“Wilkie, who was always hospitable in his nature, invited me one
morning to breakfast, soon after his arrival in London, I went
accordingly to 8, Norton Street, and knocked at the door of his
apartments; a voice said, ‘Come in.’ I opened the door and found,
instead of the breakfast which I expected, the painter sitting partly
naked and drawing from his left knee for a figure which he had on his
easel. He was not at all moved, for nought moved Wilkie; and when I
expressed some surprise at what he was about, he replied with a smile,
‘It’s capital practice, let me tell you.’”
About this time (1805), in a letter written by Wilkie to a
fellow-student, occurs the following characteristic passage: “And I am
convinced now that no picture can possess real merit unless it is a
just representation of nature.”
On the sale of his first commission picture, “The Village Politicians,”
he thus buoyantly concludes a letter to his father, “My ambition is
got beyond all bounds, and I have the vanity to hope that Scotland will
one day be proud to boast of your affectionate son,
“DAVID WILKIE.”
On the death of his father, he invited his mother and sister over
from Scotland to live with him in London. In after-years, writing to
a friend, he adds, “If I were desired to name the happiest hour of my
life, I should say it was when I first saw my honoured mother and much
loved sister sitting beside me while I was painting.”
Another scene, of a different description, at Wilkie’s house is worthy
of insertion. Mr. Collins’s brother, Francis, possessed a remarkably
retentive memory, which he was accustomed to use for the amusement
of himself and others, in the following way. He learnt by heart a
whole number of one of Dr. Johnson’s “Ramblers,” and used to cause
considerable diversion to those in the secret, by repeating it all
through to a new company in a conversational tone, as if it were the
accidental product of his own fancy,--now addressing his flow of moral
eloquence to one astonished auditor, and now to another. One day, when
the two brothers were dining at Wilkie’s, it was determined to try the
experiment upon their host. After dinner, accordingly, Mr. Collins
paved the way for the coming speech, by leading the conversation
imperceptibly to the subject of the paper in the “Rambler.” At the
right moment Francis Collins began. As the first grand Johnsonian
sentences struck upon his ear (uttered, it should be remembered, in the
most elaborately careless and conversational manner,) Wilkie started at
the high tone that the conversation had suddenly assumed, and looked
vainly to his friend Collins for explanation, who, on _his_ part sat
with his eyes respectfully fixed on his brother, all rapt attention
to the eloquence that was dropping from his lips. Once or twice,
with perfect mimicry of the conversational character he had assumed,
Francis Collins hesitated, stammered, and paused, as if collecting his
thronging ideas. At one or two of these intervals, Wilkie endeavoured
to speak, to ask a moment for consideration; but the torrent of his
guest’s eloquence was not to be delayed,--“it was too rapid to stay
for any man,--away it went” like Mr. Shandy’s oratory before “My
Uncle Toby,”--until at last it reached its destined close; and then
Wilkie, who, as host, thought it his duty to break silence by the
first compliment, exclaimed with the most perfect unconsciousness of
the trick that had been played him, “Ay, ay, Mr. Francis; verra clever
(though I did not understand it _all_),--verra clever!”
His friends relate of him (Wilkie) that he could draw before he could
write. He recollected this himself, and spoke to me of an old woman
who had in her cottage near his father’s manse a clean scoured wooden
stool, on which she used to allow him to draw with a coarse carpenter’s
pencil, and then scrub it out to be ready for another day.
Collins relates the following of Wilkie with whom he lived on terms of
the closest intimacy.
“When Lord Mulgrave’s pictures were sold at Christie’s, Wilkie
waited in the neighbourhood whilst I attended the sale. It was quite
refreshing to see his joy when I returned with a list of the prices.
The sketches produced more than five hundred per cent., the pictures
three hundred. I recollect one,--a small, early picture, called ‘Sunday
Morning’--I asked Wilkie what he thought of its fetching, as it did, a
hundred and ten pounds, and whether Lord Mulgrave had not got it cheap
enough?--‘Why, he gave me fifteen pounds for it!’ When I expressed
my surprise that he should have given so small a sum for so clever a
work, Wilkie, defending him, said:--‘Ah, but consider, as I was not
known at that time, _it was a great risk_!’”
Dr. Chalmers was asked by Wilkie whether Principal Baird would preach
before the King. (Now, Principal Baird had a sad way of crying in the
pulpit.) “Why,” replied Chalmers, “if he does, it will be George Baird
to George Rex, _greeting_!”
Wilkie died in the year 1841, aged 56 years.
“_LETTER OF INTRODUCTION._”
This picture was suggested by the reception which the artist himself
experienced, it is said by Cunningham in his Life of Wilkie, from one
of the small wits about town, Caleb Whiteford by name, discoverer of
the “cross-readings” in newspapers, and who set up for a judge in art.
Some one desirous to do a good turn to Wilkie, when he first came to
town, gave him a note to Caleb, who, struck with his very youthful
look, inquired how old he was. “Really now,” said the artist, with
the hesitation he bestowed on most questions. “Ha!” exclaimed Caleb;
“introduce a man to me who knows not how old he is!” and regarded him
with that dubious look which is the chief charm of the picture. This
was in his mind when he formed the resolution to paint the subject.
_COLLINS’S REMINISCENCES OF WILKIE._
“Wilkie was not quick in perceiving a joke, although he was always
anxious to do so, and to recollect humorous stories, of which he was
exceedingly fond. As instances, I recollect once when we were staying
at Mr. Wells’s, at Redleaf, one morning at breakfast a very small puppy
was running about under the table. ‘Dear me,’ said a lady, ‘how this
creature teases me!’ I took it up and put it into my breast-pocket.
Mr. Wells said, ‘That is a pretty nosegay.’--‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is
a _dog-rose_.’ Wilkie’s attention, sitting opposite, was called to
his friend’s pun: but all in vain,--he could not be persuaded to see
anything in it. I recollect trying once to explain to him, with the
same want of success, Hogarth’s joke in putting the sign of the woman
without a head, (‘The Good Woman’) under the window from whence the
quarrelsome wife is throwing the dinner into the street.
“Chantrey and Wilkie were dining alone with me, when the former, in
his great kindness for Wilkie, ventured, as he said, to take him to
task for his constant use of the word ‘_relly_’ (really) when listening
to any conversation in which he was interested. ‘Now, for instance,’
said Chantrey, ‘suppose I was giving you an account of any interesting
matter, you would constantly say, ‘_Relly!_’ ‘_Relly!_’ exclaimed
Wilkie immediately, with a look of the most perfect astonishment.”
_WILKIE’S ARREST AT CALAIS._
When returning from a short Continental tour in 1816, Wilkie became
involved in a difficulty at Calais similar to that of Hogarth at the
same place, as indicated by our great moral painter in his print of
“Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England.” Wilkie, while busily engaged in
making a sketch of the gate, was accosted by an officer of police, and
taken before the mayor, who told the artist he could not be permitted
to make drawings of any of the fortifitions, and courteously dismissed
him. The observation was made in England that Wilkie sought his arrest
on this occasion, wishing to re-enact the Hogarth incident: but his
well-known unobtrusive manners and unaffected modesty completely
vindicate him from such an accusation.
The following _naïve_ account of the arrest of Sir David Wilkie is told
by him in a letter to his friend and travelling companion, Abraham
Raimbach, the celebrated engraver of many of the artist’s pictures:--
“On travelling through France the most singular occurrence was that of
my being arrested at Calais, in the act of completing a sketch of the
celebrated gate of Hogarth. A young Englishman, who had come from Lille
with me, had agreed to remain with me while I was making the drawing;
and as I had first obtained leave from the officer of the guard, I
expected no sort of interruption. After I had been at work, however,
about an hour, with a great crowd about me, a _gendarme_ came to me,
and with an imperious tone, said, ‘_Par quelle autorité faites-vous
cela, monsieur?_’ I pointed to the officer on guard, and told him
that he had given me leave. ‘_Ce n’est rien--c’est défendu, monsieur.
