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HANDBOOK 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PUBLIC GALLERIES OF ART 
 
 IN AND NEAR LONDON. 
 
 WITH 
 
 Catalogued of ti)t pictured, 
 
 ACCOMPANIED BY 
 
 CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, AND COPIOUS 
 INDEXES TO FACILITATE REFERENCE. 
 
 By Mrs. JAMESOK 
 
 /HEREFORD 
 
 PERMANENT 
 
 IN TWO PARTjl 
 
 > 4 * 
 
 PART LV^ 
 
 >LIBRAR 
 
 coN r iN No t ; 1 1 1 1 & A kS) \ ' 
 
 INTRODUCTION. ^^5*^ 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 1842. 
 
LONDON : 
 Printed by William Clowes and Sons, 
 Stamford Street. 
 
 THE GETTY CENTER 
 LIBRARY 
 
* H FRF Ff 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS DEDICATED, 
 
 BY HIS LORDSHIPS PERMISSION, 
 
 AND IN TESTIMONY OF VERY SINCERE RESPECT. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book, from its very nature, is sure to receive 
 justice : by its degree of merit and utility it will 
 stand or fall. It was a feeling of the want of such 
 a book which suggested the attempt to compile it ; 
 and I am now only anxious that its purpose should 
 be clearly understood ; that nothing more should 
 be expected from it than just that which it assumes 
 to be — a compendious register of the works of art 
 existing in our public and private galleries, afford- 
 ing easy reference to names, dates, and subjects, 
 with just so much of explanation, illustration, and 
 criticism, as might stimulate the curiosity and direct 
 the taste of the reader, without exactly assuming to 
 gratify the first or dictate to the last. 
 
 These were humble pretensions ; yet the task has 
 so extended itself under my hand as to fill double 
 the space at first assigned to it, while the labour 
 
 required and the responsibility incurred have both 
 
 b 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 proved infinitely greater than I anticipated, and I 
 am painfully aware of many deficiencies, many 
 errors which in breaking new ground I found un- 
 avoidable : the utmost I dare to hope is, that this 
 will lead to something of the same kind, better and 
 more complete than what I have been able to per- 
 form ; fuller in point of critical detail than would 
 be at present either palatable or profitable. 
 
 That this volume should fulfil its purpose as a 
 companion, three things were to be particularly 
 considered : First, that it should not exceed a cer- 
 tain bulk, that it should be portable and pleasant 
 in the hand ; therefore it was necessary to repress 
 the inclination for critical gossip — to coil up the 
 thread of my discourse now and then, and leave the 
 reader to unravel it in his own fancy ; for if in a 
 diary, or a book of travels, it be very pretty and 
 pleasant to launch out into discussions, and enlarge 
 on individual impressions and predilections, it ap- 
 peared to me that everything of the kind was here 
 out of place, and mere gratuitous impertinence. 
 Secondly, it was necessary that the matter should 
 be so printed and arranged as not to fatigue the 
 eye while the reader was moving or standing in 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 varying lights : therefore, the names of the painters 
 and the titles of the pictures are each printed in a 
 bold, large, and uniform type ; the description in a 
 different, but still large and clear letter ; and the cri- 
 ticism and illustrative notes, which might be read 
 at any time, or not at all, ad libitum, in a smaller 
 letter. This arrangement has answered the double 
 purpose of saving space and allowing the different 
 topics to be distinguished at the first glance. 
 
 A third desideratum was the facility of reference ; 
 therefore, for the sake of reference on the spot, 
 the pictures, &c. are arranged in the different Cata- 
 logues just in the order they harig,* while for the 
 sake of general reference each Catalogue is num- 
 bered, and there is a copious general Index com- 
 prising facts, dates, and names. 
 
 To every picture the name of the engraver is 
 appended, where I have known or have been able 
 to discover it ; but this part of the work is, I regret 
 to say, very defective. A competent knowledge of 
 engravings is the attainment of half a life; but 
 
 * This mode of arrangement cannot, for obvious reasons, be carried 
 into the private galleries, which are subject to continual changes by the 
 will of the possessor ; and another has been adopted. 
 
 b 2 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 some information seemed better than none, and 
 may perhaps lead the inquiring mind to seek for 
 more. 
 
 Something I have ventured to say of the dis- 
 graceful state of the Royal Galleries at Windsor 
 and Hampton Court, but not a hundredth part of 
 what I felt and thought, and have heard expressed 
 by others. I had no wish to give oifence : in fact, 
 I know not where the blame rests — probably with 
 no one in particular ; it seems rather the result of 
 a system. One official stands in another's way, and 
 there is a sort of terror of all interference or sug- 
 gestion which I do not understand. Perhaps the 
 little I have ventured to say may excite the atten- 
 tion of those who have the power, as I believe they 
 have the will, to amend a state of things worthy 
 only of the most Gothic ignorance and barbarism. I 
 could not, unhappily, carry order into the midst of 
 this chaos : that this book might be useful as a 
 companion on the spot, it was absolutely necessary 
 to arrange the pictures as they are now hung ; but 
 in order to give a comprehensive view of the 
 treasures now scattered through the State Rooms 
 at Windsor and Hampton Court, " in most ad- 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 mired disorder," and to guide the attention of the 
 inquiring and intelligent visitor, I have added a 
 local index to the Catalogues of the Royal Gal- 
 leries, comprising the most remarkable pictures 
 and portraits under five distinct heads ; and I trust 
 it will be found useful. 
 
 To each gallery is prefixed a short historical and 
 explanatory introduction, giving an account of its 
 formation, its present state, the days and hours 
 when open to the public, &c. 
 
 The first intention was to have prefixed to the 
 whole a history of the art of painting, and of the 
 different schools of painting throughout Europe ; 
 but the translation of Kugler's excellent 'Hand- 
 Book,'* enriched with notes which double its 
 value, has rendered quite superfluous any such 
 commonplace and brief chronicle as might have 
 been comprised within a very limited space. The 
 introductory matter now consists of two parts : — the 
 first containing popular and concise explanations of 
 terms of art, and many things relative to painting 
 and pictures which I thought might be useful to 
 
 * A Hand-Book of the History of Painting; translated from the Ger- 
 man. Edited, with Notes, by C. L. Eastlake, Esq., R.A. 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 those uninitiated; the second part consisting of a 
 selection of passages from various writers on art, 
 which, like an overture to an opera before the cur- 
 tain draws up, should attune the mind of the reader 
 to the subject treated in the following pages. These 
 selections will be continued in the second series. 
 
 In a work containing so many thousand facts, 
 dates, and names, errors and omissions must have 
 occurred ; and as the object is to render the work 
 as useful and complete as possible, any suggestions 
 and corrections communicated to the author, through 
 the medium of the publisher, Mr. Murray, will be 
 thankfully received and attended to. 
 
 On the whole, this volume must be considered 
 merely as a compilation ; for not only have I been 
 much indebted to the assistance of kind friends, but 
 wherever I found an opinion stamped by acknow- 
 ledged authority, or a passage, critical or historical, 
 which answered my purpose, I adapted it without 
 scruple, and could not always exactly mark the 
 distinction between such contributions and my own 
 cogitations : but my readers may lay it down as a 
 general principle, that, whenever they fall upon a 
 passage which has any particular interest or merit 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 to recommend it, it is either borrowed or stolen, 
 or — to use Pistol's improved phrase — conveyed, into 
 these pages ; and that all mistakes and deficiencies 
 justly lie at the door of her who must, I suppose, 
 in courtesv be styled 
 
 The Author. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 The reader is requested to make the following corrections with 
 his pencil. 
 
 P. 15, line 4 from the bottom, ,for six, four, read five, three. 
 
 P. 79, line 9, instead of the Emperor Theodosius, read the second figure 
 on the right of the spectator. 
 
 P. 134, after a landscape by Pether, insert " The artist was a native of 
 Chichester, who died in 1812." 
 
 P. 213, line 21, for Huysan, read Huysum. 
 
 P. 218, line 4 from the bottom, for was, read be. 
 
 P. do., line 2 from the bottom, omit the comma after prosperous. 
 
 P. do., note, omit all after the word^>/aces, and insert a period. 
 
 P. 219, line 2 from the bottom, omit almost. 
 
 P. 237, line 14, for Carlo Veyries, read Luca Carlevaris. 
 
 P. 241, at the end of the page add this note : — " A portrait of Aretino 
 by Tintoretto, mentioned in all the old catalogues, ought to be some- 
 where in the Royal collection." 
 
 P. 244, in the note, for valours read velours. 
 
 P. 270, line 4, insert the name of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 
 P. 299, in the note, for Bagliori, read Baglioni. 
 
 Pp. 360 and 366, omit the marginal notes, and see p. 427 for an account 
 
 of the pictures of the Brunswick family. 
 P. 361, note. The cartoon of Michael Angelo's Venus and Cupid is 
 
 in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. 
 P. 365, the line "who died in their infancy," &c, should follow Prince 
 
 Octavius and Prince Alfred. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PART I. — DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 I. — Painting is that art of design which imitates Painting. 
 objects by colour on a uniform surface : as compared with 
 sculpture, it is more extensive in the range of subjects 
 which it is capable of treating, and more various in the 
 modes in which it affords pleasure by such representation. 
 Those subjects are fitted for sculpture which are sufficiently 
 defined by form alone, without the aid of colour, and which 
 
 tell their story and possess unity without accessories, or at 
 any rate need only accessories so few and so simple as to be 
 within reach of the chisel. Simple form and character in a 
 state of repose are the most favourable qualities for the 
 sculptor ; but passion and transient emotion, together with 
 fhe external circumstances which excite them, are equally 
 attainable by the painter. The former produces pleasure 
 mainly by beauty of form ; the latter works on the eye by 
 the joint effect of form, of light and shade, and colour."* 
 
 Painting is divided into several kinds, according to the 
 subjects represented, the manner in which they are repre- 
 sented, and the materials used in the representation, 
 
 II. — Historical Painting treats of events, actions, and historical 
 characters of high and general importance. It may be Paintino 
 sacred or profane. It is termed sacred when the subjects 
 
 are taken from the Holy Scriptures, or the legendary lives 
 of Saints ; profane when the subjects are borrowed from 
 
 * See article * Painting ' in the Penny Cyclopaedia. 
 
 63 
 
xiv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 classical or modern history, or from the fables of the ancient 
 mythology. 
 
 The manner of representing these historical subjects may 
 be divided principally into the Grand and the Ornamental 
 Style. 
 
 Grand style. j n the Grand Style the aim is to act on the mind and 
 eye by a certain simplicity, completeness, and concentration 
 of effect produced by the rejection of all multiform parts 
 and superfluity of ornament, by the largeness of the masses, 
 by uniformity in the leading lines, and sobriety of colour. 
 
 As examples of grandeur in the treatment of sacred 
 subjects we have the Cartoons of Raphael at Hampton 
 Court, and the "Raising of Lazarus" in the National Gal- 
 lery (No. 1). Of grandeur in the treatment of profane 
 subjects, the Cartoons of Carlo Cignani (Hampton Court, 
 747) may be given as an instance.* 
 
 Ornamental The Ornamental Style aims at effect by entirely opposite 
 means : by bringing together many separate parts ; by 
 contrast in form and colour ; by magnificence and variety. 
 Rubens and Paul Veronese afford eminent examples of this 
 style. The " Annunciation " by Paul Veronese (Hampton 
 Court, No. 64) is an instance of its application to a sacred 
 subject. The " Peace and War " of Rubens (National 
 Gallery, No. 46) is an instance of profane history simi- 
 larly treated.f 
 
 Composite Sir Joshua Reynolds adds another style, which he calls 
 the Composite Style, in which a certain elegance and grace 
 are blended with grandeur, to the detriment, however, in 
 most cases, of simplicity and purity. The works of Cor- 
 
 * These are without colour; therefore a more complete example 
 would be the frescos of the Carracci in the Farnese Palace. 
 
 f More signal instances would be the " Marriage of Cana," and the 
 " Life of Marie de Medicis," in the Louvre, but they are not so near at 
 hand. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xv 
 
 reggio and Parmigiano in the National Gallery are in- 
 stances. 
 
 There is another manner of treating historical painting, Picturesque 
 which may be called the Picturesque Style, of which Fran- St>le * 
 cesco Mola, Salvator Rosa, and Rembrandt afford striking 
 examples. (See in the National Gallery, Nos. 69, 45.) 
 
 The Flemish, Dutch, and old German painters treated Familiar or 
 
 ' ' 1 Trivial Stvle. 
 
 history in a manner of their own, which may be called the 
 Familiar or Trivial Style, as in the " Christ visiting Martha 
 and Mary" (Hampton Court, No. 691). 
 
 The Spanish and Venetian painters afford examples of Pastoral or 
 another style, which may be called the Pastoral or Do- style. 
 mestic. Murillo's " Holy Family" in the National Gallery 
 is a striking instance. 
 
 We find historical painters classed as Idealists and idealists. 
 Naturalists. The former are those who sought beauty and Naturallsts - 
 grandeur in the abstract, who generalised their subject, and 
 clothed it in the most select and poetical forms. The most 
 eminent idealists were Michael Angelo, Raphael, Francia, 
 Correggio. The Naturalists adopted the common forms of 
 nature without selection, and rested their chief merit on imita- 
 tion. The most eminent painters of this class were Rubens, 
 Murillo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt. Titian was sometimes 
 an idealist, oftener a naturalist ; and the Carracci formed a 
 school of art by attempting to combine naturalism with 
 idealism. 
 
 III. — Portrait Painting forms a second department Portrait 
 of art: all the great historical painters have excelled in por- AINT1N 
 traiture, but good portrait-painters have rarely attempted his- 
 tory with success. I believe portrait painting- as a separate 
 profession was first practised in the Netherlands, and that 
 the earliest artist who practised it exclusively was Mirevelt. 
 Admirable examples of the Venetian school of portraiture 
 
xvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 (the finest in the world) are to be found at Hampton Court. 
 In the Van Dyck Room at Windsor may be studied the 
 excellencies of another school, the Flemish. In the Na- 
 tional Gallery we have the " Giulia Gonzaga " (24), " Pope 
 Julius II." (2*7), the "Portrait of Van der Gheest" (52), 
 "The Jew Merchant" (51), "Lord Heathfield " (111), 
 and " John Philip Kemble" (142); all fine examples of 
 characteristic portrait-painting in different schools of art.* 
 lanpscape. IV. — Landscape was first introduced merely as an acces- 
 sory or backgrounds and the earliest painter who made it a 
 separate department of art, and excelled in it, was Titian. 
 Many of the great historical painters of the second period 
 painted landscape admirably — for instance, Annibal Car- 
 racci, Domenichino, Rubens, and Nicolo Poussin.J It w r as 
 not, however, till some years later that we find distinguished 
 landscape-painters by profession practising exclusively this 
 branch of art. Claude Lorraine and Gaspar Poussin in 
 Italy, and Cuyp and Hobbima in the Low Countries, are the 
 most eminent names that can be cited. Landscapes may 
 be ideal compositions or literal transcripts from nature; 
 they may be historically grand and poetical, as in Claude 
 and Poussin ; or wildly picturesque, as in Salvator Rosa and 
 Rubens ; or purely idyllic and pastoral, as in Cuyp, Berghem, 
 &c. (see p. 25). In our National Gallery may be found 
 examples of all the above-named painters, except Hobbima 
 and Berghem, who will not, I hope, be long an exception. 
 genbk V. — All painting which is not history, portrait, or land- 
 
 r i , gca p e ^ comes unc i er th e comprehensive designation of Genre 
 Painting. For this word genre no equivalent offers itself in 
 
 * But as yet not one from the Titian school: might not one or two be 
 spared from Hampton Court as examples, at least for a time? 
 f It is said by Filippo Lippi, about 1425. 
 
 X I do not remember ever to have seen a landscape by Guido ; and 
 but one by Guercino, which is n the possession of Miss Rogers. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xvii 
 
 English, nor, strange to say, in German ; so that both 
 nations have perforce adopted it : it comprises all subjects 
 taken from common life, whether real or fictitious. It is the 
 popular every-day side of art, contrasted with sacred and 
 profane history, poetical and devotional subjects. Hogarth's 
 pictures of the " Marriage a la Mode " are tableaux de genre 
 of a very high class (Nat. Gal., 113). "The Girl peeling 
 Carrots" (Nat. Gal., 159) is an instance of the lowest 
 class of genre painting, subject considered. 
 
 VI. — The imitation of flowers, animals, objects of na- l"^** 8 ^ 
 tural history, and inanimate objects (technically called 
 still-life}, forms perhaps another separate brand i of art, 
 
 which was successfully cultivated in the seventeenth century. 
 Rubens, and his friend Franz Snyders, excelled in paint- 
 ing animals ; the Boar's Head by the latter (Hampton 
 Court, 381) is a fine example of style in this department. 
 Hampton Court Gallery is rich in fine specimens of some of 
 the best flower-painters, — Father Seghers, Maria van Oster- 
 wyck, Baptiste ; and of the most celebrated painters of still- 
 life, — Kalf, De Heem, Roestraten, Labradore. Of Van 
 Huysum there are some beautiful examples at Dulwich. 
 
 VII. — The five classes of painting are then: — L His- 
 tory; 2. Portrait; 3. Landscape; 4. Genre, or Familiar 
 Life; 5. Natural History and Still-life; but to whatever 
 class a picture may properly belong, it must, as a picture, 
 possess certain component parts or qualities, which may be 
 divided into spiritual and material : or, as one should say, if 
 it did not sound at once too pedantic and too familiar, into 
 the morale and the physique of painting. 
 
 The spiritual part of art I conceive as not to be ac- 
 quired by study, but depending on the innate power or 
 genius in the artist, improved by cultivation. It com- 
 prises, — 
 
xviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 invention. VIII. — Invention ; which, in painting, does not mean 
 the invention of the subject, but the manner in which a 
 given subject is conceived and represented. The painters 
 most remarkable for richness and fertility of invention are 
 Raphael, Albert Durer, Rubens, and Rembrandt. But a 
 painter may also invent his subject ; and if in this he display 
 originality, fancy, feeling, and a moral aim, he becomes, in 
 a double sense, a creative poet. Hogarth is an instance. 
 
 Character. IX. — Next to invention I will place that subtle quality 
 emanating from the soul, and, like a soul, pervading the 
 whole representation — call it character, sentiment, feeling ; 
 for no one word seems to render that of which we perceive 
 at once the presence or the absence, though it escape defini- 
 tion. For not only will it be sublime, grand, graceful, 
 pathetic, or tender, in accordance with the subject repre- 
 sented, but it will be essentially modified by the tempera- 
 ment of him who represents it. Where it is, it atones for 
 many deficiencies ; where it is not, no merits supply its place. 
 
 As exemplifying the existence of this breathing, vital soul 
 of art with the want of that technical skill to which we are 
 now accustomed, we may look to the early artists of the 
 Italian school. The paintings of Giotto, executed about 
 1300, in the church at Assisi ; those of Andrea Orcagna 
 in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and a variety of works scat- 
 tered through the ancient ecclesiastical edifices at Sienna, 
 Orvieto, Padua, might be cited as examples, but are too far 
 off to be available as references ; and engravings, even the 
 best, fail to transmit that spiritual and evanescent charm 
 which is the great, and often the only, merit of these works. 
 There is a fragment of a fresco painting by Giotto, now in 
 the collection of Mr. Rogers, representing two heads of 
 apostles, in which the profound truth of sentiment and de- 
 vout feeling would illustrate what is meant : but the nearest 
 instance to which I can refer the reader, as generally 
 
NTRODUCTION. 
 
 xix 
 
 accessible, is the " Crowning of the Virgin," by Fra Gio- 
 vanni Angelico, now in the Louvre. * Perhaps before 
 this sheet is printed I may be able to refer to the divine 
 Francia as an example of this " beauty of holiness," in com- 
 bination, however, with greater mastery over the technicali- 
 ties of art than we find in earlier painters. 
 
 Those who threw most mind into their works were of 
 course those who had most mind — Raphael for instance : 
 but the spirit thus infused was not always pure in quality 
 even when it was great in degree ; and the various schools 
 of painting are not so much distinguished from each other 
 by the tangible characteristics of style, design, colour, &c, 
 as by the mental and moral impress on the works which 
 proceeded from them. Compare, for instance, the pre- 
 vailing sentiment of the early Bolognese school of Francia 
 and his compeers to that of the later Bolognese school of 
 the Carracci and their followers : the latter must be pro- 
 nounced vulgar in comparison ; the word is strong, but no 
 other would express the comparative difference between the 
 pure intense feeling, the simplicity, the solemnity of the 
 first, and the mannered elegance and grandeur of the last. 
 Ludovico had indeed glimpses of that " better part ;" and 
 the accomplished Agostino and the gifted Annibal had a 
 thousand merits ; but, compared with the heavenly aspi- 
 
 * I hope to have another opportunity of observing upon the pictorial 
 treatment of sacred subjects; and at present will only call the reader's 
 attention to one remark — that, when the blessed Virgin is represented as 
 crowned by the Father and the Son, it is in her emblematical character 
 as the pictorial type of the Christian religion, or visible Church. That 
 the early painters should select the figure of her who was the most pure 
 and exalted amongst women to represent typically that blessing which 
 she was the means of introducing into the world, cannot be matter of 
 wonder. These representations are typical merely, and must be so 
 considered. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rations of their predecessors, all here was " of the earth, 
 earthy." 
 
 Manner. X.— Manner, as applied to painting, comes under the mo- 
 ral part of art, inasmuch as it depends on individuality, and 
 expresses the style of workmanship of a particular painter, 
 as distinguished from that of every other, and peculiar to 
 himself. The greater the painter, the more distinct and 
 characteristic is the manner of workmanship. A painter 
 had sometimes three or four different manners. The man- 
 ner of Raphael before and after he visited Florence ; the 
 manner of Titian before and after his friendship with 
 " that notorious ribald of Arezzo," Aretino ; the manner 
 of Van Dyck when in Italy and when in England; the 
 manner of Parmigiano before and after he took to alchymy, 
 are distinctly different, and may be referred to mental 
 influences. When manner of execution is stamped by 
 originality, and is the manifestation of the individual mind, 
 it is a great interest and charm. When it is carried 
 further, or imitated from another, it becomes a trick of 
 hand or a sort of affectation : it is then not manner, but 
 mannerism. Thus, the manner of Correggio became in 
 Parmigiano mannerism. Guido is another instance, where 
 we find him taking up the strong, ferocious style of Cara- 
 vaggio (in him so characteristic), and afterwards assuming 
 one diametrically opposite, in which delicacy verges on in- 
 sipidity. Guercino was a mannerist ; not so Rembrandt. 
 
 I am not sure that critics will go with me in considering 
 manner^ even in this sense, as part of the morale of paint- 
 ing; but I think, if I understand myself, that I am right. 
 It is the more necessary to distinguish between manner and 
 mannerism, because Sir Joshua Reynolds uses the word 
 manner sometimes in a good and sometimes in a bad 
 sense. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxi 
 
 The material or practical part of painting is attain- 
 able by study, and is regulated by rules and principles : it 
 comprises : — 
 
 XI. — Composition; by which we mean a certain ar- Composition, 
 rangement of the objects represented, within a given space ; 
 
 which arrangement may, by the relative position of the lines 
 of form, produce the most agreeable or the most disagreeable 
 effect to the eye. An example of the most perfect composi- 
 tion may be found in Raphael's Cartoon of " Ananias " 
 (Hampton Court, 606) ; an example of the most faulty in 
 Nicolo Poussin's "Phineas" (Nat. Gal., 83). The works 
 of the early painters show great simplicity and uniformity of 
 arrangement, bordering on monotony and meagreness; but 
 even when the resources of art were extended, and more 
 variety was introduced, this simplicity continued to charac- 
 terise the great style in sacred subjects ; as where the prin- 
 cipal figure is placed in the midst, and the other figures 
 arranged on either side, in a sort of architectural or pyra- 
 midical shape, in the very formality of which there is to me 
 something solemn and imposing. 
 
 XII. — Design or drawing is the true imitation of the Design, 
 forms of things in just proportion to each other, whether 
 
 they be of the size of nature, or larger, or less. Truth must 
 be the basis ; for " to make men what they ought to be, 
 you must first know how to render them as they are;" but 
 directed by taste, since it is equally true that " no man sees 
 what things are that knows not what they ought to be." 
 
 Correctness of drawing is the first thing we ought to 
 consider in a picture. " A firm and determined outline is 
 one of the characteristics of the great style of painting." 
 In combination with correctness and truth of outline we may 
 have style, as it is called ; that is, appropriate grandeur and 
 grace, as in Raphael's " St. Catherine " (Nat. Gal. 168) ; 
 
xxii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 or the total want of it, as in West's " Last Supper' (Nat. 
 Gal. 132). A style (or manner) is not synonymous with style 
 in the abstract (in Italian gusto), which, in the latter sense, 
 is a beauty confined to the highest range of art ; and the most 
 perfect, perhaps the only perfect examples are the marbles 
 of the Parthenon. Next to these, I think, the Cartoons 
 and some of Marc Antonio's engravings after Raphael. 
 Anatomical knowledge of the naked figure will teach cor- 
 rectness, but will not impart style. Eminent examples of 
 the most brilliant merits of a painter with a want of style 
 may be found in Paul Veronese and Rubens. 
 Expression. XIII. — Expression is the representation of the human 
 countenance or form under the influence of an actual senti- 
 ment or passion. It must be, in the first place, true to the situ- 
 ation or emotion ; and, secondly, proper to the personage re- 
 presented. The great master of expression in this its highest 
 sense is Raphael. But expression in painting may be taken 
 in a more general sense ; for every part of a picture must 
 express something ; and here, too, this divine painter was 
 supereminent. " Such an effect have the burning lamps in 
 the Cartoon of the Beautiful Gate of the Temple ; one sees 
 that the place is holy as well as magnificent." (Hampton 
 Court, 608.) 
 
 Motive. XIV. — I find the word motive in its technical sense 
 
 adopted from the German in the translation of Kugler's 
 Hand-book, before referred to. In its particular application 
 to works of painting or sculpture it means " the principle of 
 action, attitude, and composition in a single figure or group." 
 In the ordinary meaning, as the Germans apply it to works 
 of art generally, it may signify any cause out of which the 
 action or consequence springs.* The Germans have also 
 
 * In Music we have adopted the word motivo from the Italian, in 
 nearly a similar sense. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 the verb motiviren, and they say of a picture, or drama, 
 or poem, that it is well or ill motivirt. In this sense the 
 motives in a picture may be fine even when the execution is 
 deficient, as in a very old picture of the Day of Judgment, in 
 the Campo Santo at Pisa, by Andrea Orcagna, (a.d. 1370,) 
 where the angels are summoning the dead from their 
 graves; two are sounding the trumpet; a third, with an 
 expression of shuddering awe, seems to shrink from the 
 spectacle unveiled before him; the eye is distended with 
 horror, and he partly hides his face with his hand : — or the 
 motives may be misplaced and mistaken : to choose an 
 intelligible example, there is no impropriety in making a 
 person hold something before his nose, in a picture of the 
 Raising of Lazarus ; it serves to denote that particular 
 circumstance of the story, the length of time he had been 
 dead, which added to the wonder of the miracle ; Michael 
 Angelo has done this (Nat. Gal. 1) : but to introduce such a 
 thing in a picture of the " Entombment of Christ " is a 
 manifest impropriety : however, Pordenone has done it* 
 
 XV. — Colouring is not merely the imitation of colours Colouring, 
 in nature, but the manner in which they are combined in 
 a picture. " The whole surface of every picture, however 
 illumined, is coloured ; that of the shade producing the half- 
 tint throughout a picture being equally, if not more, im- 
 portant than the hues of the prismatic colours themselves." 
 
 " Speaking of colouring, we use the words hue, tone, tint, 
 contrast, harmony. Hue is the peculiar quality of a colour, 
 that which distinguishes one colour from another, as red 
 from blue, throughout all their variations or nuances. By 
 tint we mean the degree of intensity of hue — through all the 
 gradations, from the strongest to the faintest ; and by tone, 
 the degree in which the hues or tints are illumined or 
 
 * Richardson. 
 
xxiv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 shaded." * By contrast we mean the opposition of different 
 or discordant colours ; and hy harmony, the charming effect 
 produced by the just balancing and blending of various 
 hues, which is gratifying to the eye as sweetest music to the 
 ear. As an example of colouring, deep, vivid, and har- 
 monious, we may look at Titian's " Bacchus and Ariadne " 
 (Nat. Gal. 35). 
 
 Colouring is generally cold in Poussin ; delicate in Guido ; 
 warm in Domenichino ; glowing and golden in Titian ; fervid 
 and fiery in Giorgione ; florid in Rubens ; powerful in Rem- 
 brandt. 
 
 The local colour in a picture is the hue proper to each 
 object represented, without regard to tone or tint. 
 
 Colours are said to be broken, when, instead of being 
 melted and fused into each other by demi-tints, " a feeling 
 of harmony is produced by mixing them and breaking them 
 till there is a general union in the whole, without anything 
 that shall bring to your remembrance the painter's palette 
 or the original colours." Sir Joshua Reynolds cites Wat- 
 teau as excelling in this style ; his picture in the Dulwich 
 Gallery (No. 210) may be consulted as an example. 
 
 An eminent example of splendour of colour with faulty 
 design is Rubens; an equally eminent example of correct 
 design with inferior colour is Nicolo Poussin. 
 Morbidezza. Morbidezza, applied to the colouring of flesh only, ex- 
 presses that particular appearance of softness and flexibility 
 which we see in nature. Colour is here made to express 
 substance and texture. Titian and Correggio excelled in 
 this part of the art. A beautiful example of morbidezza 
 may be seen in the painting of the limbs of the Venus 
 (Nat. Gal. 10).f 
 
 * Philips's Lectures on Painting. 
 
 f The most perfect example that could be given would be the Flora 
 of Titian, in the Pitti Palace at Florence. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXV 
 
 XVI. — Chiaroscuro, an Italian word which implies the Chiaroscuro, 
 combination of light and dark, is defined to signify the dis- 
 tribution of light and shadow in a picture so as to give relief 
 
 or projection to particular objects, and effect , as it is called, 
 to the whole composition. " According to the usual accep- 
 tation of the term in the artist world, it means not only the 
 mutable effects produced by light and shade, but also the 
 permanent differences in brightness and darkness which are 
 owing to the varieties of local colour." * Chiaroscuro may be 
 heavy, dark, and strongly contrasted, as in some pictures of 
 Guercino and Caravaggio ; or it may be feeble and flat, as 
 in some pictures of Holbein. When managed to perfection 
 it produces a species of illusion, and becomes a principal 
 element of beauty. An excelling example, perhaps the most 
 perfect that could be adduced, is the Venus and Cupid of 
 Correggio (Nat. Gal. 10). Rembrandt, by a wholly differ- 
 ent management of the same means, has produced some of 
 his most wonderful effects. Two of his pictures in the 
 National Gallery (45 and 47) are instances. 
 
 XVII. — Handling is the particular manner of execu- Handling, 
 tion — the touch of the pencil — whether broad or fine, heavy 
 
 or light, free or finical, coarse or delicate. It differs in 
 various painters, and it ought to differ in accordance with 
 the material used, and the size and style of the work ; a 
 broad and free manner of handling may be combined with 
 exquisite delicacy, as in Teniers, who carried this beautiful 
 combination to a high degree of excellence : his picture of 
 the " Misers" (Nat. Gal. 155) is an example. Rembrandt's 
 pictures are remarkable for breadth and freedom of hand- 
 ling, even in small and finished subjects. The handling of 
 Lionardo da Vinci is smooth, delicate, and laboured, even in 
 large subjects. 
 
 * Goethe's Theory of Colours, note, p. 420. 
 
xxvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Impasto, with reference to the handling, is the de- 
 gree of thickness with which the colour is laid on. For 
 instance, the impasto in Rembrandt's picture of the " Jew " 
 (Nat. Gal. 51) is so thick as to project in ridges from the 
 canvas: in Guido's Magdalen (No. 177) it is so thin that 
 you may tell the threads of the canvas through it. 
 
 XVIII. — It remains to say a few words on the different 
 kinds of painting in regard to the materials employed and 
 their various application. The earliest form of the art was 
 decorative, and the method employed was what the Italians 
 Fresco. call alfresco. The word signifies fresh ; and fresco-painting 
 implies that the colours are laid on while the plaster spread 
 over the surface to be painted is fresh and still wet ; thus 
 sinking into the substance, and becoming, as it dries, incor- 
 porated with it. The colours used are entirely mineral. The 
 origin of the invention is lost in the night of ages. The 
 Greeks borrowed the art from the Egyptians ; and the 
 paintings of Polygnotus at Delphi, described by Pausanias, 
 are supposed to have been in fresco. The art seems to have 
 been transmitted from generation to generation, and never 
 entirely lost, although in the middle ages the mechanical 
 part of the process had deteriorated, and was imperfectly 
 understood even in the palmy days of fresco-painting — the 
 time of Raphael. It has been lately revived in Germany, 
 with all the aids which the modern improvements in chemistry 
 and other mechanical advantages can lend to native genius. 
 
 The advantages of fresco-painting are its durability, which, 
 when the materials are properly managed, equals that of the 
 wall on which it is painted; and the absence of that glazed 
 or polished surface which, by reflecting the light, renders a 
 picture sometimes invisible in certain situations. It has its 
 disadvantages too ; it is an expensive and peculiar process, 
 and requires habitual dexterity and celerity of hand in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 painter. The plaster can only be painted on while wet ; 
 therefore at the end of the day's work the superfluous part 
 is cut away, and more must be laid on fresh the next 
 morning, and joined on with great nicety where an outline 
 or shadow occurs. Formerly it was considered impossible 
 to make any alteration in the work when once executed ; 
 but one of the Munich painters informed me that they can, 
 by a dexterous process, cut out any part with a knife, and re- 
 place it with such nicety that the mark shall not be visible. 
 
 XIX. — Encaustic Painting is also a very ancient in- Encaustic 
 vention. The word signifies that it was executed by the 
 action of fire. The colours were mixed with melted wax, 
 
 and applied on an absorbent ground, into which they sank ; 
 when the whole was finished, a hot iron was passed over it, 
 which brought out the colours to the surface. This manner 
 of painting was extremely durable, and had the advantage of 
 not being easily injured by damp, sun, or air. After per- 
 severing researches made during the last century by Count 
 Caylus and others, and many failures, it has been revived 
 with success in Germany. I saw in the King of Bavaria's 
 palace at Munich his dining-room and dressing-room 
 painted in encaustic, the first with the Life of Anacreon, 
 the latter from the poems of Theocritus. In the palace of 
 the Grand Duke of Weimar (see p. 510) the central com- 
 partments are painted in fresco, while the surrounding 
 arabesques are executed in encaustic. 
 
 XX. — Painting in distemper {a tempera) is where the Distemper, 
 colours used are moistened with water and thickened into 
 consistency by some glutinous mixture ; white of egg or the 
 
 juice of the young shoots of the fig-tree being usually 
 employed. This was the mode generally practised in the 
 middle ages; and, when well executed and glazed with 
 varnish, might be mistaken for oils, though it can never 
 have the same force or brilliance. The two pictures by 
 
xxviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Annibal Carracci, the " Silenus " and the " Pan and 
 Apollo 99 (Nat. Gal., 93, 94), are executed in this manner. 
 
 oil Painting. XXI. — The art of painting in oils (that is, of using oils 
 and resinous varnishes as the vehicle for diluting the colours 
 instead of water, white of egg, &c.) was invented about the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, how and by whom is 
 not certainly known ; but John and Hubert Van Eyck 
 are recorded as the first painters who adopted this new 
 method with any success. An Italian painter, Domenico 
 Veneziano, brought it to Italy about 1440, and for the 
 sake of his precious secret was assassinated by Andrea del 
 Castagno, a painter of Florence. But Anton ello da Mes- 
 sina had already learnt it, and from him Gian Bellini 
 obtained it by a very unworthy artifice.* 
 
 Colours. XXII. — For colours the three realms of nature have been 
 ransacked ; but it seems generally admitted that the best 
 painters used few and simple colours. 
 
 Material XXIII. — The material painted on is of various kinds : for 
 
 Painted on. . . 
 
 painting on walls and ceilings a ground is used of plaster 
 finely mixed and laid on smooth ; for detached pictures, 
 panels of seasoned board, and linen stretched on a frame, 
 seem to have been in use from very early times, though the 
 first mention of a picture painted on linen is in the reign of 
 Nero ; thin slabs of marble, slate, and alabaster have also 
 been occasionally used ; historical pictures of a small size 
 are called cabinet-pictures, and are generally painted on 
 panel or on plates of copper. 
 
 XXIV. — Some of the most important terms of art as 
 applied to pictures have been incidentally explained in the 
 foregoing observations. I shall add here the definition of 
 some others which occur in the following Catalogues ; for 
 
 * According to Ridolfi, he introduced himself into the house and 
 atelier of Antonello disguised as a servant. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxix 
 
 though I have avoided as much as possible the use of 
 technical words and phrases, it has been impossible to 
 avoid them altogether ; and in speaking or writing on art, 
 certain expressions are by long custom used in an exclusive 
 and arbitrary sense, which ought to be distinctly understood 
 by the reader. 
 
 XXV. — The Accessories in a picture are those circum- Accessories, 
 stances which accompany the principal action or person- 
 ages, and serve to characterise or illustrate them : when well 
 chosen, they help to tell the story and heighten the interest; 
 
 they ought to be so imagined as to be in keeping with the 
 principal subject, and never so obtrusive as to distract 
 attention. In the early ages of art few accessories were 
 employed, and those of the simplest kind ; but in later 
 times the accessories have become more and more im- 
 portant, till we find the figures which tell the story merely 
 accessories in a landscape or piece of architecture ; as in 
 Wilson's " Niobe" (Nat. Gal. 110). In Caravaggio's pic- 
 ture of " Christ and his Disciples at Emmaus" (Nat. 
 Gal. 172), the supper on the table, which is a mere 
 circumstance, divides our attention with the principal 
 action. When accessories are introduced without any mean- 
 ing or motive, and in direct opposition to the sentiment 
 of the subject, it is an instance of bad taste. Paul Veronese 
 perpetually sinned in this manner, as did Rubens, and 
 generally the Dutch and Flemish painters. Hogarth is 
 very remarkable for the ingenious use of accessories, though 
 apt to overload his subject with them, for the sake of being 
 intelligible : in this respect, his prints are more faulty than 
 his pictures. 
 
 XXVI. — Drapery is the clothing of the figures in a Drapery, 
 general sense. Sir Joshua Reynolds lays it down as a 
 principle that the great historical style is debased by minute 
 attention to the discrimination of drapery as regards ma- 
 
 c 
 
XXX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 terial. " It is the inferior style that marks variety of stuffs. 
 In the grand style the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, 
 nor silk, nor satin, nor velvet — it is drapery and nothing 
 more." We all admire the white satin inTerburg's Young 
 Lady Reading, and in Van Dyck's Queen Henrietta : 
 but when Lairesse gives us Cleopatra applying the Asp in 
 a white satin gown, and Rubens a Mary Magdalen in a 
 blue satin petticoat, we feel it at once to be bad taste and 
 impropriety. " The art of disposing the foldings of the dra- 
 pery makes a very considerable part of the painter's study : 
 to make it merely natural is a mechanical operation, to 
 which neither taste nor genius are required; whereas it 
 requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery so that 
 the folds shall have an easy communication, and gracefully 
 follow each other with such natural negligence as to look 
 like the effect of chance, and at the same time to show the 
 figure under it to the utmost advantage." St. Paul Preach- 
 ing at Athens, in the Cartoon of Raphael, and the St. Cathe- 
 rine (Nat. Gal. 168), may be cited as perfect examples of 
 style in the treatment of drapery. 
 
 Contour. XXVII. — Contour is the same as outline : the line which 
 determines the apparent forms of things. 
 
 Costume. XXVIII. — Costume, as we apply it to painting, is not 
 merely applicable to dress or drapery, but to the general 
 customs, habits, and manners as represented in the picture, 
 and it is required that these should be in accordance with 
 the age and country of the subject. Nicolo Poussin is 
 generally most accurate in this respect ; Paul Veronese most 
 inaccurate. Annibal Carracci has painted a " Holy Family," 
 in which St. Joseph wears spectacles. " The Rape of the 
 Sabine Women" (Nat. Gal. 38) is a flagrant instance of in- 
 accuracy in costume. 
 
 Cartoon. XXIX. — Cartoon (from carta, paper) is the name given 
 to those large and careful drawings on paper which are 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxxi 
 
 prepared for the purpose of being copied in fresco or 
 tapestry ; they are sometimes tinted with colours, as the 
 Cartoons of Raphael at Hampton Court ; sometimes merely 
 shaded with one colour, as those of Cignani, in the same 
 gallery ; and sometimes drawn in chalk only, as thpse of the 
 Carracci in the National Gallery (Nos. 147, 148). 
 
 XXX. — Objects are said to be fore-shortened when Fore short- 
 viewed so that we see their breadth and not their length : 
 
 the leg of the Ganymede (Nat. Gal. 32), and the arm 
 of Mary (Nat. Gal. 1), are fore-shortened. It is a diffi- 
 cult part of design, depending sometimes on a knowledge 
 of just form and proportion; sometimes on the management 
 of the chiaroscuro. Michael Angelo and Correggio both 
 excelled in it; the first from his profound knowledge of 
 form ; the latter, who was not a very accurate designer, from 
 his profound knowledge of effect. To assist them in the 
 practice of this difficult artifice, which was continually re- 
 quired in painting ceilings, cupolas, &c, Correggio and others 
 made small clay models of the figures they designed, and 
 suspended them in various attitudes. 
 
 XXXI. — Dryness applied to the execution of a picture Dryness, 
 signifies a certain hardness and formality in the drawing, 
 
 and a flatness and want of mellowness in the colouring; it 
 may exist with beauties of composition and expression of a 
 high and even of the highest order, as in the early works of 
 Raphael and Holbein : for example, in the " Head of a 
 Youth " (Windsor, No. 114). 
 
 XXXII. — Pieta. The. Italians give this title generally to Pieta. 
 the subject of the Dead Redeemer, lamented by sorrowing 
 women or attended by angels. Guercino's picture in the 
 National Gallery (No. 22) is a Pieta. 
 
 XXXIII. — Riposo. The Italians give this title to the Riposo. 
 subject of the Holy Family (the Virgin, Infant Christ, and 
 Joseph) resting on the way in their flight to Egypt. It is 
 
 c 2 
 
xxxii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 represented with an infinity of variations ; sometimes in a 
 highly ideal style, as when angels are ministering or shower- 
 ing roses on the holy personages ; sometimes in a merely 
 pastoral style, as where Joseph is foddering the ass and Mary 
 suckling the child. 
 
 Bambocciate. XXXIV. — Bambocciate. The Italians call by this name 
 all subjects of fairs, drolleries, village feasts, groups of 
 beggars, &c. This appellation appears to have originated 
 in the admiration excited by the pictures of Peter Van Laer, 
 who first practised this particular branch of genre painting 
 at Rome, about 1626, and from his deformed person had 
 been nicknamed 77 Bamboccio* 
 
 Grisaille. XXXV. — A picture is said to be en grisaille when it is 
 executed merely in white and grey. The fine sketch by 
 Rubens (Windsor, No. 89) is a perfect example. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON PAINTING, PICTURES, AND PAINTERS, FROM 
 VARIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 I. — Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a 
 thought and a thing. — Coleridge. 
 
 II. — Few have a just idea of painting : it is commonly 
 taken to be an art whereby nature is to be represented ; a 
 fine piece of workmanship, and difficult to be performed, 
 but producing only pleasant ornaments, mere superfluities. 
 This being all they expect from it, no wonder they look no 
 farther ; and, not having applied themselves to things of 
 
 * Lanzi, vol. ii. 172. Salvator Rosa was most indignant at an in- 
 novation which seemed to degrade the art — " e eke la pittura s'avilisse 
 in tal guisa a buffoneggiare /" " Those, 1 ' he says, " who would not give 
 a dennaro to a real beggar in rags and misery, now give hundreds of 
 crowns for painted beggars" — 
 
 " E sol Bambocciati in ogni parte annoveri." — Satira 3. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxxiii 
 
 this nature, overlook beauties which they do not expect to 
 find ; so that many an excellent picture is passed over and 
 disregarded, and an indifferent or bad one admired, — and this 
 upon low and even trivial considerations ; from whence 
 arises naturally an indifference, if not a contempt, for the 
 art, — at best a degree of esteem not very considerable, espe- 
 cially since there are comparatively so few pictures in which 
 are to be found either nature closely represented, or beauty, 
 or even fine workmanship. 
 
 Painting is indeed a difficult art, productive of curious 
 pieces of workmanship, and greatly ornamental ; and its 
 business is to represent nature. Thus far the common idea 
 is just ; only that it is more difficult, more curious, and 
 more beautiful than is commonly imagined. Tt is an enter- 
 taining thing to the mind of man to see a fine piece of art 
 in any kind ; and every one is apt to take a sort of pride in 
 it as being done by one of his own species, to whom, with 
 respect to the universe, he stands related as to one of the 
 same country or the same family. Painting affords us a 
 great variety of this kind of pleasure in the delicate or 
 bold management of the pencil ; in the mixture of its 
 colours, in the skilful contrivance of the several parts of 
 the picture and infinite variety of the tints, so as to pro- 
 duce beauty and harmony. This alone gives great pleasure 
 to those who have learned to see these things. To see 
 nature justly represented is very delightful ; it gives us 
 pleasing ideas, and perpetuates and renews them ; pleasing, 
 whether by their novelty or variety, or by the consideration 
 of our own ease and safety, when we see what is terrible in 
 themselves, as storms and tempests, battles, murders, and 
 robberies ; or else when the subject is fruit, flowers, land- 
 scapes, buildings, histories, and, above all, ourselves, rela- 
 tions, or friends. Thus far the common idea of painting 
 goes ; and this would be enough, if these beauties were seen 
 
XXXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and considered as they are to be found in the works of the 
 best masters, whether in paintings or drawings, to recom- 
 mend the art. But this is such an idea of it as it would 
 be of a man to say, he has a graceful and noble form, 
 and performs many bodily actions with great strength and 
 agility, without taking his speech and his reason into the 
 account. 
 
 The great and chief ends of painting are to raise and 
 improve nature, and to communicate ideas, not only those 
 which we may receive otherwise, but such as without this 
 art could not possibly be communicated, whereby mankind 
 is advanced higher in the rational state, and made better, 
 and that in a way easy, expeditious, and delightful. The 
 business of painting is not only to represent nature, and 
 to make the best choice of it, but to raise and improve i 
 from what is commonly or even rarely seen, to what never 
 was, or will be in fact, though we may easily conceive it 
 might be. 
 
 I will add but one article more in praise of this noble, de- 
 lightful, and useful art, and that is this : — the treasure of a 
 nation consists in the pure productions of nature, or those 
 managed, or put together and improved, by art. Now there 
 is no artificer whatever that produces so valuable a thing from 
 such inconsiderable materials of Nature's furnishing as the 
 painter : it is next to creation. This country is many 
 thousands of pounds the richer for Van Dyck's hand, whose 
 works are as current money as gold in most parts of Europe, 
 and this with an inconsiderable expense of the productions 
 of Nature. — What a treasure then have all the great masters 
 here and elsewhere given to the world !— Richardson. * 
 
 * I have quoted largely from Richardson's works on painting, not 
 only because they are little known and I believe out of print, but be- 
 cause, with all their faults of style, bad grammar, and quaint expressions, 
 they are written with an earnestness and elevation of feeling, a fulness 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 III. — When such a man as Plato speaks of painting as 
 only an imitative art, and that our pleasure proceeds from 
 observing and acknowledging the truth of the imitation, I 
 think he misleads us by a partial theory. It is in this poor, 
 partial, and so far false view of the art, that Cardinal Bembo 
 has chosen to distinguish even Raphael himself, whom our 
 enthusiasm honours with the name of divine. The same 
 sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation, as 
 it is a sort of deception. Though the best critics must always 
 have exploded this strange idea, yet I know that there is a dis- 
 position towards a perpetual recurrence to it, on account of 
 its simplicity and superficial plausibility. The truth is, paint- 
 ing is not to be considered as an imitation, operating by 
 deception ; so far from it that it is, and ought to be, in many 
 points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of 
 external nature. Perhaps it ought to be as far removed 
 from the vulgar idea of imitation as the refined civilized 
 state in which we live is removed from a gross state of 
 nature ; and those who have not cultivated their imagina- 
 
 of conviction, which would win toleration for greater faults. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds once declared that the perusal of Richardson's book had made 
 him a painter. 
 
 Jonathan Richardson was born in 1665, and died in 1745 : he was 
 a portrait-painter of no particular merit, though Walpole calls him the 
 best painter of a head that had appeared in this country. In 1719 he 
 published " An Essay on the Art of Criticism as it relates to Painting 
 and " An Argument in behalf of the Science of a Connoisseur." At 
 this time art and all criticism relating to it were at the very lowest ebb, 
 and the enthusiasm of Richardson, and the just and pure principles of 
 art laid down in his books, were little understood and appreciated, were 
 even met by open ridicule, while that puppy Jervas was hymned into 
 immortality by his friend Pope, and Smollet, Young, Fielding, Sterne, 
 made the taste for art and pictures a favourite subject for banter and 
 satire. Had it been a fashion, it had perished ; but it was founded in 
 truth, and it survives. 
 
xxxvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tions, which the majority of mankind certainly have not, 
 may be said, in regard to the arts, to continue in this state 
 of nature. Such men will always prefer imitation to that 
 excellence which is addressed to another faculty that they do 
 not possess ; but these are not the persons to whom a painter 
 is to look, any more than a judge of morals and manners 
 ought to refer controverted points upon those subjects to the 
 opinions of people taken from the banks of the Ohio or from 
 New Holland. 
 
 It is the lowest style only of art, whether of painting, 
 poetry, or music, that may be said, in the vulgar sense, 
 to be naturally pleasing; the higher efforts of those arts we 
 know by experience do not affect minds wholly uncultivated. 
 This refined taste is the consequence of education and 
 habit : we are born only with a capacity of entertaining this 
 rerinement. 
 
 If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, 
 there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would 
 be more apt to succeed : but it is not the eye, it is the mind, 
 which the painter of genius desires to address ; nor will he 
 waste a moment upon those smaller objects which only serve 
 to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract 
 his great design of speaking to the heart. — Leave it to the 
 vulgar to suppose that those are the best pictures which are 
 most likely to deceive the spectator. — Sir J. Reynolds. 
 
 IV. — If in a picture the story be well chosen and finely 
 told, at least, if not improved ; — if it fill the mind with noble 
 and instructive ideas, I will not scruple to say it is an ex- 
 cellent picture, though the drawing be as much short of pre- 
 cise correctness as that of Correggio, Titian, or Rubens ; the 
 colouring as disagreeable even as that of Polidore, Battista 
 Franco, or Michael Angelo: nay, though there is no other 
 goodness but that of colouring and the pencil, I will venture 
 to call it a good picture — that is, that it is good in these re- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxxvii 
 
 spects : — in the first instance, here is a fine story artfully 
 communicated to my imagination, not by speech nor writing, 
 but in a manner preferable to either of them : in the other, 
 there is a beautiful and delightful object, and a fine piece of 
 workmanship, to say no more of it. There never was a 
 picture in the world without some faults, and very rarely is 
 there one to be found which is not notoriously defective in 
 some of the parts of painting. In judging of its goodness, 
 one should pronounce it such in proportion to the number 
 of the good qualities it has, and their degrees of goodness. 
 I will add that, as a philosopher, one should only consider 
 the excellency we see, and enjoy that, as being all belonging 
 to it ; no more regretting what it has not, nor thinking of it 
 so much as to diminish our pleasure in that it has, than we 
 do want of taste in a rose, speech in a picture of Van Dyck, 
 or life in one of Raphael. — Richardson. 
 
 V. — He that paints a history well must be able to write 
 it : he must be thoroughly informed of all things relating to 
 it, and conceive it clearly and nobly in his mind, or he can 
 never express it upon the canvas. He must have a solid 
 judgment with a lively imagination, and know what figures 
 and what incidents ought to be brought in, and what every 
 one should say and think. A painter therefore of this class 
 must possess all the good qualities requisite to an historian, 
 unless it be language, which, however, seldom fails of being 
 beautiful when the thing is clearly and well conceived. But 
 all this is not sufficient to him ; he must moreover know the 
 forms of the arms, the habits, customs, buildings, &c, of the 
 age and the country in which the thing was transacted 
 more exactly than the other need to know them ; and as his 
 business is not to write the history of a few years, or of one 
 age or country, but of all ages and all nations, as occasion 
 offers, he must have a proportionable fund of ancient and 
 modern learning of all kinds. 
 
 c 3 
 
xxxviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As to paint a history a man ought to have the main 
 qualities of a good historian, and something more, he must 
 yet go higher, and have the talents requisite to a good 
 poet, — the rules for the conduct of a picture being much the 
 same with those to be observed in writing a poem; and 
 painting, as well as poetry, requiring an elevation of genius 
 beyond what pure historical narration does. The painter 
 must imagine his figures to think, speak, and act, as a poet 
 should do in a tragedy or epic poem, especially if his subject 
 be a fable or an allegory. If a poet has, moreover, the care 
 of the diction and versification, the painter has a task per- 
 haps at least equivalent to that, even after he has well conceived 
 the thing (over and above what is merely mechanical, and 
 other particulars which shall be spoken to presently), and 
 that is, the knowledge of the nature and effects of colours, 
 lights, shadows, reflections, &c. ; and as his business is not 
 to compose one Iliad or one iEneid only, but perhaps many, 
 he must be furnished with a vast stock of poetical as well as 
 historical learning. 
 
 Besides all this, it is absolutely necessary to a history- 
 painter that he understands anatomy, osteology, geometry, 
 perspective, architecture, and many other sciences, which 
 the historian or poet has no occasion to know. 
 
 I thought fit to do justice to the art of painting in the 
 first place; and, before I entered upon the rules to be 
 observed in the conduct of a picture, to tell the painter what 
 qualities he himself ought to have : to which I will add (but 
 not as the least considerable), that, as his profession is ho- 
 nourable, he should render himself worthy of it by excelling 
 in it, and by avoiding all low and sordid actions and con- 
 versations, all base and criminal passions. His business is 
 to express great and noble sentiments ; let him make them 
 familiar to him, and his own, and form himself into as 
 bright a character as any he can draw. His art is of a vast 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxxix 
 
 extent, and he stands in need of all the time and all the 
 vigour of body and mind allowed to human nature ; he 
 should take care to husband and improve these as much as 
 possible by prudence and virtue. The way to be an ex- 
 cellent painter is to be an excellent man ; and these united 
 make a character that would shine even in a better world 
 than this. — Richardson. 
 
 VI. — A painter must not only be a poet, an historian, a 
 mathematician, &c. ; he must also be a mechanic ; his hand 
 and eye must be as expert as his head is clear, and lively, 
 and well stored with science. He must not only write a 
 history, a poem, a description, but in a fine character : his 
 brain, his eye, his hand, must be busied at the same time. 
 He must not only have a wise judgment to distinguish be- 
 twixt things nearly resembling one another but not the 
 same (which he must have in common with those of the 
 noblest professions) ; but he must, moreover, have the same 
 delicacy in his eyes to judge of the tints of colours, which 
 are of infinite variety ; and to distinguish whether a line be 
 straight or curved a little ; whether this is exactly parallel 
 to that, or oblique, and in what degree; how this curved 
 line differs from that, if it differ at all, of which he must 
 also judge ; whether what he has drawn is of the same mag- 
 nitude with what he pretends to imitate, and the like; 
 and he must have a hand exact enough to form these in his 
 work answerable to the ideas he has taken of them. An 
 author must think, but it is no matter what character he 
 writes — he has no care about that ; it is sufficient if what he 
 writes be legible : a curious mechanic's hand must be ex- 
 quisite, but his thoughts are commonly pretty much at 
 liberty ; but a painter is engaged in both respects. When 
 the matter is well thought and digested in the mind (a work 
 common to painters and writers), the former hath still behind 
 a vastly greater task than the other, and which, to perform 
 
x! 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 well, would alone be a sufficient recommendation to any 
 man who should employ a whole life in attaining it. 
 
 But, by the way, it is not every picture-maker that ought 
 to be called a painter, as every rhymer or Grub-street tale- 
 writer is not a poet or historian : a painter ought to be a 
 title of dignity, and understood to imply a person endued 
 with such excellencies of mind and body as have ever been 
 the foundations of honour amongst men. — Richardson. 
 
 VII. — Certainly we have in these days mean ideas 
 about painting — mean and false ideas ! It has become a 
 mere object of luxury or virtu : unless it be addressed 
 to our personal vanity, or to the puerile taste for orna- 
 ment, show, furniture, it is nothing. The noble art, 
 which was once recognised as the priestess of nature, as 
 a great moral power capable of acting on the senses and 
 the imagination of assembled human beings, as such ap- 
 plied by the lawgivers of Greece, and by the clergy of the 
 Roman Catholic Church — how is it now vulgarised in its 
 objects ! — how narrowed in its application ! And if it be 
 said that in the present state of society, in these calcu- 
 lating, money-making, political, intellectual times, we are 
 acted upon by far different influences, rendering us infi- 
 nitely less sensible to the power of painting, then I think 
 it is not true, and that the cultivated susceptibility to other 
 moral or poetical excitements, as politics or literature, does 
 not render us less sensible to the moral influence of painting ; 
 on the contrary; but she has fallen from her high estate, 
 and there are none to raise her. The public— the national 
 spirit — is wanting ; individual patronage is confined, is mis- 
 directed, is arbitrary, demanding of the artist anything 
 rather than the highest and purest intellectual application 
 of his art, and affording nor space nor opportunity for him 
 to address himself to the grand and universal passions, prin- 
 ciples, and interests of human nature. Suppose a Michael 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xli 
 
 Angelo born to us in England ; we should not, perhaps, set 
 him to make a statue of snow, but where or how would his 
 gigantic genius, which revelled in the great deeps of passion 
 and imagination, find scope for action ? He would struggle 
 and gasp like a stranded leviathan! — Visits and Sketches, 
 p. 246. 
 
 VIII. — A man maybe a good connoisseur in general, and 
 an ingenious man, and yet his judgment in many cases is 
 not to be regarded ; he may be exactly upon the level with 
 those that are neither one nor the other : there is a certain 
 circle beyond which the wisest men are fools ; every man's 
 capacity has its bounds, and it is not every one's talent to 
 know the utmost extent of these, or to keep himself from 
 making excursions. One connoisseur is well acquainted 
 with the hands of some of the masters, or with some of their 
 manners, but not with others : if he pretends to give his 
 judgment in those cases wherein he is ignorant, it is at least 
 an equal chance but he is wrong ; and if he is so, another, 
 who may not be a better connoisseur in the main, though he 
 is so in this particular, will probably differ from him. The 
 dispute then will lie between a wise man and a fool in the 
 present case; but that there is a dispute at all is not from 
 the obscurity of the science, but the indiscretion of one of 
 the disputants. I have observed frequent instances of 
 this inequality in ingenious men with some surprise ; I 
 have known the same man talk like a very able con- 
 noisseur at one time, and at another like one that had never 
 considered these things at all ; whether that he was at 
 such times careless, or absent from himself, or that he was 
 really out of his depth in those particulars, I know not. — 
 Richardson. 
 
 IX. — What has been said may show the artist how neces- 
 sary it is, when he looks about him for the advice and criti- 
 cism of his friends, to make some distinction of the character, 
 
xlii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 taste, experience, and observation in this art of those from 
 whom it is received. An ignorant, uneducated man may, 
 like Apelles' critic, be a competent judge of the truth of 
 the representation of a sandal ; or, to go somewhat higher, 
 like Moliere's old woman, may decide upon what is nature 
 in regard to comic humour ; but a critic in the higher style 
 of art ought to possess the same refined taste which directed 
 the artist in his work. — Sir J. Reynolds. 
 
 X. — The duration and stability of the fame of the old 
 masters of painting is sufficient to evince that it has not 
 been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and ca- 
 price, but bound to the human heart by every chord of sym- 
 pathetic approbation. — Sir J. Reynolds. 
 
 Their works seem endless as their reputation ; to be 
 many as they are complete ; to multiply with the desire 
 of the mind to see more and more of them; as if there 
 were a living power in the breath of fame, and in the very 
 names of the great heirs' of glory " there were propagation 
 too." It is something to have a collection of this sort to count 
 upon once a-year ; to have one last, lingering look yet to 
 come. Pictures are scattered like stray gifts through the 
 world ; and while they remain, earth has yet a little gild- 
 ing left, not quite rubbed off, dishonoured, and defaced. — 
 Hazlitt. 
 
 XI. — Hampton Court is the great school of Raphael ; and 
 God be praised that we have so near us such an invaluable 
 blessing ! May the Cartoons continue in that place, and always 
 to be seen, unhurt and undecayed, so long as the nature of 
 the materials of which they are composed will possibly allow ! 
 May even a miracle be wrought in their favour, as themselves 
 are some of the greatest instances of the Divine Power's in- 
 terfering to endue a mortal man with abilities to perform 
 such stupendous works of art ! — Richardson. 
 
 XII. — Few works are more evanescent than paintings. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xliii 
 
 Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries. The 
 Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But books are per- 
 haps the only productions of man coeval with the human 
 race. Sophocles and Shakspeare can be produced and re- 
 produced for ever. But how evanescent are paintings, and 
 must necessarily be ! Those of Zeuxes and Apelles are no 
 more, and perhaps they bore the same relation to Homer and 
 TEschylus that those of Guido and Raphael bear to Dante 
 and Petrarch. There is one refuge from the despondency of 
 this contemplation. The material part, indeed, of their works 
 must perish, but they survive in the mind of man, and the 
 remembrances connected with them are transmitted from 
 generation to generation. The poet embodies them in his 
 creations, the systems of philosophers are modelled to gentle- 
 ness by their contemplation; opinion, that legislator, is 
 infected with their influence ; men become better and wiser ; 
 and the unseen seeds are perhaps thus sown which shall 
 produce a plant more excellent even than that from which 
 they fell.— Shelley. 
 
 XIII. — When I speak of a painter, I do not mean merely 
 a professor, but any man (artist or not) of a liberal mind, 
 with a strong feeling for nature as well as art, who has been 
 in the habit of comparing both together. A man of a narrow 
 mind and little sensibility, in or out of a profession, is always 
 a bad judge; and possibly (as that ingenious critic the 
 Abbe* du Bos has well explained) a worse judge for being 
 an artist. — Price. 
 
 Nothing so contracts the mind as a little practical dex- 
 terity, unassisted and uncorrected by general knowledge 
 and observation, and by a study of the great masters of the 
 art. An artist, whose mind has been so contracted, refers 
 everything to his own narrow circle of ideas and execution, 
 and wishes to confine within that circle all the rest of man- 
 kind. — Price. 
 
xliv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XIV. — In a picture-gallery you see three hundred pic- 
 tures you forget for one you remember. — Shelley. 
 
 XV. — People have strange ideas about what is natural 
 in painting. They think a group of Dutch boors by Ostade 
 very natural, and Correggio's Venus out of nature — whereas 
 it is just the reverse. Those who study pictures must be 
 careful not to confound genuine nature with conventional 
 nature, and to recollect that St. Giles's is no more nature 
 than St. James's. — A. J. 
 
 XVI. — There are people who, because they do not see at 
 once in a great work of art all that they are told is there, 
 satisfy themselves that therefore it does not exist. Their per- 
 ception of deficiency is transferred, through predominant self- 
 esteem, from themselves to the object they look on— \ ery 
 consolatory! — A.J. 
 
 XVII. — S'il ne s'agit pas d'autre chose que d'imiter plus 
 ou moins fidelement la nature par des lignes et par des 
 couleurs, qu'importe au bonheur ou a la dignite* de l'espece 
 humaine que cette imitation ait ete grossiere dans un siecle, 
 et admirable dans un autre? Au contraire, quand on con- 
 sidere la peinture dans les phases qu'elle a parcourues 
 comme Pexpression imparfaite, il est vrai, mais progressive, 
 a laquelle ont du recourir les peuples modernes avant que 
 leurs langues fussent formees ; — quand on reflechit que c'est 
 la, dans ces ceuvres si informes, qu'ont ete deposees les 
 emotions les plus fortes et les plus pures de leur cceur, 
 ainsi que les creations les plus naives de leur imagination ; — 
 quand on pense qu'il etait dans leur esperance et dans leur 
 intention que ces monumens dedaignes par nous fussent 
 immortels et rendissent a jamais temoignage de leur enthou- 
 siasme et de leur foi, — alors on devient moins difficile sur les 
 divers genres de merite dont la reunion constitue ce qu'on 
 est convenu d'appeler un chef-d'oeuvre, et Ton commence 
 enfin a negliger un peu la surface des choses afin de 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlv 
 
 penetrer plus avant dans leur nature. — Rio (de la Poesie 
 Chrelienne : Forme de V Art). 
 
 XVIII. — Art is the blossom of man's mind, as virtue is 
 the fruit. — A. J. 
 
 XIX. — What Goethe says of poets must needs be appli- 
 cable to painters. He says, " If we look only at the prin- 
 cipal productions of a poet, and neglect to study himself, 
 his character, and the circumstances with which he had to 
 contend, we fall into a sort of atheism, which forgets the 
 Creator in his creation." 
 
 I think most people admire pictures in this sort of athe- 
 istical fashion ; yet, next to loving pictures, and all the 
 pleasures they give, and revelling in all the feelings they 
 awaken, all the new ideas with which they enrich our 
 mental hoard — next to this, or equal with it, is the inex- 
 haustible interest of studying the painter in his works. It 
 is a lesson in human nature. Almost every picture (which 
 is the production of mind) has an individual character 
 reflecting the predominant temperament — nay, sometimes 
 the occasional mood of the artist, its creator. Even portrait- 
 painters, renowned for their exact adherence to nature, will 
 be found to have stamped upon their portraits a general and 
 distinguishing character, *rhere is, besides the physiognomy 
 of the individual represented, the physiognomy, if I may 
 so express myself, of the picture; detected at once by the 
 mere connoisseur as a distinction of manner, style, execu- 
 tion, but of which the reflecting and philosophical observer 
 might discover the key in the mind or life of the individual 
 painter. 
 
 In the heads of Titian, what subtlety of intellect mixed 
 with sentiment and passion ! In those of Velasquez, what 
 chivalrous grandeur, what high-hearted contemplation ! 
 When Ribera painted a head, what power of sufferance ! 
 In those of Giorgione, what profound feeling ! In those of 
 
xlvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Guido, what elysian grace ! In those of Rubens, what 
 energy of intellect — what vigorous life! In those of Van 
 Dyck, what high-bred elegance ! In those of Rembrandt, 
 what intense individuality ! Could Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 have painted a vixen without giving her a touch of senti- 
 ment ? Would not Sir Thomas Lawrence have given refine- 
 ment to a cook-maid ? I do believe that Opie would have 
 made even a calf's head look sensible, as Gainsborough 
 made our old Queen Charlotte look picturesque. 
 
 Michael Angelo and Parmigiano both painted the Three 
 Fates ; but those of Parmigiano look as though they could 
 never grow old, and those of Michael Angelo as though 
 they had never been young. — A. J. 
 
 XX. — When one sees an admirable piece of art, it is 
 part of the entertainment to know to whom to attribute it, 
 and then to know his history. When one is considering a 
 picture or a drawing, and at the same time thinks this was 
 
 vinei! ld ° da ^ one n ^ m wno nac ^ man y extraordinary endowments of 
 body and mind, and was withal a virtuous man and a fine 
 gentleman in his whole life, and still more at his death, 
 expiring in the arms of one of the greatest princes of that 
 age, Francis I. King of France, who loved him as a friend.* 
 
 Titian. Another is of him who lived a long and happy life, beloved 
 of the Emperor Charles V., and many others of the first 
 
 Michael princes of Europe. When one has another in his hand, 
 and thinks this was done by one who so excelled in three 
 arts, as that any one of them, in that degree he possessed 
 them all, had rendered him worthy of immortality; and 
 who moreover dared to contend with his sovereign (one of 
 
 * " Much has been said of the honour lie received by expiring in the 
 arms of Francis I. ; it was indeed an honour (to the king) by which 
 destiny in some degree atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at 
 Pavia. ' ' — Fuseli. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 the haughtiest Popes that ever was), and upon a slight offered 
 to him to extricate himself with honour. 
 
 Another is the work of that great, self-formed, authentic Correggio. 
 genius who was the model of all supernatural grace ; who 
 alone painted heaven as surely it is, and hath represented 
 to human weakness the angelic nature — this, too, by inspi- 
 ration, not having had any master, or none but whom he 
 left quite out of sight in the earliest progresses of his divine 
 pencil. He even never saw the works of other great 
 masters, having confined himself to his native Lombardy, 
 except one single one of Raphael, and a great one indeed 
 that was— his " St. Cecilia" — when brought to Bologna ; and 
 then, after considering it with long attention and the admi- 
 ration it deserved, he had the spirit (and he had the right 
 to that spirit) to say, " Well, I am a painter too." (Anch 
 *io sono pittore /) 
 
 Another we shall consider as the work of him who re- Annibai 
 
 Uarracci. 
 
 stored painting when it was almost sunk — of him whom his 
 art made honourable, but who, neglecting and despising 
 greatness with a sort of cynical pride, was treated suitably 
 to the figure he gave himself, not to his merit ; which, not 
 having philosophy enough to bear it, broke his heart. 
 Another is performed by one who, on the contrary, was a Rubens, 
 fine gentleman, and lived in great magnificence, and was 
 much honoured by his own and foreign princes, — who was a 
 courtier, a statesman, and a painter, and so much all these 
 that, when he acted in either character, that seemed to be his 
 business, and the others his diversion. When one thus 
 reflects, besides the pleasure arising from the excellencies 
 and beauties of the w r ork, the fine ideas it gives us of natural 
 things, the noble way of thinking one finds in it, and the 
 pleasing thoughts it may suggest to us, an additional pleasure 
 results from these reflections. 
 
 But, oh the pleasure ! when a connoisseur and lover of 
 
xlviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 art has before him a picture or drawing of which he can 
 Raphael. say — "This is the hand, these the thoughts, of him who was 
 one of the politest, best-natured gentlemen that ever was ; 
 who was beloved and assisted by the greatest wits and the 
 greatest men then at Rome, at a time when politeness and 
 all those arts w r hich make life truly agreeable were carried 
 to a greater height than at any period since the reign of 
 Augustus, — of him who lived in great fame, honour, and 
 magnificence, and died universally lamented, and even missed 
 a cardinal's hat only by dying a few months too soon ; but 
 was, above all, highly esteemed and favoured by two Popes, 
 the only ones who filled the chair of St. Peter in his time ; — 
 one, in short, who could have been a Lionardo, a Michael 
 Angelo, a Titian, a Correggio, a Parmigiano, a Rubens, or 
 any other, when he pleased ; but none of them could ever 
 have been a Raphael!" When we compare the hands and 
 manners of one master with another, and those of the same 
 man in different times ; when we see the various turns of 
 mind and excellencies ; and, above all, when we observe 
 what is well or ill in their works, — as it is a worthy, so it is 
 also a very delightful exercise of our rational faculties. — 
 Richardson. 
 
 XXI. — The painters of the Roman school were the best 
 designers, and had more of the antique taste in their works 
 than any of the others, but generally they were not good 
 colourists. Those of Florence were good designers, and had 
 a kind of greatness, but it was not antique. The Venetian 
 and Lombard schools had excellent colourists, and a certain 
 grace, but entirely modern, especially those of Venice ; but 
 their drawing was generally incorrect, and their knowledge 
 in history and the antique very little. And the Bolognese 
 school of the Carracci is a sort of composition of the others ; 
 even Annibal himself possessed not any part of painting in 
 the perfection which is to be seen in those from whom his 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlix 
 
 manner is composed, though, to make amends, he possessed 
 more parts than perhaps any other master, and all in a 
 very high degree. The works of those of the German 
 school have a dryness and ungraceful stiffness, not like 
 what is seen amongst the old Florentines. The Flemings 
 were good colourists, and imitated nature as they con- 
 ceived it — that is, instead of raising nature, they fell below 
 it. though not so much as the Germans, nor in the same 
 manner. Rubens himself lived and died a Fleming, though 
 he would fain have been an Italian ; but his imitators have 
 caricatured his manner — that is, they have been more Rubens 
 in his defects than he himself was, but without his excel- 
 lencies. The French, excepting some few of them (N. 
 Poussin, Le Sueur, Sebastian Bourdon), as they have not 
 the German stiffness nor the Flemish ungracefulness, 
 neither have they the Italian solidity ; and in their airs of 
 heads and manners they are easily distinguished from the 
 antique, how much soever they may have endeavoured to 
 imitate it. — Richardson. 
 
 XXII. — The critic of art ought to keep in view not only 
 the capabilities, but the proper objects of art. Not all that 
 art can accomplish ought she to attempt. It is from this 
 cause alone, and because we have lost sight of these prin- 
 ciples, that art among us is become more extensive and diffi- 
 cult, and less effective and perfect. — Lessing. 
 
 XXIII. — -There is no more potent antidote to low sen- 
 suality than the adoration of beauty. All the higher arts of 
 design are essentially chaste, without respect of the object. 
 They purify the thoughts, as tragedy, according to Aristotle, 
 purifies the passions. Their accidental effects are not worth 
 consideration. There are souls to whom even a vestal is 
 not holy. — A. W. von Schlegel* 
 
 * Fragments from German Writers, translated by Mrs. Austin, 
 pp. 17-20. 
 
] 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXIV. — Here it maybe proper to take notice of the pre- 
 judice many people have to naked figures. It is difficult to 
 discover any settled rules of propriety in the different modes 
 of dress, as all ages and nations have fluctuated with regard 
 to their notions and fashions in this matter. The Greek 
 statues of the Laocoon, Apollo, Meleager, Hercules ; the fight- 
 ing and dying Gladiator, and the Venus de Medicis, though 
 altogether without drapery, yet surely there is nothing in 
 them offensive to modesty, nothing immoral : on the con- 
 trary, looking on these figures, the mind of the spectator is 
 taken up with the surprising beauty or sublimity of the per- 
 sonage, his great strength, vigorous and manly character ; 
 or those pains and agonies that so feelingly discover them- 
 selves throughout the whole work. It is not in showing or 
 concealing the form that modesty or the want of it depends ; 
 they arise entirely from the choice and intentions of the 
 artist himself. The Greeks and other great designers gave 
 into this practice (of representing the figure undraped) in 
 order to show in its full extent the idea of character they 
 meant to establish. If it was beauty, they show it to you 
 in all the limbs ; if strength, the same ; and the agonies 
 of the Laocoon are as discernible in his foot as in his face. 
 This pure and naked nature speaks a universal language, 
 which is understood and valued in all times and countries, 
 where the Grecian dress, language, and manners are neither 
 regarded nor known. It is worth observing also that many 
 of the fair sex do sometimes betray themselves by their over- 
 delicacy (which is the want of all true delicacy) in this re- 
 spect. But I am ashamed to be obliged to combat such silly 
 affectations ; they are beneath men who have either head or 
 heart ; they are unworthy of women who have either educa- 
 tion or simplicity of manners ; they would disgrace even 
 waiting-maids and sentimental milliners. — Barry. 
 
