Among the books of the Spedale di San Paolo, at Florence, is a volume
marked on the cover ‘Testimenti,’ and lettered ‘B.’ It contains a
record of all wills between the years 1399 and 1526 under which the
hospital in any way benefited; and on fol. 16 _recto_ is the following
entry: ‘Alexo di Baldovinecto Baldovinetti has this day, the 23rd of
March, 1499, made a donation to our hospital of all his goods, personal
and real, after his death, with obligation that the hospital support
Mea, his servant, so long as she live: [the deed was] engrossed by Ser
Piero di Leonardo da Vinci, notary of Florence, on the day aforesaid.’
‘Alexo died on the last day of August, 1499; and was buried in his
tomb in San Lorenzo; and the hospital remained the heirs of his goods.
May God pardon him his sins!’[3] ¶ Milanese, who quotes this ‘ricordo’
textually, though not without some slight errors, in his notes to
Vasari, states that the volume in which it occurs is preserved in the
Archivio di Stato at Florence; whereas the archives of the hospital
are now in the ‘Archivio’ of Santa Maria Nuova, San Paolo having been
united to the latter hospital by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, c.
1783.[4] ¶ At first sight, this ‘ricordo’ would not seem to bear out
the story which Vasari tells of Alesso and his dealings with the
authorities of San Paolo. It states only that Alesso made a donation
to the hospital of all his worldly goods after his death, upon the
condition that his faithful servant, Mea, was to be lodged, clad, and
fed, during her life; whereas Vasari, on the contrary, states that
the painter himself became an inmate of San Paolo. ‘Alesso,’ he says,
‘lived eighty years; and when he began to grow old, desirous of being
able to attend to the studies of his profession with a quiet mind, he,
as many men often do, entered the Hospital of San Paolo: and in order,
perhaps, that he might be received the more willingly, and be better
treated (though it might, indeed, have happened by chance), he caused
a great chest to be brought into his rooms, in the hospital; acting as
if a goodly sum of money were therein: whereupon the master and the
other ministrants of the hospital, believing that this was so, bestowed
on him the greatest kindness in the world; since they knew that he
had made a donation to the hospital, of whatever was found in his
possession at his death. But when Alesso died, only drawings, cartoons,
and a little book which set forth how to make the tesserae for mosaic,
together with the stucco and the method of working them, were found
therein.’[5] ¶ The apparent discrepancy between the ‘ricordo’ in the
books of San Paolo and Vasari’s account led me to search, and not
without success, for the deed by which Alesso’s property passed to the
hospital. I found that both the name of the notary and the date of the
execution of the instrument were incorrectly given in the ‘ricordo’
cited above. The instrument was engrossed by Ser Piero di Antonio di
Ser Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo da Vinci, and executed on
March 16, 1497-8. By this deed Alesso, _ex titulo et causa donationis_,
‘irrevocably gave and bequeathed during his life-time, to the Hospital
of the Pinzocheri of the third order of St. Francis, otherwise called
the Hospital of San Pagholo, and to the poor of Christ living in the
said hospital for the time being,’ etc., ‘all his goods, real and
personal, present and future, wherever situate or existent,’ etc.,
reserving to himself ‘the use and usufruct of the said goods,’ etc.,
‘for the term of his natural life.’ The ‘rogiti’ of Ser Piero da Vinci
for the year 1498 have not been preserved among the ‘protocols’ of
that notary now in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; and so it is no
longer possible to say under what conditions, if any, the donation was
made: but it is to be presumed upon the evidence of the ‘ricordo’ cited
above, that it entailed the obligation on the part of the hospital,
to maintain Mea, his servant, during her life. ¶ On October 17, 1498,
Alesso executed what was technically known as a ‘renuntiatio,’ which
was likewise engrossed by Ser Piero da Vinci. This second instrument,
which begins by reciting the former deed of donation in the terms
quoted above, sets forth how, on that day, Alesso, ‘by reason of lawful
and reasonable causes of motion influencing, as they assert, his mind,
and by his mere, free, and proper will,’ etc., ‘renounced the said use
and usufruct, expressly reserved to himself in the aforesaid donation,
and freely remitted and released the said use and usufruct to the said
hospital, and to the poor of Christ dwelling in the said hospital,’
etc. The text of this document, which is preserved in the Archivio di
Stato at Florence, is printed at length at the end of this article.[6]
It allows us to draw but one conclusion; namely, that when the painter
executed the deed of donation on March 16, 1497-8, he had been left
without wife or children; and that he anticipated but two contingencies
against which he would provide after his death--the health of his soul
and the maintenance of his faithful servant, Mea. ¶ Alesso had married
late in life. It appears from the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by
him in 1470, that he was still unmarried at that time, and that he
was possessed of no real property, but rented a house in the ‘popolo’
of San Lorenzo, in Florence, described in his later ‘Denunzie,’ as
being in the Via dell’ Ariento, at the Canto de’ Gori.[7] In another
‘Denunzia’ returned in 1480, Alesso thus describes his family:--‘Alesso
Baldovinetti, aforesaid, aged 60, painter; Monna Daria, his wife, aged
45; Mea, his maid-servant, aged 13.’ As a matter of fact, Alesso was
63 years of age, having been born on October 14, 1427, Milanesi, by
the way, in his notes to Vasari, gives the name of his, Alesso’s wife,
as Diana, in error for Daria.[8] According to the same ‘Denunzia,’
the painter was at that time possessed of a parcel of land of twelve
staiora, situate in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, and another
parcel of seven staiora, in the same ‘popolo,’ the latter having been
bought in 1479, with a part of his wife’s dowry. It is, therefore,
probable that he had not long been married at that time.[9] It appears
from a yet later ‘Denunzia’ on which the ‘Decima’ of 1498 was assessed,
though the return itself was probably drawn up in 1495, that he
possessed, in addition to the two parcels of land in the ‘popolo’ of
Santa Maria a Quinto, a third parcel of over eleven staiora, in the
adjoining ‘popolo’ of San Martino a Sesto, on the road to Prato. He
was still living at that time in the same house at the Canto de’ Gori;
and he also enjoyed the rents of two shops, with dwellinghouses above,
which had been made over to him for the term of his natural life,
by the Consuls of the Arte dei Mercanti, on February 26, 1483-4, in
payment of his ‘magistero e esercitio et trafficho,’ in having restored
the mosaics of the Baptistery of San Giovanni.[10] ¶ The Spedale di
San Paolo, of which the beautiful loggia, with its ornaments by Andrea
della Robbia, still remains on the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella, was
originally a hospital for the care of the sick; and as such it is
mentioned in a document of 1208.[11] From the time that St. Francis
himself is said to have lodged at San Paolo, the hospital appears to
have been administered by Franciscans, called in the records ‘Fratres
tertii Ordinis de Penitentia S. Pauli.’ During the fourteenth century,
the house underwent certain reforms; and in 1398 it was decreed by the
Signoria, ‘that the place was to be no longer a hospital, but a house
of Frati Pinzocheri of the third order.’[12] Notwithstanding, the
members of the community continued to devote themselves to the care
of the sick; and a papal brief of 1452 directs that the revenues of
the house were to be set apart for the infirm.[13] At an early period
in the history of San Paolo, mention occurs of Pinzochere, that is to
say, women attached to the community, no doubt for the service of the
hospital; but unlike the men of the house, who are invariably called
Frati Pinzocheri, they were not dignified by the title of ‘Monache’:
from this Stefano Rosselli infers that they originally had no share
in its government.[14] Owing, however, to some cause which is not
very clear, the Frati Pinzocheri appear to have died out towards the
latter part of the fifteenth century, leaving the women in possession
of the hospital. From evidence that Rosselli and Richa adduce, it
seems that in 1497 San Paolo was controlled and administered entirely
by Pinzochere; and in the document of 1499, cited below, it is called
‘lo spedale di pizichora del terzo ordjne dj san franchesco.’[15]
From this we must conclude that, when Alesso renounced the use and
enjoyment of his property on October 17, 1498, he entered the hospital
of San Paolo, not as a member of the community, but as a sick man who
sought nothing more on earth than to be tended during the brief span
of life that was left to him. He died ten months later, on August 29,
1499, and was buried in his own tomb in San Lorenzo.[16] The hospital
of San Paolo probably inherited, along with Alesso’s other property,
all his cartoons and drawings, as Vasari asserts: they, certainly,
came into the possession of his books and papers, as we know. The
little treatise on the art of Mosaic has long been lost; but Milanesi
has stated in a well-known passage in his Vasari, that the autograph
manuscript of certain ‘Ricordi’ of Alesso Baldovinetti still existed
in his time, in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, among the books of
the hospital of San Paolo. He adds that these ‘_Ricordi_ were published
at Lucca in 1868, by Dr. Giovanni Pierotti, _per le nozze Bongi e
Ranalli_.’[17] Few of those innumerable, little pamphlets with which
Italians, learned and unlearned, delight to celebrate the marriages
of their patrons, friends, or relatives, are more difficult to find
than the little brochure of ten leaves, in a green paper wrapper, to
which Milanesi alludes. The title page runs thus: ‘Ricordi di Alesso
Baldovinetti, pittore fiorentino del secolo xv. Lucca. Tipografia
Landi. 1868.’ Unfortunately only a portion of Baldovinetti’s manuscript
is given in this pamphlet. The extracts, which fill less than a half
of its twenty pages, are partly given in the text, and partly in an
abstract, of the original. The rest of the pamphlet is filled with the
introductory preface and notes of Dr. Pierotti. ¶ It is now some years
ago since I first made an attempt to find the original manuscript of
these ‘Ricordi,’ in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, only to discover
that I was not the first student of Florentine painting to search in
vain for the volume. Whether it had been borrowed by Pierotti, or
merely mislaid, or in what way it had disappeared, no one could tell
me. Not long after this attempt, however, I chanced upon what proved to
be a clue to its history. While searching among the ‘Carte Milanesi,’
the voluminous manuscript collections which the famous commentator of
Vasari left to the Communal Library of Siena, I came across a series
of extracts from the ‘Ricordi’ of Baldovinetti, in the handwriting of
Milanesi, with the title: ‘Estratto del libro dei Ricordi di Alesso
Baldovinetti autografo essitente nell’ Archivio dello Spedale di
Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze.--Libri dello Spedale di San Paolo, 12
Febb^o. 1850.’ On comparing these extracts with Pierotti’s pamphlet, I
found that the two copies agreed word for word with one another. It was
evident that Pierotti had made use of Milanesi’s manuscript (indeed,
he owns as much in his concluding note), and that he may never have
seen the original manuscript. ¶ Last autumn, having occasion to make
some researches in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, with my friend
Sir Domenic Colnaghi, for his ‘Dictionary of Florentine Painters,’ I
took the opportunity of renewing my search for the missing volume. On
the top shelf of one of the presses which contain the books and papers
of the hospital of San Paolo, I came across a ‘filza’ labelled ‘Libri
Diversi,’ and filled with miscellaneous account-books of the hospital,
chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among these was a
small, upright book of forty-seven leaves, bound in a parchment cover
which was inscribed:--
RICHORDI[18]
·Ḅ̇·
[Illustration: PAINTED-GLASS WINDOW DECORATED WITH FIGURES OF GOD THE
FATHER AND ST. ANDREW, FROM CARTOONS BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI; OVER THE
ALTAR OF THE PAZZI CHAPEL IN THE CLOISTER OF SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE]
On the recto of the first leaf was written: ‘1470. In this book I will
keep a record of all the expenses that I shall incur in the chapel of
the High Altar of Santa Trinita, namely of gold, blue, green, lake,
with all other colours and expenses that shall be incurred on behalf
of the said chapel; and so we may remain in agreement [I and] Messer
Bongiani Gianfigliazi, the commissioner of the work, and the patron
of the said chapel, as appears by a writing which I hold, subscribed
by his own hand.’ ¶ Fol. 2 _tergo_, and fol. 3 _recto_, were filled
with entries relating to the purchase of colours and other materials
for the work of the chapel, and fol. 3 _tergo_ contained two further
entries in the same hand; after which was written, in a different
hand: ‘Here follow the records of the hospital of the Pinzochere of
the third order of St. Francis, written by Giovanni di Ser Antonio
Vianizzi.’ The remainder of the book was filled with entries relating
to the hospital of San Paolo, the first of which recorded a payment of
twenty-three lire, made by the hospital on October 19, 1499, to Luca
d’Alesso Baldovinetti. On comparing the ‘Ricordi’ relating to Santa
Trinita, with the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1471,
it was clearly evident that both documents were in the handwriting of
the painter. Of the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1480,
two copies exist in the same hand; but they do not appear to have
been written by the painter himself, although Milanesi has reproduced
a portion of one of them, in his ‘Scrittura di Artisti Italiani,’
Florence, 1876, Vol. 1, No. 74, as a specimen of his handwriting. ¶
What is more, this manuscript, which I may call ‘Libro B,’ throws a
light upon the nature of the missing volume, ‘Libro A.’ In the case of
‘Libro B,’ what undoubtedly happened was, that the good Pinzochere, on
looking over Alesso’s property after his death, found an account-book
of which only the first three leaves had been used. With a proper
spirit of economy, they determined to make use of the rest of the book
for the accounts of their hospital: but instead of tearing out the
leaves containing Alesso’s ‘Ricordi,’ they fortunately allowed them to
stand; their procurator adding the note I have cited above. The same
thing probably happened in the case of ‘Libro A.’ From the extracts
that Milanesi made, it appears that Alesso’s ‘Ricordi’ only filled some
sixteen pages of a volume, that cannot well have contained fewer leaves
than ‘Libro B.’ With this clue to its discovery, I leave my friends
and rivals in Florence to continue the search for a volume, whose loss
every genuine student of Italian painting must regret. ¶ The history
of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita affords a curious instance
of the tardy process by which many of the Florentine churches and
their chapels were brought to completion. The present church of Santa
Trinita was begun _c._ 1250, but many of the lateral chapels remained
unfinished until the fifteenth century, and among them the Cappella
Maggiore. On November 1, 1371, the abbot of Santa Trinita, _inter
missarum solepnia_, made an appeal to many of the chief parishioners,
who had assembled for mass, to contribute to the expenses necessary for
the erection of the Cappella Maggiore.[19] The work appears to have
proceeded very slowly, since it is on record that the chapel was but
half built in the year 1463. In order to bring it to completion, the
abbot, having assembled the parishioners in the church, gave notice
that since money was wanting to finish the work, licence to do so would
be granted to the family that was able and willing to undertake the
expense; and accordingly on February 4 of the same year, the patronage
of the chapel was granted by acclamation of the parishioners, to Messer
Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and his descendants.[20] ¶ The Gianfigliazzi
were an ancient Florentine family, of no little repute in the conduct
of affairs and arms during the last two centuries of the republic.
