"I am, I hope, in the last week of my stay in this paradise of mud, and fricandeaus. God! what additional ecstasies you have lost by your precipitate flight! So many pictures, which would have exercised your critical faculty; the Apotheosis of St. Petronilla, by Guercino, in which a colossal dowdy on this side of the grave is transformed to a celestial beauty on the other; the Fontana d' Amore, by Titian, a picture which transports you to the plains of Arcadia, or the vale of Enna; the whole-length of Cardinal Bentivoglio, by Vandyck—a soul personified—a male soul, I mean: for the mirror of all female spirit, soul, mind, and graces, would have been held up to you by Titian again, in the portrait of his Mistress untwining her ringlets, or, as Petrarch would have called them, her
'Crespe chiome d'or puro lucenti.'
"Madame, dont je baise les mains, will explain this to you: and so much for what you have lost at the Museum.
"Since your departure, we have been joined by Mr. Robert Smirke, than whom no young man I ever liked more, and only wish and fondly hope he will say the same of me, when he talks of old men. I have been with him to see the house of Madame Ricamier, the ultimate standard of Parisian taste, whose enchanting bedchamber he has not only measured, but drawn with a taste which improves it. As Harriet loves Latin as well as Italian, I will gratify you both with the inscription on the pedestal of a small marble figure of Silence at the head of the bed. 'Tutatur amores et somnos conscia lecti.' Halls, who sees, observes, says little, laughs more, is frequently indisposed, and looks forward to England, requests to be remembered to you, and may be sure of his request. The inquisitive traveller, my other companion and manager, does the same, but has not forgotten that you would not let him stretch his legs on one of the beds at St. Juste.[50] He and I have been presented to the "Section des belles lettres et des beaux arts" of the Institute at the Louvre, where we were equally tired, I by understanding, and he by not understanding, what we heard.—My love to Graham—adieu, till you see me in Grosvenor-street.
"Henry Fuseli."
"10 Vendemiaire, in Christian,
2d October, 1802."
"I have not yet heard from my wife: if you should be led by your calls into the neighbourhood of Queen Anne-street, and would tell them I am coming, you will do a kind thing."
The society of Fuseli, while he was in Paris, was courted by the principal painters of the French school. David, whom he had known at Rome, paid him much attention, and wished to introduce him to the First Consul; this he however declined, as well as many other civilities which this eminent painter offered, for he frequently said, "When he looked at David, he could never divest his mind of the atrocities of the French Revolution, nor separate them from the part which he had then acted, for they were stamped upon his countenance."[51] Gerard also showed Fuseli great respect, and on every occasion expressed a high admiration of his genius.
Every one who visits the galleries of the Louvre to examine its pictures and statues critically and with care, is convinced that much of their effect is lost (particularly that of the pictures) in consequence of its being generally lighted on each side by windows, and only a small proportion of the picture-gallery by sky-lights. Fuseli, who had seen and recollected most, if not all, of the celebrated pictures, of the Italian schools in particular, in the churches or palaces for which they were painted, and to which the artists had accommodated their light and shadow, was particularly struck with the difference in their effect, and deplored their removal. He likewise perceived with great regret, the injury which they had sustained and were sustaining from the hands of the French picture-cleaners, or, as they are generally called, picture-restorers; and that, among others, the celebrated "Transfiguration," by Raphael, although it had suffered less than most, was in some degree impaired.
As the peace between England and France was of short duration, one of the objects of Fuseli's visit was lost, and his observations on the works of art then in the Louvre were not therefore published. The memoranda which he made were afterwards incorporated either in his "Lectures on Painting," in his "Fragment of a History of Art," or in the observations on the works of artists, in his editions of "Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters."