Volume 1 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 11)

911. ULYSSES AND PENELOPE.

Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513). See 693.

Penelope was wife of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, whose wanderings after the Trojan war are told in Homer's "Odyssey," and shown in summary in the distance of this picture. Through the open window is seen the ship of Ulysses, with the hero bound to the mast; the sirens, whose coasts he passed unhurt, are sporting in the sea; and on an island near is the palace of Circe, who changed his companions into swine. In his absence Penelope was beset by many suitors, such as are here seen clad in joyous raiment, and was in sore straits to resist their importunity. But "some god put it into my heart to set up a great web in the halls, and thereat to weave a robe fine of woof and very wide; and-anon I spake among them, saying: 'Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe ... even this shroud for the hero Laertes, father of Odysseus, against the day when the deadly doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their length.' ... So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same" (xix. 138-150: Butcher and Lang's translation). And for the space of three years Penelope's web was still unwoven, and the suitors were deceived; but afterwards, when they chid her loudly, she finished the web, and could neither escape marriage nor devise any further counsel, for that her son too chafed while the suitors devoured his livelihood. But Ulysses then returned; he is now in the doorway just entering; and presently Penelope will take down her husband's bow—now hanging with a quiver of arrows above her head—which the suitors could not bend, but was bent by Ulysses.

The painter makes no attempt at archæological reconstruction; he gives us a picture of the costumes of his own day. This vivacious picture is a fresco transferred to canvas. It was painted in the Pandolfo Petrucci Palace at Siena, which also Signorelli's "Triumph of Chastity" once decorated (now 910 in our Gallery).

912, 913, 914. THE STORY OF GRISELDA.

Umbrian School: 15th-16th century.

On these three panels (formerly ascribed to Pinturicchio),[195] which were probably destined to serve as decorations to a chest, the story of Griselda is told with much naïve awkwardness of drawing, but also with much naïve playfulness of incident. The story, told in Boccaccio's Decameron, and by Petrarch, is also to be found in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale.

In the first picture (912) we see (1) on the extreme left the Marquis of Saluzzo, who is out hunting with a great retinue. He meets Griselda, a peasant girl, who is drawing water at the well, and falls in love with her. Next (2) on the extreme right is her humble barn-like dwelling, with the marquis serenading his love from below. (3) He carries her off with him; and note how Griselda, who is to be modest and humble to the end, hangs her head in "maiden shamefacedness." (4) Then the marquis has her attired in gold and fine linen, fit for a prince's bride. Her pattens and perhaps her garters are lying discarded beside her. And so (5), in the centre of the picture, all is ready for the wedding:

Before the second act (913) a few years are supposed to have elapsed. (1) On the left Griselda's two children—a boy and a girl—(in the likeness of two very wooden dolls) are being carried off, as if by a villain in a transpontine tragedy. They are supposed to have since died miserably. (2) The marquis tires of his love for Griselda, and is divorced: in the centre of the picture we see her giving back the wedding ring. (3) Then she is stripped of her fine clothes, and (4) sent away to her father's house, but

Two young gallants, in absurd attitudes, look on in half-pitying amusement, while nearer to us two serving-men are disgusted at the cruel shame. (5) On the extreme right she is at home again, tending, as before, her father's sheep.

In the last act (914), a grand banquet is prepared for the marquis's second wedding, and Griselda is sent for to the castle to do menial work. On the left we see her sweeping; on the right she is waiting at table. Then, on the left again, it is discovered that the marquis's new bride is none other than Griselda's long-lost daughter, accompanied by her brother. They had all the while been tended in a distant city with the utmost care. Griselda is thereupon affectionately embraced by her husband, publicly reinstated in her proper position, and presented to all the court as a model of wifely obedience and patience—

915. MARS AND VENUS.

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

So the picture is usually called—Mars, the God of War, asleep, and the young satyrs playing with his discarded armour, while one of them attempts to rouse him by blowing a shell. The subject is almost identical with that which Spenser draws in the Faërie Queene, where Sir Guyon, the Knight of Purity, overthrows the Bower of Bliss in which Acrasia (or Pleasure) dwells—the last and worst of Sir Guyon's trials, for "it is harder to fight against pleasure than against pain." Note especially the expression of the sleeping youth: he is overcome with brutish paralysis, and they cannot awaken him. Note also the swarm of hornets issuing from the tree-trunk by his head—significant of the power that sensual indulgence has of venomously wounding. Visitors who have been in Venice may remember similar details in Carpaccio's picture of St. George and the Dragon (J. R. Anderson in St. Mark's Rest, Second Supplement, p. 20).

Faërie Queene, bk. ii. 12, §§ lxxvii.-lxxx.

It has been suggested by Dr. Richter that the subject of the picture is not mythological, but an illustration of Angelo Poliziano's poem, "Stanze per la Giostra," "The Song of the Tournament," written in 1476 in glorification of Giuliano de' Medici, who had entered the lists in the preceding year, at the tournament given in honour of Simonetta Cattaneo. In this poem, Giuliano appears as a youth enamoured of the chase, and contemptuous of women. Cupid determines that he shall fall a prey to a pair of lovely eyes, and leads him to the presence of Simonetta. But night falls and Simonetta vanishes, whereupon Venus sends Giuliano a dream in which he is exhorted to enter the lists in honour of his lady-love. He foreknows that victory will crown his arms, and that love will reward his valour, but these joyful tidings are black with the shadow of death, for early in 1476 Simonetta died. According to Dr. Richter's interpretation, Giuliano in the picture before us lies sunk in deepest sleep. The little satyrs are whispering dreams into his ears, dreams from the realms of Venus. In his dreams, Giuliano is overcome with fear, because his lady is clad in the armour of Pallas: he cannot brook the gleam of her helmet and her lance. But Cupid whispers: "Lift thine eyes, Giuliano, to that flame which with its radiance blinds thee like a sun; for she it is who quickens noble minds, and from the breast all evil thoughts expels." He dreams again; a goddess comes to his aid leading him to battle and to victory. She divests his lady of the armour of Pallas, and leaves her robed in white (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 51). The poem[196] may thus be made to fit the picture. It may, however, be questioned whether the action of the little Cupids is not more appropriate to the accepted theory which sees in the armour the discarded weapons of a Mars or a knight, and Count Plunkett (Sandro Botticelli, pp. 44-5) refers to a passage in Lucian, with whose dialogues Botticelli was familiar. In describing a picture by Aëtion of the "Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana," Lucian describes how "on one side of it little Cupids play among Alexander's armour; two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the handles of a shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it ... and then another has got into the breastplate.... All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War."

916. VENUS WITH CUPIDS.

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

See also (p. xx)

The expression of melancholy characteristic of Botticelli's Madonnas is not absent from his heathen goddesses either. Notice also the roses—the painter's favourite flower (see 226). This picture is probably only a work of his school; the figure of the goddess is a not very successful repetition of the one in 915. The subject of the picture recalls the description of Simonetta in Poliziano's poem:—

Symonds's Translation.

920. ORPHEUS.

Roelandt Savery (Dutch: 1576-1639).

Savery, a painter of Courtrai, was instructed by his brother at Amsterdam. His works show the influence of Jan Breughel. He visited France in the reign of Henry IV., by whom he was employed in the royal palaces. He was subsequently invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II., in whose service he spent several years.

A not very poetical rendering of the poetical legend of the power of music:—

Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1.

923. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

Andrea Solario (Lombard: about 1460-1520). See 734.

This picture "was ascribed to Giovanni Bellini before it entered the National Gallery, and dilettanti might well mistake it for a work of Antonello da Messina. There seems to be little doubt that the picture was painted by Solario at Venice, where he went in 1490 in company of his brother.... The firmly drawn portrait of the senator, with its minutely executed landscape in the background, reveals plainly that he there became an ardent follower of Antonello" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 99).

924. A GOTHIC INTERIOR

Pieter Neeffs (Flemish: 1577-about 1661).

This eminent architectural painter belonged to a family of Antwerp artists. He was a pupil of Hendrick Steenwyck the elder. "He did for the Roman Catholic churches of Antwerp that which, thirty years later, and with greater talent, a more flowing brush, and a better understanding of chiaro-oscuro, Emmanuel de Witte (see 1053) was destined to do for the Protestant churches of Delft. Neeffs took special delight in the representation of night scenes, torchlight funeral services, and the like. Teniers and Velvet Breughel themselves often assisted him in these small canvases, thus bearing testimony to the high esteem in which Neeffs was held by his colleagues" (Wauters, The Flemish School, p. 342.)

A group of figures is inspecting a conspicuous Renaissance tomb. Notice the dogs among the visitors.

927. AN ANGEL ADORING.

Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.

Cardinal Newman.

This exquisite fragment once belonged to Sir Augustus Callcott, R.A.

928. APOLLO AND DAPHNE.

Ascribed to Pollajuolo (Florentine: 1429-1498). See 292.

The Greeks, seeing the perpetual verdure of the laurel, personified it in the story of Apollo and Daphne (= laurel), which told how the sun-god was enamoured of her. But she, praying to be delivered from his pursuit, was changed by the gods into a laurel—her two arms are here sprouting, just as the god has caught her in his embrace; and he, crowning his head with the leaves, ordained that the tree should for ever bloom and be sacred to his divinity (see further for the story of Apollo and Daphne under 520). The fact that Phœbus Apollo was also the god of song has suggested a pretty adaptation of the legend to the case of poets who sing for love and earn the laurel wreath—

Waller.