 XXV. — A fine gallery of pictures is a sort of illustration 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 li 
 
 of Berkeley's theory of matter and spirit. It is like a 
 palace of thought — another universe, built of air, of shadows, 
 of colours. Everything seems palpable to feeling as to 
 sight ; substances turn to shadows by the arch-chemic 
 touch ; shadows harden into substances ; " the eye is made 
 the fool of the other senses, or else worth all the rest." The 
 material is in some sense embodied in the immaterial, or at 
 least we see all things in a sort of intellectual mirror. The 
 world of art is an enchanting deception. We discover dis- 
 tance in a glazed surface ; a province is contained in a foot of 
 canvas ; a thin evanescent tint gives the form and pressure 
 of rocks and trees ; an inert shape has life and motion in it. 
 Time stands still, and the dead reappear by means of this 
 so potent art ! 
 
 What hues (those of nature mellowed by time) breathe 
 around, as we enter ! What forms are there woven into the 
 memory ! What looks, which only the answering looks of 
 the spectator can express ! What intellectual stores have been 
 yearly poured forth from the shrine of ancient art ! The 
 works are various, but the names the same : heaps of Rem- 
 brandts frowning from their darkened walls — Rubens's glad 
 gorgeous groups — Titian's more rich and rare — Claude al- 
 ways exquisite, sometimes beyond compare — Guido's endless 
 cloying sweetness — the learning of Poussin and the Car- 
 racci — and Raphael's princely magnificence, crowning all. 
 We read certain letters and syllables in the catalogue, and 
 at the well-known magic sound a miracle of skill and beauty 
 starts to view. 
 
 Pictures are a set of chosen images, a stream of pleasant 
 thoughts passing through the mind. It is a luxury to have 
 the walls of our rooms hung round with them, and no less so 
 to have such a gallery in the mind, — to con over the relics of 
 ancient art bound up " within the book and volume of the 
 
lii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 brain, unmixed (if it were possible) with baser matter." A 
 life passed among pictures, in the study and the love of art, 
 is a happy, noiseless dream : or rather it is to dream and to 
 be awake at the same time, for it has all " the sober cer- 
 tainty of waking bliss," with the romantic voluptuousness 
 of a visionary and abstracted being. They are the bright 
 consummate essences of things, and he who knows of these 
 delights, "to taste and interpose them oft, is not unwise! " 
 —Haztitt 
 
 * # * The reader is requested to observe, that in the following Cata- 
 logues the letters P. or W. signify that the picture is painted on panel 
 or wood ; C. that it is painted on canvas. In the measurements the 
 height is always placed first. Thus, 2 ft. by 3 ft. signifies that the 
 picture is two feet high by three feet wide ; 3 ft. by 2 ft., that it is three 
 feet high by two feet wide. 
 
 A portrait is understood to be life-size, and to represent the person to 
 the waist, when not otherwise expressed ; half-length, signifies that the 
 figure is seen below the waist, and one or both hands introduced. Three- 
 quarters, that the figure is seen nearly to the knees. This is sometimes 
 called Kitcat length, because the members of the Kitcat Club were so 
 painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, which made this particular size 
 fashionable. 
 
THE 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY, 
 
 INSTITUTED 1824. 
 
 You then, whose judgment the right course would steer, 
 Know well eacli artist's proper character, 
 
 His fable, subject, scope, 
 
 Religion, country, genius of his age; 
 Without all these at once before your eyes, 
 Cavil you may, but never criticise. — Pope. 
 
 ja 
 
THE 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It has been a subject of astonishment to intelligent foreigners 
 that, in a country like England, possessed of such vast re- 
 sources both in wealth and power, no National Gallery of 
 art belonging, or at least accessible, to the public at large, 
 should have existed till within the last twenty years. I£ on 
 the death of Charles !., his magnificent collection, instead of 
 being sold for some paltry thousands, had been retained as 
 the property of the Commonwealth, we should now rival the 
 most celebrated foreign galleries in the possession of grand 
 works of art. After the purchase of the gallery of the Duke 
 of Mantua, King Charles's collection included about 387 
 pictures of value, among which were 9 by Raphael, 16 by 
 Giulio Romano, 1 1 by Correggio, 28 by Titian, 20 by Van- 
 dyck, &c. ; and persons conversant with the history of the 
 arts in England, who meet, in the galleries of foreign Princes, 
 chef-d'ceuvres once in our possession, obtained at great cost 
 and afterwards sold beneath their value, may be pardoned if 
 on such occasions, they do not feel like citizens of the world, 
 but rather indulge in some private and patriotic regrets for a 
 loss now irretrievable. Something of this coarseness of taste 
 and ill-understood economy might have been imputed to the 
 republican and utilitarian spirit of those times, had we not 
 seen that the English Government, one hundred and fifty 
 years after the dispersion of King Charles's pictures, and 
 when directed by principles diametrically opposite, did not 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 display more wisdom, taste, or foresight, than the stern 
 puritanical republicans of 1649. During the French inva- 
 sion of Italy in 1797-8 the nobles of that country, impo- 
 verished by the heavy contributions exacted from them, 
 found themselves under the necessity of disposing of the 
 works of art long accumulated in their families. These 
 were, according to the Italian custom, in all cases so strictly 
 entailed, that nothing but such a convulsion as then shook 
 1 the whole frame of civilised society to its very basis could 
 have effected their alienation. The Princes Borghese, Co- 
 lonna, Barberini, Chigi, Corsini, Falconieri, Spada, Lancel- 
 lotti, and others, parted with their pictures, reluctantly 
 indeed, and at prices far beneath their real value. At tins 
 period the outlay of about £20,000 would have secured to 
 this country the possession of some of the grandest works of 
 art now existing, and a representation to this effect was 
 made to the Government, but remained unnoticed. What 
 were Titians and Correggios to us in those days, 
 
 " When rumour of oppression and deceit, 
 Of unsuccessful or successful war," 
 
 filled all ears, occupied all minds ? A lieutenant in the navy 
 was then a greater man than Raphael : and it must be allowed 
 that, had Pitt and his ministry taken up the matter seriously, 
 though thanks and deathless praise would have been their meed 
 to all later times, the national feeling would then have been 
 against them. The opportunity passed away, never to be re- 
 called. The public spirit of England, so magnificently dis- 
 played in the building of hospitals and bridges, and fighting, 
 at her own cost, the battles of all Europe, has not till lately 
 been directed to the fine arts : not till lately has a feeling 
 been awakened in the public mind, that, in the endeavour to 
 humanise and educate the heart of a nation for all noble and 
 all gentle purposes, art, if not the most important, is no de- 
 spicable means towards that greatest end. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 5 
 
 It appears that, between the years 1804 and 1823, the idea 
 of forming a National Gallery of art had several times been 
 suggested to the Government, but in vain. Sir Francis 
 Bourgeois, who in 1811 left his fine collection to Dulwich 
 College, wished to have appropriated it to the nation at large, 
 provided a suitable building were prepared to receive it. 
 This offer was not accepted. 
 
 In the year 1823 John Julius Angerstein, a wealthy 
 banker and merchant of London, died and left to his heirs a 
 gallery of 38 pictures, many of which were considered first-rate 
 in point of beauty and value. Mr. Angerstein had acquired 
 them by a judicious outlay of ready money during the war, 
 and had been assisted in the selection by his two friends, 
 Benjamin West and Sir Thomas Lawrence. There were, 
 notwithstanding, some copies, since detected, and some indif- 
 ferent pictures, in the number. The expediency of pur- 
 chasing this collection was urgently pressed on the Go- 
 vernment by Mr. Agar Ellis (afterwards Lord Dover) 
 and Sir George Beaumont. Meantime the King of Bavaria, 
 the Prince of Orange, and others, sent to treat with the 
 heirs of the property. A sensation, amounting to appre- 
 hension, was excited among those who felt the importance 
 of the crisis.* They were few, but they were influential. 
 
 * At this time, Sir Thomas Lawrence, being consulted as to the 
 value which ought to be set on the whole collection, wrote back the 
 following hurried reply, which strongly expresses both his high opinion 
 of the pictures, and his alarm lest they should be sent out of the coun- 
 try 
 
 " Dear Angerstein, — I do most sincerely think that you should not 
 ask less than 70,000/. from the Prince of Orange ; and as sincerely do I 
 pray and implore that even at that price he may not have them. At 
 least, before they are sold, as just patriotism and due to our country, 
 they should be offered for a less sum to the Government — to Lord Liver- 
 pool. Ever most truly yours, but at this instant with great anxiety and 
 dread. Thomas Lawrence." 
 
6 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Still Lord Liverpool hesitated. He and the other minis- 
 ters were absolutely intimidated by the fierce attacks of 
 the economists, and scarcely dared to propose such a 
 measure themselves, dreading the apathy of some and the 
 animosity of others. Lord Dover acknowledged that he 
 should have wanted courage to bring the subject before the 
 House of Commons, had it not been for the stimulating- 
 zeal of Sir George Beaumont. This accomplished and 
 enthusiastic man was indefatigable in his exertions and re- 
 presentations. One of his letters to Lord Dover at this time 
 is very striking : — 
 
 " You have proved yourself so sincere a friend to the arts, 
 that I am sure you must have heard the report that Lord 
 Hertford is in treaty for and likely to purchase Angerstein's 
 pictures; but that, if he finds the nation will buy them, he 
 will give up his claim. I hope the latter part of the report 
 is true, and that the country will purchase. You manifested 
 such sincere and laudable zeal to bring this about, that I 
 have great hopes you will carry your point : certainly I would 
 rather see them in the hands of his Lordship than have them 
 lost to the country ; but I would rather see them in the Mu- 
 seum than in the possession of any individual, however 
 respectable in rank or taste \ because taste is not inherited, 
 and there are few families in which it succeeds for three 
 generations. My idea, therefore, is, that the few examples 
 which remain perfect can never be so safe as under the guar- 
 dianship of a body which never dies ; and I see every year 
 such proofs of the carelessness with which people suffer these 
 inestimable relics to be rubbed, scraped, and polished, as if 
 they were their family plate, that I verily believe, if they do 
 not find some safe asylum, in another half-century little more 
 will be left than the bare canvases." 
 
 At last Lord Liverpool took courage, and proposed to Par- 
 liament to purchase the Angerstein collection as it stood, at a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 7 
 
 just valuation, and make it the nucleus of a National Gallery. 
 The gentlemen who were most instrumental in determining 
 the minister to this step were Lord Aberdeen, Lord Farnbo- 
 rough, Mr. Alex. Baring (now Lord Ashburton), Lord Dover, 
 Lord WharnclifTe, and Mr. William Smith of Norwich; but 
 among the most influential and enthusiastic advocates of the 
 measure were Sir George Beaumont, Galley Knight, and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence, then President of the Royal Academy. 
 " Buy this collection of pictures for the nation," said Sir 
 George Beaumont, " and I will add mine;" and the offer — 
 the bribe shall we call it ? — was accepted. In the November 
 following Sir George thus writes to Lord Dover : — u Our 
 friend Knight has informed me that Parliament has resolved 
 upon the purchase of the Angerstein collection ; and as I shall 
 always consider the public greatly indebted to your exertions, I 
 hope you will pardon my troubling you with my congratula- 
 tions. By easy access to such works of art the public taste 
 must improve, which I think the grand desideratum; for 
 when the time shall come when bad pictures, or even . works 
 of mediocrity, shall be neglected, and excellence never passed 
 over, my opinion is, we shall have fewer painters and better 
 pictures. I think the public already begin to feel works of 
 art are not merely toys for connoisseurs, but solid objects of 
 concern to the nation ; and those who consider it in the nar- 
 rowest point of view will perceive that works of high excel- 
 lence pay ample interest for the money they cost. My belief 
 is, that the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, &c, are worth 
 thousands a-year to the country which possesses them." 
 
 The sum at which the whole of the Angerstein pictures 
 were valued by competent judges was 57,000/. ; to defray 
 other incidental expenses Parliament granted the farther sum 
 of 3000/., in all 60,000/ * The pictures remained for several 
 
 * The prices given for the three great collections sold in England 
 within the last century may perhaps be interesting as data. The 
 
8 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 years in the house of Mr. Angerstein in Pall-mall, where 
 they were first opened to the public on the 10th of May, 1824. 
 They were placed in the edifice they now occupy in 1838, 
 and it was opened to the public on the 9th of April in that 
 year. 
 
 In the mean time, the original collection had been ma- 
 terially increased by purchases and bequests. In 1825 
 three fine pictures, viz. the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian 
 (No. 35), the Dance of Bacchanals by Nicolo Poussin 
 (No. 62), and, subsequently, Annibal Carracci's " Christ 
 and St. Peter" (No. 9), were purchased of Mr. Hamlet the 
 jeweller, for 8000/. In the same year the exquisite little 
 Correggio (No. 23) was bought from Mr. Nieuwenhuys 
 for 3800 guineas. 
 
 In 1826 Sir George Beaumont (dear be his memory 
 therefore to every lover of art and of his country !) made a 
 formal gift of his pictures, valued at *7500 guineas, to the na- 
 tion. This was the first example given of private munifi- 
 cence. Sir George, besides being a passionate lover of art, 
 was himself a fine artist. The pictures he had collected 
 round him were not mere objects of pride or taste, but the 
 loved companions of his leisure — the reverenced models of 
 his art: we are told he used to gaze upon them by the 
 hour ; he could scarcely bear to be absent from them. Yet, 
 endowed with a truly poetical and elevated mind, he appears 
 
 Houghton pictures, 232 in number, collected by Sir Robert Walpole, 
 were sold to the Empress Catherine of Russia for 43,500/. The pictures 
 were overvalued, even in the estimation of Horace Walpole, and the 
 Empress never paid more than 36,000/. of the money, and, in the 
 extremity of her imperial indignation, she refused to look at them, or to 
 allow them to be taken out of the packing-cases in which they arrived at 
 St. Petersburg. Her disgust at being, as she thought, overreached, was 
 stronger than her love for fine pictures. The Orleans collection, consist- 
 ing of 296 pictures, was sold, in 1798, for 43,555/.; and the Angerstein 
 collection of 38 pictures was valued and sold at 57,000/. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 to have felt and understood one of the highest, truest sources 
 of delight, when, "with amhition, modest yet sublime," he 
 made of this rich sacrifice a gift, and not a bequest, and had 
 the gratification while he yet existed of seeing his pictures, 
 by him not only valued but loved, hung up in public view 
 to bestow on thousands " unreproved pleasure." And, as 
 this was most nobly done, so there was something affecting 
 in his request to be allowed to retain till his death one little 
 picture, a favourite Claude, which had long been in his pos- 
 session. For several years he had never moved from one 
 residence to another without it ; but carried it about with 
 him like a household god. This picture (No. 61) will 
 henceforth be consecrated by these grateful and tender recol- 
 lections in the mind of every spectator.* 
 
 In the year 1831 a magnificent addition was made to the 
 Gallery by the bequest of the Rev. William Holwell Carr, a 
 clergyman who had expended his private fortune in the ac- 
 quisition of works of art, and left to the nation thirty-one 
 pictures, most of them excellent works of the Italian school. 
 
 In 1834 a most important acquisition was made by the 
 purchase of two celebrated works of Correggio, the Educa- 
 tion of Cupid, and the Ecce Homo, which had been bought 
 by the M arquess of Londonderry with the collection of Murat, 
 and were by him sold to the nation for 10,000 guineas. 
 
 * Sir George Beaumont died on the 7th of February, 1827, at the age 
 of seventy-four. The friendship between him and Wordsworth has been 
 celebrated by the latter in many beautiful poetical compliments : — 
 
 " One woo'd the silent art with studious pains, 
 These groves have heard the other's pensive strains; 
 Devoted thus their spirits did unite 
 By interchange of knowledge and delight." 
 
 Which may be compared with Pope's elegant compliment to Jervas the 
 painter : — 
 
 " Smit with the love of sister-arts we came, 
 And met congenial, mingling flame with flame," &c. 
 
 B 3 
 
10 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 In 1838 Lord Farnborough bequeathed to the Gallery 
 fifteen pictures, chiefly of Dutch and Flemish masters, and a 
 few Italian, the value of which could not be less than seven 
 or eight thousand pounds. Other benefactors of the Gallery 
 are enumerated by name at the end of this Introduction. 
 
 The number of pictures is at present 177, of which 118 
 have been either presented or bequeathed by individuals. 
 We possess one of the finest pictures of the Florentine school 
 in the Raising of Lazarus ;* but the school of Raphael is 
 most inadequately represented in the Saint Catherine, beau- 
 tiful as it is. We may esteem ourselves rich in Correggios 
 (we have three among his finest productions, and he is the 
 rarest of the first-rate masters, Michael Angelo excepted) ; 
 also in pictures of Claude, and of Nicold and Gaspar Poussin, 
 and of Annibal Carracci and his school. We are poor in fine 
 specimens of some of the best of the early Italian masters ; 
 of Gian Bellini, of Francia, of Perugino, the master of 
 Raphael, of Fra Bartolomeo, of Frate Angelico — 
 
 " The limner cowl'd, who never raised his hand 
 Till he had steep'd his inmost soul in prayer," — 
 
 and others who flourished in the latter half of the 15th 
 century, we have as yet nothing :f of Titian we have only 
 one very good picture, — not one of his wondrous portraits ; 
 
 * I call it Florentine, because, though painted by the Venetian, Sebas- 
 tian del Piombo, the composition is by Michael Angelo, and bears the 
 stamp of his school of design. 
 
 f See Mr. Solly's Evidence before the Arts Committee in 1836 : — 
 " I should say that painting was at its greatest state of perfection from 
 1510 to 1530; but even of that period there are a great number of painters 
 whose works are not known in this country, as Gaudenzio Ferrari, Ber- 
 nardino Luino, Cesare da Sesto, and Salaino (Milan) ; Andrea da Sa- 
 lerno (the Raphael of Naples) ; and painters of Bergamo, Padua, Verona, 
 Treviso, whose works are all extremely fine, and would be desirable for a 
 National Gallery (No. 1845)." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 II 
 
 the only Giorgione is doubtful. Of the gorgeous Paul 
 Veronese and the fiery Tintoretto there is nothing of con- 
 sequence.* Of the power and splendour of Rubens we have 
 some fair examples ; but for the great pictures at Whitehall, 
 which he painted for Charles I., and which lie there out 
 of sight and out of mind, there is absolutely no space in our 
 National Gallery. They exceed in dimensions (both in breadth 
 and height) any room in it.f Of Salvator Rosa, whose great 
 works are so often met with in England, we have but one 
 picture — a noble one, it must be allowed. There are two fine 
 Murillos, but of Velasquez nothing, — for the picture which 
 bears his name is certainly not his : and of the other great mas- 
 ters of the Spanish school — Alonzo Cano, Zurbaran, Coello, 
 el Mudo, el Greco — not one picture. We are as yet most poor 
 in the fine masters of the Dutch school. There is not a single 
 specimen of Hobbema or Ruysdael. The specimens of 
 Vandervelde are insignificant; and of the beautiful conver- 
 sation-pieces of Terburg, Gerard Douw, Netscher, Metzu, 
 Ostade, Franz Mieris, and their compeers, not one. But 
 what is most extraordinary, and almost melancholy, is, our 
 poverty in the works of Van Dyck, a painter almost naturalised 
 among us; whose best years were spent in England, whose 
 best works belong to us and our history. The only very good 
 picture of his here — the portrait styled Gevartius — as a 
 specimen of what his pencil could do, is invaluable; but 
 otherwise not interesting. How would it keep alive in the 
 mind of the people all the chivalrous, and patriotic, and his- 
 torical associations connected with the families of our old 
 
 * The consecration of St. Nicholas is undoubtedly a fine picture; but 
 when we speak of important works of Paul Veronese, we allude to such 
 as are to be seen at Venice, Dresden, and in the Louvre. In the latter 
 collection is the " Marriage at Cana," which no room in our National 
 Gallery is large enough to contain. 
 
 f Fide Evidence before the Arts Committee (1654). 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 nobility, to see from these walls the effigies of our Stanleys, 
 Howards, Cecils, Percies, Russells, Cavendishes, Whartons, 
 Villierses, with their noble dames and daughters, the Lady 
 Margarets and Lady Dorotheas, looking down magnificent 
 and gracious, as they have been immortalised by the pencil 
 of Van Dyck ! Will no one bestow on us an Arundel, or a 
 Derby, or a Hamilton— a Lady Carlisle, a Lady Wharton, 
 a Lady Rich, a Sacharissa, or a Mrs. Hutchinson ? Most 
 willir.gly would we dispense with some of the pictures now 
 occupying the walls of the gallery, to make room for them : — 
 but until we are thus gloriously enriched, those who worship 
 Van Dyck, and those who would study him, must seek him at 
 Windsor, or at Chatsworth, or at Wilton. Let it be allowed 
 also to wish for a few more, and more distinguished, 
 pictures of our own Sir Joshua Reynolds. The difficul- 
 ties which must stand in the way of any government patron- 
 age of living artists will be understood at once ; but what 
 individual spirit and generosity has begun in the case of Hil- 
 ton's noble picture — " Sir Calepine rescuing Serena " — may, 
 and it is to be hoped will, be carried much further ; guided, 
 however, by elevated taste and genuine public spirit, and love 
 of art for art's .sake : — shameful would it be, and most pitiful, 
 if the spirit of jobbing, which finds its way into most of our 
 public undertakings, could be suffered to intrude into such a 
 sanctuary as this. Under the present direction we may feel 
 assured that it could not happen, — and that whatever is done 
 will be done at least conscientiously. 
 
 The utter want of all arrangement and classification has 
 been publicly and severely noticed ; but is not the number 
 and choice of the pictures much too confined at present to 
 admit of that systematic arrangement we admire in the 
 foreign galleries of art ? It appears to me that the number 
 of pictures should be at least doubled before any such ai- 
 rangement could be either improving or satisfactory, though 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 13 
 
 undoubtedly the purposes for which the National Gallery- 
 has been instituted demand that it should be taken into con- 
 sideration as soon as possible.* In the present state of the 
 gallery, still in its very infancy, any comparison with some 
 of the celebrated foreign galleries would be invidious and 
 absurd. I will only observe that in the collection at Berlin, 
 which was begun about the same time with our National 
 Gallery, there are now about 900 pictures admirably ar- 
 ranged; in the glorious Pinacothek at Munich there are 
 1600 pictures, the arrangement of which appears to me 
 perfect. The Florentine Gallery containing about 1 500 pic- 
 tures, that of the Louvre containing about 1350, that of 
 Dresden about 1200, that of the city of Frankfort (of recent 
 date, and owing its existence to an individual) about 340 
 pictures, all afford facilities in the study of art which we look 
 for in vain, as yet, in our own. 
 
 A gallery like this — a national gallery — is not merely 
 for the pleasure and civilization of our people, but also 
 for their instruction in the value and significance of art. 
 How far the history of the progress of painting is con- 
 nected with the history of manners, morals, and govern- 
 ment, and, above all, with the history of our religion, might 
 be exemplified visibly by a collection of specimens in 
 
 * According to the testimony of Mr. Seguier, given before the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee, the space at present allotted would not allow of such 
 an arrangement : — " Q. Has there been no provision in the plan of the 
 National Gallery for the historical arrangements of pictures according to 
 schools, and for making a distinction between the great schools of Italy 
 and the different national schools'? — A. I should doubt whether there is 
 room for that. — Q. But has there been no arrangement with that view ? — 
 A. Certainly not. — Q. Have you ever turned your attention to what I 
 called before the collection, their arrangement in schools, and their divi- 
 sion, so as to make them as much historical as possible ; connecting the 
 masters with their pupils, and giving an instructive as well as an inte- 
 resting view to the public of the pictures before them ? — A. I think that 
 would be exceeding desirable; but that, perhaps, can oidy be done in a 
 very large collection." 
 
14 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 painting, from the earliest times of its revival, tracing the 
 pictorial representations of sacred subjects from the ancient 
 Byzantine types of the heads of Madonnas and Apostles, 
 through the gradual development of taste in design and sen- 
 sibility to colour, aided by the progress in science, which at 
 length burst out in fullest splendour when Leonardo da 
 Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, were 
 living at the same time. (What an era of light ! it dazzl.es 
 one's mental vision to think of it.) They effected much, 
 but how much did they owe to their predecessors ? As to 
 the effect which would be produced here by the exhibition 
 of an old Greek or Siennese Madonna, I can imagine it all ; 
 — the sneering wonder, the aversion, the contempt; for 
 as yet we are far from that intelligence which would give 
 to such objects their due relative value as historic monuments. 
 But we are making progress : in the fine arts, as in many 
 other things, knowledge comes after love. Let us not despair 
 of possessing at some future period a series of pictures so 
 arranged, with regard to school and chronology, as to lead 
 the inquiring mind to a study of comparative style in art; 
 to a knowledge of the gradual steps by which it advanced 
 and declined ; and thence to a consideration of the causes, 
 lying deep in the history of nations and of our species, which 
 led to both. 
 
 Meantime the very confined precincts assigned to the Na- 
 tional Gallery have excited some well-founded misgivings, 
 and people ask very naturally — " Suppose that another mu- 
 nificent spirit were to rise up among us, emulous of Sir 
 George Beaumont, Mr. Carr, or Lord Farnborough, and be- 
 queath or present a gallery of pictures to the nation : where 
 are they to be hung ? " There is indeed a room (a sort of 
 cellar) beneath, where the few pictures not exhibited are for 
 the present incarcerated, and which is intended, I believe, 
 to receive those for which there is no room above stairs ; but 
 the arrangement of space and light is as bad as possible. We 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 may for the present comfort ourselves in the reflection that 
 some twenty or thirty pictures, which now adorn the walls 
 of these rooms, might be turned out without any great loss 
 to the public, or any essential diminution of the value and 
 attraction of our National Gallery. But this comfort can only 
 
 last a certain time, and then ? I suppose we must have 
 
 what the Scotch call a flitting^ and seek house-room else- 
 where. 
 
 Names of the Trustees fir 
 The Earl of Liverpool. 
 The Earl of Ripon. 
 The Earl of Aberdeen. 
 
 Names of the Trustees in 
 
 Duke of Sutherland. 
 
 Marquess of Lansdowne. 
 
 Marquess of Northampton. 
 
 Earl Grey. 
 
 Earl of Aberdeen. 
 
 Earl of Ripon. 
 
 Lord Ashburton. 
 
 Lord Francis Egerton. 
 
 >t appointed in 1824 : — 
 Lord Farnborough. 
 Sir George Beaumont, Bart. 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. 
 
 1840 :— 
 
 Lord Colborne. 
 Lord Monteagle. 
 Sir Robert Peel. 
 Sir Charles Bagot. 
 Sir James Graham. 
 Sir Martin A. Shee. 
 Samuel Rogers, Esq. 
 William Wells, Esq. 
 
 The annual expenses of the establishment have varied 
 little since the opening, and have never amounted to 1000/., 
 every charge, taxes, salaries, &c, included. 
 
 Referring to the evidence taken before the Committee of 
 the House of Commons in 1836, it there appears that no 
 funds are set apart or available for the purchase of pictures, 
 and that the degree of responsibility resting with the trustees, 
 keepers, and other officials, is not exactly defined, and by no 
 means clear to themselves or to the public. 
 
 The number of rooms now open to the public is six, four 
 large and two small. In the latter, which I suppose to be 
 planned for cabinet pictures, are placed for the present some 
 of the largest pictures we possess, to their great disadvantage : 
 
16 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 while the grand drawings by Annibal Carracci, presented by 
 Lord Francis Egerton, and the drawing of Baldassar Peruzzi, 
 presented by Lord Vernon, are hung in the passage. 
 
 All persons are admitted to the Gallery without fee or dis- 
 tinction during the first four days of the week; the other 
 two days are appropriated to students, who have permission 
 to copy pictures This permission is obtained by applica- 
 tion to Mr. Seguier, the keeper, sending at the same time a 
 drawing or picture as a specimen of the ability of the appli- 
 cant. 
 
 The fears once entertained that the indiscriminate admis- 
 sion of the public would be attended with danger to the 
 pictures, or would prove otherwise inexpedient, have fortu- 
 nately long since vanished ; no complaint has ever been made. 
 The deportment of those who are seen wandering through 
 the rooms (on a holiday particularly), with faces of curio- 
 sity, pleasure, and astonishment, has hitherto been exem- 
 plary ; and to listen to their remarks, and to the questions 
 they put to the attendants (always replied to with intelligence 
 and civility), is sometimes highly interesting and amusing. 
 
 On Whit- Monday, 1840, the number of persons admitted 
 was 14,000. The number during the whole week was 
 24,980. 
 
 The number of persons admitted during the year 1835 
 was 130,000. The number admitted from October, 1839, 
 to October, 1840, was 168,244. 
 
 The average number admitted daily is therefore about 
 2830. 
 
 These numbers are given on the authority of the under- 
 keeper. 
 
 Here follow the names of those individuals who have presented or be- 
 queathed pictures to the National Gallery of England from its found- 
 ation in 1823 to the year 1840. 
 
 Sir George Beaumont, Bart., presented . . 1825. 15 pictures. 
 
 The Rev. W. Long presented . . . 1825. 1 „ 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 17 
 
 M. M. Zachary, Esq., bequeathed . . 
 
 1826. 
 
 1 P 
 1 
 
 ictures. 
 
 ine late JJuke or outnerland presented . . 
 
 1828. 
 
 )> 
 
 Ihe Dowager Lady Beaumont presented. 
 
 1828. 
 
 2 
 
 *> 
 
 The Rev. William Holwell Carr bequeathed . 
 
 1831. 
 
 34 
 
 » 
 
 George James Cnolmondely, Esq., bequeathed 
 
 1831. 
 
 3 
 
 3) 
 
 James Forbes, Esq., bequeathed . . • 
 
 1835. 
 
 1 
 
 
 The Rev. R. E. Kerrick presented . 
 
 1835. 
 
 1 
 
 « 
 
 King George I\ . presented .... 
 
 
 I 
 
 JJ 
 
 King V\ dliam I \ . presented. 
 
 1836. 
 
 6 
 
 J) 
 
 Lieut. Colonel John Hervey Olney bequeathed 
 
 7 Of 
 
 18 
 
 » 
 
 Lieut. General W illiam Thornton presented . 
 
 loo/. 
 
 I 
 
 5) 
 
 Charles Earl of Blessington bequeathed * . 
 
 loo7. 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 55 
 
 Mr. Sergeant Taddy presented ... 
 
 1837. 
 
 1 
 
 »> 
 
 r. rvoOeitson, ii,sq. ..... 
 
 Loo 4. 
 
 1 
 
 J> 
 
 rl. omgleton, rl.A. . . . . . 
 
 1837. 
 
 2 
 
 )) 
 
 Ine Duke ot Northumberland presented . 
 
 1838. 
 
 6 
 
 )> 
 
 Charles Lord Famborough bequeathed . . 
 
 1838. 
 
 7 o 
 
 lb 
 
 )) 
 
 By subscription presented .... 
 
 1838. 
 
 1 
 
 » 
 
 Galley Knight, Esq., presented ... 
 
 1 Oft 
 
 2 
 
 
 Lord Vernon presented .... 
 
 1839. 
 
 2 
 
 
 Capel Lofft, Esq.. presented. 
 
 1839. 
 
 1 
 
 )> 
 
 Charles Earl of Liverpool presented 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 William Wilkins, Esq., presented 
 
 
 1 
 
 )> 
 
 Rev. Dr. Hawes, of Salisbury, bequeathed 
 
 
 1 
 
 'J 
 
 The Governors of the British Institution presented 
 
 
 6 
 
 J3 
 
 The Lord Francis Egerton presented 
 
 1837. 
 
 2 drawings. 
 
 Seven of these pictures are not yet hung up. Among them are the 
 " Leda," painted (and not well painted) after a celebrated composition 
 of Michael Angelo : the original drawing is now in possession of the 
 Royal Academy; "Mars and Venus," attributed to Tintoretto; and a 
 well-known picture of Bartholomew Sprangher, " Men destroyed by 
 Dragons," — an example of the spurious and outrageous style introduced 
 from Italy, and so much the fashion in Germany before the time of 
 Rubens. Nor are the other pictures in the regions below worth much. 
 Dr. Waagen, in his evidence before the Commons, has this observation : — 
 " I think the National Gallery should have the power, when it received 
 bequests from individuals, to exchange or transfer them to the provincial 
 galleries, and the power of selling, for the benefit of the Gallery, any 
 which might tend to degrade the public taste." 
 
 I would instance the tine copy of Correggio's "Ecce Homo," attributed 
 to Ludovico Carracci, as a picture which might be elsewhere very desir- 
 able, and is here superfluous, now that we possess the original. 
 
Extract from the Evidence of Mr. Seguter, Keeper of the National 
 Gallery, before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1836. 
 
 " 1570. Q. Should you not wish, for a national collection, that the 
 history of each painting should be traced as closely as possible ? 
 A. It would be very desirable. 
 
 Q. And, therefore, should not the collection in a National Gallery be 
 founded on history as well as criticism ? 
 A. I should think it should. 
 
 Q. Judging by criticism alone would be judging without much 
 certainty ? 
 A. It would. 
 
 Q. If you can ascertain that, a picture was painted expressly for a 
 particular palace, or a particular church, and you can trace it thither, is 
 it not desirable to do so ? 
 
 A. I think that is very desirable. 
 
 Q. You would, of course, suggest a catalogue raisotme ? 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. You consider that indispensable to any gallery? 
 A. Yes." 
 
CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI and SEBASTIAN DEL 
 PIOMBO. 
 
 " He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that 
 was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes : and 
 his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, 
 Loose him, and let him go." — John xi. 43, 44. 
 
 " The point of time chosen is after the completion of the 
 miracle. Lazarus is represented sitting on the stone coffin 
 which had contained his body, supported by three men, who, 
 having been employed to remove the lid from the sepulchre, 
 are now relieving him from the grave-clothes with which he 
 was enveloped. Jesus, standing in the midst, appears to be 
 addressing him after his return to consciousness, in words, as 
 may be supposed, not unlike those which he had before used 
 to Martha and Mary : ' I am the resurrection and the life ; 
 he that believeth in me shall never die:' " (or, as others have 
 interpreted the action, he is appealing to his heavenly Father 
 to bear witness to his divine mission : ' I knew that thou 
 nearest me always ; but because of the people which stand 
 by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me;' 
 or, according to others, he is uttering the command, ' Loose 
 him, and let him go which last appears to me the right in- 
 terpretation). " The first great moment is past, and the 
 overwhelming and indescribable emotions, occasioned by the 
 miracle in the breasts of the spectators, have somewhat sub- 
 
 Lazarus. 
 
20 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 sided, and have given place to varied feelings of astonishment, 
 reverence, or devotion. Immediately behind the figure of 
 Christ is an old man, who looks awe- struck upon the reani- 
 mated corpse, elevating both his hands ; a figure admirable 
 for the expression, and which Buonarotti repeated many years 
 afterwards in the Last Judgment ; and in the foreground, on 
 the left, is seen another old man, kneeling at the feet of Christ, 
 his withered hands folded in trembling adoration. The figure 
 of Lazarus is a masterpiece, as well for the invention as the 
 execution ; it forms, with the men employed to unbind him, 
 the most prominent group in the picture. The drapery is ad- 
 mirably disposed for effect : the deep shadow cast over his face 
 by the linen napkin round his head vividly recalls to mind the 
 night of the grave which but just before enveloped him ; the 
 eye looking eagerly from this shade upon Christ, his Redeemer, 
 shows us on the other hand the newly awakened life in its 
 most intellectual organ ; he looks out from his shrouded prison 
 on this new world with hurried amazement, as if death had 
 scarcely yet resigned his power over his senses." (The lead- 
 ing expression in the countenance and figure of Lazarus is 
 certainly not gratitude or adoration, as it has been assumed, — 
 but wild astonishment and a sort of unconscious impatience 
 to release himself from the ghastly incumbrances which 
 bound him hand and foot.) " The man who supports the 
 body leans forward, speaking to one of his companions, who 
 is looking up, and thus the upper part of his figure throws a 
 projecting shadow over the neck and part of the head of 
 Lazarus, whose face, by being kept entirely in shadow, 
 acquires a great augmentation of sublimity. Behind the 
 figure of Christ is seen the youthful head of St. John, who 
 is evidently replying to the arguments raised against the 
 credibility of the miracle by a man who is addressing him." 
 (This man, like many others in the world, is disputing 
 against the existence of that which he will not even turn 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 21 
 
 round his eyes to behold.) " Further off, behind these 
 figures, is a group of Pharisees, whose unbelief of the divine 
 character and mission of Jesus is combated by a man who, 
 pointing energetically towards the action represented in the 
 foreground, seems to say, " Could any one not sent from God 
 have restored, as he hath done, the dead to life?" — Ottley. 
 
 Hazlitt, in his critique on this picture, speaks of the com- 
 posed air of the women introduced. This is an obvious 
 misapprehension, or a lapse of memory. The admirable 
 figures of Martha and Mary are anything but composed. 
 The first turns away her head fearing, sickening at what she 
 most desires ; the other is gazing up at the Saviour, all 
 faith, hope, and gratitude : and herein the characters of the 
 two sisters, as well as their deportment on the occasion, are 
 finely discriminated.* 
 
 The point of sight is high up in the picture, considerably 
 above the heads of the principal figures; and this choice was 
 no doubt adopted by the artist conformably to the custom 
 of the period, in order that he might be the better enabled 
 to fill his work with rich matter. The background is 
 much in the Venetian style. The distance represents 
 a view of Jerusalem, and a river traversed by a bridge, on 
 the banks of which is seen a group of women washing clothes. 
 A striking effect is produced in this part of the perform- 
 ance by the bridge and the arched entrance into the city 
 being represented in shadow, while the houses and bank of 
 the river appear through them illuminated by sunshine. As 
 to the execution in detail, it is inconceivably fine. The hands, 
 feet, draperies, heads, features, are modelled with the utmost 
 care, and are worthy of the closest observation and study. 
 The kneeling figure of Mary, and the foreshortening of her 
 
 * For this reason I cannot imagine why Mr. Landseer supposes the kneeling 
 figure to be Martha; every circumstance of the picture and the story contra- 
 dicts it. 
 
22 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 hand and arm, which seem to project from the canvass, are 
 very striking. 
 
 The masses of light and shadow throughout are broad 
 and simple in their principle ; and to the colouring the 
 artist has given all the depth and richness of tone of the Ve- 
 netian school, without any ill-suited mixture of its charac- 
 teristic gaiety. For the very dark tone of the flesh-colour 
 in some of the figures, and not in others, I find myself unable 
 to account : the same thing occurs in many old pictures, and 
 is remarkable in the Holy Family of Sir Thomas Baring's 
 Gallery, also by Michael Angelo and S. del Piombo.* Upon 
 the front of the raised pavement whereon stands the figure 
 of our Saviour is the inscription : — 
 
 Sebastianus Venetus Faciebat. 
 
 This celebrated picture has been pronounced by a distinguished con- 
 noisseur (Dr. Waagen) to be " the most important specimen of the Italian 
 school now in England;" another (Mr. Solly), styles it "the second pic- 
 ture in the world :" but besides its fame and its intrinsic merit, there are 
 circumstances and associations connected with its production and subse- 
 quent history which lend it a peculiar interest even for the mere amateur. 
 It is one of the very few pictures extant in which the characteristic 
 power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of 
 colouring in the world have been combined. The composition and 
 drawing are by Michael Angelo, the great Florentine; the painting by 
 Sebastian del Piombo, of Venice, who had studied under Bellini and 
 Giorgione, those first masters of the Venetian school of colouring. The 
 proper name of this painter was Sebastiano Luciano; but on being 
 appointed to the office of affixing the seal of lead (piombo') to the papal 
 ordinances, which obliged him to adopt the clerical habit, he received 
 
 * Michael Angelo appears to have exercised a certain influence over Sebastiano 
 in colour as well as design : at least we can trace in the historical works of the 
 latter that dark, or rather blackish tone in the flesh, and in general those prin- 
 ciples of colour which Michael Angelo has adopted in his frescoes, and which are 
 not in accordance with the Venetian style, nor with that of Sebastiano in hi6 
 portraits. See the interesting and instructive notes which Mr. Eastlake has ap- 
 pended to his translation of Goethe's theory of colours for some remarks respect- 
 ing the very dark complexion of the ancient Madonnas, which it appears was a 
 matter of religious tradition. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 2:3 
 
 his Italian appellation of Fra Sebastiano del Piombo.* He came to 
 Rome upon the invitation of Agostino Chigi in 1511, about the time 
 when Raphael and his scholars were employed by that opulent mer- 
 chant to decorate with fresco paintings his villa, now known as the 
 " Villa Farnesina." It appears that, although Sebastian was found 
 deficient as a designer, he was admired for the mellow beauty of his 
 colour, then a fascinating novelty to the Roman public. At this time 
 the lovers of painting at Rome were divided in opinion as to the rela- 
 tive merits of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and had ranged themselves 
 in two parties; the admirers of the Florentine artist earnestly maintaining 
 his pre-eminence, while the far more numerous partisans of the princely 
 Raphael, who was idolised for his personal qualities, insisted on his 
 superiority, except in design, of which they allowed Michael Angelo to 
 be the " presiding deity," — it dio del disegno. This grand dispute, hardly 
 settled up to our own time, somewhat resembles the war between the 
 Goethe and Schiller parties in Germany, and may be dismissed for the 
 present with Goethe's humorous reproof : " Let them be thankful that 
 they have two such fellows to dispute about!" 
 
 Sebastian del Piombo was one of the few who sided with Michael An- 
 gelo, and gained thereby his friendship and assistance. Sebastian was 
 a consummate portrait-painter and an admirable colourist, but by no 
 means distinguished in the loftier departments of his art. " He was," 
 says Lanzi, " without the gift of invention, and in compositions of many 
 figures slow and irresolute, — -facile a promettere, difficile a comminciare, 
 difficilissimo a compiere :" he mentions several pictures in which he was 
 known to have been assisted by Michael Angelo. The oft-repeated story 
 that Michael Angelo associated Sebastian with himself, and gave him 
 the cartoons of his grand designs, to which the Venetian was to lend 
 the magical hues of his pallette, for the purpose of crushing Raphael, 
 luckily rests on no authority which obliges us to believe it: it is quite 
 inconsistent with the character of Michael Angelo, who was a good hater, 
 but not one who would have stooped to a trick of cunning, out of envy to a 
 rival. The facts I believe to have been these : — Michael Angelo, with cha- 
 racteristic haughtiness, disdained to enter into any acknowledged rivalry 
 with Raphael, and put forward Sebastian del Piombo as no unworthy 
 competitor of the great Roman painter. Raphael bowed before Michael 
 Angelo, but he felt too strongly his superiority to Sebastian to yield the 
 
 * As this was an office of great profit, and could be discharged by deputy, 
 it was frequently bestowed on eminent professors of the fine arts : it had been 
 given, for instance, to Bramante, and was offered to Titian, who declined it. 
 We learn that, after obtaining this sinecure, Sebastian almost wholly abandoned 
 his pencil for his lute, giving himself up to society, and to poetry and music, in 
 which, like so many of the old painters, he excelled. 
 
24 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 palm to him.* To determine this point, the cardinal Giulio de 1 Medici, 
 afterwards Clement VII., commanded this picture of the Raising of 
 Lazarus from .Sebastian, and at the same time commissioned Raphael to 
 paint the Transfiguration : both were intended by the cardinal as altar- 
 pieces for his cathedral of Narbonne, he having lately been created Arch- 
 bishop of Narbonne by Francis I. On this occasion Michael Angelo, 
 well aware of the deficiencies of his friend Sebastian, furnished him 
 with the design, and, as it is supposed, drew some of the figures 
 himself on the canvas ;f but he was so far from doing this secretly, 
 that Raphael heard of it, and is said to have exclaimed, — " Michael 
 Angelo has graciously favoured me in that he has deemed me 
 worthy to compete with himself and not with Sebastian !" The 
 two pictures were exhibited together at Rome in 1520, the year of 
 Raphael's death. Cardinal de' Medici, unwilling to deprive Rome of 
 both these masterpieces, sent only the Raising of Lazarus to Narbonne : it 
 remained there till the beginning of the last century, when it was pur- 
 chased by the Regent Duke of Orleans for 24,000 francs, about 1000/. 
 When the Orleans collection was brought to England in 1798, Mr. An- 
 gerstein purchased this picture for 3500 guineas. It is said that 
 Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, afterwards ofl'ered him 15,000/. for it, but. 
 Mr. Angerstein insisting on guineas, the negotiation was broken oft". 
 Mr. Angerstein was again offered 10,000/. for the picture by the French 
 government, at the period when the Transfiguration was at the Louvre, 
 for the purpose of bringing these two chef-d*oeuvres once more into com- 
 parison ; happily this offer also was refused. The picture was originally 
 painted on panel, but has been transferred with great skill to canvas by 
 M. Hacquin.]: The surface of the picture had however been in some 
 parts slightly injured, and was retouched by West, who would allow 
 no common restorer to meddle with it. I must add that, in the opinion 
 of Mr. Ottley, Michael Angelo painted as well as designed the figure of 
 
 * He did not disdain to learn from him. The glowing colour, sometimes 
 bordering on exaggeration, which Raphael adopted in Rome, is undoubtedly to 
 be attributed to the rivalry of Sebastian del Piombo. The most powerful of 
 Raphael's frescoes, the Heliodorus and the Mass of Bolsena, were painted under 
 this influence. — Goethe's Theory of Colours, notes, p. 362. 
 
 f Several of the original drawings by the hand of Michael Angelo, and in par- 
 ticular the first sketches for the figure of Lazarus, were in the possession of Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence. 
 
 % This process, to which we owe the preservation of many fine pictures exposed 
 to total destruction by the rotting of the wood on which they were painted, was 
 first invented about 1720 by Antonio Contri, an obscure painter of Ferrara, and 
 improved upon by Hacquin. It seems, however, impossible to have recourse to 
 it without some injury, more or less, to the texture of the picture, and should be 
 considered as a last and desperate exneHipn* 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 25 
 
 Lazarus : Fuseli and Landseer agree with him ; on the other hand, 
 Dr. Waagen differs from them all on this point. In looking over the 
 various criticisms written on this picture, I have been much interested 
 and edified by the differences in taste and opinion, and the variety of spe- 
 culations it has given rise to. Such differences, however embarrassing, 
 are intelligible : but is it not astonishing when candid men differ from 
 each other about a visible fact, such as the attitude of a figure, or the 
 expression of a face? The educated eye and judgment must here look 
 out and decide for themselves. 
 12 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft. 6 in. 
 
 Engraved by Vendramini ; large and fine. 1827. 
 CLAUDE LORRAINE. 
 
 A Landscape.— Cephalus and Procris. 
 On the left is a pool of water, whence four oxen are ad- 
 vancing ; the herdsman is reposing on the stem of a fallen 
 tree on the brink of the pool. A little retired from this part 
 stands a large cluster of trees of richly varied foliage. Still 
 more remote is a bridge composed of a single arch, under 
 which ripples a falling stream ; the view is bounded by a 
 high hill surmounted with buildings. The figures, which 
 aie not well drawn, represent the reconciliation of Cephalus 
 and Procris, under the auspices of Diana. 
 
 This picture was painted in 1645, for some person at 
 Paris, whose name does not appear, and was one of the An- 
 gerstein collection ; the estimated value is about 2000 
 guineas. — {Liber Veritatis, No. 91.) 
 
 The predilection of the English for this charming painter, perhaps be- 
 cause the sunny, classical, and ideal beauty of his scenery presents so 
 strong a contrast to that of their own land, and the high prices given in 
 Eugland for his pictures, are the cause that most of his works have found 
 their way to this country. Very few of his more valuable productions 
 are now to be met with on the continent. The National Gallery con- 
 tains nine landscapes by his hand, all admirable specimens of his parti- 
 cular style of composition, which, however varied in subject and in aerial 
 gradation of tints, has something almost cloying in its perpetual and 
 delicious beauty, " breathing on earth the air of Paradise." His land- 
 scapes may truly be said to " lap us in Elysium." " Claude," says Dr. 
 
26 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Waagen, " for the noble and pure taste of his compositions, may be 
 called the Raphael, and for his art in the distribution of the light and 
 refined attention to aerial perspective, the Correggio of landscape paint- 
 ing." There is here an excellent opportunity of studying his works, 
 not only in themselves, but as compared with those of others. The 
 student in art will find it interesting to look well into one of Claude's 
 lovely ideal creations — for instance, No. 14 or No. 61 — and then pass on 
 to those of Nicolo and Gaspar Poussin, perhaps the Land-storm (No. 36), 
 or the Phocion (No. 40), or the view of L'Aricia (No. 98), and then to 
 the Chateau of Rubens (No. 66), and learn how Nature impressed her- 
 self on the minds of these great painters — with what different eyes they 
 viewed, yet how deeply and reverently they had studied and worshipped 
 her, each according to the light that was in his own soul. 
 
 "I imagine,' 7 says Hazlitt, a that Rubens's landscapes are picturesque; 
 Claude's are ideal. Rubens is always in extremes; Claude in the mid- 
 dle. Rubens carries some one peculiar quality or feature of nature to the 
 utmost verge of probability ; Claude balances and harmonises different 
 forms and masses with laboured delicacy ; so that nothing falls short, no 
 one thing overpowers another. Rainbows, showers, partial gleams of 
 sunshine, moonlight, are the means by which Rubens produces his 
 most gorgeous and enchanting effects.. There are neither rainbows, nor 
 showers, nor sudden bursts of sunshine, nor glittering moonbeams, in 
 Claude. He is all softness and proportion ; the other is all spirit and 
 brilliant excess. The two sides (for example) of one of Claude's land- 
 scapes balance one another, as in a scale of beauty ; in Rubens the 
 several objects are grouped and thrown together with capricious wanton- 
 ness. Claude has more repose ; Rubens more gaiety and extrava- 
 gance." 
 
 This distinction is even more strongly and more beautifully placed 
 before us by another critic : — 
 
 " The pictures of Claude are brilliant in a high degree ; but that 
 brilliancy is so diffused over the whole of them — so happily balanced — it 
 is so mellowed and subdued by that almost visible atmosphere which per- 
 vades every part, and unites all together — that nothing in particular catches 
 the eye : the whole is splendour, the whole is repose; everything lit up, 
 everything in sweetest harmony. Rubens in his landscapes differs as 
 strongly from Claude as he does from Correggio in his figures; they 
 are full of the peculiarities and picturesque accidents in nature — of 
 striking contrasts of form and colour, light and shadow : sunbeams 
 bursting through a small opening in a dark wood ; a rainbow against a 
 stormy sky ; effects of thunder and lightning ; torrents rolling down ; 
 trees torn up by the roots ; and the dead bodies of men and animals ; with 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 27 
 
 many other sublime and picturesque circumstances. These sudden gleams, 
 these cataracts of light, these bold oppositions of clouds and darkness, 
 which he has so nobly introduced, would destroy all the beauty and 
 elegance of Claude. On the other hand, the mild and equal sunshine of 
 that charming painter would as ill accord with the twisted and singular 
 forms, and the bold and animated variety of the landscapes of Rubens.' 1 
 — Price on the Picturesque. 
 
 I must observe here that the landscapes of Salvator Rosa are as emi- 
 nently picturesque as those of Rubens, and yet no two painters could 
 more differ in sentiment. Unfortunately the only picture of Salvator 
 Rosa in the National Gallery is not sufficiently marked with his indivi- 
 dual characteristics to be referred to as a general standard of his manner 
 in contrast with that of Rubens ; but at Mr. Hope's there is a small 
 landscape of Rubens, and another of Salvator, hung nearly opposite to 
 each other, which might be brought into comparison, remembering 
 always that the landscape of Rubens is accounted one of his best, while 
 that of Salvator, beautiful as it is, cannot be ranked with the Duke of 
 Devonshire's famous picture, nor with some others. The preference of 
 one or the other must be a matter of individual taste. There is a moral 
 and poetical grandeur in Salvator 's scenes which in my mind places him 
 as a landscape painter above Rubens. 
 
 The landscapes of Nicolo Poussin are (in the pictorial sense of the 
 word) historical landscapes; not that they always represent historical 
 subjects, but that they are composed and rendered in that grand style 
 of conception which belongs to historical painting. His very trees have 
 something massive, majestic, contemplative ; his groves and rocks some- 
 thing oracular; his hills, crowned with "many a tower'd structure high,"' 
 are the haunts of " divine philosophy," or of reposing heroes. His figures 
 are well designed, elegant, and classical, always in harmony with the 
 character of the scene in which they are introduced, which cannot be 
 said of those of Claude. His greatest fault, the extreme heaviness of 
 his colour, did not exist when his pictures were first executed, and is to 
 be attributed to the dark-red ground on which he usuaUy painted, and 
 which, appearing through the lights, and darkening his local colours, has 
 rendered his skies dingy, and "breathed a browner horror " over his 
 woods : but there are no landscapes so Miltonic as those of Nicolo 
 Poussin. 
 
 His friend and pupil Gaspar Dughet (who, from a feeling of reveren- 
 tial affection, assumed the patronymic of his master) resembles him, but 
 with a difference ; he had more of passion and sentiment, and less of in- 
 tellectual and historic grandeur than Nicolo. I use the word passion 
 advisedly, for I know no other word by which to express that depth of 
 
 c 2 
 
2S 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 emotion, that half-melancholy half-voluptuous feeling, which breathes 
 through his landscapes, and quickens the pulses while we gaze upon them. 
 How the man must have loved nature, with all his heart, with all his 
 soul ! — wooed her in her stillest, shyest retreats — adored her in her wildest 
 moods ! Look at the Storm scene (36) ; we almost hear the tempest howl 
 through the trees as they bend to the blast. Then turn to the Colonna 
 picture (No. 31) : what a soft and sacred repose in those leafy forest re- 
 cesses, and over that measureless distance beyond, melting away into 
 lucid air ! The student in art may turn from these to other pictures, 
 and carry out these contrasts and affinities for himself, and consider 
 them at leisure.* We will now return to Claude. The urbanity, the 
 refinement, the tenderness, the harmonious delicacy of Claude's tempera- 
 ment, his imaginativeness, with its tincture of fanciful but not dark 
 superstition, are impressed on all his pictures. " Though studied, he was 
 never artificial ; and though the most ideal, he was at the same time the 
 most real of painters/ 1 As Lanzi expresses it, " tutto in lui e natura.' 1 
 No picture from his hands is the transcript of any individual scene, and 
 yet the truth of general nature was never more exquisitely felt and con- 
 veyed to the mind of the spectator. The figures which he introduced into 
 his landscapes serve to designate them, to give them a name, and also 
 to impart a sort of human interest to his scenes of beauty, which, by as- 
 sociation, heighten their impression on the fancy ; but in general these 
 figures (as in the picture before us) are insipid and ill drawn. Some- 
 times they were supplied by another hand ; — for instance, by Filippo 
 Lauri. 
 
 Claude passed nearly the whole of his life at Rome. He began his 
 career a poor friendless boy, and had to struggle through long years of 
 poverty and suffering. He made for himself friends by his good qua- 
 lities, patrons by his talents, and enemies by his success, and died at the 
 age of 82 ; leaving behind him about 423 pictures, that being the num- 
 ber specified in Smith's Catalogue. His house on the Trinita de' Monti, 
 whence he used to study the rich sunsets and the antique edifices of the 
 Campagna, was still standing in 1 822. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 4 in. by 4 ft. 5 in. 
 
 Engraved by Brown, 1777. 
 
 * Every one knows by heart that felicitous couplet in which Thomson has 
 characterised three great landscape-painters : — 
 
 *« Whate'er Lorraine light-touch' d with softening hue, 
 Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew." 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 29 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 3. A Concert. Five Figures, Life-size, Half-length. 
 
 This picture was in the collection of King Charles I., and in 
 the old catalogue is designated as " A Mantua piece, done by 
 Titian, of five half-figures ; one teaching, another singing, a 
 third playing on the bandore (mandolin), the fourth on a 
 flute, the fifth a woman listening." " In this picture," says 
 Dr. Waagen, " the whole style of the design and the tone of 
 sentiment so entirely coincide with the celebrated picture by 
 Giorgione in the Pitti palace, that I decidedly consider it as 
 a work of that master. Unhappily, the colouring no' longer 
 affords any criterion, since, in consequence of cleaning, there 
 is no trace to be seen of Giorgione's depth and brownish 
 glow, or the clear golden tone of Titian." 
 
 The expression and beauty of this group of heads are 
 however worthy of either Titian or Giorgione ; and this is say- 
 ing much. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 1 in. 
 
 There is a scarce etching by Danckerts ; and one by Groensvelt, rather 
 poor. 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 4. A Holy Family. The Adoration of the Shep- 
 
 herds. 
 
 This fine picture is from the Borghese Palace, and was 
 brought to England during the French invasion of Italy. It 
 is thought to be an early picture of the master, painted about 
 the same time with the celebrated " Vierge au Lapin" in the 
 Louvre. The colouring is worthy of his fame as one of the 
 greatest of colourists. It was bequeathed to the nation by 
 Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 5$ in. by 4 ft. 8 in. 
 
30 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 5. An Italian Seaport at Sunset. 
 
 In the foreground fishermen are employed in drawing their 
 nets ashore, others in fastening their boats; nearer to the 
 spectator are a man and a woman seated on some trunks ; 
 the sea is already agitated, and the evening sun which gilds 
 the swelling waves is surrounded by misty glowing clouds, 
 which indicate an approaching storm ; to the right are seen 
 large vessels riding at anchor. A lofty lighthouse, ad- 
 vanced into the sea, has a remarkably striking effect among 
 the many buildings. The execution is careful, and all the 
 forms well denned. 
 
 This picture is considered one of Claude's finest works : — 
 it was painted for the Cardinal Giorio in 1 644, and was pur- 
 chased by Mr. Angerstein of Mr. Panne in 1800; the esti- 
 mated value was then £5000. — {Liber Veritatis, No. 43.) 
 
 C. 3 ft. 3 in. by 4 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved by Goodall. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 (\ A Landscape. Called the Chigi Claude. 
 
 This very beautiful picture is distinguished by a group of 
 figures representing David at the cave of Adullam.* A rocky 
 cliff of a broken and picturesque form, scantily sprinkled 
 with bushes, is on the right, having a rude entrance into a 
 cave, in front of which stands David, a young man wearing a 
 diadem. His attitude denotes that he is addressing three 
 soldiers, one of whom holds his helmet containing the water, 
 which, under the protection of his companions, he has brought 
 from the wells at Bethlehem. The eye looks over a valley, 
 in which is seen a scattered company of Philistines, to a 
 castle situated on a rock covered with bushes ; the distance 
 
 * Or Sinon brought, before Priam, according to some authorities ; but after a 
 careful examination of the picture, the writer inclines to the other designation. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 31 
 
 terminates with the sea. The figures are poor and stiff; the 
 landscape is one of surpassing richness and beauty, and in a 
 style in some respects unusual with Claude. The general 
 tone is uncommonly cool, and incomparably expresses the 
 freshness of the morning air. The sky is partially clouded, 
 by which the most diversified effects of light and shadow are 
 thrown over the middle-ground and distance. The foreground, 
 which is finely broken, is dark and forcible, and yet painted 
 in with the most minute truth of detail in the foliage and 
 forms ; the distances are extremely tender and aerial. 
 
 This picture was executed in 1658 for Agostino Chigi, 
 the ennobled descendant of the Agostino Chigi mentioned 
 at page 16, and brought from the Chigi palace by Mr. 
 Sloane, an English banker at Rome. It was sold by his 
 family, and passed into the possession of Walsh Porter, Esq., 
 in 1808;* on whose death it was purchased by Mr. Hol- 
 well Carr for 2705 guineas, and formed part of his bequest 
 to the nation in 1831. The estimated value is at present 
 about 3500/.— {Liber Veritatis, No. 145.) 
 
 C. 3 ft. 9 in. by 6 ft. 2£ in. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 Studies of Heads, much larger than nature. 
 
 These grand heads of Angels and Seraphim have all Cor- 
 reggio's largeness of manner, all his greatness of conception. 
 They differ so materially from any of the groups of heads in 
 the two cupolas at Parma, that they are supposed by Mr. 
 Ottley to be fragments from some other large work, now 
 
 * Walsh Porter had at that period conceived the project of forming a collection, 
 which it was his intention to retain for his royal highness the Prince of Wales, 
 in the hope that the same might at some future period be made the foundation of 
 a National Gallery: he did succeed in bringing together a collection of many 
 capital works ; but his bad state of health, and subsequent death, prevented his 
 intentions from being realised. 
 
•3:7 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 lost. They were formerly in the collection of Queen Chris- 
 tina of Sweden, whence they passed into that of the Regent 
 Duke of Orleans, and were purchased from the Orleans col- 
 lection by Mr. Angerstein for 200 guineas. 
 
 "These two pictures," says Barry, in his private notes on the Orleans 
 Gallery, " containing eight or ten heads each, for the broad massive effect 
 necessary for a large composition of figures far removed from the eye, and 
 for the enthusiasm, energy, and felicity of their arrangement, as well as 
 broad noble style of execution, outgo anything I have ever seen of any 
 other painter. The chiaroscuro, as well of each particular as of the 
 whole together, is of the highest gusto, and truly divine."" 
 
 C. 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in. 
 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 8. Michael Angelo's Dream/ 
 
 This extraordinary composition is well known from the many 
 old repetitions of it which exist (not one of which, however, 
 can be traced to the hand of Michael Angelo) : there are also 
 several engravings from the school of Marc' Antonio. The 
 exact intention of this mysterious poem, for such we may term 
 it, is not easy to interpret, but it may be supposed to represent 
 the Human Being, awaked from the dream of life and all the 
 degrading and tumultuous passions which belong to it, at the 
 dread sound of the last trumpet, to reality and immortality. 
 The figure rests upon a globe, here the emblem of eternity ; 
 and beneath it are seen masks, the emblems of illusion now 
 laid aside for ever. Above and around flit the wild passions 
 and vices of humanity. 
 
 " It is a fine copy of the original design, painted very much in the 
 spirit of the designer ; and, judging by the tone, may very well be of the 
 later time of Sebastian del Piombo." — Dr. fVaagen. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 1 in. by 1 ft. 9 in. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 9. Christ appearing to St. Peter. 
 
 Saint Peter, who in fear of martyrdom had fled from the 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 33 
 
 city of Rome, meets on the Appian way a vision of Christ, 
 of whom he asks, " Lord, whither goest thou ?" and receives 
 for answer, " To Rome, to be crucified." The Apostle, thus 
 rebuked, returned back to Rome, where, shortly after, he 
 suffered martyrdom. 
 
 " This little picture is admirably executed throughout, and 
 is very remarkable as an instance of the eclectic mode of 
 study of the Carracci.* In the masterly drawing, especially 
 in the outstretched arm of Christ, we recognise the study of 
 Michael Angelo ; in the impasto, in the finely broken harmo- 
 nious tones of the flesh, and in the reflections and the delicate 
 observance of aerial perspective, the happy study of Correggio. 
 The heads are hardly equal to the rest : they are very well 
 painted, on a general principle of beauty, but utterly void of 
 character and sentiment." — Dr. Waagen. 
 
 This picture was formerly in the Aldobrandini collection, 
 whence it was brought to England in 1800, and exhibited for 
 sale among other spoils of the private galleries of Italy ran- 
 sacked during the war. It passed successively into the pos- 
 session of Lord Northwick and Mr. Hamlet the jeweller, and 
 from the latter was purchased by government in 1832. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by Doo. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 10. Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the pre- 
 sence of Venus. 
 
 This picture, one of the most celebrated works of art now 
 extant, is also known as the " Education of Cupid." 
 
 " Venus is here the principal figure : leaning with the 
 left arm on the stem of a tree, she bends slightly forward and 
 
 * " We apply the epithet ' eclectic' to the school of the Carracci, because they 
 aimed at a union of the selected perfections of other schools : as the grandeur of 
 the Florentine and the grace of the Roman school, the colouring of Titian, the 
 chiaroscuro of Correggio, &c." 
 
 c 3 
 
34 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 looks archly at the spectator. She points with her right 
 hand to the little Cupid, who, seen in profile, is with childish 
 simplicity eagerly endeavouring to spell the letters on a paper 
 which Mercury, seated on the ground, holds out to him. The 
 form of Venus is of the finest and most delicate proportions ; 
 the attitude of her beautiful limbs, the graceful flow of the lines, 
 and all the parts rounded in the clearest and most glowing 
 colours, show us of what Correggio was capable in his own pe- 
 culiar style of excellence : the gradation of the full colours, the 
 reflected lights and transparent shadows, are here employed 
 with the most consummate art and the most refined judg- 
 ment to produce this roundness of effect. The countenance 
 of Venus is not so satisfactory ; it is deficient in nobleness both 
 in the forms and expression. Though the drawing is far more 
 correct than in many pictures of Correggio, yet the right corner 
 of the mouth and the thumb of the right hand are not all that 
 might be wished ; and in the latter the ill effect is increased, 
 the fourth and little fingers not being seen. It is very remark- 
 able that Venus is here represented with a large pair of tinted 
 wings. All the figures are advantageously relieved by the 
 foliage of the background, where the verdure of the leaves 
 is still to be distinguished ; it is of astonishing force and 
 depth." — Dr. Waagen. 
 
 It may be observed here that the attractive and enchanting 
 sweetness, the winning smile of self-complacent loveliness, 
 with which Correggio has arrayed his Venus, the very 
 coquetterie with which she looks out of the picture on the 
 charmed spectator, are infinitely more characteristic of the 
 personage represented, the " bella Venere, madre d' Amore," 
 than any nobleness of expression. For the wings he has 
 given to Venus, Correggio had classical authority. She is thus 
 represented in some antique gems : and it is curious enough 
 that he who has in some pictures placed a fiddle instead of a 
 lyre in the hands of Apollo should be thus observant of an 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 35 
 
 unusual classical attribute — unusual but apt, for Beauty, alas ! 
 has wings as well as Time and Love. The figure of Cupid 
 is exquisite for its infantine naivete. The budding plumage 
 of his wings, and the natural manner in which they are 
 affixed to his little shoulders, have been justly admired ; and 
 the whole picture, in its union of the most glowing relief and 
 pictorial effect, with something of the statuesque feeling of 
 Grecian art, looks as if painted from one of the Odes of 
 Anacreon. 
 
 A loftier idea of the sublimity, and a larger comprehension of the ver- 
 satility of Correggio's genius, might be acquired by the study of his grand 
 frescoes at Parma ; but all that is necessary to enable the student in art 
 to comprehend his characteristic excellencies may be found in this lovely 
 picture. There is, first, that peculiar grace to which the Italians have 
 given the name of correggiesque, very properly, for it was the complexion 
 of the individual mind and temperament of the artist stamped upon the 
 work of his hand. Though so often imilated, it remains, in fact, inimit- 
 able, every attempt degenerating into an affectation of the most intolerable 
 kind. It consists in the blending of sentiment in expression with a flowing 
 grace of form, an exquisite fulness and softness in the tone and colour, 
 an almost illusive chiaroscuro • — sensation, soul, and form melted to- 
 gether ; — conveying to the mind of the spectator the most delicious 
 impression of harmony, spiritual and sensual. Lord Byron speaks of 
 " music breathing" from the face of a beautiful woman : music breathes 
 from the pictures of Correggio. He is the painter of beauty, par excel- 
 lence ; he is to us what Apelles was to the ancients — the standard of the 
 amiable and graceful. 
 
 Those who may not perfectly understand what artists and critics mean 
 when they dwell with rapture on Correggio's wonderful chiaroscuro 
 should look well into this picture; they will perceive that in the paint- 
 ing of the limbs they can look through the shadows into the substance, 
 as it might be into the flesh and blood ; the shadows seem mutable, acci- 
 dental, and aerial, as if between the eye and the colour, and not incor- 
 porated with them ; in this lies the inimitable excellence of this master. 
 
 " Correggio's principal attention, in point of form, was directed to flow 
 of outline, and its gradual variation ; of this he never entirely lost sight 
 even in his most capricious foreshortenings; and his style of light and 
 shadow is so congenial, that the one seems the natural consequence of 
 the other. He is always cited as the most perfect model of those soft 
 and insensible transitions ; of that union of effect which, above every- 
 
36 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 thing else, impresses the general idea of loveliness. The manner of his 
 penciling is exactly of a piece with the rest; all seems melted together, 
 yet with so nice a judgment as to avoid, by some of those free yet deli- 
 cate touches, the hardness as well as the insipidity of what is called high 
 finishing— (such as we see it in Vanderwerf, for instance). Correggio's 
 pictures are, indeed, as far removed from monotony as from glare ; he 
 seems to have felt beyond all others the exact degree of brilliancy that 
 accords with the softness of beauty ; and to have been, with regard to 
 figures, what Claude was in landscape." — Price. 
 
 It was for a long time the fashion to regard the divine creations of 
 Correggio as the mere product of genius and accident ; himself as a 
 man born in the lowest grade of society; uneducated in the elements 
 of his art; owing all to the wondrous resources of his own unassisted 
 genius; living and dying in obscurity and poverty; ill paid" for his 
 pictures ; and at length perishing tragically. It has been proved that 
 there is no foundation for these popular fallacies. Correggio's own 
 pictures are a sufficient refutation of a part of them ; they exhibit not 
 only a classical and cultivated taste, but a profound knowledge of ana- 
 tomy, and of the sciences of optics, perspective, and chemistry, as far 
 r,s they were then carried. His exquisite chiaroscuro and harmonious 
 blending of colours were certainly not the result of mere chance : all 
 his sensibility to these effects of nature would not have enabled him to 
 render them, without the profoundest study of the mechanical means 
 he employed. The great works on which he was employed — his lavish 
 use of the rarest and most expensive colours, and the time and labour 
 lie bestowed in analysing and refining them — the report that he worked 
 on a ground overlaid with gold — all refute the idea of his being either 
 an ignorant or a distressed man. Of the rank he held in the estimation 
 of the princes of his country we have evidence in a curious document 
 discovered in the archives of the city of Correggio : the marriage con- 
 tract between Ippolito (the son of Giberto Lord of Correggio, by his 
 wife the celebrated poetess Vittoria Gambara) and Chiara da Correggio, 
 in which we find the signature of the great painter as one of the wit- 
 nesses. Correggio was one of that splendid triumvirate of painters who, 
 living at the same time, were working on different principles, and 
 achieving, each in his own department, excellence hitherto unequalled ; 
 and if Correggio must be allowed to be inferior to Raphael in invention 
 and expression, and to Titian in life-like colour, he has united design and 
 colour with the illusion of light and shadow in a degree of perfection 
 not then nor since approached by any painter. Hence Annibal Carracci, 
 on seeing one of his great pictures, exclaimed in a transport that he was 
 the " only painter ! " 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 37 
 
 Correggio's master is supposed to have been Francesco Bianchi, of 
 Modena, whose pictures — still in existence — have such a resemblance to 
 some peculiarities in Correggio's known style as to justify the presump- 
 tion : he died when Correggio was about sixteen. It is ascertained that 
 Correggio never visited Rome ; but in the pictures of Andrea Mantegna, 
 who died when he was about thirteen, and in the numerous copies after 
 the antique existing in the school of Andrea, and the statues, busts, 
 and relievos in the collections of the Duke of Mantua and Isabella 
 d'Este, there was sufficient to form and refine the taste of a young artist; 
 he could not, however, have seen the works of his cotemporaries, Michael 
 Angelo and Raphael, and remains one of the most original of the great 
 painters of Italy. Morally, he was distinguished by his exceeding gen- 
 tleness and personal modesty. I know not any other great painter who 
 has left no authenticated effigy whatever of himself. The grand profile 
 in the church at Parma, so often copied and engraved as his portrait, is 
 only supposed to represent him. 
 
 Correggio died in 1534 (about fourteen years after the death of Ra- 
 phael); he was in his forty-first year; dying, like Raphael, in the very 
 prime of his life and powers. 
 
 This picture was painted for Freclerigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, the 
 predecessor of him who, a hundred years later, admired and patronised 
 Rubens. Its subsequent history is exceedingly interesting. When 
 Charles I. of England purchased the Mantuan collection, in 1 630, for 
 20,000/., this picture, and three others by Correggio, were included in the 
 acquisition. It hung in Charles's own apartment at Whitehall, and is 
 designated in his catalogue as "A standing naked Venus, whereby Mer- 
 cury sitting, teaching Cupid his lesson, entire figures almost as big as 
 life."* On the sale of the king's effects by order of the parliament, it 
 was purchased by the Duke of Alva, and from his family it passed into 
 the possession of the famous Godoy, Prince of Peace. When his collec 
 tion was to be sold by auction at Madrid during the French invasion, 
 Murat secured it for himself on the morning fixed for the sale, and 
 took it with him to Naples, where it adorned the royal palace. On 
 his fall from power, this picture was among the precious effects with 
 which his wife, Caroline Buonaparte, escaped to Vienna. The rest of 
 its strange eventful history I am enabled to give accurately, through the 
 kindness, and in the very words, of the Marquess of Londonderry, its next 
 possessor. 
 
 " During the congress of the sovereigns at Verona, in November, 1822, 
 
 * A beautiful miniature copy (8 in. by 5£) was executed by Peter Oliver, for 
 Charles I., in 1636, when the original was in his possession ; and now exists (or 
 ought to exist) in the Royal collection. It used to hang in Queen Caroline's 
 closet, at Kensington, and was then enclosed in an ebony frame with folding 
 doors. 
 
3S 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 General M'Donald, who was chamberlain to Madame Murat (then known 
 as the Countess Lipona), arrived from her residence near Vienna to sell 
 her collection of pictures, amongst which the two famous Correggios 
 were the most conspicuous. The General communicated with the minis- 
 ters of all the powers, and had various negotiations, on and off, with 
 them. Many were desirous of obtaining possession of the two chef- 
 oVoeuvres, but were indisposed to take the indifferent ones; while General 
 M 'Donald naturally wished the Correggios to assist in selling the others. 
 I heard, by mere accident, of these circumstances, as it was not imagined 
 I was an amateur, much less a connoisseur ; and my informant acquainted 
 me that the Emperor Alexander's ministers, Capo dTstrias and Nesselrode, 
 had obtained permission of the Emperor of Austria to export the pictures 
 to Russia, if they could agree on the purchase. I waited immediately 
 on Prince Metternich, and I asked him if, in the event of my closing 
 a bargain with General M 'Donald (as I understood the pictures were not 
 yet actually sold), he would obtain for me, as a British plenipotentiary, 
 the same liberty of taking these gems to England that he had accorded to 
 Russia ? The prince smiled, and looked en moqueur, saying, ' Mais oui, 
 mon cher ! certainement oui ! ' I then said I wished he would give me 
 an official line under his hand to that effect ; and I did not leave him 
 until he gave me the paper, subject to the pleasure of the Emperor. The 
 moment I obtained the order I went to General M'Donald, and inquired 
 how his negotiation stood. He informed me the Russians stood out 
 against taking the whole for the larger price, and wanted the Correggios 
 alone. I asked him if he would close with me, and take my bills within 
 a certain period for the whole ? He immediately acquiesced ; and within 
 twelve hours after the bills were signed and my courier en route for 
 Vienna, with the order for the pictures, which were conveyed by him to 
 England almost before the Russians knew they were finally disposed of." 
 
