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

This picture was formerly in the possession of the Marini-Franceschi family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter. The wings and the predella once belonging to it are in the cathedral of that city.

909. THE MADONNA OF THE WHITE ROSE

Benvenuto da Siena (Sienese: 1436-1518).

The earliest known work by this painter is an Annunciation, painted in 1466, in the church of S. Girolamo at Volterra. He executed some of the illuminations of the choir-books, and designed portions of the pavement, in the cathedral of Siena. He was the son of a mason.

A charming combination of older and newer "motives." There is the gold background, true to the old Sienese traditions, but there are also the little fiddling angels, so common in Venetian and other pictures of the time of Benvenuto's later years. In the compartments on either side are St. Peter, and St. Nicholas of Bari (with various adornments referring to his story: see under 1171).

910. THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY

Luca Signorelli (Cortona: 1441-1523). See under 1128.

In the foreground Cupid on his knees is bound by maidens; in the distance there are other two groups, in one of which the god of love is being captured, in the other he is led away in triumph with his arms pinioned behind him. This painting is a fresco which was transferred to canvas from the wall of a palace at Siena. It was injured in the process, and has been badly restored. It is signed LUCAS CORITIUS, and according to the official catalogue, "the hand of the master is visible enough in the less damaged parts." According to other authorities, the inscription is forged, and the picture "a weak production by Genga," Signorelli's assistant at Orvieto (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 49).

911. ULYSSES AND PENELOPE

Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513). See 693.

Penelope was wife of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, whose wanderings after the Trojan war are told in Homer's "Odyssey," and shown in summary in the distance of this picture. Through the open window is seen the ship of Ulysses, with the hero bound to the mast; the sirens, whose coasts he passed unhurt, are sporting in the sea; and on an island near is the palace of Circe, who changed his companions into swine. In his absence Penelope was beset by many suitors, such as are here seen clad in joyous raiment, and was in sore straits to resist their importunity. But "some god put it into my heart to set up a great web in the halls, and thereat to weave a robe fine of woof and very wide; and-anon I spake among them, saying: 'Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe … even this shroud for the hero Laertes, father of Odysseus, against the day when the deadly doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their length.' … So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same" (xix. 138-150: Butcher and Lang's translation). And for the space of three years Penelope's web was still unwoven, and the suitors were deceived; but afterwards, when they chid her loudly, she finished the web, and could neither escape marriage nor devise any further counsel, for that her son too chafed while the suitors devoured his livelihood. But Ulysses then returned; he is now in the doorway just entering; and presently Penelope will take down her husband's bow – now hanging with a quiver of arrows above her head – which the suitors could not bend, but was bent by Ulysses.

The painter makes no attempt at archæological reconstruction; he gives us a picture of the costumes of his own day. This vivacious picture is a fresco transferred to canvas. It was painted in the Pandolfo Petrucci Palace at Siena, which also Signorelli's "Triumph of Chastity" once decorated (now 910 in our Gallery).

912, 913, 914. THE STORY OF GRISELDA

Umbrian School: 15th-16th century.

On these three panels (formerly ascribed to Pinturicchio),195 which were probably destined to serve as decorations to a chest, the story of Griselda is told with much naïve awkwardness of drawing, but also with much naïve playfulness of incident. The story, told in Boccaccio's Decameron, and by Petrarch, is also to be found in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale.

In the first picture (912) we see (1) on the extreme left the Marquis of Saluzzo, who is out hunting with a great retinue. He meets Griselda, a peasant girl, who is drawing water at the well, and falls in love with her. Next (2) on the extreme right is her humble barn-like dwelling, with the marquis serenading his love from below. (3) He carries her off with him; and note how Griselda, who is to be modest and humble to the end, hangs her head in "maiden shamefacedness." (4) Then the marquis has her attired in gold and fine linen, fit for a prince's bride. Her pattens and perhaps her garters are lying discarded beside her. And so (5), in the centre of the picture, all is ready for the wedding:

This markis hath hir spoused with a ringBrought for the same cause, and then hir setteUpon an hors, snow-whyt and wel ambling.

Before the second act (913) a few years are supposed to have elapsed. (1) On the left Griselda's two children – a boy and a girl – (in the likeness of two very wooden dolls) are being carried off, as if by a villain in a transpontine tragedy. They are supposed to have since died miserably. (2) The marquis tires of his love for Griselda, and is divorced: in the centre of the picture we see her giving back the wedding ring. (3) Then she is stripped of her fine clothes, and (4) sent away to her father's house, but

"The smok," quod he, "that thou hast on thy bak,Lat it be stille, and ber it forth with thee."

Two young gallants, in absurd attitudes, look on in half-pitying amusement, while nearer to us two serving-men are disgusted at the cruel shame. (5) On the extreme right she is at home again, tending, as before, her father's sheep.

