rOME NOTES ON CERTAIN 
 
 DRAWINGS* BJ -THE OLD MASTERS 
 
 THE R 0-Y A L ACADEMY 
 
 THE GROSVENOR GALLERY 
 
 Q. T. ROBINSON, F.S.A. 
 
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 the Internet - 
 
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 http://archive.org/details/somenotesoncertaOOrobi 
 
SOME NOTES ON CERTAIN 
 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS 
 
 RFXENTLY EXHIBITED AT 
 
 THE ROYAL ACADEMY 
 
 THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 
 
 BY 
 
 G. T. ROBINSON, F. S. A. 
 
 Repriiifed front the MANCHESTER Courier. 
 
84, GowER Street, W.C., 
 
 April, 1879. 
 
 Dear 
 
 The Proprietors of the Manchester 
 Courier, who are strenuously endeavouring 
 to make that journal a disseminator of Art 
 culture and Art history, have kindly re- 
 printed twenty-five copies of some notes 
 of mine on certain Drawings by the Old 
 Masters recently exhibited at the Royal 
 Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 Knowing the interest you take in all 
 artistic matters, I beg your acceptance of 
 one of these reprints, and am 
 
 Faithfully yours, ^ 
 
 GEORGE T. ROBINSON. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 NO. I. 
 
 From th$ Manchester Courier, Feiniary 5, 1879. 
 
 London, Saturday. 
 The most noteworthy oharacteristio of the 
 Winter Exhibitions of 1879 is the simultaneous 
 collection at the Royal Academy and the 
 Grosvenor Gallery of upwards of 1,100 drawings 
 by the old masters, ranging^ in point of time 
 from the middle of the 13 bh until the middle of 
 the 19 bh century. Such an event is a marked 
 one in the history of art, and one not likely to 
 recur in that of the present generation. More- 
 over, it is a remarkable proof of the great 
 impetus the real study of and love for all 
 things artistic has of late received, and which 
 forms so important a feature in the intel- 
 lectual history of this latter half of the 
 nineteenth century. Devoid of colour, having 
 but little general subject interest, these draw- 
 ings do not primarily depend on the delight 
 of the eye for their chief attraction. As a 
 rule they are not pretty to look at, nor are 
 they satisfactory to our senses at a glance, and 
 the occurrence of two such exhibitions simul- 
 taneously therefore demonstrates that there is 
 an earnest, inquiring study of the art of the past 
 very widely and deeply spread amongst us to 
 render such a gathering for public delectation 
 possible. That public interest should be thus 
 excitable is great gain, and when the serious 
 study of matters artistic once becomes a 
 national feeling, there is great hope that 
 permanent good may be the result. In order to 
 aid this serious study I propose sending you a 
 critical examination of these drawings collec- 
 
2 
 
 tively, taking my examples from either collec- 
 tioD as may seem best for my purpose, and 
 massing the two together as one. When I refer 
 to a drawing in the exhibition of the Academy 
 its number only mil be given, and when I have 
 to cull from the treasures of the Grosvenor Gal- 
 lery reference to the example there exhibited 
 will be made by the addition of the letter G to 
 the catalogue number. This examination will 
 be made in chronological order, excepting when 
 kindred affinity or direct descent through schools 
 will make a continuous and unbroken notice 
 more serviceable. In arranging this sequence, 
 the generally accepted date of the birth of the 
 artist to whom the drawing is assigned will be 
 taken as the regulating factor where that is 
 known, and where unknown the date at which 
 he was most active will be assumed as that of 
 his place in art history. 
 
 Of very early work the Grosvenor contains the 
 greatest number of putative examples, but, 
 unfortunately, so little of the drawing of the 
 first revivers of the art in Italy has 
 been preserved to us that it is impossible to 
 assign that which remains with any degree of 
 certitude. We have two drawings (G 25, 31) 
 reputed to be from the hand of Margaritone 
 d'Arezzo, an architect painter and sculptor, who 
 kept the flickering flame alight when the tra- 
 dition of Byzantium was expiring, and before 
 the new light which was to illuminate the world 
 had been kindled. The monumental conven- 
 tionalism of the old school had dwindled away 
 into childishness, and the naturalism of the 
 new was not born. Excepting, as historical 
 record Margaritone's work has no value. 
 As historical evidence of how far the tide had 
 ebbed it is interesting, by marking the lowest 
 point Alt had descended to in the thirteenth 
 century, for Margaritone was born in 1236 and 
 
3 
 
 died in 1289. The two drawings assigned to him 
 differ very greatly in character, so much so, 
 indeed, that it is hardly possible both belong to 
 the same hand. Very probably G 25 is of his 
 date, and the three draped figures holding scrolls 
 in their left hands, of which it consists, are 
 evidently full of what then remained of Byzan- 
 tine feeling. The drapery lines are arranged in 
 long folds suitable for execution in mosaic ; the 
 figures are poised upon their toes after the 
 fashion of the mosaic workers of the tenth cen- 
 tury, and the massing of them is such as would 
 be fitted for mosaic work. In technical execu» 
 tion they are weak and feeble, drawn with a fine 
 crow quill in bistre, and what few shading lines 
 they are furnished with follow the direction of 
 the folds, no trace of cross-hatching or variation 
 of line existing ; in fact, the mosaic character is 
 eminently visible throughout. The other draw- 
 ing (G 31), on the contrary, consists of a couple 
 of amorini, drawn with pulpy limbs in curved 
 lines, and is at least a century later than Mar- 
 garitone's time. Both these drawings come 
 from the collection at Christ Church College, 
 Oxford, the bequest of Colonel Guise, a collec- 
 tion made at a time when the early history of 
 art was confined to catalogue lists culled from 
 Vasari and Lanzi. 
 
 Gaddo Gaddi, a fellow-labourer with Oimabue 
 in the decoration of the Church of S. 
 Francis, at Assisi, and the friend of Giotto, 
 is the next name which occurs, and in 
 G 61 is a little fragment of a head very 
 neatly drawn and shaded with a pen in bistre, 
 but of such small dimensions as to be almost 
 useless as a character study. Gaddi was born in 
 1239, and became the progenitor of a race of 
 painters who for 150 years carried his name as 
 one of fame in the fore ranks of art. He died in 
 1312, twelve years after Cimabue, to whose in- 
 
4 
 
 fluence he owed so muoli, but who was just one 
 year his junior. To Oimabue two works are 
 assigned ; but it is more than doubtful if either 
 of them are from this master's hand. Certainly 
 G 12 is a very weak production, the work, pro- 
 bably, of some early illuminator who was just 
 emancipating himself from Bjzantinism, but 
 who had no knowledge of natural form, and, 
 from the shape of the saddle on the back 
 of the supernatural horse m G 394 ; I should 
 consider this drawing as certainly being a 
 puerile production not earlier than 1400 ; both 
 the pommel and the crupper of the saddles of the 
 ISfch century being very different to those of 
 later date, in consequence of the different 
 arrangement of the armour worn at the time, 
 and the difference of shock to be encountered 
 from the increased weight of the spear. The 
 list of drawings assigned to artists born in 
 the thirteenth century closes with one attri- 
 buted to Ambrogio Lorenzetti, one of the 
 best and purest of the Siennese artists who 
 painted between 1324 and 1345. The catalogue 
 gives the date of his birth as 1257, and that of 
 his dea th as 1340, but on what authority I do 
 not know. The latest record we have of 
 him is that he was paid for certain 
 work in Sienna five years later than the 
 date the catalogue assigns as that of his death, 
 and the earliest work we know of his is a fresco 
 in the Church of S. Francesco at Sienna in 
 1831, and it is to be regretted that in many in- 
 stances the catalogue of the Grosvenor Gal- 
 lery is very far from trustworthy as a chro- 
 nological record. The drawing ascribed to 
 him is a pen and bistre outline study for a 
 composition of the marriage of the Virgin 
 (G 419), in which the architectural background 
 and the peculiarly pointed arrangement of tlie 
 draperies bear much greater resemblance to the 
 
5 
 
 work of the artists of tlie Florentine than those of 
 the Siennese school; that peculiarly classical 
 arrangement of linei suggestive of the paintings 
 on old Etruscan vases, which is a marked feature 
 in Ambrogio's work is entirely absent ; and I 
 should be inclined to attribute the drawing to 
 some inferior and unknown student of Fra 
 Angelico rather than to the master to whom it 
 is assigned. It will be thus seen that the 
 ascription of all the work of artists born in 
 the thirteenth century we have exhibited is 
 apocryphal, but this is more to be expected 
 than wondered at ; and it would be much 
 wiser and far less confusing to the student if 
 these very early works were exhibited as 
 the probable work of certain periods than as 
 that of definite persons. The costume or acces- 
 sories are generally sufficiently well marked 
 to enable us to state the one with truth, 
 whereas the very few drawings known to be 
 the work of these early painters whicli have 
 remained to us does not warrant even a conjec- 
 ture. Much as art knowledge has advanced, 
 and great^ as has been the increased love of art 
 of late years, it seems as though the time were 
 yet distant when a work of art will be more 
 valued for what it really is than for the sake of 
 the name it often wrongly bears. 
 
 The art history of the fourteenth century 
 commences with a simple drawing of a pilgrim's 
 head, with wide-brimmed hat and cockle-shell, 
 firmly and accurately drawn with a pen on 
 toned paper, stated to be by Pietro Oavallini 
 (G 30), one of the earliest Eoman artists who 
 came under the influence of the great Florentine 
 Giotto, who was invited to the capital by Jacopo 
 Stefaneschi, (a cardinal, and the nephew of Pope 
 Boniface VIII.,) about 1297, and whose efforts 
 in imparting a more naturalistic spirit into the 
 archaic treatment which then prevailed there 
 
6 
 
 had a lasting influence. Unfortunately we have 
 nothing in either of the collections this year at 
 all attributable to Giotto himself. To Giottino, 
 a disciple of the great master, born in 1324, and 
 one who Vasari considered even greater than 
 his teacher— a dictum not borne out by in- 
 creased knowledge— is assigned a poor drawing 
 of a brobdignag monk " imposing the yoke" on 
 a very little one (G 419), drawn rather boldly in 
 bistre, on a greenwashed ground, and heightened 
 with white* 
 
 In Gallery IV. of the Royal Academy will be 
 found an illumination of the early part of the 
 fourteenth century emanating from one of 
 those many monastic scriptoria, which, under 
 the influence of Giotto, sprang up in and 
 around Florence, on which is depicted the 
 apostles awaiting the descent of the Holy Spirit 
 (176), a good example of the drawing of the 
 time, particularly bold and able in the disposi- 
 tion of the draperies, and somewhat instruc- 
 tive as to the progress by which the attempts 
 at foreshortening an upturned face proceeded 
 before any satisfactory result was obtained. 
 Here, whan such is represented, the lower 
 portion of the face is drawn as in full, the up- 
 turned effect being sought to be obtained by 
 the depression or collapse of the forehead, by 
 which means a singular and unintentional effect 
 of the deepest villany is imparted to the holy 
 personages represented. Amongst the sur- 
 rounding cartouches there is one at the bottom 
 of the page fllled with a medallion of the 
 Virgin and Child of supreme beauty, so purely 
 and delicately drawn, that it seems almost 
 by another hand, unless, indeed, as is 
 possible, the inspiration of the subject 
 elevated the painter to an abnormal effort. 
 And now occurs a lapsus unfilled in either gal- 
 lery, the next drawing in assumed date being 
 
one attributed to Ghiberti (G 60) and described 
 as "a finished drawing: for a statue." The 
 arrangement of the drapery and the pose of the 
 figure is very like Ghiberti's picturesque sculp- 
 ture, but the drawing is evidently from and 
 not for a statue, the wooden wedges driven 
 in under the plinth to prop it upright being 
 shown, a liter&tion which would be hardly 
 likely to find its way into a design. It is far 
 more probably a drawing from one of Ghiberti's 
 works by one of his pupils, but the technical 
 rendering of the drawing is not that of a sculp- 
 tor, for, as I shall have to show further on, 
 the sculptors drew in a different manner to the 
 painters, and though Ghiberti was both painter 
 and sculptor, the drawing is not worthy of him 
 in either capacity. The earliest "Drawing" in 
 the Royal Academy is an illumination (330), 
 assigned, with every appearance of justice, to 
 Don Silvestro Camaldolense, one of the most 
 celebrated book illustrators of the fourteenth 
 century, and whose works were sought for and 
 treasured by the principal libraries of the day. 
 Indeed, in such esteem was he hsld, that after 
 his death his hand, which wrought such 
 miracles of art whilst living, was preserved in 
 a casket at the Monastery degli Angeli, at 
 Florence, where he lived about the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, and was almost as much 
 venerated as though it were the relic of a saint. 
 This drawing is entitled ** A Royal Saint," 
 but is evidently the figure of our Lord 
 seated in glory, for the uplifted right hand 
 bears the imprinb of His wound, and in His 
 other hand is ** the Book." Moreover, the 
 crown He wears is not a terrestrial one, and both 
 in attitude and detail the figure bears a very 
 great resemblance to the grand figure of our Lord 
 in the fresco of the Last Judgment, in Campo 
 Santo, at Pisa, so long erroneously attributed to 
 