 An attempt was made to overtake and stop the courier, but the pictures 
 had already reached the Hague ; and the promptitude of Lord London- 
 derry on this occasion eventually secured to the nation two chefs-d'oeuvre 
 of art. This picture, and the Ecce Homo, were purchased from his Lord- 
 ship, in the year 1834, by parliament, for 10,000 guineas. 
 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence used to relate that when he was at Rome in 
 1819, the fate of these pictures was matter of great curiosity and specu- 
 lation, as well as the dexterity of the ex-queen in secreting them ; they 
 were, even then, concealed at Rome ; and Lawrence was allowed a furtive 
 glimpse of them, in the hope that he would recommend them to a pur- 
 chaser in England. He says in a letter, " I had them brought down to 
 me, and placed in all lights, and I know them to be most rare and pre- 
 cious." By his recommendation, Mr. Angerstein offered 6500/. for the 
 two, which was declined.* 
 
 * Vide Life of Sir T. Lawrence, vol. ii., p. 169. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 39 
 
 There is a duplicate of the same subject, supposed to be painted by 
 Correggio, the history of which is scarcely less eventful and interesting. 
 It is said to have been presented by the Duke of Mantua to the Emperor 
 Rudolph, and carried olf to Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus, after the 
 capture of Prague : it was in the gallery of Queen Christina, and after 
 her death passed into tbe possession of the Prince Odescalchi. Richard- 
 son saw it in the Palazzo Bracciano at Rome, about 1720, and had no 
 doubt of its authenticity ; it was subsequently purchased by the Regent 
 Duke of Orleans, and either sold or destroyed by his fanatic son. Whether 
 it be this picture or a copy which is now in the collection of the King of 
 Prussia does not seem to be well ascertained. 
 
 The picture before us we may look upon as secured for ever to this 
 country. 
 
 C. 5 ft. 1 in. by 3 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Arnold de Jode ; and small by Le Villain, from the 
 duplicate in the Orleans Gallery. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 11* St. Jerome doing Penance. — Single figure; half- 
 length*; life-size. 
 St. Jerome, one of the most celebrated of the early fathers 
 of the Church, was born about the year 331 ; he was a native 
 of Styria, or, as some say, of Hungary : he spent about 
 eleven years in solitude and severe penances in the deserts of 
 Syria, and in the pictures of the old masters is generally 
 represented as emaciated by vigils, or employed in writing 
 those works which still exist. He is cited as a great autho- 
 rity among the early Christian writers. This picture is in 
 the dark manner of Guido, and was formerly in the pos- 
 session of Gavin Hamilton, from whom it was purchased by 
 Mr. Holwell Carr, and by him bequeathed to the nation. 
 C. 3 ft. 10i in. by 3 ft. 
 
 Engraved by D. Cunego, for the Schola Italica, 1769. 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 12. A Landscape. The figures represent the marriage fes- 
 tival of Isaac and Rebecca. 
 
 Were it not for the inscription of the painter himself, 
 
40 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 " Manage d 1 Isaac avec Rebecca, Claudio Gel. inv. Roma, 
 1648," the subject would certainly not have suggested itself 
 to the fancy, nor could we easily believe that the picture 
 came from his hand. 
 
 It is merely a repetition (in all respects a poor one) of 
 the celebrated picture known as " Claude's Mill," painted 
 for Prince Doria Pamfili, and which has been ever since 
 in the Doria Palace at Rome ; this before us was painted for 
 the Due de Bouillon, as a companion to the Queen of Sheba 
 (No. 14), sent with it to Paris, and up to the period of the 
 Revolution it remained in the family. It is also in the Liber 
 Veritatis, (No. 113,) and has Claude's signature, enough 
 one would think to prove its authenticity : and yet many who 
 look at it, even the most inexperienced tyro in connoisseur- 
 ship, feels at once that it is a doubtful picture, though to 
 define the want which we feel is at first difficult. The Arca- 
 dian composition is that of Claude ; but though the forms 
 are his, the effect is not. The soft silvery gradations of 
 tints, the melting splendour, the atmospheric illusion which 
 so enchant us in his other pictures, are not here ; it is crude 
 and harsh in comparison. From its general inferiority it 
 has been supposed that the picture is not entirely by the 
 hand of Claude ;* that having an order from the Due de 
 Bouillon for two pictures, this was copied by one of his 
 pupils from the picture in the Doria Palace, and merely 
 touched up by himself. (See No. 14.) 
 
 C. 4 ft. 10 in. by 6 ft. 7 in. 
 
 Engraved by Mason and by Goodall. The Doria picture was en- 
 graved by Vivares with the introduction of two temples on the left, not 
 in the original picture. 
 
 * Vide Evidence before the Arts Committee (No. 1725). 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 41 
 
 MURILLO. 
 
 J 3. The Holy Family. Four figures, life-size. 
 
 The Saviour in early youth, having the Virgin seated on his 
 right hand and Joseph kneeling on the left, is represented 
 standing on the ruined base of a column, looking fervently 
 towards heaven, where the Father appears, seated on clouds 
 and surrounded by angels. The Holy Ghost is descending 
 on the young Redeemer in a glory. 
 
 The Holy Family (La Sacra Famiglia) is the usual title given to such 
 pictures as represent the infant Redeemer, the Virgin Mother, and St. 
 Joseph; occasionally St. John and his mother Elizabeth are included. 
 
 The Roman Catholic religion had consecrated the mother and her 
 child as the highest objects of affectionate superstition ; and art lent 
 its noblest powers to clothe in the most select and graceful forms, and in 
 the most harmonious hues, the associations addressed to the softest affec- 
 tions, as well as the holiest aspirations, of our being. The subject has 
 been multiplied almost to infinitude, and with every possible variety of 
 aspect, attitude, sentiment; and, among these countless representations, 
 the picture before us is one of the most remarkable. In the beautiful 
 figure of the youthful Saviour, as he stands rapt into ecstasy, no attempt 
 has been made to give ideal grace ; the painter rested for his effect on the 
 elevation of the expression. The same may be said of the Virgin, who 
 fondly clasps in her own the hand of her divine Son : the features are 
 neither select nor very beautiful; yet the countenance is divine. All the 
 lower part of the picture, in the dignity and simplicity of the conception, 
 the dramatic arrangement, and the admirable painting, may be regarded 
 as unexceptionable : of the upper part the same cannot be said. Pic- 
 tures in which the First Person of the Trinity is represented as the Ancient 
 of days must either be regarded as flights of poetry or as evidences of the 
 most profane presumption and impiety. Now the old painters, who at- 
 tempted to depict the Invisible, the Unimaginable Spirit which created 
 and sustains the universe, committed the same mistake with Milton, 
 when he made " God the Father turn a school divine ;" but surely no worse 
 mistake : no profaneness was intended, and, according to the faith and 
 customs of the times in which they lived, none was committed. We try 
 them now by a different standard of feeling and taste, and both woidd 
 be outraged if once we considered such works apart from what they 
 really are — poetical and emblematical pictures. 
 
 Bartolomeo Estevan Murillo was born near Seville in 1613. He 
 began by painting tableaux de genre, fairs, rustic festivals, and beggars; 
 
12 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 and though he ascended afterwards by mere force of native power and 
 feeling to the highest religious and historical subjects, there is a tinct — 
 I will not call it a taint — of his early studies running all through them. 
 Still I cannot regret, with others, that he never visited Italy ; there art 
 was in its decline, and the best master then living was Pietro da Cortona. 
 In his own country he had Velasquez for his master ; the most select and 
 beautiful pictures of Titian for his models ; nature for his inspirer ; — 
 nature, free, harmonious, picturesque — the fervid nature of his own sunny 
 climate — the mingling of the classic, the Gothic, the Moorish, in blood, 
 aspect, and manners, which, if far removed from the ideal, was in the 
 highest degree striking and expressive. The stamp of national character 
 and organization impressed on all Murillo's pictures gives to his beggars 
 and domestic subjects a beauty and value quite peculiar (see No.74) ; while 
 in his grand historical pictures it was directed by such an elevated feel- 
 ing, and embellished by such a graceful suavity of execution, that it be- 
 comes a characteristic of the painter, blended with his individual excel- 
 lencies, and which we cannot wish away. " His colour is clear, tender, 
 and harmonious ; and though it possesses the truth of Titian, and the 
 sweetness of Vandyke, it has nothing of the servility of imitation. Though 
 he often adopts a beautiful and elevated expression, there is a portrait- 
 like simplicity in the airs of his heads, which perpetually recalls us to 
 common nature. His style may be said to hold a middle rank be- 
 tween the unpolished naturalness of the Flemish and the ideal grace and 
 grandeur of the Italian school." Of all these characteristic qualities the 
 picture before us may be considered a fair specimen, and should be 
 studied with attention. 
 
 Murillo died in 1685, by a fall from a scaffold on which he stood while 
 painting his picture of St. Catherine in the church of the Capuchins at 
 Cadiz. 
 
 Previous to the year 1801 his pictures were little known in England, 
 his best works not at all. The Peninsular war made us first acquainted 
 with the great works of the Spanish masters. This picture was painted 
 for the family of the Marquis of Pedrosa, and was in his palace at Cadiz ; 
 it was purchased by the English government in 1837. 
 
 C. 9 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 10 in. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 A Seaport — With the embarkation of the 
 Queen of Sheba on the occasion of her visit 
 to Solomon. 
 
 This celebrated picture is known as the " Bouillon Claude," 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 *3 
 
 and is an acknowledged chef-d'oeuvre of the master ; perhaps 
 the most enchanting specimen of a class of pictures in which 
 he excelled. The effect of the morning sun on the sea, and 
 on the masses of building which adorn the shore, produces 
 the most striking and most poetical contrast of light and 
 shade : nor do I know anything in the imitative department 
 of painting more felicitous, more wonderful, than the liquid 
 swell of the water, and the undulation of the waves. The 
 impasto is very solid; the finishing careful and at the 
 same time free, combining great distinctness in the forms of 
 the foreground with the tenderest gradations in the back- 
 ground, and the most delicate harmony of the whole. I have 
 before observed that we are not to seek in Claude for anything 
 like chronological propriety as regards the figures he chose 
 to introduce into his compositions. 
 
 This picture was painted for the Due de Bouillon in 1648, 
 with its companion, " the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca" 
 (No. 12), a far inferior composition.- The two were pur- 
 chased from the heirs of the Due de Bouillon by M. Erard, 
 a French dealer in pictures, brought here in 1804, and sold 
 to Mr. Angerstein for 8000/. {Liber Veritatis, No. 114.) 
 
 C. 4 ft. 11 in. by 6 ft. 7 in. 
 
 Engraved by James Pye. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 15. Ecce Homo. 
 
 " Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple 
 robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man /" — John xix. 5. 
 
 In treating of pictures, the title of Ecce Homo (Behold the 
 Man !) is given to such as represent the Saviour crowned 
 with thorns ; generally it is a single head, but sometimes 
 other figures and accessaries are introduced. 
 
 The subject is here represented by five half-length figures. 
 
 " The noble forms of the countenance of Christ express 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 the greatest pain, without being in the least disfigured by- 
 it. Only Correggio could so paint this dark, tearful expres- 
 sion of the eyes. How striking is the holding out of the 
 fettered hands, which are of the finest form ! It seems as if 
 he would say, ' Behold, these are bound for you ! " The 
 Virgin Mary, who, in order to behold her son, had clung to 
 the balustrade which separates him from her, is overcome 
 by excessive grief at the sight, and sinks into unconscious- 
 ness. Her lips still seem to tremble with agony, but the 
 corners of the mouth are already fixed, it is involuntarily 
 open; the arched eyelids are on the point of covering the 
 dying eye ; while in the hands, the relaxed and helpless ex- 
 pression is very beautifully conveyed. As she is fainting, she 
 is supported by Mary Magdalene, whose countenance expresses 
 the tenderest compassion. In the foreground to the left the fine 
 profile of a soldier indicates a feeling of pity. On the right hand 
 Pilate looking out of a window, in the middle distance, is a very 
 unmeaning head, quite unworthy of Correggio. In all other 
 respects this picture is one of his best : the forms are far more 
 severe and more noble than usual, the execution admirable. 
 The whole is painted with a full pencil, and the colouring of 
 extraordinary power and depth. The effect of the pale coun- 
 tenance of Mary is remarkably enhanced by the contrast of 
 the dark-blue mantle which she has drawn over her head like 
 a veil. If it be one of the highest objects of art to purify, by 
 the beauty of the representation, the most painful suffering, 
 so that it should produce only a soothing and consolatory 
 effect, Correggio has here attained that object in an astonish- 
 ing degree." — Dr. Waagen. • 
 
 This picture was purchased in the early part of the French 
 Revolution, from the Colonna family, at Rome, by Sir Simon 
 Clarke, who, not succeeding in removing jt from Italy, was 
 induced to part with it to Murat. It was bought with the 
 picture No. 10 (" The Education of Cupid") by the Marquis 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 45 
 
 of Londonderry. A copy of this picture, by Ludovico Car- 
 racci, (No. 96) hangs in the next room ; and it was admirably 
 engraved by his cousin Agostino Carracci in 1587. 
 
 P. 3 ft. 21 in. by 2 ft. 7± in. 
 
 Engraved also by Cornelius Galle and Bettelini ; Rosaspina has also 
 engraved a fac-simile of an original sketch for the picture. 
 
 TINTORETTO. 
 
 16. A Landscape. — St. George destroying the 
 Dragon. 
 
 A very clever and peculiar picture, by a master so very un- 
 equal that his best works nearly come up to Titian, while in 
 his sketchy pictures he assisted in producing the decline of 
 Venetian art. In the middle distance of a sunny landscape, 
 where mountains of a picturesque form extend along the sea- 
 shore, St. George is contending with the dragon. In the 
 princess, who is the principal figure in the foreground, alarm 
 is admirably expressed in the attitude of the head (she seems 
 to wish yet not to dare to look round). Contrasted with the 
 golden tone which usually predominates in Tintoretto's land- 
 scapes, this picture is in a cool, greenish, silver tone. It 
 was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 C. 5 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 3 in. 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO. 
 
 17. The Holy Family. 
 
 This must be pronounced a bad picture of the master — if it 
 be his at all, which is doubtful. The figure of the infant 
 Christ is particularly ill conceived : and of the magical effect 
 of colour and chiaroscuro, by which Andrea del Sarto could 
 sometimes cover defects in composition and sentiment, we 
 have here no trace. He takes rank as the third of the great 
 
46 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Florentine painters, next after Michael Angelo and Fra Bar- 
 tolomeo, and died in 1530. 
 
 This Holy Family was purchased out of the Aldobrandini 
 collection in 1805, and was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell 
 Carr.* 
 
 P. 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 Engraved by P. W. Tomkins. 
 
 LIONARDO DA VINCI. 
 
 Christ disputing with the Doctors. 
 A composition of five figures, half-length. The subject does 
 not appear to be taken from any particular incident or passage 
 in Scripture. The circumstance of our Saviour arguing in 
 the temple at twelve years old was not certainly in the painter's 
 mind, for here he is represented as a young man, with a most- 
 mild, refined, and intellectual expression. The heads of the 
 doctors are the same which often occur in Lionardo's com- 
 positions, and have the air of portraits. 
 
 My impression is that Lionardo has here represented 
 Christ as expounding the doctrine of the Trinity. This was 
 a favourite subject with the old painters, and has been more 
 than once treated by Lionardo da Vinci. 
 
 Although the design of this fine picture bears too much evidence of 
 
 * Mr. Solly's evidence before the Committee with regard to this picture is 
 remarkable: — " Evidently not by the master; it is incorrect in design, it is 
 caricature, if I may so express it. It is far inferior in colouring and pencil to the 
 genuine work of that great master which we had in this country some years ago 
 (and one of the grandest specimens), formerly at Sarzana, in Italy, as mentioned 
 by Vasari and Lanzi, and which has lately been offered for sale in Paris, and was 
 purchased by Dr. Waagen last Christmas (in 1835) for the Museum at Berlin. I 
 think that the Committee of Taste, and their fWviser Mr. Seguier, ought to have 
 purchased it for our National Gallery ; we should then have been enabled to com- 
 pare a true and fine picture of the master, who was called Andrea senza errore, 
 or the faultless, with the abortion now called the Andrea del Sarto of the National 
 Gallery." (No. 1856.) Dr. Waagen attributes it to Domenico Puligo, one of 
 Andrea's scholars, of whom Lanzi says that he was " vago di sollazzo piu eke di 
 onore." Is it not to be regretted that a picture, allowed to be spurious by the 
 best judges, and calculated to give a false impression of one of the finest of the 
 Italian painters, should still hang here ? 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 17 
 
 Lionardo da Vinci's peculiar style to be for a moment doubted, the 
 execution of the work is in general attributed to one of his best scholars — 
 either Bernardino Luino,* of Milan (1530), or Francesco Melzi. 
 
 " The numerous copies or repetitions of this picture now existing 
 imply the estimation in which the cartoon was held, and are additional 
 proofs of its being an original work. One of these I saw in the Spada 
 Gallery at Rome : two others are at Milan — one at the Episcopal Palace, 
 and the other at the house of the Consigliere Commendatore Casati." — 
 Passavant. 
 
 The picture before us was purchased from the Aldobrandini Palace 
 by Lord Northwick, and from him by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 P. 2 ft. 4± in. by 2 ft. 10 in. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 A Landscape. — With the Story of Narcissus 
 
 Narcissus is seen bending over a pool of limpid water, the 
 banks of which are surrounded with rocks and lofty trees ; 
 on the opposite side pines disconsolate Echo.f The cool and 
 shadowy retirement of this portion of the picture is poetically 
 contrasted with the scene on the left, where, in an extended 
 prospect, the sultry afternoon sun strongly lights the windows 
 of the ruin of an old castle ; and in the distance a seaport 
 extends along the bay. It is seldom that we find in Claude 
 figures taken from mythology so perfectly harmonising with 
 
 * Bernardino Luino was not his scholar, properly speaking, but painted after 
 his manner, studied him closely, and coloured a great many of his drawings and 
 cartoons, with almost as much grace and softness as he could have done himself. 
 The best scholars of Lionardo da Vinci painted so like him, that many of the 
 pictures attributed to him belong more properly to his school, as his own occupa- 
 tions were so various that he could not possibly have painted all the pictures that 
 are reputed to be his own works. " If it be true that ' one science only will one 
 genius fit,' what shall we say to Lionardo da Vinci, who, master of all mental 
 and all bodily perfections, equally^xcelled in painting, poetry, sculpture, archi- 
 tecture, chemistry, anatomy, mathematics, and philosophy ; who renders credible 
 all that has been related of the Admirable Crichton, who attempted every thing j 
 and succeeded in every attempt; who, sailing round the world of art and science, 
 touched at every port, and brought home something of value from each ?" — Opie. 
 
 f The figures introduced by Claude into his pictures are so destitute of character 
 that here the female reclining in the foreground may either be taken for Echo 
 " pining disconsolate," or a nymph of the fountain slumbering by her uru. 
 
48 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 the landscape as in this picture. The execution is very 
 careful. 
 
 This picture was painted for England in 1644: in 1743 
 it was in the possession of Mr. Delme, from whose collection 
 it passed into the hands of Sir George Beaumont, and w r as 
 by him presented to the nation in 1825. {Liber Veritatis, 
 No. 77.) 
 
 C. 3 ft. 1 in. by 3 ft. 11 in. 
 Engraved by Vivares. 
 
 SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO. 
 
 20. Portraits of Cardinal Hippolito de' Medici and 
 Sebastian del Piombo. — Life-size, half-length. 
 When this painter was not under the influence of the master 
 mind of Michael Angelo he may be characterised as of the 
 Venetian school ; and as a portrait-painter he excelled. His 
 works of this class are numerous in Italy. He painted most 
 of the celebrated personages of his time, and few were more 
 illustrious than the man here represented. " Ippolito de' 
 Medici," says Roscoe, " was dignified with the rank of 
 Cardinal, and possessed, by the partiality of Clement VII., of 
 an immense revenue. He was at once the patron, the com- 
 panion, and the rival of all the poets, the musicians, and wits 
 of his time. Without territories, and without subjects, Ip- 
 polito maintained at Bologna a court far more splendid than 
 that of any Italian potentate." Shocked at his profusion, 
 which only the revenues of a church were competent to sup- 
 ply, Clement VII. is said to have engaged the Maestro di 
 Casaof Ippolito to remonstrate with him on his conduct, and 
 to request that he would dismiss some of his retainers as 
 unnecessary to him. " No," replied Ippolito, " I do not 
 retain them in my court because I have occasion for their 
 services, but because they have occasion for mine." 
 
 Sebastian holds in his hand the Bulla del Piombo : 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 19 
 
 {see p. 22) he must have been a magnificent creature, with 
 his ample forehead and grand flowing beard. 
 
 This picture was formerly in the Borghese Palace. It 
 formed part of the bequest of Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 P. 4 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 8 in. 
 
 ANGIOLO ALLORI, called BRONZINO. 
 
 21. Portrait of a Lady. — Half-length. 
 
 Apparently a Florentine lady of rank, in a white dress, or 
 what was once white, with red sleeves. The head-dress, 
 richly embroidered, resembles in form the Venetian rolled 
 coif or turban, which occurs so often in the pictures of Gior- 
 gione and Titian. The head is grave and intellectual. The 
 great fault of this picture is the colouring, which is leaden 
 in the flesh tints, and too dark and brown in the shadows. 
 We might attribute this to time, but Lanzi says it was a 
 characteristic defect of the painter. 
 
 This Allori was one of a family of painters of the same 
 name who flourished at Florence towards the end of the 16th 
 century. 
 
 From the collection of the Duke of San Vitale at Parma. 
 P. 1 ft. 11 in. by 1 ft. 6| in. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 22. A dead Christ, with Two Angels. 
 
 I This painter, one of the most esteemed of the second-rate 
 Italian masters, had a manner which is very easily distin- 
 guished after seeing a few of his pictures ; but as it consists 
 in a certain air in his heads, and general arrangement of his 
 subject, rather than any peculiarity of execution, it is easily 
 felt and recognised, but difficult to be described. In his 
 earlier pictures he was fond of strong contrasts of light and 
 shade, imitated from Caravaggio. He designed with great 
 boldness and facility, and was one of the most fertile of paint- 
 
50 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 ers. In his best pictures he showed himself capable of gran- 
 deur and deep pathos, but is seldom without a certain dash 
 of vulgarity in conception and treatment. This little picture 
 is a very beautiful specimen of the master, painted with more 
 feeling and sentiment than is usual with him, and finished 
 with great care in every part. Several duplicates of this 
 picture are known and recognised as genuine. 
 
 It was formerly in the Borghese Palace, and bequeathed 
 to the nation by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 Copper, 1 ft. 2i in. by 1 ft. 51 in. 
 
 Engraved by Tomkins. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 23. The Holy Family. — Known as " La ViergeauPanier" 
 
 A small picture, celebrated all over Europe as one of the 
 most exquisite of the productions of Correggio. His peculiar 
 characteristics, the beauty and delicacy of the heads, the 
 lovely expression of maternal rapture, that inexpressible 
 charm which some have called Corregiesque, as almost pe- 
 culiar to the master, the touching of that line where the 
 purely natural and the purely ideal melt into each other, 
 united with his bland aerial colouring, — all these are found 
 circumscribed within this little square panel, making it pre- 
 cious beyond all price. 
 
 This picture was formerly in the collection of the kings of 
 Spain. It was presented by Charles IV. to Godoy Prince 
 of Peace. During the French invasion of Spain it was ob- 
 tained by Mr. Wallis, an English painter, and in England 
 offered for 1200/., and in vain. It was then taken to Paris, 
 and fell into the possession of M. Laperiere, and at the sale of 
 his collection in 1825 it was bought by Mr. Niewenhuys for 
 80,000 francs, who sold it to the English Government for 
 3800/. This certainly appears a large price for a picture 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 51 
 
 only 13 inches high; but it is a work of the rarest delicacy 
 and beauty. 
 
 The earliest engraving I have seen is by Diana Ghisi, inscribed Diana 
 Mantuana Roma:, 1577. Engraved also by Francesco Aquila, 1691. 
 
 SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO. 
 
 24. Portrait of Giulia Gonzaga. 
 
 She is represented in the character of a saint holding the 
 palm of martyrdom ; and, from the circumstance of the pair 
 of pincers lying near, probably St. Apollonia.* 
 
 Giulia Gonzaga, great-grand-daughter of Ludovico III., 
 Marquess of Mantua, was celebrated for her beauty, her vir- 
 tue, and her rare accomplishments. She was married at the 
 age of fourteen to Vespasian Colonna, Duke of Trajetto, who 
 was very old and infirm. She was, however, not only faith- 
 ful to him while living, but after his death she assumed for 
 her device an amaranth-flower, with the motto non moritura, 
 and refused thenceforth to listen to any offers of marriage. 
 The fame of her beauty and chastity having reached Constan- 
 tinople, the Sultan Solyman was seized with a truly imperial 
 fancy for the possession of a treasure deemed inaccessible, and 
 commanded his admiral Barbarossa to seize her in her castle 
 of Fondi, on the coast of the Mediterranean. Barbarossa 
 landed from his galleys in the middle of the night, attacked 
 and took the town of Fondi, but the lady escaped in the 
 tumult, and fled to the mountains, where she fell into the 
 hands of some disbanded soldiers, who, on learning her name 
 and rank, conducted her in all honour and safety to her castle 
 as soon as the danger was over. This event happened in 
 1534. Some other adventures are attributed to her which 
 are more than doubtful. 
 
 This portrait is supposed to be the same mentioned by 
 
 * According to the legend, St. Apollonia had all her teeth taken out with a pair 
 of pincers. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Vasari, which was presented by Ippolito de* Medicis to 
 Francis I., and lost out of the gallery at Fontainbleau during 
 the wars of the league ; but I am afraid there exists no satis- 
 factory proof of this identity. There is too much of grandeur, 
 too little of beauty in the countenance and features to bear 
 out the description of Vasari ; but whoever it may be, she 
 was truly a most noble creature. The colouring has become 
 dark, but is still harmonious and clear. It came from the 
 Borghese Palace, and was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 There is another female portrait by Sebastian del Piombo, 
 now at Hampton Court, not unlike this in the treatment, 
 and also habited in green, but infinitely superior — one of 
 the finest portraits in the world, I think. 
 
 C. 3 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 25, St. John in the Wilderness, filling his Cup 
 from a Fountain which gushes from a Rock. 
 — Half life-size. 
 A picture of great beauty, noble in the forms and animated 
 in the expression. The landscape in the background is in 
 the style of Titian. 
 
 The most celebrated productions of this painter are those 
 on a large scale ; I do not know that they are his best. Of 
 the three Carracci he is the most distinguished by his works, 
 but he was not equal to his uncle Ludovico in genius and 
 sentiment, nor to his cousin Agostino in general culture of 
 mind. He united, however, great talent with rare technical 
 excellence, and has evinced in some few of his pictures great 
 depth of feeling, as in the Pieta at Castle Howard. He died 
 in 1609. 
 
 This picture, with twenty-four others by the same accom- 
 plished painter, was in the Orleans Gallery, and was pur- 
 chased by Mr. Angerstein for 200 guineas. 
 
 C. 5 ft. 5 in. by 3 ft. 1 in. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 53 
 PAUL VERONESE. 
 
 26. The Consecration of St. Nicholas as Bishop of 
 
 Myra. — Composition of nine figures, life-size. 
 This fine picture was painted as an altar-piece for the church 
 of San Nicold dei Frari at Venice, and afterwards brought 
 to Rome, whence it came to England in 1821. It was pur- 
 chased by the directors of the British Institution, as a fine 
 study of colour, and by them presented to the National Gal- 
 lery. 
 
 St. Nicholas was consecrated Bishop of Myra in 1391. 
 The kneeling figure of the saint is finely expressive of hu- 
 mility and devotion. The prelates and ecclesiastics assisting 
 at his investiture are nobly conceived. The foreshortened 
 figure of the angel descending from heaven with the mitre 
 and crozier explains the subject in a very poetical and intel- 
 ligible manner. 
 
 Paul Cagliari of Verona, thence called Veronese, was the great master 
 of what is called in painting the ornamental style : a style in which the 
 utmost luxury of fancy and design, and splendour of colour, took the 
 lead of all higher, severer principles of art. In banquet-scenes, allegories, 
 processions, religious or profane, this painter was emulated by Rubens 
 alone, and he had more of grace and dignity in his figures and composi- 
 tions, perhaps because he had a finer nature before him to imitate. Like 
 Rubens, he held in utter disregard all proprieties of costume and chrono- 
 logy. Yet this picture is a proof that he could sometimes treat a solemn 
 subject with becoming sobriety. He painted at Venice, where he died 
 in 1588, twelve years after Titian. 
 
 C. 9 ft. 5 in. by 5 ft. 9 in. 
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 27. Portrait of Pope Julius II. — Life -size, three-quarters. 
 Giuliano della Rovere was the nephew of Pope Sixtus IV., 
 who raised him to the purple, though much fitter to com- 
 mand an army than to adorn the priesthood. A fto- - 
 icailcss active life, during which he had embroiled all Italy, 
 
54 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 and was particularly noted for his hostility to the Borgia 
 family, he was elected pope in 1503, at the age of 61, and 
 wore the tiara through ten years of strife. Neither age, nor 
 the toils of a most various life, nor the high and sacred dignity 
 to which he was raised, could tame the fiery spirit, of this 
 gifted and turbulent old man, nor inspire him with any of 
 the meeker virtues becoming the supreme head of the Chris- 
 tian church * By his own avowal it was Julius Csesar, not 
 Jesus Christ, whom he proposed as the object of his imita- 
 tion. His short pontificate was one of the most memorable 
 recorded. He it was who gave to Henry VIII. the dispen- 
 sation to marry Catherine of Arragon, his brother's widow. 
 He it was who laid the first stone of St. Peter's at Rome ; 
 who employed Michael Angelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ; 
 who patronised Raffaelle. And when, under his pontificate, 
 the group of the Laocoon was accidentally discovered among 
 the ruins of the baths of Titus, Julius, overjoyed, rewarded 
 the fortunate discoverer with a pension for life : — for to his 
 propensities for war and intrigue he united a real love for art 
 and letters, which he used to say were as " silver to the 
 poor, gold to the rich, and gems to princes." 
 
 " This is a genuine and most characteristic portrait. The 
 veteran pontiff is represented in a sitting posture, his elbows 
 resting on the arms of his chair. His cap and short cloak 
 are of crimson silk, edged with ermine ; his under garment 
 of white linen, plaited, with silken sleeves. He holds one of 
 the arms of the chair with the left hand, whilst his right 
 hand, which, from the perspective chosen by the artist, forms 
 the most prominent object in the picture, hangs easily, ad- 
 vancing before, and hiding part of the body. 
 
 * " Giulio, piu fortunato che prudente e piu animoso che forte, ma ambizioso 
 e desideroso di grandezze oltra a modo," &c, &c. His quarrel with Michael 
 Aug^.v. ^ oie m ost amusing anecdotes in the history of painting. The 
 Fope and the painter were equally n ei> -ai^. hut thp Pope srave way 
 
 at last. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 55 
 
 " The head is admirable. It is that of a hardy old man, 
 accustomed to combat and to conquer difficulties ; the square 
 projecting forehead, strongly marked features, straight white 
 beard, and eyes deeply seated in their sockets, indicate at 
 once that keenness of penetration and firmness of purpose 
 which were among the leading traits in the character of 
 Julius. He appears absorbed in thought, and little mindful 
 that he is sitting for his picture. Although, as a whole, this 
 portrait is in the highest degree simple and dignified, it is 
 not deficient in becoming ornament. The background is a 
 green hanging, on which, at regular distances, are slightly 
 indicated the cross keys of the pontifical office. From the 
 corners of the chair rise two shafts, which are surmounted 
 by gilt ornaments in the form of acorns, in reference to the 
 armorial bearings of the Pope's family, and enriched below 
 with gold fringe, through which is seen the crimson covering 
 of the chair. On the fingers of each hand are three rings ; 
 and in the right the ponliff holds a small handkerchief, 
 which, from its whiteness, contrasted with the dark tint of 
 a ring on the fore-finger, is greatly beneficial to the effect of 
 the whole, by giving increased projection to the hand, which 
 is intended to appear nearer the eye of the spectator than any 
 other part of the figure.'' — Ottley. 
 
 " This portrait of Julius II. is finished to a great nicety. The hairs 
 of the head, the fringe on the cap, are done by minute and careful 
 touches of the pencil. In seeing the labour, the conscientious and modest 
 pains, which this great painter bestowed upon his smallest works, we 
 cannot help being struck with the number and magnitude of those he 
 left behind him. When we have a single portrait placed before us, that 
 might seem to have taken half a year to complete it, we wonder how the 
 same painter could find time to execute his cartoons, the compartments of 
 the Vatican, and a thousand other matchless works." — Hazlitt. 
 
 We might, indeed, wonder, if Raphael had found time even with his 
 wondrous diligence to paint all the portraits of Julius II. which pass 
 under his name. The original portrait from Raphael's own hand is 
 supposed to be that which exists in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, at 
 
56 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 least that is the finest known, if it be not the very picture executed for the 
 pope himself. A famous and scarce inferior repetition is in the Tribune 
 of the Florence Gallery. The picture before us, which is extremely fine, 
 came from the Falconieri Palace at Rome, and is supposed to be chiefly the 
 work of Giulio Romano. Another splendid duplicate was in the Orleans 
 Gallery, and is, I believe, the same which has passed into the possession 
 of Mr. Miles of Leigh Court. A fifth, much inferior, is in the Corsini 
 Palace at Rome ; a sixth, very fine, in the Borghese Gallery ; a seventh, 
 at Berlin, from the Giustiniani Gallery ; and there is an eighth in the 
 possession of Torlonia, at Rome. All these, being painted by the scholars 
 of Raphael, and under his direction, have claims to originality. 
 
 The original Cartoon, by Raphael, drawn in black chalk, is preserved 
 in the Corsini Palace at Florence. — Passavanfs Rafael, vol. i. p. 175 ; 
 ii. 118. 
 
 P. 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 Of this portrait there are some fine old engravings : it has also been 
 engraved more recently by Morel for the Orleans gallery and by Morace 
 for the Florentine gallery. 
 
 LUDOVICO CARRACCI. 
 
 28. Susanna and the Elders. 
 
 This oft-repeated and not very agreeable subject has never 
 perhaps been more beautifully treated than in this picture, 
 though the head of Susanna, with all its loveliness, does not 
 bear out the eloquent eulogium of Hazlitt — in itself a picture. 
 " It is," he says, " as if the young Jewish beauty had been 
 just surprised in that unguarded spot, crouching down in one 
 corner of the picture, the face turned back, with a mingled 
 expression of terror, shame, and unconquerable sweetness, 
 and the whole figure, with the arms crossed, shrinking 
 into itself with bewitching modesty." " No painter," he 
 adds, " could have improved upon the Susanna except per- 
 haps Correggio, who, with all his capricious blandishments, 
 and wreathed angelic smiles, would hardly have given the 
 same natural unaffected grace, the same perfect womanhood." 
 
 To those who love pictures there cannot be a more delightful com- 
 panion than Hazlitt, — nor a worse guide. As long as he dwells in general 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 57 
 
 speculation he " discourses most eloquent music ;" the delighted fancy- 
 surrenders itself to his influence, and tastes eagerly from new founts of 
 thought ; but as to fact and detail he is inconceivably inaccurate, and 
 his individual impressions take their colour from the splendour of his 
 imagination. He says himself he " never took a note on the spot." With 
 regard to the picture before us, in the Susanna the arms are not crossed 
 on the bosom, and the expression in the head will not satisfy all. I 
 should say that the countenance is that of an innocent, alarmed, and 
 somewhat coquettish girl ; and that it ought to be that of a chaste and in- 
 dignant matron. 
 
 Purchased by Mr. Angerstein from the Orleans collection 
 for 200 guineas. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 8 in. by 3 ft. 7 in. 
 
 BARROCCIO. 
 
 A Holy Family. — Designated as the " Madonna del 
 Gatto," from the Cat introduced into the corner of the 
 picture. Four figures, life-size. 
 This is a charming and cele orated picture, and a fine speci- 
 men of the master. The two children are eminently lovely, 
 and infantine. 
 
 St. John is teasing a cat by holding up a bull-finch before 
 her. " An incident," says Waagen, " which proves how 
 much the ancient religious spirit had vanished about the 
 middle of the sixteenth century." Yet incidents more 
 •naive and apparently out of place occur continually in the 
 older masters. 
 
 This picture was brought from the Cesare Palace at Perugia 
 in 1805, and subsequently sold to Mr. Holwell Carr, who 
 bequeathed it to the nation. 
 
 Several original repetitions, and many known copies, exist 
 of this picture : one fine duplicate in the possession of Mr. 
 Rogers. 
 
 Federigo Barroccio, of Urbino, ranks among the second-rate Italian 
 masters. He has imitated Correggio in the grace of his drawing and the 
 
 D 3 
 
58 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 softness of his chiaro-scuro, but was far his inferior in simplicity and 
 power. It is a peculiarity of his colouring that his carnation tints are 
 generally too obtrusive, so that it was said of him, as of Parrhasius, that 
 his personages looked as though they had fed on roses. His general style 
 is very characteristic of his mind, which was elegant and harmonious, 
 but destitute of strength, and subject to melancholy fancies. He died at 
 the age of eighty-four ; and of his numerous works those at Rome have 
 the highest estimation. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 9 in. by 3 ft. 
 
 Engraved by A. Cardon. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 30. A Seaport, with the embarkation of Saint 
 Ursula and her attendant Virgins. 
 
 This most splendid picture is by some connoisseurs preferred 
 to the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (No. 14). It 
 possesses similar beauties of feeling and composition, but the 
 execution is pronounced to be less spirited and free. We have 
 here also the effect of a morning sun — the undulation of the 
 waves in the fresh breeze, while the foreground, rich with 
 massy architecture, throws back the distance, which gra- 
 dually melts from distinctness into the sunny air. — {Liber 
 Veritatis, No. 54.) 
 
 St. Ursula, according to the legend, was the daughter of Dionnot, 
 King of Cornwall, and born in 362. " Ce fut une des plus parfaites 
 Princesses de 1'Europe," and Conan, Duke of Brittany, sent a fleet to 
 demand her in marriage, with all the young ladies of quality who could 
 be persuaded to accompany her as wives for his courtiers. St. Ursula, 
 having determined to be the spouse of Jesus Christ, and to devote herself 
 to a religious life, embarked with great reluctance, and prayed that they 
 might never reach their destination. Accordingly a storm drove the fleet 
 up the Rhine as far as Cologne, where she and her companions were all 
 massacred by the Huns in 383. 
 
 This picture was painted for Cardinal Barberini in 1646, and was 
 purchased from the Princess Barberini in 1760, by Mr. Lock of Nor- 
 bury Park (" and if pictures could choose their possessors would never 
 have left him"') : it then fell into the hands of Mr. Desenfans, the pic- 
 ture-dealer, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Angerstein. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 59 
 
 The estimated value is about 3500 guineas. 
 C. 3 ft. 8 in. by 4 ft. 11 in. 
 
 Engraved by Fittler : and there is an etching by Dom. Barriere ; 
 1665. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 31. A Landscape. — The figures represent Abraham prepar- 
 ing to sacrifice his son Isaac. 
 
 In the foreground, on the right, Isaac is represented bearing 
 the wood for the sacrifice, and followed by his father with a 
 torch. They appear walking up a steep and unfrequented 
 path, overshadowed by trees, having left behind them the 
 two servants of Abraham, who are seen seated on the ground 
 at some distance, near the centre of the picture. These 
 figures are not of so large a size as to be obtrusive ; and being 
 also painted by Gaspar himself (which, unfortunately, is not 
 always the case in his larger pictures), are in perfect har- 
 mony with the surrounding landscape. The foreground and 
 middle ground are in a low tone of colouring, save here and 
 there a partial gleam of subdued light, (as on that part 
 where the figures of Abraham and Isaac are introduced ; 
 upon a waterfall, near the left extremity of the picture ; and 
 on part of the ruins of an ancient city in the middle distance ;) 
 it having been evidently the intention of the painter to confine 
 his principal light to the sky over the horizon and to the ex- 
 treme distance, which exhibits an extensive flat country 
 similar to the campagna of Rome, bounded on the left by a 
 ridge of mountains. — Oiilexj. 
 
 This is perhaps one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. 
 Those cool depths of verdure breathe of freshness, and the trees and 
 foliage seem only not to move and sigh 
 
 " Because the crystal silence of the air 
 Weighs on their life." 
 
 There are perhaps no landscapes which excel those of Gaspar Poussin 
 in this fine, fresh, healthy look of nature. — (See p. 27.) 
 
60 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Gaspar Dughet was the pupil and adopted son of Niccolo Poussin, 
 whose name he assumed. He was no servile imitator of his master ; and 
 considered merely as a landscape painter, certainly not his inferior. 
 Gaspar seems to have felt nature as a living presence — felt her in all her 
 sublimity, all her power. He did not doat upon her like Claude — to 
 whom she was as an enchanting mistress whom he loved to dress out 
 with a sort of elaborate elegance, and to behold only in her most serene 
 and alluring moods — but he reverenced her as a divinity, whose power 
 and beauty were to be rendered, as they were revealed to him, in the spirit 
 of faith and truth. 
 
 The National Gallery contains five landscapes by this master, so varied 
 in subject as to present an admirable opportunity of studying his style 
 and merits. This picture came from the Colonna Palace. 
 
 C. 5 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 6 in. 
 
 Engraved, large, by G. Cunego : and smaller by Pye. 
 TITIAN. 
 
 32. Ganymede carried off by the Eagle. — Life size. 
 
 Ganymede, the son of the King of Troy, while tending his 
 father's flocks on Mount Ida, was carried off by the Eagle 
 of Jove (or by Jove himself, transformed into an eagle), to 
 become the cup-bearer of the Gods. 
 
 — — " Flush'd Ganymed, his rosy thigh 
 
 Half-buried in the eagle's down, 
 Sole as a flying star, shot thro 1 the sky 
 
 Over the pillar d town." A. Tennyson. 
 
 This fine picture was brought from the Colonna Palace. It was 
 originally, without doubt, intended for the central compartment of a 
 ceiling, and is a distinguished work of the master. Titian has here 
 proved not only that he was able to draw the figure well, greatly fore- 
 shortened, but that he understood, what is much more rare, how to avoid, 
 in doing it, all disagreeable distortion. The effect of the sot to in su, as 
 the Italians term that species of pictorial representation which is intended 
 to be viewed from below, is finely managed. The figure of the beautiful 
 boy, coloured in the fullest golden tone, every part being carefully 
 rounded, contrasted with the great black eagle, which is soaring away with 
 him, is admirable. For this picture and two others (31 and 34), all 
 from the Colonna Palace, Mr. Angerstein paid 6000 guineas. 
 C, octagon, 5 ft. 8 in. diameter. 
 
 Engraved by Gerard Audran ; by D. Cunego, for the Schola Italica. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 61 
 
 PARMEGIANO. 
 
 33. The Vision of St. Jerome. 
 
 This saint, who lived about the year 400, and was the most 
 celebrated doctor of the Latin church, spent several years of 
 his life in the deserts of Syria, and there, like most of those 
 who give themselves up to an unnatural and solitary existence, 
 he saw visions and dreamed dreams, not always so acceptable 
 as the one now hovering around him. He is asleep in the 
 back-ground, his crucifix near him. Above is the Holy 
 Virgin, throned in the clouds: the youthful Christ reclines 
 against her knees ; and in the foreground St. John the Bap- 
 tist, kneeling, points upwards with that expression of fervent 
 and somewhat wild enthusiasm, which befits the character. 
 The upper part of the picture is the best. " There is great dig- 
 nity in the Virgin : the beautiful head of the infant Christ is 
 not unworthy of Correggio ; and the painting of the figure, 
 with its delicate tints, half-tints, and reflected lights, comes 
 very near him."* The St. John is powerfully painted, 
 but the attitude is forced and extravagant. The sleeping 
 St. Jerome is altogether bad ; the figure ill-drawn ; the atti- 
 tude quite distorted. In the whole picture the effect strikes 
 me as bordering on the theatrical. Some defects may be 
 excused when we consider that Parmegiano was only four- 
 and-twenty when he executed it : they remain defects not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 This picture was painted in 1527 for a certain Donna 
 Maria Buffalini, as an altar-piece for the chapel of the Buf- 
 falini family at Citta di Castello. In 1790 the church was 
 destroyed by an earthquake, and the picture was purchased 
 from among the ruins by Mr. Durno, an artist, who sold it 
 afterwards to the Marquis of Abercorn for 1500 guineas. 
 
 * Dr. Waagen. 
 
62 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Subsequently it passed through the hands of Mr. Hart Davis 
 and Mr. Watson Taylor, at whose sale it was purchased by 
 the directors of the British Institution for 3050 guineas, and 
 by them presented to the nation. 
 
 I have seen two small finished studies of this picture, one 
 of which is in the Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 The real name of Parmegiano was Francesco Mazzuoli. 
 He was born at Parma, 1503, and at the age of twenty 
 visited Rome, where he was patronised by Pope Clement 
 VII. In 1527, when engaged in painting this very picture, 
 Rome was sacked by the army of Charles V. under the 
 Constable Bourbon, and when the soldiers entered his atelier, 
 where, unmindful or unconscious of the tumult around, he 
 stood absorbed before his easel, they were so struck by the 
 beauty of his work, as well as by the composure of the artist, 
 that they retired without doing him any injury ; but another 
 party afterwards seized him, and insisted on ransom. Par- 
 megiano, reduced to poverty, fled from Rome to Bologna, 
 and there and at Parma continued to practise his art with 
 fame and success; but he was seized with the mania of 
 alchymy, neglected the beautiful art which would have given 
 him at once fame and riches, and died poor at the age of 37. 
 He is a very unequal painter: in his best pictures he ap- 
 proaches Raphael and Correggio ; but it too often happens 
 that in attempting the grandeur and expression of Raphael 
 he becomes distorted and exaggerated ; and in imitating the 
 manner of Correggio, he falls into affectation. This picture, 
 with some defects of both kinds, is still a fine work, and, as 
 some think, one of his finest. 
 
 C. 1 1 ft. 6 in. by 5 ft. 
 
 There is an excellent old engraving by Bonasoni, who was a contem- 
 porary of Parmegiano. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 63 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 34. Venus endeavouring to detain Adonis from the 
 Chace. 
 
 "The figure of Venus, which is seen in a back view, receives 
 the principal light, and is without drapery, save that a white 
 veil, which hangs from her shoulder, spreads itself over the 
 right knee. The chief parts of this figure are scarcely less 
 excellent in respect of form than of colouring. The head pos- 
 sesses great beauty, and is replete with natural expression. 
 The fair hair of the goddess, collected into a braid rolled up 
 at the back of her head, is entwined by a string of pearls, which, 
 from their whiteness, give value to the delicate carnation of 
 her figure. She throws her arms, impassioned, around her 
 lover, who, resting with his right hand upon his javelin, and 
 holding with the left the traces which confine his dogs, looks 
 upon her unmoved by her solicitations, and impatient to 
 repair to the chace. Cupid, meantime, is seen sleeping at 
 some distance off, under the shadow of a group of lofty trees, 
 from one of which are suspended his bow and quiver; a 
 truly poetic thought, by which, it is scarcely necessary to 
 add, the painter intended to signify that the blandishments 
 and caresses of beauty, unaided by love, may be exerted in 
 vain.* In the colouring this picture unites the greatest pos- 
 sible richness and depth of tone, with that simplicity and 
 sobriety of character which Sir Joshua Reynolds so strongly 
 recommends in his lectures, as being the best adapted to the 
 higher kinds of painting. The habit of the goddess, on 
 which she sits, is of crimson velvet, a little inclining to pur- 
 ple, and ornamented with an edging of gold lace, which is, 
 however, so subdued in tone as not to look gaudy, its linings 
 being of a delicate straw colour, touched here and there with 
 a slight glazing of lake. The dress of Adonis, also, is crim- 
 
 * This seems to have been an after-thought. In the original picture at Naples, 
 and in one repetition of this subject which I have seen, I think it is that of Mr. 
 Miles, Cupid is wide awake. — A. J. 
 
64 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 son, but of a somewhat warmer hue. There is little or no 
 blue in the sky, which is covered with clouds, and but a small 
 proportion of it on the distant hills ; the effect altogether ap- 
 pearing to be the result of a very simple principle of arrange- 
 ment in the colouring, namely, that of excluding almost all 
 cold tints from the illuminated parts of the picture. — Ottley. 
 
 Of this charming composition, so celebrated in the history of art, there 
 exist many original repetitions, and almost innumerable copies. I have 
 reason to believe, on a comparison of dates and authorities, that the first 
 picture of the subject was painted by Titian for the Farnese family about 
 1548, and is the one now at Naples : and that the most famous of the 
 original repetitions is that which Titian painted for King Philip II. when 
 Prince of Spain, and about the period of his marriage with Queen Mary 
 of England, that is, in 1554, when Titian was in his 77th year.* It was 
 intended as a companion to the Danae (likewise a copy of the famous 
 Farnese picture, which was painted at Rome in 1548), and both these 
 pictures, executed for Philip, are now at Madrid. The fine repetition 
 before us is undoubtedly an original picture, one of the many which 
 Titian painted at the request of his friends and patrons. It belonged to 
 the Colonna family. In 1800 it was brought to England by Mr. Day, 
 and sold, together with the Ganymede and the fine Gaspar Poussin (No. 
 31), for 6000 guineas. 
 
 Another duplicate, with a slight variation, is in the collection of Mr. 
 Miles, of Leigh Court : f another in the Dulwich gallery : and another 
 in the possession of Mr. Fitzhugh, of Bannisters, near Southampton. 
 
 * " Nel susseguente anno non mancava Tiziano alia promessa fattagli di man- 
 dargli quella bella poesia, com' egli la chiama, di Venere ed Adone, la quale, a 
 differenza della Danae, che si vedeva tutta davanti, mostrava la contraria parte :" 
 the two pictures being intended to decorate the same room. See Ticozzi, " Vite 
 dei Pittore Vecellij." In the appendix is inserted the original letter of Titian ad- 
 dressed to " Philip, king of England." It begins — " Most sacred Majesty ! I con- 
 gratulate your Majesty on the kingdom which God has granted to you ; and I ac- 
 company my congratulations with the picture of Venus and Adonis, which I hope 
 will be looked upon by you with the favourable eyes you are used to cast upon 
 the works of your servant Titian." About the same time Titian painted for Queen 
 Mary a picture of Prometheus, now in the Escurial, and some others, of which a 
 more particular account will be given farther on, in the introduction to the Royal 
 collection. 
 
 ■f See in the life of Titian a letter from Ludovico Dolce to Alessandro Contarini 
 (written about 1554), containing a most elaborate description and eloge of this 
 picture, in which he says, with true Italian hyperbole: — "I swear to your Ex- 
 cellency that one cannot find a man with an acute eye and a good judgment, who, 
 seeing it, would not believe it was alive. No one, however chilled by age or hard 
 of heart, can behold it without feeling all the blood in his veins warmed into 
 tenderness !" 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 65 
 
 C. 5 ft. 9 in. by 6 ft. 2 in. 
 
 Engraved by Giulio Sanuto (1553). The dedication affixed to this 
 print is so expressed in the Italian that, by a very easy misconception or 
 mistranslation, it may have given rise to the idea that the Adonis is a 
 portrait of Philip II., for which I can find no other foundation. There 
 are engravings by R. Sadeler and by Strange, from the Farnese picture. 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 35. Bacchus and Ariadne. 
 
 Bacchus, returning from a sacrifice in the island of Naxos, 
 attended by Silenus, Nymphs, and Fauns, meets Ariadne 
 after she had been deserted by Theseus, and, struck with her 
 beauty, wooes and carries her off in triumph. Above the 
 head of Ariadne is seen the starry crown which bears her 
 name. 
 
 Titian has here painted in living hues the passage from 
 Catullus — literally line for line. 
 
 " Young Bacchus, flush'd 
 
 With bloom of youth, came flying from above, 
 With choirs of Satyrs and Sileni born 
 In Indian Nyse. Seeking thee he came, 
 O Ariadne ! with thy love inflamed. 
 They blithe from every side came revelling on, 
 Distraught with jocund madness, with a burst 
 Of Bacchic outcries, and with tossing heads. 
 Some shook their ivy-shrouded spears, and some 
 From hand to hand, in wild and fitful feast, 
 Snatch'd a torn heifer's limbs; some girt themselves 
 With twisted serpents," &c. 
 
 This fine piece of dithyrambic poetry is one of Titian's most celebrated 
 pictures: it is really "full of the god." Those who wish to acquaint 
 themselves with all the excellencies of this great poet-painter have an 
 opportunity of doing so in this wonderful picture, which contains them 
 all in a small compass, and near enough to the eye to be studied care- 
 fully. " How much more poetical in the conception, more noble in the 
 characters, more ideal in the forms, does Titian appear in this picture, 
 painted in his thirty-seventh year, in the full vigour of his powers, than 
 in many of his later works ! The hurried step, the expression of surprise 
 with which Ariadne, hastening along the sea- shore, looks round at 
 
GG 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Bacchus, is extremely graceful and animated, and is an admirable con- 
 trast to the god, who, glowing in the bloom of youth, flings himself 
 towards her from his car, not with the action of a mortal, but that of a 
 god. Among the train of Bacchus, a Bacchante with a tambourine must 
 be remarked as singularly graceful ; and a little satyr, dragging after him 
 the head of the sacrificed calf, is exquisitely naive and joyous. The cool, 
 calm sea behind, the receding vessel of the perfidious Theseus (from 
 which Ariadne has just turned her tearful gaze),* the serene sky, the 
 blue mountains, the dark foliage of the trees, are all of infinite beauty. 
 The execution is throughout very correct; all the parts are carefully 
 rounded and softened olf. Ariadne is painted in the brightest, clearest 
 gold tone; Bacchus in a full sun-burnt tone." 
 
 The remarks of Charles Lamb on this picture are in so fine a spirit 
 that they deserve a place here. 
 
 " Is there," he says,. " anything in modern art — we will not demand 
 that it should be equal — but in any way analogous to what. Titian has 
 effected, in that wonderful bringing together of two times in ' the 
 Ariadne* in the National Gallery % Precipitous, with his reeling satyrs 
 around him, re-peopling and re-illuming suddenly the waste places, 
 drunk with a new fury beyond that of the grape, Bacchus, born in fire, 
 fire-like flings himself at the Cretan. This is time present. With this 
 telling of the story an artist, and no ordinary one, might remain richly 
 proud. Guido, in his harmonious version of it, saw no further. But 
 from the depths of the imaginative spirit, Titian has recalled past time, 
 and made it contributory with the present to one simultaneous effect. 
 With the desert all ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made 
 lucid with the presence and new offers of a god — as if unconscious of 
 Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning pageant, 
 her soul undistracted from Theseus, Ariadne is still pacing the solitary 
 shore, in as much heart- silence, and in almost the same local solitude, 
 with which she awoke at day-break to catch the forlorn last glances of 
 the sail that bore away the Athenian." 
 
 The next quotation is from Sir Joshua Reynolds, who refers to this pic- 
 ture as an exemplification of one of the laws of harmony in colouring : — 
 
 Never look back ! 
 
 You have a full wind and a false heart, Theseus I 
 Does not the story say his keel was split, 
 Or his masts spent, or some kind rock or other 
 Met with his vessel ? 
 
 Not as I remember. 
 It should have been so ; would the gods know this, 
 And not of all their number raise a storm ? 
 But they are all as ill !" — Maid's Tragedy. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 o7 
 
 " To Ariadne is given,''' says the critic, " a red scarf, to relieve the 
 figure from the sea, which is behind her." It is not for that reason alone, 
 but for another of much greater consequence : for the sake of the general 
 harmony and effect of the picture. The figure of Ariadne is separated 
 from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour 
 of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought 
 necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group ; which group 
 is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But 
 as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts — one 
 half cold, and the other warm — it was necessary to carry some of the 
 mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a 
 part of the cold into the great group ; accordingly, Titian gave Ariadne a 
 red scarf, and to one of the Bacchante a little blue drapery." 
 
 This picture came from the villa Aldobrandini, whence it was pur- 
 chased during the French invasion of Italy by Mr. Day. It was one of 
 a series of three pictures which Titian painted about the year 1514, for 
 Alphonso Duke of Ferrara. The two others — the Arrival of Bacchus in 
 the Island of Naxos, and a Sacrifice to the Goddess of Fertility — now 
 adorn the Museum of Madrid. It was brought to England by Mr. 
 Buchanan, from him purchased by Lord Kinnaird, who sold it to Mr. 
 Hamlet, the jeweller, from whom it was purchased by Parliament for the 
 nation in 1825. 
 
 C. 5 ft. 9 in. by 6 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved by Andrea Podesta, about 1636 (fine). 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 A Land -storm. 
 
 This is the celebrated Lansdowne Picture, well known from 
 the fine engraving which exists of it. The composition is 
 admirable. The powerful light in the distant horizon serves 
 to deepen the effect of the tempestuous gloom which envelops 
 all beside; except where a sudden gleam of light breaks 
 through the clouds, and falls on a building near the centre, 
 the watch-tower of a romantic castle, perched on a rock 
 — a stately image of stability, where all things else seem 
 bent, agitated, and yielding to the destructive power which 
 sweeps across the landscape. The same gleam of light 
 makes visible a shepherd who, with his sheep, is hurrying 
 down a declivity ; the wind, rushing through the trees, 
 
68 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 sways them to and fro ; one, broken asunder, lies pros- 
 trate ; and two shepherds, terrified by its sudden fall, have 
 sought shelter under a bank. The effects of the gale on the 
 foreground, bushes, and foliage, are delineated with con- 
 summate skill, and show a familiar acquaintance with all the 
 appearances of nature. 
 
 Purchased by Mr. Angerstein from the collection of the 
 first Marquess of Lansdowne. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 11 in. by 6 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Vivares. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 37. A Study of Heads. — (See the Companion, No. 7.) 
 RUBENS. 
 
 38. The Rape of the Sabines. — Composition of numerous 
 
 figures ; a finished study for a larger picture. 
 Romulus, in order to people his newly-founded city, pro- 
 claimed a festival in honour of the god Consus ; and the 
 inhabitants of the neighbouring states, particularly the Sa- 
 bines, flocked to the games. At a signal from Romulus, 
 the young Romans rushed in upon them, sword in hand, 
 and carried off the women, whom they forced to become their 
 wives. 
 
 " Ut fugiunt aquilas, timidissima turba columbae, 
 
 Utque fugit visos agna novella lupos ; 
 
 Sic ilia? timuere viros sine lege ruentes." 
 We have here, in a small compass, and in the most striking form, an 
 example of the prominent beauties and defects of the manner of Rubens. 
 There are cases (they will be more particularly pointed out hereafter) 
 where anach .onisms in time and scenery become positive beauties : in 
 the present case they are as misplaced as they are glaring ; they are 
 errors of taste, not sins of ignorance. Rubens was too deeply studied in 
 classical lore not to know perfectly well what was true in history and 
 appropriate to his subject, too accomplished and dexterous in his craft 
 not to have been able to execute one conception or another with equal 
 facility : but his eye and mind had become careless and impetuous when 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 69 
 
 he dashed off this scene in the heat of fancy, and gave us, instead of 
 Roman virgins fleeing " like timid doves from Roman warriors, coarse 
 women in the Flemish costumes of the seventeenth century, struggling 
 in the arms of bearded ruffians. On the other hand, we have all the 
 fervid life, the energy of movement and passion, the scenic power which 
 are so characteristic of the artist. The details of the painting are worthy 
 of the closest study; the background spirited, and full of aerial truth of 
 effect. It is in perfect preservation ; and the whole being executed by the 
 hand of Rubens is an example of the lightness and freedom of his pencil, 
 and of the transparency, harmony, and richness of his colouring. The 
 large picture by Rubens of the same subject, now in the Royal Gallery 
 at Madrid, and a fine sketch at Lord Ashburton's, are both esteemed 
 superior to this study. It was formerly in the possession of Madame 
 Boschaert of Antwerp, who, in 1766, refused for it the sum of 17,850 
 florins (1600/.), offered by the Chevalier Verhulst of Brussels. On her 
 death it was offered for 2200/., and after various transfers, became the 
 property of Mr. Angerstein. The estimated value is now about 3000/. 
 W. 5 ft. 7 in. by 7 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by Martenasie ; and small, by James Stewart. 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 39. The Nursing of Bacchus. 
 
 Bacchus is represented in infancy, nursed by the nymphs 
 and fauns of Eubcea. A satyr feeds him with the juice of 
 the grape ; and the attitude and expression of the Baby-God, 
 as he quaffs eagerly from the cup, appear to me perfect. 
 Poussin must have studied as carefully as Reynolds the habits 
 or looks of children before he could have painted such a head 
 as this. The whole picture is singularly classic and elegant 
 in conception, and exquisitely painted. It was bequeathed to 
 the nation by George James Cholmondeley, Esq., in the year 
 1831. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6± in. by 3 ft. 1 in. 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 10. A Landscape. * 
 
 The scene represents a fertile and richly wooded country, 
 
 * See No. 2. 
 
70 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 divided by two winding roads, one of which appears to lead 
 to a distant town, situated at the foot of a range of mountains ; 
 the other diverges among clusters of trees, of which the foliage 
 is painted with great richness. On the right a man is wash- 
 ing his feet in a stone fountain, and is supposed to represent 
 Phocion in an undyed robe — the emblem of the purity and 
 simplicity of his life. His arms are seen suspended to the 
 trunk of a tree in the back-ground. This was a favourite 
 picture of Sir George Beaumont, who presented it to the 
 nation. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 7 in. 
 
 Engraved by Baudet. 
 
 GIORGIONE. 
 
 . The Death of Peter the Martyr. 
 
 The brief history of Peter the Martyr is this : — he was gene- 
 ral of the Dominicans in 1252, a most powerful person in 
 the Holy Inquisition, and a violent persecutor for what he 
 deemed the true faith, which made him many inveterate 
 enemies. There was one family in particular, which he had 
 treated with excessive cruelty, and their relations, who were 
 in the army, were so enraged by Peter's barbarity, that they 
 resolved to revenge themselves on their oppressor with the 
 very first opportunity. Having been informed that he was to 
 make a visit to a distant province in pursuit of some wretched 
 . heretics, who had been denounced to the inquisition, they lay 
 in wait for him in a wood, through which they knew he must 
 pass, in company with one person, a friar of his convent ; 
 here they attacked him, cleft his skull with a sabre, and left 
 him dead on the spot.* 
 
 This ruthless persecutor was afterwards regarded as a 
 martyr, and canonised. 
 
 * His fate furnished the subject of one of the grandest pictures in the world — 
 Titian's Altar-piece in the Church of St. John and St. Paul at Venice. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 71 
 
 Giorgione, whose real name was Giorgio Barbarelli,* died, young in 
 1511. He was one of the most delicious painters of the Venetian school, 
 the immediate successor of Bellini, and the cotemporary of Titian, to 
 whom he was inferior in variety and versatility, but neither in sentiment 
 nor in power. His merits are inadequately represented in this picture, 
 which is ascribed to him, but hardly on sufficient grounds.f It formerly 
 belonged to Queen Christina, was purchased from the Orleans Gallery 
 for 200/., and bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 C. 3 ft. \\ in. by 4 ft. 9£ in. 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 42. A Bacchanalian Festival. 
 
 The central group is composed of a satyr and three fauns; 
 the former is kneeling, and tipsily quaffing the contents of a 
 bowl, which one of the latter, while dancing and waving his 
 vine branch on high, is replenishing from a vase. A second 
 is playing on the flute ; a third, overcome by the inebriating 
 juice, lies prostrate on the ground. A little retired is a table; 
 beyond it is seen a contest between a female centaur and a 
 faun mounted on an ass. Near this, but more to the right, 
 is a female satyr, whom a faun is supporting on the back of a 
 frolicsome goat. On the opposite side we have Silenus seated, 
 with his leg resting on the back of a leopard, and supported 
 on either side by Sylvan deities, one of whom holds a wreath 
 above his head. This last group is placed on the verge of a 
 grove, to the trees of which are appended loose draperies ; in 
 the distance, a wild rocky landscape adorned with clumps 
 of trees. 
 
 These, as Hazlitt observes, are certainly not "pious orgies ;" but they 
 are the most elegant and classical imaginable ; — 
 
 " 'Whence came ye, jolly satyrs ! whence came ye, 
 So many, and so many, and such glee ? 
 Why have ye left your forest-haunts, why left 
 Your nests in oak-tree cleft ?' 
 
 * The soubriquet Giorgione, literally Big George, was given to him on account 
 of his lofty stature and dignified deportment, 
 f Dr. Waagen. 
 
72 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 ' For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree, 
 For wine we left our heath and yellow brooms 
 
 And cold mushrooms, 
 For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth, 
 Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth ! 
 Come hither, lady fair ! and joined be 
 
 To our mad minstrelsy !' " 
 
 The taste in which Poussin conceived and executed this class of sub- 
 jects, which he was fond of repeating, is the finest possible. However 
 wildly exstatic the revelry of these sylvan divinities, it never offends. 
 Poussin has carefully avoided all approach to common life and its asso- 
 ciations. " The forms and characters of the figures introduced are 
 purely ideal, borrowed from the finest Greek sculptures, more particu- 
 larly from the antique vases and sarcophagi ; the costumes and quality 
 of the draperies are of an equally remote period ; the very hues and 
 swarthy complexions of these fabled beings, together with the instru- 
 ments of sacrifice and music — even the surrounding scenery — are altoge- 
 ther so unlike what any modern eye ever beheld, that in contemplating 
 them the mind is thrown back at once, and wholly, into the remotest 
 antiquity." — Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 This superlative picture is one of a series of three painted by Poussin 
 for the Due de Montmorenci (the other two are in the collection of Lord 
 Ashburnham). It was accounted one of the finest pictures in the An- 
 gerstein collection. The colouring has become a little too red, owing to 
 the ground on which it has been painted : but it must be borne in mind, 
 that in this class of subjects Poussin adopted, on principle, a certain dry- 
 ness of execution and peculiar tone of colour, which harmonised with 
 the antique taste in which they are conceived and executed. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 8 in. by 3 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by George Doo. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 Christ taken down from the Cross. — A study in 
 
 black and white. 
 Few pictures of Rembrandt prove his talent for the compo- 
 sition of the sublimest subjects of the Bible in so high a de- 
 gree as this little sketch. The expression of the Virgin faint- 
 ing at the sight of the dead Christ stretched on her knees, is 
 full of deep feeling. The idea of making the repentant thief 
 look down from his cross, full of gratitude and adoration, 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 7G 
 
 upon Christ, is likewise wholly original and affecting ; and 
 the portentous appearances which the artist has introduced 
 in the sky over the devoted city in the hack-ground, are sub- 
 limely conceived, and add greatly to the meaning and dignity 
 of the design ; we must renounce even the most modest pre- 
 tensions to nobleness of form or feature in this picture, as in 
 most of those of Rembrandt. 
 
 About 1720 this study was in the possession of a M. Barry, 
 at Amsterdam; it was afterwards in the collection of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who set a high value on it. After his 
 death it was purchased for 41 guineas by Sir George Beau- 
 mont, and by him presented to the National Gallery. 
 
 The finished picture of the same subject is said to be in 
 the gallery of Count Schonborn, at Vienna ; the original 
 drawing is in the British Museum. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 1 in. by 11 in. 
 
 Etched by Rembrandt. 
 
 GIULIO ROMANO. 
 
 44. Charity. 
 
 Three figures in a landscape, by some supposed to represent 
 Latona and her Children, which I consider most probable. 
 From the Villa Aldobrandini, and bequeathed by Mr. Hol- 
 well Carr. 
 
 The extraordinary and poetical genius of this painter can- 
 not be estimated by this little picture : he excelled in paint- 
 ings on a large scale, and especially in grand mythological 
 subjects : his small easel pictures are very rare. He was 
 Raphael's favourite pupil, and died 1546. 
 
 P. 10 in. by 13 in. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 45. The Woman taken in Adultery. 
 
 The hypocritical accuser of the woman is in the act of draw- 
 
71 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 ing aside her veil with unfeeling rudeness. The Saviour 
 seems to be uttering with grave compassion his divine rebuke, 
 "He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her." 
 
 " A picture prodigious in colouring, in light and shade, in penciling, 
 in solemn effect — but that is nearly all : ' of outward show, elaborate ; 
 of inward, less exact.' The Christ has considerable seriousness and 
 dignity of aspect. The marble pavement, of which the light is even 
 dazzling ; the figures of the two rabbis to the right, radiant with crim- 
 son, green, and azure ; the back-ground, which seems like some rich 
 oil-colour smeared over a golden ground, and where the eye staggers on 
 from one abyss of obscurity to another — place this picture in the first 
 rank of Rembrandt's wonderful performances. If this extraordinary 
 genius was the most literal and vulgar of draughtsmen, he was the most 
 ideal of colourists." — Hazlitt. 
 
 " Of all Rembrandt's cabinet pictures this perhaps holds the first place. 
 In general, we admire in the pictures of this master the magical effect of 
 the deep chiaro-scuro, the bold conception, and the admirable handling. 
 Here, however, it is not only the bright, full, gold tone, by which the 
 principal figures are relieved from the dark back-ground, that attracts us, 
 but the beauty and int eligibleness of the composition, the manifold and 
 just expression of the heads, the delicate execution combined with the 
 most solid impasto. How much more powerful is this expression of the 
 deepest compassion and sympathy in Christ, of bitter repentance in 
 the woman, in spite of the ordinary, nay, ugly countenances, than the 
 most beautiful forms taken from the antique, according to general prin- 
 ciples of beauty, such as we see in Mengs and so many highly-extolled 
 painters, who have acted upon a theory of beauty, but whose figures are 
 destitute of that life and soul which the genuine feeling of the artist, in 
 accordance with the spirit of his subject, can alone breathe into them!" 
 — Dr. JVaagen. Rembrandt has here made a remarkable use of his 
 skill as a colourist, to render the subject intelligible. The eye falls at 
 once upon the woman, who is dressed in white, passes then to the figure 
 of Christ (which, next to her, is the most strongly lighted), and so goes 
 on to Peter, to the Pharisees, to the soldiers, till at length it penetrates 
 through the transparent gloom into the interior of the temple, with its 
 high altar and worshippers, all teeming with a sort of fantastic mystical 
 splendour, half-veiled by a solemn obscurity. 
 
 Rembrandt Van Rhyn was the son of a miller of Leyden, and from 
 the dark interior of his father's mill, partially lighted from above, in 
 which he passed his infancy and boyhood, he is supposed to have caught 
 the first idea of those strong contrasts of light and shadow which he after- 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 7-3 
 
 wards carried to such perfection in his art. He was an original genius of 
 the highest order, became a painter in spite of all obstacles, imitated no 
 other master of his time, and was himself inimitable. Fuseli emphati- 
 cally styles him " a meteor in art." This picture of the Woman taken in 
 Adultery was painted by Rembrandt, in 1644, for Johan Six, Sieur de 
 Vromade, in Holland. It ultimately came into the possession of the 
 well-known Burgomaster Six, in whose family it was preserved with an 
 almost religious care in a cabinet of which the owner kept the key, until 
 the revolution, when it was bought by M. la Fontaine, a picture-dealer, 
 who, not finding a purchaser in Paris, brought it to London, and sold it 
 to Mr. Angerstein for 5000/. As it is a chef-d'oeuvre of the master, it would 
 now be difficult to estimate its value. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 9 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Etched by Burnet ; engraved by Fry. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 46. Peace and War. — An allegorical composition of four- 
 teen figures, life size. 
 The title by which this splendid picture was designated in 
 the old catalogue of King Charles the First's Pictures seems 
 more applicable to the subject ; it is there styled " a picture 
 of Peace and Plenty." The blessings of peace and plenty are 
 here represented in a coarse manner by a beautiful woman, 
 who is pressing the milk from her bosom into the mouth of an 
 infant, while a Satyr is shaking the fruits of the earth from 
 his cornucopia. Behind the principal female figure are two 
 nymphs, one of whom, bearing vessels of gold and silver, 
 represents wealth, and is of remarkable, almost Titianesque, 
 beauty. Wisdom and civilization, under the form of Minerva, 
 keep off War, who is seen approaching with famine and dis- 
 cord in his train. An angry turbulent sky forms the back- 
 ground of this part of the picture. 
 
 The principal figures and the children are among the 
 finest things which Rubens ever painted. In the beauty of the 
 heads ; in the feeling of nature ; in the careful execution ; the 
 
 e 2 
 
70 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 fulness and clearness of the bright golden tone of the flesh, he 
 has never surpassed what is before us here.* 
 
 The history of this picture is exceedingly interesting. When Rubens 
 was sent over to England in 1629, as accredited ambassador, for the 
 purpose of negotiating a peace with Spain, he was well received by 
 Charles L, a passionate lover of art, and easily captivated by men of 
 cultivated minds and refined manners. The negotiation, however, which 
 was managed on the King's part by the Lord Chancellor Cottingham, 
 proceeded slowly; and during the two years passed in England, Rubens 
 found time to paint several valuable pictures. f He began by painting 
 this Allegory of Peace and War, which he presented to the King as a pal- 
 pable and intelligible recommendation of the pacific measures he was 
 come to propose. After the death of Charles, his fine collection was sold 
 by order of the Parliament ; and in the catalogue this picture is marked 
 as valued and sold at 100/. It was carried to Italy ; and on a reference to 
 Buchanan's Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures into 
 England, it appears that, in 1802, this celebrated picture was in the col- 
 lection of one of the Doria family, and not included in the Balbi Gallery, 
 as is erroneously supposed. It is described in a letter from Irvine, 
 Buchanan's agent, as containing " almost everything in which Rubens 
 excelled — women, children, a man in armour, a satyr, a tiger (i. e. a 
 leopard), fruit, and furies : it is well known in Genoa by the name of 
 the Family of Rubens (/a famiglia del Reubens), and has always been a 
 well-known and celebrated picture. It is in the collection of George 
 Doria," &c. The picture was purchased of the Doria family for 1100/. ; 
 and on its arrival in England its real subject and history were ascer- 
 tained by a reference to the catalogue of King Charles's pictures, where it 
 is called " An Emblem of Peace and War, which Sir P. P. Rubens, 
 when he was here in England, did paint, and presented it himself to the 
 King, containing some nine figures ;" and in another part of the same 
 catalogue it is entitled " A Picture of Peace and Plenty, with many 
 figures as big as life, by Rubens." It was first offered to Government, 
 but declined by Mr. Pitt. Subsequently, it was purchased by the Mar- 
 quess of Stafford for 3000/., and by him presented to the National Gallery. 
 
 * It is said that Rubens has represented himself under the semblance of Mars, 
 his first wife under that of Peace, and that his seven children figure as the acces- 
 sories; but when Rubens painted this picture, in 1629, he was a widower: his first 
 wife, Elizabeth or Isabel Brant, died in 1626, leaving two boys; and he married 
 Helena Forman in 1630. 
 
 ■j- The largest works executed by Rubens in England were this Allegory, the 
 famous family picture of the Earl of Arundel, now at Munich, and the St. George 
 in the Queen's Gallery. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 77 
 
 Considering the circumstances connected with it, it could be nowhere 
 more fitly placed. 
 
 C. 6 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by Heath. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 47. The Adoration of the Shepherds. 
 
 This beautiful production is painted with the most luxuriant 
 freedom of touch, and, as an illustration of a totally different 
 manner of execution coming from the hand of the same 
 master, should be compared with No. 45. 
 
