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

215

By Mr. Berenson to "Amico di Sandro."

216

"The figures are ill-proportioned and want expression and character. They are more probably by a scholar or imitator" (Layard's Kugler, vol. i. p. 289).

217

Critics of the modern school assert that the picture was not executed by Botticelli, even if it was designed by him; it bears, they say, "no trace of his style" (see, e. g., Richter's Lectures and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento). Ruskin was on the same side: "I hope you know Botticelli well enough," he wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray (February 14, 1873), "not to think you'll have to copy stuff like that arms-akimbo thing. By the way, what have they all got, like truncheons? They look like a lot of opera-directors." Dr. Uhlmann in his work on Botticelli ascribes the picture to Botticini; Vasari, he thinks, confused the two painters, – a theory for which there is no sort of proof. There is only one work of Botticini which has been identified with certainty. It is at Empoli, and was executed in 1490, or fifteen years at least before this picture. Vasari's account is precise, and is confirmed, as we have seen, by historical records. Very convincing internal proofs are necessary to overthrow this external evidence. Where are such proofs? The idea of the picture is entirely in accordance with what we know of Botticelli. "The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest his invention" (Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 64). The case in this sense is very well put by Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy of January 9, 1892. He points out among other things that the picture agrees with the general spirit of Botticelli's designs for the "Paradiso."

218

Some account of the poem is given in an appendix to vol. v. of Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

219

The traveller will find a convenient handbook to these frescoes in Mr. J. L. Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto.

220

It came from the Hamilton sale (1882), and was bought for the small price of £157:10s.

221

Owing to the similarity of initials IVO the picture was ascribed by its former owner to Isaac van Ostade, who, however, died in 1649.

222

Materials for such comparison – which is not the least interesting of the many lines of study offered by a collection of pictures – are provided in Mrs. Jameson's books, or may be formed still better by every student for himself by a collection of photographs. A capital series of articles by Mr. Grant Allen in the Pall Mall Magazine of 1895 traced, in a few of the most popular subjects, the process of "Evolution in Early Italian Art."

223

Visitors to Venice will remember a beautiful use of this arrangement on the southern side of the Rialto, the Dove forming the keystone of the arch.

224

A piece of paper of the last century, glued to the back of this panel, contains a memorandum in now faded ink, in the handwriting of the great-grandfather of Signor G. Molfini (from whom the picture was bought in Genoa in 1883), to the following effect: – "Antonello of Messina, a city of Sicily, a famous painter… And this is his portrait, painted by himself, as was to be seen by an inscription below it which I, in order to reduce it (i. e. the picture) to a better shape, sawed away." Some traces of further writing are now illegible.

225

Ford Madox Brown, who was not one to be impressed by any authority, has some very scathing remarks on this picture: "Bad in colour, in drawing, in grouping, and in expression, with the figure of Jesus falling on its nose, this work seems to shine solely by reason of the varnish with which it has recently been so polished up" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 135).

226

He enumerates them in an official return of his property: "Further, I have a monkey, moreover, a raven which can talk, and which I keep by me in order that he may teach from his cage a theological jackass also to speak. Item: an owl to frighten the witches, two peacocks, two dogs, a sparrow-hawk, and other birds of prey, six fowls, eighteen chickens, two moor-fowl, and many other birds, to name all of which would only cause confusion."

227

According to Nonius Marcellus: "By old Roman law, brides used to bring three asses (pennies), and to give one, which they held in the hand, to the bridegroom, as though to purchase him; to place another, which they held in the foot, on the hearth of the family Lares; and to put the third in their pocket and rattle it at the next cross-road."

228

See, however, for some deductions afterwards made from this estimate, ibid. vol. iv. pt. v. ch. iii. §§ 6, 7.

229

Elsewhere Ruskin makes some exception in favour of Ary Scheffer: "Though one of the heads of the Mud sentiment school, he does draw and feel very beautifully and deeply" (Letters on Art and Literature, p. 37).

