A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 Miniature Art. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/historyofminiatuOOprop 
 
Isaac Oliver. 
 
 Nicholas Hilliard. 
 
 Hans Holbein. 
 
 Samuel Cooper. 
 
 Peter Oliver. 
 
i 
 
A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 iniature Art. 
 
 WITH NOTES ON 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. L. PROPERT. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., 
 
 AND NEW YORK. 
 1887. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the following pages I have endeavoured to bring 
 together all the materials I could collect, illustra- 
 tive of the history of miniature. As far as I know, 
 no attempt has yet been made to tell the story of 
 this branch of art, to trace the gradual develop- 
 ment of a distinct school of miniaturists, or to assign 
 to it its place in the larger subject of pictorial art in general. And 
 yet the loving interest which is increasingly shown in these tiny 
 gems, the intelligent care bestowed on their preservation, and the 
 desire I have so often heard expressed to know something of the 
 artists who produced them, seem a sufficient warrant for endeav- 
 ouring to weld into a continuous chain the links which lie scattered 
 here and there in the wide field of art literature. I am painfully 
 conscious of the imperfection and inadequacy of my sketch, and 
 am well aware that gaps occur occasionally, which no amount of 
 research has enabled me to fill. All I can promise is, that the 
 information given in this work is culled from the best authorities, 
 and in any opinions of my own on the merits of different artists 
 I trust I have kept in mind Othello's advice, " Nothing extenuate, 
 nor set down aught in malice." 
 
 It has been suggested to me that no book of this kind 
 could be considered complete without a dictionary, as exhaustive 
 as possible, of the names of all miniaturists of every age and school. 
 The difficulties in the way of such a compilation are stupendous ; 
 a lifetime would hardly suffice for its production ; and after all, when 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 it was supposed to have reached perfection, how little of it would 
 be of any real use ! Artists who have dabbled with miniature 
 are numerous as the leaves of the forest, but nearly all who 
 have produced anything which can be legitimately considered high 
 art are perfectly well known ; and as for the rest — the profaners of 
 the human face divine, the manufacturers of monsters, the wretched 
 daubers whose mission in life seems to have been to spoil a 
 certain amount of vellum, paper or ivory — oblivion is the kindest 
 treatment. Miniature portrait painting has been rightly described 
 as "painting in little," yet it is by no means and in no sense a 
 lesser art. The Regent diamond, or the Koh-i-noor is small in 
 comparison with the paving-stones on our highways and almost 
 infinitesimal in juxtaposition with the boulder on the mountain 
 side, but they are certainly not insignificant, and the power and 
 light condensed within their small circumference may be justly 
 compared with the force, life, and truth concentrated by the hand 
 of a master on an inch or two of vellum, paper or ivory, bearing 
 the same sort of relation to the larger panels and canvases that 
 the gem does to the rock. I possess a small profile portrait of 
 Cromwell, which for embodiment and delineation of character 
 cannot readily be equalled or excelled. We seem to read in those 
 rugged lineaments and deep-set eye the dauntless faith and resolute 
 purpose of the enthusiast, who believed himself to be a Heaven- 
 sent instrument to right the national wrongs. If condensed power 
 and brilliance be the essence of a gem, surely this tiny Cooper 
 portrait is one. In the production of life-size resemblances of 
 the human countenance, the artist has always to dread the com- 
 parison of his work with the flesh and blood, the real life of his 
 model ; and in the very greatest works of our contemporary 
 portrait painters, we experience a kind of shock, an uncanny feeling 
 of unnaturalness, Avhen we see how the image on the inanimate 
 canvas can so mockingly imitate, and yet fall so far short 
 of, the living person. In fact, the more striking the likeness 
 and the more exact the expression of the every-day appearance 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vii 
 
 of the person represented, then the more ghastly is the feeling of 
 insufficiency and loss that it produces. A life-size reproduction 
 in paint and canvas of a person whom we love is not always 
 a pleasant thing. It is perhaps not quite so obnoxious as a wax- 
 work figure, because it is not so exact, nor have we the mixed 
 feelings inspired by a marble statue stained and painted to resemble 
 life, for in this latter case, in addition to a sensation of glaring 
 unreality, we must experience a sense of indignation that a 
 noble work of art should be deliberately stripped of its chief 
 artistic worth, and made a horror to the beholder. A life-size 
 portrait, to be the joy of its possessor, should be a thing of art in 
 itself, expressing the mind and life of the subject, the history of 
 the individual, seized, understood and condensed by the painter into 
 the expression of the moment, interpreted and conveyed by look, 
 pose or gesture, with added strength and intensity from the force 
 and perception of the artist through whose individuality it must 
 pass in its translation to the canvas. 
 
 The miniature portrait has none of these grave dangers to 
 avoid. It has no fear of startling us by too close a similitude to 
 the living, or appearing as the galvanised resuscitation of the 
 mighty dead. It is a souvenir, an undoubtedly true reminiscence, 
 an historical note, possibly signed and dated ; an ornament with a 
 human history and identification ; a cabinet illustration of years 
 long past — the whole art and experience of one of the old 
 masters compressed on to the space of a coin of the realm ; a 
 domestic treasure disinterred and made useful for our instruction 
 and delight ; a volume on a page, a biography on a vignette ; a 
 secret whispered in the past, and now revealed with every tone 
 preserved ; a personal relic, a private possession, to be cherished 
 apart and not necessarily for public display and observation. I 
 confess that a really fine portrait — but how rare such a work, 
 that reaches the ideal of perfect technical art qualities, and also 
 the refined portrayal of character ! — always fascinates me. I feel 
 the complete truth of Walpole's words, "A portrait of real 
 
VI 11 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 authenticity we know is truth itself, and calls up so many 
 collateral ideas as to fill an intelligent mind, more than any other 
 species of painting." In gazing on a collection of miniature 
 presentments of the great, the beautiful, or the base, of past 
 centuries, " collateral ideas " crowd upon the mind. The page of 
 history with which each is concerned seems to unfold itself again 
 to view. The actors in many a noble deed or many a dark 
 conspiracy, actors and acts which have contributed directly and 
 indirectly to build up the fabric of the modern world, would pass 
 before our eyes, and we seem to live again amidst the chequered 
 scenes of a drama long since past and gone. Imbued with these 
 feelings, I can truly say that the following attempt, however 
 lame, to give a connected narrative of the growth and development 
 of miniature art, has been to me a labour of love. The scanty 
 leisure of a busy life, and the necessarily somewhat spasmodic 
 application to a subject requiring much research, must plead my 
 excuse for many shortcomings, but if I can succeed in stimulating 
 the love for miniatures as works of art as well as historical relics, 
 I shall be more than repaid. 
 
 I must add a few words on the illustrations. In a work like 
 the present, where an exact facsimile, rather than a mere picture, 
 was the object to be attained, one of the numerous photographic 
 processes now in existence seemed to offer the best chance of 
 success. After various trials, I selected one of the modifications 
 of the Collotype process, as producing the best results when hand 
 printed. The negatives have undergone the new orthochromatic 
 chemical process, whereby the various colours, for the first time 
 in the history of photography, assume something like their true 
 relative value. Hitherto, all but the deepest blues, have come 
 out nearly white, the lightest yellows far too dark, and in treating 
 such a subject as a brilliant miniature from a missal or other 
 illuminated manuscript, the result has been disappointing to the 
 last degree. As this new treatment has only been adopted within 
 the last few months, this is perhaps the first time that these 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 interesting specimens of a lost art have appeared in something 
 approaching a true gradation. The plate representing the artistic 
 efforts of our earliest ancestors, in the shape of scratchings on 
 bone, slate, &c, presented many difficulties. From the enormous 
 lapse of time since these cave-men amused their leisure by 
 committing to the enduring surface of their bone implements 
 their limned thoughts on the objects surrounding them, and from 
 the superficial execution of the original sketches, scarcely any light 
 and shade remain whereby the delicate lines could be fixed on 
 the sensitive plate by the sun's rays. For two of the principal 
 subjects, I have been obliged to content myself with reproductions 
 from lithographed facsimiles, but have endeavoured to fill up the 
 plate with photographs direct from specimens. 
 
 With regard to the examples of illuminated manuscripts here 
 depicted, I was met by a difficulty of another kind. The enormous 
 mass of material at one's command, and the ever-changing qualities 
 and methods of the various schools of illumination, rendered the 
 question of selection extremely embarrassing. Assisted by the 
 valuable hints of Mr. Maunde Thompson, I determined to give one 
 example of each of the great schools, taken from the period when 
 each school was at its highest point of excellence. 
 
 Even within these limits, the rich collection of the British 
 Museum offered a complete " embarras de richesse." I might have 
 wandered hopelessly amongst its treasures, but for the guiding 
 hand of its worthy guardian, who fixed my erratic steps with the 
 unerring instinct which is born of long experience and profound 
 knowledge. 
 
 One plate which I much wished to produce, is wanting. That 
 priceless treasure of the Vatican, the illuminated Virgil (Schedae 
 Vaticanae), in some respects the most marvellous, as it certainly is 
 the earliest illuminated book in existence, was beyond my reach. 
 The British Museum possesses a copy of it, but by no means a good 
 one, wanting the touch, colour and general tone of the grand 
 original, and not worthy to be reproduced, even in photography. 
 
 b 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The orthochromatic process has also been of the greatest use 
 in perfecting the miniature portraits. The colours of costumes, 
 backgrounds, &c, bear something of the harmony intended by the 
 artist, and which has hitherto been unattainable. The whole of 
 the negatives were taken and prepared for the printer by Mr 
 L. B. Fleming, to whom my thanks are justly due. In selecting 
 specimens of the portrait miniaturists, two courses were open to me. 
 I could either get together as many specimens as possible of all 
 masters, good, bad and indifferent, or I could present a select 
 number of each of the great masters. To a certain extent, I have 
 adopted both courses. I have given one plate to each of the best 
 known masters, especially of the English School, which was, after 
 all, far ahead of its foreign brethren, and then have given one or 
 two plates containing miscellaneous specimens of lesser masters, 
 omitting altogether any attempt to represent the rank and file, 
 whose works are better forgotten. Wherever possible, I have 
 preferred signed specimens, though some of the best, Holbein and 
 Hilliard for instance, rarely, if ever, signed their work. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... v 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1-7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Missals and Illuminated Manuscripts — Early Greek and 
 Roman MSS., the Byzantine School, Hibernian or Anglo- 
 Celtic School, the Carlovingian School, the Anglo- 
 Saxon School, the 'Opus Anglicum,' nth and 12th 
 Centuries, 13th Century, 14th Century, 15th Century, 
 16th and 1 7th Centuries ... ... ... ... ... 8-44 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Miniature Art in England — First half of the 16th Century 45-58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Miniature Art in England — Second half of the 16th 
 
 Century 59" 6 5 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Miniature Art in England — 17th Century ... ... 66-79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Miniature Art in England — 17th Century {continued) ... 80-90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Miniature Art in England — Portraits in Enamel. 
 
 91-98 
 
 b 2 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. page 
 
 Miniature Art in England — 1 8th Century ... ... 99-109 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Miniature Art in England — 1 8th Century {continued) ... 1 10-126 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Miniature Art in England — 19th Century ... ... 1 27-1 31 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Foreign Schools — French School, German, Dutch, and 
 
 Flemish Schools, Italian School ... ... ... ... 132-167 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Modelling in Wax ... ... ... ... ... ... 168-174 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 La Petite Sculpture ... ... ... ... ... ... 175-178 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Snuff-Boxes, etc. ... ... ... ... ... ... 179-190 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Greece and Rome ... ... ... ... ... ... 191-204 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Some Notes on Collections up to the i6th Century ... 205-211 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Collectors of the i6th, 17TH, and i8th Centuries ... 212-231 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 19TH Century and General Observations ... ... 232-257 
 
 Index 
 
 259-285 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Fathers of the English School 
 Specimens of Primeval Art 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Frontispiece 
 i 
 
 MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MSS. 
 
 Greek School — 12th Century ... ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 Hibernian School — 8th Century ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 Hibernian Figure Drawing ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 Carlovingian School — 9th Century ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 English School — nth Century... ... ... ... ... 21 
 
 English School — 13th Century... ... ... ... ... 26 
 
 French School — 15th Century ... ... ... ... ... 28 
 
 Flemish School — 15th Century ... ... ... ... 30 
 
 Spanish School — 15th Century... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Italian School — 15th Century... ... ... ... ... 36 
 
XIV 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PORTRAIT MINIATURES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Holbein and Hilliard ... ... ... ... ... ... 59 
 
 Isaac and Peter Oliver... ... ... ... ... ... 61 
 
 Various Masters — 16th and 17th Centuries ... ... ... 66 
 
 Various Masters — 16th and 17th Centuries ... ... ... 77 
 
 Samuel Cooper ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 Jean Petitot (Enamels) ... ... ... ... ... 92 
 
 Various Masters in Enamel ... ... ... ... ... 96 
 
 COSWAY ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ••• 115 
 
 Various Masters — 18th Century ... ... ... ... 121 
 
 Various Masters— Foreign Schools ... ... ... ... 133 
 
 Various Masters — Foreign Schools ... ... ... ... 150 
 
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED. 
 
 Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting.' 
 
 Vasari's ' Lives of the Painters.' 
 
 Jules Labarte's ' Histoire des Arts industriels.' 
 
 Mariette's ' Abecedario.' 
 
 Redgrave's ' Century of Painters.' 
 
 ' Nollekens and his Times.' 
 
 Lacroix's ' Curiosit^s de l'Art.' 
 
 Bryan's ' Dictionary.' 
 
 Nagler's ' Kunst-Lexicon.' 
 
 Phillips' ' Art Dictionary.' 
 
 ' Louvre Catalogues.' 
 
 Laborde's ' Renaissance des Arts.' 
 
 ' Loan Collection Catalogue,' South Kensington. 
 
 Fairholt's ' Dictionary of Art Terms.' 
 
 Rouquet's ' State of the Arts in England.' 
 
 Pepys's ' Diary.' 
 
 Evelyn's ' Diary.' 
 
 Wornum's ' Life of Holbein.' 
 
 ' Le Livre des Collectionneurs.' 
 
 Kugler's ' Handbook of Painting.' 
 
 ' Roma Sotterranea,' Antonio Bosio. 
 
 ' Sculture e Pittore Sagre estratti dai Cimiteri di Roma 
 
 ' Paleographie Universelle.' 
 
 Dibdin's ' Bibliographical Decameron.' 
 
 Chambers's ' Encyclopaedia.' 
 
 Shaw's ' Illuminated Ornaments.' 
 
 ' Histoire de l'Art sur les monuments, &c, d'Agincourt. 
 
XVI 
 
 LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED. 
 
 ' Les Emaux cle Petitot, au Louvre.' 
 ' Biographic Universelle.' 
 
 ' Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography.' 
 ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' 9th edition. 
 
 ' The Renaissance of Art in France.' Mrs. Mark Pattison 
 
 Paleeographical Society's publications. 
 
 Thausino-'s ' Life of Albert Diirer.' 
 
 Lacroix's ' The Arts in the Middle Ages.' 
 
 Granger's ' Biographical History of England.' 
 
 A. J. Wauter's ' The Flemish School of Painting.' 
 
 Lyell's ' Antiquity of Man.' 
 
 ' Les Collectionneurs d'autrefois.' Par Clement de Ris. 
 
 ' Les Collectionneurs de l'ancienne Rome.' Par E. Bonnarle 
 
 Larousse's ' Dictionary.' 
 
 ' Sale Catalogues.' Christie, Sotheby, &c. 
 
SPECIMENS OF PRIMEVAL ART. 
 DRAWINGS ON BONE, MAMMOTH TUSK, &c. 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 n entering upon a consideration of the history of 
 any particular art, it is customary to dive into 
 the earliest ages of the world's history, in the 
 endeavour to track out the first slight glimmerings 
 of the special subject under treatment. There is 
 something so fascinating in the exquisite art of 
 miniature painting that when we begin to trace its 
 origin, we are almost tempted to believe that the earliest streaks 
 of its dawning appeared with primeval man. On first thoughts, 
 it is difficult to imagine that the most fertile brain could suggest 
 any aesthetic results from the daily life or surroundings of the 
 palaeolithic * inhabitants of this planet ; and yet there are artistic 
 
 * According to the divisions adopted by Professor Dawkins and others, we ought, 
 perhaps, rather to refer these artistic emanations to our mesolithic than our palaeolithic 
 ancestors. Of the latter, whose rough-hewn flints are found beneath the deposit left by 
 the last glacial epoch, we know absolutely nothing. Whether they were human or pre- 
 human, in what points they resembled or differed from the race now extant, we cannot 
 even conjecture. 
 
 It is far otherwise with their descendants, mesolithic men or cave-dwellers. 
 A distinct advance in culture is apparent in all their surroundings. Not only are their 
 flint tools more highly finished and more varied, including awls, saws, harpoons, and 
 lance heads, but by their graphic faculties they have enabled us to pass in review the 
 animals by which they were surrounded, and even to judge roughly of the external 
 appearance of man himself; notably in the specimen found in the Duruthy Cave, incised 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 tracings on some of the tools and weapons of this early time 
 which, in their small but vigorous outlines, undoubtedly contain 
 the fair germ of graphic art. In human portraiture, as far as 
 we can judge by anything hitherto discovered, they achieved no 
 great results ; but nearly all museums contain actual specimens or 
 careful casts from these wondrous drawings, wherein the life-like 
 rendering of animal traits is truly marvellous. The likeness of 
 the mammoth, the fight of the stags, the bulls, horses, and reindeer 
 depicted on the implements of the cave-men, suggest sorrowfully 
 to the thoughtful observer, the fact, that as succeeding ages rolled 
 on, men lost, in their hieroglyphs and symbols, the freshness and 
 literal truth of their earliest art-ancestors, and crystallised into 
 the most mechanical conventionality both the human and animal 
 forms they introduced into their paintings and sculpture. 
 
 It is vain, however, to attempt to unravel the mysteries of 
 the birth of pictorial art, and we cannot do better than adopt 
 the sage advice given by Vasari in the introduction to ' The 
 Lives of the Painters.' 
 
 "I do not intend to deny that there must have been one 
 who made the first commencement, for I know perfectly well 
 that the first principle must have proceeded from some given 
 time, and from some one person ; but what I maintain is, that to 
 
 on a reindeer antler, portraying the hunter hurling a spear at a magnificent urus, or 
 species of bison. His body is apparently covered with hair, the calf and thigh 
 enormously developed, from constant occupation in the chase, and no covering of any 
 sort. As the glacial epoch drew to its close, and more genial atmospheric conditions 
 increased, they seem to have followed the reindeer northwards, and, indeed, many 
 authorities have suggested that in the Eskimo we may find the lineal descendants of 
 mesolithic cave-man. It is certain that many things are common to the two. The 
 Eskimo weapons, the animals by which they are served or fed, the debris found round 
 their habitations, and the artistic faculty they possess, bear a striking resemblance to 
 what we know of the far-off mysterious cave-man. 
 
 It would be foreign to our purpose to continue the history of our early ancestors, 
 and describe the Neolithic or pre-historic man, ignorant of the metals, but excelling in 
 the manufacture of stone implements, who built the lake dwellings of Switzerland and 
 the Kjokken Moddings of Denmark, who made pottery, tilled the soil, and ground their 
 orain, wove flax into garments, fought with stone axes and barbed arrow-heads, leading 
 gradually on through the copper, bronze, and iron ages, to our present dispensation 
 of gunpowder and steam, of telephones and co-operative stores. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 3 
 
 claim the positive determination of who this man or these men 
 were, is a perilous thing, nor is it strictly needful that we should 
 know it, since all may see the true source and origin whence 
 the arts have received their birth. The life and fame of the 
 artist is in his works ; but of these works, the first produced by 
 the earliest artists were totally lost, as by degrees were the 
 second, and perhaps the third, being destroyed by time, which 
 consumes all things, and as there was then no writer to record 
 the history of these productions, they could not be made known 
 to posterity, at least by this method, and the artists, as well as 
 their works, remain unknown." 
 
 We are a little too apt to talk glibly of the early middle 
 ages as the " dark ages," and to date our consideration of pictorial 
 art from the first faint glimmerings of the Italian Renaissance ; 
 but art, especially in some of its branches, never really slept. No 
 doubt for many ages men were groping feebly in the dusky twilight 
 of an unaesthetic atmosphere and surroundings, and for the first 
 few centuries of these early times but little evidence remains to 
 us of the excellence or otherwise of art-work. Still, as I shall 
 hope to show in the succeeding chapter, we have, in a few 
 illuminated manuscripts of a very early date a certain amount of 
 material at our command upon which to form a judgment. Now, 
 as it is absurd to suppose that the art which adorns their pages 
 sprang into existence at once, like Minerva, from the head of 
 Olympian Jove, we must regard these precious relics as the 
 gradual outcome and development of preceding art-ideas, carried 
 on in a regular chain, though unfortunately its earlier links 
 are lost. 
 
 It is, alas ! but too true that the iconoclastic * zeal of the 
 early Christians, and the swooping hordes of Attila and Genseric 
 have left us but scant remnants of classical Rome ; but as a sort 
 of compensation for the loss of the sculptured forms of her gods 
 and heroes, the Christian Church became the nursery of art of 
 
 * This word is not intended to refer to the sect of Iconoclasts which sprang into 
 existence in the Eastern Empire in the 8th century, and which ultimately led to the 
 separation of the Greek and Latin churches, but merely to the. perhaps, natural 
 desire on the part of the professors of the new religion to destroy, root and branch, 
 anything connected with the Pagan worship of their ancestors. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 another kind, in which the story of the great Founder of her 
 creed, as well as the deeds and sufferings of her saints and hero- 
 martyrs, were recorded by pen and pencil, with all the loving 
 richness that glowing colour and burnished gold could secure. 
 It would be a surprise to many, who have not studied the 
 subject, to note the conspicuous ability and true art feeling 
 displayed in some of these early manuscripts. Many a gleam of 
 soft and beautiful light shines from these old parchments, piercing 
 with its kindly rays the surrounding gloom of these war-worn 
 ages, making us think of their leaves as truly illuminating as 
 illuminated. Another landmark on the road of art is afforded 
 by the curious mosaics and wall-paintings found in different 
 parts of North Italy, and as far south as Rome. They must 
 date quite as far back as the fifth or sixth century a.d., and by 
 the peculiar treatment of the human figure, seem to prove 
 how soon the influence of the Eastern Empire travelled back 
 to the West, and dominated the whole art-work of the early 
 centuries in Italy. In fact, when we come to consider, in 
 the next chapter, the widely-spread taste for illuminated art, 
 and trace the various schools and styles connected with it, its 
 different phases and national aspects, we shall find ample ground 
 for concluding that, as far as miniature art is concerned, the 
 revival of painting by Giovanni Cimabue does not concern our 
 special subject as much as might at first sight be supposed. 
 
 We have been accustomed to make the name of Cimabue a 
 starting-point, from which to reckon the new birth of pictorial art, 
 and without doubt he did redeem it from the uncouth and barbaric 
 manner of his immediate predecessors, whether they were Greeks 
 or his own countrymen. Vasari favours the former idea, and 
 hardly finds terms strong enough in which to condemn their 
 barbarism. " This rude, unskilful, and common-place manner the 
 Greeks had acquired, not so much from study, or of settled purpose, 
 as from having servilely followed certain fixed rules and habits, 
 transmitted through a long series of years, from one painter to 
 another, down to those times, while none ever thought of the 
 amelioration of his design, the embellishment of his colouring, 
 or the improvement of his invention." 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 5 
 
 Lanzi, on the other hand, maintains that at the period referred 
 to, the Italians knew more about painting than the Greeks, and that 
 Cimabue was not indebted to the latter for his first lessons, but 
 that Giunta of Pisa had the honour of being his master. Which- 
 ever of these great authorities may be correct, the fact still remains 
 the same, that to Cimabue we must attribute the first re-kindling 
 of the flame of art, faint, indeed, when compared with its subsequent 
 splendour, but still so far in advance of his contemporaries as to 
 furnish an excuse for his admirers, when they carried his picture of 
 the Virgin to the Church of Santa Maria Novella, in triumphal 
 procession, with the sound of trumpets. The fame of this great 
 pioneer has been somewhat overshadowed by that of his 
 illustrious pupil, Giotto, the shepherd lad, who, at the age of ten, 
 was found by Cimabue sketching his father's sheep on a smooth 
 piece of rock. So little undoubted work of these early fathers of 
 the Renaissance has survived to our time that we are forced to draw 
 upon their biographers for a knowledge of their productions ; but 
 they are all interesting to us, inasmuch as they were all miniaturists, 
 executing not only the dainty " miniatura " of the illuminated 
 manuscript, but ofttimes surrounding their larger compositions, or 
 adorning the predella of their altarpieces with tiny medallion 
 pictures, illustrative of the subject of the larger panel. Vasari 
 describes many of these paintings "in little,"* "comprising many 
 small figures so carefully done that they look like miniatures." 
 
 What precious little gems must have been contained in that 
 wonderful book of his, of which he speaks so often, containing 
 specimens on vellum from the hand of all these old masters. 
 According to Baldinucci, five volumes of drawings were sold for 
 several thousand crowns to certain merchants, by the Cavaliere 
 Gaddi, these volumes being the celebrated collection of Vasari. A 
 vast number of them, after passing through the hands of Cardinal 
 Leopoldo de Medici, were sent to the Gallery of the Uffizi Palace 
 
 * This term "in little" was in general use in the 17th century to describe a 
 portrait miniature or any small picture. The word " miniatura," in its original sense, 
 had no reference to the size of the work, being derived from the Latin word 
 " minium," signifying red lead, in which material all the headings, capital letters, &c, of 
 the most ancient MSS. were drawn. The modern word "rubric" really means the 
 same thing as " miniatura." 
 
6 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 in the year 1700, and it is curious that the series there at present, 
 commences with certain little things done in "miniature" on parch- 
 ment, which are attributed to Cimabue, and probably are those very 
 things alluded to by Vasari. 
 
 It is quite foreign from our purpose to trace the gradual rise 
 of the Italian Renaissance until it culminated in the perfected 
 splendour of the young painter of Urbino, or to note the beauties 
 of the great Flemish School, from the Van Eycks onwards through 
 Roger van der Weyden to Hemling and their illustrious brethren ; 
 suffice it to say, that whilst Raffaelle and Hemling were still at 
 work, we find ourselves on the threshold of that particular branch 
 of art, in which we are more closely interested, portrait miniature. 
 
 Whilst thinking over the best method of treating the subject, I 
 have been, I confess, somewhat puzzled to determine what might be 
 considered relevant or the reverse. For instance, to commence its 
 history with the advent of Holbein to England, an epoch which may 
 be said roughly to mark the commencement of portrait miniature 
 as a distinct art, would altogether ignore the thousand and one 
 incidents which, during the preceding ages of pictorial effort, step 
 by step, and bit by bit, led up gradually to the development of the 
 miniature portrait. 
 
 I propose, therefore, first to examine into the history of 
 illumination, with its attendant miniature pictures, pointing out, as 
 opportunity occurs, the introduction of the individual portrait into 
 the general composition, and by this means to show how it grew, 
 developed, and transformed itself into the art which passes by the 
 name of miniature in the present day. From this historical review 
 I shall advance to the history of miniature portraiture as connected 
 with the various masters and professors of the art, with a critical 
 examination of their style and works, touching on the extraneous 
 impulses which from time to time affected its growth, at one time 
 checked by discord, civil war, and politics ; at another quickened and 
 intensified by the generous patronage of king or noble, always, how- 
 ever, following, in its rise and fall, the state of general art at the time. 
 I shall commence with a consideration of the English School, which 
 has always occupied a proud position with regard to miniature, 
 passing on next to the various foreign schools, which, with the 
 
INTR OD UCTORY. 
 
 7 
 
 possible exception of France, never approached this country in 
 numbers or excellence. I shall then briefly allude to the collateral 
 branches of miniature as shown in wax modelling, wood carving, &c, 
 and finally give a list of miniaturists, by no means exhaustive, I am 
 well aware, but embracing pretty nearly all who, by the high class of 
 their work, are entitled to our recognition. 
 
 At what period the term " miniature " migrated from its birth- 
 place, Italy, and was applied in this country to small portraits, is 
 uncertain. 
 
 Hilliard, in a tract written by him for Richard Heydock, of 
 New College, Oxford, who translated ' Lomazzo on Painting,' 
 says : " Holbein's manner of limning I have ever imitated, and hold 
 it for the best." 
 
 Heydock, in the work quoted above, says : " Limnings much 
 used in former times in Church books, as also in drawing by the 
 life in small models ; of late years by some of our countrymen, as 
 Shoote, Betts, &c, but brought to the rare perfection we now see 
 by the most ingenious, painful, and skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard, 
 and by his well profiting scholar, Isaac Oliver." 
 
 In the catalogue of the works of art in the collection of 
 Charles I. they are always spoken of as " limnings." The immortal 
 Pepys never mentioned the word "miniature," always speaking 
 of "painting in little." 
 
 The next author who treats of the subject is Horace Walpole, 
 and he invariably uses the word "miniature," so that we may fairly 
 place its first introduction some time in the first half of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 The Latin verb " illuminare," meaning " to decorate," occurs as 
 early as the eighth century. Dante uses the word " alluminar " in 
 the same sense. In early English, we find the words " enlomyne," 
 " luminen," and "limnen," whence come to "limn," and "limnings." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 § I. — Early Greek and Roman MSS. — The Byzantine School. 
 
 must disclaim any intention of writing an exhaus- 
 tive essay upon this fascinating subject. The 
 theme is far too vast for these pages, and a branch 
 of art which has engaged the devoted attention 
 and life-long study of cultured minds in all Euro- 
 pean countries is worthy of a readier tongue than 
 mine to sing its praises. In truth, I know few 
 pursuits which draw the student on with such 
 alluring grace ; fresh vistas of beauty open ever before him, and the 
 very difficulties but add increased zest to the quest after knowledge. 
 Difficulties there certainly are, the gradations of treatment are so 
 subtle, the variety of detail in the same school and period so 
 infinite, that it is scarcely to be wondered at that differences of 
 opinion amongst experts should be met with somewhat more 
 frequently than in most other fields of research. My object merely 
 is to trace, in the broadest manner, the main improvements which 
 occurred in its practice, as time, national tendencies, and artistic 
 development gradually raised it from its first rude beginnings, and 
 led by imperceptible, but inevitable steps, to the production of the 
 miniature portrait. 
 
 Considering the ornate character impressed upon her ritual 
 by the Christian Church, even at an early period of her 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 9 
 
 existence, it was but natural that an attempt should be made to 
 raise the books used at her devotional services to the same 
 ornamental level as the services themselves. In fact, missal * 
 painting took its rise from the same influences which produced those 
 strange mural paintings in the mysterious chamber in the Roman 
 Catacombs under the Church of St. Sebastian, in the Via Appia, a 
 quaint jumble of Paganism and Christianity, where the figure of 
 Orpheus is represented side by side with the Adoration of the 
 Kings, Daniel in the Lions' Den, Moses striking the rock, &c. On 
 the ceiling of the chamber is a bust portrait of the Saviour, the 
 earliest known attempt to portray His features, and which served as 
 the model for all subsequent drawings of Him. Very possibly this 
 chamber was used as the place of worship for the early converts to 
 the new faith, at a time when they were forced, like moles, to 
 burrow underground, and when the only legitimate use to which, 
 in the eyes of the Roman authorities, a Christian could be put, was 
 at the same time to provide amusement for the populace, and food 
 for the wild beasts of the arena.f 
 
 At a period when war, pestilence, and famine formed the normal 
 state of existence, the very stringency and hardness of the times 
 separated the sacred from the secular, the life of religion from the 
 life of the world, by so strict a line of demarcation that it almost 
 
 * I use the term missal painting merely as a convenient expression to apply to 
 all illuminated religious MSS. Strictly, the missal is a book containing the liturgy, 
 or office of the mass of the Latin Church. Prior to the 8th century the book was 
 designated the Sacramentary (Sacramentarium, Liber Sacramentorum). 
 
 ■f The earliest manifestations of Christian painting frequently exhibit Pagan 
 models in the attempt to typify the Saviour. Thus, he is here represented as the Orpheus 
 of the new faith, charming and taming ferocious animals by the sound of his lute. 
 When first Christian art dared to court the light of day, under the protection of 
 Constantine, it felt an instinctive repugnance to draw its inspiration from "classical" 
 works, produced under the influence of what, in a Christian sense, was a debased and 
 immoral creed. In the place of form " was established a school of " idea " and 
 " symbolism," and allegory became the dominant feature of the early Byzantines. 
 The Council held at Constantinople in 692 commanded symbolism to cease, and 
 ordained that the central object of the Christian faith should be depicted as in the 
 flesh, free from the veil hitherto employed. Unfortunately, the interference of the 
 Church with the natural bent of artistic minds, produced an inflexible code of rules, 
 which for centuries prescribed the exact forms, attitudes, &c, to be observed in the 
 rendering of the human form. Art became a mere instinct, a poor form of tradition, 
 continued without enthusiasm or progress. 
 
 C 
 
IO 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 became a line of defence, and men, for the fuller and more un- 
 interrupted carrying out of their religious views, shut themselves up 
 in companies, in deserts, or on mountains, secluding themselves 
 from the outer and active world, and condensing their ideas and 
 aspirations into the essential spirit of theoretical devotion ; and one of 
 the few outlets for their feelings of all-absorbing adoration was by 
 their expressing them in line, form, and colour. The love and zeal 
 of a whole company of devotees was thus confided to the most gifted 
 of their body, to him whose artistic insight could best ensure its 
 worthy execution, the realisation of their dreams of religious beauty. 
 Missal painting, in its form and nature, may thus be considered the 
 most perfect reflection of the age it illustrates, apart from its subject 
 and expression, and is the visible impression of the religious life 
 and feeling of the period. Old work was hallowed work ; it was 
 only the best, the highest, and the noblest of life that was recorded. 
 When Emperors, Kings or Cardinals, Bishops or Priors, were 
 honoured by a portrait representation of their persons and actions, 
 the artistic record was almost a canonisation. At this distant 
 period, and in our widely different dispensation, it is so difficult to 
 sympathise with the artistic movement of that early age, and to 
 realise the internal momentum that impelled its inspiration. Of one 
 quality of the works of these old limners there can be no doubt, 
 their perfect sincerity, the feeling which prompted St. (?) Columba 
 to add to the Book of Durrow (an early Irish MS.) the following 
 prayer, which, freely translated, runs thus : "I pray thy blessedness, 
 O holy presbyter Patrick, that whosoever shall take this book in his 
 hands may remember the writer Columba, who have myself written 
 this Gospel in the space of twelve days, by the Grace of our Lord." * 
 
 * There is considerable difference of opinion concerning the attribution of Irish 
 MSS. 
 
 For instance, this very Book of Durrow, from the fact of its having been written 
 by a scribe named Columba, and preserved in a monastery founded by the great 
 Saint, has been attributed to St. Columba himself. But most people, we imagine, at 
 the present day, would hesitate before accepting this view unconditionally. Again, it 
 has been alleged that Columba was a very uncommon Irish name ; but as Reeves, 
 ' Adamnan's Life of Columba,' page 5, enumerates twenty saints of that name in the 
 Irish Calendar, we may fairly conclude that, in addition to these, there must at least 
 have been a fair sprinkling of individuals bearing that name in the " Emerald Isle " 
 who failed to attain the interesting eminence of canonisation. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 1 1 
 
 These old books were the produce of faith, the outcome of loyalty 
 and affection, untouched by ostentation, and seem to remind us 
 that in graphic art, greatness may often be inversely reckoned 
 by dimension. 
 
 All authorities seem to agree that the process of decorating 
 manuscripts with gold, silver, and colour probably had its origin in 
 the East, that marvellous birthplace of all the arts and nearly all the 
 sciences. Certain it is, that Egyptian papyri, as far back as the 
 1 8th dynasty, commonly exhibit the rubrication of capitals and 
 headings, and not unfrequently true miniature work, in some vignette 
 or small picture of a mythological subject drawn in colour. 
 
 The intercourse which took place between Egypt and India, 
 and such Western nations as Greece and Rome, bearing in its train 
 the civilising influence of the Eastern arts, could hardly fail to 
 establish in our hemisphere such captivating work as illumination ; 
 and yet from the far-off time of these Egyptian papyri up to the 
 4th century of our era, there is an absolute blank in its history. 
 How it progressed, to what point of excellence it attained, to what 
 uses it was put, or who were its great masters, we have no infor- 
 mation whatever. The only uncertain whisper which reaches us at 
 all is that well-known allusion by Pliny, made much of by Dibdin 
 in the ' Decameron,' to a book mentioned by Varro, containing 
 notices of seven hundred eminent men, with their portraits. 
 Symmachus, a Latin author, writing in the 3rd century, speaks of 
 having seen such a book, or a copy of it. 
 
 The rolls of papyri unearthed at Herculaneum contained no 
 ornament. This of course proves nothing. The fact that these 
 particular papyri were plain cannot exclude the possibility that 
 illumination was practised for certain purposes by the Romans at 
 that period. In what quarter, then, are we to look for the first 
 indications of the art of illumination as we know it ? that lovely 
 art which was practised for more than thirteen centuries, with ever 
 increasing beauty, amongst all the civilised nations of Europe. 
 Before we attempt an answer to this question, let us consider the 
 history of these early times, and see how far political events had 
 a share in deciding the localities where art would find the most 
 congenial soil. 
 
 c 2 
 
12 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 About the year 330 a.d., Constantine the Great, the first Christian 
 Emperor, determined to remove the seat of empire from Rome to 
 Byzantium, which he christened after himself, calling in the aid of 
 the best Greek architects and artists to render it worthy of being 
 the head of the Roman Empire. The city was solemnly dedicated 
 to the Virgin Mary, and inhabitants were attracted to it by all 
 sorts of privileges and donations. The crowning glory of Byzantium, 
 the Church of St. Sophia, was built by Constantine, though it has 
 been occasionally ascribed to his son Constantius. If history 
 is to be trusted, the son in no way resembled his father in his 
 patronage of the arts, and did but little to add to the glories of the 
 capital.* 
 
 Whilst Constantine was thus engaged in developing the arts 
 in his new home, the Imperial city he had left in the West was 
 tottering to its fall. Successive hordes of barbarians swept down 
 upon Italy, subjecting Rome to pillage and destruction, and 
 stamping out the accumulated civilisation of ages, creating a desert 
 from which she only slowly emerged, her whole nature changed. 
 The centre of Empire had become the centre of Christianity, and 
 missionaries took the place of her conquering legions. 
 
 It seems pretty certain, therefore, that to the Greek artificers 
 of Byzantium we must look for the first adaptation of illumination 
 to the ornamentation of books of the Christian era. The use of 
 gold and silver in illumination was known amongst Eastern nations 
 from remote antiquity, and was so common with the later Greeks, 
 that the scribes or writers in gold formed a distinct class. The use 
 of vellum, stained throughout its substance of a lovely purple colour, 
 for ornamental purposes, is also of very early origin. It was em- 
 ployed by the Romans for wrappers for their papyrus rolls. We 
 have records that as early as the 3rd century, whole books were 
 composed of this beautiful material, and written in gold or silver ; 
 
 * Whether the first edifice was the work of Constantine or his son Constantius 
 matters but little, as it was destroyed by fire. The present building was erected by 
 Justinian in 531, and dedicated 537. Six of its green jasper pillars were taken from 
 the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, whilst the Temple of the Sun at Rome yielded up 
 its porphyry columns further to adorn the great embodiment of the new religion. 
 From the time of the Mahomedan conquest in 1453, it has served new masters as the 
 Imperial Mosque, its four minarets being added by Selim II. in 1566. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 13 
 
 and it was against this extravagant luxury that St. Jerome penned 
 his earnest protest. An instance of a book of this description 
 is given in the life of Maximinus the Younger, by Julius Capitolinus, 
 who mentions that the Emperor's mother presented to him the 
 poems of Homer written on purple vellum in letters of gold. 
 Maximinus died in 313 a.d. 
 
 One of the finest examples extant of the purple vellum and 
 silver lettering is the ' Codex purpureo-argenteus,' now preserved at 
 Upsala in Sweden. This Codex has been described by two great 
 authorities as the work of Ulphilas, and the oldest illuminated MS. 
 in existence, which they have placed in 360 a.d. It contains 
 neither illuminated headings nor capitals, and therefore can hardly 
 be called an illuminated MS. at all, unless the mere silver lettering 
 can be called illumination. Ulphilas undoubtedly translated the 
 Gospels into Gothic for the use of the Goths scattered amongst 
 the Roman settlements in Wallachia, and wrote a Moeso-Gothic 
 alphabet ; but this particular Codex is a work of the 6th century. 
 Other examples of purple vellum of the early time are the fragments 
 of the illustrated Genesis at Vienna, the two leaves of the Purple 
 Gospels in the Cottonian Library, British Museum, and the inter- 
 esting Codex discovered not long since at Rossano in Southern 
 Italy, and which is now known as the ' Codex Rossanensis.' The 
 art of staining was continued with certain intervals as late as the 
 10th century, and even after it would seem to have become a lost 
 art, the vellum was occasionally painted of a purple colour, but in 
 no way rivalling the beauty of the earlier tint. An example of 
 8th-century staining is seen in the Canterbury Gospels (Royal MS. 
 1 E. VI.) in the British Museum. The Prayer-book of Charlemagne 
 in the Louvre, of the 9th century, is a splendid instance of late 
 purple vellum, and of the impetus given to illumination by that 
 monarch. The first gold and purple MS. reached England about 
 the close of the 7th century, when Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, 
 presented to the Cathedral a copy of the Gospels thus adorned, 
 and it is described at the time as " almost a miracle, and before 
 that time unheard of in this part of the world." 
 
 The ravages of time and fire, the rough usage of reforming and 
 unsympathetic hands, and that terrible result of destruction, the 
 
14 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 palimpsest (interesting though it be to the palaeographer, anxious, 
 by the magic of his chemical re-agents, to revivify and decipher the 
 earl)- text, which the ruthless hand of the later scribe has occasionally 
 striven in vain entirely to erase), have left us but few examples of 
 mediaeval art. The ' Dioscorides,' of the Imperial Library of Vienna, 
 is amongst the earliest to which a date can be attached, as it was 
 written for Juliana Anicia, daughter of Flavius Anicius Olybrius, 
 Emperor of the West, in 472. It was probably written quite at the 
 commencement of the 6th century, and contains some semi-classical 
 miniatures of really excellent design. Even earlier than this, and 
 probably of the 5th century, are the fragments of the ' Iliad' in the 
 Ambrosian Library at Milan, consisting of about fifty fragments, cut 
 out for the sake of the pictures they contain. It would have been 
 a happy thing if the operator had himself been cut into fifty frag- 
 ments before he laid his sacrilegious hands on such a gem. To the 
 same century belongs the Greek Genesis of Vienna, which is full of 
 Biblical illustrations ; but a far finer and older Genesis once existed 
 in the Cottonian Library. This was unfortunately almost entirely 
 consumed in the fire which destroyed so many priceless MSS. The 
 fragments which remain have been preserved with reverent care in 
 the British Museum. It must have been full of miniatures, and here 
 and there we get sufficient evidence of their excellence. The figures 
 retain a classic feeling in pose and drawing, in refreshing contrast 
 to the conventional elongated model which characterises later 
 Byzantine work, and which never completely disappeared until the 
 Florentine artists of the early Renaissance introduced a more natural 
 treatment. To this scanty list must be added the ' Codex 
 Rossanensis,' already alluded to as a purple MS. of the Gospels 
 in Greek, of the latter part of the 6th century. 
 
 Whilst we are on the subject of early examples, we might 
 as well see what remains to us of Latin MSS. of these times. 
 The list is even more scanty than in the case of Greek MSS., and 
 is, in fact, exhausted by the three Vatican Virgils. The first, 
 the ' Codex Romanus,' written entirely in capital letters, contains 
 about thirty large-size illustrations, for we can hardly call them 
 miniatures. They are rough in execution, and many episodes of 
 the story are jumbled together in the same illustration, resembling 
 
GREEK SCHOOL, XII. CENTURY. 
 SIMEON METAPHOASTES. 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
 Addl. MS. 1 1 870, Fol. 188. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 somewhat the antique manner found in Pompeian frescoes, the 
 colours bright, but crude and inharmonious. The second, the 
 ' Codex Palatinus,' contains no illustrations. These two Codices 
 are assigned to the 4th century a.d., and in the opinion of so good 
 an authority as Mr. Maunde Thompson, may possibly be even of an 
 earlier date, for in the regularity of their letters they resemble very 
 nearly the inscriptions of the first and second centuries. 
 
 The third Virgil, known as the ' Schedae Vaticanae,' is un- 
 doubtedly a later work. The writing shows evidence of having 
 left the regularity of the earlier (inscriptive) character, and bears 
 the impress of having settled down into a set book-hand. The 
 miniatures, too, differ altogether from the confused illustrations of 
 the earlier Codex, and appear as single pictures of very great merit. 
 Some of the figures are essentially classical in anatomical drawing 
 and general treatment, and one point about the miniatures is 
 especially interesting, the really well painted landscape and marine 
 backgrounds, which very rapidly disappeared from the work of 
 subsequent miniaturists, only to be seen again at the beginning of 
 the 15th century. There are portions of yet another Virgil in the 
 Vatican, the remainder of which is at Berlin, assigned to the end of 
 the 4th century. Each page begins with a large coloured initial ; 
 but there are no miniatures. The Ashburnham Pentateuch is 
 probably not older than the 7th century, but is especially interesting 
 as containing eighteen miniatures of purely Italian work, affording 
 us an almost unique insight into the state of illuminating art- 
 work in Italy at that time. 
 
 There are many examples of Byzantine MSS. scattered here 
 and there throughout Europe, but few of them are older than the 
 nth century. An exception must, however, be made in favour 
 of the ' Book of Joshua ' in the Vatican, a volumen, or roll of 
 parchment, thirty-two feet long, which probably dates from the 
 7th century, full of excellent illumination.* There also is the 
 ' Dogmatica Panoplia,' executed for the Emperor Alexis Com- 
 
 * Although the Book of Joshua has been accepted by some authorities as belong- 
 ing to the 7th century, it is but fair to say that many of the best critics consider it a 
 copy, modelled on an earlier work, and assign its production to the 10th century 
 instead of the 7th. 
 
i6 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 menus, 10S1-1118. The figures are drawn in a very spirited 
 manner, the Emperor appearing many times dressed in Oriental 
 costume. 
 
 The purely Eastern origin of Byzantine illumination forces itself 
 upon the mind whilst examining any of these books. The resem- 
 blance of the ornament used either as a frame to the miniature, 
 or in the borders and head-pieces or cappings, to the patterns 
 in ancient Persian tapestries and carpets, can hardly be accidental. 
 The scheme of colour also is suggestive, the lovely and artistic 
 junction of blue and green is precisely the key-note of the old 
 pottery of Damascus and Rhodes, which, in some respects, is 
 perhaps the most decorative of all the products of the potter's art. 
 The lavish use of gold, as background or general ornament, also 
 serves to recall the barbaric splendour of an Eastern clime. In 
 the 14th century Byzantine art deteriorated, and finally died out 
 in the 15th, when the city changed masters, and St. Sophia 
 became a Turkish Mosque. Byzantium must, indeed, be regarded 
 as the fruitful mother of the old miniaturists. At a comparatively 
 early period of her art-work, her painters must have travelled 
 west, and scattered themselves over many lands, for with the ex- 
 ception of England and Ireland, there is no school of illumination 
 which does not show a large infusion of the Eastern principle 
 and influence, lasting for many ages, and perhaps never com- 
 pletely disappearing, even from the classic ground of the Italian 
 Renaissance. 
 
 Whilst she thus sent her art-missionaries west and north, 
 she also gave the "motif" for a school nearer home. Probably, as 
 early as the 7th century the Arabic or Mahometan illuminators 
 drew their ideas from her practice, though of course largely tinged 
 by their own religious and traditional tenets. Being forbidden to 
 draw the human figure, animals, or even plants, their designs consist 
 chiefly of geometrical patterns, sometimes of wonderful intricacy, 
 the introduction of Cufic inscriptions affording scope for gorgeous 
 emblazonment. The colouring is very vivid, red, blue, and orange 
 being the prevailing tints. The Turkish and Moorish Schools are 
 merely offshoots of the Arabic ; but the wilful destruction of the 
 Moorish libraries in Spain has deprived us of all the finest specimens 
 
 * 
 
 t 
 
HIBERNIAN OR ANGLO-CELTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 THE DURHAM BOOK, 
 EXECUTED BY IRISH ARTISTS AT LINDISFARNE, ABOUT 720 a.d. 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 Nero. Div. Fol. 210 b. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 17 
 
 of their work. The Byzantine, as might have been expected, 
 became more especially the prevailing feature in all countries 
 professing the Greek Church. Russia boasts of a large number of 
 Slavonic MSS., in which a certain national treatment is evident, 
 grounded on their Byzantine ancestors' work. The Balkan countries 
 and modern Greece also naturally followed the parent stock. 
 
 § 2. — Hibernian or Anglo-Celtic School. 
 
 To trace the next development of illumination in point of time, 
 we must leave Byzantium, and move to the North-West. 
 
 Christianity found a congenial soil for its work of conversion 
 at a very early period in Ireland, and even in the 6th century 
 the island was renowned for its learning and the number of 
 monasteries and seminaries it contained. There is a tradition 
 that the artists of the monasteries of Holy Island were the 
 earliest to carry out and assimilate the art-teaching of the 
 Roman missionaries ; but be this as it may, a native style of art 
 was born in the scriptoria of its monastic homes differing entirely 
 from anything else in the whole history of illumination. It is 
 quite free from either Byzantine or Roman teaching. The 
 Romans, indeed, appear to have exerted but little influence on 
 the native arts during their occupation of Britain. The aborigines 
 were considered and treated as a servile race, and it was not 
 until the missionaries of Christian Rome touched and softened 
 the rugged nature of the inhabitants that any original talent 
 appeared. It is somewhat difficult to explain the principle of 
 this Celtic or Anglo-Irish work. It consists of combinations of 
 geometrical patterns, interlacings, spiral coils and bands, whilst 
 birds and lacertine animals are knotted and woven together in 
 apparently inextricable confusion ; but at the same time perfect 
 harmony and accuracy of detail are maintained. The pigments 
 are brilliant and generally light, so thickly laid on that they 
 almost give the appearance of enamel, an effect which is generally 
 enhanced by filling the interstices with black. Gold is used in one 
 or two places, but only as minute spots, or to fill small triangles. 
 
 This fashion of intricate interlacing is always the first step 
 
 D 
 
1 6 
 
 A II 1 STORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 in art of a barbaric race, who seek by laborious complexity 
 to make up for the absence of original design. It is seen in the 
 earliest Eastern metal-work, in the art-monuments of ancient 
 Mexico, the carvings of the South Sea Islanders, and even in 
 the work of the more cultivated Hindoo. The Celtic work reached 
 its highest point of excellence towards the end of the 7th 
 century, and travelled into England when the Irish Colony at 
 Iona sent a branch to Lindisfarne near Durham, and Aidan was 
 appointed Bishop of the See, a.d. 635. He obtained from 
 Oswald, Prince of Northumbria, leave to have his episcopal 
 residence at Lindisfarne, where he founded a monastery and 
 college similar to that at Iona. 
 
 Several very notable examples of this work still exist, such 
 as the Book of Kells, preserved in Trinity College, Dublin, and the 
 copy of St. Cuthbert's Gospels, called the " Durham" Book, in the 
 British Museum. The Book of Kells was so called from having 
 been preserved in the Abbey Church at Kells, in the diocese of 
 Meath. It was saved from destruction by Bishop Usher in 1621, 
 and formed part of his library, which was confiscated during the 
 Commonwealth. Charles II., on his accession, gave it to Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where it has since remained. Some idea of its 
 work may be gained from the assertion of Westwood, who says, 
 that on placing one of the drawings under a microscope, he counted 
 in \ of an inch 158 interlacements, without one false line. The 
 Durham Book is second only to the Book of Kells, in the laborious 
 minuteness of its ornament. Each Gospel is preceded by a 
 drawing of one of the Evangelists, of a wooden, lifeless aspect, 
 but still far in advance of the purely Irish work of the Book of 
 Kells or the Lichfield Gospels of St. Chad. It is indeed almost 
 incredible that artists who could produce such lovely ornaments 
 would rest satisfied with such hideous and grotesque travesties of 
 the human form. Mechanical drawing founded on tradition is all 
 very well, but the Irish would seem to have drawn their inspiration 
 from the stocks and stones representing their Pagan idols, rather 
 than from the flesh and blood surrounding them. The Durham 
 Book, or, as it is sometimes called, the Lindisfarne Gospels, is a 
 folio volume, containing the four Gospels preceded by the Eusebian 
 
» 
 
 HIBERNIAN OR ANGLO-CELTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 SPECIMEN OF FIGURE DRAWING 
 FROM THE SAME WORK AS THE PRECEDING. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 !9 
 
 Canons. Between the lines of the text is a Saxon gloss of the 
 ioth century, of great interest, as giving us the Northumbrian 
 dialect, and at the end of the book is a note by the Saxon writer 
 of the gloss, from which we learn its history. It seems to have 
 been written and illuminated in honour of St. Cuthbert by Eadfrith, 
 Bishop of Lindisfarne, who succeeded to the See in 698, and died 
 in 721. His successor, ./Ethelwald, caused it to be splendidly bound 
 and adorned with gold and gems ; which was executed under his 
 direction by Bilfrith, who, according to Simon of Durham, was 
 " Aurificis arte prsecipuus." At the time of the Reformation, the 
 "pious" reformers despoiled it of its cover, for the sake of the 
 gold and jewels which adorned it. 
 
 The Irish interlacement had a marvellous persistence as an 
 ornament both in its own country and abroad. The Irish Church 
 sent out many Missionaries to various parts of the Continent, who 
 doubtless took with them sacred books containing the peculiar 
 decoration of the Celtic school. St. Gall, Luxeuil, Wurzburg, Bobbio, 
 and other centres still possess examples in which this Northern 
 ornament is to be seen.* 
 
 § 3. — The Carlovingian School. 
 
 Towards the close of the 8th, and during the 9th century, the 
 Carlovingian School, encouraged and developed by the patronage 
 of Charlemagne and his grandson, Charles the Bald, produced most 
 sumptuous MSS. The mighty Emperor, one of the grandest 
 characters in history, appeared, in the quaint language of an old 
 writer, " full of eyes before and behind." Everything, great and 
 small, seemed to pass under his personal supervision. He found 
 time, not only for conquering the greater part of Europe, but 
 completely renovated literature and the arts, and with his own hand 
 wrote against the adoration of images, the sin of drunkenness, and 
 even descended to such a minute question as the writing of love 
 letters by nuns. The style of illumination may be described as a 
 mixture of the acanthus and other well-known Roman forms, derived 
 
 * The specimens formerly preserved at Bobbio have been mostly transferred to 
 Milan. 
 
 D 2 
 
2C 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 from a study of the Roman art remains in the Gallican provinces, 
 the interlacement similar to the Celtic ornament, and a very strong 
 infusion of the Byzantine splendour, making as a whole one of 
 the most sumptuous epochs of illumination. But the miniature, as 
 usual, is far behind the ornament. The endless series of Evano-elists 
 is always the same lifeless, conventional, elongated Byzantine 
 tradition. Many examples of this school are extant. One of the 
 most beautiful, ' The Golden Gospels,' is in the British Museum ; 
 then, again, there are the copy of the Gospels found upon the knees 
 of the great Emperor when his tomb at Aix la Chapelle was opened, 
 the Gospels of St. Servin de Toulouse, those of St. Medard de 
 Soissons, the Bible of the San Calisto Monastery at Rome, the 
 Metz Bible, &c. The celebrated monk, Alcuin of York, was invited 
 by Charlemagne to France, to superintend the progress of learning 
 and the arts. He presided as abbot over the Monastery of St. 
 Martin of Tours from 796 to 804, and Tours and Aix la Chapelle 
 became the two great centres whence emanated the finest work 
 of this gorgeous period. 
 
 The burial of the great Charlemagne is picturesquely told by 
 Palgrave. " They buried him in his own Cathedral. There they 
 reverently deposited the embalmed corpse, surrounded by ghastly 
 magnificence, sitting erect on his curule chair, clad in his silken 
 robes, ponderous with broidery, pearls and orfray, the imperial 
 diadem on his head, his closed eyelids covered, his face swathed 
 in the dead clothes, girt with his baldric, the ivory horn slung in 
 his scarf, his good sword ' Joyeuse ' by his side, the Gospel-book 
 open on his lap, musk and amber and sweet spices poured around, 
 his golden shield and golden sceptre pendant before him." This 
 Gospel-book here mentioned is now in the Louvre. 
 
 § 4. — The Anglo-Saxon School. The ' Opus Anglicum! 
 
 Towards the close of the 10th century, our native artists struck 
 out a new line of their own in the art of illumination, which for 
 originality of design, rich decoration, and boldness of form cannot 
 be surpassed by any of the contemporary Continental schools. Its 
 excellence secured for it, indeed, a special name, ' Opus Anglicum.' 
 
SCHOOL OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 CODEX AUREUS. 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 Harl. 2788, Fol. 13 b. . 
 
) 
 
ENGLISH SCHOOL. 
 
 OPUS ANGLICUM. 
 nth Century. 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 Ar. 6o, Fol. 52 b. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 It is somewhat difficult to express in words the salient points which 
 distinguished it from other works of the period. One of its chief 
 ornaments was the simple grandeur of the frames and borderings to 
 the texts and miniatures, consisting of massive gold bars, with 
 natural foliage twining about them, forming a very rich and effective 
 ornamentation. 
 
 The miniatures too show far more natural treatment than those 
 we have just been considering. The finest example of this lovely 
 work in England is the Benedictional of St. /Ethelwald in the 
 possession of the Duke of Devonshire. It has the additional 
 advantage of containing a metrical dedication, by which we learn 
 that it was executed for ^Ethelwald, who was Bishop of Winchester 
 963 to 984, by the scribe Godeman. The dedication informs us 
 that ^Ethelwald " commanded a certain monk subject to him to 
 write the present book, and ordered also to be made in it certain 
 arches, elegantly decorated, and filled up with various ornamental 
 pictures, expressed in divers beautiful colours and gold." It 
 contains thirty miniatures, of scenes in the life of Christ and the 
 Apostles, many of them showing a feeling and power of composi- 
 tion in great contrast to the ordinary miniatures of the period. 
 
 Another very distinctive feature of Anglo-Saxon art is well 
 shown in the Utrecht Psalter, so called from its present home. The 
 British Museum possesses a later copy of it of the 1 ith century. It 
 is filled with delicate pen drawings, little more than outline, but 
 showing a facility and freedom quite unusual at this period. This 
 Psalter was probably produced early in the 9th century in the North 
 of France, and found its way to England, though the style had 
 probably long been domesticated here. The light "fluttering" 
 drapery and general character of the details almost suggest a 
 Roman origin, and quite possibly some of the MSS. brought to 
 Canterbury late in the 6th century by Augustine, its first Archbishop, 
 contained the germs of this particular treatment. However this may 
 be, it is certain that these flowing pen drawings, together with the 
 Irish interlacements and the foliated frames of the ' Opus Anglicum,' 
 formed the staple of Anglo-Saxon art, down to the period of the 
 Norman Conquest, when naturally a foreign influence crept in and 
 modified to a large extent the peculiar features of our insular work. 
 
22 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 Many examples of this school of design are still extant, which 
 had its chief seat at the Monastery of Hyde, near Winchester. 
 Such are the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, now at Rouen, 
 and in the British Museum are the Arundel Psalter, No. 155, the 
 Gospels of Canute, Royal IDIX, the Cottonian Psalter, Tiberius CVI, 
 and the Hyde Register in the Stowe collection, British Museum. 
 
 The fine volume ' The Canute Gospels ' is an admirable 
 specimen of the foliated frame, the Roman acanthus, the Irish 
 interlacement, and the Anglo-Saxon pen-drawn heads, which adorn 
 the medallions forming part of the massive frames. 
 
 The Cottonian Psalter suffered from the fire of 173 1, but its 113 
 leaves show much characteristic work, especially a series of outline 
 drawings, of the true Anglo-Saxon type, slightly touched with blue, 
 green and red. A large folio copy of the Bible, in three volumes, 
 containing numerous miniatures and very elaborate capital letters 
 still remains in its home (Winchester). It is particularly interesting 
 from the fact that it is unfinished, and shows every stage of the 
 process through which an illuminated book had to pass. The first 
 operator was the scribe, who commenced his work by running down 
 the sides of each page a wheel armed with teeth at equal distances. 
 Very delicate lines, generally red, but sometimes brown, were then 
 ruled from these point marks across each page. Within these lines 
 he wrote his text, leaving spaces for the capital letters, miniatures 
 or other decorations. The scribe was followed by the illuminator 
 of initials, borders and other ornamental accessories, and succeeded 
 by the miniaturist.* 
 
 The foliated frame of the ' Opus Anglicum ' lasted, with gradual 
 development and modification up to the end of the 14th century, 
 being still very apparent in such a work as the Salisbury Lection- 
 arum, commonly called the Lovel Book, from its containing a 
 frontispiece showing a portrait of Lord Lovel and the illuminator, 
 the illustrious Siferwas, presenting the book to him (Harleian 7026, 
 British Museum). John Siferwas was also the chief painter em- 
 ployed in the production of the Sherborne Missal. 
 
 * The Winchester Bible, although a good example of English work, can hardly 
 be classed with the specimens just described. It is probably not earlier than the 
 12th century. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 23 
 
 § 5. — ntk and 12th Centuries. 
 
 During the nth and 12th centuries, Italian art in MSS. revived 
 after a long slumber, and two separate schools came into existence. 
 One seems to have penetrated from the North, to which the name 
 Lombardic was given, showing in its intricate patterns of interlacings 
 and animal forms a sort of refrain of Irish ideas filtered through the 
 Carlovingian Monasteries. Choral books of large size were produced, 
 with enormous initial letters, often from 12 to 18 inches long, 
 extremely handsome in design, showing the interlaced ornament in 
 quite a bewildering maze. 
 
 The second school evidently permeated from the South, and 
 for a long time is quite Byzantine in character, probably indeed the 
 work of Greek artists, wandering from their centre at Byzantium. 
 But after a time the native talent of the Italians digested and 
 assimilated this foreign influence, and produced a really national 
 school, extending not only throughout Italy, but also forming the 
 motif of illumination to the countries bordering the Western 
 Mediterranean, Southern France and Spain. In neither of these 
 Italian schools however do we find much in the way of miniature, 
 and this is perhaps remarkable in a country which, even at an early 
 date, produced both pictures and wall-paintings. What little figure 
 drawing there is in these MSS. is generally broad and tolerably 
 well executed. 
 
 There is a curious MS. in the British Museum, written and 
 illuminated at Winchester in the 12th century, which contains two 
 paintings purely Italian in design, and of great excellence. 
 
 Some very creditable work was executed on the Rhine, chiefly 
 in the Cologne School in the 12th century. A good specimen is 
 in the British Museum, Harleian 2800-2802 : A Passionale or 
 ' Lives of the Martyrs,' probably written for the Monastery of 
 Arnstein, situated on the Lahn about a mile above Coblentz. The 
 monastery was founded by Count Ludovic in the year 1139, who 
 converted his castle into a home for twelve monks, and consecrated 
 it to St. Mary and St. Nicholas. A copy of the Bible (Harleian 
 2803, British Museum) is of nearly the same period and style, but 
 more richly coloured and highly finished. 
 
24 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 In France also, the prevailing fashion of large folio MSS. pro- 
 duced miniatures on a grand scale, in which the figure drawing is 
 often excellent, the limbs well proportioned, and the drapery arranged 
 with some idea of the body for which it formed a covering. 
 
 The interlaced branches chiefly to be found in the Lombardic 
 School of the 12th century evidently formed the model upon 
 which was grafted the exquisite white and coloured branch 
 work of the Italian 15th-century Missals. It may be said 
 generally that the figure drawing of the 12th century shows a 
 very considerable advance upon preceding work, not only in 
 general treatment of limb, drapery, &c, but chiefly in the truthful 
 and earnest expression given to the heads of the various evange- 
 lists, saints, &c. 
 
 § 6. — 13^ Century. 
 
 In the 13th century the pendulum swung once more. From the 
 gigantic folios of the 1 2th century we come to small volumes full 
 of exact detail and careful finish ; the bold text of the preceding 
 age gives place to a writing almost microscopic in character, and 
 the miniatures partake of the general diminution, being frequently 
 introduced within the interior of initial letters, which were them- 
 selves commonly enclosed in handsome square frmaes, with medallions 
 along the sides containing figures of saints, prophets, minstrels, &c, 
 having often a raised and burnished gold background. This raised 
 gold work is very handsome ; a thick layer of plaster (probably 
 Chinese white) was laid upon the vellum with size, and rubbed down 
 to a very even surface ; it next received a coating of red paint, and 
 then the gold leaf was applied, the hard surface thus obtained 
 admitting of a large degree of burnishing. In this century we first 
 find the introduction of backgrounds to miniatures and initial letters, 
 of the beautiful diapered work in varied tones of the same colour, 
 blue being in very constant use. This background, together with 
 delicate mosaic designs of small squares of gold and colours of 
 infinite variety, and the intricate scroll work which, like the diaper, 
 generally appears in different shades of the same colour, lasted 
 into the 15th century, when the natural background of landscape. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 buildings, &c, came into general use. Ornamented borders, too, 
 of delicate design begin to appear, commencing as simple pendants 
 to the elongated initial letters, and gradually creeping further and 
 further round the text. Early in the century there is great similarity 
 of design as regards miniatures in the English, Flemish, and 
 Northern French schools. As the century progressed, national 
 differences are more apparent ; the graceful drawing and delicate 
 colour of the English school contrasting very favourably with either 
 French or Flemish work. 
 
 The miniatures produced up to this time, though gradually 
 improving in treatment, were by no means numerous in any given 
 work ; but late in the century a school arose in France in which 
 the miniature was made the chief feature, the borders becoming 
 quite subordinate. The headquarters of this development of illu- 
 mination were certainly in Paris. The figures and drapery are 
 managed in a very elegant manner, showing an artistic feeling quite 
 beyond the usual mark. An allusion to this school was probably 
 intended in the well-known and oft-quoted lines from the i ith canto 
 of the ' Purgatorio ' of Dante, translated by Gary thus : 
 
 " Oh ! I exclaimed, 
 Art thou not Oderigi ? Art not thou 
 Agobbio's glory, glory of that art 
 Which they of Paris call the limner's skill ? 
 ' Brother,' said he, ' with tints that gayer smile 
 Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves, 
 His all the honor now ; my light obscured.' " 
 
 The ' Hours of St. Louis,' preserved in the Bibliotheque 
 Nationale of Paris, presents a very good specimen of Paris work. 
 This book also shows the introduction of Gothic architecture of that 
 period generally known as Early English. 
 
 A beautiful example of English art of the early 13th century is 
 shown in a Psalter, the property of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 
 It belonged to Robert de Lindesey, Abbot of Peterborough, 
 who died in 1232. The capital letters are set in square frames, 
 along the sides of which are medallions containing figures of saints, 
 &c. The interlaced work of the capitals, the diapered background 
 and generally gorgeous and appropriate scheme of colour, serve as 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 an admirable specimen of the fine work executed in England at this 
 time. Many works preserved in the British Museum, &c, of un- 
 doubtedly English origin, tend to prove that English illumination 
 perhaps reached its climax during the late 13th and early 14th 
 century. Such are the Tenison Psalter and the Bible in the Royal 
 collection, marked J. D. i., of about 1270, showing the rich green, 
 a favourite colour of the English 13th-century artists, and made 
 additionally interesting by bearing at the end the artist's signature, 
 "Wills, Devoniensis scripsit istum librum." Queen Mary's Psalter, 
 also in the British Museum, is interesting in its history, as well as 
 for the strictly English character of its decoration. It was pre- 
 sented to Queen Mary on her accession to the English throne in 
 1553, by Baldwin Smith, a merchant of London. The story goes 
 that a considerable trade was carried on with the Continent at that 
 time in vellum, to be used, especially in Holland, to bind books, &c, 
 and that a cargo of manuscripts, &c, had been consigned to Mr. 
 Smith for exportation. On looking over the contents of the parcel, 
 he was struck by the beauty of this Psalter, and conceived the 
 happy idea of presenting it to the Queen. It shows the English 
 practice of outline drawings, delicately shaded with green, lilac, and 
 brown, depending upon graceful drawing for the beauty of the 
 figures, and reserving brilliant colour and gilding for the back- 
 ground. 
 
 § 7. — 14^/2 Century. 
 
 The 14th century introduced considerable changes in the 
 character of illuminated work. In Italy the Renaissance was be- 
 o-inning to make itself felt, and the influence of the Florentine 
 School of artists is apparent in the peculiar flesh tints, shortened 
 figures, and straight drapery of the miniatures, contrasting strongly 
 with the still elongated forms and flowing lines of the English and 
 French Schools. Whilst the earliest fathers of the Renaissance were 
 departing from the groove of conventional idealism, in which the 
 traditions of the Christian Church had hitherto confined the expres- 
 sion of the human figure, and were seeking amongst the works of 
 antiquity for a purer sense of the beauty of form, so men seem to 
 
 1 
 
ENGLISH SCHOOL. 
 
 Late 13th or early 14th Century. 
 QUEEN MARY'S PSALTER. 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
 Addl. MS. 2 Bvn. FoJ. 303 b. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 27 
 
 have gone far more to nature for their ideas of ordinary decoration ; 
 and one of the chief features of ornamentation in the Northern 
 Schools is the introduction and gradual development of the ivy-leaf 
 pattern, which, from its pointed shape, accorded admirably with 
 the Gothic architecture, brought to its highest form by William of 
 Wickham, and the other artists, who in painting, architecture, gold 
 smith's work, enamel, &c, combined to make this a great artistic 
 era. A very fine example of the ivy-leaf decoration, diapered back- 
 ground, and really artistic miniatures, is contained in the ' Prayer- 
 book of the Duke of Anjou ' in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 
 About the middle of the century, for the first time in the history 
 of the art, secular books began to share in the labours of the 
 illuminator. Romances, songs of the Troubadours and the Classics 
 were multiplied by professional scribes and illuminators, and as a 
 natural consequence the miniatures lose the more or less symbolic 
 style in which sacred subjects had been hitherto drawn, and were 
 treated in a more natural manner. 
 
 Amongst the various marks of progress in this century in the 
 art of miniature painting, none is more noticeable than the great care 
 and finish bestowed upon the heads of the characters represented. 
 In most cases they have every appearance of having been studied 
 from living models, "d'apres le vif," in the quaint phraseology of the 
 time, whilst the introduction of scenes of public and private life, of 
 manners and customs, &c, renders the 14th-century miniatures 
 peculiarly interesting. Caricatures and grotesque subjects, relating 
 even to the clergy, women, &c, make their appearance in sacred 
 books with an audacity which is truly astonishing, especially in those 
 of the French School, where, in all ages, caricature has been so 
 powerful an instrument of satire. 
 
 The first faint indications of a natural background of land- 
 scape, buildings, &c, are to be found early in the century, at first of 
 a most conventional type, with as much disregard to perspective 
 as characterises the work of a Chinese or Japanese artist. The 
 determination of an horizon is especially troublesome to these early 
 artists, and was only brought to a really pictorial state in the 
 ensuing century. 
 
 A great impetus was given to the illuminator's art during the 
 
 E 2 
 
28 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 period when Charles V. occupied the throne of France. He was 
 the founder of the Royal Library, and a great admirer of illustrated 
 books. At a great cost he accumulated a prodigious number in 
 the tower of the Louvre. His brother, the magnificent Duke jean 
 de Berri, was his worthy rival in this respect, and devoted enormous 
 sums to the purchase and production of manuscripts. 
 
 Even under Charles VI. this impulse did not abate, and the 
 miniaturist's art was never in a more flourishing condition. The 
 Prayer-book of the Duke d'Anjou, already alluded to, was produced 
 during this reign. A curious book is preserved in the Louvre, 
 ' Demandes et reponses,' by Peter Salmon, a manuscript written 
 for the King, and ornamented with charming miniatures, in which 
 all the characters are true historical portraits. Another exquisite 
 specimen of French miniature art of this period is the translation 
 of Boccacio's ' De Claris Mulieribus.' 
 
 § 8. — i ^th Century. 
 
 Although quite early in the 15th century, a few fine specimens 
 of English work were produced, amongst which may be cited the 
 ' Sherborne Missal,' belonging to the Duke of Northumberland, 
 and a beautiful Book of Hours in the Ashburnham Collection, 
 yet, owing partly to the temporary occupation of France by 
 Henry V., and the consequent largely increased intercourse 
 between the two nations, English art fell into decadence, and the 
 French were left masters of the field. One of the most interesting 
 products of the French School is what is known as ' The Bedford 
 Missal,' in the British Museum. It was prepared for John, Duke 
 of Bedford, Regent of France, and was presented by him to Henry 
 VI. in 1430. It contains the only known portrait of the Duke, 
 which was engraved by Vertue. The Prayer-book of Henry VI. 
 is also in the British Museum. In six of the miniatures, the young 
 King is seen in the act of devotion, and from his apparent age, 
 the book was executed about the time of his coronation in Paris 
 in 1 43 1. These two books are certainly French work. Another 
 MS. of about this period, interesting to students of English history, 
 is the Shrewsbury Book (Royal MSS., British Museum). It is 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL. 
 
 Early 15th Century. 
 HENRY VI. PSALTER. 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 Dom. A XVII., Fol. 74. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 29 
 
 English work, though executed on a French model. It was 
 made for John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and presented by him 
 to Margaret of Anjou, after her marriage with Henry VI. It is 
 a book of romances of " Chivalrie," and contains a fine portrait of 
 the Earl presenting his book to Queen Margaret, and also another 
 of the King surrounded by his Court, giving Talbot his sword. 
 The tendency observed even in architecture in the 1 5th century to 
 quit a symmetrical for a picturesque treatment, to which the term 
 "flamboyant" has been applied, is distinctly to be noticed in 
 illumination. The borders which had become now solid surround- 
 ings to the test, gradually developed from the Gothic and ivy- 
 leaf brackets, and the feet of the long-tailed capital letters 
 afforded scope for the introduction of medallions, grotesque 
 subjects, scroll work, and flowing foliage, in a sort of confused 
 manner, our old friend, the ivy leaf, still holding its own in the 
 decoration, - though now only performing a subsidiary part. The 
 ' Comedies of Terence,' preserved in the arsenal of Paris, is a 
 very good specimen of what we may call the flamboyant border. 
 About the middle of the century, Flemish art began to enter the 
 lists with its French sister. Up to the 15th century the Low 
 Countries had shown no individuality or great excellence in 
 illumination. Indeed, in many respects, it was distinctly behind 
 the surrounding nations, poor in design and colour, and the 
 drawing of the figure crude, heavy, and inartistic. But under the 
 influence of the Van Eycks, the school woke into new life, and 
 as French art deteriorates, Flemish art improves, bringing minia- 
 ture painting at the close of the century to rare perfection and 
 elaboration.* Enormous numbers of illuminated MSS. were pro- 
 
 * An easy means of comparing the relative state of the French and Flemish 
 schools is afforded by a 'Book of Hours' (Add. MS. 18,855) in the British Museum. 
 It was executed in France quite late in the 15th century. At the end of the book, 
 though in no way connected with its object, three or four Flemish miniatures have been 
 added. The French miniatures in the body of the work are fiat, hard, and dry, as 
 deficient in character and drawing as in colour. The meretricious habit of intensifying 
 the high lights by a lavish use of gold only serves to bring into greater prominence 
 the poverty of the surroundings. The Flemish miniatures at the end are in direct 
 contrast to all this in every respect. They are landscape scenes, with figures introduced 
 in the foreground. The landscapes are most admirably painted, the colouring fresh 
 and natural, and the tender tones of the aerial perspective worthy of Claude himself. 
 
30 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 duced in Flanders during the latter part of the century. Especially 
 at Bruges, their production became a positive manufacture, and most 
 of the ordinary specimens met with, originated from that school. 
 Not only is there great beauty in the miniatures, but the border- 
 work shows many novelties in their hands. The flowing branches 
 terminating in exquisite foliage, and the introduction of flowers, 
 insects, birds, and even jewels amongst its interstices, gave the 
 most brilliant framing possible to the text, especially when the 
 shadows projected by these objects were carefully drawn in all 
 their natural gradation, causing the objects to appear almost more 
 like miniature realities than mere painted pictures. All the great 
 Flemish artists of the century engaged occasionally in this work, 
 the Van Eycks, Memling, Lucas von Leyden, Mabuse, and others, 
 carried out in their illuminations the artistic skill and careful 
 elaboration which characterise their larger pictures. One very 
 interesting specimen of this school is the ' Chronicles of England ' 
 in the British Museum, executed for Edward IV., though its large 
 and broad treatment hardly gives an idea of the beauty of the 
 minute and intricate work of the smaller Prayer-books. It was, 
 however, undoubtedly executed by Flemish artists, and the chief 
 frontispiece, in Dr. Waagen's opinion, was drawn by Van Eyck. 
 This, however, may be doubted. The seven volumes originally 
 forming the work have been reduced by loss to three or four ; but 
 happily the first remains, giving a picture of the artist presenting 
 the work to the King. From the individuality of character given 
 to each figure, there can be little doubt of their having been 
 drawn from life. The King accords very well with what we hear 
 of the accounts of his person, though hardly flattering to one who 
 was called " the handsome Edward." On the left is the unfor- 
 tunate Clarence, his weak character plainly portrayed in his 
 features. The figure in the front of the picture is Gloucester, his 
 right hand playing with the hilt of his sword, as was his wont, 
 his hard and determined face surely telling of the violent passions 
 and unscrupulous cruelty which made him such an unlovely 
 
 Every figure, too, is full of character and individuality, and each in its place helps the 
 general composition of the picture. These lovely miniatures are amongst the finest 
 specimens extant of the illuminator's art. 
 
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 13 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 31 
 
 character in history. Even as a study of costume this miniature 
 is a lesson. One of the most celebrated specimens of Flemish 
 work is known as the Grimani Breviary, preserved in St. Mark's, 
 Venice. It is a quarto volume, bound in crimson velvet, with a 
 gold border elaborately chased, enclosing a bust of Cardinal 
 Grimani. It contains one hundred and ten drawings, most of them 
 executed by the hand of Memling. Gerard of Ghent, and Livin 
 of Antwerp, scholars of Memling, assisted him, and Levina 
 Teerlinck, the talented daughter of Simon Benninck of Bruges, 
 is also credited with a share in the work. The drawings have all 
 been reproduced in photography by Antonio Perini of Venice. 
 
 ' The Romance of the Rose ' is another captivating specimen of 
 Flemish work (British Museum), written by Guillaume de Lorris, 
 and Jean or Jehan Clopinal (lame-leg). Some authors have classed 
 it as 15th-century French work, others credit the Flemings with 
 the borders and general ornament, but assign the miniatures to a 
 French artist. There seems no sufficient reason, however, for 
 dissociating the pictures from the borders, and the whole of the 
 pictorial part may pretty safely be credited to the Flemish School. 
 All the miniatures are of a very high class, though the single 
 figures, representing the principal passions and troubles of life, 
 exhibit a genius and character rarely met with in miniature art. 
 
 Our Museum can boast of possessing one of the very finest 
 specimens extant of Flemish work of the late 15th century, the 
 Breviary of Isabella of Castille, wife of Ferdinand II. The scribe 
 was probably a Spaniard, but the lovely miniatures, the heraldic 
 emblazonments, the borders of scrolls and flowers, sometimes on 
 gold, sometimes on coloured ground, enclosing miniatures, must have 
 emanated from Flemish artists of the very highest class. Amongst 
 the many gems contained in this manuscript is the celebrated 
 miniature representing St. Barbara, deservedly considered one of 
 the most beautiful pictures " in little " now existing. 
 
 It is supposed to have been executed for Don Francisco de 
 Boias, who was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella as ambassador 
 to the Court of Maximilian I., to negotiate a double marriage 
 between the two families, and presented by him to Isabella, on the 
 occasion of these marriages. 
 
32 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 Neither Spain nor Portugal ever really possessed a native 
 school of illuminators. Foreign artists were almost exclusively 
 employed, and by the specimens left to us, the Flemings seem to 
 have been most favoured. 
 
 Take as a specimen the beautiful series of drawings in the 
 British Museum, made for Fernando, third son of Emanuel, King 
 of Portugal, by Mary of Arragon and Castile, showing the 
 alliances of the Royal Houses of Spain and Portugal from the 
 earliest period to the beginning of the 16th century. The 
 manuscript consists of eleven leaves or tables, very richly illumi- 
 nated, the series of portraits admirably painted, with all the minute 
 elaboration and care of Van Eyck or Memling. The whole of the 
 work is undoubtedly Flemish. The ' Commentary on the Apocalypse ' 
 (British Museum, Additional MS., 11,695) * s a native Spanish, or 
 rather, a 12th-century Visigothic work, executed in the Monastery 
 of Silos, in the diocese of Burgos, completed in the year 1109. 
 The elegance of the ornament, Saracenic in design, is in great 
 contrast with the rude and unskilful drawing of men and animals. 
 The architecture is distinctly Moorish, horse-shoe arches, and 
 arabesque ornaments appearing on every page. ' Les lois 
 d' Alfonso, Roi de Castile ' (British Museum, Additional MS., 
 29,787), serves to exemplify the sombre, gloomy scheme of colour 
 adopted by Spanish artists, fine though the miniatures undoubtedly 
 are in drawing, composition, &c. Black is freely used in shading 
 the draperies, and indigo in the blue dresses and shadows of the 
 buildings, although ultramarine appears throughout the volume for 
 small capital letters. 
 
 In German work we have not so many specimens to guide 
 us as could be wished. As in the case of Spain and Portugal, a 
 really original school of illumination hardly existed. The Arnstein 
 Bible, already alluded to, tells us that in the 12th century, Rhenish 
 Germany (chiefly Cologne) produced work of a high class for that 
 period ; but as time rolled on the ideas of the French and Flemings 
 in the West, and of the Italians in the south, formed the basis of 
 German illumination. 
 
