A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools

This picture was bought by Sir Robert Peel for 400 guineas, and was esteemed, says Mrs. Jameson in her catalogue of his collection, "the masterpiece of the painter. The transparent, sparkling beauty of the execution was never surpassed. The figures, the foliage, the animals, the atmospheric effect, are all perfect."

848. A SKATING SCENE

Isaac van Ostade (Dutch: 1621-1649). See 847.

849. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE

Paul Potter (Dutch: 1625-1654).

Paul Potter, the best of the Dutch cattle painters, was the son of an artist (see 1008), and a remarkable instance of precocious talent, having been a clever painter and etcher at the age of fourteen. The environs of Enkhuizen, where he was born, did not offer scenes of surpassing beauty; but the rich brown and gold tints of the cattle contrasted pleasantly with the verdure of the flat fields. These Potter set himself to study and to paint; and so accurately did he master the anatomy of cattle that a writer on the natural history of Holland, in 1769-79, did not hesitate to utilise, in order to illustrate his work, paintings and sketches by Potter, including geometrical drawings which he had made to demonstrate the proper proportions of cattle. His skill brought him much patronage at the Hague; and in 1650 he married the daughter of a distinguished architect in that city, who made some objections, it is said, to his daughter marrying a mere "painter of animals." But the painter of animals prospered better than many of his contemporary painters of men, and both at the Hague and at Amsterdam his works continued to be in great request. But a too close application to his art told on a weak constitution, and he died of consumption at the age of twenty-nine (Cundall's Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland, pp. 113 sq.). For a century after his death his works realised very small sums, but latterly they have been sought after at extravagant prices. Technically they are very accomplished; but Ruskin calls attention to a certain defect of feeling in his treatment. He "does not care even for sheep, but only for wool; regards not cows, but cow-hides. He attains great dexterity in drawing tufts and locks, lingers in the little parallel ravines and furrows of fleece that open across sheep's backs as they turn; is unsurpassed in twisting a horn or pointing a nose; but he cannot paint eyes, nor perceive any condition of an animal's mind except its desire of grazing" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 12). In estimating his work, it should however be remembered that he died very young, and died learning. The famous "Young Bull" of the Hague, painted in 1647 when he was twenty-two, is usually considered his masterpiece. Rather, says Fromentin, is it only a tour de force, a wonderful study. The portrait of the painter as he appeared in his last days, done by his friend Van der Helst, is in the Hague Museum.

Signed, and dated 1651, and therefore among the painter's later works.

850. A MAN'S PORTRAIT

Rembrandt (Dutch: 1606-1669). See 45.

Dated 1635. The sitter wears the typical "Rembrandt collar."

851. VENUS SLEEPING

Sebastiano Ricci (Venetian: 1659-1734).

An unimportant work by a painter who worked for several years in this country, and covered many walls and ceilings with his facile compositions. Examples of his religious and mythological pictures may be seen at the Dulwich Gallery. Ricci, says Dr. Richter in his catalogue of that collection, "is one of the most attractive painters of the Italian decadence. His compositions are lively and ingenious, without, however, being profound." There are also several of his works at Hampton Court. He was born at Belluno in the Venetian State, and before coming to England was employed by the Duke of Parma and at the Viennese court in decorating the palace of Schoenbrunn. He left England in disgust on finding that the work of decorating the cupola of St. Paul's was to be entrusted to a native artist, Sir James Thornhill. "Ricci had great facility in imitating the style of other masters. His picture of the 'Apostles adoring the Sacrament' in the church of S. Giustina at Padua is painted in imitation of the cupola of S. Giovanni at Parma by Correggio; and his 'S. Gregorio' at Bergamo recalls the works of Guercino. But his most successful imitations were those of Paul Veronese, many of which he is said to have sold as by that master. He deceived the French painter La Fosse, who avenged himself by the sarcastic remark, 'For the future, take my advice and paint no more Ricci's'" (Bryan).

852. THE CHAPEAU DE POIL

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

One of the best known and most be-copied pictures in the Gallery. Its fame among artists "depends to no slight extent on its being a tour de force. The head is painted in reflected light, so as to come as near as may be to Queen Elizabeth's shadowless ideal" (Armstrong: Notes on the National Gallery, p. 31). "No one who has not beheld this masterpiece of painting can form any conception," says Dr. Waagen, "of the transparency and brilliancy with which the local colours in the features and complexion, though under the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat, are brought out and made to tell, while the different parts are rounded and relieved, with the finest knowledge and use of reflected lights." The expression of the subject is as much a tour de force as the technical treatment —

I know a maiden fair to see,Take care!..She gives a side-glance and looks down,Beware! beware!..She has a bosom as white as snow,Take care!She knows how much it is best to show,Beware! beware!Trust her not,She is fooling thee!Longfellow: from the German.

