Gloucester, which became thenceforward his home. But the duties of a country squire, though undertaken with unusual energy and benevolence, did not absorb his entire activities. His enthusiastic love of Italian art led him to travel frequently, and to devote himself to the hope of acclimatizing in England the art of fresco wall-decoration. Realizing the unsuitability to our climate of the true Italian method of fresco painting, he made many researches in technique, which led to the discovery of the method of spirit fresco, which is best known in England from Sir Frederick Leighton’s two examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum. But Parry was not only an inventor; he himself practised the art with considerable success. The church which he built in his park for the village of Highnam is decorated internally by him; the paintings of St. Andrew’s chapel in Gloucester cathedral, and of the roof of Tewkesbury abbey, are also due to him. But perhaps the best known is his decoration of the wooden roof of the nave in Ely cathedral, which must certainly be counted as one of the few really successful modern attempts to recapture the spirit of mediaeval decorative design. All these works were executed by him without payment, and largely at his own expense. ¶ We are, however, not concerned here with Parry as an artist, but as a connoisseur, and the collection at Highnam shows that in this he was as original, as independent of the fashions of his day, and of as fine a taste as in his other capacities. For, at the time when the Highnam collection was made it was not yet a title to social distinction to have one’s walls decorated with Italian primitives. The works of the trecento are not even now estimated at their real value, and it is in the specimens of trecento and early quattrocento painting that the Highnam collection is most remarkable. ¶ Hence, if we take the works in chronological order, we begin at once with a picture which is in its way unique, the Nativity and Adoration (Plate I). The singularity of this is that we have here[Pg 118] a panel painted in tempera, belonging at the latest to the early years of the fourteenth century, which is not only untouched, but in complete preservation, and which for brilliance and intensity of colour and the perfection of its enamel-like smalto can scarcely be surpassed by works of the succeeding century. It is a small panel in which the figures are drawn with miniature-like precision. The prevailing tone is the pale brown in which the rocky landscape is rendered. It is almost of the colour and surface quality of boxwood or tarnished ivory. Upon this the plants and trees, still treated with the elementary symbolism of Byzantine art, are relieved in vivid black green; while the chief notes in the draperies—which are hatched with gold, according to the Byzantine tradition—are an intense blue green and a very positive transparent pink, with rarer touches of scarlet and celadon green. The effect of this colour scheme is very unusual, and recalls at once the well-known altarpiece of St. Cecilia in the corridor of the Uffizi. Two other altarpieces, by the same master, who is best known from his frescoes in the upper church at Assisi, have been recently discovered by Mr. Herbert Horne in the neighbourhood of Florence, and in these also a similar colour scheme is observable.[50] That the Highnam panel is a contemporary work, and, like those, marks the first germs of a distinctively Italian tradition, is apparent, but the tempting conclusion that it is by the same remarkable painter is not altogether borne out by the forms. For the master of the St. Cecilia altarpiece, though he was Giotto’s contemporary, shows an independent development out of the older tradition. Only in the Assisi frescoes is he influenced, and that in a secondary and superficial way, by Giotto; whereas this panel, which from its composition and the use of gold hatchings on the draperies we may assign to an early period of the movement, bears already decided traces of the style of Giotto. ¶ Whereas in the master of the St. Cecilia altarpiece we note the peculiarity of small heads, elongated figures, fine-drawn features, and spider-like extremities; above all a sense of elegance, almost of affectation, which connects his work more with the decadent classic tradition than with the new ideas of Giovanni Pisano and Giotto; here we have already, more rounded forms, and more solid relief, while the poses are of a kind which allow of re-entering lines, gathering the form together in a self-centred mass. Particularly noteworthy in this respect is the group at the bottom of the composition, where the influence of forms discovered by Giovanni Pisano in bas-relief is clearly apparent. ¶ There are comparatively few extant works of art which exemplify this precise movement in the development of the Italian from the early Christian style, but among them the closest analogy to our picture may be found in the panels at Munich, Nos. 979 and 980, in which a number of scenes are united in a single panel, though not as here in a single composition. We have in them a similar mixture of Byzantine tradition as seen in the gold hatchings on the draperies, similar large and rather heavy masks, similar deep shadows in the eye orbits, while the corners of the mouth are marked by similar round dots. Indeed the angel to Christ’s left in the Last judgement of the Munich panels is almost the exact counterpart of the angel immediately above the Christ in the Highnam Adoration. These Munich panels are considered by Mr. Berenson to be early works by Giotto. Is it possible that we have in the Highnam picture yet another early work by the same hand, and in incomparably better preservation? Besides the general likeness of style to the Munich pictures, there are certain characteristics which would point to such a conclusion; perhaps the most striking is the drawing of the hands. Thus the pose of the Madonna’s hand with the two first fingers outstretched, the others clenched, is[Pg 125] a peculiarity constant in Giotto. Another characteristic trait is the tendency to bring the fingers of the opened hand to a point, as in the right hand of the third king.

On the other hand we must point out that the Munich pictures, in spite of the roughness of their execution, indicate a richer imagination, a greater energy of dramatic presentment, than can be claimed for the Highnam piece. There is nothing in the latter which can compare, for instance, with the inexpressible tenderness with which the Virgin contemplates the Child in the Munich picture. In our picture, the attempt to infuse life into the older formula is evident, but the persons of the drama still remain somewhat coldly self-absorbed and aloof; that flash of mutual interaction and sympathy which both Giovanni Pisano and Giotto realized so intensely is still lacking. ¶ In the present state of our knowledge, which leaves open so many unsuspected possibilities, it is, perhaps, unsafe to go further; but at least this can be said, that we have here no Giottesque work in the ordinary sense of the word, which might be more appropriately termed Gaddesque, but a work executed either by Giotto himself, or more probably by some contemporaneous artist who was elaborating at the same time with him the new idea; or if by a pupil, one who came under his influence at a very early date, before Giotto’s own style was fully matured. Certainly this work has none of the academic qualities of the followers who, like Taddeo Gaddi, accepted the formulæ of Giotto’s later style; it has in it, like Giotto’s own work, the spring and vitality which come with the germination of a new and fruitful conception. And among the works of this fascinating period of Italian painting, we know of none which surpass this in the polished perfection of the technique nor in the marvellous preservation of its surface. ¶ The next important picture (Plate II), keeping to the chronological order, is one of the most magnificent of the many noble altarpieces which have come down to us from the fourteenth century. Even in Florence itself it would be hard to find an altarpiece in which the religious sentiment of the time is expressed in more imposing forms, or in which the decoration is more sumptuous and the execution more refined. It is, moreover, in wonderful preservation, and the pale flat tints of pure heliotrope, dull scarlet and blue, and white flushed with pink, relieved upon a background of elaborately stamped gold, produce an effect of brilliance and variety toned to a perfect harmony which the artists of Florence rarely surpassed. Indeed, in the pallor and brilliance of the colour scheme, as also in the atmospheric tonality and the absence of vigorous relief in the figures, we are reminded of Sienese art. The forms, however, are essentially Florentine. The inscription at the base leaves us in no doubt about the author of this masterpiece; it runs: ANNO DNI MCCCXLVIII BERNARDVS PINXIT ME QUEM FLORENTIE (sic) FINSIT. The original notion that this Bernardo was the same as Nardo the elder brother of Orcagna has been exposed by Milanesi, to whose researches we owe all that is known of Bernardo da Firenze or Bernardo Daddi, whose chef d’œuvre is the Highnam altarpiece. Bernardo Daddi was almost overlooked by Vasari, who makes him, by an anachronism of more than half a century, a pupil of Spinello Aretino; nor did Crowe and Cavalcaselle realize his importance in their ‘History of Painting.’ Milanesi has, however, discovered many facts about Daddi, who, though inferior in the vitality and freshness of his imagination to Giottino, was perhaps a finer artist than any other of the immediate successors of Giotto. Certainly Taddeo Gaddi, who somehow came to be regarded as the capo scuola, has left nothing comparable to this as regards the variety and self-consistency of the types, the nobility of the design and spacing of the figures, or the research for beauty in the execution. Even in the Crucifixion, though it is only a variation of Giotto’s inventions, there survives, in spite of a tendency to a[Pg 126] more sentimental treatment, something of the great master’s dramatic feeling. There is much here, moreover, that seems already to suggest Orcagna, and Daddi may perhaps be regarded as the connecting link between him and Giotto. ¶ What is known of the life of Daddi may be found at length in Milanesi’s commentary to Vasari’s life of Stefano Fiorentino and Ugolino Sanese. Milanesi champions eloquently the cause of this great but curiously neglected artist—that his pleading has not been altogether successful may be due in part to the fact that he endeavours to establish Daddi’s authorship of the frescoes of the Triumph of Death, in the camposanto at Pisa. The improbability of such a view will be apparent to anyone who compares them with the Highnam altarpiece. Daddi, who was born at the close of the thirteenth century, died either in 1348 according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, or in 1350 according to Milanesi. This picture must therefore be one of his latest, as it is also one of his finest works. It came originally from the church of St. George at Ruballa, whence it passed into the Bromley collection. It is referred to as being in that collection by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and is mentioned as being in England by Milanesi. ¶ To a considerably later period of the fourteenth century belongs the Coronation of the Virgin (Plate III), which is ascribed in the catalogue to Giotto. It is, however, clearly a fine work by the last great Giottesque master of Florence, Agnolo Gaddi, whose characteristic qualities and defects are here admirably displayed. The weak lines of the boneless fingers with their rounded ends, the long thin noses imperfectly articulated with the mask, and the want of life and character in the figures, betray the facile exponent of a stock formula which made but small demands upon the artist’s observation or his feeling for reality. It was, indeed, due to the cleverness and, if we are to believe Vasari, the commercial astuteness of the Gaddi family that Giotto’s style was crystallized into so lifeless a system of design. But Agnolo, though he inherited too much from his father, was more of an artist. Where, as at Sta. Croce, he depicts a stirring narrative, his line, at other times mechanical and slow, becomes alert and expressive of at least the more obvious dramatic effects, while at all times he shows a refined taste and originality as a decorator in the more limited sense of the word. Judged as an imaginative rendering of a supreme event, this picture is certainly cold and inadequate, but as a piece of elaborate decoration it is charmingly designed and brilliantly executed. The brocade hanging, which reminds one of Orcagna’s school, is painted with the utmost skill; on a ground of brilliant orange red, the symmetrical pattern of birds and flowers is relieved in intensest blue and gold. The draperies and flesh are for the most part in that beautiful pale key which Agnolo affected; the opposition of pale grey, blue, and saffron yellow, with stronger notes of mauve and pink, forms one of those complex and sumptuous harmonies of colour which were unfortunately abandoned by the artists of the succeeding century. The general likeness of this to Taddeo Gaddi’s version of the same subject in the sacristy of Sta. Croce (Plate III) (there attributed to Giotto) is apparent. Agnolo has even repeated, though in a modified form, the peculiar double sleeve which is not unfrequent in Taddeo’s pictures. The influence of Orcagna is, however, to be seen in the more rectilinear folds and the attempt at structural design in the draperies.

[Pg 127]

We come next to an artist who was probably at one time Agnolo Gaddi’s pupil. The two little predella pieces representing the Visitation and the Adoration of the Magi (Plate IV) are not only among the most charming pieces of the collection, but they are among the best works of an artist whose sense of beauty was almost of the highest order—Lorenzo Monaco. The melodious rhythm of his long-drawn interlacing lines, the sweetness and lucidity of his design, are here beautifully apparent. His[Pg 131] peculiar treatment of drapery would seem to indicate that the miniature paintings of northern Europe, particularly of French workmanship, were not without their influence on him. But here, though the main ideas of design are essentially gothic, there is much that already foreshadows the art of the fifteenth century. How much of Fra Angelico there already is in the tenderly expressive gesture of the Virgin’s hands as she raises St. Elizabeth from her knees, while the movement of the right leg and the peculiar disposition of the drapery which it causes are favourite motives with the pupil. Angelico, indeed, had but little to add to this exquisite interpretation of the subject. How much, too, of Fra Filippo Lippi’s genre feeling is already hinted at in the figure leaning against the doorpost—how much of his romance in the woodland background! Lorenzo Monaco’s importance as the inspirer of the new ideas of the quattrocento perhaps deserves more recognition. The Adoration is a variation upon the theme of a predella piece by Lorenzo in the Raczynski gallery at Berlin; but the differences between this, which we must assume to be a late work, and the Berlin picture are remarkable. The head of the second king in particular is so different from Lorenzo’s usual type, so near to what Masolino or the young Masaccio might have done, that one wonders whether some pupil, already advancing beyond his master in the new direction, may not have had a hand in it. ¶ If these works by Lorenzo Monaco show the emergence from the gothic formula of a new spirit, our next picture (Plate V) is on the contrary a curious case of retardation. ¶ The general effect of this picture is decidedly Giottesque; the colour scheme is still of the gay and variegated kind that occurs in works of the trecento. The crimson robes with yellow high lights, the indigo blues and apple greens, all belong to the Giottesque tradition; but, none the less, this picture was probably executed at a period when the more original artists had already established the new ideas of fifteenth-century art. The master who executed this was clearly a reactionary who clung to the old, convenient receipts for the fabrication of handsomely decorated altarpieces. His works are not uncommon in and around Florence, and may be easily recognized by the peculiar alert expression of the eyes and the gaiety and piquancy of his faces. One of his pictures in the corridor of the Uffizi is reproduced here (Plate V); another is in Fiesole cathedral. The artist shows some evidence of the influence of Lorenzo Monaco, though this is more apparent in the draperies of the Uffizi picture than in the Highnam Madonna. The latter seems in essentials to be rather a continuation of the purely Florentine Giottesque tradition of the end of the fourteenth century, and is probably a somewhat earlier work. ¶ Whoever our artist may be, his work scarcely rises above the level of tasteful and accomplished craftsmanship, and his chief interest is as an example of one phase of the work of the period of transition to the style of the quattrocento. One is apt to forget that long after Masaccio and Castagno had realized in paint the new plastic ideas of Donatello, the older firms of ecclesiastical furnishers went on contentedly in the earlier manner, which was, in fact, better adapted to the requirements of the altarpiece. Even in the next generation Neri di Bicci only made a sufficient pretence to structural draughtsmanship and modelling to pass muster among his contemporaries.

❧ WRITTEN BY E. BLOCHET ❧

THE exhibition of Mussulman art held during the months of May and June in the Pavillon de Marsan at Paris afforded an opportunity such as is rarely given of studying the art of the Mussulman nations. The objects brought together included some fine examples of their various classes, and most of them, coming as they did from private collections, had not before been seen by the public. ¶ The art of miniature-painting is one of those in which the Mussulmans have excelled, especially the Persians and the Turks, who, since the appearance upon the world’s scene of the hordes of Jenghis Khan, have lived by Iranian culture and civilization. Also it is one of the least known, for we have to go in search of specimens of this art to the manuscripts in which they are scattered without order and, at least at first sight, without logic. Moreover, as will presently be seen, only a very restricted few of these paintings are signed and dated, so that it is only by external considerations that we can succeed in identifying a period and a country of origin. ¶ The Mussulman religion has always been shy of encouraging the art of painting; in fact, the tradition of Islam formally forbids it. This absolute prohibition was borrowed by Mohammed from the Jews, and he also reckoned upon establishing a distinction between his Faithful, of whom he wished to make a nation of iconoclasts, and the Byzantine Christians and Mazdean Persians, who decorated their palaces with carvings and their books with paintings. He who draws a human figure, or even a representation of any kind of animal, says the Sunna, shall give it his soul at the Day of Judgement, and thus perish amid the torments of hell. Fortunately for the history of art, the Mussulmans did not observe this prohibition more strictly than did Solomon that of the Bible, when he introduced figures of animals into the Temple; but it did not fail to weigh heavily upon the artistic development of a whole world, and it forced the latter to confine itself vaguely to geometrical decoration, while systematically renouncing statuary and figured representations, which enabled Greek art to attain its full splendour. ¶ Passing through the galleries of the Pavillon de Marsan, one was struck by the smallness of the space occupied by figured representations among the number of objects there brought together. Here and there, at very rare intervals, one found a few bronzes representing animals; while as for the carpets, the accoutrements, the copper vessels, the glass lamps, it was only exceptionally that they bore anything but inscriptions in large neskhi letters, taken from verses of the Koran or from the traditions attributed to the prophet Mohammed. Nor did any but a certain number of Persian manuscripts contain other than those commonplace decorations which we find throughout the Islam world, from the Hispano-Arab monuments of Seville and Granada to the mosques raised by the descendants of Timur Bey in the countries that form the frontier of Chinese Turkestan. ¶ The impression of a person seeing once, and a little quickly, an exhibition, however limited, of Mussulman paintings, is that all these miniatures are so many isolated artistic fancies, scarcely connected one with the other, and that the painters who have executed them have confined themselves to following the whims of their imagination, without troubling to know what had been done before them, or to inquire into the workmanship of artists contemporary with themselves.

This is an inevitable impression, but a radically false one, as a careful and prolonged examination of the documents easily enables us to see. ¶ On the contrary, the world of Islam produced schools of which each had its own methods and types. By comparing manuscripts of the same date and origin, one perceives that, without exception, they present the same pictures, and that, moreover, those pictures are very nearly identical. They offer hardly the smallest variations in detail, while in workmanship and in the general plan of the composition they are strictly alike. It is thus that, in all the ‘Books of the Kings’ illustrated in Persia during the time of the Sefevæan kings, we find the same scenes treated in identical fashion, with more or less finish, according to the price of the book; in the same way, all the manuscripts of the life of the famous Sufis of Sultan Husein Mirza contain identical paintings, which are hardly differentiated one from the other and which are evidently replicas of a common original, drawn and painted by an artist of talent, the head of a school. ¶ No illuminated Arab manuscript is known of an earlier date than the thirteenth century, and the reason of this is simple. So long as the caliphate of Bagdad was sufficiently powerful, or, at least, preserved sufficient moral authority, to cause the Mussulman law to be respected in its integrity, none dared to violate one of the strictest injunctions of the Sunna. The artists, both in the Persian world and among the Mussulmans of Syria and Egypt, waited for the day of the final decadence of the spiritual power before venturing to transgress the formal prohibition against the reproduction, by any process whatever, of the human figure, or even of animal forms. ¶ Arab books adorned with pictures (of indifferent merit) appeared first in the empire of the Aiyubite sultans descended from Saladin. This innovation raised a storm among the ulemas and men of law, who looked upon it as an abomination; but the Aiyubite sovereigns, although loudly proclaiming themselves the stoutest defenders of the Caliph of Bagdad, were but little interested to know whether a thing was orthodox or not. Had not Saladin built in the very heart of Cairo a college for the Bathenians, whose doctrines, a hundred times anathematized by the Abbasside caliphs, tended to prove that there existed neither Allah nor Mohammed, and that the only possible divinity was the prime mover, the first hypostasis, the absolute One of the Neoplatonists? The Aiyubites troubled themselves so little about the prohibition against reproducing the human figure that they had coins struck in Syria bearing on the obverse the head of the Byzantine Christ and on the reverse the usual inscriptions in the Arab tongue. Saladin even went so far—and this is the acme of heterodoxy—as to plan a marriage between his brother Melik Adel and the sister of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England. The Mussulman artists would have been very wrong not to have taken it at their ease under the reign of such liberal princes; and therefore, beginning with the extreme end of the twelfth century, we behold the first appearance of illuminated Arab manuscripts. ¶ These Arab manuscripts adorned with paintings are of the greatest rarity, and are not generally distinguished for their execution. They are curious documents, worthy of preservation because of their rarity, rather than real works of art, and the painters who illuminated them were never very careful with their work. They betrayed an almost complete lack of imagination and invention, and confined themselves to copying as best they could the illuminated pictures in the manuscripts at their disposal, that is to say the Byzantine manuscripts, in Egypt and Syria: as for the Mussulmans of the Maghreb and the Yemen, it never occurred to their minds that it was possible to adorn a book with pictures. The greater number[Pg 135] of the pictures in Arab manuscripts are copied from Byzantine manuscripts of the eighth to the eleventh century, and the limners, not knowing what they were copying, often surrounded the heads of their figures with the golden haloes of the saints of the Greek Church. ¶ There are only very few Arab manuscripts the pictures of which rise above the conventional commonplace level, although they always display very evident traces of Byzantine influence. The most important of these manuscripts is a copy of the Makāmāt (‘assemblies,’ or séances) of Harīrī, which belongs to M. Charles Schefer. A very curious painting from this manuscript, which was copied in Mesopotamia in the year 1237, is reproduced in the present article. It shows a troop of horsemen in the army of the Abbasside caliph, carrying the black silk standard of the Abbas family and sounding enormous trumpets. This picture, which is far from possessing the merit of the miniatures that adorn the Persian manuscripts, presents to us, in a life-like manner, a scene which must have been frequent in the streets of Bagdad and Damascus; the costumes and the harness of the horses are absolutely correct and correspond in every respect with the descriptions of apparel to be found at random in the Arab historians. One fact which goes to show that Arab art, at least in Syria, assumed a considerable development at that time is that we possess two other manuscripts of these séances of Harīrī less fine than the one in question, but illuminated by artists who evidently belong to the same school. ¶ These painters of the Aiyubite period considered that Byzantine art, itself very limited and restricted almost exclusively to religious painting, did not offer a large enough variety of models, and they looked around them for others. These were so rare that our artists were sometimes content to reproduce Egyptian stelæ, or to draw their inspiration from the statues of Pharaohs or divinities which they encountered at every step on Egyptian soil, copying to the best of their ability the hieroglyphic characters which they found on those monuments and of which they understood not a word. In short, painting never existed on Arab manuscripts save by way of exception and in a sporadic state; and yet the Arab artists suffered from no lack of subjects for illustration. What an inexhaustible mine the ‘Thousand Nights and a Night’ would have supplied, and the heroic romances of ‘Antarah, of Sultan Zahir Bibars, or the ‘History of the Heroes of Islamism’ (Siret el-mujāhidin)! A few Arab manuscripts copied in Persia are adorned with paintings, generally of indifferent merit, but it is very evident that these do not belong to Arab art properly so called, and that they must be included among the productions of Iranian art. ¶ The only ornamentation of the Arab manuscripts consists of the illumination of the titles and the first pages of the text. They are not so fine as those done in Persia, although we find copies of the Koran, written on parchment, richly illuminated with gilded designs. But this ornamentation, reduced to a very small number of colours and with broken lines, is heavy and overladen with gildings: the Persians were more sober and showed that they had less taste for tinsel.

The artistic history of Persia begins with the Achæmenian kings, that is to say in the fifth century before Christ, a very recent date compared with the antiquity of the ancient Assyrian and Chaldean empires. Like all the countries of Hither Asia, the Persia of the Achæmenians was tributary to the Babylonian Empire, and the monuments of Persepolis and Murghab are obviously copied from those of the valley of the Euphrates, while showing signs of a strong Hellenic influence. In fact, the influence of Greece in Persia began long before the conquest by Alexander, and the subjects of the Great Kings had happily lightened the heavy architecture and ponderous sculpture of Babylon by taking their inspiration from [Pg 136] the methods of the artists of Hellas. It is thus that the Apadana of Persepolis, the Apadana of Esther and Xerxes, is a compromise between the oldest works of Assyrian art and the most grandiose specimens of Greek architecture, between the Palace of Sargon, which it suggests by the elevation of its immense walls and its heavy friezes, and the Parthenon, in which we find the colonnade of the Persian edifice, which the architecture of the Euphrates valley always ignored. The casings in many-coloured bricks which adorn the Apadana were borrowed by the Persians from Chaldean, or rather Assyrian art; and the frieze of the Archers has its prototype in the glazed-brick low-reliefs of the Dur-Sarkayan. The workmanship of those polychromatic casings has changed very little in the course of the ages, and the methods employed by the brick-makers who, in the sixteenth century, adorned the splendid mosques of the Sefevæan kings at Ardabil and Veramin with sky-blue and pale-green mosaics were almost identical with those of the artists of the time of Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar. ¶ The Greek influence attained its height in Iran after the conquest by Alexander, under the reign of the Arsacidan princes who assumed the title of Philhellenes on their coinage. The Sāsānians, while endeavouring to bring about a reaction against that influence which had several times threatened to deprive Iran of all its autonomy, were unable, at least at the commencement of their dynasty, to dispense with the aid of the Greek artists, and the inscriptions of the early kings of that dynasty are accompanied by a Greek translation. ¶ The art and methods of construction of the period of the Sāsānian kings were perpetuated long after the Mussulman conquest; and the ogival doorways of the Timurid mosques of Samarcand or of the mosques of the Sefevæan shahs recall, although with a much less imposing aspect, the gigantic ogive, the Ivān, to-day half-ruined, of the Palace of the Sāsānians at Ctesiphon, which, according to the Islam tradition, was rent in two during the night in which Mohammed came into the world. The Mussulman architects who built the powerful citadels which stayed the onrush of the crusaders in Syria also derived their inspiration from the Sāsānian tradition, and it was thus that the gothic style made its way into the art of the east and ended by supplanting the Roman style. ¶ If the influence of Greek art was considerable in Ancient Persia, it was null in Persian art according to Islam; for there was scarcely any point of contact between the Byzantine world in its decline and Persia subjugated by the arms of the caliphs and separated from the west by Syria and the provinces that formed the Seljukian empire of Asia Minor. Nevertheless there exist a few rare specimens of Persian painting of the end of the thirteenth century which recall in a positive fashion the methods of Hellenic art; but there is no doubt that the works which they serve to illustrate are merely translations of Arab originals written in Syria and containing miniatures imitated from Byzantine types. The Persian limners confined themselves to reproducing those paintings at the same time that the Arab works were being translated into the Persian language, and we must beware of seeing in this the trace of any post-Islamic influence of Byzantine art. ¶ The three great schools of painting in Persia succeed one another without interruption and, encroaching one on the other from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the early years of the eighteenth century, correspond with the three great dominations which held sway over Iran during this period of nearly five centuries: the Mongolians, the Timurids and the Sefevæans. Books adorned with paintings, in fact, make their first appearance with the dynasty of the Mongolian sovereigns, whose ancestor, Hulagu, was sent to conquer Persia by the Emperor of China, Manchu. Although the dynasties which had made themselves independent in Persia,[Pg 139] up to the Seljukians, had taken matters easily with the Abbasside caliphate, it is no less true that they were deeply attached to Islamism and that men hesitated under their dominion openly to transgress the prescription of the religious law. The Mongolian sovereigns, at least the first, did not profess Islamism and even greatly preferred Christianity to the Mussulman religion, although not themselves Christians. Some of them, such as Hulagu, had Christian wives, and they often protected the Christians to the detriment of the votaries of Mohammed. We know from the narrative of the missionaries who were sent on embassy to the court of the Grand Khan of Cathay—Jean du Plan de Carpin, Guillaume de Ruysbroeck and others—that the Mongols made very coarse representations of their divinity Itoga and of other spirits of an inferior order. Like all the primitives, they greatly loved to see themselves pictured in paintings, and the manuscripts which date from the time of the Mongolian sovereigns of Persia are filled with portraits of the Khans, different nobles accompanied by their wives and engaged in drinking fermented mare’s milk in cups of Chinese porcelain. The Mongols, when they issued from their steppes bent upon the conquest of the world, were certainly the most ignorant people conceivable, for which reason they were surrounded by Chinese secretaries, interpreters, engineers and bureaucrats, without whom they would have been helpless. All this yellow flood swept down upon Persia and there settled as in a conquered country, introducing numbers of Turkish words into the language and, into art, not the formulas of the Turks and Mongols, because these had none, but those of the Celestial empire. It is certain that the Chinese artists whom the Mongols had brought with them to Persia understood the technicalities of painting infinitely better than did the Iranians, even as the Chinese accountants could easily have given lessons to all the financial clerks of the Sāmānids or Seljukians. And so the Persian painters sat at the feet of the Chinese and eventually came to create an art which was very different from that of the Celestial empire, but which nevertheless displays many characteristics of Chinese painting. In any case, it is certain that the miniatures which adorn the Persian manuscripts from the time of the Mongols have no connexion whatever with what is known to us of the art of the Sāsānidans, or with the descriptions given by Mas‘ūdī of pictures which he had seen at Persepolis in a book and by the unknown author of a chronicle entitled the ‘Sum of Histories.’ ¶ The manuscripts illuminated in Persia and in the regions that depended upon her during the Mongolian period (1258–1335) are very numerous and all present the same characteristics: the artists who illuminated them drew, above all, battle-scenes, sieges of fortresses, bloody contests, or else banquets, for the Mongols were, according to the account of travellers, great quaffers of strong liquors. These pictures, however, are rarely so well executed as those which belong to the school of the Timurids and the Sefevæans: the Mongols were people who were not hard to please; they wished before all things to be served quickly; and with them quantity easily took the place of quality. It may be remarked that the manuscripts executed at that time contain a very considerable number of paintings; but, though these paintings possess a great documentary interest, they have but a feeble interest from the artistic point of view. Some of them are merely wash-drawings in uniform tints rather than paintings in the proper sense of the word.

The schools of painting of the Mongolian period did not last long in Persia, and it would seem as though, from the moment when the descendants of Hulagu became converted to Islamism, people in Persia began to look with an evil eye upon picture-books and those who painted them. Moreover, the Mongolian dynasty gave way amid so great a chaos and such infinite disorder that [Pg 140] the Persians had too many other things to occupy their minds to allow them to think of illustrating their ‘Books of the Kings’ or the Gulistān of the Sheikh Sa‘dī. We still find in the great European libraries a few manuscripts illuminated for the Djelairids or the Mozafferids; but the political instability of Iran was at that time so great that two copies of the same work are sometimes dedicated to two successive sovereigns. ¶ The accession of Timur Bey put an end to this anarchy, which, for that matter, was to begin again a century later, and the reign of his successor, Shah-Rokh, was a period of peace such as Persia had not known since long. Under the reign of this pacific prince, who waged no war until driven to extremes by his kinsmen, there was executed, at Herat, one of the most splendid specimens of Iranian painting, the manuscript of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed to Heaven.’ Illuminated books belonging to the Timurid school of Persia and Turkestan are not excessively rare, and we must look among them to find the master-pieces of Persian painting. A certain number of these volumes come from the libraries of the Timurids, principally from that of Herat, where Sultan Husain Mirza had collected a magnificent library, which has now completely disappeared. ¶ These Timurid sovereigns, including those who reigned in the east of Persia and in Transoxiana after the death of Tamerlane (Timur Bey) as well as those who went to seek their fortune in Hindustan, were great lovers of works of art and of fine literature. At Samarcand, they raised the splendid mosques, now ruined, which were the ornament of the Righistan—the Tilla-kari, Bibi-khanum and Guri-Mir—whose gutted cupolas, all enamelled with many-coloured bricks, still excite the admiration of archæologists. Timur Bey, whom the pamphlet of Ibn-Arabshah did not a little to represent as a vulgar toper, delighted in reading the Ghazels of Hāfiz and the ‘Romance of Alexander’ of Nizāmī. Some of his writings are master-pieces of Turco-Oriental literature, and the unauthenticity of his Memoirs has never been absolutely proved. His grandson, Ulugh Beg, was the Alfonso X of the east, and the astronomical tables which he drew up with the aid of the most celebrated cosmographers form one of the most important works of Oriental mathematics. Sultan Husain ibn Baïkara lived in his capital of Herat surrounded by the most famous writers of his time—‘Alī Shīr his Vizir, the illustrious Sūfī Jāmī, Khwānd-Amīr the historian—and his collection of biographies of Mussulman saints is one of the master-pieces of elegant prose produced by Persian literature. ¶ The Emperor Babar, who, when the Timurid empire was definitely ruined in Persia, went away to conquer Hindustan, has left a sober and severe history of his long campaigns which recalls Caesar’s ‘Commentaries.’ In the midst of their intrigues and of the crimes which they did not hesitate to commit to obtain possession of the throne, his descendants, the Grand Moguls of Delhi, never lost their passion for works of art. The Emperor Shah-Jahan, who, in order to assume the crown, had revolted against his father and killed off all his brothers, found time, on the very day of his accession, to inscribe his ex-libris on a magnificent copy of one of the six poems of Jāmī; it is true that this volume was a family record, and that it had been copied for his ancestor, the sovereign of Herat, Sultan Husain Mirza. The Timurids of Hindustan retained this passion for fine books until the worst days of their history. Copies bearing the seal of Mohammed Shah or of Ferrukh Siyyar are not at all rare, and Shah Alem II enriched the library of the Grand Moguls even at the time when he was being torn between the English, the Mahrattas and the French, and when his empire was on the point of passing under a foreign dominion. ¶ The influence of Chinese art is even more marked in the paintings of the Timurid school of Khorassan than in those of the Mongols of Persia,[Pg 143] and it is open to us to ask ourselves whether they were executed by Persians trained in the school of the Chinese, or by Chinese striving to produce something in the Persian taste. If a doubt be permissible in the case of the manuscript of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed,’ none such can be entertained concerning a manuscript which was copied at Samarcand for Sultan Mirza Ulugh Beg and which contains the Arab text of an astronomical treatise famous in the East, that of ‘Abd ur-Rahmān el-Sūfī. One of the pictures adorning this magnificent manuscript is reproduced in the present article, and it is easy to see, even in the absence of colour, that the drawing shows an evident Chinese influence. The lightness of the outlines and of the painting, reduced to a few tints of Chinese ink in the shadows and a few threads of colour, reminds one in an extraordinary manner of the methods of the Japanese artists. This same characteristic occurs also, although in a less pronounced degree, in the miniatures on the manuscript of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed’; but the heads of the chimera on which the Prophet is mounted and of the angels recall the chubby faces on certain paintings or certain ivories of the Far East. ¶ We know from an undoubted source that the Timurids of Turkestan and Eastern Persia were pleased to make calls upon the artists of the Celestial empire, and that one of those sultans had set up at the gates of Samarcand a Trianon in Chinese porcelain which had been brought in sections, with every piece numbered, to the Athens of Turkestan. It is therefore no matter for surprise that we should find in the paintings of many manuscripts which formed the libraries of Herat and Samarcand traces of so deep and so protracted an influence. These miniatures are always infinitely better executed than are those of the Mongolian school, and we feel that they appeal to men of a different and more refined form of culture than the cavalry leaders who organized the bold raids across the Asiatic continent. They represent fewer scenes of carnage and, above all, fewer horsemen barbed and iron-clad to their eyes than fill the paintings of the Mongolian manuscripts. The sultans of Turkestan made war upon one another in order to steal the others’ crowns, but they did not do so as brutes greedy of slaughter and scenes of bloodshed: often warfare was their only means of living and of defending themselves against the incessant attacks of their rapacious kinsmen. ¶ The transition from the school of Turkestan at the time of the princes of the House of Timur to the third great school of painting in Persia, that of the Sefevæans, was not so clearly defined as that which separates the Mongolian from the Timurid school. There was, towards the end of the fifteenth century, a certain period during which the Persian artists endeavoured to produce something new, while retaining, in a great measure, the method of the miniature-painters of Turkestan. To this transition period belongs the manuscript of the ‘Book of the Kings,’ the property of M. de Rothschild, of which two reproductions will be found in these pages, and also the miniature representing a hunting-scene which is taken from a splendid manuscript, dated 1527, from the divan of Mīr ‘Alī Shīr Navā’ī, Vizir to the Timurid Sultan Husain Mirza. ¶ Obviously the master-pieces of Mussulman painting are to be sought among the miniatures executed at Herat and Samarcand in the fifteenth century; but this does not prevent the miniatures painted in Western Persia under the reign of the Sefevis (fifteenth to seventeenth century) from being splendid works of art. The number of illuminated manuscripts dating from this period is relatively large. This does not imply that there were many more painted in Persia under Shah Abbas than during the time of the Timurids, but simply that, being more modern, there were fewer of them lost.