Ugolino Verino celebrates them in his Latin poem, ‘De Illustratione
Urbis Florentiae’:--
Non genus externum est: agro venere paterno,
Janfiliazze, tui, si vera est fama, priores.
Protulit illustres equites generosa propago.[21]
According to Piero Monaldi, the Gianfigliazzi were descended and took
their name from one ‘Ioannes filius Acci,’ who is named in a treaty
concluded between the Sienese and Florentines in the year 1201.[22]
Besides knights of Malta and Santo Spirito, this family boasted of ten
gonfaloniers of the republic, and thirty priors; the first of whom held
office in 1345. Gherardo Gianfigliazzi was gonfalonier in 1462; and
Messer Bongianni, his brother, in 1467, and again in 1470. The latter,
‘magnificus miles’ as he is styled in documents, was a ‘cavalier spron
d’oro,’ and famous in his day as a leader of the Florentine forces.
He was several times created ambassador of the Florentine republic,
and one of the Dieci di Balia. In 1471 he was one of the six ‘orators’
sent to felicitate Sixtus IV on his election to the papacy; and in 1483
he was appointed ‘commessario’ in the war against the Genoese, which
ended in the capture of Sarzana. Alesso was not the only famous artist
which this family patronized. Their shield of arms, carved with a lion
rampant, by Desiderio da Settignano, is still to be seen on the front
of their palace on the Lung’ arno Corsini, at Florence.[23] ¶ Giuseppe
Richa states that the deed granting the patronage of the Cappella
Maggiore of Santa Trinita to the Gianfigliazzi, was engrossed by Ser
Pierozzo Cerbini on February 13, 1463-4, which we may well believe;[24]
but he adds that the ‘ius patronale’ was vested in the persons of
Messer Bongianni and Messer Gherardo.[25] The latter statement,
however, would seem to be incorrect, for Gherardo was already dead at
that time, as we learn from the inscription on the sepulchral slab
(one of the most beautiful of its kind in Florence), which is still
to be seen on the floor of the chapel, but now partly covered by a
choir-organ:
GHERARDO . IANFILIATIO . DE . SE .
FAMILIA . ET . PATRIA . BE[? NE-
MERITO BONIOANNES] . FRATRI .
PIENTISSIMO . SIBI ..... IDVS . SEP .
AN . SAL . MCCCCLXIII
[Illustration: Photo, Alinari
THE ALTAR-PIECE PAINTED BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI FOR THE CAPPELLA
MAGGIORE OF SANTA TRINITÀ, AT FLORENCE, AND NOW PRESERVED IN THE
FLORENTINE ACADEMY]
Messer Bongianni appears to have proceeded at once with the work of
finishing the chapel. His share of the work may yet be made out: the
vaulting, with its heavy roll ribs, too large for the corbels on
which they rest, was clearly erected by him. The corbels themselves
probably date from the thirteenth century. Furthermore, he constructed
the large window of two round-headed lights, and an a ‘occhio,’ or
circular light, above, which is still to be seen in the head of
the chapel. The structure being completed, he next turned to the
decoration, which he began by filling the lights of the window with
painted glass. Alesso Baldovinetti enters, in his ‘Ricordi,’ Libro
A, that ‘Lionardo di Bartolommeo, surnamed Lastra, and Giovanni di
Andrea, glazier, owe me this 14th day of February, 1465[-6], lire 120;
which moneys are for the painting of a window placed in the Cappella
Maggiore of Santa Trinita; and Bongianni di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi has
ordered this window to be executed by the said Lastra and Giovanni,
master-glaziers; and I, Alesso, have designed and painted it for them,
at the rate of forty soldi the square braccio: the ‘occhio’ above
being estimated with the said window, in the said sum, and according
to the said measure.‘[26] It appears from the ‘Trattato’ of Cennino
Cennini that it was the common practice of the ‘maestri di finestre’
in Florence in the fifteenth century not only to employ painters to
design cartoons for their windows, but also to paint the design upon
the glass. The ‘maestro di finistre,’ says Cennini, ‘will come to you
with the measure of his window, both breadth and length. You will take
as many sheets of paper glued together as will be necessary for your
window; and you will draw your figure first in charcoal, afterwards
you will outline it in ink, having shaded your figure as completely
as if you were drawing it on panel. Then the master-glazier takes
this design and spreads it out on a desk or board, large and even,
and according as he wishes to colour the draperies of the figure, so,
piece by piece, he cuts the glasses, and gives you a colour made of
copper filings, well ground; and with this colour, piece by piece,
you proceed with a little pencil of minever, having a good point, to
contrive your shadows, making the joins of the folds and other parts
of your figure agree, one piece of glass with another, just as the
master-glazier has cut and put them together; and with this colour you
are able, without exception, to shade on every sort of glass.’[27] ¶
In 1616, the glass designed and painted by Alesso, ‘being all spoiled,
broken, and patched, in such a manner that it yielded no light, except
where there was no wire-screen,’ the whole of the lights were reglazed
anew, at the joint expense of the monastery and the patrons of the
chapel.[28] The beautiful stonework of the window, however, designed
in the classic taste of the time, with finely-wrought pilasters at the
jambs and mullion, was restored and filled with modern stained-glass
during the recent restoration of the church, in 1890-7. ¶ It appears
from the ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, of Alesso Baldovinetti, that the painter
gave designs for several windows to the ‘maestri di finestre.’ In
1472, he designed an Annunciation to be executed in glass for the
cathedral church of San Martino, at Lucca; and in 1481, he designed a
window for the church of Sant’ Agostino, at Arezzo.[29] These windows
have perished, but there still remains in Florence a painted window
which was undoubtedly executed from a cartoon by Alesso. This window,
which, so far as I am aware, has never been ascribed to him, is above
the altar of the Pazzi chapel, in the first cloister of Santa Croce.
[Plate I.] It consists of two lights, a lower circular-headed light
containing a full-length figure of St. Andrew, the patron saint of the
chapel, with the arms of the Pazzi below; and an upper round window,
or ‘occhio,’ containing a half-length figure of God the Father. This
window affords a good example of the use of the pure and brilliant
colours which the Florentine ‘maestri di finestre’ employed in the
fifteenth century, and which to our northern eyes are apt to appear
crude and too little wrought upon. But seen, as such windows were
doubtless intended to be seen, with the full power of the Italian
sun upon them, their colours become fused, and take that jewel-like
quality which is essentially distinctive of the finest painted-glass.
The figure of St. Andrew is draped in a golden leaf-green robe, lined
with a smalt blue, and worn over an underrobe of a warm and brilliant
purple. The frieze of the niche behind the figure is of a colder
purple; the capitals of a madder tint; the cupola of a smalt blue; and
the sky in the background of a full ultramarine. The figure of God
the Father in the ‘occhio’ above, wears a golden purple vest, and a
mantle of smalt blue; and the curtains of a madder purple, lined with
green, which are drawn apart, reveal a skyey background of ultramarine
behind the figure. During the recent restoration of the Pazzi chapel,
this window was repaired, and several missing pieces of the glass made
good. These repairs are especially noticeable in the ultramarine glass.
¶ The high altar of Santa Trinita was originally placed immediately
below the window, in the head of the Cappella Maggiore. Its beautiful
marble frontal, carved with the symbol of the Trinity in relief, was
found during the recent restoration of the church, in the Cappella
della Pura, in Santa Maria Novella, and has once more been put to
its original use. For this altar Alesso, as he records in Libro A,
received the commission from Messer Bongianni, on April 11, 1470, to
paint an altar-piece, in which was to be a Trinity with two saints,
namely, St. Benedict and St. John Gualbert, and angels. He finished it
on February 8, 1471, and received eighty-nine gold florins in payment
for the work.[30] In 1569, the high altar was brought forward, and
placed below the arch of the Cappella Maggiore; and the choir which
anciently lay before the high altar, in the body of the church, was
reconstructed in the chapel, behind the altar. In 1671, the crucifix of
St. John Gualbert was brought from San Miniato, and placed upon the new
high altar; and Alesso’s altar-piece was left hanging in its original
position, below the window of the choir, where it was to be seen when
Don Averardo Niccolini collected his notices of Santa Trinita, towards
the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] At a later time the picture
was removed into the sacristy; and finally, upon the suppression of
the monastery in 1808, it was taken to the Florentine Academy, where
it is still preserved, No. 159. [Plate II.] It is painted on a panel
measuring 7 ft. 8½ ins. in height, and 9 ft. 1¾ ins. in length. God
the Father is seated in the centre of the composition, in the midst
of a glory of seraphim, supporting the cross on which the figure or
Christ is hanging. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, hovers above
the crucifix; and at the foot of the cross, which rests upon the
earth, is the skull of Adam. In the lower left-hand corner kneels St.
Benedict, in the habit of his order; and on the opposite side of the
picture kneels St. John Gualbert. In the upper corners, two angels
draw back a curtain embroidered with pearls; while other angels hover
around, against the skyey background. Dry, almost unpleasing as a
whole, and with little or nothing of that delicate feeling for sensuous
beauty which distinguishes Alesso’s early works, this altar-piece
is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable productions extant of
Florentine painting in the fifteenth century. In execution, it shows a
mastery of technique to which few of Alesso’s contemporaries attained.
The draperies, for instance, are wrought with a richness of colour and
texture which recalls the work of some great Fleming. In conception too
severely understood, in presentation too precisely wrought out, and
with too exacting a definition, this altar-piece seems to forestall
something of that profoundly intellectual rendering of constructed
form, which Michael Angelo afterwards carried to its height in the
fresco of the Last Judgement. Certainly, there are few more striking
instances of the manner to which the Florentine painters of the
fifteenth century developed the technique and science of painting.
