“There is an air of refinement (_Vornehmheit_) round the mouth
and nose as in no other engraving. Color and life shine through
the skin, and the lips appear red.”
It is bold, perhaps, thus to exalt a single portrait, giving to it the
palm of Venus; nor do I know that it is entirely proper to classify
portraits according to beauty. In disputing about beauty, we are too
often lost in the variety of individual tastes; and yet each person
knows when he is touched. In proportion as multitudes are touched,
there must be merit. As in music a simple heart-melody is often more
effective than any triumph over difficulties or bravura of manner, so
in engraving, the sense of the beautiful may prevail over all else; and
this is the case with the Pomponne, although there are portraits by
others showing higher art.
No doubt there have been as handsome men, whose portraits were
engraved, but not so well. I know not if Pomponne was what would be
called a handsome man, although his air is noble and his countenance
bright; but among portraits more boldly, delicately, or elaborately
engraved, there are very few to contest the palm of beauty.[158]
And who is this handsome man to whom the engraver has given a lease
of fame? Son, nephew, and grandson of high dignitaries in Church
and State,--with two grandfathers Chancellors of France, two uncles
Archbishops, his father President of the Parliament of Paris and
Councillor of State,--himself at the head of the magistracy of France,
First President of Parliament, according to an inscription on the
engraving, _Senatus Galliarum Princeps_, Ambassador to Italy, Holland,
and England, charged in the last-named country by Cardinal Mazarin with
the impossible duty of making peace between the Long Parliament and
Charles the First, and at his death great benefactor of the General
Hospital of Paris, bestowing upon it riches and the very bed on which
he died. Such is the simple catalogue; and yet it is all forgotten.
A Funeral Panegyric pronounced at his death, now before me in the
original pamphlet of the time,[159] testifies to more than family or
office. In himself he was much, and not of those who, according to the
saying of Saint Bernard, “give out smoke rather than light.”[160] “Pure
glory and innocent riches”[161] were his; and he was the more precious
in the sight of all good men, that he showed himself incorruptible,
and not to be bought at any price. It were easy for him to have turned
a deluge of wealth into his house; but he knew that gifts insensibly
entangle,--that the specious pretext of gratitude is the snare in
which the greatest souls allow themselves to be caught,--that a man
covered with favors has difficulty in setting himself against injustice
in all its forms,--and that a magistrate divided between a sense of
obligations received and the care of the public interest, which he
ought always to promote, is a paralytic magistrate, a magistrate
deprived of a moiety of himself. So spoke the preacher, while he
portrayed a charity tender and effective for the wretched, a vehemence
just and inflexible toward the dishonest and wicked, and a sweetness
noble and beneficent for all; dwelling also on his countenance, which
had nothing of that severe and sour austerity that renders justice
to the good only as if with regret, and to the guilty only in anger;
then on his pleasant and gracious address, his intellectual and
charming conversation, his ready and judicious replies, his agreeable
and intelligible silence,--even his refusals being well received and
obliging,--while, amidst all the pomp and splendor accompanying him,
there shone in his eyes a certain air of sweetness and majesty, which
secured for him, and for justice itself, love as well as respect. His
benefactions were constant. Not content with merely giving, he gave
with a beautiful manner, still more rare. He could not abide beauty
of intelligence without goodness of soul; and he preferred always the
poor, having for them not only compassion, but a sort of reverence. He
knew that the way to take the poison from riches was to let the poor
taste of them. The sentiment of Christian charity for the poor, who
were to him in the place of children, was his last thought,--as witness
especially the General Hospital endowed by him, and represented by the
preacher as the greatest and most illustrious work ever undertaken by
charity the most heroic.
Thus lived and died the splendid Pomponne de Bellièvre, with no other
children than his works. Celebrated at the time by a Funeral Panegyric
now forgotten, and placed among the Illustrious Men of France in a
work remembered only for its engraved portraits,[162] his famous life
shrinks in the voluminous “Biographic Universelle” of Michaud to the
sixth part of a single page, and in the later “Biographic Générale”
of Didot disappears entirely. History forgets to mention him. But
the lofty magistrate, ambassador, and benefactor, founder of a great
hospital, cannot be entirely lost from sight so long as his portrait by
Nanteuil holds a place in Art.
