DESCBIPTI HISTORICAL CATALOGUE OF TIE PICTURES 12? THE GALLEBY OF ALLEYFS COLLEGE OF GOB'S GIFT DULWICH Price One Shilling ■top J CATALOGUE THE PICTURES IN THE GALLERY OF ALLEYN'S COLLEGE OF GOD'S GIFT DULWICH WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE PAINTERS Revised and completed to the present time by Sir Edward Cook (Author of " A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery ") [138 (Bxhtx of tf)e ©obentors] LONDON : printed by DARLING and SON, Ltd , Bacon Street, E, 1914. LIST OF COLLEGE GOVERNORS. 1914. DULWICH COLLEGE. Chairman.— *The Right Hon. LORD CHEYLESMORE, K.C.Y.O. Deputy Chairman.— "R. J. POWELL, Esq. Sir EDWARD BUSK, M.A., LL.B. R. COATS CANE, Esq. ^Professor F. CLOWES, D.Sc. A. GRAY, Esq., K.C. *EDWIN T. HALL, Esq. Sir ARTHUR HIRTZEL, K C B H. C. KNOTT, Esq. *W. W. OULESS, Esq., R.A. L. L. PRICE, Esq. *R. B. HANSFORD, Esq., J. P. D. C. RICHMOND, Esq., C.B. The Right Rev. the Lord BISHOP OF SOUTH- WARD EYAN SPICER, Esq., D.L., J. P. Dr. J. J. H. TEALL, F.R.S. *H. Y. THOMPSON, Esq. (Chairman of the Gallery Committee). *M. WALLACE, Esq., J.P. A. J. WALTER*, Esq., K.C. *G. C. WHITELEY, Esq. Clerk to the Governors S. W. BTCKELL, Esq. The names of the members of the .Picture Gallery Committer are marked (*). CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction : — The History of the Gallery ... ... ... ... iv Its Artistic and Literary Associations ... ... ... xix Its Special Features ... ... ... ... ... xxiii Previous Catalogues and Descriptions ... ... ... xxx Arrangement of the Present Catalogue . . : ... xxxiii Plan of the Gallery ... ... ... ... ... ... xxxvi Catalogue of the Pictures with Biographical Notices of the Painters ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 Contents of Show-cases in the Gallery ... ... ... 307 List of the College Plate 309 Appendix : — A. — Extracts from the Catalogues of Noel Desenfans (1786, 1802) ... 312 B. — Will of Noel Joseph Desenfans (1803) 317 C. — Sir P. F. Bourgeois's Letter to the Diike of Portland (January, 1810) ... 317 D. — Extract from Will of Sir P. F. Bourgeois (December, 1810) 31 9 E. -— Extract from Will of Mrs. Desenfans (1814) ... 320 Index : — I. Alphabetical List of Painters, with the Subjects of their Pictures 322 II. Numerical List of Pictures, Painters, and Mode of Acquisition ... ... ... ... ... ... 347 27930 INTRODUCTION TO THE CATALOGUE. With the Histoi^y of the Dulwich Gallery. The number of pictures described in the present edition of the Catalogue is 594. Of these, Nos. 548-594 were not included in the preceding edition. The Numerical Index at the end (p. 347) states (so far as can be ascertained) how and when each picture in the Collection was acquired. In the pages here following, some general account is given, successively, of the history of the collection ; of the artistic and literary associations of the Dulwich Gallery ; of its special features ; of previously published catalogues or descriptions; and lastly, of the arrange- ment of the present Catalogue. I. The collection of pictures now placed in the Dulwich Gallery was not made, but grew. The larger part of the collection grew out of a succession of events which links together in a curious way the early annals of the British Stage, the partition of Poland, and the family into which the great Sheridan married. The Gallery, like many British arts, industries, and institutions, owes a great deal to foreign elements. Its largest benefactors were a Frenchman and the son of a Swiss watch- maker. (1.) The history of the Gallery begins with the foundation of tiie College of God's Gift at Pulwich by Edward Alleyn, actor INTRODUCTION. V and theatrical manager, in the early years of the Seventeenth Century. He died in 1626, and included in his bequest to the College a few pictures. These (28 in number) are of no artistic merit, being for the most part reproductions of conventional portraits of kings and queens. No list of the pictures bequeathed by the Founder is extant, but his Diary, preserved in the archives of the College, enables many of them to be identified (see the notes on Nos. 521-536, 537-545), and they included, in all probability, the) portrait of himself, which is described, with some account of his career, in the Catalogue (No. 443). (2.) The next bequest of pictures was made by William Cartwright, a bookseller and an actor of repute in a later period of the same century. His collection originally consisted of 239 pictures. A catalogue of them, in the handwriting of Cartwright himself, is preserved in the College archives, but two pages, containing pictures numbered 186 to 209, are missing. It is illiterate and often inaccurate, but its quaint descriptions, with the prices paid for the pictures, and in many cases the names of the painters, are highly interesting. Wherever the pictures can be identified, Cartwright's descrip- tions are quoted in the present Catalogue. Of the 239 pictures in Cartwright's catalogue, some were given away by him in his life-time (as appears from his own notes) ; others (46, as alleged by the College) were appropriated by his servants after his death, and a few were " probably destroyed," says Dr. Carver, " on account of their grossness, or have been lost through decay or neglect in past years." Particulars of Cartwright's bequest, which included many books of great theatrical interest, and " 390 pieces of broad old gold," are recorded in the College Audit Book under date September 4, 1688. In ' ■ The joint and sever all Answers of Francis Johnson and Jane, his wife, defendants, to the Bill of Complaint " of Dulwich College, which is preserved among the College MSS., the Johnsons acknowledge the appropriation of the property, including " several small pictures which we sold for 15s.," but they plead a set-off on account of various sums due to them for maintenance, for funeral expenses, and for debts of their master paid by them. The number of Cartwright's pictures identifiable as now in the Gallery is about 80. These pictures, bequeathed to the College in 1686, are, for the most part, of small merit as works of art, but they include many interesting portraits; among them, one of Cartwright himself, which is described, with some further account of him, in the Catalogue (No. 393). His collection comprises other theatrical portraits, and a series of the Lovelace family. The pictures bequeathed by the Founder