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

1288. FROST SCENE

Aart van der Neer (Dutch: 1619-1692). See 152.

1289. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE

Cuyp (Dutch: 1620-1691). See 53.

A characteristic little work. In the distance is a ruined castle-keep in the water, which may be the same building as that depicted in No. 824.

1291. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN

Juan de Valdes Leal (Spanish: 1630-1691).

Valdes Leal, who was born at Cordova, settled afterwards at Seville, where he became the first President of the Academy in that city. It is to him that some critics have assigned the "Dead Orlando" in this room (741). His most famous picture – "one of the most repulsive, but also most impressive ever painted," says Mr. W. B. Scott – is "The Two Dead Men," in the Hospital of Charity at Seville, representing a charnel house with the partially-decayed corpses of a bishop and a noble. So dreadful is the realism that Murillo said he never could approach the picture without fancying he smelt the horror. "Ah, my compeer," replied the flattered realist, "it is not my fault; you have taken all the sweet fruit out of the basket and left only the rotten."

In the present picture Valdes Leal has picked sweet fruit too; indeed it is over sweet. The donatrix of the picture and her son are shown in either corner, while in the midst the Virgin ascends to Heaven, surrounded by bands of angels. The picture is thoroughly characteristic, in its florid type of sentiment, of the Spanish school.

1292. A FAMILY GROUP

Jan van Bylert (Dutch: 1603-1671).

A painter of Utrecht; entered the Guild of Painters there in 1630, and repeatedly filled the office of its Dean. Studied at Utrecht under A. Bloemaert, and afterwards visited Italy and France. His works are numerous in the galleries of Amsterdam and Utrecht.

They are plain old people, truth to tell, this group of two Dutch housewives and a Dutch burgher, and they are somewhat too obviously sitting for their portraits. How prim and neat all the surroundings are! how pretty is the trailing rose on the balustrade! and with what quiet, unobtrusive fidelity the whole picture is painted!

1293. MUSICAL PASTIME

Jan Miense Molenaer (Dutch: died 1668).

This painter, the best of three artists of the same name, "excelled in representing peasant interiors and scenes of rustic life in a quiet style and in skilfully graduated tints. His colouring is warm and clear; his drawing spirited, and his touch full of life. Besides this, he possessed a certain refinement, and his humour never overstepped the bounds of decency. While his works retain characteristics peculiar to him, they manifest also something of the styles of Steen, Brauwer, and Ostade" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 159). He was a native of Haarlem, and afterwards settled in Amsterdam. His earlier works (such as the present picture) suggest the tutelage of Frans Hals; the later works show the influence of Rembrandt.

This picture (which is signed on the side of the foot-warmer) is a capital example of the artist. "The fair faces of the singers are very spontaneously expressive of their gaiety, and have something of the animation of Jan Steen without his vulgar types and occasional grimace."

1294. AN ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT

William van de Poorter (Dutch: painted 1630-1645).

This painter was a native of Haarlem, where he belonged to the Guild of Painters, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. In this picture the light, coming from the top on our left, falls on the globe and figure with Rembrandtesque effect.

The subject is perhaps a "Vigil of Arms," and may depict a knight or king passing the night before his investiture in the seclusion of a private chapel. On the altar before which he stands are a globe, two crowns, and several documents. His left hand is turned slightly forward, as if to call attention to the action, while in his right hand he holds a sceptre with its point resting on the globe. On the floor in front of the altar lie his arms and armour; behind, hangs his banner. On his head is a laurel wreath; and over a bright breastplate he wears the richly embroidered robe of his order.

1295. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS

Girolamo Giovenone (Lombard: early 16th Century).

Giovenone was a native of Vercelli, in which city several fine pictures by him are preserved. Other painters who worked, or were born, at Vercelli are Macrino d' Alba (1200), Lanini (700), and Gaudenzio Ferrari (1465). By some critics our picture is assigned to another painter of the same school, Defendente Ferrari (see Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxix.). Examples of both painters may be seen in the Turin Gallery.

