After Rembrandt—

43. Queen Artemisia. Ibid.

After Sir A. More—

44. Queen Mary of England. Ibid.

After Parmigiano—

45. Portrait of a Lady with three Children (probably Riccarda Malaspina, Wife of Lorenzo Cibo). Ibid.

IV.—THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY'S COLLECTION

The Arundel Society was formed in 1849 in order to meet "a revived interest in art by suitable instruction." In the case of early Italian art, "the materials for such instruction were abundant, but scattered, little accessible, and, in some instances, passing away." The Society set itself to secure engravings and other records of works of art which came within the description just given. A large collection of water-copies from the Old Masters was thus accumulated, and the Collection was in 1897 deposited in the National Gallery on loan. Two years later, the Society was wound up, and the collection was given to the nation. It is of great interest and value to all students of mediæval art. Many of the Arundel copies are familiar from reproductions in chromo-lithography. "The latter," as a well-known critic has remarked, "although they undoubtedly did good service in their time by calling attention to the less known and less easily available masterpieces of the earlier Italian art, were often enough lamentable caricatures of the things which they professed to represent. The drawings themselves are, however, in many cases, of an exquisite accuracy, of which the reproductions give little or no idea. Of course, when the attempt is made to copy in this medium the great achievements of Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palma Vecchio, Paolo Veronese,—or even of such earlier colourists as the Van Eycks and Memlinc,—failure, more or less complete, must inevitably be the result. It would be difficult, on the other hand, to overestimate the value of such copies as those of the famous frescoes of Mantegna in the Church of the Eremitani at Padua, those of Benozzo Gozzoli at San Gimignano and Montefalco, of Piero della Francesca at Arezzo, or of the great galaxy of Quattrocento painters—Perugino, Pinturicchio, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, Signorelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and Piero di Cosimo—who worked in the Sixtine Chapel before Michelangelo came to dwarf and efface them with his stupendous ceiling, and, thirty years later on, with his 'Last Judgment.' For the purposes of study and comparison these copies, lent by the Arundel Society, fulfil much the same role as does a good museum of casts from antique masterpieces. They do not enable the student of art to form a complete idea of the originals, any more than the copies of the Pheidian and Praxitelean sculptures do; but they enlarge his view of the scope and significance of Italian and Netherlandish art in their greatest phases, and happily they fill up gaps which must occur even in the most various and representative collection, such as is the National Gallery."[264]

It is hoped that the following catalogue may serve to bring before the notice of visitors the importance of a collection which deserves much greater attention than it has hitherto received. The artists represented are arranged alphabetically, with references to such of them as are also represented by original work in the National Gallery. After the title of each work, information is given as to the nature of the original from which the copy is made, and the place where the original is. The numerals after each picture refer to the numbers at present on the frames.

Albertinelli (see under 645).

The Visitation (11): picture, Uffizi, Florence.

Andrea del Castagno (see under 1138).

The Last Supper (120): fresco, Convent S. Apollonia, Florence.

Angelico, Fra (see under 663).

Christ and Magdalen (51): fresco, Convent of S. Marco, Florence.
Christ at Emmaus (76): " " " "
The Transfiguration (49): " " " "
The Crucifixion (91): " " " "
The Entombment (50): " " " "
The Marys at the Sepulchre (53): " " "
Madonna and Child, etc. (65): " " "
The Presentation (54): " " " "
The Annunciation: " " " "
Coronation of the Virgin: " " " "
Christ as a Pilgrim (70): " " " "
Ordination of St. Stephen (55): fresco, Vatican, Rome.
Adoration of the Magi (166): " " "
Lives of SS. Stephen and Lawrence (128, 131, 134, 193, 194, etc.): frescoes, Chapel of St. Lawrence, Vatican.

["The remote little chapel containing Fra Angelico's masterpieces." Without seeing it, no one can have any conception of "the strength and freedom of the artist." "These frescoes are the highest expression of that which the friar for many years had been striving after. They are an anthology of his artistic virtues" (Fra Angelico, by Langton Douglas: see pp. 141-158 for a full discussion of them).]

Avanzo, Jacopo d' (Veronese: painted 1377).

St. Lucy and her Judges (36): fresco, S. Antonio, Padua.
Martyrdom of St. George (183): fresco, S. Giorgio, Padua.

Bartolommeo, Fra (see under 1694).

Christ at Emmaus (72): fresco, S. Marco, Florence.
Vision of St. Dominic (45): " " "
Virgin and Child (24): " " "
"Noli me tangere": " " "