and by William Cartwright with some others were hung, until the year 1883, in the old picture-gallery or elsewhere in the College, and they are the subject of notices by antiquaries and others. Thus INTRObUCTlOiSI. John Aubrey, describing Dulwich College in his Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey, 1719, says: " In it [the picture gallery] are several worthless pictures, and some not so bad, viz., the Founder and his first wife [Nos. 443, 444], Henry, Prince of Wales [No. 417], Sir Thomas Gresham, Mary, Queen of Scotland ; and several others given by Mr. Cartwright, a comedian, whose picture [No. 393] is at the upper end." In an appendix to his work, Aubrey refers again to Cartwright, who, he says, gave to the College " a collection of plays and many pictures; one, a view of London, taken by Mr. John Norden in 1603, with the representation of the city cavalcade on the Lord Mayor's Day, which is very curious. ' ' This picture and others mentioned by Aubrey have disappeared. A few years later, Robert Seymour, in his Survey of London and Westminster and Parts Adjacent thereto, 1734, thus describes the College pictures : " In the room where the churchwardens dine are several antient pictures, particularly of the Founder [No. 443], his Father, his Brother, his Wife [No. 444], and his Mistress, who by the picture was a most beautiful woman. There is likewise a picture of Prince Henry [No. 417], eldest son of James I., and several old heads of the Kings of England t%c. [Nos. 521-36]. Joyning to> this room is a gallery in which are likewise some good pictures, especially one of St. Jerome [? No. 410]. The long gallery is seldom made any use of but upon the election of a Warden and then there is commonly a Ball in it." Mr. Seymour must have been imposed upon by some retainer or quizzical Fellow of the College. There are no portraits of Alleyn's " Father, Brother, and Mistress," and the imputation upon his character in the latter case is without foundation. Perhaps the picture so described to Mr. Seymour in 1734 was the same that to another visitor, a few years later, was described as Fair Rosamund. " In the Gallery belonging to the College," wrote the Gentleman' s Magazine (1745, p. 426), u are a great many pictures, the donation of different people; some are very well done, particularly one representing some Father of the Church, a religious hermit. Fair Rosamund, tho' in faded colours, still preserves charms enough to render King Henry's im- moderate passion for her excusable ; and the Founder seems to observe with pleasure those happy institutions he has made. There is also the picture of a boy formerly belonging to this College, drawn by himself and that without any assistance of any master in the art of painting. This piece is extremely lively and tho' not entirely finish'd is generally allow'd to be very well done." The " Father of the Church," which was thus admired, may be the St. Jerome [No. 410] again. The Fair Rosamund is no longer in possession of the College ; nor is there any picture which can be identified with that of the old Dulwich boy. Lysons, in giving an account of Dulwich in his Environs of London, 1792, had obtained access to INTRODUCTION. Cartwright's Catalogue, and discusses some of the theatrical portraits, but does not throw light on the points left obscure by the descriptions of previous antiquaries. It is tiresome that these early visitors did not describe the pictures more particularly. John Evelyn, who might have done so (in the Case of Alleyn's bequest), visited Dulwich in 1675, but he was in a bad humour : ' ' Went to see Dulwich College, being the pious foundation of one Allen, a famous comedian in King James's time. The Chapell is pretty, the rest of the Hospital very ill contrived ; it yet maintained divers poore of both sexes. 'Tis in a melancholy part of Camberwell Parish." It is still more tiresome that the Authorities of the College itself did not take better care, or keep an inventory, of their pictures. Many pieces, referred to by old writers, have disappeared ; and of those that remain a large number have to be classed as ;i Unknown," as regards not only subject and artist, but also time and mode of acquisition. (3.) The more important part of the Collection, from an artistic point of view, begins with the bequest of Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois in 1811. The foundation of the Dulwich Gallery, as distinct from a collection of pictures placed in the College, dates from this Bourgeois Bequest; and it furnishes one of those instances, in which historians delight, of the far- flung interdependence of human affairs. "In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America." Everybody knows the passage in Macaulay's Essays. It is the execution of a later policy, first conceived in the brain of the same King of Prussia, that here concerns us. The Dulwich Gallery is an indirect result of the Partition of Poland. The chain of events which led from the sack of Warsaw and the abdication at Gradno to the Picture Gallery at Dulwich was this : — Noel Joseph Desenf ans (1745-1807) — one of the three Founders whose remains rest in the Mausoleum attached to the Gallery — was born at Douai. It has been often said that he was a foundling, but there is no apparent basis for this statement except the suppositions to which his name gave rise. There might be reason in such suppositions, if the name were peculiar to him, but, in fact, it is distinguished and ancient. The Desenf ans were counts in Brabant and nobles in Hainault.