The Virgin and Child are flanked by the kneeling figures of two men, perhaps brothers, who were doubtless the donors of the picture. Behind each of them stands his patron saint, patting the devotee approvingly on the back. The Virgin's face is charming; so also are two little angels, who are quaintly perched up aloft, one on either side sitting on ledges of the canopied throne. The picture is a good example of symmetry – almost exaggerated, one may think – in composition.

1296, 1297. LANDSCAPES

Giuseppe Zais (Venetian: died 1784).

Zais, a Venetian, was a pupil of the Florentine landscape and decorative painter Zuccarelli (1702-1788) who settled for many years at Venice. Zuccarelli in 1752 came to this country, where in 1768 he became an original member of the Royal Academy. The works of Zais also for a time attracted the attention of English amateurs, but he died a pauper in the hospital of Treviso.

Amusing examples of the so-called "pastoral landscape," which found favour in the last century – the landscape painted "in praise of the country by men who lived in coffee-houses." Zais was nearly contemporary with Longhi, and shows us the same Venetians in villeggiatura whom Longhi shows us in town (see 1100 and 1101). In 1286 we see some "picturesque" farm-buildings on one side of a stream, with a "picturesque" cow-herd asleep; whilst on the other side is a party of gay ladies – dressed in crinolines and bows, and devoid of hats, shawls, or wraps – flirting with beaux. The companion picture (1297) is conceived in the same style; but the ladies are here fishing, though, to judge from the amateurishness of their proceeding, they are not likely to catch fish.

1298. LANDSCAPE: RIVER SCENE

Joachim Patinir (Early Flemish: died 1524). See 715.

This picture, acquired in Florence in 1889 together with two by Zais (1296, 1297), was for some years attributed to the Venetian school. It is now recognised as a work of Patinir. The heavy blue tone of that painter's distances here gives way to a lighter colour; but the fantastic landscape has strong resemblances to No. 716. If by Patinir, the work is unique in being one of pure landscape, with no scriptural incident. "The earliest independent landscape that we possess by an old master, the first admission that inanimate nature pure and simple is worth making a picture of. In the left corner is the artist sketching, which is a sort of guarantee that he worked in the open air, and that he had been struck with the beauty of some such prospect… He has been so used to regard landscape as an accessory that he does not dare to paint it except from a distance, or on any but a minute scale, and he enlivens it with signs of human industry in the raft and the limekiln. It is as though a landscape had stepped out of the background of some old picture, and asserted its independence with fear and trembling" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 202).

1299. PORTRAIT OF A YOUTH

Domenico Ghirlandajo (Florentine: 1449-1494). See 1230.

It is interesting to compare this portrait with Botticelli's of a somewhat similar subject (No. 626). Both were probably "good likenesses"; but Ghirlandajo's is less forcible and impressive than Botticelli's.

1300. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Unknown (Milanese School: 15th-16th Century).

Apparently by a follower of Leonardo.

1301. PORTRAIT OF SAVONAROLA

Unknown (Florentine: 15th Century).

A portrait of the great patriot-priest of Florence (1452-1498), whose strange career is familiar to all readers of George Eliot's Romola. Ultimately he was condemned to death, with his two disciples; and on the back of the portrait is a representation of their execution. They were hung on a cross, and burnt.

1302. THE SOUL OF ST. BERTIN

1303. A CHOIR OF ANGELS

Simon Marmion (French: 1425-1489).

These two panels are the uppermost portions of an altar-screen painted for the Abbey Church of St. Bertin at St. Omer. The remaining portions are now in the King's Palace at the Hague. These shutters, and a diptych belonging to the Duc d'Aumale, are the only works that have come down to us of Marmion, a painter of Valenciennes, worthy (according to the chroniclers of his time) of great admiration. The two panels before us had been reposing for thirty years in a lumber-room at the South Kensington Museum.

1304. MARCUS CURTIUS

Unknown (Umbrian School: 16th Century).

So described in the Official Catalogue. By Signor Frizzoni the picture is considered to be of the Florentine school, and is ascribed to Francesco Ubertini, for whom see No. 1218 (Archivio Storico dell' Arte, 1895, p. 104).

