THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF C. G. Roberts Great Portraits THE LAUGHING CAVALIER Great Portraits As Seen and Described by Great Writers EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY ESTHER SINGLETON AUTHOR OF " TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES," " GREAT PIC- TURES," "WONDERS OF NATURE," "ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES," " FAMOUS PAINTINGS," HISTORIC BUILDINGS," " FAMOUS WOMEN," " GOLDEN ROD FAIRY BOOK," " PARIS," " LONDON," " VENICE," " RUSSIA," " JAPAN," " LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART," AND " A GUIDE TO THE OPERA " With Numerous Illustrations NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1905 Copyright, iqof BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Published October, 1905. GIF! A/7S7S" Preface IT is hard for us in this day of photographs to realize what portrait-painting meant to the world even as late as a century ago. The only way to record the features and figure was by means of pencil or brush ; hence the art of portraiture became a most important and lucrative branch of painting. The greatest masters excelled in it, and some of them are remembered chiefly, if not solely, by their por- traits. It is impossible within the limits of a small volume adequately to represent all of the great masters of portrai- ture ; but I have endeavoured to present as many styles of treatment and varieties of subject as possible, besides includ- ing certain portraits of renown. The book will, therefore, offer many interesting points of study ; for many of the selections describe the canvas briefly and dwell at length upon the artist's method of work and his peculiarities of touch and treatment. The reader can, therefore, study the many styles from the realistic works of Frans Hals, as ex- emplified in The Laughing Cavalier, Maria Voogt, Hille Bobbe and others, Van Eyck's Man with the Pinks, Titian's Infant Daughter of Roberto Strozzi, Raphael's Maddalena Doni, Julius II., Balthazar Castiglione and Young Man, Velasquez's Philip 17., Holbein's Jane Seymour, Raeburn's John Tait and his Grandson and Clouet's Elizabeth of 104 VI PREFACE Austria, to the idealized and graceful studies of Lely, Nattier and Drouais, reaching at length the daring feat of painting ideas that lie outside the realm of portraiture as Whistler has done in the portrait of his mother and Rossetti in the Beata Beatrix. The latter, described by Mr. F. G. Stephens as a " spiritual translation " of the features of the artist's wife, perhaps, carries portraiture beyond its limits into a mystical world. The omission of some of the most celebrated portraits such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Guido Reni's Beatrice Cenci, Holbein's Georg Gisze, De la Tour's Madame de Pompadour, Velasquez's Innocent X., Titian's La Bella, Bellini's Doge Loredano, Gainsborough's Mrs. Siddons, Moroni's Tailor, Van Dyck's Charles II. of the Louvre, Luini's Columbine, and Reynolds's Lady Cockburn and her Children will be noticed ; but these have already appeared in Great Pictures and Famous Paintings of this series. E. S. NEW YORK, July, 1905. Contents THE LAUGHING CAVALIER . . Frans Hals . . I GERALD S. DAVIES. THE TRAGIC MUSE . . . Sir Joshua Reynolds . 6 CLAUDE PHILLIPS. PORTRAIT OP A YOUNG MAN . . Raphael . . .14 F. A GRUYER. SOPHIE ARNOULD . . . Greuze ... 20 M. H. SPIELMANN. DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS . . Velasquez . . 23 SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG. MRS. SHERIDAN .... Gainsborough . . 28 LORD RONALD GOWER. CHARLES I. .... Van Dyck . . 34 H. KNACKFUSS. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL . . Boucher ... 43 CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER. THE DONNA VELATA . . . Raphael ... 46 JULIA CARTWRIGHT. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN . . Andrea del Sarto . 50 COSMO MONKHOUSE. THE DAUGHTER OF ROBERTO STROZZI Titian . . -53 J. A. CROWE AND J. B. CAVALCASELLE. THE AMBASSADORS . . . Hans Holbein . . 56 SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG. NELLY O'BRIEN .... Sir Joshua, Reynolds . 6 1 M. H. SPIELMANN. Vlll CONTENTS THE MAN WITH THE PINKS . . John Van Eyck . 64 FRANCIS C. WEALE. THE THREE SISTERS . . . Palma Vecchio . . 71 CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER. JOHN TAIT AND His GRANDSON . Raeburn ... 74 R. A. M. STEVENSON. SOME PORTRAITS OF HELENA FOUR- MENT Rubens ... 83 EMILE MICHEL. PHILIP IV Velasquez . . 95 CARL JUSTI. LA BELLE FERRONNIERE . . Leonardo da Vinci . 99 F. A. GRUYER. STUDY ..... Fragonard . .104 CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER. LAVINIA FENTON AS POLLY PEACHUM Hogarth . . .107 AUSTIN DOBSON. PORTRAITS OF SASKIA . . . Rembrandt . . 112 MALCOLM BELL. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN . . Holbein . . .123 SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG. LA BELLA SIMONETTA . . . Sandra Botticelli . 1 26 JULIA CARTWRIGHT. MARIA VOOGT AND ELIZABETH BAS, Frans Hals and Rembrandt 1 40 GERALD S. DAVIES. LAVINIA VECELLI . . . Titian . . .146 J. A. CROWE AND G. B. CAVALCASELLE. BALTHAZAR CASTIGLIONE . . Raphael . . .152 F. A. GRUYER. THE HON. MRS. GRAHAM . . Gainsborough . .162 I. LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER. II. CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER. CONTENTS IX LA DUCHESSE DE CHARTREs AS HEBE Nattier . . . 1 70 LADY DILKE. EMMA, LADY HAMILTON (" NA- TURE ") .... Romney . . .177 HUMPHREY WARD. THE SIBYL AND THE LADY WITH A FAN ..... Velasquez . .190 CARL JUSTI. MRS. SIDDONS .... Sir Thomas Lawrence 199 LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER. CHARACTER PORTRAITS . . Frans Hals . . 209 GERALD S. DAVIES. PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER . . Whistler . . .219 CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER. MARIE ANTOINETTE AS HEBE . Drouais . . .224 F. A. GRUYER. PHILIP II. OF SPAIN . . Titian . . .234 J. A. CROWE AND G. B. CAVALCASELLE. MRS. SCOTT MONCRIEFF . . Sir Henry Raeburn . 241 JAMES L. CAW. THE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I. . Van Dyck . . 249 H. KNACKFUSS. JANE SEYMOUR .... Holbein . . .252 ALFRED WOLTMANN. HIERONYMUS HOLZSCHUHER . . Durer . . .258 GUSTAVE GRUYER. BEATA BEATRIX .... Rossetti . . . 264 F. G. STEPHENS. MADDALENA DONI . . . Raphael . . .271 JULIA CARTWRIGHT. PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN . . . Velasquez . . 276 CLAUDE PHILLIPS. X CONTENTS LUCREZIA TORNABUONI . . Botticelli . . .283 ALPHONSK DE CALONNE. PORTRAIT OF BERTIN THE ELDER . Ingres . . . 290 GUSTAVE LARROUMET. MADAME HENRIETTE DE FRANCE . Nattier . . . 297 ANDRE PERATE. * ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA . . Clouet . . .302 SAMUEL ROCHEBLAVE. MADAME VIGEE LE BRUN AND HER DAUGHTER .... Vigee Le Brun . . 307 ANDRE MICHEL. ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA . Honthorst . .314 WILLIAM CHAMBERS LEFROY. THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT . Lely . . .322 I. MRS. JAMESON. II. WILLIAM SHARP. POPE JULIUS II Raphael . . .331 H. KNACKFUSS. THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE . Gainsborough . . 338 MRS. ARTHUR BELL. Illustrations HALS . . . REYNOLDS . RAPHAEL . . GREUZE . . VELASQUEZ . GAINSBOROUGH VAN DYCK . BOUCHER . . RAPHAEL . . A. DEL SARTO TITIAN . . . HOLBEIN . . REYNOLDS J. VAN EYCK . P. VECCHIO . RUBENS The Laughing Cavalier Frontispiece London The Tragic Muse FACING PAGE 6 Dulwich Portrait of a Young Man 14 Paris Sophie Arnould 20 London Don Balthazar Carlos 24 Madrid Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell 28 Dulwich Charles I. 34 Dresden Portrait of a Young Girl 44 Paris The Donna Velata 46 Florence Portrait of a Young Man 50 London The Daughter of R. Strozzi 54 Berlin The Ambassadors 56 London Nelly O'Brien 62 London The Man with the Pinks 64 Berlin The Three Sisters 72 Dresden Helena Fourment with Her Children .... 84 Paris Helena Fourment 90 St. Petersburg Xll VELASQUEZ . . L. DA VINCI . . FRAGONARD . . HOGARTH . . . REMBRANDT . . HOLBEIN . . . BOTTICELLI F. HALS AND REMBRANDT TITIAN .... RAPHAEL . . . GAINSBOROUGH . ROMNEY . . . VELASQUEZ . . LAWRENCE F. HALS WHISTLER . . DROUAIS . ILLUSTRATIONS Philip IV. of Spain 96 Dulwich La Belle Ferronniere 100 Paris Study Paris 104 Lavinia Fenton as Polly Peachum 108 London Saskia holding a Pink 112 Dresden Portrait of a Young Man 124 Vienna La Bella Simonetta 126 Florence La Bella Simonetta as Pallas 134 Florence Maria Voogt 140 Elizabeth Bas 144 Amsterdam Lavinia Vecelli -with Fruit 146 Berlin Balthazar Castiglione 152 Paris The Hon. Mrs. Graham 162 Edinburgh Emma Lady Hamilton (" Nature"} . . . . 178 Parts The Lady with a Fan 190 London Mrs. Siddons 200 London The Jester 210 Amsterdam Hille Bobbe 214 Berlin The Gipsy 216 Paris Portrait of My Mother 220 Paris Marie Antoinette as Hebe 224 Chantilly ILLUSTRATIONS Xlll TITIAN .... RAEBURN . . . VAN DYCK . . HOLBEIN . . . DURER .... ROSfETTI . . . RAPHAEL . . . BOTTICELLI . . INGRES .... CLOUET . . . VIGIE LE BRUN HONTHORST . . LELY .... GAINSBOROUGH . Philip II. of Spain 234 Madrid Mrs. Scott Moncrieff 242 Edinburgh The Children of Charles 1. 250 Dresden Jane Seymour Vienna 252 H. Holzschuher 258 Berlin Beata Beatrix 264 London Maddalena Doni 272 Pitti Lucrezia Tornabuoni 284 Frankfort Bertin the Elder . . Elizabeth of Austria Paris Paris 290 302 Madame Vigee Le Brun and Her Daughter . 308 Paris Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia London 3'4 The Countess de Grammont . HamptonCourt 322 Palace The Duchess of Devonshire 338 THE LAUGHING CAVALIER (Frans Hals) GERALD S. DA VIES i A SURVEY of the portraits which Frans Hals painted will disabuse the mind of at least one prejudice con- cerning the great painter. It will go far to put an end to the view, which has been expressed by many writers, that Hals was a mere painter of externals ; one who caught the surface peculiarities of a man and could present them to us with astonishing verve and vraisemblance much, indeed, like Charles Dickens in literature but who did not pene- trate beneath the surface, or read the inner man very subtly. One may fully grant that Frans Hals was not a thinker in the sense in which Rembrandt, Velasquez, and even Van Dyck, were thinkers ; and there are, I dare say, very few of us who have not at some time or other, in standing before one of Hals's brilliant, dashing bits of rapid character-catching, found ourselves expressing the inward doubt whether Hals realized that his sitters had souls at all. The injustice is due, I am persuaded, to the fact that few people have ever taken the trouble to view Hals as a whole. For some reason, there has been an unconscious conspiracy, both among picture-lovers and writers, to think of him through one OF two of his most astonishing, and, indeed, in- comparable achievements as a rapid setter-down of facial 2 THE LAUGHING CAVALIER expression. But anyone who has stood long before the gentleman and his wife of the Cassel Gallery ; the Jacob Olycan and Aletta Hanemans of the Hague ; the Albert Van der Meer and his wife of Haarlem ; the Beresteyn pair of the Louvre ; the old housewife of the same gallery, and, above all, the consummate portrait of Maria Voogt, 1639, at Amsterdam, not to speak of many others, will have to reconsider his verdict. Hals has shown himself in these to be as perfectly capable of handling a worthy face with quiet dignity and full insight remember that his sitters were Dutch, who do not carry their souls upon their faces, nor their hearts upon their sleeves as he was capable of setting down the rapidly-passing expression of his Laughing Cav- alier, his Jester at Amsterdam, his Gipsy Girl of the Louvre, and his Hille Bobbe of Berlin. The fact that he painted these latter, and more like them, has no business to rob him of his great reputation as a great translator of the more worthy moods of man, which is due to him on the evidence of a far larger body of witnesses. For if the list of his portraits be