The exhibition of Mussulman art held during the months of May and June
in the Pavillon de Marsan at Paris afforded an opportunity such as is
rarely given of studying the art of the Mussulman nations. The objects
brought together included some fine examples of their various classes,
and most of them, coming as they did from private collections, had not
before been seen by the public. ¶ The art of miniature-painting is one
of those in which the Mussulmans have excelled, especially the Persians
and the Turks, who, since the appearance upon the world’s scene of the
hordes of Jenghis Khan, have lived by Iranian culture and civilization.
Also it is one of the least known, for we have to go in search of
specimens of this art to the manuscripts in which they are scattered
without order and, at least at first sight, without logic. Moreover, as
will presently be seen, only a very restricted few of these paintings
are signed and dated, so that it is only by external considerations
that we can succeed in identifying a period and a country of origin. ¶
The Mussulman religion has always been shy of encouraging the art of
painting; in fact, the tradition of Islam formally forbids it. This
absolute prohibition was borrowed by Mohammed from the Jews, and he
also reckoned upon establishing a distinction between his Faithful,
of whom he wished to make a nation of iconoclasts, and the Byzantine
Christians and Mazdean Persians, who decorated their palaces with
carvings and their books with paintings. He who draws a human figure,
or even a representation of any kind of animal, says the Sunna, shall
give it his soul at the Day of Judgement, and thus perish amid the
torments of hell. Fortunately for the history of art, the Mussulmans
did not observe this prohibition more strictly than did Solomon that
of the Bible, when he introduced figures of animals into the Temple;
but it did not fail to weigh heavily upon the artistic development of
a whole world, and it forced the latter to confine itself vaguely to
geometrical decoration, while systematically renouncing statuary and
figured representations, which enabled Greek art to attain its full
splendour. ¶ Passing through the galleries of the Pavillon de Marsan,
one was struck by the smallness of the space occupied by figured
representations among the number of objects there brought together.
Here and there, at very rare intervals, one found a few bronzes
representing animals; while as for the carpets, the accoutrements,
the copper vessels, the glass lamps, it was only exceptionally that
they bore anything but inscriptions in large _neskhi_ letters,
taken from verses of the Koran or from the traditions attributed to
the prophet Mohammed. Nor did any but a certain number of Persian
manuscripts contain other than those commonplace decorations which we
find throughout the Islam world, from the Hispano-Arab monuments of
Seville and Granada to the mosques raised by the descendants of Timur
Bey in the countries that form the frontier of Chinese Turkestan. ¶
The impression of a person seeing once, and a little quickly, an
exhibition, however limited, of Mussulman paintings, is that all these
miniatures are so many isolated artistic fancies, scarcely connected
one with the other, and that the painters who have executed them have
confined themselves to following the whims of their imagination,
without troubling to know what had been done before them, or to
inquire into the workmanship of artists contemporary with themselves.
[Illustration: MINIATURE FROM THE MAKAMAT OF HARIRI; ARAB MS. BELONGING
TO M. CHARLES SCHEFER]
[Illustration: MINIATURE FROM MS. OF THE ASTRONOMICAL TREATISE OF
ABD-ER-RAHMAN EL-SUFI; IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FRANCE]
This is an inevitable impression, but a radically false one, as a
careful and prolonged examination of the documents easily enables us
to see. ¶ On the contrary, the world of Islam produced schools of
which each had its own methods and types. By comparing manuscripts
of the same date and origin, one perceives that, without exception,
they present the same pictures, and that, moreover, those pictures are
very nearly identical. They offer hardly the smallest variations in
detail, while in workmanship and in the general plan of the composition
they are strictly alike. It is thus that, in all the ‘Books of the
Kings’ illustrated in Persia during the time of the Sefevæan kings,
we find the same scenes treated in identical fashion, with more or
less finish, according to the price of the book; in the same way,
all the manuscripts of the life of the famous Sufis of Sultan Husein
Mirza contain identical paintings, which are hardly differentiated
one from the other and which are evidently replicas of a common
original, drawn and painted by an artist of talent, the head of a
school. ¶ No illuminated Arab manuscript is known of an earlier date
than the thirteenth century, and the reason of this is simple. So
long as the caliphate of Bagdad was sufficiently powerful, or, at
least, preserved sufficient moral authority, to cause the Mussulman
law to be respected in its integrity, none dared to violate one of the
strictest injunctions of the Sunna. The artists, both in the Persian
world and among the Mussulmans of Syria and Egypt, waited for the
day of the final decadence of the spiritual power before venturing
to transgress the formal prohibition against the reproduction, by
any process whatever, of the human figure, or even of animal forms.
¶ Arab books adorned with pictures (of indifferent merit) appeared
first in the empire of the Aiyubite sultans descended from Saladin.
This innovation raised a storm among the ulemas and men of law, who
looked upon it as an abomination; but the Aiyubite sovereigns, although
loudly proclaiming themselves the stoutest defenders of the Caliph of
Bagdad, were but little interested to know whether a thing was orthodox
or not. Had not Saladin built in the very heart of Cairo a college for
the Bathenians, whose doctrines, a hundred times anathematized by the
Abbasside caliphs, tended to prove that there existed neither Allah nor
Mohammed, and that the only possible divinity was the prime mover, the
first hypostasis, the absolute One of the Neoplatonists? The Aiyubites
troubled themselves so little about the prohibition against reproducing
the human figure that they had coins struck in Syria bearing on the
obverse the head of the Byzantine Christ and on the reverse the usual
inscriptions in the Arab tongue. Saladin even went so far--and this
is the acme of heterodoxy--as to plan a marriage between his brother
Melik Adel and the sister of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England.
