Volume 1 — 1100. A SCENE IN A PLAY. (continued 4)

1457. CHRIST DRIVING THE TRADERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE.

Domenico Theotocopuli (Spanish: 1548-1625). See 1122.

1459. THE WINE CONTRACT.

Gerhard van den Eeckhout (Dutch: 1621-1674).

This painter, the son of a goldsmith at Amsterdam, was one of the first to enter Rembrandt's school. He was a favourite pupil, and lived in close intimacy with the master. His biblical subjects—examples of which are at the Louvre, the Hague, and Amsterdam—were painted in close imitation of Rembrandt. He owed to his master not only his subjects, but their figures, costumes, and attitudes; he could not, however, borrow Rembrandt's warmth and intensity. His portraits are more successful.

A group of the four chiefs of the Wine Guild of Amsterdam seated in conversation over some deeds. The picture is signed, and dated 1657.

1461. ST. SEBASTIAN.

Matteo di Giovanni (Sienese: 1435-1495). See 1155.

This and No. 247 by the same artist are, says Sir Edward Poynter, "excellent examples of tempera painting of the fifteenth century, in good preservation and unvarnished." The panel is surrounded by the original gilt mouldings.

1462. SEA-PIECE WITH SHIPPING.

Hendrik Dubbels (Dutch: 1620-1676).

This painter, "the master of Bakhuizen (see under 204), was one of the first, after the success of his pupil was confirmed, to adopt his subjects and to copy his manner" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 256). His works, however, bear little resemblance to Bakhuizen's: they are more like Van de Cappelle. Many of his pictures are to be found in private collections. The present picture, with its luminous atmospheric effects, is an excellent example. Observe on the leeboard of one of the barges the signature, I. H. D., possibly Jan Hendrik Dubbels. There were three painters of the name, Hendrik, Dirk, and Jan.

1465. CHRIST RISING FROM THE TOMB.

Gaudenzio Ferrari (Lombard: 1481-1549).

A welcome addition to the Gallery, as being the work (though not a specially important work) of a great and most indefatigable painter not previously represented. Gaudenzio was a native of Valduggia (in the Val Sesia); his father was a painter; his mother's surname was Vinzio, and in his early work he often signed his pictures after her, "Gaudentius Vincius." He passed his life exclusively in Piedmont and Lombardy, where nearly all his works are still to be found—at Vercelli, Novara, Saronno, and Milan. The most important of them are at Varallo, on the Sacro Monte and in the church at its foot. In some of the chapels on the Sacro Monte he not only painted the frescoes in the background but also executed the terra-cotta figures, thus carrying out the scheme of uniting painting and sculpture in a single design. His "Crucifixion Chapel," the most important of his works in this kind, has on this account been described as "the most daring among Italian works of art." Gaudenzio, who was nearly contemporary with Luini, first studied at Milan in the school of Stefano Scotto (whose portrait he is believed to have introduced more than once in his work at Varallo). The story that he visited Rome and made the acquaintance of Raphael rests on no authority, and probably arose from a certain similarity in his works to the charm of Raphael. But this is a similarity, not of what is called "influence," but of age and temperament. "The influence of Perugino or of Raphael," says Morelli, "is not more and not less perceptible in Ferrari's paintings than in those of nearly all the great masters of that happy period, generally called the golden age of Italian art, during which Gaudenzio and Luini held much the same place in their own school as Raphael does in the Umbrian, Cavazzola (Morando) and Carotto in the Veronese, Garofalo and Dosso in the Ferrarese, and Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto in the Florentine. Gaudenzio, it is true, has not the grace of Luini, neither are his works so perfect in execution as those of his rival; but take him for all in all, as regards inventive genius, dramatic life, and picturesqueness, he stands far above Luini. In his hot haste Ferrari often loses his balance, and becomes quaint and affected; many of his larger compositions, too, are overcrowded with figures; but in his best works he is inferior to very few of his contemporaries, and occasionally, as in some of those groups of men and women in the great 'Crucifixion' at Varallo, he might challenge a comparison with Raphael himself" (German Galleries, p. 441). The best and fullest account of Gaudenzio, in English, is to be found in Mr. Samuel Butler's interesting work on Varallo, entitled Ex Voto (Trübner, 1888).

Christ, holding the resurrection banner in His hand, rises from a marble tomb. The painter, who was a child of the mountains, gives us a background of blue hills. The picture was the centre compartment of an altar-piece in a church at Magianico, near Lecco, on the Lake of Como. This composition was copied with variations by Gaudenzio's follower Giuseppe Giovenone in a picture now at Turin.

1466. THE WALK TO EMMAUS.

Lelio Orsi (Parmese: 1511-1586).

This painter, highly esteemed in his own day and of considerable talent, has remained less known than many others of inferior merit—a fact which is due, as Lanzi observes (ii. 357), to his having divided his time between Reggio and Novellara, comparatively obscure towns in the Emilia. He was born at Reggio, and was much employed there by the Gonzagi. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Correggio, whose works he is known to have copied, and of whom he was a personal friend. In 1546 he was banished for some unknown offence, and was not permitted to return to Reggio till 1552. During these years he settled at Novellara, where again he was employed by the Gonzagas. He must also have visited Rome, and studied the works of Michael Angelo. Most of Orsi's frescoes have perished. Some of his pictures are in the Gallery at Modena. He was celebrated in his day no less as an architect than as a painter.

There is an element of picturesqueness and almost modern romanticism in this picture. Christ and the disciples wear broad-brimmed hats and the dress of Italian peasants (cf. No. 753).

1468. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Spinello Aretino (Tuscan: about 1333-1410). See 581. See also (p. xxi)

A picture, some 500 years old, in excellent preservation, retaining its bright colours and the varied expressions of the faces. It is in its original frame, surmounted by a Gothic canopy. Two upright panels on each side contain figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Paul (left), St. James the Greater and St. Bartholomew (right). In circular medallions below are the Virgin and Child, with saints.

1469. STILL LIFE.

W. K. Heda (Dutch: 1594-1678)

One of the painters "of the kitchen and dining-room—painters who devoted themselves to painting copper and silver vessels, pottery, and porcelain, modest saucepans, crystal cups, glass bowls, and goblets of chased silver. The first to cultivate this new style of still life was Willem Klaasz Heda. He was born at Haarlem. He was a clever and careful painter, and must have left behind him a considerable number of works; but, nevertheless, his pictures are excessively rare. They generally consist of a carved silver cup, a plate, and a cut lemon—three subjects which the painter rendered with marvellous truthfulness, the whole surrounded by a few accessories rising out of a brown background" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 272).

1470. A BATTLE SCENE.

J. Weier (German: 17th Century).

This picture is signed I. Weier, and dated 1645. It may be either by Jacob Weier, of Hamburg, who died in 1670; or by Johann Matthias Weier, of the same town, who was a pupil of Wouwerman, and died, a very old man, in 1690.

1471. THE PICNIC ("MARIENDA CAMPESTRE").

Francisco Goya (Spanish: 1746-1828).

This painter—of greater genius and of a more national spirit, says Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, than any his century produced—was the son of humble parents. Until the age of 16 he lived without any knowledge of art, when his passion for painting was awakened by a monk of Santa Fé, near Saragossa, after which he was admitted into the studio of José Luxan Martinez, who had been educated in Italy. He distinguished himself at this time, not so much in the studio as in the streets, in the quarrels of painters and confraternities, sometimes ending in bloodshed. At Madrid, to which city he afterwards escaped, his mode of life appears to have been anything but that of an orderly citizen. Being a good musician, and gifted with a voice, he sallied forth nightly, serenading the caged beauties of the capital, with whom he seems to have been a general favourite, and whose portraits he painted. In consequence of a street brawl in Madrid he fled to Italy, in company with a party of bull-fighters, and resided at Rome, where he fraternised with Louis David. In 1774 he returned to Spain, married, and settled down to his profession. He soon attracted the notice of Mengs, the King's painter, by some designs which he executed for the royal manufactory of tapestry, and became a popular artist of that capital, and a prime favourite with its fashionable society. In 1789 he was appointed painter-in-ordinary to Charles IV., a post which he continued to hold under Ferdinand VII. He was so largely employed that he was able to maintain a fine villa near Madrid, where he entertained in the grand style. Among distinguished persons who sat to him was the Duke of Wellington, but on his making a remark which raised the artist's choler, Goya seized a plaster cast and hurled it at the Duke's head. The artist's declining years were spent in retirement at Bordeaux, where he died at the age of 82.

"Goya's earlier life indicated," says W. B. Scott, "the character of his painting—bizarre and wild, with a gleam of infernal splendour in his choice of beauty. He was an inventor, and gives us the most vivid and novel sensations, although he serves us with vinegar as well as wine." "Much that was bizarre and tumultuous, the strangeness of charm, a certain curious and sombre side of beauty, the sense of the strength of a personality, the reflection of extravagant gaiety, or excessive horror, Goya was able to render in a manner that had never been seen before" (Goya, by W. Rothenstein: 1900). He was in no way the slave to the technicalities of the studio or academical rules. In sacred subjects, which he painted by no means con amore, he affects the hard style of David and his French followers. But it was otherwise in those more congenial works in which his hand spoke as his fancy prompted, and in which he poured forth the gaiety of his art or the gall of his sarcasm. There the daubing boldness of the execution rivals the coarseness of the idea or the rudeness of the jest. His colours were laid on as often with sticks, sponges, or dish-clouts as with the brush. "Smearing his canvas with paint," says Gautier of him, "as a mason plasters a wall, he would add the delicate touches of sentiment with a dash of his thumb." So dexterous was he in turning all materials to artistic account that during morning visits to his friends he would take the sandbox from the inkstand, and, strewing the contents on the table, amuse them with caricatures traced in an instant by his ready finger. His versatility is proverbial; in addition to numerous oil paintings he executed many crayon sketches, engravings, and etchings. It is by the latter that he is perhaps best known. "The Caprices" are the most surprising, showing humanity in all the stages of brutality and ugliness, with a mélange of beauty and demonology quite unexampled. (W.B. Scott, The Spanish School; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters; and Stirling-Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain.) The three following pictures are representative of Goya's several styles—scenes of country life, demoniacal fancies, and portraiture.

