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Title: The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

Author: Paul G. Konody
Maurice W. Brockwell

Editor: T. Leman Hare

Release date: November 13, 2020 [eBook #63719]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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Paul G. (Paul George) Konody and Maurice W. Brockwell, Edited by T.
Leman Hare

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PLATE IV.—LEONARDO DA VINCI
(1452–1519)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL
No. 1601.—PORTRAIT OF MONA LISA
(La Joconde)
The portrait of Lisa di Anton Maria di Noldo Gherardini, third wife of Francesco
di Bartolommeo de Zenobi del Giocondo. She is seated in a chair on which her left
arm rests, her right hand superposed on the left. She is turned three-quarters to her
right. Her hair, divided in the centre and seen under a transparent veil, falls in curls
on her shoulders; her dark almond-shaped eyes look out at the spectator; the mouth is

smiling. She wears a dark-green dress with golden-brown sleeves; a dark cloak is
draped over her shoulders. The background is formed by a mountainous landscape
full of incident.

Painted in tempera on panel, and restored in oil.

2 ft. 6½ in. × 1 ft. 9 in. (0·79 × 0·53.)

THE LOUVRE:
FIFTY PLATES IN COLOUR

By PAUL G. KONODY
AND

MAURICE W. BROCKWELL
JOINT-AUTHORS OF “THE NATIONAL GALLERY: ONE HUNDRED PLATES IN
COLOUR”

Editor: T. LEMAN HARE

NEW YORK
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
214–220 EAST 23RD STREET

PREFACE
T HOSE who wish to make a thorough, comprehensive, and systematic
study of the pictures of the great national collection contained in the
Louvre, which extend from the early years of the fourteenth century down
to almost the present day, will be well advised to deal with the artists by the
countries, schools, and periods to which they belong. That is the scheme
which we have followed here.
We do not hesitate to refer to painters, especially those of the Italian
schools, under the names by which they are generally known to modern
critics, as opposed to those under which they are officially catalogued by
the Louvre authorities. Thus, Raphael, Titian, and Giulio Romano, and not
Santi, Vecelli, and Pippi, are the names which we shall use in this book.
Special attention is drawn to the fact that the official attributions of a certain
number of the pictures, mainly of the Italian schools, and notably several by
Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Titian, are not accepted by us.
The authors of any critical book on a large national collection which
includes several hundred Italian paintings of varying importance must of
necessity be under heavy obligations to Mr. Berenson, whose scholarly,
scientific, and constructive criticism, following on that of Morelli, has
entirely revolutionised the study of Italian art.
It will be noticed that in many instances the dates used in these pages do
not coincide with those given in the official Catalogues and repeated in a
large number of text-books, while in a few cases it has been thought
desirable to draw the attention of the student to the questionable accuracy of
some of the titles and “pedigrees.”
The illustrations which have been selected represent, as far as possible,
the whole range of the art of each country and school comprised within the
limits of the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The Plates are arranged in
the order in which reference is made to them in the text, but it has been
found impossible to place them opposite the pages on which the critical
remarks are given.

In the descriptions of the pictures the terms right and left are used in
reference to the right and left of the spectator, unless the text obviously
implies the contrary. Moreover, in the titles of pictures containing the
Madonna and several Saints, the names of the Saints are given in the order
they occupy in the composition regarded from left to right. The titles we
have used are descriptive rather than mere translations of those contained in
the official Catalogue. The official numbers are those marked in large
figures and placed at the top of the frames; the numbers in small figures
affixed to the bottom left corner of some of the frames are obsolete.
The surface measures of the pictures are for convenience given in feet
and inches as well as in metres, the height preceding the width. The
technical conditions as to panel or canvas and tempera or oil are also noted.
Most of the Rooms containing pictures are open:—
1. On Sundays all the year round, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
2. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from April 1 to
September 30, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
3. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from October 1
to March 31, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
4. On Thursdays in the Summer Months, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and in the
Winter Months, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
5. Rooms IX.–XIII., which contain French pictures and Rooms
XIX.–XXXV., which contain Flemish and Dutch pictures are not
open before eleven o’clock.
6. The Louvre is closed on Mondays all the year round, and on
January 1, July 14, and Ascension Day; it is also closed on the
Feast of the Assumption (August 15), All Saints Day (November
1), and Christmas Day, unless these last three days fall on a
Sunday.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
EARLY SIENESE SCHOOL
Duccio’s Followers
THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL
The Giottesques
Fra Angelico
Paolo Uccello
The Goldsmith Painters
Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa
Botticelli
Albertinelli
Andrea del Sarto
THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL
THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL
Perugino
Raphael
THE VENETIAN SCHOOL
The Bellini
Giorgione
Titian
Titian’s Followers
Paolo Veronese
THE PADUAN SCHOOL
Andrea Mantegna
THE SCHOOL OF VERONA
THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA

THE SCHOOL OF MILAN
Andrea Solario
Bernardino Luini
THE SCHOOL OF LOMBARDY
THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA-BOLOGNA
THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA
THE SCHOOL OF BRESCIA
THE SCHOOL OF MODENA
THE SCHOOL OF VICENZA
THE SCHOOL OF VERCELLI
THE SCHOOL OF PARMA
THE SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA
THE DECADENT SCHOOLS
The “Mannerists”
The “Eclectics”
The “Naturalists”
THE EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
Jan van Eyck
The School of Tournai
Hans Memlinc
Memlinc’s “Virgin and Child, with Donors”
Gerard David
Hieronymus Bosch
The Antwerp School
Barend van Orley
THE LATE FLEMISH SCHOOL
Pieter Brueghel
Jan Brueghel
The Franck Family
Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens at Antwerp
The Médicis Series

Médicis Portraits
Late Works by Rubens
Anthony van Dyck
Van Dyck’s Second Antwerp Period
“Le Roi à la Chasse”
Frans Snyders
Jacob Jordaens
Followers of Rubens
Adriaen Brouwer
David Teniers
Philippe de Champaigne
Van der Meulen
Minor Flemish Painters
THE GERMAN SCHOOL
“The Master of the Bartholomew Altar”
Cologne Painters
Albrecht Dürer
Dürer’s Followers
Lucas Cranach
Hans Holbein
The Kratzer Portrait
Portrait of Anne of Cleves
The Seventeenth Century
The Eighteenth Century
THE SPANISH SCHOOL
Luis de Dalmau
Luis Morales
El Greco
The School of Seville
Zurbarán
Ribera
Velazquez
The Infanta
Mariana of Austria
Copies and School Pictures
The “Meeting of Thirteen People”

Murillo
“The Immaculate Conception”
“The Birth of the Virgin”
“The Angels’ Kitchen”
The School of Madrid
Goya
THE DUTCH SCHOOL
Gerard of Haarlem
Sir Antonis Mor
Spanish Oppression
History and Portrait Painters
Cornelis Janssen
Frans Hals
Dutch Independence
Rembrandt
The Pupils of Rembrandt
Van der Helst
Genre Painters
Adriaen van Ostade
Gerard Dou
Dou’s Pupils
Gerard Terborch
Jan Steen
Pieter de Hooch
Nicolas Maes
Gabriel Metsu
Landscape Painters
Aelbert Cuyp
Jacob van Ruisdael
Hobbema
Philips Wouwerman
The Italian Influence
Architectural Painters
Marine Painters
Still-Life Painters
The Decline

THE EARLY FRENCH SCHOOL
The Maître de Moulins
The de Somzée “Magdalen”
Jean Fouquet
Nicolas Froment
THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL
Jean Clouet’s Drawings
François Clouet
Corneille de Lyon
The School of Fontainebleau
Jean Cousin
THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL
The Brothers Le Nain
Nicolas Poussin
Claude Lorrain
Le Sueur
Charles Le Brun
Pierre Mignard
Le Brun’s Followers
Battle Painters
Jean Jouvenet
The Portrait Painters
Landscape Painters
Desportes
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL
Genre Painters
Raoux and de Troy
Watteau
The Watteaus in the La Caze Gallery
Watteau’s Followers
The Van Loo Family
François Boucher
Siméon Chardin
Fragonard
Greuze
Portrait Painters

Tocqué, Vestier, and Lépicié
Mme. Vigée Le Brun
Joseph Vernet
Hubert Robert
Jacques Louis David
The “Coronation” Picture
Baron Gérard
Baron Gros
Pierre Prud’hon
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL
Géricault
Delacroix
Delacroix’s Oriental Pictures
Ingres
Delaroche and Scheffer
Decamps
The Orientalists
Regnault
Academic Painters
Michel and Huet
The Barbizon School
Corot
T. Rousseau
C. Troyon
J. Dupré
Diaz
Daubigny
Millet
Daumier
Courbet
Meissonier
Ricard
Manet
THE BRITISH SCHOOL
Constable and his Imitators
Bonington

Raeburn
Sir Thomas Lawrence
Other Portrait Painters

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
NO. ITALIAN SCHOOLS PLATE

1601 LEONARDO DA VINCI—
Portrait of Mona Lisa La Joconde IV
1383 SIMONE MARTINI—
Christ Bearing His Cross I
1344 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI—
Madonna and Child, with Angels, and Two Abbots II
1322 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO—
Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandson
(“The Bottle-nosed Man”) III
1297 BOTTICELLI—
Giovanna Degli Albizzi and the Three Graces V
1566a PERUGINO—
St. Sebastian VI
1496 RAPHAEL—
La Belle Jardinière VII
1505 RAPHAEL—
Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione VIII
1134 ANTONELLO DA MESSINA—
Portrait of a Condottiere IX
1136 GIORGIONE—
Pastoral Symphony X
1399 PALMA VECCHIO—
The Adoration of the Shepherds, with a Female
Donor XI
1592 TITIAN—

NO. ITALIAN SCHOOLS PLATE

The Man with a Glove XII
1584 TITIAN—
The Entombment XIII
1375 ANDREA MANTEGNA—
Parnassus XIV
1117 CORREGGIO—
The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine XV

FLEMISH SCHOOL
1986 JAN VAN EYCK—
The Virgin and Child, and the Chancellor Rolin XVI
[1]
HANS MEMLINC—
Portrait of an Old Lady XVII
1957 GERARD DAVID—
The Marriage at Cana XVIII
2029 QUENTIN MATSYS-
The Banker and his Wife XIX
1997 JAN MABUSE—
Portrait of Jean Carondelet XX
2093 RUBENS—
Henry IV. leaves for the Wars XXI
2113 RUBENS—
Portrait of Hélène Fourment and two of her
Children XXII
1967 VAN DYCK—
Portrait of Charles I. of England XXIII

GERMAN SCHOOL
2715 HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER—

NO. ITALIAN SCHOOLS PLATE

Portrait of Erasmus XXIV

SPANISH SCHOOL
1731 VELAZQUEZ—
Portrait of the Infanta Margarita XXV
1709 MURILLO—
The Immaculate Conception XXVI

DUTCH SCHOOL
2384 FRANS HALS—
The Gipsy Girl XXVII
2385 FRANS HALS—
Portrait of a Lady in Black XXVIII
2539 REMBRANDT—
The Pilgrims at Emmaus XXIX
2547 REMBRANDT—
Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels XXX
2394 VAN DER HELST—
The Shooting Prize XXXI
2348 GERARD DOU—
The Dropsical Woman XXXII
2589 TERBORCH—
The Concert XXXIII
2580 JAN STEEN—
Bad Company XXXIV
2415 PIETER DE HOOCH—
Dutch Interior, with a Lady Playing Cards XXXV
2456 JAN VER MEER—

NO. ITALIAN SCHOOLS PLATE

The Lace-Maker XXXVI

FRENCH SCHOOL
734 NICOLAS POUSSIN—
The Shepherds in Arcadia XXXVII
317 CLAUDE—
View of a Seaport XXXVIII
982 WATTEAU—
The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera XXXIX
36 BOUCHER—
Vulcan Presenting Arms to Venus XL
92 CHARDIN—
Grace before Meat XLI
291 FRAGONARD—
The Music Lesson XLII
372 GREUZE—
The Broken Pitcher XLIII
522 MME. VIGÉE LE BRUN—
Portrait of the Artist and her Daughter XLIV
199 DAVID—
Portrait of Mme. Récamier XLV
338 GÉRICAULT—
The Raft of the “Medusa” XLVI
207 DELACROIX—
Dante and Virgil XLVII
422 INGRES—
The Spring XLVIII
2801 COROT—

NO. ITALIAN SCHOOLS PLATE

The Dell XLIX
2867 DUPRÉ—
The Pond L
2818 DAUBIGNY—
The Weir Gate at Optevoz LI
644 MILLET—
Women Gleaning LII
613a MANET—
Olympia LIII

ENGLISH SCHOOL
1809 CONSTABLE—
Hampstead Heath LIV
[1] This picture has not yet received an official number.

INTRODUCTION
T O form a just appreciation of the magnificent collection of paintings
which the Louvre to-day contains would require an exhaustive study
which might be spread over a term of years spent in the famous French
capital itself. In the limited space at our disposal we can only touch lightly
upon the historical events, the sociological causes, the grandeur of royalty,
and the taste of the people, all of which contributed towards bringing about
the formation of the great Musée National du Louvre as we now know it. It
has been our endeavour to throw into prominent relief the outstanding
features in the history of the Gallery and to sketch them in chronological
order. The architectural claims of the building, its priceless collections of
statuary and of objets d’art of every age do not here immediately concern
us; it is to the formation of the superb collection of paintings that we
primarily desire to call our readers’ attention.
A small part of the building which is to-day known as the Louvre was
first occupied as a royal residence by Philippe-Auguste (reigned 1180–
1223), who converted a hunting-seat of the early French kings on this site
into a feudal fortress with a strong donjon or keep, the exact plan of which
may still be traced by the white line marked since 1868 on the pavement in
the southwest corner of the old courtyard. Charles v. (reigned 1364–80),
who may be regarded as the first royal collector of art treasures in France,
greatly enlarged the building of the Old Louvre as a residential palace; he is
also said to have decorated the building with statues and paintings which
have long since disappeared. The real foundations of the collection of la
maison du Roi were laid by François i. (reigned 1515–47), who during his
Italian campaigns acquired a respect for art that proved to be an honour to
his taste and a dowry for his country. The æsthetic movement had
developed rapidly by 1541, when he laid the foundations of the present
palace[2] and had already begun to form a collection of easel pictures.
François i. invited to his court the master-painter Leonardo da Vinci (1452–
1519), who in 1516 left his native land for France, where he did the king
little more than the compliment of dying in his realm, although not, as an
unveracious tradition recounts, in his arms. Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531)

was also employed at the French court, at which he arrived in 1518.
Giovanni Battista Rosso (1494–1541), a painter of little genius but great
ability, was summoned by François i. in 1530 to decorate the Château at
Fontainebleau. Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71), the Florentine goldsmith,
having “determined to seek another country and better luck,” was yet one
more artist who set out for France, where, between 1540 and 1544, he
adorned the royal tables with objects precious in workmanship and material.
Primaticcio (1504–70), who is known to have cleaned at Fontainebleau in
1530 four of the large reputed Raphaels now in the Louvre, remained at the
French court until his death. The strict authenticity of these four pictures—
The Holy Family of Francis I. (No. 1498), the St. Margaret (No. 1501), the
large St. Michael (No. 1504), and the Portrait of Joan of Arragon (No.
1507)—does not here concern us. François i. also possessed at this date,
among other notable pictures, Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière (No. 1496,
Plate VII.), Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks (No. 1599), and the
same artist’s Mona Lisa or La Joconde (No. 1601, Plate IV.), while the art
of Sebastiano del Piombo, Andrea del Sarto, and other painters, Flemish as
well as Italian, was well represented in the royal collection during his reign.
[2] “François i. voulant avoir dans Paris un palais digne de sa magnificence et
dédaignant le vieux Louvre et l’hôtel des Tournelles, amas irrégulier de tournelles
(tourelles) et de pavillons gothiques, avait fait démolir, dès 1528, la grosse tour du
Louvre, ce donjon de Philippe-Auguste duquel relevaient tous les fiefs du royaume.
C’était démolir l’histoire elle-même; c’était la monarchie de la renaissance abattant
la vieille royauté féodale.”—Martin, Hist. de France.

The example set by François i. was followed by his successor, Henri ii.
(reigned 1547–59), for whom Niccolò dell’ Abbate (1515–71), an artist of
secondary importance, was working from 1552 onwards. Henri ii.’s queen,
Catherine de Médicis, was also a patron of art, being herself a collector of
coins and medals. To her influence was due the decoration of the Château of
Fontainebleau and the erection of the Palace of the Tuileries,[3] which was
subsequently connected with the Louvre by means of the Long Gallery,
now Room VI. Her eldest son, François ii. (reigned 1559–60), the husband
of Mary Queen of Scots, first converted the new buildings of the Louvre
into a royal residence. Henry iv. (reigned 1589–1610) enlarged the
Tuileries, and almost completed the Long Gallery, which now contains such
a large proportion of the pictures. Louis xiii. (reigned 1589–1610), his eldest
son, seems to have taken little interest in the royal collection; but his

mother, Marie de Médicis, invited Rubens (1577–1640) to Paris to decorate
the Palace of the Luxembourg with that series of imposing canvases
representing her own life-history which are to-day seen to their best
advantage in the Salle Rubens (Room XVIII.) of the Louvre.
[3] An inscription on a tablet placed high up on the left of the Pavillon Sully records
that François i. began the Louvre in 1541, and Catherine de Médicis the Tuileries in
1564.

No complete record has been found of the pictures which formed the
royal collection previous to the year 1642. To that date belongs a meagre
Catalogue of the objects of art which then remained at Fontainebleau, but it
is supposed that when Louis xiv. (reigned 1643–1715) succeeded to the
throne he inherited about one hundred pictures, the property of the Crown.
With his accession a new era in the history of art in France began.
Meanwhile, across the water, a superb royal collection had been formed.
Charles i. of England (reigned 1625–49) had begun his career as a patron of
art before his accession, with the acquisition of the paintings and statues
collected by his deceased brother, Henry. During his matrimonial visit to
Madrid in 1623 he was presented by Philip iv. with Titian’s Venus del
Pardo, now in the Louvre (No. 1587). Soon after his accession he began to
collect systematically, employing trusty agents to buy for him in different
parts of Europe. His most notable purchase was that of the collection of the
Duke of Mantua, for which he paid £18,280 between 1629 and 1632. He is
said to have possessed in all 1760 pictures by the date of his execution.
Most of them were disposed of at auction by order of Cromwell between
1649 and 1652.
One of the most persistent bidders at the sale of Charles i.’s pictures was
Eberhard Jabach, a native of Cologne, who settled in Paris and became a
naturalised Frenchman in 1647. He was an enthusiastic buyer of pictures,
and his collection soon surpassed that of the French king. It was known to
all French connoisseurs, and was visited by all travellers of note. In time,
however, Jabach’s energies as a buyer exceeded his financial resources, and
when his debts amounted to 278,718 livres he offered his collection to
Louis xiv., who was most anxious to distinguish his reign by the formation
of a gallery of pictures which should be in all respects worthy of it. To this
end he purchased Eberhard Jabach’s collection, paying 220,000 livres for
the 5542 drawings and 101 pictures which it contained. The price originally

asked by Jabach was 463,425 livres. Among the masterpieces thus acquired
by the king were Titian’s Entombment (No. 1584, Plate XIII.), which Jabach
had had the good fortune to purchase from the English royal collection for
the absurdly small sum of £128, and Giorgione’s Pastoral Symphony (No.
1136, Plate X.), which had also been among the treasures of the English
Crown.
To Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), who founded the French Academy in
1635, at one time belonged Andrea Mantegna’s Parnassus (No. 1375, Plate
XIV.), the same painter’s Wisdom victorious over the Vices (No. 1376),
Lorenzo Costa’s The Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses
(No. 1261), and the same painter’s Mythological Scene (No. 1262), together
with Perugino’s Combat of Love and Chastity (No. 1567).
Another important buyer at the sale of Charles i.’s collection was
Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61), who acquired several valuable pictures,
besides statuary, tapestries, and other fabrics. Of Mazarin’s pictures the
Louvre now possesses Raphael’s small St. Michael (No. 1502) and a Holy
Family (No. 1135), which is catalogued under the name of Giorgione, but it
is more probably from the hand of Cariani.
It is said that Louis xiv. preferred the pictures of his own court-painter,
Charles Le Brun, to those of the Venetian master, Paolo Veronese, whose
large canvas, The Supper at Emmaus (No. 1196), was nevertheless acquired
during his reign. Eight pictures by Annibale Carracci, all of which are not
now publicly exhibited in the Louvre (Nos. 1218, 1220, 1222, 1226, 1231–
34), Albani’s Diana and Actæon (No. 1111), nine compositions by Guido
Reni (Nos. 1439–55 and 1457), and ten paintings by Domenichino (Nos.
1609–10 and 1612–19), also enriched the royal collection during Louis
xiv.’s reign. Nor were the great French painters neglected. The four pictures
(Nos. 736–39) of The Seasons, by Nicolas Poussin, which had been
commissioned in 1660 by the Duc de Richelieu for the decoration of the
Château de Meudon, together with four of the largest Claudes now in the
Louvre (Nos. 312, 314, 316, 317), were obtained for the royal galleries by
the ever-watchful Colbert (1619–83), who had been appointed Minister of
Finance on the death of Mazarin (1602–61). Flemish art, as seen in the
stately pictures of Van Dyck, was represented by seven examples (Nos.
1961–63, 1970, 1973–75). On the other hand, Louis xiv. is said to have
failed altogether to appreciate the work of Teniers and to have exclaimed,

when some of that artist’s pictures were brought to his notice, “Ôtez-moi ces
magots-là!” Only one of the thirty-nine pictures by Teniers now in the
Louvre, the Interior of a Cottage (No. 2162), passed into the Gallery at that
date. The almost entire absence of Dutch pictures is also to be noticed.
An event of extreme importance in this pompous reign was the institution
of the French Academy of Arts, in 1648, with Charles Le Brun (1619–90) as
Director, the despotic power which he exercised in art matters bringing
about his further appointment as Director of the Gobelins tapestry works in
1660.
In 1681 the Crown pictures and other royal art treasures were brought to
the Louvre from Versailles and were temporarily exhibited there, the king
paying a state visit to the capital on December 5 to see his cabinet de
tableaux. We read that the walls of eleven rooms were covered up to the
cornices. The collection, putting on one side all doubts as to strict
authenticity, included six paintings by Correggio, ten by Leonardo da Vinci,
eight by Giorgione, twenty-three by Titian, nineteen by A. Carracci, twelve
by Guido Reno, and eighteen by Paolo Veronese. These treasures, however,
did not remain long at the Louvre, but were “packed up, loaded on rough
carts, and taken back over the paved roads to Versailles,” which had now
taken precedence over Fontainebleau as a royal residence; and at Versailles
the Court mainly resided until the Revolution, although Louis xiv. greatly
enlarged the Louvre Palace and planted the Tuileries Gardens. At the death
of le Roi Soleil the Crown pictures numbered 1500.
The energy of Louis xiv. was followed by the apathy of his degenerate
successor, Louis xv. (reigned 1715–74), who, however, added 300 pictures
to the royal collection. The Virgin with the Blue Diadem or Virgin with the
Veil (No. 1497), which still passes under the name of Raphael, was among
the pictures which then passed out of the collection of the Prince de
Carignan into the possession of the Crown. It was now a sorry moment for
the pictures which, “scattered through the interminable and then ill-kept
country palaces of the French Crown, exposed to every injury of time,
ignorance, and weather, regarded at best in the light of old furniture and too
often in that of old lumber, pleaded in vain for respect and care. No public
Catalogue told of their existence; the generation that had talked of them had
passed away; it was nobody’s business to ask for them, and few actually
knew where they were. Even the new-comers passed into the same void

which had swallowed their predecessors.” Some of the pictures previously
recorded now disappeared completely, without leaving a clue to their fate.
Eventually, in 1746, M. de la Fonte de Saint-Yenne in a pamphlet directed
public opinion to the fact that these Crown pictures had for fifty years been
hidden and neglected in “une obscure prison de Versailles.” As a result of
this, in 1750, by the king’s permission, 110 pictures selected from the
different schools of painting were brought from Versailles to the Palais de
Luxembourg, where the large canvases by Rubens (now in the Salle Rubens
at the Louvre) were regarded as forming a centre d’études. Here for the first
time, and for two days only in the week, they were shown under certain
restrictions to a limited public. In 1785 they were again removed to
Versailles.
Although Louis xiv.’s well-known grudge against Holland probably
accounted for the almost entire absence of Dutch pictures from the Crown
possessions, Louis xvi. had the good taste to acquire works by Aelbert Cuyp
(No. 2341, Landscape); Jan van Goyen (No. 2375, Banks of a Dutch River,
and No. 2377, A River in Holland); B. van der Helst (No. 2394, The
Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Sebastian); G. Metsu (No. 2461, The
Alchemist); Adriaen van Ostade (No. 2495, The Painter’s Family[?], and
No. 2496, The Schoolmaster); Isaac van Ostade (No. 2510, A Frozen Canal
in Holland); Rembrandt (No. 2539, The Pilgrims at Emmaus, No. 2540, and
No. 2541, The Philosopher in Meditation, No. 2555, Portrait of Rembrandt
aged); Jacob van Ruisdael (No. 2559, Landscape, and No. 2560, Sunny
Landscape); Terborgh (No. 2587, The Military Gallant); and Philips
Wouverman (No. 2621, The Prize Ox, and No. 2625, The Stag Hunt). Five
of the less important of Murillo’s pictures now in the Louvre (Nos. 1712–15
and No. 1717) were also acquired at this period, and the series of twenty-
two large canvases illustrating Scenes from the Life of St. Bruno by
Eustache Le Sueur were also purchased by Louis xvi.
From 1725 onwards the Salon held its Exhibitions in the Salon Carré
(Room IV.), but after 1848 this room was used only for Paintings by the Old
Masters.
In 1790 a Commission was appointed by the National Assembly “to
register and watch over all that was most valuable,” and on May 26, 1791 a
decree was made that the Louvre should be thenceforward dedicated to the
conservation of objects of science and of art. On August 26 of the same year

a further Commission was appointed by the National Convention to inspect
and gather together the treasures of art scattered through les maisons
royales. The Convention decided that the “Museum of the Republic” should
be officially opened in the Long Gallery of the Louvre on August 10, 1793,
and from November 8 of the same year the Museum was open to the
inspection of the public three days in every ten. This, the first public
exhibition of art treasures in the Louvre, was the foundation of the present
institution. The Catalogue of this date contains reference to only 537
pictures, the greater number of which came from Paris churches and
national buildings. The inhabitants of Versailles now petitioned that their
town should not be despoiled of its pictures, “and so be deprived of its last
attraction in the eyes of the world”!
The Louvre was now destined to become for a few years the temple of
the spolia opima which the victorious French army brought home. “This
system of levying pictures, statues, and other objects by means of treaties,
so called, in which the conqueror dictated terms to those incapable of
refusing them, was a dishonourable novelty in the annals of modern
warfare. Disdaining the usages of Christian nations and overleaping
especially the traditions of French courtesy and chivalry, Buonaparte turned
back to the ages of pagan history for a precedent for his measures of
spoliation.” By the Treaty of Bologna of June 23, 1796, and the Treaty of
Tolentino of February 19, 1797, he became possessed of twenty pictures
from Modena, twenty from Parma, forty from Bologna, ten from Ferrara,
while Rome, Piacenza, Cento, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona, Loreto,
and Perugia also had to yield up a portion of their treasures.
The first exhibition of this booty was held in the Louvre in January 1798.
Here, during the next few years, were gathered together many of the
world’s most famous pictures, including Raphael’s St. Cecilia, now in the
Bologna Gallery; Correggio’s St. Jerome and his Madonna della Scodella,
now in the Parma Gallery; Raphael’s Transfiguration, now in the Vatican,
and his Madonna della Sedia, now in the Pitti Palace at Florence;
Domenichino’s Last Communion of St. Jerome, now in the Vatican; Titian’s
Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr, destroyed by fire in 1867, and his
Assumption, now in the Venice Gallery; Van Eyck’s Adoration of the Lamb,
now dismembered and distributed between Ghent, Berlin, and Brussels;
Paris Bordone’s Fisherman of St. Mark, now in the Venice Gallery; and

Paul Potter’s Bull, now at The Hague. “Here was seen the unexampled sight
of twenty-five Raphaels ranked together, the great master complete in every
period and walk of his art. Here twenty-three Titians glowed in burning
row. Here Rubens revelled in no less than fifty-three pictures and in almost
as many classes of subject. Van Dyck followed his illustrious master with
thirty-three works, while thirty-one specimens of Rembrandt’s brush shed a
golden atmosphere upon the walls. The later Italians especially were
magnificently represented—thirty-six pictures by Annibale Carracci,
sixteen by Domenichino; twenty-three by Guido; including the largest
altarpieces by each; and twenty-six by Guercino, were perhaps the most
popular part of the wondrous show.”
However, in September 1815, the pictures and other valuable works of art
which France had plundered from her foes had to be given back, and the
spoliation of the Louvre began. In all, 5233 objects, of which 2065 were
pictures, were taken away from the Royal Museum by the Allied Powers.
An event rare in the history of public galleries took place in 1813, when
the Louvre received Carpaccio’s Preaching of St. Stephen (No. 1211),
Boltraffio’s Madonna of the Casio Family (No. 1169), Marco d’Oggiono’s
Holy Family (No. 1382), Moretto’s St. Bernardino of Siena and St. Louis of
Toulouse (No. 1175), and the same artist’s St. Bonaventura and St. Anthony
of Padua (No. 1176), in exchange for five pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt,
Van Dyck, and Jordaens.
It is curious to notice that at this period very little importance was
attached to Italian primitives, which were, indeed, deemed “barbarous.”
Many beautiful works of the very early Italian schools were actually not
considered worth the trouble and expense of transport, and were therefore
left for the lasting glory of the Louvre. Among them may be mentioned Fra
Angelico’s Coronation of the Virgin (No. 1290); the Madonna and Child
and Two Saints, (No. 1114), now officially ascribed to Albertinelli;
Bronzino’s Christ and the Magdalene (No. 1183); the Madonna and Angels
(No. 1260), which passes under the name of Cimabue; Gentile da
Fabriano’s Presentation in the Temple (No. 1278); the Coronation of the
Virgin (No. 1303), still officially ascribed to Raffaellino del Garbo; St.
Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata (No. 1312), which still passes
under the name of Giotto; Benozzo Gozzoli’s Triumph of St. Thomas
Aquinas (No. 1319); Fra Filippo Lippi’s Madonna and Child between Two

Saints (No. 1344); Pesellino’s two small predella pictures (No. 1414); Piero
di Cosimo’s Coronation of the Virgin (No. 1416); The Madonna in Glory
between St. Bernard and St. Mary Magdalene (No. 1482), which is still
assigned to Cosimo Rosselli; Lorenzo di Credi’s Madonna and Child with
St. Julian and St. Nicholas (No. 1263); Cima’s Madonna and Child (No.
1259); Vasari’s Annunciation (No. 1575), which is now in one of the
storerooms of the Louvre; the Ferrarese Madonna and Child with St.
Quentin and St. Benedict (No. 1167), which is still assigned to Bianchi;
Andrea Mantegna’s Calvary (No. 1373) and Virgin of Victory (No. 1374);
Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Visitation (No. 1321); and Perugino’s St. Paul
(No. 1566). Further proof of the slight regard in which certain pictures that
we cherish to-day were then held is afforded by the readiness with which
the authorities sent two panels of Mantegna’s altarpiece, the centre-part of
which is now in the Church of San Zeno at Verona, to the Museum at Tours,
and parted with Perugino’s altarpieces to the public galleries of Lyons and
Marseilles.
Under Louis xviii. (died 1824) 111 pictures were purchased for the
national collection at a cost of £26,730, but during the reign of Charles x.
(1824–30) only 30 were acquired, £2511 being expended on them. An
outlay of £2965 by Louis Philippe (reigned 1830–48) enriched the Louvre
with 33 more pictures, but that king concentrated his efforts on the
restoration and decoration of the Château of Versailles, on which he spent
£440,000.
In the early years of the Second Republic a large number of
improvements were effected in the Louvre, and in 1848 £8000 was spent on
restoring several of the rooms now hung with pictures, which were first
systematically arranged three years later. Although the Museum had at that
period an annual grant of £2000 for the purchase of pictures, special grants
in aid were made from time to time, notably on the occasion of the sale of
Marshal Soult, pictures from whose collection were acquired in 1852 for
£24,612. In this way Murillo’s Immaculate Conception (No. 1709, Plate
XXVI.) passed to the Louvre from the “Plunder-master-General” of the
Spanish campaign.
During the Second Empire the Musée du Louvre acquired about 200
Italian primitives from the Campana collection, while seven years later it
was further enriched by the important bequest by Dr. La Caze of 275

paintings of different schools. Since 1870, when the Palace of the Tuileries
was destroyed, the permanent collection has been increased by the purchase
in 1883 for £8000 of the Morris Moore “Raphael” (No. 1509), which has
since come to be universally regarded as a work by Perugino; while about
300 other paintings of varying importance have also been acquired from
time to time with Government funds. In recent years the national collection
has benefited largely by the generosity of private donors, among whom we
may mention MM. Duchâtel, Gatteaux, His de la Salle, Lallemant, Maciet,
Rodolphe Kann, Sedelmeyer, Grandidier, Vandeul, and several members of
the Rothschild family.
In 1896, by the sale of a large proportion of the Crown jewels, a Caisse
des Musées was organised, and the annual income devoted to the purchase
of pictures notably increased. A year later the Société des Amis du Louvre,
which corresponds to the National Art-Collections Fund in England, was
founded to assist in securing pictures and other works of art for the nation;
by that means the Madonna and Child (No. 1300a or 1300b) which passes
under the name of Piero dei Franceschi was acquired by the Louvre.
In May 1900, on the inauguration of the Exposition Universelle, the
opportunity was taken to rehang a large part of the collection, and the
Galerie de Médicis (Room XVIII.) and the eighteen small cabinets built
round it were first used for the better exhibition of a large proportion of the
Flemish and Dutch pictures. Shortly afterwards, by the death of M. Thomy
Thiéry, an Englishman who had become a naturalised Frenchman, over 100
paintings, mostly of the school of Barbizon, became an exceedingly
valuable addition to the Louvre, and filled a void in the history of French
painting in the nineteenth century. During the last two years the most
memorable purchases by the Government have been that of Chardin’s Child
with a Top (No. 90a), which was acquired together with the same artist’s
Young Man with a Violin (No. 90b) for £14,000, and Hans Memlinc’s
Portrait of an Old Lady (Plate XVII.) for £8000.
The national collection of the Musée du Louvre now includes in its
Catalogue nearly two thousand eight hundred oil and tempera paintings,
about four hundred of which have not been exhibited for many years.

EARLY SIENESE SCHOOL
T HIS school of painting, one of the earliest in the history of art in Italy
and probably the earliest with which the ordinary student of art in
Italy will concern himself, was affected throughout the whole range of its
history by the influence of the miniaturists. It was characterised by naïveté,
and in the hands of its earliest painter, Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255–1319),
strove to realise an effect of hieratic sumptuousness, its precision and grace
being that of “a sanctuary swept and garnished.”
The Louvre possesses no picture by Duccio, who derived his technique
from the Byzantine miniaturists, although he modified their methods.
Standing between the old world and the new, Duccio occupied an important
position at the head of the school of Siena, which in the early years of the
fourteenth century set a noble example to the other towns and incipient
schools of Tuscany. Passing reference may here be made to the artistic aims
and religious aspirations of the cities of Rome, Pisa, and Arezzo, but it is
Siena which stands out pre-eminently at this early date as interpreting
scenes of quiet rapture and sacred peace, its own social life being bound up
in “chivalry, the meat of the eye,” and “piety, the wine of the soul.” Both
Duccio, who was first employed by the Government of his native city as
early as 1278, and Cimabue, his senior by fifteen years (if we are to accept
the much contested records), have alike been hailed as the author of the
Rucellai Madonna which still hangs in the Church of S. Maria Novella in
Florence. This picture was a generation ago almost unanimously accepted
by responsible critics as the work of the Florentine painter, and those who
still advocate the claims of “Florentinism” are loath to destroy their
cherished illusions. It is not our duty here to bring forward the arguments in
favour of its later ascription to Duccio, who, we are led to believe, painted it
early in his career, before he had learnt to free himself from the stiff
gestures and Byzantine types of a former tradition. Duccio, it must be
conceded, never quite succeeded in giving to his compositions that sense of
life, character, and design which we find in the works of Giotto, his junior
by some twenty years, who was the first artist to accomplish vast schemes
of monumental decoration. Duccio, however, was the bearer of that torch

which was to kindle the flame of religious art both in Siena and Florence.
Nevertheless, Sienese painting was destined, almost from the moment of its
birth, to show signs of dwindling into a school of trite copyists and shallow
quietists. Early in the fourteenth century the lofty ideals manifested by
emotional Siena spread to scientific Florence, and by the beginning of the
fifteenth century the city on the Arno gave unmistakable signs of becoming
the leading art centre in Tuscany.

DUCCIO’S FOLLOWERS
The greatest of Duccio’s followers was Simone Martini (1285?–1344),
who was also slightly influenced by Giotto. Simone, whose Christ bearing
His Cross (No. 1383, Plate I.) is the earliest Sienese picture in the Louvre,
has been well described as “a reactionary who made a whole beautiful
world of his own.” In this small picture the colours stand out most clearly,
although the drawing and perspective are, of course, faulty. It belongs to a
series of which other panels are at Antwerp and in the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum at Berlin. A Crucifixion (No. 1665) that is catalogued as being by
an unknown Sienese artist may be attributed to Ugolino da Siena (fl. 1290–
1320); it would seem to be the centre panel of a large and lost altarpiece.

PLATE I.—SIMONE MARTINI
(1285?–1344)

SIENESE SCHOOL
No. 1383.—CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS
(Jésus-Christ marchant au Calvaire)

Christ, preceded by the executioner, soldiers, and two children, is bearing His
Cross to Calvary. He is attended by a large crowd in which may be recognised the
Virgin Mary, in blue robes, supported by St. John; St. Mary Magdalene in red, with
her long hair falling over her shoulders, raises her hands in grief.

Painted in tempera on panel.
10 in. × 4 in. (0·25 × 0·10.)

Pietro Lorenzetti (fl. 1305–50) was probably a pupil of Duccio, and was
influenced by Simone Martini, but Pietro and his younger brother,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1285?–1348?), who represented a new movement
and endeavoured to set forth the civic ideal, are not represented in this
collection.
Simone Martini’s brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi (died 1357?), is possibly
the author of the St. Peter (No. 1152), a poor picture which is officially
assigned to Taddeo di Bartolo (1362?–1422). The art of the latter is, in the
opinion of Mr. Berenson, seen in the small Crucifixion (No. 1622), which
the Louvre authorities modestly catalogue as being by an unknown
fourteenth-century Italian painter.
To Bartolo di Maestro Fredi (1330?–1410), who came under the
influence of Lippo Memmi and the Lorenzetti, is given a Presentation in
the Temple (No. 1151). Paolo di Giovanni Fei (fl. 1372–1410), whose
pictures are rarely met with out of Italy, may be regarded as the author of
the Madonna and Saints (No. 1314) which is officially held to be by an
unknown Florentine painter of the school of Giotto. The Louvre possesses
no example of the art of Sassetta (1392–1450), who, together with Paolo di
Giovanni Fei, deeply impressed Giovanni di Paolo (1403?–1482). The latter
may be credited with the small panel (No. 1659a) which is officially
entitled The Entry of Pope Martin into the Castle of Saint Angelo, and
included in the Catalogue as being by an unknown Florentine, but labelled
“School of Masaccio.” There can be no doubt that this quaint little picture
depicts Pope Gregory the Great’s Vision of the Archangel Michael
sheathing his Sword over the Castle of Saint Angelo. According to the
legend, Gregory had been indefatigable in nursing the plague-stricken in
Rome in the sixth century, and while on his way at the head of a procession
to offer up prayer for the cessation of the plague, saw “the warrior of God”
in the attitude here shown. Gregory, after fleeing from those who wished to
make him Pope, was elected to wear the papal tiara under the title of
Gregory the Great. He is chiefly known to us as having sent missionaries to
preach the gospel in England, having been moved to pity by seeing British
captives exposed for sale in Rome, and for his arrangement of the music of

the chants which are after him known as Gregorians. The official title of the
picture, on the other hand, assumes that we have here Pope Martin v., a man
of saintly character, making his entry into Rome in 1421 amid the
acclamations of the people. He had been elected Pope in 1417 on the
deposition of John xxiii.
By this time the art of Siena had progressed some distance on the road
that its religious aspirations and technical accomplishments indicated, but it
soon became evident that the more intellectual aims of Florentine art were
shaping the course of all the painters of Italy.

THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL
A LTHOUGH we have begun our study of the art of Italy with a
review of the Sienese School, which owes its importance to Duccio,
the earliest Italian picture in the Louvre is the Madonna and Angels (No.
1260), which may be accepted as a characteristic example of the type of
picture that passes under the name of Cimabue (1240?–1302).
Giovanni Cenni de’ Pepi, to give him his full name, has been hailed as
“the father of modern painting.” The Louvre Madonna, which was formerly
in the Church of San Francesco at Pisa, was carried off to Paris by
Napoleon, but not considered worth the trouble of repacking when in 1815
the Allied Armies called upon the French to surrender the pictorial spoils of
war. It is known that Cimabue was working at Pisa at the very end of his
life, and, although he was engaged there as mosaicist rather than as a
painter, the provenance of this large painting, which is executed in tempera
on panel, has to be taken into account in any discussion as to its strict
authenticity. It is certainly reminiscent of the Rucellai Madonna, and shares
much of its character. The painter has repeated, with certain modifications,
the Byzantine type of Madonna, whose almond-shaped eyes and long, bony
fingers should be noticed. It has been freely restored.
From the same church in Pisa comes Giotto’s St. Francis of Assisi
receiving the Stigmata (No. 1312). According to the descriptive account
handed down to us by the unveracious Vasari, Giotto (1266–1337) was
originally a shepherd boy whose latent talent was recognised by the
discerning Cimabue, who forthwith took him as his pupil and taught him
how to paint, the boy’s genius enabling him early to surpass his master.
Although it would be rash unquestioningly to accept this archaic production
as an authentic work by Giotto, it is one which any national collection
would treasure. It depicts the supreme event in the life of St. Francis, when
during his vision virtue passed from the wounded hands, the wounded feet,
and the wounded side of the Christ into the same parts of the saint’s body.
In the predella are three scenes from the life of St. Francis: (a) Pope
Innocent III. dreaming that St. Peter reveals to him that unless the

Franciscan Order is founded the Church (typified here by the Church of S.
John Lateran in Rome) will fall down; (b) The Pope founding the Order;
and (c) St. Francis, wearing the brown robes of his Order, and preaching to
the birds: “Whenas St. Francis spake these words to them, those birds began
all of them to open their beaks, and stretch their necks, and spread their
wings, and reverently bend their heads down to the ground, and by their
acts and by their songs to show that the Holy Father gave them joy
exceeding great.”

THE GIOTTESQUES
Four school pictures (Nos. 1313, 1315–1317) illustrate the example set
by Giotto, who influenced very strongly indeed all art-manifestation during
the fourteenth century, an age when the human body was denied all intrinsic
significance. His profound feeling, gay colour, high dramatic power, and
sense of form mark the emancipation of Italian art from the rigid formalism
of the Byzantine manner. He discovered a style which was admirably suited
to the spirit of his time, and developed for his own purposes a sense of
perspective which he employed with considerable effect, although he never
really found a scientific statement of the artistic principles which he
instinctively perceived. His indefatigable energy and innate genius enabled
him to distance his rivals and to bequeath to his countrymen a heritage
which profoundly affected the art of Italy.
Foremost among his followers, who imitated his mannerisms without
understanding the full significance of his ideas, was Taddeo Gaddi (1300?–
1366), to whom are assigned in the official Catalogue the predella pictures
(No. 1302) of (a) The Death of St. John the Baptist, (b) Calvary, and (c)
Judas Iscariot. Taddeo Gaddi, a painter and architect, was the godson and
pupil of Giotto as well as the pupil of his father, Gaddo Gaddi. Taddeo’s
desire to give suitable expression to each of his figures often resulted, as in
that of the daughter of Herodias in the second of these panels, in
exaggeration.
Taddeo’s son, Agnolo Gaddi (1333–1396), who was described by Ruskin
as “rather stupid in religious matters and high art,” may be the painter of the
Annunciation (No. 1301), in which we see the Virgin seated in a loggia to
the right of the picture. The Archangel Gabriel announces, by the gesture of

the right hand, that the Virgin shall be the Mother of the Christ. God the
Father is shown in the heavens. Notice the gold background and the
mosaics of the loggia. The mechanical methods and uninspired aims of the
Giottesques, the artists who worked during the century which followed the
death of Giotto, are well seen in the productions of Lorenzo di Bicci (fl.
1370–1409), his son Bicci di Lorenzo (fl. 1373–1424), and his grandson
Neri di Bicci (1419–1491). Neri is represented by a Madonna and Child
(No. 1397). He might justly be described as a mere manufacturer of
Giottesque pictures to order. He brought art down to the level of a trade, his
work being flat and his colour raw and inharmonious.
A Virgin and Infant Christ (No. 1563), inscribed “tvrinvs vannis de pisis
me piqsit p,” is evidently by Turino Vanni (fl. 1390–1398), a rare artist of
this group of Florentine painters. The brief list of his pictures might be
increased by having added to it a few panels at Pisa and Assisi, which are
erroneously ascribed to Buffalmacco.
Andrea Orcagna (1308?–1368?) and his brother Nardo are not
represented in the Louvre, but we have a follower of Agnolo Gaddi in
Lorenzo Monaco (1370?–1425), who is seen to advantage in his Christ in
the Garden of Gethsemane and his Holy Women preparing the Tomb (No.
1348a), which is inscribed “anno dñi 1408,” and was formerly attributed to
Gentile da Fabriano. Lorenzo Monaco is officially credited with a triple
picture (No. 1348) of (a) St. Agnes with her lamb and a martyr’s palm
branch; (b) St. Lawrence, the artist’s name-saint, holding in his right hand a
book and palm branch, and enthroned on a gridiron, the symbol of his
martyrdom; and (c) St. Margaret, the patron saint of Woman as Mother,
standing on the dragon. Lorenzo Monaco, who is reputed to have been the
master of Fra Angelico, usually depicts long, slender, and sinuous bodies.
Below this picture hangs a small panel, apparently part of the predella of an
unidentified altarpiece. It does not seem to be included in the official
Catalogue, and has neither a number by which to identify it nor a label to
denote its subject or authorship! The picture has apparently never been
referred to or described in any article or book. It certainly represents the
Emperor Heraclius carrying the True Cross into Jerusalem. The picture
appears to have been painted by Giovanni del Ponte (fl. 1385–1437).
Neither Starnina (1354–1408), who took the traditions of Early
Florentine painting to Spain, Masolino (fl. 1383–1435), who is rarely met

with out of Italy, nor Masaccio (1401–28), who may be said to have
vitalised Italian art, is represented in the Louvre. Tommaso Masaccio, the
“Hulking Tom” of Browning, gave to Italy and the world the magnificent
series of frescoes which still decorate the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine
Church in Florence. He imparted to his figures such natural movement,
vivacity of expression, free attitudes, simple draperies, and excellent
modelling that he entirely revolutionised the art of Florence. His figures are,
as Vasari said, “so lifelike that they seem to live and breathe.” This series of
frescoes was studied with enthusiasm by all the great Florentine painters;
Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and innumerable other artists derived the
greatest possible benefit from them.

FRA ANGELICO
On the threshold of the Renaissance stands Fra Angelico (1387–1455),
who was trained in the school of miniaturists and influenced by Lorenzo
Monaco and Masaccio. His life was devoted to “the service of God, the
benefit of the world, and his duty towards his neighbour,” as Vasari says.
He regarded painting as one of the duties of the monastic life, and never
began to paint without first kneeling in prayer. His pictures are aspirations
towards heaven, while the figures with which he peoples his saintly
compositions have faces which show peace, joy, hope, and communion with
God. They are clothed in draperies of the purest colours, crowned with
glories of burnished gold, but are never dramatic in their action. One of his
best easel paintings outside Florence, where alone his art can be adequately
studied, is his early Coronation of the Virgin (No. 1290). This imposing, if
overcrowded, composition is painted to the glory of God and in honour of
the Dominican Order, to which the painter belonged. In the right bottom
corner we see St. Agnes with her lamb, next to her St. Catherine with her
wheel, above is St. Lawrence with his gridiron, and to the latter’s right St.
Peter Martyr in Dominican robes and with wounded head. In the foreground
kneels St. Mary Magdalene in red, her box of ointment in her left hand. St.
Nicholas with the three golden balls at his feet, St. Thomas Aquinas in
Dominican robes and holding the theological book from which rays of
golden light issue, St. Louis (Louis ix., King of France), and St. Dominic
himself—all help to swell the heavenly company. In the predella, or lower
part, of this panel picture are depicted Scenes from the Life of St. Dominic,

the founder of Fra Angelico’s own Order: (a) Pope Innocent iii. in his vision
sees St. Dominic supporting the falling Church; (b) the Pope receives,
through the agency of St. Peter and St. Paul who hand him a staff and the
Gospel, Divine authority to found the Dominican Order; (c) the Saint brings
back to life a young noble named Napoleon who had been trampled under
foot by a horse; (d) Christ in the tomb, the Virgin and St. John; (e) St.
Dominic challenges heretics whose books are consumed in the fire, while
his own book of the true Gospel issues forth unhurt by the action of fire; (f)
angels descend from heaven to feed the starving monastery of St. Sabina at
Rome immediately after St. Dominic has asked a blessing; these two blue-
clad figures are among the loveliest of all Fra Angelico’s angelic beings,
and perhaps the most inspiring figures in the whole of the Louvre
collection; (g) the death of the Saint at Bologna and the passing of his soul
up to heaven in accordance with the vision of the monk at Brescia. This
early Cinquecento panel picture, which was formerly in the Church of S.
Domenico at Fiesole, near Florence, was painted before the Beato went to
beautify the cells of S. Marco with frescoes. It is one of the best of the
primitive pictures in the Louvre.
From the hand of the same saintly painter are the Adoring Angel (no
No.), which until 1909 was in the Victor Gay collection, the Martyrdom of
St. Cosmo and St. Damian (No. 1293), part of the predella of a
dismembered altarpiece, and the large fresco painting of the Crucifixion
(No. 1294) which hangs on the Escalier Daru. The latter was purchased,
together with Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Bottle-nosed Man (No. 1322, Plate
III.), in 1879 for £1960. The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (No. 1291)
and the Resurrection (No. 1294a) are unauthentic.
In Benozzo Gozzoli (1420–1498) we have an assistant and follower of
Fra Angelico. He worked at different towns in Italy, notably at Montefalco,
Orvieto, Florence, San Gimignano, Rome, and Pisa, where he died.
Although his earlier work reminds us of Fra Angelico, than whom he is
much more dramatic and much less spiritual, in later life he depicts the
costumes and life of his time in a more realistic and objective manner. His
Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas (No. 1319), which originally hung in the
Cathedral at Pisa, deals with a subject often met with in the art of the
period. The great Dominican teacher, whom the heathen philosophers,
Aristotle on the left, and Plato on the right, recognise as their master in

philosophy, is enthroned, his books of theological learning on his knees. At
his feet, subdued, is Guillaume de St. Amour, the author of a book entitled
De Periculis Novissimorum Temporum, in which he exposed the various
abuses then prevalent among the mendicants. The dramatic action seen in
the lower part of the panel embraces Pope Alexander iv. presiding over the
religious council of Agnani, and the envoys of St. Louis (Louis ix. of
France) who took steps to end the religious conflicts of 1256. A large
altarpiece (No. 1320) representing the Madonna and Child Enthroned, St.
Cosmo, St. Damian, St. Jerome, St. John the Baptist, St. Francis d’Assisi,
and St. Lawrence in the central panel is also assigned to Benozzo. The
frame also contains seven predella pictures, and at either end is the coat of
arms of the Medici family.
The great French Museum, which is weaker than the National Gallery,
the Berlin Gallery, and certain other national collections in Italian
primitives, affords us no example of the art of Andrea del Castagno (fl.
1410–1457), whose compositions are characterised by harsh colour, hard
lines, and crude forms. Nor do we find here any painting by that very rare
artist, Domenico Veneziano (1400?–1461), who, it has been said, was the
first Tuscan artist to work in an oil medium.