Younger than Nanteuil by ten years, Gerard Edelinck excelled him
in genuine mastery. Born at Antwerp, he became French by adoption,
occupying apartments in the Gobelins, and enjoying a pension from Louis
the Fourteenth. Longhi says that he is “the engraver whose works, not
only in my opinion, but in that of the best judges, deserve the first
place among exemplars of the art”; and he attributes to him, “in a high
degree, design, chiaroscuro, aërial perspective, local tints, softness,
lightness, variety, in short everything which can form the most exact
representation of the true and beautiful without the aid of color.”
Others may have surpassed him in particular things, but, according to
the Italian teacher, “he still remains by common consent the prince of
engraving.”[163] Another critic calls him “king.”
It requires no remarkable knowledge to recognize his great merits.
Evidently he is a master, exercising sway with absolute art, and
without attempt to bribe the eye by special effects of light, as on
metal or satin. Among his conspicuous productions is _The Tent of
Darius_, a large engraving on two sheets, after Le Brun, where the
family of the Persian monarch prostrate themselves before Alexander,
who approaches with Hephæstion. There is also a _Holy Family_, after
Raphael, and _The Battle of the Standard_, after Leonardo da Vinci. But
these are less interesting than his numerous portraits, among which
that of Philippe de Champagne is the chief masterpiece; and there
are others of signal merit, including especially Madame Helyot, or
_La belle Religieuse_, a beautiful French coquette praying before a
crucifix; Martin van den Bogaert (Des Jardins,) the sculptor; Frédéric
Léonard, Printer to the King; Mouton, the Lute-Player; Nathanael
Dilgerus, with a venerable beard white with age; Jules Hardouin
Mansart, the architect; also a portrait of Pomponne de Bellièvre, which
will be found among the prints of Perrault’s “Illustrious Men.”
The Philippe de Champagne is the head of that eminent French artist
after a painting by himself, and it contests the palm with the
Pomponne. Mr. Marsh, who is an authority, prefers it. Dr. Thies, who
places the latter first in beauty, is constrained to allow that the
other is “superior as a work of the graver,” being executed with all
the resources of the art in its chastest form. The enthusiasm of Longhi
finds expression in unusual praise:--
“The work which goes most to my blood, and of which Edelinck
himself was justly proud, is the portrait of Champagne. I
shall die before I cease often to contemplate it with ever new
wonder. Here is seen how he was equally great as designer and
engraver.”[164]
And he then dwells on various details,--the bones, the skin, the flesh,
the eyes living and seeing, the moistened lips, the chin covered with a
beard unshaven for many days, and the hair in all its forms.
Between the rival portraits by Nanteuil and Edelinck it is unnecessary
to decide. Each is beautiful. In looking at them we recognize anew
the transient honors of public service. The present fame of Champagne
surpasses that of Pomponne. The artist outlives the magistrate. But
does not the poet tell us that “the artist never dies”?
As Edelinck passed from the scene the family of Drevet appeared,
especially the son, Pierre Imbert Drevet, born in 1697, who developed a
rare excellence, improving even upon the technics of his predecessor,
and gilding his refined gold. The son was born engraver, for at the age
of thirteen he produced an engraving of exceeding merit. Like Masson
he manifested a singular skill in rendering different substances by
the effect of light, and at the same time gave to flesh a softness and
transparency which remain unsurpassed. To these he added great richness
in picturing costumes and drapery, especially in lace.
He was eminently a portrait engraver, which I must insist is the
highest form of the art, as the human face is the most important object
for its exercise. Less clear and simple than Nanteuil, and less severe
than Edelinck, he gave to the face individuality of character, and made
his works conspicuous in Art. If there was excess in the accessories,
it was before the age of _Sartor Resartus_, and he only followed the
prevailing style in the popular paintings of Hyacinthe Rigaud. Art in
all its forms had become florid, if not meretricious; and Drevet was a
representative of his age.