8 
 
 Orcagna, but now almost proved to be the work 
 of Andrea de Firenza, and whicli was painted 
 about the same time as this figure was drawn, 
 opening a good speculative ground for discussion 
 as to whether the illumination or the fresco has 
 priority. It is a very charming example of the 
 miniaturist's art, and the six small half-length 
 figures which surround it are well drawn, the 
 lower one exhibiting a considerable advance in 
 the endeavour to represent the foreshorten- 
 ing of the features of an up-looking face. 
 In Gallery IV. of the Royal Academy, 
 classed amongst the early paintings, will be 
 found a better preserved page of illumi- 
 nation, representing the death and apotheosis 
 of the Virgin (177). The treatment is 
 the usual one. Our Lady lies dead on 
 a bier, surrounded by the Apostles, 
 amongst whom again Our Lord appears to re- 
 ceive the soul of His mother, whilst up to 
 heaven above she is borne by attendant angels, 
 surrounded by an aureole. The finish of the 
 features is of exquisitely delicate manipulation, 
 and in the pose and character of the angels there 
 is a foretaste of the spirit of Fra Angelico, who 
 was born (possibly during Don Silvestro's life- 
 time) in 1387, and who died in 1455. Albeit 
 that Don Silvestro was a Benedictine, and 
 Giovanni Petri de Mugello (who afterwards was 
 to live in history as Fra Angelico da Fiesole) 
 became a Dominican, there is little doubt but 
 that the work of the elder artist was well known 
 to the younger one, to whom four drawings 
 are this year ascribed — two in each of 
 the collections — and certainly three of 
 these may be considered to be genuine. Her 
 Majesty the Queen lends two to the Royal 
 Academy (53 and 57), the more instructive being 
 a sheet of sketches for the figures in the fresco 
 which decorates the chapel of Pope Nicholas 
 
9 
 
 in the Vatican, and which Fra Angelico painted 
 shortly before his death. His study for S. 
 Laurence (53) is particularly interesting, as 
 being in pose and arrangement of drapery pre- 
 cisely the same as that he carried into execu- 
 tion—a figure full of loving gentleness, going 
 about giving alms and doing good, full of reli- 
 gious devotion and human charity ; the counter- 
 part, in fact, of the artist's self, and thus a truly 
 sympathetic subject to such a painter who 
 deserved the name he won, and is always known 
 by. The other figures in this sketch seem also 
 to be studies for the recipients and bystanders, 
 and the head which fills No. 57 apparently 
 belongs to the companion fresco of S. Stephen. 
 It is freely drawn, with a silver point on brown 
 paper, heightened with white, the latter looking 
 as though it had at some time been refreshed. 
 Finer even than this is a charming drawing in 
 purple ink on vellum (G 416) of the sweet 
 singer of Israel, the illumination of a psalter 
 possibly intended for further colouring. David 
 —the singer, not the king— is seated playing 
 on a dulcimer, which he presses to his 
 breast and turns a sweet youthful face heaven- 
 wards as he sings. It is an exquisitely beautiful 
 ideal, and full of that great lovingness which 
 marks so strongly all that Angelico did. The 
 fourth example (G 415) which, like this last 
 treasure, belongs to Mr. Malcolm, of Portalloch, 
 is an inferior study of a monk holding a book, 
 and may or may not be Angelico's, but it lacks 
 the great characteristics which distinguish his 
 work. Born in the same year, 1387, was 
 Donatello, fiery and impetuous an artist as 
 Angelico was gentle and patient. Angelico 
 Bought his inspiration in the contemplation of the 
 world which is to come, Donatello his in the study 
 of the works of the world that had passed, and 
 that renaissance of Greek feeling which sprung 
 
10 
 
 from his delving, and wMcli exercised such an 
 enormous influence in the succeeding century may 
 be said to commence with him. Truly characte- 
 ristic of his vigour and severity of line is the 
 sketch (40) in the Royal Academy belonging to 
 Mr. Knowles ; it is simply a back view of a cowled 
 figure, whose garment hangs in long massive 
 folds of real grandeur and dignity, and the 
 decisive quickly-drawn lines by which they are 
 delineated represent not only the idiosyncrasy 
 of the man but his profession also. This is the 
 drawing of a sculptor par excellence, and could 
 not be taken for that of a painter, for if you 
 will compare the drawings of each through- 
 out these two collections you will find the vigorous 
 decision of the stroke indicates the hand which 
 wielded the chisel, whilst the soft pliant line tells 
 of the hand accustomed to the brush. In a 
 smaller degree we see this in Mr. Palgrave's 
 •♦Virgin and Child'* (49), which is, however, 
 more a drapery study than a figure one, and one 
 I should be rather inclined to consider as a work 
 of one of Donatello's pupils, or perhaps a very 
 early study of the master himself. The sketch 
 for " A Baptism " (G 391) is very vigorous, and 
 the action of the disrobing neophytes is excel- 
 lently well told, but surely this must be later 
 than Donatello*s time P— later by at least a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 With a curious drawing of "an ancient sacri- 
 fice," where classic-robed personages kill a 
 pig under the walls of a mediaeval city, attri- 
 buted to Squarcione (G 56), the illustra- 
 tion of the work of artists born in the 
 fourteenth century ends. Squarcione was 
 born in 1394, and was the rather a learned im- 
 pressario and art schoolmaster than an artist of 
 celebrity himgelf, but to him is due the founda- 
 tion of the Paduan school. He travelled to 
 Greece, not improbably in the way of businessi 
 
11 
 
 for he kept a tailor and embroiderer's Bhop, but 
 lie brought thence copious memoranda and much 
 learning, gaining the reputation of being the 
 best teacher of his time, and his school was des- 
 tined to be a famous one. To him we owe Man- 
 tegna and the classicists of his creatioja, and 
 the carefully-etched bas-relief like drawing here 
 exhibited, belongs without doubt to that academy 
 at Padua Squarcione founded. It, however, is 
 more interesting from an historical than an 
 artistic point of view, as it marks well that 
 point of a new departure which we shall have to 
 study in the following century and my next 
 article. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 No. II. 
 
 From the Manchester courier, February 12, 1879. 
 
 London, Tuesday. 
 The fifteenth century commences with the 
 name of Masaccio, who was born in 1402 and 
 died, too soon, in 1429, attributed to whom are 
 four drawings exhibited this year, three of them 
 worthy of, and probably two of them by, him. 
 Of these latter we have in G 40 an excellent 
 illustration of that truthful naturalism which, 
 under Masaccio*s direction, was driving from 
 the field the conventional treatment which up to 
 this time had held its sway in art. Imbued 
 with some of the boldness of Donatello, feeling 
 the influence of that classic simplicity which 
 was dawning all over Europe just now, 
 Masaccio added to these a truthfulness 
 and directness of purpose peculiarly his 
 own. He dared to draw what he saw, and his 
 power of seeing was largely increased by the 
 scientific knowledfiie by which it was directed. 
 In this drawing of a youth tightening up his 
 hose there is more direct naturalism than in 
 anything we have yet seen in art, and yet more 
 science in the foreshortening of some of the 
 limbs. Both these qualities are even more 
 largely demonstrated in the study, evidently 
 from the life, of a young man seated on a plank 
 drawing in a book (G 59). The carelessness of 
 
u 
 
 the attitude^ and earnestness of tlie expres- 
 sion are admirably set forth « -whilst the 
 certainty of the fine pen lines is such 
 PS would puzzle many modem artists to equal. 
 There is nothing redundant, neither is there any- 
 thing wanting. There is no wild bravura ta 
 disguise ignorance, but earnest truthfulness is 
 patent everywhere, and I look upon this drawing 
 as one of the finest illustrations of pre- 
 Baphaelite work exhibited this year. Assigned 
 to him is an exquisite little drawing of St. 
 Christopher (G 592), where the giant bears his 
 long-sought Master across the stream, but which 
 I am inclined to place later than Masaccio's 
 time, for I know of no instance of the use 
 of the triple-rayed nimbus without a cir- 
 cumferating line, like that which adorns 
 the head of the Infant Christ in this draw- 
 ing, at so early a period. Indeed, I think the 
 drawing in question is very much later for many 
 other reasons. St. Christopher in the drawings 
 of this period was much more herculean in his 
 proportions, and the pose and attitude of the 
 figure betokens a later sentiment. Be it by 
 whom it may, it is an exquisite little work, and 
 is none the less valuable for not being the work 
 of the master to whom it is assigned. 
 
 Contemporaneously with Masaccio, and by 
 some asserted to be his pupil, lived Andrea 
 del Oastagno, a realist without culture, but 
 with a superabundance of vigour, and probably 
 belonging to whom is a sketch book leaf 
 containing six studies of men hanging, 
 "supposed," says the catalogue, "to repre- 
 sent the Fazzi conspirators who were hanged at 
 
the windows of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence 
 in 1478," after one of those innumerable little 
 revolutions the Florentines were so frequently 
 engaged in in order to assassinate and overthrow 
 their rulers. But Castagno died of the plague 
 on the 19 th of August, 1457, nearly twenty years 
 before the attempt on the life of Lorenzo dei 
 Medici and his brother Guliano, then chiefs of 
 the Florentine Republic, so it is evident that 
 the supposition of the catalogue is baseless. 
 Castagno had, however, no need to wait for suoli 
 an important event to make such studies as 
 these, for such over-ripe fruitof the treeof evil was 
 a common object in all suburban districts then- 
 a-days, and these are but three common rogues 
 in various stages of decay, the six studies 
 being front and side views of three individuals 
 of the baser sort, who probably suffered for 
 some murderous brawl. The Pazzi conspirators 
 comprised an archbishop, a philosopher, and 
 half a score of nobler. On the same sheet are 
 a couple of slight studies, from the life this 
 time, of a lady and child, but such drawings 
 belong rather to the curiosities of art than to a 
 record of its progress. Passing a work ascribed 
 to Neri di Bicci (G 418), our next in point of 
 date IS a profile portrait in red chalk, stated to 
 be by Gentile Bellini (G 399), and very probably 
 that of either he or his brother Giovanni, who 
 was some six years the younger, and to whom 
 no less than five drawings are assigned this 
 year one— again a profile in red chalk — from 
 the Earl of Warwick's collection (G 146) bearing 
 a considerable affinity in workmanship to the 
 drawing last cited. In the highly finished draw- 
 
16 
 
 ing cn brown paper of a group of [figures (G 65) 
 the massive bas relief cliaracter has more of 
 Faduan element in it than is usually found in 
 Gian. Bellini's work, and if by him, mast have 
 been executed when he was quite young and 
 under the influence of that junior brother artist, 
 Andrea Mantegna, who he met in Padua about 
 1445. The figures of SS. Philip and James 
 (G 19) and SS. Peter and John (G 20) are bold 
 and sculpturesque in treatment, but I should 
 hesitate very much before assigning them to 
 this artist, though they are very probably 
 of Venetian origin, and possibly of con- 
 temporary date, whilst the red and black chalk 
 drawing stated to be of the school of Giovanni 
 Bellini," and styled "Lucretia," (G 388) is a 
 modem copy of one of Titian's figures and of no 
 merit or interest. Another very much antedated 
 drawing is one ascribed to Pesello Pesellini, who 
 was hoYKL in the first year of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury and who died in 1457. It is as apocryphal 
 as its subject, which depicts the strange Miracle 
 of a Child who Proclaims its Father" (G 332), 
 and where the costume and the architecture tell 
 of the middle of the sixteenth century. It is a 
 very weak drawing, and has no claim to be con- 
 sidered as the work of one of the most notable of 
 the early animal painters. What a pity it is that 
 the drawing cannot continue the miracle ! but I 
 fear the result would be somewhat disappointing 
 to its owner. 
 
