The Duchess of Kingston was very anxious to be received by some crowned head, as the only means of relief from the disgrace fixed upon her by her trial and conviction for bigamy. The Court of Russia was chosen, where pictures were sent as presents, not only to the Sovereign, but to the most powerful of the nobles. Count Tchernicheff was represented to the Duchess as an exalted character, to whom she ought, in policy, to pay her especial devoirs. Feeling the force of the observation, she sent him two paintings. The Duchess was no judge of pictures, and a total stranger to the value of these pieces, which were originals by Raphael and Claude Lorraine. The Count was soon apprised of this, and, on the arrival of the Duchess at St. Petersburg, he waited on her Grace, and professed his gratitude for the present, at the same time assuring the Duchess that the pictures were estimated at a value in Russian money equal to ten thousand pounds sterling. The Duchess could with the utmost difficulty conceal her chagrin. She told the Count “that she had other pictures, which she should consider it an honour if he would accept; that the two paintings in his possession were particularly the favourites of her departed lord; but that the Count was extremely kind in permitting them to occupy a place in his palace, until her mansion was properly prepared.” This palpable hint was not taken.
PRACTICAL JOKES OF SWARTZ.
J. Swartz, a distinguished German painter, having engaged to execute a roof-piece in a public townhall, and to paint by the day, grew exceedingly negligent; so that the magistrates and overseers of the work were frequently obliged to hunt him out of the tavern. Seeing he could not drink in quiet, he one morning stuffed a pair of stockings and shoes corresponding with those that he wore, hung them down betwixt his staging where he sat to work, removed them a little once or twice a-day, and took them down at noon and night; and by means of this deception he drank without the least disturbance a whole fortnight together, the innkeeper being in the plot. The officers came in twice a-day to look at him; and, seeing a pair of legs hanging down, suspected nothing, but greatly extolled their convert Swartz as the most laborious and conscientious painter in the world.
Swartz had once finished an admirable picture of our Saviour’s Passion, on a large scale, and in oil colours. A certain Cardinal was so well pleased with it, that he resolved to bring the Pope to see it. Swartz knew the day, and, determined to put a trick on the Pope and the Cardinal, painted over the oil, in fine water-colours, the twelve disciples at supper, but all together by the ears, like the Lapithæ and the Centaurs. At the time appointed, the Pope and Cardinal came to see the picture. Swartz conducted them to the room where it hung. They stood amazed, and thought the painter mad. At length the Cardinal said, “Idiot, dost thou call this a Passion?” “Certainly I do,” said Swartz. “But,” replied the Cardinal, “show me the picture I saw when here last.” “This is it,” said Swartz, “for I have no other finished in the house.” The Cardinal angrily denied that it was the same. Swartz, unwilling or afraid to carry the joke further, requested that they would retire a few minutes out of his room. No sooner had they done so, than Swartz, with a sponge and warm water, obliterated the whole of the water-colour coating; then, re-introducing the Pope and the Cardinal, he presented them with a most beautiful picture of the Passion. They stood astonished, and thought Swartz a necromancer. At last the painter explained the mystery; and then, as the old chroniclers say, “they knew not which most to admire, his work or his wit.”
AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO FRANKNESS.
Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, tells the following:—“Some years ago, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one. Little H—— the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy. If any one says so again, I’ll break his head. Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come and give me your real opinion of it?’ ”
THE END.
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