 A curious variety of miniature work was in vogue during 
 this century, which in its sobriety forms a striking contrast to the 
 
SPANISH SCHOOL. 
 
 PRAYER-BOOK OF ALFONSO Vth OF ARRAGON. 
 
 About 1442 A.D. 
 BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
 Addl. MS. 28962, Foi. 281 b. 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 33 
 
 wealth of colour and gold usually lavished on these paintings 
 "in little." 
 
 It is essentially monochrome, and bears the name of " Camaieu 
 Gris," the term " Grisaille " also being applied to it. It originated 
 in the 14th century amongst French or Flemish artists, probably 
 the former, and in some respects, such as the wonderful skill 
 displayed in the treatment of light and shade, and the extraordinary 
 minuteness and accuracy of detail, these beautiful miniatures quite 
 hold their own as works of art by the side of their more showy 
 sisters. 
 
 Specimens of this work appear as early as the time of the Due 
 de Berri. The Psalter, or ' Petites Heures,' executed for the Duke, 
 now in the National Library, Paris, is partially ornamented " en 
 camaieu." Another MS. in the same collection, produced about 
 1352, 'The Institution of the Order of the Holy Ghost,' contains 
 some beautiful " camaieu " portraits, notably those of King Louis 
 of Tarento, and his wife, Jane, Queen of Naples. The Bodleian 
 Library contains two specimens, a volume executed for Charles 
 Duke of Burgundy, and an ' Offices of the Virgin,' which is curious 
 from its containing numerous miniatures "en camaieu," Flemish in 
 character, surrounded by coloured borders, apparently of English 
 work. The British Museum has a very good, though late, example 
 (Harleian 625), containing an imaginary conversation between 
 Francis I. and Julius Caesar. The pictures are painted in a rich 
 grey, heightened with white, some of the details sparingly touched 
 with gold. Preceding the dialogue are medallion portraits of 
 Francis and Julius Caesar, drawn in grey on rich blue grounds. 
 One is tempted to think whether Josiah Wedgwood ever saw 
 these portraits, for they exactly resemble the form adopted by 
 him two centuries later, for his series of medallion portraits. 
 
 Yet another magnificent example is ' Les Miracles de Notre 
 Dame,' done for Philip of Burgundy about 1470 (Bodleian Library). 
 Towards the close of the 15th century a perfect craze existed for the 
 illumination of documents of all sorts and kinds. Charters, bills, 
 indentures, books of account, and even mortuary rolls were quite 
 commonly highly ornamented either in colour or by pen drawings. 
 This practice was carried to its highest pitch in Venice. The 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINI AT [/RE ART. 
 
 diploma granted to high officials, such as the Governor of any 
 dependency, generally contained at least one grand miniature, very 
 frequently the individual himself being represented in company 
 with his patron saint, in the act of devotion before the Viro-in and 
 Child. Naturally in the eyes of the serious student of the different 
 schools of illumination, such ornamented documents as these are 
 but lightly esteemed; but they are of considerable interest if 
 regarded as links in the history of portraiture. Even from the 
 specimens preserved in the British Museum, a very charming 
 collection of miniature portraits might be culled of the worthies who 
 served the great Republic, when at the height of her glory. These 
 diploma miniatures have been attributed to Titian, and others 
 amongst the chief artists of the Venetian School ; but it is highly 
 problematical whether these drawings, beautiful though they un- 
 doubtedly are, can claim quite so exalted a parentage. 
 
 We are acquainted with so few of the artists, even by name, 
 who produced the lovely miniatures of these illuminated manuscripts, 
 that it is quite refreshing occasionally to come across one about 
 whom a few reliable details are preserved. Of late years, France 
 and Germany have devoted much time and labour to the task of 
 separating truth from fiction, of winnowing the wheat from the chaff, 
 with regard to the earlier workers in the field of art. Archives have 
 been ransacked, records diligently searched, a municipal payment 
 here, a legal agreement there, have been pieced together, so as to 
 produce in many cases a tolerably complete history of certain artists, 
 and a flood of light has been thrown into the recesses of what was 
 previously a vague and shadowy land. 
 
 Amongst the artists thus rescued from oblivion, by the labours 
 of such men as M. de Laborde, M. Grandmaison, &c, occurs the 
 name of Jean Fouquet, painter to Louis XI. and Charles VIII. He 
 was born at Tours somewhere between 141 5 and 1420. He visited 
 Italy, and studied under Antonio Filarete, being entrusted by his 
 master with the task of painting the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. 
 A Limoges enamel in the Louvre represents Fouquet at about the 
 age of thirty, with an inscription about the head, " Joh'es Fouquet." 
 
 Various entries in the Royal accounts relate to him, thus, in 
 1470, a payment is made to him for "la facon de certains tableaux " 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 35 
 
 ordered by the King. In 1472, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans 
 employed him to illuminate a ' Book of Hours.' This duchess was 
 Marie de Cleves, third wife of Charles d'Orleans, the poet. Marie 
 survived her husband, and at the Chateau de Blois continued to 
 live in great magnificence, reckoning several painters amongst her 
 retinue. Fouquet died somewhere about 1480. Several MSS., 
 with undoubted miniatures from the hand of Jean Fouquet, are 
 extant. The Bibliotheque Nationale of France contains two MSS., 
 French translations of Livy, and one of Josephus ; and at Tours is 
 another Livy illustrated by him, for Cardinal Balue. At Dijon is a 
 Virgil, said to be his work, and Geneva boasts a copy of Boccaccio ; 
 but perhaps his finest work is contained in the Boccaccio executed 
 for Etienne Chevalier, now preserved at Munich. 
 
 The Paris Josephus contains a note written by Florimond 
 Robertel, who was in the service of Anne de Beaujeu, daughter of 
 Louis XL, and afterwards Treasurer of France under Charles VIII., 
 to this effect. — 
 
 " En ce livre a douze hystoires, les trois premieres de l'en- 
 lumineur du due Jehan de Bery, et les neuf de la main du bon 
 peintre et enlumineur du Roy Louis XI, Jehan Fouquet, natif de 
 Tours." This volume must have remained long unfinished, if 
 it was commenced by the illuminator of John, due de Berri, 
 and finished by Fouquet, as the Duke died in 1416, possibly before 
 Fouquet was born. 
 
 The Livy at Tours was commenced for Cardinal Balue, but on 
 the fall of that prelate, passed with his library to Louis XL, who 
 commanded Fouquet to finish it in 1470. The frontispiece is so 
 superior to the minor decorations, that probably it alone represents 
 Fouquet's share in the completion of the work. As a colourist and 
 draughtsman, Fouquet stood in the first rank. He was fond of 
 emphasising passages in his work by a peculiar vivid yet soft 
 vermilion, apparently got by glazing the vermilion with madder, 
 always, however, kept in due place by fine neutral tints of buff 
 and grey. His architectural backgrounds bear the mark of his 
 Italian study, an influence which is also apparent in the graceful 
 disposition of the figures of his groups, and the symmetry of his 
 general composition. 
 
 f 2 
 
36 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Another artist who is credited with illuminating work is Tean 
 Perreal, whose name constantly appears during the reigns of 
 Charles VIII. and Louis XII. His exact dates are uncertain, but 
 he is supposed to be the same person as Jean de Paris, who was 
 living at Orleans in 1472. He was sent to England by Louis XII. 
 to superintend the trousseau of his bride, Mary Tudor, sister to 
 Henry VIII. Anne of Brittany, Louis's first wife, had been dead 
 barely a year, and the King was already impatiently awaiting the 
 arrival of the Princess Mary. Louis survived his second marriage 
 but four months, and Jean Perreal, who had assisted, in the quaint 
 words of a letter addressed by the King to Wolsey, " a dresser 
 le diet appareil a la mode de France," was speedily summoned 
 home to direct the bridegroom's funeral ceremonies. 
 
 Preserved at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, are two volumes 
 of an illustrated Bible, which some have considered to be. the work 
 of Jean Perreal. From the constant occurrence of the ermine of 
 Anne of Brittany and the porcupine of Louis XII., these volumes 
 were probably intended for the use of the Queen. The first volume 
 contains six, the second eight illustrations, the technical qualities 
 and power of composition reminding us. forcibly of Fouquet, though 
 the architectural backgrounds lack the Southern magnificence of 
 that accomplished miniaturist. 
 
 § 9. — 1 6th and 1 'jth Centuries. 
 
 The Italian illuminators during the late 15th century were 
 making rapid strides towards the perfection which is seen in 
 the lovely work of the succeeding century. The symmetrical, as 
 opposed to the " flamboyant," or picturesque style prevalent in the 
 Northern Schools, held its ground far longer in Italy, their artistic 
 skill enabling them to introduce medallions, &c, into the open 
 border, without disturbing the general symmetrical effect. The 
 Demosthenes in the British Museum shows this treatment well 
 carried out, and here also we find the Byzantine capping still in 
 existence, which was one of the chief ornaments in Greek 
 illuminations. The lovely interlaced branch work is another feature 
 of Italian 15th-century work. At first the branches are white, 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 Late 15th Century. 
 BRITISH MUSEUM, 
 
 Add!. MS. 29735, Fol. 127 b. 
 
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MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 37 
 
 the interstices filled with various colours, as in the Juvenal in the 
 British Museum ; then the branches themselves were variously 
 coloured on a background of gold or black ; the latest state of all 
 being an arrangement of cables in place of branches, enabling the 
 artist to admit still greater symmetry and regularity of arrange- 
 ment. Interspersed amongst the interlacings we find medallions, 
 heraldic blazonings, &c. 
 
 There is a volume of fragments in the British Museum which 
 gives a very comprehensive idea of the style of ornament practised 
 in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. It belonged to the poet, 
 Samuel Rogers, and was formerly in the collection of William 
 Young Ottley. The fragments are one hundred and ten in number, 
 taken from service books made for the various Cardinals and Popes 
 of the time. Perhaps the most elaborate examples are those made 
 for Pius IV. (1561-1564) ; many of these are signed by the artist, 
 Apollonius Bonfratelis di Caprenica fecit, MDLXIV. A large num- 
 ber have also the arms of the various owners emblazoned on them. 
 
 Another fine Italian work is Additional MS. 15,813, written 
 for the Monastery of St. Justina at Padua, in 1525, and illuminated 
 by Benedetto Bordoni of Padua. There, too, is the lovely work 
 (Add. MSS. 29,735), executed about the year 1500 for the 
 Church of Santa Croce, Florence. 
 
 The adoption of models founded upon the antique produced 
 the beautiful arabesques with which the name of Raphael is 
 especially connected, and which at first were followed in 
 illumination ; but a more distinct phase was thought out by 
 Girolamo and Francesco dai Libri, in which the arabesque gives 
 place to the most elaborate compositions, allegorical figures, trophies, 
 cameos, jewels, &c, being arranged in glittering profusion in 
 every page. This gorgeous style of decoration culminated in the 
 art-work of Giulio Gravata, commonly known as Giulio Clovio, a 
 pupil of Giulio Romano, and also of Girolamo dai Libri, born in 
 1498. He was from early youth essentially a miniaturist, and 
 in his eighteenth year executed some drawings for medals for 
 his patron Marino, Cardinal Grimani, devoting to their production 
 inconceivable care and patience. During his long life (1498-15 78) 
 he naturally produced many works, and it is astonishing that so 
 
38 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 few have found their way into England. The ' Commentaries 
 on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans,' in the Soane Museum, is 
 the finest specimen in England, and has the additional interest 
 attached to it of bearing the signature of the artist. The 
 authenticity of the series of drawings in the Grenville Collection of 
 the British Museum of the victories of Charles V., said to be by 
 Clovio, is very doubtful. Whilst fully admitting that the gorgeous 
 splendour and extraordinary profusion and variety of ornament 
 of the Clovio School captivate the senses, and that the classical 
 feeling displayed in the borders and lovely medallions on a gold 
 ground entitle them in this respect to the first place in the 
 illuminator's art, yet I think there can be no doubt that in figure 
 drawing, and especially in the character of the faces, they in no 
 way come up to their Flemish brethren. Compare the best 
 example of Clovio's work in this country, the Epistles of St. Paul 
 in the Soane Museum, with the sheets in the British Museum of 
 the alliances of the Royal Families of Spain and Portugal already 
 mentioned. The large miniature of the Conversion of St. Paul is 
 ill-drawn and weak in the extreme, whereas in the Flemish work 
 there is hardly a head that is not a study. The dead King in 
 the golden armour, and some of the bearded monarchs scattered 
 through the different pages, show qualities which, in an ordinary 
 miniature portrait, would place the artist on a level with any Oliver 
 or Cooper that ever lived. Though, in the hands of the giants 
 of the art, illumination undoubtedly reached its zenith at this 
 period, yet the work went on for a hundred years or more before 
 it succumbed to the change in the art ideas of men, to the influ- 
 ence of printing, &c. This latter factor had not the immediate 
 effect upon illumination which might at first be supposed. For a 
 long time the two arts went hand in hand. Many choice copies 
 of classics and other books were printed on fine vellum, and 
 received at the hands of the illuminator their final touches of 
 ornament. One of the most beautiful instances of the double art 
 is in the Grenville Collection of the British Museum. It is a 
 history of the deeds of the invincible Duke Francesco Sforza, 
 printed in Milan by Antonio Zarotti, 1490, in a velvet binding, 
 ornamented with silver niello-work. It contains a full-page illumi- 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 39 
 
 nation and two portraits. The artist who painted the large 
 miniature is the same as appears in so many of the illuminations 
 of Mr. Malcolm's Sforza Book of Hours. 
 
 The ' Pliny Natural History,' in the Bodleian Library, and the 
 Latin translation of Eusebius's ' De Evangelica preparatione,' by 
 George of Trebisond, dedicated to Pope Nicholas V., in the Harleian 
 Collection, British Museum, are other well-known examples. 
 
 Amongst the later instances of illuminated MSS. may be 
 cited a manuscript on alchemy in the British Museum, finished in 
 1582. The St. Croy 'Book of Hours,' dated 1601. A book 
 executed for Philip IV., King of Spain, by Francesco de Herrera, 
 which was in the Hafod Library, dated 1637. The Prayer-book of 
 Louis XIV. in Paris, and that of Madame de la Valliere, formerly 
 in Mr. Tite's collection. Perhaps about the very last important 
 specimen we have is the magnificent missal in the Rouen Library, 
 nearly three feet in height, which occupied a monk of St. Oudoen, 
 named d'Eaubonne, for thirty years, and was completed in 1682. 
 Comparatively few names of the artists who excelled in this branch 
 of art have come down to our time. Thanks to the careful 
 biographical works of Vasari, Lanzi, &c, we know more of the 
 Italian masters than of others, and scattered here and there in the 
 pages of Vasari is a good deal of information on the subject. I 
 have before alluded to specimens of illumination by Cimabue, 
 Giotto, and others of the earliest period of the Renaissance, which 
 Vasari had collected in a book, and he also mentions Bartolommeo, 
 Squarcione of Padua, Simone Memmi, Boticelli, and Piero da 
 Perugia. The two friends of Giotto celebrated in Dante, Oderigi 
 of Agobbio and his scholar Franco Bolognese, appear to have been 
 exclusively miniaturists, and were employed by the Pope to adorn 
 books for the Vatican Library. Of Fra Angelico he writes : " There 
 are certain choral books from the hands of Fra Angelico in the 
 cathedral of St. Marco at Florence, of which the miniatures are such 
 that no words could do justice to their beauty." Liberale da Verona, 
 Altavante of Florence, who illuminated the celebrated missal 
 preserved in Brussels, originally executed for Matthias Corvinus, 
 King of Hungary, and on which the former Regents of Belgium 
 took their official oaths, and many others. The same author tells 
 
4° 
 
 us of Don Jacopo of Florence, as the most celebrated scribe in 
 Europe, and says he left sixteen folio choral books to his monastery 
 Degl' Angeli, illustrated in miniature by a brother of the same 
 convent, Don Silvestro ; and their extraordinary skill was so highly 
 venerated by their brother monks, that they embalmed their right 
 hands after their death, and preserved them in a tabernacle. Such 
 later artists as Francesco and Girolamo dai Libri, Clovio, &c, have 
 been already mentioned. We must not, however, forget Cennini, 
 who not only illuminated MSS., but who has also left us a long 
 dissertation on the methods of painting in fresco, distemper, and 
 miniature, and the manner in which gold is employed in all these 
 varying methods. 
 
 Such is a brief history of the chief periods of development of 
 the art of illumination. In dealing with such a subject, it is im- 
 possible to attain absolute precision. The changes brought about 
 by successive schools were very gradual, and the variety of orna- 
 ment evolved from the imagination of individual artists was infinite. 
 Although, no doubt, in a certain number of typical examples it is 
 easy enough to class them, yet in the case of very many more, 
 even the most accomplished expert can only approximately assign 
 a time and place. It requires no great stretch of fancy to think 
 that the single portrait of small dimensions, known to us as a 
 "miniature," must have been occasionally executed by artists, accus- 
 tomed to paint from life the Popes, Cardinals, &c, who appear 
 in the various devotional and other books of the time. That such 
 specimens have not come down to our time need hardly surprise 
 us. The missal, apart from the art value of its illustration, was 
 guarded with reverence as a sacred book, treasured in the mon- 
 astery where it was painted, or in the closet and library of the 
 great ; religious sentiment, perhaps even more than appreciation 
 as a work of art, contributed to its care and preservation. Painted 
 on vellum, a substance little liable to decay, and shut out from the 
 fading influence of light, by its being in a book, there would be 
 every reason for so many specimens remaining, although so long a 
 time had elapsed since they were executed. 
 
 With the miniature portrait, the surroundings were widely 
 different. The great value it possessed was associated with the 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 4-' 
 
 immediate relatives of the person represented. As a rule, and 
 especially in portraiture, succeeding generations care little for the 
 relics of those who have passed away. To the unthinking mass, to 
 vote a thing old-fashioned, is to condemn it at once to the lumber-room. 
 This natural law was not lost sight of by Walpole. He picturesquely 
 alludes to it thus : " Portraits that cost twenty, thirty, and sixty 
 guineas, and that proudly take possession of the drawing-room, -give 
 way in the next generation to those of the newly-married couple, when 
 they are slightly mentioned as my father's and my mother's portraits. 
 When they become my grandfather's and my grandmother's, they 
 mount to the two pair of stairs ; and then, unless despatched to the 
 mansion house in the country, or crowded into the house-keeper's 
 room, they perish among the lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags 
 before a broker's shop in Seven Dials." 
 
 Such a thing as a miniature portrait, when once the loving care 
 of those who had personally known the original was withdrawn, 
 naturally shared the fate of other unconsidered trifles. Tossed here 
 and there, probably unprotected by any covering, exposed to the 
 light, that sure destroyer of all water-colour painting, it rapidly 
 became a wreck, and lost to us for ever. 
 
 Although for the reasons given it is fair to presume that 
 miniature portraits were occasionally executed by the old illumi- 
 nators, I can find only one specific allusion to the practice. Vasari, 
 in his sketch of the life of Giulio Clovio, after enumerating his 
 principal works, finishes thus : — 
 
 " Of these I have desired to give the world this notice, that 
 such as cannot see those productions, for they are almost all in 
 the hands of princes and other great personages, may at least 
 know something of them and of him. I say ' almost ' all because 
 I know some private persons who have small cases containing 
 beautiful portraits, by his hand, of sovereigns, of their friends, or 
 of ladies whom they have loved." 
 
 It is worthy of remark that in speaking of these latter speci- 
 mens, Vasari does not use the word " miniatures." In his day 
 it had quite a different signification, and was not applied in our 
 sense until a century and a half after he wrote. 
 
 It will scarcely be discursive to allude shortly to the material 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 which has had the honour of preserving and conveying to us the 
 records and illuminations of the dim and distant past. The 
 invention of parchment is far more ancient than the time of 
 Eumenes, King of Pergamos, to whom it is often attributed. 
 Herodotus speaks of the Ionians writing on the skins of goats 
 and sheep, because papyrus was rare. Diodorus Siculus mentions 
 that the Persians wrote their annals on "skins. Lacroix, in his 
 ' Curiosit6 de l'histoire des Arts,' thinks it probable that the King 
 of Pergamos perfected the art of making parchment, as Ptolemy 
 Epiphanes had prohibited the exportation of papyrus from Egypt. 
 Ordinary parchment is made of sheep-skins dressed and refined, 
 and rubbed with chalk and pumice-stone. A finer parchment, 
 in imitation of vellum, was made from lamb and kid-skins ; but 
 vellum itself, as its name denotes, is made from calf-skin, and 
 can be beautifully soft and smooth. The finest vellum of all, 
 which goes by the name of uterine vellum, or, in the quaint 
 language of the 17th century, "the skin of abortives," was 
 obtained from the skin of calves prematurely born, and on this 
 delicate material some of the best of the early miniature portraits 
 were limned. 
 
 The custom of erasing writing from the surface of parchment, 
 in order to use it a second time, was practised from- very early 
 times. The word "palimpsest," which was applied to these re- 
 used materials, in its original Greek sense, means "scraped or 
 rubbed," and therefore could only be strictly applied to materials 
 which would bear this treatment, such as waxen tablets or vellum. 
 The papyrus was of too delicate a nature to be scraped, and 
 the erasure was effected by washing; but the term "palimpsest" 
 came to be applied to any substance which was used more than 
 once for literary purposes. Washing was also used at first to 
 remove the ink from vellum ; but owing to the fact that ink, to a 
 certain extent, sinks into the substance of the vellum, such erasure 
 was not perfect, and in process of time, owing to atmospheric 
 influence, the original writing more or less reappears ; consequently 
 the earlier the palimpsest, the more valuable it is for the purpose 
 of deciphering the original text, a process which has been aided 
 by the action of certain chemical re-agents, of which the most 
 
MISSALS AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 43 
 
 harmless appears to be the hydrosulphate of ammonia. When 
 once the knife or pumice-stone came into common use, the erasure 
 was complete, and the later palimpsests rarely yield anything of 
 value. 
 
 The British Museum contains several notable examples of 
 palimpsests, some of the best having been found amongst the 
 Syriac MSS. obtained from the Nitrian desert in Egypt. A volume 
 containing a work of Severus of Antioch, of the beginning of the 
 9th century, is written on leaves of the ' Iliad' of Homer, and the 
 Gospel of St. Luke of the 6th, and the elements of Euclid of 
 the 7th century. Another is a text of St. Chrysostom in Syriac 
 of the 9th century, covering a Latin grammatical treatise of the 
 6th century, which in its turn has displaced the Latin annals of 
 the historian Granius Licinianus of the 5 th century. 
 
 The chief reasons for the destruction of early MSS. were 
 the dearth of material, caused by wars or political changes, and 
 also by the great multiplication of MSS., as education gradually 
 spread. There is no doubt, too, that the introduction of paper 
 caused a certain falling off in the supply of vellum. As early as 
 the year 691, a synodal decree forbade the destruction of MSS. 
 of the Scriptures or the Church Fathers, imperfect or injured 
 volumes excepted. It is much to be feared that the later enter- 
 prising scribes were not always particularly careful in choosing 
 imperfect or injured volumes only. In the nth century the 
 German emperors, with the same laudable desire to stop this 
 wholesale destruction, ordered notaries to make use of new parch- 
 ment only. 
 
 It is harrowing to think of the treasures of antiquity that may 
 have been sacrificed in this worthless manner. Man is too apt 
 to build up his own habitation with the debris of that of his 
 predecessors. In a narrow, struggling, and enthusiastic period, 
 he only remembers his own efforts and discoveries, and disdains 
 the knowledge and experience that has been gathered and stored 
 for him in previous ages, and thereby does himself and his successors 
 no small disadvantage. It would be too great a distress to suppose 
 that a true artist would ever have destroyed the beautiful com- 
 positions of an earlier age ; but for one great tolerant mind, 
 
 g 2 
 
44 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 there are so many mean and inferior ones who see no merit 
 beyond their own style, appreciate no ideas which are not in 
 accordance with their own views, and understand no genius 
 which transcends their own limits, that we cannot help but fear 
 that the bigotry of intolerance which believes in its own supe- 
 riority of judgment may have massacred in an hour what its 
 highest efforts could never have created in a lifetime of super- 
 human length. 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without expressing my grateful 
 acknowledgments to Mr. Maunde Thompson, the keeper of MSS. 
 in the British Museum. Not only has he selected for my inspection 
 and study typical examples of the various periods and schools 
 from the unrivalled collection under his care, but I am also 
 indebted to him for many valuable hints as to the arrangement 
 of the matter, and for supervision of the proofs. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 First half of the 16th Century. 
 
 have attempted, in the preceding remarks upon the 
 work of the later missal painters, to show the gradual 
 process of evolution which step by step tended to the 
 production of the portrait miniature in the form to 
 which the word "miniature" is now generally applied. 
 Early in the 16th century, this particular branch of 
 art entered on a new and distinct phase of existence, 
 and from this point there is no difficulty in tracing 
 onwards the stream of artists who adorned it, until its final extinction 
 within the memory of those still living. 
 
 Hans, the short for Johannes, Holbein has so entirely usurped 
 the place of honour in the art records of the first half of the 
 1 6th century, that a short history of this remarkable painter will 
 be the most fitting introduction to our history. 
 
 It is little short of astonishing, that until comparatively recent 
 years, so little was known of him, that even the place of his birth, 
 the year in which he was born, and the date of his death, were 
 shrouded in mystery, and however much we may differ from Mr. 
 Wornum in his criticisms, and dissent from many of his conclusions, 
 we must allow that he brings such documentary evidence to bear 
 upon the personal history of the artist, that his dates must be 
 accepted as setting at rest the disputed facts of Holbein's birth and 
 
4 6 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 death. The former is not of so much moment ; but whether he died 
 in 1543 or 1554 makes a very great difference in considering the 
 works usually attributed to his pencil.* 
 
 Three biographies of him were written long ago. That of Van 
 Mander, published in Amsterdam in 1604, is the oldest ; Joachim von 
 Sandrart, a painter of Frankfort, and Charles Patin, a physician of 
 Bale, followed at longer intervals. They mainly accepted Van 
 Mander's account, and added little original information to his 
 biography. Indeed, the life of Holbein, written by Patin, contains 
 such statements to the detriment of the painter, such accounts of 
 dissipation, of domestic quarrels, and pecuniary difficulties conse- 
 quent on his depraved life, that it is impossible to imagine a serious 
 and cautious man like Erasmus would furnish a dissipated scamp 
 with such letters of introduction as Holbein brought with him to 
 Peter ^Egidius and Sir Thomas More, when he first visited 
 England in 1526. Patin's life of Holbein was not written until 1676, 
 one hundred and fifty years after the painter left Bale, and may 
 safely be dismissed as utterly untrustworthy in its scandalous details. 
 All three biographers make the remark that Holbein painted with 
 his left hand, which seems to have arisen from a circular print en- 
 graved by Lucas Vorsterman, which being reversed, as is so 
 common in old engravings, necessarily puts his brush in his left hand. 
 
 The Holbein family unquestionably belonged to Augsburg, 
 where probably Hans was born about 1495, but removed early in 
 life to Bale, whence he first visited England in 1526, remaining 
 here as the guest of Sir Thomas More for a little over three 
 years, when he returned for a time to Bale. Towards the close 
 of 1 53 1 he revisited England, but in the meantime his great 
 patron More had become Lord High Chancellor, and Holbein 
 probably settled down on his own account. When he was first 
 introduced to the King is eminently uncertain. Certain stories are 
 told of More introducing him at a great entertainment given to 
 the King, but the subject must remain a matter of conjecture. 
 The first documentary evidence of a salary being paid to the 
 painter is in the Book of Payments of the Royal Household on 
 
 * The credit of establishing the date of Holbein's death is entirely due to Mr. A. 
 W. Franks and Mr. Black, by their discovery of the will of Hans Holbein. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 47 
 
 Lady Day, 1538, when he received £7 10s. As the accounts of 
 the preceding years have not been preserved, it is possible this 
 was not the first payment made to Holbein as a " Servant of 
 his Majesty." Nothing further is known of the period when he 
 entered the King's service. He settled somewhere in the parish 
 of St. Andrew Undershaft, Aldgate. A curious extract from a 
 subsidy Roll for the City of London, dated the 24th of October, 
 1541, furnished by Mr. W. Nelson, of the Record Office, to Mr. 
 Franks, gives us this information — 
 
 "Aldgate Warde 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Parisshe of Saint Andrewe Undershafte. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Stranngers. 
 Bernadyne Buttessey xxxli. . . xxx s. 
 Hanns Holbene in fee xxx H . . iii li." 
 
 Stow gives a circumstantial record of the origin of the de- 
 signation of this parish. The Church of St. Andrew the Apostle 
 was called St. Andrew Undershaft, "because that of old time, every 
 year (on May Day in the morning), it was used, that an high or 
 long shaft, or May-pole, was set up there, in the midst of the 
 street, before the south door of the said church, which shaft, when 
 it was set on end, and fixed in the ground, was higher than the 
 church steeple." This must have been rather a prodigious May- 
 pole, considering that the height of the steeple and turret is ninety- 
 one feet. The last payment to Holbein recorded in the accounts of 
 the Treasurer of the Household was for Midsummer of this year, 
 1541 : " A°. xxxiii (of Henry VIII. 's reign). Item for Hans Holbyn, 
 paynter, nihil quia prius." This looks as if the painter had fore- 
 stalled his allowance. 
 
 We now come to the vexed question of the date of Holbein's 
 death. The evidence gradually accumulated on this point is 
 overwhelming. The first link in the chain was supplied by the 
 paper of Mr. A. W. Franks in the thirty-ninth volume of the 
 Archaeologia, " Discovery of the Will of Hans Holbein." This will 
 was dated October 7th, 1543. A note attesting the administration 
 of his goods, dated November 29th, 1543, was found in the Registry 
 of the Wills of the Commissary London, preserved in St. Paul's 
 
48 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Cathedral, in the book called Beverley, folio 116, where Holbein 
 is described as the King's servant, at a salary of £$o a year, living 
 in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, and to assume that two 
 individuals, exactly answering this description, died in the same parish 
 in the same year, is surely bordering on the ridiculous. A further 
 link is supplied by a document among the archives of Bale, dated 
 19th November, 1545. This is a letter from the Burgomaster 
 Adleberg Meyer, to Jacob David, goldsmith in Paris. Speaking of 
 Philip, Holbein's son, he mentions that the father is already deceased. 
 After reviewing this chain of evidence, it is quite impossible to doubt 
 that Holbein died (probably of the plague, which visited London in 
 1543, for the fifth time during Henry's reign) between October 7th 
 and November 29th, 1543. 
 
 In reviewing the art-work of Holbein, we are at once struck 
 by the remarkable way in which he overshadowed all his con- 
 temporaries, to say nothing of some of his predecessors and 
 immediate successors. It would probably be within the mark to 
 say that not one-tenth of the pictures and miniatures usually 
 attributed to him, were ever seen by him. When we come to 
 sum up the painters who were at work in the first half of the 
 1 6th century, the majority of whom showed the same technical 
 qualities as Holbein, more or less, it will be apparent that Walpole's 
 remark is a very true one, that "we must not consider every old 
 picture to be a Holbein." We have Quintin Matsys (1466- 
 1530); Jan van Hemessen (1530); Lucas van Leyden (1494- 
 1533); Bartholomew Bruger (1553); Albert Diirer (1471-1528); 
 Hans von Melem (1530); Hans Mielich (15 15—1572) ; Hans 
 Baldung, commonly called Grien (died 1552) ; Georg Pencz 
 ( 1 500-1 5 50); Christopher Amberger (1498-1568); Hans Asper 
 (1499-1571). The following artists are known to have visited 
 England: Jan de Mabuse (1470-1532) ; Joost van Cleef (painting 
 1554); Luke Hornebolt (died 1544); Sir Antonio More (1525— 
 1581); Lucas de Heere (1534-1584); Peter Pourbus (died 1584); 
 Nicholas Lucidel or Neuchatel (painted 1561) ; Gwillim Stretes, the 
 Dutchman, whose dates are uncertain ; and amongst the minia- 
 turists, Lucas Cornelii, Simon Benninck and his talented daughter 
 Levina Teerlinck. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 49 
 
 There are surely enough good artists in this list to supply- 
 any number of Holbein pictures and miniatures, to say nothing of 
 copies, good, bad, and indifferent, which have been produced by 
 enterprising purveyors during the three hundred and forty years 
 which have elapsed since Holbein's death. Mr. Wornum, in his ' Life 
 of Holbein,' seems almost to throw doubt upon the fact that Holbein 
 painted miniatures. Van Mander tells us that "he worked equally 
 well in oil and in water-colours, he painted also miniatures of 
 especial excellence ; which last art he learned from one, Master 
 Lucas, then in London, whom, however, he very soon far sur- 
 passed." It is a thousand pities that the biographer did not give us 
 the surname of this Master Lucas, as by so doing he would have 
 saved much speculation. There were at least four contemporary 
 artists who rejoiced in the name of Lucas — Lucas van Leyden, 
 Lucas Cranius or Cranach, Lucas Cornelii, and Lucas Hornebolt. 
 The first two may be dismissed, as they were never in England. 
 Lucas Cornelii is named by Walpole as Holbein's instructor in 
 miniature painting. This artist was born the same year as 
 Holbein, 1495. But as the wants of a wife and seven children 
 drove him to this country from Leyden, he could hardly have 
 come as a young man, and probably therefore followed rather 
 than preceded Holbein. Lucas Horembout, or Hornebolt, was 
 certainly settled here in 1529, and perhaps earlier. He was one 
 of a family of illuminators and miniaturists. His father, Gerard, 
 was in the King's service at a monthly pay of 33.9. 4^., and is 
 said to have died here, as Court painter to Philip and Mary, in 
 1558. The Son Luke, or Lucas, was also a "King's servant," at 
 a higher salary than Holbein ever had, namely, 55s. 6d. per 
 month. The date of his death is certainly fixed by a curious 
 entry in one of the Household-books of Henry VIII. He was 
 paid his salary in April 1544 ; but in May we are told: " Item, for 
 Lewke Hornebonde, paynter, wages nil, quia mortuus." His sister 
 Susannah is spoken of in high terms, as an illuminator, by 
 Giucciardini : "La quale fu eccellente nella pittura, massime nel 
 fare opere minutissime oltre ogni credere." There is also a very 
 interesting passage about her in Albert Diirer's diary, on the 
 occasion of his meeting her father at Antwerp in 152 1 : "Master 
 
 H 
 
5° 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Gerard, illuminator, has a young daughter, about eighteen years of 
 age, her name is Susanna ; she had made a coloured drawing Q f our 
 Saviour, for which I gave her a florin ; it is wonderful that a female 
 should be able to do such a work." She is said to have died at 
 Worcester, as the wife of an English sculptor, of the name of 
 Whorstley, in the words of the Italian writer, " ricca e onorata." 
 
 With these facts before us, it certainly seems probable that 
 Luke Hornebolt, rather than Lucas Cornelii, instructed Holbein 
 in the art of miniature painting. Besides the evidence of Van 
 Mander, we have another witness as to the truth that Holbein 
 painted miniatures, one who was more nearly a contemporary of 
 his than Van Mander himself. Nicholas Hilliard says in the 
 tract more particularly alluded to further on, " Holbein's manner 
 of limning I have ever imitated and hold it for the best." 
 
 The dated portraits painted during Holbein's first visit to 
 England are not numerous. Some of the best known are : Arch- 
 bishop Warham, Sir Henry Guildford, and of course Sir Thomas 
 More himself. The Windsor portfolios, which contain perhaps 
 the most valuable of all the Holbein treasures preserved to us, 
 possess the original drawings of these pictures, and also those of the 
 large picture of Sir Thomas More's family. Probably no composi- 
 tion has given rise to more speculation than this " More " piece. 
 At least six copies are known, of which Walpole says : " The two 
 smaller are certainly copies ; the three larger probably not painted 
 by Holbein ; and the sixth, though an original picture, most likely 
 not of Sir Thomas and his family." This is rather strong language, 
 but subsequent authorities mostly concur that the one preserved 
 at Nostell Priory is the real original, though it is even now 
 doubtful whether it was absolutely finished by Holbein's hand. 
 One curious circumstance serves to mark the probable date of 
 many portraits of Holbein's time, and that is the fashion of wearing 
 the hair. Up to the year 1535, the hair was cut across the 
 forehead, and hung down lower than the ears all round the rest 
 of the head, as in Henry VII.'s reign ; but in Stow's 'Annals ' it is 
 mentioned that on May 8th, 1535, " The King commanded all about 
 his Court to poll their heads, and to give them example he caused 
 his own head to be polled, and from thenceforth his beard to bee 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 5 1 
 
 notted and no more shaven." In spite of this illustrious admoni- 
 tion, the fashion was not universal. The portrait of Sir Richard 
 Southwell at Florence, painted in 1536, has long hair and shaven 
 face ; so also has the Duke of Norfolk, painted in 1540. Sir Henry 
 Guildford, the two Godsalves, Sir John More, Sir Thomas More, 
 and Nicholas Kratzer, the King's astronomer, all have long hair, 
 and are beardless ; these are all among the known portraits of 
 Holbein's early time. Applying this rule to the King himself, we 
 might infer that Holbein did not paint the King before 1535, which 
 is likely enough, as the few Holbein portraits of him are bearded, 
 and with the head polled or closely cropped. 
 
 At the time of the painter's first arrival in England, Catherine 
 of Arragon was Henry's Queen ; but her star was already paling 
 before the charms of Anne Boleyn, who was firmly fixed in the 
 King's affection as early as 1528. * Considering the entire absence 
 of evidence that Holbein had anything to do with the Court 
 during the first visit to England, it is pretty safe to assume that 
 he never painted Catherine of Arragon. Walpole had two so- 
 called portraits of her by Holbein. He thus describes them : 
 "Catherine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII., by Holbein:" 
 it was in the collection of Sir Robert Walpole. He then adds in a 
 note : " Vertue thought it to be Catherine, Duchess of Bar, sister of 
 Henry IV. of France, and so it probably is ! " Of the miniature 
 he says : "I have Catherine of Arragon, a miniature, exquisitely 
 finished ; a round on a blue ground. It was given to the Duke 
 of Monmouth by Charles II. I bought it at the sale of Lady 
 Isabella Scott, daughter of the Duchess of Monmouth." There 
 is a miniature in the Queen's collection, which always passed for 
 Catherine ; but when the back was once uncovered, this very 
 interesting inscription was discovered : " Anna Roper, Thomse 
 Mori filia. W. Hollar pinxit post Holbeinium 1652." This affords 
 
 * In Smollett's History of England, under date 1528, we read that " Wolsey's Secre- 
 tary, Stephen Gardiner, and Edward Fox were sent to Rome to demand a new Com- 
 mission, empowering the Cardinal to dissolve the marriage, and yet declare the daughter 
 born of that marriage legitimate; as well as a decretal held to dissolve the King's marriage, 
 and a dispensation for his marrying another wife, without any restriction. At the same 
 time, the envoys were ordered to make the Pope acquainted with the extraordinary 
 merit of Anne Boleyn, on whom the King had by this time settled his affection." 
 
 H 2 
 
5 2 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 a very good example of the slipshod way in which both subjects 
 and painters are arbitrarily determined on very insufficient evidence. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that all the pictures and 
 miniatures falsely ascribed to Holbein are unworthy of him. 
 There are many excellent portraits dated, but not signed, both 
 here and abroad, which were painted about Holbein's time, 
 which would do no discredit to his best time. Amongst the 
 monograms given to Holbein is PB. The small panel at 
 Hampton Court, numbered 1085 in the Catalogue, and described 
 as Holbein by himself, seems answerable for this. The portrait 
 is certainly not by Holbein, nor does it represent the painter. 
 The monogram is the ordinary mark of Hans Baldung, a cele- 
 brated artist of the time, now commonly known as Grien, or 
 Grim. Again, Justus Van Cleef, an Antwerp painter, according 
 to Van Mander the best colourist of his time, and noted for his 
 beautiful rendering of the hands, certainly visited this country, and 
 survived Holbein several years. The early portrait of Henry VIII., 
 in the gallery at Hampton Court, judging by this peculiarity of 
 the hands, is probably the work of Van Cleef and not Holbein ; 
 but with regard to portraits of the King, there is not a possessor of 
 such a thing in the country who would not be horrified at the 
 bare idea of any other artist being suggested than the great Hans. 
 
 It must be remembered that portraits of the reigning 
 monarch are always as plentiful as blackberries ; mere contract 
 work supplied from the studios of the sergeant-painters or others. 
 Philip Reinagle, the Academician, was the pupil and assistant of 
 Allan Ramsay, sergeant-painter to George III., and he used to 
 relate how for two years of his time he did nothing whatever but 
 manufacture portraits of George III. and his Queen for presents, or 
 for dealers, all of which were launched into the world as genuine 
 portraits of their Majesties by Ramsay. So again, witness the 
 innumerable enamel portraits of Louis XIV. by Petitot. The 
 very monotony of the Henry portraits, always a full front face, 
 the same cap and feather, the same greyish short beard, is alone 
 sufficient to stamp them as mere " roba di bottega," turned out 
 by the yard, and probably by the journeymen of some studio 
 after Holbein's death. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 53 
 
 Even ostensible autographs painted on the face of pictures 
 cannot always be trusted. For instance, at Wilton is a portrait of 
 Edward VI. which is signed " E. VI. HANS. HOLBEEN. P." 
 Knowing, as we now do, the date of Holbein's death, this is 
 impossible. In the same gallery is another picture, which is a 
 copy of the small panel with portraits of three children, by Mabuse, 
 now at Hampton Court. The picture is thus inscribed — 
 
 " K. HENRY VII. 
 THREE OF HIS CHILDREN. HANS HOLBEIN. P. 1495." 
 
 y° Father 
 
 And over the three heads respectively are the names Henry, 
 Arthur, Margaret. 
 
 The information thus boldly placed on the face of the 
 picture at Wilton is copied from the back of the picture at 
 Hampton Court, on which is written : " Henry huit m % Roy de la 
 Grande Bretagne, avec ses deux sceurs. Marie espousa Louis XII. 
 Roy de France, en suite Brandon : Marguerite espousa Jaques I II I. 
 Roy d'Ecosse." This inscription is clearly not pretended to be 
 an autograph, but its information is turned into a spurious auto- 
 graph in the Wilton example. The portraits are really those of 
 the three children of Christian II., King of Denmark. The 
 original belonged to Henry VIII., and is thus described in his 
 Catalogue : " Item, a table with the pictures of the three children 
 of the Kynge of Denmarke, with a curteyne of white and yellow 
 sarcenette paned together." 
 
 Let us now turn our attention to the miniatures ascribed to 
 Holbein, and with which we are more immediately concerned. 
 Those of Catherine of Arragon at Strawberry Hill have been 
 already mentioned. Miniatures of Henry himself are not rare, 
 and of course are always attributed to Holbein. The Duke of 
 Buccleuch has two. Her Majesty has four at Windsor. Mr. 
 Wornum's criticisms on these seem so unanswerable that I prefer to 
 give his own words : " Three of these portraits appear to have 
 been executed before Holbein came to England, and the fourth 
 after our painter's death. They are — 1 
 
 "1. Henry VIII., three-quarter face, turned to the left; on 
 card, round, if in. in diameter ; bright blue ground : Inscribed 
 
54 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 ' H.R. VIII. AN 0 . ETATIS, XXXV.,' that is 1526. He has a 
 black cap with a feather ; the beard is shaven entirely off, and 
 the hair long, bright brown, hangs over and conceals the ears. 
 
 "2. Henry VIII., three-quarter face, turned to the left, on 
 card, round, if in. in diameter, bright blue ground. Inscribed 
 'REX. HENRICUS OCTAVUS.' Nearly identical with that 
 above described, except that the face is nowhere shaven ; the 
 age seems about the same. Both these miniatures are said to 
 have belonged to Charles I., to whom they were given, according 
 to the tradition, by Lord Suffolk. They are catalogued in a 
 MS., by Vanderdoort at Windsor, but they are not in that 
 catalogue ascribed to Holbein ; they are numbered 48 and 49. 
 
 "3. Henry VIII., three-quarter face, turned to the left, oval, 
 1 in. in height, by ij^ in. in width, on card, blue ground. The face 
 is young, and much the same in other respects as that first described, 
 especially as regards the long hair, and the absence of beard. It 
 is inscribed f H. R .VIII. AN 0 . XXXV.,' with H and K combined 
 in a lover's knot, above, the K necessarily signifying Queen 
 Katherine of Arragon, as the portrait is evidently not that of the 
 King when advanced in years. 
 
 "4. Henry VIII., in oil on paper, attached to oak, round, 2% in. 
 in diameter; green ground. Inscribed ' HENR. 8. REX. ANGL. 
 ^ETA : S. 57.' Full face, in hat and feather, with an ermine or 
 some other fur collar, close under the chin. The face, with scarcely 
 any hair, and a thin beard, is the same type as that so familiar to 
 us in the ordinary portraits of the King. The age on the miniature 
 is an error ; Henry VIII. never entered his fifty-seventh year ; having 
 been born in 1491, he would only have completed his fifty-sixth 
 birthday if he had survived until the 28th June, 1547." 
 
 At Windsor also is the Lady Audley, identical with the 
 drawing of that lady in the Windsor series. The Sir Henry 
 Guildford in the Royal Collection cannot possibly be by Holbein. 
 Sir Henry was one of Holbein's first sitters, and when he sat 
 to him in 1527, was nearly fifty years of age, but the Windsor 
 miniature represents him as a young man. The two sons of 
 the Duke of Suffolk are more probably really by Holbein ; they 
 are dated respectively, September 6, 1535, and March 10, 1 541 . 
 
* 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 55 
 
 They are said to have been given to Charles L, by Sir Henry 
 Vane, and both are entered as Holbein's work in Vanderdoort's 
 catalogue. 
 
 In the Loan Collection at South Kensington in 1865 were 
 twenty-three miniatures and drawings ascribed to Holbein. The 
 Duke of Buccleuch's two of Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves, and a Lady 
 " Anno vEtatis suae 23 ; " Alicia, wife of Sir Thomas More, belonging 
 to Mr. Heywood Hawkins ; Lord Thomas Seymour of Sudeley ; 
 Lady Jane Seymour, purchased by Mr. Bale from the Strawberry 
 Hill sale in 1842, and now in my possession; the Earl and 
 Countess of Kildare, contributed by Lord Boston ; and many other 
 specimens, all bearing the charmed name of Holbein. It may be 
 asked respecting the Windsor Henrys, as well as those enumerated 
 above, if they are not by Holbein's hand, by whom were they 
 painted ? There were certainly three artists at work in England, 
 capable of producing the water-colour miniatures, and a fourth 
 who could undoubtedly supply us with the small oil portraits. 
 Luke Hornebolt and his sister Susannah have been already 
 mentioned, and even the father, Gerard, is known as an illuminator, 
 and therefore probably a water-colour miniaturist. In addition to 
 this talented family, there was a female artist, Levina Teerlinck, 
 daughter of Simon Benninck of Bruges, himself a celebrated 
 illuminator. In 1538 she was in Henry's service at a higher 
 salary than Holbein. She is spoken of in the highest terms both 
 by Vasari and Guicciardini. Mr. J. G. Nichols gives many 
 interesting details of her, extracted from the Trevelyan papers 
 and other sources. At Midsummer 1547, " Maistris Levyn 
 Teerling paintrix " was receiving quarterly wages of In 
 1556 she presented to Queen Mary as a New Year's gift, a small 
 picture of the " Trynitie." In 1558 (the 1st of Elizabeth) she 
 presented " The Queen's picture finely painted on a card," which 
 remained with Her Majesty, under the care of Mrs. Newton ; and 
 had in return " one casting bottell guilt," weighing 2% oz. In 1561, 
 on the like occasion, there was presented " by Mrs. Levina Teerling 
 the Queene's personne and other personages in a box finely 
 painted." This present was so much esteemed by the Queen, that 
 it remained "with her saide Majestie," that is, was retained in her 
 
5^ 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 own keeping. The paintrix received in return " one guilt salt, 
 with a cover " weighing 5-4 ozs. 
 
 At the South Kensington Loan Exhibition in 1865, a miniature 
 was exhibited by Lord Spencer, No. 950 in the Catalogue. " Sir 
 John Boling Hatton and his mother," signed and dated in gold 
 letters " L. 1525," on a bright green ground. Can this L. mean 
 Levina ? It is given in the Catalogue to Lucas de Heere, but 
 unfortunately this artist was not born till nine years after the 
 miniature was painted. 
 
 The artist above mentioned who could worthily produce oil 
 miniatures was Gwillim Stretes, a Dutchman, who was Court 
 painter to Edward VI. Edward seems to have paid his artists 
 better than Henry, for Stretes had the comparatively high salary 
 of ^62 1 as. a year. This artist must have played a much higher 
 part amongst contemporary painters than is generally supposed. 
 Though Strype mentions two portraits of Edward VI. by him, no 
 work is extant which is absolutely known to be by his hand. 
 Strype's account runs thus : " Stretes received fifty marks for recom- 
 pense of three tables made by him, whereof two were the pictures 
 of his Highness, sent to Sir Thomas Holy and Sir John Mason 
 (ambassadors abroad) ; " the third, a picture of the late Earl of 
 Surrey, attainted, and by the Council's commandment fetched from 
 the said Gwillim's house. Between Stretes and Mrs. Teerlinck, I 
 suspect, a good many Holbeins may be accounted for, both pictures 
 and miniatures, without troubling the great Hans at all. Another 
 instance of a painter who could at any time be set down as a 
 veritable Holbein is Georg Pencz of Nuremberg, a scholar of 
 Albert Diirer. The Erasmus at Windsor bearing his monogram 
 would inevitably have been classed as a fine Holbein, had the 
 signature been hidden. 
 
 The discovery of the real date of Holbein's death has a great 
 influence on the pictures of the end of Henry's and commencement 
 of Edward's reign. Up to quite a recent date, portraits of the 
 young King were as freely given to Holbein as are still the stock 
 likenesses of Henry VIII.; yet we now know that Edward was only 
 six years old when Holbein died. 
 
 In the roll of New Year's gifts, for the 30 Henry VHI., that is 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 57 
 
 for January 1539, there is mentioned as Holbein's gift, the portrait 
 of Prince Edward as a child. " By Hans Holbyne, a table of the 
 picture of the Prince's Grace." In return for which, the King's 
 present to Holbein is also entered : — " To Hanse Holbyne, paynter, 
 a guilt cruse with a cover (Cornelis) weighing x oz. one quarter." 
 Cornelis, says Mr. Franks, is evidently the King's goldsmith 
 Cornelius Hayes, who is often mentioned in the Privy Purse 
 expenses and in the household accounts. Mr. Nichols remarks as 
 to Edward's age, as painted by Holbein : "I am aware of three 
 pictures only that bear this test, those belonging to the King of 
 Hanover, the Earl of Yarborough, and the Duke of Northumber- 
 land." The two former are almost identical, and possibly one is 
 copied from the other. The Duke's likeness is somewhat younger 
 in appearance than the others, and very probably is the New Year's 
 o-ift referred to above. There are also Holbein's three drawings of 
 the Prince in the Royal Portfolio at Windsor : the first in infancy, 
 the second at the age of about four, and the third in profile, 
 apparently rather older. The fine portrait of Edward at Petworth, 
 representing the young King seated on his throne, with a magnifi- 
 cent canopy over his head, inscribed in the corner, " Anno Dominij 
 1547, Anno /Etatissuee 10," cannot of course be by Holbein. Stretes 
 was then the King's painter, and would naturally be selected as the 
 artist to produce such a work as this. I have a miniature which 
 came from abroad, as Edward VI. by Holbein. It turns out to be 
 the portrait of quite as interesting a person by almost as interesting 
 a painter. Francis II., King of France, the boy-husband of Mary 
 Queen of Scots, by Janet. At South Kensington was exhibited 
 (No. 2664) a miniature of Edward VI., soon after his father's death, 
 set in a case enamelled on gold 1547, of course ascribed to Holbein. 
 Stretes was also probably the painter of the large picture repre- 
 senting Edward VI. transferring the Bridewell Palace to London. 
 
 Before we take leave of Holbein, we must glance for a moment 
 at his talents as a designer and modeller.* The British Museum 
 
 * Since this was written, Messrs. Boussod, Valadon, et C ie have produced a 
 magnificent work in Paris, entitled, ' Dessins d'Ornements de Hans Holbein.' The 
 plates include the Seymour cup and the Denny clock. A perusal of this book will 
 show Holbein as quite the equal of any of the giants of the Renaissance. 
 
 I 
 
58 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE A R T. 
 
 contains perhaps the finest collection of his drawings and designs to 
 be found in Europe. The cinque-cento design of " The Seymour 
 Cup," so called because it bears the motto of Jane Seymour, and the 
 initials of the King and Queen, is in the same taste as, but perhaps 
 purer than, the best work of Benvenuto Cellini, Holbein's contem- 
 porary, but his junior by five years. The design for a clock for Sir 
 Anthony Denny, and that of a chimney-piece bearing the Royal 
 arms, are both replete with the purest taste. As an architectural 
 designer, he is credited with the Whitehall gateway and the Wilton 
 portico ; but it is extremely doubtful if he had a hand in either. 
 
 In compiling the foregoing short history, chiefly taken from 
 Wornum's ' Life and Works of Holbein,' Mr. Franks's paper, Mr. 
 Nichols's remarks, and other sources, I have not attempted to allude 
 to the Augsburg or Bale portions of the artist's career, and have 
 only so far given the facts of his sojourn in England as chiefly bear 
 upon his connection with miniature art. 
 
[ 
 
James 1. 
 
 Nicholas Hilliard 
 
 Lrasmus. Shakespeark. 
 
 N. Milliard. N _ HiUiard> 
 
 Jane Seymour. 
 
 Hans Holbein. 
 
 Sir C. Hatton. Elizabeth. 
 
 N. Hilliard. N. Hilliard. 
 
 Princess Elizabeth. 
 N. Hilliard. 
 
 Mrs. Holland. 
 
 N. Hilliard. 
 
 Prince Henry. 
 
 N. Hilliard. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Second half of the 1 6th Century. 
 
 p to the reign of Elizabeth, no artist seems to have 
 devoted himself exclusively to portrait miniature as a 
 profession. 
 
 Many of the painters already mentioned, together 
 with others equally well known, such as Sir Antonio 
 More, Zucchero, Van Cleef, Lucas de Heere, &c, painted 
 miniatures occasionally ; but probably the first to work entirely 
 in this branch of art was our own countryman, Nicholas Hilliard, 
 limner, jeweller, and goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth, and after- 
 wards to James I. He was the son of Richard Hilliard of Exeter, 
 High Sheriff of the city and county in 1560. Nicholas was 
 born in 1547, and began life as a goldsmith. What first led him 
 to try his hand at miniature portraits is uncertain, and finding no 
 instructor capable of directing his studies, he himself tells us, in the 
 tract already spoken of, that he adopted Holbein as his model. He 
 must have made rapid progress, for the Earl of Oxford had his 
 portrait by himself at the age of thirteen. 
 
 The influence of the illuminators is very marked in his 
 performances. All the colours used are perfectly opaque ; he 
 employs gold to heighten the effect of jewels, dresses, &c, and 
 his faces present the flat shadowless appearance of the saints of 
 the missal. This latter feature may be partly due to the 
 
 1 2 
 
Go 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 tradition told of Elizabeth, that she ordered all artists to paint 
 her without shadows, though I am unable to find any author 
 who can bring forth reliable evidence that this order ever really 
 emanated from the virgin Queen. But be this as it may, I fear 
 it must be confessed that though he equalled his model Holbein 
 in neatness and accuracy of detail, he- fell far short of him in 
 character and force, whilst he certainly never attained the trans- 
 parency of flesh tints, and beautiful modelling of features, which 
 adorn the miniatures of his great scholar and successor Isaac 
 Oliver. 
 
 In such a collection as the Royal Miniatures at Windsor, 
 which undoubtedly contains the finest works known of all 
 three masters, the difference is very apparent. The two children 
 of Charles Brandon by Holbein, the four portraits by Hilliard 
 of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and his mother Jane 
 Seymour, may be set side by side with the two glorious Olivers, 
 Henry Prince of Wales, and the full length of Sir Philip 
 Sidney. It is not difficult, with such specimens, to class the 
 three masters in order of merit. 
 
 The four portraits just mentioned of Henry VII., Henry 
 VIII., Edward VI., and Jane Seymour, are probably the same as 
 those described in the Catalogue of Charles I., as contained in a 
 curious jewel ; on the top of the jewel was an enamelled repre- 
 sentation of the battle of Bosworth, and on the reverse the red 
 and white roses. This jewel was purchased by the King of 
 Hilliard's son. The interesting setting has long since disappeared, 
 happily the contents are safe at Windsor.* He drew Elizabeth 
 very often. Charles I. had three portraits of her by Hilliard, 
 
 * There are two or three other jewels containing miniatures by Hilliard, which are 
 happily still intact. The lovely little prayer-book containing a miniature of Elizabeth 
 at the commencement, and the likeness of the Due d'Alencon at the end, the prayers 
 written in a beautiful hand in six languages by Elizabeth herself, in the possession of 
 E. Joseph, Esq., is one of the most interesting historical relics in existence, and bears 
 ample testimony to the skill and culture of old Roger Ascham's illustrious pupil. Again, 
 may be mentioned the likeness of James I., in its contemporary diamond setting, sold 
 in the Hamilton sale for the large sum of ^2,835. Last, there is the miniature of 
 Mary Queen of Scots, in its original setting with pendant jewel, containing a lock of her 
 hair, in the collection of Jeffery Whitehead, Esq. 
 
MOT1MAHT 
 
Earl ok Lindsay. 
 
 P. Oliver. 
 
 Sir Francis Drake. Earl of Southampton. 
 
 /. Olivet. ' P. Oliver. 
 
 Duke of Buckingham. Earl of Leicester. Earl of Pembroke. 
 
 /. Olive): I. Oliver. P. Oliver. 
 
 D. Donne. 
 
 Countess of Pembroke. / f Oliver. 
 
 P. Oliver. 
 
 Earl of Essex. 
 
 /. Oliver. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 61 
 
 including a full length in her robes sitting on a throne. A 
 miniature picture is also set down to him in Charles' Catalogue, 
 giving a view of the Spanish Armada. Under James I., Hilliard 
 increased in favour, as the following patent, granted to him by the 
 King, sufficiently shows : " Whereas our well-beloved servant, 
 Nicholas Hilliard, gentleman, our principal drawer of small 
 portraits, and embosser of our medals in gold, in respect of his 
 extraordinary skill in drawing, graving, and imprinting, &c, we 
 have granted unto him our special license for twelve years, to 
 invent, make, grave, and imprint any pictures of our image or 
 our Royal family, &c, and that no one do presume to do, without 
 his license obtained, &c." 
 
 This must have been a source of considerable profit, as, in 
 addition to copies made from his miniatures, large numbers of 
 small plates, jetons, &c, were engraved in niello by Simon de 
 Pass and others, bearing the Royal portrait, for which he doubtless 
 received a royalty. Hilliard died January 7th, 16 19, and was 
 buried in St. Martin's Church in the Fields, Westminster. His 
 son, Lawrence Hilliard, was appointed by his will sole executor. 
 
 There would seem to be some justification for the appellation 
 of " Old Hilliard," given to Nicholas by some of the old writers, 
 for it seems certain that his son Lawrence followed in his foot- 
 steps. A warrant of the Council is still extant, dated 1624, ordering 
 the payment to him of £^2 for five pictures by him drawn. 
 Lawrence was still alive in 1634, but nothing is known of any 
 definite work done by him. 
 
 Isaac Oliver, the second on the roll of English water-colour 
 miniaturists, is said to have been born in Leicestershire in 1556 ; 
 but I have been unable to verify either date or place. Walpole 
 thinks he was of French extraction, because he signed some of 
 his works " Olivier." And the indefatigable Vertue found out 
 several of the same name in France — Aubin Olivier, of Boisy, 
 the inventor of machinery for stamping money, and a Peter and 
 John Olivier, who were printers at Caen in Normandy. Isaac 
 certainly wrote a treatise on limning in English ; but, on the other 
 hand, his notes in his pocket-book, which has been preserved, 
 are partly in French and partly in English. The fact is, there 
 
62 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 is no documentary evidence to prove anything connected with the 
 history of this great miniaturist. His work must speak for him, 
 and it is second to none in the whole history of miniature art. 
 He is supposed to have studied under Hilliard, and Zucchero is 
 credited with having assisted his earlier attempts. He occasionally 
 painted in oil, and in this manner, according to Vertue, he painted 
 the portraits of himself, his wife and children, a head of St. John 
 the Baptist, and the Holy Family. At Welbeck is a likeness of 
 T. Cavendish, the famous sea-captain ; and in Walpole's time 
 Lord Oxford possessed a portrait of Sir Philip Sidney in oil. 
 His painting of James I. served for a model to Rubens and 
 Vandyck, when they had occasion to draw that King after his 
 decease. 
 
 In an office book of the Lord Harrington, Treasurer of the 
 Chambers, in the possession of the late Dr. Rawlinson, was an 
 entry of payment to Isaac Oliver, picture-drawer, by a warrant 
 dated at Lincoln, April 14, 161 7, "for four several pictures drawn 
 for the Prince's Highness, as appeareth by a bill thereunto annexed, 
 ^"40." Isaac Oliver died at his house in Blackfriars in 161 7, aged 
 sixty-one or sixty-two. He was buried at St. Anne's Church in 
 that parish, where his son Peter erected a monument to his 
 memory, with his bust in marble ; but both were destroyed in 
 the great fire in 1666. 
 
 Sir Antonio More visited England in the reign of Queen 
 Mary. He was sent here to paint the Queen's likeness by 
 Philip of Spain. He remained during the Queen's lifetime, and 
 then returned to Spain with Philip. He died at Antwerp, the 
 date of his death being very uncertain. It has been variously 
 stated as occurring any time from 1575 to 1588. He painted 
 the Queen both life-size and in miniature. Charles I. possessed 
 a portrait of Mary painted by More on a small round gold plate. 
 I have a miniature of Elizabeth as Princess, painted in body colour 
 on slate by his hand. 
 
 Frederic Zucchero arrived in England in 1574. He painted 
 Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
 Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, and others. A miniature 
 in my possession — William Duckett, in oil on copper — has 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 63 
 
 always borne the reputation in the Duckett family of being 
 Zucchero's work. 
 
 Tradition associates him with Nicholas Hilliard as instructing 
 a pupil destined to become greater than either of the masters — 
 Isaac Oliver. 
 
 Lucas de Heere worked in England in Elizabeth's reign, 
 though the date of his arrival is uncertain. There is no evidence 
 that he painted miniatures. The specimen assigned to him in the 
 Loan Collection of South Kensington, No. 950, has already been 
 discussed. We next come to the names mentioned by Heydock in 
 his tract (see page 7), Shute, Betts, &c. It is possible this Shute 
 is John Shute, who styles himself " Paynter and Architecte" in a 
 book written and published by him in 1563, called 'The First and 
 Chief Groundes of Architecture,' and dedicated to the Queen. 
 Nothing is known of his miniature work. There were two artists of 
 the name of Betts, John and Thomas. John is said to have been a 
 pupil of Hilliard's, and is called " Designer" in Hall's ' Chronicle of 
 the Year 1576.' Vertue mentions a miniature by him of Sir John 
 Godsalve, who was Controller of the Mint to Edward VI. Betts 
 could hardly have painted this miniature from life. The knight is 
 portrayed with spear and shield, and round the portrait is the legend, 
 " Captum in Castris ad Boloniam, 1540." Sir John, in fact, accom- 
 panied Henry VIII. in his expedition to Boulogne in that year. He 
 died in 1557. Now, if John Betts were a pupil of Hilliard, who was 
 born in 1547, he could hardly have painted a miniature of a man 
 who died in 1557. There is a likeness of Sir John Godsalve 
 amongst the Holbein heads at Windsor. There seems, indeed, to be 
 confusion everywhere as to the dates of John Betts. An oil head, 
 said to be by him, was exhibited in 1875 at the Old Masters 
 Exhibition of the Royal Academy, which was dated 1545. If 
 Betts were a pupil of Hilliard's, this head must have been painted 
 by him two years before Hilliard was born, which is, to say the 
 least, extraordinary. The fact is, that nothing reliable is known 
 about him. What was the exact relation between John and 
 Thomas Betts is uncertain. I am fortunate in possessing a specimen 
 of Thomas's work, ' John Digby, Earl of Bristol.' Judging by the 
 date of John Digby, I should be inclined to think that Thomas was 
 
6 4 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 the son of John Betts. But so little is known of these artists, and 
 works executed by them are so rare, that we have no ground for 
 more than a conjecture. The name is mentioned in the introduction 
 to the catalogue of the Loan Collection of miniatures of South 
 Kensington ; but the authorities were unable to procure a specimen 
 for exhibition. Pettrucio Waldini was by profession an illuminator, 
 but Vertue mentions a miniature of Sir Philip Sidney painted 
 by him. 
 
 In a curious book by Meres, called 'Wits' Commonwealth,' 
 published in London in 1598, is this entry: "As learned Greece 
 had those excellent artists renowned for their learning, so England 
 has three — Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, and John de Cretz — very famous 
 for their painting. So as Greece had, moreover, their painters, 
 and in England we have also these — William and Francis Segar, 
 brethren ; Thomas and John Betts ; Lockie, Lyne, Peake, Peter 
 Cole, Arnoldi, Marcus (Garrard) Jacques de Bruy, Cornelius, Peter 
 Golchi, Hieronium, and Peter Vandervelde." Most of these artists 
 have left no work by which they can be identified, though Lockie 
 painted a portrait of Dr. John King, Bishop of London, from 
 which Simon de Pass engraved a plate. John de Critz, or Cretz, 
 was sergeant painter to Charles I. The duties of that office 
 seem to have been of a varied description. What would a 
 Leighton or a Millais say to these entries ? " To John de Critz, 
 sergeant painter, for painting and gilding with good gold the body 
 and carriage of two coaches, and the carriage of one chariot, and 
 other necessaries, ^179 3s. \d., anno 1634." Here is another: 
 " John de Critz demandeth allowance for these parcells of worke 
 following, viz., for repayreing, refreshing, washing, and varnishing 
 the whole body of His Majesty's privy barge, &c, &c." Or this : 
 " For several times oyling and laying with fayre white a stone 
 for a sun-dial opposite to some part of the King and Queen's 
 lodging." Walpole gives the above extract from Meres, adding 
 this sage remark : "I quote this passage to prove to those who 
 learn one or two names by rote, that every old picture they see 
 is not by Holbein, nor every miniature by Hilliard or Oliver." 
 He might have added : "Nor every enamel by Petitot." 
 
 The Peake mentioned in the extract from Meres is doubtless 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 65 
 
 the Sir Robert Peake to be described further on. Vasari gives 
 the names of many miniaturists of this period, and one or two 
 of them have been already mentioned. Probably, however, the 
 greater number enumerated by him were rather illuminators than 
 miniature portrait painters. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 1 7th Century. 
 
 he 17th century, destined, as its years rolled on, to 
 witness the advent of some of the greatest masters 
 of the art, added but little, in its earlier time, to 
 the roll of miniature painters. James I. was not 
 an aesthetic King. Thanks to his early tuition 
 under the celebrated George Buchanan, Patrick 
 Young, and the Abbot of Cambus-Kenneth, he became a good 
 classical scholar, but he was essentially a pedant. Perhaps it was 
 just as well for art that he never sought to interfere with its 
 development, or endeavoured to impress any ideas of his own 
 upon its professors, but happily left it to take its own course. 
 He possessed shrewdness of a low vulgar type, but his in- 
 ordinate vanity largely neutralized his early training, and his 
 literary effusions both in verse and prose were as voluminous as 
 they were contemptible. It was certainly not for want of brilliant 
 artists that James's reign can show such scanty achievements 
 in art-work. Inigo Jones arrived in England in 1604, and 
 although he was at once appointed architect to the Queen 
 (Anne of Denmark) and Prince Henry, his talents were mainly 
 employed in designing the scenery and machinery of the Court 
 Masques. True, on his second visit to England, about 16 16, James 
 
VARIOUS MASTERS, 16th and ijtfi CENTURIES. 
 
 J. DUCKETT. 
 Zvtcherd. 
 
 Andrew Maryell. Samuel Butler. 
 
 Mrs. Beat. David Loggari. 
 
 Princess Elizabeth. Henrietta Maria. Edward VI. 
 
 Sir A. More. Vandyck. L. Teerlinck. 
 
 Mary, Queen of William III. 
 
 Leivis Crosse. 
 
 Lady Chesterfield. 
 N. Dixon. 
 
 Algernon Sidney. 
 
 /. Flatman. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 67 
 
 was seized with a sudden idea that he would like the finest palace 
 in Europe, and Inigo Jones supplied the plans. Had they been 
 carried out, judging by the designs, which were published by the 
 architect Kent in 1727, James would certainly have realized his 
 desire ; but unfortunately the King forgot to provide the money, 
 and only a small corner of the new buildings was commenced near 
 Charing Cross. George Heriot, the Edinburgh jeweller, was at 
 work as the leading goldsmith, and on intimate terms with the 
 King, who familiarly spoke of him as " Gingling Geordie," and 
 whose portrait was admirably drawn by Sir Walter Scott in ' The 
 Fortunes of Nigel.' The family of De Pass and Elstracke could 
 supply niellos and engravings. Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, and later, his 
 son Peter, the past masters of miniature, were in the full tide of 
 their powers, whilst Rubens, and probably Vandyck, were ready to 
 execute the King's commands, supposing they had been given ; and 
 yet, surrounded by this band of giants, how little record there is of 
 any grand work directly referable to the inspiration of the monarch. 
 His son, the gifted but unfortunate Prince Henry, was, however, 
 a true art connoisseur. He must have commenced collecting 
 works of art early in life, seeing that he died at the age of 
 nineteen, and yet left pictures, statues, coins, medals, &c, to 
 form the basis of the magnificent treasures accumulated during 
 the ensuing reign. The Duke of Buckingham, the " Steenie " 
 of James L, was a great collector, and taught the young Charles 
 his first lessons in art, which were destined to bear such prolific 
 fruit when that prince came to the throne. As regards minia- 
 turists, Hilliard and Isaac Oliver were still at work, the former 
 dying in 1619, the latter two years earlier, 1617. Later in 
 James's reign, Cornelius Jansen came to England (161 8). He 
 painted entirely in oil, and made many copies of his own large 
 works in miniature size. The celebrated miniature of Milton at 
 the age of ten, is by his hand. Another artist in this reign, who 
 painted miniatures, was Robert Peake, who appears to have 
 received payment for pictures from the Council of State as early 
 as 16 1 2. He was originally a print-seller on Holborn Bridge, and 
 had the honour of being Faithorne's master. 
 
 In James's reign, too, began the art- work of Peter Oliver, the 
 
 k 2 
 
6S 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 worthy son of a worthy sire, the eldest son of Isaac. The dates of 
 his birth and death are very uncertain. The former is generally put 
 in 1604. It must however have been earlier, for a miniature painting, 
 " Burial of Christ," by Isaac Oliver, left unfinished at Isaac's death, 
 was completed by Peter and bears his signature and date, 16 16. 
 
 This miniature painting is thus described in Charles's catalogue : 
 " A great limned piece of ' The burial of Christ,' which was invented 
 by Isaac Oliver, and was left unfinished at his decease, and now by 
 his Majesty's appointment finished by his son Peter Oliver." The 
 size of this great piece is given, \ \\ inches by 1 foot 3^ inches. In 
 the same catalogue, by the bye, is mentioned a copy of Raphael's 
 "St. George," dated 1628, by Peter Oliver, 9^ by 7 inches. This 
 was in the Hamilton Collection, and happily restored to the Royal 
 home at Windsor when the Hamilton treasures were dispersed in 
 1883. There is a difficulty here as to dates. Peter Oliver is said to 
 have finished the work left uncompleted at his father's death, and 
 signs his completed work 16 16. Isaac died in 161 7. How then 
 could Peter finish and date the picture a year before his father died ? 
 Again, if Peter was born in 1604, he would necessarily have been 
 twelve years of age when he finished and dated his father's picture, 
 which of course is incredible. 
 
 I have tried unsuccessfully to clear up this question. Thinking 
 the generally accepted date of Isaac's death might be erroneous, 
 I had the Wills Office at Somerset House searched for his will, 
 and find that the dates and contents are correctly given in Walpole's 
 ' Anecdotes of Painting.' It was drawn, June 4, 161 7, and proved 
 by his widow, Elizabeth Oliver, on October 30, 161 7, and the 
 following is an extract relating to his art work : — " Except all my 
 drawings alreadye finished and unfinished and Lymning pictures 
 be they historyes storyes or anything of Lymning whatsoever of 
 my owne hande worke as yet unfinished. All which I give and 
 bequeathe to my eldest sonne Peter yf he shall live and exercise 
 that arte or science which he and I nowe doe. But yf he shall 
 dye without yssue and not use the same arte then I will 
 that all the same Drawyngs only shall remayne to suche another 
 of my sonnes as will use and exercise that arte or science. Item 
 My will ys that my sayd sonne Peter shall have the first proffer of 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 69 
 
 the sale of my pictures that shall be soulde and fyve shillings in a 
 pounde cheaper than any will give for them." I am forced, there- 
 fore, to leave the dates as they are, though there certainly is an 
 error somewhere. 
 
 Redgrave says the probate of Peter Oliver's will was found, 
 bearing date 1660, but Mr. Cust, of the Print Department of 
 the British Museum, kindly furnished me with the following 
 extract: — " Vertue's MSS. Add. MSS. 23069, fol. 27. Search the 
 Office of Wills, for Peter Oliver, limner, who being weak and sick 
 at Isleworth, there made his will, appointing his wife Anne, sole 
 heir and executrix, left to her all his goods and effects of what 
 kind soever and his house in which he lived at Isleworth to her, to 
 do with as she pleased. December 12, 1647. This will was signed 
 only with his mark, being, I suppose, near his death, though in his 
 lifetime he wrote a curious neat hand." I was not inclined to put 
 unlimited faith in Redgrave's assertion, and was not sure whether 
 Vertue obtained his information from the Office of Wills, so I had a 
 search made on my own account, with the result that I find the will 
 was "Proved at London, 15 December 1648 by Anne Oliver, relict 
 and extrix." As the will is very short, I give it in extenso :- — 
 
 "(Somerset House, Essex, fol. 184). Will of Peter Oliver of 
 Isleworth, in the Countie of Midd., gentleman. Dated 12 Dec. 
 1647. I appoint my wife Anne Oliver sole executrix and doe 
 bequeath to her all my whole estate to be at her disposinge. 
 Item I doe give and bequeath unto my aforesaid wife the house 
 I nowe live in wholie to her for ever. 
 
 " The marke of Mr Peter Oliver. 
 
 " Witnesses, Clem. Billingsley and John Turner." 
 
 Thinking it probable he was buried at Isleworth, I had the 
 parish register searched, but no record of his burial appears. In 
 those troublous times registers were not always kept with scrupulous 
 care. I have since found out that the register of St. Anne's, 
 Blackfriars, contains the following entries, completely setting at 
 rest the vexed question of the dates of the deaths of both the 
 Olivers : — 
 
 " Isaack Oliver, buried 2 October, 161 7." 
 "Mr. Peter Oliver, buried 22 December, 1647." 
 
7o 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Russell, the painter, who was connected with the Oliver family, 
 related to Vertue the following anecdote. "He said that Charles II., 
 anxious to obtain all the specimens he could of Oliver's work, paid a 
 visit incognito to Peter's widow, immediately after his accession to 
 the throne. He was told by one Rogers of Isleworth that both the 
 father and son were dead, but that the son's widow was living at 
 Isleworth and had many of their works. The King went very 
 privately, and unknown, with Rogers to see them, the widow showed 
 several finished and unfinished, with many of which the King being 
 pleased asked if she would sell them. She replied, she had a mind 
 the King should see them first, and if he did not purchase them, she 
 would think of disposing of them. The King discovered himself, on 
 which she produced some more pictures which she seldom showed.* 
 The King desired her to set her price ; she said she did not care to 
 make a price with His Majesty, she would leave it to him; but 
 promised to look over her husband's books, and let His Majesty 
 know what prices his father the late King had paid. The King took 
 away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option 
 of ^iooo, or an annuity of ^"300 for life. She chose the latter. 
 Some years afterwards it happened that the King's mistresses 
 having begged all or most of these pictures, Mrs. Oliver, who was 
 probably a prude, and apt to express herself like one, said on hearing 
 it, that if she had thought the King would have given them to 
 such unworthy persons, he never should have had them. This 
 reached the Court, the poor woman's salary was stopped, and she 
 never received it afterwards." 
 
 Peter Oliver was largely employed by Charles I. to copy 
 pictures in the Royal Collection in water-colours, of miniature size, 
 Thirteen pieces of this description are catalogued by Vanderdort, 
 all bearing Peter's signature. Whether the son equalled the father 
 as a miniaturist is a moot point. I have examined carefully many 
 signed specimens by both artists, and as regards delineation of 
 
 * Walpole says: "It is extraordinary that more of the works of this excellent 
 master (Peter Oliver) are not known, as he commonly made duplicates of his pictures, 
 reserving one of each for himself." He gives, as his authority for saying this, the 
 painter Russell, mentioned above. The Rogers here mentioned, Walpole surmises 
 to have been a man named Progers, well known for being concerned in the King's 
 private pleasures. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 character, colouring or chiaroscuro, I confess I see very little 
 difference between their technical qualities ; but we must always 
 remember that the father was the first painter who struck out a new 
 path in portrait miniature, and imparted life and nature to the flat 
 shadowless work of the missal, an influence from which his contem- 
 porary Hilliard could never free himself. The wonderful " treasure- 
 trove " of the works of these artists, which occurred in Walpole's 
 time, is best told in his own words : " Since this work was first 
 published, a valuable treasure of the works of this master and of his 
 father Isaac was discovered in an old house in Wales, which belonged 
 to a descendant of Sir Kenelm Digby. The latest are dated 1633, 
 but being enclosed in ivory and ebony cases, and the whole collection 
 locked up in a wainscot box, they are as perfectly preserved as if 
 newly painted. They all represent Sir Kenelm and persons related 
 to or connected with him. There are three portraits of himself, six 
 of his beloved wife at different ages, and three triplicates of his 
 mistress, all three by Isaac Oliver, as is Lady Digby's mother, 
 which I have mentioned before. But the capital work is a large 
 miniature copied from Vandyck of Sir Kenelm, his wife and two 
 sons — the most beautiful piece of the size that I believe exists. 
 There is a duplicate of Sir Kenelm and Lady Digby from the same 
 picture, and though of not half the volume, still more highly 
 finished. The last piece is set in gold, richly inlaid with flowers in 
 enamel, and shuts like a book. All these, with several others, I 
 purchased at a great price, but they are not to be matched." 
 
 William Faithorne, the engraver, born in London, in what year 
 is uncertain, was a pupil of Peake's, and accompanied him to the 
 Civil War, in the King's service. He was made prisoner at the 
 taking of Basing-House, confined some time in Aldersgate, and then 
 permitted to retire to France. He returned to England in 1650, 
 and continued his engraving and print-selling until 1680, when he 
 retired to a more private life in Printing House Yard. Whilst in 
 Paris, Robert Nanteuil instructed him in drawing portraits ad vivum 
 in crayons and plumbago. Graham says he learned painting from 
 Philip de Champagne at the same time, and that on his return to 
 England painted miniatures. I have seen several small heads in 
 crayons and plumbago signed by him, but know nothing of his 
 
72 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 water-colour miniatures. His crayon portraits are admirable, and I 
 see no reason to doubt his power of painting miniatures. He died 
 in 1 69 1. One of his sons followed his profession, but fell into 
 dissipated habits, and died at the age of thirty. 
 
 Theodore Russell is credited by some authorities with having 
 painted miniatures. He was the nephew of Cornelius Jansen, 
 whose sister married Nicasius Russel, or Roussel, of Bruges, jeweller 
 to James I. and Charles I. Theodore, the eldest son, was born in 
 1 614, and worked with his uncle, and afterwards with Vandyck, 
 whose pictures he copied " in little." I can find no record of his 
 having attempted miniature portraits ad vivum. There are speci- 
 mens of his Vandyck copies at Windsor, Warwick Castle, &c. His 
 son, Antony Russell, also a painter, told Vertue the story of Charles 
 II.'s visit to the widow of Peter Oliver. A sort of connection 
 existed between the Russell and Oliver families, one of Antony 
 Russell's uncles was godson of Isaac Oliver's widow. 
 
 In 1625 Charles I. came to the throne. Probably no reign in 
 English history has given rise to greater diversity of opinion as 
 regards its political events, but even his sternest critics will hardly 
 deny that to Charles I. we owe the inauguration of a golden age 
 in art, and the creation of a sound, good taste, which, up to that 
 time, had been utterly wanting in England. 
 
 Elizabeth was pompous, but avaricious ; James I., lavish to 
 favourites, but, in all other respects, mean to a degree, and, as we 
 have seen, without a spark of the feu sacri in his nature. Charles 
 alone patronised art from an innate love of all that was beautiful 
 and true. From the universality of his knowledge and his practical 
 acquaintance with the technical details of nearly every art, he 
 never failed to appreciate true ability, or to foster talent wherever 
 he found it. Naturally, miniature painting shared in the general 
 renaissance, and some of its greatest masters made their first 
 appearance under his auspices, and were indebted to him personally 
 for their advancement. 
 
 At the beginning of Charles's reign, a name appears which does 
 not strictly belong to our subject, but is of interest in the art records 
 of the time, for to him we owe the Catalogue of Charles the First's 
 treasures of all kinds : — 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 73 
 
 Abraham Vanderdort, a Dutchman, brought over to this 
 country a bust of a woman, modelled in wax, as large as life, and 
 showed it to Prince Henry, who was so struck with it and the artist 
 that he immediately appointed him keeper of his medals, at a salary 
 of ^50 a year. The death of the young Prince soon put an end to 
 the engagement, but, as soon as Charles ascended the throne, 
 Vanderdort was retained in his service with a salary of £^0 a year, 
 and 5.9. 6d. a day as board wages, and appointed keeper of the 
 Royal Cabinet. The poor man's end was tragic. The King told 
 him to take particular care of a miniature by Gibson, " The parable 
 of the lost sheep." Vanderdort hid it so carefully that when the 
 King asked him for it he could not find it, and hanged himself in 
 despair. After his death his executors found and restored it to 
 the King. 
 
