Chats on Old Miniatures

As to this latter deficiency, it is very much a matter of opinion. Those who have seen the portrait at Windsor of the Duke of Monmouth when young will hardly be disposed to allow it; indeed, when we have such an amazing power of seizing character, and such breadth of delineation, we can afford to dispense with mere superficial prettiness. And, to return to Walpole's first contention, it is surely unlikely that the artist who could portray such subtleties of character and expression as Cooper did should not have been able to extend his talent "so small a way" as to draw necks and shoulders if he had been so minded.

In the Royal Collection is a head of Charles II., which with another of George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, and that of Monmouth mentioned above, form a trio of portraits difficult to surpass for character and simplicity, although the two last are unfinished. There is, however, no want of finish in the elaborate picture of Charles II., wearing the Robes of the Garter, which belongs to the Duke of Richmond, and is preserved at Goodwood. It is one of the largest and finest examples of the master, and gives more dignity to that cynical voluptuary than any portrait of him with which I am acquainted.

It has been said that Cooper's portraits of women are inferior to his portraits of men, and, on the whole, I think this must be conceded.

In the Dyce Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum will be found a series of fourteen more or less unfinished miniatures attributed to Samuel Cooper, and shown with a pocket-book in which they were found, which formerly belonged to Mr. Edwin H. Lawrence.

I have used the word "attributed" advisedly, because several of these miniatures, attractive as they are, seem to me to lack the supreme quality of Samuel Cooper's work. Some, it has been suggested, recall Flatman2 rather, or, as I think more likely, Dixon. They are in various stages of completion, and show the artist's method of working; well drawn and broadly treated, they are excellent work, and most interesting, technically speaking.

The biographical details to be gleaned of this English master miniature painter seem to be meagre in the extreme, and still slighter are they in the case of his elder brother Alexander. I recall two examples of the latter's work, both in the Royal Library at Windsor; one a portrait of Sir John King, a highly successful lawyer of his day, a favourite of King Charles II., who intended to make him Attorney-General; but he died when only thirty-eight, and lies buried in the Temple Church. Granger says of him: "Such was his reputation and so extensive his practice that in the latter part of his life his fees amounted to forty and fifty pounds a day." His portrait is given on p. 141. The other is of James Stuart, created second Duke of Richmond in 1641. This nobleman is noteworthy as being one of the four who offered their lives to save King Charles I.

CHAPTER VIII

PETITOT

As we saw in a previous chapter, it is to a Frenchman, Jean Toutin, that the credit of applying enamel to portraiture must be given. It may be remarked, in passing, that it is somewhat remarkable that this difficult but beautiful process should come into use just as the older and decorative enamelling fell into decay. Jean Toutin was assisted by pupils, amongst whom one stands pre-eminent, so much so that the fame of the early professors of this art, including that of Toutin himself, may be said to have become merged in the reputation of Petitot, and everything in the shape of a portrait in enamel of that period is commonly assigned, one might almost say without hesitation, to Jean Petitot, very often, it is needless to add, upon the slenderest grounds. We are fortunate to possess in this country a considerable number of examples of the portraiture we are about to discuss. These may be seen and studied in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A comparison of them will show how wide are the differences existing between works ostensibly by the same artist, to whom we may now return.

Petitot came of a family of French origin, but was born at Geneva, where his parents, having adopted the reformed religion, had settled. Paul, the father of Jean Petitot, was a wood-carver. His son is thought by some of his biographers, of whom there are several, to have commenced life as a goldsmith and jeweller. We have already seen how close was the connection between the various occupations of goldsmith and jeweller, enameller and miniature painter, and this connection was still existing at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Petitot was born. We need not stop to inquire precisely into the early stages of our artist's career, but we may gather that he applied himself to an occupation which was the fashion of the time, namely, the enrichment of gems with ornaments, such as flowers and the like, in enamel; and we may safely conclude that he became proficient, for, after a sojourn in France, he came to England when he was about twenty-eight. Arrived in London in 1634 or 1635, Petitot proceeded to show the Court jeweller his work in enamel; this led to an introduction to the King. Charles I., a passionate lover of art, as we know, must have appreciated the artist's ability, since we find that he assigned him an apartment in the palace at Whitehall.