929. THE "BRIDGEWATER MADONNA."

Copy after Raphael. See under 1171.

This is an ancient copy, probably by a Flemish painter, of the original, which is in the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. It belongs to Raphael's second or Florentine period, and its exquisite grace has caused it to be known by some writers as "La Plus Belle des Vierges."

930. THE GARDEN OF LOVE.

School of Giorgione (Venetian: 16th century). See 269.

Certainly not by Giorgione,[197] but a characteristic example of a class of composition of which, as we have seen, he was the inventor—one of those Venetian pastorals in which young men and women "disport in the open air, amuse themselves at random" (Asolando).

931. THE MAGDALEN.

Paolo Veronese (Veronese: 1528-1588). See 26.

The Magdalen—she who had sinned much, but who was forgiven because she loved much—is represented at the Saviour's feet, laying aside her jewels, and thus renouncing the vanities of the world.

932. A KNIGHT OF MALTA.

Unknown (Italian: 16th century).

Formerly ascribed to Sebastiano del Piombo.

933. BOY WITH A BIRD.

Padovanino (Venetian: 1590-1650). See 70.

Contrast with this child caressing a dove Baroccio's Christ teasing a bird. Padovanino lived much at Venice, and shared perhaps the Venetian's fondness for pigeons—the sacred birds of St. Mark's, which are kept and fed in the great square to this day at the public charge.

934. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Carlo Dolci (Florentine: 1616-1686).

Carlo Dolci, the son of a Florentine tailor, is, like his contemporary Sassoferrato, a good instance of the affected religious school described in our introduction to the Later Italian Schools. He was of a very retiring and pious disposition, much given, we are told, to melancholy. Every one who looks first at the pictures of similar subjects by earlier Italian artists will be struck by something sentimental and effeminate in Dolci's conceptions. Similarly in his execution there is an over-smoothness and softness, corresponding to "polished" language in literature (see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. ix. § 7). In the Dulwich Gallery is a St. Catherine of Siena which is one of Dolci's chefs d'œuvre.

935. A RIVER SCENE.

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

936. THE FARNESE THEATRE, PARMA.

Ferdinando Bibiena (Bolognese: 1657-1743).

Ferdinando Galli, called Bibiena, was one of a family of artists who came from a place of that name in the Bolognese State. He was a celebrated architect and scenic artist. He was engaged at many of the European courts in the arrangement of state pageants. He executed several works for Ranuccio Farnese, Duke of Parma. His architectural and perspective views are to be seen in the principal galleries in Italy. In these the figures are usually painted by his brother Francesco. Ferdinando, who published several works on architecture, became blind in his old age.

A scene in the theatre with Othello being played. The pit is unseated; it is a kind of "promenade play."

937. VENICE: SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO.

Canaletto[198] (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

The principal building is the Scuola of the religious fraternity of St. Roch—"an interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing into Roman Renaissance," and, "as regards the pictures it contains (by Tintoret), one of the three most precious buildings in Italy" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). From the adjoining Church of St. Roch, the Holy Thursday procession of the Doges and Officers of State, together with the members of the Fraternity, is advancing under an awning on its way to St. Mark's. Notice the carpets hung out of the windows—a standing feature, this, in Venetian gala decorations from very early times (see, for instance, No. 739).[199] Notice, also, the pictures displayed in the open air—a feature which well illustrates the difference between the later "easel pictures" and the earlier pictures intended to serve as architectural decorations. "A glance at this picture is sufficient to show how utterly the ordinary oil painting fails when employed as an architectural embellishment. Pictures which were to adorn and form part of a building had to consist of figures, separated one from another, all standing in simple and restful attitudes, and all plainly relieved against a light ground" (Conway: Early Flemish Artists, p. 270). Apart from one of the conditions of early art thus suggested, the picture is interesting as showing how in the eighteenth century in Italy, as in the thirteenth, art was part and parcel of the life of the people. Cimabue's pictures were carried in procession; and here in Canaletto's we see Venetian "old masters" hung out to assist in the popular rejoicing.

938. VENICE: REGATTA ON THE GRAND CANAL.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

A state regatta—a pastime which owes its origin to Venice—in honour of the visit to the city of the King of Denmark in 1709. In the centre of the canal are the gondoliers, racing; to the sides are moored the spectators, the gala barges of the nobles conspicuous amongst them. The variegated building on the left is a temporary pavilion for the distribution of prizes. These regattas at Venice took the place of our royal processions here. "Wherever the eye turned, it beheld a vast multitude at doorways, on the quays, and even on the roofs. Some of the spectators occupied scaffoldings erected at favourable points along the sides of the canal; and the patrician ladies did not disdain to leave their palaces, and, entering their gondolas, lose themselves among the infinite number of the boats" (Feste Veneziane: quoted in Howells's Venetian Life, ii. 69). Another custom in which we have begun to imitate the Venetians, and which may be seen in this picture, is that of hanging out carpets and stuffs by way of decorations. "The windows and balconies," says the same account, "were decked with damasks, stuffs of the Levant, tapestries, and velvets;" a very old Venetian custom: see under 937.

939, 940. VENICE: THE PIAZZETTA, AND THE DUCAL PALACE.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

Canaletto's representation of the central spot of Venice. In 939 is the Piazzetta, the little Piazza or square, in front the church of St. Mark, with its bell towers; on the left are the mint and library; on the right is the ducal palace. This appears again in 940, with the famous column of St. Mark, patron saint of Venice, while beyond it is the Ponte della Paglia, the prisons, and the Riva degli Schiavoni.

941. VENICE: THE GRIMANI PALACE.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

This palace, situated on the Grand Canal and used until lately as the post-office, was built in the sixteenth century by San Micheli, and is "the principal type at Venice, and one of the best in Europe, of the central architecture of the Renaissance schools—that carefully studied and perfectly executed architecture to which those schools owe their principal claim to our respect, and which became the model of most of the important works subsequently produced by civilised nations.... It is composed of three stories of the Corinthian order (i.e. in which the ornament is concave, distinguished from Doric, in which it is convex), at once simple, delicate, and sublime; but on so colossal a scale that the three-storied palaces on its right and left only reach to the cornice which marks the level of its first floor" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. ii. §§ 1, 2). Buildings in the same style in London are St. Paul's and Whitehall.

942. ETON COLLEGE.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See under 127.

Painted during the artist's first English visit, 1746-1748, perhaps in the same year (1747) that Gray published his well-known ode—

943. A PORTRAIT.

Unknown (Early Flemish: 15th century).

See also (p. xx)

This portrait, which is dated 1462, was formerly supposed to be Memlinc's portrait of himself, in the costume of the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, but is now called by others Bouts's own portrait. "It is," says Sir W. Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 28), "pretty surely the work of Dirck Bouts. Compare it with the Madonna numbered 774, and ascribed to Van der Goes. In conception, in chord of colour, in technical manner, the similarity is so complete between them as to leave room, in my mind, for very little doubt as to the identity of their authors. And this Madonna is by Dirck Bouts, as no one who has examined his 'Last Supper' in the Church of St. Pierre at Louvain can doubt.... Sir Martin Conway, who was the first, I fancy, to recognise Bouts in all three of these pictures, drew my attention to a curious peculiarity of his: he goes out of his way to paint hands. In his 'Last Supper' many hands are displayed that might quite naturally have been hidden, and we find the same thing in this portrait." Whether of Memlinc or of Bouts, the face bespeaks a gentle, humble, pious, laborious soul. The painting of the hair is especially remarkable. It is touched with the utmost minuteness, and yet the silky, flowing texture is conveyed with the utmost freedom. This picture was formerly in the possession of Samuel Rogers.

944. TWO USURERS.

Marinus van Romerswael (Flemish: about 1497-1573).

Marinus of Romerswael (his birthplace), also called "de Zeeuw" (the Zeelander), was fond of this subject, the composition of which he seems to have borrowed from Quentin Metsys, by whom also similar pictures are common. In early life Marinus was apprenticed to a glass-painter at Antwerp. Nothing is known of his later life till towards its close, when he was residing at Middelburg. "There, in 1566, in an iconoclastic outburst of the populace, the churches of the town were wrecked; and Marinus was accused before the tribunals of taking part in the spoliation of the Westmonsterkerk. Being held guilty, he was condemned on the 25th of June 1567 to perform an ignominious public penance and to be banished from Middelburg for the space of six years. An aged man then, he can scarcely have survived his term of exile" (see authorities cited in the Official Catalogue).

One inserts items in a ledger; the other puzzles over the particulars of some business transaction. It is a powerful realisation of what Ruskin calls the New Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciless, for they shall obtain money." "The picture is remarkable," says Sir Edward Poynter, "not only for its marvellous finish, and the energy of the expressions, but for its luminous quality and the purity of the colour."

945. ST. AGNES ADORING.

Joachim Patinir (Early Flemish: died 1524). See 715.