The Mussulman artists would have been very wrong not to have taken it
at their ease under the reign of such liberal princes; and therefore,
beginning with the extreme end of the twelfth century, we behold
the first appearance of illuminated Arab manuscripts. ¶ These Arab
manuscripts adorned with paintings are of the greatest rarity, and
are not generally distinguished for their execution. They are curious
documents, worthy of preservation because of their rarity, rather than
real works of art, and the painters who illuminated them were never
very careful with their work. They betrayed an almost complete lack
of imagination and invention, and confined themselves to copying as
best they could the illuminated pictures in the manuscripts at their
disposal, that is to say the Byzantine manuscripts, in Egypt and Syria:
as for the Mussulmans of the Maghreb and the Yemen, it never occurred
to their minds that it was possible to adorn a book with pictures.
The greater number of the pictures in Arab manuscripts are copied
from Byzantine manuscripts of the eighth to the eleventh century, and
the limners, not knowing what they were copying, often surrounded the
heads of their figures with the golden haloes of the saints of the
Greek Church. ¶ There are only very few Arab manuscripts the pictures
of which rise above the conventional commonplace level, although
they always display very evident traces of Byzantine influence.
The most important of these manuscripts is a copy of the _Makāmāt_
(‘assemblies,’ or _séances_) of Harīrī, which belongs to M. Charles
Schefer. A very curious painting from this manuscript, which was copied
in Mesopotamia in the year 1237, is reproduced in the present article.
It shows a troop of horsemen in the army of the Abbasside caliph,
carrying the black silk standard of the Abbas family and sounding
enormous trumpets. This picture, which is far from possessing the merit
of the miniatures that adorn the Persian manuscripts, presents to us,
in a life-like manner, a scene which must have been frequent in the
streets of Bagdad and Damascus; the costumes and the harness of the
horses are absolutely correct and correspond in every respect with the
descriptions of apparel to be found at random in the Arab historians.
One fact which goes to show that Arab art, at least in Syria, assumed
a considerable development at that time is that we possess two other
manuscripts of these _séances_ of Harīrī less fine than the one in
question, but illuminated by artists who evidently belong to the
same school. ¶ These painters of the Aiyubite period considered that
Byzantine art, itself very limited and restricted almost exclusively
to religious painting, did not offer a large enough variety of models,
and they looked around them for others. These were so rare that our
artists were sometimes content to reproduce Egyptian stelæ, or to draw
their inspiration from the statues of Pharaohs or divinities which
they encountered at every step on Egyptian soil, copying to the best
of their ability the hieroglyphic characters which they found on those
monuments and of which they understood not a word. In short, painting
never existed on Arab manuscripts save by way of exception and in a
sporadic state; and yet the Arab artists suffered from no lack of
subjects for illustration. What an inexhaustible mine the ‘Thousand
Nights and a Night’ would have supplied, and the heroic romances of
‘Antarah, of Sultan Zahir Bibars, or the ‘History of the Heroes of
Islamism’ (_Siret el-mujāhidin_)! A few Arab manuscripts copied in
Persia are adorned with paintings, generally of indifferent merit, but
it is very evident that these do not belong to Arab art properly so
called, and that they must be included among the productions of Iranian
art. ¶ The only ornamentation of the Arab manuscripts consists of the
illumination of the titles and the first pages of the text. They are
not so fine as those done in Persia, although we find copies of the
Koran, written on parchment, richly illuminated with gilded designs.
But this ornamentation, reduced to a very small number of colours and
with broken lines, is heavy and overladen with gildings: the Persians
were more sober and showed that they had less taste for tinsel.
[Illustration: MINIATURE FROM ‘THE BOOK OF KINGS,’ A PERSIAN MS. OF
1566; IN THE COLLECTION OF BARON EDOUARD DE ROTHSCHILD]
The artistic history of Persia begins with the Achæmenian kings, that
is to say in the fifth century before Christ, a very recent date
compared with the antiquity of the ancient Assyrian and Chaldean
empires. Like all the countries of Hither Asia, the Persia of the
Achæmenians was tributary to the Babylonian Empire, and the monuments
of Persepolis and Murghab are obviously copied from those of the valley
of the Euphrates, while showing signs of a strong Hellenic influence.
In fact, the influence of Greece in Persia began long before the
conquest by Alexander, and the subjects of the Great Kings had happily
lightened the heavy architecture and ponderous sculpture of Babylon by
taking their inspiration from the methods of the artists of Hellas.
It is thus that the Apadana of Persepolis, the Apadana of Esther and
Xerxes, is a compromise between the oldest works of Assyrian art
and the most grandiose specimens of Greek architecture, between the
Palace of Sargon, which it suggests by the elevation of its immense
walls and its heavy friezes, and the Parthenon, in which we find
the colonnade of the Persian edifice, which the architecture of the
Euphrates valley always ignored. The casings in many-coloured bricks
which adorn the Apadana were borrowed by the Persians from Chaldean, or
rather Assyrian art; and the frieze of the Archers has its prototype
in the glazed-brick low-reliefs of the Dur-Sarkayan. The workmanship
of those polychromatic casings has changed very little in the course
of the ages, and the methods employed by the brick-makers who, in
the sixteenth century, adorned the splendid mosques of the Sefevæan
kings at Ardabil and Veramin with sky-blue and pale-green mosaics were
almost identical with those of the artists of the time of Sargon and
Nebuchadnezzar. ¶ The Greek influence attained its height in Iran after
the conquest by Alexander, under the reign of the Arsacidan princes
who assumed the title of Philhellenes on their coinage. The Sāsānians,
while endeavouring to bring about a reaction against that influence
which had several times threatened to deprive Iran of all its autonomy,
were unable, at least at the commencement of their dynasty, to dispense
with the aid of the Greek artists, and the inscriptions of the early
kings of that dynasty are accompanied by a Greek translation. ¶ The
art and methods of construction of the period of the Sāsānian kings
were perpetuated long after the Mussulman conquest; and the ogival
doorways of the Timurid mosques of Samarcand or of the mosques of the
Sefevæan shahs recall, although with a much less imposing aspect, the
gigantic ogive, the _Ivān_, to-day half-ruined, of the Palace of the
Sāsānians at Ctesiphon, which, according to the Islam tradition, was
rent in two during the night in which Mohammed came into the world. The
Mussulman architects who built the powerful citadels which stayed the
onrush of the crusaders in Syria also derived their inspiration from
the Sāsānian tradition, and it was thus that the gothic style made its
way into the art of the east and ended by supplanting the Roman style.
