The most interesting among recent additions to the Print Room are

woodcuts, both old and new. A chiaroscuro by Andreani, after Alessandro

Casolani of Siena, representing the Pietà, or Lamentation for Christ,

is remarkable both for its great size--it measures nearly six feet

by four--and for its rarity. Other impressions exist at Bassano and

Berlin. The figures, St. John supporting the dead Saviour, and a

second group of three holy women in attendance on the Virgin, are

nearly of the size of life, and the wood-engraver evidently set

himself the task of producing the closest possible facsimile of a

large cartoon, outlined in charcoal and washed with neutral tints. He

has succeeded very well, and he was fortunate, considering the date,

1592, in obtaining so fine a composition on which to exert his skill.

The design has been cut throughout on three sets of blocks, one for

the black outline and two for tone. The impression, on many sheets of

paper joined together, is in good preservation, but the lowest portion

has perhaps been cut away, for there is no trace of the inscription,

recorded by Kolloff in his catalogue of Andreani’s works (No. 15),

that contains the dedication of the print to Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke

of Mantua, with the names of the artists and the date and place of

publication. Andreani had worked hitherto at Rome, Florence, and Siena.

It was to this dedication, apparently, and to his success in such an

important print, that he owed a summons to Mantua, his native city,

and a commission from the duke to reproduce in chiaroscuro Mantegna’s

Triumph of Caesar. ¶ Another woodcut of smaller but still considerable

dimensions (39¾ by 28¼ inches) bears the address ‘Gedruckt zu Nürmberg

Bey hans Wolff Glaser,’ cut upon the block in a tablet at the left

lower corner. Glaser was a ‘Briefmaler’ or petty publisher, printer,

and wood-engraver, who was at work at Nuremberg in the middle, or

third quarter, of the sixteenth century. His name is most familiar as

the publisher of one of the late editions of the portrait of Dürer at

the end of his life. The present work represents the Trinity, with

angels in adoration. These angels are copied, for the most part, from

Dürer’ fine woodcut of 1511 (B. 122), but they have been sadly spoilt

in the process of enlargement. Glaser’s work is coarse throughout, and

remarkable only for the rarity which it shares with most early woodcuts

of exceptional size. ¶ A fine impression of the portrait of Luther as

an Augustinian friar, after Cranach, dated 1520 (P. 194), has been

well coloured by a contemporary hand. A tablet at the bottom contains

the undescribed Latin inscription, EFFIGIES DOCTORIS MARTINI LVTHERI

| AVGVSTINIANI WITTENBERGĒSIS | 1520. The Holy Dove is added at the

top on a separate block, which also completes the arch. The portrait,

rare in the early, original impressions, hardly deserves to rank with

the woodcuts drawn by Cranach himself on the block; it seems, rather,

to be a good adaptation of an engraving on copper of the same year (P.

8, Sch. 7), in which Luther stands in front of a niche. Dr. Flechsig

finds much fault with the engraving itself, and will not allow it to

be more than a copy of the other engraved portrait of Luther (B. 5,

Sch. 6), with a plain background. With this woodcut were purchased

three interesting and undescribed etchings of knights arrayed for the

tournament, by the monogrammist C. S., a German artist of about 1550.

¶ A dainty little book, without text, but with the address, A LION |

PAR IAN DE TOVRNES. | M.D. LVI, within a graceful arabesque border, on

the first page, contains proofs of sixty blocks by wood-engravers of

the Lyons school, printed throughout on the recto of the leaf. ‘Das

gebet Salomonis’ (S. Grimm, Augsburg, 1523; 8vo.) has a pretty border

to the title, and a woodcut, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law,

both by the fascinating illustrator known provisionally as ‘The Master

of the Trostspiegel.’ A more important illustrated book is ‘Die Legend

des heyligen vatters Francisci,’ printed by Hölzel at Nuremberg in

1512, and profusely illustrated with woodcuts by Wolf Traut. The fine

copy recently purchased for the Print Room was formerly in the library

of William Morris. ¶ Another volume, still more intimately associated

with the author of ‘The Earthly Paradise,’ is the gift of Mr. George

Young Wardle, a friend and associate of Morris. It contains a complete

set, one of a very small number in existence, of proofs rubbed by

hand from unpublished blocks, designed by Burne-Jones, to illustrate

the tale of ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ The illustrations, forty-four in

number, were drawn upon the block by Mr. Wardle himself from the rough

sketches of Burne-Jones, which are now at Oxford. Morris, in revolt

against the methods of professional wood-engravers, had a few blocks

cut by amateurs, chosen among his own friends, and then took up the

task himself and cut by far the larger number with his own hands. To

these illustrations are added some initials and decorative borders,

both designed and cut by Morris. The story of the projected edition has

been told in ‘A Note on the Kelmscott Press.’ The scheme was abandoned

about 1870. The woodcuts, accordingly, belong to the period of English

illustrations generally described as ‘the sixties,’ and are separated

by a long interval from the later Burne-Jones woodcuts, including the

Chaucer series, which were printed in the ‘nineties,’ at the Kelmscott

Press. They are as full of romance as anything that Burne-Jones ever

drew, and the cutting, inexperienced and occasionally faulty as it

is, often preserves the freshness of the original sketch as no mere

hack engraver’s work would have done. It must not be forgotten,

however, that the defects of the cutting, in the opinion of Morris and

Burne-Jones themselves, were so serious as to make the publication of

the blocks undesirable. In addition to such rubbed proofs as those

lately in Mr. Wardle’s possession, a small number of proofs exist which

were pulled at a later date in the printing-press, and do more justice

to the blocks.

C. D.

NOTES ON VARIOUS WORKS OF ART

TWO ALLEGED ‘GIORGIONES’

The Leuchtenberg Gallery at St. Petersburg has lately yielded up some

of those treasures which it has long and jealously guarded. In 1852

Passavant published a _catalogue raisonné_ of the pictures, with

illustrations in outline, and to many this large volume has been

the sole medium of introduction to the collection. Several of the

originals have now found their way to London, among them two which

bear the great name of Giorgione--an Adoration of the Shepherds, and a

Madonna and Child. Both appear in outline in Passavant’s book, under

the name of Barbarelli, the supposed cognomen of Giorgione, to which,

however, as modern research has shown, he is not entitled.[43] ¶ The

Madonna and Child picture has now passed into the rich collection of

Mr. George Salting, of which assuredly it will not be one of the least

ornaments; here moreover it will hang in company with another picture

from the same hand, each admirably illustrating two different phases

of Cariani’s art. For to Cariani, the Bergamesque painter, must be

ascribed the authorship of this Madonna and Child, which reveals him

in a mood no less characteristic than does the fine Portrait of one of

the Albani Family, which Mr. Salting has generously placed on loan at

the National Gallery. It would be a fitting complement to see the new

Cariani hung near the other, if only to prove how charming an artist

he can be at times, and how far superior these examples are to the two

which the nation actually possesses at Trafalgar Square. ¶ Like all

artists not absolutely in the first rank, Cariani varies considerably

in quality of workmanship; indeed, owing to the peculiar local

characteristics of Bergamesque art Cariani is exceptionally protean

in form, appearing now in Venetian guise, now in Brescian, now in his

own native awkwardness. For by nature he was not gifted with great

refinement, or with a strong individuality, and when the temporary

influence of Lotto, or of Palma Vecchio, or even of Previtali, was

withdrawn, he easily lapsed into a slovenliness which repels, or into a

tastelessness which betrays his provincial origin. Fortunately this is

not the mood we feel in Mr. Salting’s Madonna. There is a homely strain

indeed, which makes the subject simply Mother and Child; a conception

which we find exactly paralleled in another charming work of his known

as La Vergine Cucitrice, or The Sempstress Madonna, in the Corsini

Gallery in Rome (see illustration). But the homeliness of conception

is in each case relieved by the exquisite setting; the landscape

background and especially the decorative foliage being treated with a

rare feeling for beautiful effects. Girolamo dai Libri’s lemon trees

and the leafy arbours of Lotto and Previtali do not make more charming

bowers than do Cariani’s rose hedge and his hanging limes. Add,

moreover, a certain fullness of form, a softness of expression, and a

harmony of colour, which can be traced to the direct influence of Palma

Vecchio in Venice, and you have in Mr. Salting’s picture probably the

most attractive Madonna and Child which Cariani ever painted. Can there

be better evidence of appreciation on the part of some bygone owner

than that he considered it worthy of the great Giorgione himself, and

that up to now it has borne this courtesy title?

[Illustration: Walker & Cockerell, Ph.Sc.

Madonna and Child by Giovanni Busi (Cariani) in the

collection of Mr. George Salting.]

[Illustration: Photography by Anderson

THE SEMPSTRESS MADONNA (LA VERGINE CUCITRICE) BY CARIANI; IN THE

CORSINI GALLERY, ROME]

The second ‘Giorgione’ which comes from the Leuchtenberg Gallery is

an Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the possession of Mr. Asher

Wertheimer, by whose kind permission it is reproduced here. No

excuse need be offered for its publication in ~The Burlington

Magazine~, inasmuch as it bears directly on one of the lesser problems

in our National Gallery, where, in the Venetian Room, has hung for some

years a similar painting ascribed to Savoldo. That this ascription

is erroneous is admitted in the large illustrated edition of the

catalogue, published a year or two ago by Sir Edward Poynter, the

director, and it seems a pity to keep the old label with Savoldo’s name

still attached to the frame. The National Gallery is a place of public

resort, and the public believes in the labels it reads; for what does

the public know of Savoldo? Those, however, who have studied his work

at Venice, Milan, Verona, and elsewhere know that our National Gallery

picture is only in a remote degree akin to him in style, and anyone who

will take the trouble to make a comparison with the Magdalen in the

same room (which is a genuine example), and also with the two pictures

by him at Hampton Court, will be able to convince himself that Sir

Edward Poynter is right in removing the Brescian master’s name from the

catalogue, and more wisely substituting ‘Venetian School.’ Now comes

the Leuchtenberg picture, a comparison with which proves that such

likenesses exist as to exclude all theory of chance resemblance, yet

such differences also exist as to dispel any suspicion that the one may

be a copy of the other. In such cases a common original can usually be

inferred, a deduction which modern archaeologists habitually make in

similar circumstances; and rightly, for a common idea, or conception,

underlies the outward divergencies of detail, so that when the highest

common factor can be found we can reconstruct in idea what such an

original must have been like. Now it is curious that Giorgione’s name

is attached to the Leuchtenberg picture, for anyone at all familiar

with Venetian painting must see at a glance that the style proclaims

a period at least a decade after his death in 1510. It is more than

probable that both this picture and that in the National Gallery date

from about 1530 or so. Giorgione cannot possibly have produced either

the one or the other: but is it altogether beyond possibility that

some idea of his may have served as basis for later artists to work

up? Strictly speaking, neither picture is Giorgionesque, except by

reflection, for the dazzling personality of the young Castelfrancan

shed lustre even on the succeeding generation in Venice. In neither

does the painting show much trace of that mysterious glamour which the

master, above all Venetian painters, knew how to impart. Yet in the

romantic rendering of the subject, and in the picturesque treatment

of landscape, we may trace an ultimate connexion with the art of

Giorgione. In neither is the handling so unmistakably individual as to

warrant a positive opinion as to authorship. It is true that several

competent judges profess to recognize the hand of Calisto da Lodi

in the National Gallery picture,[44] but further research is needed

before certainty of judgement is reached; and as to the Leuchtenberg

example--well, it matters little whether Beccaruzzi or some other

imitator of better things be the author. Two separate painters have

taken a common theme, they have treated the group of St. Joseph and

the two Shepherds practically alike, and have laid down the outlines

of landscape and architecture in the same way. Each has shown his

independence in the treatment of the Madonna and Child and in the minor

accessories. One of these details in the Leuchtenberg picture shows

the sort of man the painter was, for he has calmly appropriated the

idea of the boy angel playing at the trough, a motive which Titian

first introduced in the world-famous Sacred and Profane Love. He seems

also prone to introduce non-significant detail, such as the dog (very

wooden, by the way) and the elaborate accessories of the ruined stable,

the architecture of which baffles analysis. The Magi also appear in

procession, thus distracting attention from the simple theme of the

Adoration of the Shepherds. Yet as a colourist this painter is worthy

of praise, though not such a master of chiaroscuro as his fellow-artist

of the National Gallery. We may say then that the Leuchtenberg

picture adds to the interest attaching to the other, and raises the

question whether some Giorgionesque motive is not at the bottom of the

composition.

