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

The acquisition of this picture by the National Gallery (in 1881) had a curious history. It was formerly in the convent of Santa Chiara at Aquila, and on the suppression of the convent became the property of the State. But by the Archbishop's orders it was successfully secreted. On his death, some years later, it was conveyed to the house of one of the canons of the cathedral, by whom it was sold to a dealer in Rome. The dealer made a good thing out of it; he bought it for £260, and sold it (with another small picture) to our National Gallery for £1200. The Italian Government instituted a prosecution for theft, which, however, was subsequently dropped for civil proceedings for damages against all the persons concerned, "except the Englishman who, it is believed, bought the picture in good faith."

1108. THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED

Unknown (Sienese School: late 15th century).

1109. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN

Niccolò di Buonaccorso (Sienese: died 1388).

Of this painter, who worked and held several offices at Siena, none of the works is traceable except this signed picture and some fragments (also signed, and dated 1387) in a little village church near Siena.

"Remarkable, amongst other things, for the wonderful elaboration of the gold ornaments on the dresses, and the attempt to give an Oriental character to the scene by the introduction of the palm-tree, the carpet, and the dark-faced player on the kettledrums. It is interesting also for its notes from real life in the figure of the child, the faces of some of the spectators in the background, the window-openings with their poles, the figures on the right under the blind, and the flower-pot on the sill on the left" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 17). For some remarks on the subject, see under 1317.

1109a. VIRGIN AND CHILD

A. R. Mengs (German: 1728-1779). See also (p. xx)

Anton Raphael Mengs, the son of a court painter at Dresden – a post to which the boy afterwards succeeded – was taken when a boy to Rome and set to study the works of the great masters. He became the most celebrated representative of the Eclectic School of painting in the eighteenth century, and played a great part in the early days of the classic revival of that period. In his writings, in Spanish, Italian, and German, he elaborated his eclectic theory – the attainment of perfection by the combination of diverse excellences, Greek designs with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He was an intimate friend of Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation. His work was eagerly sought after, both at Rome and at the courts of Dresden and Madrid, and his books enjoyed a very wide circulation.

A cartoon, executed in black chalk.

1113. A LEGENDARY SUBJECT

Pietro Lorenzetti (Sienese: died 1348).

This painter was the elder brother of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1147), and first appears as an artist in 1305. Many of his works, or fragments of them, may still be seen in and around Siena. Among the best is a triptych in the sacristy of the Cathedral representing the birth of the Virgin. "A long series of frescoes, representing different incidents in the Passion, have recently been rescued from whitewash in the church of S. Francesco. They are remarkable for their vigour and harmony, and show Pietro to have possessed great talents both as a colourist and as a draughtsman" (Bryan's Dictionary).

Probably illustrative of some incident in the life of a saint – of Bishop Sansovino, perhaps, the patron saint of Siena – in which the forces of the Christian and pagan religions were opposed. On one side is a pagan priest bearing a statue, supposed, from the apple in its hand, to be that of Venus. On the other is a Christian bishop engaged in some ecclesiastical function.

1114-1118. THE FIVE SENSES

Coques (Flemish: 1618-1684). See 821.

Coques pays a pretty compliment to one of his fellow-artists Robert van Hoecke (who, like a greater man, Leonardo, was an authority on fortifications as well as a painter), in painting his portrait as typical of "Sight." The figures in the rest of the series, if portraits, have not been identified.

1119. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS

Ercole di Giulio Grandi (Ferrarese: died 1531).

Of this painter, one of the best of the Ferrarese school, very little is known, beyond the fact that he was in the service of the ducal house at Este. The identification of his works is also very uncertain, for Vasari, unaware that two painters of the Grandi family had borne the name of Ercole (see 1127), classed the works of both under the same head. The present picture is not signed, and was first identified as the younger Ercole's by Morelli. This Ercole, son of Giulio Cesare de' Grandi, studied under Francia and Lorenzo Costa, to the latter of whom, indeed, this picture was attributed in the foundling hospital of Ferrara, from which it comes. Like Francia, Ercole combined the practice of other arts with that of painting – being a gold-beater and modeller, as well as a painter – a conjunction which is seen in this picture, with its wealth of decorative accessories. He disputes with Garofalo the title of "the Raphael of Ferrara," a description which this splendid picture goes some way to justify.