 Another name connected with art, rises almost instinctively to 
 one's mind whilst writing on these subjects : — 
 
 Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, must ever remain a prominent 
 figure in the history of great collectors. He was the first man who 
 professedly set to work to form a collection of art-work in this 
 country, and led the way for Prince Henry, King Charles, the Duke 
 of Buckingham, and others. He employed agents to scour the 
 world for all that was beautiful and rare, a service which in those 
 days was by no means free from personal risk, as one of his agents 
 discovered to his cost. A Mr. Petty, whilst returning from Samos 
 with a cargo of Greek sculpture, was overtaken by a violent storm, 
 lost all his Greek statues, was himself imprisoned as a spy, and, with 
 great difficulty, at length obtained his release. Even the ruins of 
 this glorious collection have attained a world-wide celebrity. The 
 Greek statues and marbles, inherited by the Duchess of Norfolk, 
 were sold to the Earl of Pomfret, and presented by the Dowager 
 Countess to the University of Oxford, where they are known as the 
 Arundelian Marbles. The cameos and intaglios, the Duchess of 
 Norfolk bequeathed to her second husband, Sir John Germayne. 
 His widow, Walpole's " Lady Betty," gave them to Lord Charles 
 Spencer, on his marriage to her great niece, Miss Beauclerc. Lord 
 Charles gave them to his brother the Duke of Marlborough. They 
 contained amongst them the priceless gem : " The marriage of Cupid 
 
 L 
 
74 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 and Psyche," and have long been known as " The Marlborough 
 gems ; " but, alas, their old home knows them no more ! The great 
 and lasting influence exercised by Vandyck upon the English School 
 of Portraiture, must be the excuse for devoting a few lines to him. 
 although he cannot strictly be classed amongst the subjects of this 
 memoir. Walpole mentions a miniature head of him in oil, done 
 by his own hand ; three or four specimens were shown at South 
 Kensington attributed to him, and I have Henrietta Maria, un- 
 doubtedly by him. In the preceding century, Holbein formed the 
 starting-point, whence the portrait painters immediately succeeding 
 drew their inspiration, but it must be remembered that in the 16th 
 century no school, so to speak, of portraiture existed. It was quite 
 the dawn of the day of face-painting, to use an old expression. 
 Holbein's work shows such abundant traces of the Van Eyck, or 
 Flemish school, that no just comparison can be drawn between 
 the masters of the two epochs. Another circumstance must be 
 taken into consideration. The costume of the two periods was so 
 different, that whilst the one found himself surrounded by ugliness, 
 stiffness and unnatural treatment generally, the other revelled in the 
 flowing locks and graceful garments of the Charles period. The 
 wives of Henry VIII. seemed to consider a head of hair as a thing 
 to be hidden as completely as possible under the hideous coif then 
 in fashion. The ladies of Charles's time, following the fashion 
 introduced by Henrietta Maria from the Court of Henry IV., 
 treated this natural ornament of woman in the happy medium 
 between the coif of Henry VIII. and the monstrous erections of the 
 early Georges. It was not wonderful, therefore, that when men 
 first beheld the features of those well known to them depicted on 
 the canvas of Vandyck, full of the subtle light and shade, the delicate 
 nuances of chiaroscuro, and the warm tints of nature, a new reve- 
 lation should seem to be presented to them, and that from that 
 moment portraiture should awake into a new life. Mr. Wornum 
 says that Vandyck was in London in 162 1, working for James I. 
 It is certain that, on the 17th February of that year, an order was 
 issued on the English Exchequer to pay to " Anthony Vandike the 
 sum of one hundred pounds by way of reward for special services by 
 him pformed for his Ma tie ." This may refer to the whole-length 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 75 
 
 portrait of James at Windsor, the head of which has always been 
 attributed to Vandyck. Also on the 28th of the same month there 
 was issued "A passe for Anthonie Van Dyck, gent., his Ma ties 
 servaunt, to travaile for 8 months, he having obtained his Ma tle ' s leave 
 in that behalf, as was signifyed by the E. of Arundell." This entry 
 certainly looks as though Vandyck was not only in England, but in 
 the regular pay of the Crown. 
 
 Very soon after this he went to Italy, where he remained about 
 four years. He was again in Antwerp at the end of 1626, and 
 worked continuously there during 1627, 8, and 9, in the latter year 
 producing the " Armida and Rinaldo " for Charles I. Thence he 
 visited Holland, on which occasion he and Franz Hals took each 
 other's portrait. Negotiations were now opened with Vandyck by 
 Charles's desire, through Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of 
 Arundel, to induce him to return to England, the King having been 
 moved thereto, by seeing a portrait of Nicholas Laniere, which is 
 now in the possession of the Duke of Westminster. This portrait 
 was described in the catalogue of the King's pictures as " Ye picture 
 of Nicholas Laneer, master of his Maj tie ' s musick, half a figure in a 
 carved all over gilded frame." About the end of March or the 
 beginning of April, 1632, Vandyck arrived in England ; he was 
 almost immediately appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to the 
 King, knighted and installed at Blackfriars, with apartments in 
 Eltham Palace, and received a pension of ^200 a year, which, 
 however, seems to have been paid very irregularly. He died on 
 the 9th of December, 1641, and was buried on the north side of 
 the Choir of old St. Paul's. 
 
 His works are very numerous ; he painted the King, his wife 
 and family many times, including that curious portrait of Charles 
 in three positions on one canvas. Charles was anxious to have his 
 bust executed by Bernini the Italian sculptor, and Vandyck was 
 commissioned to prepare this working portrait for the sculptor's 
 use. The bust was finished, and is supposed to have perished in 
 the great fire at Whitehall in 1698.* In enumerating the works 
 
 * A bronze, supposed to have been taken from this bust, stands in the corridor at 
 Windsor, and a weak late copy in marble is in the Vandyck Room. I am not con- 
 versant with Bernini's work, but if the bust of Charles may be taken as a specimen 
 
 L 2 
 
7 6 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 of Vandyck, we must not forget to mention the wonderful series 
 of etched heads executed by him. For decision and character no 
 finer work has ever been done. 
 
 He also drew a design of the history and procession of the 
 order of the Garter to adorn the walls of the banqueting hall at 
 Whitehall, the ceiling of which had been painted by Rubens. It 
 is surely a curious instance of the irony of fate that, on that cold 
 grey morning in January 1649, Charles should have stepped forth 
 for the last time from that same banqueting hall, in the home he 
 had loved so well, and which, in the plenitude of his power, he 
 had dreamed of making the most splendid palace in Europe. Had 
 the unfortunate monarch secured the stability of his throne by 
 infusing into his government the same liberal ideas which he 
 entertained towards the arts, the dream would have been easy to 
 realise, seeing that he had ready to his hand a combination of 
 talent not often found existing together : Inigo Jones, Rubens and 
 Vandyck. 
 
 One of the earliest miniaturists of the time was Sir Balthazar 
 Gerbier, painter and architect, a second-rate artist and a very 
 worthless personage. He was originally a retainer in the service of 
 the Duke of Buckingham, and is called by Sanderson a common 
 penman. He attended Buckingham in a mission to Spain, and 
 there is a curious letter extant from the Duchess to her Lord, 
 wherein she says : "I pray you if you have any idle time, sit to 
 Gerbier for your picture, that I may have it well done in little." He 
 wormed himself into the favour of Charles I. and seems to have been 
 as much employed in the diplomatic dirty work of these intriguing 
 times as with his pencil. He was knighted by the King in 1628. 
 
 John Hoskins was a fine miniature painter, but it is singular 
 how little is really known of his history. The only authentic record 
 is in Graham's English School, where we are only told, " that he 
 was bred a face-painter in oil, but afterwards taking to miniature, 
 far exceeded what he did before ; that he drew the king, his queen, 
 and most of his court, and had two considerable disciples, Alexander 
 
 of his powers, he was but a poor performer, and did but scant justice to the fine 
 painting Vandyck gave him as a model, and which now hangs in the Vandyck Room 
 at Windsor. 
 
Lady Cathkrinf. Howard. 
 
 y. Hoskiiis. 
 
 John Digby, Earl of Bristol. Charles I. 
 
 T. Betts. R. Gibson. 
 
 Earl of Devonshire. 
 B. Lens. 
 
I 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 77 
 
 and Samuel Cooper, the latter of whom became much the more 
 eminent limner." There is a tradition of a son of the same name, 
 and the difference in the signature is supposed to mark the two, but 
 unfortunately I have seen three different manners of disposing the 
 I.H., thus : H. ijl., I H. If one son is needed to account for the 
 difference, why not two, seeing that there are three known signa- 
 tures ? The son's name is nowhere mentioned in any book of 
 reference ; Redgrave, however, says the son painted a miniature 
 of James II. If this be so, of course the existence of a son is 
 sufficiently proved, but he does not give his authority for the 
 assertion. 
 
 Cornelius Poelemberg, celebrated for the smoothness and finish 
 of his pictures, is mentioned in Charles's Catalogue, as the painter 
 of miniatures in oil, of the King and the children of the King of 
 Bohemia ; and eight more miniatures, by the same hand, are placed 
 in the Catalogue of James II. The works of George Jamesone are 
 little known in England, but he was called the Vandyck of Scotland, 
 and indeed they were fellow-pupils under Rubens at Antwerp. He 
 painted large portraits, history and landscape, as well as minia- 
 ture. When Charles visited Scotland in 1633, the Magistrates of 
 Edinburgh, knowing his Majesty's taste, employed Jamesone to make 
 drawings of the Scottish Monarchs ; with which the King was so 
 much pleased, that, enquiring for the painter, he sat to him, and 
 rewarded him with a diamond ring from his own finger. Samuel 
 Butler, the author of ' Hudibras,' is credited with having painted 
 miniatures, the author going on to say, " for which, also, he was 
 afterwards entirely beloved by Mr. Samuel Cooper, one of the 
 most eminent limners of his time." 
 
 Francesco Cleyn cannot for himself claim place here as a 
 miniaturist, but he was the father of several artists in this branch. 
 On a small print of the father, etched by one of the sons, 
 Evelyn wrote : "A most pious man, father of two sons who were 
 incomparable painters in little ; all died in London." 
 
 He also had a daughter named Penelope. Vertue mentions 
 a miniature "like Cooper's manner, but not so well, of Dorothea, 
 youngest daughter of Richard Cromwell, Oct. 4, 1688, signed 
 P.C." Francesco, the father, was the painter of the beautiful 
 
78 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 grotesques associated with his name, and was appointed by 
 Charles, designer of the Tapestry Works at Mortlack (Mortlake). 
 
 Of the two Coopers, nephews and pupils of John Hoskins, 
 Alexander, the elder brother, went abroad and resided some years 
 in Amsterdam, and at last entered the service of Queen Christina. 
 Samuel Cooper was rather the painter of the Commonwealth 
 and Charles II., but he was at work well within this reio-n 
 having been born 1609. Cooper lived and painted for many 
 years in France and Holland, probably the early years of his 
 artistic life, which would account for the few works bearing his 
 name, before the Commonwealth. After he painted Cromwell, 
 the dates on his portraits of English Characters carry him on 
 pretty continuously till his death in 1672. 
 
 To this consummate artist must be as freely given the 
 supremacy in miniature, as to Vandyck in large portraits, or to 
 Petitot in enamel. No one ever approached him in his power 
 of endowing a water-colour miniature with all the strength, 
 breadth, and freedom of oil. It is perhaps too much to say that 
 without a Vandyck, we should not have had a Cooper. The 
 latter was an original genius, who would have come to the front 
 under any circumstances, but the influence of the great Fleming 
 is apparent throughout all Cooper's work. 
 
 Walpole has very happily expressed Cooper's merit thus : "If 
 a glass could expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's 
 they would appear to have been painted for that proportion. If 
 his portrait of Cromwell could be so enlarged, I do not know but 
 Vandyck would appear less great by the comparison." I have not 
 seen the Cromwell, but the truth of Walpole's remarks must be equally 
 apparent to any one who has ever seen the magnificent General 
 Monk, or Duke of Monmouth, in the Royal Collection at Windsor. 
 
 His works still remaining to us are very numerous, though the 
 well-known story of destruction, in the time of Queen Anne, must 
 have accounted for a good many more. Sir Andrew Fountaine, the 
 well-known collector of that period, had got together a prodigious 
 number of the works of Hilliard, the Olivers, Cooper, &c, and 
 awaiting the preparation of a home for them at Narford, had hired 
 two rooms at White's Coffee House, St. James's Street, wherein to 
 
Lord Fairfax. 
 
 S. Cooper. 
 
 Sir I. Maynard. 
 
 Cooper. 
 
 Earl ok Southampton. : 
 
 .9. Cooler. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 John Thurloe. „ 
 
 J S. Cooper. 
 
 Earl of Dartmouth. & Cooper. 
 
 S. Cooper. 
 
 Col. Ljlburn. 
 
 S. Cooper. 
 
 Thomas May. 
 
 S. Cooper. 
 
 Col. Duckett. 
 
 S. Cooper. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 79 
 
 deposit them. The house was entirely burnt down, and everything 
 perished. So numerous were the miniatures, that it was considered 
 worth while to sift the ashes, for the gold of the mountings. 
 
 Another artist coming within this reign was the curious little 
 personage, Richard Gibson, the dwarf. He was page to a lady at 
 Mortlake, and was placed by her with Francesco Cleyn, then 
 director of the tapestry works, to learn drawing. He succeeded 
 so well that Charles patronized him largely. 
 
 It was mentioned on a previous page, that a miniature painting 
 of the " Good Shepherd " by Gibson, was the cause of poor Vander- 
 dort's death. Gibson was three feet, ten inches high, and married 
 Anne Shepherd, the same height as himself. The nuptials were 
 celebrated in the presence of the King and Queen, who promised 
 the bride a diamond ring, but the Civil troubles arising soon after, 
 she never received it. Gibson died in 1690, aged 75, and his small 
 wife lived until 1709, when she was 89 years of age. They had 
 nine children, five of whom survived and grew to an average size. 
 Two of the same were also miniature painters, namely, — 
 
 Edward Gibson, a son of the dwarf, taught by his father and 
 Sir Peter Lely, and William Gibson, a nephew, who must have 
 amassed considerable means, as he bought the greater part of Sir 
 Peter Lely's collection after his death. There was also a daughter 
 of Richard Gibson, Susan Penelope, who married a jeweller named 
 Rose. She painted miniatures in water-colours, of rather a large 
 size. She belongs properly to the latter part of the 1 7th century, 
 but I have inserted a notice of her here, to connect her with the 
 other members of the Gibson family. She died in 1 700. Walpole 
 mentions one or two miniatures by her. An Ambassador of Morocco, 
 who sat to her and to Sir Godfrey Kneller at the same time, and 
 a portrait of Bishop Burnet, in his robes as Chancellor of the 
 Garter. 
 
 A signature D.D.G. appears on some miniatures of this period. 
 David de Grange. He was also an engraver. I can find no special 
 particulars of his life, and, if his engravings were no better than his 
 miniatures, it is hardly necessary to spend time in searching for 
 details of so poor an artist. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 i *]th Century — continued. 
 
 o sooner had Parliament got the upper hand in the 
 Civil struggle with the King, than their fury seemed 
 to vent itself even upon the art-works which belonged 
 to the unfortunate monarch. As early as 1645, they 
 commenced with the contents of York House, and 
 forsooth must invest themselves with a flimsy cloak 
 of religion to hide their iconoclastic nakedness. 
 
 Here are some votes passed on July 23, of that year, which 
 speak volumes : — 
 
 " Ordered that all such pictures and statues there (York 
 House), as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith sold, 
 for the benefit of Ireland and the North. 
 
 " Ordered that all such pictures there, as have the representation 
 of the Second Person in Trinity upon them, be forthwith burnt. 
 
 " Ordered that all such pictures there, as have the representa- 
 tion of the Virgin Mary upon them, be forthwith burnt." 
 
 Immediately after the death of the King, several votes 
 were passed for the sale of his goods, pictures, statues, &c. 
 
 It is due to Cromwell to say that, as soon as he possessed 
 sole power, he did his best to stop the indiscriminate dispersion 
 of the King's property, and Ludlow, by his orders, prevented 
 the sale of Hampton Court. He also saved the Royal Library 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 81 
 
 at St. James's, which had been chiefly formed by James I., and 
 contained, amongst other rarities, many priceless MSS., to which 
 Prince Henry had added a large number of coins, medals, gems, &c. 
 
 Notwithstanding Cromwell's good intentions, the House pro- 
 ceeded to vote that the personal estate of the late King, Queen 
 and Prince should be inventoried, appraised and sold, except 
 such parcels of them as should be thought fit to be reserved for 
 the State. The jewels connected with the Crown were locked up, 
 immediately after the King's death, though many had been sold 
 by Charles to raise money for arms, &c. ; amongst those thus dis- 
 posed of, was the wonderful collar of rubies, which had belonged 
 to Henry VIII., and appears in most of the likenesses of that 
 monarch. A large pearl which Charles always wore in his ear, 
 was in the collection of the Duchess of Portland, having been 
 presented to the Earl of Portland by William III. 
 
 The sale lasted up to August 9, 1653. In the middle of the 
 last century, a catalogue was discovered, in an old house in 
 Moorfields, of the whole of the goods thus sold by auction. There 
 were included in the sale, the furniture of nineteen palaces, and the 
 total proceeds are set down at ^118,080 \os. 2d. Considering the 
 enormous quantity, as well as great excellence of the collection, 
 this sum represents a very inadequate result, and leaves a 
 large margin, which can only be accounted for by robbery and 
 trickery of every kind. Cromwell's name appears as the purchaser 
 of the Raphael cartoons at Hampton Court, for a sum of ^300. 
 Notwithstanding the havoc thus made, a certain remnant must 
 have remained in their old homes, for the Catalogue of James II. 
 contains notices of many pictures which had been in the Royal 
 Collection. Nearly the whole of these were, however, destroyed in 
 the great fire at Whitehall in 1698. A good many also were carried 
 off to Lisbon by Charles II.'s widow, the Portuguese Catherine. 
 
 The transitional period of the Commonwealth adds not one 
 name to our lists of miniaturists. The spirit of the Puritans was 
 essentially destructive. Beauty in their eyes means idolatry, a 
 thing to be destroyed and got rid of ; a spirit amply exemplified 
 in that curious entry in Aubrey's History of Surrey, where "one 
 Bleese, was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted 
 
 M 
 
82 
 
 A JIJ STORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 glass windows of the church at Croydon." Let us hope he took 
 plenty of time to fulfil his contract. 
 
 The destructive work, commenced with such zest by the 
 Reformers of Henry VIII., was busily carried on by their worthy 
 successors of the Commonwealth, and, as the result of their united 
 efforts, the world is certainly the poorer, but is man any the 
 better ? 
 
 With the restoration of Royalty, in the person of Charles II., 
 the arts again began to flourish, though it must be confessed the 
 taste, which had distinguished the reign of his father, did not return. 
 Charles II. introduced the fashions of the Court of France, without 
 their elegance. The monarch's licentious nature tinged everything, 
 from literature to women's dress ; the latter being fully described in 
 a Puritan tract, published in 1678, and entitled : " Just and reasonable 
 reprehensions of naked breasts and shoulders." As Vandyck was 
 the presiding genius of portraiture in the preceding reign, so Sir 
 Peter Lely * was the model painter of Charles II. He came to 
 England in 1641, and painted Charles I. at Hampton Court. The 
 picture is now at Sion House. Oliver Cromwell also sat to him, 
 but it is as the delineator of the rather_wanton beauties of Charles II. 
 that he is best known. He caught the reigning character, and 
 
 On animated canvas stole 
 The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul. 
 
 He seldom painted men, but I have two small pieces of General 
 Monk, and Prince Rupert, which bear witness to his power 
 of doing so, when he condescended to leave the fair sex. He 
 taught nearly all the portrait painters of this period, both in 
 great and little. In that wonderful store-house of contemporary 
 gossip, Pepys' Diary, we are given many curious bits of information 
 about the artists of his time, Cooper, Lely, &c. : — 
 
 1668, March 30. "To Mr. Cooper's house to see some of 
 his work, which is all in little, but so excellent, as though I 
 must confess, I do think the colouring of the flesh to be a 
 little forced, yet the painting is so extraordinary, as I do never 
 
 * Lely's family name was Van der Faes. His father acquired the name of Lely 
 from having lodged in a house at Soest, in Westphalia (where he was stationed in 
 garrison), the front of which bore the emblem of a lily. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 83 
 
 expect to see the like again. Among the rest of the pictures was 
 one Swinfen, that was Secretary to My Lord Manchester, Lord 
 Chamberlain, done so admirably as I never saw anything ; but 
 the misery was, this fellow died in debt, and never paid Cooper 
 for his picture, but it being seized on by his creditors among his 
 other goods after his death, Cooper says that he did himself buy 
 it and give £2^ out of his purse for it, for what he was to have 
 had but ^"30." 
 
 Cooper painted Pepys' wife : and there is the entry : "He 
 hath £^0 for his work, and the crystal and gold case comes to 
 £8 35. \d. and which I sent him this night, that I might be out 
 of debt." 
 
 An entry in Evelyn's Diary gives a curious insight into 
 Cooper's practice of taking likenesses for medals or coins. He 
 says: "January 10, 1662. Being called into his Majesty's Closet 
 when Mr. Cooper, ye rare limner, was crayonning of the King's 
 face and head, to make the stamps by, for the new milled money 
 now contriving, I had the honour to hold the candle whilst it 
 was doing, he choosing the night and candlelight for ye better 
 finding out the shadows." 
 
 This finding out the shadows was the natural result of 
 Vandyck's full chiardsairo, in contrast with the flat, shadowless 
 faces of Elizabeth's, and James's time. Pepys mentions sitting to 
 Hales and says : " I do sit to have it full of shadows, and do almost 
 break my neck looking over my shoulder." He paid Hales £14. 
 for the picture, and £1 14X for the frame. 
 
 This Hales, or as generally written, Hayls, must have had an 
 excellent opinion of himself ; he took to miniature painting when 
 Cooper tried his hand at oil, and threatened to continue unless 
 Cooper desisted. Cooper did desist, probably not so much from 
 fright of Hales' terrible threat, as from finding the new medium 
 not so congenial to his taste as the water colour to which he was 
 used. Yet he could paint well in oil. The General Fairfax in 
 my possession in oil on copper, was long an unknown portrait, 
 and supposed to be by Vandyck, until an old engraving taken 
 from the miniature turned up, and told us who was the sitter, and 
 that the painter was Samuel Cooper. 
 
 M 2 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Pepys gives a lively picture of the popularity of Sir Peter 
 Lely, or as he calls him " Lilly," and the grandeur of his esta- 
 blishment : "October 20, with Commissioner Pett to Mr. Lilly's, 
 the great painter, who came forth to us, but believing that I came 
 to bespeak a picture, he prevented it, by telling me that he 
 should not be at leisure these three weeks, which methinks is a 
 rare thing. And then to see in what pomp his table was laid 
 for himself to go to dinner." 
 
 Here is another : " 1667, March 25 — Called at Mr. Lely's, who 
 was working, and, indeed, his pictures are, without doubt, much 
 beyond Mr. Hales's, I think, I may say I am convinced ; but a 
 mighty proud man he is and full of state." 
 
 I must not forget to mention amongst the curiosities of 
 miniature, portraits in needlework, an art which has long since died 
 out, but was much in vogue during the Charles' reigns. I have a 
 Charles I. beautifully executed with needle and silk, which has been 
 an heirloom in the Buller family since it was worked by the Princess 
 Elizabeth at Carisbrook Castle, during her father's last imprisonment 
 there. Another portrait of Charles was exhibited at the Winter 
 Exhibition of the Royal Academy a few years ago, so finely done 
 that it required a lens to say accurately whether the needle or 
 brush had produced the result. I have heard of a Cromwell equally 
 fine, but have never seen it. 
 
 There is another variety in the rendering of Charles' portrait. 
 His long locks, cut off for the convenience of the executioner, were 
 dipped in his blood on the scaffold, and afterwards worked up into 
 the likeness of the Royal Martyr. Several are supposed to have 
 been made, but one especially was shown at South Kensington in 
 1865, by the late Dowager Lady Shelley, which had been in her 
 family since Charles' death. 
 
 Amongst the most interesting miniaturists of this reign, was 
 Mary Beale, like so many others, a pupil of Sir Peter Lely. She 
 was the daughter of Mr. Cradock, a clergyman of Walton-on- 
 Thames, and during her life seemed to be especially patronised by 
 the clergy. The details of her life are more fully known than 
 those of most artists, owing to the fact of her husband keeping a 
 most minute diary of all her doings. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 85 
 
 Many of these diaries came into the possession of the inde- 
 fatigable Vertue, who gives copious extracts from them in his 
 manuscripts. The names of the sitters, the prices obtained, the 
 income derived each year from her profession, are all fully stated, 
 and interesting items of general information crop up here and there, 
 such as: "Sunday, May 5, 1672: Mr. Samuel Cooper, the most 
 famous limner of the world, for a face, dyed." The most lucrative 
 year she ever had, realised to her ^429. 
 
 The Beales were very religious, and seem to have carried 
 out literally the precept of giving away a tithe of their income ; 
 for various entries relate to the sum put by for charitable uses, 
 always amounting to two shillings in the pound of their income. 
 Her son, Charles Beale, also painted in miniature, but failing sight 
 soon obliged him to give up work. 
 
 Thomas Flatman combined miniature painting with the law 
 and writing poetry. His miniatures are better than his poems. 
 Indeed Vertue pronounced him equal to Hoskins, next to Cooper, 
 and, undoubtedly, he painted remarkably well. 
 
 He seems to have been on intimate terms with the Beales, as 
 his name frequently appears in the diaries. To judge by his portrait 
 by John Hales, he must have been a remarkably handsome man. 
 
 The union of his three occupations, law, painting, and poetry, 
 seem to have given rise to various epigrams, complimentary and 
 the reverse. Mr. Oldys writes : — 
 
 " Should Flatman or his client strain the laws, 
 The painter gives some colour to the cause ; 
 Should critics censure what the poet writ, 
 The Pleader quits him at the bar of wit." 
 
 Rochester, on the other hand, thinks but little of his poetry. 
 
 " Not that slow drudge, in swift Pindaric strains, 
 Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains, 
 And rides a jaded muse, whipt, with loose reins." 
 
 Amongst other artists who painted miniatures combined with 
 other work, we may mention Samuel van Hoogstraten, chiefly a 
 painter of still life, but also of many small portraits. Houbraken, 
 the engraver, learned drawing from him. 
 
 John Greenhill, the most promising of Lely's scholars, occasion- 
 
86 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 all)' painted in little. The Charles II., and Catherine of Braganza in 
 my possession are by him. At first, very industrious, he soon fell 
 into a dissolute course of life and died in the flower of his age. 
 
 Miss Anne Killigrew was another instance of the union of 
 painting and poetry, and, like Flatman, succeeded better in the 
 former than the latter occupation. She painted James II. and Mary 
 of Modena in miniature, and also a likeness of herself, which was 
 well spoken of. 
 
 Gaspard Netscher, a pupil of Terburg, was invited to England 
 by Sir William Temple, and painted several miniatures here, in oil 
 on copper. Herbert Tuer, a grand-nephew of George Herbert, the 
 poet, has left some miniatures by his hand, said by Vertue to possess 
 considerable merit. 
 
 John Dixon painted both in miniature and crayons, but chiefly the 
 former. Late in life, he became concerned in a bubble lottery, Queen 
 Anne, then princess, being a large ticket-holder : the affair turned 
 out a failure, and Dixon was ruined. He retired to the country, where 
 he died in 171 5. There are miniatures signed " N.D. Nathaniel 
 Dixon." I can find no record of him in any book of reference. 
 
 William Hassell is another miniaturist of the period about 
 whom little is known. Vertue mentions a portrait signed by W. H. 
 1685, which was engraved by Vanderbank, and falsely said to be the 
 Earl of Marr. 
 
 Matthew Snelling was a gentleman who took to miniature 
 painting for amusement, and being evidently by nature a ladies' man, 
 would never consent to portray the stronger sex. He is mentioned 
 by Mr. Beale in one of his diaries, as sending presents of colours to 
 Mrs. Beale, and Cooper painted his portrait. This list includes all 
 that is known of miniature painters of this reign, but there are some 
 very charming portraits executed in lead pencil, or, as the name then 
 was, "plumbago," which, for beauty of work, come very near the 
 ordinary water colour. Indeed, considering the absence of colour to 
 help the effect, and the rather intractable nature of a lead pencil, 
 they are in their way more surprising performances than that form of 
 miniature best known to us. Let any one even of considerable 
 artistic talent, take a pencil and piece of vellum or paper, and try to 
 copy the Samuel Butler, which is either by David Loggan or George 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 87 
 
 White, and they will soon learn to respect the cunning hand which 
 could do so much with such slight means. 
 
 The men who practised this method were really engravers, who 
 drew these portraits from life, for the purpose of subsequent 
 engraving. David Loggan, George White and his son Robert all 
 worked in this manner. Thomas Forster has left many portraits of 
 this nature, but whether he was an engraver or not, is uncertain, as 
 there is no account of him anywhere, as far as I know. Robert 
 Nanteuil, the celebrated French engraver, drew nearly all the 
 portraits he took from the life, in the same way. 
 
 The short and turbulent reign of James II. was not favourable 
 to art. The King himself was partial to it, but the disturbed 
 political atmosphere left him small leisure to devote to it. Never- 
 theless a few names appear which must be noted. 
 
 William de Keisar, a jeweller of Antwerp, painted in miniature, 
 enamel and oil. He came to England under the auspices of 
 Lord Melfort, and was so well received here, that he gave up his 
 establishment at Antwerp, and settled in England. Shortly after, 
 the revolution occurred ; his business left him, and the pursuit of 
 the philosopher's stone, to which he had recourse in his despair, 
 completed his ruin. He died at the age of forty-five, but left a 
 daughter, who followed her father's profession. 
 
 He was not the only painter who was diverted from his 
 legitimate work, by the ignis fatuus of the philosopher's stone ; even 
 the great Vandyck himself, led on by Sir Kenelm Digby, neglected 
 his pencil, and spent much time and money in his later years, in the 
 futile search for this crowning joy of life. 
 
 A young Italian, named Francati, attained considerable repu- 
 tation by his miniatures in pen and ink ; he drew the King and 
 Queen and several members of the Court. 
 
 The reign of William III. was prolific in portrait painters, but 
 produced few miniaturists. 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller occupied the chief place, as Vandyck and 
 Lely had in previous reigns. The story of Kneller's first intro- 
 duction to royalty is amusing. It was in the year 1674. The 
 Duke of Monmouth saw and admired a portrait of his secretary 
 which Kneller had painted, and prevailed on Charles II. to sit to 
 
88 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 him just at the time that Lely was to paint the King, as a present 
 to the Duke of York. Charles, with characteristic laziness, and 
 unwilling to have double trouble, proposed that both artists should 
 draw him at the same time. Lely, as the established favourite, 
 chose the best light ; the stranger was to draw him as he could, 
 and performed his work with such facility and expedition, that he 
 had finished the portrait before Lely completed his first ground tints. 
 Kneller had the honour of reckoning ten Sovereigns among his 
 sitters. He painted Charles II., James II., and his Queen, William 
 and Mary, Anne, George I., Louis XIV., Peter the Great, and 
 the Emperor Charles VI. 
 
 He commenced under the happiest auspices, having received 
 instruction from Bol, Rembrandt, and Franz Hals, but he imitated 
 none of them. 
 
 Kneller had quite sufficient of the " feu sacre," to have placed 
 himself amongst the first rank of portrait painters. Some of his 
 heads have all the freedom and nature of Vandyck, and more 
 dignity than Lely, but two things were against him, his own 
 character, and the epoch in which he lived. 
 
 His inordinate vanity and love of money tempted him into 
 gross carelessness. He rolled out portraits at such a stupendous 
 rate, that, at his death, there were five hundred of them left un- 
 finished, and so slovenly was his work, that, in many considered 
 completed, he had left some of the primed canvas bare, with no 
 colour on it. The ruling motive of his work was best expressed 
 in his own words. In giving his reasons for taking to portrait 
 painting, he said : " Painters of history make the dead live, and do 
 not begin to live themselves till they are dead — I paint the living, 
 and they make me live." 
 
 At the time that Kneller painted, it must be remembered that 
 taste had already commenced that downward course which reached 
 its lowest depths early in the 18th century. 
 
 No guiding spirit either of King or noble was there to reward 
 merit according to the worth of its productions ; consequently 
 slovenly showiness took the place of conscientious work and 
 artistic finish. 
 
 Let us now see what miniature painters flourisehd at the time. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 89 
 
 Thomas Sadler, son of a Master in Chancery, began by 
 painting miniatures for his own amusement. He received instruc- 
 tions from Sir Peter Lely in painting, but, owing to reverse of 
 fortune, took to drawing miniatures as a profession. Amongst 
 other portraits, he painted John Bunyan, which was engraved in 
 mezzotint. Simon Digby, Bishop of Elfin, in Ireland, is mentioned 
 in Graham as an accomplished miniaturist ; many of his works 
 were preserved at Sherborne Castle, the seat of the Digbys. 
 
 Susan Penelope Rose was a daughter of Gibson, the dwarf, 
 and the wife of a jeweller. She painted miniatures with great 
 skill and freedom. A half-length portrait, eight inches by six, of 
 an Ambassador from Morocco, dated 1682, is mentioned by 
 Walpole with great praise. 
 
 John Faber, the elder, came to England in 1695. A native 
 of Holland, he was an engraver by trade ; he drew many minia- 
 tures on vellum with pen and ink, but I can find no record of 
 his attempting water-colour. 
 
 This brings us to the close of the 17th century, a century 
 famous not only for the enormous strides made in art generally, but 
 also, and more especially as far as we are concerned, for the number 
 and quality of the miniaturists who practised during its course. To 
 an Englishman, Nicholas Hilliard, belongs the honour of having 
 been the first to establish portrait miniature as a distinct branch of art ; 
 and for more than a century and a half, this country stood alone in 
 keeping up an unbroken series of painters " in little," and we must 
 wait until the 18th century is well on its way, before we arrive 
 at anything like a school of water-colour miniaturists in any other 
 nation. In searching through various books of reference and art 
 dictionaries, I have found many names of artists who are said to 
 have painted small portraits. I have not included them here, as 
 such a description hardly seemed to come within the limits of 
 miniature, though, indeed, it is by no means easy to define 
 accurately what constitutes a miniature. The same difficulty con- 
 fronted the authorities of the Loan Collection at South Kensington, 
 in 1865, and ultimately without laying down any technical definition 
 of the term, they agreed to accept all such works as were drawn 
 to a small scale, and were in respect to manner of a miniature 
 
 N 
 
9° 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 character, except paintings on porcelain. Redgrave, in the ' Century 
 of Painters,' falls into a curious error in attempting to define a 
 miniature. He considers the term " as strictly applying to portraits 
 executed in water-colour on ivory, or in enamel on copper, and in 
 some few instances, on silver or gold." Were we to accept this 
 definition, what is to become of all the great masters who flourished 
 up to the end of the 17th century, before ivory was thought of? 
 
 It is quite uncertain at what period ivory first came into use as a 
 basis of miniature portraits. I have a likeness of Frederic, Duke of 
 Schomberg, the celebrated general of William III. It is done on a 
 thick, rough piece of ivory, quite different from the thin slips which 
 were afterwards used, and is the earliest specimen of an undoubted 
 contemporary portrait executed on ivory that I have seen. In the 
 course of investigations on this point, I have been shown many 
 specimens of the Cooper period, done on ivory, which were fondly 
 believed to be original, but from careful examination of the technical 
 work, I am quite sure that they were all subsequent copies, and that 
 no original work was done on this basis, until quite the end of the 
 1 7th century. I have lately seen a miniature of Mary, daughter of 
 James II., and wife of William III., also on a thick piece of ivory. 
 She wears the Dutch crown as an ornament on her breast, and the 
 English crown lies on a cushion by her side. This is about the same 
 period as the Duke of Schomberg, and tends to confirm the probable 
 date of the first use of ivory. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Portraits in Enamel. 
 
 art of painting portraits in enamel commenced in 
 the 17th century, and I have, therefore, thought 
 it best to devote a chapter to its consideration 
 here, before we pass on to relate the history of 
 miniature painting in the 18th century. 
 
 It is quite a moot point when the process 
 of enamelling, that is, covering a metal surface 
 
 with a fusible colour, first commenced. In the British and other 
 Museums, we may see amongst Egyptian antiquities, many specimens 
 of idols, ornaments, &c, considered to be works in enamel, as fresh 
 and brilliant as when they left the hands of the cunning artificers of 
 the Nile three thousand years ago. Monsieur Labarte, for instance, 
 upholds the theory that enamelling on metal was known to, and 
 practised by, the Phoenicians and ancient Egyptians, whilst other 
 authorities contend that what passes for enamel, is nothing more 
 than the filling in of " champleve " cavities with pieces of glass, 
 marble, &c, and that the true art of enamelling on metal was 
 unknown prior to the Christian era. As, however, the point of 
 antiquity in no way helps us to a consideration of that branch of 
 it, in which we are more particularly interested, we must leave the 
 question in the hands of the archaeologists. 
 
 The year 1630 is generally assigned to the first beginnings of 
 
 N 2 
 
9 2 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 enamel portraiture as we understand it, but certain circumstances seem 
 to show that, as usually happens, the efforts of antecedent workers 
 gradually led up to the final perfection of the art. I have in my pos- 
 session a curious finger ring of the time of Elizabeth, bearing a por- 
 trait, apparently of Raleigh. The costume, collar, &c, are done on 
 the champleve principle, cavities excavated in the gold, filled in with 
 enamel of appropriate colour; the face, however, is painted in opaque 
 colour on a plane surface, and with the exception of the tints being 
 pale and thin, is essentially the same in treatment as the ordinary 
 enamel portraits of the 17th century. Again, there is no doubt 
 that at Limoges, the later artists constantly used opaque colour 
 in the production of portraits. Jules Labarte especially mentions 
 twelve enamel pictures to represent the twelve apostles, ordered 
 by Francis I., of Leonard Limousin in the year 1545. Francis died 
 before their completion, and after various changes of habitation, they 
 now decorate the Chapel of the Virgin, in the church of St. Peter, at 
 Chartres. The process of their manufacture is thus described. A 
 layer of black enamel was spread over the copper, and upon that a 
 layer of white enamel. The design was drawn with a point, so as 
 to scratch through the white layer, and thus obtain an outline in 
 black. The subject was then painted on the white enamel with 
 fusible colours, in which the metallic oxides were mixed in far larger 
 proportions than in the enamel colours previously in use. Apparently 
 the result was pale and thin, and far from rivalling the glowing 
 palette of Toutin and Petitot. Still the process was the same, and 
 puts back the opaque process far before the time of the two 
 Frenchmen. About the year 1630, Jean Toutin, a watch-maker 
 at Chateaudun, prepared a scheme of colours, opaque and fusible, 
 which, applied on a layer of white enamel spread on a gold surface, 
 were capable of passing through the fire unchanged. He soon 
 perceived the value of his process, if applied to portraiture, but not 
 possessing the natural talent of a draughtsman, he called in the aid 
 of one Isaac Gribelin, who had at the time established a reputation 
 for his portraits in pastel, which Toutin worked out in enamel. 
 This Gribelin must not be confounded with Simon Gribelin, who 
 visited England about 1700, and amongst other works executed 
 a series of engravings from the Raphael Cartoons at Hampton 
 
Unknown. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Ninon de l'Euelos. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 DUCHESSE DE BRISSAC. 
 Petitot. 
 
 Henrietta Maria. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 Petitot. 
 
 Marshal Turenne. 
 Petitot. 
 
 La Valliere. 
 
 Bordier. 
 
 Duchess of Portsmoui 
 
 Petitot fits. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 95 
 
 Court. Toutin had a certain number of pupils, but they would 
 appear to have confined themselves to the production of watch cases, 
 rings, &c. Such enamels as the portraits of " Le Grand Conde," 
 Gaston of Orleans, or Nicholas Fouquet, in my possession, must have 
 been the combined work of Toutin and Gribelin. They are clearly 
 anterior to Petitot, and the colours fall far short of the brilliance 
 subsequently attained by the great Genevese. History fails to 
 furnish us with the name of any enameller between the two, who 
 could have produced such good work as these portraits exhibit. 
 Following close on the heels of Jean Toutin in point of time, we 
 come to the great high priest of enamel, Jean Petitot, born in 
 Geneva, in 1607. His father was a wood-carver, named Paul 
 Petitot. The family were originally French, but having adopted 
 the Protestant religion, retired to Geneva, where Jean commenced 
 life by enamelling the jewels then so much in vogue. The 
 reputation of Charles I., as the friend and protector of artists, 
 probably induced him to come to England, somewhere about 1635, 
 and he showed the King's jeweller specimens of his work far 
 exceeding in beauty anything which was then being produced in this 
 country. He was introduced to Charles by Turquet de Mayerne, 
 a Genevese settled in this country, the King's physician, and a 
 celebrated chemist. Charles at once took Petitot into his service and 
 assigned him an apartment in Whitehall ; he ordered Sir Anthony 
 Vandyck to instruct him in the practice of portraiture, and Mayerne 
 to help him with his chemical knowledge to the acquisition of 
 certain colours which his palette still lacked. Petitot was probably 
 accompanied to England by a fellow-worker named Bordier. There 
 is considerable confusion amongst the authorities about the two 
 Bordiers, Pierre and Jacques. If there really were two men of that 
 name connected with enamel painting, they had both worked in 
 England. The only signed piece of Bordier's work known was the 
 wonderful enamelled watch presented to General Fairfax after the 
 battle of Naseby, signed " P. Bordier, fecit." This was in Walpole's 
 Collection at Strawberry Hill. 
 
 During the last troubled years of Charles' life, Petitot left 
 England, and went to Paris, somewhere about the year 1645. He 
 was very well received by Anne of Austria, Cardinal Mazarin, and 
 
94 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 later by Louis XIV. He was here joined by Jacques Bordier, and 
 Pierre passes from the scene. Louis XIV. gave Petitot an apart- 
 ment in the Louvre and a pension. In 1650 Petitot and Jacques 
 Bordier married two sisters, Marguerite and Madeline Cuper, and 
 from that time, to Bordier's death in 1684, these two men lived and 
 worked together, painting every one of note in the French Court, 
 chiefly from the works of Le Brun, Champagne, Mignard, and the 
 pastels of Nanteuil, as they had done in England from Vandyck and 
 Honthorst. Fearing the consequences of the Revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes in 1685, Petitot begged permission to return to 
 Geneva. This was refused, and he was thrown into prison at Fort 
 L'Eveque, where Bossuet endeavoured to convert him. Whether 
 he yielded to force and signed his recantation, or whether his failing 
 health induced the King to release him, is uncertain, but he returned 
 to Geneva in 1687, being then eighty years of age. Sitters still 
 flocked to him, and, to gain rest, he retired to Vevey, where he died 
 suddenly in 1691, aged eighty-four, whilst engaged on a portrait 
 of his wife. 
 
 Petitot was forty-five years of age at the time of his marriage, 
 but nevertheless had seventeen children by Margaret Cuper, nine 
 sons and eight daughters. The only one of the family who showed 
 his father's talent was Jean. He was born in 1652, and at the age 
 of sixteen was already at work on enamel portraits. His father 
 brought him to England in 1677, where he obtained the same 
 favour with Charles II. that his father had enjoyed with Charles I. 
 In 1682 he returned to Paris and married Madeline Bordier, 
 the daughter of his father's old friend, Jacques Bordier. He 
 returned to England in 1695, but the date and place of his death are 
 uncertain. 
 
 Signed pieces by either father or son are extremely rare. 
 Walpole mentions a portrait of the Duke of Buckingham in his 
 possession signed by the father. Jules Labarte mentions a portrait 
 of the Due d'Anjou, signed "Petitot lends." Two enamels of the 
 younger Petitot and his wife, both signed and dated, were exhibited 
 at South Kensington by Lord Cremorne, and there is the Duchess 
 of Portsmouth in my possession, signed " Petitot le fils, 1685." M. 
 Rikoff, of Amsterdam, has the Duchess of Marlborough signed 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 95 
 
 " Petitot, 1698." This of course must be the son, as the elder Petitot 
 had been dead seven years. The authorities of the Louvre, however, 
 mention in their Catalogue that they have never seen instances of 
 signed Petitots. The names of several pupils and immediate 
 successors of Petitot are mentioned by various authors. Louis 
 Duguernicr, Ferrand, Perrault, and the engraver Chatillon ; whilst 
 after his return to Geneva, Mademoiselle Terroux, and the brothers 
 Huaud, would appear to have studied with him. 
 
 The great jean Petitot perfected the art of enamel portraits. 
 From the time when he placidly drew his last breath in the quiet 
 little Swiss town there is practically but little to say on the subject. 
 Such as he left it, such it is now, and after the lapse of two 
 centuries and a half, although the majority of miniaturists have 
 tried their hand at enamel, as well as water-colour portraits, he still 
 remains "facile princeps." No one has ever approached him. 
 
 His portraits of English characters are far scarcer than those 
 of the Court of Louis XIV. His stay in England probably did 
 not exceed ten years, and during that time he was almost exclusively 
 employed by Charles I. As political troubles thickened, and men's 
 minds were turned to sterner thoughts, he saw that England was 
 no longer a congenial soil for artistic work, and he retired to 
 Paris. Under the influence of Vandyck, his English portraits 
 are said to be drawn with a freer and bolder touch than he 
 exhibits in his later years. I have examined every enamel bearing 
 the name of Petitot, which was in any way accessible, and I am 
 quite sure that not even our own Cosway has been made to 
 bear the burden of so many imitations and reproductions as have 
 been foisted on the great Genevese enameller. His contemporaries just 
 mentioned, Ferrand, &c, were, by the records of the French Court, 
 very clever enamellers, and it is more than probable, unless they 
 were exceptions to the general rule of human nature, that they 
 would attempt to found their style on that of the acknowledged head 
 of their newly-discovered branch of art. No signed piece, emanating 
 from any of these contemporary artists, is known, as far as I am 
 aware, and not a few so-called Petitots may really be the work 
 of these men, overshadowed as they were, by the one name on 
 every man's lips. 
 
96 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 I have seen many Louis XVI. boxes bearing on the lid a so- 
 called Petitot portrait, which I firmly believe was executed at the 
 same time as the box. When we recall the names of enamellers, such 
 as Augustin, Carteau, Courtois, Durand, Le Tellier, Oudry, Pasquier, 
 and many others, who were always engaged in executing wholesale 
 orders for enamels to mount in the Royal Diplomatic presents of 
 the time, we can easily imagine that they were perfectly indifferent 
 whether the order was for a celebrated character of any previous 
 reign, or for their contemporaries. One of these enamellers, Jean 
 Baptiste Weyler, not only executed diplomatic orders, but also 
 commenced a series of enamels of celebrated persons of his country, 
 and in that series we find many of the characters of Louis XIV.'s 
 time, including Louis himself, Le Grand Conde, Turenne, Catinat, 
 the painters Philippe de Champagne, De Troy, and others of the 
 late 1 8th century. This series was continued after Weyler's death 
 by his widow, who afterwards became Madame Kugler, but her 
 enamels are in every way inferior to those of her husband. At 
 the beginning of the present century, an artist named J. Lambert, 
 was well known as a copyist of Petitot enamels, and is said to have 
 caught to a certain extent the technical qualities of his great 
 predecessor. When all these facts are duly considered, they will 
 at all events go some way to explain the large number of so- 
 called Petitots, which are constantly cropping up, but which in 
 their ensemble utterly fail to reach the standard of excellence which 
 a little study of the subject will enable any one to apply for them- 
 selves. I have a Louis XIV. of rather large size for Petitot, in a 
 shagreen etui, studded with the Royal monogram in silver. I have 
 myself seen, at various times, four copies of this enamel, varying 
 from a very fair reproduction down to an abominable travesty, each 
 of which was of course brought forward as an undoubted Petitot. 
 Apart from the possible reproductions alluded to above, and which 
 may be termed legitimate copies, I am sorry to say the French hold 
 an unenviable pre-eminence for the production of spurious enamels 
 and miniatures. It is really a matter of some danger to attempt 
 a collection of French specimens ; many at once no doubt display 
 the cloven hoof clearly enough to warn off even a novice, but I 
 have seen some which would puzzle an expert. If any of these 
 
VARIOUS MASTERS IN ENAMEL. 
 
 Duchess ok Buckingham. 
 
 Zincke. 
 
 Queen Anne. Unknown. 
 
 Bo «- Huand. 
 
 William III. Mrs. Siddons. Le Grand Conde. 
 
 Unknmvn. Horace Hone. j Toiitin. 
 
 Queen Charlotte. Nicholas Fouguet. 
 
 J. Meyer. Chetillon. 
 
 Duchess of Devonshire. 
 
 H. Bone. 
 
 DlNGLINGKR. UNKNOWN. 
 
 Thienpondt. N. Hone. 
 
 Unknown. Charles IV. 
 
 Dinzlinecr. Pricur. 
 
 To face page 96. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 97 
 
 enterprising gentry get hold of a really old miniature, it matters not 
 how time or exposure to light may have wrecked the once beautiful 
 tints, the merest ghost suffices them ; they will restore and paint it 
 all over again with a subdued palette, and, like new wine, artificially 
 aged by the arts of the chemist, it presents itself in a guise which 
 will take no denial. There is one counterfeit which positively 
 haunts me : it is a miniature of a good-looking woman, in a large 
 falling muslin cap, and a spotted muslin dress. I should think by its 
 appearance the original was by Cosway ; but scarcely a dealer, or a 
 sale of miniatures, is without a copy of this specimen. I have seen it 
 oval and round, in old or in brand-new ormolu frame, and even 
 mounted in a really old tortoiseshell snuff-box. It must be a very- 
 popular miniature, to judge by the number of reproductions of it in 
 existence. A person I know had in his possession a proof of that 
 charming drawing by Cosway of Madame Recamier, which, by the 
 way, was not an original, but taken from a miniature by Augustin, 
 for the engraving. A French dealer borrowed the print for a time, 
 and when he returned it, produced also a large miniature on ivory, 
 which he had the effrontery to declare had recently come into his 
 hands, and which was evidently the original of the drawing. It was 
 shown to me, but two minutes' inspection sufficed to see that the 
 colours were scarcely dry. The drawing had been taken to Paris, 
 photographed on to the ivory, and then painted over. Naturally, 
 as long as the demand for really fine old things of any class 
 is practically boundless, and the supply extremely limited, the 
 collectors' arch-enemy, the forger, will find a lucrative employment, 
 whether the article be a Shapira manuscript or a French miniature, 
 and English dealers are by no means free from very decided 
 attempts to increase the supply ; but, in the matter of miniatures, the 
 English purveyor is not to be mentioned in the same breath with his 
 Parisian brother. The following is a brief description of procedure 
 in the process of enamelling, taken from a treatise by William Essex. 
 
 " To make a plate for the artist to paint upon : a piece of gold 
 or copper being chosen, of the requisite dimensions, and varying 
 from about an eighteenth to a sixteenth of an inch in thickness, is 
 covered with pulverised enamel, and passed through the fire, until 
 it becomes of a bright white heat ; another coat of enamel is then 
 
 o 
 
98 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 added, and the plate again fired ; afterwards a thin layer of a 
 substance called flux is laid upon the surface of the enamel, and the 
 plate undergoes the action of heat for the third time. It is now- 
 ready for the painter to commence his picture upon." Flux partakes 
 of the nature of glass and enamel ; it is semi-transparent, and 
 liquifies more easily in the furnace than enamel. When flux is 
 spread over a plate, it imparts to it a brilliant surface, and renders 
 it capable of receiving the colours ; every colour during its manu- 
 facture is mixed with a small quantity of flux ; thus when the 
 picture is fired, the flux of the plate unites with the flux of the 
 colour, and the colouring pigment is perfectly excluded from the air 
 by being surrounded with a dense, vitrified mass. 
 
 The colours are prepared from metallic oxides. Many metals 
 are perfectly useless to the enameller, on account of the high degree 
 of heat to which enamel paintings are subjected, and his scale of 
 colour is consequently limited. Modern science has, however, done 
 much to supply this deficiency. The colours are mixed with spike, 
 oil of lavender, and spirits of turpentine ; and these are chosen in 
 preference to linseed oil or megilp, because the former volatilise 
 rapidly under the effect of the heat, while the latter, from their 
 unctuous nature, would cause the enamel to blister. Camel's-hair 
 or sable brushes are used by the artist, and the plate undergoes the 
 process of firing after each layer of colour is spread over the whole 
 surface. This process corresponds to the drying of the pigments in 
 oil or water-colour painting, before the artist ventures to retouch his 
 work. Sometimes a highly finished enamel requires fifteen or 
 twenty firings. Great care must be taken to paint without errors of 
 any kind, as the colour cannot be painted out or taken off, as in 
 water or oil, after they have once been vitrified, without incurring 
 excessive trouble and loss of time. If the unfortunate artist mis- 
 calculates the effect of the fire on his pigments, his only alternative 
 is to grind out the tainted spot with pounded flint, and an agate 
 muller, and so hard is the surface that a square inch will probably 
 take him a whole day to accomplish. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 i %th Century. 
 
 he introduction of the process of enamelling by the two 
 Frenchmen Toutin and Petitot added enormously 
 to the resources of the miniaturist. Owing to its 
 imperishable nature, it will become more and more 
 valuable as time rolls on, and will give to generations 
 yet unborn a fresh and brilliant impression of the 
 great ones of the past, when water-colour miniatures shall have faded 
 out of existence. The 18th century, as far as art is concerned, was 
 as poor and barren in its commencement, as it was grand and prolific 
 in its later years. The reign of Queen Anne doubtless produced 
 giants in literature, but this Augustan age of letters was associated 
 with a terrible decadence in all matters pictorial. 
 
 Kneller was still the shining light of portraiture, but the minia- 
 turists who came to the front during this reign were few and far 
 between. 
 
 Lewis Crosse was decidedly the best artist in miniature of this 
 period, and painted many admirable portraits of the celebrities of 
 the time. He almost invariably signed his name " L. C." Like 
 his predecessor, Peter Oliver, he was celebrated for the fine 
 water-colour copies " in little " of the works of the old masters. A 
 curious incident is mentioned of him. He was ordered to repair a 
 miniature of Mary Queen of Scots, in the possession of the Duke of 
 
 o 2 
 
IOO 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Hamilton, with special directions to make it as handsome as possible. 
 As his ideal of female beauty was a round face, he naturally sup- 
 plied what nature had denied her, and completely altered the like- 
 ness. It is a well-known portrait in black velvet, trimmed with 
 ermine, and innumerable copies have been made from it, the modern 
 rendering of Mary's face being largely, taken from this very 
 portrait. It is needless to say it differs materially from the very 
 few authentic portraits of the unfortunate Queen, such as Janet's 
 likeness when Queen of France, the Hilliard in the possession of 
 Mr. Whitehead, &c. This miniature was sold in the Hamilton sale 
 at Christie's in July, 1882, No. 1616, for ^110 $s. Crosse possessed 
 a very valuable collection of the works of Hilliard, the Olivers, 
 Hoskins, Cooper, &c, comprising the only portrait of Hoskins known, 
 a profile head in crayons. 
 
 Charles Boit, the son of a Frenchman, but born at Stockholm, 
 came to England to follow his trade as a jeweller, but soon changed 
 it for enamel portraits. At first he made so little way, that he went 
 about the country teaching children to draw. An escapade with 
 one of his pupils caused his detention in prison for two years, 
 during which time he perfected himself in the art of enamelling. 
 The prices he obtained for his work appear enormous, receiving for 
 some of his larger plates as much as ^500. His greatest work was 
 to be an enamel of Queen Anne, surrounded by her Court, the 
 Duke of Marlborough, Prince Eugene, &c. The size of the plate 
 was to be twenty-four by eighteen inches. Boit obtained an advance 
 of ^1000, and erected a special furnace in May Fair. As no 
 enamel had been made of that size since the old days of Limoges, 
 he wasted a large sum in ineffectual attempts to lay a perfect 
 ground. He obtained a further advance of £700, but before much 
 progress had been made, the Queen died, and the plate was never 
 finished. His goods were seized for debt, he fled to France, 
 changed his religion, and was well received by the Regent. As 
 the French had known no enamel portrait painter since the days of 
 Petitot, his works were much sought after ; but he died suddenly in 
 Paris in 1726. 
 
 During the reign of George I. we come to the very lowest ebb 
 of portrait paintings. A public that could tolerate Jervas at the top 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 101 
 
 of the profession was worthily served by such a poor dauber. His 
 powers as a portrait painter were very accurately gauged by Dr. 
 Arbuthnot. Jervas pretended to be a freethinker, and one day was 
 talking very irreverently of the Bible with Arbuthnot. The latter 
 maintained that Jervas was not only a speculative, but a practical 
 believer. Jervas defied him to prove it. The doctor quietly replied : 
 " You strictly observe the second Commandment, for in your pictures 
 you make not the likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, 
 or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth." In the 
 utter dearth of native talent in this, the chosen home of miniature, 
 it is refreshing to find abroad a lady artist, whose work will 
 worthily compare with the majority of those who have followed 
 miniature painting as a profession. I allude to the Venetian 
 Rosalba Camera. There is no record of her having visited 
 England, but in 1720 she went to Paris, accompanied by her 
 brother-in-law, Pellegrini, where she caused a furore. Her minia- 
 tures and pastels were eagerly sought. She painted the Royal 
 Family and most of the Court, and was elected a member of the 
 Academy. Gracefully designed, and charmingly coloured, the 
 drawing good, and the flesh clear and natural in tint, and 
 beautifully rounded in its light and shade, her work is as pleasing 
 to the eye as it is correct according to the canons of art. She 
 lived to the age of eighty-two ; but during her last years her 
 sight entirely failed. 
 
 Her residence in Paris may be said to have marked the com- 
 mencement of anything approaching a school of miniature painters 
 in that capital, for, from this time onwards, we find a gradually 
 increasing number of artists who adopted this branch of art as 
 a regular profession. In England one, Isaac Whood, is mentioned 
 as drawing miniature portraits in lead pencil on vellum ; he seems 
 to have had a reputation as a wit, as well as an artist. 
 
 Jean Zurich, son of a jeweller, practised both miniature and 
 enamel portraits, but was soon overshadowed by his countryman 
 Zincke. 
 
 Christian Richter, also son of a jeweller, came to England and 
 painted miniatures, strongly coloured, resulting from a study of the 
 works of Dahl. 
 
102 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 The Genevese Jacques Antoine Arlaud was a curious character. 
 He was designed for the Church, but preferred miniature painting. 
 He copied the celebrated Leda of Correggio ; but in 1738, in a fit 
 of piety, he destroyed the picture in a singular manner. He cut 
 up Leda anatomically, and presented the different members to his 
 friends. His works were much admired, and he received many 
 medals, which are still preserved in the Museum at Geneva. 
 
 Mrs. Hoadley, whose maiden name was Curtis, was a pupil of 
 Mrs. Beal, and painted miniatures with great spirit. She married 
 Dr. Hoadley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and gave up the 
 profession. 
 
 The long reign of George II. naturally includes many artistic 
 names, but the earlier masters will not detain us long. Richardson 
 and Jervas were still at work, and when they had passed away, 
 Thomas Hudson became the chief portrait painter of the time. 
 His only claim to immortality consists in the fact that Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds was his pupil. 
 
 With this distinguished man commenced the wonderful 
 renaissance of portraiture which marked the latter half of the 18th 
 century. From him, as from a fountain-head, the stream swept 
 grandly on, ever gaining fresh force as it flowed, producing a 
 series of portrait painters, both "in great" and "in little," who, 
 for the beauty of their work, and the character and individuality 
 of their delineation, are worthy to be compared with any other 
 epoch in the history of Art. 
 
 Sir Robert Strange, the eminent engraver, painted miniatures 
 chiefly connected with the Stuart family and his own belongings. 
 He was a devoted adherent of the Stuarts, and was "out" in the 
 rebellion of 1745. A most romantic story is told of his first introduc- 
 tion to his future wife. When the fatal battle of Culloden resulted 
 in the flight of the rebel army, Strange, seeing the door of a large 
 house open, entered, and made his way to the first floor, where a 
 young lady was singing whilst at work. Young Strange implored 
 her protection. The young lady, quite unconcerned, desired him to 
 get under her hoops. It is refreshing to find that an article of 
 female attire, so hideous as the hoop of the Georges, could possibly 
 be turned to so useful a purpose. Shortly afterwards the house was 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 103 
 
 searched ; the lady continued at her work, singing as before, and the 
 soldiers entering the room, and seeing Miss Lumsden alone, respect- 
 fully retired. 
 
 Strange, as in duty bound, fell in love with the lady and married 
 her. Her family, indignant at the marriage, completely cast her off, 
 and an affecting tale is told of the poverty and struggles of their 
 early married life ; how the wife, in the shades of evening, would 
 steal out, unknown by the curious eyes of neighbours, to dispose of 
 the produce of her spinning-wheel, proud to add a mite, however 
 small, to the scanty gains of her husband. Strange afterwards became, 
 reconciled to the Royal Family, was pardoned by the King, and 
 later on received the honour of knighthood. As an engraver, few 
 of any period have surpassed him. He died in 1792, but Lady 
 Strange survived until 1806. 
 
 There is considerable confusion about the various artists belonging 
 to the Lens family. Walpole, however, gives the history of the family 
 pretty clearly. The first of the name was Bernard Lens, a painter 
 who died February 5th, 1708, and was buried in St. Bride's, aged 
 seventy-seven. His son, also Bernard, was a mezzotint engraver and 
 drawing master, and drew for Sturt and other engravers. He died 
 April 28th, 1725, aged sixty-six. It was the son of this engraver, 
 also Bernard, the third of the name, who was, in Walpole's words, " the 
 incomparable painter in water-colours." He taught drawing to the 
 Duke of Cumberland, the Princesses Mary and Louisa, and to Walpole 
 himself. He copied many works of Rubens, Vandyck, &c, and, accord- 
 ing to Walpole, his copies had all the merits of the originals. He 
 left three sons ; the eldest was a clerk in the Exchequer, but the two 
 younger became miniaturists. Their names are not given, possibly 
 they represent the P. Lens and A. B. Lens, whose signatures are 
 known on miniatures. 
 
 The man who is best remembered in this reign is Christian 
 Frederic Zincke, born in Dresden in 1684, and who came to 
 England in 1706, where he studied with Charles Boit. Walpole 
 goes so far as to say he not only surpassed Boit, but rivalled Petitot. 
 The first part of this assertion may be allowed to pass, but can the 
 second be subscribed to, with equal facility ? There are a large 
 number of his portraits in existence ; but in no single instance that 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 I have ever seen can he be said to be in any way comparable to the 
 great Genevese. His colour is brilliant, but it is a brilliance that 
 obtrudes itself upon the eye as a mass of patches of colour unconnected 
 by any general harmony, whereas in Petitot's work, however brilliant 
 any one part may be, an exquisite blending of tones binds the whole 
 picture together, and the eye loses itself in the general effect. 
 Again, that crucial test of excellence in miniature, the treatment of 
 the hair, tells terribly against the Dresden enameller. It is true that 
 the very ugly wig of George the Second's time did not lend itself to 
 pictorial treatment as readily as the flowing locks of Louis XIV. ; 
 but, after making every allowance for the difference of material, the 
 result in the one case was stiff and ill-modelled, in the other replete 
 with the lustre and grace of nature. Nothing in this line ever has, 
 or ever will, exceed the tenderness of the tiny curls encircling the 
 foreheads of Petitot's female beauties, whether Henrietta Maria or 
 the Ninons and Vallieres of the French Court supplied his models. 
 Once again, in drawing, the one was immeasurably superior to the 
 other. Where Zincke essayed anything beyond a head he lost 
 himself. I have a group of the Duchess of Buckingham and 
 her son, about as ill-conceived and ill-drawn as anything of the 
 kind could be ; whereas when Petitot drew a full-length, which 
 he did once, viz. Rachel de Rouvigny, Countess of Southampton, in 
 the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, a very large enamel 
 9f inches high, by 5f wide, he displays draughtsmanship equal to 
 his great teacher Vandyck. 
 
 For many years Zincke had more sitters than he could attend 
 to, and at last raised his price from twenty to thirty guineas to 
 limit their number. In 1746 he retired from business in conse- 
 quence of failing eyesight, and died at Lambeth in 1767. 
 
 It was during this reign that the erratic meteor, John Stephen 
 Liotard, flashed into England, taking London by storm with his 
 long beard and Turkish fez. He painted admirable miniatures, 
 and occasionally tried enamel ; but pastel was his favourite medium. 
 After painting all sorts of people abroad, from Maria Theresa in 
 Vienna, to the Pashas of Constantinople, he succeeded here so 
 well as to make Reynolds look to his laurels. He paid two visits 
 to this country, leading a wandering life on the Continent during 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the interval. His works are literally true to nature, but stiff and 
 wanting in ease and grace. He had no power of idealizing, or even 
 refining any portrait he undertook. Devoid of imagination, he 
 appeared incapable of rendering anything but what he saw before 
 his eyes, and yet he was an artist of great merit. I have seen 
 specimens in which the figure is as rigid as a marble bust, but the 
 flesh tints juicy as a Rosalba, and the jewels technically perfect 
 as a Holbein or a Janet. He died about 1790. 
 
 Joseph Goupy was celebrated in his time ; he taught the 
 Princess of Wales, and was cabinet painter to the King. His 
 uncle, Louis Goupy, also taught and practised miniature ; but I 
 have never seen a specimen of the work of either artist. 
 
 James Deacon took Zincke's house in Covent Garden, and is 
 said to have painted miniatures in a masterly manner. He lost 
 his life by attending a case at the Old Bailey, the day that the 
 gaol fever carried off the Judge, the Lord Mayor, and many of 
 the audience in May, 1750. 
 
 Gervase Spencer was a gentleman's servant, who prefened 
 art to livery. He painted both in miniature and enamel, and 
 especially in the latter class produced many excellent portraits. 
 He died in 1750. 
 
 Thomas Worlidge was for many years of his life a miniaturist, 
 then he tried life-size portraits in oil, with but little success. 
 Ultimately he took to producing etchings in the manner of 
 Rembrandt, and made a very good living by them. He also 
 drew heads in lead pencil. 
 
 Andr6 Rouquet, a Swiss by birth, resided here for many years, 
 and followed Zincke in enamel portraits. He wrote a book, ' The 
 Present State of the Arts in England,' from which much valuable 
 information may be gleaned. On turning over its pages, one 
 cannot but be struck by the truth and relevancy of Walpole's 
 sweeping condemnation of portrait painting in the pre-Reynolds' 
 period : 
 
 " We are now arrived at the period in which the arts have 
 sunk to the lowest ebb in Britain. From the stiffness introduced 
 by Holbein and the Flemish masters, who not only laboured 
 under the timidity of the new arts, but who saw nothing but the 
 
 p 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 starched and unpliant habits of the times, we were fallen into a 
 loose, and if I may use the word, a dissolute kind of painting, 
 which was not less barbarous than the opposite extreme, and yet 
 had not the merit of representing even the dresses of the age." 
 
 Happily in the miniatures of the time we may fairly conclude 
 that we have the work of one individual hand throughout and 
 that, whether good or the reverse, they represent the artistic 
 thought and manual power of the professed author ; but in the 
 case of the large portraits produced during this cycle of art-bathos, 
 it would puzzle any number of experts to detect the various hands 
 employed on the canvas. 
 
 Hear this little anecdote from Rouquet's work, and then 
 judge from what terrible depths the great Devonshire painter 
 delivered us. " Two rival artists took it into their heads to have 
 entirely to themselves another painter whose name was Vanaken, 
 to be employed in the drawing of the drapery ; this man had 
 real abilities, and might have done much better things, but chose 
 to confine himself to this branch, because he was sure of business. 
 The two painters agreed to pay him 800 guineas a year, 
 whether they could find work for him to this amount or not, and 
 he on his side engaged to paint no drapery but for them. The 
 two rival painters who had thus engrossed Vanaken, occasioned a 
 great deal of confusion among the rest of their brethren, who could 
 not do without his assistance. The best of them knew not how 
 to draw a hand, a coat, or ground. They were obliged to learn 
 it, and of course to work harder — sad misfortune ! From that time 
 ceased the flow of unfinished canvasses to Vanaken's house, by 
 hand, by carrier, and even by stage coaches, from the most remote 
 towns in England, on which one or more masks were painted, and 
 at the bottom the painters who sent them took care to add the 
 descriptions of the figures, whether large or small, which he was 
 to give them. Nothing can be more ridiculous than this custom, 
 which would have continued, had Vanaken still been available." 
 Hogarth drew the supposed funeral of Vanaken, attended by the 
 painters he worked for, discovering every mark of grief and despair. 
 Vanloo was one of these two artists who monopolised his services ; 
 the name of the second is not mentioned, but it is thought to have 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 been Hudson. It must be remembered that this pretty expose 
 of the originality and genius of the men who painted our ancestors 
 a century and a half ago is taken from the work of a man who 
 wrote in the defence of the state of art in England, in answer to 
 the well-known ' Letters from England,' of the Abbe le Blanc, 
 though most certainly the Abbe's scathing criticism is not one whit 
 too severe. Here is his opinion : " The portrait painters are at 
 this day more numerous and worse in London than they have 
 ever been. Properly speaking, they are not painters ; they know how 
 to lay colours on the canvas, but they know not how to animate it. 
 Nature exists in vain for them, they see her not, or if they see her, 
 they know not the art of expressing her." In fact, to these men, art 
 was but a trade, carried on according to the conventional rules of the 
 past, the same artistic properties, the same postures and attitudes ; 
 hence the pretty story of the sitter who wished to be painted wearing 
 his hat. His request was grudgingly acceded to ; but in order to 
 preserve the eternal fitness of things, another hat was carefully 
 painted under his arm, so that tradition, which prescribed the 
 inevitable pose, might not be interfered with. Small wonder, 
 therefore, that when Reynolds showed his portraits on his return 
 from Rome, one of the clique, Ellis, a pupil of Kneller, exclaimed : 
 " This will never answer ; why, you don't paint in the least like 
 Sir Godfrey ! " 
 
 On Reynolds attempting to reason with him, this magnificent 
 creature cut short the conversation by exclaiming: "Shakespeare 
 in poetry, and Kneller in painting, damme ! " Having delivered 
 this unanswerable ultimatum, he sailed out of the room, no doubt 
 convinced in what he was pleased to call his mind, that he had 
 once for all nipped in the bud the temerity of this would-be 
 innovation. If this terrible Mr. Ellis lived long enough to see 
 Reynolds's later portraits, what would he have said about some of 
 the attitudes portrayed, so very unlike Kneller ! Surely such pictures 
 as "The Duchess of Devonshire and Child," "Pick-a-back," Lord 
 Althorp, with his hands in his pockets, Master Bunbury as Henry 
 VIII., or that prim little bundle in a mob-cap, Penelope Boothby, 
 would effectively have scared out of the worthy man an}- small 
 modicum of sense with which Nature had ever blessed him. No one 
 
 p 2 
 
ioS 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 was so quick as Reynolds in seizing a passing action as the "motif" 
 of his picture. A child playing with his properties in the studio, 
 became the chief figure in his " Infant Academy." Mrs. Siddons 
 turning round to call his attention to something on the wall, became 
 as "The Tragic Muse," the finest portrait ever painted, whilst John 
 Hunter, bored into a fit of abstraction by the monotony of sitting 
 for his portrait, enabled Reynolds, after many ineffectual attempts, 
 to present to us the great surgeon and thinker in the most 
 appropriate pose possible. We must think of these things, and 
 think of them seriously, if we would realise to its full extent the 
 grand reformation brought about by those sturdy Englishmen, the 
 fathers of our national school, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth, 
 Wilson, and Romney, men who dared to think for themselves, to 
 trample under foot the inanities of their predecessors, and to brush 
 aside, let us hope for ever, the cobwebs of tradition which had 
 endeavoured to " crib, cabin, and confine " portrait painting within 
 the four corners of a set of rules, inexorable and unchanging as 
 the laws of the Medes and Persians. 
 
 Talking of rules, even the colours on the palette were set by 
 rule. Vermilion and ochre, blue black and Indian red had to do 
 duty for all ages and complexions, and when the face painter 
 had finished all he considered worthy of his attention, the 
 journeyman painter of drapery was turned on and completed the 
 picture with the wooden arms, hands, and body of the lay 
 figure, dressed for the occasion with the stock properties of the 
 studio. Even historical painting, so called, had long been reduced 
 to mathematical precision. ' Peacham's Complete Gentleman ' 
 will teach any aspiring artist, wishful to produce the allegorical 
 history painting of the period, many useful things. How Eternity 
 is to be represented as a fair lady having three heads, signifying 
 those three parts of time, " the past, present, and to come," in 
 her left hand a circle, pointing with her right forefinger up to 
 heaven. For Apollo or Lot (a curious mixture of persons), he 
 says he is to have " long curled yellow haire, crowned with lawrell, 
 his roab purple, his bow silver, his harp gold, his throne emeralds." 
 And so he goes on, through the whole category of celestial and 
 terrestrial beings, not forgetting floods, rivers, and all sorts of 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 nymphs, hope, victory, fame, &c. &c. This same author, however, 
 becomes more interesting to us when he treats of the methods 
 of the earlier miniaturists. After praising old Mr. Hilliard and Mr. 
 Isaac Oliver, as inferior to none in Christendom, for the counte- 
 nance in small, he goes on to say : " Since a man is the worthiest 
 of all creatures, and such pleasing variety in countenance is so 
 disposed of by the Divine Providence, that among ten thousand 
 you shall not see one like another, you shall begin to draw 
 a man's face, in which, as in all other creatures, you must take 
 your beginning at the forehead, and so draw downward till you 
 have finished." And then he gives us the method of preparing 
 " your tablet for a picture in small : " " Take of the fairest and 
 smoothest pasteboard you can get, and with a sleek stone rub as 
 smooth and even as you can ; that done, take the fine skin of an 
 abortive, which you may buy in Paternoster Row, and other 
 places, it being the finest parchment that is, and with starch, 
 thin laid on, and the skin well stretched and smooth, pressed within 
 some book or the like, prepare your ground or tablet ; then, 
 according to the general complexion of the face you are to draw, 
 lay on a weak colour ; that done, trace out the eyes, nose, mouth, 
 and ears with lake or red lead, and if the complexion be swarthy, 
 add either of sea-coal or lampblack, to deepen and shadow it. 
 When you have thus done, lay it by for a day, or till it be well 
 dry ; then, by little and little, work it with a curious hand, with 
 the lively colour, till you have brought it to perfection." There 
 are several notices in Charles' Catalogue alluding to this method 
 of covering card with vellum before painting, such as a little 
 round vellum young ladies' picture, in an old-fashioned black 
 cap, bare necked, the vellum being wrinkled by " varnishing," and 
 " the blue ground also wronged," or " upon a blue grounded card 
 the picture of Dr. Chambers, physician to Henry VIII.," or "done 
 by Hans Holbein upon a grounded card. One of the Duke of 
 Brandon's children." This miniature is now at Windsor. Many 
 of these miniatures are described as " in a white ivory-turned box ; " 
 but the use of ivory as a ground was yet unknown. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The iSth Century— continued. 
 
 have dipped thus far into the record of portrait 
 painting under the two first Georges, dreary as 
 that record is, because I think a certain study of 
 the general art condition of any period is strictly 
 relevant to the subject we are discussing. Hogarth 
 says, " The artist and the age are fitted for each 
 other, and the arts, like water, will find their level." 
 There is truth in his remark, though in a usual way Hogarth is a 
 better teacher with the pencil than the pen. In times of prolific 
 production like the present, there are waves of graphic manufacture 
 of sufficient volume to flood and even overflow any possible spaces 
 for their reception. Let us hope that the modern doctrine of 
 "survival of the fittest" will work as well in art as in nature. 
 The inferior produce of the pencil can scarcely perish fast enough ; 
 but a priceless masterpiece, the strong limning of a Holbein, the 
 full colour of a Betts, or the fine modelling of an Oliver, has a 
 protecting influence apparently within it, from the undying genius 
 which created it. In tracing the history of portrait miniature from 
 its earliest beginnings, we have seen, that in its ebb and flow, it 
 has naturally partaken of the state in which art in general 
 existed at any given epoch, of course more especially with regard 
 to portrait art. We have seen how in the 16th century the 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in 
 
 force and character of Holbein inspired Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, 
 even the blue background of the Basle painter retaining its place, 
 with few exceptions, up to the time of Vandyck. Then when 
 the great Fleming arose, and showed men that in portrait painting, 
 as in most other things, nature is the best guide, he was quickly 
 followed by Samuel Cooper, whose tiny works, replete with the 
 strength of Holbein, and the natural grace of Vandyck, brought 
 miniature painting to the highest flood of excellence. From that 
 point we have traced the tide ebbing. From Lely to Kneller, on 
 through Jervas, Vanloo, and Hudson, lower and lower sank the art 
 of portraiture, both " in great and little," until the lowest point 
 was reached towards the end of George II. 's reign, and then 
 happily again the tide turned. The outburst which followed the 
 rise of Reynolds and Gainsborough is in many respects the most 
 surprising of all the upheavals in the history of portraiture. For 
 sixty years, from 1760 to 1821, we shall find an uninterrupted 
 succession of miniature artists, which is quite bewildering in its 
 number and in the excellence of many of its members. Before, 
 however, entering upon the consideration of that prolific time, I 
 should like to call the attention of the reader to two names, neither 
 of them miniaturists, but to whom, nevertheless, art, in its historical 
 aspect, owes a deep debt of gratitude, George Vertue and Horace 
 Walpole. 
 
 George Vertue was an engraver by training, and was born in 
 London in 1685. Early in life he commenced to take an interest 
 in antiquarian research, and in 1 713 began his history of the 
 Painters of England. He was a man of admirable character, 
 humble and retiring, but possessed of uncommon energy and 
 perseverance. His talents and knowledge secured him the patron- 
 age and friendship of all the virtuosi of the time. Lords Somers, 
 Oxford, Winchelsea, the Duke of Dorset, and others, took him for 
 tours in various parts of England. Note-book in hand, he jotted 
 down every scrap of information he could gather. He visited every 
 collection, made catalogues of them, attended sales, copied every 
 paper he could find relative to art, searched offices, registers of 
 parishes, and registers of wills for births and deaths, turned over 
 all our own authors, and translated those of other countries which 
 
I I 2 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 related to his subject. Thus he continued his search from 17 13 
 to 1756, when his manuscripts amounted to forty volumes, and he 
 was hard at work up to his death in 1756. 
 
 Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill are household words, 
 wherever and whenever art in any shape is written of or discussed. 
 No man since the great Lord Arundel possessed so catholic a 
 feeling for all that was beautiful and rare. Blessed with consummate 
 taste and faultless judgment, and with ample command of means, 
 he surrounded himself on the banks of the Thames with a 
 collection of art treasures of all periods and countries, probably 
 unequalled in the annals of any private collector. 
 
 Happily for us, Walpole purchased Vertue's MSS. of his widow, 
 or probably the work of his lifetime would have been lost to us. 
 
 It is better to give in Walpole's own words the share he had 
 in preparing the MSS. for publication : " Vertue had made several 
 draughts of a beginning, and several lives he had written out, but with 
 no order, no connection, no accuracy ; nor was his style clear or 
 correct enough to be offered to the reader in that unpolished form. 
 I have been obliged to compose anew every article, and have 
 recurred to the original fountains from whence he drew his informa- 
 tion — I mean, where it was taken from books. The undigested 
 method of his collections, registered occasionally as he learned every 
 circumstance, was an additional trouble, as I was forced to turn over 
 every volume many and many times, as they lay in confusion, to 
 collect the articles I wanted ; and for the second and third parts, 
 containing between three and four hundred names, I was reduced to 
 compose an index myself to the forty volumes. One great satisfac- 
 tion the reader will have, in the integrity of Mr. Vertue ; it exceeded 
 his industry, which is saying much. No man living, so bigoted to a 
 vocation, was ever so incapable of falsehood. He did not deal even 
 in hypothesis, scarce in conjecture. He visited and revisited every 
 picture, every monument that was an object of his researches ; and 
 being so little a slave to his own imagination, he was cautious of 
 trusting to that of others. In his memorandums he always put a 
 query against whatever was told him of suspicious aspect ; and never 
 gave credit to it until he received the fullest satisfaction." It is hardly 
 too much to say that without the labours of these two men, the art 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 records of this country would have been a blank. Their united 
 work has rescued from oblivion many and many an artist who would 
 otherwise have been absolutely unknown to us, and especially is this 
 the case with the early miniaturists. To read through the article on 
 Nicholas Milliard in the ' Anecdotes of Painting,' and observe the 
 various sources whence scraps of information were obtained, will 
 give a pretty good idea of the enormous labour involved in present- 
 ing anything like a connected narrative of these old painters. In 
 searching for material to compose this memoir, I have turned over 
 many books on art, both English and foreign, and it is quite curious 
 to observe that in scarce one of them is the name of Walpole 
 absent. Every author would seem to have quarried deeply in the 
 mine of knowledge provided for him by the great authority of 
 Strawberry Hill, and I can only repeat the words I commenced with, 
 that art, in its historical aspect, owes him a deep debt of gratitude. 
 
 The way is now clear to enter upon a history of the 
 renaissance of miniature which was inspired by Reynolds, and which, 
 as I have mentioned, lasted roughly for sixty years. This latter 
 date brings us to the death of Cosway, and though certain of the 
 older names linger after that date, the inevitable ebb had again 
 commenced, which up to the present date shows no signs of 
 turning. Hitherto, I have anxiously sought high and low for names 
 of artists who adorned this branch of art, glad when a stray name 
 here and there of some one not generally known, rewarded the search ; 
 but now another difficulty presents itself. The workers in miniature 
 are so numerous, that it is hopeless, in a memoir like the present, 
 to embody notices of them all in the text. I shall hope some day to 
 give the names of them all in a dictionary form, merely selecting for 
 description here a few of the more prominent and representative men. 
 