~Herbert Cook.~

TWO ITALIAN BAS-RELIEFS IN THE LOUVRE

The two bas-reliefs reproduced were not only known but also

celebrated before they came to the Louvre. The first, a bust and

profile, represents a juvenile figure, almost feminine, clothed in

shining armour, wearing a helmet decorated with a surprising dash and

fantasy, round which may be read this unexpected and rather unusual

inscription: ‘P. Scipioni.’ It is not known under what circumstances

this was acquired by M. Paul Rattier, an amateur of Paris. On his death

he bequeathed it to the Louvre with reserve of usufruct on behalf of

his brother. The latter has just died, and the museum thus enters

into absolute possession of the legacy. In the various exhibitions

where this bas-relief has been displayed it has not failed, as may

be imagined, to attract the attention and excite the curiosity of

students and critics. As it recalls by the expression of the face a

great number of Leonardo’s figures and, in the decoration of the armour

and the helmet, motives frequent in the work of the master, notably

the celebrated warrior in the Malcolm collection, we think firstly

and very naturally of Leonardo da Vinci. We know, too, that he was

a sculptor as well as a painter; he himself says expressly in his

treatise on painting that, having practised the two arts with equal

care, he has a good foundation for pronouncing on the difficulties of

both. But we know of no authentic sculpture from his hand which could

serve as a starting-point or as a means of comparison for the purpose

of making a decisive attribution. Is the St. John the Baptist in the

South Kensington Museum, which came from the Gigli Campana collection,

really from his hand? No one can prove it. And of the busts of children

and women which, according to Vasari, he executed in clay (‘Facendo

nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune teste di femine che ridono, che

vanno formate per l’ arte di gesso, e parimente teste di putti che

parevano usciti di mano d’ un maestro’), none have come down to us. ¶

Bode, who was the first to pronounce the name of Leonardo in connexion

with the Scipio of the Rattier collection, proposed, afterwards, that

of his master Verrochio. The reasons which prompted him are as follows:

Vasari has told us that Verrochio had made ‘due teste di metallo; una

d’Alessandro Magno _in profilo_; l’ altro d’ un Dario, a suo capriccio,

pur di mezzo rilievo, e ciascuno da per se, variando l’ un dall’ altro

ne cimieri, nell armadura od in ogni cosa; le quali amendue furono

mandate dal magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de’ Medici al re Mattia Corvino

in Ungharia, con molte altre cose....’ Why should not the Scipio belong

to the same series? The ornamentation of the helmet, the design of the

streamers which decorate it, especially the modelling of the mouth, do

they not recall other works of Verrochio, and notably the execution of

the mouth of his David? These arguments, no matter on what authority

we have them, are not decisive. Courajod, Muntz, Muller-Walde, and the

latest historian of Verrochio, M. Mackowsky, incline rather towards

maintaining the name of Leonardo da Vinci or of his school. All that

can be said with certainty is, that the sculptor who turned out

this brilliant piece of work must have been a very skilful decorative

artist, and that he was evidently inspired by the achievements and the

spirit of the master. But it would be very rash to assert that the hand

of Leonardo himself worked this marble.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS; VENETIAN SCHOOL; FROM THE

LEUCHTENBERG COLLECTION]

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, VENETIAN SCHOOL; IN THE

NATIONAL GALLERY]

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF; SCHOOL OF LEONARDO DA VINCI; RECENTLY ADDED

TO THE LOUVRE]

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF BY AGOSTINO DI DUCCIO; RECENTLY ADDED TO THE

LOUVRE]

If There does not seem any possibility for doubt or difference of

opinion with regard to the attribution of the other bas-relief which,

only a few days after the arrival of the Scipio, was acquired by the

museum. To him who has seen the interior decoration of the temple

of Rimini, the front of San Bernardino at Perugia, and the Madonna

of the Opera di Duomo at Florence, the name of Agostino di Duccio

invincibly presents itself. This bas-relief was found framed, over an

altar, in the wall of a little church in the department of the Oise, a

dependent of the commune of Neuilly-sous-Clermont. This rural church

was originally the chapel belonging to the chateau of Auvillers, which

belongs to the family of Bonnières-de-Wierre. One of the general

officers of Bonaparte’s army was a member of this family, and brought

this precious bas-relief home with him (the archives of the family

might possibly reveal to us the place and the circumstances under which

he found it), and he placed it in the chapel belonging to the chateau.

It was thence that the Louvre, with the consent of the members of the

family of Bonnières and of the commune, acquired it. A former lamented

head of the department of Mediaeval and Renaissance Sculpture, Louis

Courajod, published, in 1892, in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, an

account of this charming piece of sculpture, and, to put it out of the

reach of any attempts that might be made by collectors or merchants, he

had it placed on the list of historical monuments. Events have proved

that this was not an unnecessary precaution; however, the admission of

this bas-relief into the Louvre puts a stop to all competition.

~André Michel.~

TWO PICTURES IN THE POSSESSION OF MESSRS. DOWDESWELL

These two remarkable and curious pictures appear to us likely to

interest students of mediaeval painting. They are painted on thin

panels measuring 12⅛ ins. by 7⅞ ins. The wood has first been covered

with a rather coarse canvas, over which the usual gesso ground has been

laid; directly on this, and without the usual preparation of bole,

gold leaf was laid over the whole surface. The gold is elaborately

tooled in the halos and crowns. The pictures are painted in tempera

over the gold ground. The handiwork is of exceptional fineness, the

hatchings being extremely minute, and the whole is wrought to an

enamelled surface of extreme beauty. I can recall only one other work

in which quite the same minuteness and perfection of surface quality

are attained, and that is the Richard II diptych at Wilton House, which

indeed surpasses the present examples. Unfortunately the tempera has

not adhered perfectly to the gold, and in many places only a trace

of colour is left; the faces are, however, for the most part intact.

¶ This somewhat lengthy description of the methods employed in these

pictures may not be without value in view of the attempt to determine

the origin of these curious and unusual works. Many characteristics of

the pictures seem to point to a Siennese origin, such, for instance, as

the tooling of the halos, which may be almost be matched in the works

of Ceccharelli and Vanni; the Madonna’s face seems like a vulgarized

version of Simone Martini’s type, while the treatment of the hair by

separate, rather thick, continuous, and parallel lines of light is

such as we find frequently in Siennese art. The seated figures in

the Dormition of the Virgin, again, if not distinctly Siennese are

decidedly Italian, and are among the common properties of Giotto’s

heirs. Italian, again, is the appearance of the inlaid woodwork of the

bed-stand. The use of a canvas basis for the gesso ground is, too, in

Italy, a peculiarly Siennese tradition, though it is there only a late

survival of what was probably a universal practice. On the other hand

the absence of a bole foundation for the gilding is quite unlike the

practice of any Italian painters. Again, the types with their heavily

modelled features, their full round staring eyes and protruding noses,

seem to suggest a northern origin for these works. No less distinctive

is the colour. The chief characteristic of this is the extraordinary

brilliance and purity of the local tints, combined with an absence

of any feeling for a distinct colour scheme as opposed to the mere

putting together of agreeable tints. The main notes are an ultramarine

of quite astounding intensity and saturation, a pure deep rose, and

a bright green midway between apple and myrtle green. The flesh is

florid and full coloured without traces of a terra verte foundation

being apparent. These qualities of colour are such as we might expect

from a miniaturist, and other things point to the same conclusion;

first, the extreme minuteness and the marvellous perfection of the

workmanship, then the crowding of the composition, and the elegant but

singularly unstructural disposition of the draperies. Finally, one may

surmise that no artist who was accustomed to work on a large scale

would have made so elementary a blunder in space construction as our

unknown master has in the Adoration of the Magi. The Madonna is clearly

intended to be seated beneath the thatched roof, yet the foremost

support, instead of coming down in front of her knees, is placed behind

her. Such a mistake would be possible, however, to an artist who was

accustomed to the almost hieroglyphic symbolism of miniature painting.

¶ Taking all these points into consideration I think it most probable

that we have here two of the rare and singularly beautiful works of

the French school of painting of the fourteenth century. This is made

probable most of all by the colouring. This intense ultramarine never

occurs in Italian work, but is to be found in the paintings attributed

to Jean Malouel in the Louvre. It indeed remained endemic in French

art, for we find it in many miniaturists, and something not unlike

it turns up again in the work of Ingres. There is, moreover, in the

Louvre a small picture, No. 997, representing the Entombment, in which

not only does the same blue appear, but united with the same deep

rose and vivid myrtle green. It has also the same rare perfection of

surface quality, the same even, hard smalto. This picture is no doubt

rightly attributed to the French school of the end of the fourteenth

century. But neither this nor any other French picture in the Louvre

shows so strong an Italian influence as our panels do, and it is partly

for their interest as yet another proof of the constant interchange

of ideas between Italy and the North about this period that we give

them publicity. Of such intercourse there are, of course, already

many proofs in the work of painters like Enguerrand de Charenton, of

Fouquet, and most remarkable of all in a miniature by Pol de Limbourg,

which is a free copy of a fresco by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce at

Florence.

R. E. F.

A MARBLE STATUE BY GERMAIN PILON

Born towards 1515, either at Paris or Loué, and dying only in 1590,

Germain Pilon lived through a momentous century in the history of

France. The native art, so prolific during the two preceding centuries,

which commands our admiration to-day by its originality and simplicity,

was essentially French in feeling and execution, but towards the close

of the fifteenth century the all-powerful influence of the great

Italians manifested itself, partly by the general spread of knowledge

which noised abroad the fame of achievements in Italy to which the

civilized world was then paying homage, and again by the migration

of Italian artists to adjacent countries, which, in the majority

of cases, received them with acclamation.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI, AND DORMITION OF THE BLESSED

VIRGIN; PROBABLY FRENCH OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: LA CHARITÉ, SCULPTURE IN MARBLE, BY GERMAIN PILON]

In one way this had a beneficial effect upon the productions of the

northern countries, for it incited a spirit of emulation laudable

in the extreme, but it was also the cause of a decline in native

resourcefulness and originality due to an unduly thorough assimilation

of Italian methods and aims. The result of this was a strange

co-mingling of Italian and native ideas and technique producing an

eclecticism which robbed art somewhat of the virility apparent in the

creations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Still, side by

side with this we have a growing tendency to tenderness and sympathetic

treatment quite in keeping with the lofty aims of the sixteenth

century, which compensates to some extent for the loss of robustness

and impetuous energy. ¶ In such a condition did Pilon find art in

France, when, leaving his father, also a sculptor, with whom he had

hitherto collaborated, he came to Paris about 1550, and here we find

him, in conjunction with Pierre Bontemps and Ambrose Perret, at work

upon the tomb of François I, which had been designed by Philibert

Delorme. After the designs of the latter Pilon was employed from

1560 to 1565 upon the well-known tomb at Saint-Denis of Henri II and

Catherine de Médicis, which must be counted amongst his most important

achievements. For the King and Queen he executed about this time

the fine group of Les Trois Grâces in the Louvre, which represents,

perhaps, the culminating point of his genius, and is manifestly

superior both in elegance of contour and in technical qualities to

Les Trois Parques ascribed to him which has found a permanent resting

place in the Hôtel de Cluny. In Les Trois Grâces he presents to us

the culmination of the French Renaissance in sculpture; the rhythm

and balance of the composition is aided by the superb technique

displayed in the modelling of the well-chosen figures, and a further

beauty is added by the grace with which they support the urn. ¶ But

quite equal to any single figure is the fine example of Pilon’s art

which we illustrate this month by permission of Mr. E. Lowengard, its

present owner. It represents as an emblematical figure of Charity a

tall and dignified woman holding a child to her breast with the right

hand, whilst the left, with protecting care, sustains another, which

is clinging to her mantle; a third stands at her feet with a look of

trustful assurance upon its upturned face. The head of Charity is

crowned with laurel. The drapery is entirely characteristic of Pilon at

his best; while not unduly severe, it does not err in being too florid,

a failing of Pilon on many occasions. Moreover, it fully illustrates

the French master’s profound knowledge of anatomy, a study in which he

easily outstripped most of his contemporaries. It is open to question

whether such an important and characteristic example of Pilon’s

work has been seen in London before, and its presence at the moment

furnishes an admirable opportunity of studying the style of this master.

