he plays with evidently greater gusto than expression. Steen was no
idealistic dreamer: he believed in earthly enjoyment, and from this
fact arose the tales of dissipation of which modern investigation has
proved the falsity. Still, he seems to have largely been in sympathy
with the views of Omar Khayyam, and making ‘the most of what we yet
may spend.’ ¶ The ascription to Adriaen Brouwer of An Interior with
Figures is perhaps another misnomer. There is none of his exquisite
transparency, the colouring is opaque and lacks the brilliancy of his
palette, and the draughtsmanship has not nearly his precision. Again,
the figures in the foreground, although having much in common with
Brouwer, betray the influence of David Teniers, an influence still
more marked in those talking through the window. Consequently there
is a strange mixture of Dutch and Flemish art, which points to a
master conversant with both. Two men suggest themselves as its author,
Hendrik Sorgh and Joost van Craesbeeck, and the weight of evidence
is in favour of the latter, largely because of the Flemish sentiment
which pervades the whole composition and the presence of mannerisms
which are peculiar to Brouwer, which leads one to give the preference
to Craesbeeck rather than to Sorgh. Some particularly fine examples of
the still-life painters of Holland are shown, Jan van Huysum and Jan
van Os especially; whilst one of the three canvases by Willem van Aelst
(No. 167) is quite a new revelation of his powers.

[Illustration: OFF SCHEVENINGEN, BY JAN VAN DE CAPELLE, IN THE
COLLECTION OF MR. CHARLES T. D. CREWS]

Coming to the landscape men, in some respects a pleasurable surprise
awaits us, and in others something akin to disappointment. The latter
was furnished by the representation of Jacob van Rüysdael, by whom
no less than three examples are shown. Good as they all will be
considered, not one shows to the full the intensely poetical side of
his genius, a side which, exemplified by the magnificent View of
Haarlem in the Mauritshuis at the Hague or the View over an extensive
flat wooded Country in our own National Gallery, places him far ahead
of any painter of the Dutch school for the rendering of dreamy poetry
of nature. He must yield the palm to Hobbema in tree painting and to
Cüyp in landscape full of delicate shimmer and sunny glow, and if
Philips de Koninck is his equal in the presentment of immensity of
distance, he is left far behind by Rüysdael’s atmospheric achievements.
One point may be conceded to Hobbema, namely, that he is more equal:
he never painted a bad picture, whereas Rüysdael frequently did
so; but when the two are seen at their best, the latter surpasses
him by reason of his superiority in catching that essentiality of
landscape--_stimmung_. For want of these qualities A Forest Scene,
fine as it is from a technical standpoint, and in a perfect state
of preservation, does not show the better side of Rüysdael. The
Seapiece is better, but fails by reason of its obviously forced sky.
Its redeeming feature is the masculine painting of the sea and its
finely-felt distance. Perhaps the best is the so-called View on the
Brill, which is impressive whilst remaining unsatisfactory. It is
particularly unfortunate that a picture of Rüysdael in his best and
most soulful mood could not be found, for then he would more than hold
his own against any of the _plein air_ men in the remaining galleries.
By Hobbema there are two superb panels, A Woody Landscape with a
gentleman on a grey horse, and A Landscape, between which, although
painted at different periods of his career, there is little to choose
in point of quality. However, the latter suffers from over cleaning,
particularly in some of those parts--notably the middle distance--where
Hobbema shines most, and this gives it a rawness quite foreign to the
picture in its pristine state. Still, they are both profound in their
grasp of nature and magnificence of achievement. Cüyp, too, is equally
well represented by A Herdsman and a Woman tending Cattle, with its
suffusion of golden sunlight over the placid river. A delicately soft
and delicious haze, so essential a feature on a summer afternoon in
the vicinity of a river, envelops the whole composition from the
finely-grouped cattle and figures in the immediate foreground to the
distant tower, and the portrayal of the relation of the exquisitely
truthful sky to the landscape was vouchsafed to no Dutchman to a
greater degree than to Cüyp. This is the only example here of the
Dordrecht master, for few will consider seriously the pretensions of
the Head of a Cow to be from his hand. It is signed (but it is to
be questioned if it is a contemporary signature) Berchem, and it is
possible that it is by that master, but there are other men equally
likely. ¶ A capital little landscape with cattle represents the art of
Adriaen van de Velde at its best. It is well that such a picture has
been chosen, for it is in its original condition, unlike all too many
which have become dark in parts owing to the employment of unstable
pigments. Another noteworthy example is that by Jan van der Heyden;
whether or not one is allowed to altogether admire such finish, one
cannot but wonder at the minute and painstaking rendering of detail
and at the masterly way with which, in spite of his _finesse_, he
preserves the unity of his composition. ¶ When we come to the Aart
van der Neer, a Moonlight River Scene, we are confronted with a
clever picture, but one which almost presents doubts as to its being
really from the hand of the master. In the first place it is painted
with a much fuller brush and broader handling than is usual with
Van der Neer. The trees, instead of being delicately, even minutely
wrought, are treated in broad masses, and the buildings have not his
directness; and one’s doubts are strengthened by the figures. Now Van
der Neer was never loose--if anything, his failing is in the opposite
direction--but here we have men in the foreground who are even clumsy,
whilst the whole work has a lack or transparence which raises grave
doubts whether it is a Dutch picture at all. Here and there is just a
trace of a copyist, although a man of no mean talent and one who was
copying to arrive at the spirit of the Dutchmen. We have at least one
man of the English school who, if this hypothesis has foundation, is
capable of this, and many little mannerisms are very like him; but some
good authorities regard the picture as an early work of Van der Neer,
much over-cleaned and repainted. ¶ The two Jan van de Cappelles are of
unsurpassable beauty. In the little Seapiece, with its placid water, an
awful stillness pervading the whole scene before the approaching storm,
the last glimpses of lurid light which catch the distant town before a
complete envelopment in inky blackness of the scene is accomplished,
and the depth of the picture, are quite wonderful. But it is rather
to Off Scheveningen we look for a thoroughly characteristic Van de
Cappelle. The wonderful sky and the amount of atmosphere infused into
the whole theme raises it quite on a level with the River Scene of the
Wynn Ellis bequest in the National Gallery, an equal of which for pure
aerial painting we have yet to see in a European Gallery. The present
example is one which surpasses Willem van de Velde at his best in all
the higher qualities of art. Another curious picture is the Rising in
a Dutch Town, ascribed to Gerrit Berkheyde. ¶ We will now return to
Le Commencement d’Orage; and in this connexion it may be convenient
to quote the passage referring to this picture which occurred in the
notice of the Guildhall Exhibition published in _The Times_, since it
expresses a view now widely held. The passage is as follows:--‘Another
picture, of great beauty and greater importance, has for more than a
century borne Rembrandt’s name--ever since de Marcenay engraved it with
that attribution. Yet it is absolutely certain that Lady Wantage’s
great picture, The Beginning of the Storm (174), is not by Rembrandt
at all, but is the masterpiece of Philip de Koning, who has two or
three similar but smaller works in the National Gallery, and whose
signed pictures since the days when Dr. Waagen wrote, have become
perfectly well known. Such a picture places de Koning in the very first
rank of landscape painters, and it is unjust to deprive him of it. It
would take us too long to give reasons for the change of name, but
there can be no doubt whatever about it. The picture, of course, shows
the influence of the mighty teacher throughout, but it is in point of
fact a better, truer, less fantastic landscape than he himself ever
painted. It makes the Cassel and other landscapes seem what they really
are--dreams, not transcripts from nature in any sense of the term.’ ¶
That the opinion thus dogmatically expressed is that of the majority
of critics cannot be denied, but I venture still to acquiesce in the
attribution to Rembrandt and I will give my grounds for so doing. In
the first place the view is just of such a character as de Koninck
painted--an extensive landscape seen from a height with river and
distant sandhills, the intervening space studded here and there with
hamlets. When, however, we come to compare the technique here with that
in accepted pictures by de Koninck, such as the landscape No. 836 in
the National Gallery, the only similarity which can be traced to him is
in the handling of the bank of the river at the right and the bushes
above it. But this is much too powerfully realized for de Koninck, it
has a force and breadth which the pupil never put forward. This point
can be observed by comparison with the National Gallery picture, which
has a very similar foreground only much more restrainedly achieved.
Again, the qualities to be found in the roofs by the windmill on the
left of the picture and the trees over them are such as are found in
all Rembrandt’s work, whether he is working in oil or with the etching
needle. Further, none of the finest works of Philips de Koninck have
such an impressive and powerful opposition of sunlight and gloom as we
have here. He may be wonderfully fascinating in rendering the delicate
silveriness of certain phases of atmospherical freshness but he is
never soul-stirring, which is a quality I claim for Lady Wantage’s
picture. In the sky painting there is much affinity between this and
the Peel picture as regards the cloud cumuli, but a reference to the
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel (No. 72) in the National Gallery
will disclose an identity which demonstrates that the other similarity
is only of such a character as would be found in the work of a very
clever pupil assimilating his master’s technique.

[Illustration: LE COMMENCEMENT D’ORAGE, VARIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN AND PHILIPS DE KONINCK; IN THE COLLECTION OF LADY
WANTAGE]

Before leaving this picture it would be useful to draw attention to
the parallel rendering of several details--the trees and the sunlight
hill in the background. Now in the second period of Rembrandt, which
is tentatively placed by students as lying between 1640 and 1649, much
attention to landscape is a prominent characteristic. Particularly was
this the case with regard to his work with the needle. This culminated
in the production of that most impressive of all his landscape
etchings, The Three Trees. If that etching is compared with the present
picture, many points of similarity will be observed, not only with
regard to the extensive view on the left of that etching, but with
regard to its realization and general feeling, beside which the art of
de Koninck appears but a triviality. The Three Trees is dated 1643,
and I am inclined to place this picture at about the same period, or
at any rate between 1640 and 1643. With this date the technique is in
strict consonance. Philips de Koninck we know was born in 1619, so
that at this period he would be twenty-one, a very impressionable age,
and I would hazard the suggestion, although the evidence is purely
presumptive, that not only was this landscape the forerunner of The
Three Trees, but that its production at the period when de Koninck was
probably a pupil of Rembrandt, or at any rate had but just emerged from
his studio, influenced the former to such an extent that it actually
inspired his future landscapes, the similar character of which is so
well known. Hence the importance of Le Commencement d’Orage for us. ¶
Yet another plea may be urged for the acceptance of the work as being
by Rembrandt. It is an accepted fact, that the etchings of Hercules
Seghers had great influence on Rembrandt. The inventory of his effects
made in 1656 shows that he had in his possession six landscapes by
Seghers in addition to the copper of Tobias and the Angel, which
latter he reworked and it appears in Rembrandt’s work as the Flight
into Egypt. Seghers, as is well known, was a lover of these vast Dutch
plains seen from a height, as witness his flat Dutch landscape seen
from a height with water in the foreground, and a flat Dutch landscape
with a winding river. Now Seghers was born about 1590 and died
somewhere about 1640, and it is fair to presume that at this latter
date Rembrandt came into possession of the plate of Tobias and the
Angel. This is the very period to which I attribute the production of
Le Commencement d’Orage, and it is a noteworthy fact that prior to this
date we have nothing akin to this and subsequent landscapes, so that it
is fair to presume that the art of Seghers created the landscape art of
Rembrandt as exemplified by The Three Trees and subsequent etchings,
and through him the art of Philips de Koninck. ¶ Moreover the picture
of Tobias and the Angel in the National Gallery is directly executed
under the influence of Seghers, and I have already drawn attention to
the similarity between the building of the sky in this picture and that
of Lady Wantage’s. In view of these considerations it would seem that
the champions of Philips de Koninck must show more adequate reasons
before robbing Rembrandt of the authorship of this superb landscape.

EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARES

ILLUSTRATED BY PIECES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

❧ WRITTEN BY R. L. HOBSON ❧

ARTICLE I

In beginning a series of articles on Staffordshire wares, which are
intended to sketch the history of those fascinating old pieces now so
eagerly sought by the collector of pottery, our first duty is to select
a convenient starting point. It is improbable that in a county so
rich in materials as Staffordshire the making of pottery has suffered
any serious intermission since prehistoric times; but I think we may
safely assume that the collector, as distinct from the antiquary,
will feel little interest in any of the productions of this district
prior to the seventeenth century. If we except Gothic paving tiles, a
few of the better costrels or pilgrim’s bottles, and the mysterious
‘poteries gracieuses de la reine Elizabeth’ (which, whatever they are,
no one thinks of claiming for Staffordshire), it may be said that
for five centuries after the Norman conquest the ceramic art of this
country boasted nothing better than coarse pitchers, gotches, gourds,
and gorges of clumsy shape and uncouth ornament, which appeal to few
but the sternest antiquarians. With the seventeenth century, however,
begins a new period of development, very gradual at first, but full
of interest. ¶ To anyone who has recently visited the Potteries, and
seen the great conglomerate of towns intersected by railways and
tramlines, with its forest of chimneys and the constantly burning
kilns of numberless factories that supply the markets of the world,
it is difficult to picture the same district 300 years ago, wooded,
wild and picturesque. The great towns were then represented by a few
moorland hamlets, the teeming factories by occasional ‘hovels’ and
‘sun-kilns,’ and the armies of workmen by the solitary potter, who,
helped by one or two labourers or by his own household alone, threw,
glazed and fired his weekly ovenload of crocks, which his wife took to
town on a donkey to exchange for the necessaries of life. It is not a
very promising picture from a collector’s point of view; and yet in the
first few years of the seventeenth century and in circumstances little
less primitive than those we have just described, a number of pieces
were made that are now eagerly sought after by persons of taste. I need
hardly say that it is not the common crocks made for the market or fair
that have achieved this apotheosis. The vessels with which we are at
present concerned were, we may be sure, of the kind ‘made for honour,’
_tours de force_ to celebrate special occasions, and to be cherished
among the heirlooms of the poor.

