UC-NRLF B 3 fi23 im %m^^ ^ / ^ % / c^ *^ %^ fuj >v^^ ^ ^y . v^ ou-n-^ ..^ (ps^nu^^ SCEIPTIVE AND H CATALOGUE THE PICTURES IN THE GALLERY OF ALLEYN'S COLLEGE OF GOB'S GIFT DULWICH ISS The History of the Gallery ir Its Artistic and Literary Associations ... ... ... xix Its Special Features xxiii Previous Catalogues and Descriptions xxx Arrangement of the Present Catalogue .... >,.. xxxiii Plan of the Gallery ... ... ... ... ... ... xxxvi Catalogue of the Pictures with Biographical Notices of the Painters 1 Contents of Show-cases in the Gallery n .,;.v.. 307 List of the College Plat<^ ... .....: 309 Appendix : — A. — Extracts from the Catalogues of Noel Desenfans (1786, 1802) 312 B .—Will of Noel Joseph Desenfans (1803) 317 C. — Sir P. F. Bourgeois's Letter to the Duke of Portland (January, 1810) 317 D.- Extract from Will of Sir P. F. Bourgeois (December, 1810) 319 E.— Extract from Will of Mrs. Desenfans (1814) ... 320 Index ; — I. Alphabetical List of Painters, with the Subjects of their Pictures 322 II. Numerical List of Pictures, Painters, and Mode of Acquisition ,, ; .*,„ 347 6J6, ry JLO IV INTRODUCTION TO THE CATALOGUE, With the History of the Dulwich Gallery, The number of pictures described in the present edition of the Catalogue is 594. Of these, Nos. 548-594 were not included in the preceding edition. The Numerical Index at the end (p. 347) states (so far as can be ascertained) how and when each picture in the Collection was acquired. In the pages here following, some general account is given, successively, of the history of the collection ; of the artistic and literary associations of the Dulwich Gallery ; of its special features ; of previously published catalogues or descriptions ; and lastly, of the arrange- ment of the present Catalogue. The collection of pictures now placed in the Dulwich Gallery was not made, but grew. The larger part of the collection grew out of a succession of events which links together in a curious way the early annals of the British Stage, the partition of Poland, and the f.amily into which the great Sheridan married. The Gallery, like many British arts, industries, and institutions, owes a great deal to foreign elements. Its largest benefactors were a Frenchman and the son of a Swiss watch- maker. (1.) The history of the Gallery begins with the foundation of the College of God's Gift at Dulwich by Edward Alley n, actor I INTRODUCTION. V and theatrical manager, in the early years of the Seventeenth Century. He died in 1626, and included in his bequest to the College a few pictures. These (28 in number) are of no artistic merit, being for the most part reproductions of conventional portraits of kings and queens. No list of the pictures bequeathed by the Founder is extant, but his Diary, preserved in the archives of the College, enables many of them to be identified (see the notes on Nos. 521-536, 537-545), and they included, in all probability, thei portrait of himself, which is described, with some account of his career, in the Catalogue (No. 443). (2.) The next bequest of pictures was made by William Cartwright, a bookseller and an actor of repute in a later period of the same century. His collection originally consisted of 239 pictures. A catalogue of them, in the handwriting of Cartwright himself, is preserved in the College archives, but two pages, containing pictures num*bered 186 to 209, are missing. It is illiterate and often inaccurate, but its quaint descriptions, with the prices paid for the pictures, and in many cases the names of the painters, are highly interesting. Wherever the pictures can be identified, Cartwright's descrip- tions are quoted in the present Catalogue. Of the 239 pictures in Cartwright's catalogue, some were given away by him in his life-time (as appears from his own notes) ; others (46, as alleged by the College) were appropriated by his servants after his death, and a few were " probably destroyed," says Dr. Carver, " on account of their grossness, or have been lost through decay or neglect in past years." Particulars of Cartwright's bequest, which included many books of great theatrical interest, and " 390 pieces of broad old gold," are recorded in the College Audit "Book under date September 4, 1688. In " The joint and severall Answers of Francis Johnson and Jane, his wife, defendants, to the Bill of Complaint " of Dulwich College, which is preserved among the College MSS., the Johnsons acknowledge the appropriation of the property, including " several small pictures which we sold for 15s.," but they plead a set-off on account of various sums due to them for maintenance^ for funeral expenses, and for debts of their master paid by them. The number of Cartwright's pictures identifiable as now in the Gallery is about 80. These pictures, bequeathed to the College in 1086, are, for the most part, of small merit as works of art, but thty include many interesting portraits; among them, one of Cartwright himself, Avhich is described, with some further account of him, in the Catalogue (No. 393). His collection comprises other theatrical portraits, and a series of the Lovelace family. The pictures bequeathed by the Founder and by William Cartwright with some others were hung, until the year 1883, in the old picture-gallery or elsewhere in the College, and they are the subject of notices by antiquaries and others. Thus ti tis^tliobuctioN . John Aubrey, describing Dulwich College in his Natural Histoid and Antiquities of Surrey, 1719, says: ''In it [the picture gallery] are several worthless pictures, and some not so bad, viz., the Founder and his first wife [Nos. 443, 444], Henry, Prince of Wales [No. 417], Sir Thomas Gresham, Mary, Queen of Scotland ; and several others given by Mr. 'Cartwright, a comedian, whose picture [No. 393] is at the upper end." In an appendix to his work, Aubrey refers again to Cartwright, Avho, he says, gave to the College " a collection of plays and many pictures; one, a view of London, taken by Mr. John Norden in 1603, with the representation of the city cavalcade on the Lord Mayor's Day, which is very curious." This picture and others mentioned by Aubrey have disappeared. A few years later, Robert Seymour, in his Survey of London and Westininster and Pa.rts Adjacent thereto, 1734, thus describes the College pictures: " In the room where the churchwardens dine are several antient pictiires, particularly of the Founder [No. 443], his Father, his Brother, his Wife [No. 444], and his Mistress, who by the picture was a most beautiful woman. There is likewise a picture of Prince Henry [No. 417], eldest son of James I., and several old heads of the Kings of England &c. [Nos. 521-36]. Joyning to this room is a gallery in which are likewise some good pictures, especially one of St. Jerome [? No. 410]. The long gallery is seldom made any use of but upon the election of a Warden and then there is commonly a Ball in it." Mr. Seymour must have been imposed upon by some retainer or quizzical Fellow of the College. There are no portraits of Alleyn's '' Father, Brother, and Mistress," and the imputation upon his character in the latter case is without foundation. Perhaps the picture so described to Mr. Seymouv in 1734 was the same that to another visitor, a few years later, was described as Fair Rosamund. " In the Gallery belonging to the College," wrote the Gentleman's Magazine (1745, p. 426), " are a great many pictures, the donation of different people; some are very well done, particularly one representing some Father of the Church, a religious hermit. Fair Rosamund, tho' in faded colours, still preserves charms enough to render King Henry's im- moderate passion for her excusable ; and the Founder seems to observe with pleasure those happy institutions he has made. There is also the picture of a boy formerly belonging to this College, drawn by himself and that without any assistance of any master in the art of painting. This piece is extremely lively and tho' not entirely finish'd is generally allow'd to be very well done." The " Father of the Church," which was thus admired, may be the St. Jerome [No. 410] again. The Fair Rosamund is no longer in possession of the College; nor is there any picture which can be identified with that of the old Dulwich boy. Lysons, in giving an account of Dulwich in his Environs of London, 1792, had obtained access to INTBODUCTION. Vll Cartwright's Catalogue, and discusses some of the theatrical portraits, but does not throw light on the points left obscure by the descriptions of previous antiquaries. It is tiresome that these early visitors did not describe the pictures more particularly. John Evelyn, who might have done so (in the case of Alley n's bequest), visited Dulwich in 1675, but he was in a bad humour: " Went to see Dulwich College, being the pious foundation of one Allen, a famous comedian in King James's time. The Chapell is pretty, the rest of the Hospital very ill contrived ; it yet maintaines divers poore of both sexes. 'Tis in a melancholy part of Camberwell Parish." It is still more tiresome that the Authorities of the College itself did not take better care, or keep an inventory, of their pictures. Many pieces, referred to by old Avriters, have disappeared ; and of those that remain a large number have to be classed as •• Unknown," as regards not only subject and artist, but also time and mode of acquisition. (3.) The more important part of the Collection, from an artistic point of view, begins with the bequest of Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois in 1811. The foundation of the Dulwich Gallery, as distinct from a collection of pictures placed in the Colleye, dates from this Bourgeois Bequest; and it furnishes one of those instances, in wliich historians delight, of the far- flung interdependence of human affairs. " In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America." Every bmly knows the passage in Macaulay's Essays. It is the execution of a later policy, first conceived in the brain of the same King of Prussia, that here concerns us. The Dulwich Gallery is an indirect result of the Partition of Poland. The chain of events which led from the sack of Warsaw and the abdication at Gradno to the Picture Gallery at Dulwich was this:— Noel Joseph Desenfans (1745-1807) — oi^ of the three Founders whose remains rest in the Mausoleum attached to the Gallery — was born at Douai. It has been often said that he was a foundling, but there is no apparent basis for this statement except the suppositions to which his name gave rise. There might be reason in such suppositions, if the name were peculiar to him, but, in fact, it is distinguished and ancient. The Desenfans were counts in Brabant and nobles in Hainault.* Noel Desenfans was at school at Douai, and then went to the University of Paris. In 1763, at the age of 18, he wrote a tract entitled VEleve de la ISature, which was translated into English, and which in Paris procured him an introduction to Jean Jacques Rousseau. He wrote poetry also; and a dramatic piece from his pen, La Fete de Coulange, was performed with See W. Young's ///V/0/7 0/ Dulwidi <\>Ue(j<;, Vol. I., p. 484. VIU INTEODUCTION. success. Desenfans presently came to England as a teacher of languages, and also, it is said,* as a dealer in Brussels lace. Two tracts which he printed, on Education, attracted some attention J another piece from his pen, published in 1777, was famous in its day (see note on No. 503 in the Catalogue). Amongst his pupils was Miss Margaret Morris, Avho fell in love with him and whom he presently married. She brought him a fortune of £5,000, by means of which he started upon a calling more lucrative than literature or teaching. He had a taste for art, and on his honeymoon-travels he bought several pictures at auctions. At one of them he bought a small picture by Claude, which afterwards he sold advantageously to George III. for £1,000. This transaction induced Desenfans to turn his whole attention to such business, and he became one of the leading picture-dealers of the day. Among his foreign friends was Michael Poniatowski, the Prince Primate of Poland (see No. 489). At Prince Michael's suggestion. King Stanislaus, his brother (No. 490), appointed Desenfans Consul-General for Poland in England, and gave him a com- mission to purchase pictures. The times were propitious, for towards 1789 the troubles of the French noblesse threw many works of art into the market. Desenfans bought a large number of pictures for the King, which were destined, as it was supposed, to adorn a National Gallery in Warsaw. He also, however, bought and sold on his own account. In 1785 he had a sale of a portion of his collection at Christie's. The sale was unsuccessful for a reason (as given by Mr. Desen- fans) which is curious. The attendance of amateurs was prevented by "an aerial excursion," f which drew all the town to the Artillery Ground. In the following year Mr. Desenfans held another and a more extensive sale. A copy of the Sale Catalogue " Of that Truly Superb and AVell-known Collection, the Intire and Genuine Property of Monsieur Desenfans " is preserved in the Library of the Dulwich Gallery. It has a characteristic preface, J and in the Dulwich copy a price is entered against each of the 420 pictures oflFered. Some of the pictures seem now to be in our Gallery; the figures indicate presumably the reserve prices put by the owner upon the several items. A few notes from this copy are inserted in the present Catalogue. In buying and selling pictures, Mr. Desenfans