ARTICLE I.—PICTURES BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
IN almost every corner of these islands there is to be found hidden away amongst the trees or proudly standing on the summit of a hill one of those imposing ancestral homesteads which the British aristocracy have erected at various times ever since the Norman conquest. From the feudal castle of gothic architecture to the modern mansion replete with every comfort and household invention of the nineteenth century every style is represented. These buildings are geographical landmarks in the country, and nearly all are also landmarks in the artistic topography of Great Britain. Succeeding generations of owners have accumulated treasures which, severely guarded by family settlements, can only be dislodged under special conditions. In not a few instances the ancient furniture thus preserved, the objects of art and especially the pictures, the latter usually grouped round a nucleus of family portraits of successive periods, would rival many a public collection for the perfection of the examples, their artistic and monetary worth, and even their actual number. The more therefore is it to be regretted that they are so rarely accessible to the artist, the student, the public at large. A small percentage is, it is true, to be seen at the admirable loan exhibitions organized yearly at Burlington House and the Guildhall, and also from time to time in galleries governed by private enterprise; but these artistic feasts are all too rare, and even were the owners of fine works of art always willing to lend their property, which is not invariably the case, it would be impossible for all the objects worthy of being shown to pass in this way before the gaze of a single generation. Many are the masterpieces in this country which have not moved from their resting place for scores of years and which are, except to a privileged few, as completely unknown and invisible as the immensely distant stars which astronomers contemplate through their most powerful lens. ¶ The collection of pictures at Somerley, the Earl of Normanton’s beautiful seat near Ringwood in Hampshire, is one of those of whose very existence only a small minority is aware. The mansion, of late Georgian style, stands on the banks of the Avon in the midst of a park and estate extending over 9,000 acres, and is visited by only a small number of persons annually besides Lord Normanton’s immediate entourage. ¶ With a very few exceptions, the entire collection was formed between the years 1820 and 1868 by Welbore Ellis, second Earl of Normanton, and grandfather of the present peer. Born in 1778, he succeeded to the title in 1809, married Diana, eldest daughter of the eleventh Earl of Pembroke, in 1816, and died in his ninetieth year in 1868, leaving as a record of his taste and artistic knowledge the wonderful gallery of paintings which is the subject of this study. ¶ The collection is composed chiefly of pictures of the eighteenth-century English school, including works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Hoppner, Romney, Lawrence, Morland, Bonington, Nasmyth and Crome; it contains also pictures by some Flemish and Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, Rubens, Van Dyck and Teniers, Paul Potter, Van de Capelle, Aart van der Neer, Wouwerman and Willem van de Velde; Guardi and Canaletto represent the Italian; Murillo represents the Spanish school; whilst Greuze is the only French artist who has found a place at Somerley. The most striking feature of the collection is to be found in the predominance of works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, evidently the favourite painter of the second Lord Normanton, who acquired no fewer than twenty-six examples from his brush. ¶ For the sake of clearness and convenience, a description of the Normanton collection may be divided into three sections, namely:—
- The works by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
- The works by British painters other than Sir Joshua Reynolds.
- The works by painters of the foreign schools.
MISS MURRAY, OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS;
IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON.