[Illustration: ~Fig. I.~--Slipware Dish. Depth, 16 ins.

The Pelican in her Piety.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. II.~--Tyg with Incised Ornament, dated 1640.
Height, 5½ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. III.~--Tyg with Seven Handles. Height, 8 ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. IV.~--Puzzle Tyg with the Sign of the Mermaid.
Height, 7½ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. V.~--Tyg with Streaked Glaze. Height, 10 ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. VI.~--Posset Pot with Stamped Ornament. Height,
10¼ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. VII.~--Cradle of Slipware, dated 1691. Length, 7½
ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. VIII.~--Fuddling Cup. Length. 7¼ ins.]

For the right understanding of our subject, it will be necessary to go
into a few technical details gathered from the earliest notice (in
Dr. Plot’s ‘Natural History of Staffordshire,’ 1689) of the industry,
and from the silent evidence of the pots themselves. At Burslem, which
even in Plot’s time was the ‘greatest pottery’ of the district, only
four kinds of clay were in use for the body of the wares: bottle clay,
hard fireclay which was mixed with red blending clay to make black
wares, and a white clay, so called because it produced a yellow ware,
which was the nearest approach to white then obtainable. Besides these
there were three finer clays reserved for decorative purposes, known
as orange slip, white slip, and a red slip which burnt black. Slip, it
must be explained, was a creamy fluid made of clay softened by water.
The glaze was produced by powdered lead ore dusted on to the ware.
For special pieces the ore was first calcined. Used in its simple
form, this powder, when fired, covered the ware with a transparent
glass of a warm yellow tone, which gave a rich reddish brown surface
to a red body, a yellow colour to white slip ornament, and a similar
augmentation to clays of other tints. Only two colouring oxides
appear to have been used--manganese, from which a colour was obtained
varying according to its intensity from purplish brown to black, and
commonly used to streak or mottle the glaze, and oxide of copper, which
produced a bright green effect. The unsophisticated potter called the
lead ore _smithum_ and the manganese _magnus_. A little Latin went a
long way in the district. ¶ Such were the simple materials that the
seventeenth-century potter had at his disposal, differing scarcely at
all from those used by his mediaeval forerunners. Let us see what use
he made of them, when working at his best. Fig. I shows an ornamental
dish for a cottage dresser. Fig. II is a type of drinking cup used on
special occasions. Other not inelegant drinking vessels of the period
are beaker-shaped, or in the form of an elongated dice-box with two
handles close together; these are always in black ware. Another shape
is seen in Fig. III. The principal feature of most of these quaint
tygs, or loving-cups, is their astonishing number of handles, which
range from two to as many as twelve. It is supposed that the purpose
of this equipment was that the cup might pass from hand to hand, and
each guest have a fresh portion of the rim to himself, no doubt an
excellent arrangement for the first time round! Not content with half
a dozen or so of full-grown handles, the potter frequently inserted
between each of them a sort of rudimentary handle consisting of a
looped strip of clay. Another variety of the tyg was called a posset
pot, and was usually distinguished by a spout. The posset pot would
seem to have been a family possession preserved with great respect,
and used only on special occasions, such as Christmas time. It also
suffered from a plethora of handles. Of any exact recipe for a posset
I must plead ignorance, but I fancy it as a compound of mulled ale
with an indefinite something floating on the surface, succulent, and
exceedingly popular. There were other and still more fanciful drinking
vessels besides these. A fuddling cup is shown in Fig. VIII. When it
is realized that the six cups communicate with each other internally,
so that to empty one you must empty all, the force of the name will
be apparent. Any doubt as to the use of these formidable vessels is
dispelled by the inscription on a similar piece, _Fill me ful of
sidar, drink of me_. The puzzle jug is another playful variety. Fig.
IX is an elaborate example from which it will be seen that the liquor
must be extracted in some unusual way if the drinker wants to get his
full measure, and has any respect for his clothes. The rim and handle
are tubes, communicating with the body of the jug, through which the
contents must be sucked from a spout in front of the rim, in this case
the bird’s beak. To complicate matters there are usually one or more
concealed holes in the tubes which must be stopped by the fingers,
in addition to a false spout or two, such as is seen on the side of
the rim. The puzzle jug is a joke of long standing. Specimens have
been found which go back to the fourteenth century, and the trick is
not quite unknown at the present day. No doubt their existence was
prolonged by the far-seeing publican who appreciated the possibilities
implied in the following doggerel that appears on one of them:--

  Gentlemen, now try your skill.
  I’ll hold you sixpence, if you will,
  That you don’t drink unless you spill.

[Illustration: ~Fig. IX.~--Puzzle Jug. Height, 9½ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. X.~--Horn Lantern of Slipware.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. XI.~--Owl Jug with Combed Feathers. Height,
8½ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. XII.~--Posset Cup of Slipware. Height, 7¼
ins.]

Another pleasant surprise was furnished by the toad mug, in which
the drinker as he neared the bottom discovered a well-modelled toad,
usually of red clay with white slip eyes. Fig. XI is an example of a
rarer class. The owl jug was made with a removable head which could
be used as a cup. It is, however, a disputed question whether these
jugs are of Staffordshire origin, and it is hinted that they have a
suspiciously close parallel in German pottery. Other special forms of
a less bibulous kind are shown in Fig. VII, a model of a cradle which
tells its own tale; and Fig. X, a horn lantern. Candlesticks, handovens
and condiment trays also occur. ¶ We must now return for a moment to
technicalities in order to understand the remaining feature of our
wares, their ornament. The tyg, jug, cradle or piece of whatever form,
was sometimes left to depend for its popularity on its streaky purplish
brown or glossy black glaze alone, neither of them a recommendation
to be despised; or it was embellished with a scratched design, a
pattern impressed by wooden stamps, or applied pads of clay moulded
or stamped with rosettes, formal ornament, and occasionally with the
human form. I have seen a tyg with busts of King Charles I disposed
round its perimeter, an unusually ambitious design for a potter of
the period. The handles were made a still more conspicuous feature by
the addition of twists of coloured clay, knobs and bosses. ¶ Another
and a larger group were ornamented with the slips we spoke of above.
These were applied in various ways. First as simple washes to give a
light surface to a dark body or _vice versa_ (see Figs. IX and XII). Or
again they were dropped or trailed on from a spouted vessel in quaint
tracery, dotted patterns, or outlined designs. As might be expected at
this period, the tulip more or less conventionalized was a favourite
motive. The process is best understood by taking an example. Fig.
XII is of light buff ware: the ornament on the upper part, and the
inscription and date, WILLIAM CHATERLY, 1696, were traced in black
slip dotted with white; the lower half was immersed in black slip, and
the pattern added in white; the whole was then leaded and fired. ¶ A
third method consisted in dropping slip of one or more colours on the
surface and working it about with a wire brush or leather comb until an
effect similar to our graining or paper marbling was obtained. Wares
so treated are called combed or marbled wares (see Figs. XI and XIII).
This process, seen on the tall bottle-shaped costrels attributed to
the sixteenth century, continued in its primitive form to the middle
of the eighteenth century, when it developed into the agate ware of
Whieldon and Wedgwood and their contemporaries. ¶ Lastly, there was
_graffiato_ ware, in which a thick coating of slip was laid over a
body of contrasting colour and the pattern scratched through so as to
discover the body beneath (see Fig. VIII). This kind of ornament has
been in use in all countries and from the earliest times. It is seen
at its best on Italian pottery from the quattrocento onwards, and the
continuance of its Italian name is a compliment to the masterpieces of
that country.

[Illustration: ~Fig. XIII.~--Tyg with Trailed and Combed Slip.
Inscribed Ralph Tumor, 168–. Height, 4¾ ins.]

[Illustration: ~Fig. XIV.~--Puzzle Jug of Slipware. Inscribed
I.B.]

It remains to speak of dates and localities. Those of our wares that
have no slip decoration can be traced back to the first years of the
seventeenth century, if not to Elizabethan times. They continued to the
early part of the eighteenth century, when they either disappeared or
were improved out of recognition. Like all primitive wares, they were
manufactured all over the country, and though it is certain that a
large number of them were made in Staffordshire, it would be difficult
to claim any particular piece for that district. Slip decoration,
which dates back to mediaeval times, was equally universal. Indeed we
know that a well-defined class of slip ware with stamped ornaments and
patterns of dots and dashes was made at Wrotham in Kent from 1612-1717.
Another group with a distinctive kind of scroll and fern ornament in
thin white slip, and inscriptions usually of Puritanical tone, was
made in or near London from the middle of the sixteenth century. A
third kind is attributed with much probability to Cockpit Hill, Derby.
It is characterized by moulded patterns with raised outlines which
contained the coloured slips much as the _cloisons_ contain the enamels
on _cloisonnée_ work. ¶ But the best slipware of Staffordshire, as
exemplified by Figs. I, XII, and XIV, is unmistakable in style, and
yields to none in picturesque effect. Our earliest clue to its history
was given by the simple legend scratched on the back of a dish similar
to Fig. I, THOMAS TOFT. TINKERS CLOUGH. I MADE IT., 166–. Tinker’s
Clough is a lane between Shelton and Wedgwood’s Etruria. On the
strength of this modest confession the name Toft ware has been applied
by many writers to all slipwares of this class, and even to slipware
generally. A number of other names, sometimes with dates, are found on
these wares (_e.g._ Ralph Toft 1676, Charles Toft, Ralph Turnor 1681,
Robart (_sic_) Shaw 1692), many of them no doubt the names of potters,
others of those for whom the pots were made. Slipware, though naturally
superseded by the finer earthenwares of the eighteenth century, is
not yet extinct, and may be seen occasionally at country fairs of the
present day. ¶ The question of Staffordshire delft ware is too long to
consider here. It is a moot point if any such thing existed before the
eighteenth century, and it is certain that delft was never made there
to any extent worth considering. But this article would be incomplete
if one omitted to give a few of the quaint inscriptions that are a
feature of the various kinds of pots we have discussed. They tell
their own story and need no comment:--

  The gift is small, Good will is all.

  Mary Oumfaris your cup. 1678. [Can this spell Humphreys!]

  This for W. F. 1691.

  The best is not to good for you. 1697. I.B. R.F.

  Anne Draper this cup I made for you and so no more. I.W. 1707.

  Come good wemen drink of the best Ion my lady and all the rest.

  Brisk be to the med you desier as her love yow ma requare.

  Robert Pool mad this cup With gud posset fil and

The aposiopesis in the last is pregnant with meaning. ¶ Naturally
after all these years good examples of old Staffordshire wares are
scarce, and when they appear in the market they can only be bought at
proportionately good prices, owing to the eagerness with which they
are sought by the collector. And _me judice_ they deserve all the
attention they get. There is something genuinely fascinating in their
naïve simplicity and their entire lack of all that is artificial or
extraneous. We do not, of course, pretend that for instance the use
of slip originated in this country, but the particular application of
it that is so characteristic of the Staffordshire wares is of purely
native development. These early pots are like the potters who made them
and their friends who used them, English to the backbone.

[~Fig. XV.~--Cup of Slipware, dated 1719.]

NEW ACQUISITIONS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUMS

~Victoria and Albert Museum~

~A Mediaeval Silver Chalice from Iceland~

The national collection of silversmiths’ work at South Kensington
has lately been enriched by the acquisition of a silver chalice of
exceptional beauty and interest, which has reached this country, by
way of Denmark, with the history of having belonged formerly to the
church of Grundt, a village in the north of Iceland. ¶ As will be seen
from the illustration, the chalice is of the early type in which the
round contour prevails, in hemispherical bowl, bulb-shaped knop, and
circular foot. The bowl is of fine workmanship, fashioned with the
hammer with admirable uniformity, and finished with a high polish on
the outside. Round its margin runs the leonine hexameter (with some
allowances) + SVMMITVR HINC NVNDA DIVINI SANGVINIS VNDA (no doubt for
‘sumitur hinc munda divini sanguinis unda ’).[34] The lettering of the
inscription, of which a rubbing is shown, is interesting, apart from
the beauty and freedom of its forms, in helping to fix an approximate
date for the object it adorns. ¶ The knop, separated from the bowl by
a narrow indented necking with beaded edges, is cast hollow, pierced
and chiselled with four compartments of foliage. The leafage in each
compartment is of a different design, and in each springs from the
turned-up ends of a circumscribing band stamped with a row of annulets
(see illustration). The upper spandrels so formed are filled each
with a small leaf; the lower are blank. ¶ The trumpet-shaped foot is
finished round the margin with a bevel, engraved with a rudimentary
fret and turned out at the edge in a narrow rim. At its junction with
the knop it is enriched with a border of vertical leaves rising from a
kind of nebuly band. The workmanship of the foot is notably inferior
to that of the bowl; the hammermarks are plainly visible inside, and
outside no careful polishing has smoothed away the concentric markings
of the turning tool which was used, after the hammer, on both bowl and
foot. It may perhaps be suggested that the inferior finish of the foot
is evidence of its not having originally belonged to the bowl; but the
suggestion is discredited by the excellent proportion existing between
the two, and by the similarity of both to the corresponding parts of
other examples about to be noticed. It is more probable that a higher
finish was imparted to the bowl in deference to its function as the
receptacle of the consecrated wine. ¶ To conclude the description, the
enriched portions, that is to say, the band of inscription round the
bowl, the knop with the parts adjacent, and the bevel of the foot,
and these only, are gilt, by the old mercury process, with a pale
gold. The measurements are: height 4-13/16 in. (12˙2 cm.), diameter of
bowl 3¾ in. (9˙5 cm.), diameter of foot 3-9/16 in. (9 cm.). With the
chalice is a paten of plain silver, a slightly concave disc 5-1/16 in.
(12˙9 cm.) in diameter, with a roughly-formed circular depression. As
this is of very rough make, and has no appearance of being that which
originally accompanied the chalice, it need not be referred to further.