had a friend in Paris who Avas of service to him, and with whom he did a good deal of business. This was Jean Baptist© Pierre Le Brun, art-critic and picture- dealer (1748-1818), husband of the celebrat€, with all the furniture, plate, etc., therein, to his wife Margaret and his friend Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, or to the survivor of them, adding that it was his wish that they should continue to live there. He desired also that his body should be laid in a leaden coffin, and kept in a vault prepared in or near the said house. There his body lay from the date of his death until March, 1815, when, as related below, it was moved to Dulwich. Desenfans bequeathed all his pictures to Sir Francis Bourgeois. The bequest was unconditional, but Desenfans had often expressed a wish that the Collection might not be dispersed but might at some future time be devoted to the enjoyment and instruc- tion of the public. J It is pleasant to think that owing to the piety of his legatees, Noel Desenfans still " entertains his friends "—an UTiknown company of them every day in the year — " with elegance and even splendor " within the walls of the Dulwich Gallery. His amiable countenance, depicted by one of his artist-friends, welcomes the visitor near the entrance (No. 28). Sir Peter Francis (commonly called Sir Francis) Bourgeois (1756-1811), to whose history we have now to turn, was also of foreign extraction. Born in St. Martin's Lane, London, he was descended from a Swiss family of good position, who came to reside in England in consequence of a reverse of fortune. Bourgeois's father, as mentioned above, carried on the trade of a watchmaker; and, becoming rich, he determined to place his son in the army ; this intention was strengthened by the promise of a commission from Lord Heathfield, and young Bourgeois attended drill, parade, and reviews. At this time, however, the influence of Noel Desenfans decided his career in life ; he determined to be a painter, and, rceiving the approval of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough for some early productions, he placed himself under the instruction of Loutherbourg, an artist who is represented by pictures in our Gallery (Nos. 297, 339), as also by a portrait of him by Gains- * Life of John Philip Kemble, by James Boaden, Vol. I., p. 435. t See Appendix B ; below, p. i\]7. X ISee the letter of Bourgeois in Appendix C ; below, p. 318. XU INURODUCTION. borough (No. 66). Under Loutherbourg's guidance, Bourgeois quickly acquired sufficient knowledge to bring him some repu- tation as a painter of landscapes, battle-scenes, and sea-pieces. In 1776 he left England to travel through Italy, France, and Holland, and on his return exhibited several of his works in the Royal Academy. In 1787 he was elected an Associate of that body. In 1791 he was appointed painter to the King of Poland, and received from him the honour of knighthood. In 1793 he became a full member of the Royal Academy, and in 1794 was appointed landscape-painter to George III., who sanctioned the use of the title conferred by the King of Poland ; and shortly after, w bile yet in the full vigour of life, he retired from the active pursuit of his profession to occupy himself in the arrangement, and also (as will be seen from various notes in the Catalogue) the '' restoration," of the pictures bequeathed to him by Noel Desenfans. Bourgeois had for many years lived with his friend, whom he assisted in the purchase of pictures. There is a humorous drawing by Paul Sandby of the two old friends crossing the Channel together.* After the death of Desenfans, Bourgeois added to the collection of pictures. The death of Sir Francis Bourgeois was caused by a fall from his horse, January 8, 1811. By his Will (dated December 20, 1810) f Bourgeois be- queathed, after the decease of Mrs. Desenfans, " all pictures, prints, ornaments, plate, china, clocks, and other effects now in my three leasehold houses in Charlotte Street and Portland Road, to the Master, Warden, and Fellows of Dulwich College and their successors for ever. And it is my desire," he added, *' that the same may be there kept and preserved for the inspection of the public, upon such terms, pecuniary or other- wise, and at such times of the year or days in the week as the said Master, AVarden, and Fellows may think proper." He also directed his executors to invest £10,000 to pay salaries and wages of such officers and servants as may be employed in the maintenance and preservation of the pictures, and n further sum of £2,000 for the repairing, improving, and beautifying the West Wing and Gallery of the College for the reception of the pictures. This gallery, which formed the upper part of the West Wing, measuring 77 feet in length by 15 feet 6 inches in width, Avas that in which the Cartwright and other pictures had formerly been hung. It was, however, found to \ie> quite unfitted to' receive the pictures left by Sir Francis Bourgeois, and Mrs. Desenfans therefore offered to pay at once £6,000, which, added to a building reserve of a like amount accumulated by the College, made up sufficient —according to Sir John Soane's estimate— to complete the * Reproduced at p. 6, of Earlt/ Eiu/Uxh Waler-colouv Painters, by Cosmo Moiikhoust'. t .Sec Appcudi.K D ; below, p. iUV). INTRODUCTION. Xlll Gallery and Mausoleum, as well as certain rooms adjoining for the accommodation of the "poor Sisters." Sir - John Soane's building was commenced in 1812, and finished in 1814. The Almshouses were at a later date added to the Gallery. In September, 1814, the pictures were removed from Charlotte Street, Portland Place, to the new Gallery at Dulwich. Soane's building was similar to one erected by him in the life-time of Bourgeois contiguous to the house in Charlotte Street. It is impossible to please everybody ; and the bequest of Sir Francis Bourgeois, though applauded by the picture-loving public, was ill-received in some other quarters. "It is occa- sionally proper," wrote J. T. Smith, Keeper of the Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, " to expose in public print the cruel manner in which some persons treat their nearest relatives ; in order that other hardened offenders may repent of their conduct before it is too late. Such a person was the late Sir Francis Bourgeois, who left his property to Dulwich College, without leaving a farthing to his niece and her poor, innocent and unoffending children."* It appears from the Minute Book of the College that " a charitable allowance " was " made annually to a near relation of Sir Francis Bourgeois who was not provided for in his Will." Why, it may be asked, did Sir Francis Bourgeois think of Dulwich College in connexion with the Desenfans Collection P What was the link between him and Desenfans, on the one side, and Alleyn's College of God's Gift, on the other? The answer must, to some extent, be matter of conjecture ; but there is good reasOn, as we shall see presently, for surmising that the link was the theatrical profession, of which the Founder of the College had been an ornament. The idea of a gift to Dulwich did not, however, take permanent shape till late in Sir Fi-ancis Bourgeois's life-time, and a contributory cfiuse was what some people in these days call " the tyranny of London ground-landlords." Sir Francis Bourgeois was resolved somewhere and somehow to carry out the ^ish of Noel Desenfans for the establishment of a Public Picture Gallery. As Desenfans's plea for a National Gallery had been unavailing, Bourgeois had the idea of converting his collection into a sort of private National Gallery in London. With this end in view, he wrote, in January, 1810, to the Duke of Portland (his ground-landlord), asking him to convert the lease of his houses in Charlotte Street and Portland Road into free- hold, so that he might bequeath the whole of Mr. Desenfans's Collection, with the additions he (Sir F. Bourgeois) had made thereto, in such manner that the same, supported by funds to be appropriated for that purpose by him, " may be gratuitously open to artists as well as to the public, and thus form not only a source of professional improvement, but also * NoUeJcens and his Times, Vol. I., p. 408. XIV INTBODUCTION. an object of national exhibition, creditable to this Kingdom, and highly honourable to the memory and talents of the much lamented Mr. Desenfans." He added that, if the Duke refused, he would purchase a freehold elsewhere. The answer came promptly from Welbeck (January 4, 1810) that the Duke had neither the power nor the inclination to comply with Sir Francis Bourgeois's request.* Sir Francis Bourgeois had, therefore, to look elsewhere, and presumably no other suitable freehold in London was imme- diately forthcoming; for it seems that Bourgeois next enter- tained the idea of offering the collection to the British Museum. He was deterred from doing so, it is said, on finding that it would be in the power of the Trustees of that institution to dispose of such pictures as might appear to them superfluous or inferior. It is conceivable that some thought of the fate of his own pictures may have crossed his mind. At any rate, he came in the end to prefer, as he said, '' the unpretending merit of Dulwich College " to '' the rules of greater institu- tions."! The suggestion that the collection should be given to Dulwich is said by J. T. Smith J to have come from John Philip Kemble, the famous actor, who may well have felt some special interest in a College which had been founded by a member of his calling, and which contained several portraits and many manuscripts of great interest in the history of the British stage. Kemble, like Desenfans, had been educated at Douai ; the two men were close friends, and the friendship, like so much else that belonged to Desenfans, had been passed on to Bourgeois. § Kemble added one picture to the collection (No. 247). His suggestion — if his it were — was possibly seconded by some of the officials at Dulwich, as it appears that one or more of the Fellows — specially the Rev. Robert Corry— being clergymen, were in the habit of conducting occasional services in the Mortuary Chapel or Vault in Charlotte Street, where, as already stated, the body of Mr. Desenfans was preserved. However these things may be, on December 10, 1810, three weeks before his death. Sir Francis Bourgeois signed the Will which made over the collection to the Master, Warden, and * See Appendix C ; below, p. 318. It will there be noted that the Duke did not recognize his correspondent's Polish Knighthood. I From the notes of a conversation, a few days before the date of Bour- geois's Will, between him, Mr. Lancelot Bough Allen (Warden of Dulwich College), and the B.ev. Robert Corry. The notes were ^ven by Mr. Allen to the writer of an account of Desenfans and Bourgeois in James Elmes's Annals of the Fine Arts for 1818. X Nolltkens and his Times, Vol. L, p. 391. Smith was an Official of the British Museum (Keeper of the Prints), and does not mention the fonner intention to give the collection to that Institution ; but it was probably in his mind, for he writes with some asperity both of Bourgeois personally and of Kemble's suggestion. § See Desenfans's Will ; below, p. 317. INTRODTTCTION. XV Fellows of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich. The collect ion consisted of 371 pictures. The principal collection of pictures, and the main portion of the gallery in which they are housed, were, as will have been seen from the preceding pages, the joint bequest and gift of Sir Francis Bourgeois and Mrs. Desenfans. This lady, Margaret Morris, was a sister of Sir John Morris, of Clase- mont, Glamorganshire. Her portrait, as Miss Morris, was painted in 1757 by Sir Joshua Reynolds (see below, p. 307). Upon the death of Sir Fi-ancis Bourgeois, she kept his body, with that of her late husband, in the Mortuary Chapel in Charlotte Street; and when in her turn she made her Will,* her first direction was that her bod}' should be finally preserved, with those of her husband and her friend, in the Mausoleum to be attached to the Gallery at Dulwich. She died in 1814, just before the Gallery was finished. In March 1815, the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Desenfans and of Sir P. F. Bourgeois were, in accordance with their wishes, placed in the Mausoleum, where they remain to this day. Mrs. Desenfans, by her Will, left a further sum of £500, together with plate and linen, for the purpose of entertaining the President and other members of the Royal Academy. on the occasion of an inspection of the pictures on or about St. Luke's Day in each year. The object of the annual visita- tion was that the Academicians should advise the College upon the due custody of the pictures and upon such cleaning or other restoration as might from time to time be necessary. It had been the intention of Sir Francis Bourgeois, Mrs. Desen- fans added, to provide for this visit; but, no provision having been made for it in his Will, she desired to supply the omission. In this matter her wishes are still carried out, though the nature and the occasion of the entertainment have been varied from time to time. The Minute-book of the College shows that there has been much discussion on the subject in successive generations. The executors of Sir Francis Bourgeois were very indignant, in 1822, because the College had decided, in view of the prior claims of the due custody of the Gallery, to make the Academy Dinner triennial only. The College replied that the only money which they were legally required to devote to the dinner was the income from Mrs. Desenfans's £500 (£15) ; that they could not apply to the purpose any money from the Bourgeois bequest other than such balance as might remain after defraying th(ji expenses of the Gallery. ''If so required, we are ready to prepare for the Academy such an annual repast as £15 Avill provide. But we apprehend it would be more agreeable to them, as it would certainly be to us, to give a public dinner at such intervals only as would enable us to conduct it on a scale conformable to our former practice and * See Appendix E ; below, p. 320. XVI INTRODUCTION. more suitable both to them and to us." Thus, then, it was decided, and from time to time a " suitable " banquet was given to members of the Royal Academy and other guests in the Picture Gallery. In Creevey's Diary there is a reference to an occasion of the kind (July 24, 1837). " On Saturday I dined at Dulwich ; dinner in the Picture Gallery for 30 — a triennial dinner to savants and virtuosos. Our artists were Chantrey, etc. ; our Maecenases, Lansdowne, Sutherland, Argyll, the latter of whom carried me in his . barouche ; poets and wags, Rogers, Sydney Smith and Creevey !"