In the Drawing-room hang many admirable and interesting works, to
a few of which we may direct attention. Chief among them is the
noble three-quarter-length of Anthony Triest, Bishop of Ghent, by
Rubens, a portrait most characteristic in pose, vigorously lifelike
in expression, and accomplished in colour. Another portrait of this
prelate, a seated half-length turned to the right, was painted by Van
Dyck, Rubens’ great pupil, and etched by his own hand in a plate which
was afterwards completed with the graver by Peter de Jode. In the same
room is Van Dyck’s rendering of “A Lady of the Coningsby Family,” a
graceful full-length, draped in rose-colour, the gloved right hand
resting on a flower-pot which is relieved against a wooded background,
and the right foot raised as the figure stands on a flight of stone
garden-steps. A bust-sized male portrait of an unknown subject also
bears the name of Rubens, and, by whatever hand, it is certainly an
admirable example of Flemish art. The costume is black with a piped
ruff; the face worn, the brow furrowed, the hair yellowish, slightly
silvered with age, the thick beard and moustache of a ruddy colour,
and the flesh-tones most attractive in the quietude and cool grey
quality of their shadows. By Zeeman, an esteemed Dutch painter of naval
subjects, known, too, as an etcher of much directness and simplicity of
method, is a large sea-piece, with shipping and a great expanse of sky
in which the clouds are beginning to grow mellow towards the sunset;
and by Melchior Hondecoeter we have a vigorous picture of “Fighting
Cocks,” firmly painted, and effective in the contrast of the white
plumage of the nearer bird to the glowing brown and ruddy tones of the
rest of the picture.
The Library, a particularly sunny and spacious room on the upper
floor, contains in addition to its books—which, as we have already
said, include those bequeathed to the Baron by Boerhaave, his early
friend,—a fine and extensive collection of prints, duly catalogued and
arranged in volumes according to their various schools. Among the rest
are some rare Dürer items, and a set of John Clerk’s etchings in their
progressive states, along with many original sketches by his hand.
Over the fireplace is inlet in the wainscoting an attractive subject
representative of “Music,” executed in _grisaille_ on canvas, in clever
simulation of a marble bas-relief. It is signed by its painter, Jacob
de Wit, a native of Amsterdam, born 1695, died 1754, who “attained a
marvellous excellence in the imitation of sculpture of all kinds of
materials, bronze, wood, plaster, and particularly white marble, in
which he produced such complete illusion that even the practised eye
is deceived.” His most notable work of this kind was the decoration,
in 1736, of a hall in the Hôtel de Ville of Amsterdam; and it is
further stated by Kugler that “a favourite subject with the master was
the representation of pretty children in the taste of Fiammingo.” The
present picture, in the satisfying arrangement of its composition and
in the grace of its flowing lines, possesses a more legitimate artistic
value than could come from any merely imitative dexterity in rendering
the effect of sculpture by means of painting. The musicians are a party
of naked, chubby children. The figure of their leader is an especially
charming one, standing holding up a music-book in one hand, beating
time with a roll of papers held as a baton in the other, and singing
with open mouth; his raised face, with the soft hair clustering about
the rounded cheeks, wearing an entranced expression which embodies the
very spirit of melody. Beside him one of his infant musicians touches
the wires of a lyre, another bends over a great mandoline, of which a
third is tightening the strings, and a fourth breathes softly on the
flute.
At the entrance to the Library door are placed two large glass cases,
one filled with natural history specimens, the other containing the
valuable collection of Roman remains, in metal, pottery, coins, etc.,
accumulated by Baron Clerk, which it would require the skill of an
archæologist rightly to estimate. Among them is a curious and most
interesting ivory carving, inscribed, on a parchment label, in the
Baron’s handwriting, “An Antient piece of Sculpture on the Tooth of
a Whale,—it was found by John Adair, Geographer, in the North of
Scotland, Anno 1682, all the figures are remarkable.” In this year
Adair, the Geographer for Scotland, was appointed by the Privy Council
of Scotland to make a survey of the kingdom and maps of the shires, of
which only a portion was published. The carving represents a crowned
queen, seated holding a lapdog on her knees; with a knight, wearing a
surcoat over chain-armour, and bearing a sword and a shield blazoned
with a _chevron chequé_, standing on her left; and on her right a
musician playing on a crowde, an old instrument resembling a violin;
while between these, round the rest of the ivory, is a row of female
figures, wearing long flowing robes, standing with clasped hands, that
beside the musician holding a palm-branch. The carving is described and
figured in Dr. Daniel Wilson’s “Prehistoric Annals of Scotland.” Dr.
Wilson considers it to be a queen piece of a chess set, and assigns it
to the fourteenth century.