[Illustration: A SCANDINAVIAN CHALICE OF THE EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY,
WITH DETAILS (ACTUAL SIZE) OF INSCRIPTION AND DECORATION; IN THE
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.]

The shape of the chalice is sufficient, by comparison with other
examples, to determine its date approximately. It may be compared, in
respect of its hemispherical bowl, its flattened globular knop, and
its trumpet-shaped foot with bevelled margin, with a much larger and
more ornate example in the church of the Holy Apostles at Cologne,
shown by the character of its ornament to be of the early part of the
thirteenth century.[35] While in the latter example, however, the bowl
and knop are separated by a stem equal in length to at least half
of the height of the knop, in our chalice they are separated only
by the narrow indented band with beaded edges already noticed.[36]
¶ A closer parallel, though again on a larger scale, is furnished
by an example dated 1222, formerly in the Heckscher collection, and
now in the possession of Sir Samuel Montagu, where all the main
features referred to are reproduced, and a much closer similarity in
the spacing of bowl and knop is observable.[37] ¶ Still more to the
point, however, is a silver chalice found at Sorö, in Denmark, in the
year 1827, with an episcopal ring, in the grave of Absalon, bishop of
Lund (died 1201).[38] We have here an example from the latter part of
the twelfth or the first year of the thirteenth century, reproducing
almost exactly the outlines of our chalice already described, and in
almost the same dimensions. In the bishop’s chalice the knop is plain,
and set off by a band of shallow fluting above and below; but these
differences of detail, and even a somewhat wider separation of bowl and
knop, cannot veil the striking resemblance of type between the two.
¶ The inscription with its combination of uncial and capital letters
furnishes further evidence of date. In general style, as well as in its
peculiarities of the use of both varieties of D, the freely curved G,
and the A with bent cross-stroke, it shows considerable affinity to the
inscription on the ivory cross of Gunhilda (died 1076), grand-niece
of Canute, in the Copenhagen Museum.[39] The same peculiarities, as
well as the V with a circle on its sinister stroke, are to be observed
in the inscriptions on the altar frontal of Lisbjerg, in Denmark,
assigned to the twelfth century. The tendency towards curved forms,
however, shown in the rounding of the interior of the capital D’s and
in the curving-in of the tails of these letters and of the R may be
more closely matched, in default of a Scandinavian example, in the
inscriptions on the bronze font at Hildesheim, assigned to the second
quarter of the thirteenth century.[40] At this date, however, the
fully-developed Lombardic character has so far prevailed over the roman
capital that it is only by picking out letters here and there, existing
as survivals among their curved supplanters, that such pure capital
or transitional characters as form the staple of our inscription can
be matched. ¶ The foliage on the knop is in two of the groups of that
conventional type which, apparently in reality a debasement of the
classical acanthus, is employed in the decoration of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries as the leafage of the symbolical vine; and the
bud-shaped objects springing among the leaves in one compartment are
clearly intended for such bunches of grapes as are similarly rendered
in ironwork of the thirteenth century. Foliage of similar character,
rising in the same way from the curved ends of the circumscribing
band, may be observed on certain of the carved church doors of the
twelfth century in Norway,[41] where such groups, employed in rows side
by side, distinctly recall an enrichment of classical architecture.
It is less easy to speak confidently of another of the bunches of
leaves, which suggests the growth either of a trumpet-shaped lichen or
possibly of an arum lily. The single flat leaf with curled edges seems
clearly the leaf of a water-plant. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to
see in this and the vine foliage already noticed a reference to the
two constituents of the sacramental element. ¶ Turning to the question
of nationality, it is to be remarked that the inscription and the
lines enclosing it, one above and two below, are entirely engraved
in that zigzag line, reminding one of the mark of an assayer’s tool,
which is an almost constant characteristic, even till recent times, of
Scandinavian silversmiths’ work; and the fret round the foot shows the
same peculiarity. It has already been said that the chalice comes to us
with a tale of a distant but active centre of Scandinavian art. If it
be doubted whether such highly developed work could have been produced
in Iceland at the date indicated it may be recalled that this remote
island, whose inhabitants anticipated by five centuries the discovery
of Columbus, was at this time the home of a culture such as could
hardly be boasted by continental Scandinavia--a land, indeed, ‘where,
long before the “literary eras” of England or Germany, a brilliant
period of intellectual life produced and elaborated in its own distinct
form of expression a literature superior to any north of the Alps.’[42]
¶ Gathering the conclusions to which all indications point, there
seems every reason to regard this beautiful little chalice as an
example of Scandinavian work, of a date not later than the early part
of the thirteenth century, produced, it may well be, in that farthest
outpost of European culture whence already in the dark ages a hand was
stretched out from the old world to the new.

~H. P. Mitchell.~

~The Reid Gift.--II~

One of the most interesting of the Italian manuscripts is a Book of
Hours--_Officium Beatae Virginis Marine secundum consuetudinem Romanae
Curiae_--belonging to the early part of the sixteenth century, and
evidently made for a member of the famous Bentivoglio family: perhaps
Giovanni, born in 1505. The Bentivoglio arms appear on the first page;
on folio 41 in two cartouches within the border are the words IOANNES,
BEN; and on folio 109, in one cartouche similarly placed, IO·BEN.
The writing of this volume is very good; the more important initials
are well drawn, and pleasantly placed in architectural compartments
decorated above and below with the characteristic ornament of the
period. Indeed one would say that the composition and arrangement
of the less ornate pages of the book are its best features. There
are twenty-two full-page illuminations, each containing an elaborate
initial, within a rich border of brightly-coloured arabesque
ornament, generally in compartments. The decoration is well drawn and
distributed, though the drawing of the figures in the initials, and
of the half-human grotesques in the borders, leaves something to be
desired. An interesting and useful feature--though one by no means
uncommon--is the use of jewellery to give relief to the arabesques.
¶ From the calligraphic point of view only, a tall folio of the four
Gospels, with commentary (Italian, twelfth century), is possibly
the most important of the gift, and should be especially useful
to students. The text is written in a large minuscule character,
beautifully spaced and proportioned, occupying the centre of each page.
In either margin occur the notes in much smaller writing. Practically
the whole decoration consists of initials in blue and red, with here
and there a rare display of bold but simple pen-drawn ornament and a
few chapter headings of tall, cramped lettering, of which the initial
has never been supplied. A ‘Thesaurus’ of St. Cyril of Alexandria is
another valuable example of fine Italian writing; in this instance,
of the end of the fifteenth century in date. A border and a few fine
initials in gold, blue, pale red and green of cunningly contrived
interlacements--in the case of the border further embellished with
_amorini_, birds, etc.--are the only decorations of note. This volume
also includes a work by St. John Chrysostom, and formerly belonged
to the Minutoli Tegrimi family of Lucca, whose stamp defaces some of
the pages. A small Book of Hours is to be referred to the same period
and locality as the latter; it has, however, much more elaborate
decoration; the superposition of numerous beasts, birds, and insects
on the interlacing scroll-work of the borders, is, though interesting,
by no means an improvement. These animals are, it must be admitted,
rendered with curious care; while the two full-page miniatures adorning
the volume, as it stands, are of quite a high order of merit. They
represent The Annunciation and David killing Goliath--a particularly
spirited drawing, with a beautiful little miniature of the Man of
Sorrows in a cartouche on the page facing it; four storied initials
within borders also serve to mark the commencements of various offices.
The capitals, in gold, on these pages are very finely written. The
kalendar is complete, and contains references to several local saints,
indicating Umbria as the district for use in which it was made. ¶ A
Missal belonging in date to the beginning of the fifteenth century, is
a good example of Italian writing adorned with fine pen-drawn scrolls
and storied initials treated in a broad, simple style of colouring and
foliage. The pen-work, interesting for its restraint and formality,
differs greatly in this respect from that of the more northern schools.
There are sixteen large storiated initials, of which attention may be
drawn to those on folios 283, a Monstrance displayed on an altar; 292,
the Celebration of Mass; and a representation of the absolutions at the
side of a dead man, clothed and hooded in red and lying on a couch;
the prayer is read by a monk in a white habit, attended by another
similarly dressed who supports a tall cross which has lighted candles
on either arm. The kalendar is very full, and has been corrected in a
later handwriting in several places. Immediately following it, in two
pages of small script, is the _Ordo ad faciendum aquā bn̄dictam_. ¶ A
small Italian Book of Hours is archaeologically interesting because
it is signed in a colophon on folio 266. ‘Frater paulus de mediolano
ordīs scī B’tholomei de hermineis sc’psit’ (late fifteenth century).
The name of this writer is believed to be unrecorded hitherto;
the script is thoroughly Italian in character, but the decoration
has decided Netherlandish tendencies. Several northern saints are
inserted in the kalendar--by another hand--including St. Brandan. ¶
In conclusion mention may be made of a small Book of Devotions with
borders and miniatures of considerable merit and interest, placed
within architectural frames. On the first page is a coat of arms, which
however has evidently been superimposed on an earlier design. The
writing is good and the initials well placed and coloured. At the end
on a tablet are the initials S.H., but these have not been identified.
The work is French, probably southern, and in date belongs to the first
half of the sixteenth century. ¶ The works mentioned in these notes are
only a few of the large collection given by Mr. Reid. They are all now
exhibited near the entrance to the National Art Library.

  E. F. S.

~The Print Room of the British Museum~

The most interesting among recent additions to the Print Room are
woodcuts, both old and new. A chiaroscuro by Andreani, after Alessandro
Casolani of Siena, representing the Pietà, or Lamentation for Christ,
is remarkable both for its great size--it measures nearly six feet
by four--and for its rarity. Other impressions exist at Bassano and
Berlin. The figures, St. John supporting the dead Saviour, and a
second group of three holy women in attendance on the Virgin, are
nearly of the size of life, and the wood-engraver evidently set
himself the task of producing the closest possible facsimile of a
large cartoon, outlined in charcoal and washed with neutral tints. He
has succeeded very well, and he was fortunate, considering the date,
1592, in obtaining so fine a composition on which to exert his skill.
The design has been cut throughout on three sets of blocks, one for
the black outline and two for tone. The impression, on many sheets of
paper joined together, is in good preservation, but the lowest portion
has perhaps been cut away, for there is no trace of the inscription,
recorded by Kolloff in his catalogue of Andreani’s works (No. 15),
that contains the dedication of the print to Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke
of Mantua, with the names of the artists and the date and place of
publication. Andreani had worked hitherto at Rome, Florence, and Siena.
It was to this dedication, apparently, and to his success in such an
important print, that he owed a summons to Mantua, his native city,
and a commission from the duke to reproduce in chiaroscuro Mantegna’s
Triumph of Caesar. ¶ Another woodcut of smaller but still considerable
dimensions (39¾ by 28¼ inches) bears the address ‘Gedruckt zu Nürmberg
Bey hans Wolff Glaser,’ cut upon the block in a tablet at the left
lower corner. Glaser was a ‘Briefmaler’ or petty publisher, printer,
and wood-engraver, who was at work at Nuremberg in the middle, or
third quarter, of the sixteenth century. His name is most familiar as
the publisher of one of the late editions of the portrait of Dürer at
the end of his life. The present work represents the Trinity, with
angels in adoration. These angels are copied, for the most part, from
Dürer’ fine woodcut of 1511 (B. 122), but they have been sadly spoilt
in the process of enlargement. Glaser’s work is coarse throughout, and
remarkable only for the rarity which it shares with most early woodcuts
of exceptional size. ¶ A fine impression of the portrait of Luther as
an Augustinian friar, after Cranach, dated 1520 (P. 194), has been
well coloured by a contemporary hand. A tablet at the bottom contains
the undescribed Latin inscription, EFFIGIES DOCTORIS MARTINI LVTHERI
| AVGVSTINIANI WITTENBERGĒSIS | 1520. The Holy Dove is added at the
top on a separate block, which also completes the arch. The portrait,
rare in the early, original impressions, hardly deserves to rank with
the woodcuts drawn by Cranach himself on the block; it seems, rather,
to be a good adaptation of an engraving on copper of the same year (P.
8, Sch. 7), in which Luther stands in front of a niche. Dr. Flechsig
finds much fault with the engraving itself, and will not allow it to
be more than a copy of the other engraved portrait of Luther (B. 5,
Sch. 6), with a plain background. With this woodcut were purchased
three interesting and undescribed etchings of knights arrayed for the
tournament, by the monogrammist C. S., a German artist of about 1550.
¶ A dainty little book, without text, but with the address, A LION |
PAR IAN DE TOVRNES. | M.D. LVI, within a graceful arabesque border, on
the first page, contains proofs of sixty blocks by wood-engravers of
the Lyons school, printed throughout on the recto of the leaf. ‘Das
gebet Salomonis’ (S. Grimm, Augsburg, 1523; 8vo.) has a pretty border
to the title, and a woodcut, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law,
both by the fascinating illustrator known provisionally as ‘The Master
of the Trostspiegel.’ A more important illustrated book is ‘Die Legend
des heyligen vatters Francisci,’ printed by Hölzel at Nuremberg in
1512, and profusely illustrated with woodcuts by Wolf Traut. The fine
copy recently purchased for the Print Room was formerly in the library
of William Morris. ¶ Another volume, still more intimately associated
with the author of ‘The Earthly Paradise,’ is the gift of Mr. George
Young Wardle, a friend and associate of Morris. It contains a complete
set, one of a very small number in existence, of proofs rubbed by
hand from unpublished blocks, designed by Burne-Jones, to illustrate
the tale of ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ The illustrations, forty-four in
number, were drawn upon the block by Mr. Wardle himself from the rough
sketches of Burne-Jones, which are now at Oxford. Morris, in revolt
against the methods of professional wood-engravers, had a few blocks
cut by amateurs, chosen among his own friends, and then took up the
task himself and cut by far the larger number with his own hands. To
these illustrations are added some initials and decorative borders,
both designed and cut by Morris. The story of the projected edition has
been told in ‘A Note on the Kelmscott Press.’ The scheme was abandoned
about 1870. The woodcuts, accordingly, belong to the period of English
illustrations generally described as ‘the sixties,’ and are separated
by a long interval from the later Burne-Jones woodcuts, including the
Chaucer series, which were printed in the ‘nineties,’ at the Kelmscott
Press. They are as full of romance as anything that Burne-Jones ever
drew, and the cutting, inexperienced and occasionally faulty as it
is, often preserves the freshness of the original sketch as no mere
hack engraver’s work would have done. It must not be forgotten,
however, that the defects of the cutting, in the opinion of Morris and
Burne-Jones themselves, were so serious as to make the publication of
the blocks undesirable. In addition to such rubbed proofs as those
lately in Mr. Wardle’s possession, a small number of proofs exist which
were pulled at a later date in the printing-press, and do more justice
to the blocks.