¶ If the influence of Greek art was considerable in Ancient Persia, it
was null in Persian art according to Islam; for there was scarcely any
point of contact between the Byzantine world in its decline and Persia
subjugated by the arms of the caliphs and separated from the west by
Syria and the provinces that formed the Seljukian empire of Asia Minor.
Nevertheless there exist a few rare specimens of Persian painting of
the end of the thirteenth century which recall in a positive fashion
the methods of Hellenic art; but there is no doubt that the works which
they serve to illustrate are merely translations of Arab originals
written in Syria and containing miniatures imitated from Byzantine
types. The Persian limners confined themselves to reproducing those
paintings at the same time that the Arab works were being translated
into the Persian language, and we must beware of seeing in this the
trace of any post-Islamic influence of Byzantine art. ¶ The three great
schools of painting in Persia succeed one another without interruption
and, encroaching one on the other from the beginning of the thirteenth
century to the early years of the eighteenth century, correspond
with the three great dominations which held sway over Iran during
this period of nearly five centuries: the Mongolians, the Timurids
and the Sefevæans. Books adorned with paintings, in fact, make their
first appearance with the dynasty of the Mongolian sovereigns, whose
ancestor, Hulagu, was sent to conquer Persia by the Emperor of China,
Manchu. Although the dynasties which had made themselves independent
in Persia, up to the Seljukians, had taken matters easily with the
Abbasside caliphate, it is no less true that they were deeply attached
to Islamism and that men hesitated under their dominion openly to
transgress the prescription of the religious law. The Mongolian
sovereigns, at least the first, did not profess Islamism and even
greatly preferred Christianity to the Mussulman religion, although not
themselves Christians. Some of them, such as Hulagu, had Christian
wives, and they often protected the Christians to the detriment of the
votaries of Mohammed. We know from the narrative of the missionaries
who were sent on embassy to the court of the Grand Khan of Cathay--Jean
du Plan de Carpin, Guillaume de Ruysbroeck and others--that the Mongols
made very coarse representations of their divinity Itoga and of other
spirits of an inferior order. Like all the primitives, they greatly
loved to see themselves pictured in paintings, and the manuscripts
which date from the time of the Mongolian sovereigns of Persia are
filled with portraits of the Khans, different nobles accompanied by
their wives and engaged in drinking fermented mare’s milk in cups of
Chinese porcelain. The Mongols, when they issued from their steppes
bent upon the conquest of the world, were certainly the most ignorant
people conceivable, for which reason they were surrounded by Chinese
secretaries, interpreters, engineers and bureaucrats, without whom they
would have been helpless. All this yellow flood swept down upon Persia
and there settled as in a conquered country, introducing numbers of
Turkish words into the language and, into art, not the formulas of the
Turks and Mongols, because these had none, but those of the Celestial
empire. It is certain that the Chinese artists whom the Mongols
had brought with them to Persia understood the technicalities of
painting infinitely better than did the Iranians, even as the Chinese
accountants could easily have given lessons to all the financial clerks
of the Sāmānids or Seljukians. And so the Persian painters sat at the
feet of the Chinese and eventually came to create an art which was very
different from that of the Celestial empire, but which nevertheless
displays many characteristics of Chinese painting. In any case, it is
certain that the miniatures which adorn the Persian manuscripts from
the time of the Mongols have no connexion whatever with what is known
to us of the art of the Sāsānidans, or with the descriptions given by
Mas‘ūdī of pictures which he had seen at Persepolis in a book and by
the unknown author of a chronicle entitled the ‘Sum of Histories.’ ¶
The manuscripts illuminated in Persia and in the regions that depended
upon her during the Mongolian period (1258-1335) are very numerous and
all present the same characteristics: the artists who illuminated them
drew, above all, battle-scenes, sieges of fortresses, bloody contests,
or else banquets, for the Mongols were, according to the account of
travellers, great quaffers of strong liquors. These pictures, however,
are rarely so well executed as those which belong to the school of the
Timurids and the Sefevæans: the Mongols were people who were not hard
to please; they wished before all things to be served quickly; and with
them quantity easily took the place of quality. It may be remarked
that the manuscripts executed at that time contain a very considerable
number of paintings; but, though these paintings possess a great
documentary interest, they have but a feeble interest from the artistic
point of view. Some of them are merely wash-drawings in uniform tints
rather than paintings in the proper sense of the word.
[Illustration: MINIATURE FROM ‘THE BOOK OF KINGS,’ A PERSIAN MS, OF
1566; IN THE COLLECTION OF BARON EDOUARD DE ROTHSCHILD]
The schools of painting of the Mongolian period did not last long
in Persia, and it would seem as though, from the moment when the
descendants of Hulagu became converted to Islamism, people in Persia
began to look with an evil eye upon picture-books and those who painted
them. Moreover, the Mongolian dynasty gave way amid so great a chaos
and such infinite disorder that the Persians had too many other
things to occupy their minds to allow them to think of illustrating
their ‘Books of the Kings’ or the _Gulistān_ of the Sheikh Sa‘dī.
