King Francis I. (who met our Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold) bought the picture of Monna Lisa from the artist for a sum of money equal now to £20,000. It was on a visit to Francis that Leonardo died. "Monna Lisa" was the most valuable picture in the cabinet of Francis I. and was first hung there in 1545. It is very interesting to think that this work, the peculiar glory of the Gallery, should also be its nucleus, so to speak. The Venus of Milo and the Winged Victory, which I have grouped with "Monna Lisa" as its chief treasures, were not added until the last century.
Among other pictures in the Louvre which date from the inception of a royal collection in the brain of Francis I. are the "Virgin of the Rocks" by Leonardo, Raphael's "Sainte Famille" (No. 1498) and "Saint Michael," Andrea del Sarto's "Charité" and Piombo's "Visitation". Louis XIII. began his reign with about fifty pictures and increased them to two hundred, while under Louis XIV., the Louvre's most conspicuous friend, the royal collection grew from these two hundred to two thousand—assisted greatly by Colbert the financier, who bought for the Crown not only much of the collection of the banker Jabach of Cologne, the Pierpont Morgan of his day, who had acquired the art treasures of our own Charles I., but also the Mazarin bibelots. Under Louis XIV. and succeeding monarchs the pictures oscillated between the Louvre, the Luxembourg and Versailles. The Revolution centralised them in the Louvre, and on 8th November, 1793, the collection was made over to the public. During the first Republic one hundred thousand francs a year were set aside for the purchase of pictures.
But we are in the Salon Carré. Close beside "La Joconde" is that Raphael which gives me personally more pleasure than any of his pictures—the portrait, beautiful in greys and blacks, of Count Baldassare Castiglione, reproduced [opposite page 52]; here is a Correggio (No. 1117) bathed in a glory of light; here is a golden Giorgione; here is an allegory by Titian (No. 1589) not so miraculously coloured as the Correggio but wonderfully rich and beautiful; here is a little princess by Velasquez; and near it a haunting portrait of a young man (No. 1644) which has been attributed to many hands, but rests now as the work of Francia Bigio. I reproduce it [opposite page 70]. And that is but a fraction of the treasures of the Salon Carré. For there are other Titians, notably the portrait (No. 1592) of a young man with a glove (reproduced [opposite page 64]) marked by a beautiful gravity; other Raphaels, more characteristic, including "La Belle Jardinière" (No. 1496), filled with a rich deep calm; the sweetest Luini that I remember (No. 1354), and the immense "Marriage at Cana" by Paolo Veronese, which when I saw it recently was being laboriously engraved on copper by a gentleman in the middle of the room. It was odd to watch so careful a piece of translation in the actual making—to see Veronese's vast scene with its rich colouring and tremendous energy coming down into spider-like scratches on two square feet of hard metal. I did not know that such patience was any longer exercised. This picture, by the way, has a double interest—the general and the particular. As Whistler said of Switzerland, you may both admire the mountain and recognise the tourist on the top. It is full of portraits. The bride at the end of the table is Eleanor of Austria; at her side is Francis I. (who found his way into as many pictures as most men); next to him, in yellow, is Mary of England. The Sultan Suliman I. and the Emperor Charles V. are not absent. The musicians are the artist and his friends—Paul himself playing the 'cello, Tintoretto the piccolo, Titian the bass viol, and Bassano the flute. The lady with a toothpick is (alas!) Vittoria Colonna.
It is, by the way, always student-day at the Louvre—at least I never remember to have been there, except on Sundays, when copyists were not at work. Many of the copies are being made to order as altar pieces in new churches and for other definite purposes. Not all, however! A newspaper paragraph lying before me states that the authorities of the Louvre have five hundred unfinished copies on their hands, abandoned by their authors so thoroughly as never to be inquired for again. I am not surprised.