  C. D.

NOTES ON VARIOUS WORKS OF ART

TWO ALLEGED ‘GIORGIONES’

The Leuchtenberg Gallery at St. Petersburg has lately yielded up some
of those treasures which it has long and jealously guarded. In 1852
Passavant published a _catalogue raisonné_ of the pictures, with
illustrations in outline, and to many this large volume has been
the sole medium of introduction to the collection. Several of the
originals have now found their way to London, among them two which
bear the great name of Giorgione--an Adoration of the Shepherds, and a
Madonna and Child. Both appear in outline in Passavant’s book, under
the name of Barbarelli, the supposed cognomen of Giorgione, to which,
however, as modern research has shown, he is not entitled.[43] ¶ The
Madonna and Child picture has now passed into the rich collection of
Mr. George Salting, of which assuredly it will not be one of the least
ornaments; here moreover it will hang in company with another picture
from the same hand, each admirably illustrating two different phases
of Cariani’s art. For to Cariani, the Bergamesque painter, must be
ascribed the authorship of this Madonna and Child, which reveals him
in a mood no less characteristic than does the fine Portrait of one of
the Albani Family, which Mr. Salting has generously placed on loan at
the National Gallery. It would be a fitting complement to see the new
Cariani hung near the other, if only to prove how charming an artist
he can be at times, and how far superior these examples are to the two
which the nation actually possesses at Trafalgar Square. ¶ Like all
artists not absolutely in the first rank, Cariani varies considerably
in quality of workmanship; indeed, owing to the peculiar local
characteristics of Bergamesque art Cariani is exceptionally protean
in form, appearing now in Venetian guise, now in Brescian, now in his
own native awkwardness. For by nature he was not gifted with great
refinement, or with a strong individuality, and when the temporary
influence of Lotto, or of Palma Vecchio, or even of Previtali, was
withdrawn, he easily lapsed into a slovenliness which repels, or into a
tastelessness which betrays his provincial origin. Fortunately this is
not the mood we feel in Mr. Salting’s Madonna. There is a homely strain
indeed, which makes the subject simply Mother and Child; a conception
which we find exactly paralleled in another charming work of his known
as La Vergine Cucitrice, or The Sempstress Madonna, in the Corsini
Gallery in Rome (see illustration). But the homeliness of conception
is in each case relieved by the exquisite setting; the landscape
background and especially the decorative foliage being treated with a
rare feeling for beautiful effects. Girolamo dai Libri’s lemon trees
and the leafy arbours of Lotto and Previtali do not make more charming
bowers than do Cariani’s rose hedge and his hanging limes. Add,
moreover, a certain fullness of form, a softness of expression, and a
harmony of colour, which can be traced to the direct influence of Palma
Vecchio in Venice, and you have in Mr. Salting’s picture probably the
most attractive Madonna and Child which Cariani ever painted. Can there
be better evidence of appreciation on the part of some bygone owner
than that he considered it worthy of the great Giorgione himself, and
that up to now it has borne this courtesy title?

[Illustration: Walker & Cockerell, Ph.Sc.

Madonna and Child by Giovanni Busi (Cariani) in the
collection of Mr. George Salting.]

[Illustration: Photography by Anderson

THE SEMPSTRESS MADONNA (LA VERGINE CUCITRICE) BY CARIANI; IN THE
CORSINI GALLERY, ROME]

The second ‘Giorgione’ which comes from the Leuchtenberg Gallery is
an Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the possession of Mr. Asher
Wertheimer, by whose kind permission it is reproduced here. No
excuse need be offered for its publication in ~The Burlington
Magazine~, inasmuch as it bears directly on one of the lesser problems
in our National Gallery, where, in the Venetian Room, has hung for some
years a similar painting ascribed to Savoldo. That this ascription
is erroneous is admitted in the large illustrated edition of the
catalogue, published a year or two ago by Sir Edward Poynter, the
director, and it seems a pity to keep the old label with Savoldo’s name
still attached to the frame. The National Gallery is a place of public
resort, and the public believes in the labels it reads; for what does
the public know of Savoldo? Those, however, who have studied his work
at Venice, Milan, Verona, and elsewhere know that our National Gallery
picture is only in a remote degree akin to him in style, and anyone who
will take the trouble to make a comparison with the Magdalen in the
same room (which is a genuine example), and also with the two pictures
by him at Hampton Court, will be able to convince himself that Sir
Edward Poynter is right in removing the Brescian master’s name from the
catalogue, and more wisely substituting ‘Venetian School.’ Now comes
the Leuchtenberg picture, a comparison with which proves that such
likenesses exist as to exclude all theory of chance resemblance, yet
such differences also exist as to dispel any suspicion that the one may
be a copy of the other. In such cases a common original can usually be
inferred, a deduction which modern archaeologists habitually make in
similar circumstances; and rightly, for a common idea, or conception,
underlies the outward divergencies of detail, so that when the highest
common factor can be found we can reconstruct in idea what such an
original must have been like. Now it is curious that Giorgione’s name
is attached to the Leuchtenberg picture, for anyone at all familiar
with Venetian painting must see at a glance that the style proclaims
a period at least a decade after his death in 1510. It is more than
probable that both this picture and that in the National Gallery date
from about 1530 or so. Giorgione cannot possibly have produced either
the one or the other: but is it altogether beyond possibility that
some idea of his may have served as basis for later artists to work
up? Strictly speaking, neither picture is Giorgionesque, except by
reflection, for the dazzling personality of the young Castelfrancan
shed lustre even on the succeeding generation in Venice. In neither
does the painting show much trace of that mysterious glamour which the
master, above all Venetian painters, knew how to impart. Yet in the
romantic rendering of the subject, and in the picturesque treatment
of landscape, we may trace an ultimate connexion with the art of
Giorgione. In neither is the handling so unmistakably individual as to
warrant a positive opinion as to authorship. It is true that several
competent judges profess to recognize the hand of Calisto da Lodi
in the National Gallery picture,[44] but further research is needed
before certainty of judgement is reached; and as to the Leuchtenberg
example--well, it matters little whether Beccaruzzi or some other
imitator of better things be the author. Two separate painters have
taken a common theme, they have treated the group of St. Joseph and
the two Shepherds practically alike, and have laid down the outlines
of landscape and architecture in the same way. Each has shown his
independence in the treatment of the Madonna and Child and in the minor
accessories. One of these details in the Leuchtenberg picture shows
the sort of man the painter was, for he has calmly appropriated the
idea of the boy angel playing at the trough, a motive which Titian
first introduced in the world-famous Sacred and Profane Love. He seems
also prone to introduce non-significant detail, such as the dog (very
wooden, by the way) and the elaborate accessories of the ruined stable,
the architecture of which baffles analysis. The Magi also appear in
procession, thus distracting attention from the simple theme of the
Adoration of the Shepherds. Yet as a colourist this painter is worthy
of praise, though not such a master of chiaroscuro as his fellow-artist
of the National Gallery. We may say then that the Leuchtenberg
picture adds to the interest attaching to the other, and raises the
question whether some Giorgionesque motive is not at the bottom of the
composition.

  ~Herbert Cook.~

TWO ITALIAN BAS-RELIEFS IN THE LOUVRE

The two bas-reliefs reproduced were not only known but also
celebrated before they came to the Louvre. The first, a bust and
profile, represents a juvenile figure, almost feminine, clothed in
shining armour, wearing a helmet decorated with a surprising dash and
fantasy, round which may be read this unexpected and rather unusual
inscription: ‘P. Scipioni.’ It is not known under what circumstances
this was acquired by M. Paul Rattier, an amateur of Paris. On his death
he bequeathed it to the Louvre with reserve of usufruct on behalf of
his brother. The latter has just died, and the museum thus enters
into absolute possession of the legacy. In the various exhibitions
where this bas-relief has been displayed it has not failed, as may
be imagined, to attract the attention and excite the curiosity of
students and critics. As it recalls by the expression of the face a
great number of Leonardo’s figures and, in the decoration of the armour
and the helmet, motives frequent in the work of the master, notably
the celebrated warrior in the Malcolm collection, we think firstly
and very naturally of Leonardo da Vinci. We know, too, that he was
a sculptor as well as a painter; he himself says expressly in his
treatise on painting that, having practised the two arts with equal
care, he has a good foundation for pronouncing on the difficulties of
both. But we know of no authentic sculpture from his hand which could
serve as a starting-point or as a means of comparison for the purpose
of making a decisive attribution. Is the St. John the Baptist in the
South Kensington Museum, which came from the Gigli Campana collection,
really from his hand? No one can prove it. And of the busts of children
and women which, according to Vasari, he executed in clay (‘Facendo
nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune teste di femine che ridono, che
vanno formate per l’ arte di gesso, e parimente teste di putti che
parevano usciti di mano d’ un maestro’), none have come down to us. ¶
Bode, who was the first to pronounce the name of Leonardo in connexion
with the Scipio of the Rattier collection, proposed, afterwards, that
of his master Verrochio. The reasons which prompted him are as follows:
Vasari has told us that Verrochio had made ‘due teste di metallo; una
d’Alessandro Magno _in profilo_; l’ altro d’ un Dario, a suo capriccio,
pur di mezzo rilievo, e ciascuno da per se, variando l’ un dall’ altro
ne cimieri, nell armadura od in ogni cosa; le quali amendue furono
mandate dal magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de’ Medici al re Mattia Corvino
in Ungharia, con molte altre cose....’ Why should not the Scipio belong
to the same series? The ornamentation of the helmet, the design of the
streamers which decorate it, especially the modelling of the mouth, do
they not recall other works of Verrochio, and notably the execution of
the mouth of his David? These arguments, no matter on what authority
we have them, are not decisive. Courajod, Muntz, Muller-Walde, and the
latest historian of Verrochio, M. Mackowsky, incline rather towards
maintaining the name of Leonardo da Vinci or of his school. All that
can be said with certainty is, that the sculptor who turned out
this brilliant piece of work must have been a very skilful decorative
artist, and that he was evidently inspired by the achievements and the
spirit of the master. But it would be very rash to assert that the hand
of Leonardo himself worked this marble.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS; VENETIAN SCHOOL; FROM THE
LEUCHTENBERG COLLECTION]

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, VENETIAN SCHOOL; IN THE
NATIONAL GALLERY]

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF; SCHOOL OF LEONARDO DA VINCI; RECENTLY ADDED
TO THE LOUVRE]

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF BY AGOSTINO DI DUCCIO; RECENTLY ADDED TO THE
LOUVRE]

If There does not seem any possibility for doubt or difference of
opinion with regard to the attribution of the other bas-relief which,
only a few days after the arrival of the Scipio, was acquired by the
museum. To him who has seen the interior decoration of the temple
of Rimini, the front of San Bernardino at Perugia, and the Madonna
of the Opera di Duomo at Florence, the name of Agostino di Duccio
invincibly presents itself. This bas-relief was found framed, over an
altar, in the wall of a little church in the department of the Oise, a
dependent of the commune of Neuilly-sous-Clermont. This rural church
was originally the chapel belonging to the chateau of Auvillers, which
belongs to the family of Bonnières-de-Wierre. One of the general
officers of Bonaparte’s army was a member of this family, and brought
this precious bas-relief home with him (the archives of the family
might possibly reveal to us the place and the circumstances under which
he found it), and he placed it in the chapel belonging to the chateau.
It was thence that the Louvre, with the consent of the members of the
family of Bonnières and of the commune, acquired it. A former lamented
head of the department of Mediaeval and Renaissance Sculpture, Louis
Courajod, published, in 1892, in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, an
account of this charming piece of sculpture, and, to put it out of the
reach of any attempts that might be made by collectors or merchants, he
had it placed on the list of historical monuments. Events have proved
that this was not an unnecessary precaution; however, the admission of
this bas-relief into the Louvre puts a stop to all competition.

