It was the constant practice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as soon as a female sitter had placed herself on his throne, to destroy the tasteless labours of the hairdresser and the lady’s maid with the end of a pencil-stick.
A MIS-MATCHED PORTRAIT.
Dr. Waagen relates the following singular anecdote of one of the portraits in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle—that of the minister, William von Humboldt. The conception is poor, and the likeness very general; but the want is, that the body does not at all suit the head; for when king George the Fourth, who was a personal friend of the minister, during his last visit to England, and a short time before his departure, made him sit to Sir Thomas Lawrence, the latter being pressed for time, took a canvass on which he had begun a portrait of Lord Liverpool, and had already finished his body in a purple coat, and painted upon it the head of M. Von Humboldt, intending to alter it afterwards. This, however, in consequence of the death of the king, and of Sir Thomas Lawrence, was not done.
VAST PAINTED WINDOW.
In the spring of 1830, there was exhibited in London a superb specimen of painting on glass, the size almost amounting to the stupendous, being eighteen by twenty-four feet. The term “window,” however, is hardly applicable to this vast work, for there was no framework visible; but the entire picture consisted of upwards of 350 pieces, of irregular forms and sizes, fitted into metal astragals, so contrived as to fall with the shadows, and thus to assist the appearance of an uninterrupted and unique picture upon a sheet of glass.
The subject was “the Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold,” between Henry VIII. and Francis I., in the plain of Ardres, near Calais; a scene of overwhelming gorgeousness, and, in the splendour of its appointments well suited to the brilliant effects which is the peculiar characteristic of painting in enamel. The stage represented was the last tourney on June 25, 1520. The field is minutely described by Hall, whose details the painter had closely followed. There were artificial trees, with green damask leaves; and branches and boughs, and withered leaves, of cloth-of-gold; the trunks and arms being also covered with cloth-of-gold, and intermingled with fruits and flowers of Venice gold; and “their beautie shewed farre.” In these trees were hung, emblazoned upon shields, “the Kynge of Englande’s armes, within a gartier, and the French Kynge’s within a collar of his order of Sainct Michael, with a close croune, with a flower de lise in the toppe;” and around and above were the shields of the noblemen of the two courts. The two queens were seated in a magnificent pavilion, and next to the Queen of England sat Wolsey; the judges were on stages, the heralds, in their tabards, placed at suitable points; and around were gathered the flower of the French and English nobility, to witness this closing glory of the last days of chivalry.
The action of the piece is thus described:—The trumpets sounded, and the two kings and their retinues entered the field; they then put down their vizors, and rode to the encounter valiantly; or, as Hall says, “the ii kynges were ready, and either of them encountered one man-of-armes; the French Kynge to the erle of Devonshire, the Kynge of England to Mounsire Florrenges, and brake his Poldron, and him disarmed, when ye strokes were stricken, this battail was departed, and was much praised.”
The picture contained upwards of one hundred figures (life size) of which forty were portraits, after Holbein and other contemporary authorities. The armour of the two kings and the challenger was very successfully painted; their coursers almost breathed chivalric fire; and the costumes and heraldic devices presented a blaze of dazzling splendour. Among the spectators, the most striking portraits were the two queens; Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, and the Countess of Chateaubriant; Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and Queen Mary, Dowager of France; with the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, whose hasty comment upon the extravagance of the tournament proved his downfall. The elaborate richness of the costumes sparkling with gold and jewels, the fleecy, floating feathers of the champions, their burnished armour and glittering arms, the congregated glories of velvet, ermine, and cloth-of-gold, and the heraldic emblazonry amidst the emerald freshness of the foliage—all combined to form a scene of unparalleled sumptuousness and effect.