PAOLO UCCELLO
Prominent among the masters who were influenced by Donatello, the
sculptor, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, the first metal-worker in elegant forms, is
Paolo di Dono, generally known as Uccello. His profound study and
ultimate discovery of the laws of linear perspective was enhanced by the
inquiries into the laws of aerial perspective that Fra Angelico studied so
deeply. Paolo Uccello (1397–1475) was a pupil and assistant of Lorenzo
Ghiberti, who made the bronze doors for the East Side of the Baptistery at
Florence. He gave himself up to the scientific study of perspective, the
principles of which he was one of the first to apply to painting, thus
rendering incalculable services to art. In his Battlepiece (No. 1273) is seen a
mounted soldier in armour with his sword drawn; on the left are horsemen
about to charge with couchant lances, while on the right cavalry-men are
drawn up awaiting orders, their lances in rest. The correctness of the
perspective and the justice of the foreshortenings and the movements of the
foot-men in the intervals of the cavalry mark an epoch in art. This is the

third and right-hand panel of the series of three battle-pictures which
Uccello painted for the Casa Medici (now the Riccardi Palace) in Florence
for Cosimo de’ Medici about the year 1457, and not, as the official
Catalogue asserts, for the Bartolini family. The best preserved of these three
large panel pictures illustrating the Rout of San Romano in 1432 is that in
the National Gallery (No. 583), while the second or centre panel of the
series is now in the Uffizi (No. 52). The Louvre panel is in a deplorable
condition, caused by long neglect.
Uccello’s Portraits of Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Antonio Manetti, and
Filippo Brunelleschi (No. 1272), whose names are in this order on the
panel, is a work of considerable importance, as marking an early stage in
the development of portraiture. This picture, which is referred to at some
length by Vasari, constitutes a historical document. The Italian chronicler
tells us that Uccello “was a person of eccentric character and peculiar
habits, but he was a great lover of ability in those of his own art, and, to the
end that their memory should remain to posterity, he drew with his own
hand on an oblong picture the portraits of five distinguished men, which he
kept in his house as a memorial of them. The first of these portraits was that
of the painter Giotto, as one who had given light and new life to the art; the
second was Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, for architecture; the third was
Donatello, for sculpture; the fourth was himself, for perspective and
animals; the fifth was his friend Giovanni (sic) Manetti, for mathematics.
With this philosopher Paolo conferred very frequently, and held continual
discourse with him concerning the problems of Euclid.” Manetti’s real
Christian name, Antonio, is correctly inscribed on the panel, but is
inaccurately given as Giovanni by Vasari and on the official label.
The St. John the Baptist as a Child (No. 1274), which hangs in the Long
Gallery, is labelled as a picture of the Florentine school, and catalogued as
being by Uccello. It is perhaps by Piero di Cosimo.
We enter on the first period of the coming Renaissance with Fra Filippo
Lippi (1406–1469), who was trained in the best school of Florentine
painting. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Monaco, came under the influence of
Fra Angelico, and was affected by the magic spell of Masaccio, whom he
must have seen at work in the Brancacci Chapel. In the latter half of the
Quattrocento the cult of love and beauty was rapidly dethroning the more
austere ideals of an earlier age. Filippo Lippi’s stormy and romantic career

passes into a new phase with his residence at Prato in 1452. Four years later
he was appointed Chaplain to the nuns of S. Margherita in that town. The
year before his arrival in Prato, Lucrezia and Spinetta, the orphan daughters
(aged eighteen and seventeen respectively) of Francesco Buti, had,
apparently much against their will, been placed in the Convent, the abbess
of which commissioned the Frate to paint a picture of the Madonna della
Cintola. Lucrezia posed to the painter-chaplain for the figure of the
Madonna in that picture. On May 1, 1456, on the occasion of the exhibition
of the Holy Girdle of the Virgin, a precious relic still preserved at Prato, the
painter bore off Lucrezia out of the safe keeping of the convent. A short
summary of these well-known facts is suggested by the view which is put
forward in the official Catalogue of the Louvre, to the effect that the
Madonna della Cintola is to be identified with the Nativity (No. 1343) in
this Gallery. The weight of evidence is against this theory; in fact, this large
panel picture has little claim to be regarded as the work of Fra Filippo. One
critic has given it as his opinion that the Nativity was begun by Fra Filippo
and completed by Fra Diamante, who succeeded him as Chaplain at Prato.
Others have attributed the picture to Pesellino, Baldovinetti, and Stefano da
Zevio respectively. It seems to show the influence of Andrea del Castagno.
The official Catalogue does not indicate the provenance of the picture,
although it implies that it came from the Convent at Prato at the time when
it was brought to Paris by Napoleon. There can be little doubt that the
Madonna della Cintola is the painting thus named which still hangs in the
place of honour in the Municipal Gallery at Prato.
The Louvre does, however, possess in the Madonna and Child with
Angels and Two Abbots (No. 1344, Plate II.) one of the best of the Frate’s
creations, although the colouring has suffered considerably. It is an early
work, and was painted about 1437 for the Barbadori Chapel in Santo
Spirito. It contains beauty of line, freshness of colour, and much variety in
the composition. The cast of the draperies is ample and the motives are
novel and bold, the Renaissance background throwing into prominent relief
the soulful and ideal figure of the Madonna. The predella panels of this
dismembered altarpiece, for which Fra Filippo received forty gold florins,
are now in the Accademia at Florence. They depict (a) St. Frediano
deviating the Course of the River Serchio; (b) The Virgin receiving the
Announcement of her Coming Decease; and (c) St. Augustine in his Study.
The Madonna and Child (No. 1345) is only a school picture.

PLATE II.—FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
(1406–1469)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL
No. 1344.—MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS AND
TWO ABBOTS
(La Vierge et l’Enfant Jésus entre deux abbés)

The Virgin stands before the throne holding the Infant Christ to the adoration of
two kneeling abbots and surrounded by six angels carrying lilies. To the left a monk
leans over the balustrade, and two small child-angels flank the composition on either
side.
Painted in tempera on panel.
7 ft. 1½ in. × 8 ft. 0¼ in. (2·17 × 2·44.)

In 1457, the year that Fra Filippo’s son Filippino was born, his household
effects and box of colours were seized for debt. He lived on until October 4,
1469, when he died of a sudden and somewhat mysterious illness. The
Frate, who is the connecting link between Masaccio, the first blossom, and
Raphael, the full flower of Florentine painting, was the master of Botticelli.
A small Madonna and Child (No. 1345) has little claim to be regarded as
the work of Fra Filippo.
In our attempt to unravel the skein of Italian art in this collection and to
sketch its history in strict chronological order we may now consider two
small predella panels of (a) St. Francis receiving the Stigmata and (b) An
Incident in the Life of St. Cosmo and St. Damian (No. 1414) by Francesco
Pesellino (1422–1457). The former deals with a subject we have already
met with in this Gallery (No. 1312); the latter is a new theme. St. Cosmo
and St. Damian were wealthy men and spent their time in doing charitable
works as doctors without monetary reward, and are thus sometimes known
as “the Holy Money-despisers.” According to the legend here represented, a
Christian was one day praying to these saints in the church dedicated to
them in Rome in the fervent hope that he might be healed of cancer in the
leg. While thus at prayer he imagined that his leg was amputated and
replaced by that of a dead Moor. In this small panel the saints are shown in
the act of placing the black man’s limb on the body of the Christian, who,
no doubt, will before long be healed. St. Cosmo and St. Damian being
patron saints of the Medici family are often met with in Florentine art. We
have already in this collection looked at a picture (No. 1293) by Fra
Angelico illustrating their martyrdom. Pesellino, who studied the art of Fra
Angelico, Masaccio, and Domenico Veneziano, and followed somewhat
closely in the steps of Fra Filippo Lippi, can hardly have painted the small
three-panel picture officially ascribed to him of (a) The Dead Christ, (b) A
Cardinal supporting the Bodies of Two Men who have been hanged, and (c)
A Cardinal appearing in a Vision to a Bishop. This small work (No. 1415),
which was formerly in the Campana collection, has been claimed by Dr.
Venturi and Mr. Berenson to be by the Umbrian artist, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.
The Madonna and Child and St. Augustin, St. John the Baptist, St.
Anthony, and St. Francis (No. 1661), which is officially catalogued as being
by an Unknown Florentine artist, and has been variously attributed to
Andrea del Castagno, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Andrea Verrocchio, may be

assigned to that nameless contemporary of Pesellino whose artistic
personality was a few years ago constructed by Mrs. Berenson under the
name of “Compagno di Pesellino.”
The art of the Umbrian artist, Piero dei Franceschi (1415?–1492), who is
so well represented in the National Gallery, is not seen at the Louvre,
where, however, a Madonna and Child passes under his name. This panel
(the official number of which is given in the Catalogue as 1300B and on the
frame as 1300a) was formerly in the Duchâtel collection before passing into
that of the Duc de la Trémoïlle, from whom it was purchased in 1898 for
£5200 by the Société des Amis du Louvre. It was recognised over twelve
years ago by M. Ary Renan as the work of Alessio Baldovinetti (14271499),
who, like Piero dei Franceschi, was formed on Domenico Veneziano, and
was also influenced by the discoveries and methods of Uccello.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle also had made that attribution before the
question was taken up by Mr. Berenson, who on morphological and
æsthetic grounds unhesitatingly ascribes it to Baldovinetti. “Compared with
Baldovinetti,” writes Mr. Berenson, “Piero dei Franceschi is sterner and
harder and more monumental. Piero’s Madonnas have a fixed and severe
physiognomy, massive structure and immobile pose; never a smile, never a
touch of tenderness.” How different from all this is the Madonna by
Baldovinetti before us, with her “refined features and her pensive gaze of
adoration—a look that unveils her inner life, a look that will soon develop
into the mystery which we feel in the face of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona
Lisa.” Vasari tells us that Baldovinetti was “extremely careful and exact in
his work, and of all the minutiæ which Mother Nature is capable of
presenting, he took pains to be the close imitator. He delighted in the
representation of landscape, which he depicted with the utmost exactitude;
thus we find in his pictures rivers, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, paths, fields,
cities, castles, sands, and objects innumerable of the same kind.” A goodly
number of these are included in the background of this picture.
With Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429–1498) and his brother Piero (1443–1496)
we enter on a more scientific era in Florentine art. Masaccio had already
advanced the study of the nude, and the influence of Donatello (1386–1466)
and other sculptors had drawn the attention of all art-workers to the fuller
significance of the human form. A more serious attempt was now made by
the rising generation of sculptors and painters, among whom Antonio

Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio (1435–1488) now played the leading parts, to
impart to the human figure a more exact physiological accuracy and so give
it greater effectiveness. The advance made by Baldovinetti in landscape
tended also to a more real sense of movement in a natural environment. The
Louvre catalogues no picture under the name of either of the Pollaiuoli, but
a Madonna (No. 1367a) here credited to Bastiano Mainardi was probably
executed by Piero, who frequently worked on his elder brother’s designs.
The influence of Alessio Baldovinetti is reflected in the pictures of
Cosimo Rosselli (1437–1507). Nothing is officially ascribed to him in this
collection, but the Annunciation, with St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony, St.
Catherine, and St. Peter Martyr (No. 1656), which is here catalogued as by
an Unknown fifteenth-century Florentine painter, is apparently his work. It
is inscribed with the date a.d.m.cccclxxiii.

THE GOLDSMITH PAINTERS
During the generation which preceded the activity of Domenico
Ghirlandaio (1449–1494) (who appears in the official Catalogue under the
name of Grillandaio) the art of the painter had often been combined with
that of the architect and sculptor. In time the influence of the goldsmith is
seen in the inclination of the more prosaic painters, among whom
Ghirlandaio holds an important place, to subordinate the pictorial qualities
of their compositions to the gold-worker’s love of ornamental detail and
fanciful jewellery. Paintings carried out in the goldsmith’s shop thus
contained in the action of the figures, the treatment of the draperies, and the
fanciful head-dresses, imitations of silver and bronze work. Domenico
Bigordi owed the name of Ghirlandaio, by which he is now generally
known, to his having been apprenticed to a goldsmith who acquired fame as
a maker of the jewelled coronals (ghirlande) that became fashionable. This
pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, who was a craftsman quite as much as a
painter, is to-day best known by the large number of frescoes he painted in
Tuscany.

PLATE III.—DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO
(1449–1494)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL
No. 1322.—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN AND HIS
GRANDSON
(“The Bottle-Nosed Man”)

(Portrait d’un Vieillard et de son petit-fils)

An old man, wearing a red robe edged with fur, looks down tenderly at his golden-
haired little grandson who lifts up his face to be kissed. Through an open casement is
seen a landscape.
Painted in tempera on panel.
2 ft. 0½ in. × 1 ft. 6¼ in. (0·62 × 0·46.)

In Ghirlandaio’s Visitation (No. 1321) the Virgin, her conventional robes
fastened by a morse such as this goldsmith-painter repeatedly introduced
into his pictures, stoops to greet St. Elizabeth. On the left is Mary Cleophas,
and from the right Mary Salome trips lightly on to the scene. As always in a
painting of this subject, the principal figures are silhouetted against the arch
in the background, through which the sky is seen. Characteristic of
Ghirlandaio’s paintings is the jewelled architecture which bears the date
1491, three years previous to his death. The Catalogue suggests that this
large picture was finished by either Davide or Benedetto, the brothers and
assistants of Domenico, but it is possible that his brother-in-law, Bastiano
Mainardi, may have worked on it. The French, having pointed out to the
Duke of Tuscany in 1815 that Florence possessed many better examples of
this painter’s art, were allowed to retain this panel picture, which had been
brought in 1806 from the Church of S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi at
Florence.
The delightful Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandson (No. 1322, Plate
III.), which is usually known as The Bottle-nosed Man, is an admirable
study from life. The winsome attitude of the little boy and the refined
expression of the old man are very pleasing. It is an incontrovertible, but
perhaps not obvious, fact that mere physiological ugliness can in the hands
of an accomplished artist be transformed into a medium of beauty. The
picture has unfortunately been damaged, notably in the forehead of the
principal figure. The certainty of touch and the delicacy of the modelling
indicate that this panel belongs to the last period of the artist’s activity,
when he also executed the magnificent Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi,
now in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.
One of Domenico’s brothers, Benedetto Ghirlandaio (1458–1497) is
credited with a Christ on the Way to Calvary (No. 1323). His own son,
Ridolfo (1483–1561), painted the Coronation of the Virgin (No. 1324) in
1503, the date being inscribed on the panel. Mainardi (fl. 1482–1513), the
brother-in-law, pupil, and imitator of Domenico, painted many pictures

which usually pass under the name of his more illustrious relation. This
pupil has painted in the tondo of the Madonna and Child (No. 1367) a
morse somewhat similar to that seen in the Visitation (No. 1321). In this
same group of artists must be placed a nameless assistant of Domenico. His
pictures have been grouped by Mr. Berenson, who calls him by the
descriptive name of “Alunno di Domenico,” and tentatively identifies him
with Bartolommeo di Giovanni, of whom very little is known. Alunno di
Domenico is thus credited with having executed the companion pictures
(No. 1416a and No. 1416b) of the Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus, a pagan
subject which suggests the advent of the decadence in Florentine art. These
two panels are officially catalogued under the name of Piero di Cosimo.

LEONARDO DA VINCI
We now have to pass from the mediocre artists who worked in the school
of Domenico Ghirlandaio to that great master, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–
1519), whose work in the oil medium can nowhere be studied so profitably
as in the Louvre. This many-sided genius was the natural and first-born son
of a country notary, and became a pupil of the sculptor-painter, Andrea del
Verrocchio, in whose workshop he met Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and
many less distinguished Florentine painters. His interests and occupations
were so various that a detailed study of his life-work reveals him as
scientist, philosopher, architect, sculptor, military engineer, mathematician,
botanist, and musician. The Annunciation (catalogued as No. 1602a and
labelled No. 1265), which in the official Catalogue is now only attributed to
him after having long passed under the name of Lorenzo di Credi, is
doubtless an early work of about 1472 by Leonardo. Some ten years later
Leonardo entered the service of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, in which
city he shortly afterwards painted the Virgin of the Rocks (No. 1599). This
fine painting—whose virtues are concealed under a thick coat of chilled
varnish—is reputed to have been in the collection of François i., although it
has no continuous pedigree earlier than the year 1625, when it was in the
royal collection at Fontainebleau. It is very similar to the painting of the
same subject which the National Gallery (No. 1093) purchased in 1880 for
£9000. The points of difference between the two versions are numerous but
trifling. The nimbi in the National Gallery picture were added much later
and are not found in the Louvre panel, which in the greater perfection of

detail, in the treatment of the foreground and the brushwork, prove it to be
an earlier and more authentic work. A careful examination of the documents
which came to light in the year 1893 shows that a dispute arose as to the
price to be paid by the Brotherhood of the Conception of Milan for the
picture now in the Louvre, and that Ambrogio da Predis and Leonardo da
Vinci petitioned the Duke of Milan to intervene. It would seem that the
National Gallery picture was executed in great part by Ambrogio, who
worked under the supervision of the great Florentine master, in 1494, about
twelve years later than the version in this collection. Leonardo’s greatest
contribution to Florentine art consisted in his practice of the science of
chiaroscuro, the laws of which he was the first to fully investigate.
Having begun his celebrated “Treatise on Painting” and recommenced
his work on the colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, which at the
moment of its destruction by the French bowmen in 1500 had earned him
lasting fame as a sculptor, Leonardo undertook his chef d’œuvre, The Last
Supper, at Milan. Executed in tempera on a badly prepared stucco ground,
the painting unfortunately soon began to perish, and although it was
restored in 1908 with great success by Professor Cavenaghi, only a faint
idea of its pristine beauty remains. The Louvre possesses a contemporary
copy (No. 1603a) of this fresco by Marco d’Oggiono, which was
commissioned by the Constable de Montmorency and long hung in the
Château d’Ecouen. A similar copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper was
purchased from a grocer in Milan in 1793 for £600, and is now in the Royal
Academy, London.

MONA LISA
When Lodovico Sforza was conquered by the French and his city
occupied by them, Leonardo set out for Mantua and Florence. It may have
been in the spring or summer of 1500 that he began to work on the Portrait
of Mona Lisa (No. 1601, Plate IV.) which officially passes under the title of
La Joconde. Vasari says that Leonardo worked on this picture for four
years, and finally left it unfinished. The words of Vasari must not be taken
too literally. We know, in fact, that Leonardo did not work in Florence for
four consecutive years during the period to which the Louvre’s treasured
picture belongs, but in 1502 visited Orvieto, Pœsaro, and Rimini, acting as
engineer to Cesare Borgia. He probably began it in 1500, resumed work on

it in 1503, and did not complete it until the following year. This would
make Vasari’s statement substantially correct. The subject of this world-
famous portrait was Lisa di Anton Maria di Noldo Gherardini, the third wife
of Francesco di Bartolommeo de Zenobi del Giocondo, whom she married
in 1495. It is from the surname of her husband that she derives the name of
“La Joconde” by which her portrait is now officially known. (The title has
nothing to do with any reference to her jocund outlook on life.) A French
critic has shown that Mona Lisa’s child died while this portrait was being
painted. “Whoever shall desire to see how far Art can imitate Nature,” says
Vasari, “may do so to perfection in this head, wherein every peculiarity that
could be depicted by the utmost subtlety of the pencil has been faithfully
reproduced. The eyes have the lustrous brightness and moisture which is
seen in life, and around them are those pale, red, and slightly livid circles
also proper to Nature. The nose, with its beautiful and delicately roseate
nostrils, might be easily believed to be alive; the mouth, admirable in its
outline, has the lips uniting the rose tints of their colour with those of the
face, in the utmost perfection, and the carnation of the cheek does not
appear to be painted, but truly flesh and blood.” This eulogistic criticism
may seem to-day to be somewhat excessive, but allowance must be made
for the drastic restorations to which the panel has been subjected from time
to time. As early as 1625 it is recorded to have been in a bad condition.
Tradition says that it was purchased by François i. for 4000 écus d’or, equal
to-day to about £1800, and hung in the Cabinet doré at Fontainebleau.
Cassiano del Pozzo has left it on record that the Duke of Buckingham, in
1625, when he was sent to escort Henrietta Maria to England as the bride of
Charles i., expressed the hope that he might be permitted to take the picture
back with him as a present from Henri iv. of France, who was with
difficulty prevented by his courtiers from acting on the suggestion. The
picture was at Versailles during the reign of Louis xiv.., and appeared in the
Louvre for the first time at the Revolution. In recent years it has been
placed in an excellent frame of the period.
By May 1506 Leonardo had returned to Milan, and there entered the
service of the French king. About 1508–12 he seems to have worked upon
the Madonna, Infant Christ, and St. Anne (No. 1598), which appears to
have been in part executed by an assistant, possibly Salaino. This large
panel was purchased by Cardinal Richelieu in 1629. A sketch by Leonardo
for part of this picture is in the Louvre (Drawing No. 391); other sketches

are in the Venice Academy and in the Royal Library, Windsor. The name of
Andrea Salaino (fl. 1495–1515) has been put forward as the painter of the
mysterious picture entitled St. John the Baptist (No. 1597), which was
evidently painted from a female model. It is difficult to accept the view put
forward by Théophile Gautier that in this androgynous figure we have
“another portrait of La Joconde, more mysterious, more strange, freed from
material likeness, and showing the soul through the veil of the body.” The
picture passed into the collection of Charles I. from Louis XIII. in exchange
for Holbein’s Portrait of Erasmus (No. 2715, Plate XXIV.) and a now
unrecognisable Holy Family by Titian, but on the dispersal of the English
king’s collection was purchased for £140 by Jabach, from whom it
ultimately passed to Louis xiv. It is a Milanese production, but not, in all
probability, from the hand of Leonardo himself, although officially so
regarded. The same criticism applies to the so-called Portrait of Lucrezia
Crivelli (No. 1600). Lucrezia was a lady-in-waiting to Beatrice d’Este, and
in 1496 Lodovico Sforza became enamoured of her, a historical event
which has no bearing on the identity of this portrait or on its official,
although uncertain, claim to strict authenticity. It has also been described
under the misleading title of La Belle Ferronnière, apparently in reference
to the wife of one Ferron, a blacksmith, who had according to tradition been
the mistress of François i., but was already dead when Leonardo passed into
the service of that king and came to France in 1516. The picture’s pedigree
cannot be traced further back than 1645, and the theories put forward in
connection with it are largely conjectural. It is, however, a Milanese
production of the school of Leonardo. The Profile Portrait of a Woman (No.
1605) was also a century ago loosely described as the Portrait of La Belle
Ferronnière; it is catalogued as a school picture, but is regarded by Mr.
Berenson as the work of Bernardino de’ Conti. The same critic is of the
opinion that the Bacchus (No. 1602) is “based no doubt on a drawing by
Leonardo,” but the Catalogue accepts it unhesitatingly. It seems to have
been originally intended as a St. John the Baptist with a staff, and
subsequently altered into a Bacchus with a thyrsus. The Madonna and Child
(No. 1603a), an attributed work, is only an old Flemish copy of a slightly
warped panel picture of the Madonna with the Carnation (No. 1040a) at
Munich. The Madonna of the Scales (No. 1604), which still passes as a
school picture, has long been regarded by responsible critics as being by

Cesare da Sesto, a pupil of Leonardo. The Holy Family (No. 1606), which
was formerly in the His de la Salle collection, is not now exhibited.
In 1516, within three years of his death, the great Florentine left Italy for
the Manor House of Cloux, near Amboise, in Touraine, to enter the service
of the French king. His right hand was paralysed—he was left-handed and
wrote from right to left—and his health was failing fast. The end of that
great life came on May 2, 1519, when every one lamented the loss of a man
and a painter “whose like Nature cannot produce a second time.”
The Madonna and Child, St. Julian, and St. Nicholas (No. 1263) is
perhaps the masterpiece of Lorenzo di Credi (1456?–1537), who was
another pupil of Verrocchio. He also painted the Christ appearing to Mary
Magdalene (No. 1264). The Annunciation (No. 1602a), which was formerly
assigned to Lorenzo in the Catalogue (No. 1265), is, as has already been
pointed out, an early work by Leonardo da Vinci.

BOTTICELLI
The ever-increasing regard in which pictures by Botticelli (1444–1510)
are held is traceable to the fact that they show the mystic spirit of mediæval
times mingled with a fantasy that is almost modern. He was a pupil of Fra
Filippo Lippi, and studied the more scientific methods which Antonio
Pollaiuolo adopted in his treatment of the human figure. Painting in an age
when poets penned canzones to many mistresses, and lovelorn gallants
spoke in impassioned verse of the great platonic emotions which stirred
them to the depth of their love-tormented souls, Botticelli stands forward as
the representative of the later years of the Medicean age. The mystic
tendency of his genius, his poetic imagination, his highly developed sense
of linear design, and the charm of his colour impart to his works a delicacy
and refinement which distinguish them from the works of his
contemporaries, pupils, and imitators. His fame had long been in eclipse
when half a century ago Ruskin rescued it from oblivion. Botticelli, who
now has become the object of a cult at the hands of fervent enthusiasts, is,
however, not to be ranked as a supreme master. He cannot be placed on the
same plane as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Giorgione.
Botticelli is inadequately represented at the Louvre, which possesses only
two authentic paintings from his hand. Neither of these is on panel or

canvas, but in fresco. He was commissioned in 1486, the year following his
Mars and Venus in the National Gallery (No. 915), to execute two wall
paintings (No. 1297, Plate V., and No. 1298) in the hall on the piano nobile
of the Villa Lemmi, at Chiasso Macerelli, between Fiesole and Florence, to
commemorate the marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna degli
Albizzi. These exquisite, but much injured, frescoes were covered over with
whitewash until 1873, and in 1882 they were removed from the wall and
sold to the Louvre for £1860. In the first (No. 1298) of the series Lorenzo
Tornabuoni, as Bridegroom, is admitted into the Circle of the Liberal Arts,
who give a gracious welcome to this friend of all the Muses. This fresco,
curiously enough, is in the official Catalogue regarded as only a school
picture. The second of these wonderful creations depicts Giovanna
Tornabuoni and the Three Graces (No. 1297, Plate V.). We see the Three
Graces bringing to Giovanna their gifts of Chastity, Beauty, and Love,
depicted symbolically as flowers. A tragic fate awaited the loving pair, as
Giovanna died within a few years in childbirth, while Lorenzo was
condemned to death in 1497 for conspiracy.

PLATE V.—BOTTICELLI
(1444–1510)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL
No. 1297.—GIOVANNA DEGLI ALBIZZI AND THE THREE
GRACES
(Giovanna Albizzi et les Trois Grâces ou les Vertus)

To the right Giovanna, a young woman in a red-brown dress, wearing a white veil
on her golden hair and a necklace of pearls round her neck, advances towards four
lovely maidens clad in delicately-tinted robes. She holds in her outstretched hands a
white linen cloth into which the four maidens throw flowers symbolic of the Virtues.
Fresco painting detached from the wall.
7 ft. 3 in. × 9 ft. 4 in. (2·12 × 2·84.)

The Madonna and Child and St. John (No. 1296), which was formerly
put forward by one critic as a “work of Botticelli’s early years, but showing
collaboration,” and which is still catalogued as being by the master himself,

is now generally recognised as a school picture only. The background is
formed by cypresses and rosebushes. The circular panel (No. 1295), which
is still credited officially to Sandro, is only a copy of the Madonna of the
Magnificat now in the Uffizi at Florence (No. 1267 Bis).
Authenticity cannot be claimed for the Fragment of a Predella (No.
1300), containing the figures of St. Peter Martyr, the Virgin, St. Elizabeth,
Christ and the Magdalene, David, St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. John the
Baptist. The Scene from the History of Virginia (No. 1662a or No. 1662
Bis), a cassone front, and the Portrait of a Young Man (No. 1663), which
was purchased in 1882 for £600, are catalogued as being by an unknown
Florentine painter. These have, however, been included by Mr. Berenson
among the numerous pictures painted by the nameless imitator of Botticelli,
whom the eminent critic has identified under the significant name of
“Amico di Sandro,” i.e. “The friend of Sandro Botticelli.” The Madonna
and Child adored by Angels (No. 1300a), bequeathed by the Baroness
Nathaniel de Rothschild, is regarded by the same high authority as a copy
by Jacopo del Sellaio (1442?–1493), a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi and an
imitator of Botticelli, of a lost picture by “Amico di Sandro.” The
unbeautiful Venus (No. 1299) from the Cardinal Fesch and Campana
collections (which is very similar to a picture (No. 916) in the National
Gallery), the Esther crowned by Ahasuerus (No. 1643a), and the St. Jerome
(No. 1658), must also be included among the mediocre works of Sellaio. In
the same group of Florentine painters is placed Francesco Botticini (1446–
1497), who worked under and was influenced by Cosimo Rosselli (1437?–
1507); the Virgin in Glory between the Magdalene and St. Bernard (No.
1482) is by Botticini although placed under the name of Rosselli in the
Catalogue. Many pictures by Botticini pass in public galleries under the
more illustrious name of Botticelli.
From Cosimo Rosselli we naturally pass to his pupil Piero di Cosimo
(1462–1521), who derived great pleasure from the painting of such scenes
from classic fable as enabled him to depict grotesque monsters, strange
animals, and fantastic costume. At first sight it might be assumed that the
Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus (No. 1416a and No. 1416b) were from his
brush; but although these two panels pass under his name in the Catalogue,
they are, as we have seen, by “Alunno di Domenico.” Piero is represented
in the Louvre exclusively by religious pictures, the most imposing of which

is the Coronation of the Virgin, with St. Jerome, St. Francis, St.
Bonaventura, and St. Louis of Toulouse (No. 1416). An unpleasing
Madonna (No. 1662) has long ago been assigned to Piero di Cosimo, who is
also the author of a St. John the Baptist as a Child (No. 1274), which is
labelled with the name of Uccello. The two last pictures hang in the Long
Gallery on either side of the door leading into Room VII.
The authorities catalogue as the work of Raffaelino del Garbo (1466–
1524) the large Coronation of the Virgin, with St. Benedict, St. Salvi, St.
John Gualberto, and St. Bernard degli Uberti (No. 1303), which is in
reality the centre part of a large altarpiece by Raffaelle dei Carli (1470–
1526?), who worked with Garbo and his group.
The great French Museum does not possess one of the only three easel
paintings which are now assigned by the safest critics to Michelangelo
(1475–1564), who as a painter is best known for his fresco paintings in
Rome. This collection is, however, fortunate enough to own the two
sculptures of the Slaves, represented as fettered and overcome by grief at
the death of Pope Julius ii., for whose tomb they were intended.

ALBERTINELLI
By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence had become the æsthetic
capital of Italy, and painters innumerable were plying their trade within her
walls. As they worked in close contact and unconsciously reflected the
influences which beset them on every side, it becomes increasingly difficult
to assign to any given artist the execution of certain works. The task
becomes even more difficult, and indeed thankless, when one is brought
face to face with such a composite picture as the Madonna and Child, St.
Jerome and St. Zenobius (No. 1114), which is officially ascribed to
Albertinelli (1474–1515). The leading authority on Italian art has given it as
his opinion that this large canvas, which is inscribed:
MARIOCTI DEBERTINELLIS OPUS
Ā. D̄ . M̊. DVI,

was “begun by Filippino Lippi, who laid in the St. Jerome, while
Albertinelli was assisted by Bugiardini in the execution of the rest,
especially in the child and landscape.” Albertinelli was the intimate friend

of Fra Bartolommeo, whose partner he eventually became. When it is
remembered that Albertinelli worked in the studio of Cosimo Rosselli with
Piero di Cosimo, who was the master of Fra Bartolommeo and had some
influence on Filippino Lippi, it will be recognised that it is only the
discerning critic of wide experience and consummate flair that can detect
the hand of various painters in a composite picture of this kind, as Mr.
Berenson has done.
The Christ appearing to the Magdalene (No. 1115), which passes
officially as the work of Albertinelli, was most probably an early picture by
Fra Bartolommeo (1472–1517), who, having like Botticelli come under the
spell of Savonarola, took the vows of a Dominican in July 1500, and
temporarily relinquished the professional activity of a painter. The Frate
took up his brush again and, while working between 1509 and 1512 as the
partner of Albertinelli, achieved the large and imposing Holy Family, with
St. Peter, St. Vincent, St. Stephen, and St. Catherine of Siena on the left, and
St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Bartholomew on the right (No. 1154). It is
signed on the base of the throne, in characteristic manner:
ORATE PRO PICTORE
MDXI
BARTHOLOME FLOREN̄ .
OR. PRAE.

Four years later he also completed his Annunciation (No. 1153), which is
inscribed:
F. Barto Florens oris pre.
1515.
The introduction of St. Paul, St. John the Baptist, and St. Margaret on the
left, and St. Mary Magdalene and St. Francis on the right, tends to destroy
the full significance of the principal theme. Fra Bartolommeo’s pictures
helped to emancipate Raphael from the mannerisms he had acquired from
Perugino; they mark a late period in the Renaissance art of Florence. He
lived until 1517, when Florentine painting was on the verge of a fast
approaching decadence.

Equally influential in the art of this period was Filippino Lippi (1457–
1504), whose tendency to over-ornamentation became more advanced in his
later years. In his fascinating pictures spiritual significance is at times
sacrificed to a love of mere display, the baroque flutterings of his draperies
and the air of affectation that he sometimes imparted to his figures. The
Louvre exhibits no example of the art of Filippino which in its latest phase
shows the early, although unmistakable, signs of decline.

ANDREA DEL SARTO
The highly technical skill and mellow colouring of Andrea del Sarto
(1486–1531) have long been known in France, where he was invited by
François i. For that monarch he executed the Charity (No. 1514), which,
having been transferred from panel to canvas by Picault in 1750 when the
process was little understood, suffered accordingly. In its present state we
can get little idea of the former brilliance of the picture which secured to the
“faultily faultless painter” in 1518—the year he arrived in France—a very
considerable income. It is inscribed:
ANDREAS SARTUS
FLORENTINTUS ME PINXIT
MDXVIII.

A Holy Family (No 1515), by the same facile painter, has been said by
some to portray in the features of the Virgin those of his own infamous wife
Lucrezia del Fede. It has been enlarged, and has suffered in the operation.
Less authentic are the Holy Family (No. 1516), which is said to bear the
inscription:
ANDREA DEL SARTO FLORENTINO FACIEBAT

followed by a monogram, and a lunette of the Annunciation (No. 1517).
The Portrait of Andrea Fausti, which is given in the Catalogue under the
name of Sarto, and described as being the work of a pupil, is held by some
critics to have been painted by Franciabigio (1482–1525), who came under
the influence of Andrea.
The insignificant Portrait of a Young Man (No. 1506), which since 1709
has passed under the quite fictitious title of the Portrait of Raphael, and is
indeed still catalogued under his name, is an ill drawn and badly coloured

production. It seems to issue from the influences we have just outlined.
Morelli regarded it as the work of Bacchiacca (1494–1557), who churned
up reminiscences of Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, and Perugino. Mr.
Berenson has tentatively assigned it to Sogliani, who imitated Albertinelli
and many other Florentines.
An unattributed Florentine Portrait of a Young Man (No. 1644), which
has been enlarged about three inches all round, had at one time or another
been ascribed without much discrimination to Raphael, Giorgione,
Sebastiano del Piombo, Francesco Francia, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and
Franciabigio! It is apparently from the hand of Giuliano Bugiardini (1475–
1554), a mediocre artist who endeavoured to appropriate all the conflicting
influences that he came under. It has long been hung to the left of Raphael’s
La Belle Jardinière.
A Florentine painter of no great accomplishment or originality in the first
half of the sixteenth century was Jacopo da Pontormo (1494–1557), who
painted the Portrait of an Engraver of Precious Stones (No. 1241) and the
large Holy Family (No. 1240). The Visitation (No. 1242) is a copy by a
pupil of his fresco in the Annunziata, Florence. By another pupil, Agnolo
Bronzino (1502–1572), are the Christ and the Magdalene (No. 1183), not
now exhibited, and the Portrait of a Sculptor (No. 1184); the Holy Family
(No. 1183a or No. 1183b) which was formerly in the Vandeuil collection is
only a copy. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1496–1541), who is called Rosso
Fiorentino to distinguish him from Francesco Rosso (Il Salviati), came to
work at the French Court about 1530; he painted a Pietà (No. 1485), and a
Challenge of the Pierides (No. 1486), which are hung among the French
pictures. The Portrait of a Musician (No. 1608), by Paolo Zacchia; the
Madonna, St. John and St. Stephen (No. 1133), by Michelangelo Anselmi;
the David overcoming Goliath (No. 1462), a repulsive production painted
by Daniele da Volterra (Ricciarelli) on both sides of a large piece of slate; a
Flight into Egypt (No. 1209), by Lodovico Cardi (Il Cigoli), and Matteo
Rosselli’s Triumph of David (No. 1483), are unworthy of comment. They
show unmistakably the characteristics of the Decadence in full operation.

THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL
W E have already sketched the earliest period of the art of Siena, and
seen how for a brief space of time it dominated that of Tuscany.
The greater precision of the Florentine technique, and the wider mental
outlook of its artists in the fifteenth century, placed it in the van before long.
Sano di Pietro (1406–1481), a pupil of Sassetta, undoubtedly painted the
five small characteristic panels (No. 1128–32), which illustrate scenes from
the Life of St. Jerome, and at one time formed the predella of a large
altarpiece. St. Jerome, with others of his order who run away, kneels under
a portico of the monastery he founded at Bethlehem, and is extracting a
thorn from the lion’s paw. According to the legend, the lion was afterwards
placed in charge of an ass which the monks employed to carry wood; we
see here that while the lion was asleep in the heat of the day under a clump
of trees, the ass was stolen by merchants. St. Jerome naturally believed that
the ass had not been carried off by a passing caravan, but eaten by the lion,
who subsequently saw his old friend the ass in the possession of the same
merchants that chanced to pass that way again. The lion is here seen (No.
1130) in the act of compelling, one might almost say pushing, the ass and
the other beasts of burden laden with provisions back into the monastery,
while the merchants flee away in terror.
The Louvre does not contain any work by Vecchietta (1412–1480), who
was architect as well as painter. A Birth of the Virgin (No. 1660), catalogued
as being by an unknown Florentine artist, is most probably from the hand of
Matteo di Giovanni (1435?–1495), who was most likely at one time a pupil
of Vecchietta. Another of the latter’s pupils, Francesco di Giorgio (1439–
1502), perhaps executed the panel of the Rape of Europa (No. 1640a or No.
1640 Bis), which the cataloguer relegates to the lengthy list of unattributed
Florentine works.
From these influences spring Girolamo di Benvenuto (1470–1524),
whose Judgment of Paris (No. 1668) passes in the Catalogue as a late
fifteenth century Bolognese picture. Bernardino Fungai (1460–1516), who
trod in the steps of Giovanni di Paolo, Francesco di Giorgio, and the

Umbrian artist Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and yet evinced no real signs of
development from within, is unrepresented in this collection.
This rapid survey of the School of Siena shows that it is not well
exemplified in the Louvre. The third-rate painters, Pacchiarotto (1474–
1540) and Beccafumi (1486–1551), will not detain us. Another
accomplished late Sienese eclectic, Girolamo del Pacchia (1477–1535?),
has been credited with a Crucifixion (No. 1642), but not by the official
cataloguer. Sodoma (1477–1551) also worked in Siena. Towards the year
1501 other artists of the various schools of Central Italy, including
Pinturicchio, Signorelli, and Perugino, visited the city, their advent bringing
about an artistic revolution. Before long the religious fervour, the delicate
ornamentation, the gesso-embellishment, the drawing in the flat, and the
miniature-like delicacy of an earlier age became extinct. The artistic glory
of Siena was dimmed, and rapidly passed into a period of decadence.
Among the last Sienese artists of any distinction were Baldassare Peruzzi
(1481–1536), an architect and painter, and Matteo Balducci (fl. 1509–
1553), to whom we may perhaps ascribe the Judgment of Solomon (No.
1571) and the Judgment of Daniel (No. 1572). In any case these pictures
belong to the Umbro-Sienese period of Central Italian art; they are officially
regarded as being by Perugino himself. When all originality had passed out
of Sienese painting, Francesco Vanni (1563?–1609) produced his Repose on
the Flight into Egypt (No. 1561) and the Martyrdom of St. Irene (No. 1562).

THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL
A T the head of the various local centres of painting which form the
school of Umbria we must place Alegretto Nuzi (died 1385), whose
works are very rarely met with in museums north of Italy. He inherited the
best Giottesque traditions, and became the teacher of Gentile da Fabriano
(1360?–1428), an early master whose influence was more far-reaching and
inspiring than we can to-day trace in any detail. The Louvre has the good
fortune to contain a precious little predella panel of the Presentation in the
Temple (No. 1278), which is very decorative and exhibits a strongly marked
appreciation of architecture. It is the only separated panel from the predella
of Gentile’s large and magnificent altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi,
of 1423, which was seized by Napoleon but was returned in 1815. It is now
in the Accademia at Florence.
The Miracle of St. Nicholas giving a Dowry to the Three Daughters of a
Nobleman (No. 1659), which is officially classed among the unattributable
works of the Florentine school, is now considered to be by Giovanni
Francesco da Rimini, while the Madonna and Child (No. 1300a or 1300b)
which is officially ascribed to Piero dei Franceschi, the leading painter of
his generation in the school of Umbria, must, as we have seen, be given to
Alessio Baldovinetti of the Florentine school.
Again, the three-panel picture (No. 1415) which is credited to Pesellino
of Florence is in reality from the hand of the Umbrian artist Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo (1440–1521). The collection is not rich in the works of the earliest
painters of this school, but the Birth of the Virgin (No. 1525), a detached
panel from a lost or unidentified altarpiece by Luca Signorelli (1441–1523),
gives us some idea of the great power of this influential master, whose
knowledge of composition and anatomy is best seen in his frescoes at
Orvieto. Signorelli’s sense of complicated movement and crowded action
mark an epoch in the art of Umbria. The Fragment of a Large Picture (No.
1527) seems to be imbued with his spirit, but the large Adoration of the
Magi (No. 1526) which comes from Città di Castello, and a Madonna and
Child with St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Catherine, and other Saints (No. 1528),

contain none of the vigorous originality of that master from whom even
Michelangelo did not disdain to borrow on occasion. Three predella panels
(No. 1120) have been dismembered from a large altarpiece by Niccolò da
Foligno, and were originally painted for a side altar in the Church of S.
Niccolò at Foligno. In the art of this over-emotional Umbrian, what is
meant for deep religious feeling is by exaggeration almost transformed into
grimacing passion.

PERUGINO
Niccolò’s most illustrious contemporary in this school was Pietro
Perugino (1446–1523). Over fifty of the religious pictures of this influential
and accomplished master were carried off from Central Italy by Napoleon.
He is well represented in this Gallery. The contemplative and deeply
impressive pictures of his less mannered style are among the best pictures
which Umbria has given us, but there is a tendency, notably towards the end
of his career, to repeat his compositions, only altering the attitude of a
single figure, and so exhibiting a marked lack of originality. His early Holy
Family with St. Rose and St. Catherine (No. 1564), painted about 1491, is a
little cramped; the tondo hardly provides sufficient space to contain the
rather stiff figures, and the treatment is unpleasantly conventional. It also
recalls the art of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The St. Sebastian (No. 1566a, Plate
VI.), which is inscribed:
SAGITTÆ TVÆ INFIXÆ SVNT MICHI,

is a favourite subject with this master, who painted it at least eight times on
a large scale, as well as in a miniature now lent to the National Gallery by
Mr. H. Yates Thompson. The Holy Family with St. Catherine (No. 1565) is
said to bear the characteristic signature:
PETRUS PERVSINUS PINXIT.

The Combat of Love and Chastity (No. 1567) was commissioned by
Isabella d’Este, Duchess of Mantua, in 1505, and removed at the sack of
that city in 1630 to the Château of Richelieu, where it remained down to the
Revolution. The St. Paul (No. 1566) is a very late and not very attractive
work. In his best pictures Perugino loved to paint a purist landscape with its
buoyant spaciousness of view, but too frequently his figures are
insufficiently dramatic and have a tendency towards sentimentality. A very

late St. Sebastian (No. 1668a), which is on a much smaller scale than the
subject of our illustration (Plate VI.), is officially catalogued as being by an
Unknown Umbrian painter. The Apollo and Marsyas (No. 1509), which was
purchased at Christie’s in 1850 for £70 by Morris Moore, with an ascription
to Mantegna, was in 1883 sold to the Louvre for £8000. It long hung in the
Salon Carré as a Raphael, but is now only attributed to him by the
cataloguer. This gem of Umbrian art has successively been ascribed by
critics to Pintoricchio, Timoteo Viti, Francesco Francia, and others, but is
to-day generally regarded as a very fine example of the art of Perugino.
Two pictures (No. 1573 and No. 1573a) of the Madonna and Child are by
unidentifiable pupils of Perugino.
One of the most recent acquisitions is a Madonna by Antoniazzo Romano
(1440?–1508), the gift of M. Lucien Delamarre. The art of Pintoricchio
(1454–1513) is shown in the Madonna and Child with St. Gregory and
another Saint (No. 1417), while Lo Spagna (1475?–1528?), a pupil of
Perugino, is represented by a Nativity (No. 1539), a Madonna and Child
(No. 1540), and by three small pictures illustrating the Dead Christ, the
Virgin, and St. John (No. 1568), St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata
(No. 1569), and St. Jerome in the Desert (No. 1570).
A mediocre pupil of Perugino and Pintoricchio, Giannicola Manni (fl.
1493–1544), is doubtless responsible for the Baptism of Christ (No. 1369),
the Assumption (No. 1370), the Adoration of the Magi (No. 1371), and the
Holy Family (1372) which pass under his name. The last-mentioned panel
was attributed by Villot, apparently without much reason, to L’Ingegno.

RAPHAEL
The majority of the thirteen pictures which in the Louvre are
unreservedly catalogued under the great name of Raphael (1483–1520)
certainly belong to his third or Roman period, and in many of them he
obviously received a large amount of assistance from his pupil, Giulio
Romano. It is this fact, no doubt, which has led the compiler of the
Catalogue to place the “Divine Urbinate” in the Roman school. It will,
however, be readily admitted that such a classification is both arbitrary and
misleading.

PLATE VI.—PERUGINO
(1446–1523)

UMBRIAN SCHOOL
No. 1566a.-ST. SEBASTIAN
(Saint Sébastien)

The Saint stands with his hands behind his back bound to a pillar, with his head
raised towards heaven. An arrow pierces his right arm and another his left breast. The
body is nude, but for a white loin cloth striped with red and blue. In the background

is a rounded arch supported by two highly ornamented pillars. Through the archway
is seen a beautiful landscape.
Painted in tempera on panel.
Signed:—“sagittæ tvæ infixæ svnt michi.”
5 ft. 7 in. × 3 ft. 10 in. (1·70 × 1·17.)

Although he lived but thirty-seven years, Raphael gave to the world a
vast amount of art treasure. Brought up in Urbino, where his father,
Giovanni Santi, was poet as well as painter, he passed before he was fifteen
under the direct influence of Timoteo Viti, who had worked at Bologna
under Francesco Francia. Raphael became the pupil of Perugino at Perugia
about 1500, and also worked as the assistant of Pintoricchio. His art being
thus formed on the best Umbrian tradition, Raphael in October 1504 left
Perugia for Florence, and it was only at that date that he began to acquire a
distinctive style of his own. During his second or Florentine period he
painted the St. George and the Dragon (No. 1503), in which is seen the
chivalrous knight mounted on a pure white steed; his lance is broken in his
combat with the monster, and he is forced to use his sword, while the little
Princess Cleodolinda flees in abject terror into the background. The very
small panel of St. Michael (No. 1502), which is a chessboard on the back,
was painted for Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and eventually passed into the
collections of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis xiv. The Madonna and Child
which has come to be known as La Belle Jardinière (No. 1496, Plate VII.)
is rather later than the Madonna del Gran’ Duca in the Pitti Palace, the
Cardellino Madonna in the Uffizi, and the Ansidei Madonna in the National
Gallery. It is one of the most famous of Raphael’s saintly and ideal
Madonnas; the pose of the figures is easy, the treatment simple, the colour
exquisite. The landscape background is poetic in feeling, and conveys the
mood which makes this one of Raphael’s most pleasing creations. The thin
feathery trees and the treatment of the Virgin’s hair are still Peruginesque,
but the superiority of the pupil to the master is gradually making itself felt.
The Infant Christ is standing on the right foot of His mother. Tradition says
that Raphael entrusted to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio the task of painting in the
blue of the Virgin’s garment. The drapery is apparently inscribed:
VRB. RAPHAELLO MDVII.