  ~André Michel.~

TWO PICTURES IN THE POSSESSION OF MESSRS. DOWDESWELL

These two remarkable and curious pictures appear to us likely to
interest students of mediaeval painting. They are painted on thin
panels measuring 12⅛ ins. by 7⅞ ins. The wood has first been covered
with a rather coarse canvas, over which the usual gesso ground has been
laid; directly on this, and without the usual preparation of bole,
gold leaf was laid over the whole surface. The gold is elaborately
tooled in the halos and crowns. The pictures are painted in tempera
over the gold ground. The handiwork is of exceptional fineness, the
hatchings being extremely minute, and the whole is wrought to an
enamelled surface of extreme beauty. I can recall only one other work
in which quite the same minuteness and perfection of surface quality
are attained, and that is the Richard II diptych at Wilton House, which
indeed surpasses the present examples. Unfortunately the tempera has
not adhered perfectly to the gold, and in many places only a trace
of colour is left; the faces are, however, for the most part intact.
¶ This somewhat lengthy description of the methods employed in these
pictures may not be without value in view of the attempt to determine
the origin of these curious and unusual works. Many characteristics of
the pictures seem to point to a Siennese origin, such, for instance, as
the tooling of the halos, which may be almost be matched in the works
of Ceccharelli and Vanni; the Madonna’s face seems like a vulgarized
version of Simone Martini’s type, while the treatment of the hair by
separate, rather thick, continuous, and parallel lines of light is
such as we find frequently in Siennese art. The seated figures in
the Dormition of the Virgin, again, if not distinctly Siennese are
decidedly Italian, and are among the common properties of Giotto’s
heirs. Italian, again, is the appearance of the inlaid woodwork of the
bed-stand. The use of a canvas basis for the gesso ground is, too, in
Italy, a peculiarly Siennese tradition, though it is there only a late
survival of what was probably a universal practice. On the other hand
the absence of a bole foundation for the gilding is quite unlike the
practice of any Italian painters. Again, the types with their heavily
modelled features, their full round staring eyes and protruding noses,
seem to suggest a northern origin for these works. No less distinctive
is the colour. The chief characteristic of this is the extraordinary
brilliance and purity of the local tints, combined with an absence
of any feeling for a distinct colour scheme as opposed to the mere
putting together of agreeable tints. The main notes are an ultramarine
of quite astounding intensity and saturation, a pure deep rose, and
a bright green midway between apple and myrtle green. The flesh is
florid and full coloured without traces of a terra verte foundation
being apparent. These qualities of colour are such as we might expect
from a miniaturist, and other things point to the same conclusion;
first, the extreme minuteness and the marvellous perfection of the
workmanship, then the crowding of the composition, and the elegant but
singularly unstructural disposition of the draperies. Finally, one may
surmise that no artist who was accustomed to work on a large scale
would have made so elementary a blunder in space construction as our
unknown master has in the Adoration of the Magi. The Madonna is clearly
intended to be seated beneath the thatched roof, yet the foremost
support, instead of coming down in front of her knees, is placed behind
her. Such a mistake would be possible, however, to an artist who was
accustomed to the almost hieroglyphic symbolism of miniature painting.
¶ Taking all these points into consideration I think it most probable
that we have here two of the rare and singularly beautiful works of
the French school of painting of the fourteenth century. This is made
probable most of all by the colouring. This intense ultramarine never
occurs in Italian work, but is to be found in the paintings attributed
to Jean Malouel in the Louvre. It indeed remained endemic in French
art, for we find it in many miniaturists, and something not unlike
it turns up again in the work of Ingres. There is, moreover, in the
Louvre a small picture, No. 997, representing the Entombment, in which
not only does the same blue appear, but united with the same deep
rose and vivid myrtle green. It has also the same rare perfection of
surface quality, the same even, hard smalto. This picture is no doubt
rightly attributed to the French school of the end of the fourteenth
century. But neither this nor any other French picture in the Louvre
shows so strong an Italian influence as our panels do, and it is partly
for their interest as yet another proof of the constant interchange
of ideas between Italy and the North about this period that we give
them publicity. Of such intercourse there are, of course, already
many proofs in the work of painters like Enguerrand de Charenton, of
Fouquet, and most remarkable of all in a miniature by Pol de Limbourg,
which is a free copy of a fresco by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce at
Florence.

  R. E. F.

A MARBLE STATUE BY GERMAIN PILON

Born towards 1515, either at Paris or Loué, and dying only in 1590,
Germain Pilon lived through a momentous century in the history of
France. The native art, so prolific during the two preceding centuries,
which commands our admiration to-day by its originality and simplicity,
was essentially French in feeling and execution, but towards the close
of the fifteenth century the all-powerful influence of the great
Italians manifested itself, partly by the general spread of knowledge
which noised abroad the fame of achievements in Italy to which the
civilized world was then paying homage, and again by the migration
of Italian artists to adjacent countries, which, in the majority
of cases, received them with acclamation.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI, AND DORMITION OF THE BLESSED
VIRGIN; PROBABLY FRENCH OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: LA CHARITÉ, SCULPTURE IN MARBLE, BY GERMAIN PILON]

In one way this had a beneficial effect upon the productions of the
northern countries, for it incited a spirit of emulation laudable
in the extreme, but it was also the cause of a decline in native
resourcefulness and originality due to an unduly thorough assimilation
of Italian methods and aims. The result of this was a strange
co-mingling of Italian and native ideas and technique producing an
eclecticism which robbed art somewhat of the virility apparent in the
creations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Still, side by
side with this we have a growing tendency to tenderness and sympathetic
treatment quite in keeping with the lofty aims of the sixteenth
century, which compensates to some extent for the loss of robustness
and impetuous energy. ¶ In such a condition did Pilon find art in
France, when, leaving his father, also a sculptor, with whom he had
hitherto collaborated, he came to Paris about 1550, and here we find
him, in conjunction with Pierre Bontemps and Ambrose Perret, at work
upon the tomb of François I, which had been designed by Philibert
Delorme. After the designs of the latter Pilon was employed from
1560 to 1565 upon the well-known tomb at Saint-Denis of Henri II and
Catherine de Médicis, which must be counted amongst his most important
achievements. For the King and Queen he executed about this time
the fine group of Les Trois Grâces in the Louvre, which represents,
perhaps, the culminating point of his genius, and is manifestly
superior both in elegance of contour and in technical qualities to
Les Trois Parques ascribed to him which has found a permanent resting
place in the Hôtel de Cluny. In Les Trois Grâces he presents to us
the culmination of the French Renaissance in sculpture; the rhythm
and balance of the composition is aided by the superb technique
displayed in the modelling of the well-chosen figures, and a further
beauty is added by the grace with which they support the urn. ¶ But
quite equal to any single figure is the fine example of Pilon’s art
which we illustrate this month by permission of Mr. E. Lowengard, its
present owner. It represents as an emblematical figure of Charity a
tall and dignified woman holding a child to her breast with the right
hand, whilst the left, with protecting care, sustains another, which
is clinging to her mantle; a third stands at her feet with a look of
trustful assurance upon its upturned face. The head of Charity is
crowned with laurel. The drapery is entirely characteristic of Pilon at
his best; while not unduly severe, it does not err in being too florid,
a failing of Pilon on many occasions. Moreover, it fully illustrates
the French master’s profound knowledge of anatomy, a study in which he
easily outstripped most of his contemporaries. It is open to question
whether such an important and characteristic example of Pilon’s
work has been seen in London before, and its presence at the moment
furnishes an admirable opportunity of studying the style of this master.

LACE IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. ALFRED MORRISON AT FONTHILL

The lace of Mrs. Alfred Morrison at Fonthill House is of special
interest among private collections. Mrs. Morrison has long interested
herself in the exertions of M. M. Lefébure, the Honiton revival by the
late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, and even the crochet work of Ireland, and
has in many cases supplied designs, or suggestions for design, to these
centres; hence, with her well-known collection of antique lace she has
included the best of its modern derivatives and modern design. Among
the specimens illustrated are:--

Plate I: (1) A curious example of a rare type of _lace made in Russia_,
consisting of a scarf with arms worked upon either end. This lace was
made in the early part of the nineteenth century (when needle-point
was first introduced into Moscow) at a private lace school. The
design, which is upon net, and very unlike the characteristic Russian
vermiculate patterns with their oriental character and occasional
colouring, consists of a chain of _jours_ enclosing coarse, simple,
and prominent fillings similar to those of provincial pillow-laces
of England and France, and a _semé_ of small sprigs. Although the
workmanship is even throughout, the drawing is so _naïve_ as to suggest
that the lace-worker was unused to that type of lace. There is a border
of similar _jours_ alternating with small leaves and sprays.

(2) _Gros point de Venise._--In the central strip of this lace very
few brides have been introduced, and only so far as is necessary for
strength, and those used are plain. The _bride_ work forms no essential
part of the design, the parts of the pattern being chiefly held
together by being worked in contact with one another. In the joined
border, which is of later date, the work, and especially the raised
scallops, is of a superior evenness and regularity. Short _brides_,
both plain and _picotées_, connect the design, which is closer and more
florid, and remarkable for the compact, firm character which careful
and precise workmanship has given to the piece, as it were _scolpito in
rilievo_.

(3) _Point de Venise._--Two long strips (3½ inches wide) of excellent
and open scroll and floral design. The _brides_ which connect the
design are decorated with small stars and whirls. Upon some of the
raised borders are set small scallops, or picots. Seventeenth century.

(4) _Alençon lappet_, a design of interlacing ribbons, filled in with
light modes, enclosing a small ornament. Eighteenth century. Period,
Louis XV.

(5) _Modern Irish Needle-point lace, à brides picotées_, specially made
and designed for Mrs. Alfred Morrison [very much reduced]. Nineteenth
century.

Plate II: (1) _Brussels veil_ (three sides of which are ornamented,
the fourth being plain), containing floral devices made in pillow,
and applied to pillow-made mesh grounds. The softness of the grounds,
the workmanship of the flowers, of which the cordonnets have little
or no relief, the lightness of the fillings of the modes, place these
Brussels points in a category quite distinct from any other lace. The
design is of light leafy festoons of roses and forget-me-nots. In the
corner is an urn-shaped ornament with lateral festoons. The border has
a scalloped edge. Throughout the veil are pillow renderings of various
_modes_, the _réseau rosacé_, star devices, etc. Eighteenth century.

(2) _Honiton lace_, made by the late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter, from an
old design. The pattern is connected by small brides covered with a
number of small picots.

(3) _Rose point à brides_ (_Venetian_), of close workmanship, in silk
(natural-coloured). The free use of ornate picots clustering upon
flying loops edging the scallops, as well as upon the brides, is
noticeable. The _brides_ are thickly ornamented with stars and whirls.
[This sort of lace is sometimes called _point de neige_, probably on
account of its snowy appearance.] The stems of the pattern are of
light work, and not strengthened on the edge by an outer cordonnet or
button-hole stitched work. Seventeenth century.

A very similar specimen of Venetian needle-point lace in silk is to be
seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum [835–’68]. It is also square
and of similar size and date, and is also remarkable for the series of
scallops and picots upon the raised portions of the design. The design
of this specimen ‘consists of a symmetrical distribution of floral
forms grouped about an ornamental arrangement in the centre.’ It was
probably a ‘pall’ or covering for a chalice or sacramental cup. Though
Mrs. Morrison’s specimen is said to be of Jewish work, and used
in the synagogue to cover the law, it is more probable that it is a
‘pall,’ like the above-mentioned example.

[Illustration: ~Plate I~

No. 1 No. 2]

[Illustration: No. 3 No. 4 No. 5]

[Illustration: ~PLATE II~

No. 1 No. 2

No. 3 No. 4]

[Illustration: No. 5 No. 6 No. 7]

[Illustration: ~Plate III~

No. 3 No. 4

No. 2

No. 5]

[Illustration: No. 1]

(4) _Drawn thread-work_ [_Turkish?_].

(5) _Point de Venise, period Louis XIII._--A conventional design
somewhat resembling Italian Renaissance ironwork. The pattern and some
of the short brides which connect it are ornamented with picots, giving
lightness and variety to the work.

(6) _Irish crochet lace_, specially made for Mrs. Alfred Morrison,
adapted from the above design, which it well reproduces. An experiment
in improving the spiritless and confused effect of Irish crochet, where
conventional _motifs_ are fitted together without any pre-arranged
design. In natural-coloured silk.

(7) _Imitation point d‘Alençon._--The ground or _réseau_ of this
piece is a very wide-meshed knotted net of coarse thread. A stiff and
simple flower issuing from a horn or vase is set in the centre of a
waved diamond-shaped compartment. The flowers are filled in with small
pieces of coarse linen, and are _appliqué_ to the net by stitches which
hold the twisted thread outlines--the substitute for the cordonnet of
button-hole stitches in the Alençon it imitates--to the little bits of
linen.

Plate III: (1) Embroidered _Turkish drawn thread work_.--An
eight-pointed star within the centre of which is a circle of
drawn-work, of which the threads are overcast with fine button-hole
stitches.

(2) The old conventional cut-work of Italy; _Reticella_, with _punto
in aria_ vandykes attached. _Reticella_ differs from cutwork in
that, though it also is worked on a linen foundation, the linen has
almost entirely disappeared. The threads left as the framework of the
design, dividing it into square compartments, are closely covered
with stitches. Into these squares are introduced geometrical forms
(star-forms) set in circles and enriched with patterns in solid
needlework. This lace is frequently called _Greek lace_, principally
owing to the fact that a great deal was found during the occupation of
the Ionian islands by the English. It is, however, undoubtedly Italian
in origin. The lace is shown upon the linen on which it is made; most
specimens have been cut off for sale from the original linen ground.
The _punto in aria_ vandykes developed from the _reticella_, and are
made with the same geometrical designs. The pointed edge was worked
on threads laid down in the required shape, and the spaces filled in
various designs. _Brides picotées_ were sparingly added to connect the
various portions of the pattern.