The picture is a portrait of Susanne Fourment, an elder sister of Rubens's second wife, Helène Fourment. Susanne often sat to Rubens; other paintings and drawings of her by his hand exist. She afterwards married Arnold Lunden. The picture remained in the possession of the painter until his death, when it passed into that of Nicholas Lunden, who had married Isabella, a daughter of Rubens by his second wife, Helène Fourment. The picture remained in the Lunden family until 1822, when it was sold by auction for 36,000 florins and brought to England. After being offered in vain to George IV., it was bought by Sir Robert Peel for 3500 guineas. Why and when this picture of a lady in a beaver hat acquired the inappropriate title of "Chapeau de Paille" ("The Straw Hat"), by which it has hitherto been called, is unknown. Perhaps the title is a corruption of "Chapeau d'Espagne." An entirely different story about the picture was current in the Lunden family. According to this not very probable tradition, Miss Susanne had refused to sit to Rubens, so he painted her unawares whilst she was in her garden, wearing a large straw hat. When the picture was done, she pardoned the flattering indiscretion and accepted it as a gift. Rubens afterwards begged leave to take back the portrait, promising in return a work in which he would put all his talent. This was a replica of the same portrait, but instead of a straw hat (chapeau de paille) he introduced in the second version the beaver hat (chapeau de poil) that we see. The Lunden family had christened the original "Chapeau de Paille," and the present picture has ever since retained the same title. (See letter in the Times, August 6, 1886, from M. Jules Nollée de Noduwez, himself a connection of the Lunden family).

853. THE TRIUMPH OF SILENUS

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

For the subject see under 93. "Rubens painted these subjects with a gusto in which there is something fearful, so wonderful is the skill, the felicity of execution, the life, the energy, the fancy displayed – so gross and so repulsive the sentiment. In Niccolo Poussin's Bacchanalian scenes we have the licence and the revels of gods and nymphs, and of the golden age. Rubens gives us, with perhaps a truer moral feeling but more depraved taste, mere animal sensuality, with all its most brutal attributes" (Mrs. Jameson's Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, p. 362). This picture was in the artist's possession at the time of his death, and was then bought for Cardinal Richelieu. It was afterwards in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, who gave £1100 for it.

853. a-p

These sixteen drawings by Rubens formed part of the rich collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., after whose death they were acquired for Sir Robert Peel. They were purchased for the nation in 1871 with the Peel Collection of pictures. The subjects are as follows: —

853 a, b, c, and d. Four studies for the famous picture at Munich, representing the "Fall of the Damned." In black chalk, tinted slightly. "Inconceivably fine," says Mrs. Jameson.

853 e. THE MARTYRDOM OF A SAINT. – He kneels, and a woman is about to bind his eyes. Fifteen figures with angels.

853 f. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. – Study for the picture at Munich.

853 g. THE CRUCIFIXION. – Drawing from the great picture at Antwerp, done for the engraver to work from.

853 h. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL; with a cap and feather. Study from one of his own children.

853 i. PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with flowers in her hair. Probably a study from his first wife. "Extremely fine," says Mrs. Jameson, "and full of life."

853 j. HEAD OF A LADY, in chalk and sepia, wonderfully spirited.

853 k. SKETCH FOR MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE, or design for a frontispiece – with a figure of "Fame."

853 l. THE SAME, with figures of Moses and Aaron.

853 m. THE SAME, with satyrs.

853 n. THE SAME, representing the siege of Breda: Minerva and Hercules, prisoners, implements of war, etc.

853 o. STUDY OF A LIONESS, introduced into his picture of "Daniel in the Lion's Den."

853 p. SKETCH OF A LION HUNT. – Study for the great picture at Dresden.

854. A FOREST SCENE

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

Of this picture, when it was in Sir Robert Peel's collection, Mrs. Jameson tells a pretty tale. "'I cannot express to you,' said the statesman, 'the feeling of tranquillity, of restoration, with which, in an interval of harassing official business, I look around me here.' And while he spoke, in the slow, quiet tone of a weary man, he turned his eyes on a forest scene of Ruysdael, and gazed on it for a minute or two in silence, as if its cool, dewy verdure, its deep seclusion, its transparent waters stealing through the glade, had sent refreshment into his very soul" (Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, p. xix.).

855. A WATERFALL

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

856. THE MUSIC-MASTER

Jan Steen (Dutch: 1626-1679).