LACE IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. ALFRED MORRISON AT FONTHILL

The lace of Mrs. Alfred Morrison at Fonthill House is of special

interest among private collections. Mrs. Morrison has long interested

herself in the exertions of M. M. Lefébure, the Honiton revival by the

late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, and even the crochet work of Ireland, and

has in many cases supplied designs, or suggestions for design, to these

centres; hence, with her well-known collection of antique lace she has

included the best of its modern derivatives and modern design. Among

the specimens illustrated are:--

Plate I: (1) A curious example of a rare type of _lace made in Russia_,

consisting of a scarf with arms worked upon either end. This lace was

made in the early part of the nineteenth century (when needle-point

was first introduced into Moscow) at a private lace school. The

design, which is upon net, and very unlike the characteristic Russian

vermiculate patterns with their oriental character and occasional

colouring, consists of a chain of _jours_ enclosing coarse, simple,

and prominent fillings similar to those of provincial pillow-laces

of England and France, and a _semé_ of small sprigs. Although the

workmanship is even throughout, the drawing is so _naïve_ as to suggest

that the lace-worker was unused to that type of lace. There is a border

of similar _jours_ alternating with small leaves and sprays.

(2) _Gros point de Venise._--In the central strip of this lace very

few brides have been introduced, and only so far as is necessary for

strength, and those used are plain. The _bride_ work forms no essential

part of the design, the parts of the pattern being chiefly held

together by being worked in contact with one another. In the joined

border, which is of later date, the work, and especially the raised

scallops, is of a superior evenness and regularity. Short _brides_,

both plain and _picotées_, connect the design, which is closer and more

florid, and remarkable for the compact, firm character which careful

and precise workmanship has given to the piece, as it were _scolpito in

rilievo_.

(3) _Point de Venise._--Two long strips (3½ inches wide) of excellent

and open scroll and floral design. The _brides_ which connect the

design are decorated with small stars and whirls. Upon some of the

raised borders are set small scallops, or picots. Seventeenth century.

(4) _Alençon lappet_, a design of interlacing ribbons, filled in with

light modes, enclosing a small ornament. Eighteenth century. Period,

Louis XV.

(5) _Modern Irish Needle-point lace, à brides picotées_, specially made

and designed for Mrs. Alfred Morrison [very much reduced]. Nineteenth

century.

Plate II: (1) _Brussels veil_ (three sides of which are ornamented,

the fourth being plain), containing floral devices made in pillow,

and applied to pillow-made mesh grounds. The softness of the grounds,

the workmanship of the flowers, of which the cordonnets have little

or no relief, the lightness of the fillings of the modes, place these

Brussels points in a category quite distinct from any other lace. The

design is of light leafy festoons of roses and forget-me-nots. In the

corner is an urn-shaped ornament with lateral festoons. The border has

a scalloped edge. Throughout the veil are pillow renderings of various

_modes_, the _réseau rosacé_, star devices, etc. Eighteenth century.

(2) _Honiton lace_, made by the late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, from an

old design. The pattern is connected by small brides covered with a

number of small picots.

(3) _Rose point à brides_ (_Venetian_), of close workmanship, in silk

(natural-coloured). The free use of ornate picots clustering upon

flying loops edging the scallops, as well as upon the brides, is

noticeable. The _brides_ are thickly ornamented with stars and whirls.

[This sort of lace is sometimes called _point de neige_, probably on

account of its snowy appearance.] The stems of the pattern are of

light work, and not strengthened on the edge by an outer cordonnet or

button-hole stitched work. Seventeenth century.

A very similar specimen of Venetian needle-point lace in silk is to be

seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum [835–’68]. It is also square

and of similar size and date, and is also remarkable for the series of

scallops and picots upon the raised portions of the design. The design

of this specimen ‘consists of a symmetrical distribution of floral

forms grouped about an ornamental arrangement in the centre.’ It was

probably a ‘pall’ or covering for a chalice or sacramental cup. Though

Mrs. Morrison’s specimen is said to be of Jewish work, and used

in the synagogue to cover the law, it is more probable that it is a

‘pall,’ like the above-mentioned example.

[Illustration: ~Plate I~

No. 1 No. 2]

[Illustration: No. 3 No. 4 No. 5]

[Illustration: ~PLATE II~

No. 1 No. 2

No. 3 No. 4]

[Illustration: No. 5 No. 6 No. 7]

[Illustration: ~Plate III~

No. 3 No. 4

No. 2

No. 5]

[Illustration: No. 1]

(4) _Drawn thread-work_ [_Turkish?_].

(5) _Point de Venise, period Louis XIII._--A conventional design

somewhat resembling Italian Renaissance ironwork. The pattern and some

of the short brides which connect it are ornamented with picots, giving

lightness and variety to the work.

(6) _Irish crochet lace_, specially made for Mrs. Alfred Morrison,

adapted from the above design, which it well reproduces. An experiment

in improving the spiritless and confused effect of Irish crochet, where

conventional _motifs_ are fitted together without any pre-arranged

design. In natural-coloured silk.

(7) _Imitation point d‘Alençon._--The ground or _réseau_ of this

piece is a very wide-meshed knotted net of coarse thread. A stiff and

simple flower issuing from a horn or vase is set in the centre of a

waved diamond-shaped compartment. The flowers are filled in with small

pieces of coarse linen, and are _appliqué_ to the net by stitches which

hold the twisted thread outlines--the substitute for the cordonnet of

button-hole stitches in the Alençon it imitates--to the little bits of

linen.

Plate III: (1) Embroidered _Turkish drawn thread work_.--An

eight-pointed star within the centre of which is a circle of

drawn-work, of which the threads are overcast with fine button-hole

stitches.

(2) The old conventional cut-work of Italy; _Reticella_, with _punto

in aria_ vandykes attached. _Reticella_ differs from cutwork in

that, though it also is worked on a linen foundation, the linen has

almost entirely disappeared. The threads left as the framework of the

design, dividing it into square compartments, are closely covered

with stitches. Into these squares are introduced geometrical forms

(star-forms) set in circles and enriched with patterns in solid

needlework. This lace is frequently called _Greek lace_, principally

owing to the fact that a great deal was found during the occupation of

the Ionian islands by the English. It is, however, undoubtedly Italian

in origin. The lace is shown upon the linen on which it is made; most

specimens have been cut off for sale from the original linen ground.

The _punto in aria_ vandykes developed from the _reticella_, and are

made with the same geometrical designs. The pointed edge was worked

on threads laid down in the required shape, and the spaces filled in

various designs. _Brides picotées_ were sparingly added to connect the

various portions of the pattern.

(3) _Venetian-made Alençon_ (Burano).--A design of small sprays

upon mixed grounds. Along the lower portion of the design runs a

twisting ribbon enclosing various _à jours_ and diapered grounds. The

scalloped border shows blossom _modes_ set upon a large hexagonal mesh

_picoté_, alternating with a scalloped ribbon, enclosing varieties of

diaper-patterned grounds, similar to those to be seen in the _modes_ of

Venetian heavy point laces.

(4) _Venetian-made Alençon_, design of palm leaves, with straight-edged

border of flowerets and leaves.

(5) _Alençon bordering lace_, eighteenth century. Period, Louis

XVI.--Under Louis XVI it became the fashion to multiply the number

of flounces to dresses and to gather them into pleats, or, as it was

termed, to _badiner_ them, so that ornamental _motifs_, more or less

broken up or partially concealed by the pleats, lost their significance

and _flow_. The spaces between the _motifs_, therefore, widened more

and more, until the design deteriorated into _semés_ of small devices,

detached flowers, _pots_, _larmes_, or, as in the present design, a dot

set within a rosette. Instead, also, of wreaths, ribands, or festoons

undulating from one side of the border to another, we have a stiff

rectilinear border of purely conventional design. Naturalistic patterns

are not met with in lace of that period. ~M. Jourdain.~

❧ BIBLIOGRAPHY ❧

~French Engravers and Draughtsmen of the Eighteenth Century.~ By

Lady Dilke. George Bell and Sons.

The book published by Lady Dilke, at the end of last year, is one of

the most complete and definite works on an important section of our

artistic history that we French possess. For we are marked by this rare

characteristic, that the qualities of our own distinguished men are

most often revealed to us by foreigners. While we have in our midst a

number of specialist writers to instruct us in minute detail concerning

the most trifling acts and deeds of a Fleming or Italian, we lack

historians who will take a general view of our national art. It would

seem that the Frenchman who shall have written a book on the eighteenth

century as full and thorough as Lady Dilke’s is yet to be born. From

time to time men of great attainments have produced a monograph, have

described the work of a Watteau or a Lancret, but this has always

wanted the necessary general commentary, the linking with general

history, the grouping of facts, which lend so great an attraction to

the works of Lady Dilke. It affords me a two-fold pleasure to say

this, first because I profess a deep and very respectful sympathy for

the author’s person, and secondly because I have always been greatly

touched by the French side of her character. Lady Dilke and I know the

faults of our respective countrymen; we speak of them when necessary;

but we also know our reciprocal good qualities and speak of these too.

Lady Dilke has written in praise of the school of the French Minor

Masters of the eighteenth century with a conviction and an ardour of

which we are very proud, and I feel charged to express to her in this

review our deep-felt gratitude. ¶The difference between England and

ourselves is made manifest from the very first. Whereas with us a more

or less florid, amusing, or, let us say, sensational narrative is in

most cases sufficient to satisfy the French reader, Lady Dilke’s book,

although intended to be read by everybody, does not fear to display

an integral erudition. This handsome and well-illustrated book, while

it gladdens the eyes of a person indifferent to these questions, will

interest profoundly the specialist and the scholar. It contains not

a line unsupported by at least one reference and often by many. All

that the contemporaries of our eighteenth-century artists have left

concerning them, all records of inventories and even judicial notes,

have been read and employed in their season by their kindly historian.

It is easy to read into the impartial, nicely-turned, but apparently

impassive text a genuine woman’s admiration for these feminine, evasive

and exquisite artists; but the passion is restrained and displays

itself only at the last. When the author is occasionally obliged to

lament certain rather gross errors, she does so with filial moderation,

with that which a child might show towards its grandfather; and we have

learnt all, we are able to deplore all, while not one serious word of

blame shall have fallen from the historian’s pen. ¶ Lady Dilke divides

her work into eleven chapters, each bearing the name of an art-lover or

artist. The first of these chapters is devoted to the Comte de Caylus

and the great amateurs. For, though the collectors date very far back,

the ‘amateur,’ in the French and modern sense of the word, came into

being together with the speculations of Law. There is a singular and

never-changing agreement between the rabid collector and the stock

jobbing financier; it is as though the man who had grown suddenly

rich wished to find no less suddenly in his new palace the ancestral

elegance of the man of quality. ¶ Lady Dilke has selected the Comte de

Caylus because he exercised an enormous influence upon the whole of the

eighteenth century. Himself an engraver--though of no great merit--he

was the cause that men and women of the world amused themselves with

the pastime, that Madame de Pompadour tried her hand at engraving,

and that, trying her hand, but with only slight success, she favoured

to an extreme degree the artist-engravers of her time. ¶ The second

chapter is devoted to those lovers of engravings, the print-collectors

Mariette and Basan, who, for the rest, had no great affection for the

artists of their time, but who favoured the iconographic movement.

