A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools

Libri, Girolamo dai (see under 748).

Virgin and Child (44): picture, S. Giorgio, Verona.

Leonardo da Vinci (see under 1093).

Virgin and Child: fresco, St. Onofrio, Rome.

Lippi, Fra Filippo (see under 666).

Virgin and Child (34): picture, Uffizi, Florence.

Virgin and Child (100): picture, Belle Arti, Florence.

[This is one of the four pictures selected by Mr. Ruskin for his series of "Lesson Photographs." – See Fors Clavigera, 1875, pp. 307-310; 1876, p. 187.]

Burial of St. Stephen (238): fresco, cathedral of Prato.

Heads from frescoes (157, 170): " " "

Lippi, Filippino (see under 293).

Virgin and Child (66): fresco, cathedral, Prato.

Vision of S. Bernard (1): altar-piece, Badia, Florence.

Glorification of St. Thomas Aquinas, two heads from: fresco (157); Cappella, Carafa, S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome.

[For a description of this remarkable fresco, "barbarously restored and repainted in 1874," see Kugler's Italian Schools of Painting, i. 160.]

St. Peter delivered from prison: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter and St. Paul before Nero, and Martyrdom of St. Peter: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter visited by St. Paul: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[See also Masaccio and Masolino; the Arundel Society's ascriptions are here followed, but the ascription of these frescoes to one or other of the three artists, Filippino Lippi, Masaccio, and Masolino is doubtful.]

Lorenzetti, Pietro (see under 1113).

The Deposition (29): fresco, lower church, Assisi.

Good Government: frescoes, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

Lorenzo, Fiorenzo di (see under 1103).

Events in the Life of St. Bernardino (30, 229, 230): pictures, Pinacoteca, Perugia.

Luini (see under 18).

Ippolita Sforza in prayer, with attendant saints (74): fresco, S. Maurizio, Milan.

Donor and Saints (266): fresco, S. Maurizio, Milan.

St. Catherine (268): fresco, Santuario della Madonna, Saronno.

St. Apollonia (260): " " "

Head of an Attendant (125): " " "

Head of the Virgin (117): " " "

Marriage of the Virgin: " " "

Adoration of the Magi: " " "

Christ among the Doctors: " " "

Presentation: " " "

Madonna and Child (160): fresco, S. Maria degli Angioli, Lugano.

[In a side chapel to the right of the entrance. "One of the loveliest little pictures in Italy. It is dated 1530, and is probably the last work which the golden hand of Luini bequeathed to the world." – Lund's Como and Italian Lake-land, p. 432.]

Mantegna (see under 274).

The Histories of SS. James and Christopher (38, 42, 227, 230, 236, 239); frescoes, Eremitani Chapel, Padua.

[The most important works of Mantegna's youth. "His early frescoes in the Eremitani look as though they had been painted from statues or clay models, carefully selected for the grandeur of their forms, the nobility of their attitudes, and the complicated beauty of their drapery." – Symonds: Renaissance, iii. 197.]

Masaccio (Florentine: 1401-1428).

St. Peter and St. John giving alms: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter and St. John healing the sick: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter preaching: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

The Expulsion from Paradise: " " "

The Tribute Money: " " "

St. Peter and St. Paul raising the King's son: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

Homage of St. Peter: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[For Masaccio, as the first "naturalist" in landscape, see Ruskin's notices of the frescoes in Modern Painters, vols. i. and iii.]

Masolino (Florentine: 1383-1447).

The History of the Baptist (119, 127, 169, 211): frescoes, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

The Prophet Isaiah (167): fresco, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

The Temptation: fresco, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

St. Peter and St. John raising Petronilla: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, known as Masolino da Panicale, from the place of his birth, is supposed to have been the teacher of Masaccio. He was for some time in the service of Cardinal Branda Castiglione. These frescoes, on one of which he inscribed his name, were executed 1426-1437. They "indicate a careful study of nature, though the type of composition is still that of the 14th century."]

Meister Wilhelm (see under 687).

Virgin and Child (104): picture, collection Archbp. of Cologne.

Memlinc (see under 686).

Panels from Triptych (105): Hospital St. John, Bruges.

Crucifixion (106): triptych, Lübeck Cathedral.