(3) _Venetian-made Alençon_ (Burano).--A design of small sprays
upon mixed grounds. Along the lower portion of the design runs a
twisting ribbon enclosing various _à jours_ and diapered grounds. The
scalloped border shows blossom _modes_ set upon a large hexagonal mesh
_picoté_, alternating with a scalloped ribbon, enclosing varieties of
diaper-patterned grounds, similar to those to be seen in the _modes_ of
Venetian heavy point laces.

(4) _Venetian-made Alençon_, design of palm leaves, with straight-edged
border of flowerets and leaves.

(5) _Alençon bordering lace_, eighteenth century. Period, Louis
XVI.--Under Louis XVI it became the fashion to multiply the number
of flounces to dresses and to gather them into pleats, or, as it was
termed, to _badiner_ them, so that ornamental _motifs_, more or less
broken up or partially concealed by the pleats, lost their significance
and _flow_. The spaces between the _motifs_, therefore, widened more
and more, until the design deteriorated into _semés_ of small devices,
detached flowers, _pots_, _larmes_, or, as in the present design, a dot
set within a rosette. Instead, also, of wreaths, ribands, or festoons
undulating from one side of the border to another, we have a stiff
rectilinear border of purely conventional design. Naturalistic patterns
are not met with in lace of that period. ~M. Jourdain.~

❧ BIBLIOGRAPHY ❧

~French Engravers and Draughtsmen of the Eighteenth Century.~ By
Lady Dilke. George Bell and Sons.

The book published by Lady Dilke, at the end of last year, is one of
the most complete and definite works on an important section of our
artistic history that we French possess. For we are marked by this rare
characteristic, that the qualities of our own distinguished men are
most often revealed to us by foreigners. While we have in our midst a
number of specialist writers to instruct us in minute detail concerning
the most trifling acts and deeds of a Fleming or Italian, we lack
historians who will take a general view of our national art. It would
seem that the Frenchman who shall have written a book on the eighteenth
century as full and thorough as Lady Dilke’s is yet to be born. From
time to time men of great attainments have produced a monograph, have
described the work of a Watteau or a Lancret, but this has always
wanted the necessary general commentary, the linking with general
history, the grouping of facts, which lend so great an attraction to
the works of Lady Dilke. It affords me a two-fold pleasure to say
this, first because I profess a deep and very respectful sympathy for
the author’s person, and secondly because I have always been greatly
touched by the French side of her character. Lady Dilke and I know the
faults of our respective countrymen; we speak of them when necessary;
but we also know our reciprocal good qualities and speak of these too.
Lady Dilke has written in praise of the school of the French Minor
Masters of the eighteenth century with a conviction and an ardour of
which we are very proud, and I feel charged to express to her in this
review our deep-felt gratitude. ¶The difference between England and
ourselves is made manifest from the very first. Whereas with us a more
or less florid, amusing, or, let us say, sensational narrative is in
most cases sufficient to satisfy the French reader, Lady Dilke’s book,
although intended to be read by everybody, does not fear to display
an integral erudition. This handsome and well-illustrated book, while
it gladdens the eyes of a person indifferent to these questions, will
interest profoundly the specialist and the scholar. It contains not
a line unsupported by at least one reference and often by many. All
that the contemporaries of our eighteenth-century artists have left
concerning them, all records of inventories and even judicial notes,
have been read and employed in their season by their kindly historian.
It is easy to read into the impartial, nicely-turned, but apparently
impassive text a genuine woman’s admiration for these feminine, evasive
and exquisite artists; but the passion is restrained and displays
itself only at the last. When the author is occasionally obliged to
lament certain rather gross errors, she does so with filial moderation,
with that which a child might show towards its grandfather; and we have
learnt all, we are able to deplore all, while not one serious word of
blame shall have fallen from the historian’s pen. ¶ Lady Dilke divides
her work into eleven chapters, each bearing the name of an art-lover or
artist. The first of these chapters is devoted to the Comte de Caylus
and the great amateurs. For, though the collectors date very far back,
the ‘amateur,’ in the French and modern sense of the word, came into
being together with the speculations of Law. There is a singular and
never-changing agreement between the rabid collector and the stock
jobbing financier; it is as though the man who had grown suddenly
rich wished to find no less suddenly in his new palace the ancestral
elegance of the man of quality. ¶ Lady Dilke has selected the Comte de
Caylus because he exercised an enormous influence upon the whole of the
eighteenth century. Himself an engraver--though of no great merit--he
was the cause that men and women of the world amused themselves with
the pastime, that Madame de Pompadour tried her hand at engraving,
and that, trying her hand, but with only slight success, she favoured
to an extreme degree the artist-engravers of her time. ¶ The second
chapter is devoted to those lovers of engravings, the print-collectors
Mariette and Basan, who, for the rest, had no great affection for the
artists of their time, but who favoured the iconographic movement.
¶ The typical French engraver of the eighteenth century is Charles
Nicolas Cochin, who was known as the Chevalier Cochin. Cochin, through
his family, his connexions and his works, touches every section of
society. He belongs to the Court, to the nobility, to the middle
class. His mother was a Horthemels; his sisters were Mesdames Tardieu
and Belle. Cochin was trained in the school of different masters; he
shows traces of Watteau, Gillot, Chardin and Detroy. But he is above
all himself; his mind is composed of a thousand amiable, witty, and
refined things; his art is the very spirit of a nation; and it is not
too much to say that in him French art is summed up. ¶ The men whom
Lady Dilke studies in Chapter IV of her book, the engravers Drevet and
Daullé, are different people. They descend from the great century; they
go back by easy degrees to Louis XIV and those famous artists, Audran,
Nanteuil and Edelinck. But, though they have style and even majesty,
they have neither the charm nor the grace of their contemporaries. This
is also, to a certain extent, the case with Wille, who came to France
to learn and who borrowed from us only the solemn and majestic side
of the great masters. ¶ Lady Dilke studies in succession the Laurent
Cars, the Le Bas, and, lastly, Gravelot. Gravelot the author regards
almost in the light of a fellow-countryman. The greater part of his
career was spent in London. We know that, in so far as this part is
concerned, the author is in possession of even still more varied and
personal notes. From Gravelot to Eisen, from the “Opera de Flora” to
the “Contes de Lafontaine,” is an imperceptible transition. And thus we
come to the masters of the end of the century, to Moreau the younger
in particular, who presents its definite synthesis, linked as he is to
Cochin by the brothers Saint-Aubin, the “exquisite poets of the most
charming decadence.” ¶ Finally, Lady Dilke speaks of the engravers in
colours, of those men, such as Demarteau, Debucourt, and others, who,
without eclipsing their English colleagues, keep step with them. And
then we come to the relations of the engravers with the Academy. Here,
what severity is shown! On one occasion, the engraver Balechou, who is
a member of the Academy, engraves a full-length portrait of the King of
Poland, Augustus III. He had promised not to pull a separate proof of
it. Having done so in one single case--this proof is still preserved
in the Paris Print-room--he was struck off the list of Academicians.
¶ It is impossible, in a short review, to set forth in detail the
importance of a book of this kind. We need this book in France, and it
is to be hoped that one of our publishers will issue a translation,
because it is a revelation to us. The English publisher has undoubtedly
produced a practical and easily-handled book, but his reproductions are
a little inferior in quality, given the value of the work. It would
have been desirable that all the illustrations should have taken the
form of heliogravures. Nevertheless, and putting this little criticism
on one side, Lady Dilke’s book is, sincerely speaking, the newest and
most “encyclopaedic” work that we at present possess on the French
draughtsmen and engravers of the eighteenth century.

  ~Henri Bouchot.~

~The National Portrait Gallery.~ Edited by Lionel Cust, M.V.O., F.S.A.
Cassell.

It was a happy thought of Messrs. Cassell to issue an illustrated
catalogue of the National Portrait Gallery similar to that of the
National Gallery. The Portrait Gallery, in spite of great difficulties
in the matter of space and funds, has become a place of which the
nation may well be proud. It already contains a series of British
portraits which if not absolutely complete, is at least representative,
sensibly arranged, and catalogued with much more fullness and accuracy
than some better endowed collections. One or two possible improvements
may suggest themselves to the outsider--the addition, for instance, of
photographs (we hear that some arrangement of this kind is actually
contemplated) or careful copies of unique portraits of famous men
which can never leave their present owners. The colleges of Oxford
and Cambridge contain several pictures which would fill gaps in the
Gallery, and other works in private hands are equally desirable.
Nevertheless, the National Portrait Gallery, like the British Museum,
has hitherto been so fortunate in its directors that there is no
reason for regarding its future with serious anxiety. ¶ Nor can we be
surprised that Mr. Cust, who has had so much to do with the well-being
of the Portrait Gallery, has edited its illustrated catalogue on
thoroughly sound lines. To precisians a chronological arrangement may
seem to have disadvantages. These disadvantages, in our opinion, are
minimized by the addition of an index of portraits and an index of
artists, while the grouping together of men of the same generation,
family, or profession, has the enormous advantage of making the book
a thing attractive both to the casual reader and to the student of
history, instead of a dry alphabetical list. ¶ We have only one fault
to find with the abbreviated biographies which Mr. Cust supplies. They
are laudably impartial, but the impartiality is sometimes carried
to an extreme which places a second-rate man on the same level as a
first-rate one. ¶ As a rule, a very wise discretion has been exercised
in reproducing the pictures on a scale proportionate to their actual
size and importance, so that the defects which marred the kindred
volumes on the National Gallery have generally been avoided. One or two
exceptions may perhaps be noted. We do not, for instance, think that
justice is done to Kneller’s vivid portrait of the poet Gay (No. 622)
by a cut less than two inches in height and less than one and a half
inches in breadth, especially when Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Coventry
Patmore is honoured by a full-page engraving. The juxtaposition of the
two portraits of Sir William Hamilton also is not a success. The figure
by David Allan looks a giant compared with that painted by Reynolds.
¶ The photographing, engraving, and printing of the pictures have on
the whole been so admirably done that we have no more fault to find
with them than with the letterpress or the arrangement of the book. We
notice, indeed, that Kneller is again unfortunate. His portrait of John
Smith, the mezzotint engraver (No. 699), is one of his most masterly
works, showing a grip of character, an artistic taste, and a technical
perfection for which in his Court portraits we seek in vain. In the
reproduction the portrait loses all its spirit and all its quality.
On the other hand, almost all the slight sketches and pencil drawings
in the gallery come out excellently, so that any occasional failure
cannot be attributed to want of care or want of science. ¶ Perhaps,
considering its price, the publishers might have bound the book more
strongly, even if they retained the limp cover which allows the book to
open comfortably. The present paper binding is too flimsy for a book
that has to be used for reference, and to send a work of reference to
the binder often results in deprivation just when one needs the book
most. ¶ These, after all, are minor details. As a whole, the catalogue
is a thoroughly sound piece of work, and does credit to its editor,
publishers, and printers (if not to its binder), and we have no doubt
it will take its place by the Dictionary of National Biography on the
shelves of all who are interested in the past history of the British
race.

  C. J. H.

~Isabella D’Este, Marchioness of Mantua~, 1474-1539. A Study of the
Renaissance. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady). John Murray. 1903.