* Noel Desenfans was at school at Douai, and then went to the University of Paris. In 1763, at the age of 18, he wrote a tract entitled L'Eleve de la Nature, which was translated into English, and which in Paris procured him an introduction to Jean Jacques Rousseau. He wrote poetry also : and a dramatic piece from his pen, La Fete de Coidange, was performed with See W. Young's History of Dulwich College, Vol. I., p. -184. viii INTRODUCTION. success. Desenfans presently came to England as a teacher of languages, and also, it is said,* as a dealer in Brussels lace. Two tracts which he printed, on Education, attracted some attention; another piece from his pen, published in 1777, was famous in its day (see note on No. 503 in the Catalogue). Amongst his pupils was Miss Margaret Morris, who fell in love with him and whom he presently married. She brought him a fortune of £5,000, by means of which he started upon a calling more lucrative than literature or teaching. He had a taste for art, and on his honeymoon-travels he bought several pictures at auctions. At one of them he bought a small picture by Claude, which afterwards he sold advantageously to George III. for £1,000. This transaction induced Desenfans to turn his whole attention to such business, and he became one of the leading picture^dealers of the day. Among his foreign friends was Michael Poniatowski, the Prince Primate of Poland (see No. 489). At Prince Michael's suggestion, King Stanislaus, his brother (No. 490), appointed Desenfans Consul-General for Poland in England, and gave him a com- mission to purchase pictures. The times were propitious, for towards 1789 the troubles of the French noblesse threw many works of art into the market. Desenfans bought a large number of pictures for the King, which were destined, as it was supposed, to adorn a National Gallery in Warsaw. He also, however, bought and sold on his own account. In 1785 he had a sale of a portion of his collection at Christie's. The sale was unsuccessful for a reason (as given by Mr. Desen- fans) which is curious. The attendance of amateurs was prevented by " an aerial excursion," f which drew all the town to the Artillery Ground. In the following year Mr. Desenfans held another and a more extensive sale. A copy of the Sale Catalogue " Of that Truly Superb and Well-known Collection, the Intire and Genuine Property of Monsieur Desenfans " is preserved in the Library of the Dulwich Gallery. It has a characteristic preface, | and in the Dulwich copy a price is entered against each of the 420 pictures offered. Some of the pictures seem now to be in our Gallery; the figures indicate presumably the reserve prices put by the owner upon the several items. A few notes from this copy are inserted in the present Catalogue. In buying and selling pictures, Mr. Desenfans had a friend in Paris who was of service to him, and with whom he did a good deal of business. This was Jean Baptiste Pierre Le Brim, art-critic and picture- dealer (1748-1818), husband of the celebrated Madame Vigee * By J. T. Smith, in NolleJcens and his Timet, Vol. I., p. 391, who is the authority also for the following particulars of Desenfans's marriage. f This was the ascent in a balloon by Vincent Lunardi, an event which caused an amount of excitement and enthusiasm comparable to that winch has attended airships and aeroplanes in our own time. % See Appendix A ; below, p. 312. INTRODUCTION. Le Brun. Several of the letters from Le Brim to Desenfans are preserved among the College manuscripts, and notes from them are occasionally used in the present Catalogue. The scheme for a Polish National Gallery soon came to an end, for Poland as a nation ceased to exist. King Stanislaus had made no resistance to the encroachments of his three powerful neighbours ; in 1794 the revolt of the Polish patriot, Kosciusko, was crushed by Suwaroff; the partition of Poland was completed between Prussia, Russia, and Austria ; and on April 25, 1795, Stanislaus resigned the crown. On the eve of his abdication, he heard of the purchase for him of a picture by Gaspar Poussin, a master whom he much admired (see note on No. 30). The occupation of Desenfans as purveyor of pictures for the Polish Court was now at an end. Stanislaus became a King in Exile, a pensioner at St. Petersburg on the bounty of the three Powers ; and the Russian Government, to whom Desenfans appealed, declined to take over the obliga- tions of the deposed King,.* A large number of pictures which Desenfans had bought for the projected Gallery at Warsaw and for which he had not been paid thus remained on his hands. In 1799 Desenfans published a Plan for the establishment of a National Gallery in London, to which he undertook to contribute liberally both in pictures and in money. The Government of Mr. Pitt had other things to think of, and the offer was disregarded. A generation was still to elapse before the foundation of a National Gallery was made, and its nucleus was to be the collection, not of a Frenchman, but of a Russian (Mr. Angerstein). In 1802 Desenfans, finding that his plea for a National Gallery had fallen on deaf ears, and recognising that there was no probability of his being repaid for the pictures which he had bought for King Stanis- laus, organised an exhibition of the pictures in London with a view to their sale. He explained the circumstances and offered to sell any picture at the price which he himself had paid for it. Of this exhibition Desenfans wrote and published a Catalogue thus entitled : — A Descriptive Catalogue (with Remarks and Anecdotes never before published in English) of some Pictures of the Different Schools purchased for His Majesty the late King of Poland, which will be exhibited early in 1802 at the Great Poom No. 3 in Berners-street. The Catalogue does not often give particulars of the purchase of the pictures, but in other respects it is more interesting than most productions of the kind, and several quotations from it are given in the present volume. Mr. Desenfans made a passing allusion to envy among artists, which brought upon &ee Appendix A ; below p, BIG. X INTRODUCTION. him a fierce pamphlet from an anonymous assailant. Desenfans replied in a Letter to Benjamin West, describing his assailant as an anonymous assassin styling himself a painter." These critical amenities were, however, only an incident. The body of the Catalogue was a laudable effort to make notices of pictures interesting to the general reader. That the effort was appreciated by some is shown by a copy of " Verses addressed to M. Desenfans " on the appearance of his Catalogue: — Though tasteless Time, with slow but certain rage, Painting's sublimest treasures will destroy, Yet those preserv'd in thy descriptive page, Uninjur'd shall Posterity enjoy. So well thy pen each Master's style displays, Such force and beauty in the work we find, That Fancy charm' d o 5 er every picture strays And feels the rich collection in the mind . . .