BONINGTON
That Richard Parkes Bonington (1801–1828) should be seen to better advantage in this collection, is only natural in view of the fact that by his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and under Gros he belongs to the French rather than to the English school. He was closely allied by the bond of friendship to Delacroix, and played an important part in the romantic movement. The two little pictures François I. and the Duchesse d’Etampes (No. 1802) and Mazarin and Anne of Austria (No. 1803) are conceived quite in the spirit of the French Romanticists. Bonington’s genius as a colourist is, however, best displayed in the sparkling and animated View of Venice (No. 1805). Admirable, too, in their spontaneous freshness are the View of the Gardens at Versailles (No. 1804) and the View of the Coast of Normandy (No. 1804a). The Old Governess (No. 1805a), one of Bonington’s rare attempts at portraiture, is remarkable for the accentuation of the modelling, which somehow suggests the broad treatment of the planes adopted by a wood-carver.
The picture which is catalogued as La Halte (No. 1814), by George Morland (1763–1804), is merely a poor copy of that artist’s painting The Public-house Door, engraved by Ward. It was presented to the Louvre by the proprietors of the magazine L’Art.
When we come to the great school of British portrait painting, we have to record at least two or three masterpieces worthy of being included in a great museum. A picture of unquestioned authenticity and great charm is the Portrait of Master Hare (No. 1818b) by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), who in this, as in other similar pieces, proved himself the painter par excellence of childhood in all its innocence and ingenuousness, even though this picture is by no means impeccable as regards draughtsmanship. The Master Hare was bequeathed to the Louvre by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild in 1905. The badly repainted Portrait of a Lady (No. 1818a) in a white dress, and with powdered hair, is certainly not the work of Sir Joshua, under whose name it figures in the catalogue.