* Sydney Smith as a member of the Holland House circle and a par- ticular friend of one of that circle — John Allen, Warden of Dulwich College, (see No. 447) — was a guest at more than one dinner in the Picture Gallery. " I like pictures," he said, " without knowing anything about them; but I hate coxcomby in the fine arts, as well as in anything else. I got into dreadful disgrace with Sir G. B. once, who, standing before a picture at Bowood, exclaimed turning to me, ' Immense breaxith of light and shade!' I innocently said, ' Yes; about an inch and a half.' He gave me a look that ought to have killed me," Mrs. Desenfans, besides providing some funds for enter- taining the Royal Academy at Dulwich, bequeathed to the College various pieces of furniture, most of which are now displayed in the picture galleries. They include two tortoise- shell commodes, probably the work of Andre Boule (1642-1732), " Artist in Cabinet-work " to Louis XIV. ; some Louis XV. chairs; a commode of English marqueterie; and a sideboard, with a Boule clock and two vases. Mrs. Desenfans left it as her desire that the Master, Warden, and Fellows should open the Gallery for public inspection on one day of the week only (Tuesday) ; but from 1814 (or according to other versions, from 1817) to 1858 visitors were admitted daily on production of cards of admission which were procurable at Messrs. Colnaghi's in Pall Mall, and at other resorts of picture-lovers in Ix)ndon. At Dulwich itself cards were not procurable. Since 1858 admission has been free daily without tickets. The importance of the Gallery thus opened to the publicf is * The Creevey Papers, ed. 1905, p. 6(;4. f The precise date of the " opening " of the Dulwich Gallery, variously given by different authorities as '• 1812," " 1814," and " 1817," I am unable to determine. It appears from College minutes that the building was completed between July and September 1814, and in the latter month the pictures were removed from London to Dulwich. The earliest minute in the Gallery Minute-book is dated Jirae 6, 1817 ; it notifies the appointment of Mr. Cock- burn as Curator, as from 10th October, 1816, and includes rules and regula- tions for the admission of the Public. It would thus appear that the Gallery was "opened" to the College (and doubtless to friends of its members) shortly after September, 1814 ; but perhaps not to the general public until 1817. The minute of June 6, 1817, may, however, refer to alterations in the rules, not to the first admission of the public. INTRODUCTION . XVU described in the next section (II-) of this Introduction ; here the story of its growth is ct>ntinued. (4.) The connexion of the Gallery with the College was responsible for the acquisition in 1831 and 1835 of some of the choicest examples in the collection. These are a number of portraits, mostly by Gainsborough, of the Linley family. Of this family, remarkable alike for beauty and for accomplish- ments, the history has heen told by Miss Clementina Black in her pleasant volume entitled The Linleys of Bath ; quotations from it are made in notes upon several of the family portraits. The head of the family was Thomas Linley, musician (see No. 140). One of his sons, the Rev. Ozias Thurstan Linley (No. 474), was in 1816 appointed to a junior fellowship, with the post of organist, at Dulwich College. He died in 1831. and left all his property to his one surviving brother, William (No. 178). Ozias had arranged with William that, when the latter should die, their family pictures should all pass into the possession of the College. The msot valuable of them, the portrait of " the Linley Sisters " — Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell — by Gainsborough (No. 320), which belonged to AVilliam, had already in 1822 Ijeen deposited by him in the Gallery. Others had apparently l)een given by Ozias before his death, and others, again, were given by William in 1831.*^ Upon the death of William, in 1835, the College was possessed of the whole series, thus: — Thomas Linley, the elder, by Gainsl>orough (No. 140). Mrs. Linley, his wife, by Lonsdale (sec note on No. 45f^). Mrs. Linley, by Oliver. Elizabeth and Maiy Linley, by Gainsborough (No. 320). Thomas Linley, the younger, by Gainsborough (No. 331). Mary Linley (Mrs. Tickell), as a child, by Ozias Humphry. Samuel Linley, by Gainsborough (No. 302). Maria Linley, by Lawrence (No. 475). Ozias Linley, by Lawrence (No. 474). Ozias Linley, by Oliver. Jane Linley (Mrs. W^ard), by Lawrence. William Linley, by Lawrence (No. 173). * No chronological register of pictures acquired by the College has hitherto been kept, and it is impossible from such records as are extant to determine precisely the date and manner of the acquisition of the twelve Linley portraits. The records consist of (1) a College Minute of March 30, 1831, summarizing a letter from William Linley of March 27, announcing an intended bequest by him of certain pictures, and •' confirming a gift made by his late brother "of certain others; (2) a letter from William Linley. dated April 1, 1831, '• presenting as his gift to the College " certain pictures, and announcing a bequest of certain others ; (3) the will of William Linley, dated 1832 and proved 1835, and (4) a list of the twelve portraits in the Catalogue of 1892. It is impossible to harmonize these records. Some pictures '• given by Ozias " in 1831, are bequeathed by William in 1835. Some in possession of the College are included in William's list of intended bequests, but not in his actual will. And one (the portrait of Jane Linley), thoiigh it figures in the Catalogue of 1892, does not appear in any of the other documents. XVlll INTRODUCTION. Of the four portraits to which no number is attached, one — that of Mrs. Tiekell, by Humphry — was given by the College, on May 29, 1835, to Miss Tiekell, only daughter of the subject of the portrait ; the other three were supposed, in the Catalogue of 1892, to be '' in the College," but they cannot now be found. (5.) At various times a foAv accessions of pictures have been obtained by the gift or bequest of well-wishers of the College, and two or three were bought by the College itself. Particulars under this head will be found in the Numerical List at the end of the volume. In order that the present Catalogue may contain a complete inventory of pictures belonging to the Foundation of Alleyn's College of God's Gift, a few pictures are included which were specifically presented to Alleyn's School (see Nos. 648-553). These miscellaneous accessions have not all been of great importance, but they include several pieces of value in themselves or of special interest in connexion with the Dulwich Gallery. It is interesting to note that the connexion of the College with the dramatic profession has been continued by gifts of valuable pictures from actors (see, e.g., Nos. 188, 247) ; and the acquisition of a fine Gainsboi-ough (No. 316), by gift of a gentleman not connected with the College, was doubtless motived by the consideration that it would be in appropriate company. (6.) Lastly, in 1911 a valuable accession of 35 pictures was made to the Gallery by the gift of an anonymous donor. They consist, for the most part, of portraits; the importance of the gift is explained on a later page of this Introduction. The building itself has of late years been greatly extended and improved. Rooms IX., X., and XI. (see Plan, p. xxxvi.) have been built on to the original bmilding by the present Chairman of the Gallery Committee, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson; and Room VIII. has been re-roofed and converted by him from a lumber-room into an additional picture-gallery. Room V. has been re-roofed, to the great improvement of the lighting. It may be hoped that an additional new Room will presently be added, with access from Room IV., of similar dimensions to those of Room X. Some of the walls of the old building are still over-crowded, and there are a few pictures, worthy of exhibition, which, however, are at present, owing to want of wall space in the public galleries, placed in the Retiring Room, the Committee Room, and the Store Room. Pieces of furniture, bequeathed by Mrs. Desenfans and now placed in the galleries, have been already mentioned. A Dutch inlaid table and books for the use of visitors have been recent gifts by the Chairman of the Gallery Committee, and the lead cistern, of the date of 1736, which is now made useful in the garden, was a gift from the Estates Governors. The Governors have also accepted from Mr. H. Y. Thompson a show-case; the contents of it are described at the end of the Catalogue (p. 307). INTKOfBUOTION. XIX n. The Dulwich Gallery, the growth of which has beeu traced , in preceding pages, was for many years the only collection, tuid for some years longer the best collection, of pictures by the Old Masters accessible freely to the Londoner. It was in some sort open, as we have seen, in 1814. Mr. Angerstein's collection — the original nucleus of the National Gallery— was not bought by the nation until 1824. It contained only 38 pictures, and many years elapsed after 1824 before the National Gallery was equal to Dulwich in extent, interest, or importance. The National '' Gallery " itself— the building, that is, in Trafalgar Square — was not opened until 1838 — ■ twenty-four years after the completion of the Dulwich Gallery. The benefaction of Sir Francis Bourgeois and Mrs. Desenfans, in giving to the public a fine collection of pictures by the Old Masters, was thus of great importance to the appreciation and practice of art in this country, and for many years Dulwich was a favourite haunt, and a school of ai't, for artists, students, and writers. In the edition of Murray's Handbook for London, issued in 1850, the Dulwich Gallery is still referred to as " the only collection freely accessible to the public, which affords an opportunity of studying the Dutch masters " ; and diaries Kingsley, writing also in 18-50, takes Alton Locke first not to the National Gallery, but to Dulwich, where there are, he says, " much better pictures." The Minute Book referring to the Gallery contains many notes, from 1817 onwards, about the admission of students and copyists, and in 1835 regulations were deemed necessary to prevent over-crowding. '' The num- ber of students in the Bourgeois Gallery having become so great as to be inconvenient to the public, it is thought necessary for the present," says a minute of September 1, 1835, *' not to add to the number " ; and it was ordered, " that only two persons be allowed to study from the same picture at the same time." The students seem to have gathered particularly around the Murillos ; for Ruskin says in a letter of 1844, written to his friend Liddell (afterwards the Dean), " I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I never have seen one before the Paul Veronese " (No. 270). The educational value of the Gallery was recognised in a practice which began soon after 1814 and continues to the present time. This is the loan of one or more pictures in every year to the Royal Academy, for students to copy in its School of Painting. The selection is made each year by the Council of the Academy, and there are some references in artistio memoirs to this practice. Mr. Redgrave, for instance, recalls the grumbling that sometimes occurred among poor students when a large picture, requiring a considerable outlay in canvas, was selected. Less excusable, perhaps, was the 27930 b 2 \/ XX INTHODUCTION. *' demur respecting the amount of work it Avould involve " when Veronese's fine full-length picture was chosen (No. 270). A masterpiece of Watteau's (No. 156) has often been selected, and in the note on that picture, one famous painter's criticism upon a friend's copy of it, will be found. Among other pictures Mhich students in several years have been set to copy are Claude's '' Jacob and Laban " (No. 205), Cuyp's '' Horses " (No. 71), Guide's '' St. John " (No. 262), Murillo's '^ Flower Girl " (No. 199), Ostade's '' Boors " (No. 116), Rubens's ** Venus, Mars, and Cupid " (No. 285), Van Dyck's '' Madonna and Child ' (No. 90), Velazquez's '' Philip IV." (No. 249), and a landscape by Wynants (No. 210). But the Dulwich pictures have been studied by artists other- wise than under compulsion by superior authority. Turner visited the Gallery, and a remark of his on one of the pictures is recorded {see No. 309) ; he knew the Watteau, and intro- duces it into his picture of '• Watteau Painting " (No. 514 in the National Collection).