Memmi, Simone (Sienese: born 1283).

Annunciation (78): picture, Louvre, Paris.

Death-bed of St. Martin (277): fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

Investiture of St. Martin: fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

St. Martin renouncing the Emperor's service (124): fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

[The real name of this Sienese painter was Simone Martini. He is celebrated by Petrarch: "I have known two painters," he writes, "talented both and excellent, Giotto of Florence and Simone of Siena."]

Michael Angelo (see under 790).

Delphic Sibyl (20): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

Persic Sibyl (262): " " "

Ezekiel (17): " " "

Jeremiah (16): " " "

[For Ruskin's criticism of these frescoes, see (among other places) Ariadne Florentina, ch. iv.]

Montagna (see under 802).

St. John Baptist and St. Benedict (6): picture, SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Verona.

SS. Nazzaro e Celso (8): picture, SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Verona.

St. Blaise led to execution: " " "

Morando (see under 735).

The Deposition (80): picture, Municipal Museum, Verona.

Pacchiarotto (see under 1849).

St. Catherine and St. Agnes (10): fresco, oratory of S. Catherine, Siena.

Palma Vecchio (see under 636).

Virgin and Child (212): picture, church S. Stefano, Vicenza.

[S. Lucia stands on the left; on the right, St. George in armour with his banner – a grand figure recalling the S. Liberale in Giorgione's picture at Castelfranco. One of Palma's finest works.]

Perugino (see under 288).

Christ's charge to Peter (56): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

Baptism of Christ (181): " " "

Moses and the Angel (197): " " "

[Attributed by Morelli to Pinturicchio: see German Galleries, p. 264.]

Adoration of the Magi (96): fresco, S. Maria de' Bianchi, Città della Pieve.

Crucifixion (5): fresco, S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, Florence.

Marriage of the Virgin (73): fresco, Convent of S. Girolamo, Spello.

Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (28): fresco, chapel of convent at Panicale.

Nativity and Adoration (7): fresco S. Francesco del Monte, Perugia.

The Transfiguration (4): fresco, Sala del Cambio, Perugia.

Peruzzi (see under 218).

Augustus and the Sibyl (250): fresco, church of Fonte Giusta, Siena.

[Peruzzi imparted to this picture, says Lanzi, "such a divine enthusiasm that Raffaelle himself never surpassed him in his treatment of this subject."]

Pinturicchio (see under 693).

Glorification of St. Bernardino (186): fresco, church of Aracoeli, Rome.

Burial of St. Bernardino (130): fresco, church of Aracoeli, Rome.

["Somewhat slight and hard in execution, but full of expression and individual life." – Kugler.]

Betrothal of Frederick III. (75): fresco, Piccolomini Library, Siena.

Piccolomini receiving a Cardinal's hat (71): fresco, Piccolomini Library, Siena.

A drawing of the interior of the Piccolomini Library, showing Pinturicchio's frescoes (43).

The Nativity (82): fresco, S. Maria del Popolo, Rome.

St. Catherine of Alexandria (59): fresco, Appartamenti Borgia, Vatican.

Virgin in Glory (3): altar-piece at Monte Oliveto.

Annunciation: fresco, Cathedral, Spello.

Nativity: " ""

Christ among the doctors: ""

Pordenone (see 272).

Adoration of the Magi (176): fresco, castle of Coll' Alto, near Conegliano.

Flight into Egypt (225): fresco, castle of Coll' Alto, near Conegliano.

Raphael (see under 1171).

Philosophy (22): fresco, in one of the Stanze, Vatican.

Poetry (25): " " "

Poets on Mt. Parnassus (21): " "

St. Peter delivered from Prison (19): "

Theology (23): " " "

Justice (26): " " "

Expulsion of Heliodorus (213): " "

Mass of Bolsena (121): " "

[These frescoes, in one of the chambers of the Vatican, are those by which, according to Ruskin, Raphael "wrote upon its walls the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin of the Arts of Christianity." See Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 213, 214.]

The Four Sibyls (63): fresco, S. Maria della Pace, Rome.

Roman Wall Painting.

The Nursing of Bacchus (13): Farnesina Gardens, Rome.

Romanino (see under 297).

