Note 87 — LETTERS ON ART.

“The family of Darius at the feet of Alexander after the Battle of Issus,” purchased at Venice from the Pisani collection in 1857. Lord Elcho had complained in the course of the debate that the price, £13,650, paid for this picture, had been excessive; and in reply allusion was made to the still higher price (£23,000) paid for the “Immaculate Conception” of Murillo, purchased for the Louvre by Napoleon III., in 1852, from the collection of Marshal Soult.—Of the great Veronese, Mr. Ruskin also wrote thus: “It at once, to my mind, raises our National Gallery from a second-rate to a first-rate collection. I have always loved the master, and given much time to the study of his works, but this is the best I have ever seen.” (Turner Notes, 1857, ed. v., p. 89, note.) So again before the National Gallery Commission, earlier in the same year, he had said, “I am rejoiced to hear (of its rumored purchase). If it is confirmed, nothing will have given me such pleasure for a long time. I think it is the most precious Paul Veronese in the world, as far as the completeness of the picture goes, and quite a priceless picture.”