From the collection of the Duke of Ossuna at Madrid. Théophile Gautier described Goya—in the language of hyperbole—as "a combination of Watteau and Rembrandt," and in this picture we have a Watteau-like subject, treated, however, in a more grotesque fashion than that of the charming French painter of rural fêtes.

1472. "THE BEWITCHED."

Francisco Goya (Spanish: 1746-1828). See 1471.

A scene from a play ("El hechizado por fuerza"), showing a player on the stage, dressed as a padre in complete black, and in the act of pouring oil into a lamp which is held by an obsequious demon, while a team of ghostly and affrighted mules are rearing in the background. Goya, who has been called the Hogarth of Spain, specially delighted in satirising the clergy, whose enchantments and incantations he parodied, and whom he was fond of portraying in the form of asses or apes.

1473. PORTRAIT OF DOÑA ISABEL CORBO DE PORCEL.

Francisco Goya (Spanish: 1746-1828). See 1471.

"The lady was evidently a plump and rosy voluptuous woman, having large and liquid eyes with much dilated pupils, as well as coarse and full lips, and wearing her loose brown tresses about her eyes and ears, while a black mantilla fell from a lofty comb upon her shoulders. It is obvious—and this accounts for the lady's flushed carnations and glittering pupils, not frequent elements in Goya's work—that she prepared herself for sitting, not only by blacking her eyelids with kohl, but using belladonna to dilate her eyes, and rouge for her cheeks" (Athenæum, July 4, 1896). This portrait, says Sir Edward Poynter, "is perhaps as good an example as could be found of the brilliancy of execution and vivid portrayal of character which characterise Goya at his best."

1476. JUPITER AND SEMELE.

Andrea Schiavone (Venetian: 1522-1582).

Andrea Meldolla, called Il Schiavone (from his birthplace in Dalmatia, the country of the Slaves), was born of poor parents, and died, we are told, "after a life of much suffering as well as labour"—his works, by which the dealers enriched themselves, barely supplying him with the means of existence. He was employed at very small remuneration to paint the outside of houses and panels for furniture. It is said that he was rescued from obscurity by Titian. He was a good colourist, and had considerable imagination. "The colouring of Schiavone," says Zanetti, "was much admired by Tintoret, who kept a painting by that artist in his studio and advised others to do the same." Among the illustrious painters who followed Tintoret's advice was our own Lord Leighton, from whose collection the present picture was bought.

The picture illustrates the myth which told how Jupiter came to Semele, whom he loved, attended by clouds, lightning, and thunderbolts. This panel was doubtless painted, as described above, for some piece of furniture.

1478. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Giovanni Mansueti (Venetian: born about 1450).

Of the life of this painter little is known. The registers of San Giovanni, Venice, tell us that he was lame; and by his own authority we learn that he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and a believer in the miracle of the Cross, which took place in 1474, and forms the subject of a picture by him, now in the Academy of Venice. His pictures in that collection are interesting as illustrating Venetian costume and architecture, and Ruskin finds "much that is delightful in them." Mansueti's figures, says Kugler (i. 332), are short and stumpy, and he lacks the variety of expression and action of Gentile Bellini, and the brilliancy of colour and fancy of Carpaccio.

This picture—which is not a very ambitious or characteristic illustration of the painter—gives a symbolic representation of the Crucifixion. "In front of an architectural screen—on the right and left of which is an open tabernacle in sculptured stone, enclosing, instead of the usual statue of the Virgin or a saint, an angel singing, and holding an instrument of the Passion of our Saviour—lie the spear, and the sponge upon the reed. Between these is a Majesty of the usual type, the flesh of the Redeemer being, doubtless owing to the partial fading of the carnations or the fact of the under-paint coming through, more greenish and opaque than the Venetian artists, especially the school of Bellini, affected. At the foot of the group the Magdalen kneels in the act of kissing the Saviour's feet. On her left stands the Virgin, and on the same side are two men, representing, of course, the Magi and the shepherds who attended the nativity of our Lord. On our right stand SS. John the Baptist and Peter, in front of whom kneels a man who holds the pincers as an implement of the Passion. The picture, as becomes its origin, is bright in colour as well as in its effect and local tints, very carefully and almost laboriously as well as timidly drawn; the architecture would not discredit Peter Neeffs" (Athenæum, 24th October 1896). The picture is signed, and dated 1492.

1479. A WINTER SCENE ON THE ICE.

Hendrik van Avercamp (Dutch: 1586-1663). See 1346.

A winter scene such as Mr. Pater describes in his Imaginary Portraits (p. 91), with "all the delicate poetry together with all the delicate comfort of the frosty season," in "the leafless branches, the furred dresses of the skaters, the warmth of the red-brick house fronts, and the gleam of pale sunlight."

1481. A PHILOSOPHER.

Cornelis Pietersz Bega (Dutch: 1620-1664).

This painter, who lived and died at Haarlem, was the son of a sculptor and a pupil of Adrian van Ostade. "Though," says Havard (p. 148), "a more finished draughtsman, with more regard for grace of form and for the beauty of his figures, in all other respects he was very inferior to Ostade. When we notice his dry and heavy execution, his ruddy flesh-colouring, and his opaque shadows, we are surprised that he should have so far neglected the examples placed before him."

This picture, executed throughout with extreme care and finish, is signed, and dated 1663.

1489, 1490. PORTRAITS OF VENETIAN SENATORS.

(Venetian School: 16th Century.)

Transferred from the South Kensington Museum, where the portraits were attributed to Tintoret.

1493. LANDSCAPE, WITH VIEW OF THE CARRARA MOUNTAINS.

G. Costa (Italian: born 1826).

Giovanni Costa, Professor in the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts, is distinguished alike as a painter and a patriot. He fought in the Venetian campaign of 1848, was a follower of Mazzini, in 1853 joined the Piedmontese regiment of lancers known as the Aosta Cavalleggieri, served on Garibaldi's staff at Mentana, and in 1870 fought his way through the streets of Rome at the head of the Italian army, and was the first to enter the Capitol. This ended his military career; but he afterwards served on the Municipal Council of Rome and interested himself specially in the prevention of inundations of the Tiber. It was in 1852 that Costa first began the study of landscape painting, in which he was destined to become the greatest ornament of the modern Italian School. His home was in the Alban Hills, near Rome, and afterwards at Florence, where in 1859 he inaugurated the "open-air school" in Italy. In 1864 he returned to Rome, and in 1870 was appointed to his professorship at Florence. In the earlier portion of his artistic career, Costa exhibited at Paris (with Corot, Troyon, and others); afterwards he found in England his chief patrons, and many of his pupils. In 1853, at Rome, he made the acquaintance of Leighton, whose intimate friend he remained until the President's death. Another celebrated English artist with whom Costa was intimate was Mason; there is considerable affinity in some respects between the work of the two men. The Italian painter has depicted almost every part of his beautiful country. He has been called "the Italian Millet," for the feeling of sublimity which he knows so well how to impart to the simplicities of peasant life; while in works of pure landscape he especially excels in giving to blue mountains, reedy banks, and olive-grown shores a poetical charm. (See an interesting account of Professor Costa, largely autobiographical, in the Magazine of Art, vol. vi. His personal reminiscences of Mason and Leighton have been published in the Cornhill Magazine, March 1897.)

The scenery of the Carrara Mountains is a favourite subject of the painter. In his pictures of these mountains, "seen across a broad expanse of plain through a misty atmosphere, he invests forms undeniably grand in themselves with a more solemn splendour and a deepened poetry."

1495. CHRIST DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS.

Ludovico Mazzolino (Ferrarese: 1480-1528). See 169.

This brilliant and characteristic little picture, containing twenty-eight delicately and elaborately finished figures, is enriched with one of Mazzolino's usual backgrounds of marble bas-reliefs. The lower of them represents Moses showing the Tables of the Law to the Israelites. The upper, the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines, with David beheading Goliath.

1653. PORTRAIT OF HERSELF.

Madame Vigée Le Brun (French: 1755-1842).

All visitors to Paris know this charming artist. Her two portraits of herself with her little girl in her arms are in the Louvre, and engravings or photographs of them are in every printseller's window. They are characteristic of her refined drawing, her limpid and transparent colour, her graceful sentiment. She excelled in rendering the candour of innocence, the charm of childhood, and maternal tenderness. She aimed rather at a certain ideal of soft and smiling beauty than at realism of portraiture. Some of her personages, even those in the highest ranks of life, seem, it has been well said, to have traversed the sentimental scenes of the tender Greuze, and she was fond of enveloping her sitters in semi-allegorical surroundings. If she cannot be reckoned among the great portrait-painters, she yet shows a power which is rare among artists of her sex, and a charming style of her own which will always make her works attractive. Madame le Brun was herself one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time. Elizabeth Louise Vigée was born in Paris, and her early years were spent in the studio of her father, who was a painter, and among other artistic surroundings. Her own talents rapidly developed; by the time she was 15 she had many commissions, and at 20 she was already celebrated. Her beauty and social charm soon gained for her the friendship of the greatest men and women of the day, including La Harpe, D'Alembert, and Marie Antoinette. With the Queen she was a great favourite. She painted her portrait in 1779, and afterwards no less than thirty times. She was made a member of the Royal Academy of Painting in 1780, but when the Revolution broke out she left Paris in haste. She went from capital to capital; in each in turn the charm of her person and manner made her many friends, and she was always full of commissions. In 1795 she settled for some years at St. Petersburg, where she enjoyed the favour of the Imperial Court. In 1802 she came for three years to England, where she painted portraits of the Prince of Wales and Lord Byron, among others. She was a favourite wherever she went, but in spite of all the adulation she received she remained simple and natural to the end. When she returned to Paris, her salon became the rendezvous of the most distinguished writers, painters, and politicians of that brilliant period, and her Souvenirs, published in 1837, are crowded with interesting sketches of her friends. In this frank and engaging autobiography she gives us particulars of the worthless husband—M. Le Brun, a picture-dealer whom she had married when she was 20. He squandered her fortune, but she found unfailing consolation in the daughter whom she presses to her in those portraits in the Louvre. She outlived both her daughter and her husband by many years and died at the age of 87.