After working for four years in Florence, Raphael went in the summer of
1508 to Rome, where he achieved such a vast amount of work for Popes

Julius ii. and Leo x. His work was increased by his appointment, on the
death of Bramante in 1514, as Architect of St. Peter’s and Inspector of
Antiquities.
About 1515–16 Raphael delighted to paint the Portrait of Baldassare
Castiglione (No. 1505, Plate VIII.), who was his lifelong friend and adviser
as well as the author of Il Cortegiano. This picture, which is eloquent
testimony to Raphael’s skill as a portrait painter, was originally on wood,
but it was long ago transferred to canvas, which has unfortunately abraded,
the paint having peeled off the hands. After the death of Castiglione in
Spain, this picture which he had taken with him passed into the possession
of the Duke of Mantua, and thence into the collection of Charles i., where it
seems to have been copied by Rubens. It subsequently became the property
of a Dutch amateur named Van Asselen, and was copied by Rembrandt.
Later, it was sold for 3500 florins to Don Alfonso Lopez, a collector at
Amsterdam, and after figuring in the collection of Mazarin was acquired by
Louis xiv.
The Holy Family of Francis I. (No. 1498) was commissioned by Lorenzo
de’ Medici and presented to the Queen of François i. by Pope Leo x. It was
originally painted on wood, and was forwarded to Lyons on April 19, 1518.
During the reign of Louis xiv. it hung in the grand appartement at
Versailles, and having been placed near a fireplace had to be relined. It then
had wings, but they were destroyed at the time of the Revolution. Although
it is very ostentatiously signed
RAPHAEL VRBINAS PINGEBAT MDXVIII

on the edge of the robe of the kneeling Madonna, there can be no question
that it was only designed by Raphael, the execution being wholly or in great
part carried out by the master’s best pupil, Giulio Romano. In the Sistine
Madonna and such works as Raphael painted at this period entirely with his
own hand we see that his technique had become masterly and his powers of
composition had developed to the utmost. Compared with La Belle
Jardinière of a decade earlier, a greater knowledge of craftsmanship has
been accompanied by a loss of purity and simplicity.

PLATE VII.—RAPHAEL
(1483–1520)

UMBRIAN SCHOOL
No. 1496.—LA BELLE JARDINIÈRE
(La Vierge dite La Belle Jardinière)

The Virgin is seated in a flowery meadow. She wears a red tunic edged with black,
yellow sleeves and a blue mantle; a book is on her knees; her fair hair is confined
under a transparent veil. She looks down to the left at the Infant Jesus, who leans
tenderly against her knee and draws her attention to the little St. John the Baptist

who kneels to the right, his reed cross in his right hand. The background shows a
landscape containing a small town with its church, and a lake surrounded by
mountains.
Painted in oil on panel.
The signature seems to be:—“vrb. raphaello mdvii.”
3 ft. 8 in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·22 × 0·80.)

Two years before his death Raphael had designed the large but by no
means imposing St. Michael overcoming Satan (No. 1504), the execution of
which on panel was certainly due to Giulio Romano. It was a gift from
Lorenzo de’ Medici to François i., the original cartoon being presented by
Raphael to the Duke of Ferrara. This picture, like the Holy Family of
Francis I., was originally protected by folding wings, the inner sides of
which were lined with green velvet, while the outer were gilded and painted
with arabesques. The two pictures arrived at Fontainebleau in July 1518,
having been carried on the back of mules by way of Florence and Lyons. As
early as 1530 the St. Michael was restored by Primaticcio and by many
others subsequently, notably in 1752. The picture was transferred to canvas
by Picault, who received for his labours the large sum of 11,500 livres, a
sum quite out of proportion to its æsthetic or financial value to-day. It was
again restored in 1776, 1800, and 1850. It is signed in gilt characters on the
edge of the Archangel’s tunic:
RAPHAEL VRBINAS PINGEBAT MDXVIII.

The Demon is not shown, as in the early and small picture of the same
subject (No. 1502), as a dragon, but as a half-human monster with horns
and tail. The foreshortening is undoubtedly clever, but the picture is too
instantaneous in its dramatic action. In the course of time the high lights
have gone down and the shadows darkened in the metallic-looking figure of
the Archangel.
The Virgin with the Blue Diadem or the Virgin with the Veil (No. 1497) is
one of at least ten pictures in this collection which were carried out by
Giulio Romano (1492?–1546). It is here credited to Raphael. It has been
repeatedly restored. A very large number of replicas, variants, and old
copies of this panel exist. The following “Raphaels” may be regarded as the
work of Giulio: the Small Holy Family with St. Elizabeth (No. 1499); the
much restored Saint Margaret (No. 1501); the Portrait of Joan of Arragon
(No. 1507), whom Raphael apparently never saw; and the Portraits of Two

Men seen to the Bust (which has been called Raphael and his Fencing
Master) (No. 1508). Giulio certainly painted the Triumph of Titus and
Vespasian (No. 1420), the Venus and Vulcan (No. 1421), and the Portrait of
a Man (No. 1422), which are catalogued under his name, and in all
probability the three large Cartoons entitled A Triumph, The Triumph of
Scipio, and The Taking and Burning of a City, which hang on the Escalier
Daru. The Circumcision (No. 1438) which figures officially under the name
of the Bolognese painter Bartolommeo Ramenghi (Il Bagnacavallo) (1484–
1542) is by Giulio Romano.
The fresco painting of The Eternal Father (No. 1512), which is now
inserted over the door of the Salle des Primitifs (Room VII.), was certainly
executed during the lifetime of Raphael, and probably under his
supervision. It was painted for the chapel attached to the Villa Magliana, a
favourite hunting-box of Pope Leo x., who commissioned it. It was
purchased in 1873 for the large sum of £8280.
From the hand of Giannicola Manni (fl. 1493–1544) come the Baptism of
Christ (No. 1369), the Assumption (No. 1370), the Adoration of the Magi
(No. 1371), and a Holy Family (No. 1372), while a fully signed Dead Christ
supported by Two Angels (No. 1400) is by the mediocre Umbrian artist
Marco Palmezzano (fl. 1456–1538). The latter’s pupil, Zaganelli da
Cottignola (1460?–1531), may have painted the Christ bearing His Cross
(No. 1641) which is catalogued as an unattributable Italian work.

PLATE VIII.—RAPHAEL
(1483–1520)

UMBRIAN SCHOOL
No. 1505.—PORTRAIT OF BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE
(Portrait de Balthazar Castiglione, ambassadeur et littérateur)
He is seen nearly in full face. He wears a white linen under-garment, an over-dress
of black velvet with grey sleeves, and a cap.
Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 0½ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·62 × 0·67.)

THE VENETIAN SCHOOL
T HE conquest of Byzantium during the Fourth Crusade by Doge
Enrico Dandolo in 1204, an epoch-making event in the history of
Venice and Venetian art, strengthened the intercourse between the East and
the City of the Lagoons. At the same time it riveted the fetters of
Byzantinism on to the nascent art of Venice, to which it also imparted a
sense of intense Oriental colour.
The frescoes painted in Tuscany on the lines of Giottesque tradition and
the environment under which its painters worked, in time gave to the
Florentines a sense of line and form which produced a school of idealists:
on the other hand, the colour-impressions created on the mind of the
Venetian painter by the relics from the East and the brilliant mosaics which
he saw around him resulted eventually in the formation of a school of
colourists with a realistic tendency.
It will cause little surprise that the Louvre contains no polyptych by the
very early Venetians, Niccolò Semitecolo (fl. 1351–1400), Jacobello del
Fiore (died 1439), and Michele Giambono (fl. 1420–1462). The Gallery
possesses, however, a fourteenth-century Venetian arched panel of the
Madonna and Child (No. 1541) which is attributed to Stefano Veneziano.
In the early fifteenth century the dominating influence exerted on the
painters of Venice was that of Jacopo Bellini (1400?–1470), whose sons,
Gentile and Giovanni, and son-in-law, Andrea Mantegna, were to shape the
destinies of the school throughout the Renaissance. Jacopo’s drawing is
seen in its full maturity in the Sketch-book of about 1450 which belongs to
the Louvre but is not publicly exhibited. Another Sketch-book by him of
about 1430 is one of the treasured possessions of the British Museum.
Jacopo had in early life been the pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, who, together
with Alegretto Nuzi, stands at the head of the Umbrian school, and of
Antonio Pisanello (1397–1455), the medallist-painter who played such an
important part in the art of Verona. Both Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello
worked for a time at Venice. Under the circumstances, therefore, it is not
surprising to find that a Madonna and Child with a Donor (No. 1159a,

formerly No. 1279 and No. 171), which is now justly ascribed in the
Catalogue to Jacopo Bellini, was long assigned officially to Gentile Bellini,
although held by some critics to have been painted in the school of
Pisanello. The name of the Donor in this picture is given in the Catalogue as
Leonello d’Este and on the frame as Pandolfo Malatesta; it would, however,
seem to be the portrait of Sigismondo Malatesta.
Four small triptychs (Nos. 1280–83) from the Campana collection still
pass officially under the ambiguous designation of “School of Gentile da
Fabriano”; they may, however, without much doubt be ascribed to Antonio
Vivarini, who remained outside the Bellini sphere of influence, and died
about 1470.

THE BELLINI
The sunny splendour of Venetian painting reached its zenith in the
bottega of the Bellini. Gentile, who was sent to Constantinople with the
authority of the Republic in 1479, painted portraits, ceremonial, religious,
and historical pictures, many of which are on a large scale, while Giovanni
was for many years the greatest teacher and the most influential painter in
Venetian territory. Giovanni executed a large number of panels and
canvases which in the period of his maturity exhibit a profound sense of
dignity, beauty, religious feeling, and rich deep colour. Most of those which
are signed in a cartellino “ioannes bellinus” (in capitals and, of course, in
pigment of the period) are authentic works from his own hand. The majority
of those which bear what to the unpractised eye might be taken for his
personal signature, but are only signed in uncials (“Ioannes Bellinus”), must
be regarded as mere studio productions. In the sixteenth century no one was
misled by these alternative methods of personal signature and studio-mark.
Although the Louvre authorities catalogue two pictures under the name of
Gentile and three under that of Giovanni, none of them is from the hand of
either of these brothers.
Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano (fl. 1450–1499) was the pupil of
Giovanni d’Allemagna, who worked in Venice, and Antonio Vivarini. He
painted a large panel of St. John of Capistrano (No. 1607), which is signed
and dated
OPVS BARTHOLOMEI VI[V]ARINI DE MURAHO—1459.

Alvise or Luigi Vivarini (fl. 1461–1503), the nephew of Bartolommeo,
was the last and most distinguished painter in the Murano school. He
carried on the old traditions of Early Venetian art until the day when the
rival school of the Bellini had become supreme in Venice, and so had begun
to prepare the way for the triumphs of the Giorgionesque period—the
golden age of Venetian painting. The Portrait of a Man (No. 1519),
catalogued under the name of Savoldo (1480?–1548?) is by Alvise. This
magnificent bust-length picture represents Bernardo di Salla, who holds in
his gloved right hand a paper inscribed “Dono Bnardo di Salla.” It vividly
recalls the Portrait of a Man with a Hawk at Windsor, which, although it
traditionally but erroneously bears the name of Leonardo da Vinci and has
been ascribed to Savoldo, is in all probability another of the rare portraits
by Alvise.
From the Vivarini group issues Carlo Crivelli (1430?–1493?). His
morosely ascetic compositions, with their elaborate draperies, jewelled
ornamentation, and at times grotesque anatomy, distinguish his polyptychs,
all of which are painted in tempera, from those of any other painter in the
whole range of art. His large panel picture of St. Bernardino of Siena (No.
1268) is inscribed
OPUS CAROLI CRIVELLI VENETI, 1477.

It belongs to his middle period, and was painted nine years earlier than his
magnificent Annunciation, now one of the gems of the National Gallery
(No. 739); both these pictures came from the Church of the Annunziata at
Ascoli.
Another painter who carried on the Vivarini tradition but was influenced
by Giovanni Bellini, was Giovanni Battista Cima (1460?–1517?), whose art
is adequately shown in the Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist
and St. Mary Magdalene (No. 1259). The signature
IOANIS BAPT.
CONEGLANES.
OPVS.

as well as the internal evidence of the picture show it to be an authentic
work.

One of the best, but until recent years one of the least known, members
of that brilliant group of painters who flourished at Venice in the early half
of the sixteenth century was Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556). He practised his
art in many parts of Italy, and for that reason has been less generally known
than many of his contemporaries. He was a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but
benefited largely by the example of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. His art
is not well seen in the small St. Jerome (No. 1350), which is signed and
dated “lotvs 1500” and must therefore be one of his earliest and least
ambitious works, nor in his Holy Family (No. 1351) which was formerly
attributed to Dosso Dossi. Replicas have been found of his Christ and the
Woman taken in Adultery (No. 1349).

PLATE IX.—ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
(1430–1479)

VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1134.—PORTRAIT OF A CONDOTTIERE
(Portrait d’homme dit le Condottiere)

Bust portrait, turned three-quarters to the left. He wears a black doublet, above the
collar of which is visible the edge of a white linen under-garment. Under his cap is
seen his zazzara of red-brown hair.
Painted in oil on panel.

Signed:
“1474
Antonellus Messaneus me
pinxit.”
1 ft. 1 in. × 11 in. (0·33 × 0·28.)

Although we possess very detailed records of Antonello da Messina
(1430–1479), his movements and his life’s work, it is only in recent years
that they have been studied with any care. This Sicilian-born artist
obviously cannot have set out for Flanders and there have learnt from Jan
van Eyck (who died in 1441) the “discovery” of oil as a medium in
painting, as Vasari tells us. But he may have seen in Italy a picture by the
great Northern artist and from it have acquired some facility in the use of
oil and in finishing with glazes of oil panels which had been begun in
tempera. He was certainly in Venice in 1475–76, if not earlier, and his
Portrait of a Condottiere (No. 1134, Plate IX.), which is characteristically
signed and dated
1474
Antonellus Messaneus me
pinxit
belongs to that period of his full maturity. It was purchased at the Pourtalès-
Gorgier sale in 1865 for £4767. In any case, the discoveries with which
Antonello is credited within a few years completely revolutionised the
methods of painting throughout Italy, and prepare us for the wonderful
achievements of the later Venetians, who followed and improved upon the
Bellini tradition.
Vittore Carpaccio (1455?–1526) was, like Gentile Bellini, a painter of
Venetian fêtes, pageantry, and religious pictures on an imposing scale.
Nothing is known of Carpaccio’s artistic descent, but his work shows traces
of the influence of Jacopo Bellini and of Lazzaro Bastiani, who was the
head of a group of artists whose art was based on the tradition of such early
painters as Jacobello del Fiore. Carpaccio’s Preaching of St. Stephen at
Jerusalem (No. 1211) is one of the series of five incidents from the Life of
St. Stephen which were painted by this artist between 1511 and 1520 for the
Scuola di S. Stefano at Milan. The others of the series are now in the Milan
Gallery (No. 170—signed and dated 1513), at Berlin (No. 23), and at
Stuttgart. The Louvre obtained this canvas, which varies from the others in

size, from the Milan Gallery in 1813, when together with Boltraffio’s
Madonna of the Casio Family (No. 1169) and other pictures it was
exchanged for works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens.
To Vincenzo Catena (14..?–1531?) may be assigned, on stylistic grounds,
the Reception of a Venetian Ambassador at Cairo in 1512 (No. 1157). In
any case, it cannot have been executed by Gentile Bellini, as alleged in the
Catalogue, as the audience here depicted did not take place until five years
after that master’s death!
Another Bellinesque painter was Bartolommeo Veneto (fl. 1505–1555).
We shall, following the suggestion of Venturi, assign to him the excellent
but officially unattributed Portrait of a Lady (No. 1673) which hangs to the
right of Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière.

GIORGIONE
Although a large number of really representative examples of the great
lyricist Giorgione (1477–1510) have not come down to us, he is to be
regarded as the greatest of the Venetian artists, and perhaps the most
romantic painter that Europe has ever known. He was, together with his
illustrious contemporary Titian, a pupil of Giovanni Bellini. His Pastoral
Symphony (No. 1136, Plate X.) is one of the most beautiful idyllic groups in
the whole range of painting, and shows that Giorgione could naively reveal
the inner depths of thought and feeling and depict “passionate souls in
passionate bodies.” Early in the sixteenth century the austere traditions of
the Bellinesque era were passing away. Giorgione now began to unseal the
eyes of his contemporaries, among whom Titian occupied an important
place, to the “life-giving and death-dealing waters of love,” making the
landscape background of his lyrical compositions respond to the mood of
the incident illustrated. The Pastoral Symphony was acquired by Charles i.
from the collection of the Duke of Mantua; it then passed to Jabach, and
subsequently to Louis xiv. Although it has been slightly restored and has
from time to time been without any reason ascribed to Titian, Sebastiano del
Piombo and a large number of Venetian artists, it is to-day recognised on all
sides as an excellent example of Giorgione.

PLATE X.—GIORGIONE
(1477?–1510)

VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1136.—PASTORAL SYMPHONY
(Concert Champêtre)

Two young men are seated on the grass; the one, wearing a green tunic with red
sleeves, a red cap and parti-coloured hose, is playing on the lute; his companion
bends over to listen to him. Before them a nude woman, her back turned to the
spectator, is seated holding a flute. To the left another nude woman, with a drapery
across her left hip, is drawing water at a fountain. In the background to the right is
seen a shepherd with his flock. In the centre background are some houses.
Painted in oil on canvas.
3 ft. 7½ in. × 4 ft. 6½ in. (1·10 × 1·38.)

The same influences which formed the art of Giorgione inspired the
pictures of Palma Vecchio (1480–1528), whose Adoration of the Shepherds
with a Female Donor (No. 1399, Plate XI.) is brilliant in colour. The
signature in the right foreground of this canvas, tician, is false. Palma left a
large number of pictures unfinished at his death.
The Visitation (No. 1352) is an admirable example of the art of
Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547), and is signed
SEBASTIANVS VENETVS FACIEBAT
ROMAE MDXXI.

It was purchased in the year indicated in the inscription by François i., who
added it to his collection at Fontainebleau, whence it was removed by Louis
xiv. to Versailles. The canvas, which has been a good deal injured, has at
some time been cut into three pieces. The name by which this artist is
generally known was derived from the office which he held late in life at
the Papal Court. There he forsook the traditions of his native school and
gradually came under the influence of Michelangelo. In Rome he also met
Raphael, who was much impressed by his colour schemes: the St. John the
Baptist in the Desert (No. 1500), here catalogued under the name of
Raphael, and a few pictures similarly attributed in other galleries, were
painted by Sebastiano in his Roman manner.
A prominent place among the less important artists generally included in
this school must be accorded to Cariani (1480?–1547?). A large proportion
of the pictures of this Bergamask painter usually pass under more imposing
names, and it is a remarkable fact that we do not find any work attributed to
him in the official Catalogue. He, however, painted a Holy Family (No.
1135), here assigned to Giorgione, as well as the Madonna and Child and
St. Sebastian (No. 1159) given to Giovanni Bellini. The Portrait of Two
Men (No. 1156), which for no very apparent reason was once regarded as
the portraits of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, must be by Cariani, although
still placed to the credit of Gentile.
Another of the less efficient pupils of Giovanni Bellini was Niccolò
Rondinelli (fl. 1480–1500), whose Madonna and Child, St. Peter, and St.
Sebastian (No. 1158) masquerades as a work by Giovanni Bellini, whose
full name, ioannes bellinvs, is inscribed in capitals (not, however, placed in
a cartellino) on the parapet which runs across the front of the panel.

TITIAN
Although we have only limited space to deal with the differences of the
critics as to the probable date of Titian’s birth, we may point out that it was,
until recent times, placed in the year 1477. Mr. Herbert Cook has, however,
put forward a very strong case in favour of the year 1489, pointing out the
remarkable fact that there is no record of Titian earlier than Dec. 2, 1511, or,
according to the usual chronology, until he was thirty-five years of age!
Again, L. Dolce, in 1557, wrote that Titian was “scarcely twenty years old
when Giorgione was painting the façade of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi”; and
we know that Titian was his assistant on that work in 1507–8. Vasari also
asserts, as Mr. Cook reminds us, that the famous Venetian was “about
seventy-six years old in 1566–67,” when he visited him in Venice. No
reliance is to be placed on the date contained in the well-known letter which
Titian addressed to Philip II. in 1571, as he evidently had a motive in
referring to himself as “an old servant of ninety-five.” There is, however, no
doubt that Titian died in 1576.

PLATE XI.—PALMA VECCHIO
(1480–1528)

VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1399.—THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS,
WITH A FEMALE DONOR
(L’Annonce aux Bergers)

The Virgin is seated and holds the Infant Jesus on a cradle formed of basket-work;
she wears a red robe with blue and green draperies and a white veil, under which her
brown hair is seen. To her right St. Joseph is seated leaning on his staff; before him a
shepherd boy kneels in adoration to the Infant Christ. To the left kneels the
donatrice, her hands folded. In the ruined shed behind the Holy Family are the ox
and ass. To the right of the composition is a landscape background in which several
figures appear. A small group of angels in the sky.
Painted in oil on canvas.
4 ft. 7 in. × 6 ft. 11 in. (1·40 × 2·10.)

Titian, who was a native of Cadore, left his home at an early age for
Venice. He was first placed as a pupil of Sebastian Zuccato, a mosaicist and
perhaps a painter; he then seems to have worked in the studio of Gentile
Bellini before passing into that of Giovanni, where he met Giorgione.
Titian, like Giotto, has been called “the Father of modern painting.” The
early Florentine had provided his countrymen with a set of fundamental
principles of art, but it remained for the illustrious Venetian to endow his
contemporaries and artistic descendants with a more complete equipment
and a new sense of pictorial effect. The profound impression exerted by
Giorgione on the youthful Titian inspired him to achieve those idyllic
compositions and “poesies” which stand out so prominently among the
world’s pictures.
Titian’s earliest picture in the Louvre is the Virgin and Child, with St.
Stephen, St. Ambrose, and St. Maurice (No. 1577), of about 1508–1510. It
is very reminiscent of a picture by Titian in the Vienna Gallery (No. 166), in
which he has substituted St. Jerome for St. Ambrose.
No doubt can exist as to the authenticity of the so-called Portrait of
Alfonso da Ferrara and Laura de’ Dianti (No. 1590), but the title under
which it has passed for many years is probably incorrect. It was in the
collection of Charles I., and was then described as “Tytsian’s Mrs., after the
life by Tytsian.” In the collection of Jabach it was called La Maîtresse du
Titien, and as such was sold to Louis xiv. for £100. This picture would
correctly be described under the less ambitious title of A Woman at her
Toilet and a Man holding Two Mirrors. Laura was the daughter of a hatter
of Ferrara. She was persona grata at the court of Alfonso i., Duke of Ferrara
(reigned 1505–1534), and there held the title of Illustrissima Donna Laura
Eustochia d’Este. The Duke’s first wife, Anna Sforza, died in 1497, when
he was twenty-one years old. In 1501 he married, as his second wife,
Lucrezia Borgia (died 1519), the natural daughter of Pope Alexander vi. It
seems probable that shortly afterwards the Duke took Laura as his third
wife, and that she was painted by Titian a little later. The Louvre picture
(No. 1590) appears on stylistic grounds to be a work of about 1515–1517. A
portrait which can be more certainly identified as that of Laura is the single
figure picture, painted by Titian about 1523, in the collection of Sir
Frederick Cook at Richmond.

The influence of Giorgione is still clearly seen in Titian’s Man with a
Glove (No. 1592, Plate XII.). It is a noble portrait of an unknown man; the
colour is rich, and the light and shade are contrasted with great mastery; the
bare right hand and the gloved left holding the second glove are admirably
modelled. The canvas, which seems to have been painted about 1518, is
signed “ticianvs f.” Soon afterwards Titian must have painted the Portrait
of a Man in Black with the Thumb of his Left Hand in the Belt of his
Doublet (No. 1591), the Madonna with the Rabbit (No. 1578), which is
inscribed Ticianus F., and the magnificent Entombment (No. 1584, Plate
XIII.). This priceless picture, which was painted not later, than 1523 for
Federigo Gonzaga, passed from Mantua into the collection of Charles i. It
was sold off by Cromwell for £128 and, after being one of the masterpieces
for a few years in the collection of Jabach, was acquired by Louis xiv. The
deep religious feeling and the rich, sonorous harmony of colour make this
one of the world’s most precious pictures. Notice the sunburnt arm of
Joseph of Arimathæa; it is significant of the art of Venice.

PLATE XII.—TITIAN
(1489?–1576)

VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1592.—THE MAN WITH A GLOVE
(L’homme au Gant)

He is standing and seen nearly in full face, the head turned three-quarters to the
right, the eyes directed to the right. He wears a black costume with a white pleated
under-garment, a gold chain round his neck, and white frills in his sleeves. His right

hand, with a ring on the forefinger, holds his girdle. His left hand, gloved and
holding the second glove, rests on a stone plinth.
Painted in oil on canvas.
Signed on the plinth:—“ticianvs. f.”
3 ft. 3½ in. × 2 ft. 11 in. (1·00 × 0·89.)

At an interval of about eight years we come to the St. Jerome (No. 1585),
a religious scene set, curiously enough, in a moonlight landscape, which has
darkened. The exact interpretation to be placed upon the Allegory in honour
of Alfonso d’Avalos (No. 1589), of about 1533, has been much discussed; it
is supposed to represent Alfonso bidding farewell to his wife on his
departure for the wars, and entrusting her to the safe keeping of Chastity,
Cupid, who bears a sheaf of arrows, and a third figure. The Portrait of
Francis I. (No. 1588), whom Titian never saw, appears to have been painted
about 1536 from a medal, and represents the King in profile. François i.
died in 1547. It belongs to the same period as the Portrait of a Man in
Damascened Armour with a Page holding his Helmet in the collection of
Count Potocki. Another portrait, painted about 1543, represents a Man with
a Black Beard resting his Hand on the Ledge of a Pilaster (No. 1593). By
this time Titian’s art was rapidly maturing, as we see from his magnificent
and imposing Supper at Emmaus (No. 1581) of the same year. It had passed
from Mantua to England before being acquired by that excellent
connoisseur, Jabach. It is said to be signed Ticianus f., while the Christ
Crowned with Thorns (No. 1583), which was painted for a church in Milan
about 1550, is inscribed titianvs f. When Charles i., as Prince of Wales,
visited Madrid in 1623, he was presented with the Jupiter and Antiope (No.
1587), which has the alternative title of the Venus del Pardo. It had been
painted for Philip ii., and had already escaped the fire which broke out in
the Prado. Jabach acquired it for 600 guineas, and passed it on to Cardinal
Mazarin, from whom it was acquired for 10,000 livres tournois by Louis
xiv. It escaped destruction by fire in the Old Louvre in 1661. It has been
very much repainted from time to time.

TITIAN’S FOLLOWERS
The Madonna and Child, with St. Catherine (? St. Agnes), and St. John
the Baptist as a Child (No. 1579), which has been enlarged by the addition
of a strip of canvas down the left side, contains a glimpse of the country

near Pieve di Cadore, the native place of Titian. Fourteen of the twenty
pictures here officially credited to him are to be regarded as authentic.
Polidoro Lanzani (1515?–1565), an imitator of Titian, however, painted the
Holy Family with St. John the Baptist (No. 1580), and the Holy Family and
Saints (No. 1596) in the La Caze Room; while Andrea Meldolla
(Schiavone), who was a pupil of Titian, no doubt executed the Ecce Homo
(No. 1582) credited to the great Venetian artist, as well as the St. John the
Baptist (No. 1524) which is rightly assigned to him.
The German painter Johan Stephan von Calcar, who to Italian
biographers is known as Giovanni Calcar (1499–1546), was a pupil of
Titian. He painted the imposing Portrait of a Man (No. 1185). He is seen at
half length standing, and holding a letter in his right hand; his left hand to
his waist. On a column in the background is painted the coat of arms,
reputed to be that of the Buono family of Venice, which is repeated on the
bezel of the ring on the forefinger of his left hand. Below his right hand is
the inscription:
ANNO 1540
ÆTATIS 26.

Paris Bordone (1500–1570), who “painted women with more of an eye
on the fashion-plate than on the expression of their features,” is not the
author of a Portrait of a Lady (No. 1180a), nor of the Portrait of a Man and
a Child (No. 1180), which seems to be a Flemish rather than a Venetian
picture. His Vertumnus and Pomona (No. 1178) is less representative than
his Portrait (so called) of Jeronimo Croft (No. 1179). It takes its title from
the inscription, “Spss. Domino Jeronimo Crofft ... Magior suo semper
obsero ... Augusta,” which is written on the letter held in the right hand.
The last dying echo of the “fire” and poetry of Giorgione is seen in some
of the works of Bonifazio Veronese (1487–1553), who was also a pupil of
Palma. Bonifazio is now regarded as a single individual, although formerly
the varying differences in his style of painting led certain critics to regard
him as three different members of the same family. The varied grouping
seen in the large canvas entitled Holy Family, with St. Francis, St. Anthony,
St. Mary Magdalene, St. Elizabeth, and St. John the Baptist (No. 1171), and
the colouring of this canvas, seem to prove its authenticity. The smaller
picture of a Holy Family (No. 1172), with a similar pedigree and a Greek

inscription, which includes the same saints, is a mediocre work. The
Madonna and Child, with St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, and St.
Ursula (No. 1674d) is a poor picture.
From the studio of Bonifazio issued Jacopo Bassano (1510?–1592),
whose Vintage (No. 1428) shows his predilection for introducing animals
and kneeling peasants into genre pictures, the treatment of which is apt to
be rugged. This did not prevent his at times painting striking and vigorous
portraits. The Louvre contains a good example of this branch of his art in
the Portrait of Giovanni da Bologna (No. 1429), which is at present not
exhibited. The Animals entering the Ark (No. 1423), Moses striking the
Rock (No. 1424), Cana of Galilee (No. 1425), Christ bearing His Cross
(No. 1426), and the Descent from the Cross (No. 1427) are also credited to
him in the Catalogue.
Leandro Bassano (1558–1623), his son, is represented in the La Caze
collection by an Adoration of the Magi (No. 1430) and a Rustic Labour
(No. 1431).
The vigorous, ambitious and late Venetian painter Tintoretto (1518–
1594), who painted portrait-groups, religious subjects, and mythological
compositions on a large scale, and brought his achievements to completion
with extraordinary rapidity, is not adequately represented in this Gallery, in
which, however, no fewer than eleven works pass under his name. His
Susanna and the Elders (No. 1464) testifies to the increasing frequency
with which painters or their patrons at that period preferred the
representation of sensational incidents from the Apocrypha. The subject is
unattractive, but the picture, which is in a very dirty state, is wonderfully
painted.
The Paradise (No. 1465) is but a preliminary sketch for the colossal
painting, measuring 84 ft. × 34 ft.,—the largest oil-painting by an old
master in existence,—which Tintoretto painted for the end wall of the Sala
del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge’s Palace at Venice. The Portrait of a
Man holding a Handkerchief in his Hand (No. 1467) reveals his great
power as a portrait painter.
The Portrait of Pietro Mocenigo (No. 1470), signed petrus mocenio
senator, and the Portrait of a Venetian Senator (No. 1471), inscribed anno

ætatis lvii mvii iacomo tentoreto . f, are among the pictures of the La Caze
collection.
In Room XV., which is given up to self-portraits by artists, hangs a
picture which passes as an authentic Portrait of Tintoretto (No. 1466) by
himself. It is inscribed jacobvs tentoretvs pictor venetivs and ipsivs. f.

PAOLO VERONESE
The harmonious colour, the sense of material magnificence, and the
masterly draughtsmanship of Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) are seen to the
greatest advantage in his Marriage at Cana (No. 1192). He signed a
contract in June 1562, to paint this large picture, which measures 21 ft. × 32
ft., for the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, and completed it by
September 8, 1563. According to the agreement, Paolo was to receive 324
ducats, a sum equal to-day to about £200; to be fed during the time he was
engaged on the work; to be repaid the cost of the materials; and to receive a
pipe of wine. The picture was seized by Napoleon during his victorious
campaign of 1797, and brought by road to Paris. In accordance with the
terms of the Peace of Campo Formio of 1814, it should have been returned.
As it had proved a very difficult matter to take it to Paris, where it had to go
into the restorer’s hands, the French urged that it was too vast and too
dilapidated to bear a second journey. Astonishing as it may seem to us to-
day, the Italians accepted the suggestion and in exchange took Charles Le
Brun’s large but mediocre Magdalene at the Feet of Jesus, perhaps because
it measured 12 ft. 6 in. × 10 ft. 4 in. Le Brun’s picture now hangs in the
Venice Gallery (No. 377), the Catalogue of which pointedly remarks that
“the exchange is much to be regretted.”

PLATE XIII.—TITIAN
(1489?–1576)

VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1584.—THE ENTOMBMENT
(La Mise au Tombeau)

The dead body of the Christ is borne on a white cloth by Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathæa. Nicodemus is seen from the back wearing a pale red tunic and a parti-
coloured scarf; Joseph of Arimathæa in green robes is in profile towards the right. St.
John in a red robe supports the right arm of the Christ. To the left St. Mary
Magdalene, with her arms around the Virgin, gazes in profound grief at the Christ.
The Virgin with clasped hands bends forward to look at her Son.
Painted in oil on canvas.
4 ft 10½ in. × 7 ft. 1 in. (1·48 × 2·15.)

Paolo Veronese’s masterly work contains no devotional feeling. The
Scriptural story merely serves as a pretext for depicting a scene of Venetian
festivity and material magnificence with imposing architectural
background. The grouping of the figures is varied, dexterously disposed and

stately, while the colour is harmonious and sparkling. The changing of the
water into wine is, however, merely incidental. It is a significant fact that a
work of this description, in which Art in Venice begins to trick herself out in
meretricious embellishments, should have been regarded as a seemly
decoration for the refectory of a convent. An additional but frankly worldly
interest is imparted to the work by the introduction of a portrait of Alfonso
d’Avalos (whose portrait by Titian we have already seen) as the
bridegroom, on the extreme left of the composition; to his left is the bride,
with the features of Eleonora of Austria. The other figures include François
i., dressed in blue and wearing a curious headdress; Mary of England, sister
of Henry viii. and widow of Louis xii., in yellow; the Sultan Soliman, in
green, at the side of a negro prince who addresses a servant. On the left of
the next figure sits Vittoria Colonna, whom Michelangelo described as “a
man within a woman,” plying her toothpick! At the end of the table,
speaking to a servant, is the Emperor Charles v., seen in profile and wearing
the Order of the Golden Fleece. The introduction of the fool with the bells
in the centre of the picture is perhaps intended to express the pomp and
pleasure of the world pursued without thought of Christ, who, however,
occupies the place of honour in the centre of the composition. The couple of
dogs in leash, one gnawing a bone, and a cat, lying on her back as she
scratches at one of the vases which hold the wine on the right of the
composition, may stand for merely brutal nature.
The painter’s personal interest in the scene is depicted in the group of
four artists in the foreground. Paolo himself is playing a viol; just behind
him is Tintoretto with a similar instrument; while on the right are Titian, in
red with a bass viol, and Bassano playing the flute. The theory put forward
by Mr. Herbert Cook that Titian was born as late as 1489, and so would be
seventy-four years old in 1562–63, the year in which this picture was
painted, certainly seems to find corroboration in the features here given to
Titian by Paolo Veronese. He certainly does not look eighty-seven years of
age, as he should do if he had been born as early as 1476.
In the Catalogue sixteen pictures are assigned to Paolo Veronese. The
Portrait of a Lady and a Child playing with a Dog (No. 1199) is an early
work. The Disciples at Emmaus (No. 1196), which is signed “paolo
veronese,” is another of the master’s imposing canvases, as also is the Feast
in the House of Simon the Pharisee (No. 1193), which was presented to

Louis xiv. by the Venetian Republic in 1665, and was for many years hung
at Versailles. This artist is also officially credited with the Burning of Sodom
(No. 1187), a Holy Family, with St. George, St. Catherine, and a Male
Donor (No. 1190), a Holy Family, with St. Elizabeth and St. Mary
Magdalene, and a Female Donor (No. 1191), a Christ heeding Peter’s
Wife’s Mother (No. 1191a), a Christ fainting under the weight of the Cross
(No. 1194), a Calvary (No. 1195), and an Esther fainting before Ahasuerus
(No. 1189). The Susan and the Elders (No. 1188) is a replica of a picture in
the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. The St. Mark crowning the
Theological Virtues (No. 1197), and the Jupiter hurling Thunderbolts on
Criminals (No. 1198), were originally executed as ceiling paintings for the
Doge’s Palace. The Christ with the Terrestrial Globe (No. 1200) and the
Portrait of a Lady in Black (No. 1201) are only studio pictures.
Little artistic ability is shown in the empty abstractions, and at times
meaningless productions, of many of the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth century Venetian artists. Felice Riccio (Il Brusasorci the
Younger) (1540–1605) is given as the painter of a Holy Family (No. 1463);
Alessandro Turchi (Orbetto) (1582–1648) of three pictures (Nos. 1558–
1560); Sebastiano Ricci (1659?–1734) of four compositions (Nos. 1458–
1461); Antonio Pellegrino (1675–1741) of an Allegory (No. 1413);
Alessandro Varotari (1590–1650) of an utterly uninspired Venus and Cupid
(No. 1574); and Pietro della Vecchia (1605–1678) of a dull Portrait of a
Man (No. 1576).
A century later than the stupendous achievements of Tintoretto and
Veronese the art of Venice had passed into decline, but a glimmer of the
genius that had found expression in the gorgeously decorative art in Venice
in the sixteenth century was yet to be reflected in the work of Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo (1692–1769). His Last Supper (No. 1547) was purchased
for £400 in 1877, and his sketch for the Triumph of Religion (No. 1549a)
for £1200 in 1903. By him also is the Banner (No. 1549), depicting on the
one side St. Martin saying Mass, and on the other The Madonna and Child.
An Apparition of the Virgin to St. Jerome (No. 1548) is one of the less
striking pictures in the La Caze collection.
Another decorative painter was Antonio Canale, generally known as
Canaletto (1697–1768), who is well represented in the View of the Church
of Santa Maria della Salute and the Grand Canal (No. 1203). The Louvre

appears to contain nothing by Bernardo Bellotto (1720–1780), who is
sometimes referred to as Canaletto, and is seen to the best advantage at
Dresden.
Canaletto’s pupil, Francesco Guardi (1712–1793), who was born of
Austrian parentage, is the painter of seven Venetian scenes: After wedding
the Adriatic, the Doge embarks at the Lido on the “Bucentaur” (No. 1328);
The Doge proceeds to S. Maria della Salute to commemorate the
Preservation of Venice from the Plague in 1630 (No. 1329); Fête du Jeudi
Gras in the Piazzetta (No. 1330); The Procession of Corpus Domini in the
Piazza of S. Marco (No. 1331); The Visit of the Doge to the Church of S.
Zaccharia on Easter Day (No. 1332); The Doge seated on his Throne in the
Sala del Collegio (No. 1333); Coronation of the Doge (No. 1334); and a
View of the Church of S. Maria della Salute (No. 1335). Guardi’s pupil,
François Casanova (1739–1805), a painter of battle-pieces, worked in
France; some of his pictures are hung in the French Rooms.
With Guardi we close the chapter of Venetian art which, owing to four
centuries of high aspiration and magnificent achievement, came to an end
later than the art of any other school of painting in Italy.

THE PADUAN SCHOOL
F AR-REACHING influences were to be exerted by classical Padua on
the art of the neighbouring cities of Northern Italy. Padua was a city
of great antiquity, and had been sufficiently powerful and prosperous even
in Roman times to excite the cupidity of its enemies. Eventually the Goths
and other barbarian hordes had destroyed its monuments of the Roman age;
the spirit of antiquity, nevertheless, survived until Giotto came at the very
beginning of the fourteenth century to decorate the walls of the Chapel of
the Madonna dell’ Arena, which had been founded in 1303 by Enrico
Scrovegno on the site of an ancient Roman arena. These very precious
frescoes by Giotto, which fortunately are still preserved, revolutionised art,
and the movement initiated by him quickened the art-life of this University
city.
Half a century later, Altichiero Altichieri (fl. 1320–1385) developed his
art under the influence of Giotto, and beautified the churches of Padua with
frescoes, the figures in which he clothed in fanciful attire. An art movement
was now on foot, and the influence of altichieri, who was later to become
the founder of the school of Verona, was to be revealed in the work of his
follower Pisanello, the Veronese painter and medallist.
The long residence in Padua of Donatello (1386–1466), the great
Florentine sculptor, and the erection of his famous equestrian statue of
Gattamelata initiated in Padua the Renaissance movement, which soon took
deep root in this ancient city. The example of Donatello in sculpture before
long brought about the foundation of a local school of painting which was
rapidly developed through the shrewd commonsense rather than the artistic
achievements of Francesco Squarcione (1394–1474). It is noteworthy that
Squarcione had travelled in the East, and had there formed a collection of
antique works of plastic art which became the basis of his art-teaching.
One of the numerous pupils of Squarcione was Gregorio Schiavone
(“The Slavonian”) (fl. 1440–1470), a native of Dalmatia, who in the studio
of his Paduan master met Andrea Mantegna. The Louvre authorities with
some hesitancy attribute to Schiavone a Madonna and Child (No. 1523).

although it is hardly by him, it exhibits some of the characteristics of
Schiavone, who was fond of decorating his pictures with festoons of
flowers and fruit in much the same way that his Venetian contemporary,
Carlo Crivelli, delighted to adorn his large panel pictures.

ANDREA MANTEGNA
Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) was adopted at the age of ten by
Squarcione, and so naturally became his pupil. No better training could
have been chosen for the boy, who had a natural taste for the classics, proof
of which is further afforded by the Latin inscriptions on his pictures. Andrea
seems to have quickly realised the connection between the traditions of
Paduan antiquities and the classical models of ancient Greece which his
adoptive father Squarcione had brought home with him from his travels.
Andrea in time became deeply impressed with the methods of Jacopo
Bellini, whose daughter Niccolosia he married in 1453, to the great
displeasure of Squarcione. Another powerful influence on Mantegna may
be traced to the bronzes which Donatello executed for the Church of Sant’
Antonio of Padua in that city.

PLATE XIV.—ANDREA MANTEGNA
(1431–1506)

PADUAN SCHOOL
No. 1375.—PARNASSUS
(Le Parnasse)

On the summit of an arched rock stand Mars and Venus before a draped bed
backed by orange trees. To the left is Cupid, while Vulcan stands before his forge.
Below, to the extreme left, Apollo plays his lyre to the strains of which the Muses
dance. To the right Mercury, wearing the petasus and talaria and carrying the
caduceus, leans against Pegasus. Landscape background.
Painted in tempera on canvas.
5 ft. 3 in. × 6 ft. 3½ in. (1·60 × 1·92.)

After painting the frescoes in the Church of the Eremitani at Padua,
Andrea in 1457 executed a large and striking altarpiece for the Church of
San Zeno in Verona. It was removed by Napoleon’s agents to France in
1797, but only the principal panel was returned to that church in 1815. The
three predella panels were retained in France. The centre one of these,
depicting the Calvary, is now in the Louvre (No. 1373); the other two,
representing the Agony in the Garden and the Resurrection, have long hung
in the Museum at Tours. The severity of the statuesque figures and the
certainty of the drawing seen in the Calvary are characteristic of the early
period of the master.
Mantegna now removed to Mantua, where he entered the service of
Lodovico ii., Marquis of Mantua, as his Court Painter, remaining there for
the rest of his life. The Madonna of Victory (No. 1374) was painted to
commemorate the victory gained at the Pass of Fornovo on the Taro on July
6, 1495, by Giovanni Francesco iii., Marquis of Mantua, over Charles viii.
of France. In the centre of the picture the Madonna and Child are enthroned.
On the left kneels the Marquis, and on the right is St. Elizabeth, the patron
saint of Gonzaga’s wife, Isabella d’Este, “at the sound of whose name all
the Muses rise and do reverence.” St. Michael standing behind the Duke,
and St. George behind St. Elizabeth, hold the robe of the Madonna, who is
thus represented as taking under her protection the two principal figures. In
the background on the left is St. Andrew, name-saint of the painter and one
of the patrons of Mantua. On the right is St. Longinus with the spear with
which he pierced the side of Christ. His relics were preserved in the Church
of St. Andrea in Mantua. The garlands of flowers and festoons of fruit are a
well-known device in Mantegna’s pictures.
Mantegna’s Parnassus (No. 1375, Plate XIV.) illustrates the amours of
Mars and Venus, which were discovered by her husband, Vulcan. In the
foreground the Muses are dancing. The group of the Muses was afterwards
appropriated by Giulio Romano for his Dance of Apollo and the Muses in
the Pitti Palace at Florence. This painting was executed in 1497, just before
the coming of the Renaissance feeling into Venetian art and the
representation of classical myth. Notice the excellently drawn and highly
characteristic shells and stones placed in the foreground. In the same year
Mantegna painted the Triumph of Wisdom and Virtue over the Vices (No.
1376), the last of the four pictures by him in this Gallery. In the corner to

the extreme left is Virtus Deserta, who appears under the guise of a laurel
tree with a woman’s head; about the stem is wound a scroll with
inscriptions in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The Latin inscription reads:
AGITE PELLITE SEDIBUS NOSTRIS
FAEDA HAEC VICIORV̄ MONSTRA
VIRTUTVM COELITVS AD NOS REDEV̄ TIVM

and on the inside of the scroll:
DIVAE COMITES.

This painting formerly decorated the camerino of Isabella d’Este at Mantua.
It was seized at the sack of Mantua by Cardinal Richelieu in 1630, together
with the Parnassus (No. 1375), Perugino’s Combat of Love and Chastity
(No. 1567), and Lorenzo Costa’s Court of Isabella d’Este (No. 1261). The
Mythological Scene (No. 1262), which is not now exhibited, represents the
Realm of Erotic Love; it was begun by Mantegna the year he died, and was
gone over and completed by Lorenzo Costa.
Mantegna became involved financially towards the end of his life, and
the collection he had formed was sold. His last years were clouded by
pecuniary embarrassment. His compositions are essentially classic in spirit,
his figures noble and painted in imitation of the antique, while his pagan
conceptions prepared the way for those of a later generation in the art of
Venice. By this process of gradual evolution the school of Padua came to be
distinguished among the other local schools of Northern Italy in the lifetime
of Mantegna, whose example gave a new impulse to contemporary art.
A small Adoration of the Magi (No. 1678), which is officially
unattributed, is regarded by Mr. Berenson as the work of Bernardo
Parenzano (1437–1531), who was influenced by Mantegna, and imitated the
methods of his contemporaries.
Many other artists bore their part in the work of this school, and so
contributed to the development of this movement which spread to Veronese
and Venetian territory. They are, however, unrepresented in the Louvre.

THE SCHOOL OF VERONA
T HE foundations of the art of Verona were laid in Paduan soil by
altichieri, who initiated the school of Verona. Veronese art early
found expression in the naive pictorial and mediæval style practised by the
medallist-painter Antonio Pisanello (1397–1455), whose name appears to
have been an endearing diminutive. He was a follower, if not a pupil, of
Altichieri. The frequency with which he signed himself “pictor” on his
medals leads one to suppose that he looked upon himself as a painter first
and foremost, and contemporary records seem to confirm this. His art was
so highly reputed in Northern Italy that the Venetians thought it advisable to
invite him to Venice in 1421 to assist Gentile da Fabriano in painting
frescoes, now destroyed, in the Doge’s Palace.
Jacopo Bellini also worked at Verona. He is known to have painted a
picture of the Crucifixion for the Chapel of S. Niccolò in the Cathedral at
Verona in 1436, but, after exercising considerable influence on the art of
Northern Italy, it was in 1759 hewn down by a Canon with a view to
beautifying the chapel!
Unfortunately, there are only two frescoes from the hand of Pisanello at
Verona, while no more than four authentic easel paintings by him are
known to exist, two of them being in the National Gallery. He is known to
have travelled extensively in Italy, and to have worked also at Mantua,
Ferrara, and Rimini. The traditions of mediæval chivalry and the pictorial
parade of pomp and mundane realism which are reflected in his work show
that his contemporaries were justified in the high esteem in which they held
him.
Pisanello’s love of depicting birds and animals is shown in his two
pictures in the National Gallery, but in the Portrait of a Princess of the Este
Family (No. 1422a, or No. 1422 Bis) he is shown to have been a lover of
flowers also. This small panel was formerly attributed to Piero dei
Franceschi, the Umbrian artist. For many years it hung among the
Drawings, being apparently considered unworthy of a place in its proper
environment, among the Italian primitive paintings, where it is now hung. It

was purchased in 1893 out of the Felix Bamberg collection. The lady is
seen in profile to the left. Her hair is dressed according to the fashion of the
period, the front hair being plucked out to render the forehead round and
high, while the nape of her neck for the same reason is hairless. She wears a
white dress with loose-falling red sleeves; a sprig of juniper (ginevra) is let
into her dress just above the left shoulder. It has been assumed from this
that we here have a Portrait of Ginevra d’Este. She was the daughter of
Niccolò ii. d’Este by his second wife, the infamous and ill-treated Parisina
Malatesta, who was decapitated in 1425. Ginevra (1419–1440) became the
wife of Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, in 1433, and died three
years later. The background is composed of pinks and columbines, among
which fly four highly decorative butterflies. The embroidery on the left
sleeve of the dress is patterned with the impresa of a crystal vase set round
with pearls. It is interesting to note that Ginevra’s husband, Sigismondo, is
probably the Donor in the Madonna and Child and a Kneeling Donor (No.
1159a or No. 1279) by Jacopo Bellini which hangs next to it on the left. The
only other painted portrait by Pisanello known is the later, and larger, one of
Leonello d’Este in the Bergamo Gallery.
Bono da Ferrara (fl. 1450–1461) was a pupil of Pisanello, and Oriolo (fl.
1450) was a follower of his; their pictures are extremely rare. The Louvre
contains no picture by Liberale da Verona (1451–1536), a master who had
many pupils, among whom may be included Girolamo dai Libri (1474–
1556) and Francesco Caroto (1470–1546). The Madonna and Child and St.
John the Baptist (No. 1318), which is officially catalogued under the name
of Girolamo, has long been held to be by Caroto.
Domenico Brusasorci (“The Rat-burner”) (1494–1567) was the father of
Felice Riccio and a pupil of Caroto. He has been claimed as the author of
the Madonna and St. Martina (No. 1163), which passes in the Catalogue as
being by the very late Roman painter Pietro Berretini da Cortona (1596–
1669). Other versions of this composition, representing St. Martina
triumphing over the Idols, are known. A large number of the prominent
Veronese painters are unrepresented in this collection, but the influence of
Liberale is frequently seen. The Council of Trent (No. 1586) may be
assigned to Paolo Farinati, although it is regarded by the authorities as
coming from the hand of Titian. By the time that Farinati died, art in Verona
had passed into decline.