In the last act (914), a grand banquet is prepared for the marquis's second wedding, and Griselda is sent for to the castle to do menial work. On the left we see her sweeping; on the right she is waiting at table. Then, on the left again, it is discovered that the marquis's new bride is none other than Griselda's long-lost daughter, accompanied by her brother. They had all the while been tended in a distant city with the utmost care. Griselda is thereupon affectionately embraced by her husband, publicly reinstated in her proper position, and presented to all the court as a model of wifely obedience and patience —

No wedded man so hardy be tassailleHis wyues pacience, in hope to fyndeGrisildes, for in certein he shal faille!O noble wyues, ful of heigh prudènce,Lat non humilitee your tongë naille.

915. MARS AND VENUS

Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510). See 1034.

So the picture is usually called – Mars, the God of War, asleep, and the young satyrs playing with his discarded armour, while one of them attempts to rouse him by blowing a shell. The subject is almost identical with that which Spenser draws in the Faërie Queene, where Sir Guyon, the Knight of Purity, overthrows the Bower of Bliss in which Acrasia (or Pleasure) dwells – the last and worst of Sir Guyon's trials, for "it is harder to fight against pleasure than against pain." Note especially the expression of the sleeping youth: he is overcome with brutish paralysis, and they cannot awaken him. Note also the swarm of hornets issuing from the tree-trunk by his head – significant of the power that sensual indulgence has of venomously wounding. Visitors who have been in Venice may remember similar details in Carpaccio's picture of St. George and the Dragon (J. R. Anderson in St. Mark's Rest, Second Supplement, p. 20).

Upon a bed of Roses she was layd,As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin;And was arrayd, or rather disarrayd,All in a vele of silke and silver thin,That hid no whit her alabaster skin …The young man, sleeping by her, seemd to beSome goodly swayne of honorable place,That certes it great pitty was to seeHim his nobility so fowle deface …His warlike armes, the ydle instrumentsOf sleeping praise, were hong upon a tree …Ne for them ne for honour cared hee,Ne ought that did to his advauncement tend;But in lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree,His dayes, his goods, his bodie, he did spend:O horrible enchantment, that him so did blend! Faërie Queene, bk. ii. 12, §§ lxxvii. – lxxx.

It has been suggested by Dr. Richter that the subject of the picture is not mythological, but an illustration of Angelo Poliziano's poem, "Stanze per la Giostra," "The Song of the Tournament," written in 1476 in glorification of Giuliano de' Medici, who had entered the lists in the preceding year, at the tournament given in honour of Simonetta Cattaneo. In this poem, Giuliano appears as a youth enamoured of the chase, and contemptuous of women. Cupid determines that he shall fall a prey to a pair of lovely eyes, and leads him to the presence of Simonetta. But night falls and Simonetta vanishes, whereupon Venus sends Giuliano a dream in which he is exhorted to enter the lists in honour of his lady-love. He foreknows that victory will crown his arms, and that love will reward his valour, but these joyful tidings are black with the shadow of death, for early in 1476 Simonetta died. According to Dr. Richter's interpretation, Giuliano in the picture before us lies sunk in deepest sleep. The little satyrs are whispering dreams into his ears, dreams from the realms of Venus. In his dreams, Giuliano is overcome with fear, because his lady is clad in the armour of Pallas: he cannot brook the gleam of her helmet and her lance. But Cupid whispers: "Lift thine eyes, Giuliano, to that flame which with its radiance blinds thee like a sun; for she it is who quickens noble minds, and from the breast all evil thoughts expels." He dreams again; a goddess comes to his aid leading him to battle and to victory. She divests his lady of the armour of Pallas, and leaves her robed in white (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 51). The poem196 may thus be made to fit the picture. It may, however, be questioned whether the action of the little Cupids is not more appropriate to the accepted theory which sees in the armour the discarded weapons of a Mars or a knight, and Count Plunkett (Sandro Botticelli, pp. 44-5) refers to a passage in Lucian, with whose dialogues Botticelli was familiar. In describing a picture by Aëtion of the "Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana," Lucian describes how "on one side of it little Cupids play among Alexander's armour; two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the handles of a shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it … and then another has got into the breastplate… All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War."

916. VENUS WITH CUPIDS

School of Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510). See 1034. See also (p. xx)

The expression of melancholy characteristic of Botticelli's Madonnas is not absent from his heathen goddesses either. Notice also the roses – the painter's favourite flower (see 226). This picture is probably only a work of his school; the figure of the goddess is a not very successful repetition of the one in 915. The subject of the picture recalls the description of Simonetta in Poliziano's poem: —

White is the maid, and white the robe around her,With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride;The wild wood smiled; the thicket, where he found her,To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.Symonds's Translation.