This portrait was painted by the artist in her 27th year. Its acquisition for the National Gallery is specially interesting, for it was painted in emulation of the celebrated "Chapeau de Paille" of Rubens (No. 852). She had seen and admired that work at Antwerp in 1782, and determined to represent herself in a similar effect of shadow and reflected light. The portrait had so great a success that it gained her admission to the Académie, where she was received in the following year, 1783.

1660. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF.

Adrian van der Werff (Dutch: 1659-1722).

"The painter who by his astounding success did most after Gerard de Lairesse to lead the art of painting into a perverse path was Adrian van der Werff. He was born at Kralinger-Ambacht, near Rotterdam, and received lessons in drawing from Cornelis Picollet, and then entered the studio of Eglon van der Neer, where he made rapid progress. At first he seemed inclined to follow the bent of his master, but he deserted the study of nature for the pursuit of the ideal, and in doing so he fell into cold sentimentality and tasteless affectation. His groups became pretentious, his heads monotonous, his bodies have no life, and his flesh-colouring assumes the polish and the tint of ivory. These defects, however, did not prevent his misleading a certain number of people who believed themselves to be connoisseurs. The Duke of Wolfenbüttel and other high personages of his time contended for the possession of his pictures at enormous prices, and praised the merits of their favourite artist to the skies. No one more assisted him in his career, and in the making of his reputation, than the Elector-Palatine John William, who, not satisfied with giving him very considerable commissions, also conferred upon him the title of Chevalier, and ennobled his family. (The artist signs himself on occasion 'Chevalier van Werff'). The compositions which he painted for his patron are now to be seen at Munich" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 280). There is in the Dulwich Gallery a "Judgment of Paris" by Van der Werff—a celebrated work painted in 1718 for the Duke of Orleans and much admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The heads are wanting in expression and the flesh is bloodless, but the painting is of the greatest finish. There are also pictures by him in the Wallace Collection. "The cold porcelain-like colour," says Mr. Phillips in his catalogue, "and mechanical finish of this artist in the treatment of the nude are much less appreciated by modern connoisseurs than they were by his contemporaries. Still his general accomplishment and the certainty of his execution, in a vicious and wholly conventional style, are not to be denied."

In our picture "the courtly painter of polished, lascivious nudities faces the spectator in a wig of the period of Louis Quatorze, looking as dignified and impersonal as the painters of that particular age did manage to look in their portraits." The statue of Fame, holding a wreath, is characteristic. The portrait is signed, and dated 1685.

1661, 1662. WINGS OF THE ALTAR-PIECE, No. 1093.

Ambrogio de Predis (Milanese: about 1450-1515).

This long-forgotten painter was rediscovered by Morelli in 1880, who claimed for him a considerable place in the Milanese school. This claim has since been historically confirmed by the document, referred to in the notes to No. 1093, showing that Ambrogio de Predis was at work in Milan with Leonardo da Vinci, employed as his assistant to paint the wings of the altar-piece of which the central portion was the "Vierge aux Rochers." By a fortunate purchase these wings by Ambrogio now hang in our Gallery, on either side of Leonardo's picture. Ambrogio's best work was in portraiture, of which an example (one of the two signed and dated by the artist) is also in our Gallery (No. 1665). Ambrogio and his brother Bernardino were sons of a certain Lorenzo Preda of Milan. There is also a Cristoforo de Predis, a miniaturist, one of whose miniatures (representing Galeazzo Maria Sforza) is in the Wallace Collection, and it is probable that from him Ambrogio received his first education in art. In 1482 he was established as Court Painter to Ludovico il Moro. In 1493 he accompanied Bianca Maria Sforza on the occasion of her marriage to the Emperor Maximilian, but was back again at Milan in 1494. In 1502 we find him at Innsbruck, where he seems to have settled. In 1506 he designed some tapestries for the Emperor, after which year nothing more is known of him. In the Vienna Gallery is a signed portrait by him of the Emperor, dated 1502, and to him Morelli ascribes the celebrated profile portrait of Bianca Maria in the Ambrosiana at Milan (there erroneously called Beatrice Sforza), hitherto assigned to Leonardo. Among other portraits now ascribed to Ambrogio are the "Page" in the Morelli Collection at Bergamo, and "Fr. Brivio" in the Poldi Pezzoli Collection at Milan. De Predis is "a conscientious and careful painter, though his drawing and modelling are often defective, particularly in the representation of the hand." He "seems to have been an artist of some individuality, even after coming under Leonardo's influence. He was by nature too much of a miniaturist to concern himself with the larger problems of painting, and was very limited in his range—even his portraits are uniformly treated. He seems, judging by his drawings, to have sought to improve himself by a careful and conscientious study of Leonardo's work, and when he had the advantage of the master's guiding hand he could produce works (like these angels) one of which, though lacking the qualities of profound art, has a certain charm and even dignity of its own" (Catalogue of Milanese Pictures at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1898, p. li.; Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 413-415; Roman Galleries, pp. 180-189).

The angel in 1661 may, as suggested above, have been designed, or begun, by Leonardo himself; that in 1662 must be entirely the work of Ambrogio. These paintings remained in their place, as we have seen under 1093, up to 1787. They were purchased in 1878 from Duke Jean Melzi d'Erie at Milan for £2160.

1664. "LA FONTAINE."

J. B. S. Chardin (French: 1699-1779). See 1258.

The woman is drawing water from a copper "fontaine" into a black jug.

1665. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Ambrogio de Predis (Milanese: about 1450-1515). See 1661.

In his right hand he holds a scroll which bears the painter's signature AM. PR., the date 1494, and the words AN. 20. Formerly in the possession of the Archinti family, and supposed to represent Francesco di Bartolommeo Archinto (1474-1551), who was Governor of Chiavenna. A very refined portrait; but Morelli points out that the hand is "coarse and wanting in life."

1674. A BURGOMASTER.

Rembrandt (Dutch: 1606-1669). See 45.

"The costume and rapid execution of this magnificent picture point rather," says Sir Edward Poynter, "to its being a study than a portrait painted on commission." Probably also the title by which the picture has long been known is a mistake: a Burgomaster would not be painted in such dingy and fantastic garb. The old man was no doubt a model dressed up by Rembrandt in studio "properties." The knotted stick which he holds in his hands may be recognised in the painter's portrait of himself in Lord Ilchester's possession (No. 61 in the Academy Exhibition of 1899). That portrait is dated 1658, and this picture probably belongs to the same period. The picturesque but nondescript headgear worn by the "burgomaster" may have belonged to the master himself in those latter days when all relics of the former splendours had vanished. Whoever he may have been, the "Burgomaster," as he lives for ever on Rembrandt's canvas, is a striking personage; the refined, intellectual face recalls to some spectators one of the late ornaments of the Episcopal Bench in our own day. The portrait is a masterpiece alike of character-reading and of modelling.

1675. PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY.

Rembrandt (Dutch: 1606-1669). See 45.

A noble portrait. Rembrandt was a painter who reverenced old age, and gave its dignity and beauty to faces the least promising. We may notice especially the pathetic eyes,—with an expression at once so living and so sorrowful, and the character in the hands which Rembrandt never failed to give his sitters. The old lady wears a large white ruff, "evidently clinging to the costume of her earlier years, for ruffs had long been out of fashion at the time when the picture was painted." The picture has been known as the Burgomaster's Wife, but this description is without authority or probability. There is another portrait of the same old lady in Lord Wantage's possession (No. 15 in the Academy Exhibition, 1899). Lord Wantage's picture is dated 1661.

The two magnificent pictures just described, which hold their own triumphantly even on a wall of masterpieces,[251] were formerly in possession of Sir William Middleton, Bart., great-uncle to Lady de Saumarez, and were exhibited at the British Institution in 1858. Since that date they had been lost to sight until they were purchased for the National Gallery in 1899.[252] They are believed to have been in possession of the Lee family, Lady de Saumarez's ancestors, from the time that they were painted, but they may have come into the family with a certain John van Enkoren, a Dutch gentleman, who married a second cousin of Sir William Middleton.

1676. CHRIST DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS.

Francesco de Herrera, the elder (Spanish: 1576-1656).

Francesco de Herrera, the elder—so called to distinguish him from a son of the same name who was also a painter—was the first to throw off the timid conventional style hitherto in vogue, and to adopt the bold and vigorous manner which became characteristic of the school of Seville. He drew, we are told, with charred reeds, and painted with a housepainter's brush. It is said that on occasions he would employ a servant to smear the paints on his canvas with a coarse brush, and then himself shape the rough masses into figures and draperies. In the Louvre there is an important picture by Herrera, "St. Basil dictating his Doctrine," of which Théophile Gautier said that it was "dashed off with an unimaginable fury of the brush, and blazed with the flashing of some auto-da-fè." In the Earl of Clarendon's Collection are three powerful pictures (shown at the New Gallery, 1895-96) representing scenes in the life of St. Bonaventura. But most of Herrera's extant works, in oil and fresco, remain at Seville. The vigour of his style was equalled by the impetuosity of his temper. Pupils flocked round him, but the violence of his outbursts drove them away. Among this number was Velazquez. He perverted his talent as an engraver of medals to the work of coining, and when suspected of this offence fled for sanctuary to the Jesuits' College. There he painted a picture which was shown to Philip IV. "What need," said the King, "has a man gifted with abilities like yours of silver and gold? Go, you are free; and take care that you do not get into this scrape again." He could not, however, change his violent habits, and his children, we are told, robbed him and fled from his house. In 1650 Herrera removed to Madrid, where he had the pleasure, or mortification, of seeing his former pupil, Velazquez, at the height of his fame.

A work in the painter's less impetuous style, but marked by the vigour characteristic of the Spanish and Italian "naturalists."

1680. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Dutch School (17th Century).

An admirable portrait of a young man with long golden hair, looking out at the spectator. The picture is signed J. Karel du Jardin. It has sometimes been attributed to the well-known painter of that name (see 826), and been said to be a portrait of the artist by himself. But the initial J. does not confirm this theory.

1682. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Francesco di Giorgio (Sienese: 1439-1502).

Francesco di Giorgio Martini was one of the most distinguished architects and engineers of his time. He wrote a treatise on "Civil and Military Architecture," and was a great authority, says Vasari, on "all instruments required for the purposes of war." There are two altar-pieces by him in the Siena Academy, and he also occasionally produced works in sculpture: "this he could do very conveniently, being a man of fair possessions as well as of remarkable ability, wherefore he did not work for the sake of gain, but for his own pleasure, and when he felt inclined, to the end that he might leave honourable memorials of his existence behind him."