* John Jackson, the Academician, made a copy of Wilson's landscape (No. 240), and the publica- tion of an engraving by C. Turner from his copy Avas the subject of a remonstrance by the College (Minutes, July 31, 1823). W^. J. Linton, the engraver, served an apprenticeship at Kennington, and in his Memories, published nearly 70 years after (1895), he recalls the pleasures of the Dulwich Gallery. " From Kennington through Camberwell to Dulwich was then a pleasant walk through country fields — a walk I often took as I had the fortune to be acquainted Avith one of the Fellows of Dulwich College, and so was sometimes allowed to spend a Sunday there, rambling in the large College garden, or for hours alone in the most pleasant of pictui'e galleries . . . with its Murillos and Rembrandts, a Titian, a Guide, a Wouwermans, a Gainsborough, a Reynolds ; the places in A\hich they hung I can still remember." In 1827 there is a Minute of permission given to Mr. Cattermole to copy one of Van Dyck's pictures- -probably that of the Knight (No. 154) — for a study in armour. The Dulwich Gallery was a haunt of Holraan Hunt in his student days, as he tells us in his Autohiograj)hy. His notes on one or two of our pictures are cited in this Catalogue, and one of his best-known works may well have owed something to a remembrance of a fine picture ^in the Dulwich Gallery (see No. 123). The Dulwich Gallery has association, furthermore, with the three English writers who, in prose or verse, have to the best purpose brought literai*y art to the criticism of painting — William Hazlitt, John Ruskin, and Robert Browning, 'Hazlitt was acquainted with Mr. Desenfans, and knew well * A Minute of September 28, 1882, says, " Ordered that Mr. Turner have permission to make studies in water-colour from some of the pictures," but this is hardly likely to refer to the Mr. Turner. INTROnUCTTON. XXI the pictures in his house. At a later time, he visited the Dulwich Gallery and made it the subject of a chapter, which is now included in his Criticisms of Art. His notices of several of the pictui-es are cited in the present Catalogue, With Ruskin, the associations of Dulwich and its Gallery are closer. It was within an easy walk of his homes on Heme Hill and on Denmark Hill successively. It was to Croxted Lane, then entirely rural, leading from Heme Hill to Dulwich, that he used to go, in order to think quietly over passages that still needed turning and polishing in his books. It was to the Dulwich Gallery that he repaired in search of powder and shot with which to lay the '' Old Masters " low in order that Turner, his chief among ' Modem Painters," might be exalted. He had been familiar with the Gallery for many years, as is shown by the letter already quoted. When he was writing the first volume of his famous l)ook (1843), he was constantly there, and, as he says in its Preface, he took his examples largely from Dulwich pictures. A little later, when he was preparing engravings for later volumes of the book, a Minute (February 23, 1844) records that " The Trustees of the Bourgeois Gallery have ordered that Mr. Ruskin have per- mission to make water-colour drawings from the pictures." Those who love best the Dutch painters and the school of " classical landscape " may think that the young champion of Turner used the Dulwich Gallery scurvily. But though it may have been pictures at Dulwich that inflamed him against " the various Van somethings and Back somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea " ; yet, on the other hand, the Gallery contained much that inspired him to warm appreciation. " Claude first set the pictorial sun in the pictorial heaven. We will give him the credit of this with no drawbacks." " Parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp which have never been equalled in art " ; and in no Gallery are there more good Ouyps than at Dulwich. Several passages from Ruskin's very numerous references to the Dulwich Gallery are quoted in this Catalogue. A more uniformly appreciative visitor to the Gallery was Robert Browning, who there first acquired the love of pictures which was to inspire much of his poetry. Dulwich was within a pleasant walk of his home in Camberwell, and, when still a child, he was often taken there by his fathei;. ^ '' I so love that Gallery," he wrote to " E. B. B." inV 1^4^' " having been used to go there when a child, far under the age allowed by the regulations — those two Guides, the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's Vision, such a Watteau, the triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group,* all the Pou§sins with the ' Armida ' and ' Jupiter's Nursing ' — and — no end to ' ands ' — I have sate before one, some one of those ♦ No. 84, no longer ascribed to Giorgione. XXll INTRODUCTION. pictures I had predetermined to see, a good half hour and then gone away ... it used to be a green half hour's walk over the fields." It may have been to pictures in the Dulwich Gallery that the poet's mind reverted forty years later when he included Gerarde de Lairesse amongst his Parley ings with Certain People oj Importance in their Day (see the notes on Nos. 176, 179). Browning, in the letter quoted above, touches upon an aspect of the Dulwich Gallery which renders it unique. It is a Gallery in a garden, and even at the present day is within reach of country walks. '' George Eliot," writing at a time when the suburbs were less " developed," found the greenei-y even more pleasant than the Gallery. " We had a delicious drive," she said, (May, 1859) " to Dulwich and back by Syden- ham. We staid an hour in the Gallery at Dulwich, and I satisfied myself that the St. Sebastian (No. 268) is no exception to the usual 'petty prettiness' of Guide's conceptions. TheCuyp glowing in the evening sun, the Spanish beggar boys of Murillo, and Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs. Sheridan and her sister, are the gems of the Gallery. But better than the pictures was the fresh greenth of the spring— the chestnuts just on the verge of their flowering beauty, the bright leaves of the limes, the rich yellow-brown of the oaks, the meadows full of buttercups." The charm of the Dulwich Gallery has been best caught by James Smetham, the painter, and an artist in letter-writing as well. '' I went down to Dulwich last week," he wrote in 1871, " to have a look at the Gallery. It is the most delightful gallery in arrangement and surroundings that I know, or know of. You don't turn out of a hot street, Avhere on the hot pavement you meet hot and discontented people coming out in lavender and straw-coloured gloves, irritated with British art, like a bull that has seen a red rag (the ingrates !). You walk along a breezy quiet road — ' This way to the Picture Gallery '-under green trees, after green fields, and you give a little gravelly side turn, and — ' The Picture Gallery is now open.' How kind! How civil! How silent! You write your name in a visitors' book, and see that yesterday John Ruskin was here. Then you begin your lounging round, and note the thin browns of old Teniers' ' Caves of Temptation,' and Gerhard Dow's ' Old Woman and Porridge Pot,' and Gains- borough's [,s/>] ' Mrs. Siddons.' All is sober and uncrowded, and well lighted and profoundly still. . . . The keeper of the Gallery comes and peers at you over his spectacles. He is not quite sure in his little room which are the pictures and which are visitors, and he's come to see." Ruskin was fond, too, of the surroundings of the Gallery, and a drawing by him of the exterior has been exhibited.* * Tn the Ruskin Exhibition at Manchester, 1904; No. 389. INTBODUOTION. XXIU III. The special features of the Dulwich Gallery may in large measure be gathered from what has been said in preceding pages about its history and its associations; but a few general remarks may perhaps not be without interest to visitors who are not already familiar with the collection^ One preliminary observation upon its contents may be desirable. The visitors to the Gallery, and still more the reader of this Catalogue, should remember that not all the pictures enumerated can lay claim to any considerable artistic merit or even to any merit at all. The Catalogue serves among its other purposes that of an inventory of the pictorial property of the College, and therefore it enumerates and describes every piece ; but, as will have been gathered from the history of the collection, many pieces came into possession of the College in circumstances which precluded consideration of artistic merit. This remark applies even to the Desenfans-Bourgeois collection. For instance, the artist by whom' there is the largest number of pictures is Sir Francis Bourgeois. It is not suggested that he was an artist whose work will repay a corre- sponding amount of study, nor are all his pictures placed upon walls of the public rooms; but he was the Founder of the Gallery. So, again, with regard to many, and indeed to most, of the pictures which belonged to Edward AUeyn, the Founder of the College. Some are, it is true, of curious historical interest; but the others, and especially his series of Kings and Sibyls, are of little interest and of still less artistic merit, and only a few examples are placed on exhibition. Similar remarks apply to a large proportion of the Cartwright collection. Of the 594 pieces enumerated in this Catalogue, 25 are placed in other portions of the College of God's Gift than the Picture Gallery, and 90 are stored in rooms at the Gallery not open to the general public. Of this latter number, some would doubtless be shown, if space were available, but many are not worthy of exhibition. The Dulwich Gallery is thus a small one, as public galleries go, and some general indications may now be given of its special features. The collection is remarkable rather for its Dutch, than for its Italian pictures; and among the latter, exaniples of the fifteenth century are very few, whilst the primitives are not represented at all. The date at which the Desenfans-Bourgeois was formed, and the taste of that time, explain this feature of the Dulwich Gallery, which indeed was shared by the National Gallery for many years. In the eighteenth and at| the beginning of the nineteenth, century, the taste for the earlier Italian art, which has become widespread in our own time, hardly existed. Mr. Desenfans complains that some connoisseurs of his day found even Raphael too severe. The XXIV INTRODUCTION. popular Italian masters of his day were the Carracci and Domenichino and Guido Reni. The second volume of Ruskin's Modern Pointers and the foundation of the Arundel Society, two of the influences which diverted taste in this country towards the earlier schools, came a generation after Sir Erancis Bourgeois made his hequest. Accordingly, the Gallery has several pictures attributed to one or other of the Carracci. One at least of these, in its sincerity and force of expression, recalls the ideals of the earlier art (No. 255). There is also a fine example of Domenichino (No. 283), and several popular and pleasing works by, or after, Guido Reni. Some of the Italian masters of the great period were of a genius so universal in its appeal as to be independent of fashion. Every collector at any time desired, if he could, to possess works b}^ Leonardo du Vinci, by Titian, and by Paolo Veronese. The Dulwich Gallery possesses none by "the former master, but the desire to do so is indicated by the attribution to him of several works — sometimes of a strangely incongruous character — in the early catalogues. The reader who is curious in such matters will be interested in divers notes to that effect in the present Catalogue. The great name of Titian appears in our list of artists, and Mr. Desenfans loudly extolled the merits of his principal example (No. 209). Modern criticism consigns the examples, however, to the lower rank of copies. The Gallery includes, however, besides other pieces connected with Paolo Veronese, one characteristic and unchallenged work (already referred to) by the great decorative master (No. 270) ; and, in spite of the limitations above explained, the earlier Italians are not wholly unrepresented. The Dulwich Gallery boasts two pieces by Raphael, which, though small, are genuine, and are fragments of one of the master's more celebrated works. There is also a picture which whether by Piero di Cosimo or another is characteristic of the earlier Florentine portraiture, and there is a pleasing example of the Umbrian School (No. 256). Has an}' reader of these pages ever been assailed by '' that icy demon of weariness who haunts great picture galleries"? He is a plausible Mephistopheles, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells us, possessing " the magic that is the destruction of all other magic." He whispers his incantations sometimes, it seems, even against the divine Raphael. "If he spare an>iihing," adds Hawthorne, " it will be some such matter as an earthen pipkin, or a l)iinch of herrings by Teniers ; a brass kettle, in which you can see your face, by Gerard Dou ; or a long-stalked wine-glass, transparent and full of shifting reflection, or a hit of bread and cheese, or an over-ripe peach, with a fly upon it, truer than reality herself, by the school of Dutch conjurers," In the field of this Dutch (jenre, the Dulwich Gallery is rich. The number of good examples is large, and the proportion of the .very good is considerable. Every visitor of taste will pause * INTRODTTCTION. XXV before the Old Woman (No. 50). Some judges say she was the Avork of Don; others, of Brekelenkam; others, of Metsu or another; all say that she is a masterpiece. By Don, un- questionably, is another ma.sterpieee (No. 56) ; and by Brouwer, a rarer master, is another (No. 108). Among the works of Adrian van de Velde, Dujardin, and Adrian van Ostade the visitor will find favourites for himself, Avhich may or may not be No. 51 for the first, and No. 82 for the second. For the third, if his taste should coincide Avith that of a former curator of the Gallery, he will fix upon No. 115 as " one of the finest and purest specimens of Dutch art in existence." There are diversities of gift in painting, as in other arts, and no one method or ideal can be laid down as of universal application ; unless indeed it be this, that the true artist labours to do as well as it can be done what he sets himself to do. How admirable is this trait in the best Dutch genre painters ! A lover of the Dulwich Gallery, already quoted, has some remarks on this text, which he points from the case of Dou : " Mr. Slap- dash whips out his pocket-book, scribbles for five minutes on one page, and from that memorandum paints with the aid of the depth of his consciousness the whole of his picture. Not so the true follower of Gerard Dou and Jan van Huysum. To him the silent surface with the white ground is a sacred place that is to teU on after ages, and bring pleasure or power or knowledge to hundreds of thousands as silently."