It is in the collections of Holland, and especially in the Museum of Amsterdam, that the best works of this remarkable painter are to be seen – a painter whose talent and occasional grace made Reynolds name him in the same breath with Raphael, and who has by other critics been called the Molière of painting. This latter comparison happily expresses the dramatic and intellectual quality of Steen's best works. He drew not merely Dutch life, but human nature. He depicts the comedy of human life, for the most part, in a spirit of genial toleration, but sometimes with touches of almost Hogarthian satire. With regard to technical qualities, his best works are admirable for their skilful composition, brilliant touch, and harmonious colouring. "Steen when it pleased him was an artist of great ability. Unfortunately it did not always please him to be so, and then his colour became blurred, his execution trivial, and the general aspect of his figures heavy and monotonous; but whenever he exerts himself he becomes once more and remains a great master. It is the more astonishing to find these defects, as they are peculiar neither to the beginning nor to the end of his career, and therefore cannot be attributed to a hard apprenticeship or premature decay. They are to be explained by the irregular life which the painter led" (Havard). The number of his works, however, – of which more than 500 have been catalogued – seem to negative the stories in which some biographers accept of Steen's drunken and dissolute life. He was the son of a brewer and was born at Leyden. He first studied under a German painter, Knüpfer, at Utrecht; afterwards with Adrian van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen whose daughter he married in 1649. In the previous year he had joined the Painters' Guild of Haarlem. That he was improvident is proved by records of executions for debt which have been discovered in the archives of that town. His pictures must have fetched small prices, for he contracted to pay the year's rent of his house for 1666-67 with three portraits "painted as well as he was able," the rent being 29 florins. In 1669 his wife and his father died, and Steen, who is supposed to have resided for some years at the Hague, returned to Leyden and opened a tavern, and for the rest of his life combined the businesses of painter and publican.

A work of some humour. The music-master is sadly bored with the exercises of his pupil at the harpsichord, but his disgust is fully shared by the young brother whose turn is to come next, and who is bringing a lute into the room. The picture is signed on the harpsichord.

857, 858, 859, 860. THE FOUR SEASONS

Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

Very interesting little pictures, as characteristic of the entire want of poetry in Teniers' art. Compare Mantegna's version of Summer and Autumn (1125), or recall Botticelli's lovely vision of Spring at Florence, and one sees in a moment the difference in art between poetical imagination and vulgarity. To Teniers, Spring – "the sweet spring, the year's pleasant king" – is only a man carrying a flower-pot. Summer – "all the sweet season of summertide" – suggests nothing but a man holding a wheat-sheaf. Autumn – "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" – brings him only a first glass of wine; and Winter – "white winter, rough nurse, that rocks the dead cold year" – only a second. These pictures (which are painted on copper), were once in the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and Sir Robert Peel bought them in 1823 for £189.

861. A COUNTRY SCENE

Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

The man with the barrow is a portrait of Teniers' gardener.

862. THE SURPRISE

Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

Hardly an instance in which "vice itself loses half its evil by losing all its grossness." It is a very vulgar intrigue. The husband courts without passion; the maid-servant "stoops to folly" without grace; the wife surprises the lovers without dignity.

863. THE RICH MAN IN HELL

Teniers (Flemish: 1610-1694). See 154.

The sequel to the story of Dives and Lazarus. "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke xvi. 22, 23). A favourite subject with Teniers, giving him an opportunity for painting comic monstrosities.

864. THE GUITAR LESSON

Gerard Terburg (Dutch: 1617-1681).

Terburg is the most refined of all the Dutch painters of "conversation pieces." He depicts with admirable truth, both in his portraits and genre pictures, the life of the wealthy and cultured classes of his time. His figures are well drawn and expressive, and the accessories are duly subordinated. He renders the texture of draperies with great skill, and his colouring is at once rich and quiet. He was the son of a wealthy man, a traveller and a connoisseur who himself imparted the rudiments of art to his son. Gerard afterwards studied in Amsterdam and Haarlem. In 1635 he visited England, and thence made the grand tour of the Continent, studying the works of Titian and others. On his return to Holland he remained some time at Amsterdam, learning much from the works of Rembrandt. In 1646 he was at Münster, where he painted the famous picture, No. 896 in our Gallery. This excited such admiration on account of the excellence of its portraits and general truth to nature, that the Spanish ambassador took Terburg with him to Madrid, where he was knighted by Philip IV. and had the opportunity of adding a study of Velazquez to his artistic advantages. Terburg settled eventually at Deventer, where he married and became burgomaster: a full-length portrait of him in that capacity is in the Museum at the Hague.

This is a characteristic example of the painter's conversation pieces. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1826 for 920 guineas.

865. A COAST SCENE

Jan van de Cappelle (Dutch: painted about 1650-1680).

Of this painter, whose works have of recent years become popular with collectors, the Dutch writers have left no record. Nor has anything been discovered about him beyond the fact that, on the occasion of his marriage in 1653, he received the freedom of the city of Amsterdam. One may connect with this fact the state barge, introduced in some of his pictures, – or the corporation barge, it may be, – much resembling the barges belonging to the City and the City Companies which not long ago might still be seen on the Thames at London, and some of which survive, transformed into College barges at Oxford. Cappelle's works are comparatively rare; they show that he loved a calm sea, lit up with warm rays.