"This quaint little picture represents the Virgin in the attitude of walking, leading the Infant Saviour by the hand. She wears a white dress, shaded blue, with a small gold pattern delicately painted upon it, and a rose-coloured mantle lined with dark green, and holds in her right hand a branch of roses. The drapery falls with much grace, and she looks down with a sweet expression to the Child" (National Gallery Report, 1899).

1683. STUDY OF A HORSE.

Cuyp (Dutch: 1620-1691). See 53.

The glossy texture of the horse is well rendered.

1686. STUDY OF FLOWERS.

Henri Fantin-Latour (French: 1836-1904).

Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour was born at Grenoble, the son of a famous pastellist. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1861. In 1864 his "Hommage à Delacroix" created a sensation. In this country, where he was a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy, he is best known for his exquisite studies of roses and other flowers. But he was also a painter of portraits (see No. 1952) and of romantic subjects inspired by his musical tastes. In portraiture, a thorough, though a sympathetic, realist (witness his "Monet's studio at the Batignolles" in the Luxembourg),—he becomes fanciful when he enters the domain of romance. A favourite medium was lithography, in which he excelled; the British Museum has a fine set of proofs. His subjects are taken from the motives used in the musical dramas of Wagner and Berlioz.

Late summer flowers, chiefly roses, in a vase on a wooden table. The background, as usual with this painter, is of a flat tone of warm gray.

1689. A MAN AND WIFE.

Mabuse (Flemish: about 1470-1541). See 656.

Portraits, uncompromising in thoroughness, of a severe and uncompromising couple. "This masterpiece," says Sir Edward Poynter, "combines with a high perfection of finish and modelling, every detail being finished with the utmost care, even to the stubble of the man's beard, great breadth of effect and a beautiful quality of light and shade" (National Gallery Report, 1900). The portraits, formerly in the collection of Captain A. F. Dawson, used to be attributed to Quentin Matsys. Some authorities ascribe them to his brother, Jan. Others believe that the work belongs to the German school. The attribution to Mabuse is made in the Director's Report for 1900.

1694. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN.

Fra Bartolommeo (Florentine: 1475-1517).

Bartolommeo di Pagholo del Fattorino, one of the greatest of the Florentine masters, is commonly known as Baccio della Porta, or Fra Bartolommeo. He was born at the village of Savignano, near Prato, and was sent while still a lad to the studio of Cosimo Rosselli at Florence, where he lived with some kinsfolk in a house near the gate of San Piero Gattolini (now the Porta Romana). The neighbours, seeing him come and go to his work, and ignoring surnames with the custom of the time, distinguished him from all the other Bartholemews as Baccio della Porta. "He was loved in Florence," says Vasari, "for his virtue, for he was very diligent at his work, quiet and good-natured, fearing God, living a tranquil life, flying all vicious practices, and taking great pleasure in preaching, and the society of worthy and sober persons." In the studio of Rosselli he made the acquaintance of Mariotto Albertinelli, as erratic, gay, and idle as his companion was pure, gentle, and austere. Between the two young men a warm friendship sprang up, which continued unbroken till the death of Albertinelli in 1515. When Fra Bartolommeo temporarily relinquished the practice of art in 1500, Albertinelli took up his abandoned canvases, and from 1509 onwards the two men worked in formal partnership. The religious spirit of Bartolommeo had been profoundly impressed by Savonarola's preaching. To the famous bonfire, into which the people cast their pomps and vanities, our painter brought all the studies and drawings which he had made from the nude. He was among the band of faithful followers who shut themselves up with Savonarola in San Marco. "Having very little courage," says Vasari, "being indeed of a timid and even cowardly disposition, he lost heart on hearing the clamours of an attack, which was made upon the convent shortly after, and seeing some wounded and others killed, he began to have grievous doubts respecting his position. Thereupon he made a vow, that if he might be permitted to escape from the rage of that strife, he would instantly assume the religious habit of the Dominicans." This he did in the year 1500, and for some time afterwards his brush was idle. When he resumed work, it was on condition that the convent received all the produce of his labours. In 1506, when Raphael visited Florence, he formed a friendship with Fra Bartolommeo, in whose work he doubtless found something to assimilate. Some years afterwards, Fra Bartolommeo went to Rome, where he painted a figure of St. Paul, and part of one of St. Peter (now in the Quirinal), leaving Raphael to finish the work. Fra Bartolommeo suffered from ill-health, and died at the early age of 42.

The contributions made by Fra Bartolommeo to Italian art were fourfold. He exhibited a scientific scheme of composition based on principles of strict symmetry, and in this respect he was the precursor of Raphael. In colouring he was equal to the best of his contemporaries; in his better works brilliance is combined with harmony of tone in a very charming manner. In some of his works, however, the attempt to adopt the chiaroscuro of Leonardo led to an over-darkening of the shadows. Vasari noticed even in his day that the use of printer's-black and ivory-black had caused some of Fra Bartolommeo's shadows to become unduly heavy. In his landscape backgrounds, Fra Bartolommeo showed a considerable advance on his predecessors. "Everything is true and harmonious, up to its intention, which is to be simple, calm, consistent, and real,—real, and yet breathing an idyllic beauty." Lastly, he was the inventor of the "lay figure." "He always considered it advisable," says Vasari, "to have the living object before him when he worked; and the better to execute his draperies, arms, and things of similar kind, he caused a figure, the site of life, to be made in wood, with the limbs moveable at the joints, and on this he then arranged the real draperies."

Fra Bartolommeo's range was limited. He is seen at his best not in works (such as the fresco of the "Last Judgment," now in the picture gallery of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova) which call for the exercise of powerful imagination, but in Madonna pieces. "Nature made Fra Bartolommeo," says Symonds, "the painter of adoration." He excels in the poetry of simple religious feeling. His works are rare outside Italy. Copies from some of his frescoes at Florence are in the Arundel Society's Collection; but the treasure city of Fra Bartolommeo at his best is Lucca. Few figures in Italian art have been more often copied and photographed than his charming little angel who sings at the foot of the Madonna's throne in the Cathedral of Lucca.

Fra Bartolommeo's pictures "sum up," says Ruskin, "the principles of great Italian religious art in its finest period,—serenely luminous sky,—full light on the faces; local colour the dominant power over a chiaroscuro more perfect because subordinate; absolute serenity of emotion and gesture; and rigid symmetry in composition." And elsewhere he speaks of "the precious and pure passages of intense feeling and heavenly light, holy and undefined, and glorious with the changeless passion of eternity, which sanctify with their shadeless peace the deep and noble conceptions of the early school of Italy—of Fra Bartolommeo, Perugino, and the early mind of Raffaelle" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 22, and epilogue of 1883 to vol. ii.). Some trace of these characteristics may be found in the present picture. It is bright in colour, balanced in composition, simple in feeling, and shows a charming Tuscan landscape. Thoroughly Tuscan also is the type of peasant Madonna, with her brown hair tied up in a blue handkerchief. The infant Christ is almost grotesque, but the little St. John may take his place among Fra Bartolommeo's collection of sweet child-faces. Our picture[253] is ascribed to the years 1507-9. In the Corsini Gallery at Rome is a repetition of it done at a later period, with the figures, life-sized, reversed, and with St. Joseph added to complete the pyramidal composition.

1695. LANDSCAPE WITH NYMPHS.

Venetian School (early 16th Century).

From the South Kensington Museum: very characteristic of the Venetian school is the beautiful blue distance.

1696. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Giovanni Bellini (Venetian: 1426-1516). See 189.

A fragment of a fresco, painted in 1481 and originally brought from the church of Magre, near Schio, in the neighbourhood of Vicenza. The work, if by Bellini, is somewhat earlier than the "Madonna and Child" (280) of our Gallery.[254] "We have," says Mr. Roger Fry, "no example of Bellini's fresco work by which to judge it. It may therefore be argued that the weak construction of the Virgin's figure and the poor drawing of the child are the result of Bellini's want of familiarity with the medium, nor can it be denied that the weaknesses are exaggerations of certain peculiarities of Bellini's own design. This is particularly noticeable in the drawing of the child, which approaches very nearly in type and expression the child of the 'Madonna between the Magdalen and St. Catherine' of the Academy at Venice. But in no undoubted work by Bellini is the drawing so clumsy as this. Much, however, may be attributed to restoration, particularly in the Infant Christ, and it is impossible to deny the great beauty of the colour—a peculiar golden glow which is very unusual in fresco, and is indeed a translation into that medium of the golden richness of Bellini's tempera and oil pieces. The Madonna's expression has a certain tenderness and charm which is characteristic of Bellini, but it lacks the definite realisation of a mood which he almost invariably compassed" (The Pilot, Jan. 5, 1901). On the other hand, according to a well-known critic, writing in the Daily Telegraph, "the wistfulness of the Virgin is not the wistfulness of Giambellino, but rather that of Bartolommeo Montagna or some kindred painter of the school of Vicenza. Again, the type of the Virgin and the adjustment of her headgear recall the severe yet passionate master of Vicenza just named, under the influence, not so much of Giovanni Bellini as of the elder school of Venice—that of the Vivarini."

1699. THE LESSON.

Jan Vermeer of Delft (Dutch: 1632-1675). See 1383. See also (p. xxi)

A "symphony in black and white"; cool in effect, almost to the point of austerity and chilliness. The faces are full of expression. The master turns in expectation to the pupil, as much as to say "Come, don't you know?" The pupil is ready with his answer, and seems to appeal for encouragement: "That is right, is it not?" There is a severe absence of details; everything in the picture is made to contribute to the colour scheme. "The play of cool light on the faces and hands, on the man's black dress, and the gray tablecloth with its patches of blue shadow; the design of the man's large hat against the dark background, the almost pathetic charm of the fair-haired boy's expression, the regular black and white of the tiled floor,—all seem chosen for their pictorial value alone and skilfully composed into this grave, almost austere harmony. The largeness of design and rejection of all superfluous detail in this picture connect it with Vermeer's more daring compositions" (M. H. Witt, in the Nineteenth Century, October 1900). Only one life-size group by the master is certainly authenticated—the signed "Courtesans" at Dresden. The attribution of our picture to the master is uncertain.

