Aart van der Neer (Dutch: 1619-1692). See 152.
1289. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.
Cuyp (Dutch: 1620-1691). See 53.
A characteristic little work. In the distance is a ruined castle-keep in the water, which may be the same building as that depicted in No. 824.
1291. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.
Juan de Valdes Leal (Spanish: 1630-1691).
Valdes Leal, who was born at Cordova, settled afterwards at Seville, where he became the first President of the Academy in that city. It is to him that some critics have assigned the "Dead Orlando" in this room (741). His most famous picture—"one of the most repulsive, but also most impressive ever painted," says Mr. W. B. Scott—is "The Two Dead Men," in the Hospital of Charity at Seville, representing a charnel house with the partially-decayed corpses of a bishop and a noble. So dreadful is the realism that Murillo said he never could approach the picture without fancying he smelt the horror. "Ah, my compeer," replied the flattered realist, "it is not my fault; you have taken all the sweet fruit out of the basket and left only the rotten."
In the present picture Valdes Leal has picked sweet fruit too; indeed it is over sweet. The donatrix of the picture and her son are shown in either corner, while in the midst the Virgin ascends to Heaven, surrounded by bands of angels. The picture is thoroughly characteristic, in its florid type of sentiment, of the Spanish school.