St. Agnes, the young martyr virgin,—attired as a

kneels before the infant Christ, "for knowest thou not that Agnes has been a Christian from her infancy upwards, and the husband to whom she is betrothed is no other than Jesus Christ?" The infant Christ holds a coral rosary in his hand, for he would crown her with jewels compared with which all earthly gifts are as dross. "It chanced that the son of the prefect of Rome beheld her one day as he rode through the city, and became violently enamoured, and desired to have her for his wife. He asked her in marriage of her parents, but the maiden repelled all his advances. Then he brought rich presents, bracelets of gold and gems, and rare jewels and precious ornaments, and promised her all the delights of the world if she would consent to be his wife. But she rejected him and his gifts, saying, Away from me, tempter! for I am already betrothed to a lover who is greater and fairer than any earthly suitor. To him I have pledged my faith, and he will crown me with jewels, compared to which thy gifts are dross" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 356.)

946. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

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

On the back of this picture is the brand of Charles I., a crown with C. R.

947. A PORTRAIT.

Unknown (Flemish School).

Formerly hung with the French pictures. Now ascribed to the Flemish School of the 15th or early 16th century.

948. LANDSCAPE: A SKETCH.

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

949. LANDSCAPE WITH GIPSIES.

950. VILLAGE GOSSIPS.

951. THE GAME OF BOWLS.

David Teniers, the elder (Flemish: 1582-1649).

This artist is less memorable for his own works, which are mediocre, than as the founder of a family of painters (see Wauters: The Flemish School, p. 299), and the father of the celebrated David Teniers (the younger). He was a member of the Antwerp Guild of Painters, but spent ten years at Rome, where he came under the influence of Adam Elsheimer. The elder Teniers was the master of his son, who carried on his style, so that it is not always easy to distinguish their several pictures. In their own time father and son were equally appreciated. There is a large number of works by the elder Teniers in the Dulwich Gallery. On the whole they are browner in tone than those of the younger painter.

952. "THE VILLAGE FÊTE."

David Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

So the picture is usually called, but the subject seems rather to be a pilgrimage to some holy shrine or miraculous well. A cross is seen on the right; the priest in charge of the pilgrimage stands somewhat lower down; on the left is a man selling little memorial flags with crosses on them. The hungry travellers are waiting for the meal which is being prepared for them in several huge cauldrons. The town of Antwerp is seen in the distance. This picture, dated 1643, is among the best works of Teniers, and includes 150 figures. "Truth in physiognomy, distribution of groups, the beautiful effect of light and shade, command," says Hymans, "our warmest admiration." In the foreground are Teniers and his party, with his little boy leading a greyhound, and the girl of this party is almost the only pleasant face in the picture. The painter, one begins to suspect, had not much real sympathy with his "village scenes" after all; and perhaps the demand for such scenes on the part of his aristocratic patrons was only a kind of vicarious "slumming"—an anticipation of the fashionable craze of a later age.

953. THE TOPER.

David Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

This picture is signed with a T. within a D., which is the signature of the elder Teniers.

954. A LANDSCAPE.

Cornelis Huysmans (Flemish: 1648-1727).

This painter, whose pictures have for the most part become very dark, was born at Antwerp, the son of an architect. He studied the art of landscape under Jacques d'Arthois at Brussels, by which master we are told he was kept so closely to drawing that he could only practise painting by night. He took up his abode at Mechlin; but in 1702 removed to Antwerp, returning, however, to Mechlin fourteen years later. Favourable examples of his work may be seen at the Louvre.

955. WOMEN BATHING.

Cornelis van Poelenburgh (Dutch: 1586-1667).

This painter was a native of Utrecht, where he studied under A. Bloemaert. He afterwards visited Italy and Rome, where he was in 1617, and where he studied the works of Elsheimer. He generally painted Italian landscapes, which he peopled with nude figures, goddesses, nymphs bathing, or antique shepherdesses. These works hit the taste of Royal and Grand Ducal patrons throughout Europe. On quitting Rome for Florence, he was employed by the Grand Duke. In 1627 he returned to Utrecht, whither his fame had preceded him. Rubens is said to have visited him, and Van Dyck painted his portrait. He was invited also to London, and was employed both by Charles I. and James II. He was on three occasions appointed Dean of the Painters' Guild at Utrecht, where he died. He frequently helped his fellow landscape painters by inserting figures for them. Those in Both's "Judgment of Paris" (No. 209) are by him.

956. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

957. GOATHERDS.

958. OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF ROME.

959. A RIVER SCENE.

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

960. THE WINDMILLS.

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

961. DORT (THE "LARGE DORT").

962. DORT (THE "SMALL DORT").

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

Groups of Cuyp's favourite cows in the foreground. In the distance the Groote Kerk of Dordrecht, with its handsome tower.

963. A SKATING SCENE.

Isaac van Ostade (Dutch: 1621-1649). See 847.

A scene such as Isaac van Ostade specially loved. (See Pater's Imaginary Portraits, cited under 1137.)

964. A RIVER SCENE.

965. RIVER SCENE WITH STATE BARGE.

966. A RIVER SCENE.

967. DUTCH SHIPPING.

Jan van de Cappelle (Dutch: painted 1650-1680). See 865.

968. THE PAINTER'S WIFE.

Gerard Dou (Dutch: 1613-1675). See 192.

969. A FROST SCENE.

Aart van der Neer (Dutch: 1603-1677) See 152.

970. THE DROWSY LANDLADY.

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch: 1630-1667). See 838.

971, 972. LANDSCAPES.

Jan Wynants (Dutch: about 1615-1679). See 883.

973. SANDBANK.

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

Formerly ascribed to Jan Wynants.

974. LANDSCAPE.

Philip de Koninck (Dutch: 1619-1688). See 836.

A view of the Scheldt and Antwerp Cathedral in the distance.

975. THE STAG HUNT.

976. A BATTLE.

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

In Wouwerman's battle-pieces, says Ruskin, there is "nothing but animal rage and cowardice"—with which he contrasts the noble battle-piece by Paolo Uccello (583). "It is very singular," he adds, "that unmitigated expressions of cowardice in battle should be given by the painters of so brave a nation as the Dutch. Not but that it is possible enough for a coward to be stubborn, and a brave man weak; the one may win his battle by blind persistence, and the other lose it by a thoughtful vacillation. Nevertheless, the want of all expression of resoluteness in Dutch battle-pieces remains, for the present, a mystery to me. In those of Wouwerman, it is only a natural development of his perfect vulgarity in all respects" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. §§ 8-10).

977. A SEA-PIECE.

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

978. A RIVER SCENE.

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

A state barge in the centre; trumpeters sounding a salute on either side in other vessels.

979. A STIFF BREEZE.

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

980. DUTCH SHIPS OF WAR.

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

"The best example we have of the painter—a delightful picture. The sky is so delicate and unobtrusive that it does not expose his weakness in cloud drawing" (J. Brett, A.R.A., on "Landscape at the National Gallery," in Fortnightly Review, April 1895).

981. A STORM AT SEA.

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

See also under 819. This picture is signed (on a floating spar) and dated London 1673.

982. A FOREST SCENE (dated 1658).

983. A BAY HORSE (dated 1663).

984. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.

A. van de Velde (Dutch: 1636-1672). See 867.

985. SHEEP AND GOATS.

Karel du Jardin (Dutch: 1622-1678). See 826.

986. THE WATERMILLS.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

987. A ROCKY TORRENT.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

988. AN OLD OAK.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

989. WATERMILLS, WITH BLEACHERS.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

See note to No. 44.

990. A WOODED PROSPECT.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

"This picture with its large shadows sweeping over the landscape and its faint gleams of sunlight, suggesting an imminent rain-storm, is one of Ruysdael's most poetical works" (Poynter: The National Gallery, ii. 174).

991. THE BROKEN TREE.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

992. ARCHITECTURAL SCENE.

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

Classic v. Gothic. An interesting picture of the architectural tendency of the time—the classical Palladian architecture of stone rising over the ruins of the red brick Gothic of earlier times. The same mixture of the old and the new—in juxtaposition not altogether unlike what is here represented—may be seen in the town of Abingdon (Berks), where Inigo Jones's market-hall, built about the time of this picture, towers above the red bricks of the humbler and earlier styles.

993. A HOUSE AMONG TREES.

994. A STREET IN A TOWN.

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

995. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

Hobbema (Dutch: 1638-1709). See 685.

996. A CASTLE IN A ROCKY LANDSCAPE.

Hobbema (Dutch: 1638-1709). See 685.

Signed, and dated 1667.

997. SCOURING THE KETTLE

Godfried Schalcken (Dutch: 1643-1706). See 199.

In pictures of this kind by Dou and his followers you fancy, it has been said, that "you see and hear the very grit as it cuts into the yellow metal."

998. SINGING A DUET.

Godfried Schalcken (Dutch: 1643-1706). See 199.

A lover holds a guitar, his mistress some music; on the table is a rose—

Swinburne: A Match.

999. BY CANDLE-LIGHT.

Godfried Schalcken (Dutch: 1643-1706). See 199.

"To give the most natural effect to his candle-light pieces, Schalcken is said to have adopted the following system:—He placed the object he intended to paint in a dark room, with a candle, and looking through a small hole, painted by day what he saw by candle-light" (Bryan's Dictionary).

1000. THE ESTUARY OF A RIVER.

Bakhuizen (Dutch: 1631-1708). See 204.