A picture notable alike for its central idea and for its wealth of decorative detail. In the group of the infant Saviour (a very finely drawn figure) standing on the Virgin's knees in the act of benediction, with St. William on the right of the throne and on the left St. John the Baptist, is an imaginative representation of Christianity – the soldier of Christ, with his armour on him, but bareheaded, and with his hand on the sword, on one side; the saint, with the Cross and the Book, on the other. The accessories are full of decorative inventiveness, but every detail is full of thought; they are an epitome, as it were, of all the decorative arts of the time. Note first, in the walnut wood pedestal of the throne, that the frieze at the top is a graceful arrangement of dolphins, emblems of love and affection, and the base, of stags and swans ("As pants the hart for cooling streams, so pants my soul for thee, O God"). In its central panel is an alto-relievo in ivory, with Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge. On each of the receding panels is a white marble medallion of the turbaned head of a prophet. On the predella below there are, (1) beginning on the spectator's right, the Nativity, (2) the Presentation in the Temple, (3) the Massacre of the Innocents, (4) the Flight into Egypt, and (5) Christ disputing with the Doctors. The ornamental details of the marble baldacchino (or canopy), like those of the throne, are all symbolic; thus the archivolt is composed of choiring cherubim separated by pots of lilies, and the spandrils of the arch are occupied by medallions of the angel Gabriel and the Virgin (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, p. 150).

1120. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT

Cima da Conegliano (Venetian: 1460-1518). See 300.

Another of the numerous St. Jerome pictures: see under 694 and 227. The saint has his usual company of animals. His lion is frowning, somewhat with the same expression as in 227 – as if to deprecate the penance which his master is about to inflict on himself. On the branch of the tree above is a hawk, looking on with the expression of a superior person – one quite too sagacious to countenance such madness. Notice also the serpent which crawls from beneath the rock on which the Cross is placed. The picture, says Mr. Gilbert, "is rich, even brilliant, in colouring, and if there is a touch of oddity in the house perched upon a crag, there is loveliness in the mountain range, and in the amber and lemon tints that streak the evening sky" (Landscape in Art, p. 340).

1121. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

Unknown (Venetian: time of Bellini). See also (p. xx)

This portrait, when it hung in Hamilton Palace, used to be called a Leonardo. Sir W. Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 24) gives it unhesitatingly to Basaiti (see 599).

1122. ST. JEROME

Domenico Theotocopuli (Spanish: 1548-1625).

This artist, called "Il Greco," was of Greek descent and is supposed to have studied in Venice. He was said to have been a pupil of Titian, but his impetuous style seems rather to have been modelled on that of Tintoretto. He settled at Toledo in 1575, and there acquired a great reputation. His picture of "The Parting of Our Lord's Raiment," which still adorns the sacristy of the cathedral at Toledo, is, says Stirling-Maxwell, "truly admirable in drawing and composition; and the colouring is on the whole rich and effective, although it is here and there laid on in that spotted, streaky manner which afterwards became the great and prominent defect of El Greco's style." The picture in our Gallery No. 1457 in its energetic action but faulty drawing is characteristic of him. The exaggerated elongation of his figures is one of his common weaknesses. The "St. Maurice with his Theban Legion," which he painted for Philip II. in the Escorial is "little less extravagant and atrocious than the massacre which it recorded"; this was painted in 1580. A year or two later he executed the "Burial of the Count of Orgaz" in the church of St. Tomé at Toledo. This is usually esteemed his masterpiece. "The artist or lover of art who has once beheld it will never, as he rambles among the winding streets of the ancient city, pass the pretty brick belfry of that church without turning aside to gaze upon its superb picture once more." Theotocopuli has been described as "an artist who alternated between reason and delirium, and displayed his great genius only at lucid intervals." His portraits, of which there are several in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, are often mannered; but occasionally very fine. Into the portrait of his daughter (now at Keir) he put all his skill; her face, with markedly Greek features, is "one of the most beautiful that death ever dimmed and that the pencil ever rescued from the grave." Il Greco was much employed both as sculptor and architect. He was a man of wit and learning, and is said to have written on the three arts which he professed (Annals of the Artists of Spain, ch. v.).