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CHARITY
FAITH
HOPE
THE THREE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES; FROM THE PAINTINGS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS FOR THE WINDOW AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
¶ The group of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds is unparalleled in any other collection public or private all the world over; both by the number and the excellence of the examples, it is absolutely unique, and it would be well-nigh impossible at the present day for even a multi-millionaire to bring together a rival gathering of this one painter’s productions. ¶ All through his career as a collector, Lord Normanton continued to acquire examples of Sir Joshua’s work, but his most important single purchase was made as early as 1821 at the sale of the pictures of the Marchioness of Thomond, held at Christie’s on May 18 and 19 of that year. The Marchioness of Thomond was no other than Mary Palmer, daughter of Sir Joshua’s elder sister, and sister to pretty ‘Offy’ Palmer, afterwards Mrs. Gwatkin, whom her uncle so often used as a model for his fancy pictures, notably for the Strawberry Girl. When Sir Joshua died in 1792, he left the bulk of his property to his niece, Mary Palmer; she inherited nearly £100,000 besides a number of pictures and other works of art; the same year she married the fifth Earl of Inchiquin, subsequently created Marquess of Thomond. After her death in 1821, her pictures were sold at Christie’s, and that occasion may be said to mark the foundation of the Normanton collection. Lady Thomond’s sale included, besides many works by old masters, a large number of pictures and sketches by her illustrious uncle; and here Lord Normanton secured for less than £3,000 the wonderful series of seven decorative panels which have ever remained the chief ornament of his collection, and for which in recent years fabulous sums have been offered and refused. They represent the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the four cardinal virtues, Temperance, Prudence, Justice, and Fortitude. They are the original designs executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the window at New College, Oxford, and afterwards copied on glass by Jarvis. Ever since his school days at Westminster, Lord Normanton had known and admired these pictures at Lady Thomond’s. On the day of the sale, in answer to a suggestion of the auctioneer that the entire set should be sold together, the company present, which included the Dukes of Devonshire and Northumberland, Lords Egremont, Grosvenor, Bridgewater, Fitzwilliam, Dudley and Ward, and Harewood, Sir Charles Long on behalf of the king, and many other well-known picture buyers, decided that the Virtues should be offered separately. The Charity was put up first, and its purchase at 1,100 guineas by Lord Normanton, then a young man, created no small sensation. Lord Dudley and Ward eagerly competed for the Fortitude, for which his mother had sat to Sir Joshua, but that as well as the other six succumbed to Lord Normanton’s bidding. Seven years later an offer of twice the purchase price was made for them on behalf of the king, and again some few years afterwards the National Gallery tried in vain to tempt Lord Normanton with three times the original sum. ¶ As to the designs themselves, it had been the painter’s original intention to make them drawings or cartoons; but he soon found it would be easier for him to paint them in oils, so long had he been used to the brush and the palette. ‘Jarvis, the painter on glass,’ he said, ‘will have a better original to copy, and I suppose persons hereafter may be found to purchase my paintings.’ In this he was, however, disappointed, since the Virtues were still in his possession at his death. ¶In a letter written about 1778, Sir Joshua details the general plan for the Oxford window. ‘Supposing this scheme to take place, my idea is to paint, in the great space in the centre, Christ in the Manger, on the principle that Correggio has done it, in the famous picture called the Notte; making all the light proceed from Christ. These tricks of the art, as they may be called, seem to be more properly adapted to glass-painting than any other kind. This middle space will be filled with the Virgin, Christ, Joseph and angels; the two smaller spaces on each side I shall fill with the shepherds coming to worship; and the seven divisions below with the figures of Faith, Hope, Charity and the four cardinal virtues; which will make a proper rustic base or foundation for the support of the Christian Religion....’ ¶ The large central picture of the Nativity, measuring ten feet by eighteen, was sold by the artist to the Duke of Rutland for the then unprecedented price of 1,200 guineas. It was unfortunately destroyed in the fire at Belvoir in 1816. A powerful sketch of this subject on a small scale is, however, to be found at Somerley. ¶ The seven Virtues, which now hang side by side in the magnificent gallery built by the second Earl of Normanton, each measure 6 ft. 11 in. in height by 2 ft. 9 in. in width, except the central panel, Faith, which is taller and narrower than the others, namely, 8 ft. by 2 ft. 5 in. Charity is represented by a group of a woman clasping three children in her protecting arms, whilst all the rest contain but a single allegorical figure, with the special attributes consecrated by tradition. The most noteworthy feature of the entire series, and that which first strikes the onlooker, is its thoroughly and unmistakably English character. No straining after classicism, no copying or imitation of the Italians are to be found in this the most successful work of decoration ever painted by a British artist. In the Nativity, Reynolds was accused of a too servile imitation of Correggio, but certainly no such reproach can apply to the seven Virtues. In the conception or the execution, in the drawing or the colour, in the types of his models or the arrangement of the draperies, nowhere is a trace discernible of any foreign element. Reynolds represented the Virtues under the features of the lovely and refined English ladies whom he was accustomed to paint; the draperies in which they are clothed are dresses of the eighteenth century, simplified no doubt, and chastened, but sometimes scarcely altered, as in the case of Temperance and Prudence. He thus avoided the cold conventionality usually so apparent in allegorical paintings, whilst losing nothing in dignity or impressiveness; if one misses the spiritual elevation of the Italians, there is a corresponding gain in humanity, and that indefinable quality, charm.