[_To be continued._]
[Illustration: THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS, SURROUNDED BY
VIRGIN SAINTS (DEXTER: SS. FAUSTA, AN UNKNOWN SAINT, AGNES, CATHERINE,
AND DOROTHEA; SINISTER: SS. APOLLINA, GODELIVA, CECILIA, BARBARA, AND
LUCY); IN THE BACKGROUND, THE PAINTER AND HIS WIFE ON EITHER SIDE; BY
GERARD DAVID; IN THE ROUEN MUSEUM]
THE EARLY PAINTERS OF THE NETHERLANDS AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE BRUGES
EXHIBITION OF 1902
❧ WRITTEN BY W. H. JAMES WEALE ❧
ARTICLE IV
The Exhibition included a number of other works attributed to Memlinc.
Three of these are supposed to have been executed in his early years:
the Passion of Saint Sebastian (69), belonging to the Brussels
Museum; the triptych with the Deposition of Christ in the centre, and
Saints James and Christopher (92), formerly at Liphook in the Heath
collection, now the property of M. R. von Kaufmann; and the Blessed
Virgin and Child with a donor protected by Saint Anthony. The first
of these was probably painted by a follower of Dirk Bouts; the second
by an imitator of Bouts and Memlinc; the third only has any claim to
be considered the work of Memlinc; the date 1472, inscribed in the
background, is certainly modern, but probably copied from the frame
when this was discarded. The Blessed Virgin and Child (78), lent by
Mr. A. Thiem, is a school picture in not very good condition; another
(83) belonging to Baron P. Bethune, having long served as the lid of
a miller’s flour box, has very little of the original work left. A
Madonna enthroned with two angels (82) entirely overpainted, lent by
Mrs. Stephenson Clarke, and another belonging to the Museum of Woerlitz
(29), are like similar pictures in the Museum at Vienna and in the
possession of the Duke of Westminster, works probably painted after
Memlinc’s death from his patterns by Louis Boels. The three large
panels from the monastery of Najera (84), belonging to the Antwerp
Museum, are fine decorative works painted about 1490 by an imitator of
Memlinc and Van Eyck. As to the Annunciation lent by Prince Radziwill
(85), said by Dr. Waagen to have been painted in 1482, I should,
looking at the colour and execution, think it at least twenty years
later, and am convinced that Memlinc never had anything whatever to do
with it. Mr. Hulin calls it Memlinc’s most perfect composition; Dr.
Friedländer, ‘an extremely original composition of remarkable delicacy
of sentiment and execution’ (_von höchst eigenartiger Komposition und
besonderer Feinheit in Empfindung und Durchführung_); while a writer
in the _Athenaeum_ of September 20 says: ‘In conception it belongs
entirely to the master, and the composition is as fine and original
as anything to be found in his work,’ and thinks that ‘it was _a
beautiful and new conceit_ thus to represent the Virgin as sinking down
tremblingly at the angel’s word, but held by the supporting arms of two
other attendant angels who look up to her with reassuring smiles.’ Now
it is certain that Memlinc, far from being an innovator and an inventor
of what the writer properly calls new conceits, was a faithful follower
of ecclesiastical tradition, and would never have dreamt of introducing
into the representation of this mystery these two sentimental and
affected angels. No doubt the Gospel says that Mary was troubled at the
words of the angel, but there is nothing to warrant this impertinent
addition. The fact is that the beautiful long waving line of the
Virgin’s robe with its sudden returning lines has made these critics
shut their eyes to these points, which I think are by themselves
sufficient evidence that the picture is the work of a sixteenth-century
innovator. As to the six panels (176) lent by the Strassburg Museum,
it is an outrage to suggest that Memlinc was their author. ¶ After
Memlinc, the greatest master who worked at Bruges was another
foreigner, Gerard son of John, son of David, a native of Oudewater
in South Holland, who in all probability learnt his art either at
Haarlem or under Dirk Bouts at Louvain. He came to Bruges at the end
of 1483, and was admitted into the Guild of Saint Luke as free master
on January 14, 1484. Although we have no written evidence as to his
history previous to that date, yet certain details in his works make
it almost certain that he had travelled in Italy after the termination
of his apprenticeship. Bruges still possesses the earliest works by
him of which the authenticity is established; these with a number of
others by his followers not only afforded an excellent opportunity for
studying the variations in his manner, but showed the great influence
he exercised over his contemporaries and followers. In 1488 Gerard
David was commissioned to paint two pictures by the magistrates elected
by the three members of Flanders to succeed those who had been deposed
after the imprisonment of Maximilian; they were intended by them to
commemorate the execution of the judge Peter Lanchals and other members
of the late administration who, having been found guilty of corruption
and malversation, had been condemned to death and executed. Gerard,
however, instead of painting the history of Lanchals, took for his
theme an analogous subject originally recorded by Herodotus, which
he probably drew from the then much better known works of Valerius
Maximus. By so doing he avoided the resentment of the friends of the
deposed magistrates, while the subject chosen was equally well adapted
to recall to the sitting magistrates that they must be honest and
impartial. In the first of the two panels (121), which we reproduce
(as the frontispiece of this number), Cambyses, accompanied by his
court, is represented entering the hall of justice and ordering the
arrest of the unjust judge Sisamnes. In the background Sisamnes is
seen at the porch of his house receiving a bag of money from a suitor.
The groups of nude children and the garlands of fruit and flowers, the
earliest instance of the occurrence of such details in a Netherlandish
picture, must have been copied from Venetian or Florentine pictures,
and the two Medicean cameos are almost proofs of a visit to Florence;
one of these, the Judgement of Marsyas by Apollo, is represented as
a breast ornament worn by Lucretia Tornabuoni (?) in the portrait
of that lady by Botticelli in the Städel Institute at Frankfort. It
is interesting to note that the square seen in the background is an
almost exact representation of the Square of St. John at Bruges. The
flaying of Sisamnes (122) is an extremely realistic picture vigorously
painted with wonderful finish. The composition and pose of the figures
in both scenes remind one of Carpaccio, the heads have a great deal
of character, and the hands are admirably modelled. For the two
pictures, which were not completed until 1498, Gerard received in three
instalments the sum of £14 10s. ¶ The National Gallery contains two
pictures painted between 1500 and 1510, both formerly in the Cathedral
of Saint Donatian at Bruges, the one an altar-piece executed for
Richard De Visch Van der Capelle, who held the office of cantor in that
church; the other, the dexter wing of a triptych painted for Bernardine
Salviati, a canon of the same cathedral. These of course were not at
Bruges, but I mention them here because they form a connecting link
with the triptych representing the Baptism of Christ (123), of which
the centre and the inner face of the shutters were painted before
1502, and the outer in 1508. The next work in order of date, and in my
opinion David’s masterpiece, is the picture (124) presented by him in
1509 to the convent of the Carmelite nuns of Sion at Bruges, and now in
the Rouen Museum; it represents the Blessed Virgin and Child surrounded
by virgin saints and two angels, the one playing a mandoline, the
other a viola, whilst at the extreme ends in the background the painter
has represented himself and his young wife. The composition is not
quite original; Memlinc had already painted for John Du Celier a small
Sacra Conversazione now in the Louvre, and another artist who has not
as yet been identified had executed in 1489, for the Guild of Saints
Mary Magdalene, Katherine, and Barbara, an altar-piece (114) which
doubtless suggested not only the composition of this picture but the
mode of characterizing the saints. The author of this earlier work,
if one may judge by its colouring, was probably accustomed to design
tapestries; most of the figures are exceedingly plain and wanting in
expression, whereas in Gerard’s picture the colouring is harmonious
and the figures remarkable for beauty of expression, the angels being
amongst the most charming conceptions realized by the school.
[Illustration: TRIPTYCH: THE BELESSED VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. CATHERINE, AND
ST. BARBARA; BY CORNELIA CNOOP, WIFE OF GERARD DAVID; IN THE POSSESSION
OF MESSRS. P. AND D. COLNARGHI]
The large triptych (125) lent by M. de Somzée, with life-size figures
of Saint Anne with the Blessed Virgin and Child in the centre, and
Saints Nicholas and Anthony of Padua on the shutters, painted for
some Spanish church, is a late work inferior in execution to those
already mentioned. Six other panels with scenes from the lives of
the two saints, said to have been the predella of this altar-piece,
not exhibited, are on the contrary charming works; they are now in
the possession of Lady Wantage. Two shutters of a triptych (138)
with full-length figures of four saints, lent by Mr. James Simon, of
Berlin, appear to me to be authentic works; the Saints Christopher and
Anthony are especially good. ¶ Of the other eleven works attributed
to Gerard by their owners or by those who have written on the
exhibition, I can only say _caveat lector_. We know no picture painted
by Gerard before 1488 or after 1512, and the variation of style in
the works executed between those dates of which the authenticity is
established makes it difficult to say with certainty that any picture
painted at Bruges between 1512 and 1527 is or is not by him, and it
is certainly mere guesswork to attribute to him any pictures of an
earlier date than 1488; it is indeed probable that, being a stranger,
he would during his first four years at Bruges have confined himself
to the execution of small pictures of religious subjects which would
meet with a ready sale. The Adoration of the Magi (135) lent by the
Brussels Museum, formerly supposed to be by John van Eyck, was first
attributed to Gerard by Dr. Scheibler. Dr. Friedländer believes it to
be an original work of about 1500, often copied. It was originally in
the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Michael at Antwerp, and I doubt
its being a Bruges picture or an original composition. The original
painting was certainly executed shortly after 1490 and was copied by
the miniaturist who adorned a Dominican Breviary which was in the
possession of Francis de Roias in Spain before 1497. ¶ The style of the
figures and the colouring of the Annunciation (128) lent by the Museum
of Sigmaringen are very much in Gerard’s manner, and it may possibly
be by him; the Städel Museum at Frankfort contains a copy of these two
panels apparently painted by a Netherlandish artist in the Peninsula
or by a Portuguese artist in the Low Countries, the inscription on
the border of the angel’s vestments being in Portuguese: _Modar de
Senor_. A triptych representing the Deposition of Christ (126), which
though thrice restored, in 1675, 1773, and 1827, is still in fairly
good condition, was first included by me in 1863 among the works by
Gerard on the authority of a document of the year 1675, preserved in
the archives of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood, to which the
picture has always belonged. It certainly differs considerably from
the pictures painted by him between 1488 and 1510, and shows a strong
influence of Quentin Metsys, and I do not think that the opinion of
two or three modern critics warrants the rejection of the evidence in
its favour. The picture was certainly painted _c._ 1520 in Bruges,
where several old copies of it were preserved until the middle of the
last century. ¶ A Holy Family (343) lent by M. Martin Le Roi is an
excellent work painted about the same time, showing even more strongly
the influence of Quentin Metsys, and I have little doubt painted by an
Antwerp master. Yet this is classed by Dr. Friedländer as an excellent
work of David’s later time (_Vortreffliches Werk aus der Spätzeit
Davids_), although there is neither tradition nor documentary evidence
in favour of this attribution. The Transfiguration (117) belonging to
the church of Our Lady, another work of about the same date, is of
interest as representing an event rarely treated by the early masters
of the Netherlands. The composition shows an Italian influence; the
figures, especially those in the group on the left, that of Gerard;
the colouring is light and cool; the picture has suffered very much
from neglect. The shutters of this altar-piece, not exhibited, were
painted by Peter Pourbus. The lunette (149) lent by Baron de Schickler
is a fine piece, but the types of the figures are unlike any in
Gerard’s authentic works. ¶ Gerard was not only a painter but also a
miniaturist, and as such a member of the Guild of Saint John and the
head of a school of miniaturists. Two specimens of his own work--(129)
Saint John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness and the Baptism of
Christ--and three by his wife, Cornelia Cnoop, were formerly in the
Cistercian abbey of Saint Mary in the Dunes; the three last (130), lent
by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, are here reproduced; they have been
framed as a triptych.
[_The previous articles of this series were published in Nos. 1, 2, and
3 of_ ~The Burlington Magazine~ _for March, April, and May, 1903._]
EDITORIAL NOTE
We give reproductions of the portraits of Thomas Portunari and his
wife, referred to by Mr. Weale in his third article (~Burlington
Magazine~, No. 3, May 1903, p. 336), as they may be of interest to
students of Flemish art, since their authorship is a disputed question.