 This brings us to the time of that great light 
 in art, Andrea Mantegna, the pupil, as I have 
 before said, of the tailor and embroiderer 
 Squarcione. He was bom in 1431, and lived till 
 
17 
 
 1506, effecting, perhaps, a greater revolution in 
 painting and design than any of his predecessors. 
 Mantegna was more than a pupil of Squarcione, 
 he was his foster-child, and was adopted as such, 
 and so entered in the books of the Paduan guild 
 of painters in 1441. Here at Padua he re- 
 mained for well nigh 20 years, paint- 
 ing for Squaroione in the chapel of 
 the Eremitani, becoming the friend of 
 Donatello, the brother-in-law of the Bellini's, 
 learning much from, as well as teaching 
 much to, them, and ultimately incurring the 
 jealousy of his master by his greater fame. 
 Prom Padua he went to Mantua, under the pro- 
 tection of the Gonzaga family, and where, 
 excepting with short visits to Rome, he 
 lived and died. Assigned to him are 14 draw- 
 ings, all of them in the Grosvenor Gallery. Of 
 these Nos. G 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 23, repre- 
 senting the sy bills and two prophets are more 
 than doubtful. Indeed, they scarcely seem by 
 the same hand, and are probably copies made by 
 some of Mantegna's pupils from sketches of his 
 own. The drawing (G41)of Hercules slaying the 
 Nemean Lion" is a charming illustration of the 
 importation of grace and freedom introduced 
 into Italian art by the labours and studies of 
 Mantegna, and this is even more beautifully 
 developed in the exquisitely designed " Pestival 
 of Bacchus" (G 23), which is full of the most 
 subtle arrangements of line and composition. 
 Pare as a bas-relief of the best Greek times, it 
 is wonderful how, with the limited knowledge 
 of Greek literature, such a true rennaisance of 
 past art could have been brought about. The 
 
18 
 
 wine god here is the young Dionysus of Praxi- 
 tiles, the youthful deity who maketh glad the 
 heart of man and exalts him out of his 
 lower nature, not the fleshly lowerer of humanity 
 of the baser Roman cultas, and, indeed, 
 the whole composition is a dithyramb of the 
 truest poetry worthy of the palmiest period of 
 Greek art. The graceful youth who bears aloft 
 Old Silenus is especially notable in form and 
 bearing, and even the satyr who balances this 
 figure on the other side of the drawing has lost 
 the brutal element which Boman tradition had 
 imposed upon him. In both these two drawings 
 (G 41 and 23) the canon of the figure is much 
 more slender than usual with Mantegna, and 
 were it not for Mantegna's engraving of 
 this latter I should be inclined to attribute 
 the drawing to the more graceful Gian. Bellini. 
 Of Mantegna's drawing for engraving purposes. 
 The Entombment" (G 28) is a magnificent ex- 
 ample, both for delicacy of drawing and severity 
 of line. We here also notice the wide sympathy 
 of the great artist and learned antiquary, for in 
 the short broken crisp folds ot the draperies 
 there is an evidence of his appreciation of that 
 school from the other side of the Alps which 
 was just now forcing itself into notice, and which 
 was entirely based on Gothic traditions. It was 
 this catholicity of spirit which made Mantegna's 
 influence so generative in the then coming art, 
 producing on one side of the dividing ridge of 
 Europe Michael Angelo, and on the other Albert 
 Durer. Of his love of labour and his unremit- 
 ting ardour in what by many would be considered 
 as inferior work, his exquisite "Design for a 
 
19 
 
 Chalice" (G 35) is a proof, i£ any were needed. 
 To him as an artist nothing was unimportant 
 or unworthy of consideration! and the incidents 
 of our Lord's Passion which form a band round 
 the cup, the statuettes of the apostles which 
 surround the knop, and the patriarchs and 
 prophets which are chased on its wide- 
 spreading foot, are as carefully designed as 
 though they were for large pictorial execution. 
 Apart from this the drawing is a notable illus- 
 tration of the increased knowledge of perspec- 
 tive and foreshortening to which Mantegna so 
 largely contributed, for both in science and in 
 art he was one of those who stood in the fore- 
 most rank during the latter half of the 15 th 
 century. To him also we owe the first attempt 
 to widen the range and influence of art in 
 spreading its efforts abroad by means of en- 
 graving, for he was the first artist to seize upon 
 this process for such purpose and to design 
 compositions especially for it. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 NO. III. 
 
 ' From the Manchester Courier, February 17, 1879. 
 
 London, Saturday. 
 Whilst Mantegna was impressing a classic and 
 almost sculpturesque character on painting at 
 Padua and Mantua, Verocchio, his one year 
 junior, was in Florence imparting a picturesque 
 freedom to sculpture, and, what was more im- 
 portant, training up a school of highly scientific 
 artists, foremost amongst whom was Lionardo 
 da Yinoi, for whose guidance and instruction he 
 drew up a scale of proportions of the human figure 
 at all stages of its growth, and this very scale we 
 have here set forth in seven studies inscribed by 
 him as " Rules of Proportion given to his pupil 
 Lionardo da Yinci " (G 401, 402;. Taking the 
 head or the face, or what Yerocohio states to be 
 their equivalents, the foot and the hand, as the 
 integer, he builds up in blocks of eight heads or 
 ten faces adult figures, and in lesser but definite 
 numbers those of youths and children, arrang- 
 ing these blocks after a sculptor's fashion, 
 as though they were so much clay. Of 
 course, to us there is nothing new in this, it 
 has now passed into the regular curriculum of 
 the drawing schools, but Verocchio was one of 
 the first to demonstrate that law of orderly pro- 
 portion OR which the human frame is constructed, 
 and thus render the study of the figure easier for 
 all succeeding artists. He also shows by certain 
 
22 
 
 diagrams tlie line of gravitatiou of figures in 
 motion and at rest, and in G 4)01 we have the 
 indication of a perspective scheme for arranging 
 the position of the heads of a crowd of figures 
 in a picture to be placed above the level of 
 the eye. A well foreshortened, upturned head 
 of a boy, which has been pricked for pouncing 
 and transference to canvas or plaster (G 101), is 
 attributed to him, but there is nothing whatever 
 to determine this in the drawing itself, and 
 though Yerocchio did paint at times his works 
 were very few in this branch of art. Sculpture 
 or modelling for bronze was his chief vocation, 
 and the very crude sketches of horses (G 54), 
 which bear the name of his pupil, in an old hand, 
 are now supposed to be studies by him for his 
 equestrian monument of Bartolommeo Ooleoni 
 at Venice. Neither master nor pupil would 
 derive credit from them, and they are more 
 likely the first efforts of some juvenile aspirant 
 in art. The master's hand and the sculp- 
 tor's vigorous stroke seems to exist in a 
 very clever pen and ink drawing of the back 
 view of a man in plate armour (G 86), bat which 
 is unfortunately hung too high to be examined. 
 An interesting and very freely-drawn study of 
 the kneeling shepherds for a Nativity, by Luca 
 Signorelli will be found in G 64, and as this is 
 squared for enlargement, it may have served for 
 the painting of oue now in the Mancini collec- 
 tion at Oitta de Castillo, and which was done in 
 1496, when Luca would be about 35 jears 
 old; and as an illustration of the greater 
 freedom of line and more easy handling, 
 which was now beginning to prevail amongst 
 
23 
 
 artists, the small drapery study (G 80) attributed 
 to him may be notioed. Great as Signorelli in- 
 dividually was, his influence was not so in art ; 
 but in Pietro Perugino, who was born in 1446, 
 and who died in 1524, we have another of those 
 teachers whose labours are even more fruitful in 
 the work of their scholars than in that of their 
 own hand, and as Squarcione educated Mantegna 
 —who added classic grace and dignity to the 
 somewhat formal figure painting which preceded 
 him, as Yerocchio educated Lionardo,;who rec- 
 tified proportion, before defective, and who 
 elevated painting in its scientific phase— so 
 Perugino, by his richer system of colour, and 
 his prosecution of oil painting.raieed up Raphael, 
 the culminating creator of Italian art. By 
 Perugino we have an exceedingly clever group 
 of armed personages (54), where the principal 
 figure recalls the S. Michael m the Certosa of 
 Pavia, of which we have a replica in our National 
 Gallery. Here the lines are firm and decisive, 
 though somewhat hard and laboured, betoken- 
 ing an early work, before Raphael could have 
 assisted him, for to Raphael's hand some critics 
 assign that work we possess, and which bears his 
 master's name, but Perugino is often robbed of 
 his true glory from the desire to enhance the 
 value of his work by assigning it to his more 
 celebrated pupil. The work of some of his in- 
 ferior pupils is probably preserved in the drawing 
 (G 46) for, or perhaps from, ** The Deposition" in 
 Florence as also in figures with very diminutive 
 extremities which resemble some of Perugino'a 
 designs in the Oambio at Perugia, a work for 
 which he did but little more than design the 
 
24 
 
 cartoons, leaving the execution of them almost 
 entirely to his pupils and assistants. A boldly 
 sketched study for the Nativity which decorates 
 the same building, and which has been pricked 
 for transference, will be found in G 409, and if 
 you compare the free vigorous stroke with which 
 this is drawn andithe weakness of the former, it 
 will readily be seen that they are not by the 
 same] hand. The fine bistre study of the in- 
 credulity of S. Thomas (G 406), attributed to 
 Perugino, is very Raphaelesque in composition, 
 and very reminiscent of his grouping in the car- 
 toons for his celebrated tapestry designs. 
 
 Botticelli has suffered very much at the hands 
 of collectors, and of the four drawings this 
 year attributed to him three are certainly un- 
 worthy of, and only one even probably by, him. 
 This is the head of a youth (G 81), and which 
 I should feel inclined to assign rather to 
 Lorenzo di Oredi ; but, of course, as these two 
 ^ere contemporaries and wrought together in 
 FJorence it is possible that this may be his, 
 unlike though it be to anything else he did. It 
 is a remarkably clever study from the life, of a 
 face seen by reflected light only, and seems the 
 drawing of a reflection in a mirror. The draw- 
 ing (G 76) of " A Coronation of the Yirgin " 
 may possibly be an early work of Ghirlan- 
 dajo's, but the other two are more than doubt- 
 ful, whilst that assigned to Bramante (G 52), 
 though a charming bit of decorative aichitec- 
 tare, seems to belong to an even later develop- 
 ment of the Milanese school. This and a beauti- 
 fully finished drawing of a Roman sacrifice (398), 
 probably by Francia, brings us to the period of 
 
25 
 
 Lionardo da Vinci, whose birtli took plaoe in 
 1452, and who died in 1519. No less than 66 
 drawings are exhibited this year as being by 
 him, 48 of these are at the Royal Academy, and 
 chiefly culled from the collection of her Majesty 
 at Windsor Castle. Of all these the authenti- 
 city is indisputable, as they were taken from a 
 volume which has been preserved for more 
 than two centuries in the Boyal collection, and 
 can be directly traced to the possession of 
 Melzi, to whom Lionardo bequeathed them, and 
 in whose arms he expired in 1519, at Oloux, 
 near Amboise in France, in which country, at the 
 invitation of Francis the First, he had taken up 
 his abode three years before with the intention 
 of founding there an academy of art and science 
 similar to that which he created at Milan, and 
 which the arms of France destroyed. Painter, 
 sculptor, poet, musician, mathematician, 
 military engineer, and natural philosopher, 
 JLionardo da Yinci strove to compass too 
 much. Tn natural philosophy he anticipated 
 Bacon by declaring that experiment should 
 precede theory ; he forestalled Porta in optics 
 by describing a camera- obscura nearly a cen- 
 tury before it was constructed ; wrote of the 
 law of gravitation forty years before Coper- 
 nicus published his discovery ; of hydrau- 
 lics a hundred years before Galileo's 
 friend Castelli, created it as an useful 
 science ; explained the principles of " flame 
 and air" three centuries before the modern 
 theory of combustion was promulgated ; and in 
 
26 
 
 anatomy arrived at results hardly yet re-attained. 
 It is needful to think on all of this as we stand 
 before his sketches, for they are of the most 
 encyclopedaic character, and full of the most 
 patient research. Of this his numerous studies 
 for that equestrian monument of Francesco 
 Sforza, his son and successor, Ludovico II Moro 
 invited Da Vinci to Milan to construct, bear 
 witness. Here we have many studies for the 
 horse, now half-rearing, as those on the Capito- 
 line Hill, now walking^, as those of S. Marco, 
 the two sources whence well nigh all 
 plastic essays of the horse have since 
 been drawn. Of these there are studies 
 from many points of view, and the pose thus 
 being determined on a series of the most elabo- 
 rate measurements and details was commenced, 
 such as those recorded in 180 and 203, where not 
 only are the actual dimensions of each portion 
 of the leg and head given, but the curves taken 
 by the joints in action are actually noted. These 
 diagrams and sketches bristle with notes, 
 written unfortunately in reverse, that is from 
 right to left, and therefore not easily legible 
 until held before a mirror. From the design 
 of the animal the artist then proceeds to con- 
 sider the ultimate casting it in bronze, and 
 in 174-5 we have many ingenious suggestions 
 as how to obtain so large a casting in one piece. 
 From this Lionardo proceeds to the consideration 
 of the pedestal for which there are many studies, 
 and even to the machinery by which the ponder- 
 ous casting was to be moved and hoisted. And, 
 
27 
 
 alas ! all this consideration took too mucli time^ 
 for before the statue was cast the French army 
 had entered Milan ; Ludovico was a prisoner in 
 France, and Gascon archers made a butt of 
 Lionardo*s model, and the great work of many 
 years serious study and high artistic labour 
 perished. 
 