1001. HOLLYHOCKS AND OTHER FLOWERS.

Jan van Huysum (Dutch: 1682-1749). See 796.

Notice the snail crawling along in front.

1002. FLOWERS, INSECTS, AND FRUIT.

Jacob Walscappelle (Dutch: painted about 1675).

A painter of fruit and flowers in the style of de Heem. His flowers are generally arranged in water-bottles, and are besprinkled with butterflies and other insects. He painted at Amsterdam from about 1667 to 1718.

1003. DEAD PARTRIDGES AND OTHER BIRDS.

Jan Fyt (Flemish: 1611-1661).

Fyt—painter and etcher of animals—was a pupil of Snyders, whom in some respects he excelled. The sale catalogues of the greater part of the nineteenth century show that his works were little appreciated, but recent criticism has given him a very high place among the animal and still-life painters of his country. "Fyt's work," says Sir F. Burton, "is perfect in its kind, exhibiting the finest observation of nature, and an execution which unites the greatest mastery with the utmost delicacy. His composition is unconstrained, and the colouring and tone of his pictures are most pleasing." He was born at Antwerp, where, after some years' residence in Italy, he became Dean of the Painters' Guild.

1004. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

Nicolas Berchem (Dutch: 1620-1683). See 78.

1005. PLOUGHING.

Nicolas Berchem (Dutch: 1620-1683). See 78.

"There is in this small picture," says Sir Edward Poynter, "a genuine feeling for nature, which is generally somewhat wanting in the works of Berchem, whose manner, founded on the study of Italian landscape art, gives frequently an artificial effect to his composition" (National Gallery, i. 44).

1006. HURDY-GURDY.

Nicolas Berchem (Dutch: 1620-1683). See 78.

Berchem, as we have seen, was an "Italianiser," and here introduces us to one of the exports of that country—

Calverley: Fly Leaves.

1007. A ROCKY LANDSCAPE.

Jan Wils (Dutch: about 1600-1670).

Wils, whose pictures are seldom met with, "would appear, from the style of most of his works, to have studied under Jan Both at Utrecht.... He was the father-in-law and one of the teachers of Nicolas Berchem, between whose works and some of those of Wils (as, for instance, the present picture) a great resemblance may be traced" (Official Catalogue).

The figures in this picture are supposed to have been put in by Wouwerman.

1008. A STAG HUNT.

Pieter Potter (Dutch: 1597-1652).

Pieter Potter, the father of Paul Potter, was a native of Enkhuizen, and originally painted on glass. In one of his early signatures (1628) he describes himself as "glass annealer, also painter." Later on, he settled at Amsterdam and was director of a manufactory of gilt leather there. He formed his style, we are told, under the influence of Frans Hals, and painted various subjects, such as scenes in the guard-house, still-life, and landscape.

1009. THE OLD GRAY HUNTER.

Paul Potter (Dutch: 1625-1654). See 849.

1010. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.

Dirk van Delen (Dutch: 1607-1673).

This painter was born at Heusden. He lived at Arnemuiden in Zealand, of which town he was burgomaster. He worked also at Haarlem, Delft, and Antwerp.

A picture by a rare master—interesting to students of the history of architectural taste. In 992 we are shown the struggle between the old Gothic style and the new Renaissance architecture; here we see the full victory of the latter. Dirk van Delen loved to depict the costly and variegated marbles on splendid palaces in the style of the late Renaissance. He will not be defrauded, even by considerations of distance, of any of his details, and every statue and ornament is shown us as minutely as if it were on the level of the eye. The classical style has pervaded too the fountain; note the gilt bronze group of Hercules and the Hydra.

1011. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Coques (Flemish: 1618-1684). See 821.

A faithful imitation on a reduced scale of Van Dyck's ideal of feminine "elegance." There is a certain artificial simplicity very characteristic of the time, in the combination of the lady, with her sumptuous white satin and the elaborate architecture behind her, and her pet lamb.

1012. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Matthew Merian, the younger (Swiss: 1621-1687).

This painter was the son of Matthew Merian, the elder, an eminent Swiss draughtsman and engraver. The father had established himself at Frankfort as a book and print seller, and on his death in 1650, the son assumed management of the business, and continued the publication of the "Theatrum Europæum," for which he arranged several plates. But the younger Merian was best known as a painter. He was born at Bâle, and at the age of 14 came to Frankfort, where he learnt to paint under Joachim van Sandrart, whom he accompanied to Amsterdam in 1637 and to England in 1640. In this country he came into friendly relations with Van Dyck, whom he took as his model in the art of portraiture. Merian also travelled in France and Italy. As a portrait-painter he was much patronised by the German princes and also by the Emperor Leopold I. He also painted religious and historical pictures, such as the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," for the high altar of Bamberg Cathedral, and the "Resurrection," in the Library of Bâle.

This picture was formerly ascribed to Van Dyck. The man's dress is of black velvet, of the fashion of about 1665-70.

1013. GEESE AND DUCKS.

Melchior de Hondecoeter (Dutch: 1636-1695). See 202.

1014. THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. LAWRENCE.

Adam Elsheimer (German: 1578-1620).

Elsheimer was the son of a tailor at Frankfort-on-Maine. He himself settled in Rome. "He inherited with his northern blood an intense love of nature and her varied aspects. Upon this he engrafted a careful study of the human form, and in Italy he profited by the example of the great masters of preceding generations. Thus, aided by a certain homely imagination, he formed a style of his own, combining landscape and figure in such a manner that each was the necessary complement of the other, and that subject and situation were in perfect harmony. The lonely, and at that time, wooded, depressions of the Roman Campagna, and the hills of Albano and Tivoli, were his favourite haunts, and in their scenery his imagination placed events in biblical or mythological story. He loved especially to paint the strange effects produced by diverse sources of illumination. The novelty of his aims, the beauty of his execution, and the geniality of his disposition, gained him admirers and friends" (Official Catalogue). His contemporaries Sandrart and Cornelius de Bie describe him as an extraordinary artist who had "a peculiar manner of his own. He was, indeed, the first who invented a style of small sceneries, landscapes, and other curiosities." He possessed, we are told, so extraordinary a memory, that it was sufficient for him to have looked at an object or scene once to draw it with the utmost precision. The extreme patience and labour with which he finished his pictures were such that the prices he received never sufficiently repaid him. Had he been paid but a fourth part of what his works have since produced, he might have lived in affluence instead of indigence and distress. Elsheimer usually painted on copper (as is the case with this picture). His etchings and drawings are well known; in the Städel Institute of his native town there is a large collection of them. There are also some in the British Museum. Elsheimer's works had a considerable influence on many succeeding Dutch painters. "Elsheimer," says Mr. Colvin in his Guide to the British Museum Drawings, "fills a very important part in art as the forerunner on the one hand of Claude and his group, by his delight in the composition and massing of the forms of hill, plain, and grove in the country round Rome, and on the other hand of Rembrandt and his group, by his predilection for strong artificial contrasts of light, and for the dramatic and speaking action of his figures."

St. Lawrence (for whose legend see 747) is being prepared for martyrdom. Beside him there is an image of Cæsar, unto whom will be rendered Cæsar's due—the saint's life; but over his head is an angel from heaven, for unto God will go the saint's soul. The emperor is crowned on earth; the angel brings the saint a palm branch, an earnest of the martyr's crown in heaven.

1015. FRUIT, FLOWERS, AND DEAD BIRDS.

Jan van Os (Dutch: 1744-1808).

Born at Middelharnis, a most distinguished flower-painter in the manner of Van Huysum. He also painted marine pieces and wrote poetry. His wife drew portraits in chalk, and his two sons were painters.

Prominent amongst the flowers is the red cockscomb. A picture by the most distinguished flower-painter of his time, and characteristic, in an interesting particular, of Dutch pictures of this kind generally. "If the reader has any familiarity with the galleries of painting in the great cities of Europe, he cannot but retain a clear, though somewhat monotonously calm, impression of the character of those polished flower-pieces, or still-life pieces, which occupy subordinate corners, and invite to moments of repose, or frivolity, the attention and imagination which have been wearied in admiring the attitudes of heroism, and sympathising with the sentiments of piety. Recalling to his memory the brightest examples of these ... he will find that all the older ones agree—if flower-pieces—in a certain courtliness and formality of arrangement, implying that the highest honours which flowers can attain are in being wreathed into grace of garlands, or assembled in variegation of bouquets, for the decoration of beauty, or flattery of noblesse. If fruit or still-life pieces, they agree no less distinctly in directness of reference to the supreme hour when the destiny of dignified fruit is to be accomplished in a royal dessert; and the furred and feathered life of hill and forest may bear witness to the Wisdom of Providence by its extinction for the kitchen dresser. Irrespectively of these ornamental virtues, and culinary utilities, the painter never seems to perceive any conditions of beauty in the things themselves, which would make them worth regard for their own sake: nor, even in these appointed functions, are they ever supposed to be worth painting, unless the pleasures they procure be distinguished as those of the most exalted society" (Notes on Prout and Hunt, pp. 10, 11, where Ruskin goes on to contrast with this Dutch ideal the simple pleasure in the flowers and fruits for their own sake which marks W. Hunt's still-life drawings).