(To Be continued.)

[Pg 144]

[Pg 145]

❧ WRITTEN BY PERCY MACQUOID, R.I. ❧

THERE is an undefinable feeling of romance and sentiment that forcibly strikes even the most callous who visit Winchester College. Founded by William of Wykeham in 1393 for the purpose of providing free education for the sons of those who could not otherwise have afforded it, as well as a means of supplying the country with an enlightened priesthood, it remains to-day the oldest and one of the greatest of England’s public schools. The royal licence to found the college, granted by Richard II, empowers Wykeham to ‘acquire the site and build a hall or college to the honour and glory of God and our Lady, and to settle in it a warden and seventy scholars who should study grammar within its halls and to grant them a charter.’ This first building took six years to complete, and the sum of £1.014 8s. 3d. was spent upon its construction, a sum that would represent about £20,000 according to the present value of money. ¶ As Winchester was at one time the capital of England, many kings made it their chief seat of residence, and many important parliaments were held there, and it was no doubt from this traditional importance that reigning sovereigns, and the highest dignitaries of Church and State, continually paid visits to the college. It would be otherwise difficult to account for the very large amount of ecclesiastical plate and precious vestments, in addition to the great quantity of secular plate, that was at different times in the possession of the college. The number of rose-water basins with ewers and spoons enumerated in one inventory alone proves that the entertainments must have been of a highly important nature. ¶ The earliest record of a royal gift in plate is of 1449, when Henry VI gave a tabernacle of gold, Margaret of Anjou about the same time presenting a pair of silver-gilt basins, weighing 114 oz., with the enamelled arms of England on one and those of France on the other. Before this date King Henry had paid many visits to the college, being desirous of gaining information on the subject of its working rules and statutes, in order to apply the same to the two similar institutions he was about to found. Another visit was on the occasion of his marriage, when it is stated in one of the records that the wine and beer for the entertainment of the royal suite cost two shillings and fourpence, a sum that does not appear excessive for court refreshments. Doubtless it was in return for the information and hospitality received that he produced the tabernacle and basins. The only recorded visit of Henry’s successor, Edward IV, was in 1469, when he was sufficiently impressed by the school to lend a live lion for the edification of the boys, but he does not appear to have made any presentation of plate; nor is there record of any particular interest taken in the college by either Richard III or Henry VII. During the next reign—which might with justice be called the reign of terror so far as gothic plate was concerned—Thomas Cromwell, representing the king as vicegerent and vicar-general, paid a formal visit to the college. Perhaps the authorities, scenting the coming storm, thought that the presentation to him of a standing salt from the college plate chest might prove a politic precaution; for in the records this entry occurs: ‘Sol. pro reparacione unius salsarii dat. Mro Cromwell secretario Dn̄i Regis pro favore suo habendo in causis Collegii vs. xd.’ A few weeks later, when the king was at Wolvesey Castle, two oxen, ten sheep, and twelve capons were sent to him and graciously accepted. Whether on[Pg 149] account of the gift of the salt to Cromwell, or of the offering of sheep and chickens, Henry VIII spared the college plate; his indulgence in this respect is proved when it is seen, from the following inventory taken in 1525 of the secular college plate, how great the temptation must have been:—

¶ There is also an inventory of what was given to the college chapel by Wykeham and other benefactors, consisting of silver plate and gilt 3,892 oz., gold plate and articles in gold 91⅞ oz., which Henry VIII must have found even more difficult to resist. Out of the amount of gothic plate mentioned in these two inventories but one piece remains; this is the so-called ‘Election Cup’ illustrated on Plate I. ¶ The death of Henry VIII in 1547 relieved the college from the threatened danger of dissolution, but not from the sequestration of its plate; the blow fell in the sixth and seventh year of Edward VI, when the plate was seized, together with all the plate and other ornaments belonging to the ‘cathedrall churche and other parishes and chapells within the said cytie of Winchester.’ The different ‘parcells’ are minutely described in the indenture that forms a receipt, and beautiful ‘parcells’ they must have been. ¶ The college was honoured by a visit from Queen Mary on the occasion of her marriage with Philip, which took place in Winchester cathedral in 1554, and it received small gifts of alms from the royal couple; but neither Mary nor Elizabeth attempted to make good the confiscation of plate that had taken place during their brother’s reign. However, in 1565 the college began once more to accumulate plate, and amongst other things bought a ‘pousshe-pot for wine.’ Some few of these purchases and presentations are still in existence, and are given in the illustrations, [Pg 150] but the greater part disappeared in various ways during the seventeenth century. As an instalment towards replacing this, Dr. Nicolas, a warden, presented in 1861 a large silver-gilt bowl and two silver-gilt salvers, and that others were prompted to follow his example is proved by the fine specimens of Charles II silver still in possession of the college. At the beginning of the next century Dr. Burton became head-master, and consolidated the branch of the school known as commoners. As many of these pupils were of noble birth, a special and well-appointed table was kept for their use, and much of the older plate was in 1740 condemned to the melting-pot in order to provide the necessary silver forks, spoons, etc., for the use of these fashionable young gentlemen. It was Dr. Burton’s practice to accept gifts of portraits and plate from his pupils in place of what was termed ‘leaving money’; on his death he bequeathed the portraits to the college, but not the presentation plate, some of which still exists as the property of his descendants, and was exhibited at the Fine Arts Society last winter.

From the slight records from which it is possible to gain information, and for which I am much indebted to Mr. T. F. Kirby (the bursar) and Mr. M. J. Rendall, it is very evident that at one time Winchester College was unusually rich in plate, and it is most interesting to have brought to light the few beautiful specimens that still remain, for not only were silver lovers unaware of its existence, but the college authorities had little notion of the rarity and value of their pieces. They are all in an extraordinarily fine state of preservation, and have not suffered in any way from repairing or regilding. It is a source of comfort that, belonging to such an institution as Winchester College, they are beyond the reach of the American millionaire, and will receive all proper care from the authorities. As the plate is so little known, I have thought it best to describe each important piece in catalogue form.

Plate I.—Silver-gilt cup with cover, called ‘The Election Cup’; height, 17½ ins.; diameter, 6½ ins.; weight, 69 oz. 9 dwt. The bowl, which resembles in shape the Anathema and Leigh cups, is moveable, and attaches to the stem by a double socket and flange; it is embossed with decorated and graduated escallops on a matted ground. The stem is of channelled and truncated form, finishing in palm-like points where it meets the bowl and foot, which is similar in decoration to the rest of the cup. The base is edged by an open scrolled moulding formed of leaves surmounted by a ladder moulding, finishing in a very bold and unusually tall cresting. The cover to this remarkable cup is of cupola shape, rising to a slender shaft fashioned like the stem and necked by a cinque-foil; this supports a Tudor crown, the cap showing a surface once filled in with enamel; the finials and bands belonging to the crown are missing. The cover is embossed in the same manner as the bowl, and bordered with the same moulding and tall cresting as the base, pierced in both cases to hold precious stones, which are now replaced by coloured glass. The cup is in remarkable preservation, and has its original gilding. It has no hall-marks, but is, without doubt, English, circa 1520; the boldness of the cresting and workmanship, together with the shape of the bowl, exactly coincides with the few contemporary English pieces in existence. It was presented by Warden More in 1523, and is the sole remaining piece from the wonderful store of gothic plate once possessed by the college.

Plate II.—A rose-water dish, parcel gilt, 16 ins. in diameter; weight, 48 oz. II dwt.; hall-mark, London 1562; maker’s mark, a unicorn’s head in a shield. The border of the dish, which is gilt, and 2 ins. in width, is engraved with panels of strapwork and arabesques, enclosing the words, in Lombardic lettering, RADOLPHUS [Pg 155]HENSLOWE A^o DNI 1563 CUI DEUS RETRIBUAT IN ILL DIE HANC PELVIM CUM SUO GUTTURNIO DE NOVO FECIT. The centre is composed of one boss raised on another enclosing a print bearing the Wykeham arms enamelled in their tinctures; argent two chevronels sable, between three roses gules, barbed and seeded proper within a garb. Round the lower base runs the legend, also in Lombardic lettering, MANERS MAKET MAN QUOTHE WYLLYAM WYKEHAM. The face of this boss is decorated with baskets of fruit and trophies of arms in repoussé, gilt on a matted ground; the bason of the dish is of plain silver. ¶ The companion ewer, with cover (height, 8½ ins.; weight, 47 oz. 11 dwt., and with marks the same as dish), is of unusually beautiful proportions. The cover, of depressed form, is surmounted by a rosace finial containing the Wykeham arms in enamel; the rest of the cover is embossed with baskets of fruit and trophies of arms. The body of the ewer is cylindrical, and this, as well as the narrow spout, is decorated at the top and centre with gilt bands of scrolled arabesques, enclosing engraved medallions of heads in the foreign taste. The stem is fluted, and the foot covered with a repoussé of a lion’s mask and human heads in cartouches between bunches of fruit, and is edged with reeded and ovolo mouldings. The billet is formed of two masks in profile enclosing a bunch of leaves, and the graceful bow handle is engraved down the back with panels of arabesques. This beautiful dish and ewer much resemble those belonging to Lord Newton, of Lyme, exhibited in 1902 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, and possess all the characteristics of the finest Elizabethan work. Both dish and ewer are in perfect preservation, and have the original parcel gilding.

Plate IIIa.—Sweetmeat dish of tazza shape; diameter, 7 ins.; height, 5 ins.; weight, 15 oz. 9 dwt.; hall-mark, London 1594. The bowl is engraved on the inside, with two bands of strapwork enclosing panels of arabesque design; the centre is of similar decoration surrounded by a double strap. The stem is plain save for an embossed ring indented with dotted lines, the same decoration being repeated on the foot between a double strap, and connected to the stem by a ladder moulding. The piece is singularly simple in its ornamentation, and it should be observed how much of its beauty is dependent on the perfection of the plain line engraving. These dishes were used for sweetmeats and handed to the guests; the tazza form was taken from the Italian and French dishes that were so much in vogue in those countries during the sixteenth century.

Plate IIIb.—Small standing salt, gilt; height, 4½ ins.; weight, 15 oz. 9 dwt.; hallmark, London 1596. It is in the form of a hexagonal plinth; the panels forming the sides are filled with an upright design of foliated arabesques in low relief on a matted ground, divided at the angles by a plain ribbed moulding, connected at the top and base by a fine ladder moulding between two fillets; the top and base coincide in design, and are composed of a slight ogee embossed with a lea moulding of Persian origin. The simple repetition of design throughout this little standing salt constitutes its charm, each space being most admirably filled. The cover to this salt is, unfortunately, missing; it would probably have been of cupola shape, bearing a vase finial surmounted by a little figure.

Plate IIIc.—Cup with cover, gilt; height, 11¼ ins.; diameter of bowl, 9½ ins.; both hall-marked London 1682; maker’s mark, ‘R. L.’ in a shield over a fleur-de-luce; weight, 118 oz. 15 dwt. The cup, which stands on a base ¾ in. in height, is of porringer shape, decorated with a surbase of upright and repoussé acanthus, alternating with plain leaves in lower relief; above this in fine line engraving are the Poulett arms within a mantling of acanthus, and the inscription, ‘Ex dono prænobilis Caroli Dm̄i Marchionis Winton,’ etc. The scroll handles are cast solid, and terminate in animals’ heads.

[Pg 156]

The cover is of flattened form and plain except for a central enrichment of acanthus in a spiral design, and finishes in an open-worked knop of the same leaves. The condition of this unusually large porringer cup is surprising. It has the original gilding, and the sharp yet round modelling of the ornament shows to what perfection this form of decoration was carried. The rapid deterioration of this acanthus design in William III’s reign goes far towards explaining the reason for its lasting such a short period. The acanthus scrolled handles are a little small for the otherwise perfect proportions of this very remarkable cup.

Plate IVa.—Rose-water dish; diameter, 17¼ ins.; weight, 63 oz.; no hall mark; maker’s mark, monogram C. R. in a shield; date, circa 1613. The dish is quite plain, with an engraved line on the edge. The arms per pale of Winchester College and the donor are engraved on the centre boss, round which runs the inscription, ‘Ex dono Georgii Rives Sacræ Theologiæ Doct. huius Collegii socii deinde Novi Coll. custodis in usum quotidianum Vicecustodis istius Coll. prope Winton Anno Domini 1613.’ The companion ewer of same date, with same maker’s mark; height, 7⅛ ins.; diameter, 4½ ins.; weight, 23 oz. 10 dwt. This is also perfectly plain, with wide bow handle and long curved spout; the foot is of trumpet shape spreading to a plain stepped base. Both dish and ewer are good examples of the plain plate that was slowly coming into fashion in this country during the early part of the seventeenth century.

Plate IVb.—Small standing cup and cover, gilt; height, 14. ins.; hall-mark, London 1632; maker’s mark, P. C. over a rose in a shield. The bowl of the cup is matted with a broad plain border at the lip, round which runs the inscription, ‘Ex dono Hugonis Barker legū Doctoris olim huius Collegii Scholaris ac Consanguinei fundatoris eiusdem Collegii ac eo nomine in numerū Scholariū eiusdem admissi.’ Below this in a circle are engraved the arms of the donor. The stem is of baluster shape usual to the cups of this period, and plain save for a matting on the knop, and where it joins the foot there is a repoussé ornament of small leaves; the base is composed of simple mouldings. The cover is of cupola shape with a wide brim; the surface is decorated with a matted ground, and the whole is surmounted by a plain finial of vase-shaped form. This plain plate with a granulated or matted surface was much made in the north of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, and was probably introduced into this country through the influence of Anne of Denmark, the queen of James I.

Plate Va.—Tankard and cover; height, 7 ins.; weight, 34 oz. 11 dwt.; marks, London 1614; maker’s mark, O. S., with pellets in a shield. This early Jacobean tankard is plain throughout and of globular or tankard form. Round the neck runs a band on which is engraved ‘Facile contemnit omnia qui semper cogitat se esse moriturum.’ As an additional emphasis of this sad but true remark, the billet of the cover is formed of a human skull holding a scroll between its teeth, and on the body of the tankard is engraved the arms of the donor with the inscription, ‘Ex dono Johanis Bolney quondā de sanguine fundatoris Jstius Collegii St. Marie Winton Aō dm̄ni 1614.’ The handle is depressed in the bow and finishes in a square whistle end. Tankards or flagons of this shape are extremely rare, and owe the origin of their form to the stoneware jug of Tudor days.

Plate Vb.—Standing salt; height, 6½ ins.; diameter, 9 ins. at top, q¼ ins. at base; weight, 47 oz. 5 dwt.; marks, London 1664; maker’s mark undecipherable. The salt is plain, cylindrical, and of X form; the three short curved arms that spring from the slightly convex top were intended to hold a napkin to protect the salt, or, as is to be seen in pictures of the time, for the support of a small dish for olives or caviare. On the fine[Pg 161] trumpet sweep of the base are engraved the arms of Wykeham and of the donor within feather mantling, and the inscription, ‘Legatum M^r̄i Michaelis Bold M. Art Collegij Btae Mariae Winton.’ The edge is finished in a simple half-round and step moulding.

Plate Vc.—Tankard with lid, parcel gilt; height, 6 ins.; weight, 25 oz. 9 dwt.; marks, London 1649. The tankard is cylindrical and straight-sided, hooped and staved in imitation of a barrel; the lid is quite flat, and engraved with the arms of the see within a garter; the billet is of half skull type, and the curious short handle is of rectangular and irregular form. The barrel decoration at this date (the first year of the Commonwealth) is unusual to find, although the fashion was much adopted towards the end of the same century. The parcel gilding is original.

Plate VIa.—Steeple cup and cover, gilt; total height, 19 ins.; height of cup, 12 ins.; weight, 38 oz. 5 dwt.; marks, London 1615; maker’s mark, T. F. in monogram in a shield. The cover is surmounted by a perforated spire of graceful proportions, supported on three brackets of female form. The cover and cup are decorated with scrolled acanthus and fruit in low relief and fine line engraving; the stem is of the composite character usual to these cups, and bears the last traces of Renaissance influence. The cup, although in excellent preservation, has been regilt. There are many steeple cups of this type in existence, but few are so happy in their proportions as this specimen.

Plate VIb.—Tall standing cup or hanap with cover. Total height, 24 ins.; cup without cover, 17¼ ins.; diameter, 8⅛ ins.; weight, 124 oz. 17 dwt.; marks, London 1680; maker’s mark, T. C. with a fish and a fleur de luce in a shield. The bowl of this very tall standing cup is plain in shape, ornamented with a surbase of upright acanthus, above which runs an embossed laurelled band; above and below this band are the following inscriptions in Greek and Latin:—

κρᾶσις ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος
Sivè
Poculum Charitatis
In Usum
Collegij B^tae Mariae Winton
propè Winton

The stem is of ordinary baluster shape, engraved and chased with laurelling and acanthus. The base and cover resemble each other in their decoration, and the latter ends in a mushroom-shaped finial, from which spring two arms supporting a heart. This form of standing cup was universal from 1640 to 1690, and, though deficient in artistic construction, possesses interest as being the last recognized design of loving cup mounted on to a tall stem.

Plate VII.—Ecclesiastical plate belonging to the college chapel. Two chalices with covers, gilt; marks, London 1611; maker’s mark, R. P. in a shield over a fleur de luce. These are perfectly plain and of the type that was usual during the first years of the seventeenth century. The two tall flagons are of tankard shape, gilt; marks, London 1627; maker’s mark, R. S. over a heart. These tankards are of a shape that was common to both ecclesiastical and secular use, the entasis of the drum, on which are engraved the arms of the donor per pale with those of the college, gives great elegance to its tall and plain columnar form, and the mouldings to the petticoat base are unusually sharp and well proportioned. The large alms dish is gilt; width, 17¼ ins.; marks, London 1681; maker’s mark illegible. The dish is plain, but edged with a reeded moulding; on the border is engraved an inscription set in feather mantling between the arms of Wykeham and those of the donor. There are many other pieces of ecclesiastical and secular plate belonging to the college for which there is not space here. These consist of chalices, patens, salvers, porringers and tankards, which, although of great merit, are not of corresponding interest to the pieces represented in the illustrations.

[Pg 162]

❧ WRITTEN BY HERBERT P. HORNE ❧

BY a strange coincidence those paintings in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita to which the entries in Alesso’s ‘Ricordi, Libro B,’ refer, have alone been preserved of all the frescoes once in the chapel, with the exception of some fragments of the lunettes on the lateral walls. The last but one of these entries records the purchase of cinnabar for the wings of the seraphim on the soffit of the arch opening into the ‘Crociera.’[51] The first entry in ‘Libro B’ is dated March 9, 1470–1; but according to an abstract of an entry in ‘Libro A,’ Alesso ‘received the commission to paint the “Cappella Maggiore” of Santa Trinita from Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, for 200 gold ducats, on July 1, 1471, and undertook to finish the work within the period of five to seven years.’[52] The latter date, no doubt, was that of the execution of the ‘writing,’ subscribed by the hand of Misser Bongianni, which Alesso held, and to which he refers in the ‘ricordo’ on the first page of ‘Libro B.’ In the interval between these two dates the painter began the cartoons for the figures of the prophets and the other ornaments of the vault. On April 28, 1471, he bought ‘16 quires of coarse paper (carta da straccia) in royal folio, at 5 soldi the quire, for making the “spolverizzi” of the prophets and the other “spolverizzi” that occur in the said vault.’ The ‘spolverizzi’ properly were the outlines pounced upon the plaster, by means of the pricked cartoon; but here, by a figure of speech, Alesso clearly intends the cartoons themselves. The more usual method of transferring a cartoon was to trace the outlines, by means of a metal style, on to the fresh plaster, as Vasari recommends.[53] Pricked cartoons seem to have been more commonly employed in the case of embroideries and ‘drappi.’[54] ¶ Having in the meantime purchased certain colours for the work, Alesso, at length, on August 29, 1471, paid various sums for moving the boxes containing his colours, etc., into chapel, and for the purchase of brushes and pipkins in preparation for the actual painting of the vault. There are two entries of that date: the first records that he bought ‘from Bernardino di Ventura, the pencil-maker, 58 pencils of minever, between coarse and fine, one with another, great and small,’ costing, lire 1 soldi 12; the second, that he spent, ‘between new pipkins and small pots, and hogs’-hair and pack thread for making pencils of hogs’-hair, and for the carriage of chests and trestles for the work of painting the said chapel, lire 3 soldi 5.’ Alesso, however, does not appear to have proceeded very far with the actual painting of the vault until the following spring; for on April 12, 1472, he records that he bought ‘five pounds of azzurro della Magnia (namely, biadetto) for making the bed under the fine blue, and this I bought from Lorenzo di Piero, the painter, in Borgo Sant’Apostoli, at the price of 5 soldi the ounce.’[55] This ‘biadetto’ was probably identical with the ‘sbiadato’ mentioned by[Pg 168] Cennini, in a passage in which he says, that ‘a blue like sbiadato, and very similar to azzurro della Magnia,’ may be made with indigo and white, ‘biacca’ or ‘bianco sangiovanni.’[56] Alesso would seem to have painted a fresco the blue backgrounds behind the figures of the prophets on the vault with this ‘biadetto,’ using it as a ‘bed’ for the fine azzurro della Magnia, which he afterward applied a secco.[57] It cost one-fifth, or even less, of the genuine azzurro della Magnia, and, no doubt, resembled it in colour. The genuine azzurro della Magnia seems to have been not easily obtainable in Florence; and Alesso is generally careful to record how he came by his purchases. On March 7, 1470–1, according to the first entry in ‘Libro B,’ he bought ‘2 pounds 9 ounces of azzurro di Magnia from Cardinale del Bulletta, at the price of 26 soldi the ounce’; and on the 12th of the same month, 4 pounds 2½ ounces, at 33 soldi the ounce. On April 31, 1471, he bought 1 pound 7 ounces, ‘from a German, in a bladder,’ at 31 soldi the ounce. ‘On 25 day of September, 1472,’ records Alesso, ‘I bought 2 pounds of azzurro di Magnia from Giovanni d’Andrea, glazier, at the price of 25 soldi the ounce; he said it belonged to a gossip of his, a courier, who brought it from Venice: the said Giovanni wanted 4 soldi to go drinking with.’ This Giovanni d’Andrea was the glazier who, in partnership with Il Lastra, had executed the window of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, from Alesso’s design. Finally, on January 13, 1472–3, Alesso bought 2 pounds 10 ounces, ‘from a Pole,’ at 20 soldi the ounce; ‘a clear, beautiful, finely-ground blue,’ he adds with satisfaction. At that time the painter was about to begin the lunettes on the lateral walls of the chapel. ¶ Cennini calls azzurro della Magnia ‘a natural colour that is found in and around silver lodes.’ ‘Much,’ he adds, ‘is obtained in Germany [La Magnia, whence its name], and also in the country about Siena.’[58] Milanesi, in the notes to his edition of Cennini, says that this blue was an oxide of cobalt; but Mrs. Herringham, with more probability, identifies the colour with blue carbonate of copper, commonly called blue verditer: in the same way, she identifies ‘verde azzurro,’ which Cennini says was made artificially from ‘azzurro della Magnia,’ with green verditer, which is also a carbonate of copper.[59] Alesso records in ‘Libro B,’ that, on March 20, 1470–1, he bought 6 pounds of ‘verde azzurro,’ at 14 soldi the ounce. ¶ It is worthy of remark that in a work of the importance of these frescoes, executed for so wealthy a patron as Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, Alesso should not have used ultramarine, but a blue which cost but a twentieth part of that ‘noble, beautiful, and most perfect beyond all colours.’[60] According to the entries cited above, Alesso bought his azzurro della Magnia at prices varying from 20 soldi to 33 soldi the ounce.

Few other colours are specified by name in these ‘Ricordi.’ On May 24, 1471, Alesso purchased 4 pounds 5 ounces of yellow, namely, ‘arzicha,’ at 13 soldi the ounce. Cennini calls ‘arzica’ a colour chemically produced and little used, but more at Florence than elsewhere. He adds that it perishes on exposure to the air, and is not good for walls, but mixed with a little azzurro della Magnia and giallorino it makes a beautiful green.[61] Mrs. Herringham suggests that ‘arzica’ may be massicot, called azarcon in Spain.[62] ¶ On September 1, 1471, Alesso bought 5 ounces of fine lake at 14 soldi the ounce.[Pg 169] The colour was probably used for the purple robe of the David. Lastly, on September 14, 1472, he bought ‘8 ounces of fine cinnabar to make the cherubim of the arch before the said chapel,’ at 2 soldi 8 danari the ounce. This was the vermilion for the wings of the seraphim, which still remain on the soffit on the arch. ¶ By June 1472 the painting of the vault had so far advanced that Alesso began to buy the gold for the ornaments. On June 13 he bought from Domenico, the gold-beater, 1,700 pieces of fine gold ‘laid upon tin-foil,’ for lire 61; on June 15, from Giovanni, the gold-beater, called Il Rosso, 500 pieces, also on foil, for lire 18; on June 23, 4,000 pieces of fine gold, at 3 lire 4 soldi the hundred, from a Genoese; and on June 28, 86 sheets of yellow foil, on which to lay the gold, for lire 8. Lastly, on July 9, 1472, he bought ‘8 pounds of liquid varnish, to apply them upon the vault, namely, the ornaments of fine gold.’ In all this Alesso appears to have followed the method set forth by Cennini, in cap. 99 of his ‘Trattato.’[63] ¶ But one other entry in these ‘Ricordi’ calls for any remark: on July 24, 1471, Alesso ‘bought four pounds of linseed oil at the price of 4 soldi the pound.’ What purpose was this oil intended to serve? Was it for some oil ‘tempera’? Vasari, speaking of these paintings of Santa Trinita, says that ‘Alesso laid them in a fresco, and afterwards finished them a secco, tempering the colours with yolk of egg, mixed with liquid varnish made over the fire’; he adds that Alesso ‘thought that this tempera would protect the paintings against damp; but it was of so strong a nature that where it has been applied freely the work has in many places flaked away, and so, whereas he thought to have found a rare and most beautiful secret, he remained deceived by his opinion.’[64] Without attempting to discuss the nature of the ‘tempera’ which is here described, I may recall the fact that Domenico Veneziano, who was undoubtedly Alesso’s master, is celebrated by Vasari on account of ‘the new method which he employed of colouring in oil’; and the books of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova record payments for very considerable quantities of linseed oil which that master used for the lost paintings in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Sant’ Egidio.[65] Domenico, no doubt, possessed the secret of some improvement upon the old method of painting in oil on walls, which Cennino Cennini, who describes it at length in the ‘Libro dell’ Arte,’ cap. lxxxix.–cap. xciv., says ‘was much in use among the Germans.’ ¶ Alesso, as I have said, originally undertook, on July 1, 1471, to paint the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita for 200 gold florins, and to finish the work within a period of five to seven years. It was not, however, until January 19, 1496–97, after an interval of more than twenty-five years, that the total amount to be paid him for finished work was estimated by Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Pietro Perugino and Filippino Lippi at 1,000 gold florins.[66] In other words, Alesso had spent upon the work five times the minimum period originally stipulated for its completion, and he was awarded five times the original sum for which he had undertaken to complete the chapel. Two causes appear to have contributed to this delay. The one was that Alesso’s method of laying-in his paintings a fresco, and finishing them a secco, admitted of endless elaboration, and a consequent expenditure of time, which pure fresco painting did not admit of. The other was, that shortly after receiving the commission for the chapel Alesso appears to have turned his attention to reviving the art of mosaic, which had almost died out in Florence. We first hear of Alesso working in mosaic in 1481, in which year he restored the figures on the façade of San Miniato a Monte.[67] In 1483 he was appointed by the consuls of[Pg 170] the Arte de’ Mercanti to restore the mosaics in the tribune of the baptistery of San Giovanni, ‘there being no one, in all the dominion and jurisdiction of Florence, but he, who then understood that art’: in consideration of which the consuls resolved to convey to him, ‘for the term of his natural life, such real property as would yield 30 florins yearly, upon the condition that he bound himself, so long as he lived, to repair and restore the mosaics of San Giovanni.’[68] In accordance with this resolution two houses in the Piazza di San Giovanni, belonging to the Arte de’ Mercanti, were assigned to Alesso on February 26, 1483–4,[69] and by two instruments of the same date, engrossed by the notary, Ser Giovanni di Jacopo de’ Migliorelli, Alesso re-leased the two houses to the persons who were already in possession of them at the date of the assignment. These instruments are printed, for the first time, in the appendix to this article.[70] ¶ The decoration of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, and the restoration of the mosaics in the baptistery of San Giovanni and San Miniato a Monte, appear to have almost entirely engrossed the last thirty years of Alesso’s life. During that time we hear of no work of importance undertaken by him, with the exception of the lost altar-piece of Sant’ Ambrogio, which he began in 1470. Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi died on November 7, 1484, and was buried in his chapel at Santa Trinita, long before Alesso had brought its frescoes to a conclusion.[71] The work, however, was continued at the instance of his son, Jacopo Gianfigliazzi; and Stefano Rosselli records in his ‘Sepoltuario Fiorentino,’ that at the time he was writing, c. 1657, the basement of Alesso’s altar-piece in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita bore the inscription: ‘Jacobus Gianfigliazzius Bongiannis Equitis Filius, sua erga Deum Pietate.’[72] ¶ Of the paintings that once decorated the walls of this chapel we possess but some partial and imperfect accounts. Vasari, to whom we chiefly owe the meagre notices which are extant, says that they consisted of ‘stories from the Old Testament.’ Alesso, he says, ‘drew many portraits from the life; and in the story of the aforesaid chapel [of Santa Trinita], in which he represented the Queen of Sheba going to hear the wisdom of Solomon, he drew Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent, who was father of Pope Leo X, and Lorenzo dalla Volpaia, a most excellent master of dials, and a great astrologer.’ ‘In another story which is opposite to this, Alesso drew Luigi Guicciardini the elder, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Giuliano de’ Medici, father of Pope Clement VII; and next to the stone pilaster [of the arch opening into the church] Gherardo Gianfigliazzi the elder, and Messer Bongianni, knight, wearing a blue habit and a collar round his neck, together with Jacopo and Giovanni of the same family. Near to these last are Filippo Strozzi and Messer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, astrologer.’[73] What the subject of this latter story may have been, we do not now know. According to Giovanni Cinelli, in his edition of the ‘Bellezze di Firenze,’ published in 1677, the other story of the Queen of Sheba was on the left wall of the chapel, ‘dal Corno del Vangelo.’ Cinelli, after quoting this passage from Vasari, adds that ‘in the angle of the choir, on the left side, there is painted a Cain in the act of striking his brother Abel, a figure which is very admirable in its attitude, and which expresses in its countenance the malice and hatred which Cain bore in his heart towards his brother: and it is greatly esteemed by the connoisseurs; so much so, that when the cardinal of the serene house of Este came to Florence and visited this church, he desired to see and consider with attention so fine a painting.’[74]

[Pg 173]

Already, when Vasari wrote in 1568, the frescoes in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita ‘had begun to flake away in many places.’[75] The last writer to allude to their indifferent condition is Giuseppe Richa, who speaks of them as ‘not a little consumed and spoiled by time.’[76] That was in 1755; five years later, in 1760, Alesso’s ‘stories’ were ruthlessly destroyed or covered with whitewash, and the walls of the chapel decorated with ‘stucchi’ in the taste of the time.[77] During the recent restoration of the church, in 1890–7, the paintings of the four patriarchs on the vault of the chapel, the seraphim on the soffit of the vault, and the fragments of the lunettes on the lateral walls of the chapel, were found under the whitewash, and restored by Signor Dario Chini. [Plate III.] ¶ The vault itself is divided into four triangular compartments by the intersecting ribs of the vault, which spring from the four corbels at the angles of the chapel. In the compartment above the window of the chapel is a seated figure of Noah, in an ample cloak of dark green, worn over an under-dress of a reddish colour. He holds some object which is now undecipherable in his right hand; and beside him, on the left, is placed the ark. ¶ In the compartment above the left wall of the chapel is a seated figure of Abraham clad in a yellow robe lined with green, over an under-dress of vermilion. In his right hand he holds the sacrificial knife, and at his feet kneels his son Isaac, bound and clad in white. In the compartment above the right wall is a seated figure of Moses, holding the two tables of the Law in his hands. The robe, which falls over the knees of the figure, is vermilion in colour, and the underdress appears to have been a dark leaf-green. In the compartment above the arch is a seated figure of David playing upon a psaltery with three sound-holes. He is attired in a purple mantle lined with green, which almost entirely envelops his figure. The purple of this robe is now much perished. All these four figures are relieved against blue backgrounds, broken by rays of gold which appear to proceed from the figures; and all the four compartments are surrounded by borders of fruit and flowers upon a vermilion ground. The ribs of the vault are painted with green foliage intertwined with a running ribbon, and the keystone of the vault is blazoned with the arms of the Gianfigliazzi: or, a lion rampant azure. On the soffit of the arch opening into the chapel is painted, on a blue ground, the series of seraphim with vermilion wings, to which allusion has already been made. ¶ In the lunette on the left wall, immediately below the figure of Abraham, in the vault, are the remains of a ‘story’ of the ‘sacrifice of Isaac.’ In the upper part of the picture, on some rising and rocky ground, Abraham is seen turned towards the right, and kneeling before an altar. This figure is in large part almost obliterated, and the figure of the angel who appears to him in the sky, and that of Isaac upon the altar, can now scarcely be made out. On the right of the painting, however, there may still be seen a tree boldly designed against the sky, recalling certain passages in Alesso’s painting of the Nativity in the atrium of the Annunziata at Florence. The lower part of this lunette has entirely perished. ¶ In the lunette on the opposite wall, below the figure of the patriarch, in the vault, is a ‘story’ of ‘Moses receiving the tables of the Law on Mount Sinai.’ The upper portion of this painting alone remains in a ruined condition. On the top of the mount Moses kneels, turned to the left. The figure is much damaged; and that of God the Father, who appears to him out of the heavens, has almost entirely disappeared. The bare mountain-top is broken by patches of herbage, and around it may still be seen some cypresses, with other foliage. ¶ Below each of these lunettes, on the lateral walls of the chapel, appear to have been two other stories; but the subject of only one of them[Pg 174] has been recorded (as I have said) by Vasari, namely, the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, which appears to have been on the left wall of the chapel. The story of Cain killing his brother Abel, recorded by Cinelli, was probably on the altar-wall beside the window, in the left-hand corner. ¶ In the figures on the vault, Alesso attains to a nobility of design, and a largeness of manner, which he does not again reach in any extant work of his. That extreme research for form, which so largely spoils our enjoyment of the altar-piece which he painted for this chapel, does not detract, at all in the same degree, from the severe beauty of these figures; for they possess a charm both of conception and design which is little distinctive of Alesso’s later manner, though akin to a certain grace and sweetness in some of his earliest works. The attitudes of these ‘prophets old’ are very grandly imagined, especially that of the David, who looks up as he touches his psaltery with a gesture that expresses a spiritual ecstasy, with an admirable fineness and reticence. Indeed, these figures are represented with a truth of character, and a refinement of feeling, for which we vainly look in similar works by his more famous, and more obviously gifted, pupil, Domenico Ghirlandaio; such as the vaults of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Maria Novella, and of the Sassetti chapel in Santa Trinita. To judge from these figures of the four patriarchs, the destruction of the ‘stories’ which were below them cannot sufficiently be deplored; the reputation of few Florentine masters depended so largely on a single work as Alesso’s did upon this chapel of the Gianfigliazzi. ¶ One other fragment of the ‘stories’ which once decorated the walls of this chapel has come down to us. Giuseppe Richa, in his ‘Notizie Istoriche delle Chiese Fiorentine,’ after mentioning the various portraits to be found in these paintings, adds: ‘all these figures are named by the writers of the life of Alesso; but they do not allude to [the portrait of] a young man in the angle of the choir, on the epistle side, who is represented in a red habit, with a green cap on his head, and a white handkerchief in his hands; and this is Alesso Baldovinetti, who portrayed himself as he was, when a young man; and he, also, drew there the portrait of Guido Baldovinetti, who was the man most gifted and renowned at that time in his illustrious family.’[78] ¶ Domenico Maria Manni, in the notes to his edition of ‘Baldinucci,’ published a few years after Richa’s work had appeared, cites a certain ‘Memoriale’ of Francesco di Giovanni di Guido Baldovinetti, written in the year 1513. According to this ‘Memoriale’ (from which, no doubt, Richa derived his notice of the portrait in question) Alesso portrayed on the walls of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, among many other noble citizens, ‘Guido Baldovinetti, and, last of all, himself, wearing a cioppone of faded rose, and a handkerchief in his hand.’[79] Among the pictures which Morelli bequeathed to the Accademia Carrara, at Bergamo, is a fragment of a fresco, No. 23, containing the head of a man. It has been cut to a round measuring 0.23 centm. in diameter. According to an inscription on the back of the painting it is a portrait of Alesso Baldovinetti, painted by himself and taken from an angle of the choir of Santa Trinita in Florence.[80] There can be little doubt that this is the head to which Francesco Baldovinetti referred in his ‘Memoriale,’ and that it was cut from the walls of Santa Trinita when Alesso’s paintings were destroyed in 1760; but whether it is a portrait of the painter is a question which I must not here attempt to discuss.