Il faut que vous preniez votre livre et m’accompagniez à l’Hôtel de
Ville._’ This, of course, I agreed to most willingly, and beckoning my
friend to go too, I went along with him, with all the people staring
at us. At the Hôtel de Ville we were requested to go to the mayor, and
as we were marching along to his house, the _gendarme_ said, ‘_Voila
le maire,--arrêtons._’ We stopped till the mayor came up, and learning
from us what was the matter, he dismissed the _gendarme_, took us
back to his house, and told me, that as there were a number of people
there, as in other places, who, on seeing a foreigner making a drawing
of a fortified place, would naturally suppose it to be from a hostile
intention, and finding it done _en plein jour_, would be apt to blame
the magistrates for allowing it; he said it was necessary, therefore,
that I should not go on with my drawing, although, from examining it,
he was satisfied that I only did it for amusement, and therefore
regretted the interruption.”--_Memoirs of Abraham Raimbach, edited by
his son, M. T. S. Raimbach, M.A._
_HIS OPINION OF MICHAEL ANGELO AND RAPHAEL._
“The labours of Michael Angelo and Raphael have since been the chief
object of my study,--by far the most intellectual. They make other
works appear limited, and though high in all that is great, are still
an example,--and a noble example too,--of how the accessories of a work
may be treated with most advantage. No style can be so pure as to be
above learning from them, nor so low and humble as not to gain even in
its own way by their contemplation. They have that without which the
Venus and the Apollo would lose their value, and with which the mean
forms of Ostade and Rembrandt become instructive and sublime,--namely,
expression and sentiment. To some of the younger artists here,
however, I find they are a stumbling-block; things to be admired but
not imitated, and less to be copied than any flat, empty piece of
Venetian colouring that comes in their way. The effect of these works
upon the unlearned public at large deserves attention. Frescoes, when
old, get dull and dry, and cannot be repaired or refreshed like oil;
their impression, therefore, upon the common eye is not striking, and
many people acknowledge this who, show them a new print from Raphael
or Michael Angelo, would be delighted. Vividness is perhaps necessary
to make any work generally impressive; and suppose these fresh as they
were at first, and as I have seen some recent frescoes, I believe they
would be the most beautiful things imaginable,--popular beyond a doubt,
as it is on record they were so.”--_Memoirs of Abraham Raimbach._
_WILSON (RICHARD), R.A._
Richard Wilson was born in Montgomeryshire in the year 1713. He
excelled as a landscape painter. After practising some time in London,
he was enabled, by the assistance of relations, to travel into Italy,
where he renewed the study of portrait painting, in which he had made
some progress when in London. But the peculiar form and bias of his
genius was landscape, as was shown so powerfully later in life by
his famous productions, among others, of “Niobe” and the “Villa of
Mæcenas.” An incident which happened during his visit to Italy tended
to confirm him in his inclination to follow landscape instead of
portrait painting. The celebrated French painter, Vernet, happening one
day when in Rome to visit Wilson’s painting-room, was so struck with a
landscape Wilson had painted that he requested to become the possessor
of it, offering in exchange one of his best pictures. The proposal was
readily accepted, and Vernet kindly recommended Wilson to the English
nobility and gentry then visiting Rome. It is said of Wilson that at
times, through his intemperate and irregular habits, he was obliged
to pawn his pictures, and was sometimes unable to procure canvas or
colours. Fuseli, though generally severe in his criticism of the “map
makers,” as he designated the landscape painters of his day, formed
what I consider an exaggerated estimate of Wilson’s merits. He says of
him: “He is now numbered with the classics of the Art, though little
more than the fifth of a century has elapsed since death relieved him
from the apathy of cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of
a tasteless public; for Wilson, whose works will soon command prices
as proud as those of Claude, Poussin, or Elzheimer, resembled the last
most in his fate,--lived and died nearer to indigence than ease;
and as an asylum for the severest wants incident to age and decay of
powers, was reduced to solicit the librarian’s place in the Academy of
which he was one of the brightest ornaments.” Wilson died on the 11th
of May, 1782, aged 69.
_A SCENE AT CHRISTIE’S._
“Towards the close of Wilson’s life, annoyed and oppressed by the
neglect which he experienced, it is well known that he unfortunately
had recourse to those means of temporary oblivion of the world to which
disappointed genius but too frequently resorts. The natural consequence
was, that the works which he then produced were much inferior to those
of his former days,--a fact of which, of course, he was not himself
conscious. One morning, Mr. Christie, to whom had been entrusted
the sale by auction of a fine collection of pictures belonging to
a nobleman, having arrived at a _chef-d’œuvre_ of Wilson’s, was
expatiating with his usual eloquence on its merits, quite unaware that
Wilson himself had just before entered the room. ‘This, gentlemen, is
one of Mr. Wilson’s Italian pictures; he cannot paint anything like it
now.’ ‘That’s a lie!’ exclaimed the irritated artist, to Mr. Christie’s
no small discomposure, and to the great amusement of the company; ‘he
can paint infinitely better.’”--_Literary Gazette_, 1824.
[Illustration]
_ZOFFANY (JOHANN), R.A._
Johann Zoffany was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in the year 1735. He
was by descent a Bohemian, but his father, who followed the profession
of an architect, had settled in Germany. When a mere child, having
shown considerable ability with the pencil, his father sent him to
Italy, where he studied several years. He practised, on his return
to Germany, as an historical and portrait painter at Coblentz on the
Rhine. He arrived in England but a few years before the foundation of
the Royal Academy, and was elected one of its first members in 1768. On
his arrival, the extent of his finances hardly amounted to the sum of
one hundred pounds. “With this,” he relates, “I commenced maccaroni,
bought a suit _à la mode_, a gold watch, and gold-headed cane.” Thus
equipped he made the acquaintance of Benjamin Wilson, a portrait
painter, then residing in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.
With this artist Zoffany engaged himself as drapery-painter, and
remained with him until, tired of the monotony of his employment,
he determined to try his fortune by trading on the capital of his
talent on his own account. He accordingly took furnished apartments
at the upper part of Tottenham Court Road, and began his practice as
a _Limner_, by painting the portraits of his landlord and landlady,
which, as a standing advertisement, were placed on either side the
gate that then opened into the area before the house. Garrick, by
chance, passing that way, saw these specimens, admired them, and
inquired for the painter. The interview ended in his employing Zoffany
to paint himself in small, and hence were produced those admired
subjects in which the great actor figured,--“Sir John Brute;” _Abel
Drugger_, in Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist;” “The Farmer’s Return,” etc. Sir
Joshua Reynolds was so pleased with the painting in which Garrick is
represented as _Abel Drugger_, that he purchased it of Zoffany for the
sum of one hundred guineas. It is related that the Earl of Carlisle,
conversing with Sir Joshua upon the merits of the picture, earnestly
urged him to part with it. “Well, my lord,” said he, “what premium
will you pay upon my purchase?” “Any sum you will name,” replied the
earl. “Then it is yours, my lord, if you will pay me one hundred
guineas, and add fifty as a gratuity to Mr. Zoffany.” He consented, and
purchased the picture. In 1771, Zoffany painted the royal family on a
large canvas, to the number of ten portraits, which has been engraved
in mezzotinto by Earlom. He painted likewise two separate portraits
of George III. and his Queen, which were also engraved in mezzotinto
by Houston. Shortly after this, he paid a second visit to Italy, and
taking a recommendation from George III. to the Grand Duke of Tuscany
at Florence, he painted an interior view of the Florentine picture
gallery. The hopes which he had indulged as to the result of this
exertion of his talent were frustrated; for when the Queen was informed
that the painter expected to be paid two thousand guineas for his
picture, she showed no inclination to receive it. Some years after, the
Queen purchased it off him at the greatly reduced sum of six hundred
guineas. In 1774, he painted his much-admired picture of the “Life
School of the Royal Academy,” in which he introduced two naked models
and thirty-six portraits. This painting was also engraved in mezzotinto
by Earlom. In 1781, Zoffany went to the East Indies, where he painted
three of his best works. One is the “Embassy of Hyderbeck to Calcutta,”
who was sent by the Vizier of Oude to Lord Cornwallis. He went with a
numerous retinue by Patna to Calcutta. This picture is a rich display
of Indian costume, and contains besides about one hundred figures,
several elephants and horses. The scene is placed in Patna. The other
two pictures are an “Indian Tiger Hunt;” and as a companion to the
Embassy, a “Cock Fight,” at which there are many spectators. Zoffany
returned to London with a large fortune, and died at Kew, December
16th, 1810.