 One of the first that meets us is not a lovely character, 
 Theodore Gardelle, born in Geneva in 1722. He spent a disso- 
 lute life in Geneva, Paris, and Brussels, and settled in London as 
 a miniaturist in 1759. He lived on the south side of Leicester 
 Fields. A pretty story tells us that he murdered his landlady in 
 a fit of art-rage, because she failed to appreciate a miniature he 
 had painted of her ; but I fear the murder was prompted by far 
 less aesthetic feelings. As she resisted his improper and violent 
 
 Q 
 
ii 4 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 advances, he not only murdered her, but cut her body in pieces 
 and burned it. He was convicted and hanged in the Haymarket 
 in April, 1761. Perhaps it ought to be a consolation to us that the 
 aesthetic explanation of the murder is not the true one, or Philistine 
 criticism might frequently suffer condign punishment at the hands 
 of professors believing in the Divine right of artists, and we should 
 hardly look forward with unalloyed joy to the advent of the future 
 art-master, for whom Mr. Whistler says we are to wait, and who 
 shall come with " the mark of the gods upon him " (whatever that 
 may be), "to continue what has gone before." 
 
 Amongst the earliest names of the Renaissance are those of the 
 three enamellers, Michael Moser, Jeremiah Meyer, and Nathaniel 
 Hone. Like so many of the enamellers, Moser's work was at first 
 connected with jewelry and covering with designs in enamel the 
 fashionable trinkets of the day. He possessed, however, far too high 
 an artistic feeling to content himself long in this lesser occupation. 
 He became manager of the St. Martin's Lane Schools, a foundation 
 member, and first Keeper of the Royal Academy. He was of great 
 service to art in many ways. He distinguished himself as a painter, 
 modeller, sculptor, and teacher, and even as a medallist he did good 
 work. He enamelled the portraits of the Prince of Wales and 
 Duke of York on a watch case for George III., and was paid 
 handsomely by the King for this piece of art-work. Mary Moser, 
 his daughter, was a distinguished flower painter, and was also 
 elected an original member of the Royal Academy. She is 
 supposed to have indulged in a romantic attachment to Fuseli, 
 which, however, seems to have been quite unrequited. Moser was 
 born at Schaffhausen in 1704, and died in London in 1783. In 
 addition to his other works, he executed the Great Seal of England. 
 
 Jeremiah Meyer practised chiefly in enamel, but possessed 
 the double appointment of enamel painter to George III., and 
 miniature painter to the Queen. He was a capital artist, his 
 enamels were very tender in colour, the drawing excellent, and in 
 finish reminds one of the beautiful work of John Smart. His style 
 was founded upon the work of his contemporary Reynolds, from 
 whom he undoubtedly drew the grace and elegance always found in 
 his later works. Associating the two words, enamel and Reynolds, 
 
Lady Melbourne. Duchess of Gordon. 
 
 r. Co^ar. R - Coswa y- Unknown. 
 
 R. Cosway. 
 
 Lady Paget. Mrs. Moffat. 
 
 R. Cosway. R. Cosway. 
 
 Mrs. Sheridan. 
 
 R. Cosway. 
 
 Unknown. 
 R. Cosway. 
 
 George IV., when an Infant. 
 
 R. Cosway. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 what would the world not have gained in loveliness, had that great 
 painter been an enameller, and had he been able to seal up in the 
 fierce fire of the kiln, the dreams of beautiful colour his glowing 
 brush produced, but which his faulty method caused, alas ! to fade 
 almost as soon as they were created. 
 
 Nathaniel Hone painted miniatures both in water-colour and 
 enamel. In 1769 he was elected a Royal Academician; but in 
 consequence of his hatred of Sir Joshua Reynolds, proved a very 
 turbulent member of that body. The only conceivable reason for 
 his dislike appears to have been jealousy. Hone commenced 
 painting portraits on a large scale, with far less success than he had 
 achieved in miniature. Failing to displace Reynolds in popular 
 esteem, he lost no opportunity of vilifying and satirizing him. He 
 knew, as indeed everybody else knew, and knows, that Reynolds 
 had borrowed the attitudes of some of his portraits from Vandyck, 
 and he painted a picture of an old man in a gown, holding a wand 
 in his hand, in the act of commanding the very engravings which he 
 affirmed Reynolds had used, to rise out of the flames, which picture 
 Hone called the Conjuror. There was at first some indelicacy, 
 which he had introduced in the centre of the picture, but which he 
 afterwards painted out, referring to a slanderous report which had 
 been whispered as to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Angelica Kauffmann. 
 This picture, being considered by the members of the Royal 
 Academy as a most malicious satire on their President, was refused 
 admission into the Academy. Upon this, Hone determined to have 
 an exhibition of his own works separately, which he did at No. 70, 
 St. Martin's Lane. 
 
 Horace Hone was the son, not the brother, of Nathaniel, as has 
 been sometimes stated. He was elected Associate of the Academy, 
 but never quite rivalled his father's powers as a miniaturist. 
 
 Richard Cosway was born in Tiverton in 1741. He was taken 
 in, whilst a boy, by Mr. Shipley, the proprietor of the Drawing 
 School in the Strand, to wait upon the students, and carry in the 
 tea and coffee, which Shipley's housekeeper was allowed to provide, 
 and for which she charged threepence a head. Some of the 
 students, amongst whom were Nollekens, Smith, and others, gave 
 Dick, as the boy was called, instruction in drawing, and finding him 
 
 Q 2 
 
n6 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 to have talent, advised him to try for a prize in the Society of Arts, 
 and in 1755 he obtained a premium of ^5 55. for a drawing, 
 repeating the performance each year up to 1 760. Soon after this, 
 he taught drawing in Parr's Drawing School, also in the Strand, and 
 painted fancy miniatures, tops of snuff-boxes, &c, for the jewellers. 
 With the money thus gained, he transformed himself from a very 
 dirty little boy into the smartest of fops, which induced Mat Darley, 
 the famous caricature printseller, to put an etching of him in his 
 window in the Strand, as " The Macaroni Miniature Painter," a 
 name by which he was ever after known. He lived first in Orchard 
 Street, Portman Square, then at No. 4, Berkeley Street, opposite the 
 Duke of Devonshire's wall. At that time he kept a black servant, 
 who seems to have been a literary character, having published an 
 octavo work on slavery. About this time Cosway married Maria 
 Hadfield, daughter of an hotel keeper at Leghorn or Florence ; the 
 celebrated Charles Townley giving the bride away. From Berkeley 
 Street he removed to Pall Mall, to a house which had previously known 
 many artist tenants. Jervas had lived there ; next was Ashley the 
 painter, who married Lady Duckenfield ; after him came Nathaniel 
 Hone, who kept a famous black woman in it as his model. 
 Cosway 's immediate predecessor was the celebrated " Celestial 
 Doctor Graham," who is said to have exhibited there Emma Lyon, 
 afterwards Lady Hamilton, as Hygeia, the Goddess of Health. 
 Cosway's next move was to Stratford Place, the house at the south- 
 west corner, with a lion outside it. Before he was really settled 
 there, the terrible verses, said to have been written by Peter Pindar 
 (Doctor Wolcot), were stuck upon his door : — 
 
 " When a man to a fair for a show brings a lion, 
 'Tis usual a monkey the sign-post to tie on ; 
 But here the old custom reversed may be seen, 
 For the lion's without, and the monkey's within." 
 
 He at once gave up the house and removed to No. 20 in the 
 same street, which he occupied up to his death. He furnished his 
 new abode in the most sumptuous manner. Everything of the 
 rarest and choicest description was there in profusion ; china, 
 bronzes, inlaid furniture, Persian carpets, old armour, tapestries, &c, 
 filled every room. They had one child, a daughter, who died 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 117 
 
 young, and Cosway had the body preserved in an embalmed state in 
 a marble sarcophagus, which stood in the drawing-room in Stratford 
 Place. On Mrs. Cosway's return to England, after an absence of 
 several years, she caused the body to be interred in Bunhill Row 
 Cemetery, and sent the sarcophagus to Nollekens, the sculptor, to 
 take care of for a time. It is a curious coincidence, that at the 
 very hour the sarcophagus was being removed to the residence of 
 Nollekens, Cosway died on the road to Edgware, in the carriage 
 of his old friend, Miss Udney, who frequently took him for a drive 
 in his old age. He was eighty years old, and was buried in 
 Marylebone Church. 
 
 Richard Cosway was as certainly the head of the miniaturists 
 of the 1 8th century, as Cooper was of the 17th. He combined 
 breadth of treatment with minute finish and exquisite refinement, 
 in a measure far beyond all his contemporaries. If the little man 
 could revisit this earth, he would be much puzzled to recognise 
 the offspring which is attempted to be fathered on him. Every 
 possessor of a tenth-rate miniature has only one name on his lips, 
 "Cosway," and even amongst those who should know better, and 
 who, as dealers, aspire to the position of experts, we meet with the 
 same ignorance. In every walk of life success begets imitators, 
 and certainly Cosway can boast of a more than usually numerous 
 train of satellites. And yet his work is not difficult to recognise. 
 As in Cooper's portraits, the treatment of the hair is the great 
 test. In both these artists, light and shade is trusted to, 
 to represent masses, rather than minute and laborious lines. 
 In some of Cosway's sketchy portraits, chiefly those drawn 
 on paper with a pencil, and afterwards tinted, lines are used 
 in a free and flowing manner to indicate hair ; but in his more 
 finished work on ivory, his treatment of hair is unmistakable. 
 George Engleheart was the only man who approached him in 
 this respect. He never signed his portraits on the front, but 
 occasionally wrote on the back the pompous announcement : 
 " Ric dus - Cosway, R.A., Primarius Pictor Serenissimi Walliae 
 Principis pinxit." 
 
 The account here given of Cosway's early life differs somewhat 
 from the generally received history of him. It is usually recorded, 
 
irS 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 that sent up to London from Tiverton, he was placed with Hudson, 
 the portrait painter, the master of Reynolds. I have taken the 
 above from Smith's book, ' Nollekens and his Times.' Mr. Smith's 
 father, together with Nollekens and others, was a pupil at Shipley's 
 drawing school at the time " Dirty little Dick" was received there, 
 and helped to instruct him in drawing. It seems difficult to throw 
 aside evidence so direct and apparently trustworthy. 
 
 Maria Cosway, his wife, was a good artist. She painted 
 in oil, in miniature, and drew in pencil, designs for engraving. 
 She left her husband for some years, becoming the Superioress 
 of a nunnery at Lyons, but returned to England shortly before 
 his death. 
 
 Nagler devotes a page and a half to Mrs. Cosway and ten 
 lines to her husband. 
 
 What a charming painter was Ozias Humphrey / His colour 
 is as brilliant as Petitot's, and yet marked by the same exquisite 
 tonality, whilst the labour he bestowed on the finish of the surface 
 almost rivals the result obtained in the kiln of the enameller. 
 John Smart is the only other artist I know who reached the same 
 curious enamel-like look in water-colour. 
 
 He belonged to an old family at Honiton in Devonshire, that 
 county which has contributed so largely to the brethren of the 
 brush. He first studied with Samuel Collins, an indifferent 
 miniaturist and a very worthless fellow. Collins fled from his 
 creditors, and young Humphrey returned to Honiton. Determined 
 to make his way, he borrowed a guinea from his mother and set 
 out on his travels, first to Exeter and then to London, where he 
 entered Shipley's drawing school, at that time the centre which 
 attracted all the men who afterwards became famous. Thence he 
 went to Bath, and lodged with Linley, the musician, whose lovely 
 daughter, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan, then in her ninth year, but 
 already possessing the sweetest of voices, cheered his painting 
 hours by singing to him. After remaining at Bath for some time, 
 he returned to London, and being a devoted admirer of Reynolds, 
 boldly showed him some of his miniatures. When Reynolds heard 
 that he was from Devonshire, and that his mother was a lace- 
 maker, he exclaimed : " Born in my county, and your mother a 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 119 
 
 lace-maker ! Why, Vandyck's mother was a maker of lace ! " and 
 immediately took the young painter under his protection. He 
 rented lodgings near his patron at 21, King Street, Covent 
 Garden, and soon got into the full tide of work. In 1773, 
 broken-hearted by the refusal of James Payne, the architect, to 
 accept him as the suitor of his daughter, he determined to travel, 
 and visited Rome with Romney. After an absence of four years 
 he returned to England, and soon after he received by post one 
 morning a letter from Dr. Wolcot (better known as Peter Pindar), 
 dated from Truro, asking him as a personal favour to receive into 
 his house " an uncouth, raw-boned, country lad," about fifteen years 
 of age, with whom he found he had encumbered himself, and (to use 
 the Doctor's own words) who had "run mad with paint." This 
 youth offered his services to Mr. Humphrey, to clean his brushes 
 and palette, and make himself useful in the common concerns of 
 his house without wages, and all for the pleasure of being with a 
 painter of his knowledge and eminence. The raw-boned lad 
 afterwards became the celebrated John Opie, R.A., and lecturer 
 on painting to the Royal Academy. 
 
 In 1785 Humphrey went to India, and painted the Rajahs 
 and Begums. In 1788 he returned to England and resumed his 
 profession, and in 1790 was chosen a member of the Royal 
 Academy. He died in March, 18 10. Romney painted a remark- 
 ably fine likeness of him, now at Knowle. 
 
 I wonder why it is that so little mention is made in any 
 work on art of A ndrew Plimer ? Bryan knows him not, nor is he 
 mentioned in Redgrave's ' Century of Painters,' whilst a long article 
 is there devoted to Samuel Collins, who cannot be spoken of in 
 the same breath with him as a miniaturist. And yet he was second 
 only to Cosway, and, indeed, until comparatively recent times, his 
 work was generally set down to that vain little person. Even the 
 date of his birth is unknown. 
 
 He was born at Bridgewater, and first exhibited miniatures ai 
 the Royal Academy in 1786. I can find no record of his early 
 education, and yet the man who painted the large triple miniature of 
 the three daughters of Lord Northwick, the Ladies Rushout, in the 
 collection of E. Joseph, Esq., was a very great artist. This miniature 
 
1 20 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 is in my opinion the finest he ever executed. It displays all the 
 vigour and force of his usual work, but combines with it a degree of 
 refinement not usually to be found in his portraits, and which more 
 nearly approaches the peculiar charm of Cosway, than any other 
 miniature I have ever seen from his hand. He is said to have 
 painted subject pictures in oil, and also to have tried his hand at 
 enamel ; but I know of no portrait by him in the latter medium. He 
 exhibited at the Royal Academy up to 18 19, and died in 1837. His 
 brother, Nathaniel Plimer, was decidedly inferior to him in every way. 
 
 John Smart was at work early in the renaissance of miniature, 
 his first exhibited work bearing date in 1762. The distinguishing 
 features of his work are an exquisite finish of surface, and very 
 correct colour. Without the amalgamating influence of the 
 enameller's kiln, such absolute flatness of tints as was obtained 
 by John Smart and Ozias Humphrey seems almost incredible. 
 He was largely employed by the Royal Family, and was deservedly 
 one of the most fashionable miniaturists of his day. Like 
 Humphrey, he spent some years in India, but returned to England, 
 and died in London in 181 1 in his seventieth year. He almost 
 always signed with his initials, J. S. 
 
 Samuel Shelley was a self-taught genius, born in Whitechapel. 
 He educated himself by copying the works of Reynolds, and 
 has left many historical and poetical subjects treated " in little." 
 In miniature portraits he founded his style upon Cosway, and in 
 the present day many a specimen from his hand passes muster 
 as the work of that artist. In the treatment of the hair he some- 
 what resembled him, but the flesh tints are generally in a greyer 
 and cooler key than Cosway 's. 
 
 I wonder why James Nixon was appointed "limner" to the 
 Prince Regent, and "miniature painter" to the Duchess of York ? — 
 the old word "limner" had so long passed away that its revival 
 sounds quite strange. He was an excellent miniaturist, and first- 
 rate draughtsman. The figure, and especially the hands, of " Mrs. 
 Harlowe," in my possession, are worthy of Vandyck. Like nearly 
 all the best artists of this period, he consciously or unconsciously 
 recalls Reynolds in pose, colour, and general treatment. He 
 became A.R.A., and died in 181 2. 
 
1 
 
Lady Duckett. 
 
 Ozias Humphrey. 
 
 Lady Northwick. 
 A. Plimer. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 N. Plimer. 
 
 Jack Bannister. Sir John Webb. Unknown. 
 
 H. Edridge. ' % Smart. % Engleheart. 
 
 TT Unknown. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 _ „ .. ...M. Gervase. 
 
 S. Cotes. 
 
 Unknown. 
 5. Shelley. 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 12 1 
 
 Henry Bone commenced life as a painter of flowers and land- 
 scapes on china, and then came to London and worked as an 
 enameller of watches and the fashionable trinkets of the period. 
 Desirous of doing better things, he studied the chemistry of fusible 
 colours, fluxes, and other details of the enameller's art, with such 
 success that his copy in enamel of Reynolds's " Sleeping Girl," 
 exhibited at the Academy in 1 780, at once brought him into public 
 notice. The Prince of Wales for many years bought his finest 
 enamels, and he was appointed successively enamel painter to 
 George III., George IV., and William IV. He was elected A.R.A. 
 in 1 80 1, and R.A. 181 1. Although he executed some enamels from 
 life, the greatest part of his work consisted in copying the pictures 
 of others, both ancient and modern. Titian, Raphael, Murillo, and 
 Reynolds supplied him with subjects. He was a prodigious worker, 
 and has left several series of portraits as evidences of his perse- 
 vering labour. The members of the Russell family from the time 
 of Henry VII., the Royalists distinguished during the Civil War, 
 eighty-five portraits of the great men of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
 are but examples of his industry. He occasionally obtained large 
 prices for his enamels. The " Bacchus and Ariadne " was sold for 
 2200 guineas, and yet in his old age he was compelled to accept 
 the Royal Academy pension. He died in his seventy-eighth 
 year, in 1834. 
 
 His son, Henry Pierce Bone, also became R.A., but he cannot 
 be said to equal his father in colour or drawing. 
 
 One of the most graceful miniaturists of the time was 
 Henry Edridge, A.R.A. Many of his portraits remind one of the 
 more finished pencilled portraits of Cosway. The head is always 
 wrought up to the most careful finish, the figure gracefully, but 
 somewhat slightly touched in, the hands beautifully drawn, but 
 sometimes left quite uncoloured. He also executed many portraits 
 on paper, with a lead pencil and thin washes of Indian ink. He 
 had a great feeling for landscape art, and some of his water-colour 
 sketches made in France in 181 7 possess very considerable merit. 
 He became A.R.A. in 1820, but was then in ill-heath, both mental 
 and bodily. He had lost in rapid succession his two children, a 
 son and a daughter, in the flower of their youth, and he never 
 
 R 
 
122 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 recovered the blow. He died in 1821, and was buried in Bushey 
 churchyard. 
 
 George Engleheart is quite worthy of notice amongst the more 
 distinguished miniaturists of that time. He, like a lar^e number of 
 his confreres, worked both in enamel and on ivory, and was a great 
 favourite with George III. He was an .exhibitor at the Royal 
 Academy from 1774 to 18 12, and made a considerable fortune by his 
 art. His work is tender in colour and correct in drawing. I have 
 examined a large number of specimens from his hand, and have 
 been much struck, especially in his more sketchy portraits, by the 
 refrain of Cosway which runs through them. The treatment of 
 the hair, the full large eye, and juicy flesh colour, remind one at 
 every turn of the great Richard. He generally signed G. E. 
 
 Luke Sullivan began life as an engraver, and assisted Hogarth 
 in the production of many of his plates. The March to Finchley 
 is by his hand. He afterwards became a fashionable miniaturist. 
 His female portraits were especially successful. He possessed the 
 happy faculty of idealising whilst preserving a strict likeness. 
 
 Henry Spicer was one of the numerous art staff of the Prince of 
 Wales, chiefly practising in enamel. His work is marked by chaste 
 colour and correct drawing, and he stands high in the rank of 
 contemporary enamellers. 
 
 Charles Sheriff was deaf and dumb. His works are not 
 numerous, but he must have been a very tolerable artist, if Mrs. 
 Siddon's recommendation is to be trusted. She writes in 1785, that 
 he was more successful in her portrait than any miniature painter 
 she had sat to. 
 
 Samuel Cotes was a younger brother of Francis Cotes, R.A. 
 His father was an apothecary in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, 
 and Samuel was brought up to his father's profession. He greatly 
 preferred art, and, stimulated by his brother's success, took to 
 miniature painting. He succeeded admirably in crayon portraits, 
 and produced some very good enamels ; but his water-colour 
 miniatures are decidedly second-rate. 
 
 Richard Collins is an artist but little known, and I have never 
 seen an undoubted example of his work. He was a pupil of 
 Jeremiah Meyer, and in 1787 was appointed principal enamel and 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 123 
 
 miniature painter to George III. He is spoken of as a first-rate 
 artist, and must have enjoyed a large share of fashionable patronage ; 
 but I cannot speak personally of his qualities. 
 
 John Plott had a varied experience. He commenced life as 
 clerk to an attorney. Finding art a more congenial employment, 
 he became a pupil of Richard Wilson as a landscape painter, 
 and then assisted Nathaniel Hone in miniature and enamel. He 
 afterwards practised independently, and was a frequent exhibitor at 
 the Royal Academy. 
 
 Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A., must strictly be classed as a 
 miniaturist, seeing that his success in that branch of art induced him 
 to leave his trade as a goldsmith, and take to portraiture. He 
 became President of the Scotch Academy. He was a vigorous 
 painter, a good colourist, and rarely failed to catch the characteristic 
 traits of his subject. 
 
 Anne Foldsone, better known as Mrs. Mee, began work quite 
 at the end of the 18th century, though she only commenced 
 exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1804. She was the eldest 
 daughter of John Foldsone, a painter. I have seen two miniatures, 
 signed on the back "Anne Foldsone." Judging by these two 
 specimens, her early work far exceeded the efforts of her later 
 years. Though rather too ruddy in colour, the technique is 
 excellent, and the drawing perfect. She was extensively patronised 
 by George IV., and many works by her are at Windsor ; but 
 compared with the early work I have alluded to, they are but 
 poor performances. They bear a sort of careless, slipshod look, 
 quite second-rate in quality. She lived to a great age, and 
 died in 1851. 
 
 One of the curiosities of the period, of which we are now 
 treating, was the outburst of female amateur talent. Whether or no 
 set on foot by the example of the fair Swiss, Angelica Kauffman, 
 who took the town by storm in 1765 ; certain it is that many lady 
 artists were at work just then, whose performances were in every 
 respect fully equal to the professional work of the period. 
 
 Lady Lucan (Margaret Smith, wife of Sir Charles Bingham, 
 Baron Lucan in Ireland) was a very accomplished miniaturist. She 
 did many original portraits, but chiefly copied the works of the 
 
 r 2 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 Olivers, Hoskins, Cooper, &c. Whether she quite deserved the 
 rather extravagant compliments of Horace Walpole, may perhaps be 
 doubted. He says of her, that she copied "with a genius that 
 almost depreciates those masters, when we consider that they spent 
 their lives in attaining perfection, and who, soaring above their 
 modest timidity, has transferred the vigour of Raphael to her copies 
 in water-colours." 
 
 Lady Spenser, a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was an excellent 
 artist, of the Kauffman School. She drew many classical subjects, 
 which were engraved by Bartolozzi. I have two original 
 drawings from her pencil, with the engravings taken from them, 
 which sufficiently show her talents in the particular branch she 
 undertook. 
 
 Lady Diana Beauclerc, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. 
 She married first Frederic St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 
 and afterwards Topham Beauclerc, only son of Lord Sidney 
 Beauclerc. 
 
 Her talents were more varied. She both drew and modelled 
 in clay. She painted a celebrated likeness of the beautiful Duchess 
 of Devonshire, and the Bartolozzi engraving of her two daughters 
 from a drawing by her became one of the fashionable prints 
 of the day. She drew and modelled many designs for Josiah 
 Wedgwood, which he produced as tablets in his Jasper ware, 
 some of which, especially those of children, came very near 
 Flaxman's designs for the great potter, in grace of conception and 
 beauty of form. 
 
 Miss Frances Reynolds, sister to Sir Joshua, took up miniature 
 painting as an amusement, but attained no very great proficiency 
 in the art. Dr. Johnson says he sat to her ten times. 
 
 Miss Palmer, niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the " Offy " of 
 their family life, and afterwards Lady Thomond, was a most 
 successful miniaturist. I have a sketch on ivory by her, apparently 
 the commencement of a copy of Gainsborough's " Mrs. Siddons," 
 which is wonderful, in the life-like vigour obtained by a few slight 
 washes of colour. 
 
 Mrs. Darner succeeded in a more difficult walk of art than 
 painting. As a sculptress, again one is almost afraid to take 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGIAND. 
 
 Walpole's estimate : " Mrs. Darner's busts from the life are not 
 inferior to the antique, and theirs we are sure were not more 
 like ; " apparently she received instruction from an excellent master, 
 Bacon. 
 
 Lady Templeton, Miss Crewe, and others, were really good 
 artists, and supplied Bartolozzi with subjects for engravings, and 
 Wedgwood with designs for his medallions and plaques. 
 
 Whilst on the subject of lady artists, we must not forget to 
 allude to the wonderful Miss Biffin, although, in point of time, she 
 belongs to a later period. This curious person was born without 
 legs and arms, but nevertheless contrived to paint miniatures, 
 holding the brush in her mouth. Though so imperfect in form, she 
 managed to marry and became Mrs. Wright. A portrait of her, 
 by herself, was exhibited at South Kensington. I have never 
 seen a specimen of her work, and therefore am unable to criticise 
 her performances. 
 
 I forgot to mention William Prewitt, a pupil of Zincke's, who 
 has left us a signed piece, now at South Kensington, showing his 
 master's brilliant colour, but exhibiting the same faults of tonality, 
 which characterize Zincke's work. 
 
 A few other artists deserve mention, though hardly in the 
 first rank. 
 
 John Bogle, who practised in Scotland, in early life, moved 
 to London in 1772, and continued an exhibitor until 1792. He 
 almost caught the smooth enamel-like surface of Smart, though 
 hardly equalling him in beautiful colour. 
 
 Richard Crosse was early at work, having received a premium 
 at the Society of Arts in 1758. In 1790, he was appointed 
 enameller to the King, but soon after gave up his profession, and 
 died at Knowle in 18 10. 
 
 William Grimaldi, born 1 75 1 , a pupil of Worlidge's. He 
 practised his art in many provincial towns, and settled in London 
 in 1785. He was miniature painter to George III., Duke and 
 Duchess of York, and George IV. Many specimens by his hand 
 are at Windsor, but he can hardly be placed in the same category as 
 many other artists of the time. He died in 1830. 
 
 Samuel Finney was also early in the renaissance, having been 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 an exhibitor in 1,7.61 at the Society of Arts. He was portrait 
 painter to Queen Charlotte, but left his profession on inheriting 
 some family property. He died in 1807, aged eighty-six. 
 
 Charlotte Jones, commenced as an exhibitor in 1801, and was 
 a special favourite of the Princess of Wales, whose portrait she 
 painted a great many times. She was a very good artist, correct in 
 colour and drawing. 
 
 Mary Benwell was another very fair miniaturist, first exhibiting 
 in 1 76 1 ; several of her works were engraved by Houston, Charles 
 Knight, and others. 
 
 William Wood, born 1760, ought to be much better known 
 than he is. A recent sale at Ipswich, at the house occupied by his 
 descendants, has brought to light records of his work, and many 
 specimens from his brush, coming uncommonly near in technique 
 and beauty to the work of Cosway. By his note-books he must 
 have painted an amazing number of most excellent portraits. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 igt/i Century. 
 
 n the preceding pages I have in a rough way spoken of 
 the various artists in conjunction with the reigns of 
 different monarchs, and in connection with that some- 
 what arbitrary division of the subject, it is a curious 
 coincidence that the long reign of George III., 
 from 1760 to 1820, almost exactly covers the best 
 period of the renaissance of miniature art. When 
 he mounted the throne, we have seen that the band of workers in this 
 branch of art was but a very small one, practising in enamel rather 
 than in water-colour, gradually feeling their way into light, out of 
 the Cimmerian darkness of the preceding reign. From these small 
 beginnings the volume of painters " in little " gradually swelled to a 
 huge army, in which numbers and excellence were alike conspicuous ; 
 but very soon after the third George passed from our view, this 
 huge army, too, melted away, and left but a few representatives to 
 carry on the charming art through its last declining years. 
 
 Alas ! a review of these latter-day artists will not detain us 
 long. About the first name strictly belonging to the 19th century 
 is that of Andrew Robertson. 
 
 He was born in Aberdeen in 1777. On his arrival in London 
 in 1800, he attracted the notice of Benjamin West, P.R.A., who 
 sat to him for his portrait in miniature. This was the beginning 
 
128 
 
 A III STORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 of a successful career, and for many years, on the decline of 
 Cosway and his contemporaries, he occupied the first place in the 
 fashionable world. Many of his pupils became distinguished 
 miniaturists, Sir William Ross amongst the number. Robertson 
 possessed a cultivated mind in many ways ; he was a good writer, 
 a first-rate musician, and a very charitable man. He died at 
 Hampstead in 1845. His work is always well finished, correct 
 in drawing, but sometimes crude in colour, is rather pretty than 
 vigorous, hardly equalling the quality of his immediate predecessors. 
 
 James Holmes was, like Andrew Robertson, possessed of 
 many accomplishments. He was born in 1777, and first apprenticed 
 to an engraver. Subsequently, he painted both in oil and water- 
 colour, exhibiting genre pictures, generally of a humorous character, 
 as well as portraits. His chief work, however, was that of minia- 
 turist. He painted George IV. and most of the Royal Family. 
 Lord Byron was especially partial to him, and sat to him several 
 times. The fine portrait of the poet, now in the collection of 
 Isaac Falcke, Esq., was engraved for the collection of Byron's 
 works, and is admirable in every way. His musical talents 
 secured to him the special intimacy of the King, whilst his great 
 conversational powers and genial nature endeared him to a wide 
 circle of the best society. 
 
 One of the most original of the miniaturists of the century 
 was Alfred Edward Chalon, R.A. His family, originally French, 
 settled at Geneva at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. On 
 the breaking out of the French Revolution, his father left Geneva 
 and settled in England, where he was appointed Professor of French 
 at the Military College, Sandhurst. Alfred was born in Geneva 
 in 1780, and with his brother was placed in a mercantile house 
 on the arrival of the family in England. The drudgery of a 
 commercial life was highly distasteful to both brothers, and with 
 his father's consent, Alfred entered as a student at the Royal 
 Academy in 1797. He soon acquired a bold dashing style of 
 drawing-, which he retained to the end of his life. His miniatures 
 on ivory are full of character, the accessories, such as drapery, 
 lace, &c, touched in with a spirit and elegance peculiarly his 
 own. He is, however, almost better known by his small full- 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 129 
 
 length portraits, nine or ten inches high. Hardly a celebrity in 
 the first half of this century escaped him, and from Her present 
 Majesty downwards, all passed under the hands of Alfred Chalon. 
 Though French in manner, he was a true Englishman in heart, 
 an accomplished musician, keen wit, and most genial host. He 
 survived to a good old age, surrounded by troops of friends, and 
 died in i860, aged eighty years. 
 
 Sir William Ross has already been spoken of as a pupil of 
 Andrew Robertson. A delicate child, and debarred on that 
 account from following the usual rough games of boyhood, he 
 amused himself from his earliest years in taking likenesses. When 
 quite young he carried off gold and silver medals from the Society 
 of Arts and Royal Academy. Through his association with 
 Robertson, his daily work was miniature painting ; but his ambition 
 was to become an historic painter. He had already gained a 
 medal for an oil painting, " The Judgment of Brutus," and in 
 1825 he exhibited a large oil painting at the Royal Academy, 
 " Christ casting out the Devils from the Maniacs of the Tombs ; " 
 but his art-strength, if not his inclination, lay in the direction of 
 miniature portraits, and in that branch he divided with Chalon 
 and Sir William Newton all the work of the last years of 
 miniature. He painted the whole of the Royal Family of England, 
 of Belgium and Portugal, and a generation of the best and fairest 
 of his own country sat to him. It was not his fault if he fell on 
 evil times in the matter of female attire. The high combs, turbans, 
 senseless ringlets half covering the face, and loose slovenly dresses 
 of a short half century back, contrasted too painfully with the 
 flowing lines and graceful coiffure which enabled Reynolds, 
 Gainsborough, and Cosway to present to us such marvels of female 
 beauty during the latter part of the 18th century. He had all the 
 attributes of a first-rate miniature painter. Refined and accurate 
 drawing, artistic composition, admirable colour, and tasteful arrange- 
 ment of accessories, would have placed him in the first rank at 
 any epoch of portraiture, whilst his amiable and simple manners 
 and blameless life endeared him to all who shared his friendship. 
 He died in the same year as his bosom friend, Alfred Chalon, 
 i860, in his sixty-sixth year. 
 
 s 
 
130 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 William Essex deserves mention as an enameller. He had 
 thoroughly studied the chemistry of the subject, and wrote a 
 treatise on the art of enamelling. He was an admirable draughts- 
 man, and as great as an animal painter as he was clever in 
 delineating the human face. 
 
 William Egley, born in 1798 at Doncaster, was apprenticed to 
 a publisher in London. He taught himself the art of miniature 
 painting, and first exhibited at the Academy in 1824. From that 
 year up to 1869, he was a constant exhibitor, and is perhaps the 
 very last artist who did really good work. 
 
 At this point the history of miniature painting comes to a 
 full stop. The advent of the cheap process (for I decline to call 
 it an art) of photography put an end to the delightful cult which 
 we have been tracing through three centuries of existence. 
 
 The two last masters of miniature, Chalon and Ross, each 
 ventured upon a prediction concerning the probable influence of 
 photography upon miniature. When the chemical discovery was 
 first applied to portraiture, the Queen remarked to Alfred Chalon 
 that photography would ruin his profession, to which he is said 
 to have replied : " Ah non, madame, photographie can't flattere ! " 
 Ross, on the other hand, was more prescient when he remarked 
 on his death-bed, speaking of this same photography, that "it 
 was all up with future miniature painting." 
 
 Certain it is, that up to the present time Sir William Ross's 
 prophecy has been fulfilled, and miniature painting is a lost art. 
 
 It may be wrong to undervalue photography. It has its 
 undoubted uses. It has proved to be an important aid to science, 
 enabling the observer to obtain a prompt and exact record of 
 many a fact, which would have been lost but for its power of 
 registering mechanically the fleeting image of the moment. 
 
 Again, even in portraiture, it has placed within the reach of 
 all, even the poorest, the means of preserving associations, which 
 to an uneducated mind are deemed sufficiently accurate for all 
 practical purposes of gratification and happiness. And yet, 
 although it may have invaded the outer skirts of miniature art, 
 it has never touched its real heart and core. Chalon was 
 abundantly right when he said, " Photographie can't flattere," for 
 
MINIATURE ART IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the photographic portrait is not even a literal copy of the sitter. 
 As a necessary consequence of the nature of lenses, every part 
 which projects beyond the true plane is exaggerated and distorted, 
 the light and shade are so intensified as to become ludicrous, the 
 action is constrained, and the expression got up for the occasion, 
 according to the word of command of the photographic operator, 
 effectually crushes out any small modicum of character with which 
 nature may have endowed the face. 
 
 It must be confessed, that up to the present time there is no 
 sign of reaction, no evidence of the tide turning. Miniature 
 painting is still in abeyance, the tide still ebbing ; but can it 
 always be thus ? With the increased art-culture, and appreciation 
 of the beautiful and true, which is happily permeating the intelli- 
 gent classes of the present day, it is impossible to believe that 
 the faulty results of a mechanical process can continue to satisfy 
 the art aspirations of the future. The sons and daughters of men 
 are as noble and fair now as when Cooper painted the strong men 
 of the 17th, or Cosway the beautiful women of the 18th centuries. 
 With materials so worthy of the limner's skill, it can but be a 
 question of time when the fascinating art of miniature shall again 
 flourish, awaking from its slumber, refreshed and renewed, striving 
 always onward to greater and greater perfection. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 § i. — French School. 
 
 ^g-S^-HE attempt to write a history of the progress of 
 gr> miniature art amongst foreign nations is by no means 
 as easy as in the case of England. The influence 
 of the missal painter and illuminator was as great, or 
 even greater, in other nations than in our country, 
 and undoubtedly the natural evolution of miniature 
 portraits from the generic source of the missal 
 miniatures, followed as certainly abroad as at home ; but whilst 
 in the one case the new art struck immediate root, and produced 
 an unbroken series of brilliant artists, who devoted their whole 
 time and talent to painting miniature portraits, in the other case 
 it was pursued in a casual and desultory manner. Indeed, the 
 best part of two centuries had elapsed since its establishment 
 in England, before anything which can be really considered a 
 school of miniaturists existed abroad. When Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough led the great revolt against the inanity and bathos of 
 portrait painting of the time, and thus indirectly caused a revival of 
 the charming art of miniature, a revival which gave us a Cosway, 
 Plimer, Smart, Humphrey, Shelley, and a host of others, the 
 art soon spread, and there arose, chiefly in Paris, in a lesser 
 degree in Vienna and Berlin, and least of all in the chosen home 
 of the Renaissance, Italy, a number of artists who took to miniature 
 
Madame Elizabeth. 
 
 Dumont. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 Countess Cayla. 
 
 Rosalba 
 
 y. R. Augus'tin. 
 
 Francois II. 
 
 Janet. 
 
 Canova. M. Chaptal. 
 
 Fiiger. Arland. 
 
 Talleyrand. 
 
 Charhcr. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 painting as a profession, and whose works are worthy of all 
 admiration. 
 
 Let us take, to begin with, the history of miniature painting in 
 France. 
 
 First, in point of time as well as celebrity, occurs the family of 
 Clouet. 
 
 The Clouets.- — In the year 1475, when Louis XI. was preparing 
 to crush the power of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and to 
 annex the fair Duchy to the realms of France, a modest entry 
 appears in the Ducal accounts that a certain Jehan Clouet and 
 Henry Bonem have received the sum of thirty-seven livres, four 
 sous, for work done. Bonem signs the receipt as carpenter and 
 cabinet worker, and Clouet as painter. 
 
 From this obscure record, tradition has sought to establish that 
 this Jehan or Jean Clouet was the first of the artistic family, who, in 
 the succeeding century, raised the French school of portraiture to a 
 very high standard. As nothing further is known of this painter, 
 it becomes impossible to determine whether tradition is right or 
 wrong. To find the next piece of evidence with regard to the 
 family, we must pass on to the year 1518. 
 
 In the accounts of the French Royal Household for that year, 
 the name of Jean Clouet appears as "peintre ordinaire." Francis I. 
 now reigned in France, and the Court was established at Tours, the 
 pleasant town on the banks of the Loire, which from the time of 
 Charlemagne and the English monk Alcuin, had occupied the proud 
 position of the art centre of France. 
 
 The Jean Clouet appearing in these accounts is generally 
 known as Jean Clouet II., to distinguish him from his Burgundian 
 father. About the year 1525 the Court removed from Tours to 
 Paris, and naturally the artists and others in its employ followed 
 in the Royal train. During his residence at Tours, Jean Clouet 
 married Jeanne Boucault, daughter of Gacien Boucault, a goldsmith 
 of the town. This occurred prior to 1522, for a contract of sale, 
 bearing date June 6, 1522, is still preserved. The purchasers' 
 names in the deed are Jeanne Boucault and her husband, Jean 
 Clouet, "valet de chambre ordinaire du Roy nostre dit seigneur." 
 The purchase related to a rent to be paid annually in grain at 
 
134 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Michaelmas. The marriage must have occurred long before 1522, 
 as the earliest known work of their celebrated son, Francois Clouet, 
 the portrait of the Dauphin Francois, eldest son of Francis I., now 
 in the Museum of Antwerp, must have been painted about the 
 year 1524. 
 
 From an early period in the history of the family the name of 
 Clouet almost ceased to be used, and they gradually acquired the 
 popular appellation of Jannet, or Janet, by which name the son 
 Francois is ordinarily known. 
 
 In the year 1529, another Clouet makes his appearance. 
 Marguerite of Valois, sister to Francis I., la bonne Reine Margot 
 of the Troubadours, had just married the King of Navarre. In a 
 letter written by her from Fontainebleau to the Chancellor of 
 Alencon, she says she has arranged to take into her service "le 
 peintre frere de Jannet, peintre du Roy." M. de Laborde thinks this 
 must have been a son of Jean Clouet II., and brother of Francois ; 
 but as Francois only became "peintre du Roy "at his father's death, 
 which certainly occurred long after 1529, there can be little doubt that 
 this Clouet was a brother of Jean Clouet II., and uncle of Francois. 
 Nothing further is known of him ; but I have a miniature of 
 Marguerite. It is sober in tint, accurate in detail, with the heavy 
 impasto common in these early works, and a certain dryness of 
 outline, which tells of Flemish influence. Of course it is a mere con- 
 jecture to guess at the artist, but very possibly it furnishes us with a 
 specimen of the handiwork of this unknown Clouet. The technical 
 qualities of this miniature, as indeed of all the work supposed to be 
 by the hand of the elder Clouets, is essentially that ordinarily seen 
 in the miniature pictures of the illuminated MS. A solid layer of 
 local tint is first laid on and allowed to become completely hard and 
 dry. On this, the modelling is afterwards carefully executed by 
 hatching with colour excessively diluted, so that the successive 
 touches melt into one another, forming but a thin film on two solid 
 layers of colour beneath. Any attempt subsequently made to clean 
 or restore one of these early pictures, instantly removes the delicate 
 top layer of gradated work, leaving but the flat crude surface of 
 what was only intended as the basis of the work. 
 
 Francis the First was doing his best to surround himself 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 i35 
 
 with artists of the Italian School. Lionardo da Vinci had been 
 summoned from ruined Milan ; but the poor old man entered his 
 service, only to find a grave on French soil at Amboise, nursed by 
 the King in his last illness, and dying at last in his arms. Andrea 
 del Sarto had been at work in France. He obtained permission to 
 return to Italy, on condition he would speedily reappear, loaded not 
 only with liberal payment for his work, but also carrying with him 
 a considerable sum wherewith to purchase works of art for his royal 
 patron. No sooner had he reached his home, than his spendthrift 
 and jealous wife wasted the whole of his substance in debauchery, 
 and he died a miserable wretch, of the plague, which visited 
 Florence in 1530. About the same time II Rosso became the 
 leading spirit at the French Court, speedily followed by Primaticcio. 
 These men covered acres of wall space at Fontainebleau and 
 Madrid with their classical compositions, not a vestige of which now 
 remains. The Flemish portrait painter pursued his steady course, 
 heedless of the quarrels of the Italian artists, and untouched by their 
 Southern influence. For twenty years he recorded on canvas and 
 panel the Royal and noble faces of the French Court, and yet of 
 all the portraits, whether life-size or miniature, of that period, which 
 still exist, not one can be absolutely identified as his work. There 
 are a few, which the best authorities agree in ascribing to him, such 
 as the half-length of Francis I. in the Louvre, the Eleanora at 
 Hampton Court, the so-called Francis I. and Count de Brissac in 
 the Louvre, and the equestrian portrait of Francis I. in the Uffizi 
 Palace at Florence. The Chateaux of the Loire are full of portraits 
 of the Clouet School, and our own Hampton Court has a fair 
 sprinkling of them, many, doubtless, by Jean Clouet II.; but in 
 every case proof is wanting. 
 
 We are able to fix the date of his death with tolerable 
 accuracy, by the official notice which first introduces us to his 
 son Francois. In 1541 letters of naturalisation were granted to 
 Francois, restoring to him his father's property, which, as belonging 
 to an alien, had passed to the Crown, " au moien que ce que le diet 
 deffunt estoit etranger et non natif, ne originaire de nostre royaume." 
 He died in Paris, as the formalities necessary by his death were 
 made before the " Prevost de Paris, soulz le seel de nostre 
 
136 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Chancellerye." Franqois Clouet is supposed to have been born 
 during his father's residence at Tours, but in what year is unknown. 
 At his father's death he at once succeeded to the position of peintre 
 ordinaire and valet de chambre to the King. 
 
 Francis I. died in 1547 at Rambouillet of intermittent fever, 
 and Francois Clouet was commissioned to model the effigy of the 
 King to be employed in the funeral ceremonies. He had, indeed, to 
 make three effigies, as Charles, Duke of Orleans, the youngest son of 
 Francis I., who died in 1544, and the Dauphin Francois, were now 
 to be interred with their father. These waxen figures or effigies 
 were frequently employed during the lying in state, when it was 
 undesirable to expose the corpse. 
 
 For some years after the accession of Henri II. , we hear nothing 
 of Francois Clouet. There is a passing allusion to him in Ronsard's 
 poems in 1553, where, in a note, he says, that Janet " pour representer 
 vivant la nature a passe tous ceux de nostre aage." 
 
 In 1554 he is mentioned as executing the decorations of a 
 coffer for the King, for which he received twenty livres. In 1559 
 Henri II. celebrated with great pomp the marriage of his eldest 
 daughter, Isabeau, with Philip II., King of Spain. In the tournament 
 held in her honour, whilst tilting with Gabriel de Lorges, the King 
 was wounded by the lance of his adversary, and died eleven days 
 afterwards. Francois Clouet had now to perform the same office 
 for Henri II., as he had discharged in 1547 for Francis I. His name 
 appears in the accounts for white wax, white lead, oil, brushes, and 
 plaster for casting the face and effigy of the King. Black cloth for 
 mourning was also distributed to the members of the household, and 
 amongst them "a Francois Clouet, peintre du feu roy, sept aunes et 
 demy du dit drap." 
 
 The next official reference to Francois Clouet brings us to the 
 year 1567. 
 
 In that year the bureau of the " Cour des Monnoyes " deter- 
 mined to issue a new coinage, and commissioned one Claude de 
 Herz to prepare a likeness of the King Charles IX. for the die. 
 This was submitted to " Francois Clouet, diet Janet, peintre et varlet 
 de chambre du Roy," who expressed his approval of the portrait. By 
 the way, the King himself did not much fancy the resemblance, if we 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 137 
 
 may judge by his curt notes on the subject : " La dicte effigie ne 
 represente aucun ementnostre aaige, ne pareillement nostre visage, 
 ne la taille dont nous sommes a present." This opinion was 
 probably dictated by the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, 
 who was endeavouring to bring about the marriage of her son 
 with Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian II., and was therefore 
 anxious to present a flattering specimen to the Austrian Court. 
 Franqois Clouet for the same purpose painted the life-size portrait of 
 Charles IX., which stills hangs in the Belvedere Gallery, Vienna. 
 At the time of the marriage Francois Clouet painted Elizabeth 
 herself, which is now in the Louvre. She is here a joyous girl of 
 eighteen (1570), full of the frank and simple charm of early woman- 
 hood, quite pathetic in its freshness, when we remember her sad 
 fate ; four years of miserable married life, under the eye of the 
 atrocious Catherine, sent her back, widowed and broken-hearted, to 
 die a premature death in her own country. 
 
 The painting of these two portraits brings the official record of 
 Francois Clouet to an end. 
 
 His death probably occurred much later, and the date can only 
 be determined by indirect evidence. 
 
 The poet Ronsard may again help us. The first complete 
 edition of his works was published in 1584, revised and corrected by 
 Ronsard himself immediately before publication, and in a little poem 
 which he added to the work at the last moment, occur these 
 lines : — 
 
 " Un seul Janet, honneur de nostre France 
 De ses crayons ne te portrairoit mieux." 
 
 Had Francois Clouet been already dead, Ronsard would hardly 
 have written of him thus. His portrait of Henri III. at Stafford 
 House could not have been painted much before 1580, judging 
 by the apparent age of the King ; and the very fine miniature 
 of the Due d'Alencon in the Jones Collection at South Kensington, 
 where he is represented holding the portrait of Elizabeth, would 
 date about the same time as the Duke's visit to England to solicit 
 the hand of the Virgin Queen, which occurred in 1581. 
 
 The portraits which can positively be attributed to Francois 
 Clouet are very few in number. The Charles IX. in Vienna, 
 
 T 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 the small replica of the same picture, and the Elizabeth in the 
 Louvre, the Dauphin Franqois at Hampton Court, and the same 
 person in the Museum at Antwerp, are about all which can be 
 clearly set down as his undoubted work. 
 
 As in the case of his father, Jean Clouet II., others may 
 certainly exist, but cannot be proved. 
 
 The chalk portraits of the Clouet period form a very interest- 
 ing but embarrassing portion of the family art- work. Enormous, 
 numbers are found in various European collections, public and 
 private. In England, the largest display is at Castle Howard, 
 reproduced in photography by Lord Ronald Gower. The British 
 Museum possesses a small series. There is another collection at 
 Stafford House, and various other collectors can boast of isolated 
 specimens. Abroad the Bibliotheque d'estampes at Paris contains 
 a very large number, and the Louvre follows suit. The Arch-Duke 
 Albert at Vienna reckons some very, fine drawings of this class. 
 Naturally the possessors of these pictures invariably set them down 
 as the work of Jean and Francois Clouet. Altogether, the 
 specimens known and catalogued, probably do not fail far short of 
 three thousand, and considering the destruction which has overtaken 
 all old art-work, this large mass would represent but a small 
 fragment of what once existed. It seems impossible that two 
 men, very largely engaged in other branches of art, could have 
 found time to produce such vast numbers of portraits. They 
 vary from nearly life-size to that of a miniature, and are very 
 unequal in merit. Some few, in the breadth and freshness of 
 touch, seem clearly taken from life ; others, though very highly 
 finished, betray the more mechanical mark of an artist versed in 
 engraving ; whilst very many are so slovenly and coarse in execution, 
 that they evidently proceed from the hand of a copyist, and a 
 poor performer, too. In several instances the same portrait is 
 seen, reproduced three or four times over in the same collection. 
 Doubtless some of this mass were actually drawn by the Clouets ; 
 but to which is the palm to be awarded ? 
 
 Another question, extremely difficult of solution, presents 
 itself. For what purpose were the celebrated persons of the 16th 
 century French Court put upon paper in such prodigious numbers ? 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 i39 
 
 Mrs. Mark Pattison, in her admirable article on the Clouets in 
 ' The Renaissance of Art in France,' suggests a very feasible answer. 
 
 In the 1 6th century a perfect mania existed for collecting 
 portraits. Every one could not afford an oil painting from the 
 hand of the Court painter, and the comparatively cheap method 
 of chalk drawing was resorted to, just as in the present day the 
 photograph of any celebrated character appears in every shop 
 window. Kings and nobles were never fond of sitting for their 
 portraits. It sufficed to obtain one undoubted likeness for any 
 number of Holbein Henry VIII. 's, Hilliard Elizabeths, or Ramsay 
 George III.'s to be produced and kept in stock, not from the 
 brush of the master, but put together by the apprentice or drapery 
 man of the studio. It is to be feared that the all-embracing term, 
 " Ecole des Clouets," must be applied to by far the larger number 
 of these studies in chalk, to which the name of Clouet is appended. 
 
 As regards the true miniature work of the family the same 
 uncertainty prevails. Of Jean Clouet II. nothing is known; but 
 certain specimens attributed to Franqois Clouet probably really 
 represent his work. Such are the six small whole lengths in the 
 Hamilton Collection, of Henri II., Henri III., Charles IX., Catherine 
 de Medicis, Le Grand Dauphin, and Claude of France, the whole 
 length of the Due d'Alencon in the Jones Collection at South 
 Kensington, the bust portrait of Francis I. in the Addington 
 Collection, and the | -length Francis II. in my possession. These 
 are all in oil on copper, except the last, which is painted on slate. 
 I have never seen a water-colour Janet miniature, but I have already 
 alluded to the Margaret of Navarre, which is painted in body colour 
 on vellum, as possibly supplying us with a specimen from the 
 hand of that " frere de Janet," who entered the service of Queen 
 Margaret in 1529. 
 
 About the same time we find the name of Hans Bol, born 
 at Malines in 1534, died at Amsterdam in 1593. He is said by 
 Laborde to have painted miniature portraits, but evidently his 
 chief work was in landscape, probably somewhat in the manner 
 afterwards carried to such perfection by the two Blarenberghes, 
 father and son. He painted on vellum in gouache, introducing 
 numerous figures into his tiny pictures. He also etched largely 
 
140 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 on copper. Two of his works were sold at the Hotel Drouot in 
 1862, signed and dated 1559, for 460 francs. 
 
 Frederic Brendel, born at Strasbourg in 1580, died in 1651. 
 Like so many artists of the time, he combined engraving, missal 
 painting, and portraiture. He painted a book of hours for the 
 Margrave of Baden, now in the Museum of Vienna, containing forty 
 admirable miniatures. He is also said to have painted in gouache 
 the miniature portraits of the family of the Margrave. He 
 taught William Baur, who comes next on the list of French 
 miniaturists. 
 
 William Batir, born at Strasbourg in 1600, died at Vienna 
 in 1640. Like his friend and teacher, Brendel, he painted 
 landscape, sea pieces, &c, in miniature more frequently than 
 portraits, though he is credited with many performances in this 
 branch of art. He worked for many years for Cardinal Breccieno 
 in Rome, and returned afterwards to Vienna, where he entered 
 the service of the Emperor Ferdinand III. 
 
 Samuel Bernard, born in Paris in 161 5, died there in 1687. 
 He was a pupil of Simon Vouet, and was one of the foundation 
 members of the Academy in 1648. He was an engraver as well 
 as a portrait miniaturist. 
 
 Louis Hans, born in Paris in 161 5, died there in 1658. 
 The burial certificate describes him as " Louys Hans, bourgeois 
 de Paris et peintre ordinaire du Roy." He enjoyed a considerable 
 reputation with the Court of France as a portrait miniaturist. 
 
 Richard Masson, sieur de la Richardiere, flourished about the 
 same time. He was appointed painter and valet de chambre to 
 Louis XIII. The date of his death is uncertain. 
 
 Jacques Bailly, born at Graqay in 1629, died at Paris in 
 1679. Painted portraits occasionally, but chiefly flowers and fruit 
 in miniature; became member of the Academy in 1663. He 
 was the great-grandfather of the celebrated Mayor of Paris, 
 murdered in the Revolution of 1793. 
 
 We have now arrived at the time of the enamellers. 
 
 Jean Tozdin was the first of this class of artists, and there 
 is little doubt that to him must be attributed the Renaissance, 
 though hardly the invention of enamelling portraits on a white 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 141 
 
 opaque enamel ground. However, this question has been more 
 fully treated earlier in this memoir. 
 
 Jean Petitot, in like manner, has been dealt with before. Though 
 of French extraction, he belonged as much to England as to France. 
 
 Immediately following these two artists we come upon the 
 names of other enamellers, whose works must, by the description 
 left to us, have come very near the excellence of the great 
 originators of the art. 
 
 Louis de Chatillon, born at Sainte Menehould in 1639, died 
 1734, at the advanced age of ninety-five. He was engraver, 
 enamel painter and miniaturist. According to Mariette, his enamels 
 were in every respect perfect. He produced an amazing number, 
 and yet his enamels are said to be very rare. It is not known 
 that he signed his work, and it is more than probable that many 
 a Petitot portrait really was the work of his hand. It is certain 
 that he painted numerous portraits in enamel of Louis XIV., for 
 which he received 120, 220, and 300 livres (francs), according to 
 the size. He also enamelled the young Louis XV. Many of 
 these enamels were mounted by the King's jewellers, Montarsy and 
 Ronde, in splendid boxes, as gifts to ambassadors and others. 
 Some of these presents, mentioned in the ' Archives du Ministre 
 des Affaires Etrangeres,' amounted to a considerable sum ; one is 
 mentioned, of 12,000 francs, given to the Duke of St. Albans, 
 William III.'s ambassador; another, of the value of 31,039 francs, 
 given to the Abbe Dubois for a secret mission ; another, of 37,090 
 francs, to the ambassador of the Emperor, &c. The enamels in 
 these boxes are mentioned as being by Chatillon. 
 
 Jacques Philippe Ferrand, born at Joigny in 1633, died in 
 Paris in 1732. He was the son of Louis Ferrand, physician to 
 Louis XIII. Fie learnt drawing in the studio of Mignard, and 
 miniature from Samuel Bernard. He taught himself the art of 
 enamelling, and attained a position in that branch of art (according 
 to the French authorities) " hors ligne." He was appointed valet 
 de chambre to Louis XIV., and member of the Academy in 1690. 
 He, too, was largely employed to paint enamels for diplomatic 
 presents, and obtained the same prices as Chatillon. 
 
 Another artist in enamel is mentioned in ' Le Mercure galant ' 
 of January 1700 as of first-rate talent — one Perrazilt, who worked 
 
 1 
 
142 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 for the Court — but no particulars of him are to be found in any 
 book of reference. 
 
 It is too much the fashion, in the prevailing ignorance as to 
 the various artists of the time, to ascribe every 17th-century 
 enamel to Petitot. If one ventures to express a doubt as to any 
 given specimen being by the great Genevese, the invariable reply is, 
 If it is not by him, who could have done it ? At all events, here 
 are three artists, each of whom, as proved by documentary evidence, 
 produced enamels of the King and Royal Family, contemporary 
 with Petitot, and (unless human nature was different in Louis XIV.'s 
 time) who endeavoured as far as possible to imitate the style and 
 touch of the man who was even then considered the " facile princeps " 
 of enamel. Besides these three artists, Chatillon, Ferrand and 
 Perrault, Bordier was at work, nominally assisting Petitot, but surely 
 occasionally producing a portrait without the aid of his brother-in- 
 law. We shall also find other artists, to be immediately described, 
 who were employed in exactly the same manner by the State, chiefly 
 in water-colour, but sometimes in enamel, to reproduce the Royal 
 countenance to be mounted in boxes as presents. None of these 
 artists signed their work, and it therefore becomes a matter of 
 extreme difficulty to assign any given work to a particular artist. 
 For instance, I have a Louis XIV. on ivory, admirably painted, and 
 which was always ascribed to Petitot, but which is undoubtedly 
 the work of one of the water-colour miniaturists next in order, in all 
 probability done as one of the innumerable reproductions of the 
 Great Monarch to be mounted in some fashion as a gift. There is 
 no evidence whatever that Petitot ever painted on ivory ; it was 
 just coming into use about the period of his death, and was quite 
 commonly employed before the death of Louis XIV. The miniature 
 I have mentioned is interesting ; it has just a certain refrain of 
 Petitot's touch, easily mistaken by any one who had not sufficiently 
 studied the unmistakable " cachet " of the great enameller. 
 
 We will now mention the other artists employed by the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Mademoiselle de la Boissiere painted Louis XIV. and the 
 young Louis XV., and is mentioned in the archives as furnishing 
 the portraits for several costly boxes. One given to Comte Baudry, 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 143 
 
 ambassador of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, cost 5772 francs. 
 Another, of the value of 3 114 francs, was presented to Comte de St. 
 Maurice, ambassador of the Elector of Cologne ; and several others. 
 
 Bourdin figures in the archives in a similar manner. One 
 box with a portrait by him is mentioned, set with twenty-two 
 rose diamonds, given to M. Buys, ambassador of Holland, which 
 cost 14,839 francs ; several others of lesser value are also 
 mentioned. 
 
 FrSdiric Bruckmann, a Swede, enamelled the King in quite 
 a wholesale manner, judging by the entries in the archives. 
 Here are some of them. — Nov. 20, 1696. " Requ de M. de 
 Pontchartrain douze portraits emailles en bas-relief par Frederic 
 Bruckmann, Suedois, a soixante francs, 720 francs." What this 
 enamelling in bas-relief was, I am unable to say, never having seen 
 a specimen. Other entries tell us thus : August 28, 1697, and 
 June 10, 1698. " Dix-neuf portraits de Bruckmann, du Roi, a 
 cinquante francs chacun." December 2, 1698, he again furnishes 
 nineteen portraits of the King in bas-relief, receiving sixty francs 
 apiece for them. It is small wonder that portraits of Louis XIV. 
 are so commonly met with. 
 
 Mademoiselle Chateau is in the same class. She painted 
 quite at the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, and was largely employed 
 by the Regent Orleans. There are several entries relating to her 
 in the archives. 
 
 Jean Cotelle, born in 1631, died in 1708. He was a member 
 of the Academy and, according to Jal, was much esteemed for his 
 miniatures. 
 
 The family of Du Gtiernier furnished several well-known 
 miniaturists during the 17th century. Alexander, Louis, Alexander 
 II. and Pierre were all good artists. The last two, in addition 
 to portraits, painted some of the lovely fans for which the 
 brilliant Court of Louis XIV. afforded such scope. 
 
 Jean Ecman, born in 1641, died in 1677. Jal, the author of the 
 ' Dictionnaire Critique,' describes him as a very able miniaturist, on 
 paper and vellum, for portraits, ornamental headings and vignettes. 
 
 Henri Chiron was an enamel painter towards the close of 
 the 1 7th century. Nothing is known of his performances ; his 
 
144 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 chief claim to notice is in the fact of his having been the father 
 of Elizabeth Sophie Cheron, born in Paris in 1648, died there in 
 1 71 1. She was a most accomplished artist, excelling in music 
 as well as painting. She became a member of the Academy, and 
 received a pension from Louis XIV. Her name forms another 
 in the band of artists who produced portraits in enamel and 
 miniatures of Louis XIV., and the members of his Court. 
 
 RicJiard Van Orley, born at Brussels in 1663, died in 1732. 
 He was a pupil of his uncle, a very talented artist. He painted 
 portraits, and sacred and mythological subjects in miniature. His 
 works have considerable value at the various sales in Paris. 
 Specimens have sold for 2130, 1090, 850 francs, &c. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Masse, born in Paris in 1688, died in 1767. He 
 learned drawing of Jouvenet, and engraving of Chatillon, who also 
 taught him the art of enamelling. He became the most celebrated 
 French miniaturist of the time, and supplied portraits of Louis XV. 
 for presents, much as the numerous artists already mentioned did 
 for Louis XIV. Many entries in the archives of the Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs relate to him and his work. Besides numerous 
 boxes containing portraits of the King by him, reaching as high 
 as 49,805 francs, one is particularly mentioned mounted in a box 
 enriched with forty-two brilliants and fifteen rose diamonds, which 
 cost the almost incredible sum of 129,852 francs. 
 
 Madame Maubert was another of the Louis XV. state portrait 
 miniaturists, who supplied portraits for the boxes of the King. She 
 received 120 francs apiece for them, which places her in the first 
 rank, as far as payment is concerned. 
 
 Jean Adam Matthieu, born at Stralsund in 1698, died in Paris 
 in 1753. An enamel-painter. As he was lodged in the Louvre, 
 an honour accorded only to first-rate talent, we must conclude his 
 work was considered of high quality. 
 
 Oudry painted enamels of Louis XV. for boxes. One is 
 specially mentioned, as sent to the Abbe Dubois, to be given to 
 M. L. C. A., whoever that may have been. 
 
 An artist named Penel, supplied portraits for boxes. In 1749, 
 he sends two portraits of Madame la Dauphine, and six of Madame 
 Infante, for which he asks 300 francs each, a sum, however, which 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 145 
 
 the authorities reduced to 240, the sum usually paid to the first- 
 class miniaturists. 
 
 Jean Prevost flourished under Louis XV. In one of his 
 accounts rendered to the Menus Plaisirs in 1762 are these items : "A 
 large portrait of the King, ordered by Madame de Pompadour, 1000 
 francs. Two small portraits of the King, size for boxes, 400 francs." 
 
 Raphael Backi, was a very wholesale purveyor of royal por- 
 traits in the reign of Louis XV. In 1762, he sends in his bill to 
 the Menus Plaisirs for fifteen portraits of the King, the Dauphin, 
 Madame Victoire, and Madame Adelaide ; and receives 240 francs each 
 for them. An exception is made of a full-length portrait of Madame 
 Adelaide as a saint in the desert, for which he obtained 384 francs. 
 
 Andre* Rouquet, born in Geneva in 1703, died in a madhouse in 
 Paris in 1759. An enamel-painter. As he spent nearly thirty years 
 in England, he hardly belongs to the French School. However, he 
 returned to Paris in 1750 and achieved a great reputation. He 
 obtained a higher price for his work than any other artist of his time. 
 One account for work rendered to the Menus Plaisirs, speaks of 
 three portraits of the King and two of the Dauphin, for which he 
 received 480 francs each. He wrote several works on painting. The 
 best known is his account of ' The State of the Arts in England,' 
 published in Paris in 1775, in which he gives a lively description of 
 the utter state of debasement which then existed in this country. 
 
 Peter Paul Seuin, born at Tournon in 1560, is known chiefly 
 by his large miniatures painted on vellum. A good specimen of 
 his work is in the Jones Collection at South Kensington, Turenne 
 on horseback, in classical costume, said to have been ordered by 
 Louis XV. as a present to Madame de Montespan. 
 
 Nicolas Vinevault painted many portraits of Louis XV. and 
 his family. The never-ceasing stream of diplomatic presents 
 received many additions from his brush. One is specially 
 mentioned, containing a portrait of the King by him, set with 441 
 brilliants, which cost 23,901 francs, presented to M. le Bailly de 
 Solar, ambassador of Sardinia. 
 
 Jacques Verselin, born in 1 648, died in 1 7 1 8. He became a mem- 
 ber of the Academy in 1687, presenting as his " morceau de reception " 
 a large miniature of Louis XIV., after the picture by Le Brun. 
 
 u 
 
146 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 Vincent Frangois Elie, born at Geneva. He is mentioned in the 
 Menus Plaisirs in 1749, as painting the King, the Dauphin, Madame 
 Sophie, Madame Louise, the Due de Bourgogne and others, 
 receiving the orthodox sum of 240 francs each for them. 
 
 Welper produced many portraits of Louis XV. The Royal 
 likenesses adorning the boxes distributed amongst the suite who 
 accompanied the young Dauphine Marie Antoinette from Vienna 
 to Strasbourg were all by him ; one especially, presented to the 
 Prince de Paar, cost 29,989 francs. 
 
 The name that next comes to our notice is associated with 
 specimens of miniature-painting, which in some respects have never 
 been equalled in the history of art, Louis Van, Blarenberghe. This 
 name stands alone in microscopic miniature. Louis was born at Lille 
 in 1 719. His father, Jacques Guillaume Van Blarenberghe, was 
 a Flemish painter, who settled in Lille and died there in 1742. 
 Young Louis came to Paris and painted on fans, snuff-boxes, 
 bonbonnieres, and even in rings, scenes of village life, military 
 processions and landscapes, which were simply marvellous. In 
 1773, he was sent to Brest, as state painter to the Navy, and 
 produced a series of drawings of the town and port, now in the 
 Ministry of Marine in Paris. His tiny pictures have always 
 commanded an enormous price. At various Paris sales, sums 
 such as 27,500, 30,100, 20,100, 13,000, 11,500 francs have been 
 paid for specimens set in snuff-boxes, and even in rings. 
 
 He had a son, Henri Joseph Van Blarenberghe, born in 1741, 
 died 1825. He was instructed by his father, and, according to the 
 French authorities, almost equalled him in his powers. He ac- 
 companied his father to Brest and helped him materially in his 
 work there. There is no record of the son ever having signed 
 his work in full ; it becomes impossible, therefore, if the French 
 estimate of his powers be correct, to distinguish the work of the 
 father from that of the son. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brisson figures in the accounts of the Menus 
 Plaisirs from 1759 to 1761, as furnishing twelve portraits of the King, 
 for each of which she received 200 francs ; one of these was set 
 in a box, mounted with 398 brilliants, of the value of 20,766 francs. 
 
 Cazaubon was employed by the Menus Plaisirs during many 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 147 
 
 years of Louis XV.'s reign. In 1 763 he painted five portraits of 
 the King to be set in rings, for which he received 1500 francs. 
 Another entry is for three portraits of Mesdames Adelaide, Sophie 
 and Louise, to be set in one ring, for which he was allowed 500 
 francs each, "en raison de la difficult^." 
 
 Jacques Charlier was of the same period and worked largely 
 for the Court. He seems to have received 300 francs apiece, 
 instead of the customary 240. He painted classical subjects in 
 miniature as well as portraits. The latter are usually painted 
 with a full brush, the colour thickly laid on, giving the appearance 
 of more body than is usual in the miniatures of the period. 
 
 There were two artists named Drouais. The father, Hubert, 
 born in Normandy in 1699, died in Paris in 1767. He painted 
 in oil, pastel and miniature. He studied under De Troy, and 
 became a member of the Academy in 1730. He almost entirely 
 gave up oil-painting to pursue miniature, in which he greatly 
 excelled. His son, Francois Hubert, was appointed painter in 
 ordinary to the King, and furnished many portraits to the Menus 
 Plaisirs for distribution in rings, bracelets and snuff-boxes. 
 
 We have now arrived at an epoch when miniaturists became 
 almost as numerous in France as in England. As this short 
 memoir is not intended to supply the place of a dictionary of 
 miniature painters, but merely to trace the successive steps in 
 the development of miniature portraits, I shall not attempt to 
 name all the artists who flourished under Louis XVI., and from 
 that time to the establishment of photography, but will merely 
 mention briefly some of the more celebrated, who conduced to 
 carry the charming art to the highest point of excellence. 
 
 Louis Francois Atibry, born in 1767, died in 185 i. He learned 
 of Vincent and Isabey, but was decidedly inferior to the latter. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Augustin, born in 1759, died of cholera at 
 Paris in 1832. He became chief miniaturist to Louis XVIII. 
 He never learned from any master, but formed his own style. 
 He was considered second only to Isabey, and the aid of poetry 
 was frequently invoked to extol the beauty of his portraits. 
 
 F. Bourgoin, enameller and miniaturist. He worked for the 
 Menus Plaisirs, and in 1763 received 36 louis d'or for two 
 
 u 2 
 
148 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 enamels of the King, painted on gold, one louis for each portrait 
 being paid extra for the gold. His works have sold for con- 
 siderable prices ; a box, with medallions enamelled by him, sold by 
 auction in Paris in 1872, realised 10,200 francs. 
 
 Charles Guillaume Btirgeois, born in 1759, died in 1832. He 
 painted exquisite profiles on a black ground. He j also wrote 
 upon the chemistry of colours used in painting. 
 
 Joseph Boze, born in 1746, died in 1831. Besides his talent 
 in miniature, he was a devoted Royalist. He had the courage 
 to give evidence in favour of Marie Antoinette, for which he was 
 thrown into prison, and only escaped the guillotine by the death 
 of Robespierre. 
 
 F. Campana, died in Paris in 1786. He painted charming 
 portraits. The signed and dated Madame du Barry in this collection 
 is a very good example of his skill. He painted Marie Antoinette 
 and other members of the Royal Family for diplomatic presents. 
 His works have fetched large prices. 
 
 Nicholas Andre" Courtois was one of the best enamellers of 
 Louis XVI. 's period. He became a member of the Academy in 1 770, 
 and was much employed by the Court of France. 
 
 Maxime David, not to be confounded with the painter 
 of the Revolution, was born in 1798. A pupil of Madame 
 de Mirbel. Early in his artistic career he found favour at the 
 Tuileries, and in a comparatively short time amassed a considerable 
 fortune. 
 
 Regault seems to have struck out for himself an entirely novel 
 walk in art. He painted classical subjects in miniature to represent 
 onyx cameos, which were set in boxes, bracelets, &c. He carried his 
 love of the antique to such a length, that he signed his name in 
 Archaic Greek characters. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Dtuhesne, born 1770, died 1855. His enamels 
 were the finest of his time. He came to England, and executed 
 for Queen Victoria a series of enamels of the Royal Family 
 after Sir W. Ross's miniatures. He was also employed to continue 
 the series of Petitot enamels in the Louvre, a work which had been 
 commenced by Welper. 
 
 Joseph Ducreux, born 1737, died 1802. He painted in oil, 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 149 
 
 pastel and miniature. In 1769, he was sent to Vienna, to paint the 
 Archduchess Marie Antoinette, when she became engaged to the 
 Dauphin. He certainly was occupied with the commencement and 
 end of that unfortunate reign, for he drew on a grey paper the 
 portrait of Louis XVI. just as he was leaving the Temple for 
 the scaffold. M. Charles Blanc, who saw the drawing, says that 
 the terrible realization of suffering, the dignity of resignation 
 and courage, the fixed eye and worn face, made him shudder as he 
 gazed on it. 
 
 L. Ditrand was a clever artist, an enameller and sculptor in 
 mother-of-pearl. He worked under Louis XV., and furnished the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs with many enamels of the King for 
 the usual diplomatic snuff-boxes. A portrait medallion of the King, 
 sculptured in "nacre" and signed L. Durand, is spoken of in the 
 highest terms of praise. 
 
 Jean Francois Fontallard, born 1777, died 1858. A pupil of 
 Augustin. He almost rivalled Petitot in the length of his artistic 
 career, for he continued to paint miniatures up to his death at the 
 age of eighty-one. 
 
 Jean Gudrin, born 1760, died 1836. He was fellow-pupil with 
 Isabey in the studio of David. He painted Louis XVI. and the 
 Queen, two large miniatures now in the collection of the Count de 
 Germiny. As a member of the National Guard at the Tuileries on 
 June 20th, 1792, he assisted, at the peril of his life, in the protection 
 of the Royal Family against the fury of the Paris mob. He 
 commenced a series of miniatures of the most prominent deputies of 
 the National Assembly, and later on of the Generals of the Republic, 
 both of which were engraved by Fiesinger. The whole of the 
 original designs of both of these series appear to be lost. In 
 spite of his great talent, he was scarcely appreciated during his 
 lifetime. He was never received at the Academy, nor was a single 
 medal ever awarded to him. 
 
 Pierre Adolphe Hall bears a reputation in France analogous to 
 that of Cooper and Cosway amongst ourselves. He has been called 
 " Le Vandyck de la miniature." He was born at Stockholm in 1736, 
 and died in Liege in 1 793. He painted in oil, pastel, enamel and 
 miniature. His father was physician to the King, and was ennobled 
 
15° 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 in i 743. Pierre was brought up to the profession, but at the age 
 of nineteen, found art so much more congenial to his tastes, that 
 he quitted his studies to follow it. He went to Paris in 1760, 
 became a member of the Academy in 1 769, and immediately took 
 the first place as miniaturist. He was never keen for work ; devoted 
 to music and hunting, he missed many an appointment in pursuit of 
 pleasure. Gustavus III. sat many times to him and endeavoured to 
 persuade him to return to Sweden, promising to appoint him keeper 
 of the Royal Museum. At the approach of the Revolution, Hall 
 found his best customers leaving France amongst the Emigres, and 
 remembering the King of Sweden's promise, he decided to return to 
 his native land. Whilst travelling slowly homewards, he learned the 
 news of the death of his royal protector, and shortly afterwards he 
 himself succumbed to an attack of apoplexy at Liege in 1793. He 
 painted much for the Menus Plaisirs, several of his portraits being 
 set in diamonds as boxes, bracelets, &c. One especially of the 
 Dauphin (Louis XVI.) is mentioned, as having been sent to Marie 
 Antoinette on her arrival at Strasbourg in 1770. For the portrait 
 Hall was paid 111 louis (2664 francs), and the box in which it was 
 mounted, surmounted by seventy fine brilliants, cost 75,678 francs. 
 Another portrait by him of the Count de Provence sent amongst the 
 other jewels to the Princess of Savoy, his affianced bride, was set as 
 a bracelet, surmounted by sixteen large diamonds, at a cost of 15,552 
 francs. Certainly he deserves his high reputation ; for lightness of 
 execution, transparent shadows, vigour of tone, and luminous colour, 
 Hall had few equals, and fewer superiors. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Isabey, born at Nancy in 1767, died in Paris 
 in 1855. Of all the miniaturists of the French School, Isabey's 
 name is best known to the world in general. His intimate 
 connection with Napoleon, who was very fond of him, and the 
 consequent introduction he thus obtained to all the celebrated men 
 and women of the time, placed him in a position probably 
 unattained by any other artist. It was said of him that he had 
 painted every celebrated character in Europe. His first intro- 
 duction to Napoleon was owing to the fact of his having taught 
 drawing to the young Hortense de Beauharnais at the celebrated 
 school of Madame Campan at St. Germains. Under Napoleon 
 
Unknown. 
 
 Steardi. 
 
 Village Scenk. Maria Theresa. 
 
 Blarenberghe. Ltstard 
 
 The Empresses Josephine 
 and 
 Marie Louise. 
 
 Jsabey. 
 
 The Dauphiness. 
 
 Drouais. 
 
 Madame Recamier. 
 Hall. 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 Fragonard. 
 
 ) 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 he not only painted miniatures, but arranged all the fetes and 
 grand receptions at the Tuileries, and invented the coats of arms 
 of the marshals and others ennobled during that curious epoch in 
 the world's history. The coat of arms provided for Massena is 
 said to have been the joint production of Napoleon and Isabey, 
 a winged victory figuring amongst its adjuncts. His long life made 
 him acquainted with various rulers of the French nation. He 
 painted Louis XVIII., Charles X., Louis Philippe, and was finally 
 provided with a pension in 1854 by the nephew of his first 
 patron, Louis Napoleon. He died in the following year at the 
 age of eighty-eight. Of all the portraits by Isabey, the rarest and 
 most recherch^s are of the period of the Directory, when Madame 
 Tallien was the queen of fashion, and arrayed herself and her 
 followers in the scantiest of classical costumes, the decollete body 
 and the open skirt giving the beholder a view of as much of nature 
 and as little of covering as was consistent with common decency. 
 To make up for the paucity of female attire, the men enveloped 
 their necks in as much linen as would have sufficed for an ordinary 
 female garment, dressed their hair in the absurd fashion to which 
 was given the name of "oreilles de chien," and generally en- 
 deavoured by every means which the madness of the time could 
 invent, to reduce the human form divine to a burlesque shadow 
 of itself. Isabey has left memoirs of his life which are of great 
 interest. He thus describes his first commencement : " I re- 
 solved to imitate the example of several of my fellow-pupils 
 (he learned in the studio of David), who made a modest living 
 by any means connected with painting. I made friends with a 
 maker of snuff-boxes, who gave me orders for medallions to insert 
 in the covers, generally copies from Vanloo and Boucher. I 
 received from six to eight francs for each medallion, without the 
 ivory. It was then the fashion to wear buttons as large as a five- 
 franc piece, painted to resemble cameos, with cupids, flowers, 
 landscapes, &c. I took to this mercantile art work, and received 
 twelve sols for each piece. I also painted pastels for a picture 
 dealer who had a shop under the colonnade of the Louvre." 
 
 'Nicolas Lafrensen, more commonly known by his French 
 cognomen of Lavreince, was not a portrait miniature painter, but 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 his little gouache pictures are so lovely, so graceful, the drawing 
 so correct, and the composition so true to nature, that a passing 
 notice of him can hardly be considered out of place in a work 
 on miniature art. Of late years, his works have reached a 
 fabulous value — as much as 25,000 francs have more than once 
 been given in an auction for boxes bearing a medallion from his 
 hand. He was born in Stockholm in 1737, and died there in 
 1807. He visited Paris several times, but finally retired to 
 Stockholm in 1791, when the Revolution in Paris dispersed so 
 many artists and others. He was then appointed miniature 
 painter to the Court. 
 
 Madame de Mirbel, born at Cherbourg in 1796, died in Paris 
 in 1849. Pupil of Augustin. Gifted by nature with charms of 
 person and intellect, she rapidly took the leading place as 
 miniaturist with Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe. 
 Saint alone may be considered to rival her at that epoch. She 
 combined breadth of treatment with delicate finish, in a manner 
 rarely met with. 
 
 Pierre Pasquier, born at Villefranche 1740, died 1806. Said to 
 be the best enameller of the reign of Louis XVI. It is curious 
 that none of his enamels are known. The Louvre does not 
 possess a single specimen. We are driven to the contemporary 
 records for an opinion as to his performances. ' Le Mercure de 
 France,' in 1769, speaks of an enamel portrait of the King of 
 Denmark done from memory, as being a chef-d'ceuvre of 
 excellence, both as to the likeness, the agreeable colour, and 
 perfection of management in the enamelling kiln. His name 
 appears always with the most favourable notices in the various 
 exhibitions of the time, and he supplied royal portraits for 
 diplomatic snuff-boxes, many of which have an historical interest. 
 One was given to M. de Vergennes, who brought the news to 
 Paris of the conclusion of a treaty with the Swiss Cantons ; 
 another to Messrs. Dean and Lee, American Deputies, who in 
 1778 signed the treaty of alliance between the King and the 
 United States ; a third to the Spanish Admiral, Don Louis 
 Cordova, for his assistance in the operations of the French Fleet 
 in the Channel. This cost 22,512 francs. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 i53 
 
 Daniel Saint, born at St. Lo 1778, died 1847. He was a 
 worthy rival of Isabey and Madame de Mirbel. He painted all 
 the members of the Royal and Imperial families, and in various 
 auctions his miniatures have realized very considerable prices. 
 
 yean Sicardi. Of all the first-class miniaturists of the period 
 we know less of Sicardi than of any other. He was extensively 
 employed by the Court, and probably painted Louis XVI. more 
 frequently than any other artist, for which he always received 
 360, and occasionally 450 francs, a larger sum than any con- 
 temporary artist except Hall. The boxes in which they were 
 mounted were sometimes very costly, such sums as 6580, 24,830, 
 9580 francs being set down as their value. 
 
 Jacques Thouron, born in Geneva 1737, died 1790. M. 
 Chaussard, author of ' Le Pausanias Francais,' names him as 
 the sole artist who revived the art of enamelling under Louis 
 XVI., an assertion having little foundation in fact, considering 
 that such enamellers as Carteau, Vassal, Courtois, Jacques de 
 Mailly, Pasquier, Weyler and the illustrious Hall were at work 
 at the same time as Thouron. 
 
 The preceding names include all the celebrated artists who 
 belonged to the French School of miniaturists. During the latter 
 half of the 18th century and early part of the 19th, they were quite 
 as numerous, if not more so, than in England, and considering 
 the mediocrity of many of them, it seems hardly worth while 
 to give details of them all. 
 