[Pg 176]

THE collection of works of modern Dutch painters at the Guildhall is much more representative than that of the old masters, and is likely to be a revelation to those visitors who know only the few, and in many cases inadequate, examples of modern Dutch works which have been seen from time to time in London. In only one previous instance, that of the Glasgow exhibition, has such a representative collection of modern Dutch painters been brought together in this country. ¶ The chief interest of the collection is to be found in the works of the three brothers Maris and of Israels, for these painters are the leaders of the school, and the rest, though not without individualities of their own in technique and treatment, are followers. ¶ Joseph Israels is represented at the Guildhall chiefly by works of his later period, which are far better known in England than are the pictures in his earlier manner, which can be studied best at Amsterdam; these latter are distinguished by precision and detail rather than by the subtler and more sympathetic treatment of his mature work. ¶ The largest canvas of Israels shown is The Shipwrecked Fisherman (11), which, though impressive and well balanced, has a certain stagey effect. There are several tricks of technique, such as the parallel clouds and sky, which, however, add not a little strength to the general effect. Far superior to this picture is The Cottage Madonna (14), a vigorous painting of a woman with a child in a characteristically Dutch cottage interior. This fine work can hardly be considered a typical example of Israels, not indeed because it falls short of his other achievements, but rather for the opposite reason. It is a wonderful piece of sympathetic painting, full of feeling and pathos, and without those eccentricities which are apparent in such of his pictures as A Jewish Wedding (95), interesting as being the last picture which he has painted, and therefore reproduced here for this reason, but lacking in the opinion of the present writer the surpassing merits which many claim for it. It has become so much the mode to praise equally all the work of a particular painter or a particular school, that the sense of proportion and the power of discrimination have almost become extinct and criticism has been undermined. No painter of the modern Dutch school is more unequal than Israels, except perhaps Mauve; and one feels that if he has almost risen to the level of a great master in The Cottage Madonna, and perhaps in A Ray of Sunshine (7) and The New Flower (82), there is a particular group of works at the Guildhall which are sustained in estimation by the repute of greater achievements. ¶ The case of Jacob Maris is quite otherwise. The whole of his work is upon essentially legitimate lines, and inspires a feeling that he never produced a picture from a less than worthy motive. His pictures are full of the softness and delicacy of the Dutch atmosphere, and most people would consider it incredible that none of them were painted out-of-doors. Yet the present writer has been assured by one of Maris’s intimate friends that this was the case; when a particular view or picture struck him he was accustomed to stand with his hands in his pockets, and the picture was painted entirely from memory in his studio. Yet his works miss no essential truth. This stage was not reached without much experimentalizing and profound study. Jacob Maris began with a scrupulous striving after finish, which would do credit to any of the little masters of Holland of the seventeenth century. Take[Pg 177] for example The Weary Watchers (90), painted in 1869, in which the child is painted with the finish of a Metzu, and the cat approaching the cradle with the minuteness of a Mieris. It is a long jump from this picture to A Windmill, Moonlight (125), the last work which he finished; but under the surface of the latter, in spite of the apparent dash, we perceive not one whit less regard for essential truth. ¶ There are three or four canvases at the Guildhall which display Maris in his very finest mood. Many will, perhaps, consider that the finest of all, at least as regards brush work, is Gathering Seaweed (44). The sky with its immense grey white clouds, through breaks in which glimpses of blue beyond are discernible, is the chief factor in the picture. This is in every respect one of Maris’s finest works, and he has never exceeded the delicious silveriness of sea and sky and the sense of moisture in the breeze which he here gives us; his rendering of the wet flat sand on which stand the horse and cart of the seaweed gatherers has been equalled only by Bonington. ¶ Of somewhat similar character is the beautiful little Storm Cloud (80), into which he has infused much the same feeling; but another phase of Maris is shown in the wonderful Bridge (92), which deservedly occupies a place of honour on the walls of the Guildhall gallery. Across a typical Dutch canal is thrown a wooden bridge, under which, away along the placid canal, can be seen a distant quay abutted with houses; little red-tiled houses fill the extreme left and right of the picture. It is a simple motive which in strict accordance with the principles of the painters of Holland demonstrates the innate beauty of the commonplace. Quite equal to this, both for intensity of feeling and realization, is the River and Windmill (101) on the side wall; the sense of stillness and calm which pervades this work is typical of the tranquillity of a mind whose sole delight was in nature and its portrayal. The artist is equally successful in a very different way in the bold and powerful Dutch Town (43), which seems to be a freely adapted view of Amsterdam. This is one of his latest works, and was painted in 1898. There is a delicate shimmer on the water with its lazy craft, and the ill-defined buildings are developed in an atmosphere shrouded by haze and darkened by smoke. These two works should be compared with The Ferry Boat (81), painted in 1870, which owes something to Van Goyen and Soloman Ruysdael; to his appreciation of the qualities of his predecessors, and his study of their art, Maris’s own achievements must in great measure be attributed. It is always unsafe to prophesy, but it is almost safe to say that Jacob Maris’s reputation will last. ¶ The representation at the Guildhall of Willem Maris is much less worthy, and a better series of his works could surely have been obtained; but in one small panel, Springtime (37), we have the best qualities of his art, and it may be doubted whether in the representation of the delicate and poetical charm of spring Willem Maris is surpassed even by Daubigny, except in a very few pictures. The trees awaken from their winter slumber and put forth in velvety green the leaves which hardly more than tinge the brownness of trunk and branch. The stream swollen with the recent rain affords refreshing drink to the cattle which have just emerged from the copse on the right. The meadow, with its carpet of tender green bordered by a row of pollard willows, recedes until it meets the sky line. Light clouds float over the blue sky and betoken weather fair but fickle. ¶ When one turns from these two kindred spirits to their brother Matthew Maris one is struck by the contrast. For Matthew lifts us at once from things earthly into a spiritual atmosphere; everything that he touches he envelops in mysticism and poetry. Yet perhaps his work is more difficult of appreciation; he appeals to a more exclusive circle. Yet what magic contour of line, what exquisite rhythm, what consummate balance of composition, we find in it. The Outskirts of a Town (39), for instance, enveloped in a bewitching gloom, commends itself to the artist and student, though not to the lover of pyrotechnics. That fine canvas entitled Montmartre (40) is another example of the same idealistic treatment. Among examples of his work which particularly puzzle the public are such efforts as A Study (58) and A Lady and Goats (59), the latter an idyl inadequately described by its prosy title. But perhaps the essence of his art is to be found in The Butterflies (62) and L’Enfant Couchée (70), which for typical presentment and delicacy of colour are among his finest achievements.

[Pg 178]

[Pg 179]

We are back once more upon the earth when we come to Anton Mauve, of whose works there are no less than twenty-one examples in the Guildhall exhibition. With the exception of Joseph Israels, he is the most unequal painter of modern Holland; there are occasions when he comes near to equalling Jacob Maris at least in atmospherical effect, and yet at other times he sinks into a mere technical repetition of his better self. Of his best phase we could not have better illustrations than The Hay Cart (2) and Driving in the Dunes (4). In both there is the same feeling for truth, the same adaptation of technique to the necessities of the occasion. Watering Horses (97) is another fine work, resplendent with harmonies of green and grey, and showing the same feeling for natural phenomena. ¶ After such work as that of the brothers Maris, and Mauve, and occasionally Israels, one is inevitably disappointed with Mesdag. Mesdag misses the mark not because of any deficiencies in technique, but because his works lack that essential quality of landscape painting—atmosphere. The consequence is that we never lose sight of the paint; it is paint everywhere. This is all the more to be regretted since he is a good draughtsman, and his scheme of colour is often satisfactory and truthful; moreover he has a profound knowledge of composition. Yet with all these qualities he generally fails. We do not want a sunset sky full of prismatic glow, nor a sea shimmering with opalescent tints, if we cannot feel that it is a real sky and a real sea, and that something other than paint fills up the intervening space. Mesdag’s deficiency is emphasized in the two pictures shown in the present exhibition, A Stormy Sunset (28) and A Threatening Sky (54), which give us nothing but the mere physical features of the scene, and leave us with an undefinable yearning for something for which we look in vain. ¶ The other men whose work is represented for the most part owe what is best in their art to the greater lights of their school. Of such is the work of Théophile de Bock, of which Evening (17) is an example of a plagiarism on the school of 1830, intermingled with a Dutch sentiment which renders it difficult to say with certainty whether it should be classified as French or Dutch in sentiment. That Bock has originality when it is brought into play is amply demonstrated in An Avenue in Holland (94). The sunlit road with its strongly painted trees conveys an admirable idea of summer heat and foliage, in which the artist boldly achieves his aim without any aid but his own sheer force. Such a work shows powers which are never brought into full play when he attempts to see with other eyes. Apart from landscape there is but little of interest in the exhibition. An exception, however, must be made in favour of the fine canvas by Christopher Bisschop, Prayer Disturbed (29), which is a strong and powerful piece of painting, and also intensely sympathetic in realization. Two other canvases are worthy of mention, that by Albert Neuhuys, Near the Cradle (96), a fine representation of a cottage interior painted with incisive truth and directness, and Bosboom’s Archives at Veere (128), an excellent example of the interiors to which he devoted himself; it has the spaciousness and grace characteristic of the work of a painter than whom no modern artist has shown a keener appreciation of the artistic possibilities of ancient buildings.

❧ WRITTEN BY R. PETRUCCI ❧

MONSIEUR G. DES MAREZ, professor at the university and keeper of the records of the city of Brussels, has drawn attention lately to three seals which appeared to him to be worthy of special study. These consist, first, of the matrix of the seal of the Gild of Barbers in the fifteenth century, which forms part of the sigillographical collection of the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire; secondly, of the silver matrix of the seal of the Gild of Butchers in the sixteenth century, preserved in the archives of the city of Brussels; thirdly and lastly, of the matrix of the seal of the Gild of Bakers, in the private collection of M. Charles Lefébure: this last belongs, like the first, to the fifteenth century. Now the Brussels gilds were never called upon to seal deeds, a fact of which M. Des Marez was the better aware as he had just obtained a gold medal from the Royal Academy of Belgium for an important study, which is at this moment in the press, on the organization of labour in Brussels during the fifteenth century. Were the three existing matrices therefore false? And, if they did in reality date from the period to which everything contributed to ascribe them, how was their presence to be explained? Those were the questions which M. Des Marez set himself to adjudge and upon which he has succeeded in throwing a brilliant light. ¶ Thanks to M. Des Marez’ kindness, I have been able to take cognizance of his work and of the seals upon which it bears. M. Des Marez’ study will not be published until the end of August or September next, when it will appear in the annals of the Archaeological Society. My readers will therefore be the first to find here set forth the solution of an important historical and archaeological question. ¶ The juridical incompetence of the Brussels trading corporations is indisputable. In the second half of the thirteenth century, the artisans began to lay down the outlines of a corporate movement. This led to a privilege obtained from Duke John by the patricians invested with power, by which the craftsmen were subjected to their authority. The gilds were dependent upon the town council for all that concerned the making of their rules and regulations; at most, they enjoyed the right of presenting drafts for the approval and sanction of the aldermen; they were not able to sell, pledge or mortgage; and, although their wardens were invested with certain police functions, their jurisdiction was nevertheless extremely limited. Difficult cases were submitted to the judgement of the aldermen, and in no case could the wardens of their own initiative proceed to a forced execution upon the persons or goods of delinquents. ¶ The gild was unable to issue any act directly, and therefore the use of a seal, the attributive mark of jurisdiction, is inexplicable. Even the Drapers’ Gild was without it, although this gild constituted a powerful administrative and jurisdictive machinery by the side of the aldermen, of whom, at the time of its splendour, it was even independent. It issued acts, which the trading corporations were not able to do, and made regulations, far and near, for all those having to do with the woollen manufactures or cloth-making. The absence of a collective seal is to be explained, in this case, by the use made by the deacons of their personal seals, a use proved by documents in which it is explicitly mentioned. It was not until 1698 that the Drapers’ Gild ordered a collective seal to be made. The matrix of this seal is lost, but there remains an impression of it affixed to one side of the very sheet containing the text of the resolution relating to it, which document is preserved in the archives of the kingdom,[Pg 190] where I have been able to consult it. ¶ The engraving of this seal is very poor. In a circular field is St. Michael, clad in a Roman breast-plate, his legs cased in buskins. His forehead is surmounted by a cross, and his wings are unfolded. He brandishes a sword in his right hand. Lucifer lies felled at his feet. St. Michael is seizing one of the demon’s horns with his hand. Lucifer raises his right hand with a defending gesture; his left arm is brought back against his body. He wears short wings, one of which covers a part of the saint’s arm. His lower limbs end in claws; a long tail is twined between his legs. The impression is made on a paper pulp which was previously moistened. Above this was laid a cut-out leaf of thin paper, on which the matrix of the seal was pressed with force. The paper shows stains of mould; the reliefs are weak and difficult to distinguish; to reproduce them by photography is almost impossible. These circumstances, added to the fact that this piece has absolutely no artistic value, account for the absence of a reproduction in these pages. Between the two circular fillets that run around the above figures is this inscription: SIGIL · DECANOR · ET OCTOJUDICUM · GILDÆ · BRUXELLENSIS. (Sigillum decanorum et octojudicium gildæ bruxellensis.) The text of the resolution says that the seal shall be inscribed with the words: Sigillum collegii decanorum, etc. The engraver could not find room for the word collegii, and was obliged to omit it. This is why a note added to the text of the resolution of December 4, ordering the execution of the seal, declares that a true impression of the seal is affixed on the other side and corrects the text by suppressing the word collegii. I may also mention that, whereas the seal shows the spelling GILDÆ, the text preserves the old mediaeval spelling GILDE. ¶ We find, therefore, that one alone of the corporations, the Drapers’ Gild, which was the most powerful, did unquestionably possess a seal, but at a late date, at the end of the seventeenth century. This innovation is due, on the one hand, to modifications introduced into the expedition of the acts, involving the abolition of the single or double parchment label separate from the sheet itself and bearing the seal; on the other, to the fact that the deacons abandoned the use of their personal seals, which served as a signature in the middle ages, for the customary employment of a manuscript signature. The personal seals of the deacons having been abandoned, it became necessary to have recourse to a collective seal. ¶ It is certain, therefore, that the juridical conditions under which the trading corporations were constituted give rise to very grave doubts as to the authenticity of the seals of the gilds. If we add the fact that the records contain no sealed document proceeding from any of the Brussels gilds, we shall feel greatly tempted to lend to these doubts the force of certainty. However, an examination of the three matrices of seals which are here for the first time reproduced scarcely permits us to believe in their falseness. Let me briefly analyse each of these three pieces.

The matrix of the seal of the Barbers’ Gild is in the sigillographical collection of the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire. Two figures are standing on a circular ground; they represent St. Cosmas and St. Damian, the patrons of barber-surgeons. They are dressed in the costume of the fifteenth century. The right figure, clad in a tunic that comes down to mid-leg, carries in its left hand a mortar exactly similar to the mortars that were still in use in Flanders in the last century. In its right hand, it holds an instrument that might be either a pestle or a lancet; it is a long, thin instrument, spreading slightly at one end. Its right arm is bent, and from the wrist hangs a sort of case shaped like a purse,[Pg 191] with an open clasp. This figure symbolizes the barber. By its side is a shield bearing a pair of open scissors, with an instrument in pale that appears identical with that which the figure holds in its right hand. The figure on the left is clad in a long robe adorned with a wide collar, which seems to point to a profession superior to that of the mere barber: this is a surgeon. In his right hand, he holds a round phial with a long, bell-mouthed neck. His left hand is folded over his breast; the extended fore-finger points to the phial. From his wrist hangs a bag or purse-shaped case, with open clasp. By his side is the escutcheon of the city of Brussels, which, in the fifteenth century, was a plain red shield. The two figures are standing on a grassy mound. In the upper half of the circumference of the seal we see a device that reads: S. barbitonsorū in brūx. This seal is the only one of the three that bears a Latin device, a fact quite in keeping with the learned profession of the surgeons and barbers.

The matrix of the seal of the Bakers’ Gild is now in the private collection of M. Charles Lefébure. On the ground of the seal we see St. Aubert, Bishop of Cambrai, the patron of the Brussels bakers, clad in his pontifical vestments, with the mitre on his head. With his right hand he is giving the benediction; in his left he holds a peel, the shovel used for thrusting bread into the oven. The figure rises at half-length from behind a wide shield on which are represented, saltierwise, a peel, with two round loaves laid upon the blade, and a bar for raking the cinders. The circular inscription is in Flemish, it reads: S. d’s ambachts · der · beckers · in brussel · (‘Seal of the Gild of the Bakers in Brussels’). The seal displays all the characteristics of the fifteenth century.

The matrix of the seal of the Butchers’ Gild is in silver. It is kept in the archives of the city of Brussels. Its date must be carried back to the early sixteenth century; it is very beautifully engraved. St. Michael fells the dragon, represented as a shaggy monster with a bull’s head, which seizes the saint’s left leg in one of its claws; in the other, it clutches the escutcheon, which it bites in the lower corner. The saint is clad in armour. In his right hand, he brandishes his sword; with his left, he holds the escutcheon, which he uses as a buckler. On the shield figure the heads of three animals: an ox, a calf and a sheep. The exergue bears the device in Flemish: S. TSVLEESHOUWERS · A͡BACHT · IN BRUESSEL · (‘Seal of the Butchers’ Gild in Brussels’). ¶ M. Des Marez connects the making of these seals with the great impulse towards emancipation that stirred the trading corporations in the fifteenth century. In the second half of that century, the protests of the magistrates are constantly multiplying, and the trades seem to be progressing towards complete independence. On the accession of Mary of Burgundy, a violent popular agitation wrested from the young princess the privilege of June 4, 1477, which hallowed the triumph of democracy. But this victory lasted only a little while; and, in 1480, Maximilian of Austria restored the old constitution of 1421. The execution of the seals must, therefore, be ascribed to this emancipatory movement and, doubtless, to that short period of three years during which the gilds, as sovereign masters, were called upon to seal their acts. It is to be presumed that, if any acts were sealed, these were very[Pg 192] rare and were probably destroyed; and it is also very possible that, after the matrices had been engraved, the reaction set in almost immediately and that they were never used. ¶ This concerns the seals of the Barbers’ and Bakers’ Gilds. That of the butchers must be attributed to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The gild had, since 1450, claimed a privileged situation consecrating the hereditary principle: none could be a butcher who was not sprung from butchers. This privilege, granted by Philip the Good, kindled a quarrel between the butchers and the town which sometimes led to bloodshed and which lasted for seventy years. In or about 1516, Charles V put an end to this state of things by perpetuating the privilege. The date of the execution of the seal corresponds with this victory for the gild. But the butchers were stopped in their too independent courses and were made to continue to recognize the authority of the town council in all that concerned the making of their rules and regulations and the management of their interests. ¶ I have shown how constitutional history and sigillography have together enabled M. Des Marez to solve a question debated to this day by proving the genuineness of the seals of the Brussels gilds. The question involved a two-fold problem, historical and archaeological. The interest attaching to it will be understood when I add that seals of gilds are exceedingly rare in Belgium. Hardly any are known to exist except for Bruges, Saint-Trond, Hasselt, Maastricht, Liége and Ardenbourg. Almost all the tradesmen were subject to the authority of the town magistrates. The seals of the Brussels gilds survive as eloquent witnesses of a temporary triumph in their struggle for independence.

THE Exhibition of British engraving which has been arranged at the Victoria and Albert Museum is of considerable interest and importance. Moreover, it is timely; for the trend of fashion in engravings has of late been in a direction so limited, that the need was very apparent of a corrective to a popular point of view by no means entirely warranted by the facts. The cult of the colour-print and mezzotint has been pursued beyond all reasonable bounds. In the hands of able merchants and indiscriminating patrons it has reached a mere absurdity—expressed in market values. The whole matter has got out of scale; and the most serious criticism that could be launched against the present exhibition—that it tried to cover a field too wide—is fully met by the absolute desirability of reminding the British public that there were line engravings of some importance; that aquatint had been used with results of no little value; that etching was not a lost art, and that mezzotints of subjects other than those devoted to portraits of pretty women were by no means ignoble. ¶ The art of line engraving was but tardily settled in this country, for some doubtful reason, not until well-nigh a century after it had reached a pitch of high perfection on the continent. Its tangible beginnings are represented at South Kensington by the superb title-page of the ‘Anatomy’ of Thomas Gemini (1545). But the work of William Rogers is the first of importance by a native-born artist. By him, we have the superb portrait of Queen Elizabeth, lent by his Majesty the King from the collection at Windsor; and three plates from Segar’s ‘Honor Military and Ciuill,’ Sir Thomas Docwra, Godfreydus Adelmar, and Alphonsus Rex Castiliensis. These very fairly represent the strongly individual talent of Rogers, who used a most expressive line with care and economy; and in his employment of the dot for the modelling of faces, foreshadowed the invention of stipple by more than a hundred years. ¶ The method of Thomas Coxon is not represented in the exhibition; but that of Elstracke, a Flemish contemporary has full justice done to it by the fine Prince Charles, as well as other prints from the King’s collection. His Majesty has also contributed most of the best examples of the severe and dry manner of the De Passe family, who had an influence so great on British line engraving; but whose technique, however able, seems to lack something, and to have destroyed the decorative qualities which were already apparent in the earlier group. An interesting comparison may be made between the Queen Elizabeth of Crispin de Passe and that of Rogers mentioned before. Of the engravers of the later part of the seventeenth century, mention need only be made of the fact that Faithorne the elder, David Loggan, Sherwin, and White, all receive ample justice in the exhibition; and this means that under their names will be found some of the finest prints exhibited in any branch of engraving. The line engraving of the eighteenth century developed for the best in subjects other than portraiture. Thus we have the strong work of that turbulent spirit, Sir Robert Strange, devoted mainly to the translation of paintings by the great masters; and that of William Woollett and his school to landscape, especially after Claude. Woollett is well represented by four plates attributed entirely to him, and by two in which Ellis and Vivares avowedly collaborated. But of the first it must be said that a note in Dance’s ‘Portraits’ expressly states that Thomas Hearne, the water-colour artist, who was apprenticed to Woollett, ‘etched’[Pg 194] the Roman Edifices in Ruins. The working proof exhibited at Kensington (No. 146) is, if this is true, in great part the work of Hearne. We have little space on this occasion for more than the merest summary of the contents of the gallery; an adequate notice of which would indeed require at least a whole number of this magazine. It is only possible therefore, in passing from the subject of line engraving, to draw special attention to Mr. Rawlinson’s splendid loan of specimens of the fine school fostered especially by J. M. W. Turner; to the numerous proofs of the delicate work produced by the book illustrators of about the same period; and to the interesting and unique examples of working and finished proofs of the Landseer school—portions of a collection which came to the National Art Library by the generosity of Mr. Sheepshanks—in its way, probably unrivalled.

There is little to say, in this place, on the subject of the mezzotints. His Majesty has lent a magnificent impression of The Great Executioner, by Prince Rupert, after Spagnoletto; a print which strikes one as perhaps in its vigour and splendid painter-like qualities the finest in the gallery. The rest of the mezzotints are generally well known, though to the credit of the exhibition it must be said that the preponderance of the fashionable, if insipid class, is not overwhelming. The Wards are hardly as good as they might be; especially in view of the large amount of space given to Charles Turner. But The Water Mill by the latter, after Sir A. W. Callcott, makes one very charitable towards him. It is certainly one of the finest examples of the value of mezzotint as a method of rendering landscape. Mr. Rawlinson, again, lends some valuable examples of the ‘Liber Studiorum’ which are carefully and instructively catalogued. Among the modern work, that of Mr. Frank Short holds, of course, the first place, for he is one of the very few living mezzotinters who can be said to take rank with the best of the old men in technique. The pretty art of stipple receives due attention; and so do the colour-prints, of which the best are, it is good to find, the property of the museum. The art of etching is well shown from Hollar, the group of imitators of Rembrandt in the eighteenth century, the Norwich school, and Wilkie and Geddes in the nineteenth, down to the etching clubs and our own times. Most of this work is well known, for etching has been better served in the matter of literature than any of its sister arts: and it is the only one which has real life at the present day. A most important complement to the exhibited prints is furnished by a series of technical cases, containing complete sets of all tools and materials used in each of the various methods of engraving and etching; as well as examples of all the intermediate stages of working them. These were arranged by Mr. Frank Short and Miss C. M. Pott, and their descriptive notes in the catalogue make it a really useful little manual of technique for the amateur. It only remains to add that the illustration of Rogers’s Queen Elizabeth is reproduced by the gracious permission of his Majesty the King, who has also allowed a photogravure to be made of The Great Executioner, by Prince Rupert, which will appear as a supplement to the next number of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE. The other illustrations are from the collection of prints in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

EDWARD F. STRANGE.

Among the additions to the department of British and mediaeval antiquities during the past half year are several objects of exceptional interest. In the ceramic section, a large two-handled vase of Florentine maiolica of the fifteenth century, with heraldic lions upon the sides, forms a worthy[Pg 199] pendant to the magnificent vase of the same fabric acquired last year; while the series of oriental wares has been enriched by a writing-stand, or stand for flowers, of the twelfth or thirteenth century, ornamented with animals of archaic style in relief, and attributed to a factory in the neighbourhood of Aleppo. The acquisitions to the collection of glass exhibited in the same room include an enamelled German drinking-glass of the late sixteenth century, a very good example of its kind. ¶ In the mediaeval room the most notable additions will be found in the series of ivory carvings. Here the place of honour belongs to the beautiful head of a tau cross in morse ivory, dating from the eleventh century, recently discovered in the vicarage garden of Alcester, Warwickshire, which will be fully described next month in these pages. Secondly, there is a small but important group of ivories formerly in the possession of the Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Keele Hall, and exhibited in the art treasures exhibition at Manchester in 1857, and at South Kensington in 1862. Although few of the pieces composing this group are of high artistic merit, they are valuable as illustrations of the development of ivory carving during the early middle ages, a period which needed fuller representation in the museum collections. The most remarkable is an oval pyx of the form favoured between the fourth and seventh centuries, especially in Egypt and Syria. Its interest lies in the fact that it appears to be a Carlovingian imitation of a Syrian original dating from perhaps two centuries earlier. It differs essentially in style from the other examples which have been preserved, and the heavy, large-headed figures, with their long, retorted fingers, find their nearest parallels in the miniatures of Carlovingian MSS. Then there is a Byzantine panel, apparently by the same hand as a plaque acquired by the museum at the Ashburnham sale in 1901. This plaque was let into the cover of a thirteenth-century MS. of the romance of ‘Parceval le Galois,’ but originally belonged to a casket ornamented with scenes from the history of Joseph, two large panels from which have been for many years in the Berlin museum. It is satisfactory now to record the acquisition from the Sneyd collection of yet another example marked by the same individuality of style, and perhaps once forming a part of the same composition. Another small piece of Byzantine work not without charm is a panel from the lid of a casket of the ninth century, with figures probably from one of the classical scenes so popular during the iconoclastic period. Finally there are two long panels with seated apostles, Rhenish work of the twelfth century, and a smaller panel with the Flagellation, of similar attribution and date. An interesting accession in the sphere of prehistoric industrial art is a remarkably large bronze spear-head, inlaid at the base of the blade with gold studs, a fine example of the skill and taste of the metal-workers of Britain towards the close of the bronze age.

O. M. D.

The Department has acquired by purchase an extremely interesting and important addition to the collection of Chinese paintings. This is a long roll, containing scenes of court life and amusements in the first century A.D. Pan Chao, a female historian of that era, is among the figures represented. It is painted in colours on brown silk; green, purple, and a tawny yellow have been used, but have more or less sunk, so that the general impression is that of a painting in vermilion and black, the two pigments which have stood best. The actual workmanship, especially the modulation of the brush-line, is of extraordinary beauty and power, and can only be that of a great master. There seems no reason to doubt that we have in this roll an authentic work by Ku K‘ai-chih (‘Ko-gai-shi’ in Japanese[Pg 200] pronunciation), a very famous artist of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., to whom it has always been attributed, though the signature and inscriptions are probably of later date. Annexed to the roll is a eulogy of the painter in the handwriting of Ch‘ien Lung, the emperor who received Lord Macartney’s embassy in 1793; and following this is an admirable and delicate ink-landscape by an eighteenth-century painter. The importance of a picture by Ku K‘ai-chih will be realized when we consider that of the art of the T‘ang dynasty (600 to 900 A.D.) hardly a vestige remains, while relics of the later Sung period are extremely rare. Nothing so ancient exists in Japan, the country where for a thousand years the early paintings of China have been collected with ardour and preserved with veneration. ¶ A full account of this and some other important examples of Chinese painting will shortly be given in this magazine.

L. B.

Bernard van Orley is generally said to have been the second son—third child—of Valentine van Orley by his first wife, Margaret van Pynbroeck, whom he married May 13, 1490. He is further stated to have left Brussels in 1509 for Rome, and to have studied in the school of Raphael, becoming a great favourite with his master. ¶ It seems impossible to reconcile these statements with certain facts which are established beyond doubt by authentic documents. In 1514 Bernard was settled as a master-painter at Brussels, and had already gained a certain reputation, for the confraternity of the Holy Cross at Furnes in 1515 sent a delegate to Brussels to ask him to furnish a design for the altar-piece of their chapel. Bernard must therefore have at that time attained the age of 30,[82] which would put back the date of his birth to 1484–5. And unless there is some error in the date—May 4, 1504—of the procuration published by A. Wauters (‘Bernard van Orley,’ Bruxelles, 1881, p. 70), his birth must have taken place before May 1479, as no minor could give a procuration or power of attorney to another to dispose of property. Children at that time only attained their majority at the age of 25. ¶ If born in 1479 Bernard may well have become a free master or gone to Rome in 1509. I suspect that he was not the son of Valentine and Margaret van Pynbroeck, but of some other Valentine, perhaps the uncle. I know of no document giving the name of his mother.