By great good fortune, the young Petitot had the advantage of the protection of a Genevese, physician to the King, and a celebrated chemist, Sir Turquet de Mayerne. Such a patron and colleague must have been of the utmost assistance to our artist in this stage of his career, since he was able to further his chemical researches, and aid him in experiments in vitrification which resulted in the painter's palette being much enriched and his methods perfected. I may remark, by the way, there is a very characteristic portrait of Sir Turquet, after Rubens, at Hampton Court.

But, in addition to the scientific help which Petitot's countryman was able to afford, the artist enjoyed the advantage of instruction from the King's chief portrait painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck; and it is significant of the close relationship which probably existed between the two artists that the copies which Petitot made from the great Fleming's work are esteemed as amongst his most exquisite productions, combining grace and freedom with marvellous exactness, in spite of the minuteness of the scale. It is one of these copies of Van Dyck, namely the whole length of Rachel de Rouvigny, Countess of Southampton, that Horace Walpole does not hesitate to call "indubitably the most capital work in enamel in the world… It is nine and three-quarter inches high, by five and three-quarter inches wide, and though the enamel is not perfect in some trifling parts, the execution is the boldest, and the colouring the most rich and beautiful that can be imagined. It is dated 1642."

He also mentions a portrait of Buckingham, painted about the same time.

Three years later we find Petitot arrived in Paris, led to take refuge in France, there can be little doubt, by the troubles which attended the outbreak of civil war in this country. He was favourably received by Cardinal Mazarin, and seems to have established himself at the French Court with the same facility that he had done in the case of the English Court, as we find him installed in the Louvre and in receipt of a pension from Le Grand Monarque.

The portraits of Louis XIV. by Petitot may be termed almost innumerable, for reasons which I hope to show by and by.

Five or six years after his return to France he married Madeleine Cuper, and a certain Jacques Bordier, of whom more anon, married her sister Margaret.

The brothers-in-law worked together for many years, Bordier being responsible for the draperies and backgrounds of the portraits and Petitot for the exquisite details of the features. This art partnership lasted until the death of Bordier, in 1684. Petitot remained in Paris till 1687, a period of forty-two years. He would have quitted France earlier, namely at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, but Louis was clearly unwilling to part with him. The King shut up the painter, whose Protestant origin we have already mentioned, in Fort l'Evêque, and sent the eloquent Bossuet to convert him. To regain his liberty "he signed like the rest," and escaped to Geneva. By this time the artist was in his eightieth year, but his powers of vision and the cunning of his hand appear to have been unabated. At any rate, he was overwhelmed, we are told, with commissions, and retired to Vevey to escape the importunity of his patrons. He lived four years longer, and was carried off by a sudden illness in a day, "as he was painting his wife," says Walpole.

A mention has been made of Bordier as Petitot's brother-in-law; and I may here point out that according to Monsieur Reiset, the compiler of the catalogue of the Louvre, there were two Bordiers who worked with Petitot in England, namely Jacques, to whom reference has already been made, and Peter Bordier. I do not know that there is much to be learned about these collaborateurs of Petitot, but of the two Peter seems the better known, and is indeed reputed to have been the master of Petitot. He remained in England after Petitot left it, and painted for the Parliament a memorial of the Battle of Naseby, which was presented to Fairfax. It was in the shape of a watch. Walpole purchased it from the collection at Thoresby, whither it came from the executors of the famous Roundhead general. It will be found fully described in the "Anecdotes of Painting."

Apropos of the Bordiers, I may mention that Petitot had a very large family, namely, eight daughters and nine sons; but only one, so far as I know, namely Jean, who is known as Petitot le fils, displayed anything of his father's artistic talent. This younger Petitot was patronised by our King Charles II. He was born in 1650, settled in England, and married Madeleine Bordier, the daughter of his father's colleague. He died in London, and after his death his family removed to Dublin. His work was distinctly inferior to his father's, both in colour and in finish. The Earl of Dartrey, who possesses a number of enamels, has amongst his valuable collection "Petitot le vieux par luy mesme," also "Petitot fils and his wife." The two latter are inscribed as follows: "Petitot fait par luy mesme d'age de 33 ans 1685." "Petitot a fait ce portrait à Paris en Janvier 1690 qui est sa femme."