 The light proceeds from the child, and the whole has a 
 most magical and warm effect, which is rendered particularly 
 striking by the dark figure of a shepherd kneeling in the 
 foreground, directly against the brightest light. Compared 
 with the divine light, that in the lantern of one of the shep- 
 herd's is hardly perceptible. The arrangement of the eleven 
 figures which form this composition displays the greatest 
 skill in the artist. The main stress is here laid on the de- 
 sign and the effect ; the handling is therefore broad and 
 sketchy, and the countenances not individually made out. 
 
 Painted by Rembrandt, in the year 1646: it was in the 
 collection of Madame Bandeville in 1186, in that of M. de 
 Tolozan in 1801, whence it was purchased by Mr. Anger- 
 stein for 400/. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 1 in. by 1 ft. 10 in. 
 
 Engraved by S. Bernard (about 1650), and by Burnet. 
 DOMINICHINO. 
 
 48. Tobias and the Angel. — In a Landscape. 
 
 This charming little picture is the more interesting when we 
 regard it as the production of a painter who, in his grand 
 historical compositions and frescos, was ranked next to 
 Raphael. 
 
7S 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 It came from the Colonna Palace, and was bequeathed by 
 Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 Cop. 1 ft. 5i in. by 1 ft. 1£ in. 
 
 VAN DYCK. 
 
 49. The Portraits of Three Persons. — Half-length. 
 This group evidently represents a real incident. An artist 
 or a connoisseur in art is discoursing, somewhat authorita- 
 tively, on a particular point, which is to be illustrated by the 
 little statue which a man behind is holding in his arms. 
 
 The principal figure has been called a portrait of Rubens, 
 but this is more than doubtful ; it bears no resemblance to 
 him at any age ; while it is so like the known heads of Luke 
 Vostermann, that I think it may possibly represent that 
 celebrated engraver. 
 
 This picture was once in the possession of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds ; at the sale of his pictures it was purchased by 
 Mr. Angerstein, for 140 guineas ; and it is said that Edmund 
 Burke congratulated the purchaser on obtaining what he 
 called " Sir Joshua's favourite picture;" but it does not rank 
 as one of Van Dyck's best productions. 
 
 3 ft. 9 in. by 3 ft. 9 in. 
 Engraved by J. H. Robinson. 
 
 VAN DYCK. 
 
 50. St. Ambrosius refusing to admit the Emperor 
 
 Theodosius into the Church at Milan. 
 In the year 390 the Emperor Theodosius (in revenge for 
 the death of Botheric, who had been murdered in a sedi- 
 tion) ordered the indiscriminate massacre of the inhabit- 
 ants of Thessalonica. For this act of barbarity, Ambrose, 
 Archbishop of Milan, excommunicated him. Theodosius 
 proceeded notwithstanding to perform his accustomed devo- 
 tions in the cathedral, and was stopped in the porch by 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 79 
 
 Ambrose, who, in the tone and language of one delegated by 
 Heaven, commanded him to withdraw, until he had done 
 public penance for his crime. — {See Gibbon, vol. v.) 
 
 This is a small free copy of a magnificent picture, life size, 
 painted by Rubens, and now in the Imperial Gallery at 
 Vienna. Van Dyck has made some important alterations 
 from the original ; has improved the drawing and expres- 
 sion in many parts, and has introduced the portrait of his 
 master Rubens in the head of the Emperor Theodosius. 
 This picture was formerly in possession of the Earls of Scar- 
 borough ; but on the death of the fifth earl, in 1807, it was 
 purchased from among his effects by Mr. Elwyn, who sold 
 it to Mr. Angerstein for 1600Z. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 10 in. by 3 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by Robinson. 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 51. Portrait of a Jew Merchant. — Life size, three- 
 
 quarters. 
 
 It represents a man somewhat advanced in years, and of an 
 austere countenance, resting with both his hands on a stick. 
 The attitude is very simple and unstudied, the head Ml of 
 nature, and the whole picture presents an admirable example 
 of that broad masterly style of painting, of those glowing full 
 tones in the flesh, which, contrasted with masses of shadow, 
 produce an effect so surprising. 
 
 Presented to the nation by Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 It will illustrate the versatility of Rembrandt's powers of execution to 
 compare this picture with No. 45. Few could suppose them to have been 
 painted by the same hand. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 4 in. 
 
 Engraved by Burnet. 
 VAN DYCK. 
 
 52. A Portrait, called Gevartius : 
 
 Being, in fact, the portrait of Cornelius Vander Geest, a 
 
go 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 celebrated amateur in art, and an intimate friend of Van 
 Dyck and Rubens : the same person for whom Rubens 
 painted his grand picture of the Battle of the Amazons now 
 at Munich. 
 
 Authentic engravings" executed during the lifetime of Van Dyck from 
 portraits of Gevartius and Vander Geest are easily met with : and on a 
 comparison of these with the picture before us, there can remain no shadow 
 of doubt that it does not represent Gevartius, and that it does represent 
 Vander Geest, and that it ought to be known for the future by its proper 
 designation. 
 
 In point of execution this picture is justly regarded as 
 one of the finest portraits in the world. The painting of 
 the flesh, the light firm touch, the definite marking of each 
 feature are the wonder and despair of modern portrait 
 painters ; above all, the swimming moisture of the eyes is 
 quite illusive. 
 
 It was brought to England by Mr. Bryan, and sold by 
 him in 1798 to Mr. Angerstein, for 35*7/. 
 P. 2 ft. 7 in, by 2 ft. 2 in. 
 Engraved finely by G. Doo. 
 
 ALBERT CUYP. 
 
 53 # A Landscape Evening. 
 
 A hilly landscape, intersected by a winding river in front. 
 On the right a huntsman, on a dappled-grey horse, is in con- 
 versation with a woman, who stands by his side ; he is 
 pointing with his whip towards three sportsmen, who are 
 seen in the middle distance, watering their steeds at a river : 
 two cows, lying down, a flock of sheep, and three dogs, are 
 distributed over the foreground, which is diversified by docks 
 and other wild plants : the effect is that of a summer's even- 
 ing. This picture was in the collection of Sir Laurence 
 Dundas, from which it passed, in 1194, into that of Mr. 
 Angerstein. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 81 
 
 Here we have another reading of landscape — if the expression may be 
 thus applied — wholly differing from those already considered. Cuyp 
 did not so much love nature, or idealise nature, or imitate nature ; he 
 rather held, as it were, the mirror up to nature. Some of his scenes, par- 
 ticularly those in which cattle, water, and shipping are introduced, are 
 like the reflection of such scenes in a lucid mirror. The pictures of this 
 master, like those of so many of the great Dutch landscape-painters, are 
 the most splendid proof that the charm of a work of art lies far more in a 
 profound and pure feeling of nature, in the knowledge and masterly use 
 of the means of representation which art supplies, than in the subject. 
 
 " In grandeur of design and knowledge of aerial perspective, combined 
 with the greatest glow and warmth of the misty or serene atmosphere, Cuyp 
 stands unrivalled, and takes the same place for Dutch scenery as Claude 
 Lorraine for the Italian, so that he might justly be called the Dutch 
 Claude. In the manner of the impasto, in the breadth and freedom of 
 his execution, he has, on the other hand, much resemblance to Rem- 
 brandt.'" — Dr. Waagen. 
 
 C. 4 ft. i in. by 6 ft. 6 in. 
 
 Engraved by Goodall. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 54. A Woman washing. 
 
 Those who have been in Holland and on the Rhine must 
 often have seen the peasant-girls when washing their linen, 
 trampling upon it, precisely in the manner here depicted. 
 I conceive that such was the figure and occupation here re- 
 presented; and not a woman bathing, as it is designated in 
 most catalogues. 
 
 Mr. Landseer, in some just remarks on this picture, observes pithily 
 " that a critic must not allow it to be inferred that nothing can with pro- 
 priety be said, because everything cannot be said with propriety." The 
 fact is, that it is an unpleasing subject. Before this little picture I have 
 seen some persons laugh as at something ludicrously vulgar ; others toss 
 their heads, and turn aside with a sort of decorous disdain ; others pass it 
 over without notice, as merely trivial ; and others, but they were few, 
 stand before it for minutes together, lost in astonishment and admiration ; 
 for, coarse as is the subject, it is, as a painting, a very miracle of art. In 
 the perfect illusion of the chiaro scuro, the blending of the lights, demi- 
 tintSj and deep, yet transparent, shadows, the wonderful mechanical 
 
 E 3 
 
*2 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY, 
 
 power — Waagen compares it to a Correggio. The treatment, too, of the 
 subject is so exceedingly characteristic of the man and the painter, that 
 it is like a bit of his life. Suppose Rubens had painted such a figure, it 
 would have been such a flesh and blood reality that it would have merely 
 shocked our sense of decency. If Titian had painted it, he would not 
 only have given it the warm flesh and blood, but a sort of voluptuous 
 sentiment, a sort of Musidora look, which would have been rather worse 
 than better. Rembrandt has done neither : he has given us what he, no 
 doubt, saw before him, perhaps from his window, and, snatching up his 
 pencil and palette, he threw the figure on the canvas as he would have 
 caught it in a mirror, and fixed it there as by a spell. It is the most 
 artful thing ever done in painting, and the most unsophisticated. Those 
 who do not comprehend how all this may be, must for the present be 
 content to believe that Rembrandt has here accomplished, apparently in 
 a few moments, and by a few magical strokes of his pencil, what the 
 most skilful artists of our day emulate in vain ; but then it was the result 
 of a life of study, though the happy achievement of a moment : what 
 Coleridge would call " a single projection of mind.*' 
 
 It was painted by Rembrandt in 1644, when in the prime of his life 
 and j)owers : it was formerly in the possession of Lord Gwydir, and at the 
 sale of his pictures was purchased by Mr. Holwell Carr, who bequeathed 
 it to the National Gallery. 
 
 P. 2 ft. by 1 ft. 6i in. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 A Landscape. 
 
 A little picture of singular beauty, in which the figures 
 represent the death of Procris. She is extended at the foot 
 of a tree, pierced by the fatal arrow, her lover bending over 
 her. — {Liber Veritatis, No. 100.) 
 
 Presented by Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 3 in. by 1 ft. 7 in. 
 
 Engraved by Brown. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 A Landscape, with figures. 
 
 The scene lies on an Italian river : some persons, apparently 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 83 
 
 a party of pleasure, are preparing to enter a boat, in which 
 a man is seated holding a guitar. 
 
 Annibal Carracci painted landscape with great ability, and 
 his style influenced that of Claude and the Poussins. The 
 numerous admirably drawn figures give a very peculiar 
 charm to his landscapes. 
 
 This picture was in the collection of Prince Cellamare at 
 Naples, whence it was obtained by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 1± in. by 4 ft. 4± in. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 57. St. Bavon, distributing alms. — A finished study. 
 
 This picture exhibits a composition of great extent and 
 variety. In the foreground is a large group, consisting of 
 women, children, cripples, and mendicants. Their attention 
 is directed to a man, probably intended for St. Bavon or his 
 almoner, who stands before them commiserating their neces- 
 sities. Behind him, and on the left of the picture, we see an 
 armed soldier on a grey horse, and other figures ; on the op- 
 posite side stand several females, who appear interested in the 
 scene. The second distance is occupied by a noble building, 
 with a flight of steps to its entrance, before which stands 
 St. Amand, habited in pontifical robes, waiting to receive 
 St. Bavon, who is seen mounting the steps, followed by his 
 attendants. These are merely the outlines of the grouping 
 of this capital production. 
 
 This picture (supposed to have been painted when Rubens was at 
 Genoa in 1608) is an interesting proof of the impression which Italian 
 art and Italian beauty had at that time made on his mind, though it 
 never had the power to supersede entirely his Flemish tastes and associa- 
 tions. The composition has all his own richness and animation : but the 
 characters of the heads are more refined, more noble, and more diversi- 
 fied than usual; the tone of the colouring is warm, but rather less trans- 
 parent than in his other works. 
 
 A large picture of the same subject, as a composition far in'erior to 
 this study, is in the cathedral of St. Bavon, at Ghent. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 This picture was purchased from the Carrega Palace at Genoa, about 
 the year 1805, by Mr. Holwell Carr, and by him bequeathed to the 
 nation. 
 
 P. 3 ft. 5± in. by 5 ft. 5£ in. 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 A Landscape. 
 
 This little picture was doubtless painted from nature, and 
 represents a group of trees, through the openings of which 
 are perceived the upper portion of a distant blue hill and 
 parts of a rivulet, which breaks in one place into a small 
 cascade. In the foreground is a goat-herd ; a well-drawn 
 figure, represented in a back view, who, seated on the 
 ground, is playing upon his pipe ; his goats are seen feed- 
 ing, or descending the bank which leads to the channel of 
 the brook ; a few light floating clouds add to the beauty of 
 the blue sky, and on the right is introduced a view of a 
 distant country. 
 
 It was formerly in the possession of Lord Londonderry, 
 and was presented to the nation by Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 8i in. by 1 ft. 4 in. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 The Brazen Serpent. 
 
 " And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the 
 people; and much people of Israel died. 
 
 " Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for 
 we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee ; pray unto the Lord, 
 that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the 
 people. 
 
 " And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it 
 upon a pole ; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, 
 when he looketh upon it, shall live. 
 
 " And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it 
 came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the 
 serpent of brass, he lived." — Numbers, ch. xxi. 6-9. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 85 
 
 This splendid picture is an example of what has been called 
 the dramatic talent of Rubens. Nothing can exceed the 
 life-like reality with which the scene is brought before our 
 eyes. In subjects which admitted the expression of power 
 and strongly excited passions, and where he consequently 
 would give scope to all the inspirations of his genius, there 
 we recognise Rubens in all his glory. He was the greatest 
 of all modern painters when he had to deal with subjects 
 depending on the momentary expression of powerfully ex- 
 cited passion, as in this grand picture. It was brought 
 from the Marana Palace at Genoa, whence it was purchased 
 by Mr. Wilson, and brought to England in 1807; sold by 
 him to William Champion, Esq., for 1260/., and subse- 
 quently in the possession of T. B. H. Owen, Esq., from 
 whom it was purchased by government, in 1837. 
 
 A duplicate of this picture exists in the Royal Gallery at 
 Madrid. 
 
 C. 6 ft. 2 in. by 8 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by S. Bolswert; and by Masson in two sheets (fine). 
 LEANDRO BASSANO. 
 
 60. The building of the Tower of Babel. 
 
 A crowded and not pleasing picture, coloured with great 
 force, otherwise without merit. 
 
 The Da Ponte family, who flourished between 1530 
 and 1630, took the name of Bassano, from a small town in 
 the Venetian states, where they resided. The father, old 
 Giacopo Bassano, and his four sons, were all painters by pro- 
 fession, and in the same style, which was chiefly distin- 
 guished by a certain vulgarity in conception, combined with 
 most glowing and captivating colour. 
 
 This picture was one of those bequeathed by Colonel Harvey 
 Ollney. 
 
 i ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 2 in. 
 
so 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 61. A Landscape. 
 
 The figures are said to represent Hagar and her son in the 
 desert; but the scene around, rich with foliage and winding 
 waters, is not at all compatible with our ideas of an Arabian 
 wilderness. It may probably be intended for Tobias and the 
 Angel. {Liber Veritatis, 106.) 
 
 This lovely little picture was purchased by Sir George 
 Beaumont from Mr. Duane's collection, and by him so 
 valued, that we are told it was his travelling companion. 
 He presented it to the National Gallery, but, unable to bear 
 its loss, he asked leave to retain it during his life, and took 
 it with him into the country, where he died soon afterwards; 
 it was then returned to its place in the Gallery by his 
 widow, Lady Beaumont. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 5 in. 
 
 Engraved by Pye. 
 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 62. A Dance of Bacchanals in honour of Pan. 
 
 " What men or Gods are these ? what maidens loth? 
 What mad pursuit? what struggle to escape? 
 What pipes and timbrels? what wild ecstasy?" 
 
 Keats. 
 
 The principal group consists of two nymphs and two fauns 
 (emblematical of the seasons), dancing in a round ; one of 
 the former is holding a bunch of grapes, and two young 
 Bacchanals are struggling with each other to catch it; a 
 third, oppressed with sleep and wine, is stretched on the 
 ground : on the opposite side is a statue of Pan adorned with 
 flowers, in front of which a satyr is attempting to embrace 
 a nymph ; one of her companions has seized him by the 
 horn, and is about to give him a blow with a golden vase. 
 A leafy grove forms the background on this side, and on 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 q 7 
 
 the left there is a view over a wild rocky landscape; the 
 whole lighted up with the glow of a summer evening. 
 
 In point of classical and poetical spirit this is esteemed one of the finest 
 productions of " the learned Poussin," as he is justly styled. He painted 
 this class of subjects as Milton describes them ; and I never look at one of 
 his bacchanalian revels without thinking of Comus. As an example of 
 the very different manner in which two great painters could conceive a 
 similar subject, let these orgies be contrasted with the Bacchus and 
 Ariadne of Titian, No. 35. 
 
 The picture now before us is celebrated; and has passed through the 
 hands of many possessors, always bearing a high price. In 1777 it was 
 sold from the collection of M. Randon de Boissey for about 600/. In 
 1781 it was in that of the Comte de Yaudreuil, and sold again for 604/. 
 to M. de Calonne, then Ministre des Finances. A year afterwards 
 Calonne was dismissed, disgraced, and sought refuge in England, whither 
 he transported all his fine collection of pictures. During the revolution 
 he mortgaged the whole in order to succour the French princes, and not 
 being able to redeem the mortgage, this picture was sold, in 1795, for 
 870/. In 1803 it was in the possession of Mr. Richard Walker, and was 
 again sold to Lord Kinnaird for 840/. In 1813 it was bought by Mr. 
 Hamlet, the jeweller, and by him sold to Government in 1826. 
 
 It has suffered in colour from the brown ground on which Poussin too 
 often painted, and it is a little dry in the execution. With these excep- 
 tions, the picture might almost be pronounced faultless in its kiud. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 3 in. by 4 ft. 8 in. 
 
 Engraved by Huart : by De Paray : by S. S. Smith. 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 A Landscape, with Horses and Figures. 
 The figures represent Prince Giustiniani and his suite re- 
 turning from the chase. 
 
 This fine picture was brought from the Giustiniani palace 
 at Rome, where it had remained from the time of the painter. 
 It was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 3 ft. 5 in. by 4 ft. 5 in. 
 
 SEBASTIAN BOURDON. 
 
 A Landscape.— The return of the Ark from its 
 
 captivity among the Philistines. 
 The incident represented by the figures in this picture is 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 detailed in the 6th chapter of the 1st Book of Samuel. Our 
 present observations will be chiefly confined to the landscape. 
 In the distance, on the right, is a city, finely situated on a 
 broad river, whose depth and clearness are shown by the re- 
 flections of the buildings upon its surface. This city is 
 entirely built of white stone or marble, and the edifices com- 
 posing it have that appearance of strength and simplicity 
 which are characteristic of very ancient times. Beyond it, 
 in the extreme distance, are ridges of lofty mountains. In 
 the middle-ground in the centre of the picture and on the 
 left, are immense rocks ; and below are various buildings, 
 picturesque in their forms, and apparently constructed of 
 wood, from the foot of which a rapid stream rushes through 
 sluices, breaking in its descent into a cascade. On the left, 
 in the foreground, is a stone bridge, over which the ark has 
 just passed drawn by two heifers and attended by a party of 
 the Philistines. 
 
 In the Book of Samuel it is written: — "And they of 
 Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, 
 and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to 
 see it ; and the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth- 
 shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone." 
 This was a rock which had the particular denomination of 
 the " Stone of Abel," and it forms a lofty and conspicuous 
 feature in Bourdon's picture. — (Landseer.J 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom this picture once belonged, has 
 pointed it out as a striking instance of the poetical and historical style 
 in landscape. " The ark," he says, " in the hands of a second-rate 
 master would have little more effect than a common waggon on the high- 
 way ; but here the subject is so poetically treated throughout, and all the 
 parts have such a correspondence with each other, the whole and every 
 part of the scene is so visionary, that it is impossible to look at them 
 without feeling in some measure the enthusiasm which seems to have 
 inspired the painter." 
 
 Sir Joshua left this picture by will to his friend Sir George 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 so 
 
 Beaumont, who presented it to the nation. The colouring 
 has become extremely black. 
 
 Sebastian Bourdon was born at Montpelier, and studied at Rome, 
 where he was the cotemporary of Claude Lorraine. He was for some 
 time in the service of Christina of Sweden : she had not then the 
 slightest pretensions to connoisseurship, and in a fit of munificence pre- 
 sented to Bourdon those pictures which her father, Gustavus Adolphus, 
 had captured at Prague. Bourdon, with a noble spirit, pointed out to 
 the Queen the exceeding value of what she was thus carelessly bestowing, 
 and declined the royal gift. He was a man of genius as well as gene- 
 rosity ; but his conceptions verged on extravagance and mannerism. 
 His chef d'oeuvre is in the Church of Notre Dame at Paris. He died in 
 1671. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 5 in. 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 Cephalus and Aurora. 
 
 Cephalus was a Thessalean prince, whose love of hunting 
 carried him away at early dawn from the arms of his beauti- 
 ful wife Procris. Hence the allegorical fable of the loves of 
 Cephalus and Aurora, and her attempts to rival Procris in 
 the affections of her husband. In this charming picture, 
 Cephalus is represented as half yielding to the blandishments 
 of Aurora, while a little cupid or genius holds up before him 
 the portrait of his wife, recalling all her charms to his fancy. 
 The expression in the head of Cephalus, and the delicate an- 
 tique grace of the figure of the goddess, are very beautiful. 
 The car of Aurora, to which is harnessed a white- winged 
 Pegasus, stands behind ; a little beyond the group is a river 
 god still sleeping on his urn ; and further still a Naiad is 
 perceived just awakening, while in the brightening horizon 
 the form of Phcebus is just apparent — all indicating the early 
 hour of the morning. The whole is a fine bit of classical 
 poetry, though not considered as a first-rate picture of the 
 master either in conception or colour. 
 
 It was purchased at the sale of J. Knight, Esq. for 690 
 
00 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 guineas by G. H. Cholmondeley, Esq., and by him, in 1831, 
 bequeathed to the nation with two other pictures. 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 3 in. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 66. A Landscape ; supposed to represent the Cha- 
 teau de Stein near Malines, from which 
 Rubens took his title of Sieur de Stein. 
 We have here a view over an immense tract of country, 
 varied with gentle hills finely wooded and intersected on the 
 left by hedges and deep ravines, enclosing arable and pasture 
 lands, in which cattle are grazing; on the right at some dis- 
 tance from the front, stands a noble country mansion (the 
 residence of the artist) flanked by a tower, partly hid by 
 a row of trees, under the shadow of which is seen the lord of 
 the domain in company with two ladies, one of whom is 
 seated on a bank with a child between her knees. The 
 mansion, from its retired situation and the low tone of its 
 colouring, might for some time escape notice, were it not for 
 the solar rays, which the artist has represented here and 
 there sparkling upon its windows. The entrance to this 
 mansion is by a bridge, traversing a moat, whereon a man 
 is represented amusing himself with fishing : in front of the 
 house are some lofty trees, standing on a knoll, at the side of 
 which is a stream rippling over stones to the foreground ; 
 through which a waggon, drawn by two horses, is passing : 
 still nearer the front is a sportsman with his dog and gun, 
 creeping towards a covey of birds. This part of the picture 
 is composed of bold broken ground, divided by chasms and 
 beautifully diversified with bushes, brambles, wild plants, 
 and the stump of an old tree : the variations of sun and shade 
 play alternately over the wide expanse of country, conducting 
 the eye by the most agreeable transitions to the extreme dis- 
 tance, where a city (probably Malines) and several hamlets 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 91 
 
 are indicated by the appearance of steeples and towers of 
 churches. Of the skill displayed by Rubens in many of the 
 other details of this extraordinary performance, especially 
 those in the distance, it is perhaps not possible by words to 
 convey any just idea. We cannot, however, omit to notice 
 a passage on the right of the picture, where he has repre- 
 sented a long row of pollards in bold perspective, shooting 
 far into the flat landscape, and in one part traversing a piece 
 of marshy ground, with a truth of effect bordering on illu- 
 sion. — Ottley. 
 
 This inimitable landscape, which represents a morning scene after a 
 shower, is one of those works which display the master-hand of Rubens. 
 Everything that art could accomplish by single trees, by shadows of 
 clouds, to produce the effect of variety upon an extensive surface of level 
 and fertile land, is done here; while the rich foreground and foliage, 
 which seem to tremble and glisten with dewy light, are painted in with 
 the most exquisite truth and vigour. 
 
 " Seldom as he practised it, Rubens was never greater than in land- 
 scape. The tumble of his rocks and trees, the deep shadows in his 
 glades and glooms, the watery sunshine and the dewy verdure, show a 
 variety of genius which are not to be found in the inimitable but uniform 
 productions of Claude." — Horace Walpole. 
 
 u The English eye, judging only from the atmosphere to which it is 
 accustomed, will consider the landscapes of Rubens and Claude scarcely 
 within nature. Rubens painted in Flanders, where the sun permeating 
 dense yellow clouds, has the force of fire in its rays, and the sky is murky 
 and grey. He has only represented his own horizon. Claude, with his 
 silvery mists and fixed azure skies, is no less true to nature, in the south 
 of Italy. But both these effects are unusual with us, and we have con- 
 cluded accordingly." — Price on the Picturesque. 
 
 " Rubens delighted in giving us the scenery of his native country in 
 all its peculiar aspects : wide plains in which meadows and fields, with 
 woods and solitary trees, relieve each other; the whole enlivened by 
 various kinds of animals, and country people at work. To him belonged 
 a peculiar power of throwing all the magic of poetry and variety over the 
 monotonous character of such scenes chiefly through the admirable man- 
 ner in which he arranged the lights. No one knew better how to produce 
 the full effect of contrasted light and shade. Parts of his pictures are 
 resplendent with the broad golden rays of the sun breaking through 
 
92 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 the clouds, while in other parts the shadows repose in dark masses of 
 gloom." — Dr. Waagen. 
 
 This picture was bought from the Balbi Palace at Genoa 
 by Mr. Irvine for the picture- dealer Buchanan, and pur- 
 chased by Lady Beaumont for 1500/. as a present to her 
 husband, Sir George Beaumont, on his birthday, and with 
 the rest of his collection presented to the nation. 
 
 W. 4 ft. 5 in. by 7 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by George Cooke. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 67. The Holy Family; with St. George, Saints, 
 
 and Angels. 
 This picture is a sort of allegorical representation of the 
 painter himself, as St. George, his two wives as the Virgin 
 and a female saint, (I presume St. Margaret, but some sup- 
 pose it to be the princess rescued from the dragon,) and his 
 children as Christ, St. John, and the angels ; all finely painted, 
 more particularly the landscape, which is of exquisite beauty. 
 
 This picture is supposed to be the same which is mentioned in the cata- 
 logue of those pictures by Rubens, which he kept in his own possession, 
 and which were sold after his death. It was first intended as a Riposo, 
 and contained merely the Virgin and Child, the angels with the lamb, and 
 St. Joseph asleep in the back-ground. Of the picture in this state there 
 exists a large spirited woodcut by Jeghers, executed probably under the 
 direction of Rubens, who afterwards added the other figures. It was 
 brought from Flanders during the war and purchased by Mr. Angerstein. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 1 in. by 5 ft. 4 in. 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 68. A Landscape, representing a view near Albano. 
 
 A shepherd is leading his flock down a romantic path over- 
 shadowed with ever-green oaks. 
 
 No other painter has represented the scenery around Rome, the pictu- 
 resque desolation of the Campagna and the mountain recesses of Tivoli, 
 Larici, and Albano, in all their rich green luxury of foliage, with such a 
 fine feeling as Gaspar Poussin. — See No. 2. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 93 
 
 This picture and its companion, No. 98, came from the 
 Corsini Palace, where they had probably remained from the 
 time they were painted : they were sold in Mr. Ottley's col- 
 lection (1801) for 240/. each, and were bequeathed by Mr. 
 Holwell Carr. 
 
 1 ft. 7 in. by 2 ft. 2 in. 
 
 PIETRO FRANCESCO MOLA. 
 
 69. St. John Preaching A composition of Six Figures. 
 
 The precursor of the Redeemer is in the act of saying, 
 " behold one cometh after me whose shoe-latchet I am not 
 worthy to unloose." The Saviour is seen in the distance. 
 
 Mola was born near Como in the Milanese. He sought to combine 
 the two most opposite styles of Albano and Guercino, and blend with 
 them the Venitian principles of colour ; the result has been a mixed style, 
 uniting great depth of tone with graceful feeling and picturesque effect. 
 But if Mola possessed considerable talent in history, he was a genius 
 in landscape. His landscapes exhibit in the most various combina- 
 tions, and with the most vigorous touch, the sublime scenery in the 
 midst of which he was born. His predilection for landscape was such, 
 that in his historical pictures it may often be doubted which is the more 
 important — the actors, or the scene in which they are placed ; an obser- 
 vation which applies to the picture before us. 
 
 " There is hardly any painter whose pictures more immediately catch 
 the eye of a connoisseur than those of Mola, or that less attract the 
 notice of a person unused to painting. Salvator has a savage grandeur, 
 often in the highest degree sublime, and sublimity in any shape will 
 command attention. But Mola's scenes and figures, for the most part, 
 are neither sublime nor beautiful, they are purely picturesque : his touch 
 is less rough than Salvator's ; his colouring has in general more richness 
 and variety ; and his pictures seem to me the most perfect examples of 
 the higher style of picturesqueness, infinitely removed from vulgar nature, 
 but having neither the softness and delicacy of beauty, nor that grandeur 
 of conception which produces the sublime."' — Price. 
 
 Mola takes a high rank among the later painters of the Roman school. 
 He was much employed by Pope Innocent X. ; and died at Rome in 
 1665. 
 
91 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 This picture, which was formerly in the collection of M. 
 Robit, was bequeathed by Colonel Harvey Ollney. 
 C. 4 ft. a in. by 4 ft. 
 
 FRANCESCO PADOYANINO. 
 
 70. Cornelia and her Children A composition of Four 
 
 Figures. Half-length, life size. 
 Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was visited by an 
 Ionian lady, who after exhibiting to her rather ostentatiously 
 her rich jewels, desired that Cornelia would display hers in 
 return. The Roman matron evaded the request till the re- 
 turn of her two sons from the public school, and then point- 
 ing to them she said, " These are my jewels, and the only 
 ornaments I wear!" 
 
 This is a picture of no great merit, though designed in 
 rather a large and grand style. 
 
 Little is known of the painter, not even the school in which 
 he studied; he died in 1617. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 8 in. by 4 ft. 
 
 JAN BOTH. 
 
 71. An Italian Landscape, with Figures. 
 
 This fine picture represents a road winding among rocks 
 and broken ground upon the borders of a lake. In that part 
 of it which is nearest to the eye of the spectator are seen a 
 peasant driving before him his loaded horse, a woman riding 
 on an ass, and a muleteer with his two loaded mules ; and in 
 a more distant part of the road to the right is another man 
 seated on an ass. A mountain torrent issuing from a cleft 
 between two large rocks forms a fine foreground on this side; 
 the rocks and a tree which grows from them rising far above 
 the level of the eye. Upon an eminence, in the middle 
 ground towards the left is seen a small village ; and beyond 
 the lake the horizon is bounded by distant mountains. The 
 
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 95 
 
 effect is that of a glowing Italian atmosphere, but more sober 
 in the tone than is usual with this painter. 
 
 This picture affords the student in art an opportunity of studying a 
 style of landscape painting, quite original, and differing altogether from 
 those already adverted to. Both, though classed with the Dutch land- 
 scape-painters (he was born at Utrecht in 1610), studied and painted in 
 Italy. His landscapes almost always represent the scenery of Italy, 
 selected either from the solitary recesses of the Appenines, the romantic 
 vicinity of theCampagna and Tivoli, or the luxuriant wilds of Calabria. 
 There is a peculiarity in his colouring which sometimes degenerated into 
 mannerism and exaggeration, that of suffusing his scenery with a pervad- 
 ing tint of tawney red. The picture before us is, in this respect, less 
 mannered than usual, though sufficiently warm and glowing to express a 
 sultry Italian morning. Another fault or peculiarity in Both is that he 
 painted too much with a very small pencil ; there is a want of breadth in 
 his execution, something rather minute and finical in his details, very 
 unlike the broad, free, feathery touch of Claude or Hobbema. He is also 
 apt to crowd his pictures with a variety of objects and particulars. One 
 or two of Both's pictures in a collection have a charming effect ; but we 
 might have too many of them, which could hardly be said of Gaspar 
 Poussin or Cuyp — the ever fresh, and ever new. It is a curious and 
 interesting fact that the two brothers, Jan and Andreas Both, were during 
 their lives so tenderly united that it has been difficult for biographers to 
 distinguish them either in their works or individually. It seems at 
 length agreed, on the testimony of Houbraken, that Jan Both was the 
 landscape-painter pa?" excellence, and that Andreas succeeded best in 
 grotesque and rural figures. We are told that one of the brothers fell 
 into a canal at Venice in 1650, and perished, and that the other never 
 wholly recovered this grief. But even here the identity seems uncertain. 
 The survivor is supposed to have been Andreas, who frequently painted 
 the figures in his brother's landscapes. 
 
 This picture was purchased and presented to the nation 
 by Sir George Beaumont. 
 C. 3 ft. 9 in. by 5 ft 3 in. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 A Landscape, in which the Figures represent 
 Tobias and the Angel. 
 
 The angel is leading the young Tobias over a rugged 
 causeway, through a stream ; beyond them is seen a traveller 
 reposing : the effect is that of approaching twilight. 
 
96 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 The landscapes of Rembrandt are among the rarest of his works, and 
 are remarkable for the manner in which he has applied his favourite and 
 original principles of chiaro-scuro. Here an evening sky, clear, cool, and 
 transparent, is contrasted with the solemn shadow of the foreground, and 
 the dark clumps of trees, which, however, have become so black that 
 they appear almost a shapeless mass against the sky. The execution is 
 very broad and free. 
 
 This picture was formerly in the collection of John Bar- 
 nard, Esq., more lately in that of Mr. ; Emmerson ; from whom 
 it passed into the possession of Mr. Holwell Carr, who be- 
 queathed it to the nation. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 10 in. 
 
 Engraved by M'Ardell. 
 
 ERCOLE GRANDI DA FERRARA. 
 
 73. The Conversion of St. Paul. 
 
 A composition of numerous figures, designed without taste, 
 and so faulty in expression that there seems a doubt whether 
 it may not be intended for Sennacherib and his host over- 
 thrown. It is curious, however, as an early work of art of a 
 particular school. 
 
 Of this rare painter, Yasarisays that he painted solely for the advance- 
 ment of axt—depingeva sola per avanzare Varte, — caring little for either 
 fame or profit : greater praise could not be bestowed on any artist worthy 
 the name : yet, while looking on this picture, with its confused and 
 crowded arrangement, tasteless mixture of gilding and colour, and 
 general poverty of style, it is difficult to believe that the painter was a 
 cotemporary of Raphael. At that time the grand views of art which had 
 been opened in the schools of Florence and Rome had not penetrated to 
 Ferrara, and we find Ercole Grandi labouring assiduously in the man- 
 ner he had been taught by his master, Lorenzo Costa, but unable to 
 achieve anything in a great style. He died in 1531, eleven years after 
 Raphael. This seems to be one of his earliest works, as it does not justify 
 the praise of Lanzi. It came from the Aldobrandini Palace, and was 
 bequeathed by Mr. Carr. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 MURILLO. 
 
 74. A Spanish Peasant Boy — Half-length. 
 Formerly in the collection of the late Marquess of Lans- 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 97 
 
 downe, and presented to the nation by M. M. Zachary, 
 Esq. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 10 in. by 1 ft. 4 in. 
 Engraved by W. Humphries. 
 
 DOMENICHINO. 
 
 75. A Landscape, with the story of St. George and 
 
 the Dragon. 
 A picture which pleases, from the beautiful management of 
 the light and shade, the clearness and brightness of the tone of 
 colour, and the finished execution. The distance is charming. 
 The horse on which St. George is mounted is however poorly 
 conceived, and the dragon too small to represent the monster 
 who alarmed a whole district, and devoured two victims a day. 
 The story, however, is here merely accessory to the land- 
 scape. 
 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 C. 1 ft. 8± in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 CORREGGIO. 
 
 76. Christ on the Mount of Olives. 
 
 Correggio has chosen for the scene of his representation a 
 sequestered spot much overshadowed by trees; and it ap- 
 pears by the faint cool light of the sky behind the distant 
 hills that he desired to describe a point of time not long pre- 
 ceding the first dawn of morning. On an elevated part of 
 the foreground, on the left of the spectator, the kneeling 
 figure of Christ appears, attended by a ministering angel. 
 Both are illumined by a supernatural splendor, which seems 
 as if reflected reciprocally, from one figure upon the other ; 
 for the painter designed to represent Christ as glorified in his 
 sufferings. The figure of the Saviour is in the highest de- 
 gree elevated and pathetic in its attitude and expression, full 
 of resignation and sorrow — " Not my will, but thine be 
 
 F 
 
9S 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 done"— whilst that of the comforting spirit is beautifully ex- 
 pressive of compassion and veneration. In the middle dis- 
 tance the three attendant apostles are indistinctly seen, over- 
 come by sleep ; and still further off may be perceived the 
 Jewish mob, approaching to seize Jesus. — Ottley. 
 
 This picture is an instance of the mistakes sometimes made by the best 
 judges in pronouncing on the authenticity of a picture : both West and 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence pronounced it the original, and relying on Iheir 
 judgment Mr. Angerstein gave 2000/. for it. The original picture by 
 Correggio, of which this is a fine and ancient copy (or perhaps duplicate), 
 is in the possession of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 2 in. by 1 ft. 4 in. 
 
 Engraved by Volpato; by Antonelli; by Moitte. 
 DOMENICHINO. 
 
 The Stoning of St. Stephen. 
 
 A small composition of nine figures. Probably a finished 
 study for an altar-piece. 
 
 This picture has been criticised for the defective composition, which is 
 meagre and scattered, without any point of concentration ; but the head 
 of St. Stephen is noble, the colouring fine, and the general effect harmo- 
 nious. 
 
 It came from the collection of Lucien Bonaparte (sold in 
 1815), and was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 P. 2 ft. 1 in. by 1 ft. 7 in. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 The Holy Family. 
 
 This picture is pleasing as a scene of domestic life, but utterly defi- 
 cient in the elevated historic feeling which ought to belong to the sacred- 
 ness of the subject ; call it an aged peasant and his family, and it may 
 pass. The execution is loose and careless ; the colouring, though warm 
 and rich, has become much impaired in parts, and the harmony quite 
 spoiled. It is in a bad condition : nor could it ever rank, in any respect, 
 as one of Sir Joshua's best pictures. 
 
 The attitude and figure of the little St. John have been borrowed from 
 the Cupid in Correggio's picture (No. 10), but the exquisite significance 
 and grace of that delicious conception are here misplaced. 
 
 Charles Lamb is exceedingly severe upon this picture, and not unjustly 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 99 
 
 so. " Here," he says, " for a Madonna Sir Joshua has substituted a 
 sleepy, insensible, unmotherly girl — one so little worthy to have been 
 selected as the mother of the Saviour, that she seems to have neither heart 
 nor feeling to entitle her to become a mother at all. But indeed the race 
 of Virgin Mary painters seems to have been cut up root and branch at 
 the Reformation. Our artists are too good Protestants to give life to that 
 admirable commixture of maternal tenderness with reverential awe and 
 wonder, approaching to worship, with which the Virgin Mothers of L. da 
 Vinci and Raphael (themselves by their divine countenances inviting 
 men to worship) contemplate the union of the two natures in the person 
 of their heaven-born infant." 
 
 This picture was originally painted for the Illustrated 
 Edition of Macklin's Bible. It was purchased at the sale of 
 the collection of Lord Gwydir by the Governors of the British 
 Institution, who presented it to the nation. Macklin, it ap- 
 pears, paid Sir Joshua 500/. for it, and sold it to Lord Gwydir 
 for 700/. 
 
 C. 6 ft. 5 in. by 5 ft. 9i in. 
 
 Engraved by W. Sharp, 1792. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 79. The Graces sacrificing to Hymen. 
 
 The three beautiful daughters of Sir William Montgomery 
 are preparing to decorate a terminus of Hymen with wreaths 
 of flowers. The standing figure near the altar represents the 
 youngest daughter, afterwards Marchioness Townshend (se- 
 cond wife of George Marquess Townshend, who was viceroy 
 of Ireland, and about fifty when he married her). The 
 Honourable Mrs. Gardner, the mother of the late Earl of 
 Blessington, occupies the centre of the picture. She was 
 the eldest sister, and died before her husband became Lord 
 Mountjoy. The kneeling figure on the left is the portrait of 
 the second sister, Mrs. Beresford, married to a brother of the 
 late Marquess of Waterford. 
 
 The composition of this picture is rather fantastic than poetical. It is 
 difficult to know what to say of three young ladies, who personate the 
 
 F 2 
 
100 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Graces in silk gowns and high head-dresses, and are sacrificing to Hymen 
 in a wood. The picture is, however, beautifully painted, and full of 
 that ladylike grace and sentiment which Sir Joshua gave to his female 
 portraits.* 
 
 It was executed about the year 1773, and remained in the 
 Blessington family till the death of the late Earl of Bless- 
 ington, who bequeathed it to the nation. There is a duplicate 
 somewhere, for it appears Sir Joshua painted two. See his 
 Life by Northcote. 
 
 C. 7 ft. 8 in. by 9 ft. 6 in. 
 
 Engraved by Watson. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 80. The Market Cart. 
 
 Gainsborough's treatment of landscape is altogether original. He was 
 the first English painter who was a painter of English landscape, with all 
 its peculiar characteristics : he was also the first great name in a style of 
 art in which the English school now takes the lead. Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, in a lecture delivered immediately after his death, declared that 
 " if ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the 
 honourable distinction of an English school, the name of Gainsborough 
 will be transmitted to posterity in the history of the art among the very 
 first of that rising name. " If with the name of Gainsborough we join 
 those of Hogarth, Wilson, and Reynolds, all as yet unrivalled in their 
 particular departments, we had surely a very fair foundation for the 
 " English School,"' of Avhich Sir Joshua speaks with such modest and 
 even doubtful anticipation. This landscape is not a first-rate picture of 
 the master : but it is very pleasing in itself, and a fair specimen of his 
 
 * " The Miss Montgomerys, to whose rare beauty the pencil of Sir Joshua has 
 given immortality, were among those whom my worthy preceptor most boasted 
 of as pupils ; and I remember his description of them long haunted my boyish 
 imagination as though they were not earthly-born women, but some spiritual 
 ' creatures of the element.' " — (Moore's Memoirs of Himself, recently published.) 
 The lessons of the worthy preceptor, thus illustrated, were certainly not likely to 
 be thrown away. Pope complains to Jervas that poetry and painting could preserve 
 so little :— 
 
 Alas, how little from the grave we claim ! 
 
 Thou but preserv'st a face, and la. name. 
 Yet to be thus embalmed to future times is something, surely. By the way, this 
 charming picture, with its mixture of the classic and the modern, poetry and 
 fashion, flounces and flowers, is not unlike Moore's poetry, take it altogether. 
 
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 101 
 
 maimer, which is spirited and effective, but in that loose, slight, sketchy, 
 and sometimes spotty style of touch and execution with which later 
 painters have made us familiar in a far greater degree, but which was then 
 a novelty, which Reynolds in his panegyric on Gainsborough thinks it 
 necessary to explain and account for. (See his 14th Discourse.) 
 
 Gainsborough loved his art for its own high sake with fervent enthu- 
 siasm. His last words, when a rival painter stood by his bedside, were 
 very characteristic of the painter and the man : — " We are all going to 
 heaven, and Vandyck is of the company!" He died in 1788. 
 
 This picture was purchased by the Governors of the British 
 Institution, and presented by them to the nation. 
 C. 6 ft. by 5 ft. 
 Engraved by Goodall. 
 
 BENVENUTO GAROFALO. 
 
 The Vision of St. Augustin. 
 
 St. Augustin was born at Tagaste, a little town on the coast 
 of Africa, in 354, and died in 430. He tells us that when 
 employed in writing his treatise on the Trinity he was visited 
 by a dream or vision. He fancied himself seated on the 
 margin of the sea, and observed a little child to bring water 
 with a ladle from the sea, which he emptied into a hole in the 
 sand. The saint, surprised by this singular action, demanded 
 the reason of it, to which the boy replied that he was empty- 
 ing the ocean into that hole. "Impossible!" exclaimed 
 Augustin. " If you think this impossible," rejoined the 
 child, " how much more so is it for you to explain that which 
 God has chosen to wrap in mystery ?" The child then dis- 
 appeared in a glory, and the saint recognised in him the infant 
 Saviour. Such is the subject of this picture, which is ren- 
 dered still more poetical by the introduction of the Virgin and 
 Child, with a choir of angels in the clouds above, and the 
 noble figure of St. Catherine, who is seen behind the saint, 
 earnestly gazing at the miraculous child. 
 
 Benvenuto Tisio (styled Garofalo, from his choosing the flower so 
 called, the clove-pink, as his sign or device) studied under Raphael, and 
 
102 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 is considered one of his best scholars ; but his mode of colouring is much 
 brighter and more forcible than that of the Roman school. He became 
 the head of an academy at Ferrara, into which he introduced a higher 
 style than had been known there before his time. (See No. 73.) He 
 died there in 1559. 
 
 This picture was brought from the Corsini Palace. At 
 the sale of Mr. Ottley's pictures, in 1801, it was purchased 
 by Lord Radstock for 1000/.; it was next in the collection 
 of Lord Kinnaird, and bequeathed to the nation by Mr. Hol- 
 well Carr, its last possessor. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 MAZZOLINO DA FERRARA. 
 
 82. The Holy Family. 
 
 It represents a visit paid by Elizabeth and St. John to the 
 Holy Virgin and her Son. St. Joseph stands near, and the 
 figure in the habit of St. Francis is probably a monk of the 
 convent for which the picture was painted. This figure is 
 the best in the group. 
 
 Like No. 73, this little picture is one of the curiosities of reviving art. 
 Of Mazzolino da Ferrara, who lived about 1 500, Lanzi says he did not 
 paint large pictures well, but excelled his cotemporaries in painting small 
 subjects, which he finished very carefully. He was fond of introducing 
 bas-reliefs and architecture into his compositions. 
 
 From the Durazzo Palace at Genoa, and bequeathed by 
 Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 9 in. by 1 ft. 3± in. 
 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 83. Phineus and his Followers turned to Stone at 
 
 sight of the Gorgon's Head. 
 
 A composition of numerous figures ; the subject taken from 
 the fourth and fifth books of Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
 
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 103 
 
 Perseus having rescued Andromeda from a sea monster, 
 claimed her for his bride, according to a promise from her 
 father Cepheus, who gave a magnificent feast to celebrate the 
 nuptials. In the midst of their rejoicing Phineus, to whom 
 Andromeda had been betrothed, broke in upon the assembly 
 at the head of his armed friends, and a combat ensuing, and 
 Perseus being hard pressed by the intruders, first warned his 
 friends, and then producing the head of Medusa on his shield, 
 the adverse warriors who confronted it were immediately 
 turned to stone. 
 
 The scene of conflict is a spacious hall. The nuptial ban- 
 quet is overturned, and the splendid gold seats, tripods, vases, 
 and other ornaments of the feast are strewed promiscuously 
 on the floor. Perseus, clad in a dark-blue vesture and scarlet 
 mantle, having on a richly-embossed gold helmet, stands 
 near a pillar on the left, holding forward the petrific head 
 before the eyes of his enemies, many of whom have already 
 felt its power, and lie prostrate in the front. Nileus, the 
 boaster, is seen bearing aloft his golden shield, and is just 
 turned to stone. All the figures are in scrupulous accord- 
 ance with the description of Ovid. Pallas, the protector of 
 Perseus, appears above, armed with her lance and shield ; the 
 affrighted bride, Andromeda, with her father Cepheus and 
 his friends, are seen through a lofty door-way at the end of 
 the hall. 
 
 This picture is in some respects a good study for the incipient 
 amateur. The first impression conveyed to the eye and to the mind 
 of the spectator is beyond expression strange and disagreeable. The 
 manner in which the raw local colours, the reds, the whites, and the 
 blues, are scattered up and down upon the canvas, without any atten- 
 tion to harmony of arrangement or concentration of effect, and the con- 
 fusion of figures and attitudes in the composition, make one start, like 
 the crash produced by striking at once all the strings of a musical instru- 
 ment, or like a sudden shriek in one's ear. Nor is this the result of mere 
 chance : the picture seems to have been painted on the principle which 
 
104 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 in poetry is called " imitative harmony," — that is, when the sound is an 
 echo to the sense,* and Poussin has contrived that the tumultuous and 
 startling effect of his picture should be an " echo" to the subject, which 
 is all confusion, discord, hurry, horror, and perplexity. 
 
 " In consequence of the forbidding appearance of this picture," says 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, " I remember turning from it with disgust, and 
 should not have looked a second time if I had not been called back to a 
 closer inspection. I then indeed found, what we may expect always to 
 find in the works of Poussin — correct drawing, forcible expression, and 
 just character : in short, all the excellencies which so much distinguish 
 the works of this learned painter. This conduct of Poussin I hold to be 
 entirely improper to imitate. A picture should please at first sight, and 
 appear to invite the spectator's attention : if, on the contrary, the general 
 effect offends the eye, a second view is not always sought, whatever more 
 substantial and intrinsic merit it may possess." — Discourse vii. 
 
 When in the possession of Lord Gwydir this picture was 
 valued at 900 guineas. At the sale of his pictures in 1829 
 it was bought for 100 guineas, and re-sold to the Hon. George 
 Vernon, at whose sale, in 1831, it was sold again for only 70 
 guineas. It was next in possession of George Stanley, Esq., 
 and presented to the nation by its last possessor, Lieut. Gene- 
 ral William Thornton. 
 
 C. 5 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft. 
 
 SALVATOR ROSA. 
 
 . A Landscape, with the fable of Mercury and 
 the Woodman. 
 A fine bold group of overshadowing trees to the right, with 
 ragged, mossy stems ; beneath them a piece of water, in which 
 Mercury stands ; to the left a rocky and mountainous back- 
 
 * Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, 
 
 And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; 
 But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
 The hoarse rough noise should like the torrent roar : 
 When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw. 
 The line too labours and the words move slow, &c. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 105 
 
 ground ; and in the middle ground is seen a river, with a 
 group of figures on the bank. 
 
 Nothing can be finer, grander in its way, than this picture ; it has 
 every appearance of being painted immediately from nature, but it is 
 nature rendered with the feeling of a poet. 
 
 " There in close covert by some brook 
 Where no profane eye may look 
 Hide we from day's garish eye '." 
 
 Caspar Poussin and Salvator both convey strongly the impression of 
 solitude ; but the solitudes of Gaspar are the haunt of the lover, and those 
 of Salvator the refuge of the penitent and the bandit. 
 
 From the Colonna palace at Rome. At the sale of Mr. 
 Ottley's pictures in 1801 it was purchased by Sir Mark 
 Sykes for 1550/. j it then became the property of Mr. Byng, 
 from whom the Government bought it in 1824. 
 
 C. 4 ft. li in. by 6 ft. 7£ in. 
 
 DOMENICHINO. 
 
 85. St. Jerome.— (See No. 33.) 
 
 St. Jerome, during his long penance and solitude in the de- 
 serts of Syria, wrote many theological works. In this pic- 
 ture an angel is represented as instructing him and solving 
 his doubts. The visions and penances of this saint are fa- 
 vorite subjects with the old painters. He is here much less 
 emaciated than is usual. 
 
 This picture came from the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome, 
 in 1800, and was bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 31 in. 
 
 LUDOVICO CARRACCI. 
 
 86. The Entombment of Christ. 
 
 A composition of seven figures lighted artificially. The 
 cabinet pictures of Ludovico Carracci are sometimes of ex- 
 quisite beauty, and bear a high value. This, however, is 
 not one of his best. The painting is beautiful ; but there is 
 
 f 3 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 a want of elevation in the expression of the heads, and of 
 solemnity in the general treatment. 
 
 Sold in the Ottley collection for 280/. Bequeathed to the 
 nation by Colonel Harvey Ollney. 
 
 Cop. 1 ft 5 in. by 1 ft, 1 in. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 87. Andromeda. 
 
 Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, was 
 doomed to be exposed to a sea monster, because her mother 
 Cassiope had boasted herself fairer than the Nereides. She 
 was chained to a rock on the sea-shore, where Perseus beheld 
 her as he traversed the air on his return from the conquest of 
 the Gorgons. 
 
 " Chained to a rock she stood, young Perseus stayed 
 His rapid flight to view. the beauteous maid; 
 So sweet her frame, so exquisitely fine, 
 She seemed a statue by a hand divine, 
 Had not the wind her waving tresses showed, 
 And down her cheek the melting sorrows flowed." — Ovid. 
 
 In the distance Perseus is seen approaching on the winged 
 horse Bellerophon, and the sea monster on to the left opens 
 wide its devouring jaws. 
 
 Guido has repeated this subject several times, and always with such 
 variations of attitude and treatment as mark the man of invention and 
 genius. One of the finest is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 Guido painted in three different maimers : his first manner was strong 
 and dark, like that of Carravaggio, who was the fashion at that time 
 (about 1600) ; his second manner was warm and harmonious ; his third 
 maimer was exceedingly delicate, tender, and pearly — verging sometimes 
 on coldness and insipidity. This picture is a specimen of his second and 
 best manner : the painting of the figure of Andromeda is warm and life- 
 like, yet refined and delicate in the tone. The companion picture (No. 
 90) is an instance of his third maimer, and it looks rather faded and cold 
 in comparison. 
 
 Both pictures were presented to the nation by King Wil- 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 107 
 
 Ham IV. In the time of George II. they were at Kensing- 
 ton Palace ; and since then at Windsor. 
 C. 9 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 9 in. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 88. Erminia and the Shepherd. 
 
 The subject is from the seventh canto of Tasso's Jerusalem 
 Delivered. Erminia, disguised in the arms of Clorinda, at- 
 tempts to make her way to the tents of Tancred. She is 
 mistaken for Clorinda, pursued by the Christians, and after 
 a flight of three days finds herself in a rural retreat, where she 
 is received and entertained by a family of shepherds. 
 
 She is seen on the right, clothed in a dark-blue cuirass, 
 and over it a white mantle. Her tresses, which she has just 
 uncovered, float in the air ; her figure has great simplicity 
 of attitude, and the head is extremely beautiful. The picture 
 is highly studied in every part, and conceived in a very pure 
 and elevated style. 
 
 The children on the left are divinely painted. Nothing 
 can exceed their expression of genuine infantine surprise as 
 Erminia throws off her glittering helmet, and displays her 
 gentle eyes and golden hair. The landscape back-ground is 
 rich and beautiful. 
 
 This picture was brought from Rome in 1805, and pur- 
 chased by Mr. Angerstein. It was then erroneously attri- 
 buted to Domenichino. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 10 in. by 7 ft. 
 
 Attributed to VELASQUEZ. 
 
 89. Portraits.— Half-length. 
 
 The two figures have been supposed to represent Ferdinand 
 de Medicis, second Duke of Tuscany, and Vittoria della Ro- 
 vera, heiress of Urbino, his wife. But the authenticity of 
 
108 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 the picture is doubtful, both as regards the painter and the 
 subject. It was in the Angerstein collection.* 
 C. 4 ft. 8 in. by 4 ft. 2 in. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 90. Venus attired by the Graces. 
 A composition of six figures, life-size. 
 
 This beautiful picture is in Guido's late manner — a little too blueish 
 and cold in the tone of colour. There is a duplicate of the composition 
 in Lord Yarborough's collection, painted in the forcible dark manner 
 which was Guido's style at an earlier period. 
 
 Formerly in the collection of King Charles I., and pre- 
 sented to the nation by King William IV. in 1836. See No. 
 67. 
 
 C. 9 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 9 in. 
 Finely engraved by Strange. 
 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 9 1 . A sleeping Nymph, Cupid, and Satyrs. 
 
 Probably the fable of Jupiter and Antiope. It was in the 
 collection of M. de Calonne, and was sold in 1816 from the 
 gallery of the late Henry Hope, Esq., for 145 guineas. 
 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 2 ft. 2 in. 1 ft 8 in. 
 
 ALESSANDRO VERONESE. 
 
 92. Cupid and Psyche. 
 
 Psyche, having opened the casket of Beauty which Pro- 
 serpine had given her to convey to Venus, is thrown into 
 an infernal sleep or lethargy, from which she is relieved 
 
 * According to a MS memorandum in the handwriting of Mr. Angerstein this 
 picture was presented by the court of Spain to Louis XIV., and formerly hung in 
 the palace of Versailles, whence it was removed during the tyranny of Robespierre. 
 He supposed the picture to represent Philip of Spain and his queen Marianna of 
 Austria, but it bears no resemblance to either. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 109 
 
 by Cupid who at the same time rebukes and comforts her. 
 The figure of Charon is seen behind. The subject is elegantly 
 designed, and painted with great sweetness. 
 
 Alessandro Turchio, called Veronese, from the place of 
 his birth, and L'Orbetto, from having been, when a boy, 
 leader to a blind beggar, was one of the latest painters of the 
 Venetian school, and not very distinguished. He painted in 
 a sort of mixed style, and is generally rather heavy in colour 
 and feeble in expression. His best works are at Verona. 
 
 On black marble. (Slate?) 12£ in. by 17. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCL 
 
 93. Silenus gathering Grapes. 
 
 The composition is at once picturesque and uniform, fanciful 
 and masterly. It is divided into three compartments by the 
 ascending stems of young trees, round which the grape-vine 
 climbs gracefully so as to overcanopy the upper part of the 
 picture. In the central compartment two attendant fauns 
 are raising the old Silenus upon the hide of a leopard, to en- 
 able him to reach the clusters of grapes pendant above his 
 head. The compartments on either side are occupied by a 
 Cupid, or winged Genius, fluttering and clinging among the 
 festoons of the vines. 
 
 This most beautiful little picture, which in its peculiarly classical feel- 
 ing recalls the spirit of the Greek gems and the epigrams of Simonides, 
 is painted in distemper.* There is no glare like that caused by oil-colours, 
 and the luminous effect playing about the foliage is here produced by a 
 ground of gold glazed over with ochre, the gold peering through. No 
 effect of chiaroscuro has been attempted, which adds to the fresco-like, 
 antique air of the picture. It is supposed, with the next picture, to 
 have decorated a harpsichord. 
 
 From the Lancellotti Palace at Rome, whence it was 
 brought about the year 1804. It was bequeathed by Mr. 
 Holwell Carr. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 9^ in. by 2 ft. 11 in. 
 
 * Or what the Italians call a colla, in which the colours, instead of being moist 
 ened with oil, are mixed with the white of an egg, or other glutinous liquid. 
 
110 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 94. Pan (or Silenus ?) teaching Apollo to play on 
 the Reed Pipe. 
 
 The preceptor, seated on the ground, with his elbows on his 
 knees, turns his rolling eye on his pupil " with a jolly, leer- 
 ing, pampered look of approbation, half inclining to the 
 brute, half conscious of the god." But it is the Apollo that 
 constitutes the charm of the picture, and which is indeed di- 
 vine. The whole figure is full of simple careless grace, 
 laughing in youth and beauty. He holds the Pan's pipe in 
 both hands, looking up with timid wonder, " pleased at the 
 sounds himself hath made." 
 
 It appears that this exquisite design is the companion of the last- 
 named picture (No. 93), and decorated the same harpsichord.* The 
 material used is the same, but the execution is more finished, and the 
 bit of ideal landscape in the back -ground adds to the classical charm of 
 the composition. Lanzi speaks of it with rapture, as rivalling the antique 
 designs of Herculaneum. 
 
 According to some old tradition, the figure of Pan is supposed to be 
 the portrait of a music-master, with whom Annibal Carracci was on terms 
 of intimacy. The resemblance is certainly not complimentary. It ap- 
 pears to me that there is some ground for the surmise of Landseer, that 
 the figures represent Silenus giving a music-lesson to the youthful 
 Bacchus. 
 
 This picture, with the former, was procured by a picture- 
 dealer from the Lancellotti Palace at Rome : on its arrival 
 
 * " Most, perhaps all, of what we should now term the easel pictures of the 
 older masters have been detached from articles of ecclesiastical or civil furniture ; 
 and indeed before the 16th century it may be doubted whether any cabinet pic- 
 tures — that is to say, moveable pictures, intended merely to hang upon the wall, 
 and be looked at as gays, without any objective application — ever existed. It 
 was the use of pictures which gave strength and nutrition to art. Painting was 
 not a mere applique, but an essential element." — Quart. Rev., No. 132. 
 
 In the time of the Carracci easel pictures were not uncommon, though the cus- 
 tom of decorating rooms, houses, and choice pieces of furniture with fine paint- 
 ing remained in full force. Bedsteads were then favourite articles of luxury, and 
 often exquisitely adorned with groups and friezes by Albano and Polidoro I 
 find in the catalogue of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the following entry : — 
 ** Item : seven large Italian trunks, on which are painted several histories of the 
 Old and New Testament." I remember also to have seen a fine Village Fete of 
 Teniers which had been cut from the top of a harpsichord. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 in England it was purchased by Mr. Walsh Porter, and, on 
 the sale of his pictures, by Mr. Angersteiu. 
 
 There is a fine engraving of it of a large size by D. Cunego. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 2 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 95. A classical Landscape, with the Story of Dido 
 
 and iEneas ; the figures by Albano. 
 
 The subject is from the 4th book of Virgil. 
 
 A storm rages ; the hunstmen and attendants are seen 
 hurrying past in the middle-ground ; within the cavern, in- 
 distinctly seen, are the figures of iEneas and the Carthage 
 queen : in front a Cupid holds the horse of ^Eneas, two others 
 are fluttering above : high in the clouds Venus and Love 
 are seen triumphing. 
 
 The composition is exceedingly poetical, grand, and 
 spirited ; but the colouring has become unfortunately black 
 and dingy, owing to the dark ground on which it was painted. 
 
 This picture was obtained from the Falconieri Palace at 
 Rome in 1804, and purchased by Mr. Holw^ll Carr, who 
 bequeathed it to the nation. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 10 by 7 ft. 4. 
 
 LUDOVICO CARRACCI. 
 
 96. The Ecce Homo. 
 
 A copy from the Correggio (No. 15), whether by the 
 hand of Ludovico Carracci is doubtful, though, on the whole, 
 probable ; it is well known that he almost worshipped Cor- 
 reggio, and frequently copied him. When this picture was 
 purchased there was no likelihood that the original would 
 ever find its way to England. 
 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
112 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 PAUL VERONESE. 
 
 97. The Rape of Europa. 
 
 A small finished study for the great picture of the same 
 subject now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. 
 
 Europa, assisted by two of her maidens, and all unconscious 
 of deceit, is in the act of seating herself on the snow-white 
 bull, who kneels to receive her and licks her sandalled foot. 
 The whole composition is eminently rich and beautiful. 
 
 This was formerly in the collection of Queen Christina of 
 Sweden, whence it passed into the Orleans Gallery ; and, in 
 1798, was sold to Mr. Willett for 200 guineas. 
 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 
 1 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 98. A Landscape. 
 
 A view of Larici, or La Riccia, about fifteen miles from 
 Rome. 
 
 This ancient town is said to have been founded by Hippo- 
 lytus, the son of Theseus, and called after the nymph Aricia, 
 whom he married after he had been restored to life by 
 Esculapius: he was accustomed to hunt in these forests, 
 which were also the resort of Numa's nymph Egeria. Here 
 Horace slept on the first night of his journey to Brundu- 
 sium. The whole scene is rich in classical associations, and 
 the painting wonderfully beautiful. 
 
 " Here are thick woods where sylvan forms abide, 
 And mossy tracks made by the goat and deer 
 Pierce into glades and caverns, bowers and halls, 
 Built round with ivy." 
 
 From the Corsini Palace. In 1801 it was sold from Mr. 
 Ottley's collection for 240 guineas. 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Holwell Carr. 
 1 ft. 7 in. by 2 ft. 2 in. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 113 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE. 
 
 99. The Blind Fiddler — a Composition of 12 Figures. 
 
 An itinerant fiddler has arrived at a cottage, and is amusing 
 its inmates with his violin ; his uplifted foot shows that he 
 is beating time ; his wife sits near him nursing her infant : 
 on the other side are the cottager's family, among whom the 
 father snapping his fingers at the little baby, the child 
 who gazes with riveted attention on the old musician, for- 
 getful of her toy, and the mischievous urchin who is 
 mimicking the gesture of the fiddler with a pair of bellows, 
 are remarkable for felicitous conception and truth of expres- 
 sion. The whole picture is very dramatic, and treated in 
 the manner of the Dutch masters. It has something of the 
 silver tone and precision of touch so admired in Teniers. It 
 is one of Wilkie's earliest and finest pictures, and was painted 
 in 1806 expressly for Sir George Beaumont, who presented 
 it to the nation. 
 
 1 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. 
 Engraved by Burnett. 
 
 COPLEY. 
 
 100. The Death of Lord Chatham — a Composition of 
 
 55 Figures, all Portraits. 
 The memorable scene represented in this picture took place 
 in the House of Lords on the 7th of April, 1778. The 
 great Earl of Chatham, who had all along deprecated the 
 American war, and urged, with all his powers of argument 
 and his sublime gift of eloquence, reconcilement with the 
 alienated colonies and the granting of their just claims, 
 came down to the House of Peers to oppose the acknowledg- 
 ment of their independence, and what he deemed the dismem- 
 berment of the British empire, " the ignominious surrender 
 of its rights and fairest possessions." He was at this time 
 extremely ill. " Lord Chatham," said one who witnessed 
 
114 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 the scene, " came into the House of Lords leaning on two 
 friends, wrapped up in flannel, pale and emaciated ; within 
 his large wig little more was to be seen but his aquiline nose 
 and his penetrating eye. He looked like a dying man, yet 
 never was seen a figure of more dignity. He spoke after 
 Lord Weymouth, and entered his solemn protest against the 
 Duke of Richmond's motion. He spoke with a fervour and 
 eloquence which held the House breathless. The Duke of 
 Richmond replied, and while he was speaking Lord Chat- 
 ham eyed him with composed attention, but when he rose 
 up to answer his strength failed ; he fell backwards in a 
 swoon. The Duke of Cumberland, the Lords Temple and 
 Stamford, hastened to support him, and his son, James Pitt, 
 was particularly active in assisting his venerable father. 
 (This is the moment chosen by the painter.) On this sud- 
 den seizure, the Earl was carried to Mr. Sargent's house, 
 in Downing-street, and thence to his home, in a dying state ; 
 he never again rose from his bed, and his death may there- 
 fore be truly said to have taken place in the House of Lords, 
 and in the discharge of what he deemed a great public duty." 
 He was in his 70th year. In the picture Lord Chatham is 
 seen fainting ; the Duke of Cumberland (in blue) supports 
 him on the left ; on the right are his two sons Lord Pitt and 
 James Pitt, then a young lieutenant in the navy (his most 
 distinguished son, William Pitt, was not present). At his 
 feet is Lord Mahon,* his son-in-law. The figure standing 
 on the right, with a noble head, is Charles, third Duke of 
 Richmond, a very distinguished patron of art. The per- 
 sonage on the left, in front, is Lord Dudley and Ward. The 
 rest of the figures, personages of less mark and likelihood, 
 may be distinguished by the explanatory key, which is always 
 at hand. 
 
 * The late Lord Stanhope, so celebrated for his eccentricities and his mecha- 
 nical genius. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 115 
 
 This picture belongs to a class of subjects the most difficult perhaps 
 that come within the province of art. To treat a scene of the highest in- 
 terest, the deepest pathos, with becoming historical dignity, yet with a 
 due adherence to the truth of the circumstances and the costume, is in 
 these modern times a desperate trial of the artist's skill, and recent in- 
 stances of failure on the part of very accomplished painters must make 
 us lenient in our judgment here. The chief merit of the picture consists 
 in the management of the principal group, which is very expressive and 
 finely treated. The defects are the number of figures, too formally 
 arranged ; the rows of insipid heads one behind another, having no effect 
 but to distract the attention. This perhaps was unavoidable. The number 
 of portraits of personages distinguished at that time must have lent to 
 the picture when painted much of its interest and popularity, and cer- 
 tainly add to its historic value for all future times. 
 
 Copley painted this picture in 1779, when the event was yet recent and 
 fresh in the remembrance of all England. He at this time refused 
 1500 guineas for it. The late Earl of Liverpool presented it to the 
 National Gallery, where, from its national and historical mterest, it finds 
 a fitting place. It was, I believe, once in the possession of Alexander 
 Davison, the banker. 
 
 John Singleton Copley was born at Boston, in America, in 1738. He 
 visited Italy in 1774, and came to England in 1776. He spent here 
 the remainder of his life in the diligent and successful practice of his 
 art. He drew correctly, but he was in general cold and defective in 
 colouring. This picture of the Death of Lord Chatham is pronounced by 
 Mr. Leslie as the best coloured of his pictures. His largest production, 
 the Destruction of the Floating Batteries during the siege of Gibraltar, is 
 in Guildhall ; another, Brooke Watson saved from the Shark, is in the 
 hall of the Blue Coat School. His best picture is in the royal collection, 
 and will be mentioned in its place. Copley died in 1815. His son, 
 educated for the bar, became a distinguished lawyer, Lord Chancellor 
 of England, and a peer by the title of Lord Lyndhurst. 
 
 7 ft. 6 in. by 10 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved finely by Bartolozzi in 1782. 
 
 NICHOLAS LANCRET. 
 
 01. Infancy. 
 
 102. Youth. 
 
 103. Manhood. 
 [04. Old Age. 
 
 Four small pictures, slightly painted, and of no great value ; 
 
116 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 they are pretty allegories, in the fantastic but elegant style 
 of Watteau, whose pupil and imitator Lancret was. He 
 practised his art at Paris, and died there in 1749. 
 
 Bequeathed by Lieut.-Colonel Ollney. 
 
 13 in. by 17i in> 
 
 Engraved by Larmessin. 
 
 SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT. 
 
 105. A Small Landscape. 
 
 A brilliant little sketch, presented to the Gallery by the 
 Dowager Lady Beaumont. 
 
 For an account of Sir George Beaumont and his munificent donation 
 to the Gallery see p. 6. 
 P. 7i in. by 91 in. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 106. A Man's Head — seen in Profile. 
 
 A study, painted from nature, and from the same person 
 who sat for the head of Count Ugolino, in Sir Joshua's 
 large picture of Ugolino and his Sons, now at Knowle 
 Park. The head is a fine one, though the model we are 
 told was a common pavior. 
 
 Presented by Sir G. Beaumont. 
 
 C. 13 in. by 18 in. 
 
 Engraved by S. Reynolds. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 107. The Banished Lord— a Head; front view. 
 Apparently a study from nature. The title was given to 
 it when engraved, as suitable to the melancholy yet dignified 
 expression of the countenance. 
 
 Presented to the nation by the Rev. W. Long. 
 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 Engraved by J. R. Smith. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 117 
 
 WILSON. 
 
 08. Landscape. 
 
 "The ruins of the villa of Maecenas, at Tivoli, on the 
 banks of the river Arno, which runs into the Tiber twenty 
 miles distant from Rome. The building to the right of it 
 among the cypresses was a convent of Jesuits. The temple 
 beneath that was built in honour of the god Tusis. The 
 spring which issues from the rock on the left is the Blan- 
 dusian fountain of Horace, whose villa stood behind the 
 trees on the left fronting the villa of Maecenas. The draw- 
 ing was taken on the spot by Mr. Wilson, in April, 1754, 
 in company with the Earls of Pembroke, Thanet, and 
 Essex, and Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, who dined and 
 spent the day together on the spot, under a large tree. 
 The dress of the two women dipping for water is the 
 present dress of the country." 
 
 The above is the memorandum which Wilson himself gave with his 
 original picture of this subject to a Mr. Macklay along with the receipt 
 for the purchase-money (26/. 6s.), which picture has passed into the col- 
 lection of Lady Ford,* and will be noticed hereafter. Wilson repeated 
 this subject five times. In the present instance the colouring has some- 
 what lost its original brilliance and transparency, in consequence of 
 having been painted on a canvas primed with a dark-reddish brown, such 
 as was in use in Rome. Many of the finest pictures of the Carracci and 
 the Poussins are known to have suffered from the same cause. f The 
 picture before us was the one painted for the Earl of Thanet, and after- 
 wards purchased by Sir George Beaumont, who presented it to the 
 nation. 
 
 Wilson, the first great landscape-painter whom England produced, 
 lias been called the English Claude. I know not why, unless it were 
 because he confined himself principally to Italian scenery, and " steeped 
 his spirit in its splendours." Yet we have only to compare these two 
 pictures (10$ and 110) with those of Claude to perceive at once that in 
 
 * Lady Ford was offered 500/. for it by Sir John Leicester. 
 f In the valuable notes (especially valuable to a painter) which Mr. Eastlake 
 has appended to his translation of Goethe's 11 Theory of Colours," there are some 
 excellent remarks on the use of light and dark grounds in oil-painting. See 
 p. 376. 
 
118 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 his style of pencilling, in his feeling and treatment of a subject, he dif- 
 fered entirely from the great Italian. But nature and genius are both 
 infinite, and Wilson is not the less one of the most charming, as he is one 
 of the most original of landscape-painters. He was not appreciated 
 during his life. His broad and free style was new to the English eye 
 and taste ; but while suffering under neglect and poverty he always felt 
 confident in his own powers, and in the persuasion that posterity would 
 do him justice. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 10 by 5 ft. 6. 
 
 Engraved by M. Rooker ; and Le Keux. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 109. Landscape— " The Watering- Place." 
 
 A woody scene. In the front a piece of water in which 
 some cattle are standing. 
 
 " On the grassy bank 
 Some ruminating lie ; while others stand 
 Half in the flood, and often bending sip 
 The circling surface." 
 
 A group of rustic figures are reclining on the shady bank 
 to the left ; the effect is that of a sultry summer evening. 
 
 Wilson and Gainsborough were contemporaries, and this picture, hung 
 here between two of Wilson's, affords an excellent opportunity for study- 
 ing the characteristic style of each painter. Sir George Beaumont, after 
 speaking with admiration of Wilson, adds, " his sole rival was Gainsbo- 
 rough ; and if it be allowed, as I think it must, that he had a finer and 
 higher relish for colour, or, in the technical term, a better painter s eye, 
 than Wilson; on the other hand, Wilson was far his superior in elevation 
 of thought and dignity of composition. Both were poets; and to me the 
 Bard of Gray and his Elegy in a Country Churchyard are so descrip- 
 tive of their different lines, that I should have commissioned Wilson to 
 paint a subject from the first, and Gainsborough one from the latter : 
 and if I am correct in this opinion, the superior popularity of Gainsbo- 
 rough cannot surprise us ; since, for one person capable of relishing the 
 sublime, there are thousands who admire the rural and beautiful, especi- 
 ally when set off by such fascinating spirit and splendour of colour as we 
 see in the best works of Gainsborough/ 1 
 
 Presented by the late Lord Farnborough. 
 