 Nearly all the leading portrait painters of the French School 
 amused themselves occasionally with miniatures. I have speci- 
 mens in my possession by Porbus, Mignard, De Troy, Santerre, 
 Rigaud, Boullonge, &c. ; and small portraits by Philip de 
 Champagne, Jean Mark Nattier, Largilliere, and others are well 
 known. Nattier succeeded so admirably in gouache miniatures, 
 that he seems to the manner born ; Marshal Saxe, the Duchesse 
 de Villars, Madame Deschapelles, Madame de Pompadour and 
 others by this clever artist, have appeared here in different 
 collections, in every respect most admirable. 
 
 Amongst the crowd of professed miniaturists of the late 18th 
 century, there are perhaps a few deserving a name — Rocher, 
 
 x 
 
i 5 4 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Duchastelet, Delmont, Lespiniere ; A. Vestier, correct in drawing, 
 but a very poor colourist ; Hypolite and J. B. Sauvage, who painted 
 chiefly in grisaille, on a black background ; Boissieu, inimitable for 
 lead-pencil miniatures, sufficiently fine to be mounted in boxes ; 
 Joseph Bordes, a pupil of Isabey ; Joseph Boze ; Madame Cadet, 
 an enameller ; S. G. Counis, also an enameller, a pupil of Girodet ; 
 J. B. Garaud, remarkable for the extreme finish of his portraits, 
 somewhat resembling our John Smart. An artist named Gonore 
 was a very expeditious miniaturist. He advertises in the news- 
 papers, in 1786, that he takes perfect profile likenesses, which only 
 require a sitting of three minutes. Nicolas Jacques, pupil of 
 David and Isabey. He is historically interesting, as it was from 
 a miniature by him of Leopold, then Prince of Saxe-Coburg, 
 afterwards King of the Belgians, that the eldest daughter of 
 Louis Philippe decided to become the wife of Leopold. A. F. 
 Lagrenee, son of the charming artist, L. J. F. Lagrenee, commenced 
 life as an historical painter, but settled later on to devote himself 
 to miniature. J. S. Mosnier painted the Royal Family from life, and 
 furnished the usual diplomatic portraits to the Menus Plaisirs. Penel, 
 Passot, Perin ; Poumeyrac, pupil of Madame de Mirbel ; Prudhon, 
 Le Tellier ; Quaglia, much esteemed by the Empress Josephine ; 
 Rouvier ; Savignac, of whom lovers of Blarenberghe must beware, 
 as he nearly equalled the minute scenes of the two masters ; 
 Soiron, an enameller under the Empire, very well spoken of in 
 contemporary notices. Madame Villayer Coster, wife of the genre 
 painter Coster, is said to have equalled Van Spaendonck in flower 
 painting, and to have succeeded as well in portraiture. Violet 
 frequently painted Louis XVI., but was a poor weak creature — 
 flesh tints painted with port wine, and features exaggerated almost 
 to caricature. 
 
 § 2. — German, Dutch and Flemish Schools. 
 
 The earliest art records of these countries, as indeed of all 
 other parts of Europe, are intimately associated with illumination 
 and the miniatures of the Missal. The inflexibility of the Byzantine 
 tradition had set its seal upon all sacred art, reducing to a dead 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 i55 
 
 level of conventionality all attempts to portray the human form. 
 But during the 14th century, the hour of revival seemed to strike 
 simultaneously at all points of the intellectual world, and a general 
 desire arose to emancipate art from the prescription of the church 
 authorities, and to substitute the element of life for the principle of 
 idealism. 
 
 This new feeling is happily expressed in the old chronicle of 
 Limburg, dated 1380: "There was then at Cologne a painter 
 named Wilhelm, the best in all the countries of Germany. He 
 has painted men of every description as if they were alive. His 
 talented pupil, Stephen Lockner, commonly known as Meister 
 Stephan, has left a specimen of his work in a triptych in Cologne 
 Cathedral, full of charming finish and harmonious colour." 
 
 The beginning of the 15th century witnessed, perhaps, the most 
 remarkable of all the great awakenings from the sleep of the 
 Byzantine artists ; namely, the flashing into life of the Flemish 
 School. In Italy, the Renaissance began with slow and laborious 
 steps. Giunta of Pisa, Guido of Siena, &c, sought painfully and 
 timidly to leave the beaten track, and although the great change 
 proceeded at a quicker rate when Cimabue and Giotto appeared 
 upon the scene, a century or more elapsed before perfection was 
 attained. 
 
 The Flemish School sprang at once into the full vigour of 
 manhood. 
 
 The great Van Eyck family, at one bound of genius, gave to the 
 archaic work of their predecessors a splendour which left the Vene- 
 tian School but little to achieve, and imbued the stiff mechanical 
 productions of the time with the movement and vitality which 
 characterise the great uprising of Gothic art. 
 
 The family name of the brothers Hubert and Jean Van Eyck 
 is unknown, but according to the custom of the time, they adopted 
 that of their native town, Maesyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse). 
 
 Absolutely nothing is known of their early history, though, 
 as usual, tradition has busied herself in accumulating a number of 
 assertions, of which there is no documentary proof whatever. It 
 is not even certain that Hubert was the elder of the two brothers, 
 for no record of their birth has been found. 
 
 x 2 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Of the art work of Hubert there are but slight remains. He 
 undoubtedly designed the great masterpiece of the period, the 
 altar-screen of Ghent, illustrating the " Redeeming Lamb " of the 
 Apocalypse; but his early death in 1426 prevented his doing more 
 than trace out the plan of the great work, which was probably 
 entirely painted by his brother Jean. The " Triumph of the 
 Christian Church over the Synagogue," in the Museum of Madrid, 
 has been assigned to him on the authority of Passavant, though 
 several German critics consider it a copy executed not earlier 
 than the 16th century. In fact, we must look to Jean Van Eyck 
 as the creator of Flemish art ; and the enthusiastic encomiums 
 showered on him by Professor A. J. Wauters, to whose patient 
 researches we owe the clearing up of so many dark spots connected 
 with the history of the Flemish school, are richly deserved. 
 
 " The genius of Jean Van Eyck, his perfection, his audacity, 
 his success, and his renown, are such that they force posterity to 
 see him only ; he entirely supersedes his obscure forerunners and 
 contemporaries, and would fain lead the spectator to believe in a 
 bold improvisation, a prodigy, by which some supernatural power, 
 working on the soil of Flanders, suddenly brought forth Flemish 
 painting in all its glory." 
 
 No subject connected with the history of art has given rise 
 to more fierce altercation than the alleged discovery of oil-painting 
 by Jean Van Eyck. The deliberate assertion by Vasari, writing in 
 1550, that "the first inventor of the oil medium was a native of 
 Flanders, Jean de Bruges," has been met by the production of the 
 writings of a monk named Teofilo, commonly called Ruggiero, who 
 wrote on painting in the nth century, and who describes the use 
 of "oleum lini, sine aqua," as a medium. Possibly the Flemish 
 painter developed and perfected a process which had long been 
 known, but never put to practical use before his time.* 
 
 The work was worthily carried on by the second great master 
 
 * Up to this period all painting had been executed in tempera, the colours being 
 mixed with water, white of egg, or some glutinous substance, being afterwards, covered 
 with an oleo-resinous varnish to add vigour to the dulness of the colour, and also to 
 preserve the painting. Giotto is supposed to have tried the oil medium unsuccessfully, 
 and certainly his followers up to the latter half of the 15th century exclusively painted 
 in tempera. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 i57 
 
 of the school, Roger de la Pasture, better known under the Flemish 
 translation of the name, Roger Van der Weyden, born at Tournai 
 about 1400. He, in turn, instructed Hans Memling, and these 
 three men may be looked upon as the great triumvirate of 15th 
 century Flemish art. 
 
 Naturally, the great revelation rapidly spread over northern 
 Europe. In Holland, the earliest of her masters, Albert van 
 Ouwater, probably learned from Jean Van Eyck himself, who spent 
 two years at the Hague, 1422-24. Later on Cornelius Engelbrechts 
 and his illustrious pupil, Lucas van Leyden (a very prodigy of art, 
 seeing that he is said to have engraved plates from his own designs 
 in his ninth year), derived their inspiration from Jean's successors, 
 Van der Weyden and Memling. 
 
 In Germany, too, they had many pupils. The old Nordlingen 
 painter, Frederic de Herlen, journeyed to Brussels to study under 
 Van der Weyden, but his most renowned disciple was Martin 
 Schongauer of Colmar, who exercised a very considerable influence 
 on the various schools of Germany. Even the chief of the German 
 School, the mystic Albert Diirer, though primarily instructed by 
 Wohlgemuth, certainly took the Colmar painter for his model, thus 
 becoming indirectly connected, through Martin Schongauer and 
 Roger Van der Weyden, with the great creator of the Flemish 
 School, Jean Van Eyck. 
 
 But we must tear ourselves away from this fascinating theme. 
 None of these early giants are known to have produced a miniature 
 portrait, although for extraordinary finish and marvellous detail, 
 the panels of the Van Eycks must clearly be classed amongst 
 miniature art. 
 
 In the following list of artists who combined miniature-painting 
 with many other accomplishments, I have not thought it necessary 
 to separate them strictly into their various nationalities. So many 
 of them passed from one country to another in the course of their 
 career, that their artistic work often belongs as much to one of 
 the three countries now under consideration as to another. These 
 early workers were rarely content with one artistic metier ; painting, 
 engraving, illuminating, wood-carving, and even architecture and 
 sculpture were often found combined in the person of one of these 
 
i58 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 men. i hey can have passed but little of their time in "vain, 
 inglorious case." 
 
 Lucas Cranach, 1470- 1553, contemporary of Albert Diirer, was 
 one of the earliest of the German masters who produced a miniature 
 portrait. His real name was Sunder ; he adopted the name Cranach 
 from the place of his birth. He was Court painter to three 
 electors of Saxony and partner in the first printing press erected 
 at Wittenberg. He was also Burgomaster of Wittenberg and the 
 intimate friend of the great reformers, Luther and Melanchthon. He 
 was one of the multifarious artists before alluded to ; he painted in oil, 
 illuminated missals, and was perhaps more celebrated as an engraver 
 than a painter. He excelled in portraits, and was one of the most 
 noted carvers of portrait medallions in wood of the time. He executed 
 miniature portraits of the Electors of Saxony and of the Reformers. 
 He had a son, known as Lucas Cranach the younger, whose works 
 exhibit considerable grace and glowing colour, the latter point per- 
 haps rather too strongly marked. A considerable number of the 
 works of both father and son are still preserved in Saxony and Berlin. 
 
 Christopher Amberger, born at Nuremberg in 1485, pupil of the 
 elder Holbein. His portraits are better than his historical pictures. 
 He afterwards imitated the style of Holbein so exactly, both in 
 large portraits and miniatures, that it is probable he is the real 
 painter of many a likeness that passes for the work of the great 
 Augsburg artist. He never visited England. 
 
 Hans Asper, born at Zurich in 1499, was another artist whose 
 portraits and miniatures have served to swell the reputed per- 
 formances of Holbein. It is the usual fate of successful imitators 
 to verge their individuality in that of their model. 
 
 Hans von Melem comes under the same category. 
 
 Hans Baldung again, also called Grtin, or Grien, has been 
 previously mentioned in the notice of Holbein, as supplying a 
 monogram, which has been occasionally attributed to Holbein, HB. 
 
 Some of the earliest of the Flemish miniaturists have been 
 already mentioned, especially Simon Benninck and his talented 
 daughter Levina Teerlinck. 
 
 Luke Hornebolt and his sister Susannah, Gwillim Stretes and 
 others, flourished in England, and have come under that head. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 159 
 
 One of the earliest Flemish miniaturists mentioned is Louis 
 Janssen Bos, born at Bois-le-Duc about 1450, died in 1507. He 
 painted portraits in a very finished and laborious manner, but 
 he also executed wonderful miniatures of fruit, flowers, &c, 
 even producing small insects on the leaves with a finish almost 
 incredible. 
 
 yohn Breughel, nicknamed Velvet Breughel, from his love of 
 fine dress, was born at Brussels in 1565. He produced many water- 
 colour miniatures, but afterwards took to oil painting, and excelled 
 in landscape with small figures, admirably drawn. Rubens so 
 greatly admired his work, that he asked him to supply the land- 
 scape background to many of his pictures. The combined artists 
 produced the picture of Adam and Eve in Paradise, now in the 
 Louvre. He died in 1642. 
 
 yohn Baptist Deynum, born at Antwerp in 1620. Painted 
 only in distemper, and was much employed as a portrait 
 miniaturist. 
 
 Philip Fruytiers, born at Antwerp in 1620. He began 
 historical subjects in oil, but afterwards devoted himself entirely to 
 portrait miniature. He must have been a good artist, as he was 
 selected by Rubens to paint himself and family in miniature, wholly 
 to the satisfaction of the great man. He died in 1677. 
 
 Joseph Werner, born in Switzerland in 1637. A pupil of 
 Matthew Merian at Frankfort. He began life with pictures in oil 
 and fresco, but his love of high finish induced him to take to 
 miniature portraits, which he carried to great perfection. He went 
 to France and was largely employed by Louis XIV. He thence 
 travelled to the Court of Innspruck, where he painted the Austrian 
 Court, and finally, in 1696, was appointed by Frederick, Elector 
 of Brandenburg, Director of the Academy at Berlin. He died 
 in 1 7 10. 
 
 Nicholas Cramer, born at Leyden in 1670, pupil of William 
 Mieris and Karel de Moor. He settled down to portrait miniature 
 and rose to considerable distinction in this branch of art. 
 
 The family of Valkenburg of M alines, produced three artists 
 celebrated for landscapes and miniature portraits. Their dates are 
 somewhat uncertain, but extend from 1584 to 1636. 
 
1 60 
 
 A HI 'STORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Constantino Frederick Blessendorf, born at Berlin in 1675, was 
 engraver as well as miniature painter, and both drew and engraved 
 many portraits for frontispieces and headings to books. 
 
 James Christopher Le Blond, born at Frankfort in 1670, went 
 to Italy and studied under Carlo Maratti. He settled in Amsterdam 
 as a miniaturist, where his work was much esteemed. He visited 
 England and set on foot a project for printing mezzotint plates in 
 colour, which however came to nothing. 
 
 Balthasar Vanden Bosch, born at Antwerp in 1675. He excelled 
 in painting small interiors, with numerous figures. He painted a 
 large miniature of the great Duke of Marlborough on horseback, 
 which created quite a sensation at the time. He died in 1 7 1 5. 
 
 Anna Vasser, born in Zurich in 1679. She was a pupil of 
 Joseph Werner. Her success as a portrait miniature painter was 
 little short of that achieved by her master. Her fame spread 
 throughout Germany, and she received commissions from nearly 
 every Court in the Empire. She died in 171 3. 
 
 Henrietta Wolters, born at Amsterdam in 1692. Was a 
 pupil of Le Blond. She however took Vandyck as her model in 
 portraiture, and copied some of his works in miniature with 
 surprising success. When Peter the Great was at Amsterdam, he 
 made her the most flattering offers to visit St. Petersburg. 
 Frederick William, King of Prussia, also tempted her to settle in 
 Berlin, but she refused, and lived and died in Amsterdam. The 
 date of her death is 1741. 
 
 Gerard M elder > bora at Amsterdam in 1693. He showed a 
 very early inclination for art, and, becoming possessed of some 
 miniatures by Rosalba, he studied and copied them, thereby 
 attaining a very considerable reputation as a miniaturist. He 
 also painted in enamel, but not so successfully as in water-colour. 
 
 Antonio Raffaelle Mengs, born in Bohemia in 1728. His 
 father Ishmael Mengs, a miniature painter of very poor quality, 
 instructed him in the first rudiments of art, and he visited Rome 
 and copied many of the works of Raffaelle in miniature for 
 Augustus III., Elector of Saxony. He also painted a few 
 miniature portraits, but his chief works are of large dimensions, 
 the finest of them being in the Royal Collection in Madrid. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Peter Boy, lived at Frankfort, painted miniatures in water- 
 colour and enamel. He died in 1727. 
 
 Peter Boy the younger, son of the above artist. He learned 
 painting from his father, and became a good enameller. He 
 died in 1742. 
 
 J . Georg Ba?tr, born at Vienna in 1 743. Pupil of Schmulzer. 
 He held an appointment at the Academy of Arts and was in 
 his time a fashionable miniaturist. He died at the end of the 
 1 8th century. 
 
 Johann Friedrich Beer, born at Eisfeld in Saxony, but little 
 is known of his work. 
 
 The family of Dinglinger were celebrated in the 1 8th century. 
 
 yohann Melchior Dinglinger was a great enameller, but 
 chiefly occupied in goldsmiths' work, and in this branch of the 
 enameller's art was probably the best of the 18th century. He 
 died in 1767. 
 
 George Frederic Dinglinger, brother of the above artist, was 
 painter and enameller to Augustus II., Elector of Saxony. He 
 painted many portraits. Died 1720. 
 
 Sophie Dinglinger, a sister of the above, was a very good 
 miniaturist and was taught enamelling by her brothers. 
 
 Carl Frederic Thienpondt. Born in Berlin 1720, died 1796. 
 Pupil of a French artist named Pesne, who settled in Berlin. 
 Thienpondt was persuaded by Ishmael Mengs to give up large 
 subjects and devote himself to miniature and enamel, in which 
 he succeeded admirably. I have four enamels by him, signed 
 and dated, of excellent workmanship. 
 
 Adelbert Beer, brother of the above. He practised chiefly 
 at Prague and died in 1762. 
 
 A Dutch artist named Bekking, born about 1780, rose to con- 
 siderable reputation as a miniaturist at the end of the 1 8th century. 
 
 Ignaz Bergmann, a painter practising at Vienna, was celebrated 
 for the grace and fine composition of family groups in miniature. 
 
 .5. Bichelberger and her sister C. Bichelberger were both 
 talented miniaturists practising at the Hague late in the 18th 
 century. 
 
 Johann Samuel Blackner, born 1 77 1, must have been a 
 
 Y 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 prodigy, as he was already known as a miniaturist at the early 
 age of fifteen. He was much employed by the Court, and painted 
 the Princess of Courland no less than eleven times. 
 
 Bar end Bosnian, born at Dordrecht in 1742. He became 
 the fashionable painter of Dutch beauty, possibly by a judicious 
 touch of flattery. 
 
 Joseph Breckeise?i practised both in Vienna and Copenhagen. 
 His works are generally signed Br. 
 
 Joseph Bttcker, born at Munich 171 1, died 1775. A pupil 
 of Pascal. He painted both in oil and water-colour. 
 
 J. Burkmann, a. Bavarian by birth, born 1761. He finally 
 settled in Amsterdam and rose to great distinction. 
 
 Heindrik Willem Caspari was another artist of Amsterdam, 
 much patronized in his day. 
 
 The brothers Chodowiecki, Daniel and Gottfried, born at 
 Dantzic in 1726 and 1728, were excellent miniaturists both in 
 enamel and water-colour. 
 
 Isaak Jakob Clause, born at Berlin 1728, was a very 
 successful enameller. He had many pupils, and also taught the 
 art of enamelling at the China manufactory at Berlin. 
 
 The list of artists practising miniature painting during the 
 latter half of the 18th century could be extended very largely, 
 but it seems hardly worth while to load a short memoir with 
 names which mean but little to most English collectors. Speci- 
 mens by German and Dutch artists are but rarely met with in 
 this country, and, judging by those which do every now and then 
 occur, the standard of excellence is decidedly inferior to either 
 the English or French School. 
 
 One notable exception must, however, be made to this 
 remark. Henri Frederic Fiiger, justly called the Cosway of Vienna, 
 was born at Heilbronn in 1 75 1 . Died in Vienna in 1818. He 
 began his artistic career in Italy, but after seven years' sojourn 
 at Rome, fixed himself permanently in Vienna, where he became 
 a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and director of the 
 Imperial Gallery of Painting. For delicacy of colour, correct 
 drawing, and general refinement, his miniatures will compare 
 favourably with our Cosway or the charming French artist Hall. 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 l6 3 
 
 § 3. — Italian School. 
 
 Considering the position occupied by Italy from early ages in 
 relation to all artistic matters, not only as the inheritor of the glories 
 of the classical times, but also as the chosen home of the great 
 protest against crystallised idealism, which goes by the name of 
 " Renaissance," when men, wearied of the trammels of the Church- 
 men, began to think for themselves, and to seek amongst the 
 beautiful forms of the antique, worthier models than the elongated 
 Evangelists of the Byzantine missal — when even in the sacred 
 branch of art, including the miniature in the illuminated manuscript, 
 the Italian artists in many respects equalled their competitors — 
 it is somewhat strange that they should not have excelled also in 
 portrait miniature. In the following pages I have got together, 
 as far as I could, the names of the miniaturists whose work is most 
 worthy ; but, compared with their brethren of France and England, 
 it will be seen that the list is but meagre, and judging by the 
 specimens I have seen, the excellence of the work falls far short 
 of the Northern standard. 
 
 We find mention of very small portraits being painted in oil 
 and tempera by Giovanni Antonio Licinio, called II Pordenone, 
 the name of a small town in Friuli, where he was born in 1484. 
 This artist so nearly approached Titian in power, that the great 
 Venetian painter pursued him with a deadly hatred, and when 
 Licinio died at Mantua in 1540, it was strongly suspected that 
 poison had put an end to his existence. 
 
 Girolamo Amalteo, born about 15 10, painted both portraits and 
 general subjects in miniature. He died young, or, according to 
 Ridolfi, would certainly have equalled his great contemporary Licinio. 
 
 Bernardo Buontalenti, called Dalle Girandole, was a universal 
 genius — painter, sculptor and architect. Born in 1536, at an early 
 age he was taken into the service of Cosmo I., Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, who caused him to be educated in the best manner. 
 Taught painting by Salviati and Bronzino, sculpture by Michael 
 Angelo, and architecture by Giorgio Vasari, he completed his 
 
1 64 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 learning by studying miniature painting under Giulio Clovio. He was 
 also a great mechanic and excellent mathematician. He executed 
 miniature portraits of Cosmo, and many members of his Court. 
 
 Giulio Campagnola, born about" 1500, painter and engraver. 
 He excelled in miniature, introducing many portraits into his 
 illuminations. 
 
 Bernardo Castelli, born at Genoa in 1557, was an eminent 
 miniaturist ; there is no record, however, of his having produced 
 portraits, his chief work apparently being a marvellous rendering 
 of birds and insects. 
 
 Sophonisba Anguisciola, born at Cremona in 1530, died at Genoa 
 about 1620. She belonged to a noble family in Cremona, and 
 was a pupil of Bernardo Campi. Her fame as a portrait painter 
 induced Philip II. of Spain, the great encourager of art at the 
 time, to invite her to Madrid, where she arrived about the year 
 1560. She taught painting to the Queen of Spain and her sister ; 
 the latter would have risen to great excellence had she not died 
 young. Sophonisba's three sisters, Lucia, Europa and Anna Maria, 
 were also miniature painters, but never rose to the same point of 
 excellence as their elder sister. 
 
 Johann Baptiste Anticone was a pupil of Sophonisba, and 
 flourished in Naples towards the end of the 16th century. He 
 was celebrated as a miniature portrait painter, for his fine drawing 
 and powerful colour. 
 
 Leonardo Corona, born in 1 561 , was the son of a miniaturist, 
 though of little mark. Leonardo, however, became a very 
 accomplished painter, founding his style on Titian, whose works 
 he copied so exactly that connoisseurs could not tell the copy 
 from the original. He painted miniature portraits in water- 
 colour and oil. 
 
 Giovanni Valesio, son of a Spanish soldier, born at Bologna 
 in 1 56 1. Although he painted large pictures for the churches, he 
 is better known as an engraver and miniaturist, in which branches 
 he attained considerable distinction. 
 
 Giovanna Garzoni, born at Ascoli, painted chiefly in Rome and 
 Florence. She flourished about 1630, and at Florence was largely 
 employed by the various members of the Medici family and the 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Florentine nobility. A marble monument was erected to her 
 memory at the Academy of St. Luke, at Rome. 
 
 Giovanna Fratellini, another celebrated female miniaturist, was 
 born at Florence in 1666. She painted in oil, water-colour and 
 crayons, and at the Court of Cosmo III. found abundant employ- 
 ment as a miniature portrait painter. Her pastel portraits are said 
 to have been in no way inferior to those of Rosalba. 
 
 Ippolito Galanlini, called II Cappucino, and sometimes II Prete 
 Genoese. Born at Genoa in 1627. He was a monk of the 
 order of the Capuchins. A good deal of his miniature work was 
 probably connected with missal illumination, but he taught the 
 art of portrait miniature to the foregoing artist, Giovanna Fratellini. 
 
 Padre Felice Ramelli was another ecclesiastic, celebrated as a 
 miniaturist. He was born at Asti in 1666, and learned miniature 
 painting from another clerical artist, Padre Danese Rho. The King 
 of Sardinia invited him to his Court, where he was largely employed 
 as a portrait miniaturist. Amongst other work, he painted for the 
 King the miniature portraits of the most celebrated painters, many 
 of which he copied from the originals painted by themselves, in 
 the Florentine Gallery. 
 
 Giovanna Marmocchini, born at Florence in 1670. Like 
 Fratellini, she was taught miniature painting by the Capuchin 
 Galantini. She also worked much in pastel, and was the favourite 
 painter of the Grand Duchess. 
 
 Giovanni Baptista Stefaneschi, born near Florence in 1582. 
 He was a monk, and is generally called 1' Eremita di Monte 
 Senario. He painted some miniature portraits, but was chiefly 
 employed by Ferdinand II., Duke of Tuscany, to copy in 
 miniature the works of the most eminent Italian artists. 
 
 Teresa del Po, a member of an artistic family, born in 
 Naples, in what year is uncertain. She died in 1716. She 
 painted miniature portraits in oil and water-colour,- and also 
 engraved several plates. 
 
 The position assigned to Cosway in England, Hall in 
 France, and Fiiger in Germany, must be given in Italian 
 miniature art to Rosalba Carriera. 
 
 Rose Alba Carriera, commonly called Rosalba, was born at 
 
[66 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Chiozza, near Venice, of a noble family, in 1675. She died in 
 1757. She painted in oil, water-colour and pastel. She was the 
 pupil of Antonio Lazzari, of Diamentini, and Antonio Balestra. 
 For some time she confined herself to oil painting, but afterwards 
 kept entirely to miniature and pastel. About 1720, she visited 
 Paris in company with her brother-in-law Pellegrini, and created 
 quite a furore in the French capital. She was elected with 
 acclamation a member of the Academy, presenting at her re- 
 ception a picture of one of the Muses. She painted the King 
 and all the members of the Royal Family and Court, and was 
 feted and caressed by all the great personages of the time. She 
 certainly merited all the praise she received. She combined, in 
 an extraordinary manner, grace of design with charming colour. 
 There is a refinement, a tenderness of tint and delicacy of 
 handling in the portraits, surpassed by no artist of the 18th 
 century, and equalled by few. Ten years before her death she 
 lost her sight, from over application during very many years, but 
 she found consolation in a life of active benevolence, and the 
 sympathy and respect which surrounded her to the last. 
 
 Scipio Capella, who flourished in Naples about 1740, was a 
 very good miniature painter. He was a pupil of Solimena, and, 
 in addition to portrait miniatures, copied many of his master's 
 pictures " in little." 
 
 Agazzi, a Milanese, was of later date ; he was at work up 
 to 1830. 
 
 Antonio Alessandria, also a Milanese, was of about the same 
 period. 
 
 Giuseppe Baldrighi, born at Stradella in 1723, a pupil of 
 Mericci. He also studied in Paris under Boucher, and then 
 returned to Ravenna, where he established a school of miniature 
 painting. He died at Parma, at the age of eighty. 
 
 Giuseppe Longhi, born at Monza in 1766. He was almost 
 more celebrated as an engraver than as a miniaturist ; but, 
 nevertheless, he painted some excellent miniatures. One of 
 Napoleon by him was exhibited at South Kensington of considerable 
 power. 
 
 Bianca and Matilda Festa were both celebrated as miniature 
 
FOREIGN SCHOOLS. 
 
 167 
 
 painters in Rome at the latter part of the 18th century. The 
 elder sister, Bianca, was appointed Professor of drawing in the 
 Academy of St. Luke. 
 
 Giacomo Ardroli, a good miniaturist of the late 18th century. 
 I have seen a portrait of Napoleon and Josephine by him, which 
 would have passed muster as good work, had not our ideas of 
 the great Corsican and his first Empress been formed on the 
 miniatures of them by Isabey, Aubrey, Saint, &c. 
 
 Le Chevalier PompZe Battoni. Born at Lucca in 1 708, died 
 at Rome in 1787. Pupil of Domenico Brugieri and G. Lombardi. 
 He painted a vast number of the celebrities of the time in 
 miniature, and in larger works almost rivalled Raphael Mengs, 
 then the most esteemed painter. Like so many other artists, he 
 commenced life as a jeweller, and his first essay in miniature 
 painting was the copying a miniature in a snuff-box which had 
 been entrusted to him to repair. His copy far exceeded the 
 original. 
 
 Sophie Giordano, born at Turin in 1779, died in 1829. A 
 pupil of Maron and his wife, who was a descendant of Raphael 
 Mengs. Her miniatures are excellent. I have seen a female 
 portrait signed by her, quite worthy to be classed amongst the 
 works of the chiefs of the art. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MODELLING IN WAX. 
 
 alluded incidentally to the miniature portraits 
 executed in wax in Italy during the 16th century, 
 now known as the "Italian 16th-century jewelled 
 waxes." In writing a history of miniature, it is 
 somewhat difficult to draw the line which shall 
 include or exclude certain branches of art more or 
 less connected with miniature. In one sense, we might almost 
 include medallists, who clearly produced miniature portraits ; but, 
 although they largely modelled the portraits in wax to begin with, 
 they only worked in this manner as a means to an end, and the 
 ultimate production in bronze or other metal was not the work of 
 their hand, in the sense of a painted miniature or even a coloured 
 wax portrait — the direct emanation of their brain and fingers. 
 
 With regard to miniature wax portraits, produced as works of 
 art, complete in themselves, and with no idea of being translated 
 into any other form or material, the case is different, and seems 
 legitimately to come within the sphere of this short history. 
 
 In certain ways, modelling in wax is one of the oldest of 
 the arts. It was certainly known to the Greeks and Romans. 
 Equally was wax employed by the Persians and old Egyptians. 
 In the time of Alexander the Great, there was a well recognised 
 class of artists in wax, who rivalled the sculptors and workers 
 in bronze. One artist is specially mentioned, Lysistratus, who 
 produced remarkable portraits in this body, colouring them to 
 
MODELLING IN WAX. 169 
 
 imitate life. In Rome, the workers in wax carried on a large 
 business. A patrician funeral was incomplete without the portrait 
 of the deceased in wax being borne at the head of the procession, 
 and every humble client kept in his house the bust of his great 
 patron in the same material. Lampridus tells us that the Emperor 
 Heliogabalus amused himself by playing practical jokes in this 
 material. He used to ask his friends to dinner, and placed before 
 them each article of the menu executed in wax, whilst he sat at the 
 head of the table and ate freely of the real dishes. After each 
 course, his guests, as was the custom before forks were invented, 
 were expected to wash their hands, and each was presented with a 
 glass of water to wash down the imaginary meal. From the com- 
 mencement of the 15th century, the Italian jewellers and sculptors 
 largely employed wax for modelling purposes. Luca della Robbia, 
 Ghiberri, Baccio, Bandinello, Bartolommeo, Genga and others, used 
 it freely. Jacopo Sansovino, Leone Leoni, Francesco Francia, the 
 great Michael Angelo himself and his successor, Giovanni di 
 Bologna, have left many works in this material. 
 
 The Venetian Jacopo Sansovino modelled much in wax, amongst 
 other well-known works, a very fine " Descent from the Cross." 
 He was chosen, together with the Spaniard, Alonzo Bernguetta, 
 Zaccheria Zachi, and II Vecchio, of Bologna, to model in wax the 
 group of the Laocoon, to be cast in bronze. Raphael was appointed 
 judge, and unhesitatingly gave the prize to Sansovnio. The 
 Museum of Munich possesses a very beautiful group in wax of the 
 descent from the Cross, attributed to Michael Angelo. One of the 
 loveliest works left to us is the bust of a young girl in the Museum 
 of Lille. It is a little smaller than life-size. Nothing can surpass it 
 in simple and chaste dignity, refined idealism, or fine modelling. It 
 is usually attributed to Raphael ; but Monsieur Jules Renouvier 
 believes it is the work of the Florentine Orsino, and was probably a 
 sort of monumental effigy placed in one of the Italian churches. 
 Orsino was the nephew of Jacobo Benintendi, who, together with 
 his sons, was celebrated for his art-work in wax, Orsino, especially, 
 producing life-size busts. Vasari mentions life-size portraits of 
 Lorenzo de'Medici, which in all the details were marvels of life- 
 like rendering. 
 
 z 
 
170 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 In the 1 6th century quite a rage arose in Italy fur small 
 portrait medallions in coloured wax, the richness of the costumes 
 being heightened by the employment of gold work and precious 
 stones. Alfonso Lombardi, a sculptor of Ferrara 1 487—1 5 36, and 
 Pastorino, of Sienna, were two of the earliest and best known 
 artists in this material. Vasari bears witness to the wide-spread 
 taste for these beautiful works. " Pastorino, of Sienna, has acquired 
 a great celebrity for his wax portraits. It can be said of him that 
 he has modelled everybody, high and low, rich and poor. He has 
 invented a composition which is capable of reproducing the hair, 
 beard, and skin in the most natural manner. It would take me too 
 long to enumerate all the artists who model wax portraits, for 
 now-a-days there is scarcely a jeweller who does not occupy himself 
 with such work. Many private gentlemen also practise it, especially 
 Gio Battista Sazzi, of Sienna, and Rosso de Guigni, of Florence, and 
 an infinity of others." 
 
 The Neapolitan Azzolini, about the same time, also produced 
 the jewelled waxes in large numbers. 
 
 Benvenuto Cellini worked largely in wax. A discovery only 
 made in 1883 brought to light a most interesting portrait in coloured 
 wax of Francois de Medicis. The likeness was sent by the 
 Grand Duke Francois to his mistress, the celebrated Bianca 
 Capello, with the following note : "Ma bien-aimee Bianca, de 
 Pise, je vous envoie mon portrait que m'a fait, notre maitre 
 Cellini,* en lui prenez mon coeur. 
 
 Don Francesco." 
 
 I have a lovely group of the dying Cleopatra, in reddish 
 wax almost resembling marble, attributed to Cellini. If fine 
 modelling and intense feeling can be taken as a proof of its 
 origin, I should not hesitate to set it down as Cellini's work. 
 
 Many other artists were celebrated in their time for jewelled 
 wax portraits, notably Alessandro Abbondio, a Milanese, and 
 Antonio Cassonia. 
 
 The Abbe Don Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, born at Syracuse in 
 
 * Eugene Plon, Un portrait en cire de Fr. de Medicis. Gazette des Beaux Arts, 
 Octobre 1883. 
 
MODELLING IN WAX. 
 
 1637, carried the process a step further. He mingled wax modelling 
 with painting to produce a real picture. The modelling is ex- 
 cellent, but opinions may differ as to the pleasing effect of the 
 compositions as a whole. Late in life he visited Paris, and died 
 there in 1701. 
 
 The Germans and French had each a distinct school of artists 
 in wax, though neither ever reached the excellence of the Italians. 
 The portrait medallions of Laurent Strauch and Wenceslas Meller 
 of Nuremberg in the 16th century, of Weilhemmayer, Raymond 
 Faltz, Brannin and others in the 1 7th cenutry, came nearest to 
 the Italian artists. 
 
 Daniel Neuberger, 1626-165 7, employed himself more in 
 coloured bas-reliefs of classical subjects than in portraits. His 
 brother also worked in the same manner. 
 
 The necromancers of the Middle Ages made constant use of 
 waxen images in their bewitchments. The professors of Black 
 Magic, desirous to obtain power from their great magic agent and 
 master, and anxious to please him by their sacrileges, mingled 
 baptismal oil with the wax, and compounded it with ashes of burned 
 hosts, which they were able to obtain from apostate and sympathising 
 priests ; for the Church contributed many, and some of the most 
 famous names, to the ranks of the old sorcerers. The accursed wax, 
 thus kneaded and tempered, was fashioned into the most accurate 
 and striking likeness of the person to be bewitched that the art 
 and hate of the magician could accomplish. Nor was a perfect 
 resemblance and reproduction of the victim sufficient. If pro- 
 curable, the figure had to be built up with things belonging to 
 the person, and a lock of hair, a few drops of blood, or a tooth 
 would make the spell more infallible. The image must be 
 dressed in clothes similar to the garments worn by the individual, 
 and the sorcerer should give it the sacraments that the person would 
 himself receive, calling down on the waxen figure every malediction 
 that the rancour of his heart could suggest. Every torture that the 
 necromancer could devise, or the enemy for whom he worked, 
 commissioned him to employ, was to be wreaked upon the image, 
 so that the person represented might be sympathetically reached 
 and tormented. Among the ancients, and in the Middle Ages, the 
 
 z 2 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 bewitchments of malevolence and the operations of black magic 
 were a fantastic combination of sacrileges and ceremonials appalling 
 to the imagination by their influence on the human will and the 
 fears of their victims. When necromancy retired before the light 
 of science, and sorcerers and wizards, or more frequently witches, 
 grew lower in the scale of society, the waxen images were 
 fashioned more clumsily and with- less art, and the tortures were 
 of a simpler nature. The figure was often degraded into a mere 
 cushion for pins, and those small weapons, by sympathetic analogy, 
 were supposed to pierce the flesh of the bewitched one, or the 
 waxen image was slowly melted before a witch-fire, while the life 
 and strength of the victim simultaneously ebbed away. 
 
 At the death of Francis I. and Henry II. of France, the 
 celebrated Francois' Clouet was commissioned to prepare wax 
 portraits of the departed Kings. He first took a plaster cast of the 
 face, from which he prepared his wax model, using real hair for 
 the head and beard, and finally painting the flesh in oil colour. 
 
 The family of Danfrie, father and son, holding the office of 
 designers of coins to Henry III. and Henry IV. of France, were 
 celebrated also for their wax portraits taken from nature. 
 
 The series of wax portraits at the Hotel Cluny, contained in 
 leather cases ornamented with steel, embracing the Royal person- 
 ages of France from Louis XII. to Henry IV., is supposed to 
 have been executed by the two Danfries. Michel Bourdin, Jean 
 Paulo, Abraham Drentuet and Guillaume Dupre, were all at 
 work early in the i 7th century as artists in coloured wax portraits. 
 
 The most celebrated of the 1 7th-century workers in wax, 
 however, was Antoine Benoist. He was appointed by Louis XIV. 
 " Peintre du Roi et son unique sculpteur en cire coloree." He 
 was born at Joigny in 1631. The King sat to him many times, 
 and at Versailles is a coloured wax portrait of him, done from life, 
 giving even the marks of the small-pox on the face, and which 
 is supposed to be the best likeness of the King ever produced. 
 I have a very curious specimen of his work ; it is a tiny portrait 
 of the King in coloured wax in an enamelled locket, said to have 
 been a gage d'amour presented by the amorous monarch to Madame 
 de Maintenon. 
 
MODELLING IN WAX. 
 
 173 
 
 With regard to the likeness of the King at Versailles, I have 
 not seen it, and am not quite sure by the description what its 
 exact nature is. In one place, the word " medaille " is used, and 
 in another " buste." I should think the latter was correct, as it is 
 hardly possible that such details as the marks left by small-pox 
 could be shown on a small medallion portrait. The same difficulty 
 presents itself in considering a good deal of his work. He 
 modelled the whole French Court, described in French as " les 
 bustes en cire," and obtained the Royal consent to exhibit the 
 collection in Paris and the provinces. He was summoned to 
 England, and in the same way modelled the whole Court of 
 James II. It is curious that nothing of the kind is known in 
 any collection here, or, as far as I know, has ever been seen at 
 Christie's or elsewhere. Benoist, or, as it is now written, Benoit, 
 was also a very clever miniature painter. In the cabinet of medals 
 at the " Bibliotheque Nationale " are twenty miniatures, on vellum, 
 of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. and members of the Royal Family. 
 
 Many other artists in wax are mentioned, but generally as 
 producing " bustes " rather than portraits, in the coloured style of 
 the Italian medallions. 
 
 Pierre Merard modelled Louis XV., Voltaire, and others. 
 
 Clodion in some respects was the most graceful wax modeller 
 of the 1 8th century. His forte was a rendering of nymphs, 
 bacchanal scenes, &c, in low relief in white wax, rather than 
 coloured portraits. I have a snuff-box with "a sacrifice to Cupid" 
 on the top, which gives a very good idea of his charming grace. 
 Every touch of the composition bespeaks the true artist. 
 
 The man who came nearest to the 16th-century Italians in 
 coloured and jewelled wax portraits, in the Louis XVI. epoch, was 
 Couriguer. I have a female portrait by his hand, in the costume of 
 the late Louis XVI. It is admirably modelled, but the wax body 
 seems far less dense and hard than in the Italian specimens. Other 
 artists of the period are Surugue, Lehrner, Rtgnault, Bardoti ; 
 Cadet de Beaupre, a pupil of Clodion ; Morand, who also modelled for 
 Sevres ; Pierre Petitot, possibly a descendant of the great enameller ; 
 Pinsou, a surgeon, who modelled portraits as well as anatomical 
 preparations ; Orsi, who made much money during the Revolution 
 
174 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 by exhibiting his groups of the assassination of St. Fargeau and 
 Marat ; Goudon, who supplied white miniature portraits for the tops 
 of snuff-boxes ; Renaud, celebrated for his classical bas-reliefs ; 
 Babonot, who excelled also in ivory carving ; Ravrai, who, like 
 Goudon, supplied portraits for snuff-boxes. I have a lovely small 
 portrait of the Baby King of Rome, signed and dated " U. Uriger, 
 9 Juin, 1 8 1 1 The modelling is exquisite but uncoloured. 
 
 Dubut. Carl Claudius Dubut, the father, was a celebrated 
 bronzist. He had two sons — John, who painted landscape, and 
 Friedrich, who was the finest modeller in wax of his day. I have 
 two signed specimens by this artist of Louis XIV. and his Queen 
 Marie Therese. 
 
 If the English School of miniaturists excelled that of any 
 foreign country, it must be conceded that in wax modelling we 
 were far behind other nations. As regards coloured wax portraits, 
 I am unable to give one name prior to the end of the i8th 
 century, when Pei r cy produced a large number of likenesses in very 
 high relief, coloured to resemble life, but altogether unlike the 
 Italian School. His work is generally full face, and not profile, 
 beautifully modelled, and well coloured. I have several specimens 
 from his hand, two of which are especially striking — the great 
 political antagonists, Pitt and Fox. The modellers in white wax 
 were numerous enough. Flaxman, Bacon, Joachim Smith, Gossett, 
 Peter Rouw, and many others, have left us numerous specimens 
 of their work. We must not forget to include James Tassie, the 
 gifted stonemason of Glasgow, who modelled portraits in wax, 
 chiefly with the view of reproducing them in the glass enamel 
 with which his name is inseparably connected. Like miniature 
 painting, wax modelling has become almost a lost art, the groups 
 of flowers, so laboriously put together by our grandmothers, repre- 
 senting the last dying embers of work, which, for its intrinsic 
 beauty and power of faithful record, well merits the notice of 
 artists, who might find in its pursuit a higher pleasure and a 
 surer recompense than in spoiling the acres of canvas now yearly 
 doomed to failure. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LA PETITE SCULPTURE. 
 
 nother kind of miniature art strictly analogous to 
 modelling in wax, was what the French call " La 
 petite sculpture." Marvellous as the whole subject 
 is, showing to what extraordinary precision the 
 human hand can be trained, we are chiefly con- 
 cerned in the present work with that branch of it 
 which relates to portraits. 
 
 From the end of the 15 th and during the whole of the 16th cen- 
 tury, the art of carving on various substances, wood, lithographic 
 stone, mother-of-pearl, ivory, &c, was practised in all European coun- 
 tries, but had its chief home and worthiest professors in Germany. 
 
 The two chief centres were Nuremberg and Augsburg, and 
 the artists of these towns used a different material as the basis of 
 their work. 
 
 The portrait sculptors of Nuremberg employed chiefly the 
 pierre tendre, or lithographic stone (Kalkstein), of which two varieties 
 are known — Speckstein, possessing a very fine grain, and of a 
 greenish grey colour ; and Kelheimerstein, with a coarse grain and 
 yellowish tint. 
 
 In Augsburg, the artists worked chiefly in wood, box and pear 
 being the favourites. 
 
 In these early times, so many painters achieved distinction 
 in other branches of art, notably in sculpture, architecture and 
 
176 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 engraving, that it is hardly surprising we should find amongst the 
 portrait carvers of Germany the names of painters who have 
 attained a world-wide reputation. Thus first amongst the Nurem- 
 berg carvers, we come across Albert Diirer (1471-1528). Naturally 
 enough, the finest specimens of Nuremberg and Augsburg work 
 are to be found in the Museums of Berlin, Munich, Dresden, &c. 
 There are a few in the Louvre, and also in our own British 
 Museum. Munich possesses four lovely portraits said to be by 
 Albert Diirer, signed and dated 151 7 and 1520. 
 
 Hans Holbein is credited with work of this kind. Indeed it 
 is difficult to name any branch of art which this omniscient genius 
 is not supposed to have followed. Walpole mentions a head of 
 Henry VIII. in wood which was attributed to him, but I am not 
 aware of any portrait medallion in wood which bears his signature. 
 
 What terrible havoc is occasionally wrought by the historical 
 investigator ! The cold, relentless steel of his scalpel remorselessly 
 dissects out the bases upon which have been built up our most 
 cherished traditions, and we wake up to find our dearest idols 
 shattered, and our fondest hopes annihilated. 
 
 Moriz Thausing, in his exhaustive work on Albert Diirer, edited 
 by F. A. Eaton, Esq., seeks to prove that the great Nuremberg 
 artist never dabbled in sculpture. Here are his words : 
 
 " But what about the numerous sculptures in wood, hone- 
 stone, ivory and various other materials everywhere attributed to 
 Diirer ? Most of them have no other guarantee of authenticity 
 than the very easily forged monogram ; the quality of the work 
 scarcely justifies the attribution at all. It is impossible to recognise 
 them, with but very few exceptions, as anything but later produc- 
 tions, intended merely to fill the cabinets of collectors of anti- 
 quities. ... In fact, these highly prized reliefs are nothing but 
 successful forgeries. Their very affinity to Diirer's woodcuts is 
 against their genuineness, for so thoughtful an artist was too well 
 versed in the requirements of each method and material not to 
 know that all the richness of wood engraving gives but a poor 
 effect when rendered in relief, just as, on the other hand, wood 
 engraving is altogether incapable of interpreting plastic softness 
 and roundness of surface. The most celebrated of these works 
 
LA PETITE SCULPTURE. 
 
 '77 
 
 are the high reliefs in hone stone, illustrative of incidents in the 
 life of St. John the Baptist. The ' Visitation ' is in the Episcopal 
 Seminary at Bruges ; the ' Birth of St. John,' in the British 
 Museum ; and the ' Preaching of St. John in the Wilderness,' in the 
 Museum at Brunswick, all with the date 1510 and the monogram. 
 
 " The Ambras Museum at Vienna possesses four reliefs in 
 hone stone, representing similar episodes in the life of St. John, 
 but a monogram formed of the letters G and S connected, and 
 an old inscription at the back, show them to be the work of 
 Georg Schweigger, born at Nuremberg in 1613, and died there 
 in 1690. He was highly esteemed as a master in all kinds of 
 sculpture and metal-founding. These reliefs bear the dates 1644, 
 1645 and 1648. Three of them are worked a la Durer, and 
 the motives are borrowed from his woodcuts. We shall not be 
 far wrong in attributing to the sculptor of the remarkable works 
 in the Ambras Collection, the three spurious reliefs of 15 10." 
 He adds in a note : " It is needless to enumerate the sculptures 
 attributed to Durer in different places. There is, for example, 
 in the Collection of Baron Rothschild at Vienna, a portrait 
 medallion of Sebald Schreyer, in hone stone, with Dtirer's 
 monogram on it, of which contemporary writers declare they 
 knew the author personally, and which nevertheless differs but 
 little in character from other similar works." 
 
 Augustin Hirschvogel and Peter Flotner are also known by 
 their signature of portrait medallions at Berlin and Munich. 
 Johann Tenchler and Hans Schaufftein, the latter a pupil of 
 Albert Durer, produced several portraits, authenticated by their 
 signature. Lucas Cranack, the painter (1472-1553), used both 
 wood and lithographic stone. More than one portrait of his 
 friend and patron, Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, are 
 known to have been produced by him. 
 
 Tobie Wost was an engraver of medals at Dresden. The 
 Louvre possesses a beautiful portrait in lithographic stone, bearing 
 the monogram T. W., attributed to him. 
 
 Hans Schwartz was the most celebrated of all the Augs- 
 burg artists. He is seen at his best in the Berlin Museum, 
 which contains quite a large number of his portrait medallions. 
 
 2 A 
 
i 7 8 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Lucas Van Leyden was almost as celebrated for his wood 
 carving as for his pictures and engravings. He is well represented 
 in the Louvre. 
 
 Hans Dollinger, the gem engraver, worked frequently both 
 in wood and lithographic stone. 
 
 Heinrich Aldegrever, another of Albert Diirer's pupils, 
 worthily carried on his great master's work in lithographic stone, 
 chiefly in portraiture. 
 
 Balthazar Ableitner is known by his signature on some very 
 fine portrait medallions at Munich. 
 
 Lucas Kelien, Georg Schweigger, Theodore van Ryswick, Adrien 
 de Vries, and others, continued the portrait carving into the 17th 
 century. Many other artists are mentioned as carvers of work 
 of small dimensions, but consisting of classical bas-reliefs, &c, rather 
 than of portraits. Such are Barckhuysen, Troyer, Bonzanigo and his 
 numerous pupils, Bazard and his friend Vallier, and many others. 
 
 The still smaller work, very properly named by the French 
 "la sculpture microscopique," is more wonderful than artistic, and 
 need not be fully described here. I have found a description of 
 two pieces, however, which are worth recording, as showing the 
 extent to which such work could be carried. 
 
 Properzia de Rossi, the celebrated gem engraver, born at 
 Bologna, carved a peach-stone with the whole passion of Jesus 
 Christ, showing the Apostles, the fourteen stations of the Cross, 
 the executioners, and a crowd of people looking on. But even 
 this is surpassed by the famous knife of Leo Pronner of Nurem- 
 berg, executed in 1606 for an Archduke of Austria. Monsieur 
 Demmin in the ' Encyclopedic des Beaux Arts plastiques,' is the 
 authority for the details. The length of the handle was ten 
 centimetres (four inches), and was divided into thirteen drawers. 
 In these drawers were stowed away the psalms, written on 
 parchment in twenty-one languages, 1500 different tools, 100 pieces 
 of gold, a chain fifteen centimetres long, composed of 100 rings, 
 a cherry-stone carved with armorial bearings, twenty-four tin plates, 
 twelve knives with steel blades and wooden handles, and forks to 
 match, twelve wooden spoons, and a human hair divided in its 
 thickness into ten parts. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 n describing the works of the preceding artists, 
 especially those of the French miniaturists, frequent 
 mention has been made of the boxes in which so 
 many of their portraits were mounted. To write 
 anything like an exhaustive account of the various 
 styles given to these boxes at different epochs, in- 
 teresting as the subject is, a far larger space would 
 be required than is consistent with this short memoir. 
 And yet, considering how intimate are the associations between 
 the artist who painted the portrait, and the cunning worker who 
 produced the box of which it became the crowning glory, it 
 appears to me to be fitting that we should glance briefly at the 
 subject, as a legitimate conclusion to the remarks on the foreign 
 schools of miniaturists. History fails to enlighten us as to the 
 exact period when the French first developed an absorbing 
 taste for bon-bons; but as early as 1328, in the inventory of 
 the goods of Queen Clemence, and indeed in many others up to 
 Gabrielle d'Estrees (1599), bonbonnieres, or, as they were then 
 called, " drageoirs," are described of rock crystal, gold, silver- 
 enamel, &c. Men as well as women carried these drageoirs always 
 in their pocket, and it is related of Francois de Lorraine, Due de 
 Guise, that he was in the act of eating a bon-bon when he was 
 assassinated by Poltrot ; and his son, surnamed Le Balafre, was 
 
 2 A 2 
 
i So 
 
 A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 indulging in the same childish taste, when he was murdered in the 
 Chateau de Blois, by the Guards of Henri III. (1588). 
 
 Tobacco was introduced into Europe early in the 16th century 
 by Christopher Columbus and his companions. Sir Francis Drake 
 and Sir Walter Raleigh brought it to England direct from Virginia. 
 It was first sent to France about 1560 by Monsieur Nicot, the 
 French Ambassador at the Portuguese Court. He presented a 
 packet of snuff to Catherine de Medicis, to cure her headaches. 
 For a long time afterwards, snuff bore the title in France of 
 " Poudre a la Reine," and the French botanists were so delighted 
 with Monsieur Nicot, that they immortalised him by associating 
 his name with the botanical term for tobacco — Nicotiana tabacitm. 
 Louis XIV. detested the fragrant weed in every shape, and no 
 one at the Court dared ever to produce a snuff-box in the Royal 
 presence. Nevertheless, the habit quickly penetrated all classes 
 of society. Men, women, and even children considered their daily 
 equipment incomplete without the inevitable snuff-box, and many 
 are the sarcasms scattered here and there in the writings of the 
 period levelled at the beauties of Louis XIV., with their painted 
 cheeks and " le nez, barbouille de tabac." During his long reign, 
 Louis XIV. was profuse in his presents ; carpets, tapestry, gold 
 and silver plate, diamond-mounted swords, jewels of all sorts, 
 were showered freely on all classes of recipients, but the word 
 snuff-box or " tabatiere " is never mentioned. Probably no 
 monarch's likeness ever appeared in miniature, mounted in a 
 box, so frequently as his did, but these were called " boites a 
 portrait," and never " tabatieres." The early specimens are pretty 
 much alike, round, oval or rectangular, of dark tortoiseshell lined 
 with gold, and bearing the enamel portrait generally outside the 
 cover (but sometimes in the interior), the enamel set in a chased 
 £old frame, with a thin blue enamel line outside the chased 
 gold. The box is very shallow, too shallow, indeed, to have 
 served as a snuff-box for such prodigious " priseurs " as the French 
 then were, and was apparently intended merely as the base to 
 the portrait. 
 
 About the year 1662, Pitan, then the King's jeweller, 
 commenced a more elaborate style of box, and at his death in 
 
SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 181 
 
 1676, Pierre de Montarsy succeeded to the post. From this 
 date to 1 714, he produced nearly all the jeweller's work ordered 
 by the King as presents, and his inventive genius was kept 
 constantly employed in devising new patterns for the boites a 
 portrait. A letter preserved in the archives, dated October 10th, 
 1694, from Monsieur Phelypeaux to Montarsy, is interesting for 
 two reasons : first, as tending to show that portraits of the King 
 were kept in stock ; and secondly, as mentioning an artist, about 
 whose identity authorities have differed. He says : "Jem'adresse 
 a vous, pour vous dire de m'envoyer le plut6t qu'il se pourra, une 
 boette a portrait de huit cents ou mille ecus. II faut que le 
 portrait du Roy soit d'email en relief, de la facon du Suedois, 
 probablement, vous en ayez un pret." This " Suedois " has been 
 variously settled by different authors. Jal gives him up hopelessly ; 
 Fournier says it must be Kleintgel, or Kleinglet. This wretched 
 being, the worthy client of a most dissolute patron, the notorious 
 Philippe d'Orleans, Regent of France, never painted anything as 
 decent as a portrait ; spending his unquestionable talent in 
 supplying the Regent with miniatures of subjects of a very different 
 order. The archives luckily help us to a solution of the question. 
 There is an entry on March 30th, 1695, " Achete par le S. 
 Montarsy, joaillier, douze portraits emailles, en bas-relief, repre- 
 sentant S. M., par Frederic Bruckmann, Suedois, a 60 livres, 
 720 livres." I have previously mentioned that this " email en 
 relief," which seems to have been Bruckmann's speciality, is quite 
 unknown to me. I never heard of a specimen being in any 
 museum or collection. It is worthy of remark, that the whole of 
 the royal portraits inserted in the boxes up to the end of the 
 17th century are enamels, furnished by Petitot, Bordier, Chatillon, 
 Ferrand, Perrault, and this Swede Bruckmann. We hear no 
 mention of water-colour miniaturists employed by the State until 
 1 71 5, when the names of Bourdier, Duvigeon, and the three 
 ladies Mesdemoiselles Brison, Chateau, and De la Boissiere, appear 
 on the register. 
 
 The 1 8th century was the time par excellence for snuff-boxes. 
 M. Paul Moritz in the 'Gazette des Beaux Arts' thus speaks of 
 them : " Les bonbonnieres et les tabatieres furent pendant cette 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART 
 
 epoque le luxe supreme. On faisait collection de ces menus 
 ouvrages du caprice, comme on recherchait les tableaux ou les 
 medailles. Les grands seigneurs avaient des tabatieres a profusion 
 et sen paraient comme d'un bijou a la mode. Ces boites etaient en 
 or cisele, grave, emaille, en ecaille brune ou blonde, cerclee, posee, 
 piquee d'or de couleur ; en porcelaine dure de Saxe ; en pate 
 tendre de Sevres, de Mennecy et de Chantilly; en nacre, en burgau, en 
 ivoire, en pierre dure, en vernis martin, en ecaille moulee imitant 
 des marbres, &c. Des medaillons de toutes sortes, des mosaiques, 
 des miniatures et des emaux, concouraient a l'ornementation de ces 
 charmants bijoux." Some of these collections amounted to a 
 prodigious number. Frederick the Great is said to have left amongst 
 his treasures 1500 snuff-boxes, many of them of the choicest quality. 
 
 The Comte de Bruhl, the favourite minister of the King of 
 Saxony, of whom Frederick the Great said, that he had " tant de 
 perruques et si peu de tete," ordered for himself 300 complete 
 costumes, each with its own appropriate walking-stick and snuff-box. 
 
 Occasionally a snuff-box proved useful, as happened to the 
 Comte de Guiche, who was madly in love with the daughter of 
 Charles I. — "La belle Henriette." He wore her portrait in a gold 
 box, suspended from his neck. In one of the battles in which 
 he was engaged, a bullet struck the box and turned off. He clearly 
 owed his life to the object of his affections. At the beginning of 
 the 1 8th century, the family of Berain infused a new spirit into 
 the gold work of the period, and snuff-boxes especially felt the 
 influence of their inventive genius. Many of the lovely boxes of 
 the end of Louis XIV. and of the Regency, combining architectural 
 details with the introduction of grotesque and fantastic figures 
 birds, monkeys, &c, in the highest style of goldsmiths' work, owe 
 their origin to the Berain family. Another style of ornament 
 made its appearance towards the end of the Regency, bearing 
 now-a-days the appellation of pique work. Early in the reign of 
 Louis XIV., Naples was celebrated for its boxes in ivory, "pique" 
 in gold ; but an artist named Devair largely developed the process, 
 using tortoiseshell as the basis. Four varieties of this work are 
 mentioned in the ■ Encyclopedic des Arts.' " Le pique," in which 
 a hole is pierced by the artist, and a thread of gold or silver 
 
SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 183 
 
 inserted, and then cut off. The heat produced by the piercer on 
 the sensitive tortoiseshell, suffices to expand the hole, which, on 
 cooling after the introduction of the gold thread, contracts and so 
 holds the fine point in position. 
 
 " Le coule " consists in inserting a gold thread in a continuous 
 channel cut in the tortoiseshell by the graver, which, as before, 
 expands during the passage of the tool and contracts upon the 
 gold thread introduced. " L'incruste " is a more complicated process. 
 A plaque of gold is pressed in a die, representing the design to 
 be produced ; and is then applied to the tortoiseshell, made hot 
 to receive it, and which by the expansion and contraction already 
 mentioned, holds the gold plaque in its place, without any further 
 attachment being necessary. " Le brode " is composed of the pique, 
 coule, and incruste, mixed together in different parts of the design. 
 
 To the same period belong the Dresden boxes, consisting of 
 a gold frame, with mother-of-pearl sides, and incrustation of jasper, 
 agate or any other of the "pierres dures." Taddel, Hoffmann and 
 others were the chief workers known to fame. Bourquet and 
 Ravechet, French goldsmiths of the time, imitated this Dresden 
 work perfectly. 
 
 About 1 736, Joaquet improved even on the Dresden style. 
 Plaques of fine onyx, cornelian and other " pierres dures " were 
 mounted in gold to form boxes, the framework displaying the most 
 exquisite taste. Flowers of all sorts abound in the chased gold 
 work, enamelled in their natural colours. He had many imitators, 
 but the name of Joaquet is still pre-eminent, as applied to this 
 lovely work. 
 
 The " boites a cage " are somewhat similar, enclosing 
 specimens of agates, cornelians, &c, but these again are partly 
 covered by subjects engraved in gold, silver and mother-of-pearl, 
 or even by enamels and miniature pictures. Celebrated artists 
 were employed to paint these enamels for the boxes. Aubert, 
 Bourgoing, Le Bel, Le Sueur, De Mailly, and others, are amongst 
 the well-known enamellers of snuff-boxes. 
 
 Returning now to the "boites a. portrait" of Louis XV., 
 we find the name of Jean Baptiste Masse as supplying a very 
 large number of the Royal portraits for the boxes. Le Brun, 
 
A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Vincent, Penel, Charlier, Prevost, Cazaubon, Musson, &c, are fre- 
 quently mentioned ; whilst for enamels we have Liotard, Rouquet, 
 Durand, Boit and Bourgoing. Under Louis XVI., the artists 
 most employed appear to have been Welper and Sicardi, with 
 Augaistin, Courtois, Hall and Le Tellier for enamels. 
 
 The habit of distributing snuff-boxes and boites a. portrait as 
 presents, which reached its height during the 18th century, was 
 not confined to France, but common to most of the Courts of 
 Europe. However, in no other country were such gems of art 
 produced, or showered in such profusion on the ambassadors and 
 others accredited in various ways to the Court. It is worthy of 
 remark that whilst the value of the boxes presented to Frenchmen 
 rarely exceeds two or three thousand livres, those given to ambassa- 
 dors, &c, often mount up to twenty or thirty thousand livres, and 
 even higher. The difference consists entirely in the number and 
 quality of the diamonds employed. The boxes, portraits, enamels, 
 &c. &c, were the same ; in the latter case they were more richly 
 mounted. 
 
 On turning over the " Registres des presents du Roi " in the 
 archives of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we often come across 
 the names of Englishmen who participated in these lovely gifts. 
 In 1668, Lord Arlington received a box of the value of 12,800 
 livres ; the Duke of Buckingham on the same day figuring for one 
 of 28,000 livres; in 1673 Le Comte de Sunderland (sic), English 
 ambassador, a box of 17,000 livres. In 1768 appears " a un seigneur 
 Anglais," 14,738 livres. In 1679 the lucky Comte de Sunderland 
 again receives a box of 14,183 livres. In the same year, at the 
 Peace of Nimeguen, there is quite a shower of boxes to English- 
 men. Monsieur Tempet, 1 0,000 livres ; Monsieur Jonkins (sic), 8 101 
 livres; Le Comte d'Oxford, 12,228 livres; Colonel Churchill, better 
 known afterwards as the Duke of Marlborough, 6900 livres. In 
 1680, a Lord Duraz de Fuersham, English Minister, 7346 livres. 
 The French method of rendering English names was as curious 
 then as now. In 1690, Comte Firconil, commander of the English 
 army in Ireland, comes in for a box of the value of 21,218 livres. 
 
 The Peace of Ryswick, again, enriches our countrymen, the 
 Duke of St. Albans appearing for 1 2,000 livres, and Lord Portland 
 
SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 '85 
 
 for the magnificent box costing 40,510 livres. Occasionally the 
 destination of the box is kept secret. In 1 7 1 9, the Regent sends 
 a box to the Abbe Dubois of the value of 31,039 livres to be 
 delivered to M. L. C. A. In 1720, a box is mentioned surpassing 
 in price anything else on the Register. It contained a portrait 
 of the King, painted by Masse, and set with forty-two brilliants 
 and fifteen rose diamonds, costing the enormous sum of 129,852 
 livres. It was presented to the Marquis Scotti, envoye of the 
 Duke of Parma. What service could the Marquis possibly have 
 rendered to merit such a magnificent return ? 
 
 An instance of a custom not uncommon apparently in those 
 times, is furnished by an entry in 1775. A box of the value of 
 29,940 livres was presented to the Comte de Viri, ambassador of the 
 King of Sardinia, on the occasion of the marriage of Madame 
 Clotilde to the Prince of Piedmont. This lucky Count had already 
 received a box of 56,258 livres in the year 1763. Preferring the 
 cash to the snuff-box, he sold the present of 1775 back to M. Solle, 
 the jeweller who supplied it, for 25,500 livres. Two years later the 
 identical box is again presented to the same ambassador, who goes 
 through the same course as before, and for the second time pockets 
 his 25,500 livres. Each time the jeweller returns the box to the 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, and is allowed four per cent, as 
 a commission. 
 
 Three years afterwards — -1780 — there is a further entry re- 
 ferring to the same box. In the meantime, the colour of the enamel 
 had been changed from "jonquille" (pale yellow) to ruby, and was 
 this time presented to the Comte de Mercy, ambassador from the 
 Empress of Austria. The note goes on to say : " C'est la tabatiere, 
 offerte precedemment au Comte de Viri, et d'abord ^maillee en 
 jonquille." The portrait in this box was by Sicardi. PI is name 
 appears in the register of Louis XVI. more frequently than that 
 of any other artist. 
 
 I wonder how many people know the origin of the word 
 " silhouette," applied primarily to the profile portraits cut out of 
 black paper, and secondarily to anything slight or sketchy ? 
 
 Etienne de Silhouette was appointed Controller-General of 
 Finance in 1759, on the recommendation of Madame de 
 
 2 R 
 
1 86 
 
 A in STORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 Pompadour, to endeavour to evolve some order out of the chaos 
 of the national finances. He commenced, as usual in such cases, 
 by cutting down every possible State expense, and then issued a 
 pressing invitation to the wealthy classes to bring their jewels, &c, 
 to be converted into cash for the benefit of the Treasury. 
 Ridicule, that fatal shaft which has wrecked so many reputations, 
 especially in France, obliged the poor minister to retire at the 
 end of eight months. In the meantime everything appeared " a la 
 Silhouette," that is to say, in the commonest and most economical 
 style. The snuff-boxes were of common unpolished wood, in the 
 place of the gems of Berain, Devair or Joaquet ; the miniatures 
 of Masse, Le Brun, Charlier, &c, were represented by profile 
 portraits cut out of black paper, from the shadow cast on a sheet 
 of white paper by a candle. 
 
 Towards the end of the reign of Louis XVI. snuff-boxes 
 assumed a political importance unknown in the earlier stages of 
 their manufacture. Every celebrated person and every important 
 event was translated forthwith to the snuff-box, and the history 
 of the time could almost be written from the innumerable specimens 
 known to collectors. 
 
 Some of the varieties are very curious ; here is one. The 
 French hailed with the greatest joy the accession of Louis XVI. 
 and his beautiful Queen to the throne. Disgusted with the reign 
 of the Pompadours and Du Barrys, and ground down by excessive 
 taxation, they looked forward to a future which, alas ! never 
 came. 
 
 An ingenious box-maker conceived the brilliant idea of cover- 
 ing snuff-boxes with the fish skin we call shagreen, and which in 
 French is rendered by the same word as grief, " chagrin." He 
 placed miniature portraits of the King and Queen in the lid, 
 surrounded by this legend : " La consolation dans le chagrin." Here 
 is another, produced about the same time and apropos of the same 
 subject — a box with portraits of Louis XII. and Henry IV. on 
 the top, and underneath, Louis XVI., with this inscription: "XII 
 et IV font XVI," thus associating the two Kings from whom 
 France had derived most benefit with the one from whom they 
 hoped still more. Then we have boxes with portraits of every 
 
SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 187 
 
 member of the Royal Family, Rousseau, Voltaire, the first balloon 
 ascent in 1783, with portraits of Montgolfier, &c. 
 
 The first distant mutterings of the revolutionary storm caused 
 a general exodus of the nobility and well-to-do classes, the best 
 customers of those who invented the various gems, so pleasing to 
 the eye, but which required a calm political atmosphere for their 
 thorough enjoyment. Although we find a terrible falling-off in the 
 snuff-box of this period, regarded as a work of art, it is to some 
 extent atoned for by the extraordinary variety of subjects chosen 
 for its ornamentation. Not a public event or a celebrated 
 character escaped the ever-watchful " tabletiers." The taking of 
 the Bastille was a never-ending subject of ornament. Pieces of 
 the stone of this hated prison were carved with its visible 
 presentment, and mounted on snuff-boxes, and indeed on every 
 kind of article used for personal adornment. The whole of the 
 emblems of the Revolutionary period, from the "bonnet rouge" 
 to the words of the famous song " Patience, 9a ira, ne faut que 
 s'entendre," written in 1790 by Ladre, a street singer, but which 
 became almost the hymn of the " sans culottes ; " the famous 
 declaration of the "droits de l'homme ; " the great fete of the 
 French Confederation in the Champ de Mars in 1 790 ; the first 
 circulation of the " assignat ; " even the likeness of the guillotine 
 itself, have been used to adorn the snuff-boxes, generally made 
 of wood, horn, tortoiseshell, or ivory. Then appear all the chief 
 actors of the terrible drama — Mirabeau, the demon Marat and his 
 brave executioner, Charlotte Corday, the patriot Lafayette, the 
 good Bailly, Robespierre, Danton, Madame Roland, &c. 
 
 When the establishment of the Consulate allowed men to 
 breathe again, quite a crop of Royalist boxes made their appearance. 
 La tabatiere au testament de Louis XV L, Les adieux, La lecon de 
 geographie, and the curious box " au saule pleureur," were some 
 amongst the number. The last was quite artistic. A funeral urn, 
 shadowed by two weeping willows, was so designed that anyone in 
 the secret could easily make out in the form of the urn and the two 
 trees, the profile portraits of the King, Queen, Dauphin, Dauphiness 
 and Madame Elizabeth. 
 
 The magnificence of the Empire naturally led, amongst other 
 
 2 b 2 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 things, to the renaissance of the snuff-box, though, as in most other 
 art products of the time, it failed to meet the purity of design 
 and chaste beauty of Louis XVI. Isabey, Augustin, Saint, and 
 others were there, with Pasquier as enameller, to multiply the like- 
 nesses of all connected with that wondrous episode of history. 
 Then as the wheel of fortune turned, and Louis XVIII. became 
 King, the Emperor was forced to retire " au secret." 
 
 A box was devised with a false bottom, containing in the 
 hidden recess the cherished portrait of the Emperor. This device 
 was also adopted in England. I have seen a Jacobite box, con- 
 taining within the false bottom a miniature portrait of Charles 
 Edward Stuart, thus enabling the proscribed adherent of a fallen 
 cause to carry with him, unknown to the spies of the dominant 
 party, the idol of his political faith. The return of the Emperor 
 from Elba in March 1815, was hailed by a shower of boxes 
 bearing a bouquet of violets or heartsease, surmounted by portraits 
 of the Emperor, Marie Louise and the King of Rome, surrounded 
 by various legends — " Le retour du printemps," " Le bouquet 
 imperial," &c. This continued during the eventful Hundred Days ; 
 but when once St. Helena had closed over the great Corsican, and 
 the restoration of the Bourbons was once more a " fait accompli," 
 the fleur de lys, although awakened into new life by the aid of 
 the foreigner, soon replaced the expiring eagle. 
 
 One relic, however, of the Emperor survived for a considerable 
 period. The old soldiers, who had served under the Great 
 Captain, would use no other snuff-box but " Le petit chapeau," 
 made of wood or horn in the exact shape of the wondrous cocked 
 hat which had so often waved them on to victory. Even after 
 the Emperor's disappearance, boxes were clandestinely borne by 
 the Imperialists, representing on their tops, what was apparently 
 a bouquet of violets, but in the outlines of which, a trained eye 
 could readily discover the profile of the Emperor, even to the 
 traditional " petit chapeau." 
 
 Once again, at the Restoration, the faithful snuff-box bears 
 on its face the likeness of every one connected with the gouty, 
 old gentleman, Louis XVIII. The Count d'Artois, afterwards 
 Charles X., the Duke d'Angouleme and his wife, the ascetic and 
 
SNUFF-BOXES, ETC. 
 
 189 
 
 priest-ridden daughter of Louis XVI., the Duke and Duchess de 
 Berri, are all well known in single portraits or family groups. 
 Then came the leaders of the opposition, General Foy, Manuel 
 and Benjamin Constant. 
 
 The Constitutional Charta, promulgated by Louis XVIII., 
 which was to govern France for all time, but too rapidly violated 
 both by the King who gave it, and by his successor Charles X., 
 produced innumerable snuff-boxes. Miniature portraits of the 
 King and the rest of the Royal Family, the chief functionaries 
 concerned in its birth, and even the masses themselves, were 
 represented, all swearing eternal fidelity to this worthless bit of 
 paper, whilst the legends surrounding them were on a par with 
 the rest of the comedy^ — " Vive la Charte, elle a ferme l'ere des 
 revolutions;" again, "Aucun des articles de la Charte ne sera 
 revise." The vaunted remedy for revolution did not last long. 
 Another event, duly chronicled on the irrepressible snuff-box, was 
 the assassination of the Due de Berri, by Louvel, whilst he was leav- 
 ing the Opera in [820. Royalist France was in despair, fearing for 
 the succession ; and when, in the following September, the Duchess 
 gave birth to the Due de Bordeaux, the grateful people instantly 
 christened him " Dieudonne." A^ain was the snuff-box made the 
 
 <_> 
 
 medium of expressing the universal joy ; in every shape, form and 
 colour the illustrious stranger, " le salut de la France," adorned the 
 indispensable box. How few could then have thought that this 
 miraculous infant was to die an exile in a foreign land as the Comte 
 de Chambord, too proud to change the white flag of absolutism for 
 a banner more in keeping with the spirit of the time ! 
 
 Charles X., in his later days a religious devotee, encouraged 
 largely the religious snuff-box. In the place of the reigning beauties 
 of the time, we find Madonnas, the Pope, and ecclesiastical portraits. 
 
 It would be wearisome to particularise the boxes of Louis 
 Philippe ; the same story could be told of his eighteen years' reign. 
 Thiers, Guizot, Montalivet, in fact all who made a name for 
 themselves in the history of the time, can be found on boxes, the 
 last episode of his reign, and which cost him his throne, viz., the 
 attempted interference with the Reform banquets, being perpetuated 
 on the " tabatiere a la Reforme." 
 
A HISTORY OF MINIATURE ART. 
 
 The last historical snuff-box of which we have a record 
 brings us down to a comparatively recent date — the " tabatiere 
 a l'appel au peuple." It celebrates the result of the appeal 
 made by Louis Napoleon to the French people after the Coup 
 d'etat of 1 85 1. A miniature represents the Prince in general's 
 uniform. Above is an eagle surmounted by a star, with these 
 words: 'Telu du peuple. Vox populi, vox dei, 7,481,231 voix. 
 Decembre 185 1." 
 
 Many other varieties of these interesting political snuff-boxes 
 are known to connoisseurs. In no country was the fashion so 
 prevalent as in France, and the very complete collections of 
 Messieurs de Liesville and Maze Sencier in Paris embrace every 
 phase of this curious record of contemporary characters and 
 events. I have said nothing of the boxes of Sevres, Mennecy, 
 Dresden, &c, nor of our own Chelsea, Bow, or Battersea. Por- 
 traiture rarely if ever entered into the scheme of their ornamen- 
 tation, nor, as far as I am aware, were they ever made the medium 
 for political demonstration. It is curious that the two practices, 
 snuff-taking and miniature painting, have come to an end about 
 the same time. Whatever other sources of information may be 
 available to the future student of the history of the present time, 
 he will certainly lack the means of studying character in a miniature 
 portrait, or current events in a snuff-box. 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 aving now completed some account of those collateral 
 arts which seemed pertinent to the main subject of 
 this memoir, it may not be considered out of place 
 to say a few words about Collectors and Collections. 
 Men (we are told) are but children of a larger growth ; 
 and an irreverent outsider, who has never been smitten with the 
 absorbing — shall we call it mania ? — of the art collector may possibly 
 consider the desire to possess the pretty toys fashioned by the 
 cunning hands of preceding generations as very distinct evidence 
 of the truth of the aphorism. At all events, it is a malady which 
 has grown respectable from its antiquity, and from the wide area 
 over which it has prevailed. Ever since the genus homo was 
 sufficiently advanced in intellect to appreciate the softening influ- 
 ence of form and colour, and when it was no longer necessary 
 to spend his whole existence in procuring food, and beating off 
 the attacks of his enemies, both quadruped and biped, depend 
 upon it there were individuals who loved to surround themselves 
 with rare and beautiful things, according to their lights, if only it 
 were a necklace of hyena's teeth, an engraved mammoth tusk, or 
 a well-shaped and carefully-wrought stone battle-axe. 
 
1 92 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 To one nation only was it given to produce all that could please 
 the senses, as an indigenous product, and where the most exacting 
 collector could satiate his appetite without having to scour the 
 world for the objects of his choice. 
 
 Whether Art was an importation of Pelasgic, Egyptian, or 
 Phoenician origin matters little ; certain it is that the wondrous 
 people of ancient Greece, more than two thousand years ago, reached 
 something like finality as regards perfection of form, beauty of 
 colour, and cunning of workmanship, leaving succeeding generations 
 nothing to add to the canons of her art. Even a slight approach 
 to the level of her excellence has been sufficient to canonize the 
 Michael Angelos, Canovas, or Flaxmans of the later days, whose 
 best works are those which most nearly reproduce a refrain of 
 Phidias, Praxiteles, or Myron. The collectors of ancient Greece 
 worked not for themselves. Their highest ambition was to enrich 
 their temples and public monuments. The Parthenon, the Odeon, 
 or Lyceum, formed the receptacle for their treasures ; the individual 
 was content to efface himself for his country's good. 
 
 Then none were for a party, 
 
 Then all were for the State ; 
 The rich man helped the poor man, 
 
 The poor man loved the great. 
 
 In the case of Rome it was far otherwise. Destined as she 
 was to subdue the world, endowed with an eminently practical and 
 organizing mind, she created nothing in the shape of art ; and when 
 the time came for luxury and magnificence, she was forced to seek 
 in other countries the means to gratify her art desires. When the 
 fortunes of war had given into her hands the south of Italy and 
 Sicily, full of the art works planted there by Greek workmen, the 
 rude soldier of Rome began to feel the influence of beauty. One 
 after another, Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor were forced to 
 yield to her conquering chiefs their priceless treasures, to form a 
 pendant to the triumphal car. 
 
 In time the workers themselves were transported to the proud 
 city of the seven hills — many of them brought as captives, others 
 invited or commanded to place their talents at the service of the 
 conqueror. Perhaps emigration was the kindest lot. In their own 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 i93 
 
 countries their patrons were ruined or killed, their own homes 
 ruthlessly destroyed, their occupation gone. Sylla made Athens a 
 desert, and her artist sons became naturalized Romans.* 
 
 Doubtless at first the fruits of pillage were given up to the 
 State, and the temples and public edifices were the recipients of 
 the acquisitions of the successful general ; but with each fresh triumph 
 luxury increased, and the old public spirit became more and more 
 weakened. Ere long the governors of Rome's dependencies set to 
 work on their own account, and formed their private collections by 
 simply annexing anything which took their fancy. Some of these 
 men were insatiable collectors, such as Verres, Governor of Sicily 
 b.c. 73. Nothing small or great escaped this rapacious robber. 
 From the colossal bronze statue of Diana, the joy of the temple of 
 Segestum, wrung from the reluctant hands of the inhabitants by 
 oppression of every kind, or the Ceres of Catania, held in such 
 reverence that no man was permitted to lay eyes on her, guarded 
 in her sanctuary by a band of vestal virgins, down to a ring or a 
 seal, he had stomach for them all. No sooner had he returned to 
 Rome than he was put on his trial for peculation, and had to face 
 the terrible denunciations of the illustrious Cicero. Hortensius, the 
 friend of Verres, defended him, and during the trial received from 
 Verres a marvellous sphinx of Corinthian bronze, probably as (what 
 legal language now-a-days would call) a "refresher." Cicero heard 
 of the gift, and replying to some observation of Hortensius he said : 
 " My learned friend pretends not to understand my enigmas ; he 
 had better consult the sphinx but lately come into his possession."! 
 Nothing — not even the bronze sphinx — could save Verres, and he 
 was advised to quit Rome before the termination of the trial. For 
 twenty-seven years he wandered in exile. He then ventured to 
 return to Rome, only to find a collector as rapacious and unscrupu- 
 lous as himself — Mark Antony — then at the zenith of his power as 
 a member of the second triumvirate. Antony politely requested 
 Verres to hand over to him his collection of Corinthian bronzes. 
 Verres knew the cost of refusal, but to break up his loved treasures, 
 the work of his life, seemed to him little short of sacrilege, and 
 he declined to part with them. He was placed on the fatal 
 * Pliny, xxxv. 58. f Pliny, xxxiv, 10. 
 
 2 C 
 
194 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 list of the proscribed, and paid with his head for his devotion 
 to Art. 
 
 At first it was the fashion amongst some Romans of the Old 
 School to affect contempt for the Greeks and their art work. Even 
 Cicero could speak thus : " In truth, it is difficult to imagine the 
 importance these Greeks attach to all these things, which we 
 despise " {contemnimiis).* Apelles and Phidias were termed " mad- 
 brained little Greeks " (Grccculi delir antes). \ But even Cicero 
 himself could not long withstand the contagion, and became himself 
 a collector, commissioning Atticus to procure for him the statues, 
 pictures, &c, necessary to adorn his villa, and giving a prodigious 
 sum for his dining table, an article upon which Roman collectors 
 seem to have run especially mad. The height of luxury was to 
 have a " table de citre," and for a long time it seemed uncertain of 
 what wood it was made. It is now generally thought to have been 
 the Thuya, a member of the Cypress tribe. At the present day 
 the wood is common enough ; every cabinet-maker's shop contains 
 book-cases, &c, made of it, and the supply which comes from Canada 
 and other parts amply meets all demands. In Roman days it was 
 much more scarce, and was obtained chiefly from certain parts of 
 Africa. It is doubtless a peculiarly handsome wood, and the varying 
 markings on a fine specimen gave rise to different names, each of 
 which had its own peculiar value in the eyes of a collector. The 
 stripes of the tiger, the spots of the leopard, the eyes in a peacock's 
 tail, were pressed into the service to designate these varieties, and 
 a perfect table must be constructed from one tree, root and all. 
 When all these conditions were fulfilled, it became a swell affair, 
 costing from ^"8,000 to ;£ 10,000. 
 