230

It was placed in their chapel in the church of S. Lorenzo in that city. There it remained till 1764, when it was bought for the Duke of Marlborough, and a copy replaced the original in the chapel.

231

This picture and Van Dyck's "Charles the First" (1172) were bought in 1884 from the Duke of Marlborough for £87,500. Sir F. Burton, the Director of the National Gallery, had valued them at £115,500 and £31,500 severally. I remember once hearing Mr. Gladstone refer to this matter. His economic conscience seemed to give him some qualms on the score of the unprecedented price. But he took comfort in the fact that, large as was the price actually paid, the price asked by the owner, as also the valuation of the Director, was very much larger. "At any rate," he said with a smile, "I saved the taxpayers £45,000 on this Raphael, by not listening to the advice of the Director of the Gallery." The purchase had been pressed upon the Government by all sorts and conditions of men. The Royal Academy memorialised Mr. Gladstone, and pleaded especially for the Raphael – "a work produced in that happy period in which the reverent purity and the serene grace of the master's earliest work are already mellowing into the fuller dignity of his middle style." The Trustees of the National Gallery declared that the purchase would at once raise the Collection to a rank second to none, and superior to most, of the great Continental Galleries; whilst a memorial from members of Parliament of all parties, after referring to the Raphael as the finest in point of colouring that ever came from his hand, assured Mr. Gladstone that "their constituents and the whole nation will approve and applaud" a departure from "the hard line of severe economy." It appears from The Life and Correspondence of Mr. Childers (ii. 163), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, that the purchase was first suggested by Queen Victoria.

232

Sir Edward Poynter. The luminous quality of the picture conquered Mr. Ruskin. After one of his last visits to the National Gallery, he said to me: "The new Raphael is certainly lovely – quite the loveliest Raphael in the world. The 'San Sisto' is dark and brown beside it."

233

In this matter of the open sky also the "Ansidei Madonna" is curiously transitional. "Raphael," says Ruskin (ibid. § 10), "in his fall, betrayed the faith he had received from his father and his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del Cardellino, the chamber-wall of the Madonna della Sediola, and the brown wainscot of the Baldacchino." Here we have both – the Baldacchino and the open sky behind.

234

Mr. Monkhouse suggests alternative explanations. Who is the figure on the throne? "Is he meant for some intellectual Dives, learning too late that happiness exists not in luxury or knowledge? Is he the poet, musing in sadness and mental solitude on the mysteries of life, who cannot taste of its fruit or listen to its music, unconscious of the brute forces symbolised by the panther, and the vanity of human pride imaged by the peacock on the dead branch; or is he a philosopher imparting wisdom to the young? What matter, the picture charms like nature, because we cannot fathom it" (In the National Gallery, p. 234). In the case of Giorgione's frescoes at Venice, Vasari frankly "gave it up": "I, for my part, have never been able to understand what they mean, nor, with all the inquiries that I have made, could I ever find any one who did understand, or could explain them to me." But the theory that the subject in Renaissance pictures meant nothing – that details were treated from a purely pictorial point of view – is, as Dr. Richter has well observed, more convenient than correct. The clue to many of these unknown subjects is to be found in classical or Italian literature. Bellini's allegorical compositions have recently been thus interpreted. Titian's so-called "Sacred and Profane Love" has been identified by Herr Franz Wickhoff as an illustration of the story of Medea as told in the seventh book of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, and the same author has also found the key to several works ascribed to Giorgione.

235

Dr. Richter, who found these pictures in a Veronese palace, points out that the architecture in the background represents the old tower of the castle of Mantua (Art Journal, Feb. 1895). It has, however, been urged amongst other objections that the eagle on the banners belongs to neither of the two houses. Perhaps, therefore, the subject of the pictures is purely imaginary or borrowed from some romance of the time.

236

See note on No. 591.

237

One portrait, however, was found by Mr. Petrie, not fixed over the face of the mummy, but framed and glazed for hanging on the wall of a tomb. The frame, now in the British Museum, is very like what is called an "Oxford frame."