 Of his anatomical studies we have also 
 many records in those most admirable demon- 
 strations of the muscles of the human arm, 
 neck, and shoulder (198), (199), (202), and of the 
 lower leg and foot (200), which are as clearly set 
 forth as though, and even more intelligibly ren- 
 dered than if, they were, the production of all 
 that the 19th century could produce ; whilst his 
 mechanical skill is shown by his device for some 
 huge pieces of breech-loading artillery (172), 
 which are veritable " Woolwich] infants" for 
 size, and artistic treasures for the skill in which 
 the multitude of figures in action required to 
 move these monsters are delineated. Passing 
 to his higher artistic phase we stand before a 
 glorious cartoon, the property of the Royal Aca- 
 demy of Arts, Lionardo's design for a never com- 
 pleted picture of the Holy Family (190), origi- 
 nally intended for the Church of the 'Nunziata, 
 at Florence. It is a glorious composition, where 
 St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin, points 
 heavenward with her hand, and Our Lady leans 
 forward supporting the Infant Christ, who 
 blesses Saint John, and which, says Yasari, 
 " made all artists to marvel ; '* nor them only, 
 for when this drawing was exhibited, **men 
 
28 
 
 and women, yonng and old, came during two 
 days to see it as one goes to a solemn feast, so 
 mnoli did the wonders of Lionardo make all men 
 astonished. For there was to be seen in the 
 face of Our Lady all that was most simple and most 
 beautiful, and able with simplicity and beauty 
 to lend grace to a mother of Christ, who desires 
 to show a modesty and humility fitting to a 
 virgin, glad and joyful at the sight of the beauty 
 of that Son whom tenderly she upholds in her 
 lap, the while with frank gaze she looks down 
 upon a little St. John, who sports with a lamb, 
 not without a smile from St. Anne, who, full of 
 lightheartedness, sees her earthly progeny 
 become celestial— all of which suggestions are 
 worthy of the genius of Lionardo." They, 
 happy people, had the hope that they might see 
 this work, rendered with all that colour 
 his Genacola exhibited at Milan, but alas 
 that jealousy for his art, and of that of 
 others, which hung about and t hindered 
 all his life's work, prevented it, and this before 
 us is all that remains of so glorious a concep- 
 tion. Many another happy suggestion hangs on 
 the Academy walls, as well as a fair gleaning of 
 those cariosities and grotesques he lightened 
 his more serious labours with — a playful twisting 
 of his inventive powers which clung to him all 
 his life, for his first work was a grotesque com- 
 bination from all the weird characteristics of 
 insect and reptile life he could concrete together, 
 in which, though all the detail was true to 
 nature, its application was so abnormal that 
 it filled his father with such a thrill of 
 
29 
 
 horror that he turned and fled. Did time allow 
 me, I could linger lovingly much longer over 
 these wondrous works of this many-sided man ; 
 but I must turn to the Grosvenor Gallery, 
 where some 18 other sketches and studies bear- 
 ing his name are hung, though these are, as a 
 rule, of minor interest, and many of them of 
 doubtful origin, not equalling in interest those 
 last year exhibited by Sir Coutts. One of the 
 best here is a beautiful female head (G 89) 
 of his usual type, but of unusually deli- 
 cate execution. Grand and noble in character 
 also is the *' Virgin and Child'* (G 94), and 
 very charming is the head of a youth (G 97) in 
 red chalk, probably a portrait of one of the 
 Medici Princes, being copied under such a title 
 by Stef^ano della Bella a century and a half 
 after. The head of a female assigned to him 
 (G 92), is more probably by his pupil Salaino, 
 whose work is seen in 127 in Gallery III. of 
 the Boyal Academy this year ; the technical 
 character of the drawing with its close square 
 cross hatch, differing greatly from anything 
 existing in any of Lionardo's known work ; and 
 I fear I must also object to the ascription of 
 the very grand life sized head (G 95), suggested 
 as being the portrait of one of the Sforzas. 
 It is a very noble work in portraiture 
 but much more suggestive of the Bellini and 
 of Venice, than of Da Vinci and Milan, 
 yet be it by whom it may it is a most 
 noteworthy illustration of fifteenth century 
 art, and an honour to any artist who 
 
30 
 
 lived therein. Lionardo's life and labonrs 
 have oocnpied me over long, but both were so 
 important that gratitude demands even more 
 than I dare give, and the student who will 
 devote a day or two to the examination of these 
 three score and six drawings now exhibiting, 
 will find enough to occupy all his observation 
 for that time and his memory for many a long 
 year after. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 No. IV. 
 
 From the Manchester Courier, Fehruary 1879. 
 
 London, Thuesdat. 
 Of oourse the influence of such a life as that 
 of Lionardo da Vinci, too briefly sketched in my 
 last notice, was a lasting one in art, and his 
 pupils carried out those theories and discoveries 
 he had initiated, handing them down the obam 
 of time until their direct origin became obscured 
 by frequent transmission. The most earnest of 
 these pupils was Lorenzo Oredi, born 1459, who, 
 though some seven years younger tnan Lionardo, 
 was his fellow student under Verocchio, who so 
 appreciated his character that he left him his 
 executor. So closely did Oredi follow the steps 
 of his great fellow student that Yasari 
 says you could not tell Lorenzo's copy from 
 Da Vinci's original, but this refers rather to his 
 mode of painting than to his power of drawing. 
 Of this latter there are two vtry fine illustra- 
 tions in G 83-4, where the heads of two youths 
 are moat faithfully and honestly drawn, and the 
 largest amount of realistic force is imparted by 
 bhe very smallest amount of representative effort, 
 (n the whole exhibition there is nothing more won- 
 derful in this direction than these two sketches. 
 You have living portraiture presented to you by 
 the simplest possible means, yet every element 
 of realism is present there, and the more you ex- 
 amine them the more wonderful do they appear. 
 
32 
 
 The five other drawings attributed to him in the 
 Grosvenor Gallery are of less interest, but the 
 examination of them all certainly strengthens 
 the opinion I expressed in my last article, that 
 the head assigned to Botticelli (G 81) is from 
 Credi'fl hand. 
 
 Honesty and steadfastness were his chaiao- 
 teristicB — characteristics he shared with Baccio 
 della Porta, his friend and fellow-worker, in 
 both of whom these virtues were subjected to a 
 heavy trial, for, coming under the influence of 
 that great reformer of the fifteenth century, 
 Savonarola, they burnt their more mundane 
 studies, and ever after that great carnival time of 
 1497 devoted themselves to religious art. Delia 
 Porta did more— he devoted himself to a religious 
 life, and shortly afterwards entered the Domini- 
 can monastery of St. Marco, at Florence, to 
 become known by a name which has become a 
 revered one in art — Fra Bartolommeo. Living 
 and working where Fra A.ngelico lived and 
 worked, surrounded by the traditions he left 
 behind him, and the pure, spiritual feeling his 
 fressoes hallowed his home with, Fra Bartolom- 
 meo imbibed much of Angelico*s simple earnest- 
 ness, and added to it that ineffable grace, the 
 outcome of the teaching of Pietro Perugino, and 
 which was to culminate in the work of Perugino*s 
 pupil and Bartolommeo'a friend Raphael whose 
 early labours were just now bringing forth beau- 
 tiful and wholesome fruit. To Fra Bartolommeo 
 no less than 14 drawings are this year assigned ; 
 the earliest of these is that where two nude 
 figures of Hercules and David are sketched out — 
 brands saved from that burning, at Savonarola's 
 
33 
 
 bidding, of everything that was nude and all 
 that was profane. Slight, but firm of touch, 
 the David is suoh a figure of a youth with a sling 
 as is common in the works of Da Yinci and 
 other artists of this epoch, and which culminated 
 it Michael Angelo'a statue which in 150 i was 
 set up at Florence. Next, perhaps, in order is 
 the head of a Dominican fiiar (G 152), said to 
 be the portrait of Fra Girolamo Savonarola 
 himself, but which hardly resembles the 
 ascetic face of the fanatical reformer at 
 such a period as he would have influenced Delia 
 Porta. It lacks the strength of purpose, the 
 religious fervour represented in Delia Robbla's 
 contemporaneous, eagle-like bust, and which is 
 described as equally existing in a portrait 
 Delia Porta painted of him, still in existence, 
 but which I have not seen. His more charac- 
 teristic work will be found a charming sketch 
 of ** Angels Crowning the Virgin" (52), which 
 shows that even balance of composition his work 
 was so remarkable for, and in which he carried 
 out to the full the lessons on this subject set 
 forth by Da V"inoi, but the grace of the 
 Madonna, the skilful cast of drapery, 
 and the loving sentiment, are peculiarly 
 his own. Above this composition is an 
 enlarged and modified study of one of the 
 angels, which is similar in treatment to the one 
 who hands the Holy Child to the Virgin in an 
 earlier study (46). Of his naivete and grace in 
 the treatment of infants, the so-called Four 
 Studies for Amorini" (G 157) is a delightsome 
 example, but which are really two studies for 
 the infant Christ leaning forward to bless St. 
 
34 
 
 John— two strivings for perfection on the same 
 basis, each so beautiful that it is hard to say if 
 either has pre-eminence. 
 
 Passing over Fiiippino Lippo, who, though 
 present in name is absent in spirit, and some 
 minor artists, we come to the works of Michel 
 Angelo Baonaroti, who was born in 1475. Of 
 these, no less than 65 are this year presented to 
 us, 50 of them being at the Royal Academy, 
 chiefly contributed by her Majesty and by the 
 University of Oxford. To reduce these to 
 chronological order is no easy task, yet to 
 ade<iuately study Michel Angelo*s work it is one 
 necessary to be undertaken. Perhaps the eai liest 
 drawing we have of his is that vigorous pt n 
 sketch of three soldiers conversing (306), which 
 has been so often reproduced and copied. Early 
 though it is, the decisive character of line marks 
 the sculptor's drawing, and may be assigned to 
 tbe period of his studies in the Medicis 
 gardens at Florence, about 1490, or to 
 1500, to which period is also assignable 
 the wonderfully-drawn grotesque grifEon, who 
 stran^^les himself with his own tail (266), a 
 curious revival of that early Celtic idea in 
 ornamentation which became suddenly popular 
 in Italy during the latter half of the 15 bh cen- 
 tury, and of which her latest manuscripts and 
 her earliest printed .books contain abundant 
 illnstratioD. From these we come to a series of 
 idealised studies of female heads of singularly 
 careful execution, as that in 250, from her 
 Majesty's collection, which seems almost portrai- 
 ture, and of which a profile treatment occurs in 
 307, from the Oxford series. To this same epoch I 
 
35 
 
 would refer Mr. Vaughan's oliarming "Cleopatra" 
 (260), and Mr. W. Russell's "Zenobia" (G479).£or 
 in all there seems to be tbe same fanciful deco- 
 rative treatment of the aocessoriea which ooours 
 in the early work of most artists, and which 
 seems to be entirely wanting in Michel An- 
 gela's later drawings. In 1501 he received the 
 commission for his celebrated statue of David, 
 and I think in the drawing (249) we have some 
 portion of his study for this figure in certain 
 observations of proportion, especially relating 
 to the elbow and knee joints, made on a fine 
 drawing from the nude. And now comes the 
 time of his design for the fresco proposed 
 / to be executed in the Palazzo della Signoria 
 
 at Florence, a design he rendered in compe- 
 tition with Lionardo da Vinci— one side of 
 the vast hall being appropriated to each 
 artist. Lionardo chose ** The Battle for the 
 Standard" as his subject ; Michel Angelo, 
 one peculiarly adapted to show forth his 
 wonderful versatility in the treatment of the 
 nude, and at the same time flattering to the 
 Florentines, for it perpetuated the memory of.an 
 episode in one of those innumerable wars which 
 were always going on between the Republics of 
 Florence and Pisa, and when a force belonging 
 to the latter made a sudden raid on the Florentine 
 troops, taking them at a disadvantage whilst 
 they were bathing in the Arno, but despite which 
 the troops of the city of the Lily defeated those 
 of the city of the Tower. Hurriedly climbing 
 the bank; well nigh drowning some of their 
 comrades in their haste, these figures presented 
 just that academic quality in which Micbel 
 