_THE ROYAL PICTURE._
When Zoffany began the picture of the royal family there were ten
children. He made his sketch accordingly, and attending two or three
times, went on finishing the figures. Various circumstances prevented
him from proceeding,--his Majesty was engaged in business of more
consequence; her Majesty was engaged; some of the princesses were
engaged, and some of the princesses were unwell. The completion of
the picture was consequently delayed, when a messenger came to inform
the artist that another prince was born, and must be introduced in
the picture; this was not easy, but it was accomplished with some
difficulty. All this took up much time, when a second messenger
arrived to announce the birth of a princess, and to acquaint him that
the illustrious stranger must have a place in the canvas; this was
impossible without a new arrangement: one half of the figures were
therefore obliterated, in order that the grouping might be closer to
make room. To do this was the business of some months, and before it
was finished, a letter came from one of the maids of honour, informing
the painter that there was another addition to the family, for whom a
place must be found. “This,” cried the artist, “is too much; if they
cannot sit with more regularity, I cannot paint with more expedition,
and must give it up.”
_THE “COCK FIGHT.”_
The ship in which this picture left the Indies was wrecked, and the
picture lost. Zoffany fortunately took his passage in another vessel.
It is said he heard of the loss of his picture with the philosophy of
a Stoic. Having his original sketches by him, he set to work again
and made out a second picture with all the grouping, portraits of
Hindoos and Gentoos, Rajahs and Nabobs, and finished a fac-simile of
the first. It is said Governor Hastings, by whose commission it was
originally painted, was never made acquainted with the accident and its
repainting.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Miscellaneous Anecdotes, etc.
[Illustration]
_THE ROYAL ACADEMY, BURLINGTON HOUSE._
THE new rooms of the Royal Academy were erected from the designs, and
under the superintendence, of Mr. Sydney Smirke, R.A., and consist of a
large oblong block, parallel with Burlington House, and separated from
it only by a few feet, but extending on both sides considerably beyond
its frontage. The exhibition-rooms are approached by a noble staircase,
with paintings by Ricci, which formed part of Burlington House. The
galleries are divided into three lines or rows; five each in the north
and south rows, and four in the middle. The central room is a domed
octagonal sculpture saloon. Occupying the whole space westward of this
is the “Great Room,” where the annual dinner takes place. Eastward of
the central saloon is a lecture-hall; the remaining space eastward
affords a room for water-colour drawings, and the gallery south of that
for architectural drawings. All the exhibition-rooms communicate with
each other. The dimensions of the apartments are as follows:--
feet. feet.
The Picture Gallery at top of stairs 43 by 31
Central Sculpture Saloon, diameter 43 ----
Sculpture Room 43 by 32½
North Picture Galleries, each 40 “ 32½
The Great Room 82 “ 43
Water Colour Room 43 “ 26
Architectural Room 40 “ 31
South Picture Galleries, each 40 “ 31
Hall for Distribution of Prizes, and for Lectures 55 “ 43
The height of the walls in the Great Room to the top of the cornice is
27 ft., the cove occupies 11 ft., making the height to the underside
of lantern 38 ft. In the lesser rooms, the height to the top of the
cornice is 22 ft., and the cove occupies 9 ft. The lighting is by means
of a large central skylight in each gallery, excepting the Sculpture
Room, where there is a side light. The walls of the Picture Galleries
are of a deep subdued red, down to a dado of black wood and walnut.
The choice rested between this and “pheasant egg colour.” The fine
art critic of the _Times_, in his article of the 1st of May, 1869,
makes the following appropriate remarks on this grand and useful suite
of rooms, in which it is to be hoped that the Hanging Committee will
for the future be able to display the pictures to the satisfaction of
the artists and the public:--“The fears, if they were genuine fears,
expressed by some of the Academicians as to the result of removal from
Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly can hardly have survived the private
view of the Exhibition yesterday. The verdict of the select crowd which
filled the stately apartments provided by the architects of the new
Academy building for its annual Exhibition was unanimous. No European
capital can now boast a more commodious and noble suite of rooms for
its yearly display of painting and sculpture than London now possesses.”
[Illustration]
_THE FONTHILL COLLECTION._
William Beckford, Esq., one of the most remarkable men of modern times,
was the son of the patriotic Alderman Beckford, who was Lord Mayor in
the years 1762 and 1769, and whose noble and courageous remonstrance
with George III. is engraved under the monument erected to his memory
in Guildhall. Inheriting property amounting to £100,000 per annum, Mr.
Beckford was enabled to indulge in the expensive amusement of building.
Fonthill Abbey arose like a magic palace at his command, one tower
alone employing 460 men, both by day and night, through an entire
winter; the torches used by the nocturnal workmen being visible to the
astonished traveller at miles distant. This celebrated mansion in a
few years cost Mr. Beckford the sum of £273,000. Owing to the rapidity
of the work the mortar had not time to consolidate, and a heavy gale
of wind brought the great tower to the ground. Merely remarking that
he should have been glad to witness the sublime fall of such a mass
of materials, he gave orders for the erection of another tower, 276
feet in height; this also fell to the earth in the year 1825. Mr.
Beckford was an excellent scholar, and possessed a fine taste in
almost every branch of art. He collected, in the fantastic but costly
Abbey, one of the finest and most extensive libraries in England; and
his galleries of pictures and antiquities were almost unequalled. A
Chancery suit,--that blessing to lawyers,--fattened upon his riches for
some years, and it ended in the loss of a large West India property;
this, added to his other expenses, rendered it necessary to sell the
Abbey, with almost all its costly contents. In the year 1822, after
Fonthill Abbey had been on view, and catalogues issued by Messrs.
Christie and Manson, the day often fixed and as often postponed, it was
at length announced as being sold by private contract to Mr. Farquhar,
a gentleman who had amassed considerable property in India, for the
sum of £340,000, Mr. Beckford only retaining his family pictures and
a few books. After the sale, Mr. Beckford resided for some years in
Portugal. Not merely a patron of art, he was also an author, and
one singularly original in style. His wild and extraordinary tale,
entitled “Vathek,” soon formed a portion of our classical literature.
This extraordinary man died on the 25th of May, 1844, at the advanced
age of 84. In the year 1823, we find the collection again in the
market, its new proprietor considering the furniture, etc., wholly
unsuited to so splendid a structure; the auctioneer on this occasion
being Mr. Phillips, of New Bond Street, who apprised the distinguished
company assembled on the first day, that the sale was one of the most
important that had ever been offered to the British public. It occupied
thirty-seven days, and the amount realized was rather over £80,000.
[Illustration]
_THE STRAWBERRY HILL COLLECTION._
Lord Orford, more familiarly known as Horace Walpole, the very finest
gentleman of the last century, and the founder of the Strawberry Hill
Collection, was the youngest son of the eminent minister, Sir Robert
Walpole, and was born October 5th, 1717. After studying at Eton and
Cambridge, he travelled; and it was while in Italy that he fostered
the love of Art, and taste for elegant and antiquarian literature,
which took such complete possession of him as to engross the principal
part of his long life. Walpole has by some critics been designated an
elegant trifler; yet if we consider that he was one of the first to
turn public attention to a taste for the Arts, that he fostered the
engravers in this country who became eminent in their branch of Art,
that he brought from obscurity various historical memoirs of deep
interest, we shall hesitate to consider him a trifler. Among English
writers, Walpole is admitted to be one of the best models for lively
epistolary correspondence. In a letter to Sir Horace Mann, he writes:
“You know my passion for the writings of the younger Crébillon; you
shall hear how I have been mortified by the discovery of the greatest
meanness in him; and you will judge how one must be humbled to have
one’s favourite author convicted of mere mortal mercenariness! I have
desired Lady Mary to lay out thirty guineas for me with Liotard, and
wished if I could to have the portraits of Crébillon and Marivaux
for my cabinet. Mr. Churchill wrote me word that Liotard’s price
was sixteen guineas; that Marivaux was intimate with him and would
certainly sit, and that he believed he could get Crébillon to sit too.