There are three ways of writing history which rejoice all serious
readers and students. The first and best is, alas, rare, for it
requires constructive imagination based on sound scholarship. It
is the history which bestows upon the characters portrayed that
quality which makes them live on in the reader’s mind like great
myths. Gibbon’s ‘Julian,’ Mommsen’s ‘Hannibal,’ Carlyle’s ‘Voltaire,’
Creighton’s ‘Pius II’--to take a very few instances chosen at
random--live on in our imaginations like the heroes of romance, like
Don Quixote, or Julien Sorel, or the ‘Egoist.’ ¶ On the other hand,
there is the work of the mere archivist, the conscientious finder and
transcriber of documents, who leaves the imaginative reconstruction of
character entirely to the reader. For this, too, the student cannot be
too grateful. And then there is the _via media_ of the gifted compiler,
whose efforts are also welcome, provided they are honest and careful,
and free from the taint of journalism. ¶ It is this middle path that
Mrs. Ady is accustomed to take, and always with peculiar success in
her biographies of women. Those who have already enjoyed her ‘Beatrice
d’Este’ will be prepared for finding interest and pleasure in reading
her account of that noble lady’s even more accomplished and more famous
sister, Isabella, marchioness of Mantua, the leader for more than forty
years of the most continuously brilliant and intellectual court in
Italy. Mrs. Ady does not claim originality of research, but her task of
weaving the documentary researches of others into a readable, accurate,
and interesting account is extremely well done. It is true that she
has no great or genial gifts for the presentment of character, but
she knows at least how to describe it with the appropriate background
of historical events and of court and family life. She has better
taste than to make of it a lurid tale, as some popular writers would
have done. Isabella is painted as the faithful and devoted wife and
daughter and sister, the careful and affectionate mother--nay, even
the doting grandmother--as well as the ‘prima donna del mondo,’ the
Muse of poets and humanists, the patroness and friend of great artists,
the confidante of popes and emperors, and the victim, too, of family
and political tragedies. ¶ For us in this place, her interest lies
chiefly in one aspect of her many activities--in her relations with the
artists of her day. Her portrait was drawn by Leonardo, and painted
by Mantegna, Titian, Francia, Costa, as well as by various artists of
less importance, such as Maineri and Buonsignori, and her medal was
cast in bronze by the sculptor Cristoforo Romano. She was a passionate
collector of beautiful things, decorating her private apartment with
pictures by Mantegna, Costa, and Perugino, and sending her emissaries
over nearly the whole of Italy to extort from dilatory or overworked
painters the fulfilment of commissions she had given them, getting
now a Nativity from Giovanni Bellini, a Magdalen and a St. Jerome
from Titian, Allegories from Correggio, portraits from Francia, and
even from Raphael himself. She employed Timoteo Viti to make designs
for her majolica dinner-service, and most of the northern sculptors
of note were at one time or another set to work for her. Lorenzo da
Pavia made her priceless viols and lutes of inlaid ivory and ebony, and
Caradosso carved her a wonderful inkstand in ebony and silver, while
the most famous glass-blowers and jewellers of her time contributed
their best efforts to her matchless collection. But even dearer to
her than contemporary art was the antique, and she spared no pains or
expense, no wiles or selfishness, to get into her possession every
available antique statue or fragment that she heard of. The collector’s
passion was on her, and even her fine taste and that of her cultivated
advisers did not always protect her from the collector’s misfortunes.
In the light of recent revelations, it is amusing to hear how she
was taken in by the forgeries of a certain Roman dealer who bore the
splendid name of Raphael of Urbino, and how this shifty precursor of
many an Italian ‘antiquario’ of to-day managed to get out of giving
her back her money! ¶ Curiously enough, Isabella, although a fast
friend of the Medicean popes and their relatives, seems to have taken
no interest at all in the art of Florence, except in Michelangelo, and
in Leonardo, who came to her, not from Florence, but from Milan. She
sent to Florence, it is true, for a picture, but it was to Perugino
she wrote, and not to any of the great Florentine masters. ¶ Mrs. Ady
has tried to trace carefully the present whereabouts of Isabella’s
portraits and possessions, but we miss in the index any assembling of
her scattered remarks on this interesting subject. The Leonardo pastel
sketch (reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. I, but wrongly described
as red chalk) is well known in the Louvre; one of the Titians (the
one copied by Rubens) she identifies in the collection of M. Leopold
Goldschmid at Paris, while the other, in Vienna, is reproduced as the
frontispiece to the second volume. As to the latter, she says it was
painted by Titian after a portrait by Francia, itself not done from
the life, but from sketches and descriptions. If this be indeed the
one referred to, Titian has managed to give no hint of his obligation
to the Bolognese master. The portrait by Maineri, a painter of
Parma, the author suggests as being the same as that in Mrs. Alfred
Morrison’s collection, exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in
1894; but she admits, on the other hand, that this portrait may be
from the hand of Beltraffio, which indeed it clearly is. Although it
has apparently not occurred to Mrs. Ady, is it not possible that the
untraced portrait of Isabella painted by Costa, was, like so many of
her treasures, bought for Charles I, and that it is the Portrait of a
Lady which now hangs in Hampton Court (No. 295)? The face resembles
the one he painted as Isabella’s in the Louvre Allegory, but, on the
other hand, they are both so thoroughly Costa in every detail that
neither can be called real _portraits_ in the modern sense of the
word. The objective photographic style of portraiture in vogue to-day
was quite foreign to the habits of most Renaissance painters, who
were satisfied, once they had found a type that suited them, to stick
to it for everything--Madonnas, portraits of ladies, and allegorical
figures, indifferently. ¶ Perhaps the most vivid part of Mrs. Ady’s
book is her description of Isabella’s experiences in that fatal sack
of Rome, which, as Erasmus wrote to her friend Sadoleto, was ‘not the
ruin of one city, but of the whole world.’ Barricaded in the Palazzo
Colonna with three thousand distressed souls under her care, Isabella,
safe in the protection of her son, Ferrante, one of the leaders of
the imperial forces, looked down from her windows with anguish upon
the scenes of horror and vandalism enacted in the streets below. Her
house was the only one in Rome that escaped, except the Cancelleria,
which was occupied by Cardinal Colonna. But except for the irreparable
destruction of so many of the world’s masterpieces of beauty, this and
many another interesting incident in Isabella’s career belong rather to
history than to art.

  M. L.

~Frans Hals.~ By Gerald S. Davies, M.A. George Bell and Sons.

On comparing the number of monographs that have appeared on other
than Dutch artists with that of books in our possession treating of
Dutch painters, we see that the latter have been allotted but a scanty
measure in literature; indeed, one may go further and say that during
the past twenty years, excepting Rembrandt and a few other great
masters, no extensive and comprehensive work has been written on the
old Dutch painters. For this neglect a very well-founded reason exists:
the native art historians of the Netherlands are still collecting
materials, and cannot as yet think of writing exhaustive books
concerning their great masters; for they are much too well aware of the
vast gaps that are still to be found in their knowledge. This is so in
the case, among others, of Frans Hals, and it will remain so for many
years to come; we must needs wait until all the records are accessible
before being able to arrive at a definite knowledge of Hals’s
personality. ¶ Mr. Davies has been deterred by no such considerations;
he not only, with a ready pen, describes Hals’s life and works, but,
thanks to the spacious manner in which he conceives his subject, finds
occasion to indulge in digressions on old Dutch conditions, art and so
forth, which might undoubtedly possess an interest for English readers
if they were correct, but that, unfortunately, is far from being
always the case. ¶ After treating in his first two chapters of the
‘Rise of a National Art’ and ‘Holland and its Art in the Seventeenth
Century’ the author collects the few known facts concerning Hals’s
life in Chapter III, and endeavours to draw a conclusion touching his
personality. We quite admit that legend may have represented Hals
as being a more dissolute man than he actually was. Nevertheless,
one who ill-treated his wife as he did can really not have had any
particularly aristocratic manners. It would be better for us to say
that we do not know enough about his life to be able to white-wash it
of the few disagreeable facts that have been handed down to us. There
can be no doubt, however, that he was a Bohemian, as Mr. Davies rightly
characterizes him. ¶ The following chapters are devoted entirely to
Hals’s artistic career and works; those preserved at Haarlem of course
occupying a great place. The description of these is a lively one,
and is evidently based upon a repeated examination. There are a good
index, bibliography, useful indications such as the approximate dates
of Hals’s life and of his principal paintings, etc. In a word, the
writer has industriously brought together all that he has been able
to ascertain touching his subject from books and pictures. But there
is one matter in which Mr. Davies has not succeeded, and that is the
producing of a critical work. It is true that he himself expressly
says this as regards the catalogue,[45] but he constantly makes the
same mistakes in the text itself. This is an exceedingly dangerous
standpoint; for, thanks to it, so soon as one sets to work on a
scientific basis, one finds him, for instance, describing two pictures
(Illustrations Nos. 1 and 54) as Portraits of the Painter which do not
represent Hals at all, while, again, the Portrait of Admiral de Ruyter
(Illustration No. 55) is not a picture of that admiral. ¶ In the same
way, the catalogue--which, from the very nature of the standpoint of
the writer, is incomplete--contains childish mistakes, which are due to
a lack of adequate critical knowledge. For to say of the Hille Bobbe
with a young man smoking behind her, merely that it is ‘generally
recognized as the work of F. Hals the son’ surely denotes an excess of
caution, considering that it is established beyond all doubt that this
picture was, in fact, painted by the son, and therefore it ought not to
have been included in the catalogue. Some of the paintings in English
collections which we missed in the catalogue we were fortunate enough
to find mentioned in the ‘List of Pictures which have appeared ... in
the Winter Exhibitions ... at Burlington House,’ which is inserted
after the ‘List of Works.’ But these data are also, we regret to say,
uncritical. We also searched the catalogue in vain for the oldest
dated portrait by Frans Hals, namely, that of Scriverius, dated 1613,
which forms part of the Warneck Collection in Paris, although it is
mentioned by the author on pp. 27, 29, 84, and 96 of the text. Again,
we find no mention of the delightful Portrait of a Man[46] in the Van
Lynden collection, at present lent to the Mauritshuis at the Hague,
nor of various other pieces.[47] As regards the drawings, there is no
doubt whatever that the drawing in the British Museum is an original
Hals. There are more of this sort, and we are sorry not to find them
mentioned in Mr. Davies’s book. ¶ We must deliver ourselves of one or
two further remarks, not from any love of fault-finding, but to remove
mistaken ideas. The picture mentioned on p. 22, which is traditionally,
and by Mr. Davies, supposed to represent Hals’s workshop, was painted
by Michiel Sweerts, and has nothing to do with Hals’s workshop. Nor is
what the author observes touching Hals’s manner of painting (p. 124)
quite correct. Hals slowly perfected his technique, proceeding along
a road which is quite easily traced. It is true that he underpainted
a considerable number of his pictures, but there are also many, very
many indeed, which he finished at once, in the wet paint, without
the least underpainting. One of the best examples of the latter is
the Portrait of a Man, in Lord Spencer’s collection, which is at
present in the Guildhall Exhibition. ¶ Mr. Davies’s book has been very
handsomely printed and produced, and is filled with mostly satisfactory
illustrations. It is to be regretted that the contents of the book are
not more worthy of its format; as a critical guide to the art of Frans
Hals it is wholly untrustworthy.

  W. M.

PERIODICALS

~Gazette Des Beaux Arts.~--The April number opens with an article
by M. Salomon Reinach, in which he brings to light a great unknown
miniaturist whom he identifies with the painter Simon Marmion, known
as the author of the altarpiece of St. Bertin, now in the castle of
Wied. Of this magnificent and little-known work the National Gallery
possesses two fragments representing a chorus of angels rejoicing
at the birth of the saint and two angels carrying his soul up to
heaven, a strange and imaginative composition, in which the ridge of
a roof cutting into the base of the composition gives an effect of
supernatural strangeness. The manuscript in which the miniatures in
question occur is in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg, and has
remained till now unnoticed. It is in the main the French compilation
entitled the ‘Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denys,’ but the history is
continued with extracts from various historians to the beginning of the
reign of Charles V. It contains fifteen full-page miniatures which are
of quite extraordinary merit, and which may be by Simon Marmion. The
smaller miniatures are by another hand, and are distinctly inferior.
The most interesting of the miniatures is the title-page representing
Fillastre, Abbot of St. Bertin, offering the Grandes Chroniques to
Philippe le Bon of Burgundy, by whose side stands the aged Chancellor
Rollin; behind stand three figures, among which M. Reinach recognizes
the youthful Charles the Bold and the Grand Bâtard. The heads are
admirably rendered, and show that Marmion, if it be indeed he, must be
reckoned as one of the great masters of portraiture of a school in
which portraiture attained to the utmost perfection. The landscapes
are, however, scarcely less remarkable. They do not, of course, rise
quite to the height of imaginative realism shown in the Hubert van Eyck
miniatures published by M. Durrieu, but they are conceived in a similar
vein and executed with absolute mastery. If M. Reinach’s conjecture
is correct, and it rests on a number of subsidiary proofs besides the
likeness of style to the Wied altarpiece, he has done a great service
in bringing to light the work of a great artist whose reputation as a
miniaturist was such that his name was coupled with that of Fouquet
in the eulogies of contemporary poets. Marmion was born at Amiens
about 1420. In 1454 he was at Lille employed by the Duke of Burgundy,
but he seems to have worked chiefly at Valenciennes. His style shows
the influence of the Van Eycks, and still more of Van der Weyden. But
there is, we think, in his manner of composition, and in the freedom
of his fancy, something which distinguishes him from the pure Flemish
painters, something which is due to his French origin and early
training. ¶ The next article by M. Casimir Stryienski is concerned with
French art of a very different kind. There exist a number of catalogues
of the early exhibitions of the Salon, illustrated throughout with
minute sketches by Gabriel de St. Aubin. The author has had the idea
of reconstructing by the aid of one of these catalogues the Salon of
1761, and discussing the subsequent history of the various works. Many
of these are quite lost, and survive only in St. Aubin’s marvellous
sketches. Delicate as St. Aubin’s more serious work is, as a _tour de
force_ nothing could equal the dexterity of these minute notes. Between
two lines of the catalogue he will insert a whole row of sketches, in
which not only the composition but some suggestion of the chiaroscuro
of the originals is given. Many of the works of Vien, J. B. M. Pierre,
Vanloo, and Hallé make a more pleasing impression when interpreted thus
than the originals can have done. ¶ M. André Michel, who carries on
the work inaugurated by the genius of Courajod, commences a series of
articles on the acquisitions made by his department of the Louvre. The
finest of these came from Courajod’s collection, and include a wooden
crucifix of the twelfth century, in which we can trace the first germs
of the new sentiment for life and dramatic expressiveness working
in the old hieratic formula. The exquisite statue of a man of the
thirteenth century, also in wood, shows the new art arrived already
at perfect command of the means of expression, but still restrained
by a reminiscence of earlier schematic treatment. This and the stone
statue of St. Geneviève show French sculpture at a point which it has
never surpassed. The fifteenth and sixteenth century sculptures which
have been added to the national collection, though of great beauty,
have nothing of the supreme sense of design of the earlier work. ¶ M.
F. de Mely publishes two sarcophagi with figures in relief discovered
at Carthage. In spite of Greek and Egyptian influences the author
considers that at least one of the figures, that of the priestess,
bears the impress of a special racial type, and he considers that this
and the Elche head taken together give us an idea of a distinctively
Punic ideal type. M. Pierre Gusman describes, without adding anything
very new, the Villa Madama, and M. André Pascal begins an account of
the eighteenth century sculptor Pierre Julien.