920. ORPHEUS

Roelandt Savery (Dutch: 1576-1639).

Savery, a painter of Courtrai, was instructed by his brother at Amsterdam. His works show the influence of Jan Breughel. He visited France in the reign of Henry IV., by whom he was employed in the royal palaces. He was subsequently invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II., in whose service he spent several years.

A not very poetical rendering of the poetical legend of the power of music: —

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gazeBy the sweet power of music: therefore the poetDid feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,But music for the time doth change his nature. Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1.

923. A VENETIAN SENATOR

Andrea Solario (Lombard: about 1460-1520). See 734.

This picture "was ascribed to Giovanni Bellini before it entered the National Gallery, and dilettanti might well mistake it for a work of Antonello da Messina. There seems to be little doubt that the picture was painted by Solario at Venice, where he went in 1490 in company of his brother… The firmly drawn portrait of the senator, with its minutely executed landscape in the background, reveals plainly that he there became an ardent follower of Antonello" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 99).

924. A GOTHIC INTERIOR

Pieter Neeffs (Flemish: 1577-about 1661).

This eminent architectural painter belonged to a family of Antwerp artists. He was a pupil of Hendrick Steenwyck the elder. "He did for the Roman Catholic churches of Antwerp that which, thirty years later, and with greater talent, a more flowing brush, and a better understanding of chiaro-oscuro, Emmanuel de Witte (see 1053) was destined to do for the Protestant churches of Delft. Neeffs took special delight in the representation of night scenes, torchlight funeral services, and the like. Teniers and Velvet Breughel themselves often assisted him in these small canvases, thus bearing testimony to the high esteem in which Neeffs was held by his colleagues" (Wauters, The Flemish School, p. 342.)

A group of figures is inspecting a conspicuous Renaissance tomb. Notice the dogs among the visitors.

927. AN ANGEL ADORING

Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.And with the morn those angel faces smile,Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.Cardinal Newman.

This exquisite fragment once belonged to Sir Augustus Callcott, R.A.

928. APOLLO AND DAPHNE

Ascribed to Pollajuolo (Florentine: 1429-1498). See 292.

The Greeks, seeing the perpetual verdure of the laurel, personified it in the story of Apollo and Daphne (= laurel), which told how the sun-god was enamoured of her. But she, praying to be delivered from his pursuit, was changed by the gods into a laurel – her two arms are here sprouting, just as the god has caught her in his embrace; and he, crowning his head with the leaves, ordained that the tree should for ever bloom and be sacred to his divinity (see further for the story of Apollo and Daphne under 520). The fact that Phœbus Apollo was also the god of song has suggested a pretty adaptation of the legend to the case of poets who sing for love and earn the laurel wreath —

Yet, what he sung in his immortal strain,Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain:All, but the Nymph that should redress his wrong,Attend his passion and approve his song.Like Phœbus thus, acquiring unsought praise,He catched at love, and filled his arms with bays.Waller.

929. THE "BRIDGEWATER MADONNA."

Copy after Raphael. See under 1171.

This is an ancient copy, probably by a Flemish painter, of the original, which is in the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. It belongs to Raphael's second or Florentine period, and its exquisite grace has caused it to be known by some writers as "La Plus Belle des Vierges."

930. THE GARDEN OF LOVE

School of Giorgione (Venetian: 16th century). See 269.

Certainly not by Giorgione,197 but a characteristic example of a class of composition of which, as we have seen, he was the inventor – one of those Venetian pastorals in which young men and women "disport in the open air, amuse themselves at random" (Asolando).

931. THE MAGDALEN

Paolo Veronese (Veronese: 1528-1588). See 26.

The Magdalen – she who had sinned much, but who was forgiven because she loved much – is represented at the Saviour's feet, laying aside her jewels, and thus renouncing the vanities of the world.

932. A KNIGHT OF MALTA

Unknown (Italian: 16th century).

Formerly ascribed to Sebastiano del Piombo.

933. BOY WITH A BIRD

Padovanino (Venetian: 1590-1650). See 70.

Contrast with this child caressing a dove Baroccio's Christ teasing a bird. Padovanino lived much at Venice, and shared perhaps the Venetian's fondness for pigeons – the sacred birds of St. Mark's, which are kept and fed in the great square to this day at the public charge.

934. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Carlo Dolci (Florentine: 1616-1686).

Carlo Dolci, the son of a Florentine tailor, is, like his contemporary Sassoferrato, a good instance of the affected religious school described in our introduction to the Later Italian Schools. He was of a very retiring and pious disposition, much given, we are told, to melancholy. Every one who looks first at the pictures of similar subjects by earlier Italian artists will be struck by something sentimental and effeminate in Dolci's conceptions. Similarly in his execution there is an over-smoothness and softness, corresponding to "polished" language in literature (see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. ix. § 7). In the Dulwich Gallery is a St. Catherine of Siena which is one of Dolci's chefs d'œuvre.