W. H. JAMES WEALE.

❧ WRITTEN BY MAX ROLDIT ❧

IN almost every corner of these islands there is to be found hidden away amongst the trees or proudly standing on the summit of a hill one of those imposing ancestral homesteads which the British aristocracy have erected at various times ever since the Norman conquest. From the feudal castle of gothic architecture to the modern mansion replete with every comfort and household invention of the nineteenth century every style is represented. These buildings are geographical landmarks in the country, and nearly all are also landmarks in the artistic topography of Great Britain. Succeeding generations of owners have accumulated treasures which, severely guarded by family settlements, can only be dislodged under special conditions. In not a few instances the ancient furniture thus preserved, the objects of art and especially the pictures, the latter usually grouped round a nucleus of family portraits of successive periods, would rival many a public collection for the perfection of the examples, their artistic and monetary worth, and even their actual number. The more therefore is it to be regretted that they are so rarely accessible to the artist, the student, the public at large. A small percentage is, it is true, to be seen at the admirable loan exhibitions organized yearly at Burlington House and the Guildhall, and also from time to time in galleries governed by private enterprise; but these artistic feasts are all too rare, and even were the owners of fine works of art always willing to lend their property, which is not invariably the case, it would be impossible for all the objects worthy of being shown to pass in this way before the gaze of a single generation. Many are the masterpieces in this country which have not moved from their resting place for scores of years and which are, except to a privileged few, as completely unknown and invisible as the immensely distant stars which astronomers contemplate through their most powerful lens. ¶ The collection of pictures at Somerley, the Earl of Normanton’s beautiful seat near Ringwood in Hampshire, is one of those of whose very existence only a small minority is aware. The mansion, of late Georgian style, stands on the banks of the Avon in the midst of a park and estate extending over 9,000 acres, and is visited by only a small number of persons annually besides Lord Normanton’s immediate entourage. ¶ With a very few exceptions, the entire collection was formed between the years 1820 and 1868 by Welbore Ellis, second Earl of Normanton, and grandfather of the present peer. Born in 1778, he succeeded to the title in 1809, married Diana, eldest daughter of the eleventh Earl of Pembroke, in 1816, and died in his ninetieth year in 1868, leaving as a record of his taste and artistic knowledge the wonderful gallery of paintings which is the subject of this study. ¶ The collection is composed chiefly of pictures of the eighteenth-century English school, including works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Hoppner, Romney, Lawrence, Morland, Bonington, Nasmyth and Crome; it contains also pictures by some Flemish and Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, Rubens, Van Dyck and Teniers, Paul Potter, Van de Capelle, Aart van der Neer, Wouwerman and Willem van de Velde; Guardi and Canaletto represent the Italian; Murillo represents the Spanish school; whilst Greuze is the only French artist who has found a place at Somerley. The most striking feature of the collection[Pg 206] is to be found in the predominance of works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, evidently the favourite painter of the second Lord Normanton, who acquired no fewer than twenty-six examples from his brush. ¶ For the sake of clearness and convenience, a description of the Normanton collection may be divided into three sections, namely:—

¶ The group of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds is unparalleled in any other collection public or private all the world over; both by the number and the excellence of the examples, it is absolutely unique, and it would be well-nigh impossible at the present day for even a multi-millionaire to bring together a rival gathering of this one painter’s productions. ¶ All through his career as a collector, Lord Normanton continued to acquire examples of Sir Joshua’s work, but his most important single purchase was made as early as 1821 at the sale of the pictures of the Marchioness of Thomond, held at Christie’s on May 18 and 19 of that year. The Marchioness of Thomond was no other than Mary Palmer, daughter of Sir Joshua’s elder sister, and sister to pretty ‘Offy’ Palmer, afterwards Mrs. Gwatkin, whom her uncle so often used as a model for his fancy pictures, notably for the Strawberry Girl. When Sir Joshua died in 1792, he left the bulk of his property to his niece, Mary Palmer; she inherited nearly £100,000 besides a number of pictures and other works of art; the same year she married the fifth Earl of Inchiquin, subsequently created Marquess of Thomond. After her death in 1821, her pictures were sold at Christie’s, and that occasion may be said to mark the foundation of the Normanton collection. Lady Thomond’s sale included, besides many works by old masters, a large number of pictures and sketches by her illustrious uncle; and here Lord Normanton secured for less than £3,000 the wonderful series of seven decorative panels which have ever remained the chief ornament of his collection, and for which in recent years fabulous sums have been offered and refused. They represent the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the four cardinal virtues, Temperance, Prudence, Justice, and Fortitude. They are the original designs executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the window at New College, Oxford, and afterwards copied on glass by Jarvis. Ever since his school days at Westminster, Lord Normanton had known and admired these pictures at Lady Thomond’s. On the day of the sale, in answer to a suggestion of the auctioneer that the entire set should be sold together, the company present, which included the Dukes of Devonshire and Northumberland, Lords Egremont, Grosvenor, Bridgewater, Fitzwilliam, Dudley and Ward, and Harewood, Sir Charles Long on behalf of the king, and many other well-known picture buyers, decided that the Virtues should be offered separately. The Charity was put up first, and its purchase at 1,100 guineas by Lord Normanton, then a young man, created no small sensation. Lord Dudley and Ward eagerly competed for the Fortitude, for which his mother had sat to Sir Joshua, but that as well as the other six succumbed to Lord Normanton’s bidding. Seven years later an offer of twice the purchase price was made for them on behalf of the king, and again some few years afterwards the National Gallery tried in vain to tempt Lord Normanton with three times the original sum. ¶ As to the designs themselves, it had been the painter’s original intention to make them drawings or cartoons; but he soon found it would be easier for him to paint them in oils, so long had he been used to the brush and the palette. ‘Jarvis, the painter on glass,’ he said, ‘will have a better original to copy, and I suppose persons hereafter may be found to purchase my paintings.’ In this he was, however, disappointed, since the Virtues were still in[Pg 211] his possession at his death. ¶In a letter written about 1778, Sir Joshua details the general plan for the Oxford window. ‘Supposing this scheme to take place, my idea is to paint, in the great space in the centre, Christ in the Manger, on the principle that Correggio has done it, in the famous picture called the Notte; making all the light proceed from Christ. These tricks of the art, as they may be called, seem to be more properly adapted to glass-painting than any other kind. This middle space will be filled with the Virgin, Christ, Joseph and angels; the two smaller spaces on each side I shall fill with the shepherds coming to worship; and the seven divisions below with the figures of Faith, Hope, Charity and the four cardinal virtues; which will make a proper rustic base or foundation for the support of the Christian Religion....’ ¶ The large central picture of the Nativity, measuring ten feet by eighteen, was sold by the artist to the Duke of Rutland for the then unprecedented price of 1,200 guineas. It was unfortunately destroyed in the fire at Belvoir in 1816. A powerful sketch of this subject on a small scale is, however, to be found at Somerley. ¶ The seven Virtues, which now hang side by side in the magnificent gallery built by the second Earl of Normanton, each measure 6 ft. 11 in. in height by 2 ft. 9 in. in width, except the central panel, Faith, which is taller and narrower than the others, namely, 8 ft. by 2 ft. 5 in. Charity is represented by a group of a woman clasping three children in her protecting arms, whilst all the rest contain but a single allegorical figure, with the special attributes consecrated by tradition. The most noteworthy feature of the entire series, and that which first strikes the onlooker, is its thoroughly and unmistakably English character. No straining after classicism, no copying or imitation of the Italians are to be found in this the most successful work of decoration ever painted by a British artist. In the Nativity, Reynolds was accused of a too servile imitation of Correggio, but certainly no such reproach can apply to the seven Virtues. In the conception or the execution, in the drawing or the colour, in the types of his models or the arrangement of the draperies, nowhere is a trace discernible of any foreign element. Reynolds represented the Virtues under the features of the lovely and refined English ladies whom he was accustomed to paint; the draperies in which they are clothed are dresses of the eighteenth century, simplified no doubt, and chastened, but sometimes scarcely altered, as in the case of Temperance and Prudence. He thus avoided the cold conventionality usually so apparent in allegorical paintings, whilst losing nothing in dignity or impressiveness; if one misses the spiritual elevation of the Italians, there is a corresponding gain in humanity, and that indefinable quality, charm.

[Pg 212]

Faith is represented by the figure of a girl with a face of exquisite innocence and sweetness, expressive also of deep suffering and infinite resignation. Her plain white pilgrim’s robe is partly covered by a loose brown drapery falling around her in simple heavy folds; with her left hand she holds a tall wooden cross, the upper part of which is strongly outlined against the divine illumination which brightens the clouds above her; her right hand is uplifted towards heaven in an attitude of invocation. Hope is the least successful panel of the series. Clad in dull green draperies with a brown scarf flowing from her shoulders, she stands in a somewhat awkward position, her hands uplifted and her face averted towards the light which pours upon her through the clouds. Charity can, on the contrary, rank with the finest of Sir Joshua’s pictures; his model in this instance was Mrs. Sheridan, the lovely wife of the author of ‘School for Scandal,’ who had also sat to him for the figure of the Virgin in the Nativity. On her breast nestles a half-naked infant whom she lovingly supports with her left hand, whilst with the other she clasps in a close embrace two more children, a young girl and a curly-headed boy, who have run to her for protection; with an expression of rare tenderness and pity she gazes down upon her little charges. This picture is painted with exceptional power; the contrasts of light and shade are rendered with a perfection almost reminiscent of Rembrandt, whilst the composition is both strong and graceful. The two beautiful young women in whom Reynolds has impersonated Temperance and Prudence are clothed in white dresses of eighteenth-century design, bordered in the case of the second with a narrow gold braid. Mrs. Elizabeth Palmer, wife of the artist’s nephew, the Dean of Cashel, was the model for Prudence; she gazes thoughtfully into a mirror which she holds in her right hand; in the left she has an arrow round which an adder is entwined. Temperance is pouring water from a golden jug into a golden cup. In the two last panels, the figures stand full face to the spectator; the features of Justice are shaded by the balance which she raises to the level of her head; her loose robe, held by a girdle at the waist, is rose-coloured, and her right hand rests on the hilt of a naked sword. Fortitude (Lady Dudley and Ward) is the traditional figure of Britannia, a plumed helmet upon her noble head, a small golden breast-plate decorating her white robe, around which a dark red mantle is draped; the head of the watchful lion crouching at her feet is shown in the right-hand corner. ¶ Several other works by Sir Joshua were acquired by Lord Normanton besides the seven Virtues at Lady Thomond’s sale, including the expressive half-length portrait of himself, painted in 1769, in his robes of president of the Royal Academy, his right hand resting on a book. The delightful portrait of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Joshua’s friend Topham Beauclerk and his beautiful wife Lady Diana, represented as Spenser’s Una with the lion crouching at her side, came from the same source and cost only thirty-seven guineas. Elizabeth Beauclerk married in 1787 the Earl of Pembroke and was the mother of Diana, Lady Normanton, wife of the collector. Sir Joshua painted her about the year 1778 and showed her in a perfectly simple white frock, childishly sitting on her heels upon the ground. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders and her expression is one of thoughtful innocence. The foliage and landscape behind her are treated with great breadth and power; the more delicate parts of the picture, such as the face and hands, are on the contrary very smoothly painted; the marked difference in texture is explained by the fact that at this period Sir Joshua used a mixture of wax and Venice turpentine as a vehicle for the heads, and wax alone for other portions of his pictures where he wished to produce thicker impastos. The picture described in Lady Thomond’s catalogue as A Girl seated on her heels embracing a favourite Kitten, for which Lord Normanton gave 295 guineas, is one of several of the same delightful subject done by Sir Joshua and usually known as Felina. It was painted in 1787, and although Offy Palmer was by that time a grown-up young woman, it is her features when a child which her uncle has once more used. Witty and graceful, this picture bears witness to Sir Joshua’s supremacy as a limner of children. No one more than he succeeded in reproducing their quaint and charmingly awkward attitudes, and it would be difficult to find even in his works anything more delicious than this little dark-eyed damsel fondling her unhappy pet almost to the point of suffocation. The face is painted with great delicacy and a clearness of complexion unusual in Sir Joshua’s pictures; the background of foliage is unfortunately severely cracked, owing to an excessive use of treacherous bitumen. Miss Falconer (afterwards the Hon. Mrs. Stanhope) as Contemplation was also included in the Marchioness of Thomond’s collection, but was not bought at her sale by Lord Normanton. It was knocked down on that occasion for 100 guineas to a dealer, from whom it passed into the possession of Mr. John Allnutt, of Clapham Common, and it was only many years later that it was transferred[Pg 217] into the Somerley collection of which it now forms part. The beautiful lady whom the painter has here represented, in a moonlit landscape, seated on a bank in a pensive attitude, was a well-known figure in the society of her day, where her high spirits and light-hearted gaiety made her a general favourite; the appearance of this portrait, so contrary to her character, excited no little comment at the time. In charm of expression and unaffected grace of pose this portrait is a truly delightful production. An interesting fact concerning it is that it is one of the few portraits by Reynolds painted on a panel; the artist, who, as is well known, was for ever making new experiments in the mediums he employed, selected on this occasion an old Japanese panel, and the reverse of the picture is to this day decorated with a still-life in bold relief, brilliant in colouring and of no mean artistic merit. ¶ In three life-size full-length portraits of young girls which hang in Lord Normanton’s gallery, it is instructive to compare the artist’s method of treatment of a similar subject at different periods of his career. These pictures are those of Lady Betty Hamilton, painted in 1758, of Miss Murray of Kirkcudbright, 1765, and that, some twenty years later in date, known for lack of a better title as The Little Gardener. In the first there is a richness of colour and a wealth of detail not to be found in either of the two others; the influence of Reynolds’s master, Hudson, is still clearly discernible, and the warmth and brilliance of the colouring must be traced to the immediate effects of the artist’s recent travels in Italy, where the gorgeous tones of the Venetians had filled him with a boundless admiration. In the two earlier portraits there is a simple artlessness of pose in striking contrast with the affected and self-conscious attitude of The Little Gardener, whilst the latter is far broader and more spontaneous in technique. ¶ The portrait of Lady Betty Hamilton, afterwards Countess of Derby, is unsurpassed by any work of Sir Joshua at this early period, and it may also be counted among the best of his child portraits. In a low-cut dress of plum-coloured embroidered silk, her wide skirt reaching to the ground, she sits on a bank in a garden; she has a white muslin pinafore bordered with lace, and her hands rest on her lap holding a bunch of vari-coloured flowers. The flesh-tints are somewhat faded, but the dreamy blue eyes and rosebud mouth expressive of happy childhood’s ignorance of evil and suffering, are a delight to look upon. She was a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and became the first wife of the twelfth Earl of Derby, who, after divorcing her, married Miss Farren the celebrated actress. In 1777 Reynolds painted another portrait of her as Countess of Derby, a whole-length which was engraved by William Dickinson; this picture has, however, disappeared, probably destroyed by her husband after his divorce. ¶ Little Miss Murray of Kirkcudbright in a plain white dress with a black silk scarf thrown over her head and shoulders and funny blue shoes, stands in a landscape, her hands loosely crossed in front of her. By her side sits a curious woolly white dog with black spots on its face, which has no appearance of life, and shows how inferior in this respect Sir Joshua was to Gainsborough, who stands with Velasquez among the greatest dog painters of the world. The landscape in this picture is of quite unusual excellence, and with the fine breezy sky forms an effective and pleasing background to the figure of the blue-eyed little Scotch girl. ¶ Who was the sitter for the portrait called The Little Gardener, it seems at the present time impossible to discover; it shows a pretty young girl sitting dreamily on a bank at the edge of a wood; she wears a white dress with a crimson sash, and with her right hand she loosely holds a straw bonnet decorated with pink ribbons.

There is at Somerley only one male portrait of great importance by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This represents George, third Duke of Marlborough, and is a magnificent[Pg 218] three-quarter length portrait. The duke wears a rich coat of brown embroidered silk and a mantle of crimson velvet bordered with white fur thrown over his right shoulder; his left arm rests upon a column, and the upper portion of the body is outlined against a beautiful sky background. The pose is evidently inspired by Van Dyck, and the portrait lacks none of the dignity and elegance of the older master. An almost exactly similar painting is in the possession of the Earl of Pembroke, in which however the duke’s dark dress is replaced by one of white embroidered satin. ¶ Some dozen portraits of the usual half-length format (about 30 in. by 25 in.) are contained in the Normanton collection, and not a few of them are of superlative quality. Among the most pleasing is that of the Misses Horneck, as original as it is graceful in composition; many failures have resulted from the attempt thus to group two life-size heads in so small a space, but Sir Joshua has here admirably succeeded in avoiding stiffness and crowding while preserving perfect pictorial unity. Painted in a light key about the year 1775, this picture is in a wonderful state of preservation, having retained all its freshness of tone and delicacy of modelling. An unfinished sketch of the same subject, slightly larger in size, belongs to Sir Henry Bunbury, a descendant of the elder sister’s husband, the caricaturist, Henry William Bunbury. Mrs. Bunbury (Catharine Horneck), who is seen on the right of the group, was Goldsmith’s ‘Little Comedy,’ whilst her sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Gwyn, is celebrated by him as ‘The Jessamy Bride.’ The excellent though slightly faded portrait of Miss Anne Liddell was bought by the second Lord Normanton at Christie’s in May, 1867, at the sale of Mr. H. A. J. Munro, of Novar, for 225 guineas. Miss Liddell, who is represented in a black low-cut dress and black cloak trimmed with white fur, holding some flowers in her right hand, was a daughter of Lord Ravensworth; she became Duchess of Grafton, and after divorcing in 1769 married the Earl of Upper Ossory. The pair of heads of the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, painted within the last years of the artist’s life, cost Lord Normanton only 30 guineas in 1827. Lord and Lady Pembroke were the parents of Diana, Lady Normanton, and the countess is the same lady whom Sir Joshua represented some years previously as Una with the lion; she wears her peeress’s robes of crimson and ermine over a white low-necked dress, and the earl is in uniform of red and gold. It is interesting to find side by side with these examples of the end of the painter’s career the picture of A Boy Reading, which is inscribed ‘1747, J^a Reynolds pinxit Nov.’ and which is one of the earliest known works of the artist, when he was only twenty-three years of age. It is said to be a portrait of himself, but this is by no means certain, although the boy’s features bear a certain resemblance to those of Sir Joshua. With hair falling over his shoulders, and arms leaning on a table, he reads from a large book which he holds open with both hands; four more books lie on the table beside him. It is related that on seeing this picture after an interval of many years Sir Joshua remarked that he had made but little progress since he painted it. Although this observation must not be taken too literally, there is no doubt that even at this early period he exhibited uncommon mastery of his art. To an early period also, probably between 1755 and 1760, the portrait of Lady Charlotte Johnstone, daughter of the first Earl of Halifax, and that of Mrs. Russell, daughter of Mr. Flountia Vassall, are shown to belong by the marked attention paid to detail, by a certain tightness of drawing, and also by the faded flesh-tints due to Reynolds’s excessive use at this time of brilliant but unstable carmine. Both are painted in profile, wearing rich dresses of similar pattern, with pearls in their ears and round their throat. Probably a little later in date is the very decorative and somewhat French-looking portrait of Miss Meux[Pg 223] (engraved as Miss Muse); she wears a Louis XV costume, the bodice all tucks and frills, and a flat gipsy straw hat trimmed with pink ribbons; she has two rows of pearls round her throat, and the muslin gimp which covers her breast is spotted with little pink rosettes. This is no doubt the picture which Lord Normanton bought for 135 gns. at the Novar sale in 1867, and which was then said to be a portrait of Fanny Reynolds (Sir Joshua’s sister). Another beautiful half-length picture is that of the actress Mrs. Quarrington, as St. Agnes, in a brown dress over which hangs a dark green mantle. She holds a lamb in her arms and a palm branch in her left hand; the pathetic face, surrounded by her loose locks of hair, is upturned in an attitude of prayer. Nor must mention be omitted of a pretty and powerful octagonal study of a little girl’s head with pearls in her hair, the shoulders covered with a light white drapery. ¶ The oval portrait of Mrs. Inchbald is catalogued in more than one volume of recent date as a work by Sir Joshua; it is, however, hard and unconvincing, and the flesh and black dress are too weakly painted not to leave a doubt in one’s mind whether it is not rather the production of one of Reynolds’s pupils, most probably Northcote. It is difficult also to admit the portrait of Admiral Barrington to be entirely from the master’s hand; there is a similar portrait by him in Greenwich Hospital, and it is known that six replicas were made at the time in Sir Joshua’s studio; this is one of them, and, although painted under his supervision, it is probable that his own brush took but little part in the work. Possibly a replica of the famous picture in the Chamberlayne collection, but also more probably the work of a contemporary copyist, is the Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, a subject rendered familiar by numerous engravings, notably Bartolozzi’s beautiful colour-print. No doubt whatever is possible in the case of The Little Archer, the figure of a boy lying full length in a landscape; here the methods of Sir Joshua are palpably imitated, but the poor drawing and the ugly obtrusiveness of the boy’s white stockings preclude any possibility of the master having in any way contributed to its painting. ¶ A number of acknowledged copies of pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds are also to be found at Somerley, and some are not devoid of merit. Among the best may be mentioned Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, painted by the Duchess of Buckingham, from the original now at Grosvenor House, of which a genuine replica hangs at Dulwich; also Mrs. Gwyn in Persian costume, a good contemporary reproduction of the picture which belongs to Mr. W. W. Astor. ¶ It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this group of pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the genius of the Royal Academy’s first president is displayed at Somerley in its every phase, and each period of his career is represented by one or more works of the highest artistic value; there, he can be studied as it is impossible to study him elsewhere, at the same time that a comparison can be made with masterpieces of other great English painters which hang in Lord Normanton’s magnificent gallery.

[Pg 224]

❧ WRITTEN BY ÉMILE MOLINIER ❧

THE GOBELINS

IT would certainly be unfair to consider Louis XIV and espeacially Colbert, from the point of view of the part played of the royal manufactory of crown furniture at the Gobelins, as being merely unconscious instruments. There is no doubt that a formal act of will on their part entered into this creation. But, once having done this justice, especially to Colbert, we are bound to remark, if we would wish to take a sane view of events, that an institution of this kind was, at the moment when it was established in France, the result of a series of previous efforts, all turned in the same direction; was the result also of a general movement of centralization which was to be one of the sources of weakness, of the system of government adopted in France. ¶ The founding of the academy of painting and sculpture had completed the organization of art in the great sense; the founding of the manufactory of the Gobelins was destined to bring about the centralization of the minor arts and to strike a blow at the old edifice of the rules of the corporations. We must make no mistake: from the artistic point of view, the monarchy largely began the salutary work of emancipation which the French Revolution was to complete, and we may well be surprised that right-minded persons should discover a source of weakness and decadence in the modifications introduced into the life of the workshops. To be logical we should have to blame the monarchy itself, which, nearly 150 years before the Revolution, began, by a devious course it is true, to take away all force from restrictive laws, from rules and regulations which already seemed out of date at the end of the middle ages. It will be seen that, though the complete abolition of the rules of the corporations did, in certain cases, become a cause of confusion, we should do wrong to look upon it as the sole cause of the degeneration in artistic feeling in the minor arts at the commencement of the nineteenth century. The suppression of the corporations under the Revolution was as inevitable an event as was under Louis XIV the establishment of official artistic workshops. The whole lay in the manner of setting to work to decree those two measures. ¶ To second his views, Colbert was fortunate enough to have at hand an exceptional man, one who was at the same time an organizer and an artist, two qualities rarely united in one and the same brain; and he also had the good sense to select him in spite of appearances. He did more, for after selecting him he left him the most complete liberty. And yet Charles Le Brun might have passed as suspect in the minds of both the king and Colbert. ¶ Born in Paris on February 24, 1619, Charles Le Brun was the son of Nicholas Le Brun, a sculptor. His first masters were Perrier, a Burgundian painter, and Simon Vouet; and it was doubtless through Vouet’s intermediary that he became acquainted with the Chancellor Séguier, in whom he was later to find a firm friend and a constant protector. Some works executed for the Cardinal de Richelieu[Pg 229] earned for him the title of painter to the king in 1638. In 1642, he accompanied Nicolas Poussin to Rome and was admitted as a master-painter into the corporation. He returned to Paris in 1646, received the title of valet de chambre to the king, and married Suzanne Butay, a painter’s daughter. ¶ A law-suit between the wardens of the Gild of Painters and the king’s painters, the so-called ‘patent painters,’ suddenly made Le Brun conspicuous, and, after the favourable decision pronounced by the parliament, with the support of Séguier he contributed not a little towards the definite foundation of the academy of painting (1648). But, while fighting strenuously for the principles of his art, Le Brun neglected no opportunity of practising it, and executed for a number of Paris mansions a series of large decorative compositions, for which he had acquired the taste in Italy. The houses of Bertrand de la Bazinière, treasurer of the Épargne; of Marshal d’Aumont; of the Chevalier de Jars; of Inselin, treasurer of the Chambre aux Deniers; of Lambert de Thorigny, president of the Chambre des Comptes, were decorated by him in turns. In the last of these mansions he painted the Galerie d’Hercule, which still exists, and the sight of which eventually determined the Superintendent Fouquet to send for Le Brun to Vaux (1657). Here, in the sumptuous residence of Vaux, of which Fouquet was to have the enjoyment for so short a while, Le Brun displayed his full powers. He not only painted or designed such compositions as the Apothéose d’Hercule, the Triomphe de la Fidélité, L’Aurore, Le Sommeil, the Palais du Soleil, but he also directed the sculptors, ornament workers and silversmiths, the tapestry workers and embroiderers, and managed the manufactory of high-warp tapestry established by Fouquet at Maincy. He supplied so large a number of models and cartoons for tapestry, that many of his compositions could be executed only much later at the manufactory of the Gobelins; the Chasses de Méléagre, Mars et Venus, Jupiter allaité par la chèvre Amalthée, five pieces representing the history of Constantine, the Muses, all bear witness to the prodigious fertility of an artist who, like the great Italians of the Renaissance, was lavish in production while developing his admirable administrative qualities. ¶ If these gigantic works at the Château de Vaux had not succeeded in earning for him the esteem of Mazarin and of the queen-mother, Anne of Austria, and also in drawing the attention of the king (for Le Brun was the organizer of the great fêtes given by the Superintendent in 1659), it might have happened that our artist would have incurred the same disgrace as his patron. Very fortunately this was not so; for once talent was able to silence envy, and Le Brun was admirably served by circumstances. In 1660, the king ordered a large picture of him, Alexandre pénétrant dans la tente de Darius, and the city of Paris instructed him to erect a triumphal arch on the Place Dauphine for the entry into Paris of Louis XIV and his queen, Maria Theresa. In 1661 he entered into relations with Colbert; in 1662 he received the much-coveted title of ‘first painter to the king.’ We see, therefore, that his connexion with Fouquet—and it does not seem that Le Brun was ever placed in the painful situation of having to deny the man who had enabled him to make his mark—so far from harming him, had, on the contrary, done him good service. Perhaps the king, at the same time that Colbert began to suspect his exceptional powers as an organizer and administrator, recognized in Le Brun one of those men who were to be so useful to his thirst for stately glory and royal pomp.

One last circumstance enabled Le Brun to make himself absolutely indispensable to the king’s glory. On February 6, 1661, the first floor of the small gallery of the Louvre was almost totally destroyed by fire. Our artist was commissioned to renew its decoration; he made of this a monument to the glory of Apollo,[Pg 230] the god of the sun, a delicate attention which enabled him to indulge in more or less delicate allusions with his brush to the king himself. All the works—which, for that matter, were never finished under Louis XIV: the works at the other royal residences, and particularly at Versailles, thrust the Galerie d’Apollon into the background—were directed solely by Le Brun: he got together a little army of sculptors and decorators, among whom we recall the names of Gaspard and Balthazar de Marsy, François Girardon, Thomas Regnauldin, Monnoyer, the brothers Lemoyne and Ballin, whose fortunes were thenceforth closely linked with those of the first painter to the king. ¶ The letters patent of Louis XIV instituting the ‘royal manufactory of crown furniture’ are dated November 1667, but they sanction a state of things that existed as far back as 1663. I shall analyse briefly this deed of foundation, most of whose dispositions it is very important for us to know, showing as they do how the machinery of administration was capable of being simplified in the seventeenth century. Let me here remind my readers that the name of ‘Gobelins,’ which to-day serves to designate the tapestries issuing from the famous manufactory, dates back to the fifteenth century. At that time a dyer called Jean Gobelin, a native of Rheims, settled on the banks of the little river Bièvre. His trade prospered so well that his name was given to his house and workshop, near to which came to live Marc de Comano and François de la Planche, the Flemish upholsterers installed in Paris by Henry IV. In 1662 Colbert joined the old house of the Gobelins to the workshops of the descendants of Comano and La Planche; and on these premises was installed the new manufactory which was destined to perpetuate the memory of the name of the humble dyer of the fifteenth century.

(To be continued.)

❧ WRITTEN BY CECIL SMITH ❧

EVERY man of taste will congratulate himself that England is the seat and the refuge of the arts; and that so many genuine remains of ancient sculpture are present in our cabinets.’ So wrote James Dallaway at the beginning of last century, and, although some may think that the arts have now somewhat altered their habits, there is no doubt that this country still remains pre-eminent in the wealth of its private collections of Greek antiquities. If proof were needed, this admirable little collection would afford it. When the scheme was first mooted of a Greek exhibition at the Burlington Club, a moderate scepticism was not altogether unnatural. The former attempt in 1888 had not been exactly an enthusiastic success, and somehow the club itself appeared to be a somewhat stern soil for so tender a plant. A society of dilettanti, with grave and reverend opinions upon every conceivable form of bigotry and virtue, might be expected either to adopt an attitude of cold aloofness or to overlay its offspring with excessive and even (may one whisper it?) injudicious appreciation. But we never know where a blessing may light, and, if one may judge from the assiduous attention the exhibition has received, not only from the sternest critics of the club, but from the smart ladies of at least two capitals, a new era has dawned for Greek art; if it only lasts long enough, intrepid explorers will be found invading Bloomsbury, and the British Museum will cease to offer cool solitudes for the peaceful reflection of the philosopher and student. ¶ For the general public who have little time or inclination for long museum galleries, this sort of exhibition has much to recommend it; the intelligent public likes to have its culture prescribed for it in tabloid[Pg 236] form—a small dose, unmistakably potent, which can be easily digested between meals. To this form of requirement the Burlington Club is admirably adapted: a single room, with just enough space for arranging a few good things. Mrs. Strong and her committee are so much to be congratulated that it seems ungracious to grumble; but personally I should have preferred to turn out about half of the less fine objects. It was difficult, no doubt; the susceptibilities of lenders are not lightly to be trifled with; but Greek art, more than most things, needs plenty of breathing space, and the exhibition would have gained by a judicious depletion. ¶ I think it was M. Piot who used to carry always in his waistcoat pocket a few of the choicest Greek coins (those being the most portable forms of the best art), as he said, ‘to correct his eye’; that was undoubtedly a true instinct. When all is said and done, Greek art will always serve as an admirable corrective—within its limits of course, for painting is obviously excluded—and that is at least some comfort in these impressionist days, when new creeds lie about like leaves in Vallombrosa. ¶ I overheard one day a visitor to this exhibition angrily resenting the suggestion that Greek art at its best could be compared for a moment with the master works of the middle ages. It is a large question, which there is no space here to argue, only I do not think it is so easily dismissed as the hasty critic supposed. I should even be prepared to stand by some of the objects here exhibited. After all, it is in many cases the same plant growing up under differing conditions of time and circumstance. Some day perhaps the club may be persuaded to try the experiment of showing side by side some of the finest parallel achievements of antiquity and the three centuries of mediaeval Europe.

And I am not sure that[Pg 237] the plan might not be adopted with advantage in museums, of having a small room, like the tribuna at Florence for instance, with a florilegium of the best things of all dates; it would be both physically and mentally a boon to many a weary wayfarer. ¶ The most obvious point of comparison with the classical is the work of the classicists of north-east Italy, who, already at the end of the trecento, were beginning a formal but intelligent study of the antique. It would be instructive to see works of Donatello and John of Bologna side by side with their Greek counterparts; a Syracusan decadrachm of Kimon or Euainetos beside a medal of Pisanello or Sperandio. ¶ One bronze in the Burlington Club especially seems to challenge this comparison—the big mounted warrior (No. 53), which at first sight suggests a kind of glorified gothic aquamanile. A reviewer in the Athenaeum points out the ‘research for elegance which already characterizes this figure,’ and which he considers to mark the essential difference between the Greeks and their successors. ‘Whereas the Greek,’ he says, ‘feels most keenly the planes, to the northern and Italian artists it is the ridges that count.’ This seems to me to be a plausible generalization from imperfectly perceived facts. The world-old contrast of the ideal and the real naturally went on in Greek art as it has gone on in every other art; but less among the Greeks, because for most of their history they steadily withstood realism; they believed and acted upon Shakespeare’s ‘Nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean.’ At a late period realism became too strong for them, and the Pergamene school was the beginning of the end. Surely the broad contrasting of planes is not the characteristic of a race, but of a stage of development. Obviously the sculptor in marble or wood is bound to set out by blocking out his figure in broad planes: relative development shows itself in the amount of skill which the artist exhibits in graduating and refining these planes into each other. Early Greek art shows this particularly, because it derived largely from Egyptian traditions, and was long in breaking loose from set canons. But it is none the less true of all sculpture in which an historical development can be traced. The history of Italian sculpture down to Michael Angelo is so much under classical influence that its evolution may almost be said to be an index of its information regarding Greek art. Michael Angelo unfortunately corresponds to the Pergamene stage. Already, before his day, the great Italian medallists had shown in their medal work what is probably, outside of classical times, the nearest approach to the best Greek relief, and they worked largely on Greek lines. It is not by coincidence alone that the helmeted knight on the well-known medal of Ludovico Gonzaga naturally suggests an analogy to the bronze now exhibited. In both cases the simple effect is attained by a judicious elimination, by contrasted planes, and by a skilful co-ordination into an harmonious whole. ¶ This bronze is said to have been found at Grumentum, in Lucania, a city which, as its name and its geographical position show, was never a Greek colony, though latterly a town of some importance. Probably it found its way there in the course of Corinthian traffic: the long-bodied horse, the unusual subject of a helmeted horseman, the treatment of mane and tail, are all characteristic rather of the Corinthian art of the sixth century B.C.; and we know how active the Corinthian colonists were at that period in south Italy. ¶ The same characteristic treatment is seen in the splendid bronze head from Chatsworth (No. 8). It is an Apollo rather over life size, belonging to that interesting transitional stage which immediately precedes the Parthenon. In this case, however, the archaism is partly conscious; the artist realizes the maxim peu de moyens, beaucoup d’effet, and uses it to advantage. The type chosen is that of a strong virile athlete, with hair still long, but just budding into manhood,[Pg 243] the Βούπαις (‘bully boy’), as Furtwängler points out, of an epigram on a contemporary statue of him by Onatas. What a contrast this to the soft and dreamy Sauroktonos of the succeeding century: with its almost architectural symmetry, its vigorous subordination of all search for detail to general effect, and its mathematical balance of large lines and large planes, it seems to stand as a visible protest against weakness and effeminacy. As Emerson puts it, this one head might be the indemnification for populations of pygmies or weaklings. The step from this to the Parthenon is short in point of years, but is artistically an interval which is strongly defined, for within its limit Greek sculpture has entered into its birthright. This stage is nobly represented in the exhibition by the fragment from a slab of the north frieze of the Parthenon, reproduced in Plate I. Broken away probably at the time of the Venetian bombardment, it seems to have been acquired in Athens by Stuart, who sent it to Smyrna; a few years ago it was dug up beside a rockery in a garden in Essex; what its movements were between Smyrna and Essex is matter for conjecture. A former owner of the Essex property was a Mr. Astle, who was a trustee of the British Museum, and may be supposed to have had an interest in antiquities: habent sua fata, these flotsam relics of antiquity: this is not the only marble in the exhibition which has been excavated on English soil. The head (No. 24), which early in the seventeenth century belonged to the famous Arundel collection, was recently dug up by a navvy in London close to the Temple, on the site that was once part of the Arundel house garden. ¶ The surface of the Parthenon fragment has suffered, of course, but not so grievously as might be expected. It gives the head of one of the mounted knights of the north frieze, and the horse’s head of the figure immediately following him. The youth is from northern Greece, probably from one of the Thracian colonies of Athens, as his Thracian headdress of foxskin (the alopeke) shows. That his horse is in movement even the fragment makes clear by the light tresses of hair blown backward beneath his cap, of which the heavy tail is itself curved outward by the motion; but his eyes are intently set on his forward path, and the firm and straight yet supple poise of neck and torso bespeak his ‘magic horsemanship.’ The figure behind him (preserved in the British Museum), a squadron commander or marshal, turns partly round in his seat, checking his horse, apparently to give an order to his section; with the suddenness of the action the horse’s mouth is wrenched open and his head thrown back, the plaited forelock swings upward, and every muscle is tense; the motive is a subtle variation on the theme represented by the splendid horse’s head of Selene or Night in the eastern pediment, but with this principal difference, that while this horse is answering to its rider’s curb, the Selene horse is probably starting back of its own accord, in alarm at taking the downward plunge. Now that this beautiful fragment has found its way to London, is it too much to hope that it may make one more journey—and that its last—to Bloomsbury, and rejoin the slab to which it fits?