TEMPERANCE
PRUDENCE
TWO OF THE CARDINAL VIRTUES FROM SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’S PAINTINGS FOR THE WINDOW AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
FORTITUDE
JUSTICE
TWO OF THE CARDINAL VIRTUES; FROM THE PAINTINGS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS FOR THE WINDOW AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
Faith is represented by the figure of a girl with a face of exquisite innocence and sweetness, expressive also of deep suffering and infinite resignation. Her plain white pilgrim’s robe is partly covered by a loose brown drapery falling around her in simple heavy folds; with her left hand she holds a tall wooden cross, the upper part of which is strongly outlined against the divine illumination which brightens the clouds above her; her right hand is uplifted towards heaven in an attitude of invocation. Hope is the least successful panel of the series. Clad in dull green draperies with a brown scarf flowing from her shoulders, she stands in a somewhat awkward position, her hands uplifted and her face averted towards the light which pours upon her through the clouds. Charity can, on the contrary, rank with the finest of Sir Joshua’s pictures; his model in this instance was Mrs. Sheridan, the lovely wife of the author of ‘School for Scandal,’ who had also sat to him for the figure of the Virgin in the Nativity. On her breast nestles a half-naked infant whom she lovingly supports with her left hand, whilst with the other she clasps in a close embrace two more children, a young girl and a curly-headed boy, who have run to her for protection; with an expression of rare tenderness and pity she gazes down upon her little charges. This picture is painted with exceptional power; the contrasts of light and shade are rendered with a perfection almost reminiscent of Rembrandt, whilst the composition is both strong and graceful. The two beautiful young women in whom Reynolds has impersonated Temperance and Prudence are clothed in white dresses of eighteenth-century design, bordered in the case of the second with a narrow gold braid. Mrs. Elizabeth Palmer, wife of the artist’s nephew, the Dean of Cashel, was the model for Prudence; she gazes thoughtfully into a mirror which she holds in her right hand; in the left she has an arrow round which an adder is entwined. Temperance is pouring water from a golden jug into a golden cup. In the two last panels, the figures stand full face to the spectator; the features of Justice are shaded by the balance which she raises to the level of her head; her loose robe, held by a girdle at the waist, is rose-coloured, and her right hand rests on the hilt of a naked sword. Fortitude (Lady Dudley and Ward) is the traditional figure of Britannia, a plumed helmet upon her noble head, a small golden breast-plate decorating her white robe, around which a dark red mantle is draped; the head of the watchful lion crouching at her feet is shown in the right-hand corner. ¶ Several other works by Sir Joshua were acquired by Lord Normanton besides the seven Virtues at Lady Thomond’s sale, including the expressive half-length portrait of himself, painted in 1769, in his robes of president of the Royal Academy, his right hand resting on a book. The delightful portrait of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Joshua’s friend Topham Beauclerk and his beautiful wife Lady Diana, represented as Spenser’s Una with the lion crouching at her side, came from the same source and cost only thirty-seven guineas. Elizabeth Beauclerk married in 1787 the Earl of Pembroke and was the mother of Diana, Lady Normanton, wife of the collector. Sir Joshua painted her about the year 1778 and showed her in a perfectly simple white frock, childishly sitting on her heels upon the ground. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders and her expression is one of thoughtful innocence. The foliage and landscape behind her are treated with great breadth and power; the more delicate parts of the picture, such as the face and hands, are on the contrary very smoothly painted; the marked difference in texture is explained by the fact that at this period Sir Joshua used a mixture of wax and Venice turpentine as a vehicle for the heads, and wax alone for other portions of his pictures where he wished to produce thicker impastos. The picture described in Lady Thomond’s catalogue as A Girl seated on her heels embracing a favourite Kitten, for which Lord Normanton gave 295 guineas, is one of several of the same delightful subject done by Sir Joshua and usually known as Felina. It was painted in 1787, and although Offy Palmer was by that time a grown-up young woman, it is her features when a child which her uncle has once more used. Witty and graceful, this picture bears witness to Sir Joshua’s