Observe, as further characteristic of Dutch fruit-pieces, the butterfly, the fly, and the earwig: "There was a further tour de force demanded of the Dutch workman, without which all his happiest preceding achievements would have been unacknowledged. Not only a dew-drop, but, in some depth of bell or cranny of leaf, a bee, or a fly, was necessary for the complete satisfaction of the connoisseur. In the articulation of the fly's legs, or neurology of the bee's wings, the genius of painting was supposed to signify her accepted disciples; and their work went forth to the European world, thenceforward, without question, as worthy of its age and country. But, without recognising in myself, or desiring to encourage in my scholars, any unreasonable dislike or dread of the lower orders of living creatures, I trust that the reader will feel with me that none of Mr. Hunt's peaches or plums would be made daintier by the detection on them of even the most cunningly latent wasp, or cautiously rampant caterpillar; and will accept, without so much opposition as it met with forty years ago, my then first promulgated, but steadily since repeated assertion, that the 'modern painter' had in these matters less vanity than the ancient one, and better taste" (ib. pp. 14, 15).

1016. A PORTRAIT OF A GIRL.

Sir Peter Lely (Dutch: 1617-1680).

Lely, the court painter of the reign of Charles II., by whom he was knighted, was a native of Holland; his father's name was Van der Vaes, but the son took the nickname of Le Lys or Lely (from the lily with which the front of his father's house was ornamented) as a surname. He was born in Westphalia, but settled in England in 1641, the year of Van Dyck's death, on whom he modelled his style. It was Lely who is said to have painted Cromwell, "warts and all," but he easily accommodated himself to the softer manners of the Restoration. The rich curls, the full lips, and the languishing eyes of the frail beauties of Charles II. may be seen at Hampton Court. Lely was "a mighty proud man," says Pepys, "and full of state." The painting of great ladies was a lucrative business, and his collection of drawings and pictures sold at his death for £26,000, a sum which bore a greater proportion to the fortunes of the rich men of that day than £100,000 would bear to the fortunes of the rich men of our time. He was struck with apoplexy while painting the Duchess of Somerset, and was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

The courtly affectation which distinguishes Lely's portraits is not absent from this little girl. She is feeding the parrot, but obviously takes no interest in it—not even troubling indeed to look at it. Her concern seems to be only to hold up her flowing frock (or "simar") prettily and to point her fingers gracefully.

1017. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

Unknown (Flemish: dated 1622).

See also (p. xx)

The landscape is probably by Josse Mompers, an Antwerp artist who lived 1564-1635.

1018. A CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE.

Claude Lorraine (French: 1600-1682). See 2.

A characteristic example of Claude's "classical compositions" as described in our chapter on the French School. It is one of his late works, being dated 1673; the names of Anchises and Æneas occur.

1019. THE HEAD OF A GIRL.

Greuze (French: 1725-1805). See 206.

Mrs. Browning: A Portrait.

1020. GIRL WITH AN APPLE.

Greuze (French: 1725-1805). See 206.

Austin Dobson: A Song of Angiola.

1021. PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN.

Frans Hals (Dutch: 1580-1666).

Among the Dutch portrait-painters, Hals stands second only to Rembrandt, while for mastery of the brush he is second only to Velazquez. Though born in Antwerp and a pupil of Karel van Mander (the Flemish painter and biographer), Hals is claimed as a member of the Dutch School, inasmuch as his father was settled at Haarlem in Holland, and he himself lived and worked there. In style, "though his vigorous drawing recalls by its boldness the masterly method of Rubens, his manner of giving to his work a sustained light, his style of composition, and the choice of his subject, place him unmistakably in the Dutch School.... No one, either before or after him, ever attained the marvellous exactness with which he places flesh tints in juxtaposition, without their mixing together, just as they come from the palette.... No artist ever manipulated his brush with such firmness, freedom, and life. In consequence of his extraordinary ability, Frans Hals has been called 'the personification of painting'" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 110). "We prize in Rembrandt," says another critic, "the golden glow of effect based upon artificial contrast of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble." Rembrandt's portraits are the more profound, and there is in them an intensity of pathetic realism which was beyond the reach of Hals; but Hals seizes the brighter moments of lusty life with a force and truth which have never been excelled. Hals is best seen in the Haarlem Museum in a series of portrait groups. Of his single portraits, No. 1251 in our Gallery is a characteristic example, and at Hertford House is a famous and charming picture, "The Laughing Cavalier," which is full of what Fromentin well calls "the irresistible verve" of Frans Hals.

The life of Hals was irregular and improvident, but full also of work and energy. At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence and won it, Hals appears in the ranks of its military guilds. He was also a member of the Chamber of Rhetoric, and president of the Painters' Corporation at Haarlem. In 1610 he married, and five years later was summoned before the magistrates for ill-treating his wife, and on that occasion was severely reprimanded for his violent and drunken habits. His first wife died prematurely, and he saved the character of his second by marrying her in 1617. With her he seems to have lived happily for nearly fifty years, and they brought up a large family. Financial troubles, however, befell the painter. In 1654 a forced sale of his pictures and furniture at the suit of his baker brought him to penury. A few years later we hear of the municipality paying his rent and firing for him, and granting him a small annuity. His widow had to seek outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor. His four sons were all painters, and attained some distinction. Several of the best Dutch painters—Van der Helst, A. van Ostade, Metsu, Terburg, Steen, and others—were directly or indirectly his scholars. In the Haarlem Museum there is a picture by Job Berck-Heyde, dated 1652, of the studio in which Frans Hals is surrounded by his sons and pupils.

1022. AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

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

His left foot appears to have been wounded, for it is attached by a kind of stirrup and black cord to a band above the knee. It is interesting to compare this portrait with the closely corresponding one by Moretto which hangs near it (1025). Both are excellent examples of the several masters. Both were, no doubt, good likenesses; but there is a suggestion of poetry in Moretto's which one misses in Moroni's. Both are believed to be portraits of members of the Fernaroli family.

1023. AN ITALIAN LADY.

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

Said to be the wife of the subject of the preceding portrait. Not so happy a production; Moroni's strength lay in portraits of the other sex.

1024. AN ITALIAN ECCLESIASTIC.

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

The letter in his hand is addressed to himself, and tells us that he is Ludovico di Terzi, Canon of Bergamo, and an Apostolic Prothonotary. These latter functionaries, of whom there are still twelve in the Roman Church, are the chiefs of what may be called the Record Office of the Church. It is their business to draw up the reports of all important Church functions, such as the enthronements of new popes and public consistories. It is an office of much dignity—as this holder of it seems to be fully conscious, and the prothonotaries rank with bishops in the Church.

1025. AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

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

This picture, dated 1526, is one of Moretto's most elegant portraits. It is a true character portrait, a picture of a soul as well as of a face. It shows us an Italian nobleman with all the poetry and aspiration of chivalry. On his scarlet cap he bears his proud device—a medallion in gold and enamel of St. Christopher bearing the infant Saviour—the ideal of Christian chivalry: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these, ye have done it unto me." The picture is no doubt a portrait of one of the Fernaroli family, from whose palace in Brescia it came.

1031. MARY MAGDALENE.

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Brescian: about 1480-1548).

Savoldo, "an excellent amateur, who was apparently first a pupil of Romanino, then of Giovanni Bellini, and later of Titian"[200] (Morelli: Borghese Gallery, p. 246). "He visited Florence in 1508, and we find him enrolled as master in the Painters' Guild there; his stay cannot, however, have been of long duration, as none of his works known to us betray the slightest Florentine influence" (id. German Galleries, p. 408). "His works," says Sir F. Burton, "display a distinct individuality, the result of tendencies inherent in his nature. The romantic element, already developed in Venetian art, shows itself strongly in his passion for scenes of early dawn and late sunset and effects of night illuminated by fire. His human types are pleasing with a certain grave dignity. His colouring is on the whole colder than that of his contemporaries of the Veneto-Brescian School, and his flesh tints are adust and sombre, especially in his male figures; nor are his draperies generally brilliant in colour, although he delighted in the sheen of silken stuffs, contrasting it with the kind of twilight which pervades many of his pictures." "His landscapes in sacred subjects make a profound impression of silent wonder and devotion. They seem to palpitate in sympathy with the deeds they witness, instead of being mere scenic backgrounds. In the Berlin Deposition, for instance, the sky is lurid and blood-stained; in the Adoration at Turin the shepherds seem to be stealing noiselessly along, afraid of causing the least disturbance in the hush and awe of the morning" (Mary Logan's Guide to Hampton Court, in which collection there is a picture by Savoldo of a Madonna and Child, dated 1527). Savoldo's pictures are rare, and often pass under other names. He was, says Vasari (iv. 535), "a fanciful and ingenious person, what he has accomplished well meriting to be highly commended." An important altar-piece, bearing his signature, is in the Brera at Milan, and a beautiful "Adoration of the Shepherds" is in the Church of St. Giobbe at Venice.

"A vein of realism, combined with the mystery of Savoldo's deep colours and half-lights, is seen in the picture of a woman shrouded in a mantle in the National Gallery" (Layard, ii. 585). The picture agrees with the description given by Ridolfi of a "Magdalene," "a celebrated work of which there are many copies." A very similar picture, signed with Savoldo's name, is in the Berlin Gallery. The Magdalen is here approaching the sepulchre, before which is a vase of ointment on a square stone—for she had "bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning ... they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun" (Mark xvi. 1, 2). Notice the daring anachronism in the Venetian background, which "gives with exquisite truth a very early dawn upon the Giudecca."

