Among the recent additions to the Louvre collection is the excellent life-size portrait of Captain Robert Hay of Spot, by Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823), which still hangs on a screen in Gallery XV. and has not yet been provided with a number. It is a full-length portrait of the sitter, in uniform of scarlet coat, white breeches, black gaiters, and fur busby, his hand resting upon his gun, standing against a conventional landscape background with a sky of characteristic tawny hue. The picture was formerly in the collection of Mr. Sanderson, at the sale of which, in 1908, it was bought by Messrs. Agnew for 650 gs. To Raeburn are also ascribed the extremely puzzling Portrait of an Old Sailor (No. 1817), which, in spite of certain technical affinities with the British eighteenth-century school, is so un-English in spirit that it would be rash to ascribe it to any master of that school; the negligeable Portrait of Anna Moore, Authoress (No. 1817a); also the utterly commonplace and wretchedly drawn Mrs. Maconochie and Child (No. 1817b), which was bought in 1904, together with the equally questionable Portrait of a Lady and a Young Boy (No. 1812b), by Hoppner, for £4000.
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE
The strangely exaggerated estimation in which Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) is held by French connoisseurs, is to a certain extent to be accounted for by the superb quality of the picture by which he is best known in France: the portrait group of J. J. Angerstein and his Wife (No. 1813a) at the Louvre, which was acquired in 1896 for £3000. This fine group displays all his bravura and pleasing freshness and brightness of colour, without any of the vulgar tricks and shallow mannerisms of his later years. Next to it should be mentioned the charming half-length life-size Portrait of Mary Palmer (No. 1813c), in a yellow dress, seated in a garden. The completely wrecked Portrait of Lord Whitworth, English Ambassador to France in 1802 (No. 1813), and the Portrait of a Man (No. 1813d), are of no artistic significance.
Neither is it necessary to dwell upon the mediocre Brother and Sister (No. 1801), by Sir William Beechey (1753–1839); the Portrait of Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess of Wales (No. 1818), by Allan Ramsay (1713–1784); and the Portrait of Lamartine, French Poet and Politician (No. 1816a), by Henry Wyndham Phillips (1820–1868). The Woman in White (No. 1816) is at least a sound piece of craftsmanship, even if the attribution to John Opie (1761–1807), “the Cornish Wonder,” is subject to doubt.
OTHER PORTRAIT PAINTERS
We have already mentioned the portrait group (No. 1812b), a picture in deplorable condition, to which the name of John Hoppner (1758?–1810) has been attached without sufficient reason. No less doubtful is the authenticity of the Portrait of the Countess of Oxford (No. 1812a), a meretricious picture which serves to show the mannerisms and striving after prettiness of Lawrence’s rival, rather than the more estimable qualities by which his better achievements are distinguished.
George Romney (1734–1802), on the other hand, is seen in his most serious mood in the Portrait of Sir John Stanley (No. 1818c)— a thoroughly honest “likeness,” well drawn, and painted straight-forwardly, without tricky accents and mechanical recipes. On a screen in Gallery XV. has been temporarily placed a recently acquired Portrait of the Artist, by Romney. He is seated, palette in hand, in a landscape background. The features are well modelled, and the light and shade managed with considerable skill.
Strangely enough the most remarkable English picture at the Louvre is by a little known painter, who is not represented in any of the leading British galleries. Charles Howard Hodges (1764–1837), who was born in London, but went at the age of twenty-four to Holland, where he spent the rest of his life, was really a mezzotint engraver, in which craft he had been trained by John Raphael Smith. He produced many plates after pictures by the Dutch masters, and also painted a few portraits, among them the masterly Portrait of a Woman (No. 1812), at the Louvre. At a time which was too much given to conventionality and to the desire to please by concessions to a popular craving for prettiness, this picture strikes a note of almost brutal realism. It is painted with surprising vigour and with an appreciation of correct tone-values, in a low key, which heralds the art of the Glasgow school in the later decades of the nineteenth century.
With The Bathing Woman (No. 1810b), by William Etty (1787–1849), and The Watering Place (No. 1815), by William Mulready (1786–1863), we reach the full decadence of the British school in early Victorian days before the great revival initiated by the pre-Raphaelites.