¶ The typical French engraver of the eighteenth century is Charles

Nicolas Cochin, who was known as the Chevalier Cochin. Cochin, through

his family, his connexions and his works, touches every section of

society. He belongs to the Court, to the nobility, to the middle

class. His mother was a Horthemels; his sisters were Mesdames Tardieu

and Belle. Cochin was trained in the school of different masters; he

shows traces of Watteau, Gillot, Chardin and Detroy. But he is above

all himself; his mind is composed of a thousand amiable, witty, and

refined things; his art is the very spirit of a nation; and it is not

too much to say that in him French art is summed up. ¶ The men whom

Lady Dilke studies in Chapter IV of her book, the engravers Drevet and

Daullé, are different people. They descend from the great century; they

go back by easy degrees to Louis XIV and those famous artists, Audran,

Nanteuil and Edelinck. But, though they have style and even majesty,

they have neither the charm nor the grace of their contemporaries. This

is also, to a certain extent, the case with Wille, who came to France

to learn and who borrowed from us only the solemn and majestic side

of the great masters. ¶ Lady Dilke studies in succession the Laurent

Cars, the Le Bas, and, lastly, Gravelot. Gravelot the author regards

almost in the light of a fellow-countryman. The greater part of his

career was spent in London. We know that, in so far as this part is

concerned, the author is in possession of even still more varied and

personal notes. From Gravelot to Eisen, from the “Opera de Flora” to

the “Contes de Lafontaine,” is an imperceptible transition. And thus we

come to the masters of the end of the century, to Moreau the younger

in particular, who presents its definite synthesis, linked as he is to

Cochin by the brothers Saint-Aubin, the “exquisite poets of the most

charming decadence.” ¶ Finally, Lady Dilke speaks of the engravers in

colours, of those men, such as Demarteau, Debucourt, and others, who,

without eclipsing their English colleagues, keep step with them. And

then we come to the relations of the engravers with the Academy. Here,

what severity is shown! On one occasion, the engraver Balechou, who is

a member of the Academy, engraves a full-length portrait of the King of

Poland, Augustus III. He had promised not to pull a separate proof of

it. Having done so in one single case--this proof is still preserved

in the Paris Print-room--he was struck off the list of Academicians.

¶ It is impossible, in a short review, to set forth in detail the

importance of a book of this kind. We need this book in France, and it

is to be hoped that one of our publishers will issue a translation,

because it is a revelation to us. The English publisher has undoubtedly

produced a practical and easily-handled book, but his reproductions are

a little inferior in quality, given the value of the work. It would

have been desirable that all the illustrations should have taken the

form of heliogravures. Nevertheless, and putting this little criticism

on one side, Lady Dilke’s book is, sincerely speaking, the newest and

most “encyclopaedic” work that we at present possess on the French

draughtsmen and engravers of the eighteenth century.

~Henri Bouchot.~

~The National Portrait Gallery.~ Edited by Lionel Cust, M.V.O., F.S.A.

Cassell.

It was a happy thought of Messrs. Cassell to issue an illustrated

catalogue of the National Portrait Gallery similar to that of the

National Gallery. The Portrait Gallery, in spite of great difficulties

in the matter of space and funds, has become a place of which the

nation may well be proud. It already contains a series of British

portraits which if not absolutely complete, is at least representative,

sensibly arranged, and catalogued with much more fullness and accuracy

than some better endowed collections. One or two possible improvements

may suggest themselves to the outsider--the addition, for instance, of

photographs (we hear that some arrangement of this kind is actually

contemplated) or careful copies of unique portraits of famous men

which can never leave their present owners. The colleges of Oxford

and Cambridge contain several pictures which would fill gaps in the

Gallery, and other works in private hands are equally desirable.

Nevertheless, the National Portrait Gallery, like the British Museum,

has hitherto been so fortunate in its directors that there is no

reason for regarding its future with serious anxiety. ¶ Nor can we be

surprised that Mr. Cust, who has had so much to do with the well-being

of the Portrait Gallery, has edited its illustrated catalogue on

thoroughly sound lines. To precisians a chronological arrangement may

seem to have disadvantages. These disadvantages, in our opinion, are

minimized by the addition of an index of portraits and an index of

artists, while the grouping together of men of the same generation,

family, or profession, has the enormous advantage of making the book

a thing attractive both to the casual reader and to the student of

history, instead of a dry alphabetical list. ¶ We have only one fault

to find with the abbreviated biographies which Mr. Cust supplies. They

are laudably impartial, but the impartiality is sometimes carried

to an extreme which places a second-rate man on the same level as a

first-rate one. ¶ As a rule, a very wise discretion has been exercised

in reproducing the pictures on a scale proportionate to their actual

size and importance, so that the defects which marred the kindred

volumes on the National Gallery have generally been avoided. One or two

exceptions may perhaps be noted. We do not, for instance, think that

justice is done to Kneller’s vivid portrait of the poet Gay (No. 622)

by a cut less than two inches in height and less than one and a half

inches in breadth, especially when Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Coventry

Patmore is honoured by a full-page engraving. The juxtaposition of the

two portraits of Sir William Hamilton also is not a success. The figure

by David Allan looks a giant compared with that painted by Reynolds.

¶ The photographing, engraving, and printing of the pictures have on

the whole been so admirably done that we have no more fault to find

with them than with the letterpress or the arrangement of the book. We

notice, indeed, that Kneller is again unfortunate. His portrait of John

Smith, the mezzotint engraver (No. 699), is one of his most masterly

works, showing a grip of character, an artistic taste, and a technical

perfection for which in his Court portraits we seek in vain. In the

reproduction the portrait loses all its spirit and all its quality.

On the other hand, almost all the slight sketches and pencil drawings

in the gallery come out excellently, so that any occasional failure

cannot be attributed to want of care or want of science. ¶ Perhaps,

considering its price, the publishers might have bound the book more

strongly, even if they retained the limp cover which allows the book to

open comfortably. The present paper binding is too flimsy for a book

that has to be used for reference, and to send a work of reference to

the binder often results in deprivation just when one needs the book

most. ¶ These, after all, are minor details. As a whole, the catalogue

is a thoroughly sound piece of work, and does credit to its editor,

publishers, and printers (if not to its binder), and we have no doubt

it will take its place by the Dictionary of National Biography on the

shelves of all who are interested in the past history of the British

race.

C. J. H.

~Isabella D’Este, Marchioness of Mantua~, 1474-1539. A Study of the

Renaissance. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady). John Murray. 1903.

There are three ways of writing history which rejoice all serious

readers and students. The first and best is, alas, rare, for it

requires constructive imagination based on sound scholarship. It

is the history which bestows upon the characters portrayed that

quality which makes them live on in the reader’s mind like great

myths. Gibbon’s ‘Julian,’ Mommsen’s ‘Hannibal,’ Carlyle’s ‘Voltaire,’

Creighton’s ‘Pius II’--to take a very few instances chosen at

random--live on in our imaginations like the heroes of romance, like

Don Quixote, or Julien Sorel, or the ‘Egoist.’ ¶ On the other hand,

there is the work of the mere archivist, the conscientious finder and

transcriber of documents, who leaves the imaginative reconstruction of

character entirely to the reader. For this, too, the student cannot be

too grateful. And then there is the _via media_ of the gifted compiler,

whose efforts are also welcome, provided they are honest and careful,

and free from the taint of journalism. ¶ It is this middle path that

Mrs. Ady is accustomed to take, and always with peculiar success in

her biographies of women. Those who have already enjoyed her ‘Beatrice

d’Este’ will be prepared for finding interest and pleasure in reading

her account of that noble lady’s even more accomplished and more famous

sister, Isabella, marchioness of Mantua, the leader for more than forty

years of the most continuously brilliant and intellectual court in

Italy. Mrs. Ady does not claim originality of research, but her task of

weaving the documentary researches of others into a readable, accurate,

and interesting account is extremely well done. It is true that she

has no great or genial gifts for the presentment of character, but

she knows at least how to describe it with the appropriate background

of historical events and of court and family life. She has better

taste than to make of it a lurid tale, as some popular writers would

have done. Isabella is painted as the faithful and devoted wife and

daughter and sister, the careful and affectionate mother--nay, even

the doting grandmother--as well as the ‘prima donna del mondo,’ the

Muse of poets and humanists, the patroness and friend of great artists,

the confidante of popes and emperors, and the victim, too, of family

and political tragedies. ¶ For us in this place, her interest lies

chiefly in one aspect of her many activities--in her relations with the

artists of her day. Her portrait was drawn by Leonardo, and painted

by Mantegna, Titian, Francia, Costa, as well as by various artists of

less importance, such as Maineri and Buonsignori, and her medal was

cast in bronze by the sculptor Cristoforo Romano. She was a passionate

collector of beautiful things, decorating her private apartment with

pictures by Mantegna, Costa, and Perugino, and sending her emissaries

over nearly the whole of Italy to extort from dilatory or overworked

painters the fulfilment of commissions she had given them, getting

now a Nativity from Giovanni Bellini, a Magdalen and a St. Jerome

from Titian, Allegories from Correggio, portraits from Francia, and

even from Raphael himself. She employed Timoteo Viti to make designs

for her majolica dinner-service, and most of the northern sculptors

of note were at one time or another set to work for her. Lorenzo da

Pavia made her priceless viols and lutes of inlaid ivory and ebony, and

Caradosso carved her a wonderful inkstand in ebony and silver, while

the most famous glass-blowers and jewellers of her time contributed

their best efforts to her matchless collection. But even dearer to

her than contemporary art was the antique, and she spared no pains or

expense, no wiles or selfishness, to get into her possession every

available antique statue or fragment that she heard of. The collector’s

passion was on her, and even her fine taste and that of her cultivated

advisers did not always protect her from the collector’s misfortunes.

In the light of recent revelations, it is amusing to hear how she

was taken in by the forgeries of a certain Roman dealer who bore the

splendid name of Raphael of Urbino, and how this shifty precursor of

many an Italian ‘antiquario’ of to-day managed to get out of giving

her back her money! ¶ Curiously enough, Isabella, although a fast

friend of the Medicean popes and their relatives, seems to have taken

no interest at all in the art of Florence, except in Michelangelo, and

in Leonardo, who came to her, not from Florence, but from Milan. She

sent to Florence, it is true, for a picture, but it was to Perugino

she wrote, and not to any of the great Florentine masters. ¶ Mrs. Ady

has tried to trace carefully the present whereabouts of Isabella’s

portraits and possessions, but we miss in the index any assembling of

her scattered remarks on this interesting subject. The Leonardo pastel

sketch (reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. I, but wrongly described

as red chalk) is well known in the Louvre; one of the Titians (the

one copied by Rubens) she identifies in the collection of M. Leopold

Goldschmid at Paris, while the other, in Vienna, is reproduced as the

frontispiece to the second volume. As to the latter, she says it was

painted by Titian after a portrait by Francia, itself not done from

the life, but from sketches and descriptions. If this be indeed the

one referred to, Titian has managed to give no hint of his obligation

to the Bolognese master. The portrait by Maineri, a painter of

Parma, the author suggests as being the same as that in Mrs. Alfred

Morrison’s collection, exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in

1894; but she admits, on the other hand, that this portrait may be

from the hand of Beltraffio, which indeed it clearly is. Although it

has apparently not occurred to Mrs. Ady, is it not possible that the

untraced portrait of Isabella painted by Costa, was, like so many of

her treasures, bought for Charles I, and that it is the Portrait of a

Lady which now hangs in Hampton Court (No. 295)? The face resembles

the one he painted as Isabella’s in the Louvre Allegory, but, on the

other hand, they are both so thoroughly Costa in every detail that

neither can be called real _portraits_ in the modern sense of the

word. The objective photographic style of portraiture in vogue to-day

was quite foreign to the habits of most Renaissance painters, who

were satisfied, once they had found a type that suited them, to stick

to it for everything--Madonnas, portraits of ladies, and allegorical

figures, indifferently. ¶ Perhaps the most vivid part of Mrs. Ady’s

book is her description of Isabella’s experiences in that fatal sack

of Rome, which, as Erasmus wrote to her friend Sadoleto, was ‘not the

ruin of one city, but of the whole world.’ Barricaded in the Palazzo

Colonna with three thousand distressed souls under her care, Isabella,

safe in the protection of her son, Ferrante, one of the leaders of

the imperial forces, looked down from her windows with anguish upon

the scenes of horror and vandalism enacted in the streets below. Her

house was the only one in Rome that escaped, except the Cancelleria,

which was occupied by Cardinal Colonna. But except for the irreparable

destruction of so many of the world’s masterpieces of beauty, this and

many another interesting incident in Isabella’s career belong rather to

history than to art.