1032. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

Lo Spagna (Umbrian: painted 1503-1530).

Giovanni di Pietro, called Lo Spagna (the Spaniard), presumably from his nationality, was a pupil of Pietro Perugino—the best, perhaps, of all his pupils who remained untouched by other influences. Observe for the influence of Perugino's teaching the lovely flowers in the foreground and the attitude of the leader of the Roman soldiers on the left (like that of Perugino's Michael in 288). In 1516 Lo Spagna was made a citizen of Spoleto, and in the following year president of the Society of Artists there. The Madonna Enthroned, now in the Lower Church of Assisi, is considered his masterpiece.

An angel bearing a chalice flies towards Christ from above ("O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done"). On the right is Judas with a band of Roman soldiers. On the foreground are the three disciples sleeping ("What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak").

This picture was at one time ascribed to the young Raphael,[201] being identified with the work which he executed for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, and which is thus described by Vasari (iii. 8): "For the same noble, the master executed another small picture, representing Christ praying in the Garden, with three of the apostles, who are sleeping at some distance, and which is so beautifully painted that it could scarcely be either better or otherwise were it even in miniature." Vasari traces the history of the picture down to his time, when it was in the Hermitage of Camaldoli. Our picture was formerly in the possession of Prince Gabrielli at Rome. The greater portion of the original drawing for it is in the Uffizi, catalogued under Perugino.

1033. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.

See also (p. xx)

This picture[202] (like 592, q.v.) is often ascribed to Botticelli, from whom Filippino learnt his fondness for the circular form. Every one will recognise too the resemblance to Botticelli in the daintiness of the dresses, the trappings of the horses (especially in the middle of the foreground), and the other accessories (such as the head-dresses of the Magi on the right). Vasari, indeed, says of Filippino that "the ornaments he added were so new, so fanciful, and so richly varied, that he must be considered the first who taught the moderns the new method of giving variety to the habiliments, and who first embellished his figures by adorning them with vestments after the antique." Filippino and later painters give these embellishments to angels as well as to men; and Vasari, it will be seen, considered it altogether an improvement. Some remarks on the other side will be found in Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 14 ("Of the Superhuman Ideal"). "The ornaments used by Angelico, Giotto, and Perugino (see, e.g. 288) are always of a generic and abstract character. They are not diamonds, nor brocades, nor velvets, nor gold embroideries; they are mere spots of gold or of colour, simple patterns upon textureless draperies; the angel wings burn with transparent crimson and purple and amber, but they are not set forth with peacocks' plumes; the golden circlets gleam with changeful light, but they are not beaded with pearls nor set with sapphires. In the works of Filippino Lippi, Mantegna, and many other painters following, interesting examples may be found of the opposite treatment; and as in Lippi the heads are usually very sweet, and the composition severe, the degrading effect of the realised decorations and imitated dress may be seen in him simply, and without any addition of painfulness from other deficiencies of feeling." In addition to the minor ornamentation, one may notice in this picture the crowded groups of spectators which Filippino was fond of introducing. But so harmoniously are they grouped in six principal groups that the spectator will at first probably be surprised to hear that there are as many as seventy figures in the picture.

1034. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.

Sandro Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510).

The family surname of Sandro (Alessandro, or Alexander) was Filipepi. "He was apprenticed when a lad to a goldsmith, called Botticello (for he obstinately refused to learn either to read, write, or sum); of which master we know only that he so formed this boy that thenceforward the boy thought it right to be called Botticello's Sandro, and nobody else's (in Italian Sandro di Botticello, abbreviated into Sandro Botticelli).[203] Having learned prosperously how to manage gold, he took a fancy to know how to manage colour, and was put under the best master in Florence, the Monk Lippi" (see 666). Some characteristics of Lippi's art—its union of a buoyant spirit of life and enjoyment with simplicity and tenderness of religious feeling—are seen in the pupil. But he added in his turn marked characteristics of his own, which are noticed in detail under his several pictures here. "Where Fra Filippo was all repose, Sandro was all movement." Moreover, Botticelli's range of subject was very wide—embracing Venus crowned with roses and the Virgin crowned by Christ, the birth of Love (at Florence), and the birth of the Saviour. Botticelli, says Ruskin, is "the only painter of Italy who understood the thoughts of Heathens and Christians equally, and could in a measure paint both Aphrodite and the Madonna. So that he is, on the whole, the most universal of painters; and, take him all in all, the greatest Florentine workman" (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 2). He was, we are told, persona sofistica, and lived on terms of intimacy with members of the Florentine Platonic Academy. The speculations which he shared with the poet Matteo Palmieri are enshrined in his "Assumption" (No. 1126), painted about 1475. In 1481 he executed a series of designs for Landino's edition of Dante: these wonderful drawings, formerly in the Hamilton Collection, are now at Berlin. "By this time," says Ruskin, "he was accounted so good a divine, as well as painter, that Pope Sixtus IV. sent for him to be master of the works in his new (Sistine) chapel—where the first thing my young gentleman does, mind you, is to paint the devil, in a monk's dress, tempting Christ! The sauciest thing, out and out, done in the history of the Reformation, it seems to me; yet so wisely done, and with such true respect otherwise shown for what was sacred in the Church, that the Pope didn't mind; and all went on as merrily as marriage bells." The history of Moses—the subject of his other fresco in the Sistine Chapel—"teems with his exuberant power and displays great grandeur of landscape." In the same chapel are also 28 portraits of Popes by Botticelli. "And having thus obtained great honour and reputation, and considerable sums of money, he squandered all the last away. And at this time, Savonarola beginning to make himself heard, and founding in Florence the company of the Piagnoni (Mourners or Grumblers, as opposed to the men of pleasure), Sandro made a Grumbler of himself, being then some forty years old; fell sadder, wiser, and poorer day by day; until he became a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de' Medici; and having gone some time on crutches, being unable to stand upright, died peacefully" (Ariadne Florentina, Lecture VI.; Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 2-6).

Few things are more curious in the history of taste than the vicissitudes of Botticelli's fame. In his own day he had been much esteemed, but his reputation was soon eclipsed. In 1602 a decree was issued by the Grand Duke of Tuscany prohibiting the inhabitants of Florence from removing important works of art, for "neither the city nor the land itself is to be despoiled of the masterpieces of eminent painters." The schedule of eccellenti pittori contains nineteen names, among which that of Filippino Lippi, Botticelli's pupil, is included, but not Botticelli himself.[204] The rediscovery of Botticelli has fallen to our country and generation. The influence of Rossetti, the example of Burne-Jones, the famous essay of Pater, and the enthusiasm of Ruskin, have established a cult of Botticelli which in earlier generations would have passed for a mild lunacy.[205] Goldsmith, had he witnessed it, might have substituted the name of Botticelli for that of Perugino in his satire on fashionable æstheticism. The poetical imagination of Botticelli, his inventive design, the strong sense of life which glows through all his pictures, are truly admirable. But what lends additional force to his vogue is the seal of intimité which is set upon his work. Botticelli treats his themes, says Burton "with a verve, a naïveté, and pathos peculiar to himself." Besides the very greatest men, there is (says Pater) "a certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere, and these, too, have their place in general culture. Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting period in the history of the mind; in studying his work one begins to understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had been called."

The other pictures by Botticelli in the National Gallery (see 275, 1126, and 915) adequately represent his earlier phases; this one completes the story of his life—painted as it was under Savonarola's influence—

Andrew Lang: Ballads and Lyrics, etc.

This beautiful and curious picture is very characteristic of Botticelli's genius. It is full of highly wrought emotion—note "the fervour of the still Madonna as she kneels before the Child, the extraordinary nervous tension which the artist has managed to suggest in the seated figure of Joseph, the rapture and ecstasy of the angels"; the picture is full also, as we shall see, of mystic symbolism, but all is crowned and harmonised by a sense of pictorial daintiness and beauty. The centre of the picture is occupied by the familiar subject of the Nativity, and the accessories suggest in symbolic fashion the effects of Christ's Advent upon the good and the evil respectively. The theological symbolism may be seen in the gesture of the divine Child pointing to his mouth—typifying that he was the Word of God. So at the bottom of the picture there are devils running, at Christ's coming, into chinks of the rocks (those who are Christ's must put away "the works of darkness"); whilst the shepherds and angels embracing signify the reconciliation such as Savonarola wished to effect between heaven and earth. On either side of the central group angels are telling the glad tidings "of peace on earth, goodwill towards men." Note the symmetry in this part of the picture; the three Magi on the left, the three shepherds in adoration on the right; and in colour, the red frock of the angel on the right, the red wings on the left. Meanwhile in the sky above is a lovely choir of Botticelli's floating angels, dancing between earth and heaven, on a golden background suffused with light. The picture is, says Ruskin, "a quite perfect example of what the masters of the pure Greek school did in Florence.... The entire purpose of the picture is a mystic symbolism by motion and chiaroscuro. By motion, first. There is a dome of burning clouds in the upper heaven. Twelve angels half float, half dance, in a circle, round the lower vault of it. All their drapery is drifted so as to make you feel the whirlwind of their motion. They are seen by gleams of silvery or fiery light, relieved against an equally lighted blue of inimitable depth and loveliness. It is impossible for you ever to see a more noble work of passionate Greek chiaroscuro—rejoicing in light" (Lectures on Landscape, § 58). The introduction in the same picture of the solemn teaching below, with these beautiful angel forms above, suggests precisely what Ruskin has defined to be Botticelli's position among pictorial reformers. "He was what Luther wished to be, but could not be—a reformer still believing in the Church; his mind is at peace, and his art therefore can pursue the delight of beauty and yet remain prophetic." "He was not a preacher of new doctrines, but a witness against the betrayal of old ones."