The subject is supposed to be that of the Roman youth who sacrificed himself by leaping into a chasm which (said the oracle) would never close until Rome threw into it the most precious thing she had. What did Rome possess more precious than her arms and courage, said Curtius as he prepared to leap, in full armour, into the gulf. If this be the subject here represented, the picture shows in an interesting way the frank anachronism of the early painters, for the local colour is certainly not that of the Roman Forum, where Curtius took his self-sacrificing leap. The picture bears strong resemblance to Raphael's earlier manner, as any visitor will see who compares it with the "Vision of a Knight" (213). "Michael Field" has put the sentiment of the picture into verse in Sight and Song: —

He comes from yonder castle on the steep,No Roman, but a lovely Christian knight,With azure vest and florid mantle bright,Blown, golden hair and youthful face flushed deepFor glory in the triumph of the leap.Though his mild, amber horse rears back at sightOf the red flames, though poised for thrust his rightHand grasps a knife, his countenance doth keepSoft as Saint Michael's with the devil at bay.So sweet it is to cast one's life awayIn the fresh pride and perfume of its breath!He smiles to think how soon the cleft will close:And see, a sun-brimmed cloud above him throwsIts white effulgence, as he fares to death.

1305. A FAMILY GROUP

G. Donck (Dutch: 17th Century).

There are other signed pictures by this little known painter in private collections in Vienna. They bear the dates 1627 and 1635.

Portraits of Jan van Hensbeeck and his wife, Maria Koeck, with their infant child between them.

1308. PORTRAIT OF A MAN

J. B. Martinez del Mazo (Spanish: 1610-1687).

Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo, the favourite pupil and the son-in-law of Velazquez, whom he succeeded in 1661 as painter to the Spanish Court. In portraiture Mazo was an imitator of the great master; he also painted hunting pieces and landscapes. His view of Zaragoza, now in the Madrid Gallery, is celebrated.

A very short thick-set figure; possibly a portrait of one of Philip IV.'s court dwarfs.

1309. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

Bernardino Licinio (Venetian: painted 1524-1541).

The above are the earliest and latest dates on his pictures. He was a native of Pordenone, in Friuli; a pupil and relative of the better known painter who is called after that place. There are two pictures by Bernardino at Hampton Court – "A Lady playing on the virginals," of rich though muddy colouring; and "A Family Group" (dated 1524) – monotonous in composition, but brilliant in colour (see Mary Logan's Guide, p. 25). He also painted altar-pieces, among which one in the Frari at Venice is the best.

A young man with feminine features. His black gown, lined with gray fur, is left open at the chest and discloses a gold chain and pendant. On the stone plinth whereon he leans is an inscription, "Stephanus Nani. abavro XVII. MDXXVIII·Lycinivs. P."

1310. "ECCE HOMO!"

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

This picture was sold as a Carlo Dolci; but the attribution was an obvious absurdity. There is no resemblance whatever between the affected sentimentality of Dolci and the sincere pathos of this picture. Its deep and rich colouring also is very different from Dolci's. Sir Frederick Burton labelled his trouvaille "Giovanni Bellini." But its attribution to Cima is now accepted. "This type of Christ," says Mr. Claude Phillips, "of a perfect, manly beauty, of a divine meekness tempering majesty, dates back not to Gian Bellino but to Cima. The preferred type of the elder master is more passionate, more human. Our own Incredulity of St. Thomas, by Cima, shows in a much more perfunctory fashion a Christ similarly conceived" (The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 31 n.). To the same effect a writer in the Academy (July 26, 1890) says: "The modelling – not precise or searching enough for Giambellino – resembles that of his gifted pupil, the parted lips being one of his especial characteristics, as may be noted in his great 'Incredulity of St Thomas' (816). The treatment of the heavy wig-like masses of the hair, with its fine lines, is very similar to that of the Saviour's parted locks in the larger work, while a certain want of flexibility in the muscles of the face is also a distinguishing mark of the master. More striking still is the coincidence that from the head of Christ issue in both instances single rays, disposed in three distinct and separate fasciculi– an arrangement not found, as far as we are aware, in the works of Giovanni Bellini, and never common in Italian art. The peculiarly brilliant blue of the drapery is paralleled by that of the little 'St. Jerome' from the Hamilton Palace Collection, and approached by that of the 'Virgin and Child' – both these panels being sufficiently representative examples of Cima. Comparison has in these remarks been restricted to works in the National Gallery, as being most readily available for purposes of verification. The influence of Antonello – from whom Bellini himself borrowed so much – is, in the new acquisition, undeniable, and may account for a virility and an intensity of pathos not often reached even in the better productions of the sympathetic Bellinesque painter to whom we would attribute it."