36 
 
 Angelo was pre-eminently sucoeBsf ul. The varied 
 muscular developments — the foreshortened 
 limbs— the sense of action and motion required 
 to tell the story, were all such things as he 
 excelled in representing, and had the work ever 
 been painted it would have been a finer exhibi- 
 tion of his power in composition than any pic- 
 torial work he has left us. Unfortunately, 
 neither this nor Lionardo's were executed, the 
 jealousy and philosophical hesitancy of Da 
 Yinoi delaying his, and the political troubles of 
 the time and the imperious demands of Pope 
 Julius II. effectually prevented Michel Angelo 
 doing more than prepare the cartoon for that he 
 designed, and even this was soon destroyed. I 
 presume therefore that we this year see more of this 
 celebrated composition than any one for these 
 last three centuries and a half has done at any 
 one time. We have 'Bastiano di San Gallo's 
 contemporary copy of the principal part of the 
 foreground (255), the only contemporary record 
 of it extant, and we have Michel Angelo's own 
 studies for much of its detail, as in (259) 
 the original draught, of that splendid youth 
 who, just emerged from the stream, turns 
 round to hasten on his comrades. The 
 sketches for the onslaught of the Pisan 
 Cavalry (298)— an episode not represented in 
 the portion of the composition which has 
 remained to us by San Gallo's copy ; another 
 combat between cavalry and infantry (in 310), 
 and some further details (in G 482), and these 
 are almost all the relics which yet remain of 
 that great composition which served as a 
 school to so many artists in the early part of 
 
87 
 
 the 16th century, incliiding Raphael himself. 
 Julias IT., having once induced Michel 
 Angelo to come to his court at Borne, found 
 him plenty to do, and the first work was 
 to design a sumptuous monument for him, 
 the which he would have executed during his 
 lifetime. The artist was equal in invention to 
 the ambition of the Pope, for Michel Angelo'a 
 design proved so grand that in order to enshrine 
 it properly St. Peter's itself must be rebi^ilt ; 
 and to those who are inclined to connect cause 
 and consequence intimately together, the little 
 sketches on sheet 248 may portray the Eeforma^ 
 tion, for as the monument and the rebuilding 
 St. Peter's demanded so much money, pardons 
 and indulgences had to be sold wholesale to bring 
 it in Fast enough, and Luther's indignation 
 was reformingly roused thereat. Looking on 
 it, however, only with an artistic eye we see 
 there some of the first studies for those caryatide 
 figures which were to have surrounded this 
 sumptuous monument, and of which some are 
 now in the Louvre and others in the Boboli 
 Gardens at Florence, the Pope having died before 
 his tomb was built, and therefore a smaller 
 mausoleum sufficed to enshrine his memory. 
 But Julius employed the artist on other works 
 than this, and insisted on his becoming a painter 
 against his will, for though, as we have seen, he 
 designed a fresco for the adornment of the 
 public hall of his native city, yet, before 
 all things, Michel Angelo was a sculptor, and 
 struggled against the Pope's imperious will, but 
 in vain, and the frescoes of the Sistine (Jhapel 
 are the result of this enforcement. These were 
 
38 
 
 commenced in 1508, and continued without in- 
 termission till 1511. Of this period of his 
 labours we have many illustrations, such as hia 
 study how best to overcome that crux, the angle 
 of an inter-vaulted ceiling, and which he 
 achieved with consummate skill by the scheme 
 shown in G 493. Mr. Vaughan's grand study 
 for the figure of Isaiah (252) is an evidence of 
 the care and thought the master bestowed upon 
 tha preliminaries of his work, and in 299, 300, 
 and 305 we have similar, though less highly, 
 wrought, studies for those grand figures which 
 adorn the spandrils of his wonderful ceilioi^. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 NO. V. 
 
 From the Manchestkr Courier, March 7, W9. 
 
 London, Thursday. 
 
 On the death of Pope Julius Michel Angelo 
 resumed his career as a sculptor, and added to 
 it that of architect, though of this latter phase 
 we have no indication amongst the drawings this 
 year exhibited, his next great work being the 
 Tombs of the Medici Princes at Florence. 
 
 Before considering such of his sketches as 
 illustrate these it will be well to notice some of 
 the many studies for detached works, often of the 
 highest beauty, such as the carefully-finished 
 studies in red chalk of the labours of Hercules 
 (269). Of these we have the slaying of theNemsecin 
 lion-"a splendid piece of action and of exquisite 
 technical quality— to which, by the way, Michel 
 Angelo has attached a humorous memorandum 
 that this is the second lion Hercules has killed, as 
 he already wears the skin of a former one on his 
 shoulders. The other '* labour " is the ** Stran- 
 gling the Hydra," in which the position of the 
 hero is very objectionable, though the drawing 
 of it is admirable. Between these two is a study 
 for a group of Hercules wrestling with Antseus, 
 a subject he was much exercised upon about the 
 year 1524, when he received a commission from 
 the Signoria of Florence to execute such a group. 
 Still more beautiful is the eminently classic group 
 
40 
 
 of " The Shooters at the Mark" (302), a group of 
 figures rTiunmg,and in the attitude of discharging 
 their arrows as they run. I say in the attitude of 
 so doing, because it is only the action which here 
 is considered, the accessories of the bows and 
 arrows being left out. Their fine figures are 
 unsurpassed for litheness and motion by the 
 work of any period, classic or modern. Fall of 
 grace and and youthful energy, they are models 
 of the highest purity and refinement— a refine- 
 ment the result of many studies, some of which 
 we see in Q 4-91, where the figures are carefully 
 outlined with a pen, and in G 492, where they 
 are almost as elaborately finished in chalk, as in 
 the glorious example which is the pride of the 
 Windsor collection. 
 
 Another fantasia, but on a different theme, is 
 the ** Bacchanalia di Putti" (294), a bacohic 
 festival held by little amorini, whilst the guardian 
 fawn is fast asleep and his she-satyr suckles her 
 young ones in the shade, a composition of some 
 thirty figures, of a character quite unusual, 
 and apparently contradictory to the somewhat 
 stern grandeur of Michel Angelo's general range 
 in art. Fall of glee, some of the little ones bring 
 a pig for sacrifice ; others carry off Silenus's ass, 
 which, by the way, is cloven-footed; whilst 
 others brew and quaff the nectar, and every part 
 is finished with the most loving care, for Michel 
 Aneelo drew it for his friend ,Tommaso deOavalieri 
 for whom alao was designed that equally finished 
 and very noble oouceptionof Prometheus (301), a 
 marvel of modelling, and which was most 
 
41 
 
 likely drawn from a wax figurcj for the maeter 
 sketched his figures in the round before he drew 
 them, whenever he wanted to be very accurate, 
 the sculpturesque always presenting itself to 
 him more forcibly than the pictorial. The 
 human form was all in all to him, and in his 
 compositions there are neither trees nor 
 landscapes nor architecture, but en the hu- 
 man f^rm alone does he rely for the expres- 
 sion of ths idea he would convey, and 
 that form he generally treated in the simplest, 
 severest, and most sculpturesque manner. 
 Amongst the more serious works of this time is 
 the statue of Ghrist in the Minerva at Rome, 
 which was designed by Michel Angelo about 
 1521, and executed under his direction by 
 Frizzi (a brother Florentine sculptor), and the 
 first study for which we find in 261, where the 
 torso is very highly finished in pen and bistre. 
 Possibly to this period also may be ascribed that 
 singularly grand Pieta where the Crucified lies 
 between the knees of the Mater Dolorosa, and 
 angels bear up His outstretched arms, a compo- 
 sition of the most poetic beauty, the sentiment 
 of which is, however, sadly marred in the 
 descriptive note of the catalogue, where 
 the inscription on the stem of the cross, 
 at the foot of which this group is massed, is 
 thus transcribed, Non vi si pensa quando sara, 
 a sentence the which, if it can be tortured into 
 any meaning, might be read as running, " No one 
 can tell when this will be done.'* What the deep 
 poetic-souled artist wrote was not a sentence 
 
42 
 
 so trivial as to seem almost impious in such a 
 place, but Non vi si pensa quanta sangue, "It 
 was not to be thought how much blood it cost," 
 alluding to that wine-press of the Apocalypse, 
 and of Isaiah, the type and anti-type of that 
 cross whereon Christ bled. 
 
 The studies for a composition of the Resur- 
 rection of our Lord, show how Michel Angelo 
 strove for a worthy rendering of an exalted 
 idea, and how he refused to be satisfied in reli- 
 gious art with anything that savoured of com- 
 monplace. We see in 251 one of his earliest 
 efforts for this subject, but in which the figure 
 of our Lord called to mind the attitude of the 
 dancing fawn, and so was cast aside for another 
 which at first sight pleased him more (262), and 
 on which he lavished a wealth of loving labour, 
 finishing it to the highest point, and giving to 
 the principal figure a joyousness and life which 
 would have satisfied all others, yet we see in 268 
 how much was capable of being added to this, and 
 the outburst of the imprisoned Lord who soars 
 up to heaven is a glorious conception never 
 yet excelled since naturalistic treatment took 
 the place of conventional. And it was no easy 
 matter, even in the forepart of the 16 th century, 
 to break the bonds of that supernatural conven- 
 tionalism which had crystallised round religious 
 art, and which had so much spiritualistic sen- 
 timent in it that a poetic mind would cling with 
 venerating hold to it as long as possible. Yet 
 Michel Angelo felt that to give realistic action 
 to the affrighted guard, and to treat the prin- 
 
43 
 
 cipal figure in a different mode, was a eolecism 
 in art such as a refined artist could not counten- 
 ance, so thus he strove and thus he triumphed. 
 
 Returning to his work in sculpture he was 
 principally occupied in the construction and 
 decoration of the sacristy of San Lorenzo and 
 the Medici Tombs between 1520 and 1534<, 
 and we have here a drawing of the beautiful 
 "Figure of the Dawn" (28), which has been some- 
 what damaged, but which is exquisitely pulpy 
 and palpitating in its modelling. The raised 
 left hand and arm are restorations by an in- 
 ferior draughtsman, and it is perhaps some- 
 what doubtful if any part of this beau- 
 tiful drawing is from Michel Angelo's 
 hand— as the touch is different to that on 
 any other of his this year exhibited. Still 
 it came from the Wicar and the Woodburn 
 collections, and has long passed as genuine, but 
 it appears to me to be rather a most beautiful 
 copy from the sculpture than a study for it. 
 It is contemporaneous, no doubt, but I question 
 whether it is truly the great master's own work. 
 And now Leo X, having died, who, living, kept 
 Michel Angelo away from Borne, and Clement 
 VII., against whom Michel Angelo held Flo- 
 rence, having pardoned him on the condition 
 of his devoting himself henceforward to the 
 Papal service, set him to work once more at 
 painting in the Sistine Chapel, and the huge 
 fresco of "The Last Judgment," Michel 
 Angelo's largest, but by no means greatest, com- 
 position was thus begun in 1533, occupying the 
 
44 
 
 chiefest part of his time for the next 11 years. 
 For this there are many detached studies visible 
 this year, as (256) a study from the life, of a 
 man with his back towards us just raising himself, 
 and which occurs in the lower right hand corner 
 of the picture ; an important group of the upper 
 figures (258) showing them in their nudity before 
 Daniel Volterra,the "breeches-maker," clothed 
 them to satisfy a prurient Papal master of cere- 
 monies; a large head and shoulders ably and 
 boldly drawn (303), which does not seem to have 
 been employed, and several others full of interest, 
 especially the carefully. finished details of head 
 and foot and arm in G 483, which show how 
 careful to consider all the parts, even in so huge 
 an undertaking, was the great master. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 No. VI. 
 
 From the Manchester Courier, March IS, 1879. 
 