* Mr. Desenfans thus deserves to be remembered not only as the first proposer of a, National Gallery, but also as a pioneer in the now familiar task of popularising picture-catalogues. Of the 188 pictures thus catalogued and exhibited in 1802, not more than 30 or 40 can from the descriptions be identified in the Dulwich Gallery, but these include some of the gems of the collection. Apart, however, from any commission from King Stanislaus, it is clear from papers now among the archives of the College that Desenfans continued to buy and sell pictures on his own account. He added considerably to his collection after 1802. In 1804 he insured his pictures, and the List of 124, then prepared for the Insurance Company, includes at least 85 which are now in our Gallery. Doubtless he acquired other pictures between 1804 and July 8, 1807, when he died . Mr. Desenfans, who had been in bad health for some years, seems to have been of a very amiable disposition, and he had a large circle of attached friends. " What the recent grief of Burke stated of the excellent Sir Joshua Reynolds was applicable," wrote one of them, " in a degree to Noel Desenfans. ' He was the centre of a very great variety of agreeable societies, which were dissipated by his death.' He delighted to receive his friends ; and he entertained them with elegance, and even splendor. The room in which we dined was decorated so as to defy a parallel even in the mansions of our nobles. We were surrounded by thirteen historical subjects by Potts sin painted in the finest time of that classic master. If ever man possessed the faculty of rendering society tactful and happy, it was Desenfans. He was too well bred to be the hero of his own table — the charm he possessed was the absence of self display, exchanged for the address to draw forth the talents Memoirs of I he late Noel Desenfans Esquire (1810). INTRODUCTION. of others. He could continue any subject just as long as it pleased, and change it without any appearing check or abrupt- ness. In the midst of great bodily sufferings, he excelled all in hilarity, and the goodness of his nature impressed his countenance with uniform benevolence. His infirmities con- fined him, for the most part, to the house, but his curiosity was insatiable after every object of liberal science; and his friend, Sir Francis Bourgeois, who mixed largely in active life, delighted on his return home to lay before Mr. Desenf ans daily gleanings from the world without."* By his Will (dated October 8, 1803) f Desenf ans left his house in Charlotte Street, Portland Place, with all the furniture, plate, etc., therein, to his wife Margaret and his friend Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, or to the survivor of them, adding that it was his wish that they should continue to live there. He desired also that his body should be laid in a leaden coffin, and kept in a vault prepared in or near the said house. There his body lay from the date of his death until March, 1815, when, as related below, it was moved to Dulwich. Desenf ans bequeathed all his pictures to Sir Francis Bourgeois. The bequest was unconditional; but Desenf ans had often expressed a wish that the Collect ion might not be dispersed but might at some future time be devoted to the enjoyment and instruc- tion of the public. | It is pleasant to think that owing to the piety of his legatees, Noel Desenf ans still " entertains his friends " — an unknown company of them every day in the year — " with elegance and even splendor " within the walls of the Dulwich Gallery. His amiable countenance, depicted by one of his artist-friends, welcomes the visitor near the entrance (No. 28). Sir Peter Francis (commonly called Sir Francis) Bourgeois (1756-1811), to whose history we have now to turn, was also of foreign extraction. Born in St. Martin's Lane, London, he was descended from a Swiss family of good position, who came to reside in England in consequence of a reverse of fortune. Bourgeois's father, as mentioned above, carried on the trade of a watchmaker • and, becoming rich, he determined to place his son in the army ; this intention was strengthened by the promise of a commission from Lord Heathfield, and young Bourgeois attended drill, parade, and reviews. At this time, however, the influence of Noel Desenf ans decided his career in life ; he determined to be a painter, and, rceiving the approval of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough for some early productions, he placed himself under the instruction of Loutherbourg, an artist who is represented by pictures in our Gallery (Nos. 297, 339), as also by a portrait of him by Gains- * Life of John Philip Kemble, by James Boaden, Vol. I v p. 435. f See Appendix B ; below, p. 317. J >See the letter of Bourgeois in Appendix C ; below, p. 318. xii INTRODUCTION. borough (No. 66). Under Loutherbourg's guidance, Bourgeois quickly acquired sufficient knowledge to bring him some repu- tation as a painter of landscapes, battle-scenes, and sea-pieces. In 1776 he left England to travel through Italy, France, and Holland, and on his return exhibited several of his works in the Royal Academy. In 1787 he was elected an Associate of that body. In 1791 he was appointed painter to the King of Poland, and received from him the honour of knighthood. In 1793 he became a full member of the Royal Academy, and in 1794 was appointed landscape-painter to George III., who sanctioned the use of the title conferred by the King of Poland ; and shortly after, while yet in the full vigour of life, he retired from the active pursuit of his profession to occupy himself in the arrangement, and also (as will be seen from various notes in the Catalogue) the " restoration," of the pictures bequeathed to him by Noel Desenfans. Bourgeois had for many years lived with his friend, whom he assisted in the purchase of pictures. There is a humorous drawing by Paul Sandby of the two old friends crossing the Channel together.