In the May number Monsieur Gaston Migeon, who has done much towards the
classification of Mahommedan copper work, writes on the Exhibition of
Mahommedan Art recently held at the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs
in the Pavillon de Marson. Several remarkable specimens of copper work
are reproduced, perhaps the most interesting being that lent by M.
Sarre which is supposed to date from the first years of the Hegira,
and to be of Sassanian workmanship. Some fourteenth-century Persian
velvets and tissues of singularly fine and naturalistic design are
also figured, as well as two splendid Indo-Persian miniatures from the
collection of M. Bing. ¶ In his second and concluding article on the
acquisition of the department of sculpture in the Louvre, M. André
Michel describes a remarkable polychrome wooden statue of the beginning
of the sixteenth century belonging to the Franconian school. In this
the author finds the influence of Albert Dürer. It is certainly a more
deliberate and scientific work of art than the majority of Franconian
sculptures of the period. Several works by Houdon, Deseine and Clodion
are also described and reproduced. The prints of the Dutuit Collection
are described in a brilliant and humorous article by M. Henri Bouchot,
in which he concerns himself more with the collector than the
collection, which is in fact rather remarkable for the number of prints
of ascertained pedigree than for its artistic character. M. Pascal
completes in this number his study of Pierre Julien.

~Jahrbuch Der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten
Kaiserhauses.~ Band XXIII, Heft 5.--The present fascicule is devoted
entirely to researches by Herr Julius von Schlosser on ‘Artistic
Tradition in the late Middle Ages.’ Under this title the author
brings together several separate researches; the connexion between
them lies in their illustration of the contrast between mediaeval art
with its direct visual symbolizing of ideas and the Renaissance and
modern habits of actual imitation of natural forms. ¶ The first of his
researches is concerned with a large illuminated parchment, too large
to have formed part of a book and probably meant to be framed and hung
on a wall. It depicts in the centre the Nativity, around which, in a
large number of medallions enclosed in late Gothic scrollwork, are
represented the various analogies by which the immaculate conception
was rendered credible. It is an early example of the ‘Defensorium
inviolatae virginitatis beatae Mariae,’ in which the miracle is
rendered plausible by a record of all the miraculous things in nature.
The origin and propagation of this popular form of doctrinal exegesis
is discussed. The author of the ‘Defensorium,’ Franciscus of Retz, was
a Dominican, and professed theology in the University of Vienna from
1385 to 1411. The earliest illustrated version is the manuscript of
Frater Antonius of Tegernsee of 1459, and the work was published as a
block-book as early as 1470. The best-known is Eysenhut’s block-book
of 1471, of which the British Museum possesses a copy. In the early
sixteenth century it was published also in a French translation at
Rouen, but it was most popular in Bavaria and Austria. The parchment
picture of the Vienna Hofmuseum, which forms the subject of these
researches, is, the author considers, by an Austrian artist of the
latter half of the fifteenth century. ¶ Of greater artistic merit
are the small folding tablets of the Vienna Hofmuseum, in which are
depicted a series of men and animals which served as patterns for
artists. There are, for instance, the heads of Christ, the Virgin, and
St. John, in poses which show that they would serve for a Crucifixion;
there is the Veronica, and a number of varied types which experience
and tradition showed were likely to be useful to an artist. It is
certainly a striking example of the essentially practical methods of
artistic production at a time when painting was an actual necessity,
and when, therefore, the picture was of more importance than the
artist’s personality. This work belongs to about the year 1400. ¶
Another artist’s pattern-book discussed by Herr von Schlosser,
though this has already been published in part, is that used by the
miniaturists of a Rhenish monastery, now in the Hofbibliothek at
Vienna. This contains, besides initials and borders, the traditional
receipts for various animals both real and fabulous. This the author
compares with Villars de Honnecourt’s famous sketch-book and the
similar pattern-book of Stephen of Urach in Munich. Villars de
Honnecourt, however earlier in date, had indeed much more than a merely
practical aim in view. He had already begun those researches into the
laws of proportion and harmony in natural form which later on absorbed
Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer. ¶ Herr von Schlosser aptly concludes this
part of his researches by a reproduction of an Attic vase in Berlin,
on which is represented the workshop of a vase maker with the pattern
receipts for gods and animals hanging on the wall. ¶ Finally, in an
appendix, Herr von Schlosser discusses Giusto of Padua’s frescoes
of the virtues in the Eremitani at Padua, which have recently been
relieved in part of their covering of whitewash. He reproduces the two
best preserved figures. Here again the question is of the rôle played
by a traditional pattern-book, for there exist similar representations
of the virtues in manuscripts at Florence and Vienna, while recently
Signor Venturi has acquired for the national collection at Rome another
version, which he considers is Giusto of Padua’s own sketch-book
and the model for the frescoes. Herr von Schlosser shows, we think
conclusively, that this is of later origin by a belated Giottesque of
the early fifteenth century, while he brings forward as the original
of the whole series a MS. at Chantilly by Bartolommeo de’ Bartoli,
executed in all probability between 1353 and 1356 in Bologna.

~Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft.~ 1903. Part II.--Constantin
Winterberg continues his minute analysis of Albert Dürer’s theory
of the proportions of the figure. In this article he deals with the
second book, and shows how Dürer freed himself increasingly from the
traditional mediaeval canon and sought to establish his theory on
inductive lines. ¶ Mr. Campbell Dodgson publishes a transcript of David
de Necker’s preface to the Landsknechts, from which it appears that
the original drawings were by Hans Burkmair, Christopher Amberger,
and Jörg Breu, and were engraved by Jost de Necker, David’s father.
This settles a much-disputed point, and shows that Beham, to whom a
number of the originals were ascribed, must be excluded altogether.
¶ Count Luigi Manzoni writes on the stained glass in Perugia in the
quattrocento, and in particular on the great window in S. Domenico,
which he ascribes in part to Fra Bartolommeo di Pietro Accomandati,
who appears to have worked in stained glass already in the fourteenth
century at a time when most Italian towns were forced to employ
foreigners for such work. The greater part of the window was executed,
according to the author, in the second half of the fifteenth century,
and by the painter Benedetto Bonfigli. ¶ In this number Dr. Friedländer
concludes his notices of the Bruges Exhibition. He deals with Albert
Cornelis, an artist who was first recognized by Mr. James Weale,
and with Jan Provost, with regard to whom he follows M. G. Hulin.
He agrees therefore in giving to the artist, Mr. Sutton-Nelthorpe’s
Legend of St. Francis. More surprising is his suggestion that the
Madonna, lent by Madame André under the name of Van Eyck, which was
reproduced in the April number of ~The Burlington Magazine~, is a
youthful work of Jan Provost. With regard to Jan van Eeckele, the
author maintains a sceptical attitude. He supposes the signature J.V.E.
attached to certain works to be forgeries intended for Jan Van Eyck.
After discussing the works of the later Flemish and Dutch artists, Dr.
Friedländer discourses on the works which are not of purely Flemish
origin. Among them the most interesting was the so-called Antonello
da Messina, lent by Baron d’Albenas, representing the Pietà. This,
following M. Hulin, Dr. Friedländer gives to a French artist, and dates
about 1470. The mixture of Italian and Flemish influence in this work
is, we think, of quite a different kind from that found in French works
of the period.

~Rassegna d’Arte.~ -- To the April number M. George le Brun contributes
an enthusiastic, though by no means exaggerated, appreciation of the
elder Breughel, ‘the only artist of his time who knew how to withstand
the enchantments of the Italian masters,’ though he too travelled in
Italy. Signor Enrico Cavilia calls attention to the imposing ruins of
the basilica at Squillace which he ascribes to about the year 600. If
this is accurate it becomes, after St. Abbondio at Como, the earliest
example of a basilica in the form of a Latin cross. This important
example of early Christian architecture has been little noticed
hitherto. Signor Rivoira, for example, makes no mention of it. ¶ A
small piece of stuff with a woven pattern of figures, rabbits, birds,
and ornamental _intreccie_, which was found at Modena in 1900, forms
the subject of an article by Isabella Errera. This has hitherto been
supposed to be of Byzantine workmanship, but the author by comparison
with other pieces of similar design and workmanship ascribes it to Arab
workmen under Byzantine influence.

In the May number Signor Paoletti publishes an ancona (insufficiently
reproduced) by Jacobello Bonomo. This ancona in its original carved
frame is dated 1385, and is important as showing how early the
traditional form of the ancona as it appears in the works of the
Muranese school was fixed. This indeed differs but slightly from the
altarpieces of Antonio da Murano in Sta. Zaccharia at Venice, which
are dated nearly half a century later. ¶ Signor Ricci continues to
elucidate the little-known Giovanni Francesco da Rimini, an artist
of the Romagna influenced by Benedetto Bonfigli, and through him
deriving many motives which recall the work of Filippo Lippi. These are
specially noticeable in the Baptism belonging to Signor Blumenstihl
at Rome. The other picture, which he attributes to this mediocre but
agreeable painter, is a Madonna adoring the Infant Saviour which is No.
255 of the Bologna Gallery. ¶ Signor Augusto Bellini Pietri discourses
on the frescoes of S. Piero a Grado which were brought to light in
1885 at Cavalcaselle’s instigation. Cavalcaselle himself judged of
them as feeble productions of the early Pisan school which might be
connected with the name of Giunta Pisano. He failed to see traces of
true Byzantine influence. Signor Pietri’s view practically coincides
with this, except that he considers them of much greater artistic
significance and as indicating the dawn of the new Italian spirit, the
beginnings of a dramatic and expressive art as opposed to the hieratic
and purely architectonic character of the Byzantine. ¶ Signor Ricci
calls attention to an interesting portrait of Luca Pacioli acquired
by the Naples Gallery with a Cartellino bearing the inscription JACO.
BAR. VIGENNIS. 1495. If vigennis is a corruption of _ventenne_, and
if Jaco. Bar. stands for Jacopo de Barbari, it brings that artist’s
birth down to a much later period than has hitherto been assumed.
Unfortunately Signor Ricci does not indicate how far the painting in
question conforms to the manner of Jacopo de Barbari’s known works.
¶ Signor Ferrari announces the installation of the new museum at
Piacenza, and describes its two chief treasures, the Christ at the
Column by Antonello da Messina and the tondo (poorly reproduced), which
is ascribed, somewhat rashly we think, to Botticelli himself.

~Onze Kunst~ contains two articles by Max Rooses; in one he describes
the Pacully collection in Paris, which has recently come into the
market, and, _à propos_ of the picture of a young woman writing, by
the Master of the half-figures, which was exhibited at Bruges, makes
a suggestion that possibly the half-figure pictures were executed by
Jan Matsys when he was absent from the Netherlands, and may have come
into connexion with Clouet’s school in France. The colour scheme and
scale of modelling of Jan Matsys’s signed Lucretia is, we should have
thought, quite distinct from that of the half-figure pictures. ¶ In
the second article the author makes known a Rubens belonging to the
Countess Constantin de Bousies. The picture is of a satyr pressing
grapes into a cup held by a young satyr; in the foreground a tigress is
suckling her young. M. Rooses declares this to be the original of the
similar picture at Dresden.

~Ateneum. Helsingfors.~-No. 1 contains an article on mediaeval art
in Finland with illustrations of sculptures of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, which shows how closely the types of early French
and German Gothic sculptures were followed. The St. Margaret from Vemo
has almost the grace and ease of movement and the large disposition of
draperies of the best French work of the end of the thirteenth century.
The later work indicates more clearly German influence. Osvald Siren
publishes two Florentine Madonna reliefs, at present in Sweden. One is
a stucco copy of a relief by Desiderio, lately in the possession of
Mrs. Pepys Cockerell.

~The Revue de l’Art~ contains some illustrations from the Pacully
collection, and the record by M. Paul Vitry of an interesting
discovery, an almost contemporary copy of a lost portrait of the Comte
de Dunois, the original probably being by Jean Fouquet.

~L’Art~, for April, contains a number of reproductions of mediaeval
works by royal and titled amateurs, an article on the Museum of
Tapestry at the Gobelins factory, one on Horace Vernet as a
caricaturist, and one on the exhibition of the Société National des
Beaux-Arts, remarkable for its violent and ill-judged attack on Rodin,
_à propos_ of the fact that he is not exhibiting this year.

~The Architectural Review~, May, is mostly devoted to contemporary
architecture, but contains the second part of Mr. Lethaby’s article on
‘How Exeter Cathedral was Built,’ with many illuminating remarks on
mediaeval methods of work; not the least interesting is the suggestion
that when columns of Purbeck marble were ordered from Corfe, the
designs of mouldings and sections were left to the Corfe masons.

  R. E. F.

~Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde~, April, 1903.--The first number of
the seventh annual volume of this periodical opens with a detailed
account by H. A. L. Degener of the John Rylands Library at Manchester.
The building is described and the history of its foundation related.
The biography of John Rylands himself is followed by an interesting
account of the founders of the Althorp collection, now incorporated,
through the munificence of Mrs. Rylands, with the other contents of
the palatial building at Manchester. The purchase of the Crawford
collection of MSS. by Mrs. Rylands is duly recorded, and a good summary
is given of the most important treasures of the library in the way
of block-books and incunabula, with special attention to the books
from early English presses. The article is illustrated with sketches
of the building and facsimiles of rare specimens of printing. An
article follows on the contemporary book-decorator, Hugo Hoppener,
whose pseudonym is Fidus. His work is unknown in this country, and
such specimens as are given do not inspire us with any desire for a
closer acquaintance with it. Modern printing in Russia is described
by P. Ettinger, and there is a review of two important facsimiles of
block-books recently published by Heitz, and edited by Professor W.