From Pheidias it is natural to turn to that other sculptor who shared with him the glory of the latter part of the fifth century. Polykleitos, the leader of the Argive school, did for the physical ideal what Pheidias had done for the religious. His earliest recorded work, the statue of a boy-boxer crowning himself with a wreath, set up at Olympia about 440 B.C., has been identified in four different replicas, of which one is the head belonging to Sir Edgar Vincent (No. 45), shown on Plate III. The statue-base itself was found at Olympia in 1877, still bearing its dedicatory inscription, and with marks showing that the figure was of bronze. From a marble copy to a bronze original, and that of an artist whose bronze technique [Pg 244] was by many considered pre-eminent in antiquity, is a far cry, but even in this head we may see some faint reflection of the genius of Polykleitos. The curved surfaces definitely meet and intersect instead of merging almost insensibly into one another, as happens in marble work. In this respect an admirable contrast is offered by the famous head of Aphrodite, belonging to Lord Leconfield, on Plate II. This head, which is in the catalogue (No. 22) boldly described as ‘an original by Praxiteles,’ in acceptation of a suggestion originally due to Payne Knight, and later adopted by Furtwängler, is undoubtedly the most beautiful Aphrodite head in this artist’s style which has come down to us. A comparison of it with that of the Olympian Hermes and with the copies of the Knidian Aphrodite makes this identification at least highly probable. The hair is apparently roughly finished and almost sketchy, but offers an admirable contrast to the highly polished surface of the flesh, and even without the colour which certainly once covered it is magically successful in its rendering of texture. The high triangular forehead-space, which gives distinction to the type and value to the setting of the eyes, is almost identical with the forehead of the Knidian Aphrodite, and also that of the Knidian Demeter, a statue certainly under strong Praxitelean influence: the slight projection over the brows, the so-called ‘bar of Michael Angelo,’ which is so marked a feature in the Hermes, is introduced here with extraordinary delicacy of effect. It is no wonder that Lucian singled out for praise in the Aphrodite of Praxiteles ‘the beautiful line of her forehead and brow, and her melting eye, full of joy and of pleasure.’ The eyes indeed are especially characteristic; their narrow opening in proportion to the length (yeux bridés), the slight projection of the lower lid, which gives an indescribable softness to the shadow beneath it, the almost imperceptible transition at the outer corner both of eye and mouth, are all traits which belong to Praxiteles alone. The oval contour is skilfully redeemed from formality by the dimple in the chin, just as the columnar neck is softened by the soft fold midway. For beneath all the refinement, which might easily become voluptuous, there is withal a physical dignity of form which bespeaks the goddess, ‘che muove il sole e l’ altre stelle.’ The artist ‘keeps the two vases, one of aether and one of pigment, at his side, and invariably uses both.’ ¶ In the presence of this masterpiece it is difficult to share the admiration which the catalogue bestows on the Head of a Girl from Chios (No. 44). The intention of the sculptor was obviously to reproduce a Praxitelean type; but whatever this head may once have been, the entire surface has been so rubbed down that it now looks like a model in partly melted loaf sugar. Under these circumstances any close study of the details is fruitless, but the characteristic features, especially the mouth, are so weakly conceived that it probably looks as pretty now, half hidden under a ‘baldacchino,’ as ever it did; its prettiness indeed seems to be its highest claim to notice.[84] ¶ The head belonging to Mr. Claude Ponsonby on Plate III has lately been claimed as Lysippean by M. Salomon Reinach. Unfortunately we know very little of the characteristic treatment of the features by Lysippos; we know that he was essentially a worker in bronze, that he introduced a more natural treatment of the hair and an animation of facial expression, and that this last qualification naturally led him into portraiture. The general outline of the eye cavities, and the form and modelling of the forehead, closely resemble those of the Alexander portrait in the British Museum; and the rendering of the hair has a certain naturalism which is also found in the Alexander: moreover there is a tragic intensity in[Pg 249] the almost haggard eyes and parted lips which, together with the loosened tresses and the drapery covering the back of the head, certainly mark the head as the portrait of a mourning woman. Further than this perhaps we cannot go; but it is worth noting that Tatian mentions the portrait of a woman (the Praxilla) by Lysippos, which we may presume to have been something like this. Michaelis suggests that it may have belonged to ‘the statue of a mourning woman which may have served as the decoration of some sepulchral monument.’ This is probably not far from the truth; at any rate the head seems to stand midway between the conventionalized portraits of the Athenian stelae and the more realistic portraiture of the Hellenistic age, well represented in the exhibition by the busts of Menander (No. 26) and the presumed Hipponax (No. 27). ¶ The genre side of Hellenistic art is well represented in the exhibition by the large bronze statuette of Eros, a dexterous figure of a winged laughing boy rushing forward through space with outspread wings and right foot just touching the ground; Mrs. Strong justly points to the motive as an ultimate evolution from that of the Nike of Samothrace, wherein the weight of the body seems partly supported by the foot and partly by the spread wings, which serve as a counterpoise to the structure. It is quite in consonance with Hellenistic sentiment that the love-god should be shown as the victor in the sacred torch race, the Lampadephoria —Eros the unconquerable, the ἀνίκατος μάχαν, invades the palaestra and beats the athlete at his own game. ¶ When I first saw this charming figure (it was in a room at the Charing Cross Hotel, on his first arrival here) the then owner told me the circumstances of his discovery. Not far south of Vesuvius the river Sirmio finds its way to the sea; at a spot on the Pompeii side which probably in antiquity marked a ferry or ford, this statuette with other things was excavated. The presumption is that the hapless owner, fleeing from the eruption with his treasure under his arm, was overtaken here, possibly while waiting for the ferry-boat. It is a tragic little history, all the more touching somehow on account of the subject which the figure represents. ¶ In its collection of smaller bronzes the exhibition is particularly rich. A small selection is here given in Plate IV. The archaic period is represented by the little crouching or, more probably, dancing Seilenos (No. 34), the wild animalistic sprite of the woods, half bearded man and half horse, as Ionic art depicted him; by the amphora handle (No. 92) in the form of a youth bent backwards below two panthers which rested on the lip of the vase; and by the charming little Aphrodite (No. 20) whose formal drapery and pose, combined with a refinement of delicate modelling, are together characteristic of the springtime of Greek art. With her may be contrasted the tiny nude Aphrodite (No. 11) to which an ancient admirer has presented a necklace, bracelet, and anklet in gold, probably, as Mrs. Strong suggest, an adaptation of a famous statue by Praxiteles. ¶ On Plate V is a fine example of the repoussé mirror-covers which seem to have belonged exclusively to the fourth and third centuries B.C. The nearly full-grown Eros with long wings is characteristic rather of the earlier stage; otherwise the subject, in which he assists a lady or his mother at her toilet, is a favourite one for this class of representation. An unusual form of mirror support is Mr. Wallis’s plaque (No. 62), which has the design cut out à jour, as beautiful in its pale blue patina as it is in the dexterous adaptation of the composition to the space which it has to fill. The owner suggests that the reclining winged boy is Hypnos rather than Eros; if so, it is an unusual rendering of the god of sleep.

The Alexandrine period is represented on Plate IV by Mr. Salting’s fine mask of a sea deity (No. 113) with inlaid eyes and marine emblems skilfully worked in, suggestive of the grotesque masks of Pompeian and[Pg 250] cinquecento Italian art; and by Mr. Wyndham Cook’s puzzling seated statuette of an emaciated man (No. 50). This figure has usually been described as a pathological study, a votive offering to Asklepios from a sick person. The careful workmanship, however, and the fact that it is inscribed with the name of the personage represented seem to militate against this view; moreover the figure does not seem to represent actual suffering so much as austerity. The excessive emaciation, the pose, and the fixed abstracted expression appear to me to indicate rather ecstasy, the ἔκστασις of the mystic, the Pythagorean anchorite who, like the Brahmin, has learnt by mortification of the flesh to project his soul into the unseen. We know the interest that Alexander took in the Indian yogins, and that he had intended to bring one of them, Kalanos, back with him to Greece. It is not improbable that other Greeks may have taken up the idea: and it is significant that this bronze was found at Alexander’s own city of Pella and bears a Macedonian name. If this be so, it adds an extraordinary and unique interest to the little bronze. ¶ The group of terracotta statuettes on Plate VI are chosen as characteristic types of different forms of this charming art. The little doll (No. 24) made, perhaps, in imitation of a Persephone figure, but intended to have movable limbs, and the Caryatid figure (No. 26) belong to the fifth century; the latter is remarkable for its strongly Pheidian character of type and drapery, and is certainly of Attic work nearly contemporary with the Parthenon. The young Dionysos (No. 7) and the two girls (Nos. 3 and 10) are good instances of the peculiarly modern sentiment which pervaded the art as well as the literature of the Hellenistic age. These figures are the bric-à-brac of antiquity; the far-away ancestors of Dresden, and Saxe, and Watteau, with some of their coquetry and none of their artificiality. ¶ Before leaving the terracottas it is necessary to mention the large head of Zeus (No. 46) which has been added since the exhibition opened; Professor Furtwängler and Mrs. Strong consider this head to be ‘a Greek work of the great period of Pheidias.’ It is particularly unpleasant to me to find myself differing entirely from their view; after close and repeated examination I am bound to say that it seems to me to belong to a well-known class of terracottas which are now generally agreed to be of modern origin. ¶ Of the collection of vases there is only space here to include three typical specimens (Plate VII); these are the kylix signed by the artist Tleson (No. 16), with a charming drawing of two goats rearing up and butting one another above a floral ornament; a good example of the skill with which the Greek artist pressed into his service as pure decoration a common scene of daily life; the plate (No. 79), signed by Epiktetos, with its humorous ride-a-cock-horse subject, the precursor of the Parthenon horseman riding on his own fighting-cock; and the krater from Harrow School (No. 44), with its masterly composition of the hero Kaineus overwhelmed by the Centaurs. In its strong firm line, and spirited composition, which is yet kept in subordination to the decorative effect of the vase as a whole, this work stands out instinct with the combination of strength and self-control which are the leading characteristics of the best works of Hellenic art. ¶ I have already occupied so much space that the very important series of engraved gems and coins must remain almost unnoticed, and this is a pity because outside the great museums we are not likely ever to see such a series again assembled. The beautiful drawings of Greece by Cockerell, the wandering artist-scholar, one of the great builders of English artistic repute in the Levant, these too must be left with a bare mention. But this fact in itself speaks for the high standard attained by the exhibition, on which Mrs. Strong and the club are much to be congratulated.

The publication by Mr. Heinemann of a large, costly, and elaborately illustrated book upon Pintoricchio is evidence that this long-neglected Umbrian painter is growing in popularity. Effaced for more than two and a half centuries by the dazzling radiance of his younger contemporary’s fame, Pintoricchio’s individuality, first appreciated by Rumohr, began clearly to stand out again only when Morelli demonstrated that he was the author of two frescoes in the Sixtine chapel. Even then he borrowed his lustre from working where Michelangelo left his masterpieces, and from having, as Morelli pointed out, influenced Raphael. It remained for the anarchical taste of recent years to exalt him into an important ‘Master’ on his own account. ¶ The occasion was offered by the reopening in 1897 of the Borgia apartments, which he decorated; for although the popes may have lost their power to immortalize themselves by feats of statesmanship, the ambition to signalize their pontificates by the patronage of art appears not wholly to have died out. Leo XIII in restoring and opening to the public the magnificent suite of rooms where, in the service of Alexander VI, Pintoricchio toiled to make a monument to his patron, was no less the maker of an artistic reputation than his Renaissance predecessors—with the significant difference, however, that he conferred a posthumous fame, a succès d’archéologie, instead of the renown that came from the commission to rebuild and decorate that city of cities which has now passed from under the papal sway. ¶ But, unless the lay world had been independently attuned to Pintoricchio’s art, papal patronage would not have carried his renown far. But modern art is just at a point where Pintoricchio is really more sympathetic than the masters of the great style, for in the break-up of artistic tradition and the decline of classical taste the decorator of to-day is thrown back upon parading the mere materials of his art, upon bright colour and relief, upon sumptuousness, and the startling and attractive. He has, in fact, dedicated himself to ornamentation—for we must not debase the word decoration! And of ornamentation, of the sumptuous, the attractive, the gay and the ingenious, Pintoricchio was a master. The gorgeousness of the Borgia apartments delude even critics who ought to distinguish more subtly, into praising them as art. It is so difficult to be stern with the attractive! ¶ And so Pintoricchio, becoming popular, needed a handsome book to reveal him further to his English admirers; and for them, being English, a volume of mere illustrations, like the French tome of M. Boyer d’Agen, did not suffice. There must be the flavour of pedantry, of Morellianism, of research into origins, without omitting the necessary historical setting. And so the publisher commissioned the valiant Dr. Ricci, head of the great gallery of the Brera, to prepare such a work, knowing well that he could not entrust it to more skilful and conscientious hands. But, contrary to the Biblical story, instead of blessing Israel the emissary of Balak was unable to keep his tongue from curses! Dr. Ricci’s taste was too cultivated, his experience of great art too profound, to permit him to raise the chosen painter to the altar prepared for him, and the publisher was thus constrained to write a short ‘Note’ explaining that, in spite of what the author says, Pintoricchio really is a great artist, standing only just below ‘the three or four supreme masters’—close, that is to say, to Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Giorgione! Turning, however, to Dr. Ricci’s estimate, we find it absolutely sane and just:—‘Pintoricchio ... was more attracted by the external splendours of art than by its sentiment ... is wholly destitute of passion ... and shows but little research in the matter of expression.’ And instead of joining in the unreserved praise accorded to him in the publisher’s ‘Note’ as a ‘master of decoration,’ he, on the contrary, criticizes his artist’s gaudiness and his lack of composition, and utters a protest, particularly welcome at the present moment, against the use of raised ornament in decorative painting. Indeed, while Morelli’s account of Pintoricchio leaves the reader with a general sense that he was to be preferred to his master Perugino, Dr. Ricci nowhere loses his sense of proportion, nowhere unduly exalts the subject of his work, and the resulting impression of his long book is to place Pintoricchio in a just relation to the artists of his time: attractive, sweet, agreeable, ‘exuberant and instinctively elegant,’ but almost never entering into rivalry with any master who possessed, in however small a degree, any of the specifically artistic qualities. His treatment, indeed, of Pintoricchio’s greatest work, the frescoes of the cathedral library of Siena, scarcely does justice to the real artistic merits of the decorative scheme. As these works so far surpass the frescoes of the Borgia apartments, the impression[Pg 256] they give of ‘gaiety and well-being,’ which Dr. Ricci barely touches on, might well have been amplified. But one is grateful to him for pronouncing himself so clearly against the current notion that the young Raphael assisted Pintoricchio in these frescoes, instead of mystifying us with the usual non-committal generalities on this subject; and also for ranging himself so openly with Morelli and against Signor Venturi in refusing the absurd ascription of Gentile Bellini’s drawings to Pintoricchio. He calls attention to a phrase in Gentile’s will which speaks of drawings of his in Rome, thus amply accounting for the introduction of figures similar to those in Gentile’s sketches into the Roman frescoes of the Umbrian painter so notoriously given to pilfering. ¶ Singularly full and complete is Dr. Ricci’s list of Pintoricchio’s works; indeed, the fault lies just in this! While we thank him for sparing no pains to look up every possible work of his painter, we must reproach him with being too liberal in questions of authenticity. It is particularly among what Dr. Ricci considers the early works that we find him too generous. It is in my opinion quite impossible that Pintoricchio should have executed the Presentation at Torre d’ Andrea, which shows so many of the characteristics of that (deservedly) little known painter, Antonio da Viterbo[85], while the copy at Siena of the central figures in the great ancona of 1498 at Perugia cannot of course be, as he supposes, an early work, and seems to me too crude and flaccid to be by him at any period of his career. The early Madonna in the Bufalini collection at Città di Castello I cannot clearly remember, but the ruined Madonna with the infant John in the duomo of that town could certainly never have been touched by Pintoricchio’s own hand, and Lord Crawford’s Madonna and Angels at Wigan is too cold and hard for him, and indeed seems to be the work of some Romagnol imitator of Pintoricchio, whose youthful hand was trained under the benumbing influence of Palmezzano. ¶ I regret that I cannot quite follow our author in his chronology of Pintoricchio’s works, for the clear arrangement of which at the end of his book he nevertheless earns our gratitude. The assumption that the Ara Coeli frescoes were painted after those in the Sixtine chapel seems to me to confuse Dr. Ricci’s view of the chronology from the start. To my eyes they are clearly earlier works, although I know that Morelli here for once agreed with Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and dated them as late as 1496. But the whole question is by no means clear, and I confess to being unable to discover in Dr. Ricci’s book the exact criteria he uses to determine the date of a particular work. The Sienese tondo which he calls early seems to me definitely to belong to the period after 1500, and the two Madonnas at Spello do not convince me that they are early, or even that they are of the same date. Dr. Ricci professes himself not quite convinced of the adequacy of internal evidence; nevertheless, like all unbelievers, he constantly takes refuge in it, but not consistently, and it is this uncertainty of method which, perhaps more than anything else, prevents our following his conclusions with intelligent sympathy. And this one regrets the more, because with the broad lines of his book, and, above all, with his estimate of Pintoricchio, one has such hearty sympathy. ¶ A word of protest must be added about the strange translation and about certain carelessness apparent in the book-making. ‘Coetanean’ is an odd word to meet on the first page, and surely Dr. Ricci never spoke of the ‘coast of Subasio’! ‘S. Bernardine,’ or, worse still, ‘San Bernardine,’ is not a happy way of anglicizing the name of the Sienese saint, nor is ‘Cybo’ an improvement upon the usual form. ‘Enea’ recurs in an irritating manner, where every cultivated English person expects Aeneas; for, since Bishop Creighton’s sympathetic account, ‘Aeneas Silvius,’ whether as humanist or pope, has become a familiar name. Just here, by the way, I may express my surprise that among Dr. Ricci’s historical references for Pope Alexander VI (p. 87) he did not place Creighton’s account, the best in English, or perhaps in any language. ¶ The subject of the first coloured plate is misnamed ‘S. Bernardino,’ although in the text correctly described as St. Louis of Toulouse. And this leads me to protest against cheap colour reproductions of this kind. The feeblest, young-lady water-colour sketch after Pintoricchio could not resemble him less than these coarse, smeared, falsely-tinted reproductions. They are worse than useless; they are hideously misleading. The other illustrations of the book, however, are copious and accurate, and we cannot be too grateful for the reproduction of so many of the pictures in private collections, photographs of which it is often almost impossible for the student to procure. M. L.

[Pg 257]

Mr. Fred Roe’s book of ancient coffers and cupboards must surely be the first of many such monographs. To-day the process block has made it possible to illustrate with ease the most elaborate details of the work of the ancient craftsmen, and within the covers of a book we may bear home our museum to be pored over at leisure. And here we have the chosen pieces of many museums, many churches, and many collectors’ hoards, in a form which makes them as useful to the new craftsmen as to the antiquary. It is true that Mr. Roe has not given us process work alone. Although such illustrations as those of the famous chest of the twelve knights at the Cluny and the St. George chest at South Kensington leave nothing to be desired, Mr. Roe does not allow it to be forgotten that he can use a pencil with effect. His drawings, although they have nothing of the tight and T-squared manner familiar in architects’ drawings of old pieces, yet give a pleasant impression of truth and trustworthiness, and err not on the side of that dangerous cleverness which so often persuaded that great man M. Viollet le Duc to translate ornament and detail from every scratch and stain of his model. With a volume of the Mobilier Français at hand Mr. Roe may be at issue with the Frenchman on a definite point. Here we have the great armoire of Noyon as presented spick and span in the coloured drawing of M. Viollet le Duc, and here we have it also from the pencil of Mr. Roe. To our mind Mr. Roe seems the more trustworthy interpreter, but one or other is at fault. On the first of the eight doors of the armoire Mr. Roe gives us a figure of the Virgin in a sweeping robe, holding the Child in her arms. M. Viollet le Duc, with abundant detail, gives us the same door with a bare-legged St. John Baptist in his camel’s hair, supporting in his arms a lamb. ¶ It is no disparagement to Mr. Roe’s written commentary to say that the early history of the chest is told clearly enough by his well-arranged series of drawings and photographs. We owe him thanks that he has avoided the temptation which would persuade the writer upon any side of English archaeology to gallop through his subject from Stonehenge to the great exhibition within the covers of a single book. Here we have the history of the mediaeval chest, from the thirteenth-century examples with which we must perforce begin, to the end of the Gothic work in the fifteen hundreds. There Mr. Roe stays, and for the story of the Elizabeth and seventeenth-century chests, which are still in such plenty amongst us, we may wait in good content for Mr. Roe’s future work. ¶ To those who are familiar with inventories, and wills, and such-like documents of the intimate life of our ancestors, the picture of the ancient English home rises up furnished with a bed, a brass pot, and a chest; for these good things came ever foremost amongst the few household goods of folk of the middling sort. It would be difficult to say where the collector might lay his hand nowadays upon the woodwork of a mediaeval bed; the brass pots have for the most part served their day and gone back to the foundry furnace; but the oaken chest remains here and there in the countryside for a most curious and venerable relic. ¶ We can hardly doubt that the familiar chest was from the beginning cunningly decorated; but accurate knowledge begins with the thirteenth century, with vast fronts of one or more broad beams set longways between two broad uprights. For ornament we have suggestions of arch-work simply indicated with chiselled lines and roundels of tracery. The ends are solidly framed with massive timbers. Of painted chests a notable example remains at Newport in Essex, and this Mr. Roe shows us in its colours. The inside of the lid when upreared shows like a painted reredos with a rood, the Virgin and St. John, and St. Peter and St. Paul, each within a painted archway of reds and greens. Twelve shields appear upon the chest, but on these remains no trace of the painted bearings which would have told us the story of the piece. Below the twelve shields, fessewise across the front of the chest runs a most singular ornament, a broad band of open tracery cast in pewter. ¶ The thirteenth century closes with the richly ornamented chest-fronts which endure for the rest of the medieval period. The long chest in Saltwood church is assigned by Mr. Roe to the century-end. The front is covered with tracery work with deep mullions, the broad uprights at the ends being filled with winged dragons in square panels. To this century-end belongs also that most famous and glorious chest which is the pride of the Musée Cluny, along whose mullioned front stand twelve knights with shields and ailettes of their arms; and here again we feel that, although the lighting of Mr. Roe’s photograph was unfortunate, our modern illustrations must take the place of Viollet le Duc’s too highly wrought drawings. ¶ Throughout the fourteenth century we find in[Pg 258] England the traditional window tracery along the chest front, and the dragons or beasts in squared compartments of the broad uprights. From Hultoft, in Lincolnshire, we have in a late fourteenth-century chest an early example of a panelled and buttressed piece, in which pierced and cut-out tracery has been applied to a flush front. A lid painted inside with shields of arms belongs to a chest formerly in the Chancery court of Durham, and, apart from its beauty, claims our interest by the fact that the first shield is that of the Aungerviles, of whom came Richard of Bury, bishop of Durham, and author of the ‘Philobiblon,’ one of those few mediaeval books which yet find readers. Concerning this shield, we may remark that Mr. Roe’s ‘Gules, a cinquefoil or (or argent) ermine pierced (of the field?)’ is not a very lucid piece of blazonry. Between the shields a dragon meets with a centaur-like figure in yellow hood and red kilt ‘running a tilt,’ as Mr. Roe somewhat loosely phrases it, but really playing with the sword and buckler. Forty-five years ago this chest was still in the Chancery court; if we ask why it is now in the hands of an ‘eminent antiquary,’ we should have for answer a familiar story of the ignorance and wanton folly of our half-civilized English official classes. A sad side of Mr. Roe’s narrative is the recurrent exclamation at the fact that a church chest, perfect in the days of Parker, Cotman, or Shaw, is now staved in, or clumsily restored. This in such cases where the chest has been suffered to remain. The Wittersham chest does not seem to have stayed at Wittersham long after its beauties had been published to the world in a ‘Dictionary of Architecture,’ and the fact that the nameless connoisseur who removed it took with him the ancient parish stocks as well leaves Wittersham without the means of dealing with the offence of those who should have been its custodians. Parker engraves a famous chest at Guestling, of which but one panel remained when the present rector came to Guestling, and even this poor relic has gone the way of the rest. It would be well if the thief were the one enemy of such treasures—in that case the nation might come to its own some day; but the church stove, even in our own time, has crackled with fuel for the loss of which our descendants will curse their pig-hearted ancestry. ¶ Of the most interesting type, which Mr. Roe, who shuns the English word chest, is pleased to call a ‘tilting coffer,’ we are afforded a valuable set of pictures. It is good to see that perhaps the finest panel of St. George and his dragon and Dame Cleodolinde is in our own national collection at South Kensington. The barbarously fine chest at Ypres will stand to all who know it for a familiar example. Mr. Roe, being possessed with the idea that these figured chests are English in design and working, is persuaded that the Ypres chest may have been abandoned by the English army which sieged Ypres in 1383; but we may confess that we find no notably English feeling in this chest or its fellows. ¶ To follow the story of the gothic chest to its running to seed in the sixteenth century were to encroach upon the office of Mr. Roe’s excellent monograph. Mr. Roe’s work is clear and to the point. We feel that he has not only drawn and photographed, but handled and rummaged the chests of which he tells us. He is cunning in hinges and locks, and forgeries of respectable standing and the mis-datings of long tradition do not entangle him. It may perhaps be said of his terminology that he attaches too definite and settled a meaning to the words which he chooses to apply to various forms of the objects of his study. The definition of a coffer as ‘a box of great strength for the keeping and transport of weighty articles, having its front formed by a single panel,’ as distinct from a hutch, ‘a household coffer of a rough description,’ strikes us as too assured and exact. A more serious blemish arises from Mr. Roe’s apparent belief that from the character of the work upon a chest one may easily guess whether its first home were in church or hall. The familiar window tracery of many chest-fronts spells for him plainly church or monastery. By the same token Mr. Roe would have us set down for a churchman every fourteenth-century man who wore ‘Poules windowes’ cut in his shoe leather, and the knights and dragons of many miserere-seats would show him that the first place of their setting-up was in the castle hall. Another odd fancy of Mr. Roe’s persuades him that the ‘civil wars,’ apparently those of the king and commonwealth, account for the loss of many pieces of English gothic furniture. Such a fancy does not argue an intimate knowledge of the history of the seventeenth-century struggles, than which no wars have been waged with less sacking and burning; and Mr. Roe, as his last words show, knows full well that the fellest enemies of our mediaeval relics flourished in the nineteenth century in the close and the rectory, sat at high tables of old foundations, and even came to good credit[Pg 259] as scholars and antiquaries. There are honoured names amongst us to-day whose bearers have done deeds of destruction to which Merciful Strickalthrow or Corporal Humgudgeon would not have set their hands.

O. B.

Certainly it never rains but it pours. Siena, so long without any adequate guide to her intensely interesting history and art, has suddenly broken out into quite a literature to herself. Scarcely has the controversy over the respective merits, or the reverse, of Professor Langton Douglas’s ‘History’ and Mr. Gardner’s ‘Story’ ceased to rouse our interest before a third guide appears in the field, which to our mind is infinitely the best of the three. Less pretentious and less costly, it contains in its smaller compass a mass of information in a readable form that is within the comprehension of the dullest, and yet worthy of the careful perusal of the most critical. Both Mr. Heywood and Miss Olcott live in and love Siena, so that their several parts are not only written con amore, but on carefully studied data. The history is written with a swing that carries one along, and yet leaves one at the end with a clear idea of what Siena was at her best. Mr. Heywood’s charm of style—as might be expected from his former work—is very great. It is easier, more lucid, and, without being any the less expressive or forcible, is wholly free from the few blemishes that might be objected to in his previous essays. No one understands better than he the complications and kaleidoscopic changes that occurred with so much abruptness in the government of the republic. Therefore we have the more occasion to be grateful to him for having set the main facts of her story before us, unhampered by superfluous digressions and comments. Once only he pauses to give eloquent expression to his admiration for that much-misunderstood and much-abused body, the Nove, whose rule (1292–1355) was the longest and most prosperous of all the various combinations that held sway in Siena. They are usually represented as ruthless tyrants, and generally detested and hateful; whereas there can be no question that their firm, autocratic rule, if severe and sometimes cruel, held in check alike arrogant noble and turbulent demagogue, and that under their guidance Siena reached the highest point of her prosperity, internal and external. At home flourished the arts of peace as they never did again, and abroad her fame was European, her merchants were respected, and her produce in demand throughout the civilized world. With the fall of the Nove fell Siena. Their hold over the reins of government lasted sixty-three years;—no other body again held them so long until she finally sank into the position of a subject city. Mr. Heywood’s notices as to the saints and writers of Siena are all too brief, and we would like to hear more from him about them, but space clearly forbids: and, as he points out, readers may turn to his other works for much that is perforce left unrelated here. We can only regret one note (on p. 68), which we feel must have been inadvertent on his part, and certain expressions in the bibliographical notice, to which we refer presently. ¶ Miss Olcott’s section, being, we believe, her first literary work, deserves an unusually high meed of praise. One may not always agree with her attributions, and her judgement on painters that she does not like is severe and not always quite just;—for example, her attitude towards Sodoma and Beccafumi, respectively, will not be endorsed by all her readers;—still, she has so evidently studied her subject with thoroughness and care, working under the best direction, and weighing her facts with so much patience and real insight, that one can scarcely praise this first essay of hers too highly. Her attitude towards the native Sienese artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is so truly devotional that, even if it blinds her to the beauties and merits of later workers, it disarms severe criticism. She points out very truly—and in this respect she follows the same line as Mr. Heywood in his history—that the art of Siena never rose again after the middle of the fourteenth century (i.e., contemporarily with the fall of the Nove) to the point that it then attained. The various foreign influences that eventually came into the state wrought fine achievements, but native talent was never again what it had been in the days of Duccio, Simone Martini, and their immediate successors. It is, however, true that in the following century very great artists did arise, in whose praise the authoress is specially eloquent. That she has great reason, the lovely works of such men as Matteo di Giovanni, Neroccio di Landi, Lorenzo di Pietro (Vecchietta), and Giovanni di Stefano (Sassetta) amply testify to those who have eyes to see. To Neroccio and Vecchietta, moreover, she draws further notice, since, like so many artists of their day, they were both sculptors and[Pg 260] painters, and obtained more than ordinary success in either of the greater arts. Thus panel, bronze, and marble, when touched by them, produce effects of exquisite charm in gracious line and lovely expression that are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. We feel no doubt that to walk through the city in Miss Olcott’s company will be a pleasure, which student and traveller cannot fail to appreciate. That small mistakes as to fact have occasionally crept in was of course unavoidable; but for practical purposes they are unimportant. She has managed to avoid the dullness of a mere record of facts, though her notes are full of practically useful side-information; while, on the other hand, she has not fallen into that temptation to dogmatize, so difficult to escape from when dealing with a specialized school of painting like that of Siena. ¶ Student and traveller alike have much reason to be grateful for the work; mainly on account of its directness and simplicity; though also for the valuable footnotes supplied by both authors. The bibliographical lists are of great interest, but we cannot refrain from remarking that the notice as to books to be avoided is, to say the least of it, in doubtful taste. We understand the irritation caused by such books as those specified to writers who have studied the subject carefully, and we recognize fully the incalculable mischief done by the inaccuracies of the modern catchpenny magazine contributor; but we cannot but think so long and virulent an attack, however justly deserved, quite unsuitable within the pages of a guide book. We suggest that in a future edition these pages might be omitted, as being the only serious blemish to a book on which authors and publisher may be very heartily congratulated.

R. H. H. C.

The prospectus issued by the publisher of this work contained the extraordinary statement that ‘E. T. Rogers Bey, in his contributions to the subject, established beyond doubt that coats of arms and armorial bearings were introduced into Europe by the crusaders in imitation of the practice of the eastern princes whom they had encountered in the field of battle.’ It would surprise no one acquainted with the vexed question of heraldic ‘origins’ to know that he did nothing of the kind. What he did advance was that ‘... les avis sont partagés sur la question de savoir si les Croisés ont pulsé en Orient les notions de cet art [blazon] ou s’il est exclusivement d’origine européenne. Les arguments en faveur de son origine orientale me paraissent les mieux fondés, car ils sont soutenus par des données historiques. Un esprit militaire et même chevaleresque existait parmi les Musulmans de l’Arabie, de la Syrie et de l’Égypte, longtemps avant la formation de nos ordres de templiers et de chevaliers; et il est fort probable que cet esprit guerrier s’est communiqué par l’entremise des Venitiens et des Génois et repandu peu à peu en Europe même avant la première croisade.’ We do not hesitate to say that beyond this string of theory there is nothing in the forty-nine pages of Rogers Bey’s ‘Le Blason chez les Princes Musulmans de l’Égypte et de la Syrie’ (Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien, 1880) offering proof of the derivation of European armory from the east. All this we quote in extenso because Artin Pasha’s work is, he states, to be regarded as the sequel to Rogers Bey’s memoir, and because, where he touches the origin of western heraldry, his remarks are likewise mere unfounded assertion. Neither does his knowledge of European arms appear to be of the most accurate order; he states that Louis IX of France was the first to adopt the fleur de lys, when in fact the seal of that monarch’s father, Louis VIII, bears a shield semé de lys, bearings which may be traced back to the mantle and shoes worn by Philip Augustus at his ‘sacre’ in 1179, similarly sown with fleurs de lys. Needless to say, the correctness of no theory concerning the origin of European blazon is demonstrable, and it is to be regretted that the author did not steer clear of it altogether. As an account of Moslem blazon and of the emblems found upon Arabic glass, pottery, sculpture, coins, metal-work and arms, Artin Pasha’s work, in spite of such blemishes, will be of great value to archaeologists and collectors. The author has been at pains to obtain as complete a series as possible of the strange insignia frequently figuring upon these works of art. His plan is to discuss the bearings such as the fleur de lys, lion, fish, eagle, cup, dice, horns, the so-called hieroglyphic signs, the sword and sabre, crescent, cross, dagger, separately, each with its history, and a catalogue of extant examples. Of these over three hundred are reproduced, many in colour, from Egypt and the continental and London museums. Unfortunately many are unidentified, and it seems to us that it would have increased the value of the book if approximate[Pg 261] dates had been assigned to the objects decorated with such insignia as remain for the present in this category. The constitution of mameluke society, to which the majority of mediaeval armigerous Egyptians belonged, is the great obstacle to a systematic identification or study of their heraldry, if heraldry it can be called. The cases in which insignia are known to have been inherited are so few, says the author, that one cannot affirm that hereditary blazon generally existed in Egypt, though in the case of the emirs he concludes for the existence of transmission from father to son; admittance to the mameluke body was closed, apparently, to their legal offspring, and in the majority of cases their insignia denoted official or court rank and changed with it. ¶ Artin Pasha gives also a great deal of information concerning the emblems used by other oriental nations, though his arguments seem occasionally to bring within the net heraldic purely conventionalized animal or vegetable forms, attributing to much merely symbolical or ornamental material a character unwarranted by the strict significance of the term blazon.