perused, it will be found that these laughing drinkers and jesters, by which the world has insisted on judging him, are in quite a small minority. The minority would be probably far more strikingly small, if anything like the tale of his output had survived to us. And I shall make no separate classification for one kind of portrait and the other. As I have already said, his jesters, his gipsies, his mountebanks, his fisher-boys or his fishwives, are just as much portraits as the others. The fact that he very likely picked some of his models up in his THE LAUGHING CAVALIER 3 pothouse, and others in the street, and others by the road- side, or by Zandvoort dunes, or in the Haarlem fish-market, and carried them off in triumph to his studio, does not make them a whit less portraits. These were the only kind of sitters who would consent to have their portraits painted to go down to posterity with a face convulsed with laughter, or contorted with some passing expression. He must either use that kind of sitter not but what I quite admit that Hals probably got great amusement from their com- pany or abandon that field of art facial expression under rapid change, which was the problem he was mastering. They are not an edifying set of sitters ; far from it ; but the artist who wants to get a model who will sit to him with a broad grin on his face will not find his man among the high-bred, the serious, the refined. The man who will sit in a studio with a stoup of ale on his knee and laugh boisterously at little or nothing at all, between the drains, is not a refined person. But he gets the lines of his face into the shapes which express laughter more frequently than the doctor of laws or the professor of mathematics, and Hals can get what he wants from him, and perhaps a rough joke or two into the bargain. One year before Hals had completed the Olycan pair, 1 he .had painted his Portrait of an Officer known as The Laughing Cavalier of the Wallace Collection, 1624. Of Hals's work accessible in public galleries of England, no more striking specimen exists. Here, indeed, we have the painter rejoicing in the interpretation of a phase of charac- 1 Jacob Olycan and his wife, 1625, both at The Hague. 4 THE LAUGHING CAVALIER ter which had particular attractions for him. The cavalier is a young, well-fed, well-kept soldier, quite satisfied with himself, and evidently quite untroubled by any of those deeper searchings of the mind which are apt to leave their print upon the face. The smile upon his face is certainly one of the most irresistible things that ever was painted. It is not a laugh, nor a leer, nor a grin, but a smile which seems ready to burst into a laugh, and, as you watch the face, it takes slight and rapid variations of expression, so that you seem to see the look which has just passed and that which is just to come. No doubt there is a certain air of swagger, a characteristic which Hals always enjoyed the rendering of. But this is no mere swaggerer or swashbuck- ler. On the contrary, there is a force and even a fineness about the handsome brows that tell you this would be a bad man to have to meet in an encounter, and a good man to have to follow to one. Stand before this man's portrait, and you can weave for him a history. There is something more than mere swagger in that self-assertive smile. He looks out at you with an air of supreme contempt at one moment, of supreme good-nature at another ; but the ex- pression is full of changefulness, full of that electric current which plays over the human face and tells you while you look at it at one moment, what to expect from the next. This was not a reader or a thinker, but he was not a mere vapourer or a mere braggart, like the Merry Toper of the Amsterdam Gallery. A fighter you may make oath upon that, and a man of action when he is wanted. Technically it is the highest merit, and is nearly, if not THE LAUGHING CAVALIER 5 quite, as it left the painter's hands. Even as it hangs on that wall in the company of Rembrandt, of Van Dyck, of Velasquez, it yields to none in that particular. It is for a man's portrait more highly wrought than is his wont. The handling is not so fierce, if one may use the expression, as, for example, in his Doelen pictures. It represents the half- way between the St. Joris of 1616 and the St. Joris of 1627. Viewed close, the detail is somewhat more exact and less the production of summarized knowledge than is often the case. Even the lace collar is, for a man's portrait by him, highly wrought. There is no strong colour in the picture. The elaborate broidery is all in low-tone orange-yellow on a cloth of blue gray. There is not a bit of pure vermilion, or crimson, or blue in the picture. And yet the impression left by the picture certainly is that its scale is somewhat higher than many of Hals's individual portraits. The explanation lies doubtless in the fact that the picture is slightly wanting in atmosphere, and does not go behind its frame. THE TRAGIC MUSE (Sir 'Joshua Reynolds) CLAUDE PHILLIPS IT was in this year (1783) that Sir Joshua first came into a closer intimacy with Mrs. Siddons, and painted that famous portrait of the actress as the Tragic Muse, which, if possible, enhanced his own reputation with his con- temporaries, and certainly conferred a new immortality on the great performer whose features and aspect it per- petuated. As far back as 1775, she had appeared in London, in Garrick's last season, as Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and as Lady Anne to his Richard III., but made then no particular mark, either because she was overpowered by the sunset radiance of the sinking luminary of tragedy, or more probably, because her powers were not yet mature. Returning to town in 1782, when there was none to divide the public favours with her, she carried all before her in such parts as Almeria in Congreve's Mourning Bride, Jane Shore, Calista, Belvedera, and Mrs. Beverley ; and, a little later on, in those mightier ones of Isabella in Measure for Measure, and Constance in King John. Not yet, undis- puted queen of tragedy as she was, had she ventured upon parts so tremendous as that of Lady Macbeth then sacred to the memory of her predecessor, Mrs. Yates, whom, it may be remembered, Romney had already, some ten years THE TRAGIC MUSE THE TRAGIC MUSE 7 previously, painted as the Tragic Muse. Under this title, too, Russell, the author of a History of Modern Europe^ had sung Mrs. Siddons in verse ; and his panegyric may very probably have suggested to Reynolds the subject, or, at any rate, the name of his picture. There is some doubt as to the exact time in 1783 when the great actress began her sittings, but, on the whole, the most probable period would appear to be the autumn of that year. The history of the picture is given by Mrs. Jameson, on the authority of Mrs. Siddons herself. We can imagine Sir Joshua, in his courtly fashion, taking the stately woman by the hand, and leading her to the sitter's chair, with the sonorous Johnsonian com- pliment : " Ascend your undisputed throne ; bestow on me some idea of the Tragic Muse." " Upon which," she added, " I walked up the steps, and instantly seated myself in the attitude in which the Tragic Muse now appears." There is little reason to doubt the authenticity of the anec- dote, and the less when we reflect that Melpomene, some- what staid and stolid in private life, was not inventive enough to have devised or elaborated the compliment just quoted, or that further and still more splendid one which he laid at her feet when he was putting the last finishing touches to the work. " I cannot," he said, " resist the opportunity for going down to posterity on the edge of your garment." Whereupon he then and there painted his name in ornate letters, together with the date 1784, along the Muse's skirt, so that it did duty as a decorative adornment much as he had done in the case of The Lady Cockburn with her Children. 8 THE TRAGIC MUSE With regard to the influence that the beautiful sitter her- self exercised, or deemed that she exercised on the evolu- tion of the design one of the most carefully elaborated of all Sir Joshua's there seems to have been some uncon- scious exaggeration on her part, such as is often generated by successive repetitions of a story at a certain distance of time. Thus, she said to Mrs. Jameson that she at once seated herself in the attitude in which the Muse now ap- pears. But she told Thomas Phillips, R. A., "that it was the production of pure accident ; Sir Joshua had begun the head and figure in a different view j but while he was occupied in the preparation of some colour, she changed her position to look at a picture hanging on the wall of the room. When he again looked at her and saw the action she had assumed, he requested her not to move ; and thus arose the beautiful and expressive figure we now see in the picture." And again she told Martin Arthur Shee that " Sir Joshua would have tricked her out in all the colours of the rainbow had she not prevented him." No doubt the great tragedienne was unfamiliar with the first states of an oil picture, and the courtly Sir Joshua may have allowed her to run on uncontradicted, content to receive her recla- mations with a seeming acquiescence. It must be pointed out, however, that the master's Twelfth Discourse, delivered only a few months after the completion of the picture, contains in the following pas- sage, a striking though indirect corroboration of Mrs. Sid- dons's statement that she had suggested the attitude of the Muse : " And here I cannot avoid mentioning a circum- THE TRAGIC MUSE 9 stance in placing the model, though to some it may appear trifling. It is better to possess the model with the attitude you require, than to place him with your own hands : by this means it often happens that the model puts himself in an action superior to your own imagination. It is a great matter to be in the way of accident, and to be watchful and ready to take advantage of it : besides, when you fix the position of a model there is danger of putting him in an attitude into which no man would naturally fall." It may be alleged that Mrs. Siddons's story in its entirety cannot altogether be reconciled with the undoubted fact that the general conception of the Tragic Muse is coloured with a strong reminiscence of Michelangelo's Isaiah, in the ceil- ing of the Sixtine Chapel a fact the less difficult to accept when it is remembered how Sir Joshua had saturated him- self with the master in the contemplation of the frescoes in the Cappella Sistina, and had throughout his career main- tained his enthusiasm for him at its original high level. Still, the two versions of the genesis of the picture are by no means radically irreconcilable. It is not in the least likely that so great an artist, and one so various in portraiture as Sir Joshua, would have ham- pered himself, and handicapped his sitter, by a premed- itated adherence to all the lines of a figure of which the guiding motive was one essentially different from that of his idealized portrait. There is little doubt that he had generally in view Buonarroti's great invention ; yet, to ob- tain a pose correct and natural in all particulars, and, above all, to infuse true significance and true dramatic charac- 10 THE TRAGIC MUSE terization into the outlines of the composition as conceived by him, it is easy to believe that he may have relied to a great extent, on the heroic instincts of the greatest tragic actress of her time. He may as we know that he did in many cases have even taken inspiration from her changes of posture, and revised his conception accordingly. A detailed description of the composition is rendered un- necessary by the reproduction here given. It is in fine pres- ervation, the sombre magnificence of the colouring being much less due to darkening in this instance than to pre- meditation on the part of the painter. There can be little doubt that the unity of tone obtained by the deep purple and