Among his works are important masterpieces. I name only Bossuet,
the famed _Eagle of Meaux_; Samuel Bernard, the rich Councillor of
State; Fénelon, the persuasive teacher and writer; Cardinal Dubois,
the unprincipled minister and favorite of the Regent of France; and
Adrienne Le Couvreur, the beautiful and unfortunate actress, linked
in love with Marshal Saxe. The portrait of Bossuet has everything to
attract and charm. There stands the powerful defender of the Catholic
Church, master of French style, and most renowned pulpit orator of
France, in episcopal robes, with abundant lace, which is the perpetual
envy of the fair who look at this transcendent effort. The ermine of
Dubois is exquisite; but the general effect of this portrait does not
compare with the Bossuet, next to which, in fascination, I put the
Adrienne. At her death the actress could not be buried in consecrated
ground; but through Art she has the perpetual companionship of the
greatest bishop of France.
* * * * *
With the younger Drevet closed the classical period of portraits
in engraving, as just before had closed the Augustan age of French
literature. Louis the Fourteenth decreed engraving a Fine Art, and
established an Academy for its cultivation. Pride and ostentation in
the king and the great aristocracy created a demand, which the genius
of the age supplied. The heights that had been reached could not be
maintained. There were eminent engravers still, but the zenith had been
passed. Balechou, who belonged to the reign of Louis the Fifteenth,
and Beauvarlet, whose life was protracted beyond the Reign of Terror,
both produced portraits of merit. The former is noted for a certain
clearness and brilliancy, but with a hardness as of brass or marble,
and without entire accuracy of design; the latter has much softness of
manner. They were the best artists of France at the time, but none of
their portraits are famous. To these may be added another contemporary
artist, without predecessor or successor, Étienne Ficquet, unduly
disparaged in one of the dictionaries as “a reputable French engraver,”
but undoubtedly remarkable for small portraits, not unlike miniatures,
of exquisite finish. Among these the rarest and most admired are La
Fontaine, Madame de Maintenon, Rubens, and Van Dyck.
Two other engravers belong to this intermediate period, although not
French in origin,--Georg Friedrich Schmidt, born at Berlin, 1712, and
Johann Georg Wille, born near the small town of Königsberg, in the
Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1717, but, attracted to Paris, they
became the greatest engravers of the time. Their work is French, and
they are the natural development of that classical school.
Schmidt was the son of a poor weaver, and lost six precious years as a
soldier in the artillery at Berlin. Owing to the smallness of his size
he was at length dismissed, when he surrendered to a natural talent for
engraving. Arriving at Strasburg, on his way to Paris, he fell in with
Wille, who joined him in his journey, and eventually in his studies.
The productions of Schmidt show ability, originality, and variety,
rather than taste. His numerous portraits are excellent, being free
and life-like, while the accessories of embroidery and drapery are
rendered with effect. As an etcher he ranks next after Rembrandt. Of
his portraits executed with the graver, that of the Empress Elizabeth
of Russia is usually called the most important, perhaps on account
of the imperial theme,--and next, those of Count Rasoumowsky, Count
Esterhazy, and Mounsey, Court Physician, which he engraved while in
St. Petersburg, whither he was called by the Empress, founding there
the Academy of Engraving. But his real masterpieces are unquestionably
Pierre Mignard and La Tour, French painters, the latter represented
laughing.
Wille lived to old age, not dying till 1808. During this long life he
was active in the art to which he inclined naturally. His mastery of
the graver was perfect, lending itself especially to the representation
of satin and metal, although less happy with flesh. His _Satin Gown_,
or _L’Instruction Paternelle_, after Terburg, and _Les Musiciens
Ambulants_, after Dietrich, are always admired. Nothing of the kind
in engraving is finer. His style was adapted to pictures of the Dutch
school, and to portraits with rich surroundings. Of the latter the
principal are Comte de Saint-Florentin, Marquis Poisson de Marigny,
Jean de Boullongne, and Cardinal de Tencin.
* * * * *
Especially eminent was Wille as a teacher. Under his influence the art
assumed new life, so that he became father of the modern school. His
scholars spread everywhere, and among them are acknowledged masters.
He was teacher of Bervic, whose portrait of Louis the Sixteenth in his
coronation robes is of a high order, himself teacher of the Italian
Toschi, who, after an eminent career, died as late as 1858; also
teacher of P. A. Tardieu, himself teacher of the brilliant Desnoyers,
whose portrait of the Emperor Napoleon in his coronation robes is the
fit complement to that of Louis the Sixteenth; also teacher of the
German, J. G. von Müller, himself father and teacher of J. F. W. von
Müller, engraver of the Sistine Madonna, in a plate whose great fame is
not above its merit; also teacher of the Italian Vangelisti, himself
teacher of the unsurpassed Longhi, in whose school were Anderloni and
Jesi. Thus not only by his works, but by his famous scholars, did the
humble gunsmith gain sway in Art.