M. L.

~Frans Hals.~ By Gerald S. Davies, M.A. George Bell and Sons.

On comparing the number of monographs that have appeared on other

than Dutch artists with that of books in our possession treating of

Dutch painters, we see that the latter have been allotted but a scanty

measure in literature; indeed, one may go further and say that during

the past twenty years, excepting Rembrandt and a few other great

masters, no extensive and comprehensive work has been written on the

old Dutch painters. For this neglect a very well-founded reason exists:

the native art historians of the Netherlands are still collecting

materials, and cannot as yet think of writing exhaustive books

concerning their great masters; for they are much too well aware of the

vast gaps that are still to be found in their knowledge. This is so in

the case, among others, of Frans Hals, and it will remain so for many

years to come; we must needs wait until all the records are accessible

before being able to arrive at a definite knowledge of Hals’s

personality. ¶ Mr. Davies has been deterred by no such considerations;

he not only, with a ready pen, describes Hals’s life and works, but,

thanks to the spacious manner in which he conceives his subject, finds

occasion to indulge in digressions on old Dutch conditions, art and so

forth, which might undoubtedly possess an interest for English readers

if they were correct, but that, unfortunately, is far from being

always the case. ¶ After treating in his first two chapters of the

‘Rise of a National Art’ and ‘Holland and its Art in the Seventeenth

Century’ the author collects the few known facts concerning Hals’s

life in Chapter III, and endeavours to draw a conclusion touching his

personality. We quite admit that legend may have represented Hals

as being a more dissolute man than he actually was. Nevertheless,

one who ill-treated his wife as he did can really not have had any

particularly aristocratic manners. It would be better for us to say

that we do not know enough about his life to be able to white-wash it

of the few disagreeable facts that have been handed down to us. There

can be no doubt, however, that he was a Bohemian, as Mr. Davies rightly

characterizes him. ¶ The following chapters are devoted entirely to

Hals’s artistic career and works; those preserved at Haarlem of course

occupying a great place. The description of these is a lively one,

and is evidently based upon a repeated examination. There are a good

index, bibliography, useful indications such as the approximate dates

of Hals’s life and of his principal paintings, etc. In a word, the

writer has industriously brought together all that he has been able

to ascertain touching his subject from books and pictures. But there

is one matter in which Mr. Davies has not succeeded, and that is the

producing of a critical work. It is true that he himself expressly

says this as regards the catalogue,[45] but he constantly makes the

same mistakes in the text itself. This is an exceedingly dangerous

standpoint; for, thanks to it, so soon as one sets to work on a

scientific basis, one finds him, for instance, describing two pictures

(Illustrations Nos. 1 and 54) as Portraits of the Painter which do not

represent Hals at all, while, again, the Portrait of Admiral de Ruyter

(Illustration No. 55) is not a picture of that admiral. ¶ In the same

way, the catalogue--which, from the very nature of the standpoint of

the writer, is incomplete--contains childish mistakes, which are due to

a lack of adequate critical knowledge. For to say of the Hille Bobbe

with a young man smoking behind her, merely that it is ‘generally

recognized as the work of F. Hals the son’ surely denotes an excess of

caution, considering that it is established beyond all doubt that this

picture was, in fact, painted by the son, and therefore it ought not to

have been included in the catalogue. Some of the paintings in English

collections which we missed in the catalogue we were fortunate enough

to find mentioned in the ‘List of Pictures which have appeared ... in

the Winter Exhibitions ... at Burlington House,’ which is inserted

after the ‘List of Works.’ But these data are also, we regret to say,

uncritical. We also searched the catalogue in vain for the oldest

dated portrait by Frans Hals, namely, that of Scriverius, dated 1613,

which forms part of the Warneck Collection in Paris, although it is

mentioned by the author on pp. 27, 29, 84, and 96 of the text. Again,

we find no mention of the delightful Portrait of a Man[46] in the Van

Lynden collection, at present lent to the Mauritshuis at the Hague,

nor of various other pieces.[47] As regards the drawings, there is no

doubt whatever that the drawing in the British Museum is an original

Hals. There are more of this sort, and we are sorry not to find them

mentioned in Mr. Davies’s book. ¶ We must deliver ourselves of one or

two further remarks, not from any love of fault-finding, but to remove

mistaken ideas. The picture mentioned on p. 22, which is traditionally,

and by Mr. Davies, supposed to represent Hals’s workshop, was painted

by Michiel Sweerts, and has nothing to do with Hals’s workshop. Nor is

what the author observes touching Hals’s manner of painting (p. 124)

quite correct. Hals slowly perfected his technique, proceeding along

a road which is quite easily traced. It is true that he underpainted

a considerable number of his pictures, but there are also many, very

many indeed, which he finished at once, in the wet paint, without

the least underpainting. One of the best examples of the latter is

the Portrait of a Man, in Lord Spencer’s collection, which is at

present in the Guildhall Exhibition. ¶ Mr. Davies’s book has been very

handsomely printed and produced, and is filled with mostly satisfactory

illustrations. It is to be regretted that the contents of the book are

not more worthy of its format; as a critical guide to the art of Frans

Hals it is wholly untrustworthy.

W. M.

PERIODICALS

~Gazette Des Beaux Arts.~--The April number opens with an article

by M. Salomon Reinach, in which he brings to light a great unknown

miniaturist whom he identifies with the painter Simon Marmion, known

as the author of the altarpiece of St. Bertin, now in the castle of

Wied. Of this magnificent and little-known work the National Gallery

possesses two fragments representing a chorus of angels rejoicing

at the birth of the saint and two angels carrying his soul up to

heaven, a strange and imaginative composition, in which the ridge of

a roof cutting into the base of the composition gives an effect of

supernatural strangeness. The manuscript in which the miniatures in

question occur is in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg, and has

remained till now unnoticed. It is in the main the French compilation

entitled the ‘Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denys,’ but the history is

continued with extracts from various historians to the beginning of the

reign of Charles V. It contains fifteen full-page miniatures which are

of quite extraordinary merit, and which may be by Simon Marmion. The

smaller miniatures are by another hand, and are distinctly inferior.

The most interesting of the miniatures is the title-page representing

Fillastre, Abbot of St. Bertin, offering the Grandes Chroniques to

Philippe le Bon of Burgundy, by whose side stands the aged Chancellor

Rollin; behind stand three figures, among which M. Reinach recognizes

the youthful Charles the Bold and the Grand Bâtard. The heads are

admirably rendered, and show that Marmion, if it be indeed he, must be

reckoned as one of the great masters of portraiture of a school in

which portraiture attained to the utmost perfection. The landscapes

are, however, scarcely less remarkable. They do not, of course, rise

quite to the height of imaginative realism shown in the Hubert van Eyck

miniatures published by M. Durrieu, but they are conceived in a similar

vein and executed with absolute mastery. If M. Reinach’s conjecture

is correct, and it rests on a number of subsidiary proofs besides the

likeness of style to the Wied altarpiece, he has done a great service

in bringing to light the work of a great artist whose reputation as a

miniaturist was such that his name was coupled with that of Fouquet

in the eulogies of contemporary poets. Marmion was born at Amiens

about 1420. In 1454 he was at Lille employed by the Duke of Burgundy,

but he seems to have worked chiefly at Valenciennes. His style shows

the influence of the Van Eycks, and still more of Van der Weyden. But

there is, we think, in his manner of composition, and in the freedom

of his fancy, something which distinguishes him from the pure Flemish

painters, something which is due to his French origin and early

training. ¶ The next article by M. Casimir Stryienski is concerned with

French art of a very different kind. There exist a number of catalogues

of the early exhibitions of the Salon, illustrated throughout with

minute sketches by Gabriel de St. Aubin. The author has had the idea

of reconstructing by the aid of one of these catalogues the Salon of

1761, and discussing the subsequent history of the various works. Many

of these are quite lost, and survive only in St. Aubin’s marvellous

sketches. Delicate as St. Aubin’s more serious work is, as a _tour de

force_ nothing could equal the dexterity of these minute notes. Between

two lines of the catalogue he will insert a whole row of sketches, in

which not only the composition but some suggestion of the chiaroscuro

of the originals is given. Many of the works of Vien, J. B. M. Pierre,

Vanloo, and Hallé make a more pleasing impression when interpreted thus

than the originals can have done. ¶ M. André Michel, who carries on

the work inaugurated by the genius of Courajod, commences a series of

articles on the acquisitions made by his department of the Louvre. The

finest of these came from Courajod’s collection, and include a wooden

crucifix of the twelfth century, in which we can trace the first germs

of the new sentiment for life and dramatic expressiveness working

in the old hieratic formula. The exquisite statue of a man of the

thirteenth century, also in wood, shows the new art arrived already

at perfect command of the means of expression, but still restrained

by a reminiscence of earlier schematic treatment. This and the stone

statue of St. Geneviève show French sculpture at a point which it has

never surpassed. The fifteenth and sixteenth century sculptures which

have been added to the national collection, though of great beauty,

have nothing of the supreme sense of design of the earlier work. ¶ M.

F. de Mely publishes two sarcophagi with figures in relief discovered

at Carthage. In spite of Greek and Egyptian influences the author

considers that at least one of the figures, that of the priestess,

bears the impress of a special racial type, and he considers that this

and the Elche head taken together give us an idea of a distinctively

Punic ideal type. M. Pierre Gusman describes, without adding anything

very new, the Villa Madama, and M. André Pascal begins an account of

the eighteenth century sculptor Pierre Julien.

In the May number Monsieur Gaston Migeon, who has done much towards the

classification of Mahommedan copper work, writes on the Exhibition of

Mahommedan Art recently held at the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs

in the Pavillon de Marson. Several remarkable specimens of copper work

are reproduced, perhaps the most interesting being that lent by M.

Sarre which is supposed to date from the first years of the Hegira,

and to be of Sassanian workmanship. Some fourteenth-century Persian

velvets and tissues of singularly fine and naturalistic design are

also figured, as well as two splendid Indo-Persian miniatures from the

collection of M. Bing. ¶ In his second and concluding article on the

acquisition of the department of sculpture in the Louvre, M. André

Michel describes a remarkable polychrome wooden statue of the beginning

of the sixteenth century belonging to the Franconian school. In this

the author finds the influence of Albert Dürer. It is certainly a more

deliberate and scientific work of art than the majority of Franconian

sculptures of the period. Several works by Houdon, Deseine and Clodion

are also described and reproduced. The prints of the Dutuit Collection

are described in a brilliant and humorous article by M. Henri Bouchot,

in which he concerns himself more with the collector than the

collection, which is in fact rather remarkable for the number of prints

of ascertained pedigree than for its artistic character. M. Pascal

completes in this number his study of Pierre Julien.

~Jahrbuch Der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten

Kaiserhauses.~ Band XXIII, Heft 5.--The present fascicule is devoted

entirely to researches by Herr Julius von Schlosser on ‘Artistic

Tradition in the late Middle Ages.’ Under this title the author

brings together several separate researches; the connexion between

them lies in their illustration of the contrast between mediaeval art

with its direct visual symbolizing of ideas and the Renaissance and

modern habits of actual imitation of natural forms. ¶ The first of his

researches is concerned with a large illuminated parchment, too large

to have formed part of a book and probably meant to be framed and hung

on a wall. It depicts in the centre the Nativity, around which, in a

large number of medallions enclosed in late Gothic scrollwork, are

represented the various analogies by which the immaculate conception

was rendered credible. It is an early example of the ‘Defensorium

inviolatae virginitatis beatae Mariae,’ in which the miracle is

rendered plausible by a record of all the miraculous things in nature.

