A LUCKY PURCHASE.
In the spring of 1837, Mr. Atherstone bought for a few guineas a Magdalen, by Correggio, at the Auction Mart, where he saw it among a heap of spoiled canvass, that an amateur (no connoisseur) of pictures had sent to be sold. This gentleman had bought it in Italy for 100l., admiring its beauty, but ignorant of its value. It was in perfect preservation; in the grandest style of Correggio: and in colouring surpassing in brilliancy and depth of tone even the famous specimens in the National Gallery.
COPLEY’S “DEATH OF LORD CHATHAM”
Washington, on seeing this picture, remarked, “this work, highly valuable in itself, is rendered more estimable in my eye when I remember that America gave birth to the celebrated artist that produced it.” The picture is ten feet long, and seven feet six inches high. The painter refused fifteen hundred guineas for it; it was purchased, we know not at what price, by the Earl of Liverpool, who used to say that such a work ought not to be in his possession, but in that of the public. These words were not heard in vain by the son of the Earl, who munificently presented it to the National Gallery.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S CORREGGIO.
Allan Cunningham warms into rapture in speaking of this wondrous picture, captured by Wellington at Vittoria. “The size is small, some fifteen inches square, or so; but true genius can work miracles in little compass. The central light of the picture is altogether heavenly; we never saw anything so insufferably brilliant; it haunted us round the room at Apsley House, and fairly extinguished the light of its companion-pictures. Joseph Bonaparte, not only a good king, but a good judge of painting, had this exquisite picture in his carriage when the tide of battle turned against him: it was transferred to the collection of the conqueror.”