This picture passed when in the Hamilton Collection for the work of Titian. The inscription on the book, "Cornaro aet suae 100-1566," is interpolated. The picture appears to be one of those realistic representations of St. Jerome of which there are other examples by Theotocopuli.

1123. VENUS, ADONIS, AND MYRRHA

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

A picture of the golden age, entirely in the Giorgionesque spirit, and often attributed to Giorgione himself214– a vision of a land bathed in perpetual light and sparkling with golden sunshine. The legendary subject which forms the theme of this characteristic pastoral is the story of Myrrha, which may be read in Dryden's translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The principal group is Venus and her favourite Adonis (see under 34). He was the son of Myrrha, whose legend is the subject of several small groups. On the right is a woman fleeing from a man who pursues her, sword in hand; these represent Myrrha and her father Cinyras. Farther on the woman is on her knees; here Myrrha is praying to the gods to transform her —

… Since my life the living will profaneAnd since my death the happy dead will stain,Some other form to wretched Myrrha give,Nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live.

A third group shows the answer to her prayer: she is transferred into the myrrh tree, whose "precious drops her name retain," while the wood-nymphs receive her new-born babe, Adonis. In the background on the left is represented the death of Adonis; Venus is lamenting over his body and changing his blood into the anemone. The group in the clouds may represent Cupid accidentally wounding his mother.

1124. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI

Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293. See also (p. xx)

By some ascribed to Botticelli.215 "There is an unmistakable drawing for it in the Uffizi Collection (No. 210), which is there ascribed to Botticelli, and which I, for one, am not at all inclined to take away from him. My own opinion is that there was no painter of the time who could have given so poetically conceived a background as we have in No. 1124; the drawing of some of the figures also speaks of itself" (Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy, January 9, 1892).

For two other more highly-finished pictures of the same subject also ascribed to this master see 592 and 1033. This picture, with others from the Hamilton Collection, was in the "Old Masters" Exhibition of 1873. "The 'Adoration of the Magi,'" wrote Ruskin to Mr. Fairfax Murray, "had prettiness in it, but was poor stuff."

1125. SUMMER AND AUTUMN

Andrea Mantegna 216 (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.

Summer holds a sieve for sifting the corn which she ripens. Autumn raises a goblet of wine to her lips.

1126. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN

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

A picture with an interesting history. It was painted by Botticelli217 when he was a young man, for Matteo Palmieri (a prominent Florentine citizen). This Matteo and his wife are here represented on either side of the tomb in the foreground. The patron assisted Botticelli in working out the design; and between them they made some modifications in theology, which brought them into trouble – so early did Sandro's reforming work begin. The story is thus told, and the picture described, by Vasari: —

"In the church of San Pietro (Florence) the master painted a picture for Matteo Palmieri with a very large number of figures. The subject of this work, which is near the side-door, is the Assumption of Our Lady, and the zones or circles of heaven are there painted in their order. The Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies; all which was executed by Sandro according to the design furnished to him by Matteo, who was a very learned and able man. The whole work was conducted and finished with the most admirable skill and care; at the foot of it was the portrait of Matteo kneeling, with that of his wife. But although the picture is exceedingly beautiful and ought to have put envy to shame, yet there were found certain malevolent and censorious persons who, not being able to affix any other blame to the work, declared that Matteo and Sandro had erred gravely in that matter, and had fallen into grievous heresy. Now, whether this be true or not, let none expect the judgment of that question from me; it shall suffice me to note that the figures executed by Sandro in that work are entirely worthy of praise, and that the pains he took in depicting those circles of the heavens must have been very great, to say nothing of the angels mingled with the other figures, or of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a very good manner" (ii. 233).

