❧ ARTICLE I.—THE OLD MASTERS ❧
THERE is every probability that the current exhibition of early and modern pictures by Dutch artists will prove to be one of the most popular which has yet been held at the Guildhall; not, indeed, because it is of finer quality than its predecessors, but from the fact that the pictures are well within the grasp of the average man. There is nothing incomprehensible to those least acquainted with Dutch art, and there is something that will appeal to all. It must have occurred to many with regard to pictures of Holland by artists of varying nationality that only the Dutchman really grasps the subtleties of the country. All the rest look upon it with alien eyes, and give us but the external form. They never get behind the veil and infect us with that indefinable exquisiteness and charm so characteristic of Holland with its pastoral flats, pollard willows, canals, picturesque craft and windmills and, most wonderful of all, that delicate atmosphere softening the harshest lines into a melodious ensemble, and overhead the immensity of sky, vast in its expanse and with its delicacies of blues and greys. The finest Dutch landscape painters have always painted in a minor key; whenever they seek to modulate into the major they lose themselves and become commonplace. This applies equally to Rüysdael and to Jacob Maris; doubtless it is an expression of the national temperament of the Dutchman. Generally upon emerging from a contemplation of the old men into a modern artistic environment a feeling of repulsion creeps over one, but this is not the case here. Rüysdael and Rembrandt seem strangely in harmony with Maris and Mauve, and in this fact may be found a plea for the endurance of the latter. A very different impression is given, for instance, when one leaves an eighteenth-century French picture and comes to a modern French landscape. The modern Dutch school have maintained the traditions of their predecessors, and one of them at least—Jacob Maris—is worthy to be put on the same plane as Rüysdael and Hobbema. ¶ In the small gallery upstairs the student of seventeenth-century Dutch art will find much to admire, still more to interest him, and not a few examples which will tax his ingenuity as to attribution. Among these last are some of the six pictures ascribed to Rembrandt. The most important, and perhaps the one which should attract the most attention, is the large landscape Le Commencement d’Orage, which is surpassed by little in the landscape work of Rembrandt for poetical intensity and incisive truth. This picture is by most modern critics denied to Rembrandt; as the question is one which must be fully dealt with, its discussion may conveniently be postponed to the end of this paper. ¶ When we leave this and come to the portraits we find but one, the Portrait of the Painter’s Son Titus, which has any serious pretensions to be considered as coming from his brush. Against this, however, nothing can be urged in point of quality. Of the Dutch master’s last and finest manner—it is dated 1655—it has all the pathetic realism of his unsubdued genius. It is interesting to compare this canvas, which is undoubtedly a portrait of Titus, with that of the same boy in the Wallace collection. As this is dated authentically 1655, the Hertford House picture should be painted within the next year, or at the latest in 1657, whereas it is approximately dated in the catalogue 1658–60. On the score of quality there is little to choose, but perhaps the English picture is in a better state of preservation. The Head of a Man, a careful work, and with many good qualities to recommend it, is in all probability a work of Solomon de Koninck, who was one of those pupils of Rembrandt who assimilated most of his technicalities. The extreme timidity of many of those points in which the bolder qualities of Rembrandt would be brought into play, such as the handling of the nose, mouth and hair, go far to convince us of the correctness of this attribution. Coming to The Portrait of the Artist, it appears quite incomprehensible that a picture of such inferior artistic qualities should have been seriously considered for so long a period as a work of the master. Coming from the collections of M. de Calonne, the Marquis Gerini and Mr. Agar, engraved by Seuter and Townley, quoted in Smith, it serves to show the hazy idea of even the best connoisseurs in the early days of the last century. Such a work would be difficult to affiliate upon any of the best known of Rembrandt’s pupils. The weakness of the drawing and lack of power and roundness are clearly the work of but a second-rate man of the period. The signature, moreover, presents no claim to serious consideration. In Ruth and Naomi is possibly to be found the work of a very interesting painter of the school of Rembrandt—Karel Fabritius, who is little known yet in this country. It is painted with remarkable strength and solidity, and although not a great achievement, is worthy of comparison with some of those pictures which are ascribed to the greater light upon very slender foundation. The picture, however, is in such bad condition and has suffered so much that no one can tell what it may have been when fresh. ¶ More interesting upon the whole than the representation of Rembrandt and his School is that of Frans Hals. His so-called Admiral de Ruyter (which is not a portrait of that admiral) for decision and fearless handling has not an equal in the gallery. It is not Hals as we see him at Hertford House, careful and conscientious, though successful, but the spontaneous, daring master whom we find at Haarlem and in the Louvre, at Cassel and St. Petersburg. It is the Hals that we not only admire but also love, the wonder of the cultured art-loving public, and—may we add it?—the despair of the modern portrait painter. Such brushwork has only been equalled, we shall not say surpassed, by a few masters, of whom Velasquez stands out prominently. When, however, we turn to Van Goyen and his Wife and Child, we have another instance of more than doubtful attribution. The landscape is probably by Van Goyen, for it has many of his characteristics of tree draughtsmanship and sober colour. The figures, however, betray nothing of Hals beyond his influence, and even the latter is only just allowable. They are well and strongly painted in parts; but Hals would never be guilty of such loose handling as is observable in the child in the foreground or such weak drawing as the foot of Van Goyen betrays. There is but little from which to deduce an attribution with any degree of certainty. The present ascription is part of that system which insists on fathering upon Hals all the portraits in this manner and of this period, in much the same way as in the past all portraits which betrayed any of the technicalities of Rembrandt were attributed to that master.
PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF, BY JAN STEEN, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK
PORTRAIT OF THE WIFE OF THOMAS WIJCK, BY JAN VERSPRONCK, IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. STEPHENSON CLARKE
Turning from this to a Group of Three we have a splendid example by a master whose history is enshrouded still in much mystery, but who was, if one can judge from his art, a pupil of Hals—we are referring to Jan Miense Molenaer. It was evidently painted in the earlier portion of his career and has much in common with The Spinet-players in the Rycks Museum at Amsterdam. A scene which Hals would have revelled in depicting, full of uproarious good humour, the picture presents attractions quite apart from its superb technical qualities and masterly composition. Curiously enough, upon the same wall we have two examples, Jovial Companions and The Health of the Troop, by Molenaer’s wife, Judith Leyster, a painter of the school of Haarlem of the period when Hals was at the height of his fame. They are both catalogued as being collaborations by Hals and Judith Leyster, but beyond the potent influence of the former they have nothing to do with him. As pictures they are interesting to the student, but not for any striking qualities which they present. The brushwork is of a character which one expects from a painter who from self-assurance endeavours to emulate a bold and dashing manner without possessing the ability of the prototype, with the inevitable result of a coarse disjointedness irritating to the last degree. The colour scheme of each is unpleasing too, blues and reds being foiled against one another with a rashness which is born of over confidence. Of quite another character is the little Portrait of a Gentleman by Thomas de Keyser. The strong and firm modelling of the face has not a weakness apparent anywhere, whilst, as is usual with this master, he has placed a restraint upon himself which sustains him through the most arduous task without loss of dignity or ease of presentment. This grasp of his material leaves him when he attempts anything on a large scale: he loses concentration and becomes straggling. The picture is, however, overcleaned. ¶ But to revert to the school of Hals again, there are few more instructive pictures in the exhibition than The Portrait of a Dutch Lady by Jan Verspronck, who was in many respects his cleverest pupil. This is a remarkably characteristic example, the authenticity of which is convincingly attested by the presence of the signature with the date 1643. It must have occurred to many students that the scarcity of Verspronck’s pictures is accounted for by their being not infrequently converted into examples of the better-known master. They lend themselves very readily to this from the strong affinities of technique. The great point of difference is to be found in the lack of brilliancy and freedom, qualities eminently characteristic of Hals, both in his early and late period. But the delicate silveriness and luminosity of Hals find an echo in the finest portraits of Verspronck. I remember seeing a portrait of a man some years ago in London which was ascribed with all confidence to Hals, until a close examination revealed the traces of an obliterated signature of Verspronck on the background. Further, I have always held the opinion that the superb Portrait of a Lady at Antwerp is by this master, and a contemplation of the present picture strengthens this view. ¶ One other portrait is well worthy of mention, although it may be observed that it hardly comes within the scope of an exhibition of Dutch Art, but we should have been considerably the losers without it—the Portrait of Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola, by Cornelis de Vos. It is a superb piece of direct portraiture, full of dignity and precision, and the ruff and breastplate are handled with remarkable accuracy and vigour. ¶ Of the genre paintings the most attention will be attracted by The Cook Asleep, a picture ascribed to that very rare master Jan Vermeer of Delft. There is little of his characteristic technique displayed in the treatment of the accessories—the fruit and the bottle. Still, the girl, particularly in the head and bosom, and the handling of the