1700. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

Unknown (Dutch School: 17th Century).

A strong face, finely painted. The iron-gray of the man's hair combines harmoniously with the lawn collar and cuffs; a harmony in black and gray.

1701. LANDSCAPE WITH WATERMILL.

Allart van Everdingen (Dutch: 1612-1675).

This painter, an elder contemporary and precursor of Ruysdael, was born at Alkmaar. He studied successively under Roelandt Savery at Utrecht and Pieter Molyn at Haarlem. In a voyage which he made to the Baltic he was shipwrecked on the coast of Norway, and he remained for some time in that country. On returning to his native land he reproduced the scenes among which he had dwelt—torrents edged around by huge firs springing out from sombre masses of rock, and throwing their spray into large stretches of transparent water. A large number of studies from nature remain from his hand, and these he composed into pictures. His works had some vogue in Holland, where they provided a counter-attraction to the views of the softer and more smiling country which the "Italianisers" were offering to the public. If Ruysdael did not himself go to Norway, it must have been Everdingen's Norwegian scenes that inspired him. Everdingen's "colouring is simple and pure, his touch broad and facile, and it is evident that every object in his pictures was studied from nature." He was also an accomplished etcher. He died at Amsterdam.

1776. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

Signorelli (Cortona: 1441-1523). See 1128.

A predella picture; characteristic of the master, and in good preservation. Formerly in the possession of Count Colonna Ferretti (a nephew of Pius IX.) at Cortona.

1786. THE LAKE OF THUN.

Alexandre Calame (Swiss: 1810-1864).

This painter is of some interest in the history of painting as one of the pioneers who discovered for artistic purposes the picturesqueness of Switzerland. He was born at Vevay, and was the son—not (as sometimes stated) of a simple mason, but—of a clever stone-cutter. He was very delicate as a child, and an accident at school deprived him of the sight of his right eye. As a youth, Calame obtained employment in a bank at Geneva. He further aided the narrow resources of his home by making little Swiss views in colour, which the shopkeepers took up. Foreigners were glad to bring them away as travelling memorials, in place of photographs, which did not then exist. His employer, M. Diodati, noticing young Calame's talent for art, generously enabled him to obtain instruction. He made rapid progress, and became headmaster of a drawing-school in Geneva. In 1837 he began contributing to foreign exhibitions views of Switzerland, and these won for him a considerable reputation. He visited England in 1850, and here, as in other countries, his works found many purchasers. In the South Kensington Museum there is a large collection of his Swiss views in water-colour. He was a lithographer and engraver, as well as a painter, and his plates of Swiss landscapes were at one time well known. He received commissions from many European sovereigns, and was visited by all the great personages who passed through Geneva.

In France, indeed, art-circles were cool towards him. "Un Calame, deux Calames, trois Calames—que de calamités" ran the phrase every year in the Paris Salon. But in Germany he found warm admirers and formed several imitators. His lithographed studies of trees, and his landscapes for copying remained in use for some decades as a medium of instruction in drawing. He was a conscientious workman, who finished the whole of his canvas or paper with equal industry, and his drawing was correct. But his colouring is insipid, and his atmosphere somewhat heavy. "By painting he understood the illumination of drawings, and his drawing was that of an engraver. Sentiment is replaced by correct manipulation, and in the deep blue mirror of his Alpine lakes, as in the luminous red of his Alpine summits, there is always to be seen the illuminator who has first drawn the contours with a neat pencil and pedantic correctness" (Muther's History of Modern Painting, ii. 322). Calame's fertility was very great. His note-books contain the record of 450 finished pictures in oil, 500 studies, and 1200 water-colours (E. Rambert: Alexandre Calame. Sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1884).

The mountain in our picture is the Blumlis Alp: an afternoon effect.

1810. PORTRAIT OF A BOY.

François Duchatel (Flemish: 1616-1694).

This painter, whose works are very rare, is said to have been a pupil of David Teniers, the younger. In some of his pictures representing village festivals he followed the style of that master; in others, of family groups, his work rather resembles that of Gonzales Coques. His most important picture is in the Museum at Ghent. It represents the "Inauguration of Charles II., King of Spain, as Count of Flanders," and comprises about a thousand small figures. Duchatel was born at Brussels. He worked for some time in Paris in conjunction with his fellow-countryman Van der Meulen (see 1447). The picture before us, with its vigorous touch and warm colour, shows that Duchatel was an accomplished portrait-painter.

1812. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

Ascribed to Lo Spagna. (See 1032).

"The figure of the Saviour and the angel are identical with those in the picture by Lo Spagna in the National Gallery numbered 1032, but the execution of the work points to possibly a different hand. It was ascribed by Passavant to Raphael. On the back of the panel are incised the initials G. D. H. in a monogram surmounted by a crown, and an inscription on paper of probably the 18th century; 'All' Ill^mo et Ecc^mo Giovanni Hiccolini (sic) Imbascatore (sic) di Toscana in Roma.' It was exhibited in the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester in 1857 (No. 146) under the name of Raphael, when it belonged to Mr. Henry Farrer, who had it from Russia" (National Gallery Report, 1900).

1842. HEADS OF ANGELS.

Tuscan School (15th century). See also (p. xxi)

A characteristic fragment of fresco.

1843. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Benedetto Bonfigli (Umbrian: 1420-1496).

A characteristic, if unimportant, example of one of the early masters of the Umbrian School. Bonfigli (or Buonfiglio) was a native of Perugia, and his principal work, a series of frescoes, full of quaint costume and fantastic detail, representing the lives of St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Herculanus, is in the Palazzo del Consiglio there.

There is much naïvete in the surprised expression of the seated Sir Joseph, and much dainty charm in the youths with their vessels of gold.

1845. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

Paris Bordone (Venetian: 1503-1570). See 637.

The Saviour holds in his hand a scroll inscribed "Ecce sum lux mundi," but the expression is vapid.

1847. THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY ANGELS.

Luca Signorelli (Umbrian: 1441-1523). See 1128.

This important picture, in a splendid frame of the period, is of special interest from the record of authenticity which it bears. On the cartellino at the foot, is an inscription informing us that "the noble picture before us was an offering of devotion by Master Aloiusius, a French physician, and Thomasina his wife," that "Luca Signorelli, the illustrious painter of Cortona" was the artist, and that the date was 1515. In the archives of the little town of Montone, near Umbertide, a deed, dated September 10, 1515, has been discovered, which informs us further that the picture was painted for Master Aloiusius, living at Montone, for the chapel of St. Christina at that place, by Luca Signorelli "on account of their mutual and cordial friendship, and in consideration of the free services which he had received, and in future hopes to receive, from the said Aloiusius." The physician on his part undertakes in the same deed to give free medical attendance henceforth to the said Luca, and to any member of his household. The place for which the picture was painted accounts for the figure of St. Christina, on the right of the Virgin. Among her adventures was being tied to a millstone and cast into the Lake of Bolsena, but angels upheld the millstone, and she floated back to land. The legend explains also the charming view of a lake seen beneath the feet of the Virgin. The altar-piece was discovered by Signor Mancini in a cellar at Montone, much obscured by neglect, and was for some time in his collection at Città di Castello. It has now been cleaned, and is apparently in fine condition.

The date of the picture shows that it was painted towards the end of the artist's life, when he was 74 years of age, and some critics have found in the work signs that the master's hand was losing its cunning. Certainly the composition of the principal lines—with the upper figure at each side in line with the lower—is somewhat awkward, and the St. Christina is a heavy figure with a meaningless expression. That of St. Sebastian, however, is vigorous; the central group of the Madonna and Child borne by cherubims is impressive; the angels above are very fine, and St. Jerome and St. Nicholas of Bari are good. The details of St. Nicholas's robe and mitre deserve study. It is amusing to note that two of the critics who scarify the picture single out the landscape—the one, as the worst part of it, the other, as its redeeming feature.

1848. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Abraham Raguineau (Dutch: 1623-1681).

This painter, born in London, settled at the Hague, where he seems to have met with little prosperity. At a later time, he was living at Leyden, and was writing-master to the Prince of Orange.

The picture is signed, and dated (1657), at the top of the oval on the left, and is the only known signed work of the painter in existence. It shows us a pleasant-looking, if somewhat characterless youth, aged 18 (as the description states), whose coat, shirt, and collar make a delicate study in cool grey tones.

1849. THE NATIVITY.

Jacopo Pacchiarotto (Sienese: 1474-1540).

The story of this painter and revolutionist—who, joining the Bardotti and taking part in popular risings in Siena, was concealed by the monks in a tomb, beside a newly-buried corpse—is familiar from Browning's humorous telling of it in his Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Distemper. He was originally a pupil of Bernardino Fungai (see 1331); but his later work shows the influence of Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael.

"He appears to have studied Raphael," says Lanzi, "with the greatest care; and there are heads and whole figures so lively, and with such grace in the features, that to some connoisseurs they seem to possess the ideal." Certainly there is a liveliness and an appropriateness of expression about the figures in this picture which distinguish it from the stiff mannerism of earlier Sienese pictures. Kneeling in adoration are St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome (with the stone, in his character as penitent). St. Stephen, behind St. John, carries on his head the stone, as symbol of his martyrdom. Behind St. Jerome is St. Nicholas of Bari, a finely rendered portrait of venerable age. Of the figures in the niche-shaped panels in the frame, that, at the top on the left, of the Angel of the Annunciation is particularly graceful. The panels of the predella show the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, and the Resurrection.

1850. A SCENE ON THE ICE.

Andries Vermeulen (Dutch: 1763-1814). See 1447.

1851. THE INTERIOR OF A STABLE.

Dutch School (17th century).

1860. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Ascribed to Sir Antonio More (Flemish: 1572-1578).

1872. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Alvise Vivarini (Venetian, painted 1461-1503).