Among portraits of this school deserving especial mention is that of
King Jerome of Westphalia, brother of Napoleon, by the two Müllers
above named, where the genius of the artists is most conspicuous,
although the subject contributes little. As in the case of the Palace
of the Sun, described by Ovid, “_materiam superabat opus_.”[165] This
work is a beautiful example of skill in representation of fur and lace,
not yielding even to Drevet.
Longhi was a universal master, and his portraits are only part of
his work. That of Washington, which is rare, is evidently founded on
Stuart’s painting, but after a design of his own, which is now in the
possession of the Swiss Consul at Venice. The artist particularizes
the hair, as being modelled after the French master Masson.[166] The
portraits of Michel Angelo and Dandolo, the venerable Doge of Venice,
are admired; so also is the _Napoleon_ as King of Italy, with the
iron crown and finest lace. But his chief portrait is that of Eugène
Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, full length, remarkable for the plume in
the cap, which is finished with surpassing skill.
* * * * *
Contemporary with Longhi was another Italian engraver of
widely extended fame, who was not the product of the French
school,--Raffaello Morghen, born at Portici in 1761. His works have
enjoyed a popularity beyond those of other masters, partly from the
interest of their subjects, and partly from their soft and captivating
style, although they do not possess the graceful power of Nanteuil and
Edelinck, and are without variety. He was scholar and son-in-law of
Volpato, of Rome, himself scholar of Wagner, of Venice, whose homely
round faces were not high models in Art. The _Aurora_ of Guido and the
_Last Supper_ of Leonardo da Vinci stand high in engraving, especially
the latter, which occupied Morghen three years. Of his two hundred
and fifty-four works no less than eighty-five are portraits, among
which are the Italian poets,--Dante, Petrarc, Ariosto, Tasso, also
Boccaccio,--and a head called Raphael, but supposed to be that of Bindo
Altoviti, the great painter’s friend,[167] and especially the Duke of
Moncada on horseback, after Van Dyck, which has received warm praise.
But none of his portraits is calculated to give greater pleasure than
that of Leonardo da Vinci, which may vie in beauty even with the famous
Pomponne. Here is the beauty of years and of serene intelligence.
Looking at that tranquil countenance, it is easy to imagine the large
and various capacities which made him not only painter, but sculptor,
architect, musician, poet, discoverer, philosopher, even predecessor of
Galileo and Bacon. Such a character deserves the immortality of Art.
Happily, an old Venetian engraving, reproduced in our day,[168] enables
us to see this same countenance at an earlier period of life with
sparkle in the eye.
Raffaello Morghen left no scholars who have followed him in portraits;
but his own works are still regarded, and a monument in Santa Croce,
the Westminster Abbey of Florence, places him among the mighty dead of
Italy.
* * * * *
Thus far nothing has been said of English engravers. Here, as in Art
generally, England seems removed from the rest of the world,--“_Et
penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos_.”[169] But though beyond
the sphere of Continental Art, the island of Shakespeare was not
inhospitable to some of its representatives. Van Dyck, Rubens, Sir
Peter Lely, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, all Dutch artists, painted the
portraits of Englishmen, and engraving was first illustrated by
foreigners. Jacob Houbraken, another Dutch artist, born in 1698, was
employed to execute portraits for Birch’s “Heads of Illustrious Persons
of Great Britain,” published at London in 1743; and in these works may
be seen the æsthetic taste inherited from his father, (the biographer
of the Dutch artists,[170]) and improved by study of the French
masters. Although without great force or originality of manner, many
of these have positive beauty. I would name especially the _Sir Walter
Raleigh_ and _John Dryden_.
Different in style was Bartolozzi, the Italian, who made his home in
England for forty years, ending in 1805, when he removed to Lisbon.