 4 ft. 10 in. by. 5 ft. 11 in. 
 Engraved by W. Miller. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 119 
 
 WILSON. 
 
 110. A Landscape, with the Story of Niobe and her 
 Children. 
 
 Niobe, the daughter of King Tantalus, and wife of Amphion, 
 was the mother of seven sons and seven daughters ; and, 
 proud of the number and beauty of her children, she had 
 the imprudence to boast herself as superior to Latona, who 
 had only two, Apollo and Diana. Latona complained of 
 this insult to her immortal offspring ; and immediately all 
 the sons of Niobe perished by the shafts of Apollo, and her 
 daughters by the darts of Diana ; and Niobe herself was 
 turned into stone. 
 
 The landscape is very fine, both with regard to the arrangement as a 
 composition and the management of the light and shade.* The im- 
 mense cataract on the right is a noble feature, and Wilson has repre- 
 sented it lashing the rocks under the influence of a violent storm of 
 wind, thus giving to it increased grandeur. The white foam of this 
 cataract, powerfully contrasted as it is with the dark tints of the rock on 
 this side of it, immediately strikes the spectator as the focus of light in 
 the picture, the mass of light being afterwards carried on by a large 
 opening, whence the clouds appear to have been rent asunder by the 
 tempest. Parts of the foreground and of the figures are also in light, 
 though of a more subdued tone; while the distant landscape on the left 
 and most other parts of the picture are overshadowed by clouds. 
 
 The figures are spirited ; but the subject is of too high a class both in 
 pathos and poetry to be made subordinate to a landscape, which, however 
 fine, is not in that ideal style which would harmonise with the super- 
 natural incidents. f Wilson repeated it frequently ; one fine duplicate 
 is in the possession of Mr. H. Munro. 
 
 * Both these pictures of Wilson require a strong light; and the difference of 
 their effect on a bright and on a dark day is scarcely conceivable to those who 
 have not observed it. 
 
 f Sir Joshua Reynolds criticises the introduction of the Apollo on the clouds, 
 " which," he says, " have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle 
 of a human figure." lie refers to Nicolo Poussin as an example of the power of 
 treating successfully the classical and the supernatural in a landscape. Never- 
 theless, Poussin's picture of Calisto and Archas, in the Grosvenor Gallery, is an 
 example, and even a more glaring one, of the same fault, if it be a fault, which 
 Wilson has committed in this picture. The bear in the clouds is worse than 
 the Apollo in the clouds. 
 
120 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 This picture was purchased from Wilton the sculptor by 
 Sir George Beaumont, who bequeathed it to the nation. 
 C. 3 ft. 10 by 5 ft. 6. 
 
 Engraved jointly by W. Sharpe and S. Smith : also by Woollett. 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 111. Portrait of George Augustus Elliott, Lord 
 Heathfield, with the Keys of the Fortress of 
 Gibraltar in his hand — three-quarters, life 
 size. 
 
 This celebrated military commander was born in 1718, 
 the youngest son of Sir Gilbert Elliot, ancestor of the pre- 
 sent Earl of Minto. After distinguishing himself on several 
 occasions he was sent governor to Gibraltar in 1775, and 
 defended that fortress when it was besieged during three 
 years by the combined land and sea forces of France and 
 Spain. For these services he was raised to the peerage in 
 1787 by the title of Lord Heathfield. He died in 1790, 
 on his way to visit once more the fortress he had so glo- 
 riously defended. 
 
 This is in all respects one of the finest and most characteristic por- 
 traits Sir Joshua ever painted. The head is full of animation ; the 
 figure finely drawn, especially the left hand, which is foreshortened with 
 consummate skill ; and the whole is painted with the greatest possible 
 breadth of manner and vigour of colouring. The background is sub- 
 limely conceived, and serves to throw out the figure with surprising 
 force of effect. Volumes of smoke obscure the atmosphere, and we 
 almost hear the roar of artillery; a cannon behind him pointed perpen- 
 dicularly downwards shows the immense elevation of the spot on which 
 he stands. This circumstance, and the keys grasped firmly in his 
 hand, give to the picture something beyond mere portraiture ; almost 
 an historic interest and significance. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 8 by 3 ft. 8. 
 
 Engraved by Earlom ; and G. Doo. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH. 
 
 112. Portrait of Himself. 
 
 The head, admirably painted and full of character, is on a 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 121 
 
 feigned canvass of an oval form, which is so managed as to 
 imitate a picture before it is placed in its frame, the real 
 shape being square. The oval is supported upon the volumes 
 of Hogarth's favourite authors, Shakspeare, Milton, and 
 Swift ; on the left, upon his palette, is drawn the line of 
 beauty, and on the right is his favourite dog Trump. 
 
 This interesting portrait is dated 1149, when Hogarth 
 was in his fifty-second year ; it remained in the possession 
 of his widow (a daughter of Sir James Thornhill*) till her 
 death, in 1789, when it was purchased by Mr. Angerstein. 
 
 Another portrait of Hogarth, by himself, was in the pos- 
 session of the late Marquess Camden ; there is another in 
 the possession of — Ireland, Esq. ; a third (engraved) with 
 a hat on, and a fine portrait of himself when young, is in the 
 collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne, at Bowood. 
 
 There is an engraving by Hogarth himself, inscribed Guglielmus Ho- 
 garth, se ipse pinxit et scidpsit, 1749. After some impressions had been 
 taken from the copper-plate, Hogarth altered it into a satirical print of 
 Churchill, The original head has become so rare in consequence, that a 
 fine impression is worth 20 or 25 guineas. Engraved also by Gibbon. 
 
 C 2 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft 3 in. 
 
 William Hogarth, one of the great names in the history of English 
 art, was born in London in 1697. He was the son of a schoolmaster who 
 had sunk broken-hearted under the effects of disappointed hope and ex- 
 cessive labour. Hogarth was bound apprentice to a silversmith, and 
 learned to engrave coats of arms, and to draw a little. He passed some 
 years in obscurity and poverty, and then emerged upon the world as the 
 inventor of a style of painting in which he had no precursor in any 
 country or age, and has found no imitator. He says himself, " the 
 reasons which induced me to adopt this mode of designing were, that I 
 thought both critics and painters had, in the historical style, quite over- 
 looked that intermediate species of subjects which may be placed be- 
 
 * Hogarth left to his wife the sole property of the numerous plates engraved by 
 himself from his own designs and pictures. There were seventy-two, from which 
 such a number of impressions were regularly sold as produced a very respectable 
 income. She, however, outlived the period of her copyright, and was reduced to 
 extreme poverty. The interposition of the King procured her from the Royal 
 Academy an annuity of 40/., which sbe enjoyed for two years before her death. 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 tween the sublime and the grotesque. I endeavoured to treat my sub- 
 jects as a dramatic writer; my picture is my stage, my men and women 
 my players, who by means of certain actions and gestures are to exhibit 
 a dumb show." How far he succeeded in this novel attempt his works 
 remain to prove ; and one of the finest, his " Marriage a. la Mode," we 
 shall have to consider presently. He began with the " Harlot's Pro- 
 gress," in six plates, published in 1734;* and other remarkable works 
 followed in quick succession till his death, in 1764. He lies buried in 
 the churchyard of Chiswick. 
 
 It has been said of Hogarth that his manners were gross and unculti- 
 vated ; that he preferred society of the lowest order to that which as an 
 admired and popular artist he might have commanded ; that he was 
 rarely seen in polite or even good society. The same was said of 
 Fielding ; but the truth is, that the author of Tom Jones and the painter 
 of the Harlot's Progress sought character of a particular kind where 
 they were most likely to find it, and for purposes which may leave us 
 thankful that their vanity and ambition did not here stand in the way 
 of their genius. Hogarth was a welcome guest at the table of the 
 polished and fastidious Horace Walpole, and on terms of civility and cor- 
 respondence with men of rank and literature. As to the occasional 
 coarseness of some of the incidents in his pictures, he has been defended 
 on this point by Walpole, by Charles Lamb, and Allan Cunningham. 
 Yet, in the face of these high authorities, I must still object that there are 
 blemishes : and, making all due allowance for " the necessity of reveal- 
 ing the nature of that he proposed to satirise — of displaying depravity 
 for the sake of amending it," I could wish those passages omitted in 
 which decency and feeling are both oxitraged without any commensurate 
 advantage, — and such do occur. I am sure, for instance, that the " Four 
 Stages of Cruelty" never did any good. They are lessons of cruelty 
 rather than warnings against cruelty. I would annihilate them had I 
 the power to do so. On the other hand, the pictures of " Gin Lane, " 
 the Bedlam scene in the Rake s Progress, the burial scene in the Har- 
 lot's Progress, should hang in this gallery in defiance of the squeamish- 
 ness which would shrink from their terrible delineations ; for all these 
 have a moral and meaning " provoking the scorn of vice and pity too." 
 I have a great dread of that sort of morality in arts, in literature, in 
 poetry, which,-in cultivating and flattering our sense of beauty, would re- 
 fine away the limits between virtue and vice, and, as a matter of good 
 taste, conceal or smooth over the deformity of the latter. Hogarth has 
 not done this. A deep disgust mingles with the compassion inspired by 
 
 * The original pictures were in the possession of Alderman Beckford, and de- 
 stroyed when Fonthill was burned down in 1755. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 123 
 
 his representations of vice and its victims. He is not a mere satirist : 
 and to his credit be it observed that lie indulged in very few personali- 
 ties. What remains to be added in illustration of the peculiar genius 
 of Hogarth I shall give in the words of his best critics — Horace Wal- 
 pole, Cunningham, Charles Lamb, and Hazlitt. It appears to me that 
 nothing more, at least nothing better, can be said on the subject. 
 
 Horace Walpole. — " I consider Hogarth rather as a painter of 
 comedy with the pencil than as a painter. If to catch the manners and 
 follies of an age ' living as they rise if general satire on vices and 
 ridicules, familiarised by strokes of nature and heightened by wit, and 
 the whole animated by proper and just expression of the passions, be 
 comedy, Hogarth composed comedies as much as Moliere. In his Mar- 
 riage a. la Mode there is even a plot, a story carried on throughout the 
 piece. He is more true to character than Congreve. Each person is 
 distinct from the rest, acts in his sphere, and cannot be confounded with 
 any other of the dramatis persons. Hogarth had no model to follow and 
 work upon. He created his art, and used colours instead of language. 
 His place is between the Italians, whom we may consider as epic poets and 
 tragedians, and the Flemish painters, who are as writers of farce and edi- 
 tors of burlesque nature. Hogarth, amidst all his pleasantry, observes 
 the true end of comedy — reformation. There is (almost) always a moral 
 to his pictures. Sometimes he rose to tragedy, not in the catastrophe of 
 kings and heroes, but in marking how vice conducts insensibly and in- 
 cidentally to misery and shame. He warns against encouraging cruelty 
 and idleness in young minds. He shows how the different vices of the 
 great and the vulgar lead by various paths to the same unhappiness. The 
 fine lady in Marriage a la Mode, and Tom Nero in the Four Stages of 
 Cruelty, terminate their story in blood :* she occasions the murder of 
 her husband; he assassinates his mistress. It is to Hogarth's honour that 
 in so many scenes of satire or ridicule it is obvious that ill nature did 
 not guide his pencil. His end is always reformation, his reproofs gene- 
 ral. It is seldom that his figures do not express the character he intended 
 to give them. When they wanted an illustration that colours could 
 not bestow, collateral circumstances full of wit supply notes. The 
 nobleman in Marriage a la Mode has a most aristocratic air ; the 
 coronet on his crutches, and his pedigree issuing out of the bowels of 
 William the Conqueror, add the character : in the breakfast-scene the 
 old steward reflects for the spectator. It may appear singular that, 
 of a painter whom I call comic, and who is so celebrated for his humour, 
 
 * I do not know why Horace Walpole has named the wretched wife in ** Mar- 
 riage a la Mode" as the moral bugbear of the story ; she is first dupe, then 
 sinner, then sacrifice ; and victim from beginning to end. — A.J. 
 
 G 2 
 
124 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 I should speak in general in so serious a style, but it would be suppress- 
 ing the merits of his heart to consider him only as a promoter of laughter. 
 I think 1 have shown that his views were more generous and extensive. 
 Mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence designed them." 1 
 
 William Hazlitt. — " It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures 
 are exceedingly unlike any other representation of the same kind of sub- 
 jects — that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to them- 
 selves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinc- 
 tion consists. In the first place, they are in the strictest sense historical 
 pictures ; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones 
 ought to be regarded as an epic prose poem, because it contains a regu- 
 lar development of fable, manners, character, and passion, the composi- 
 tions of Hogarth will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim 
 to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated that 
 denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his 
 subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and 
 humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varied expres- 
 sion. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it ; not only does 
 the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle 
 is put into full play ; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out 
 and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped 
 on the canvass for ever. The expression is always taken en passant, in a 
 state of progress or change, and, as it were, at a salient point. Again, 
 with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads have all 
 the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of charac- 
 ter and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. 
 His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we be- 
 lieve in any single instance) go beyond it : they take the very widest 
 latitude, and yet we always see the links which bind them to nature ; 
 they bear all the marks and carry all the conviction of reality with 
 them, as if we had seen the actual faces for the first time, from the pre- 
 cision, consistency, and good sense, with which the whole and every part 
 is made out. They exhibit the most uncommon features with the most 
 uncommon expressions, but which are yet as familiar and intelligible as 
 possible, because with all the boldness they have all the truth of nature. 
 Hogarth has left behind him as many of these memorable faces, in their 
 memorable moments, as perhaps most of us remember in the course of 
 our lives, and has thus doubled the quantity of our observation. 
 
 " Hogarth was not a master of drawing. Of the muscles and ana- 
 tomy of the head and hands he had a perfect knowledge ; but his trunks 
 are often badly mounted and his heads ill set on. I tax him with plain 
 bad drawing. I speak not of the niceties of anatomy and elegance of 
 outline i of these,, indeed, he knew nothing, nor were they of any use in 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 125 
 
 tliat mode of design which he cultivated, and yet his figures on the whole 
 are inspired with so much life and meaning, that the eye is kept in good 
 humour in spite of its inclination to find fault. 
 
 " Of his expression, in which the force of his genius lay, we cannot 
 speak in terms too high. In every mode of it he was truly excellent. 
 The passions he thoroughly understood, and all the effects they produce 
 in every part of the human frame. He had the happy art also of con- 
 veying his ideas with the same precision with which he conceived them. 
 All his heads are cast in the very mould of nature. Hence that endless 
 variety which is displayed through his works, and hence it is that the 
 difference arises between his heads and the affected caricatures of (hose 
 masters, who have sometimes amused themselves with patching together 
 an assemblage of features from their own ideas." 
 
 Chaiu.es Lamb. — " It is the fashion with those who cry up the great 
 Historical School in this country, at the head of which Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds is placed,* to exclude Hogarth from that school, as an artist of an 
 inferior and vulgar class. Those persons seem to me to confound the 
 painting of subjects in common or vulgar life with the being a vulgar 
 artist. The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every pic- 
 ture would alone unvulgarise every subject which he might choose. 
 
 " To deny that there are throughout his works circumstances introduced 
 of a laughable tendency, would be to run counter to the common notions 
 of mankind; but to suppose that in their ruling character they appeal 
 chiefly to the risible faculty, and not, first and foremost, to the very heart 
 of man, its best and most serious feelings, would be to mistake no less 
 grossly their aim and purpose. A set of severer satires (for they are Hot 
 so much comedies, which they have been likened to, as they are strong 
 and masculine satires), less mingled with anything of mere fun, were 
 never written upon paper or graven upon copper. They resemble Ju- 
 venal, or the satiric touches of Timon of Athens. I was pleased with 
 the reply of a gentleman who, being asked which book he esteemed the 
 best in his library, auswered ' Shakspeare ;' being asked which he esteemed 
 next best, replied 'Hogarth.* His graphic representations are indeed 
 books; they have the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. 
 Other pictures we look at, — his we read." 
 
 Allan Cunningham. — " The chaiacter of William Hogarth as a man 
 is to be sought for in his conduct, and in the opinions of his more dis- 
 passionate contemporaries; his character as an artist is to be gathered 
 from numerous works, at once original and unrivalled. His fame has 
 flown far and wide ; his skill as an engraver spread his reputation as a 
 
 * Sir Joshua was the head of our school of portraiture — West our best historical 
 painter — at the time alluded to. 
 
126 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 painter ; and all who love the dramatic representation of actual life — 
 all who have hearts to be gladdened by humour — all who are pleased 
 with judicious and well-directed satire — all who are charmed with the 
 ludicrous looks of popular folly — and all who can be moved with the 
 pathos of human suffering — are admirers of Hogarth. That his works 
 are unlike those of other men, is his merit, not his fault. He belonged 
 to no school of art ; he was the produce of no academy ; no man living 
 or dead had any share in forming his mind, or in rendering his hand 
 skilful. He was the spontaneous offspring of the graphic spirit of the 
 country, as native to the heart of England as independence is, and he 
 may be fairly called, in his own walk, the first-born of her spirit." 
 
 HOGARTH. 
 
 The Marriage a la Mode. 
 
 This series of six pictures, originally painted for the pur- 
 pose of being engraved, exhibits the history of a marriage 
 in high life, contracted from the most sordid motives, and 
 ending in misery, shame, despair, and death. 
 
 The first picture represents The Contract of Marriage. 
 The proud old gouty nobleman has deeply involved his 
 estate by mortgage for money advanced to him by the sordid 
 and heartless citizen, and he receives back the deed from the 
 hands of the money-lender's book-keeper as the price of his 
 consent to the marriage between the young lord, his son, 
 and the citizen's daughter. It has been considered unne- 
 cessary to consult the inclinations of either of the young- 
 persons. The girl shows, in her languid, inane counte- 
 nance, that at the best a sullen consent has been wrung from 
 her by the promise of fine clothes, a title, and an equipage. 
 The young man displays his utter contempt for his bride 
 and his admiration of himself by turning from her to con- 
 template his own features in a mirror. It would be too 
 much to insist that the catastrophe exhibited in the last 
 picture of the series may be anticipated from the figure of the 
 young lawyer who is seen whispering in the ear of the bride. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 127 
 
 The importance of the introduction of this figure in this place 
 appears afterwards. 
 
 114. The second picture is The Morning Scene some time 
 after marriage. The young nobleman has returned home 
 at midday after a night spent in gambling and debauchery, and 
 joins his wife at breakfast ; she, also, has been up at play all 
 night, as we may see by the servant, who is extinguishing 
 the candles in an inner room. The expression in the female 
 head and figure is the most vulgar in the series ; for here she 
 has a sort of reckless look, as if anathematising her ill luck. 
 The figure of the young libertine, who has thrown himself 
 sullenly into a chair, is inimitable for the truth of expression 
 in the face, attitude, and whole person. The steward has 
 brought his accounts, but is seen retiring in despair, with 
 his pocket stuffed with bills and one solitary receipt on his 
 file. 
 
 " This is, perhaps, as a painting, the finest picture of the six. Hogarth 
 has, with great skill, contrasted the pale countenance of the husband with 
 the yellow-whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece behind him in 
 such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy 
 splendour of the view into the inner room in this picture (and the effect 
 of the intrusion of the morning light on the sickly vapouring candle- 
 light) is probably not exceeded by any of the productions of the Flemish 
 school. " — Hazlitt. 
 
 115. The Dissipated Husband. The scene is laid in the 
 quack doctor's apartment. The nobleman rallies a pro- 
 curess, who has overreached him, and, in her rage, threatens 
 his life. 
 
 " The story of this picture is rather obscure and enigmatical, but the 
 figure of the young girl, who is represented as a victim of fashionable 
 profligacy, is unquestionably one of Hogarth's chef-d/oeuvres. The ex- 
 quisite delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity and sub- 
 tlety of the conception. Nothing can be more striking (one might add 
 more horrible at once and pathetic) than the contrast between the ex- 
 treme softness of her person and the hardened indifference of her charac- 
 ter. The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, the premature suppression 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY', 
 
 of youthful sensibility, the doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, 
 which seems to have no other feeling than a sickly sense of pain, — 
 ^how the deepest insight into human nature, under the most pitiable and 
 fearful aspect of misery and depravity. The nobleman appears to have 
 been threatening the quack with his uplifted cane, but his eyes are turned 
 with an ironical leer of triumph on the abandoned female near him ; the 
 commanding attitude and size of this woman — the swelling circumfer- 
 ence of her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock s feathers — the fierce, 
 ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, which hardly 
 needs the comment of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose — are all ad- 
 mirable in themselves, and still more so as opposed to the expression of 
 mute insensibility, the elegant negligezice of dress, and childish dimi- 
 nutive person of the wretched girl, who is supposed to be her protegee. 
 As for the alarmed quack, there can be no doubt entertained about him- 
 His face seems composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the 
 chaos and confusion of the most gross, ignorant^ and impudent empi- 
 ricism — Hazlitt^ 
 
 116. The Toilet of the Fine Lady. Her back is turned 
 on the frivolous group assembled in her room, and her at- 
 tention directed to the young lawyer, who is offering her 
 tickets for a masquerade. Scattered on the floor are a 
 variety of useless objects, old china, &c, bought at an auc- 
 tion, with cards and visiting tickets.* The whole scene is 
 expressive of a life of extravagance, idleness, and dissipation, 
 and a satire on the particular follies of the time. By the 
 coronet over her mirror we see that she has succeeded to the 
 title, and by the coral and bells hanging over her chair that 
 she has become a mother. In this picture, the fine lady 
 admiring the singer is a portrait of Mrs. Lane ; the man 
 asleep is Mr. Fox Lane, her husband ; and the Italian singer 
 is Carestini. M. Michel, the Prussian Ambassador, and 
 
 * The visiting tickets are thus inscribed : — 
 
 " Lady Squander's company is desired at Lady Towni'ey's drum next Mon- 
 day." 
 
 " Lady Squander's company is desired at Lady Heathen's drum major next 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Lady Squander's company is desired at Miss Hairbrain's rout." 
 Jt Count Basset desire to no how Lady Squander sleep last night-** 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 129 
 
 Weideman, a celebrated German flute-player, are also in- 
 troduced.* 
 
 " The gradations of ridiculous affectation in this scene are finely ima- 
 gined and preserved; the preposterous overstrained admiration of the 
 lady of quality — the sentimental inanity of the man with his hair in 
 papers and sipping his tea — the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted, 
 approbation of the figure next to him — the transition to the total insen- 
 sibility of the round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the negro- 
 boy at the rapture of his mistress — form a perfect whole. The sanguine 
 complexion and flame-coloured hair of the female virtuoso throw an ad- 
 ditional light on the character. This is lost in the print. The continuing 
 the red colour of the hair into the back of the chair has been pointed out 
 as one of those instances of alliteration in colouring of which these pic- 
 tures are everywhere full. The gross bloated appearance of the Italian 
 singer is well relieved by the hard features of the instrumental performer 
 behind him, which might be carved in wood. The negro-boy, holding 
 the chocolate, in expression, colour, execution, is a master-piece. The 
 gay, lively derision of the other negro-boy, playing with the Action is an 
 ingenious contrast to the profound amazement of the first. It is curious to 
 observe the infinite activity of mind which the artist displays on every 
 occasion. An instance occurs in the present picture. He has so con- 
 trived the papers in the hair of the bride as to make them look almost 
 like a wreath of half-blown flowers ; while those which he has placed on 
 the head of the musical amateur very much resemble a chevaux -de -f rue 
 of horns, which adorn and fortify the lack-lustre expression and mild 
 resignation of the face beneath.' 1 — Hazlitt. 
 
 117. The Duel. — The appointment to meet at the masquerade 
 has been kept, and from thence the guilty couple have re- 
 paired to some wretched place of intrigue ; the husband has 
 followed them, accompanied by watchmen and constables, 
 in order to break into their apartment, and to prevent 
 their escape. In this, a night scene, the figures and other 
 objects are represented dimly illumined by the light of a wood 
 fire on the left of the piece. The earl, who has inconsider- 
 ately rushed into the room first, is seen mortally wounded 
 supporting himself upon the back of a chair ; his unhappy 
 wife, on her knees before him, is imploring his last forgive- 
 
 * Walpole, vol. iv. p. 149. 
 
 G 3 
 
130 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 ness ; the peace-officers too late appear entering the door of 
 the apartment : the murderer is attempting to escape by 
 the window. 
 
 As a painting, this scene is inferior to the rest, and the attitude of the 
 husband appears out of drawing. The figure of the wretched kneeling 
 wife, and her look of agonised passionate entreaty, are dreadfully true. 
 
 The Death of the Countess. — The scene is laid in the 
 house of the father-citizen, to whom his guilty and miserable 
 daughter has returned. Her servant having brought her 
 the " last dying speech " of her lover, executed for the mur- 
 der of her husband, she swallows laudanum and dies ; an 
 old nurse is holding up, for a last caress, the diseased and 
 rickety offspring of her ill-fated marriage. The heartless . 
 father is drawing a diamond ring from the finger of the 
 dying woman (a more frightful illustration of avarice never 
 perhaps occurred to the mind of man ; the starved dog is, 
 however, another stroke of satire to the same effect) ; and 
 the apothecary is rating the stupid lout of a boy who had 
 bought the poison. 
 
 This picture is in all respects masterly. The figure of the wretched 
 woman, with death impressed on every feature — the hard, wooden insen- 
 sibility of the usurer — the petulent, careless self-sufficiency of the apo- 
 thecary — are excellent; but perhaps the finest conception is the figure of 
 the servant-boy, standing there with a look of haggard, perplexed terror; 
 the very manner in which his livery-coat hangs upon his awkward hor- 
 ror-stricken figure has in it something indescribably expressive. The 
 colouring is so fine, so well understood, as to vindicate Hogarth's pre- 
 tensions to the name of painter, in spite of Horace Walpole. 
 
 This series of pictures (painted in 1744), after being en- 
 graved, was advertised for sale by auction in 1750. The 
 auction was so ill arranged by Hogarth, that, on the day 
 appointed, only one bidder appeared, Mr. Lane, of Hilling- 
 don, who bid 110/.; after waiting some time, and no one 
 else appearing, Mr. Lane said he would make the pounds 
 guineas ; and at this most inadequate price~the pictures were 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 knocked down to him. Mr. Lane bequeathed them to Col. 
 Cawthorne, who sold them to Mr. Angerstein in 1791 for 
 138R 
 
 They are all the same size — C. 2 ft. 3 in. by 2 ft. 11 in. 
 
 Engraved by Hogarth in 1745, and many times since by various 
 Engravers. 
 
 SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT. 
 
 119. A Landscape. 
 
 The scene is the forest of Ardennes, and the figures repre- 
 sent Jaques reclining by the stream and moralising on the 
 wounded stag : — 
 
 " To-day my lord of Amiens and myself 
 Did steal behind him as he lay along 
 Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 
 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ; 
 To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, 
 That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt, 
 Did come to languish." 
 
 As You Like It, Act II. 
 
 "Nature," says Allan Cunningham, " had bestowed on Sir 
 George Beaumont the soul and the eye of a fine landscape- 
 painter ; scenes shone on his fancy which his hand had not 
 skill to embody : he saw paradise, with angels walking in 
 glory among the trees, but the vision either passed away, or 
 was dimly outlined on the canvass. Nature had done much 
 for him ; but Fortune rendered the gift unavailing. Cole- 
 orton Hall, and a good income, hindered him from ranking 
 with the Wilsons, the Turners, and the Callcotts of his 
 day: the duties of his station, the allurements of polished 
 society — in short, the want of the armed hand of poverty to 
 thrust him into the ranks of the studious and the toiling — 
 hindered him from acquiring that practical skill of exe- 
 cution, without which imagination and taste are compa- 
 ratively fruitless. Yet, with all these drawbacks, he has left 
 
132 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 works which will continue his name for centuries among the 
 lovers of the poetic and the beautiful." 
 
 Presented by the Dowager Lady Beaumont. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 4 in. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY. 
 
 120. Portrait of Joseph Nollekens, the Sculptor. 
 
 The portraits of eminent men in every 7 department of art 
 find a fitting place in a National Gallery. Nollekens as a 
 sculptor of busts has been excelled only by Chantrey. In 
 the more elevated and ideal departments of the sculptor's 
 art, he did not take a high rank. He had genius ; but 
 there seems to have been something inherently vulgar in the 
 man's soul which lowered and limited its efforts. He was 
 born in London in 1137, and died in 1823, at the age 
 of eighty-six. 
 
 Sir William Beechey was a fashionable portrait-painter, 
 much patronised by King George III., by whom he was 
 knighted ; he died in 1839. 
 
 This portrait was presented by the Rev. R. EL Kerrich. 
 
 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by C. Turner - 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 J 21. Cleombrotus ordered into Banishment by 
 Leonidas. 
 
 Cleombrotus had married the daughter of Leonidas, and 
 when his father-in-law was banished he usurped the king- 
 dom of Sparta. On the return of Leonid-as, Cleombrotus 
 was himself banished, and Chelonis his wife, who had 
 before accompanied her father, now accompanied her hus- 
 band into exile. 
 
 This picture was painted in 1769, in West's early and 
 best time, that is, soon after his return from Italy. It is, 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY". 
 
 133 
 
 however, flat and tame in point of colour and general effect,, 
 and inferior to the Pylades and Orestes (No. 126). 
 
 Presented by W. Wilkins, R. A., the architect who de- 
 signed and built this National Gallery. 
 
 4 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 
 
 Engraved by C. Hodges. 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE. 
 
 122. A Village Festival. 
 
 A composition of about five-and-thirty figures. The scene 
 is laid before the door of a village ale-house : among the 
 various groups, some of which are exceedingly humorous,, 
 a countryman half tipsy, led away most reluctantly from 
 the joyous scene by his wife and children, is the most con- 
 spicuous and the most expressive ; being strongly relieved 
 by the dark mass behind, it is the first to catch the attention 
 of the spectator. The group of drinkers on the left, and 
 the face and figure of the old woman leading the little child 
 on the right, are most excellent. The old woman I sus- 
 pect to be the mother of the prostrate drunkard who lies 
 stretched insensible by the pump. But every head, how- 
 ever diminutive, is worth inspection, and will bear com- 
 parison with some of the finest of Teniers. As a whole, the 
 composition is a little scattered, and the foreground is not 
 well painted ; it looks like wet clay : the colouring is through- 
 out very vivid, rich, and harmonious ; and the individual 
 heads, besides being full of nature and character, are finished 
 with conscientious care, in what may be termed the early 
 manner of the painter, which he has since changed for an- 
 other entirely opposite to it. The whole scene is perfectly 
 genuine and national. 
 
 This picture was painted for Mr. Angerstein in 1811. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 1 in. by 4 ft. 2 in. 
 Engraved by Finden. 
 
134 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 PETHER. 
 
 123. A Landscape, with Figures, by Moonlight. 
 
 P. 2 ft. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 JOHN JACKSON, R. A. 
 
 124. Portrait of the Rev. William Holwell Carr. 
 
 Painted by his direction, to be placed in this gallery. 
 This portrait of the gentleman who bequeathed thirty-one 
 pictures to the nation most deservedly finds a place within 
 the precincts of the National Gallery. 
 
 Jackson, the painter of this portrait, was the son of a tailor (so was 
 Annibal Carracci); his natural genius for imitative art was awakened 
 by casually seeing, when a boy, the pictures at Castle Howard. He 
 attempted to imitate what he admired, and his attempts obtained the 
 notice and patronage of the late Lord Mulgrave, and subsequently the 
 munificent friendship of Sir George Beaumont. He became, by dint of 
 persevering study, an excellent portrait-painter, gained riches and fame 
 by the practice of his art, and in 1817 was elected an academician. 
 Jackson was not an inventive or imaginative artist, but he was a fine 
 and genuine painter, remarkable for the rapidity, vigourj and breadth 
 of his execution, and a splendid colourist. He died in 1831. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 JAMES HOUSEMAN, or HUYSMANN. 
 
 125. Portrait of Isaac Walton. 
 
 Isaac Walton wrote the " Complete Angler," one of the 
 most popular works in the English language, and another 
 little book which deserves to be as popular, "Walton's 
 Lives." This otherwise excellent and benevolent man (I 
 spare him the opprobrious line of Lord Byron) seems really 
 to have thought that fishes and flies were created to be 
 hooked and impaled for " the contemplative man's recre- 
 ation." He died in 1683. 
 
 Huysmann, who painted this portrait, was a native of 
 Antwerp, who came to England in the reign of Charles II., 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 135 
 
 and practised his art here during the two following reigns. 
 He was at least equal to his rival, Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 This portrait remained in the family of Walton from the 
 time it was painted, and was bequeathed by a descendant, 
 the Rev. Dr. Herbert Hawes, of Salisbury. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by P. Audinet: and by Bovi 1791. 
 
 WEST. 
 
 126. Orestes and Pylades brought as Victims before 
 
 Iphigenia. 
 
 The subject is from the " Iphigeniain Tauris" of Euripedes. 
 Iphigenia, who as priestess of Diana was obliged to offer in 
 sacrifice the strangers brought before her, recognises in one 
 of them her hapless brother Orestes. 
 
 This is an early picture of the master, and one of the best 
 he ever painted. The figures of the two young men are in a 
 grand style, and the colouring much brighter and warmer 
 than is usual with West. 
 
 It was presented by Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 4 in. by 4 ft. 2 in. 
 
 Engraved by Basire. 
 
 CANALETTI. 
 
 127. A View in Venice. 
 
 In the foreground a stone-cutter's yard, looking towards one 
 of the bye canals, along which runs a quay, not a usual 
 thing in Venice, and beyond it the Church of the Frari, 
 with its Campanile, or belfry. The figures are very spi- 
 rited. 
 
 Presented by Sir G. Beaumont. 
 
 Antonio Canale, styled Canaletti, was a Venetian, and the son of a scene- 
 painter ; he excelled in painting the architecture, canals, gondolas, of his 
 native city ; for these subjects he was celebrated, and executed an amazing 
 
136 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 number of them, considering the care and detail with which they are 
 delineated. His accuracy in drawing and lineal perspective is admir- 
 able, but he is apt to be dingy in colour, with a certain hardness and 
 want of air in his effects of distance. His pictures abound in England ; 
 there are few collections here which do not contain one or more, but the 
 finest are in the corridor of the private apartments at Windsor. Canaletti 
 came to England late in life (1746), and remained here for two years. 
 During this period he painted many pictures for our nobility ; among 
 them the famous View of Whitehall, in the possession of the Duke of 
 Buccleugh. In this picture and in others Canaletti is known to have 
 used the camera lucida (see Fuseli) in aid of his scientific pencil. He 
 was so accustomed to copy what he saw before him, that to his views of 
 Venice, painted in London, he gave the dark, vapoury, English atmo- 
 sphere, and, in short, was obliged, for this reason, to return to his native 
 city, and there execute his commissions. He died, enriched by English 
 patronage, in 1768. 
 
 His scholar, Francesco Guardi, never equalled him in the precision of 
 his drawing and perspective, but surpassed him, I think, in colour and 
 in brilliant and airy effect. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 4 in. by 4 ft. 2 in. 
 Engraved by Le Keux. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 128. Portrait of the Right Hon. William Wyndham. 
 
 William Wyndham was an accomplished orator and 
 statesman, who filled the office of secretary-at-war during 
 Fox's administration. 
 
 Bequeathed by George James Cholmondely, Esq. It was 
 one of Sir Joshua's last pictures, painted when he was near 
 seventy, but evinces no decay of his powers. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by J. Jones. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 129. Portrait of the late John Julius Angerstein. 
 
 Mr. Angerstein, as it has been already related, collected 
 the pictures which formed the nucleus of the present 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 137 
 
 Nation J Gallery. He was of German extraction, born in 
 Russia, and came to England about 1749. He was then a 
 poor boy in a merchant's office, but became by his industry 
 and knowledge of business one of the greatest merchants and 
 bankers of London. It is said that he was the originator 
 of public lotteries. He died at the age of eighty-eight, 
 in 1823, and appears to have been in many respects a 
 munificent and public-spirited man. He laid out part of 
 his immense fortune in the purchase of pictures, and was the 
 intimate friend and patron of Sir Thomas Lawrence. This 
 duplicate of the portrait which Lawrence painted for the 
 Angerstein family in 1816 was commanded by King: 
 George IV. Lawrence, who was warmly and gratefully 
 attached to Mr. Angerstein, has expended his best powers 
 on this fine portrait of the keen-spirited, sagacious old man. 
 In the individual truth of nature and of character, in careful 
 finish and brilliance and depth of colouring, he never sur- 
 passed it. 
 
 Presented by King William IV. 
 
 C. 3 ft. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved by Young ; and by Scriveu . 
 
 JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. 
 
 130. A Landscape, with Figures. 
 
 This picture was purchased from his executors some time 
 after his death by an assemblage of gentlemen, friends and 
 admirers of the artist, and by them it was presented to the 
 National Gallery in 1837. 
 
 John Constable, one of our most eminent painters of home scenery, 
 was bom about 1780, the sjii of a miller, who lived near Woodbridge,. 
 in Suffolk, in the beautiful valley of the Stour. Here, as a boy, he used 
 to lie about the woods and streams, watching the operations of nature 
 and the fair earth, and the things that grow on it or flit over it, till to his 
 fancy, and beneath his hand, they became art. He is a charming 
 painter, full of fueling, but somewliat a mannerist m execution, and: 
 
138 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 colour ; so that his pictures have a speckled effect, which is uneasy to 
 the eye. The picture before us, for instance, is intended to convey the 
 impression of a hot day in harvest- time; but there is the same splashy, 
 showery effect on the foliage, the same cool airy sky, as if it were dewy 
 morning, not sultry noon. We can hardly look on his pictures without 
 feeling that there is some truth in Fuseli's sarcasm, — "I go to visit 
 Constable; bring me mine ombrella /"' It is said, in excuse for this pecu- 
 liarity, that he painted his pictures more with a view to their future 
 effect after the lapse of years than their original appearance, which time 
 will improve into softness and harmony. It may be so. 
 
 Constable was an amiable, warm-hearted, lively man, much loved by 
 his family and intimates, living generally in confusion, perplexed with 
 life, yet happy as long as he had those he loved around him, and 
 beautiful landscapes to look at. He died April 1, 1837. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 8 in. by 4 ft. 
 
 Engraved by D. Lucas, under the title of " The Corn-field." 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 131. Christ healing the Sick in the Temple. 
 
 Composition of about 33 Figures, life-size. 
 
 This picture was originally painted as a gift to the Quakers' 
 Hospital in Philadelphia (West, it may be remembered, 
 was an American and a Quaker), but when exhibited in 
 London, previous to being sent over to its destination, " the 
 crush to see it was very great, the praise it received was high, 
 and the Governors of the British Institution offered him 
 3000 guineas for it." West accepted the offer, for he was 
 then far from rich, but on condition that he should be 
 allowed to make a copy for his original purpose. He did 
 so, and when the copy went to America, the profits arising 
 from its exhibition enabled the managers of the hospital to 
 enlarge the building and receive more patients. This anec- 
 dote lends some interest to a picture which must be pro- 
 nounced, if not worthless, yet destitute of any striking merit. 
 The best thing in it is the expression of the sick man in 
 front, gazing up in an agony of faith and eagerness to the 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 139 
 
 face of the Saviour. The Governors of the British Institu- 
 tion presented it to the nation in 1826. 
 
 C. 9 ft. by 14 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Heath. 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 132. The Last Supper. 
 
 Painted for King George III., and presented to the Na- 
 tional Gallery by George IV. 
 
 West, a name distinguished in the history of art in England, was for 
 28 years president of the Royal Academy. He was bom near Philadel- 
 phia, came over to Europe in 1760, and after studying at Rome prac- 
 tised his art in Loudon, where he died in 1820 at the age of 82. He was 
 patronised and pensioned by George III., whose capacity just enabled 
 him to perceive West's real merit without feeling his deficiencies. West 
 was a painter well grounded in the practical part of his art; laborious, 
 serene, benevolent. From a man of his talents and temperament we 
 might not have expected any daring flights of originality and genius, but 
 still less would we have expected such exceeding inequality in his works. 
 He has painted some of the best and some of the worst pictures which 
 have been produced in modern times. I say worst in reference to the 
 pretensions of the artist and the dignity of the subjects which he — I must 
 needs write it — rashly and presumptuously selected, and deemed himself 
 equal to. Subjects like these before us, wherein the stiff figures formally 
 distributed over the canvass, — drawn as if by rule and compass — without 
 character, without feeling ; lifeless, bloodless, mindless ; at once theatrical 
 and commonplace in design ; cold, heavy, hard in the colouring, — leave 
 us in half doubtful astonishment that the same man who painted these 
 huge and vapid and impotent attempts at the sublime should have pro- 
 duced the Death of Wolfe, the Battle of La Hogue, the Pylades and 
 Orestes, and some others. The negative defects of such pictures as these 
 before us are enhanced by the magnitude of their size, the grandeur 
 of the subjects, and the lofty idea which West entertained of his own 
 calling and power : with reference to these pretensions, they are indeed 
 poor, most poor." 
 
 * "These pictures," says Dr. Waagen, " are considered by many Englishmen as 
 true models of biblical history; and I often found a great number of admiring 
 spectators collected round them. Considering the religious respect for the Bible 
 
140 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 West is admired and praised by artists for qualities which they can 
 test appreciate— his mastery and correctness in drawing, his indefatiga- 
 ble application, his " familiar acquaintance with the powers and expe- 
 dients, the exigencies and resources of his art." But, with submission to 
 the opinion and testimony of such men as Sir Martin Shee and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence, how is it that with these advantages he achieved no 
 more? Because he wanted passion, imagination, poetry of soul. His 
 recorded expression " that Michael Angelo had not succeeded in giving a 
 probable character to any of his works, except perhaps the Moses,"' marks 
 the man who had limited his ideas of probability to what he could him- 
 self conceive and attain. His wife said of him, " he is a good man — he 
 never had a vice!" and the same negative praise belongs generally to his 
 pictures. Without any glaring faults, any violation of the rules of art, 
 they are cold, and leave us so. 
 
 C. 6 ft. by 9 ft. 
 
 JOHN HOPPNER. 
 
 133. Portrait of an Actor. 
 
 This actor was Smith, of Drury-lane Theatre, who, from the 
 class of characters he represented and the refinement of his 
 style of acting, was called " Gentleman Smith." He was 
 the original Charles Surface in the " School for Scandal." 
 
 Koppner ranks as one of our finest portrait-painters, and is one of the 
 richest colourists of the English school. For about 20 years, from 1790 
 to 1810. he and Lawrence divided the world of fashion between them, 
 and his death left Lawrence without a rival. Their styles are very dis- 
 tinct and easily discriminated. In Hoppner there is more of sentiment, 
 simplicity, and mellow harmony of colour. In Lawrence more of spirit, 
 brilliancy, and precision of drawing and character. Both were remark- 
 able for cultivation of mind and courtly elegance of manner, but very 
 essentially different in temperament and character. 
 
 which is so general in England, I believed at first that this admiration was paid to 
 the subject rather than to the manner in which it was treated. But since I have 
 seen, in the apartment at Hampton Court, where Raphael's seven Cartoons are 
 hung, which also represent subjects from scripture, and that in the most worthy 
 and most dignified manner, persons of the same class spend no more time than 
 what was necessary to walk through it, I am convinced that, even in the great 
 mass of what are called the educated elasses in England, there is not yet any 
 genuine feeling for historical painting." 
 
 This is very severe ; but after repeated visits to the National Gallery I am con- 
 strained to bear testimony to its truth. — A. J. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 141 
 
 This portrait was presented by Mr. Sergeant Taddy in 
 1837. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in, by 2 ft 1 in. 
 
 FRANCIS DECKER, 
 
 134. A Landscape. 
 
 Extremely well painted in a bright clear tone of colour, 
 and with a light fine pencil. 
 
 Of this painter nothing can be ascertained but that he was a native of 
 Holland, cotemporary with Ruysdael, Artois, and Hobbema ; and painted 
 charming landscapes, which are to be met with in most collections. 
 
 Presented by Lieut.- Colonel Ollney. 
 P. 2 ft. 1 in. by 1 ft 7 in. 
 
 CANALETTI. 
 
 135. Ruins and Figures, a composition (See No. 
 
 127). 
 
 This picture was bequeathed by Lieut.-Colonel Ollney. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 5 in. 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 136. Portrait of a Lady, full length. 
 
 The gift of Francis Robertson, Esq., of Brighton, whose 
 wife it represents. 
 
 This is one of Lawrence's early pictures ; the drawing is 
 most slovenly, the colouring poor, and, as a picture, it is 
 without merit of any kind which could give it a right to a 
 place here. 
 
 C. 7 ft. 10 in. by 4 ft. 10 in. 
 
 JAN VAN GOYEN. 
 
 137. Landscape. A small Study from Nature. 
 
 The subject is uninteresting, and, though well painted, it is 
 a most inadequate specimen of the talents of this excellent 
 
142 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 master. The finest work of his I ever saw is in the pos- 
 session of the Duke of Sutherland. 
 P. 1 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 
 
 PANNINI. 
 
 133. Ancient Ruins, with Figures. 
 
 Bequeathed by Lieut. -Colonel Ollney. 
 
 Paulo Pannini was a celebrated painter of architecture who lived in 
 the beginning of the last century. He practised his art chiefly at Rome, 
 where his best and largest pictures are. His smaller pictures are to be 
 met with in most collections ; and, as he is the best painter in this parti- 
 cular style, they bear a certain value. He painted interiors better than 
 exteriors, and does not give well the effect of sky and air. Compare 
 this picture with its companion, 135. What a difference in point of 
 light, air, and animation ! 
 
 1 ft 7i in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 ANGELICA KAUFFMANN. 
 
 139. Religion attended by the Virtues. 
 
 Composition of 1 1 Figures, life-size. 
 
 Faith is here distinguished by her cross, Hope by her 
 anchor ; Chastity has her dove, and Charity her bantlings : 
 all of which is de rigueur. The picture is intolerably tame 
 both in composition and colour ; it required the fertile fancy 
 and glowing pencil of Rubens to deal with pictorial allegories, 
 whether religious or profane. This picture was painted at 
 Rome for James Forbes, Esq., the author of the " Oriental 
 Memoirs," who bequeathed it to the nation. 
 
 AngelicaKauffmann enjoyed during her life a reputation far beyond her 
 deserts, and since her death she has been almost as much undervalued. 
 She painted portraits and small poetical and historical subjects with 
 great elegance. There is a soft, virginal dignity and delicacy in her 
 best pictures which is very charming ; but all her works display want of 
 variety and power : there is in general grace and simplicity, but the 
 first is monotonous and mannered, and the latter tame and insipid. 
 
 In 1765 she came to England ; and when the Royal Academy was 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 143 
 
 founded she was one of its first and most distinguished members.* She 
 practised her art in London for about seventeen years, and attained both 
 affluence and celebrity. Some part of her success she owed probably to 
 her sex, her winning qualities, and her skill in music. The truth is, 
 Angelica Kauffmann was much more interesting as a woman than as an 
 artist. Beautiful, gentle, generous, singularly accomplished, a real en- 
 thusiast in the arts in which she excelled, painting and music ; loved, 
 honoured, almost worshipped by all who knew her; her life would 
 have been rarely blessed had she not poisoned it by a hasty and unhappy 
 marriage, into which she was partly tricked. She retired to Rome in 
 1782, and died there in 1807. 
 
 C. 7 ft. by 9 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Worthington. 
 
 VANDER HELST. 
 
 140. Portrait of a Lady. 
 
 The drawing is good, the colouring either originally cold or 
 much faded. 
 
 Bartholomew Vander Heist was an emiment Dutch portrait- 
 painter, born at Haerlem in 1613. Of his life but little is 
 known, and of the subject of this picture nothing. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 91 in. by 2 ft. 2± in. 
 
 HENRY STEENWYCK (the Elder). 
 
 141. The Palace of Queen Dido. 
 
 This is an elaborate piece of fancy architecture, very minutely 
 finished with a sort of Chinese neatness, in which the almost 
 grotesque little figures are intended to represent Dido and 
 Eneas. There is, of course, not the slightest attempt at 
 verisimilitude of any kind • but the picture is a curiosity in 
 its way. Henry Steenwyck and his son are celebrated as 
 painters of perspective views of interiors, particularly Gothic 
 churches, &c. They painted between 1570 and 1640, and 
 
 * She was then seven-and-twenty. Women have since been excluded from the 
 Royal Academy, the cause of which ungallant, not to say unreasonable, law, does 
 not clearly appear. 
 
144 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 were in the service of Charles I. Some of their best works 
 are at Windsor and Hampton Court. 
 
 1 ft. 3i in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 142. John Philip Kemble, in the character of Ham- 
 
 let — Full length, Life-size. 
 
 He holds the skull of Yorick in his hand. 
 This fine and interesting picture, which rises to the dignity 
 of an historic portrait, was painted in 1801, when John 
 Kemble was in full possession of his powers : it was pre- 
 sented by King William IV. Lawrence has painted the 
 same great actor in the character of Rolla, and in that of 
 Cato. I believe this picture to be the finest of the three. 
 
 C. 10 ft. by 6 ft. 6 in. 
 Engraved by S. Reynolds. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 
 
 143. Portrait of John Earl Ligonier, on Horseback. 
 
 He was a distinguished military officer in the reigns of 
 Queen Anne, George I., and George II., and commanded 
 part of the army at the battle of Dettingen. He was after- 
 wards (1744) a Field Marshal and Master-General of the 
 Ordnance: he died in 1770, and when this picture was 
 painted he must have been nearly 90. 
 
 This picture is considered one of Sir Joshua's best por- 
 traits : the likeness of the veteran officer, and the general 
 conception, are certainly fine ; the horse is wooden — nothing 
 can be worse. 
 
 Presented to the nation by King William IV. 
 
 C. 9 ft. 2 in. by 7 ft. 10 in. 
 
 Engraved by Fisher; and by S. Reynolds. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 145 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 144. Portrait of Benjamin West — Full length, Life- 
 
 size. 
 
 One of Raphael's Cartoons (the Death of Ananias) is placed 
 on his easel as an exemplification of design : the sphere, 
 with its rainbow tints, behind, exemplifies colour. A dupli- 
 cate of the portrait sent to America. It was painted for 
 King George IV., and presented by King William IV. 
 
 When this picture of the venerable and amiable painter was exhibited 
 in 1811, he was in his 71st year, and had been for nineteen years 
 president of the Royal Academy. 
 
 C. 8 ft. 10 in. by 5 ft. 10. 
 
 Engraved by C. Rolls. (The plate remains unfinished.) 
 VANDER HELST. 
 
 145. Portrait of a Man. 
 
 A small head, on panel, very well painted. Bequeathed 
 by Colonel Harvey Ollney. 
 P. about 12 in. by 8 in. 
 
 STORCK. 
 
 146. View of the Port of Rotterdam. 
 Bequeathed by Colonel Harvey Ollney. 
 
 Abraham Storck was a Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam, 
 and celebrated for his sea-views and shipping : of his life 
 we have no detailed account. He died in 1708. 
 
 C. 1 ft. 11 in. by 2 ft. 5 in. 
 
 ANNIBALE CARRACCI. 
 
 147. Cephalus and Aurora — a Cartoon. 
 
 AGOSTINO CARRACCI. 
 
 148. The Triumph of Galatea — a Cartoon. 
 
 Figures in both above life-size. 
 These two splendid drawings were executed for the Frescos in the 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Farnese Palace at Rome about 1597. Annibale Carracci had been com- 
 missioned by the Cardinal Farnese to paint a gallery in his palace, with a 
 series of grand subjects from the ancient mythology. In this under- 
 taking he was assisted by his elder brother Agostino, an accomplished 
 engraver as well as painter ; but indeed he seems to have been every- 
 thing — painter, engraver, scholar, poet, musician. He designed the 
 " Triumph of Galatea," and thereby, as it is said, excited the lasting 
 jealousy of Annibale. Lanzi expressly says that to Agostino was mainly 
 owing the poetry and invention displayed in the Farnese Frescos.* The 
 original designs for the Cephalus and the Galatea, which occupy the 
 two central compartments, he attributes to him, though the first drawing 
 is supposed to be by the hand of Annibale. After the death of Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence, Lord Francis Egerton purchased out of his unri- 
 valled collection the whole of the Carracci drawings, amounting to 160, 
 at the price of 1500/. ; and, selecting from among them these magnificent 
 cartoons, presented them to the nation in 1837. It is to be regretted 
 that they are so ill placed. 
 
 Drawn in black chalk on paper : size about 13 ft. 6 in. by 7 ft. 6 in. 
 
 The fine engravings after the Frescos (by Pietro Aquila) should be 
 compared with these grand studies. 
 
 The 1 5 following pictures (with No. 1 09) were bequeathed 
 to the nation by Lord Farnborough in 1838 : — 
 
 WILHELM VANDER VELDE. (The younger.) 
 
 149. A Calm at Sea. 
 
 150. A Gale at Sea. 
 
 P. 8 in. by 11 in. 
 
 These two small pictures are of great beauty, more particu- 
 larly the first ; still they are very inadequate specimens of a 
 master who, in his own particular department (marine views), 
 
 * La bella poesia che si ammira nella Galleria Farnese si dee in gran parte al 
 suo talento ; di cui pur sono la favola di Cefalo e di Galatea, cose graziozissime 
 che paiono dettate daun poeta, eseguite da un artefice greco. — Lanzi, vol. v. p. 74. 
 How poorly, how meanly the Carracci were recompensed for these glorious works 
 is recorded in all the Biographies. See particularly Felibien, vol. ii. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 147 
 
 has never been excelled. Walpole says, " The palm is not 
 less disputed with Raphael for history than with Vander 
 Velde for sea-pieces." He and his less celebrated father 
 were patronised by Charles II. and James II., and both died 
 in England. The collections of the Queen, Sir Robert 
 Peel, and Lord Ashburton, contain some of this Vander 
 Velde's finest pictures. 
 P. 9 in. by 1 ft. 1 in. 
 
 P1ETRO FRANCESCO MOLA. 
 
 151. Leda. (See No. 69.) 
 
 C. 1 ft. 2i in. by 1 ft. 8 in. 
 ARNOLD VANDER NEER. 
 
 152. A Landscape — Evening. 
 
 A flat marshy country looking to the mouth of a river, on 
 which vessels are seen in the distance : on the right a group 
 of cattle, and, more distant, the view of a town and its church- 
 spire half hidden in trees ; in front, two peasants, a man 
 and a woman, are conversing ; and on the left, in the middle 
 distance, is a country-house, before the door of which a lady 
 and gentleman are standing in converse, as if they had 
 come out to gaze on the calm beauty of the scene. The dis- 
 position of the trees on the left, with their hoar trunks just 
 tinged with light, is very picturesque, and the painting of the 
 whole wonderfully beautiful. Although the details are finished 
 with the utmost care, nothing is obtrusive, and a melting 
 harmony and suavity of tone is diffused over the homely yet 
 varied scene, which soothes us, while we gaze, into a sympa- 
 thetic calm. 
 
 Vander Neer excelled in evening and moonlight effects. 
 This is considered one of his finest pictures, as he seldom 
 painted on so large a scale. The figures having been put in by 
 Cuyp nearly double the value of the picture, which has been 
 
 h2 
 
148 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 estimated at 700 guineas. It was sold by M. Erard to Lucien 
 Buonaparte, with whose collection it came to England in 
 1816, and was then purchased by Lord Farnborough. 
 C. 3 ft. 11 in. by 6 ft. 3± in. 
 
 NICHOLAS MAES. 
 
 153. A young Girl seated by a Cradle, in which 
 
 there is an Infant asleep. 
 
 Maes was a Dutch painter of domestic subjects of the com- 
 monest, humblest description, to which he lent a value and 
 interest by the truth of character and knowledge of chiaro- 
 scuro he had learned in the school of his master, Rembrandt. 
 He died in 1693. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 3i in. by 1 ft. J in. 
 DAVID TENIERS. 
 
 154. A Music Party. 
 
 The interior of a room: a droll fellow seated at a table 
 strumming on a guitar ; a woman, also seated, holds a paper 
 in her hand, from which she is singing ; behind her stands a 
 boor ; four other persons are seen near a chimney at the back 
 of the room. 
 
 P. 10 in. by 14 in. 
 
 DAVID TENIERS. 
 
 155. The Misers (or Money Changers). 
 
 An old man and woman seated together, near a large covered 
 table, on which lie some heaps of money ; several bags of it 
 are also in the man's lap, and they both appear to be occu- 
 pied in counting and arranging it. The figures are unusually 
 large for Teniers, and are seen to the knees. 
 
 In point of execution, one of the most remarkable pictures of this ver- 
 satile, lively, and most accomplished painter. The marking of charac- 
 ter in the withered, careworn faces, — the tremulous anxiety in the thin, 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 149 
 
 bony hands, — the wonderful and conscientious truth with which all the 
 accessories are finished, — render it quite a study. It is also in a style 
 uncommon with Teniers, who generally painted on a smaller scale, and 
 introduced many figures. The colour, too, is warmer. Compare this 
 picture with the two little pictures, 154 and 158. More will be said of 
 Teniers when we speak of the collection of Lord Ashburton, who pos- 
 sesses some of his masterpieces. 
 
 C. 2 ft. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 Engraved by F. Vanden Steen, who was contemporary with Teniers. 
 (In this print the woman is left out.) 
 
 VANDYCK. 
 
 156. A Study of Horses. 
 
 A spirited grey horse, full of fire and movement, and fore- 
 shortened with consummate skill : a little behind is another 
 horse. In this study the painter had in view the horses of 
 Achilles, Xanthus and Balius,. the offspring of Zephyr. In 
 one corner of the canvass is the sketch of a cherub's head ; 
 in another corner a Latin quotation. 
 
 This fine sketch was once in the Delme collection, after- 
 wards in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and sold 
 after his death for ninety-five guineas. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 11 in. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 157. A Landscape — Sunset. 
 
 It represents a fertile country, with a broken and undulated 
 surface, varied by numerous small bushy trees, and a narrow 
 stream, formed to drain the meadows, obliquely dividing the 
 foreground. On the left side and in front is a shepherd seated 
 on a stone, and playing on a pipe ; his dog stands by him, and 
 his sheep are browsing near : beyond these are two trees and 
 a little bridge ; still farther stands a farm-house with a 
 tower, and a church is seen in the distance. 
 
 It is evidently painted from nature, the nature Rubens was 
 
150 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 accustomed to see around him in his own fertile, but rather 
 flat and monotonous country. 
 C. 1 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 9 in. 
 
 Engraved by Bolswert; one of the well-known set of 20 landscapes 
 after Rubens. 
 
 DAVID TENIERS. 
 
 158. Dutch Boors regaling.— The companion to No. 154. 
 An interior, with a company of three figures grouped on the 
 right. A peasant, with a droll half-tipsy expression, is 
 seated at a table with a long glass of liquor in his hand ; an 
 old woman is filling her pipe, and a man stands behind her. 
 Two others are seen at a fire in the background. 
 
 P. 10 in. by 13± in. 
 
 NICHOLAS MAES. 
 
 159. The Dutch Housewife. — The companion to No. 153. 
 A young woman peeling carrots ; a girl at her side watch- 
 ing her. 
 
 Dated in the corner 1645. 
 P. 13^ in. by Hi in. 
 
 PIETRO FRANCESCO MOLA. 
 
 160. A Holy Family (a Riposo). 
 
 The Holy Family fleeing into Egypt have rested under a 
 tree ; the infant and St. Joseph are asleep ; the mother only 
 wakes and watches. In the far distance to the left a shep- 
 » herd is seen tending his flocks, an incident beautifully ex- 
 pressive. The grouping in this picture is so simple, and yet 
 in such elevated taste, and the landscape, with the twilight 
 effect, of such extraordinary beauty, that we cannot help 
 wishing away the three little cherubs in their white cloud, 
 which form a spot in the middle of the picture, and catch 
 the eye, to the injury of the principal group. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 151 
 
 From the Orleans gallery, whence it was sold to Lord 
 Farnborough for 80 guineas. 
 C. 1 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 16.1. An Italian Landscape. 
 
 In the middle distance is an Italian town, seated on the brow 
 of an eminence, in front of which there is a cascade throw- 
 ing up its silver foam among the verdant cliffs. In the fore- 
 ground to the right is a road, with a figure walking ; two 
 other figures are seen reclining on a bank, and near them 
 are two clogs : to the left is a rocky bank surmounted with 
 bushes and trees. Far in the distance the prospect is closed 
 by a ridge of mountains, some of which are covered with 
 snow. 
 
 While looking on this picture we might almost fancy our- 
 selves in Italy — the forms of the scenery and the incidental 
 figures are so characteristic, so natural, and at the same time 
 so poetical. The harmonious beauty of the whole as a com- 
 position, the vivid though delicate colouring, and the light 
 and facile touch with which it is executed, must imme- 
 diately strike the observer. 
 
 This charming picture was purchased out of the Colonna 
 Palace at Rome by Mr. Ottley. The Colonna family were 
 the munificent patrons of Gaspar Poussin, and from their 
 palace we have obtained many of his finest works. At the 
 sale of Mr. Ottley 's pictures in 1801, it was bought by Lord 
 Farnborough for 700 guineas. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 1 in. by 6 ft. 8£ in. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 162. The Infant Samuel. 
 
 Apparently a study from nature, which Sir Joshua has 
 been pleased to dignify or sanctify with this title : call it a 
 
152 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 little boy saying his prayers, it is charming ; but there is 
 nothing here of the incipient prophet, nothing to bring 
 before the imagination all that was grand, and supernatural, 
 and terrific, in the incident it represents — the consecrated 
 child waked from his innocent sleep in the dead of the night 
 by a divine voice, to be filled with a spirit beyond his own 
 conceiving. Sir Joshua painted another Infant Samuel, now 
 at Dulwich ; it is in a much better spirit. 
 
 The original picture was sold to the Duke of Rutland for 
 100 guineas, and destroyed, with eighteen other pictures by 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, when Belvoir Castle was burned, in 
 October, 1816. There exist three repetitions of it, of which 
 this is one, and there is another at Knowle Park. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved finely by Dean, 1788; and C. Knight, 1792. 
 ANTONIO CANALETTI. 
 
 163. A View on the Grand Canal at Venice. 
 (See No. 135.) 
 C. 4 ft. 1 in. by 6 ft. 81 in. 
 
 JACOB JORDAENS. 
 
 164. A Holy Family. 
 
 A picture remarkable only for more than the usual Flemish 
 vulgarity of conception, and without merit of any kind, unless 
 the splendid colour of the Virgin's robe, and some fine paint- 
 ing about the head of St. Joseph, may be so considered. 
 
 Jordaens studied under Rubens, and adopted his fervid 
 colouring and free and spirited style of execution, but he 
 remained to the last a coarse painter, without dignity, ele- 
 gance, or even propriety in his ideas. His best work, the 
 " Satyr blowing hot and cold," is at Munich. Jordaens 
 died in 1678. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 153 
 
 This picture was presented by the Duke of Northum- 
 berland. 
 
 P. 4 ft. by 3 ft 
 
 NICOLO POUSSIN. 
 
 1 65. The Plague at Ashdod A composition of 41 Figures. 
 
 The scene is a street in the city of Ashdod. Noble build- 
 ings rise on either side of the view, receding in long per- 
 spective to the distance. Numbers of the afflicted inhabitants 
 have quitted their dwellings ; some of them are burying the 
 dead, others tending the sick and dying, and a large portion 
 of them have assembled in consternation round the temple of 
 their deity, whose image lies prostrate and broken on its 
 pedestal. Among the sufferers from the pestilence is a 
 woman lying dead in the centre of the foreground, with her 
 husband bending in grief over her, and gently removing the 
 head of his child from the breast of its parent ;* a second 
 infant lies dead near them : apprehension or disease is 
 marked on every countenance, and the very air seems preg- 
 nant with the blight of human life. 
 
 The drawing, expression, and execution, are careful. The 
 colour has suffered from the red ground, but it has not a 
 bad effect in this picture, as in others. It gives it a lurid 
 tone, in character with the ghastly subject. 
 
 According to Felibien, Poussin painted his first picture of this subject 
 in 1630, and sold it for the small sum of sixty crowns, f It was subse- 
 quently purchased by the Due de Richelieu for 1000 crowns, and is the 
 same now in the Louvre. This duplicate was painted for the Colonna 
 Family, and was brought from their palace in 1802. Poussin has treated 
 a similar subject in his famous Plague of Athens, once in the possession 
 of Henry Hope, Esq., now in that of Mr. Miles, of Leigh Court. 
 
 * This striking group is taken from a famous design by Raphael, called " II 
 Morbetto" (the Pestilence), well known by the engraving of Marc Antonio. The 
 original design once belonged to Charles I., and was in the Lawrence Collection. 
 
 •f- He adds, " Vous pouvez vous souvenir que nous fumes le voir chez un sculp- 
 teur nomme Matheo, auquel il appartenait alors." — Felibien, Entretiens, &c, 
 vol. ii. p. 323. 
 
 H 3 
 
154 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 It was presented to the nation by the Duke of Northum- 
 berland. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 8 in. 
 
 Engraved by Baron; and by Picart le Romain, 1677. 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 166. Portrait of a Capuchin Friar. 
 An inferior picture of the master. 
 
 Presented to the National Gallery by the Duke of North- 
 umberland. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 10i in. by 2 ft. II in. 
 
 BALDASSARE PERUZZI. 
 
 167. The Adoration of the Wise Men. 
 
 A drawing in brown and white. The composition consists 
 of a vast number of figures intermixed with architecture, 
 displaying great fancy and invention, and very carefully 
 executed. 
 
 This drawing, with the famous engraving from it by 
 Agostino Carracci, was presented by Lord Vernon.* 
 On paper, about 4^- feet square. 
 
 Baldassare Peruzzi was one of the most interesting of the great Italian 
 painters, though little known here. He was the friend of Raphael and 
 Bramante, but ranked by Lanzi in the school of Sienna, and there his 
 best work, The Sibyl of the Fonte Giusta, is to be found. He was more 
 celebrated, however, as an architect than as a painter. The Farnesina 
 at Rome is built from his design, and he is said to be the first who 
 painted scenes for theatres; in these and his architectural views his 
 management of the chiaroscuro was so wonderful as on one occasion to 
 deceive Titian. This I consider, however, as a mere trick of art. 
 
 " The life of Peruzzi was most unfortunate. He was insulted by his 
 fellow-students, who were insolent and arrogant in proportion as he was 
 modest and unassuming ; constrained by parsimony or injustice to 
 work for a miserable stipend at Sienna and Bologna; plundered of the 
 trifle he had saved at the sacking of Rome ; and finally cut off* in the 
 
 * The engraving ought to be hung near it. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 155 
 
 prime of life, when his talents were beginning to be known, by poison 
 administered by the jealousy of a rival. 1 ' He perished in 1536. 
 
 RAPHAEL SANZIO DA URBINO. 
 
 168. St. Catherine of Alexandria. 
 
 Single figure — three-quarters — half the size of life. 
 St. Catherine, according to the monkish legend, was a 
 noble virgin of Alexandria. Having been instructed in 
 literature and the sciences, she was afterwards converted to 
 Christianity, and, by order of the Emperor Maximin, she 
 disputed with fifty heathen philosophers, who, being reduced 
 to silence by her arguments and her eloquence, were all to a 
 man converted and suffered martyrdom in consequence : 
 from this circumstance, and her great learning, she is con- 
 sidered in the Romish Church as the patron saint of philo- 
 sophy, literature, and schools. She was afterwards con- 
 demned to suffer death, and the Emperor ordered her 
 to be crushed between wheels of iron armed with sharp 
 blades ; the wheels, however, were miraculously broken 
 asunder, and all other means of death being also rendered 
 abortive, she was beheaded in the year 310, at the age of 
 eighteen. 
 
 The saint is here represented as standing with her left arm 
 leaning on the wheel, which was the instrument of her tor- 
 ture ; her right hand pressed on her bosom, as if she replied 
 to the call from above, " I am here, O Lord ! and ready to 
 do thy will !" Her head is a little turned to the right, where 
 a bright ray is seen streaming from above, emblematical of 
 that divine inspiration which enabled her to confound her 
 heathen adversaries. The vest is of grey, and the drapery 
 of crimson disposed in large easy folds. The ample style 
 of beauty, the heavenly composure of the countenance, the 
 noble simplicity of the attitude, and the grave yet rich cos- 
 tume, are all in the highest feeling. The landscape back- 
 
156 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY, 
 
 ground, representing a river, with buildings and trees along 
 its wandering shores, is just sketched in, and the execution 
 of the whole so exceedingly light, the impasto so thin, that 
 it is as if Raphael had painted it off at once, and had never 
 touched it twice over in any place. The strokes of the chalk 
 outlines are in some parts plainly visible. The hands are 
 less carefully modelled than is usual with Raphael ; they 
 look unfinished. This splendid picture is in excellent pre- 
 servation ; it has been slightly retouched about the forehead, 
 but in all other respects it is as when it came from the hand 
 of the master — a rare merit ! The original sketch on grey 
 paper, in black and white chalk, is in the Royal Museum at 
 Paris (No. 514) ; but an earlier study, evidently a first idea, 
 is a pen drawing in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire : 
 another pen sketch, of the front of the head only, was in the 
 collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence. These preparatory studies 
 show with what care Raphael undertook even his least works ; 
 for, beautiful as this picture is, it must be regarded for its 
 size and subject as comparatively unimportant. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds says that, comparing Raphael with himself, he 
 does not appear the same man in oil as in fresco. Those to 
 whom the study of art is still new, and who wish to form 
 some conception of the powers of this inspired painter, should 
 study the cartoons at Hampton Court, and the fine engrav- 
 ings after the frescoes in the Vatican.* 
 
 Raphael Sanzio (or Santi), of Urbino, the painter of this divine picture, 
 was born at Urbino in 1483. In the history of Italian art Raphael stands 
 
 * It was gratifying to observe the interest this picture excited when it was first 
 placed in the National Gallery in 1838, even among those who had not been 
 accustomed to think much about high art, or consider its real and lofty signifi- 
 cance. "Have you seen the new St. Catherine, and is she not noble ?" was a 
 question which I had to answer frequently. Too often, also, I had occasion to 
 observe the mischief done to the public taste, particularly female taste, by those 
 meagre, wiry, ringleted, meretricious, French-figurante things, miscalled women, 
 with which we are inundated in Books of Beauty, Flowers of Loveliness, and 
 such trivialities. They who dote on such affectations are ill prepared to appreciate 
 the real gusto of such a picture as this. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 157 
 
 alone, like Sbakspeare in the history of our literature. In epic grandeur he 
 may have been exceeded by Michael Angelo, as Milton in the same respect 
 exceeded Sbakspeare ; but in the versatility of his genius, in poetical inven- 
 tion, in grace, expression, pathos, and dramatic power, he has never yet been 
 equalled. It has been well remarked that " the difference between his 
 best pictures and those of other painters is one of kind rather than of 
 degree/' This at once characterises the man and his works; and the same 
 is true of Shakspeare; he is nut only superior to, but different from, all 
 others. The same writer adds that the quantity which Raphael produced 
 in a short life is as remarkable as the fact that scarcely one of his works 
 can be called ordinary in expression or careless in execution. u In his 
 Madonnas he enhanced the simple beauty and pure feeling of the Ura- 
 brian school (that of Perugino) ; in his frescos he rivalled the grandeur of 
 Buonarotti ; and in bis portraits he surpassed the truth and individuality of 
 Titian and Vandyck." To this it may be added that the life of Raphael, 
 lately published in German by M. Passavant, — the fruit of twenty-four 
 years of indefatigable research, and perhaps the most perfect piece of 
 biography for authentic detail that ever was produced, — has completely 
 cleared the fame of Raphael from those silly and slanderous imputations 
 too long received and believed, but which to every elevated and reflect- 
 ing mind must have brought their own circumstantial refutation. It is, 
 however, satisfactory to find them proved on direct evidence to be as false 
 as they are painful and offensive. The short life of Raphael was one of 
 incessant and persevering study : he spent one half of it in acquiring that 
 practical knowledge, that mechanical dexterity of hand, which were ne- 
 cessary before he could embody in form and colours the rich creations of 
 his wonderful mind ; and when he died, at the age of thirty-seven, he left 
 behind him 287 pictures and about 576 drawings and studies. Such a 
 man could not have been idle and dissipated. 
 
 This picture of St. Catherine was painted about the same 
 time with the celebrated Entombment in the Borghese 
 Palace at Rome — that is, about 1507, when Raphael was in 
 his twenty-fourth year. It was long in the possession of the 
 Aldobrandini family, and was brought from the Villa Aldo- 
 brandini by Mr. Day, a picture dealer, in 1800. On its 
 arrival in England it was purchased by Lord Northwick for 
 2000 guineas. Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, was the next 
 possessor, and from him it was purchased by the govern- 
 ment in 1838. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 4 in. by 1 ft. 9i in. 
 
 Engraved finely by the Baron Desnoyers, 1824. 
 
158 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 MAZZOLINO DA FERRARA. 
 
 169. St. Francis adoring the Infant Christ. 
 
 The Virgin holds the infant Saviour, before whom kneels 
 St. Francis in the dress of his order. Two saints are 
 behind, and on the other side are two angels; above is 
 seen a choir of six angels with musical instruments. The 
 background is architectural ; a characteristic of the pictures 
 of this old master. 
 
 This picture came from the Lecari Palace at Genoa in 
 1805, and was purchased by government from Mr. Beck- 
 ford in 1838. 
 
 The two pictures of Mazzolino (the above and No. 82) and the picture 
 by Ercole Grandi (No. 73) are very curious and valuable specimens of 
 the ancient school of Ferrara, before Garofalo had introduced there some 
 feeling for the grandeur and the grace of Raphael. In the finish of the 
 execution and the use of gold, in the want of selection in the forms, in the 
 fantastic choice of the accessories, and in the individual nature and beau- 
 tiful painting of the heads, the small easel pictures of this school remind 
 us of the early German school. The distinction was that of national tem- 
 perament, and what the early Germans wanted in grace they made up 
 in earnestness. 
 
 P. 2 ft. by 1 ft. 6 1 in. 
 
 GAROFALO. 
 
 170. The Holy Family, with Saints and Angels. 
 The Virgin holds the infant Saviour, and Elizabeth the 
 infant St. John, who has a bullfinch in his hand, and is 
 dressed in a rich cap of very peculiar form, but something 
 like those which the little French and Flemish children 
 wear to prevent them from hurting themselves. Behind are 
 St. Joseph and two other saints. The figure and drapery 
 of the Virgin are very beautiful, and the head of Elizabeth, 
 with the white coif, exceedingly fine. 
 
 This little picture is interesting : its superiority to those of Mazzolino 
 will be observed at once, for Garofalo had studied at Rome and Venice, 
 and brought from thence to his native Ferrara something of the fine draw- 
 ing and dignity of Raphael, with an infusion of more vivid colouring 
 caught from Giorgione and Titian. Garofalo, whose real name was 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 159 
 
 Benvenuto Tisio, obtained his name from the gilliflower, or clove-pink, 
 in Italian garofalo, which he was accustomed to paint in the corner of 
 his pictures as a distinguishing mark. Some of his large pictures at Fer- 
 rara are greatly admired. His small easel pictures, like this before us, 
 are to be found in most collections. He was an intimate friend of 
 Ariosto, whose portrait he is said to have introduced into some of his 
 pictures. 
 
 Purchased by Government from Mr. Beckford in 1838. 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 11J in. 
 
