July 3.
I have not yet, I believe, spoken of more than one or two of the pictures that uncle bought while in Europe the first time. He then spent ten thousand dollars on paintings, a piece or two of sculpture, and a few little curiosities of art in the way of mosaics and antiquities from different ruins of Italy, which, for a man who was by no means a Stewart or an Astor, showed great liberality. Uncle could not afford, like ostentatious millionnaires, to dazzle the public with paintings bought by the yard; but for a man of his means he displayed, I think, a true love for art and a strong desire to encourage it. His purchases, too, were very different from the second-rate pictures so often purchased abroad by uncultivated eyes, for instead of depending merely upon his own judgment, he asked the assistance of the sculptor Story in choosing his souvenirs; and his collection, though small, is admirable, containing two or three bonâ-fide old masters, purchased at the sales of private galleries in Florence and Rome.
The pictures, like the books, have been kept hitherto in the house in the woods, but this spring Ida moved them all to the roadside house that we might constantly enjoy them, and the parlor now presents quite the appearance of a museum. It is over the music-room, and its long French windows open upon a balcony, from which we daily admire our tender, Italian-like sunsets. To the right it is overhung by the branches of our favorite apple-tree, from whose clusters of tiny fruit we each chose an apple some days since. Gabrielle then marked them with the owner's initial cut out of paper, the form of which we will find in the autumn indelibly impressed in the apple's rosy cheek.
But to return to our museum. Upon ascending the stairs one's eyes first rest upon the "very saddest face ever painted or conceived," as Hawthorne describes the beautiful Cenci. While in Rome I resided upon the Piazza Barberini, opposite the palace containing this exquisite painting, and I visited it with a devotion almost equalling Hilda's. Much excitement prevailed that winter in art circles concerning the authenticity of this picture, and hot discussions took place wherever the believers and unbelievers chanced to meet. No possible proof existed, one party would declare, that Guido had ever painted Beatrice Cenci; and no one had thought of it as other than a fancy head until Shelley had aroused the interest of the public in the half-forgotten tragedy of poor Beatrice's sad life by the sombre drama, "The Cenci." From that time, they say, caprice has christened this picture Beatrice Cenci, and Hawthorne has added much to its interest by the prominence he gives it in the "Marble Faun." They, however, are unable to find the traces of sorrow, the "tear-stained cheeks" and "eyes that have wept till they can weep no more," so eloquently described by all writers and art-critics of the present day; and so far I agree with them—the face does not impress me with such depths of woe.
Their opponents, however, hold the time-honored tradition that Guido painted Beatrice in her cell upon the morning of her execution, or as she stood upon the scaffold—for there are two versions of the story—and that the gown and turban which she wears were made by her own hands on the night preceding the fatal day. But no words of mine can give a fair idea of this celebrated painting: I will transcribe Hawthorne's description of it.
"The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single feature, nor was it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness. But in fact it was the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which—while yet her face is so close before us—makes us shiver as at a spectre."
Next to the Cenci a St. Francis hangs, his hands devoutly folded and his head bowed in pious meditation upon the sufferings of his Redeemer, whose figure bound upon the Cross lies before him. The skull at his feet and the dreary landscape surrounding him indicate his hermit-life of isolation and penance. The Saint is dressed in the coarse brown habit of a mendicant friar, and his face is luminous with that gentleness that distinguished his character after his conversion; for it is recorded of him that he would step aside rather than harm the smallest insect.
Above St. Francis is one of the most precious gems, historically and intrinsically considered, of the collection. The picture is small—only cabinet size; but it is none the less valuable on that account, when we reflect that it dates from the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century. It is a portrait of Galileo painted from life by Andrea Bartone, and was bought at a sale of the Santi Gallery. Only the head and bust are represented—the latter clothed in a dark-brown open vest, with a scarlet mantle thrown over the shoulders; but the face is one that would not easily be forgotten—a rugged, powerful face, with great, earnest eyes, scant hair well sprinkled with gray, and deep furrows lining the dark brow.
Over the doorway, opening into the room that was formerly Aunt Mary's, is an antique marble medallion of Juno, the haughty Mother of the gods; this was dug up near Tusculum.
Next comes an exquisite Madonna and Child by Carlo Dolce (a copy). The mother's face is youthful and radiant with divine beauty: the Infant Jesus stands upon her knee, and extends a plump little hand in benediction.