The considerable genius which he possessed was spoiled by haste in
execution, superseding that care which is an essential condition of
Art. Hence sameness in his work, and indifference to the picture he
copied. Longhi speaks of him as “most unfaithful to his archetypes,”
and, “whatever the originals, being always Bartolozzi.”[171] Among
his portraits of especial interest are several old wigs, as Mansfield
and Thurlow; also the _Death of Chatham_, after the picture of Copley
in the Vernon Gallery. But his prettiest piece undoubtedly is _Mary,
Queen of Scots, with her little Son, James the First_, after what Mrs.
Jameson calls “the lovely picture by Zuccaro at Chiswick.”[172] In the
same style are his vignettes, which are of acknowledged beauty.
Meanwhile a Scotchman, honorable in Art, comes upon the scene,--Sir
Robert Strange, born in the distant Orkneys in 1721, who abandoned
the law for engraving. As a youthful Jacobite he joined the Pretender
in 1745, sharing the disaster of Culloden, and owing his safety from
pursuers to a young lady dressed in the ample costume of the period,
whom he afterwards married in gratitude, and they were both happy. He
has a style of his own, rich, soft, and especially charming in the
tints of flesh, making him a natural translator of Titian. His most
celebrated engravings are doubtless the _Venus_ and the _Danaë_ after
the great Venetian colorist; but the _Cleopatra_, though less famous,
is not inferior in merit. His acknowledged masterpiece is the Madonna
of St. Jerome, called “_The Day_,” after the picture by Correggio in
the Gallery of Parma; but his portraits after Van Dyck are not less
fine, while they are more interesting,--as Charles the First, with a
large hat, by the side of his horse, which the Marquis of Hamilton is
holding; and that of the same monarch standing in his ermine robes;
also the three royal children, with two King Charles spaniels at their
feet; also Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles. That with the ermine
robes is supposed to have been studied by Raffaello Morghen, called
sometimes an imitator of Strange.[173] To these I would add the rare
autograph portrait of the engraver, being a small head after Greuzé,
which is simple and beautiful.
One other name will close this catalogue. It is that of William Sharp,
who was born at London in 1746, and died there in 1824. Though last in
order, this engraver may claim kindred with the best. His first essays
were the embellishment of pewter pots, from which he ascended to the
heights of Art, showing a power rarely equalled. Without any instance
of peculiar beauty, his works are constant in character and expression,
with every possible excellence of execution: face, form, drapery,--all
are as in Nature. His splendid qualities appear in the _Doctors of the
Church_, which has taken its place as the first of English engravings.
It is after the picture of Guido, once belonging to the Houghton
Gallery, which in an evil hour for English taste was allowed to enrich
the collection of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg; and I remember
well that this engraving by Sharp was one of the few ornaments in
the drawing-room of Macaulay when I last saw him, shortly before his
lamented death. Next to the _Doctors of the Church_ is his _Lear in
the Storm_, after the picture by West, now in the Boston Athenæum, and
his _Sortie from Gibraltar_, after the picture by Trumbull, also in
the Boston Athenæum. Thus, through at least two of his masterpieces
whose originals are among us, is our country associated with this great
artist.
It is of portraits especially that I write, and here Sharp is truly
eminent. All he did was well done; but two are models,--that of
Mr. Boulton, a strong, well-developed country gentleman, admirably
executed, and of John Hunter, the eminent surgeon, after the
painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the London College of Surgeons,
unquestionably the foremost portrait in English Art, and the coëqual
companion of the great portraits in the past; but here the engraver
united his rare gifts with those of the painter.
* * * * *
In closing these sketches I would have it observed that this is no
attempt to treat of engraving generally, or of prints in their mass or
types. The present subject is simply Portraits, and I stop now just as
we arrive at contemporary examples, abroad and at home, with the gentle
genius of Mandel beginning to ascend the sky, and our own engravers
appearing on the horizon. There is also a new and kindred art, infinite
in value, where the Sun himself becomes artist, with works which mark
an epoch.
WASHINGTON, 11th Dec., 1871.
* * * * *
NOTE.--When Mr. Sumner began the publication of his Works in
1870, he engaged Mr. George Nichols, of Cambridge, to read the
proofs editorially. This Mr. Nichols did, with great care and
ability, until about ten days before his death, which occurred
on the 6th of July, 1882. His work of supervision ended on p.
334 of this volume.