the tawny brownish-yellow of Melpomene's robes gives a greater ideality, a more unbroken repose to the general aspect of the work than could have been obtained by a higher key, a more varied splendour in the hues of the draperies. For once Sir Joshua attains to his ideal and achieves what all through his life he has sighed for and written about high, or shall we not rather say great, art. As great art, and to say the least, on a level with the work now discussed, must rank several of the finest male portraits. But those were great in virtue of a certain heroic realism, of a certain informing enthusiasm, while greatness is here attained in the more accepted fashion, by splendid dignity of conception, by majesty and rhythmical grace of out- ward aspect, by impressiveness and significance of colour- ing. The least touch of bathos would have brought the picture down from its high level, and placed it on that of the Gar- THE TRAGIC MUSE II rick between Tragedy and Comedy and the numerous portraits of some one irrelevantly masquerading as some one else, which cannot be unreservedly accepted, even by the master's most fervent admirers. But even the attendant figures variously described as " Pity and Terror," " Pity and Remorse," and with more probability as " Crime and Remorse," are sufficiently impressive, especially the one which the master studied from his own features. The figure of Mrs. Siddons herself is unique in the life-work of the master, as combining a more portrait-like fidelity than Reynolds often achieved in female portraiture with a gen- uinely tragic ideality of mien and gesture, due, it must be owned, as much to the natural personality of the sitter as to the conceiving power of the artist. The original work was bought by the noted amateur, M. de Calonne, for the then very considerable sum of 800 guineas, and, after some intermediate sales, was finally ac- quired by the first Marquis of Westminster for 1,760 guineas. It remains one of the chief ornaments of the Duke of Westminster's rich collection, and has by him been lent on several occasions to public exhibitions to the Old Masters in 1870; then for a considerable space of time to the South Kensington Museum ; then to the Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery ; and lastly to the Guelph Exhibition. The inferior replica at the Dulwich Gallery was painted by Score, one of Sir Joshua's assistants, in 1789, and sold to M. Desenfans for 700 guineas ; but, for all its inferiority, it had, as Sir Joshua's own note and the price show, the imprimatur of the 12 THE TRAGIC MUSE Reynolds studio. The best replica would appear to be that at Langley Park, Stowe, given by Sir Joshua to Mr. Harvey, in exchange for a boar-hunt by Snyders which the painter much admired. Another repetition, of the upper part of the figure only, is, or was, in the possession of Mrs. Combe of Edinburgh ; and yet another one of the complete picture in the gallery of Lord Normanton. As by Sir Joshua was exhibited at the Guelph Exhibition an imposing full-length, belonging to the Earl of Warwick, showing Mrs. Siddons in a black satin gown, with a white scarf wrapped turban-wise round her head, holding in one hand a mask, in the other a dagger. This, however, has, on the high authority of Mr. George Scharf, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, been restored to Sir William Beechy. It was in 1784 that Gainsborough painted his famous Mrs. Siddons^ en toilette de i)ille, now in the National Gal- lery, and, though the conditions of the two pictures are as absolutely different as they could possibly be, the same serious and a little ponderous personality makes itself felt, even as interpreted by Gainsborough's sprightly brush. No better description has been left us of the Tragic Muse, as she appeared in private life, preserving, in a lower, quieter key, all the idiosyncrasies of her stage in- dividuality, than that one of Miss Burney's which so per- fectly comments and explains the painted portraits as to de- serve quotation in its entirety : " I found her, the Heroine of a Tragedy sublime, ele- THE TRAGIC MUSE 13 vated, and solemn. In face and person, truly noble and commanding; in manners, quiet and stiff; in voice, deep and dragging; and in conversation, formal, sententious, calm, and dry. I expected her to have been all that is interesting; the delicacy and sweetness with which she seizes every opportunity to strike and to captivate upon the stage had persuaded me that her mind was formed with that peculiar susceptibility which, in different modes, must give equal powers to attract and to delight in common life. But I was very much mistaken. As a stranger, I must have admired her noble appearance and beautiful counte- nance, and have regretted that nothing in her conversation kept pace with her promise ; and as a celebrated actress I had still only to do the same. Whether fame and success have spoiled her, or whether she only possesses the skill of representing and embellishing materials with which she is furnished by others, I know not ; but still I remain disap- pointed." PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN (Raphael) F. A. GRUYER Portrait of a Young Man carries us to the Rome of Julius II., about the year 1510, at the mo- ment when Raphael, in the full ebullition of his genius is about to take possession of the Vatican. This was per- haps the most fortunate moment of his life. He had that view of a happy and productive life to which nothing is any longer refused. For him the years were to succeed one another ever fuller of activity and ever fuller of glory, full of works and full of happiness. In thirty months he was to compose and paint the Dispute of the Holy Sacra- ment, the School of Athens, the Parnassus, the 'Jurisprudence, the Pandectes, the Decretals, the allegorical figures of the vault, all the complementary figures of that admirable decoration, and he even found time to paint another por- trait which alone would suffice to place him in the first rank of the great masters. This portrait represents a young man, almost a youth, handsome of countenance, of natural charm and grace, and richly exhaling the springtide perfume of life. What is his age ? About sixteen years. What was his name ? We do not know. What was his condi- tion of life ? That is also unknown. He leans his elbow familiarly upon a stone balustrade, his head supported by his right hand, his left arm lies horizontally along the sup- PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN 15 porting bar. His long hair, of a bright blonde, is covered with a black baretta, and is parted in the middle, falling down over his cheeks and flowing over his shoulders. One of his locks, raised by the hand that supports the head, covers the right cheek and caresses it, giving him a somewhat mis- chievous expression. The broad open brow is of medium height. The eyes of a bluish gray, look towards the left with a bright glance. The nose is delicately formed. The lines of the mouth reveal amiability and humour. The chin is finely accentuated. The cheeks are in the full blossoming of youth. As for the costume, it is summarily dismissed : a white shirt leaving the throat bare so as to show it in all its lightness ; a blackish blue tunic, the right sleeve only of which is visible; and a cloak of sombre green negligently thrown over the left shoulder. Finally, the right hand is merely indicated. Everything shows to what a degree this painting was improvised ; but this does not interfere with its enchantment. The shade and chiaros- curo are distributed with an art that is so much the greater on account of its dissimulation. There can be nothing in which we feel less effort, nothing can be less natural nor more spontaneous ; nothing can seem less calculated nor reaching after effect ; nevertheless, everything here is or- dered by a master as sure of his hand as of his thought. This handsome face, set between the black baretta and the dark tones of his vestments, is like the brightness of a beautiful day. It is youth personified, without make-up or adjustment, in all the charm of its reality and all the poetry of its dreaming. Moreover, it would be vain to analyze 1 6 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN such a portrait, or to seek whence arises its enchantment. We cannot tell. The poet says : " Ask of the nightin- gale its secret for making itself beloved." This painting came to us from the gallery of Louis XIV.; and Bailly in his inventory thus describes it in 1709 : "Pic- ture attributed to Raphael representing his own portrait." At that period, therefore, people regarded this as the por- trait of Raphael at the age of fifteen or sixteen, without asking themselves if it were possible whether so strong a work could be produced by a painter as young as that. Twenty years later, Mariette, with greater insight, con- sidered this impossibility. He says: "This portrait is worthy of deep consideration on account of its beautiful brush-work and its masterly mingling of colours. The head looks alive ; the character of the design is great and finely felt with much firmness and precision. One would say that Raphael painted it rapidly at the first attempt. On that account, it is more piquant than any other that we possess by this great man. Some people regard it as the portrait of this painter f but it is hard for us to persuade ourselves that at so tender an age as that of the youth represented in this picture, Raphael had so far departed from his first manner as appears in the picture of which we are speaking." In 1752, Lepicie, taking Mariette's opinion into account, wrote below this painting simply : " Portrait of a Young Man." This however did not pre- vent Emeric David, whose opinion was authoritative fifty years ago, from holding to Bailly's version. It was easy however to make sure of two things : first, that there is PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN 17 not the least resemblance between the authentic portraits of Raphael and this " Portrait of a Young Man " ; and next, that Raphael at sixteen years of age was painting after Perugino under the very eyes of Perugino, keeping with docility within the shadow of his master ; and that, even at twenty years of age, it was still Perugino whom he was striving to copy, witness the Sposalizio^ and the Christ in the Garden of Olives. In 1499, a portrait such as the Portrait of a Young Man would have been considered an act of rebellion in the School of Perugi. Moreover, this portrait exhibits all the qualities of a past master in painting. If there are one or two things in it that are not quite correct, they are matters not of inexperience but of improvisation. In order to paint a picture of such appar- ent carelessness, to produce such a work with such lavish- ness, to adorn what is familiar with such delicacies, a man must have long submitted to the respect for style, to the devotion to form and reason. As Boileau says, he must have learned " with difficulty to make easy verses." Never- theless the error endorsed by Emeric David persisted, and Forster, when he engraved this portrait in 1843, wrote under his engraving : Raphael Sanzio at fifteen years of age. As a reaction from this point of view, people now want to refer this Portrait of a Young Man to the closing years of Raphael's life. " This picture must have been painted between 1515 and 1520," says M. Villot ; and M. Both de Tauzia repeats the same date. In our opinion, this is an- other error. After having gone too high up, people come too low down. Why not stop half way, between 1509 and 1 8 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN 1511 ? This portrait, although of masterly execution, does not show the character of Raphael's last productions. On the contrary, everything in it recalls the first works that he painted in Rome. If we compare this Portrait of a Young Man with the frescoes of the Segnatura^ we shall see that they are painted in the same manner, and have the