* After the death of Desenfans, Bourgeois added to the collection of pictures. The death of Sir Francis Bourgeois was caused by a fall from his horse, January 8, 1811. By his Will (dated December 20, 1810) f Bourgeois be- queathed, after the decease of Mrs. Desenfans, " all pictures, prints, ornaments, plate, china, clocks, and other effects now in my three leasehold houses in Charlotte Street and Portland Road, to the Master, Warden, and Fellows of Dulwich College and their successors for ever. And it is my desire," he added, " that the same may be there kept and preserved for the inspection of the public, upon such terms, pecuniary or other- wise, and at such times of the year or days in the week as the said Master, Warden, and Fellows may think proper." He also directed his executors to invest £10,000 to pay salaries and wages of such officers and servants as may be employed in the maintenance and preservation of the pictures, and a further sum of £2,000 for the repairing, improving, and beautifying the West Wing and Gallery of the College for the reception of the pictures. This gallery, which formed the upper part of the West Wing, measuring 77 feet in length by 15 feet 6 inches in width, was that in which the Cart-wright and other pictures had formerly been hung. It was, however, found to be quite unfitted to receive the pictures left by Sir Francis Bourgeois, and Mrs. Desenfans therefore offered to pay at once £6,000, which, added to a building reserve of a like amount accumulated by the College, made up sufficient according to Sir John Soane's estimate — to complete the * Reproduced at p.-.G, of Early English Waler-coloar Painters, by Cosmo Monkhouse. | See Appendix D; below, p. 319. INTRODUCTION, xiii Gallery and Mausoleum, as well as certain rooms adjoining for the accommodation of the (i poor Sisters." Sir John Soane's building was commenced in 1812, and finished in 1814. The Almshouses were at a later date added to the Gallery. In September, 1814, the pictures were removed from Charlotte Street, Portland Place, to the new Gallery at Dulwich. Soane's building was similar to one erected by him in the life-time of Bourgeois contiguous to the house in Charlotte Street. It is impossible to please everybody ; and the bequest of Sir Francis Bourgeois, though applauded by the picture-loving public, was ill-received in some other quarters. "It is occa- sionally proper, 1 ' wrote J. T. Smith, Keeper of the Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, " to expose in public print the cruel manner in which some persons treat their nearest relatives; in order that other hardened offenders may repeno of their conduct before it is too late. Such a person was the late Sir Francis Bourgeois, who left his property to Dulwich College, without leaving a farthing to his niece and her poor, innocent and unoffending children."* It appears from the Minute Book of the College that " a charitable allowance " was " made annually to a near relation of Sir Francis Bourgeois who was not provided for in his Will." Why, it may be asked, did Sir Francis Bourgeois think of Dulwich College in connexion with the Desenfans Collection? What was the link between him and Desenfans, on the one side, and Alleyn's College of God's Gift, on the other? The answer must, to some extent, be matter of conjecture ; but there is good reason, as we shall see presently, for surmising that the link was the theatrical profession, of which the Founder of the College had been an ornament. The idea of a gift to Dulwich did not, however, take permanent shape till late in Sir Francis Bourgeois's life-time, and a contributory cause was what some people in these days call " the tyranny of London ground-landlords." Sir Francis Bourgeois was resolved somewhere and somehow to carry out the ^ish of Noel Desenfans for the establishment of a Public Picture Gallery. As Desenfans' s plea for a National Gallery had been unavailing, Bourgeois had the idea of converting his collection into a sort of private National Gallery in London. With this end in view, he wrote, in January, 1810, to the Duke of Portland (his ground-landlord), asking him to convert the lease of his houses in Charlotte Street and Portland Road into free- hold, so that he might bequeath the whole of Mr. Desenfans 's Collection, with the additions he (Sir F. Bourgeois) had made thereto, in such manner that the same, supported by funds to be appropriated for that purpose by him, " may be gratuitously open to artists as well as to the public, and thus form not only a source of professional improvement, but also * Nollekens and his Times, Vol. I., p. 408, XIV INTRODUCTION . an object of national exhibition, creditable to this Kingdom, and highly honourable to the memory and talents of the much lamented Mr. Desenfans." He added that, if the Duke refused, he would purchase a freehold elsewhere. The answer came promptly from Welbeck (January 4, 1810) that the Duke had neither the power nor the inclination to comply with Sir Francis Bourgeois's request.* Sir Francis Bourgeois had, therefore, to look elsewhere, and presumably no other suitable freehold in London was imme- diately forthcoming ; for it seems that Bourgeois next enter- tained the idea of offering the collection to the British Museum. He was deterred from doing so, it is said, on finding that it would be in the power of the Trustees of that institution to dispose of such pictures as might appear to them superfluous or inferior. It is conceivable that some thought of the fate of his own pictures may have crossed his mind. At any rate, he came in the end to prefer, as he said, " the unpretending merit of Dulwich College ' J to " the rules of greater institu- tions.'^ The suggestion that the collection should be given to Dulwich is said by J. T. Smith! to have come from John Philip Kemble, the famous actor, who may well have felt some special interest in a College which had been founded by a member of his calling, and which contained several portraits and many manuscripts of great interest in the history of the British stage. Kemble, like Desenfans, had been educated at Douai ; the two men were close friends, and the friendship, like so much else that belonged to Desenfans, had been passed on to Bourgeois. § Kemble added one picture to the collection (No. 247). His suggestion — if his it were — was possibly seconded by some of the officials at Dulwich, as it appears that one or more of the Fellows — specially the Rev. Robert Corry — being clergymen, were in the habit of conducting occasional services in the Mortuary Chapel or Vault in Charlotte Street, where, as already stated, the body of Mr. Desenfans was preserved. However these things may be, on December 10, 1810, three weeks before his death, Sir* Francis Bourgeois signed the Will which made over the collection to the Master, Warden, and * See Appendix 0 ; below, p. 318. It will there be noted that the Duke did not recognize his correspondent's Polish Knighthood. f From the notes of a conversation, a few days before the date of Bour- geois's Will, between him, Mr. Lancelot Bough Allen (Warden of