The latter, who is retired into the provinces with an English wife, was
just then at Paris for a month; Mr. Churchill went to him, and told him
that a gentleman in England who was making a collection of portraits of
famous people, would be happy to have his, etc. Crébillon was humble,
‘unworthy,’ obliged, and sat. The picture was just finished, when,
behold! he sent Mr. Churchill word that he expected to have a copy
of the picture given him,--neither more nor less than asking sixteen
guineas for sitting! Mr. Churchill answered that he could not tell
what he should do, were it his own case; but that it was a limited
commission, and he could not possibly lay out double; and was now
so near his return that he could not have time to write to England
and have an answer. Crébillon said, then he would keep the picture
himself--it was excessively like. I am still _sentimental_ enough to
flatter myself, that a man who could beg sixteen guineas, will not give
them, and so I may still have the picture.”
Walpole died on the 2nd of March, 1797. By command of the Earl of
Waldegrave, the contents of Strawberry Hill were sold by auction on
the 25th of April, 1842, and the proceeds of the sale, which lasted
twenty-four days, amounted to £33,450 11_s._ 9_d._
Mr. Tiffin, in his interesting little book, “Gossip about Portraits,”
writes mournfully of the dispersion of this _recherché_ collection:
“What a melancholy time to the amateur was that at Strawberry Hill, in
1842, when these treasures were dispersed. In recalling that time when
I wandered through these rooms looking listlessly at many objects that
to the connoisseur (not only of art but of history) ‘spoke volumes.’ I
began faintly to understand the worth of such collections.”
[Illustration]
_THE SALTMARSHE COLLECTION._
On the 4th, 5th, and 6th of June, 1847, was sold by auction, by Messrs.
Christie and Manson, the collection of pictures, the property of Mr.
Higginson, of Saltmarshe, Herefordshire. The total amount realized by
the three days’ sale, reached the enormous sum of £46,695 3_s._ At
the close of the sale it was remarked that the proceeds of the last
day, £35,789 9_s._ was the greatest sum realized in one day on record.
Though the collection was, on the whole, more remarkable for numbers
than quality, it contained some good and important works. Mr. Higginson
was a gentleman possessed of considerable wealth, and was in his day a
rapacious accumulator of pictures. Five of them alone brought upwards
of £10,000. On the first day’s sale, a fine example of Constable’s
fetched 360 guineas; a Nasmyth, 44 guineas; and “A Country Ale-house,”
the old hackneyed subject of George Morland, 95 guineas. On the second
day, a sum of 405 guineas was obtained for a Gerhard Dow. On the third,
and most important day of the sale, the late Marquis of Hertford gave
the grand sum of 1000 guineas for a small female head by Greuze, one
of the most distinguished artists of the modern French school. A truly
important work of Claude’s fell to the same nobleman for 1400 guineas.
A landscape, the joint production of P. De Koning and Lingelbach, was
purchased by the late Sir Robert Peel, and we believe has just been
sold to the Government by his son, the present Sir Robert. “The Holy
Family, with Elizabeth and Saint John,” by Peter Paul Rubens, which
was formerly in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna, and afterwards in the
possession of M. Delahante, who gave 3000 guineas for it, upwards of
thirty years previous to the sale, was knocked down by the auctioneer
to the late Marquis of Hertford for the reduced sum of 2360 guineas.
[Illustration]
_THE STOWE COLLECTION._
The contents of Stowe, the house of the Buckingham and Chandos family,
were brought to the hammer on Tuesday, the 15th of August, 1848. For
full particulars of the genealogy of this old and noble family, we
must, with pleasure, refer our readers to the annotated catalogue
of the choicest objects of art and vertu contained in its princely
mansion. The editor, Mr. Henry Rumsay Forster, evidently bestowed
considerable pains on the work he took in hand; and in his “Historical
Notice of Stowe,” after enumerating the visits to it of almost all
the crowned heads of civilized Europe, gives some lines written by
Mr. Disraeli, M.P., while a guest at Stowe in the year 1840. They are
in allusion to a beautiful statuette by Cotterell, of the Duke of
Wellington, which His Grace of Buckingham had purchased, and up to the
time of the sale had preserved in the library.
“Not only that thy puissant arm could bind
The tyrant of a world, and, conquering Fate,
Enfranchise Europe, do I deem thee great;
But that in all thy actions I do find
Exact propriety: no gusts of mind,
Fitful but wild, but that continuous state
Of ordered impulse mariners await
In some benignant and enriching wind,--
The breath ordained of nature. Thy calm mien
Recalls old Rome, as much as thy high deed;
Duty thine only idol, and serene
When all are troubled: in the utmost need
Prescient; thy country’s servant ever seen,
Yet sovereign of thyself whate’er may speed.”
The mansion was opened for private view on the 3rd of August, 1848. The
sale, ever to be remembered amongst collectors, commenced on the 15th
of the same month, and terminated on the 7th October following. A sale
of forty days! realizing the extraordinary sum of £75,562 4_s._ 6_d._
The sale of the library followed, and extended over twenty-four days,
and produced £10,355 7_s._ 6_d._
[Illustration]
_THE BERNAL COLLECTION._
In March and April, 1855, was dispersed by auction the valuable
collection made by Mr. Ralph Bernal of articles of rare excellence,
and of an age extremely rich in ornamental art, extending from the
Byzantine period to that of Louis Seize. The high prices which the
several articles brought are to be attributed rather to their artistic
character than to their extrinsic value as historic relics. They
consisted of Oriental, German, Dresden, Sèvres, Capo di Monte, and
Chelsea china; portraits remarkable for their costumes; miniatures;
mediæval metal-work and ecclesiastical silver; Limoges, Dresden, and
Oriental enamels; carvings in ivory; Faenza and Palissy ware; armour,
arms, and stained glass; Venetian and German glass, watches, clocks,
and compasses, etc.
Several of the articles brought extraordinary prices. Among the
most costly items were: A Sèvres cabinet, £465; a pair of Dresden
candelabra, £231; a pair of vases, painted _à la Watteau_, 95 guineas;
King Lothaire’s magic crystal, bought by Mr. Bernal for 10 guineas,
and once sold in Paris for 12f., brought 225 guineas; Sir Thomas
More’s candlesticks, bought by Mr. Bernal for 12 guineas, were sold
for 220 guineas; the celebrated reliquaire of the King’s, 63 guineas;
a metal-gilt Moresque dish, £57 15_s._; a curious steel lock for a
shrine, £32; St. Thomas à Becket’s reliquaire, 27½ guineas; a Limoges
enamel portrait of Catherine di Medicis, 400 guineas; a Faenza plate,
bought at Stowe for £4, brought £120; a circular Bernard Palissy dish,
£162. Among the armour, steel gauntlets, 50 guineas a pair; a warder’s
horn, £56; and a Spanish breastplate of russet steel, £155. The first
three days the porcelain produced upwards of £6,000; and about 400 lots
of Majolica ware, which cost Mr. Bernal 1,000 guineas, in this sale
realized upwards of £7,000,--a proof of the skill of Mr. Bernal as a
collector; and showing that the purchase of articles of _vertu_, guided
by correct taste and judgment, may prove a very profitable means of
investment.
Rarely has the dispersion of any assemblage of works of art realized
such high prices as the first portion of Mr. Bernal’s Collection. In
neither of the sales of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill, at the Strawberry
Hill sale (in 1842), or at that of Stowe (in 1848), were there
assembled so many choice articles as in the Bernal Collection.
Fonthill, Strawberry Hill, and Stowe included many treasures of
historic repute, more valuable for having been possessed by celebrated
personages than for their perfection as works of art. Mr. Bernal’s
Collection, however, presented higher claims; inasmuch as his judgment
was acknowledged over Europe. The entire sale realized £62,680 6_s._
5_d._
Mr. J. R. Planché, who by request wrote a few introductory lines to the
catalogue, thus speaks of his departed friend, with whom he had been
associated for thirty years: “Distinguished among English antiquaries
by the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge,
the difficulty of imposing upon him was increased by the necessity
of the fabrication being fine enough in form, colour, or workmanship
to rival the masterpiece it simulated; to be, in fact, itself a gem
of art, which it would not pay to produce as a relic of antiquity.”