 JOHN JACKSON. 
 
 171. Portrait of Sir John Soane, Architect. 
 
 Painted in 1830. (See No. 124.) 
 Sir John Soane, who died in 1837, left his collection of 
 pictures and antiques to the nation, but with the singular 
 and rather inconvenient proviso that they were to remain 
 and to be exhibited in his own house. His reasons for this 
 arrangement, and some account of his bequest, are given 
 subsequently. 
 
 This picture was presented by the Governors of the 
 British Institution. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 CARRAVAGGIO. 
 
 172. Christ and his Disciples at Emmaus. 
 
 Four figures, life-size, half-length. 
 
 " And it came to pass as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, 
 and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were 
 opened, and they knew him." — St. Luke, xxiv. 30, 31. 
 
 The incident is treated here with great dramatic power, 
 great energy of execution and depth of tone, but the con- 
 ception is vulgar. The eatables are painted with a sort of 
 obtrusive reality, which, while it evinces the skill of the 
 artist, displays also his bad taste. What more can be said 
 of a picture in which a roast chicken disputes our attention 
 with the head of the Saviour ? 
 
160 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 Carravaggio (so called from the place of his birth, his real name being 
 Michael Angelo Amerighi) was the inventor of a new style in painting, 
 that of sudden and striking contrasts of light and shadow, which from 
 its novelty and attraction became popular, and being easily imitated be- 
 came common, and at last commonplace. He was the son of a mason, 
 and employed at Milan to prepare the wet plaster for the fresco painters. 
 His genius led him to imitate what he constantly saw, but having no 
 master he struck out a path for himself. Being a man of coarse mind, 
 he took as his models whatever fell in his way, without selection, no mat- 
 ter how vulgar ; but his genius, his force of execution, and that power 
 which resides in whatever is original and genuine of its kind, carried him 
 through. His works became so much admired, that even Guido and 
 Domenichino were under the necessity of abandoning their suavity, 
 grace, and elevation, to imitate the forcible, often exaggerated, effects, 
 and vulgar but vigorous trickery, of Caravaggio ; and Guercino made 
 him his model as a colourist. He could never design correctly, for want 
 of early and careful study, while his ferocious temper and idle profligate 
 habits shut him out from improvement. Fuseli says of him, " that to 
 forms indiscriminately picked from the dregs of the street he contrived 
 to give energy and interest by ideal light and shade." Exactly the 
 same may be said of Rembrandt, yet Rembrandt is one of the most 
 poetical, and Carravaggio one of the least poetical, of painters. His gam- 
 blers and banditti are excellent and characteristic ; his sacred subjects 
 are in general profaned by the most vulgar conception and treatment, as 
 in the picture before us. Michael Angelo da Carravaggio must not be 
 confounded with Polidoro da Carravaggio, a native of the same town (in 
 the Milanese), who also, from a common labourer, became a distin- 
 guished painter. 
 
 The above picture came from the Borghese Palace, and 
 was presented to the nation by Lord Vernon. 
 C. 4 ft. 7 in. by 6 ft 5i in. 
 
 GIACOPO, OR GIACOMO, BASSANO. 
 
 173. Portrait of a Gentleman. 
 
 Life-size — three-quarters. 
 He is in the black Venetian costume, and stands before an 
 open window, holding his glove in his hand ; on a table 
 near him is a vase with a sprig of myrtle. The head is full 
 of refinement, and the whole picture very finely painted. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 161 
 
 It was presented to the nation by Henry Gaily Knight, 
 Esq. 
 
 Giacomo da Ponte, styled Bassano from the place of his birth, was a 
 most splendid colour ist; but, notwithstanding the elegance displayed 
 in this portrait, his treatment of historical subjects is very familiar, and 
 sometimes even vulgar. His small compositions are everywhere to be 
 met with. His portraits are scarce and valuable. It is said that Ariosto 
 and Tasso both sat to him in the course of his long life. He was the 
 head of a numerous family of artists of the same name, who painted 
 much in the same style; but he excelled them all. He died in 1592. 
 {See No. 60.) 
 
 C. 3 ft. 11 in. by 3 ft. 2 in. 
 
 CARLO MARATTI. 
 
 174. The Portrait of a Cardinal. 
 
 Half-length, seated, the face seen in front ; small 
 pointed beard and mustachios : the right hand rests 
 on the arm of his chair ; the left grasps part of his 
 red drapery. In the background shelves with books. 
 
 Presented by Henry Gaily Knight, Esq. 
 
 Carlo Maratti was one of the latest painters of the Roman school. 
 He enjoyed an immense reputation during his life, and was considered 
 the greatest painter in Europe, yet his pictures seldom rise above an ele- 
 gant mediocrity, and his unmeaning heads and fluttering draperies show 
 the decline of art. This, however, is a fine portrait, and evidently of an 
 intellectual and distinguished man. I regret that I am unable to 
 identify it. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 11 in. by 3 ft. 2 in. 
 VANDER PLAAS. 
 
 175. Portrait of Milton. (?) 
 
 This is a carefully painted, and probably a faithful, likeness 
 of the personage it represents : but there is no ground for 
 believing it— still less for wishing it — to be a portrait of 
 Milton, of whom we have authentic and contemporary repre- 
 sentations, different from this in every feature. It has been 
 
162 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 engraved, however, as such, and published in 1797 by W. 
 Stevenson, Norwich ; and by Messrs. Boydell. 
 
 Vander Plaas was a Dutch portrait-painter of some repu- 
 tation, who died in 1704. 
 
 Presented by Capel Lofft, Esq. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 4£in. by 1 ft. 11£ in. 
 
 MURILLO. 
 
 176. The Infant St. John, with the Lamb. 
 
 He is represented as a boy about six years old, standing in a 
 landscape. His arms are round a lamb near him, the finger 
 of the left hand raised as if indicating, by the significance of 
 the action, " Behold the Lamb of God." This is an instance 
 of what we frequently meet with in the old painters — the 
 substitution of the palpable image for the figurative phrase ; 
 another instance occurs in Raphael's cartoon, " Feed my 
 sheep." The expression in the face of the inspired boy is 
 very animated, and the tumultuous bit of sky in the back- 
 ground extremely fine. 
 
 This picture, and its companion, the "Good Shepherd," 
 were formerly in the Palais de Lassay, afterwards in the Presle 
 collection, whence they were purchased by the Citoyen Robit. 
 When his collection was sold, in 1801, the two pictures were 
 bought for Sir Simon Clarke, who considered them as the 
 principal ornaments of his fine gallery at Oakhill, and valued 
 them at not less than 4000/. When his collection was sold by 
 auction, in May, 1840, these two admirable and interesting 
 pictures were unhappily, for the first time, separated. The 
 St. John was purchased for 2000 guineas by Lord Ash- 
 burton, who ceded it to the government ; and it is rather 
 a curious circumstance that the companion picture, " Christ 
 as the Good Shepherd," was on this occasion purchased by 
 the great Jewish banker, Rothschild, for 3900 guineas, and 
 at present adorns his villa at Gunnersbury. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 163 
 
 There is a fine repetition of this subject in the possession 
 of the Earl of Lovelace. 
 C. 5 ft. 5 in. by 3 ft. 7 in. 
 Engraved by Valentine Green. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 177. The Magdalen— Half-length, Life-size. 
 
 Just such a picture as this seems to have suggested the 
 famous couplet of Pope : — 
 
 " Then shall the fair one beautifully cry 
 In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye." 
 It is a very pleasing specimen of a subject in which Guido 
 excelled, and which he has repeated frequently. The painting 
 is slight but masterly, and in his silver tone of colour. 
 
 From the Orleans Gallery, whence it was purchased by 
 Mr. Henry Hope for 400 guineas. At his sale in 1816 it 
 was bought by Sir Simon Clarke; and at the sale of his 
 pictures in 1840 it was purchased by Government for 
 200 guineas. 
 
 There was a Magdalen in the same collection by Domenichino, alto- 
 gether superior, and in the noblest style and feeling. It is to be regret- 
 ted that it was not secured to the nation in preference to this Guido. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 7 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved by D. Cunego ; by Bouillard ; by W. Sharp. 
 
 All the pictures which in the foregoing catalogue and elsewhere are 
 noted as having been part of the Orleans Collection will be found 
 engraved in the " Galerie du Palais Royal," 3 vols., folio. Paris, 1786. 
 
 The following works have been published to illustrate the pictures in 
 the National Gallery : — 
 
 1. Engravings from the Pictures in the National Gallery. Published 
 for the Associated Engravers, by John Pye. In Folio. Price two 
 guineas each Part. (Of this beautiful work, the first series only, con- 
 
164 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 sisting of seven numbers, and including 28 plates, has appeared. The 
 engravings are of a large size and by the first artists, and the short 
 notices appended to each, which are understood to be from the pen 
 of Barry Cornwall, are written with great elegance and poetical 
 feeling.) 
 
 2. Engravings from the Pictures in the National Gallery. Published 
 by Jones. Quarto. Is. each number. (This work is complete, and 
 comprises 172 engravings of a small size and in a common style. 
 The work is, however, useful as a reference, and the notices are very 
 well written.) 
 
 3. A Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Pictures of the late 
 John Julius Angerstein, Esq., containing a finished Etching of every 
 Picture, and accompanied by Historical and Biographical Notices. 
 By John Young. London. 1823. (This work comprises the An- 
 gerstein Collection only, and includes a family picture, and three 
 pictures by Fuseli, not in the National Gallery.) 
 
 4. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, with 
 Critical Remarks on their Merits. By Wm. Young Ottley, F.A.S. 
 Murray. 1826. (It contains accounts of 63 pictures.) 
 
 5. A Descriptive, Explanatory, and Critical Catalogue of Fifty of the 
 Earliest Pictures contained in the National Gallery of Great Britain. 
 By John Landseer. 8vo. 1834. 
 
 To these last two works I have been much indebted in drawing up the 
 foregoing Catalogue ; as well as to the critical remarks of Hazlitt, Dr. 
 Waagen, M. Passavant, and others. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 *1(55 
 
 ADDITIONS TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY SINCE MARCH, 184L 
 
 WILLIAM HILTON, R.A. 
 
 178. Sir Calepine rescuing Serena. 
 
 Composition of five principal figures, less than half life-size. 
 The subject is from Spenser's Fairie Queene, Book vi., 
 Canto 8. Serena, after being wounded by the Blatant Beast 
 (i. e. Sla?ider), is separated from her lover, Sir Calepine, 
 and pursued by the two Carles (i. e. Disdaine and Scorn). 
 She flies for refuge to a forest, where she is found at even- 
 tide asleep, and seized by a certain savage people, whose 
 custom it is to sacrifice and devour all strangers who fall 
 into their hands. On finding herself surrounded by this 
 hideous barbarian rout — 
 
 Her heart does quake, a deadly pallid hue 
 Benumbs her cheeks; then out aloud she cries 
 Where none is nigh to hear that will her sue, 
 And rends her golden locks 
 
 She is laid on the altar, and the Priest bares his arm and 
 raises his knife for the sacrifice : — 
 
 Now mote you understand that to this grove 
 Sir Calepine by chance, more than by choice, 
 The self-same evening Fortune hither drove, 
 As he to seek Serena thro' the woods did rove. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Eftsoones he saw one with a naked knife, 
 
 Ready to launch her breast, and let out loved life : 
 
 With that he thrusts into the thickest throng, &c. 
 
 At the moment of rescuing Serena, Sir Calepine does not 
 recognise his lady-love. The darkness of the gathering 
 gloom, and her own bashfulness at being discovered in a 
 
 h 4 
 
*16G 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 state "so uncomely to her womanhood," keep this know- 
 ledge from him till the following day. Here the story 
 breaks off, and is left imperfect. 
 C. 4 ft. 7 in. by 7 ft. 7 in. 
 
 This picture was painted by Hilton in 1830, and exhibited at the Royal 
 Academy in 1831. It is remarkable for poetical conception, fine ani- 
 mated colour, and vigorous execution ; in some parts verging on coarse- 
 ness and heaviness. The figure of Serena is exquisite in its lifeless 
 beauty ; perhaps a little too pallid even for the death-like swoon of 
 horror into which she has fallen ; too absolutely white and like the 
 linen on which she is extended. The fluttering, flying draperies of the 
 other figures, though expressive of the hurry and agitation of the moment, 
 are rather commonplace in the treatment : yet it is a noble picture ; 
 and we are left to regret that we have not here as a pendant its beautiful 
 companion " The Lady and Comus."* We had then possessed two 
 admirable pictures from two of the greatest of our national poets, painted 
 by an artist of true English growth, worthy to be the interpreter of their 
 spirit. In 1840 sixty-seven pictures and sketches by Hilton were 
 exhibited in the British Institution, and of these sixteen were subjects 
 from Milton and Spenser. The Serena was purchased from his executor 
 by a number of gentlemen, admirers of the painter, who entered into a 
 subscription for that purpose. The price set upon the picture was 500/. ; 
 but at the end of the year the amount of the subscriptions received did 
 not exceed 475/. The executor having consented to accept that sum, 
 all expenses deducted, the picture was purchased for the subscribers ;t 
 and by their committee, of which Thomas Phillips, Esq., R.A., was 
 president, it was presented to the National Gallery in 1 841. J 
 
 * Lately sold at Christie's. It is, I must needs say it, a painful proof of the 
 sort of spirit which directs fashionable patronage in this country — public and 
 private — that these two pictures, the Serena and the Comus, remained in the pos- 
 session of the painter to the day of his death. 
 
 f The list of subscribers included 177 names. Of these 1 GO were artists. Lord 
 Colborne, Lady H.Clive, Lord Prudhoe,the Marquess of Northampton, and Lady 
 Grey, were the only noble names. 
 
 X If during the life of this gifted painter any grand works had been carried on 
 here, such as now shed a glory over the little capitals of Germany — had he pos- 
 sessed a wide and fair field for the exercise of his luxuriant imaginative power 
 and large and vigorous style of design — England had at this time been the richer 
 for his fine genius; we might have possessed something to compete with the works 
 of Cornelius and Schnorr, and Kaulbach, and the German fresco school : but, 
 like Barry and others of his countrymen, Hilton wasted his life in vain aspira- 
 tions, in scattered efforts ; and " so he died — foor fellow V as Carlyle said of Napo- 
 leon the Great — died an embittered and disappointed man ; while of all the rich 
 fruits of his matured talent y all the great works he produced and planned, this. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 *167 
 
 FRANCESCO FRANCIA (RAIBOLINI). 
 
 179. The Virgin and Child with Saints. 
 Eight figures, rather less than life. 
 In the centre of the picture, on a raised throne, are seated 
 the Virgin and her mother, St. Anne. The Virgin is attired 
 in a crimson vest and dark-blue drapery, which is drawn 
 over her head. She holds the Infant in her lap, to whom 
 St. Anne is presenting a peach. The expression of the 
 Virgin is exquisitely pure, calm, and saintly ; without, how- 
 ever, the seraph-like refinement of some of Raphael's Ma- 
 donnas; the head of the aged St. Anne is simply dignified and 
 maternal. At the foot of the throne stands the little St. 
 John, holding in his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll, 
 " Ecce Agnus Dei." On each side of the throne are two 
 Saints. To the right of the Virgin stands St. Paul, hold- 
 ing a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom ; and St. 
 Sebastian, bound to a pillar and pierced with arrows.* On 
 the left, St. Lawrence, with the gridiron and the palm- 
 branch, and another Saint, in the Dominican habit, whom 
 we might suppose to be St. Frediano, but that the latter 
 appears to have been an Augustine Friar. The heads of 
 these Saints want elevation of form, the brow in all being 
 rather low and narrow; but the prevailing expression is 
 simple, affectionate, devout, full of faith and hope. 
 
 The background is formed of two open arches adorned with 
 sculpture, the blue sky beyond; and low down between 
 St. Sebastian and St. Paul is seen a glimpse of a beautiful 
 landscape. The draperies are grand, the colouring ridi and 
 warm, the execution most careful and finished in every part. 
 On the cornice of the raised throne or pedestal is inscribed, 
 
 little picture alone is public property. The country which produced him lias 
 this to show, as one proof among too many, that, when native genius does appear 
 in England, England either knows not how to appreciate it, or knows not how 
 or where to employ it. 
 
 * For the legend of St. Sebastian, see p. 501. 
 
168 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 " Francia avrifex Bononiensis. P." (»„ painted by 
 Francia, goldsmith of Bologna) ; but no date. 
 P. 6 ft. 6% in. by 6 ft. 
 
 180. The Lunette, or Arch, forming the top of the 
 altar-piece just described. 
 
 It represents the subject called a Pieta. In the centre the 
 dead Redeemer supported on the knees of the Virgin mother. 
 The drapery of the Virgin is crimson and blue, as in the former 
 picture. An angel clothed in green drapery supports the 
 drooping head of the Saviour ; at his feet is an angel clothed 
 in red. The intensity of grief in the sorrowing mother would 
 be almost too painful if the melancholy yet divine beauty 
 in the head of the Saviour, and the extended limbs, so 
 utterly dead — yet not distorted nor defaced by death, — did 
 not t{ destroy all pain but pity — the solemn, reverential 
 pity proper to the subject. 
 P. 3 ft. 2 in. by 6 ft. 1 in. 
 
 These two pictures, forming one altar-piece, were painted by Francia, 
 for the Marchesa Buonvisi, of Lucca, about 1500, and placed in the 
 chapel of the Buonvisi family, in the church of San Frediano.* They 
 remained there till purchased lately by the Duke of Lucca, with whose 
 gallery they came to England in 1840. By connoisseurs they were 
 generally regarded as the most valuable pictures of the collection ; and 
 the sum then demanded for them was 4000/. After some negotiation, 
 the Government obtained them for the National Gallery at the price of 
 3500/. 
 
 As a painter of purely devotional subjects in what is called the 
 mystic school of art, Francia remains unsurpassed. He was a better 
 workman with his tools, a more correct designer, than " the blessed" Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico, and equal to Perugino and Gian Bellini in the 
 spiritual beauty of his types, and the simple, solemn grandeur of his 
 composition. There are two remarkable circumstances in his profes- 
 sional life : the first, that he never painted a picture till he was forty, f 
 
 * Vasari makes particular mention of this picture; it was, he says, " tenuta da' 
 Lucchesi cosa molta degnn." 
 
 t His earliest picture is dated 1490, and was painted for the chapel of the Ben- 
 tivoglio family at Bologna, where it now exists. 
 
NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 *169 
 
 having till then exercised the profession of a goldsmith, and being only- 
 known as a worker in niello * and as a medallist ; the second was his 
 enthusiastic affection and admiration for his young contemporary, 
 Raphael. Vasari's story, that he died of envy and despair at the sight 
 of Raphael's " St. Cecilia,'' is, happily, doubtful. Such ignoble 
 passions found no place in the soul of this devout and amiable painter. 
 Still the date of his death remains uncertain ; some placing it in 1518, 
 before the death of Raphael; and others in 1533, making him thirteen 
 years his survivor.f 
 
 PIETRO PERUGINO. (VANUCCI.) 
 
 • The Virgin and Child with St. John. 
 Figures less than half life-size. 
 
 The Virgin is seen half-length, holding the infant Christ, 
 who is standing in front, and grasps one of the tresses of her 
 long fair hair. The little St. John is seen half-length on 
 the left, looking up with joined hands. The background a 
 landscape. 
 
 This little picture is an early work of the master, who is regarded as 
 a principal painter of the Umbrian school. The execution and drawing 
 are timid ; the feeble finical handling, the brownish hatching in the 
 shadows, the use of gold in the ornaments, all characterise the beginner 
 in art and the early date of the picture, which may have been painted 
 about 1470. 1 The conception is, however, divinely simple and re- 
 fined ; and the picture is a remarkable and valuable addition to the 
 Gallery, not only as an original, though an early work, of a painter worthy 
 to have been the master of Raphael, but as containing the germ and 
 first example of that peculiar ideal character of the Madonna which 
 
 * For an explanation of this term see the Catalogue of Soane's Museum, p. 563. 
 
 + According to Vasari, he died in 1518 ; according to Malvasia, in 1535. Lanzi 
 places his death In 1533 ; but later authorities — Calvi, in the " Memorie de Fran- 
 cesco Raibolini," Bologna, 1812, and Passavant — affirm that he died January 6th, 
 151"?, at the age of 67, being then master of the mint of his native city, Bologna. 
 See Kugler's " Hand-book," pp. 164 and 167, note; and Rio, " De la Poesie Chre- 
 tienne," p. 246. 
 
 X Before Perugino went to Florence, that is, when he was about four and 
 twenty. At this time painting in oils was not generally practised, and the picture 
 before us is executed in distemper, and varnished. This partly accounts for its 
 hatched execution, though it is not an excuse for the lights not agreeing with the 
 half-lights. As a specimen of distemper before oil-painting was general (and 
 differed in its process from later works in distemper), it is in itself a curiosity." 
 
-170 
 
 NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 became afterwards the favourite type with the Utnbrian and Roman 
 schools, and which we see fully developed and carried to perfection in 
 the works of Raphael. 
 
 In this country Perugino is little known, except as having been the 
 instructor of Raphael ; and to judge him by this little picture would 
 be equal ignorance and injustice. His best works are in Italy, princi- 
 pally at Perugia, his native place ; at Rome, where he was employed 
 for several years by Pope Sixtus IV. ; and at Florence. 
 
 This picture was formerly in the Fon thill Collection, and was pur- 
 chased from Mr. Beckford in 1811 for 800/. He obtained it direct from 
 Perugia. It appears to have suffered a good deal in the brow of the 
 Virgin, 5 ' 5 but otherwise it is in good preservation. The hair and drapery 
 are finished with extreme delicacy and care ; the name of the painter 
 is inscribed in gold on the Virgin's mantle. No date. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 2i in. by 1 ft. 5£ in. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 1 82. Studies of Angels. 
 
 Five heads, life-size. 
 These beautiful heads are portraits of Frances Isabella Ker 
 Gordon, the infant daughter of Lord and Lady William 
 Gordon. They are painted with astonishing lightness, 
 delicacy, and feeling; and the colour is as fresh, pure, and 
 transparent as when they first came from the easel. Pre- 
 sented to the National Gallery by Lady W. Gordon in 1841. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by Simon; and by S. Reynolds. 
 
 * I am assured by an excellent judge that this appearance is deceptive, and 
 arises from the crude and timid execution. 
 
THE ROYAL GALLERIES 
 
 AT 
 
 WINDSOR AND HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
THE 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Almost from the time that we have had princes and palaces 
 in England, we have had painting in some form, as subser- 
 vient to devotion or to decoration, to royal state or courtly 
 flattery; but the earliest record on the subject goes no fur- 
 ther back than the reign of Henry III., who, when building 
 his new palace at Westminster, had one of the chambers 
 painted with scenes from the crusades ;* and we read also 
 of chapels and oratories adorned with figures of our Saviour, 
 the Virgin, and various saints ; also rooms painted to imitate 
 drapery, " with the likeness of a green curtain." But the 
 most valuable relics of the art of painting in those early 
 times consist in the limnings or illuminations of the missals, 
 chronicles, and romances ; many of which, now extant, are 
 not only wonderful for the beauty and permanence of the 
 colours, and the delicate and elaborate finishing, but for the 
 character of the heads and the taste of the draperies. Those 
 who are curious in these matters may consult the details 
 given in the first chapter of Dallaway's Edition of Wal pole's 
 Anecdotes. Our present affair is not the history of painting, 
 but the history of pictures, individually and collectively. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VII., somewhere about 1499, Jan 
 Mabuse, one of the very best painters of his time, came over 
 
 * Thence called the " Antioch Chamber," and the " Jerusalem 
 Chamber — 
 
 " In that Jerusalem shall Harry die !" — Henry IV. 
 
168 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 to England : he painted the portraits of the king's children, 
 now at Hampton Court ; and from his hand — but not, as I 
 presume, painted while in England — is the very remarkable 
 picture or pictures, also at Hampton Court, representing 
 James IV. of Scotland and his queen, Margaret, daughter 
 of Henry VII. ; and the St. Matthew now in the queen's 
 gallery at Buckingham Palace. The date of his death is 
 uncertain. 
 
 The first of our monarchs who attempted to form a gallery 
 of pictures was that magnificent ruffian, Henry VI 1 1 . He was 
 not always the hateful and remorseless tyrant he afterwards 
 became, and in the beginning of his reign showed a disposition 
 to cultivate and patronise both art and literature. His en- 
 couragement of painting may possibly be traced to his rivalry 
 of Francis I., who was throughout his life the object of his 
 fear, admiration, and jealousy. Francis had found means to 
 attract to his court four among the greatest artists in Italy — 
 Lionardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Primaticcio, and 
 Nicolo dell' Abbate. In emulation of Francis, Henry sent 
 to invite Raphael and Primaticcio to England ; and Wolsey, 
 then his envoy at Rome, was not sparing in courteous per- 
 suasion and munificent promises ; but we were not destined 
 to be so honoured. Raphael declined the invitation, but he 
 painted for Henry the small picture of St. George with the 
 Order of the Garter round his knee which is now at St. 
 Petersburg ;* and some of his scholars were prevailed upon 
 to try their fortune among the barbarian English — " quelli 
 bestie di quelli Inglesi," as Torrigiano had styled us. Among 
 other painters employed by Henry, we find the names of 
 Luca Penni, Toto dell' Nunciata, and Girolamo da Trevigi (or 
 Jerome de Trevisi), all mentioned by Lanzi as having at- 
 
 * It differs considerably from the elegant St. George of the Louvre, 
 which last was painted for the Duke of Urbino. The St. George sent to 
 Henry was finely engraved by Luke Vosterman, in 1629. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 169 
 
 tained some eminence in their own country previous to their 
 coming here. Jerome de Trevisi came over about 1531, 
 and remained here thirteen years, and to him the large 
 paintings at Hampton Court of the Embarcation of Henry 
 VIII. and the Champ de Drap d'Or are with reason attri- 
 buted : he had a pension of 400 crowns from the king. 
 Luca Penni also arrived here about 1531 ; he had been 
 employed by Francis I., in conjunction with Primaticcio, to 
 decorate the palace of Fontainbleau. 
 
 Another painter much employed by Henry, and almost 
 naturalised in England, was Lucas Cornelii, or Corneliz, to 
 whom some of the old portraits now at Hampton Court maybe 
 ascribed. I find also in Vasari mention of two female artists, 
 painters in miniature, Susanna Horneband, who was invited 
 into the service of Henry VIII., and lived honourably in 
 England to the end of her life ; and Levina, daughter of 
 Master Simon, of Bruges, who was nobly married by Henry, 
 and much prized and honoured by Queen Mary, and after 
 her death by Queen Elizabeth ;* but it is impossible to 
 identify the works of these painters individually : most of 
 them appear to have perished in the fire at Whitehall, or to 
 have been lost and dispersed. Some half-obliterated paint- 
 ings on the wall of a small room at Hampton Court, called 
 the Confessionary, quite in the style of Raphael's school, 
 existed so late as 1750 : they are now T quite effaced. 
 
 But if Henry failed in attracting to his court the first-rate 
 painters of Italy, he had some amends for his disappointment 
 when he succeeded in fixing near his person that extraordinary 
 genius Hans Holbein. The sturdy painter and the bluff 
 monarch have in truth become so associated in the fancy, that 
 we can seldom think of the one without a recollection of the 
 other. Holbein was a native of Basle, in Switzerland, and 
 
 * Vasari, p. 1101. Florence edit., 1832. 
 
 I 
 
170 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 born in the year 1498 : he was the son of a painter, and his 
 genius was early fostered and developed ; but we are told that 
 he led a dissipated life, and wasted in no creditable manner 
 the money gained in his profession : we are also told that his 
 wife was a shrew, like the wife of Albert Durer, and that 
 her froward temper was one of the causes which drove him 
 from his native place. Those who look upon the portraits 
 of Holbein and his wife at Hampton Court may well doubt 
 whether the former black-whiskered, bull -necked, resolute, 
 almost fierce-looking personage could have had much to 
 endure from the poor, broken-spirited, sad-visaged woman 
 opposite to him, and may be inclined to put another con- 
 struction on the story. With Albert Durer it is different : 
 110 contrast can be greater than between the coarse head of 
 Holbein and that of Albert Durer, with his mild melancholy 
 eyes and long fair hair. But be this as it may, there is 
 ample evidence that Holbein was reduced to poverty, and 
 was obliged to quit his native place to make some provision 
 for his family. There is a picture still preserved in the 
 Museum at Basle, painted about the time he left it, repre- 
 senting his wife and two children, half-length : she has a 
 child in her lap, and one hand rests on the head of a boy 
 who looks up sorrowfully in her face. It is many years 
 since I saw this picture, and I may err in my recollection 
 of attitude and detail, but I cannot forget that I never was 
 so moved by any picture in my life as by this little bit of 
 homely domestic tragedy : I cannot forget the anguish de- 
 picted in the countenance of the wife, nor the pathetic looks 
 of the children. Holbein left them, and came over to Eng- 
 land recommended by Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, then 
 Chancellor : he was honourably received, lodged for some 
 time in the house of that distinguished man, and painted 
 several portraits of his family and friends. The king, on 
 seeing these works, was struck with admiration, and imme- 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 171 
 
 diately took the painter into his own service. He allowed 
 him a salary of 30/. a-year, equal to ten times that sum in 
 these days, and he was paid besides for each picture which 
 he painted. Holbein's jovial character was in accordance 
 with Henry's taste, and he soon became a favourite. Henry's 
 rebuke to one of his courtiers who had insulted the painter 
 is well known — " You have not to do with Holbein, but with 
 me. I tell you, that of seven peasants I can make seven 
 lords, but not one Holbein !" He visited Basle when at the 
 height of his reputation and prosperity, but soon returned to 
 England, and died here in 1 554, having survived his royal 
 patron about eight years. 
 
 Of the numerous pictures which Holbein painted for the 
 king but few remain. One of his best and largest pictures, 
 representing Henry VII. and Henry VIII. and their queens, 
 was painted on the wall of one of the chambers of the old 
 palace of Whitehall, which was consumed by fire in 1698. 
 Luckily a small and fine copy has been preserved, and is now 
 at Hampton Court. In the same fire many other pictures, 
 and some of his exquisite miniatures, were destroyed. In 
 Charles I.'s catalogue I find only eleven works of Holbein 
 specified. In King James's I find thirty-one pictures 
 ascribed to him ; but not more than half the number are 
 really his. 
 
 About the year 1734, Queen Caroline discovered, in an 
 old bureau in Kensington Palace, a collection of Holbein's 
 original drawings for the portraits of the chief personages 
 living in the court of Henry VIII. After Holbein's death 
 they had been sold into France, whence they were brought 
 and presented to King Charles I. by M. de Liencourt. 
 Charles exchanged them with the Earl of Pembroke for the 
 St. George, by Raphael, once in the possession of Henry 
 VIII. Lord Pembroke gave them to Lord Arundel, and, 
 in the opinion of Mr. Dallaway, they were purchased for the 
 
 i 2 
 
172 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 crown in 1686; then, as it appears, thrown into a drawer, 
 where they might have rotted unknown, if the curiosity and 
 intelligence of Queen Caroline had not brought them to light 
 fifty years afterwards. They are eighty-nine in number, of 
 which a few are duplicates, executed in black chalk on paper 
 stained of a flesh colour, and most of them admirable for 
 character and expression. Queen Caroline, who was much 
 delighted with her discovery, ordered them to be framed and 
 glazed ; and they hung for some time in her closet at Ken- 
 sington. George III. had them taken down, and carefully 
 placed in portfolios ; and they are at present deposited in her 
 Majesty's library at Windsor.* 
 
 From the pictures by Holbein, remaining at Windsor and 
 at Hampton Court, we may form some idea of his merit as a 
 portrait-painter. The only picture from his hand in the 
 imaginative and historical style is the ' Noli me Tangere* 
 (Christ and Mary Magdalen in the Garden), now at Hamp- 
 ton Court. But this conveys a most inadequate idea of the 
 genius of the man who could paint such a picture as the 
 family-piece at Basle already mentioned ; the head, inscribed 
 ' Lais Corinthidca, 1526,' in the same collection: and, 
 above all, the exquisite ' Madonna of the Meyer Family,' 
 now in the Dresden gallery, which is not only the finest of all 
 his known pictures, but has been pronounced by an accom- 
 plished connoisseur the chef-d'oeuvre of old German art. 
 
 * A set of fac-similes of these drawings were by the king's permission 
 engraved by Bartolozzi, and published between 1792 and 1800, under 
 the title of " Imitations of Original Drawings, by Hans Holbein, in the 
 Collection of his Majesty, for the Portraits of Illustrious Persons in the 
 Reign of Henry VIIL, published by John Chamberlaine, Keeper of the 
 King s Drawings and Medals." The price was then 36 guineas. The 
 plates have since fallen into the hands of Mr. Henry G. Bohn, the emi- 
 nent bookseller, who has re-published them, with some additional heads, 
 at the price of 15 guineas : and there is a smaller set of the same work, 
 now published at 5 guineas and a half. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 173 
 
 Speaking from my own judgment, I should say it was one 
 of the finest pictures in the world. As a representation of 
 ' Our Lady of Pity,' and for depth of feeling and refined 
 contemplative tenderness of expression, it may divide suf- 
 frages with the divine Madonna Sistina of Raphael — all grace 
 and majesty as she is ! No one, I think, can justly appre- 
 ciate the powers of Holbein who has not seen this picture ; 
 no one having seen it but must deeply regret the loss of 
 those works which Holbein executed for the King's Chapel 
 at Whitehall, and other pictures of sacred and historical 
 subjects which he painted while in England : among which 
 were the Joseph of Arimathea and the Raising of Lazarus, 
 the Triumph of Riches and the Triumph of Poverty.* 
 Though always an admirer of Holbein, I never believed him 
 capable of conceiving such a picture, so grandly simple, so 
 divinely elevated in character, as the Madonna of the Dresden 
 gallery, till I had looked upon it.f 
 
 * Of the two last Frederic Zuccaio made drawings, which are pre- 
 served at Strawberry Hill. 
 
 f Having said so much of this picture, perhaps a few more particulars 
 may be interesting to the reader. Though not connected with the imme- 
 diate subject of this work, it is not foreign to its object, which is to add 
 to the knowledge and the love of art generally. 
 
 The picture measures about five feet in height, and the figures are 
 about half-life size. In the centre stands the Virgin holding a child 
 in her arms ; on her right kneels the Burgomaster Meyer and one of his 
 sons ; near whom a little naked boy is standing : on her left the Burgo- 
 master's wife, her daughters, and another female relative. The composi. 
 tion is as simple, and in some respects as naive, as possible. It has been 
 supposed, from the sickly and wasted appearance of the infant in the 
 Virgin's arms, and the manner in which it droops its little head on her. 
 bosom, added to its obvious resemblance to the child standing on the 
 ground, that this is a votive picture — an offering of gratitude for the 
 restoration of a sick child, the youngest darling of the family, to health . 
 The infant in the Virgin's arms is supposed to be the sick child, and the 
 one on the ground the same child restored to health. Other critics are 
 opposed to this hypothesis. M. Vogel says that there is no other instance 
 
174 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 The number of pictures in the possession of Henry VIII. 
 has been estimated at about one hundred and fifty. 
 
 The short reign of Edward VI. affords nothing memorable. 
 Holbein still lived, was still patronised by the court, and 
 painted the young king several times ; * besides executing 
 
 of a Madonna represented as " wunderthatig," — " miracle-working," — 
 without the Infant Christ. On the other hand, how is it possible that a 
 painter who could give us with such striking, heart-speaking truth, the 
 various expressions in the heads of the Virgin and the suppliants at her 
 feet, could so utterly fail in the figure of the Infant Saviour, in which 
 the appearance of weakness and pain predominates over every other? 
 The head of the Virgin is a perfect miracle of painting and expression 
 — dignity, purity, sweetness, compassion, were never so blended in a 
 female face. Her long golden hair flows down upon her shoulders, and 
 she wears a diadem as Queen of Heaven. The execution of the whole, 
 down to the minutest details, is of wonderful delicacy and finish, with- 
 out in any degree detracting from the general effect, as is too often the 
 case with the old Dutch and German schools. This picture, after 
 remaining in the Meyer family for about a century, was purchased, in 
 1633, by M. le Blond, the S wedish agent or consul at Basle, for the 
 sum of a thousand dollars, and from him the banker Loesert purchased 
 it for the Queen Dowager of France, Marie de Medicis, at the price of 
 three thousand dollars. After her death at Cologne, in miserable cir- 
 cumstances, it was purchased by a wealthy Dutchman, who bequeathed 
 it to the Delphini family, from whom, through the means of Count 
 Algarotti, it was purchased by the King of Saxony. 
 
 A duplicate is in the possession of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (uncle 
 of the present king), in point of execution not equal to the Dresden 
 picture, though considered to be also by the hand of Holbein, and the 
 one first painted. There is an engraving by Catherine Patin, and a fine 
 lithographic drawing by Haufstangel ; and it is understood that Pro- 
 fessor Steinla is about to execute a finished engraving on copper : it will 
 then form an admirable companion to Muller's Madonna di San Sisto. 
 For these particulars I am indebted to Hen* Vogel v. Vogelstein, prin- 
 cipal painter to the King of Saxony, an eminent connoisseur, as well as 
 a distinguished artist. 
 
 * A small and beautiful whole-length of Edward VI. was, after the 
 dispersion of Charles I.'s pictures, sold into Portugal, where it was 
 bought by Lord Tyrawley, when he was our ambassador there, and sent 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 175 
 
 the large picture in the hall of Bridewell, which represents 
 Edward VI. delivering to the lord mayor the royal charter 
 by which he gave up his palace of Bridewell for a work- 
 house and an hospital. 
 
 The reign of Mary is a dark sanguinary spot in our annals. 
 Her bigotry, her conjugal miseries, and her melancholy hu- 
 mour, were indeed little favourable to the progress of art, as 
 far as it depended on royal patronage. But her husband 
 Philip had inherited from his father, and transmitted to his 
 descendants, a love of painting, not merely as an appendage 
 to his royal state, but for its own sake. Within the few 
 years during which he bore the title of King of England 
 many works of art found their way here : Titian painted for 
 him, and transmitted to this country the Danae, the Venus 
 and Adonis, the Perseus and Andromeda, and some sacred 
 subjects; and for Queen Mary he painted a Holy Family, 
 and four mythological subjects from the History of the Titans 
 — Prometheus, Tityrus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus.* 
 
 The most distinguished painter who visited England 
 during this reign was Antonio More, of Utrecht, who, being 
 in the service of the Emperor Charles V., was sent over here 
 
 as a present to Sir R. Walpole. I am afraid it is now with the rest of 
 the Houghton Gallery, at St. Petersburg. 
 
 * It has been said that Philip II. carried oft' to Spain all the pictures 
 painted for Queen Mary ; but this is not certain. The Prometheus and 
 Sisyphus are now at Madrid, but may have been sold out of Charles I.'s 
 gallery. The Tantalus fell into the possession of Sir Peter Lely, and 
 was sold in his collection, I know not where it is now, nor what has 
 become of the Tityrus. The Holy Family painted for Queen Mary, 
 with a boy and a horse in the back -ground, was in the possession of 
 Charles I. It was bought, after his death, by Don Luis Mendez de 
 Haro, and presented by him to Philip IV, It is now in the Escurial. 
 There is an engraving of the Prometheus by Cort, 1566, and I have 
 seen an engraving of the Tantalus, ascribed to Caraglio. 
 
176 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 to take the portrait of Queen Mary, previous to her mar- 
 riage with his son Philip of Spain. More employed all the 
 flattering aids of his art in this picture, and so captivated the 
 courtiers with the charms of Mary's person, that he was 
 required to make many copies of it. She was then about 
 forty, and, though never handsome, was not perhaps the stern, 
 saturnine looking person she afterwards became, under the 
 influence of conjugal vexation, a disappointed heart, and a 
 temper darkened by a cruel bigotry. Antonio More remained 
 here several years. His style has something of the glowing 
 colour of the Venetian school, combined with the hard 
 drawing of the early German school : but on the whole he 
 was a fine artist, and some very interesting portraits in the 
 royal collection are ascribed to him. He quitted England 
 about 1557, and died in 1575. Another painter who visited 
 England in this reign was Van Cleeve, or Sotto Cleeve. 
 (See his portrait, No. 61 of the Windsor Catalogue.) 
 
 Queen Elizabeth succeeded her sister in 1558. The mind 
 of this clever and sagacious woman appears to have wanted 
 all the essential elements of elegance and greatness : the 
 poetry of Spenser, the refinement of Sydney, the high- 
 minded enthusiasm of Essex, the literature of Raleigh (not 
 his flattery), were thrown away upon her. She had neither 
 taste nor feeling for art ; but she loved to multiply portraits 
 of herself ; and so far, and no farther, was painting personally 
 encouraged by her : yet to the indirect influences of her long, 
 prosperous, and peaceful reign it owed much, as did civiliz- 
 ation under every form. 
 
 Walpole gives us a list of twenty-two painters who were 
 in England during her time, among whom Lucas de Heere, 
 M arc Garrard, Frederigo Zuccaro, and Cornelius Ketel, were 
 the most distinguished, and have left works which are still 
 to be identified in the royal collection. These were all 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 177 
 
 foreigners ; but Elizabeth's reign, destined to be every way 
 illustrious, produced the first artists of English birth who 
 rose to eminence in their profession. Hilly ard, Elizabeth's 
 favourite painter, is chiefly remarkable for his laborious 
 neatness and accuracy ; but his pupil, Isaac Oliver, as a 
 painter in miniature, remains one of the most celebrated 
 names in the history of art. u In the particular branch in 
 which Oliver excelled we may challenge any nation to show 
 a greater master, if we except, perhaps, a few of the smaller 
 works of Holbein. Don Julio Clovio, the celebrated limner, 
 whose neatness and taste in grotesque were exquisite, cannot 
 be compared with Isaac Oliver, because Clovio never painted 
 portraits, and the latter little else.* Petitot, whose enamels 
 have exceeding merit, perhaps owed a little of the beauty of 
 his works to the happy nature of the composition. We our- 
 selves have nobody to put in competition with Oliver, except 
 it be our own Cooper, who, though living in an age of freer 
 pencil, and under the auspices of Vandyke, scarce compen- 
 sated by the boldness of his expression for the truth of nature 
 and delicate fidelity of the older master. Oliver's son Peter 
 alone approached to the perfection of his father. "f 
 
 In the reign of James I. the royal collections received 
 numerous and important additions. Paul Vansomer, Cor- 
 nelius Janssen, and Daniel Mytens, came over between 
 1606 and 1620 from the Netherlands. They were all able 
 portrait-painters, and the number of their works still remain- 
 ing shows the patronage they received. It is from this period 
 that we date the taste for collecting pictures and works of art 
 
 * This is not just to Clovio, who, in spite of the small size and exqui- 
 site delicacy of his works, had such a greatness of style, that he has been 
 called the Michael Angelo of miniature-painting. See the catalogue of 
 the Duke of Somerset s pictures. 
 
 f Walpole, vol. i. p. 293. 
 
 i 3 
 
178 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 in England. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, set the 
 first example. About the year 1606 he commenced a gallery 
 of antiques and paintings, and sent persons into Greece and 
 Italy to make discoveries and purchases. Villiers, Duke of 
 Buckingham, followed his example, and in 1612 purchased 
 the whole collection of Rubens for 10,000/. Henry Prince 
 of Wales early displayed a taste for art as well as literature, 
 and had made a small collection of pictures, antique bronzes, 
 and medals, which after his early and regretted death were 
 inherited by his brother Charles, and formed the nucleus of 
 his celebrated gallery. 
 
 Charles I. began his reign in 1625. He had not only 
 succeeded to his brother's regal rights and his cabinet of 
 pictures and medals, but resembled him in his elegant tastes 
 and pursuits; and well would it have been for him had 
 he resembled him in some of the stronger points of his 
 character. The difference between the two brothers was 
 well expressed by Prince Henry when he said that if ever 
 he came to the throne he would make his brother Charles 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. Charles is the first, and I believe 
 the only, English sovereign whose love for Shakspeare and 
 familiarity with his works have been recorded to his honour* 
 Nor was he merely an elegant scholar, well read and well in- 
 formed ; he was so generally accomplished that he once said of 
 himself he thought he could get his bread by any trade what- 
 ever, except making of hangings, by which he meant weaving 
 tapestries ; yet even of this we are told " he understood 
 much, and was greatly delighted in them, for he brought 
 some of the most curious workmen from foreign parts to 
 make them here in England." " The accession of this prince," 
 
 * The copy of Shakspeare which belonged to Charles I., and. was, we 
 are told, " his closet companion/' is preserved in the queen's library at 
 Windsor. It bears his autograph and motto. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 says Walpole, in language which can neither be condensed 
 nor amended, "was the first era of real taste in England. 
 As his temper was not profuse, the expenses he made in 
 collections, and the rewards he bestowed on men of true 
 genius and merit, are proofs of his judgment. He knew 
 how and where to bestow. Queen Elizabeth was avaricious 
 with pomp, James I. lavish with meanness; but a prince 
 who patronises the arts, and can distinguish and reward 
 ability, enriches his country, and is at once generous and an 
 economist." 
 
 With Charles's political errors we have nothing to do 
 here ; only, looking back to the history of the succeeding 
 reigns, it appears to me that the civil wars, and the tragedy 
 which followed, while they were fatal in some respects to the 
 cause of art, did not much advance that of freedom. 
 
 At the period of his accession King Charles was possessed 
 of a small collection of pictures and a cabinet of medals 
 and antiques. Among his pictures was the famous * Venus 
 del Pardo,' of Titian, which had been presented to him by 
 Philip IV. of Spain, on the occasion of his visit to Madrid, 
 in 1618. About the year 1628 the reigning duke of 
 Mantua, Carlo Gonzaga, impoverished by the vices and 
 prodigality of his predecessors, and the war he had waged 
 with the Emperor Ferdinand II., wished to dispose of the 
 collection of pictures belonging to his family. The suc- 
 cessive dukes of Mantua, illustrious for their patronage of 
 art, in which they were rivalled only by the Medici, had 
 been 1 50 years forming this gallery : it contained some of 
 the finest pictures in the world, by Raphael, by Correggio, 
 by Giulio Romano, and Titian. I cannot find anywhere 
 either the exact date of this purchase, the exact number 
 of the pictures, nor the exact sum paid for them by Charles ; 
 but the acquisition must have been made shortly after Mantua 
 
180 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 was taken and sacked by the German mercenaries in 1630.* 
 When the pictures were brought to England and unpacked, 
 many were found to be blackened and defaced by the quick- 
 silver used in gilding the frames ; but only a very few were 
 totally spoiled, and none of these of consequence. The number 
 of pictures thus acquired was about eighty-two. The sum paid 
 has been variously stated from 20,000/. to 80,000/. sterling ; 
 but the latter sum I consider quite out of the question. It 
 would have been at the rate of 1000/. nearly for each 
 picture. 
 
 Besides the Mantuan Gallery, Charles purchased twenty- 
 three Italian pictures of value from " one Frosley," a painter 
 and dealer in pictures, who had been in the service of the 
 Emperor Rudolph II. ; and many others from Flanders and 
 Germany. The royal predilection being once known, those who 
 wished to gratify him, or pay their court, had now a delicate 
 
 * Some think it must have been before the siege of Mantua ; but it is 
 evident that the pictures in the palaces remained untouched during the 
 three days' massacre and pillage; for some of them still remain on the 
 walls ; and it was in consequence of this siege that Gonzaga, afterwards 
 reinstated in his dukedom, was reduced to such poverty that he had no 
 money to pay his garrisons, nor even his household. In Sir Abraham 
 Hume's ' Notices of the Life of Titian,' I find the following passage, 
 page 28 :— 
 
 « At the sacking of Mantua, in 1639, the Ducal Gallery was divided 
 between the two generals, Galeazzo and Aldringher : one part was carried 
 to Prague, and removed to Stockholm when Prague was taken by 
 Gustavus Adolphus; the other part was purchased by Charles I." 
 
 No authority is cited. The pictures carried off by Aldringher must 
 have been very few : they afterwards formed part of Queen Christina's 
 collection. 
 
 The purchase of the Mantuan Gallery was probably suggested to 
 Charles I. by Rubens, when he was here in 1639. His long residence 
 in Mantua must have rendered him familiar with that magnificent col- 
 lection. — See " Peter Paul Rubens, his Life and Genius^ an Essay, 
 translated from the German, by R. R. Noel, 1840. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 181 
 
 manner of doing so. Queen Elizabeth's courtiers were ac- 
 customed to present her with baubles, jewels, and even with 
 money. The courtiers of Charles felt assured that the offering 
 of a fine picture, or other work of art, would be graciously 
 received and richly repaid. Louis XIII., his brother-in-law, 
 presented him with Leonardo da Vinci's ' John the Baptist.' 
 When the States of Holland sent an embassy of congratu- 
 lation on the birth of his daughter Elizabeth, they laid at 
 his feet " four rare pieces of Titian's and Tintoret's paint- 
 ing." Among the names of those who presented him with 
 offerings of this kind, we find the foreign ambassadors, the 
 Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Suffolk, 
 Lady Killigrew, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of 
 Ancram, and the Abbe Montague. Sir John Palmer, 
 Endymion Porter, and Nicholas Laniere, who were em- 
 ployed as his agents in Italy and France to collect pictures 
 and original drawings, were continually adding to the trea- 
 sures already acquired ; and, as an old author quaintly ex- 
 pressed it, " the king caused a whole army of old foreign 
 emperors, captains, and senators, to land on his coast and do 
 him homage in his palaces." 
 
 I must content myself with giving a summary view, first, 
 of the most distinguished artists who were employed by 
 Charles; and, secondly, of the most important pictures in 
 his collection, and their present destination, as far as I have 
 been able to ascertain it. 
 
 Daniel My tens and Cornelius Janssen, already mentioned, 
 and Peter Oliver, the miniature-painter, were in the service 
 of Charles when Rubens came over to England for the 
 first time in 1629 : he came, not in the capacity of painter, 
 but in that of ambassador.* The choice of such an envoy 
 was particularly calculated to please Charles ; for Rubens, 
 
 * Michel, Vie de Rubens, p. 172. 
 
182 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 besides his diplomatic talents and his celebrity as the first 
 painter of his time, was a man of various and general accom- 
 plishments, dignified and attractive in his person and man- 
 ners : he was in his fifty- third year. Charles loaded him with 
 favours, and on his second visit, in 1630, knighted him : on 
 this occasion the King presented him with his own sword, 
 enriched with diamonds, with his hatband of jewels valued at 
 ten thousand crowns, and with a gold chain which Rubens 
 wore ever afterwards. 
 
 The pictures known to have been executed by Rubens for 
 Charles I. are as follow : — 
 
 The original designs, nine in number, for the ceiling of the 
 Banqueting-house, Whitehall, afterwards executed on a large 
 scale by Rubens and his scholars at Antwerp, and sent over 
 to England. The study for the central compartment fell into 
 the possession of Sir Godfrey Kneller; it was afterwards 
 in the Houghton Gallery, and is now at St. Petersburg. The 
 other studies are scattered through different collections in 
 England. For the pictures, w T hen finished, Rubens received 
 the sum of 3000/. They are now at Whitehall * 
 
 Eight sketches of the History of Achilles, designs for 
 tapestry. Of these, three are in the palace of the Duke of 
 Infantado, at Madrid ; and two of them, Achilles with the 
 Daughters of Lycomedes, and Briseis restored to Achilles, are 
 in the collection of Lord Vernon. f 
 
 The allegory of Peace and War, now in the National 
 Gallery. (No. 46.) 
 
 * These works of Rubens, considering the time at which they were 
 painted, ought to be fine; but in their present situation and condition it 
 is impossible to form any judgment concerning them. The figures are 
 of a very colossal size ; the children and Cupids introduced being above 
 nine feet in length. They have been three times repaired, cleaned, and 
 painted over, and are at present obscured by dust and smoke. The whole 
 series was engraved by Gribelin, in 1720. — Vide Smith's Catalogue. 
 
 f The whole series has been engraved by Ertinger and by Baron. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 183 
 
 The St. George and the Dragon, in a landscape, now at 
 Buckingham Palace. 
 
 The Portrait of Rubens, now at Windsor. 
 
 Daniel in the Lion's Den, now in the possession of the 
 Duke of Hamilton, was in the collection of Charles L, but 
 it was originally painted for Lord Dorchester, who presented 
 it to the king.* 
 
 It appears also that Rubens painted the portrait of King 
 Charles ; but I find no trace of it. 
 
 Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1630, and there married 
 his second wife, the beautiful Helena Formann. He was 
 fifty-four, and she was sixteen ; but the destinies seemed to 
 have set him beyond the reach of ill-fortune in any shape, 
 and even this disproportioned marriage proved happy. He 
 died just ten years afterwards, in May 1640, leaving behind 
 him a gallery of pictures, antiques, and gems, which were 
 afterwards sold by commission ; the Emperor, the King of 
 Spain, the King of Poland, Charles I., the Duke de Riche- 
 lieu, and the young Duke of Buckingham, being the prin- 
 cipal purchasers. 
 
 Encouraged perhaps by the munificent and honourable 
 reception which Rubens had met with, his friend and pupil, 
 Van Dyck, came over in 1 631 . He was then about three-and- 
 thirty : had spent some years in Italy in diligent study — distin- 
 guished there by the elegance of his deportment and his splen- 
 did style of living, which procured him his Italian designa- 
 tion, il pittore cavalleresco. Vanity was a strong ingredient 
 in the character of Van Dyck. Not being noticed by the king 
 immediately on his arrival, he returned to his own country 
 in a fit of chagrin. " But his majesty, soon learning what a 
 treasure had been within his reach, ordered Sir Kenelm 
 Digby, who had sat to Van Dyck, to invite him over. He came, 
 
 * King Charles's Catalogue, p. 87. 
 
184 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 and was lodged among the king's artists at Blackfriars." 
 Charles was delighted with the painter and with his works ; 
 sat to him frequently ; bestowed on him the honour of knight- 
 hood (in 1632), and soon after a pension of 200/. a-year 
 for life. Daniel Mytens, who till then had been the principal 
 painter at court, was seized with jealousy, and signified his 
 intention of quitting the king's service and returning home. 
 Charles, hearing of his discontent, sent for him, and told him 
 graciously that he could find sufficient employment both for 
 him and Van Dyck. My tens, vanquished by this kindness, 
 and by the amiable manners and attentions of his rival, con- 
 sented to remain in England ; but returned finally to the 
 Hague within two or three years. The superiority of Van 
 Dyck bore down all competition. Previous to his arrival in 
 England he had painted some fine historical pictures ; but in 
 this department he wanted grandeur, invention, and dramatic 
 power, and cannot be esteemed first-rate ; whereas in portraits, 
 to which he almost entirely devoted himself during the last 
 ten years of his life, that is during his stay in England, he is 
 allowed to have but one superior — Titian. Van Dyck gives 
 us the finest possible representation of nature ; but when 
 you look at one of Titian's men or women you do not think 
 of a representation^ but rather feel conscious of a presence. 
 In the imitation of that which he saw before him Van Dyck 
 is unequalled. In rendering the texture of flesh, for instance, 
 there is a wonderful mixture of softness and sharpness in the 
 touch of his pencil ; and in the delicate drawing of the features 
 and the hands, in precision and correctness of form, he has 
 never been exceeded; but in conveying the impression of 
 life — life looking out at the eyes and throbbing in the warm 
 blood beneath the skin — he must yield to Titian, and, as I 
 think, to Velasquez. Then for character, Titian gives us 
 power, subtlety, passion ; Van Dyck excels in the expression 
 of high breeding and cultivated intellect. His women do 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 185 
 
 not charm by their loveliness, but by their quiet, unaffected, 
 amiable grace ; and then they have such beautiful hands, 
 and hold them out to be admired with such an elegant con- 
 sciousness — 
 
 " E la Candida man spesso si vede, 
 
 Lunghetta alquanto e di larghetta augusta, 
 Dove ne nodo appar, ne vena eccede." 
 
 His men are " the glass of fashion and the mould of form." 
 Cavaliers, courtiers, counts, princes, prelates — these he painted 
 to perfection, and you never forget for a moment their rank 
 and their conventional claims to respect. It must be remem- 
 bered that Van Dyck had, like many other painters, two dif- 
 ferent manners. His best pictures were painted when he 
 was young — between twenty and thirty — when the influence 
 of the brilliant florid style of Rubens had been modified by his 
 Italian studies, by his refined taste, and his correct eye. 
 His colouring was at this time more warm, more bright, his 
 execution more vigorous, than at a later period. During 
 the last two or three years of his life he became rather 
 careless, and occasionally flat and cold. He appears on 
 the whole to have been far inferior to Rubens in high per- 
 sonal qualities ; in strong practical sense, in profound and 
 penetrating intellect, in discretion and sobriety. He was 
 amiable, accomplished, generous; but vain, petulant, and 
 extravagantly fond of pleasure. He kept a luxurious table, 
 patronised music and musicians, and in his manner of living- 
 vied with the most splendid courtiers. He was beguiled by 
 his friend Sir Kenelm Digby into the pursuit of alchemy, 
 which further hurt his fortune. He was however indefatigable 
 in his profession, as appears by the surprising number of 
 his works. Perhaps with the hope of steadying his character, 
 and withdrawing him from his pursuit of pleasure, Charles, 
 about seven years after his arrival in England, bestowed 
 
186 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Maria Ruthven on him as a wife.* Van Dyck died in 1641, 
 just before the commencement of the civil war, leaving an 
 infant daughter and heiress. He had proposed to the king 
 to paint the walls of the banqueting-room at Whitehall 
 with the history of the Order of the Garter, and was to have 
 received for this grand work 8000/. (not 80,000/., as has 
 been erroneously stated). His death or the impending 
 troubles prevented the execution of this magnificent project. 
 
 I have found it impossible to ascertain the number of pic- 
 tures which Van Dyck painted for his royal patron. Many 
 portraits of the king, the queen, and their children, were 
 painted as presents, and sent to foreign courts or given to 
 favourite courtiers. Only sixteen are specified in King 
 Charles I.*s catalogue. 
 
 The " Van Dyck Room" at Windsor now contains twenty- 
 two portraits from his hand, but only six of these belonged to 
 Charles I. I have been able to identify ten others, of the num- 
 ber which Van Dyck painted for him, dispersed in different 
 collections ; viz. : — 
 
 " The Princess of Pfalzberg, full length, with a negro 
 attendant :" (Henriette de Lorraine. She was a kinswoman 
 of Charles I. This picture was procured for the king by 
 Endymion Porter: after Charles's death it was bought by 
 Cardinal Mazarin, thence it passed into the Orleans Gallery, 
 returned to England with the rest of that collection, and is 
 now in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle) .f 
 
 The portrait of Nicholas Laniere, now in the collection of 
 the Marquess of Westminster. 
 
 * Not the daughter of the Earl of Gowrie, as we read in some biogra- 
 phies, but of Patrick Ruthven, a physician, and descended of the same 
 family. She was an orphan, brought up at court under the care of 
 Queen Henrietta Maria. 
 
 f Engraved by C, Galle. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 187 
 
 " The two Sons of the Elector Palatine, half-length 
 figures in one picture." (Prince Charles Louis and Prince 
 Rupert, nephews of the king : now in the Louvre, No. 435.) 
 
 " The Queen Mother of France" (Marie de Medicis, 
 mother of Henrietta Maria, seated in an arm-chair, and 
 holding roses in her hand. I know not where this picture 
 is) * 
 
 " Lady Shirley in a Persian dress." (Now at Petworth.) 
 
 " The Portrait of a young Musician of Antwerp, without a 
 beard, and wearing a gold chain — half-length." (Heinrich 
 Liberti ; engraved in the volume of Van Dyck's Heads. Of 
 this portrait there are several repetitions : the one at Vienna 
 \ presume to be that which belonged to Charles I.) 
 
 " The Holy Family ; with Angels dancing in a round." 
 (One of his finest pictures. Sold with the Houghton collec- 
 tion to Catherine II., and now at St. Petersburg. A smaller 
 picture of the same subject is in the collection of Lord Ash- 
 burton. )f 
 
 " The Procession of the Knights of the Garter." (A small 
 sketch for the projected decoration of Whitehall. This fell 
 into the possession of Sir Peter Lely. It afterwards be- 
 longed to Lord Northington and Sir Joshua Reynolds.) J 
 
 All the Van Dycks now in the Windsor collection are 
 specified in King James's catalogue, and five others of which 
 I can find no satisfactory account. These and the large 
 picture of the family of Endymion Porter, bought by George 
 III., I presume to be in the private apartments either at 
 Windsor or at Buckingham Palace. 
 
 Jan Lievens of Leyden, a distinguished scholar of Rem- 
 brandt, came over to England in 1630, and remained here 
 three years. I find no picture by him in the royal collection. 
 
 * Engraved by P. Pontius. 
 
 f Engraved by Facius, by Bolswert, and by Huberti. 
 I Engraved by Cooper. 
 
188 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Gerard Terburg was also here painting portraits for a 
 year or two. 
 
 Cornelius Poelemburg, a well-known painter of small 
 landscapes, with groups of nymphs and other figures, very 
 neatly and delicately finished, was invited to England by 
 King Charles. He remained here only a short time, and 
 painted four pictures for the king. One of these, the group 
 of the King of Bohemia's children, is at Hampton Court. 
 
 Henry Steenwyck the younger, a painter of perspective 
 and architecture, was employed by King Charles. Five of 
 his pictures are specified in the king's catalogue, and, with 
 several others, are now at Windsor and Hampton Court. 
 
 Gerard Honthorst was invited here by the king, and 
 remained here somewhat less than a year. Eight pictures 
 by him are in King Charles's catalogue, most of which are 
 still at Windsor and at Hampton Court.* 
 
 Orazio Gentileschi, and his daughter Artemisia, were al?o 
 employed by the king. By the first I find two pictures in 
 King Charles I.'s catalogue, of which I can identify one as 
 remaining, and now at Hampton Court ;f and by Artemisia, 
 4 A Picture of Fame,' said to be excellent, which I do not 
 find. Her portrait of herself, very fine and spirited, is at 
 Hampton Court. 
 
 Adrian Hanneman, a Dutch portrait-painter, came over 
 here in Charles I.'s time, and remained here sixteen years. 
 He has left several specimens of his ability in the royal 
 
 * This pa inter, who excelled in effects of candle-light and torch-light, 
 thence obtained his Italian designation, " Gherardo della Notte."' His 
 chef-d'oeuvre, Christ before Pilate, was brought to England in 1840, 
 with the Duke of Lucca's gallery. 
 
 f De Piles, in his "Lives of the Painters," says that Gentileschi painted 
 for King Charles a Madonna, a Magdalen, Lot and his Daughters, and 
 that he also painted the ceilings for the palace at Greenwich and for 
 York House, 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 189 
 
 collection. The finest is the head of Peter Oliver, at Hamp- 
 ton Court, which is quite equal to many of Van Dyck's. 
 Though he certainly worked for Charles, I find none of his 
 pictures in the old catalogue, which, it must be remembered, 
 is imperfect. There are six in King James's catalogue. His 
 fine half-length portrait of Charles I. is at Vienna. 
 
 John Petitot, who has never been equalled as an enamel 
 painter, came over to England, and was introduced to King- 
 Charles by his physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne. The king 
 knighted him, gave him an apartment in Whitehall, and em- 
 ployed him in copying the portraits of Van Dyck in enamel ; 
 but of his works I find no trace in the existing catalogues of 
 the royal collections. He appears to have left England about 
 1643, and was afterwards in the service of Louis XIV.* 
 
 To these I must add the names of four native painters. 
 
 William Dobson owed the patronage of the king to the 
 generous recommendation of Van Dyck, after whose death he 
 was appointed sergeant-painter and groom of the chamber 
 to his majesty. I find no pictures by him in the old cata- 
 logues. A picture of himself and his wife, half-length, is at 
 Hampton Court. King Charles, we are told, called Dobson 
 the English Tintoret. I confess I do not see the aptitude 
 of this designation : Dobson, in the colouring and airs of 
 his portraits, is more like Van Dyck, but wants his spirited 
 touch. 
 
 George Jameson, a Scottish painter, is known to have 
 studied in the atelier of Rubens at the same time with Van 
 Dyck. About 1623 he was pursuing his vocation in his 
 own country, and has obtained the name of the Van Dyck of 
 Scotland. King Charles, on his visit to Scotland in 1633, 
 sat to him, and presented him on that occasion with a dia- 
 
 * George IV. had a collection of miniatures in enamel, chiefly by 
 Petitot, which lie valued highly. These I presume to be in the pos- 
 session of her Majesty. 
 
190 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 mond ring from his own finger. I find none of his pictures 
 in the royal collection. 
 
 Gandy, another native portrait-painter, who emulated 
 Van Dyck, is scarcely known except in Ireland, where his 
 best works still exist. 
 
 Peter Oliver, the son of Isaac Oliver, already mentioned, 
 was not inferior to his father as a miniature-painter. He 
 was constantly employed and highly esteemed and favoured 
 by King Charles. Thirteen of his works were in the royal 
 cabinet. Peter Oliver died about 1654. 
 
 Anne Carlisle is mentioned as excelling in miniature copies 
 after the old masters ; and Hoskins was an able painter of 
 portraits in miniature. 
 
 These were the principal among the painters patronised by 
 Charles I. He found employment for others, whose names 
 have sunk into oblivion, and are merely mentioned by Wal- 
 pole. But to these must be added another truly great name 
 in a different department of art, whose genius reflected lustre 
 on the reign of Charles. " England," says Walpole, 
 " adopted Holbein and Van Dyck ; she borrowed Rubens ; 
 but she produced Inigo Jones." In addition to the name 
 of this celebrated architect I find thirteen other artists, 
 native and foreign, who, as sculptors, engravers of gems, 
 and chasers in gold and silver, found employment under the 
 auspices of this munificent prince.* He wrote with his own 
 hand to invite Albano and Romanelli to England ; but they 
 had ample employment in their own country, and declined 
 his offers. 
 
 * Among the artists of this class were two who merit especial notice, 
 Hubert Le Soeur, a French sculptor and distinguished disciple of Jolm 
 of Bologna, who cast the equestrian statue of Charles I. which now 
 stands at Charing Cross : and Lucas Vorstermann, the famous engraver, 
 who engraved several plates for the king from pictures in the royal 
 collection. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 191 
 
 From 1625 to 1642, immediately before the breaking out 
 of the war, Charles was occupied in arranging and adding to 
 his magnificent collection. At this period it may truly be 
 said that no such gallery existed in Europe; and those 
 which have since been formed by various princes and poten- 
 tates have owed some of their most precious ornaments to 
 the dispersion of the treasures which his taste and munifi- 
 cence had brought together. The whole number of his pic- 
 tures amounted to 1387 ; of which 216 were reckoned first- 
 class pictures, and 88 chefs-d'oeuvre. They were distributed 
 through his different palaces, the principal part, and the 
 finest pictures, being placed at Whitehall, St. James's, and 
 Hampton Court. This enumeration includes a collection of 
 75 valuable miniatures, or limnings, by Holbein, Hillyard, 
 the two Olivers, Antonio More, &c, which were arranged in 
 cases in the " New Cabinet- Room ' at Whitehall. 
 
 The sculptures amounted to 399, and were principally 
 arranged at his palace at Greenwich. His medals, engraved 
 gems, and other curiosities of art, were arranged at White- 
 hall. He possessed 54 books of rare drawings and prints, 
 among which was a book of drawings by Michael Angelo. 
 Among the drawings by the old masters in Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence's collection were several which had belonged to 
 Charles I., recognised by his mark, a star of a peculiar 
 form. 
 
 That Charles did not merely consider his pictures as a 
 part of his royal state, or as objects of personal ostentation, 
 but really loved them, and fully, and with the discrimination 
 of an accomplished connoisseur, appreciated their intrinsic 
 beauty and value, we have ample proof. The list of pictures 
 which hung in his own private apartments gives us a high 
 idea of the elevation and delicacy of his taste, and the warmth 
 of his domestic affections. In his bed-room were the portraits 
 of his wife and children, by Van Dyck ; of his sister Eliza ■ 
 
192 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 beth of Bohemia, and her children ; of his amiable brother 
 Prince Henry ; a Magdalen, by Correggio ; a Madonna by 
 Parmegiano ; and the Contest between the Muses and the 
 Pierides by Perino del Vaga, now in the Louvre.* By his 
 bedside hung a Holy Family, a chef-d'oeuvre of Raphael, 
 In the three rooms adjoining, called the king's privy 
 lodging-rooms, I find in the first room eleven pictures by 
 Titian, and one by Correggio : in the second room, eight 
 by Titian, t and six by Giulio Romano ; and in the third 
 room, one by Raphael, three by Correggio, J three by Titian, 
 and others by Andrea del Sarto, Giorgione, and Parmegiano. 
 All the pictures in these rooms are by distinguished Italian 
 masters, with a single exception, — the portrait of Charles 
 the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, by Michael Coxis : which 
 picture has, I believe, disappeared. 
 
 Among the Strafford papers is a curious evidence of 
 Charles's affection for his pictures. In a letter from Mr. 
 Garrard, dated December 16, 1639, he say3— " Here are 
 two masks intended this winter : the king is now in practis- 
 ing his, which shall be presented at Twelfth-tide : most of 
 the young lords about the tow r n who are good dancers attend 
 his majesty in this business. The other the queen makes at 
 Shrove-tide, a new house being erected in the first court at 
 Whitehall, which cost the king 2500/. only of deal boards, 
 because the king will not have his pictures in the banquet- 
 ing-house hurt with lights." 
 
 The care of the king's cabinet of " pictures, medals, and 
 rarities," was intrusted to Abraham Vanderdoort, a Dutch- 
 man, who had formerly been in the service of the Emperor 
 
 * Engraved by Enea Vico and by Richomme. 
 
 f Among them the 4 Concert, 1 now in the National Gallery, and the 
 ' Venus del Pardo.' 
 
 I One of them, the ' Mercury and Venus,' now in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 193 
 
 Rudolph II. ; afterwards in that of Prince Henry, on whose 
 death Charles appointed him " keeper of his cabinet." 
 with a salary of 40/. a-year. In this capacity Vanderdoort, 
 about 1639, drew up u a catalogue and description of the 
 pictures of King Charles I.," which, being left imperfect by 
 the death of Vanderdoort, or some other accident, comprises 
 merely the pictures at Whitehall, amounting to 497, and 
 those at St. James's, 71 in number ; in all only 574, out of 
 the 1387 of which the whole collection consisted. This 
 catalogue, which was printed by Bathoe in 1742, has become 
 rare. It is exceedingly curious and interesting as a document, 
 and sometimes very amusing, from the quaint language of the 
 descriptions, which, however, are in general so minute and 
 accurate as greatly to assist in tracing particular pictures, 
 which could not otherwise have been identified. The fate 
 of poor Vanderdoort deserves to be commemorated : — " The 
 king had commanded him to take particular care of a mi- 
 niature by Gibson, the parable of the Lost Sheep. Vander- 
 doort laid it up so carefully that when the king asked him for 
 it he could not find it, and hanged himself in despair. After 
 his death his executors found and restored it. As this piece 
 is not mentioned in the catalogue, probably it was newly 
 purchased."* 
 
 From the commencement of the civil wars, in 1643, 
 Charles made no additions to his gallery. The collection, 
 however, was kept together till after his execution in 1649. 
 Immediately after that event (on the 23rd of May, 1649) 
 the Commons " resolved upon the disposal of the personal 
 effects of the late king, queen, and prince, and made an order 
 
 * Walpole. The Gibson alluded to was Richard Gibson, the dwarf, 
 then a very young man. As to the catastrophe of Vanderdoort, I know 
 nothing to compare with it but that of the Prince de Conde's maitre 
 d'hotel, Yatel, who stabbed himself because the fish was not ready for 
 dinner. 
 
 1 
 
 K 
 
194 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 to have the same inventoried, appraised, and sold ; except 
 such as should be thought fit to be reserved for the use of 
 the state." The act was passed in the month qf July fol- 
 lowing, and the sale took place at different times during the 
 two following years. " In this appraisement and sale were 
 included — heu dolor / — all the noble collection of pictures, 
 antiques, statues, and busts, which the late king, at infinite 
 expense and trouble, had procured from Rome and all parts 
 of Italy." " For, being a generous benefactor to the most 
 celebrated masters in these arts, he acquired the noblest col- 
 lection of any prince in his time, and more than all the kings 
 of England had done before him."* 
 
 Among the chief purchasers we find Philip IV. of Spain, 
 who, through the agency of his ambassador, Don Alonzo de 
 Cardenas, " bought as many pictures and other precious 
 goods appertaining to the crown as, being sent in ships to 
 Corunna in Spain, were carried thence to Madrid upon 
 eighteen mules." t 
 
 Christina of Sweden purchased the choice of all the me- 
 dals and jewels, and some pictures of great price. Most of 
 these pictures, being afterwards purchased by the Duke of 
 Orleans, came with the Orleans Gallery to England*, and are 
 dispersed through different collections. I shall mention in 
 their proper place those I have been able to identify. The 
 Archduke Leopold, then governor of the Netherlands, was 
 another principal purchaser. The pictures acquired by him 
 are now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. The Duke of 
 
 * Vide note prefixed to the copy of his catalogue. An order had 
 previously passed the House of Commons that all pictures belonging to 
 the late king, which contained a representation of the Virgin Mary 
 or the Second Person of the Trinity, should be burned forthwith ; but 
 as this order would have involved the destruction of three-fourths of the 
 property, prudence or avarice prevailed over ignorance and fanaticism, 
 and the execution of this barbarous order was stayed. 
 
 f Clarendon's History. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 195 
 
 Alva, the Cardinal Mazarin, and the Due de Richelieu, pur- 
 chased many. The principal acquisitions of the two latter are 
 now in the Louvre ; and likewise those of Eberhard Jabach, 
 a celebrated amateur and collector of that time, w r ho attended 
 the sale of the king's effects in London, and afterwards dis- 
 posed of his purchases to Louis XIV. The purchases made 
 by a Dutch connoisseur, Mynheer Reyntz (or Van Reynst), 
 were afterwards bought up by the States of Holland, and 
 presented to Charles II.; but, as Lord Clarendon observes, 
 "none of all the above-mentioned princes were magnanimous 
 enough to restore any portion of the spoil." 
 
 To complete this account of the collection and dispersion 
 of the Gallery of Charles I., I shall here add the abstract of 
 the sale of the principal pictures, as given by Vertue from a 
 catalogue once in possession of John Anstis, Esq., Garter King 
 at Arms, with such notes as I have been able to add from my 
 own knowledge, and from the details which that learned 
 connoisseur, Dr. Waagen, has given in his work on Art and 
 Artists in England. 
 
 The pictures at the palaces of Wimbledon and Greenwich, 143 in 
 number, valued altogether at 1709?. 19*. 
 
 Sixty-one pictures from the Bear Gallery, and from the king's privy 
 lodging at Whitehall, valued at 229 U. 10*. 
 
 Amongst these the capital pictures were — 
 
 Peace and Plenty, with many figures as big as the life ; by Rubens. 
 Appraised and sold for 100/. (Now in the National Gallery.) 
 
 Pope Alexander and Caesar Borgia ; done by Titian. Appraised at 
 and sold for 100/. (Not in Vanderdoorfs Catalogue, nor do I know the 
 picture.) 
 