table-cloth, point to the work of the great Delft master, to say nothing of the signature, which has every appearance of being authentic. Nevertheless, to extol it as a masterpiece—it is set forth as such in the catalogue—by Vermeer, is quite unjustifiable when one remembers the picture in Mrs. Joseph’s possession, the two in the Six Collection at Amsterdam, or those in the Rycks Museum, the Louvre, and at Dresden and Berlin. There are weaknesses, as witness the flat painting of the arms, and the diffusion of light is not grasped with his wonted skill. It lacks just that which delights one most in the master’s work. It is unfortunate that a better picture to represent Vermeer’s contemporary Gabriel Metzu could not be obtained than A Woman Dressing Fish. I cannot agree with Smith in describing it as ‘this excellent little picture’; indeed I have grave doubts as to its being a genuine picture at all. Neither does a Portrait of a Lady worthily display the magic and refined art of Terborch, for the painting is careful even to timidity. Better by far is the Portrait of a Young Woman, which, in spite of an unequal tussle with the restorer, still presents some of his most charming qualities. Both the head and hands are in his best manner, and the black dress with its semi-transparent frills is full of such delicate painting as characterizes The Portrait of a Gentleman in the National Gallery. ¶ A most interesting panel, A Lady at a Harpsichord, is ascribed to Palamedes. Great confusion has existed with regard to his works in the past, arising from the fact that several painters have an almost identical technique and painted similar subjects. Foremost among these are Willem Cornelisz Duyster, Pieter Codde, Dirk Hals, and that controversial and mysterious master, Hendrik Pot. The fine picture at Hampton Court, described in the Commonwealth Inventory as ‘A Souldier making a Strange Posture to a Dutch Lady, by Bott,’ which has been in turn assigned to Pieter Codde, Poelenburgh, Palamedes, Mytens, and Hendrik Pot, is now permanently and rightly ascribed to the last, an attribution arrived at by careful comparison with other works, and further confirmed by the presence of Pot’s initials on the chimneypiece—all in addition to the suggestive entry in the Commonwealth Inventory. Now the panel in the exhibition is almost identical in treatment, and also with that of the Convivial Party in the National Gallery, and I think that Pot is much more likely to be its creator than Palamedes. ¶ The life work of Jan Steen, so badly illustrated at present in our public galleries, is well summed up by the humorous and most masterly Portrait of Himself. Seated on a chair, he bawls without restraint a ditty, no doubt culled from his own cabaret, accompanying himself with a mandoline, which he plays with evidently greater gusto than expression. Steen was no idealistic dreamer: he believed in earthly enjoyment, and from this fact arose the tales of dissipation of which modern investigation has proved the falsity. Still, he seems to have largely been in sympathy with the views of Omar Khayyam, and making ‘the most of what we yet may spend.’ ¶ The ascription to Adriaen Brouwer of An Interior with Figures is perhaps another misnomer. There is none of his exquisite transparency, the colouring is opaque and lacks the brilliancy of his palette, and the draughtsmanship has not nearly his precision. Again, the figures in the foreground, although having much in common with Brouwer, betray the influence of David Teniers, an influence still more marked in those talking through the window. Consequently there is a strange mixture of Dutch and Flemish art, which points to a master conversant with both. Two men suggest themselves as its author, Hendrik Sorgh and Joost van Craesbeeck, and the weight of evidence is in favour of the latter, largely because of the Flemish sentiment which pervades the whole composition and the presence of mannerisms which are peculiar to Brouwer, which leads one to give the preference to Craesbeeck rather than to Sorgh. Some particularly fine examples of the still-life painters of Holland are shown, Jan van Huysum and Jan van Os especially; whilst one of the three canvases by Willem van Aelst (No. 167) is quite a new revelation of his powers.