These portraits have hitherto been attributed to Memlinc, but, when
they were exhibited at Bruges last year, this attribution was doubted
by many critics. Mr. Weale, as our readers know, has suggested that
the portraits may be early works of Hugh van der Goes. The question is
one on which further opinion will be welcome. Amateurs of mediaeval
jewellery, by the way, should notice the very beautiful necklace
worn by Portunari’s wife, which is a remarkably fine example of
fifteenth-century work.
[Illustration: PORTRAITS OF THOMAS PORTUNARI AND HIS WIFE; ATTRIBUTED
TO HANS MEMLINC; IN THE COLLECTION OF MONSIEUR LÉOPOLD GOLDSCHMIDT]
ON ORIENTAL CARPETS
❧ ARTICLE III.--THE SVASTIKA ❧
Until a comparatively few years ago, the literature of science was
almost wholly silent on the subject of the Svastika. Professor Wilson,
of the Smithsonian Institute, writing in the early nineties, sets
forth that in most of the best-known encyclopedias, both European
and American, the word Svastika is not so much as mentioned. It was
indeed, he says, this to him incomprehensible omission, and consequent
admittedly general ignorance, that prompted him to make an exhaustive
study of the subject, and to embody the results of his researches
in what is undoubtedly the standard work on Svastika at the present
time. Yet even Professor Wilson, while giving to his readers the great
mass of evidence he has collated, is chary of expressing any definite
opinion as to the origin and significance of this universal symbol. In
this reserve he is doubtless prudent, at least in so far that he has
avoided entering upon a controversy which must probably be endless.
The theories, indeed, that have been presented concerning the origin
and the symbolism of the Svastika are as numerous as they are diverse.
Every kind of suggestion has been made as to its relation to the
most ancient Deities, and as to its typifying of certain qualities.
Various writers have regarded it as being the emblem, respectively,
of Zeus and of Baal, of the Sun God, of the Sun itself as a God, and
of the Sun chariot. Of Agni (the Ignis of the Romans) the fire God,
and of Indra the rain God. In the estimation of others, again, it is
typical of the sky and of the sky God; and finally of the Deity of all
Deities, the great God, the maker and ruler of the universe. Again,
it has been held to symbolize light and the God of light, and the
forked lightning, as a manifestation of that Deity; and yet again,
according to some, from its intimate association with the Lotus, it
has been regarded as the emblem of the God of water. That it is the
oldest known Aryan symbol is hardly in dispute. There are writers who
have announced their conviction that it represents Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. Certainly it
appears in the footprints of Buddha, engraved upon the living rock of
Indian mountains; equally certainly it stood for the Jupiter Tonans
and Pluvius of the Latins, and for the Thor of the Scandinavians,
though that it represented a variety of the ‘Thor hammer’ is now
considered to be disproved. Many have attributed a Phallic meaning to
it, or, regarding it as the symbol of the female, have claimed that it
represents the generative principles of mankind, while its appearance
on the person of certain Goddesses, Artemis, Hera, Demeter, Astarte,
and the Chaldean ‘Nana,’ the leaden Goddess from Hissarlik, has caused
it to be claimed as a sign of fecundity. But, as Professor Wilson
points out, and as every other writer has allowed, whatever else the
Svastika may have stood for, and however many meanings it may have
had, it was always, if not primarily, ornamental. It may have been
used with any or all and other than the above significations, but it
was always ornamental as well. ¶ But in whatever other connexion it
may have been employed, it was invariably, and still is to-day, an
auspicious sign. It is still used by the common people of India, of
China, and of Japan, as a sign of ‘long life, good wishes, and good
fortune.’ Among many North American Indian tribes it is called ‘the
luck,’ and the men wear it embroidered on their garters, and the women
on the borders of their skirts; and in ancient times it was wont to be
embroidered in quills on the bags in which they carried their medicinal
herbs. In Thibet it is a not uncommon mode of tattooing; and in this
connexion it is interesting to note that Higgins in his ‘Anacalypsis’
says, concerning the origin of the cross, that the official name for
the Governor of Thibet comes from the ancient Thibetan name for cross,
the original spelling of which is “Lamh.” Davenport corroborates this
view in his “Aphrodisiaco.” There is, according to Balfour, despite
Mr. Gandhi’s contradictions of Colonel Cunningham, a sect in Thibet
who receive their name from this symbol. They are the ‘Tao-sse’ of
the Chinese. The founder of this doctrine is said to have flourished
~B.C.~ 604 to 523. They were rationalists who held that peace of mind
and contentment were the only objects worthy of attainment in this
life. They assumed the name of Tirthakar, or pure-doers. Professor
Max Müller, discussing the question why the sign [Illustration]
should have had an auspicious meaning, mentions that Mr. Thomas, the
distinguished oriental numismatist, has called attention to the fact,
that in the long list of the recognized devices of the twenty-four
Jain Tirthankara[32] the sun is absent, but that while the eighth
Tirthankara has the sign of the half moon, the seventh is marked with
a Svastika, _i.e._ the sun. Here, then, is clear indication that the
Svastika with the ends pointing in the right direction was originally a
symbol of the sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal
sun, the ‘Suavastika,’ and therefore a natural symbol of light, life,
health, and wealth. This ‘Suavastika,’ Max Müller believes, was applied
to the Svastika sign [Illustration] with the ends bent to the left,
but with the exception of Burnouf (‘Des Sciences et Religions’) no
one agrees with him. Burnouf supports his theory (which is, that the
word Suavastika is a derivation of the Svastika, and ought to signify
‘he, who, or that which bears or carries the Svastika or a species of
Svastika’) by the story of Agni (Ignis), the god of Sacred Fire, as
told in the ‘Veda’ (the four sacred books of the Hindus). ‘The young
Queen, the Mother of Fire, carried the Royal infant mysteriously
concealed in her bosom. She was a woman of the people, whose common
name was Arani--that is, the instrument of wood (the Svastika) from
which fire was produced by rubbing.’ Burnouf says that the origin of
the sign is now easy to recognize. It represents the two pieces of wood
which compose the Arani, of which the extremities were to be retained
by the four nails. At the junction of the two pieces was a fossette or
cup-like hole, and there was placed a wooden upright in the form of a
lance (the pramantha), the violent rotation of which (by whipping after
the fashion of the whipping-top) brought forth fire.
[Illustration: Form of Svastika at the end of Kolpâpur Inscription.]
[Illustration: Svastika at end of Kûdâ.]
[Illustration: Croix Svasticale (Zmigrodski).]
[Illustration: SECTION OF ORIENTAL CARPET IN THE POSSESSION OF MR.
HAROLD HARTLEY, SHOWING THE SVASTIKA]
Zmigrodski agrees with this view; but, as with every other theory
connected with Svastika, it has many opponents. ¶ Professor Dumontier
holds that Svastika is nothing else than a development of the ancient
Chinese characters C. h. e, which carries the idea, according to Count
Goblet D’Alviella (in ‘La Migration des Symboles’), of perfection or
excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. Max
Müller, Waring, and D’Alviella are agreed that neither in Babylonia
nor in Assyria are any traces of Svastika to be found. Ludwig Müller,
however, finds ample evidence of it on Persian coins of the Arsacides
and Sassanides dynasties. ¶ Arsacides was the name of the Parthian
kings whose family name was Arseus. The Arsacidean kings of Armenia,
according to Moses of Chorene, began to reign ~B.C.~ 130, and ruled
until ~A.D.~ 45, when the Armenian kingdom was extinguished. The
Sassanian kings of Persia ruled from ~A.D.~ 226 to 641, when the last
monarch, Yez-de-jird the Third, was overthrown by the Mahomedans.
This monarchy took its origin when Artaxerxes (the Greek and Roman
way of pronouncing Ardeshir) overthrew the Parthian dynasty. This
prince, Ardeshir Babekan, son of Sassan, was an officer of King Arsaces
Artabanus the Fifth, whom he murdered, assuming the Persian throne as
the first of the Sassanian dynasty. ¶ Ohnefalsch Richter holds the
view that although no trace of Svastika had been found in Phoenicia,
yet that travellers to that country had brought it from the Far East,
and had introduced it into Cyprus, and into Carthage and the north of
Africa generally. As against the denial of it in Assyria, however, is
Wilson’s assertion that the three-rayed design is found on Assyrian
coins, as also as a countermark on those of Alexander, ~B.C.~ 333 to
323. Professor Sayce, on the other hand, is of opinion that Svastika
was a Hittite symbol which passed by communication to the Aryans, or
to some of their important branches before their final dispersion took
place. The Professor regards it as being fairly established that the
symbol was in more or less common use among the peoples of the bronze
age anterior to either the Chaldeans, Hittites, or Aryans.
[Illustration: Egyptian Intrusive Seals.]
[Illustration: Ogee Svastika.
With circle. Plain.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
As against all these theories, Major-General Gordon, writing to Dr.
Schliemann in 1896 from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, of which he was
then Controller, points out that the Svastika is obviously Chinese,
and that on the breech of a large gun captured in the Taku Fort in
’61, and at the time of writing lying outside his office at Woolwich,
the same symbol is displayed. Dr. Lockyer, who was for many years a
medical missionary in China, also says that the sign is thoroughly
Chinese. Colonel Sykes, another authority on matters Chinese, concludes
that according to the Chinese authorities, Fa-hiau, Soung-Young, and
Hiuantusang, the ‘doctors of reason,’ Taosee or followers of the
mystic cross were diffused in China and India before the advent of
Sakya in the sixth century ~B.C.~ (according to other authorities in
the eleventh century ~B.C.~), continuing to Fa-hiau’s time, and that
they were professors of qualified Buddhism, which it is stated was
the universal religion of Thibet before Sakya’s advent, and continued
until orthodox Buddhism was introduced in the ninth century ~A. D.~
As to this Colonel Tod holds the opinion that the first Buddha of
the four flourished circa ~B.C.~ 2250. This was Budh the parent of
the lunar race. ¶ The Greeks undoubtedly connected the symbol with
the cult of Apollo, but it seems probable that the sign came to them
from Egypt, where the Tau which was a cross was anciently a symbol of
the generative power, and afterwards was introduced into the Bacchic
mysteries. Such a cross has been found at Pompeii in a house, in
juxtaposition with the Phallus and with other symbols embodying the
same idea. This mystic Tau, or Standard of the Cross as it has been
called, formed just half of the Labarum,[33] or idolatrous war standard
of the Pagans. The Labarum bore at once the crescent and the cross,
the crescent as the emblem of Astarte the Queen of Heaven, and the
cross as that of Bacchus. ¶ The controversy, if so it can be called,
will doubtless rage for all time, but the one essential point remains
salient: namely, that the symbol is admittedly universal, and equally
admittedly it is the basis and the mainstay in one form or another of
all conventional decorative design. It is to be found everywhere in our
modern life. In our household appointments, in our mural decorations,
in the shapes and adornment of articles of our furniture. Even does it
come down to us in the shape of those old irons on houses with which
we are all familiar, and which, though a few persons fondly believe
them to be so placed for the purpose of remedying cracking walls,
are regarded by every right-thinking country person as a protection
against lightning and fire. Unconsciously Svastika permeates our whole
existence. We cannot even sit down to dinner without finding it set
before us in some of our table appointments; and nowhere is the symbol
more constantly and more permanently evident than in oriental rugs and
carpets. In every specimen of these, of whatsoever provenance, and no
matter how much the flowing line of curves may have encroached on the
rectilineal design of convention, the Svastika is traceable. It may
not be at once discovered in the main body of the pattern, though it is
always present, but it is invariably and inevitably to be found in the
border, which it may at once be said is as much an historical asset as
is the central design itself.
[Illustration: Irons on Old Houses.]
[Illustration: Sunsnakes.
Double. Single.]
Of course throughout the natural working of Time’s processes, the
merging of myths and the blending of conceptions, certain bold
and salient developments, if projected with sufficient force and
persistency, must ever remain paramount. This is the case with the
Svastika and with that other symbol, that of the lotus, with which it
is almost invariably found in conjunction. There are many indeed who
claim that the two symbols are indivisible. Professor Goodyear, no mean
authority, is specially insistent on this point. He holds that it is
the lotus that is the keynote of decoration. The lotus, he contends,
is the Tree of Life, or rather the accepted Tree of Life is really the
lotus in one or another of its many aspects. The spiral scroll, he
urges, comes from the bent sepals of the lotus much exaggerated, which
being squared becomes the Greek fret or meander or key pattern, and
this doubled forms the Svastika. ¶ The Lotus and the Tree of Life will
form the subject of the next article.