 London, Tuesday. 
 To follow Michel Angelo through all the other 
 memoranda o£ his mental life exhibited would 
 be too long a task, but I cannot overlook one 
 interesting series, those studies of his for a 
 crucifixion, a design he made for a lady to whom 
 he felt the sincerest affection, that Yittoria 
 Oolonna, Marchesa di Pescera, whose portrait 
 hangs in Gallery III, of the Royal Academy this 
 year, and to whom many of the sonnets he 
 wrote, Bome of them on the backs of these 
 very sketches we have been looking at, were 
 addressed. With what we have learned of 
 Michel Angelo we may be sure that for such a 
 subject and for such purpose he would strive to 
 convey some new impression, even in re>tellix]g a 
 tale so often told, and here we find he has seized 
 on a new motive. Several essays did he make to 
 convey this, and we have in 271 the first dawning 
 of it, where our Lord hangs on the Y-shaped 
 cross, and again in 296. where this is stilJ more 
 carefully wrought out with a silvf r point on a 
 sheet of vellum, but w 268 we have the thouglit 
 
46 
 
 fully set forth, and here the cross assumes the 
 rectangular form. On it hangs our Lord, and by 
 His side the Virgin and St. John, so far follow- 
 ing the traditional disposition, but The Crucified 
 bows His head and, as the cry " Eli, Eli, lama 
 sabachthani P" breaks forth and the earth does 
 quake, His mother and that disciple which stood 
 by shrink and shudder with awe, raising their 
 hands to stop their ears and so shut cut that 
 sound which makes them crouch in bitter agony. 
 The wonderful suggestiveness of this portion of 
 the subject is of the most thrilling intensity, and 
 we can but regret that so feeling an artist did 
 not embody this thought in some more 
 monumental form ; but these, and some few 
 other sketches, some seven in all, are all that 
 remain to us of so grand an idea* 
 
 As we enter the Grosvenor Gallery we are 
 greeted by a noble conception of Charity 
 (490), a cartoon of grand dimensions and 
 grander art, and one Michel Angelo seems 
 to have kept by him to the last, for it came 
 from the Buonaroti collection, and bears traces 
 of successive alterations. He never carried 
 it further himself, but it was copied by one 
 of his followers, and this copy yet rests in 
 the house that bears his name in Florence. 
 And now I must leave the life and works of 
 this greatest sculptor o! the Benaissancei as 
 the record of his later years is not here. The 
 construction of the Dome of St. Peter's, that 
 miracle of science, and the painting in the Pauline 
 
47 
 
 Chapel of the Vatican, occupied his declining 
 years, and no studies for any of these are this 
 year exhibited, but we have followed him step 
 by step from his early youth until he had out- 
 stripped the three score years and ten of human 
 life. He lived on until he was 88, and 
 then, in his own dying words, he " resigned his 
 soul to God, his body to the earth, and his 
 worldly goods to his next of kin." His fame 
 still lives with us, and so long as Art shall be 
 a moving sentiment in the human mind his 
 works will teach some new lesson to those who 
 lovingly seek to learn. His " Dream of Human 
 Life" he has set before us in G 497— the 
 dream of the true artist in which a Heavenly 
 Fame absorbs all his thoughts, and neither love 
 nor money, nor ambition nor power, can divert 
 the upward gaze and the rapt attention of the 
 artist who hears its call. In that allegory we 
 read this great man's history, for therein he 
 pictures his own soul. 
 
 Of hifl great pupil Sebastian del Piombo it is 
 singular that we should have only one memento 
 this year, and this by no means an important 
 one. It is a drawing of Fame competing with 
 Love (G 66) for the mastery of the world— the 
 very antithesis of his master's idea— very grace- 
 ful in composition and delicate in manipulation, 
 but, unfortunately, hung too high to be ade- 
 quately examined. 
 
 The year 1477 witnessed the birth of two 
 great artisfcs, who were to impress a new senti- 
 
4S 
 
 ment on the art of painting ; and the Idyllic in 
 Art may be said to have been invented by these 
 two men— Giorgione and Titian— Venetians 
 both of them, though neither actually born in 
 the city on the sea. Giorgio Barbarelli— who 
 from his tall figure received the studio name 
 of George the Great (Giorgione) — was born at 
 Castel Franco, a little Trevisian town. Becom- 
 ing a pupil of Gian Bellini, in Venice, he soon 
 created a career for himself, importing a 
 wondrous freedom into the somewhat rigid 
 lines of Venetian art, giving fancy and poetry 
 to its already rich and gorgeous colouring. Five 
 drawings in the Grosvenor Gallery bear his 
 name, but the first of these, a sketch of a little 
 cupidon (G 127) belongs to a different school 
 and a different date, and it is more than doubt- 
 ful if the coarsely executed and badly drawn 
 " Adoration of the Magi " (G 132) has any right 
 te be assigned to him. There is far more of his 
 spirit in that landscape where a traveller inquires 
 his way (G 136), and which is the earliest illus- 
 tration of landscape art we have hitherto en- 
 countered ; for it is no less strange than true 
 that to Giorgione and his contemporary and 
 partner Titian, Venetians— children of the 
 sea— landscape painting owes its rise in Italy. 
 But the most typical specimen of Giorgione's 
 Idyllic design is the sketch (G 140) where in 
 a pleasant country through which a broad 
 river fiows and villas fringe its banks, a group 
 of musicians are gathered under shady trees. 
 
49 
 
 and with mandolin and flageolet discourse 
 sweet music— a motive then entirely new to art, 
 for this pastoral character was until then com- 
 pletely ignored by the painter. A curious piece 
 of foreshortening in a figure who stretches out 
 his leg toward the spectator is very probably 
 by him, and just such a one as would be suit- 
 able to his major occupation, which was that of 
 decorating the fronts of Venetian buildings 
 with frescoesi and in which his partner, Titian, 
 assisted him— they were house painters, in fact, 
 of the bettermost sort. This drawing is oddly 
 styled in the catalogue " A Design for a Foun- 
 tain," (G 143), but the sole reason for so styling 
 it is that some unwise owner, or more probably 
 dealer, has mounted it in a niche-like frame, to 
 the utter vulgarisation of the design. 
 
 Titian is much more largely represented, no 
 less than 25 drawings being ascribed to him^ 
 nearly one-half of which are landscape studies, 
 the first dawnings of that love of nature which 
 has ever since been a passion in the human 
 mind. Born in the Cadore country amongst the 
 Dolomites, whose rugged crests and gnarled 
 wooded bases seem to have indelibly impressed 
 themselves on his memory whilst it was green, 
 Titian came to Venice at a time when, losing her 
 mastery of the sea, she was acquiring more 
 hazardous possessions on the land, and thus 
 the political feeling and the artistic outgrowth 
 of the period were, as they always have been, 
 correlative. Of his landscape work pure and 
 
50 
 
 fiimple Mr. PalgraYe's drawing (77) is a remark- 
 ably fine example, where, in a wooded glen, a 
 torrent rushes over rocks to find rest in quiet 
 pools at their base. Here the study of stunted 
 trees and water-worn rooks show a very great 
 observation of nature, and the efEect of light on 
 broken foliage is most feelingly rendered by 
 broad, free strokes in pen and bistre. Of course, 
 there is a certain conventional mannerism in 
 the treatment of the foliage, but when we reflect 
 how very recently anything like discrimination 
 of rendering has manifested itself in this 
 respect and how short a time anything like 
 individuality has been deemed necessary 
 in the etching of trees, this is hardly to be 
 wondered at, but his boughs and trunks are 
 admirably naturalistic, almost warranting 
 Ruskin's dictum that ** none but Titian and 
 Turner could draw the trunk of a tree." In 83 
 we have a charming pastoral landscape, where 
 shepherds doze under the trees seeking shelter 
 from the noon*day heat, whilst a woman dis- 
 robes herself to bathe, rather to the astonish- 
 ment of a goat and boar, who look inquiringly 
 on, somewhat marring the sentiment of the 
 picture, but the wooded middle distance is 
 excellently truthful in its treatment, and in G 
 329 an old man asleep under a tree is a rustic 
 subject, showing a love of rustic life quiet 
 unusual in the art of Italy in the early part of 
 the sixteenth century. There is an eminently 
 naturalistic spirit shown in the landscape 68, 
 
51 
 
 where a horse, having thrown his rider, has 
 swam a pool, and in some of the bits of the 
 Oadore country which will be found in 65 and 
 69 ; whilst his " composition " of landscape 
 effect is well set forth in G 135, where a castle 
 crowns a hill on the right, dominating a little 
 town running down to the banks of a stream, 
 whose opposite bank is covered with trees. Of 
 his studies of trees for the Peter Martyr picture 
 we have several so-called here, but it is doubtful 
 if any be genuine. His figure work is scarcely 
 adequately illustrated. One of the best examples 
 is a carefully-drawn portrait study in black and 
 red chalk of a young woman (G 130) with plaited 
 hair, which seems familiar to us from his use 
 of it in several compositions, and an exquisitely 
 rendered Venus and Cupid (133), which is as 
 luscious and lascivious as is much of Titian's 
 painting. The " Parting of Yenus and Adonis" 
 (G 140) is a pretty study, and there is an ap- 
 parently fine study of a kneeling figure (G 145), 
 hung, like far too many works in the Grosvenor 
 Gallery, much too high to permit of examina- 
 tion. Of his bold, vigorous sketching the 
 '* Head of a Man " (7) is a fine example, still 
 bearing Titian's own note of " Barba rosa occhi 
 chiara" and the rapid but definite sketch of a 
 mother endeavouring to caress a child (79) who 
 with pretty petulance resents the endearment. 
 
 After a potpourri of absurdities styled ** A 
 Bacchanalian Scene," by Baldsarre Peruzzi 
 (G 545), wherein elephants and lions and Silenus 
 and bis crew are somewhat indiscriminately 
 
52 
 
 mixed, we come to the zenith point of Italian art 
 marked by the genius of Raphael, and which is 
 this year abundantly presented to us, but the 
 consideration of which, as here set forth, I 
 must defer till my next article/ 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 NO. VII. 
 
 From the Manchestkr COURIER, March 17, 1879. 
 
 London, Saturday. 
 Iq the art of Raphael all the sesthetio quali- 
 ties of his great predecessors and contempo- 
 raries seem to culminate, for he, as it were, 
 epitomised the whole history of Italian painting. 
 Born on Good Eciday, 1483, the son of a painter 
 and coming of a race long devoted to the arts, 
 he at the early age of twelve was placed under 
 the tuition of Pietro Perugino, of whose purity 
 in design and beauty in colour I have already 
 spoken. Gentle in disposition, of remarkable 
 receptivity, and as graceful in mind as in 
 person, Raphael Sanzio, of Urbino, was the 
 fairest blossom of that tree of knowledge the 
 growth and cultivation of which I have 
 thus far tried to trace. A fruitful blossom 
 too, for his industry equalled his invention, and 
 he has left behind him as the record of his short 
 h'fe of 37 years far more than many of his 
 longer lived brethren. Here in these two 
 Winter Exhibitions of the Academy and Gros- 
 venor Gallery we have this year alone well nigh 
 a hundred drawings from his hand, ranging 
 from the early days of his studentship to that 
 last picture of the Transfiguration, on which 
 the paint was not yet dry when death for ever 
 
54 
 
 stayed his hand. These I shall endeavour 
 to reduce to chronological order— a task of 
 some little diflaoulty, as neither in 
 either catalogue or in either gallery is 
 any approach to a sequential arrangement 
 attempted, an oversight which greatly reduces 
 the utility of these very interesting collections. 
 Grouping, then, these drawings into generic 
 classes, I shall first draw your attention to those 
 which are the outcome of his student days whilst 
 yet under the tutelage of Perugino, and previous 
 to the termination of that nine years' novitiate 
 which ended in his settlement at Florence in 
 1504. Probably the earliest work of the young 
 artist is to be found in a sheet of studies for the 
 destroyed picture of the Coronation of St. Nicholas 
 of Tolentino (238;, a panel-painting for the 
 church of Oitta di (Jastello. Unfortunately 
 the church and the greater part of the 
 town was destroyed by an earthquake 
 in 1789, and the picture itself so injured 
 that Pope Pius Yl. caused the less damaged 
 parts to be cut out, and appropriated them for 
 the adornment of his private apartments in the 
 Yatioan. Here they rested but a short time, 
 for they were "requisitioned" by the French 
 during their occupation of Rome under Napoleon, 
 since when they have entirely disappeared* 
 What we ha/e here is simply the sketch of an 
 angel and a draped figure of an ecclesiastic, 
 very Peruginesque in character, and these, with 
 a drawing in the Musee Wicar at Lille, com- 
 
55 
 
 prise all that we yet know of this first inde- 
 pendent work of Raphael, which was accom- 
 plished when he was about 17 years old. Mr. 
 MAlcolm's drawing (G 507) for the general com- 
 position of a Bomewhat similar altar piece, throws 
 a good deal of light on the manner in which he 
 commenced his work. In it we find that he 
 firstly conutructed his architectural background 
 and accessories in perspective, mathematically 
 set out, and then sketched in his figures, draw- 
 ing these from the life, and using his fellow 
 students, in their ordinary attire, as models. In 
 this instance, indeed, his master seems to have 
 stood for him, for the principal figure bears a 
 more than merely accidental resemblance to the 
 portraits of Pietro Perugino. This same study 
 from the draped model we see remarkably exhi- 
 bited in a very highly-finished drawing in silver- 
 point of a youth leading a child by the hand and 
 which is evidently conteoaporaneous with the 
 design for Perugino's group of Tobit being led 
 by the Angel, now in our National Gallery 
 Indeed so similar is it in pose, and especially in 
 the detailed study of the hands, which is made 
 on a larger scale, that many have for this reason 
 assumed Raphael to be the designer, if not, in" 
 deed, the painter of this work, the temptation to 
 attach the name of the more celebrated pupil to 
 his master's work being too great to be resisted. 
 I see, however, no reason to suppose this other 
 than a careful study made under the direction 
 of, and probably side by side with, his master. 
 