The first and more obvious intention of Botticelli's painted sermon was, as we have seen, to show the effects of the Advent upon the good and the evil. But he has also a particular application, an esoteric meaning. The clue to this is afforded by the Greek inscription at the top, which, being interpreted, is—

"This picture I, Alexander, painted at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the Second Woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him trodden down, as in this picture."

"In the troubles of Italy, at the end of the year 1500." Now, on May 12, 1497, exactly three years and a half before the date of Botticelli's inscription, Savonarola was burnt alive (as depicted on the little panel, No. 1301); and his death, says the historian, "meant for Florence the triumph of all that was most corrupt; vice was everywhere rampant, and virtuous living was utterly despised." But in the faith of Botticelli, the reverent disciple of Savonarola, this tyranny of the Evil One was doomed to pass away. He saw "in the troubles of Italy" a fulfilment of the awful words to which his inscription refers us in the eleventh chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine:—

The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy. These are the two olive trees. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. The second woe is past. And there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

To the elect, then, Botticelli meant his picture to show the fulfilment of the prophecy by the Second Advent of Christ, and the final triumph of Savonarola. The men embraced by angels are in this reading of the picture the "witnesses" to whom the spirit of life was returned; they are welcomed back to earth by angels, ere they are rapt heavenward. They bear olive boughs, because in the Apocalypse olive trees are symbolical of the Lord's anointed ones. "There is but one point which seems at variance with the Biblical text: in it two witnesses are spoken of, here there are three. This deviation was doubtless intentional. When Savonarola died, two others shared his palm of martyrdom, Fra Domenico Buonvicini and Fra Silvestre Marussi. The three figures crowned with myrtle represent the three risen and glorified martyrs" (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 61. See also Mr. Sidney Colvin's article in the Portfolio, Feb. 1879).

1035. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Francia Bigio (Florentine: 1482-1525).

Francesco di Cristoforo Bigi (this picture is signed FRA CP = Franciscus Cristophori pinxit), commonly called Francia Bigio, was the son of a weaver at Milan, and "devoted himself to the art of painting, not so much (Vasari tells us) because he was desirous of fame, as that he might thus be enabled to render assistance to his indigent relations." He was at first the pupil of Albertinelli (645), and afterwards formed a close friendship with Andrea del Sarto, in conjunction with whom he produced his first important work in 1513, in the small cloister of the Servi. It was here that occurred the famous scene, described by Vasari, with the Friars, who, having uncovered Bigio's fresco of the Sposalizio before the painter considered it finished, so enraged him that he defaced some of the finest heads in it with a mason's hammer, and would have destroyed the whole but for forcible intervention. Neither he nor any other painter could be induced to repair the injuries, which remain to this day. Bigio was, as we may see from this picture, an admirable portrait-painter—an excellence which he owed, says Vasari, to his patient and modest industry. He was "a great lover of peace, and for that reason (adds Vasari drily) would never marry."

The young man wears on his breast the cross of the Knights of Malta. The letter in his hand bears the date 1514. On the parapet is an inscription: tar: vblia: chi: bien: eima (slowly forgets he who loves well)—

Tennyson: The Princess.

1036. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Unknown (Flemish: 15th-16th century).

A picture, it might be, of Hamlet with the skulls: "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once." In his left hand he holds a flower: "there's pansies, that's for thoughts."

1041. THE VISION OF ST. HELENA.

Paolo Veronese (Veronese: 1528-1588). See 26.

St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when a victory was gained by the emperor, to recover the very cross of which she had seen a mysterious symbol. Having reached the sacred city, she caused the soil of Calvary to be excavated, because the Jews were accustomed to bury the instruments of execution upon the spot where they had been used. And there she found three crosses, and that one which was the holy cross was distinguished from the others by the healing of a lady of quality who was sick. The empress divided the true cross into three parts, giving one of them to the Bishop of Jerusalem, and another to the church at Constantinople. The third she brought to Rome, where she built for it the great basilica of S. Croce.

Here we see the saint in devout reverie, while through the open window two cherubim bear a cross through the air. This beautiful picture, in which Veronese gives us an ideal and mystic composition, treated with a simplicity unusual to him, seems to have been derived from a plate by Marc Antonio, the founder of Italian engraving (1480-1534), supposed to be after a drawing by Raphael. The design is identical, though an exquisitely airy angel with a slender cross in Marc Antonio's engraving is replaced in Veronese's picture by chubby cherubs with a more solid cross. (The engraving is reproduced in the Art Journal, 1891, p. 376, with some critical remarks. "This wonderful picture," says the writer, "is at once a delight and a puzzle. If Veronese was capable of efforts like the 'Vision of St. Helena,' why have we not more such, seeing how many treasures of his art have survived to us? The engraving offers an explanation, curiously exact, of this difficulty. Whatever in the 'Vision' is Veronese's own—the drapery and the colour—is not more remarkable than in many other pictures of his; on the other hand, whatever is not distinctively of Veronese is Marc Antonio's.... What more natural than that Veronese should essay to clothe in the glory of his own colouring[206] some creation of the great Italian who learnt from Dürer how to interpret the art of Raphael to Italy?") Veronese's picture once formed the altar-piece of a chapel dedicated to St. Helena at Venice, and was afterwards in the collection of the great Duke of Marlborough.

1042. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Catharina van Hemessen (Flemish: painted about 1550).

Catharina was the daughter of a painter named Jan Sanders, called Jan van Hemessen from his native village. She married a musician of repute in the Low Countries, and with him went to Madrid, where she acquired celebrity and favour through her ability in portraiture.

1045. A CANON AND HIS PATRON SAINT.

Gerard David (Early Flemish: 1460-1523).

This remarkable painter, who has been rediscovered in recent years by the researches of Mr. Weale, was born in Oudewater, a small town in the south of Holland. He settled in Bruges in 1483, passing through the various grades of the Painters' Guild in that town, until he became its Dean in 1501. He was also connected with the Guild of Illuminators of Bruges, and with that of painters at Antwerp. In 1496 he married the daughter of a Bruges goldsmith. In 1509 he painted and presented to the Carmelites of Sion at Bruges a beautiful altar-piece, in which he introduced his own portrait in the background to the right, and that of his wife to the left. This altar-piece was sold by the Carmelites in 1785, and is now in the Museum of Rouen. Other important works by the painter are now in the Academy at Bruges, and in the church of St. Basil in that town there is a triptych by him. The present picture and No. 1432 were also painted for a church in the same place. David's works have often been confounded with those of Memlinc, and it is impossible to give them higher praise. He was a fine colourist. His faces show that he was an adequate interpreter of character. The details he executed with the utmost minuteness and skill; and he is remarkable also for his careful and truthful landscapes. In 1508 David entered a religious brotherhood; he was buried in Notre Dame at Bruges, where he was laid beneath the tower.

The canon kneels in adoration, with his patron saints around him—St. Bernardino of Siena behind, St. Donatian in advance of him, and St. Martin to the left. It was St. Martin who shared his cloak with the beggar, and here in the distance to the left—in compliment to the canon's generosity—is a beggar limping towards the group, asking alms. Notice the wood through which he walks. The subdued light beneath the thick foliage of the trees is admirably rendered. David "was the first painter to think of the shadow-giving nature of trees. Trees had for many years formed a favourite subject for backgrounds, but even by Memlinc they were rather conventionally rendered, one by one, not grouped into woods, and seldom brought into the foreground. Here we have a wood brought near us, with its domed canopy of foliage above, and its labyrinth of trunks buried in sylvan twilight below" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 298). Notice also the beautiful and elaborate work on the robes of St. Martin and St. Donatian. They are fully described in Mr. Weale's monograph referred to below. This will repay the most minute examination. The crimson-velvet cope of St. Martin is a masterpiece. The portrait of the donor is admirable.

The history of this beautiful picture, and of the changes and chances it went through before finding a permanent home in the National Gallery, is very curious. In 1501 a colleague of Richard van der Capelle (see 1432) and one of the executors of his will, namely, Canon Bernardin Salviati (illegitimate son of a rich Florentine merchant who traded or resided in Flanders), was secretary of the chapter of S. Donatian at Bruges. Having obtained leave to restore and embellish the altar of SS. John Baptist and Mary Magdalene, he commissioned Gerard David to paint the shutters of the reredos. These shutters, together with those of several other altar reredoses in the nave of the church, were, at the request of the sacristan, who complained that they were always breaking the wax candles, sold in a lot by order of the chapter in 1787 for an insignificant sum of money. What became of the others is not known, but the one before us was, as we learn from the letters of Horace Walpole, bought in 1792, by Mr. Thomas Barrett, of Lee Priory, Kent, and it figures in the catalogue of that collection as "a group of saints by John Gossart of Maubeuge." At the sale of the Lee Priory Collection in May 1859, it was knocked down to the late Mr. William Benoni White for 525 guineas. Sir J. C. Robinson drew Mr. Weale's attention to the picture, which he at once recognised as being the right-hand shutter of the reredos of Salviati's chantry altar. "I tried hard," says Mr. Weale, "but in vain, to persuade the late Sir Charles Eastlake to purchase it for the National Gallery, but Mr. White would not part with it for less than £1000. Oddly enough the latter, who bore the character of being a most penurious and miserly man, by his last will and testament proved a generous benefactor to the nation, and left this panel in July 1878 to the National Gallery" (W. H. James Weale: Portfolio monograph on Gerard David, 1895, p. 18).