Dulwich College) and the Rev. Robert Corry. The notes were given by Mr. Allen to the writer of an account of Desenfans and Bourgeois in James Blmes's Annals of the Fine Arts for IS 18. t Nollekens and his Times, Vol. I., p. 391. Smith was an Official of the British Museum (Keeper of the Prints), and does not mention the former intention to give the collection to that Institution ; but it was probably in his mind, for he writes with some asperity both of Bourgeois personally and of Kem ble's suggestion. § See Desenfaus's Will ; below, p. 317. INTRODUCTION. XV Fellows of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich. The collection consisted of 371 pictures. The principal collection of pictures, and the main portion of the gallery in which they are housed, were, as will have been seen from the preceding pages, the joint bequest and gift of Sir Francis Bourgeois and Mrs. Desenfans. This lady, Margaret Morris, was a sister of Sir John Morris, of Clase- mont, Glamorganshire. Her portrait, as Miss Morris, was painted in 1757 by Sir Joshua Reynolds (see below, p. 307). Upon the death of Sir Francis Bourgeois, she kept his body, with that of her late husband, in the Mortuary Chapel in Charlotte Street ; and when in her turn she made her Will,* her first direction was that her body should be finally preserved, with those of her husband and her friend, in the Mausoleum to be attached to the Gallery at Dulwich. She died in 1814, just before the Gallery was finished. In March 1815, the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Desenfans and of Sir P. F. Bourgeois were, in accordance with their wishes, placed in the Mausoleum, where they remain to this day. Mrs. Desenfans, by her Will, left a further sum of £500, together with plate and linen, for the purpose of entertaining the President and other members of the Royal Academy on the occasion of an inspection of the pictures on or about St. Luke's Day in each year. The object of the annual visita- tion was that the Academicians should advise the College upon the due custody of the pictures and upon such cleaning or other restoration as might from time to time be necessary. It had been the intention of Sir Francis Bourgeois, Mrs. Desen- fans added, to provide for this visit; but, no provision having been made for it in his Will, she desired to supply the omission. In this matter her wishes are still carried out, though the nature and the occasion of the entertainment have been varied from time to time. The Minute-book of the College shows that there has been much discussion on the subject in successive generations. The executors of Sir Francis Bourgeois were very indignant, in 1822, because the College' had decided, in view of the prior claims of the due custody of the Gallery, to make the Academy Dinner triennial only. The College replied that the only money which they were legally required to devote to the dinner was the income from Mrs. Desenfans's £500 (£15) ; that they could not apply to the purpose any money from the Bourgeois bequest other than such balance as might remain after defraying the expenses of the Gallery. " If so required, we are ready to prepare for the Academy such an annual repast as £15 will provide. But Ave apprehend it would be more agreeable to them, as it would certainly be to us, to give a public dinner at such intervals only as would enable us to conduct it on a scale conformable to our former practice and * See Appendix E ; below, p. 320. xvi INTRODUCTION. mare suitable both to them and to us." Thus, then, it was decided, and from time to time a " suitable " banquet was given to members of the Royal Academy and other guests in the Picture Gallery. In Creevey's Diary there is a reference to an occasion of the kind (July 24, 1837). " On Saturday I dined at Dulwich ; dinner in the Picture Gallery for 30— a triennial dinner to savants and virtuosos. Our artists were Chantrey, etc. ; our Maecenases, Lansdowne, Sutherland, Argyll, the latter of whom carried me in his barouche ; poets and wags, Rogers, Sydney Smith and Creevey !"* Sydney Smith as a member of the Holland House circle and a par- ticular friend of one of that circle; — John Allen, Warden of Dulwich College, (see No. 447) — was a guest at more than one dinner in the Picture Gallery. " I like pictures," he said, " without knowing anything about them; but I hate coxcomby in the fine arts, as well as in anything else. I got into dreadful disgrace with Sir G. B. once, who, standing before a picture at Bowood, exclaimed turning to me, ' Immense breadth of light and shade!' I innocently said, ' Yes; about an inch and a half.' He gave me a look that ought to have killed me." Mrs. Desenfans, besides providing some funds for enter- taining the Royal Academy at Dulwich, bequeathed to the College various pieces of furniture, most of which are now displayed in the picture galleries. They include two tortoise- shell commodes, probably the work of Andre Boule (1642-1732), (i Artist in Cabinet-work " to Louis XI Y. ; some Louis XV. chairs; a commode of English marqueterie; and a sideboard, with a Boule clock and two vases. Mrs. Desenfans left it as her desire that the Master, Warden, and Fellows should open the Gallery for public inspection on one day of the week only (Tuesday) ; but from 1814 (or according to other versions, from 1817) to 1858 visitors were admitted daily on production of cards of admission which were procurable at Messrs. Colnaghrs in Pall Mall, and at other resorts of picture-lovers in London. At Dulwich itself cards were not procurable. Since 1858 admission has been free daily without tickets. The importance of the Gallery thus opened to the publicf is * The Creevey Papers, ed. 1905, p. 664. f The precise date of the "opening" of the Dulwich Gallery, variously given by different authorities as " 1812," " 1814," and " 1817," I am unable to determine. It appears from College minutes that the building was completed between July and September 1814, and in the latter month the pictures were removed from London to Dulwich. The earliest minute in the Gallery Minute-book is dated June 6, 1817 ; it notifies the appointment of Mr. Cock- burn as Curator, as from 10th October, 1816, and includes rules and regula- tions for the admission of the Public. It would thus appear that the Gallery was "opened" to the College (and doubtless to friends of its members) shortly after September, 