 The Burial of Christ ; by Titian. Appraised and sold for 120/. (It 
 was from the Mantua Gallery ; purchased by Jabach, and now in the 
 Louvre, No. 1252.*) 
 
 The Triumph of Vespasian and his son Titus ; by Giulio Romano. 
 
 * Engraved by Baron. 
 
196 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Appraised and sold at 150/. (From the Mantua Gallery ; bought by 
 Jabach; now in the Louvre, No. 1076. Engraved by Desplaces.) 
 
 A great piece of the Nativity, Longinus being present ; by the same 
 hand. Appraised and sold for 500/. (The picture painted for the 
 Chapel of the Buschetti in the Church of St. Andrea at Milan : bought 
 by Jabach, and now in the Louvre, No. 1073. Engraved by Desplaces.) 
 
 The Cartoons of Raphael, being the Acts of the Apostles. Appraised 
 at 300/. (Purchased for the State by Oliver Cromwell, and now at 
 Hampton Court.) 
 
 Pictures from the palace at Oatlands, 81 in number, valued at 
 733/. 12*. 
 
 Pictures from Nonsuch House, 33 in number, valued at 282/. 
 
 Pictures from Somerset House, with those which came from Whitehall 
 and St. James's, 447 in number, valued at 10,052/. lis. 
 Capital pictures in these collections : — 
 
 Mary, Christ, and an Angel ; done by Andrea del Sarto. Appraised 
 at 200/., and sold for 230/. (Now in the Royal collection at Madrid.) 
 
 Mary, Christ, St. Catherine, St. John, Elizabeth, and Joseph : by 
 Molanezo.* Appraised at 100/. and sold at 120/. 
 
 Venus, lying along, a Man playing on an Organ; by Titian. Ap- 
 praised at 150/., and sold for 105/. (A similar picture was at Madrid, 
 and there is another in the possession of Lord Dysart. Engraved by 
 Gay wood, 1656. The plate is dedicated to Evelyn.) 
 
 Mary, Christ, and Joseph ; by Andrea del Sarto. Appraised at 150/., 
 sold for 174/. 
 
 Mary, Christ, St. Catherine, and Joseph ; by Giorgione. Appraised 
 at 100/., and sold for IUI. (Now in the Louvre. No. 1028.) 
 
 Mary, Christ, St. Mark, and a v Genius Kneeling; by Titian. Ap- 
 praised at 150/., sold for 165/. 
 
 The Three Jewellers ; by Titian. Appraised at and sold for 100/. 
 (Three heads in different positions, portraits of the same person, holding 
 a casket.) 
 
 A Sleeping Venus; by Correggio. Appraised at and sold for 1000/. 
 (From the Mantua Gallery ; purchased by Jabach, and now in the Louvre 
 under the name of Jupiter and Antiope, No. 955.) 
 
 A Madonna ; by Raphael. Appraised and sold for 2000?. (The 
 Holy Family, called " The Pearl of Raphael ;" now in the Royal col- 
 lection at Madrid, of which there is a copy in the possession of the Duke 
 of Wellington. Engraved by Luke Vorstermann when in England.) 
 
 * It has been ingeniously suggested to me that this unknown name is a mistake 
 for Ilvervnezo ( i. e. Paul Veronese.) 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 197 
 
 Mary, the Child, and St. Jerome ; by Portinensis (Pordenone ?) 
 Appraised at and sold for 150/. 
 
 Mary, the Child, and St. Sebastian ; by Palma. Appraised at and 
 sold for 100/. (These two last not in Vanderdoort"s catalogue.) 
 
 The King, Queen, Prince, and the Princess ; by Van Dyck. Appraised 
 and sold for 150/. (Now at Windsor.) 
 
 The great " Venus del Pardo by Titian. Appraised at 500/., sold 
 for 600/. (Now in the Louvre, under the name of Jupiter and Antiope, 
 No. 1255.) 
 
 The Marquis del Guasto making an Oration to his Soldiers ; by 
 Titian. Appraised at and sold for 250/. (The picture mentioned by 
 Vasari, and called the " Allocuzione :" four figures, life size : at Madrid ?) 
 
 Nymphs at the Birth of Hercules ; by Julio Romano. (Appraised at 
 106/., and sold for 114/. (Probably the same picture now at Hampton 
 Court.) 
 
 Titian and his Mistress ; by himself. Appraised and sold at 100/. 
 (Now in the Louvre, No. 1259 ; it is the celebrated picture with the 
 looking-glasses so often copied and engraved.) 
 
 King Charles on Horseback ; by Van Dyck. Appraised and sold at 
 200/. (Now at Windsor.) 
 
 Venus sitting to be dressed by the Three Graces; by Guido Bullioni, 
 (i. e. Bolognese.) Appraised at and sold for 200/. (Now in the National 
 Gallery.) 
 
 St. Margaret afraid of a Monster; by Titian. Appraised at and sold 
 for 100/. (The St. Margaret triumphing over the Dragon, full length ; 
 now at Madrid.) 
 
 Solomon offering to Idols ; by Pordenone. Appraised at 150/. (Not 
 marked as sold ; nor, as I believe, in the Royal Collection.) 
 
 The pictures from Hampton Court, 332 in number, valued at 
 4675/. 10s. Amongst these were 
 
 Nine pieces, being the Triumphs of Julius Caesar ; done by Andrea de 
 Mantegna. Appraised at 1000/. (Now at Hampton Court.) 
 
 Herodias holding St. John's Head in a Platter; by Titian. Appraised 
 at 150/. (I suppose this to be the copy after Titian now at Hampton 
 Court.) 
 
 Pictures in St. James's Palace, 290 in number, valued at 12,019/. is. 
 The capital pictures were 
 
 St. George; by Raphael. Appraised and sold for 150/. (The 
 picture painted for Henry VIII., mentioned at p. 168 ; now at St. 
 Petersburg.)* 
 
 * Copied in miniature by Peter Oliver, for the king ; which miniature ought* I 
 think, to be somewhere in the Royal Collection. 
 
198 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 The Burying of Christ ; by Isaac Oliver. Appraised and sold for 
 100/. (I presume this to be in the private apartments at Windsor.) * 
 
 The Marquis of Mantua's Head ; by Raphael ; appraised and sold for 
 200/. (In Vanderdoort's catalogue, " A young man's head without a 
 beard, in a red cap, whereon a medal and some part of his white shirt, 
 without a ruff, in his long hair ; being the Marquis of Mantua, who was 
 by the Emperor Charles V. made the first Duke of Mantua." Frederigo 
 Gonzaga, who reigned from 1519 to 1540. Head only, life-size, on 
 panel. Passavant supposes this picture to be again in England — see 
 vol. i. p. 175. I have not met with it.) 
 
 Albert Diner's Father and Himself ; by ditto. Appraised and sold for 
 100/. (This portrait of Albert Durer is now in the gallery at Florence, 
 and the portrait of his Father is probably the same now at Frankfort.) 
 
 Frobenius and Erasmus, in two pictures ; by Holbein. Appraised and 
 sold at 200/. (Two such portraits are at Hampton Court, but I am not 
 sure that they are the self-same pictures mentioned here.) 
 
 Mary, Christ, and others ; by Old Palma ; appraised at 200/., and 
 sold for 225/. (One of the most exquisite works of the master : now in 
 the Louvre, No. 1137.) 
 
 Three figures by Titian, appraised and sold at 100/. ("Three heads — 
 one being a woman in the arms of a man, like as if she were in a swoon." 
 I do not know the picture.) 
 
 Mount Parnassus, in a case ; by Indeluaga.f Appraised at 100/., and 
 sold for 117/. 
 
 A Man in black ; by Holbein. Appraised and sold at 100/. 
 
 * It is thus described in King Charles's Catalogue : — " The great limned piece 
 which w as invented by Isaac Oliver and was left unfinished at his decease, and 
 now by his Majesty's appointment finished by his son Peter Oliver, and delivered 
 to the king, being included in his Majesty's grant of annuity to the said Peter 
 Oliver, which piece is dated 1616, being the burial of Christ, in white linen, by 
 four of his disciples carried to the grave ; one standing with outstretched arms 
 to receive him into the said grave, and afar off some five disciples in sadness 
 mourning, and a standing woman taking Christ by his left arm, kissing his hand ; 
 Our Lady lying along in a swoon in a red garment and blue drapery upon St. 
 John's lap ; also a Mary Magdalene sitting upon the ground, wringing both 
 her hands, a-grieving ; likewise another woman in an orange drapery holding a 
 golden vessel ; and also another woman by her in a yellow habit, looking upwards 
 with opening hands in sorrow : behind all these said figures there (is) a troop 
 afar off (of) some nine disciples a-grieving ; whereof one in green, another in 
 yellow, another in blue, and three in purple draperies, which are, in all, some 
 twenty-six bigger and lesser figures." 1U in. by 15i in. I have been told that 
 such a picture was hanging up in that obscure corner, the Lord Chamberlain's 
 office at Windsor, and that Prince Albert, coming in by chance last autumn, had 
 the good taste to take it down and carry it off to the queen's apartments. 
 
 f It is suggested to me that this is a misprint for Perindeluaga (i. e. Perin del 
 Vaga) and I have no doubt the emendation is correct. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 199 
 
 Lucretia standing by herself (in an ebony frame) ; by Titian. Ap- 
 praised and sold at 200/. (Now at Hampton Court.) 
 
 St. John; by Lionardo da Vinci. Appraised and sold at 140/. (Pre- 
 sented to Charles by his brother-in-law, Louis XIII., and now again in 
 the Louvre, No. 1084.) 
 
 A piece of the Mauritians, by Titian. Appraised at 150/., and sold 
 for 174/. (Not in Vanderdoorts catalogue; nor do I know the picture.) 
 
 Charles V., at length ; by Titian. Appraised and sold at 150/. (The 
 great picture now at Madrid, in which a large white Irish dog is in- 
 troduced.) 
 
 St. Jerome ; by Julio Romano. Appraised and sold at 200/. 
 
 Twelve Emperors ; by Titian. Appraised and sold at 1200/. (" Figures 
 to the knees, some in armour, and others with imperial mantles and 
 laurel crowns; rather larger than life, and coloured in his finest style."* 
 From the Mantua Gallery. Six of these pictures were recently disco- 
 vered in the United States, and are now in the hands of a picture dealer 
 in London. One was in the possession of Sir A. Hume : Lord Northwick 
 has, or had, another.) 
 
 Eleven Emperors; by Julio Romano. Appraised and sold for 1100/. 
 (From the Mantua Gallery. Two are at Hampton Court ; one was sold 
 in the Orleans Gallery.) 
 
 A Courtesan holding a Looking-glass ; by Portinensis (Pordenone ?). 
 Appraised and sold at 150/. 
 
 Titian's Picture, with a Senator; done by himself. Appraised at 100/. ; 
 sold for 112/. (Now at Windsor.) 
 
 A Satyr flayed; by Correggio. Appraised and sold at 1000/. Another 
 of the same. Sold at 1000/. (These are the two famous pictures in 
 water-colours, now in the Louvre, Nos. 171-172 in the catalogue of 
 drawings : the first representing Man under the Dominion of the Vices ; 
 the other the Triumph of Virtue over Vice. Of the former, I have 
 seen an oil copy in England. They were engraved in 1672, by Etienne 
 Picart le Romain.) 
 
 Three pieces of Sebastian ; by Lucas Van Ley den. Appraised at 100/., 
 and sold for 101/. (There is a St. Sebastian, by Van Leyden, now at 
 Hampton Court.) 
 
 The Conversion of St. Paul; by Palma. Appraised and sold at 100/. 
 
 David meeting Saul with Goliah's head ; by Palma. Appraised and 
 gold at 100/. (These two last not in Vanderdoort's catalogue.) 
 
 Dorcas lying dead; by Michael Angelo Caravaggio. Appraised at 
 150/., and sold for 170/. 
 
 * Sir A. Hume. " Notices of the Life of Titian," p. 27. The prints by 
 Egidius Sadeler are well known, but they are indifferent, and convey a very 
 inadequate impression of the originals. 
 
200 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 The Family of the Queen of Bohemia. Appraised and sold at 100/. 
 (The picture by Poelemburg, now at Hampton Court.) 
 
 The History of Queen Esther ; by Tintoretto. Appraised and sold at 
 120/. (Now at Hampton Court.) 
 
 A Family, with divers Figures ; by Pordenone. Appraised and sold 
 at 100/. (Now at Hampton Court.) 
 
 The King on horseback. Appraised and sold at 150/. (The picture 
 by Van Dyck, now at Blenheim ?) 
 
 Hercules and Cacus ; by Guido Bolognese. Appraised and sold at 
 400/. (Four pictures from the Labours of Hercules. Sold to Eberhard 
 Jabach, and now in the Louvre. No. 1065.) 
 
 So far the abstract prefixed to the Catalogue, to which I 
 shall add a few other distinguished pictures, which are miss- 
 ing from the Royal Collection. 
 
 Lucas Van Leyden. The Chess-players : a piece in water-colours 
 containing fifteen figures half-life size. This must have been a very 
 curious picture. Missing. 
 
 Holbein. The portrait of Robert Cheeseman, falconer to Henry VIII. : 
 esteemed one of his finest workg. Sir J. Reynolds saw this picture at 
 the Hague in 1780. See his works, vol. ii. p. 346. Missing. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna. — 1. Mutius Scevola thrusting his hand into the 
 Fire. Missing. 
 
 2. The death of the Virgin, with many figures ; and 
 
 3. The Virgin, Christ, St. John, and six other Saints ; in the land- 
 scape behind St. George and St. Christopher. Two small companion 
 pictures, about 21 in. by 17 in. Missing. 
 
 4. The Woman taken in Adultery. Four half-length figures in water 
 colours. Missing. 
 
 Sebastian del Piombo. — An old man with his right hand on his 
 breast, in the left a roll of paper. Missing. 
 
 Raphael. — The Virgin and Child, St. Joseph and a Lamb. Bought 
 by Van Reynst. Restored to Charles II. Not forthcoming, and pos- 
 sibly destroyed in the fire at Whitehall, 1697. (Passavant's Raphael, 
 vol. ii., p, 413.) 
 
 Giulio Romano. — I. A Centaur, to whom a Young Man presents a 
 dead Wild Boar. Also in King James's Catalogue. Missing. It 
 ought to be somewhere in the Royal Collection. 
 
 2. Julius Caesar coming from the Senate House, with a Black Eagle 
 on his shoulder. Missing. 
 
 3. His own Portrait : in the right hand a paper with an architectural 
 sketch. Missing. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 201 
 
 4. Portrait of an Italian Prelate, in a dark red velvet habit and white 
 surplice, sitting in a chair, with his arms resting on the elbows. 3 ft. 9 
 in. by 3 ft. 1 in. (May not this be the portrait of Julius II., once in the 
 possession of Queen Christina, and afterwards in the Orleans Gallery ?) 
 
 Titian. — Besides the twenty-two pictures already enumerated in the 
 abstract, I find the following in Vanderdoort's catalogue : — 
 
 1. The St. Sebastian, full-length. Bought by the Archduke Leopold, 
 and now in the Gallery of the Belvedere at Vienna. A wondeiful 
 picture, engraved by Sadeler. 
 
 2. Christ with his two Disciples at Emmaus. A famous picture, 
 known in the history of art as " La Nappe de Titian," the table-cloth 
 forming a conspicuous light in the picture. It was purchased by Jabach, 
 and is now in the Louvre, No. 1249. There is a celebrated engraving 
 by Masson. 
 
 3. Mary Magdalen, half-length ; probably the same which was in the 
 Orleans Gallery, and now in the possession of Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 4. " A picture wherein the Pope is preferring (i. e. recommending) a 
 general of his navy to St, Peter." Three entire figures, somewhat less 
 than life. It represents Pope Alexander VI. and the Bishop of Paphos, 
 one of the Pesaro Family, and General of the Pope's Galleys. An in- 
 teresting early picture of the master ; and now, after many vicissitudes, 
 in the Museum at Antwerp. 
 
 5. The Consort of Charles V., with roses in her hand. Now at 
 Madrid.* 
 
 6. Portrait of the Doge Gritti, half-length, holding his dress with his 
 right hand. Missing. 
 
 7. The Marquis del Guasto and his Page. (I believe the same picture 
 now at Hampton Court 1) 
 
 8. Lucretia stabbing herself. (Now in the Belvedere at Vienna.) 
 
 9. A group, called the Marquis del Guasto and his Family. (A 
 picture of wonderful beauty : in the Louvre, No. 1258.) f 
 
 10. The Marchioness of Mantua (the accomplished Isabella d'Este, 
 in a red velvet dress, seated in a chair ; half-length. Bought by the 
 Archduke Leopold, and now at Vienna). J 
 
 11. "An Italian woman's picture, holding with both her hands her 
 furred gown upon her naked shoulders ; bought by the King in Spain." 
 This is no doubt the Sophonisba, engraved by A. Smith. 
 
 The later Bolognese school, that of the Carracci, was in 
 
 * Engraved by De Jode. f Engraved by M. Natalis. 
 
 + Engraved after a copy made by Rubens when he was at Mantua, anonymous, 
 but attributed to Vorstermann. 
 
 K 3 
 
202 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 its highest splendour about the time that Charles L was 
 born (1600). Ludovico, the last survivor of the family, 
 died in 1619. Domenichino, Guido, Albano, Lanfranco, 
 Guercino, were all flourishing during his reign ; they were, 
 between 1620 and 1650, the popular painters of Italy ; 
 yet of this school I find only the following pictures in Van- 
 derdoort's catalogue, which, it must be remembered, is in- 
 complete : 
 
 By Annibale Carracci, " a little piece of Our Lady and 
 Christ, in a small eight- square frame." 
 
 By Agostino Carracci, the little picture of St. Bartholo- 
 mew, now in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland. 
 
 By Guido, who was in the vigour of his life and genius 
 during Charles's reign, and who died the same year with 
 Van Dyck, I find eight pictures (he seems to have been a 
 favourite with Charles I.). The four pictures from the story 
 of Hercules, already mentioned at page 200. 5. Portia swal- 
 lowing fire * 6. The head of St. Peter (2 ft. by 1 ft. 1 in.), 
 afterwards in Sir Peter Lely's collection. 7. The Venus 
 attired by the Graces, in the National Gallery. 8. Judith 
 and Holofernes ; I believe the same now at Hampton 
 Court. 
 
 By Guercino, " A certain saint leaning on his left hand, 
 holding in his right hand a scroll of paper." 
 
 Claude Lorraine and Nicold Poussin were just rising into 
 celebrity at the period of the commencement of the troubles 
 in England; it is not, therefore, surprising that none of 
 their works are found in Vanderdoort's catalogue : but one 
 
 * " A piece of Portia looking upwards to her right shoulder, with her 
 left hand opening a chafing-dish of red-hot coals, she being in a dark- 
 coloured drapery, and a jewel at her breast : painted upon copper, in a 
 black ebony, some part gilded, frame ; brought from Germany, by my 
 Lord Marquis Hamilton, and given to the King; 16 inches by 12." 
 From this minute description the present possessor of this picture may 
 be able to identify it. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 203 
 
 at least of the works of Claude was painted for England in 
 Charles's time, as appears by the Liber Veritatis (No. 17), 
 which picture is the Narcissus, No. 19, in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 Rembrandt was living in Charles's time, being born in 
 1606, and had already attained rank and celebrity in his 
 profession, some of his very finest pictures being dated be- 
 tween 1630 and 1640. Lord Ancram, on his return from 
 the Hague, presented to his Majesty three pictures by 
 this master : 1 . A portrait of himself when about thirty, in 
 a velvet cap and furred robe, wearing a gold chain. (I pre- 
 sume this picture to be the same which is now in the collec- 
 tion of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn.*) 2. " A young 
 scholar sitting upon a stool, in a purple cap and black gown, 
 reading in a book by a sea-coal fire, a pair of tongs lying 
 by." I can find no picture by Rembrandt answering ex- 
 actly this description, but others may be more fortunate or 
 better informed. 3. The head of an old woman, now at 
 Windsor. 
 
 I will mention one more picture, for the curiosity of it ; 
 " a little piece, being a study in oil-colours of two mice, said 
 to be painted by Raphael Urbin," which Sir Henry Wootton, 
 who had been long in Italy, presented to King Charles when 
 Prince. This little picture (in size about 3J in. by 2i) 
 ought to be in the possession of her Majesty, as I find it 
 again in the list of Queen Caroline's pictures at Kensington, 
 where also it is attributed to Raphael. There is no mention 
 of such a picture in M. Passavant's catalogue of his works 
 and those ascribed to him ; but it would be worth while 
 nevertheless to know where it now is. 
 
 This sketch of Charles's gallery is, I believe, the most 
 complete which has yet been given ; to go farther into detail 
 
 * No. 214 in Smith's Catalogue of the Works of Rembrandt. 
 
204 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 would exceed the limits to which I am necessarily restricted 
 in a work of this kind. I shall therefore "leave wringing 
 of my hands" and tearing my hair (metaphorically), and 
 proceed to the next reign. 
 
 Charles II. was restored to the throne of his ancestors in 
 1660. He appears to have liked pictures and patronised 
 painters, without having a particle of that fine feeling and 
 discriminating taste which distinguished his father. He 
 evinced in the commencement of his reign a desire to re- 
 assemble the relics of the royal collection, now dispersed to 
 the four winds of heaven. Many noblemen and private 
 individuals who had possessed themselves of what had been 
 formerly the royal property, now hastened to make restitution, 
 some from scruples of conscience, others with a hope of 
 conciliating favour. The States of Holland purchased from 
 the executors of Van Reynst those effects of the late monarch 
 which had fallen into his possession, and presented them 
 to Charles II. soon after his accession. Some were re- 
 purchased by the king; and by these and other means a 
 considerable number of interesting and valuable pictures 
 were restored to the crown ; but the finest had been acquired 
 by sovereign princes, and these were for ever alienated. 
 
 The additions which Charles II. made to the collection 
 were numerous, but not creditable to his taste, consisting 
 almost entirely of second-rate masters, as the Bassanos, 
 Domenico Feti, the younger Palma ; of the Dutch painters, 
 as Gerard Douw, Breughel, Rothenhamer, Vandervelde, 
 Varelst; portraits by Lely of his insolent mistresses and 
 other beauties of his court; and views of his palaces by 
 Danckers and Vostermann. He was particularly anxious 
 to recover the miniatures which had belonged to the crown, 
 and on this point a curious anecdote is related by Walpole. 
 He tells us that Charles, who remembered the beautiful 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 205 
 
 miniatures by Isaac and Peter Oliver which had graced 
 his father's collection, made many inquiries about them 
 after the Restoration ; " at last he was told by * one Rogers' 
 (this was Progers, groom of the bedchamber) that the 
 widow of Peter Oliver was living at Isleworth, and had 
 many of their works. The king went privately and un- 
 known with Progers to see them ; the widow showed 
 several, finished and unfinished, with many of which the 
 king being pleased, he asked if she would sell them ? She 
 replied that she had a mind the king should see them first, 
 and if he did not purchase them she should think of dis- 
 posing of them. The king discovered himself, on which she 
 produced some more pictures which she seldom showed. 
 The king desired her to set her price. She said she did not 
 care to make a price with his majesty, she would leave it to 
 him, but promised to look over her husband's books, and let 
 his majesty know what prices the late king had paid. The 
 king took away what he liked, and sent Progers to Mrs. 
 Oliver with the option of 1000/. or an annuity of 300/. for 
 life. She chose the latter." Now it happened that some of 
 the king's mistresses liked pretty miniatures as well as him- 
 self, particularly Miss Stuart — La Belle Stuart, afterwards 
 Duchess of Richmond — who was unhappily smitten with a 
 taste for collecting curiosities of this kind. She and others 
 begged from the king some of the finest miniatures ; and this 
 coming to the knowledge of Mrs. Oliver, " who," says the 
 story, " was apt to express herself like a prude," she vowed 
 that " if she had thought the king would have given them 
 
 to such and such (using words not to be 
 
 endured by ' ears polite'), he never should have had them." 
 This reached the court ; the poor woman's salary was stopped, 
 and she never received it afterwards. The Duchess of Rich- 
 mond left after her death a fine collection of original drawings 
 by Raphael, Lionardo da Vinci, Perino del Vaga ; and minia- 
 
206 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 tures by Hilliard, Isaac and Peter Oliver, Hoskins, and 
 Cooper, which were sold by auction in 1*702, and thus dis- 
 persed. I find, however, twenty-two miniatures by the 
 Olivers in James II. 's catalogue, which had belonged to 
 Charles II. ; how many of these yet remain in the possession 
 of her present Majesty I have not been able to ascertain.* 
 
 A list of the artists employed and patronised by Charles 
 II., and whose works are now to be found in the Royal 
 Gallery, will sufficiently characterise the prevailing taste of 
 his reign. 
 
 Robert Streater was appointed serjeant-painter to Charles 
 II. soon after the Restoration ; he is the first English artist 
 whom I find recorded as a landscape-painter, but he tried 
 his hand at everything, even at the " Fall of the Giants," — 
 not having the fear of Giulio Romano before his eyes. There 
 are seven of his pictures at Hampton Court, but none of any 
 great merit. He died in 1680. f 
 
 Sir Peter Lely was a native of Soest in Westphalia. 
 After studying some time under an obscure painter of the 
 name of Grebber, he came to England in 1641, the year in 
 which Van Dyck died ; nor can I find that Lely ever studied 
 under that great painter, as is usually supposed. Though 
 he painted Charles I. a short time before his downfall, 
 and Cromwell more than once, it does not appear that Lely 
 enjoyed much celebrity till after the Restoration. The gay 
 cavaliers and beautiful women of Charles II.'s Asiatic 
 
 * In the month of October, 1840, I saw in the office of the Lord 
 Chamberlain at Windsor eighty-one old miniatures, which, from the 
 manner in which they were framed, appeared to be those which were 
 once in Queen Caroline s closet at Kensington. They were hung in a 
 bad light, and beyond the reach of close examination. A better place 
 might surely be found for them — the library for instance. 
 
 f Pepys mentions him in his diary as the " famous history-painter," 
 and describes him as a civil little man, and lame, but living hand- 
 somely. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 207 
 
 court were better suited to his taste, and more appro- 
 priate subjects for his delicate and graceful pencil, than the 
 stiff figures and stern puritanical visages of the Common- 
 wealth. Lely has been severely criticised as an abandoned 
 mannerist ; and it must be confessed that the languid air, 
 the sleepy elongated eyelids, and loose fluttering draperies 
 of his women, have given a general character to his pictures 
 which may be detected almost at the first glance. " Lely's 
 nymphs," says Walpole, " are far too wanton and magni- 
 ficent to be taken for anything but maids of honour." In 
 another place he says, " Sir Peter Lely's women trail fringes 
 and embroidery through meadows and purling streams." 
 But through the whole of his observations Walpole seems 
 determined to undervalue Lely in comparison with Kneller. 
 The clinquant of which he accuses him, and justly, was 
 equally the characteristic of the latter painter ; and Lely, as it 
 has been well said, was certainly the more brilliant coxcomb 
 of the two. In other respects there can be no doubt that the 
 manner of the painter was in a great measure caught from the 
 prevailing manners, fashions, and character of the times in 
 w hich he lived. He painted what he saw ; and if he made his 
 nymphs " wanton and magnificent," we have very good autho- 
 rity for believing in the accuracy of his likenesses. The loose 
 undress in which many of his female portraits are arrayed, 
 or rather disarrayed, came into fashion as modesty went out, 
 and virtue was voted " une impertinence." The soft sleepy 
 eye— 
 
 " Seeming to shun the rudeness of men's sight, 
 And shedding a delicious lunar light" — 
 
 appears to have been natural to one or two distinguished 
 beauties of the time, who led the fashion, and carried to an 
 extreme by others, who wished to be in the mode. Lely 
 painted all his women with half-shut eyes as a matter of 
 course, just as Titian painted all his women with golden hair. 
 
208 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES, 
 
 He drew finely in crayons ; some very exquisite pieces of 
 his, in this style, are still extant; and I have seen some 
 original studies of heads by Lely, full of nature and senti- 
 ment, in which the eyes are opened to their natural extent, 
 and the features neither flattered nor mannered. He was 
 knighted by Charles II., and, like his predecessor Van Dyck, 
 married a beautiful Englishwoman of good family. Like 
 him too he was remarkable for his graceful and courtier-like 
 manners, for the splendour of his house and equipage, and 
 for keeping a sumptuous table. He died in 1680, having 
 spent thirty-nine years in England, and left at his death a 
 small but most valuable collection of 135 pictures (com- 
 prising twenty-six by Van Dyck, six by Rubens, and two by 
 Titian), and a large collection of rare prints and original 
 drawings by Raphael, Michael Angelo, &c, all of which 
 were sold by auction and dispersed. I find in King James's 
 catalogue forty-one pictures by Lely, of which about thirty 
 belonged to Charles II. ; many of these were probably con- 
 sumed in the fire at Whitehall in 1698. I find now extant 
 seventeen of his pictures at Windsor and at Hampton Court. 
 
 Wissing was a Dutch painter who came over to England 
 after having obtained some celebrity at the French court: 
 he was much patronised during the short time he was here, 
 and painted most of the royal family : four of his pictures 
 are now at Hampton Court. 
 
 James Huysman or Houseman, was a native of Antwerp, 
 who came over to England when Lely was in the zenith of 
 his reputation, and had nearly rivalled him, and not 
 without reason. Huysman had studied in the school of 
 Rubens, and formed his taste and style after the model of 
 Van Dyck. Some of his pictures which I have seen have 
 something of the power and freedom of the latter painter, 
 blended with the sweetness and grace of Lely. Huysman 
 constituted himself the queen's painter, and made her sit for 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 209 
 
 all his Madonnas and Venuses. He might have chosen a 
 better model and a more munificent patroness: Catherine 
 had no beauty and no predilection for the fine arts. Two 
 charming pictures by Huysman remain in the royal col- 
 lection ; the portrait called " Lady Byron," at Hampton 
 Court, and the Duchess of Richmond in the habit of a 
 young cavalier, which in my young days used to hang at 
 Kensington, and is now (I hope) in the queen's private 
 apartments. Huysman died in 1696, leaving Kneller without 
 a rival. 
 
 Henry Danckers was a native of the Hague, originally an 
 engraver, and afterwards a landscape-painter. He came to 
 England about 1667 or 1668; and was recommended to 
 Charles II., who gave him ample encouragement. He em- 
 ployed him to make views of his palaces, and of various 
 sea-ports in his dominions. I find twenty-five of his pic- 
 tures in the possession of Charles II.; and ten at present 
 in the Royal Collection ; all at Hampton Court. He died at 
 Amsterdam about 1681.* 
 
 Henry Gascar was a French portrait-painter, who came 
 over here, and was much employed, through the influence of 
 his countrywoman the Duchess of Portsmouth : his portrait 
 of her is at Hampton Court. 
 
 Simon Varelst, the celebrated flower-painter, was here, in 
 Charles's reign, painting portraits, into which he generally 
 introduced flowers exquisitely finished. King James II. 
 had six of his pictures, of which four had belonged to King 
 Charles, for whom he painted the Duchess of Portsmouth. 
 Varelst went mad with conceit in his latter days, and died 
 about 17l0.f It is a curious circumstance that Van Huy- 
 
 * Pepys tells us that he had four panels in his dining-room painted 
 by Danckers, with views of the four royal palaces, Whitehall, Hampton 
 Court, Greenwich, and Windsor. 
 
 f Pepys thus mentions him : — " One Evarelst did show me a little 
 
210 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 san, his successor and rival in the art of flower-painting, 
 had also strange freaks of madness, and, I believe, died a 
 lunatic in 1749. 
 
 Antonio Verrio, a Neapolitan, came over, and was em- 
 ployed as a decorative painter. The king paid him mag- 
 nificently for his works of this kind, and gave him besides a 
 gold chain worth 200/. He was in England thirty years ; 
 and the ceilings of several of the state-rooms at Windsor 
 and Hampton Court, covered with deified kings and queens, 
 saints, sciences, virtues, muses, graces, furies, and other 
 " hieroglyphical cattle," remain to testify to his ability, and 
 yet more to his industry. 
 
 Benedetto Gennaro, a nephew of Guercino da Cento, also 
 came here, and was much patronised by Charles, who had 
 twelve of his pictures : four are now at Hampton Court 
 painted in a slight meretricious style. 
 
 A painter who did infinitely more credit to Charles's taste 
 was Wilhelm Vandervelde the elder, who had a pension of 
 100/. a-year " as painter of sea-fights to his Majesty;" by 
 him, as I presume, are the greater number of the marine 
 subjects at Hampton Court. His son, the younger Vander- 
 velde, had more variety of talent — more delicacy of pencil 
 — and was every way the finer painter of the two : both 
 were employed by Charles. I find seventeen pictures by the 
 Vanderveldes in King James's Catalogue, of which six were 
 painted for Charles II., and the "eleven sea-fights" for 
 King James when Duke of York ; all these are now extant 
 at Hampton Court. The sea-piece " drawn with a pen" I 
 presume to be in the Royal Collection of Drawings. 
 
 By Griffiere and Edema, landscape-painters, and Roes- 
 flower-pot of his drawing, the finest thing I ever saw in my life ; — the 
 drops of dew hanging on the leaves, so as I was forced again and again 
 to put my finger to it to feel whether my eyes were deceived or not. He 
 do ask 70/. for it : I had the vanity to bid him 20/." 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 211 
 
 traten, a painter of still-life, mentioned in Walpole, I find 
 pictures extant in the Royal Collection. All these were 
 foreigners, attracted to England by the lavish bounty of 
 the Court. I shall conclude my list with three English 
 painters: — Michael Wright, whose portrait of Lacy the 
 actor is still at Hampton Court. Samuel Cooper, a 
 miniature-painter of distinguished excellence. Pepys calls 
 him " a most admirable workman, and good company ;" for 
 it appears he excelled in music. Charles had a celebrated 
 piece of his, the head of Hobbes the philosopher, which, 
 Aubrey says, was "as like as art could afford," and preserved 
 by the king among his greatest rarities : and I find that 
 Queen Caroline had seven exquisite miniatures by his hand. 
 All these ought to have descended to her present Majesty, 
 and are, it is to be hoped, in the private part of the Royal 
 Collection. Lastly, Grinling Gibbons, the sculptor and 
 carver in wood, of whom there is such an interesting account 
 in Evelyn's 'Memoirs' (vol. i. p. 410). Evelyn recom- 
 mended him to Charles II., who gave him ample patronage 
 and employment. Exquisite ornamental carvings of fruit, 
 flowers, &c, from his hand, are preserved at Windsor and 
 at Hampton Court. 
 
 We can form some idea of the state in which Charles II. 
 left the Royal Collection from the catalogue which was drawn 
 up in the following reign by William Chiffinch, the identical 
 Will (or Tom) Chiffinch who figures not very honourably 
 in " Peveril of the Peak." This catalogue enumerates 1242 
 pictures, of which 57 are specified as " not having belonged 
 to the late king;" whence I conclude that the remaining 
 1185 did belong to Charles II., and were in the royal 
 palaces at the time of his death. The blundering, careless 
 ignorance with which this catalogue has been drawn up 
 almost exceeds belief. One-half of the pictures are without 
 the name of the master, and of the other half, the greater part 
 
212 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 are not by the masters to whom they are ascribed. Out of 
 twenty-two pictures to which the name of Giorgione is affixed, 
 I think it possible that two, or at most three, may be his. Of 
 the twenty-three pictures ascribed to Titian, ten at least are 
 supposititious ; and so of others. Of the pictures which 
 James II. added to his brother's collection, most of them 
 are portraits by Lely, sea-pieces, and copies after other pic- 
 tures — none of any great value. 
 
 In the following reign of William and Mary the royal 
 gallery received many additions, and sustained a disastrous 
 loss, owing to the conflagration of the palace at Whitehall in 
 1697. On this occasion many curious and interesting pic- 
 tures and other works of art were either destroyed or in the 
 confusion carried off; Bernini's bust of Charles I., and the 
 famous picture of Holbein, representing Henry VII. and 
 Henry VIII. and their queens, life-size, with others by the 
 same master, being among the number. 
 
 The additions consisted chiefly of portraits by Kneller. 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller was by birth a Saxon. He came 
 over in Charles II.'s time, a few years before the death of 
 Sir Peter Lely, whom he succeeded as court painter, and 
 remained at the head of his profession for a period of fifty 
 years. He painted all the distinguished characters of his 
 time, English and foreign. W T illiam III. knighted him, 
 George I. created him a baronet, the Emperor Leopold 
 made him a knight of the Roman Empire. I find three 
 of his pictures at Windsor and nineteen at Hampton 
 Court. The most interesting are the series of full-length 
 portraits called the " Beauties of Hampton Court," which 
 will be noticed in their proper place. As paintings, they 
 are certainly inferior to Lely's Beauties ; and as subjects, 
 with due deference to the virtues of the ladies they represent, 
 they are not to be compared to their naughty mammas and 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 213 
 
 grandmammas of Charles II. 's time. Kneller's master-piece, 
 " the converted Chinese," used to hang at Kensington ; but 
 is now, I presume, in the private apartments either at 
 Windsor or Buckingham Palace. 
 
 Michael Dahl, a Swedish painter, was employed by Wil- 
 liam III. He painted for the king a series of portraits of the 
 admirals who had distinguished themselves in the war with 
 France. These portraits, which were creditable to the talents 
 of Dahl, were added to the portraits of admirals which 
 Kneller had painted for James II. They were arranged all 
 together in a room at Hampton Court, thence called the 
 Gallery of Admirals, and remained there till William IV. 
 presented them to Greenwich Hospital in 1835. 
 
 John Baptist Monnoyer, generally called Baptiste, was 
 invited here by the Duke of Montague, and assisted in paint- 
 ing the interior of Montague. House, now the British Mu- 
 seum. He was much patronised as a painter of flowers, in 
 which branch of art Walpole calls him one of the greatest 
 masters who ever appeared. Upon a comparison of his 
 works with those of the celebrated Dutch flower-painters, 
 Van Huysan, Rachel Ruysch, and Varelst, we find him 
 inferior in exquisite finish and the velvety softness of 
 touch, but superior in composition, freedom, and spirit, and 
 a sort of loose airy grace which he gave to his groups, which 
 are often of a large size. There are nineteen of his pieces 
 at Hampton Court, painted for William and Mary. Placed 
 together as they now are, their effect and beauty as pictures 
 are almost destroyed. They would make beautiful panels 
 for a room, their size, vivid colours, and largeness of style, 
 fitting them for the purpose of decoration. 
 
 It should be remembered, to the honour of William III., 
 that when he was enlarging Hampton Court he commanded 
 a gallery to be built for the cartoons of Raphael alone. They 
 had been found cut into slips and packed in deal cases in 
 
214 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 one of the lumber-rooms of the old palace at Whitehall, and 
 were, by the king's order, placed in the gallery they now 
 occupy. 
 
 Riley, one of the best of our native painters, lived in 
 William III.'s time. He was, says Walpole, obscured 
 by the fame, rather than eclipsed by the superior merit, of 
 Kneller. One portrait by him is at Hampton Court. 
 
 The reign of Anne was by no means illustrious in respect 
 of art. She was herself a stupid, narrow-minded woman, 
 without a taste for anything except playing cards and gossip. 
 Sebastian Ricci came over in her reign, and painted here for 
 about ten years, being patronised by Anne's successor, 
 George I. By this painter there are six large pictures, of 
 historical and sacred subjects, now at Hampton Court. In 
 the style of his compositions he imitated Paul Veronese, but 
 in colouring and effect he is chalky and insipid. 
 
 James Bogdani, an Hungarian by birth, came over to 
 England in Anne's reign ; he was a painter of animals and 
 still-life. Three pictures which he painted for Queen Anne 
 are now at Hampton Court. 
 
 George I. came to the throne in 1714, and reigned thirteen 
 years, He had no predilection for his new country, no feeling 
 for art, nor can I find that any addition was made to the 
 royal gallery in his reign, but his own portrait by one Enoch 
 Zeeman, now at Windsor, and the two heads at Hampton 
 Court, by Balthazar Denner, who came over here by the 
 king's invitation, but remained but a short time : he 
 was famous for his literal, minute, and elaborate imitation 
 of nature — for painting every freckle and every hair in the 
 eyebrow. There are also one or two sea-pieces by Monamy, 
 a marine-painter of some merit, who lived in this reign. 
 
 When we say that George I. did not patronise art, it is 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 215 
 
 but fair to add that there was no art to patronise ; and that 
 patronage, though it can reward, cannot create artists. Not 
 in England only, but everywhere throughout all Europe, it 
 was the same, — no soul, taste, feeling, grace, or invention : — 
 " Nor human spark was left, nor glimpse divine!" 
 George II. had no more taste for art than his father 
 before him ; he seems to have been a well-meaning, dull- 
 souled, narrow-hearted man ; but his Queen, Caroline 
 of Anspach, had all that he wanted. She was a very re- 
 markable and accomplished woman, with a bright active 
 spirit, and perhaps rather more intellect than heart. From 
 the time she ascended the throne, in 1727, she exerted 
 herself to collect, preserve, and arrange in some sort of 
 order, the works of art in the royal palaces : she repurchased 
 many pictures and miniatures which had been dispersed 
 during the preceding reigns, and she arranged at Kensington 
 Palace a gallery of royal portraits, forming a complete 
 series. In the room called Queen Caroline's closet she 
 had brought together a most valuable collection of draw- 
 ings, miniatures, enamels, and models in wax and ivory. 
 Of the contents of this closet there is extant an exact cata- 
 logue, drawn up by the honest and accurate Vertue, in 
 which I find enumerated ninety-three drawings and minia- 
 tures by Holbein ; six of Peter Oliver's exquisite miniature 
 copies from Titian and Correggio, painted for Charles I. ; 
 Raphael's mice before mentioned at page 203 ; two of the 
 most celebrated works of Cooper, his head of Oliver and 
 his head of General Monk; two flower-pieces by Maria 
 Van Oosterwyck ; and " in a black ebony frame a large 
 curious enameled plate, ten inches in height and eight 
 inches over, representing Queen Anne sitting dressed in her 
 royal robes, her crown and globe lying on a cushion, the 
 sceptre in her right hand, and his Royal Highness George 
 Prince of Denmark standing by her at full length. C. Boit, 
 
216 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 pinx., 1706." These, and about 200 miniatures, in oil and 
 water-colours, with other beautiful miniatures and enamels 
 by Zincke and Petitot, which fell to the crown after the 
 death of the Princess Amelia (aunt of George III.), Frede- 
 rick Prince of Wales, and William Duke of Cumberland, 
 ought now to exist in her Majesty's private collection. 
 
 Frederick Prince of Wales, though he did not live on 
 good terms with his mother, inherited some of her tastes. 
 He too wished to reassemble all that could be regained of 
 the pictures once in possession of the crown, and had formed 
 at Leicester House a small but very valuable collection, 
 including pictures by Van Dyck, Rubens, Claude, and 
 Gaspar Poussin. These descended to his son, who on his 
 accession added them to the royal collection, and placed 
 them chiefly at Buckingham House. 
 
 George III. had not a very refined or elevated taste 
 in art, but he was an honest conscientious man within the 
 sphere of his abilities, and had a great wish to do some- 
 thing grand in the way of patronage — pity he had not 
 known better how to set about it ; but looking back to the 
 commencement of his reign, I do not find that there was any 
 one who knew better than himself. It is easy to sneer at 
 old King George and his protegee, West ; but what was the 
 state of art, and the feeling for art, when that monarch 
 began his reign, and West arrived in England ? In some 
 work on the fine arts, written at that time, we are gravely 
 informed that " Hayman was the best historical painter in 
 England before the time of Cipriani." Is it possible to 
 convey in words a stronger idea of our poverty? And 
 really looking back to this time it would be difficult to name 
 a better painter than West or a more enlightened and well- 
 meaning patron than the King. 
 
 In the very commencement of his reign (1763) he sent 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 217 
 
 his librarian Dalton abroad, with orders to collect, at any 
 expense, original drawings, medals, choice engravings, and 
 other curiosities of art : and he purchased for 20,000/. the 
 books, manuscripts, gems, drawings and pictures which 
 had been collected during a long series of years by Mr. 
 Smith, the English consul at Venice. He began to form 
 a library ; for, strange to say, such an appendage to the 
 Royal state of the English monarchs had not existed since 
 King Charles's days * It was soon after West had been in- 
 troduced to him, that he conceived the project of illustrating 
 the halls and state-rooms of Windsor Castle by a series of 
 pictures, representing the exploits of its valorous founder 
 Edward III., and the institution of the Order of the Garter, 
 while an oratory or chapel (I am not sure it was St, 
 George's chapel) was destined for the reception of another 
 grand series of pictures of " the progress of revealed reli- 
 gion." These were not the ideas of a common-minded man. 
 We admire the magnificence of Charles I., when he com- 
 missioned Van Dyck to paint the Banqueting-House at 
 Whitehall with the Order of the Garter. It was not the 
 fault of George III. that he had a Benjamin West at hand 
 and no Van Dyck. Setting partiality and patronage aside, to 
 what other painter could he have given such a commission ? 
 Looking over the list of artists who flourished (that is, 
 existed, few could be said to flourish in any sense) within 
 the first thirty-five years of his reign, I find 192 names, of 
 which eleven are still remembered — Cipriani, Cotes, Gains- 
 borough, Wilson, Morland, Copley, Zuccarelli, ZorTani, 
 Barry, Romney, Reynolds.t Barry came to England ten 
 
 * When Buckingham House was pulled down, George IV. presented 
 the whole of his father's valuable library to the British Museum. 
 
 f I find no pictures by Barry or Wilson in the Royal collections. 
 Those pictures which Romney painted for George IV. when Prince of 
 Wales, are not in the State apartments ; but if not destroyed in the fire 
 
218 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 years after West, in 1773; and though a man of infinitely- 
 more original powers — gifted in short with just what West 
 wanted, and George III. would have been the last to perceive 
 the want of — can it be said that at that time he was higher 
 rated than West, or had done anything to entitle him to be 
 so ? Though I think the neglect of Barry a stigma upon 
 the time in which he lived, it may be fairly asked, would 
 he, with his peculiar character and genius, be better off now ? 
 Granting that George III.'s predilection for West and Sir 
 William Beechey, while Barry and Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 existed, is no great argument of his taste, — I do not see how, 
 with his nature, it could have been otherwise, and it might 
 have been worse. The King's patronage of West, and the 
 number of large pictures which W r est painted for him, 
 assisted indirectly the progress of the arts, by turning the 
 thoughts of many towards pictures. There was some truth 
 in what West said of his own works: — " I have this conso- 
 lation, that in the thirty-five years during which I have been 
 honoured with your Majesty's commands, a great body of 
 historical and scriptural works have been placed in the 
 churches and palaces of this kingdom. Their professional 
 claims may be humble, but similar works h^ve not been 
 executed before by any of your Majesty's subjects." The 
 value of most of these scriptural and historical works has 
 fallen miserably low, even through that advance in the 
 public mind and taste which they have assisted in causing. 
 It is the criterion of true genius that if the artist was 
 neglected during life, his works rise higher and higher in 
 value from the time he is no more. West was prosperous, 
 and admired in his lifetime : it may be doubted whether any 
 
 at Carleton House, they ought to be somewhere. The pictures by Copley, 
 Zoffani, Zuccarelli, Gainsborough, Reynolds, scattered through the 
 Royal collections, will be noticed in their places, and may be referred 
 to in the index at the end of the Hampton Court catalogue. 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 219 
 
 of his great scripture pieces and battles of Edward III. 
 would now bring in any auction-room the price of the 
 material on which they were painted. 
 
 I sorrow to say all this, though it be true : for West, with 
 his mild, upright character and enthusiastic notions of his 
 own gifts and greatness, has always interested me — his pic- 
 tures seldom. 
 
 The works of Zuccarelli and Canaletti, now hung chiefly 
 in the corridor of Windsor Castle, and twenty-one large 
 pictures by West, of which seven are at Windsor and 
 the rest at Hampton Court, were the principal additions 
 made by George III. to the Royal Collection: taken al- 
 together, they do not add to its value or reputation. Though 
 he disliked buying the pictures of the old masters, being no 
 judge of art, and having been early disgusted by an attempt 
 to impose on him a spurious Paul Veronese, he purchased, 
 nevertheless, a few works of historical interest, as the 
 picture of Charles I.'s children,* the portrait of the Duke 
 of Marlborough, and the Family of Endymion Porter. f 
 
 During the previous reign, I know not by whose order, 
 four of the seven Cartoons of Raphael had been removed to 
 Windsor, and the series thus broken up. George III. 
 restored them to their place ; and so anxious was he that no 
 accident should befal them in the removal, that he super- 
 intended the packing himself, and even assisted with his 
 own royal hands in arranging and rolling them up. 
 
 George IV., when Prince of Wales and Prince Regent, 
 had commenced the formation of a gallery of art, consisting 
 almost entirely of the Dutch and Flemish masters, for whom 
 he appears to have had an almost exclusive predilection. 
 This collection descended to his brother and successor Wil- 
 
 * See No. 11 in the Windsor Catalogue. 
 
 f Now, I presume, in the private apartments of Ker Majesty. 
 
 l2 
 
220 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 liam IV., and is now the property of the Crown ; it is placed 
 in Buckingham Palace, and a particular account of it will be 
 given in its proper place. During the alterations made by- 
 George IV. in Windsor Castle, and the pulling down and 
 rebuilding the old Palace of Buckingham House, the pic- 
 tures in the Royal Collection were temporarily dispersed, and 
 subsequently a different arrangement took place. Many of 
 the pictures which were at Buckingham House are now at 
 Windsor ; many of those formerly at Windsor are now at 
 Hampton Court. Besides the very valuable and select 
 gallery of the Dutch masters, George IV. added to the Royal 
 Collection, between 1815 and 1821, a series of thirty-eight 
 portraits of distinguished personages, sovereigns, military 
 commanders, ministers, and ambassadors, English and 
 foreign, who had taken part in the continental wars and the 
 negociations which succeeded. These are now arranged in 
 the Banqueting Room at Windsor, and are all, with the 
 exception of five, from the pencil of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 The contemplated arrangements for the pictures at Windsor 
 and Buckingham Palace were not completed when George 
 IV. died in 1830. King William IV. neither had, nor 
 pretended to have, any taste for the fine arts, but he was a 
 more genuine character than his brother, and his under- 
 standing, if not very elevated or cultivated, was without 
 affectations and perversions. He came to the throne with 
 a very decided wish to do what was right, kingly, and popu- 
 lar. Though himself no great reader, he commenced the 
 formation of a royal library, to replace that which his father 
 had collected, and which his brother had given away. By 
 his order all the pictures accumulated at Kensington Palace, 
 (hundreds of which I remember to have seen lying in 
 heaps one against another, with their faces to the wall, 
 while even those which were hung up were ill arranged, 
 ill lighted, and almost inaccessible to the public) were 
 
ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 221 
 
 removed to Hampton Court, for the purpose of being 
 placed in order, and thrown open to the people without any 
 other restriction than the presence of a few authorised 
 keepers and officers, to guard the pictures from wanton 
 injury. These views have been sanctioned and carried into 
 execution during the reign of her present Majesty, in what 
 manner and with what success we shall examine presently. 
 The Queen is understood to have a genuine feeling for art, 
 and the wish to extend to artists a truly royal patronage. 
 As yet the pictures ordered by her Majesty have been chiefly 
 on a small scale and for the decoration of her private apart- 
 ments ; but the position of a youthful sovereign who, with 
 a nominally immense, but really limited revenue, for the 
 disposal of which she is called to account before that most 
 capricious and vulgar tribunal, public opinion, is in some 
 respects a hard trial ; and the manner in which all subjects 
 connected with the fine arts have hitherto been discussed in 
 the House of Commons, and disposed of by our govern- 
 ment, does us, as a nation, little honour. Still there is hope 
 for us : the spread of public taste and intelligence, rumours 
 of grand undertakings now under consideration, encourage 
 us to look forward to a reign illustrated by such peaceful 
 and enduring glories as shall connect in the memory of man, 
 to all future ages, the munificence and greatness of our 
 present sovereign with the improvement, the happiness, and 
 the gratitude of her people.* 
 
 * Since the above was written, Her Majesty has added to the royal 
 collection a large and splendid picture by Rubens, of which a particular 
 description is given in the catalogue of the gallery at Buckingham 
 Palace: and Prince Albert has recently purchased the small but 
 valuable collection of Professor d' Alton, of Bonn. 
 
222 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PICTURES IN THE STATE-ROOMS OF WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 Before the rebuilding of Windsor Castle by George IV. 
 the state apartments through which the pictures'were dis- 
 tributed were fourteen in number, and the pictures amounted 
 to about 200. The number of pictures is now 208, dis- 
 tributed through twelve rooms, which are freely open to 
 the public every day of the week from nine in the morning 
 till dusk, and every Sunday after church-time. It is the 
 custom to give a gratuity to the person who shows the pic- 
 tures, proportioned to the number of the party. The desti- 
 nation of these rooms must have been known to Sir Jeffrey 
 Wyatville the architect, and those who had the charge of the 
 royal collections from the time the alterations were planned : 
 yet no distinct idea of adapting them in their interior ar- 
 rangements to the purpose for which they were certainly 
 and ultimately intended, seems to have been entertained by 
 any of the persons in office. The choice of the decorations 
 and hangings, on which, as everybody knows, so much of 
 the effect of the pictures must depend, appears to have been 
 abandoned to chance and the pleasure of the royal uphol- 
 sterers. What shall we say of a room hung with pale blue 
 glossy satin, and frames part silver and part gold, enclosing 
 some of the richest and deepest-toned pictures ? Such an 
 instance of unpardonable carelessness, of utter bad taste, 
 of total discrepancy between the means employed and the 
 end in view, one might seek in vain anywhere else ; neither 
 is it possible to guess upon what principle the selection has 
 been made of the pictures to be hug in these royal apart- 
 ments. If the choice was guided by any of the historical 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 223 
 
 and poetical associations connected with Windsor, why have 
 the portraits of Queen Elizabeth and the gallant Surrey been 
 banished to Hampton Court ? why are the least interesting 
 of the Holbeins here — the finest and the most interesting 
 elsewhere ? 
 
 The Van Dyck room, in which visitors love to tarry, is 
 beautiful, and, generally speaking, well arranged, though 
 some of the pictures suffer cruelly from being hung m the 
 worst possible light ; and two of them at least are mis- 
 named. 
 
 In the Rubens room there are three pictures which 
 certainly were never touched by his hand, while a very fine 
 picture of the master is very ill-placed at Hampton Court. 
 
 As it is not always possible for the visitor to linger long 
 enough among the pictures to exercise his own judgment 
 and taste, I will venture to point out a few of the most 
 remarkable either for beauty or historical interest. In the 
 Van Dyck room the finest and most celebrated picture is the 
 King Charles on horseback, No. 21 : among the most inter- 
 esting and beautiful may be mentioned Lady Venetia Digby, 
 (No. 6) and the half-length of Henrietta Maria, the face seen 
 in three-quarters (No. 5). What can exceed in youthful 
 grace the two young Villierses and the group of the royal 
 children? — but there is no fear that any of the Van Dycks 
 will be passed over without their due share of attention. The 
 pictures by Claude (of which there are five, Nos. 36, 41, 
 106, 125, and 132), are genuine and beautiful, though not 
 first-rate works of the master. Those by Gaspar Poussin 
 (Nos. 102, 109, 116, 120), are exceedingly fine. Titian's 
 picture of himself, and the Venetian senator (No. 54) ; the 
 two portraits by Van Cleeve (Nos. 61, 62), those by Parmi- 
 giano, Bassano, and Holbein (particularly Nos. 54, 80, 
 115), the beautiful sketch by Rubens (No. 89), and the fine 
 Berghem (No. 131), should be noticed particularly. In 
 
224 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 the Rubens room his own portrait, that of his wife, and the 
 two landscapes, are celebrated pictures. I think it unne- 
 cessary to say anything of the portraits in the Waterloo 
 Chamber ; the attention of the spectator will probably be 
 directed by his individual associations and predilections ; but 
 without doubt the best picture is the portrait of Pius VII., 
 and the worst that of the Duke of Wellington. The portrait 
 of Prince Schwarzenberg, and several others, are in a bad 
 state from the effects of a chill, which has rendered them 
 partially invisible. In this room an opera-glass will be 
 found useful ; some of the pictures are hung much too high ; 
 and of one or two it may be said, that if they were hung 
 out of sight entirely it would be no great loss ; neither as 
 pictures nor as personages do they figure advantageously 
 here. But such reflections I leave to the discretion (or in- 
 discretion) of the visitor. In the following catalogue all 
 those pictures which are to be found in the list of King 
 Charles's pictures are marked K.C.C., and those which I 
 have been able to identify in King James's catalogue are 
 marked K.J.C., and the number appended. 
 
 The pictures are here numbered in the order they are 
 now arranged and shown. 
 
 THE VAN DYCK ROOM. 
 In this room all the Pictures are by Van Dyck. 
 Over the Door. 
 
 1. The Duke of Berg. 
 
 More properly Henry Count Van den Berg. Half-length, 
 in an oval. A stern soldier with a grizzled beard, grasping 
 a truncheon. Very fine and animated. 
 This Count de Berg (or Berghe) was created counsellor of 
 state, and grand master of the artillery by Philip III. of 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 225 
 
 Spain ; and at the time this picture was painted he com- 
 manded the army in the Netherlands for Philip IV. 
 There existed, I believe, no duke of Berg from 1609 to 1666. In King 
 Charles's catalogue is a portrait answering the description under the 
 name of Count Henry Vanderborcht ; and in another place it is spelled 
 Vandenburg. 
 
 Engraved by Paul Pontius : and by De Marcenay. 
 
 King Charles I., his Queen Henrietta Maria, 
 and two of their Children (Prince Charles, 
 then about three years old, and the Princess 
 Mary : not the Duke of York, as here in- 
 scribed). 
 
 The king is in a black dress laced with silver tissue, seated 
 in a very easy and elegant attitude. The eldest child, in 
 dark-green velvet, is leaning on his knee; the queen, in 
 amber-coloured satin, holds her infant in her arms. Two 
 of the queen's favourite dogs are introduced. On a table 
 near the king is a crown and sceptre. A dark crimson cur- 
 tain forms part of the background ; and beyond, on the left, 
 the Tower of London is seen in the distance. 
 
 This picture is said to be the first which Van Dyck painted for King 
 Charles, about 1632, soon after his arrival in England ; for it appears 
 by official records that in July, 1632, Van Dyck was paid " for one 
 great piece of his Majestie, the queen, and their children, one hundred 
 pounds."* The arrangement of this picture has all the quiet elegance 
 of Van Dyck ; and in the painting, more particularly in the figure of the 
 little prince, in front, we see the result of his Venetian studies in the 
 warm depth of the tone, and the mellow touch ; the hands are, as usual, 
 very fine. It is hardly possible, remembering the sorrows and the 
 troublous times which afterwards burst on this devoted family, to look 
 without an emotion of pitying complacency on this representation of 
 
 * In the Orleans Gallery there was a duplicate of this fine picture which had 
 belonged to the Duke of Orleans, who married the daughter of Charles I.: it came 
 to England with the Orleans Gallery, and was sold to Mr. Hammersley /or 100 1 
 guineas. It is now in the possession of the Duke of Richmond. 
 
 l3 
 
226 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 domestic happiness, security, and royal dignity, set forth in all the 
 enchanting illusion of art. 
 
 This picture was brought from Kensington ; it stands No. 173 in 
 King James's catalogue, where it is properly styled Charles I., his queen, 
 with Prince Charles and the Princess Mary. The Duke of York was 
 not born in 1632. A study in chalk for the drapery of queen Henrietta 
 was in the Lawrence collection. — (K.C.C., K.J.C. 173.) 
 
 C. 11 ft. by 8. 
 
 Engraved by Baron, by Cooper, and by Strange ; in the last the king 
 is omitted. 
 
 The Duchess of Richmond. Full-length, in 
 white satin, with the attributes of St. Agnes. 
 
 Mary Yilliers, only daughter of the first Yilliers, Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, the favourite of James and Charles, married about the time 
 this picture was painted James Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, 
 noted for his devotion to the cause of King Charles.* She survived three 
 husbands and her only son, and died in 1685. 
 
 C. 7 ft. 3 in. by 4 ft. 5 in. (K. C. C, K. J. C. 742.) 
 
 Engraved by Bockman. 
 
 Thomas Killigrew and Thomas Carew. Half- 
 lengths, in one picture. 
 
 Killigrew, the pale, pensive-looking, fair haired young man, who 
 holds a drawing in his hand, was at this time page of honour to Charles 
 I., and we see no traces here of what he afterwards became, the all- 
 licensed jester of the profligate court of Charles II., unless, what seems 
 likely, that having learned in the vicissitudes of his early life to be a 
 profound, and perhaps melancholy thinker, he found it advisable, after 
 the Restoration, to make "Folly his stalking-horse, and under present- 
 ment of that to shoot his wit." His reprimands to Charles were some- 
 times as severe as they were witty and merited. 
 
 Carew is seen nearly in profile. He was gentleman of the privy cham- 
 ber to Charles I. — a wit and an admirable poet ; some of his lyrics are 
 exquisite. It appears that he and Killigrew had a dispute in presence of 
 Cecilia Crofts (afterwards the wife of Killigrew), so remarkable as to 
 
 * She had previously married Lord Herbert, and is introduced as a young bride 
 into Van Dyck's picture of the Pembroke family, at Wilton, but was a widow 
 within the year. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 227 
 
 become the talk of the whole court ; and this picture seems to have been 
 painted (in 1638) as a memorial of the circumstance, for whom I cannot 
 make out. It is not in the catalogue of King Charles's pictures. It was 
 purchased by Frederick Prince of Wales from Mr. Bagnols, a person 
 whom he employed to collect his pictures. 
 C. 4 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 4 in. 
 
 Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I., young- 
 est Daughter of Henry IV. of France. 
 
 Half-length, in white satin. The royal crown and a red 
 rose are on the table near her. 
 
 Henrietta Maria was born in 1609, and was only a few 
 months old when her father was assassinated. She was 
 united to Charles I. in 1625, and died, in 1669, at the con- 
 vent of Chaillot, near Paris, which she had founded in the 
 early days of her widowhood. " She was rendered in- 
 teresting by the sorrows and vicissitudes of her life, but too 
 much importance is attached to her character and influence 
 over her husband in the histories of that time : she was a 
 clever and fascinating, but superficial and volatile woman. 
 When she rushed through a storm of bullets to save a 
 favourite lap-dog ; and when, amid the shrieks and entrea- 
 ties of her terrified attendants, she commanded the captain 
 of the vessel in which she fled to France to ■ blow up the 
 ship rather than strike to the parliamentarian,' — it was 
 more the spirit and wilfulness of a woman who, with all her 
 faults, had the blood of Henri Quatre in her veins, than the 
 mental energy and resolute fortitude of a heroine." 
 
 Of the numerous portraits which Van Dyck painted of her this is the 
 most attractive, and gives us a strong impression of the lively, elegant, 
 wilful Frenchwoman, whose bright eyes and caprices so fascinated her 
 husband. Davenant styles her very beautifully " the rich-eyed darling 
 of a monarch's breast." This picture hung in Charles's bed-room. 
 
 (K.C.C., K.J.C. 93.) 
 
228 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 6. Anastasia Venetia, Lady Digby. 
 
 Daughter of Sir Edward Stanley and Lady Lucy Percy, 
 and wife of that extraordinary man, Sir Kenelm Digby ; 
 full-length, seated, in loose drapery ; the head extremely fine ; 
 the countenance beautiful, dashed with a little haughtiness 
 and thoughtful melancholy shadowing the ample brow, 
 while the eyes look forth soft and clear, and the delicate 
 mouth is compressed as if by some inward and conquered 
 sorrow. 
 
 The three angels crowning her above ; the doves under 
 her left hand ; the serpent twined round her arm, without 
 power to wound ; the Cupids prostrate under her feet with 
 their arrows broken and torch extinguished ; and the figure 
 of Slander, with the hands bound, defeated, and unmasked, 
 all refer to the lady's triumph over the attacks of calumny. 
 The nature of these attacks, and her personal character and 
 destiny, are wrapped in considerable mystery. Lord Cla- 
 rendon merely alludes to " her extraordinary beauty and as 
 extraordinary fame," as matters of public notoriety. She 
 was found dead on her couch one morning, and is thus 
 represented in a ghastly picture at Althorp. Her husband, 
 who loved her to madness, and who piqued himself on being 
 an adept in medical and occult science, was supposed at the 
 time to have hastened her death by certain potions he had 
 administered to her for the purpose of heightening her 
 charms. She died in 1635. 
 
 Of this portrait Hazlitt said strikingly and truly, " that it would be 
 next to impossible to perform an unbecoming action while it hung in 
 the room." 
 
 A small finished study for this fine picture was in the 
 possession of the late Sir Eliab Hervey. 
 (K.J.C., 771.) 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 229 
 
 7. George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, 
 
 and his brother, Lord Francis Villiers, as 
 boys. — Full-length figures, standing. 
 
 The first lived to be the versatile, dissipated favourite of 
 Charles II. ; the other, remarkable for his accomplishments 
 and extraordinary beauty of person, was killed in the civil 
 wars at the age of nineteen.* This picture, for the unaffected 
 youthful elegance of the figures and the life and lustre of 
 the colouring, ranks as one of the most perfect of Van Dyck's 
 works. In James II. 's time, and long after, it was at Ken- 
 sington, whence it was removed hither by George IV. It 
 finds a fit place here, these two young men having been 
 after the assassination of their father taken under the special 
 protection of King Charles, and brought up with his 
 children. 
 
 (K.J.C., 749.) 
 
 Engraved by M'Ardell. 
 
 8. The Prince of Carignano. — Half-length, in ar- 
 
 mour, holding a truncheon ; the left hand 
 resting on his helmet ; remarkably fine. 
 
 This is Thomas Francis of Savoy, Prince of Carignano, 
 fifth son of Emanuel Duke of Savoy : he was a celebrated 
 military commander, and grandfather of Prince Eugene. He 
 died in 1656. There is a duplicate of this picture at Munich ; 
 and a fine equestrian portrait of the same prince in the royal 
 collection at Turin. 
 
 Engraved by Paul Pontius. 
 
 * " The Lord Francis having his horse slain under him got to an oak-tree in the 
 highway about two miles from Kingston, where he stood witli his back against it 
 defending himself, scorning to ask quarter, and they barbarously refusing to give 
 it, till with nine wounds in his beautiful face and body he was slain." — Vide 
 Clarendon. 
 
230 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 9. Queen Henrietta Maria. 
 
 The face in profile. 
 (K. J. C, 441.) 
 Engraved by Robinson, 1827. 
 
 10. Madame de St. Croix. 
 
 More properly the Princess Beatrice Constance de Cantecroye 
 (of Brabant). Full-length, in black, in the act of ascending 
 a step ; eminently ladylike. 
 
 I should think that Sir Thomas Lawrence had in his mind the action 
 and turn of this figure when he painted the full-length of Lady 
 Londonderry. 
 
 The old engraved half-length from this picture, agreeing in the most, 
 minute particulars of feature and dress, is by a cotemporary engraver, 
 Peter de Jode, and inscribed Beatrix Cosantia Cantecroyana. I have 
 heard of a duplicate in the possession of William Russell, Esq. : of the 
 personal history of the lady I can learn nothing. 
 
 11. The Children of Charles I. — Five figures, full- 
 
 length. 
 
 Prince Charles, then seven years old, with his hand on 
 a large dog ; the Princess Mary ; James Duke of York, 
 then four years old ; the Princess Elizabeth ; and the Prin- 
 cess Anne, who died an infant. 
 
 This beautiful family group was painted by Van Dyck in 1637 ; it 
 hung in Charles's breakfast-room at Whitehall. After the dispersion of 
 his pictures it was for some time lost sight of, and was purchased 
 by George III. from the Earl of Portmore. 
 
 (K.C.C., K.J.C., 483.) 
 
 Engraved by Cooper, 1762. 
 
 J2. Charles I. — Three Heads in three points of 
 View : front, profile, and three-quarters. His 
 long dark hair, parted on his brow, falls over 
 his rich lace collar. 
 
 This beautiful picture was painted about 1637 for the purpose of 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 231 
 
 being sent to Rome to Bernini, who executed from it a bust in marble. 
 It is a well-known tradition that Bernini, on seeing this portrait, was so 
 struck by the melancholy, or, as he termed it, fatal (fwiesta) expression, 
 that he prophesied the violent end of the original. The picture re- 
 mained in his possession, and was transmitted to his descendants, from 
 whom it was purchased by Mr. Irvine, and sent to England in 1803 : 
 in the year following it was bought by Mr. Champernowne for 450 
 guineas, from whose possession it passed into the hands of Walsh Porter, 
 and, after his death, became the property of William Wells. Esq., of 
 Redleaf. The last-named gentleman ceded it to George IV., whose 
 earnest wish to possess \\i was not to be gainsaid ; Mr. Wells receiving 
 only the price he had paid for it, 1000 guineas.* 
 
 C. about 2 ft. 8 in. by 3 ft. 4 in. 
 
 Engraved by W. Sharp. 
 
 Queen Henrietta Maria. — Front view, in white 
 satin, a chain of jewels over the right 
 shoulder. 
 
 It is the least handsome, but not the least interesting, of all her portraits. 
 The countenance has a melancholy expression, and the eyelids look 
 as if heavy with tears. This was one of the latest pictures which Van 
 Dyck painted of her, and (with the profile, No. 9) was intended to be 
 sent to Bernini, the Italian sculptor, a3 studies for a bust ; but the 
 troubles of the Royal family intervening, this design was abandoned. 
 The two pictures belonged to George IV. when Prince of Wales, and 
 used to hang at Carlton House. 
 Engraved by P. de Jode. 
 
 * Bernini's bust was destroyed when the palace of Whitehall was burned in 
 1697. The original letter which Queen Henrietta Maria wrote to Bernini in 1639, 
 thanking him for the bust, and expressing her entire satisfaction, had been pre- 
 served in the family as a testimony of the authenticity of the picture, and was 
 sent to England with it. "This curious document was put into a slight frame, 
 with a glass, by Mr. Buchanan, and delivered by him to the late Mr. Henry 
 Tresham, R.A., on account of Mr. Champernowne, when the picture became the 
 property of that gentleman ; and it is believed that it remained in the possession 
 of Mr. Tresham at the time of his death. The late "Walsh Porter purchased the 
 picture from Mr. Champernowne ; but he either was not aware of the existence 
 of this document, which ought never to have been separated from the picture, 
 or Mr. Champernowne had himself forgotten the circumstance. It was no doubt 
 sold at the sale of Mr. Tresham's effects, or has passed into the hands of his re- 
 latives." — Buchanan, vol. i. p. 184. For the letter, see Bottari's " Lettere sulla 
 Pitture," vol. v. No. 23; and a translation may be found in Dallaway's Edition of 
 Walpole's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 110. 
 
232 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 14. The Countess of Carlisle. 
 
 Lucy Percy, daughter of Henry Percy, Earl of Northum 
 berland, and wife of James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. Full- 
 length, in a dress of crimson satin ; dipping her hand in a 
 fountain ; very elegant, with much intellect and archness in 
 the countenance. She was celebrated by all the wits and 
 poets of her day ; meddled with politics, not much to her 
 own credit, and is said to have perplexed the king's affairs 
 by her intrigues. In Waller are some elegant verses ad- 
 dressed to her, and a most elaborate panegyric on her may 
 be found in Fenton's Notes to Waller's poems. She died 
 in 1660. 
 Engraved by P. Van Gunst. 
 
 15. Sir Kenelm Digby. — Half-length, seated ; near 
 
 him, on the right, a celestial sphere. 
 The head full of power ; the features coarse ; very like the 
 fine full-length (by Janssens) now at Althorp : the sphere 
 alludes to his studies in astrology, which, together with love 
 and vanity, seem to have troubled the intellect of this strange 
 but gifted man. (See No. 6.) 
 
 This picture was formerly at Buckingham-house ; and more recently 
 was brought here from Kensington. — (K. J. C, 745.) 
 
 C. 3 ft. by 2 ft. 4 in. 
 
 Engraved by P. van Voerst ; and by Gaywood. 
 
 16. Charles II. when a Boy about nine or ten 
 
 years old. 
 
 Full-length, front view ; in armour, leaning on a plumed 
 helmet, and holding a pistol in his right hand. — (K. J. C, 
 753.) 
 
 A first sketch for this picture is in the possession of the 
 Rev. H. Wellesley. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 11 in. by 4 ft. 3 in. 
 
 Engraved by P. de Jode ; and by Mouzyn. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 233 
 
 17. Portrait of Van Dyck : head seen in three- 
 
 quarters, with his right hand on his breast. 
 Full of elegance and spirit ; it has been much patched and 
 painted over, and was formerly in a small oval ; this por- 
 trait belonged to his patron Charles I., and is 124 K. J.C. 
 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 11 in. 
 
 18. Queen Henrietta Maria. — Full-length, in white 
 
 satin. On a table near her the Royal Crown, 
 and a red rose in a vase. 
 
 There is something faulty in the arrangement of the lines of the 
 curtain behind her, which projects into a corner just where it ought not 
 — between the head and shoulders. The countenance has more of thought 
 and dignity than in the half-length (No. 5); the figure justifies the ap- 
 pellation given to her somewhere of " the most ladylike of queens and of 
 women." A beautiful whole-length of Henrietta Maria, nearly similar, 
 and I think finer than this, is at Althorp ; another is in the possession 
 of Lord Ashburton ; another at Warwick Castle ; a fifth is at Woburn ; 
 Lord Clarendon has a sixth, and, I believe, a seventh went to Russia 
 with the Houghton Collection : all these are whole-lengths. Van Dyck 
 painted this queen twenty-five times for the king and his courtiers, and 
 there is in Grainger a list of twenty-five engraved portraits of her: she 
 was pretty, and a queen ; it was, therefore, a fashion to possess and adore 
 her picture, and to celebrate her charms. Waller has paid his tribute 
 with characteristic felicity and elegance : — 
 
 " Could Nature then no private woman grace, 
 Whom we might dare to love, with such a face, 
 Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes, 
 Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies? 
 Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight, 
 What envious pow'r has plac'd this glorious light ? 
 
 Engraved by P. Van Gunst, I believe from the Houghton picture. 
 
 19. The Countess of Dorset. — Full-length, in white 
 
 satin. The back-ground a rocky landscape. 
 This has been supposed to represent the famous Anne Clif- 
 ford, Countess of Cumberland, Dorset, and Pembroke; but 
 it is too young for her, who must have been more than forty 
 
234 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 when Van Dyck came to England. I have no doubt that it 
 represents Mary Curzon, wife of Edward, fourth Earl of 
 Dorset, who died in 1652. — (K. J. C, 740.) 
 
 This is said to be a copy after Van Dyck, and its general inferiority 
 to the other pictures here proves this. The original is at Knowle Park. 
 
 20. Three of King Charles L's Children : Prince 
 
 Charles, the Duke of York, and the Princess 
 Mary (afterwards Princess of Orange). 
 
 Figures full-length, with two dogs. 
 
 The original and the most charming of the numerous pictures of the 
 same subject scattered through various collections. This was formerly 
 at Buckingham Palace, and brought hither from Kensington: it is 155 
 in King James's Catalogue. There is a fine duplicate at Dresden, another 
 at Turin, and a third at Wilton House, also very fine. 
 