One of the most decorative painters in Italy in the sixteenth century was
Paolo Veronese, who although a native of Verona spent the best years of his
life in Venice. He is usually included among the artists of Venice.

THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA
A CCORDING to tradition the most famous artist in the school of
Ferrara before Tura was Ettore de’ Bonacossi, of whom little is
known.
At Ferrara, the city of the Este family, as at all the Italian courts, the art
of painting was liberally patronised. All Ferrarese art was more or less
Paduan both in origin and style, Cosimo Tura (1430?–1495), the founder of
this school, having worked at Padua as a pupil of Squarcione.
The seriousness of Cosimo Tura’s realism was unyielding to those
intellectual qualities that dominated the art of Florence in his day; but, in
spite of a certain harshness of effect, the vigour of his design and the
dignity of his conception give permanent value to the work of this master.
Tura is represented in the Louvre by two pictures; the figures seen in his
large lunette of the Pietà (No. 1556) are admirably designed to fill up the
space they occupy. This panel is a dismembered part of an altarpiece which
was painted for the Roverella family, and was formerly in its entirety in the
Church of S. Giorgio fuori le Mura at Ferrara. The Pietà eventually passed
to the Campana collection, and so to the Louvre. The drapery in this panel,
which is cracked horizontally, is tinny, and the flesh is metallic with its
white and purple lights, while the bones in the faces being over-prominent
create an unpleasant effect. The centre panel of the original altarpiece
represents the Madonna and Child Enthroned. It passed in time into the
Frizzoni collection at Bergamo, and was subsequently purchased in 1867
from Sir Charles Eastlake for the National Gallery (No. 772). The sinister
wing of the original altarpiece depicts the Bishop Lorenzo Roverella
presented to the Virgin by St. Maurelius and St. Paul, and is now in the
private rooms of the Colonna Palace in Rome.
The Church of S. Giorgio fuori le Mura at Ferrara also at one time
contained another altarpiece painted by Cosimo Tura. It was placed over the
altar of St. Maurelius, but has long ago been dismembered. One of its
panels is the Flight into Egypt, in the collection of Mr. R. H. Benson; two
others, representing a Scene from the Life of St. Maurelius and The

Martyrdom of St. Maurelius, are in the Ferrara Gallery; another is the
Adoration of the Magi, in the possession of the Contessa di Santa Fiora, in
Rome; while a fifth, the Circumcision, belongs to the Marchesa Passeri, in
Rome.
The Louvre possesses an arched panel of A Monk (No. 1557) by Tura.
The panel is split and the cheek of the saint injured.
The seriousness of purpose which inspired Cosimo Tura was absorbed by
his pupil Francesco Cossa (1435–1477), whose art is not seen at the Louvre.
One of Cossa’s pupils was Lorenzo Costa, who in 1483 passed from Ferrara
to Bologna, to which city he carried the principles of Tura’s training.
Francesco Bianchi (1460–1510) was another of Tura’s pupils, but he
belongs more strictly to the school of Modena. Another pupil in the studio
of the chef d’ecole of Ferrarese painting was Ercole Roberti (1430?–1496),
who also worked at Padua. This painter, whose full name was Ercole de’
Roberti Grandi, has been justly claimed as the author of the two small
panels representing St. Apollonia (No. 1677a), holding in her hand the
pincers, the symbol of her martyrdom, and St. Michael (No. 1677b). These
companion pictures are officially described under the ambiguous
designation of “Ferrarese School, xvi century.” They, however, clearly
belong to the earlier century, and are probably by Roberti.
The Louvre contains nothing by Ercole Roberti’s pupil, Ercole di Giulio
Cesare Grandi (1465?–1531). Ercole Grandi’s influence is sometimes seen
in the exceedingly rare pictures of Giovanni Battista Benvenuto, who is
better known under the name of Ortolano (“the gardener”), and takes his
name from the occupation of his father. The art of Ortolano (1460–1529) is
seen to the greatest advantage in the St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and St.
Demetrius, in the National Gallery (No. 669). An immature work by him is
apparently the Nativity in this Gallery (No. 1401), which in the opinion of
the compilers of the Catalogue is by Domenico Panetti (1450?–1512?), a
pupil of Lorenzo Costa. Panetti’s works are rarely met with out of Italy.
Among the pictures of this school, those of Lodovico Mazzolino (1478?–
1528) are perhaps the easiest to recognise. His Holy Family (No. 1387) is
not now exhibited, but the Christ preaching to the Multitude on the Sea of
Galilee (No. 1388) is evidently by him, although it has been ranked by one

critic as a Flemish picture painted under the inspiration of Mazzolino and
Dosso Dossi.
Panetti was the master of Benvenuto Tisi, a very prolific painter who is
better known by the name of Garofalo (1481?–1559), owing to his
occasionally painting a gillyflower into his pictures as a signature. although
the Catalogue includes four small works by this artist, a Circumcision (No.
1550), a Holy Family (No. 1552), a Madonna and Child (No. 1554), and a
Sleeping Child Jesus (No. 1553), only the last of them is now exhibited.
Another artist in this school who signed his pictures with a rebus was
Giovanni Lutero (1479?–1542), who is better known under the name of
Dosso Dossi. A typical instance of this punning use of his name is the
Money Changers driven out of the Temple, in the Doria Gallery at Rome; it
is signed with a “D” traversed by a bone (osso), obviously a play on his
name of Dosso or D OSSO. No picture by Dosso Dossi is now exhibited.
Francesco Bonsignori (1455–1519), Marco Zoppo (fl. 1471–1498),
Michele Coltellini (1480–1542), Ippolito Scarsellino (1551–1620),
Girolamo da Carpi, and other Ferrarese painters are unrepresented in this
collection.

THE SCHOOL OF MILAN
T HE painters who practised in Milan in the fourteenth century were
little better than provincial craftsmen who had come within the range
of the Giottesque tradition without grasping the more vital of its principles.
Those who worked in Milanese territory in the first half of the fifteenth
century acquired some of the reflected influences which passed from the
work of Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini in Verona, and from the more striking
achievements of the Paduan and early Venetian schools, but their work
lacked all trace of originality.
A painter of the name of Michelino Molinari da Besozzo (fl. 1394–1442),
or Michele da Pavia, was painting at Milan about 1420. However, there
cannot be said to have been a school of painting, but only an aggregation of
painters in Milanese territory, prior to the arrival at Pavia and Milan of the
Brescian-born master, Vicenzo Foppa, about 1458. Previous to that
important event, if not throughout the whole range of its activity, Milanese
art lacked the higher elements of genius in all matters æsthetic. As a school
it was to the end too inclined to mere prettiness and superficial sweetness.
The Umbrian-born architect and painter, Bramante (1444–1514), who
had received his education in Florence, painted in Lombardy from 1472–
1474, as his Panigarola frescoes now in the Brera testify. Bramante also
influenced Foppa, whose work is well defined and whose colouring is
subdued.
Side by side with Foppa at the head of the Milanese school comes
Bernardino Butinone (fl. 1450–1507), a great deal of whose work may still
be seen at Milan. A Madonna and Child (No. 1523), which is doubtfully
ascribed in the Catalogue to Gregorio Schiavone, a pupil of Squarcione at
Padua, may possibly be by Butinone, whose art is marked by an austerity
and dryness which are absent from the paintings of Zenale, who was the
partner and perhaps a pupil of Butinone.
The Circumcision, with the Portrait of the Donor (No. 1545), although
catalogued under the name of Bramantino, may be by Zenale (1436–1526).

This panel is inscribed “xl. anno 1491. f͞ r] i͞ a lapugnanvs p͞ p hvmil can̄ .”
Bramantino (1455?–1536?), whose name was Bartolommeo Suardi, came
under the influence of Foppa and Bramante, and from the latter acquired his
sobriquet.
The pictures of Borgognone (1455?–1522?) are easily recognised by the
ashen grey pallor of his faces, relieved occasionally by eyelids reddened by
grief. He was a prolific painter of religious pictures which show simple
pathos. With the possible exception of the Family Portraits in the National
Gallery (Nos. 779–780), which are indeed fragments of a standard, and may
have been painted by Zenale, Borgognone, whose name was Ambrogio da
Fossano, is not known to have painted a secular subject. This typical
Milanese painter was another of the pupils of Foppa. Being an architect as
well as a painter, Borgognone delighted in giving an architectural setting to
his compositions. He also loved to introduce brightly coloured carpets and
draperies, and minutely painted jewellery into his pictures. These
characteristics are seen in his companion pictures of St. Peter Martyr and a
Donoress (No. 1182), and St. Augustine and a kneeling Donor (No. 1182a).
The latter of this pair of panels of his early period was purchased from Lord
Aldenham in 1899 for 1000 guineas. They originally formed part of a
dismembered altarpiece, the centre panel of which is now lost or
unidentified. His Presentation of Christ in the Temple (No. 1181), although
originally painted on panel, was transferred to canvas in 1885. Borgognone
might almost be termed the Perugino of the Milanese school.

ANDREA SOLARIO
Andrea Solario (1460?–1515?), who was perhaps the pupil of his brother
Cristoforo a sculptor and architect, went with him to Venice in 1490 and
remained there at least three years. During this time he came under the
influence of Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini. Earlier in his career he
was impressed by the pictures of Antonello da Messina, who was in Venice
and Milan in 1475–1476. Solario can hardly have become Antonello’s pupil
at that early age. He must also have come within the sphere of Leonardo da
Vinci’s influence. Leonardo, who worked in Milan between 1482 and 1500
and from 1506 to 1513, was asked by the Cardinal George of Amboise to
decorate a chapel in the Château at Gaillon in Normandy. He, however,
advised the Cardinal to employ Solario. Solario in consequence went to

France in August 1507 to undertake the work. The Louvre is rich in his
pictures. His charming Madonna of the Green Cushion (No. 1530) is
inscribed:
Andreas de Solario fa.
This small panel was once the property of Marie de Médicis. The
Crucifixion (No. 1532) was formerly catalogued under the name of Andrea
de Milan, which led some to confuse Andrea Solario with the much less
efficient painter, Andrea Salaino. This picture is inscribed:
ANDREAS MEDIOLANENSIS FA 1503,

a form of signature which is said to have been employed by Solario only for
such of his pictures as were destined for other towns than Milan. The Head
of St. John the Baptist on a Charger (No. 1533) is said to be signed and
dated
ANDREAS DE SOLARIO, FAT, 1507.

The Portrait of Charles d’Amboise, Seigneur of Chaumont and Governor
of Milan (No. 1531), like many other of Solario’s pictures, has in the past,
when the range of his art was not so well understood, been attributed to
other artists.

BERNARDINO LUINI
In Bernardino Luini (1475?–1533?) we have a lyrical artist. He is said to
have been a pupil of one Stefano Scotto, but he was deeply impressed by
the art of Borgognone, and early in the sixteenth century came under the
influence of Leonardo. Indeed, it was almost impossible at that period of
Milanese art for a painter in that school to resist the style of Leonardo.
Although Luini’s works are reminiscent of the greater master, he strove
after originality; he was an industrious painter rather than an artist of
genius. Luini is never very emotional, never passionate, never dramatic. His
figures are characterised by sweetness and grace; his types are refined but
insipid and are apt to become monotonous. It is as a painter of frescoes that
he succeeds best, and the Louvre is fortunate in possessing several of his
works in that medium. The best are a Nativity (No. 1359), and an Adoration
of the Magi (No. 1360). The Head of Christ (No. 1361) is inscribed:

POSCE NE DUBITA QUOD
QUODCV̄ PATRI IN NOMINE MEo
PETIERIS FIET TIBI.

They were acquired in 1867 from the collection of the Duke Antonio
Litta Visconti Arese, of Milan. The Louvre also contains fragments of large
fresco paintings of the Forge of Vulcan (No. 1356), a Child Seated (No.
1357), and a Child Kneeling (No. 1358). They form part of the series, which
is now preserved in Milan, but formerly decorated the Villa Pelucca near
Monza; they were removed from there in 1817. These three fragments have
been transferred from plaster to canvas or panel. The four frescoes (Nos.
1362–1365) are by a pupil. The art of Luini as a painter on panel is seen to
advantage in the Holy Family (No. 1353), the Virgin and the Infant Christ
(No. 1354), and Salome receiving the Head of St. John the Baptist (No.
1355).
The arrival of Leonardo da Vinci, when little over thirty years of age, at
the court of Lodovico Sforza at Milan revolutionised art in that city. The
exquisite rhythm and balance and the remarkable gestures and facial
expression seen in his Last Supper must have made a profound impression
on all the Milanese, people and painters alike. Not having been educated in
the profound principles that gradually built up the school of Florence,
whence the great painter came, the majority of the native artists were so
overcome by his power that in time they became enslaved by the magic of
his brush.
Ambrogio da Predis (1455?–1506?), who worked as Leonardo’s assistant
on the National Gallery’s replica of the Virgin of the Rocks in this collection
(No. 1599), is not represented here. Another assistant and pupil of Leonardo
was Bernardino de’ Conti. As we have seen, he may be the painter of the
Profile Portrait of a Lady—or La Belle Ferronnière (No. 1605)—which is
officially regarded as being of the “School of Leonardo.” A similar
attribution is also given to the Madonna of the Scales (No. 1604), which
should rather be assigned to Cesare da Sesto (1477–1523), a sickly and
insipid imitator of the master. Another of Leonardo’s imitators was Marco
d’Oggiono (1470?–1540). His copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper (No. 1603)
is perhaps of greater interest than his own Holy Family (No. 1382) and
Madonna and Child (No. 1382a).

One of the more original of the imitators of Leonardo was Boltraffio
(1467–1516), whose Madonna of the Casio Family (No. 1169) was
formerly in the Milan Gallery, where any picture containing a portrait of
that poet might reasonably have been expected to remain. This picture is the
painter’s masterpiece.

THE SCHOOL OF LOMBARDY
A FTER the activity which had prevailed in Milan during the last half
of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth century,
art in Lombardy rapidly deteriorated. Before the decline had passed into
decadence Pier Francesco Sacchi (fl. 1512–1527) painted at Pavia his Four
Doctors of the Church (No. 1488), which is signed in the cartouche
PETRI FRANCISCI
SACHI DE PAPIA
OPUS 1516.

Each of the Doctors duplicates the part of an Evangelist. On the left St.
Augustine, with his book inscribed “De Civitate Dei,” is also shown as St.
John with his eagle; St. Gregory, with his dove, is also St. Luke with his
bull; St. Jerome, with his cardinal’s hat, is also St. Matthew with his angel;
while St. Ambrose, with his scourge, is also St. Mark with his lion. The
scourge held by St. Ambrose, a patron saint of Milan, alludes to his refusing
the Emperor Theodosius admittance into the church at Milan in
consequence of the general massacre he ordered with a view to subduing a
sedition at Thessalonica in A.D. 390.
Another early-sixteenth-century Pavian painter was Bartolommeo
Bononi, whose only known picture is the Madonna and Child, St. Francis,
a Bishop, and a Monk (No. 1174). It is signed
OPUS BARTOLOMEI BONONII CIVIS PAPIENSIS 1501.

on the stump of the tree in the centre foreground.
A striking, although mediocre, Family of the Virgin (No. 1284) by
Lorenzo de’ Fasoli, who is also known as Lorenzo di Pavia, and who died
about 1520, illustrates the tradition that St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin
Mary, was three times married, Joachim being her third husband; the other
two were Cleophas and Salome. This composition of seventeen figures is
signed
LAURENTIVS PAPIEN FECIT MDXIII,

and is one of the latest examples of this tradition, which about 1520 passed
out of art.
A large Triptych (No. 1384), signed
JOH̄ NES MAZONVS
DE ALEXĀ PINXIT,

is by Giovanni Massone, who worked at Alessandria in the second half of
the fifteenth century; it contains the portraits of Pope Sixtus iv. with St.
Francis of Assisi and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere under the protection of
St. Anthony of Padua. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was Bishop of
Savona about 1483; he was in 1503 elected Pope under the title of Julius ii.,
and became the patron of Raphael.
The remaining pictures of this school are of little account. Bernardino
Campi (1522–1592?) is represented by a Mater Dolorosa (No. 1202); and
Bartolommeo Manfredi (1580?–1617) by a Fortune Teller (No. 1368), a
subject which demonstrates the Decadence in full operation. Giovanni
Paolo Panini (1695–1764), who came to Paris in 1732 and became an
Academician, seems to have got some satisfaction out of committing to
canvas a Concert given at Rome on Dec. 26, 1729, in Honour of the Birth of
the Dauphin, the son of Louis XV. (No. 1409) and a large Interior of St.
Peter’s at Rome (No. 1408), the latter being signed and dated 1730.

THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA-
BOLOGNA
T HE city of Bologna was visited in 1268 by Oderigi of Gubbio (fl.
1268–1295), who had the benefit of personal intercourse with Giotto
in Rome. Bologna produced a skilled miniature painter in Franco Bolognese
in the fourteenth century, but gave birth to few native painters of merit.
Until Francesco Cossa removed from Ferrara to Bologna in 1470, art in the
City of the Colonnades was in an undeveloped state. The school of
Bologna, which may be considered as an offshoot of the Ferrarese school,
was further strengthened by the arrival of Lorenzo Costa.
Lorenzo Costa (1460–1535), who had been a pupil of Francesco Cossa at
Ferrara, worked for the Bentivogli family in Bologna until 1509. In that
year he was induced to fix his abode in Mantua at the instance of the
Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Isabella d’Este, whose court
painter, Andrea Mantegna, had died three years earlier. Costa there painted
about 1510 his Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses (No.
1261), which is signed
L. COSTA F.

This famous canvas shows a weakness of drawing and a “want of force
that mars what is meant for grace.” Costa’s Mythological Scene (No. 1262)
is not now exhibited, but in it, as in the majority of his works, the figures
have no real existence. The heads are usually “screwed on—not always at
the proper angle—to crosspoles hung about with clothes.” His landscapes,
however, “without being in any sense serious studies, are among the
loveliest painted in his day.”
Costa’s shortcomings were to dominate to the end the school of Bologna,
which was essentially, almost from its incipience, one of Decadence. He
became the first direct master of Francesco Francia (1450–1517), the
typical Renaissance painter in Bologna who seems to have taken to painting
at the relatively advanced age of thirty-five. Francia had matriculated in the
Goldsmiths’ Guild in 1482 and was Master of the Guild in 1483, the year of

Costa’s arrival; but until he came under the influence of Costa he had
worked only as an engraver of paci in niello-work, a die-sinker, and a
medallist. They soon went into partnership, the upper storey of their joint
workshop being used for the painting of pictures, while metal-work was
executed below. Francia is not seen to the best advantage in the Louvre. His
Christ on the Cross (No. 1436) is somewhat unusual in treatment, as a nude
figure of St. Job, a plague saint, is painted in the foreground. This large
picture bears the characteristic signature
FRANCIA AURIFABER,

and shows his practice of demonstrating the versatility of his many talents.
The small Nativity (No. 1435) is an authentic work. The Madonna and
Child, with St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Francis, and St. John the Baptist
(No. 1436a), is known as the Guastavillani Madonna from the inscription
to the effect that Filippo Guastavillani, a Bolognese senator, ordered the
picture of Francia. Nevertheless, this large panel appears to have been
executed by his son, Giacomo. A Madonna and Child (No. 1437) and a
Holy Family with St. Francis d’Assisi (No. 1437a) are only by pupils.
The Louvre contains no example of the work of the Umbrian artist,
Timoteo Viti (1467–1524), who was a pupil of Costa, and from July 1490 to
April 1495 worked in the studio of Francia. There are no other sixteenth-
century Bolognese paintings in this collection.

THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA
T HIS small and unimportant school includes Boccaccio Boccaccino
(fl. 1460–1518?), who was formed on various Venetian and Milanese
influences. The Holy Family (No. 1168) which is credited to him, but not
now exhibited, seems to be an unattributable panel by some artist of the
Lombard school. This school includes an early-sixteenth-century imitator
who has received the significant name of “Pseudo-Boccaccino,” but is not
here represented.
The Mater Dolorosa (No. 1202) appears to be by Bernardino Campi, a
mediocre sixteenth-century painter of the Lombard and Cremonese schools.
Sofonisba Anguissola (1528–1625), a female artist, was his pupil and the
wife of Orazio Lomellini.

THE SCHOOL OF BRESCIA
T HIS small town seems to have produced little local talent previous to
the birth of Foppa. Ottaviano Prandino, who had worked with
Altichiero at Padua, and Bartolommeo Testorino (died about 1429) are little
more than names.
Vincenzo Foppa (1427?–1516?) was born near Brescia. The theory that
he studied under Squarcione at Padua lacks confirmation. On the other
hand, he seems to have been little affected by the Squarcionesque traditions,
and is rather to be regarded as the artistic product of the school of Verona,
where he would have come under the influence of Pisanello and Jacopo
Bellini. He may have been a friend of Andrea Mantegna. It is, however, not
in Brescia, but in Milan that Foppa’s art may be studied to-day. He arrived
in Pavia about 1458, and became the founder of the school of Milan twenty
years before Leonardo first took up his abode at the court of Lodovico Il
Moro.
Foppa’s pupil Vincenzo Civerchio (1470?–1544) and Floriano Ferramola
(1480–1528) were the joint founders of the school of Brescia; Romanino
(1485–1566) was a pupil of the latter. The Louvre is singularly poor in its
representation of this school, which cannot here be studied earlier than the
(so-called) Portrait of Gaston de Foix (No. 1518) by Giovanni Girolamo
Savoldo (1480?–1548?). This canvas, which appears to be signed
Opera di Jovanni Jeronimo di Bressia di Savoldi,
shows unmistakably the conflicting influences, mostly Venetian, under
which this artist worked.
Moretto (1498?–1555?), who was a pupil of Ferramola and was
influenced by Savoldo and Romanino, produced large and striking
altarpieces as well as portraits. He met with some success in his attempts to
combine a subtlety of feeling peculiar to himself with the “silvery” tones of
which he was so fond. His St. Bernardino of Siena and St. Louis of Toulouse
(No. 1175) and his St. Bonaventura and St. Anthony of Padua (No. 1176)
are arched panels on a much smaller scale than he often uses.

Moretto’s pupil, Giambattista Moroni (1525?–1578), painted many far
better portraits than that of An Old Man seated (No. 1395). The only other
Brescian painting in this collection seems to be the Portrait of a Man (No.
1646), who is seen at half length, seated three-quarters to the left and
wearing a robe trimmed with fur. Although catalogued as an unattributable
Italian work, it is in our opinion by Calisto Piazza of Lodi (fl. 1520–1560),
the son of Martino Piazza of the Milanese school. To Calisto da Lodi has
been assigned the Portrait of a Knight of Malta (No. 1594) which is
catalogued as being by Titian.
The Louvre is very inferior to the National Gallery in both the quality
and quantity of pictures of this school.

THE SCHOOL OF MODENA
T HE city of Modena gave birth to the early painters Tommaso da
Modena (1325–1379) and Barnaba da Modena (fl. 1377), who
worked in many different parts of Tuscany. The prominent figure in this
school, however, is Francesco Bianchi (1460–1510). This painter, whose
name is sometimes given as Francesco Bianchi Ferrari, was in all
probability a pupil of Cosimo Tura at Ferrara. He left that city about 1480
for Modena. His style of painting has been the subject of much discussion,
chiefly because he is regarded as the master of Correggio of Parma. The
Madonna and Child, with St. Benedict and St. Quentin (No. 1167), although
officially catalogued under his name, is not now generally accepted as his
work. In 1725 it was in the Church of St. Quentin at Parma and attributed to
Francia. Certain critics have ascribed it to Alessandro da Carpi and others to
Pellegrino Munari of Modena (1450?–1523). Bianchi’s work can only be
studied in the Pinacoteca Estense and in the churches at Modena.
The three pictures officially catalogued under the name of the third-rate
artist Bartolommeo Schidone (1570?–1615) are not exhibited, nor are they
missed,—a remark which will also apply to a St. Cecilia (No. 1253) by
Jacopo Cavedone (1577–1660).

THE SCHOOL OF VICENZA
T HE first Vicentine painter known to us is Battista da Vicenza (fl.
1450), but it was not until the last quarter of the fifteenth century that
Vicenza produced a painter of any note. Bartolommeo Montagna (1460?–
1523) studied the art of the Vivarini, and so became the central figure in an
unimportant school. His Ecce Homo (No. 1393), which bears the signature:
Bartholomeus Montagna
Fecit
in a cartellino fastened to a twig, is a mature work. The delightful and late
picture of Three Angel Musicians (No. 1394), which is signed in a
cartellino
Opus Bartholomei
Montagna,
shows the unmistakable influence of Gentile Bellini. The same motif is
found in the three musician angels in Montagna’s magnificent Madonna
and Child, with St. Andrew, St. Monica, St. Ursula, and St. Sigismund, of
1498, in the Brera.
Montagna’s son, Benedetto (fl. 1500–1540), Giovanni Buonconsiglio
(1470?–1536?), and Giovanni Speranza (1480–1536) also practised as
painters; but Vicentine art from the middle of the sixteenth century has little
claim on our attention.

THE SCHOOL OF VERCELLI
O NE of the earliest painters in this school was an obscure artist of the
Old Lombard school named Martino Spanzotti. He was the master
of Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471–1546), whose frescoes are easily recognisable
by the crude colour, exuberant imagination, and forceful, almost brutal,
realism which have caused him to be termed, somewhat loosely, the Rubens
of Italy. A very late work by him is the St. Paul (No. 1285), which is signed
and dated
1543
GAUDENTIUS.

Another of Spanzotti’s pupils was Sodoma, who was born at Vercelli in
Piedmont, in 1477. He is best known for the large amount of work that he
executed at Siena. This prolific artist, like a number of other painters of this
unimportant school, is not represented in the Louvre. He died in 1551.
A faint echo of the teaching of Spanzotti may at times be detected in the
works of Defendente Ferrari (fl. 1500–1535) and Girolamo Giovenone (fl.
1513–1527), who are not represented in the Louvre.

PLATE XV.—CORREGGIO
(1494–1534)

SCHOOL OF PARMA
No. 1117.—THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE
(Mariage mystique de Sainte Catherine)
The Virgin, in a red tunic and blue mantle, is seated to the left of the composition
holding on her lap the Infant Christ. He is about to place the wedding-ring on the
third finger of the outstretched right hand of the kneeling St. Catherine, who wears a
gold-brocaded robe. Behind her stands St. Sebastian, looking on with interest and
clasping in his hand the arrows, the symbol of his martyrdom. In the landscape
background are depicted scenes of the martyrdom of the two Saints.

Painted in oil on panel.
3 ft. 5½ in. × 3 ft. 4 in. (1·05 × 1·02.)

THE SCHOOL OF PARMA
O NE of the most distinctive and perhaps the most sensuous of the
Italian masters is Correggio (1494–1534), who takes his name from
his birthplace, Il Correggio, a small town near Modena. It was natural,
therefore, that he should have become the pupil of Francesco Bianchi of the
school of Modena. Correggio came under almost all the leading influences
which distinguish the principal Italian schools of the early sixteenth century.
His “sidelong grace,” his subtle gradations of tone, his daring
foreshortening, his sublimity of space and light, his vivid imagination, his
profound knowledge of chiaroscuro, render him an isolated phenomenon in
Italian art at the moment when it was passing into precipitate decline. His
Marriage of St. Catherine (No. 1117, Plate XV.) entirely lacks the dignity
and solemnity which are the dominant features of truly religious art. The
figures which make up this fascinating composition are delicate, but by no
means of an elevated type. This pseudo-religious picture, when studied
together with the Jupiter and Antiope (No. 1118), shows the justice of the
criticism that Correggio’s pictures are “hymns to the charm of femininity
the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian
Europe.” It is more remarkable that this mythological canvas, which is so
full of sensuous vitality, should have been added to the royal collection of
England in the seventeenth century than that it should have been allowed by
Cromwell to leave the country a few years later. Two Allegories of Virtue
and Vice, executed by Correggio in gouache, hang in one of the Rooms of
Drawings.
Parmigianino (1504–1540), an imitator of Correggio and in a less degree
of Raphael, who were both shortlived artists, painted the two small panels
of a Holy Family (No. 1385), and a Holy Family and Saints (No. 1386).

THE SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA
A FTER the deaths of Francia in 1517 and Lorenzo Costa in 1536,
painting in Bologna rapidly decreased in quality, although not in
volume. A distinctive feature was the work of Marc Antonio Raimondi (b.
1475), a pupil of Francia, who developed the process of engraving on
copper.
Bologna, which like other cities of Italy felt the effects of humanism,
acquired an increased importance in political activity through the meeting
there of Pope Leo x. and Francis i., in 1515, and by the Coronation of
Charles v., on Feb. 24, 1530. It also obtained within a few years a great
reputation as an art centre, although it is not easy for us now to realise why.
The esteem in which its art was held in foreign countries is also difficult to
explain. Innocenzo da Imola, who had studied under Francia, was the
master of Primaticcio, who was summoned to France by François i. in 1531.
Primaticcio at that time was working at Mantua with Giulio Romano, the
favourite pupil and the imitator of Raphael. While Primaticcio took with
him the influence of Bolognese art to Fontainebleau, where he died in 1570,
Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527–1591), a pupil of Bagnacavallo, carried the
Bolognese influence into Spain.
The appreciation by a foreign artist of the art of Bologna is shown in the
case of Denis Calvaert of Antwerp, who thought the Bolognese school to be
in so flourishing a state, when he passed through on his way to study in
Rome, that he decided to abandon his original intention and to stay on in the
city of the Colonnades.
A striking feature of the literature and art of painting at Bologna was that
its University had always accorded equal terms to women students with
men, and had women professors. Female painters—they were without
exception only of the third rank—had worked in Bologna from the days of
Caterina di Vigri, painter and saint, who was born as early as 1413. In the
last quarter of the sixteenth century, art in Bologna passed into the complete
control of the Eclectics.

THE DECADENT SCHOOLS
I N the Florentine and Roman schools the Decadence may be said to
have begun with the death of Raphael in 1520. With the exception of
the Venetian school, in which art did not languish until after the death of
Tintoretto in 1594, painting rapidly degenerated during the second half of
the sixteenth century. Paintings were, of course, produced in great profusion
in every art centre of Italy, but form and subject were not in true harmony.
To a great extent local traditions were abandoned, the earlier types varied,
and three distinctive movements developed—the “Mannerists,” the
“Eclectics,” and the “Naturalists.”

THE “MANNERISTS”
Giulio Romano (1492?–1546) was content to imitate the works of
Raphael; and Daniele da Volterra (1509–1566) tried, as we have seen in his
David overcoming Goliath (No. 1462), to reproduce the swelling muscles of
Michelangelo. Baroccio (1526–1612) in his Circumcision (No. 1149),
which is signed and dated 1570, and in his Virgin in Glory, with St. Anthony
and St. Lucy (No. 1150), sought to reproduce the ineffable grace of
Correggio; while others endeavoured to repeat the enigmatic smile, the
“greyhound” eye, and the mysterious chiaroscuro of Leonardo da Vinci.
Although the “Mannerists” were to be met with in most of the centres of
painting in the sixteenth century, they made Rome the centre of their
operations. Domenico Feti (1589–1624) is represented in the Louvre by
four canvases, Nero (No. 1286), Life in the Country (No. 1287), Melancholy
(No. 1288), and The Guardian Angel (No. 1289), the subjects being highly
significant.
In the Holy Family (No. 1493) by Sassoferrato (1605–1685) are shown
the shallowness and empty formalism which produced the fair-haired, blue-
eyed, hyper-sentimental Madonnas with which his name is associated.
Carlo Dolci is not represented in the Louvre.

One of the more estimable artists in the Late Roman school is Carlo
Maratta (1625–1713), who may be judged by the unsigned Portrait of
Marie Madeleine Rospigliosi (No. 1379) and His Own Portrait (No. 1380).
Two paintings of Fruit (Nos. 1254, 1255) stand to the credit of M. A.
Cerquozzi (1602–1660), and the art of G. B. Castiglione, of Genoa (1616–
1670), is seen in his Abraham and Melchizedek (No. 1250) and Animals
and Utensils (No. 1252).

THE “ECLECTICS”
A revolt against the methods of the “Mannerists” was made by the
Carracci when they opened their school of art at Bologna in 1589. These
“Eclectics” (“Pickers and Choosers”) advocated a careful study of “the
drawing of Rome, the Venetian shadow, the terrific force of Michelangelo’s
manner, the natural truth of Titian, the pure and sovereign style of
Correggio, the true symmetry of Raphael, the dignity and principle of
Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, together with a little of the
grace of Parmigianino”! It is not surprising that they in their turn soon sank
into mere academic mediocrity.
The Louvre is notoriously rich in representative examples of the
“Eclectic” painters’ art. The name of Lodovico Carracci (1555–1619), the
founder of this school at Bologna, is included in the official Catalogue, but
neither of his two pictures is at present exhibited. Lodovico had as cousins,
Agostino (1557?–1602) and Annibale (1560?–1609), who also worked in
Rome. Six of Annibale Carracci’s fifteen pictures in this collection are now
exhibited. The Madonna of the Cherries (No. 1217) and the Sleeping Child
Jesus (No. 1218) are characteristic, while his huge canvas of The Virgin
appearing to St. Luke and St. Catherine (No. 1219) in every way
exemplifies the art of this painter and his school. It is inscribed:
ANNIBAL CARACTIUS F. MDXCII.

Pictures of this type were much sought after and prized in the eighteenth
century, when this one was seized by Napoleon in Italy, but to-day a higher
standard of æsthetics has deservedly ruled them out of fashion. On the other
hand, sufficient attention is not now paid to some of the landscape pictures
which the “Eclectics” painted; Annibale’s Fishing (No. 1233) and Hunting
(No. 1232) are worth the attention of the student. Antonio Carracci (1583–

1618), a less-known member of this family, is the author of a large canvas
depicting The Deluge (No. 1235).
Guido Reni, after working under Denis Calvaert at Bologna, entered the
school of the Carracci. This fitful sentimentalist indulged in idealised
abstractions that were neither human nor divine, as may be seen from his
David and Goliath (No. 1439) and St. Sebastian (No. 1450) on the one
hand, and his Ecce Homo (No. 1447) and Mary Magdalene (No. 1448) on
the other. Four of his large mythological paintings (Nos. 1453, 1454, 1455,
1457) show some technical ability.
Francesco Albani (1578–1660) was influenced by the Carracci and Guido
Reni. The Diana and Actaeon (No. 1111) may be selected out of his nine
productions mentioned in the Catalogue. Domenichino (1581–1641), a
pupil of the Carracci, the assistant of Annibale and a friend of Guido Reni
in Rome, was a sentimentalist of the most pronounced order. His hard
execution and unpleasant colouring can be judged in his St. Cecilia (No.
1613),—her features are singularly ill-proportioned,—but nine of his other
pictures do not take up any of the valuable wall space.
The self-taught artist and insipid Guercino (“The Squintling”) (1591–
1666), after working in Rome, settled in 1642 at Bologna, where he died in
affluent circumstances. His Raising of Lazarus (No. 1139), the large Patron
Saints of Modena (No. 1143), together with a Circe (No. 1147) and The
Painters Own Portrait (No. 1148), are now exhibited. These and such
pictures as were painted by G. A. Donducci (1575–1655), G. F. Grimaldi
(1606–1680), S. Cantarini (1612–1648), and G. M. Crespi (1665–1747),
provoked a fresh reaction.

THE “NATURALISTS”
A natural reaction against the selective methods of the “Eclectics” gave
rise to the “Naturalists,” who, headed by Michelangelo Caravaggio (1569–
1609), made Naples the centre of their operations. The utterly repulsive
picture entitled The Death of the Virgin (No. 1121), by Caravaggio, is
merely large. Neither The Fortune Teller (No. 1122) nor the Concert of
Nine Musicians (No. 1123) can be compared with the really striking and
well-painted Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand-Master of Malta (No.
1124).

Salvator Rosa (1615–1675) is represented by Tobias and the Angel (No.
1477) and a Vision of Saul to Samuel (No. 1478). His Landscape (No. 1480)
shows that he delighted in “ideas of desolation, solitude and danger,
impenetrable forests, rocky and storm-lashed shores, in lonely dells leading
to dens and caverns of banditti, alpine ridges, trees blasted by lightning or
sapped by time.” His Battle (No. 1479) is a strange production.
Caravaggio was the master of Ribera (1588–1656), who is also called
Spagnoletto, and is included in the Catalogue among the Spanish artists.
This “Naturalist” school of Naples also included Luca Giordano (1632–
1705), who lived in Spain at one period.
The aim of the “Naturalists” is displayed in the prominence they gave to
all that was vulgar, coarse, and vile. With them art in Italy came to an
ignominious end, although in technical accomplishment, in mere
craftsmanship, they can hold their own with painters of much higher rank.

PLATE XVI.—JAN VAN EYCK
(1390?–1441)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 1986.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD AND THE
CHANCELLOR ROLIN
(La Vierge au donateur)

An angel in a blue alb and with peacock-blue wings is placing an elaborate gold
crown on the head of the Madonna, who holds the Infant Christ on her knee, and is

seated towards the right of the composition. On the other side the Chancellor,
kneeling at a prie-Dieu, and with his hands joined in adoration, wears a richly
brocaded robe, and is seen in profile towards the right. The figures are grouped in a
portico opening on to a flower-garden and a crenellated wall; in the distance is seen a
seven-arched bridge, and beyond it a castled island.
Painted in oil on panel.
2 ft. 2 in. × 2 ft. 0½ in. (0·66 × 0·62.)

THE EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
T HE early art of Flanders, unlike that of Italy, does not present itself at
the Louvre, or indeed at any Gallery, in orderly sequence from the
immature groping for artistic expression to masterly achievement. With the
exception of the exquisite work of the late-fourteenth-century miniaturists,
which forms a special branch of study, there is nothing to bridge the
immense gulf that divides Melchior Broederlam, the earliest known
Flemish painter, from the brothers Van Eyck, whose earliest known work,
the wonderful Ghent polyptych of The Adoration of the Lamb, is, if not
quite the starting-point, the noblest achievement of the Early Flemish
school. The invention of oil-painting, in the sense of the word as it is
applied to-day, with which the Van Eycks are credited, no doubt contributed
largely towards this amazingly sudden progress; but their art also marks a
new era in the conception of life and pictorial form. An ardent love of truth
and nature takes the place of the earlier vague idealism. At the same time,
the realism of the brothers Van Eyck and their followers, notwithstanding its
insistence on literal truth in the representation of frequently ugly details,
was kept in check by deep sentiment, love of splendid colour, and a great
sense of style in composition. Details, even in the far-away distance, were
certainly elaborated with minute precision, but they are never unduly
obtrusive, and are invariably subordinated to the main motive.

JAN VAN EYCK
The earliest important Flemish painting in the Louvre is the famous
Virgin and Child with the Chancellor Rolin (No. 1986, Plate XVI.) by Jan
van Eyck (c. 1390–1441), which was taken by order of Napoleon I. from
the Collegiate Church of Autun in Burgundy. In a three-aisled colonnaded
hall with stilted arches and pavement of geometrical inlay is seen Nicholas
Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy and Brabant, kneeling at a prayer-desk
before the Virgin, on whose right knee is seated the Infant Saviour holding
an orb in His left and raising His right hand in benediction. An angel with
peacock-blue wings is floating above the Virgin and holding an elaborately

wrought golden crown over her head. The exquisite detail of the river
landscape with a view of Maastricht extending beyond the open colonnade,
the sumptuous brocaded dresses, the carved capitals of columns and piers,
and many other details painted with inimitable minute skill, help towards an
ensemble of jewel-like splendour dimmed but not marred by the yellow
varnish which covers the surface. The Virgin with the Donor was formerly
generally attributed to Hubert, but is most probably a late work by Jan van
Eyck, painted perhaps about 1432.

THE SCHOOL OF TOURNAI
Neither Petrus Christus (1412?–1473), the only master who was directly
influenced by Jan van Eyck, nor Robert Campin (1365–1444), who is now
known to be identical with the so-called “Maître de Flémalle,” and who was
the head of the important Tournai school, are represented at the Louvre. The
official Catalogue ascribes to Campin’s greatest pupil, Rogier van der
Weyden (c. 1400–1464), the two panels The Virgin and Child (No. 2195),
and The Deposition from the Cross (No. 2196), of which at least the former
is only a school version of an often repeated theme by the master, whilst the
Deposition is by no means an important example of his work. Rogier was
born at Tournai, but went to Brussels after 1432, and practised in that city
until his death in 1464. A journey to Italy in 1449 did not appreciably affect
his art, which always retained an archaic flavour, especially in the rather
tortured rendering of the nude. In this respect, and also in his utter disregard
of beauty (except the beauty of rhythmic line), he compares unfavourably
with the brothers Van Eyck, as may be clearly seen on comparing his work
with Jan van Eyck’s Virgin and Donor. His occasional use of gold
backgrounds, as in the Virgin and Child (No. 2195), is another archaic trait.
The hand of a nameless contemporary and follower of Campin and
Rogier van der Weyden, who is also represented at the Galleries of Vienna,
Turin, and Antwerp, is to be recognised in the small panel of The
Annunciation (No. 2202), which was formerly attributed to the much later
painter Lucas van Leyden, and has also been claimed to be only a copy of a
picture by the Maître de Flémalle.

HANS MEMLINC

The influence of Rogier van der Weyden determined the entire course
taken by the Flemish school until its decline with the introduction of those
Italian Renaissance tendencies which only became a vital factor and led to
the birth of a new Flemish art through the genius of Rubens. Again,
Rogier’s chief pupil, Dierick Bouts (c. 1410–1475), is unrepresented at the
Louvre. In the art of Hans Memlinc (c. 1430?–1494), who was the founder
of the great school of Bruges, may be found clear traces of the influence of
Rogier and of Bouts, although we have no certain knowledge as to that
master’s actual pupilage. He may have been born at Mömlingen, near
Aschaffenburg on the Main, and apparently had already risen to fame as a
painter before 1467, the date of his great altarpiece at Dantzig. By that time
he was settled at Bruges. Mr. W. H. J. Weale’s researches have shown that
the legend, according to which Memlinc first came to Bruges as a wounded
soldier and was nursed back to health at the Hospital of St. John, is not
founded on fact. It is probable that Memlinc served his apprenticeship
under some Cologne painter, but all theories regarding his early life must
remain largely conjectural.
What is of real importance is that he introduced into the detailed realism
of his precursors a note of pious fervour and tender idealism, which is the
nearest approach in Northern art to the angelic sweetness of Fra Giovanni
da Fiesole. Not without good reason has he been called “the Fra Angelico of
the North.” Fromentin was certainly right in saying that “Van Eyck saw
with his eyes, Memlinc begins to see with his soul.” It is this warmth of
feeling that makes Memlinc the most lovable painter of the Flemish school,
for he could neither rival the dramatic power and realistic truth of the Van
Eycks, nor the firm draughtsmanship of Van der Weyden, nor Bouts’s skill
in landscape painting. Nor did he take full advantage of the possibilities of
the oil technique, his method remaining that of the tempera painters,
although he availed himself of the new medium.
The earliest work by Memlinc in the great French national collection is
the charming little diptych, painted about 1475, and representing on one
leaf The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (No. 2027), and on the other The
Donor, John du Celier, presented by St. John (No. 2027a). In the first the
Virgin is seen seated in a flowering meadow in front of a rose-covered
trellis and supporting the Infant Christ, who bends forward to place the ring
on the finger of St. Catherine on the left. Behind the saintly bride are St.

Agnes and St. Cecilia; whilst the group on the right comprises St. Barbara,
with St. Margaret and St. Lucy, all accompanied by their characteristic
attributes. On the other leaf the Donor is seen kneeling, with hands joined in
prayer, in front of St. John the Baptist, who is pointing to Our Lord. The
landscape background shows, on the left, the Apocalyptic vision of St. John
the Evangelist, and on the right, St. George fighting the Dragon. This leaf,
after passing through the collection of Mr. Herz and Mr. Heath, was
presented to the Louvre in 1895 by Mme. André, and was thus reunited with
its companion, which had been bequeathed to the Gallery fourteen years
earlier by M. E. Gatteaux. It is on the whole in an excellent state of
preservation, although some of the accessories in the background are so
thinly painted that they have almost disappeared.

MEMLINC’S “VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH DONORS”
About 1490 Memlinc must have painted the admirable Virgin and Child,
with Donors (No. 2026), which was commissioned by James Floreins, a
member of the Bruges Merchant Grocers’ Guild, but subsequently found its
way to Spain, whence it was taken to France by General d’Armagnac. The
Donor, who is kneeling on the left, in front of his seven sons, is presented
by St. James the Great, the same office being performed by St. Dominic for
Floreins’s wife and her twelve daughters, on the opposite side. The scene is
laid in a Romanesque church, with openings at either side, through which
glimpses of the landscape beyond are obtained. The characterisation of all
the faces, which bear a strong family likeness, is as admirable as the
painting of the noble architecture. Remarkable, too, is the effect of perfect
symmetry obtained in the arrangement of the two unequal groups through
the simple device of placing the Virgin and Child more towards the less
crowded side, although the canopy is in the exact middle of the panel. This
altarpiece is certainly one of the most important works by Memlinc that are
to be found outside Belgium.
The two little panels, St. John the Baptist (No. 2024), and St. Mary
Magdalene (No. 2025), both standing in a landscape with small scenes from
their respective legends, formed originally, with two further panels
representing St. Christopher and St. Stephen, the shutters of a triptych. The
centre part had disappeared before the wings, carefully sawn through the
thickness of the panels so, as to separate the obverse from the reverse, came

into the possession of Lucien Bonaparte, and afterwards of William II. of
Holland. The two Saints now at the Louvre were purchased in 1851 for
£469.
In 1908 the Louvre obtained, at the high price of £8000, the Portrait of
an Old Lady (Plate XVII.), to which attention was first drawn at the Bruges
Exhibition in 1902, when it was shown by M. Nardus, from whom it passed
into the hands of M. Kleinberger. Both the Paris portrait, which is drawn
with exquisite precision but has apparently suffered from over-cleaning, and
its companion, the portrait of this anonymous lady’s husband at the Berlin
Museum, were until 1884 in the Meazzu collection in Milan.
The triptych (No. 2028) with (a) The Resurrection, (b) The Ascension,
and (c) The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, which was bought at Turin in 1860
for £540, and is officially considered to be of doubtful authenticity, is
included by Mr. Weale in his catalogue of Memlinc’s works.

GERARD DAVID
The reconstruction and the rescuing from oblivion of the artistic
personality of Gerard David, begun by Mr. Weale and completed by
Freiherr von Bodenhausen, is one of the triumphs of the modern scientific
method of criticism. The Louvre is fortunate in possessing two important
examples from the brush of this master, who, born at Ouwater in Holland
about 1460, was in his early studies influenced by Albert van Ouwater, but,
after settling at Bruges in 1483, came under the spell of Van Eyck, Bouts,
and above all of Memlinc, whom he succeeded as leader of the Bruges
school. On his death in 1523, the supremacy of that school came to an end,
and passed on to the city of Antwerp, which by that time had also
superseded Bruges as a commercial centre. Gerard David was not
Memlinc’s equal as regards intimate charm, but in his work is to be found a
summing-up of all the achievement of the Flemish Quattrocento—“the last
concentrated expression of the aims of all the great masters of that fertile
age.”

PLATE XVII.—HANS MEMLINC
(1430?–1494)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
No.—[4].—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY
She is seen in full face and at half-length, wearing the costume of the period; her
hands are superposed; landscape background to the left, with a winding sandy path.
A porphyry column to the right.
Painted in oil on panel.
1 ft. 2¼ in. × 1 ft. (0·36 × 0·30.)

[4] This picture has not yet received an official number.

After having been successively attributed to Van Eyck, Van der Weyden,
Memlinc, and David’s pupil Ysenbrant, the Marriage at Cana (No. 1957,
Plate XVIII.) is now generally admitted to be designed and partly executed
by Gerard David, although the panel shows unmistakable evidence of being
completed by another and less skilful hand. Mr. Weale has shown, on the
strength of a certain document, that the picture may have been finished by
Ysenbrant, but he has been unable to establish that the document quoted by
him refers to this particular picture. There can be no doubt that David
himself painted the figure of the Donor, kneeling on the left, a marvellous
example of early portraiture, and the Donor’s son, the Christ, and the boy
carrying the cake. Some of the other heads are almost wooden in their
hardness. The head of the Dominican looking into the hall through an
opening beyond which is to be seen the Place du Saint-Sang, at Bruges, is
clearly an afterthought, and is introduced so clumsily that the wall and the
page-boy with the cake-dish really leave no room for the friar’s body. There
is a curious lack of spiritual cohesion in the picture—the majority of the
figures look away from the Saviour as well as from the bride, although the
significance of the moment is such as to demand a concentration of
everybody’s attention on the Christ. The picture, of which there are several
replicas, notably one at the Stockholm Museum by David’s pupil
Ambrosius Benson, was until 1580 in the Chapel of the Saint-Sang at
Bruges, and then in the collection of Louis xiv., from which it passed into
the Louvre.
The triptych (No. 2202a) of the Virgin and Child, with Two Angels, in the
centre, and Two Donors presented by St. John the Baptist and St. John the
Evangelist, on the wings, is officially catalogued as an anonymous picture
of the Flemish sixteenth-century school, but is unquestionably an early
work of Gerard David. It is interesting to note that the male Donor is the
same as the Donor in the Marriage at Cana, though younger in years, and
that the delightful and strangely Italian putti on the capitals of the columns
that flank the Virgin’s throne recur again, reversed, in David’s Judgment of
Cambyses, at Bruges. The Adam and Eve on the outside of the shutters are
inspired by the corresponding figures on the great Van Eyck altarpiece at
Ghent. The Louvre triptych was bought at the Garriga sale in Madrid, in
1890, for £248.