1311. A WINTER SCENE

Jan Beerestraaten (Dutch: 1622-1687).

This painter was the son of a cooper of Amsterdam. He travelled much in Holland, staying in all the towns he visited, and copying their monuments, squares, and thoroughfares, and leaving everywhere on his route a great number of sketches and pictures. He painted Italian views also, but these pictures may have been founded on local sketches by other Dutch artists. "His manner of painting was vigorous; delicate finish and precision of touch were less his aim than freedom of handling combined with broad contrasts of tone, where the colour, of a subdued richness, shows brilliancy and often loses itself in harmonies of gray" (Official Catalogue, and Havard's Dutch School, p. 239).

The castle is that of Muiden, between Amsterdam and Naarden. The fortified village is in the distance. On the left is the Zuyder Zee. Signed in the foreground, and dated 1658.

1312. THE VILLAGE COBBLER

Jan Victoors (Dutch: 1620-1672).

Victoors, a native of Amsterdam, was a pupil of Rembrandt, and attempted biblical subjects in the style of his master; a picture by him in this kind may be seen in the Dulwich Gallery. But he is seen at his best in portraits and domestic subjects, such as that treated in the present picture.

1313. THE ORIGIN OF "THE MILKY WAY."

Tintoretto (Venetian: 1518-1594). See 16.

This work, acquired from the Earl of Darnley, is a particularly welcome addition to the National Gallery; for the two works by Tintoret previously in the collection, – the "St. George and the Dragon" and "Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet," – though fairly representative of his more sombre mood, give no idea whatever of such radiant forms and sweeping harmonies as those with which he decorated the Ducal Palace at Venice. This picture immediately recalls these last-mentioned works, for it was doubtless designed as the centre-piece for some painted ceiling. The picture is a very beautiful representation of a classic myth of the Milky Way. Hermes, it is told, carried the infant Hercules to Olympus, and put him to the breast of Juno while she lay asleep; but, as she awoke, she pushed the child from her, and the milk thus spilled produced the Milky Way. In this picture, however, we see Jupiter himself descending through the air and bearing the child in his arms. Juno is rising undraped from her couch, surrounded by little loves, and attended by peacocks – emblems of her royal state as Queen of Heaven; while in the deep-blue firmament is the eagle carrying the thunderbolt of Jupiter. From her bosom issue long lacteal jets that seem, as it were, to crystallise into stars. Sumptuous draperies float around the ground, and in most poetical composition Tintoret has thus "mingled with their gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies." There is a study for the picture in the Accademia at Venice.

1314. THE AMBASSADORS

Hans Holbein, the Younger (German: 1497-1543).

Hans Holbein – "the greatest master," says Ruskin, "of the German, or any northern school" – is closely identified with England, and at least seventy important works by him are, it is calculated, in this country. He is called "the younger," to distinguish him from his father of the same name, who was also a celebrated painter.238 The son was born at Augsburg, but migrated early in life to Basle – then a centre of literary and artistic activity. There he formed a friendship with Erasmus, a portrait of whom from his hand is now one of the treasures of the Basle Museum. Both at Basle and at Lucerne Holbein was engaged in portraiture, house-decorating, and designs for goldsmiths' work. Ruskin traces to Holbein's surroundings at Basle the serious temper which characterises much of his art. "A grave man, knowing what steps of men keep truest time to the chanting of Death. Having grave friends also; – the same singing heard far off, it seems to me, or, perhaps even low in the room, by that family of Sir Thomas More; or mingling with the hum of bees in the meadows outside the towered wall of Basle; or making the words of the book more tuneable, which meditative Erasmus looks upon. Nay, that same soft death-music is on the lips even of Holbein's Madonna." The reference here is to the famous "Darmstadt Madonna," which was painted about 1526. In that year, leaving his wife and child behind him, Holbein set out for England, with letters from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him with honour. From 1528 to 1532 he was again in Basle. In the latter year he returned to England to find More in disgrace, and no longer able to assist him. Holbein, however, met with a warm reception from the German merchants of the Steelyard, and painted portraits of many of them. To this same period also the present picture belongs. Gradually he became known at court, and from 1536 onwards he was in the service of Henry VIII., whose high opinion of Holbein is recorded in the King's rebuke to one of his courtiers for insulting the painter: "You have not to do with Holbein, but with me; and I tell you that of seven peasants I can make seven lords, but not one Holbein." The portrait of Christina of Denmark, lent by the Duke of Norfolk, was one of those painted for the King. He paid during these years several visits to the Continent, but died in this country – being carried off by the plague – in 1543.