238

Two other members of the family are known as painters – Ambrosius, brother of the younger Hans; and Sigmund, brother of the elder. A portrait ascribed to the latter is in our Gallery, No. 722.

239

The picture is painted on ten boards joined vertically; and it is interesting to speculate how far the composition may have been directed by the necessity of avoiding any joint in the faces.

240

Cf. what Ruskin says of "the glorious severity" of Holbein's portraits (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. 1. ch. xiv. § 19).

241

The contrast between the picture as it was before being cleaned and as it is now is very great. The accessories have come out in astonishing clearness, and the crucifix in the left-hand corner has been unveiled. The dingy green of the curtain background has given place to a rich damask, and the gown of the younger man – which Wornum described as "brownish green" – is now seen to be not green at all. Mr. Dyer, to whose art this successful restoration was due, removed the obscuring dirt and varnish entirely by manual friction.

242

Several pages would be required to give a résumé of all the theories propounded, and of all the pros and cons in each case. An account of the principal theories was given in the fourth edition of this Handbook, and the story forms an entertaining chapter in the curiosities of criticism. The most elaborately sustained of the theories is that which identifies the "ambassadors" with the Counts Palatine Otto Henry and his brother Philip (see the monograph on the picture by W. F. Dickes).

243

The following is the text of the document: —

Remarques sur le suject d'un tableau excellent des Srs. d'Inteville Polizy, et de George de Selve. [Evesque de Lavour (sic) contenant leurs emplois, et tems de leur deceds].

En ce tableau est representé au naturel Messire Jean de D Intevile chevalier sieur de Polizy près de Bar-sur-seyne Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy François premier ez années 1532 & 1533 & de puis Gouverneur de Monsieur Charles de France second filz diceluy Roy, le quel Charles mourut a forest monstier en l'an 1545, & le dict sr. de D Intevile en l'an 1555, sepulturé en l'eglise du dict Polizy. Est aussi representé audict tableau Messire George de Selve Evesque de Lavaur personnage de grandes lettres & fort vertueux, & qui fut Ambassadeur pres de L Empereur Charles cinquiesme, le diet Evesque Filz de Messire Jean de Selve premier president au parlement de Paris, iceluy sr. Evesque decedé en l'an 1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533 passé en Angleterre par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict sieur de D Intevile son intime amy & de toute sa famile, & eux deux ayantz rencontrez en Angleterre un excellent peinctre holandois, l'employèrent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté soigneusement conservé au mesme lieu de Polizy iusques en l'an 1653.

244

The words in the choir-book are thus identified by Mr. Eastlake (see a very interesting letter to the Times, 17th August 1891).

Kom Heiliger Geyst herzegott erfüll mit deiner gnaden und (?) deiner gleubge hertz mut un sin dein brustig lib entzüd in ihn.

O herz durch deines lichtes glast (?) züdem glaube versamlet hast das volck aller welt zunge …(?) dir herzu lob gesungen … gesungen …

On the left-hand page: —

Mensch wiltu (?) leben seliguch und bei Gott blibene

Solch (?) halten die zehen gebot die uns gebeut unser Gott … unser …

"It seems to have been assumed," adds Mr. Eastlake, "that the choir-book is a Protestant one, and therefore inconsistent with the presence of the silver crucifix recently revealed in the left-hand upper corner of the picture. But it is evident that the hymn or anthem above mentioned is merely a paraphrase of the well-known 'Veni Sancte Spiritus,' which for ages past has appeared in the Roman Catholic breviary for use on Whit Sunday or the Feast of Pentecost, and still survives in the Anglican Ordination Service." The music in the book has been identified by Mr. W. B. Squire, of the British Museum, as the counterpoint sung by the tenor in Johann Walther's setting for the Wittenberg hymn-book of 1524. Mr. Squire adds his opinion that Holbein chose those compositions for copying in the picture, "on account of the bearing which the words had upon either the individuals portrayed, or some incident connected with them, and intended to be commemorated" (Letter to the Times, 14th November 1891). Miss Hervey finds an explanation in the fact that the Bishop of Lavaur was devoted to the cause of religious re-union between the Roman Catholic and the Reformed Churches. The doctrine expressed by the two hymns was common to all the churches.

245

For further particulars the reader is referred to Holbein's 'Ambassadors': the Picture and the Men, by Mary F. S. Hervey (1900). Miss Hervey gives an interesting account of her identification of the sitters, and many curious speculations as to the details of the picture.

246

It has been suggested by some high authorities that the lower portion of the picture was probably left to some pupil to finish; for the Admiral's legs are very flabbily drawn. They look as if there were no bone or muscle in them, but only sawdust or padding. Señor de Bereute, in spite of the very definite history of the picture given by Palomino, attributes the whole work not to Velazquez but to his pupil and son-in-law, J. B. del Mazo (1308). If this be correct, Mazo was another Velazquez. There is nothing in Mazo's known works to justify such an estimate of his powers. "Mazo, still in his early youth, had in 1634 married a daughter of Velazquez, and had only recently got a subordinate place in Philip's court. It is hard to believe that he could have painted this superb picture when only about 25 years of age, or that Philip would have entrusted him with the portrait of a favourite when he had beside him his trusty Court painter, Velazquez" (Quarterly Review, April 1899, p. 521).

247

"Congratulate me (he wrote to his old friend and colleague, Sir H. A. Layard) on a real trouvaille. The picture I bought at G. Bentinck's sale has come out splendidly, and is in first-rate condition. Burton is greatly struck with it. It is a wonderful bit of luck to have picked up so fine a picture from among so many of the cognoscenti." No wonder that Sir William Gregory, who bought his pictures so cheap, was aghast at the large and even fancy price which the nation sometimes has to pay. "The cost of them," he writes of the Longford pictures (Nos. 1314-1316) "makes me blush when I think of it."

248

The composition, however, has been blamed on the ground that the square picture on the wall interferes with the girl's head in a very awkward manner. The Cupid represented in that picture is also very clumsy. A correspondent replying to these criticisms writes: "The composition depends not upon the rhythm of the lines, but upon the arrangement of patches of colour, somewhat in the manner of the Japanese. Dutch painters often represented inferior pictures upon the walls of their interiors, perhaps as a kind of humorous contrast to their own masterpieces. See, for instance, the daub in De Hooch's picture in the National Gallery (No. 834)."

249

By Mr. Berenson ascribed to "Amico di Sandro."

250

"Hung on each side of the great Vandyck, on the east wall of the principal Dutch and Flemish room, they have given the completing touch to that collection of chefs d'œuvre, and made it now beyond question the finest wall of masterpieces of those schools in Europe" (Sir Edward Poynter's speech at the Royal Academy Banquet, 1899).

251

The purchase for the nation was at one time in jeopardy. Early in 1899 the two pictures were offered by Lord de Saumarez to the National Gallery for the sum of £12,500. A special grant was obtained from Her Majesty's Treasury for this sum on the condition that the Trustees should forego the annual grant for 1899-1900, estimated at £5000. Lord de Saumarez found, however, that he had no power to sell the pictures without an order from the Court of Chancery, and having been subsequently offered the sum of £15,000 for these two pictures, the Court decided they could only be sold to the National Gallery for an advance on the sum offered. The Trustees, therefore, offered the sum of £15,050, for which the Court awarded them to the Trustees. Towards the balance of the purchase money, amounting to £2550, two of the Trustees, Mr. Alfred de Rothschild and Mr. Heseltine, liberally contributed £500 each, and the remainder, amounting to £1550, was paid out of the grant for the year 1898-99.

252

Mr. Roger Fry (in The Pilot, Jan. 5, 1901) attributes our picture, which he calls "a distressing production," to "some journeyman painter who treated Fra Bartolommeo's design in the spirit of the earlier furniture painters, but without their charm and naïveté."