All visitors to Venice are familiar with a picture, in the church of the Redentore, of the Madonna and Sleeping Child, with two playing angels; there is a bird on the curtain above, and some fruit on the parapet below. It is one of the most charming little pictures in Venice, and is usually shown as a work of Giovanni Bellini. Modern criticism assigns it, however, to Alvise Vivarini, to whom an important place in the history of Venetian painting is now accorded as an artist developing on lines independent of the Bellinis, and as the Master of Lorenzo Lotto.[255] That he was largely employed in the Ducal Palace we know from Vasari, who describes his works there, commending more particularly their fine perspective and "portraits from the life so well depicted as to prove that this master copied nature very faithfully." These works, begun in 1489 and stopped by the artist's death in 1503, were destroyed in the fire of 1577. Of his extant works, the earliest one, which is dated (1475), is at Montefiorentino. The altar-piece in the Venice Academy is dated 1480, and that in the Berlin Gallery is probably of the same period. To a later date are assigned the Madonnas of the Redentore and S. Giovanni in Bragora at Venice, and the present picture. His latest work, finished after his death by Marco Basaiti, is the large altar-piece of St. Ambrose in the Frari.

This picture (which is signed on a cartellino on the parapet) is, says Mr. Berenson, "delightful as a composition. The Madonna is seen down to the waist, holding the Child on a parapet, while behind her, to the left, a window opens out on a charming landscape. The Madonna's face has a tinge of almost Botticellian melancholy, as in Lotto's Recanati altarpiece. The Child is almost the putto on the right in the Redentore picture, but somewhat more bony. The draperies already have the freedom of Alvise's latest works." The picture, formerly in the Manfrini Gallery, was presented by Mr. Charles Loeser in 1898.

1895. BARON WAHA DE LINTER OF NAMUR.

Jacob Jordaens (Flemish: 1593-1678).

Jordaens, who stands next to Rubens and Van Dyck among the great Flemish painters, was a fellow-pupil with the former under Adam Van Noort, whose daughter he married in 1616. In the same year he became a member of the Painter's Guild of St. Luke, being described as a "water-colourist"; his first works were in fact paintings in distemper and cartoons for the tapestry workers. By 1620 his fame as a painter of pictures was established. His works, which are very numerous, are of all kinds of subjects, but he is little represented in British Galleries. Examples may be seen, however, in the Wallace Collection and the Dulwich Gallery.

The name of the sitter is on the frame; his coat of arms and crest, with the inscription "Aetatis suae 63, 1626," are on the upper corner of the picture. It is a fine portrait, characteristic of the exuberance and vigour which mark the work of Jordaens.

1896. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

Pieter Saenredam (Dutch: 1597-1665).

Saenredam, who lived at Haarlem, is one of the leading Dutch painters of architecture. His interiors in particular are remarkable for their luminous effect. Another example of them may be seen at Dulwich.

The church is the Domkerk at Utrecht. Notice the boy making a caricature on the wall; underneath this is the artist's signature.

1897. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Lorenzo Monaco (Florentine: 1370-1425).

Don Lorenzo was born at Siena, but became a Camaldose monk of the Convent of the Angeli at Florence, his early practice being that of a miniaturist. In the principal of his known works—an altar-piece of 1413 now in the Uffizi at Florence, Mr. Roger Fry bids us note the cunning with which the painter "weaves together his flowing curves," the "rare charm in his ætherial, unstructural draperies," and "a kind of visible music" in his design (Monthly Review, June 1901).

Something of these qualities may be seen in the long and slender figures of our picture. The decorativeness of its patterns, and the architectural details, should also be noticed. The picture, formerly in a church at Certaldo, is in its original Gothic frame. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (vol. i. p. 554) suppose the picture to have formed part of a larger altar-piece of which the two wings are in our gallery, ascribed to the school of Taddeo Gaddi (Nos. 215, 216). But the different scale of the figures in them negatives this supposition.

1903. LANDSCAPE, WITH DOGS AND GAME.

Jan Fyt (Dutch: 1609-1661). See 1003. See also (p. xxi)

1909. THE EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY.

Paul Delaroche (French: 1797-1856).

Hippolyte, or (as he called himself) Paul, Delaroche, was the popular French painter of his time, and this is one of his best known pictures. He turned to historical illustration as affording scope for an art which should reconcile the "classical" with the "romantic." He was the embodiment in the art of painting, as someone has put it, of Louis Philippe's maxim of the juste-milieu. To the same class with the present picture belong his "Death of Queen Elizabeth" (Louvre), "The Princes in the Tower" (familiar from engravings), and several works in the Wallace Collection. Ruskin, while not enamoured of his pictures (see Fors Clavigera, Letter 35), allows that his "honest effort to grasp the reality of conceived scenes" compares favourably with "the deathful formalism and fallacy of what was once called 'Historical Art,'" and that his kindly-meant talent has "contributed greatly to the instruction of innumerable households" (Works, vol. xix. pp. 50, 205). Théophile Gautier, more contemptuously, described Delaroche's art as that of "historical illustration for the family use of the bourgeoisie," and the vogue which it enjoyed all over Europe set the fashion for what became a prevailing style of "stage-dramatic representation" in painting. In 1833 (the date on our picture) Delaroche was appointed a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, and from 1837-1841 he was engaged upon the principal work of his life, the decoration of the amphitheatre of that school—the idea of his design being an assemblage of the chiefs of the arts in past ages to witness the triumphs of the labourers in his own age. He was assisted in this colossal work by many pupils; among them was Edward Armitage, R. A. (see vol. ii. No. 759), who has given an interesting account of the manner of their co-operation (see Report of the Commissioners on the Royal Academy, 1863, p. 64). The "Hemicycle" was much damaged by fire in 1853, and was restored after the death of Delaroche by Robert Henry.

The scene is in the Tower, February 12, 1554. Lady Jane Grey, condemned for treason, has been blindfolded, and is being led to the block by the Lieutenant of the Tower.

1914. A ROYAL CHÂTEAU IN HOLLAND.

1915. A DUTCH CHURCH AND MARKET PLACE.

Jan van der Heyden (Dutch: 1637-1712). See 866.

The château in the former picture is "The House in the Wood" (Huis ten Bosch), built in 1647, in which the first Peace Conference was held at The Hague.

1917. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

Jan Both (Dutch: 1610-1662). See 71.

A fine example of the "soft golden tones" noted in our account of Both as characteristic of his best works.

1918. MARKET PLACE AT THE HAGUE.

Paul Constantin La Fargue (Dutch: died 1782).

The work of an artist (best known by his drawings and etchings) who painted many small pictures of his native city, The Hague.

A scene in the Groén Market; the tower of the Groote Kerk in the background.

1925. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Lucas Cranach (German: 1472-1553). See 291.

Upon the shield to the left is the painter's crest, as in No. 291; with the date 1524. The head is fine and full of character; the hands are less successful.

1930. PORTRAIT OF A LADY AS ST. MARGARET.

Francisco Zurbaran (Spanish: 1598-1662). See 230.

Zurbaran, it has been said, was "a great though not a professed, portrait painter." The lady is St. Margaret only in virtue of the dragon, the emblem of the saint; otherwise this is a portrait of a young lady in a fanciful country costume.

1937. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Bartholomeus van der Helst (Dutch: 1611-1670). See 140.

This picture, said to be a portrait of a lady of the house of Braganza, was formerly in the collection of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill. It is signed, and dated 1645. The "careful finish," which Sir Joshua Reynolds commended in the work of Van der Helst, may be well studied here in the rich and beautiful costume and jewellery.

1938. PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER.

Albrecht Dürer (German: 1471-1528).

The acquisition of this picture adds to the Gallery a fine example of the great artist, who in all the characteristics of his art is the central representative of the German spirit,—"its combination of the wild and rugged with the homely and the tender, its meditative depth, its enigmatic gloom, its sincerity and energy, its iron diligence and discipline." The range of his powers is shown not only in his works that survive, but in the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. When he went to Venice they "praised his beautiful colouring," Bellini honoured him with his friendship, "and he was everywhere treated," so he wrote, "as a gentleman." Raphael sent him some drawings, on one of which this note in Dürer's handwriting may still be seen: "Raphael of Urbino, who has been so highly esteemed by the Pope, drew these naked figures, and sent them to Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg to show him his hand." He was a writer as well as an artist. "Painting," said Melanchthon, "was the least of his accomplishments"; whilst of his personal qualities Luther bore testimony when he wrote: "As for Dürer, assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the best of men.... May he rest in peace with his fathers: Amen!"

He was born at Nuremberg—the son of a goldsmith and the third of eighteen children—and Albert of Nuremberg he remained to the end—the painter of a city distinguished for its "self-restrained, contented, quaint domesticity." His first training was from his father in the goldsmith's trade; next, when fifteen, he was apprenticed for three and a half years to Wohlgemuth, the chief painter of the town; and lastly came his Wanderjahre, a long course of travel and study in foreign lands. In 1494 he settled down at Nuremberg, and there, with the exception of a visit to Venice in 1505-1506 (see p. 190 n.), and to the Netherlands in 1520-1521, he passed the remainder of his life in the busy and honoured exercise of the various branches of his art. He had married, at the age of twenty-three, a well-to-do merchant's daughter. The stories which have long passed current with regard to her being imperious, avaricious, and fretful, have been entirely discredited on closer knowledge of the facts. The marriage was childless, but husband and wife lived throughout on terms both of affection and companionship. As for examples of Dürer's work, the widely-spread prints of the "Knight and Death" and the "Melancholia" give the best idea of his powers of imagination; while in actual specimens of his handiwork in drawing, the British Museum is the second richest collection in the world.

The best commentary on this picture is the description of his father which Dürer wrote in a history of his family:—

"My dear father became a goldsmith, a pure and skilful man. He passed his life in great toil and stern, hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his hand for himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had little enough. He underwent, moreover, manifold afflictions, trials, and adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived an honourable, Christian life; was a man patient of spirit, mild and peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had little need of company and worldly pleasures: he was also of few words, and was a God-fearing man. This my dear father was very careful with his children to bring them up in the fear of God; for it was his highest wish to train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both of God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we should love God and deal truly with our neighbours."

It is just such a man that the painter here sets before us. "The face is pathetic with the deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of labour and sorrow. Yet as he stands there, so quietly, for his son to paint him, there is just a trace of pleasure and pride lurking in the kind old face" (Conway's Literary Remains of Dürer, p. 35). An inscription on the top of the panel records that it was painted in 1497, when the father was seventy and the son twenty-six. There are three other versions of the picture—at Munich, Frankfort, and Syon House respectively, and the question which is the original has been much disputed. The present picture (exhibited at the Old Masters, 1903) was bought, with No. 1937, for £10,000 from the Marquis of Northampton.