[_Previous articles of this series were published in Nos 1 and 3, for
March and May, 1903._]
[Illustration: THE COOK ASLEEP, BY JAN VERMEER OF DELFT, IN THE
COLLECIION OF MONSIEUR RUDOLPHE KANN]
THE DUTCH EXHIBITION AT THE GUILDHALL
❧ ARTICLE I.--THE OLD MASTERS ❧
There is every probability that the current exhibition of early and
modern pictures by Dutch artists will prove to be one of the most
popular which has yet been held at the Guildhall; not, indeed, because
it is of finer quality than its predecessors, but from the fact that
the pictures are well within the grasp of the average man. There is
nothing incomprehensible to those least acquainted with Dutch art,
and there is something that will appeal to all. It must have occurred
to many with regard to pictures of Holland by artists of varying
nationality that only the Dutchman really grasps the subtleties of the
country. All the rest look upon it with alien eyes, and give us but
the external form. They never get behind the veil and infect us with
that indefinable exquisiteness and charm so characteristic of Holland
with its pastoral flats, pollard willows, canals, picturesque craft
and windmills and, most wonderful of all, that delicate atmosphere
softening the harshest lines into a melodious ensemble, and overhead
the immensity of sky, vast in its expanse and with its delicacies
of blues and greys. The finest Dutch landscape painters have always
painted in a minor key; whenever they seek to modulate into the major
they lose themselves and become commonplace. This applies equally to
Rüysdael and to Jacob Maris; doubtless it is an expression of the
national temperament of the Dutchman. Generally upon emerging from
a contemplation of the old men into a modern artistic environment a
feeling of repulsion creeps over one, but this is not the case here.
Rüysdael and Rembrandt seem strangely in harmony with Maris and Mauve,
and in this fact may be found a plea for the endurance of the latter.
A very different impression is given, for instance, when one leaves
an eighteenth-century French picture and comes to a modern French
landscape. The modern Dutch school have maintained the traditions of
their predecessors, and one of them at least--Jacob Maris--is worthy
to be put on the same plane as Rüysdael and Hobbema. ¶ In the small
gallery upstairs the student of seventeenth-century Dutch art will find
much to admire, still more to interest him, and not a few examples
which will tax his ingenuity as to attribution. Among these last are
some of the six pictures ascribed to Rembrandt. The most important,
and perhaps the one which should attract the most attention, is the
large landscape Le Commencement d’Orage, which is surpassed by little
in the landscape work of Rembrandt for poetical intensity and incisive
truth. This picture is by most modern critics denied to Rembrandt; as
the question is one which must be fully dealt with, its discussion may
conveniently be postponed to the end of this paper. ¶ When we leave
this and come to the portraits we find but one, the Portrait of the
Painter’s Son Titus, which has any serious pretensions to be considered
as coming from his brush. Against this, however, nothing can be urged
in point of quality. Of the Dutch master’s last and finest manner--it
is dated 1655--it has all the pathetic realism of his unsubdued genius.
It is interesting to compare this canvas, which is undoubtedly a
portrait of Titus, with that of the same boy in the Wallace collection.
As this is dated authentically 1655, the Hertford House picture should
be painted within the next year, or at the latest in 1657, whereas
it is approximately dated in the catalogue 1658-60. On the score of
quality there is little to choose, but perhaps the English picture is
in a better state of preservation. The Head of a Man, a careful work,
and with many good qualities to recommend it, is in all probability a
work of Solomon de Koninck, who was one of those pupils of Rembrandt
who assimilated most of his technicalities. The extreme timidity of
many of those points in which the bolder qualities of Rembrandt would
be brought into play, such as the handling of the nose, mouth and hair,
go far to convince us of the correctness of this attribution. Coming to
The Portrait of the Artist, it appears quite incomprehensible that a
picture of such inferior artistic qualities should have been seriously
considered for so long a period as a work of the master. Coming from
the collections of M. de Calonne, the Marquis Gerini and Mr. Agar,
engraved by Seuter and Townley, quoted in Smith, it serves to show the
hazy idea of even the best connoisseurs in the early days of the last
century. Such a work would be difficult to affiliate upon any of the
best known of Rembrandt’s pupils. The weakness of the drawing and lack
of power and roundness are clearly the work of but a second-rate man
of the period. The signature, moreover, presents no claim to serious
consideration. In Ruth and Naomi is possibly to be found the work of a
very interesting painter of the school of Rembrandt--Karel Fabritius,
who is little known yet in this country. It is painted with remarkable
strength and solidity, and although not a great achievement, is worthy
of comparison with some of those pictures which are ascribed to the
greater light upon very slender foundation. The picture, however, is
in such bad condition and has suffered so much that no one can tell
what it may have been when fresh. ¶ More interesting upon the whole
than the representation of Rembrandt and his School is that of Frans
Hals. His so-called Admiral de Ruyter (which is not a portrait of
that admiral) for decision and fearless handling has not an equal in
the gallery. It is not Hals as we see him at Hertford House, careful
and conscientious, though successful, but the spontaneous, daring
master whom we find at Haarlem and in the Louvre, at Cassel and St.
Petersburg. It is the Hals that we not only admire but also love, the
wonder of the cultured art-loving public, and--may we add it?--the
despair of the modern portrait painter. Such brushwork has only been
equalled, we shall not say surpassed, by a few masters, of whom
Velasquez stands out prominently. When, however, we turn to Van Goyen
and his Wife and Child, we have another instance of more than doubtful
attribution. The landscape is probably by Van Goyen, for it has many
of his characteristics of tree draughtsmanship and sober colour. The
figures, however, betray nothing of Hals beyond his influence, and even
the latter is only just allowable. They are well and strongly painted
in parts; but Hals would never be guilty of such loose handling as is
observable in the child in the foreground or such weak drawing as the
foot of Van Goyen betrays. There is but little from which to deduce
an attribution with any degree of certainty. The present ascription
is part of that system which insists on fathering upon Hals all the
portraits in this manner and of this period, in much the same way as
in the past all portraits which betrayed any of the technicalities of
Rembrandt were attributed to that master.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF, BY JAN STEEN, IN THE COLLECTION OF
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE WIFE OF THOMAS WIJCK, BY JAN VERSPRONCK,
IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. STEPHENSON CLARKE]
Turning from this to a Group of Three we have a splendid example by a
master whose history is enshrouded still in much mystery, but who was,
if one can judge from his art, a pupil of Hals--we are referring to
Jan Miense Molenaer. It was evidently painted in the earlier portion
of his career and has much in common with The Spinet-players in the
Rycks Museum at Amsterdam. A scene which Hals would have revelled
in depicting, full of uproarious good humour, the picture presents
attractions quite apart from its superb technical qualities and
masterly composition. Curiously enough, upon the same wall we have
two examples, Jovial Companions and The Health of the Troop, by
Molenaer’s wife, Judith Leyster, a painter of the school of Haarlem
of the period when Hals was at the height of his fame. They are both
catalogued as being collaborations by Hals and Judith Leyster, but
beyond the potent influence of the former they have nothing to do
with him. As pictures they are interesting to the student, but not
for any striking qualities which they present. The brushwork is of a
character which one expects from a painter who from self-assurance
endeavours to emulate a bold and dashing manner without possessing
the ability of the prototype, with the inevitable result of a coarse
disjointedness irritating to the last degree. The colour scheme of
each is unpleasing too, blues and reds being foiled against one
another with a rashness which is born of over confidence. Of quite
another character is the little Portrait of a Gentleman by Thomas de
Keyser. The strong and firm modelling of the face has not a weakness
apparent anywhere, whilst, as is usual with this master, he has placed
a restraint upon himself which sustains him through the most arduous
task without loss of dignity or ease of presentment. This grasp of his
material leaves him when he attempts anything on a large scale: he
loses concentration and becomes straggling. The picture is, however,
overcleaned. ¶ But to revert to the school of Hals again, there are
few more instructive pictures in the exhibition than The Portrait of a
Dutch Lady by Jan Verspronck, who was in many respects his cleverest
pupil. This is a remarkably characteristic example, the authenticity
of which is convincingly attested by the presence of the signature
with the date 1643. It must have occurred to many students that the
scarcity of Verspronck’s pictures is accounted for by their being not
infrequently converted into examples of the better-known master. They
lend themselves very readily to this from the strong affinities of
technique. The great point of difference is to be found in the lack
of brilliancy and freedom, qualities eminently characteristic of Hals,
both in his early and late period. But the delicate silveriness and
luminosity of Hals find an echo in the finest portraits of Verspronck.
I remember seeing a portrait of a man some years ago in London which
was ascribed with all confidence to Hals, until a close examination
revealed the traces of an obliterated signature of Verspronck on the
background. Further, I have always held the opinion that the superb
Portrait of a Lady at Antwerp is by this master, and a contemplation
of the present picture strengthens this view. ¶ One other portrait is
well worthy of mention, although it may be observed that it hardly
comes within the scope of an exhibition of Dutch Art, but we should
have been considerably the losers without it--the Portrait of Ambrogio,
Marchese di Spinola, by Cornelis de Vos. It is a superb piece of
direct portraiture, full of dignity and precision, and the ruff and
breastplate are handled with remarkable accuracy and vigour. ¶ Of
the genre paintings the most attention will be attracted by The Cook
Asleep, a picture ascribed to that very rare master Jan Vermeer of
Delft. There is little of his characteristic technique displayed in
the treatment of the accessories--the fruit and the bottle. Still,
the girl, particularly in the head and bosom, and the handling of
the table-cloth, point to the work of the great Delft master, to
say nothing of the signature, which has every appearance of being
authentic. Nevertheless, to extol it as a masterpiece--it is set forth
as such in the catalogue--by Vermeer, is quite unjustifiable when one
remembers the picture in Mrs. Joseph’s possession, the two in the Six
Collection at Amsterdam, or those in the Rycks Museum, the Louvre,
and at Dresden and Berlin. There are weaknesses, as witness the flat
painting of the arms, and the diffusion of light is not grasped with
his wonted skill. It lacks just that which delights one most in the
master’s work. It is unfortunate that a better picture to represent
Vermeer’s contemporary Gabriel Metzu could not be obtained than A Woman
Dressing Fish. I cannot agree with Smith in describing it as ‘this
excellent little picture’; indeed I have grave doubts as to its being
a genuine picture at all. Neither does a Portrait of a Lady worthily
display the magic and refined art of Terborch, for the painting is
careful even to timidity. Better by far is the Portrait of a Young
Woman, which, in spite of an unequal tussle with the restorer, still
presents some of his most charming qualities. Both the head and hands
are in his best manner, and the black dress with its semi-transparent
frills is full of such delicate painting as characterizes The Portrait
of a Gentleman in the National Gallery. ¶ A most interesting panel, A
Lady at a Harpsichord, is ascribed to Palamedes. Great confusion has
existed with regard to his works in the past, arising from the fact
that several painters have an almost identical technique and painted
similar subjects. Foremost among these are Willem Cornelisz Duyster,
Pieter Codde, Dirk Hals, and that controversial and mysterious master,
Hendrik Pot. The fine picture at Hampton Court, described in the
Commonwealth Inventory as ‘A Souldier making a Strange Posture to a
Dutch Lady, by Bott,’ which has been in turn assigned to Pieter Codde,
Poelenburgh, Palamedes, Mytens, and Hendrik Pot, is now permanently
and rightly ascribed to the last, an attribution arrived at by careful
comparison with other works, and further confirmed by the presence of
Pot’s initials on the chimneypiece--all in addition to the suggestive
entry in the Commonwealth Inventory. Now the panel in the exhibition
is almost identical in treatment, and also with that of the Convivial
Party in the National Gallery, and I think that Pot is much more likely
to be its creator than Palamedes. ¶ The life work of Jan Steen, so
badly illustrated at present in our public galleries, is well summed
up by the humorous and most masterly Portrait of Himself. Seated
on a chair, he bawls without restraint a ditty, no doubt culled
from his own cabaret, accompanying himself with a mandoline, which
he plays with evidently greater gusto than expression. Steen was no
idealistic dreamer: he believed in earthly enjoyment, and from this
fact arose the tales of dissipation of which modern investigation has
proved the falsity. Still, he seems to have largely been in sympathy
with the views of Omar Khayyam, and making ‘the most of what we yet
may spend.’ ¶ The ascription to Adriaen Brouwer of An Interior with
Figures is perhaps another misnomer. There is none of his exquisite
transparency, the colouring is opaque and lacks the brilliancy of his
palette, and the draughtsmanship has not nearly his precision. Again,
the figures in the foreground, although having much in common with
Brouwer, betray the influence of David Teniers, an influence still
more marked in those talking through the window. Consequently there
is a strange mixture of Dutch and Flemish art, which points to a
master conversant with both. Two men suggest themselves as its author,
Hendrik Sorgh and Joost van Craesbeeck, and the weight of evidence
is in favour of the latter, largely because of the Flemish sentiment
which pervades the whole composition and the presence of mannerisms
which are peculiar to Brouwer, which leads one to give the preference
to Craesbeeck rather than to Sorgh. Some particularly fine examples of
the still-life painters of Holland are shown, Jan van Huysum and Jan
van Os especially; whilst one of the three canvases by Willem van Aelst
(No. 167) is quite a new revelation of his powers.
