Bellin was a designer and worker in plaster. He is called in the English accounts both “carver” and “moulder,” as well as “paynter.” His name appears in the French royal accounts between 1517 and 1533, and M. Dimier infers from lack of any later reference to his name, that he died shortly after the latter date; but he had, in reality, moved over to England. He took a considerable share in the decoration of Fontainebleau, where he worked under Primaticcio, and perhaps under Rosso, upon the ornamental borders and decorations in plaster and stucco with which the various wall-paintings were surrounded. “All visitors to Fontainebleau,” says M. Dimier,[[625]] “carry away a recollection of the extraordinary mixture of painting and sculptured ornament displayed in the gallery. The high relief and the abundance of the stucco, which hems in the pictures on all sides and in places even overlaps their edges, make a unique and inspiring effect, in which the balance of the two arts would have been disturbed if Rosso had not scattered among the stuccos little cartouches of painting and placed grounds of gold behind them charged with paintings in varied colours.” This was the kind of work upon which Bellin was employed in France, as can be gathered from the following entry in the “Account of Nicolas Picart,” which was lot 466 in the sale of the late Sir Thomas Phillips’ collections, 1903: “A Nicolas Bellin dit Modène, painctre, la somme de cent livres tournois ... pour cinq mois entiers qu’il avoit vacqué et besongné avec Francisque de Primadicis dit de Boullongne, aussi painctre, es ouvraiges de stucq et paincture encommancez à faire pour le roy nostre dit seigneur, en sa chambre de la grosse tour de son chasteau au dit Fontainebleau, à 20 livres par mois.”[[626]]
NICOLAS BELLIN OF MODENA
By 1538 he was already in the service of the King of England, for in December in that year he received a quarter’s wages, on a warrant dated on the previous 21st April, at the rate of £10 a year, and 20s. a year for his livery.[[627]] He is styled Nic. (Nicolas) de Modecio, but in the following March (1539) he appears as Nicholas de Modena.[[628]] Bellin did not come to England entirely of his own free will. He was, in fact, obliged to fly from France, and the King and his ministers made every effort to get him back again. Francis I wrote to Marillac, his ambassador in London, on 10th September 1540,[[629]] drawing his attention to the fact that some time earlier he had demanded “a subject and servant named Modena, who should be confronted with the president Gentils (also spelt Gentilz and Jentill) upon certain malversions he had made, but he has not been sent,” and Marillac is ordered to make lively remonstrances thereupon. From the ambassador’s reply,[[630]] of a week later, it is to be gathered that Modena, who is described as one of the accomplices of the President Gentilz, had been delivered by Henry’s Council, in the spring of 1538, to the Bishop of Tarbes, then representing Francis in London, but had not been permitted to be sent to France, “as he was a native of Italy, although of Milan, which, they knew, belonged to Francis.” Marillac is afraid that the same reasons will again be alleged against his extradition, and in writing to Montmorency, the Grand Constable, on the same date,[[631]] says that he will make representations to the King’s Council touching Modena, “about whom they are sure to make difficulty, as he is an Italian.” Sir John Wallop, the English ambassador to France, also wrote about the matter to Henry VIII, informing him that Modena was wanted “about an account of 100,000 crowns of which President Jentill beguiled the King.”[[632]] Henry in his answer said, “as for Modena, he (Francis) never demanded him as a traitor according to the treaty, yet Henry gave him up to the French ambassador (the Bishop of Tarbes) at his request, and the latter afterwards put him at liberty.”[[633]] The Council wrote to the same effect, saying, “the King is not bound to deliver him, as he is not a French subject, but born in the duchy of Milan, being in the Emperor’s hands. And the King said that when the French King should be Duke of Milan he would be ready to observe the treaties.”[[634]] In a final letter to Francis on 21st October 1540, Marillac calls Modena a “painter and sculptor,” and says that “the King said he would not speak of Modena until justice had been done in his own case” (i.e. the detention in France of Blanche Rose).[[635]] A further interesting reference to Modena is to be found in a long letter from Wallop to Henry VIII, written from Melun on 17th November 1540, in which he describes a visit to Fontainebleau and an interview with Francis.[[636]] The letter also shows how keen an interest the two kings took in one another’s building operations, and their willingness to assist one another with materials and designs. Francis asked Wallop many questions about Hampton Court, and said that he had heard that Henry used much gilding in his houses, especially in the roofs, but for his part he preferred natural wood, “as ebony, brasell, &c., which was more durable; he would show me Fontainebleau, especially his gallery there. He has found mines of marble nigh the sea-side, white at Marguyson, and black at Sherbroke (Cherbourg), and you might have some for nothing if you liked to send for it; also divers moulds of antique personnages that he hath now coming out of Italy, with which he shall have done within three or four months.” Wallop then describes a visit to “Fountayne de Bleawe” on the following Sunday, when the King showed him the “antycall borders” in his bedchamber, helping him to mount a bench that was too high for him, in order that he might examine them more closely. Francis afterwards showed him the Gallery, which Wallop describes, and refers Henry to “Modon, who wrought there at the beginning,” for details. One side of the gallery, he says, “is all antique of suche stuff as the said Modon makith your Majesties chemenyes.”[[637]] Such things, he adds, would suit the gallery at St. James’s, and the French King would gladly give the pattern.
By a warrant of 14th January 1540[[638]] the wages of “Nicholas de Modeno” were increased to £20 a year, and on 3rd October 1541 he received a patent of denization, with licence to have two apprentices and four journeymen or “covenant servants,” in which he is described as “Nic. Bellin, a native of the city of Modena, in Italy, in the dominions of the Duke of Ferrara.”[[639]] According to Mr. Nichols,[[640]] on New Year’s Day 1534, among the royal rewards was one “to Nicolas Modena, that brought the King a story of Abraham,” 6s. 8d. (i.e. to his servant). This is not given in the abstract in the State Papers, but, if correct, would seem to prove that Modena was in England some years before he was regularly employed in the royal service, and earlier than the letters with reference to his extradition suggest. The last year in which he is mentioned in the French accounts is 1533, which agrees with a possible arrival in England towards the end of that year, when he might seek to draw attention to his abilities by presenting a picture to the King. There appears, however, to be no further reference to him until 1538.
NICOLAS BELLIN OF MODENA
In the autumn of 1546 he was engaged upon work for some Revels at Hampton Court, arranged for the entertainment of the Admiral of France, for which he received £15. “Nich’as Modena, paynt’, for garments of here (hair) upon lether, for wildme’, to s’ve for torcheberers, wth thayr hed peces, staves, and clubbes, taken in great for all, 15li.”[[641]] These wildmen were satyrs or savage green-men, so much in vogue in mimic entertainments of this period. Modena was also engaged in freshening up and altering a certain Mount, used in some Revels for the Coronation festivities of Edward VI, this mount being probably the same apparatus for a pageant which had been employed some forty years before, in the reign of Henry VIII, and had been laid up in the store of the Master of the Revels as a valuable piece of machinery. The entry runs:[[642]] “To Nych’as Modena, stranger, for as well his owne wages and 22 other carvers’ wages, workeing upon the mouldyd w’ke appertayning to the mount, as also for clay, plaster parys, sewett, whyte paper, flower, glewe, syes, wax, here, colis (coals) for drying, with other necessaries.” It will be noticed that he is still termed stranger, though possessed of a patent of denization.
In the following year, at Shrovetide 1548, he is termed “moulder”—“Nicholas Modena, moulder, for 6 heads of heres (hair) for masks a’ 10s., 60s.; trimming, colorg, and lyning 16 vysowres, at 12d., 16s.”[[643]] In the roll of New Year’s gifts 1552, received by the King, is an entry showing that he presented a picture. “By Modeno a feire picture paynted of the Frenche King his hoole personage, sett in a frame of wodde,” and there was given in return “To Modeno, an Italian, oone guilte salte with a cover,” weighing x oz. iij qrt’ di.” Another picture by him, the portrait of a boy, was in the Arundel Collection, and is entered in the 1655 inventory as “Ritratto d’un fanciullo,” by “Nicolo da Modena.”