supremacy as a limner of children. No one more than he succeeded in reproducing their quaint and charmingly awkward attitudes, and it would be difficult to find even in his works anything more delicious than this little dark-eyed damsel fondling her unhappy pet almost to the point of suffocation. The face is painted with great delicacy and a clearness of complexion unusual in Sir Joshua’s pictures; the background of foliage is unfortunately severely cracked, owing to an excessive use of treacherous bitumen. Miss Falconer (afterwards the Hon. Mrs. Stanhope) as Contemplation was also included in the Marchioness of Thomond’s collection, but was not bought at her sale by Lord Normanton. It was knocked down on that occasion for 100 guineas to a dealer, from whom it passed into the possession of Mr. John Allnutt, of Clapham Common, and it was only many years later that it was transferred into the Somerley collection of which it now forms part. The beautiful lady whom the painter has here represented, in a moonlit landscape, seated on a bank in a pensive attitude, was a well-known figure in the society of her day, where her high spirits and light-hearted gaiety made her a general favourite; the appearance of this portrait, so contrary to her character, excited no little comment at the time. In charm of expression and unaffected grace of pose this portrait is a truly delightful production. An interesting fact concerning it is that it is one of the few portraits by Reynolds painted on a panel; the artist, who, as is well known, was for ever making new experiments in the mediums he employed, selected on this occasion an old Japanese panel, and the reverse of the picture is to this day decorated with a still-life in bold relief, brilliant in colouring and of no mean artistic merit. ¶ In three life-size full-length portraits of young girls which hang in Lord Normanton’s gallery, it is instructive to compare the artist’s method of treatment of a similar subject at different periods of his career. These pictures are those of Lady Betty Hamilton, painted in 1758, of Miss Murray of Kirkcudbright, 1765, and that, some twenty years later in date, known for lack of a better title as The Little Gardener. In the first there is a richness of colour and a wealth of detail not to be found in either of the two others; the influence of Reynolds’s master, Hudson, is still clearly discernible, and the warmth and brilliance of the colouring must be traced to the immediate effects of the artist’s recent travels in Italy, where the gorgeous tones of the Venetians had filled him with a boundless admiration. In the two earlier portraits there is a simple artlessness of pose in striking contrast with the affected and self-conscious attitude of The Little Gardener, whilst the latter is far broader and more spontaneous in technique. ¶ The portrait of Lady Betty Hamilton, afterwards Countess of Derby, is unsurpassed by any work of Sir Joshua at this early period, and it may also be counted among the best of his child portraits. In a low-cut dress of plum-coloured embroidered silk, her wide skirt reaching to the ground, she sits on a bank in a garden; she has a white muslin pinafore bordered with lace, and her hands rest on her lap holding a bunch of vari-coloured flowers. The flesh-tints are somewhat faded, but the dreamy blue eyes and rosebud mouth expressive of happy childhood’s ignorance of evil and suffering, are a delight to look upon. She was a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and became the first wife of the twelfth Earl of Derby, who, after divorcing her, married Miss Farren the celebrated actress. In 1777 Reynolds painted another portrait of her as Countess of Derby, a whole-length which was engraved by William Dickinson; this picture has, however, disappeared, probably destroyed by her husband after his divorce. ¶ Little Miss Murray of Kirkcudbright in a plain white dress with a black silk scarf thrown over her head and shoulders and funny blue shoes, stands in a landscape, her hands loosely crossed in front of her. By her side sits a curious woolly white dog with black spots on its face, which has no appearance of life, and shows how inferior in this respect Sir Joshua was to Gainsborough, who stands with Velasquez among the greatest dog painters of the world. The landscape in this picture is of quite unusual excellence, and with the fine breezy sky forms an effective and pleasing background to the figure of the blue-eyed little Scotch girl. ¶ Who was the sitter for the portrait called The Little Gardener, it seems at the present time impossible to discover; it shows a pretty young girl sitting dreamily on a bank at the edge of a wood; she wears a white dress with a crimson sash, and with her right hand she loosely holds a straw bonnet decorated with pink ribbons.