1814 ; but perhaps not to the general public until 1817. The minute of June 6, 1817, may, however, refer to alterations in the rules, not to the first admission of the public. INTRODUCTION. xvii described in the next section (II.) of this Introduction : here the story of its growth is continued. (4.) The connexion of the Gallery with the College was responsible for the acquisition in 1831 and 1835 of some of the choicest examples in the collection. These are a number of portraits, mostly by Gainsborough, of the Linley family. Of this family, remarkable alike for beauty and for accomplish- ments, the history has been told by Miss Clementina Black in her pleasant volume entitled The Linleys of Bath ; quotations from it are made in notes upon several of the family portraits. The head of the family was Thomas Linley, musician (see, No. 140). One of his sons, the Rev. Ozias Thurstan Linley (No. 474), was in 1816 appointed to a junior fellowship, with the post of organist, at Dulwich College. He died in 1831, and left all his property to his one surviving brother, William (No. 178). Ozias had arranged with William that, when the latter should die, their family pictures should all pass into the possession of the College. The msot valuable of them, the portrait of " the Linley Sisters — Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell — by Gainsborough (No. 320), which belonged to William, had already in 1822 been deposited by him in the Gallery. Others had apparently been given by Ozias before his death, and others, again, were given by William in 1831. " ;f Upon the death of William, in 1835, the College was possessed of the whole series, thus : — Thomas Linley, the elder, by Gainsborough ( No. 140). Mrs. Linley, his wife, by Lonsdale (see note on No. 456), Mrs. Linley, by Oliver. Elizabeth and Mary Linley, by Gainsborough (No. 320). Thomas Linley, the younger, by Gainsborough (No. 331). Mary Linley (Mrs. Tickell), as a child, by Ozias Humphry. Samuel Linley, by Gainsborough (No. 302). Maria Linley, by Lawrence (No. 475). Ozias Linley, by Lawrence (No. 474). Ozias Linley. by Oliver. Jane Linley (Mrs. Ward), by Lawrence. AVilliam Linley, by Lawrence (No. 173). * No chronological register of pictures acquired by the College has hitherto been kept, and it is impossible from such records as are extant to determine precisely the date and manner of the acquisition of the twelve Linley portraits. The records consist of (1) a College Minute of March 30. 1831, summarizing a letter from William Linley of March 27, announcing an intended bequest by him of certain pictures, and coiinrrning a gift made by his late brother" of certain others ; (2) a letter from William Linley. dated April 1. 1831. * presenting as his gift to the College : * certain pictures, and announcing a bequest of certain others : (3) the will of William Linley, dated 1832 and proved 1835. and (4) a list of the twelve portraits in the Catalogue of 1892. It is impossible to harmonize these records. Some pictures " given by Ozias " in 1831, are bequeathed by William in 1835. Some in possession of the College are included in William's list of intended bequests, but not in his actual will. And one (the portrait of Jane Linley ), though it ligures in the Catalogue of 18D2. does not appear in any of the other documents. 27930 b xviii INTRODUCTION. Of the four portraits to which no number is attached, one— that of Mrs. Tickell, by Humphry — was given by the College, on May 29, 1835, to Miss Tickell, only daughter of the subject of the portrait ; the other three were supposed, in the Catalogue of 1892, to be " in the College," but they cannot now be found. (5.) At various times a few accessions of pictures have been obtained by the gift or bequest of well-wishers of the College, and two or three were bought by the College itself. Particulars under this head will be found in the Numerical List at the end of the volume. In order that the present Catalogue may contain a complete inventory of pictures belonging to the Foundation of Alleyn's College of God's Gift, a few pictures are included which were specifically presented to Alleyn's School (see Nos. 548-553). These miscellaneous accessions have not all been of great importance, but they include several pieces of value in themselves or of special interest in connexion with the Dulwich Gallery. It is interesting to note that the connexion of the College with the dramatic profession has been continued by gifts of valuable pictures from actors (see, e.g., Nos. 188, 247) ; and the acquisition of a fine Gainsborough (No. 316), by gift of a gentleman not connected with the College, was doubtless motived by the consideration that it would be in appropriate company. (6.) Lastly, in 1911 a valuable accession of 35 pictures was made to the Gallery by the gift of an anonymous donor. They consist, for the most part, of portraits; the importance of the gift is explained on a later page of this Introduction. The building itself has of late years been greatly extended and improved. Rooms IX., X., and XI. (see Plan, p. xxxvi.) have been built on to the original building by the present Chairman of the Gallery Committee, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson ; and Room VIII. has been re-roofed and converted by him from a lumber-room into an additional picture-gallery. Room V. has been re-roofed, to the great improvement of the lighting. It may be hoped that an additional new Room will presently be added, with access from Room IV., of similar dimensions to those of Room X. Some of the walls of the old building are still over-crowded, and there are a few pictures, worthy of exhibition, which, however, are at present, owing to want of wall space in the public galleries, placed in the Retiring Room, the Committee Room, and the Store Room. Pieces of furniture, bequeathed by Mrs. Desenfans and now placed in the galleries, have been already mentioned. A Dutch inlaid table and books for the use of visitors have been recent gifts by the Chairman of the Gallery Committee, and the lead cistern, of the date of 1736, which is now made useful in the garden, was a gift from the Estates Governors. The Governors have also accepted from Mr. H. Y. Thompson a show-case; the contents of it are described at the end of the Catalogue (p. 307). INTRODUCTION. XIX n. The Dulwich Gallery, the growth of which has been traced in preceding