It is as a portrait-painter that Holbein is best known. His work in this kind is, says Ruskin, "true and thorough; accomplished in the highest as the most literary sense, with a calm entireness of unaffected resolution, which sacrifices nothing, forgets nothing, and fears nothing." Of his fidelity in portraiture and his fine perfection in accessories, we have a magnificent example in the picture before us, to which what Ruskin says of Holbein's "George Gyzen" (at Berlin) equally applies. "In some qualities of force and grace it is inferior. But it is inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards the attention with a continually increasing sense of wonderfulness. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour, form, and character rendered with an inaccessible faithfulness. There is no question respecting things which it is best worth while to know, or things which it is unnecessary to state, or which might be overlooked with advantage. What were visible to Holbein, are visible to us; we may despise if we will; deny or doubt, we shall not; if we care to know anything concerning them, great or small, so much as may by the eye be known is for ever knowable, reliable, and indisputable." But Holbein, as we have seen, was much more than a portrait-painter. Few artists, indeed, have excelled him in "majestic range of capacity." His "Madonna" at Darmstadt, referred to above (the better known copy of which is at Dresden), is one of the great religious pictures of the world. (A copy of it is in the Arundel Society's Collection.) He was also a fresco-painter, a designer for glass painting, and a draughtsman for woodcuts; his designs for the "Dance of Death" being the typical expression in Northern art of the spirit of the Reformation. (For Ruskin's estimate of Holbein, see further Sir Joshua & Holbein, reprinted in On the Old Road, vol. i., and Ariadne Florentina, passim.)

This celebrated picture is, says Mr. Sidney Colvin, the most important among Holbein's works – after the Darmstadt Madonna – that are extant in good preservation, important alike as to scale, and as to richness and multiplicity of accessories and costumes. It is also one of those most characteristic of the master, both in his excellences and in his faults. "There are more completely satisfying works among his single-figure portraits, in some of which we find a greater artistic unity – as, for instance, in the portrait of 'Christina, Duchess of Milan.' Among the faults in the present work may be noticed the short proportions of the figures in relation to the heads – an effect exaggerated in the case of the personage on our left by the fashion of the broad surcoat with its great puffed sleeves. It must further be admitted that Holbein, who in decorative and ornamental design was one of the most inventive, adroit, and powerful composers that ever lived, has in this instance seemed to let his composition take care of itself.239 The figures are placed at either end of the desk, with a certain naïf stiffness almost recalling the pose of a photographic group. Moreover, masterly and energetic as are the heads in modelling, in expression they are somewhat rigid, harsh, and staring. Yet, all deductions made, with what an effective and potent grasp does the picture hold us! The colouring is richer and more varied than in any other painting of the master." The accessories are painted with "such strong minuteness of reality and diligent, though never paltry, emphasis of detail, that their due subordination to the whole and to the personages would seem impossible. But the subordination is there all the same, and how it comes is Holbein's secret. The total effect is one of singularly rich, if somewhat rigid grandeur;240 the persons dominating as they should; the faces and hands remaining the master features of the picture. The heads, with their hard gaze, lay hold on the spectator masterfully, so that he cannot forget them after he has passed away" (Art Journal, January 1890). The brilliance of the picture, now that the discoloured varnish which formerly concealed many of its beauties has been removed, is very remarkable.241 Every colour appears to have stood; and after 370 years the picture remains in its pristine freshness.