Visit of Christian II., King of Denmark, in 1475 to Bartolomeo Colleoni (58, 182, 188, 228, 234, 240): frescoes, Castle of Malpaga, near Bergamo.

["There is perhaps no edifice of the kind which gives so complete an idea of the residence of a great Italian nobleman in the middle ages." The frescoes are fully described in Mr. Oscar Browning's Life of Bartolomeo Colleoni, published by the Arundel Society in 1891. "These pictures are extremely interesting as showing the manners and customs of the time; and we cannot but feel that an age which could have crowded into so short a space so many scenes replete with life and colour, with dignity and magnificence, must be worthy of our study. Romanino, the reputed author of the frescoes, was born ten years after the events which they portray. He must, therefore, have worked from the family records of what occurred, although in his own age the life of chivalry was not altogether dead. It is more probable, however, that they were executed by one of his pupils."]

Rosselli, Cosimo (Florentine: 1439-1507).

Worship of the Golden Calf (135): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

The Last Supper (184): " " "

Passage of the Red Sea (192): " " "

Sermon on the Mount (198): " " "

[The latter is the most successful. The landscape and perhaps other parts are by his pupil, Piero di Cosimo. To Rosselli was formerly attributed No. 227 in our Gallery.]

Santi, Giovanni (see under 751).

Nativity and Resurrection (4): fresco, St. Domenico, Cagli.

Sarto, Andrea del (see under 690).

The Last Supper (122): fresco, S. Salvi, Florence.

[A celebrated work in a convent, now a lunatic asylum, near Florence: commissioned in 1519, finished in 1527. Described and highly praised by Vasari (iii. 224), who says that the beauty of the fresco saved the convent from destruction during the siege of Florence in 1529-30.]

Charity (94): fresco, cloisters of Campagnia dello Scalzo, Florence.

[This fresco is the subject of an interesting dissertation by Max Müller, published by the Fine Art Society, 1887.]

St. John Baptist preaching (93): fresco, cloisters of Campagnia dello Scalzo, Florence.

Birth of the Virgin (51): fresco, Annunziata, Florence.

Procession of the Magi (33): fresco, Annunziata, Florence.

St. Filippo Benizzi (52): " " "

Madonna del Saco: " " "

Signorelli (see under 1128).

Scenes from Life of Moses (60): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

St. Benedict receiving the true King Totila (144): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

St. Benedict receiving the false King Totila (257): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

[For a description of these frescoes at Monte Oliveto, see Maud Cruttwell's Luca Signorelli, p. 58.]

The Crowning of the Elect (165): fresco, cathedral, Orvieto.

Portraits of Dante and Virgil (from the same): " "

[For a description of these see Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto, p. 43, etc.]

Sodoma (see under 1144).

Presentation of SS. Placidas and Maurus to St. Benedict (233): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

St. Benedict Preaching (98): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

Christ (12): fresco, convent of S. Anna, near Siena.

Christ bound to the Column (61): picture, Academy, Siena.

Swoon of St. Catherine (69): fresco, S. Domenico, Siena.

Vision of St. Catherine (64): " " "

Presentation of the Virgin (263): fresco, S. Bernardino, Siena.

Tiepolo (see under 1192).

Anthony and Cleopatra (162, 168): frescoes, Palazzo Labia, Venice.

[The best of Tiepolo's works. "His frescoes in the Palazzo Labia, representing the embarkation of Anthony and Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and their famous banquet at Canopus, are worthy to be classed with the finest decorative work of Paolo Veronese." – J. A. Symonds: Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889.]

Timoteo della Vite (Ferrarese: 1469-1523).

The Magdalen (265): picture, Pinacoteca, Bologna.

[By the first master of Raphael. The picture is mentioned by Vasari (iii. 114): "She is standing upright, her vestment is a short mantle, but the figure is covered principally with the long hair, which falls to her feet; and this is so beautiful and natural that, while observing it, one cannot but fancy that the light silky tresses are stirred by the wind. The countenance, also, has the most divine beauty of expression, and clearly exhibits the love which this Saint bore to her Lord."]

Titian (see under 4).

Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua (14, 133): frescoes, Scuola del Santo, Padua.

Tura, Cosimo (see under 772).

Triumph of Venus (112): fresco, Schifanoia Palace, Ferrara.