Another son of the elder Petitot rose to be a Major-General in the British Army.

Besides the younger Petitot, a number of imitators and copyists of the elder may be named. Amongst these were his contemporaries Perrot and Chatillon, the engraver. Then there is Jacques Philippe Ferrand, who studied under Mignard; he was a member of the Academy and a valet-de-chambre to Louis XIV. His father, Louis Ferrand, had been physician to the preceding monarch. At a later date we find Mademoiselle Chavant, who painted at Sèvres at the end of the eighteenth century; Moïse Constantin, who was an enameller, and also painted on porcelain. He was a Genevese, but lived at Paris, and was painter to the King, 1726-8. Four more Genevese, also enamellers, may be named, all of whom painted copies of Petitot, namely, Alexandre de la Chana, Dufey, Lambert, and J. G. Soutter.

When we come to know of all these imitators or followers of Petitot, we begin to understand the enormous quantity of work attributed to him by the uninitiated; but difficult as it may be for the unpractised eye to discriminate, there may very well be a large number of works which are from the hand of Petitot himself, because, as we have seen, he spent a long and laborious life, and there was in his time a demand for this particular kind of portraiture far in excess of anything like modern requirements. That demand arose from the use of these enamel portraits for snuff-boxes, which were then so largely employed, not only for personal use, but as diplomatic presents. The amount of taste and labour bestowed upon these objects may be realised by those who will study the Le Noir Collection at the Louvre, the many fine pieces at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and last, but not least, those shown at Hertford House. They were, of course, extremely expensive, and such was their artistic charm that we do not wonder at people making a hobby of collecting them. Thus, we are told, Frederick the Great owned 1,500 snuff-boxes; then there was the Comte de Brieulle, the favourite minister of the King of Saxony, who was said to have owned 300 costumes, with a walking-stick and snuff-box appropriate to each. This was the nobleman of whom Frederick the Great remarked that he had "tant de perruques et si peu de tête."

These boits aux portraits were in fashionable use during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We have seen how Louis XIV. employed Petitot as far back as 1645, and we read of a portrait of Louis XVI. when Dauphin being sent to Marie Antoinette on her arrival in 1770. The picture was by P. A. Hall, the most distinguished miniaturist in France, and cost 2,664 francs. The box in which it was mounted contained seventy-five brilliants, costing over seventy-eight thousand francs, or nearly thirty times as much. The production of portraits for these snuff-boxes assumed the proportions of a manufactory at the French Court during the eighteenth century; thus the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contain entries showing that enamel portraits were made by the dozen, and one Bruckmann, a Swede, supplied as many as nineteen at a time.

I may mention with regard to the illustrations of Petitot here shown that the portrait of Cardinal Richelieu is mounted in a lovely chased gold and jasper snuff-box, which once belonged to the King of Saxony. The Louis XIV. is also upon a snuff-box. The Cardinal Mazarin comes from the Earl of Carlisle's celebrated collection at Castle Howard.

The Charles I. on a preceding page was at Strawberry Hill, and Walpole thus speaks of it: "I have a fine head of Charles I., for which he probably sat, as it is not like any I have seen by Van Dyck. My portrait came from one of his [Petitot's] sons, who was a Major in our service, and died a Major-General at Northallerton 1764." This now belongs to the Burdett-Coutts Collection, as does the Charles II., the extremely fine James II., and also, I may remind the reader, the lovely Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, perhaps the most beautiful of all his works, and reproduced on p. 151.