* He hurried his work for no man, but moved with a princely ease, as much as to say to the world, " Other men may hurry as they please, from necessity or excitement; but Gerard Dou chooses to think, and to perfect his works until he has satisfied himself." And the result is that the best works of the Dutch genre painters, though they were no poets, though their themes were taken from the everj'day life of common people, yet, in virtue of what Mr. Pater calls " a more and more purged and perfected delightfulness of interest," have kept their appeal to the taste of successive generations of spectators. Another speciality of the Dulwich Gallery is Dutch landscape, where, again, the moral is that to the true artist nothing is common or unclean. The Gallery is very rich, as has been said al)ove, in works by Cuyp, and no landscape painter has possessed the art of making so much out of so little as he. This is a point of which illustration will be found in the notes on some of his pictures. The strong representation of this painter at Dulwich is the more interesting because Mr. Desenf ans was himself one of the ' ' discoverers ' ' of Cuyp (see note on No. 4). Both, Berchem, and Ruysdael are also fairly represented ; and of Hobbema, there is a very fine example (No. 87). Even these cursory remarks on the Dutch pictures must not be allowed to end without mention of the * Letters of James Smetfiam, p. 173. XXVI INTRODUCTION. greatest of all the Dutch masters. Rembrandt is present at Dulwich^ as some one has said, " in semi-state." He brings with him, however, besides other works, one of the most charming of all his portraits (No. 163), and his name is attached to a little work of imagination (No. 126) Avhich has ai'oused the enthusiastic interest of many educated visitors. The Flemish School is also a feature of the Dulwich Gallery — the later Flemish School, that is; for here again " primitives " are absent. There is a large, and perhaps a miscellaneous, collection of works by Teniers, the father and the son. There are many works attributed to Rubens, some of which are of first-rate quality; and of Vandyck, both in portraiture and in subject-pictures, there are some fine examples. The " Portrait of a Knight " (No. 173), lately (as will be seen from the note) identified, is famous. The French School and the Spanish School are not so fully represented ; but in each case, Dulwich possesses some master- pieces. Next to Cuyp, there is no painter who can be studied more fully here than Nicolas Poussin. The taste for " learned Poussin " has perhaps, in these unclassical days, to be acquired. Mr. Desenfans was an enthusiast for Poussin. "In the old collection, in Mr. Desenfans' time, the Poussins," Hazlitt tells us, " occupied a separate room* by themselves, and it was (we confess) a very favourite room with us." Mr. Desenfans devoted some pages of his Catalogue to shaming a careless public into interest by reciting a list of the illustrious French- men who had ranked Poussin -among the greatest of painters; and English lovers of art may be reminded of the high, though discriminating, praise which Sir Joshua Reynolds bestowed upon him in many a page of the Discourses. It is rash in such matters to think differently from Sir Joshua ; and visitors to the Dulwich Gallery, if only in gratitude to Mr. Desenfans, should not allow a certain dryness and severity in Poussin's style to obscure his many beauties and felicities. Everyone, it may be assumed, likes Claude ; and here will be found some characteristic examples of him. Th© greatest treasure of the Dulwich Gallery in the French School, so far as a single picture is concerned, is, however, by another artist — an acknowledged masterpiece of "the prince of Court painters," Antoine Watteau (No. 156). Of the two chief painters of Spain, our Gallery possesses good examples. The Philip IV. of Velazquez is a very fine picture; and Murillo's "Peasant Boys" and "Flower Girl" are masterpieces in their sort. The examples of the latter painter's religious art are less important; though, as will be seen from the note on one of them (No. 281), Tennyson was much attracted by it. In the English School, the Dulwich Gallery is strongest where * The dining-room. /?«<> above, p. x. INTRODUCTION. XXVll the School itself is very strong, namely, in portraiture. The glories of the English School of landscape must be sought else- where; though our Gallery contains a beautiful example of Richard Wilson (No. 171). In English portraiture, it may be doubted whether any Gallery of the same size is richer or more instructive. There is, indeed, only one important example of Reynolds ; but that, though probably not much of it is by his own hand, is a replica of one of his greatest works (No. 318). To the collection of Gainsboroughs in the Dulwich Gallery, reference has been made above. But the interest of the Gallery in this department of art does not depend only upon its Reynolds, its Gainsboroughs, or its beautiful early piece by Lawrence (No. 178), or its fine example, recently acquired, of Romney (No. 590). Reynolds and Gainsborough are the great " old masters " in this branch of the school; " their portraiture is so accomplished" said Ruskin, ''that nothing is left for future masters but to add the calm of perfect workmanship to their vigour and felicity of perception." But Reynolds and Gainsborough were not the first portrait painters. " Serious study of our English portrait painters begins," says the author of a recent work on the subject, " with the second half of the eighteenth century, despite the well recognised fact that the greater part of English ancestral portraiture belongs to the preceding centuries. Quite apart, moreover, from this numerical aspect is the certainty that the best painters of the seventeenth century were considerable masters."* Serious study of English portraiture in this wider and more consecutive way has been made possible at the Dulwich College by the acquisition from an anonymous donor in 1911 of 34 portraits of English men and women, the work of painters who flourished in this country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This collection supplements many interesting examples of the earlier portraiture which were, by happy circumstance, in the Gallery already, and which now acquire an additional interest. It is one of the more notable features of the Dulwich collection that it contains a sequence of portrait painters, English by birth, or working in England, ranging from Vandyck, Johnson, and William Dobson to Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir William Beechey. The painters represented include (among others not already mentioned) Mytens, Honthorst, Hanneman, Isaac Fuller, Sir Peter Lely, Soest, Nason, Mary Beale, Huysman, Greenhill, J. Riley, Simon Dubois, Kneller, Dahl, Jervis, Hogarth, Hudson, Richard Wilson, Northcote, Hoppner, and Opie. To most visitors the primary interest in p)ainted portraits is concerned with the persons portrayed. " Portrait galleries," said Carlyle, writing from this point of view, '' far transcend in worth all other kinds of national collections of pictures * Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painter.<<,hyC. H. Collins Baker, vol. 1, p. 1. XXVlll INTRODUCTION. whatever." He complained that the galleries of Berlin, " like other galleries, are made up of goat-footed Pan, Eiiropa's Bull, Romulus's She-Wolf,, and the Correggiosity of Correggio, and contain, for instance, no portrait of Friedrich the Great — no likeness at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of Human Realities, or any part of them, who liave sprung, not from the idle brains of dreaming dilettanti, but from the head of God Almighty, to make this poor authentic earth a little memorable for us and to do a little work that may be eternal there." It cannot be said that every portrait in our Gallery is of a Human Reality who is known to have done eternal work in the world or to have been the glory of his time. Many of them are of unknown persons; for " our painters take no care," as John Evelyn complained to Samuel Pepys, " to transmit to posterity the names of the persons whom they represent; through which negligence so many excellent pieces come after a while to be dispersed in dirty corners." But our Gallery includes among its portr3,its a considerable number of famous personages. We have by Vandyck, the Prince of Oneglia, and the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby. We have by various artists the Lord Chancellors Bacon and Somers ; among the statesmen. Sir Harrj^ Vane and Aubrey de Vere ; of artists painted by themselves, Greenhill, Reynolds, and Opie ; among the poets, Michael Drayton, Abraham Cowley, and Richard Lovelace. The last-mentioned portrait is one of a series of the Lovelace family which for some reason or other was in the possession, as above stated, of a benefactor to the Gallery, William Cartwright. A second family series of great interest — the Linleys of Bath — has been mentioned already. Another feature of the Dulwich Gallery in the field of portraiture is due to the connexion of the College with the stage. Relating to its earlier annals, there are portraits of Richard Burbage, Edward Alleyn (the Founder), William Cartwright, Bond, Sly, and Richard Perkins. There are portraits also of Nathaniel Field and Nathaniel Lee. The " Kemble tradition " lives on our walls in portraits of Sarah (Mrs. Siddons), John Philip, and Charles. There are portraits also of Sarah Bartley and her husband George, the comedian ; and the latter presented to the Gallery an interesting portrait of Moliere. In the case of all portraits of known personages, biographical notes are given in the Catalogue wherever they seemed likely to be in the least degree welcome as aids to the visitor's recollection. Painted portraits have an interest, however, apart from the personality of the sitters — an interest, or rather several points of interest ; and many of these appeal to non- professional persons. There is, for instance, the interest of tracing fashions in dress, in hair, and in other methods of personal adornment. Then, it is curiously interesting to note the changes in fcaste or fashion which governed the manner in which a sitter liked to be represented — in devotion (as often in INTRODUCTION. XXIX Italian pictures), in full dress, and, as far as possible, in heroic attitude, or, again, in everyday appearance. The conventions ot portraiture — and especially the treatment of backgrounds — is another point of interest. But perhaps, most interesting of all is to note the different degrees of success which different artists attained in what must ever be the highest function of the portrait-painter. '' He gives us," said Jonathan Richard- son, in an " Essay on the Theory of Painting " (1715), " not only the persons, but the characters of great men. Let a man read a character in my Lord Clarendon (and, certainly, never Avas there a better painter in that kind), he will find it im- proved by seeing a picture of the same person by Van Dyck." This is very true of the great portrait-painters, and the ideal was fully attained by many of the old masters ; but in the re- birth of painting, the higher level of excellence was only gradually attained. To give some sort of superficial resemblance to a sitter is said not to be difficult, and in the days before Daguerre an average skill in portraiture was a painter's surest foundation for a respectable livelihood ; but to give a true impression of individuality and life is difficult, and the power of doing it is rarer. The most cursory glance at the walls of this, or any other, portrait gallery shows^ it. Hoav many "wooden" portraits there always are! And it is more diffi- cult still to discern the manners in the face, and paint a character or an ideal: As when a painter, poring on a face, Divinely thro' all hindrance §nds the man Behind it, and so paints him that his face, The shape and colour of a mind and life. Lives for his children, ever at its best And fullest. Painters Avho aim at this ideal portraiture are partly con- trolled, no doubt, by their own temperament or by the taste of their time. It is difficult to believe, in the latter connexion, that all Rigaud's sitters had the air of the Grand Monarch or all Vandyck's the air of the cavalier ; and, in the former respect, that all Gainsborough's sitters had the same delicate and half Avistful grace. Hardest of all, then, is it, we may suppose, to combine individuality with ideality. Perhaps the most successful attempts in this direction, among the early English portaits in our collection, will be found in the best pieces by Greenhill and in the portrait of Richard Lovelace by an unknown painter. Remarks, intended to direct the visitor's attention to the various points of interest indicated above, will be found in the Catalogue in notes either upon particular painters or upon particular pictures. So much, then, upon special features of the Dulwich Gallery. No attempt has been made in foregoing pages to cover the XXX INTKODUCTION. whole ground; their purpose is introductory, not exhaustive. For, after all, does not the visitor, while not impatient (it is hoped) of some general suggestions, prefer to follow special interests and pick out particular favourites in a Gallery for himself P He will find plenty of scope for such selection i n our Gallery, and will often, we do not doubt, fix upon points or pictures which are not touched upon in this introduction. IV. The earlier Catalogues of the Dulwich Collection (or portions of it), which in one sense or another. may be called official, were as follow : — (1) Before 1686. The Catalogue by Cartwright, described above, p. v. (2) 1802. The Descriptive Catalogue , by Desenfans, de- scribed above, p. ix. (3) 1804. The List of Pictures to be Insured, by Desenfans, mentioned above, p. x. The List is printed at pp, 223 seq, of Sir George Warner's Catalogue of Manuscripts and Muni- ments in Dulwich College (1881). As indications of the taste of the time among collectors, the prices which Mr. Desenfans attached to the several pictures have some interest. Of pictures which may be identified with works in our Gallery, the most highly priced arc Murillo's " Our Lady of the Rosary " (No. 281), £1,200, and two N. Poussin's (Nos. 227, §36), also £1,200 each. A third pic- ture by the same artist (No. 234) comes next, £1,000. A " Landscape, Cattle and Figures," which may be one of our large Cuyps, is also valued at £1,000. At £800 stand Murillo's ''Flower Girl" (No. 199), Vanderwerf's ''Three Graces" (P our No. 147), and Vandyck's "Samson and Delilah" (No. 127), and " Virgin and Child " (No. 90). Watteau's famous " Ball " (No. 106) is valued at no more than £200, and Velazquez's " Philip IV " (No. 249) at the same sum. The two panels from Raphael's altar-piece (Nos. 241, 243) are valued at £250 the pair. (4) 1813. A Brief Catalogue of Pictures, late the pioperty of Sir Francis Bourgeois, BA., by J[o/tn] Britton; May 24, 1813. The MS. of this catalogue is " MSS. No. xvii " in Warner's Catalogue of Manuscripts. Mr. Britton catalogued the pictures acciording to their position on the walls of the several rooms in Bourgeois's house. (5) 1816. A Catalogue of the Dulwich Gallery. This, like the preceding, was a mere list of the pictures, with artists' names. It was printed (without date). It was compiled by Ralph Cockburn, Curator of the Gallery (1816—1820). This catalogue was reprinted, Avith minor variations, at several dates (those collected in the British Museum's Catalogue are INTRODUCTION. XXXI conjecturally dated 1820, 1821, 1830, 1835, .1840, 1870), but in uo case was any description of the pictures supplied. (6) Between 1821 and 1864. An Historical and DescHptive Cataloyiie, by Stephen Poyntz Denning (Curator from January, 1821, until his death in 1864), assisted by his son, the Rev. Stephen Denning. This was never printed; the MS. (in two stages) is preserved in the Gallery, and some notes have been taken from it in the present Catalogue. (7) 1876. A Descriptive Catalogue with Biographical Notices of the Painters, by John C. L. Sparkes, Head Master of Lam- beth School of Art, and of the Art Department of Dulwich College. Printed by order of the Governors. This was the first catalogue issued by them which was more than a list of names. (8) 1880. A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue with Bio- graphical Notices of the Painters, by Jean Paul Richter, Ph.D., and John C. L. Sparkes. Printed by order of the Governors. — In this catalogue, Mr. Sparkes's notices of British painters were retained, but the rest of the work was re-written by Dr. Richter, who altered a large number of attributions. The numbers attached to the pictures in successive catalogues wore altered from time to time to correspond with the order in which they were placed on the walls. Catalogues (5) to (8) included only the Bourgeois Bequest and a few pictures acquired by the Gallery since the date of that bequest. Those catalogues were supplemented by: — (9) 1890. Catalogue of the Cartwright Collection and other Pictures and Portraits at Dulwich College, by John C. L. Sparkes, with descriptive and biographical notes by the Rev. Alfred J. Carver, D.D. Printed by order of the Grovernors. — The pictures included in this catalogue were numbered inde- pendently of the numbers in the preceding catalogues. A reference to a numbered picture at Dulwich might thus mean either of two pictures. (10) 1892. Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the Dulwich College Gallery, loith Biographical Notices of the Painters. Printed by order of the Governors. — This catalogue was, in the case of the Bourgeois collection, " largely based upon " Nos. (7) and (8), but it also reprinted (in a re-arranged form) No. (9). The numbers of the greater part of the Bourgeois were now altered, but the renumbering was not applied either to the remaining part of the Bourgeois collection or to any (except a few) of the pictures in No. (9). A reference by number to the Dulwich Gallery might now mean, in some cases, one of four things — a Bourgeois picture (new number), a Bourgeois picture (old number), a Bourgeois picture (not re-numbered), a Cartwright picture. (11) 1905. A re-print, with very few alterations, of No. (10). (12) 1910. In this year was issued Pictures in the Dulwich Gallery: Princess Victoria Series. Engraved and printed by order of the Governors by Emery Walker at Hammersmith. XXXll INTRODUCTION. Ten pictures were reproduced, with an introduction and notes on the pictures by H, Y. T. Postcards with reproductions ot 27 of the pictures were also placed on sale. A Second Part in the " Princess Victoria Series " was issued in 1911; and a third, in 1912. In addition to these official catalogues, there have been several other catalogues or descriptions of the Dulwich Gallery, and some reproductions of the pictures : — Between 1816 and 1820, Mr. Ralph Cockburn, Curator of the Gallery, executed and published a series of Fifty Coloured Aquatint Plates of the Chief Examjdes of the Old Masters in the Colleetion. In 1823, in the New Monthly Magazine (vol. 7, pp. 568- 575, vol. 8, pp. 67-76), William Hazlitt published (anony- mously) notes on the Gallery, as part of a series of '' Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England." In 1824 there appeared a little book called Beauties of the Didwich Pieture Gallery (London, 1824, p. 101). It was anonymous, but an " advertisement " states that " a few of the following descriptions have appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. '^ The book was written by Hazlitt, and is an expansion (with many alterations also) of his previous " Sketches." (It escaped the attention of his bibliographer, Alexander Ireland.) In 1824 there also appeared in book-form a collection of Hazlitt's articles in the Magazine entitled Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England (the Dulwich Gallery, pp. 25-47). In 1836 a critical notice of the Dulwich Gallery appeared in the Tour of a Gennadi Artist in England, by M. Passavant, vol. i, pp. 64-70. In 1841 The Penny Magazine — a pioneer in '' popularising knowledge," a magazine conducted by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge — published a series of six wood- cuts (very well done) with descriptive letterpress (which also was contributed by an obviously competent hand). The per- mission to make the woodcuts is recorded in the minute book of the Gallery under date April 15, 1841. This publication seems to have set competitors on the track, for on November 4, 1841, it was resolved by the Trustees "That Mr. Bentley have permission to make copies of six of the pictures for the purpose of engraving in line to be published by Mr. Virtue." Mr. Virtue was the publisher of The Art Union Journal (afterwards known as The Art Journal), and in the number of that periodical for July, 1842, mention is made of " a suggestion to publish a catalogue of the Gallery with engravings." Nothing, however, seems to have come of the suggestion. Sixty-eight years later, something of the kind was done in a different way (see No. 12 above, p. xxxi.). INTRODUCTION. XXxiii In 1842 there appeared a Descriptive Catalogue of the Dulwich Gallery by Mrs. Jameson, occupying pp. 433-506 of vol. ii. of her Handbook to the Public Galleries of Art in and near London. In 1843 Hazlitt's " Sketches " were reprinted in vol. i, pp. 19-39, of his Criticisms on Art (edited by his son). In 1843 there also appeared the first volume of Ruskin's Modern Painters, which, as already stated, contained critical notices of many of the Dulwich pictures. In 1854 Dr. Waagen's well-known Treasures of Art in Great Britain appeared. His account of the Dulwich Gallery is in vol. ii, pp. 341-349. For many years there was now a cessation of works about the GaUery. The growing popularity and continual extension of the National Gallery diverted the attention of picture-lovers, it may be supposed ; and it cannot be said that the then Trustees of the Dulwich GaUery did much to facilitate the study of its treasures, for as already stated (p. xxxi.) it was not till 1876 that any official catalogue other than a mere list was issued. From that year onwards official catalogues &c. have covered the field ; and it only remains to notice two recent works which, though not confined to the Dulwich GaUery, have yet some special reference to it: — In 1911 there appeared The Linleys of Bath, by Clementina Black (London: Martin Seeker). This very readable book contains reproductions of eight pictures in our GaUery, and, as already stated, much biographical material with regard to the persons pourtrayed in them. In 1912 appeared Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters: a Study of English Portraiture before and after Vandyck, by C. H. CoUins Baker, with 240 reproductions after the original pictures, 2 vols. (London: Philip Lee Warner). This book, which is full of original and laborious research, contains repro- ductions of several pictures in our Gallery, and critical notices of others. V. With regard to the nature and arrangement of the present Catalogue, some explanatory remarks may be desirable. The pictures are described in numerical order, the number attached to each picture in the Catalogue corresponding to the number on the frame. It will have been seen on a preceding page that the numbers of the Dulwich Gallery, in catalogues or on the frames, or in both cases, have often been changed and that some confusion has resulted ; and though it was tempting to renumber the pictures in some logical order, anything seemed better than to change the numbers yet again. Accordingly, the consecutive numbers 1-457 have been retained as they were in the last editions of the Catalogue ; the other pictures, contained 27930 c XXXIV INTRODUCTION. in the Catalogue of 1905, which bore various numbers dupli- cating those in the preceding series, have been renumbered consecutively in the order in which they stood in that catalogue, and are now 458-547 ; the remaining pictures, now numbered 548-594, are those which have been added to the collection since the last edition of the Catalogue was printed. It is hoped that these numbers 1-594 will henceforth remain constant, any additions being numbered in the order of acquisition. As the number attached to each picture in this Catalogue corresponds to the number on the frame, a visitor has only to note the latter number in order at once to find the description of the picture. If he wishes to turn to the descriptions of pictures by particular painters, he will readily be able to -find them by reference to the Index of Painters (p. 322). A biographical notice of each painter is given under the first picture by that painter ; in the case of subsequent pictures by the same painter, a reference is given to the number of the picture under which the biographical notice will be found. The general method of arrangement, above described, is that which seems to have been found simple and convenient in the case of the Popular Handbook to the National Gallery written by the editor of the present Catalogue. After the title