935. A RIVER SCENE

Salvator Rosa (Neapolitan: 1615-1673). See 84.

936. THE FARNESE THEATRE, PARMA

Ferdinando Bibiena (Bolognese: 1657-1743).

Ferdinando Galli, called Bibiena, was one of a family of artists who came from a place of that name in the Bolognese State. He was a celebrated architect and scenic artist. He was engaged at many of the European courts in the arrangement of state pageants. He executed several works for Ranuccio Farnese, Duke of Parma. His architectural and perspective views are to be seen in the principal galleries in Italy. In these the figures are usually painted by his brother Francesco. Ferdinando, who published several works on architecture, became blind in his old age.

A scene in the theatre with Othello being played. The pit is unseated; it is a kind of "promenade play."

937. VENICE: SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO

Canaletto 198 (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

The principal building is the Scuola of the religious fraternity of St. Roch – "an interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing into Roman Renaissance," and, "as regards the pictures it contains (by Tintoret), one of the three most precious buildings in Italy" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). From the adjoining Church of St. Roch, the Holy Thursday procession of the Doges and Officers of State, together with the members of the Fraternity, is advancing under an awning on its way to St. Mark's. Notice the carpets hung out of the windows – a standing feature, this, in Venetian gala decorations from very early times (see, for instance, No. 739).199 Notice, also, the pictures displayed in the open air – a feature which well illustrates the difference between the later "easel pictures" and the earlier pictures intended to serve as architectural decorations. "A glance at this picture is sufficient to show how utterly the ordinary oil painting fails when employed as an architectural embellishment. Pictures which were to adorn and form part of a building had to consist of figures, separated one from another, all standing in simple and restful attitudes, and all plainly relieved against a light ground" (Conway: Early Flemish Artists, p. 270). Apart from one of the conditions of early art thus suggested, the picture is interesting as showing how in the eighteenth century in Italy, as in the thirteenth, art was part and parcel of the life of the people. Cimabue's pictures were carried in procession; and here in Canaletto's we see Venetian "old masters" hung out to assist in the popular rejoicing.

938. VENICE: REGATTA ON THE GRAND CANAL

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

A state regatta – a pastime which owes its origin to Venice – in honour of the visit to the city of the King of Denmark in 1709. In the centre of the canal are the gondoliers, racing; to the sides are moored the spectators, the gala barges of the nobles conspicuous amongst them. The variegated building on the left is a temporary pavilion for the distribution of prizes. These regattas at Venice took the place of our royal processions here. "Wherever the eye turned, it beheld a vast multitude at doorways, on the quays, and even on the roofs. Some of the spectators occupied scaffoldings erected at favourable points along the sides of the canal; and the patrician ladies did not disdain to leave their palaces, and, entering their gondolas, lose themselves among the infinite number of the boats" (Feste Veneziane: quoted in Howells's Venetian Life, ii. 69). Another custom in which we have begun to imitate the Venetians, and which may be seen in this picture, is that of hanging out carpets and stuffs by way of decorations. "The windows and balconies," says the same account, "were decked with damasks, stuffs of the Levant, tapestries, and velvets;" a very old Venetian custom: see under 937.

939, 940. VENICE: THE PIAZZETTA, AND THE DUCAL PALACE

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

Canaletto's representation of the central spot of Venice. In 939 is the Piazzetta, the little Piazza or square, in front the church of St. Mark, with its bell towers; on the left are the mint and library; on the right is the ducal palace. This appears again in 940, with the famous column of St. Mark, patron saint of Venice, while beyond it is the Ponte della Paglia, the prisons, and the Riva degli Schiavoni.

941. VENICE: THE GRIMANI PALACE

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.

This palace, situated on the Grand Canal and used until lately as the post-office, was built in the sixteenth century by San Micheli, and is "the principal type at Venice, and one of the best in Europe, of the central architecture of the Renaissance schools – that carefully studied and perfectly executed architecture to which those schools owe their principal claim to our respect, and which became the model of most of the important works subsequently produced by civilised nations… It is composed of three stories of the Corinthian order (i. e. in which the ornament is concave, distinguished from Doric, in which it is convex), at once simple, delicate, and sublime; but on so colossal a scale that the three-storied palaces on its right and left only reach to the cornice which marks the level of its first floor" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. ii. §§ 1, 2). Buildings in the same style in London are St. Paul's and Whitehall.

942. ETON COLLEGE

Canaletto (Venetian: 1697-1768). See under 127.

Painted during the artist's first English visit, 1746-1748, perhaps in the same year (1747) that Gray published his well-known ode —