A few words may be said in conclusion as to the painter's method. He is reported to have generally used plates of gold or silver, seldom copper, for the foundation of his miniatures. His signed works are excessively rare. The Duke of Buckingham, dated 1640, to which I have already referred, is signed, however, and in the Louvre there is an example bearing a date, but these are exceptions. The beautiful borders which, in the shape of wreaths of enamelled flowers, are to be met with around his works, such as that in the Jones Collection, for example, are the work of Jules Legarré, goldsmith to the King, with whom there is little doubt Jean Petitot must have worked in the execution of commissions for the Court.

CHAPTER IX

SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS

It is a hundred years from the death of Samuel Cooper, which was in 1672, to the time when Cosway, Smart, and Humphrey may be said to have established their reputation as miniature painters of the first rank. Thus Richard Cosway was elected Royal Academician in 1773, and Ozias Humphrey, having made his start in life and obtained Royal patronage, set out the same year with Romney for Italy. Five years later John Smart was made Vice-President of the Incorporated Society of Artists.

This century, it will be observed, takes in the whole of the early Georgian period; and it is a time of great dearth and barrenness in our subject, indeed, of art generally, in this country. When the three distinguished artists I have just named, Petitot and the two or three good enamellers we had, such as Meyer and Moser, whom I have dealt with elsewhere – I say, when these names are excepted, practically none of the first importance remain.

Lawrence Crosse (1724-1784), with his somewhat heavy and insipid style, his fondness for blue drapery – so well shown in the Duke of Portland's Collection – and the Lens family, with their somewhat puzzling personality, may be named. There was also some good work done by stray artists like Gaspar Netscher, whose rendering of the imperious Sarah Jennings from the collection of Mr. Charles Butler I give on p. 177. Then there was the eccentric Jean Etienne Liotard, who was born at Geneva in 1702 and died there in the first year of the French Revolution. He was an artist of great ability, but of somewhat irregular habits and uncertain methods of work, and was known in Paris as "le Turc."

Oriental costumes had a fascination for him, and some of his finest drawings are of figures in flowing Eastern robes. Walpole criticises him and says his likenesses were as exact as possible; Sir Joshua Reynolds seems to have been jealous of him and sneers at his style. Probably his best work was in pastel. He was patronised by Maria Theresa, and by Royalty in this country. The Museum at Amsterdam has of late years been enriched by several examples bequeathed by descendants. I confess to finding great charm in his work; so far as I know, he is unrepresented in our National collections, except by some drawings in the print-room of the British Museum. In the Salle des Dessins at the Louvre, however, is a striking full-length figure of a woman in Russian costume; and the Bessborough family possess works by him, he having met the Earl of Bessborough of his day at Constantinople and enjoyed that nobleman's patronage.

I give examples of two excellent English artists of this period whose work is very pleasing without being, perhaps, of the first rank, viz., James Nixon, born within a year or two of Ozias Humphrey – that is, in 1741 (his Miss Kitty Mudge is marked by great refinement); and Samuel Collins, whose Lady Frances Radcliffe is shown on p. 185; he was the master of Humphrey, and enjoyed a great reputation at Bath, which he took with him to Dublin.

In much the same category as the two foregoing may be placed Samuel Shelley, though personally I prefer Collins and Nixon, as Shelley's drawing is often defective, not to speak of other faults, traceable, no doubt, to his origin and want of training – for he was a self-taught genius, born in Whitechapel, in 1750. He is said to have founded his style upon that of Sir Joshua Reynolds; if so, he fell very far short of his master. He devoted much time also to female subjects, treated allegorically, such as "Chastity," which was engraved. His book illustrations are reckoned inferior to his miniatures. Some examples of his work may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The number of miniature painters of about the calibre of Shelley who belong to this period – that is to say, the latter half of the eighteenth century – is so great that I can, in a chat about miniatures, only mention a few of them.

The William Derby whose attractive portraits of Lady Elizabeth Hamilton and the Duchess of Hamilton adorn these pages was a Birmingham man, probably best known by his drawings for Lodge's "Portraits of Illustrious Personages." He was assisted by a son, who lived until 1873. The work of the elder was marked by great care and minuteness. He copied all the family portraits for the Earl of Derby, and was a frequent exhibitor at the Academy and elsewhere.

The Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, shown on p. 189, was daughter of the sixth Duke of Hamilton; the Duchess of Hamilton is, of course, Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and afterwards of Argyll, one of the two famous Irish beauties who took the town by storm in "Horry" Walpole's time, and whose career has been so often narrated.

I also give her sister, Maria Gunning, who became Countess of Coventry, and died an early victim to cosmetics.

No doubt, it has often occurred to my readers that there ought to be a British national collection of miniatures. It is a reproach that none such exists. Miniature painting is a branch of art which has been flourishing amongst us for three centuries at least, and it has been carried to great perfection; no country can show more beautiful work of the kind, and in the number, as well as in the charm, of its miniatures England is unsurpassed. Yet no attempt has ever been made to procure a permanent collection. Had such efforts been made, say even a generation ago, examples might have been obtained at prices vastly below what would have to be paid in order to acquire them nowadays, and many precious works might have been secured.

As we all know, the sums realised by fine miniatures, especially of ladies, and by men like Cosway and his pupils the Plimers, by Smart or Engleheart, to say nothing of historical works by Hilliard and Samuel Cooper, are enormous. Such a national collection would be attractive and instructive in the highest degree – attractive to lovers of art and history, instructive to students, who could hardly fail to benefit by the study of such work as might have been, long ere this, brought together, whilst the miniature painters of our day clearly stand in need of such artistic training. Finally, let the collector try to realise what valuable opportunities such a collection would afford for the comparison of style, for identification, and for instruction generally in this fascinating subject.

CHAPTER X

RICHARD COSWAY

Probably there is no one miniature painter whose name is so familiar to the general reader as that of Richard Cosway, there is no one whose works in this particular branch of art are more admired, no one more frequently copied, and, as a consequence, no one whose miniatures or alleged miniatures are to be found in so many British collections as "Maccaroni Cosway," as he was called in his day. Maccaroni, you remember, was a name given to "dandies" about the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

Sticking a huge feather in his hat, disporting himself in a mulberry coat with scarlet strawberries, displaying himself at sale-rooms and other places of public resort – these and such-like doings were delights to this diminutive, vain, and eccentric artist.

"Yankee Doodle went to townUpon a little pony,He stuck a feather in his hatAnd called it Maccaroni."

In his "Lives of Eminent British Painters" Allan Cunningham closes a long account of Cosway in these words, "His works are less widely known than they deserve, and his fame is faded." In the light of the present day, and the annals of the auction-room, that statement is one which can by no means be admitted. It may, on the contrary, be safely asserted of Richard Cosway that his fame, whatever it may have been in the days of Allan Cunningham, so far from fading, has been steadily increasing, until it has reached a pinnacle of the highest reputation – that is, if the pecuniary test be applied. But whilst this is true, it may also be conceded that of late a more just appreciation of the relative merits of Cosway, as compared with some of his contemporaries, has been made by the impartial and discriminating critic; by which I mean it is not so much that Cosway has become less famous, but that others, such as George Engleheart and John Smart, for example, have received proper recognition, and all the finest works of the period are no longer assigned, as a matter of course, to Cosway, as it may be said was at one time the case.

The eccentricities of Cosway as a man, his diminutive appearance, and extravagance of attire, made him a conspicuous object wherever he went. His extravagance of living, his vanity and ostentation, excited jealousy and ridicule; but, whilst fortune smiled on him, he could boast of his friendship with the Prince of Wales, and lavishly entertained the rank and fashion of his day. He was, according to the gossip of J. T. Smith, in his "Life and Times of Nollekins," "one of the dirtiest of boys." This amusing but sometimes ill-natured writer says that Cosway was employed as a waiter to the students at Shipley's well-known drawing school, and used to take in the tea and coffee for them. Inasmuch as his father was Master of Blundell's School, Tiverton, it seems improbable that the young Cosway would have been placed in such a menial position at Shipley's. That he was a student there we know, as he was also in the studio of Thomas Hudson, a mediocre artist, best known as the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and, like the President of the Royal Academy and Cosway himself, also a Devonshire man.