 Several renowned tables of this costly wood are mentioned in 
 Latin authors. Of course the table of Verres, like all his belongings, 
 was of first-rate excellence, though the price is not mentioned. 
 Cicero gave one million sesterces, about ^8,000, for his specimen, 
 much to the astonishment of Pliny, who wonders how the great 
 orator, with his comparatively slender means {inilla paupertate), could 
 pay such an exorbitant sum. The table of Asinius Jallus was valued 
 at 1, 100,000 sesterces ; that of Cethegus at 1,400,000, above ^11,000. 
 * Cicero in Verr. II. t Petronius : Satyr. 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 i95 
 
 The notoriety attained by Verres as a collector has been largely 
 due to the celebrated trial, and the inclusion of its episodes and 
 speeches amongst the great orations of Cicero ; but by diligently 
 piecing together various allusions in different works of the time, a 
 good many glimpses are obtained of other robbers who formed their 
 collections pretty much as he did — by spoliation, menace, and 
 chicanery of every kind. 
 
 Sylla, who had most to do with the subjugation of Greece, 
 and who was the first to ransack the richest temples, such as 
 that of Apollo at Delphi, ./Esculapius at Epidaurus, and Jupiter 
 at Elis, naturally possessed chefs- d 1 oetivre from that devoted country, 
 which he forgot to give up for the benefit of the State. The 
 small statue of Apollo in gold, stolen from the inmost sanctuary of 
 the temple at Delphi, never left his person. He carried it in his 
 bosom on all occasions, both of peace and war, and never under- 
 took any great work without first paying his devotions to the little 
 golden god.* Historically his greatest possession was a small 
 bronze statuette of Hercules, which possessed a pedigree perhaps 
 unequalled in the history of art.f It was modelled by Lysippus, 
 and given by him to Alexander the Great, with whom it became 
 quite an object of adoration. It accompanied him on all his expe- 
 ditions, and on his death-bed it was to this little bronze that he sighed 
 out his last adieu. It then passed into the hands of Hannibal, 
 who was a man of considerable culture, with a special weakness for 
 Greek bronzes. He took it with him into Bithynia, where it was 
 probably included in the Court treasures. A century later it turns 
 up in the collection of Sylla, who, fine connoisseur as he undoubtedly 
 was, probably requisitioned it from Nicomedes, whom he had 
 just placed on the throne of Bithynia. After Sylla, the bronze 
 is once again mentioned as forming part of the collection of 
 Vindex, \ in the time of Domitian, and then it disappears utterly. 
 What nobler work could be found for the divining rod of ancient 
 Egypt, than to indicate to us under what part of the soil of Rome 
 this sacred relic now lies buried ! 
 
 The /Edile Scaurus, son-in-law and heir of Sylla, surpassed 
 all contemporary collectors in magnificence and luxury. He built 
 
 * Plutarch: Sylla, 62. f Martial, ix. 45. % Statius : Silv. iv. 
 
 2 C 2 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 a theatre for some shows which were to last for a month, and 
 decorated it with 3,000 statues from his private collection. He 
 possessed also the finest cabinet of engraved gems then known, and 
 such a mass of tapestries, carpets and furniture, that when one of 
 his villas was burned down, the furniture alone was valued at close 
 on a million pounds sterling.* 
 
 Lucullus stands out as one of the gentlest and least obnoxious 
 of the collectors of the time. Possessing consummate taste and 
 unlimited means, he not only surrounded himself with all that 
 was beautiful and rare, but opened his doors to the artists and 
 writers of the time with a liberality unknown in those days, 
 especially to the Greeks, who were too often treated with the 
 direst contempt by their conquerors. f The gardens of Lucullus 
 were the most beautiful in ancient Rome. Nothing gives a grander 
 idea of the luxury of the time than these gardens of the great 
 characters of Rome. J Generally situated on the rising ground 
 outside the city, they partook of the nature of a quiet retreat, a 
 country house and an open-air museum. Close to the busy town, 
 yet free from the turmoil of the Forum, and the excitement of the 
 Senate-house, the weary patrician could wander at leisure amongst 
 the colonnades and on the terraces surrounding his abode. Cooled 
 by the fresh fountains of the garden, and shaded from the sun by 
 myrtles, orange-trees and laurels, he could survey with fond pride 
 the statues, bronzes, vases, bas-reliefs, and many a fragment of 
 antiquity which met his view wherever he turned ; and when, as 
 in the case of Lucullus, the garden was the rendezvous of artists 
 and philosophers, it is difficult to imagine an existence more nearly 
 approaching the perfection of Epicurus. 
 
 But we must not linger too long in these seductive scenes, 
 but pass rapidly in review a few remaining celebrities, who, for 
 special reasons are interesting as collectors. 
 
 The military genius of Caesar has so entirely absorbed the 
 attention of history, that his grand qualities as a lover of art are 
 in fear of being forgotten. Whilst he passionately loved the great 
 works of antiquity, he was a magnificent patron of contemporary 
 artists, employing them not only to adorn the grand buildings he 
 * Pliny, xxxi. 40. f Plutarch : Lucullus, 66. % Pliny, xxxiv. 17. 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 197 
 
 reared in Rome, but in many towns in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Asia and 
 Greece. Perhaps one of the most honourable acts of his life was 
 the sending forth from Rome a Greek colony to re-people Corinth, 
 to raise her from her ruins, and to rear again her statues and 
 bas-reliefs, buried beneath the rubbish heaps formed by his pre- 
 decessors. * By his will he left the whole of his collections, 
 together with his lovely gardens by the Tiber, to the Roman 
 people — a last and touching proof of his devotion to art and to 
 his native country, f 
 
 In direct contrast to the generosity of Caesar, the meanness 
 and villainy of Mark Antony shine with a still more lurid glare. 
 He pillaged every place, including Rome itself. As he had 
 proscribed Verres to steal his bronzes, so he made away with 
 Nonius for his celebrated opal, and the great writer Varro for his 
 library. After the defeat of Pompey, he appropriated to himself 
 the whole belongings of his enemy, and when Caesar was assas- 
 sinated, he had the audacity to carry off the whole of the works 
 of art left by Caesar to the people, to adorn his own galleries 
 and gardens. % Of all the ruffians of the time, Mark Antony was 
 the most despicable. Pompey himself had his gardens on the 
 brow of Janiculum, but his great possession was the theatre, and 
 colonnades supported by three hundred columns of rose granite, 
 which became the most fashionable lounge in Rome, " La 
 promenade de Pompee." The colossal Melpomene of the Louvre, 
 and the splendid gilt bronze Hercules of the Vatican, were found 
 on the site of Pompey's Theatre. Brutus and Cassius, the two 
 chief conspirators against Caesar, collected in a desultory sort of 
 way. The former had a passionate affection for a small bronze 
 of a young man by Strongylion, which went by the name of the 
 Young Philippian. Curiously enough, this bronze is alluded to by 
 two Latin authors. Pliny mentions it : " Strongylion fecit puerum, 
 quern amando Brutus Philippensis cognomine suo illustravit." § 
 Martial writes thus of it : — 
 
 " Gloria tam parvi non est obscura sigilli ; 
 Istius pueri Brutus amator erat"! 
 
 * Suetonius : Caesar, xxviii. f Cicero. % Cicero : 2 Philippic. 
 
 § Pliny, xxxiv. 19. 1 Martial, xiv. 169. 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 Cicero has already been mentioned, though he, together with 
 Atticus and Varro, were chiefly celebrated for their fine libraries. 
 Hortensius also, who defended Verres, had a weakness for bronzes 
 and pictures. 
 
 Sallust, if a pillager of the first order, was certainly a magnifi- 
 cent creature. After Caesar's death, he gave up politics, and 
 devoted himself to erecting on the Ouirinal a series of palatial 
 buildings, including a palace, a temple dedicated to Venus, a circus, 
 a market, and baths, and laying out the famous gardens which 
 were amongst the most delicious promenades of the time. A larger 
 number of the glorious relics of the antique which still remain to 
 us have been disinterred from the gardens of Sallust than from 
 any other one spot. The Hermaphrodite, the faun carrying a 
 child, and the Borghese vase, all three now in the Louvre, Papiria 
 questioning her son on the secrets of the Senate, the Dying Gaul, 
 in the Capitol, the Venus and Cupid, in the Belvedere Gallery in 
 Vienna, all come from him, as did the beautiful column of oriental 
 alabaster now standing in the middle of the Vatican Library, the 
 balustrade in yellow antique marble of the Church of St- Peter 
 in Montorio, and many fragments now adorning the garden of the 
 Villa Ludovisi, which is partly formed on the site of Sallust's 
 gardens. The Hermaphrodite was found by some nuns of a 
 religious house, built on another part of the famous gardens, and 
 was given by them to Cardinal Borghese, on condition that he 
 restored the front of the nunnery. From the Borghese family it 
 passed to the Louvre, together with the vase.* 
 
 However much we may reprobate the cruel means by which 
 these old Roman collectors amassed their treasures, one thing is 
 certain, that without their intervention, we should have had to 
 lament a still greater destruction of the remains of Greek art. But 
 for Caesar, where would be the Venus of the Hermitage ? To 
 Lucullus we owe tne Remouleur of the Pitti ; even Verres has 
 given us the Torso of the God of Love, in the Vatican, which is 
 believed to be a replica done by Praxiteles himself, after his 
 chef-d' ceuvre at Thespis. Asinius Pollio, one of the last of the great 
 collectors, has left us the marvellous group of Dirce and the Bull, 
 
 * Ampere, iii. 379. . 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 199 
 
 commonly known as the Farnese Bull. In addition to the actual 
 pieces known to have been produced at the best period of Greek 
 art which still remain, we must place to the credit of the Roman 
 collectors the copies in bronze or marble of very many more 
 original works, which have long since disappeared. With the 
 exception perhaps of the Parthenon bas-reliefs, known as the Elgin 
 marbles in the British Museum, and the Venus of Melos in the 
 Louvre, which is probably not a Venus, but a wingless Victory, 
 nearly every undoubted relic of Greek art has filtered through 
 Rome. The end may not justify the means, but we are un- 
 questionably the gainers. We have hitherto been describing the 
 possessions of the successful generals, and unscrupulous governors 
 of old Rome, but there were innumerable collectors who never 
 had the chance of sacking rich cities as Sylla did, or of despoiling 
 the inhabitants of a province after the fashion of Verres, nor even 
 of adopting the rough and ready method of Mark Antony, viz., 
 proscribing a successful collector and then annexing his effects. 
 The more peaceable of the art-loving public procured their 
 specimens, pretty much as we do, by means of auctions and 
 dealers. Napoleon founded his laws upon the Roman model, but 
 I do not know whether he included the management of auctions 
 amongst his far-reaching enactments. Certain it is, however, that 
 the Atria auctionaria constituted the exact prototype of the 
 Rue Drouot. Before a sale, notices were painted in large red 
 letters on all the dead walls about the markets, &c, called tabula 
 azictionaricz . Plautus has preserved for us the wording of one of 
 these notices : " In seven days, beginning in the morning, will take 
 place the sale of the effects of Mensechmus. It will include slaves, 
 furniture, lands and houses. For every object sold payment must 
 be made in ready money." * A sort of expert, prczco, calls out the 
 lots and assigns to each article what is in his opinion a fair value, 
 and then the sale goes on.f An amusing story is told us by 
 Suetonius of the Emperor Caligula. Finding himself, as often 
 happened, short of cash, he determined to sell by auction all the 
 old-fashioned and cast-off belongings of the Court. He was 
 himself present at the sale, and ran up the articles in the most 
 * Plautus: Menaechmus, v. 1064. . t Plautus, 
 
200 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 approved fashion. An old pro-consul who was present, Apponius 
 Saturninus, unfortunately for himself, fell fast asleep, and as often 
 happens on similar occasions, nodded his head violently. Caligula 
 drew the particular attention of the expert to the vigorous way 
 in which the pro-consul was bidding, and when at last he awoke, 
 le vieux bonhomme found himself the unconscious possessor of 
 Caligula's goods to the tune of ^75,000.* 
 
 Pliny tells another story still more curious. Gegania, one of 
 the most noted of the frail sisterhood of Rome, bought a lot at 
 an auction, consisting of a slave, deformed and hideous, and a 
 magnificent bronze candelabrum. In one of those curious freaks 
 of passion, which admit of no analysis, the deformed slave became 
 her lover, and finally her heir. Left immensely rich, the slave 
 Clesippus set up the bronze candlestick as his fetish, and thence- 
 forth worshipped no other deity.f 
 
 The dealers were mostly congregated about the Via Sacra, 
 especially at that part of it known as the Septa. A description of 
 the place, surrounded by a colonnade, with fine large shops on the 
 ground floor, seems to point to a strong resemblance to the Palais 
 Royal in Paris. And what dreams of beauty they could shew to 
 entice the jeunesse dorie of the Eternal City ! Pictures from the 
 hand of Apelles and others, statues, ivories carved and inlaid with 
 gold or silver, bronzes from ^Egina, bearing the mark of Myron, 
 from Corinth or Delos, the home of the great bronzist Polycletes ; 
 gold and silver work of the best contemporary artists, of Gratianus, 
 or Euphranor of Calamis, Bcethus and Mys, gigantic candelabra of 
 gilt bronze from ^Egina or Tarentum, cameo glass from the famed 
 Alexandria works, supposed to have been the atelier from whence 
 issued the Barberini or Portland vase ; the faience of Cumaea or 
 Rhegium, vases of porphyry, or jasper, cups and ewers of amethyst, 
 sardonyx and other precious stones, their surface adorned with 
 cameo and intaglio, terra cotta figures from Bceotia, and waxes 
 from the hand of Lysistratus, marvels of furniture, the rarest and 
 choicest woods, made more precious still by the use of ivory, 
 tortoiseshell, onyx, bronze, gold and silver in the form of plaques 
 or marqueterie (opus sectile). The old Romans knew not only 
 * Suetonius. . \ Pliny, xxxiv 6. 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 20T 
 
 the art of fashioning wood, but spared no pains to preserve it. 
 The oil of the cedar, juniper or spikenard and other essential 
 oils were largely used for this purpose. The statue of Diana at 
 Ephesus, carved in ebony, which in the time of Pliny was already 
 400 years old, was regularly anointed with oil of spikenard by 
 means of holes left in the statue for that purpose. 
 
 Others again displaying tapestries from Babylon, carpets from 
 the East, stuffs of all kinds embroidered or dipped in the lovely 
 dye of far-off Tyre. The jewellers could show precious stones 
 engraved by the cunning Greeks in cameo or intaglio, rock crystal 
 cups, amber statuettes, or works in that curious material murrhine. 
 This substance has proved a burning question with archaeologists. 
 Was it a natural formation or an artificial product ? There have 
 been almost as many opinions as investigators. Petrified clay, 
 agate, a sort of shell, fluorspar, have all had their advocates, whilst 
 Mariette and Caylus have pronounced for porcelain. The true 
 explanation probably is that murrhine was a glass, or rather a very 
 hard vitreous paste, which bore working on the wheel, much as 
 rock crystal does. The Murano Glass Company have analysed 
 specimens, and have succeeded in reproducing a material which 
 for hardness and beauty of colouring cannot be told from the old 
 specimens. The only difficulty about accepting its artificial origin 
 is the enormous price paid for certain specimens. ^16,000 is a 
 large sum for a glass vase, but even that is nothing compared to 
 the murrhine cup of Petronius, for which he paid ,£66,000. Nero 
 was his heir, but he detested the monster, and on his death-bed 
 broke the celebrated cup into fragments, so that Nero should be 
 baulked of his prey.* 
 
 It may be imagined that amongst such furious collectors, the 
 forger and copyist held high festival. The copyist was largely 
 employed in a legitimate manner to multiply certain well-known 
 models, but the forger flew at higher game. Their tricks are 
 succinctly told by Phsedrus : " Now-a-days many of our artists find 
 a ready market for their works by forging certain signatures, as 
 for instance that of Praxiteles on a modern marble that of Scopas, 
 on a bronze, of Myron on a piece of plate, or Zeuxis on a 
 
 * Pliny, xxxvii. 7. 
 
 2 D 
 
202 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 picture." * The Discobolos of the Vatican is said to be a copy, 
 with the name of Myron forged upon it. 
 
 Let us take a walk through the Septa, and see if we can 
 recognise any of the great buyers of the lovely wares there. 
 
 What is all that commotion before the shop of Milon, the 
 most celebrated of the fine art dealers ? The slaves and bearers 
 of the rich Tongilius are jostling and elbowing the crowd, to make a 
 path for the great amateur. Milon receives him with his most 
 obsequious bow, and at once conducts him to his inner sanctum. 
 Tongilius is not to be tempted by the goods exposed to public gaze. 
 The Corinthian bronze or murrhine cup, as yet unseen by any 
 collecting eye, is lovingly taken from its hidden nest, and laid before 
 his Excellence. The rich man is not difficult to manage, his art 
 knowledge is by no means equal to his wealth. Provided the object 
 of art is reserved specially for him, and a sufficiently large sum is 
 asked for it, he is satisfied. Indeed, the ill-natured flaneurs of the 
 Septa do say that more than one of his best bronzes, marked with 
 the magic name of Scopas or Myron, was expressly prepared in 
 the workshops of Bcethus for the rich man's special edification. \ 
 That tall, dark, handsome man eagerly examining the little amber 
 statuette is a buyer of quite another order. 
 
 His name is Vindex, and he has been already mentioned as the 
 happy possessor of the Hercules of Lysippus. His family came from 
 Gaul, and have enriched themselves in commerce. Vindex is rightly 
 regarded as second to none in Rome as a connoisseur. In vain 
 would a dealer waste his breath in recommending any article to his 
 notice, for he knows more than the whole Septa put together. His 
 verdict as to the attribution of any doubtful piece is accepted without 
 demur. The bronze which has caused so many anxious moments to 
 Myron, the marble which has been indued with life by the chisel of 
 Praxiteles, the ivory statue polished by the hand of Phidias, or the 
 picture, " mocking nature," touched by the cunning brush of Apelles, 
 have each their true origin assigned to them by the unerring instinct 
 of this son of Gaul. \ 
 
 The fat, red-faced man loudly expostulating with the silversmith 
 is Charinus, one of the most dissipated men in Rome. When sober, 
 
 * Phsedrus, v. Prol. vi. t Juvenal, vii. % Statius : Silv. iv. 6. 
 
GREECE AND ROME. 
 
 203 
 
 he is supposed to be a very good judge of old silver, but his whole 
 life must be specially vicious, when Martial could say of him : " It 
 is hardly possible that even his silver can be pure." * 
 
 Paullus is rather a nuisance to the dealers. He is a fickle 
 and changeable being. No sooner has he become possessed of a 
 treasure than he sees something which pleases his fancy more. 
 Immediately he tries to arrange an exchange of goods, in modern 
 parlance " a swop," and takes up the dealer's time in wrangling 
 and bargaining over the terms. Of course he always loses in the 
 end by the exchange. The dealer knowing his customer, to 
 protect himself from loss, naturally puts the initial price at a far 
 higher figure than he would do if sesterces or talents were the 
 medium of payment instead of other goods. " Man never is, but 
 always to be blessed. "f 
 
 The showily-dressed person who is trying to catch the eye of 
 Tongilius is Codrus, a noiivean riche, a true tuft-hunter. He merely 
 collects because it is the fashion, without any love for beauty or 
 knowledge of art. His house and friends, as well as his statues and 
 bronzes, are all got up for show. He gives huge entertainments in 
 the vain hope that he may one day be admitted to the inner circle 
 of the upper ten. % 
 
 Another type of the commercial nuisance is that fussy little man 
 Mamurra, who has just made the dealer take down that little ivory 
 table from the topmost shelf. He spends his whole time in the 
 Septa, making eyes at the fresh young slaves from Germany or 
 Britain ; then he visits the furniture shop, measuring with his staff 
 the finest tortoiseshell couch. Ah, what a pity ; it is not quite 
 long enough for my table of citre ! He criticises the bronzes, finds 
 fault with the rock crystals, and condemns the tapestries. Finally, 
 after giving the dealer every possible trouble, he buys two porringers 
 for three-halfpence, and goes home to dinner.§ 
 
 Licinius walks hastily through the Septa, looking suspiciously 
 right and left, hugging his toga closely round him as though he feared 
 each passer-by wished to rob him. He carries this suspicion and 
 fear to such an extent that his life must be a misery to him. He 
 lives in constant dread of burglars and fire. All night long, slaves, 
 * Martial, iv. 39. f Martial, xii. 69. % Juvenal, iii. § Martial, ix. 60. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
204 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 well-armed, perambulate his palace ; the fire-buckets are always 
 full, for this suspicious collector can hardly sleep, always haunted by 
 the idea that his statues, his murrhine cups, and inlaid furniture are 
 about to be devoured and swallowed up by earthquake, fire, or 
 thief.* 
 
 Reader, do not be afraid, these sketches are 2000 years old. 
 * Juvenal xiv. 
 
 t As in so many other branches of art research, we are indebted to the patience 
 and perseverance of a French author, M. Bonnafle, for many interesting details about 
 these old collectors. 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 SOME NOTES ON COLLECTIONS UP TO THE l6TH CENTURY. 
 
 rom the time when the curtain fell upon the great drama 
 of Roman conquest, and the scenes of luxury and 
 corruption which followed in its train, we must look to 
 quite another sphere to find our collectors. With the 
 advent of Christianity a perfectly new factor appeared 
 
 in the life of the world. Protected and encouraged by Constantine 
 and his successors, the Church rapidly increased in power and 
 activity. Entrenched behind the impassable barrier of the sanctuary, 
 
 abbots became the preservers and guardians of art, as they un- 
 doubtedly were of literature, science, and agriculture. From the 
 fifth to the sixteenth century, the abbeys and monasteries constituted 
 the real museums, gathering under their shelter all that remained of 
 a decayed civilization, whilst giving a fresh direction to art work, to 
 be employed in the glorification of the Christian cult. Although 
 religious establishments formed the chief depositories of art work, 
 it must not be imagined that lay collectors were altogether in 
 abeyance. In France research into the details of the early ages of 
 the Christian era has been pursued by earnest workers to a far 
 greater extent than here, and it is astonishing to what a successful 
 issue they have carried their investigations. Auguste Thierry, for 
 instance, in his " Lettres sur l'histoire de France," cites innumerable 
 details bearing on the subject of collections. The vase of Soissons, 
 now in the Bibliotheque, belonged to. Clovis, the chief of the 
 
 against which the waves of barbarism beat in vain, her bishops and 
 
206 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 Merovingian Dynasty in the 5th century. Thierry gives another 
 anecdote of the same king. At a great banquet given by him, he 
 sent for a certain cup from amongst his treasures in which to pledge 
 his guests. It was of jasper, transparent as glass, enriched with 
 gold and precious stones, and he loved it best of all his possessions. 
 The orgie grew fast and furious, and in the midst of the excitement 
 the cup was broken. Clovis was in despair, but having been lately 
 converted to Christianity, he had, like most converts, unlimited 
 faith in his new religion. He sent for his favourite abbe, Fridolin, 
 and implored him to restore his much-loved cup. Needless to say, 
 the good man, after much prayer, presented the treasure to the King 
 in all its pristine loveliness and perfection. Clotaire, the son of 
 Clovis, kept in his inmost chamber great coffers with triple lock filled 
 with rich vases in gold and silver and jewelled arms. Hilperich, 
 again, showing to his lords the presents sent to him by the Greek 
 Emperor, Tiberius II., in order that invidious comparisons should 
 not be made, exposed by the side of them some of his own treasures, 
 amongst them an enormous basin of gold, ornamented with precious 
 stones, weighing nearly fifty pounds. Even the name of the guardian 
 of Hilperich's treasure has been preserved — it was a Jew of the 
 name of Priscus. 
 
 The great Emperor Charlemagne probably gave a larger 
 impetus to art than any other individual up to the revival of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Having relations with the Bishops 
 of Rome, the Emperors of Byzantium, the Caliphs of Syria and Spain, 
 he introduced fresh art ideas from all sides. His palace at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle contained, under the name of the " Ecole Palatine," a 
 veritable Academy of Art. The writings of Eginhard and Alcuin 
 are filled with descriptions of the riches which it contained. 
 Scarcely a library in Europe is without a specimen or two of the 
 grand illuminated manuscripts produced under the fostering care of 
 the great Carlovingian emperor. The example thus set was followed 
 by all the paladins and chiefs of the empire, and about the year 800 
 the palace of one of the great nobles must almost have vied in 
 luxury with the galleries of a Verres or the gardens of a Sallust on 
 the banks of the Tiber 800 years before. His successor, Charles the 
 Bald, was almost as great a collector and art patron as Charlemagnet 
 
COLLECTIONS UP TO THE i6tk CENTURY. 
 
 207 
 
 Many relics of his collection are still in existence, especially in the 
 shape of illuminated manuscripts ; his Bible and Psalter, executed by 
 the monks of S l - Martin of Tours in 850, are in the Bibliotheque in 
 Paris, together with the still more ancient relic, "The Cup of the 
 Ptolemies," presented to the Church of S t- Denis by Charles. This 
 magnificent work, carved out of an oriental sardonyx, is supposed to 
 have been part of the spoils taken from Mithridates the Great, the 
 brave old King of Pontus, who put an end to his own life rather 
 than be dragged a captive at the chariot-wheels of Pompey through 
 the streets of Rome. 
 
 A very early catalogue of a collection was published in the 
 Bulletin du Bibliophile in 1859. It consists of the inventory attached 
 to the will of Le Comte Evrard, Marquis de Frioul, brother-in-law of 
 Charles the Bald, the husband of Giselle, daughter of Louis le 
 Debonnaire, and is dated 870. It contains a list of arms enriched 
 with precious stones, stuffs and tapestries woven of silk and gold and 
 silver thread ; cups and vases of ivory and chased silver ; ornaments 
 and jewels connected with priestly raiment ; and a whole library 
 containing illuminated missals, antiphonaries, psalters and pas- 
 sionals ; letters and writings of Saints Basil, Isidore, Cyprian ; codes 
 of religious laws written and illuminated by the Benedictines of 
 Tours, &c. &c. 
 
 When, towards the end of the 9th century, a national dynasty 
 arose in France, and the family of Capet, commencing with Robert 
 the Strong, succeeded to the throne, which had been filled by 
 foreigners for nigh 800 years, art still continued to flourish. 
 Hugues Capet, Louis le Gros, Philip Augustus, and Saint Louis, 
 in their intervals of fighting and directing the affairs of State, did 
 not forget to play the part of collectors, and when the Crusades 
 introduced the soldiers of Europe to the gorgeous luxury of the 
 East, a fresh stream of beauty flowed to the galleries of the West. 
 About the end of the 14th century inventories of collections 
 were kept with considerable care, and in many of them appear 
 descriptions of pieces which have passed into the various museums 
 of Europe ; but when these are all reckoned up, what an 
 infinitesimal fragment is the total compared with the masses of 
 art objects which we know existed a few short centuries back. 
 
20S 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 Some of the more celebrated inventories which have been published 
 are those of Queen Clemence of Hungary (1328); the Garde- 
 meuble of plate of the French Court (1353) ; the Due d'Anjou, 
 son of Philip the Good (1356); the illuminated manuscripts of 
 Charles V. (1373); the treasures given by John Due de Berry 
 to the Chapel of Bourges (1410) ; Isabeau of Bavaria (14 16) ; 
 the library of Charles VI., made by order of the Duke of Bedford, 
 Regent of France, about 1430. 
 
 The Court of Burgundy pushed the encouragement of art, 
 and the frantic search after antique treasures even further than 
 that of France. Jean le Bon, Philippe le Bon, and Charles le 
 Temeraire set an example of magnificent collecting which was 
 eagerly followed by the great families of the country, and one must 
 read M. de Laborde to understand fully the profusion and variety 
 of the riches which during fifty years were amassed in the Garde- 
 meubles of these Burgundian dukes. Soon after the death of 
 Charles le Temeraire and the union of Burgundy with France, 
 the expedition of Charles VIII. to Italy gave a fresh impetus to 
 the collector. The soldiers of France for the first time beheld the 
 marvels of the Renaissance, and a new revelation seemed to present 
 itself as when the Crusaders first revelled in the glories of Eastern 
 art. Charles's Queen, Anne of Brittany, was even a more deter- 
 mined collector than her husband, and had she been anything 
 less than a queen, would have ruined herself with the curiosity 
 dealers. The list of her collections at Amboise and Blois, published 
 by M. Le Roux de Lincy, would put the Duchess of Portland and 
 Horace Walpole to the blush. With Francis L came the period 
 of architecture. The fortress gave way to the chateau, and the 
 great collectors seemed determined that their habitations should 
 be worthy of their collections. Fontainebleau, Gaillon, Chantilly, 
 Ecouen, Chenonceaux, Valencay and a host of other well-known 
 palaces rose on every hand, testimonies to the taste which governed 
 men's ideas in the 16th century. 
 
 In Italy, the country par excellence of beauty and taste, the 
 accumulation of art treasures, under the roof of religious establish- 
 ments, was even more marked than in other countries. Rome 
 was again an empire, but exercising a far different sway from 
 
COLLECTIONS UP TO THE i6tfi CENTURY. 
 
 209 
 
 the old Pagan conquerors. Her spiritual sceptre reached to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth, and the Vatican was in one sense 
 the centre of the world. Her missionaries scattered over all lands, 
 directing and controlling the living forces" and elements of progress 
 to be found in each nation, were enabled to enrich the great 
 centre of their faith, not only by adding converts, but also by 
 gathering in beneath a safe shelter the products of human industry 
 in the shape of art-work, wherever it was to be found. 
 
 With the wonderful movement of the early 16th century, 
 the monopoly of collection hitherto enjoyed by the religious 
 element was broken down. Everywhere, in the peninsula, 
 appeared rulers of rare intelligence, as artistic in their feelings 
 as the worthiest of their subjects. Lorenzo de' Medici at Florence, 
 Louis XII. at Milan, Alphonse d'Este at Ferrara, Frederigo di 
 Gonzaga at Mantua, and Francesco della Rovere at Urbino were 
 specimens of the culture which everywhere abounded. Even the 
 wives emulated their husbands and lent a grace and charm to a 
 movement which might otherwise have become somewhat pedantic. 
 Lucrezia Borgia, Vittoria Colonna, Elizabeth Gonzaga, Maddelena 
 Doni, Lucrezia Crivelli, and Lisa del Giocondo are names as well 
 known in that glorious epoch of art, as are those of their 
 husbands. Venice, at the height of her grandeur and riches, saw 
 the influence of her artist sons extend wherever her galleys 
 carried the flag: of St. Mark. The earlier fathers of the transition, 
 Ghirlandajo, Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini were dead, but Palma 
 Vecchio, Giorgione, Francia, Fra Bartolommeo, Perugino were 
 still at work, and Raphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 Titian, and Correggio were about to carry art to a height never 
 attained before or since. Cellini, Maestro Georgio, and a host 
 of others in various departments, helped to fill the galleries of 
 the great collectors with chefs-d 1 oeuvre, which proclaim to all 
 succeeding generations that, with the exception of ancient Greece, 
 no art epoch can compare with the Italian Renaissance of the 
 1 6th century. 
 
 In the case of England, her art history up to the 16th 
 century is almost a blank. In the 13th and 14th centuries we 
 know that the style of the arts generally in this country was 
 
 2 E 
 
2 IO 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 quite equal to or in some respects even superior to other European 
 nations. In architecture, illumination, metal-work, glass painting, 
 and enamelling she could well hold her own ; but as yet no 
 Thierry or Laborde has arisen to dive into the secrets of her 
 records, and give us the names of her great collectors, or the 
 nature of their treasures, as has been so well done in France. 
 In some ways, England has been unfortunate in art matters. 
 The pious reformers, let loose by Henry VIII. to prey on the 
 hoards of our monasteries, destroyed as much as they stole, and 
 in many cases the records disappeared with the treasure. 
 Charles I. melted down and pawned everything he could lay his 
 hands on to provide food for powder, and the Puritans, regarding 
 beauty as the synonym of sin, did their best to deprive us of 
 the few remains which had mercifully escaped previous depreda- 
 tions. No wonder then, that a spoon of Henry VIII. or a 
 chalice of Elizabeth is worth many times its weight in gold, and 
 yet these two monarchs alone must have possessed collections of 
 art objects, which would worthily have compared with many we 
 have been considering in foreign countries. Where are they 
 now ? Alas ! religious madness and the horrors of civil war 
 must supply the answer. 
 
 The earliest stories of collectors who were neither Emperors, 
 Popes, nor Kings, come to us from France. The insatiable love 
 of research which has led, during the last few years, to the 
 accumulation of knowledge connected with art history, which was 
 previously buried amongst the musty archives of the town hall, 
 or the records of the monastery, has unearthed for us the name 
 of a " Curieux," who belonged to the bourgeois class, one Jacques 
 Duchie, mentioned by the historian Guillebert de Metz, who 
 described Paris about 1430, just about the time when the Duke 
 of Bedford was Regent, and the year before the brave Joan of 
 Arc was burned in the market-place of Rouen. 
 
 This doyen of collectors, Jacques Duchie, lived in the Rue des 
 Prouvaires, near the Halles, and possessed a gallery of pictures, 
 a large collection of musical instruments, a rich armoury, and 
 many rooms with curious specimens of furniture " de tables 
 engigneusement entaillies et parees de riches draps et tapis a 
 
COLLECTIONS UP TO THE 16th CENTURY. 
 
 211 
 
 orfrois." Jacques was evidently an ingenious person, as well as 
 a collector. The account of his collection winds up with the 
 description of a piece of mechanism which I confess I do not 
 quite understand, but I give the original quaint French, that any 
 of my readers who is interested in mechanics may puzzle out for 
 himself the exact meaning of the acoustic problem. " II avoit 
 fait placer dans une fenestre faicte de merveillable artifice, une 
 teste de plates de fer creuse, par my laquelle on regardoit et 
 parloit a ceux du dehors." * 
 
 No doubt the market women of 1430 thought Jacques a 
 very charming man. He is certainly of interest to us, as marking 
 the commencing emancipation of taste, hitherto the monopoly of 
 King or Bishop. This worthy gentleman was probably some 
 master draper or furrier, and though doubtless others of his class 
 loved to surround themselves with things beautiful and rare, we 
 shall have to travel through a long space of time before we come 
 across any record of a private collector who dared to emulate 
 the possessions of his betters. 
 
 * This reads as though he had made a sort of mask, or head, of iron ; probably 
 with the eyes and mouth open, and had inserted this in the window, so that he could 
 see and speak to passers-by. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 COLLECTORS OF THE l6TH, IJTH, AND I StH CENTURIES. 
 
 ho has not heard of old Jean Grolier, the prince of 
 bibliophiles, and hardly less celebrated as a con- 
 noisseur of medals and coins ? Born in 1479 at 
 Lyons. The only son of Estienne Grolier, the 
 Treasurer of Louis XII. About 1510, he succeeded 
 his father as Treasurer of the Duchy of Milan, a post he held 
 until the fatal battle of Pavia put an end to the French domi- 
 nation in 1528. After serving for a short time as Ambassador 
 in Rome, he returned to France, and from 1535 up to his death 
 in 1565, he filled the office of Receiver-General. His public life 
 has left but few traces. He had a great dispute with Cellini, 
 then in Paris, superintending the execution of his design for the 
 fountain of the nymph at Fontainebleau, and who, unfortunately 
 for Grolier, lodged next door to him. The irascible Florentine 
 tried to exclude him from the use of a tennis-court, to which, 
 apparently, Grolier had the best right ; but Cellini in his Memoirs 
 tells his readers that he threatened to throw the great bibliophile 
 out of the window. However, apparently Grolier ultimately 
 enjoyed his game of tennis without having made an intimate 
 acquaintance with the open window. Grolier had the good fortune 
 to be occupied in Italy just at the full tide of the glories of the 
 perfected Renaissance, and, possessed of taste and intelligence, it 
 seemed only a question in what groove his collecting tastes should 
 run. Probably his intimacy with Aldus Manutius the elder, the 
 
x6th, llth, AND iWi CENTURIES. 
 
 213 
 
 great Venetian publisher, determined the question. It was the 
 fashion of the time to form, at the house of any leader of art, 
 a small club, composed of those who were drawn together by a 
 similarity of tastes, and naturally some of the best literary talent 
 of the time assembled beneath the congenial roof of Aldus. Andrea 
 Navagero, Marino Sanudo, the Greek Marc Musurus, Giovanni 
 Giocondo, Erasmus, and others, formed a goodly company, and 
 the latter member ventured on a eulogistic prophecy, which has 
 been far more literally fulfilled than such things usually are. 
 Erasmus wrote to Grolier in these terms : " Non tu libris, sed tibi 
 debent seternum per te apud posteros, memoriam habituri " (You 
 owe nothing to books, but books will give to you in the future 
 an everlasting glory). Grolier was not a bibliomaniac, he was 
 truly a bibliophile. He not only admired the binding, but eagerly 
 devoured the contents. The Virgil, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
 is filled with notes and observations in his handwriting which 
 prove this. At his death, he left 3000 gems, bearing his magic 
 device, " Grolierii et amicorum," and most containing his motto, 
 which has exposed him frequently to the charge of atheism, 
 " Portio mea, Domine, sit in terra viventium." For more than a 
 century after his death, the library remained intact, in the hotel 
 of the family Vic, to whom it had been left; but in 1676, it was 
 sold by auction. Can any book collector of the present day 
 picture to himself 3000 volumes from the shelves of Grolier 
 exposed to public view at one time, and sold for a few francs 
 apiece! Even in 1725, the collector Count d'Hozen could buy 
 them for about sixteen shillings apiece. Nearly a century later 
 still, in 1 81 5, at the sale of the Scotch Collector, MacCarthy 
 Reagh, the best specimen in his collection barely reached three 
 pounds. And now what a change ! .The bare rumour of a Grolier 
 being in the market sends the would-be possessor to his bankers, 
 to ascertain if his balance can justify him in entering the lists to 
 fight for the coveted prize. 
 
 Another bibliophile, following close upon the heels of Grolier, 
 was Jacques Auguste de Thou, 1553-1617. He was son of 
 Christophe de Thou, President of the Council under Francis I. 
 Very early in life he developed the taste for books. His father's 
 
214 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 library contained four of the finest volumes from Grolier's collec- 
 tion, given to him by the great man himself. The finest of these, 
 the Translation of Hippocrates, perished in the fire, which 
 destroyed the library of the Louvre, one of the many acts of 
 vandalism of the Commune in 1871. The old adage that all 
 collectors are thieves, is exemplified by a story with which De 
 Thou is intimately connected. It is said that during the troubles 
 towards the end of Henri III.'s reign, he was sent to the Monastery 
 of Corbie, to get together supplies for the army. Whilst corn and 
 other things were being brought in, he amused himself by turning 
 over the contents of the library. When he had completed his 
 examination, he put together the most valuable manuscripts, and 
 having emptied several corn-sacks, transferred to them the 
 coveted treasures. This done, he gave the alarm that the enemy 
 was close at hand, and in the panic which ensued, he quietly 
 walked off with the books. It is only fair to say that in his 
 ' Memoirs,' he gives a different version of the acquisition. By his 
 will, he absolutely forbad his heirs to part with his library under 
 any circumstances; but in 168c, the then heir, either from want of 
 taste or want of funds, determined to sell it. The manuscripts, 
 numbering about 1800, were bought by Colbert, and passed 
 ultimately into the Royal Library about 1754. The books were 
 saved from public auction by the Marquis de Menars, who 
 bought en bloc the 33,000 volumes composing the library of De 
 Thou. They were afterwards sold in 1706 to Cardinal Rohan- 
 Soubise, in whose hotel they remained up to the year 1787. At 
 the death of the Prince de Soubise, the library, now amounting to 
 50,000 volumes, was again put up to auction just as the storm of 
 the Revolution was turning men's thoughts away from art. The 
 sale, commenced on January 21st, 17S9, and realised about ;£ 10,000, 
 an average of four shillings a volume, sumptuously bound in 
 morocco, parchment, or calfskin. Truly the era of the guillotine 
 played sad havoc with the poor collector ! 
 
 The 17th century introduces us to two of the most magni- 
 ficent collectors on the whole roll of these worthies : Thomas 
 Howard, Earl of Arundel, Lord High Marshal of England, and 
 Cardinal Mazarin. 
 
i6tk, 17//2, AND 1M1 CENTURIES. 
 
 Of the former I have spoken at some length in connection 
 with the records of the reign of Charles I. Although to a 
 certain extent cosmopolitan in his tastes, his chief love was for 
 the antique. He was certainly the first private collector in this 
 country, and led the way to his three distinguished contemporaries, 
 Prince Henry, King Charles, and the Duke of Buckingham. 
 His liberality was as great as his knowledge. Inigo Jones, Hont- 
 horst, and many others, owed a large part of their professional 
 success to his fostering care at the commencement of their career. 
 Buckingham collected perhaps more as a minister than as a true 
 connoisseur. His arrogant nature and unbounded personal pride 
 could ill brook the possession by others of anything better or 
 rarer than his own belongings, and his unscrupulous methods of 
 action stopped at nothing, that he might gratify his whims and 
 fancies. 
 
 Few monarchs of any epoch showed the same amount of 
 cultivated taste as Charles I. It was never necessary for him 
 to consult an expert on any intended purchase. He knew more 
 in every department of art than the actual professors. Perinchief, 
 in his Life of Charles, attached to the ' Icon Basilike,' edition 1727, 
 speaks of his art knowledge in terms which hardly bear re- 
 production : "His soul was stored with a full knowledge of the 
 nature of things, and easily comprehended almost all kinds of 
 arts that either were for delight or of a public use. He was 
 well skilled in things of antiquity, could judge of medals, whether 
 they had the number of years they pretended unto. In painting 
 he had so excellent a fancy, that he would supply the defect of 
 art in the workman, and suddenly draw those lines, give those 
 airs and lights, which experience and practice had not taught the 
 painter. There was not any one gentleman of all the three 
 kingdoms that could compare with him in an universality of 
 knowledge. He would sometimes say, he thought he could get 
 his living, if necessitated, by any trade he knew of, but making 
 of hangings, although of these he understood much, and was 
 greatly delighted in them ; for he brought some of the most 
 curious workmen from foreign parts to make them here in 
 England." 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 As I have already spoken somewhat at length of his collec- 
 tion and its subsequent sale in an earlier part of the book, it is 
 unnecessary to follow out the details of it here, but will pass on 
 to consider the next great collector of the time, Cardinal Mazarin. 
 
 Giuglio Mazzarini, commonly known as Cardinal Mazarin, was 
 born in 1602, in the Abruzzi, of a noble Sicilian family, but in 
 poor circumstances. Many a Minister of State has surrounded 
 himself with objects of vertu as part of an entourage which became 
 his station, without possessing that innate love of art which dis- 
 tinguishes the true amateur. Mazarin was quite otherwise. En- 
 dowed by nature with a refined and delicate taste, great knowledge, 
 and unlimited perseverance, he would undoubtedly have formed 
 a collection, even had he remained as he began, poor and un- 
 known ; though possibly, not as extensive as that mass of marvels 
 which drew exclamations of astonishment even from the sumptuous 
 Louis, and of which no less a person than Colbert wrote the in- 
 ventory. From the date of his first interview with Richelieu in 
 1630, his political future was secure, and on the death of the 
 great minister, the astute Italian at once succeeded to a position 
 of ascendancy, which (with the exception of two short periods, 
 when he was forced to bow before the storm of the Fronde) 
 increased year by year, up to his death in 1661. An early in- 
 stance of his quick judgment occurred in one of his political 
 wanderings in France. A priest at Montferrat showed him a 
 rosary which he had just dug up from the ground, and believing 
 it to be of glass, sold it to Mazarin for a few livres. Giulio's 
 trained eye saw at a glance that it was composed of precious stones 
 of large size and great brilliance. He sold the treasure-trove 
 for 60,000 livres, about ;£ 12,000, and devoted the proceeds to 
 feed still further his collection. In 1640 he left the Hotel 
 Chavigny and took up his residence in the Louvre, and in the 
 same year bought the large hotel of President Tubeuf, in the 
 Rue Richelieu, which is now the Bibliotheque Nationale. From 
 1640 to 1648, were probably the busiest years of his collecting 
 life. Associated with Anne of Austria in the Regency, he was 
 virtually King of France. His agents and courtiers ransacked 
 the whole of Europe, employing the arts of diplomacy to add all 
 
x6th, 17/*, AND x%th CENTURIES. 
 
 217 
 
 that was beautiful and rare to the galleries of the Rue Richelieu. 
 In 1648, the Fronde troubles broke out, Mazarin was made the 
 scapegoat ; the Court fled to St. Germain, and in 1649, Parlia- 
 ment ordered the sale of Mazarin's furniture. Before the sale- 
 could take place, a truce occurred, and Mazarin and the Court 
 returned to Paris. Eighteen months later, the storm again burst, 
 and the Minister left France for a time, entreating the banker 
 Jabach, who was himself a noted collector, to do all he could to 
 ensure the safety of his treasures. During his exile, the sale of 
 Charles's collection in England gave the banished Minister an 
 opportunity of securing some of the gems of the English gallery. 
 Jabach, who attended the sale here, bought largely on his own 
 account and for the Cardinal, and some of the best pictures now 
 in the Louvre bear witness to the taste displayed in the selection. 
 
 On the rumour of the Cardinal's attempted return to France, 
 Parliament again ordered the sale of his goods; 150,000 livres 
 of the proceeds to be given as reward to whoever would bring 
 Mazarin before them, dead or alive. In vain the King sought 
 to annul the decree, the sale proceeded, but again the King in- 
 tervened, and by a further proclamation succeeded in stopping 
 the sale. The Fronde was on its last legs, and the majority of 
 the King in 1653 crushed out its last embers. Mazarin having 
 foiled his arch-enemy, Cardinal de Retz, the head and leading 
 spirit of the Fronde, returned to France after his two years' exile, 
 more powerful than ever. Those who had been most active in 
 their attempts to disperse the contents of the Hotel Mazarin, were 
 the first to restore them, and before long, Colbert could replace 
 in the Cardinal's inventory nearly every piece which had been 
 sold or stolen. I mentioned before the old adage that "all 
 collectors are thieves." Mazarin thought the same, for when 
 Christina, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, Queen of Sweden, 
 visited his galleries, and Colbert wrote to tell him, he replied as 
 follows: "Je ne vois pas par ce recit que la Reyne aye vue 
 mon appartement du Louvre ; mais, en cas qu'elle demande a le 
 voir, je vous prie de prendre garde que la folle n'entre pas dans 
 mes cabinets, car on pourroit prendre de mes petits tableaux." 
 The Minister, suspecting the Queen of theft, is decidedly re- 
 
 2 F 
 
2l8 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 freshing. At length the time came when even this great man, 
 more powerful than Richelieu, satiated with riches and honours, 
 but worn down by fatigue of mind and body, must die. The 
 most touching story is told by his secretary, Brienne, of Mazarin's 
 last visit to his galleries. " I was walking through the little gallery 
 which contained the finest specimen of tapestry in the whole 
 collection, viz., the Story of Scipio, after Giulio Romano, when I 
 heard him approaching, dragging his feet along, as one in extreme 
 weakness. I hid myself behind the tapestry. Halting at every 
 step, and supporting himself, first on one side, and then on the 
 other, he murmured, with a deep sigh, ' And must I leave all this, 
 and this ! To think of the pains they have cost me ; can I leave 
 them without regret ? Alas, I shall not see them where I am 
 going ! ' and, with a groan, he sank on a seat." The statesman 
 who virtually ruled France, who had worsted all his enemies, 
 before whom the people and Parliament bowed down, who had 
 repulsed Austria, and weakened Spain, who had played with 
 nations as mere pieces on the chessboard of his will, at that 
 supreme moment forgot all his triumphs. No man had drunk 
 more deeply of the intoxicating draught of "la haute politique"; 
 but the memory of his successes had vanished, and his only regret 
 was that he must leave his much-loved treasures. Is this great- 
 ness, or littleness ? Who shall decide. 
 
 By his will, he left the King everything; but the King 
 magnanimously renounced the legacy, reserving only eighteen fine 
 diamonds, which he added to the crown of France. Are these 
 stones amongst the gems which the Republic has just submitted to 
 auction ? Such a course almost seems superfluous, when the next 
 turn of the wheel in that fickle country might bring them into 
 use again. Mazarin's splendid collection was divided equally 
 amongst his relatives ; but Louis bought a good many of the 
 pictures, which now adorn the Louvre. The library, containing 
 30,000 volumes, is still known amongst the State possessions as 
 the Mazarin Library. To gain anything like a fair idea of the 
 extent of the collection, as a whole, the reader is referred to 
 the copy of Colbert's inventory, published by the Due d'Aumale 
 in London in 186 1. A perusal of the contents is simply astounding. 
 
1 6th, ip/i, AND \Zth CENTURIES. 
 
 219 
 
 Michel de Marolles, Abbe de Villeloin, is an instance of 
 perhaps the most assiduous print collector who ever lived. Born 
 1600, died 1 68 1. He himself tells us that he began collecting at 
 the age of twenty-six. At the beginning of the 17th century he had 
 not many competitors in his particular line. The Italian influence 
 was still strong, and the rich men who wished to form a collection 
 turned their attention rather to pictures, sculpture, gems, or richly 
 adorned armour, than to small pieces of paper black with printers' 
 ink. The time for collecting prints at prices worthy of a king's 
 ransom, was yet to come. Not only was Marolles a most busy 
 collector, but also an insatiable cataloguer. He seemed to take 
 as much delight in arranging, classifying, and cataloguing his 
 prints as in admiring their beauties. After twenty years' work, 
 he had got together a small matter of 130,000 specimens, and 
 Colbert, always on the watch to add to the treasures of the 
 " Cabinet du Roi," persuaded the King to purchase the whole 
 collection for a sum equivalent to ^4000 of our money, averaging 
 about ninepence apiece ! They were enclosed in 520 volumes, 
 and when deposited in the Royal library, were rearranged, and 
 bound in 234 quarto volumes. They are still to be seen in their 
 original fine binding of red morocco, with the double L and crown. 
 " Qui a bu, boira," and no sooner had Marolles sold his prints, 
 than the same furore seized him again, and he commenced a 
 second collection. Six years later, he was hard at work with his 
 second catalogue. His numbers did not quite reach the first 
 total; but when he died there were still 111,424 specimens to be 
 disposed of by auction. The collection of Marolles formed the 
 basis of the unrivalled print-room of the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
 which is said to contain at least two millions and a half of 
 specimens. 
 
 About the same time Evrard Jabach, the banker, was at 
 work. His name has already been mentioned in connection with 
 the purchase of pictures at Charles I.'s sale for Mazarin and 
 himself. More varied in his ideas than Marolles, he filled his 
 hotel in the Rue Neuve St. Merry with pictures and sculpture, and 
 his cabinet with prints and drawings to an enormous extent. His 
 taste was unrivalled, and his liberality to artists unbounded ; but 
 
 2 f 2 
 
220 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 in 1 6 7 1 , financial disaster overtook him, and he was forced to 
 part with his treasures. He applied to the King, as the most 
 likely one to relieve him of his collection. The list of things 
 offered to the King, drawn up by Jabach himself, with the 
 prices estimated by him, is interesting. 
 
 2631 drawings, bound, at 100 livres 
 
 15 16 drawings, unbound, at 23 livres 
 
 1395 drawings, portraits, at 5 livres 
 
 10 1 pictures 
 
 Family diamonds 
 
 Statues, reliefs, and other marbles 
 
 Large bronzes 
 
 Household furniture 
 
 Silver plate 
 
 212 engraved plates 
 
 Livres. 
 263,100 
 37,900 
 6,975 
 155,45° 
 22,000 
 28,700 
 6,500 
 6,500 
 1 2,800 
 i5,3°° 
 
 After prolonged negotiations, Louis XIV. bought the 5542 
 drawings for 221,883 livres, and the 101 pictures; but the price 
 paid for these is not known. The French livre is equal to about 
 three francs. 
 
 During the 18th century, collectors increased in number 
 considerably both at home and abroad. Space will not allow of 
 more than a passing notice of some of the more celebrated. In 
 France, the names of three men come to mind at once, each 
 remarkable in some special way as regards art matters. Pierre 
 Crozat, 1 665-1 740, Jean-Anne, Count de Caylus, 1 692-1 765, and 
 Pierre Jean Mariette, 1 694-1 774. 
 
 Crozat almost rivalled Mazarin in the amount of his pos- 
 sessions. Besides 18,000 drawings, 400 pictures, and as many 
 marble statues, reliefs, and busts, he had a very large number of 
 bronzes of all sorts, terra-cottas from the hand of Michael Angelo, 
 Paul Veronese, and Francois Flamand, a large library of art 
 books, the finest collection of gems ever owned by a private 
 collector, porcelain from China and Japan, and what was unusual 
 at that time, many specimens of Italian Faience. As early as 
 his eighteenth year, he was associated with his elder brother in 
 the office of Treasurer of the Department of Languedoc, and the 
 two brothers were bankers at Toulouse. Here, Pierre, at that 
 early age, commenced collecting the works of Le Fage, vaunted 
 
i6ih, ip/i, AND iZth CENTURIES. 
 
 22 1 
 
 by his contemporaries as superior to Raphael or Michael Angelo. 
 The young collector easily fell into the same error, and bought 
 up everything connected with that much over-praised artist. In 
 1704, the two brothers are next found in Paris, immensely rich, 
 and each intent on building a magnificent hotel for himself, Pierre 
 choosing some land at the corner of the Rue Richelieu and the 
 Boulevard. He decided at this time to withdraw from commerce 
 and devote himself to collecting. His elder brother Antoine 
 continued in commerce, and died a millionaire in 1738. One 
 great distinguishing feature of Crozat was his charity, both during 
 his life and in his will. Charles de la Fosse, the artist, lived in 
 Crozat's hotel, and dying there, his widow was still permitted to 
 occupy his apartments as long as she lived. Watteau also lived 
 there, at a time when his gains were nil, and he could barely 
 support himself. After about a year, however, his love for a 
 Bohemian life became too strong, and he left his kind patron for 
 a small lodging in the Quartier Latin. In 1720 he still further 
 extended his hospitality. Rosalba Camera, the great Venetian 
 miniaturist, arrived in Paris with her mother, two sisters, and 
 her brother-in-law Pellegrini, and Crozat, who had formed her 
 acquaintance in Italy, took them all into his hotel, where they 
 remained for two years. One of the most favourite parts of his 
 collection was the wondrous cabinet of gems which he amassed. 
 The number of specimens was considerable, about 1400; but the 
 quality raised his collection to the first place in Europe. As 
 though he feared their disappearance, if withdrawn from his 
 constant supervision, he kept them in his bedroom arranged in 
 drawers in two magnificent Buhl cabinets. His friend Mariette 
 made the catalogue of them for the sale in 1741. Crozat died in 
 1740, and showed as much generosity in his will as he had 
 practised during his life. By sums of money, and by the proceeds 
 of certain parts of his collection which he directed should be 
 sold for the purpose, he left to the poor the magnificent sum of 
 700,000 francs, about ^28,000. The cameos and intaglios were 
 bought en bloc by the Duke of Orleans, and ultimately passed 
 into England at the time of the Orleans sale in 1788. 
 
 Le Comte de Caylus, 1692-1765, was descended from one of 
 
222 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 the most ancient families of France. His mother, the charming 
 Marguerite de Villette Murcay, was the cousin and spoiled child 
 of Madame de Maintenon, the last amie of the great King. She 
 was the author of the ' Memoires,' edited by Voltaire, the close 
 friend of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, of the Marechal de Villeroy, 
 of La Fare, and the Abbe de Choisy. Married to Jean Anne de 
 Caylus at the terribly early age of thirteen, her husband was sent off 
 in command of a brigade to the Flemish frontier, with orders to 
 stay there, and not bother his wife or the Court with his presence. 
 Young De Caylus commenced his career in the army, but the 
 Peace of Rastadt left him without occupation, and he resigned his 
 commission, intending to devote himself to the cultivation of art. 
 Admitted to the intimacy of Crozat, he found abundant material 
 in his friend's hotel to perfect himself in the knowledge of drawing, 
 and spent his whole time for some years in reproducing with the 
 burin the drawings of the old masters contained in the collection 
 of Crozat and the cabinet of the King. The Cabinet des Estampes 
 contains a complete collection of his engraved works in four folio 
 volumes, many of the pages filled with small engravings from gems, 
 medals, &c, showing very considerable talent. In the year 1736 
 he built an hotel for himself in the Rue Saint Dominique, and 
 Le Beau gives a description of it : " L'entree de la maison an- 
 noncait l'ancienne Egypte ; on y etait recu par une belle statue 
 egyptienne, de cinq pieds de proportion. L'escalier etait tapisse 
 de medaillons et de curiosites de la Chine et de l'Amerique. Dans 
 l'appartement des antiquites on se voyait environne de dieux, de 
 pretres, de magistrats egyptiens, etrusques, grecs, romains, entre 
 lesquels diverses figures gauloises semblaient honteuses de se 
 montrer." At the same time he was working hard at his cata- 
 logue, the ' Recueil d'Antiquites,' the illustrations in which were 
 all executed by Bouchardon and himself, the text entirely written 
 by De Caylus, and although inexact according to the advanced 
 knowledge of the present day, still showing an amount of archaeo- 
 logical research which was rare enough when it was written. For 
 forty years he exercised an enormous influence on French art ; 
 his opinions were quoted as laws without appeal ; his sympathies 
 brought artists into fashion : his aversions caused the ruin of others. 
 
iGth, AND iSf/i CENTURIES. 
 
 223 
 
 Possibly, by attempting to force the severity of the antique upon 
 a school whose natural bent was rather towards grace and elegance, 
 he only succeeded in making the antique ridiculous. He was 
 buried in the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in a sarcophagus 
 which he had always set apart for the purpose. It rested in the 
 church until 1795, when it was taken into the museum formed by 
 Lenoir in the convent of the Petits Augustins, and in 18 16 was 
 transferred to the Louvre. 
 
 In some respects, Pierre-Jean Mariette, 1 694-1 774, had a more 
 cultured mind than either of the foregoing collectors. He was 
 indeed the type of an amateur. Endowed with exquisite taste, 
 singular tact, and rare judgment, he added an activity and per- 
 severance not often met with in any walk of life. Himself a 
 printer and dealer in engravings, he came of a family which from 
 generation to generation had been occupied in the same pursuit 
 and in the same locality — the Rue des Noyers, under the shadow 
 of the church of St. Benoit, on whose register the name appears 
 as far back as the year 1 181. In this church Mariette was buried ; 
 but twenty years after the church became a revolutionary club, 
 and the mad wits of the time amused themselves by scattering to 
 the four winds of Heaven the ashes of those who had been far 
 better men and citizens than themselves. 
 
 From his father's calling he was thus accustomed from his 
 earliest infancy to deal with the material which was in the future 
 to be the grand study of his life, enabling him to gain a position 
 as connoisseur of drawings, etchings, and engravings never equalled 
 by any amateur either before or since his time. When only twenty- 
 four years of age he was asked by the Emperor Charles VI., at 
 the instance of Prince Eugene, to arrange and classify the mag- 
 nificent collections of prints at Vienna. He speedily evolved order 
 out of chaos, and left the collection amongst the best arranged of 
 Europe. This faculty of arrangement, joined with considerable 
 literary talent, was constantly called into requisition. He was the 
 inseparable companion of the Comte de Caylus, and on very 
 intimate terms with Crozat. He supplied the text to all the 
 illustrated works produced by the graver of De Caylus, such as 
 the ' Recueil d'estampes d'apres les plus beaux tableaux et d'apres 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 les plus beaux dessins qui sont en France, dans le Cabinet du 
 Roy, dans celui de M. le due d'Orleans et dans d'autres cabinets,' 
 one of the finest illustrated art-works ever produced. His ' Traite 
 des pierres gravees,' published in 1750, was the text-book con- 
 sulted by all amateurs, and even at the present day constitutes 
 one of the most valuable works of reference on this charming 
 subject. To show his determined : energy, he learned English 
 when he was seventy years old, in order to translate Walpole's 
 works. When he quitted business in 1752, he devoted his re- 
 maining years to the prosecution of his two greatest works — 
 ' L'Abecedario ' and ' L'Histoire de la Gravure.' Antonio 
 Orlandi, a Carmelite monk, born at Bologna in 1660, published 
 in 1704, under the title of ' Abecedario pittorico,' a biography 
 of painters, arranged alphabetically. Mariette's deep knowledge 
 detected so many mistakes and omissions in the work, that he 
 determined to remodel it, and during sixty years he passed scarcely 
 a day without adding something to the original, and his death 
 still found it unfinished. It has been completed and published 
 by Messieurs de Chennevieres and de Montaiglon. At length, on 
 September 10, 1774, at eighty years of age, the grand old man 
 passed away, the best of the great French amateurs of the 18th 
 century. In July the superintendent of the Cabinet du Roi im- 
 pressed upon M. de Malesherbes the desirability of purchasing 
 the whole collection of drawings ; but alas ! there was no money, 
 and they were sold by auction, Basan, the renowned print-seller 
 of the Rue Serpente, drawing up the catalogue. The sale realised 
 357,000 livres, about ^40,000. Mariette mounted all his drawings 
 in the same manner — on greyish-blue paper, surrounded by a fine 
 gold line, with the name of the artist written in a neat cartouche, 
 and a tiny M in a circle stamped upon each mount. That magic 
 letter is a sure passport whenever seen upon a drawing or print. 
 
 In England, the 1 7th century had seen the dispersion of the three 
 great collections of the time, viz., those of Charles I., the Earl of 
 Arundel, and the Duke of Buckingham. Many of the very finest 
 works left the country, purchased by the Spanish Ambassador, Don 
 Alonzo de Cardenas, by Jabach, Mazarin, the Archduke Leopold 
 William (these pictures are now in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna), 
 
16M, 17/yi, AND 1M1 CENTURIES. 
 
 225 
 
 M. Reynst, an eminent Dutch connoisseur, and Queen Christina of 
 Sweden. The Duke of Buckingham's collection was also taken out 
 of the country by his son, after the father's assassination, to Antwerp, 
 and sold there. These dispersals, followed by the disastrous fire 
 at Whitehall in 1698, in which nearly all the remnants of Charles's 
 collection perished, left this country poor indeed in works of art 
 at the commencement of the 18th century; but ere it closed the 
 tables were turned. When once the great wave of revolution, first 
 let loose in Paris, surged over Europe like a withering storm, des- 
 troying all before it, England, safe in her island home, had but to 
 stretch forth her hand and, with a golden key, unlock all the great 
 treasure-houses of the Continent, and then there poured into her 
 galleries and museums such a stream of art as had never been 
 equalled since the days when Sylla and Mummius swept bare the 
 treasure- chambers of the temples of ancient Greece. For forty years 
 after the commencement of the troubles of 1787, the masses of 
 pictures, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, engraved gems, drawings 
 by the old masters, &c, which flowed into England, were simply 
 stupendous. And they are with us still. The few historic collec- 
 tions which have come under the hammer during the later years, 
 such as the Hamilton, the Marlborough, the Fountaine, and others, 
 are but as drops in the ocean of the art possessions of this country, 
 destined, let us hope, to remain with us until Macaulay's New 
 Zealander shall have completed his inspection of the ruins of 
 London Bridge. 
 
 The first great haul which occurred was the sale of the 
 Orleans collection. It was formed by the Regent Orleans with 
 consummate taste, and embraced forty-seven pictures from the 
 collection of Christina, Queen of Sweden, many gems from the 
 Richelieu, Mazarin, and Dubois Galleries, the whole of the engraved 
 gems belonging to Pierre Crozat, besides terra-cottas, bronzes, &c. 
 His son, Duke Louis, was a religious fanatic, and cut the heads of 
 Leda and Io out of Correggio's pictures, considering them the height 
 of impropriety. These two pictures, by the bye, were afterwards 
 bought for Frederic the Great, and are now in the Berlin Museum. 
 But it was reserved for the cowardly and contemptible Philip 
 Egalit6 to dissipate these treasures. He preferred the gold, in his 
 
 2 G 
 
2 26 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 endeavour to debauch the wild mob of Paris, thinking he could 
 lead the many-headed monster to minister to his own selfish ends. 
 The wretch, who encouraged the mob in their wildest excesses, 
 who jeered at the poor severed head of Lamballe, and voted for 
 the death of Louis XVI., like an engineer hoist with his own petard, 
 was brought to the same scaffold in November, 1793, and never 
 did the guillotine claim a victim who more richly deserved his 
 fate. The gallery was divided. The pictures of the Italian and 
 French Schools, to the number of 295, were bought for Mr. Walkners, 
 a banker of Brussels, for 750,000 livres, though M. Laborde de 
 Mereville endeavoured to retain them in France by purchasing 
 them back from Mr. Walkners for 900,000 francs. When M. Laborde 
 in his turn was compelled to fly before the Revolution, he brought 
 his pictures to England and sold them to the house of Jeremiah 
 Harmann for ^40,000. Then followed rather a good stroke of 
 business. Mr. Bryan prevailed on the Duke of Bridgewater, the 
 Earl of Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and the Earl of 
 Carlisle, to form a syndicate to purchase them of Mr. Harmann for 
 ^43,000. They selected ninety-four pictures, of the estimated value 
 of 39,000 guineas. They then sold other pictures to the amount of 
 31,000 guineas by private sale. The remaining pictures were 
 exhibited publicly, and then sold by auction for ^10,000. So that 
 the syndicate got their ninety-four selected specimens for something 
 like ^"450 — not a bad speculation. The Flemish, Dutch, and 
 German pictures were bought by Mr. Thomas Moor Slade, in 
 conjunction with Lord Kinnaird and Messrs. Moreland and 
 Hammersley, for 350,000 francs, and sold by auction in London 
 in 1793. 
 
 The Orleans Gallery was soon followed by that of the French 
 Minister, M. Calonne, which was sold here in 1795. In Italy, 
 the Revolution told heavily, and English gold, as usual, was 
 ready for the fray. The painter, Day, Mr. Young Ottley, 
 Buchanan, the picture dealer, and others, scoured the country, 
 and Mr. Sloane, at that time English banker at Rome, obtained 
 some of the finest possessions of the great families, the Barberini, 
 Borghese, Colonna, Corsini, Guistiniani, and other great houses, 
 forced by circumstances to realise the heirlooms descended from 
 
i6t/i, iith, AND i&k CENTURIES. 
 
 227 
 
 their magnificent ancestors of the 15th and 16th century. Genoa, 
 Florence, Naples, and many of the finest churches in Italy, followed 
 suit, even altar-pieces of the earliest fathers of the Renaissance 
 not escaping. The same thing occurred in Belgium and Holland, 
 and no sooner had the French invaded Spain in 1807, than the 
 indefatigable Buchanan was on their tracks. In conjunction with 
 the landscape painter, Wallis, displaying the greatest perseverance 
 and intrepidity, exposed to dangers and difficulties of all sorts, 
 they brought to England a vast number of works of art. The 
 celebrated Murillos from the Palace of Santiago at Madrid, gems 
 from the collections of Alba, Altamira, and the Prince of the 
 Peace, even from the Escurial itself, the large Rubens from the 
 Convent of Loeches, &c. &c. Buchanan afterwards visited 
 France, buying right and left, and in 181 7 purchased the 
 Talleyrand collection en bloc for 320,000 francs. It numbered only 
 forty-six pictures, nearly all of the Dutch School, but all celebrated. 
 The quality may be judged by " the Peace of Munster," by 
 Terburg, now in the National Gallery. Drawings by the old 
 masters flowed in quite as freely. Mr. Young Ottley purchased 
 in Rome two whole collections of Raphael and Michael Angelo. 
 Samuel Woodburn, the great art-dealer, got together an amazing 
 number. In Pesaro, he purchased the remainder of the collection of 
 the Marchese Antaldi, from which Crozat had filled his portfolios fifty 
 years before ; and in Rome, M. Vicar, one of the Commissioners 
 of the French Republic for selecting works of art in Italy, to be 
 transferred to France, yielded up his fine collection of Raphael 
 drawings for 11,000 scudi. In Paris, the same enterprising dealer 
 secured the whole of Paignon Dyonval's drawings, a large selection 
 from Baron Denon, who occupied the enviable post of French 
 Commissioner-General for all works of art annexed by France 
 from conquered countries, and from many other well-known 
 collectors. A large portion of these acquisitions passed into the 
 possession of Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal 
 Academy, who is said to have spent ^40,000 on his portfolios. 
 In estimating the gains of England at this period, we must not 
 forget what, in some ways, transcends all the rest, viz., the arrival 
 in this country of what are known as the Elgin Marbles. Lord 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 Elgin was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Porte in 
 1799. He visited Athens, and employed able assistants to make 
 plans of the ancient buildings, and casts of all the fine sculptures 
 to be met with. He saw with dismay that the Turks were 
 gradually destroying all the stone monuments, even well-known 
 statues by Phidias being pounded up and burnt for lime. 
 When Napoleon's expedition to Egypt had been defeated and 
 the country restored to the Porte by the arms of England, no 
 request could be refused, and Lord Elgin saw his opportunity. 
 In 1 80 1, he obtained two firmans giving him permission to draw, 
 take casts of, and carry away anything he chose from the 
 Acropolis. Accordingly he took from the Parthenon all the 
 remaining statues but two, fifteen metopes, three sides of the 
 bas-reliefs which ran round the temple as a frieze, and many 
 other works, thus securing for this country the finest remains 
 of Greek art still in existence, and which will ever remain as a 
 testimony to the art knowledge and untiring perseverance of 
 the great connoisseur. I have only touched lightly on this 
 eventful period of English collecting. Many books give in great 
 detail the whole of the collections which changed hands to our 
 advantage during the half-century following the French Revolution, 
 especially Dr. Waagen's 'Treasures of Art in Great Britain,' to 
 which the reader is referred, who desires more intimate knowledge 
 on this interesting subject. The two best known English collectors 
 of general art-works in the 18th century have already been 
 partially referred to, Sir Andrew Fountaine and Horace Walpole. 
 The collection at Narford Hall had always been placed in the 
 first rank by the comparatively few persons who had seen it in 
 its home; but when in 1885 it was at length displayed to the 
 public gaze at Christie's, the refined taste of the old collector 
 became at once apparent. Many larger collections have made 
 their appearance in the auction-room, but rarely has general 
 excellence attained so high a level as here. It embraced the 
 finest specimens of Faience, the gorgeous lustred pieces of 
 Gubbio, bearing the talismanic mark of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, 
 the more sober Raphael ware of Urbino, signed by Razio or 
 Fontana, gems of the art-work of Bernard Palissy, the poor 
 
i6t/t, ijt/i, AND i&ifi CENTURIES. 
 
 229 
 
 persecuted enthusiast, forced to keep his kilns alight with the 
 flooring of his wretched home ; three pieces of that rarest of all 
 pottery, the faience d'Oiron, formerly called Henri II. ware, the 
 translucent glories of Limoges, masterpieces of the etching needle 
 of Rembrandt, Albert Diirer, and all the great masters of the 
 needle, &c. &c. 
 
 Through the public spirit of a number of gentlemen interested 
 in art, certain selected specimens were reserved for the National 
 Collection, and have now found a lasting home in the British 
 and South Kensington Museums. The Strawberry Hill sale 
 commenced on Monday, April 23rd, 1842, and lasted twenty-four 
 days. The introduction to the sale catalogue, written by the 
 celebrated auctioneer, George Robins, is worthy of study. 
 Occasionally, his muse fairly runs away with him, especially 
 where he describes Horace Walpole as " the mighty master who 
 planned and matured this wondrous whole, and whose life, almost 
 from the cradle to the grave, was occupied in snatching from the 
 depredations of time the few remaining specimens of the classic 
 ages — the treasures of Gothic Halls and Cathedrals — and the 
 antiquities of the Middle Ages." Harrison Ainsworth, describing 
 Strawberry Hill at the time of the sale, expresses a sentiment 
 one hears very generally on such occasions : "It is impossible to 
 witness, without feelings of regret, the dispersion of objects on 
 whose acquirement a whole life has been spent." Of late years, 
 when so many historic collections have found their way into 
 Christie's or Sotheby's sale-rooms, Ainsworth's regrets seem more 
 than ever applicable ; but surely when once the loving care of the 
 original collector is no longer available, and a generation has 
 arisen which " cares for none of these things," it is far better 
 that dispersion should take place, and that each object should 
 again find a cherishing hand in a new home, than that neglect 
 should impoverish the beauty or hasten the inevitable decay of 
 all that is mundane. Such things, as bocks for instance, are 
 peculiarly liable to deterioration from damp, dust, &c, and more 
 than one of the great libraries dispersed within the last few 
 years, were taken none too soon from the shelves which had 
 been so long their resting-place, the fatal fungus of that terrible 
 
2 3° 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 disease, mildew, having already commenced its ravaging career. 
 Perhaps the highest compliment that could be paid to the judg- 
 ment and art knowledge of Horace Walpole, is the cachet still 
 attaching to any article which once found a place in his collection. 
 To say of a thing that it came from Strawberry Hill, is 
 equivalent to saying, " Criticisms and doubts cannot here be 
 allowed ; its authenticity and attribution must be correct." 
 
 Sir William Hamilton was another of the cultured collectors 
 of the 1 8th century, especially of Greek and Roman art. To 
 him we owe the acquisition of the Barberini or Portland Vase, 
 which he was prevailed upon, much against his will, to part with 
 to another great collector of the time, the Duchess of Portland, 
 who gave her name to the celebrated specimen of the glass-works 
 of Alexandria. The Duchess was quite a rabid collector, second 
 only to Walpole, though the judgment which characterised the 
 genius of Strawberry Hill was by no means so apparent in her 
 Grace's selections. Sir William Hamilton's fine collection of 
 Etruscan painted terra-cotta vases was purchased by the British 
 Museum in 1772 for ^8400, and his unrivalled knowledge of all 
 that was purest and best in classic art materially helped forward 
 the endeavours of Josiah Wedgwood and Flaxman to reproduce 
 in some measure the beauty of form, which was the great dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the art-work of ancient Greece. The 
 British Museum tells us of two other persevering collectors of the 
 time, Sir Hans Sloane and Mr. Townley. They both collected 
 the same class of objects, viz., terra-cottas, marbles, bronzes, 
 belonging to Greece, Assyria, Persia, and India, Roman and 
 Etruscan sarcophagi, coins, &c. 
 
 Sir Hans Sloane left his collection to the nation, on condition 
 that ,£20,000 was given to his family, about a third of its actual 
 value at the time. The Townley collection was purchased by 
 the State in two portions, the marbles and terra-cottas in 1805 
 for ^20,000, and the remaining antiquities in 181 1 for ^8200. 
 Amongst the other purchases made by the British Museum early 
 in the century, may be mentioned the celebrated Phygalian friezes 
 from the Temple of Apollo, for which ^"15,000 were paid on the 
 spot, the expenses of removal, &c, bringing up the sum to 
 
i6tk, i j tfi, AND \%th CENTURIES. 
 
 231 
 
 over ^20,000, whilst the Elgin Marbles cost the country ,£35,000. 
 It would be impossible to enumerate the individual collectors who 
 were brought into existence by the flood of art-works which, as 
 has been previously described, poured into this country towards 
 the end of the 18th century. Half the aristocracy, and most 
 of the more educated commoners, surrounded themselves more or 
 less with the spoils of the Continent, and at one bound England 
 easily distanced the world as a nation of amateurs.. 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 I9TH CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 have said in the previous chapter that Fountaine and 
 Walpole were catholic in their tastes ; but what 
 curious idiosyncracies exist with regard to collectors ! 
 Scarcely anything one can mention has escaped the 
 research of some amateur. I remember being par- 
 ticularly struck with this fact at the Brussels Exhibition of 1878, 
 on seeing amongst the loan collection a glass case full of old 
 gloves. The idea was novel to me at the time ; but I was surprised, 
 on looking up the subject, to see how much had been written 
 on it. I found how in the 16th century Italian gloves were 
 pre-eminent, and were often given as presents to the ladies by 
 the Dukes of Este and Ferrara at their grand fetes, perfumed 
 and embroidered ; how Venice produced them painted like the 
 choicest fans ; how Spain used them, embroidered and decorated 
 with diamonds as diplomatic presents ; how, again, they have 
 occasionally served a far more evil purpose, there being a tradition 
 that the good Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henri IV., was poisoned 
 by a pair of gloves presented to her by an Italian at the Court 
 of Catherine de Medicis, doubtless with the connivance of that 
 execrable woman. By the bye, I read the origin of the scent 
 now much in vogue, Frangipani, invented in the 16th century by 
 the Marquis of Frangipani, a great Roman noble, for the purpose 
 of perfuming gloves. But this is by the way. 
 
 Some collectors will take up one subject, and endeavour 
 
i 9 th CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 233 
 
 to obtain as complete a series as possible of the works of one 
 artist or fabrique. For instance, there are several fine collections 
 of Wedgwood ware, where the possessor has not sought anything 
 beyond the works of the great Josiah ; these collectors may be 
 called specialists, or perhaps the untutored outsider alluded to at 
 the beginning of this chapter might call them "mono" maniacs. 
 Books, autographs, military medals, coins, playing cards, glass, 
 early Staffordshire ware or salt glaze, Bow enamels, tapestry, 
 book-plates, boots and shoes, wigs, garters, busks of corsets, coat- 
 buttons, walking-sticks, and postage-stamps, have each had their 
 special worshippers. Others again will take up faience, and admit 
 no porcelain of any kind, and even faience collections may be again 
 subdivided, as Urbino or Gubbio in Italy, Marseilles, Nevers or 
 Rouen in France, Delft in Holland, &c. &c. About the most 
 original collector I ever heard of was Mark Twain's hero, who 
 thought he would collect " Echoes." He found a very remarkable 
 specimen formed by two hills ; he bought one hill, but he could 
 never persuade the owner of the other to part with his property, 
 so his collection remained unfinished. 
 
 Then again, many historical characters have a band of 
 followers who diligently search out relics or portraits connected with 
 the hero or heroine of their cult. The Stuart family have been 
 specially singled out in this country, from the martyr Charles I. 
 to the Prince Charlie, commonly known as the Young Pretender. 
 On the other hand, Cromwell also has his adherents ; whilst Byron, 
 Lord Nelson, Robert Burns, and many others, have been and still 
 are objects of hero-worship. In France, Marie Antoinette, Louis 
 XVI. and his ill-fated son Louis XVII., Napoleon, Lafayette, 
 relics of the terrible 1793, the time of madness which produced 
 the guillotine and the assignat, have each found a collector who 
 worked diligently in his own particular metier. 
 
 Undoubtedly, to collectors we owe the discovery of many a 
 point of interest in the history of art ; a mark here, a monogram 
 there, has led to research, and the unearthing of information in 
 stray channels, from which a whole life has been built up. Mr. 
 Mayer, the Wedgwood collector, found in a butter-shop in Liver- 
 pool a mass of papers, letters, &c, relating to Josiah Wedgwood, 
 
 2 H 
 
2 34 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 which enabled Miss Meteyard to complete and fill in many a 
 missing link in the life of the great potter. Joseph Mayer was 
 a character in his way. He was a silversmith by trade, and his 
 ambition was to be able to say he had kept behind his counter 
 for fifty years, and somehow he managed to complete his task. 
 He left his collection to the town of Liverpool, and was one of 
 many amateurs who have, either during their life or by will, 
 enriched the town which had been the scene of their labours 
 with the fruits of their patient years of collecting. Mappin of 
 Sheffield, Tangye of Birmingham, Coates of Paisley, Willet of 
 Brighton, are some well-known instances of the collector's 
 generosity. The Government has never done much for art in 
 this country, and perhaps art has thriven better unaided. The 
 sturdy self-reliance and independence which characterize the 
 English nature has made us what we are ; and the fostering care 
 of a paternal government, enfeebling and discouraging individual 
 exertion, is not in keeping with our traditions. The tendency of 
 the present democratic dispensation seems towards regulating 
 everything by legislation ; time alone can shew by what results 
 the process will be followed. Even the British Museum owes 
 its origin to a legacy in 1753. Sir Hans Sloane having left his 
 magnificent collection to the country, Parliament purchased Mon- 
 tague House for its reception, and it was opened in 1759 as the 
 British Museum. After the purchase of the Townley collection, 
 further building became necessary, and by subsequent purchases, 
 presents and bequests, the collection increased by such rapid 
 strides that in the year 1823 Sir Robert Smirke was com- 
 missioned to design the present edifice, now filled with treasures 
 second to none in Europe. Once or twice Government has 
 stepped in, or rather, an individual of the Government, as when 
 D' Israeli purchased the Blacas collection of gems for ^70,000. 
 He said at the time, that if Government refused the purchase, he 
 would take them himself. Had he done so, he would certainly 
 have been the gainer, for under the hammer this marvellous 
 collection would have reached a far higher figure. Lately again, 
 the nation bought with much heart-burning some of the Blenheim 
 pictures ; but the National Gallery and the British Museum are 
 
i 9 th CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 235 
 
 to be starved until poor John Bull has recovered from the 
 gigantic effort. Only those who had the conduct of the negotia- 
 tions for the purchase by the nation of the specimens selected 
 from the Fountaine collection know the heart-breaking weariness 
 which waited upon the red-tape conduct of the business ; and 
 whilst the wealthiest nation in the world haggles over its art- 
 purchases in a manner worthy of Houndsditch, the enlightened 
 and liberal managers of the Berlin Museum step in and carry off 
 some of our finest specimens from under our very eyes. When 
 our unrivalled collection of national portraits narrowly escapes 
 destruction by the over-heated flues of an adjoining show, we 
 pack them away at the East End of London, and decline to 
 provide a proper roof to cover them. Surely the radical purists 
 of the present day may reflect that the greatest radical of them 
 all, Oliver Cromwell, bought the Hampton Court cartoons of 
 Raphael for ^300 out of his private purse, to preserve them to 
 the nation, when they would otherwise have been carried off to 
 Spain or France, at the dispersion of Charles I.'s collection. 
 