At the funeral of King Edward VI, “Modena, maker of the King’s picture,” received four yards of black cloth, and he is mentioned again as “Nicholas Modena, kerver, four yards.” The “King’s picture” referred to in this extract was not a painting, but the coloured effigy carried and displayed on the King’s coffin, as was the usual custom. Machyn, in his Diary, in his account of the same funeral, uses the term “picture” for the effigy—“then the chariot covered with cloth of gold, and on the chariot lay a picture, lying richly with a crown of gold, and a great collar, and a sceptre in his hand, lying in his robes, and the garter about his leg, and a coat in embroidery in gold.”[[644]] Modena’s share in this effigy would be the modelling of the head in the likeness of the King. Sir George Scharf[[645]] suggested that the very beautiful little whole-length figure of Henry VIII, carved in buff honestone, belonging to Mr. H. Dent-Brocklehurst, last exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (Case A, No. 28), was the work of Nicolas Modena. It was apparently founded on Holbein’s Whitehall painting of the King. “It has evidently been painted, as traces of blue and crimson on the dress still remain in some of the hollows.” Sir George drew attention to the similarity of this exquisite piece of work, in its wooden frame, to Modena’s gift to Edward VI of the fair painted picture of the French king, whole length, set in a frame of wood, mentioned above.
GIROLAMO PENNACCHI DA TREVISO
Another Italian painter of considerable distinction who was in England during the latter part of Henry’s reign, was Girolamo Pennacchi da Treviso, son and pupil of Piermaria Pennacchi, born at Treviso in 1497, an imitator of Raphael, who worked chiefly at Bologna, Venice, and Genoa, and, so Vasari relates, came to England mainly on account of his unsuccessful rivalry with Perino del Vaga.[[646]] According to the same authority he was a good portrait-painter, and in England received encouragement and patronage from the King. “In his service he exercised his talents as architect and engineer. He erected buildings in the Italian style which delighted and surprised the King beyond measure, who constantly loaded him with gifts, and assigned him a stipend of 400 scudi a year, giving him leave also to build himself a handsome house at the King’s own expense. Girolamo lived most happily, and in the utmost content, thanking God and his good fortune for having placed him in a country where his merits were so well appreciated. But this unusual happiness did not last long; he went in his capacity of engineer to inspect the fortifications of Boulogne, during the siege, where a cannon-ball struck him lifeless off his horse. He thus died in 1544, at the early age of thirty-six.”[[647]] He painted chiefly in fresco, so that little of his work remains. There is an important example of his art in the National Gallery, No. 623, an altar-piece painted for the Boccaferi Chapel in the Church of San Domenico at Bologna, representing the Virgin and Child enthroned, with SS. Joseph, James, and Paul, which was formerly in the Solly and Northwick collections. There is no other work in this country which can be pointed out as being with any certainty from his brush, but Sir George Scharf was of opinion that the striking full-length portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham at the age of twenty-six, dated 1544, in Mercer’s Hall, is, by its superior merit and its accordance in many respects with the style of Girolamo, in all probability by that painter, and also the portrait of the Earl of Surrey at Knole, attributed to Guillim or Gillam Stretes. The portrait of Sir Anthony Wingfield, lent by Mr. T. Humphry Ward to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition in 1909 (No. 56, attributed to Holbein), is also suggested, by the compilers of the catalogue, as a possible work of the same artist. He is generally referred to in the royal accounts as “Hierome Trevix Bollonia” or “Jeronimo Italion,” and received a salary of £25 a quarter. It may be inferred from Vasari’s statement as to his erecting buildings in the Italian style, that he was employed at Nonsuch.