From the Salle Carré we enter the Grande Galerie, which begins with the Florentine School, and ends, a vast distance away, with Rembrandt. But first it is well to turn into the little Salle des Primitifs Italiens, a few steps on the right, for here are very rare and beautiful things: Botticelli's "Madonna with a child and John the Baptist" (No. 1296); Domenico Ghirlandaio's "Portrait of an old man and a boy" (No. 1322), which I reproduce [opposite page 136], that triumph of early realism, and his "Visitation" (No. 1321), with its joyful colouring, culminating in a glorious orange gown; Benedetto Ghirlandaio's "Christ on the way to Golgotha" (No. 1323, on the opposite wall), a fine hard red picture; two little Piero di Cosimos (on each side of the door), very mellow and gay—representing scenes in the marriage of Thetis and Peleus; Fra Filippo Lippi's "Madonna and Child with two sainted abbots" (No. 1344), and the "Nativity" next it (No. 1343); a sweet and lovely "Virgin and Child" (No. 1345) of the Fra Filippo Lippi school; another, also very beautiful, by Mainardi (No. 1367); a canvas of portraits, including Giotto and the painter himself, by Paolo Uccello (No. 1272), the very picture described by Vasari in the Lives; and Giotto's scenes in the life of St. Francis, in the frame of which, as we shall see, I once, for historical comparison, slipped the photograph of M. Henri Pol, charmeur des oiseaux. These I name; but much remains that will appeal even more to others.
To walk along the Grande Galerie is practically to traverse the history of art: Italian, Spanish, British, German, Flemish and Dutch paintings all hang here. Nothing is missing but the French, which, however, are very near at hand. Some lines of Landor which always come to my mind in a picture gallery I may quote hereabouts with peculiar fitness, and also with a desire to transfer the haunting—a very good one even if one does not agree with the reference to Rembrandt, which I do not:—
First bring me Raphael, who alone hath seen
In all her purity Heaven's Virgin Queen,
Alone hath felt true beauty; bring me then
Titian, ennobler of the noblest men;
And next the sweet Correggio, nor chastise
His little Cupids for those wicked eyes.
I want not Rubens's pink puffy bloom,
Nor Rembrandt's glimmer in a dirty room
With these, nor Poussin's nymph-frequented woods
His templed heights and long-drawn solitudes.
I am content, yet fain would look abroad
On one warm sunset of Ausonian Claude.
It is no province of this book to take the place of a catalogue; but I must mention a few pictures. The left wall is throughout, I may say, except in the case of the British pictures, the better. Here, very early, is the lovely "Holy Family" of Andrea del Sarto (No. 1515); here hang the four Leonardos which I have mentioned and certain of his derivatives; a beautiful Andrea Solario (No. 1530); a Lotto, very modern in feeling (No. 1350); a very striking "Salome" by Luini (1355), and the same painter's "Holy Family" (No. 1353); Mantegna; a fine Palma; Bellini; Antonello da Messina; more Titians, including "The Madonna with the rabbit" (No. 1578) and "Jupiter and Antiope" (No. 1587); a new portrait of a man in armour by Tintoretto, lately lent to the Louvre, one of his gravest and greatest; and so on to the sweet Umbrians—to Perugino and to Raphael, among whose pictures are two or three examples of his gay romantic manner, the most pleasing of which (No. 1509), "Apollo and Marsyas," is only conjecturally attributed to him.
We pass then to Spain—to Murillo, who is represented here both in his rapturous saccharine and his realistic moods, "La Naissance de la Vierge" (No. 1710) and "Le Jeune Mendicant" (No. 1717); to Velasquez, who, however, is no longer credited with the lively sketch of Spanish gentlemen (No. 1734); and to Zurbaran, the strong and merciless.
The British pictures are few but choice, including a very fine Raeburn, and landscapes by Constable and Bonington, two painters whom the French elevated to the rank of master and influence while we were still debating their merits. Such a landscape as "Le Cottage" (No. 1806) by Constable, with its rich English simplicity, brings one up with a kind of start in the midst of so much grandiosity and pomp. It is out of place here, and yet one is very happy to see it. From Britain we pass to the Flemish and Germans—to perfect Holbeins, including an Erasmus and Dürer; to Rubens, who, however, comes later in his full force, and to the gross and juicy Jordaens.