Mr. Bernal was for many years a member of parliament, having sat
successively for Lincoln, Rochester, and Weymouth, and held the post of
Chairman of Committees. In politics he was a supporter of the Grey and
Melbourne ministries. He died at his house in Eaton Square, on the 25th
of August, 1854.
[Illustration]
_SALE OF DANIEL O’CONNELLS LIBRARY, PRINTS, PICTURES, ETC., IN MAY,
1849._
The last day’s sale is thus described by the _Freeman’s Journal_:--“The
auction on Monday concluded the sale of the standard works, and at
its close all were disposed of save some few insignificant lots for
which no bidders could be found. A large number of miscellaneous
works of small value were sold in lots at very trifling prices. One
lot, including a number of loose pamphlets and tracts, many of them
bearing O’Connell’s autograph and notes, sold for £2. The sales of
the preceding day were varied. A number of the Irish and Scottish
Art Union prints sold at prices varying from 2_s._ to 3_s._ each. A
fine proof copy of the well-known print, ‘Cross Purposes,’ brought
a guinea. A copy of the now scarce print of ‘Henry Grattan’ fetched
(after some spirited bidding) one guinea, Landseer’s ‘Angler’s
Daughter’ (engraving), 10_s._ 6_d._ ‘The Volunteers in College Green’
was then put up. This engraving, now scarce, was keenly competed for;
it brought £1 10_s._ A paltry landscape painting in oil, ‘The Meeting
of the Waters,’ brought 7_s._ An engraving of Carlo Dolce’s ‘Salvator
Mundi’ fetched 6_s._ A little portrait of that little man, Lord John
Russell, was then put up for competition; but, amongst a sale-room
full of gentry and citizens, not a solitary bidder was found willing
to hazard the risk of even by chance becoming the possessor of this
work of art. The accomplished salesman displayed the portrait in every
possible light, and solicited an initiatory movement towards setting
Lord John a-going, by infinitesimal beginnings in specie; but _non
eundum erat_. It was no use; in vain was the noble lord’s _eidolon_
turned towards each group of by-standers,--in vain did Mr. Jones
insinuate ‘Any advance?’ ‘Sixpence for it?’ ‘Eightpence did you say,
sir?’ said the indefatigable Mr. Jones (to an old gentleman with a
white hat). ‘No, sir, I didn’t; nor fourpence,’ replied the gentleman,
angrily. ‘Oh, I beg pardon; well then, fourpence. Any advance?’ Alas!
no; not a solitary bidder. Even the Liffey Street picture-brokers
looked angrily at this useless and protracted inquiry as to whether
there was any advance with regard to Lord John. Finally, the lot was
withdrawn. The next lot was a small and handsomely framed portrait in
oils of O’Connell. It seemed a tolerably clever copy of the well-known
medium size engraving of the original. This picture was put up at a low
figure, but was warmly competed for, and was knocked down at £1 10_s._
A large oil painting of the ‘Madonna and Child,’ not of very high
merit, sold for £1. Two engravings, large size,--one, ‘The Trial of
Charles I.,’ the other, ‘The Trial of Lord Strafford’--sold at 30_s._
each. Several other pictures, engravings, and statuettes were sold at
very low prices. A splendid Norman steel cross-bow, with appurtenances
complete, sold for £1 8_s._ The sales closed with some miscellaneous
articles, none of which brought beyond average prices. The library,
altogether, was certainly not such, either in the number of the volumes
or their description, as might be supposed to form the collection of
O’Connell; and as to the prices obtained, they were, as we have before
remarked, not beyond the intrinsic value of each lot, apart from all
associations connected with them.”
[Illustration]
_HOLBEIN._
Holbein, the painter, once engaged with his landlord to paint the
outside of his house. The landlord found that the painter left his work
very frequently to amuse himself elsewhere, and determined to keep a
constant eye upon him. Holbein, anxious to get rid of his suspicious
taskmaster, ingeniously contrived to absent himself at the very time
when the landlord fancied he was quietly seated on the scaffold, by
painting two legs apparently descending from his seat; and which so
completely deceived the man, that he never thought of ascertaining
whether the rest of the body was in its place.
[Illustration]
_PALLADIO (ANDREW)._
Andrew Palladio, the celebrated architect, was born in 1518, at
Vicenza, in Lombardy. He learnt the principles of his art from
Trissino; after which he studied at Rome, and on his return to Lombardy
constructed a number of noble edifices. He was employed in various
parts of Italy, particularly at Venice, where he built the palace
Foscari. His treatise on Architecture was printed at Venice in 1570,
folio; and again at London in 1715, in 3 vols. folio. In 1730, Lord
Burlington published some of this architect’s designs, in one volume
folio. Palladio used to relate an anecdote of an artist who dedicated
the different apartments in a gentleman’s house to several moral
virtues, as Chastity, Temperance, and Honesty; so that each guest
might be appointed to the room sacred to his favourite virtue. The
rich and young widow would be lodged in “Chastity,” the alderman in
“Temperance,” and the prime minister in “Honesty,” etc. Palladio died
in the year 1580. A monument was erected to his memory at Vicenza,
in 1845, the Count G. Velo having bequeathed 100,000 livres for that
purpose. It is thus described in _The Builder_ in 1846:--
“The statue of Palladio stands on a pedestal, two storeys in height,
with a genius by his side in the act of crowning him. Seated on the
first story of the pedestal, against the angles of the upper portion,
which is less in size than the lower, are two allegorical figures,
one representing Vicenza with a wreath in her left hand, and looking
up with pride at the artist; the other Architecture, depicting the
history of the art on a scroll, by a representation of a primitive
hut, and the Pantheon. Between these two figures on the upper part of
the pedestal, is sculptured in bas-relief the baths of Caracalla, to
express that it was by the study of the antique monuments that Palladio
formed himself.
“At the foot of the whole is a sarcophagus, in imitation of that of
Agrippa, containing the remains of the artist.
“The monument stands within an octagon chapel in the new public
cemetery of the city, and is the work of M. Fabris, a sculptor of
Vicenza. The material is Carrara marble.”
[Illustration]
_JACQUES CALLOT’S ETCHINGS._
“Etching is the writing by which the artist conveys his thoughts.
With etching he can allow himself every liberty of touch and fantasy.
Etching does not freeze his inspiration by its slow progress: it has
all the qualities of a steed at full gallop. Callot, who was so varied,
so original, so capricious, so fertile, and so ready, is the greatest
master of the art of etching.
“The works of Callot consist of nearly sixteen hundred plates,
including those of Israel. We must pass with the rapidity of a bird
upon the wing almost all his small religious subjects. Callot, without
fantasy, is not himself; it is plain that he grows tired with works
where patience is required. The subjects in which he revels in all
the luxury, in all the splendour, in all the originality, of his
talent, are ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony,’ ‘The Fair della Madonna
Imprunetta,’ ‘The Tortures,’ ‘The Massacre of the Innocents,’ ‘The
Misfortunes and Horrors of War,’ and tatterdemalions of every form and
every kind, from the hectoring bully to the beggar enveloped in his
rags.
“He etched with marvellous facility, having finished on more than one
occasion a plate in a single day. His magic hand, and his imagination
so rich and so quick, often accomplished a feat of this description
in playing, as it were. It often happened,--as, for instance, in his
‘_Livre des Caprices_’ (Book of Caprices), and in his fantastic and
grotesque works,--to let his hand follow its own course. While chatting
with his friends, he would give utterance to some joke at the same
time that he made a stroke, and was himself lost in wonder at having
produced a figure. His graver, too, was so fertile in resources, that
in all his numerous creations he never repeated himself. He was,
however, an artist who treated his art seriously, and who studied
incessantly, full of his task, and fond of the glimmer of the midnight
lamp. He had the passion of creating tatterdemalions, bullies, and
mountebanks, as other men have the passion of play. Whenever he sat
up to work, he used to tell his friends that he was going to pass the
night in the bosom of his family.”