Triumph of Minerva (129): " " "

Unknown Painter.

Richard II. before the Madonna (27): picture, Wilton House.

Vasco, Fernandez ("Gran Vasco") (Portuguese: born 1552).

St. Peter enthroned as Pope (48): picture, sacristy of the cathedral, Vizen, Portugal.

Veronese, Paolo (see under 26).

Allegorical Subjects, "Justice," "Temperance," etc. (15, 18, 155, 156): frescoes, Villa Giacomelli, Masèr.

[This villa, built by Palladio for Daniele Barbara in 1580, is reached from Cornuda, a station on the line between Treviso and Belluno. It contains some of Veronese's most beautiful wall-paintings.]

Viterbo, Lorenzo di (painted 1648).

Betrothal of the Virgin (67): fresco, S. Maria della Verita, Viterbo.

Presentation: fresco, S. Maria della Verita, Viterbo.

There is also a copy, presented by Mrs. Bywater, of Domenico Veneziano's "Madonna and Child" (No. 1215).

SCULPTURES AND MARBLES

Many of the sculptures belonging to the National Gallery have been removed to the Hall of Sculpture at the Tate Gallery or to the National Portrait Gallery. Among those that remain in Trafalgar Square are: —

"The Dying Alexander" (in the Vestibule). – A Renaissance copy in Egyptian porphyry of the bust, in the Uffizi at Florence, known as "The Dying Alexander." The bust is now generally recognised as the work of a Pergamene sculptor, and is supposed to represent a youthful giant. The influence of the "Alexander type" is in any case noticeable in this fine work; a type embodying "the traces of human passion, the imperfection of human longing, the divine despair, which attach to the highest mortal natures because they are high and because they are mortal." – Presented by Mr. Henry Yates Thompson.

Bust of Mantegna. – A plaster cast from the bust of Mantegna in the Mantegna Chapel at Mantua: see the description quoted under 274. – Presented by Mr. Henry Vaughan.

1

The Tate Gallery is ten minutes' drive or twenty minutes' walk from Trafalgar Square. It is reached in a straight line by Whitehall, Parliament Street, past the Houses of Parliament, Millbank Street, and Grosvenor Road.

2

Mr. Ruskin himself was converted by the acquisition of the great Perugino (No. 288). In congratulating the Trustees on their acquisition of this "noble picture," he wrote: "It at once, to my mind, raises our National Gallery from a second-rate to a first-rate collection. I have always loved the master, and given much time to the study of his works; but this is the best I have ever seen" (Notes on the Turner Gallery, p. 89 n.).

3

See, for instance, Nos. 10, 61, 193, 195, 479 and 498, 757, 790, 896, 1131, and 1171.

4

The exterior of the building is not generally considered an architectural success, and the ugliness of the dome is almost proverbial. But it should be remembered that the original design included the erection of suitable pieces of sculpture – such as may be seen in old engravings of the Gallery, made from the architect's drawings – on the still vacant pedestals.

5

The several extensions of the Gallery are shown in the plan on a later page.

6

The total number should thus be 28; but in the reconstruction four smaller rooms were thrown into two larger ones. The plan thus shows 25 numbered rooms and one called the "Dome."

7

This sum only includes amounts paid out of Parliamentary grants or other National Gallery funds or special contributions.

8

In 1894, however, an alteration was made in the Minute, and the responsibility for purchases was vested in the Director and the Trustees jointly.

9

Sir William Gregory relates in his Autobiography the following story: "In 1884, when the Trustees were endeavouring to secure some of the pre-eminently fine Rubenses from the Duke of Marlborough, Alfred Rothschild met me in St. James's Street, and said, 'If you think the Blenheim Rubenses are more important than your Dutch pictures to the Gallery, and that you cannot get the money from the Government, I am prepared to give you £250,000 for the Peel pictures; and I will hold good to this offer till the day after to-morrow.'"

10

Of the 1170 pieces thus unaccounted for (the total number belonging to the Trustees being roughly 2870) the greater number are at Millbank. Others are on loan to provincial institutions (see App. II.).

11

With this object in view, several of them have been published with descriptive letterpress by Mr. Sydney Vacher.