866. A STREET IN COLOGNE

Jan van der Heyden (Dutch: 1637-1712).

Van der Heyden (or Heyde), who has been called, from the minute neatness of his workmanship, "the Dou of architectural painters,"192 was one of the first Dutch artists to devote himself to that class of subject. It was a result no doubt of the Italianising tendency of the time. "It would seem that they required to be initiated in this style by the views of foreign market-places and squares with which the Italianising painters had decorated the saloons of Amsterdam, and that in the presence of this invasion of forums and piazzas they exclaimed, 'Have we not streets, squares, and monuments to paint?'" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 238). Of course they had; and no works of the time are more interesting than these minute historical records. "A striking feature in Van der Heyden is the pencilling or dividing of the brickwork of the houses and walls by delicate white lines; so finely are these drawn that if it were not for the trouble, one might count the bricks in his buildings" (Seguier). But he had the art of combining this microscopic detail with breadth of effect. The division of labour in art work was in his time very fully applied; and Van der Heyden's range was very limited. He seldom turned his hand to anything but brick houses and churches in streets or squares, or rows along canals, or the moated granges common in his native country. He could draw neither man nor beast, and relied on Adrian van der Velde to enliven his street scenes with spirited figures. Van der Heyden was born at Gorcum, and was apprenticed to a glass-painter. He then moved to Amsterdam and studied architectural drawing. He visited England, Belgium, and the Rhenish Provinces. In the later part of his life he varied the practice of art with the pursuit of mechanics, for which he had a strong turn. He invented various improvements in the fire-engine, introduced the use of street-lamps, and at the time of his death was superintendent of the lighting and director of the firemen's company at Amsterdam.

In the background is seen the then unfinished tower of Cologne Cathedral surmounted by the old vane. This was a favourite subject of the painter; there is another version of it in the Wallace Collection. The figures are attributed to A. van de Velde.

867. THE FARM COTTAGE

Adrian van de Velde (Dutch: 1636-1672).

Adrian, the son of William van de Velde the elder, the marine painter, first studied under his father, and next under Wynants, the landscape painter. He showed his talent very early. "Wynants," said that painter's wife, when the young Adrian entered his studio, "you have found your master." He afterwards studied the figure under Wouwerman. His talent was versatile, for he painted figures, animals, and landscapes with equal truth and refinement. His large canvases (e. g. No. 80 in the Wallace Collection) are hard, and leave the spectator cold; but his cabinet pictures are refined in outline and delicate in tone. He was fond of village scenery with cattle introduced, in which kind are several good examples in our Gallery. He was also successful in winter scenes. Of his sandy coast scenes there is a choice example in the Six Collection at Amsterdam. The value and interest of many pictures by Ruysdael, Van der Heyden, Hobbema, and other painters of the time, were enhanced by figures inserted by Adrian. He must have had wonderful facility and industry, for in addition to these insertions, and in spite of his short life, the catalogue of his own pictures includes nearly 200 items.

This picture is signed, and dated 1658. The effect is that of a fine warm summer afternoon.

868. THE FORD

Adrian van de Velde (Dutch: 1636-1672). See 867.

"The figures and faces," says Mrs. Jameson in her catalogue of the Peel Collection, "are finished with inexpressible delicacy; the animals are painted with characteristic truth; the foliage of the trees seems stirred by the breeze; – in short, it is a most rare piece of work in every part, and full of pastoral sentiment, though there is certainly nothing Arcadian in the personages introduced." Sir Robert Peel bought the picture in 1840 for 760 gs.

869. A FROST SCENE

Adrian van de Velde (Dutch: 1636-1672). See 867.

This picture – known as "Les Amusements d'Hiver" – is signed, and dated 1668. The men are playing hockey. Other figures are occupied with a sledge. On the left is a refreshment booth.

870. SHIPPING IN A CALM

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

A dogger, with hanging sail, in the foreground; behind it a frigate – "and a variety of vessels, at every different gradation of distance, carry the eye back to the horizon. The air and ocean are still as sleep. Signed, and dated 1657, when the painter was only 24."

871. BATHING AT LOW WATER

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

Incidentally a good study in the "philosophy of clothes." The painter hits off with much humour the essential difference between those who regard man as "by nature a naked animal" – seen in the naked bathers – and those who regard him as emphatically "a clothed animal" – seen in the prim old gentleman who gets himself carried on a man's back. Intermediate between these two classes are those who use clothes as a convenience, but are not entirely subject to them – such, for instance, is the comfortable old fellow smoking his pipe and wading home, not without obvious contempt for the old gentleman riding, as aforesaid, in ignominious slavery to his "Sunday best." Dated 1661; bought by Sir Robert Peel from the collection of the Duc de Berri.

872. A SLIGHT BREEZE

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

873. THE COAST OF SCHEVENINGEN