 An original study after nature for the head of the little Duke of York 
 (in a cap), finely executed in chalk, life-size, is now in the possession of 
 the Rev. H. Wellesley. 
 
 C. 4 ft. 4 in. by 5 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Strange ; and by Le Blonde. There is also a superb 
 lithograph by Haefstangel. 
 
 21. Charles I. 
 
 In armour, mounted on a grey horse, finely foreshortened, 
 as if advancing from under a lofty archway : the figure is 
 seen almost in front, the hair gracefully parted, and falling 
 on his shoulders ; he holds a truncheon in his hand : on the 
 right stands St. Autoine, Chevalier d'Epernon, his equerry, 
 holding his helmet, and looking up to him with a keen, 
 anxious, animated expression, which well contrasts with the 
 sedate and contemplative dignity in the head of Charles. 
 St. Antoine had been equerry to his brother, Prince Henry ; 
 he was a knight of Malta, and was sent over to England by 
 Louis XIII. with a present of six horses. 
 
 This fine picture was painted soon after Van Dyck's arrival in 
 England : on the dispersion of the royal collection it was bought by 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 235 
 
 Remee Van Lempuf, a Dutch painter settled in England, for 200/. : 
 after the Restoration he demanded 1500 guineas for it, but it was re- 
 covered by a legal process, and removed to Kensington Palace, where 
 this picture and the family picture (No. 2) were placed as they are here, 
 at either end of a gallery.— (K. J. C, 880.)* 
 
 C. about 10 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Baron. 
 
 22. A Portrait of a Gentleman, the face seen three- 
 quarters.- — Half-length ; in black, with a 
 falling ruff ; a glove on his right hand ; his 
 left, ungloved on the hilt of his sword. 
 
 Called here Jan Snellincks, which is a mistake ; the painter 
 Snellincks (or Snelling) was a very old man when he sat to 
 Van Dyck, and the contemporary engravings having been 
 compared with this picture, it is clear that it represents a 
 very different person. 
 
 K.J.C., No. 1177, is a miniature portrait of Snellincks, in 
 a tortoiseshell case, which ought to be somewhere in the 
 royal collection. 
 
 THE QUEENS DRAWING-ROOM. 
 Over a Door, 
 
 23. Portrait of a Child : full-length, standing, in a 
 blue velvet robe, holding some fruit in his 
 hand. 
 
 Said to be Henry Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of 
 Charles I., which is very probable; and also said to be by 
 
 * In Smith's Catalogue it is said that King Charles presented a duplicate of 
 this picture to Sir John Byron, of Newstead Abbey, which is now in possession of 
 Lady Warren, of Stapleford, and that another duplicate, or copy, is in possession 
 of the Earl of Warwick. There exist, in different collections in England and on 
 the Continent, thirty-six portraits of King Charles by the hand of Van Dyck. 
 
236 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Van Dyck, which is impossible, for of his mind and hand it 
 bears no trace whatever.* 
 
 Over another Door, 
 
 PAUL VANSOMER. 
 
 24. William, third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Cham- 
 
 berlain in the reign of James I. — Three- 
 quarters, in black, with the Order of the 
 Garter, and the staff of office. 
 
 A fine spirited portrait. 
 Engraved by Simon Pass. 
 
 ZUCCARELLI. 
 Nine Landscapes: 
 
 25. Jacob watering his Flock. 
 
 26. The Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca. 
 
 14 ft. 7 in. by 7 ft. 4 in. 
 
 27. The Finding of Moses. — Painted for George 
 
 III. in 1765, as a companion to the last 
 picture. 
 
 28. Landscape with Figures. 
 
 29. Landscape with Figures. 
 
 30. Landscape with Figures, Dogs, and Horses. 
 
 31. Landscape with Figures. 
 
 32. Landscape with Figures and Water-fowl. 
 
 33. Landscape with Figures. f 
 
 * No. 739 in King James's Catalogue is a portrait of Henry Duke of Gloucester, 
 by Sir Peter Lely, which I presume to be this picture. 
 
 f In the corridor of the private apartments are fifteen other landscapes by 
 Zuccarelli, of a smaller size, and I think superior. They were all, except the 
 large picture of the Finding of Moses, purchased with Mr. Smith's collection (see 
 p. 217), and several have been engraved. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 237 
 
 Francesco Zuccarelli, a native of Tuscany, came to England in 1752: 
 he was one of the first members of the Royal Academy when it was 
 founded in 1768, and realised a good fortune by the patronage he re- 
 ceived in England. He lost it, however, after his return to Italy, and 
 was reduced to poverty. These landscapes are fair examples of his 
 general style, of which the great and unredeemable fault is its insipidity. 
 His figures are well designed — have a sort of prettiness and propriety, and 
 one cannot say that any part of his pictures is ill drawn or ill executed, 
 and yet the whole is intolerable — or, what is worse, just "so tolerable as 
 not to be endured.' 1 Painted, it should seem, for Dante's Limbo of 
 Mediocrity — " Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa !" 
 
 THE QUEEN'S CLOSET. 
 CARLO VEYRIES (or VARIS). 
 
 34. View of an Italian Seaport. 
 
 Of the artist I know nothing. The four marine views by him in this 
 room are all of the same size, 4 ft. by 3 ft. 1 1 in., and were brought here 
 from Buckingham -house : they probably formed part of Mr. Smith's 
 collection bought by George III. (vide p. 217), and have little merit. 
 
 HOLBEIN. 
 
 35. Portrait of Henry VIII : three-quarters ; front 
 
 face, in a hat and feather, holding his glove. 
 Feeble for Holbein and inferior to the head now at Hamp- 
 ton Court. A duplicate is at Petworth. 
 Engraved by Vertue ; and in Lodge's Portraits. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 36. Landscape. 
 
 A herdsman is driving five oxen through a stream : to the 
 left is a clump of trees, partly hanging over the water, and 
 a road leading to a round tower and other buildings ; in the 
 middle distance a bridge. I take this to be No. 83 or 85 
 of the liber Veritatis. 
 Engraved by Newton ? 
 
238 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 37. Portrait of a Falconer feeding a Hawk on his 
 
 Hand. 
 
 An admirable early portrait of the Florentine school, but not 
 by Lionardo da Vinci, to whom it is here attributed. 
 
 I presume No. 516 K. J. C, where it is, without a shadow of reason, 
 attributed to Giorgione. 
 
 P. 1 ft. 10i in. by 1 ft. 5±in. 
 
 HOLBEIN. 
 
 38. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk ; half- 
 
 length ; with the insignia of the Garter ; the 
 white staff of Lord Chamberlain in one 
 hand, and his baton as Earl Marshal in the 
 other. 
 
 This was the father of the accomplished Earl of Surrey, 
 who was beheaded by Henry VIII. He was condemned to 
 the same fate, but the king died on the night before he was 
 to have been executed. 
 
 There exist several duplicates of this picture ; one very 
 fine is in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 Engraved by Yorstermanu. 
 
 GERARD HONTHORST. 
 
 39. James, first Duke of Hamilton. — Half-length, 
 
 in black, wearing the Order of the Garter, 
 the star embroidered on his cloak. 
 
 This nobleman, espousing warmly the cause of Charles I., 
 was beheaded a few weeks after him in 1649. He had been 
 previously imprisoned in Windsor Castle. 
 
 This is a fine portrait, not unworthy of Van Dyck, particu- 
 larly the hands. I am inclined to think that it is by Adrian 
 Hannemann. It is much more like his manner than that of 
 Honthorst. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 239 
 
 40. King Edward VI., not quite full-length, in a 
 
 red robe, trimmed with fur, and white em- 
 broidered vest ; his hand on a poniard. 
 
 The mild, feeble, and delicate air of the head contrasts 
 
 strongly with that of his bluff father on the other side. 
 
 He died in 1553, at the age of sixteen. K. C. C, but not 
 
 there attributed to Holbein. K. J. C. 89. 
 Engraved by Simon Passe (bust only). 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 41. Seaport. — Morning. 
 
 In the foreground a man in red, another in blue, leaning on 
 a cask, and three other figures; a boat, in which are four 
 men, is approaching the shore ; on the left a large clump of 
 trees, and ruined columns ; and a lighthouse in the distance. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 42. Head of a Young Man in a Turban. 
 
 An early and not very good picture of the master. 
 
 VAN DYCK. 
 
 43. The Virgin and Child. 
 
 The Virgin is habited in a pale red dress, a blue mantle 
 covering her knees ; she is bending over the Infant, her face 
 seen nearly in profile ; her left hand sustains the head of the 
 Child, which lies extended in her lap, his face uplifted to 
 hers; her right hand is pressed on her bosom. K.J.C. 464. 
 
 A duplicate of this picture is in the collection of Henry 
 Hope, Esq. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 9 in. by 2 ft. 11 in. 
 
 Engraved by H. Snyers. 
 
 CARLO VEYRIES. 
 
 44. An Italian Sea-port. 
 
210 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 OLD TENIERS * 
 
 45. Interior of a Picture Gallery; with Four 
 
 Figures. 
 
 This picture and the companion, No. 48, are hung too high; out of the 
 reach of criticism, if not out of sight. 
 
 46. A Holy Family. — Three figures, life-size. 
 
 An angel is adoring the holy Infant, asleep on the mother's 
 knee. The design of the Virgin, the colouring and draperies, 
 may be referred to the Florentine school ; but it is not a 
 pleasing picture. 
 
 Attributed here to Sebastian del Piombo, but it is more 
 like Maso di San Friano. 
 
 DAVID TENIERS. 
 
 47. A Rocky Landscape, with figures. 
 
 A herdsman is driving three cows and some sheep over a 
 road towards the right, preceded by a boy playing on a pipe, 
 and followed by a woman bearing a milk-can on her head ; 
 in the distance a lofty eminence surmounted by a castle. 
 
 The composition of this picture is exceedingly fine, but it 
 is flat in effect and cold in tone, beyond what is usual with 
 Teniers. 
 
 C. about 3 ft. by 2£ ft. 
 
 OLD TENIERS. 
 
 48. Interior of the Laboratory of a Chemist or 
 
 Physician, with Seven Figures. 
 
 CARLO VEYRIES. 
 
 49. An Italian Sea-port. 
 
 BAROCCIO. 
 
 50. A Nativity. — Four Figures, much less than life. 
 
 Every way poor and mediocre. (This may be in K. J. C, 
 No. 1035.) 
 
 * So called to distinguish him from his son David Teniers, a far superior 
 painter. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 211 
 
 A Head : life-size. 
 
 Attributed to Gerard Douw. 
 RUBENS. 
 
 John Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp. 
 A head admirably painted, formerly attributed to Van 
 Dyck, by whom there is a portrait of this bishop full-length.* 
 The expression is that of a man of strong but coarse cha- 
 racter, and a good deal of jovial humour. 
 About 1 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 6 in. 
 
 GIACOMO BASSANO. 
 
 Portrait of a Man, in a black furred gown and 
 long white beard. — Three-quarters : holding 
 his cap in his right hand, and a giove in his 
 left. 
 
 A fine old Venetian head. (Perhaps in K.J.C., 913.) 
 TITIAN. 
 
 Portraits of Titian and the Chancellor Andrea 
 Franceschini, in the same picture. — Half- 
 length. 
 
 Andrea Franceschini is seen in front in a robe of crimson (the habit 
 of a cavaliero of St. Mark) ; he holds a paper in his hand. The acute 
 and refined features have that expression of mental power which Titian 
 without any apparent effort could throw into a head. The fine old face 
 and flowing beard of Titian appear behind. This admirable picture 
 belonged to Charles I., and was sold for 112/. ; how it was restored to 
 the royal collection I do not know. I find it in King Jamess cata- 
 logue, No. 293, under the name of Titian and Aretine, — an obvious 
 mistake. The head of the senator bears no resemblance whatever to the 
 well-known portraits of Aretino ; while there is an engraved portrait of 
 Franceschini, also after Titian, and on comparing this print with the 
 picture before us the identity of the two heads cannot be doubted for a 
 moment. 
 
 * Engraved by Lommelin. 
 
 M 
 
242 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Andrea dei Franceschi (or Franceschini) was Grand Chancellor of 
 Venice in 1529. He was a learned man and a patron of art. We read in 
 the " Life of Titian" that several persons of high rank and consideration, 
 who sat to him, desired to have his own head introduced into the same 
 picture as a mark of their friendship for the artist. 
 
 C. 2 ft. 9 in. by 3 ft. 1 in. 
 
 CARLO MARATTI. 
 
 55. An Infant Christ : the figure life-size, sur- 
 
 rounded by a wreath of flowers. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 56. St. John in the Wilderness. — Half-length, 
 
 holding the cross of reeds, and filling a cup 
 from a fountain. Perhaps in K.J.C., 567. 
 
 57. Portrait of Erasmus. — Less than life, the hands 
 
 partly seen. 
 
 With the inscription : — D. Erasmus Roterodamus, Vixit 
 an LXX. obiit V. id. IVL. Anno MDXXXVI. 15. G.P. 37. 
 
 Copied by George Penz, of Nuremberg, from a well- 
 known picture by Holbein. It was brought by the Mar- 
 quis of Hamilton from Nuremberg, and presented to King 
 Charles I. 
 
 Penz was a celebrated engraver ; had studied in his native place 
 under Albert Durer, and at Rome under Marc Antonio. The name is 
 written indifferently Pentz and Spence, and also Gregory Peins. For 
 an account of Erasmus see the catalogue of the Hampton Court pictures 
 farther on. 
 
 CARLO YEYRIES. 
 
 58. An Italian Seaport. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 243 
 
 THE KING'S CLOSET. 
 SIR ANTONIO MORE. 
 
 59. The Emperor Charles V. in Armour, a trun- 
 
 cheon in his right hand. — Half-length. 
 
 Of this picture of Charles V. it is scarcely possible to form a judg- 
 ment, owing to the unfavourable position in which it is hung, which, 
 considering the interest of the subject and the celebrity of the painter, 
 is to be regretted. (K.C.C., K.J.C., 202.) 
 
 PARMIGIANO. 
 
 60. A Man's Head. 
 
 Very fine and full of character, with a peculiar expression 
 of subtlety in the countenance, not easily forgotten. 
 
 VAN CLEVE. 
 
 61. The Wife of Van Cleve, in a white Coif, and 
 
 holding a Rosary. 
 
 62. The Companion, Van Cleve himself, in a black 
 
 Cap and furred Gown ; one hand seen.* 
 These heads are most admirably painted, full of nature and 
 character, and warmly and clearly coloured, — superior, in my 
 opinion, to anything of Holbein's we have in this collection. 
 
 Joas Van Cleve (or Sotto Cleve) was a disciple of Quintin Matsys, 
 and came to England in the time of Philip and Mary. He was in hopes 
 of being patronised by the king ; but just at this period some of Titian's 
 pictures arrived in England, and Philip had no eyes but for them. Van 
 Cleve, who was already half mad with self-conceit, thereupon became 
 perfectly insane, and was placed in confinement. This must have been 
 about 1554 : so that the date of his death in the biographies (1534) is a 
 mistake. He died about 1556. 
 
 These two portraits were purchased by Charles I. 
 
 * The head of Van Cleve has been engraved for Major's edition of Walpole's 
 Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. 
 
 M 2 
 
244 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 JOHN BREUGHEL. 
 
 A Flemish Fete, with numerous Figures. 
 
 A small picture, minutely finished. 
 
 There were four painters of this name living about the same time. 
 John Breughel was distinguished as the Velvet Breughel, " because he was 
 generally dressed in velvet, an expensive habit," and one unusual for a 
 painter in those days.* 
 
 On copper, 2 ft. 3 in. by 1 ft. 6 in. 
 
 GU1DO. 
 
 St. Catherine of Alexandria. — (See p. 155.) 
 
 A small and very beautiful picture. She is seated on the 
 ground looking up to heaven, from which an angel descends 
 with the palm-branch; the wheel, the instrument of her 
 martyrdom, is on her left. The head is noble, the colouring 
 bright, the execution most carefully finished. 
 
 The figure and attitude are precisely those of the female in the fore- 
 ground of Guido's famous picture of the " Massacre of the Innocents 
 the expression only is changed. 
 
 About 10 in. by 8 in. 
 
 CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 A Madonna. 
 
 A small head of the Mater Dolorosa, wrapped in the blue 
 mantle, with the face looking down ; of which there are end- 
 less repetitions, and this is not one of the best. 
 On copper, 10 in. by 8^ in. 
 
 ERASMUS QUELLINUS. 
 
 The Interior of a Picture Gallery. 
 He has here introduced portraits of artists of that time 
 (about 1625) — his own figure in black in the left corner — 
 and some well-known pictures. 
 
 * Heinecken says, " II fut appele Fluwelen, c'estadire de Velours, a cause de la 
 finesse de son pinceau." 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 215 
 
 QUINTIN MATSYS. 
 
 67. The Misers ; or, more properly, the Money- 
 
 changers. 
 
 Two figures, half-length, at a table, counting money. 
 A celebrated picture, of which there exist repetitions in 
 various galleries, and many engravings and copies. One was 
 in the Houghton Gallery ; there is another at Hinchinbroke 
 (Lord Sandwich's) : a third in the museum at Berlin. 
 
 The expression in the, countenances — so characteristic and 
 so cleverly marked ; the sordid exultation in the man looking 
 up — the intent abstraction of the man writing ; the splendour 
 of the local colours, and the exquisite painting of the details 
 and accessories, render this picture very remarkable, con- 
 sidering the period at which it was painted (about 1480). 
 The execution is in the manner of the time, hard and dry. 
 
 There is a romance in the story of Quintin Matsys which lends addi- 
 tional interest to his works. He was the son of a blacksmith at Antwerp, 
 and followed the same calling till he was twenty. He had fallen in love 
 with the daughter of a painter, and had won her affections; but the 
 father refused to marry his daughter to any one who was not of his own 
 profession. Quintin, not disheartened, quitted his anvil, and applied 
 himself to the study of painting. His bodily constitution appears to 
 have been at all times too weak for his former occupation. It is not 
 known under whom he studied ; but he became eminent in his new 
 profession, and obtained the hand of his mistress. He died in 1529, at 
 the age of seventy. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in speaking of his largest 
 and most celebrated work, the " Pieta," at Antwerp, says " that some of 
 the heads are not exceeded by Raphael, and even resemble his dry 
 manner.'' The picture before us is all vulgar, servile nature. It is said 
 to have belonged to Charles I., but I do not find it in his catalogue.* It 
 is in K.J. C, 153, " a piece of two Jews." 
 
 Engraved by Earlom ; and by Fittler. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 68. Head of St. Sebastian. 
 
 In his dark Caravaggio manner; and rather above life-size. 
 
 * It is singular that Horace Walpole (in general so accurate) should have fallen 
 into the mistake of saying that this picture was painted for Charles I. — Mdes 
 fFalpolianee, p. 272. 
 
246 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 69 A Man with a sword. 
 
 Attributed to Spagnoletto. Hung almost out of sight. 
 JOHN BREUGHEL. 
 
 70. The Garden of Eden, with all manner of beasts 
 
 and birds. 
 
 One of his minutely finished pictures. 
 On copper, 2 ft. 1 in. by 1 ft. 6^ in. 
 
 CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 71. Small Head of Christ. 
 
 This is even worse, as a picture, than its companion, No. 
 65 : not only feeble in expression, but out of drawing. Both 
 pictures formerly hung in Queen Caroline's closet at Ken- 
 sington. 
 
 ADAM ELZHEIMER. 
 
 72. St. Christopher. 
 
 According to the legend, St. Christopher, in a vision, bore 
 the infant Saviour across a river. 
 
 In King Charles's collection ; and again in King James's 
 Catalogue, No. 152. The same or a similar picture was in 
 the possession of the Duke of Portland in 1757 ; it is en- 
 graved by Heath in Forster's British Gallery of Engravings, 
 and was then (1807) in the possession of George Walker, 
 - Esq., of Edinburgh. 
 On copper, 9 in. by 7^ in. 
 
 WOUVERMANS. 
 
 73. An Encampment. 
 
 This picture ought to be good, but it is in a very bad condi- 
 tion. 
 
 JOHN VORSTERMAN. 
 
 74. Windsor Castle in the year 1672. 
 
 Painted for Charles II. The blue hills are, of course, a 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 1 
 
 247 
 
 flight of the painter's fancy. He was a disciple of Sachtleven, 
 and was in England for a short time about 1672. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 The Woman of Samaria at the Well. 
 
 Life-size, three-quarters. The same figure, holding a vase, which he has 
 so often repeated ; sometimes with that of our Saviour, and sometimes 
 alone, as here. This is a very good repetition. 
 
 TINTORETTO. 
 
 A Holy Family, with St. Luke and St. Ignatius 
 
 Loyola worshipping. 
 Five figures ; half-length ; life-size. One of the numerous 
 votive pictures of this sort which Tintoretto dashed off in a 
 rich careless style. 
 C. 5 ft. 6 in. by 4 ft. 
 
 MIREVELDT. 
 
 The Antiquarian. 
 
 A portrait, so called, of a fine old man, half-length, in 
 black, with a flowing white beard. He holds a shell in his 
 hand, on which he appears to be discoursing — 
 
 " apply it to your ear, 
 
 And it remembers its august abodes, 
 And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there !" 
 This picture has been greatly injured and very ill repaired. 
 Michel Jansen Mireveldt was the finest Flemish portrait-painter of the 
 16th century, immediately preceding Rubens and Van Dyck. He was 
 without a rival in his own department till Van Dyck appeared. He died 
 very old in 1641. In King Charles's Catalogue I find six pictures by 
 Mireveldt — one the " head of an old man in an oval," which does not 
 answer to the above. In King James's Catalogue is the portrait of 
 Mireveldt by himself, which I do not find in the Royal collection. 
 
 DOMENICHINO. 
 
 St. Catherine of Alexandria. 
 
 Half-length; life-size; holding the palm in her right 
 hand (see p. 155). 
 
24 S 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to mistake Domenichino's female 
 saints and sibyls, from the look of inspired devotion which 
 he threw into the upturned eyes. This is an instance, and 
 the St. Agnes", in the next room, is another. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 PARMIGIANO. 
 
 79. An Officer of the Pope's Guard. 
 
 A youthful head, quite admirable for spirit, expression, 
 and deep, warm colour. 
 
 Dr. Waagen presumes this to be the head of Lorenzo Cibo, of which 
 Vasari speaks in such high terms.* 
 
 The costume is not that of the Pope's guard, and the picture stands in 
 King James's Catalogue, No. 482, as "a young man in black — his hand 
 on a sword." If an officer of the Pope it must have been painted at 
 Rome just before the sack of the city by Bourbon, 1527. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. 
 
 ADRIAN VANDERVELDE. 
 
 80. Landscape with Horses. 
 
 In the foreground, a white and a bay horse, close together, 
 three sheep lying down, and a goat standing; to the left two 
 sheep and a man sleeping under a tree ; and farther off a 
 grove of trees, through an opening of which a man is seen 
 driving some cows.f 
 About 2 ft. by 1 ft. 7 in. 
 
 VORSTERMAN. 
 
 81. View of Windsor Castle in the Time of 
 
 Charles II.— (See No. 74.) 
 
 About 2£ ft. by 1 ft. 9 in, 
 
 * " II Signor Lorenzo Cibo, capitano della Guardia del Papa e bellissimo uomo, 
 si fece ritrarre da Francesco, il quale si puo dire che non lo ritrasse, ma lo facesse 
 di came e vivo " — Vasari. 
 
 f I have been particular in describing this picture, as it is not in Smith's 
 catalogue. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 249 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 82. Portrait of Himself. — Three-quarters. 
 
 His easel, on which is a group of a Cupid and a dog, stands 
 before him ; the fault of the whole is, that nature and art 
 are not sufficiently discriminated ; the picture introduced is 
 too obtrusive. 
 
 Engraved by Bartolozzi. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 83. St. Matthew Writing his Gospel. Not quite 
 
 half-length. 
 
 EGLON VANDERNEER. 
 
 84. The Music Lesson. 
 
 A young lady standing by her virginals ; her music-master 
 near her. 
 
 The management of this picture is very awkward and tasteless, the 
 figures being too far back. The table covered with tapestry in the 
 foreground appears the principal object. I am inclined to attribute it 
 to Wilhelm Mieris. 
 
 2 ft. 5 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 DAVID TENIERS. 
 
 85. A Virgin and Child. 
 
 The Child standing on a Table : the Virgin seen half-length. 
 Landscape background. 
 
 Small copy, after Titian. The original, life-size, is in the 
 Belvedere at Vienna. 
 
 It is engraved in the work called "The Terriers Gallery;" No. 64. 
 
 About 7 in. by 10 in. 
 
 85. A Holy Family. 
 
 A small easel picture from the Roman school, attributed 
 here to Giulio Romano. 
 About 11 in. by 9 in. 
 
 M 3 
 
250 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 PETER NEEFS. 
 
 87. Interior of a Church. 
 
 6 in. by 4 in. 
 WOUVERMANS. 
 
 88. A Landscape and Figures. 
 
 In front, a woman mounted on a horse, and turning her back, 
 is seen ascending a road ; another horse, loaded, is near her ; 
 to the right a shed ; a boy is seated in front, with a white 
 dog lying near ; beyond, to the left, are two figures seated 
 on a bank, and some trees seen against the light sky : very 
 beautifully painted. 
 
 About 18 in. square (not in Smith's Catalogue). 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 89. Mary Magdalen Anointing the Feet of Our 
 
 Saviour. 
 
 A composition of fourteen figures. A small and valuable 
 study, en grisaille, for the large picture, formerly in the 
 Houghton Gallery, and now in the Imperial collection at St. 
 Petersburg. The heads of the old men are admirable for 
 spirit ; and the natural grace of a young girl behind, with a 
 basket on her head, is very attractive. The whole is con- 
 ceived with that dramatic power, and touched in with that 
 vigour and ease, which characterise Rubens when he painted 
 out of his own soul and fancy. 
 
 Engraved by Panneels ; Natalis; and Earlom. 
 
 WOUVERMANS. 
 
 90. A Landscape. — Companion to No. 88. 
 
 The door of a farrier's shed; he is shoeing a white horse; 
 a man on a brown horse is near, and to the right is a man 
 on a grey horse: a mill in the distance. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 251 
 
 FRANCIS FRANCKS. 
 
 91. Various Objects of Still Life. 
 
 It belonged to King Charles, in whose catalogue it is quaintly desig- 
 nated as " A piece of painting of a cabinet, wherein all sorts of paintings 
 are painted ; some pictures hanging at the wall, as also of several sorts of 
 drawings as well in red as in black chalk ; vases, with books and many 
 other things : painted upon a board. The which piece was brought by the 
 Lord Marquis of Hamilton from Germany, and given to the king. 5 ' 
 About 4 ft. by 2 ft. 11 in. 
 
 HENRY STEENWYCK, the Younger. 
 
 92. St. Peter released from Prison. 
 
 The figures are here subordinate to the architecture, in which 
 Steenwyck excelled, as his particular province of art. He 
 was in England in 1629, and employed by Charles I.* 
 Several of his pictures are at Hampton Court. 
 K. C. C. K. J. C. 
 
 93. A Man Writing; in a Book. 
 
 Called the Gardener of the Duke of Florence : attributed 
 here to Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 A very good portrait, which Dr. Waagen attributes decidedly to 
 Francia Bigio, who was Andrea's friend and competitor, " and whose 
 weaker and heavier tone of colour may at once be recognised in it.'' 
 At present it is hung too high for critical discrimination, but it appears 
 to be the same noted in King Charles's Catalogue as " the picture of one 
 in a shaven beard, in a plain grey habit, having a pen in his right hand, 
 wherewith he is writing in a book ; in his left hand an inkhorn, and 
 over his right hangs a bunch of three keys : supposed to be some har- 
 bor est of the family of the house of Medicis, because of the arms with 
 the six pills: being painted on a board; less lhau the life; half a figure, 
 in a wooden frame, painted by Andrea del Sarto.'' 
 
 No. 496 in King James's Catalogue, where it is called "a picture by 
 Holbein, of a Gardener, to the waist, writing, with keys on his arm." 
 
 JAN STEEN. 
 
 94. Interior of a Dutch Cottage. The inmates 
 
 preparing for a meal. 
 A woman laying the cloth ; another behind at the fire ; in 
 
 * V. Walnole, vol. ii. 241. Dallaway's Edition. 
 
252 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 front a man with a pipe, and three children ; in all, eight 
 figures ; in the forcible, homely style of the painter. 
 
 About 1 ft. 3 in. in height. 
 TENIERS. 
 
 95. A Holy Family, with St. George, St. Stephen, 
 
 and St. Jerome, in a scarlet mantle, reading 
 
 in a large book. 
 Small copy after Titian. 
 Engraved in the " Teniers Gallery," No. 68. 
 About 8 in. by 12 in. 
 
 96. A Holy Family. St. John kissing the feet of 
 
 the Saviour. 
 
 Attributed here to Camillo Procaccini. There were five 
 painters of this family, who flourished between 1520 and 
 1626. 
 P. About 10 in. by 8 in. 
 
 PETER NEEFS. 
 
 97. Interior of a Church. 
 
 This and No. 87 are in the style which was the chosen 
 province of the painter, and in which he excelled even his 
 master, Steenwyck ; his effects of perspective are admirable, 
 and the columns, capitals, and rich Gothic ornaments of the 
 churches he represents are all marked with the utmost pre- 
 cision, and are finished with an exquisite touch and a clean 
 light pencil. He died in 1651. 
 On copper, 6 in. by 4 in. 
 
 SIR ANTONIO MORE. 
 
 98. The Duke of Alva, when young, in rich Ar- 
 
 mour. — Half-length. 
 
 This is Ferdinand Alvarez de Toleda, the stern Duke of 
 Alva of Philip II. 's and Elizabeth's time; the same who 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 253 
 
 figures in Goethe's " Egmont," and in other more real tra- 
 gedies enacted in the Low Countries during his terrible 
 government. He died in 1582. 
 
 This picture belonged to Charles I., and was given to 
 him by the Earl of Arundel.— (K. J. C, No. 9.) 
 
 SIR PETER LELY. 
 
 99. Prince Rupert. — Half-length, holding a trun- 
 cheon. 
 
 Son of Elizabeth of Bohemia, consequently nephew of 
 Charles I. ; he distinguished himself by his headlong bra- 
 very in the civil wars, and was constable of Windsor Castle 
 after the Restoration, but is better remembered now for his 
 scientific turn of mind and love of art ; he is said to have 
 invented mezzotinto engraving, or at least to have brought 
 it into use.— K.J.C. 1198. 
 
 GUIDO. 
 
 100. Cleopatra applying the Asp. — Half-length 
 
 A lovely picture, in his pale silvery tone. Guido repeated 
 this subject many times, and has given us all the pathos, 
 but not the tragic pomp of Cleopatra's closing scene : — 
 
 " A noxious worm 
 Fed on those blue and wandering veins that lac'd 
 Her rising bosom ; ay, did sleep upon 
 The pillow of Antony, and left behind, 
 In dark requital for its banquet — death." 
 
 Barry Cornwall. 
 
 Engraved finely by Strange, 1753. The picture was then in posses- 
 sion of the Princess of Wales, mother of George III. 
 
 IN THE KINGS COUNCIL-CHAMBER. 
 
254 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES, 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 101. Sea Piece; representing a Storm, with the 
 
 Story of Jonah. 
 
 The figures by Nicolo Poussin ; this picture was purchased 
 by Frederick Prince of Wales of Mr. Edwin, about 1745. 
 
 3 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 5 in. 
 Engraved by Vivares. 
 
 PARMIGIANO. 
 
 102. Minerva. 
 
 A female head rather above life-size; the expression is 
 lofty ; but the eyes being cast down, add a look of modesty, 
 which is very happily characteristic of the goddess of chastity 
 and wisdom ; she wears a pale green robe, and a breastplate, 
 on which is represented the gift of the olive-branch to Athens ; 
 one hand is pressed to her bosom. Painted, I presume, when 
 Parmigiano was studying and imitating the grand gusto of 
 Michael Angelo. (K.J.C., No. 632.) 
 C. 2 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. 
 
 Of this magnificent head there is a fine large engraving, by Cornelius 
 Visscher. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 103. Head of an Old Woman in a black coif. 
 Called here (most absurdly) the Countess of Desmond, at 
 the age of 120 ; it is perhaps Rembrandt's mother, and 
 stands designated in King Charles's Catalogue as " an old 
 woman with a greate scarf upon her head, and a peaked 
 falling band : a present to the king from Lord Ankrom." 
 (Ancram.) (K. J. C, No. 113.) 
 
 2 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 104. St Paul.— (A Head only.) 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 255 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 105. A Seaport. — Morning. 
 
 In the foreground, towards the right, a man asleep, and three 
 other figures ; two men in conversation, and one pulling a 
 boat ashore; on the right a portico; a round tower and 
 vessels at anchor in the distance. 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in. by 2 ft. 5£ in. 
 
 CORREGGIO ? 
 
 106. St. John the Baptist. — Full-length; standing. 
 Figure of a youth of about 15 holding the cross of reeds 
 in his left hand, and with the right pointing forwards. 
 
 This fine poetical picture, remarkable for the depth and glowing 
 harmony of the colour, is most probably by Parmigiano ; it was brought 
 by Charles I. from Spain, when he went there to woo the infanta in 1618, 
 and afterwards hung in his own apartment at Whitehall. — (K.J.C., 
 No. 234.) A duplicate of this picture is in the possession of Mr. Miles 
 of Leigh Court, and quite as fine, if I may trust to memory. 
 
 5 ft. 1 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 107. A Sybil. — Figure three-quarters, seated, lean- 
 
 ing her head on her right hand, and reading. 
 
 In his latest manner ; he painted the subject frequently with varia- 
 tions, and this is one of the best ; but the best of all is in the Florence 
 Gallery. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 108. A Woody Landscape. — 
 
 Very beautiful. 
 
 Engraved by Lowry under the title of rt Solitude." 
 3 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 1 in. 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 109. St. Peter. (A Head.) 
 
256 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 HOLBEIN. 
 
 110. A Man opening a Letter with a Knife.* — Half- 
 length ; less than life. 
 
 A valuable well-known portrait, dated 1532, and said to be that of the 
 German Merchant Stallhof : f it was presented by Sir Henry Vane to 
 Charles L, sold for 100?., and recovered after the Restoration for Charles 
 II. ; it stands 499 in King James's Catalogue ; it was subsequently in 
 possession of Dr. Mead, the celebrated physician : how it came there and 
 back again to the royal collection I know not, probably by the means of 
 Frederick Prince of Wales. 
 
 2 ft. by 1 ft. 7 in. 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO. 
 
 111. A Female Head. — Sketch from the life. 
 
 Very fine ; full of nature and power : she wears the head- 
 dress (a sort of turban) which was the fashion of that time ; 
 the rest of the dress is sketched in slightly. 
 
 112. St. Catherine of Alexandria. — Head; life-size. 
 A feeble picture, attributed without a shadow of verisimi- 
 litude to Lionardi da Vinci : probably a copy after him, or 
 after Bernardo Luini.— (K. J. C, 280.) 
 
 GAROFALO. 
 
 The composition of this beautiful little picture is remark- 
 able : Joseph, the foster-father, is occupied by the Child ; 
 while the Virgin-mother is reading apart ; St. Elizabeth ap- 
 pears behind. 
 
 Garofalo was an ancient painter of Ferrara, who studied in the school 
 of Raphael. (See p. 101 and 158.) 
 
 HOLBEIN. 
 
 114. Head of a young German. 
 
 With an inscription beneath : — 
 
 * In those days letters were fastened by a silk cord or thread, and a seal 
 appended. 
 
 f Called in Walpole " Holstoff." Dallaway's Edition. The name is on the 
 letter, in the German character ; but is partially effaced. 
 
 113. 
 
 A Holy Family. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 257 
 
 Derichus si vocem addas ipsissimus hie sit hunc dubites pictor fecerit 
 an genitor. Der born etatis sua3 23. Anno 1533. 
 A branch of a fig-tree is introduced behind. 
 This is certainly a most charming head; full of youthful candour and 
 high and pure aspiration, and most delicately and carefully executed. 
 It is the best of Holbein's in this collection. 
 
 This painter and Lionardo da Vinci painted indifferently with the 
 right or left hand. Holbein in his portraits is admirable for his truth 
 and precision, both with respect to colour and drawing ; but the prin- 
 ciples of coloming and chiaro-scuro, as applicable to the conduct of the 
 whole picture, so well understood by the great masters of the Venetian 
 school, were not known in Switzerland and Germany during his time. 
 This deficiency gives an air of dryness to his portraits, and their want of 
 roundness and breadth of colour and effect makes us, at first view, dis- 
 posed to undervalue the merit which he always displays in the delicacy 
 of his pencil and the truth of his local tints. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 1 15. A wild, rocky Landscape, with a cascade in 
 
 the middle distance.— To the right is seen 
 a man driving a mule up a forest-road. 
 Very beautiful. 
 
 CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 116. A Magdalen. — Three-quarters; life-size; in 
 
 dark violet drapery, a book open before her. 
 The face nearly in profile. 
 
 This is certainly "a green and yellow melancholy!" 
 SIR PETER LELY. 
 
 117. Charles II. — Full-length, in armour, holding a 
 
 truncheon, the crown and sceptre on a table, 
 
 Lely was the court painter of Charles II. s time. He certainly has not 
 flattered his royal patron, whose dark, strong, harsh features, are given 
 with genuine truth. " Is that like me V said Charles, looking at one of 
 his own portraits ; " then, odd's fish ! I am an ugly fellow!'' 
 
 CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 118. The Daughter of Herodias with the Head of 
 
 John the Baptist. 
 Thr EE-quarters ; in rich dark-blue drapery. 
 
258 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 Much better as a painting than the sickly companion on the other side 
 (No. 114) ; but equally false in character and costume. 
 These stand 176 and 178 in King James's Catalogue. 
 
 GASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 119. Landscape; a rocky scene, with a brook flow- 
 
 ing by. 
 
 You could fancy you hear it murmur : in front two figures 
 reclining, and further back two others fishing; a picture 
 full of sentiment and beauty. 
 
 HOLBEIN? 
 
 120. Head of Luther.— Half life-size. 
 
 A man holding a book and a pen, so called ; but very unlike the best- 
 authenticated portraits of Luther which I have seen in Germany. 
 There is a coat of arms in the background, which might determine the 
 point.* I take this picture to be in K. J. C. 946, " a man in a furred 
 gown, red cap, and a book, in the manner of Holbein." 
 
 ANNIBAL CARRACCI. 
 
 121. A Holy Family. 
 
 Called, from the attitude of the Virgin, 11 Silenzio (Silence). 
 This is a celebrated picture, of which there exist several 
 repetitions. 
 
 Engraved by S. Picart, Lasne, Hainzelman, and Bartolozzi. 
 C. 2 ft. 2 in. by 1ft. 7 in. 
 
 PARMIGIANO. 
 
 122. A Man's Portrait. — The face seen in front. 
 
 Admirably fine. 
 
 In King Charles's Catalogue, p. 131, "a picture of a black com- 
 plexioned gentleman, with a black beard, holding in his right hand a 
 red book ; being some scholar." — (K. J. C. 134.) 
 
 TENIERS. 
 
 123. Interior of a Grange or Barn. 
 
 A man and woman in conversation ; a cow and a flock of 
 
 * A shield, field vert, a fesse argent between three annulets, or. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 259 
 
 sheep. A woman is seen entering with some fagots on her 
 back, and behind, on the left, another woman is seen looking 
 down from a window. 
 4 ft. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 124. Landscape. 
 
 A view in the environs of Rome, which is seen in the dis- 
 tance beneath a glowing sunset. In the foreground to the 
 left, under a cluster of trees, Claude himself is seated, and 
 attended by a youth, who holds an umbrella over his head to 
 shade him from the sun, while he is sketching a temple on 
 an eminence on the opposite side. A herdsman and some 
 goats complete the composition. 
 
 This picture belonged to Frederick, Prince of Wales. 
 
 C. 3 ft. 2 in., by 4 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved by Vivares with the title of " Morning.'' The same or a 
 duplicate picture, then in the possession of General Guise, is engraved 
 by Mason. 
 
 125. A Holy Family. 
 
 Of the school of Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 DOMENICHINO. 
 
 126. St. Agnes. 
 
 Figure full-length, standing in an attitude of rapt devotion. 
 An angel descending with the palm-branch ; another in the 
 foreground caressing a lamb, the symbol of the saint, who is 
 the peculiar patroness of innocence and purity of mind. She 
 suffered martyrdom a.d. 303, at the age of 13.* 
 
 This is a rich picture ; but the face and figure appear to me heavy. 
 Formerly at Kensington Palace. 
 Engraved finely by Strange. 
 
 * Domenichino has painted the Martyrdom of St. Agnes. It is now in the 
 Louvre, and engraved by Audran. 
 
260 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 PETER NEEFS. 
 
 127. Interior of a Church, with the procession of 
 
 the Host. 
 
 P. 2 ft. l£in. by 1 ft. 7 in. 
 CARLO MARATTI. 
 
 128. The Virgin and Child. 
 
 The infant Christ asleep, the Virgin seen, half-length, 
 bending over him: figures less than life. 
 Very tender and delicate in expression and colour. Carlo 
 Maratti was celebrated for his Madonnas, which are, how- 
 ever, rather insipid and fine-ladyish, generally speaking. 
 
 PETER NEEFS. 
 
 129. Interior of a Church.— (Companion to No. 
 
 127.) 
 
 BERGHEM. 
 
 130. A Landscape, with Cattle and Figures. 
 
 In the foreground near the centre of the picture, two men 
 (one of whom is mounted on an ass) are driving a herd of four 
 cows and six sheep over a road. Mountains in the distance. 
 The effect is that of early morning, with light fleecy vapours 
 resting in the recesses of the hills. 
 
 Particularly fine, and painted with a very broad free 
 pencil. 
 
 Nicholas Berghem was one of the most original and charming of the 
 Dutch landscape-painters. He had, however, a peculiar style of touch 
 and manner, which is easily imitated. Perhaps not half the pictures attri- 
 buted to him are his, but this before us is a genuine and valuable picture. 
 
 3 ft. 8 in. by 2 ft. 8 in. 
 
 CLAUDE. 
 
 131. A View near Rome ; a villa on an eminence to 
 
 the right ; Tivoli on the left of the spectator. 
 The effect is that of evening, and the approach of twilight ; 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 261 
 
 a soft tranquillity, and a serenely sober hue pervading the 
 whole scene. The figures are a sportsman, with his gun, 
 conversing with a herdsman, who is reclining on the ground, 
 his goats browsing near. 
 C. 3 ft. 1 in. by 3 ft. 3 in. 
 
 132. A Holy Family. 
 
 School of Andrea del Sarto. 
 SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 
 133. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the 
 
 great General of Queen Anne's time. — Half- 
 length — in a cuirass ; holding a truncheon. 
 
 Purchased in 1805 by George III. 
 4 ft. by 3 ft. 
 
 THE KINGS DRAWING-ROOM; 
 
 CALLED 
 
 THE RUBENS ROOM; 
 All the pictures, 1 1 in number, being attributed to Rubens. 
 
 134. Portrait of Rubens when about Forty. 
 
 Head only, in a large hat, looped up at the side; a black 
 mantle and a small embroidered ruff ; and wearing the gold 
 chain which was the gift of Charles I. This celebrated 
 picture, of which there exist innumerable engravings and co- 
 pies, was presented to Charles I. by Lord Danby. — (K. J. C. 
 109.) A duplicate, in an oval, is in the Florence Gallery. 
 
 P. 2 ft. 91 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 
 Engraved finely by Paul Pontius, 1630; by Worlidge; Chambers; 
 Facius ; Pelham ; and J. H. Robinson. 
 
 135. St. Martin dividing his Cloak with a Poor 
 
 Man. 
 
 The saint, clad in brilliant armour, and mounted on a noble 
 
262 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 white steed, is dividing, with his sword, his scarlet mantle 
 between two wretched, half-naked beggars ; beyond these, 
 a tall, gipsy-looking woman, with streaming black hair, is 
 eagerly holding 'forth her child, as if to receive a blessing 
 from the charitable saint; behind whom are two other 
 horsemen. St. Martin, who lived about 390, was a soldier 
 before he was Bishop of Tours, and this incident is related 
 as a fact by Sulpicius Severus, a contemporary writer. 
 
 This picture was brought from Spain by Mr. Bagnols, who 
 was employed by Frederick, Prince of Wales, to purchase and 
 collect pictures. In the opinion of the most able connois- 
 seurs, only the composition is by Rubens, and the painting 
 in the -earlier time of Van Dyck, before he left the atelier of 
 his master. 
 
 C. 8 ft. 4 in. by 7 ft. 10 in. 
 
 Engraved by C. Galle, and by T. Chambers. 
 
 136. Holy Family. 
 
 Composition of 6 figures, life-size. The Virgin, in scarlet 
 drapery, is seated ; the infant Saviour standing on her knees, 
 with his right arm round her neck ; the infant St. John em- 
 braces the knees of Christ, and St. Francis is seen in an atti- 
 tude of adoration : St. Elizabeth and Joseph are behind ; the 
 head of the Virgin appears to be a portrait, and strongly re- 
 sembles the first wife of Rubens. 
 
 According to Smith, it was purchased by King George IV., 
 but it is the same picture which was in the collection at 
 Buckingham House sixty years ago, and thence brought to 
 Windsor about 1800. 
 
 C. 7 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Earlom % 
 
 137. Philip II. of Spain on Horseback. 
 
 The battle of St. Quintin in the distance ; Victory is de- 
 scending to crown him with laurel : the head, and perhaps 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 263 
 
 the whole, is copied after Titian, for Rubens lived in the 
 time of Philip IV. The Victory is rather ponderous for her 
 situation.* 
 
 There is a duplicate of this picture in the Madrid Gallery. 
 
 138. Elizabeth Brandt, the first Wife of Rubens; 
 
 three-quarters length. 
 A yellow satin dress, with slashed sleeves, a black mantle, 
 and a lace ruff ; the hands crossed in front : the hair adorned 
 with pearls and flowers; very elegant. One of his finest por- 
 traits, rich yet subdued in the colouring, and the hands beau- 
 tifully modelled. Dr. Waagen and Smith, in their catalogues 
 call this, by mistake, Helena Formann : the countenance has 
 too much of feeling and matronly sense, and too little beauty, 
 for her. 
 
 Purchased in 1820 by George IV. for 800 guineas. 
 
 139. Winter. 
 
 The interior of a large open cow-house, where six peasants 
 are seen crouching ruund a fire : in the background are two 
 women and a man, and cows feeding in their stalls ; with- 
 out is the wintry landscape, chill, dark, and dreary, and 
 flakes of snow are falling fast and thick. The execution is 
 rather slight. This picture was once in the possession of 
 Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. 
 
 C. 4 ft. by 7 ft. 
 
 Engraved by Clouet. 
 
 140. The Archduke Albert on a white charger ; 
 
 Antwerp in the distance. 
 
 He was joint governor of the Netherlands with his wife, the 
 Infanta Isabella, and a munificent patron of Rubens. He 
 died in 1621. This is an admirable picture : by placing the 
 
 * In Smith's Catalogue, No. 824, this is erroneously styled Philip IV. 
 
264 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 horizon very low, and throwing out the figure against the 
 sky, an effect of elevation is produced both to the fancy and 
 the eye, which is very remarkable. The horse is magni- 
 ficent. 
 
 C, about 12 ft. by 9 ft. 
 
 141. Landscape. — Summer. Companion to No. 139. 
 Called also "Going to Market." An extensive view over 
 a fertile country, with cottages, hamlets, groves, streams, 
 and in the far distance a Flemish town, to which a road con- 
 ducts the eye over miles, as it seems, of intervening space : 
 some cows and a flock of sheep are on the road ; in front, 
 a man with a cart laden with vegetables ; a woman on horse- 
 back; and a man riding on an ass, at whose side is a man 
 carrying a fawn on his back ; and to the right a man and a 
 woman are descending a steep bank to the road. 
 
 Nothing was ever more masterly than the effect of distance and 
 daylight in this picture; it is quite marvellous, and the spirit, facility, 
 and truth of the execution not less so : as an imitation of nature I know 
 nothing to equal it. 
 
 These two pictures were in the possession of Villiers, Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, who acquired them after the death of Rubens. 
 
 C. 5 ft. by 7 ft. 7 in. 
 
 Engraved by Browne. 
 
 142. The Family of Sir Balthasar Gerbier ; Group 
 
 of Eleven Figures. — Life-size. 
 This personage, of whom there is a long account in Walpole, 
 was in the service of the Duke of Buckingham, and accom- 
 panied Charles 1. and the Duke to Spain, in the capacity of 
 painter, in 1618. He was afterwards in the service of 
 Charles : was his minister at Brussels, and knighted in 
 1628. He was a great friend of Rubens and Van Dyck. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that this picture was painted by Van 
 Dyck. The resemblance to the manner of Rubens in the mother, and 
 the little girl leaning on her knee, is accounted for by the circumstance 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 265 
 
 Ithat Rdbens did originally paint these two figures in a separate picture, 
 and that they are here copied by Van Dyck. This girl became maid of 
 honour to the Princess de Conde, and assisted her in her escape from 
 Chantilly when Conde was imprisoned by Mazarin: three others of 
 the children represented became nuns. The picture is inscribed, in the 
 handwriting of Van Dyck, Famille de Messire Balthasar Gerbier, Che- 
 valier. 
 
 Frederick Prince of Wales, hearing that there was a capital picture 
 to be sold in Holland, to which various names of English families had 
 been given, sent a commission to purchase it, and when brought to 
 Leicester House it turned out to be this picture. 
 
 A picture containing the group of the lady and three of the children, 
 is in possession of Lord Saye and Sele. 
 
 C. 7 ft. by 10 ft. 
 
 Engraved by MacArdell, R. Brookshaw, and W. Walker. 
 
 143. Portrait of a middle-aged Man. — Half-length. 
 
 Dressed in black, with a full white ruff, both hands 
 seen ; a red curtain forms the background. 
 
 144. The Two Ferdinands. 
 
 Don Ferdinand, the Cardinal Infant (in the hat and white 
 feather), and the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, on horse- 
 back, at the battle of Nordlingen. Figures life-size. 
 
 Though this is an indubitable work of Rubens, it is for 
 him very poor ; the horses are in common-place attitudes ; 
 the colouring altogether without brilliance. 
 
 This is one of the series of pictures which Rubens designed for the 
 triumphal entry of Don Ferdinand into the city of Antwerp, when he 
 took possession of the government of the Netherlands in 1635.* 
 
 * In Michel's ' Life of Rubens' (edit. 1771) there is a very detailed account of 
 the numerous splendid allegorical and complimentary designs which the fertile 
 fancy of Rubens supplied for this grand accession, and with which the various 
 triumphal arches were decorated. He says expressly that the great picture placed 
 in the centre of the sixth " Portique Triomphale" represented the battle of Nord- 
 lingen, fought on the 5th of September, 1634, inwhich General Gustave Horn, who 
 commanded the heretics (i.e. Protestants), was entirely defeated by the two arch- 
 dukes, Ferdinand king of the Romans, and the Infant Don Ferdinand. — " Ces 
 deux princes a cheval paraissent animer les soldats a, combattre l'ennemi declare 
 de l'Allemagne et de la religion." The whole of these pictures were painted by 
 
 M 
 
266 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 His designs were published in a series of engravings, entitled " Tri- 
 umphus Austriacus,"' &c, with forty-three plates, and a learned text by 
 Gevaerts. 
 
 THE VESTIBULE. 
 
 Five pictures, all by BENJAMIN WEST ; the two largest represent 
 
 145. Edward III. embracing his Son after the 
 
 Battle of Cressy, 1348. 
 
 and 
 
 146. Edward the Black Prince receiving his Pri- 
 
 soner King John of France after the Battle 
 of Poictiers, 1356. 
 
 The three small pictures, 
 
 147. Philippa, Queen of Edward III., at the Battle 
 
 of Neville's Cross, 1346. 
 
 She gained this victory over David King of Scotland during 
 the absence of her husband, who had left her regent of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 148. Queen Philippa suing for the Pardon of the 
 
 Six Burghers of Calais, of glorious memory, 
 1347. 
 
 149. King Edward III. entertaining his Prisoners 
 
 after the Surrender of Calais. He is pre- 
 senting a chaplet to Sir Eustace de Ribe- 
 mont, who had gallantly opposed him in 
 the fight. 
 
 Visitors always pause and linger in this little room. The national and 
 historical subjects of the pictures (which were commanded by George 
 III. to be hung in this palace, the favourite residence of his warlike 
 
 the scholars of Rubens after his sketches, which still remain in the Museum of 
 Antwerp. He was himself prevented by a severe fit of the gout from sharing in 
 any of the festivities which took place on this grand occasion. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 267 
 
 predecessor) lend them a strong interest ; and I still remember the delight 
 with which I looked at them when young, and could almost wish away 
 the more matured critical taste which denounces them as almost worthless 
 pictures, confused in composition and arrangement, spiritless in treat- 
 ment, most flat and cold in effect and colour ; a quakers conception 
 of the splendours and horrors of the battle-field, calculated to make us 
 out of love with war and chivalry. 
 
 The two busts of Edward III. and Philippa placed in this room are 
 copied from the figures on their respective tombs. 
 
 THE THRONE-ROOM, 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 150. The First Installation of the Knights of the 
 
 Garter ; which took place in St. George's 
 Chapel in 1349. 
 
 A large composition, containing about thirty- five principal, 
 and as many subordinate figures ; less than life-size. A 
 most insipid picture; one of those painted by West for King 
 George III. (Seep. 217.) 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 151. George IV. — Full-length, in the Robes of the 
 
 Garter. 
 
 Engraved by Hodgetts, 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 152. George III. — Full-length, in the Robes of the 
 
 Garter, holding his plumed hat. 
 
 Engraved by Dupont, 1790. 
 
 SIR MARTIN A. SHEE, P.R.A. 
 
 153. William IV.— Full-length, in the Robes of the 
 
 Garter ; his right-hand leaning on his sword. 
 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 N 2 
 
268 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 THE 
 
 GREAT BANQUETING- ROOM, 
 
 CALLED THE 
 
 WATERLOO CHAMBER. 
 
 *£* Beginning on the right as you enter from the Throne Room. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 154. Frederick Duke of York, second Son of George 
 
 III. 
 
 Full-length, in the field-marshal's uniform, robe and 
 collar of the Garter. Exhibited in 1816. This Prince 
 died in 1827 : though not distinguished in the field, he dis- 
 charged most efficiently the office of Commander-in-Chief. 
 Engraved (half-length) by G. Doo. 
 
 155. Lord Castlereagh (Robert Stuart, afterwards 
 
 Marquess of Londonderry), Secretary of State 
 for Foreign Affairs from 1813 to 1823. 
 
 Three-quarters. Exhibited in 1814. 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 156. George IV. — Full-length, in the robes of the 
 
 Garter. A duplicate of the picture in the 
 Throne-room. 
 
 His Majesty, who rebuilt Windsor Castle, died here in 
 1830. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY. 
 
 157. George III. — Full-length, in the robes of the 
 
 Garter. 
 
 After a long eventful reign of sixty years, this monarch 
 died at Windsor in 1 820. 
 Engraved by B. Smith. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 269 
 
 PICKERSGILL. 
 
 158. Lord Hill.— Half-length. 
 
 This officer distinguished himself in the Peninsular war, and 
 was in consequence raised to the peerage in 1814, and since 
 to the dignity of Commander-in-Chief of the Army. 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE. 
 
 159. William IV.— Full-length, in the Robes of the 
 
 Garter, leaning on his sword. 
 The fine rich colour and arrangement of this picture render 
 more obtrusive the tawdry yet cold colour of Lawrence's 
 George IV. The compass on the ground indicates that this 
 king, before his accession, belonged to the navy. He 
 died in 1837. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 160. The Earl of Liverpool. — Three-quarters ; full 
 
 face ; the hands clasped in front. 
 Robert Banks Jenkinson, prime-minister of England in 
 the reigns of George III. and George IV. He died in 
 1828. 
 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 161. The Duke of Cambridge, Adolphus Frederick, 
 
 seventh Son of George III. 
 
 Full-length, in the field-marshal's uniform. 
 
 162. The Duke d'Angouleme, Dauphin of France, 
 
 eldest Son of Charles X. 
 Full-length : painted at Paris in 1825. 
 
 SIR MARTIN A. SHEE, P.R.A. 
 
 163. General Sir Thomas Picton. — Three-quarters. 
 He was governor of Trinidad in 1797 ; afterwards distin- 
 
270 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 guished in the Peninsular war, and was killed at the battle 
 of Waterloo, 1815. 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 1 64 . The Archduke Charles of Austria. — Full-length, 
 
 in the Austrian uniform ; leaning on his 
 sword. 
 
 Uncle of the present emperor, and commander-in-chief of 
 the Austrian armies. He gained the battle of Asperne, and 
 lost that of Wagram in 1809. He has written a history of 
 his campaigns, and has perhaps the finest collection of 
 prints and drawings in the world. 
 Painted at Vienna in 1819. 
 
 165. Prince Schwarzenberg. — -Full-length. An at- 
 
 tendant holding his horse. 
 Field-marshal and commander-in-chief of the combined 
 armies of Austria and Russia in 1814 ; died in 1820, at the 
 age of fifty. Painted at Vienna in 1819. 
 
 166. KingCharlesX. of France. — Full-length; hold- 
 
 ing his hat under his arm. 
 
 Painted at Paris in 1825. 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 167. Major-General Sir George Adam Wood. 
 
 Half-length. Colonel of Artillery, and conductor of the 
 Engineer and Artillery department at the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 1 68 . William Frederick Duke of Brunswick, Nephew 
 
 of King George III. — Full-length, leaning 
 
 on a cannon. 
 The duke was killed at the battle of Waterloo, as his father 
 had perished before him on the field of Jena. Full-length ; 
 painted during his retreat in England, about 1813. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 271 
 
 169. Major-General Czernicheff, Aide -de-Camp to 
 
 the Emperor of Russia. 
 Painted at Vienna in 1819. 
 
 170. The Duke de Richelieu. — Three-quarters. 
 
 The head finely executed and very animated ; the rest 
 sketched in. Painted during the congress at Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle in 1818. This distinguished man (grandson of the 
 Due de Richelieu of profligate memory) was minister of 
 France at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and took an 
 eminent part in the negotiations which followed the war. Of 
 him the Duke of Wellington said, " La parole du Due de 
 Richelieu vaut un traite." He died in 1821. 
 Engraved by T. Lignon. 
 
 171. Prince Metternich, Austrian Minister of State 
 
 for Foreign Affairs since the year 1809. 
 Three-quarters, seated. The prince himself has a dupli- 
 cate of this picture, which is an admirable likeness. Begun 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, and finished at Vienna in the 
 following year. 
 
 Engraved by S. Cousins. 
 
 172. The Count Capo d'Istria, Russian Secretary 
 
 of State. 
 
 Three-quarters, seated ; in a richly-furred cloak. Paint- 
 ed at Vienna in 1819. 
 
 173. Pope Pius VII. 
 
 Cardinal Gregorio Chiaramonti, elected Pope in 1800 : 
 died in consequence of a fall in 1 823, at the age of 8 1 . Full- 
 length, seated, in the pontifical habit; the gallery of the 
 Belvedere, and the group of the Laocoon, seen in the back- 
 ground ; painted at Rome by commission for George IV. in 
 June 1819, exhibited in the British Institution in 1830. 
 
272 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 This portrait, and its companion Cardinal Consalvi, are not only the 
 two finest pictures which Lawrence ever painted, but the two grandest 
 portraits of modern times; at least, I know not any that in the combina- 
 tion of excellence, the noble conception, the felicitous arrangement, the 
 truth of character, the gorgeous yet harmonious colour, add too, in 
 size and importance, can compare with them. Rome and the vicinity 
 of the great works of art seem to have inspired Lawrence. On the occa- 
 sion of his visit he was lodged in the Quirinal, and treated almost with 
 the honours of an ambassador. 
 
 The Pope was in his 77th year ; and his venerable age, the strange 
 vicissitudes of his eventful life, his cruel treatment by Napoleon, his 
 long imprisonment and blameless character, all rendered him an object 
 of great personal interest. I had an opportunity of observing him closely 
 about two years after this picture was painted; he had one of the finest 
 heads I ever saw, pale, mild, and quite Italian in the fine regular fea- 
 tures. His hair was still jet black, his eyes large, lustrous, benign, yet 
 penetrating. 
 
 The head of Consalvi was quite different, not so grand, but more 
 elegant, with a keen resolute look, and a brow speaking intellectual 
 activity and energy. An expression which Sir Thomas Lawrence once 
 used in describing Consalvi, " his pursuing eye," was most happily cha- 
 racteristic, for so his eye seemed to follow you about, and you felt as if 
 there were no getting out of its reach. 
 
 The Pope sat for this portrait nine times ; every part of it, the dress, the 
 action of the figure— so expressive of age, yet without its feebleness and 
 infirmity, — the hands so finely modelled, were all painted from nature. 
 Lawrence seems to have felt from the first that he should excel himself. 
 He says, in a letter from Rome, "The Pope being an old man, his 
 countenance has a great deal of detail in it ; and a good and cheerful 
 nature, with a clear intellect, gives it variety of expression. He is a 
 very fine subject, and it is probable that the picture will be one of the 
 best I ever painted." Again, he says, "I have little doubt of con- 
 cluding labours which hitherto have been in every case successful 
 with perhaps the best examples of my comparative ability ; — for the grand 
 specimens of art around me (not of living art) make that epithet ne- 
 cessary to truth and to sincere impression.* 1 This sentence is obscure; 
 but certainly there was no artist at Rome, nor indeed anywhere else at 
 this time, who could compare with him as a portrait-painter and a co- 
 lourist. He also says, in a letter from Rome, " If what I have done 
 here in the portraits of the Pope and Cardinal be compared only with 
 mv own works, I have had complete success." Posterity will confirm 
 this judgment. 
 
 Engraved finely by Samuel Cousins, and of a small size by M'lunis, 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 273 
 
 174. Count Nesselrode, a Livonian Nobleman. 
 
 Russian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Mi- 
 nister at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and that of Verona. 
 Three-quarters. Seated. Painted at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. 
 
 175. Alexander I., Emperor of Russia. — Full-length, 
 
 in the uniform he wore at the Battle of Leip- 
 zig. 
 
 Painted at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. 
 The emperor sat, or rather stood, seven times for this por- 
 trait. The attitude is one which was habitual and charac- 
 teristic, the likeness admirable. He died in 1825. 
 
 176. Francis II., Emperor of Austria. 
 FuLL-length, in the Austrian uniform ; seated in a chair of 
 state. Painted at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. It is one of the 
 finest portraits here, both as a picture and as a likeness. This 
 Emperor died in 1835, at the age of sixty-seven. 
 
 Engraved by G. H. Philips. 
 
 177. Frederick William III., King of Prussia. — Full- 
 
 length, standing, in the Prussian uniform. 
 Painted at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. 
 The simplicity of this portrait is very characteristic of the 
 unpretending, honest nature of this monarch, one of the most 
 popular and upright of European sovereigns. He died in 
 1840. 
 
 178. Prince Hardenberg. — Three-quarters. 
 Prussian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in 1807, and 
 in 1810 Chancellor, in which capacity he organized the great 
 reforms in the Prussian monarchy. He was created a prince 
 in 1814, and died in 1822. 
 
 Painted at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. He must have been 
 nearly seventy when this portrait was taken. 
 
274 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 179. Cardinal Consalvi. — Full-length. 
 
 The faithful friend and accomplished minister of Pius VII.,, 
 whom he survived only one year, dying in 1824. 
 
 Seated, in the cardinal's robe, a table near him with state 
 papers. Painted at Rome in 1819. (See No. 1*1%) 
 
 Engraved by E. Wagstaff. 
 
 180. The Right Hon. George Canning. — Full-length; 
 
 standing ; the arms folded. 
 
 This eminent statesman and orator was born in 1770, 
 was Under-Secretary of State at the age of 26, and having 
 filled some of the highest offices of Government, at length 
 reached the highest, and succeeded Lord Liverpool as Prime 
 Minister in 1827- He died the same year. 
 
 The picture has been most clumsily enlarged to fit the pa- 
 nel in which it is placed, and appears to me very inferior to 
 the fine portrait in possession of Sir Robert Peel. 
 Engraved by C. Turner. 
 
 181. Count Alteo. — Three-quarters. 
 
 He commanded the German Legion in Spain, under the 
 Duke of Wellington, who had a very high opinion of his 
 judgment and bravery. 
 
 182. Field-Marshal Prince Bliicher. — Full-length. 
 The celebrated Prussian commander. Painted in 1814, when 
 he was seventy-two. Considered a most admirable likeness 
 of the veteran, and as characteristic as Rauch's famous statue 
 of him. He died in 1819. 
 
 183. Arthur Duke of Wellington, as Field Marshal, 
 
 and holding the Sword of State on the day of 
 Thanksgiving for the Battle of Waterloo. 
 A portrait less satisfactory, less characteristic of the man, 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 275 
 
 can hardly be conceived, than this ostentatious figure and its 
 set attitude. Exhibited in 1815. 
 Engraved by John Bromley, A.R.A. 
 
 184. Count Platoff, Hetman of the Cossacks. Full- 
 
 length. 
 
 Painted when he visited England with the allied sovereigns 
 in 1814. The face of this man, with its dark, oriental, 
 cunning expression, is a fine contrast with the bluff, honest 
 countenance of Bliicher. He died in 1818. 
 
 PICKERSGILL. 
 
 185. Lieutenant-General Sir James Kemp. — Three- 
 
 quarters. 
 
 He took the command of the 5th division at Waterloo, when 
 Sir Thomas Picton fell : and was Master-General of the 
 Ordnance in 1830. 
 
 SIR MARTIN A. SHEE. 
 
 186. Henry William Paget, Marquis of Anglesea. — 
 
 Full-length ; in the uniform of the 7th 
 Hussars. 
 
 Distinguished as a military commander in the Peninsular 
 war and at the battle of Waterloo, and subsequently as 
 Viceroy of Ireland. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 187. Ernest Frederick, Count Munster, Hanoverian 
 
 Minister in England from 1814 to 1832. 
 Three-quarters. 
 
 188. Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Co- 
 
 lonies in 1815, died in 1834 ; three-quarters, 
 seated. 
 
276 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 189. General Overoff. Three-quarters. 
 
 Painted at Vienna in 1819. 
 
 190. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt. — Three-quar- 
 
 ters. 
 
 Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and brother of the 
 celebrated traveller, Alexander von Humboldt. He died in 
 1835. 
 
 This portrait, painted in 1817, does not please the friends of this 
 accomplished and admirable man. Dr. Waagen, who was his intimate 
 friend, says that Lawrence, being in a hurry, stuck the head of Hum- 
 boldt on the body of Lord Liverpool. It certainly has the appearance 
 of being hastily and carelessly painted. 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S HALL. 
 
 Portraits of the last Eleven Sovereigns of England, all full-length, and 
 in their robes of state. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 191. George IV. 
 
 Another duplicate of that in the Throne-room. The three 
 pictures are precisely alike, equally theatrical in the treat- 
 ment, and equally cold and showy in the colouring. 
 
 DUPONT. 
 
 192. King George HI. 
 
 ZEEMAN. 
 
 193. King George II. 
 
 SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 
 194. King George I. 
 
 195. Queen Anne. — Seated in a chair of state. 
 
 Engraved by P. von Gunst. 
 
 196. King William III. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 277 
 
 SIR PETER LELY. 
 
 197. Queen Mary II. 
 
 198. King James II. 
 
 199. King Charles II. 
 
 VAN DYCK. 
 
 200. King Charles I. 
 
 Engraved finely by Strange, who possessed the beautiful original study 
 for the picture, now — where? 
 
 201. King James I. 
 
 A copy, probably after one of Vansomer,as he died before Van Dyck 
 came to England. The head has been engraved by J. Smith. 
 
 THE QUEEN S PRESENCE-CHAMBER. 
 Over the doors. 
 
 202. The Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick. 
 
 203. The Princess Dorothea of Brunswick. 
 
 Both full-length. Painted probably by Mytens. 
 Two very pale, formal-looking young ladiesj in dress and 
 attitude precisely alike ; packed up in rich lace ruffs and 
 white satin farthingales. These portraits are dated 1609. 
 A third sister is at Hampton Court, with others of the 
 Brunswick family, all nearly related to Charles I., by his 
 mother, Anne of Denmark, whose sister married the Duke 
 of Brunswick. (K.C.C., K.J.C., No. 30.) 
 
 PIERRE MIGNARD. 
 
 204. Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, youngest Daugh- 
 
 ter of Charles I. 
 Full-length ; seated ; with her two daughters, the eldest of 
 whom married Charles II. of Spain. On a table a vase of 
 
278 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 flowers, and in front a velvet cushion, on which lie a book 
 and a sword. — K.J.C 
 
 This princess was married to the worthless, feeble brother 
 of Louis XIV., and is styled in the French histories Hen- 
 riette d'Angleterre. There is strong evidence that she was 
 poisoned at the age of five-and-twenty (1670). 
 Mignard was a celebrated painter in the court of Louis XIV., and suc- 
 ceeded Le Brun as " premier peintre du Roi" in 1690. His portraits 
 are in general elegant and sweetly coloured, particularly his women. 
 In history and fresco he is only a feeble Le Brun. He was honoured 
 by the esteem and friendship of Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine, and 
 Boileau, all of whom he painted. 
 
 THE QUEEN S AUDIENCE-CHAMBER. 
 Over the doors. 
 
 205. Mary, Queen of Scots ; full-length, in a mourn- 
 ing habit, holding a crucifix in one hand, in 
 the other a breviary ; the scene of her exe- 
 cution is represented in the back-ground. 
 
 This picture is attributed to Janet without much probability. Janet was 
 a French painter of merit, in the Court of Henry II. of Fiance and his 
 immediate successors; he painted Mary when she was in France, as 
 La Reine Dauphine, but he never saw her after she left that country. 
 It is difficult to devise by whom or for whom it was executed : from the 
 style of the picture I should judge it to be nearly contemporary ; but her 
 son, James I., would not, I think, have permitted such an inscription to 
 be placed on it. He had too little affection for his mother, too little 
 sympathy with her religion, too little feeling for her wrongs. There 
 were many of her adherents, and many great foreign personages, for whom 
 such a picture might have been painted ; but how it came into the Royal 
 Collection I cannot guess. It is No. 1101 in James II. 's Catalogue, 
 without the name of any painter affixed : I do not find it in that of 
 Charles I. It formerly hung in St. James's Palace.* 
 The head has been engraved by Vertue. 
 
 * In Dallaway's notes to Walpole's Anecdotes, this picture is said to be a copy 
 by Mytens, made for Charles I., from some old picture; but this is merely suppo* 
 sition. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 279 
 
 On the picture are the following Latin inscriptions : — 
 
 1. Maria Scotiae Regina, Angliae et Hyberniae vere Princeps 
 et haeres legitima, Jacobi Magnae Brittanniae Regis mater, 
 quam suorum haeresi vexatam, rebellione oppressam, refugii 
 causa verbo Eliz. Reginae et cognatae innixam in Angliam 
 an. 1568 descendentem, 19 annos captivam perfida de- 
 tinuit. milleq. calumniis traduxit : crudeli senatus Anglici 
 sententia, haeresi instigante, neci traditur, ac 12 Kal. 
 Mart. 1587 a servili carnefice obtruncatur. Anno aetat. 
 regniq. 45. 
 
 " Mary Queen of Scotland, by right princess and legi- 
 timate heiress of England and Ireland, mother of James, 
 King of Great Britain, tormented by the heresy of her 
 people, overcome by rebellion, and relying on the promise 
 of her relation Queen Elizabeth, repaired to England for 
 safety in the year L568. She was perfidiously detained a 
 prisoner for 19 years, when the English parliament, sti- 
 mulated by religious animosity, by an inhuman sentence 
 condemned her to death, and on the 18th of Feb., 1587, 
 she was beheaded by the common executioner in the 45th 
 year of her age and of her reign." 
 
 2. Aula Fotheringay. 
 
 Reginam serenissimam, Regum filiam uxorem et matrem 
 astantibus commissariis et ministris R. E L I. Carnifex 
 securi percutit : atq. uno et altero ictu truculenter sau- 
 ciatae, tertio ei caput abscindit. 
 
 " Her most gracious Majesty, the daughter, consort, and 
 mother of kings, is, in the presence of the officers and 
 ministers of Queen Elizabeth, struck by the axe of the 
 executioner, and after barbarously wounding her by a first 
 and second blow, at the third attempt he severs her head 
 from the body." 
 
280 
 
 ROYAL GALLERIES. 
 
 3. Sic funestum ascendit tabulatum Regina quondam Gal- 
 liarum 
 
 Et Scotise florentissima invicto sed pio animo tyrannidem 
 Exprobat et perfidiam : fidem Catholicam profitetur Ro- 
 manseque 
 
 Ecclesise se semper fuisse et esse Filiam palam planeq. 
 testatur. 
 
 " Thus, the once powerful queen of France and Scotland 
 ascends the fatal scaffold, with a mind unconquered, but 
 devout ; she spurns at tyranny and treachery ; she upholds 
 the Catholic faith; her past and present life openly and 
 clearly proclaim her a daughter of the Roman church." 
 7 ft. 4 in. by 5 ft. 3 in. 
 
 GERARD HONTHORST. 
 
 206. Frederick Henry Prince of Orange, Grand- 
 
 father of King William III. — Full-length ; 
 
 holding a truncheon, his helmet on a table 
 
 near him. 
 He was a celebrated general, and died in 1647. 
 
 The head has been frequently engraved. As a whole length, " Paul 
 Ftirst ex. 1637. ' — (K.C.C., K.J.C., 23.) 
 
 207. William Prince of Orange, Father of William 
 
 III., when a Boy ; in a hat and feathers, 
 
 holding a walking-stick. 
 He married in 1640, at the age of fifteen, Mary, the eldest 
 daughter of Charles I., then eleven years old, and died in 
 1650.— (K.J.C., 22.) 
 
 Engraved by L. Sailliar. The head only by Hollar. 
 
 Both these pictures are admirably painted ; the first is 
 as remarkable for spirit and manly energy, as the last for 
 boyish elegance. 
 
WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 281 
 
 ON THE STAIRCASE. 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 208. Portrait of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, Architect. 
 
 Three-quarters, seated, with a plan on the table before 
 him, and Windsor in the distance. 
 
 He was born in Staffordshire in 1766 : his father, two of his uncles, 
 and others of his family, were architects ; his uncle, James Wyatt, had 
 been favourite architect to George III., and under royal direction bad 
 perpetrated sundry alterations and additions in and about Windsor 
 Castle, remarkable for their vile taste and total want of fitness and pro- 
 priety. In the year 1824 Jeffrey Wyatt was called upon to make 
 designs for the entire restoration of the Castle in a uniform style of gran- 
 deur. His designs were approved and adopted ; and on the commence- 
 ment of the new works, in August 1824, he received the royal permission 
 to change his name from Wyatt to Wyattville, partly as a compliment 
 and partly to distinguish him from others of his family of the same pro- 
 fession. He carried on the works for fifteen years, with the concurrent 
 approbation of the Sovereign and the public ; and having lived to see 
 them completed, died Feb. 18, 1840, and was buried in St. George's 
 Chapel. 
 
 Engraved by H. Robinson. 
 
 END OF PART I. 
 
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