The origin and propagation of this popular form of doctrinal exegesis

is discussed. The author of the ‘Defensorium,’ Franciscus of Retz, was

a Dominican, and professed theology in the University of Vienna from

1385 to 1411. The earliest illustrated version is the manuscript of

Frater Antonius of Tegernsee of 1459, and the work was published as a

block-book as early as 1470. The best-known is Eysenhut’s block-book

of 1471, of which the British Museum possesses a copy. In the early

sixteenth century it was published also in a French translation at

Rouen, but it was most popular in Bavaria and Austria. The parchment

picture of the Vienna Hofmuseum, which forms the subject of these

researches, is, the author considers, by an Austrian artist of the

latter half of the fifteenth century. ¶ Of greater artistic merit

are the small folding tablets of the Vienna Hofmuseum, in which are

depicted a series of men and animals which served as patterns for

artists. There are, for instance, the heads of Christ, the Virgin, and

St. John, in poses which show that they would serve for a Crucifixion;

there is the Veronica, and a number of varied types which experience

and tradition showed were likely to be useful to an artist. It is

certainly a striking example of the essentially practical methods of

artistic production at a time when painting was an actual necessity,

and when, therefore, the picture was of more importance than the

artist’s personality. This work belongs to about the year 1400. ¶

Another artist’s pattern-book discussed by Herr von Schlosser,

though this has already been published in part, is that used by the

miniaturists of a Rhenish monastery, now in the Hofbibliothek at

Vienna. This contains, besides initials and borders, the traditional

receipts for various animals both real and fabulous. This the author

compares with Villars de Honnecourt’s famous sketch-book and the

similar pattern-book of Stephen of Urach in Munich. Villars de

Honnecourt, however earlier in date, had indeed much more than a merely

practical aim in view. He had already begun those researches into the

laws of proportion and harmony in natural form which later on absorbed

Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer. ¶ Herr von Schlosser aptly concludes this

part of his researches by a reproduction of an Attic vase in Berlin,

on which is represented the workshop of a vase maker with the pattern

receipts for gods and animals hanging on the wall. ¶ Finally, in an

appendix, Herr von Schlosser discusses Giusto of Padua’s frescoes

of the virtues in the Eremitani at Padua, which have recently been

relieved in part of their covering of whitewash. He reproduces the two

best preserved figures. Here again the question is of the rôle played

by a traditional pattern-book, for there exist similar representations

of the virtues in manuscripts at Florence and Vienna, while recently

Signor Venturi has acquired for the national collection at Rome another

version, which he considers is Giusto of Padua’s own sketch-book

and the model for the frescoes. Herr von Schlosser shows, we think

conclusively, that this is of later origin by a belated Giottesque of

the early fifteenth century, while he brings forward as the original

of the whole series a MS. at Chantilly by Bartolommeo de’ Bartoli,

executed in all probability between 1353 and 1356 in Bologna.

~Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft.~ 1903. Part II.--Constantin

Winterberg continues his minute analysis of Albert Dürer’s theory

of the proportions of the figure. In this article he deals with the

second book, and shows how Dürer freed himself increasingly from the

traditional mediaeval canon and sought to establish his theory on

inductive lines. ¶ Mr. Campbell Dodgson publishes a transcript of David

de Necker’s preface to the Landsknechts, from which it appears that

the original drawings were by Hans Burkmair, Christopher Amberger,

and Jörg Breu, and were engraved by Jost de Necker, David’s father.

This settles a much-disputed point, and shows that Beham, to whom a

number of the originals were ascribed, must be excluded altogether.

¶ Count Luigi Manzoni writes on the stained glass in Perugia in the

quattrocento, and in particular on the great window in S. Domenico,

which he ascribes in part to Fra Bartolommeo di Pietro Accomandati,

who appears to have worked in stained glass already in the fourteenth

century at a time when most Italian towns were forced to employ

foreigners for such work. The greater part of the window was executed,

according to the author, in the second half of the fifteenth century,

and by the painter Benedetto Bonfigli. ¶ In this number Dr. Friedländer

concludes his notices of the Bruges Exhibition. He deals with Albert

Cornelis, an artist who was first recognized by Mr. James Weale,

and with Jan Provost, with regard to whom he follows M. G. Hulin.

He agrees therefore in giving to the artist, Mr. Sutton-Nelthorpe’s

Legend of St. Francis. More surprising is his suggestion that the

Madonna, lent by Madame André under the name of Van Eyck, which was

reproduced in the April number of ~The Burlington Magazine~, is a

youthful work of Jan Provost. With regard to Jan van Eeckele, the

author maintains a sceptical attitude. He supposes the signature J.V.E.

attached to certain works to be forgeries intended for Jan Van Eyck.

After discussing the works of the later Flemish and Dutch artists, Dr.

Friedländer discourses on the works which are not of purely Flemish

origin. Among them the most interesting was the so-called Antonello

da Messina, lent by Baron d’Albenas, representing the Pietà. This,

following M. Hulin, Dr. Friedländer gives to a French artist, and dates

about 1470. The mixture of Italian and Flemish influence in this work

is, we think, of quite a different kind from that found in French works

of the period.

~Rassegna d’Arte.~ -- To the April number M. George le Brun contributes

an enthusiastic, though by no means exaggerated, appreciation of the

elder Breughel, ‘the only artist of his time who knew how to withstand

the enchantments of the Italian masters,’ though he too travelled in

Italy. Signor Enrico Cavilia calls attention to the imposing ruins of

the basilica at Squillace which he ascribes to about the year 600. If

this is accurate it becomes, after St. Abbondio at Como, the earliest

example of a basilica in the form of a Latin cross. This important

example of early Christian architecture has been little noticed

hitherto. Signor Rivoira, for example, makes no mention of it. ¶ A

small piece of stuff with a woven pattern of figures, rabbits, birds,

and ornamental _intreccie_, which was found at Modena in 1900, forms

the subject of an article by Isabella Errera. This has hitherto been

supposed to be of Byzantine workmanship, but the author by comparison

with other pieces of similar design and workmanship ascribes it to Arab

workmen under Byzantine influence.

In the May number Signor Paoletti publishes an ancona (insufficiently

reproduced) by Jacobello Bonomo. This ancona in its original carved

frame is dated 1385, and is important as showing how early the

traditional form of the ancona as it appears in the works of the

Muranese school was fixed. This indeed differs but slightly from the

altarpieces of Antonio da Murano in Sta. Zaccharia at Venice, which

are dated nearly half a century later. ¶ Signor Ricci continues to

elucidate the little-known Giovanni Francesco da Rimini, an artist

of the Romagna influenced by Benedetto Bonfigli, and through him

deriving many motives which recall the work of Filippo Lippi. These are

specially noticeable in the Baptism belonging to Signor Blumenstihl

at Rome. The other picture, which he attributes to this mediocre but

agreeable painter, is a Madonna adoring the Infant Saviour which is No.

255 of the Bologna Gallery. ¶ Signor Augusto Bellini Pietri discourses

on the frescoes of S. Piero a Grado which were brought to light in

1885 at Cavalcaselle’s instigation. Cavalcaselle himself judged of

them as feeble productions of the early Pisan school which might be

connected with the name of Giunta Pisano. He failed to see traces of

true Byzantine influence. Signor Pietri’s view practically coincides

with this, except that he considers them of much greater artistic

significance and as indicating the dawn of the new Italian spirit, the

beginnings of a dramatic and expressive art as opposed to the hieratic

and purely architectonic character of the Byzantine. ¶ Signor Ricci

calls attention to an interesting portrait of Luca Pacioli acquired

by the Naples Gallery with a Cartellino bearing the inscription JACO.

BAR. VIGENNIS. 1495. If vigennis is a corruption of _ventenne_, and

if Jaco. Bar. stands for Jacopo de Barbari, it brings that artist’s

birth down to a much later period than has hitherto been assumed.

Unfortunately Signor Ricci does not indicate how far the painting in

question conforms to the manner of Jacopo de Barbari’s known works.

¶ Signor Ferrari announces the installation of the new museum at

Piacenza, and describes its two chief treasures, the Christ at the

Column by Antonello da Messina and the tondo (poorly reproduced), which

is ascribed, somewhat rashly we think, to Botticelli himself.

~Onze Kunst~ contains two articles by Max Rooses; in one he describes

the Pacully collection in Paris, which has recently come into the

market, and, _à propos_ of the picture of a young woman writing, by

the Master of the half-figures, which was exhibited at Bruges, makes

a suggestion that possibly the half-figure pictures were executed by

Jan Matsys when he was absent from the Netherlands, and may have come

into connexion with Clouet’s school in France. The colour scheme and

scale of modelling of Jan Matsys’s signed Lucretia is, we should have

thought, quite distinct from that of the half-figure pictures. ¶ In

the second article the author makes known a Rubens belonging to the

Countess Constantin de Bousies. The picture is of a satyr pressing

grapes into a cup held by a young satyr; in the foreground a tigress is

suckling her young. M. Rooses declares this to be the original of the

similar picture at Dresden.

~Ateneum. Helsingfors.~-No. 1 contains an article on mediaeval art

in Finland with illustrations of sculptures of the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, which shows how closely the types of early French

and German Gothic sculptures were followed. The St. Margaret from Vemo

has almost the grace and ease of movement and the large disposition of

draperies of the best French work of the end of the thirteenth century.

The later work indicates more clearly German influence. Osvald Siren

publishes two Florentine Madonna reliefs, at present in Sweden. One is

a stucco copy of a relief by Desiderio, lately in the possession of

Mrs. Pepys Cockerell.

~The Revue de l’Art~ contains some illustrations from the Pacully

collection, and the record by M. Paul Vitry of an interesting

discovery, an almost contemporary copy of a lost portrait of the Comte

de Dunois, the original probably being by Jean Fouquet.

~L’Art~, for April, contains a number of reproductions of mediaeval

works by royal and titled amateurs, an article on the Museum of

Tapestry at the Gobelins factory, one on Horace Vernet as a

caricaturist, and one on the exhibition of the Société National des

Beaux-Arts, remarkable for its violent and ill-judged attack on Rodin,

_à propos_ of the fact that he is not exhibiting this year.

~The Architectural Review~, May, is mostly devoted to contemporary

architecture, but contains the second part of Mr. Lethaby’s article on

‘How Exeter Cathedral was Built,’ with many illuminating remarks on

mediaeval methods of work; not the least interesting is the suggestion

that when columns of Purbeck marble were ordered from Corfe, the

designs of mouldings and sections were left to the Corfe masons.

R. E. F.

~Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde~, April, 1903.--The first number of

the seventh annual volume of this periodical opens with a detailed

account by H. A. L. Degener of the John Rylands Library at Manchester.

The building is described and the history of its foundation related.

The biography of John Rylands himself is followed by an interesting

account of the founders of the Althorp collection, now incorporated,

through the munificence of Mrs. Rylands, with the other contents of

the palatial building at Manchester. The purchase of the Crawford

collection of MSS. by Mrs. Rylands is duly recorded, and a good summary

is given of the most important treasures of the library in the way

of block-books and incunabula, with special attention to the books

from early English presses. The article is illustrated with sketches

of the building and facsimiles of rare specimens of printing. An

article follows on the contemporary book-decorator, Hugo Hoppener,

whose pseudonym is Fidus. His work is unknown in this country, and

such specimens as are given do not inspire us with any desire for a

closer acquaintance with it. Modern printing in Russia is described

by P. Ettinger, and there is a review of two important facsimiles of

block-books recently published by Heitz, and edited by Professor W.

L. Schreiber, the ‘Twelve Sibyls,’ at St. Gallen, and the edition of

the ‘Biblia Pauperum,’ in fifty leaves, at Paris. A specimen of each

facsimile accompanies the review.