Jacques Callot was born 1593, and died March, 1635.--_Philosophers and
Actresses._
[Illustration]
_THE FEMALE FACE._
Felibien, an eminent French writer of the early part of the 17th
century, thus describes his _beau ideal_ of the female ace:--
“The head should be well rounded, and look rather inclining to small
than large. The forehead white, smooth, and open: not with the hair
growing down too deep upon it, neither flat nor prominent, but like
the head, well rounded, and rather small in proportion than large. The
hair either bright, black, or brown; not thin, but full and waving, and
if it falls in moderate curls the better; the black is particularly
useful for setting off the whiteness of the neck and skin. The eyes
black, chestnut, or blue, clear, bright, and lively, and rather large
in proportion than small. The eyebrows well divided, rather full than
thin; semicircular, and broader in the middle than at the ends, of a
neat turn, but not formal. The cheeks should not be wide; they should
have a degree of plumpness, with the red and white finely blended
together, and should look firm and soft. The ear should be rather small
than large, well-folded, and with an agreeable tinge of red. The nose
should be placed so as to divide the face into two equal parts, of a
moderate size, straight, and well squared; though sometimes a little
rising in the nose, which is but just perceivable, may give it a very
graceful look. The mouth should be small, and the lips not of equal
thickness; they should be well turned, small rather than gross, soft
even to the eye, and with a living red in them. A truly pretty mouth
is like a red rose-bud that is beginning to blow. The teeth should be
middle-sized, white, well-ranged, and even. The chin of a moderate
size, white, soft, and agreeably rounded. The skin in general should be
white, properly tinged with red, with an apparent softness, and a look
of thriving health in it.”
[Illustration]
_LONDON IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY._
Sir William Davenant gives a true though ludicrous picture of the
habitations of London in his day:--
“Sure,” says the angry critic, “your ancestors contrived your narrow
streets in the days of wheelbarrows, before the greater engines,
carts, were invented. Is your climate so hot that as you walk you
need umbrellas of tiles to intercept the sun? Or are your shambles so
empty that you are afraid to take in fresh air, lest it should sharpen
your stomachs? Oh, the goodly landscape of Old Fish Street, which,
had it not the ill-luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to be your
founder’s perspective; and where the garrets (perhaps not for want of
architecture, but through abundance of amity) are so made that opposite
neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home. Is unanimity of
inhabitants in wise cities better expressed than by their coherence
and uniformity of buildings, where the street begins, continues, and
ends in a like stature and shape? But yours, as if they were raised
in a general insurrection, where every man hath a separate design,
and differ in all things that can make distinction. There stands one
that aims to be a palace, and next another that professes to be a
hovel; here a giant, there a dwarf; here slender, there broad; and all
most especially different in their faces, size, and bulk. I was about
to defy any Londoner who dares pretend there is so much ingenious
correspondence in this city, as that he can show me one house like
another. Yet your old houses seem to be reverend and formal, being
compared to the fantastical works of the moderns, which have more
ovals, niches, and angles than are in your custards; and inclosed in
pasteboard walls like those of malicious Turks, who, because themselves
are not immortal, and cannot for ever dwell where they build, therefore
will not be at the charge to provide such lastingness as may entertain
their children out of the rain; so slight, so prettily gaudy, that
if they could move they would pass for pageants. It is your custom,
where men vary after the mode of their habits, to turn the nation
fantastical; but where streets continually change fashion you should
make haste to chain up the city, for it is certainly mad.”
[Illustration]
_TARDIF, THE FRENCH CONNOISSEUR._
Among the connoisseurs of pictures who were celebrated in France
towards the end of the seventeenth century, we must place in the first
rank Tardif, formerly an engineer, but subsequently secretary to the
Marshal de Boufflers. He was the friend of Largillière, Watteau,
Audran, and, above all, of Gillot. He was renowned for the justness
of his criticisms. When a picture was finished, no one dared to
deliver his opinion openly on it, until it had undergone Tardif’s
inspection; his opinion was, so to say, the last touch of the artist’s
brush. Watteau himself, who used to laugh at criticism, once said
on laying down his brush before a _fête galante_, still wet, “That
picture is a perfect wonder! If Tardif were here, I would sign it.”
Tardif possessed, in the Rue Gît-le-Cœur, one of the first cabinets of
pictures in Paris. The Marshal de Boufflers, who knew his secretary’s
passion, used every year to make him a present of the work of some
celebrated painter as a new year’s gift. Tardif, too, had managed to
raise sufficient from his patrimonial fortune to buy pictures from his
friends, the living artists, and of his friends the dead ones. His
cabinet was so celebrated that the Duke of Orleans went one day to see
it with Nocé: this completely turned Tardif’s head. However, if he had
only been subject to this noble kind of madness, which is a proof of
a sublime aspiration towards the poetry of the beautiful, the worthy
creature might have lived comfortably till his death. But he, too, was
afflicted with the melancholy madness of money for money; he allowed
himself to be fleeced under Law’s system: in other terms, he lost in
that great revolution of French fortunes all he possessed, save his
pictures.
It was necessary for him to live, however. Any one else would have got
rid of his _chefs-d’œuvre_: Tardif only got rid of his servants. “Go,
my friends,” said he; “the world is before you. Go where my money is
gone. At present, I can only keep those who do not want to eat; my
pictures will keep me company.” Tardif was already old, the passions
of life had no more influence upon his heart; all that he needed was a
little sunshine in his cabinet for him to live contented. He died in
Paris, May, 1728.--_Philosophers and Actresses._
[Illustration]
_PAUL POTTER’S STUDIES OF NATURE._
When Fergusson, the author of the famous treatise on perspective, was
asked what copies he had followed in forming his style, he answered,
“_The examples of great nature_;” and added, “I always found nature _so
powerful_, that to copy her was easy.” All who have attained greatness
in the practice of art have followed the same course of study, but none
more successfully than our own Edwin Landseer, who first learned to
draw animals in the fields around Primrose Hill; and Paul Potter, his
great prototype, who acquired his first knowledge of art in the bright
green meadows of the Low Countries. Of the value set by the latter
painter on this mode of study, we have a striking proof in the picture
in which he represents himself making his first sketch. This great
painter was born in 1625, at Enkhuysen, in the province of Holland. His
works, which have become equally rare and valuable, are peculiarly
distinguished by the effects of his sun rays upon his landscapes and
cattle, in producing which he has distanced all competitors. His
paintings are deemed very valuable. For one small picture in the
collection of the late Marquis of Westminster, that nobleman gave 9000
guineas. Potter died in 1654.
[Illustration]
_FIDELITY IN PORTRAIT PAINTING._
It is not always well to paint the whole truth; and although sincerity
is extremely praiseworthy, we can scarcely approve the somewhat brutal
frankness of an old French artist, who, while taking the portrait of a
lady whose face was slightly broken out, took considerable trouble to
reproduce all the pimples that he saw before him. “My dear sir,” said
the lady, “you are not aware what you are about; you are painting my
pimples; they are merely accidental; they make no part of my face.”
“_Bon, bon, madame_,” replied he, “if you hadn’t these you would have
others.”
[Illustration]
_CLAYTON MORDAUNT CRACHERODE._
Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode was born in 1729, took his degree at
Oxford in 1753, and though he entered into orders, he never would
accept Church preferment, but continued to follow his peculiar taste
for antiquities, which an easy competence enabled him to do. His
collection of coins and prints was most various and extensive. The
whole he bequeathed to the British Museum, of which institution he
was a trustee. He is thus described by one intimately acquainted with
him:--“Well do I remember his mild, benevolent countenance, his sleek
black suit, and his snow-white wig! He was a perfect woman-hater;
retraced his steps when, in coming down stairs, he met one of the
housemaids, and walked out of the room when a female entered. He was
a man of the most regular habits, and of a sedentary disposition. He
possessed a fine estate in Hertfordshire, and had never ventured to
go so far as to look at it. He often observed that the extent of his
journeys had been to Clapham and Richmond. For forty years of his life,
when not prevented by indisposition, he daily went to his bookseller
and printseller, Elmsley and Paine, and every Saturday he repaired to
Mudge’s, to regulate his watch.” He died in 1799.