HIERONYMUS BOSCH
Before passing on to the school founded at Antwerp by Quentin Matsys
(c. 1466–1530), mention should be made of Hieronymus Bosch van Aeken
(c. 1462–1516), who, a follower of Ouwater, has as much right to be
counted among the masters of the Dutch as of the Flemish school. Of his
life we know but little. His pictures reveal that realistic observation of
everyday life which was to become the characteristic of the Dutch school;
but, added to it, there is a tendency towards the grotesque which made him
delight in subjects that gave him full scope for the invention of weird
monsters, devils, and spectres, such as the demons in The Damned (No.
1900), which is attributed to Bosch in the official Catalogue, but is, like its
companion, Heaven, at the Lille Museum, the work of the unknown painter
of the famous Last Judgment at Dantzig, which has by various experts been
given in turn to Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Memlinc. There
is at the Louvre a drawing which corresponds to so remarkable a degree
with the panel No. 1900, that it has long been held to be a study from the
same hand. This drawing is, however, more probably an early study by the
German master Martin Schöngauer after the Louvre panel. The picture was
formerly in the Duchâtel collection, and was given to the Louvre by the
Duc de la Tremoïlle.

PLATE XVIII.—GERARD DAVID
(1460?–1523)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 1957.—THE MARRIAGE AT CANA
(Les Noces de Cana)
The scene takes place in a richly appointed chamber, which on the left side looks
out on to the Place du Saint-Sang at Bruges. The Bride is seated on the farther side of
the table; towards the left the Virgin bows her head in the direction of the Christ. In
the left-hand corner of the composition kneels the Donor, wearing the costume of a
Provost of the Company of the Holy Blood; on the right kneels the Female Donor.
Guests and servants variously disposed complete the picture.
Painted in oil on panel.
3 ft. 2 in. × 4 ft. 2½ in. (0·96 × 1·28.)

THE ANTWERP SCHOOL

Quentin Matsys, the painter of The Banker and his Wife (No. 2029, Plate
XIX.), of which numerous replicas and variants are known, some probably
from the hand of his pupil Marinus van Roymerswaele, still owes his
training to the primitives of his race, but heralds the new era which was to
culminate in the art of Rubens, by passing from the earlier minute precision
of detail to a certain breadth of style and boldness of brushwork,
necessitated partly by the larger scale adopted for his figures. Neither The
Saviour Blessing (No. 2030) nor The Virgin and Child (No. 2030a), both of
which are catalogued under his name, can be accepted as authentic; but the
interesting genre group of The Banker and his Wife is not only fully signed
and dated
QVENTIN MATSYS, SCHILDER, 1514,

but is unmistakably the work of his brush, although the woman’s face and
hands appear to have been badly repainted. It was bought in 1806 at the low
price of £72. The best version of the same subject is the one in the
Sigmaringen Gallery. By Quentin Matsys is also, probably, the Pietà (No.
2203), which is catalogued officially as “Flemish xvith Century.” Quentin’s
son Jan, who followed his father’s tradition and achieved considerable
distinction, is the painter of the hideous David and Bathsheba (No. 2030b),
which bears the inscription
1562. IOANES MASSIIS PINGEBAT.

Next in importance among the Antwerp masters is Jan Gossart (c. 1470–
1533?), better known as Mabuse, from the name of his native town
Maubeuge in the Hainault. In his early work he followed the tradition of the
great masters of his own country, but a journey to Italy in 1508 made him
change his manner, and led him to adopt, together with the amplitude of
Italian design, a certain floridness which compares unfavourably with the
honest realism of his precursors and which led to the rapid decadence of the
Flemish school. In the magnificent portrait of Jean Carondelet, Perpetual
Chancellor of Flanders (No. 1997, Plate XX.), although it was painted as
late as 1517, he is still faithful to the great tradition of his country for
honest, straightforward, shrewdly observed, and delicately wrought
portraiture. An inscription on the top of the arched gilt frame reads:
REPRÉSENTACION DE MESSIRE JEHAN CARONDELET,
HAVLT DOYEN DE BESANÇON, EN SON EAGE DE 48Ā,

and, below, “fait l’an 1517.” In a niche behind the panel are the letters “i c”
entwined with strings, and the motto “matvra.” The portrait was, therefore,
obviously painted just before Carondelet accompanied Charles v. to Spain
in 1517.
This portrait panel, together with The Virgin and Child (No. 1998), which
bears on the frame the inscription
MEDIATRIX NOSTRA QVE EST POST DEVM
SPES SOLA TVO FILIO ME REPRESENTA,

and the signature “johannes melbodie pingebat,” formed a diptych which
was bought in 1847 from a Valenciennes architect for the ridiculous price of
£40! A later portrait of Carondelet by Mabuse, dated 1531, appeared in
1907 at Christie’s under the name of C. Amberger, and realised the price of
£3885. Another portrait of Carondelet, by B. van Orley, is in the Munich
Gallery, where it is officially ascribed to Quentin Matsys, who is probably
the painter of yet another portrait of the Chancellor which was recently in
the Duchâtel collection in Paris. The Portrait of a Benedictine (No. 1999)
bears the date 1526 and the signature
JOANNE MALBOLD PINGE.

The decline of the Antwerp school through the introduction of Italian
mannerisms is illustrated in Young Tobias restoring Sight to his Father (No.
2001), a fully signed late picture by Jan van Hemessen, who flourished in
that city towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and in whose art the
last traces of the great national tradition disappear.

PLATE XIX.—QUENTIN MATSYS
(1466?–1530)

FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 2029.—THE BANKER AND HIS WIFE
(Le Banquier et sa femme)

On the far side of a table covered with a green cloth and strewn with various
objects, which include a crystal cup and a circular mirror, are seated the banker,
wearing a dark blue robe edged with fur, and his wife who is turning over the leaves

of an illuminated book of hours. At the back are shelves, on which are displayed
books and many decorative objects.
Painted in oil on panel.
Signed on a roll of paper in the background:—“quentin matsys, schilder, 1514.”
2 ft. 5¼ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0.74 × 0.60.)

BAREND VAN ORLEY
Of the school that flourished in Brussels before Italianism appeared in the
person of Barend van Orley (c. 1495–1542), the only name that has come
down to posterity is that of Rogier van der Weyden’s follower, Colin de
Coter, thanks to the clear inscription
Colin de Coter pinxit me in Brabancia Bruxelle
on the hem of the dress of the kneeling Magdalen in The Holy Women (No.
1952b), which, with The Trinity (No. 1952a) and another lost panel,
probably originally formed a triptych. The signed wing was presented to the
Gallery in 1903; whilst the Trinity centre-piece was bought two years later
from the Abbé Toussaint at St. Omer for £120.
Like Mabuse, Barend van Orley, after showing in his early work clear
traces of his descent from the Flemish primitives, drank deeply at the
fountain of Italian art. He was profoundly impressed by Raphael, from
whom he endeavoured, with a certain degree of success, to learn the noble
flow of drapery and the harmonious disposition of the design. On the other
hand, he sacrificed the lustrous richness of Early Flemish colour and
became addicted to dull grey shadows and pinkish lights. His Holy Family
(No. 2067a) does not rank with his finest works, The Last Judgment at
Antwerp and the Holy Family at Liverpool. The architectural setting, with a
statue of Neptune in a square in the background, indicates the advent of the
Renaissance. The picture was bought at the Otlet sale in Brussels, in 1902,
for £540. With Barend van Orley closes the chapter of the Early Flemish
school. Indeed, he was rather the first of the new era than the last of the
primitives.

PLATE XX.—JAN MABUSE
(1470?–1533?)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 1997.—PORTRAIT OF JEAN CARONDELET,
PERPETUAL CHANCELLOR OF FLANDERS
(Portrait de Jean Carondelet, chancelier perpétuel de Flandre (1469–1544))

He is bare-headed and wears a blue robe; he is turned three-quarters to the right;
his hands are folded in prayer.

Painted in oil on panel.
Inscribed on the frame:—“représentacion de messire jehan carondelet, havlt
doyen de besançon, en son eage de 48ā,” and, below, “fait l’an 1517.”

1 ft. 5 in. × 10¾ in. (0·43 × 0·27.)

THE LATE FLEMISH SCHOOL
T HE period of the great struggle of the Netherlands for religious and
political independence from the yoke of Spain and the Inquisition
was not propitious for the fostering of the Fine Arts. Not only did the
troubled provinces, as was quite natural, slacken in artistic production, but a
vast portion of the treasures owned by churches and monastic
establishments were destroyed by the fanaticism of Protestant iconoclasts.
The separation of the Protestant North from the Catholic South by the
Utrecht Union in 1579 became in a way the determining factor for the
future course of painting in Holland and in the Belgic provinces. The
Dutchmen practically had no further use for religious painting, and devoted
themselves more exclusively to the domestic genre, portraiture, and
landscape; whilst the Flemings applied themselves largely to infusing new
vitality into the representation of Scriptural characters and incidents which,
through constant mechanical repetition, had become mere allegorical
hieroglyphics, or generalised ideas without the all-important sense of
pulsating life. This regeneration was the great deed of Peter Paul Rubens
(1577–1640), who, whilst still benefiting from the example of the great
Italians, remained the very embodiment of Flemish character and thought,
and became the founder of the second important period of Flemish national
art. He was a man of exuberant vitality and boundless energy, endowed with
a creative force unequalled in the whole history of art. He must rank for all
time among the very giants of the brush, with Rembrandt, Titian, and
Velazquez, his contribution to the progress in pictorial art being the use of
pigment and sweeping brushwork as a constructive element—an advance as
significant as the Venetians’ admission of light into the pictorial scheme,
which with the Florentines was based entirely on linear design.

PIETER BRUEGHEL
But before considering the magnificent array of close on fifty authentic
works by the master which form part of the French national collection,
reference will have to be made to a few Flemish artists of the singularly

barren decades that precede the advent of Rubens. First and foremost
among these is Pieter Brueghel (or Breughel) the Elder (1530–1569), who
was born at Breda in 1530, became a pupil of Pieter Koeck, and died at
Brussels in 1569. In spite of his early travels in Italy—which were then
already considered indispensable for the completion of an artist’s training—
he remained unaffected by the all-pervading Italian influence. He was pure
Flemish in thought and expression, and devoted himself to the realistic
painting of peasant life. Certain realistic features which make his pictures
sometimes appear obscene and coarse to modern eyes are merely an
expression of the humour of his age. The exquisite little painting, The
Beggars (No. 1917), which is fully signed
PETER BRUEGHEL, M D L VIII,

is probably some satirical political allusion to the revolutionary party who
called themselves the Gueux (beggars). A similar political significance is
probably the intention of The Parable of the Blind (No. 1917a). The single
file of blind men following their blind leaders into a river is meant to
satirise the moral blindness of the artist’s compatriots following their
political leaders into disaster. This excellent version of Brueghel’s famous
masterpiece at Naples was bought at the Leys sale at Antwerp, in 1894, for
£724. The type of picture to which the elder Brueghel owes his sobriquet
“Peasant Brueghel” is exemplified at the Louvre by two little panels, A
Village (No. 1918) and Peasants Dancing (No. 1918a), which can,
however, only be accepted as school pictures.

JAN BRUEGHEL
Of Brueghel’s two sons, Pieter the younger, known as “Hell” Brueghel, is
not represented at the Louvre, which, on the other hand, boasts possession
of eight examples from the brush of “Peasant” Brueghel’s second son, Jan
(1568–1625), known to fame as “Velvet” Brueghel, either owing to his love
of splendid apparel or to the velvety softness of his brush. He began as a
still-life and flower painter, in which capacity he often collaborated with
Rubens. Having journeyed to Rome in 1593, he devoted himself more
exclusively to landscape enlivened with many small figures, for which
some Scriptural or mythological subject generally provided the excuse.
Where his pictures contain figures on a larger scale, they are generally put
in by Rubens, Rottenhammer, or Van Balen. The last-named is certainly

responsible for the figures in Air (No. 1920), one of a series of the Four
Elements, painted by Jan Brueghel for his Roman patron, Cardinal Federigo
Borromeo, in 1621. To the same series belongs Earth, or The Earthly
Paradise (No. 1919), a subject often repeated by him, as for instance in the
versions at The Hague and at Budapest. Of his other pictures at the Louvre
The Bridge of Talavera (No. 1925), and the Landscape (No. 1926), are
signed and dated brueghel, 1619, and j. brueghel, 1620, respectively. The
Battle of Arbela (No. 1921) is a characteristic work with many minutely
wrought figures. The Landscapes (Nos. 1923 and 1924) are of doubtful
authenticity, and were formerly attributed to Paul Bril. They are not now
exhibited.
There are scarcely any Flemish characteristics in the art of Paul Bril
(1556–1626), the younger brother and pupil of Matthias Bril. He was born
at Antwerp, but worked nearly all his life in Rome. There is little to
distinguish this precursor of Poussin in the art of landscape from his Italian
contemporaries. In Duck Shooting (No. 1908), Diana and her Nymphs (No.
1909), and Pan and Syrinx (No. 1911) the figures are believed to have been
painted in by Annibale Carracci. The Fishermen (No. 1910) bears his
signature pa. brilli, and the date 1624.

THE FRANCK FAMILY
Although the Louvre owns no picture by Frans Floris, the head of the
Italianising mid-sixteenth-century Antwerp school, his uninteresting style
may be studied in The Story of Esther (No. 1989) by his pupil Frans Franck
(1542–1616). To that second-rate artist’s son, Frans Franck the Younger
(1581–1642), who already benefited to a certain extent by the example of
Rubens, is given in the official Catalogue Ulysses recognising Achilles
among the Daughters of Lycomedes (No. 1991a). The Parable of the
Prodigal Son (No. 1990), which is also catalogued under his name, is
obviously by his son Frans Franck iii., since the date 1663 precedes the
signature, and F. Franck the younger died in 1642.
Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569–1622) was born at Antwerp, but spent
the later part of his life in Paris, where, like his father, he enjoyed
considerable reputation as a portrait painter. He had previously been
working at the Mantuan Court, and became painter to Marie de Médicis

after 1609. Although he occasionally produced altarpieces like the rather
uninspired Last Supper (No. 2068) and St. Francis receiving the Stigmata
(No. 2069), he was essentially a portrait painter. In this capacity he belongs
rather to the age that was coming to a close than to the new era initiated by
Rubens. His portraits are quite soundly painted, rich in colour, and
convincing as likenesses, but lack depth of character and suavity of touch.
By far his best pictures at the Louvre are the Portrait of Henri IV. (No.
2071) and the large Portrait of Marie de Médicis (No. 2072), in which the
details of the costume are particularly noteworthy. Less important is another
Portrait of Henri IV. (No. 2070), and one of Guillaume du Vair (No. 2074).
Octavius van Veen, or Otto Venius (1558–1629), the painter of The Artist
and his Family (No. 2191), owes his fame more to the fact that he was one
of the three masters under whom Rubens studied than to any intrinsic merit
of his art.

PETER PAUL RUBENS
The Louvre owes its almost unequalled wealth in paintings by Rubens to
the master’s relations with Marie de Médicis and her Court; and to this
reason is due the fact that by far the largest portion of the fifty-one authentic
works wholly or partly from his brush, which now form part of this great
collection, date approximately from, or immediately before and after, the
time during which he was busy with the famous series painted by order of
that queen for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace, and now to be seen
in a setting appropriate to their florid sumptuousness in the new Rubens
Gallery at the Louvre. Even so, the collection comprises examples of every
phase of the master’s colossal activity—religious and historical
compositions, allegorical paintings, landscapes, portraits, still life, and even
genre-pieces, like the Kermesse (No. 2115), in which he successfully
competes with Teniers on a ground peculiarly his own.
Born at Siegen in 1577, Rubens received his artistic education at
Antwerp from Tobias Verhaecht, a landscape painter, Adam van Noort, and
O. van Veen. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy and entered the
service of Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, studying in their own country the
works of the great Italian masters, and especially the Venetians, from whose
glorious colour he derived more benefit than from his early training. With

the exception of a journey to the Court of Philip III. at Madrid, where he
was sent on a mission by the Duke of Mantua in 1603, Rubens spent the
eight years from 1600 to 1608 in the various Italian centres, and especially
in Rome, where he painted, about 1606, the little Landscape with Ruins
(No. 2119), which is of interest not only as showing to what degree he was
at that time influenced by the Roman school, and by the Carracci, but also
as being the very first landscape known to have been produced by him. The
same view of the Palatine Hill is to be recognised in the background of the
Four Philosophers at the Pitti Palace, and in the portrait of Woverius in the
Arenberg collection. Of about the same time, though the figures would
appear to have been added at a considerably later date, is the Landscape
with a Rainbow (No. 2118).

RUBENS AT ANTWERP
Having returned to Antwerp in 1608, and married his first wife, Isabella
Brant, in the following year, Rubens, who was now made Court painter to
Archduke Albrecht, entered upon a period of stupendous artistic activity,
which extended to about 1621, when he began to divide his time between
art and diplomatic missions, and, having previously organised a vast studio
with an army of assistants, often left the execution of his brilliant sketch
designs to less capable hands. This early Antwerp period is not particularly
well represented at the Louvre, although the collection includes The Virgin
surrounded by the Holy Innocents (No. 2078)— a Virgin of characteristic
Flemish coarseness and fulness of form, in the midst of a dense swarm of
delicious, plump, dimpled, wingless angel-children, whose rosy baby-flesh
is painted with inimitable mastery. The picture was painted about 1615, six
years before The Virgin and Child within a Garland of Flowers (No. 2079),
executed in 1621 for Cardinal Federigo Borromeo. The tasteless floral
wreath in this picture, as in the similar versions at Munich and New York, is
from the brush of Jan Brueghel. To about the year 1615 belongs also the
Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin, the Magdalen and St. John (No. 2082),
which can, however, hardly be entirely from the master’s own hand. The
mass of unbroken vermilion in the robe of St. John is one of Rubens’s
favourite devices at that period. The Resurrection of Lazarus (No. 2081) is
the original sketch for the Berlin picture.

In 1620, when Rubens undertook to paint a series of thirty-nine Miracles
of SS. Ignatius Loyola and François Xavier for the ceiling of the Jesuit
Church at Antwerp, the business-like organisation of his studio was an
acknowledged fact, as may be gathered from the terms of the agreement
which stipulated that the master himself should provide the designs, though
the execution was to be entrusted to his most competent assistants. The
actual paintings were destroyed by fire in 1718, but of the original sketches
seventeen have been preserved, and are now distributed between the
Louvre, the Vienna Academy, the Museums of Gotha and Brussels, and the
Dulwich Gallery. The four in the La Caze collection at the Louvre are
Abraham’s Sacrifice (No. 2120), Abraham and Melchisedek (No. 2121),
The Elevation of the Cross (No. 2122), and The Coronation of the Virgin
(No. 2123). The whole series, but especially the first two of these, is
remarkable for the boldness of the foreshortening, calculated for the
position of the panels on the ceiling, and for the swift bravura and
inimitable expressiveness of the brushwork. To the same period belongs
Philopœmen recognised by an Old Woman (No. 2124), which is essentially
a brilliant still-life study for a lost picture.

THE MÉDICIS SERIES
We come now to the series of twenty-one large allegorical paintings,
designed by Rubens and executed mostly by his pupils, from 1621 to 1625,
for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace for Marie de Médicis, whose
by no means inspiring career had to furnish the subjects for the series. It
was a thankless task which could only be accomplished by a tour de force
—by removing the events of the queen’s life from actuality into the sphere
of mythology and allegory. That the strange mingling of the real and the
ideal should sometimes verge on the grotesque was almost inevitable—as
inevitable as that the work of his assistants should have failed to do full
justice to the master’s conception, even if it was “pulled together” by the
easily recognisable touches added by Rubens to the finished panels. The
florid exuberance of design and colour was entirely in keeping with the
purpose and the surroundings for which the paintings were intended. It is
impossible here to enter into a full description of this extensive series, or to
define exactly Rubens’s share in each of the eleven pictures. We must
confine ourselves to the brief enumeration of the subjects in the order in

which they are now to be seen in the new Rubens Gallery. The series begins
with The Fates spinning the Destiny of Marie de Médicis (No. 2085). Then
follow The Triumph of Truth (No. 2105); Henri IV. receiving the Portrait of
Marie (No. 2088); The Marriage of Marie by Procuration with Henri IV.
(No. 2089); Marie landing at Marseilles, Nov. 3, 1600 (No. 2090); The
Marriage at Lyons, Dec. 10, 1600 (No. 2091); The Birth of Louis XIII. at
Fontainebleau, Sept. 27, 1601 (No. 2092); Henri IV. leaves for the War with
Germany and entrusts the Government to the Queen (No. 2093, Plate
XXI.); The Coronation of the Queen (No. 2094); Apotheosis of Henri IV.
and the Queen’s Regency (No. 2095); The Queen’s Journey to Ponts-de-Cé
(No. 2097); Exchange of the Two Princesses, Nov. 9, 1615 (No. 2098); The
Prosperous Regency (No. 2099); The Majority of Louis XIII. (No. 2100);
The Queen’s Nocturnal Flight from Blois (No. 2101); The Reconciliation of
the Queen with her Son (No. 2102); The Conclusion of Peace (No. 2103);
and Marie’s Interview with her Son (No. 2104). But The Birth of Marie de
Médicis, at Florence, on April 26, 1575 (No. 2086); The Education of
Marie by Minerva, Mercury, Apollo, and the Graces (No. 2087); and The
Gods in Olympus protecting the Queen’s Government (No. 2096), which
belong to the same series, have been placed in another room.
Of the first and the last paintings the Louvre owns the original sketch on
one panel, by Rubens, for The Triumph of Truth and The Fates spinning the
Destiny of Marie (No. 2110), the other preliminary sketches being at the
Hermitage and the Munich Gallery. It is interesting to note that all these
sketches are designed in a very light key, almost in grisaille, with touches of
rose and other tender colour notes, so that apparently Rubens’s assistants
were allowed great liberty in the matter of colour.

MÉDICIS PORTRAITS
Several other pictures by Rubens at the Louvre—all of them portraits—
are more or less directly connected with the Médicis series, and were
painted between 1621 and 1625. These are the Portrait of Anne of Austria
(No. 2112), which was formerly known as Elizabeth of Bourbon; the
Portrait of Francesco de’ Medici (No. 2106), Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
father of Marie de Médicis, which was painted for the Luxembourg Gallery;
the Portrait of Johanna of Austria (No. 2107), daughter of the Emperor
Ferdinand, and wife of Francesco de’ Medici; the Portraits of Marie de

Médicis (Nos. 2108 and 2109) (the former in the character of Bellona, and
both studio works with the final touches added by the master); and the
Portrait of Baron Henri de Vicq (No. 2111), who, as Flemish Ambassador
to the French Court, was instrumental in procuring Rubens the important
commission for the Luxembourg pictures. This admirable portrait was
bought at the King of Holland’s sale in 1850 for £637.
To the same period belongs the beautiful Portrait of Susanne Fourment
(Rubens’s handsome, large-eyed sister-in-law, whose features are best
known from the Chapeau de Paille at the National Gallery), which is still
officially catalogued as Portrait of a Lady of the Boonen Family (No.
2114); and the important composition Lot’s Flight from Sodom (No. 2075),
which bears the rare full signature and date
PE.-PA.-RUBENS FE, Ao 1625,

to prove the master’s satisfaction with his own handiwork. It is a design of
carefully studied rhythm, dramatic expressiveness, and subtly harmonised
colour, carried out with the swift sureness of his later work.
In 1627, a year before his mission to Spain on behalf of the Infanta
Isabella, widow of the Archduke Albrecht, Rubens designed for his
patroness an important series of tapestries, which were, as was his wont at
that period, sketched out by him, executed by his assistants, and touched up
by his own hand. The tapestries were subsequently presented by the Infanta
to a convent at Madrid; some of the paintings for them perished by fire,
others were preserved at the Convent of Loeches, near Madrid. Two of
these, The Prophet Elijah in the Desert (No. 2076) and The Triumph of
Religion (No. 2083), were part of General Sebastiani’s loot from Spain, and
were bought by the Louvre for £2400; whilst four others, now at Grosvenor
House, were bought by the Marquis of Westminster for £10,500. Of about
the same date is the brilliant Adoration of the Magi (No. 2077), with its
Titianesque scheme of strong red, blue, and golden yellow, of which a
replica is in an Irish private collection.

PLATE XXI.—SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
(1577–1640)

FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 2093.—HENRI IV. LEAVES FOR THE WAR WITH
GERMANY, AND ENTRUSTS THE GOVERNMENT TO
THE QUEEN
(Henri IV. part pour la guerre d’Allemagne et confie à la reine
le gouvernement du royaume, 1610)

The King, attended by warriors and holding the banner of France, prepares to
leave the country to make war against Germany; he hands the Globe, the emblem of
State, to Marie de Médicis; the Queen gives her hand to the little Dauphin, who later
became King under the title of Louis xiii.
Painted in oil on canvas.
12 ft. 11 in. × 11 ft. 4 in. (3·94 × 2·95.)

LATE WORKS BY RUBENS
The closing decade of Rubens’s life is represented by five pictures of
considerable importance. Of Queen Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (No.
2084) there is an earlier, large, and deservedly famous version in Lord
Darnley’s collection; but the Louvre picture exceeds it in beauty of design
and in unity of colour. It was painted about the same time (cca. 1632) as
Religion crowned by a Genius (No. 2126), one of the sketches for the
ceiling at Whitehall. Of peculiar interest, owing to its unfinished state
which reveals the master’s method of portraiture, is the superb portrait
group of Hélène Fourment, the Artist’s Second Wife, and Two of her
Children (No. 2113, Plate XXII.). Only the heads, which are remarkable for
an intensity of expression that is rarely to be found in Rubens’s paintings,
are finished. All the rest is loosely and thinly sketched in sepia heightened
with swift touches of brighter colour. It was painted about 1636, which is
also the approximate date of A Flemish Kermesse (No. 2115), an almost
unique instance of the master applying the exuberant energy of his magic
brush to a subject in which the expression of intense vitality and full-
blooded sensuousness assumes the aspect almost of bestiality—which,
however, in no way detracts from the artistic value of the painting. To turn
from this to A Joust by the Moat of a Castle (No. 2116) is to pass from
coarse realism to pure romanticism, inspired probably by the associations of
the picturesque Castle of Steen, which Rubens had bought in 1635, and
which forms the setting for this scene of knightly prowess. This, and the
marvellous and strangely modern little Landscape (No. 2117), in which the
morning sun is seen rising from the autumnal mist, belong to the closing
years of Rubens’s life. He died at Antwerp on May 20, 1640.

ANTHONY VAN DYCK

Born at Antwerp in 1599, Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), after having
worked a few years under Hendrick van Balen, entered Rubens’s studio in
1615, and soon became so conversant with the method of his famous
master, that he was at an early age entrusted with the execution of important
designs. Before he had reached his twentieth year he was a member of the
Guild of St. Luke, and had acquired a reputation second only to that of
Rubens himself. The Portraits of Jean Grusset Richardot, President of the
Netherlands Council, and his Son (No. 1985), which was bought in 1784
for 16,001 livres, so closely resembles the work of Rubens, especially in the
brilliant flesh-painting, that the picture—a posthumous portrait, by the way
—for a long time passed under the elder master’s name, although it is now
admitted by the best authorities to be an early picture by Van Dyck.
Van Dyck paid a short visit to England in 1620. He went to Italy in the
following year, studying the works of the great masters, and especially of
Titian, and finally settling in Genoa, where he remained until his return to
Antwerp in 1628. During these years he devoted himself almost exclusively
to portraiture, in which he endeavoured successfully to emulate the golden
warmth of colour which had drawn him towards Titian. Unfortunately this,
to some the most attractive, phase of Van Dyck’s art is but indifferently
shown at the Louvre, the only example being a Portrait of a Man (No.
1976).

PLATE XXII.—SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
(1577–1640)

FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 2113.—PORTRAIT OF HÉLÈNE FOURMENT, THE
ARTIST’S SECOND WIFE, AND TWO OF HER CHILDREN
(Portrait d’Hélène Fourment, seconde femme de Rubens, et de
ses enfants)
The artist’s second wife, wearing a felt hat trimmed with feathers, is seated in an
arm-chair, and turned three-quarters to the left; on her lap is her little son, François;

on the left her daughter, Claire-Jeanne, dressed in brown, plays with her white
pinafore.
Painted in oil on panel. The picture is unfinished.
5 ft. 8¾ in. × 2 ft. 8½ in. (1·13 × 0·82.)

VAN DYCK’S SECOND ANTWERP PERIOD
Some of the master’s most precious works at the Louvre belong to his
second Antwerp period, which extended from his return from Genoa in
1628 to his departure for England in 1632. It was probably then that he
painted The Virgin and Child, with the Penitent Sinners (No. 1961) (Mary
Magdalen, David, and the Prodigal Son), in which the influence of the
Venetian colourists is so clearly to be noticed. Indeed, the bosom of the
female penitent is copied from the nymph in Titian’s Education of Cupid at
the Borghese Gallery, of which there is a drawing in the Chatsworth Sketch-
book with the comment in the artist’s handwriting, “quel admirabil petto.”
Shortly after his return from Italy he also painted The Virgin and Child with
Donors (No. 1962), one of his greatest masterpieces. The Madonna is of a
youthful, pure type, vastly different from the buxom Flemish women so
often depicted by his master in saintly characters. The painting of the
Infant’s body is as admirable as that of the kneeling Donors, and a spiritual
connection is established by the action of the Child and the expression of
the man towards whom He is holding out His hand.
The companion groups A Gentleman and a Child (No. 1973) and A Lady
and her Daughter (No. 1974), date from about 1630. They are full of that
aristocratic distinction which is the hall-mark of Van Dyck’s Genoese
portraits, and which in his later English period was apt to degenerate into
effeminacy. This air of distinction is also to be noted in the children,
although they are perfectly natural in action and expression, and have none
of that stiffness which makes so many of the earlier masters’ portraits of
children look like undergrown men and women. The imposing equestrian
portrait of Francisco d’Aytona, Marqués de Moncada (No. 1971),
Generalissimus of the Spanish troops in the Netherlands, which in its
general disposition recalls the portrait of Charles i. at Windsor Castle; the
small study for it of the same sitter’s head and shoulders (No. 1972); and
the portrait of The Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Regent of the
Netherlands (No. 1970), in the costume of the Sisters of St. Clare, whom

she had joined after the death of her husband the Archduke Albrecht, belong
to the same period. Then also was painted the Rinaldo in the Garden of
Armida (No. 1966), which is probably the picture bought from the artist at
Antwerp by Endymion Porter, on behalf of King Charles i., in March 1629,
for the price of £78.

“LE ROI À LA CHASSE”
Van Dyck’s manner of life in England, as the petted Court painter of
Charles i., and the factory-like output of his well-organised studio at
Blackfriars, are too well known to need further comment. In justice to his
fair fame it is necessary to draw a clear distinction between the innumerable
replicas turned out by his assistants under his guidance, and such
magnificent original works from the master’s own brush as the glorious
Portrait of King Charles I. of England (No. 1967, Plate XXIII.), known as
“Le Roi à la Chasse,” which is one of the proudest possessions of the
French national collection. The king is seen, resting his gloved hand on a
stick, in a glade, with the sea in the distance. Behind him are two attendants
and his white charger pawing the ground in impatient action. The king’s
noble, quiet dignity is such as to dominate the entire composition, without,
however, the slightest hint of the theatrical. Here, as in most of his English
portraits, Van Dyck has departed from the glowing sumptuousness of his
earlier Venetian palette, and arrived at a cooler, mellow, and more personal
harmony of decorative colour. As if conscious of the superior merit of this
picture, which is more than a mere portrait of the king, and depicts the very
personification of royalty, the artist, who was not in the habit of signing his
pictures, inscribed on a stone the lettering
CAROLUS I REX MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ · VAN DIICK F.

Painted for the king in 1635 for £100, it passed through many hands before
it was bought by Louis xv. for Mme du Barry, by whom it was ceded in
1775 to his successor for 24,000 livres.

PLATE XXIII.—SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
(1599–1641)

FLEMISH SCHOOL
No. 1967.—PORTRAIT OF KING CHARLES I. OF
ENGLAND
(Portrait de Charles ier, roi d’Angleterre (1600–1649))

The King, wearing a white satin coat, red riding-breeches, boots, spurs, and a large
felt hat, stands proudly forward towards the left of the composition; his right hand

rests on his stick, his left is placed on his hip. The Marquess of Hamilton, in
attendance on the King, grasps the bridle of the charger; in the landscape background
is a page.
Painted in oil on canvas.
Signed on a stone in the right foreground:—
“CAROLUS I REX MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ.
VAN DIICK F.”

8 ft. 11½ in × 7 ft. (2·72 × 2·12.)

To Van Dyck’s English period, which only terminated with his death in
1641, belong the group of Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, and Rupert,
Prince of Bavaria (No. 1969), and the Portrait of James Stuart, Duke of
Lennox (No. 1975)—not the Duke of Richmond, as stated in the official
Catalogue—in the character of Paris. Another twelve pictures are
catalogued under Van Dyck’s name, but they are either of minor
importance, or, like the Three Children of Charles I. (No. 1968), mere
studio repetitions.

FRANS SNYDERS
The powerful personality of Rubens dominated the art of Flanders during
the seventeenth century. His direct or indirect influence is traceable in the
art of most of his contemporaries and of the painters of the next generation,
who divided his artistic heritage without attaining to his universality. Thus
his collaborator Frans Snyders (1579–1657), after studying under “Hell
Brueghel” and H. van Balen, acquired the bravura of his brushwork and his
unrivalled skill in depicting animals in violent movement from Rubens, in
whose pictures of the chase he frequently painted the animals, whilst he
often had to seek the assistance of other painters for the figures introduced
into his own compositions. Among the thirteen pictures from his brush at
the Louvre (Nos. 2141–2153) the Wild Boar Hunt (No. 2144) serves best to
illustrate Snyders’s power to suggest the furious onrush and wild
excitement of the chase. His skill as a still-life painter may be judged from
the masterly treatment of the wet glittering fish in the large Fish Merchants
(No. 2145).

JACOB JORDAENS

Whatever appears coarse in the art of Rubens is accentuated to the point
of grossness in the paintings by his fellow-student under Van Noort, Jacob
Jordaens (1593–1678). He is the painter of Le Roi boit (No. 2014) or The
Twelfth Night Feast, which is by no means the best of his many versions of
his favourite subject. He was a realist who, as may be seen from this picture
and from the Concert after a Meal (No. 2015), found his most congenial
subjects in the carousals of Flemish merrymakers, which he depicted with
more than a touch of coarse humour. That his temperament and limitations
debarred him from achieving success in the higher flights of art is clearly
shown by his large but by no means noble canvas Christ driving the
Moneylenders from the Temple (No. 2011). On the other hand, his firm
grasp of character stood him in good stead in portraiture. The so-called
Portrait of Admiral de Ruyter (No. 2016), which was bought in 1824 for
£800, is a good example.
We can only briefly refer to a number of seventeenth-century Antwerp
painters, who were either pupils of Rubens or close followers of his
tradition. Gonzales Coques (1614–1684), the painter of the admirably
lighted Family Party (No. 1952), was essentially a portrait painter who
became known as “the little Van Dyck,” although his manner had more in
common with that of the Dutch “small masters” than with the tempered
elegance of Charles i.’s Court-painter.

FOLLOWERS OF RUBENS
Gaspar de Crayer (1584–1669), a pupil of Raphael van Coxie, modelled
his art entirely on Rubens, and was equally successful as a portrait painter
and in his religious compositions. Both phases of his art figure in the
Louvre collection, which owns the St. Augustin in Ecstasy (No. 1953) and
the life-size Equestrian Portrait of the Infante Ferdinand, Governor of the
Netherlands (No. 1954). It was a portrait of the same sitter that led to
Crayer’s appointment to the position of Painter to the Infante’s Court,
accompanied by considerable emoluments.
Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675), Pieter van Mol (1599–1650),
and Paul de Vos (1593–1676) need not here detain us. They are all capable
followers of their master’s style, without any personal distinction. David
Ryckaert (1612–1661), the third of four artists of the same family that bore

this name, is outside the immediate circle of Rubens. His Interior of a
Studio (No. 2137), which bears the signature “d. ryc. f. 1638,” is of peculiar
interest as a document illustrating the milieu in which a Flemish artist of
that period lived and worked.
Gerard Seghers (1591–1651), the painter of St. Francis in Ecstasy (No.
2140), although a pupil of Van Balen and Abraham Janssens, and indirectly,
through Manfredi, of Caravaggio, must be counted among those who were
influenced by the dominating personality of Rubens. An important pupil of
Snyders was Jan Fyt (1611–1661), who excelled as an animal painter and
colourist. He was at his best when he treated animals more in the manner of
still life, but remained vastly inferior to his master when he tried to emulate
his hunting scenes. Not all the five pictures catalogued under his name can
be accepted as his own work. His great skill in rendering the varied textures
of furs and feathers may be judged from Game in a Larder (No. 1993),
which is unquestionably authentic although it does not bear the signature
which testifies to his authorship of A Dog devouring Game (No. 1994).

ADRIAEN BROUWER
Both the Flemish school and the Dutch have an equal right to claim
Adriaen Brouwer (1605 or 6–1638), who, born at Oudenarde, carried on the
tradition of Bouts and the elder Brueghel. While still young, he was at
Haarlem powerfully impressed by the art of Frans Hals, although it is
extremely doubtful that he ever actually worked in his studio. Finally,
having settled at Antwerp in 1631, he benefited by the example of Rubens.
The Smoker (No. 1916), in spite of the doubts that have been cast upon it, is
a characteristic work of his at the time when, inspired by Frans Hals, he
adopted a full impasto instead of his earlier glazes. It is signed with his
initials “ab” in the bottom corner on the right. The handling is far coarser
than that of the later Interior of a Tavern (No. 1912), which is quite
Rembrandtesque in the rendering of light and chiaroscuro. His inclination
towards grimacing expression often made him depict such scenes as The
Operation (No. 1915), in which the patient’s face is contorted with pain,
while the surgeon is bandaging his left shoulder.
Brouwer was the master of Joos van Craesbeeck (1606–1654?), who not
only closely followed his teaching, but actually painted many replicas of

Brouwer’s pictures which still pass under the better known artist’s name.
The Artist painting a Portrait (No. 1952d) was supposed to represent, and
to be from the brush of, Brouwer, when the picture was bought for the
Louvre. But on technical grounds it must be given to Craesbeeck—quite
apart from the extreme improbability that the dissolute Brouwer, who spent
most of his time in low taverns, should have lived in the elegant, not to say
luxurious, surroundings here depicted, and died young. There can be no
doubt that the painter seated before his easel, to whom a man-servant is
offering a glass of wine, is Joos van Craesbeeck.

DAVID TENIERS
There is at the Louvre no picture by the elder David Teniers (1582–
1649), who therefore only interests us here as the father and first master of
the much greater artist David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690), who
completed his artistic education under Rubens, without, however,
abdicating his own personality. Indeed, those of his pictures which reflect
the manner of Rubens too closely are of little account in the achievement of
the younger Teniers, who only begins to be himself when he devotes his
prolific brush to the social life of his contemporaries, and especially of the
lower classes. His pictures constitute the most realistic and convincing
record of the tastes, manners, and amusements of his time. His types are full
of character, but without the exaggerations so often found in Brueghel and
Brouwer. What he retained of Rubens, even in his Village Fêtes, Tavern
Scenes, Dances, and Carousals is the application of the great master’s
principles of light and harmonious colour. But apart from this, he rejected
the “grand style” and the conscious search for beauty. The ugliness of his
types and gestures led Louis xiv. to exclaim in front of his pictures, “Ôtez-
moi ces magots-là!”
Few painters are as exhaustively represented at the Louvre as the younger
Teniers. The Catalogue includes no fewer than thirty-nine entries under his
name, two of which, in the La Caze collection (Nos. 2189 and 2190), are
copies after pictures by Lotto and Titian respectively in the collection of the
Archduke Leopold William, Governor of the Netherlands, to whom Teniers
was appointed Court painter. It would serve no purpose here to enumerate
the long list of Kermesse, Village Fête, and Alehouse Scenes in the French
national collection. Among his most deservedly famous masterpieces is The

Return of the Prodigal Son (No. 2156), which belongs to a series of which
another scene is to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery. The subject is really
only a thinly veiled excuse for the painting of a genre piece of the
contemporary life of the better classes of his country. The scene of the feast
is laid outside a country inn that figures in many of Teniers’s pictures. Fully
signed, and dated 1644, the picture belongs to the beginning of Teniers’s
very best period. In The Temptation of St. Anthony (No. 2158) he rivals
Bosch in the invention of grotesquely fantastic monsters. Among other
important works by the master in the Louvre must be mentioned The Denial
of St. Peter (No. 2155), a painting of exquisite silvery quality, signed and
dated
DAVID TENIERS, f. AN. 1646;

The Works of Mercy (No. 2157); the Village Fête (No. 2159); and the
Peasants dancing by an Inn Door (No. 2161), which was stolen from the
collection in 1815 and returned in the following year with a letter
explaining that it had been removed by a Frenchman who feared that it
might fall into the hands of the Allied Forces.
By Teniers’s pupil, François Duchatel (1616?–1694?) is the excellent
Portrait of a Gentleman (No. 1960). Duchatel is a very rare master, whose
style in portraiture so closely resembles that of Gonzales Coques that his
pictures have been at times ascribed to that painter. Jacob van Artois (1613–
1684?), the painter of the Landscape (No. 1901) in the La Caze room, was
one of the leading Flemish landscape painters of his time, and frequently
collaborated with Teniers, who added the figures to some of his landscapes.
He was the master of Cornelis Huysmans (1648–1727), who frequently
assisted the battle painter, Van der Meulen, and is here represented by eight
pictures (Nos. 2002–2009). Among the landscape painters of that period
must also be mentioned Jan Siberechts (1627–1703), who spent the closing
years of his life in England, but does not seem to have had much influence
on the evolution of the English landscape school. By him is the Rustic
Scene (No. 2140a).

PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE
Both Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674) and Adam Frans van der
Meulen (1634–1690), though born at Brussels, resided in France the best

part of their life, and are therefore generally classed with the painters of the
French school, which accounts for their being represented at the Louvre in a
manner which is quite out of proportion to their artistic significance. Still, if
Philippe de Champaigne appears second-rate when compared with Rubens
and Van Dyck, he is unquestionably the leading portrait painter of the
contemporary French school in which he received his training. His powers
were insufficient for the higher flights of imagination, and when his
ambition led him to such compositions as Christ in the House of Simon (No.
1927) or Christ celebrating Easter with His Disciples (No. 1928), he was as
dull and bombastic as most of his French contemporaries, whom he far
excelled as a colourist. His portraits, on the other hand, are painted in a
broad, honest, straightforward manner which has nothing in common with
the monotonous pompousness of his age, as may be seen from the
admirable group of two nuns in prayer, Mother Catherine Agnes Arnaud
and Sister Catherine de Sainte-Suzanne (No. 1934). The younger of the two
nuns represents the artist’s daughter, who was healed from paralysis by a
miracle recorded by a Latin inscription on the wall. The twenty pictures
from Philippe de Champaigne’s brush, which are actually on view, also
include the fine group of the two architects François Mansard and Claude
Perrault (No. 1944), bought in 1835 for the low price of £80; The Provost
and Aldermen of Paris (No. 1945); and the signed and dated portrait of
Robert Arnaud d’Andilly (No. 1939).

VAN DER MEULEN
Van der Meulen, a native of Brussels and pupil of Snayers, was the
historiographer of Louis xiv.’s campaigns and victories. He was invited by
Colbert to come to Paris, and was first employed to furnish designs for the
Gobelins manufactory. Afterwards he accompanied Louis xiv. on his
warlike expeditions, which he immortalised in numerous large paintings,
most of which are now at the Louvre and in the Château at Versailles. His
paintings are of considerable topographical interest, as they give accurate
representations of the aspect of famous towns and fortresses in the
seventeenth century, as in the Entry of Louis XIV. and Marie-Thérèse into
Arras (No. 2035), a similar scene at Douai (No. 2033), and the Arrival of
the King in the Camp before Maastricht (No. 2040). It was Van der Meulen
who founded the “tactical school” of battle painting, which substituted the

orderly movement of masses for the wild mêlée of the hand-to-hand
combat. Whole armies are seen advancing or retreating in long lines from a
high vantage-ground which is generally occupied by the considerably larger
figures of the army-leaders on rearing and caracoling horses, and looking
for all the world like “gens de qualité qui joueraient aux échecs avec des
soldats de plomb.” The official Catalogue mentions no fewer than twenty
pictures by Van der Meulen.

MINOR FLEMISH PAINTERS
With the exception of Justus Sustermans (1597–1681), who was Van
Dyck’s fellow-student under H. van Balen and afterwards rose to great fame
as Court painter to Grand-Duke Cosimo ii. of Tuscany (whose kinsman
Leopold de’ Medici is portrayed in No. 2154), and Pieter Neefs (1577?–
1661?), whose Church Interiors (Nos. 2059–2064) are remarkable for the
faultless accuracy and precision of his architectural drawing, there are no
other painters of the Flemish school whose works at the Louvre require
close attention. We must content ourselves with the mere mention of the
landscape painters Jan Frans van Bloemen, called Orizonte, a follower of
Poussin and Claude; Jan van Breda, Francisque Millet, and Mathys
Schoevaerts; Carl van Falens and Anton Grief, painters of hunting scenes;
Jan Miel, who worked most of his life in Italy and was completely
influenced by the masters of that country; the still-life painter Gaspard
Pieter Verbruggen; the battle painter Sebastiaen Francken; and the prolific
painter of large altarpieces, Jacob van Oost the Elder. With Balthasar Paul
Ommeganck (1755–1826) and the still-life painter Jan Frans van Dael
(1764–1840) we reach the beginning of the nineteenth century, a period of
absolute stagnation in Flemish art which preceded the brilliant revival of the
modern Belgian school.

THE GERMAN SCHOOL
O F all the important European schools of painting, the Early German
school is the one of which it is almost impossible to gain anything
like an adequate idea from the pictures that have found their way into the
Galleries of foreign countries. The fact is that with the exception of two or
three leading masters, like Holbein and Dürer, the Early Germans found but
scant favour beyond the confines of their own country until comparatively
recent years—that is to say, until the majority of important examples had
been systematically gathered in by the museums of Germany. Now that the
importance of the German primitives and Early Renaissance painters has
been generally recognised, it will be practically impossible to regain the lost
ground and to fill up the serious gaps which prevent our forming an
adequate idea of the evolution of German art in the museums of other
countries. The Louvre is no exception to this rule. The numerical weakness
of the German section is unfortunately not atoned for by the importance of
the examples included, which, with but few exceptions, are of little artistic
account.
Under the circumstances it would be useless to attempt a consecutive
narrative of the evolution of German art as illustrated by the pictures at the
Louvre, and we must confine ourselves to a brief discussion of the few
noteworthy works in the collection.

“THE MASTER OF THE BARTHOLOMEW ALTAR”
The first picture of importance belongs to the period when the idealism
of the Early Gothic primitives was already replaced by a strong naturalism,
and the creation of types by that of clearly characterised individualities.
This picture, the Descent from the Cross (No. 2737), by the unknown
“Master of the Bartholomew Altar,” is so called, in accordance with
German custom, from his best known work, the great altarpiece in the
Pinakothek at Munich. In the large Louvre picture, which bears a close
resemblance to the precious little panel by the same master in the
possession of the Hon. Edward Wood, at Temple Newsam, the Saviour is

being lowered from the Cross by Nicodemus into the hands of one of the
Holy Women on the left, and of Joseph of Arimathæa on the right. The
group is completed by St. John supporting the Virgin on the extreme left,
the Magdalen and another Holy Woman on the right, and a Disciple seated
on a ladder above the central group. The figures are shown, as in the
Temple Newsam painting of the same subject, against a gold background
framed with rich Gothic tracery. This altarpiece is believed to be the last
picture by this Cologne master, who flourished between 1490 and 1515, and
was in his later manner influenced by Rogier van der Weyden and other
Flemish masters. This eminently important Early German picture was
painted for a Jesuit establishment in the rue St. Antoine, Paris, which
accounts for its presence in the French national collection.

COLOGNE PAINTERS
The “Master of the Death of Mary,” to whose school belongs the Descent
from the Cross, with a predella representing The Last Supper, and a lunette
with St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (No. 2738), has been identified by
Wauters and Aldenhoven with the early-sixteenth-century Flemish painter
Joos van Cleef the Elder, and belongs to the Antwerp rather than the
Cologne school. The “Master of St. Severin,” to whom the official
Catalogue ascribes the two Scenes from the Life of St. Ursula (Nos. 2738c
and 2738d), was probably a Flemish painter who worked at Cologne at the
beginning of the sixteenth century. But the two panels at the Louvre, which
were formerly at the Cluny Museum, are not from his brush. They are the
work of his pupil, the “Master of the Ursula Legend,” and belong to a series
of which other panels can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at
Cologne.
The first definite name in the annals of the Cologne school is that of
Bartolomäus Bruyn (c. 1493–1555), who was a follower of Joos van Cleef
but subsequently became completely imbued with the Italian spirit. His
portraits, in which he remained more faithful to the tradition of his country,
are of greater significance than his religious compositions, and closely
resemble those by Joos van Cleef; but the Portrait of a Man with a White
Cross on his Breast (No. 2702) is only a school picture of indifferent
quality.