56 
 
 It is quite after the manner of Pera- 
 gino, so much so, indeed, that had 
 not Raphael become so celebrated there 
 is little doubt but that this drawing: would 
 have borne the master's rather than the pupil's 
 name. In the drawing for a picture of the 
 "Adoration of the Shepherds" (136), we again find 
 all the characteristics of Perugino, though it is 
 probable that the hand which drew it was in 
 truth Raphael's. This cartoon has been pricked 
 for transference, and probably was designed as 
 the pDrtion of a Predella, for which its size is 
 suitable, in composition it is somewhat remark- 
 able, the Infant Lord being seated on a pack- 
 saddle and held up by an angel, whilst the 
 Virgin and St. Joseph kneel in adoration on each 
 side. Beautifully etched with a pen and bistre it 
 is an exquisite specimen of his power of draw- 
 ing, and the composition seems to have been a 
 favourite one with Perugino, who has used it 
 with but slight variation in the example we have 
 of his work in the National Gallery, which bears 
 his name inscribed on the hem of the Virgin's 
 mantle. There is no doubt that at this period 
 Raphael greatly assisted his master, for he woujd 
 be between 19 and 20 years old at the time these 
 paintings— which were for the Certosa of Pavia 
 —were in hand, and after such long training 
 under such a master, fully able to carry out much 
 of his intention. 
 
 About the same date are two studies from 
 the life of young men playing musical in- 
 
57 
 
 struments (117), one of whivih Perugino 
 translated by the addition of flowing gar- 
 ments and wings, into one of the angels who 
 assist at the coronation of the Virgin, an altar 
 piece originally painted for the Franciscan 
 Church at Perugia, but which is now in the 
 Vatican. Both figures in Raphael's sketch are 
 exceedingly carefully drawn in silver point, and 
 show the uttermost fidelity in representation, his 
 method being to adhere most literally to his 
 model whilst working from it, adding the senti- 
 ment or expression which he needed in his 
 pictorial translation, and to this principle we 
 shall find him constant throughout his life. In 
 a sheet of studies made from his companions 
 posed as the startled Roman soldiers when our 
 Lord's unwonted resurrection surprised and 
 awed them (116), we find the tight hose and 
 doublet of ordinary life accurately repre- 
 sented, and it would appear as though 
 drawing from the nude was not practised in 
 Perugino's studio, nor do I know of any instance 
 of Raphael doing so until after he had resided 
 at Florence, to which he was soon about to 
 ren^pve. 
 
 Before taking this first step in his indepen- 
 dent career, he assisted Pinturrichio, Peru- 
 gino's partner, in the decoration of the Picoo- 
 lomini Library at Sienna — a work commenced 
 in 1502, and to which Raphael seems greatly 
 to have contributed. There is in No. 123 a 
 group of four soldiers, admirably posed and 
 
5S 
 
 freely sketched, which formed a part of these 
 frescoes, and which show a considerable advance 
 in freedom of line and sense of action on 
 Raphael's part, being far beyond, in these direc- 
 tions, Pinturrichio's own work for Pinturrichio 
 was some twenty years older than Raphael, and 
 as such the representative of an older and more 
 rigid school, and despite that legal document he 
 signed, wherein he undertook /are tutti li descgni 
 delli istorie di sua mano in cnrtoni ed in muro, 
 there is but lif-le doubt that he availed himself of 
 the talents of his partner's rising pupil Raphael 
 to a very large extent, Vasari, indeed, alleging 
 that the latter made the whole of the cartoons. 
 Another study certainly f jr one of these frescoes 
 occurs in G 535 of most careful execution, and 
 in which we can almost discover Raphael's own 
 portrait in one of the y outhtul figures it cont aias. 
 He was now beginning to take commissions on his 
 own account, and to 1504 belongs his celebrated 
 picture of the '* Marriage of the Virgin," in the 
 Bresa at Milan, and to this period, or perhaps a 
 little later, may be assigned the Peruginesque 
 study of head of the Virgin (126) from her 
 Majesty's collection. 
 
 In October, 1504, he went to Florence, then 
 the art capital of Italy, and where sight of the 
 great works of Masaccio and of Leonardo, and 
 contact with Fra Bartolummeo and the best 
 painters of the time, rapidly changed and 
 widened his views. Arriving a few months 
 after Michel Angelo's *' David" was installed 
 
5d 
 
 in its place, and at the very time that he wag 
 commissioned to paint his " Cartoon of Pisa 
 flaphael, receptive as he was of any and every 
 seathetio emotion, would naturally be strongly 
 influenced by the grander expression imported 
 into painting by the impetuous sculptor. Even 
 in those waifs and strays of his art that we have 
 here, we see in (144) how Leonardo's cartoon of 
 the Battle of the Standard had burnt itself into 
 his mind ; in that study for the Champions o£ 
 Christendom (275), tc see how Donatello's Saint 
 George had impressed him ; and in the charm- 
 ing study for a kneeling figure (145), some day 
 to be converted into an adoring angel, or, 
 as suggested in the catalogue, a St. Stephen* 
 we see the influence of Masaccio's fres- 
 coes in the Brancacci chapel. Indeed, by 
 the very manner of the drawing, even from the 
 calligraphic character of it, we may almost be 
 certain that he came under the influence of that 
 clever but baneful man Baccio Bandinelli, whose 
 peculiarly crisp touch is almost fac-similed 
 here and in some other work executed about 
 this time, and especially so in that study of a 
 youth lying down (112), one of the earliest nude 
 studies of Raphael's we know. But the evil com- 
 munications of Bandinelli would be corrected by 
 the influence and the friendship of the gentle Fra 
 Bartolommeo, whose pure soul was in responsive 
 sympathy with that of Baphael. The friendship 
 thus begun lasted out the Frate's life, and its 
 immediate influence was visible in those many 
 
60 
 
 "Madonna pictures" Raphael at this time 
 busied himself upon, and for which we have 
 about a score of schemes exhibited this year, 
 all which set forth his second manner. For his 
 graceful Madonna dell Oatdellino— so called 
 from the goldfinch (in Italian cardellino, or 
 little cardinal) which St. John offers to the 
 Infant Saviour, and whicn is now in the Florence 
 gallery— we have many studies, the earliest of 
 these being that where the motive is studied 
 from the nude, with the Infant seated on His 
 Mother's knee, and St. John standing by her 
 side offering the bird to his Master. Whilst 
 drawing this another motive suggested itself to 
 the artist, and we have a smaller sketch, in 
 which Our Lord leans against Her knees, 
 placing one of His little feet on Her raised one, 
 that He may reach the book She reads from. 
 In (130), though a nearer approach is made to 
 the finished picture, the Yirgin still retains the 
 book,but the bird is wanting, and it is somewhat 
 doubtful if his ultimate reversion to the first 
 idea was a wise one, but then as now clients had 
 their little whims, and painters had to obey 
 them, and it is possible the introduction of the 
 goldfinch was for some family reason or another 
 forced on the artist. In (153) we see the original 
 motive carried a step further, and in G 534 we 
 have a replica of the first sketch — possibly by a 
 pupil or by his assistant Delia Yite. Tdere is a 
 charming suggestion in the sketch numbered 
 153, where the child rests both hands on His 
 Mother's breast and turns to greet us, and in ail 
 Baphael's treatment of this subject there is 
 
61 
 
 a blending of the naturalistic with the ideal, 
 which is pre-eminently pure and good. 
 
 Perhaps it may be well here to depart from a 
 strictly chronological arrangement, and whilst 
 this class of subject is under consideration to note 
 the more remarkable of the other ''Madonna 
 pictures" of Raphael, illustrated by his sketches 
 now exhibited. Of these he painted about 120, 
 each having some special feature for which it 
 is distinguished, an inventiveness which needs 
 no comment when one reflects on the simplicity 
 of the pubject and the innumerable representa- 
 tions of it which preceded Raphael's efforts. 
 Evidently early in his career is the delight- 
 some little composition, recalling by its circular 
 arrangement some of his later work, is a 
 graceful pen and ink fcketch, which looks 
 as though he had studied the work of Fra 
 Barcolommeo's friend, Lorenzo Oredi,and where 
 the Madonna and Child are attended by 6t. 
 Sebastian and St. James (.142) from the Duke of 
 Devonshire's collection, whence also comes the 
 study for La Madoona dell' Impanata (141) now 
 in the Pitti Gallery in Florence. Unfortunately 
 this study, like some others here, has been 
 ruinel by being shaded up and converted into a 
 marketable dra wing by soaie of Raphael's pupils, 
 a practice they frequently indulged in. From 
 the same treasure-house of Ohatworthcome also 
 two other t- ketches, in both of which the same 
 motive of the Madonna reading to the Infant 
 Saviour occurs, one of them (132) looking like a 
 study of a domeetic incident sketched from 
 nature, and the other (133) converting this into 
 a devotioaal picture. la 282 we have a most 
 carefully executed study of the Infant Jesus 
 in the Louvre Madonna picture known as "La 
 Belle Jardiniere," which shows how carefully 
 Raphael studied all the details of his subject 
 before he began to put it into execution, there 
 being many sketchings of the raised right foot 
 
62 
 
 of the little Child most carefully drawn on the 
 margin ; and in the group of children which are 
 freely drawn on 273 we find wbat is probably the 
 first suggestion for the graceful pose given here 
 in the centre figure on this sheet, which was 
 probably drawn about 1507. We have also a 
 preliminary study for Kaphael's celebrated 
 Madonna, now one of the attractions at Madrid 
 (214), in which especial attention is paid to 
 the figures of St. Elizabeth and the Virgin, 
 the Child being but indicated; and another 
 for that which is now at Stockholm (216)— 
 a most carefully. executed drawing in pen and 
 ink, and in which the coy attitude of our Lord 
 as he plaj fully shrinks from the somewhat too 
 impetuous advances of the Baptist is a wonder- 
 fully naive and natural piece of drawing. Both 
 these latter come from her Majesty's collection. 
 Amongst the later drawings of this class of 
 subject there is a very charming one from Mr. 
 Maloolm*8 rich collection (G 186) wherein the 
 Madonna kneels in the act of adoring the Infant 
 Saviour, and is a most carefully. studied figure, 
 drawn probably about 1515, when Raphael was at 
 the height of his career and engaged on his im- 
 mortal works in the Vatican. In all these designs 
 from the earliest to the latest, that which most 
 astonishes the student is the wonderful fresh- 
 ness and ease exhibited by each rendering of so 
 simple a subject. Raphael, indeed, seems to 
 have been inexhaustible, and yet never to have 
 descended to the commonplace, or to be driven 
 to exaggeration. Most of these Madonna pic- 
 tures were painted while he was liv-ing in 
 Florence; but ha was soon called to more 
 important work, and in 1508 he was summoned 
 to Rome by Pope Julius II., to assist in the 
 decoration of the Vatican. The record of his 
 works there, as set forth by the present wonder- 
 ful collection of his studies, I must reserve for 
 a following notice. 
 
THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. 
 DRAWINGS BY THE OLD MASTERS. 
 NO. VIII.-(CONCLUSION.) 
 From th* Manchestkr Courier, March ^6, 1979. 
 
 London, Tuesday. 
 
 Called to Rome by Julius II., that imperious 
 prelate who made Michel Angelo a painter 
 against his will, Raphael, about the middle o£ 
 the year 1508 found himself installed in the 
 Vatican, and commenced working on the 
 decoration of those Stanze which are immortal- 
 ised by his connection with them. The first of 
 these chambers he was commissioned to decorate 
 was that known as the Camera delta Segnatura, 
 a vaulted room about 40 feet square, and in the 
 four lunettes formed by the semi-circular 
 ceiling Raphael has painted huge allegories of 
 Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurispru- 
 dence, designing these in the sequence in which 
 I have placed them. For all of these we have 
 some studies here, the which it will be useful to 
 consider in the order of their origin. 
 
 The fresco representing Theology is generally 
 known by the name of "The Dispute of the 
 Sacrament," dispute here meaning consideration, 
 and which Raphael has wrought into a grand 
 epic poem wherein the whole Church militant on 
 earth and triumphant in heaven is combined. 
 
64 
 
 This theme we can see from his sketolieB here 
 he approached with much diffidence, essay' 
 ing first, as shown by the interesting study 
 (212) from her Majesty's collection, a much 
 more detached grouping than that which 
 he ultimately adopted, Instead of the altar 
 which bears the Eucharist was an open country, 
 and instead of the heavenly hemioycle of pro- 
 phets, patriarchs, and martyrs, were detached 
 groups adoring their Lord ; a conception of a 
 much more modern phase of thought than that 
 impressed upon the finished work. Yet this he 
 evidently feared himself incompetent to suffi- 
 ciently idealise, and consequently we find him 
 falling back on the more conventional treatment 
 he ultimately adopted, and in 161 we find the 
 first suggestions for the groups on the 
 right and left of the fresco, those doc- 
 tors and teachers who expound on earth 
 the mysteries realised in heaven, whilst in two 
 very interesting sketches, 161 and 162, we have 
 the Itft groupe of Popes and Bishops first 
 eketched in with a pen, and secondly carried 
 into chiaroscuro with many refinements of detail, 
 and which, in fact, is almost identical with the 
 executed work. There are many other detached 
 studies for portions of this, the first of 
 Raphael's grand works, showing how carefully 
 he studied each point. There is in 165 a most 
 painstaking study for the drapery of two 
 of the figures, and 120, one for the 
 figure of St. Faul| and in many of 
 
65 
 
 the minor sketohes which are assembled in 
 the winter exhibitions of this^year^we can trace 
 Raphaers anxiety to make this first work of hia 
 in Home a worthy compeer of those his great 
 contemporary Michel Angelo was then engaged 
 upon. And yet, distrusting himself, it is curious 
 to note how he fell back on earlier modes of 
 thought and work, even reverting to the use of 
 gold in the nimbi of his saints, and adopting 
 many other archaicisms, especially in the right 
 hand or earlier portion of the picture. 
 