[Illustration: OFF SCHEVENINGEN, BY JAN VAN DE CAPELLE, IN THE
COLLECTION OF MR. CHARLES T. D. CREWS]
Coming to the landscape men, in some respects a pleasurable surprise
awaits us, and in others something akin to disappointment. The latter
was furnished by the representation of Jacob van Rüysdael, by whom
no less than three examples are shown. Good as they all will be
considered, not one shows to the full the intensely poetical side of
his genius, a side which, exemplified by the magnificent View of
Haarlem in the Mauritshuis at the Hague or the View over an extensive
flat wooded Country in our own National Gallery, places him far ahead
of any painter of the Dutch school for the rendering of dreamy poetry
of nature. He must yield the palm to Hobbema in tree painting and to
Cüyp in landscape full of delicate shimmer and sunny glow, and if
Philips de Koninck is his equal in the presentment of immensity of
distance, he is left far behind by Rüysdael’s atmospheric achievements.
One point may be conceded to Hobbema, namely, that he is more equal:
he never painted a bad picture, whereas Rüysdael frequently did
so; but when the two are seen at their best, the latter surpasses
him by reason of his superiority in catching that essentiality of
landscape--_stimmung_. For want of these qualities A Forest Scene,
fine as it is from a technical standpoint, and in a perfect state
of preservation, does not show the better side of Rüysdael. The
Seapiece is better, but fails by reason of its obviously forced sky.
Its redeeming feature is the masculine painting of the sea and its
finely-felt distance. Perhaps the best is the so-called View on the
Brill, which is impressive whilst remaining unsatisfactory. It is
particularly unfortunate that a picture of Rüysdael in his best and
most soulful mood could not be found, for then he would more than hold
his own against any of the _plein air_ men in the remaining galleries.
By Hobbema there are two superb panels, A Woody Landscape with a
gentleman on a grey horse, and A Landscape, between which, although
painted at different periods of his career, there is little to choose
in point of quality. However, the latter suffers from over cleaning,
particularly in some of those parts--notably the middle distance--where
Hobbema shines most, and this gives it a rawness quite foreign to the
picture in its pristine state. Still, they are both profound in their
grasp of nature and magnificence of achievement. Cüyp, too, is equally
well represented by A Herdsman and a Woman tending Cattle, with its
suffusion of golden sunlight over the placid river. A delicately soft
and delicious haze, so essential a feature on a summer afternoon in
the vicinity of a river, envelops the whole composition from the
finely-grouped cattle and figures in the immediate foreground to the
distant tower, and the portrayal of the relation of the exquisitely
truthful sky to the landscape was vouchsafed to no Dutchman to a
greater degree than to Cüyp. This is the only example here of the
Dordrecht master, for few will consider seriously the pretensions of
the Head of a Cow to be from his hand. It is signed (but it is to
be questioned if it is a contemporary signature) Berchem, and it is
possible that it is by that master, but there are other men equally
likely. ¶ A capital little landscape with cattle represents the art of
Adriaen van de Velde at its best. It is well that such a picture has
been chosen, for it is in its original condition, unlike all too many
which have become dark in parts owing to the employment of unstable
pigments. Another noteworthy example is that by Jan van der Heyden;
whether or not one is allowed to altogether admire such finish, one
cannot but wonder at the minute and painstaking rendering of detail
and at the masterly way with which, in spite of his _finesse_, he
preserves the unity of his composition. ¶ When we come to the Aart
van der Neer, a Moonlight River Scene, we are confronted with a
clever picture, but one which almost presents doubts as to its being
really from the hand of the master. In the first place it is painted
with a much fuller brush and broader handling than is usual with
Van der Neer. The trees, instead of being delicately, even minutely
wrought, are treated in broad masses, and the buildings have not his
directness; and one’s doubts are strengthened by the figures. Now Van
der Neer was never loose--if anything, his failing is in the opposite
direction--but here we have men in the foreground who are even clumsy,
whilst the whole work has a lack or transparence which raises grave
doubts whether it is a Dutch picture at all. Here and there is just a
trace of a copyist, although a man of no mean talent and one who was
copying to arrive at the spirit of the Dutchmen. We have at least one
man of the English school who, if this hypothesis has foundation, is
capable of this, and many little mannerisms are very like him; but some
good authorities regard the picture as an early work of Van der Neer,
much over-cleaned and repainted. ¶ The two Jan van de Cappelles are of
unsurpassable beauty. In the little Seapiece, with its placid water, an
awful stillness pervading the whole scene before the approaching storm,
the last glimpses of lurid light which catch the distant town before a
complete envelopment in inky blackness of the scene is accomplished,
and the depth of the picture, are quite wonderful. But it is rather
to Off Scheveningen we look for a thoroughly characteristic Van de
Cappelle. The wonderful sky and the amount of atmosphere infused into
the whole theme raises it quite on a level with the River Scene of the
Wynn Ellis bequest in the National Gallery, an equal of which for pure
aerial painting we have yet to see in a European Gallery. The present
example is one which surpasses Willem van de Velde at his best in all
the higher qualities of art. Another curious picture is the Rising in
a Dutch Town, ascribed to Gerrit Berkheyde. ¶ We will now return to
Le Commencement d’Orage; and in this connexion it may be convenient
to quote the passage referring to this picture which occurred in the
notice of the Guildhall Exhibition published in _The Times_, since it
expresses a view now widely held. The passage is as follows:--‘Another
picture, of great beauty and greater importance, has for more than a
century borne Rembrandt’s name--ever since de Marcenay engraved it with
that attribution. Yet it is absolutely certain that Lady Wantage’s
great picture, The Beginning of the Storm (174), is not by Rembrandt
at all, but is the masterpiece of Philip de Koning, who has two or
three similar but smaller works in the National Gallery, and whose
signed pictures since the days when Dr. Waagen wrote, have become
perfectly well known. Such a picture places de Koning in the very first
rank of landscape painters, and it is unjust to deprive him of it. It
would take us too long to give reasons for the change of name, but
there can be no doubt whatever about it. The picture, of course, shows
the influence of the mighty teacher throughout, but it is in point of
fact a better, truer, less fantastic landscape than he himself ever
painted. It makes the Cassel and other landscapes seem what they really
are--dreams, not transcripts from nature in any sense of the term.’ ¶
That the opinion thus dogmatically expressed is that of the majority
of critics cannot be denied, but I venture still to acquiesce in the
attribution to Rembrandt and I will give my grounds for so doing. In
the first place the view is just of such a character as de Koninck
painted--an extensive landscape seen from a height with river and
distant sandhills, the intervening space studded here and there with
hamlets. When, however, we come to compare the technique here with that
in accepted pictures by de Koninck, such as the landscape No. 836 in
the National Gallery, the only similarity which can be traced to him is
in the handling of the bank of the river at the right and the bushes
above it. But this is much too powerfully realized for de Koninck, it
has a force and breadth which the pupil never put forward. This point
can be observed by comparison with the National Gallery picture, which
has a very similar foreground only much more restrainedly achieved.
Again, the qualities to be found in the roofs by the windmill on the
left of the picture and the trees over them are such as are found in
all Rembrandt’s work, whether he is working in oil or with the etching
needle. Further, none of the finest works of Philips de Koninck have
such an impressive and powerful opposition of sunlight and gloom as we
have here. He may be wonderfully fascinating in rendering the delicate
silveriness of certain phases of atmospherical freshness but he is
never soul-stirring, which is a quality I claim for Lady Wantage’s
picture. In the sky painting there is much affinity between this and
the Peel picture as regards the cloud cumuli, but a reference to the
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel (No. 72) in the National Gallery
will disclose an identity which demonstrates that the other similarity
is only of such a character as would be found in the work of a very
clever pupil assimilating his master’s technique.
[Illustration: LE COMMENCEMENT D’ORAGE, VARIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN AND PHILIPS DE KONINCK; IN THE COLLECTION OF LADY
WANTAGE]
Before leaving this picture it would be useful to draw attention to
the parallel rendering of several details--the trees and the sunlight
hill in the background. Now in the second period of Rembrandt, which
is tentatively placed by students as lying between 1640 and 1649, much
attention to landscape is a prominent characteristic. Particularly was
this the case with regard to his work with the needle. This culminated
in the production of that most impressive of all his landscape
etchings, The Three Trees. If that etching is compared with the present
picture, many points of similarity will be observed, not only with
regard to the extensive view on the left of that etching, but with
regard to its realization and general feeling, beside which the art of
de Koninck appears but a triviality. The Three Trees is dated 1643,
and I am inclined to place this picture at about the same period, or
at any rate between 1640 and 1643. With this date the technique is in
strict consonance. Philips de Koninck we know was born in 1619, so
that at this period he would be twenty-one, a very impressionable age,
and I would hazard the suggestion, although the evidence is purely
presumptive, that not only was this landscape the forerunner of The
Three Trees, but that its production at the period when de Koninck was
probably a pupil of Rembrandt, or at any rate had but just emerged from
his studio, influenced the former to such an extent that it actually
inspired his future landscapes, the similar character of which is so
well known. Hence the importance of Le Commencement d’Orage for us. ¶
Yet another plea may be urged for the acceptance of the work as being
by Rembrandt. It is an accepted fact, that the etchings of Hercules
Seghers had great influence on Rembrandt. The inventory of his effects
made in 1656 shows that he had in his possession six landscapes by
Seghers in addition to the copper of Tobias and the Angel, which
latter he reworked and it appears in Rembrandt’s work as the Flight
into Egypt. Seghers, as is well known, was a lover of these vast Dutch
plains seen from a height, as witness his flat Dutch landscape seen
from a height with water in the foreground, and a flat Dutch landscape
with a winding river. Now Seghers was born about 1590 and died
somewhere about 1640, and it is fair to presume that at this latter
date Rembrandt came into possession of the plate of Tobias and the
Angel. This is the very period to which I attribute the production of
Le Commencement d’Orage, and it is a noteworthy fact that prior to this
date we have nothing akin to this and subsequent landscapes, so that it
is fair to presume that the art of Seghers created the landscape art of
Rembrandt as exemplified by The Three Trees and subsequent etchings,
and through him the art of Philips de Koninck. ¶ Moreover the picture
of Tobias and the Angel in the National Gallery is directly executed
under the influence of Seghers, and I have already drawn attention to
the similarity between the building of the sky in this picture and that
of Lady Wantage’s. In view of these considerations it would seem that
the champions of Philips de Koninck must show more adequate reasons
before robbing Rembrandt of the authorship of this superb landscape.
EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARES
ILLUSTRATED BY PIECES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
❧ WRITTEN BY R. L. HOBSON ❧
ARTICLE I
In beginning a series of articles on Staffordshire wares, which are
intended to sketch the history of those fascinating old pieces now so
eagerly sought by the collector of pottery, our first duty is to select
a convenient starting point. It is improbable that in a county so
rich in materials as Staffordshire the making of pottery has suffered
any serious intermission since prehistoric times; but I think we may
safely assume that the collector, as distinct from the antiquary,
will feel little interest in any of the productions of this district
prior to the seventeenth century. If we except Gothic paving tiles, a
few of the better costrels or pilgrim’s bottles, and the mysterious
‘poteries gracieuses de la reine Elizabeth’ (which, whatever they are,
no one thinks of claiming for Staffordshire), it may be said that
for five centuries after the Norman conquest the ceramic art of this
country boasted nothing better than coarse pitchers, gotches, gourds,
and gorges of clumsy shape and uncouth ornament, which appeal to few
but the sternest antiquarians. With the seventeenth century, however,
begins a new period of development, very gradual at first, but full
of interest. ¶ To anyone who has recently visited the Potteries, and
seen the great conglomerate of towns intersected by railways and
tramlines, with its forest of chimneys and the constantly burning
kilns of numberless factories that supply the markets of the world,
it is difficult to picture the same district 300 years ago, wooded,
wild and picturesque. The great towns were then represented by a few
moorland hamlets, the teeming factories by occasional ‘hovels’ and
‘sun-kilns,’ and the armies of workmen by the solitary potter, who,
helped by one or two labourers or by his own household alone, threw,
glazed and fired his weekly ovenload of crocks, which his wife took to
town on a donkey to exchange for the necessaries of life. It is not a
very promising picture from a collector’s point of view; and yet in the
first few years of the seventeenth century and in circumstances little
less primitive than those we have just described, a number of pieces
were made that are now eagerly sought after by persons of taste. I need
hardly say that it is not the common crocks made for the market or fair
that have achieved this apotheosis. The vessels with which we are at
present concerned were, we may be sure, of the kind ‘made for honour,’
_tours de force_ to celebrate special occasions, and to be cherished
among the heirlooms of the poor.
[Illustration: ~Fig. I.~--Slipware Dish. Depth, 16 ins.
The Pelican in her Piety.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. II.~--Tyg with Incised Ornament, dated 1640.
Height, 5½ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. III.~--Tyg with Seven Handles. Height, 8 ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. IV.~--Puzzle Tyg with the Sign of the Mermaid.
Height, 7½ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. V.~--Tyg with Streaked Glaze. Height, 10 ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. VI.~--Posset Pot with Stamped Ornament. Height,
10¼ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. VII.~--Cradle of Slipware, dated 1691. Length, 7½
ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. VIII.~--Fuddling Cup. Length. 7¼ ins.]
For the right understanding of our subject, it will be necessary to go
into a few technical details gathered from the earliest notice (in
Dr. Plot’s ‘Natural History of Staffordshire,’ 1689) of the industry,
and from the silent evidence of the pots themselves. At Burslem, which
even in Plot’s time was the ‘greatest pottery’ of the district, only
four kinds of clay were in use for the body of the wares: bottle clay,
hard fireclay which was mixed with red blending clay to make black
wares, and a white clay, so called because it produced a yellow ware,
which was the nearest approach to white then obtainable. Besides these
there were three finer clays reserved for decorative purposes, known
as orange slip, white slip, and a red slip which burnt black. Slip, it
must be explained, was a creamy fluid made of clay softened by water.
The glaze was produced by powdered lead ore dusted on to the ware.
For special pieces the ore was first calcined. Used in its simple
form, this powder, when fired, covered the ware with a transparent
glass of a warm yellow tone, which gave a rich reddish brown surface
to a red body, a yellow colour to white slip ornament, and a similar
augmentation to clays of other tints. Only two colouring oxides
appear to have been used--manganese, from which a colour was obtained
varying according to its intensity from purplish brown to black, and
commonly used to streak or mottle the glaze, and oxide of copper, which
produced a bright green effect. The unsophisticated potter called the
lead ore _smithum_ and the manganese _magnus_. A little Latin went a
long way in the district. ¶ Such were the simple materials that the
seventeenth-century potter had at his disposal, differing scarcely at
all from those used by his mediaeval forerunners. Let us see what use
he made of them, when working at his best. Fig. I shows an ornamental
dish for a cottage dresser. Fig. II is a type of drinking cup used on
special occasions. Other not inelegant drinking vessels of the period
are beaker-shaped, or in the form of an elongated dice-box with two
handles close together; these are always in black ware. Another shape
is seen in Fig. III. The principal feature of most of these quaint
tygs, or loving-cups, is their astonishing number of handles, which
range from two to as many as twelve. It is supposed that the purpose
of this equipment was that the cup might pass from hand to hand, and
each guest have a fresh portion of the rim to himself, no doubt an
excellent arrangement for the first time round! Not content with half
a dozen or so of full-grown handles, the potter frequently inserted
between each of them a sort of rudimentary handle consisting of a
looped strip of clay. Another variety of the tyg was called a posset
pot, and was usually distinguished by a spout. The posset pot would
seem to have been a family possession preserved with great respect,
and used only on special occasions, such as Christmas time. It also
suffered from a plethora of handles. Of any exact recipe for a posset
I must plead ignorance, but I fancy it as a compound of mulled ale
with an indefinite something floating on the surface, succulent, and
exceedingly popular. There were other and still more fanciful drinking
vessels besides these. A fuddling cup is shown in Fig. VIII. When it
is realized that the six cups communicate with each other internally,
so that to empty one you must empty all, the force of the name will
be apparent. Any doubt as to the use of these formidable vessels is
dispelled by the inscription on a similar piece, _Fill me ful of
sidar, drink of me_. The puzzle jug is another playful variety. Fig.
IX is an elaborate example from which it will be seen that the liquor
must be extracted in some unusual way if the drinker wants to get his
full measure, and has any respect for his clothes. The rim and handle
are tubes, communicating with the body of the jug, through which the
contents must be sucked from a spout in front of the rim, in this case
the bird’s beak. To complicate matters there are usually one or more
concealed holes in the tubes which must be stopped by the fingers,
in addition to a false spout or two, such as is seen on the side of
the rim. The puzzle jug is a joke of long standing. Specimens have
been found which go back to the fourteenth century, and the trick is
not quite unknown at the present day. No doubt their existence was
prolonged by the far-seeing publican who appreciated the possibilities
implied in the following doggerel that appears on one of them:--
Gentlemen, now try your skill.
I’ll hold you sixpence, if you will,
That you don’t drink unless you spill.
[Illustration: ~Fig. IX.~--Puzzle Jug. Height, 9½ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. X.~--Horn Lantern of Slipware.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. XI.~--Owl Jug with Combed Feathers. Height,
8½ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. XII.~--Posset Cup of Slipware. Height, 7¼
ins.]
Another pleasant surprise was furnished by the toad mug, in which
the drinker as he neared the bottom discovered a well-modelled toad,
usually of red clay with white slip eyes. Fig. XI is an example of a
rarer class. The owl jug was made with a removable head which could
be used as a cup. It is, however, a disputed question whether these
jugs are of Staffordshire origin, and it is hinted that they have a
suspiciously close parallel in German pottery. Other special forms of
a less bibulous kind are shown in Fig. VII, a model of a cradle which
tells its own tale; and Fig. X, a horn lantern. Candlesticks, handovens
and condiment trays also occur. ¶ We must now return for a moment to
technicalities in order to understand the remaining feature of our
wares, their ornament. The tyg, jug, cradle or piece of whatever form,
was sometimes left to depend for its popularity on its streaky purplish
brown or glossy black glaze alone, neither of them a recommendation
to be despised; or it was embellished with a scratched design, a
pattern impressed by wooden stamps, or applied pads of clay moulded
or stamped with rosettes, formal ornament, and occasionally with the
human form. I have seen a tyg with busts of King Charles I disposed
round its perimeter, an unusually ambitious design for a potter of
the period. The handles were made a still more conspicuous feature by
the addition of twists of coloured clay, knobs and bosses. ¶ Another
and a larger group were ornamented with the slips we spoke of above.
These were applied in various ways. First as simple washes to give a
light surface to a dark body or _vice versa_ (see Figs. IX and XII). Or
again they were dropped or trailed on from a spouted vessel in quaint
tracery, dotted patterns, or outlined designs. As might be expected at
this period, the tulip more or less conventionalized was a favourite
motive. The process is best understood by taking an example. Fig.
XII is of light buff ware: the ornament on the upper part, and the
inscription and date, WILLIAM CHATERLY, 1696, were traced in black
slip dotted with white; the lower half was immersed in black slip, and
the pattern added in white; the whole was then leaded and fired. ¶ A
third method consisted in dropping slip of one or more colours on the
surface and working it about with a wire brush or leather comb until an
effect similar to our graining or paper marbling was obtained. Wares
so treated are called combed or marbled wares (see Figs. XI and XIII).
This process, seen on the tall bottle-shaped costrels attributed to
the sixteenth century, continued in its primitive form to the middle
of the eighteenth century, when it developed into the agate ware of
Whieldon and Wedgwood and their contemporaries. ¶ Lastly, there was
_graffiato_ ware, in which a thick coating of slip was laid over a
body of contrasting colour and the pattern scratched through so as to
discover the body beneath (see Fig. VIII). This kind of ornament has
been in use in all countries and from the earliest times. It is seen
at its best on Italian pottery from the quattrocento onwards, and the
continuance of its Italian name is a compliment to the masterpieces of
that country.
[Illustration: ~Fig. XIII.~--Tyg with Trailed and Combed Slip.
Inscribed Ralph Tumor, 168–. Height, 4¾ ins.]
[Illustration: ~Fig. XIV.~--Puzzle Jug of Slipware. Inscribed
I.B.]
It remains to speak of dates and localities. Those of our wares that
have no slip decoration can be traced back to the first years of the
seventeenth century, if not to Elizabethan times. They continued to the
early part of the eighteenth century, when they either disappeared or
were improved out of recognition. Like all primitive wares, they were
manufactured all over the country, and though it is certain that a
large number of them were made in Staffordshire, it would be difficult
to claim any particular piece for that district. Slip decoration,
which dates back to mediaeval times, was equally universal. Indeed we
know that a well-defined class of slip ware with stamped ornaments and
patterns of dots and dashes was made at Wrotham in Kent from 1612-1717.
Another group with a distinctive kind of scroll and fern ornament in
thin white slip, and inscriptions usually of Puritanical tone, was
made in or near London from the middle of the sixteenth century. A
third kind is attributed with much probability to Cockpit Hill, Derby.
It is characterized by moulded patterns with raised outlines which
contained the coloured slips much as the _cloisons_ contain the enamels
on _cloisonnée_ work. ¶ But the best slipware of Staffordshire, as
exemplified by Figs. I, XII, and XIV, is unmistakable in style, and
yields to none in picturesque effect. Our earliest clue to its history
was given by the simple legend scratched on the back of a dish similar
to Fig. I, THOMAS TOFT. TINKERS CLOUGH. I MADE IT., 166–. Tinker’s
Clough is a lane between Shelton and Wedgwood’s Etruria. On the
strength of this modest confession the name Toft ware has been applied
by many writers to all slipwares of this class, and even to slipware
generally. A number of other names, sometimes with dates, are found on
these wares (_e.g._ Ralph Toft 1676, Charles Toft, Ralph Turnor 1681,
Robart (_sic_) Shaw 1692), many of them no doubt the names of potters,
others of those for whom the pots were made. Slipware, though naturally
superseded by the finer earthenwares of the eighteenth century, is
not yet extinct, and may be seen occasionally at country fairs of the
present day. ¶ The question of Staffordshire delft ware is too long to
consider here. It is a moot point if any such thing existed before the
eighteenth century, and it is certain that delft was never made there
to any extent worth considering. But this article would be incomplete
if one omitted to give a few of the quaint inscriptions that are a
feature of the various kinds of pots we have discussed. They tell
their own story and need no comment:--
The gift is small, Good will is all.
Mary Oumfaris your cup. 1678. [Can this spell Humphreys!]
This for W. F. 1691.
The best is not to good for you. 1697. I.B. R.F.
Anne Draper this cup I made for you and so no more. I.W. 1707.
Come good wemen drink of the best Ion my lady and all the rest.
Brisk be to the med you desier as her love yow ma requare.
Robert Pool mad this cup With gud posset fil and
The aposiopesis in the last is pregnant with meaning. ¶ Naturally
after all these years good examples of old Staffordshire wares are
scarce, and when they appear in the market they can only be bought at
proportionately good prices, owing to the eagerness with which they
are sought by the collector. And _me judice_ they deserve all the
attention they get. There is something genuinely fascinating in their
naïve simplicity and their entire lack of all that is artificial or
extraneous. We do not, of course, pretend that for instance the use
of slip originated in this country, but the particular application of
it that is so characteristic of the Staffordshire wares is of purely
native development. These early pots are like the potters who made them
and their friends who used them, English to the backbone.