THE LITTLE GARDENER, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
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PORTRAIT OF GEORGE, THIRD DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
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There is at Somerley only one male portrait of great importance by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This represents George, third Duke of Marlborough, and is a magnificent three-quarter length portrait. The duke wears a rich coat of brown embroidered silk and a mantle of crimson velvet bordered with white fur thrown over his right shoulder; his left arm rests upon a column, and the upper portion of the body is outlined against a beautiful sky background. The pose is evidently inspired by Van Dyck, and the portrait lacks none of the dignity and elegance of the older master. An almost exactly similar painting is in the possession of the Earl of Pembroke, in which however the duke’s dark dress is replaced by one of white embroidered satin. ¶ Some dozen portraits of the usual half-length format (about 30 in. by 25 in.) are contained in the Normanton collection, and not a few of them are of superlative quality. Among the most pleasing is that of the Misses Horneck, as original as it is graceful in composition; many failures have resulted from the attempt thus to group two life-size heads in so small a space, but Sir Joshua has here admirably succeeded in avoiding stiffness and crowding while preserving perfect pictorial unity. Painted in a light key about the year 1775, this picture is in a wonderful state of preservation, having retained all its freshness of tone and delicacy of modelling. An unfinished sketch of the same subject, slightly larger in size, belongs to Sir Henry Bunbury, a descendant of the elder sister’s husband, the caricaturist, Henry William Bunbury. Mrs. Bunbury (Catharine Horneck), who is seen on the right of the group, was Goldsmith’s ‘Little Comedy,’ whilst her sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Gwyn, is celebrated by him as ‘The Jessamy Bride.’ The excellent though slightly faded portrait of Miss Anne Liddell was bought by the second Lord Normanton at Christie’s in May, 1867, at the sale of Mr. H. A. J. Munro, of Novar, for 225 guineas. Miss Liddell, who is represented in a black low-cut dress and black cloak trimmed with white fur, holding some flowers in her right hand, was a daughter of Lord Ravensworth; she became Duchess of Grafton, and after divorcing in 1769 married the Earl of Upper Ossory. The pair of heads of the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, painted within the last years of the artist’s life, cost Lord Normanton only 30 guineas in 1827. Lord and Lady Pembroke were the parents of Diana, Lady Normanton, and the countess is the same lady whom Sir Joshua represented some years previously as Una with the lion; she wears her peeress’s robes of crimson and ermine over a white low-necked dress, and the earl is in uniform of red and gold. It is interesting to find side by side with these examples of the end of the painter’s career the picture of A Boy Reading, which is inscribed ‘1747, Ja Reynolds pinxit Nov.’ and which is one of the earliest known works of the artist, when he was only twenty-three years of age. It is said to be a portrait of himself, but this is by no means certain, although the boy’s features bear a certain resemblance to those of Sir Joshua. With hair falling over his shoulders, and arms leaning on a table, he reads from a large book which he holds open with both hands; four more books lie on the table beside him. It is related that on seeing this picture after an interval of many years Sir Joshua remarked that he had made but little progress since he painted it. Although this observation must not be taken too literally, there is no doubt that even at this early period he exhibited uncommon mastery