Matteo Palmieri was the author of a poem called "The City of Life,"218 in which he adopted Origen's thesis that the human race was an incarnation of those angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were neither for God nor for his enemies, and explained how the soul of man could work its way back through the spheres to the very seat of deity. This "heresy" interprets (says Mr. Pater) much of the peculiar sentiment with which Botticelli infuses his profane and sacred persons, – neither all human, nor all divine (see above under 275). It was ingeniously suggested, as we shall see, in this picture, and was entirely in accord with those "Neo-Platonic" ideas in which Botticelli, as a member of the Medici circle, was well versed. Matteo seems to have been afraid that his poem might bring him into trouble owing to its heretical views on the nature of angels, for he presented his MS. to the Art of the Notaries in Florence, sealed and under the express condition that it should not be opened, "so long as he lived imprisoned in this body." He died in 1478, and his poem fell under the expected censure. Botticelli's picture, as Vasari says, shared this fate. The painting bears evidence of intentional injury, the faces of the donor and his wife having been scored through; nor did some of the apostles escape the wrath of these iconoclasts. Attempts at restoration were made at some subsequent period. As the portrait of a heretic might not be exhibited in a Roman Catholic church, the picture was covered up, and the chapel in which it stood was closed to public worship. Ultimately the book was declared innocuous, and the chapel was re-opened. The picture, however, had already been, or was afterwards, removed from the family chapel of the Palmieri to their villa. On the death of the last heir, it passed into the hands of a Florentine dealer who sold it to the 11th Duke of Hamilton. At the disposal of the Hamilton Collection in 1882 it was bought for the National Gallery.

The picture was doubtless designed as an illustration of the closing canto of "The City of Life," in which Matteo supposes himself conducted by the Cumæan Sibyl through the Elysian Fields to Heaven. The ostensible subject is the Assumption into Heaven of the Virgin. On earth the apostles are represented gathered around the Virgin's tomb, from which "annunciation lilies" are growing; while she is in heaven kneeling in adoration before the Saviour, who has an open book inscribed with the mystic letters Α and Ω: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." Around the Virgin and Christ are all the hierarchies of heaven, arranged, according to the scheme of the theologians, in three separate tiers. Nearest to Christ are the seraphs (red), cherubs (blue), and thrones (gold); these are conceived as absorbed in perpetual love and adoration round the throne of God, and are represented therefore as with heads only (the attribute of spirit) and wings ("swift as thought"). In relation with mankind come the remaining orders – the dominations, virtues, powers (these last with sceptres in their hands), and in the lowest of the three, tiers, archangels, princedoms, and angels (with their wands). "The black vases with golden borders in the hands of some of the angels are probably meant for the 'golden vials full of the wrath of God' (Revelations xv. 7). Near them there are other angels, who in the attitude of expectation point upward with their sticks; while those in the lowest circle point down, and at the same time seem to invite those who hold vials to pour them out upon the city of Florence" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 28). Everywhere amongst the angelic host are the blessed dead, and it is here that the views of Matteo's poem found expression. We have seen in Botticelli's "Nativity" (1034) the same intercourse of men and angels, with reference there to the reconciling power of the "Logos." Among the cherubs, we may decipher St. James with the pilgrim staff, St. Andrew with his cross, St. Peter with the key, and St. Mary Magdalen with the casket. It is interesting to note Botticelli's estimate of degrees in the scale of spiritual excellence. For instance, St. Catherine of Siena is in the lowest ring among the Angels, but St. Bernard is in the third with Principalities; Moses is among Powers, so are St. Lawrence, St. Stephen, and St. Catherine of Alexandria; Virtues hold St. Bonaventura, St. Dominic, and St. Paul; St. Francis with the Evangelists is higher, in Dominations; in the highest Triplicitie, as Spenser puts it, there are men – including the Baptist – mingled with the Cherubim. The angels are represented throughout as ministering spirits; and nothing in the picture is prettier than the way in which the angels are calling upon the saints to "enter into the joy of their Lord"; note, for instance, the white angel on the right in the lowest tier, and the saint in black and red. She will teach to him

The songs I sing here; which his voiceShall pause in, hushed and slow,And find some knowledge at each pause,Or some new thing to know.D. G. Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel.

