Time fails us to give the least idea of the rich gallery of the Marquess of Westminster, in Grosvenor-street. We refer for this to what M. Waagen has said, vol. ii., p. 113-130. The Flemish and Dutch schools preponderate in this gallery. One sees there in all their glory the three great masters of that school, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt, accompanied by a numerous suite of inferior masters, at present much in vogue, Hobbéma, Cuyp, Both, Potter, and others, who, to our idea, fade completely before some half-dozen by Claude of all sizes, of every variety of subject, and nearly all of the best time of the great landscape-painter, between 1651 and 1661. Of these paintings, the greatest and most important is perhaps the Sermon on the Mount. Poussin appears worthily by the side of Lorrain in the gallery at Grosvenor-street. M. Waagen admires particularly Calisto changed into a Bear, and placed by Jupiter among the Constellations, and still more a Virgin with the infant Jesus surrounded by Angels. He extols in this morceau the surpassing clearness of coloring, the noble and melancholy sentiment of nature, together with a warm and powerful tone. M. Waagen places this painting amongst the masterpieces of the French painter (gehört zu dem vortrefflichsten was ich von ihm kenne). Whilst fully concurring in this judgment, we beg leave to point out in the same gallery two other canvases of Poussin, two delicious pieces from the easel, first a touching episode in Moses striking the Rock, in the gallery of Lord Ellesmere, of a mother who, heedless of herself, hastens to give her children drink, whilst their father bends in thanksgiving to God; the other, Children at play. Never did a more delightful scene come from the pencil of Albano. Two children look, laughing, at each other; another to the right holds a butterfly on his finger; a fourth endeavors to catch a butterfly which is flying from him; a fifth, stooping, takes fruit from a basket.
But we must quit the London galleries to betake ourselves to that which forms the ornament of the college situated in the charming village of Dulwich.
Stanislas, king of Poland, charged a London amateur, M. Noël Desenfans, to form him a collection of pictures. The misfortunes of Stanislas, and the dismemberment of Poland left on M. Desenfans' hands all he had collected; these he made a present of to a friend of his, M. Bourgeois, a painter, who still further enriched this fine collection, and bequeathed it, at his death, to Dulwich College, where it now is in a very commodious and well-lighted building. It consists of nearly 350 paintings. M. Waagen, who visited it, pronounces judgment with some severity. The catalogue is ill-compiled, it is true, but in this it does not differ from numerous other catalogues. Mediocrity is frequently placed side by side with excellence, and copies given as originals; this is the case with more than one gallery. This one, however, has to us the merit of containing a considerable number of French paintings, to some of which even M. Waagen cannot refuse his admiration.
We will, first of all, mention without describing them, a Lenain, two Bourguignons, three portraits by Rigaud, or after Rigaud, a Louis XIV., a Boileau, and another personage unknown to us, two Lebruns, the Massacre of the Innocents, and Horatius Cocles defending the Bridge, in which M. Waagen discovers happy imitations of Poussin, three or four Gaspars and seven Claude Lorrains, the beauty of most of which is a sufficient guarantee of their authenticity; together with a very fine Fête champêtre by Watteau, and a View near Rome, by Joseph Vernet. Of Poussin, the catalogue points out eighteen, of which the following is a list:
No. 115. The Education of Bacchus; 142, a Landscape; 249, a Holy Family; 253, the Apparition of the Angels to Abraham; 260, a Landscape; 269, the Destruction of Niobe; 279, a Landscape; 291, the Adoration of the Magi; 292, a Landscape; 295, the Inspiration of the Poet; 300, the Education of Jupiter; 305, the Triumph of David; 310, the Flight into Egypt; 315, Renald and Armida; 316, Venus and Mercury; 325, Jupiter and Antiope; 336, the Assumption of the Virgin; 352, Children.
Of these eighteen pictures, M. Waagen singles out five, which he thus characterizes:
The Assumption of the Virgin, No. 336. In a landscape of powerful poesy, the Virgin is carried off to heaven in clouds of gold: a small picture, of which the sentiment is noble and pure, the coloring strong and transparent (in der Farbe kraftiges und klaares Bild). Children, No. 352. Replete with loveliness and charm. The Triumph of David, No. 305. A rich picture, but theatrical.
Jupiter suckled by the goat Amalthea, No. 300. A charming composition, transparent tone. A Landscape, No. 260. A well-drawn landscape, breathing a profound sentiment of nature; but which has become rather blackened.
We are unable to recognize in the Triumph of David the theatrical character which shocked M. Waagen. On the contrary, we perceive a bold and almost wild expression, a great deal of passion finely subdued.
A triumph must always contain some formality; here, however, there is the least possible, and that with which we are struck is its vigor and truth to nature. The giant's head stuck on the pike has the grandest effect: and we believe that the able German critic has, in this instance, likewise yielded to the prejudices of his country, which, in its passion for what it styles reality, fancies it perceives the theatrical in whatever is noble. We admit that at the close of the seventeenth century, under Louis XIV. and Lebrun, the noble was merged in the theatrical and academic; but under Louis XIII. and the Regency, in the time of Corneille and Poussin, the academic and theatrical style was wholly unknown. We entreat the sagacious critic not to forget this distinction between the divisions of the seventeenth century, nor to confound the master with his disciples, who, although they were still great, had slightly degenerated, and who were oppressed by the taste of the age of Louis XIV.