of his art. To an early period also, probably between 1755 and 1760, the portrait of Lady Charlotte Johnstone, daughter of the first Earl of Halifax, and that of Mrs. Russell, daughter of Mr. Flountia Vassall, are shown to belong by the marked attention paid to detail, by a certain tightness of drawing, and also by the faded flesh-tints due to Reynolds’s excessive use at this time of brilliant but unstable carmine. Both are painted in profile, wearing rich dresses of similar pattern, with pearls in their ears and round their throat. Probably a little later in date is the very decorative and somewhat French-looking portrait of Miss Meux (engraved as Miss Muse); she wears a Louis XV costume, the bodice all tucks and frills, and a flat gipsy straw hat trimmed with pink ribbons; she has two rows of pearls round her throat, and the muslin gimp which covers her breast is spotted with little pink rosettes. This is no doubt the picture which Lord Normanton bought for 135 gns. at the Novar sale in 1867, and which was then said to be a portrait of Fanny Reynolds (Sir Joshua’s sister). Another beautiful half-length picture is that of the actress Mrs. Quarrington, as St. Agnes, in a brown dress over which hangs a dark green mantle. She holds a lamb in her arms and a palm branch in her left hand; the pathetic face, surrounded by her loose locks of hair, is upturned in an attitude of prayer. Nor must mention be omitted of a pretty and powerful octagonal study of a little girl’s head with pearls in her hair, the shoulders covered with a light white drapery. ¶ The oval portrait of Mrs. Inchbald is catalogued in more than one volume of recent date as a work by Sir Joshua; it is, however, hard and unconvincing, and the flesh and black dress are too weakly painted not to leave a doubt in one’s mind whether it is not rather the production of one of Reynolds’s pupils, most probably Northcote. It is difficult also to admit the portrait of Admiral Barrington to be entirely from the master’s hand; there is a similar portrait by him in Greenwich Hospital, and it is known that six replicas were made at the time in Sir Joshua’s studio; this is one of them, and, although painted under his supervision, it is probable that his own brush took but little part in the work. Possibly a replica of the famous picture in the Chamberlayne collection, but also more probably the work of a contemporary copyist, is the Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, a subject rendered familiar by numerous engravings, notably Bartolozzi’s beautiful colour-print. No doubt whatever is possible in the case of The Little Archer, the figure of a boy lying full length in a landscape; here the methods of Sir Joshua are palpably imitated, but the poor drawing and the ugly obtrusiveness of the boy’s white stockings preclude any possibility of the master having in any way contributed to its painting. ¶ A number of acknowledged copies of pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds are also to be found at Somerley, and some are not devoid of merit. Among the best may be mentioned Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, painted by the Duchess of Buckingham, from the original now at Grosvenor House, of which a genuine replica hangs at Dulwich; also Mrs. Gwyn in Persian costume, a good contemporary reproduction of the picture which belongs to Mr. W. W. Astor. ¶ It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this group of pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the genius of the Royal Academy’s first president is displayed at Somerley in its every phase, and each period of his career is represented by one or more works of the highest artistic value; there, he can be studied as it is impossible to study him elsewhere, at the same time that a comparison can be made with masterpieces of other great English painters which hang in Lord Normanton’s magnificent gallery.