1939. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

French School (15th century).

A little picture almost as delicately wrought as an illuminated page in a missal. The donor is kneeling in the door of the Gothic chapel. The Virgin and Child are in "a garden enclosed," where columbines spring up at her feet; at the top of the picture are two small figures of St Michael driving out Satan.

1944. "PORTRAIT OF ARIOSTO."

Titian (Venetian: 1477-1576). See 4.

This superb portrait, though traditionally called "Ariosto," bears no resemblance to the poet. It is the picture of an Italian aristocrat of the Renaissance that the painter sets before us; of a man refined and luxurious, unimpassioned, and somewhat cynical. Immortalised by art, he looks out upon us with a somewhat scornful glance; the handsome head is one of those thoroughly individualised representations which, once studied, fix themselves indelibly in the memory. Sober and yet sumptuous in colour, the picture is enveloped in a luminous haze; and the costume, with the quilted sleeve of steely grey, is a masterpiece of technique.

The picture, which is signed on the parapet Titianus V. (with another V. at the further end of the parapet), belongs to Titian's earlier period, when he was under the influence of Giorgione, to which master indeed it is sometimes attributed.[256] There are several versions of the picture, including one in Lord Rosebery's collection at Mentmore.[257] The present picture (Old Masters, 1895) was bought by Sir George Donaldson from Cobham Hall (Lord Darnley) for £30,000, and sold by him for the same price to the nation; a portion of the sum (£9000) being contributed by Mr. W. W. Astor, Mr. Alfred Beit, Lord Burton, Lord Iveagh, Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and Lady Wantage.

1951. PORTRAIT OF DR. PERAL.

Francisco Goya (Spanish: 1746-1828). See 1471.

"Perhaps as good an example as could be found of the brilliancy and execution and vivid portrayal of character which characterise this artist at his best" (Official Catalogue).

1952. MR. AND MRS. EDWIN EDWARDS.

Henri Fantin-Latour (French: 1836-1904). See 1686.

A fine example of this artist's portraiture, representing old friends of the French painter, with whom he stayed when in this country. Mr. Edwards, landscape painter in water-colours and etcher (1823-1879), is examining a print with an expert's eye. His wife, perhaps less happily posed (because seemingly disconnected with the other figure), looks out at the spectator with her arms folded. Mrs. Edwards who presented this picture to the nation in 1904 died in 1907. "Nearly every one of Fantin-Latour's pictures in this country passed through her hands, and have her private marks, by which she was able to identify them after a lapse of many years."

1953. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Lazzaro Bastiani (Venetian: about 1425-1512). See 750.

In the background is the festoon of fruit, familiar to us in Crivelli's pictures.

1969. A GREEK CAPTIVE.

Henriette Browne (French: 1829-1901).

2057. VENUS WITH THE MIRROR.

Velazquez (Spanish: 1599-1660). See 197.

This celebrated picture—commonly called "Venus and Cupid," but known in Spain as the "Venus del Espejo"—is one of the master's rare studies of the nude, and it is characteristic of his genius. The subject is professedly mythological, but Velazquez seeks no adventitious interest from legendary association or idealistic grace. Here, as everywhere, his standpoint is frankly realistic, whilst the work is saved from commonness by purity of colour and sincerity of artistic purpose. It has been truly said that the flesh-painting here makes many another picture in the Gallery look lifeless and unreal. The face of "Venus" in the mirror—with broad features enframed in plainly dressed hair—does not realise the promise of the pretty outline of the head with the brown hair tied in a knot; and it has been suggested (by Dr. Justi) that "perhaps the damsel did not wish to be recognised." However this may be, the very plainness of the face emphasises the artist's intention. The picturesqueness of the outline and modulations of the back in a youthful female figure was the artistic effect which he set himself to render.

The history of the picture is well authenticated.[258] It was painted about 1650, and passed into the possession of the Duke of Alba on his marriage in 1688 with Doña Catalina de Haro of Guzmom, Condessa-Duquesa de Olivares, the picture forming part of her dowry. It is mentioned in an inventory of the paintings belonging to her family as "a Venus of life size reclining nude with a child who holds up for her a mirror into which she gazes. This picture is an original work by Don Diego Velazquez." In an account of the Duke of Alba's palace in 1776 it is described as "the very celebrated Venus depicted from the back, in the reclining posture, with her face reflected in a mirror towards which she directs her gaze." Subsequently the picture became the property of the Spanish statesmen, Godoy. In 1808 it was sold and brought to this country; and purchased through Mr. Buchanan for the sum of £500, by Mr. Morritt, the friend of Sir Walter Scott. It became an heirloom in Mr. Morritt's family at Rokeby Hall, Teesdale. "Twice," says Dr. Justi in his life of Velazquez, "in 1879 and 1885 I had the privilege of seeing it there and convincing myself of its faultless preservation and the original brilliancy and freshness of its colour." It was exhibited in 1857 among the "Art Treasures" at Manchester and in 1890 at the "Old Masters." It was ultimately sold under an order of the Court of Chancery, the price obtained being £30,500. It passed into the hands of Messrs. Agnew, and its sale out of this country was believed to be imminent when the National Art Collections Fund came to the rescue and raised by subscription the amount now necessary for its purchase.

The sum paid was £45,000,[259] and the picture was presented by the Fund to the nation.

2058. SUNNY DAYS IN THE FOREST.

Diaz (French: 1809-1876).

Narciso Virgilio Diaz de la Peña, one of the members of "the Barbizon School" (see p. 698), was born, of Spanish extraction, at Bordeaux. Left an orphan at the age of ten, he was adopted by a Protestant clergyman, living at Bellevue, near Sèvres. He was of a truant disposition, and sleeping once upon the grass in the woods he was bitten by a viper; the accident cost him his left leg, and he had to go through life with a wooden one, which he called his pilon. In after years, when his pictures were rejected at the Salon, he would make a hole in the canvas with his wooden leg, saying with a laugh "what's the use of being rich? I can't have my pilon set in diamonds." His early years were of uncertain fortune, spent in earning a precarious living, sometimes as a painter on china at Sèvres, sometimes as an errand-boy in the streets. But he had confidence in his talent, and gradually found a market for his pictures. These were at first of figures, flowers, or other genre. A meeting in 1830 with Théodore Rousseau sent him to Fontainebleau and nature. For Rousseau, he entertained the most profound admiration, the story of "the toast of Diaz," is well known. Diaz had been preferred to Rousseau in admission to the Legion of Honour. In attending a dinner given in 1851 to the new officiers, Diaz rose and invited the company to drink "À Rousseau, notre maître oublié!" Of his figure-subjects, one of the best "La Fée aux Perles" is in the Louvre, but it is on his landscapes that his fame chiefly rests. "Go into the forest," it has been said, "lose yourself among its trees, and you can only say 'À Diaz'." To him, however, the forest was not, as to some others of the school, or as to Ruysdael, sombre or serious. It was a keyboard on which to play colour-fantasies. "You paint stinging-nettles," he said to Millet, "I prefer roses." "Pearls," said Théophile Gautier of his pictures, "brilliant as precious stones, prismatic gems and rainbow jewels." His pictures have been called not so much landscapes, as "tree-scapes." "Have you seen my last stem?" he used to say himself to his visitors. But it was the play of sunlight on the stems that he chiefly loved. Diaz is the colourist of the Barbizon School.

The acquisition of this sparkling little picture of a glade in the forest of Fontainebleau, lit by the afternoon sun, marked somewhat of an era in the history of the National Gallery. It was the first illustration on its walls of the modern French school of landscape.

2062. CHRIST TEACHING FROM ST. PETER'S SHIP.

Herman Saftleven (Dutch: 1609-1685).

This painter, whose landscapes were praised by connoisseurs of the time as "distinguished by great care and accuracy," was born at Rotterdam, was a pupil of Jan van Goyen, and worked chiefly at Rotterdam and Utrecht. He painted many views on the Rhine and Maas; and one of the former, in the Dulwich Gallery, dated 1656, is among his best works.

The scene is the Lake of Gennesaret; the people are assembled on the shore to hear the words of Christ who is seated in St. Peter's ship (Luke v. 1-3).

2069. THE "MADONNA OF THE TOWER."

Raphael (Urbino: 1483-1520). See 1171.

This picture is attributed to the earlier portion of Raphael's "Roman period" (see p. 569); to about the same time, that is, as that of the "Garvagh Madonna" (No. 744). It takes its commonly accepted name from the small tower which may be seen in the distance of the landscape background; it is sometimes referred to as "The Madonna with the Standing Child," or "The Virgin with the Downcast Eyes," or "The Rogers Madonna." It is painted on canvas, and has suffered much from accident and repainting; but the feeling of the picture is thoroughly Raphaelesque in purity of colour and charm of expression. The mother's face is full of affection, sweet and yet serious; while the Child looks out of the canvas, "as if unconscious of all but the joy of the moment."

The picture was formerly in the Orleans collection, whence it was purchased by Mr. Willett in 1792 for £150. It next passed into the collection of Mr. Henry Hope, at whose sale in 1816 it was bought for 59 guineas by Samuel Rogers, the poet. "In the atmosphere of St. James's Place," says a chronicler of the works from the Orleans Collection which passed into the possession of Rogers, "they may safely be said to have been worshipped with a purer incense than they ever received before. We may be pardoned for recalling a few of them. Foremost was a Raphael, one of the master's sweetest compositions, the Child standing with one foot on his mother's hand. It had been reduced by ruthless rubbings to a mere shadow, but the beauty was ineffaceable: hanging—how well remembered!—in the best light on the left-hand wall in the drawing-room. Then two glorious Titians—one of them, Christ appearing to the Magdalene" (Quarterly Review, Oct. 1888). The picture last mentioned is also now in the National Gallery (No. 270) which possesses further from his collection, Nos. 269, 271, 276, 279. At his sale in 1856 the Raphael was bought for 480 guineas by Mr. R. J. Mackintosh, son of the historian, who exhibited it at Manchester in the Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857; it was also shown at the Old Masters in 1902. From him it passed to Miss Eva Mackintosh who has now (1906) presented it to the nation. In the British Museum there is a cartoon of the picture.