ALBRECHT DÜRER
The flourishing school which had its centre at Nuremberg is represented
at the Louvre by the master who marks its zenith and who, if his
craftsmanship was not always on a level with the perfection of Holbein’s,
shares with the Augsburg master the honour of uncontested leadership of all
German artists. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was born at Nuremberg, of
Hungarian descent. He studied his art under Michael Wohlgemut, a very
able Nuremberg painter, who was, however, led by his popularity to
factory-like production of pictures that passed under his name, although
they were largely executed by inferior pupils. Dürer, who excelled equally
as an engraver and as a painter, was, on the other hand, one of the most
sincere and personal artists of his time—a profound thinker, a shrewd
observer, a student of life in all its phases, an idealist who was ever striving
for beautiful expression, even though the realistic tradition of his country
did not allow him to attain to the abstract ideal of beauty which had been
reached by some of the contemporary Italians. Indeed, Dürer may with
justice be called the Leonardo of the North. He studied Venetian art on a
visit to Venice in 1505, whither he had been preceded by his fame. He also
travelled to the Netherlands in 1520, the year in which he painted the signed
and dated Head of an Old Man (No. 2709), his other picture at the Louvre
being the not very masterly Head of a Child (No. 2709a).

DÜRER’S FOLLOWERS
Dürer died in 1528 from a disease contracted during his journey to the
Netherlands. Among his principal pupils were Georg Pencz (c. 1500–1550),
to whom is without sufficient reason attributed the indifferent half figure of
St. John the Evangelist (No. 2730); and Hans Sebald Beham (c. 1500–
1550), the famous engraver, of whom the Louvre is fortunate to possess the
only known painting, a table top divided by golden lances into four
compartments, each of which contains a Subject from the Story of David
(No. 2701): the Entry of Saul into Jerusalem; David and Bathsheba (in
which scene is introduced a portrait of Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence,
for whom the work was executed); the Siege of Rabbath; and the Prophet
Nathan before David (with a portrait of the artist and the initials of his
name, “h. s. b.”).

LUCAS CRANACH
This same Archbishop Albrecht, whose features are also known to us
from two engravings by Dürer and a painting by Grünewald, was one of the
most generous patrons of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), whose
busy workshops at Wittenberg supplied the whole north and east of
Germany with portraits, altarpieces, historical and mythological pictures.
Lucas Cranach was a follower of Grünewald, the great head of the Colmar
school. Apart from his merit as a colourist and an excellent draughtsman, he
attracts by the naïve grace of his nude figures and by the complete manner
in which he reflects the taste of his time and country. But of the five little
pictures that figure in the Louvre Catalogue under his name, not one is from
his own hand. Indeed, the Venus in a Landscape (No. 2703) is the only one
that may with a degree of safety be attributed to his son, Lucas Cranach the
Younger, who carried on the management of the studio some years before
his father’s death, and continued to imitate his style until his own death in
1586. The Venus bears the usual Cranach signature of a winged serpent and
the date 1520. The same crest, with the date 1532, figures on the portrait of
Johann Friedrich III., Elector of Saxony (No. 2704), who is known on one
occasion to have given a wholesale order of sixty replicas of the same
portrait to the Wittenberg master. It may be imagined that a commission of
this nature would not be executed by the head of the studio, but left to his
staff of assistants. The Fighting Savages (No. 2702a) and the two Portraits
(Nos. 2703a and 2705) are, at the best, studio works.

HANS HOLBEIN
We now come to the second of the two commanding figures in German
art, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who was born at Augsburg and
studied under his father, the elder artist of the same name. When he reached
his maturity the Italian influence had already permeated German art, but he
was the first Northern master who knew how to benefit by the real spirit of
the Renaissance without imitating the letter; the first to develop a noble,
dignified style, free from the florid trivialities which so many Northerners
took from certain Italian painters. He was above all a marvellous portrait
painter who, in his drawings as well as in his paintings, combines the most
exquisite delicacy and subtlety with rare strength, the greatest precision of
detail with freedom and breadth of handling. Only this phase of his art is

represented at the Louvre, which certainly owns one perfect example of
Holbein’s portraiture in the Portrait of Erasmus (No. 2715, Plate XXIV.).
Holbein had settled in Basle in 1519. He went to England in 1526, with a
letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More. From one of
Erasmus’s letters it would appear that Holbein had portrayed him at least
three times before 1524; and the picture now in the Louvre was probably
the one that was painted for Sir Thomas More—a better recommendation
than any letter of introduction! The profile is drawn with inimitable
mastery; and the whole character of the man can be read from the
expression of the tight-pressed lips and mobile features, as he sits writing at
his desk. Note, also, the marvellous expressiveness of the hands, studies for
which are to be found in the collection of drawings at the Louvre.
In view of the personal relations which link together Holbein, Erasmus,
and Sir Thomas More, it would be pleasant if we could accept the so-called
Portrait of Thomas More, Great Chancellor of England (No. 2717), as
authentic. It does not, however, represent Holbein’s first English patron, nor
does it appear to be from the master’s own brush.

THE KRATZER PORTRAIT
Holbein’s first sojourn in England extended from 1526 to 1528, in which
year he returned to Basle. It must have been shortly before his departure
that he painted the Portrait of Nicolas Kratzer, Astronomer to King Henry
VIII. (No. 2713); it is an unquestionably authentic work, although it has
been so extensively repainted that little is now left of the original, save the
general disposition of the design and the instruments placed on the table
and hung on the wall, which are executed with all the loving care that
Holbein was wont to bestow upon such accessories. Still, even in its present
condition, the portrait is a thoroughly convincing likeness of “a man who is
brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies”—as Kratzer is referred to by
one of his contemporaries. A sheet of paper on the left of the table appears
to be inscribed:—

Imago ad vivam effigiem expressa
Nicolai Kratzeri monacensis qui bavarus erat
Quadragessimum annum tempore illo complebat.
1528.

PLATE XXIV.—HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
(1497–1543)

GERMAN SCHOOL
No. 2715.—PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS
(Portrait de Didier Érasme)

The Humanist is seen at half length and in forefile to the left, before a table at
which he is writing. He wears a fur-lined coat and a dark cap. A green figured curtain
forms the background.
Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 4¾ in. × 1 ft. 0¾ in. (0·42 × 0·32.)

Although decidedly superior to another version of the same picture at
Lambeth Palace, the Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury
(No. 2714), which bears the inscription,
ANNO. Dm. MDXXVII. ETATIS. SVE, LXX.,

cannot without hesitation be accepted as an original work. It lacks, at any
rate, the finesse of the beautiful drawing at Windsor Castle, upon which it is
evidently based.
To the same year belongs the Portrait of Sir Richard Southwell (No.
2719), to whose treacherous accusation was due the execution of Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey. But this picture, again, is only a replica, by an
inferior hand, of the magnificent portrait in the Uffizi Gallery (No. 765). An
inscription in the background, at both sides of the head, reads:
on the left: x.o ivlii. anno. and on the right: etatis svæ
h. viii. xxviii. anno xxxiii.

It would thus appear that the picture was painted in 1537, the twenty-
eighth year of Henry viii.’s reign. The Portrait of a Man holding a
Carnation and a Rosary (No. 2720) is a picture of poor quality and has no
connection whatever with Holbein.

PORTRAIT OF ANNE OF CLEVES
Of far greater importance and undisputed authenticity is the Portrait of
Anne of Cleves, Fourth Wife of Henry VIII. (No. 2718). No credence is to be
attached to the legend invented by Bishop Burnet more than a century after
that ill-treated lady’s death, according to which Holbein’s flattering portrait
was instrumental in “bluff King Hal’s” choice of his fourth spouse and
responsible for the king’s disappointment at setting eyes upon Anne. The
picture, which was painted in 1539, seven years after Holbein’s definite
return to England and to the service of Henry viii., has not only that air of
inevitable truthfulness which distinguishes all Holbein’s portraiture, but
tallies to a remarkable degree with the descriptions sent to Henry viii. by his
agents. Whilst not exactly unpleasant to behold, the features are those of a
spiritless, dull woman—an impression which is intensified by the absence

of life and character in the hands, which Holbein invariably studied as
closely as the face. The painting of the richly embroidered and jewelled
costume, the stately symmetry of the design, and the beautiful scheme of
colour are really the chief attractions of this picture.
The Adoration of the Magi (No. 2711a), which was at one time attributed
to the elder, and subsequently to the younger, Holbein, is now rightly given
to the latter’s contemporary and compatriot Gumpold Giltlinger, an
Augsburg painter of no particular distinction.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Before the end of the sixteenth century German art had entered upon a
period of complete decadence. The only painter who claims attention, not
so much for the undeniable merit of his very highly finished landscapes, but
for the fact that he exercised a certain influence upon Rembrandt, is the
Frankfort painter, Adam Elsheimer (1578–1621?), who worked at Rome,
and who is represented at the Louvre by The Flight into Egypt (No. 2710)
and The Good Samaritan (No. 2711).
For the rest, the German painters of his period and of the whole of the
seventeenth century retained scarcely a trace of national character, and were
completely under the sway of the foreign, and particularly of the Italian,
schools. Thus, Johann Rottenhammer (1564–1623), the painter of The
Death of Adonis (No. 2732) and Diana and Calisto (No. 2733), was
successively dominated by Jan Brueghel and by Tintoretto. The flower
painter, Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), though born at Frankfort, was a
pupil of David de Heem and a Dutchman in his art. His pictures at the
Louvre (Nos. 2724–2729) are distributed between the German and the
Dutch sections. Philipp Peter Roos, better known as Rosa da Tivoli (1665?–
1705), who painted the Wolf devouring a Sheep (No. 2731), lived in Rome
and adopted the style of the country of his domicile. The Bear Hunt (No.
2734) is the work of Carl Ruthart, another unimportant Italianising German
of the second half of the seventeenth century.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The work of the Hamburg painter, Baltasar Denner (1685–1749), has no
claim to be considered as a manifestation of art: it is merely a display of

mechanical skill in the microscopic rendering of the little lines and pores
and stubbly hair on the skin of old people’s faces. He lived for seven years
in London, where he painted in 1724 the signed Portrait of an Old Woman
(No. 2706), which was bought in 1852 for £756. Another characteristic
example of his misapplied skill is the portrait (No. 2707) in the La Caze
Room.
Christian Wilhelm Dietrich (1712–1774) and Heinrich Wilhelm
Schweickhardt (1746–1787) are too insignificant to deserve serious
consideration. The same remark applies to Christian Seybold (1703?–1768),
who became Court Painter to the Empress Maria Theresa; and to Johann
Ernest Heinsius, who was active as a portrait painter in France during the
reign of Louis xvi. All that is to be noted in their pictures at the Louvre is
the total absence of all artistic merit.
Of somewhat greater importance, though by no means of the first rank,
are the two last German artists who claim our attention: Raphael Mengs
(1728–1779) and Angelica Kaufmann, (1741–1807), who is catalogued
among the painters of the German school, although she was Swiss by birth,
Italian by education, and English by domicile. Her sex was no bar to her
becoming one of the Foundation members of the English Royal Academy,
and she is generally counted among the English painters. The portrait group
of The Baroness von Krüdner and her Daughter (No. 2722) is a poor
example of her art, which invariably sought to please by conventional
prettiness.
Raphael Mengs, the painter of the portrait of Marie Amelia Christina of
Saxony, Wife of Charles III. of Spain, was born at Aussig in Bohemia,
studied whilst still a boy in Italy, and became Court Painter to Charles iii.,
who invited him to Madrid in 1761. Mengs was an exceedingly
accomplished technician and draughtsman, who modelled himself on
Raphael and the Italian eclectics, but was wholly lacking in originality and
inspiration. He tried his hand in every branch of his art, and was most
successful in portraiture, although even his portraits are lacking in
penetration of character. He, however, excelled as a copyist, and died in
Rome in 1779.

THE SPANISH SCHOOL
T HOUGH numerically by no means imposing, the Spanish pictures at
the Louvre form an exceedingly interesting section of the great
French national collection, comprising, as they do, characteristic examples
of the art of practically all the most prominent figures in the evolution of
Spanish painting. Compared with the schools of Italy and Flanders, that of
Spain was tardy in its development and very much dependent upon foreign
influences. The activity of Flemish and Italian masters in Spain—we need
only mention Starnina, Dello Delli, Rubens, Luca Giordano—and the visits
of several eminent Spanish masters to Italy, could not fail to leave their
clear mark on the art of the Peninsula, the renaissance of which was almost
entirely due to the stimulus received from abroad. The short visit of Jan van
Eyck to Portugal in 1429 also had a profound influence on the art of the
Peninsula. But the local conditions, the strict rule of the Church and the
tyranny of the Inquisition, the stiff ceremonial of the Court,—the only rival
of the Church in the patronage of the arts,—and especially the sombre,
passionate character of the Spanish race,—all helped to transform the
imported styles into an art of definite national stamp, an art that is marked
by sombreness, asceticism, dramatic intensity, and deep religious feeling.
Throughout it is dominated by realistic tendencies and rude strength rather
than by the striving for grace and beauty and rhythm which characterise
Italian art.

LUIS DE DALMAU
The Louvre is fortunate in possessing an authentic and extremely
important, though badly restored, altarpiece by Ludovico Luis de Dalmau,
the first Spanish painter whose personality emerges definitely from the
obscurity of the Gothic period in Spain. Dalmau was a Catalan who
flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century, and who, although not
a direct pupil of the Van Eycks, shows such close affinity with their style
that certain modern critics are inclined to ascribe to him, with insufficient
reason, certain pictures, like the Fountain of Living Water at the Prado, by

the heads and founders of the Bruges school. In spite of the different types
and the increased angularity of the drapery folds in Dalmau’s Enthronement
of St. Isidore (No. 1703a), this Eyckian influence is clearly traceable in the
Louvre picture, which shows the Virgin enthroned under a Gothic canopy
wearing a crown of typically Spanish form, and handing the pallium to the
saintly Bishop of Seville, who kneels on the left. Further back on the same
side are four angels with the episcopal insignia. The group is balanced on
the right by St. Anthony the Hermit in the foreground, and SS. Catherine,
Margaret, Agatha, Odilia, and Apollonia grouped around the throne. The
picture was originally in a church at Valladolid, and was bought for the
Louvre at the Bourgeois sale at Cologne in 1904 for £3025.

LUIS MORALES
We need not here pay attention to the few unimportant pictures by
unknown early Spanish masters in the collection, and may pass on to Luis
Morales, called “El Divino” (“The Divine”) (1509–1586), who was born at
Badajoz, and worked at Toledo, when the whole Spanish school was
already addicted to the Italian mannerisms introduced by Berreguete and
other native artists trained in Rome. Morales, however, remained faithful to
the tradition of his own country, and was essentially a painter of those
religious subjects which enabled him to follow the national bent for the
sombre and tragic—the sufferings of Christ and of the Virgin, and similar
themes. The Christ carrying the Cross (No. 1707) is a typical instance of
the tragic intensity of his conception. All the suffering of the Saviour is
expressed in His drawn features and His heavy, swollen eyelids. The picture
is not dated, but was evidently painted before 1564, in which year the
master was called to the Escorial and, while in the service of Philip ii., to a
great extent lost his individual style in the imitation of the Italians, that was
probably forced upon him by the taste of his patrons.

EL GRECO
We now come to one of the most interesting figures in the history of
Spanish painting—Dominico Theotocopuli, better known as “El Greco”
(1548–1614), from the country of his birth. Born in Crete about 1548, El
Greco entered at a very early age the studio of Titian in Venice. This at least
we know from a letter written by Clovio from Rome in 1570, without

which, if we were to judge from the master’s early style, we should be
forced to the conclusion that he acquired his art from Tintoretto, and more
particularly from Jacopo da Ponte, to whom several of his earliest works in
private collections were formerly, and in some cases are still, ascribed. He
went to Rome in 1570, and after five or six years took up his abode at
Toledo, his first dated picture in that city, the scene of his chief activity,
bearing the date 1577. Between that year and his death in 1614, his extant
works illustrate the gradual evolution of his art, the change of his Italian
into a typically Spanish manner, the rapid acquisition of a very personal
style, and the straining of that personal style to extreme mannerism. The
notes and flashes of rare, cold, almost acid, but always harmonious, colour
lend a peculiar distinction to El Greco’s work. His predilection for long,
narrow faces and slender, emaciated bodies led him in his declining years to
extravagant exaggeration; the ecstatic passionate action and gesture of his
figures reveal contortion and frenzy. As a portrait painter El Greco is second
only to Velazquez in the school of his adopted country. His biographer,
Señor Cossío, has called him “a painter of souls,” because he had that
intense power of penetration which perceives and retains at a glance the
sum total of a person’s traits of character.
El Greco’s conception of portraiture enters largely into his pictures at the
Louvre, from which we must exclude as an imitation by an inferior hand the
St. Francis and a Novice (No. 1729a). It is certainly an important feature in
the large Christ on the Cross, with Two Donors, one of the comparatively
recent acquisitions, which still hangs on a screen in Gallery XV. This great
altarpiece has little of the master’s fierce passion and lightning flashes of
colour. The expression of the two Donors, Diego and Antonio Covarrubias,
who are seen to the waist at the foot of the Cross, does not go beyond
normal pious devotion; and the Saviour seems rather to stand with spread
arms than to hang on the Cross with all the weight of His characteristically
elongated body. A leaden grey dominates the whole colour scheme. The
composition is singularly empty and simple for a master who seemed to
have a perfect horror of empty spaces. The picture, which is fully signed,
must have been painted soon after El Greco’s arrival at Toledo (and not, as
Sñr. Cossío thinks, between 1590 and 1600), since one of the Donors, the
priest Diego Covarrubias, died in 1577.

Comparison of the two Donors’ faces with their portraits by the same
master in the Toledo Library can leave no doubt as to their identity. The
Christ on the Cross was offered by the deputy Isaac Pereire of Prades
(Pyrenées-Orientales) to the local parish church, but was refused and hung
in the Palais de Justice at Prades, whence it was removed to the Mairie in
1904, and finally sold to the Louvre in 1908 for £1000. The picture
measures 8 ft. 8 in. by 5 ft. 8 in.
The St. Louis of France and a Page (No. 1729b), which was formerly
wrongly catalogued as King Ferdinand the Catholic, is a more typical
example of El Greco’s management of colour. The boldly painted armour is
identical with that of the St. Martin on horseback, at Toledo. The probable
date of the picture, which was bought in 1904 at the high price of £2800, is
between 1594 and 1600.
By El Greco’s favourite pupil and assistant, Luis Tristan (1586–1640), is
the realistic half-figure of St. Francis of Assisi (No. 1730). A more scientific
classification of the works by the Toledo painters has reversed Sir W.
Stirling-Maxwell’s judgment that Tristan had all the virtues and none of the
faults of his master. He was in reality a mediocre imitator of El Greco,
without a spark of his master’s genius and without any of his distinction.

THE SCHOOL OF SEVILLE
The naturalistic tendencies inherent in the national Spanish genius, which
even in the period of Italian mannerism were not to be entirely denied, bore
full fruit at Seville, where Francisco Herrera “the Old” (1576–1656) was
the first entirely to reject the tyranny of the Italian manner, and with it to a
certain extent the tyranny of Church patronage. He was a man of fiery
character, with whom the technique of his art became a veritable passion. It
was left to a painter of a later century and of another race to proclaim that it
does not matter what you paint, but how you paint; but Herrera’s work at
times almost suggests that he was guided by similar principles, although an
instinctive sense of pictorial fitness saved him from the consequences to
which their unrestricted application might easily lead.
In spite of the repelling fierceness, the fanaticism, the cruelty of every
single face—all of them portraits, no doubt—in the St. Basil dictating his
Doctrine (No. 1706) at the Louvre, in spite of the essentially Spanish

manner in which the design fills the space (the figures being grouped in
horizontal courses right across the canvas, with very little space above for
the sky, and this little space filled with angels’ heads and with a Holy Ghost
as fierce as the rest of the assembly), there is a noble rhythm of line as well
as of the distribution of light and shade, which proclaims the mind of a
master. The two Saints in the immediate foreground, St. Dominic and St.
Bernard, are cut through at the waist—another favourite device of Spanish
composition, which we have already noticed in the Donors of El Greco’s
Christ on the Cross.

ZURBARÁN
Considerable though it be, Herrera’s artistic achievement does not
constitute his chief claim to fame; for his name will ever be best known as
that of the first master of the greatest of all Spanish painters, Don Diego
Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez. But before discussing the pictures by, or
catalogued under the name of, Velazquez at the Louvre, we must consider
the work of two other painters of the Naturalistic school: Francisco de
Zurbarán (1598–1661) and José de Ribera, called “Lo Spagnoletto” (1588–
1656). Zurbarán, a pupil of the Sevillan Juan de las Roelas, was essentially
a painter of church pictures, his favourite subjects being types of monks and
scenes of monkish life. There is something so sincere and convincing in his
unrelenting realism, that even his pictures of rapturous ecstasy and strongly
emphasised emotion impress one as truthful renderings of types observed
by the artist in the streets and churches of monastic Seville. The sombre
passion with which his subjects are instinct is reflected by his colour and
masterly chiaroscuro. Zurbarán became Court Painter to Philip iv. in or
before 1633, in which year he added the words “Pintor del Rey” to his
signature on one of his pictures; and in this capacity he painted at Madrid
his only known secular pictures, a series of ten Scenes from the History of
Hercules.
Two admirable pictures from his brush figure in the Louvre Catalogue as
St. Peter Nolasque and St. Raymond de Peñafort (No. 1738) and The
Funeral of a Bishop (No. 1739). As a matter of fact they represent two
scenes from the life of St. Bonaventura: The Saint presiding at a Chapter of
Minor Brothers, and The Funeral of St Bonaventura. The second of these
companion pictures which were originally in a convent at Seville is

particularly striking for the unconventionality of its composition, the strong
character of the heads, and the masterly treatment of the chiaroscuro. Note
again the placing of the heads almost in a horizontal line right across the
canvas, and the anxious avoidance of empty spaces. The third picture that
stands to Zurbarán’s name is the figure of A Lady of Fashion in the
Character of St. Apollonia (No. 1740), a work of not very striking merit.

RIBERA
Ribera, though born near Valencia, where he received his early education
in the painter’s art in the studio of Ribalta, was still young in years when he
left his native land for Italy, never to return. Studying and working at Rome,
Parma, and Naples, he was so strongly influenced by Caravaggio, and to a
minor extent by Correggio, that, taking also into account his long domicile,
there is some justification for those who treat him as belonging to the Italian
school of Naturalists. The most prominent feature of his art is the violent
and abrupt contrasting of brilliant lights with very deep and heavy shadows,
which enforces the almost cruel dramatic intensity of his scenes of torture,
convulsions, and suffering. In this use of chiaroscuro he was a true follower
of Caravaggio, but Ribera, even where he is most Italian, never denies his
Spanish nationality and the teaching of his first master.
Nowhere are his racial characteristics more pronounced than in the
admirable character-study, in the La Caze Room, of a grinning beggar-boy
who suffers from an infirmity from which the picture derives its popular
name, The Club-foot (No. 1725). The boy is standing in bold silhouette
against a clouded sky. He shoulders his crutch like a gun, and carries in his
left hand a sheet of paper with the inscription—da mihi elemosinam propter
amorem dei.

If The Club-foot is scarcely typical of the qualities that are generally
associated with Ribera’s art, the Louvre owns two thoroughly characteristic
examples of his more violent manner, of his dramatic use of sharply
contrasted light and shade, in The Entombment (No. 1722) and St. Paul the
Hermit (No. 1723), which bears on a stone the signature
JUSEPE DE RIBERA ESPAGNOL P.F.

In The Entombment the master-hand is revealed by the superb breadth with
which the limp yet weighty body of the Saviour is painted. It is not

modelled in all its plastic roundness, but cut into sharp flat passages of light
and shadow, the plastic relief being suggested by the perfection of the
anatomical drawing and foreshortening. Poignant grief is expressed in the
faces of St. Joseph of Arimathæa, the Virgin Mary, St. John, and
Nicodemus, who surround the body, the head of which is supported by St.
Joseph. The same subject is treated with less masterly authority in The
Entombment (No. 1725a), which can only be accepted as a school picture.
The ascetic fervour tinged with a sense almost of cruel pleasure in self-
inflicted suffering, with which Ribera loved to invest his semi-nude figures
of emaciated saints, hermits, and martyrs, will be found in the St. Paul the
Hermit. The picture was bought in 1875 for £252.
Without loss of realistic power, and without affectation or conscious
striving for prettiness, Ribera shows more human tenderness and gentle
emotion in The Adoration of the Shepherds (No. 1721), a picture signed and
dated on a stone in the right-hand corner,
Juse Ribera español Academico romano, F. 1650.
In accordance with the nature of the subject he has here refrained from
making use of abrupt light and shade, the whole scene being enveloped in a
warm glow. The types are not idealised, but are apparently faithful portraits
of their respective models. Very similar to the central group in this canvas,
but more sonorous in its depth of colour, from which gleam forth the strong
lights, is the Virgin and Child (No. 1724) in the La Caze Room. The four
pictures of Philosophers (Nos. 1726–1729), likewise in the La Caze
Bequest, which the official Catalogue gives to Ribera, are certainly not by
that master. It has been suggested that they may be the work of Ribera’s
facile and versatile pupil, Luca Giordano (“Fa Presto”), but the poor quality
of these paintings scarcely justifies even this attribution. They were
formerly in the collection of General Mazzavedo.
Ribera had a romantic career, rising as he did from absolute penury to
almost despotic power as a member of a triumvirate that would brook no
competition in Naples and would shrink from no means to further their
schemes. Nothing is known as to how he died. He disappeared in 1656, and
probably found his death in the depths of the sea.

VELAZQUEZ

The Catalogue of the Louvre collection contains an imposing list of
seven works by the king of Spanish painters. Critical examination of these
pictures will, however, result in the elimination of all but two that figure in
the list. Velazquez, who was destined to stamp his great personality on a
whole generation of Spanish painters, but whose art was little known in
Northern Europe previous to the Peninsular War, has exercised a paramount
influence on modern art. He was born of noble descent at Seville in June
1599. Although originally destined for another profession, he showed such
talent for art that he was allowed to enter the studio of Francisco Herrera, of
whose realistic tendencies and rugged strength we have already had
occasion to speak.
From his studio he passed into that of the cultured and erudite Francisco
Pacheco, whose artistic achievement at its best was far in advance of his
professed academic principles. Summoned to Madrid in 1623 by the
powerful Count Duke of Olivarez, Velazquez entered the service of King
Philip iv. Velazquez became his favourite Court Painter, received other
important offices and emoluments, and after his return from his second visit
to Italy in 1651—the first visit had taken place in 1629—he was appointed
Aposentador del Rey, a post which approximately corresponds with that of
Court-Marshal. He died on the 6th of August 1660, from the results of
fatigue and overwork in supervising the arrangements for the betrothal of
the Infanta Maria Teresa to Louis xiv. at the Palace on the Isle of Pheasants,
at Irun.
With the exception of the early bodegones of his student-years and a few
rare excursions into the realm of religious and mythological composition,
Velazquez’s life-work, as conditioned by the patronage of the king and the
Court, was practically confined to portraiture. His unrivalled greatness in
this sphere is due to the perfect clearness of his vision, which made him
grasp the person or scene before his eyes at a single glance, and transpose
his impression to canvas with undisturbed directness and completeness, and
with an apparent disregard of the means of expression. There is dignity and
soberness in all his portraits; perfect spacing; noble, firm contour; complete
unity of all the parts produced by the sense of ambient atmosphere. And
never is there the slightest hint of trick of hand, or mannerism, or painting
by recipe. Each picture is the result of close observation, recorded with
admirable directness and honesty. This supreme master of the painter’s

technique seemed to pay no attention to technique—or, at least, the result is
invariably so significant and so absorbingly interesting that the spectator,
unless he approaches the picture with deliberate intention to probe its
secret, never thinks of the technical means by which life so convincing has
been breathed on to the canvas.

PLATE XXV.—VELAZQUEZ
(1599–1660)

SPANISH SCHOOL
No. 1731.—PORTRAIT OF THE INFANTA MARGARITA
(Portrait de l’infante Margarita Maria)

The Infanta, who appears to be about four years of age, is wearing a white robe
embroidered with black. She is seen standing at half length, her right hand on the
arm of a chair.
Painted in oil on canvas.
Inscribed:—“linfante marguerite.”
2 ft. 3¾ in. × 1 ft. 11½ in. (0·70 × 0·59.)

THE INFANTA
In the Louvre collection there is but one picture from which it is possible
to judge the greatness of Velazquez’s art. That picture is the deservedly
famous and often-copied portrait of the little Infanta Margarita (No. 1731,
Plate XXV.), which has rightly been placed in the Salon Carré among the
proudest possessions which the Gallery can boast. The little princess, who
was born in 1651, the first child of Mariana of Austria, is here depicted at
the age of about four, so that the date of the portrait may safely be assumed
to be about the year 1655, and not 1659, as suggested by M. Lafenestre. She
is dressed in a white robe with black lace trimmings. A pink ribbon is tied
on her right side to her soft light golden hair, which falls in curls to her
shoulders; her right hand rests upon a chair, whilst the left, the fingers of
which have been repainted owing to the addition of a narrow strip of canvas
at the bottom, holds a flower. On the top the words linfante margverite are
painted in heavy block letters across the whole width of the canvas. This
picture, in which childlike ingenuousness is so happily blended with quaint
dignity, and in which even the forbidding ugliness of the dress of the period
cannot destroy the little princess’s grace and doll-like charm, Velazquez has
surely left to the world one of the most entrancing portraits of lovable
childhood that is to be found in the whole history of art.

MARIANA OF AUSTRIA
The other unquestionably authentic work by the master at the Louvre is
to be found in the La Caze Bequest. It is catalogued as Portrait of the
Infanta Maria Teresa, afterwards Queen of France (No. 1735), but is in
reality a portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria, the mother of the Infanta
Margarita Maria. Mariana was married to Philip iv. as his second wife in
1649, at the age of fourteen. Velazquez was at that time in Italy, so that the

duty of painting her first portrait for the royal bridegroom fell to the Court
Painter’s son-in-law and chief pupil, Juan Bautista del Mazo (1610–1667).
The portrait at the Louvre was, if we may judge from the apparent age of
the child-queen as she is here represented, painted in 1651, when Velazquez
had returned from his second Italian journey and when Mariana was sixteen
years of age. It was probably a preliminary study from life for the larger
portrait in the Vienna Gallery. This admirable portrait is another artistic
triumph over unfavourable conditions imposed by the hideousness of
contemporary female attire, although the forehead has been spoilt by
clumsy repainting. The coiffure in particular, a cascade of false hair, bows,
jewels, and feathers, is more suggestive of some exotic idol or fetish than of
a human being. In 1863, before the judgment of a tasteless age, which gave
Velazquez a position far below the then absurdly overrated Murillo, was
revised, this portrait of Mariana appeared at the Viardot sale and failed to
realise more than £200!

COPIES AND SCHOOL PICTURES
Two other portraits in the La Caze Room are attributed to Velazquez. One
of these, a Portrait of Philip IV. (No. 1733) at the age of about fifty, is
unquestionably a wholly uninspired and fairly modern copy of the head in
the Prado (No. 1080). The other, a Portrait of a Young Woman (No. 1736),
is an extremely feeble imitation of the superficial aspect of Velazquez’s
manner—so bad in drawing, especially in the attachment of the nose to the
face, that it is difficult to accept Señor Beruete’s attribution of this picture to
Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614–1685), an able painter of the Madrid
school. M. Henri Rodolphe Elissa, who exposed the “Tiara of Saitaphernes”
forgery, has asserted that he can prove both the Philip IV. and the Young
Woman to be the work of the Spanish painter Escosura, who died in the last
decade of the nineteenth century. There appears to be no reason to doubt his
assertion. The head of Philip, more than the other picture, appears to be
nineteenth-century work.
The Portrait of Philip IV., King of Spain, in Hunting Costume (No. 1732),
with a gun in his right hand and a dog sitting by his side, in a landscape
background, is only a contemporary copy of a very similar picture in the
Prado, to which it is vastly inferior in execution. It is true that in the Prado

picture the king’s hat is on his head, whilst in the Louvre version, which is
probably by Mazo, he carries it in his left hand. It is, however, possible to
detect in the Prado portrait clear evidence of a pentimento, from which it
can be seen that here, too, the hat was originally in the same position as in
the Louvre canvas. Presumably Velazquez subsequently made the
alteration; but the copy was executed at an earlier date.

THE “MEETING OF THIRTEEN PEOPLE”
There have been great divergences of opinion concerning the strange
little painting representing a Meeting of Thirteen People (No. 1734) on a
hill. It was formerly known as A Meeting of Artists, because two of the
Spanish cavaliers depicted in the group were believed to represent
Velazquez and Murillo. Lauded at first as one of Velazquez’s masterpieces
by those who were carried away by the truly extraordinary beauty of the
pearly, opalescent colour harmony and the atmospheric quality of the
painting, the little picture has lately been as violently abused for its “poor
design, weak execution, and commonplace arrangement.” As a matter of
fact the arrangement is anything but commonplace, and the picture has
great qualities of technique which will always be the delight of professional
artists. It is moreover admirably varied in gesture and action, even if it has
certain weaknesses which render impossible its unqualified attribution to
Velazquez. Here we have clearly an excellent example of his son-in-law and
imitator, J. B. del Mazo. If any proof were needed for this attribution, it will
be found in the figure on the extreme left of the composition. Both his legs
are slanting forward so much that his centre of gravity plumbs behind his
heels. It would really be impossible to maintain this posture, which, though
it offends against the laws of gravity, is to be found in quite a number of
Mazo’s pictures, as, for instance, in the small figure of Olivarez (?) in the
middle distance on the right in the Duke of Westminster’s Don Baltazar
Carlos in the Riding School, in the portrait of Don Baltazar Carlos at The
Hague, and in the second boy in The Family of Mazo at the Vienna Gallery.
The soundly painted Portrait of Don Pedro de Altamira, Doyen of the
Chapel Royal at Toledo, afterwards Cardinal (No. 1737), inscribed on the
background “æt 54 dv, 1633,” is a good character-study of an energetic and
rather worldly-looking Church dignitary, but does not appear to be either by
Velazquez or one of his immediate followers.

There is in the Spanish section of the Louvre another superbly painted,
but very problematic, Head of a Man (No. 1747), which, on no more
plausible grounds than an accidental likeness to one of the figures in The
Forge of Vulcan, has by some critics been believed to be by Velazquez. The
rich impasto and the careful finish of the painting are utterly unlike
Velazquez’s manner; nor does the picture appear to be of his period. But
whoever may be its author, it is one of the most remarkable paintings in this
section of the Louvre.

MURILLO
By far the best represented of all the masters at the Spanish school is
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo (1618?–1682). He was born at Seville, of poor
parents, and studied as a boy under Juan del Castillo. Forced before he had
reached manhood to gain his livelihood, he took to manufacturing
artistically worthless devotional pictures on saga-cloth, for sale at the
weekly fairs in the poor quarter of Seville. This early practice of rather
mechanical production, and the habit, acquired by necessity, of working to
please the public, clung to him in after life and are responsible for much
that the modern mind finds distasteful in his art—a certain sickly
sentimentality that often takes the place of real sentiment, and an
artificiality of arrangement even where the types are realistic renderings of
the people among whom he spent his days.
With his small savings from the proceeds of his crude popular pictures
Murillo proceeded to Madrid, where Velazquez assisted him by deed,
advice, and example, though the two artists were probably never in the
relation of master and pupil. After about two years thus profitably spent at
Madrid, Murillo returned to Seville, where he continued to work until his
death in 1682, and rose to the very summit of fame and popularity. At his
best Murillo was a colourist of great charm and a technician of the rarest
skill. His art is most admirable where he adheres most closely to the
realistic tradition of his country. It is scarcely to be credited that the same
hand which produced so many vaporous and vapid Madonnas is responsible
for a picture painted with such superb breadth and incisive vigour as The
Young Beggar (No. 1717), which is almost worthy of the brush of
Velazquez in his Sevillan period. The decidedly unsavoury subject is made
acceptable by the consummate artistry of the treatment.

“THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION”
It is not, however, to pictures of this type that Murillo owed his
widespread popularity. Generations of enthusiastic admirers have stood in
silent awe before his large painting of The Immaculate Conception (No.
1709, Plate XXVI.), which is certainly one of the best of innumerable
versions of the same subject—the Virgin standing on a crescent moon, with
ecstatic gaze, and hands pressed to her breast, and surrounded by swarms of
joyous angel-children—painted by Murillo to meet an apparently insatiable
demand. There is something of real ecstasy in this conception. To find a
similar morbidezza of pigment one must turn to certain famous works by
Andrea del Sarto: it is a quality which is generally conspicuously absent
from Spanish painting and which, if carried a step farther, as it sometimes
was carried by Murillo, would result in fuzzy vapidness. This famous
picture has the distinction of being the most costly purchase ever made for
the Louvre, the price paid for it at the Marshal Soult sale in 1852—that is
many years before American competition had established the vastly
enhanced standards of value which now prevail—being as much as 615,300
fr., or £24,612.

PLATE XXVI.—MURILLO
(1618?–1682)

SPANISH SCHOOL
No. 1709—THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
(La Conception immaculée de la Vierge)

The Virgin, wearing a white robe with a blue mantle over her left shoulder, has her
hands crossed over her breast; she is standing in the hollow of a two-horned crescent,
and gazing heavenwards. About twenty-one cherubs and ten heads are seen in
different parts of the composition.

Painted in oil on canvas.
9 ft. 0 in. × 6 ft. 3 in. (2·74 × 1·90.)

Apparently of earlier date is the other version of the same subject at the
Louvre. This Immaculate Conception (No. 1708) is not painted in the same
spirit of exaltation as the version just described, but has a happy passage of
realistic character-painting in the six kneeling figures on the left. On the
right two angels carry a scroll with the inscription in principio dilexit eam.
The picture was painted in 1656–57 for the Church of Santa Maria la
Blanca at Seville, and was carried off to France, with many other of the
master’s works, by Marshal Soult.

THE “BIRTH OF THE VIRGIN”
Another picture that formed part of the loot taken by Napoleon’s general
and was taken in 1855 from his son, the Duke of Dalmatia, in liquidation of
a debt of £6000, is The Birth of the Virgin (No. 1710). The National Gallery
in London owns a small preliminary study for this painting, which was
executed in 1655 for Seville Cathedral. The centre is occupied by a
beautifully disposed group of four women and four winged heavenly
visitors attending to the Infant’s bath; in the background on the left St.
Anne, raised in her bed, is receiving visitors, and on the right are seen two
attendants airing linen at a fireplace. The strange assemblage, in which the
earthly and the heavenly are without incongruity brought into such close
contact that one of the boy-angels is actually occupied with a dog, is
completed by another four angels floating in the air above the Infant. In
composition, distribution of light and shade, and in harmonious blending of
mellow colour this picture ranks among Murillo’s highest achievements.
According to Cean Bermudez, the roundness, beauty of shape, and rosy
complexion of the waiting-woman’s arm in the foreground “excited the
jealous envy of the ladies of Seville.” It is interesting to note that before its
acquisition by the Louvre the Birth of the Virgin was brought to England in
1823, when the owners vainly tried to find a purchaser.

“THE ANGELS’ KITCHEN”
Yet another deservedly famous work by Murillo, removed from a
Franciscan convent at Seville by the insatiable greed of Marshal Soult, is

the now extensively restored large picture known as The Miracle of San
Diego, or The Angels’ Kitchen (No. 1716). The composition is divided by
two large figures of angels into two halves. On the left two knights of
Calatrava are shown in by a Franciscan brother and behold St. Diego in
prayer miraculously raised into the air and surrounded by a flood of light.
On the right the angels are occupied with the preparation of the repast for
which the Saint has sent his prayer to the Virgin. A Franciscan is watching
the scene from the distance with a gesture of amazement. Here again the
real and the supernatural are blended with unaffected naïveté, the unity of
the contending elements being established by the masterly rendering of
light and atmosphere. An account of the miracle is given on a cartouche in
the foreground; whilst a piece of paper on the left holds the signature
BART-EST. MURILLO, 1646.

The Angels’ Kitchen was bought from the despoiler’s heirs for £3420.
The Virgin of the Rosary (No. 1712), unlike the majority of Murillo’s
representations of the Mother of God, has scarcely a trace of spiritual
exaltation, but is merely a handsome type of a happy and contented Spanish
mother. The folds of her outer garment are arranged in florid and
meaningless profusion.
The Holy Family (No. 1713), also known as The Virgin of Seville, is a
genuine and characteristic, though strangely overrated work by the master,
and bears the signature
BARTOLOM DE MURILLO F. HISPAN.

The Virgin in Glory (No. 1711) is, to say the least, of doubtful authenticity.
The small companion pictures, Christ in the Garden of Olives (No. 1714)
and Christ at the Column and St. Peter (No. 1715), are painted on marble,
to which fact they owe the unpleasant coldness of their colouring.
In the La Caze Room are two portraits, The Poet Quevedo (No. 1718)
and The Duke of Ossuña (No. 1719), which the official Catalogue ascribes
to Murillo. Quite apart from the fact that the artist was only six years of age
when the Duke of Ossuña died, the quality of the painting does not justify
these attributions. Like the head of Philip iv. in the same room, they were
probably painted by Escosura, a late-nineteenth-century Spaniard

THE SCHOOL OF MADRID
We must now return to Madrid, where the example of Velazquez had
inspired a fairly numerous group of able painters without particular genius,
whose art, being entirely derivative, carried within itself the germ of decay
and sank to complete insignificance before the close of the century. The
most distinguished artist of this group is Juan Bautista del Mazo, who has
already been referred to as the author of the Meeting of Thirteen People and
probably of the Philip IV. in Hunting Costume. So well did he succeed in
appropriating his father-in-law’s style that his best works have frequently
passed under his illustrious master’s name.
Another important painter of the Madrid school is Carreño de Miranda
(Nos. 1614–1685), who benefited by Velazquez’s patronage, became painter
of the Palace in 1669, and Court Painter and Assistant Seneschal in 1671.
Although in his later years he devoted himself largely to subject pictures
which are distinguished by a warmer colouring than most of the productions
by the Madrid school of the period, he achieved his greatest successes as a
portrait painter. He was considerably influenced by the paintings of Van
Dyck, which he had occasion to study in the royal palaces. His large St.
Ambrose distributing Alms (No. 1702), in the La Caze Gallery, is a
hurriedly executed work which does not show his art to the best advantage.
It figured in the sale of the Soult collection, when it failed to realise £20.
Far more typical of its author’s best manner is The Burning Bush (No.
1703) by Francisco Collantes (1599–1656), a Madrid painter who studied
under Vincente Carducho, but was influenced by Bassano. He was an
excellent colourist, especially in his landscape paintings with small figures.
His most famous picture is The Vision of Ezekiel, formerly at the Buen
Retiro Palace and now in the Prado Gallery.
Juan de Arellano (1614–1676), the painter of the Flowers (No. 1701),
worked at Madrid, unknown and in abject poverty, until at the age of thirty-
six he began to devote himself to flower-painting, a branch of art in which
he developed considerable skill, and rose to great popularity.
Yet another Madrid painter who is but indifferently represented at the
Louvre by a still life of Fruit and Musical Instruments (No. 1720) in the La
Caze collection, is Antonio Pereda (1599–1669). Although a contemporary
of Velazquez and working in the same city, he was not appreciably

influenced by that master. He was a pupil of Pedro de las Cuevas, and his
style shows certain affinities with Ribera. His works are rarely to be met
with outside the galleries and churches of his own country.
The end of the seventeenth century marked the complete decadence of
the Spanish school, which was precipitated and received its final seal by the
advent in 1692 of the Neapolitan Luca Giordano, whose rare facility in the
production of showy, flashy, meretricious works earned for him the
sobriquet “Fa Presto,” and whose prodigious success was a powerful
incentive to emulation. More fatal even than the influence of Luca
Giordano was that of the German artist Raphael Mengs, an uninspired
eclectic who became Court Painter to Charles iii., and who is referred to in
the chapter dealing with the German pictures at the Louvre.

GOYA
In this time of complete stagnation the fascinating personality of
Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) flashes like a bright meteor
through the dark night of Spanish art. Goya takes a unique position in the
art of his country—or, indeed, of the world. He was as much the last of the
old masters as he is the first of the moderns. A man of fiery temperament,
impulsive, unruly, opposed to authority, he was terribly unequal in his
performance. It is as unnecessary to state who were his masters as it is
impossible to speak of his style in general terms, for there probably never
was an artist who worked in so many different styles, experimented in so
many different mediums, and treated so vast a range of subjects as Goya.
He was a creature of moods, and changed his method of painting as easily
as his political allegiance from Bourbon to Bonaparte and back again to
Bourbon.
His four pictures at the Louvre are without exception portraits, and do not
therefore illustrate his highly developed sense of the dramatic. But they
serve admirably to show his active protest against the classicist affectation
prevalent at his time, and his return to the healthy realism which is the
heritage of his race. The Portrait of F. Guillemardet, Ambassador of the
French Republic to Spain (No. 1704), is an admirably honest piece of
portraiture, dignified but perfectly natural in pose, strong in expression and
pleasing in colour. It was bequeathed to the Louvre by Guillemardet,

together with the Young Spanish Woman (No. 1705) in a black mantilla,
standing with crossed arms against a pearly-grey landscape background.
The seated half-figure of the rather corpulent Young Spanish Woman (No.
1705a) was bought at the Kums sale at Antwerp for £1276; and the portrait
of Don Perez de Castro (No. 1705b) was acquired in 1902 for £1200. Goya
was an isolated figure in Spanish art of the time. He left no “school,” but his
influence was one of the leading factors in the rise of the modern movement
in France.

THE DUTCH SCHOOL
W E have already followed the development of the early Flemish or
Netherlandish art during the fifteenth century, and observed how it
eventually passed under the Italianising influences which are unmistakable
in the pictures of Barend van Orley (1495?–1542) and his contemporaries.
The early painters of Holland as distinct from Flanders cannot be traced
with any certainty much farther back than Albert von Ouwater (fl. 1420–
1460), who worked at Haarlem from 1430 to 1460. As we have already
seen, the early Flemish painter, Gerard David (1460?–1523), was born at
Ouwater, which may well have had its school of painters. Neither Albert
von Ouwater, who is represented to-day by a single work, the Raising of
Lazarus in the Berlin Gallery, nor his unidentifiable contemporary who
painted the Exhumation of St. Hubert, in the National Gallery (No. 783), are
included in the collection of pictures at the Louvre.

GERARD OF HAARLEM
The influence of these painters and Dierick Bouts is seen in the rare
works of Geertgen tot S. Jans, or Gerard of Haarlem (1465–1493) whose
Raising of Lazarus (No. 2563a) in this collection is an achievement of the
highest order, and was purchased as recently as 1902 for £4000 from Baron
d’Albenas, after having been for many years in Spain. This pupil or
follower of the Ouwater master was a native of Leyden, and worked at
Haarlem. He took his name from the commandery of the Knights of St.
John at Haarlem for whom he worked, as we see from the careful
inscription, “Gerardus Leydanus pictor ad S. Io. Baptist. Harlem pinxt,” on
his triptych at Vienna.
Among his contemporaries were Cornelis Engelbrechtsen, who was born
in 1468 at Leyden, where he died in 1533, and Lucas van Leyden (1494–
1533). The latter played an important part as an engraver quite as much as a
painter in the university town of Leyden, which now possesses his large
Last Judgment and became famous as the birthplace of Rembrandt in 1606.

The Louvre possesses no picture by either Engelbrechtsen or Lucas van
Leyden.
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (fl. 1470–1533) is also unrepresented
here. Portraits by painters in this group are often confused, as in the case of
the Portrait of the Duke of East Friesland, in the Oldenburg Gallery, which
has been attributed to both Lucas van Leyden and Jacob Cornelisz. A pupil
of the latter may have painted the Cana of Galilee (No. 2640c). It is safe to
assign to “the Master of the Female Half Figures,” the Young Lady Reading
(No. 2641c), which has a close analogy with the well-known picture in the
Harrach collection at Vienna, representing half-length figures of three
young ladies in crimson velvet dresses cut square at the neck, and singing to
the accompaniment of a flute and a lute. The name of this painter is not
known, but his pictures, which are neither numerous nor of any conspicuous
merit, are easily recognisable.
To this period of transition and mediocre painting belongs Jan Scorel
(1495–1562), whose Portrait of Paracelsus the Doctor (No. 2567a) is
inscribed:
“FORMOSO DOCTOR PARASELSUS,”

and is in every way superior to the Portrait of a Man (No. 2641b), which is
labelled with the name of Scorel, but catalogued as being by an unknown
artist. From Scorel, a much travelled Dutch artist, who at one time worked
at Nuremburg with Albrecht Dürer and visited Venice and the East, we
naturally pass to Jan Mostaert of Haarlem. Mostaert of Haarlem is
unrepresented at the Louvre, a remark which equally well applies to the
anonymous “Pseudo-Mostaert,” who painted so much in his style that a
large number of inferior productions have been credited to him from time to
time. Pictures of this type vary so considerably that the name “Pseudo-
Mostaert” is little more than a generic designation for unassignable Flemish
and Dutch pictures of the middle of the sixteenth century; such pictures
bear some relationship to the Christ bearing His Cross (No. 2299), and the
Abraham’s Sacrifice (No. 2300), officially attributed to the little-known and
quite negligible painter Alart Claeszoon (1498–1564) of Leyden.