12

These contrasts were worked out and illustrated by Mr. Grant Allen in his papers on "The Evolution of Italian Art" in the Pall Mall Magazine for 1895.

13

See Raphael's Madonnas, by Karl Károly, 1894.

14

Ruskin's Modern Painters is of course the great book on this subject. The evolution of "Landscape in Art" has been historically treated by Mr. Josiah Gilbert in a work thus entitled, which contains numerous illustrations from the National Gallery.

15

My references to this book are to the new edition of 1897.

16

It should be noted that the Italian terms quattro-cento and cinque-cento correspond with our fifteenth (1400-1500) and sixteenth (1500-1600) centuries respectively.

17

Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 124. My references to this work are to Mrs. Richter's translation, 1883; in the case of Morelli's Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries in Rome, they are to Miss Ffoulkes's translation, 1892.

18

Well said: but it remains to be asked, whether the "grace" sought is modest, or wanton: affectionate, or licentious (J. R.).

19

Not by its own natural course or decay; but by the political and moral ruin of the cities by whose virtue it had been taught, and in whose glory it had flourished. The analysis of the decline of religious faith quoted below does not enough regard the social and material mischief which accompanied that decline (J. R.)

20

See Dante, Inferno xxix. 121. There was, moreover, in Siena a "Prodigal Club," and a poet of the day wrote a series of sonnets (translated by D. G. Rossetti) "Unto the blithe and lordly fellowship."

21

History of the Renaissance in Italy, iii. 161.

22

See for Correggio's connection with the Ferrarese-Bolognese School, Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 120-124.

23

With the pictures of Venice, those of many neighbouring towns – Brescia, Bergamo, Treviso, and Verona – are associated. All these local schools have certain peculiarities of their own, and some of them are well represented here. Nowhere, for instance, out of Brescia itself can the Brescian School be so well studied as in the National Gallery. But above these local peculiarities there are common characteristics in the work of all these schools which they share with that of Venice. It is only these common characteristics that can here be noticed. (Some interesting remarks by Dr. Richter, on the independence of the Veronese School, will be found in The Art Journal, February 1895.)

24

It should, however, be remembered that "before the Venetian School of painting had got much beyond a lisp, Venetian artists were already expressing themselves strikingly and beautifully in stone, in architectural and sculptural works" (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 5).

25

Now ascribed, however, to Catena.

26

The earlier Paduan School, represented in the National Gallery by № 701, was only an offshoot from the Florentine.

27

It was this false striving after "the ideal," as Mr. Symonds points out, that caused Reynolds, with his obsolete doctrine about the nature of "the grand style," to admire the Bolognese masters. For Reynolds's statement of his doctrine see his Discourses, ii. and iii., and his papers in the Idler (Nos. 79 and 82); for Ruskin's destructive criticism of it, see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. i. – iii.

28

The realism and the morbid taint in the religious pictures of the Italian decadence were in some measure the direct outcome of ecclesiastical teaching. "Depict well the flaying of St. Bartholomew," said a Jesuit father, "it may win hearts to piety." The comment of Shelley on the Bolognese Schools was this: "Why write books against religion when we may hang up such pictures?"

29

Sir W. M. Conway: Early Flemish Artists and their Predecessors on the Lower Rhine, 1887.

30

The letters often found on pictures, which for a long time excited the curiosity and imagination of critics, are now fully explained as the initials not of the painters but of the patrons (see Wauters: The Flemish School, p. 61).

31

This statement, like all others in so short and general a summary as alone can be here attempted, is of course only broadly true.

32

It is interesting to note that this spirit of anti-religious revolt is what fascinated Heine in Dutch pictures. "In the house I lodged at in Leyden there once lived," he says, "the great Jan Steen, whom I hold to be as great as Raphael. Even as a sacred painter Jan was as great, and that will be clearly seen when the religion of sorrow has passed away… How often, during my stay, did I think myself back for whole hours into the household scenes in which the excellent Jan must have lived and suffered. Many a time I thought I saw him bodily, sitting at his easel, now and then grasping the great jug, 'reflecting and therewith drinking, and then again drinking without reflecting.' It was no gloomy Catholic spectre that I saw, but a modern bright spirit of joy, who after death still visited his old workroom to paint many pictures and to drink" (Heine's Prose Writings, Camelot Series, p. 67).