[Illustration]
_BARRY’S CONTEMPT FOR PORTRAIT PAINTING._
“Folks,” complained Barry, “come with a _sessarara_ at the knocker of
my street door and disturb my repose to ask my price as a _limner_.
‘I’m not a limb of that fraternity of flatterers,’ I answer; ‘go, get
ye gone to the man in Leicester Fields’ [meaning Sir Joshua Reynolds].
Pshaw! the vain coxcombs! what could I see in their vacant countenances
worthy of my art? The spalpeens! Such blockhead visages to be
transmitted to future generations! O keep me, ye gods, clear from that
offence! To be sure, and you’ll not seduce James Barry to prostitute
his pencil, palette, and pigments, to such vile purposes!”
[Illustration]
_BARRY’S ECCENTRICITY._
The eccentricity of Barry is thus spoken of in Daye’s “Essays
on Painting:”--“He carries his ideas of independence to such an
extravagant length as always to pay for his dinner at whatever table
he sits down. A year or two ago he dined with Paul Sandby, and laid
down eighteenpence for his dinner, but, on recollection, paid another
sixpence, for his additional quantity of grog. This instance is by no
means singular. His character may be further illustrated. One evening,
at Somerset Place, Peters said, on coming in, ‘How do you do, Mr.
Barry? I hope you are well.’ On which he grumbled out, ‘Oh! I don’t
believe a word of it.’ With all his oddities, he is, unquestionably,
a man of uncommon intellect; every one must be benefited by his
conversation, for, as Dr. Wolcot has justly observed, ‘Go where he
will, he always leaves a pearl behind him.’”--Barry was born in 1741,
and died in 1806.
[Illustration]
_THE ROYAL PRISONER._
Joseph Goupy, an ingenious artist, was born at Nevers, in France,
and painted landscapes much in the style of Salvator Rosa. He was in
great favour with Frederic, Prince of Wales, and frequently attended
at Leicester House to draw such designs as his Royal Highness chose
to dictate. One morning, on his arrival, the prince said, “Come,
Goupy, sit down and paint me a picture on such a subject.” But Goupy,
perceiving Prince George, afterwards George III., standing as a
prisoner behind a chair, took the liberty humbly to represent to his
royal patron how impossible it was for him to sit down to execute his
commands with spirit, while the Prince was standing, and under his
royal displeasure. “Come out then, George,” said the good-natured
prince; “Goupy has released you.” When Goupy was eighty-four, and very
poor, he had a mad woman to nurse and maintain, who had been the object
of his delight when young; he therefore put himself in the King’s
way at Kensington, where he lived. One morning the King saw him, and
stopped the coach, saying, “How do you do, Goupy?” asking him also
if he had sufficient to live upon. “Little enough, indeed,” answered
Goupy; “and as I once took your Majesty out of prison, I hope you will
not let me go into one.” His Majesty was graciously pleased to order
him a guinea a week for the remainder of his life, which, however, was
very brief. He died in 1763.
[Illustration]
_ATHENIAN STUART._
Goupy, the subject of the above anecdote, was in his time considered
the most eminent of fan painters. So fashionable was fan painting
at that time, that the family of Athenian Stuart placed him as a
pupil with that artist, conceiving that by doing so they had made
his fortune. Stuart’s genius, however, in a short time soared to the
pinnacle of fame by flying to Athens for those inestimable treasures
which will immortalize his name, notwithstanding Hogarth’s satire
upon the publication of his first volume; for, indeed, we have not
now a student who speaks of Stuart without the honourable prefix of
“Athenian” to his name.
[Illustration]
_PRUDHON AND CANOVA._
While residing at Rome, Prudhon found a friend in Canova, his
friendship with whom was the most beautiful, the most noble, the
most holy event in his life; in it was included everything, even to
self-sacrifice. It consoled Prudhon for his misfortunes in love.
“There are three men here,” said Canova to him one day, “of whom I
am jealous.” “I know and love you alone,” replied Prudhon. “But me
alone?” answered Canova; “do you not also love Raffaelle, and Leonardo
da Vinci, and Correggio? You pass all your time with them, you listen
to them, you confide to them your dreams, you go from one to the
other, and you are never tired of admiring what they produce.” And
this was true, for Prudhon was indefatigable in his study of these
three masters, whom he sometimes called the Graces. But Correggio was
the master whom he loved most. If Prudhon had listened to Canova, he
would have spent his life at Rome; but in spite of all his friend’s
entreaties, he left, though with a promise soon to return. They never
beheld each other again, but they were faithful in their friendship:
faithful to such a point that they both died at the same time, as if to
meet above. Peter Paul Prudhon (named after Rubens) was born in 1758,
and died in 1823.
[Illustration]
_REVOLUTION AN ENEMY TO ART._
On Prudhon’s return to France his mother was dead, and his wife, as
usual, was not very conjugal. France had ceased to be a kingdom,
and had not yet become a country. It was the year 1789, and the
first rumours of the Revolution swept over the land like some wind
foretelling the coming storm. It was the hour of exit for the Arts.
Prudhon, who was always resigned, showed his resignation in this
instance as well. After embracing his wife and children he set out
for Paris, believing that at every epoch, even during a revolution,
Paris was the best place for a man to succeed. He reached that city
with scanty means, and took up his quarters in an hotel which we will
dignify by calling it furnished. He intended to lodge there until
he could take a studio; but he got nothing to do, and consequently
nothing to eat. He could not continue this mode of life very long, and
therefore, although proud and very misanthropical, he determined on
applying to the celebrated painters of that period. These may almost
be summed up as consisting of Greuze, David, and Girodet. He waited
upon Greuze, who was from the same province as himself. “Do you possess
talent?” said Greuze to him. “Yes,” replied Prudhon naïvely. “All the
worse,” continued Greuze. “A family and talent! that is more than you
need to die in want. What the deuce have you to do with talent at a
period when we no longer have a heaven, nor a devil, nor a king, nor
a court, nor poor, nor rich? I, who address you, am, as you know, as
good a painter as most men; and yet just look at my ruffles!” On saying
this, Greuze, who was a perfect dandy, and excessively fantastic in his
dress, showed Prudhon a pair of ragged ruffles. “If you did not possess
talent,” he continued, “the evil would not be so great,--you might daub
in portraits for the first comer.” “Did I not say that I had a family?”
interrupted Prudhon. “I will paint sign-boards if it is necessary. I
will turn mechanic as long as it pleases Heaven I shall be one.” True
to his word, Prudhon set up a shop. He painted miniatures; he designed
headings for letters, for concert tickets, and for bills. He ornamented
visiting cards and sweatmeat boxes. “I undertake,” said he with a
melancholy smile, “all that appertains to my business.”
[Illustration]
_SERRES AND VERNET._
Sir William Beechey related the following anecdote of Serres, the
ship-painter. Serres took a picture or pictures of shipping from
England to the King of France, painted to commemorate some naval
exploit of the French, and invited connoisseurs and artists to see his
performance. Among the rest was the famous Vernet. Serres waited some
time after Vernet had looked at the picture, till he became impatient
to hear his opinion, hoping for praise, and fearing lest it should not
be bestowed. “How do you like my picture, M. Vernet?” said he. “Upon my
word, sir,” replied Vernet, “you paint ropes exceedingly well.” Nothing
could be more satirical, or better mark the genius of the two men, than
this reply. Vernet, like a man of genius, painted nature at large,
and suggested her minutiæ, but never gave them in detail. Serres was
incapable of any thing but detail, in which he was uncommonly accurate.
Serres thought he revenged himself on Vernet by damning him for a fool
that had never known how to paint a ship; which, in his sense, was true
enough. He could not paint every shroud, rope, and tackle, etc., all
which Serres had laboriously studied.
[Illustration]
_THE HEROIC PAINTER._
Vernet was so attached to his profession that he used to make voyages
in bad weather on purpose to see the sky and ocean in picturesque
perturbation. One day the storm was so violent that the ship’s crew
were in great consternation. Vernet desired a sailor to bind him to the
mast. When every one was crying and praying, Vernet, with his eyes now
upon the lightning, and now upon the mountainous waves, continued to
exclaim, “How fine this is!”