We still find in the great European libraries a few manuscripts
illuminated for the Djelairids or the Mozafferids; but the political
instability of Iran was at that time so great that two copies of the
same work are sometimes dedicated to two successive sovereigns. ¶
The accession of Timur Bey put an end to this anarchy, which, for
that matter, was to begin again a century later, and the reign of his
successor, Shah-Rokh, was a period of peace such as Persia had not
known since long. Under the reign of this pacific prince, who waged
no war until driven to extremes by his kinsmen, there was executed,
at Herat, one of the most splendid specimens of Iranian painting,
the manuscript of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed to Heaven.’ Illuminated
books belonging to the Timurid school of Persia and Turkestan are not
excessively rare, and we must look among them to find the master-pieces
of Persian painting. A certain number of these volumes come from the
libraries of the Timurids, principally from that of Herat, where
Sultan Husain Mirza had collected a magnificent library, which has
now completely disappeared. ¶ These Timurid sovereigns, including
those who reigned in the east of Persia and in Transoxiana after the
death of Tamerlane (Timur Bey) as well as those who went to seek their
fortune in Hindustan, were great lovers of works of art and of fine
literature. At Samarcand, they raised the splendid mosques, now ruined,
which were the ornament of the Righistan--the Tilla-kari, Bibi-khanum
and Guri-Mir--whose gutted cupolas, all enamelled with many-coloured
bricks, still excite the admiration of archæologists. Timur Bey, whom
the pamphlet of Ibn-Arabshah did not a little to represent as a vulgar
toper, delighted in reading the _Ghazels_ of Hāfiz and the ‘Romance
of Alexander’ of Nizāmī. Some of his writings are master-pieces of
Turco-Oriental literature, and the unauthenticity of his Memoirs has
never been absolutely proved. His grandson, Ulugh Beg, was the Alfonso
X of the east, and the astronomical tables which he drew up with the
aid of the most celebrated cosmographers form one of the most important
works of Oriental mathematics. Sultan Husain ibn Baïkara lived in
his capital of Herat surrounded by the most famous writers of his
time--‘Alī Shīr his Vizir, the illustrious Sūfī Jāmī, Khwānd-Amīr the
historian--and his collection of biographies of Mussulman saints is one
of the master-pieces of elegant prose produced by Persian literature. ¶
The Emperor Babar, who, when the Timurid empire was definitely ruined
in Persia, went away to conquer Hindustan, has left a sober and severe
history of his long campaigns which recalls Caesar’s ‘Commentaries.’
In the midst of their intrigues and of the crimes which they did not
hesitate to commit to obtain possession of the throne, his descendants,
the Grand Moguls of Delhi, never lost their passion for works of art.
The Emperor Shah-Jahan, who, in order to assume the crown, had revolted
against his father and killed off all his brothers, found time, on the
very day of his accession, to inscribe his _ex-libris_ on a magnificent
copy of one of the six poems of Jāmī; it is true that this volume was
a family record, and that it had been copied for his ancestor, the
sovereign of Herat, Sultan Husain Mirza. The Timurids of Hindustan
retained this passion for fine books until the worst days of their
history. Copies bearing the seal of Mohammed Shah or of Ferrukh Siyyar
are not at all rare, and Shah Alem II enriched the library of the Grand
Moguls even at the time when he was being torn between the English,
the Mahrattas and the French, and when his empire was on the point of
passing under a foreign dominion. ¶ The influence of Chinese art is
even more marked in the paintings of the Timurid school of Khorassan
than in those of the Mongols of Persia, and it is open to us to ask
ourselves whether they were executed by Persians trained in the school
of the Chinese, or by Chinese striving to produce something in the
Persian taste. If a doubt be permissible in the case of the manuscript
of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed,’ none such can be entertained concerning
a manuscript which was copied at Samarcand for Sultan Mirza Ulugh Beg
and which contains the Arab text of an astronomical treatise famous in
the East, that of ‘Abd ur-Rahmān el-Sūfī. One of the pictures adorning
this magnificent manuscript is reproduced in the present article, and
it is easy to see, even in the absence of colour, that the drawing
shows an evident Chinese influence. The lightness of the outlines and
of the painting, reduced to a few tints of Chinese ink in the shadows
and a few threads of colour, reminds one in an extraordinary manner of
the methods of the Japanese artists. This same characteristic occurs
also, although in a less pronounced degree, in the miniatures on
the manuscript of the ‘Ascension of Mohammed’; but the heads of the
chimera on which the Prophet is mounted and of the angels recall the
chubby faces on certain paintings or certain ivories of the Far East.
¶ We know from an undoubted source that the Timurids of Turkestan and
Eastern Persia were pleased to make calls upon the artists of the
Celestial empire, and that one of those sultans had set up at the gates
of Samarcand a Trianon in Chinese porcelain which had been brought in
sections, with every piece numbered, to the Athens of Turkestan. It is
therefore no matter for surprise that we should find in the paintings
of many manuscripts which formed the libraries of Herat and Samarcand
traces of so deep and so protracted an influence. These miniatures
are always infinitely better executed than are those of the Mongolian
school, and we feel that they appeal to men of a different and more
refined form of culture than the cavalry leaders who organized the
bold raids across the Asiatic continent. They represent fewer scenes
of carnage and, above all, fewer horsemen barbed and iron-clad to
their eyes than fill the paintings of the Mongolian manuscripts. The
sultans of Turkestan made war upon one another in order to steal the
others’ crowns, but they did not do so as brutes greedy of slaughter
and scenes of bloodshed: often warfare was their only means of living
and of defending themselves against the incessant attacks of their
rapacious kinsmen. ¶ The transition from the school of Turkestan at the
time of the princes of the House of Timur to the third great school of
painting in Persia, that of the Sefevæans, was not so clearly defined
as that which separates the Mongolian from the Timurid school. There
was, towards the end of the fifteenth century, a certain period during
which the Persian artists endeavoured to produce something new, while
retaining, in a great measure, the method of the miniature-painters
of Turkestan. To this transition period belongs the manuscript of the
‘Book of the Kings,’ the property of M. de Rothschild, of which two
reproductions will be found in these pages, and also the miniature
representing a hunting-scene which is taken from a splendid manuscript,
dated 1527, from the divan of Mīr ‘Alī Shīr Navā’ī, Vizir to the
Timurid Sultan Husain Mirza. ¶ Obviously the master-pieces of Mussulman
painting are to be sought among the miniatures executed at Herat and
Samarcand in the fifteenth century; but this does not prevent the
miniatures painted in Western Persia under the reign of the Sefevis
(fifteenth to seventeenth century) from being splendid works of art.
