But the collection itself?—
ALDA.
It is not very interesting. It contains some curious old German pictures; Städel having been, like others, smitten with the mania of buying Van Eyks and Hemlings and Schoréels. Here, however, these old masters, as part of a school, or history of art, are well placed. There are a few fine Flemish paintings—and, in particular, a wondrous portrait by Flinck, which you must see. It is a lady in black, on the left side of the door—of—I forget which room—but you cannot miss it: those soft eyes will look out at you, till you will feel inclined to ask her name, and wonder the lips do not unclose to answer you. Of first-rate pictures there are none—I mean none of the historical and Italian schools: the collection of casts from the antique is splendid and well-selected.
MEDON.
But Bethmann, the banker, had already set an example of munificent patronage of art: when he shamed kings, for instance, by purchasing Dannecker's Ariadne—one of the chief lions of Frankfort, if fame says true.
ALDA.
How! have you not seen it?
MEDON.
No—unhappily. The weather, as I have told you, was dreadful. I was discouraged—I procrastinated. That flippant observation I had read in some English traveller, that "Dannecker's Ariadne looked as if it had been cut out of old Stilton cheese," was floating in my mind. In short, I was careless, as we often are, when the means of gratifying curiosity appear secure, and within our reach. I repent me now. I wish I had settled to my own satisfaction, and with mine own eyes, the disputed merits of this famous statue; but I will trust to you. It ought to be something admirable. I do not know much of Dannecker, or his works, but by all accounts he has not to complain of the want of patronage. To him cannot be applied the pathetic common-place, so familiar in the mouths of our young artists, about "chill penury," the struggle to live, the cares that "freeze the genial current of the soul," the efforts of unassisted genius, and so forth. Want never came to him since he devoted himself to art. He appears to have had leisure and freedom to give full scope to his powers, and to work out his own creations.
ALDA.