 Gaining confidence in his power as he proceeded 
 we find a much freer arrangement adopted in his 
 allegory of Poetry known by the name of the 
 ** PamasBus," and the clever manner in which he 
 has overcome the difficulty presented by a huge 
 aperture cutting right into the centre of his 
 composition shows how this difficulty, by forcing 
 him to think for himself, served him a good turn, 
 as difficulties always do to the true artist. For 
 this fresco, studies of the heads of Homer, Virgil, 
 and Dante will be found in 113, and for the muse 
 Melpomene, who comes next to the group of 
 early poets, in 286, and in both these studies 
 we still see the influence of that classic art 
 in contact with which Raphael was now for the 
 first time brought, manifesting itself very pro- 
 minently in his work. The head of Homer is evi- 
 dently a study from that of the Laoooon, which 
 had been discovered some two or three years 
 before, and which was then one of the newest 
 wonders of all-wonderful Rome, whilst the 
 
66 
 
 Melpomene is evidently borrowed from a olassio 
 bas-relief. To Raphael, educated in Perugiai 
 seeing hardly anything of classio art nntil he 
 oame to KomOi the wealth of the past 
 would be a new found treasure, and from 
 this time forth we shall see how largely he 
 availed himself of it. The third fresco of 
 Philosophy is, under the name of the school of 
 Athens, perhaps the more celebrated of all 
 Raphael's designs. In it no trace whatever of his 
 early Umbrian manner remains, for its composi- 
 tion, with its various planes and its diversified 
 groups, goes beyond anything before attempted 
 in pictorial art. Upwards of fifty figures are com- 
 prised in this huge fresco, many of them being 
 contemporary portraits, and in the study for the 
 group of Geometricians (152) which occupies 
 the right hand corner of the composition, we 
 find a portrait of Bramante, the architect, to 
 whose influence with Pope Julius II., Raphael 
 owed much of the favour which was shown him. 
 There is another enlarged study of the same face 
 on the top corner of the sheet, and as all the 
 figures here assembled are in the costume of the 
 period, there is but little doubt that Bramante 
 posed to Raphael for this figure. This and the 
 remarkably graceful figures who ascend the 
 steps (154) have a further interest beyond the 
 art they enshrine, for they are the latest ex- 
 amples of the old mode of drawing in silver 
 point exhibited, for Raphael seems to have 
 clung to this early method long after its 
 
67 
 
 general abandonment for the freer obalk 
 which by this time had well-nigh supplanted 
 it. The silver point was not unlike the metalio 
 pencils used in memorandum books now-a*days, 
 and the paper was prepared by a coating of a 
 highly-sized tempera wash to receive its trace. 
 Of course it was indelible, and a line once 
 drawn had to remain, hence arose that certainty 
 of touch and firmness of handling which gives 
 BO great a charm to early drawings, and the 
 looseness and ** fuzziness" of modern sketching 
 found no counterpart amongst the early 
 draughtsmen. Black lead, by reason of its easy 
 removal and correction, has ruined accu- 
 racy of outline ever since it began to be 
 used in the middle of the 16bh century, and the 
 use of indiarubber has become so familiar to 
 us that it will surprise many to learn that it is 
 barely a hundred years since it began to form a 
 part of an artist's requisites, and was even then 
 used sparingly, as it cost three shillings the 
 cubic half-inch. Would that its price would 
 rise in these days, and an outline would then 
 once more be seen without having to be felt for, 
 and carefulness once again take the place of 
 carelessness ! How careful in all the accessories 
 of his work Raphael was is shown by his stady for 
 the has'relief under the statue of Apollo— one of 
 the minor decorative details in the back-ground 
 of this school of Athens, and yet in 124 we have 
 for this accessory as well considered a scheme of 
 composition as though it were for a picture by 
 
C8 
 
 itself, and some of the most esquisite drawing of 
 tlie adolescent Sgure it is possible to produce. 
 These frescoes, together with the ceiling of this 
 8 banzai occupied Baphael rather more than two 
 yearsj and in 1512 we find him at work on that 
 other room known as the " Chamber of Heliodo- 
 ruB." For the frescoes which adorn this there are 
 seven studies, and amongst the most noteworthy 
 that of the female group, which occupies the left 
 of the picture of the Expulsion of Heliodorus 
 from the temple at Jerusalem, in which the 
 influence of Michel Angelo on Baphael is moat 
 distinctly shown, and the grandiose quality 
 of the sculptor-painter*s work is added to 
 the native grace and refinement which is 
 never absent from Raphaers hand. The 
 head of a horse (138) for this same 
 fresco is most ably drawn, a^d is much 
 in advance of any animal painting of that day, 
 yet looking more like a study from a Greek 
 bas-relief rather than from nature. This 
 chamber occupied him between 1512 and 1514, 
 and he then commenced the one known as the 
 ** Chamber of Charlemagne," for which, how- 
 ever, it is doubtful if he did mora than direct 
 the work. His time was now fully cocupied 
 in designing these cartoons, and generally 
 directing those of the Loggia— in which occur 
 that series of subjects known as *' Raphael's 
 Bible," though it is somewhat doubtful if 
 he did more than suggest and correct the 
 flubjeots for the latter. Presumably, for the 
 
69 
 
 fresoo o! the Yiotory oyer the Saraoens at 
 Ofltia, a subject which occupies one side o£ 
 the Ohamber of Oharlemagne, are some admir- 
 ably drawn studies of nude figures in combat, 
 particularly those two sketches which cover both 
 sides of the sheet 160. On one side a group of 
 ten figures is massed with consummate skilli 
 the centre being occupied by soldiers binding a 
 prisoner, a wonderful bit of drawing for its cer- 
 tainty and power, and one unsurpassed by any 
 sketch exhibited this year. The other side of 
 the same sheet is occupied by nine figures prin- 
 cipally engaged in carrying o£C the dead 
 and wounded. This very wonderful sheet of 
 sketches has a curious history. It was sold from 
 the Antaldi collection (a collection which was 
 formed by Timoteo della Vita, Raphael's friend 
 and assistant) to the French collector, Orozat, 
 in 1714, and ultimately passed thence into that 
 of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who attributed to it 
 his first determination to devote himself to art, 
 f£{f when quite a child he copied these self-same 
 subjects from the fac- simile impressions pub- 
 lished in the " Orozat Gallery," which was lent 
 him by a friend. It was, in fact, this sheet 
 which made him an artist, and a loving collector 
 of drawings, and he often remarked to 
 his friends how singular it was that 
 it should fall into his hands. It now 
 belongs to the University of Oxford, as 
 does also another study for a portion of this 
 same design (156), whereon seven nude figures 
 
70 
 
 Btrng^le for tHe posBession of the Standard, full 
 of the most vigorons drawing and showing how 
 completely Baphael had by this time mastered 
 the delineation of the nnde figure in action— a 
 record of an immensity of patient study the 
 which combined with actual work done during 
 this period tells a tale of unremitting and 
 indefatigable industry. 
 
 During all this time many easel pictures came 
 from his hand and many other decorative works 
 were being carried on by him of which the sketches 
 brought together this year bear record— such as 
 the St. Catherine now in the National Gallery, 
 and which was probably begun at Florence ; the 
 sketch (273) being executed in the manner he 
 then adopted, as is also another study for the 
 same picture (135), the "Madonna di Foligno," 
 now in the Vatican, for which we have the first 
 design in No« 122 ; the Galatea fresco in the 
 Famesina palace, for which we have studies in 
 G 535 and many others belonging to his 
 early Roman period, as well as his 
 later decoration of the Ohigi chapel in 
 St. Maria del Popolo, and where he 
 entered in to direct and palpable rivalry 
 with Michel Angelo's work in the Sistine 
 Chapel, the studies for which exhibited will be 
 found almost as vigorous as those of his great 
 compeer. For his tapestry cartoons there are 
 many studies, and in that for *' Elymas Stricken 
 with Blindness" (118), we again see the infinite 
 pains Baphael took with his perspective detail^ 
 
71 
 
 the whole scheme being mathematioally set out 
 with as rigorous ezaotitude as that he manifested 
 in his early youth, referred to in my last notice. 
 There is a fine life-size study for the head 
 of an apostle in the "Ananias'' cartoon 
 (139), and a beautifully executed drawing in 
 bistre for ** The Miraculous Draught of 
 Fishes" (157) from her Majesty's collection. 
 Thence also comes a beautiful red chalk drawing 
 of partially draped figures— studio models of his 
 assistants, grouped for the cartoon of the 
 " Charge to Peter," a splendid work, but is it 
 from Raphael's hand ? It seems almost cruel to 
 cast a doubt on a work of such excellence, but 
 the technical detail of the drawing differs en* 
 tirely from any other example of Raphael's work 
 here. All the lines slope down to the right, not 
 down from the right, and it would appear to be 
 the work of some clever left-handed copyist. 
 
 Time will not permit me to linger as I should 
 wish over the beauties of the many figures we have 
 as studies for the soldiers surrounding our Lord's 
 tomb at His resurreotion» or to do more than note 
 that finest of all Raphael's studies, the nude 
 figures for « The Massacre of the Innocents" (127) 
 —a composition engraved by Marc Antonio^ 
 for I must hurry on to that last work of his, the 
 Transfiguration* For this we have the design 
 of the upper part (137), with the figures 
 carefully drawn in the nude and squared 
 for enlargement, so that this is without 
 doubt the very study the picture was drawn 
 from, and in 110 and 131, there are the most 
 
n 
 
 car(;f ullj executed life-size studies o£ heads and 
 bands from this last work of Raphael's which 
 he did not live to finish, he dying on Good 
 Friday, 1520. Short as was his life his influ- 
 ence on art long survived him, and his pupils 
 carried on for several years his unfinished 
 works. But there never arose again in Italian 
 art one who passed beyond the point he attained 
 to, and henceforward its history is the history of 
 a decline. 
 
 Slowly, almost imperceptible at first, but 
 rapidly manifesting itself after a while, that art 
 of painting which I have traced from its rise 
 to its culminating point became of weaker and 
 weaker influence in the land of its birth, but its 
 power had gone out into all lands, and other 
 schools sprang up in France, in Flanders, and 
 in Spain — all and each directly influenced by 
 that of Italy. The history of that decline of art 
 and that dissemination of its seed as it withered 
 is an interesting one, and one which is fairly 
 well set forth this year, as is also the 
 growth of that German school, which not only 
 received much from, but gave much to, Italy ; 
 but into these I cannot now enter. As I write 
 these lines the Royal Academy is distributing to 
 the generous owners, who have so liberally 
 denuded themselves of their treasures to place 
 them before us, the drawings it gathered toge- 
 ther, and on the 29th instant the Grosvenor Gal- 
 lery will close its " winter exhibition." When 
 next a collection of the drawings by the Old 
 Masters is exhibited it Is devoutly to be 
 hoped that so huge a mass will not be set 
 
73 
 
 before ns at once; a well-seleoted gather- 
 ing, restricted in its range to a certain 
 epoob, or a certain school, or country, will 
 far better fulfil the purport of Buch an exhibi- 
 tion, and far more aid art culture than an un- 
 manageable crowd of drawings of all times and 
 kind . In endeavouring to studj that which has 
 this year been set before ns, I have felt it wiser 
 to restrict my notices to one particular develop- 
 ment, being assured that one portion carefully 
 examined is far more useful than discur- 
 sive criticism, and because that from the 
 early growth of Italian art almost all other 
 art currents in Europe had their source, 
 I have this year deemed it fittest to restrict 
 my observations to it alone. Should these ob- 
 servations have been prolonged too far for the 
 reader's patience I must plead three centuries 
 of growth as my apology— three centuries filled 
 with wonderful history, and through which ran 
 one steady, upward, path of art, a path hard to 
 climb, but, having folio v^ed it, let us rest on the 
 summit it has reached without attempting to 
 descend the other side. 
 
 Finis coromt opus, and no worthier finial than 
 the handiwork of Raphael could be found to 
 terminate this notice of the drawings by the Old 
 Masters placed before us in the Winter Exhibi- 
 tions of 1879.