253

"His early pictures have only a hint of personal expression. Some of his Madonnas are still almost Byzantine in their hieratic solemnity. It is possible to follow Giovanni Bellini's career almost from year to year by the increase of personal expression in his figures and landscapes" (Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 9).

254

See Bernhard Berenson's Lorenzo Lotto, 1895, pp. 21-120.

255

See Mr. Herbert Cook's Giorgione, pp. 68-74.

256

That fine picture came from the Manfrini Palace at Venice; and though by some called a "bad and late copy" (Mündler, Beiträge zu B.'s Cicerone, 1870, p. 61) is by others highly praised. Thus Waagen, in his Treasures of Art in Great Britain (vol. iii. 1854, p. 19), in describing the Cobham Hall pictures, says of the picture now in the National Gallery that it "agrees essentially with the fine portrait in the Manfrini collection at Venice. But the tone of the flesh is heavier here, and the grey colour of the dress unites too much with the grey ground, while in the Manfrini picture, the brown tones of the dress stand out decidedly from it."

257

See the Second Annual Report of the National Art Collections Fund, 1906, pp. 35, 36. Until the matter was cleared up by the researches of Señor de Beruete, summarised in that Report, it was supposed that our picture was one of five mythologies painted by Velazquez for the Gallery of Mirrors in the Alcazar of Madrid, two of which perished in the great fire of 1734. Knowledge of this fire was doubtless the origin of a suggestion that our picture also had been damaged and repainted. There was correspondence on this subject, and on others connected with the picture, in the Times of November and December 1905 and the early part of 1906.

258

The intermediate processes by which the price of the picture rose from £30,500 to £45,000 have not been disclosed. Towards the latter sum, the largest contributions were – "An Englishman" £10,000; Lord Michelham, £8000; and Messrs. Agnew, £5250.

259

See pp. 75-78 of The Barbizon School, by D. C. Thomson, from whose translation I borrow a few sentences.

260

According to William Morris, most visitors to the Gallery are apt to pass by some of its principal treasures. "If ordinary people go to our National Gallery, the thing which they want to see is the Blenheim Raphael, which, though well done, is a very dull picture to any one not an artist. While, when Holbein shows them the Danish princess of the sixteenth century yet living on the canvas …; when Van Eyck opens a window for them into Bruges of the fourteenth century; when Botticelli shows them Heaven as it lived in the hearts of men before theology was dead, these things produce no impression on them, not so much even as to stimulate their curiosity and make them ask what 'tis all about; because these things were done to be looked at, and to make the eyes tell the mind tales of the past, the present, and the future" (Mackail's Life of William Morris, ii. 273).

261

The precise nature of the transaction was this: – Lady Carlisle received in cash £40,000 and the Treasury paid the death-duties (£2776). Of these sums, the National Gallery funds contributed £15,000; the National Art-Collections' Fund, £10,000; and the Treasury £17,776 (see House of Commons Debate, February 28, 1912).

262

In addition to the "three scenes" mentioned by Vasari there were two single figures, of St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua respectively: these are in the Dulwich Gallery.

263

Among works of illustration produced of late years, "the publications of the Arundel Society," says Ruskin, "hold the first rank in purpose and principle, having been from the beginning conducted by a council of gentlemen in the purest endeavour for public utility, and absolutely without taint of self-interest, or encumbrance of operation by personal or national jealousy. Failing often, as could not but be the case when their task was one of supreme difficulty, and before unattempted, they have yet on the whole been successful in producing the most instructive and historically valuable series of engravings that have ever been put within reach of the public… I learned more from the Arundel copy than in the chapel itself; for the daily companionship with the engraving taught me subtleties in the composition which had escaped me in the multitudinous interest of visits to the actual fresco" (Stones of Venice, Travellers' edition, ii, 176; and Ariadne Florentina, Appendix, p. 246).