Eurltngton f(nt &rts Clui> AN EXHIBITION OF ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS FROM THE I4TH TO THE I9TH CENTURY COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY THE MARQUIS D’ AZEGLIO |)rin ttb bg SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON 1876 From the Library of Frank Simpson Burlington jftnr $rts Club AN EXHIBITION ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS FROM THE I4TH TO THE I9TH CENTURY COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY THE MARQUIS D’ AZEGLIO |)rinteb bg SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON 1876 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/exhibitionofartiOOazeg OF THE COLLECTION OF ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS Exhibited in the Gallery of the Burlington Fine Arts Club , 1876. HAVE been asked to write a few lines about the paintings on glass collected by me, and now exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. It would be impossible for me to say much about them. Notwith¬ standing researches in ancient authors, I have been able to find hardly any mention of this subdivision of art. I shall feel very much indebted to any one who may assist me with some information about the painters and their methods of painting. I have done my best to classify these glasses chronologically. But mistakes may have occurred, and I shall feel obliged by their being pointed out to me. This, at all events, is, I suppose, undoubted : that I have been the first to notice and collect them. Not only have I invented the very trays in which they are placed, but I have been obliged to find even a name for the glasses, to distinguish them from the stained glass. I called them 4 ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS. artistic painted glasses. The French, I am told, give to some of them the name of Verve Eglomise. Nobody has been able to give me the etymology of the word. Having a start of ten or twelve years this has enabled me to form a collection of about a hundred choice pieces. I now have some formidable competitors on the Continent, among whom are Castellani in Rome, and Spitzer in Paris. In 1S65, in a small curiosity shop in Milan, I came across the first of these glasses. It forms part of the tray No. 9 ; a large circular rock crystal lens, with a Descent from the Cross in a grand style, and underneath the arms of the Venier family of Venice. I thought it very beautiful; but after carefully examining it, I could not make out what it was. It looked like a sort of enamel. At all events, I secured it for a moderate price. Singular enough, this my first trouvaille I still consider as one of the gems of my collection. Soon after my return to London young Mr. Farrer of Bond Street wrote to say that he wanted to show me an exquisite object of art. It was the companion to the one above mentioned, ‘ Christ in the Garden of Olives.’ These two glasses are worth looking at with a magnifying lens, to notice the expression of the faces. Still, not having yet decided about forming a collection, I only purchased this glass much later; in fact from the widow of Mr. Farrer. Subsequently, having met with a few more, it struck me that perhaps here was a forgotten branch of art worth illustrating, and thus I gathered this collection all over Europe. Italian glasses are by far more numerous than foreign ones. Thus this collection numbers 76 Italian against 24 foreign. One of their merits is their great variety, which is a prominent feature. The dates range between 1350 and the present period. Up to 1500 they might be described as mere engravings or graffiti on a thin gold leaf, evidently the last traces of the tradition of Roman glass, and specially of the ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS. 5 early Christian glasses of the Catacombs ; although in the latter the gold engraving was encased between two layers of glass. In the tray No. i, Italian, may be seen a circular glass described as a Roman glass, and supposed to represent (according to the Roman archaeo¬ logist Poletti) the Empress Marcia Otacilla a.d. 240. The engraving is similarly placed between two glasses. The genuineness of this glass and of other similar ones is very much contested by antiquaries in Italy. Delange and Poletti, two competent judges, feel convinced of its authenticity. My knowledge in these matters is not sufficient for me to decide. Certainly they are far different from the catacomb glasses. But could it not be possible that they were worn as bullae or ornamental brooches with family portraits. I met with such glasses in the principal museums in Europe. In the tray No. 5 there is a very curious Byzantine glass, which I consider very rare. But Greek art has been so constantly the same that it is difficult to fix a date for it. In the tray No. 3 may be seen a Madonna from the Palazzo Costabili at Ferrara, interesting on account of the date of 1408 on the painting. A very old writer on art, Cennino Cennini, 1437, describes the process of painting the glasses of that early period in his quaint old Italian.