STUDY OF A LITTLE GIRL, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
THE MISSES HORNECK, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF NORMANTON
HIGH WARP TAPESTRY, LOUIS XIV VISITING THE ROYAL FURNITURE MANUFACTORY AT THE GOBELINS, AFTER CHARLES LE BRUN. LOUVRE
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FRENCH FURNITURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES[83]
❧ WRITTEN BY ÉMILE MOLINIER ❧
ARTICLE II.—THE LOUIS XIV STYLE—(continued)
THE GOBELINS
IT would certainly be unfair to consider Louis XIV and espeacially Colbert, from the point of view of the part played of the royal manufactory of crown furniture at the Gobelins, as being merely unconscious instruments. There is no doubt that a formal act of will on their part entered into this creation. But, once having done this justice, especially to Colbert, we are bound to remark, if we would wish to take a sane view of events, that an institution of this kind was, at the moment when it was established in France, the result of a series of previous efforts, all turned in the same direction; was the result also of a general movement of centralization which was to be one of the sources of weakness, of the system of government adopted in France. ¶ The founding of the academy of painting and sculpture had completed the organization of art in the great sense; the founding of the manufactory of the Gobelins was destined to bring about the centralization of the minor arts and to strike a blow at the old edifice of the rules of the corporations. We must make no mistake: from the artistic point of view, the monarchy largely began the salutary work of emancipation which the French Revolution was to complete, and we may well be surprised that right-minded persons should discover a source of weakness and decadence in the modifications introduced into the life of the workshops. To be logical we should have to blame the monarchy itself, which, nearly 150 years before the Revolution, began, by a devious course it is true, to take away all force from restrictive laws, from rules and regulations which already seemed out of date at the end of the middle ages. It will be seen that, though the complete abolition of the rules of the corporations did, in certain cases, become a cause of confusion, we should do wrong to look upon it as the sole cause of the degeneration in artistic feeling in the minor arts at the commencement of the nineteenth century. The suppression of the corporations under the Revolution was as inevitable an event as was under Louis XIV the establishment of official artistic workshops. The whole lay in the manner of setting to work to decree those two measures. ¶ To second his views, Colbert was fortunate enough to have at hand an exceptional man, one who was at the same time an organizer and an artist, two qualities rarely united in one and the same brain; and he also had the good sense to select him in spite of appearances. He did more, for after selecting him he left him the most complete liberty. And yet Charles Le Brun might have passed as suspect in the minds of both the king and Colbert. ¶ Born in Paris on February 24, 1619, Charles Le Brun was the son of Nicholas Le Brun, a sculptor. His first masters were Perrier, a Burgundian painter, and Simon Vouet; and it was doubtless through Vouet’s intermediary that he became acquainted with the Chancellor Séguier, in whom he was later to find a firm friend and a constant protector. Some works executed for the Cardinal de Richelieu earned for him the title of painter to the king in 1638. In 1642, he accompanied Nicolas Poussin to Rome and was admitted as a master-painter into the corporation. He returned to Paris in 1646, received the title of valet de chambre to the king, and married Suzanne Butay, a painter’s daughter. ¶ A law-suit between the wardens of the Gild of Painters and the king’s painters, the so-called ‘patent painters,’ suddenly made Le Brun conspicuous, and, after the favourable decision pronounced by the parliament, with the support of Séguier he contributed not a little towards the definite foundation of the academy of painting (1648). But, while fighting strenuously for the principles of his art, Le Brun neglected no opportunity of practising it, and executed for a number of Paris mansions a series of large decorative compositions, for which he had acquired the taste in Italy. The houses of Bertrand de la Bazinière, treasurer of the Épargne; of Marshal d’Aumont; of the Chevalier de Jars; of Inselin, treasurer of the Chambre aux Deniers; of Lambert de Thorigny, president of the Chambre des Comptes, were decorated by him in turns. In the last of these mansions he painted the Galerie d’Hercule, which still exists, and the sight of which eventually determined the Superintendent Fouquet