“Mr. Herbert is, we think, the first painter who has divested the sacred legislator of adventitious solemnity and conventional marks of power, and substituted for them the worn countenance and wasted frame of a chief who leads an army through the desert, and confers upon them laws destined to maintain a moral dominion over all the generations of mankind.
“One reason why Mr. Herbert’s picture is so worthy of its fame, is, that the painter never grudged labour or loss upon it. In 1850 he was commissioned to paint nine frescoes in the Peers’ Robing Room at the price of £9000. For several years before he had been earning nearly £2000 a year, yet he was willing to give up nine years to work for about half the sum. When he found that the fresco process was imperfect, he unhesitatingly obliterated his work, and began it anew in the water-glass method. He was to have received £2000 for the ‘Moses,’ but the commission appointed in 1864 recommended that the price should be raised to £5000. The same sum is to be paid to Mr. Maclise for the ‘Death of Nelson,’ and, of course, for the ‘Meeting at La Belle Alliance.’ It is plain that when the thought of decorating the Houses of Parliament with frescoes was first entertained, no great expense was anticipated. Mr. Dyce said he understood that in Munich Professor Schnorr was paid at the rate of £500 a year, which would be equal to £700 in this country, and had to pay his assistants. For this sum Mr. Dyce thought the services of the chief English artists might be commanded, ‘those at least who are engaged in subjects of fancy. The services of those who paint portraits would not be obtained at that sum; but I believe it is taking a high average to state the income of the more respectable artists of this country at £500 a year.’ Accordingly, the first frescoes in the House of Lords were ordered at the rate of £400 for the cartoon, and £400 for the fresco. Mr. Dyce was to paint the ‘Legend of King Arthur’ in the Queen’s Robing Room, and to receive £800 a year for six years. The eight compartments in the Peers’ and Commons’ corridors were to have been painted in oil, and £500 was to have been paid for the first picture, and £450 for each of the remainder. But when frescoes were substituted, the remuneration for each was raised to £600.
“The prices paid are not extravagant, though of course somewhat higher than those paid in Germany. It is well known that King Louis always bought in the cheapest market. Count Raczynski states that Hess received £3700 for his frescoes in the chapel of All Saints, and £5000 for those in the basilica of St. Boniface. For the Nibelungen halls in the Palace, Schnorr, according to the same authority, was paid £2600; for his frescoes from Walther von de Vogelweide in the Queen’s first Ante-chamber, Gassen received £360; Folz for the Burger Room, £460; Kaulbach for the Throne Room, £300, and for the Sleeping Chamber, £666; Hess for the Theocritus Room, £600; and Moriz von Schwind for the Tieck Room, £240. Contrast with these figures the price paid to Kaulbach for his paintings in the New Museum at Berlin—£37,500, with an allowance of £3,750 for materials.”—Edinburgh Review, January, 1866.
THE RIDING MASTER AND THE ELGIN MARBLES.
Shortly after the Elgin Marbles were thrown open to the public indiscriminately, a gentlemanly-looking person was observed to stand in the middle of the gallery on one spot for upwards of an hour, changing his attitude only by turning himself round. At last he left the room, but in the course of two hours he again took his former station, attended by about a dozen young gentlemen; and there to them he made nearly the following observations:—“See, gentlemen, look at the riders all round the room,” alluding to the Friezes; “see how they sit; see with what ease and elegance they ride! I never saw such men in my life; they have no saddles, no stirrups; they must have leaped upon their horses in grand style. You will do well to study the position of these noble fellows; stay here this morning instead of riding with me, and I am sure you will seat yourselves better to-morrow.” I need hardly tell the reader that this person was a riding-master, and that after he had been so astonished at the sculptor’s riders, he brought all his pupils to whom he was that morning to have given lessons at his riding-school.—Smith’s “Nollekens and his Times.”
A HALLOWED SPOT.
I had intended to prolong my route to the western corner of the Green (Kew), but in passing St. Anne’s Chapel, I found the pew-openers engaged in wiping the pews and washing the aisles. I knew that child of genius, Gainsborough, the painter, lay interred here, and, desirous of paying my homage to his grave, I inquired for the spot. As is usual in regard to this class of people, they could give me no information; yet one of them fancied she had heard such a name before. I was therefore obliged to wait while the sexton or clerk was fetched, and in the interim I walked into the chapel. I was in truth well repaid for the time it cost me; for I never saw anything prettier, except Lord le Despencer’s exquisite structure at West Wycombe. As the royal family usually attend here when they reside at Kew, it is superbly fitted up, and the architecture is in the best taste. Several marble monuments of singular beauty adorn the walls, but the record of a man of genius absorbed every attraction of ordinary rank and title. It was a marble slab to the memory of Meyer, the painter, with lines by the poet Hayley.
JEREMIAH MEYER, R.A.,
Painter in Miniature and Enamel to
His Majesty George III.,
Died January 19th, 1789.