 I have often thought, judging by my own experience, what 
 would be the kindest piece of advice to give to a commencing 
 collector, and I fancy it would take the form of " avoid bargains." 
 There is no royal road to knowledge in art, any more than in 
 any other subject, and if, as is undoubtedly true, experience is 
 the best master, the lesson he teaches must be paid for in some 
 manner. It is far better, and cheaper in the end, to pay a good 
 price to a respectable dealer for the right thing, than to load 
 yourself with spurious or bad specimens, which a short apprentice- 
 ship will cause you to discard with disgust, and for which you 
 will get nothing. The most successful general is he who makes 
 the fewest mistakes ; and I am quite sure, in forming a collection, 
 the chances of error will be minimized by accepting the judgment 
 of an honest adviser. When, by constant use, the senses of sight 
 and touch have been to a certain extent educated, then look out 
 for bargains if you please. They are certainly to be met with 
 occasionally, though perhaps not every day will you chance upon 
 such a windfall as fell to the lot of the late Mr. Sanders in the 
 matter of the Chelsea Vase. The anecdote is worth relating, as it 
 
 2 h 2 
 
236 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 inculcates another very necessary lesson: "Travel through the 
 world with your eyes open." Passing down a street in Dover, 
 lie thought he saw on a shelf in a chemist's shop a Chelsea vase. 
 He entered and saw a label marked " Leeches" attached to the 
 vase. He asked for some of the interesting animals, and a nearer 
 inspection showed him that his surmise was quite correct, and 
 that the vase was a very choice specimen. He informed the chemist 
 that he should require all the leeches he had in stock, and that 
 perhaps the shortest way was to take vase and all, to which the 
 chemist consented, for a consideration, I believe, of £9, and Mr. 
 Sanders walked off with the prize under his arm. The leeches 
 were emptied down the nearest gutter, and the vase installed as 
 one of the gems of his collection. 
 
 In this century, and especially during the last twenty years, 
 collectors have increased enormously, and, as a natural consequence, 
 prices have been enhanced to a degree that would have made 
 our predecessors' hair stand on end. As wealth increases amongst 
 the general public, and taste becomes more cultivated, the desire 
 to possess things of beauty comes as a natural consequence. 
 Probably there never was a time in art history when a more 
 pure and right taste prevailed as extensively as at the present 
 moment. The mania for cracked cups and saucers, ugly tea-pots 
 and brass warming-pans, which some years ago made the fortune 
 of more than one dealer, seems entirely to have passed away, 
 and it is quite true that what may be called second-class wares 
 have gone down in value almost to a vanishing point ; old masters 
 of the " mellow" sort are absolutely unsaleable, and blue and white 
 ginger jars no longer command their hundreds of pounds ; but, on 
 the other hand, really fine things continue to ascend in price, 
 until it requires a Rothschild to compete for them ; and, despite 
 the hard times, the announced ruin of our manufacturers, and the 
 starvation of our landed interest, money seems plentiful enough, 
 when Fountaine majolica, Hamilton cabinets, or Buccleuch mezzo- 
 tints are in question. I mentioned the name of Rothschild ; the 
 whole family, almost without exception, are collectors, and one 
 and all are imbued with that unerring judgment which instinctively 
 accepts only what is right and true. It is quite a curious study 
 
ic,tk CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 237 
 
 to turn over sale catalogues, beginning say with Strawberry Hill, 
 through the different stages, the Stowe, Bernal, and Bale collections, 
 up to the Hamilton, Fountaine, and other recent sales ; the gradual 
 increase in price of the finer lots is simply prodigious. From 
 Petitot enamels at nine guineas each, in the Strawberry Hill sale, 
 we reach the ^4000 table, and the ,£12,000 Buhl armoire of the 
 Hamilton collection, or the ^3000 miniature set in diamonds. 
 About the year 1840 there was for sale, in Wardour Street, a 
 magnificent Sevres service, which had belonged to the Empress 
 Catherine of Russia. There were 1 20 pieces decorated with turquoise- 
 blue and gold, with E. II. composed of flowers in the centre of 
 each piece. The dealer asked £"1000 for it, but could not get 
 a bid. After a long time, the whole service was sold, I believe, 
 for ,£600. At the present day as much as ^"300 a piece have been 
 paid for plates from this identical service. If prices have 
 reached this very high level now, what will they be when such a 
 country as America, which must in the future become a collecting 
 nation, enters the field as a competitor ? Art education has not 
 yet reached the well-to-do masses there with sufficient force to 
 stimulate that love of possession which comes sooner or later to 
 all wealthy nations ; and, in addition, they have at present to face 
 the prohibitory tariff still in force. A man may be willing to pay 
 £"1000 for a picture, a bronze, or a Sevres vase, but when he 
 knows that on that purchase he will be mulcted in something like 
 an additional ^300 in the shape of duty before the article can 
 be included in his collection, he may well hesitate. When once 
 this barrier is removed — and it is difficult to imagine it can long 
 withstand the movement now on foot amongst the intelligent 
 portion of the Union— it is probable that, judging by the habitual 
 tall prices and large notions of our American cousins, they will 
 sweep the old countries clean of their treasures, and the New World 
 will become the heirs of the accumulated relics of a history long 
 past and gone. The same thing applies, in a lesser degree, to 
 our colonies. They are younger even than America, and are still 
 in their early working phase of existence, but ere long they too 
 will require their collections. Museums will be built and fitted, 
 and as they have no historical associations, or treasured relics of 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 their own, they must draw on the mother country for the material. 
 In the face of these future demands, and with the knowledge how 
 extremely limited is the supply, it seems reasonable to suppose 
 that the prices regarded as colossal to-day will be but small when 
 measured by those of the future. The only consolation we can 
 draw from this threatened transfer is, that our treasures will still 
 belong to the race, and that Greater Britain will but replace the 
 Lesser. 
 
 It seems hardly possible to talk so much of sales and prices 
 without mentioning that parasite of the auction-room, the " knock- 
 out." One of the leading axioms of political economy is, " Buy 
 in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest." Certainly the 
 members of the knock-out carry out this axiom most thoroughly. 
 A number of dealers and brokers attending sales are members of 
 a regular association, with a recognised chairman and secretary. 
 They agree not to oppose each other in the biddings, to 
 depreciate the character of the goods, and to oppose other 
 dealers and private buyers, having secret methods of com- 
 munication with each other, so as not to exceed certain values, 
 &c. After the sale is over, they assemble together and hold 
 another private auction amongst themselves, bidding against each 
 other. The difference in value between the public and private 
 sale prices is put into a common fund and divided in certain 
 proportions amongst all the members present ; whilst if by chance 
 any lot fails to fetch the value a member paid for it in public, 
 he is repaid the difference out of the common fund. Even if 
 any member purchases an article at a sale on his own account, 
 any other member of the association present can claim it ; and if 
 the original purchaser cannot plead a direct commission given to 
 him by a private buyer, he is compelled to submit the article to 
 the secret auction. At such a place as Christie's, except on off 
 days, the knock-out is to a certain extent powerless ; there are 
 too many private buyers and large dealers present to give them 
 a chance. Their happy hunting grounds are the small sale- 
 rooms and private houses both in town and country, and many 
 an estate has suffered from their combination. A London dealer 
 went down to a sale in Hampshire, intending to buy some old 
 
19/* CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 Wedgwood. He found the buyers at the sale consisted entirely 
 of members of the knock-out, and that he would have no chance 
 of purchasing anything. For the day only he joined them, and 
 the things were sold for next to nothing. At the private auction 
 afterwards he received ^"13 as his share of the common fund, 
 although he bought nothing, some other members pocketing as 
 much as ^40 and ^50 as their share of the spoil. The defence 
 set up by these gentry is of course that they have as much 
 right to combine to buy in the cheapest market as any of the 
 corners or rings so common in America, and not altogether 
 unknown here. One noted collector, to whom the knock-out is 
 especially a b£te noire, suggests that the institution ought to be 
 made illegal. I am not lawyer enough to decide how far the 
 law of conspiracy could be strained to meet the case ; but in 
 these days of trades unions, and when plenty of apologists can 
 be found even for the Irish " Plan of Campaign," it seems 
 extremely doubtful if Parliament would listen for a moment to 
 any coercive measures. Another sufferer is of opinion that if an 
 expert were appointed to attend every sale, to describe the lots, 
 their nature, condition and probable value, such a thing as the 
 depreciation of property at the hands of the knock-out could not 
 take place. Unfortunately for this theory, the French auctions 
 are thus conducted, but the knock-out, there known by the slang 
 name of " Le Baignoir," is more rampant and more complicated 
 in its machinery in the Rue Drouot than it is here. I fear the 
 real remedy is still very far off. Its effect upon the property 
 sold is of course disastrous ; but the private buyer is only hit, in 
 the way of rendering it impossible for him, in the face of the 
 knock-out, ever to get a bargain at a public sale. He need 
 never pay beyond the presumed market price of an article, as 
 naturally the members of the association will not exceed this 
 sum. The following account of the exact method pursued by 
 the dealers at the private auction was furnished me by one in- 
 terested in the association, and I cannot do better than present 
 the case as drawn up by him, giving his own words. 
 
 " Settlements, or as dealers in works of art term it, ' The 
 knock-out,' means that after a sale the dealers who are acquainted 
 
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 with one another in business adjourn to a room and there settle 
 the goods purchased by them at the sale. To those who are 
 continually attending sales, the knock-out is easily understood ; but 
 I will endeavour to simplify the meaning to the uninitiated by the 
 following example. Suppose a sale takes place at which five 
 dealers are present, and who are continually having business 
 relations together ; they agree not to oppose one another on certain 
 goods which they wish to buy in the sale ; they buy these articles, 
 and afterwards adjourn to a room ; a dealer is made chairman, and 
 it is his duty to call out each lot that has been purchased by any 
 dealer present, and the other dealers are at liberty to claim such 
 lot. Suppose, for instance, a bronze has been bought for £20, the 
 chairman calls it out as follows: 'Lot 31, Antique Bronze Group, 
 £20, bought by A.' B. says he'll give £1 on it, C. 30^., D. 35^, 
 E. £2 ; it then comes to A., who perhaps does not reckon it worth 
 more than £22, which it now costs, and A. says he'll give no 
 more ; he is therefore entitled to a fifth share of £2 as his profit ; 
 
 B. , C, and D. follow A.'s example, and it therefore belongs to E., 
 who divides the £2 into five parts, four parts he pays to A., B., 
 
 C, and D., retaining his own share. In this way each lot is gone 
 through with. Of course there is a great saving to the dealer ; as 
 if they were in opposition at the sale, this bronze might have cost 
 ^36, instead of which he holds it for £22, and this enables him 
 to sell it cheaper to his customer. Many individuals profess great 
 objection to these so-called settlements on the dealer's part, but 
 it occurs in every profession and business in life. A. is possessed of 
 a field, B. hears that a railway is about to be made through this 
 field, of which fact A. is ignorant ; B. makes A. an offer, which A. 
 accepts ; B. probably in a few months realizes treble what he pays 
 A. Same with a sale. A. goes and pays ,£10 for a cup and 
 saucer ; many individuals are present who are at liberty to bid more 
 for it if they like ; A. probably has bought a cup and saucer worth 
 £20, simply his superior knowledge has enabled him to do so, and 
 which has taken him years to gain. 
 
 " Many incidents have occurred to me where I have seen articles 
 sold many pounds below their value. On one occasion several 
 dealers met at a sale in the country, and bought most of the 
 
igtA CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 241 
 
 goods at very low prices ; they were afterwards settled amongst 
 about twenty-five dealers, some of whom took £j, £10, £1$, £2$, 
 and £30 apiece, besides holding lots at low prices. Another time 
 three china vases sold in a sale for £28, and afterwards ^200 was 
 paid on them, and the dealer who held them was enabled to sell 
 them at a fair price then." 
 
 Let us now turn our attention shortly to the best known 
 collections, which contain the most prominent specimens connected 
 with our special study, viz., miniature portraits. I have thought it 
 best not to touch upon the general collections of the present day. 
 Their name is legion ; it would be impossible to describe them all, 
 and invidious to select. Portrait painting took root in England at a 
 comparatively early period. Excluding the various illuminated MSS. 
 which contain portraits of some of the earlier Kings, and to which 
 reference has been made under that head, about the earliest monarch of 
 whom we have a separate and distinct portrait is Richard II. The 
 whole length of him in Westminster Abbey has been cleared of the 
 subsequent coats of paint wherewith ardent restorers had loaded 
 him, and can now be seen in something like the original condition. 
 Walpole tells us the last coat was administered " by one Capt. 
 Brome, a printseller near the Parliament-house, but this was after 
 Mr. Talman had taken his drawing from whence the print was 
 engraved." There is another portrait of the same king at Wilton, 
 of almost miniature size, representing the king kneeling, attended 
 by his patron saints before the Virgin and Child, attended by angels ; 
 Hollar engraved it. To the bottom of the picture are affixed these 
 words : " Invention of painting in oil, 1410. This was painted 
 before, in the beginning of Richard II., 1377." Richard married 
 a Bohemian princess, and Mr. J. C. Robinson thinks he can trace 
 a resemblance between this small picture and some works which 
 he saw at Prague. Walpole takes us one step back still, and 
 mentions a small portrait of Edward the Black Prince, the father of 
 Richard II. He speaks of it thus : " Mr. Onslow, the late speaker, 
 had a small head of the Black Prince, which there is great reason 
 to believe was painted at the time. It is not very ill-done , it 
 represents him in black armour embossed with gold, and with a 
 golden lion on his breast. He has a hat with a white feather 
 
 2 1 
 
242 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 and a large ruby exactly in the shape of the rough ruby still in 
 the crown." He also mentions an undoubted original of Henry IV. 
 at Hampton Court in Herefordshire. 
 
 The position of a court painter in these early times was by no 
 means a happy one. He was classed with the lowest servants of the 
 establishment, the stable-boys, scullions and apothecaries. He more 
 properly represented the painter and glazier of the present day ; 
 everything connected with the brush fell to his lot. From a portrait 
 to a stable-bucket, he was expected to attend to all. Gradually, as art 
 knowledge somewhat increased, and the king or noble condescended 
 to be on more familiar terms with his painter, he was invested with 
 the rank and title of " Varlet de chambre," and was then classed 
 with the poets, musicians, and court jesters. This was the position 
 occupied by Jean van Eyck at the Court of Burgundy, by the Clouets 
 at the Court of France, and equally so by Holbein with Henry VIII. 
 Probably in the latter case the sergeant-painters, who were English- 
 men, Andrew Oret, Andrew Wright, and John Brown, did all the 
 dirty work, leaving Holbein free to attend to portraits only. This 
 John Brown built Painters' Hall for the Worshipful Company of 
 Painter-stainers, where his portrait is still preserved. They had 
 a quaint way of describing works of art in those days. In 
 Henry VIII.'s inventory a picture is described as a table with a 
 picture • prints are called cloths stained with a picture, and models 
 and bas-reliefs they call pictures of earth, thus : — 
 
 Item, one table with the picture of the Duchess of Milan, 
 being her whole stature. 
 
 Item, one cloth stained with Phoebus riding with his cart in 
 the air, with the history of him. 
 
 Item, one picture of Moses, made of earth and set in a box 
 of wood. 
 
 The predilection for portraiture seemed to suit the character 
 of the English nation. It corresponds with the individual inde- 
 pendence, with the personal worth of a man, which has been the 
 great factor in English success ; and another great reason induced 
 the best painters to supply the demand. It paid much better 
 than history or allegory. More than a century later, Kneller, 
 with cynical frankness, gave this as a reason for adopting this 
 
igtA CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 2 43 
 
 branch of art. Hans Bock, writing in 1579 in Germany of his 
 countrymen, says : "A portrait of any one costs twice as much as 
 another painting of the same size could be sold for." The inven- 
 tory of Henry VIII.'s pictures at Westminster contains mention of 
 . 63 portraits out of a total of 178. 
 
 In considering the collections of miniatures of the present 
 day, we will commence, as in duty bound, with the Royal collec- 
 tion at Windsor. 
 
 All the fathers of the English School are well represented 
 there — some of them exceptionally so. The three water-colour 
 portraits of Henry VIII., attributed to Holbein, have been fully 
 dealt with in a former chapter. On further inspection I am in- 
 clined to think Mr. Wornum is right, and that we must seek 
 the artist elsewhere. Possibly Lucas Hornebolt might have some- 
 thing to say to them were he still in the flesh. The likeness in 
 oil on panel is a very late portrait, evidently painted after Holbein's 
 death. I have a Charles Brandon, I should say, by the same 
 hand. On the other hand, there are four portraits which pretty 
 surely represent the work of the great Hans — the two children of 
 Charles Brandon, Lady Audley, and Lord Guildford. Hiiliard is 
 very well exemplified by the four portraits from the jewel and 
 many others. Isaac Oliver shines with great glory at Windsor — 
 the whole length of Sir Philip Sidney, Isaac's own portrait by 
 himself, and many others. The Sidney is the finest Isaac Oliver 
 I ever saw, not excepting the series of the Digby family, and the 
 whole-length Earl of Dorset, now at South Kensington. To my 
 mind the master par excellence at Windsor is Cooper. The four 
 portraits, lying in a row in drawer No. 2, General Monk on one 
 side, Monmouth on the other, and two ladies between them, must 
 be thoroughly studied before one can altogether appreciate Cooper's 
 powers as a portrait painter, or how extremely apposite was 
 Walpole's remark about him. I quoted the extract in a previous 
 chapter, but it will bear repetition here : " Oliver's works are 
 touched and re-touched with such careful fidelity, that you cannot 
 help perceiving they are Nature in the abstract ; Cooper's are so 
 bold, that they seem perfect Nature, only of a less standard. Magnify 
 the former, they are still diminutively conceived ; if a glass could 
 
 2 1 2 
 
244 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTLONS. 
 
 expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's, they would 
 appear to have been painted for that proportion." 
 
 The four portraits in this row are larger than we are accus- 
 tomed to see, measuring, I should think, seven inches in the length 
 of the oval. Tradition says that Cooper painted for Louis XIV. 
 larger portraits than he produced in England. The same tradition, 
 by the bye, says that Louis granted a pension to Cooper's widow. 
 In the Monk and Monmouth the busts are unfinished, but the 
 faces are perfect, and present the highest perfection of breadth 
 and finish combined. The Cromwell is undoubtedly contemporary, 
 and probably copied from a Cooper, but certainly not by his 
 hand. 
 
 There are a few fine Cosways, and a good many by Grimaldi, 
 who seems to have been a favourite with George IV. ; Mrs. Mee 
 also comes in for a fair share. There are a vast number of 
 enamels, one room being beautifully decorated with modern repro- 
 ductions of older works set out in panels. In yet another room 
 are over one hundred specimens of Petitot, Prieur, Zincke, Bone, 
 Hurter, &c. It is not in our province to describe small portraits, 
 but what gems of that kind are contained in the passage between 
 the Waterloo Hall and the long corridor, the series commencing 
 with Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry VIII. ! 
 
 Next in order, both as regards quantity and quality, comes the 
 Buccleuch collection, containing several attributed to Holbein. The 
 Catherine of Arragon has been already mentioned at page 51, 
 and the reasons are there set forth for doubting if Holbein ever 
 painted the Queen. On the same page the Henry VIII. is also 
 dealt with. Henry probably only really sat to Holbein twice, once 
 for the cartoon for the large wall painting which was destroyed in 
 the fire of Whitehall : a portion of the cartoon is happily left, 
 in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. In this preliminary 
 sketch Henry's face is given three-quarters, but in the copy 
 made from the fresco itself, by the Flemish painter Remigius von 
 Leemput, by order of Charles I., the monarch appears full face, 
 and the study for Henry's head in this view is in the cabinet 
 of engravings at Munich. This second sketch of the monarch 
 for the fresco furnished the type of all the subsequent portraits of 
 
ig/A CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 the King, and on these two occasions only did Henry condescend 
 to sit to Holbein. The Buccleuch Lord Seymour of Sudeley is 
 probably correctly attributed. The Hilliards are numerous and 
 fine, especially the Lady Shirley with loose flowing hair. The 
 Protector Somerset is an interesting portrait, though not from life, 
 as he was beheaded in 1552. It is, however, dated 1560, and 
 signed N. H., and must therefore have been painted by Hilliard 
 when only thirteen years of age — a prodigious performance for so 
 young an artist. Walpole also mentions a portrait of Hilliard, 
 done by himself in the same year, which was then in the collec- 
 tion of the Earl of Oxford. There is a second Lady Shirley here 
 by Isaac Oliver, who, together with his son Peter, is well repre- 
 sented. The portraits by Hoskins are especially fine. The Earl 
 of Essex, Algernon Sidney, Sir John Suckling, and John Hall, 
 Bishop of Norwich, are amongst the best. Cooper also shows 
 remarkably well. La Belle Stuart, Lady Dudley, Lady Fairfax, 
 Sir John Maynard, Nell Gwynne, the Countess of Falconberg, 
 third daughter of Oliver Cromwell, who, by the way, contrary to 
 parental teaching, materially assisted the Restoration of Charles II. 
 The Cooper portrait of Cromwell himself is very well known, by 
 the numerous copies one sees of it everywhere, nearly full face in 
 armour. There are many enamels, chiefly by Zincke, an artist 
 I confess I never cared much for. One enamel, a likeness of 
 Horace Walpole when young, is signed by William Prewett, a 
 pupil of Zincke, whose works are not often met with. 
 
 Mr. J. Hey wood Hawkins probably possesses a more varied 
 collection than any other amateur, both of miniatures and enamels. 
 They include not only choice specimens of all the best English 
 and foreign miniaturists, but also many pieces attributed to such 
 artists as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Titian, Zucchero, Van der Heist, 
 Poelemberg, Gonzalez, Jansen, Dobson and others. I am not 
 aware that any of these are signed, and therefore their attribution 
 must be a matter of opinion, founded on what we know of the 
 style of the various masters in their larger works. There is no 
 reason why these artists should not have tried their hands occa- 
 sionally on an oil miniature, but we have no record of the fact. 
 Holbein must again head the list. The " Portrait of a Lady," 
 
246 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 with the inscription " Anno /Etatis suse 23," is probably correct, as 
 is also Alicia, wife of Sir Thomas More. Hilliard's miniatures 
 are numerous : David Teniers and his wife, signed by Sir Bal- 
 thazar Gerbier, who does not often appear in collections. The 
 Olivers figure for Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Arundel, Lady Devereux, 
 &c. ; whilst John Hoskins gives us the Earl of Strafford, Lord 
 Herbert of Cherbury, and others. The Strafford is especially fine. 
 Cooper's Andrew Marvell is about the best of his productions. 
 The collection of miniatures of the Cosway period, both French 
 and English, are as fine and numerous as the older masters, many 
 of them mounted in boxes and frames, which are worthy pendants 
 to the lovely miniatures. 
 
 The late Mr. Sackford Bale's miniatures, whilst not very 
 numerous, were on a par with all his other possessions ; selected 
 with consummate taste and judgment, as the total realized at the 
 sale after his death sufficiently proved. He possessed two undoubted 
 Holbeins : the so-called Jane Seymour, which there is reason to 
 suppose is not Jane Seymour, but Anne Boleyn, according to Mr. 
 Scharf's opinion ; and Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, natural son 
 of Henry VIII., who died in 1536. With regard to Anne Boleyn, 
 most of the modern likenesses of the Queen are taken from a small 
 half-length in the museum at Berlin, marked "Anna Regina, 1525, 
 Anno /Etatis 22," and said to be by Holbein. Mr. Scharf is 
 again the critic, and has proved that this date does not accord 
 with Anne Boleyn's age, but with that of Queen Anna of Hungary, 
 born in 1503, and that the portrait is certainly not by Holbein. 
 Amongst Mr. Bale's miniatures was the magnificent full-length of 
 Richard III., Earl of Dorset, by Isaac Oliver, measuring 9^- inches 
 by 63. It is so fine that it is difficult to award the palm between 
 the Dorset and the Sidney at Windsor, The Dorset is signed 
 in full, " Isaac Olivierus fecit 161 6." This signature was one of 
 the causes which led Walpole to suppose that the Olivers were 
 of French extraction, as Isaac wrote his name many times 
 " Olivier." The Queen Mary ascribed to Holbein is of course 
 impossible ; perhaps our old friend Levina Teerlinck was hard by 
 when it was painted. The Dorset was purchased at the Bale sale by 
 the late Mr. Jones, and was left by him to the nation, together 
 
igf/i CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 247 
 
 with his fine collection of Petitots and many other old miniatures. 
 They are now at the South Kensington Museum. A direct 
 contrast to Mr. Bale, as a collector, may be found in the late 
 Mr. Beckett Denison. He seemed to pursue collecting in the same 
 spirit as a foxhunter, merely as an excitement. If he entered a 
 sale-room, and found one or two people bidding for a fine thing, 
 he seemed to take a delight in out-bidding them, and as money 
 was no object to him, he generally succeeded in wearing down his 
 opponents. He bought nearly a third of the Hamilton collection, 
 and yet when, in his turn, his possessions came to the hammer, 
 it was found that many fine things had suffered terribly whilst 
 in his possession, some of them never having been removed 
 from their packing cases, and having been stacked in a damp 
 place. 
 
 With regard to collectors of miniatures, it is difficult to know 
 where to stop. Nearly every family of any standing possesses a 
 certain number of its predecessors, handed down from the time 
 when they were painted, and guarded with jealous care as heir- 
 looms, but often, from want of knowledge, exposed to great dangers. 
 I have inspected innumerable family relics in the shape of miniatures, 
 and almost invariably find them exposed to full sunlight, and from 
 having been at some time or other in a damp place, with spots of 
 mildew slowly but surely eating their fatal way into the fair tints 
 of the portrait. These hardly come under the head of collections, 
 but there are others which merit a more detailed notice. Some 
 noted collections have only recently been broken up, such as the 
 Bale, Addington, Ashley, Hamilton, Carruthers, and others ; but as 
 one generation passes away, others come in to fill the gaps, and 
 the tiny gems simply pass from one home to another, the fine ones 
 showing an increase in value, which betokens an ever-spreading love 
 for these fascinating toys. Amongst the nobility it would seem 
 that in many cases family belongings have formed a nucleus, 
 around which successive generations have built up very considerable 
 collections. Earl Spencer, perhaps, stands first in this category. 
 He, like so many others, has a Henry VIII. in oil, attributed to 
 Holbein. It is of unusual size, more than 10 inches high. The 
 King wears a grey jerkin and a brown over-garment richly adorned 
 
24-S 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 with gold, the whole work most delicately finished. The face is 
 almost three-quarters, as in the cartoon for the Whitehall fresco, 
 and was probably painted by Holbein from that model. This is 
 about the only miniature of Henry in existence which is not full 
 face. The burly monarch seemed always to wish to show as much 
 of his face and figure as possible. Two others attributed to 
 Holbein are John Calvin the Reformer, and Holbein by himself. 
 Two very interesting portraits of the Clouet School are Mary 
 Stuart and her boy-husband, the Dauphin of France, afterwards 
 Francis II. Here, too, is Sir John Boling Hatton, assigned to 
 Lucas de Heere, signed L. This has been previously mentioned as 
 probably the work of Levina Teerlinck. Two portraits of William 
 III. and his Queen, by Gaspard Netscher, are charmingly painted, 
 and there are many good specimens of Cooper, Flatman, Hoskins, 
 &c. Bearing out what I have already said about family miniatures 
 often forming the basis of collections, there are a good many by 
 Cosway of various members of the family, whilst Petitot, Zincke, 
 Bone, and other enamellers complete a collection which is of excellent 
 quality and great historical interest. 
 
 The Earl of Dartrey shines especially in enamels, comprising 
 perhaps the finest existing private collection of Petitots. Amongst 
 them are portraits of the younger Petitot and his wife, by himself, 
 signed and dated, but the backs of the enamels are filled in with 
 mother-o'-pearl, which seems a pity, if they can show such interesting 
 details as a date and signature from the hand of an artist who very 
 rarely signed his work. Here also is one of the three known pieces 
 signed by Prieur, described as the portrait of a gentleman, signed 
 " Prieur fecit 1658." I know two replicas of this portrait, one at 
 Windsor, unsigned, but described in the catalogue as Nicholas 
 Fouquet, finance minister to Louis XIV., identified from an en- 
 graving by Nanteuil ; and another, also unsigned, in the collection 
 of Mr. E. Joseph. There are a large number of enamels by John 
 Henry Hurter, who, like Bone, copied old pictures in enamel, as 
 well as ad vivum. One of the larger Petitots is surrounded by 
 a delicious enamelled frame, the work of Gilles Legare. There is 
 another specimen, by the same hand, in the Jones collection at 
 South Kensington. 
 
i9*4 CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 249 
 
 The Earl of Derby possesses a very interesting collection. 
 Specimens attributed to Tintoretto, Zucchero, Jansen, Vandyck, 
 Kneller, &c, must be accepted on the same terms as I used when 
 speaking of similar specimens in the collection of Mr. Heywood 
 Hawkins. But besides these there is very much of interest. A 
 sepia drawing, slightly tinted in colour, of Peter Oliver, and on the 
 reverse that of his wife, signed " P. O., se ipse." Portraits of artists 
 by their own hands are always interesting. Another interesting 
 specimen is Cooper's portrait of Mary Beale, the miniaturist, and 
 Hoskins' Henrietta Maria ; then again Hilliard and the Olivers 
 are very well represented by several first-rate portraits. 
 
 Lord Wharncliffe has a very fine and large portrait of Charles II. 
 by Cooper, dated 1667, of admirable quality; and several interesting 
 specimens from the hand of Richard Gibson, the dwarf in the 
 service of Charles I., a very fine Marie Antoinette at the age of 
 fifteen, by Drouais, a charming likeness of the Princesse de 
 Lamballe, by the Cosway of the French School, Hall, and many 
 others by Hilliard, the Olivers, Hoskins, &c. 
 
 Lady Sophia des Vceux possesses some very fine Olivers, 
 including the curious portrait of Lady Arabella Stuart with a 
 jewelled anchor as an ear-ring, by I. Oliver, a fine Hilliard 
 Elizabeth, one or two beautiful examples by the French artist, 
 Nattier, who, though not a professed miniaturist, certainly painted 
 exquisite miniatures ; a good many Petitots, and very good examples 
 by the later artists of the Cosway period. 
 
 Mr. Wingfield Digby has, at Sherborne Castle, part of the 
 most precious series of Oliver's works in existence. It consists of 
 the portraits of Sir Kenelm Digby's family, mentioned by Walpole 
 as having been bought by him "at a great price." Amongst 
 them is the sad picture of Lady Venetia, represented as she was 
 found dead in bed, after Vandyck, the double portrait of Sir 
 Kenelm and his wife, and another of Lady Lucy Percy, Lady 
 Venetia's mother ; also Lady Venetia before her marriage with 
 Sir Kenelm. These were all at Strawberry Hill. The collec- 
 tion also contains portraits of other members of the family, by 
 Cooper, &c. 
 
 The Baroness Burdett Coutts has the remainder of the 
 
 2 K 
 
250 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 Walpole series : Sir Kenelm Digby himself, two of Lady Digby, 
 and the large miniature of Sir Kenelm, Lady Digby and children, 
 copied by P. Oliver from Vandyck's large picture still at Sherborne 
 Castle. 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire has two miniatures of special 
 interest, the largest known Petitot enamel, measuring nine inches 
 in height, a full-length portrait of Rachel de Rouvigny, Countess 
 of Southampton, dated 1642, after Vandyck ; and another smaller 
 piece of the Duke of Buckingham, dated 1640. The second in- 
 teresting historical piece is the drawing in pen and ink, washed 
 with sepia, of Cromwell, done by Cooper for the plate engraved 
 by Houbraken. Alas ! as usual, the engraver's work is but a sorry 
 reproduction of the great original. 
 
 The Magniac collection at Culworth is especially rich in the 
 old masters. The Catherine of Arragon, attributed to Holbein, 
 and formerly at Strawberry Hill, is there. In spite of its good 
 pedigree as given by Walpole, "It was given to the Duke of 
 Monmouth by Charles II. I bought it at the sale of the Lady 
 Isabella Scott, daughter of the Duchess of Monmouth," it is very 
 doubtful, for reasons given whilst discussing the life of Holbein, 
 whether he ever painted the Queen. The Holbein Henry VIII. 
 from Strawberry Hill is also in this collection. Another miniature 
 about which there clearly must be some mistake is the likeness 
 of Hilliard by himself, signed and dated N. H., 1550. Hilliard 
 was born in 1547, and although he is said to have painted 
 miniatures when thirteen years of age, it is a little too much to 
 think he was capable of doing so when only three ! He also 
 contributes Darnley, Earl of Lennox, Lady Arabella Stuart, and 
 others. Another very rare master, Sir Antonio More, is repre- 
 sented by an oil miniature of Archduke Albert VII. of Austria. 
 Then there are the Duke of Guise, by Francois Clouet, a very 
 interesting portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, inscribed La Royne 
 Dauphine, artist unknown, but probably also by Clouet ; a Catherine 
 de Medicis, signed B., together with Olivers, Coopers, &c. An 
 interesting but more modern specimen is a frame containing six 
 full-length figures painted on mother-of-pearl, of the whole family 
 of Louis XVI., artist unknown. 
 
xxjth CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 251 
 
 There are certain collections, in which the portraits of the 
 latter half of the 18th century preponderate over the older 
 masters. Tastes will of course differ as to the relative interest 
 attaching to the two periods. It cannot, for instance, be said 
 that female beauty is conspicuous in the miniatures of the 16th 
 and 17th centuries, which rather bring before us the strength of 
 the male actors in the scenes long past and gone. 
 
 No doubt the essential elements of what is considered to 
 constitute female beauty undergo considerable changes from one 
 period to another. The type of face cannot have altered 
 materially from the time when portrait painting became at all 
 general up to the present time, and I think it will be found 
 that these changes mainly depend upon the method of arranging 
 the hair. Freed from the horrors and monstrosities of the 
 "hennin" of the 15th century, the fashion swung at one bound 
 to the coif of Henry VIII., under which the luxuriant tresses 
 were confined in the smallest possible compass. During the 
 short reign of Edward VI. the hair was dressed with more 
 freedom and simplicity, looped round the ears, or hanging in 
 short locks. With Mary Tudor began the loading of the head 
 with cauls, ornamented with gold and jewels to such an extent 
 that the headdress became a burden ; but it was reserved for the 
 Virgin Queen to bring this barbaric splendour to its apogee. 
 Hair curled, frizzled, and crisped, underpropped with forks and 
 wires, bolstered out with wool, great wreaths of gold and silver 
 introduced on which the hair was cunningly arrayed, bugles, 
 ouches (whatever they were), rings, glasses, pearls, diamonds, and 
 all sorts of precious stones applied in strings and bunches, and 
 then occasionally on the top of all this huge tower, as in the Hatfield 
 portrait of Elizabeth, a huge heron plume. Small wonder that 
 the Queen took to wigs, to escape the tortures of the coiffeur, or 
 that she left eighty such articles behind her, to keep company 
 with her 3000 dresses. Poor Mary Stuart too went out of the 
 world most ingloriously, owing to her periwig. When the 
 headsman sought to hold up the severed head by its luxuriant 
 tresses, it fell to the ground, bald, except for a few straggling 
 hairs, leaving him to exalt only the unfortunate lady's periwig. 
 
 2 k 2 
 
252 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 Naturally, the demand for false hair was very considerable, and 
 no very curious questions were asked whence it came. The 
 massacres of Paris, 1572, were quite a godsend, and the gallows 
 at home helped forward the supply, causing even Shakespeare to 
 give the advice : " Thatch your poor thin roofs with burdens of 
 the dead ; some that were hang'd, no matter." When the 
 Frenchwoman Henrietta Maria set the fashion here, the terrible 
 high forehead, hitherto considered a crowning beauty in a woman, 
 and cultivated at certain periods to such an extent that the front 
 hair was plucked out almost to the crown of the head, for the 
 first time assumed somewhat more classic proportions, the frame 
 of love curls and the simple flat coiffure coming as an enormous 
 relief to the exaggerations of the Elizabethan and Jacobean 
 erections. This simple fashion of course became severity itself 
 under the chastening influence of the Puritan ritual, and even 
 when the Restoration let loose so much that was sensual and 
 dissipated, Lely's beauties tell us that the hair was by no means 
 unbecomingly treated, the abandon of the flowing masses forming 
 a rich frame to a handsome face. The early 18th century was 
 conspicuous for the neatness and modesty of the head-dress, the 
 hair low and simply dressed, adorned in moderation with lace and 
 ribbons. An English lady, who had the audacity to present 
 herself at Versailles thus becomingly attired, was the cause of the 
 downfall of the " front a la Fontanges," an erection two or three 
 feet high, almost as hideous as the hennin of the 15th century. 
 " No one," said the old king, " has had the politeness to listen to 
 what I have said about tall head-dresses ; but now this trumpery 
 English girl arrives, all the princesses have rushed from one 
 extreme to the other." The happy change did not last very 
 long, for in 1730 the gigantic proportions of the head-dress 
 compelled ladies to kneel in their carriages. Now, too, to make 
 matters worse, powder had become fashionable. It was said to 
 have been first worn by the young Due de Richelieu under the 
 regency of the Due d' Orleans ; but the first French portrait 
 showing its use is dated 1704. In England the mad fit took 
 longer to develop. Hogarth and Reynolds, in their early works 
 give some charming heads of simple coiffure with the pretty lace 
 
ig/A CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 253 
 
 cap and lappets ; but when the mania came, it was overpowering. 
 In 1756, we are told, ladies of fashion wore on their heads a 
 coach made of gold threads and drawn by six dappled greys in 
 blown glass, with coachman, postillion, and gentlemen inside, all 
 of the same material ! And then to think of the cost involved in 
 all this. Hair-dressers were expensive articles, and much time 
 was required to perfect these towers of ugliness ; hair natural and 
 artificial worked up with meal and grease into rolls and curls 
 over a horsehair cushion, fastened with hundreds of long pins, 
 could not be built up every day. Heads were dressed for three 
 months in the winter ; but in the summer, after nine weeks, it 
 was considered hardly safe. What the process was like, of de- 
 molishing this fcetid mass after nine weeks of summer heat may 
 be more easily imagined than described. It was a wonder that 
 Reynolds, Gainsborough, or Cosway succeeded in inducing their 
 fair sitters to leave the coach-and-six at home, and allow them 
 to transfer to canvas or ivory the beauty unadorned, which 
 gladdens our hearts at the present day. The 19th century began 
 well, simplicity was again the order of the day ; but, alas ! the 
 wheel gave another turn, and if we look through a book of 
 fashion for the few years from 1830 to nearly 1840, we find a 
 series of horrors, both in dress and coiffure, comparable for 
 intense ugliness with any period of hennin, fardingale, or coach- 
 and-six. In this year of grace, happily free from chignon and 
 crinoline, the coiffure of a well - dressed girl approaches more 
 nearly to the canons of classical taste in simplicity and beauty of 
 line than any previous epoch. It would be well if the same 
 classical feeling extended to the figure as well as the head, but 
 the slim waist seems as little inclined to yield as ever. In vain 
 have the teachings of science and shafts of ridicule been launched 
 against this deformity, as ugly as it is unhealthy. Rousseau was 
 about the only man who for a time succeeded in checking the 
 absurdity, and his words are so wise that they should be written 
 in letters of gold. Speaking of the Spartans, he says, " Their 
 women knew nothing of the use of those whalebone bodices by 
 which ours disguise rather than indicate their forms. I cannot 
 but think that this abuse, pushed in England to an inconceivable 
 
2 54 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 point, will in the end lead to the degeneracy of the race ; and I 
 maintain that, even from a merely ornamental point of view, it is 
 bad taste. It is not agreeable to see a woman cut in two like a 
 wasp ; it offends the eye, and is painful to the imagination. 
 The delicacy of the form has, like everything else, its due 
 proportions, its measure, beyond which it becomes a defect ; this 
 defect would be apparent in the nude — why should it be a beauty 
 when clothed ? " 
 
 But I have been led into an unwarrantably long digression 
 on this theme, connected though its main points be with our 
 subject, portraiture. Apart from the prevailing fashion of the time, 
 certain great artists have seemed unable to grasp and understand 
 beauty. Vandyck and Petitot could give us a handsome face, 
 whilst Rembrandt and Cooper never succeeded. Cosway apparently 
 saw nothing but beauty, for I do not think I ever came across a 
 miniature by his hand which even approached plainness. Were 
 all his sitters really as lovely as he made them, or was the little 
 man a terrible flatterer ? Who shall decide ? 
 
 Seeing the great differences which distinguish the two periods 
 of miniature art, which we may call roughly the Cooper and the 
 Cosway periods, it must of course depend on the natural taste of 
 the amateur whether he is most captivated by the historical 
 interest attaching to the older masters, or by the beauty of the 
 later age. 
 
 One of the most charming collections of the Cosway period 
 is that of Mr. Edward Joseph, comprising specimens by all the 
 foremost men of the time. 
 
 The centre-piece, the wonderful large oblong miniature of the 
 three daughters of Lord Northwick, by Andrew Plimer, is in some 
 respects the finest in existence. Its history, too, is curious, and 
 not calculated to inspire one with over-much confidence in the art- 
 knowledge of those who should know better. It was sold by 
 auction in the country, and although the catalogue of the sale 
 was prepared by one of the most noted London auctioneers, this 
 magnificent miniature was lotted with an old tablecloth, as a 
 coloured print ! It would inevitably have been sold to the enter- 
 prising clique of the "knock-out" for ten shillings had not a 
 
jgt/i CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 255 
 
 gentleman present at the sale seen its value at the last moment, 
 and bid for it up to a respectable figure. It passed through many 
 trade hands, each one making his profit out of it, before it finally 
 settled down into its present position, the worthy centre of a 
 goodly company. 
 
 Lord Tweedmouth can boast of many beautiful Cosway portraits, 
 including the double picture, once in the possession of S. Adding- 
 ton. He was fortunate enough to secure Cosway 's sketch book, 
 containing many lovely drawings, with all the freshness of the 
 artist's first impressions. 
 
 Modesty might perhaps prompt me to dismiss my own pos- 
 sessions without notice, but as I have undertaken to point out 
 some of the most interesting collections, and as the illustrations 
 of the various masters in this book have been furnished from my 
 own specimens, I will briefly allude to the most prominent pieces. 
 I have endeavoured to get together as representative a collection 
 of the best artists as possible, without troubling myself about the 
 lesser lights. I confess my inclination tends to the work of the 
 older masters, in preference to what I have called the Cosway 
 period ; but I have endeavoured to be catholic, and have divided 
 the specimens into works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, foreign masters, and 
 enamels. Amongst the first, I have the so-called Jane Seymour, 
 bought by Mr. Sackford Bale at Strawberry Hill. I say the so- 
 called, because Mr. Scharf and others have set it down as Anne 
 Boleyn. She was beheaded in May 1536, the year when we have 
 the first records of the employment of Holbein by Henry VIII., 
 so that it may be considered doubtful whether he ever painted 
 Anne. Of Hilliard's works I have a considerable number. The 
 full-length of Sir Christopher Hatton, Elizabeth and James I., being 
 the best ; several others are figured in the illustrations. I have 
 quite lately come across a signed Hilliard, of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, in oil, on a silver plate, signed N. H., 16 10. It was sold 
 at Christie's, and to show the vagaries of a public auction, it 
 realized ten shillings and sixpence ! The Olivers are represented 
 by Dr. Donne, the Earl of Pembroke, &c. ; Cooper by several 
 signed and dated specimens, including the wonderful profile of 
 
256 
 
 COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS. 
 
 Cromwell — a very powerful miniature. I have Charles Brandon, 
 Duke of Suffolk, and Queen Mary, in oil on panel, I suspect by 
 the same hand that drew the Henry VIII. at Windsor. Janet 
 figures for Henri II., a beautiful example, painted on slate ; and 
 Sir Antonio More gives us Elizabeth when Princess. Other old 
 masters, such as Hoskins, Flatman, Betts, Gibson, Dixon, &c, 
 will be found in the illustrations. I have about twenty-five Cosways, 
 all fine, a good many by both Plimers, Smart, Humphrey, 
 Engleheart, Edridge, Shelley, Grimaldi, &c. I am not so strong 
 in foreign miniatures ; a wonderful finger-ring, containing likenesses 
 of Napoleon, Mary Louise, and the King of Rome, by Isabey, pre- 
 sented by Napoleon to Bernadotte ; also the two Empresses, and 
 General Berthier, by Isabey ; Napoleon himself, by Aubry ; Madame 
 Elizabeth, by Dumont ; the Dauphiness, by Drouais ; a very choice 
 little portrait by Fragonard ; Maria Theresa of Hungary, by Liotard ; 
 and examples of Arlaud, Augustin, Charlier, Campana, Hall, &c. ; 
 but the foreign specimens are not so numerous as I could wish. 
 In enamels I am strong in Petitot, and have the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth signed and dated by Petitot fils. A very interesting 
 enamel is Philip IV. of Spain, by Prieur, signed and dated — a very 
 rare master, only three signed pieces of his work being known. 
 Zincke I never admired much, and have but little of his work. 
 Boit gives a Queen Anne, and there are two pieces which I 
 presume are the work of Jean Toutin, Le Grand Conde, and 
 Gaston of Orleans. I only know one specimen signed by him, 
 and that is at Vienna. Other masters, such as Huaud, Nathaniel 
 and Horace Hone, the Berlin artist Thienpondt, and the Saxon 
 Dinglinger are figured in this work. I forgot to mention one 
 miniature which I consider very interesting, that of Margaret of 
 Navarre, popularly known as " La Reine Margot." It is painted 
 in the gouache body colour, and very likely is from the hand of 
 that " Frere de Janet" mentioned by Margaret in her correspon- 
 dence as having entered her service as an artist. 
 
 After all, collectors past and present have served a useful 
 and even a noble purpose in having preserved art-work of all 
 times for our delight and instruction, for there is a good deal of 
 truth in the German writer Schlegel's remarks : " There is no 
 
i 9 tk CENTURY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 257 
 
 more potent antidote to low sensuality than the adoration of the 
 beautiful. All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste, 
 without respect to the object. They purify the thoughts as 
 tragedy purifies the passions. Their accidental effects are not 
 worth consideration ; there are souls to whom even a vestal is 
 not holy." 
 
 2 L 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbondio, Alessandro, wax portraits by, 
 170 
 
 Ableitner, Balthazar, notice of, 178 
 
 Adam and Eve in Paradise, picture of, by- 
 Breughel and Rubens, 159 
 
 Adelaide, Madame, portraits of, by R. 
 Bachi, 145 ; and by Cazaubon, 147 
 
 Agazzi, mention of, 166 
 
 Albert VII., Archduke, of Austria, portrait 
 of, by Sir A. More, 250 
 
 Albret, Jean d', death of, by poisoned 
 gloves, 232 
 
 Alcuin of York, 20 
 
 Aldegrever, Heinrich, notice of, 178 
 
 Aldus, mention of, 212, 213 
 
 Alengon, Due d', portrait of, by Hilliard, 
 60; by Francois Clouet, 137 ; or pro- 
 bably by Jean Clouet II., 139 
 
 Alessandria, Antonio, 166 
 
 Alexander the Great, mention of, 195 
 
 Alfonso, les Lois d', MSS., 32 
 
 Alluminar, use of term, 7 
 
 Althorp, Lord, portrait of, by Reynolds, 
 107 
 
 Amalteo, Girolamo, notice of, 163 
 Amberger, Christopher, mention of, 48 ; 
 
 portraits by, and style of, 158 
 Ammonia, hydrosulphate, for restoring 
 
 partially erased writings, 42, 43 
 Andreoli, Giorgio, allusion to, 228 
 Andrew Undershaft, St., origin of name 
 
 according to Stow, 47 
 Angelo, Michael, allusions to, 163, 169, 
 
 192, 209, 220, 221, 227 ; wax modelling 
 
 attributed to, 169 
 Anglo-Saxon school of MSS. illuminators 
 
 known as Opus Anglicum, 20-22 
 Angouleme, Due d', portrait of, 188 
 Anguisciola, Anna Maria, mentioned, 164 
 
 Anguisciola, Europa, mentioned, 164 
 Anguisciola, Lucia, mentioned, 164 
 Anguisciola, Sophonisba, career and work 
 of, 164 
 
 Animals, life-like rendering of, by the 
 
 mesolithic or cave men, 2 
 Anjou, Due d', collection of (1356), 208 
 Anjou, Due d', portrait of, by Petitot the 
 
 son, 94 
 
 Anna, Queen, of Hungary, portrait of, 
 246 
 
 Anne, Queen, portrait of, by Sir G. 
 
 Kneller, 89 ; decadence of art under, 
 
 100; Boit's large enamel of her and 
 
 Court, 100, 256 
 Antaldi, Marchese, collection of, 227 
 Anticone, Joha.nn Baptiste, notice of, 164 
 Antony, Mark, his collection, 193, 194; 
 
 and villainy, 197 
 Apelles, allusions to, 194, 200, 202 
 Apollo, friezes from temple of, 230, 231 ; 
 
 gold statue of, 195 
 Arbuthnot, Dr., his retort on Jervas, 10 1 
 Ardroli, Giacomo, notice of, 167 
 Arlaud, Jacques Antoine, 102, 256 ; his 
 
 anatomical destruction of a picture of 
 
 Leda, 102 
 
 Armida and Rinaldo, a painting by Van- 
 
 dyck, 75 
 Arnoldi, 64 
 
 Art, remarkable perfection of, amongst 
 ancient Greeks, 192 ; transference of 
 Greek art work and artists to Rome, 
 192, 193 ; flow of art work to England 
 in 1 8th and 19th centuries, 225 ; regret 
 for sale of historic collections, 229, 230 
 
 Art collectors, 191 ; Roman collectors, 
 193-204; collectors of Middle Ages, 
 205-212 ; destruction of art collections 
 
 2 L 2 
 
260 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 in England, 210; miscellaneous objects 
 collected by special, 233 ; government 
 indifference for art collections in Eng- 
 land, 234, 235 ; bargains to be avoided 
 by, 235, 236 ; recent great increase in 
 numbers of, 236, 237 ; consequent in- 
 creased money value of choice articles, 
 236, 237 ; probable competition of 
 Americans and Colonists as, 237, 238 ■ 
 usefulness of, 256, 257 
 
 Arthur, Prince, brother of Henry VIII., 
 portrait of, 244 
 
 Artois, Comte d' (Charles X.), portrait of, 
 188 
 
 Arundel, Lord, portrait of, by Oliver, 
 246 
 
 Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of, art 
 collections of, 73, 74, 214, 215 ; fate of 
 these, 73, 74, 224; allusion to, 112 
 
 Arundelian marbles, 73 
 
 Ashley, house of, in Pall Mall, 116 
 
 Asper, Hans, mention of, 48 ; portraits by, 
 
 Atticus, library of, 197 
 
 Aubert, allusion to, 183 
 
 Aubry, Louis Frangois, notice of, 147 ; 
 
 allusion to, 167 ; portrait of Napoleon 
 
 by, 256 
 
 Audley, Lady, portrait of, assigned to 
 
 Holbein, 54, 243 
 Augsburg, a great centre of sculpturing 
 
 and carving, 175 
 Augustin, Jean Baptiste, allusions to, 96, 
 
 149, 152, 184, 188, 256; miniature 
 
 portrait of Madame Recamier by, 97 ; 
 
 notice of, 147 
 Azzolini, wax portraits by, 170 
 
 B., portrait of Catherine de Medicis by, 
 250 
 
 Babonot, alluded to, 174 
 
 " Bacchus and Ariadne," enamel of, by H. 
 
 Bone, 121 
 Baccio, allusion to, 169 
 Bachi, Raphael, portraits by, 145 
 Bacon, sculptor, alluded to, 125 
 Bacon, wax modeller, alluded to, 125 
 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, portrait of, by Zuc- 
 
 chero, 62 
 " Baignoir," le, 239 
 
 Bailly, Jacques, notice of, 140 
 Bailly, Mayor of Paris, allusions to, 140, 
 187 
 
 Balding. See Grien. 
 Baldrighi, Giuseppe, 166 
 Balestra, Antonio, 166 
 Bandinello, allusion to, 169 
 Barbara, St., exquisite miniature of, 31 
 Barberini vase. See Portland. 
 Barckhuysen, allusion to, 178 
 Bardou, alluded to, 173 
 Barry, Madame du, portrait of, by F. Cam- 
 pana, 148 
 
 Bartolommeo, Fra, allusions to, 39, 169, 
 209 
 
 Bartolozzi alluded to, 124, 125 
 Basan, allusion to, 224 
 Battoni, Le Chevalier Pompee, notice of, 
 167 
 
 Baur, J. Georg, notice of, 161 
 
 Baur, William, pupil of Brendel, life and 
 
 work of, 140 
 Bazard, allusion to, 178 
 Bazio, allusion to, 228 
 Beale, Charles, 85 
 
 Beale, Mary, life and work of, 84, 85 ; 
 
 portrait of, by Cooper, 249 
 Beauclerc, Lady Diana, notice of works 
 
 by, 124 
 
 Beaupre, Cadet de, alluded to, 173 
 Bedford, John, Duke of, portrait of, in the 
 
 Bedford Missal, 28 ; allusion to, 208 
 Beer, Adelbert, notice of, 161 
 Beer, Johann Friedrich, notice of, 161 
 Bekking, notice of, 161 
 Bellini, Giovanni, allusion to, 209 
 Benedictional of St. Aethelwald, 2 1 ; of 
 
 Archbishop Robert, 22 
 Benintendi, Jacobo, allusion to, 169 
 Benintendi, Orsino, wax-work by, 169 
 Benninck, Simon, 31, 48, 55, 158 
 Benoist (or Benoit), Antoine, portrait of 
 
 Louis XIV. and others in wax, by, 172, 
 
 173 
 
 Benwell, Mary, notice of, 126 
 Berain, snuff-boxes by, 182 
 Bergmann, Ignaz, notice of, 161 
 Bernard, Samuel, notice of, 140 
 Bernguetta, Alonzo, allusion to, 169 
 Bernini, his bust of Charles I., 75, 76 
 Berri, Jean, Due de, 28, 35, 208 
 
INDEX. 
 
 261 
 
 Berri, Duke and Duchess of, portraits of, 
 188 ; portrait of the Duke by Louvel, 
 189; and of their son Dieudonne, 189 
 BertWer, portrait of, by Isabey, 256 
 Bertrand, Samuel, alluded to, 141 
 Betts, John, allusions to, 63, 64, 110; 
 miniature portrait of Sir John Godsalve 
 ascribed to, 63 ; confusion of dates 
 relating to, 63 
 Betts, Thomas, 63 ; his portrait of John 
 
 Digby, Earl of Bristol, 63, 64 
 Bible of San Calisto monastery, Rome, 
 20 ; the Metz, 20 ; the Winchester, 22 ; 
 MSS. of the Cologne School in British 
 Museum, 23, 32 ; the copy in Royal 
 Collection, written by Wills, 26; of 
 Charles the Bald, 207 
 Bichelberger, C, mention of, 161 
 Bichelberger, S., mention of, 161 
 Biffin, Miss (Mrs. Wright), miniature 
 artist without legs and arms, 125 ; por- 
 trait of, by, 125 
 Bison, or urus, depicted by cave-men of 
 
 mesolithic period, 2 
 Blacas collection of gems, 234 
 Blackner, Johann Samuel, notice of, 161, 
 162 
 
 Blanc, Abbe le, his criticisms on English 
 
 portrait painting, 107 
 Blarenberghe, Henri Joseph van, notice 
 
 of, 146 
 
 Blarenberghe, Jacques Guillaume van, 
 notice of, 146 
 
 Blarenberghe, Louis van, unique for his 
 microscopic miniatures ; enormous 
 prices given for them, 146 
 
 Blarenberghes, allusions to the, 139, 154 
 
 Bleese, hired to break the painted win- 
 dows of Croydon Church, 81, 82, 
 169 
 
 Blessendorf, Constantine Frederick, notice 
 of, 160 
 
 Bobbio, Irish illuminated MSS. at, 19 
 Boccacio's " De Claris Mulieribus," 28 ; 
 
 copies of, by Fouquet, 35 
 Boethus, allusions to, 200, 202 
 Bogle, John, notice of, 125 
 Boias, Don Francesco de, 31 
 Boissiere, Mademoiselle de la, enamel 
 
 portraits by, 141, 142, 181 
 Boissieu, miniaturist, 154 
 
 Boit, Charles, life and work of, 100 ; his 
 large enamel of Queen Anne and her 
 Court, 100, 256; allusions to, 103, 184 
 Bol, Hans, art work by, 139, 140 
 Boleyn, Anne, portrait of, by Holbein, 
 246, 255 
 
 Bonbonnieres or drageoirs, early used by 
 
 French, 179, 181, 182 
 Bone, Henry, career and industry of; series 
 
 of portraits in enamel by, 121, 244; 
 
 allusion to, 248 
 Bone, Henry Pierce, 121 
 Bonem, Henry, 133 
 
 Bonfratelis di Caprenica, Apollonius, work 
 by, 37 
 
 Bonzanigo, allusion to, 178 
 
 Boothby, Penelope, portrait of, by Rey- 
 nolds, 107 
 
 Bordes, Joseph, miniaturist, 154 
 
 Bordier, Jacques, 93, 181 ; co-worker 
 with Petitot, 94, 142 
 
 Bordier, Pierre, 93 ; enamelled watch by, 
 93 
 
 Bordoni, Benedetto, MS. works by, 37 
 
 Borghese vase, 198 
 
 Borgia, Lucrezia, allusion to, 209 
 
 Bos, Louis Janssen, portraits and minia- 
 tures by, 159 
 
 Bosch, Balthasar vanden, notice of, 
 160 
 
 Bosnian, Barend, notice of, 162 
 Boticelli, 39 
 
 Bouchardon, mention of, 222 
 Boucher, allusion to, 151, 166 
 Boullonge, allusion to, 153 
 Bourdier, allusion to, 181 
 Bourdin, enamel portraits by, 143 
 Bourdin, Michael, mention of, 172 
 Bourgogne, Due de, portrait of, by V. F. 
 Elie, 146 
 
 Bourgoin, F., enamel portraits of Louis 
 XVI. by, 147, 148 
 
 Bourgoing, allusions to, 187, 188 
 
 Bourquet, allusion to, 183 
 
 Boxes for portraits made for Lous XIV., 
 180; by Pitan, 180; by Montarsy, 
 181; costliness of, 184, 185; with 
 false bottoms for portraits of proscribed 
 favourites, 188 
 
 Boz, Peter, notice of, 161 
 
 Boz, Peter, the younger, notice of, 161 
 
2()2 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boze, Joseph, notice of, 148 ; allusion to, 
 154 
 
 Brannin, mention of, 171 
 
 Breckeisen, Joseph, notice of, 162 
 Brendel, Frederic, art work by, 140 ; 
 teacher of Baur, 140 
 
 Breughel, John, paintings by, 159 
 
 Breviary, the Grimani, 31 ; of Isabella of 
 Castille, 31 
 
 Brison, Mademoiselle, allusion to, 181 
 
 Brissac, Count de, portrait of, attributed 
 to Francois Clouet, 135 
 
 Brisson, Mademoiselle, portrait of Louis 
 XV. by, 146 
 
 Bristol, John Digby, Earl of, portrait of, 
 by Thomas Betts, 63, 64 
 
 British Museum, origin and growth of, 
 234, 235 
 
 Bronzino, allusion to, 163 
 
 Brown, John, mention of, 242 ; portrait 
 of, in Painters' Hall, 242 
 
 Bruckmann, Frederic, enamel portraits of 
 Louis XIV. by, 143, 181 
 
 Bruger, Bartholomew, 48 
 
 Bruges, manufacture of MSS. at, in 15 th 
 century, 30 
 
 Brugieri, Domenico, allusion to, 167 
 
 Bruhl, Comte de, his costumes and snuff- 
 boxes, 182 
 
 Brutus, collection of, 197 
 
 Bruy, Jacques de, 64 
 
 Buchanan, allusions to, 226, 227 
 
 Bucker, Joseph, notice of, 162 
 
 Buckingham, Duchess of, and son, por- 
 trait of, by Zincke, 104 
 
 Buckingham, Duke of, an art collector, 
 67, 215; portrait of, by Petitot the 
 father, 94, 250 ; dispersal of his collec- 
 tions, 224, 225 
 
 Bulls figured by cave - men of raesolithic 
 period, 2 
 
 Bunb ury, Master, portrait of, by Reynolds, 
 107 
 
 Bunyan, John, portrait of, by T. Sadler, 
 89 
 
 Buontalenti, Bernardo (Dalle Girandole), 
 art career and work of, 163, 164 
 
 Burgeois, Charles Guillaume, notice of, 
 148 
 
 Burgundy, Dukes of, collections by, 208 
 Burkmann, J., notice of, 162 
 
 Burnet, Bishop, portrait of, by Susan P. 
 
 Gibson, 79 
 Burns, Robert, hero-worship of, 233 
 Butler, Samuel, a painter of miniatures. 
 
 77 ; portrait of, " in plumbago," 86, 87 
 Byron, Lord, portrait of, by Holmes, 128 ; 
 
 hero-worship of, 233 
 Byzantium, churches of St. Sophia (now 
 
 the Imperial Mosque) at, 12, 16; re- 
 • places Rome as capital of the Roman 
 
 Empire, 12; early centre of miniature 
 
 art-work, 16 ; influence of Byzantine 
 
 art traditions on portraiture, 154, 155, 
 
 162 
 
 Cadet, Madame, 154 
 
 Caesar, Julius, his love of art, 196; and 
 
 collections, 197, 198 
 Caligula, auction sale of his goods, 199 
 Calonne, sale of his pictures, 226, 227 
 Calvin, John, portrait of, by Holbein, 
 
 248 
 
 Camaieu gris, 33 ; specimens of this class 
 
 of work, 33, 34 
 Campagnoli, Giulio, notice of, 164 
 Campan, Madame, allusion to, 150 
 Campana, F., notice of, 148, 256 
 Campi, Bernardo, allusion to, 164 
 Canova, allusion to, 192 
 Capella, Scipio, notice of, 166 
 Cappucino, II. See Galantini. 
 Cardenas, Don Alonzo de, allusion to, 
 
 224 
 
 Carriera, Rosa Alba (Rosalba), high cha- 
 racter of her work, 101, 105, 166; allu- 
 sions to, 165, 221 ; career of, 165, 166 
 Carteau, allusions to, 96, 153 
 Caspari, Heindrik Willem, notice of, 162 
 Cassonia, Antonio, mention of, 170 
 Castelli, Bernardo, notice of, 1 64 
 Catherine of Arragon, fictitious portraits 
 
 of, 51. 53> 244, 250 
 Catherine of Braganza, portrait of, by 
 
 Greenhill, 86 
 Catinat, enamel portrait of, by Weyler, 
 96 
 
 Cavendish, T., portrait of, in oil, 62 
 Caylus, Jean Anne, Count de, allusion to, 
 
 220; career, art work, and collections 
 
 of, 220-223 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Cazaubon, portraits of Louis XV. and 
 others by, 146, 147 ; allusion to, 184 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, wax modelling by, 
 170; allusions to, 209, 212 
 
 Cennini, 40 ; his book on methods of 
 painting, 40 , , 
 
 Ceres, statue of, 193 
 
 Cethegus, allusion to, 194 
 
 Chalon, Alfred Edward, career and work 
 of, 128, 129; anecdote of, 130 
 
 Chambord, Comte de (Dieudonne), por- 
 trait of, as an infant, 189 
 
 Chambers, Dr., portrait of, 109 
 
 Champagne, Philip de, teacher of Fai- 
 thome, 7 1 ; enamel portrait of, by Wey- 
 ler, 100 ; miniatures by, 153 
 
 Charinus, mention of, 202 
 
 Charlemagne, a great patron of the art of 
 illuminating MSS., 19, 206; activity of, 
 19 ; burial of, with a Gospel book on 
 his knee, 20 
 
 Charles the Bald, collection of, 206, 207 
 
 Charles I., of England, influence of, on 
 art, 72 ; portraits of, by Vandyck, 75; 
 bust of, by Bernini, 75, 76 ; his dream 
 of a palace, 76 ; sale and destruction of 
 his art collections ordered by Parlia- 
 ment, 80, 81, 217, 224; their dispersal 
 checked by Cromwell, 80, 81 ; portrait 
 of, by Sir Peter Lely, 82 ; portraits of, 
 in needlework and in his hair dipped in 
 his blood, 82, 84 ; patronises Jean Pe- 
 titot, 93 ; art knowledge of, 215; col- 
 lection of, partly destroyed by fire, 225 
 
 Charles II. (of England), influence of, on 
 art, 82 ; licentiousness of, 82; portrait 
 of, by Greenhill, 86 ; by Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller and Lely, 87, 88 ; by Cooper, 
 249 
 
 Charles V., of France, 28 ; manuscripts 
 of, 208 
 
 Charles VI., of France, allusions to, 28, 
 208 ; portrait of, by Sir G. Kneller, 89 
 
 Charles VIII., Anne, Queen of, her col- 
 lections, 208 
 
 Charles IX., of France, portrait of, by C. 
 de Herz, 136, 137 ; by Francois Clouet, 
 137 ; or by Jean Clouet II., 139 
 
 Charles X., portrait of, by Isabey, 151 
 
 Charlier, Jean, style of painting by, 147 ; 
 allusion to, 184, 256 
 
 Chateau, Mademoiselle, notice of, 143 ; 
 
 allusion to, 181 
 Chatillon, Louis de, allusions to, 95, 142, 
 
 144, 181 ; life of, and work by, 140 
 Chennevieres, M. de, 224 
 Cheron, Eliz. Sophie, notice of, 144 
 Cheron, Henri, mentioned, 143, 144 
 Chodowiecki, Daniel, notice of, 162 
 Chodowiecki, Gottfried, notice of, 162 
 Christ, prototype portrait of, on the Cata- 
 comb ceiling of St. Sebastian, Rome, 
 9 ; paralleled with Orpheus in early 
 Christian paintings, 9 ; " Burial of," by 
 Isaac and Peter Oliver, 68 ; ' Christ 
 casting out the Devils,' by Sir W. Ross, 
 129 
 
 Christian II., of Denmark, portrait of his 
 three children, purported to be that 
 of the three children of Henry VII., by 
 Holbein, 53 
 
 Christians, persecution of early, 9 
 
 Christina, Queen, of Sweden, allusions to, 
 217, 225 
 
 ' Chronicles of England,' 30 
 
 Church, adverse influence of interference 
 of, on art of painting, 9 ; as preserver 
 and guardian of art, 205 
 
 Cicero, the trial of Verres, 193; his con- 
 tempt for Greek art, 194; and collec- 
 tion of Greek art work, 194 
 
 Cimabue, G., influence of, on revival of 
 painting, 4, 5, 155 ; character of Greek 
 and other painting before his time, 4 ; 
 his miniature paintings, 5, 6 
 
 Clarence, D. of, portrait of, in " Chro- 
 nicles of England," 30 
 
 Claude of France, portrait of, attributed 
 to Frangois Clouet, probably by Jean 
 Clouet, 139 
 
 Clauze, Isaak Jakob, notice of, 162 
 
 Cleef, Joost van, 48 ; the probable painter 
 of a portrait of Henry VIII. at Hamp- 
 ton Court, 51, 59 
 
 Clemence, Queen, of Hungary, collection 
 of (1328), 208 
 
 Cleopatra, wax model of, attributed to 
 Cellini, 170 
 
 Clesippus, 200 
 
 Cleves, Anne of, portrait of, ascribed to 
 
 Holbein, 55 
 Cleves, Marie de, 35 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clcyn, Francesco, and his children, 77 ; 
 his grotesques, 77, 78 ; teacher of 
 Richard Gibson, 79 
 
 Cleyn, Penelope, portrait of Dorothea 
 Cromwell by, 77 
 
 Clod ion, wax modeller, notice of, 173 
 
 Clopinal, Jean, a co-writer of the ' Ro- 
 mance of the Rose,' 31 
 
 Clotaire, his collection, 206 
 
 Clouet family, 134; method of miniature 
 painting employed by earlier members 
 of, 134; portraits by, 135; incredible 
 number of chalk drawings ascribed to, 
 138, 139; allusion to, 242 
 
 Clouet, a painter in 1529, 134, 256 
 
 Clouet, Frangois (or Janet), portrait of 
 the Dauphin Frangois by, 134 ; natu- 
 ralisation of, 135 ; Court painter to 
 Francis L, 135; effigies of Francis I., 
 136, 172; of Duke of Orleans, 136: 
 and the Dauphin Francois by, 136, 
 248; other work of, 136-139; wax 
 effigy of Henry II. by, 172 ; portrait of 
 Duke of Guise by, 250; and of Henri 
 II., 256 
 
 Clouet, F., portrait of Francis II. by, 57 ; 
 of Mary Queen of Scots, 100; allusion 
 to, 105 
 
 Clouet, Jean, painter in 1475, *33 
 Clouet, Jean II., painter in Court of 
 
 Francis I., 133, 134, 135 ; death of, 
 
 135, 136; chalk portraits assigned to, 
 
 138 ; miniatures by, 139 
 Clovio (or Gravata), Giulio, life and work 
 
 of, 37, 38, 41 ; allusion to, 164 
 Clovis, the jasper cup of. 205, 206 
 Coates, mention of, 234 
 Codex Palatinus. See Virgil. 
 Codex purpureo argenteus, description of, 
 
 at Upsala, 13 
 Codex Romanus. See Virgil. 
 Codex Rossanensis, written on purple 
 
 vellum, 13, 14 
 Codrus, mention of, 203 
 Cole, Peter, 64 
 
 Collins, Richard, notice of, 122, 123 
 Collins, Samuel, master of Humphrey, 
 
 118 ; allusion to, 119 
 Colonna, Vittoria, allusion to, 209 
 Coloured photographs, ix, x; negatives 
 
 by Mr. L. B. Fleming, x 
 
 Columba, frequency of name in Irish 
 calendar ; doubt as to which person of 
 that name wrote the Book of Durrow, 10 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, tobacco intro- 
 duced by, 180 
 
 ' Commentary on the Apocalypse ' MSS., 
 32 ; commentaries on St. Paul's Epistle 
 to the Romans, 38 
 
 Comnenus, Alexis, portraits of, in the 
 Vatican ' Dogmatica Panoplia,' 15, 16 
 
 Constant, Benjamin, portrait of, 189 
 
 Constant, Manuel, portrait of, 189 
 
 Constantine the Great, first Christian 
 emperor, founder of St. Sophia church, 
 Byzantium, 12 ; art encouraged by, 12 
 
 Cooper, Alexander, allusions to, 76, 77 ; 
 career of, 78 
 
 Cooper, Samuel, gem miniature portrait of 
 Oliver Cromwell by, vi, 255 ; allusions 
 to, 77, 82, 83, 85, 100, 124, 131, 149, 
 244, 245, 250 ; work of, 78 : his excel- 
 lence in miniature, 78, 83, 111, 117, 
 243, 244, 248, 254; anecdote of, 83 ; 
 his portraits of Gen. Fairfax, 83 ; M. 
 Snelling, 86 ; Andrew Marvell, 246 ; 
 Mary Beale, 249 ; and of Charles II., 249 
 
 Corday, Charlotte, allusion to, 187 
 
 Cornelii, Lucas, 48, 49 
 
 Cornelius, 64 
 
 Corona, Leonardo, notice of, 164 
 Correggio, allusions to, 209, 225 
 Cosmo, portraits of, by Buontalenti, 164 
 Coster, painter, alluded to, 154 
 Coster, Madame Villayer, painting of, 154 
 Cosway, drawings by, 97 ; allusions to, 
 113, 119, 120, 121, 122, 128, 129, 131, 
 132, 149, 162, 165, 244, 246, 253, 254, 
 255, 256 ; life of, 1 1 5-1 18 ; houses occu- 
 pied by, 116 ; excellency and character 
 of his miniatures, 117; spurious ex- 
 amples of, 117 
 Cosway, Maria, 118 
 Cotelle, Jean, notice of, 143 
 Cotes, Frangois, alluded to, 122 
 Cotes, Samuel, work of, 122 
 Counis, S. G., 154 
 Couriguer, wax portrait by, 173 
 Courland, princess of, portraits of, by 
 
 Blackner, 162 
 Courtois, Nicholas Andre, allusions to, 
 96, 153, 184; notice of, 148 
 
INDEX. 
 
 265 
 
 Cramer, Nicholas, notice of, 159 
 Cranach (or Sunder), Lucas, portraits, 
 
 painting and art-work of, 158, 177 
 Cranach, Lucas, the younger, notice of, 
 
 158 
 
 Cretz, John de, 64 ; duties of, as sergeant 
 painter, 64 
 
 Crewe, Miss, 125 
 
 Crivelli, Lucrezia, allusion to, 209 
 
 Cromwell, Dorothea, portrait of, by Pene- 
 lope Cleyn, 77 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, portrait of. by S. Cooper, 
 iv. 78, 244, 245, 250, 255; checks 
 indiscriminate dispersal of art collections 
 of Charles L, 80, 81 ; purchase of 
 Raphael cartoons by, 81, 235 ; portrait 
 of, by Sir Peter Lely, 82 
 
 Crosse, Lewis, anecdote of, 99, 100 
 
 Crosse, Richard, notice of, 125 
 
 Crozat, Antoine, mention of, 220, 221 
 
 Crozat, Pierre, collections of, 220,221; 
 allusion to, 223 
 
 Cup of the Ptolemies made of sardonyx, 
 207 
 
 Damer, Mrs., work of, praised by Walpole, 
 
 124, 125 
 Uanfrie, wax portraits by, 172 
 Dante, quotation from, referring to French 
 
 school of miniaturists, 25 
 Danton, allusion to, 187 
 Darley, Mat, his etching of "The 
 
 Macaroni Miniature Painter," 116 
 Darnley, portrait of, by N. Hilliard, 250 
 Dauphin, son of Louis XV., portrait of, by 
 
 R. Bachi, 145 ; by Rouquet, 145 ; by 
 
 V. F. Elie, 146 
 Dauphine, Madame la, daughter of Louis 
 
 XV., portraits of, by Penel, 144, 145 
 David, Maxime, notice of, 148 ; allusion 
 
 to, 149, 151, 154 
 Day, allusion to, 226 
 Deacon, James, 105 
 De la Fosse, Charles, mention of, 221 
 Delmont, miniaturist, 154 
 Demosthenes, MS. in British Museum, 
 
 36 
 
 Denison, Beckett, mention of, 247 
 Denny clock by Holbein, 58 
 Denon, Baron, collection of, 527 
 
 " Descent from the Cross," wax model of, 
 
 by Sansovino, 169 
 Deschapelles, Madame de, miniature 
 
 portrait of, by Nattier, 153 
 De Troy, enamel portrait of, by Weyler, 
 
 96; allusion to, 147, 153 
 Devair, snuff-boxes by, 182, 183 
 Devereux, Lady, portrait of, by Oliver, 
 
 245 
 
 Devonshire, Duchess of, and child, portrait 
 of, by Reynolds, 107 
 
 Devonshire, Duchess of, portrait of, by 
 Lady Beauclerc, 124 
 
 Deynum, John Baptist, notice of, 159 
 
 Diana, bronze statue of, 193 ; ebony 
 statue of, at Ephesus, 201 
 
 Diamentini, 166 
 
 Dieudonne. See Chambord. 
 
 Digby, Sir Kenelm, portraits of, family 
 and friends by the Olivers, 7 r, 243, 249, 
 250 ; searches for the philosopher's 
 stone, 87 ; portraits of Lady Venetia 
 and of Lady Lucy Percy, 249 
 
 Digby, Simon, 89 
 
 Dinglinger, George Frederic, notice of, 
 161, 256 
 
 Dinglinger, Johann Melchior, notice of, 161 
 Dinglinger, Sophie, notice of, 161 
 " Dioscorides " MSS. at Vienna, 14 
 Discobolos, 201 
 D'lsraeli, mention of, 234 
 Dixon, John, work of, 86, 256 
 Dixon, Nathaniel, 86 
 Dobson, allusion to, 245 
 ' Dogmatica Panoplia,' the Vatican copy 
 of, 15 
 
 Dollinger, Hans, notice of, 178 
 Doni, Maddelena, allusion to, 209 
 Donne, Dr., portrait of, by Oliver, 255 
 Dorset, Earl of, portrait of, by Isaac Oliver, 
 
 243, 246 
 Drageoirs. See Bonbonnieres. 
 Drake, Sir Francis, tobacco brought to 
 
 England by, 180 
 Drentuet, Abraham, mention of, 172 
 Dresden snuff-boxes, 183 
 Drouais, portrait of Dauphiness by, 256 
 Drouais, Francois Hubert, notice of, 147 
 
 249 
 
 Drouais, Hubert, notice of, 147 
 Dubut, Carl Claudius, alluded to, 174 
 
 2 M 
 
2 66 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dubut, Friedrich, notice of, 174 
 Dubut, John, alluded to, 174 
 Duchastelet, miniaturist, 154 
 Duchesne, Jean Baptiste, notice of, 148 
 Duchie, Jacques, collections of, 210 
 Duckett, William, portrait of, by Zucchero, 
 62 
 
 Uucreux, Jean, notice of, 148, 149; his 
 
 portrait of Louis XVI., 149 
 Dudley, Lady, portrait of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 245 
 
 Du Guernier, 95 
 
 Du Guernier, Alexander, mentioned, 143 
 Du Guernier, Alexander, II., mentioned, 
 
 143 
 
 Du Guernier, Louis, mentioned, 143 
 Du Guernier, Pierre, mentioned, 143 
 Dumont, portrait of Madame Elizabeth 
 
 by, 256 ^ 
 Dupre - , Guillaume, mention of, 172 
 Durand, L., portraits by, 149 ; allusions 
 
 to, 96, 184 
 Diirer, Albert, allusions to, 48, 178, 229; 
 
 mention of, 157; portrait carvings of, 
 
 176, 177 
 
 Durham Book, copy of, in British Museum, 
 minute character of its ornamentation, 
 its grotesque portraiture, 18 ; Saxon 
 glossary and Northumberland dialect of, 
 19 ; binding of, 19 
 
 Durrow, Book of, quotation from, 10 
 
 Duruthy Cave, artistically incised bones 
 from, 1, 2 
 
 Duvigeon, allusion to, 181 
 
 Dying Gaul, 198 
 
 Dyonval, Paignon, drawings of, 227 
 
 Eaubonne, d', occupied thirty years on a 
 
 missal, 39 
 Echoes, collection of, 233 
 Ecman, Jean, mentioned, 143 
 Edridge, Henry, excellent work by, 121, 
 
 122 ; allusion to, 256 
 Edward the Black Prince, portrait of, 
 
 241, 242 
 
 Edward IV., portrait of, in ' Chronicles of 
 England,' 30 
 
 Edward VI., portrait of, at Wilton, not 
 by Holbein, 52, 56 ; portraits of, by 
 Stretes, 56, 57 ; portraits of, as a child, 
 
 by Holbein, 56, 57 ; portrait of, by 
 Hilliard, 60 
 
 Egley, William, notice of, 130 
 
 Egypt, early manifestations of illumina- 
 tion of manuscripts in, 11 
 
 Eleanora, portrait of, attributed to Francois 
 Clouet, 135 
 
 Elgin, Lord, his collection of Greek 
 antiquities, 228 
 
 Elgin Marbles, allusions to, 199, 227, 228, 
 231 
 
 Elie, Vincent Francois, portraits by, 146 
 
 Elizabeth, portraits of, by Hilliard, 60, 
 61, 249, 255 ; as princess, by Sir A. 
 More, 62, 256 ; by Zucchero, 62 ; cha- 
 racter of, 72 ; portrait of, by Francois 
 Clouet, 137 ; or by Jean Clouet II., 
 139 ; head gear of, 251 
 
 Elizabeth, Madame, daughter of Louis 
 XVI., portrait of, 187, 256 
 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian II., 
 portrait of, by Francois Clouet, 137 ; 
 sad death of, 137 
 
 Ellis, 107 
 
 Elstracke, 67 
 
 Enamelling, as practised by early Egyp- 
 tians, considered by some to be cavities 
 filled with glass, &c, not true enamel, 
 91 ; early portraits, partly enamelled, of 
 1 6th century — process used by Limou- 
 sin about 1 545.. 92; by Toutin in 
 1630.. 92; work by the Petitots, 93- 
 96 ; and their imitators, 95, 96 ; spurious 
 French enamels, 96, 97 ; process of, as 
 described by William Essex, 97, 98 ; 
 surpassing permanence of enamels, 99 
 
 Engelbrecht, Cornelius, mention of, 157 
 
 Engleheart, George, 117 ; character of his 
 work, 122 ; allusion to, 256 
 
 Enlomyne, use of term, 7 
 
 Erasmus, portrait of, by Pencz, at Wind- 
 sor, 56 ; mention of, 213 
 
 Eremite di Monte Senareo, L\ See 
 Stefaneschi. 
 