The number of illuminated manuscripts dating from this period is
relatively large. This does not imply that there were many more painted
in Persia under Shah Abbas than during the time of the Timurids, but
simply that, being more modern, there were fewer of them lost.
(_To Be continued._)
[Illustration: HUNTING SCENE; MINIATURE FROM A PERSIAN MS. DATED 1527;
IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FRANCE]
[Illustration: Plate I
Walker & Cockerell Ph. Sc.
The Election Cup belonging to Winchester College.]
THE PLATE OF WINCHESTER COLLEGE
❧ WRITTEN BY PERCY MACQUOID, R.I. ❧
There is an undefinable feeling of romance and sentiment that forcibly
strikes even the most callous who visit Winchester College. Founded by
William of Wykeham in 1393 for the purpose of providing free education
for the sons of those who could not otherwise have afforded it, as well
as a means of supplying the country with an enlightened priesthood,
it remains to-day the oldest and one of the greatest of England’s
public schools. The royal licence to found the college, granted by
Richard II, empowers Wykeham to ‘acquire the site and build a hall or
college to the honour and glory of God and our Lady, and to settle
in it a warden and seventy scholars who should study grammar within
its halls and to grant them a charter.’ This first building took six
years to complete, and the sum of £1.014 8s. 3d. was spent upon its
construction, a sum that would represent about £20,000 according
to the present value of money. ¶ As Winchester was at one time the
capital of England, many kings made it their chief seat of residence,
and many important parliaments were held there, and it was no doubt
from this traditional importance that reigning sovereigns, and the
highest dignitaries of Church and State, continually paid visits to the
college. It would be otherwise difficult to account for the very large
amount of ecclesiastical plate and precious vestments, in addition
to the great quantity of secular plate, that was at different times
in the possession of the college. The number of rose-water basins
with ewers and spoons enumerated in one inventory alone proves that
the entertainments must have been of a highly important nature. ¶
The earliest record of a royal gift in plate is of 1449, when Henry
VI gave a tabernacle of gold, Margaret of Anjou about the same time
presenting a pair of silver-gilt basins, weighing 114 oz., with the
enamelled arms of England on one and those of France on the other.
Before this date King Henry had paid many visits to the college, being
desirous of gaining information on the subject of its working rules and
statutes, in order to apply the same to the two similar institutions he
was about to found. Another visit was on the occasion of his marriage,
when it is stated in one of the records that the wine and beer for the
entertainment of the royal suite cost two shillings and fourpence, a
sum that does not appear excessive for court refreshments. Doubtless
it was in return for the information and hospitality received that he
produced the tabernacle and basins. The only recorded visit of Henry’s
successor, Edward IV, was in 1469, when he was sufficiently impressed
by the school to lend a live lion for the edification of the boys,
but he does not appear to have made any presentation of plate; nor
is there record of any particular interest taken in the college by
either Richard III or Henry VII. During the next reign--which might
with justice be called the reign of terror so far as gothic plate
was concerned--Thomas Cromwell, representing the king as vicegerent
and vicar-general, paid a formal visit to the college. Perhaps the
authorities, scenting the coming storm, thought that the presentation
to him of a standing salt from the college plate chest might prove a
politic precaution; for in the records this entry occurs: ‘Sol. pro
reparacione unius salsarii dat. Mro Cromwell secretario Dn̄i Regis pro
favore suo habendo in causis Collegii v_s_. x_d_.’ A few weeks later,
when the king was at Wolvesey Castle, two oxen, ten sheep, and twelve
capons were sent to him and graciously accepted. Whether on account
of the gift of the salt to Cromwell, or of the offering of sheep and
chickens, Henry VIII spared the college plate; his indulgence in this
respect is proved when it is seen, from the following inventory taken
in 1525 of the secular college plate, how great the temptation must
have been:--
Oz.
Six silver goblets, one silver-gilt cover, the gift of
Dr. Young 82
Three silver-gilt cups, with one silver-gilt cover, the
gift of Mr. Ashborne 84
A silver standing cup with gilt lid, the gift of Roger
Mapull 29
Do., the gift of Dr. Lavender 26½
Do., the gift of Dr. Mayhew 21½
Do., the gift of Clyff, Fromond’s chaplain 18¼
Two silver-gilt cups and covers, called the Rose pieces 36¼
A great silver cup with gilt cover, the gift of Andrew
Hulse 66
Two silver standing cups, with gilt covers, the gift of
Mr. Ashborne 46½
A silver standing cup with cover, three hounds at its foot 21½
A silver standing cup with cover and an eagle on it 26½
A silver-gilt cup called ‘le spice dyssh,’ enamelled 12
Three silver cups with one cover, the gift of Warden
Cleve 118
A silver cup and cover 16½
Three silver cups and one cover, marked ‘T’ and ‘A’
on the bottom 23½
A silver basin with the founder’s arms 52
A silver ewer with a hare on its top 16
A silver basin and ewer with the founder’s arms, the
gift of Warden Cleve 115½
A silver basin and ewer with the founder’s arms, the
gift of Warden Cleve 113
A silver basin, the gift of Hugh Sugar 43
A silver basin and ewer 53
Two silver pots 44½
Two silver salts and one silver cover 36
Four silver salts and one silver cover 64½
Three silver-gilt spoons 5¼
Twelve silver spoons with ‘pinnacles’ 14
Twelve silver spoons, six marked ‘Margarett,’ six marked
‘Batt’ 16
Twelve silver spoons with a mayden’s hedde 15
Eleven silver spoons marked with a lion 11
Fourteen silver spoons with a diamond 8
Twenty-four silver spoons, eighteen with an acorn and
six with pinnacles 25
Three silver spoons with a diamond 2½
Twelve silver spoons with round 18¼
Twelve silver spoons with a diamond 9
Fifteen silver spoons 13½
A nutt with a blue knoppe and cover.