1047. A FAMILY GROUP.

Lorenzo Lotto (Venetian: 1480-1555). See 699.

"Supposed," says the official catalogue, "to represent the painter, his wife, and two children." This cannot be the case, for Lotto seems to have had no close domestic ties. The picture is, however, full of interest for its own sake. "The man and the woman are, it is true, both looking out of the picture, but nevertheless the feeling we have is that the group before us is not, as is usual in Italian family pictures, a mere collection of portraits, but that it is composed of people who are intimately related to each other, constantly acting and reacting one upon the other, and that it is presented in a way which, while giving the individuality of each, makes it hard to think of them except as conditioned, and even determined, by each other's presence." We may in fact find in this domestic group an anticipation of the spirit of the modern psychological novel. "Far from being painted as such groups usually were in Italy—a mere collection of faces looking one like the other, but with no bond of sympathy or interest uniting them—it is in itself a family story, as modern almost as Tolstoi's Katia. Lotto makes it evident that the sensitiveness of the man's nature has brought him to understand and condone his wife's limitations, and that she, in her turn, has been refined and softened into sympathy with him; so that the impression the picture leaves is one of great kindliness, covering a multitude of small disappointments and incompatibilities" (B. Berenson: Lorenzo Lotto, pp. 194, 227, 322). Mr. Berenson calls attention further to the historical significance of this page from contemporary life and manners. The artist "opens our eyes to the existence in a time and in a country supposed to be wholly devoted to carnality and carnage, of gentle, sensitive people, who must have had many of our own social and ethical ideas." He "helps us to a truer and saner view of the sixteenth century in Italy than has been given by popular writers from Stendhal downwards, who too exclusively have devoted themselves to its lurid side. Lotto's charity helps us to restore that human balance without which the Italy of the sixteenth century would be a veritable pandemonium." The Venetian costumes, etc. may also be noticed. The little girl is dressed in as "grown-up" a way as her mother. On the table is a Turkey carpet, reminding us of Venetian commerce with the East. A Turkey carpet figures also in No. 1105.

1048. PORTRAIT OF A CARDINAL.

Italian School (16th century).

See also (p. xx)

Painted on copper, a material which seems first to have been used for painting in the School of Antwerp. M. Auguste Cartan, of Besançon, in a paper by him in the Courrier de l'Art (June 25, 1886), points out the resemblance between this portrait and one, also on copper, in the museum at Besançon, ascribed to Scipione Pulzone, surnamed Gaetano (1550-1558), a painter who has been called "the Van Dyck of the Roman School." A contemporary biographer speaks of Gaetano's portraits as being so conscientious that every hair is painted, and of his skill in rendering various stuffs; both these characteristics may be observed in the present picture. In the same paper M. Cartan identifies the Cardinal as Cardinal Sirleto, Librarian of the Vatican 1570-1585, and tutor of S. Carlo Borromeo. There is a bust of Cardinal Sirleto in the church of San Lorenzo at Rome, and M. Cartan declares the resemblance between the bust and this portrait to be unmistakable. There is also in the Corsini Palace at Rome a bust portrait of the same personage by Scipione Gaetano.

1049. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Unknown (German-Westphalian: 15th century).

A good example of the strength and weakness of this German art. What is good are the clothes, which are very quaint and various. The figures show a ghastly enjoyment of horror and ugliness: notice especially the crucified thief on the left.

1050. A SEA VIEW.

Bakhuizen (Dutch: 1631-1708). See 204.

1051. OUR LORD, ST. THOMAS, AND ST. ANTHONY.

Bertucci (Umbrian: 16th century). See 282.

Our Lord extends his hand and foot to the doubting St. Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; ... and be not faithless, but believing." To the right, resting his hands on the shoulder of the donor of the picture, is St. Anthony of Padua, another saint who doubted "till"—as the legend (painted by Murillo) describes—"in his arms," so it is told, "The saint did his dear Lord enfold, And there appeared a light like gold From out the skies of Padua." This picture appears to be by the same painter as No. 282, and both are now ascribed to Bertucci.

1052. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Lombard School (15th or early 16th century).

1053. A CHURCH AT DELFT.

Emanuel de Witte (Dutch: 1607-1692). Room X.

Witte was a native of Alkmaar, but settled at Delft, where he probably met another architectural painter, Dirk van Delen. "An exact knowledge of perspective, a perfect conception of light and shade, and a delicacy of execution which reveals every detail without degenerating into dryness, figures well drawn and sufficiently picturesque ... are the qualities which distinguish his works" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 245). The picture before us is not a very favourable specimen of the painter's skill. In the gallery at Hertford House one of his masterpieces may be seen. His style, says Mr. Phillips in his catalogue of that collection, "is absolutely opposed to that of the somewhat earlier painters of the Flemish School, Steenwyck the Younger and Pieter Neeffs the Elder, who obtained their chief effects by accuracy of linear perspective, while De Witte realised his by broad and masterly chiaroscuro. In his treatment of light and colour he shows some affinity to Pieter de Hooch." The date of his birth is uncertain; it should perhaps be 1617.

Notice the anti-Pauline practice of the worshippers ("Every man praying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head"—1 Corinthians xi. 4, 5). Here it is the women who are "uncovered," the men who are "covered."

1054. A VIEW IN VENICE.

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

1055. A VILLAGE CARD PARTY.

Hendrick Sorgh (Dutch: 1611-1670).

Hendrick Rokes, a painter of Rotterdam, was the son of Martin Rokes, the master of the passage-boat from Rotterdam to Dordrecht. On account of his care and attention to passengers, Martin acquired the appellation of Sorgh, or Careful; the name descended to and was adopted by the son. Having shown an early talent for art, Hendrick was sent to Antwerp, where he was placed under the tuition of the younger Teniers. His style, however, rather recalls that of Adrian Brouwer. He painted Biblical subjects in a familiar manner, indoor scenes of humble life, village fairs, and, later, river and sea views. Some of his best works are in the Dresden Gallery.

The game rests with the woman, who is not going to play, it would seem, till the score is settled.

1056. "A KISS IN THE CUP."

Hendrick Sorgh (Dutch: 1611-1670).

Ben Jonson: To Celia.

1057. A RIVER SCENE.

Claude Joseph Vernet (French: 1714-1789). See 236.

1058. VENICE: THE CANAL REGGIO.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

One of the principal waterways, after the Grand Canal, in Venice. The picture is a good instance of this painter's method of representing water. He "covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a certain number—I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave touches, which are very properly symbolical of ripple[207].... If it be but remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either the image of the sky, or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would have something more of colour upon them than that opaque dead green.... Venice is sad and silent now to what she was in his time; but even yet, could I but place the reader at early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market-boats, full-laden, float into groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves; and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, carried away in long streams upon the waves; and among them, the crimson fish-baskets, plashing and sparkling and flaming as the morning sun falls on their wet tawny sides; and above, the painted sails of the fishing-boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue,—he would not be merciful to Canaletto any more" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. §§ 18, 19).

1059. VENICE: SAN PIETRO IN CASTELLO.

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

A humble church, typical of the humble origin of Venice, a city founded on the sands by fugitives. The church stands on one of the outermost islets, where, in the seventh century, it is said that St. Peter appeared in person to the Bishop of Heraclea, and commanded him to found, in his honour, a church in that spot. "The title of Bishop of Castello was first taken in 1091; St. Mark's was not made the cathedral church till 1807.... The present church is among the least interesting in Venice; a wooden bridge, something like that of Battersea on a small scale, connects its island, now almost deserted, with a wretched suburb of the city behind the arsenal; and a blank level of lifeless grass, rotted away in places rather than trodden, is extended before its mildewed façade and solitary tower" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. Appendix iv.)

1060. TWO VEDETTES ON THE WATCH.

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

1061. DELFT: SCENE OF AN EXPLOSION

Egbert van der Poel (Dutch: 1621-1664).

Born at Delft; in 1650 entered as a member of the painter's guild there; afterwards moved to Rotterdam, where he died. "Although his name recalls fires especially—never did painter burn so many houses and farm cottages as Van der Poel—he painted also small scenes in the style of Ostade, as we see in his 'Rustic House' in the Louvre, and the 'Interior' in the Museum of Amsterdam. There are also a few pictures by him representing still life" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 156).

One of the many views painted by this artist of the explosion of a powder mill at Delft, October 12, 1654. One might think the mill exploded specially to be painted, so neatly and in order is everything represented. In this explosion, a well-known painter, Carel Fabrizius, lost his life.