to send for Le Brun to Vaux (1657). Here, in the sumptuous residence of Vaux, of which Fouquet was to have the enjoyment for so short a while, Le Brun displayed his full powers. He not only painted or designed such compositions as the Apothéose d’Hercule, the Triomphe de la Fidélité, L’Aurore, Le Sommeil, the Palais du Soleil, but he also directed the sculptors, ornament workers and silversmiths, the tapestry workers and embroiderers, and managed the manufactory of high-warp tapestry established by Fouquet at Maincy. He supplied so large a number of models and cartoons for tapestry, that many of his compositions could be executed only much later at the manufactory of the Gobelins; the Chasses de Méléagre, Mars et Venus, Jupiter allaité par la chèvre Amalthée, five pieces representing the history of Constantine, the Muses, all bear witness to the prodigious fertility of an artist who, like the great Italians of the Renaissance, was lavish in production while developing his admirable administrative qualities. ¶ If these gigantic works at the Château de Vaux had not succeeded in earning for him the esteem of Mazarin and of the queen-mother, Anne of Austria, and also in drawing the attention of the king (for Le Brun was the organizer of the great fêtes given by the Superintendent in 1659), it might have happened that our artist would have incurred the same disgrace as his patron. Very fortunately this was not so; for once talent was able to silence envy, and Le Brun was admirably served by circumstances. In 1660, the king ordered a large picture of him, Alexandre pénétrant dans la tente de Darius, and the city of Paris instructed him to erect a triumphal arch on the Place Dauphine for the entry into Paris of Louis XIV and his queen, Maria Theresa. In 1661 he entered into relations with Colbert; in 1662 he received the much-coveted title of ‘first painter to the king.’ We see, therefore, that his connexion with Fouquet—and it does not seem that Le Brun was ever placed in the painful situation of having to deny the man who had enabled him to make his mark—so far from harming him, had, on the contrary, done him good service. Perhaps the king, at the same time that Colbert began to suspect his exceptional powers as an organizer and administrator, recognized in Le Brun one of those men who were to be so useful to his thirst for stately glory and royal pomp.
GOBELIN TAPESTRY, PSYCHE’S BATH, BY LE LORRAIN; END OF LOUIS XIV; IN THE LOUVRE
SECTION OF THE BORDER OF THE SAME TAPESTRY
A MARQUETRY BUREAU BY ANDRÉ CHARLES BOULE IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU
A BOOK CASE BY ANDRÉ CHARLES BOULE
One last circumstance enabled Le Brun to make himself absolutely indispensable to the king’s glory. On February 6, 1661, the first floor of the small gallery of the Louvre was almost totally destroyed by fire. Our artist was commissioned to renew its decoration; he made of this a monument to the glory of Apollo, the god of the sun, a delicate attention which enabled him to indulge in more or less delicate allusions with his brush to the king himself. All the works—which, for that matter, were never finished under Louis XIV: the works at the other royal residences, and particularly at Versailles, thrust the Galerie d’Apollon into the background—were directed solely by Le Brun: he got together a little army of sculptors and decorators, among whom we recall the names of Gaspard and Balthazar de Marsy, François Girardon, Thomas Regnauldin, Monnoyer, the brothers Lemoyne and Ballin, whose fortunes were thenceforth closely linked with those of the first painter to the king. ¶ The letters patent of Louis XIV instituting the ‘royal manufactory of crown furniture’ are dated November 1667, but they sanction a state of things that existed as far back as 1663. I shall analyse briefly this deed of foundation, most of whose dispositions it is very important for us to know, showing as they do how the machinery of administration was capable of being simplified in the seventeenth century. Let me here remind my readers that the name of ‘Gobelins,’ which to-day serves to designate the tapestries issuing from the famous manufactory, dates back to the fifteenth century. At that time a dyer called Jean Gobelin, a native of Rheims, settled on the banks of the little river Bièvre. His trade prospered so well that his name was given to his house and workshop, near to which came to live Marc de Comano and François de la Planche, the Flemish upholsterers installed in Paris by Henry IV. In 1662 Colbert joined the old house of the Gobelins to the workshops of the descendants of Comano and La Planche; and on these premises was installed the new manufactory which was destined to perpetuate the memory of the name of the humble dyer of the fifteenth century.
(To be continued.)