The picture was executed in glass by Mr. Thomas Wilmshurst (a pupil of the late Mr. Moss), from a sketch by Mr. R. T. Bone; the horses by Mr. Woodward. The work cost the artist nearly 3000l. It was exhibited in a first-floor at No. 15, Oxford-street, and occupied one end of a room decorated for the occasion with paneling and carving in the taste of the time of Henry the Eighth. It was very attractive as an exhibition, and nearly 50,000 descriptive catalogues were sold. Sad, then, to relate, in one unlucky night, the picture and the house were entirely burnt in an accidental fire; not even a sketch or study was saved from destruction; and the property was wholly uninsured. As a specimen of glass painting, the work was very successful: the colours were very brilliant, and the ruby red of old was all but equalled. The artistic treatment was altogether original; the painters, in no instance, borrowing from the contemporary picture of the same scene in the Hampton Court collection.
CLAUDE’S “LIBRO DI VERITA.”
It was thus Claude Lorraine denominated a book in which he made drawings of all the pictures he had ever executed. Since even in his own day his works had obtained a great reputation, it was found that many inferior artists had painted pictures in his style, and sold them as genuine Claudes; so that it was found necessary to prove the authenticity of his paintings by a reference to his “Book of Truth.”
This renowned record of genius is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. The drawings are in number about 200, and upon the back of the first is a paper pasted, with the following words in Claude’s own handwriting and orthography:—
“Audi 10 dagosto, 1677. Ce livre aupartien a moy que je faict durant ma vie. Claudio Gillee Dit le lorains. A Roma ce 23. Aos. 1680.”
When Claude wrote the last date, he was seventy-eight years old, and he died two years afterwards. On the back of every drawing is the number, with his monogram, the place for which the picture was painted, and usually the person by whom it was ordered, and the year; but the “Claudio fecit” is never wanting. According to his will, this book was to remain always the property of his own family; and it was so faithfully kept by his immediate descendants, that all the efforts of the Cardinal d’Estrées, the French ambassador at Rome, to procure it, were in vain. His later posterity had so entirely lost all traces of this pious reverence for it, that they sold it for the trifling price of 200 scudi to a French jeweller, who again sold it in Holland, whence it came into the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, who preserved it with due honours. The well-known copies by Barlow, in the work of Boydell, give but a very vague and monotonous representation of these splendid drawings.
Dr. Waagen, who inspected the treasure at Devonshire House, says: “The delicacy, ease, and masterly handling of all, from the slightest sketches to those most carefully finished, exceed description; the latter produce, indeed, all the effect of finished pictures. With the simple material of a pen, and tints of Indian ink, sepia, or bistre, with some white to bring out the lights, every characteristic of sunshine or shade, or ‘the incense-breathing morn,’ is perfectly expressed. Most happily has he employed for this purpose the blue tinge of the paper, and the warm sepia for the glow of evening. Some are only drawn with a pen, or the principal forms are slightly sketched in pencil, with the great masses of light broadly thrown in with white; the imagination easily fills up the rest.”