A. V. DE P.

This, the second and much enlarged edition of a volume published thirty years ago and long out of print, contains the fruits of the author’s researches, not only at Liége and in the Mosan towns, but also in many museums and private collections. ¶ In the first fifty pages he has brought together all the documentary evidence as to the introduction and progress of art in the principality, illustrating the same by reproductions of the paintings on the mutilated shrine of Saint Odilia at Kerniel, of miniatures from manuscripts in the British Museum, the Royal Library at Brussels, etc., and of the exquisite storied embroideries on the antependium from the church of Saint Martin at Liége, now in the Industrial Art Museum at Brussels. In the next three chapters the author treats of the Benedictine artists of Liége, of the Mosan contemporaries of the Van Eycks, and of the paintings executed in the fifteenth century, of which so little has escaped destruction. As to the painters who flourished in the sixteenth century there is fuller information, though there yet remains much to be done before the history of Joachim Patenir and Henry Bles can be cleared up and their works classified. Of Lambert Lombard and his pupils and followers the author gives us a full account, and from their time onwards to the end of the eighteenth century this volume contains a thoroughly complete history of the painters who flourished in the district and of the paintings they executed. We congratulate the author on the termination of this work, which, with the volume on sculpture and the plastic arts published by him in 1890, constitutes a very satisfactory and well-illustrated history of art in the principality of Liége.

W. H. J. W.

JAHRBUCH DER KÖNIGLICH PREUSSISCHEN KUNSTSAMMLUNGEN, 1903, 2. HEFT.—The article of most general interest in the current number is that by Drs. Ludwig and Bode on the picture of the Resurrection recently acquired by the Berlin gallery from Count Roncalli of Bergamo. The assumption that this is by Giovanni Bellini himself rests on the following evidence: The church of St. Michael, on the cemetery island of Venice, was so ruined in 1469 that the abbot of the Camaldulensian house to which it belonged began to rebuild it. In the year 1475 the patrician Marco Zorzi, of the Bertucci family, obtained permission to build and furnish a family chapel in the church. The chapel was dedicated to the Virgin, but in his mother’s will, dated 1479, it is already referred to as the chapel of the Resurrection. Then follows the testimony of later writers. Sansovino, 1581, describing the church, says, ‘La risurrezzione a olio fu del medisimo Gian Bellino.’ Ridolfi, 1648, describes the picture fully, and attributes it to Bellini. Boschini, 1664, calls it a Cima, an attribution which clung to the picture in St. Michael’s till 1810, when it disappeared. It will be noted that there is hitherto no proof that the Roncalli picture stood once in the chapel in question. That a composition of this kind by Bellini existed was already to be guessed from various motives copied in other pictures. The question remains whether this is the identical picture, and not, as has been hitherto thought, a late version by Basaiti, Previtali or Bartolommeo Veneto. On the other hand it is noted that Ridolfi’s account of the picture is so minute that one may assume that the Roncalli picture is either the actual one that[Pg 262] stood in Zorzi’s chapel or an exact copy. The problem therefore resolves itself into the question of whether the existing picture is a copy or not. Drs. Ludwig and Bode are agreed that it is an original, and in spite of some curious points which do not precisely agree with any other existing Bellini we think they are right. The picture with which it has most affinity is the Transfiguration at Naples, to which for various reasons we may assign a date just a year or two previous to 1478, the date of this work. If this is correct the likeness to Basaiti, Cima and Bartolommeo Veneto is to be explained by the fact that this work exercised a profound influence on the rising generation of Venetian painters. It is to be noted also that we have here already the peculiar honeycombed rock formation which the Vicentine painters, Montagna in particular, afterwards employed. Whatever be the final verdict as to the authorship of the work, the authorities of the Berlin gallery are to be congratulated upon having secured one of the most imaginative compositions in the whole range of Venetian art.—R. E. F.

Dr. Bode writes on the work of Hercules Segers, whose pictures, long forgotten or ascribed to other masters, Rembrandt, Van Goyen, or Vermeer of Haarlem, have recently been rediscovered, mainly through the insight of Dr. Bode himself. The Berlin gallery has possessed since 1874 the only signed picture hitherto known; another signed work is now in the possession of Dr. Hofstede de Groot. These two, a second landscape lately acquired by the Berlin gallery, and a picture exhibited in London in 1901 under the name of Vermeer, but now the property of Herr Simon, are reproduced. Other pictures discussed in the text are a landscape ascribed to Rembrandt in the Uffizi and another, also under Rembrandt’s name, in the National Gallery of Scotland. A great part of the article is devoted to the etchings, the true starting-point of all our knowledge of Segers. About sixty of these are known, of which the Amsterdam cabinet has fifty, while very few other collections possess any considerable number. Several admirable facsimiles in colour accompany the article, and the interesting announcement is made that a publication of the entire work of Segers is contemplated, under the editorship of Prof. Jaro Springer. Almost all the etchings are landscapes, generally printed in colour on a prepared ground, and often finished by the artist with the brush. Dr. Bode discusses the question whether the wild mountain scenery depicted in most of them was invented by the artist or true to nature, and decides for the latter alternative. A great curiosity is the etching in colours of the Lamentation for Christ, copied by Segers from a wood-cut by Hans Baldung. An excellent reproduction is given of the impression recently acquired by the Berlin cabinet. Dr. Bode does not mention the fact that an impression was already known in the collection of King Frederick Augustus II at Dresden, where it passed for a drawing by Baldung till its true character was discerned some years ago by Prof. Lehrs.

C. D.

L’ARTE. Parts I–IV. 1903.—The publication of L’Arte, suspended owing to a strike at Rome, has been resumed, and we have received the first four parts for the current year. Signor Venturi appears to have finally discovered the authorship of the small bronze doors which close the reliquary containing St. Peter’s keys in S. Pietro in Vincoli. These, which have been variously praised as Pollajuolo’s and disparaged as Filarete’s, are really not Florentine at all, but by the Milanese Caradosso, working doubtless under Florentine influence. There are two replicas of the two bas reliefs on the doors in question. Both, though alike in the general composition, are curiously modified in some essential particulars which render the subjects unintelligible. One of these replicas is in the Louvre, where it is attributed to the Florentine school; the other, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is more rashly ascribed to Lorenzo Ghiberti, to whose style it does not conform at all. ¶ M. Marcel Reymond solves satisfactorily a puzzling question connected with the tomb of Onofrio Strozzi in the church of Sta. Trinità in Florence. This has been ascribed on documentary evidence to Piero di Niccolò, who was supposed to have executed it in 1418. In 1423 Piero di Niccolò executed at Venice the essentially gothic monument of Doge Mocenigo, while Donatello himself only arrived at a conception like that of the Strozzi tomb in his monument of Giovanni de’ Medici in 1429. On stylistic grounds there can be no doubt that the Strozzi tomb is nearly a decade later than the Medici tomb, and yet the documentary evidence has been hitherto allowed as authoritative. On closer examination, however, this appears to be quite inconclusive; it is a warning of the necessity for re-examining documents in the light of the evidence afforded by style. The Strozzi tomb may be safely considered to be no earlier[Pg 263] than the close of the fourth decade of the century. It is either, M. Reymond thinks, by Donatello himself, or by some sculptor who carried out a design by him. ¶ The remains of Pisan domination in Sardinia are the subject of researches by Signor Dionigi Scano, who has had the good fortune to discover at Oristano a signed statue by Nino Pisano, together with a number of bas reliefs in which he traces Pisan influence. The very crude architectural settings of most of these, however, betray a strain of northern influence. Far finer than these are the thirteenth-century lion-head door handles in bronze which he reproduces. ¶ Dr. Seidlitz returns to the question of Zenale and Buttinone à propos of Signor Malaguzzi Valeri’s interesting book on Lombard painters. He points out the impossibility of supposing, as Signor Valeri does, that the Castelbarco altarpiece in the Brera belongs to the fifties. The supposed 5 of the date must be a mutilated 8. In the main, however, he appears to have come independently to similar conclusions about the respective shares of Buttinone and Zenale in the great Treviglio altarpiece. He calls attention to the important picture by Zenale (the Circumcision) in the Louvre overlooked by the Italian writer, but by far the most interesting suggestion that he makes is that the strangely imaginative composition of the Adoration in the Ambrosian Library which Morelli described as an early Bramantino is by Buttinone himself. It must be admitted that in no other work does that artist display a freedom and originality of invention comparable to this, but the likenesses to his peculiarly uncouth style are certainly striking. We should like to call attention to the fact that most of these ideas were suggested some years ago by Mr. Herbert Cook in his catalogue to the Lombard exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. Both Dr. Seidlitz and Signor Valeri are acquainted with this work, but neither has had the courtesy to make full acknowledgement of Mr. Cook’s priority. ¶ Signor Francesco La Grassa-Patti writes on the works of the Della Robbia in Sicily. The full-length Madonna at Trapani he attributes to Andrea, though the coarse vigorous forms suggest Giovanni while still working in his father’s style as more likely. The work is described as Giovanni’s by Miss Cruttwell. The second is a tondo at Messina (Sta. Maria della Scala) which Miss Cruttwell describes as a school piece. This also is attributed by Signor Grassa-Patti to Andrea, while the one work for which Andrea’s authorship might be claimed, the Madonna del Cuscino at Palermo, is called a school piece. A fourth work is the Adoration in the church of S. Niccolò lo Gurgo at Palermo. This M. Reymond considers to be one of many replicas of the motive. The author makes no mention of Miss Cruttwell’s exhaustive researches, although, with the exception of the last, all these works have been fully and critically treated by her. ¶ Signor Gino Fogolari describes some wooden sculptures of the twelfth century at Carsoli and Alatri. Those at the latter place comprise a magnificent Madonna and Child, one of the finest specimens of the type which was usual in Italian sculpture of this period, and twelve has reliefs of the doors which originally closed the Madonna’s shrine. These are of interest as still possessing some of the original colouring and for their similarity in technique to the ivory work of the period. ¶ Dr. Romualdi describes an admirable plan which has been formed for making a complete catalogue raisonné of all publications on the history of Italian art. The scheme is to treat the subject by means of regional committees, whose work will be united and revised by central committees at Florence and Rome. The importance of such a catalogue in a subject of which the literature has become so unwieldy cannot be overrated: the scheme deserves every encouragement. ¶ Signor Venturi replies at length to Dr. Julius von Schlosser’s views concerning the sketch-book attributed to Giusto of Padua in the National Gallery of Engravings at Rome, maintaining the correctness of his original attribution. ¶ Among the ‘miscellanea’ there are descriptions of a fourteenth-century pastoral staff in the cathedral at Treviso, which Signor Biscaro attributes to a Venetian goldsmith. He seems scarcely to explain the peculiarly French character of most of the forms. ¶ Signor Venturi gives a description with a collotype reproduction of the newly-discovered Jacopo di Barbari at Naples. It is evidently a striking picture in which the influence of Antonello da Messina strongly predominates. The two men represented in it are Luca Pacioli, the celebrated mathematician, and the artist himself, whose apparent age agrees with that indicated by the inscription, namely, twenty years. This, since the picture bears the date 1495, throws a new light on Barbari’s position in Venetian art. Signor Venturi also reproduces a drawing in the Piancastelli collection at Rome, which appears to be the original work by Timoteo Viti of which the head in the Taylorian at Oxford, hitherto thought[Pg 264] to be an original, is a replica. If the reproductions are to be trusted, there can be no doubt about the superiority of the Roman drawing. Signor Toesca attributes the coarse picture of the Coronation of the Virgin in the Naples gallery (there ascribed to Matteo di Giovanni) to Christoforo Scacco. He also reproduces an Antoniazzo Romano in the depôt of the Uffizi. Signor Venturi maintains in a vehement but unconvincing argument his former opinion that the Resurrection which the Berlin gallery acquired recently from Count Roncalli at Bergamo is not by Giovanni Bellini, but by Bartolommeo Veneto. ¶ Signor P. D’Achiardi publishes a picture which is in the house of the cathedral chaplains at Pisa which has hitherto been supposed to be merely a school piece of Benozzi Gozzoli’s atelier, but which a recent restoration has shown to be worthy of the master. It is dated 1470, and is therefore one of the earliest of his Pisan works. Signor Manceri adduces a document which shows that Pietro di Bontate, who was supposed to have assisted Laurana in his works at Palermo, was not an artist but a stonemason.

GAZETTE DES BEAUX ARTS, June.—M. Henri Cochin begins, in ‘Some reflections on the Salons,’ a delightful article which is none the worse for containing very little about the pictures and a good deal of general speculation about the aims which modern art has proposed to itself. He regrets that the present moment is one in which the public has to some extent lost confidence in its own omniscience, and that the artists are without any clearly formulated ideals to arouse their devotion or hatred. ¶ Owing to the activity of M. Paul Meurice, Paris is going to have yet another museum, that of Victor Hugo. In what was once the poet’s house in the Place Royale, there have been collected and arranged all kinds of records and mementos of the poet-politician’s career. Not the least important of these are the pen-and-ink drawings in which he often made the first record of scenes, elaborated afterwards in prose or verse. It is to these slight but by no means insignificant performances that M. Emile Berteaux devotes a serious study. There was, in fact, a time when Victor Hugo nearly turned artist; he got so far as to master the processes of etching and to produce one successful plate. But he realized the danger of this parergon interfering with his real work and never repeated the experiment. Nevertheless, to the end of his life he noted ideas or striking effects in pen-drawings of astonishing force and brilliance, on which he smudged a melodramatic chiaroscuro with a finger dipped in ink or coffee. The results cannot be treated as great works of art, but none the less every one of them proclaims the man of genius; nor are they unimportant for the understanding of Victor Hugo’s development, since the sombre mood of his later poems was already foreshadowed in these hasty improvisations. ¶ M. Moreau-Nélaton describes the genesis of one of Corot’s late works, the view of Sin-le-noble, now forming part of the Thomy-Thiéry bequest to the Louvre. M. Denis Roche begins an account of Dmitri Grigorévitch Lévitski, a little-known Russian portraitist of the eighteenth century, whose works have decided merit. A certain influence of contemporary Venetian art is apparent in his composition, but for the most part he was formed under the influence of French artists like Tocqué, whom the Empress Elizabeth invited to Russia in the middle of the century. The portrait of Diderot by Lévitski, which is reproduced here, shows that his feeling for character was keener than the average run of West European painters of his time. It is comparable to a Chardin rather than any of the more mannered masters of the day.

RASSEGNA D’ARTE, June.—Signor Carlo Gamba describes two works of art in the royal villa of Castello; one, a Florentine picture (a Nativity) of about 1460, in which the influence of Baldovinetti is most apparent; the other a polychrome stucco attributed to Agostino di Duccio. The composition is undoubtedly his, but the type of face is longer and more accented than is usual with that master. ¶ Signor Antonio Gobbo points out the great differences between the ancient methods of mosaic work and those which obtain in the modern factories at Venice and elsewhere. He insists rightly on the necessity of doing the mosaic in situ, instead of reversed on a cartoon, on the desirability of a restricted colour-scheme and of a less mechanically even fabrication of the tesserae. It is interesting to have explained thus the extreme discomfort one experiences in front of most modern mosaics. ¶ Signor Annoni describes some remains of fifteenth-century work in the northern suburb of Milan, the most interesting being a fresco which he attributes to Borgognone at Garignano. ¶ Signor Antonio della Rovere endeavours to prove by Morellian methods that a feeble and late sixteenth-century Venetian picture, representing St. Jerome, is by[Pg 265] none other than Giorgione. As he relies for his proof on the attribution to Giorgione of the Three Ages in the Pitti, and a well-known Torbido in the Venice academy, his extraordinary result is not entirely the fault of the method he employs. ¶ The Antonello da Messina of Christ at the Column in the museum at Piacenza is reproduced in this number. It is evidently a work of the highest importance for our knowledge of this great and still scarcely understood master. In conception and execution alike it surpasses all the numerous works by Solario and others that it inspired.

THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, June, contains an account of Orvieto cathedral by Mr. Langton Douglas. He effectively disparages Commendatore Fumi’s theory that the original design for the church which follows the plan of a Roman basilica was by Arnolfo di Cambio, and attributes it to ‘some mediocre master of the conservative Roman school.’ With regard to the façade and the importance of Lorenzo Maitano’s work at Orvieto he is in accordance with Burckhardt and Bode. He has done a real service to students in reproducing the two beautiful designs of the façade by the great Sienese master. In discussing the sculptures of the façade he shows excellent reasons for assuming, as was already done by Burckhardt and Bode, that Maitano was the master sculptor. We are rather surprised to find him however admitting M. Marcel Reymond’s contention that Andrea da Pontedera also had a hand in the work, though at a much earlier date than that writer supposed. The work, we think, is throughout thinner, slighter, and of a more facile elegance than the known works of Andrea Pisano. Mr. Langton Douglas tends to exaggerate the indifference of previous writers to Sienese sculpture: the list of works which he gives, with the remark that they have ‘entirely escaped the notice of M. Reymond and other writers upon Tuscan sculpture,’ is more completely given in Bode’s ‘Italienische Plastik’. ¶ For the rest the Architectural Review is devoted to contemporary works, among which we may call attention to Mr. Gilbert Scott’s remarkable designs for the Liverpool Cathedral competition. We may hope that even now it is not too late for the committee to revise their verdict and give us the chance of seeing the execution of a really vital and original gothic design.

The May number of the Emporium (Bergamo) which did not reach us in time for our last issue contains an interesting account by Signor Frizzoni of the Tadini gallery at Lovere. The gallery which, with the immense modern palace that contains it, was left to the remote little town of Lovere by Count Tadini, has, it must be admitted, a very small proportion of notable works, but since Signor Frizzoni has rearranged it, its value for the lover of art is considerably enhanced. It is no longer necessary to wander through innumerable seventeenth-century copies in order to pick out the few works that demand serious attention. And these few are indeed of such excellence that no one need regret the time spent in coasting up the winding shores of the Lake of Iseo in order to visit it. By far the most remarkable of these is the incomparable Jacopo Bellini of the Madonna and Child, perhaps the finest existing work of this rare master. Besides this there is Bordone’s greatest masterpiece, a Madonna and Child enthroned with SS. Christopher and George below—a work of almost Giorgionesque splendour, though it is needless to say more florid in taste and more agitated in line. The curtain suspended behind by flying putti reminds one for a moment of Lotto’s S. Bernardino altarpiece. Another fine picture is the portrait of a knight by Parmigiano, while in a picture which the catalogue describes as ‘un bellissimo quadro di Pietro Perugino,’ it is possible to recognize the forms of an early Veronese master, probably Domenico Morone himself. We can only hope that the trustees of the Tadini bequest will carry out Signor Frizzoni’s suggestion and have this picture, which has suffered from clumsy repainting, restored so far as possible to its original condition. An early Venetian picture, falsely signed Cornelio Fiore, and attributed, quite rightly we think, to Lorenzo Veneziano by the author, and a crudely-painted Pietà, signed by Girolamo da Treviso, are other original works.

R. E. F.

Gazette des Beaux Arts. Durendal (Brussels). Onze Kunst (Amsterdam and Antwerp). L’Art (Paris). La Presse Universelle (Antwerp). L’Arte (Rome). Rassegna d’Arte. The Architectural Review

We have received from Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi & Co. an impression of a mezzotint by Mr. H. Scott Bridgwater after Raeburn’s portrait of Mrs. Home Drummond of Blair Drummond, which they have just published. Raeburn loses nothing in Mr. Bridgwater’s translation, indeed the mezzotint has greater merit as a work of art than the original picture; we have seen no modern engraving in mezzotint which we can regard as its equal. Mr. Bridgwater has produced a work worthy to rank with the best mezzotint engraving of the eighteenth century—with the work even of such a master of the art as J. R. Smith; and this portrait of Mrs. Drummond is very much superior to some of the eighteenth-century mezzotints for which absurd prices are being paid by people who regard everything that comes from the eighteenth century with indiscriminating admiration. We do not believe that anyone of taste and judgement, who was not blinded by the eighteenth-century glamour, could seriously maintain that any mezzotint of Valentine Green’s is to be compared as a work of art with Mr. Bridgwater’s latest work. We have little enough to boast of in modern artistic production; let us at least recognize good work when we meet with it; the best work of modern artists has been done in black and white, and most of the modern works of art that are really worth collecting are drawings or etchings; to these we can now add some mezzotints, among which Mr. Bridgwater’s Mrs. Drummond is perhaps the most notable. The issue is restricted to 350 impressions, all artist’s proofs.

SIR,

One of your subscribers in Venice has drawn my attention to an article in your magazine (April number, p. 185), written by Mr. Herbert Cook, and illustrating a magnificent portrait by Titian, in the possession of Mr. Julius Wernher. Your subscriber tells me that similarly insufficiently described Italian portraits are not uncommon in English private collections, though, of course, not through the fault of the collectors, as it is impossible to obtain sufficient information from printed books only. We here in Venice are naturally better off, and the public and private archives and the manuscripts in the libraries offer much material to one who is experienced to handle it, and yield in most cases sufficient information. So your subscriber has asked me to show in the case of this Giacomo Doria what we can achieve here. ¶ To the student of palaeography it is not a matter of opinion, but of certainty, that the inscription reads: Giacomo Doria quondam Agostini, that means Giacomo Doria, son of the late Agostino. The dress is not the habit of an Augustinian friar. In the famous concert by Giorgione, in the Palazzo Pitti, the ecclesiastic playing the clavi-cembalo is an Augustinian;[Pg 267] he is clean shaven, has the large tonsure, and wears a mozetta. It is impossible to decide by looking at the reproduction alone whether Giacomo wears Venetian or Genoese dress, everything being entirely black. According to Crollalanza’s ‘Dizionario storico-blasonico,’ there were two families of the name of Doria—one in Genoa, and one in the Veneto. Mr. Cook has not been able to decide to which branch Giacomo belonged. ¶ Now Signor Comm. Carlo dei Conti Bullo, at Venice, has a private archive containing many important documents concerning the history of the town of Chioggia. These documents show that the war between Venice and Genoa, called the war of Chioggia, led to the settlement of several important Genoese families in Chioggia. Amongst these are mentioned the Bonivento, the Cibo, the Gandolfo and the Doria. ¶ The Chioggia branch of the Doria family still exists; its present head is Signor Giovanni Battista Doria, a draughtsman in the Genio Civile in Venice. This gentleman has in his possession a genealogical tree, compiled and signed by two canons of the cathedral of Chioggia, which proves his descent from Victor, son of Giovanni, born in the year 1480, and founder of the Chioggia branch. But in this tree no Giacomo di Agostino occurs. Now Signor Doria has another tree, although not a signed one, which shows how Victor di Giovanni is attached to the main trunk of the family in Genoa. In this tree the looked-for Giacomo di Agostino occurs; he is therefore a Genoese and not a Venetian. ¶ We give here the interesting part of this tree:

We see from this tree that Giacomo was a man of eminence, a brother of a doge, and the father of two doges of the republic of Genoa. His personality is of particular interest to the Germans, as his nearest relations play an important part in Schiller’s great tragedy, ‘The Conspiracy of Fiesco.’ His cousins Vettor and Nicolò settled in Chioggia, and, probably on the occasion of a visit to his relatives, Titian painted his portrait. Signor Doria is not certain as to the signification of the dates occurring in this tree, probably they mean the year of birth. Mr. Cook puts the portrait about the year 1523, but I am afraid it will have to be put to a considerably later date. ¶ This is all we can do in Venice; for further information about Giacomo one would have to search the documents in the archives of Genoa. ¶ Curiously enough, Mr. Cook has not a word to say about the arms which one can faintly recognize in the upper left-hand corner of the reproduction. I give below the arms of the Genoese Dorias, and those of the Dorias of Chioggia. ¶ From what I am able to make out, the arms represented on the picture are the Genoese arms. I shall be happy to search for arms occurring on Italian portraits in English collections, and collect information about the persons represented, if printed books fail to give the necessary help.

Yours truly,
GIOVANNI DE PELLEGRINI.

Studio Araldico, Campo San Maurizio,
Venice.

[Pg 271]

❧ WRITTEN BY L. SOLON ❧

MR. W. CHAFFERS is responsible for the spread of a theory regarding the Lowestoft factory and its productions, which, after it had been provisionally endorsed by the majority of collectors, turned out to be one of the worst mystifications recorded in ceramic history. It must be conceded, in mitigation of the offence, that seldom had such a crop of apparently admissible evidence turned up to substantiate an ill-grounded belief. ¶ On a visit that the author of ‘Marks and Monograms,’ in quest of information, paid to the town of Lowestoft, he came across numerous pieces of porcelain of very distinctive character, bearing the crest or initials of the old families in which they had long been preserved, and all of which were said by their possessors to have been made in the local factory that existed at one time. He concluded, naturally enough, that he was on the way to the discovery of a most important and so far unsuspected centre of production—a too-hasty conclusion that a prejudiced course of investigation, unfortunately, came to strengthen. ¶ The ware that he soon felt himself warranted to call ‘Lowestoft porcelain’ bore, it is true, decorations of European design, but was no other than the inferior oriental china that the East India companies threw wholesale upon the market during the eighteenth century. In building up his lame theory Chaffers had neglected to take into consideration a few points of primary importance. ¶ All the ancient inhabitants of the town who could remember anything of the extinct factory agreed in saying that it was a small place, with only one biscuit oven and one enamelling kiln, and that at the best of times the number of persons it employed did not exceed seventy. Now, if the inquirer had not willingly lost sight of the fact that the very same kind of porcelain as that of which he was endeavouring to localize the origin was commonly found in every country which had had commercial intercourse with the east, not only in Europe, but also in America—where Boston and Salem were the centres of a large importation trade—and that many ancient families inhabiting the sea-port towns of those countries boast the possession of tea or dinner services of similar china, emblazoned with the arms or inscribed with the initials of an ancestor who had obtained them from the East Indies; if he had not conveniently forgotten that odd specimens of the ware are found in every collection and curiosity shop at home and abroad, then he might have suspected that such a colossal supply could only have come from a manufacturing centre of amazing magnitude, and not from a small factory at work for a few years on the coast of England. He also failed to observe that the paste of the china was manifestly of oriental character, and that there is no record of hard porcelain having ever been made at Lowestoft. ¶ On the other hand, a coarse kind of soft china, usually painted in underglaze blue, has been traced as the undeniable product of the Lowestoft factory, and a sufficient number of examples of that class can now be produced to dispel any doubt as to the precise description of the ware that was made there, and to put an end to all controversy. ¶ To the facility that the[Pg 272] situation of Lowestoft offered for trading with Holland by way of Yarmouth must be attributed the existence of a petty company of merchants who joined to the importation of Delft-faïence the manufacture, on a small scale, of a pottery of the same description. White and blue faïence pieces, inscribed with local names and dated as early as 1755, seem to indicate that the pottery-works were in operation about that time. The making of soft china was added shortly afterwards. A heap of discarded plaster moulds was unearthed from the site of the old works in 1902; it included moulds for embossed sauce-boats and plain globular teapots; upon one of these latter, the date 1762 was incised in the plaster. The globular tea-pot made in that mould is reproduced on the accompanying plate. In the same year a queer, nine-sided ink-pot was manufactured; it bears a pseudo-Chinese ornamentation in underglaze blue, with the monogram ‘R.B. 1762.’ Robert Browne, for whom the piece was painted and inscribed, was the head of the firm till 1771. This unimpeachable testimony of the true style of the Lowestoft fabrication is now in the possession of Mr. Arthur Crisps, in whose collection are preserved six other ink-pots of the same shape, together with many other genuine pieces, decorated in the same manner, and bearing dates ranging from 1762 to 1782. Among these may be mentioned a tea service which has the name ‘Eliza^th Buckle,’ and the date 1768, painted in blue. It was executed by Robert Allen, a nephew of the worthy dame, who was still serving his apprenticeship, but in after times became the manager of the works. Also a number of small articles bearing the words ‘A trifle from Lowestoft’ or ‘A trifle from Yarmouth.’ None of these specimens have anything in common with the so-called Lowestoft china. ¶ A family tradition discloses the way in which porcelain making was introduced at Lowestoft. It is reported that Robert Browne, anxious to master a process unknown to him and from which he expected great results, repaired to London disguised as a workman, and in that capacity took employment in one of the china factories, either Bow or Chelsea. The discipline of former years had somewhat relaxed in these establishments, and he had no difficulty in worming out from one of the foremen, in exchange for adequate remuneration, the secret of the mixture, with instructions about practical manipulations. The object he had in view appears to have been most easily attained; scarcely three weeks had elapsed when he returned to his own works, provided with sufficient information to start china-making at once, without calling any outsider to his assistance. It is needless to observe that what he learned in this manner did not put him in the position of producing hard porcelain, and that he could not have made any on this basis. ¶ As it stands now the history of the Lowestoft works is a short one to tell. A better knowledge of the exact nature of the owners’ business might have been obtained from an examination of the papers and account books of the old firm; they may or may not be still in existence; at any rate, their contents have never been investigated. We know very little besides the fact that fritt porcelain was made for the first time in 1762, and that the factory was closed in 1803. This article will, however, have fulfilled its purpose if it establishes, once for all, not so much what was the true Lowestoft ware, but what it was not. One may well wonder how it came to pass that the name of the obscure Lowestoft factory could ever have been mentioned in connection with a particular ware which, in every country where the unmistakable specimens of it are met with in large quantities, is recognized as being of oriental provenance. As no conjecture has so far been advanced in answer to that query I will venture to present a not improbable solution of the problem.

That they never manufactured such a porcelain at Lowestoft has no longer [Pg 277] to be demonstrated; it remains to be proved that they sold it, and that the misconception as to its origin arose from no other cause. We must remember, in the first instance, that the proprietors of the works were also ship-owners, conducting a small trade with Holland. They exported English clays and raw materials for the use of the Delft potters, and brought back, in return, articles of Dutch faïence, often painted with names and inscriptions, for which they accepted commissions from private customers. We know, next, that Rotterdam was the centre of the mighty commerce carried on between Holland and China. It may, then, be fairly assumed that while engaged in the trade of common Delft ware, they conceived the idea of entering into communication with the wholesale importers of Chinese porcelain from whom they could purchase large supplies, and establishing in England a highly-remunerative branch of business by underselling the East India company. ¶ It was customary with the Dutch firms to send over to their foreign settlements shapes and designs obtained from European sources, to be reproduced by native hands. Models from Dresden, Sèvres, and even from Leeds or the Staffordshire potteries, were constantly copied in oriental porcelain. The Lowestoft people did what all other merchants had done before them, and through the same channel forwarded to China the designs of coats-of-arms, English mottoes, and initials that were to be painted on the porcelain they had undertaken to supply. In the Henry Willett collection is an armorial plate decorated in the usual Indo-European style, and inscribed, at the back, with its certificate of origin: CANTON IN CHINA 24th Jan. 1791. Commissions of that kind were received from the leading families of the neighbourhood and duly executed; hence the number of local patronymics that Chaffers noticed on the porcelain in the possession of many inhabitants of the town, who honestly believed that it had been made by the very men from whom it had been purchased. ¶ In 1770 the business had taken sufficient extension to induce the partners to open a warehouse in Queen Street, Cheapside. Their agent, Clark Dunford, inserted in the London papers an announcement in which he advertised ‘a large selection of Lowestoft china.’ We possess no information as to what may have been the exact description of the goods advertised under that name, but we may safely surmise that it was something superior to ‘A trifle from Lowestoft’ or any of the articles we know to have been the staple production of the works. It seems that a more attractive exhibition might have been formed in the show-room by a stock of Chinese porcelain imported by the Lowestoft company. ¶ I feel convinced that conclusive proofs of this elucidation of the Lowestoft puzzle will one day come to light; in the meantime, it cannot be denied that it is strongly supported by the following facts: It is recorded, on good authority, that the ruin of the company was caused by the wreck of one of their vessels carrying a cargo of porcelain, and the burning, by the French army, of the warehouse they had established at Rotterdam. The idea that the enormous amount of ware required to load a vessel and to fill a large warehouse in Rotterdam, not to speak of the one in London, could have been supplied by a one-oven factory, is too ludicrous to be entertained for one moment, and it may be dismissed without further comment. ¶ It has been suggested that the Lowestoft painters may have decorated ware imported from China in the white. By reason of the ubiquity of the porcelain decorated in the accredited style, and the small number of hands employed at the factory, such a suggestion is equally untenable. A hard porcelain teapot, unmistakably painted by a Chinese hand, which is marked ‘Allen, Lowestoft,’ is reproduced on the opposite page. Robert Allen was manager of the works up to the last. When they closed he[Pg 278] set up a small china shop in the town, decorating himself part of the articles he sold. His supply was drawn from various sources, including oriental. Far from being deceived by such misleading testimonies, we may only infer from this tea-pot that the dealer was wont to affix his name to all that passed through his hands, even upon such pieces as had been decorated abroad. This curious specimen is now in the Victoria and Albert museum. ¶ The so-called Lowestoft style is characterized by sprays and garlands of flowers, in which two peculiar pink and purple colours play a conspicuous part, and by scalloped borders of the scale or trellis patterns. Similar designs appear on the early china and earthenware of Staffordshire. The last partisans of the Chaffers theory—for all the offshoots of the mystification have not yet been fully eradicated—believe that such pieces afford irrefutable examples of the Lowestoft original production. This is an error that must be discarded with the others. To imitate Chinese decoration has always been the golden rule of the English potter; just as he had reproduced the fine Nankin porcelain, he also copied the quasi-European ware manufactured for exportation by the East India company, and this all the more readily that it could be easily and cheaply produced. The well-known scale borders and the sprays of pink and purple roses occur frequently on the early china of Minton, Spode and other makers. These designs were obviously taken from the Chinese importations, and did not originate in the Potteries any more than they originated at Lowestoft. ¶ From the few authenticated specimens that have come under the collector’s notice we gather that the paste of the genuine Lowestoft porcelain is coarse, semi-opaque, and of a dingy white; the glaze is speckled with bubbles and minute black spots, which denote a rather imperfect manufacture. It is poorly decorated, and under these conditions we understand that it was not preciously preserved in the households; at all events, it has now become very rare. No mark was ever used at the factory, and the specific character of the ware is not sufficiently pronounced to allow us to use such undoubted examples as we possess as a means of identifying those which may have escaped destruction.