SIR ANTONIS MOR

From Leyden we may pass to Utrecht, which was the birthplace of the
much-travelled, distinguished, and cosmopolitan painter, Antonis Mor
(1512–1578?). He was a pupil of Jan Scorel, but soon freed himself from
the hard manner he acquired under that master by his study in Italy of the
best works of the Venetians. Indeed, some of his pictures have passed as the
work of Calcar, the pupil of Titian. Mor, or Moro, excelled as a painter of
vigorous and truthful portraits, and the portraits and replicas he painted of
Queen Mary are well known. The Prado Gallery at Madrid and the Vienna
Gallery contain good examples of his art, and he is fairly well represented
in the Louvre. While he was in the service of Philip II. of Spain he lived in
much splendour, and was amply paid for his work. His close intimacy with
the monarch induced him on one occasion to take the liberty of touching
with a brush dipped in red paint the hand of the king. This serious breach of
Court etiquette created a profound impression on the courtiers present; and,
although the painter sued for pardon and obtained it from the king, he soon
recognised that he had made himself obnoxious to the Inquisition, who
asserted that Moro had got from the heretic English, while painting the
portrait of Queen Mary, a charm that enabled him to bewitch the Spanish
monarch. Being thus compelled to leave Spain, he settled in Antwerp,
where he died between 1576 and 1578.
The pictures of Mor, who was the contemporary of Titian, at different
periods of his art bear traces of the Dutch, Spanish, and Flemish schools.
He in turn also had an influence on the portrait painters of Spain half a
century before the birth of Velazquez. The Portrait of a Man (No. 2478),
which is signed and dated:
“ANT MORO pingebat, 1565,”

was in the past held by some writers to bear the features of Sir Francis
Drake, who was, however, at the date here given only twenty-one years of
age. The two large paintings in the Duchâtel Bequest which pass as the
Portrait of Louis de Rio and His Wife (No. 2480 and No. 2481) are, judging
by the attitudes of the figures and the shape of the panels, the wings of a
large altarpiece. The Dwarf of Charles V. (No. 2479) reminds us that the
painter, while still young, was taken into the service of that emperor. The
Portrait of Edward VI. of England (No. 2481a) bears a very suspicious-
looking inscription.

SPANISH OPPRESSION
The political events of the reign of Philip II. of Spain, the mistaken,
mischievous, and oppressive policy he adopted with regard to his territory
in the Netherlands, and the contempt with which he treated his Dutch
subjects, soon alienated their sympathies; but the Duke of Alva by his
harshness and bigotry incited them to frenzy. When he set forth in 1567, all
hope of peace and mercy fled before him, and within a short period his
tyranny and ferocity fanned the flame of rebellion, which after a struggle of
eighty years was to end in the Peace of Münster of 1648. In that year Spain
ignominiously surrendered, and the independence of the northern
Netherlands was recognised. During the long period which elapsed between
the Union of Utrecht in 1579 and the negotiations at Osnabrück and
Münster in 1648 must have been destroyed innumerable religious pictures,
the loss of which renders it almost impossible for us to estimate the full
significance of artistic endeavour in Holland in the closing years of the
sixteenth century.
A new era in Dutch history, social life and art was beginning to open out
by the year 1612, when Abraham Blomaert (1564–1651) painted and signed
his very large Nativity (No. 2327), which was formerly attributed to
Bernardino Fassolo. Blomaert’s Portrait of a Man (No. 2327a) is also a
signed work.

HISTORY AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS
Blomaert’s contemporary, Michiel Jansz Mierevelt (1567–1641), who
was at one time Court painter to the Princes of Orange at The Hague, and
was with undue flattery hailed as the “New Xeuxis of Delft,” is represented
by the Portrait of Olden Barnevelt (No. 2465) and three other portraits, one
of which (No. 2466) is in a very bad state. Stiff but characteristic is the
Portrait of a Woman (No. 2534), which was painted by Jan van Ravesteyn
(1572–1657) in 1633, while his initials are also found on a panel (No. 2535)
which was commissioned of him in the following year. Although Gerard
Verspronck (1600–1651) was many years his junior, and in 1641, in the
period of his maturity, achieved the Portrait of a Lady (No. 2576a), the top
corners of which have been added, he painted on the lines of tradition, and

showed little originality. He came under the influence of Frans Hals, under
whose name his pictures often pass.

CORNELIS JANSSEN
Nor can it be said that the numerous portraits which Cornelis Janssen van
Ceulen (1593–1664?) undertook in England, give signs of the new artistic
impulse which was daily manifesting itself in Holland in the early works of
Frans Hals. Janssen, who was baptized at the Dutch Reformed Church,
Austin Friars, London, throve until the establishment in England of Van
Dyck, before whom he quickly had to give way; although he withdrew to
Kent and lived in retirement, he did not receive the Speaker’s warrant to
pass beyond seas until 1643. That “Cornelius Johnson Picture Drawer”
made use of pallid flesh tones and lifeless grey tones, is obvious from the
two portraits (No. 2338 and No. 2339) exhibited in the Louvre.
The very modern looking Portrait of a Young Man (No. 2303a), signed
“d. bailly,” is officially held to be the work of a Leyden painter of that
name who would appear to have been a contemporary of Cornelis Janssen.

FRANS HALS
Although the great Dutch painter, Frans Hals (1580?–1666) was born at
Antwerp, his parents were natives of Haarlem, whither he removed about
1600, and where he settled for the remainder of his eventful, irregular, and
improvident career. This lusty and unromantic master by his forceful
characterisation, his rapid wielding of his brush, and his frank realism, in a
few years transformed the earlier portrait-making of Holland, and the
rendering of the commonplace and obvious likeness of an individual, as
seen in the works of Moreelse and others, into the region of great art. He
was by about a quarter of a century the senior of Rembrandt, who is the
greatest genius among Dutch painters, and developed his art on logical
lines. It is, however, necessary to know the outstanding facts of his personal
history, the fluctuating circumstances under which he worked, and the
grinding poverty of his latest period. Perhaps no other painter in the whole
range of art was so affected by his environment as Hals.

PLATE XXVII.—FRANS HALS
(1580?–1666)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2384.—THE GIPSY GIRL
(La Bohémienne)

She wears a red dress, which is open at the neck; she smiles as she turns her eyes
to the right; half-length figure.
Painted in oil on canvas.
2 ft. 6 in. × 2 ft. 3 in. (0·76 × 0·68.)

Whether he was a pupil of Cornelis Cornelissen, Hendrick Goltzius, and
Karel van Mander (the Dutch Vasari), is not known with any certainty, and
no picture painted by him earlier than 1613, when he may have been thirty-
three years of age, is known to-day. Early in the year 1616, when he painted
his famous Banquet of the Officers of the St. Joris Shooting Guild, one of
his early masterpieces still preserved in the small gallery at Haarlem, he
was summoned before the Burgomaster of the “town of the tulip,” and
reprimanded for his cruelty to his first wife. Exactly a year later he married
a second time, and as the years went on he became the father of at least six
sons who adopted the profession of the painter but earned no permanent
success. The Louvre possesses no example of his Doelen-pieces of archer-
groups which won him his earliest fame in his own country, but is fortunate
enough to contain the famous Gipsy Girl (No. 2384, Plate XXVII.), which
alone would have earned for him the title of “the master of the laugh.” It
passed through the Ménars sale in 1792 for 301 livres. The three pictures of
the Beresteyn family were bought for £4000 in 1884, when his paintings
were not as highly prized as they are to-day. They give an excellent idea of
the virility his art had attained by about 1629. The best of these is the
Portrait of Nicolaes van Beresteyn (No. 2386), which is inscribed, “Aetat
suae 40. 1629.” His hands are superbly painted; while the companion
Portrait (No. 2387) of his wife is equally striking. The large and imposing
Portrait-Group of the Beresteyn Family (No. 2388) is marred by the
excessive use in places of a strong red, and has been enlarged by the
addition down the right side of the canvas of a strip about fourteen inches
broad, but yet shows a certain felicity of grouping, and a joyous and
exuberant outlook. The Portrait, of René Descartes, the French Philosopher
(No. 2383) is so simple in treatment and so easy in pose, that it makes an
instant appeal to the student. Another Portrait of Descartes (No. 78), by
Sébastien Bourdon, is in this gallery, and a third was in the Arsène
Houssaye collection. The Portrait of a Lady in a Black Dress (No. 2385,
Plate XXVIII.) is unaffected and lifelike, while the subtle and hasty
brushing in of the gloves could only have been done by a great painter. It
seems to have been generally overlooked that a study for this picture is in
the collection of Lord Ronald Gower, and has for some time past been on
loan to the FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge. In the study, however, the
artist had not yet thought of the gloves.

In 1654, Hals had to appear before a public notary of Haarlem at the
instance of his landlord, who sued him for debt. The great Dutch painter in
his testimony affirmed that his only possessions were two pictures by
Vermander and Van Heemskerck, and three by himself and one of his sons,
as well as three mattresses and bolsters, a cupboard and a table! The Louvre
exhibits no pictorial record of Hals’s latest phase, when he was deserted by
his friends, neglected by art patrons, and no longer possessed any inner
moral support.
The colouring of his early portraits is vigorous, the tone deep, and the
execution careful; gradually he employs richer colouring, subordinates the
local colours, and becomes broader in treatment. From about 1650 his
olive-greens gradually take on a more ash-grey hue, until we are inclined to
the belief that if the master had been able to dispense with colour altogether,
he would have willingly done so. It is then that the colours on his palette,
like the outer world, became grey and black for him.

PLATE XXVIII.—FRANS HALS
(1580?–1666)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2385.—PORTRAIT OF A LADY IN A BLACK DRESS
(Portrait de Femme)

A middle-aged woman wearing a black dress, with white collar, cuffs and cap, is
seen at three-quarter length, standing and turned three-quarters to the left; in her
hands, which are superposed, she holds her gloves.
Painted in oil on canvas.

3 ft. 3½ in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·00 × 0·80.)

This great master of the brush some time before his death had to avail
himself of poor relief granted by the municipality of Haarlem, and after his
death, in 1666, his widow received an allowance of fourteen sous a week!
Such was the tragic end of one of the most accomplished of portrait painters
in the whole range of art.

DUTCH INDEPENDENCE
Holland after a terrible struggle had ultimately succeeded in throwing off
the Spanish yoke before the art of Hals was on the wane. Dutch art then
became gradually more independent, self-centred, democratic in outlook,
and Protestant in tendency. Religious subjects became less frequent, and
domestic scenes dealing with indoor and outdoor life were before long
largely on the increase. Before we pass to the detailed study of the most
striking characteristics of art in Holland in the last half of the seventeenth
century, we must examine at some length the far-reaching influence and the
world-famous achievements of Rembrandt, for whom Hals may be said to
have prepared the way.

REMBRANDT
As his name denotes, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606–1669) was
born on the banks of the Rhine, his father being a miller at Leyden. When
fourteen years of age he entered the university of his native town and had a
classical education, which stood him in good stead through his long and
troubled career. Although he was at first placed as a pupil of Jacob van
Swanenburgh, he at an early age removed to Amsterdam. There he worked
under Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), whose Abraham’s Sacrificing Jacob
(No. 2443a) of 1616 is hung opposite the works of his illustrious pupil. The
independent spirit of Rembrandt soon asserted itself, and as early as 1627
he placed his name on pictures which still exist, notably in the Berlin and
Stuttgart museums. His earliest picture in the Louvre is the Old Man
Reading (No. 2541a), which is signed and dated 1630, and was presented
by M. Kaempfen, a former Director of this gallery, on his retirement. Three
years later came the two small and very similar versions (No. 2540 and No.
2541) of the Philosopher in Meditation, the former of which is signed and

dated; in 1633 was painted the Portrait of the Artist (No. 2552), while
another oval picture of the same subject (No. 2553) is inscribed 1634. In
this early period the artist was in the habit of portraying members of his
own family, who were naturally his most accessible models.
At this moment of his career Rembrandt had to measure himself with
many rivals in Amsterdam, notably with Thomas de Keyser (1596?–1667),
whose Portrait of a Man (No. 2438a) was formerly in the Rodolphe Kann
collection, while a half-length Portrait of a Man (No. 2438b), also by de
Keyser, was formerly at Versailles. From the trammels and restrictions
which the art of de Keyser would have been likely to impose on a less
gifted and original mind, Rembrandt readily set himself free; and he must
have had great hopes for the future when, in 1634, he took to wife the
wealthy Saskia van Uylenborch. However, the oval Portrait of Himself
wearing a black cap (No. 2554), dated 1637, is of marked inferiority to the
dignified and deeply religious panel, The Archangel Raphael leaving Tobias
and his Father Tobit (No. 2536), of the same year. A year later he must have
painted the Portrait of an Old Man (No. 2544), and his first pure landscape.
The influence of domestic bereavements on Rembrandt’s art is clearly
reflected in the choice of his subjects, in their more intimate setting, and in
the deep feeling which evidently inspired them. No better example of this
side of his character and his art could be found than the Holy Family in the
Carpenter’s Shop (No. 2542), which he painted in 1640. In that year his
mother died, an event which followed rapidly on the death of his two infant
daughters and his son, and his wife’s frequent illness. He, however, still
went on painting such varied compositions as the Portrait of a Man (No.
2546), of 1645, and the Woman Bathing (No. 2550), which he achieved two
years later.

PLATE XXIX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2539.—THE PILGRIMS AT EMMAUS
(Les Pèlerins d’Emmaüs)

In a lofty room in front of a shallow niche in a wall, Christ and the two disciples
sit at table; a young serving-man enters from the right, carrying a dish. Christ, whose
bare feet are seen underneath the table, gazes heavenward as He breaks bread, by
which act the disciples recognise Him as their Lord. The room is lit from the left.

Painted in oil on panel.
Signed below on the left:—“Rembrandt f. 1648.”
2 ft. 2¾ in. × 2 ft. 1¾ in. (0·68 × 0·65.)

The famous Night-Watch, in the Amsterdam Gallery, testifies to his
inventive faculty in 1642, the year in which the death of his beloved Saskia
caused him intense grief. From this he never really recovered, as we see
from the frequency with which during the remainder of his life he painted
pathetic subjects. What artist in the whole history of painting has been able
to impart to his rendering of the Good Samaritan the kindly solicitude of
the principal character in this parable, and the feeling of complete collapse
seen in the body of the wounded man, as Rembrandt has done in his superb
canvas (No. 2537) of 1648 in this gallery? No less poignant is the grief
depicted on the face of the barefooted Man of Sorrows in the Christ and the
Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2539, Plate XXIX.) of the same year. Here we see
convincing proof of the dexterous use that the Dutch “magician-painter”
could make of chiaroscuro, which he has handled with such masterly effect
in the Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (No. 2547, Plate XXX.). All these
paintings belong to the same period as the soul-moving Polish Rider, which
in 1910 passed from the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow in
Galicia into that of Mr. H. C. Frick in New York for £60,000. The Portrait
of a Man holding a Bâton (No. 2551), in the La Caze collection in this
gallery, was painted three years later than the Bathsheba, or Woman Bathing
(No. 2549), of 1654. The wonderfully realistic and in no way repellent
Carcase of an Ox in this gallery (No. 2548), like the picture of the same
subject at Glasgow, is an achievement of a very different kind, and belongs
to the year 1655.
The Louvre authorities have been well advised in recent years in hanging
all the pictures by Rembrandt in this collection in one Bay of the Long
Gallery. Here now we may study the Portrait of a Young Man (No. 2545),
the wonderful and rather later Portrait of the Artist at his Easel at the age of
Fifty-four (No. 2555), and the striking St. Matthew (No. 2538) of 1661.
Before these three works were painted, the great Dutch master had been
declared bankrupt, the sale of his most treasured possessions realising a
ridiculously small sum in the winter of 1657.

Although Rembrandt’s own standard of morality offended his
neighbours, and his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels seem to have caused
much scandal in Amsterdam, we are not concerned with the morals of one
of the greatest and most esteemed of the world’s painters, but only with his
œuvre, a high place in which must be accorded to the Portrait of Hendrickje
Stoffels and her Child as Venus and Cupid (No. 2543), which was painted in
1662, the year that the large Syndics, now in the Amsterdam Gallery, was
completed.
He is also to be credited with the alternative version of the Pilgrims at
Emmaus (No. 2555a), a painting of the same date, which for many years
was at Compiègne, where, however, it passed only as a school picture. This
profoundly creative painter, who learnt as time went on to handle his
chiaroscuro with increased effect, was also an etcher of the highest order.
We may here note that the art of Jan Lievens (1607–1674), a fellow-pupil
with Rembrandt under Pieter Lastman, is seen in the large but far from
imposing Visitation (No. 2444).

PLATE XXX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2547.—PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS
(Portrait de Hendrickje Stoffels)

She is seated, and looks at the spectator. Over her rich brown hair she wears a grey
cap with narrow red ribbons; pearl pendants are in her ears, and she wears a brooch
on her breast. Life-size half-length figure.

Painted in oil on canvas.
2 ft. 4½ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0·72 × 0·60.)

THE PUPILS OF REMBRANDT
That Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) was a pupil of Rembrandt, is evident
from his Announcement to the Shepherds (No. 2372) rather than from his
Portrait of a Young Lady (No. 2373), a signed work of 1641. Ferdinand Bol
(1617–1680) was a pupil and imitator of the great Dutch master, and his
Portrait of a Mathematician (No. 2330) is one of his best paintings; but his
Philosopher in Meditation (No. 2328) compares most unfavourably with
Rembrandt’s two early pictures of the same subject which hang opposite it.
The ineffectual productions of Jan Victoors (1620–1670) include the
Portrait of a Young Lady (No. 2371), a typical example of the “niche”
portrait which became so popular, and a large Isaac blessing Jacob (No.
2370), which vividly recalls his small canvas in the Dulwich College
Gallery that in less critical days passed as a Rembrandt.
G. van den Eeckhout (1621–1674) in his picture (No. 2364) shows his
dependence on Rembrandt; and Cornells Drost’s repulsive Bathsheba (No.
2359a) has no claim to be regarded as a “fort bonne peinture,” as a French
critic has thought fit to term it.

VAN DER HELST
Bartholomeus van der Heist (1612–1670), a native of Haarlem, who
painted under the early Dutch master, Nicholas Elias, surnamed Pickenoy,
and subsequently worked at Amsterdam, has fully signed his Shooting Prize
(No. 2394, Plate XXXI.), which is dated 1653. It has been regarded as a
replica on a very reduced scale of The Officers of the Brotherhood of St.
Sebastian at Amsterdam, in the Amsterdam Gallery, which, curiously
enough, bears the date 1657, and is also signed on a slate.
Pieter van der Faes, who is better known as Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680),
after painting at Haarlem in the school of Pieter de Grebber, went to
England in 1641. He there succeeded Van Dyck as Court painter, and at the
Restoration became the favourite Royal painter. The affectation and

mannerism of his Windsor Beauties, now at Hampton Court, is well known.
He had a certain facility in painting
“The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.”

Three pictures (Nos. 2367–2369) are placed to his credit here, but
“The bugle eyeball and the cheek of cream”

have done their magic now.
The name of H. van Vliet (1611?–1675) is, doubtless, correctly
connected with two portraits on canvas (Nos. 2605 and 2605a), while his
contemporaries, Cornelis Saftleven (1606–1681) and D. van Santvoort
(1610–1680), are represented by The Artist’s Portrait (No. 2562) and the
Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2564) respectively. Jakob van Loo (1614–1670),
who became a naturalised Frenchman, may be judged by his diploma
picture (No. 2451) and a very poor Nude Female (No. 2452).
Such mediocre producers of uninspired and unconvincing panels as Dirk
Hals (1591–1656), the brother and pupil of Frans Hals, whose Festive
Repast (No. 2389) hangs in Room XXIII.; Cornelis van Poelenburg (1586–
1667), whose art is here admirably illustrated (Nos. 2518–2523); Hendrick
Pot (1585–1657), who evidently derived some satisfaction from the
elaborate inscription he has placed on his quite ineffectual, but fortunately
diminutive, Portrait of Charles I. (No. 2525); and the little-known and less-
esteemed L. F. Zustris (1526–1600), whose absurd Venus and Love (No.
2640) shows what a waste of time it was for him to study under Titian in
Italy—these and many more worked as “business artists” for
undiscriminating patrons. In the same category come Adriaen van de Venne
(No. 2601), Pieter Codde (No. 2339a), Jacob Duck (No. 2360–2361), and
A. Palamedesz (No. 2515a).

PLATE XXXI.—VAN DER HELST
(1613–1670)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2394.—THE SHOOTING PRIZE
(Les Chefs de la Gilde des arbalétriers)

The four officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam are seated at a
table in the foreground, with the insignia of the Brotherhood displayed before them.
By the side of the officer who, seated to the right, is addressing his companions, is a
slate on which are inscribed their names. In the background to the right are three
young men with bows and arrows. From the left enters a maid-servant with a
drinking-horn.
Signed on the slate:—“bartholomeus van der helst fecit, 1653.”
Painted in oil on canvas affixed to panel.
1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·50 × 0·67.)

GENRE PAINTERS

This rough sketch must suffice for our study of the History and Portrait
Painters of Holland. Although, of course, portraiture played a most
important part throughout the whole range of Dutch art, we must now deal
with those of their contemporaries and successors who are classed as
painters of genre subjects, Interiors, Conversation-pieces, and Rustic
Scenes. The compositions of these men at first show high technical
excellence, and a refined feeling for light and shade; they depict simple
scenes and homely incidents which make a wide appeal in any age. By the
end of the seventeenth century their scenes become festive, and eventually
boisterous, and so degenerate into unimaginative renderings of far-fetched
incidents which are treated with a parade of mere imitative skill. In the last
phase of their art the subjects become even more uninviting, the panels are
smoothly painted, and all originality disappears.

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE
Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), as a pupil of Frans Hals at Haarlem,
occupies an important position in his school. He is seen to very great
advantage at the Louvre. From his early Interior of a Cabaret (No. 2506),
which is signed on a form
“A. V. OSTADE 1641,”

we see the direction his life’s work was to take; and his Interior of a
Cottage (No. 2498) of the following year, strengthens that view. although
Reading the Gazette (No. 2505), of 1653, is painted on a very small panel,
it heightens our appreciation of this able and careful painter, who, a year
later, must have spent a long time in the completion of a Family Group,
which traditionally passes as the Family of the Artist (No. 2495). The Toper
(No. 2401), of 1668, and the intensely realistic Smoker (No. 2500), are
highly characteristic, while the Schoolmaster (No. 2496) shows great
observation. The Fish Market (No. 2497), the Business Man in his Study
(No. 2499), the Man Drinking (No. 2502), the Man Reading (No. 2503), the
Reading (No. 2504), and the Interior of a School (No. 2507), are both in
subject and handling good examples of his methods, which were affected by
a study of Adriaen Brouwer and Rembrandt.
Adriaen van Ostade was the elder brother and the master of Isack van
Ostade (1621–1649), who is equally well represented at the Louvre.

although he painted two Interiors (Nos. 2512 and 2514), a Toit à porcs (No.
2513), a Halt (No. 2509), and an overcrowded Travellers Halting (No.
2508), his best works, here as elsewhere, represent landscapes and frozen
river scenes.
Adriaen van Ostade had also as pupils Cornelis Bega (1620–1664), by
whom the Louvre possesses a very late Rustic Interior (No. 2312), of 1662;
and H. M. Sorgh, called Rokes (1611?–1670), three of whose panels (Nos.
2571–2573) are exhibited.

GERARD DOU
Gerard Dou (1613–1675) was in his day a highly popular and prosperous
painter of petty tragedies. As a boy of fifteen he entered the studio of “the
skilled and far-famed Mr. Rembrandt,” who was, however, his senior by
only seven years. One is apt to tire of his irritating parade of cleverness in
the manipulation of light and shade effects, and over-scrupulous and
niggling treatment of detail. Yet it is these very qualities that brought him
financial success when in later life Rembrandt was receiving scanty
treatment at the hands of the art patrons of Holland. The Dentist (No. 2355)
is an early work. Dou’s Portrait of an Old Lady (No. 2358) is now held to
be a Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother, and is regarded as the companion
picture to the Old Man Reading (No. 2567), by Dou’s pupil, Godfried
Schalcken. The Grocer’s Shop (No. 2350), which has been, with needless
precision, “ranked about the seventh best of this master’s productions,” is
signed in full on the slate, and dated 1647 on the mortar, while the Cook
with a Dead Cock (No. 2353) is signed on the window-sill, and dated 1650.

PLATE XXXII.—GERARD DOU
(1613–1675)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2348.—THE DROPSICAL WOMAN
(La Femme Hydropique)

In a well-appointed room, lighted by an arched window on the left, an old woman
is seated in an arm-chair. The sick woman, who raises her eyes to heaven and is
taking a spoonful of medicine from a young woman, gives her right hand to a girl
who kneels on the left by her side. Towards the right stands the doctor, who holds up

to the light a glass full of liquid. A chandelier hangs in the centre, and on the right are
a large tapestry curtain and a wine-cooler.
Signed on the edge of the book placed on the reading-desk in the left foreground:—
“1663. g. dov. ovt. 65 jaer.”
Painted in oil on panel.
2 ft. 8¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·83 × 0·67.)

The Trumpeter (No. 2351) is perhaps the pendant to the Girl at a
Window, of 1657, now in the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor.
On the window-ledge in the Trumpeter we see the same silver flagon and a
dish that also appear in the Dropsical Woman (No. 2348, Plate XXXII.), a
world-famous, but not on that account a great, picture. It bears a somewhat
enigmatical inscription:
“1663. G. DOV. OVT. 65 JAER”

on the edge of the book placed on the reading-desk. Dou in 1663, the year
here given, was only fifty years of age, and the statement of age in the
second half of the inscription may be a later addition, or capable of another
interpretation. The light comes in from the window on the left. The woman
who is dying of dropsy is receiving a dose of medicine, while her daughter
in grief kneels and kisses her hand, and the doctor holds up to the light the
vial, the contents of which he is carefully examining. The artist in this his
largest picture is at much pains to show the dexterity with which he can
paint the fabric of the dresses, the large tapestry hanging in folds on the
right, and the reflection of light on the chandelier. This panel, which is
Dou’s masterpiece and is in an excellent state of preservation, was
originally contained in an ebony case, the outside of which (in two pieces)
was formerly the still-life painting of a Silver Ewer and Dish (No. 2349).
The Man weighing Gold (No. 2354) is signed in full, and dated 1664;
elaborate care and much time have been expended, if not wasted, on every
wrinkle in his face, and every hair in his white beard. It has points of
analogy with Quentin Matsys’s Banker and his Wife (No. 2029), which was
painted in Flanders nearly a century and a half earlier. Dou’s meticulous art
is also exemplified in the Old Man Reading (No. 2357), Reading the Bible
(No. 2356), the Dutch Cook (No. 2352), and the highly characteristic but
quite negligible Portrait of the Painter (No. 2359). In many respects this

type of picture warns us that within a few years of Dou’s death, in 1675, the
art of Holland passed into decadence.

DOU’S PUPILS
He had several pupils. Of these Quiryn van Brekelenkam (1620?–1668)
holds a respectable place among the Small Masters of Holland, as we see
from his Consultation (No. 2337) in this collection rather than from his
Monk Writing (No. 2338). Herman van Swanevelt (1620–1655), who from
his journeys south earned the name of Herman of Italy, gives us three
Landscapes (Nos. 2584–2586). Karel de Moor (1656–1738), a native of
Leyden, who has signed his Dutch Family (No. 2477), worked under both
Dou and Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681). The latter owes much of
his technique and meticulous work to Dou, as is revealed by a hasty
inspection of his Tea Party (No. 2471), with two over-dressed women
taking tea, and three other panels (Nos. 2469, 2470, and 2472). Ary de Vois
(1632–1680) was a pupil of the German painter N. Knupfer and of his own
countryman Abraham van den Tempel (1622–1672), who is here
represented by a Portrait of a Lady with an Apple (No. 2586a); but he also
came under the influence of the painter of the Dropsical Woman (Plate
XXXII.), as is testified by his small interior Portrait of a Man (No. 2606),
his Portrait of a Painter at his Easel (No. 2607), and his feeble Woman
cutting a Lemon (No. 2608). Traces of Dou’s art are seen in J. A. van
Staveren’s (1624?–1668) Philosopher in his Study (No. 2577); but P. C. van
Slingelandt (1640–1691) was a direct pupil. His Dutch Family (No. 2568) is
said to have been bought by Louis xvi. from an English brewer, and the
Portrait of a Man (No. 2569) and Kitchen Utensils (No. 2570) have long
been in the collection. The Magdalene (No. 2570a) and St. Jerome (No.
2570b) were bequeathed to the Louvre.

PLATE XXXIII.—TERBORCH
(1617–1681)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2589.—THE CONCERT
(Le Concert)

A young lady in white satin dress and yellow bodice is seated in the centre before
a table covered with a richly coloured tablecloth. She is singing to the
accompaniment of a lady in the left background; a page-boy enters from the right.
Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 6¾ in. × 1 ft. 5 in. (0·47 × 0·43.)

GERARD TERBORCH
Gerard Terborch (1617–1681) was the creator of the “Conversation-
piece,” and one of the earliest to portray the well born engaged in music
lessons and similar occupations; he was one of the greatest of the Dutch
“small-masters,” and in every way the superior of the uninspired Dou.
Terborch invites us to join him in the fine decorum of a noble chamber
where the appointments are carefully tended, while its occupants give
themselves up to cultured, if not perhaps deeply intellectual, pursuits. We
forget all about the carousing and bestial profligates who people the taverns
of Jan Steen and much less accomplished painters, and watch the refined
fingers stray over the keyboard of the open spinet or sweep the strings of a
well-made mandoline, as in the Concert (No. 2589, Plate XXXIII.). Equally
fine are the two Music Lessons (No. 2588 and No. 2591), the former being
signed and dated 1660.
The Military Galant (No. 2587) exhibits Terborch’s dexterity in the
rendering of reflected light on a red tablecloth, although the subject has an
innuendo which hardly adds to its charm. The Ecclesiastical Assembly (No.
2590) is only a small sketch on panel, and affords but a feeble echo of this
painter’s masterpiece, the Ratification of the Peace of Münster, in the
National Gallery. Terborch was a pupil of his father, who had visited Italy,
and he studied also under Pieter Molyn the Elder at Haarlem previous to
visiting England in 1635. He travelled much more extensively than most of
his contemporaries, and went to Spain during the best period of art in the
Peninsula. He does not seem to have been dependent on his professional
success for his living, which was passed in easy circumstances. Nor did he
busy himself as a teacher, his only direct pupil being Caspar Netscher
(1639–1684), who gives us a Music Lesson (No. 2486), of the approved
stamp, and a Violoncello Lesson (No. 2487).

JAN STEEN
It is not known for certain whether Jan Steen (1626?–1679) was a pupil
of Nicholaes Knupfer, a native of Leipzig who resided for a time at Leyden,
but he certainly worked under Adriaen van Ostade at Haarlem, and later

became a pupil of Jan van Goyen, whose daughter Margaretha he married
as his first wife. Steen certainly leased a brewery in Delft for six years, and
he is frequently mentioned in the archives of that town about 1656; he
subsequently kept a tavern in the Langebrug in Leyden in 1672. His art is
vivacious if not boisterous, and the strength and versatility he displayed in
the nine hundred pictures with which he is justly credited give him a high
place among the artists of Holland in the seventeenth century. The
frequency with which he painted the Interior of a Tavern (No. 2578) has
suggested that he carried on the tradition of the Flemish-Dutch roysterer
Adriaen Brouwer; but such scenes, magnificently as they are handled, are
apt to become boring in time. This large canvas is dated 1674, and the coat
of arms of Charles v. is fastened on to the balcony in which are spectators.
The Merry Company at Table (No. 2579) is somewhat sketchy in parts, but
the lighting is well regulated, and the canvas is signed in full on the back of
a blue-covered chair to the right. That the Bad Company (No. 2580, Plate
XXXIV.) is admirably painted will be conceded by all, but refinement is not
its distinguishing feature. A young man dressed in a red jacket is sleeping
with his head on the lap of a girl, while another girl is relieving him of his
watch. The scene is laid in a tavern, on the floor of which are painted with
wonderful precision a number of tiny objects. It was not Steen’s habit to
paint representations of cultured society such as Terborch delighted in.

PLATE XXXIV.—JAN STEEN
(1626?–1679)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2580.—BAD COMPANY
(La Mauvaise compagnie)

The scene takes place in a tavern. A young man has fallen asleep with his head in
the lap of a girl, who is seated to the right of the composition, and holds a glass of
wine in her right hand. Another girl has just taken the young man’s watch from his

pocket and is giving it to an old woman, who receives it with evident glee. On the
left a man sits at a table smoking his pipe, and another is playing the fiddle.
Signed in full in the left bottom corner.
Painted in oil on panel.
1 ft. 6¾ in. × 1 ft. 2¼ in. (0·47 × 0·36.)

PIETER DE HOOCH
The Louvre contains only two paintings by Pieter de Hooch, who was
born in 1629 at Rotterdam, a town which played a relatively unimportant
part in Dutch painting. He also lived at Delft and Leyden. The Interior of a
Dutch House, with a Woman preparing Vegetables (No. 2414), is a good
example, and is fully signed in the bottom left-hand corner. The Dutch
Interior, with a Lady playing Cards (No. 2415, Plate XXXV.), is full of
incidents, contains six figures, and is signed on the base of one of the
columns supporting the mantelpiece in the left foreground. No museum in
the world exhibits the art of Pieter de Hooch in such excellence as does the
National Gallery, which contains three masterpieces from his hands that
have indirectly been the cause of assessing the whole of the artist’s life-
work on too generous a basis. It is indisputable that during the last ten years
of his life, of which nothing is known later than the signature and date,
1677, on the Music Party in the collection of Baron H. A. Steengracht at
The Hague, his art deteriorated very considerably both in colouring and
draughtsmanship. He may well have been a pupil of Karel Fabritius (1624–
1654), but it is almost incredible that he can have been a pupil of the
Italianiser Nicholaes Berchem, as Houbraken ventured to assert. This
museum contains nothing by Ochtervelt, many of whose pictures have from
time to time been accepted as the work of Pieter de Hooch.
From the shortlived artist Karel Fabritius derives the almost
incomparable master Jan Vermeer van Delft (1642–1675), whose fifty
authentic pictures are to-day among those most coveted by collectors. As a
painter skilled in the technicalities of his profession Vermeer must be
accorded the highest rank. The subtle and mysterious handling of his Lace
Maker (No. 2456, Plate XXXVI.), with its cool colour scheme and
dominant tones of blue and lemon-yellow, make it difficult for us to realise
that until twenty years ago his works were neglected. Indeed, this small
canvas was acquired in 1870 at the Vis Blokhuyzen sale for the ridiculous

sum of £290. Jan Vermeer (or Van der Meer) van Delft is not to be confused
with Jan Van der Meer of Haarlem (1628–1691), who is included in the
official catalogue as the painter of the Outside of an Inn (No. 2455, marked
No. 2022 on the frame). It is fully signed, and bears the date 1652.

NICOLAS MAES
One of the last lingering influences of Rembrandt is seen in the art of
Nicolas Maes (1632–1693). The genre pictures of his early period are so
vastly superior to his later portraits that it was formerly assumed that there
might well have been two artists of the same name. He certainly delighted
in painting several versions, which vary considerably in size, of Grace
before Meat (No. 2454). In his pictures we see the mind that broods, and
women who meditate rather than act. The best examples of his domestic
scenes are finely graduated, although the sadness of advancing age becomes
monotonous in time.

PLATE XXXV.—PIETER DE HOOCH
(1629–1677?)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2415.—DUTCH INTERIOR WITH A LADY PLAYING
CARDS
(Intérieur hollandais)

By the fireplace to the left a lady is seated. She is playing cards with a gentleman,
and shows her hand to a cavalier who stands beside her. In the background stand two
lovers, and a boy is entering the room, a richly appointed room, hung with gilt
leather.
Signed on the base of one of the columns supporting the mantelpiece:—“p. d.
hooch.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 2½ in. × 2 ft. 6½ in. (0·67 × 0·77.)

GABRIEL METSU
A high place among the painters of “Conversation-pieces” must be
accorded to Gabriel Metsu (1630?–1667), a shortlived artist who was born
at Leyden and learnt the first principles of his art from Dou. As early as
1644 he seems to have earned some reputation as a painter, his signature
appearing on his Court Physician in that year. He came under the influence
of Rembrandt, and in later life practised as a painter at Amsterdam, where
he died.
Metsu, whose work is at first sight not easily distinguishable from
Terborch’s, acquired a facility in the control of the expression and the ever-
varying gesture of the hands in his pictures, that was denied to many of his
contemporaries. Instances of this are the figure of the Christ writing a long
Latin inscription on the ground in the Woman taken in Adultery (No. 2457),
the ease with which the young lady in a white satin dress runs her fingers
over the keys of the spinet in the Music Lesson (No. 2460), and the
treatment of the Dutch Lady (No. 2462), who holds a jug in her right hand.
The last-named panel is evidently the companion to the very thinly painted
Dutch Cook peeling Apples (No. 2463), which is signed “g. metsu.” Perhaps
his best outdoor scene of humble life is the Vegetable Market at Amsterdam
(No. 2458), although his handling of the trees suggests that his forte was the
Conversation-piece of Dutch tradition, and that he would not have risen to
high rank as a landscape painter. The placing of the signature on a letter,
which in this instance lies on the ground, is a favourite device with Metsu.
He has derived much pleasure from the treatment of the textures of the
tablecloth, the curtain, and the chair in the Officer visiting a Lady (No.
2459). The Alchemist (No. 2461) may be the companion picture to the
Sportsman in the Gallery at The Hague. Much speculative criticism has
been indulged in by critics as to whether the so-called Portrait of Admiral
Cornelis Tromp (No. 2464) represents that admiral, and some doubt has
also been cast on its attribution to Metsu.

LANDSCAPE PAINTERS

The naturalistic treatment of the landscape background in the religious
pictures of Jan van Eyck and his successors, Memlinc, Bouts, Hugo van der
Goes, and other painters in the Netherlands, in time brought about the
promotion of landscape painting to an independent art. Among the earlier
Dutch artists who approached the study of Nature were Arent Arentzen
(1586?–1635?), as we see from his Landscape with a Fisherman (No.
2300a), and Roeland Roghman, who was born a year later than Jan van
Goyen, and lived as late as 1685. He painted the Landscape (No. 2555b),
which was formerly in the Paul Mantz collection. Indeed, several Dutchmen
of the period sought to commit to panel views of nature, as in the case of
Pieter de Bloot (1600–1652), who gives us a Landscape with a River (No.
2327b).
The romantic feeling which so often pervades the background of
Rembrandt’s paintings, and is so apparent in such etchings as the Three
Trees, can only be touched on here. This new tendency is best exemplified
in the works of Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), who may be regarded as the
founder of a self-centred school of landscape painting in Holland; but it was
his ever handy sketch-book that enabled him to outstrip his rivals in this
branch of Dutch art. He is seen to great advantage in his very fine Banks of
a Dutch River (No. 2375), his superb River View with eight Men in a Boat
(No. 2378), a signed and dated work of 1649, a large light-brown-toned
River in Holland (No. 2377), a good Banks of a Canal (No. 2379), as well
as a Dutch Canal (No. 2376) and a Dutch River (No. 2377).

PLATE XXXVI.—JAN VER MEER VAN DELFT
(1632–1675)

DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2456.—THE LACE MAKER
(La Dentellière)

A girl, wearing a yellow bodice and a blue skirt, is seated behind a table. She is
bending her head over a light-blue lace pillow as she adjusts the bobbins with both
hands. A dark-blue cushion and a book are on the table to the left.

Signed in the upper right-hand corner:—“J. v. Meer,” the first three letters being
intertwined.
Painted in oil on canvas.
9½ in. (0·24) square.

Aert van der Neer (1603–1677) painted with strong contrasts of light, as
in his Banks of a Dutch Canal (No. 2483); and his monogram is to be found
on the seat at the foot of a tree in his Dutch Village (No. 2484), where his
propensity for painting moonlight scenes is well illustrated. Herman
Saftleven’s (1609–1685) Banks of the Rhine (No. 2563); Jan Asselyn’s View
of the Lamentano Bridge on the Teverone (No. 2301), Landscape (No.
2302), and Ruins in the Roman Campagna (No. 2303); and the two
Landscapes (Nos. 2332 and 2333) by Jan Both (1610–1652), who worked
in Rome and painted Italian landscapes under the influence of the French
artist Claude Lorrain, show the gradual introduction of foreign influences.
Joris van der Hagen (died 1669) takes a new line in the representation of a
very low horizon in his Environs de Haarlem (No. 2382); but his
Landscape with Peasants crossing a Ford (No. 2381) is dull in tone and
composed of unrelated parts.
The Banks of a River (No. 2561d) is a superb example of the art of
Salomon van Ruysdael (1600?–1670), one of the founders of the Haarlem
school of landscape, and the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael. The Large Tower
(No. 2561c) gives a better idea of his power than the Ford (No. 2561b).
Another painter in the same school, Cornelis Decker (1618?–1678), has a
Landscape (No. 2346). although Isack van Ostade at times gave himself up
to trivial subjects, as we have already seen, the merit of his frozen river
scenes (Nos. 2510, 2511, 2515) is firmly established, and the happy way in
which he combined a genuine appreciation of nature with great skill in the
placing and treatment of his figures has earned for him a high place among
the Dutch landscape painters.

AELBERT CUYP
Unlike most of the artists of his time in Holland, Aelbert Cuyp (1620–
1691) was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, his social position and
his good fortune in money matters freeing him from the poverty which
Hobbema and others endured. He painted portraits with much skill, as we

see from his Portrait of a Man (No. 2345a) and his Portrait of a Boy and a
Girl with a Goat (No. 2344); but he is best known as a cattle painter, his
sturdy cattle being artistically grouped in thick green pastures flooded with
sunshine, as in his Herdsman with Cattle (No. 2341). He attained much
success also with his riding pictures, and the Starting for the Ride (No.
2342) and the Riding Party (No. 2343) are in every way preferable to his
Boats on a Rough Sea (No. 2345). Following his usual habit, he has placed
no date on any of these six pictures. He had no pupil in the proper sense of
the term; but a host of imitators, such as Jacob van Stry and the much later
English Royal Academician Sidney Cooper, failed ignominiously in their
feeble attempts to copy his methods.
Jan Wynants was another landscape painter in the Haarlem School,
although he settled in Amsterdam and died there in 1682. His Outskirts of a
Forest (No. 2636) is signed and dated 1668, and is superior to the
Landscape (No. 2637) which bears his own signature as well as that of
Adriaen van de Velde, who on numerous occasions inserted the figures for
him. Wynants has also placed his name on a small Landscape with
Sportsman and Falconer (No. 2638).
Adriaen van de Velde has been careful to sign and date each of the seven
pictures by which he is represented (Nos. 2593–2599). By Allart van
Everdingen (1621–1675), who travelled in Norway and painted rocky
scenes and waterfalls, we find two Landscapes (Nos. 2365 and 2366).

JACOB VAN RUISDAEL
The greatest of all Dutch landscape painters, with the possible exception
of Jan van Goyen, is Jacob van Ruisdael (1628?–1682), who occupied
himself more especially with rushing waterfalls and undulating country. His
Storm on the Coast (No. 2558) is a fine achievement, but his best picture in
this collection is the Landscape (no No.), which was bequeathed by Baron
Arthur de Rothschild. His Woody Landscape (No. 2559), the Road (No.
2559a), Landscape (No. 2561), and the Entrance to a Wood (No. 2561a),
cannot, however, compare with his Sunny Landscape (No. 2560), which
bears the artist’s monogram.

HOBBEMA

The talents of Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709) were so disregarded by
his countrymen that in disgust he, at the age of thirty, took a humble post in
the Customs. His woody scenes seen in the pale sunlight of the early
afternoon are not copied from any chance scenery, but composed; and his
Water Mill (No. 2404), fine though it is, contains passages that will be met
with elsewhere. The Farm (No. 2404a) is a very good picture, as also is the
Landscape (No. 2403) from the Nieuwenhuys collection. A very large
number of painters, including Wyntrack, who gives us a Farm (No. 2639),
painted the figures into the foregrounds of Hobbema’s best works.

PHILIPS WOUWERMAN
In a large number of Philips Wouwerman’s pictures the landscapes are of
secondary importance to the figures; and although the execution is careful
and conscientious, the frequenter of picture galleries is apt to tire of his
make-believe genre-pieces, landscapes with horses, riders, sportsmen,
soldiers, robbers, gipsies, and the like. The Louvre presents an imposing
array of fifteen of the twelve hundred or more pictures by Philips
Wouwerman (1619–1668), and his brother and pupil Pieter is credited with
a poor but historically interesting View of the Porte de Nesles, Paris, in
1664 (No. 2635).
It will be convenient here to group Adam Pynacker (1622–1673) with his
three pictures, Willem Romeyn (1624?–1696?) with one, Abraham Begeyn
(1637?–1697) with one, Guilliam de Heusch (1625?–1692) with one, Dirk
van den Berghen (1645–1690?) with two, and Glauber (1646–1726) with a
single Landscape (No. 2374) in which the figures are inserted by Gerard de
Lairesse. Mention must, however, be made of Paul Potter, the highly
esteemed cattle painter, who died in 1654 at the early age of twenty-nine.
One of his latest canvases is the Cows and Sheep in a Field (No. 2527), of
1652; but his Horse in a Field (No. 2528) of the following year, and the
Wood at The Hague (No. 2529), give an excellent idea of his art. These and
the Horses at the Door of a Cottage (No. 2526) show that Paul Potter had a
sound knowledge of animal anatomy. He is seen at his best in small
compositions such as are here exhibited, in which the construction and
mise-en-scène are simple and the details delicately rendered. It is a popular
fallacy that his chief contribution to the fame of Dutch art was his large Bull

of 1647, which measures 8 ft. by 12 ft., in The Hague Gallery. He did not
live long enough to form a “school.”

THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE
The Italianising influence was already beginning to make itself felt, to
the lasting detriment of Dutch painting, and the typical example of this
downward movement is Nicolaes Berchem (1620–1683), who was founded
on his father, Pieter Claesz, and on Pieter de Grebber, and Jan Wils at
Haarlem, while he also was impressed by Claes Moyaert and J. B. Weenix
at Amsterdam, where he removed in 1677. There is scarcely a well-
furnished gallery in Europe that does not seek to pride itself on possessing
one of Berchem’s renderings of Crossing the Ford, or a Woman upon an Ass
in conversation with another Person. The Louvre is no exception to this
rule, and exhibits his Cattle crossing a Ford (No. 2315) and nine other
canvases and panels, nearly all of which bear his much-vaunted signature.
His art is to-day deservedly out of fashion with discerning collectors.
Berchem’s pupil, Karel du Jardin (1622–1678), who is invariably at
much pain to sign his pictures, is seen to some advantage in his very Italian
and in every way characteristic Italian Charlatans (No. 2427), the typical
Ford in Italy (No. 2428), and eight other works. His attempts to depict a
Calvary (No. 2426) have not been crowned with success, as the
composition is overcrowded and undramatic; nor do we experience any
emotion on regarding his Portrait of Himself (No. 2434), a small production
on copper.
Breenberg (1599–1659?), who was born at Deventer, the home of
Terborch, has depicted a View of the Campo Vaccino at Rome (No. 2334),
and a Ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars (No. 2335) in the Italian manner
beloved by Berchem and Pieter van Laer. The latter, who is also named
Bamboccio, is represented by two small oval panels. Lingelbach (1622–
1674), who frequently collaborated with other Dutch artists, may be judged
by his Vegetable Market at Rome (No. 2447) and three other canvases, and
Frédéric de Moucheron (1633?–1686) by a Leaving for the Hunt (No.
2482). It will be convenient to mention here Reynier Nooms, whose View of
the Old Louvre from the Seine (No. 2491) has some historical interest.

ARCHITECTURAL PAINTERS
A limited number of painters busied themselves in making faithful
transcripts of the streets and the exterior appearance of the buildings. Jan
van der Heyden (1637–1712) was perhaps the most successful in this
direction, and his View of the Town Hall of Amsterdam in 1688 is an
excellent example of his methods, while the Louvre also possesses three
small panels by him. Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten (1622–1666), the son of a
cooper at Amsterdam, travelled to Italy and the Mediterranean, proof of
which is afforded by his Old Town Gate at Genoa (No. 2310). The typical
architectural painter is, however, Gerrit Berckheyde (1638–1698). Although
he never went to Italy, his View of Trajan’s Column (No. 2324) is a
welcome relief from the many versions he painted, with conspicuous
success, of The Market-Place of Haarlem.
Hendrik van Steenwyck (1580–1648) almost invariably contented
himself with reproducing the Interiors of Churches (Nos. 2582, 2583); but
his Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (No. 2581) is an unusual
subject with him, and must be his masterpiece. The Vestibule of a Palace
(No. 2490), by Isaac van Nickelle (fl. 1660), is very good of its kind; but
the Interior of a Guard-Room (No. 2453), by Aart van Maes, is a poor
attempt at dramatic action.

MARINE PAINTERS
The fact that the Dutch had fought with swamp and water and possessed
a large maritime commerce, is reflected in the Seascapes of Simon de
Vlieger (1600–1660), and in the art of Ludolf Backhuysen (1631–1708),
who is represented by a Stormy Sea (No. 2309) and five other canvases; but
one of the best works of this class in the Louvre is the Marine-piece (No.
2600) by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707), who crossed over
to England, and after a long career died at Greenwich. These men sought to
carry on the earlier tradition of Jan van Goyen and the two Ruisdaels, but
they showed less originality and power.

STILL-LIFE PAINTERS

Much appreciation and some extravagant praise has been lavished on the
still-life painters who, at the time when the higher aims of artistic
endeavour began to die out in Holland, displayed remarkable ability. The
cultivation of horticulture at Haarlem, the centre of the tulipomania fever in
the middle of the seventeenth century, may have had an influence on the
artistic presentation of inanimate nature; this feeling was no doubt
stimulated by the display made by the goldsmiths in an age of great
prosperity. Willem Claesz Heda, who was born 1594, is among the earliest
of the Dutch still-life painters, and his picture (No. 2390) is dated 1637; he,
however, did not die until more than forty years later. Jan Davidsz de Heem
(1606–1684), the painter of Fruit and a Vase on a Table (No. 2391) and of
another and much larger picture (No. 2392), was the pupil of his father,
David de Heem; as he spent many years at Antwerp, he is sometimes
regarded as a Flemish painter. That Abraham van Beyeren (1620–1675?),
who painted several sea-pieces, was specially fond of copying the
appearance of fish, is seen from his Still-life: Fish (No. 2326a), at the
Louvre, which has in recent years also acquired another work (No. 2312a)
by him. Willem Kalf (1621?–1693) may have studied under H. G. Pot, the
Haarlem genre-painter. He was evidently impressed with the chiaroscuro of
Rembrandt, and often placed the drinking-cups, wine-glasses, and fruit on a
richly-coloured tablecloth. He is here represented by four examples, of
which the Dutch Interior (No. 2436) is the best. Eight pictures by Jan
Huysum (1682–1749), two by Jan van Os (1744–1808), and one by C. van
Spaendonck (1756–1839) belong to the latest phase of art in Holland, and
mark the decadence in full operation. It will be noticed that the Louvre has
a much larger selection of still-life pictures than the National Gallery, which
seems to regard achievements of this kind with disdain.
Melchior Hondecoeter (1636–1695), the painter of the farmyard, gives
unmistakable proof of his power in his large signed Eagle swooping down
on a Farmyard (No. 2405), and two rather smaller pictures (Nos. 2406–7).
Jan Weenix (1640–1719), who usually concerns himself with dead game
and birds, is working on the usual lines in three (Nos. 2610, 2611, and
2612a) of his four pictures in the great French museum; the other represents
A Seaport (No. 2612). He was the fellow-pupil of Hondecoeter in the studio
of his father, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–1660), who studied for a time under
the early Dutch master, Abraham Blomaert, and worked in Italy for four

years. For that reason the latter has adopted an Italian mode of signing his
only picture (No. 2609) in the Louvre.