of each picture and the painter's name, school and date, and biographical notice of him (or a reference thereto), comes a simple description of the picture, with a note of its dimensions (height first, measured within the frame). Mr. Desenfans was severely critical of catalogues which confine themselves to such particulars ; and indeed they sometimes irritate visitors who may be actually standing before the pic- tures thus described. " We do not need to be told " — they are apt to say — that " this is a wall " or " that is a tree," or that " this colour is blue " and that " red." But in an official catalogue, such simple inventories are necessary as a means of reference and identification. Perhaps, too, they are some- times useful even to a spectator in the Gallery itself as helping to direct or fix his attention. The descriptions are in many cases followed — after a dash — by a statement of engravings or other reproductions of the pictures. These particulars, which partake of the nature of an in- ventory, are in a large number of cases supplemented by remarks of an explanatory, critical, anecdotic, or historical character. The attempt is thus made to combine, in a single volume, the functions of an official catalogue and of a popular handbook. Particulars about the provenance of the several pictures are given as far as possible ; but it should be remem- bered that the greater part of the collection was formed by a picture-dealer and. as already stated, he was not minded to take the public very largely into his confidence in this respect. INTRODUCTION. XXXV With regard to the attribution of pictures to particular painters, or their description as being " by " or " after " or from the " school " of a painter, this edition follows in the main that which was edited by Dr. Jean Paul Richter in 1880 (No. 8 in the list on p. xxxi.). In cases of alteration, or of doubt and dispute, various opinions are cited in the notes. These often display great contrariety. There is a small picture in the Gallery by a great painter which has been the subject, during recent years, of printed remarks by the directors of two public galleries in the United Kingdom. By one of them it was pronounced to be a genuine masterpiece ; by the other, it was denounced as an execrable forgery which could not deceive even a tyro. In a subject so uncertain as pictorial criticism, and admitting so greatly of individual preference or prejudice, these differences of opinion are very frequent, and they are sometimes expressed with a vigour of vituperative I^-nguage which equals that of rival editors of classical texts. The science of pictorial criticism is doubtless progressive, especially since the introduction of photography which has made comparison and recollection so much easier than in former times. It is very improbable, to take one instance, that the picture in our Gallery which passed for many years as a Giorgione will ever be restored to that master. But it is noticeable that criticism often returns upon its tracks. Many of the altered attribu- tions in the Dulwich Catalogue of 1880 were reversions to those in the Catalogue of 1820. The differences of critics are equally great with regard to the general merits of a painter or a picture. It might be thought that the merit of Gainsborough's portraits was matter of general agreement; but the " German Artist." visiting Dulwich in the course of his " Tour," found them remarkable only for '.' insipidity." Where the doctors disagree, the spectator should feel encouraged to cultivate his own judgment ; but it is hoped that suggestion and interest will be found in a collection of critical remarks by competent observers. In the miscellaneous notes, much has been added in the present edition. Several of the biographical notices have been re-written or revised. But in large measure this is a new edition of previous catalogues (Nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the list). Of the biographical notices, those of foreign artists were in those editions written by Dr. Richter, and those of English artists by Mr. Sparkes. The " inventories " were abbreviated or re-cast from more elaborate ones by Mr. Sparkes (No. 7) The notes on pictures other than those in the Desenfans- Bourgeois collection were mostly written by Dr. Carver, and these have been retained (with some alterations and additions) in the present edition of the Catalogue. Room Store Room Room III A. Noel Oescplans B- Margaret D^scnfanft C. Sir Pettr Francis Bourgeois Room VII Room IX Room ' Room n X ■Hi Room I 1 Room : 1 Plan of ■ Poft" l^adies-l The Gallery Scnic of Feat CATALOGUE. The pictures are described in numerical order, the numbers- being those which are affixed to the frames. For further ex- planation of the arrangement, see above, p. xxxiv. The references to *' Smith's Catalogue '' are to A Cata- logue Baisonnc of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, 9 vols., 1829-1842, by John Smith (a picture-dealer). One or two references are to the new edition of the Dutch section of that work by C. Hofstede de Groot, now appearing (1907 onwards) ; English translation by PI G. Hawke. References to '• Desenfans's Catalogue " are, unless otherwise stilted, to the Catalogue of 1802 (see above, p. ix.). 1. Cupid. Aft^r RUBENS (Flemish: 1577-1640), Sir Peter Paul Rubens, " the head of the Flemish School '' (as Reynolds called him), and one of the world's greatest painters, was born at Siegen, in Westphalia. His father, Jan Rubens, was private secretary to AVilliam of Orange, and died at Cologne in 1587. Jan's widow, Maria, born Pypelinx, then returned to Antwerp, where the young Rubens received his primary education at the Jesuit school. When sixteen years of age he was a. page of the Countess Lalaing. Giving up the study of the law, he visited the studios of Tobias Verba eght, of Adam van Noort, and of Otito Vaenius. In 1598 he was received into the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp. Two years later he went to 'Italy, and for eight years was in the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, as Court-painter. An excellent Latin scholar, he was also proficient in French, Italian, English, German, and Dutch. His attainments and personal address caused him to be employed in diplomacy. " The painter Rubens," he said of himself, '' amuses himself with being ambassador." In 1603 he went on a diplomatic mission to Spain. In 1608 he returned~to AntAverp, and was appointed Court-painter to the Archduke Albert, Governor of the Nether- lands. In 1609 he married his first Avife. Isabella Brant, and in 27930 A 1611 built himself a beautiful house at Antwerp. In 1620 he visited Paris at the invitation of Mary de' Medici (a sister of the Duchess of Mantua), for whom he painted the celebrated series of allegorical pictures now in the Louvre. After the daatli of his wife in 1626, he sold his collection of works of art to the Duke of Buckingham, and was often employed in diplomatic missions. In 1628 he was sent to the Court of Philip IV. of Spain, and spent much time in the company of Velazquez. In 1629 he was sent to Charles I. of England, by whom (as also by Philip IV.) he was knighted. A picture in the National Gallery (No. 46) commemorates the painter's mission to England. During his sojourn in our country, he painted the •ceiling of the Banqueting Hall of WTiitehall (now the United Service Institution). In 1830 he married at Antwerp the joung and beautiful Helen Fourment (see No. 131), a niece of his first wife. He lived henceforward partly at Antwerp, partly at his country seat, Steen — always occupied in executing large commissions, and surrounded by a company of pupils and assistants. The number of works ascribed to him is enormous, but of them many were partly or wholly painted by his pupils after his sketches and under his direction. The range of subject in the works of Rubens is very wide, as may be seen from the list of those in our Gallery (p. 338), but in nearly all of them may be found the same glamour of joyousness, the same facility of execution, the same love of redundance, the same sense of power. " The facility Avith which he invented," says Reynolds, " the richness of his com- position, the luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of his colouring, so dazzle the eye, that whilst his works continue before us, we cannot help thinking that all his deficiencies are fully supplied." " Whatever imperfections in his art may have resulted," says Ruskin, *' from his want of seriousness and incapability of true passion, his calibre of mind was originally such that I believe the world may see another Titian and another Raphael before it sees another Rubens." " Under the influence of the Venetian School," says Dr. Richter, ''the energetic mind of Rubens created a new style of art adapted to himself and to his countrymen. His genuine works are distinguished by an extraordinary and overflowing power in dramatic composition, by healthiness of conception, by naturalness, by a bright and glowing colour, and by an ingenious, almost life-like, execution." Eight winged infant boys (amorini) circle in space with joined hands; they wear red and blue scarves; Cupid floats forward in the centre, having just discharged his arrow, i^lue sky with grey clouds. The figures are life-size. Canvas : 5 ft. 7 in. X 4 ft. 2 in. Designed for the decoration of a ceiling. 2. St. Cecilia playing- on the Org-an. BOLOGNESE SCHOOL (16tli-17th Century). The Saint seated, and singing to the notes of an organ, on the left; purple-grey dress; green mantle lined with orange; red drapery behind her ; infant angels above. Whole-length figure; life-size. In the foreground a lyre, some books, sheets of music, &c. Canvas. 7 ft. 7\ in. x 4 ft. 7 in. Original size, 5 ft. 8 in. X 4 ft. 2 in. This picture has been added to at the top and bottom and sides, and these parts were re-painted, it is said, by Sir P. F. Bourgeois {see below). St. Cecilia was a young Roman lady, an early convert to Christianity. She renounced all her worldly possessions, and devoted herself to heaven and the practice of music, an art in which she excelled : hence the legend ascribed to her the invention of the organ. She made a vow of perpetual chastity ; and, her parents having married her against her will to Valerian, a noble Roman, she continued to keep her vow, and converted both her husband and her brother to the Christian faith. With them she suffered martyrdom about the year A.D. 230. This legend is the subject of many pictures, and of two chef-d'muvres of art — the Cecilia of Rajjhael at Bologna, and the dead Cecilia of Bernini. As the patron-saint of music, .she is represented a^s singing to the notes of her organ, and in most of the pictures (as in Tennyson's Palace of Art) '' an angel look'd at her." Her house was consecrated as a church, and in 1599 her body was exhumed with high ecclesiastical state. This kindled much popular enthusiasm, and the painters took St. Cecilia for a subject with renewed fervour. Domeni- ohino alone (who was in Rome on the occasion of the opening of her sarcophagus) painted six pictures of her. The present picture was sent to Desenfans, in December, 1790, by his friend in Paris, Le Brun, who ascribed it to Annibale Carracci, and said: " It is a little maltreated, but apart from that would be worth 10,000 livres." Desenfans's friend. Bourgeois, took it in hand, and dealt with it as above stated. 3. Classical Xiandscape with figrures. WILLEM ROMEYN (Dutch: b, before 1630, d. after 1693). Romeyn was born at Haarlem. In the year 1642 he is mentioned as being a pupil of Nicolas Berchem (No, 88). fle was admitted into the Painters' Guild at Haarlem in 1646, ^nd appointed Commissary in 1660. The baptisms of two of his sons are recorded in the years 1652 and 1658, and the death of his wife in 1683. Another document mentions him as still living in 1693. It is supposed that he visited Italy. He, like 27930 A 2 Pynacker (No. 86), was distinguished for his classical land- scapes, dotted with ruins, such as Nicolas Berchem and Karl Dujardin (No. 72) had brought into fashion on their return frorp Rome. On the right, three mules standing; on one of them the driver is sitting, his back turned towards the spectator: a church and a gatewa}- beyond; on the left, cattle, sheep, and a fountain; blue sky, with grey clouds. Signed ''W. Romeyn." Canvas: 1 ft. 1| in. x I ft. 4^ in. 4. View on a Plain. CUYP (Dutch: 1620-1691). Cuyp, who is represented by 15 pictures in this Gallery (in no other collection are there so many), was one of the most universal of the Dutch painters. He painted still-life, birds, cattle, horses, landscapes, sea-pieces, portraits ; but what is specially characteristic of his art, and what is best illustrated in this Gallery, is his rendering of sunlight. In this he was unsur- passed among the Dutch masters ; and indeed, as Ruskin says, " for expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art," He loved to paint the bright, but hazy, light of a hot summer noon-day, with strong glowing colours in the foreground, and delicate tints in the distance. He was less successful in representing distant mountains (see (No. 128). His sense of proportion Avns sometimes a little at fault ; and he was fond of placing a piece of brilliant scarlet in his pictures, with which the critics have found fault because it is unaffected and unwarmed by the golden tone of the rest of the picture, and shows little distinction between its own illumined