same youth, the same freshness and the same style of beauty, in a word, that they belong to the same date. The draw- ing throughout has the same incomparable grace, and the colour, in spite of the difference in the material processes, produces the same impression. Has not the colouring of the Portrait of a Young Man, blonde, fluid and diaphanous, something of the limpidity of fresco, and particularly of the frescoes of the first of the Vatican Chambers? More- over can we not see remarkable analogies between this charming countenance and the no less charming faces of the disciples gathered around Archimedes in the School of Athens? Archimedes being no other than Bramante, is it not probable that his disciples are also some of the painter's contemporaries ? Before executing his fresco, might not Raphael have painted rapidly and in the sense of studies some portraits among which was this Portrait of a Young Man ? (It was thus that he painted the portrait of the Duke of Urbino which also figures in the School of Athens.) Are not the enthusiasm of the idea, the spontaneity of the execution and the inspired spirit of the artist in the presence of the living model so many proofs in favour of this hypothesis ? We therefore think that this portrait was painted between the years 1509 and 1511. Place it in the PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN 1 9 chamber of the Segnatura and it is at home, it seems to be with its own family. Place it aside in the Heliodorus room which was painted from 1512 to 1514, and it already looks almost exiled. Why? Because from 1512 on, Raphael was influenced by the paintings of Giorgione and Sebastiano del Piombo, and he preserved in his own works something of the impression caused by those warm colourists. How- ever this may be, let us hail a masterpiece in this portrait. SOPHIE ARNOULD (Greuze) M. H. SPIELMANN THE extraordinary popularity of Greuze is based, not upon the excellence of his painting, but upon his pretty faces ; for not only are his best pictures the least liked by the public, but among those which are most en- joyed are the most insincere, the most affected, and, in in- tention, the most u suggestive." Some of his best work is naturally that which makes the least appeal to the senti- mentality of the spectator : that is to say, he is strongest in genuine portraiture. In the portrait of Mile. Sophie Arnould, there is, no doubt, a touch of the poseuse there is the affectation of the pretty woman, who, with all her consummate wit and self- command, could not quite lose her self-consciousness when standing before the easel of the painter. Greuze shows her for what she is. The jaunty pose of the hat, the quiet confidence of the sitter, the grace, half-studied, half-natural, the lack of " that" as the French say, which gives the per- fect grace of the well-bred woman, all proclaim the attributes of the actress who sprang into the dazzling light of the joyous world in Eighteenth Century France, and fizzled out at the end of it. That Sophie Arnould was a great artist none will deny. Garrick himself showered his approval upon her, and yet it SOPHIE ARNOULD SOPHIE ARNOULD 21 was not as an actress merely that she gained universal celebrity, but as an opera-singer. She was singularly gifted by nature, graceful in presence, perfect in figure, admirable alike as actress and singer ; she dominated her world of art for heaven knows how many years, and Carlyle somewhere says that she was the greatest lyric and dramatic artist of her day: that is to say, for twenty years from 1757. As Thelaire in Castor and Pollux, as Ephise in Dardanus, as Iphigenie in Aulide, and in a score of other parts, Sophie enchanted all Paris year after year, and Dorat celebrated her in his poem La Declamation, and she triumphed in the world, on the stage, and at Court. Mile. Arnould, herself, held not the public in such high esteem as that with which they honoured her. She had little belief in either their taste or their sense. She knew that, as to-day, not the love of art, but of vogue, attracts the public to the playhouse, and cuttingly remarked : " The best way to support the opera is to lengthen the ballets and shorten the skirts." Indeed, of all her gifts that of extempore wit was, perhaps, the most remarkable for she would say the cleverest and bitterest things without giving offence. There, indeed, is the wonder of wonders a pretty woman, an^actress, " the idol of the opera-goers," and queen of the stage, witty, cynical, even biting and yet without an enemy ! And when she retired, it was amidst a chorus of praises and regrets among which was heard no discordant cry. Perhaps she was so successful in flavouring her wormwood with sugar that the taste of bitterness was unnoticed. Thus, when a pretty but very stupid woman was 22 SOPHIE ARNOULD complaining that she was pestered with the attentions of men whom she could not escape, Sophie sweetly replied : " But, surely, my dear, you need but speak to them ! " It was so natural. And again, on being told that a certain popular singer, now grown old and husky and raucous, had been received with hisses, she said : " But she possesses the voice of the people ! " Some of the inventions of her subtle wit are used to this day in the press of Paris. Such was the woman whom Greuze has painted here, making as a painter should, the best of a not very beautiful face for her large mouth, her bad teeth, her dark skin have been commented on by contemporaries. But these, per- haps, are not free from suspicion of entertaining ill-will towards her. Her life is full of interest, a curious com- mentary on French Society of the Eighteenth Century. She has been fortunate in her biographers, the de Gon- courts and Mr. Douglas : but above all she has been fortunate in her painter, Greuze, whose picture, more fa- vourably than the portraits of others, will keep alive for all time the memory of her attractive personality. DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS (Velasquez) SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG THE equestrian portrait of the young prince is one of the finest things painted by the master for Buen Retiro. The boy rides an Andalusian pony and flourishes his baton with an engaging mimicry of his father. In decorative brilliancy of colour Velasquez never excelled this picture. A positively dazzling effect is produced by the richly- dressed little horseman, in his green velvet doublet, white sleeves, and red scarf against the iridescent landscape. Don Balthazar is said to have delighted his father by his skill and courage in the riding-school ; the King makes frequent allusions to his progress in letters to Don Fer- nando, who encouraged his little nephew by presents of armour, dogs, and a pony described as a " little devil," but warranted to go like " a little dog " if treated to some half- dozen lashes before being mounted. The prince's horse- manship was probably acquired under the direction of Oli- vares, one of the best horsemen in Spain, who appears in one of two sketches ascribed to Velasquez, showing the child preparing for a lesson with the lance. Both are in English collections. The Duke of Westminster owns that with Olivares in the arena, and the king and queen look- ing on from the balcony of the building which is now the 24 DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS Royal Armoury j the other, a composition with more fig- ures, is at Hertford House. Never in his whole career did Velasquez equal this pic- ture in spontaneous vitality or in splendour of colour. The design, too, has a freshness and felicity which we miss from the Olivares, and, to a less extent, from the Philip and Isa- bella. Intellectually the motive is absolutely simple. The boy gallops past at an angle which brings him into the hap- piest proportion with his mount. His attitude is the natural one for a pupil of Philip and Olivares, two of the best horsemen in Europe ; his look and gesture express just the degree of pride, delight and desire for approval which charm in a child. Through all this Velasquez has worked for simplicity. He has been governed by the sincere desire to paint the boy as he was, with no parade or affectation. That done, he has turned his attention to aesthetic effect. The mane and tail of the Andalusian pony, the boy's rich costume and his flying scarf, and the splendid browns, blues and greens of the landscape background make up a decora- tive whole as rich and musical as any Titian. Not that it is in the least Titianesque. Its colour is, in a way, a better answer to the famous dictum of Sir Joshua than the Blue Boy itself, for although the tints are all warm and trans- parent, the general effect produced is cool and blue. Ve- lasquez was afterwards to paint many pictures in which the more subtle resources of his art were to be more fully dis- played than here, but he was never again to equal this Don Balthazar Carlos in the felicity with which directness and truth are clothed in the splendours of decorative colour, and DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS 25 that without drawing upon the more sonorous notes of the palette. Only once in after-life does he seem to have let himself go in the matter of colour and to have tried what he could do, so to speak, with the trumpet. The extraordinary portrait of the Infante Margarita in rose-colour against red was the result, but wonderful as it is, it leaves us cold beside the delicious tones, like those of a silver flute, of this Balthazar Carlos. Don Balthazar was born during the absence of Velasquez in Rome. The master painted him first at the age of two, as we learn from a reference to such a portrait in a docu- ment of 1634. The picture at Castle Howard (once ascribed to Correggio !) shows him at about the same age, or a little older. He stands somewhat insecurely, support- ing himself by means of a baton, while a dwarf rather more in the foreground seems to encourage him to walk by hold- ing out a silver rattle and an apple. This is, perhaps, the earliest of a fine series of portraits which chronicle the various stages of the prince's short career. Several were sent to foreign courts as preliminaries to demand for the hand of this or that princess, the prince's marriage having been a subject of anxious consideration almost from his birth. A portrait in Buckingham Palace, representing him in armour, with golden spurs, lace collar and crimson scarf, is supposed to be the picture spoken of by the Tuscan en- voy in 1639. "A portrait of the Crown Prince has been sent to England, as if His Highnesses marriage with that Princess were close at hand." Such a picture figures in the 26 DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS catalogue of one of the sales under the Commonwealth as " The Prince of Spain." A more important example of this class is a full-length at Vienna in a black velvet dress embroidered with silver, sent to the Austrian Court when a betrothal with the Em- peror Ferdinand's daughter, Mariana, was under discussion. In 1645, tne Infante went with his father to receive the homage of the provinces of Aragon and Navarre, an event commemorated by Juan Bautista del Mazo-Martinez, commonly known as Mazo, in his fine View of Saragassa (No. 788 in the Prado) ; the figures in which, representing the royal party, have been ascribed to Velasquez himself. In June of the following year, the prince's betrothal 10 Mariana was officially announced, and shortly afterwards he accompanied his father to the seat of war in Aragon, where his beauty and spirit excited great enthusiasm. A chill taken at Saragossa cut short the young life on which such high hopes had been built, on October 6, 1646. With characteristic self-control, Philip to whom policy and affec- tion alike made this loss the most cruel of disasters, an- nounced the boy's death to the Marquis of Legafies in the following letter : , " Marquis We must all of us yield to God's will, and I more than others. It has pleased Him to