C. D.

❧ CORRESPONDENCE ❧

PROFESSOR LANGTON DOUGLAS AND DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE.

~Sir~,

Professor Douglas’s long and elaborate reply to my note is no doubt

interesting; but it seems as if he considers the subject of more vital

importance than I do; and I fancy most readers of ~The Burlington

Magazine~ will agree with me so far. It is scarcely necessary to

point out the personal turn to which his arguments veer; but I am

unregenerate enough to draw attention to the fact that, in spite of

much circumlocution, he brings out _none_ that really _prove_ me

wrong in my contentions. I do not deny the talents of either Signor

Centofanti or Signor Donati (of the works of the former and the

friendship of the latter I have reason to speak most highly); but

their names alone scarcely carry conviction to the ordinary English

reader. I must repeat that I do _not_ consider that Professor Douglas’s

_assertions_ with regard to Sodoma will bear close examination. The

explanation of this in detail would take too long here; but I hope

some day to have an opportunity of going fully into the subject of

that artist’s name and family. That Beccafumi was _very frequently_

designated as ‘Mecharino,’ or ‘Mecarino,’ is beyond dispute, and the

statements here brought forward are certainly not sufficient to

account for the _entire_ omission of this important fact from Professor

Douglas’s work. With regard to Matteo’s Massacre of the Innocents, I

can only suggest to anyone interested in the subject to go and look at

the picture, signature, and original document, and then form his own

opinion.

On both these points the reader cannot do better than compare the

statements here set forth with those in the ‘History of Siena.’ I need

say no more; but, in conclusion, I cannot resist remarking how great

was my astonishment to find that until last April Professor Douglas,

in spite of all his studies at Siena, was not aware that the Archivio

dei Contratti of that city (_Archivio Notarile Provinciale_)--referred

to continually by Milanesi and others, and containing many important

documents (including two wills of Francesco Tolomei, in the second of

which Matteo’s picture is not mentioned)--is an _absolutely different_

institution from its younger, and admittedly more imposing and

interesting, rival--the Archivio di Stato, is under different control,

and is even a cause of jealousy. Surely, when preparing to overthrow

the consensus of opinion of a number of competent predecessors, it

is scarcely safe to trust implicitly to _copies_, and a search for

this original will would have saved that situation anyhow. Had I not

received this information from the writer’s own lips, I could not have

believed it possible. For _the_ historian of Siena to admit ignorance

of the separate existence and constitution of this important storehouse

seems to me to be more damaging to his reputation for accuracy than any

points of detail upon which differences of opinion can arise.

~Robert H. Hobart Cust.~

THE AUTHORSHIP OF A MADONNA BY SOLARIO

~Sir~,

The Madonna by Solario which you reproduce in your number for May is

a picture by no means unknown in art literature. It is reproduced on

Plate XXXVII of Rosini’s ‘Storia della Pittura Italiana,’ and as No.

29bis, IIS. in Muxell’s ‘Catalogue of the Leuchtenberg Collection,’

and such well-known critics as Waagen, Rumohr, Hettner, and Crowe and

Cavalcaselle have spoken of it. The last-named writers unhesitatingly

ascribe the picture in question to Andrea Solario of Milan, declaring

the signature a coarse forgery. Rosini, who seems to have known all

about the picture, says:--‘Could we trust this signature--Antonius da

Solario Venetus f--there would be no doubt regarding the home of this

artist. But are we bound to have a blind faith in a signature, when we

happen to know the history of the picture, and how it passed through

the hands of restorers and dealers before it was sold to the collection

where it now hangs? Experience has taught me to entertain very serious

doubts.’[48]

I share these doubts, for I cannot hesitate a moment in ascribing this

very charming Madonna to Andrea Solario. Mr. Roger Fry in his admirable

note on this picture mentions the points of likeness which it has with

the Brera Madonna and Saints, dated 1495. There happens to be another

work even closer to this one, and in my opinion certainly by Solario,

although not attributed to him.[49] It belongs to Dr. J. P. Richter,

and represents the Madonna adoring the Holy Child. So Venetian are its

colour, tone, and feeling, that more than one good critic has attempted

to find its author in Venice; but so singularly like are the ovals, so

identical the eyes and mouths of the Virgins in Dr. Richter’s and in

Mr. Wertheimer’s pictures, that they could not have been painted by

different hands. A Madonna belonging to Signor Crespi of Milan, never,

that I am aware, ascribed to another than Solario, although of later

date, again betrays identity of hand, in the landscape at least, with

Mr. Wertheimer’s painting.

But Mr. Fry, who, if any one, has a right to an opinion, admits

the possibility that the signature is genuine; in which case Mr.

Wertheimer’s picture would be by a painter famous in Neapolitan

art-mythology, who is supposed to have executed the frescoes in the

cloister of Sanseverino at Naples. Mr. Fry, with a candour by no

means common among recent writers on art, tells us that he is not

acquainted with these frescoes. I happen to know them well, and I can

assure Mr. Fry that these paintings and Mr. Wertheimer’s Madonna have

nothing in common. The latter, like all of Solario’s works, even the

most Venetian, displays many characteristics of an art substantially

Milanese, while the frescoes contain no element of the kind. The

principal author of the series (he freely employed assistants) seems

to have been a Sicilian educated under Antonello, Gentile Bellini,

and Carpaccio. In his wanderings up and down the peninsula his fancy

seems to have been taken by Pintoricchio’s landscape--a taste for which

Carpaccio’s romantic scenery had doubtless prepared him. No other

influences are visible in his work, neither Lombard, nor Ferrarese, nor

Florentine. I am amazed that paintings so obviously Venetian should

have remained so long unrecognized for what they are.

I would gladly say more of the author of these frescoes (there is not

a little to be said), but I must now hasten to answer the question

that may be asked: But what if the inscription is ancient? Even then

Mr. Wertheimer’s picture does not cease to be Andrea Solario. The

inscription may in fact never have been intended for a signature,

but for a label. Soon after it was painted this picture may have

fallen into the hands of a person who, like so many of us to-day when

addressing a letter, confused the Christian name of the painter with

one resembling it, and, wishing to make sure that he did not forget it

altogether, had it inscribed according to his inaccurate recollection

upon the panel, with the addition of the fact that the picture was

painted in Venice--for that is all that the word _Venetus_ need mean

here. Or if it does mean more, this more would tend to establish the

value of connoisseurship. It was on internal evidence alone that I came

to the conclusion, published in my ‘Lorenzo Lotto’ some nine years ago,

that Solario must have made a long enough sojourn at Venice to have

become deeply imbued with the ideas of Alvise Vivarini: and now Mr.

Wertheimer’s picture, if the inscription be ancient, would confirm this

hypothesis to the extent of proving that Solario remained long enough

in Venice to be considered a Venetian, just as Lotto, for instance,

owing to a residence of two or three years at Treviso, was called a

Trevisan.

~Bernhard Berenson.~

[Illustration: Walker & Cockerell Ph. Sc.

Lady Betty Hamilton

by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the collection of the Earl of Normanton.]

PICTURES IN THE COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY, AT HIGHNAM COURT, NEAR

GLOUCESTER

❧ WRITTEN BY ROGER FRY ❧

ARTICLE I.--ITALIAN PICTURES OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

Last summer, by the courtesy of Sir Hubert Parry, I was enabled to

visit Highnam Court in company with Mr. Berenson. It was intended that

we should collaborate in the work of bringing to the notice of students

some of the very remarkable Italian paintings in this collection. Owing

to ill health and the pressure of other work Mr. Berenson has not

been able to do what he had hoped. Under these circumstances I shall

confine myself to a brief account of these pictures in the hope that

at some future date Mr. Berenson will again take the subject in hand

and draw from these examples those more definite conclusions which his

far wider knowledge of Italian art would justify. In justice to him I

must add that, except where expressly stated, he is not responsible

for the ideas here put forward. ¶ A few words on the collection in

general may be appropriate; for, no less than the house, the garden,

and all its surroundings, the collection at Highnam bears the impress

of a very remarkable personality, that of Thomas Gambier Parry, the

father of the present owner. On leaving the university, in 1838, Parry

bought the Highnam estate, near Gloucester, which became thenceforward

his home. But the duties of a country squire, though undertaken with

unusual energy and benevolence, did not absorb his entire activities.

His enthusiastic love of Italian art led him to travel frequently, and

to devote himself to the hope of acclimatizing in England the art of

fresco wall-decoration. Realizing the unsuitability to our climate of

the true Italian method of fresco painting, he made many researches

in technique, which led to the discovery of the method of spirit

fresco, which is best known in England from Sir Frederick Leighton’s

two examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum. But Parry was not only

an inventor; he himself practised the art with considerable success.

The church which he built in his park for the village of Highnam is

decorated internally by him; the paintings of St. Andrew’s chapel in

Gloucester cathedral, and of the roof of Tewkesbury abbey, are also due

to him. But perhaps the best known is his decoration of the wooden roof

of the nave in Ely cathedral, which must certainly be counted as one

of the few really successful modern attempts to recapture the spirit

of mediaeval decorative design. All these works were executed by him

without payment, and largely at his own expense. ¶ We are, however,

not concerned here with Parry as an artist, but as a connoisseur, and

the collection at Highnam shows that in this he was as original, as

independent of the fashions of his day, and of as fine a taste as in

his other capacities. For, at the time when the Highnam collection was

made it was not yet a title to social distinction to have one’s walls

decorated with Italian primitives. The works of the trecento are not

even now estimated at their real value, and it is in the specimens of

trecento and early quattrocento painting that the Highnam collection

is most remarkable. ¶ Hence, if we take the works in chronological

order, we begin at once with a picture which is in its way unique, the

Nativity and Adoration (Plate I). The singularity of this is that we

have here a panel painted in tempera, belonging at the latest to the

early years of the fourteenth century, which is not only untouched,

but in complete preservation, and which for brilliance and intensity

of colour and the perfection of its enamel-like smalto can scarcely

be surpassed by works of the succeeding century. It is a small panel

in which the figures are drawn with miniature-like precision. The

prevailing tone is the pale brown in which the rocky landscape is

rendered. It is almost of the colour and surface quality of boxwood or

tarnished ivory. Upon this the plants and trees, still treated with

the elementary symbolism of Byzantine art, are relieved in vivid black

green; while the chief notes in the draperies--which are hatched with

gold, according to the Byzantine tradition--are an intense blue green

and a very positive transparent pink, with rarer touches of scarlet

and celadon green. The effect of this colour scheme is very unusual,

and recalls at once the well-known altarpiece of St. Cecilia in the

corridor of the Uffizi. Two other altarpieces, by the same master, who

is best known from his frescoes in the upper church at Assisi, have

been recently discovered by Mr. Herbert Horne in the neighbourhood of

Florence, and in these also a similar colour scheme is observable.[50]

That the Highnam panel is a contemporary work, and, like those, marks

the first germs of a distinctively Italian tradition, is apparent,

but the tempting conclusion that it is by the same remarkable painter

is not altogether borne out by the forms. For the master of the St.