❧ WRITTEN BY GEORG GRONAU[87] ❧

ABOUT the middle of the year 1543, somewhere between June 20 and 25, a meeting of Paul III and Charles V was arranged at Busseto between Parma and Cremona with a view to the settlement of the political differences outstanding at that date. In the train of the pope came Titian, who on every occasion when the emperor set foot on Italian soil took the opportunity of paying his addresses to the monarch. On this occasion, too, the emperor had a commission for him; Titian was instructed to paint a portrait of the dead empress. From Aretino’s letters—which, apart from their personal fascination which no reader of them is able to resist, are second to none as a source of information on the life of the great painter—a few further details of the incident are to be gleaned, for some days later Aretino, in the company of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino and of the Venetian ambassadors, met the emperor near Peschiera in the course of his journey to Germany. It was one of the red letter days in Messer Pietro’s life, and, fulfilled with vain-glory, he was never tired of talking of the marked consideration wherewith, if his chronicle is to be trusted, the emperor received him. On this occasion, when portraiture became the topic of conversation, Charles referred to the portrait of his wife that he had given to Titian at Busseto, and told Aretino to tell his godfather that it was a very good likeness, though the work of a painter of small merit.[88] From Aretino’s letters we glean further particulars. In October 1544 he addresses a letter to the emperor wherein he extols the completed picture in such high-flown phrases as to baffle translation.[89] ‘In defiance of Death, he has called her back to life by the inspiration of his colours, so that God possesses her for the first, Charles for the second time.’ Although his words sound as if he were speaking of a finished picture, Titian, it would appear, did not dispatch the picture to the emperor until about a year later. In October 1545 he informed the monarch that he had handed the two portraits at which he had been working with all the diligence of which he was capable, over to Mendoza to be forwarded.[90] A few months later he was writing again from Rome, whither he had gone at the bidding of the Farnesi, to say that he had delivered his own portrait of the empress, ‘together with the other which had been given to me to copy,’ to Don Diego.[91] And he adds: ‘If I hear that it finds favour I shall feel the greatest satisfaction; but in the contrary event, I should prefer to improve it in such a manner as to content your majesty if our Lord God vouchsafes me to be able to come to bring a picture of Venus by me,’ etc. ¶ A little more than two years later Titian arrived at Augsburg at the summons of the emperor, who on this occasion wished once again to see himself portrayed by his favourite painter, this time as the conqueror of the Protestant princes, uplifted and on horseback. It involved a long sojourn. Towards the end of it, on September 1, 1548, Titian wrote to Granvella to explain his prospects to him, and in this letter enumerates the pictures he had done for the emperor, among them ‘The empress alone and the one of the emperor and empress.’ Here a little difficulty arises. Has Titian then painted a single portrait of the empress on two occasions, one between 1543 and 1545, the other in 1548? Or, on the other hand, is the work referred to in this[Pg 281] letter one and the same with the earlier portrait, and did Titian, as a matter of fact, work it up again? It is impossible to speak with any degree of certainty, but as the Spanish inventories always speak of one portrait only we may assume that the latter hypothesis is the more likely to be correct. ¶ While the double portrait has been lost, the picture of the empress has found a place in that incomparable collection of Titian’s works which the Prado gallery in Madrid comprises. It is one of Titian’s most important works; perhaps, indeed, it takes the first place among his portraits of women. Never is his taste more exquisite than here. Its courtly splendour strikes one as a matter of course. In the midst of glorious colour—red and white—the pale, somewhat colourless face stands out framed by its fair reddish hair; the hand clasps a breviary. A window to the right opens on a landscape scene, one of those glimpses of Nature such as Titian had the secret of conjuring up with his brush with such incomparable art. No one looking at the picture would ever be able to suspect how it was painted; that its painter had never seen his model with his own eyes. It was no uncommon thing, by the way, for Titian to paint the portraits of people whom he did not even know by sight. He was proud of his skill of being able to recognize the characteristic traits of a man or woman even from another artist’s work.[92] ¶We can, however, only realize the work of genius for which this portrait of Isabella stands when we compare it with the picture with which the emperor had furnished him, that portrait by ‘a painter of small merit.’ The picture itself has, it is true, been wholly lost, but a copy of it has recently come to light in Florence, and is reproduced in these pages for the first time. That we are not mistaken in assuming it to be a replica of the original from which Titian worked will be proved by the complete coincidence of all the principal characteristics of the picture in Madrid with the one before us. In the Florentine picture the empress is wearing a black robe with white puffed sleeves, a great deal of jewelry, and is holding a spray of foliage in her hand. The picture is, for the most part, sombre in tone, and the face stands out most effectively in its pallor. It has that diaphanous whiteness noticeable in anæmic people. The dull reddish hair frames it heavily. The background is a grey green; in a niche, over which a dull red curtain is draped, the symbol of the exalted rank of the sitter, the imperial crown, is represented. To judge from its style this picture dates back to a Flemish master, though, with the somewhat scanty inherent evidence available, it is impossible to suggest the name of any particular artist. ¶ The picture originates from Bologna, where it was in the possession of the Pepoli family. That in itself is interesting, for we know that Isabella’s sister, Beatrice, duchess of Savoy, had taken up her quarters in the Pepoli palace during the rejoicings in 1530 in celebration of Charles V’s coronation, and that it was the scene of a brilliant ball which the emperor honoured with his presence. It would be well within the bounds of possibility, therefore, that the portrait of the empress, who had been prevented (she had been confined a short time previously) from coming to Bologna, had passed into possession of the Pepoli as a present at first hand, either from the emperor or from the duchess. A replica, with a few trivial distinctions, of the picture is entered in the inventory of the house of Farnese (about 1680). In this the left hand is resting on the back of the chair.[93]

The Florentine picture has undoubtedly a conspicuous iconographic importance as the most authentic portrait of the woman who shared the throne of Charles V. At the same time, its value from the standpoint of the history of art is immeasurably greater, inasmuch as it affords us a most interesting insight into Titian’s [Pg 282] methods. This picture should be compared with the painting in Madrid, their points of variance carefully considered with the question why the master omitted this or added that. It is as though in this picture we were watching him at work with our very eyes. Especially noteworthy is the fact that the imperial crown is not repeated. An artist whose work lacks character needs a symbol as an outward and visible sign-post. One, on the contrary, who knows how to express dignity in the bearing of his sitter, can dispense with these commonplaces. Titian was, of course, compelled to adopt the outline of the features, the colouring of the complexion and of the hair. He even adopted the pose in its main outlines. On the other hand he changed the colour of the dress and the pose of the hands; the pose of the Florentine picture is conventional and meaningless. By adding the book of hours he gains a signal detail of characterization, for the empress was very devout. If in the Flemish picture there is a certain note of contrast brought out by the sombre dress and the costly jewels, in Titian’s picture these ornaments blend with the costly draperies, glowing in the richest colours which robe the empress here. More important still is the fact that the antithesis is toned down thereby, and something of life comes into the pale face by reason of the warm red robe, while in the other it has a cold and lifeless tone, intensified by the dead black garment. And here the little glimpse of landscape which Titian introduces in the right-hand half of the picture gains a special significance of its own. It deflects the eye a little, well-nigh without arousing one’s consciousness that it is so doing; it adds a nuance of restfulness and colour that has as subtle and pleasing an effect as that of a Gobelin, although the landscape is convincingly realistic, instinct with that realism that comprises in its quintessence all the elements of colour and of form, and yet is the abstraction of the characteristics of a definite locality. This, comparatively speaking, small patch (considered as a patch of colour within the picture as a whole) prevents the figure from standing out in too hard relief from the dim-lit background and adds that very essential element of atmosphere to give life to the picture. ¶ It is worth noting that not until a, comparatively speaking, later period did Titian make use of a landscape background. All his earlier portraits show a neutral tone for the background. One finds it for the first time, in so far as the number of Titian’s paintings known to us at present justifies an expression of opinion, in the portrait of the duchess of Urbino of 1537. Thenceforward Titian made very frequent use of this subtle and life-giving device of his art. The portrait of Count Porcia in the Brera gallery in Milan, the little Strozzi in Berlin, the picture of Charles V in Munich are examples of it. Here the element which henceforward is inseparable from courtly portraiture is created. Rubens and Vandyke, above all, follow in the footsteps of the Venetian, whose influence might be traced down to modern times. ¶ Put the Flemish portrait by the side of Titian’s; it is, we see, the self-same picture in its main outlines, and yet with what fundamental distinctions. On the one hand the work of a ‘trifling brush’ (the emperor’s own words, according to Aretino) and on the other the conscious feat of a prince of painters. ¶ Nothing within the scope of artistic consideration can afford so much incitement and pleasure as to force one’s way into the work of the really great. For what they did is not merely a delight to the beholder; it remains an enduring exemplar for the worker. From this sole instance it becomes manifest how a thing insignificant in itself may suffice to force the fruits of genius. Thus an Italian novel gives birth to one of Shakespeare’s dramas, thus the puppet play of Doctor Faust to Goethe’s sublimest work.

❧ WRITTEN BY CAMPBELL DODGSON ❧

THE British museum, thanks to a timely hint from a friend, has recently acquired a portrait drawing of considerable interest and unknown to students of the present generation. It represents a middle-aged woman, plain-featured and of a short, thick-set figure, seated, with clasped hands, drawn in three-quarter face and looking to the left. The sitter is plainly dressed, without a trace of ornament on the materials of her clothing; she wears a ring on the first finger of her left hand, and the artist has sketched very slightly a double or triple chain with pendants hanging from her neck and reaching across her bodice nearly to the waist. ¶ The portrait, which measures 16½ by 12⅜ ins. (42 by 31·5 centimetres), is lightly drawn in black chalk on a green prepared ground. The watermark of the paper is the large high crown surmounted by a cross (Hausmann, No. 4). A border line, which can be traced round three sides of the drawing, near the edge, is clearly a modern addition, being drawn with lead pencil. The portrait itself has entirely escaped retouching, and the whole sheet is in good preservation, except in a few places where the surface has been rubbed or stained; a severe crease across the lower right-hand corner of the paper has caused the prepared surface to crack. ¶ In the left-hand lower corner is the collector’s mark of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Fagan, 507 (1), stamped blind, and in the corresponding corner to the right is the initial C, also stamped blind, which belonged, according to Fagan (No. 72), to Captain William Coningham. The Lawrence stamp, in this form, was affixed to the drawings by Samuel Woodburn after he had purchased them in 1835. Coningham, too, had dealings with Woodburn; it may be conjectured that he purchased the present drawing from that dealer, and that it was included in the collection of drawings by old masters which Coningham sold to Messrs. Colnaghi in 1846. That would account for the absence of any mention of this drawing in the catalogue of the Woodburn sale in June 1860, when the bulk of the Lawrence drawings were finally dispersed. The drawing had been for a long period in private hands prior to its purchase by the trustees of the British museum in July of the present year, and had not appeared in the sale-room. ¶ After so much has been said about externals, it is time to look more closely at the drawing itself, which can only be reproduced, at present, on a greatly reduced scale, though it is hoped that an opportunity may present itself later on of issuing a full-sized reproduction in facsimile.

I have said nothing, so far, about the authorship of the drawing. The name of Holbein had been mentioned, but from the moment in which I first set eyes on it I had scarcely a doubt that the draughtsman was Dürer. No other artist of that date, so far as I remember, drew portraits in chalk on a green ground. No suspicion of forgery or fraud could be seriously entertained, and any momentary hesitation suggested by the formation of the eyes, the weak drawing of the left hand (an undeniable blemish), or the lack of energy in the shading of the costume, was soon dispelled by comparison with other drawings by Dürer on a similar scale and also on green paper, the authenticity of which has never been questioned. The impression suggested by the technique of the drawing itself was confirmed by an examination of the inscription and date, which are written in indian ink, and are indisputably genuine. Every letter is characteristic of Dürer’s handwriting; the inscription may be compared [Pg 286] especially with the long note of the same date on a drawing in the Vienna Hofmuseum (Lippmann, 423), in which Dürer has recorded a curious dream that he had in the early summer of 1525. The figures of the date agree closely with those on the Vienna drawing, and still more strikingly with those on a drawing in Mr. Heseltine’s collection (Lippmann, 172), the portrait of a young lady in a hat, with a dog on her lap, not signed, but dated 1525, also in indian ink. Mr. Heseltine’s portrait is that of a much more attractive person; it is also more carefully finished than the drawing which has recently come to light: but the two have much in common, even to the weak drawing of the left hand and the curious break in the outline of the upper eyelid of the left eye. The pose of the two figures is the same; the treatment of the clothes, both in outline and in shading, is curiously similar. The new portrait may also be compared with two large drawings on green paper already in the British museum: the portrait of Dürer’s wife, seriously damaged, of 1522 (Lippmann, 291), and the much more finished and masterly likeness of Henry Parker, Lord Morley (Lippmann, 87), drawn on the occasion of his visit to Nuremberg in 1523[94] as a special envoy sent to confer the order of the Garter on the Archduke Ferdinand. The ground of the latter drawing is of a bluer tint, but the green of Mr. Heseltine’s drawing and of the portrait of Agnes Dürer is almost identical with that of the new drawing in the British museum. ¶ The next question which arose when the authorship of the drawing was established to my own, and, I may add, to Mr. Colvin’s satisfaction, was the interpretation of the line of Dürer’s handwriting, ‘1525 Casmirs schwest^r fraw margret.’ No Casimir was known to me among the circle of Dürer’s friends or patrons, but I was not long in finding a solution which seems to meet all the requirements of the case. The name Casimir at once suggested the royal house of Poland; a reference to the first work on Polish history that lay at hand provided me with the name of a connexion of that family whose residence was not far away from Nuremberg. This was Casimir, margrave of Culmbach (1481–1527), eldest son of the Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Bayreuth (1460–1536) by his marriage with Sophia, daughter of Casimir III of Poland. Frederick, being of feeble intellect, was deposed in 1515 by his sons and confined in the castle of Plassenburg; Casimir thereupon ruled over the greater part of the Franconian possessions of the house of Hohenzollern. He was a soldier with mediaeval ideas, and a steadfast Catholic, in opposition to his brother George of Bayreuth, who favoured the reformers; he died on September 21, 1527, at Ofen, while holding a high command under Ferdinand in the Hungarian war, and was buried, like most of his family, in the abbey church at Heilsbronn. The name of his eldest sister was Margaret; she was born in January 1483, and died, unmarried, in 1532. I suggest, then, that this prince and princess, both living in 1525, are the Casimir and Margaret of Dürer’s note. The portrait may well be that of a woman of forty-two, though we might guess her to be older. There is nothing unusual in the title ‘Frau Margret’ being applied to a lady of princely rank; we may compare the titles ‘the Lady Mary,’ ‘the Lady Elizabeth,’ by which the princesses of our own royal house of Tudor were known at the same period. I can discover no other portrait of Margaret of Brandenburg-Ansbach, except as one of a group of the daughters of the Margravine Sophia on a wing of an altarpiece at Heilsbronn[95]; here, however, the kneeling princesses are all painted to one pattern, and at so early an age that no comparison of the features is possible. Dürer’s note is thus the only ground for believing that the newly acquired portrait is that of a Hohenzollern princess.[Pg 289] ¶ I was not previously aware that Dürer had enjoyed the patronage of any member of that illustrious family, but I ascertained in the course of the present investigation that there is reason to think that he had had direct relations with the Margrave Casimir himself. Dr. Julius Meyer[96] describes a lost votive picture by Dürer, which represented the body of our Saviour being anointed for burial, with Susanna, wife of Casimir, kneeling in adoration, and Casimir himself standing at her right hand. The picture is only known by a full description in a MS. inventory written in 1768 by its then owner, Hofrath Christian Friedrich von Knebel (1728–1805), at Ansbach. It was signed and dated 1518 in gold. It was painted, therefore, in the year of Casimir’s marriage with Susanna (1502–1543), daughter of Duke Albert III of Bavaria by his marriage with Kunigunda of Austria, sister of the Emperor Maximilian I. Susanna is described by Knebel as ‘Dürer’s great protectress’; it is reasonable to suppose, at any rate, that the close relations in which he stood at this time with the emperor, her uncle, may have led to his appointment to paint the portrait of the niece. ¶ I cannot resist the conjecture—it is hardly more—that the portrait in Mr. Heseltine’s collection was done at the same time, and represents another member of the Margrave Casimir’s family, in all probability his wife, Susanna of Bavaria. The lady cannot be another of his sisters, the youngest of whom, Barbara, was at this time thirty, while the only other survivors, Sophia and Anna, were forty and thirty-eight respectively, and already married.[97] Susanna, on the other hand, was twenty-three, and the portrait may well stand for a lady of that age. She appears to have been fond of dogs, for a large dog lay before her in Knebel’s picture. Medals of the years 1522, 1525 and 1527 respectively, containing portraits of this princess, are reproduced in ‘Schaumünzen des Hauses Hohenzollern,’ Berlin, 1901 (Nos. 522–524). No. 524, in which she is represented in a wide hat, in three-quarter face to the right, agrees best with Dürer’s drawing, but the features are far less pleasing, and Dürer was not wont to flatter his sitters. In 1528, a year after Casimir’s death, his widow married Otto Heinrich, of Neuburg, count (afterwards elector) palatine. Two medals of the year 1529, by Peter Flötner and Hans Daucher, representing Susanna in profile, are preserved in the Munich and Vienna cabinets respectively.[98] Both are superior as works of art to the earlier portraits reproduced among the Hohenzollern medals, and they tend, I think, to confirm, if not to prove, my hypothesis. ¶ Mr. Heseltine’s drawing formerly had an inscription which doubtless gave the name of the person represented. Unfortunately some vandal has cut the paper down, and his scissors have only left the extreme ends of two letters, which may be seen above the date, 1525, written, exactly as on the British museum drawing, with indian ink. Dr. Lippmann, in his note on No. 172, suggests that the lady was an Englishwoman and the drawing a counterpart to the portrait of Morley. This entirely gratuitous assumption compels him to suppose that the date was added by a later hand, and that the drawing was really made a few years earlier than 1525. The authentic inscription and date on the portrait of ‘Fraw Margret’ dispose, I think, of that suggestion. ¶ The new portrait, though not one of the finest class of Dürer drawings, is a welcome addition to the London collection, which is already unusually rich in large portrait-heads of the master’s later years.

[Pg 290]

❧ WRITTEN BY JOSEPH PENNELL ❧

THROUGHOUT the history of art, or rather the history of collecting, there has always been, in conjunction with the desire to collect, a hesitancy in collecting just those things which are ever with us and about which we know the most. Though tremendously characteristic of our age, this hesitancy is by no means confined to it. The Japanese print was ever despised in Japan, and still is, except from its pecuniary point of view, by that grossly over-rated, so-called clever people, who only learned to appreciate their own prints when taught to by the despised western barbarian; the etching of Rembrandt, until the dealer discovered its value, could mostly be obtained for a song; the mezzotint, when it was published, filled the place of the photograph, brought only a guinea, or so, though the near-as-possible counterfeit now is announced to be sold as a rarity in limited editions at the price of the original; the etching of Meryon, valued to-day as much for the paper it is printed on as for what is printed on the paper, was sold by the artist for a few francs, in several cases quite its full value—all these things and endless more are the sport of the collector. ¶ And yet it has always seemed to me extraordinary that the collector, who prizes works of the graphic arts mainly for their rarity, has never collected those which really are rare. It is inconceivable, it is astonishing and unbelievable, that the art of the nineteenth century, the art of illustration, has been so neglected that the original drawings, though they have been always with us, have never yet been properly prized, appreciated, catalogued and collected. I know that old drawings are collected, but the collector’s interest in them to a great extent dates only from yesterday, and even now their price does not equal that of prints from them, of which there may be dozens, or, in fact, nobody knows how many examples in existence. But I also know that, within the last hundred years, drawings, illustrations, have been made in England and America that will rank with any, ever made anywhere, in any age, and that these works of art are absolutely ignored. And they are ignored simply because they have not been collected, because in this country the British museum cannot purchase the work of living British artists, and often it is during the lifetime of the artist only that they can be secured, because in France there is no place to exhibit drawings save in a corner of the Luxembourg; the rest the French government possesses are buried in the Cabinet des estampes. Theoretically, the rule of the British museum may be a good one; it may be thought a safeguard against as terrible a hodge-podge as that presented on the walls of the art gallery at South Kensington. To some of us, however, a remedy suggests itself—change or modify the rule, and, under intelligent direction, there is no reason why collections as fine as those in Dresden and Berlin should not be easily obtained even in England. ¶ The consequence of this neglect, both deliberate and enforced on the part of the British government, has been that here dealers and collectors, connoisseurs and amateurs, have avoided original drawings almost altogether. Artists alone have cared for them, have collected them, and still own almost all that are best worth having.[99] But now[Pg 293] that the best examples have been collected, or have become impossible to collect, I see signs vaguely of an appreciation. I do not for a moment think this is due to any artistic awakening or any sudden recognition of a genuine form of art—the art, as I have always described it, and as it will be known in the future, of the nineteenth century. The real cause is to be found rather in the desire for some new thing. Personally, I care very little what is bringing the change about; I am merely delighted to know that it is coming,[100] for I have been preaching the beauty of this work for many years, though, I admit, in a wilderness of paint, prints, pots and postage stamps. When it does come, the possessors of these drawings will find that they own, not only things of beauty, but wonderful examples of an individual form of expression which owes its existence altogether to the last century. I do not mean to suggest that illustration is a modern form of art; it is as old as the world. I do not mean to say that, in their way, the works of the artists of the Renaissance are not glorious; I do not mean to say that the works of the eighteenth century are not superb, after their fashion; what I do mean is, that not until the nineteenth century in England, with Blake and with Bewick, did illustration become a separate, independent and individual branch of the fine arts. The reasons are simple—the appearance of artists who loved and respected their profession, and the improvement and development of technical and mechanical processes. ¶ Blake wished to show his art in his own publications. There was nothing new in this; Dürer had done it centuries before. But Blake confined himself virtually to illustration; with Dürer, it was only one of his many means of expression. Bewick may or may not have learned to adapt the technique of steel engraving to wood from Papillon; that is a detail for the historian. What he did do, and what Papillon did not, was to impose the new method successfully on the world. Not only did Bewick produce his series of nature books, the forerunners of the present fad for that sort of thing, but he invented a school and a scientific manner of work which conquered the world. ¶ I have traced already the development of English book-illustration, showing how it spread from England to France and to Germany, and how, as it progressed through these countries, artists appeared to work for it—great artists in illustration but in nothing else, Meissonier and Menzel. I have elsewhere shown how, though these artists were ready to draw upon the wood block, they had to send to England for engravers to engrave their designs; I have shown how the pupils and the methods of Bewick were spread all over Europe: but while this was happening the art was languishing in England. Lithography and cheapness had commenced to stifle it. Education and the personal benefactor, the curses of this country, were sitting on it. The equivalent in that day to the county council, I doubt not, had it by the throat. It is true that William Harvey, Linnell, and a few others carried on, as best they could, the traditions of Bewick. But through the mid-century, Turner and his steel engravers struggled with the lithographers, Harding, Prout and Lewis, only that all alike might be undermined by Knight’s penny something or other, and that horror, as it then was, The Illustrated London News, always catering for the people, and the people damn any form of art.

[Pg 294]

But, with the appearance in Germany, in 1840, of Menzel’s ‘Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen,’ and its appropriation in 1845, by the ingenious Mr. Bohn—I wonder what he paid for the blocks—a new era dawned in England. And just one word about this book. It contains [Pg 299] 500 illustrations by Adolf Menzel, and, says the advertisement, ‘in the execution of the cuts both French and British artists (engravers) have been engaged.’ But it so happened that they were all discarded by the artist for German engravers whom he himself trained. The 500 illustrations were drawn by Adolf Menzel on the wood, and his trials and tribulations are well known to all who have studied the history of illustration. Five hundred drawings in one book, all done on little wood blocks. Why, even this is enough to ruin anybody in our day, when it is an honour to be devoid of technical ability and physical capacity for work. But then we live in a time when incompetence, laziness and anæmic imbecility are, in this country indispensible credentials to fame. ¶ This book of Menzel’s, which has never been surpassed as an example of reproductive wood engraving, was seen by the Dalziels and shown to, at any rate, Keene, Rossetti, Sir John Gilbert and, most likely, Millais. If some of the lesser but more precious illustrators then at work refused to look at it—well, the loss was their own, and it is probably one of the reasons why so little afterwards was ever heard of them. ¶ Some ten years later, in France, where ever since the thirties the romanticists had been illustrating, notably Curmer’s edition of ‘Paul et Virginie’ (1838), while Jean Gigoux in his ‘Gil Blas’ (1836) had made an everlasting reputation, there appeared Meissonier’s edition of the ‘Contes Rémois’ (1858), by which, and not by his sensational dealings in paint with millionaires, his name will be remembered. And then England woke up again. The first English book which shows any evidence of a revival in art, an attempt to escape from the be-Knighted, be-illustrated traditions, was William Allinham’s ‘Music Master,’ which contains nine illustrations: seven by Arthur Hughes, one by Rossetti—The Maids of Elfen Mere, which appears really to have made a sensation—and one by Millais. It was published in 1855. The English edition of Menzel’s ‘Fredrick’ came out in 1845. ¶ It should not be forgotten that there had been a strong saving remnant all along from the time of Bewick. Northcote’s ‘Fables’ appeared in 1828, ‘embellished’ by 280 drawings, ascribed by Northcote, but really by Harvey, ‘most excellently drawn on the wood and prepared for the engraver by Mr. William Harvey, and improved by his skill’—even Northcote himself admitted this in one edition. The ‘Voyage of Columbus,’ undated and unsigned, illustrated by Stothard, was possibly still earlier. Then there was the ‘Solace of Song’ (1837); there was Lane’s memorable edition of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ illustrated also by Harvey (1839); and there were certain other volumes; but one is not now making a bibliography. However, it was with the ‘Music Master’ (1855) that the great change came. ¶ In 1857 Moxon issued his edition of Tennyson, the only book which is well known. It is extraordionary how little good work there is in it, but this little is of the utmost importance, for it includes the monumental Rossettis and Holman Hunts, and a few beautiful Millais. Even more extraordinary is the proof given not long ago of the public’s indifference to great illustration, for when, recently, just these few fine illustrations, together with the poems to which they refer, were reprinted, accompanied not only by the artists’ original studies for them, but by a most interesting essay by Mr. Holman Hunt, one of the illustrators, this new edition fell perfectly flat. This is not very creditable to the intelligence of the British collector, but it is a fact.[101] ¶ By 1859, the movement, with the starting of Once a Week, got into full swing, and we are in the golden age of illustration, the most striking, the most original phase of British art. From this time onward, for ten years, the publishers of this country issued a series of books and magazines that have never been approached, and when the present tendencies in art are considered, it is fairly safe to add will never again be approached in England. Then, artists sought to put the best of themselves into illustration on the wood block. Then, engravers endeavoured to engrave these illustrations as well as they possibly could, and though all of us have been forced regretfully to admit that the methods were abominable, the drawing being cut all to pieces before it could be printed, and the artist having no redress, the published results were often astonishingly good. Then the printer took a pride in doing his work as well as he knew how. And though it might be, and often was, bad, it was the best of which he was capable, and it was frequently much better than what is done to-day. Then, the publisher regarded himself as a shopkeeper, whose business was merely to put his name on the books and to sell them, and he was content to do this and nothing more. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he failed. Now, not only does he sit at the receipt of custom, but he dominates the whole. He tells you what the public wants according to his ideas, and the length of his purse, and his travellers’ opinions. And as in nine cases out of ten, despite these authorities, he is supremely ignorant of the work which he farms out, and as cheapness and vulgarity are his only gods, and as paper has come down and process has come in, it is not surprising that English book-illustration should be just where it is to-day. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule among the publishers. They are few, indeed. But they know their position, and it would be discouraging to the rest to name them. ¶ But, the collector may ask, what in all this defence of book-illustration is there for me? As I have pointed out, the illustrations, at any rate up to 1865, were all drawn on the wood block, and were all cut to pieces in the engraving. There remain, therefore, only a very few and rare originals that for some reason or other were not engraved. There also remain in many cases studies for these illustrations. For example, the British museum has been lately showing an illustration, so-called, by Sir J. E. Millais, for his ‘Parables,’ published first in Good Words, and then in a separate volume by the Dalziels (1864). This is not the illustration really, but a study for it. It may safely be assumed that no original drawings for book-illustration prior to 1865 exist, unless they are simply drawings made on the wood for a book and never engraved, when they are not book-illustrations at all—that is, illustrations which have been used in a book—or unless they are drawings of some sort made for the steel-engraver or the lithographer, which were copied or translated by the engraver. For example, Turner’s illustrations to Rogers’ ‘Poems’ exist as most commonplace water-colours in the cellars of the National gallery. Turner and Goodall between them made a great work of art out of the ‘Datur Hora Quieti,’ but there is no original of this at all save the trifling water-colour suggestion. Some of the artists, however, were in the habit of making studies in pen-and-ink, or wash, or pencil, on paper, of the exact size of the future engraving, and containing all the details of the design, which was afterwards redrawn on the wood block. Mr. Sandys did this in very many cases, and in some he even made large versions of the drawings, especially for the ‘Amor Mundi,’ which is owned by Lord Battersea. In his case, too, one or two of his drawings, I know, never were engraved. One which I owned, and which is now in the Adelaide museum, Australia, The Spirit of the Storm, was unfinished, and a second, done for Good Words or Once a Week, for years kicked round in a drawer in the office of Swain, the engraver, until I found it, when it was engraved and published in The Hobby Horse; the reason for this long neglect being that it had been considered too strong by the prurient-minded publisher of that time.

[Pg 300]

After about 1865, or rather before, for the books were published in that year, some of the drawings for the illustrated editions of Dalziel’s ‘Arabian Nights, 1865,’ and ‘Goldsmith, 1865,’ were regarded by the engravers as so remarkable that they had photographs made from these drawings on the wood, and then, by the newly-discovered art of photographing on to wood, the photographs were transferred on to other wood blocks, and the originals on the wood preserved. Several are to be seen in the art gallery at South Kensington. The British museum possesses a few, and so do the Adelaide and Melbourne museums in Australia. Mr. Harold Hartley, Mr. Fairfax Murray, Mrs. C. E. Davis, Boyd Houghton’s sister, and, I believe, Mr. Heseltine, are among other owners of these rare drawings, either on wood or paper. But the number is really very small. ¶ There is also a series of drawings for Dalziel’s ‘Bible Gallery,’ commissioned by the Dalziels as early as 1863, as far as I can gather from Messrs. Dalziel’s own records, which are not too satisfactory. Most of the drawings in this series, however, were made on paper, though some by Mr. Watts and Sir Edward Poynter were on the wood, and uncut, and may be seen at South Kensington. Messrs. Dalziel, finding what a marvellous collection of illustrations they had obtained, wisely did nothing but commission artists to make more, and the work was not brought out until 1880, when the drawings were all photographed on to the wood before engraving, and thus preserved. Where most of them are to-day I do not know. As separate illustrations and great works of art, I was the first to call attention to them as far back as 1889. Those by Lord Leighton are now regarded as his masterpieces, and there are very fine examples of Ford Madox Brown, and Watts, and Sir Edward Poynter, who has never done better work. From all but the artistic standpoint the book was a failure. ¶ These, then, with rare unengraved examples which are bound to turn up, constitute all the original drawings for book-illustration reproduced by wood engraving which will ever be found, and they are mostly owned by museums. I must point out, however, that forgeries, both in the way of shameless copies of the originals, or prints worked over with pen-and-ink, and wash, and even colour—the artists themselves did this sometimes; Pinwell certainly did—and palpable imitations, have all, within a short time, been submitted to me. But, I should imagine, of all these finished drawings done upon the wood for reproduction before 1865, there are not a hundred, probably not fifty, that will ever come into the sale room. Of course, a great find may some day be made in a publisher’s office, or an artist’s portfolio. But I doubt it.

NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS.—These are mostly included merely to show the sort of drawings the artists made for the engraver and lithographer, who either translated them on to the plate or stone or had an intermediary to do this for them. The first, by Stothard, is in sepia, and a design, I know not for what book, but evidently a headpiece or initial which would have been cleaned up by the engraver. The second, by Bartolozzi, a cul de lampe in washes of indian ink, is very pretty, and the engraver probably would follow it exactly, though he would lose some of the freedom. The others on the same page, by Westall and Courbould, are very typical, and represent the British style of illustration for novels and stories at the beginning of the last century, and very perfectly they represent it, and that is the best I can say for them. The Westall, in wash and pen (indian ink), is slightly touched with colour on the woman’s dress, and may have been engraved on metal and printed in two or more tints. The other is in simple black-and-white. The landscapes are very characteristic; the upper, of the stolid, solid, British water-colourist, who was determined at all costs to be British, and usually forgot he was an artist. And the other, by Barrett,[Pg 305] is typical of the later work when Turner had made himself felt with the ‘Liber,’ or did Turner steal from Barrett? Any way, Barrett is seen at his best in this very charming sepia drawing, evidently for an illustration, while the ‘Liber’ drawings at the National gallery show Turner as an illustrator at his worst and his best. The methods of the two artists are absolutely identical; washes, little work with pen, and much scraping and scratching with the knife. As for the engravings, one is from Northcote’s ‘Fables,’ 1828, and shows the perfection of the minute work of Harvey and Jackson. Yet there is the feeling, somehow, of a big landscape in the print, and the engraving is extraordinary, putting to shame much of the modern so-called bold, but really blundering and ignorant, work on wood. The printing also is excellent in Northcote’s volumes. They were printed by J. Johnson, and the excellent blacks the printer of to-day would, even with all his improved appliances, have difficulty in equalling. The printing is much better than that in the French book, ‘Gil Blas,’ by Everat (Paulin, 1836), in which the ink is dull and grey, but in every other way the Gigoux shows the wide difference in aims there was between the leading English and French artists of that day: Harvey, all refinement; Gigoux, all force, directness and go. Both these engravers seem to have rendered the originals well. What the artists thought is another story. The Gigoux also proves that Daniel Vierge worked out rather than invented his style. The next two illustrations are from Curmer’s ‘Paul et Virginie,’ 1838, which is usually regarded, as Curmer wished it, a ‘monument typographic’ to the glory of the artists who illustrated it, is admitted to be the most important French illustrated book of the period, and to it all the better remembered Frenchmen of the time contributed something. Among the artists are Isabey, Paul Huet, Jacque, Johannot, Français, Meissonier, Steinhell; the engravers were Poiret, Lavoignat, Best, Brévière, Frenchmen; Bentworth, the German; but Orin Smith, Branston, Mary Ann Williams and her brothers, English, did the greater part of the work: a magnificent, artistic union, more practical in many ways than visits of kings and the patter of papers. The book was printed, and extraordinarily well printed, by Everat. ¶ The appearance of Turner as an illustrator changed things much. The ‘Solace of Song,’ published by Seeley, 1837, illustrated by Harvey, and engraved by W. T. Green and others, is simply metal engraving on wood, and is astonishing as an example of what can be done. The final outcome is seen in the print from ‘Sacred Allegories,’ by the Rev. W. Adams (Rimingtons, 1856), one chapter of which, ‘The Distant Hills,’ is illustrated by Samuel Palmer and also engraved by Green. This is, of its sort, probably the most perfect example of English book illustration. ¶ But in Germany the greatest progress had been made under Menzel, and his ‘Frederick,’ from which the print, The Round Table, is taken, is simply magnificent. It was engraved by Krutchmar, 1840, and from it sprang modern illustration, as I have said, in England. The first evidence is to be found in Rossetti’s Maids of Elfen Mere in Allingham’s ‘Music Master,’ 1855. In 1858 came the ‘Contes Rémois,’ Levy, illustrated by Meissonier, the perfection of French work, and the beginning and end of his reputation, as well as the most amazing proof of the genius of Lavoignat as a wood-engraver. After this the art of illustration began to flourish in England, and in a year or two the most superb work was being done.