* He says that there is a very pretty, graceful, and uncommon way of paint¬ ing on glass, which is a style of great devotion for ornamenting reliquaries, and requires a firm and prompt habit of drawing. He describes the modtis operandi, the selection of fine glass and gilding. Then he adds that the artist must provide himself with a brush-handle and fix at the end an ( agugiella ) a needle of small dimensions. And in the name of God the artist begins tracing the figure he means to represent. This first indication to be very slight, as no correction is possible. ‘ Thus work on gently so as to determine the drawing. After that, continue as if working with a brush, * This passage is only to be met with in the edition of Cennini by Lemonnier, Florence, 1S59. 6 ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS . although you can only use the point. In proof of the lightness of hand, requiring to be well rested, remember that the deepest shadowing can only be obtained by reaching through the gold down to the glass itself, while the middle shadowing needs not totally to pass through the gold.’ Cennini even goes so far as to advise the artist to keep his arm in a sling the day previous, so as to have it perfectly rested and still. He describes the way of scratching the gold away from the ground-work, replacing it by azurro ultramarino ad olio. He enumerates various colours which may be used macinati ad olio , negro, verderame, and lacca. He prefers black to any other, as giving more relief to the figures. The six first trays of this collection illustrate by various specimens the description given by Cennini. In 1500 we find a totally different style of painting. These are much more highly finished and entirely coloured; in fact perfect miniatures, mostly under rock crystal. Some are found even mounted in geld, which might show that they were considered valuable objects. The landscapes are pencilled in gold in a most exquisite manner, the gilding elaborately finished. It has been impossible as yet to explain how the artist executed these paintings. There is a peculiar gummy or waxy appearance in the colours. The name of the artist appears nowhere. Perhaps they may have been painted in convents, or by the illuminators of manuscripts. I suspect that most of them came from Milan and Venice. Labarte, in the illustration on the catalogue Debruge, writes the follow¬ ing observations ; Le genre de peinture execute sur ces plaques de crystal de roche est fort rare et doit etre l’oeuvre d’un artiste qui n’a pas eu d’imitateurs. Le Musee du Louvre, Salle des Bijoux, possede un petit monument fort richement decore, qui renferme quelques plaques de crystal peintes de cette maniere. La Kunstkammer de Berlin conserve aussi deux plaques assez ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS. 7 grandes. On voit encore deux fragments de ces crystaux peints dans le Cabinet des Antiques a Vienne. II est assez difficile, a moins de detruire l’objet, de savoir de quelle maniere cette peinture a ete appliquee sur le crystal, qui n’a pu aller au feu. Voici comment on peut supposer que l’artiste a procede : ‘ Apres avoir applique et fixe sur le crystal une feuille d’or lamine, il l’a ensuite grattee pour ne laisser subsister que les filets qui forment les encadrements des sujetsetles parties de bordures en rinceaux d’or. Puis il a peint sur le crystal en commen^ant par les rehauts et par les parties dorees et argentees faites avec de Tor et de l’argent en coquille. Les autres ont ensuite etd obtenues au moyen de l’application de teintes plates de differentes couleurs. Le fond marbre a demi transparent etendu sur toute la surface a rempli les parties nues du champ, et une feuille d’or appliquee par- dessus ce fond marbre lui a donne le reflet qui 1 ’eclaircit. Enfin pour proteger l’or et les couleurs poses sur le crystal on a enduit le tout d’une matiere gommeuse qui a ete recouverte d’une feuille d’etain. De l’inspection de la piece il paraitrait que cette matiere gommeuse et la feuille d’etain auraient ete mises en fusion au moyen de l’approche d’un fer chaud a l’effet de les faire adherer a la peinture et au crystal.’ The following is the only other mention I have found in works about the art of this painting on glass. It is from M. de Laborde’s book on the enamels of the Louvre. After speaking of certain Italian enamels, M. de Laborde says : ‘Tout cela n’est pas digne de l’ltalie : on aurait compris qu’elle ne s’essayat pas dans un genre de peinture qu’elle pouvait declarer trop imparfait, mais une fois qu’elle l’abordait elle devait y laisser son cachet. Il serait injuste toutefois et inconsequent de trancher la question avec des elements aussi incomplets pour la juger. Mais ce qui ferait supposer que les artistes Italiens abandonnerent l’email apres de faibles essais et de ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS. rares tentatives, c’est qu’ils tournerent la difficult^ et tenterent de produire des emaux ou du moins d’en donner l’apparence avec du crystal peint a chaud et a froid. ‘ Crystaux peints a froid. —Je me figure que les lenteurs, les difficultes, les accidents causes par le procede des emaux appliques au crystal de roche engagerent quelques peintres a tourner une seconde fois la difficult^, et tandis que leurs confreres simulaient de vrais emaux avec de 1’email applique derriere le crystal, ils simulerent le procede par la peinture execute a froid derriere le meme crystal. ‘ Cette peinture, comme on le voit de nos jours ou les fixes sont a la mode, acquerait une grande vivacite par le brillant que sa surface polie donnait aux couleurs qui elles-memes se detachaient sur un fond de paillon fixe au crystal et soutenu par une couche epaisse de mastic. ‘ Ouelques-unes de ces peintures sont fines, delicates, et l’oeuvre micros- copique d’un miniaturiste habile. On en voit quelques echantillons dans les collections Carrand et Pourtales.’ It is evident from what precedes that these two writers had only seen very few specimens of these glasses, which they considered as the work of a single artist. At the end of 1500 and the beginning of 1600 a new and less expen¬ sive system seems to have prevailed : the application on rough pieces of Murano glass of cheap engravings. By some unexplained process the paper was removed, as it now is in potichomanie, and the tracings remain¬ ing were coloured by hand by second-rate artists, with now and then the introduction of gold, which being placed either as gilding or behind other colours gave the appearance of metallic colours. The glass was made by taking a lump of that material and rolling it with wooden rollers while hot as if it were paste. This explains the irregular shape of this glass. The trays 8 and 11 may give an idea of this style of painting as well as ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS, 9 ‘ Adam and Eve,’ in tray 7, from the well-known engraving of Marc Antonio »' besides a large Venetian salver with the ‘Judgment of Paris,’ from Raphael, and a tazza of ‘ Vetro di Trina,’ with a female portrait, both first- rate specimens. Many wood engravings thus applied are to be met with all over Italy, and might give an idea of the cheap engravings of that period. To this rather common style another succeeded about 1650, more care¬ fully executed, apparently in southern Italy, at Naples. The artists again painted highly finished compositions, sometimes richly decorated with gold, specially in the dresses. Specimens of these are to be met with in trays 12 and 13 : ‘The Flight into Egypt,’ ‘ David and Goliath,’ ‘St. John the Baptist,’and ‘The Adoration of the Magi.’ Many of these are in the original frames. To this period may also be attributed paintings for furniture and cabinets, several of them in the style of Luca Giordano, or representing flowers, sea views, etc. Some of these are to be found in tray No. 14. A ‘Holy Family’ of great dimensions in a frame is attributed to Luca Giordano, 1650. A peculiar glass may be seen in tray No, 7 representing Fame. It is engraved with a diamond on the back of the glass itself, and a fault in the surface has been utilised as the sun. A few compositions of larger dimensions form the quota of the 18th century in Italy. Some of these are attributed to artists of the Genoese school, among which is the engravingon silver leaf of the Madonna of Savona by Agostino Ratti, a Genoese painter attached to the majolica manufacture of Savona, several of his works there being signed and dated 1721. Heads in the style of Piazzetta, a Venetian painter, and a view of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence in 1851, close the series of Italian glasses. In the foreign glasses I have placed a few specimens of Chinese and Indian glass to show that this art was not limited to Europe. 10 ARTISTIC PAINTED GLASS. Some very early specimens of German glass may give an idea of what was done probably at Nuremberg and in Flanders. The painting of the ‘ Death of the Madonna ’ belonged to Baron Marochetti, who prized it very much. It was purchased after his death by Mr. Cook of Richmond, who was pleased to add it to my collection. ‘ The Three Graces,’a scarce French glass of 1550, was given to me by Mr. John Leslie, who bought it at Baron Marochetti’s sale. The Madonna of the school of Holbein belonged to Mr. Layard. Some of these glasses are signed with monograms. My wish is that artists and collectors in this country may view the collection with interest; and although it does not consist of the work of eminent painters, they may have some pleasure in visiting it. Specimens are getting scarce. My plan is, whenever I find a fine example to discard an inferior one. I hope thus to be able still to improve the collection exhibited in the hospitable rooms of the Burlington Fine Arts Club. D’Azegt.io.