2078. THE HARBOUR OF TROUVILLE.

Louis Eugène Boudin (French: 1825-1898).

A view from within the harbour looking out to the open sea "between the piers." Signed and dated "E. Boudin, '88," with the title on the back in the artist's handwriting, "Entre les jetées, Trouville." This picture by a fine sea-painter was presented by the National Art Collections Fund.

2081. LULLI AND HIS FELLOW MUSICIANS AT THE FRENCH COURT.

Hyacinthe Rigaud (French, 1659-1743). See 903.

Jean Baptiste de Lulli (or Lully) was the celebrated composer (1633-1687) for whose music Louis XIV. had a great predilection. For him the King created a new company of musicians called Les Petits Violons or La Bande des Seize. Lulli composed also the incidental music for Molière's plays. The portraits of Lulli, says a contemporary, are fairly like him, but he was smaller and stouter than they show.

2082. A FLORENTINE LADY; on the reverse, A SYMBOLIC ANGEL.

School of Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510). See 1034.

The portrait is supposed to represent the unknown artist's wife; the angel holds an armillary sphere.

2083. PORTRAIT OF DR. BATTISTA FIERA.

Lorenzo Costa (Ferrarese: 1460-1535). See 629.

The portrait, "warts and all," of a theologian, physician, and poet of Mantua. So he is described under the engraving of this picture, which is the frontispiece to a book published at Padua in 1649 and entitled Baptistae Fierae Mantuani Medici sua aetate clarissimi Coena notis illustrata a Carolo Avantio Rhodigino. The portrait, a chef d'œuvre of a painter whose portraits are rare, was shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894.

2084. A YOUNG MAN IN BLACK.

Florentine School.

"This picture has been attributed to Piero Pollajuolo and to the painter known as 'Amico di Sandro'" (National Gallery Report, 1906).

2085. BIANCA CAPELLO.

School of Bronzino (Florentine: 1502-1572). See 649.

2086. THE GATE WITH A ROUND TOWER.

2087. A PASTORAL LANDSCAPE.

Francesco Zuccarelli (Florentine: 1702-1788).

This painter of decorative landscape was much employed in England, and during a sojourn here from 1752 to 1773 he became one of the foundation members of our Royal Academy.

2088. CHRIST TEACHING.

Bernardino Luini (Lombard: about 1475-1533). See 18.

The face, attitude, and design are the same as in the Christ of No. 18; but the beautiful expression is absent.

2089. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Lombard School: 16th century.

Fresco on plaster; not unlike the work of Beltraffio.

2090, 2091. ANGELS.

Moretto (Brescian: 1498-1555). See 299.

Companion figures, with wreaths of roses, inscribed (on the first) Ave Regina, (on the second) Coelorum.

2092, 2093. ST. JOSEPH AND ST. JEROME.

Moretto (Brescian: 1498-1555). See 299.

2094. IL CAVALIERE.

Moroni (Bergamese: 1525-1578). See 697.

2095. A MAN IN BLACK.

Alvise Vivarini (Venetian: painted 1461-1503). See 1872.

A fine portrait, hitherto attributed to Antonello da Messina, but now assigned to Vivarini, on the analogy of similar busts attributed by Mr. Berenson to that painter.

2096. THE MAN WITH A BEARD.

Romanino (Brescian: about 1485-1566). See 297.

2097. THE LADY WITH THE CARNATIONS.

Paris Bordone (Venetian: 1500-1570). See 637.

2098. S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE.

2099. THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE

Francesco Guardi (Venetian: 1712-1793). See 210.

Excellent examples of the best manner of this painter.

2100. THE MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK I.

Tiepolo (Venetian: 1692-1769). See 1192, 1193.

It is mentioned in the account of Tiepolo (under Nos. 1192, 1193) that he executed wall-decorations in the Royal Palace, formerly the episcopal residence, at Wurzburg. The present picture is almost the same in composition as one of those. The subject—the marriage of Frederick Barbarossa in 1156, to Beatrix, daughter of the Count of Burgundy—lends itself well to Tiepolo's "feeling for splendour," and swift mastery of decorative effect. The Imperial banner, emblazoned with the black eagle, is borne by a warrior. The bishops of Wurzburg were princes of the Empire.

2101. ESTHER AT THE THRONE OF AHASUERUS.

Sebastiano Ricci (Venetian: 1659-1734). See 857.

An illustration of the Book of Esther (xv. 7-16); "Then lifting up his countenance that shone with majesty, he looked very fiercely upon her, and the queen fell down and was pale and fainted," etc.

2102, 2103. TOWN AND RIVER SCENES.

Jacopo Marieschi (Venetian: 1711-1794).

By this painter, an imitator of Canaletto, two views of Venice were bought by the National Gallery from the Beauconsin Collection, but they were consigned to the National Gallery of Dublin.

2104. A MAN WITH A WIDE COLLAR.

Enrico Fiammingo.

This painter of whom little is known, was a follower of Spagnoletto and Guido.

2105. A MAN WITH A POINTED BEARD.

Annibale Carracci (Bolognese: 1560-1609). See 9.

2106. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.

Benedetto Gennari (Bolognese: 1633-1715).

The artist was the nephew and scholar of Guercino. He came to England in 1674, and was for some time in the service of Charles II. and James II. "I once saw," says Lanzi, "a Bathsheba of Guercino, along with a copy by one of the Gennari. The former appeared as if newly painted at the time, and the latter as if many years previously, such was its inferiority in strength of hand.... Benedetto subsequently formed for himself a style in England, more polished and careful, and exemplified it more particularly in his portraits."

2107. HAGAR IN THE DESERT.

Salvator Rosa (Neapolitan: 1615-1673). See 84.

2118. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Giovanni Francesco da Rimini (Umbrian: dated 1406).

2127. PORTRAIT OF THE MARCHESE GIOVANNI BATTISTA CATTANEO.

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

It has been said in our notice of Van Dyck that many of his best works are to be seen in Genoa. Two of the portraits made during his "Genoese period" are now in our Gallery; having found their way to Paris and thence to England from the palace of the Marchese Cattaneo in Genoa, and having been bought by the Trustees from Messrs. Colnaghi. The price paid for the picture before us was £13,500. The portrait has not the pathetic charm of the "Gevartius" (52), to which it now forms a pendant; but in strength and vitality it is one of the painter's masterpieces. The Marchese lives before us, instinct with nervous energy; seeming, as has been well said, "at once to interrogate the spectator, and haughtily to repel interrogation."

2129. UNE PARADE.

Gabriel Jacques de Saint Aubin (French: 1724-1780).

A pupil of Boucher; painter, first of heroic and then of domestic subjects; also an etcher.

Spectators watching a turn with the foils by two mountebanks.

2130. THE WATER LANE.

Jan Siberechts (Flemish: 1627-1703).

It is very fitting that this painter, whose works in Continental galleries are rare, should be represented in ours; for it was the Duke of Buckingham, who brought him into vogue. Passing through Antwerp, the Duke was attracted by his work, and took him in his train to England, where, according to Walpole, he was much employed by the aristocracy. "Among the landscapes of the Flemish school," says an enthusiastic critic (A. J. Wauters), "there is not one of whom we think more highly. If his colouring lacks the brilliancy and the soft transparency of the tones of Rubens, it offers others both rare and unexpected at a time when the Flemish landscape was yet enslaved by conventional laws. Sieberechts boldly met the difficulties offered by open-air scenes and foreshadowed the daring colouring attempted by modern realism. His landscapes are true pastorals. He understood the art of giving his farm-girls and hinds real attitudes, taken from life; and how to make the various hues of vermilion and silver, blue and yellow of their costumes harmonise boldly together, which makes his works so charming, and gives them such a free and entirely personal character."

2133, 2134. "ROSES" AND "APPLES."

Henri Fantin-Latour (French: 1836-1904). See 1686.

2135. THE MARSH OF ARLEUX-DU-NORD.

J. B. C. Corot (French: 1796-1875).

Corot is one of those original painters who bring new aspects of nature and modes of beauty into ken. He is usually classed with the Barbizon School (see p. 691), but he stands alone with a peculiarly subtle and individual note of his own. "Rousseau," he once said, "is an eagle; I am only a lark." His mood, though often tinged with melancholy, is tender, and delicate; what he loved was not the grandiose in form or colour, but rather all that was glimmering, uncertain, evanescent—such as the "shade by the light quivering aspen made," or delicate effects, at early dawn, or in moonlight. To read his letter on "the day of a landscapist"[260] is the best introduction to his art. "One rises early, at three o'clock in the morning before the sun is up, one goes and sits down at the foot of a tree, one looks and waits; he does not see much at first. Nature resembles a white tablecloth, where he can hardly distinguish the profiles of some of the masses. Everything is scented, everything trembles with the fresh breeze of the dawn." And then, again, when the sun has set: "Bien! bien! twilight commences. There is now in the sky only that soft vaporous colour of pale citron. One is losing sight of everything, but one still feels that everything is there. The birds, those voices of the flowers, say their evening prayer, the dew scatters pearls upon the grass, the nymphs fly ... everything is again darkened; the pond alone glitters. Good, there is my picture completed." It was only gradually that Corot reached the style upon which his fame rests. He was born in Paris of humble parents, and served for some years in a draper's shop. He was twenty-two before he was able to follow his artistic bent. He made the usual classical tour to Italy, and it was not till 1843 that he began to reveal the characteristic charm which he had found in French landscape. He painted what few eyes are wont to see and had to create the taste by which he was to be admired. But affluence came to him, and he gave as readily as he received. Many stories are told of his benevolence, and the love which he inspired is recorded in the title, "le père Corot," by which he was called. As a mark of their esteem his fellow-artists presented him with a gold medal shortly before his death. His last words were characteristic of his art and his life. It was his practice to sketch early and late in the open air, dreaming his pictures as he studied, and to "paint his dreams" in the studio. "Last night," he said as he lay on his death-bed, "I saw in a dream a landscape with a rosy sky; it will be marvellous to paint." He was seen to draw in the air with his fingers. "Mon Dieu" he said, "how beautiful that is; the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen." His old housekeeper offered to bring him his breakfast. He smiled and said, "To-day Père Corot will breakfast above."