[Pg 306]

❧ WRITTEN BY F. MASON PERKINS ❧

ALTHOUGH the name of Andrea Vanni is by no means unfamiliar to the student of Sienese painting, it is doubtful whether its mention ever calls up to any but a few the image of a definite artistic personality. What fame Andrea now has rests more upon tradition than upon acquaintance with his art. He was born in 1333, or thereabouts. An active participant in the popular uprising of 1368, which resulted in the expulsion of the nobles and the foundation of the new government of the reformatori, he played, during the twenty years that followed, a busy and not unimportant part in the affairs of the Sienese republic, leaving behind him a lengthy and honourable record of the various offices which he held. In later years a friend and warm admirer of his great townswoman Caterina Benincasa, he was the recipient of much good counsel from that gentle saint, in the shape of certain letters which have perhaps done more than all his political achievements to keep alive the memory of his name. ¶ But it is not with Andrea the diplomat, or Andrea the devotee, that we are here concerned. Those who would know him better in these characters need only examine the pages of Milanesi, of Banchi and Borghesi, and of St. Catherine’s letters. Andrea has left behind him documents of a very different nature, and of a far deeper interest, than any of mere lettered parchment, and documents by no means so rare as has generally been supposed. With all his diplomatic and official celebrity, he was primarily an artist—perhaps not a great one in the superlative usage of the word, but sufficiently interesting to warrant an attempt to revive his memory as a painter by giving back to him a number of works which, in his native town and elsewhere, pass to-day under other, and sometimes greater, names. ¶ The works upon which Vanni’s reputation as a painter has hitherto rested are only three in number, and are all in his native town:—a well-known portrait of St. Catherine, in the church of S. Domenico; a very little known polyptych, in the church of S. Stefano; and a fragmentary Crucifixion, once in the church of the Alborino, now in the Istituto delle Belle Arti. Of these three works, whose common authorship is evident, the altarpiece in S. Stefano and the Crucifixion in the Belle Arti are given to Andrea on sufficiently reliable documentary grounds; the likeness of St. Catherine, on the strength of a tradition of several centuries. Despite its historical interest, and its great decorative design, this portrait-fresco, in its present state, can help us to but a slight idea of its author’s general style, and for this purpose the unimportant and somewhat coarsely-painted fragment in the Belle Arti can help us but little more. But the great polyptych of S. Stefano is happily a very different and vastly more important work, and of a nature to give us a satisfactory conception of Andrea’s manner at the time in which it was executed. A glance at this huge painting, or the accompanying reproduction, reveals at once that Vanni belonged to that same group of late trecento painters of which Bartolo di Fredi is the best known representative. Like the work of that master, it shows the influence both of Simone Martini and of the Lorenzetti. But it displays the qualities of a strongly-marked individuality as well. ¶ Let us examine it in detail, commencing with the central and most important panel of the Virgin and the Child. That which, apart from the colour, strikes us immediately and most forcibly, is the peculiar silhouette-like character of the design. The[Pg 309] great figure of the Madonna is thrown out like a dark, clear-cut pattern against the golden background of her throne. Except for the face and hands, there is little, if any, attempt at modelling or chiaroscuro. The whole effect is flat to a degree, reminding us somewhat of the coloured prints of Japan, with their sharply-defined outlines and broad fields of colour. In this feeling for flat design, Andrea gives witness to his being a follower—if an extreme one—of Simone’s methods. But he has little or none of Simone’s subtle contours and undulating flow of line. The drapery of Andrea’s Virgin is severely simple—there is a remarkable economy of line and fold, reminding us in this rather of Ambrogio Lorenzetti than of Simone. Her stiff, upright pose, again, has none of the tender grace of Simone’s Madonnas and saints, and is more akin to that of Ambrogio’s statelier figures. In facial type Andrea’s Virgin is, however, distinctly his own. The large rounded cranium, the narrow eyes and small half-covered iris, the delicately drawn mouth, the firm but not obtrusive chin, go to make up a set of features not easily forgotten. The Christ-Child, again, reveals decidedly the influence of Simone’s models, and finds its prototype in the Child of Simone’s great fresco of the Majestas in the Palazzo della Signoria, as well as in other works by him, by his close follower Lippo Memmi, and by their school. ¶ Turning now to the other figures, we note in the Baptist a striking similarity, even in the smallest details, to Simone’s figures of that saint at Pisa and at Altenburg, of which it is evidently a free copy. The St. Bartholomew shows like influences in a less degree. The figures of SS. James and Stephen are more Vanni’s own—the head of the latter being a free repetition of the Virgin’s. The Annunciation is severely vigorous and individual, the dark figure of the Virgin again showing, very clearly, Andrea’s love of the silhouette. The side figures of saints, and the evangelists in the pinnacles, reveal a slightly stronger sense of modelling and characterization, and remind us of Bartolo di Fredi and Luca di Tommé. The colour throughout is bright and clear, laid out in broad and simple masses, with a parsimonious use of shading and a lavish use of gold. ¶ If Tizio’s notices of this altarpiece be correct—and there is no reason to doubt that they are so, especially as the style of the work itself supports rather than contradicts them—it was painted in or about 1400. It is, therefore, the production of a man already verging on his seventieth year, and must represent the later, if not the last, development of Vanni’s style. As we have already noted, it has a family likeness to the work of Bartolo di Fredi and others of his school. Still, despite all superficial or general resemblances, these two painters are widely different in style and spirit. In pure grace and charm, Bartolo leaves Vanni far behind him. Andrea’s work again, at least as we here see it, has none of the softly-graded colour, the delicate modelling, the freer line, the careful technical finish of detail—none of the bibelot quality in fact—of Bartolo’s at its best. But, for all that, it convinces us that his was the deeper, grander soul. For mere prettiness or elaborate technical refinement he displays little sympathy or care. Directness and simplicity of expression, staid dignity and great seriousness of purpose—these seem the salient characteristics of his nature, as we read it in his art; nor do they disagree with the conception which the written records convey to us of the man.

Taking this altarpiece, then, as a fairly characteristic example of Vanni’s mature style, I shall bring before the reader’s notice a series of works, at present under other names, one and all of which share with it, in a greater or a less degree, all the peculiarities which I have already pointed out, as well as others to which I have not yet drawn attention. Not the least among these works, in size and in importance, is a picture of the Enthroned Virgin and Child, popularly known as the Madonna[Pg 315] degli Infermi, in the church of S. Francesco at Siena. Those who have once seen this strangely impressive painting will not be likely to forget it. The colossal Virgin is seated upright on her throne, majestic and solemnly hieratic, the grave-visaged Child supported on her arm. There is something enigmatic, mysterious, superhuman, in the commanding grandeur of the figures, which the photographic reproduction[102] can but partially convey. They remind us of some of the works of early Byzantine art, in their strange impassiveness and impersonality, far rather than of those of late fourteenth-century Siena. The panel has been cut down, and evidently once formed but part of an even more imposing whole. The flesh parts have darkened as if by smoke, and now have the colour of mahogany; the glazings and the surface coatings have entirely disappeared. The picture is traditionally attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti, but there can be no question as to its real author. Let us compare it with the central panel of the S. Stefano polyptych. Even in its present damaged state, the analogies which it offers to that painting are so apparent that it is more than surprising some passing critic, or even some local art-historian, has not long ago given it back to its true painter, striking and important picture as it is. The similarities between the two Madonnas seem hardly to require comment. The same clearly-outlined figure, the same sedate pose, the same dark mantle with its golden border and broad and simple folds, the same head, eyes, nose, and mouth, the same hands—to dwell longer on these points would be merely to waste words. Here we have, beyond a doubt, another work of Andrea Vanni, belonging to the same period as, and sharing all the characteristics of, the S. Stefano polyptych—only in a severer and grander vein. As if in support of our conclusions, Tizio tells us that at about the same time Andrea painted his great picture for S. Stefano he executed still another similar work for the friars minor of S. Francesco. Doubtless this present panel once formed part of the work to which he refers, nor would it be stretching a point too far to say that its present half-ruined condition is probably due to damage suffered during the disastrous conflagration which, in 1655, wrecked the great building wherein it stood and destroyed so many of its treasures. ¶ But this, to my mind, is not the only work by Vanni still to be seen in this same restored church of S. Francesco. In the last chapel of the north transept is an imposing fresco of the Virgin seated with the Child in an elaborate architectural throne. It is generally attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and has been published with his name. As it now stands, this fresco has been almost entirely renewed, but enough of its original spirit still remains to afford the practised eye some slight idea of its primitive state. The incised outlines are still virtually unchanged, and the forms of the figure and the broad folds of the drapery have preserved, to a great extent, their original character. As is usually the case, the faces have undergone the greatest transformation, yet even here the original features have not been entirely lost. Quite enough remains, in fact, to convince me that in this case also we are in the presence of what was once an important work of Andrea Vanni. The entire figure of the Virgin, the peculiarly marked outline, the dignified position, the oval head, the narrow eyes, and the straight nose, the characteristic and tell-tale folds of the voluminous mantle, their peculiar arrangement about the feet, the long wrist and hand, still pierce through the modern covering of repaint, clearly revealing the touch of Vanni’s brush. ¶ In far better condition, and far easier of identification, is the half-length panel of the Virgin and Child—evidently once part of a larger work, but now cut down to fit an oval frame—in the chapel of the SS. Chiodi in Siena.[Pg 316] This picture, usually given to Barna, was surmised, but only surmised, by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, to be a possible work of Vanni. The reasons for their hesitation are rather difficult to find, and they were certainly correct in their conjecture, for the work is as evidently by Vanni as is the great Madonna of S. Francesco. But here we have our painter in a very different, far gentler, almost playful, strain. As usual, the Virgin is seated sedately upright on her throne, clad in the conventional dark mantle, fastened, as in the fresco of S. Francesco, by a splendid golden clasp. The head and face are the same in shape and features as in the other panels; the expression less serious and solemn. The Child is pleasing in type and action. With one hand to His mouth, He presses with the other His Mother’s bared breast as He looks half shyly towards the spectator. Here again there is none of the hieratic solemnity of the S. Francesco panel. The colour—apart from the repainted mantle—is warmer, and the modelling of the flesh parts softer, than in the picture of S. Stefano, but the forms and details are the same. ¶ Somewhat similar in spirit to this last-named work are two other panels, one in the church of S. Spirito, the other in S. Giovanni in Pantaneto, better known as S. Giovannino della Staffa. The first of these is a full-length figure of the Virgin holding in her arms the Christ-Child, who plays with a bird. At the foot of the throne kneels a diminutive figure of the donor, cap in hand. The Virgin sits in the upright position common to all the pictures we have so far examined; she has the same bend of the head, the same stereotyped set of features. The architecture and perspective of the throne are the same as in the picture of the SS. Chiodi and the fresco in S. Francesco. The Child is not unpleasing in action and expression. The figure of the Virgin has suffered considerably from repaint, the mantle being in great part quite new. The original colour is bright and gay, but the execution is less careful than in most of Vanni’s works, and would lead us to place this panel in the last years of his activity, when his brush had lost some of the freshness of its touch, were it not for the energetically, and at the same time carefully, executed little figure of the kneeling donor, damaged and darkened but still intact—a remarkable piece of early portraiture, finely characterized. Judging from the shape of this panel, it also once formed part of a triptych or polyptych. The Madonna of S. Giovanni has suffered far more from restoration, the figure of the Christ-Child being here almost entirely repainted. The still pleasing Virgin displays Vanni’s usual type, and differs but slightly from the Madonna in S. Spirito, although originally it may have been a more carefully executed figure. Still another picture, a charming little Annunciation, in the possession of Count Fabio Chigi at Siena, also clearly shows Andrea’s hand: it is very careful in execution and graceful in movement—far more free in this respect than the similar but severer treatment of the subject in the polyptych at S. Stefano. The types are Vanni’s usual ones, the colour is quiet and subdued.[103] ¶ But finer in quality and in a better state of preservation than any of these works, is a little picture of the Virgin and Child belonging to Mr. Bernhard Berenson, at Florence. That it is by Vanni needs no urging on my part—a moment’s comparison of the accompanying reproduction with any of the paintings which we have already examined is sufficient to prove this very obvious fact. It would be hard to imagine a more characteristic and at the same time a more charming example of his work. Yet in some ways it differs considerably from the paintings we have so far studied, especially in its more painstaking and finished execution, and in its light golden tone of colour, so very unlike that of such works as the Madonnas of S. Spirito and the SS. Chiodi. Although not without the dignity which [Pg 317] Vanni never fails to give her, the Virgin in Mr. Berenson’s picture is less sedately grave than in the panels at S. Francesco and S. Stefano—the Child less grown-up and solemn. Both, again, are in Vanni’s softer, more gentle mood. Belonging to Mr. Berenson also, we have another panel by Andrea, painted in a very different style and spirit. It represents the Deposition from the Cross, and must have been part of a predella to an altarpiece. Derived from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s treatment of this sublime theme, it yet is more restrained, more intellectual, and more clearly arranged.

The famous portrait of St. Catherine which I have already mentioned, and which is too well known to require description, and the Crucifixion in the Belle Arti—a fragment of a larger work painted in 1396—would bring this particular list of Vanni’s works to a temporary close,[104] were it not for still another painting, perhaps even more interesting than any of these, which to my mind must also be classed with them. In the church of S. Pietro Ovile, at Siena, we find a beautiful free copy of Simone Martini’s famous Annunciation, now in the Uffizi gallery. This picture has aroused the admiration of numberless tourists and the curiosity of more than one writer on Siena’s art. Apart from its traditional attribution to Simone and Lippo Memmi themselves, it has undergone a series of widely different baptisms at a variety of hands; from a trecento it has become a quattrocento painting, and so back again. It has long been my conviction, as it has been that of no less an authority on Sienese painting than Mr. Berenson before me, that this picture is a work of Andrea Vanni. I am quite well aware of the surprise which this sudden attribution will cause to many, as I am also of the difficulties in proving my point with the limited and unsatisfactory aid which photographs afford. In an article supported only by photographic reproductions, that most important of all arguments, quality, and, as in this case, the hardly less convincing one of colour, must in great part be laid aside. Nevertheless, there remains, in this particular instance, so much that can be demonstrated by photographic evidence in support of Vanni’s claims, that I shall make the attempt. ¶ Of the history of the Annunciation now in S. Pietro, nothing appears to be known. As it now exists it stands no longer above an altar, but is let into the wall of the church. In shape and size it was evidently once quite similar to Simone’s original, but it has since been cut down and shortened at the sides and bottom. The three panels which now surmount it have nothing to do with the picture itself, and are the work of two different painters of the quattrocento—the Crucifixion is probably by Giovanni di Paolo; the two figures of St. Peter and St. Paul by Matteo di Giovanni, as we see him in the remains of the altarpiece at Borgo S. Sepolcro, which once contained, as its central panel, Piero dei Francesci’s Baptism of Christ, now in London. They were probably placed in their present position at a relatively recent date. As to its condition, the picture has evidently not always enjoyed the care that is now given it, for it is considerably damaged and darkened. The hand of the restorer has not been absent, alas! and there are, unfortunately, visible traces of his brush in the heads and hands, and in the Virgin’s draperies. ¶ That we have here a copy, and in some ways a fairly close one, of Simone’s famous picture, is obvious; that it was painted directly from Simone’s original, which was at that time in the cathedral of Siena, is no less certain; that it was painted by an artist who was throughout seeking to overcome the peculiarities of his own somewhat strongly marked style, and that he was but[Pg 321] partially successful in so doing, is also apparent. ¶ Let us examine the work more closely, and in its separate parts, commencing with the figure of the Virgin. It shows but little of the ease of movement and grace of line to be found in Simone’s original. The high-waisted figure; the stiff, upright, almost rigid, position; the line of the shoulders and the knees; the peculiar poise of the head; the straight-falling folds of the drapery and the line of the mantle as it catches the arm in its downward flow: all are points which find their counterpart in the works of Vanni, and in those of no other painter. Here, also, we have the same simple, strongly-marked outlines, the same dark field of colour relieved, pattern-like and comparatively flat, against the lighter background. Although the blue of the Virgin’s mantle has darkened considerably, it is still apparent that her figure was always fairly innocent of modelling—far more so in fact than that of Simone’s Virgin. For Simone, with all his love of outlined pattern, does not stop at this—his contour, however clear and distinct, is far more flowing, far more subtle—his mass is far less flat and unrelieved. Although the painter of the S. Pietro copy has tried more or less faithfully to copy the arrangement of Simone’s drapery, he has done it, perhaps despite himself, in his own way. The folds in the copy have an entirely different character from that which they possess in the original; they are precisely what we might imagine Vanni doing in an attempt to be particularly graceful. But if all these points in the drapery and figure remind us so unmistakably of Vanni’s style, we discover in the Virgin’s head even closer affinities with that master’s other works. The same well-rounded cranium and oval face; the same narrow eyes, with the small half-covered iris and high-arched brows; the same long straight nose (still clearly recognizable as Vanni’s, despite scaling and later retouching); the identical mouth; the same inclination of the head and its peculiar setting on the neck; the same chin; the same long, slender hands: all are to be found in one or other of the works we have already mentioned, and especially in Mr. Berenson’s Madonna. Here we have, also, Vanni’s love of gold brocade in the Virgin’s under garment and in the hangings of the throne. The figure of the angel is no less characteristic. The drapery is here incontestably Vannesque in its peculiar, not over-graceful, folds. Here, again, is the clear outline, the slight modelling, and the sparing use of chiaroscuro, the same treatment of the draperies, the long hands and thin arms, as in all Vanni’s other works. The outline of the face, chin, and neck has been damaged and gone over, and the peculiar, straggling, dark-brown curls are a later addition, and contrast strongly with the lighter golden hair behind them. Apart from these slight changes, the head, although a would-be copy of Simone‘s, shares Vanni’s characteristic features. The cherubs about the Holy Spirit already point to the end of the trecento. The roman lettering of the inscriptions we find used likewise on the scroll held by the Christ-Child in Mr. Berenson’s picture. ¶ So much for material resemblances, of which the reader may gather some idea by means of the accompanying illustrations. And now a word as to the colour of the work. Its striking resemblance, in this respect, to the Madonna of Mr. Berenson’s collection, will not fail to carry conviction where there may before have existed only persuasion. In the general quality of technique, and more especially in the remarkable golden tone of colour and the peculiar treatment of the flesh, the two works are strangely alike, and cannot help but do away with any final doubts as to their community of authorship.

In the preceding pages I have tried to prove—the reader can best judge with what success—Vanni’s claims to the authorship of a certain group of pictures, so closely related in style, quality, and spirit, as clearly to belong to the same period of his activity[Pg 322] as that which produced the polyptych of S. Stefano. As we know, this period was one of a comparatively old age. Yet it would seem as if Andrea had turned, during the later years of his life, with a renewed activity, to the practice of his art, after the busy public career of his prime. Judging from the scarcity of documents of an official nature connected with his name after 1384, it would seem that, somewhere about that year, he retired from active participation in political affairs and devoted himself wholly to his painting. That he was inactive as an artist, however, during all his earlier years, is not to be believed. We have, in fact, a line of documents to prove that this was not the case. Still, these written records help us very little in the tracing of his earlier artistic development. Evidently in origin a pupil of the school of Lippo Memmi, I should place in the period of his ascendance a somewhat hard and gaudy, but not uninteresting, triptych, representing St. Michael between St. Anthony the abbot and the Baptist, No. 67 of the Siena gallery. This work, which is in a remarkable state of preservation, is attributed to Lippo Memmi himself, and clearly shows the characteristics of his school. There is much in the figures which bears a close similarity to Andrea’s later types. Another panel—a Virgin and Child in the priest’s house, next to S. Pietro Ovile—having close affinity to Simone and Lippo Memmi in technical treatment, in colour, and even in style, seems to presage in a far more definite manner the works of Vanni which we now know, and already shares many of his peculiar characteristics in detail. But, apart from these two paintings, I can call to mind no works of these early years which I can with any confidence give to him. The first notice of Andrea as a painter is one of 1353, in which year he was associated with Bartolo di Fredi, whether as partner or assistant is not quite clear. The last records of his activity are dated 1400. Milanesi, upon some unnamed authority, gives the probable date of his death as 1414. ¶ It would prolong this article unduly if the questions of Vanni’s influence upon Sienese art, and of his possible pupils and apparent successors, were entered into with the fullness which the subject demands. We must limit ourselves here to a brief mention of the closest of the followers of Vanni in those later years in which chiefly we have been studying him, a painter less known even than himself, Paolo di Giovanni Fei. An apparently early work by him, the Madonna del Rosario of S. Domenico, suggests that he was actually the pupil of Vanni. By him, also, are three pictures in the Siena gallery, one in the chapel of S. Bernardino just outside the Porta Camollia, another in the Saraceni collection, and yet another in the Minutolo chapel of Naples cathedral.

❧ WRITTEN BY W. H. JAMES WEALE ❧

GERARD DAVID worked in Bruges from the commencement of 1484 until his death, August 13, 1523, yet he does not appear to have taken a single apprentice during all that period, at least the register of the gild of St. Luke contains no entry of any such. It is, however, certain that he had several assistants; one of these, Adrian Isenbrant, I was able to rescue from oblivion in 1865. He came to Bruges in 1510, was admitted as free master into the gild on November 29, and continued working there for more than forty years, until his death in July 1551. He acquired a reputation for skill in painting the nude and the human countenance, and executed many pictures for Spain, which as a rule he sent by Antwerp to Bilbao. Although no document has as yet been discovered connecting his name with any particular picture, yet there is hardly any doubt that he is the author of a number of works certainly painted in Bruges between 1510 and 1551, the figures in which are remarkable for their careful execution and sweetness of expression, characteristics attributed to the works of Isenbrant by old writers. Several of these works are still in Spain, others have been brought from the Peninsula within the last fifty years. Of these I purpose to treat later on; at present I shall confine my remarks to the works included in the exhibition. The most important of these is a large diptych given to the church of Our Lady at Bruges by Barbara Le Maire, widow of George Van de Velde, a wealthy cloth merchant, who had held many offices in the communal council. The dexter panel (178) represents the Blessed Virgin seated with clasped hands, overwhelmed with grief, in a niche of Renascence architecture. Around her, set in architectural framework, are seven little pictures representing the seven dolours; in some of these are motives borrowed from the engravings of Martin Schongauer and Albert Dürer. The sinister panel (179), which disappeared from the church about 1832, came into the possession of the duke of Arenberg, who in 1874 sold it to the Brussels museum. On the face are pictured George Van de Velde in the costume of a brother of the confraternity of the holy Blood, and his wife, protected by their baptismal patrons, and accompanied by their nine sons and eight daughters, all kneeling in prayer. The subject on the dexter panel is repeated on the reverse of this in grisaille but with differences, so that whether the diptych was shut or open, on festivals or ferias, the figure of the sorrowful Mother, to whom the widow Van de Velde was very devoted—multum affectata—was always exposed to the veneration of the faithful. George Van de Velde died on April 28, 1528; his second son, John, who in the picture wears a surplice, was ordained priest and said his first mass in the church of Our Lady in 1530—31, about which date his mother presented the picture. ¶ The Blessed Virgin and Child seated in a landscape with SS. Katherine, Barbara, Dorothy, Margaret and Agnes (145), lent by Count Arco-Valley, is a charming early composition, of which there is a weak repetition in the academy of St. Luke at Rome. The prototype of this picture is doubtless the dexter panel of the diptych painted by Memlinc for John Du Celier, now in the Louvre at Paris, whilst variations are in the gallery at Munich, at Geneva, and at Buckingham Palace. A triptych lent by M. Lotman, of Berne (177), represents the Blessed Virgin and Child and two angels playing a mandoline and a harp; and on the exterior, St. Jerome praying before a crucifix. The carpet here is from the same model as that under the Virgin’s feet in 145.

[Pg 326]

A panel (183) belonging to the earl of Northbrook represents the Blessed Virgin and Child enthroned, in a garden, beneath a canopy, to which is attached a cloth of honour; the donor and his wife and family kneel at the sides; the background is formed by a stone wall, on which two peacocks and a pea-hen are sunning themselves. The head of our Lady has been restored. ¶ Two shutters of a triptych (180), lent by Mr. R. von Kaufmann, represent a donor and his wife with their children protected by St. John the Evangelist and St. Barbara(?). The donors on these shutters are, though a few years older, strikingly like those in 183. But in the earlier picture the man, aged thirty-four, is represented with one son and one daughter, both dead when the picture was painted, while behind his wife, aged thirty-three, kneel a boy of nine and a girl of five. The man in 180 is represented with one son dead, and his wife with three daughters, one of whom was dead. ¶ The vision of St. Ildephonsus, bishop of Toledo (151), belonging to Lord Northbrook, is in every respect a very remarkable work; the composition unusually good, the colouring rich and harmonious. The saint, kneeling on the foot-pace of an altar on the north side of a large church of picturesque architecture, looks up with outstretched arms at the Blessed Virgin, who, attended by three lovely angels, is about to vest him with a chasuble. Behind him kneel three monks, two looking up at the heavenly apparition, the third absorbed in prayer. In the background a procession of chanting monks, followed by a pious crowd of lay folk, winds its way round the choir. The figures of all are most carefully executed, and are remarkable for the delicacy of their modelling and sweetness of expression.[105] ¶ Another brightly coloured picture (152), also belonging to Lord Northbrook, represents the Blessed Virgin seated on a stone throne adorned with rams’ heads, holding the divine Child, who has his left arm round her neck and is caressing her chin. The Virgin’s face has little character, but the Child’s expression is very pleasing. ¶ St. Mary Magdalene in the desert, kneeling before a large crucifix held by an angel (182), from the De Somzée collection, is a remarkable work, with a landscape background with peculiar rocks. A panel with a half-length figure of St. Luke holding a portrait of the Blessed Virgin and Child (187), lent by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, is a fine work, the evangelist being probably the master’s own portrait. A triptych belonging to the cathedral of Bruges (184) represents in the centre the Presentation in the Temple with the kneeling figure of an Augustinian nun of the Le Gros family, probably the granddaughter of Philip Wielant and Joan van Halewyn, whose portraits on the shutters, as remarked by M. G. Hulin, are evidently not painted from life. The triptych, which probably came from one of the Augustinian convents suppressed at the end of the eighteenth century, was, with many others now preserved in the cathedral, presented to it by M. van Huerne. ¶ A panel (185) lent by M. Sedelmeyer, with full-length figures of St. Andrew, St. Michael, and St. Francis in the foreground, with a representation of Calvary in the upper portion, is a late work, the Calvary closely resembling that in the diptych of our Lady of seven dolours. The exhibition included several other works either copies or painted under the influence of Isenbrant. ¶ Two other masters who flourished in Bruges about this time, and who were restored to history by me, one in 1860 and the other in 1863, were each represented by one authentic work. John Prevost, a native of Mons in Hainault, was born c. 1462. It is not known where he learned his art or to whom he was apprenticed. He visited Antwerp in 1493 and was admitted as free-master into the gild[Pg 331] of St. Luke, but shortly after removed to Bruges, where he bought the right of citizenship and settled definitely. He also purchased the freedom of the town of Valenciennes in 1498, in which year, if not previously, he married Joan de Quaroube, a well-to-do elderly lady, who, after twenty-five years of wedded life, had in 1489 been left a widow by the celebrated painter and miniaturist Simon Marmion. She died in 1506. Prevost, who married again three times, died in January 1529. The only picture proved by documentary evidence to be by him is the Last Judgement (167), painted in 1525 for the town hall, lent by the museum where it is now kept. An earlier representation of the same subject, said to have been painted by him for the Dominicans of Bruges (169), was lent by Viscount de Ruffo Bonneval. A third, lent by Mr. E. F. Weber (168), attributed to him by M. Hulin,[106] appears to me to be the work of an imitator. It is not only inferior in drawing and execution, but the treatment of the subject—the risen are bringing account books which the angels are verifying—is childish. M. Hulin enumerates eleven other pictures as being certainly, and three more as possibly, by Prevost. Four of these were in the exhibition (109, 157, 189, and 342); a fifth, the Blessed Virgin and Child in an aureole surrounded by angels, with the prophets and sibyls, at St. Petersburg, which he believes to be the picture painted in 1524 for the altar of St. Daniel in the church of St. Donatian at Bruges. The other six are SS. Antony of Padua and Bonaventure, in the Brussels gallery; an Adoration of the Magi, at Berlin; the Blessed Virgin and Child, in the National gallery (No. 713, attributed to Mostaert); another with SS. Benedict and Bernard, at Windsor castle; another with a carthusian, exhibited as by Isenbrant at the Burlington club in 1892; and a Virgin and Child, at Carlsruhe, where it is attributed to Gossart. The three which he thinks may be attributed to him are the heads of Christ and the Blessed Virgin (193 and 194), and the charming picture of St. Francis renouncing the world (150), belonging to Mr. Sutton Nelthorpe. Few indeed are those who write on the early masters who can resist the temptation of attributing to them a goodly list of works. Much may be learnt when, as in the present case, serious arguments are started which can be discussed, and no harm can result so long as the attributions are not accepted as certainties by museum authorities. ¶ The other master, Albert Cornelis, who died in 1532, is still only known by one remarkable picture (170), the Coronation of the B. Virgin. ¶ A painting of the Mater dolorosa (105), formerly in the church of the Austin friars, lent by the cathedral, is said to be a copy of a miraculous picture in the church of Ara caeli at Rome, of which other copies were formerly at Abbenbroek and Romerswale in Zealand, and a third, if not one of these two, is now in the gallery at Munich. The copy exhibited was traditionally attributed to John van Eyck, and the cipher in the corner, supposed to be his, was adduced as a proof. This cipher, retouched by the restorer who re-gilt the background, is certainly that used as a signature by John van Eecke or van Eeckele, a painter who settled in Bruges and was admitted as free-master into the gild of St. Luke in September 1534, and worked there until his death in November 1561. A panel lent by the museum of Tournay (106), representing the vision of St. Bernard with other episodes in the life of that saint in the landscape background, is an original work of the master signed with his cipher. ¶ A panel (250) lent by the Black Sisters represents St. Nicolas of Tolentino, and on the exterior an Austin friar, Roger De Jonghe (born 1482, died 1579), kneeling at a prayer desk on which is an open book.

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❧ WRITTEN BY FRANK RINDER ❧

ON November 8, 1623, Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard obtained the licence of the Stationers’ company for the publication, in the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies, of sixteen plays, not before printed. Some 265 years later the late Mr. Bernard Quaritch, in cataloguing a good copy of the completed work, directed attention to the fact that, based on the then value of the quartos, the twenty Shakespearian plays actually printed for the first time in the folio of 1623—for as many were included—would, as first editions, have a money-worth of from £3,500 to £4,000. All question of the quartos apart, however, a fine copy of the book, originally procurable for £1, might now realize from £2,000 to £3,000; indeed, the mean between these two sums is said to have been privately offered for a particularly well-known example. No printed book, apart from about a dozen monuments of typography from fifteenth-century presses, has fetched so much at auction as the £1,720 realized at Christie’s in 1901 for the Dormer-Hunter first folio, now in the possession of Mr. Charles Scribner of New York, albeit a few weeks previously £1,475 was the amount paid on behalf of a transatlantic collector for the scarcer Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ in first edition, said to have been issued at 1s. 6d. ¶ That there was ample warrant for the publication of a new facsimile is acknowledged on all hands; and the folio recently produced by the Clarendon press has failed in few respects only to satisfy the most exigent of connoisseurs. The hypercritical observe that the plate-mark measures no more than 1211⁄16 in. by 7½ in., as against 13⅛, in. by 8⅛ in., the actual size of the pages of the duke of Devonshire’s copy at Chatsworth, on which the facsimile is based. On the whole, however, the volume has been cordially welcomed, and that welcome is merited. ¶ Interest and value are enhanced, of course, by the scholarly introduction and the census of known extant copies from the pen of Mr. Sidney Lee. Under his guidance we are enabled to take a bird’s-eye view of all relevant facts pertaining to the volume ‘which constitutes the greatest contribution yet made to English literature.’ Oversights and inaccuracies must of necessity have crept into the census, for Mr. Lee has been compelled to rely to a considerable extent, of course, on information supplied to him by owners and others. But who would have been prepared to undertake a like task, who would have been able to carry it to a more successful issue? ¶ Mr. Lee conjectures that the edition of the first folio consisted of 600 copies, of which not far short of one-third, in varying states, probably still exist. In 1616 and 1647 respectively there appeared the collected works of Ben Jonson and of Beaumont and Fletcher, each issued, he thinks, in about the same number of copies and at the same price of £1. At the sale of Sir Kenelm Digby’s library in April 1680 the Beaumont and Fletcher volume fetched 13s. 6d.; the Ben Jonson, with the folio of 1640 added, 17s. 6d. As most collectors are aware, the earliest record of the sale by auction of a first folio Shakespeare is of that in the library of Sir William and the Hon. Henry Coventry, dispersed in the Haymarket by W. Cooper on May 19, 1687; but, unfortunately, there is no mention of the sum realized. Mr. Lee states that the first priced record[Pg 335] belongs to 1756, when the Martin Folkes example, now in the Rylands library, was sold to George Steevens for 3 guineas. On the other hand, it has been affirmed that in an anonymous collection of books dispersed in 1687–8 a first folio fetched no more than 14s. ¶ It is felt that in one direction Mr. Sidney Lee might with advantage have taken a further step. He has gathered together the material necessary for making, not only a geographical analysis of the copies traced, but an analysis which shall show, too, the approximate condition of those to be found here or there. Of the 600 copies conjectured to have been printed in 1623, Mr. Lee mentions the present owners of 144, leaving the possessors of 14., whose particulars do not agree with those of any others, untraced. The total of 160, including the two copies named in the postscript, is made up by mention of an example stated to have been lost in the S.S. Arctic, 1854, and of that said to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. In order to understand the table that follows, it is necessary in the first place to transcribe details of the four main classifications into which Mr. Lee divides the copies he has traced:—

The accompanying table is an attempt to show at a glance the geographical distribution of the copies named by Mr. Lee. His estimate of condition has been scrupulously followed, even with regard to the first folio in the royal library at Berlin. In the Vossische Zeitung of February 10, and in The Times of the following day, there appeared a statement to the effect that a careless or malicious reader had mutilated this Berlin copy, which was bought of Joseph Lilly in 1858 and presented by the then prince-regent, afterwards Emperor William I., to the royal library, and that the whole of the ‘Comedy of Errors’ had been cut out. I communicated with the director of the library on this subject, and he courteously informs me that the statement, happily, is based on a misapprehension. The folio of 1623 is in the same condition as when presented forty-five years ago; on the other hand, the facsimile of 1806 has been robbed of eight leaves, including those on which the ‘Comedy of Errors’ is printed. As to distribution, I have assumed that the five copies sold in the United States during the past few years have there remained; of the three examples which occurred at Sotheby’s in 1902 I chance to know that one has gone to America, another is still in London; while since January copies LXXVIIIa, LXXX, and LXXXVI have been sold at auction and are entered under ‘London, private owners.’ It is worthy of remark that the three first folios in British colonies are presentations from public-spirited men: those at Capetown and Auckland are the gift of Sir George Grey; that at Sydney of Sir Richard Tangye.

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