PICTURES
The latest acquisitions consist, in the first place, of two large landscapes by Salomon van Ruysdael. The photographs reproduced avoid the necessity of a detailed description. One of them is from a collection at Montpellier, the other from an Austrian collection. They both present large views of nature, very peaceful and very simple, banks of wide and sluggish rivers such as the first generation of the Dutch seventeenth-century landscape men loved to depict. The museum at Rotterdam possesses a picture by this same van Ruysdael; and we know that his contemporary, Jan van Goyen, who was his rival rather than his master, also took a special delight in painting the environs of that city on the banks of the Maas, with its great sheet of water spread calmly and majestically under the sky laden with grey or copper-coloured clouds. Do we find ourselves here in the same environs of Dordrecht? Probably; although it is impossible to assert this absolutely. ¶ One thing is certain, which is that the workmanship of these two pictures very closely approaches that of the other paintings attributed by modern critics to the uncle of the great Jacob van Ruysdael, as it does that of many other landscapes of that period. Although they do not descend to the almost monochrome appearance of certain van Goyens, brown and yellowish tones predominate, and a certain and rather monotonous uniformity stands revealed, notably in the clump of trees that forms the centre of one of the two compositions. But the moist and cloudy skies are filled with light: one, in the landscape with the two towers, has gaps through which appears a pale blue, with rosy streaks in the direction of the horizon; the other is a little greyer and sadder. A whole crowd of figures, all standing out clearly against the background, fills the bank and the river itself, on which barges are carrying herds and shepherds from one side of the river to the other. A group of horsemen of quality, in the landscape with the church, reminds us very closely of those which we see in the Halt at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This last picture is dated 1660. But it is much more complicated in composition and more compact in execution than are our two landscapes at the Louvre. The latter seem to belong to a less advanced period of the artist’s career, and are doubtless nearer the Pesth landscape (1631), the first that is known to us after the artist’s registry on the roll of the gild of St. Luke at Haarlem. In any case, these are two very fine museum-pieces, and most worthily represent the earlier of the two Ruysdaels at the Louvre, where as yet he was hardly represented at all, beside those unquestionable master-pieces of his nephew, the Dykes, the Thicket, and the landscape known as the Coup de soleil. ¶ As for the French picture which is also newly hung, this is the portrait of a woman, signed ‘L. Tocqué, 1793.’ It was exhibited at the Salon of the same year, and represents a certain Dame Danger, a perfectly unknown lady. It was, therefore, no iconographic interest that drew the attention of the keepers of the Louvre to this portrait, but rather the intrinsic charm of this very intimate and searching picture of a woman of the fashionable middle-class of the eighteenth century and the merit of its very simple and harmonious execution. Jean Louis Tocqué was already abundantly represented at the Louvre, but chiefly by those official portraits of artist-academicians, of princes and princesses, which made his fortune, which sent him as far abroad as Sweden, Russia and Denmark, but which perhaps charm us less to-day than do those simple and discreet figures which make the society of the eighteenth century itself live once more before our eyes. This picture has been hung not far from the supposed portrait of Madame de Graffigny and from that of a man unknown, by the same artist, and these three figures of unknown persons, to whom we cannot help ascribing a wealth of wit and intelligence, form a charming trio together. ¶ The new-comer is engaged in parfilage or ‘unravelling.’ This occupation was greatly in fashion at the time; it formed an easy work which kept the fingers busy without interfering with conversation. The gold threads were separated from the silks of some piece of lace-work or embroidery and rolled on a special shuttle (we have preserved some that are marvels of delicate carving). Neither the eyes nor the mind needed to be kept fixed on this light labour, as we see in the present case, where the lady, who is no longer in her first youth under her powdered hair, but who still wears a seductively young appearance, looks up at her visitor or interlocutor with a calm and gentle gaze. She wears a grey fur cloak over a vieux-rose skirt; and the whole forms with the blues of the sofa on which she is seated a rare and delicate harmony which is one of the principal qualities of this picture.
PAUL VITRY.
PORTRAIT OF DAME DANGER, BY LOUIS TOCQUÉ; RECENTLY ADDED TO THE LOUVRE
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