 Eskimo, resemblance of, to the mesolithic 
 cave-men, 2 
 
 Essex, Earl of, portrait of, by Hoskins, 
 245 
 
 Essex, William, quotation from, on process 
 
 of enamelling, 97, 98; work of, 130 
 Este, Alphonse d', allusion to, 209 
 
INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 Eugene, Prince, allusion to, 100 
 Eugenius IV., portrait of Pope, 34 
 Euphranor, allusion to, 200 
 Eusebius, ' De Evangelica preparatione,' 
 
 translation of, 39 
 Evelyn, quotation from, on Cooper's 
 
 method of taking likenesses, 83 
 
 Faber, John, 89 
 
 Fairfax, General, portrait of, by Samuel 
 
 Cooper, 83 
 Fairfax, Lady, portrait of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 245 
 
 Faithorne, William, life and work of, 71, 72 
 Falconberg, Countess of, portrait of, by 
 
 S. Cooper, 245 
 Faltz, Raymond, mention of, 171 
 Farnese bull, 198 
 Faun carrying a child, 198 
 Female beauty as indicated in miniatures, 
 
 25 I ~ 2 54 
 
 Ferrand, J. P., allusions to, 95, 142, 181 ; 
 
 sketch of his life, 141 ; enamel work 
 
 done by, 141 
 Festa, Bianca, notice of, 166, 167 
 Festa, Matilda, notice of, 166, 167 
 Fiesinger, engraver, allusion to, 149 
 Finney, Samuel, notice of, 125 
 Flamand, Francois, allusion to, 220 
 Flatman, Thomas, notice of, 85, 248 ; 
 
 portrait of, by Hales, 85 ; allusion to, 
 
 256 
 
 Flaxman, allusions to, 124, 174, 192, 230 
 Flemish art in illuminated MSS. of 15 th 
 
 century, 29, 30, 31, 32 
 Flint tools of palaeolithic men, 1,2; of 
 
 mesolithic men, 1, 2 
 Florentine School, influence of, on 14th 
 
 century illuminated MSS., 26 
 Flotner, Peter, alluded to, 177 
 Foldsone, Anne (Mrs. Mee), sketch of; 
 
 miniature work by, 123 ; mention of, 244 
 Foldsone, John, allusion to, 123 
 Fontallard, Jean Francois, notice of, 149 
 Fontana, allusion to, 228 
 Forster, Thomas, 87 
 
 Fountaine, Sir Andrew, destruction of his 
 collection of miniatures, 78, 79; sale of 
 his collection, 225 ; collections made 
 by, 228, 232 
 
 Fouquet, Jean, life and work of, 34, 35 
 Fouquet, Nicholas, enamel portrait of, 
 93. 248 
 
 Fox, wax portrait of, by Percy, 174 
 Foy, General, portrait of, 189 
 Fra Angelico, 39 
 Fragonard, 256 
 Francati, 87 
 
 Francia, Francesca, allusions to, 169, 209 
 Francis I. patronises Italian painters, 
 134, 135 ; portraits of, assigned to 
 Francois Clouet, 135, 139, 172; death 
 of, 136 
 
 Francis II., portrait of, by Janet, described 
 as Edward VI. by Holbein, 57 ; portrait 
 of, as the Dauphin Francois, attributed 
 to Francois Clouet, but probably by 
 Jean Clouet II., 139, 248 
 
 Franco Bolognese, 25, 39 
 
 Frangipani, Marquis of, 232 
 
 Frangipani scent, 232 
 
 Franks, A. W., on date of Holbein's death, 
 47, 48 
 
 Fratellini, Giovanna, portraits by, 165 
 Frederick the Great, his collection of 
 
 snuff-boxes, 182 
 Frederick the Wise, portrait of, by L. 
 
 Cranach, 177 
 Frioul, Marquis de, collection of, 207 
 Fruytiers, Philip, portrait miniaturist, 
 
 notice of, 159 
 Fiiger, Henri Frederic, his career and 
 
 excellent miniatures, 162 ; allusion to, 
 
 165 
 
 Fuseli, allusion to, 114 
 
 Gainsborough, allusions to, 108, in, 
 124, 129 
 
 Galantini, Ippolito (II Cappucino), notice 
 
 of, 165 
 Garaud, J. R, 154 
 
 Gardelle, Theodore, unlovely character of, 
 
 113, JI 4 
 Garrard, Marcus, 64 
 Garzoni, Giovanna, notice of, 164, 165 
 Gaston of Orleans, enamel portraits of, 
 
 93> 256 
 
 Gegania and the slave Clesippus, 200 
 
 Genga, allusion to, 169 
 
 Genesis, purple vellum copy of, at Vienna, 
 
 2 M 2 
 
2 6S 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 13, 14 ; the fragmentary MSS. of, in 
 British Museum, 14 
 George I., portrait of, by Sir G. Kneller, 
 
 89 
 
 Georgio, Maestro, allusion to, 209 
 Gerard of Ghent, work by, in the Grimani 
 
 breviary, 31 
 Gerbier, Sir Balthazar, life and work of, 
 
 76 ; his portrait of David Teniers and 
 
 his wife, 246 
 Ghiberto, allusion to, 169 
 Ghirlandajo, allusion to, 209 
 Gibson, Edward, 79 
 
 Gibson, Richard, allusions to, 73, 256 ; 
 
 life and work of, 79, 249 
 Gibson, William, 79 
 Giocondo, Giovanni, mention of, 213 
 Giocondo, Lisa del, allusion to, 209 
 Giordano, Sophie, notice of, 167 
 Giorgione, allusion to, 209 
 Giotto, pupil of Cimabue, 5 ; allusion to, 
 
 155 ; painting in oil tried by, 156 
 Giovanni di Bologna, mention of, 169 
 Girandoli. See Buontalenti. 
 Girodet, 154 
 
 Giunta of Pisa, allusion to, 155 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of, portrait of, in ' Chro- 
 nicles of England,' 30, 31 
 
 Gloves, collection of, 232 
 
 Godeman, the scribe of the Benedictional 
 of St. Aethelwald, 2 1 
 
 Godsalves, Holbein's portrait of the two, 
 5h 63 
 
 Godsalve, Sir John, miniature portrait of, 
 ascribed to John Betts, 63 
 
 Golchi, Peter, 64 
 
 Gonore, expeditiousness of, 154 
 
 Gonzaga, Elizabeth, allusion to, 209 
 
 Gonzaga, Frederigo, allusion to, 209 
 
 Gonzalez, allusion to, 245 
 
 " Good Shepherd," a miniature by R. Gib- 
 son, 73, 79 
 
 Gospels, purple vellum copies of, in British 
 Museum, 13 ; presented to York Cathe- 
 dral, 13.; the copy of St. Cuthbert's 
 Gospels, Lindisfarne Gospels or Dur- 
 ham Book, in British Museum, 18; the 
 Lichfield Gospels of St. Chad, 18; the 
 ' Golden Gospels ' in British Museum, 
 20 ; the Gospels found in Charlemagne's 
 tomb, 20 ; the Gospels of St. Servin de 
 
 Toulouse, 20 ; and of St. Medard de 
 Soissons, 20 ; of Canute in British 
 Museum, 22 
 
 Gossett, allusion to, 174 
 
 Goudon, mention of, 174 
 
 Goupy, Joseph, 105 
 
 Goupy, Louis, 105 
 
 Graham, Dr., 116 
 
 Grande Conde, Le, enamel portraits of, 93, 
 256 ; enamel portrait of, by Weyler, 96 
 
 Grange, David de, 79 
 
 Gratianus, allusion to, 200 
 
 Gravata. See Clovio. 
 
 Great Seal of England executed by 
 Michael Moser, 114 
 
 Greek pictorial art, Vasari's opinion of, 4 
 
 Greeks, early art excellence and patriotism 
 of the, 192 
 
 Greenhill, John, 85, 86 ; work by, 86 
 
 Gribelin, Isaac, portraits by, worked out in 
 enamel by Toutin, 92 
 
 Gribelin, Simon, the engraver of the Ra- 
 phael cartoons, 92, 93 
 
 Grien (or Griin), Hans Baldung or, 48 ; 
 portrait by, at Hampton Court assigned 
 to Holbein, 51, 158 
 
 Grimaldi, William, notice of, 125, 256; 
 mention of, 244 
 
 Grisaille, 33 
 
 Grolier, Jean, life and library of, 212-213 > 
 high value of books from his library, 213 
 
 Griin. See Grien. 
 
 Gubbio, allusion to, 228, 233 
 
 Guerin, Jean, life and work of, 149 
 
 Guido of Siena, allusion to, 155 
 
 Guiche, Comte de, life saved by a portrait 
 box, 182 
 
 Guigni, Rosso de, wax portraits by, 170 
 Guildford, Sir Henry, Holbein's portrait 
 of, 50, 51 ; portrait of, in Royal Collec- 
 tion, evidently not by Holbein, 54, 243 
 Guise, Due de, Francois de Lorraine, as- 
 sassination of, and his son, Le Balafre, 
 179, 180 
 
 Guise, Duke of, portrait of, by Francois 
 
 Clouet, 250 
 Guizot, snutf-box portraits of, 189 
 Gustavus III., portraits of, by P. A. Hall, 
 
 150 ; death of, 150 
 Gwynne, Nell, portrait of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 245 
 
INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 Hair as worn by ladies in times of Henry 
 VIII. and of Charles I., 74; treatment 
 of hair in portraits by Cooper and Cos- 
 way, 117; mode of hair dressing in 
 reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., 
 Mary, Elizabeth, 251 ; in 18th and 
 19th centuries, 252-254 
 
 Hales, anecdote of, 83 ; portrait of Flat- 
 man by, 85 
 
 Hall, John, portrait of, by Hoskins, 245 
 
 Hall, Pierre Adolphe, his career, work, 
 and portraits, 149, 150; allusions to, 
 153, 362, 165, 184, 256; portrait of 
 Princesse de Lamballe, 249 
 
 Hals, Franz, portrait of Vandyck by, 75 ; 
 teacher of Sir G. Kneller, 88 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, sale of his collec- 
 tion, 225 ; collections made by, 230 
 
 Hannibal, mention of, 195 
 
 Hans, Louis, notice of, 140 
 
 Harlowe, Mrs., portrait of, by James 
 Nixon, 120 
 
 Harmann, Mr., 226 
 
 Hassell, William, 86 
 
 Hatton, Sir Christopher, portrait of, by N. 
 
 Hilliard, 255 
 Hatton, Sir John Boling, portrait of, 56, 
 
 248 
 
 Heere, Lucas de, 48, 56, 59, 63, 248 
 Heliogabalus, practical joke by, with wax 
 
 imitations of food articles, 169 
 Hemessen, Jan van, 48 
 Henri II., ware or faience d'Oiron. See 
 
 Oiron. 
 
 Henri II., death of, 136 ; wax portrait of, 
 
 by Clouet, 139, 172, 256 
 Henri III. of France, portrait of, by 
 
 Frangois Clouet, 137 ; or by Jean 
 
 Clouet II., 139 
 Henrietta Maria, portrait of, by Vandyck, 
 
 74 ; by Hoskins, 249 ; hair as worn by, 
 
 259 
 
 Henry IV., wax portrait of, by the Dan- 
 fries, 172 ; portrait of, 242 
 
 Henry VI., portrait of, in " Chivalrie," 
 29 
 
 Henry VII., portrait of, by Hilliard, 60 
 Henry VIII., Holbein's portraits of, 51, 
 
 53. 54, 55, 243, 244, 247, 248, 250; 
 
 portrait of, by Hilliard, 60 ; by Leem- 
 
 put, 244, 245 
 
 Henry, Prince, son of James I, taste of, 
 for art, 67 
 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, portrait of, by 
 Oliver, 60 
 
 Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, portrait of, 
 
 by John Hoskins, 246 
 Herbert, George, 86 
 
 Herculaneum, papyri from, not illumi- 
 nated, 11 
 
 Hercules, bronze statuette of, by Lysippus, 
 195 ; the statue found in Pompey's 
 theatre, 197 
 
 Heriot, George, 67 
 
 Harlen, Frederic, mention of, 157 
 
 Hermaphrodite, statue of, 198 
 
 Herrera, Francesco de, 39 
 
 Herz, Claude de, portrait of Charles IX. 
 
 by, 136, 137 
 Hieronium, 64 
 
 Hilliard, Lawrence, artistic work of, 61 
 
 Hilliard, Nicholas, life and work of, 59- 
 61 ; his portrait of Earl of Oxford, 59 ; 
 style of his miniatures, 59, 60 ; por- 
 traits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., 
 Edward VI., and Jane Seymour, by, 
 60, 243 ; also of Elizabeth, 60, 61, 249, 
 259; the Due d'Alengon, 60; painting 
 of the Spanish Armada, 61 ; patent 
 right to reproduce royal portraits granted 
 to, 60, 61 ; supposed teacher of Oliver, 
 62; allusions to, 64, 67, 100, 108, in, 
 246 ; pioneer of portrait miniature, 89 ; 
 portraits of Lady Shirley, Protector 
 Somerset, 245; of himself, 245, 250; 
 of Darnley and Lady Arabella Stuart, 
 250; Sir Christopher Hatton, 255 ; and 
 of James II., 255 
 
 Hilperich, his collection, 206 
 
 Hippocrates, 214 
 
 Hirschvogel, Augustin, carved portraits 
 by, 177 
 
 History of miniature art, novelty of, v ; 
 special character of the illustrations, viii ; 
 orthochromatic photography now first 
 successfully applied to coloured minia- 
 tures, viii-x ; difficulty of reproducing 
 palaeolithic art, ix; and of selecting 
 from illuminated manuscripts, ix, x 
 
 Hoadley (nee Curtis), Mrs., 102 
 
 Hoffman, allusion to, 183 
 
 Hogarth, funeral of Vanaken by, 106 ; 
 
27c 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 allusion to, 108, 252; on the relation 
 of artists to the age, 110; assisted by 
 Sullivan, 122 
 
 Holbein, Hans, life and work of, 45-58 ; 
 biographies of, 46 ; date of birth, 46 ; 
 career, 46-47 ; date of death, 47, 48 ; 
 large number of pictures wrongly as- 
 signed to, 48 ; contemporary painters 
 with, 48 ; which Lucas was his master 
 in miniature? 48, 49; evidence of his 
 having painted miniatures, 49, 50 ; por- 
 traits painted by, 50 ; portraits wrongly 
 attributed to, such as Hollar's "Anna 
 Roper," 50 ; Baldung's portrait, signed 
 " EB," at Hampton Court, 51 ; a por- 
 trait of Henry VIII., at Hampton Court, 
 and many portraits of Henry VIII. 
 copied by inferior artists, 51 ; minia- 
 tures of Henry VIII. in possession of 
 the Duke of Buccleuch and of the 
 Queen, 53, 54, 243, 244; of Lady 
 Audley, at Windsor ; of Sir Henry Guild- 
 ford, in Royal Collection, 54 ; of the 
 two sons of the Duke of Suffolk, 54, 55, 
 60, 243 ; portraits assigned to, at Loan 
 Collection at South Kensington in 
 1865. . 55 ; possible artists of pictures 
 ascribed to, 55, 56; his portrait of 
 Edward VI. as a child, 56, 57 ; talents 
 of, as a modeller and designer, 57, 58 ; 
 the " Seymour Cup," by, 58 ; the 
 Denny clock and mantelpiece, 58 ; 
 comparison of, with Vandyck, 74 ; allu- 
 sions to, 105, 110, 122; influence of, 
 on portrait-painting, i 1 1 , 158; portrait- 
 carving by, 176; portrait of Lord 
 Sudeley by, 245 ; of a lady, by, 245, 
 246 ; of Alicia, wife of Sir T. More, 
 246 ; of Jane Seymour or Anne Boleyn, 
 246, 255; Duke of Richmond, 246; 
 of Queen Mary, 246 ; of Henry VIII., 
 in Earl Spencer's collection, 247, 248 ; 
 of John Calvin and himself, 248 ; 
 of Catherine of Arragon, 250 ; of 
 Henry VIII., by, 250 
 
 Hollar, W., his portrait of Anna Roper, 
 51 ; engraving of portrait of Richard II. 
 by, 241 
 
 Holmes, James, work of, 128 
 
 " Holy Family," by Oliver, 62 
 
 Homer, copy of, written with gold letters 
 
 on purple vellum for Maximinus the 
 
 younger, 13 
 Hone, Horace, 115, 256 
 Hone, Nathaniel, allusions to, 114, 123, 
 
 256; career and character of, 115; 
 
 antagonism to Reynolds, 115; his 
 
 picture of the Conjuror, 115 ; house of, 
 
 in Pall Mall, 116 
 Honthorst, mention of, 215 
 Hoogstraten, Samuel van, 85 
 Hornebolt, Gerard, 49, 55 
 Hornebolt, Lucas, 48, 49, 55, 158, 243 
 Hornebolt, Susannah, 49, 50, 55, 158 
 Horses depicted by cave-men of meso- 
 
 lithic period, 2 
 Hortensius, allusions to, 193, 198 
 Hoskins, John, work done by, 76, 77 ; 
 
 allusion to his son, 77 ; portrait of, 100 ; 
 
 allusions to, 124, 245, 248, 256; por- 
 traits by, 245, 246, 249 
 Houbraken, 85, 250 
 
 Hours, Book of, in Ashburnham collection, 
 28 ; by Fouquet, 35 ; the Sforza, 39 ; 
 the St. Croy, 39 
 
 " Hours of St. Louis," in Bibl. Nationale, 
 
 2 5 
 
 Houston alluded to, 126 
 Howard, allusion to, 256 
 Huaud, 95 
 
 Hudson, Thomas, teacher of Reynolds, 
 102 ; allusions to, 106, 107, 111 
 
 Humphrey, Ozias, brilliancy of his colour- 
 ing, 118; career of, 118, 119; portrait 
 of, by Romney, 119; allusions to, 120, 
 132, 256 
 
 Hunter, John, portrait of, by Reynolds, 
 108 
 
 Hurter, John Henry, allusions to, 244, 
 248 
 
 Hyde Register in British Museum, 22 
 
 Iconoclasticism defined,. 3 
 
 Iliad, fragmentary MSS. of, at Milan, 14 
 
 Illuminare, use of term, 7 
 
 Illuminated Manuscripts, high art shown 
 in those of the early Christian Church, 
 3, 4 ; connection of, with art of minia- 
 ture, 6 ; various terms used for art of 
 illuminating— alluminar, enlomyne, lim- 
 nen, limnings, 7 ; study of, fascinating 
 
INDEX. 
 
 yet difficult, 8 ; art of, nourished by- 
 religious devotion, 8-10 ; exalted nature 
 of art of missal painting, 10, 11; origin of, 
 in the East ; early traces of, in Egyptian 
 papyri of 18th dynasty ; probable spread 
 of, from Egypt to India, Greece and 
 Rome, 1 1 ; the papyri at Herculaneum 
 not illuminated, 11 ; use of gold, silver, 
 and purple stained vellum in 3rd 
 century, 12, 13; the Codex purpureo- 
 argenteus of Ulphilas, at Upsala, exe- 
 cuted in 6th century, 13 ; purple stained 
 vellum copies of Genesis, Gospels, and 
 Prayer Book, 13 ; the ' Dioscorides,' 
 and Greek Genesis, at Vienna ; the 
 fragments of the Iliad at Milan; the 
 fragments of the fine old Genesis in 
 British Museum, 14 ; the three Vatican 
 Virgils, 14; Codex Romanus, 14, 15; 
 Byzantine MSS., 15 ; the Vatican Book of 
 Joshua, 15; and ' Dogmatica Panoplia,' 
 15, 16 ; indications of Eastern influence 
 in Byzantine illumination, 16 ; probable 
 spread of the art from Byzantium, 16, 
 
 1 7 ; and its development of, amongst 
 Arabic illuminators, 16, 17 ; special 
 character of the art as developed in 
 Ireland, 17 ; and later at Lindisfarne, 
 
 18 ; examples of Irish work, viz., the 
 Book of Kells, and the Durham Book, 
 18; spread of the Irish interlacement 
 to the Continent, 19; Carlovingian 
 school, 19, 20; character of MSS. 
 produced by it, 19, 20 ; inferior state of 
 its miniature art, 20 ; school represented 
 by the ' Golden Gospels ' in British 
 Museum, the Gospels found in Charle- 
 magne's tomb now in the Louvre, and 
 other Gospels and Bibles, 20 ; the 
 Anglo-Saxon school, 20-22; excellence 
 of its work, 20, 21 ; chief features of, 
 2 1 ; Benedictional of St. Aethehvald 
 described ; the Utrecht Psalter de- 
 scribed, 21; other illustrations of this 
 school, comprising the Canute Gospels, 
 the Cottonian Psalter, Lovel Book, the 
 Winchester Bible, showing the progres- 
 sive stages of writing and illuminating, 
 22; Sherborne missal, 22, 28; the 
 Lombardic school, 23 ; the Italian 
 school of nth and 12th century, 23; 
 
 Winchester MSS., 12 th century, in 
 British Museum, with Italian paintings, 
 23; examples of Cologne school, 12th 
 century ; ' Lives of the Martyrs ' and a 
 Bible, 23; French MSS. of 12th century, 
 24 ; the large writing and miniatures of 
 the 12th century replaced by the small 
 writing and miniatures of the 13th 
 century ; new features, such as a 
 coloured background, introduced into 
 the 13th century work, 24, 25 ; and 
 later in the century miniatures became 
 prominent in French MSS., 25; the 
 ' Hours of St. Louis,' in Bibl. Nationale, 
 25 ; 13th century Psalter of Society of 
 Antiquaries, 25, 26; English illumina- 
 tion at its best about the end of 13th 
 century, 26 ; Tenison Psalter, the Bible 
 in the Royal Collection (J. D. 1), Queen 
 Mary's Psalter, 26 ; work of 14th 
 century, 26-28 ; influence of the Flo- 
 rentine school, 26; introduction and 
 development of the ivy-leaf pattern, 
 27 ; Prayer Book of Due d'Anjou, 
 27, 28 ; multiplication of MS. secular 
 works, 27 ; and of caricatures on sacred 
 books, 27 ; grotesque perspective, 27 ; 
 art encouraged by Charles V., Duke 
 Jean de Berri, and Charles VI. of 
 France, 28 ; Salmon's ' Demandes et 
 reponses,' copy of Boccacio's ' De Claris 
 Mulieribus,' 28; works of 15th century, 
 28-36 ; decline of English and supe- 
 riority of French art, 28 ; the Bedford 
 Missal, in British Museum, 28 ; Prayer 
 Book of Henry VI., in British Museum, 
 28; the Shrewsbury Book, 28, 29 ; ' flam- 
 boyant' style, 29; 'Comedies of Ter- 
 ence,' with flamboyant borders, 29; 
 Flemish art gradually gains supremacy 
 over French, 29, 30 ; ' Book of Hours ' 
 (Add. MS. 18855), in British Museum, 
 
 29 ; exquisiteness of Flemish miniatures, 
 
 30 ; ' Chronicles of England,' with 
 supposed frontispiece by Van Eyck, 
 30 ; the Griniani Breviary, 3 [ ; ' Ro- 
 mance of the Rose,' by Lorris and 
 Clopinal, 31 ; Breviary of Isabella of 
 Castille, 31 ; alliances of Royal House 
 of Spain and Portugal, 32, 38 ; Spanish 
 MS., Commentary on the Apocalypse, 
 
2 7 2 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 32 ; Les Lois d'Alfonso, 32 ; German 
 work, 32; the ' Camaieu Gris' or 
 'Grisaille' miniatures in monochrome, 
 32, 33 ; Psalter of Due de Berri ; In- 
 stitution of the Order of the Holy 
 Ghost, 33 ; ' Offices of the Virgin,' the 
 Harleian MS., No. 625, in British Mu- 
 seum, 33 ; ' Les Miracles de Notre Dame,' 
 
 33 ; 15th-century craze for illuminating 
 all documents, 33, 34; the miniature 
 artists of early. 34-36 ; Fouquet's MSS. 
 of Josephus, 35 ; Livy, 35, 36 ; Perreal's 
 MSS. of Bible at Oxford, 36 ; work 
 of 16th and 17th centuries, 36-44; 
 advances made by the Italian illumi- 
 nators, 36, 37 ; Demosthenes, in British 
 Museum, 36 ; ' Juvenal ' in British Mu- 
 seum, 37 ; volume of fragments in British 
 Museum ; MSS. illuminated by Bordoni ; 
 and the Florence MSS. of about 1500, 
 37 ; ornate style of Girolamo and Fran- 
 cesco dai Libri, and of Giulio Clovio, 37 ; 
 ' Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistle to 
 the Romans,' 38 ; MSS. on Alchemy 
 (1582), in British Museum ; the St. 
 Croy ' Book of Hours ' (1601) ; a book 
 by Francesco de Herrera, 39 ; Prayer 
 Books of Louis XIV. and of Madame 
 de la Valliere, 39 ; the Great Missal in 
 the Rouen Library, 39 ; miniature 
 portraiture as influenced by portraits in, 
 154, 155 
 
 Illuminated printed books ; early illumi- 
 nated printed books, 38 ; ' History of 
 the Deeds of Duke Francesco Sforza,' 
 38, 39 ; Sforza ' Book of Hours,' 39 ; 
 the • Pliny Natural History ' in Bodleian 
 Library ; translation of Eusebius's ' De 
 Evangelica preparatione,' 39 
 
 Infante, Madame, daughter of Louis XV., 
 portrait of, by Penel, 144, 145 
 
 Interlacing of intricate character a marked 
 feature of barbaric art, 17,18 
 
 Institution, The, of the Order of the Holy 
 Ghost, 33 
 
 Ireland, early learning and art in, 17 ; 
 characteristics of the Irish illuminated 
 MSS., 17 ; spread of the Irish interlace- 
 ment to the Continent, 19 
 
 Isabey, Jean Baptiste, allusions to, 147, 
 149, 153, 154, 167, 188; career of; 
 
 portraits and work by, 150, 151, 
 256 
 
 Ivory, first introduction of, as a basis for 
 
 miniature portraits, 90, 109 
 Ivy-leaved pattern in MSS., 27, 29 
 
 Jabach, Evrard, allusions to, 217, 224; 
 
 his collections, 219, 220 
 Jacopo, Don, of Florence, 40 
 Jacques, Nicolas, portrait of the King of 
 
 the Belgians by, 154 
 Jallus, Asinius, allusion to, 194 
 James I., portrait of, by Hilliard, 60, 
 
 2 55 ') by Oliver, 62 ; character of, 66, 
 
 67, 72 
 
 James II., portrait of, by Anne Killigrew, 
 
 86; partiality of, for art, 87; portrait 
 
 of, by Sir G. Kneller, 88 
 Jamesone, George, work of, 77 ; a pupil 
 
 of Rubens, 77 
 Jane, Queen, of Naples, portrait of, 33 
 Janet. See Clouet, Francois II. 
 Jansen, Cornelius, work of; his miniature 
 
 of Milton, 67 ; allusions to, 72, 245, 
 
 249 
 
 Jerome, St., protests against the luxury of 
 gold-lettered illuminated manuscripts, 13 
 
 Jervas, his inferiority, 100, 101, 102; al- 
 lusion to, in; house of, in Pall Mall, 
 116 
 
 Joaquet, notice of his box work, 183 
 John the Baptist, St., head of, by Oliver, 
 62 ; carving relating to, attributed to 
 Albert Diirer, 177; by Georg Schweigger, 
 177 
 
 Johnson, Dr., alluded to, 124 
 
 Jones, Charlotte, notice of, 126 
 
 Jones, Inigo, arrival in England, 66 ; 
 
 designs a palace for James I., 67 ; 
 
 allusions to, 76, 215 
 Josephine, portrait of, by Androli, 167 
 Josephus, MS. copy of French translation 
 
 of, by Fouquet, 35 
 ' Joshua, Book of,' the Vatican copy, 15 
 Jouvenet, mentioned, 144 
 ' Judgment of Brutus,' by Sir VV. Ross, 
 
 129 
 
 Justinian, present church of St. Sophia, 
 
 Byzantium, erected by, 12 
 Juvenal Manuscript in British Museum, 37 
 
INDEX. 
 
 273 
 
 Kauffmann, Angelica, allusions to, 115, 
 123 
 
 Keisar, AVilliam de, life of, 87 
 
 Kelien, Lucas, allusion to, 178 
 
 Kells, Book of, 18; marvellously minute 
 
 interlaced work of, 18 
 Kildare, Earl and Countess of, portrait of, 
 
 ascribed to Holbein, 55 
 Killigrew, Mrs. Anne, work of, 86 ; her 
 
 portrait of herself, 86 
 King, Dr. John, 64 
 
 Klein tgel or Kleinglet, mention of, 181 
 Kneller, Sir Godfrey, allusions to, 79, 99, 
 107, in, 242, 243, 249; the leading 
 portrait-painter of reign of William III., 
 87, 88 ; his portrait of Charles II., 87, 
 88 ; and other sovereigns, 88 ; his high 
 merit, but gross carelessness, 89 
 Knight, Charles, alluded to, 126 
 'Knock-out,' the, of auction-room, 238, 
 241 ; method of procedure of, 238- 
 241 ; proposed remedies, 239 
 Kratzer, Nicholas, Holbein's portrait of, 
 
 Kugler, Madame, 96 
 
 Laborde, mention of, 226 
 
 Lad re, song by, 187 
 
 La Faye, mention of, 220, 221 
 
 Lafayette, allusion to, 187, 233 
 
 Lafrensen, Nicolas (Lavreince), notice of, 
 
 151, 152 ; exquisiteness and high prices 
 
 of his paintings, 152 
 Lagrene'e, A. F., miniaturist, 154 
 Lagrende, L. J. F., 154 
 Lamballe, Princess of, portrait of, by Hall, 
 
 249 
 
 Lambert, J., a copyist of Petitot enamels, 
 96 
 
 Laniere, Nicholas, portrait of, by Van- 
 dyck, 75 
 
 ' Laocoon,' wax model of, by Sansovino, 
 Bernguetta, Zachi, and II Vecchio, 169 
 
 Largilliere, miniatures by, 153 
 
 Lavreince. See Lafrensen. 
 
 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, collection of, 
 227 
 
 Lazzari, Antonio, 166 
 Le Bel, allusion to, 183 
 
 Le Blond, James Christopher, notice of, 
 160 
 
 Le Brun, allusion to, 183 
 
 Leemput, Remigius von, 244 
 
 Legare", Gilles, mention of, 248 
 
 Lehrner, alluded to, 173 
 
 Lely, Sir Peter, 79 ; life and work of, 82 ; 
 family name Van der Faes, 82 ; Pepys 
 on, 84 ; pupils of, 84, 85, 89 ; allusions 
 to, in, 251 
 
 Lens, A. B., 103 
 
 Lens, Bernard, 103 
 
 Lens, Bernard (son), 103 
 
 Lens, Bernard (grandson), 103 
 
 Lens, P., 103 
 
 Leoni, Leone, allusion to, 169 
 
 Leopold, King of Belgium, portrait of, by 
 
 N. Jacques, 154 
 Leopold, William, Archduke, allusion to, 
 
 224 
 
 Lespiniere, miniaturist, 154 
 
 Le Sueur, allusion to, 183 
 
 Le Tellier, allusions to, 96, 154, 184 
 
 Leyden, Lucas van, allusions to, 48, 49 ; 
 
 mention of, 167, 178 
 Liberale da Verona, 39 
 Libri, Francesco dai, 37 
 Libri, Girolamo dai, 37 
 Licinio (II Pordenone), Giovanni Antonio, 
 
 his life and portrait painting, 163 
 Licinius, mention of, 203, 204 
 Liesville, M. de, his collection of political 
 
 snuff-boxes, 190 
 Limn, limnen, use of term, 7 
 Limning, term used for small paintings by 
 
 Heydock and others, 7 
 Limousin, Leonard, his enamel pictures of 
 
 the twelve Apostles, and mode of pro- 
 ducing them, 92 
 Lindesey, Robert de, 25 
 Liotard, John Stephen, sketch of, 104 ; 
 
 allusion to, 184; portrait of Maria 
 
 Theresa by, 256 
 ' Lives of the Martyrs,' 12th-century MSS., 
 
 23 
 
 Livin of Antwerp, work by, in the Grim- 
 
 ani Breviary, 31 
 Livy, MS. copy of French translation by 
 
 Fouquet, 35 
 Lockie, portrait of Dr. John King by, 64 
 Lockner, Stephen, art work of, 155 
 
 2 N 
 
2 74 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Loggan, David, 86, 87 
 
 Lombardi, Alfonso, wax portrait medal- 
 lions by, 170 
 
 Lombardi, G., allusion to, 167 
 
 Longhi, Giuseppe, notice of, 166 
 
 Lorris, Guillaume de, a co-writer of the 
 ' Romance of the Rose,' 31 
 
 Louis, King of Tarento, portrait of, 33 
 
 Louis XII., wax portrait of, by the Dan- 
 fries, 172 ; allusion to, 209 
 
 Louis XIV., portraits of, by Petitot, 51, 
 96 ; by Sir G. Kneller, 89 ; patronises 
 Petitot the father, 94 ; portrait of, by 
 Weyler, 96 ; by Louis de Chatillon, 
 141 ; by unnamed artists, 142 ; by 
 Mademoiselle de la Boissiere, 142; by 
 F. Bruckmann, 142 ; by E. S. Cheron, 
 144 ; by J. Verselin, 145 ; Le Brun, 
 145 ; in wax, by G. Benoist, 172, 173 ; 
 by F. Dubut, 174 ; his hatred of tobacco ; 
 his portrait boxes, 180 ; Jabach's prints 
 and pictures bought by, 220 
 
 Louis XV., enamel portrait of, by Louis 
 de Chatillon, 141 ; by Mademoiselle de 
 la Boissiere, 142 ; by J. B. Masse", 144, 
 183 ; by Madame Maubert and Oudry, 
 144; by Jean Prevost, 145 ; by Raphael 
 Bachi, 145 : by Rouquet, 145 ; by N. 
 Venevault, 145 ; by V. F. Elie, 146 ; 
 by Welper, 146 ; by Mademoiselle 
 Brisson, 146 ; by Cazaubon, 147 ; by 
 L. Durand, 149; wax portrait of, by P. 
 Merard, 172 
 
 Louis XVI., portraits of, by F. Bourgoin, 
 147, 148 ; by J. Ducreux, 149 ; by Jean 
 Gudrin, 149; by P. A. Hall, 150; by 
 Jean Sicardi, 153; by Violet, 154; in- 
 scriptions relating to, 186 ; portrait of, 
 on the " funeral " snuff-box, 187 • allusion 
 to, 233 
 
 Louis XVI., Queen of, portrait of, 187 ; as 
 
 also of the Dauphin and Dauphin ess, 
 
 his children, 187 
 Louis XVII., allusion to, 233 
 Louis XVIII., portrait of, by Isabey, 151 ; 
 
 portraits of, on snuff-boxes, 189; his 
 
 constitutional charter, 189 
 Louis Philippe, portrait of, by Isabey, 
 
 Louise, Madame, portrait of, by V. F. 
 Elie, 146 ; by Cazaubon, 147 
 
 Lucan, Lady, Walpole's complimentary 
 
 notice of the work of, 123, 124 
 Lucidel, Nicholas, 48 
 Lucullus, collection of, 196-198 
 Ludovic, Count, 23 
 Luminen, use of term, 7 
 Luther, allusion to, 158 
 Luxeuil, Irish illuminated MSS. at, 19 
 Lyne, 64 
 
 Lysippus, his statuette of Hercules, 195, 
 202 
 
 Lysistratus, wax portraits by, 168, 169, 
 200 
 
 Mabuse, Jan de, 48, 53 
 
 " Macaroni Miniature Painter," nickname 
 
 of Richard Cosway, 116 
 Mailly, Jacques de, allusion to, 153, 
 
 183 
 
 Mammoth figured by cave-men of meso- 
 
 lithic period, 2 
 Mamurra, mention of, 203 
 Mantegna, allusion to, 209 
 Mappin, mention of, 234 
 Marat, allusion to, 187 
 Maratti, Carlo, allusion to, 160 
 ' March to Finchley,' by Luke Sullivan, 
 
 122 
 
 Margaret of Anjou, portrait of, in ' Chi- 
 valrie,' 29 
 
 Marguerite of Navarre, miniature of, pos- 
 sibly by Clouet, 134, 139, 256 
 
 Maria Theresa of Hungary, portrait of, by 
 Liotard, 256 
 
 Marie Antoinette, allusion to, 148, 149 ; 
 portrait of, by F. Campana, 148 ; by 
 Drouais, 249 
 
 Marie Therese, Queen of Louis XIV. ; wax 
 portrait of, by Dubut, 174 
 
 Mariette, Pierre Jean, allusion to, 220, 
 221; character of, 223; literary works 
 by, 223, 224; and collection of draw- 
 ings, 224 
 
 Marlborough, Duchess of, portrait of, by 
 
 Petitot the son, 95 
 Marlborough, Duke of, allusion to, 100 ; 
 
 portrait of, by Bosch, 160; sale of his 
 
 collection, 225 
 Marlborough gems, 73, 74 
 Marmocchino, Giovanna, notice of, 165 
 
INDEX. 
 
 275 
 
 Marolles, Michel de, his print collections 
 
 and catalogues, 219 
 Maron, allusion to, 167 
 Marvell, Andrew, portrait of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 246 
 
 Mary Louise, portrait of, by Isabey, 253 
 Mary of Modena, portrait of, by Anne 
 
 Killigrew, 86 
 Mary, Queen, portrait of, by Sir A. More, 
 
 62 ; by Holbein, 246 ; portrait of, 
 
 256 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots, portrait of, by Hil- 
 liard, 60, 100, 255 ; by Zucchero, 62 ; 
 as altered by Crosse, 99, 100 ; by Janet 
 (Clouet), 100, 248, 250; false hair of, 
 251 
 
 Mary, Queen of William III., portrait of, 
 by Sir G. Kneller, 89 ; miniature of, on 
 ivory, 90 
 
 Masse, Jean Baptiste, notice of, miniature 
 portraits by, 144, 183, 184, 185 
 
 Masson, Richard, notice of, 140 
 
 Matsys, Quintin, 48 
 
 Matthieu, Jean Adams, notice of, 144 
 
 Maubert, Madame, miniature portraits by, 
 144 
 
 Mayer, Joseph, mention of, 233, 234 
 
 Mayerne, Turquet de, 93 
 
 Maynard, Sir John, portrait of, by S. 
 Cooper, 245 
 
 Mazzarini, Giuglio, career and collections 
 of, 216-218; the Mazarin library, 218; 
 allusion to, 224 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo de, wax portraits of, 
 169; allusion to, 209 
 
 Medicis, Catherine de, portrait of, attri- 
 buted to Francois Clouet, probably by 
 Jean Clouet II., 39; allusion to, 232; 
 portrait of, by B., 250 
 
 Medicis, Francois de, wax portrait of, by 
 Cellini, 170 
 
 Mee, Mrs. See Foldsone, Anne. 
 
 Melancthon, allusion to, 158 
 
 Melder, Gerard, notice of, 160 
 
 Melem, Hans von, allusions to, 48, 158 
 
 Melfort, Lord, 87 
 
 Meller, Wenceslas, mention of, 171 
 
 Melpomene, statue of, 197 
 
 Mending, Hans, work by, in the Grimani 
 
 Breviary, 31 ; mention of, 157 
 Memmi, Simone, 39 
 
 Mengs, Antonio Raffaelle, notice and art 
 work of, 160 ; allusion to, 167 
 
 Mengs, Ishmael, allusion to, 160, 161 
 
 Merard, Pierre, noticed, 173 
 
 Mere's ' Wits' Commonwealth ' quoted, 64 
 
 Merian, Matthew, alluded to, 159 
 
 Mericci, allusion to, 166 
 
 Mesolithic man, culture and miniature art 
 of, 1, 2 ; marvellous truthfulness of his 
 animal portraiture, 2 ; muscular de- 
 velopment and unclothed state of, 2 ; 
 identified by some with the Eskimo, 2 ; 
 portrait of, as portrayed by, 2 
 
 Meteyard, Miss, life of Wedgwood by, 234 
 
 Meyer, Jeremiah, character of his work, 
 114 ; R. Collins, a pupil of, 122 
 
 Mielich, Hans, 48 
 
 Mieris, William, allusion to, 159 
 
 Mignard, allusions to, 141, 153 
 
 Milan, Irish illuminated MSS. at, 19 
 
 Milon, shop of, 202 
 
 Milton, portrait of, by Jansen, 67 
 
 Miniatura, originally equivalent to rubric, 
 5 ; later applied to small portraits by 
 Horace Walpole and others, 7 ; diffi- 
 culty of defining what is a miniature. 
 89 
 
 Miniature art, history of, hitherto un- 
 written, v ; imperfectness of, v, viii ; 
 difficulty and uselessness of noticing 
 every miniaturist, v, vi ; inferior ar- 
 tists best forgotten, vi, x ; special 
 character of the illustrations, viii-x ; 
 method of selecting portraits, x ; plan 
 of work, 6, 7 
 Miniature portraits, superiority of, over 
 those of full size, vi-viii ; and over large 
 statues, vii ; method of selecting, x 
 Mirabeau, allusion to, 187 
 Miracles de Notre Dame, les, 33 
 Mirbel, Madame de, alluded to, 148, 153, 
 
 154 ; notice of, 152 
 Missal painting, term used for all illu- 
 minated religious MSS., liturgical and 
 otherwise, 9. See Illuminated Manu- 
 scripts. 
 
 Mithridates the Great, sardonyx cup of, 
 207 
 
 Modelling in wax, 168-174; antiquity of 
 the art, 168, 169; the accursed wax 
 models of sorcerers, 171, 172 ; and of 
 
 2 N 2 
 
276 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 witches, 172 ; inferiority of the English 
 
 in, 174; art almost lost, 174 
 Monastery of Arnstein, 23 
 Monk, General, portraits of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 78, 243 ; and Sir Peter Lely, 82 
 Monmouth, Duke of, portrait of, by S. 
 
 Cooper, 78, 243 
 Montaiglon, M. de, 224 
 Montalivet, snuff-box portraits by, 189 
 Montarsy, Pierre de, mounted boxes made 
 
 by, 141, 181 
 Montgolfier, portrait of, 187 
 Moor, Karelde, allusion to, 159 
 Morand alluded to, 173 
 More, Sir Antonio, 48, 59; life and work 
 
 of, 62 ; his portraits of Queens Mary 
 
 and Elizabeth, 62, 256; and of Albert 
 
 VII. of Austria, 250 
 More, Sir John, Holbein's portrait of, 51 
 More, Sir Thomas, Holbein's portrait of, 
 
 50, 51; copies and drawings of, 50; 
 
 portrait of his wife Alicia, ascribed to 
 
 Holbein, 55, 246 
 Mosaics of Italy in early Middle Ages, 4 
 Moser, Mary, 114 
 
 Moser, Michael, career and work of, 114 
 Mosnier, J. S., notice of, 154 
 Mummius, allusion to, 225 
 Murillo, allusions to, 121, 227 
 Murrhine, probably a glass, 201 ; enor- 
 mous prices given for articles in, 201 
 Musson, allusion to, 184 
 Musurus, Marc, mention of, 213 
 Myron, allusions to, 192, 200, 201, 202 
 Mys, allusion to, 200 
 
 Nanteuil, Robert, a teacher of Faithorne, 
 71; portraits in "plumbago" by, 87; 
 mention of, 248 
 
 Napoleon, connection of Isabey with, 150, 
 151; portrait of, by Longhi, 166; 
 Ardroli, Isabey and Aubrey, 167, 256 ; 
 Saint, 167; box portraits of, 188; allu- 
 sion to, 233 
 
 Napoleon III., portrait of, 190 
 
 Nattier, Jean Mark, miniatures by, 153, 
 249 
 
 Navagero, Andre', mention of, 213 
 Nelson, Lord, hero-worship of, 233 
 Neolithic men, arts of, 2 
 
 Netscher, Gaspard, mention of, 86 ; por- 
 trait of William III. and his Queen by, 
 248 
 
 Neuberger, Daniel, notice of, 171 
 Newton, Sir William, allusion to, 129 
 Nicot, tobacco snuff sent to France by, 180 
 Nixon, James, work of, 120 
 Nollekens, allusion to, 115 
 Nonius, opal of, 197 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, Holbein's portrait of, 51 
 Nottingham, Charles Howard, Earl of, 
 
 portrait of, by Zucchero, 62 
 Nuremberg a great centre of sculpturing 
 
 and carving, 175 
 
 Oderigi of Agobbio, 25, 39 
 
 Oil painting, first discovery of, 156 
 
 Oiron, faience d', 229 
 
 Oldys, lines on Flatman by, 85 
 
 Olet, Andrew, mention of, 242 
 
 Oliver, Isaac, excellence of his portrait 
 miniatures, 60 ; portraits of Henry, 
 Prince of Wales, 60 ; and of Sir Philip 
 Sidney by, 60, 62, 243, 246 ; life and 
 work of, 61-62 ; oil-portraits by, 62 ; of 
 himself, wife, and children, 62, 243 ; St. 
 John Baptist, Holy Family, T. Caven- 
 dish, James I., 62 ; allusions to, 64, 67, 
 100, 109, 110, in, 124, 249, 255 ; will 
 of, 68, 69 ; date of burial, 69 ; style of, 
 70, 71 ; Digby portraits by, 71, 243, 
 249 ; of Lady Shirley by, 245 ; of Earl 
 of Dorset, 243, 246 ; and of Lady 
 Arabella Stuart by, 249 
 
 Oliver, Peter, allusions to, 67, 68, 99, 100, 
 124, 125; his copy of Raphael's 'St. 
 George ; ' ' Burial of Christ,' by Isaac 
 Oliver, finished by, 68 ; difficulties as 
 to dates assigned to, 68 ; burial and 
 will of, 69 ; date of burial, 69 ; visit of 
 Charles II. to his widow ; work of, 70, 
 71; Digby portraits by, 71, 250; por- 
 trait of himself and wife, 249 
 
 Opal of Nonius, 197 
 
 Opie, John, assistant to Humphrey, 119 
 
 Opus Anglicum, 20-22 
 
 Orlando, Antonio, his ' Abecedario pit- 
 torico,' 224 
 
 Orleans collection, sale of, 225, 226 
 history of the pictures in, 226 
 
INDEX. 
 
 277 
 
 Orley, Richard van, notice of, 144 
 Orsi alluded to, 173, 174 
 Orsino, wax bust of a girl attributed to, 
 169 
 
 Ottley, Young, allusion to, 226, 227 
 Oudry, allusion to, 96 ; enamel portraits 
 by, 144 
 
 Ouwater, Albert van, mention of, 157 
 
 Painting, revival of, with Cimabue, 4 ; 
 
 progress of, from classicalism through 
 
 symbolism to conventional realism, 9 
 Painting in little, term used for small 
 
 paintings by Pepys, 7 
 Palaeolithic man, ignorance as to his 
 
 nature, 1 
 
 Palimpsests, 42 ; imperfectly erased writ- 
 ings on old, 42, 43 ; restoration of 
 original texts, 42, 43 ; in British 
 Museum, 43 ; re-used, 43 
 
 Palissy, Bernard, allusions to, 228, 229 
 
 Palmer, Miss (Lady Thomond), work of, 
 124 
 
 Papiria, 198 
 
 Parchment, short history of, 42 ; destruc- 
 tion of MSS. on old, owing to scarcity 
 of material, 43 
 
 Pasquier, Pierre, allusions to, 96, 153, 
 188 ; notice of; excellent enamels by, 
 i5 2 
 
 Pass, De, family, 67 
 Pass, Simon de, 61, 64 
 Passot, 154 
 
 Pastorino, wax portraits by, 170 
 
 Pasture (or Weyden), Roger de la, mention 
 
 of, 156, 157 
 Patin, his life of Holbein, 46 
 Paullus, mention of, 202 
 Payne, James, allusion to, 119 
 ' Peace of Munster,' by Terburg, 227 
 Peacham, on rules of painting, ic8, 109 
 Peake, Sir Robert, 64, 65, 67 
 Pearl, large, belonging to Charles I., 81 
 Pellegrini, allusions to, 166, 221 
 Pembroke, Earl of, portrait of, by Oliver, 
 
 255 
 
 Pencz, Georg, 48, 56 ; portrait of Eras- 
 mus at Windsor, by, 5 6 
 
 Penel, enamel portraits by, 144, 145 ; 
 allusions to, 154, 184 
 
 Pentateuch, the Ashburnham, 15 ; Italian 
 
 miniatures therein, 15 
 Pepys, Samuel, extract from, relating to 
 
 Cooper, 82, 83 ; portrait of his wife, by 
 
 Cooper, 83 ; portrait of, by Hales ; 
 
 remarks on Sir Peter Lely by, 84 
 Percy, wax portraits by, 174 
 Percy, Lady Lucy, portraits of, by I. 
 
 Oliver, 249 
 Perin, 154 
 
 Perini, Antonio, photograph of drawings 
 
 in the Grimani Breviary, 31 
 Perrault, mention of, 95, 141, 142, 181 
 Perreal, Jean, life and work of, 36 
 Persian tapestry and carpet patterns, as 
 
 used in Byzantine illuminated MSS., 16 
 Pemgino, allusion to, 209 
 Pesne, allusion to, 161 
 Peter the Great, portrait of, by Sir G. 
 
 Kneller, 89 
 Petitot, Jean, his portraits of Louis XIV., 
 
 51, 181; life and work of, 92-96; 
 
 his excellency as an enamel portrait 
 
 painter, 93 ; instructed by Vandyck 
 
 and Mayerne, 93 ; large number of 
 
 examples foisted on him, 95, 96, 142 ; 
 
 comparison of, with Humphrey, 118; 
 
 allusions to, 141, 244, 248, 254, 256; 
 
 portraits of Countess of Southampton 
 
 by, 250 
 
 Petitot, Jean, the son, life and work of, 
 94 ; portrait of himself and wife, 94, 
 248; pupils, 95; portrait of Duchess 
 of Portsmouth by, 256 
 
 Petitot, Paul, 93 
 
 Petitot, Pierre, wax modeller, alluded to, 
 173 _ 
 
 Petronius, his murrhine cup, 201 
 
 Petty, art-collecting agent of Earl of 
 
 Arundel, 73 
 Phidias, allusion to, 192, 194, 202, 228 
 Phigalian marbles, 230, 231 
 Philip IV., portrait of, by Prieur, 256 
 Philip Egalite, death of, 225, 226 
 Photography, successful application of 
 orthochromatic, ix, x ; baneful in- 
 fluence of, on miniature portraiture, 
 130; inferiority of a photograph to a 
 good miniature, 130, 131 
 Pictorial art, earliest productions lost, 3 ; 
 of Middle Ages, the development from 
 
47.8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 earlier art, 3; destruction of, by icono- 
 clasts, 3, 4 ; high art of early MSS., 
 3, 4 
 
 Piero da Perugia, 39 
 
 Pimaticcio, work of, 135 
 
 Pindar, Peter (Dr. Wolcot), verses of, on 
 Cosway, 116; his encumbrance, John 
 Opie, 119 
 
 Pinson, wax modeller, alluded to, 173 
 
 Pisano, Giunta, Cimabue's master, 5 
 
 Pitan, boxes by, 180, 181 
 
 Pitt, wax portrait of, by Percy, 174 
 
 Plimer, Andrew, excellent miniatures by, 
 119, 120 ; allusions to, 132, 256 
 
 Plimer, Nathaniel, 120, 256 
 
 Pliny, Natural History, 39 
 
 Plott, John, notice of, 123 
 
 Po, Teresa del, notice of, 165 
 
 Poelemberg, Cornelius, work of, 77, 245 
 
 Pollio, Asinius, collection of, 198 
 
 Poltrot, assassination by, 179 
 
 Polycletes, allusion to, 200 
 
 Pompadour, Madame de, portrait of, by 
 Nattier, 153 
 
 Pompey, collection of, 197 
 
 Porbus, miniatures by, 153 
 
 Pordenone, II. See Licinio. 
 
 Portland, Duchess of, collection of, 230 
 
 Portland, or Barberini vase, 230 
 
 Portrait miniature, first rise of art of, 6 ; 
 gradual progress of, 6, 7 ; association of 
 religious feeling with portraiture in 
 Middle Ages, 10; book of portraits 
 mentioned by Pliny, Varro, and Sym- 
 machus, 11; miniatures in the ' Dios- 
 corides ' of Vienna ; in the fragmentary 
 ' Iliad ' at Milan ; in the fragmentary 
 'Genesis' in British Museum, 14; por- 
 traits of Alexis Comnenus in the ' Dog- 
 matica Panoplia,' 16 ; grotesque por- 
 traiture in the 'Durham' Book, 18; in 
 the MSS. of the Carlovingian school, 
 20 ; improved style shown in the MSS. 
 of the Anglo-Saxon school, 21; minia- 
 ture seldom introduced in MSS. of 
 Italian schools of nth and 12th cen- 
 turies, 23 ; good miniatures of French 
 12th-century MSS., 24; improved cha- 
 racter of 12th-century work, 24 ; dimin- 
 ished size of miniatures in 13th century, 
 24 ; increased prominence of miniatures 
 
 in French MSS. at end of 13th century, 
 25 ; better finish of heads in 14th cen- 
 tury MSS., and profuse introduction of 
 groups from life, 27 ; portraits in Sal- 
 mon's " Demandes et reponses," 28 ; of 
 D. of Bedford in " Bedford Missal," 28 ; 
 of Henry VI. in his Prayer Book, 28 ; of 
 Edward IV., and others, in ' Chronicles 
 of England,' 30 ; in the MSS. showing 
 alliances of Royal Houses of Spain and 
 Portugal, 32, 38; Camaieu portraits of 
 Louis of Tarento, and Jane, Queen of 
 Naples, 33 ; medallion portraits in Har- 
 leian MSS., No. 625, like Wedgwood's, 
 33 ; in 15th century Venetian diplomas, 
 34 ; in the history of Duke Francesco 
 Sforza, 38, 39 ; probably executed in 
 some cases by the best artists of illu- 
 minated MSS., but lost through neglect 
 and less favourable circumstances, 40, 
 41 ; art rises first into distinctness in 
 1 6th century, 45 ; Hans Holbein, 45- 
 58, 243 ; portraits of Catherine of Arra- 
 gon, 53, 244; of Henry VIII., 53, 54, 
 243, 244, 247; of Queen Elizabeth, by 
 Levina Teerlinck, 55, 56 ; of Sir J. B. 
 Hatton and his mother, 56, 248; of 
 Francis II., by Janet, 57; of Edward 
 VL, ascribed to Holbein, 57 ; style of 
 portraits by Nicholas Hilliard, 59, 60 ; 
 Hilliard's portraits of Henry VII., 
 Henry VIII., Edward VL, and Jane 
 Seymour, 60, 243 ; Oliver's portraits of 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, 60 ; and Sir 
 Philip Sidney, 60, 243, 246 ; Hilliard's 
 portraits of Elizabeth, 60, 61 ; Due 
 d'Alencon, 60 ; James I. and Mary 
 Queen of Scots, 60 ; Sir A. More's por- 
 traits of Queen Mary and of Elizabeth 
 as princess, 62 ; portrait of Wm. 
 Duckett, by Zucchero, 62, 63 ; portrait 
 of Sir Philip Sidney, by Waldini, 64 ; of 
 Milton, by Jansen, 67; of Vandyck and 
 Henrietta Maria, by Vandyck, 74 ; ex- 
 cellency of S. Cooper's miniatures, 78 ; 
 his portrait of Gen. Fairfax, 83 ; por- 
 traits in needlework of Charles I., by 
 Princess Elizabeth, and another of 
 Cromwell, 84 ; charming portraits in 
 "plumbago," by D. Loggan, George 
 White, 86, 87 ; Robert White, Thomas 
 
 9 
 
INDEX. 
 
 279 
 
 Foster, and Robert Nanteuil, 87 ; dif- 
 ficulty of defining a miniature, 89, 90 ; 
 Redgrave's defective definition, 90 ; 
 ivory as a basis for, first introduced at 
 end of 17th century, 90, 109; portraits 
 of D. of Schonberg, and Queen Mary, 
 wife of William III., on ivory, 90; por- 
 traits in enamel, 91-98; earliest ex- 
 amples of enamelling in portraits, 91, 
 92 ; portrait, supposed of Raleigh, in 
 ring, of time of Elizabeth, partly in 
 enamel ; enamelling by Limoges artists 
 of 1 6th century, 92 ; enamel pictures 
 by Limousin, 92 ; enamel portraits, pro- 
 bably by Toutin and Gribelin, of " Le 
 Grand Conde'," Gaston of Orleans, and 
 Nicholas Fouquet, 93 ; genuineness of 
 miniatures in Reynolds's time, 106; 
 vellumed and grounded cards as used 
 for, 109 , fluctuation of its state with 
 that of art in general, no, in; prolific 
 era from 1760 to 1821 . . 1 11-127 ; only 
 the more prominent artists selected for 
 notice, 113;- portraits of the Ladies 
 Rushout, by Plimer, 119, 120; decline 
 of, since 1820, 127 ; art of, checked by 
 use of photography, 130 ; French school, 
 132-154; art made less a speciality 
 of abroad than in England, 132, 133; 
 portrait of Marguerite of Valois, 134; 
 process used by the elder Clouets, 134 ; 
 Mrs. Pattison's explanations of the 
 multitude of French chalk portraits of 
 16th century, 139; German, Dutch, and 
 Flemish schools, 154-162 ; expansion 
 of art checked by influence of missal 
 portrait painting, 154, 155; revival of 
 portraiture in 14th century, 155 ; sud- 
 den rise of the Flemish school, 155; 
 Italian school, 163-167 ; modelling in 
 wax, 168-174; miniature wax portraits 
 by medallists not included in present 
 history, 1 68 ; portrait miniatures on 
 snuff-boxes, 179-190 ; collections of, 
 241-257 ; Royal Collection at Windsor, 
 243, 244; Buccleuch collection, 244, 
 245 ; collection of Mr. J. H. Hawkins, 
 245, 246 ; Mr. Sackford Bale, 246, 247 ; 
 in private families, usually ignorantly 
 kept, 247 ; collection of Earl Spencer, 
 247, 248; of Earl of Derby, 248, 249; 
 
 of Lady Sophia de Voeux, 249 ; Mr. 
 Wingfield Digby, 249; Baroness Burdett- 
 Coutts, 249, 250 ; the Magniac collec- 
 tion, 250; Mr. Edward Joseph's collec- 
 tion, 254, 255 ; Lord Tweedmouth's, 
 255 ; and the author's, 255, 256. 
 
 Portraits, Walpole on good, viii ; predilec- 
 tion of Englishmen for, 242 
 
 Portraits in miniature superior to those 
 of full size, vi-viii ; and to large statues, 
 vii ; method of selecting, x 
 
 Portsmouth, Duchess of, portrait of, by 
 Petitot the son, 94, 256 
 
 Pottery of Damascus and Rhodes, resem- 
 blance of its colouring to that of the 
 Byzantine illuminated MSS., 16 
 
 Poumeyrac, 154 
 
 Pourbus, Peter, 48 
 
 Prayer Book of Charlemagne on purple 
 vellum, 13; of the Duke of Anjou, 27, 
 28 ; of Louis XIV., and of Madame 
 de la Valliere, 39 
 
 Praxiteles, allusion to, 192, 198, 201, 202 
 
 Prete Genoese, II. See Galantini. 
 
 Prevost, Jean, portraits of Louis XV. by, 
 145 ; allusion to, 184 
 
 Prewitt, William, character of work, 125; 
 portrait of Horace Walpole by, 245 
 
 Prieur, allusion to, 244 ; portraits by, 248, 
 256 
 
 Prince of Wales, enamel portrait of, by 
 
 M. Moser, 114 
 Princess of Wales, portrait of, by Charlotte 
 
 Jones, 126 
 Progers, or Rogers, 70 
 Pronner, Leo, carved knife-handle by, 178 
 Provence, Count de, portrait of, by R. A. 
 
 Hall, 150 
 Prudhon, 154 
 
 Psalter, the Utrecht, described, 21 ; the 
 Arundel, and the Cottonian, in the 
 British Museum, 22 ; of 13th century, 
 belonging to Society of Antiquaries de- 
 scribed, 25, 26; Tenison, 26; Queen 
 Mary's, history of, 26 ; of Due de Bern', 
 33 ; of Charles the Bald, 207 
 
 Puritans, their adverse spirit to fine art, 
 81, 82 
 
 Purple stained vellum. See Vellum. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 QUAGLIA, 154 
 
 Queen Victoria, portrait of, by Chalon, 
 129 
 
 Raeburn, Sir Henry, notice of, 123 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, tobacco brought to 
 
 England by, 180 
 Ramelli, Padre Felice, notice of, 165 
 Raphael, cartoons by, in Charles L's col- 
 lection, bought by Oliver Cromwell, 
 now at Hampton Court, 81, 235 ; 
 allusions to, 121, 124, 209, 221, 227, 
 228 ; wax model of a girl attributed to, 
 169 
 
 Ravechet, allusion to, 183 
 
 Ravrai alluded to, 174 
 
 Recamier, Madame, portrait of, 97 
 
 ' Redeeming Lamb,' picture of, by the 
 
 Van Eycks, 156 
 Redgrave, his definition of a miniature, 96 
 Reform snuff-boxes, 189 
 Regault, notice of, 148 
 Regnault alluded to, 173 
 Reinagle, Philip, the painter of many 
 
 portraits of George III. and his Queen 
 
 assigned to Allan Ramsay, 51 
 Reindeer, depicted by cave-men of the 
 
 mesolithic period, 2 
 Rembrandt, teacher of Sir G. Kneller, 89 ; 
 
 allusion to, 229, 245, 254 
 Remouleur, 198 
 Renaud alluded to, 174 
 Reynolds, Miss Frances, notice of, 124 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, pupil of Hudson, 
 
 102 ; influence of, on portraiture, 102, 
 
 113, 114; allusions to, 104, in, 120, 
 
 121, 124, 129, 132, 252, 253; anecdote 
 
 of, 107; attitudes of, 107, 108, 115; 
 
 fading nature of his work, 114, 115; 
 
 Hone's jealousy of, 115 ; patronises 
 
 Humphrey, 118, 119 
 Reynst, allusion to, 225 
 Rho, Padre Danese, allusion to, 165 
 Richard II., portrait of, in Westminster 
 
 Abbey, 241 ; at Wilton, 241 
 Richardson, 102 
 
 Richmond, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of, por- 
 trait of, by Holbein, 246 
 Richter, Christian, 101 
 Rigaud, allusion to, 153 
 
 Robbia, Luca della, allusion to, 169 
 Robertson, Andrew, career and work of, 
 
 127, 128; allusion to, 129 
 Robespierre, allusion to, 187 
 Robins, George, allusion to, 229 
 Rochester, lines on Flatman by, 85 
 Rochet, miniaturist, 153 
 Roland, Madame, allusion to, 187 
 ' Romance of the Rose,' by Lorris and 
 
 Clopinal, 31 
 Romano, Giulio, mention of, 218 
 Rome, replaced as capital of the empire 
 by Byzantium, fall of, 12 ; weak art at, 
 192 ; transference of Greek art and 
 artists to, 192, 193, 194, 195 ; luxury 
 and lack of patriotism, 193 ; the great 
 collections at, 193-200 ; auction-rooms 
 and sales of, 199, 200, 201 ; modern 
 collections at, 193, 194, 198, 206, 208, 
 209 
 
 Rome, King of, portrait of, by Isabey, 
 256 
 
 Romney, allusions to, 108, 119; his por- 
 trait of Humphrey, 119 
 
 Roper, Anna, portrait of, by Hollar, once 
 supposed to have been a portrait of 
 Catherine of Arragon by Holbein, 5 1 
 
 Rose {nee Gibson), Susan Penelope, work 
 done by, 79, 89 
 
 Ross, Sir William, allusions to, 128, 148; 
 career, work and style of, 129; predic- 
 tion of, as to photography, 130 
 
 Rossi, Properzia de, group carved on a 
 peach-stone by, 178 
 
 Rosso, II, busy life of, 135 
 
 Rothschild family as art collectors, 236, 
 237 
 
 Rouquet, Andre, 105 ; anecdote about 
 Vanaken indicating extent to which 
 specialists were engaged on works 
 by other artists, 106 ; notice of, 145 \ 
 allusion to, 184 
 
 Rousseau, portrait of, 187 
 
 Rouvier, 154 
 
 Rouw, Peter, allusion to, 174 
 Rovere, Francesco della, allusion to, 209 
 Rubens, allusions to, 67, 227; ceiling of 
 Whitehall by, 76; teacher of Vandyck 
 and Jamesone, 77 ; 'Adam and Eve in 
 Paradise,' painting by Breughel, and 
 portrait of, by Fruytren, 159 
 
INDEX. 
 
 281 
 
 Rubies, collar of, worn by Henry VIII., 
 81 
 
 Rubric, meaning of, 5 
 Rupert, Prince, portrait of, by Sir Peter 
 Lely, 82 
 
 Rushout, Ladies, miniature portrait of, by 
 
 Plimer, 119, 120 
 Russell family, enamel portraits of, by 
 
 Bone, 121 
 
 Russell, Antony, anecdote of Charles II. 
 by, 7° 
 
 Russell, Theodore, life and work of, 72 ; 
 
 copies of Vandyck by, 7 2 
 Ryswick, Theodore van, allusion to, 178 
 
 Sacramentary, name for liturgy in 8th 
 
 century, 9 
 Sadler, Thomas, life and work of, 89 
 Saint, Daniel, allusions to, 152, 167, 188 ; 
 
 notice of, 153 
 Sallust, his collections, 198, 206 
 Salmon's ' Demandes et reponses,' 28 
 Salviati, allusion to, 163 
 Sanders, Mr., anecdote of, 235, 236 
 Sandrart, his life of Holbein, 46 
 Sansovino, Jacopo, wax modelling by, 169 
 Santerre, allusion to, 153 
 Sanudo, Marino, mention of, 213 
 Sarto, Andrea del, last days and death of, 
 
 135 
 
 Saturninus, the sleeping bidder, 199 
 Sauvage, Hy polite, miniaturist, 154 
 Sauvage, J. B., miniaturist, 154 
 Savigny, 154 
 Saviour. See Christ. 
 
 Saxe, Marshal, miniature portrait of, by 
 
 Nattier, 153 
 Sazzi, Gib. Battista, wax portraits by, 170 
 Scaurus, collection of, 195, 196 
 Schaufflein, Hans, alluded to, 177 
 Scheda Vaticanae. See Virgil. 
 Schmulzer, allusion to, 161 
 Schomberg, Frederic, Duke of, portrait of, 
 
 on ivory, 90 
 Schreyer, Sebold, carved portrait of, 177 
 Schwartz, Hans, portrait medallions by, 
 
 177 
 
 Schweigger, Georg, carvings by, 177, 178 
 
 ' Scipio, Story of,' a tapestry, after Giulio 
 
 Romano, 218 
 Scopas, allusion to, 201, 202 
 Sculpturing and carving of portraits, 175- 
 
 . 178 
 
 Segar, Francis, 64 
 Segar, William, 64 
 
 Selim II., minarets added to Imperial 
 
 mosque by, 12 
 Sencier, Maze, his collection of political 
 
 snuff-boxes, 190 
 Seuin, Peter Paul, notice of, 145 
 Sevres ware, rapidly enhancing price of, 
 
 237 
 
 Seymour cup, by Holbein, 58 
 
 Seymour, Lady Jane, portrait of, ascribed 
 
 to Holbein, 55, 246, 255 ; by Hilliard, 
 
 60 
 
 Seymour, Lord Thomas, portrait of, as- 
 cribed to Holbein, 55 
 
 Seymour of Sudeley, Lord, portrait of, by 
 Holbein, 245 
 
 Sforza, Duke Francesco, 38, 39 
 
 Shagreen, a covering for portrait snuff- 
 boxes, 186 
 
 Shelley, Samuel, style of, 120; allusions 
 
 to, 132, 256 
 Shepherd, Anne, 79 
 Sheridan, Mrs., 118 
 
 Sheriff, Charles, commended by Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, 122 
 
 Shipley, Mr., 115, 118 
 
 Shirley, Lady, portrait of, by Hilliard, 245 
 
 Shrewsbury Book, the, in British Museum, 
 28 
 
 Shrewsbury, Earl of, his book of ' Chival- 
 
 rie,' with portraits, 28, 29 
 Shute, John, 63 
 
 Sicardi, Jean, notice of, 153, 184, 185 
 Siddons, Mrs., portrait of, by Reynolds, 
 108 ; that by Sheriff commended by, 
 122 ; Mrs. Palmer's copy of Gains- 
 borough's portrait of, 124 
 Sidney, Algernon, portrait of, by Hoskins, 
 
 . 245 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, portrait of, by Oliver, 
 60, 62, 243, 246 ; by Waldini, 64 
 
 Sifervas, the illuminator of the Lovel Book, 
 and of the Sherborne Missal, 22 
 
 Silvestro, Don, 40 
 
 Silhouette, origin of word, 185, 186 
 
 2 O 
 
2S2 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Silhouette, Etienne de, his economies and 
 
 paper portraits, 185, 186 
 ' Sleeping Girl,' enamel copy of Reynolds, 
 
 121 
 
 Sloane, Mr., purchase of Italian art trea- 
 sures by, 226, 227 
 
 Sloane, Sir Hans, collection of, 230, 231, 
 234 
 
 Smart, John, allusions to, 114, 118, 125, 
 132, 154, 256; life of, and character of 
 his miniatures, 120 
 
 Smirke, Sir Robert, 234 
 
 Smith, allusion to, 115 ; author of ' Nol- 
 lekens and his Times,' 118 
 
 Smith, Baldwin, MS. Bible presented to 
 Queen Mary by, 26 
 
 Smith, Joachim, allusion to, 174 
 
 Snelling, Matthew, 86 ; portrait of, by 
 Cooper, 86 
 
 Snuff, introduction of, 180 
 
 Snuff-boxes, use of, 180, 181, 182 ; collec- 
 tions of, 182; varieties of, 182, 183; 
 political importance of, in reign of Louis 
 XVI., 186; during the Revolution in 
 France, 187 ; with Bonaparte's cocked 
 hat, 188; during reigns of Louis XVIII., 
 Charles X. and Louis Philippe, 189 ; 
 ' tabatiere a la Reforme,' 189 ; ' tabatiere 
 a l'appel au peuple,' 190 ; extinction of 
 portrait and political, 190 
 
 Soiron, 154 
 
 Solmena, allusion to, 166 
 
 Somerset, Protector, portrait of, by N. 
 
 Hilliard, 245 
 Sophia, St., church of. See Byzantium. 
 Sophie, Madame, portrait of, by V. F. 
 
 Elie, 146 ; by Cazaubon, 147 
 Sorcerers, wax figures used by, 171, 
 
 172 
 
 Soubise, Prince de, library of, 214 
 Southampton, Rachel de Rouvigny, 
 
 Countess of, portrait of, by Petitot after 
 
 Vandyck, 104, 250 
 Southwell, Sir Richard, Holbein's portrait 
 
 of, 51 
 
 Spencer, Earl, collection of miniature 
 
 portraits belonging to, 247, 248 
 Spencer, Gervase, 105 
 Spenser, Lady, work of, 124 
 Spicer, Henry, style of his work, 122 
 Squarcione of Padua, 39 
 
 Stags, figured by cave-men of mesolithic 
 period, 2 
 
 Stefaneschi, Giovanni Baptista (1' Eremita 
 di Monte Senario), notice of, 165 
 
 Stow, on origin of name of St. Andrew 
 Undershaft, 47 
 
 Strafford, Earl of, portrait of, by John 
 Hoskins, 246 
 
 Strange, Sir Robert, first introduction of, 
 to his future wife, 102, 103 ; struggles 
 of, with poverty in early married life, 
 103 
 
 Strauch, Laurent, mention of, 171 
 Stretes, Gwillim, 48, 56, 158 ; portraits of 
 
 Edward VI. by, 56, 57 
 Strongylion, allusion to, 197 
 Stuart family, collection of objects relating 
 
 to, 233 
 
 Stuart, Charles Edward, portraits of, 188 ; 
 
 allusion to, 233 
 Stuart, La Belle, portrait of, by S. Cooper, 
 
 245 
 
 Stuart, Lady Arabella, portraits of, by 
 
 I. Oliver, 249, 250 
 Suckling, Sir John, portrait of, by Hoskins, 
 
 245 
 
 Suffolk, Charles Brandon, Duke of, portrait 
 of two sons of, at Windsor, probably by 
 Holbein, 54, 55, 60, 109, 243 ; portrait 
 of, 243, 255, 256 
 
 Sullivan, Luke, work of, 122 
 
 Sunder. See Cranach. 
 
 Surugue, alluded to, 173 
 
 Swinfen, portrait of, by Cooper, 83 
 
 Sylla, mention of, 195, 225 
 
 Symbolism in painting forbidden by 
 Council of Constantinople in 692 .. 9 
 
 Tabatiere, or snuff-boxes. See Snuff- 
 boxes. 
 
 Tables of Thuya wood, costliness of, 1 94 
 Taddel, allusion to, 183 
 Talleyrand, collection of paintings by, 
 227 
 
 Talman, allusion to, 241 
 Tangye, mention of, 234 
 Tassie, James, notice of, 174 
 Teerlinck, Levina, work by, in the Grimani 
 Breviary, 31; contemporary with Hoi- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 283 
 
 bein, 48, 55 ; portraits of Queen Eliza- 
 beth by, 55, 56; allusions to, 158, 246 
 
 Tempera, painting in, the only method 
 practised before Middle Ages, 156 
 
 Temple, Sir William, 86 
 
 Templeton, Lady, 125 
 
 Teniers, David, and his wife, portrait of, 
 by Sir B. Gerbier, 246 
 
 Terburg, 86 ; his " Peace of Munster," 
 227 
 
 Terence, comedies of, with flamboyant 
 
 borders, 29 
 Terroux, Mademoiselle, 95 
 Teuchler, Johann, alluded to, 177 
 Thausing, Moriz, on sculpturing attributed 
 
 to Albert Diirer, 176, 177 
 Thienpondt, Carl Frederic, notice of, 161, 
 
 256 
 
 Thiers, snuff-box portraits of, 189 
 Thomond, Lady. See Palmer, Miss. 
 Thou, Jacques Auguste de, his library, 
 
 213, 214 
 Thouron, Jacques, notice of, 153 
 Thuya wood tables, high prices of, 194 
 Tintoretto, mention of, 249 
 Titian, portraits in Venetian diplomas 
 
 attributed to, 34; allusions to, 121, 164, 
 
 209, 245 ; jealousy of, towards Licinio, 
 
 163 
 
 Tobacco, introduction of, 180 
 Tongilius, mention of, 202, 203 
 Tours, early art centre of France, 133 
 Toutin, Jean, progress of enamelling used 
 
 by, 92 ; allusion to, 140, 141, 256 
 Townley collection, 230, 234 
 "Triumph of the Christian Church," 
 
 picture of, attributed to Van Eyck, 156 
 Troyer, allusion to, 178 
 Tuer, Herbert, 86 
 
 Turenne, enamel portrait of, by Weyler, 
 96; by P. P. Seuin, 145 
 
 Uffizi Palace, miniatures in gallery of, 5, 6 
 Ulphilas, his ' Codex purpureo-argenteus ' 
 
 and literary works, 13 
 Uriger, U., mention of, 174 
 
 Valesio, Giovanni, notice of, 164 
 Valkenberg, three artists named, alluded 
 to, 159 
 
 Vallier, allusion to, 178 
 
 Vanaken, competition of artists for his 
 sole special services, 106 
 
 Vanderdoort, Abraham, life of, the cata- 
 loguer of Charles I.'s treasures, 73 
 
 Van der Heist, allusion to, 245 
 
 Vandervelde, Peter, 64 
 
 Vandyck, allusions to, 67, 82, 119, 120, 
 160, 249, 250, 254; his influence on 
 portraiture, 74, in, 115; his portrait 
 of himself and of Henrietta Maria, 74 ; 
 compared with Holbein, 74 ; payments 
 to, by James L, 74, 75 ; life and works 
 of, 75, 76 ; a pupil of Rubens, 77 ; his 
 search for the philosopher's stone, 87 ; 
 teacher of Petitot, 93, 104 
 
 Van Eyck family, 155 et seq. • name de- 
 rived from Maesyck, 155 
 
 Van Eyck, supposed to be the artist of 
 the frontispiece to ' Chronicles of 
 England,' 30 
 
 Van Eyck, Jean, mention of, 155 ; art 
 work of — enthusiastic praise of — alleged 
 discovery of oil painting by, 156; allu- 
 sions to, 157, 242 
 
 Van Eyck, Hubert, mention of, 155 ; art- 
 work of, 156 
 
 Vanloo, monopolises Vanaken's services, 
 106; allusion to, in, 151 
 
 Van Mander, his life of Holbein, 46 
 
 Van Spaendonck, alluded to, 154 
 
 Varro, his library taken by Antony, 197 
 
 Vasari, Giorgio, condemnation of bar- 
 barism of Greek pictorial art before 
 time of Cimabue, 4; his collection of 
 miniatures, 5, 6; allusion to, 163 
 
 Vecchio, II, of Bologna, allusion to, 169 
 
 Vecchio, Palma, allusion to, 209 
 
 Velasquez, allusion to, 245 
 
 Vellum, use of stained, for illuminated 
 manuscripts, 12, 13 ; art of purple 
 staining lost, 13 ; allusion to, 42; 
 scarcity of, 43 ; use of, as ground for 
 miniature portraits, 109 
 
 Venevault, Nicolas, portraits of Louis XV. 
 by, 145 
 
 Venus and Cupid, 198 ; of the Hermitage, 
 
 198 ; of Melos, 199 
 Veronese, Paul, allusion to, 220 
 Verres, collection of; trial of, 193; and 
 
 death, 194 
 
 202 
 
284 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Verselin, Jacques, notice of, 145 
 
 Vertue, George, portrait of the Duke of 
 Bedford in the Bedford Missal, engraved 
 by, 28 ] life, character, and industry as 
 an historian of art, in, 112 ; purchase 
 of his MSS. by Walpole, 112; confused 
 state of his notes, 112 ; his scrupulous 
 integrity, 112; value of his work as 
 published by Walpole, 112, 113 
 
 Vestier, miniaturist, 154 
 
 Victoire, Madame, portrait of, by R. 
 Bachi, 145 
 
 Villars, Madame de, miniature portrait of, 
 by Nattier, 153 
 
 Vincent, allusion to, 147, 184 
 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, death of, 135; allu- 
 sion to, 209 
 
 Vindex, mention of, 195, 202 
 
 Violet, his portraits of Louis XVL, 154 
 
 Virgil, the three Vatican illuminated MSS. 
 of, 14 ; description of the Codex Ro- 
 manus, 14, 15 ; of the Codex Palatinus, 
 15 ; and of the " Schedae Vaticanae," 
 15 ; the fourth copy, partly at the 
 Vatican and partly at Berlin, 15 
 
 " Visitation," a carving attributed to Al- 
 bert Diirer, 177 
 
 Voltaire, wax model of, by Me'rard, 173; 
 portrait of, 187 
 
 Vouet, Simon, allusion to, 140 
 
 Vries, Adrien de, allusion to, 178 
 
 Waists, deformity of, 253, 254 
 
 Waldini, Pettrucio, his miniature portrait 
 
 of Sir Philip Sidney, 64 
 Walkners, mention of, 226 
 Wallis, collection of works of Spanish art 
 
 by, 227 
 
 Wall painting of Italy in early Middle 
 Ages, 4 ; art nourished by religious 
 devotion, 9; in the catacombs under 
 St. Sebastian church, Rome, 9 
 
 Walpole, Horace, on a good portrait, vi ; 
 on the find of Digby portraits painted 
 by the Olivers, 7 1 ; taught by Bernard 
 Lens, 103; on low state of art just 
 before time of Reynolds, 105, 106; 
 celebrity of, as an art collector, 112 ; 
 purchases Vertue's MSS., 112 ; prepares 
 
 them for publication, 112, 113; high 
 value of his literary work, 113; com- 
 plimentary notice of Lady Lucan's 
 work, 124 ; of Mrs. Darner's busts, 125 : 
 the Strawberry Hill sale of his collection, 
 
 229 ; catholicity of his taste, 232 ; on 
 a portrait of Richard II., 241 ; of 
 Edward the Black Prince, 241, 242 ; 
 and of Henry IV., 242 ; portrait of, by 
 Mr. Prewett, 245 
 
 Warham, Archbishop, Holbein's portrait 
 of, 50 
 
 Watteau, mention of, 221 
 
 Wax modelling. See Modelling. 
 
 Wedgwood, Josiah, allusions to, 124, 125, 
 
 230 ; materials for life of, 233, 234 
 Wedgwood ware, collections of, 233 
 Weilhemmayer, mention of, 171 
 Welper, portraits of Louis XV. by, 1 46 ; 
 
 allusions to, 148, 184 
 
 Werner, Joseph, carvings and portraits by, 
 159 ; allusion to, 160 
 
 West, Benjamin, portrait of, by A. Robert- 
 son, 127 
 
 Weyden. See Pasture. 
 
 Weyler, Jean Baptist, series of enamel 
 portraits by, 96 ; allusion to, 153 
 
 Whistler, his description of the coming 
 art-master, 114 
 
 White, George, 86, 87 
 
 White, Robert, 87 
 
 Whitehall, the ' Garter ' picture at, by 
 Vandyck, 76; ceiling of, painted by 
 Rubens, 76 
 
 Whood, Isaac, 101 
 
 Wilhelm, portraits of, painted from life, 
 155 
 
 Willet, mention of, 234 
 
 William III., portrait of, by Sir G. Kneller, 
 
 88; of him and his Queen by G. 
 
 Netscher, 248 
 William of Wickham, 27 
 Wilson, Richard, allusion to, 108, 123 
 Witches, wax figures used by, 172 
 Wohlgemuth, allusion to, 157 
 Wolcot. See Pindar. 
 Wolters, Henrietta, portrait painter, notice 
 
 of, 160 
 
 Woodburn, Samuel, purchases by, 227 
 Works consulted, list of, xv, xvi 
 Worlidge, Thomas, 105, 125 
 
INDEX. 
 
 2S5 
 
 Wost, Tobie, notice of, 177 
 Wright, Mrs. See Biffin. 
 Wright, Andrew, mention of, 242 
 Wurzburg, Irish illuminated MSS. at, 19 
 
 York, Duke of, enamel portrait of, by 
 
 Meser, 114 
 Young Philippian, a bronze, 197 
 
 Zachi, Zaccheria, allusion to, 169 
 
 Zarotti, Antonio, printing by, 38 
 
 Zeuxis, allusion to, 201 
 
 Zincke, C. F., allusions to, 101, 125, 244, 
 
 248, 256; life and work of, 103, 104, 
 
 245 ; comparison of, with Petitot, 104 
 Zucchero, Frederic, allusions to, 59, 245, 
 
 249; may have assisted Oliver, 62, 63 ; 
 
 work of, 62 
 Zumbo, Gaetano Giulio, painted wax 
 
 modellings by, 170, 171 
 Zurich, Jean, 101 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
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