A nutt and cover with three stags at its foot.
A nutt and cover with silver knoppe.
A nutt with a cover and a round knoppe.
A nutt and cover marked ‘B.’
Six nutts and five covers.
¶ There is also an inventory of what was given to the college chapel
by Wykeham and other benefactors, consisting of silver plate and gilt
3,892 oz., gold plate and articles in gold 91⅞ oz., which Henry VIII
must have found even more difficult to resist. Out of the amount of
gothic plate mentioned in these two inventories but one piece remains;
this is the so-called ‘Election Cup’ illustrated on Plate I. ¶ The
death of Henry VIII in 1547 relieved the college from the threatened
danger of dissolution, but not from the sequestration of its plate;
the blow fell in the sixth and seventh year of Edward VI, when the
plate was seized, together with all the plate and other ornaments
belonging to the ‘cathedrall churche and other parishes and chapells
within the said cytie of Winchester.’ The different ‘parcells’ are
minutely described in the indenture that forms a receipt, and beautiful
‘parcells’ they must have been. ¶ The college was honoured by a visit
from Queen Mary on the occasion of her marriage with Philip, which took
place in Winchester cathedral in 1554, and it received small gifts of
alms from the royal couple; but neither Mary nor Elizabeth attempted
to make good the confiscation of plate that had taken place during
their brother’s reign. However, in 1565 the college began once more
to accumulate plate, and amongst other things bought a ‘pousshe-pot
for wine.’ Some few of these purchases and presentations are still in
existence, and are given in the illustrations, but the greater
part disappeared in various ways during the seventeenth century. As an
instalment towards replacing this, Dr. Nicolas, a warden, presented
in 1861 a large silver-gilt bowl and two silver-gilt salvers, and
that others were prompted to follow his example is proved by the fine
specimens of Charles II silver still in possession of the college.
At the beginning of the next century Dr. Burton became head-master,
and consolidated the branch of the school known as commoners. As many
of these pupils were of noble birth, a special and well-appointed
table was kept for their use, and much of the older plate was in
1740 condemned to the melting-pot in order to provide the necessary
silver forks, spoons, etc., for the use of these fashionable young
gentlemen. It was Dr. Burton’s practice to accept gifts of portraits
and plate from his pupils in place of what was termed ‘leaving money’;
on his death he bequeathed the portraits to the college, but not the
presentation plate, some of which still exists as the property of his
descendants, and was exhibited at the Fine Arts Society last winter.
[Illustration: Plate II
PARCEL GILT ROSE-WATER DISH AND EWER, WITH TOP OF THE COVER OF THE
EWER, BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
[Illustration: PLATE III
SWEETMEAT DISH AND GILT STANDING-SALT BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
[Illustration: GILT CUP WITH COVER BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
From the slight records from which it is possible to gain information,
and for which I am much indebted to Mr. T. F. Kirby (the bursar) and
Mr. M. J. Rendall, it is very evident that at one time Winchester
College was unusually rich in plate, and it is most interesting to have
brought to light the few beautiful specimens that still remain, for
not only were silver lovers unaware of its existence, but the college
authorities had little notion of the rarity and value of their pieces.
They are all in an extraordinarily fine state of preservation, and have
not suffered in any way from repairing or regilding. It is a source of
comfort that, belonging to such an institution as Winchester College,
they are beyond the reach of the American millionaire, and will receive
all proper care from the authorities. As the plate is so little known,
I have thought it best to describe each important piece in catalogue
form.
_Plate I._--Silver-gilt cup with cover, called ‘The Election Cup’;
height, 17½ ins.; diameter, 6½ ins.; weight, 69 oz. 9 dwt. The bowl,
which resembles in shape the Anathema and Leigh cups, is moveable, and
attaches to the stem by a double socket and flange; it is embossed
with decorated and graduated escallops on a matted ground. The stem
is of channelled and truncated form, finishing in palm-like points
where it meets the bowl and foot, which is similar in decoration to
the rest of the cup. The base is edged by an open scrolled moulding
formed of leaves surmounted by a ladder moulding, finishing in a very
bold and unusually tall cresting. The cover to this remarkable cup is
of cupola shape, rising to a slender shaft fashioned like the stem and
necked by a cinque-foil; this supports a Tudor crown, the cap showing
a surface once filled in with enamel; the finials and bands belonging
to the crown are missing. The cover is embossed in the same manner as
the bowl, and bordered with the same moulding and tall cresting as the
base, pierced in both cases to hold precious stones, which are now
replaced by coloured glass. The cup is in remarkable preservation, and
has its original gilding. It has no hall-marks, but is, without doubt,
English, circa 1520; the boldness of the cresting and workmanship,
together with the shape of the bowl, exactly coincides with the few
contemporary English pieces in existence. It was presented by Warden
More in 1523, and is the sole remaining piece from the wonderful store
of gothic plate once possessed by the college.