and shaded parts. The charm of his best landscapes is in their golden blaze of absorbing light, their amber warmth, their veil of gilding, their harmonies of gold and grey. These are qualities Avhich led the connoisseurs to call Cuyp "the Dutch Claude." The incident, or lack of in- cident, in his pictures is in keeping with the drowsy effects which he loved. He chose calm and sunny scenes, and fixed upon quiet combinations of figures, cattle and buildings. Though he lived in troublous times, his pictures suggest, as one of his biographers has said, that " he passed his whole life in Arcadia, untroubled by any more anxious thought than whether the sun would give the effect which he required for his paint- ings, or the cows stay long enough for him to depict them in their natural attitudes." '' It may be noted that Cuyp usually introduces cows of a warm brown colour into his landscapes — a fact that influences their general tone. On Dutch pastures to-dav the cattle are almost all black and white" (C. H. de Groot's new edition of Smith's Catalogue, 1909). It is to his success in painting sunlight that a French writer, M. Blanc, ascribes the special appreciation of Cujp in our country ^agreeing therein, as we shall hear presently, with Mr. Desenfans), '• In gloomy England," says M. Blanc, '' to see the sun shining on the horizon of a painting is an additional attraction." The life of Aelbert Cuyp was uneventful. He was born at Dort (Dordrecht) on the Maas, and his native town often figures in his pictures (Nos. 144, ,315). His father Avas a portrait painter. Cuyp married in 1658, and his daughter married a brewer. He had an estate, DordAvijk, near Dort, where he lived. As a landed proprietor, he had a seat in the High Court of Justice for the province of Dort. The dis- tinguished position he occupied is also shown by a list pre- sented to the Stadholder William III., where he is proposed as a member of the Regency of Dort, He died in the house of his son-in-law, Pieter Onderwat^r, at Dort — a house which preserves its old fa9ade to this day. Cuyp's reputation as a landscape painter has grown with time. Even so late as 1750 a landscape by him could be obtained for 30 florins; but throughout the 19th century he was more highly appreciated in English auction-rooms than any other of the Dutch landscape-painters. The '' discovery" of Cuyp was due to a Swiss bagman, whose fellow-countryman, Mr. Desenfans, has left a full and entertaining account of the growth of Cuyp's vogue. Pictures by Cuyp remained, he tells us, '' in the private houses of the Hollanders covered with dirt. not considered as cabinet-pictures, but merely fit to supply the place of furniture, till at length, somewhere about 1740 a native of Switzerland called Grand Jean, who resided in London, but made frequent excursions to Holland to sell English watches and scissors, returned with 10 or 12 landscapes of Cuyp. His speculation was attended with every success, as their clear and silvery tints were universally admired; for, notAvithstanding pictures may possess great merit, the English view them with indifference if they are dark or sombre. Grand Jean, who had received those pictures in exchange for his merchandise, sold them at low prices, but with so much profit to himself that, emboldened by his success, he collected another assortment of watches and other wares, and returned a second time from Holland with many pictures of the same master. His advantages on this exchange were so considerable as to induce ]Mr. Blackwood of Soho Square, a man of taste and a judge of art, to repair to Amsterdam himself where he was fortunate enough to purchase some chef d'oeuvres of Cuyp's which he sold to Sir Lawrence Dundas on his return. In a short time, the French dealers, an ingenious set of men, who understand the traffic of pictures better than any other people, hearing of the great success which had attended the works of a master till then unknown, overran all Holland for the purpose of collect- ing them ; but the Dutch, who are not easily duped, surprised at the eager and constantly renewed demands for them, at length began to open their eyes and to find out beauties in those chef cVoeuvres which had so long surrounded them, unregarded. Their value immediately increased, and the pictures of Cuyp were removed from the hall to the drawing room. Since that' time, connoisseurs have been unanimous in praise of them, and they have been sought with such avidity that a work which 50 j^ears ago sold for five guineas will readily now fetch 500" (Catalogue, 1802, vol. ii., pp. 141-3). From the particularity of this account, and from the large number of Cuyp's which Mr. Desenfans had in stock, it may be surmised that he had entered the market as a buj-er in the earliest days of the " boom." It has continued to the present time, and where Mr. Desenfans said five hundred, a modern picture-dealer might say five thousand. A critic, writing ninety years later than Desenfans, says that " the very richest of the collectors commit all kinds of extravagances in order to become possessed of Cuyp's finest works. And what would not the amateurs give for some of the Cuyp's in the Dulwich Gallery ? What a talent ! What universality in the hand that could paint skies more glowing than those of Both ; clouds as vaporous as those of Van der Cappelle ; water more luminous than Van de Velde's ; cattle as live to nature as Paul Potter's ; horses better than Wouwerman's ! Ruysdael is the greater artist, the greater mind ; but Cuyp has, to a degree unapproached by any of his contemporaries, the secret of variety and charm " (Quarterly Beview, October, 1891). In the centre, a shepherd standing and a woman sitting. On the right are five cows, three lying down, two standing; a small wood behind. In the foreground, also four sheep ; and in the middle, three more. Near a road, on the left, a stream visible ; a village, and windmills, in a long - stretching flat country. Clear, bright summer's sky with fleecy clouds; tend- ing towards evening. Signed, A. Cuyp. Panel: 1 ft. 6| in. x 2 ft. 3| in. — Engraved by R. Cockburn and by J. Cousen. ** Sky and land are suffused in a soft bright haze ; the light trembles and palpitates in the fleecy mists that veil without obscuring the blue sky ; it steals over the meadows and blends itself with the water. Never was nature so glorified. It is the idealisation of peace and serenity. What a wondrous, bright, idyllic life it suggests ! Did Cuyp in strolling about the Dort country come upon a scene like this, or was it only a phantom of the*^ ideal world in which the artist lived? So let it stand fof us, a revelation of loveliness, sweet as the ' unheard melo- dies.' To attempt to explain the execution, the manipulation of the pigments would be like analysing a smile or the glance of a bright eve." (Henry Wallis, Magazine of Art, 1881.; This picture was formerly called " A View of Utrecht." 5. Ziandscape with Cattle and Fig-ures. W. ROMEYX (Dutch: h. before 1630, d. after 1693), Sec 3. On the right, sheep and goats, some lying on the ground and two standing : a girl kneels and milks a goat : behind her, a donkey with panniers; on the left, an old tree; in the back- ground, mountains; blue sky, with clouds. Signed " W. Romeyn." Canvas: 1 ft. 1^ in. x 1 ft. 4| in. A companion picture to No. 3; harmonious in colouring, and clearly painted. 6. A Tiger Hunt. Sir p. F. BOURGEOIS, R.A. (English: 1756-1811). For a biographical notice of Bourgeois, one of the founders of the Dulwich Gallery, see above, p. xi. He enjoyed con- siderable reputation in his lifetime for his landscapes, battles, sea - pieces, &c., but, though as an artist he had taste and versatility, posterity has applauded him more for the pictures he collected than for those he painted. A rough, rocky, mountainous district, with blasted pines scattered about, serves as background for the picture. In the foreground a man in a turban, red jacket, and green trousers, mounted on a piebald horse, spear in hand, dashes at a small tiger ; dogs are on the left. Behind is a brown horse, riderless ; a man on foot, and another lying on the ground, on whom a second small tiger springs. Canvas: 3 ft. 85 in. x 4 ft. 7 in. 7. Ziandscape with a Tower. DUTCH SCHOOL (17th Century). On the right, a low wall, with a moat before it; two houses, and behind them, a circular tower ; on the left, a road ; on it four figures, together with a cow, sheep, and two dogs; large trees in the centre; cloudy skv. Panel: 1 ft. 7^ in. x 1 ft. 3f in. ^ . Very probably a work of Wynants (see No. 114), to whom at one time the picture was ascribed. It is No. 167 in Smith's Catalogue (Wynants). 8. Italian Ziandscape. JAN BOTH (Dutch: b. about 1610; d. 1652). Jan Both was the son of a painter on glass at Utrecht. While still young, he entered the studio of Abraham Bloemaert, liead of the School of Utrecht. With his elder brother Andries, he presently travelled through France into Italy, and settled for some time in Rome, where Jan formed his style on that of •Claude (No. 53). The brothers also worked in Venice, where Andries, dining one night not wisely but too well, fell into a canal from his gondola and was drowned. Jan returned to Holland in or before 1644. A document of 1649 shows him to have been one of the chiefs of the Painters' Guild at Utrecht. The landscapes of Jan Both are almost always Italian, but they are truer to nature in their forms than the ideal com- positions of Claude. They owe their great repute to the glowing power of their colouring, especially to the striking effects of the light and the soft golden tone of the atmosphere. But in this respect the landscapes of J. Both have a closer resemblance to the Dutch views of Cuyp than to those of Claude. It has often been stated that the figures and cattle in his pictures were painted by his brother Andries, but this is doubtful. A wooded bank reaches from right to left. In the foreground a man washing his feet in a pool; near him another man and a dog ; three cows on the right ; a man baiting three pack- mules from a box of hay. The road is bordered with bushes. A slope in a park half conceals a house behind trees. Blue fair-weather distance and summer sky. Signed " B." Canvas: 1 ft. 9 in. X 2 ft. 1 in.— Engraved by R. Cockburn. 9. Iiandscape with a Church. ABRAHAM VERBOOM (Dutch: h. before 1630, d. after 1663). Verboom was boin at Haarlem, where he Avorked as a land- scape painter in the middle of the 17th century-. His earliest pictures are dated 1653. They come verj- near to the earlier works of J. Ruysdael. In several of his pictures the figures are painted by Lingelbach and Adrian van de Velde, from which we may conclude that he stayed at Amsterdam between the years 1653 and 1663. He painted especially quiet forest views, of a deep-toned colouring in his early period, and of a weak sketchy execution in his later time. On the right, the edge of a wood, and two wayfarers on a pathway ; a village church in the centre of the middle distance ; on the left, a pollard-stump ; cloudy sky. Panel : 1 ft. 5 in. x 1 ft. 9 in. In the earliest catalogues of the Gallery ascribed to Hobbema ; next, labelled "■ Unknown " ; in 1880 ascribed by Dr. Riehter to Verboom. 2,0. Italian Ztandscape. JAN BOTH (Dutch: b. about 1610, d. 1652). ^'ee 8. On a road is a waggon, drawn by two oxen. The immediate foreground is occupied by a donkey lying on the ground, and a i*ed mastiff. Behind them a man drives a grey horse. The bank on the left is covered with copse-wood and small trees. The middle distance is a warm ochre-coloured heathery hill, with a small castle tower on its summit. A blue mountain in the back ; summer sky with evening light, and filmy clouds. Over all is a delicate effect of hot weather. Canvas : 1 ft. 7J in. X 1 ft. 3| in. — Engraved b}' R. Cockburn. '' Both," says Hazlitt, '' saw nature with an Italian eye, and could not persuade himself to depict her otherwise than in a veil of southern sunshine. In fact, he seemed to look at all things through an imaginary haze of golden light, which, while it in no degree distorted their individual forms and characters, gave them a hue which is scarcely to be met with out of his pictures " {Beauties of the Dulwich Gallery, p. 36). 11. Arch of Constantine, Rome. HERMAN SWANEVELT (Dutch: 1620-1690). Swanevelt was born at Woerden. He is said to have begun painting under Gerard Dou, but he went early to Rome, where he studied under Claude and often painted the figures, in his pictures. Having a great predilection for sojourning in the ruins of Rome, Tivoli, and Tusculum, he was called (as Con- stable said) '' the Hermit of Italy from the romantic solitudes he lived in, which his pictures so admirably describe." He visited Paris, where he was admitted a member of the Royal Academy in the year 1653. The date of his death is variously recorded as 1655 (registers of the Paris Academy), 1659 (Passeri) and 1690. A picture in our Gallery (No. 219) is apparently 'dated 1675. His compositions are tasteful, but generally a cold- green tone pervades them. His numerous etchings and drawings »deserve more admiration. The triumphal arch in the centre, seen from the Colosseum, ■an arch of which is on the left; a dwelling-house is built on the left side of the arch; pilgrims, ladies, and gentlemen in the ■foreground. On the right two artists sketching the ruins of the Palatine, covered bv wood. Canvas:" 2 ft. 10^ in. by :3 ft. 8i in. The picture is interesting as showing the state of the ruins,