There are many charming single figures; note, for instance, two angels in the lower tier in the centre; and all are characteristic of the new type of angels which Botticelli introduced – forsaking entirely the conventional idealism of earlier religious art, and substituting the waving garments and flowing hair (suggestive of atmosphere and swiftness of motion) which we see in Perugino and Raphael.

Finally, the picture is of topographical interest for the beautiful view of Florence and the Val d' Arno in the background —

The valley beneath where, white and wideAnd washed by the morning water-gold,Florence lay out on the mountain-side.Browning: Old Pictures in Florence.

The precise point of view has been identified by Miss Margaret Stokes in her Six Months in the Apennines, pp. 261-264. Turning off the high road, on the descent from the hill of Fiesole —

"I got among the lanes on Monte Rinaldi near La Lastra, on the Via Bolognese, and soon found myself among the ruined terraces of an ancient garden, where cactus and aloe grew side by side with brambles, periwinkles, and ivy. Having reached an open in the thicket into which I had strayed, I was startled to see the very scene represented by Botticelli about the year 1455 lying at my feet – the wide horizon reaching from San Domenico, and the Apennines beyond Monte Moro, Scala, and Monte Maggio, round the whole Val d' Arno, to San Lorenzo and the northern boundary of Florence. Seated on the same mountain side, where the great painter must have sat four hundred and thirty years ago, and holding my little copy of his landscape in my hand, it was intensely interesting to trace the objects still remaining on which his eye had rested, and which his conscientious pencil had outlined, and to note the changes wrought by time in the aspect of the scene."

Miss Stokes prints side by side with her copy of Botticelli's background a topographical plan of the present scene. The house on the hill above the Mugnone beyond the bridge is the Villa Palmieri, where Queen Victoria stayed in 1888. Boccaccio selected it for one of the homes of his fair storytellers in the Decameron. Matteo Palmieri bought it in 1450. There, no doubt, Botticelli was often a guest, and there the two friends may have planned this great altar-piece. "It is perfectly in keeping with the poetic instincts of sacred painters of the time that this great vision of Heaven should be represented as bursting on the poet in his own very home. Gazing upwards from his cypress groves into the unfathomable blue above, it is as if the sky had slowly opened, and the interior of a vast dome were revealed, rising above three iridescent bands of light, peopled with nine successive zones of sacred forms, all gazing in absorbed ecstasy on the figure of the Divine Mother, lowliest of women, kneeling at the feet of the Redeemer" (pp. 261-264).

1127. THE LAST SUPPER

Ercole Roberti de' Grandi (Ferrarese: 1450-1496).

This Ercole is not to be confused with the younger painter of the same family (see 1119). Ercole Roberti was the son of Antonio Grandi, also a painter. A drawing attributed to him in the Louvre, representing the Massacre of the Innocents, in which he nearly approaches the grandeur of conception and masterly execution of Mantegna, seems to show that he had either studied under that great painter, or had experienced his influence. Mantua, where Mantegna lived after 1468, is at no great distance from Ferrara. Ercole was employed at the latter place by the dukes, from whom he received a regular salary. Pictures by him are rare, and none is authenticated by his genuine signature. In the Dresden Gallery are two compartments of a predella by him, another being in the Royal Institution at Liverpool. In these and a few other works, including those in our Gallery, Ercole reveals himself as a thorough Ferrarese, in his energetic rendering of life and character, and in his careful study of details (Layard's edition of "Kugler," ii. 351, and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 109-113).