Here is a curious picture by Schnoer—“Mephistopheles tempting Faust.” The scholar sits at his table, with a black letter volume open before him, and apparatus of all descriptions around. The devil has entered in the midst of his speculations, dressed in black like a professor, and stands waiting the decision of Faust, who gazes intently on the manuscript held in his hand. His fingers are clenched, his eyes start from his head, his feet are braced, and the devil eyes him with a side glance, in which malignity and satisfaction are admirably mingled. The features of Faust are emaciated, and show the agitation of his soul very powerfully. The points of his compasses, globes, and instruments emit electric sparks toward the infernal visitor; his lamp burns blue, and the picture altogether has the most diabolical effect. It is quite a large painting, and just below, by the same artist, hangs a small, simple, sweet Madonna. It is a singular contrast in subjects by the same hand.
A portrait of the Princess Esterhazy, by Angelica Kauffman—a beautiful woman, painted in the pure, touching style of that interesting artist.
Then comes a “Cleopatra dropping the pearl into the cup.” How often, and how variously, and how admirably always, the Egyptian queen is painted! I never have seen an indifferent one. In this picture the painter seems to have lavished all he could conceive of female beauty upon his subject. She is a glorious creature. It reminds me of her own proud description of herself, when she is reproaching Antony to one of her maids, in “The False One” of Beaumont and Fletcher:—
“To prefer
The lustre of a little trash, Arsinoe,
Before the life of love and soul of beauty!”
I have marked a great many pictures in this collection I cannot describe without wearying you, yet I feel unwilling to let them go by. A female, representing Religion, feeding a dove from a cup, a most lovely thing by Guido; portraits of Gerard Douw and Rembrandt, by themselves; Rubens’ children, a boy and girl ten or twelve years of age, one of the most finished paintings I ever saw, and entirely free from the common dropsical style of colouring of this artist; another portrait of Giorgione’s wife, the fiftieth that I have seen, at least, yet a face of which one would never become weary; a glowing landscape by Fischer, the first by this celebrated artist I have met; and last (for this is mere catalogue-making), a large picture representing the “Sitting of the English Parliament” in the time of Pitt. It contains about a hundred portraits, among which those of Pitt and Fox are admirable. The great Prime-Minister stands speaking in the foreground, and Fox sits on the opposite side of the House listening attentively with half a smile on his features. It is a curious picture to find in Vienna.
One thing more, however—a Venus, by Lampi. It kept me a great while before it. She lies asleep on a rich couch, and, apparently in her dream, is pressing a rose to her bosom, while one delicate foot, carelessly thrown back, is half imbedded in a superb cushion supporting a crown and sceptre. It is a lie, by all experience. The moral is false, but the picture is delicious.
| [4] | Besides the three galleries of the Belvidere, Leichstenstein, and Esterhazy, which contain as many choice masters as Rome and Florence together, the guide-book refers the traveller to sixty-four private galleries of oil paintings, well worth his attention, and to twenty-five private collections of engravings and antiquities. We shall soon be obliged to go to Vienna, to study the arts, at this rate. They have only no sculpture. |