OFF SCHEVENINGEN, BY JAN VAN DE CAPELLE, IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. CHARLES T. D. CREWS
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Coming to the landscape men, in some respects a pleasurable surprise awaits us, and in others something akin to disappointment. The latter was furnished by the representation of Jacob van Rüysdael, by whom no less than three examples are shown. Good as they all will be considered, not one shows to the full the intensely poetical side of his genius, a side which, exemplified by the magnificent View of Haarlem in the Mauritshuis at the Hague or the View over an extensive flat wooded Country in our own National Gallery, places him far ahead of any painter of the Dutch school for the rendering of dreamy poetry of nature. He must yield the palm to Hobbema in tree painting and to Cüyp in landscape full of delicate shimmer and sunny glow, and if Philips de Koninck is his equal in the presentment of immensity of distance, he is left far behind by Rüysdael’s atmospheric achievements. One point may be conceded to Hobbema, namely, that he is more equal: he never painted a bad picture, whereas Rüysdael frequently did so; but when the two are seen at their best, the latter surpasses him by reason of his superiority in catching that essentiality of landscape—stimmung. For want of these qualities A Forest Scene, fine as it is from a technical standpoint, and in a perfect state of preservation, does not show the better side of Rüysdael. The Seapiece is better, but fails by reason of its obviously forced sky. Its redeeming feature is the masculine painting of the sea and its finely-felt distance. Perhaps the best is the so-called View on the Brill, which is impressive whilst remaining unsatisfactory. It is particularly unfortunate that a picture of Rüysdael in his best and most soulful mood could not be found, for then he would more than hold his own against any of the plein air men in the remaining galleries. By Hobbema there are two superb panels, A Woody Landscape with a gentleman on a grey horse, and A Landscape, between which, although painted at different periods of his career, there is little to choose in point of quality. However, the latter suffers from over cleaning, particularly in some of those parts—notably the middle distance—where Hobbema shines most, and this gives it a rawness quite foreign to the picture in its pristine state. Still, they are both profound in their grasp of nature and magnificence of achievement. Cüyp, too, is equally well represented by A Herdsman and a Woman tending Cattle, with its suffusion of golden sunlight over the placid river. A delicately soft and delicious haze, so essential a feature on a summer afternoon in the vicinity of a river, envelops the whole composition from the finely-grouped cattle and figures in the immediate foreground to the distant tower, and the portrayal of the relation of the exquisitely truthful sky to the landscape was vouchsafed to no Dutchman to a greater degree than to Cüyp. This is the only example here of the Dordrecht master, for few will consider seriously the pretensions of the Head of a Cow to be from his hand. It is signed (but it is to be questioned if it is a contemporary signature) Berchem, and it is possible that it is by that master, but there are other men equally likely. ¶ A capital little landscape with cattle represents the art of Adriaen van de Velde at its best. It is well that such a picture has been chosen, for it is in its original condition, unlike all too many which have become dark in parts owing to the employment of unstable pigments. Another noteworthy example is that by Jan van der Heyden; whether or not one is allowed to altogether admire such finish, one cannot but wonder at the minute and painstaking rendering of detail and at the masterly way with which, in spite of his finesse, he preserves the unity of his composition. ¶ When we come to the Aart van der Neer, a Moonlight River Scene, we are confronted with a clever picture, but one which almost presents doubts as to its being really from the hand of the master. In the first place it is painted with a much fuller brush and broader handling than is usual with Van der Neer. The trees, instead of being delicately, even minutely wrought, are treated in broad masses, and the buildings have not his directness; and one’s doubts are strengthened by the figures. Now Van der Neer was never loose—if anything, his failing is in the opposite direction—but here we have men in the foreground who are even clumsy, whilst the whole work has a lack or transparence which raises grave doubts whether it is a Dutch picture at all. Here and there is just a trace of a copyist, although a man of no mean talent and one who was copying to arrive at the spirit of the Dutchmen. We have at least one man of the English school who, if this hypothesis has foundation, is capable of this, and many little mannerisms are very like him; but some good authorities regard the picture as an early work of Van der Neer, much over-cleaned and repainted. ¶ The two Jan van de Cappelles are of unsurpassable beauty. In the little Seapiece, with its placid water, an awful stillness pervading the whole scene before the approaching storm, the last glimpses of lurid light which catch the distant town before a complete envelopment in inky blackness of the scene is accomplished, and the depth of the picture, are quite wonderful. But it is rather to Off Scheveningen we look for a thoroughly characteristic Van de Cappelle. The wonderful sky and the amount of atmosphere infused into the whole theme raises it quite on a level with the River Scene of the Wynn Ellis bequest in the National Gallery, an equal of which for pure aerial painting we have yet to see in a European Gallery. The present example is one which surpasses Willem van de Velde at his best in all the higher qualities of art. Another curious picture is the Rising in a Dutch Town, ascribed to Gerrit Berkheyde. ¶ We will now return to Le Commencement d’Orage; and in this connexion it may be convenient to quote the passage referring to this picture which occurred in the notice of the Guildhall Exhibition published in The Times, since it expresses a view now widely held. The passage is as follows:—‘Another picture, of great beauty and greater importance, has for more than a century borne Rembrandt’s name—ever since de Marcenay engraved it with that attribution. Yet it is absolutely certain that Lady Wantage’s great picture, The Beginning of the Storm (174), is not by Rembrandt at all, but is the masterpiece of Philip de Koning, who has two or three similar but smaller works in the National Gallery, and whose signed pictures since the days when Dr. Waagen wrote, have become perfectly well known. Such a picture places de Koning in the very first rank of landscape painters, and it is unjust to deprive him of it. It would take us too long to give reasons for the change of name, but there can be no doubt whatever about it. The picture, of course, shows the influence of the mighty teacher throughout, but it is in point of fact a better, truer, less fantastic landscape than he himself ever painted. It makes the Cassel and other landscapes seem what they really are—dreams, not transcripts from nature in any sense of the term.’ ¶ That the opinion thus dogmatically expressed is that of the majority of critics cannot be denied, but I venture still to acquiesce in the attribution to Rembrandt and I will give my grounds for so doing. In the first place the view is just of such a character as de Koninck painted—an extensive landscape seen from a height with river and distant sandhills, the intervening space studded here and there with hamlets. When, however, we come to compare the technique here with that in accepted pictures by de Koninck, such as the landscape No. 836 in the National Gallery, the only similarity which can be traced to him is in the handling of the bank of the river at the right and the bushes above it. But this is much too powerfully realized for de Koninck, it has a force and breadth which the pupil never put forward. This point can be observed by comparison with the National Gallery picture, which has a very similar foreground only much more restrainedly achieved. Again, the qualities to be found in the roofs by the windmill on the left of the picture and the trees over them are such as are found in all Rembrandt’s work, whether he is working in oil or with the etching needle. Further, none of the finest works of Philips de Koninck have such an impressive and powerful opposition of sunlight and gloom as we have here. He may be wonderfully fascinating in rendering the delicate silveriness of certain phases of atmospherical freshness but he is never soul-stirring, which is a quality I claim for Lady Wantage’s picture. In the sky painting there is much affinity between this and the Peel picture as regards the cloud cumuli, but a reference to the Landscape with Tobias and the Angel (No. 72) in the National Gallery will disclose an identity which demonstrates that the other similarity is only of such a character as would be found in the work of a very clever pupil assimilating his master’s technique.
LE COMMENCEMENT D’ORAGE, VARIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO REMBRANDT VAN RIJN AND PHILIPS DE KONINCK; IN THE COLLECTION OF LADY WANTAGE
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Before leaving this picture it would be useful to draw attention to the parallel rendering of several details—the trees and the sunlight hill in the background. Now in the second period of Rembrandt, which is tentatively placed by students as lying between 1640 and 1649, much attention to landscape is a prominent characteristic. Particularly was this the case with regard to his work with the needle. This culminated in the production of that most impressive of all his landscape etchings, The Three Trees. If that etching is compared with the present picture, many points of similarity will be observed, not only with regard to the extensive view on the left of that etching, but with regard to its realization and general feeling, beside which the art of de Koninck appears but a triviality. The Three Trees is dated 1643, and I am inclined to place this picture at about the same period, or at any rate between 1640 and 1643. With this date the technique is in strict consonance. Philips de Koninck we know was born in 1619, so that at this period he would be twenty-one, a very impressionable age, and I would hazard the suggestion, although the evidence is purely presumptive, that not only was this landscape the forerunner of The Three Trees, but that its production at the period when de Koninck was probably a pupil of Rembrandt, or at any rate had but just emerged from his studio, influenced the former to such an extent that it actually inspired his future landscapes, the similar character of which is so well known. Hence the importance of Le Commencement d’Orage for us. ¶ Yet another plea may be urged for the acceptance of the work as being by Rembrandt. It is an accepted fact, that the etchings of Hercules Seghers had great influence on Rembrandt. The inventory of his effects made in 1656 shows that he had in his possession six landscapes by Seghers in addition to the copper of Tobias and the Angel, which latter he reworked and it appears in Rembrandt’s work as the Flight into Egypt. Seghers, as is well known, was a lover of these vast Dutch plains seen from a height, as witness his flat Dutch landscape seen from a height with water in the foreground, and a flat Dutch landscape with a winding river. Now Seghers was born about 1590 and died somewhere about 1640, and it is fair to presume that at this latter date Rembrandt came into possession of the plate of Tobias and the Angel. This is the very period to which I attribute the production of Le Commencement d’Orage, and it is a noteworthy fact that prior to this date we have nothing akin to this and subsequent landscapes, so that it is fair to presume that the art of Seghers created the landscape art of Rembrandt as exemplified by The Three Trees and subsequent etchings, and through him the art of Philips de Koninck. ¶ Moreover the picture of Tobias and the Angel in the National Gallery is directly executed under the influence of Seghers, and I have already drawn attention to the similarity between the building of the sky in this picture and that of Lady Wantage’s. In view of these considerations it would seem that the champions of Philips de Koninck must show more adequate reasons before robbing Rembrandt of the authorship of this superb landscape.
EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARES
ILLUSTRATED BY PIECES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
❧ WRITTEN BY R. L. HOBSON ❧