_Plate II._--A rose-water dish, parcel gilt, 16 ins. in diameter;
weight, 48 oz. II dwt.; hall-mark, London 1562; maker’s mark, a
unicorn’s head in a shield. The border of the dish, which is gilt, and
2 ins. in width, is engraved with panels of strapwork and arabesques,
enclosing the words, in Lombardic lettering, RADOLPHUS HENSLOWE
A^o DNI 1563 CUI DEUS RETRIBUAT IN ILL DIE HANC PELVIM CUM SUO
GUTTURNIO DE NOVO FECIT. The centre is composed of one boss raised
on another enclosing a print bearing the Wykeham arms enamelled in
their tinctures; argent two chevronels sable, between three roses
gules, barbed and seeded proper within a garb. Round the lower base
runs the legend, also in Lombardic lettering, MANERS MAKET MAN QUOTHE
WYLLYAM WYKEHAM. The face of this boss is decorated with baskets of
fruit and trophies of arms in repoussé, gilt on a matted ground; the
bason of the dish is of plain silver. ¶ The companion ewer, with cover
(height, 8½ ins.; weight, 47 oz. 11 dwt., and with marks the same as
dish), is of unusually beautiful proportions. The cover, of depressed
form, is surmounted by a rosace finial containing the Wykeham arms
in enamel; the rest of the cover is embossed with baskets of fruit
and trophies of arms. The body of the ewer is cylindrical, and this,
as well as the narrow spout, is decorated at the top and centre with
gilt bands of scrolled arabesques, enclosing engraved medallions of
heads in the foreign taste. The stem is fluted, and the foot covered
with a repoussé of a lion’s mask and human heads in cartouches between
bunches of fruit, and is edged with reeded and ovolo mouldings. The
billet is formed of two masks in profile enclosing a bunch of leaves,
and the graceful bow handle is engraved down the back with panels of
arabesques. This beautiful dish and ewer much resemble those belonging
to Lord Newton, of Lyme, exhibited in 1902 at the Burlington Fine Arts
Club, and possess all the characteristics of the finest Elizabethan
work. Both dish and ewer are in perfect preservation, and have the
original parcel gilding.
_Plate IIIa._--Sweetmeat dish of tazza shape; diameter, 7 ins.; height,
5 ins.; weight, 15 oz. 9 dwt.; hall-mark, London 1594. The bowl is
engraved on the inside, with two bands of strapwork enclosing panels of
arabesque design; the centre is of similar decoration surrounded by a
double strap. The stem is plain save for an embossed ring indented with
dotted lines, the same decoration being repeated on the foot between a
double strap, and connected to the stem by a ladder moulding. The piece
is singularly simple in its ornamentation, and it should be observed
how much of its beauty is dependent on the perfection of the plain line
engraving. These dishes were used for sweetmeats and handed to the
guests; the tazza form was taken from the Italian and French dishes
that were so much in vogue in those countries during the sixteenth
century.
_Plate IIIb._--Small standing salt, gilt; height, 4½ ins.; weight, 15
oz. 9 dwt.; hallmark, London 1596. It is in the form of a hexagonal
plinth; the panels forming the sides are filled with an upright design
of foliated arabesques in low relief on a matted ground, divided at the
angles by a plain ribbed moulding, connected at the top and base by a
fine ladder moulding between two fillets; the top and base coincide in
design, and are composed of a slight ogee embossed with a lea moulding
of Persian origin. The simple repetition of design throughout this
little standing salt constitutes its charm, each space being most
admirably filled. The cover to this salt is, unfortunately, missing;
it would probably have been of cupola shape, bearing a vase finial
surmounted by a little figure.
_Plate IIIc._--Cup with cover, gilt; height, 11¼ ins.; diameter of
bowl, 9½ ins.; both hall-marked London 1682; maker’s mark, ‘R. L.’ in
a shield over a fleur-de-luce; weight, 118 oz. 15 dwt. The cup, which
stands on a base ¾ in. in height, is of porringer shape, decorated with
a surbase of upright and repoussé acanthus, alternating with plain
leaves in lower relief; above this in fine line engraving are the
Poulett arms within a mantling of acanthus, and the inscription, ‘Ex
dono prænobilis Caroli Dm̄i Marchionis Winton,’ etc. The scroll handles
are cast solid, and terminate in animals’ heads.
[Illustration: ~Plate IV~
_a_ _b_
ROSE WATER DISH AND EWER, AND SMALL GILT STANDING CUP AND COVER
BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
[Illustration: ~Plate V~
_c_ _b_ _a_
TWO TANKARDS AND STANDING SALT BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
The cover is of flattened form and plain except for a central
enrichment of acanthus in a spiral design, and finishes in an
open-worked knop of the same leaves. The condition of this unusually
large porringer cup is surprising. It has the original gilding, and
the sharp yet round modelling of the ornament shows to what perfection
this form of decoration was carried. The rapid deterioration of this
acanthus design in William III’s reign goes far towards explaining
the reason for its lasting such a short period. The acanthus scrolled
handles are a little small for the otherwise perfect proportions of
this very remarkable cup.
_Plate IVa._--Rose-water dish; diameter, 17¼ ins.; weight, 63 oz.; no
hall mark; maker’s mark, monogram C. R. in a shield; date, circa 1613.
The dish is quite plain, with an engraved line on the edge. The arms
per pale of Winchester College and the donor are engraved on the centre
boss, round which runs the inscription, ‘Ex dono Georgii Rives Sacræ
Theologiæ Doct. huius Collegii socii deinde Novi Coll. custodis in usum
quotidianum Vicecustodis istius Coll. prope Winton Anno Domini 1613.’
The companion ewer of same date, with same maker’s mark; height, 7⅛
ins.; diameter, 4½ ins.; weight, 23 oz. 10 dwt. This is also perfectly
plain, with wide bow handle and long curved spout; the foot is of
trumpet shape spreading to a plain stepped base. Both dish and ewer are
good examples of the plain plate that was slowly coming into fashion in
this country during the early part of the seventeenth century.
_Plate IVb._--Small standing cup and cover, gilt; height, 14. ins.;
hall-mark, London 1632; maker’s mark, P. C. over a rose in a shield.