THE DECLINE
Although Gerard Honthorst (“Gerard of the Night”) was born as early as
1590, and was a pupil of Blomaert, he may he relegated to the period of
decline. Almost invariably he resorted to the trick of lighting the figures in
his pictures, whether he was painting religious subjects, portraits, or
conversation-pieces, with a candlelight effect. This habit he had acquired in
Italy by studying the style of Caravaggio. Of his five pictures here, the best
is perhaps the Portrait of Charles Louis, Duke of Bavaria (No. 2410), of
1640. His Concert (No. 2409), painted sixteen years earlier, is an ill-
balanced and overloaded composition.
Such artists as Abraham Hondius, who paints a Man Selling Pigeons (No.
2407a); Karel de Moor, who was a pupil of G. Dou, and gives us an
insignificant Dutch Family (No. 2477); Eglon van der Neer, whose name is
signed on a small panel, A Man Selling Pigeons (No. 2485); Egbert van
Heemskerck, whose Interior (No. 2393) is in the La Caze collection; Jan
Verkolie, whose Interior (No. 2602) has been engraved; H. van Limborch,
whose Pleasures of the Golden Age (No. 2446) was in the collection of
Louis xvi.; Louis de Moni, the painter of a Family Scene (No. 2476); and
Willem van Mieris, a replica of whose Soap Bubbles (No. 2473) is at The
Hague,—all these mediocre painters are the despair of the critic, and afford
merely momentary entertainment for the curious.
It is apparent that by this period the art of Holland was marked by
mechanical inventions, the surface of these eighteenth-century paintings
being highly fused and metallic in appearance. The four panels of Adriaen
van der Werff (1659–1722), which include an unpleasant Magdalene in the
Desert (No. 2617) and a repulsive Dancing Nymph (No. 2619), are
characteristic examples of his monotonous art. The Disembarkation of
Cleopatra (No. 2441) and the Hercules between Vice and Virtue (No. 2443)
of Gerard de Lairesse (1640–1711), have the enamel-like smoothness and
meaningless expression of academic art, although they have their usefulness
as museum pieces.

It is a remarkable fact that the Louvre does not contain a single example
of the revival of art in Holland in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

THE EARLY FRENCH SCHOOL
T HE early phases of the French school of painting—perhaps it would
be more correct to say of painting in France—present one of the
most interesting problems to the student of art history. It was not really until
the great Exhibition of French Primitives held in Paris in 1904 that any
serious attempts were made to construct a history of Early French painting;
but the learned arguments that have been brought to bear upon the tangled
question have so far failed to establish the existence of an important
autochthonous school in the fifteenth century. It is true that contemporary
records mention the names of a few painters who seem to have enjoyed
great repute at the Courts at which they were employed, but it has been
impossible to connect any notable extant pictures with their names; whilst
those other “French” painters who have left tangible proofs of their activity
are almost without exception of Flemish birth and training. Indeed, most of
these early pictures show no characteristics that may be described as
French, save the types of the faces, which would naturally be taken from the
country where the artists worked.
The difficulty of dealing with the Early French pictures at the Louvre is
considerably increased by the uncertainty of their authorship, the
attributions being in most cases tentative and much disputed. Throughout
we feel the lack of a definite basis for comparative criticism—the absence
of properly authenticated works by the very masters whose names have
been recorded in contemporary documents. One of the earliest of these
masters is Jean Malouel, a Fleming, whose real name was Malwaele, and
who worked in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy at Dijon, where he
died in 1415. To him has been attributed, without sufficient proof, the tondo
of The Dead Christ supported by the Eternal Father (No. 996) and mourned
by the Virgin, St. John and Angels.
Equally uncertain is the attribution of the Last Communion and
Martyrdom of St. Denis, First Bishop of Paris (No. 995), on which are seen,
against a gold background, in the centre, the Crucified Saviour and the
Eternal Father surrounded by cherubs; on the left, Christ giving the

Communion to the imprisoned bishop, with a praying angel in the
foreground; and on the right, the Decollation of St. Denis and his two
companions, St. Rusticus and St. Eleutherius. An attempt has been made to
identify this interesting picture with one ordered by Jean-sans-Peur, Duke of
Burgundy, from Jean Malouel, and finished after that master’s death by
Henri Bellechose, another Flemish painter, born in Brabant, who worked at
Dijon between 1415 and 1431.
The Entombment (No. 997) is the work of an unknown and presumably
Flemish painter, who shows a certain affinity with the painter of the famous
Parement d’autel de Narbonne (No. 1342 bis) of about 1374. This altar-
front is supposed to be by Girard d’Orléans and his son Jean, under whose
name both the Parement and the Entombment were shown at the Exhibition
of French Primitives in 1904. But all these attributions are largely
conjectural.

THE MAÎTRE DE MOULINS
Chauvinistic French critics have made much capital out of the important
national school that is supposed to have flourished towards the end of the
fifteenth century at Moulins, and especially of the mysterious “Maître de
Moulins,” so called from a famous triptych at Moulins which cannot be
proved to be the work of a French painter, and shows very marked Italian
characteristics, although the types of the faces are distinctly French. Italian
painters had been working in France ever since Simone Martini (1285?–
1344) was employed to decorate the Pope’s Palace at Avignon; and in the
absence of definite documentary evidence it will always remain a difficult
matter to decide whether certain pictures, Italian in style and French as
regards the types, are the work of Italian masters painting in France, or of
Frenchmen trained by Italians.
To the Maître de Moulins have been loosely ascribed certain pictures in
the Louvre collection, especially since attempts have been made, in the face
of great improbability, to identify him with Jehan Perréal, or Jehan de Paris,
one of the few painters of that period whose French nationality has been
satisfactorily established. Perréal was born at Lyons, and became Court
painter in Paris to Charles viii. and Louis xii. In this capacity he was sent to
England at the time of the marriage of Louis xii. with Princess Mary Tudor,

to design the bride’s toilettes. If Perréal be the painter of The Virgin between
Two Donors (No. 998d, formerly No. 1048, and now labelled No. —48),
which bears upon the pilasters of a balustrade the letters “I P,” he is
certainly not identical with the Maître de Moulins to whom have been
attributed the portraits of Pierre II., Sire de Beaujeu, Son-in-Law of Louis
XI. (No. 1004), and his wife, Anne of France, Duchess of Bourbon,
Daughter of Louis XI. (No. 1005), which are apparently the wings of a
triptych of which the centre panel has disappeared. They are utterly lacking
in charm of colour and are anything but masterly in treatment. Both the
personages are portrayed kneeling, the husband being presented by his
Patron Saint and the wife by St. John the Evangelist. The Portrait of Pierre
was bought in 1842 by Louis Philippe for £20. The companion panel was
presented to the Louvre in 1888 by M. Maciet. M. L. Dimier has rightly
pointed out that there is no evidence whatever to prove these two pictures to
have been painted by a French master. The Virgin between Two Donors (No.
998d) has lately been tentatively attributed to the “Master of the Ursula
Legend.”

THE DE SOMZÉE “MAGDALEN”
To the Maître de Moulins has also been attributed the somewhat
overrated Magdalen with a Female Donor (No. 1005a), which was
formerly in the de Somzée collection at Brussels, and was, some time after
the Exhibition of French Primitives in 1904, bought from Messrs. T. Agnew
& Son for £5000. The supposed similarities that have been noticed between
this picture and the Moulins triptych on the one hand, and Jehan Perréal’s
authenticated design for the tomb of the Duke of Brittany at Rennes on the
other hand, are not sufficiently convincing either to arrive at a definite
conclusion as regards the authorship of this Magdalen, or to establish the
identity of the Maître de Moulins with Jehan Perréal.
Of an even more problematic nature are the Pietà (No. 998c, formerly
No. 998) and the Calvary (No. 998a), of which it is only safe to affirm that
both were painted in France, the background showing in the case of the
former the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Seine, the Louvre, and the
Butte Montmartre; and in the latter an equally distinguishable view of the
Seine, the Louvre, and other buildings. Both pictures appear to be the work
of Flemish painters who were not entirely uninfluenced by Italian art. This

Calvary is labelled “Retable du Parliament de Paris,” and was formerly in
the Palais de Justice in Paris.
We need not dwell at any length upon the school of Douai, which should
be considered as a branch of the Flemish rather than a national French
school. Jean Bellegambe (c. 1470–1535) is its chief representative, and
presumably the author of the small wing of a triptych depicting the figure of
St. Adrian (No. 13a) which was formerly catalogued as being of the
German school (No. 2739).

JEAN FOUQUET
Of far greater importance is the school which flourished at Tours, for
here at last we meet with clearly marked personalities whose names are
definitely connected with extant works, even if the character of their art
remains essentially Flemish. The best known artist of this group is Jean
Fouquet (c. 1425–1480?), who was Painter to Charles vii. and Louis xi. and
wrought the wonderful miniatures in the famous Book of Hours at
Chantilly. He was distinctly more successful as an illuminator than as a
painter, although his masterpiece, the Chevalier diptych (of which one wing
is at the Antwerp and the other at the Berlin Museum), is a work of
considerable merit. The Louvre owns an interesting painting from his brush
—the portrait of the corpulent Chancellor of France, Guillaume Juvénal des
Ursins, Baron de Trainel (No. 288). He is depicted in three-quarter profile
to the right, dressed in a fur-edged red robe, with hands folded in prayer,
before an open book on a cushion. The pilasters in the rich architectural
setting terminate in two bears supporting the Chancellor’s coat of arms.
This important picture was bought in 1835 for the sum of £36. It was then
attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth!
Fouquet is known to have painted Charles vii. in 1444; but the Portrait of
Charles VII., King of France (No. 289), with the inscription along the top,
“le très glorieux roy de france,” and below, “charles septiesme de ce
nom,” cannot certainly be identified with the picture referred to in
contemporary records. The Louvre picture was acquired in 1838 for £18.
The name of Jean Fouquet has for a long time been connected with the
admirable little portrait known as The Man with the Wineglass (No. 1000,
formerly No. 1000a). It was shown as a work of Fouquet at the Exhibition

of French Primitives; and the attribution is still maintained by many French
critics, although in the official Catalogue the picture is given to an
Unknown French painter of the fifteenth century known as “The Master of
1456” from a dated picture in the Liechtenstein Gallery in Vienna. The
whole style of the painting would, however, point to German origin, the
only thing French about the picture being the type of the personage
represented. It is interesting to note that this portrait, which was bought
from a Paris dealer in 1906 for £7600, was formerly in the collection of
Count Wilczek in Vienna, and was bought by its former owner at Ulm. It is
probably the work of a painter of the Swabian school.

NICOLAS FROMENT
Nicolas Froment, the painter of the diptych King René and his Second
Wife, Jeanne de Laval (No. 304a), is frequently mentioned by those who
have constituted themselves champions of a supposed important Early
French national school. The few pictures with which he may be credited
include the St. Siffrein, now in the Seminary at Avignon, the Raising of
Lazarus, now in the Kaufmann collection at Berlin, and the Burning Bush,
which includes the Portraits of King René and Jeanne de Laval, as the
Donors who ordered the picture for the Cathedral at Aix, where it still is.
But the Louvre diptych is an inferior work. Nothing is known about the
dates of his birth and death. He flourished between 1460 and 1480, and was
employed by good King René, who was himself a painter of some
distinction, if contemporary chroniclers are to be believed. Froment died at
Avignon, where he appears to have worked some considerable time,
allowing his art to absorb those distinctly Italian tendencies which
distinguished the productions of the Avignon school ever since Simone
Martini had early in the fourteenth century worked in the Provençal city of
the Popes.
A very typical instance of this Avignon school, with its blending of
Northern realism and the noble sense of style of the early Italians, is the
Pietà (No. 1001b). The group of the Virgin with the rigid body of Christ
across her knees, St. John on the left and the Magdalen on the right, has a
sculpturesque dignity and grandeur not to be found in the Northern art of
that period. The Donor on the extreme left rather destroys the balance of the
composition. The mourners and the landscape are silhouetted against a gold

background. The picture was formerly in the Chartreuse of Villeneuve near
Avignon, and was bought by the Société des Amis du Louvre for the great
French national collection at the price of £4000. A well-known Spanish
critic has claimed that this is one of the very rare works by the Spanish
artist Bartolomé Bermejo.
Of the same school, but vastly inferior in conception and execution, is the
much restored Christ rising from the Tomb, with a Donor and St. Agricola
(No. 1001c). There are in Gallery X. (Salle Jean Fouquet) a few more
anonymous fifteenth-century paintings, which need not here be discussed as
they are of no real significance.

THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH
SCHOOL
T HE mere fact that many of the drawings and paintings which are now
with good reason believed to be the work of Jean or Jehan Clouet
(called Jehannet) passed, at a time when art criticism followed methods less
scientific than those which prevail at present, under the name of Holbein,
should suffice to indicate that Clouet’s art belongs essentially to the
Renaissance, and that the Primitive or Gothic period had come to a close
when he arrived in France from the Netherlands, where he was born about
1475. He apparently worked first at Tours, where his presence in 1516 is
testified by documentary evidence; and he went to Paris before 1529.
Although he was never naturalised, he became Groom of the Chamber to
François i., and enjoyed an enormous reputation for his skill in portraiture.
He died in 1540 or 1541.

JEAN CLOUET’S DRAWINGS
Not a single drawing or painting that has come down to us from this
period, which was remarkable for its enormous production in Court
portraiture, bears the signature of Jehan Clouet; but as a number of the best
portrait drawings in the famous Chantilly collection—notably that of the
Preux de Marignan—are obviously from the same hand, and extend, as can
be proved from the age of the personages portrayed, from 1514 to 1540,—
the very years when Jean Clouet is known to have worked in France,—it is
quite reasonable to assume that artist to be the author of this group of
drawings. Their superiority over all the other drawings of the period would
account for the fame enjoyed by the elder Clouet among his
contemporaries.
On the strength of these drawings it has been possible to ascribe to Jean
Clouet a few painted portraits which are obviously based on the drawings
and show, apart from such differences as must necessarily result from the
use of a different medium, the same characteristics—firm draughtsmanship,

a sure delicate touch in the delineation of the features, and also a certain
stiffness and hardness of contour which are never to be found in the
otherwise very similar but always supple and masterly handling of Holbein.
It is now known that practically all the painted portraits of the period were
executed from the delicate drawings in black and red chalk, of which so
vast a number have come down to our day. But the fact that the vast
majority of these drawings served as models to different painters leaves the
question of attribution in a state of uncertainty. The mere tracing back of a
picture to some extant drawing of acknowledged authenticity cannot be
taken as proof of their common origin.
Two pictures at the Louvre are attributed to Jean Clouet. Both are
portraits of François I., King of France, but only the smaller one (No. 127)
appears to be from his hand. Clouet’s royal patron is here depicted in three-
quarter profile to the right, at the age of about thirty, so that the picture may
be assumed to have been painted about the year 1524. It is based on a
drawing in the Chantilly collection. The larger Portrait of François I. (No.
126) has at various times been attributed to Jean Clouet, Mabuse, and Joost
van Cleef, but is, as has been pointed out by M. Dimier, pronouncedly
Italian in colour and in the treatment of the costume and hands.

FRANÇOIS CLOUET
Towards the end of his life Jean Clouet was assisted in the execution of
his numerous commissions by his brother Clouet de Navarre, to whom is
attributed the Portrait of Louis de Saint-Gelais, Lord of Lansac, Captain of
one of the “Compagnies des cent Gentilshommes” under Charles IX. (No.
134), and by his son François Clouet (1500?–1572). It has been stated that
François Clouet, who was to become after his father’s death the favourite
portrait painter of François i., Henri ii., Catherine de Médicis, François ii.,
and Charles ix., was born at Tours; but it is far more likely that he too was
born in the Netherlands, and, while still young, accompanied his father to
France. Practically nothing is known of his life before the year 1541, when
François i. renounced to Clouet his kingly right to the artist’s inheritance,
which could have been claimed by the Crown as the estate of a foreigner. In
the same year François Clouet was appointed Groom of the Chamber and
Painter-in-Ordinary to the King.

The Louvre is fortunate in possessing one of the exceedingly rare signed
pictures by this artist in the Portrait of Pierre Quthe (No. 127a), which was
found in Vienna a few years ago by M. Moreau-Nélaton and presented to
the Gallery by that active and patriotic institution, the Société des Amis du
Louvre. Pierre Quthe was a notable burgher and apothecary of Paris, who
owned one of the finest gardens in that city. He was an intimate friend and
neighbour of François Clouet in the rue St. Avoye. In the Louvre painting,
which bears in the left-hand bottom corner the inscription

FR. IANETII OPVS
E. QUTTO AMICO SINGVLARI
AETATIS SVE XLIII 1562

he is depicted three-quarter-length life size, dressed in a doublet of black
velvet with lace insertions, with a herbarium. The picture hangs at present
on a screen in Gallery XV.
Another unquestionably authentic work is the charming Portrait of
Elizabeth of Austria, Wife of Charles IX. (No. 130), of which a preparatory
study in chalk, dated 1571, is to be found in the Paris Print Cabinet. The
face is drawn and modelled with rare delicacy, and every detail of the richly
jewelled gold brocade costume is rendered with faultless and miniature-like
precision.
Yet another precious little picture from the same hand is the small three-
quarter-length Portrait of Charles IX., King of France (No. 128), which is a
reduced replica of the signed life-size version in the Vienna Museum. Both
pictures were originally in Vienna, whence they were removed by Napoleon
in 1809, but only the larger picture was taken back to the Austrian capital in
1815.
The Portrait of Claude de Beaune (No. 133a) is possibly another, though
not very important, work from the master’s own brush; but neither the
Portrait of François de Lorraine, Duc de Guise (No. 131), nor the Portrait
of Henri II., King of France (No. 129), are of sufficient merit to justify their
attribution to François Clouet; whilst the portraits of Charles IX. (No. 132)
and Elizabeth of Austria (No. 133) are frankly admitted to be copies after
originals by the master.

CORNEILLE DE LYON
François Clouet’s chief rival in royal favour was another Netherlander
domiciled in France, who, from the city in which he spent the years of his
greatest activity, has become known as Corneille de Lyon. He was
apparently the head of a busy workshop at Lyons, from which were turned
out large numbers of thinly painted, daintily touched-in three-quarter profile
heads, executed almost transparently on a light ground. although these
portraits are now generally described under the generic name of Corneille
de Lyon, only the best among them can be accepted as the master’s own
handiwork. Room XI. at the Louvre contains several insignificant and badly
repainted portraits of this type. They are of no importance, as they are only
copies or studio productions. Corneille became naturalised in 1547, in
which year he was appointed Painter to the King. He died about 1575.

THE SCHOOL OF FONTAINEBLEAU
The death of Perréal and Bourdichon a few years after the accession of
François i. had left France without any artists of note, save the few foreign
portrait painters employed by the Court. François i., an enthusiastic art
lover, who had seen and admired the great Italian masters in their own
country, spared no effort to attract the leading masters to France. We have
seen that he actually succeeded in securing the services of the aged
Leonardo da Vinci, and that for a brief span Andrea del Sarto worked at his
Court. When, about 1530, that art-loving king turned his attention to the
decoration of his palace at Fontainebleau, there was not a single painter of
French nationality, or artist living in France, who could have been entrusted
with so formidable a task, and François i. was again forced to enlist the best
Italian painters available for the purpose. Having first engaged Pellegrino
and other third-rate artists, he succeeded, in 1531, in inducing the
Florentine Rosso to undertake the execution and supervision of the
decorative work at Fontainebleau; and in the following year the Bolognese
Primaticcio entered his service. Both belong to the Italian eclectic schools,
and only concern us here in so far as their example led to the founding of
what has been called the “School of Fontainebleau,” which was really an
offshoot of the Italian eclectic school.

In the early years of Rosso’s and Primaticcio’s activity at Fontainebleau
practically all the work was done by these two painters and their Italian
assistants, whose band was joined by Niccolò dell’ Abbate. It was only after
the death of François i. that the teaching of the Italian eclectics at
Fontainebleau produced a generation of French artists capable of doing
justice to the decorative tasks for which an ever-increasing demand had
meanwhile arisen. That the Louvre is singularly poor in works by these
painters may partly be accounted for by the comparative scarcity of easel
pictures painted by artists who were chiefly employed for interior
decoration. There is no reason for crediting any Frenchmen with the three
anonymous school of Fontainebleau pictures in Gallery XI.: Diana (No.
1013), The Chastity of Scipio (No. 1014), and The Toilet of Venus (No.
1014a). The Chastity of Scipio in particular would appear to be the work of
Niccolò dell’ Abbate.

JEAN COUSIN
The most famous of all the French painters of the school is Jean Cousin,
who from the Last Judgment (No. 155) at the Louvre—the only known
painting from his brush that has been preserved—has been called “The
French Michelangelo.” Nothing is known of his life, save that he was born
at Soucy, near Sens, that he worked in Paris in the third quarter of the
sixteenth century, and that he was still alive in 1583. Comparison of his
picture with Michelangelo’s great work in the Sistine Chapel only helps to
accentuate the absurd over-estimation to which he owes his sobriquet. He
was merely a follower of Primaticcio, an excellent draughtsman with great
knowledge of anatomy, but lacking in taste, imagination, and real power.
Ambroise Dubois (1543–1614) was born at Antwerp, but is generally
counted among the French painters of the school of Fontainebleau. He was
entrusted by Henri iv. with several important series of paintings for the
decoration of the apartments at Fontainebleau, notably with eight scenes
illustrating Tasso’s “Gerusalemme Liberata” for one of the Queen’s rooms,
and fifteen scenes from “Theogenes and Chariclea” by Heliodorus for the
“King’s Great Closet.” One from each series has found its way into the
Louvre collection: The Baptism of Clorinda (No. 272), and Chariclea,
undergoing the Ordeal of Fire, is recognised by her Parents, King Hydaspes
and Queen Persina (No. 271).

The only other painter of this group who is represented at the Louvre is
Martin Fréminet (1567–1619), who was only indirectly connected with the
school of Fontainebleau, as he had received his art education in Florence.
His best known work is the ceiling of the Trinity Chapel at Fontainebleau.
His picture at the Louvre represents Mercury ordering Æneas to leave Dido
(No. 304).
The decline of the school of Fontainebleau was so rapid and complete
that, when Marie de Médicis decided to have the great gallery of the
Luxembourg Palace decorated, in 1620, there was not a single painter left in
France capable to undertake this important work, which was eventually
entrusted to Rubens. But the whole direction to be taken by French
seventeenth-century art had been determined by François i., and the
influence of the Late Italians remained paramount until the dawn of the new
era which was to be initiated by Watteau.

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
FRENCH SCHOOL
T HROUGHOUT the seventeenth century the impulse for the artistic
activity of France emanated from Rome. But before discussing the
dominating personalities of the age we must refer to a few painters who
occupy a more or less isolated position in the art of their country.
The naturalism of Caravaggio was introduced into France by two of his
followers, Jean de Boulongne, called Le Valentin (1591–1634), and Simon
Vouet (1590–1649), who was also slightly influenced by the Venetians.
Valentin spent the best part of his life in Rome, where he died in 1634. The
Louvre owns, among eight pictures from his brush (not all of which are
exhibited), his masterpiece, The Innocence of Susannah recognised (No.
56), which has the vigorous handling and bold chiaroscuro of the
Neapolitan school.
Simon Vouet, who came to England at the age of fifteen, and
subsequently travelled in Turkey and Italy, where he remained until his
appointment as Painter to the King took him back to Paris in 1627, tried to
combine the naturalism of Caravaggio with the colouring of the Venetians,
an endeavour in which he was only partially successful, as he was not
equipped by nature with a sensuous appreciation of beautiful colour. The
Louvre owns a dozen Scriptural subjects and allegorical figures by Vouet;
but even the best of them, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (No.
971), is but a dull and heavy performance; whilst his Portrait of Louis XIII.
(No. 976) is wholly devoid of artistic merit. Perhaps he owes his fame
chiefly to the fact that he was the master of the absurdly overrated Le Sueur
and of that art despot of the Louis xiv. era, Charles Le Brun.

THE BROTHERS LE NAIN
Of far greater artistic significance are the three brothers, Antoine, Louis,
and Matthieu Le Nain, who were born at Laon, and flourished in Paris
during the first half of the seventeenth century. Antoine and Louis died in

1648, and Matthieu in 1677. Very little is known of their history, but the
splendid array of their works in Gallery XIII. proves them to have had close
affinities with the contemporary Dutch and Flemish schools, even if their
manner of composition suggests close acquaintance with Spanish art. Their
subjects, too, like those of many of the Northern masters of their time, are
taken from the daily life of the people, which is rendered with naïve
honesty, and at times with a real appreciation of beautiful pigment. So far it
has been impossible to distinguish between the works of the three brothers,
as even the signatures “le nain, fecit 1647,” on the Portraits in an Interior
(No. 543), and “le nain, fecit anno 1642,” on the Peasants at their Meal (No.
548, La Caze Gallery), afford no clue to the solution of the problem. The
striking differences in brushwork and colouring, which are to be noticed in
the eleven Le Nain pictures at the Louvre, would certainly suggest that the
three brothers did not, or did only rarely, collaborate on the same pictures.
The painter of The Return from Haymaking (No. 542), with its prophetic
suggestion of the plein-air effects of late nineteenth-century art, cannot
have had much in common with the painter of the dull and dingy Denial of
St. Peter (No. 547).

NICOLAS POUSSIN
The founder of the Classicist school of French painting, which has had
official approval and support from his time to the present day, was Nicolas
Poussin (1594–1665). Born at Les Andelys in Normandy, he went to Paris
at the age of eighteen, and became so fascinated by the examples of antique
sculpture that, in spite of his extreme poverty, he determined to continue his
studies in Rome. It is unnecessary here to relate the struggles that preceded
his arrival at Rome in 1624. He frequented the school of Domenichino; but
what was more decisive for the formation of his style was his unceasing
study of antique sculpture, in which he was guided and encouraged by his
friend, the sculptor Duquesnoy. After some years of continued poverty, he
found at last liberal patronage, and rose to such fame that on his return to
Paris in 1640 he was appointed Painter-in-Ordinary to the King. However,
the duties and restrictions attached to this position proved so irksome to
Poussin, that after two years he returned to Rome, where he spent the rest of
his life.

At the Louvre is to be found an imposing array of forty canvases by
Poussin, whose art is as typical an expression of French genius as the poetry
of Corneille. It is essentially intellectual, based on theoretical rules of
design and composition, not in the least sensuous or emotional, but always
coldly classical. The vast majority of his paintings at the Louvre are in such
a deplorable state of deterioration and neglect that it is almost impossible to
form an adequate idea of their original colour, but even the most ardent
admirers of the master do not maintain that he was a great colourist. His
pictures are entirely dependent on beauty of form and rhythmic design.
They might almost be described as painted reliefs. This applies at least to
his treatment of the human figure. His conception of landscape, though still
severely classical, is more pictorial and testifies to a genuine love of Nature
—Nature idealised by a lofty imagination. To appreciate his greatness as a
landscape painter, one has only to examine the glorious setting to his
Orpheus and Eurydice (No. 740). The figures here are really of quite
subordinate importance—mere incidents in a landscape painted with
consummate mastery, perfect in linear and aerial perspective.
The Shepherds in Arcadia (No. 734, Plate XXXVII.) may be quoted to
illustrate the calculated rhythm of his design and his indebtedness to classic
art from which he derived his nobility of form. Real dramatic action was
beyond Poussin’s range. His famous Rape of the Sabine Women (No. 724) is
a striking instance of his failure to grasp the significant difference between
dramatic movement and mere heroic posturing. Far more inspired, and
therefore more natural and dramatically effective, is the superb circular
painting for a ceiling commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu and representing
Time rescuing Truth from the Attacks of Envy and Discord (No. 735). The
allegory is said to have been intended as an allusion to the circumstances
which induced Poussin to leave Paris for good. The design has more real
vitality than is generally to be found in Poussin’s work; the action of the
figures is more natural; and the colour music is not drowned by the
prevalence of dingy browns. The decorative effect heralds in a strange way
the art of the next century, and particularly that of Boucher.
To see Poussin in the right perspective as regards the world’s great
masters, one need only compare his two Bacchanals (Nos. 729 and 730)
with Titian’s rendering of a similar theme. The comparison is disastrous for
the eclectic Frenchman. A Portrait of the Painter (No. 743) from Poussin’s

own brush is to be found in Room XIV., where no fewer than thirty-seven
of his pictures are on view.

PLATE XXXVII.—NICOLAS POUSSIN
(1594–1665)

FRENCH SCHOOL
No. 734.—THE SHEPHERDS IN ARCADIA
(Les Bergers d’Arcadie)

In the centre of a landscape with receding ranges of hills, three shepherds, leaning
on their long staves, and a maiden in classic garb, are gathered around an ancient
tomb surrounded by trees. An inscription on the tomb, “Et in Arcadia Ego,” engages
their attention. One of the shepherds is kneeling and reading the inscription to his
companion on the left, whilst the third man of the group leans forward to point out to
the maiden the significance of the inscription.
Painted in oil on canvas.
2 ft. 9½ in. × 3 ft. 11½ in. (0·85 × 1·21.)

CLAUDE LORRAIN

Strangely enough, the otherwise very complete collection of French
pictures at the Louvre does not contain a single example of Poussin’s
brother-in-law, Gaspard Dughet, better known as Gaspard Poussin (1613–
1675), who devoted himself more exclusively to landscape than did his
more illustrious relative. Nicolas Poussin’s influence also became decisive
for the formation of the style of Claude Gellée, called Le Lorrain (1600–
1682), who is represented at the Louvre by seventeen pictures (Nos. 310–
326), most of which also have suffered considerably from discoloration and
neglect. Claude, who was the child of poor parents, started life as a cook. In
this capacity he went to Rome, where his talent for art was discovered by
the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, to whom he served as cook and
apprentice. Having learned all he could from his master, he returned to
France in 1625, but, like Poussin, preferred to go back to Rome after two
years spent in his native country. In the Papal city he lived the rest of his
days, and rose to fame and affluence.
He was essentially a landscape painter. The historical and legendary
incidents introduced in such pictures as The Disembarkation of Cleopatra
at Tarsis (No. 314), or Ulysses restoring Chryseis to her Father (No. 316),
were to him a mere excuse for painting classic landscapes and imaginary
buildings of noble proportion bathed in a golden atmosphere, which has
hardly been rivalled by any contemporary or later painter. It is only on rare
occasions, as in the View of the Campo Vaccino at Rome (No. 311), that he
applied his gifts to the portrayal of nature. As a rule, his views are carefully
arranged combinations of architectural and landscape elements brought
together arbitrarily, and generally disposed in the manner of the wings and
backcloth of a stage scene, but connected by the unity of light and
atmosphere. Considering this method, it is amazing that his memory
enabled him to invent such imaginary scenes with so great a degree of truth.
The View of a Sea Port (No. 317, Plate XXXVIII.), in the subdued light of a
misty day, is a magnificent instance of his masterly management of aerial
perspective. It is signed and dated “claude in roma, 1646.” It is generally
known how much Turner in his first manner owed to the example of
Claude. That even Watteau was indebted to him may be gathered from such
pictures as The Village Fête (No. 312), which, signed and dated, “claudio,
inv. Romæ, 1639,” contains in germ the elements that constituted the greatness
of the eighteenth-century master.

LE SUEUR
Whilst Poussin and Claude were working in Rome, two pupils of Vouet
reaped the highest honours in France. Eustache Le Sueur (1617–1655),
whom his compatriots in their incomprehensible over-estimation of his
mediocre gifts have called the “French Raphael,” certainly strove to
emulate the divine Urbinate; but how badly he succeeded in this endeavour
is to be gathered from the fifty-two paintings, by the placing of which his
memory is retained at the Louvre. What dignity there is in the simple flow
of line in his designs, is completely ruined by the offensive crudeness of his
colour. Even allowing for the inevitable fluctuations of taste in matters of
art, it is difficult now to understand how enthusiasm could ever have been
aroused by the works that were considered his masterpieces, St. Paul
preaching at Ephesus (No. 560), which at the beginning of last century was
valued at £10,000 (!), and the twenty-two Scenes from the Life of St. Bruno
(Nos. 564–585), painted between 1645 and 1648 for the small cloister of
the Carthusians in Paris. This series, which is a severe tax on the patience of
the conscientious visitor, fills the whole of Gallery XII., whilst other
paintings connected with it intrude into the adjoining room, which is
consecrated to the brothers Le Nain.

PLATE XXXVIII.—CLAUDE GELLÉE, CALLED
CLAUDE LORRAIN
(1600–1682)

FRENCH SCHOOL
No. 317.—VIEW OF A SEAPORT
(Vue d’un Port de Mer: Effet de Brume)

In the foreground, on the beach, are groups of men occupied with unloading
merchandise and cattle. Sailing ships are at anchor in the port, and boats are floating
on the rippling water. On the left a monumental staircase leads from the landing-
steps to a palace, beyond which is seen a fort; a classic temple on the right. Sunset
effect, the power of the sun being softened by a mist over the far distance.
Painted in oil on canvas.
Signed on a stone in the left foreground:—“CLAUDE in Roma, 1646”
3 ft. 10¾ in. × 4 ft. 11 in. (1·19 × 1·50.)

Before passing on to Vouet’s most famous pupil, Charles Le Brun, whose
despotic power imposed upon French painting during the “grand siècle” its
pompous rhetorical character, mention should be made of Sébastien
Bourdon (1616–1671), who, but for his prolonged sojourn in Rome, which
fed his ambition to excel in the “grand style,” would have been one of the
most remarkable artists of his century. This conclusion is, at least, justified
by his precious little painting of a group of Beggars (No. 76), which is
perhaps unrivalled in French seventeenth-century art for quality of paint
and appreciation of tone values; and by his excellent Portrait of the
Philosopher René Descartes (No. 78), who was also painted by Frans Hals
(No. 2383). In his treatment of scriptural and historical subjects he does not
rise above the dull level of his contemporaries.

CHARLES LE BRUN
Charles Le Brun (1619–1690) studied first under Vouet, but, attracted by
Poussin’s stronger personality, followed that master to Rome in 1642, and
continued his studies under his guidance. When Le Brun returned to Paris
four years later, his reputation was already firmly established. Patronised by
Louis xiv.’s powerful minister, Colbert, he was placed at the head of the
newly founded Academy of Painting, and of the Gobelins Manufactory,
became First Painter to the King and “Prince” of the French Academy in
Rome; and was, in fact, given absolute power in all matters concerning the
fostering of the arts and art industries. This despotic power explains how it
was possible that Le Brun, who notwithstanding his brilliant executive skill
and extraordinary facility never rose above the level of mediocrity, could
impose his uninspired personality upon every phase of French artistic
activity of his time.
His enormous canvases at the Louvre, which probably occupy more
space than has been allotted to any other painter, vainly endeavour to
conceal the lack of real emotion and of a central motif by theatrical gestures
and overcrowding. His masterpiece at the Louvre is The Tent of Darius (No.
511), which represents the family of Darius imploring Alexander the Great
for mercy. But even here one feels the absence of dramatic inspiration and
concentration. Less successful are the other scenes from the history of
Alexander: The Passage of the Granicus (No. 509), The Battle of Arbela
(No. 510), Alexander and Porus (No. 512), Alexander entering Babylon

(No. 513). The whole series was painted between 1661 and 1668 for
execution in tapestry and was exhibited at the Salon in 1673, the year in
which for the first time an official catalogue was compiled. Besides many
scriptural and mythological subjects, and a few portraits from Le Bran’s
brush, there are at the Louvre his decorative paintings on the ceiling of the
Galerie d’Apollon in which the magnificent centre panel was added two
centuries later by Delacroix.

PIERRE MIGNARD
Le Bran’s successor in the direction of the Academy and the Gobelin
works, Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), called “Le Romain” owing to his long
domicile in Rome after the completion of his studies under Vouet, did not
have his precursor’s large decorative faculty and sweeping ease of
execution. Yet the excessively affected grace and the careful finish of his
pictures, of which The Virgin of the Grapes (No. 628) is a thoroughly
characteristic instance, helped to raise him to an exalted position in the
opinion of his contemporaries. To this day the affected style of prettiness of
which he was the high priest is known as “mignardise.” His power was
altogether insufficient for the ambitious decorative tasks he set himself in
emulation of Le Brun. If he has any claim to the esteem of posterity, it is for
having left the world a portrait gallery of the notable men and women of his
time—portraits which are by no means free from flattery and mannered
grace, but constitute, nevertheless, a valuable historical record. Of these the
Louvre owns the Portrait of the Artist at Work in his Studio (No. 640); the
Portrait of Françoise d’Aubigne, Marquise de Maintenon (No. 639); and
the life-size group of Louis of France, Son of Louis XIV., his Wife, and their
three Children (No. 638).
Colbert and Le Brun had succeeded but too well in carrying out the
powerful minister’s ambition to direct French art towards industrial and
decorative aims, to train an army of capable producers, and to place the
whole organisation on what may be called a business basis. The system
was, however, not favourable for the growth of independent genius. With
few exceptions, the whole generation of painters that grew up under Le
Brun’s régime are of no significance to the history of art. There were among
them many capable craftsmen, but they only repeated in a feebler way what
Le Brun had done on a more imposing and dazzling scale. Whole dynasties

of painters arose, like the Boulognes and the Coypels, who, under official
patronage, filled acres of canvas with florid, theatrical renderings of
scriptural subjects, and with the bombastic mock-heroics of classic history
and mythology seen through baroque spectacles.

LE BRUN’S FOLLOWERS
It would be giving undue importance to these painters of the Louis xiv.
period if we were to go beyond a mere enumeration of their leaders and
their chief works at the Louvre. None of them possessed any marked
individuality; and most of them were linked together, not only by similar
aims and ambitions, but also by family ties. Four members of the Coypel
family rose to great eminence among their fellow-artists, and to important
official positions. Noël Coypel (1628–1707), the painter of the four
historical compositions, Solon defending his Laws before the Athenians
(No. 157), Ptolomy Philadelphus giving the Jews their Freedom (No. 158),
Trajan giving a Public Audience (No. 159), and the Foresight of Septimus
Severus (No. 160), all of which were originally executed for the Council
Chamber at Versailles; his sons Antoine Coypel (1661–1722), whose best
known pictures at the Louvre are the Susannah and the Elders (No. 169)
and the Democritos (No. 174), which recalls Jordaens in its exuberant life,
and Noël Nicolas Coypel (1692–1734), whose goddesses and nymphs
already reflect the taste which dominated the eighteenth century; as well as
Antoine’s son, Charles Antoine Coypel (1694–1752), whose uninspired art
may best be studied in the Perseus delivering Andromeda (No. 180).
The Triumph of Bacchus (No. 447) and The Annunciation (No. 445), by
Charles de La Fosse (1636–1716); Hercules fighting the Centaurs (No. 53),
by Bon Boulogne (1649–1717); and The Marriage of St. Catherine (No.
55), by his brother Louis Boulogne (1654–1733), only serve to illustrate the
mediocrity of their respective authors. The impersonality of Bon
Boulogne’s art had at least the advantage that his teaching left free scope for
personal expression to his many pupils.
Even the still-life painting of the “grand siècle,” which found its chief
exponent in Jean Baptiste Monnoyer (1634–1699), partakes of the love of
pomp and display that characterises this period. Gold and silver vases,
precious stuffs and furniture generally accompany his flowers, which are

painted without real appreciation of their natural beauty, and in purely local
tints without a hint of the effect of each colour upon its surroundings. The
Flowers (No. 648), in the La Caze Gallery, may be mentioned as a typical
example.

BATTLE PAINTERS
The battle painter, Jacques Courtois (1621–1676), called Borgognone and
Le Bourguignon, though born in France, was so completely under the spell
of the art of Italy, the country where he spent almost his entire life, that he
can scarcely be reckoned as belonging to the French school. His furious
cavalry mêlées, though entirely imaginative (as such confused encounters of
horsemen piercing each other’s ranks have never taken place in actual
warfare), are painted, like the Cavalry Fight (No. 151), with a touch as
swift as it is sure and expressive, and full of exuberant vitality.
Joseph Parrocel (1678–1704), who, during a prolonged visit to Rome had
benefited by Borgognone’s teaching, could not, after his return to France in
1675, escape the current of thought which dominated his time, and
introduced the stage-heroic note into his master’s sham realism. The
glorification of his king is the purpose of such pictures as The Passage of
the Rhine by Louis XIV. (No. 678). The chief interest is centred in the richly
apparelled group on their prancing steeds in the foreground.

JEAN JOUVENET
The Descent from the Cross (No. 437), by Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717),
which has been honoured by a position among the masterpieces in the Salon
Carré, is certainly one of the most estimable compositions produced in
France during this active but uninspired century. Not only in the general
disposition of the design, but also in the use of colour as a constructive
element, Jouvenet here acknowledges his indebtedness to Rubens, although
he could never rival the luminous glow of the great Fleming’s palette. Most
of his other pictures suffer from dull heavy shadows and exaggerated
expression. His strong and honest painting of the kneeling group in The
Abbé Delaporte officiating at the High altar of Nôtre-Dame (No. 440),
makes us regret that he did not devote himself more to subjects taken from
the life of his time.

An artist who was less tied to the tyranny of the official school, and
imbued with a really profound sense of the beautiful, was Jean Baptiste
Santerre (1658–1717). The delicate perfection of form of the nude in
Susannah and the Elders (No. 835) approaches him to David and Ingres at
their best. But this very perfection carries the germ of decay, because it is
incapable of progress, and stagnation in art signifies death. As regards his
technique, Santerre was extremely careful and conscientious. He reduced
his palette to but five colours, and waited ten years after the completion of a
picture before putting on the final coat of varnish.

THE PORTRAIT PAINTERS
The two great portrait painters who flourished under the “Grand
Monarque,” Rigaud and Largillière, were preceded by an artist to whom,
perhaps owing to the relative scarceness of his works, history has done but
scant justice. Whilst the Louvre contains thirteen portraits by Largillière
and seventeen by Rigaud, only two pictures stand to the name of Claude
Lefebvre (1632–1675); but his Portraits of a Master and his Pupil (No.
529) and the Portrait of a Man (No. 530), are distinguished by a penetrating
insight into character and an incisive vigour of style that form a striking
contrast to the shallow bombast introduced even into portraiture by the
fashionable painters to the Court. Lefebvre has been compared with Van
Dyck. The Portrait of a Man (No. 530) has more in common with the
brilliant audacity of Frans Hals’s brushwork. Lefebvre worked for some
years in London, where he was a favourite at the Court of Charles ii.
Rigaud’s manner of portraiture has none of these serious, manly qualities,
but his skill in arranging the sumptuous accessories which play so important
a part in his portraits,—as important, at least, as the actual features of the
sitters,—secured him the patronage of the pomp-loving, haughty nobility.
Hyacinthe Rigaud y Ros (1659–1743) was born at Perpignan and educated
at Montpellier and Lyons. It was the advice of Le Brun that saved him from
the customary pilgrimage to Rome and its inevitable consequences. It was
Le Brun who recognised Rigaud’s bent for portraiture, and launched him on
the brilliant career which gained for him the title of “the French Van Dyck.”
Rigaud was enormously productive. Between 1681 and 1698 he is said to
have painted six hundred and twenty-three portraits. And he had then
another forty-five years before him!

Rigaud’s best known picture at the Louvre is the stately portrait
d’apparat of King Louis XIV. (No. 781), a life-size full length, in which the
spirit of the time, the curious blending of supercilious haughtiness, love of
display, and affected grace of manner, are happily expressed in the
monarch’s attitude and in the whole setting. The picture is signed and dated,
“peint par hyacinthe rigaud, 1701.” The same tendencies are to be noted in
the full length Portrait of Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux (No. 783), in which it
is surprising that the prelate’s personality is not completely smothered by
the splendid profusion of the accessories. His gifts appear, however, in a
better light in his excellent Portraits of Marie Serre, the Artist’s Mother
(No. 784), with the same head, honestly and soberly painted, twice on the
same canvas, once in sharp profile looking to the right, and again, facing
this, a three-quarter profile to the left. Wholly unexpected is the delicacy
and softness of one of his pictures in the La Caze Room: the Portrait of the
Duke of Lesdiguières as a Child (No. 792). His solitary excursion into the
domain of “grand art” at the Louvre is at the same time his last work: The
Presentation in the Temple (No. 780), which in grouping and lighting owes
much to the study of Rembrandt.
Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746) was born in Paris, but was taken
when still an infant to Antwerp, where he became a pupil of Goebouw.
From 1674 to 1680 he worked in London as an assistant of Sir Peter Lely,
from whom he acquired the clever tricks and mannerisms in the painting of
draperies and the textures of silks and velvets and other materials, which
were to form so important a part of his artistic equipment. After Lely’s
death Largillière went to Paris, where he not only shared with Rigaud the
patronage of the Court as portrait painter, but secured many important
commissions for historical paintings which, perhaps to the advantage of his
fame, are now all but forgotten. Largillière was not without distinction as a
brilliant and daring colourist. Nor was he incapable, on occasion, of seizing
the subtleties of his sitters’ character. But his praiseworthy qualities are
more than balanced by his unpleasant affectations and by the baroque
squirminess of his line. This tendency carried him to such insufferable
excesses as the conglomeration of lumpy bosses which does duty for a hand
in his Portrait of M. Du Vaucel (No. 484), in the La Caze Room.
His boastful skill in the management of the satins and velvets in the
overrated portrait group of Largillière with his Wife and Daughter in a

Garden (No. 491), cannot atone for the singularly unfortunate and clumsy
composition, and for the self-conscious affectation of each individual pose.
More satisfactory, in spite of the superabundance of accessories and
outward pomp, which in this case is a fitting attribute to the character of the
sitter, is the Portrait of Charles Le Brun, First Painter to King Louis XIV.
(No. 482), who is depicted in a colossal wig, seated before an easel, and
wearing a superbly painted red velvet cloak.

LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
It almost goes without saying that landscape art, which, even in its most
artificial and “classic” phase is inspired by the love and study of nature, was
sadly neglected in so artificial an age. Among its leading exponents must be
mentioned the two Patels, father and son, of whose life we have but scant
knowledge, and whose pictures resemble one another’s so closely that it is
often difficult to determine which is by Pierre Patel, the father (1620?–
1676), and which by Pierre Antoine Patel, the son (1648–1708), especially
as both adopted the signature, “p. patel.” In the case of the older artist’s The
Exposure of Moses on the Nile (No. 680), and Moses burying the Egyptian
whom he had Slain (No. 681), and his son’s four landscapes representing
the months, January (No. 684), April (No. 685), August (No. 686), and
September (No. 687), all doubts are set aside by the dates which accompany
the signature. Both artists were close followers of Claude Lorrain, although
their precise technique suggests the influence of Adam Elsheimer.
A truer perception of nature came to France from the North, whence,
indeed, throughout the history of French painting vitality was infused into
an art that was cramped by officially imposed canons of Italian perfection.
As far back as the time of Le Brun, Félibien and Roger de Piles had begun
in the field of literary polemics the long struggle between the Poussinistes
and Rubenistes, the adherents of an art dominated by design and perfect
drawing, against the partisans of colour as a vital element. During the whole
seventeenth century the Poussinistes, who commanded all the official
support, held the field, though the Netherlandish strain was represented by
some of the finest painters of that period, like the brothers Le Nain, C.
Lefebvre, and Philippe de Champaigne. In the eighteenth century the
Northern influence became supreme through Watteau and Chardin on the

one hand, and on the other through Boucher and Fragonard, both of whom
were powerfully influenced by the study of Rubens’s works.

DESPORTES
In landscape the healthy opposition to the prevailing classic style appears
first in the work of the Flemish battle painter Van der Meulen, whose
backgrounds, sketched on the spot, show a fine feeling for aerial
perspective and atmospheric effects. But his example apparently attracted
no followers. Though not, strictly speaking, a landscape painter, François
Desportes (1661–1743), who owed less to his early training under Nicasius,
a third-rate Fleming, than to his habit of using his own eyes and studying
nature direct, treated landscape with similar freedom in the backgrounds to
his portraits and pictures of the chase. In his paintings of animals, dead or
alive, limp bodies of hares and birds arranged as still-life with flowers and
fruits, or in a very frenzy of movement in his hunting pieces, he endeavours
to emulate Snyders, without quite rivalling the Flemish master. Of his
twenty-five pictures at the Louvre, twenty-three (Nos. 225–248) belong to
this genre, but not all of them are actually exhibited. The Portrait of a
Huntsman (No. 224), and the Portrait of the Artist (No. 249) seated under a
tree, holding a gun in his right, and caressing with his left hand a hound
whose paw is resting on a pile of dead game, serve to prove that he knew
how to manage portraiture with the same bold, frank spirit and summary
breadth. He was particularly happy in rendering, without laboured detail,
the varying textures of fur and plumage.
Desportes’s only successful rival as a painter of animals and hunting
scenes was Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755). How closely his style
resembled that of the elder painter is to be seen from his Wolf Hunt (No.
667), the Dog watching Dead Game (No. 668), and one or two similar
pieces at the Louvre. Oudry was first taught by his father, and subsequently
by Largillière, who encouraged him in the painting of still-life, and directed
his study particularly to the observation of tone values and of the
interchange of colour that takes place between objects in close proximity to
each other. In 1734, Oudry was appointed Director of the Beauvais Tapestry
Works, which took a new lease of life under his able management. It was he
who supplied the designs for the Fables of La Fontaine, which figure so
frequently in the tapestries woven at that great establishment. Perhaps his