take my son from me about an hour ago. Mine is such grief as you can conceive at such a loss, but also full of resignation in the hand of God, and courage and resolution to pro- vide for the defence of my lands, for they also are my children. . . . And so I beseech you not to relax DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS 27 in the operations of this campaign until Lerida is re- lieved." The latest portrait of the prince ascribed to Velasquez is probably the full-length numbered 1,083 * n tne Prado, representing him at about the age of fifteen, in a black court suit. MRS. SHERIDAN ( Gainsborough) LORD RONALD GOWER IT is inevitable to compare Gainsborough with Reynolds, but the comparison is unprofitable, since, although both painted the portraits of the same generation, they were distinctly different in style and feeling. When compared with the output of Reynolds, who for some years painted over a hundred portraits a year, Gainsborough's total of not many over three hundred seems small. But whilst Reyn- olds had many pupils and assistants, Gainsborough had no assistants, and only a very few pupils. At no period of his life did Gainsborough emulate the industry which enabled the President to create a world of portraits. Gainsborough also lacked Reynolds's confidence of touch, his psycholog- ical grip and marvellous variety. Sir Joshua's portraits of Lord Heathfield, of Laurence Sterne, and of Mrs. Siddons as the Muse of Tragedy, are the very greatest portraits any English painter has created; unapproachable in dignity, intellect and force. But in delineating the grace and sweetness of womanhood Gainsborough claims an equal place with his great rival, and as a painter of landscape he stands on a far higher level. It is to Gainsborough's credit that he never attempted the so-called u grand style " in painting as did Romney with such doubtful success ; in that province Reynolds holds the MRS. SHERIDAN AND MRS. TICKELL MRS. SHERIDAN 29 highest rank of the artists of his day. Gainsborough in some respects was like a child ; and this gives his character a certain attraction. He probably never opened a book for the sake of study or information, I doubt whether he ever read a play of Shakespeare's, or a dozen lines of Milton. When not at work he would pass hours with his friends, playing some musical instrument or listening to their per- formances. A man is judged by his friends, and whilst Reynolds loved to be in the society of Burke or Johnson, Gainsborough liked those better who could play upon the fiddle or the flute ; to hear music pleased him more than to hear great minds discuss great subjects. It has been truly said by the German art critic, Richard Muther, that, what with Reynolds was sought out and un- derstood, was felt by Gainsborough ; whence the former is always good and correct, where Gainsborough is unfortu- nate and often faulty, but in his best pictures with a charm to which those of the President of the Academy never attained . . . but what distinguishes him from Reyn- olds, and gives him a character of greater originality, is just his naive independence of the ancients, to which he was led by the difference in his method of study. During the fourteen years Gainsborough had passed at Bath, he had become known throughout England as one of the greatest artists of the day ; when he had arrived there his name had not been heard outside his native coun- try. His portraits were now as eagerly awaited on the walls of the Academy as those of the President, and to- gether with his beautiful landscapes always called forth the 30 MRS. SHERIDAN keenest interest and admiration, so that he was sure of a warm welcome in London, and a position in the world of art only second to that of Sir Joshua. But before we take leave of our painter at Bath, there are some of the portraits he painted there which must not be overlooked. Among the many beautiful women he painted there was not one more refined, more purely featured than Elizabeth Linley, the eldest daughter of the musician, Thomas Linley, born in 1754 at Bath. Gains- borough must have often seen her as a child of nine stand- ing with her little brother at the entrance to the Pump Room selling tickets for her father's benefit concerts ; and later also, when she had become the acknowledged beauty of the town " The Fair Maid of Bath," as she was called, and from whom Foote took the title of one of his plays, The Maid of Bath surrounded by admirers and courted by the rich and titled. The old miser, Walter Long, offered to lay his thousands at her feet, regardless of the expense of a prospective wedding ; when she sang at Oxford the whole University went wild over her, and later when she sang in one of Handel's oratorios at Covent Garden in the Lent of 1773, even that most virtuous of sovereigns, George the Third, is said to have publicly ex- pressed his admiration, and, if Horace Walpole is to be believed, " ogl'd her as much as he dares do in so holy a place as an oratorio." Her fate was to marry, when eight- een, the most brilliant, if not the most reputable man of the day, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who had proved his devotion to Miss Linley by fighting two duels, of which MRS. SHERIDAN 31 she, like Helen of Troy, was the cause of battle. Their married life, although it commenced with a runaway wed- ding and was short, was a happy one. Gainsborough painted several portraits of this beautiful woman, the most beautiful of them all being the one at Knole, where she appears as a child of thirteen or fourteen with her little brother Tom peering over her shoulder. This portrait is but a sketch, and was probably painted at one or two sittings, but nothing more beautiful can be imagined than these two heads of the girl and boy. She has that pathetic expression so strongly marked in all her portraits, and a look of subdued awe is on the boy's face which reminds one of the head of the Infant Saviour in Raphael's great picture of the Madonna at Dresden. There is a life-size group of Elizabeth Linley with her sister, who afterwards became Mrs. Tickell, in the Dul- wich Gallery, but it is a less beautiful likeness than her head at Knole, or the full length, portrait of her seated on a bank, belonging to Lord Rothschild, which was painted by Gainsborough in 1783, and was formerly at Delapre Abbey. Even ladies admired Mrs. Sheridan, which is an uncom- mon thing for ladies to do; and they said so, which is more uncommon still. Madame d' Arblay writes in 1779 that "the elegance of Mrs. Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe." Macaulay has called her " the beautiful mother of a beautiful race " ; her grandchildren were famous for their beauty, and three of her granddaughters were the famous trio of sisters all 32 MRS. SHERIDAN gifted with brains as well as good looks the Duchess of Somerset, Mrs. Norton, and Lady Dufferin, the mother of the well-known statesman and diplomat, Lord DufFerin, who wrote thus of his great-grandmother. "For Miss Linley I have not words to express my admiration. It is evident, from the universal testimony of all who knew her, that there has seldom lived a sweeter, gentler, more tender or lovable human being." Wilkes said of her : " She is superior to all I have heard of her, and is the most modest, pleasing and delicate flower I have seen for a long time." Dr. Parr said she was "quite celestial." A friend of Rogers, the poet, wrote " Miss Linley had a voice as of the cherub choir. She took my daughter on her lap and sang a number of childish songs, with such a playfulness of manner and such a sweetness of look and voice as was quite enchanting." Garrick always alluded to her as " the saint"; one bishop called her " the connecting link be- tween a woman and an angel " j and another said, " to look at her when singing was like looking into the face of a seraph." Evidently kings and bishops were great admirers of the peerless Eliza of Bath. Sheridan must have had some good in him to have been so loved by this saint-like woman. In a letter to a friend she writes : " Poor Dick and I have always been struggling against the stream, and shall probably continue to do so until the end of our lives ; yet we would not change sentiments and sensations with for all his estates." Gainsborough not only painted Miss Linley, but he also modelled a bust of her beautiful head and shoulders. MRS. SHERIDAN 33 He had been to one of the concerts at which she sang he never missed one where her beautiful voice was to be heard and on his return to the Circus he got some clay out of a beer-barrel and in a few minutes had made a little bust, which, when dry, he coloured. Thicknesse declared that it was better than any portrait he had ever painted of her; but the next day the bust disappeared; no doubt it had been " dusted " by the maid, and had come to pieces in the process, as so many fragile objects do in similar cir- cumstances. Leslie is said to have had a cast taken from another bust Gainsborough made of Miss Linley, but that also perished, probably in the same way as the first one. Mrs. Sheridan died when eight-and-thirty ; her brother Tom, the beautiful bright-eyed lad who appears on the ^me canvass with her at Knole, was drowned whilst still a youth when on a visit with his sisters to the Duke of An- caster at Grimsthorpe. Another of her three brothers, who was in the Navy, was lost at sea; all were remarkably handsome, as one can see by the portraits by Gainsborough at Dulwich. CHARLES I (Fan Dyck) H. KNACKFUSS HOWEVER highly one may value many of the so- called historical pictures, particularly those of relig- ious subjects, which Van Dyck produced in the years 1626 to 1632, his best works even in this period of his life, which must be regarded as his prime, lay in the field of portrait-painting. He had an extraordinary talent for por- traying people with convincing resemblance to life and at the same time in a most attractive pose, and turning such portraits into real works of art, perfect both in form and colour, true pictures, as artists use the word. This talent was generally appreciated, and hardly a person of any con- sequence who lived at Antwerp, or stayed there on a pass- ing visit, omitted to have himself painted by Van Dyck. The French Queen Marie de Medicis visited him at his studio when she travelled through Antwerp in 1631, and sat to him for a portrait. Van Dyck had a skilful hand in painting the likenesses of illustrious people, but he was almost more successful in recording the appearance of art- ists. The number of masterly portraits which he painted before his thirty-third year expired, in addition to the very considerable quantity of other works, proclaim a rapidity of production not inferior to that of Rubens. In the course of 1631 negotiations were carried on with CHARLES I CHARLES I 35 Van Dyck from England in order to induce him to settle in London. King Charles I. had received the picture of Rinaldo and Armida by the agency of his gentleman-in- waiting, Endymion Porter, in the spring of the previous year. What induced him, however, to attach the Flemish master to his court, according to the statement of an Eng- lish historian, was not this charming composition, but a portrait. A gentleman of the King's court, the painter and musician, Nicholas Lanier, had had himself painted by Van Dyck. He had sat for the portrait, as is particularly mentioned, morning and afternoon for seven days in suc- cession, without being allowed by the painter to see the picture. All the greater was his joy and satisfaction at the sight of the finished work. This was the portrait which was shown to Charles I., and occasioned Van Dyck's jour- ney to England. At the beginning of April, 1632, Van Dyck was in Lon- don, and he was immediately taken into the service of Charles I. The King furnished the painter with the means of living in a very handsome style. He assigned to him a town-house in Blackfriars and a country-house at Eltham in Kent, and gave him a very