[Illustration]
_VERNET AND VOLTAIRE._
When Vernet, the celebrated painter, visited Voltaire for the first
time, the author thus addressed him: “Welcome, M. Vernet! you are
rising to immortality, for never were colours more brilliant or more
durable than yours!” The painter replied, “My colours can never vie
with your ink!” and caught the hand of Voltaire, which he was going
to kiss with reverential awe. But the poet snatched it away, modestly
saying, “What are you going to do? Surely if you kiss my hand, I must
kiss your feet.”
[Illustration]
_PISTRUCCI’S READY INGENUITY._
The coronation medal of George IV. afforded an example worth relating
of ingenuity and skill in expedients in the art of coining. When the
gold proof-piece was shown to His Majesty, he approved of the obverse,
which is immensely flattering, though not so much as he wished, as
nothing satisfied him except Lawrence’s juvenile-looking portrait; but
he immediately remarked that on the reverse proof he was not properly
placed, being on a level with the allegorical figures of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. This the master of the mint in despair reported
to Pistrucci. What was to be done? There was not time to engrave a
new die. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “I shall elevate
His Majesty.” He then cut the die perpendicularly in two, just at His
Majesty’s foot, slid one piece a little above the other, so as to raise
that part of the platform under the throne above the other part, and
continued the under line of the platform to make it even, as seen in
the reverse of the published coronation medal.--_Dr. Billing’s “Science
of Gems.”_
_CHARLES TOWNLEY._
Charles Townley, born in Lancashire in 1737, resided for many years
at Rome, where he devoted his attention to the collecting the remains
of ancient Art. His collection being very various, he purchased two
houses in Park Street, Westminster, and there formed a museum for
the reception of his antiquities. His gallery of sculpture was very
valuable, he being a most enthusiastic collector. Such was his ardour
in the pursuit of objects of classic veneration, that it is related
of him that on arriving at Syracuse, harassed and exhausted by a long
journey, he would neither take rest nor food until he had visited
the Fountain of Arethusa. Although a wealthy man, his mode of living
was quiet and frugal in the extreme. His statues and busts he called
his dead family, and in collecting their remains, and relieving his
tenantry, he expended his whole fortune, and did not even keep a
carriage. He died in 1805 at his museum.
[Illustration]
_THE TOWNLEY MARBLES._
The Elgin marbles, which became public property by means of public
purchase, on the 1st of July, 1816, was the first unadulterated
collection of ancient works of Art possessed by the nation, and the
precursor of other collections of no less interest to the artist
and man of letters. The Nimroud and Xanthian marbles especially. In
these antiques we behold the real Art of the sculptors of remote
periods; but in the Townley collection, a superficial observer cannot
discover where Greek or Roman Art ceases, and the ingenuity of Joseph
Nollekens commences. Tobacco juice, cement, and a few discoloured
lumps of marble, furnished tips to the noses of Messalinas, Octavias,
and other Roman patrician ladies. Arms, legs, fingers, toes, nails,
and sometimes whole heads, were dexterously supplied by this king of
vampers, who filled his coffers at a time when the rage for purchasing
modern antiques was at its height; therefore, fortunate indeed was
the virtuoso whose antiques were even a fractional part genuine. Mr.
Townley’s marbles were on this account far superior to many other
collections. That beautiful bust of a female issuing from the petals
of a flower, Mr. Townley justly considered as the gem of his gallery.
During the riots caused by the insane Lord George Gordon, the mob
marked out Mr. Townley’s residence in Park Street for destruction,
the owner being a Roman Catholic. He secured his cabinet of gems, and
casting a long and lingering look on his cherished marbles, was about
to leave them to their fate, when, moved by some irresistible impulse,
he took this beautiful bust in his arms, and bore it to his carriage.
Fortunately for the nation the contemplated attack did not take place;
Mr. Townley returned with his “wife,” as he pleasantly called the lady
represented, and restored her to her companions.
Mr. Townley’s gallery, purchased for the Museum at two different
periods for the sum of £28,200, paved the way for the far-famed Elgin
collection.--_Fine Arts Almanac._
[Illustration]
_BLUCHER TAKEN BY LIMNERS._
When the renowned Blucher visited England, he was made the lion of
the day; the general desire for portraits of this famous soldier was
very great, and he is described as “seated conveniently for graphic
reconnaissance in his apartment at St. James’s, his meerschaum in
full play, with a miniature painter taking him straight in front;
a die-sinker by a right profile, a modeller the left; two crayon
painters at dexter and sinister three-quarter fronts; and two other
limners by a side-long glance, or a sort of enfilading, at as much of
his visage as was visible from an angle _au derrière_.”
[Illustration]
_COST OF A PICTURE._
It is said that Marshal Soult, on being asked one day how much his best
picture had cost, replied, “One monk.” The meaning of this was that the
picture was given in exchange for an unfortunate monk, who had been
taken prisoner during Soult’s campaign in Spain, and condemned to death.
[Illustration]
_RESUSCITATED CELEBRITIES._
The following is said by the _Polytechnic Journal_ to have taken place
at a provincial exhibition in the year 1840:--
“The exhibition rooms were crowded; many visitors paid for admission,
and many claimed exemption by virtue of brush and palette. Among
the latter, two fantastically dressed persons, like hunters from a
neighbouring university, presented themselves.
“‘What is the number of your work?’ was the question addressed by the
doorkeeper to each exhibitor. ‘Mine is two hundred and four,’ said one
of the applicants.
“‘Then,’ said the unconscious functionary, referring to his catalogue,
‘you are Mr. Lorraine,--Claude Lorraine?’
“‘_Mais précisement,--est ce que vous m’avez déjà connu?_’
“‘I don’t exactly understand you,’ replied the other, ‘but will you
enter your name in this book?’
“The name was inscribed, as requested, in a hand as singular as was the
writer himself in appearance.
“The other applicant was no less a personage than Gerhard Douw,
who having registered his name with all the care and finish which
distinguishes him, thanked the doorkeeper in his best Leyden Dutch, and
proceeded to look through the rooms.
“These were not the only distinguished persons who visited the rooms;
others followed, a few of the names of whom we learn from a long
critique in the local newspapers, a passage of which we quote: ‘From
what we have already stated, we may consider the success of the
experiment as successful beyond parallel; and such is the interest
that the opening of the exhibition has created, that upon the list
of signatures we find the names of many gentlemen not unknown to the
world. We now may instance those of Lorraine, Douw, Holbein, Teniers,
and Poussin; but propose next week to discharge more fully this part
of our duty, which from the press of other matter we are now most
reluctantly compelled to postpone.’”
[Illustration]
_TWO GORMANDIZERS._
Mr. Charles Townley who had noticed Nollekens at Rome, kindly
continued for years to entertain him at his house, No. 7, Park Street,
Westminster; and when any person spake of good eating, Mr. Nollekens
always gave his friend Mr. Townley the highest credit for keeping a
most excellent table. “I am sure,” said he, “to make a good dinner
at his house on Sunday; but there is a little man, a great deal less
than myself, who dines there, of the name of Devay, a French Abbé, who
beats me out and out. He is one of the greatest gormandizers I ever
met with; though, to look at him, you would declare him to be in the
most deplorable state of starvation.” The Abbé Devay was an excellent
man; he conversed and wrote in many languages; and his reading and
memory were so extensive and useful, that Mr. Townley, who referred to
him in his literary concerns, always called him his “walking library.”
The Sunday dinners of Mr. Townley were principally for professors of
the Arts; and Sir Joshua Reynolds and Zoffany generally enlivened the
circle.--_Smith’s “Nollekens and his Times.”_
[Illustration]
_THE ARTIST ILLUSTRATED._
The following is from Mr. Robert Kerr’s interesting Discourses on Fine
Art Architecture.
“What is an artist? Oh, everybody knows what an artist is till you
press the question, and then you find that everybody does not so
clearly know. I have already defined my meaning in the term, but
perhaps you have net yet felt the fulness of the definition; and
illustration may be useful.