The bowl of the cup is matted with a broad plain border at the lip,
round which runs the inscription, ‘Ex dono Hugonis Barker legū Doctoris
olim huius Collegii Scholaris ac Consanguinei fundatoris eiusdem
Collegii ac eo nomine in numerū Scholariū eiusdem admissi.’ Below
this in a circle are engraved the arms of the donor. The stem is of
baluster shape usual to the cups of this period, and plain save for a
matting on the knop, and where it joins the foot there is a repoussé
ornament of small leaves; the base is composed of simple mouldings. The
cover is of cupola shape with a wide brim; the surface is decorated
with a matted ground, and the whole is surmounted by a plain finial of
vase-shaped form. This plain plate with a granulated or matted surface
was much made in the north of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, and was
probably introduced into this country through the influence of Anne of
Denmark, the queen of James I.
_Plate Va._--Tankard and cover; height, 7 ins.; weight, 34 oz. 11 dwt.;
marks, London 1614; maker’s mark, O. S., with pellets in a shield. This
early Jacobean tankard is plain throughout and of globular or tankard
form. Round the neck runs a band on which is engraved ‘Facile contemnit
omnia qui semper cogitat se esse moriturum.’ As an additional emphasis
of this sad but true remark, the billet of the cover is formed of a
human skull holding a scroll between its teeth, and on the body of the
tankard is engraved the arms of the donor with the inscription, ‘Ex
dono Johanis Bolney quondā de sanguine fundatoris Jstius Collegii St.
Marie Winton Aō dm̄ni 1614.’ The handle is depressed in the bow and
finishes in a square whistle end. Tankards or flagons of this shape are
extremely rare, and owe the origin of their form to the stoneware jug
of Tudor days.
_Plate Vb._--Standing salt; height, 6½ ins.; diameter, 9 ins. at top,
q¼ ins. at base; weight, 47 oz. 5 dwt.; marks, London 1664; maker’s
mark undecipherable. The salt is plain, cylindrical, and of X form;
the three short curved arms that spring from the slightly convex top
were intended to hold a napkin to protect the salt, or, as is to be
seen in pictures of the time, for the support of a small dish for
olives or caviare. On the fine trumpet sweep of the base are engraved
the arms of Wykeham and of the donor within feather mantling, and the
inscription, ‘Legatum M^{r̄i} Michaelis Bold M. Art Collegij Btae
Mariae Winton.’ The edge is finished in a simple half-round and step
moulding.
_Plate Vc._--Tankard with lid, parcel gilt; height, 6 ins.; weight,
25 oz. 9 dwt.; marks, London 1649. The tankard is cylindrical and
straight-sided, hooped and staved in imitation of a barrel; the lid
is quite flat, and engraved with the arms of the see within a garter;
the billet is of half skull type, and the curious short handle is of
rectangular and irregular form. The barrel decoration at this date
(the first year of the Commonwealth) is unusual to find, although the
fashion was much adopted towards the end of the same century. The
parcel gilding is original.
_Plate VIa._--Steeple cup and cover, gilt; total height, 19 ins.;
height of cup, 12 ins.; weight, 38 oz. 5 dwt.; marks, London 1615;
maker’s mark, T. F. in monogram in a shield. The cover is surmounted by
a perforated spire of graceful proportions, supported on three brackets
of female form. The cover and cup are decorated with scrolled acanthus
and fruit in low relief and fine line engraving; the stem is of the
composite character usual to these cups, and bears the last traces of
Renaissance influence. The cup, although in excellent preservation, has
been regilt. There are many steeple cups of this type in existence, but
few are so happy in their proportions as this specimen.
_Plate VIb._--Tall standing cup or hanap with cover. Total height, 24
ins.; cup without cover, 17¼ ins.; diameter, 8⅛ ins.; weight, 124 oz.
17 dwt.; marks, London 1680; maker’s mark, T. C. with a fish and a
_fleur de luce_ in a shield. The bowl of this very tall standing cup is
plain in shape, ornamented with a surbase of upright acanthus, above
which runs an embossed laurelled band; above and below this band are
the following inscriptions in Greek and Latin:--
κρᾶσις ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος
Sivè
Poculum Charitatis
In Usum
Collegij B^{tae} Mariae Winton
propè Winton
The stem is of ordinary baluster shape, engraved and chased with
laurelling and acanthus. The base and cover resemble each other in
their decoration, and the latter ends in a mushroom-shaped finial,
from which spring two arms supporting a heart. This form of standing
cup was universal from 1640 to 1690, and, though deficient in artistic
construction, possesses interest as being the last recognized design of
loving cup mounted on to a tall stem.
_Plate VII._--Ecclesiastical plate belonging to the college chapel. Two
chalices with covers, gilt; marks, London 1611; maker’s mark, R. P. in
a shield over a _fleur de luce_. These are perfectly plain and of the
type that was usual during the first years of the seventeenth century.
The two tall flagons are of tankard shape, gilt; marks, London 1627;
maker’s mark, R. S. over a heart. These tankards are of a shape that
was common to both ecclesiastical and secular use, the entasis of the
drum, on which are engraved the arms of the donor per pale with those
of the college, gives great elegance to its tall and plain columnar
form, and the mouldings to the petticoat base are unusually sharp
and well proportioned. The large alms dish is gilt; width, 17¼ ins.;
marks, London 1681; maker’s mark illegible. The dish is plain, but
edged with a reeded moulding; on the border is engraved an inscription
set in feather mantling between the arms of Wykeham and those of the
donor. There are many other pieces of ecclesiastical and secular plate
belonging to the college for which there is not space here. These
consist of chalices, patens, salvers, porringers and tankards, which,
although of great merit, are not of corresponding interest to the
pieces represented in the illustrations.
[Illustration: ~PLATE VI~
_a_ _b_
STEEPLE-CUP AND HANAP BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
[Illustration: ~PLATE VII~
ECCLESIASTICAL PLATE BELONGING TO WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
A NEWLY DISCOVERED ‘LIBRO DI RICORDI’ OF ALESSO BALDOVINETTI
❧ WRITTEN BY HERBERT P. HORNE ❧