considerable income, which was counted at first by the day and afterwards as a yearly salary, quite independently of the payments for each sepa- rate picture. A few months later, on the 5th of July, 1632, he conferred on him the highest mark of appreciation by making him a knight, presenting him on this occasion, as a special mark of favour, with a golden chain and his portrait set in diamonds. Van Dyck's chief task at the English 36 CHARLES I court was to paint the King himself and his Queen, Hen- rietta Maria of France. His portraits of the English royal pair are numerous; besides those in England there are several specimens also in continental collections. Van Dyck, not only an admirable painter but a charming man, enjoyed the highest personal favour of the King from the commencement of his residence in England. When Charles I. wanted to escape from the burden of affairs of state, he would often take boat on the Thames from his Palace of Whitehall to Blackfriars, to seek refreshment in unconstrained and animated conversation with his painter. There was bound to be a keen competition among the nobility who frequented the court, to show favour to the artist whom the King valued so highly. There was, probably, never a painter anywhere who had such numerous commission for portraits as Van Dyck in England. He sometimes had to paint a number of portraits of the same people. For instance there are said to be nine portraits by his hand of the Earl of Straffbrd, the King's most influential adviser at that time, who went to Ireland in that year, 1632, as Lord Lieutenant, and laid his head on the block nine years later as the first victim of the incipient revolution. Among the first portraits which Van Dyck painted, next to those of the royal couple, were, probably those of his special patrons, the enthusiastic lovers of art who had brought about his invitation to England. The Earl of Arundel, whom he painted seven times, holds the most distinguished position among these. Endymion Porter, to whom he owed his first connection with Charles I., was CHARLES I 37 painted in one picture together with Van Dyck himself. This joint portrait is now in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. In the spring of 1634 Van Dyck obtained leave of absence to visit the Netherlands, where he remained till some way into the following year. In all probability it was only in the year 1635 that Van Dyck returned to England. Charles I. had himself and his family painted over and over again by the master. The most celebrated portrait of the King is that in the Louvre which displays him in riding costume, standing at the edge of a wood, as if he had just dismounted from the hunter, impatiently pawing the ground, which a groom holds behind him. It is a splendid piece of colouring. The King, in a white satin jacket, red hose and light yellow jack-boots, with a wide-brimmed black hat on his long, brown hair, stands out against a piece of wooded country, sloping away to the seacoast, with a distant view of the sea and a sunny sky with white clouds. The horse, a grey, is relieved effectively by the deep brownish-green of the forest trees and the dull red of the groom's dress. By the side of the groom, and partly hidden by his figure, we also perceive a page who carries the King's short cloak of light silk. A number of stately equestrian portraits show the King in armour, but bare-headed, with a master of the horse by his side, who carries his gilt helmet for him. Then he appears, in full face, riding through a gateway which looks like a triumphal arch, in a majestic picture at Windsor. We see him in profile in a small picture at Buckingham Palace, which seems to be the sketch for a large picture formerly 38 CHARLES I at Blenheim Palace and now in the National Gallery. Here the King rides a creamvcoloured horse; in the Windsor picture it is grey. In another picture, also at Windsor, the King is represented in his royal robes of ceremony. Another portrait in the same collection shows him as the head of a family group, with the Queen and their two sons. There are said to be altogether about three hundred por- traits by Van Dyck in England, the majority of which are in the mansions of the nobility, still in possession of de- scendants of the persons represented. Van Dyck could not possibly have contrived to grapple with the multitude of orders which reached him, had he not employed several gifted pupils whom he trained as assist- ants : Jan de Reyn of Dunkirk, whom he had brought with him from Antwerp ; David Beeck of Arnhem whose rapidity in painting excited amazement, and James Gandy, who was also highly esteemed as an independent portrait-painter and lived afterwards in Ireland, are especially mentioned. The master must have called in the help of pupils extensively in the numerous cases in which replicas were required ; that was frequently done, for the sake of making valuable presents at weddings or other festal occasions among the circle of relatives and acquaintances of the person in ques- tion. We have detailed information about Van Dyck's method of working, from quite a trustworthy source ; it rests on the declaration of a man who stood in close personal relations with the artist. The writer De Piles relates in his treatise on painting, which appeared at Paris CHARLES I 39 in 1708 : "the celebrated Jabach (of Cologne), well-known to all lovers of the fine arts, who was on friendly terms with Van Dyck and had had his portrait painted by him three times, informed me that he spoke to that painter one day of the short time which the latter spent on his portraits, whereupon the painter replied that at first he used to exert himself severely, and take very great pains with his portraits for the sake of his reputation, and in order to do them quickly, at a time when he was working for his daily bread. Then he gave me the following particulars of Van Dyck's customary procedure. He appointed a day and hour for the person whom he was to paint, and did not work longer than one hour at a time on each portrait, whether at the commencement or at the finish ; as soon as his clock pointed to the hour, he rose and made a reverence to his sitter, as much as to say that this was enough for the day, and then he made an appointment for another day and hour ; thereupon his serving-man would come to clean his brushes and prepare a fresh palette, while he received another per- son who had made an appointment for this hour. Thus he worked at several portraits on the same day, and worked, too, with an astonishing rapidity. After he had just begun a portrait and grounded it, he made the sitter assume the pose which he had determined for himself beforehand, and made a sketch of the figure and costume on grey paper with black and white chalk, arranging the drapery in a grand style and with the finest taste. He gave this drawing afterwards to skilled assistants whom he kept employed, in order to transfer it to the picture, working from the actual 40 CHARLES I clothes which were sent to Van Dyck at his request for this purpose. When the pupils had carried out the drapery, as far as they could, from nature, he went over it lightly and introduced into it by his skill in a very short time the art and truth which we admire. For the hands he employed hired models of both sexes." It is clear that this account refers to the later period of this busy portrait- painter. In his earlier portraits Van Dyck unmistakably carried out not only the nude, but also all the drapery and all accessories with his own hand entirely. As for the hands it is true that they show, even in the earlier portraits at Genoa, a uniform delicacy which does not correspond with the speaking and individual characterization of the faces. Still there are many portraits by him, too, in which the character of the hands is just as ably and closely studied as that of the face ; this is always the case, in particular, with the portraits of artists. We are further informed that Van Dyck was fond, at the end of his day's work, of inviting the persons whom he was painting to dine with him, and that at these repasts the style of entertainment was no less sumptuous than that adopted by the highest classes of society in England. After his work was done, Van Dyck lived like a prince. His earnings were immense, and he spent them freely. It is thought that a certain decline of artistic power is observable in the portraits which Van Dyck painted after 1635. It is certainly possible that in many of them the great haste of production and the collaboration of pupils are all too visible. In any case, however, the master pre- CHARLES I 41 served to the end one peculiarity of his portraits which he had displayed even in those painted at Genoa in his youth ; that is, the incomparable nobility of treatment which ap- pears in every face and every form and in the whole char- acter of the pictures. It is impossible that all the persons of rank whom Van Dyck painted should have possessed that distinction of character and that aristocratic grace which makes them appear so attractive in their likenesses. But Van Dyck saw in the souls of his models, as reflected in their features, nothing but the winning qualities of a noble nature ; not only everything common, but everything which bore the stamp of passion, lay outside the range of his artistic vision. Thus he filled the figures which he portrayed with an aristocratic and harmonious tranquillity of soul, of which the noble and peaceful beauty of the colouring a marvel of art in itself seems merely the natural expression in painting. These figures stand before us in so strikingly natural and almost lifelike a shape, that the qualities afore- said tell all the more effectively in the result. There is a quite peculiar charm in a portrait by Van Dyck. It always gives one the feeling of being in very good society, and makes one think that it would have been a treat to converse with the original of the portrait. That is why one is never tired of looking at such a portrait, even though the person represented may be entirely unknown. It is curious though there are many parallel cases that Van Dyck never felt permanently satisfied with his occupation as a portrait-painter, by which he earned such imperishable fame, but fancied that he saw his true voca- 42 CHARLES I tion, spoilt by the force of circumstances, in the production of grand historical pictures. The more completely the multitude of portraits to be painted occupied his time, the more intensely did he crave to be doing something great in another sphere of work. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL (Boucher) CH. MOREAU-VAUTHIER A PORTRAIT of an unknown female is always illuminated with a halo of mystery and intrigue. We make research into the life of the painter, we delve among his years of youth and adventure ; we consult his friendships, relationships and connexions; we are guilty of many indiscretions, and often of many bold judgments. We are determined to find out something. But when we find ourselves obliged to give up all hope of discovering anything, when the veil remains impene- trable, the charm becomes transformed and is enhanced. When the ties binding us with elapsed centuries are once broken, when the past is once dead, the phantom of colours that dreams upon the canvas glows with a new life. We have the illusion that it sees us, that it is looking at us, and that in its eyes are gleaming replies to our thoughts. And an enthralling friendship comes into existence between the masterpiece and its admirer. Perchance such attachments are the happiest as well as the purest of all. In any case, they are not to be laughed at : who can tell us that our sympathy is the dupe of our imagination ? or who can say that the soul does not love to hover around images that represent its old dwelling-places ? It may be that this delightful unknown is the amiable 44 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL Murphy, who was the favourite model of the master during his youth, and was represented in a picture ordered by Louis XV., and had the honour of attracting the attention and even the interest of the King. We cannot admit the belief that a canvas of this kind, in which the execution demands more truth than fancy, could have been executed without a model, as was Bou- cher's custom towards the end of his life. Reynolds tells us that during his travels in France he went to pay a visit to the master and found him occupied in painting a picture of great importance without the aid of a model or other material suggestion of any kind. And when the English painter expressed his astonishment, Boucher replied that he had paid sufficient attention to models in his youth to be able to do without them henceforth. The little Murphy, having taken flight in the direction of the gallant horizons of Watteau's Departure for Cytbera^ had, as we see, left the master without either embarrassment or regret. This procedure, though one of the most dangerous in art, did not hinder Boucher from producing such works as the Rising and the Setting of the Sun (Wallace Collection), Rinaldo and Armida (Louvre), Venus asking Vulcan for arms for Mneas (Louvre), the pictorial effect and the tender and unctuous brushwork of which are very charming. Diderot himself, a severe judge, who criticised him vigorously, sometimes could not prevent himself from admiring his talent, although with an amusing rage at finding himself conquered in spite of himself: " He attaches you to him- self; you have to go back to him. He was born to turn PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL 45 the heads of the two kinds of persons, society people and artists. The artists who can understand to what degree this man has surmounted the difficulties of painting, a merit that is known to scarcely any one but themselves, bow the knee before him, he is their god." Theophile Gautier says : " He possessed the true painter's temperament, an inexhaustible invention, a pro- digious facility, and an execution which is always that of an artist even in his most careless works. Without doubt he abused these precious gifts, but prodigality is permitted only to the rich, and in order to throw gold out of the windows we must first possess it." David was the head of the reaction against the facile exu- berance of this style of painting. Protected by Madame de Pompadour, who appreciated his delightful, picturesque and graceful talent, which was alto- gether to the taste of the period, Boucher enjoyed a career as happy as it was fruitful, and left to his admirers the rich heritage of more than a thousand pictures and ten thousand drawings. THE DONNA VELATA (Raphael) JULIA CARTWRIGHT ONE more portrait belongs to this period (1516) the Donna Velata of the Pitti, which, long labelled as a copy by a Bolognese artist, is now universally admitted to be a masterpiece of Raphael's art. The picture is of rare interest. It is the only woman portrait of his Roman days, and represents, there can be little doubt, the face of his be- loved. The fables of the painter's love for the baker's daughter have long been rejected as a modern invention, and the portraits that formerly went by the name of the Fornarina, are now known to have no connection with Raphael. The Improvisatrice of the Tribune and the Doretea of Berlin are the work of Sebastian del Piombo, and the Fornarina of the Barberini Palace was painted by Giulio Romano. This half-naked woman, with the bold, black eyes, is plainly some handsome model who sat to Raphael's scholars. There is no reason whatever to as- sume that she was the painter's mistress, and as careful in- spection will show, the bracelet bearing the words, " Raphael Urbinas," which is commonly supposed to be a proof of this theory, was added by another hand and formed no part of the original work. This picture is a coarse and vulgar one, with none of the peculiar characteristics of Raphael's drawing, and utterly lacking the distinction that is the su- THE DONNA VELATA THE DONNA VELATA 47 premc quality of his art. Again, Vasari's stories of the master's excesses may be dismissed as idle calumnies, of which no evidence is to be found in contemporary records, and which are not even mentioned in Sebastian del Piombo's malicious letters. Raphael, judged by the standard of his own times, led a blameless life, wholly devoted to his art, and too much ab- sorbed in the work of creation to be eager to form new ties. Maria Bibbiena, the wife whom his friend the Cardinal wished to give him, died before the wedding-day, and lies buried by his side in the Pantheon. But the story of the woman whom he loved remains wrapt in obscurity. In two sonnets which he wrote on the back of his studies for the Disputa, now in the British Museum, he addresses the lady of his love as one far above him, and vows that he will never reveal her name. And Vasari tells us that he loved one woman to his dying day, and made a beautiful and living portrait of her, which Matteo Botti, of Florence, kept as a sacred relic. Cinelli, writing in 1677, mentions this portrait as still in the house of the Botti, but soon after- wards it must have passed with the Medici Collection, where it remained, at the Grand Duke's villa of Poggio Reale, until 1824. It is painted on canvas, like the por- traits of Castiglione and the two Venetians in the Doria Palace, with the same pearly shadows and the same warm golden glow. The maiden is of noble Roman type, her features are regular, her eyes dark and radiant. The white bodice that she wears is embroidered with gold, and the sleeves are of striped yellow damask. A veil rests on her 48 THE DONNA VELATA smoothly parted hair and a string of shining black beads sets off the whiteness of her finely modelled neck. Here, then, we have the woman whom Raphael loved to the end. Whether she was the lady of the sonnets, and his verses are written in the book that she clasps to her heart, or the Mamola bella whom he mentions in the letter to his uncle we cannot tell. But we know that the same beautiful, face meets us again in the royal- looking Magdalen, who stands at St. Cecilia's side in the Bologna altar-piece, and in that most divine of all his Virgins, the Madonna di San Sisto. Both of these were painted at this period. The first was ordered, towards the end of 1513, by Cardinal de' Pucci, for his kinswoman, Elena Duglioli, but only finished in 1515. This noble Bolognese lady had heard a voice from heaven, bidding her raise a chapel to St. Cecilia, and it is this incident which is recorded in Raphael's picture. He has painted the Virgin-martyr holding an organ in her hand and standing in a woodland landscape with four other saints. On the right, the Magdalen holds her vase of precious ointment. Behind them, St. Augustine and a youth- ful St. John listen for the organ melodies that will soon fill the air, but St. Cecilia herself has caught the sound of other voices, and her own instrument drops from her hand, as, lifting her rapt face to heaven, she sees the golden light breaking in the sky and hears the angel-song. Unfor- tunately, this fine picture was taken to Paris in 1798, and there transferred to canvas and entirely re-painted, so that the design is now the only part of Raphael's work remain- ing. THE DONNA VELATA 49 The Madonna di San Sisto was painted entirely by Raphael's hand, in the same transparent colour, with the same light and rapid touch as the portraits of this period. We notice the same silvery tones, the same ab- sence of dark shadows, as in the Castiglione and the Donna Velata. No studies for this picture are known to exist, and the red chalk outline on the canvas itself was probably the artist's sole preparation for the work. It was painted for the friars of San Sisto of Piacenza, possibly at the re- quest of Antonio de' Monti, Cardinal of S. Sisto, and sold by the same community, in 1753, to Augustus III. of Saxony for 9,000. The surface has been damaged by the restorer's hand, the colour has peeled off in places and St. Barbara's face has been badly injured, but still the picture retains a certain sublime beauty which makes it unlike all other Madonnas. The Child cradled in His mother's arms and looking out with grave wonder on the world, has less of innocent mirth than Raphael's other babies and more of the majesty of the Incarnate God. This Virgin's face, with the calm broad forehead and the mystery about the eyes, is that of the un- known maiden whose features sank so deeply into Raphael's heart, but raised and glorified above all earthly thoughts. And, as before, old memories are mingled with the new. The pure line and flowing drapery, the perfect rhythm of the whole, recalls the Madonna of the Gran Duca, and recollections of the earliest and fairest of his Florentine Virgins come to blend with this immortal dream of his last Roman years. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN (Andrea del Sarto) COSMO MONKHOUSE ANDREA DEL SARTO, who painted the beautiful portrait, No. 690, once supposed to be his own, was the pupil of Piero, but went far beyond his master in grace and technical skill. The cool, sweet colour of the picture, and its silvery tone, distinguish it from all its surroundings, and the contrast is increased by its free but sure handling, the soft modulations of the flesh, and the broad scheme of chiaroscuro, which now begins to take its place as a prom- inent element in the composition of a picture. It was from Leonardo da Vinci that he learnt, perhaps, so to merge the lights into the shadows by subtle gradations, that the point of fusion is imperceptible, and outlines are lost without des- troying either shape or substance; but it is doubtful whether Leonardo himself ever succeeded so well in ren- dering the shadowed softness of nature as Andrea does in this picture. It is not fair to compare it in this respect with Leonardo's exquisite Madonna of the Rocks^ where the light- ing is evidently arbitrary and artificial ; for the bent of Leonardo's mind was more experimental than impulsive, his aim rather the definition of form than truth of illumination. He had more of the sculptor in his composition than Andrea del Sarto, but less of the painter. Both of them, however, attempted to resolve the same physical difficulties of their PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN 51 art ; both, in their portraits, were interested, not only in the bodies, but in the minds of their sitters. Whoever this handsome, melancholy man may have been, he, in Andrea's portrait, at once engages our interest in him, and his character, and his lot in the world. It is a face with a history. It is, moreover, a face which fits in so well with the traditions of Andrea del Sarto, the weak man with the beautiful, wilful wife, the perfect artistic tempera- ment, the man of finest impulses, cursed by fate, the being, indeed, as drawn for us in Browning's famous poem, that it is not without a struggle that one gives up the cherished notion that this is not his own presentation of himself. At all events it is an exquisite picture, and thoroughly char- acteristic of the master. It is conjectured that it may be a portrait of a sculptor, and that the curious block which he holds in his sensitive hands is a brick of modelling clay. We may now be said to have reached the highest point of Florentine art, for Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) was the last of the great painters of Florence, younger by thirty-four years than Leonardo da Vinci, eleven years the junior of Michaelangelo, both of whom greatly advanced the de- velopment of his genius. Like both these artists his pre- cocity was extraordinary ; for he was scarcely twenty when he commenced the famous frescoes in the court of S. Annun- ziata at Florence, which would alone suffice to raise his fame, if not to the level of these artists, at least above nearly all the rest of his generation. Those who have the greatest claims to dispute his place are Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli. Of the former the National Gallery pos- 52 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN sesses no example, of the latter it has only one very small work, The Virgin and Child. Fortunately these deficiencies are not of great importance in connection with Andrea del Sarto, who gained his inspiration from greater men, and whose perfect perception of the natural graces and un- affected charms of human beauty, whose fine but simple style and personal feeling for colour, were born in himself. Though his genius, despite our beautiful portrait, is scarcely felt in our Gallery, yet this work distinguishes him by per- haps his most essential characteristics, as the most purely artistic and the most simply human of the great painters of Florence. He was neither a philosopher nor a devotee, a scientist nor a scholar, but only a painter and a man. If we add that he was a great painter but not a great man, we shall get a rough approximation to a true estimate of him. There are, however, few personalities more fascinating than his, and there are few greater pleasures in the National Gal- lery than to trace the links which attach him more or less remotely to other artists. THE DAUGHTER OF ROBERTO STROZZI (Titian) J. A. CROWE and G. B. CAVALCASELLE FILIPPO STROZZI is remembered in Florentine his- tory as the great party chieftain who went into exile with those of his countrymen who refused to acknowledge Alessandro de' Medici. He led the gallant but ill-fated band of patriots which strove in 1537, to prevent the ac- cession of Duke Cosimo. He took his own life in prison when informed that Charles the Fifth had given him up to the vengeance of the Medici. His sons Piero and Leo fought with the French for Italian supremacy, whilst Roberto spent his life partly at Venice, partly in France and at Rome, consuming some of the wealth of "the richest family " in Italy in patronizing painters and men of letters. 1 His daughter was a mere child when she sat to Titian ; but the picture which he produced is one of the most sparkling displays of youth that was ever executed by any artist, not excepting those which came from the hands of such portraitists as Rubens or Van Dyck. The child is ten years old, and stands at the edge of a console, on which her faithful lap-dog rests. Her left hand is on 1 Francesco Sansovino dedicated to Roberto Strozzi his translation of Berosus, for which Roberto made him a present of a gold cup, which he left by will to his widow. Strozzi was also well known to Michelangelo, and negotiated with him for an equestrian statue of Henry II., of France, in the name of Catherine de' Medici. 54 THE DAUGHTER OF ROBERTO STROZZI the silken back of the favourite. Her right holds a frag- ment of the cake which both have been munching. Both, as if they had been interrupted, turn their heads to look straightway out of the picture a movement seized on the instant from nature. It is a handsome child, with a chubby face and arms, and a profusion of short curly, auburn hair; a child dressed with all the richness becoming an heiress of the Strozzi, in a frock and slippers of white satin, girdled with a jewelled belt, the end of which is a jewelled tassel, the neck clasped by a necklace of pearls supporting a pendant. The whole of the resplendent little apparition relieved in light against the russet sides of the room, and in silver grey against the casement, through which we see a stretch of landscape, a lake and swans, a billowy range of hills covering the bases of more distant mountains, and a clear sky bedecked with spare cloud. The panelled console against which she leans is carved at the side with two little figures of dancing Cupids, and the rich brown of the wood is made richer by a fall of red damask hanging. One can see that Titian had leisure to watch the girl, and seized her characteristic features, which he gave back with wonderful breadth of handling, yet depicted with delicacy and roundness equally marvellous. The flesh is solid and pulpy, the balance of light and shadow as true as it is surprising in the subtlety of its shades and tonic values, its harmonies of tints rich, sweet, and ringing ; and over all is a sheen of the utmost brilliance. Well might Aretino, as he saw this wondrous piece of brightness exclaim : " If I were a painter, I THE DAUGHTER OF R. STROZZI THE DAUGHTER OF ROBERTO STROZZI 55 should die of despair . . . but certain it is that Titian's pencil has waited on Titian's old age to perform its miracles." The picture is on canvas ; the figure of life-size. On a tablet high up on the wall to the left we read ANNOR x. MDXLII., and on the edge of the console to the right, TITIANVS F. Old varnish covers and partly conceals the beauty of this picture, which is retouched on the girl's forehead and elsewhere ; but the surface generally is well preserved. At the beginning of the present century the portrait was in the palace of Duke Strozzi at Rome. THE AMBASSADORS (Hans Holbein) SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG CT^ffE Ambassadors is the most important of all Holbein's existing portraits. Even when his ceuvre was still intact, it can only have been excelled by the group of kings and queens who perished with old Whitehall. In charm it may yield to the Darmstadt Madonna or to the Duchess of Milan, in perfection of artistic unity to such things as the Morette at Dresden, the Gisze at Berlin, or even the Duke of Norfolk at Windsor ; but in colour so far as its colour is visible through the perished varnish and in that extra- ordinary instinct which enabled Holbein to give his work a look of subordination when in fact it has none, it yields to nothing he ever did. Of the two " Ambassadors," one is vastly more im- portant than the other. His costume of crimson silk, white fur, and some black stuff, the exact texture of which cannot be determined in the present condition of the sur- face, makes a brave show, and overwhelms the modest richness of the younger man's robe of greenish-brown brocade. His cap is the flat beret, of which traces re- main in the hats of our Yeomen of the Guard, and in those which should be worn by an Oxford D. C. L. The badge dependent from his neck is said to be that of the French Order of St. Michael; it should be remembered, THE AMBASSADORS THE AMBASSADORS 57 however, that the St. Michel had an elaborate collar, the omission of which is not in accordance with Holbein's usual habit. On the sheath of his dagger appears the inscription, " JET. SVJE 29." The accessories arranged on his left include a terrestrial and a celestial globe, and various instruments used in astronomy. The younger man wears a doctor's cap, but the rest of his costume does not seem to belong to any particular office or degree. The attributes of this second figure seems to proclaim him a musician. A lute, a joined flute, an open book with the words and music of a popular German chorale, lie upon the lower shelf of the what-not. The words of this chorale, and those legible in the other open book, are given in Woltmann's Holbein^ p. 360 (English edition). On the upper shelf the only thing that belongs to him is the book on which his right elbow rests. This bears on its edges the words "JETATIS SVJE 25." Low down, behind the principal figure, appears the inscription " JOANNES HOL- BEIN, PINGEBAT, 1533." The background is a curtain of green silk brocade. After the old varnish is removed this ought to turn out as fine as the similar background to the Dresden Morette. With the deep blue-green of the celes- tial globe and the crimson sleeve beside it, it makes up the finest colour passage in the picture. The history of the panel is obscure. It is known to have belonged in the last century to Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, the husband of the lady we know as Madame Vigee-Lebrun. From him it seems to have come into the hands of Buchanan, the Napoleon of picture-dealers, 58 THE AMBASSADORS who sold it to the Lord Radnor of the day for a thousand guineas. In his Gallerie des Peintres Flamands^ Hollandais, et Allemands (1792), Lebrun declares Holbein's sitters to have been two French diplomats, MM. de Selve and d'Avaux, who were in the service of Francis I. As Mr. J. Gough Nicholls (Archesologia^ 1873), has pointed out, this identification is spoilt by dates. In England the two portraits have passed for those of Sir Thomas Wyat and his friend John Leland, the antiquary. Wyat was born in 1503, so that his age would do at a pinch. The year of Leland's birth is unknown. Unfortunately, the heads do not in the least correspond with more authentic portraits of these two worthies, while neither the one nor the other is suited by the attributes Holbein has so carefully piled up. In the Times of September the eleventh (1900), Mr. Sidney Colvin started a theory which fits in exactly with some of the facts. He suggests that the chief ambassador is Jean de Dinteville, who was in London as the represent- ative of Francis in 1533. This conjecture is supported by the traditional title of the picture, by the absence of any English records connected with it, and by dates, for Dinte- ville was born on September 2ist, 1504, while it meets with little that has to be explained away. Since he wrote his letters to the Times, Mr. Colvin, as I gather from a private communication he has been kind enough to send me, has discovered evidence to connect the second figure with Nicholas Bourbon. Bourbon was a friend of Dinteville, and what we know of his character agrees with the picture. He was born, however, in 1503, which seems a difficulty. THE AMBASSADORS 59 Mr. Colvin lays stress upon the similarity of the chief ambassador's costume to that worn by the Dresden Morette (whose identity with a Piedmontese noble sent to England as a hostage by Francis I. seems now to be placed beyond dispute), as a proof that our ambassador was also French. His argument loses some of its force, however, when we recollect that similarities just as significant occur between both of these portraits and the cartoon, for instance, at Chatsworth, for the Whitehall Henry Fill. The family likeness between Morette's poignard and tassel and those of our " ambassador," also finds its explanation in the more than probability that both were invented by the painter himself. In some ways the solution sent by " C. L. E.," trans- parent initials to the Times of October the seventh (1900), fits the problem better. In the more imposing figure he sees George Boleyn, Viscount Rocheford, the brother of Anne Boleyn, who was sent both in 1529 and in 1533 on missions to the French Court ; and, in his companion, the humbly-born William Paget, who afterwards became such an important person and was raised to the peerage as Lord Paget. All that is known of Rocheford's age is that he was born before 1507. Of Paget's nothing positive can be said, but the two men may easily have been twenty-nine and twenty-five respectively in 1533. Many things seem to confirm this theory. Paget was a protege of the Boleyn family. Both he and Rocheford were sent on missions to the Continent in 1533. Paget was strongly attracted by the doctrines of the German reformers. Rocheford may very 60 THE AMBASSADORS probably have received the Order of St. Michael from the French king. The disgrace into which he fell, and his tragic end, would explain the disappearance of his picture from England, while the fact that he and his companion were only known beyond the seas as English envoys would account for its traditional title. The skull may have been inserted afterwards by Holbein in allusion to Rocheford's death, or it may be a rebus on the painter's own name Ho(h)l-bein. This latter theory seems to me infinitely more probable. That it is no after-thought seems, indeed, to be proved by the fact that the strong lines of the mosaic floor do not show through it, as they certainly would by this time had it been painted above them even so late as the last century. NELLY O'BRIEN (