Cecilia altarpiece, though he was Giotto’s contemporary, shows an

independent development out of the older tradition. Only in the Assisi

frescoes is he influenced, and that in a secondary and superficial

way, by Giotto; whereas this panel, which from its composition and

the use of gold hatchings on the draperies we may assign to an early

period of the movement, bears already decided traces of the style of

Giotto. ¶ Whereas in the master of the St. Cecilia altarpiece we note

the peculiarity of small heads, elongated figures, fine-drawn features,

and spider-like extremities; above all a sense of elegance, almost of

affectation, which connects his work more with the decadent classic

tradition than with the new ideas of Giovanni Pisano and Giotto; here

we have already, more rounded forms, and more solid relief, while

the poses are of a kind which allow of re-entering lines, gathering

the form together in a self-centred mass. Particularly noteworthy in

this respect is the group at the bottom of the composition, where

the influence of forms discovered by Giovanni Pisano in bas-relief

is clearly apparent. ¶ There are comparatively few extant works of

art which exemplify this precise movement in the development of the

Italian from the early Christian style, but among them the closest

analogy to our picture may be found in the panels at Munich, Nos. 979

and 980, in which a number of scenes are united in a single panel,

though not as here in a single composition. We have in them a similar

mixture of Byzantine tradition as seen in the gold hatchings on the

draperies, similar large and rather heavy masks, similar deep shadows

in the eye orbits, while the corners of the mouth are marked by similar

round dots. Indeed the angel to Christ’s left in the Last judgement

of the Munich panels is almost the exact counterpart of the angel

immediately above the Christ in the Highnam Adoration. These Munich

panels are considered by Mr. Berenson to be early works by Giotto. Is

it possible that we have in the Highnam picture yet another early work

by the same hand, and in incomparably better preservation? Besides the

general likeness of style to the Munich pictures, there are certain

characteristics which would point to such a conclusion; perhaps the

most striking is the drawing of the hands. Thus the pose of the

Madonna’s hand with the two first fingers outstretched, the others

clenched, is a peculiarity constant in Giotto. Another characteristic

trait is the tendency to bring the fingers of the opened hand to a

point, as in the right hand of the third king.

[Illustration: NATIVITY AND ADORATION: SCHOOL OF CIMABUE

IN THE COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: ALTAR-PIECE IN FIVE PARTS, BY BERNARDO DADDI

IN THE COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: CORONATION OF OUR LADY, BY AGNOLO GADDI; IN THE

COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: Photo Alinari

CORONATION OF OUR LADY, By TADDEO GADDI; PART OF AN ALTAR-PIECE IN

SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE]

On the other hand we must point out that the Munich pictures, in spite

of the roughness of their execution, indicate a richer imagination, a

greater energy of dramatic presentment, than can be claimed for the

Highnam piece. There is nothing in the latter which can compare, for

instance, with the inexpressible tenderness with which the Virgin

contemplates the Child in the Munich picture. In our picture, the

attempt to infuse life into the older formula is evident, but the

persons of the drama still remain somewhat coldly self-absorbed and

aloof; that flash of mutual interaction and sympathy which both

Giovanni Pisano and Giotto realized so intensely is still lacking.

¶ In the present state of our knowledge, which leaves open so many

unsuspected possibilities, it is, perhaps, unsafe to go further; but

at least this can be said, that we have here no Giottesque work in

the ordinary sense of the word, which might be more appropriately

termed Gaddesque, but a work executed either by Giotto himself, or

more probably by some contemporaneous artist who was elaborating at

the same time with him the new idea; or if by a pupil, one who came

under his influence at a very early date, before Giotto’s own style was

fully matured. Certainly this work has none of the academic qualities

of the followers who, like Taddeo Gaddi, accepted the formulæ of

Giotto’s later style; it has in it, like Giotto’s own work, the spring

and vitality which come with the germination of a new and fruitful

conception. And among the works of this fascinating period of Italian

painting, we know of none which surpass this in the polished perfection

of the technique nor in the marvellous preservation of its surface. ¶

The next important picture (Plate II), keeping to the chronological

order, is one of the most magnificent of the many noble altarpieces

which have come down to us from the fourteenth century. Even in

Florence itself it would be hard to find an altarpiece in which the

religious sentiment of the time is expressed in more imposing forms,

or in which the decoration is more sumptuous and the execution more

refined. It is, moreover, in wonderful preservation, and the pale flat

tints of pure heliotrope, dull scarlet and blue, and white flushed with

pink, relieved upon a background of elaborately stamped gold, produce

an effect of brilliance and variety toned to a perfect harmony which

the artists of Florence rarely surpassed. Indeed, in the pallor and

brilliance of the colour scheme, as also in the atmospheric tonality

and the absence of vigorous relief in the figures, we are reminded

of Sienese art. The forms, however, are essentially Florentine. The

inscription at the base leaves us in no doubt about the author of this

masterpiece; it runs: ~ANNO DNI MCCCXLVIII BERNARDVS PINXIT ME QUEM

FLORENTIE~ (_sic_) ~FINSIT~. The original notion that this Bernardo

was the same as Nardo the elder brother of Orcagna has been exposed

by Milanesi, to whose researches we owe all that is known of Bernardo

da Firenze or Bernardo Daddi, whose _chef d’œuvre_ is the Highnam

altarpiece. Bernardo Daddi was almost overlooked by Vasari, who makes

him, by an anachronism of more than half a century, a pupil of Spinello

Aretino; nor did Crowe and Cavalcaselle realize his importance in

their ‘History of Painting.’ Milanesi has, however, discovered many

facts about Daddi, who, though inferior in the vitality and freshness

of his imagination to Giottino, was perhaps a finer artist than any

other of the immediate successors of Giotto. Certainly Taddeo Gaddi,

who somehow came to be regarded as the _capo scuola_, has left nothing

comparable to this as regards the variety and self-consistency of the

types, the nobility of the design and spacing of the figures, or the

research for beauty in the execution. Even in the Crucifixion, though

it is only a variation of Giotto’s inventions, there survives, in spite

of a tendency to a more sentimental treatment, something of the great

master’s dramatic feeling. There is much here, moreover, that seems

already to suggest Orcagna, and Daddi may perhaps be regarded as the

connecting link between him and Giotto. ¶ What is known of the life of

Daddi may be found at length in Milanesi’s commentary to Vasari’s life

of Stefano Fiorentino and Ugolino Sanese. Milanesi champions eloquently

the cause of this great but curiously neglected artist--that his

pleading has not been altogether successful may be due in part to the

fact that he endeavours to establish Daddi’s authorship of the frescoes

of the Triumph of Death, in the _camposanto_ at Pisa. The improbability

of such a view will be apparent to anyone who compares them with the

Highnam altarpiece. Daddi, who was born at the close of the thirteenth

century, died either in 1348 according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, or

in 1350 according to Milanesi. This picture must therefore be one of

his latest, as it is also one of his finest works. It came originally

from the church of St. George at Ruballa, whence it passed into the

Bromley collection. It is referred to as being in that collection

by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and is mentioned as being in England by

Milanesi. ¶ To a considerably later period of the fourteenth century

belongs the Coronation of the Virgin (Plate III), which is ascribed

in the catalogue to Giotto. It is, however, clearly a fine work by

the last great Giottesque master of Florence, Agnolo Gaddi, whose

characteristic qualities and defects are here admirably displayed. The

weak lines of the boneless fingers with their rounded ends, the long

thin noses imperfectly articulated with the mask, and the want of life

and character in the figures, betray the facile exponent of a stock

formula which made but small demands upon the artist’s observation or

his feeling for reality. It was, indeed, due to the cleverness and,

if we are to believe Vasari, the commercial astuteness of the Gaddi

family that Giotto’s style was crystallized into so lifeless a system

of design. But Agnolo, though he inherited too much from his father,

was more of an artist. Where, as at Sta. Croce, he depicts a stirring

narrative, his line, at other times mechanical and slow, becomes alert

and expressive of at least the more obvious dramatic effects, while at

all times he shows a refined taste and originality as a decorator in

the more limited sense of the word. Judged as an imaginative rendering

of a supreme event, this picture is certainly cold and inadequate,

but as a piece of elaborate decoration it is charmingly designed

and brilliantly executed. The brocade hanging, which reminds one of

Orcagna’s school, is painted with the utmost skill; on a ground of

brilliant orange red, the symmetrical pattern of birds and flowers is

relieved in intensest blue and gold. The draperies and flesh are for

the most part in that beautiful pale key which Agnolo affected; the

opposition of pale grey, blue, and saffron yellow, with stronger notes

of mauve and pink, forms one of those complex and sumptuous harmonies

of colour which were unfortunately abandoned by the artists of the

succeeding century. The general likeness of this to Taddeo Gaddi’s

version of the same subject in the sacristy of Sta. Croce (Plate III)

(there attributed to Giotto) is apparent. Agnolo has even repeated,

though in a modified form, the peculiar double sleeve which is not

unfrequent in Taddeo’s pictures. The influence of Orcagna is, however,

to be seen in the more rectilinear folds and the attempt at structural

design in the draperies.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI, BY LORENZO MONACO; IN THE

COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: THE VISITATION, BY LORENZO MONACO; IN THE COLLECTION OF

SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS, BY A FLORENTINE PAINTER

OF THE EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN THE COLLECTION OF SIR HUBERT PARRY]

[Illustration: TRIPTYCH, BY THE SAME PAINTER; IN THE UFFIZI, FLORENCE]

We come next to an artist who was probably at one time Agnolo Gaddi’s

pupil. The two little predella pieces representing the Visitation

and the Adoration of the Magi (Plate IV) are not only among the

most charming pieces of the collection, but they are among the best

works of an artist whose sense of beauty was almost of the highest

order--Lorenzo Monaco. The melodious rhythm of his long-drawn

interlacing lines, the sweetness and lucidity of his design, are here

beautifully apparent. His peculiar treatment of drapery would

seem to indicate that the miniature paintings of northern Europe,

particularly of French workmanship, were not without their influence

on him. But here, though the main ideas of design are essentially

gothic, there is much that already foreshadows the art of the fifteenth

century. How much of Fra Angelico there already is in the tenderly

expressive gesture of the Virgin’s hands as she raises St. Elizabeth

from her knees, while the movement of the right leg and the peculiar

disposition of the drapery which it causes are favourite motives with

the pupil. Angelico, indeed, had but little to add to this exquisite

interpretation of the subject. How much, too, of Fra Filippo Lippi’s

genre feeling is already hinted at in the figure leaning against

the doorpost--how much of his romance in the woodland background!

Lorenzo Monaco’s importance as the inspirer of the new ideas of

the quattrocento perhaps deserves more recognition. The Adoration

is a variation upon the theme of a predella piece by Lorenzo in

the Raczynski gallery at Berlin; but the differences between this,

which we must assume to be a late work, and the Berlin picture are

remarkable. The head of the second king in particular is so different

from Lorenzo’s usual type, so near to what Masolino or the young

Masaccio might have done, that one wonders whether some pupil, already

advancing beyond his master in the new direction, may not have had a

hand in it. ¶ If these works by Lorenzo Monaco show the emergence from

the gothic formula of a new spirit, our next picture (Plate V) is on

the contrary a curious case of retardation. ¶ The general effect of

this picture is decidedly Giottesque; the colour scheme is still of

the gay and variegated kind that occurs in works of the trecento.

The crimson robes with yellow high lights, the indigo blues and apple

greens, all belong to the Giottesque tradition; but, none the less,

this picture was probably executed at a period when the more original

artists had already established the new ideas of fifteenth-century art.

The master who executed this was clearly a reactionary who clung to the

old, convenient receipts for the fabrication of handsomely decorated

altarpieces. His works are not uncommon in and around Florence, and

may be easily recognized by the peculiar alert expression of the eyes

and the gaiety and piquancy of his faces. One of his pictures in the

corridor of the Uffizi is reproduced here (Plate V); another is in

Fiesole cathedral. The artist shows some evidence of the influence

of Lorenzo Monaco, though this is more apparent in the draperies of

the Uffizi picture than in the Highnam Madonna. The latter seems

in essentials to be rather a continuation of the purely Florentine

Giottesque tradition of the end of the fourteenth century, and is

probably a somewhat earlier work. ¶ Whoever our artist may be, his

work scarcely rises above the level of tasteful and accomplished

craftsmanship, and his chief interest is as an example of one phase of

the work of the period of transition to the style of the quattrocento.

One is apt to forget that long after Masaccio and Castagno had

realized in paint the new plastic ideas of Donatello, the older firms

of ecclesiastical furnishers went on contentedly in the earlier

manner, which was, in fact, better adapted to the requirements of the

altarpiece. Even in the next generation Neri di Bicci only made a

sufficient pretence to structural draughtsmanship and modelling to pass

muster among his contemporaries.

MUSSULMAN MANUSCRIPTS AND MINIATURES AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE RECENT

EXHIBITION AT PARIS

❧ WRITTEN BY E. BLOCHET ❧