pages, was for many years the only collection, and for some years longer the best collection, of pictures by the Old Masters accessible freely to the Londoner. It was in some sort open, as we have seen, in 1814. Mr. Angerstein's collection — the original nucleus of the National Gallery — was not bought by the nation until 1824. It contained only 38 pictures, and many years elapsed after 1824 before the National Gallery was equal to Dulwich in extent, interest, or importance. The National " Gallery " itself — the building, that is. in Trafalgar Square — was not opened until 1838— twenty-four years after the completion of the Dulwich Gallery. The benefaction of Sir Francis Bourgeois and Mrs. Desenfans, in giving to the public a fine collection of pictures by the Old Masters, was thus of great importance to the appreciation and practice of art in this country, and for many years Dulwich was a favourite haunt, and a school of art, for artists, students, and writers. In the edition of Murray's Handbook for London, issued in 1850, the Dulwich Gallery is still referred to as " the only collection freely accessible to the public, which affords an opportunity of studying the Dutch masters " ; and Charles Kingsley, writing also in 1850, takes Alton Locke first not to the National Gallery, but to Dulwich, where there are, he says, " much better pictures." The Minute Book referring to the Gallery contains man}' notes, from 1817 onwards, about the admission of students and copyists, and in 1835 regulations were deemed necessary to prevent over-crowding. " The num- ber of students in the Bourgeois Gallery having become so great as to be inconvenient to the public, it is thought necessary for the present," says a minute of September 1, 1835, " not to add to the number " ; and it was ordered, " that only two persons be allowed to study from the same picture at the same time." The students seem to have gathered particularly around the Murillos ; for Ruskin says in a letter of 1844, written to his friend Liddell (afterwards the Dean), " I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I never have seen one before the Paul Veronese " (No. 270). The educational value of the Gallery was recognised in a practice which began soon after 1814 and continues to the present time. This is the loan of one or more pictures in every year to the Royal Academy, for students to copy in its School of Painting. The selection is made each year by the Council of the Academy, and there are some references in artistic memoirs to this practice. Mr. Redgrave, for instance, recalls the grumbling that sometimes occurred among poor students when a large picture, requiring a considerable outlay in canvas, was selected. Less excusable, perhaps, was the 27930 INTRODUCTION. •'demur respecting die amount of work it would involve" when Veronese's fine full-length picture was chosen (No. 270). A masterpiece of Watteau's (No. 156) has often been selected, and in the note on that picture, one famous painter's criticism upon a friend's copy of it, will be found. Among other pictures which students in several years have been set to copy are Claude's " Jacob and Laban " (No, 205), Cuyp's " Horses " (No. 71), Guido's u St. John " (No, 262), Murine's " Flower Girl " (No. 199), Ostade's " Boors " (No. 115), Rubens's " Venus, Mars, and Cupid " (No. 285), Van Dyck's " Madonna and Child *' (No. 90), Velazquez's " Philip IV." (No. 249), and a landscape by Wynants (No. 210). But the Dulwich pictures have been studied by artists other- wise than under compulsion by superior authority. Turner visited the Gallery, and a remark of his on one of the pictures is recorded (see No. 309) • he knew the Watteau, and intro- duces it into his picture of " Watteau Painting " (No, 514 in the National Collection).* John Jackson, the Academician, made a copy of Wilson's landscape (No. 240), and the publica- tion of an engraving by C. Turner from his copy was the subject of a remonstrance by the College (Minutes, July 31, 1823). W. J. Linton, the engraver, served an apprenticeship at Kennington, and in his Memories, published nearly 70 years after (1895), he recalls the pleasures of the Dulwich Gallery. " From Kennington through Camberwell to Dulwich was then a pleasant walk through country fields — a walk I often took as I had the fortune to be acquainted with one of the Fellows of Dulwich College, and so- was sometimes allowed to spend a Sunday there, rambling in the large College garden, or for hours alone in the most pleasant of picture galleries . . . with its Murillos and Rembrandts, a Titian, a Guido, a Wouwermans, a Gainsborough, a Reynolds ; the places in which they hung I can still remember." In 1827 there is a Minute of permission given to Mr. Cattermole to copy one of Van Dyck's pictures- -probably that of the Knight (No. 154) — for a study in armour. The Dulwich Gallery was a haunt of Holman Hunt in his student days, as lie tells us in his Autobiograjrfiy. His notes on one or two of our pictures are cited in this Catalogue, and one of his best-known works may well have owed something to a remembrance of a fine picture in the Dulwich Gallery (see No. 123). The Dulwich Gallery has association, furthermore, with the three English writers who, in prose or verse, have to the best purpose brought literary art to the criticism of painting — William Hazlitt, John Ruskin, and Robert Browning, Hazlitt was acquainted with Mr. Desenfans, and knew well * A Minute of September 23, 1882, says, "Ordered that Mr. Turner have permission to make studies in water-colour from some of the pictures," but this is hardly likely to refer to the Mr. Turner. INTRODUCTION. xxi the pictures in his house. At a later time, he visited the Dulwich Gallery and made it the subject of a chapter, which is now included in his Criticisms of Art. His notices of several of the pictures are cited in the present Catalogue. With Ruskin, the associations of Dulwich and its Gallery are closer. It was within an easy walk of his homes on Herne Hill and on Denmark Hill successively. It was to Croxted Lane, then entirely rural, leading from Herne Hill to Dulwich, that he used to go, in order to think quietly over passages that still needed turning and polishing in his books. It was to the Dulwich Gallery that he repaired in search of powder and shot with which to lay the u Old Masters " low in order that Turner, his chief among