[~Fig. XV.~--Cup of Slipware, dated 1719.]
NEW ACQUISITIONS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUMS
~Victoria and Albert Museum~
~A Mediaeval Silver Chalice from Iceland~
The national collection of silversmiths’ work at South Kensington
has lately been enriched by the acquisition of a silver chalice of
exceptional beauty and interest, which has reached this country, by
way of Denmark, with the history of having belonged formerly to the
church of Grundt, a village in the north of Iceland. ¶ As will be seen
from the illustration, the chalice is of the early type in which the
round contour prevails, in hemispherical bowl, bulb-shaped knop, and
circular foot. The bowl is of fine workmanship, fashioned with the
hammer with admirable uniformity, and finished with a high polish on
the outside. Round its margin runs the leonine hexameter (with some
allowances) + SVMMITVR HINC NVNDA DIVINI SANGVINIS VNDA (no doubt for
‘sumitur hinc munda divini sanguinis unda ’).[34] The lettering of the
inscription, of which a rubbing is shown, is interesting, apart from
the beauty and freedom of its forms, in helping to fix an approximate
date for the object it adorns. ¶ The knop, separated from the bowl by
a narrow indented necking with beaded edges, is cast hollow, pierced
and chiselled with four compartments of foliage. The leafage in each
compartment is of a different design, and in each springs from the
turned-up ends of a circumscribing band stamped with a row of annulets
(see illustration). The upper spandrels so formed are filled each
with a small leaf; the lower are blank. ¶ The trumpet-shaped foot is
finished round the margin with a bevel, engraved with a rudimentary
fret and turned out at the edge in a narrow rim. At its junction with
the knop it is enriched with a border of vertical leaves rising from a
kind of nebuly band. The workmanship of the foot is notably inferior
to that of the bowl; the hammermarks are plainly visible inside, and
outside no careful polishing has smoothed away the concentric markings
of the turning tool which was used, after the hammer, on both bowl and
foot. It may perhaps be suggested that the inferior finish of the foot
is evidence of its not having originally belonged to the bowl; but the
suggestion is discredited by the excellent proportion existing between
the two, and by the similarity of both to the corresponding parts of
other examples about to be noticed. It is more probable that a higher
finish was imparted to the bowl in deference to its function as the
receptacle of the consecrated wine. ¶ To conclude the description, the
enriched portions, that is to say, the band of inscription round the
bowl, the knop with the parts adjacent, and the bevel of the foot,
and these only, are gilt, by the old mercury process, with a pale
gold. The measurements are: height 4-13/16 in. (12˙2 cm.), diameter of
bowl 3¾ in. (9˙5 cm.), diameter of foot 3-9/16 in. (9 cm.). With the
chalice is a paten of plain silver, a slightly concave disc 5-1/16 in.
(12˙9 cm.) in diameter, with a roughly-formed circular depression. As
this is of very rough make, and has no appearance of being that which
originally accompanied the chalice, it need not be referred to further.
[Illustration: A SCANDINAVIAN CHALICE OF THE EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY,
WITH DETAILS (ACTUAL SIZE) OF INSCRIPTION AND DECORATION; IN THE
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.]
The shape of the chalice is sufficient, by comparison with other
examples, to determine its date approximately. It may be compared, in
respect of its hemispherical bowl, its flattened globular knop, and
its trumpet-shaped foot with bevelled margin, with a much larger and
more ornate example in the church of the Holy Apostles at Cologne,
shown by the character of its ornament to be of the early part of the
thirteenth century.[35] While in the latter example, however, the bowl
and knop are separated by a stem equal in length to at least half
of the height of the knop, in our chalice they are separated only
by the narrow indented band with beaded edges already noticed.[36]
¶ A closer parallel, though again on a larger scale, is furnished
by an example dated 1222, formerly in the Heckscher collection, and
now in the possession of Sir Samuel Montagu, where all the main
features referred to are reproduced, and a much closer similarity in
the spacing of bowl and knop is observable.[37] ¶ Still more to the
point, however, is a silver chalice found at Sorö, in Denmark, in the
year 1827, with an episcopal ring, in the grave of Absalon, bishop of
Lund (died 1201).[38] We have here an example from the latter part of
the twelfth or the first year of the thirteenth century, reproducing
almost exactly the outlines of our chalice already described, and in
almost the same dimensions. In the bishop’s chalice the knop is plain,
and set off by a band of shallow fluting above and below; but these
differences of detail, and even a somewhat wider separation of bowl and
knop, cannot veil the striking resemblance of type between the two.
¶ The inscription with its combination of uncial and capital letters
furnishes further evidence of date. In general style, as well as in its
peculiarities of the use of both varieties of D, the freely curved G,
and the A with bent cross-stroke, it shows considerable affinity to the
inscription on the ivory cross of Gunhilda (died 1076), grand-niece
of Canute, in the Copenhagen Museum.[39] The same peculiarities, as
well as the V with a circle on its sinister stroke, are to be observed
in the inscriptions on the altar frontal of Lisbjerg, in Denmark,
assigned to the twelfth century. The tendency towards curved forms,
however, shown in the rounding of the interior of the capital D’s and
in the curving-in of the tails of these letters and of the R may be
more closely matched, in default of a Scandinavian example, in the
inscriptions on the bronze font at Hildesheim, assigned to the second
quarter of the thirteenth century.[40] At this date, however, the
fully-developed Lombardic character has so far prevailed over the roman
capital that it is only by picking out letters here and there, existing
as survivals among their curved supplanters, that such pure capital
or transitional characters as form the staple of our inscription can
be matched. ¶ The foliage on the knop is in two of the groups of that
conventional type which, apparently in reality a debasement of the
classical acanthus, is employed in the decoration of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries as the leafage of the symbolical vine; and the
bud-shaped objects springing among the leaves in one compartment are
clearly intended for such bunches of grapes as are similarly rendered
in ironwork of the thirteenth century. Foliage of similar character,
rising in the same way from the curved ends of the circumscribing
band, may be observed on certain of the carved church doors of the
twelfth century in Norway,[41] where such groups, employed in rows side
by side, distinctly recall an enrichment of classical architecture.
It is less easy to speak confidently of another of the bunches of
leaves, which suggests the growth either of a trumpet-shaped lichen or
possibly of an arum lily. The single flat leaf with curled edges seems
clearly the leaf of a water-plant. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to
see in this and the vine foliage already noticed a reference to the
two constituents of the sacramental element. ¶ Turning to the question
of nationality, it is to be remarked that the inscription and the
lines enclosing it, one above and two below, are entirely engraved
in that zigzag line, reminding one of the mark of an assayer’s tool,
which is an almost constant characteristic, even till recent times, of
Scandinavian silversmiths’ work; and the fret round the foot shows the
same peculiarity. It has already been said that the chalice comes to us
with a tale of a distant but active centre of Scandinavian art. If it
be doubted whether such highly developed work could have been produced
in Iceland at the date indicated it may be recalled that this remote
island, whose inhabitants anticipated by five centuries the discovery
of Columbus, was at this time the home of a culture such as could
hardly be boasted by continental Scandinavia--a land, indeed, ‘where,
long before the “literary eras” of England or Germany, a brilliant
period of intellectual life produced and elaborated in its own distinct
form of expression a literature superior to any north of the Alps.’[42]
¶ Gathering the conclusions to which all indications point, there
seems every reason to regard this beautiful little chalice as an
example of Scandinavian work, of a date not later than the early part
of the thirteenth century, produced, it may well be, in that farthest
outpost of European culture whence already in the dark ages a hand was
stretched out from the old world to the new.
~H. P. Mitchell.~
~The Reid Gift.--II~
One of the most interesting of the Italian manuscripts is a Book of
Hours--_Officium Beatae Virginis Marine secundum consuetudinem Romanae
Curiae_--belonging to the early part of the sixteenth century, and
evidently made for a member of the famous Bentivoglio family: perhaps
Giovanni, born in 1505. The Bentivoglio arms appear on the first page;
on folio 41 in two cartouches within the border are the words IOANNES,
BEN; and on folio 109, in one cartouche similarly placed, IO·BEN.
The writing of this volume is very good; the more important initials
are well drawn, and pleasantly placed in architectural compartments
decorated above and below with the characteristic ornament of the
period. Indeed one would say that the composition and arrangement
of the less ornate pages of the book are its best features. There
are twenty-two full-page illuminations, each containing an elaborate
initial, within a rich border of brightly-coloured arabesque
ornament, generally in compartments. The decoration is well drawn and
distributed, though the drawing of the figures in the initials, and
of the half-human grotesques in the borders, leaves something to be
desired. An interesting and useful feature--though one by no means
uncommon--is the use of jewellery to give relief to the arabesques.
¶ From the calligraphic point of view only, a tall folio of the four
Gospels, with commentary (Italian, twelfth century), is possibly
the most important of the gift, and should be especially useful
to students. The text is written in a large minuscule character,
beautifully spaced and proportioned, occupying the centre of each page.
In either margin occur the notes in much smaller writing. Practically
the whole decoration consists of initials in blue and red, with here
and there a rare display of bold but simple pen-drawn ornament and a
few chapter headings of tall, cramped lettering, of which the initial
has never been supplied. A ‘Thesaurus’ of St. Cyril of Alexandria is
another valuable example of fine Italian writing; in this instance,
of the end of the fifteenth century in date. A border and a few fine
initials in gold, blue, pale red and green of cunningly contrived
interlacements--in the case of the border further embellished with
_amorini_, birds, etc.--are the only decorations of note. This volume
also includes a work by St. John Chrysostom, and formerly belonged
to the Minutoli Tegrimi family of Lucca, whose stamp defaces some of
the pages. A small Book of Hours is to be referred to the same period
and locality as the latter; it has, however, much more elaborate
decoration; the superposition of numerous beasts, birds, and insects
on the interlacing scroll-work of the borders, is, though interesting,
by no means an improvement. These animals are, it must be admitted,
rendered with curious care; while the two full-page miniatures adorning
the volume, as it stands, are of quite a high order of merit. They
represent The Annunciation and David killing Goliath--a particularly
spirited drawing, with a beautiful little miniature of the Man of
Sorrows in a cartouche on the page facing it; four storied initials
within borders also serve to mark the commencements of various offices.
The capitals, in gold, on these pages are very finely written. The
kalendar is complete, and contains references to several local saints,
indicating Umbria as the district for use in which it was made. ¶ A
Missal belonging in date to the beginning of the fifteenth century, is
a good example of Italian writing adorned with fine pen-drawn scrolls
and storied initials treated in a broad, simple style of colouring and
foliage. The pen-work, interesting for its restraint and formality,
differs greatly in this respect from that of the more northern schools.
There are sixteen large storiated initials, of which attention may be
drawn to those on folios 283, a Monstrance displayed on an altar; 292,
the Celebration of Mass; and a representation of the absolutions at the
side of a dead man, clothed and hooded in red and lying on a couch;
the prayer is read by a monk in a white habit, attended by another
similarly dressed who supports a tall cross which has lighted candles
on either arm. The kalendar is very full, and has been corrected in a
later handwriting in several places. Immediately following it, in two
pages of small script, is the _Ordo ad faciendum aquā bn̄dictam_. ¶ A
small Italian Book of Hours is archaeologically interesting because
it is signed in a colophon on folio 266. ‘Frater paulus de mediolano
ordīs scī B’tholomei de hermineis sc’psit’ (late fifteenth century).
The name of this writer is believed to be unrecorded hitherto;
the script is thoroughly Italian in character, but the decoration
has decided Netherlandish tendencies. Several northern saints are
inserted in the kalendar--by another hand--including St. Brandan. ¶
In conclusion mention may be made of a small Book of Devotions with
borders and miniatures of considerable merit and interest, placed
within architectural frames. On the first page is a coat of arms, which
however has evidently been superimposed on an earlier design. The
writing is good and the initials well placed and coloured. At the end
on a tablet are the initials S.H., but these have not been identified.
The work is French, probably southern, and in date belongs to the first
half of the sixteenth century. ¶ The works mentioned in these notes are
only a few of the large collection given by Mr. Reid. They are all now
exhibited near the entrance to the National Art Library.
E. F. S.
~The Print Room of the British Museum~